Before Hours: Geekgirl's Plain English Blog

Mousing around

Rose Vines — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:31:01 +0000

On my website, Geekgirl’s Plain English Computing, I have a whole section devoted to people who are completely new at the computing game. These days, this consists largely of the older generations, but there are others who qualify, too.

It’s been a while since I updated these articles, but I have now started to do so. The first article I’ve freshened up is Basic Mousing Technique. If you are still trying to get your mousing technique perfected - or you know someone who needs to - it’s worth a read. I also explain mousing terminology, such as “drag and drop”, “Ctrl+clicking” and so on.

As I said, it’s very basic, but we all needed to start somewhere.

Mophie Juice Pack Air: The sky is falling!

Rose Vines — Sat, 09 May 2009 13:14:03 +0000

The Air (top) with its predecessor.When Apple released its thinnest, lightest MacBook, even those who weren’t impressed with its specifications could find nothing to fault in its moniker. The MacBook Air was, undeniably, a miracle of minimalism. The same cannot be said for the Mophie Juice Pack Air.

The Juice Pack Air is the latest in Mophie’s line of cleverly designed batteries for the iPhone. It shares with its predecessor - the Juice Pack for the iPhone 3G - the ability to almost double the lifetime of your iPhone’s battery while doing double-duty as a protective case. It’s a lovely bit of technology.

But Air? Even as someone who endures the smothering, swamp-heavy atmosphere of New Orleans, I find that designation hard to swallow.

I had high hopes - after all, one of the few drawbacks of the Juice Pack for the iPhone 3G is the way it bulks up the iPhone (see my earlier review), so a slimmer Juice Pack would almost be perfect. But as the specs below show, the Air is a tad longer and wider than the previous Juice Pack and just a whisker slimmer. That’s not slim enough. When you slip it on your iPhone, that sleek sexy device transforms into something of a chubby throwback.

What’s great about the Air

Now, don’t get me wrong. There’s lots to like about the little plump Air. It encases the whole of the back and sides of your iPhone, so it provides a lot of protection without obscuring the camera lens, microphone or any essential switch or connector. It delivers the promised extra battery life, which makes daily life with your iPhone much easier. And the fact that Mophie shoehorns a life-doubling battery into a package which, although chubby, is still remarkably small, is a wonder. It’s $20 cheaper than its predecessor, too.

The Air piggybacking its predecessor (the green strips on the side are my mods).What’s not so great

Unfortunately, it also feels twenty bucks cheaper. Its shiny black plastic doesn’t have the non-slip sensuousness of the more expensive Juice Pack. Nor does it look as good, especially once you put your fingermarks all over it. And it can be a real pain extracting the phone from the Juice Pack when you want to lighten your load. That’s a real shame, because one of the big appeals of the Juice Pack is its smart battery technology which lets you drain the Juice Pack first before using any of your iPhone’s power. With my old Juice Pack, as soon as it was drained, I’d slip it off and carry the unencumbered iPhone with me. Doing that with the new Juice Pack isn’t as easy. At least you can charge and update your iPhone while it’s still encased in the Air thanks to its Micro USB connector.

The bottom line is either Juice Pack is an alluring option if you don’t mind bulking up the iPhone a bit in order to double your battery life. Plus, you get a protective case into the bargain.

But if you already own a Juice Pack for the iPhone 3G, there’s no need to lust after the Air. The Air is a downgrade on all fronts and its 0.34 ounce, 0.05 inch advantage in weight and size translates into almost nothing in the hand.

As someone who owns both, I think I’ll stick with the original Juice Pack. It has its own drawbacks (such as insets in the case that tend to peel off), but the ability to quickly slip it off the phone, its greater power and its lovely non-slip texture are winners for me.

Anyone want a Mophie Juice Pack Air, going cheap?

Feature	3G	Air
Standby Time	350 hours	270 hours
Talk time on 3G	6 hours	4.5 hours
Talk time on 2G	12 hours	9 hours
Internet use on 3G	6 hours	4.5 hours
Internet use on wi-fi	7 hours	5.4 hours
Audio playback	28 hours	20 hours
Video playback	8 hours	6 hours
Length	4.8”	4.9”
Width	2.5”	2.59”
Depth	0.8”	0.75”
Weight	3 ounces	2.66 ounces
Battery capacity	1800 mAh	1300 mAh
Connector	Mini USB	Micro USB
Price	$99.95	$79.95

On Ada Lovelace Day: A tribute to WIT

Rose Vines — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:15:00 +0000

Today is Ada Lovelace Day, celebrating the woman who first conceived of general-purpose computing and who is regarded as the first programmer. On this day, bloggers from around the world are writing about women in technology who inspire them.

On Ada Lovelace Day, I’m writing about a group of women called Women In Technology. This small group formed in Sydney in the early ’80s. WIT’s core consisted of a couple of engineers, two astrophysicists, a nuclear physicist, a microbiologist and a computer programmer (me).

We came together to provide support to one another, share ideas, and figure out ways to get more women involved in technical professions. At work, each of us was the sole female representative of our profession, which made for a great deal of isolation as well as the opportunity to define women’s roles in those professions.

Ada Lovelace, born 1815The isolation at work was reinforced by the social isolation of being a woman in a tech field. When someone would say “What do you do?” and we’d say “I work with computers” or “I study microwave radiation” we’d encounter a glassy eyed look and a prompt end to the conversation. This was back before the IBM PC made its appearance in Australia, when computers were regarded by many women as “toys for the boys”, when there were no sexy or cool tags such as “technobabes” or “geekgirls”.

WIT met for just a couple of years and we spent most of that time talking tech with abandon. Our one big public foray was a seminar on women in technology, which attracted hundreds of participants. I coded a sign-in application in the (wildly buggy) dBASE II. On arrival, we had each woman sit down at a computer and fill in her details. Almost without exception, this was the participant’s first experience with a personal computer. What a difference a quarter of a century makes.

The original WIT is long gone. Today there is a larger, more expansive organisation with the same name (WiT, formed in Queensland in 1997) and a number of other organisations, major programs and awards for women in technology, including Google’s Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship.

Although we may be past the days of women being isolated pioneers in their chosen technological fields, we have a long, long way to go before women’s participation and influence is where it should be. If you’re a young woman contemplating a dive into a technological career, gather some inspiration this Ada Lovelace Day by seeking out blogs tagged ALD09post or visit the Ada Lovelace Day site. You’ll meet a remarkable group of women who not only relish their geekgirl status but who are leading the way in technology for everyone.

Reading nirvana: The mating of the Kindle and the iPhone

Rose Vines — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:00:38 +0000

I unabashedly love my Kindle and I’m gaga over my iPhone. Yes, I know neither is perfect. Improvements should be made. It doesn’t matter. Give me these two devices, an Internet connection and a source of electricity and you can take away all my other computers, gadgets and gizmos. I shall be content.*

So when Amazon followed up its release of the Kindle 2 (more on that soon) with its Kindle app for the iPhone, I felt like an adult in a cheese store. (Fellow cheeseaholics will understand.)

Synchronised reading

A major part of the Kindle’s appeal is Whispernet, the freebie wireless connection that lets you download a book at any hour of the day or grab the latest edition of a newspaper or magazine.

With the launch of Kindle 2 comes Whispersync. Whispersync lets you synchronise your content and reading across multiple devices. That sounded pretty good even when all it meant was you could sync two or more Kindles. But with Kindle for iPhone, Whispersync is transformed into something so much more.

Now, not only can you store your library on your Kindle(s) and your iPhone, you can also synchronise your reading across those devices.

Here’s what that means. You start reading A Brief History of Nearly Everything on your Kindle one night but fall asleep before you reach the end of chapter three. The next morning, you switch your Kindle’s wireless on for a minute so it can communicate with the Amazon mothership. You then head out with your trusty iPhone in your pocket and, when you find yourself stuck in a long line at the supermarket or waiting an hour for the doctor to see you, you whip out your iPhone, load up the Kindle app and, voila!, it opens to the exact spot where you fell asleep the night before. Instant reading gratification.

Ebooks for the Kindle-less

The Kindle app is not just for those of us blessed with Kindles. You can now buy any Kindle book from the Amazon store and read it on your iPhone, no Kindle required. Just like that, your iPhone reading choices have expanded by almost a quarter of a million.

The iPhone reading experience

Being of a certain age, I’m not sure I’d want my only reading device to be an iPhone. Although the text is crisp, flicking through mini-pages is not a particularly relaxing way to read. Still, the ability to resize the font makes reading on the small screen comfortable for short periods. And some things simply look better on the iPhone than they do on the Kindle, such as the library list. With its coloured book covers and much, much faster navigation, choosing a book from your library is a lot more satisfying on the iPhone than on the Kindle.

Like the Kindle and the iPhone, the Kindle app could do with some improvements. Amazon could take a few pointers from apps like Stanza and Classics about prettying up the formatting. It’d be nice to be able to add highlights and annotations and not just view them on the iPhone. It would also be handy to be able to buy Kindle books directly from the iPhone. You can’t do that - yet - nor can you do it using Amazon’s other iPhone app. It’s bound to come.

These are quibbles. This is a smooth little app that marries two great inventions.

* Okay, so perhaps I’m being a tad disingenuous.

Automate email handling with Gmail's filters

Rose Vines — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:39:23 +0000

The Gmail team has been adding features to Google’s web-based email program at a gallop. A quick click of Gmail’s Settings link unveils an impressive array. By clicking the Labs tab and enabling some of Gmail’s experimental features, you’ll find yourself with even more options.

There’s plenty worth exploring in the Gmail Labs, but some of Gmail’s most attractive features are its oldest. Take filters, for example.

Gmail’s filters let you automate the processing of incoming email. Attach a label, bypass the inbox, forward the email or simply delete it without having to lift a finger. Filters let you perform automated actions on any email which matches criteria you specify.

TIP: The easiest way to create a filter is to filter by example. Say you receive an email and think “Aha, I never want to see email from this person again”, place a checkmark beside the email and from the More Actions box select Filter Messages Like These. Gmail will display the filter options box with the From box filled in for you.

Creating filters

To create a filter you first specify the criteria for the filter and then choose one or more actions to apply:

Click the Settings link near the top right of the Gmail window, then click the Filters tab.
Click the Create A New Filter link. The filter options box appears at the top of the page.
Build your criteria by entering information in the From, To, Subject, Has The Words and Doesn’t Have boxes. For example:

From: ourmob.com.au

Has the words: anniversary

will select mail with the word ‘anniversary’ in its text, sent to you by anyone with an ourmob.com.au address.

From: big@boss.com OR boss@big.com

To: myworkmail@gmail.com

will select all email to you at your myworkmail address from either big@boss.com or boss@big.com. Check the attachment box to filter only those emails which contain attachments.

If you already have matching email in your Gmail archive, you can get a quick idea of whether your filter criteria will catch the email you want by clicking the Test Search button; Gmail displays a list of all matching email in your archive.

Click the Next Step button and select one or more actions to apply to the selected mail. You can skip the inbox, mark an email as read, star or label the email, forward it to another email address or delete it. The Never Send It To Spam option is useful when you subscribe to an online newsletter and want to ensure Gmail’s very vigilant spam filter doesn’t block the email.
If you want to apply your new filter to mail you’ve already received, check the Also Apply Filter To x Conversations Below button. Then click Create Filter to put your filter to work.

You can edit or delete an existing filter by clicking Settings -> Filters, scrolling through the filter list and clicking Edit or Delete.

TIP: Gmail’s filters recognise Boolean search operators such as AND, OR and NOT. Use AND to limit results to those which match all criteria; OR to expand results to emails matching any one or more of a series of criteria; use NOT to exclude particular emails from the results. Note that instead of typing AND, OR or NOT, you can use their shorthand symbols: type a space for AND; type | for OR; type - (the minus sign) for NOT.

A filtered to-do list

By combining filters, labels and Gmail’s nifty ‘plus addresses’, you can build yourself a handy to-do list.

First, a word on ‘plus addresses’. Gmail ignores anything you type after a + symbol inserted into the first half of a Gmail address. So if your email address is boffinbob@gmail.com, you can receive email sent to boffinbob+betty@gmail.com, boffinbob+photinos@gmail.com, boffinbob+quarks@gmail.com, and so on. Gmail strips out the extraneous characters and delivers the email to your inbox. This is very handy for creating disposable email addresses and for figuring out who has sold your email address to spammers.

It’s also handy for creating things such as to-do lists. Here’s how:

Create a new label by clicking Settings -> Labels -> ‘Create a new label’, typing To Do and clicking Create.
Create a new filter. In the To box type your Gmail address with +todo inserted before the @ symbol. For example, boffinbob would type boffinbob+todo@gmail.com in the To box. In the filter actions, tick ‘Apply the label’ and select To Do from the list of labels. Click Create Filter to finish.

Now, whenever you want to set yourself a task, send yourself an email at your +todo Gmail address. Stick the task in the subject line of the email, add details to the body. You’ll then be able to log into your Gmail account at any time, click To Do in the Labels box and see at a glance all your tasks. To add urgency to a task, create another filter for mail sent to youraddress+todo1st@gmail.com then, as well as labelling this email with To Do, check Star It.

Removing clutter from a new computer

Rose Vines — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 20:30:35 +0000

Computer manufacturers love to load up new systems with “helpful” utilities and features. Of course, what they regard as helpful, you may regard as rubbish.

Uninstall unwanted programs via the Control Panel.

Whenever I set up a new computer for myself or someone else, I go through a routine to eliminate vendor-generated clutter and bias. This checklist is something you might find useful or be able to adapt to your own use:

Uninstall unnecessary and unwanted programs. If you’re not sure what’s necessary, here are some guidelines:
- Uninstall trial versions of software you already own. For example, if you already have a copy of Microsoft Office you want to install, go ahead and uninstall the 60-day free trial often included with new computers.
- Uninstall trial versions of software you know you don’t want. I always remove AOL and all the other “free ISP trials”, as I already have my own ISP. (Well, I remove all traces of AOL because I pretty much regard it as I would a virus infestation.)
- Uninstall trials of security software suites if you already own another suite or you don’t like the suite provided. Often when you order a computer, a vendor lets you specify whether you want a particular security suite installed; sometimes they give you no option and install their chosen suite anyway or a 30-day trial of a suite. If you’re not happy with their choice, uninstall it. Some security suites are so bloated and have such an adverse effect on your computer’s performance, you really need to be discerning in which one you use. I’m a fan of the minimalist-but-adequate Eset NOD 32. Note, by the way, that uninstalling security software usually involves rebooting your computer to complete the process.
- Keep any utilities, tools, product manuals and so on specific to your computer.
- If you’re unsure what a particular program does, keep it. You can always search for the program on Google later on to see what it’s used for.
Change the properties of the Recycle Bin. The Recycle Bin is set up to prompt you for confirmation each time you delete a file. This is usually unnecessary – if you accidentally delete a file you can always open the Recycle Bin immediately and retrieve it. To turn this time-wasting confirmation prompt off:
- Right-click the Recycle Bin and select Properties from the pop-up menu.
- Uncheck Display Delete Confirmation Dialog.
- While you’re in the Recycle Bin Properties dialog box, you may also wish to change the size of the bin. Vista tends to use a lot of space for the Recycle Bin; I usually set the size manually to around 1 – 2 gigabytes (1024 – 2048MB).
Delete the desktop icons for programs you may use but don’t want cluttering your desktop. You can run these programs from the Start menu instead. This includes utilities and product manuals specific to your computer.

Note the difference between deleting a desktop shortcut and uninstalling a program. Deleting a desktop shortcut simply removes the icon from your desktop but leaves the program installed on your system. You can still run that program by selecting it via the Start Menu.

Uninstalling a program removes the program from your computer entirely. To uninstall a program, click Start -> Control Panel -> Uninstall A Program.

By uninstalling an unwanted program, not only do you free up the space it occupies on your hard drive, you also reduce the complexity of your system, which can lead to faster start-up times and smoother operation.

Install programs you own, such as Microsoft Office and a security suite. Beware though: don’t install a security suite if there’s already one installed on the system; doing so will cause all sorts of problems.
Install the Firefox browser if it’s not already on the system. Firefox is generally more secure than Internet Explorer – the browser included with Vista – and it has better features. Personally, I loathe Internet Explorer’s interface; yet another reason to dump it.
Run Firefox and, when prompted, set it as your default browser. Then visit Adobe to install the Adobe Flash Player and the latest version of Adobe Reader. These programs are almost indispensable for viewing animated content and documents on the web.
Disable auto-alignment of desktop icons, if it’s currently enabled:
- Right-click in an empty spot on the desktop.
- Select View from the pop-up menu.
- If it’s checked, click Auto Arrange to uncheck the option.

Auto-aligned icons may look neat, but I prefer to organize my icons logically by sticking folder icons down the side of the desktop, program icons along the top, and so on. Turning off auto-arrange lets you choose how to organize your desktop.

Make sure the Quick Launch bar is displayed. The Quick Launch bar is immediately to the right of the Start orb and it displays shortcuts to your most frequently used programs. If you can’t see the Quick Launch bar:
- Right-click an empty space on the Taskbar and select Properties from the pop-up menu.
- Check Show Quick Launch and click OK.
You can now add shortcuts to your favorite programs to the Quick Launch bar; to delete any pre-installed programs, right-click the program’s icon and choose Delete from the pop-up menu. If you can’t see the entire contents of the Quick Launch bar, here’s how to resize it:
- Right-click the Taskbar and choose Lock The Taskbar from the pop-up menu. You’ll see a ridged ‘handle’ at the right end of the Quick Launch bar.
- Click and drag the handle to resize the Quick Launch bar.

Juicing up the iPhone

Rose Vines — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 23:07:40 +0000

I’m sadly besotted with my iPhone 3G. It’s an indecently seductive gadget which, when coupled with some of the gems available through the App Store, revolutionises computing on the move. It’s transformed me from someone who used a mobile phone, oh, half a dozen times a week, into someone who whips out the little critter given even the tiniest of openings.

But I’m not blind to its failings. I’m aghast at the lack of multimedia messaging support and absence of video; stunned by the omission of cut and paste; and frustrated by the hermetically sealed battery which limits mobile roaming time.

Fortunately, I’ve found a way to deal with one of these three: enter the Mophie Juice Pack.

Mophie’s Juick Pack

The Juice Pack is an extra battery disguised as an iPhone case. Slip the iPhone into a charged Juice Pack and you double the battery life of the phone while protecting the phone from hard knocks.

Since I received mine, I’ve stopped anxiously watching as my iPhone’s battery indicator slipped rapidly into the danger zone. Instead, I spend the whole day phoning, downloading apps and using data services without a worry. The “doubles the battery life” claim is certainly true.

Charging up

The Juice Pack comes with a mini USB cable you can plug into any computer for charging. It takes a bit under three hours to charge completely from empty and if you leave the iPhone in the Juice Pack they’ll charge at the same time. Four blue LEDs on the back of the Juice Pack indicate how much of a charge it has. When it’s not plugged in the LEDs remain dark, but you can press a little button beside the LEDs to get an instant indication of how much charge you have left.

Tip: If you’re on the road without your computer, take along a USB power adapter. These let you plug one or more USB devices directly into a power outlet for charging. For international travellers, the Lenmar Travel Adapter is a really nice option. It lets you charge four devices concurrently and includes international adapters so you can plug the unit into any style of power outlet. Belkin also makes USB power adapters. Handy little things.

In use, the iPhone drains the Juice Pack first, and only then starts using up its own charge. That means you can slip off the Juice Pack once it’s drained, leaving the slim iPhone in your pocket.

Small enough, but not svelte

The Juice Pack’s size is it’s main drawback. While it fits the iPhone snugly and adds only a quarter of an inch to its length and a few millimetres to its width, it doubles its depth. The Juice Pack has a soft grip that feels great in the hand and it’s not what you’d call clunky, but it certainly detracts from the iPhone’s lithe lines.

The Juice Pack also doesn’t include any front protection for your iPhone. I use it in conjunction with a non-glare screen protector from Power Support and haven’t had any problems despite a few drops.

One small design flaw

The Juice Pack has one largely cosmetic design flaw. It has a rubber inset along either side. These insets are glued in and are clearly meant to remain attached. But the glue is not very effective. Within a few weeks of use I found the insets were starting to pull away.

At first I poked them back in, but gradually they became more and more detached and made the Juice Pack uncomfortable to hold. So I decided to pull them out instead of stuffing them back in.

Well, the glue may not be effective, but it’s exceedingly sticky. Having pulled out the insets, there was no way to clean off the glue. I tried various methods, but couldn’t get rid of the very tacky residue. I contemplated re-glueing the inserts, but in the end I decided on another approach.

I had on hand some fluorescent green mailing labels which nicely matched the Juice Pack’s colourful innards. I cut out the mailing labels and stuck them into the craters left by the insets.

The result is a Juice Pack that feels a little different but is still very comfortable in my hand and that looks just fine.

I thoroughly recommend the Juice Pack, and it gets a “certified” sticker from Apple so there are no compatibility problems. It’ll set you back a hundred bucks and it’s well worth it. You can buy it directly from Mophie.

Tip: Use Firefox Smart Keyword Search on Amazon

Rose Vines — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 00:11:00 +0000

I love Amazon. I’ve been a customer since the first month the store went live. But there are some aspects of its site design which drive me bats.

For example, I used to be able to go to www.amazon.com, type a search phrase in the box and have a list of matching books displayed. That was in the days when Amazon was nothing but a book store. These days, searches default to searching everything - books, gardening tools, music, toys, groceries, and so on. To narrow the search, you must first select a store from the drop-down list and then type the search phrase.

I could, of course, bookmark the Amazon Book Store instead of the main Amazon front page and use it as my starting point, but I like the front page. I want it and I want to be able to search books as the default.

Amazon could easily fix this by letting customers select a default search option, but I don’t see this happening any time soon. After all, it only took the company almost half a decade to add some basic commonsense to Wishlist organisation; it’s unlikely that search options are high on the list of site improvements heading our way.

More aggravating still is the omission of several ‘stores’ from the search list. For example, you won’t find the classical music store on the drop-down list. If you select Music from the drop-down list and type in a search phrase, the results are pulled from both the classical and non-classical stores. And yet, if you navigate directly to the Music store, you’ll find there are separate searches available for classical and non-classical discs. Using the classical-specific search makes it far easier to find what you’re after. A number of other stores, such as the camera shop, are also omitted from the front-page search list.

Firefox to the rescue

Fortunately, we don’t have to wait for Amazon to improve its search. Instead, we can use Firefox to roll our own search engines.

One of Firefox’s most delightful features is a thing called Smart Keyword Search. Smart Keyword Search lets you perform site-specific searches directly from the Firefox location bar (aka address box). You can create a Smart Keyword Search for any site that has its own search box and, when it comes to Amazon, you can create separate Smart Keywords for each Amazon ‘store’.

So, for example, you can create a Smart Keyword for the Amazon Book store, one for the Amazon Music store and yet another for the Amazon Classical Music store. If you’re into software or apparel or toys, you can create your own searches for those stores, too.

Here’s how:

Visit the site you want to search and navigate to the page containing the appropriate search box.
Right-click in the search box and choose Add A Keyword For This Search from the pop-up menu.
Fill in the Add Bookmark dialog box, providing a descriptive name and a short keyword. It doesn’t really matter where you store the keyword within your bookmarks, although I find it handy to create a separate Keywords folder and put them all in there. That way, I can easily check what keywords I’ve created.
Once you click OK, you can start using your keyword immediately. Simply type the keyword followed by your search phrase in Firefox’s location bar and press Enter. You’ll be taken to the results page on the site.

Custom searches

If you want to make your own keywords for Amazon, all you have to do is select the appropriate store from the drop-down list and then right-click in the search box to create a keyword. For those stores not listed on the front page, use the Shop All Departments links to navigate to the appropriate store, select the correct sub-search from the drop-down list and then create your keyword.

I now have half a dozen Amazon searches I can perform any time without first visiting Amazon.com: ab for books; amus for classical music; apop for general music; amusi for musical instruments; and asnap for the camera shop. I can also search the whole of Amazon by simply typing as followed by the search phrase.

You can take this trick and apply it to any search service you like.

Omitting page numbers in Microsoft Word

Rose Vines — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 23:03:31 +0000

How do you omit the page number on the final page of a Word document?

I was asked this recently by someone who is using Lulu.com’s self-publishing service. Lulu had asked her to resubmit her book with a completely blank final page – no page number, nothing. Finding the solution to this seemingly simple request proved to be frustrating.

In fact, the solution is simple, but not entirely obvious.

Omitting first page numbers

Word certainly makes it easy to omit the page number on the first page of a document. For example, to begin numbering a document on page 2 using Word 2003:

Click on the first page of your document and then click Insert Menu -> Page Numbers to display the Page Numbers dialog box.
Select the positioning for your page numbers.
Uncheck ‘Show number on first page’.
If you’d like to display ‘1’ on page two (that is, you want to start the actual page numbering count on the second page), click Format and set the value of the Start At box to 0.

Here’s how to do the same thing in Word 2007:

Click the Insert tab and in the Header & Footer section click Page Number.
Click Top of Page, Bottom of Page or Page Margins to select a location for the numbering and select a numbering format from the gallery.
On the Design tab, check Different First Page.
To start the page numbering count on the second page, on the Design tab click Page Number -> Format Page Numbers and set the Start At control to 0.

An alternative method is to create a different first page header/footer in your document: simply use the ‘Different first page’ option in the Page Setup dialog (in Word 2003, it’s File -> Page Setup -> Layout tab -> Different first page; in Word 2007 it’s Page Layout tab -> Page Setup -> Layout tab -> Different First page).

Omitting last page numbers

Although things are not quite so obvious when you want to change the header or footer on the last page, it’s still easy to do and there are a number of ways to do it. The easiest methods involve creating the final page in a separate section.

Method 1: De-link the final section.

If you’re using Word 2003:

Create your document as usual with page numbering in your header or footer.
Go to the end of the last page containing text in your document.
Click Insert Menu -> Break.
In the Break dialog box, select Next Page in the Section break section and click OK. This will add a section break and a new page with the same page numbering format as the preceding pages.
Double-click in the Header or Footer. You should see the words ‘Same as previous’ above the header/footer.
Click the Link to Previous button on the Header and Footer toolbar. The ‘Same as previous’ message will vanish and you can now delete the contents of the Header/Footer and doing so will affect only the last page.

If you’re using Word 2007:

Create your document as usual with page numbering in your header or footer.
Go to the end of the last page containing text in your document.
Click Page Layout -> Breaks and, under Section Breaks, click Next Page.
Double-click in the Header or Footer. You should see the words ‘Same as previous’ above the header/footer.
Click the Link to Previous button on the Header and Footer toolbar, then edit the page header/footer as needed.

Method 2: Use a different ‘first’ page on the final section.

In Word 2003, follow steps 1 – 4 in the de-linking instructions above to add a single-page section at the end of your document. Then:

Click File Menu -> Page Setup -> Layout tab.
Check the ‘Different first page’ box.
In the Apply To drop-down box, select ‘This section’ and click OK.

If you’re using Word 2007, follow steps 1 – 3 in the de-linking instructions above and then:

Click Page Layout and click the Page Setup button (the arrow at the right of the Page Setup section).
On the Layout tab in the Page Setup dialog box, click ‘Different first page’. Make sure ‘This section’ is displayed in the Apply To box and click OK.

That’s not so hard, and it should be apparent that you can use similar techniques to add multiple sections to a document, each with its own page numbering format.

Hobbling Australia's Internet

Rose Vines — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 10:49:39 +0000

The recently elected Australian Government has done some wonderful things and some completely boneheaded things. Its current plan to filter the Internet definitely belongs in the latter category.

If you haven’t heard about this, here’s a brief rundown. The Australian Commonwealth Government is introducing legislation that will force all Australian servers to filter Internet traffic and block any sites deemed inappropriate. The government gets to decide which sites earn that “inappropriate” tag and the resulting blacklist will not be made public in its entirety.

Let’s put to one side the political reasons why this is a bad idea (that’s quite a pile we’ll have on the side) and simply focus on the impracticalities. Testing has already shown that:

the filtering will slow traffic on the Internet (in some cases throttling it down to only a tenth of its usual pace);
legitimate sites are sure to get blocked. It will be a nightmare for these sites to get themselves freed up once more;
automatic filters will miss a whole lot of “inappropriate” content.

Almost everyone who has a practical understanding of the Internet has said this is a stupid, unworkable plan. But you know governments: sometimes that urge to be paternalistic trumps commonsense. This is one of those times.

GetUp is organising a campaign to stop the idiocy and save the Internet for all Australians. If you’re from my homeland, I urge you to add your signature to GetUp’s petition and support its campaign. You can do so using the box below. [Update: The campaign has closed, so I’ve removed the box as it was slowing the loading of this page.] You can also learn more about the scheme by reading GetUp’s Factsheet.