02.17.2003 GnomeREPORT

This is Texas stepping in for Chris, who needs to take a breather from inhaling Sharpies from renting his chest. He should spend the week in one of California's trendy oxygen bars and get the Sharpie out of his system.

Bjork and her goose gown, rejected for Chief Justice Robert Bork (1987), and Muppet Svedish Chef's TV show, Bork, Bork, Bork! All Bork and no bite. The newest addition to the dictionary of Borkology is Opera's Bork. Recently, Microsoft's MSN portal purposely served Opera users with a broken page. In a child-like retaliation, Opera responded with a special Bork edition of Opera 7 for Windows browser. The Bork browser works differently on one site, MSN. Instead of getting the usual MSN page, users are fed with a page in the language from the Swedish Chef's TV show, " Bork, Bork, Bork!" As comedic as all of this is, there is a lesson hiding between the lines. I wouldn't be doing justice to my job as a member of the Web Standards Project, if I don't teach the lesson. It's utterly ridiculous for Web sites to work best in one browser and not others. Most Web sites never look exactly the same in all browsers, but to not serve pages or to omit vital information for specific browser or platform is idiotic. I could write a whole page on this, but I think you get the point. When a Web site is developed in Microsoft's Front Page, it has a greater chance of being illegible in non-Internet Explorer browsers and those using Macs for surfing.

Just watched The Music Man with Matthew Broderick, or Mr. Sarah Jessica Parker to some of you. I didn't think it was possible to make a new version as good as the Robert Preston / Shirley Jones version, but Disney made it equally enjoyable. Disney has been taking big risks with these TV-adaptations of musicals in a time and age where musicals don't have the audience they did in the 1930s through 1950s. One of the reasons for the comeback, as I read in an article, is the generation that enjoys them grew up on Disney animated musicals and this is a transition from the cartoons. With Chicago and Moulin Rouge! doing well, are we seeing a reawakening for musicals? I hope so. Yes, even though my ears don't work well, I've always been a fan of musicals. We know those folks in River City, "Ioway" aren't stubborn, as Pirillo and co. hail from the state.

No mail in the USA today because it's Presidents' Day. For those not familiar with American history, two of our more famous Presidents have birthdays in February, hence the day occurring on the third Monday of the month. George Washington was the first President and Abraham Lincoln was the one that Americans most likely remembered because of his honesty and integrity - plus he gave the famous Gettysburg Address during the American Civil War. It's a normal day for most Americans, except retailers entice us to their stores for Presidents' Day sales.

Yours Digitally,              
Meryl Evans       

Rainbow Folders v1.01 [330K] Win98/2K/XP PostcardWare

http://www.rainbowfolders.k7.pl/

{Change folder icon colors} The first thing you might notice is "PostcardWare" where FREE usually appears. You can use the software free for private and commercial purposes. After time has passed and you continue to use it, the author asks you send a postcard to Poland in return. How can you not like that? Rainbow Folders can change a folder's icon to the color of your choice without limiting you to a predefined color. You can also protect folders from deletion by checking the, "Warn when deleting" option from the program dialog box. When deleting such a folder, an "are you sure" type dialog pops up, giving you a second chance in case you're sleepcomputing. Fellow organized freaks can use the colors to represent different things such as home, work, client, school, or anything related to your life. I like tool tips (text that pops up when the mouse is over an icon) when learning a new program and this program allows you to create tool tips for your folders. On a personal note, it's neat seeing Polish Web sites because my grandfather hailed from a little place called Pultusk. Alas, I haven't been able to get much genealogy information on the family and life there prior to 1925. [Meryl]

Crystal Player v0.36 [499k] W9x/2k/XP FREE

http://www.mywebattack.com/gnomeapp.php?id=105773

Crystal is a video player that supports play lists and external subtitles and comes with many built-in video filters. It can shift a sound track relative to the video and even read tail-truncated AVI files. The program offers various low-level settings for video and audio output (overlay, color converters, bilinear resizing etc). Additional features include video and audio sample buffering, fullscreen view and much more. [MWA]

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Solitaire Pack 1 v3.06 Palm OS 2.0+ $14.95

http://software.palm.com/PlatformProductDetail.jsp?productId=5857

A computer just isn't a computer without a few flavors of solitaire - even when the computer is your Palm device. Eleven different solitaire variations including the traditional Klondike game and my personal favorite Pyramid variation. Improved graphics and smoother game play are two features of this collection's update for Palm OS 5 devices. Auto-complete your moves and Jump-to-Aces to spend more time on your next move. Additional card backs are available as a separate download, for further customization. [Jake]

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Using Links to Access Outlook Folders and Items in Outlook 97

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=158135

Though this is specific to Outlook 97, some of the commands worked in Outlook 2002. Don't let '97 prevent you from trying it out, if you'd like to use this trick. You can link associated Outlook items such as tasks, contacts, appointments, and e-mail messages together, using hyperlinks. These hyperlinks can open any Outlook folder or item. For example, you can insert a hyperlink in the notes area of a task record that will open an associated contact record when clicked. Or you can type a hyperlink into an e-mail message that when clicked, opens a server-based public folder. The formatting is simple. If you keep issues of Windows Daily in an Outlook folder called, WD, then you can link to it by . I typed this info into a Note and it automatically created a link. When clicking on the link, it opens the WD folder. The article also explains how to create links to folders on the drive and to specific documents. [Meryl]

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Worth1000

http://www.worth1000.com/

{Photoshop contests} Image manipulation is a blast. A while back, John C. Dvorak made a comment about there being fewer "cat photos" in Weblogs. Unfortunately for him, it became a meme and everyone began putting cat heads on Dvorak's body using image manipulation software like Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro. Those who enjoy it can now compete in themes-based contests here. Folks new to image manipulation can go to LEARN for tutorials. If you don't want to create, you can browse the 744 galleries containing over 20,000 images. The gallery is no replacement for a museum, but at least you don't have to drive to get there. The guidelines are clear, one of which states, "This site is suitable for ALL ages. This site is completely safe for work. If you have a sexual image which you wouldn't show to your 3-year-old sister that you would like to post, then we don't want it." That includes no vulgarity, hate themes, or gross photos. You can play in the TOYS section where there are games, activities, and other mindless clicking fun. [Meryl]

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Question: We've been getting a variety of questions about how to use the Lockergnome Forums. Rather than answering specific questions, we'll walk through its main features and show you how to use it.

Answer: After each WD issue, we get a lot of great feedback from you on expanding an answer, other programs that might do a better job than a program we mention, and more questions regarding a topic we discussed. We try to answer the questions, but can't keep up with all the emails you submit. Thus, we're trying to spread the knowledge and get questions answered faster by recommending the forums since there are many intelligent Gnomies out there willing to help in an instant.

Let's start with registration. With respect to COPPA (Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998) rules, the login requires asking if you're 13 years old and older or under the age of 13. Those under the age of 13 need permission from a parent of guardian before joining the forums. There's a permission form that can be mailed or faxed.

After this comes the registration. Here, pick a user name (3 to 32 characters long) that will be public in the forums. For purposes of this tutorial, I choose 'Professor WD.' Enter a password and write it down someplace so you can remember it. Enter the password a second time to ensure no typos. Finish off by entering your email address twice. I know it's annoying to do things twice, but heck, I've mistyped mine many times when my fingers lost control. It's tempting to copy and paste the password and email into the duplicate boxes, but not recommended. What if there is a typo? A few people have written saying their email address isn't working in the forums. A possible cause could be a mistyped address. Read the legal gobbledygook, and if you agree with it, click the I Agree box and then click Submit My Registration.

You're taken to the login screen. Enter your user name, not your email address, and your password you just entered in the registration form. Remember Me saves you the trouble of entering your login information each time you go to the forums. This puts a cookie on your computer. If you share your computer with other members, it may be best not to check this option because the others could use your ID in the forums. If you want to be added to the list of members, leave the Privacy checkbox alone. The list of members just displays user names, date of joining the forums, number of posts, and available contact information. The contact information doesn't give out your email address, but instead lets you send an email to the member. No information is given without your permission.

Submit the information and you're done. From herein on, you can access the forums with your user name and password. There are 15 forums for reading and posting. I put all Windows Daily-related follow ups in the Windows forum. Anytime you have an additional comment or question on this newsletter, share it with everyone in the Windows forum. Next, we'll tackle personalization. If you're eager to move on, click on HELP on the second row menu on the right of the screen. See you in the forums! [Meryl]

Question: So I downloaded the latest program you reviewed to my Windows 98 SE Intel clone PC. I decide to move the program to a different folder by left-clicking and dragging it to the folder but wait, it only makes a shortcut. Why can't I just move it?

Answer: You can just move it. All you need to do is right-click and drag the EXE program file to the folder you want to move it to. When you release the right-click button you will get a context menu where you can choose to copy or move the file in which you want to choose Move Here. This was fixed in later versions of Windows but it was originally designed to save people from moving a program when all they really wanted was a shortcut to that program. This only effects EXE files. If you had tried to move a TXT file then it would just move. Microsoft wants to make sure we all didn't kill a shortcut just because we accidentally moved the source EXE file when we just wanted to copy it or make a shortcut. You have no idea how many times I have seen people try to just drag the WinWord.exe file from the c:\program files\microsoft office folder. Had this not been in effect on Windows 9x, I would have received a lot more calls about non-functioning Word shortcuts in the Start Menu. For your own personal knowledge, even in Windows XP you can't move WinWord.exe out of the Microsoft Office folder with just a left-click and drag but you can with other none Office EXE files. [Brian]