July has been a *busy* month. First the Safari rally, then Country Coach and then FMCA. The FMCA rally was a record for us. Two seminars each day for four days and average attendance about 250. Lots of new people subscribed to this newsletter, bringing our current readership to over 1,800! If you know someone who may be interested, forward this on to them.

We've been working hard on our tutorial videos too. There are now 14 videos on Windows Vista: What's new. Most of them are for members only, but there are some available for free. Check it out, I promise you'll learn something to make life with Vista easier. And, if you want to view them all, become a member today at the introductory price of $29/year. The introductory price is valid through August 31. On September 1, it goes up to $39. Or, if you want to be able to view them offline, they are available on CD.

Now we're traveling east, determined to fill in the New England states on our map! Our next 'gig' is at Timothy Lakes resort in the Poconos area of Pennsylvania. We'll be giving seminars there on Saturday Aug 16 and Aug 23. And, we'll be available for private instruction or other computer work during the week in between. As always, you can keep track of us by watching our blog at: www.geeksontour.blogspot.com

In this newsletter

• Spotlight on Tutorial Videos at Geeks on Tour
• How do I 'Clear my Cache'
• Understanding Blogger's HTML
• Selling stuff with PayPal

Spotlight on Tutorial Videos at Geeks on Tour

On the home page of our website, we are spotlighting one of our tutorial videos. While a video is in the spotlight it will be free. We will change it every week or two, and I will send out a short notification to all newsletter subscribers about each new spotlight. There are over 100 videos on our website now, and we want to keep bringing one topic or another to the forefront.

Last week at the FMCA rally several people asked me the question, "Can Picasa resize several pictures at once?" So, I decided to spotlight the video that teaches exactly how to do that! I also wrote an article in last month's newsletter on this topic about using Picasa's Export command to prepare pictures for use in another program.

How and Why to 'Clear your Cache'

Have you ever had a problem with a website and seen a help screen that suggested you 'clear your cache?' It is often a good thing to do, and solves many problems.

First of all, what is a cache?
It's the space reserved for temporarily keeping copies of web pages you visit. Keeping a copy in the cache can make browsing work faster because when you visit a site the second time (think of when you press the Back button), it can use the copy in the cache rather than reloading it from the web.

But what about all those web pages that you visited once, or that keep changing and still need to be reloaded? The cached copies collect and can cause problems. Think of lint in a dryer ... as it collects and multiplies, it decreases the performance of the dryer until it doesn't work at all. Temporary Internet Files are like dryer lint! You need to clean them out regularly. If you haven't done it in a while - you may see a noticeable increase in performance when you do!

To clear the cache
To clean it out, in Internet Explorer 7, click on Tools, Delete Browsing History and you should see a screen like the screenshot at right.

Cache = Temporary Internet Files. That's all I'm recommending you delete. I like to keep my cookies. Cookies only contain information you entered as you visit websites such as your username and password. They make browsing the web much more convenient by remembering these things from one session to another.

History is a record of where you've been. It can be very useful when you can't remember the name of a website you visited yesterday. To see your history in Internet Explorer 7 - click on the gold star for Favorites, and History is the third button over. It's a real good idea to delete history on a public computer when you're finished using it.

Firefox
If you use Firefox, click on Tools and then Clear Private Data. You should see a very similar list of choices:

More Information
Microsoft has more detailed information on improving performance of Internet Explorer 7. If you use another browser (program to browse the web) like Netscape or AOL, or Safari, try googling for 'clear cache netscape' or 'clear cache safari.' You will find instructions on the process for those programs.

About HTML and Blogger

If you publish a blog using Blogger, you've probably noticed the tabs for HTML or Compose. You usually write a Blog post using the Compose view.

But, behind the scenes, Blogger is actually writing HTML code for you. HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language and it is the code behind everything you see on a web page.

Here is an example of why you need to know a little bit about HTML. This comes from a question on our Members' Forum:

"When trying to publish today's blog, I received the following message:HTML cannot be accepted: Closing tag has no matching opening tag:</em> What on earth does this mean, and how can I fix it?"

Here's my answer:
HTML code always has an opening tag and a closing tag.  An opening tag is some code enclosed in angle brackets <xx>.  A closing tag is the same code enclosed in brackets, but with a / at the beginning to indicate it's the end </xx>.

em is the code for Emphasis aka Italics.  So, if you see <em>This is in italics</em>  That means the words 'this is in italics' ... will display in italics, or whatever your browser does to indicate Emphasis. 

So, "Closing tag has no matching opening tag:</em>"  means that the beginning <em> tag was missing.  This happens when you use the italic button while editing a blog post, and then after adding and deleting text, you mistakenly delete part of the code.

You can fix it by going into HTML view and finding the orphaned </em> and deleting it.  Then, you can redo any italics back in the Compose view.

How to Sell stuff with PayPal

Someone who learned how to make a blog from us recently asked whether it would be possible to sell some of their crafts on their blog.

Sure!

Now, don't go expecting a booming business unless you're willing to put a lot of time and effort into promotions (just like any other business.) But, if you just want a place to showcase your stuff, and a way for people to pay you for it online, a Blog and a PayPal account will do quite nicely. You can put pictures of your stuff on a blog post, and add a 'Buy Now' button from PayPal.

PayPal is an online financial transaction processing company. It was acquired by eBay in 2002, and it is highly respected by millions of both buyers and sellers. It's pretty easy to set up an account and create those 'Buy Now' buttons. Probably a lot easier than you think. All you need is an email address and a bank account. You set up a PayPal business account with a verified email address (PayPal sends an email to the address you provide - if you answer, it's verified!), then you link it to a bank account. PayPal verifies that it is actually your bank account by sending 2 tiny deposits to the account electronically. If you can tell them the exact amounts of those deposits then you've verified that it's your account.

Now all you have to do is create the 'Buy Now' buttons. PayPal makes that easy too. Just click on the link to make a button, fill in the item's name and price. Then PayPal creates the HTML code for you (read previous article :-) You simply copy that code and paste into your blog, either in a post or in the sidebar html widget.

No, I don't work for PayPal nor do I have an affiliate program with them. I just use PayPal and love how easy they have made it for customers to pay with credit cards online. Before PayPal I had a merchant account. It was much more difficult to set up than PayPal, *and* it cost more. With the merchant account, I paid $18/month whether I used it or not. Plus I paid 3% on every sale. With PayPal I just pay the 3% and sometimes it's even less depending on the amount of the sale.

Does that give you any ideas?!

That's all for now. Thanks for reading. Your next issue will be next month. Any questions, please email us. If you like this newsletter, please forward it on to your friends! If you received this issue forwarded by a friend you can subscribe to get your own copy delivered to your in box - it's free. To see the archives of past newsletters, go to www.geeksontour.com/newsletters.

Chris Guld
www.GeeksOnTour.com