Power to the People

Harry Hutchins, during KAXE's A Talk on the Wild Side, asked when computers should be turned off... For home users, the answer is pretty straightforward-- as often as you can! Contrary to advice given years ago when PCs first came out, computers just don't wear out quicker when they are turned off and on. But what is annoying is the long boot up time. So here's what you do: during the day, when you are likely to be using the computer several times, make your computer go to STANDBY instead of turning it off. It will startup in the state you left it, along with the applications as you left them if they were open, in just a few seconds. At night, when you are truly done, turn off your whole system by selecting SHUTDOWN and if you have put all your devices (monitor, printer, PC, internet modem, etc.) on a single power strip, turn that power strip off to save the parasitic energy those devices still consume.

A Micro Mosquito for Dan?

Dan told us about the new toy on his wish list...the Micro Mosquito. A picture and youtube video are worth a million words...

See it in action here...

Embed Sound and pictures in PowerPoint

Sandy, from Canyon, called with a question about a Powerpoint that does not play the sound in the presentation. Someone else made the powerpoint, and sent it to her on a CD ROM disk.

The problem is that the sound files are not actually "embedded" into the presentation, instead, Powerpoint uses a hyperlink to the sound file. The link in the presentation may be referring to a location other than the CD ROM disk.

So, here's the Microsoft way to fix this: Change the setting that determines whether or not the sound file is embedded (made part of the powerpoint file itself). Sound (or image) files under the specified threshhold size will be embedded, and those larger than the threshhold will be hyperlinked.

Go to http://www.123ppt.com/ for detailed information on how to do this.

Google Docs Option
Carl, from Bemidji, called to suggest Google Docs for presentations. Google Docs lets you compose the presentation right in your web browser, and then you can play it anywhere you have access to the web. You can even use Google Docs to share/collaborate with other users on the creation of the presentation.

Learn more about Google Docs on the Google website.