To set up a Category / Mailing List…

Open Windows Live Mail

Click on Contacts (bottom left)

Click on Category (top left)
Note: Categories are the same as Groups/Distribution Lists

Type a Category name

Click Save

You have now created a new Category (e.g. MyList)

There are a few ways to populate the list with contacts

Option 1:

Click on All Contacts

Left click and drag the Contact that you want to add to the Category and drop it in the name of the Category where you want it included.

Option 2:

Right Click on any contact in your Contact List

Left click on Copy Contact to and select the Category where you want it included.

Remember Category is the same as Group/Distribution lists. Who knows why they keep changing terminology!

Option 3:

Going back a few steps, some of you sharp eyed folk may have noticed that when we created our new Category, the frame also gave us the opportunity to add contacts to that Category from the Contacts List.

This method combines the two from above.

To use the Category / list

Create an email as normal

Click on To: to bring up your Contacts

Select the Category that you want to use from your address book and add to the To line

Note that when it is added it shows the ‘+’ sign to indicate that it is a category/mailing list

Hope this helps

Taff Lovesey

www.litespc.co.uk
www.weblites.co.uk
www.lovesey.net

One such software application is Microsoft Office, the suite that includes the word processing software Word™, the mathematical spread-sheet solution Excel™ and the presentation software Powerpoint™.

Due to their position in the market, which has made them an unofficial de facto standard, even many basic home computer users have installed some form of Microsoft Office product, in particularly Word™ and Excel™.

From my field experience I know that many of these copies will be effectively illegal, borrowed from friends or the office and installed on home systems.  However, for those of you that have shelled out your hard earned ‘shekels’ for a legal personal license for the Office suite, you will know that it is not cheap. Depending on your circumstances and requirements, the offerings range from £85 to many hundreds.

What many people do not know is that there are far more cost effective alternatives and one of the best is a product called Open Office.

Open Office is a productivity suite produced along a similar design to Microsoft Office. It contains a variety of applications including a word processor, spread-sheet application and presentation software. It is also fully compatible with the Microsoft Office so can be used to read and create documents in the Microsoft format.

Open Office is categorised as an ‘open source product’. This means that it has been produced by volunteers; programmers and technicians who have a passion for producing free to use software applications of a high quality.

The software can be freely downloaded via the internet and can be found at http://www.openoffice.org

To download the application click on the Download link on the OpenOffice home page.

Next you will be asked where you want to save the installation file.

Download should take approx. 5-6 minutes on broadband.

Once the download has completed you can either select Run if prompted or browse to the folder where the file was saved and run it by double clicking on it.

Following installation you will see an Open Office icon on your computer desktop.

Double Click this icon to run Open Office.

The application load screen, similar to the one shown, will pop up and you can choose to use any of the inclusive products.

By default (ie; standard setting) any new document created will be saved in the Open Office format; .odt, .ott, .oth, and .odm

To save documents in Microsoft format, create them in Open Office but when you have finished select Save As (instead of Save) and change the file type to reflect the MS Office format required (e.g; .doc, .xls, .ppt). This will create a Microsoft Office compatible document.

As indicated earlier, there is no charge for Open Office, it is free to use. Apache, the organisation behind the application do ask for donations to help fund their activities. This is very much voluntary though and there is no mandatory requirement to donate. See their web site for more information.

Information provided by Taff Lovesey owner of LITES PC (www.litespc.co.uk) and WEBLites (www.weblites.co.uk)

Here’s a bit of advice with regards the wireless HP Deskjet 8500 and other models and in particular if you are trying to re-install the printer and follows a lengthy session trying to get one recognised by a Vista system.

First and foremost and THE place to start if you are reinstalling…

STEP 1: Take a bit of extra time and download and run the scrubber / driver removal tool from the HP support web site. Using this tool prior to trying the reinstall could you save you a lot of aggravation. I would also recommend re-starting the system following removal of the driver.

Then…

STEP 2: Download the latest driver for your model from the manufacturer website, for HP the link above. You can use your installation disks if you have them but I would go for the current driver set if you have web access and the time to download it.

STEP 3: Most wireless models have the ability to enter the wireless encryption key via the printer control panel. It will be in a menu section called network or wireless set-up. Connect your printer to the wireless network by using this method, selecting your SSID (network name) and entering the key (wireless password).

STEP 4: <<Optional>> Make a note of the IP (network) address of the printer (e.g; 192.168.1.66). If it is not shown on the printer control panel use the menu to print out a printer configuration sheet and the address should be shown (you may need this later)

STEP 5: You should now be Ok to install the driver software from the download or the disk. Note that some models require that a USB cable be connected. Rather annoying for some as printers often ship without a printer cable these days and if you are a home user installing a wireless model you may not have a USB cable. Fortunately most current wireless printers do not require this.

STEP 6: Hopefully you won’t need a step 6 but if your printer still doesn’t load then try a re-install with the USB cable connected. Following installation you can then switch the printer to a wireless connection by running the software again or manually adding the printer via Add Printer in Windows Control Panel.
Note: You may need to run the driver scrubber again (see STEP 1) before trying to reinstall

Hope this helps but I also hope you won’t need this post!

Taff Lovesey
www.litespc.co.uk
www.weblites.co.uk
www.lovesey.net

1. Open Control Panel and turn off auto updates.
2. Browse to C:/Windows/SoftwareDistribution/Download
3. Delete all contents in the Download folder but do not remove the folder.
4. Next browse to C:/Windows/SoftwareDistribution/DataStore
5. Delete all contents but again do not delete the folder itself.
6. Open the Logs folder and delete the contents. Do not delete the Logs folder itself
7. Open a browser and go to http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9665683
8. Download and run this fix
   Note this has two modes Default and Aggressive. Try Default first.
9. Restart the computer.
10. Turn Windows Auto Updating back on
11. Run Windows Update to download and install the latest updates

If this process doesn’t work then try running the fix in Aggressive mode

Note: for items 3, 5 & 6 you may find some files are locked and you are unable  to delete them. If so then make sure Windows Auto Update is off and reboot the system. You should now be able to remove them.
Note too that even after this I had problems deleting one file in the DataStore but Windows did allow me to rename (strange). After I did this I was able to delete it.

Hope this helps

Taff Lovesey
Owner
www.litespc.co.uk
www.weblites.co.uk
www.lovesey.net 

Strict Standards: Accessing static property JCache::$_handler as non static in C:\xampp\htdocs\Myschool\libraries\joomla\cache\cache.php on line 420

I looked at the forums and some people modified the configuration files but I found that this didn’t work for me. It fixed the error in config but not when editing pages.

What did work for me was to download the 64bit version of WAMPServer and use this instead of XAMPP.

You can find WAMPServer here

Rgds
Taff Lovesey
Owner
www.litespc.co.uk
www.weblites.eu
www.lovesey.net (author page)

One issue that has arisen with the SX115 is that when trying to replace a low cartridge the cartridge caddy will not move to the replacement position unless a cartridge is completely empty.

This is fine for those that have light printing needs but if you have a low level cartridge and want to print a large document, or multiple smaller documents, this can be a pain.

The instructions on the printer detail how to replace a spent cartridge using the printer stop button. With this method you cannot replace a cartridge that is low (ie; not empty).

However, there is a way to do this.

You can view on-screen instructions for replacing an ink cartridge using the printer maintenance utilities.

1. Click on Start > Control Panel > Printers/Printers and Faxes; right-click on the Epson printer icon and then left-click on Printing Preferences.
2. Next click on the Maintenance tab.
3. Finally click on the Ink Cartridge Replacement button and follow the on screen instructions.

This process will take you step by step through selecting the cartridge for replacement and will automatically move the cartridge carriage to the maintenance position.

Rgds

Taff Lovesey
Owner
www.litespc.co.uk
www.weblistes.eu
www.lovesey.net

The sad fact is that the hard disk industry has been hit hard by the floods in Thailand and, as a result, costs have rocketed, some now double what they were 2 weeks ago.

There is a good summary here http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/hard-drive-prices-rise-thailand-flooding-news/ and as an example Western Digital who had targeted production of 58 million units are now projecting only 26 million will be produced this year.

So if you’ve got hard disks to spare – hold on to them. The inflation in value is higher than any interest you’ll get in the bank!

Taff Lovesey
Owner
www.litespc.co.uk
www.weblites.eu 

For those of you familiar with adding buttons you may be aware that the standard process allows the addition of only TWO additional text fields. These can be added by creating a button via the Merchant Services tab…

… followed by customising the button and adding the additional text fields

However, what is not so well known is that you can add additional text fields by entering HTML code.

The first two lines are the lines created in the button code using the on-line button function. The third line below, for Telephone has been manually entered.
Notice the numbering sequence of the on1, on2, on3 and os1,os2,os3 fields shown in red.

<tr><td><input type="hidden" name="on1" value="Child's name">Child's name</td></tr><tr><td><input type="text" name="os1" maxlength="200"></td></tr>
<tr><td><input type="hidden" name="on2" value="Child's Date of Birth">Child's Date of Birth</td></tr><tr><td><input type="text" name="os2" maxlength="200"></td></tr>
<tr><td><input type="hidden" name="on3" value="Telephone">Telephone</td></tr><tr><td><input type="text" name="os3" maxlength="200"></td></tr>

Taff Lovesey
Owner
www.litespc.co.uk
www.weblites.eu
www.lovesey.net

If you are experiencing this then don’t start clicking, just wait- the email will eventually load and display.

I have just come off the phone with Paypal and they are ‘working on the problem’.
In the meantime there is a workaround that has worked for some posted by bachi_shop on the ebay forum – <here>

[Update 14/10: Here are the details of bachi-shop's fix for quick reference]

You need to open your hosts file & edit it to redirect the non-existent network request to your own PC:

1. Start Notepad.exe as Administrator 

2. Open this file, or create it if it does not exist: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

3. Add this line to the end of the file:

127.0.0.1 102.112.2o7.net

4. Save the file.

This will basically route 2o7.net request back to your computer, which will reject it, allowing you to read your emails quickly and in peace once again.
This fix will work on 32/64 bit versions of both Vista and Win 7.

Note  that when I spoke to the initial support engineer at Paypal he told me to use WebMail instead of Outlook to get around the problem!!!! As you’d imagine I blew my top and asked to speak to a supervisor who confirmed that Paypal were aware and investigating.

In the interim I have turned off my preview pane in Outlook which prevents the problem occurring. It pops up again if you try to open the email though. Better still, try the fix above to work around the issue.

Come on Paypal – get this sorted – and quickly.

Taff Lovesey
www.litespc.co.uk
www.weblites.eu

So what should we be aware of…

(1) Returns
Previously regulation stated that returns should be handled by email request. However, different sites interpreted this in different ways. By 2013 all sites selling product on-line must implement a standard returns form, simplifying the process for the consumer.

(2) Return Costs
So who pays for the return of goods?
If on-line stores expect the consumer to  pay for the return of unwanted goods then they must state so clearly when the item is purchased, it can no longer be hidden in terms and conditions. They must also indicate the approximate cost of return for the goods.

(3) The Right to Withdraw
Gone is the seven working day cool off period. Consumers now have the right to return goods within 14 days for a full refund. This includes weekends and bank hols, no longer working days.

(4) Digital Goods refunds
The 14 day rule above now applies to digital download content, however, the right to request a refund  is only enforceable up to the point of download. Once software or media has been downloaded it is too late.

(5) Clearer technical specification
A big change here is that it is now the responsibility of the SELLER to publish technical and minimum requirement for compatibility rather than the consumer.

(6) Refund period
The new regulation specifies that sellers have 14 days maximum to refund consumers.

(7) Pre-select options now banned
A common practice is to have add-ons pre-ticked, forcing the consumer to remove the tick. You may have sent his on things like additional insurance and options. Whilst pre-ticked boxes are still legal for marketing purposes (ie; where no charge is made) it will be illegal to use pre-ticked boxes for paid services.

You can read more on this subject <<here>>

Looks like some sites may need some significant changes before 2013!

Rgds

Taff Lovesey
www.litespc.co.uk
www.weblites.eu