Question: Belinda asks, "How do you shut down the computer when it locks up so badly that the mouse locks up?"
Answer: Good question, Belinda. Sometimes your computer will freeze up completely. This usually happens at the most inopportune of moments. When it does, you really only have one choice: push and hold the power button until the system shuts down. You can then wait a few seconds and turn it back on, or you can unplug the power cord and then push the power button. What that does is to make the system try to start up using the power it has stored up. It won't be successful, but the power will be drained out. If you have a laptop, you'll also have to unplug the battery to do this. The thing is, by that time, you'll have waited long enough anyway. Ok, after that, you can just restart normally, but be aware that your computer will probably want to run check disk when you do restart because it wasn’t shut down properly.
Cool Site: Upstartly.com: Have you ever have an idea for a business but were afraid to try it? Well, this week's cool website can help. Upstartly.com is a site that gets your business idea validated before you start. You create a page on the site that describes your business idea and send it out to potential customers or users. They then will validate your idea by sharing it with someone else, paying to be on a private beta, or committing to buy your product or service by preordering with a credit card, which will be charged after you launch then you get the money. Here's what the site says about why you should use it:
quote:"Launching a start-up is risky and can be very difficult. Most investors want to see traction before they fund you. Upstartly lets your startup have traction even before you launch. You can walk into a meeting with…potential investors and tell them: "My idea is validated because I already have users willing to pay for it: I even have their credit card info and will charge them as soon as I launch". I'm pretty sure that would blow away any investor."
The site has 31 different startup ideas on it and some of them are kind of cool. The pages you create have three sections: The Team, The Pitch, and a Validate this startup section where people can subscribe or share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, or Hacker News. Not sure on that last one, but there you go. This looks like a new site, but it also seems like a pretty good idea. What do you think?
Cool Gadget: Microsoft SharedView: This week I've found a free software gadget. It's from Microsoft and it's called SharedView. SharedView is a program that lets you share applications with your work team. This is a great tool for folks who don't office together, but still need to work together on documents and what have you. With this free download which, by the way, requires a Windows Live account to use, you can share whatever you're up to with up to 15 different participants. Each of them has a different color mouse so that participants can point around on the screen and everyone can see what is happening. It also adds a "Work with me" toolbar to Microsoft Office applications. Here's how it works. You start the program, which puts a big bar at the top of the screen. Then, to create a session, you sign in with your Live ID, and then send invitations to the session. You can send invitations by email, you can send a link, or they can just join with your email address and a password generated by the program. The folks you invite do have to have SharedView installed, but fortunately it's free, so that's no big deal. You can add handouts that your participants can download if they like, and once folks join in, you can share any currently open application with them. If you are the host of the session, you get to drive. In other words, everyone else can only just see what you're doing. They can request to take control of the application and if you agree, then they can make changes to the document. In Word, these changes can all be tracked, and you have the capability of reasserting control at any time. You also have a chat box into which you can type messages that go to everyone else in the session and appear as small popups on their screens.
It's All "Geek" To Me: Deprecated: This week's term is Deprecated. It refers to a feature of a program or even maybe a programming language that is still available to be used right now, but it won't be staying around for much longer. Deprecated features are generally either features that no one uses, or that have been superseded by something that's better, or easier to use, or whatever. Planned obsolescence.
