Leave Address for Last

TIP OF THE DAY

Leave Address for Last

If you are writing a sensitive or lengthy email, do not fill in the To: or CC: or BCC: address until the email is really ready to send. It's too easy to hit the Send button by mistake and once it goes...it's gone.  For things like employment or settlement offers, Dear John/Jane letters, or anything where a slip can have big repercussions, fill in the recipient at the end. The same goes for replies, too.  Consider taking out the recipient on replies that need some thought.

Source: Woodyswatch.com

Online Bill Paying

TIP OF THE DAY

Online Bill Paying

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/18/business/yourmoney/18bills.html?pagewanted=all&position=

Banks Try to Pave the Way to Online Bill Paying

By EVE TAHMINCIOGLU

Published: January 18, 2004

RON DILL, a sales manager for a software company in Dallas, had never given much thought to paying his bills electronically. But his bill-paying habits changed last August after he walked into a local Bank of America branch.

He had gone to the bank to open a basic joint checking account. While he was there, Janet Meier, a bank employee, convinced him to try the bill-paying service on Bank of America's Web site. Ms. Meier demonstrated the service and set up a free online bill-paying account for him. As part of the demonstration, Mr. Dill made a $1 test payment to himself; a week later, he said, a check arrived at his home.

Mr. Dill, 43, says he now pays more than 20 bills online every month. He saves more than $7 in stamps, not to mention the time he previously spent on paperwork and filing. "Now I sit down with my laptop in front of the TV and I can pay them," he said.

In some ways, Mr. Dill, busy and technologically savvy, is a prime candidate for online bill paying. He is among a growing number of consumers who have decided to deal with their monthly bills in cyberspace. About 19 million American households do some bill paying online, up from 7.8 million in 2001, according to Bruce Cundiff, an analyst at Jupiter Research, a technology research firm in New York. By 2008, he said, about 61 million households are expected to pay at least some bills online.

Beth Robertson, a senior analyst at TowerGroup, a research firm based in Needham, Mass., estimated that about 40 percent of major creditors already had electronic payment programs, and that an additional 35 percent planned to introduce them in the next two years.

"The big drivers are that these services are increasingly being offered for free, and a lot more billers are making electronic bill payment available," she said.

Also fueling the trend, she and other experts say, are the spread of high-speed Internet connections and improvements in bill-paying Web sites.

The training inside branch offices is also bringing more people on board. Bank of America says 3.2 million customers use its bill-paying site, up from 1.8 million at the beginning of 2003.

Some banks are offering incentives. Last year, Chase began sending letters to customers who were already doing some banking online but were not yet paying their bills electronically. It offered them $5 for each bill they paid online, up to $25, to help them start.

"We found that works well; once they try it they're hooked," said Leslie Ehrlich, senior vice president for marketing of the bank's electronic channels group.

The number of customers paying bills online has risen 25 percent since 2002, according to Chase, which would not be more specific. The average Chase customer who pays bills online usually pays about eight a month, Mr. Ehrlich added.

Banks and other companies, of course, have a vested interest in having customers deal with bills electronically. Online payments mean less expense for printing, handling and mailing paper.

But Internet bill paying has a long way to go before consumers give up paper forever. For one thing, most people who pay bills online still receive them in the mail. And some people just savor the ritual and perceived control of paying bills with pen and checkbook in hand.

Still, there are potential time-saving advantages as the process is streamlined and as payment choices expand.

Many online bill payers now go directly to businesses' Web sites, like those of telephone or utility companies. Others like to pay several bills from one site. That is where the banks and brokerage firms come in, along with services like Yahoo Finance, Paytrust and Checkfree. While some of these services are free - though banks may require that you keep a minimum balance with them - others charge $5 to $13 a month.

When paying a utility or other company directly, customers can log on to its Web site and authorize a credit card or debit payment. Verizon, among many other utilities, offers customers the option to make automatic monthly deductions from their bank or credit union accounts. Verizon will stop sending paper bills on request, but customers can still read complete bills online, including the usual promotional material and regulatory notices found in envelope stuffers, according to Maria Malicka, executive director of e-commerce at Verizon. The company will send a notice via e-mail when a new bill is available online. The number of Verizon bills paid online, including automatic and one-time debits, doubled in 2003, to 6.6 million from 3.3 million in 2002, she said.

Of course, going to the Web site of each creditor can be time-consuming. The average household gets 13 monthly bills, according to TowerGroup. Many people prefer to consolidate the process. Banks and independent financial Web sites offer a one-stop approach, allowing consumers to handle payments in one place on everything from mortgages to lawn services.

Users of these one-stop shops create a password-protected account. They may need an hour or so to set up their profile, listing names, addresses and account numbers of the creditors they want to pay - and when. The services, however, often have information about major companies in their systems, so users need only click on the right one. Automatic monthly payments can be set up for fixed charges like rent or the minimum payment on credit cards, although these, too, can be adjusted as needed.

Bill payers who need to send out a paper check, instead of transferring the money electronically, can do so online as well. When Mr. Dill needed to reimburse his father in Jacksonville, Fla., for football tickets, Bank of America issued a check for him and mailed it at no charge as a courtesy. (Of course, he could also have written a check himself.)

Although online payments are often debited immediately from a bill payer's account, the time they take to clear can vary. Payment directly to a company through its Web site is often completed in a day, while payment through a third party like a bank can take two to seven days. Of course, not all services let bill payers take funds from a variety of accounts. Bank of America, for example, does not allow customers to pay bills directly from outside brokerage accounts or credit unions, but Paytrust does.

For people who want to see their bills in their entirety online, there are companies that provide the service, but customers will have to redirect their paper bills to these firms, which, in turn, scan the bills into their systems. Paytrust (www.paytrust.com), a product of the Metavante Corporation in Milwaukee, is among the sites offering this service, for which it charges $12.95 a month. Paytrust and some other services also offer to send CD's at year-end with all billing information, for about $20. Many banks also allow customers to view a year's worth of bills so they can print and file them for tax or other purposes. This kind of service is usually free.

Cesar Malaga, 34, a utility technician from Bellport, N.Y., says he still likes to get all his bills in the mail, even though he has been paying them online through Chase for nearly three years.

"If something goes wrong I want to be able to return to a piece of paper," he said.

Lynnette Khalfani, 35, a writer from West Orange, N.J., knows firsthand that things can go wrong occasionally. She said she discovered recently that her checking account had been debited twice for the $800 annual maintenance fee on her time-share vacation home in Antigua. She said the extra charge was removed after it was reported.

Companies that offer online bill paying say billing errors typically affect very few customers - less than half a percent of all their online accounts, on average each month. Many companies say they offer to pay late fees if they are a result of their own error, and some say they will help in disputes with businesses or credit reporting agencies.

MATT COFFIN, the chief executive of LowerMyBills.com, a price-comparison service based in Santa Monica, Calif., suggests that consumers who are considering electronic bill payment start slowly, perhaps by paying one bill directly on a creditor's Web site. Most sites allow customers to make a one-time payment online.

A confirmation number is usually supplied via e-mail or directly on the screen. Mr. Coffin advised consumers to write down the number or print it out.

And if you are still worried, he said, "call the company in a few days to make sure it went through."

"Then go back and try a few other bills," he added, "and then sign up to do it every month." The bottom line, he said, is that the process will save money, trouble and time, and "maybe you'll save a tree."

Installing New Fonts

TIP OF THE DAY

Installing New Fonts

Microsoft and Apple jointly developed a font standard called "TrueType" which is scalable and is supported in both Windows and the MacOS.  Scalable means you can increase or decrease the size of the font without distorting it.

Way back before the Internet, you generally had to purchase font packages and install them from disk. You can still purchase commercial font packages in retail stores and online, but for the most part, any font that you may want is likely available as a free download from dozens of Web sites.

If you know the name of the font(s) that you want to add, try going to your favorite search engine and putting the font name followed by ".ttf" into the search bar. The ".ttf" tells it to look specifically for the True Type Font extension, which will narrow your search results to actual sites that have the font. For instance, if you were looking for the "comic" font, put "comic.ttf" into the search engine so that you will go to sites that will actually have the font for downloading.

If you just want to go on a font finding spree, try going to 1001freefonts.com, acidfonts.com, getfonts.com, or type "free fonts" into any search engine.

When you find the font that you want, you must download it to your computer from the Web site. The exact process differs from site to site, but be sure to remember where you saved the file on your computer. If the download file has a ".zip" extension, it means it has been compressed and will require an unzip utility such as WinZip.

Once you have downloaded the fonts that you want to add, go to the Control Panel (Start/Settings/Control Panel) and open the Fonts icon. This should open a window that displays your currently installed fonts. Next, click on File / Install New Font to open the Add Fonts window. Navigate to the folder that contains the downloaded fonts by using the Folders: section. When you get to the folder containing the new fonts, they will automatically appear in the List of fonts: box at the top. If you want all of the fonts listed, click on the "Select All" button to the right, then on OK. If you only want certain fonts installed, hold down the "Ctrl" button on your keyboard, then select the fonts that you want to install, then press the OK button.

The newly installed fonts will appear in the list and will now be available to all of your programs that allow you to change fonts. A word of warning: installing too many fonts can impact the overall performance of your system and slow it down. The more fonts you install, the longer it will take Windows and some other programs to load. The number of installed fonts will appear at the bottom left of the list of fonts. To remove a font, simply click on it and press the delete key on your keyboard. To view a font, simply double-click it. Windows has a core group of fonts that are necessary for the system to operate properly, so before deleting any fonts check the table of required fonts that Sue Chastain has so kindly posted here.

Source: Ken Colburn of Data Doctors

Aspect Ratio

TIP OF THE DAY

ASPECT RATIO

I consider Aspect Ratio the dirty secret of digital photography.  Aspect Ratio expresses the proportions of the screen width and height. It is expressed as [width]:[length], usually either 4:3 (for traditional NTSC television signals) or 16:9 for widescreen DVDs or HDTV signals.  In photography, the standard print is 4x6, meaning it has an Aspect Ration of 3:2 (i.e. for every 3 inches on the long side, you will have 2 inches on the short side).  The problem with most digicams on the market is that they use a 4:3 Aspect Ratio, the same as on your standard TV and computer monitor, but different than standard photo prints.

This becomes a problem when you try to print your pictures from your digicam: If you do not “trim/crop” your 4:3 Aspect Ratio picture, your printer will do it for you automatically which can result in missing critical details on the edge of a picture including arms, legs, faces, dog tails, your Aunt Bertha…..you get the picture.  (Pun intended).   Here’s an example:

                                    

On the left you have a 4:3 Aspect Ratio picture.   On the right, the same picture has been cropped to a 3:2 Aspect Ratio in the manner a printer will do it for you to make it ready for printing on to 4x6 photo paper.  If you do not trim the 4:3 picture manually, your printer will automatically do it for you, clipping equally from the top and the bottom.  If I had manually trimmed the picture, I would have clipped off the bottom, thus losing some of the backpack, but keeping my eldest daughter’s head intact.

The solution is to only buy digicams that have a 3:2 Aspect Ratio mode.  Not all do, so you have to check carefully.  After four years of using digicams, I have forever sworn off any digicam that does not come with a 3:2 Aspect Ratio mode.

Here are some good choices of cameras with 3:2 Aspect Ratio, and reviews of each one.

Canon Digital Rebel
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2003_reviews/300d.html

Sony F828
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2003_reviews/f828.html

Olympus C-750 Ultra-Zoom
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2003_reviews/c750uz.html

Olympus C-5060 Wide Zoom
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2003_reviews/c5060.html

Kodak DX4530
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2003_reviews/dx4530.html

Better than Google?

TIP OF THE DAY

BETTER THAN GOOGLE?

I have tried both Grokker2 and Vivisimo (http://vivisimo.com/). I think Vivisimo accomplishes the same thing without (1) downloading the Grokker software and (2) is easier to understand.
By the way, Google has introduce a slew of new searches.

• UPC code (e.g., 093155118409)
• VIN number (NLLLLNNLNNLNNNNNN; N is a number and L is a letter)
• Area codes (e.g., 305: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=305)
• USPS tracking (NNNN NNNN NNNN NNNN NNNN NN)
• FAA registration (LNNNLL)
• Airport delays, weather (e.g., mia airport http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=mia+airport)
• Flight status & tracking (e.g., American 69: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=american+69) This flight should be in the air if you click before noon.  I think the Travelocity page is better than the FBOweb.

Better search results than Google?

Next-generation sites help narrow Internet searches

Monday, January 5, 2004 Posted: 1606 GMT (12:06 AM HKT)

NEW YORK (AP) -- As wonderful as Internet search engines are, they have a pretty big flaw. They often deliver too much information, and a lot of it isn't quite what we're looking for. Who really bothers to read the dozens of pages of results that Google generates?

Some intriguing technologies are getting better at bringing order to all that chaos, and could revolutionize how people mine the Internet for information.

Software now emerging analyzes search results and automatically sorts them into categories that, at a glance, present far more information than the typical textual list.

"We enliven the otherwise deadening process of searching for information," said Raul Valdes-Perez, co-founder of Vivisimo Inc., which quickly puts search results into clickable categories.

Pittsburgh-based Vivisimo sells its technology to companies and intelligence agencies, and offers free Web searches at Vivisimo.com.

Valdes-Perez describes his company this way: If the Internet is a giant bookstore in which all the books are piled randomly on the floor, then Vivisimo is like a superfast librarian who can instantly arrange the titles on shelves in a way that makes sense.

Consider it a 21st century Dewey Decimal System designed to fight information overload. But unlike libraries, Vivisimo doesn't use predefined categories. Its software determines them on the fly, depending on the search results. The filing is done through a combination of linguistic and statistical analysis, a method that even works with other languages.

A similar process powers Grokker, a downloadable program that not only sorts search results into categories but also "maps" the results in a holistic way, showing each category as a colorful circle. Within each circle, subcategories appear as more circles that can be clicked on and zoomed in on.

It takes a few minutes to get used to Grokker. But the value of its nonlinear approach quickly becomes clear.

Let's say, for example, you're curious about accommodations in France and enter a search for "Paris Hilton."

Google recognizes this as a search in the category of "Regional-Europe-Travel and Tourism-Lodging-Hotels" but still produces page after page with links about celebrity socialite Paris Hilton and her exploits. That's because Google's engine ranks pages largely based on how many other sites link to them, sending the most popular pages to the top.
A screen shot of Grokker2 shows how search results are displayed.

If you run the search on Grokker, however, the resulting circle shows all the possible categories of information the Internet offers on a search for "Paris Hilton" -- including reviews, maps and online booking sites for the Hilton hotel in Paris, which are all but buried in the Google rankings. Now you've much more quickly found not what is popular among Internet gawkers, but what is genuinely useful to you.

Groxis Inc., the 15-person company that introduced Grokker last year and released an upgraded, $49 second version in December, is not out to replace Google. Grokker is not in itself a search engine -- it only analyzes and illustrates search engines' results.

For example, Grokker2 can categorize and map files on your hard drive -- arranging them by content, not by the folders you happened to put them in -- or listings on Amazon.com. If you use Grokker2 to search the Web, it combines results from six search engines -- Yahoo, MSN, AltaVista, Wisenut, Teoma and FAST, a business-focused product by a Norwegian company.

In 2004, Grokker plans to release up to two dozen downloadable plug-ins that will set its colored circles loose on a wider variety of databases, including the Library of Congress, news Web sites and yes, Google itself.

"We now have the capability to 'grok' anything," said R.J. Pittman, chief executive of Sausalito, California-based Groxis. Would-be Grokkers, a note of caution: it requires Windows 2000 or XP or Mac OS X.

The Google plug-in is partly a market test; Google and Groxis will analyze how well it works and then consider whether to work on developing a service together, Pittman said.

Google spokesman Nathan Tyler declined to comment on Groxis. Nor would he say whether Google is exploring its own measures of sprucing up search pages with categorization tools like Vivisimo or visualization aids like Grokker.

Another visualization possibility is offered by TouchGraph LLC, which has a Google plug-in that shows links as an interconnected web, an appropriate image for the World Wide Web.

Such tools have been applied by the Manhattan firm Plumb Design in its Visual Thesaurus, which maps a word's meanings, or in a navigation tool it developed for a Smithsonian Institution exhibit.

Meanwhile, a number of search sites have gotten hip to honing results.

For example Teoma, which is part of Ask Jeeves Inc., suggests ways to refine or narrow a search. That means a Teoma search for "Las Vegas" will serve up roughly the same links as other sites, but it also suggests "Vacation Packages" and "Vegas Wedding Chapel."

"Search has to evolve," Pittman said. "It can't just be Google sitting there with a stash of places they've crawled on the Web. People are becoming more astute and demanding better results, and they're demanding a more powerful search experience. People like to get a landscape of information once they've found out there's one available."


Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.