An introduction to Twitter

If you’ve been keeping up with new sensations on the web, I bet you’ve run into the word “Twitter.” Is this just another internet fad? Should you join the bandwagon? Even if you don’t become a Twitter addict, casual subscribers can find benefits from joining. You follow only the people and organizations you want updates from. It’s easy to add or remove Twitter users from your personal update feeds if you find you don’t like what they have to say or they barrage you with 100 “tweets” per day.

Participate at your own pace
I think of Twitter like either “fast email” or “slow instant messaging.” You can stay logged out for a couple days or a week if you want to, and then return and catch up with the important news. Or you can go to another extreme and get text updates on your phone or keep a Twitter window open on you computer screen, so you can read all the updates immediately as they’re posted.

Keep in contact with your family and friends
I find myself so busy sometimes, that if your friends and family also use Twitter, it’s easy to keep up with them throughout the day.

Bite-sized blog posts
With newspapers vanishing around the country, many people find that blogs are becoming their current events source of choice. But not everyone has lots of time to devote to reading blogs. Many blog sites now will post little mini-tweets with the subject of their most recent blog posts and include a link to the full article.

Breaking news
Twitter is totally worth a test drive even if all you do is follow news media sites like CNN or the New York Times, if you like to keep connected to today’s news. In particular, a lot of people think that Twitter is the perfect medium for breaking stories or on-going, quickly changing news. For instance, Twitter is an easy way to keep up to date with the current aftermath of the Iranian election or something like an Amber Alert. Important talking points from speeches like presidential press conferences are often posted to Twitter live while it happens. You can also get up-to-the minute election results and weather warnings.

Quick, personal answers to questions
If you follow people in your particular field of interest on Twitter and have followers of your own, you can ask questions to people or run a poll and often you will get an immediate answer or opinion. In the past couple days I’ve received questions ranging from news outlets asking me my opinion on the medical insurance reform to individuals asking for my favorite homemade salad dressing recipe.

Humor, conversation, support groups and interesting links
By following people, you can easily get as many links to pictures of cute cats or funny websites that you can stand. Even just a conversation or support group is easy to participate with on Twitter. Enjoy watching the newest CSI? Join people in discussing it while you’re watching it.

Keep up-to-date with new technology, trends, or free giveaways
Do you have a topic you like to keep up-to-date with? New computer games or iPhone applications? What’s going on with Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore? Get your librarians most recent book recommendations. Or you can also receive free coupons and entries to drawings or information on special sales from your favorite stores if that’s something you’d find useful.

Things to keep in mind
As always, the internet can be a confusing or even scary place to hang out. Always be aware that complete strangers can easily be offensive or they might be potential bad guys that are out to do you no good.

1.) Like Instant Messaging and SMS phone text messages, people on Twitter will use casual internet slang. If you are completely confused or frustrated by people who use internet slang, shorthand or emoticons, then you may not enjoy following some of the Twitter users. But most professional users or news organizations will, in general, use a more literate style of grammar.

2.) Just like with email, there are tons of spammers and scammers out there in the Twitterverse. There’s unsavory individuals who want your money or try to convince you to download a virus. Always be careful when clicking on any link on the internet.

3.) Be aware you’ll might receive links to porn. You can always block people that are merely peddling naughty websites. But don’t be surprised if you get these kinds of people following you. The Twitter administrators respond to reports of spam and abuse on the website and delete accounts, but the way that messages are so instantaneous on Twitter means the sometimes unsavory messages get through to you.

Guide to internet abbreviations and slang
Tips to avoid Twitter viruses and scams
CADL’s twitter updates

making screen shots

So this might not be the most useful technique for bunches of people, but it’s super cool nonetheless.

A screen shot is exactly what it sounds like – a snapshot of the screen as you see it. To “take” a screen shot, simply hold the Ctrl key and press the Print Scrn key. It will likely seem like nothing happened, but the computer has that image on its clipboard. The image can be pasted into any Office program that allows pictures to be imported. (These include Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Publisher.) Once pasted into the program, the image can be edited just the same as any other image – cropped, re-sized, given borders and shading, etc.

So when might you use this? When teaching someone not-so-computer-savvy how to do something in a program, or when showing someone where something is on a website. You could just take a couple of screen shots, paste them into a Word document, and send the thing off as an attachment in an email, or print it out to give to someone.

So, say for example I would like to show my friend how to save in Word 2007 so that the document will be compatible with previous versions of Word. I simply go into Word 2007 and click to save. When the options menu opens up, I take a screen shot. (In this case, Ctrl+Alt+Print Scrn captures just the menu box, eliminating the need for cropping.) I paste it into Word, then send the document to my friend via email. In my email, I write, “You want this highlighted option.” The deal is done!

bing

You probably heard by now of Microsoft’s search engine called bing. Here is a short review of what I think about bing so far.

bing has a lot of nice features:

• The start page has a different background image with links to what is significant or important about the image
• The results list is clean looking an easy to read
• There is a “related searches” and “search history” so you can refine your search and know were you have been
• Depending on what you are searching for, bing will give you a menu ( on the left-side of screen) to more refined results. Example: search for a singer and that menu will probably provide links to lyrics, albums and concert tickets 

There are several really good features. To the right-side of each result is a vertical line with a yellow dot. Hover the mouse over the yellow dot and you will get a short preview of that link’s content. The preview is very nice and unabtrusive. XRank is a nice feature to see how popular searches of notable people are. The advance search function is not another page, but appears at the top of the results list. It is nice and compact and easy to use. Finally, there is “cashback,” a service that gives you money back on online purchases. I have not tried it, but it looks interesting.

Overall, I think bing is a good search engine. Bottom line, use it and see if you like it.

Did you know?

Mental_Flossis an on-line magazine dedicated to the proliferation of useless and useful trivia. History, science, pop-culture and high culture no topic is too obscure for this magazine. The Amazing Fact Generator is my favorite. Hit a button and you are instantly given some random piece of trivia.

Line Spacing Issues with MS Word 2007

When using Word 2007 you may have run into an issue where a the line spacing on your document appeared to have a mind of its own. On occasion this has happened for no apparent reason and even when I go to the line spacing tab and make sure it is set for 1.0, the computer seems to disregard my command and changes the spacing to 1.5 or double spacing. Well, I will let you in on a secret!. In checking the line spacing under the “home” tab and “paragraph”,  the line spacing drop down list shows  a choice of “remove space after paragraph” at the bottom of the list. Use this feature if you experience this issue on your document. You may need to highlight the affected area and then click on “remove space after paragraph” . It should solve the problem… It appears that this feature was added to the 2007 version  to automatically create a space after  each paragraph. It often appears as an annoyance however and happens even though the line spacing appeared to be set at 1.0. You may not have experienced this yet but be sure to tuck this little reminder back into the hard drive of your mind so that you can open it when the need arises. There is also a link that may provide a more thorough explanation at…  http://www.downloadsquad.com/2006/07/19/stop-word-2007-from-adding-space-between-lines/

Class Schedules

The new computer class schedule is up on the Internet. It covers July – September.  Please notice that we brought back the Resume/Job Search class in July and September.

CADL Video On Demand

If you missed an event hosted by the Capital Area District Library, chances are you will still have the opportunity to catch it later. CADL has created an online video collection, so you can watch CADL events and productions anytime from any computer.

We’ve taped author interviews and discussions – including an interview with James McBride, author of Song Yet Sung, our 2009 Capital Area District Library Reads One Book choice. We were also lucky enough to partner with Joy 1580 AM to host a concert starring gospel legend Dorinda Clark-Cole – and we got it on tape! Other videos currently in the online collection include the winning Literature and Lyrics video by the local Global Fusion group, Thom Jayne and the Nomads; a discussion by the Director of the Mid-Michigan Film Office; and a presentation by basketball great, Greg “Special K” Kelser among others.

We will continue to build this collection, adding instructional programs, business events and much more, so be sure to bookmark this page!

Looking For New Digs?

Summer not only means fun in the sun, beaches, and vacations; it is also THE time to move. So if you are on the lookout for a new apartment, condo, etc., here are a few prime websites to check out. 

• Rent.com
• Apartments.com
• ApartmentGuide.com
• ApartmentFinder.com
• MoveOn.com

PowerPoint 2007

If you used earlier versions of PowerPoint and then suddenly faced 2007, you may have noticed something missing. Well, a huge something… AutoContent Wizard! No worries! It is “sorta” there. Now they are templates. To get there, click on the Office button(that strange shape in the top left-side corner of the screen. Next, click “New” then “Installed Templates.” Your page should look like this:

Templates

There are several installed templates with an outline and all the color/font choices made for you. To see more, click on the “Presentations” option instead of “Installed Templates” located at the bottom of the left-side menu. Some of these choices should seem very familar! 

 

The choices in this category should look somewhat familar.