This week's column will hopefully help you enjoy the festive season without having to endure any computer headaches.
It's not for everybody but sending seasons greetings via ecards can get you out of a lot of trouble when you're rushed at the last minute. There are thousands of sites that offer such a service and the master has been informed by his webDotWizards that USAgreetings.com is one of the best. webDotWiz has been further advised that the seasons section contains probably the best selection of Christmas greeting ecards. Before sending your ecard, make sure you've unticked the boxes inviting you to receive newsletters and promotions from other companies.
If you're going to have family friends around and they'll be using your computer, it would be sensible to set up Windows XP's guest account and only allow them to play games and so on under this account. You certainly don't want them logged in under your administrator account!
The festive season might be a chance for you to contact family and friends overseas. Perhaps you already use services such as MSN Messenger to chat online. Why not spend a few dollars and get a cheap headphone/microphone set and talk online - it will certainly save you plenty of dollars. It's simple to set up - plug in the mike and headphones to your soundcard's inputs, start up Messenger, choose Audio from the menu, tune the volume and away you go. Apart from a second or two delay, it's just like using the phone, but doesn't cost a cent.
Why not put together a collection of photos with Photo Story, either from your digital camera or scanned into your computer, to create a movie you can send to family and friends to celebrate the year? Although Photo Story is only available for Windows XP, other Windows users can use Irfanview. It doesn't take too long to order the photos, add some background music and narration, and have Photo Story produce a movie that can be burnt onto CD which everybody can watch with Windows Media Player. A similar sort of project could be put together in Movie Maker if you've got the extra time. Of course, if you've got some footage from your digital camcorder, Movie Maker makes it easy to create a short movie with titles, music and narrative.
If you find yourself wondering how to spend some time during the festive season, remember that there are approximately eight billion (yes, billion) pages on the Web so there's plenty to read, listen to and watch.
