Hello, and welcome to our WOW News. And welcome to our new subscribers this week, I’m so pleased you’ve joined us.

Focus Group

I am in need of your help, please. To bring you what you want in our online community, and not just what I think you want, I need to really understand what you need.

To achieve this, I will be running two focus groups. One will be in the Bayside area, and the other in the Mornington area.

If you are in these areas in Victoria, would you like to be part of my focus groups? They’ll be small, friendly groups, and of course there’ll be food! Can’t do anything without good food. If you’re not able to attend the focus groups, and would still like to help, there is a way, and I’d be so grateful.

At the same time as I hold these focus groups, I will use the Internet to get your thoughts via a survey. I’ll send more details in separate messages, or else this newsletter will be longer than usual.

Oh, and for everyone who takes part in any way, as a reward I’ll be holding a competition. The prize will be a full year’s Gold Level membership. One full year at our highest support level, you will have monthly sessions of one-on-one support, unlimited email support, and access to everything on our site.

And for everyone else, I’ll also be rewarding you, but I’ll give more details in our Focus Group messages.

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eBay Guide

If you saw the messages early this week, I had a great win on eBay this week. We had our annexe on eBay, with a starting price of $400, and it sold for $998! We’re delighted with that! Next week I’ll send news of part one of a ‘walkthrough’ for those interested members who want to look over my shoulder and find out what buying goods on eBay is all about.

In this week’s news we’ll look at:

• Downloading files;
• Smileys; and
• Humour – Animator Vs Animation 2

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A quick word about the content of this message.

If this message doesn’t display properly, please click here to read the message online:   http://tinyurl.com/n6z998
This is where you’ll find all our previous newsletters. Click on whichever week interests you to view or print it.

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Until next time, please take good care of yourself.

Viv

“I went out to find a friend,
But could not find one there.
I went out to be a friend,
And friends were everywhere.”
Unknown Poet

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This week’s solution to a problem

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Downloading Files

We’ve had a couple of people in the last few weeks asking about downloading files, so that’s our topic for this week.

Downloading a file is simply getting a copy of a file of some sort, from someone else’s computer, into your computer.

The file could be a music file, such as an MP3 file, or it could be a program file – such as if you buy an anti-virus program on the internet, or it could be a document, such as a PDF file.  PDF stands for: Portable Document Format.

Someone makes a document with their computer program. Their program is one of thousands of computer programs that are available. By creating a PDF version of their document, you can easily read that document without the need for having that specific program on your own computer. You only need the Adobe Reader program.

Adobe Reader is available on 99% of computers, so it’s probably on your computer. But if it’s not, no problem. When you try to open a PDF document, your computer will look for the Adobe Reader program, and open the document. If your computer can’t find the Adobe Reader program, then it will show you a message, advising that Adobe Reader isn’t available, and will display a link where you can go to download it. (free) But in all likelihood you’ll have the program in your computer anyway.

Well, I’ve gone off on a tangent there! … back to our problem: Downloading files. Trying to do this caused a problem for one of our members – she went to a website, and saw a button saying download here, but she wasn’t sure what else to do. So we’ll go through the steps here.

Now as you know I try to use real-life examples, as I think it helps us understand things a lot better when something’s real.

Here is a bit of background about what we’re using for our example. A friend has a business that she’s really passionate about. It’s about communicating with teenagers. Her business runs programs with Colin Lee, called the ‘Get Real Experience’, which teenagers participate in. Apparently they have tremendous results from these programs, building the teenager’s self-esteem, improving their concentration levels, learning speed-reading, and study skills. All in a fun environment. I thought this topic might interest a lot of our members who have teenage children or grandchildren. I think you’ll agree that in this day and age it seems to be really difficult to communicate with teenagers. Colin Lee has produced an report for people like us who’d like to learn something on how to better communicate with the teenagers in our lives. There is going to be a program held on the Mornington Peninsula in October – and there are even ways to sponsor someone.

Dianne’s has the five page report availabale on her website. Although it is Titled Art of Communicating with Teenagers, it can be applied to anyone.

So how do we get our own copy of the report?

It is a PDF file. To get your copy, you need to download it from the website.

We’ll use this report (e-book) as our example today. The steps work the same for other downloads, so if you’re not interested in this topic, perhaps you might like to download some classical music from: http://www.mfiles.co.uk/mp3-files.htm

So, an outline of the steps are:  i) go to the website of your choice, ii) click on a link to go to a download page, if needed, iii) click on a button to download.  iv) Save the file in your computer. (Note: Sometimes, if it’s a free gift, you may be asked to give your name and email in exchange for the download. If this is the case, fill in the details and proceed to the download.)

Make sure when you do save the file, that you put it somewhere you’ll remember. It could go into your Documents or Music folder, or perhaps click on the New Folder button, and create a special folder.

When you are ready to use the file, you’ll know just where to find it. We won’t go into the details of filing here, as this article is getting long enough, but try to Save it somewhere where you’ll remember in the future.

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Here we go:

To go to the website, EITHER click this link: www.livethepassion.com.au OR Open Internet Explorer – (or whatever program you use to go to the internet) Click in the address bar, and type in: www.livethepassion.com.au In the bottom right corner area, is your link: Click on the link: The Art of Communicating with Teenagers: You will go to a new window, which has fields for you to fill in. On the right of the fields if you see a symbol, that indicates that field is mandatory. Fill in the necessary fields: First name, Surname, your email address, and click in the box for: ‘Yes I would like to receive more information on how to communicate with teenagers’. Clicking in the box will put a tick in it. Click on Send Immediately you will go to the download page. You’ll see the underlined words Click here to download your FREE copy! – that’s your download link. Right-Click on the link: Scroll down to Save target as … (or Save Link as for Firefox) A new window will appear, showing your computer files. This is where you tell your computer where you want to save the file. Saving files is another lesson in itself, which we will come to later. If you know where you would like to save the file, go ahead, but for our example, we will click on Documents, or My Documents . Click on Save. Note: This file is already named: ‘Art of Communicating E book’. You can always change the file name if you wish, or just click on Save to leave as is.

Our example is a PDF, and it should take less than a minute to download into your computer. But sometimes you might download a video file or audio file. These can take minutes or hours, depending on how big they are, and how quick or slow your connection is.

When the download is finished, you will see a message – Download Complete.

So that’s how we download files     Go to the download page on a website, click a link or a button to start the download process, save the file into your computer.

I have a video, to actually show you the steps, but I need to put the finishing touches on it. I’ll let you know when it’s finished, and I’ll send the link direct to it, so you can watch.

If you’ve followed along with the notes, you now have the report, and know where it is in your computer. You can then read it onscreen, print it out, or attach it to an email and share with someone.

As always, if you have any queries, please let me know: vivienne@thewebonwheels.com.au

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How are you?

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How are you feeling?

Hope you’re feeling great today

Did you notice the symbols at the end of the last sentence? That’s a smiley. Smileys are also called emoticons and they’re used to portray your emotions.

Smileys are used in email, mobile phone messages and messages on the internet. And, sometimes these smileys are still or animated pictures (like our computer smiley above).

I’m sure you’ll appreciate email is a wonderful invention to keep in contact with people. But reading typed words cannot convey what body language, facial gestures and the intonation of a voice can. And sometimes words can be misconstrued. I know it’s happened to me.

We write something speaking the words in our head, and know how we intended the sentence should read. But someone else seeing those words could interpret it completely different. Take: How are you going to do that? How are you going to do that? Was there any difference between the last two sentences? One could be just making an enquiry, politely asking how someone would go about doing something. The second way could be in a sarcastic tone – implying that the person couldn’t possibly do it themselves – how are you going to do that?

That’s why it can be really helpful to use an emoticon to make sure you get the intention of your words across.

There are many, many smileys and emoticons. Young people tend to use the more obscure ones, but the more everyday ones I think are a great tool. In online messages, the animated smiley faces work fine, and you can sometimes choose your emoticon from a palette. But they often don’t work in emails. That’s why it’s good to know the typed abbreviations.

Here’s how they work. What you’re supposed to do is look from the side. Here is our basic smiley Tilt your head to the left.

In our basic smiley you’ll see two eyes : and a smiling mouth underneath. )

Sometimes there’s a nose - or     (he’s sad)

Here’s a list of the most common ones I think you’d be more likely to use.

	Smile (hint: look at it sideways – tilt your head to the left). (In some programs when you type the colon followed by the closing bracket, it ‘auto-corrects’ to the smiley face.)
	A big smile.
	Now it’s surprise, or ‘wow’, or ‘oh!’.
	Sad
;(	Crying
	Grim
‘-) or	Wink
:O	Yelling

An example of where you could use one:   Oh, that’s nice. And:  Oh, that’s nice. The first example might be complimenting someone on their hand made pottery mug, said with genuine enthusiasm – oh that’s nice! The second one could be said in a nasty tone. Still the same words, but meaning they think it’s awful … oh, that’s nice.

You could use: Oh that’s nice I’d love one too.

And here’s some of those more obscure ones: Keep looking to the left.

:-6	Smiley eating something sour
	Smiley swimmer
:-&	Smiley which is tongue-tied
:-0	Smiley Orator
=-)	Smiley punk-rocker
{-)	Smiley with his hair parted in the middle, or; Smiley with a toupee
}-)	Smiley with a toupee in an updraft
:-X	My lips are sealed smiley

You get the idea.

Have fun,

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Humour me!

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Animator Vs Animation 2

Today’s funny is a video on the internet. http://www.stickpage.com/animatorvsanimation2play.shtml

Its title is ‘Animator vs Animation’. Actually there are two versions One and Two. But I’ve given you the link to the follow-up second video, in case you’re in a hurry.  I’ll fill you in on the first video, that a very talented person has made.   He, the Animator, has created his Animation – and it’s rebelling! There is a link on the site to the first video for those interested.

The video might seem a bit odd at first – I think young people like shooting and blowing up things but then, well it had me in stitches – and I know that’s who’s been up to no good in my machine at times!
(Oh Anne, we can finally blame this guy!)

When you’ve clicked on the link, you will need scroll down a little bit and click on the black Play button. It doesn’t take long to load, then it will start automatically. There is a lot of action, so if it’s going too fast, there is a pause button in the bottom left-hand corner. HINT: If you can’t see the control bar with the pause and play buttons etc, point your mouse at the bottom of the video screen and it will appear.

Your computer will need the Macromedia Flash Player program to run the video. Most likely it’s already in your computer, and you will be able to click Play and all will be well. If your computer doesn’t have it though, you’ll see a message asking to download the program. This program is great for these type of videos, just give your computer permission when you see windows asking for permission to Run.

Here’s the link again:   http://www.stickpage.com/animatorvsanimation2play.shtml

There are links to other videos and games and all sorts of activities on the website. Young people really get a kick out of this. And so far I haven’t found anything offensive on the site … hope it stays that way. But I’d steer clear of clicking on any of the ads.

So, there was a lot in this week’s newsletter, with luck it’ll keep you going till next time. I hope you enjoy it and have learned something new.

Smiles and best wishes

Viv

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