Helpful sites

A potpourri of links to a few of my favorite web sites.
Plus, Computer, Outlook Express, and AOL help

I even have several Home-schooling links at the bottom.

I home schooled my children and am thankful I did!


All the links on this page open up in a new window you may click out of. To make sure your links won't take visitors away from your site just put this code
target_"blank"
at the end of your link
Like this:

If you've been here before please click onto
the refresh button below
for newer updates to this page.

Want a button like the one above
to "Reload" your page?
Just place the code below on the page where you want it to show up. You can look at my source if it helps. click onto "View" then "source"...
The code for the button is:

Click onto the name of where you want to go

[ Snag It for tutorial pictures ]

[ Flash multimedia player ]

[ For those new to the web ]

[ Get Robo Form! Keeps passwords - no spyware! ]

[ About the Klez Virus ]

[ Typing Key shortcuts ]

[ Tweak UI program for repairs ]

[ Outlook Express help & ideas ]

[ Unzip programs ]

[ Email cleaner for those <<<< marks ]

[ Clean Up program for your computer ]

[ POW deletes pop-up ads ]

[ Mail Washer program for getting rid of SPAM ]

[ AOL help ]

[ Great counters for webpages ]

[ Web host for you (Servers) ]

[ A few great helping sites ]

[ Some great links to check out ]

[ Search Engines and link popularity sites ]

[ Home Schooling Links ]

[ Hope's Index pages ]

[ Make Your Own Wav Files ]

[ WORLD NEWS SITES FOR CHRISTIANS ]

[ Free Fonts Site ]

[ Why Jihad Watch? ]

ONLINE CHRISTIAN MAGAZINES

[ GENERAL ]

[ CHRISTIAN LIVING ]

[ YOUTH ]

[ SPECIALTY ]

[ MUSIC AND POETRY ]

[ EQUIPPING/BIBLE ]

[ FAMILY/MEN/WOMEN ]

[ TECHNOLOGY ]

[ DENOMINATIONAL ]

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Making Your Own Wav Files
It's easier than you might think

I borrowed the advice below from Clay's Sound Emporium. You really need to visit his site! He has lots of wav files for you to download. To go there
CLICK HERE

For those of you with a desire to make your own wav files but don't know how to go about it, let me assure you that the basics are very simple.

On the back of almost every VCR or stereo is an output socket labeled "Audio Out." On your computer sound card you will likely find three "mini" sockets. One is labeled "Audio out" (this is the socket your computer speakers should be plugged into). One is labeled "Line In" and the other is labeled "Mic."

You'll need to go to Radio Shack, or a similar electronics store, and buy an audio patch cord and a mini-jack adapter. In most cases, if you tell the store clerk what you are trying to do, they can fix you up with what you need. Your total out of pocket expense should only be a few bucks.

Before you buy, consider what length of cord you will need (my computer is across the room from my VCR and stereo so I got a twenty five footer).

Attach the mini-jack adapter to one end of the audio patch cord and plug it into the "Line In" socket on your computer sound card. Plug the other end of the cord into the "Audio out" socket on your stereo or VCR. You now have an audio feed to your computer.

If you are plugged into your VCR, and have it turned on, you should be hearing the same sound over your computer speakers that is coming from your TV (via the VCR). You can also use a microphone plugged into your computer sound card "Mic" socket to record your own voice. If you don't have a mic, you can buy one that works just fine for ten or fifteen bucks. Do not use the mic to record sounds from your TV or stereo speakers. That method produces poor results.

The last thing you'll need is some sound software. Most computers come with some form of this software already installed. But to be quite honest, the sound software that came bundled with my computer is about as versatile as a door bell. Fortunately, great sound software is available for downloading on the Web. Two programs that work well in this area are Goldwave and CoolEdit.

I would advise that you get familiar with some of the higher functions of whichever program you choose fairly quickly. You can have a lot of fun using the editing capabilities with these programs once you get to know them.

There you have it. Your favorite TV show, movie or music wavs are just waiting to be made. You're only limited by your imagination. To give a listen to one possible use of this information, download my brnyfans.wav (137k).

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SNAG IT!

Have you ever wanted to make your own tutorials but you needed pictures of what you were doing to send or post with your tutorial? Then you need SnagIt. I'm sure you will love how easy SnagIt is to learn and use. After you have tried it, you will wonder how you ever got along without it. With SnagIt, you can quickly and easily accomplish it all! With one mouse click, easily capture anything on the screen, apply edits and annotation, and send the screenshot to the printer, a file, an e-mail, or the Web. You can take advantage of free technical support, customer forums, and helpful tips and tricks. To read more about it and download it... CLICK HERE

When you are ready to buy, go to TechSmith CLICK HERE

Please don't use SnagIt to make copies of copyrighted material. It's main function is for copying graphics from your screen.

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Flash!

Flash is a multimedia player for the internet. It’s been around for a while and there’s a new update for it that fixes a couple of security holes. If you view Flash animations you need to get this update. It really doesn’t take long to download.

Here is the link: CLICK HERE

Thanks go to Patrick Crispen of the Internet tour bus , for this. He has an email newsletter that told me about it.

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Even adults benefit from Lisa's great site. Full of really helpful tutorials, scripts and resources.
Lisa Explains

The Newbie Club now offers excellent technical help. They also have an excellent autoresponder you can use for free with a Newbie-Speak Tutorial, so it's a dream to set up. And you should see their mountain of Newbie learning aids - including Free Computer problem solving! It's the ultimate fountain of knowledge for all things Newbie. They also have a free fully customizable Guestbook that will blend right in with your page design and color scheme. No programming or CGI experience needed. It's specially designed for Newbies to install.

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GET Robo Form!

This little beauty remembers all your passwords! I build memorial sites for others and also update them - I needed a program that would help me remember all those passwords! It does NOT have spyware!
Anyway, this little program will also automatically fill in forms for you. Honestly, I really like it and highly recommend it to you:
It also converts all your Gator passwords into it's own program and lets you retrieve them (or print them out). Great little program and it's FREE!!!

CLICK HERE

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KLEZ Virus!

Don't get mad if you THINK your friend sent you the KLEZ Virus"

There was a time that the way that viruses were transmitted from computer to computer was through infected disks or software, usually copied games. The way that most viruses get into computers in the last few years is through email attachments. So the simplest way to not get viruses is don’t open email attachments. I know that those cool pictures of the cousins, grandkids, nephews… come as email attachments but when you get an email with an attachment don’t open it. First email the person that sent it to you and just ask if they sent it. If they say no then just delete it.

If you are sending an email with an attachment, first send a message telling the recipient that you are sending mail with an attachment. If everyone starts doing this it will make it much harder for the virus writers to do their evil deeds.

This is how the KLEZ virus works... it tries to make friends mad at each other. Someone out there has YOUR e-mail address in THEIR address book in Outlook Express or MS Outlook... and THEIR machine is infected. The Klez will take and send a message out TO everyone in that computer's address book, and send it FROM one of the people in his address book (in this case YOUR FRIEND)... in other words, it LOOKS like it came from the friend, but it really came from that machine.

If you get a message from "your friend" and your antivus program (such as Norton) says it has quarantened a virus, then right-click on that message, click "Properties", then click "Details"... the first e-mail address that shows, is who it is REALLY from (says: Return-Path: , then it says who it is "supposedly From" and who it is "To (you)".

The "Klez" has made many people mad at the wrong people... it looks on the surface like it came from one person, but it really came from another one. That is it's design, that's what it tries to do... make people mad, but at the wrong ones!

These are some of the names that the Klez virus uses when it sends out infected emails. Notice that Humor is spelled with an English spelling. Might mean something. Might mean nothing.

A special new game
A special humour game
A funny game
Meeting notice
Any email with one of these subjects with an attachment should not be opened or even clicked on.

Here is a great virus scan place - it's free!

CLICK HERE

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A few typing key shortcuts

Three Finger Salute is a term that means to press and hold in this order the Ctrl. Alt. and Delete buttons. This will bring up a dialog box that will let you see what processes are running on your computer. If you are having a problem with a particular program freezing often you can do this and the offending program will have a note beside it saying “not responding”. You can stop that process by clicking on that program and then the “end task” button.

While the mouse is nice there are times that my hands are already on the keyboard and I really don’t want to reach for the mouse. These are all key combinations the ones involving the Windows key you just hit it, the Windows key that looks like a flying Window, and then the second key. Most of the others you hold the first key, hit the second key and then release both. Some of the keyboard shortcuts that I use the most are:

Alt.+ F4 Closes the active program. If you hit it now it will close Internet Explorer.

Windows H starts Windows Help

Ctrl + F5 In Internet Explorer of most Windows programs will refresh the screen. Refresh makes the computer redraw what you see. This is really useful for radar pages.

F1 Starts "help" for the active program.

CTRL+C: Copy That means if you have some text highlighted, you can copy that text so that you can:
CTRL+V: Paste Puts the text highlighted in the copy step into another application. Usually a word processor or graphics program. This works great between a web page and Word Pad or Note Pad.

CTRL+X: Cut Removes the highlighted text. Won’t work in a web page, will work in a word processor.

CTRL+Z: Undo Will remove the last thing you did. Really good for correcting a goof.

Shift + Arrow Key In a text editor, Word, Word Pad or Note Pad, hit the shift key and any arrow key to select text to copy or cut.

Those are the ones I use the most.

Microsoft Support Center is a good place to go for more help:

CLICK HERE

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TWEAK UI

One neat computer program is called Tweak UI. It's a free download from Microsoft that has repair options, for instance if your icons stop displaying properly it can fix them, boot options and even paranoia settings (just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean someone’s not out to get you). Most of the real geeks will already know about this program but it has some functions that can help you fix your own computer if you need to. One caution, this program has a lot of power. If you don’t know what something does, it’s probably better to start doing research first to find out what it means instead of just changing things to see what it does. Tweak UI is available at the following link:

CLICK HERE

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OUTLOOK EXPRESS

I have a page where you can learn how to post a graphic in a guestbook
I even have a couple of codes for learning how to make your text move or light up for guestbooks.
The page is here: click here

Here's a few tips on using your Outlook Express email program.

1. Click on View.
2. Click on Layout
3. There are a bunch of check boxes for things like Contacts, where the addresses of people that you email are stored and other options are displayed. You can see what happens when you change them by just putting a check in the box and then clicking on Apply at the bottom. If you don’t like it just uncheck the box and click on Apply again.

4. Customize toolbar: This is the place where you can play with how OE looks and displays the buttons at the top. Personally I don’t like the text labels on the buttons and here is the place to get rid of them in the text options box. You can also change the size of the Icons, the little symbols. I use small ones as that leaves more room for displaying messages and text, the reason that we use OE. You can also move the buttons around here using the add and remove buttons. I always remove the separators since to me they just take up room that I would rather use for useful things. You can make folders to store your messages in. For instance I have several where I store messages from my family, friends and egroups in.

To do this: 1. Right click the Local Folders Icon.
2. Left click New Folder.
3. Type in a name for the folder.
4. You can now drag the messages that you want to keep into that folder. Have fun customizing Outlook Express

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EMAIL ADVICE AND HELP

DO NOT FORWARD CHAIN LETTERS! We can safely say that all of them are hoaxes. Just delete the letters as soon as you receive them.

Also, If you receive an email message warning you of a new unstoppable virus that will immediately delete everything from your computer, this is most probably a hoax. By forwarding hoaxes you use valuable bandwidth and sometimes virus hoaxes contain viruses themselves, by attaching a so-called file that will stop the dangerous virus. The same goes for chain letters that promise incredible riches or ask your help for a charitable cause. Even if the content seems to be bona fide, the senders are usually not. Since it is impossible to find out whether a chain letter is real or not, the best place for it is the recycle bin.

Here is are two great sites to check out email viruses and hoaxes:

Truth Or Ficiton:
CLICK HERE

Hoax Information:
CLICK HERE

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AN EMAIL TIP FOR YOU...

Let's see.... how about one more email tip. Have you ever been typing an email and then you decide to delete some of what you are typing (or hit your back button) and from then on your typing erases what is already there? From now on, when that happens, click onto your "insert" button on your typewriter keys and you can now type without your other words being erased.

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NEED AN UNZIP PROGRAM?

If you don't have an "unzip" program here is where you can get one free:

WIN ZIP DOWNLOAD

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E-CLEANER

You know the little forward indented > > > > marks all through a forwarded email? Would you like to know how to get rid of them? And do you see all the email addresses listed on most forwarded emails? Do you like the idea of your email address going to strangers? No? Well, I'll tell you how to help guard against it.

One way to get rid of the forwarded indented > > > marks, is to download "E-Cleaner" here...
E-Cleaner Page
and place it into your "Windows Files". Your window's folder is located by going through your C: (hard drive). After you have downloaded E-Cleaner, highlight a message with those irritating indented > > > marks in it and copy it. Next, double click onto your e-cleaner (the shortcut on your desktop) and click onto "Edit" then "Copy" and it will paste this message into your e-cleaner window. Now, click onto the little smiley sun and your e-cleaner will take out all the > > > from the message. Highlight the message in your e-cleaner again and click onto "Copy". Next, go back to your email program and open a new message - click onto "edit" then "past" and it will paste your cleaned up message into your new message window. It may sound complicated but it's not - once you've done it you will be so happy to have it. Now, you can take all those forwarded jokes and stories that have those irritating indented > > > marks in them and clean them up and send them out like new!

Another thing, if you are using Outlook Express you can fix it where your program won't place those indented > > > marks in the messages you forward. Here's how to fix it: Open your Outlook Express and click onto your "Tools" then onto "Options" and then click onto your "send" tab in the new window that pops up. Now, close to the bottom of that window click onto your HTML "mail sending format" then click onto the "HTML settings" and make sure the little box next to the "indent" isn't checked. If it is, uncheck it. Do this with your "Plain settings" also. Now, when you forward a message it won't place those irritating indent > > > marks in it.

Next, to make sure you don't forward email addresses that strangers and advertisers (SPAM) can easily get hold of you will need to place all the people's email addresses you are sending your message to in the Bcc (blind carbon copy) address box. All email programs offer a Bcc for you, so get into a habit of using it! It's important to you and it's important for your friends that you use it! It's so easy for me to send email out to people whose email addresses are exposed. That's because all email addresses are listed unless BCC is used! Some of the messages you receive that want you to forward on has embedded spy ware that allows the person who created the message in the first place to retrieve your email address. Don't forward any message without copying and pasting into a new email message. Here is an excellent site that will explain it in more detail:

CLICK HERE

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CLEAN UP YOUR COMPUTER!

Here is a link to a "Clean up" program that will delete all the unnessary files from your computer. I've been using it for nearly three years now and love it! I do this almost daily. It won't take any files you have purposely stored so don't worry about that.

CLICK HERE

Here is a another site where you can download a different type of Clean up program (in case you aren't happy with the one I recommend). I haven't used it, but a friend of mine has and she said it's a great program:

CLICK HERE

If you don't want another software program on your computer you can clean up temp files yourself. These are temporary files that are used for a little while and are then supposed to be deleted. They are just using up space on your hard drive that could be used by programs and things that you need. Windows isn't very good at removing them. In Windows 98, ME and XP you can click on the Start button, then Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Disk Cleanup. That will start the cleanup program that will remove these unneeded files. For users or Windows 95 read on. It's harder.

In Windows 95 you will need to click on the Start button and then Find/Files and Folders. Next in the named space type in " *.tmp " without the quotes. The * or shift + 8 means All in DOS so it looks for all files with the .tmp designation. You can delete them one at a time or click on the first one and hold the shift key down then the down arrow key and it will select all of them. Now hit the Delete key. Windows may not let you delete all of them. I may give you a message that Windows is using that file. Skip that one and try on the others. Now empty your recycle bin by double clicking on it and then going up to File at the top and then Empty Recycle Bin. Now you have reclaimed some disk space from unnecessary files.

Another way you can do it is to go through your C: (hard drive) and windows then find your "Temporary files folder" Open it up and delete all the files in there. Find you "History folder" and open it up and delete all the files in the different date folders - some only have the last seven days history folder.

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I HATE POP-UP ADDS!

Also, I hate those Pop-up adds on all the sites and I have a program that stops them. It's called POW, it's free and another easy program to learn. You have to remember to turn it on when you go on line. But if you follow the directions when a pop up opens, it will put it onto a blocked list and will delete them time and time again. The directions for its use are at the site.

CLICK HERE

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MAIL WASHER FOR ANY EMAIL PROGRAM!

Here is another neat download for you - it's called mail washer and you can check all your email from your server before downloading it. I've used this software for nearly a year now and no problems! I really like it and I think you will also:

CLICK HERE

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CLICK HERE

I've tried just about every free web tool provider on the net and I settled for Bravenet .

Visit Dynamic Drive for free, original DHTML scripts and components, all of which ultilize the latest in DHTML and JavaScript technology.

Lots of useful tutorials, resources and freebies. Not to be missed by webmasters
Echoecho.

Hundreds of java applets and web design resources.
Java Powered!

WebTech University - Their HTML 101 class is the perfect choice for the first time webmaster. I would highly recommend anyone wanting to learn to make their first web page, to start here at WebTech University. And best of all, it's FREE!

Anfy Java Applets One of the BEST sources for java applets.

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Christian links and religious links - over 200 links!

MyFamily.com - free, private web-sites for families.

Ancestry.com - A great search site for genealogist.

Mercy Drops - A great support site full of resoources on a wide variety of subjects, like depression, adoption, marriage and family issues.

Ordinary Woman/Extraordinary God - an online journalism site with spiritual help also...

'He Invites' - an inspiritional site offering testimonies of real-life experiences from people of all ages.

Magic tricks on the net - a fun site to visit

'Promise Keepers' site - For Christian men who want or need spiritual help and support.

'GOSHEN' has a Christian search engine and directory.

'RAINBOW BRIDGE' is for those who have lost a pet and want to make a memorial for it. This is a beautiful site and very dear to many.

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