Geeks on Tour Newsletter: Learn to Type; Backup; Make money
Published: Sat, 02/28/09
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Geeks On Tour Newsletter Subscribe to this FREE Newsletter February 28, 2008 Newsletter Archives | GOT Class? Memberships | Articles and Links Blog | Home |
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We are getting ready to leave Fort Lauderdale this week and we plan to stop at TT Peace River and the Escapees park in Bushnell, Florida on our way out of Florida. We will be in Perry, GA for the FMCA International Convention from March 14 - 21. We have a busy schedule for the convention, and any time that we're not presenting seminars, we'll be hanging out at the Computer Help Desk area in the Multipurpose Building. We hope to see many of you there! We will have a Geeks on Tour Members get-together on Monday at 6:30, directly after the first Boot Camp session. FMCA Convention Geeks on Tour schedule:
So you don't miss anything, here's a list of other articles we've posted this month: In this newsletter
For Beginners : Learn to Type
It's designed for kids, so if you're put off by cartoon characters and a funny voice telling you 'Good Job!' then maybe this program isn't for you. But, if you want to learn the proper placement of your fingers, and get lots of easy practice leading you to true touch-typing, I can attest that this program works. And it's free. For the last couple months, I've been tutoring a 50ish man on basic computer use. He had managed to get to this stage of life without ever touching a keyboard, and he just wanted to feel a part of the 21st century. As I watched him take several seconds to find the 'r' key, it struck me how essential it still is to be able to type. I got him started on Dance Mat Typing and, by our 4th or 5th tutoring session, he told me he was up to Stage 4 and I watched him type, "this is a day like yesterday" without ever looking at the keys! If you already know how to type and you'd like to test yourself on speed, here is a Typing Speed Test website for you. Scroll down until you see the 'Start Typing Test' button to click. You will see a paragraph to type. That paragraph will stay visible for one minute as you type it. When one minute is up, you will see both your accuracy and speed. Backup with Karen's ReplicatorIf you've ever attended one of our Geeks on Tour seminars called 'Safe Computing', you know how much we preach backups. BACKUP!! BACKUP!! BACKUP!! Everyone will someday experience a computer crash, or mistakenly delete a file, or overwrite important data. It's not a matter of *if* it's just a matter of *when.* If you have a backup of your data, then the loss is a minor nuisance involving the time to find your backup and restore it to it's proper place. If you don't have a backup it can be catastrophic. There are *so* many ways to make backups. You need to investigate the choices, understand your files and what you have to back up. And, last, set up a procedure to follow. I use an external hard drive and a free software called 'Karen's Replicator.' You need to spend a little bit of time configuring Karen's Replicator, but I love how customizable it is. For example, I can set it to backup my accounting records once a week, my email address book once a month, and my website development work every day.
I also like that it is a file by file copy. So it is very easy to find a file I need to recover and just copy it. No need for a Restore program or procedure. You can find more information about Karen's Replicator at Karenware.com. You can also download it at Download.com Making Money with your Blog
For example, in our GOT articles and links blog, we write a lot about Picasa and about Wi-Fi. At left is a sample of the ads that Google displays on that blog - all about Picasa and Wi-Fi. This makes it more likely that a reader will click on one of the ads, and every click represents a few pennies in the blog owner's Adsense account. Don't expect the bank account to swell right away ok? We've had Google ads on our GOT blog for a couple years and we just now got our second $100 deposit from Google! We haven't promoted this blog much and only have 50 - 100 visits/day. You really need at least 500/day to make noticeable money. If you get up to 3-4,000 visitors/day you can start planning retirement! How do you know how many visitors you have? That's Google Analytics. You put a little piece of code at the bottom of your blog's template, then Google analytics will know everytime someone visits. To put ads on your blog, first you need a Google Adsense account. You can sign up at Google.com/adsense. You'll need to enter a website address, whether you're getting a personal or a business account, and your bank account information. Once you have an adsense account, you go the Layout screen of your blogger blog and 'Add a Gadget.' One of the gadgets you'll see is AdSense. Click the plus sign and you'll see all the options for your ads. This is where you put your Account ID and choose the size and colors for your ads. Once you've made your choices, just click Save ... and start making money ... well, in a year or two maybe :-)
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That's all for now. We hope you learned something. 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. Happy Computing! |
For the month of February, we took one short trip to a Thousand Trails park in Orlando, Florida. The Wi-Fi there is now available at the RV sites throughout the park, provided by 
Do you have a blog with lots of readers? If so, you may be able to make some money by hosting ads from Google Adsense. If you do this, you will have no control over the exact ads that get displayed on your blog. Google scans the content of your blog, and displays ads appropriate to that content.