Printing: - I found that the recent pattern by Janet Granger was too wide, not too long, for my printer. Perhaps changing the setting to landscape would help but there was an instruction included as to how it could be reduced. I'm waiting for my son's visit this weekend to figure that one out for me and, of course, I will type out his instructions for future use. A lot of this stuff is "Greek" to me and I rely on my ever-growing "Bible" of computer tricks and tips.

Jeanette in Wisconsin

Refill Kits for Printers: I'm no expert here but it is my understanding that as long as our printers are under mfg. warranty, we do not want to use refills. To do so will negate our warranties.

However, we have two printers that are no longer covered and use the refill kits on both. It is very satisfactory and saves a great deal of $$$$ especially on the color ink. I will add that the ink stains with dedicated vengeance. Be sure to wear gloves and protect your work surface with an old rag. I was NOT pleased when the red ink splattered on my new Berber carpet. DH was equally unhappy when he had to pay to have that portion of flooring replaced. So glad it was his error. Such occasions are wonderful ways to add a few points to the "Honey-Do" list.

Becky Holliday

Data Storage: DH suggests you store your info on CDs...if you take care of your CDs (no scratches, no high temps) they have an estimated life of 100 years...I don't think anyone knows if it will really last that long, but long enough for most purposes.

You can get a CD burner rather inexpensively, and once it's set up, you just pick what you want to save and the CD burner does the rest! One time use blank CDs start at less than 50 cents on a spool of 50 to perhaps a $2 for a high end rewriteable CDs. That is to say, CDRs you can only write on once (like a sheet of paper) but CDRWs you can write and write over many, many times. Either will hold between 650-700 MB of information.

The CD burner will cost you $100-$400 depending on if you can an internal basic version or an external fancy version. And as with the floppies, it never hurts to spend a bit more on brand name blank CDs - the ones with the blue reverse side are the most reliable (no joke!) Some CD writers are a little complicated to set up, but your son should be able to do it for you with no problem. If you get an external USB CD writer (a little more expensive), it should be very easy to set up..you just plug it in and install the software.

Whui

Bad Disks: Just a note on cd rw (using cd's like a floppy as some burners let you do) They have a limited shelf life too. (burned cds that you can't add to don't as long as you take care of them) After adding and subtracting so many times you can't burn to them any more...good news is that if you try to add something and the burner won't do it(and it is not a space issue) just transfer your stuff to the hard drive and burn it to a new cd. I learned this the hard way. Luckily I didn't lose data.

Michelle

Computer tips: I have an external hp CD-writer and I use Sony CD-R disks and after I write to it, I can use it in my other computer and rewrite on the disk again. There is an option, after writing to the disk to allow it to be read by another computer. It then goes through some process of "organizing" the files to be readable on another computer. The cd-burner would be totally useless to me if 1) it would only be readable in the computer where it was written to or 2) it could only be used once.

Carol

Computer disks: Having checked this out with DH, who has worked with computers for nigh on 40 years (since the days when one programmed mainframes by sticking bits of coloured wire into holes on a board), I am going to stick my neck out and disagree with those who've said they don't last. I've used disks for archiving for 15 years or so, and have had no trouble. One of my clients just did the third edit in eight years of a book I originally backed up on a disk, and the original disk is still fine. Like hard drives, how long they last depends more on how much they're used. I have had only 2 problems, in fact: one when I tried to use a disk from someone else's computer on mine, and it turned out her heads were just slightly out of alignment; and occasionally when I've used old disks which had been wiped and used several times. Don't buy 'seconds' (the 50 for $5 deals), and if a document is vital, make 2 back-up disks. I've never actually needed the second back-up; I keep these at DmiddleD's business in case of fire, flood or pestilence.

Carol

Printing: I also have an HP printer and the problem of pictures splitting between two pages. To avoid it I don't change any of my settings. I highlight (select) the picture(s) I want to print by holding and dragging the left clicker until the area is shaded, then release the clicker and from the "print" menu I choose "options." Under options you can designate how much of the document you want to print, and if you choose "selection," the only thing that prints is the picture(s) you highlighted. The highlighted selection is realigned for printing purposes only and comes out on the top of the page. Just be care not to highlight too many items at one time or you will end up with the same problem of splitting at the bottom.

Char

Printing: To fit your printables all on one page with a HP printer...click on Print and a box comes up with Properties on it. Click on Properties then under Set Up check off the box that says Scale to Fit. There are some other important features in there that you can play with too that can make quite a difference to the quality of your printing if you haven't tried them.

Jean Day

New place to post your mini sites: I have just posted my gourd web site with a new craft directory on the web. In corresponding with the owner of the site, I found that she is also looking for artisans in many other areas to add to her directory.

If you have a web page featuring your miniatures, you may want to add your
site to this directory to reach some new people. The site is called craft-crazy and the link to visit is: http://www.craft-crazy.com Look for the "Miniatures" category

She has categories for lots of other crafts and hobbies, so as she grows you may find some helpful areas in miniatures and more.

Bonnie Gibson - Tucson, Arizona

Foreign letter characters on an English PC: For folks needing to print special foreign language characters, you can install foreign characters using your Windows 98 CD.

Put your Win 98 CD in your drive. Go to start, settings, control panel, keyboard, select the language tab, click "add". Make sure you check the box that says "enable indicator on task bar", then choose the language keyboard you want to install, then let it install.

It gives you a little icon in the lower right hand corner of your screen...for example, mine has English and French, so I have a little blue icon that says "En" and when I click on it, I can change it to "Fr". Then to find the "special characters" it's mostly trial and error because your keyboard will then respond like a German keyboard (or whatever language you chose), which means the characters printed on your keyboard do not correspond to what they will show.

You can then find the characters by trial and error, look for a "keyboard template" online, or perhaps a nice SSer with a German keyboard can tell you where the "a" with 2 dots key is located. This will work for European languages. For Asian languages I believe an additional plug in required.

If you only need one sign, you can also go to the "symbols" font in Word and you may find the specific sign you need. Hope that all makes sense!

Whui