WeatherWatcher

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WeatherWatcher

From MajorGeeks.com:
Ad-free, no pop-ups, spyware-free, hassle-free... Your weather, your way. View current conditions, hourly forecast, daily forecast, detailed forecast, severe weather alerts, and weather maps for almost any city world-wide.

Weather Watcher is your personal Windows desktop weather station. Automatically retrieve the current conditions, hourly forecast, daily forecast, detailed forecast, severe weather alerts, and weather maps for almost any city world-wide. The current conditions can be quickly viewed via the Weather Watcher system tray icon. There are many features to explore.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4190.html

Wireless Networking Primer

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Wireless Networking Primer

If you've been wanting to set up a wireless network at home or in the office, CNET has a great step-by-step primer, with video.  And Best buy can set you up with the equipment at a great price.

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10163_7-5512709-1.html

AutoRecover in Microsoft Word

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AutoRecover in Microsoft Word

In Microsoft Word, how can I use the AutoRecover feature to restore a document?

Source: http://kb.indiana.edu/data/ahnd.html

Microsoft Word (versions 97 and later) allows you to make an automatic backup of your working document. If the program crashes, or your computer accidentally loses power, the AutoRecover feature will attempt to load the most up-to-date version of your document.

Note: AutoRecover is not a replacement for saving your document frequently. Saving your document frequently is the only guaranteed way of retaining a valid copy of your work.

Enabling and using AutoRecover

To turn on the AutoRecover feature:

1. In Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003, from the Tools menu, select Options... . In Word v.X and 2004, from the Word menu, select Preferences... . In Word 2001, from the Edit menu, select Preferences... . In Word 98, from the Tools menu, select Preferences... .
2. In the window that opens, click the Save tab or list item.
3. Place a checkmark in the Save AutoRecover info every: checkbox (if it is unchecked), and type a value next to "minutes". For example, to save your work every five minutes, type  5 .
4. Click OK to make the change.

If a system or program crash causes your computer to shut down, simply reboot and open Word normally. Word should recognize that there is an AutoRecovered file that is newer than the last saved version of your document. It will prompt you to open and save the AutoRecovered file.

If the AutoRecover function does not prompt you to open the backup file, you may still be able to recover your work. Search your hard drive for a file called AutoRecovery or *.asd. In Windows, for help searching your hard drive, see the Knowledge Base document In Windows, how do I locate a file if I know its name or its contents?

Windows

Word for Windows saves AutoRecovered files with the name AutoRecovery Save of filename.asd, where filename is the name of the document on which you were working:

• In Windows 2000 and XP, the file is stored in the \Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Word folder (username will be replaced by the author's username).
• In Word 2000 or 2002 in Windows NT, the file is stored in the \Winnt\Profiles\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Word folder (username will be replaced by the author's username).
• In Word 2000 or 2002 in Windows 95, 98, or Me, the file is stored in the \Windows\Application Data\Office\Word folder.
• In Word 97 in Windows 95, 98, and Me, the file is stored in the \Windows\Temp folder.

When you find the file, open it, either by double-clicking it or, from Word's File menu, choosing Open... and browsing to its location.

Mac OS and Mac OS X

Word 98, 2001, v.X, and 2004 save the AutoRecovered file as AutoRecover save of filename, where filename is the name of the document on which you were working. The AutoRecovered file may be in an invisible folder, but since the file itself is not invisible, you should be able to locate it with the Find File or Sherlock utility. Once you find the file, drag it out of the Items Found window to your desktop. Then double-click it, or, from Word's File menu, choose Open... to browse to and open the file.

Changing the default AutoRecover folder

If you want to change the folder in which AutoRecovered files are stored:

1. In Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003, from the Tools menu, select Options... . In Word v.X and 2004, from the Word menu, select Preferences... . In Word 2001, from the Edit menu, select Preferences... . In Word 98, from the Tools menu, select Preferences... .
2. In the window that opens, click File Locations.
3. Under "File types", choose AutoRecover files and click Modify... .
4. Choose the folder where you want Word to save your AutoRecovered files. Click OK (Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003), Choose (Word 2001, v.X, and 2004), or Use Selected Folder (Word 98).
5. Click Close (Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003) or OK (Word 98, 2001, v.X, and 2004).

Dragon NaturallySpeaking

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Dragon NaturallySpeaking

Speaking Naturally, Anew

By DAVID POGUE

Published: December 2, 2004

Last March, in this column, I described my fondness for Dragon NaturallySpeaking, the dictation software for Windows that lets me "write" at 120 words per minute. You wear a headset microphone, you speak normally (except that you speak the punctuation), and NatSpeak pumps the words into whatever program is frontmost.

Last week, the company (ScanSoft) unveiled its new version 8. The shocking twist: the best feature is improved accuracy. That's it. Not bells, not whistles, just doing what it's supposed to do, only 25 percent better. (The company calls it 99 percent accurate, but that's hard for me to measure; I'll generally dictate an entire column without a single mis-transcription. For that document, it's 100 percent.)

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I love this idea that the company just spent the last two years doing nothing but trying to improve its software's core feature. It's almost hilarious! It's like a digital-camera company coming out with a new camera that doesn't have a single new feature, except that it takes much better pictures.

In this case, ScanSoft grew understandably weary of hearing about how people bought NatSpeak, got all excited, tried it, didn't get the results they hoped for, and then gave up on it. "We got one consistent message, from both users and abandoners," a product manager told me. "Fix the accuracy." Turns out they did. NatSpeak 8 really, truly is more accurate, right out of the box.

You still have to train it-that means reading a canned five-minute script while the software analyzes your voice. And you still have to correct it whenever it makes an error; only then will it improve. But the more you train, the more you feed it copies of documents of the sort that you write, and the more you correct it, the better NatSpeak gets.

To see what NatSpeak is capable of, have a look at today's Pogue video, which shows the program in action.

Keep in mind, though, that I'm probably an extreme case; I've been using the software for years, so NatSpeak and I have a certain mutual understanding. Your experience on the first day won't be as good, but it will be a lot better than anything else on the market can give you.

Which, by the way, isn't much. The field is dwindling. Philips got out of the speech-recognition game, and IBM's Via Voice is now distributed by, if you can believe this, ScanSoft. That development makes me think that keeping Via Voice cutting-edge is not, ahem, at the top of anyone's priority list.

There are only two programs for the Macintosh, and they're not, in my estimation, ready for serious daily work. (NatSpeak does NOT work on the Macintosh, even with VirtualPC.)

Now, there are SOME feature improvements in version 8, primarily in the more expensive versions (http://www.scansoft.com/naturallyspeaking/whatsnew/). But even if they did nothing to NatSpeak 8 but work on the accuracy, I'd still buy it. In a dictation program, accuracy is about the best new feature you could wish for.

Visit David Pogue on the Web at DavidPogue.com.

Government Uses Color Laser Printer Technology to Track Documents

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Government Uses Color Laser Printer Technology to Track Documents

Government Uses Color Laser Printer Technology to Track Documents
 http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,118664,pg,1,RSS,RSS,00.asp

Practice embeds hidden, traceable data in every page printed.

Jason Tuohey, Medill News Service
Monday, November 22, 2004

WASHINGTON--Next time you make a printout from your color laser printer, shine an LED flashlight beam on it and examine it closely with a magnifying glass. You might be able to see the small, scattered yellow dots printed there that could be used to trace the document back to you.

According to experts, several printer companies quietly encode the serial number and the manufacturing code of their color laser printers and color copiers on every document those machines produce. Governments, including the United States, already use the hidden markings to track counterfeiters.

Peter Crean, a senior research fellow at Xerox, says his company's laser printers, copiers and multifunction workstations, such as its WorkCentre Pro series, put the "serial number of each machine coded in little yellow dots" in every printout. The millimeter-sized dots appear about every inch on a page, nestled within the printed words and margins.

"It's a trail back to you, like a license plate," Crean says.

The dots' minuscule size, covering less than one-thousandth of the page, along with their color combination of yellow on white, makes them invisible to the naked eye, Crean says. One way to determine if your color laser is applying this tracking process is to shine a blue LED light--say, from a keychain laser flashlight--on your page and use a magnifier.

Crime Fighting vs. Privacy

Laser-printing technology makes it incredibly easy to counterfeit money and documents, and Crean says the dots, in use in some printers for decades, allow law enforcement to identify and track down counterfeiters.

However, they could also be employed to track a document back to any person or business that printed it. Although the technology has existed for a long time, printer companies have not been required to notify customers of the feature.

Lorelei Pagano, a counterfeiting specialist with the U.S. Secret Service, stresses that the government uses the embedded serial numbers only when alerted to a forgery. "The only time any information is gained from these documents is purely in [the case of] a criminal act," she says.

John Morris, a lawyer for The Center for Democracy and Technology , says, "That type of assurance doesn't really assure me at all, unless there's some type of statute." He adds, "At a bare minimum, there needs to be a notice to consumers."

If the practice disturbs you, don't bother trying to disable the encoding mechanism--you'll probably just break your printer.

Crean describes the device as a chip located "way in the machine, right near the laser" that embeds the dots when the document "is about 20 billionths of a second" from printing.

"Standard mischief won't get you around it," Crean adds.

Neither Crean nor Pagano has an estimate of how many laser printers, copiers, and multifunction devices track documents, but they say that the practice is commonplace among major printer companies.

"The industry absolutely has been extraordinarily helpful [to law enforcement]," Pagano says.

According to Pagano, counterfeiting cases are brought to the Secret Service, which checks the documents, determines the brand and serial number of the printer, and contacts the company. Some, like Xerox, have a customer database, and they share the information with the government.

Crean says Xerox and the government have a good relationship. "The U.S. government had been on board all along--they would actually come out to our labs," Crean says.

History

Unlike ink jet printers, laser printers, fax machines, and copiers fire a laser through a mirror and series of lenses to embed the document or image on a page. Such devices range from a little over $100 to more than $1000, and are designed for both home and office.

Crean says Xerox pioneered this technology about 20 years ago, to assuage fears that their color copiers could easily be used to counterfeit bills.

"We developed the first (encoding mechanism) in house because several countries had expressed concern about allowing us to sell the printers in their country," Crean says.

Since then, he says, many other companies have adopted the practice.

The United States is not the only country teaming with private industry to fight counterfeiters. A recent article points to the Dutch government as using similar anticounterfeiting methods, and cites Canon as a company with encoding technology. Canon USA declined to comment.