New Location. New Faces. New Website.

Year end brings some exciting changes at Computer Homecare. First, we have moved down the hall to a much larger office suite. As of November 3, 2008, we have been operating out of Suite 109 at the Kasten Office & Industrial Park. The new suite is just inside the north entrance, conveniently connected to the front parking lot by a wide walkway. With the exception of the suite number, all of our contact information remains unchanged. Tim and his staff at Computer Homecare look forward to serving you at the new office. Stop in for the nickel tour.

Speaking of staff, we would like to introduce Joni Shore and Emilie Savas to our customers. Joni is responsible for answering the phones, running the front office and providing the excellent customer service you have come to expect. Joni holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Central Michigan University. She has a well rounded professional background in organizational and interpersonal communication. Prior to joining Computer Homecare, Joni worked as an Account Manager for the Perrigo Company and as a Substitute Teacher for Portage Public Schools.

Emilie will be filling in for Joni on occasion and helping out around the office as needed. She is a registered nurse who aspires to apply to medical school in the not-too-distant-future. Emilie and her husband Abe have just assumed ownership of CD Warehouse in Kalamazoo which is keeping them both very busy. We are thankful for the time Emilie can devote to Computer Homecare.

Finally, we would like to call your attention to our website at www.computerhomecare.net. We are pleased to offer a new web development service offering to our small business customers that utilizes the powerful "Drupal" engine – and we figured the easiest way to sell the service is to use it ourselves. Drupal is much more than a website technology. It's actually a sophisticated content management system that allows organizations to publish and catalog content for their intended target audience, whether it's the general public or internal employees. For example, you will notice that all recent House Call newsletter editions are available on the new site and that much of the content is organized by key words. Click around computerhomecare.net and let us know what you think.

Perhaps the coolest feature of Drupal is the ease at which new content can be authored and published. The system is designed to allow website owners to utilize internal staff to maintain content without any special programming skills or expensive software. Content is added and edited within the web browser window as you are looking at the website! Furthermore, because Drupal is template-driven, design and development costs are quite low when compared to conventional technology. If you or someone you know is looking for a great website on a small budget, make sure you consider Computer Homecare and the Drupal system.

We are proud of our recent growth and we recognize that it would not have been possible without our loyal customers. We thank you for your business in 2008 and ask you for continued patronage in 2009.

Making Your Files Portable

Technology gives us many ways to make our computer files portable and to share them with others – e-mail attachments, CDs, flash drives and external hard drives are all excellent ways to transfer data from place to place and from person to person. However, there's one problem with portability that is often overlooked by many computer users: sharing files requires that destination computer has the same program(s) that were used to create them in the first place.

For example, John creates a fancy spreadsheet that identifies some attractive investment opportunities for his daughter in Texas. He then sends the spreadsheet to her as an e-mail attachment. His daughter does not own Excel and the program is therefore not installed on her computer. Consequently, she is unable to open her Dad's spreadsheet. It's a safe bet you've been in the same situation as John's daughter. You receive a file attachment and try to open it, only to find that Windows cannot open the file.

Wouldn't it be great if there was a generic file format that all computers could open? Well, there is. It's called "Portable Document Format" or "PDF." PDF is nothing new. It was introduced by Adobe Systems in 1993. Initially, PDF was embraced by the businesses for sharing files internally. However, over the years, PDF has become a common format for the masses. The IRS makes all tax forms available on the Web in PDF format.

From the very beginning, Adobe made the PDF viewer (called "Adobe Reader") available at no cost. Most new computers come from the factory with the Adobe Reader pre-installed. However, the software required to create PDF files, called "Adobe Acrobat," is not free – it costs between $200 and $400. Although Adobe holds patents for the PDF file format, it is technically "open source," meaning any software developer can create software applications that convert files to PDF.

In recent years, several 3rd party PDF writer utilities have surfaced – and some of these are free. Case in point is a product called "CutePDF Writer" (www.cutepdf.com). CutePDF Writer can be downloaded at no cost from www.cutepdf.com – and if you can print a file from your computer, you can use this program. It's that easy. The CutePDF Writer is installed as a printer on your computer . But instead of generating paper printouts, it creates a file and asks you where you'd like to save it. Once the PDF file is saved to your computer, you can send it as a file attachment or transfer it to a removable drive.

While it's still true that someone who wants to open and print your PDF file must have the Adobe Reader, the fact is most people do. If they don't, remember it's a free download! Anyone can grab it at: www.adobe.com.

Watch the Free Stuff

We just finished telling you that cool stuff can be downloaded for free. Now we're going to tell you to be careful. There are lots of precious gems available at no cost via the Web. Cute PDF Writer, AVG and Spybot are all great examples. However, there are just as many free downloads (if not more) that are not what they seem.

Free downloads are one of the most common sources of virus and spyware infection. Free screen savers, music, and video clips often carry with them hidden "payloads" that sneak into your computer and reek havoc. Some products that are advertised as computer security solutions are security threats themselves!

If something seems too good to be free, the best strategy is to assume it's a scam. Always err on the side of caution before downloading anything – talk to your favorite computer expert before making that final click.

Frequently Asked Question

Question: What is a blog?

Answer: A blog (a contraction of the term "Web log") is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketches (sketchblog), videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting), which are part of a wider network of social media. Micro-blogging is another type of blogging, one which consists of blogs with very short posts. As of December 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112 million blogs.[1] With the advent of video blogging, the word blog has taken on an even looser meaning — that of any bit of media wherein the subject expresses his opinion or simply talks about something.

Source: Blog. (2008, November 11). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 05:07, November 11, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blog&oldid=251010845

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House Call, Copyright © 2008 • All rights reserved
Published by Computer Homecare & Small Business Solutions
phone: 269.327.1574 • e-mail: appointments@computerhomecare.net • website: www.computerhomecare.net