The Ides of October 1999

E-MAIL TIP Have you needed to send one of your spreadsheets or documents to someone, but been unsure how to send it as an e-mail attachment? If you use Netscape Communicator 4.x for e-mail, all you need to do is follow the four steps at Newbie U to share your Excel spreadsheets, MSWord documents, or even "screen shots" of error messages. If you want additional information about this you can read more Netscape tips or Using Messenger: Attaching a File to a Message. Even if you're an "old hand" at sending attachments you might find it handy to set up Netscape so it will automagically know which folder to open when looking for your files. If you follow the directions at Netscape's Netcenter Technical Support you can set it up so the "My Documents" folder is the first place it looks, instead of the ". . . \Program Files\Netscape\Communicator\Program" folder. INTERNET TIP Maybe you've visited a Web site that "de-activated" your browser's back button, or you want to return to a Web site you surfed past a couple of days ago but is now long gone from the Location or Netsite pulldown menu. Now how can you find your way back? One way is to press the Ctrl and H buttons to bring up Netscape's History. This will bring up a list where the sites you've visited are in a user-sortable, multi-column format. You may then select the URL you're looking for, and double click on it to revisit it. The Netscape 4.x History list allows you to review a list of Web sites you've previously visited, including sites you've gone to in previous online sessions. Because the History list is "persistent", the list can become very large, in contrast to the Netscape "Go" menu that contains only items visited in your present online session. The size of Netscape 4.x's history file depends on what the preferences are for "Visited links expire after X days" -- any web pages you visited more than X days ago will be forgotten from the history file. The "date visited" column is the default sort order, but you can sort and rearrange the list by clicking on the "title bar" of each category. For example, if you want to view the sites in alphabetical order by title, click the Title title bar (thank you, Department of Redundancy Department). You can also search the History for words in the title or URL by pressing the Ctrl and F keys. More details can be found at Features of the History List in Communicator 4.x and Viewing or Clearing the Netscape History File, which includes info on the History list in Netscape 3.x and 4.0x. On another note: when we change to daylight savings time versions 3.x and 4.x of Netscape may report that the "bookmarks have changed" and you have to hit OK for it to continue. Not to worry -- this is just a "Netscapism" that pops up twice a year because of "falling back" or "springing ahead" one hour. WINDOWS TIP When you have a window open, such as the History file mentioned above, you can "optimize" the width of any column, adjusting its size to fit your preferences. For example, if you open the My Documents folder on your PC and choose to view it in Details mode (View | Details) the folder window will have 4 columns -- Name, Size, Type, and Modified. If the columns are scrunched too close together and you can't see the full information for a file, Position your mouse cursor over the column border. When the mouse pointer turns into a doubled-headed arrow, press the left mouse button and drag the double-headed arrow to enlarge or shrink the column. To quickly set the optimal column width, when the mouse pointer turns into a doubled-headed arrow double-click the column border. When you do this the column width will be set to a size large enough, or small enough, to display all the information in the column. This tip also works in many Windows-based applications -- give it a try! USEFUL URL O' THE MONTH Are some of your library's policies in need of updating? Or do you just plain in need of a policy, like patron responsibilities and conduct, or gifts and donations? If so, visit the Sample Library Policies for the Small Public Library (2nd edition), compiled by the Small Library Committee of the Wisconsin Association of Public Librarians. You may adapt parts of these sample policies to adopt a policy for your library -- just copy and paste from the Web site into your word processing document, and you've got a great head start. FUN URL O' THE MONTH The Illinois State Library held a contest to gather some of the most humorous reference questions asked of librarians, and you can see the result at their Reference Question Contest Winners site. Categories included "What was the most unusual source you ever used to obtain an answer for a question?" and "Create the title of a reference book which you have always wanted to be published, but does not yet exist." My favorite from the latter category is "Complete Directory of Blue, Green, Yellow and Red Books By Height, Width and Location". RECIPE O' THE MONTH is Spinach Calzone. However, if you're looking for recipes for Halloween celebrations go to the Searchable Online Archive of Recipes Halloween collection for everything from "ghoul-ade" to "Fungus Among Us Vegetable Salad."

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	This issue of The Ides was written on October 17, 1999 The Ides is written by Joy Schwarz. Please direct any questions, comments or recipes to schwarz@winnefox.org URL: http://www.winnefox.org/ides/idesoct99.html