2 Trivia Questions - ANSWERS BELOW

Here's another trivia question for you. How do you change the default printer on a public PC?

Since this is a hard one, here is a hint. You can only change the default printer from within IE (Internet Explorer) but what are the steps to do so?

ANSWER
From Internet Explorer, click File then Print. This opens up a list of printers with icons. Right-click on a printer and select Set as Default Printer. Thanks to John Dettelbach from the Help Desk for pointing out that this can also be done from WordPad and Notepad. The key is that you need to see the printer icons after you click File/Print. If you try this from Microsoft Word, you will notice that you get a drop down list of printers as opposed to icons for the printers.

Points for this question went to: MOR-Charles, Melanie, Karen, William; MPK-Jamie; NCO-Ian; ST-Matt, Donna, Amy; SUG-Jonita; WBL-Aislynn

Please email me your answer to lreed "at" plcmc "dot" org (do not post) and I will post the correct answer on Friday.

Here's another bonus trivia question. Why did I write my email address like that?

ANSWER
In a blog, message board, or any other public forum on the Internet it is a good idea to not post or publish your "real" email address. There are computers with programs that crawl the Internet looking for email addresses, i.e. anything formatted as word@place.com. To prevent these web crawlers from "seeing" your email address you can phonetically spell parts of it out, as I did above.

Points for this question went to: CA-Kriss; MOR-William, Melanie, Charles; NCO-Ian; ST-Amy, Matt, Donna; WBL-Aislynn

For more information on web crawlers take a look at these sites:
http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/DummiesArticle/id-3088.html
http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/robots.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_crawler

CC Page Updated on PLCMC Central

PowerPoint presentations from classes and self-paced tutorials created in PowerPoint have been added to PLCMC Central under training and then PowerPoint.

Just a note. You must save the PPT files to your computer to view them. They will not run directly from the Intranet.

Please let us know what you think!

TinyURL

Have you ever tried to send someone a link to an item from Amazon.com?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0451209710/sr=1-1/qid=1138295809/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-5935873-5010568?%5Fencoding=UTF8

Sometimes links can be so long that they break apart in email programs and no longer work. Why do they break? Because a URL cannot have any spaces in it. When a URL spans across multiple lines in an email message, some email programs will add a hard return that breaks the link in two.

The solution?

TinyURL

Tiny URL is a free service at www.tinyurl.com that takes a long link such as my amazon.com link above that was 115 characters and creates a new link, http://tinyurl.com/an9rm, of only 24 characters.

Best of all, the new link never expires. TinyURL has a huge database where they store the old and new URLs together so that if you click on the TinyURL link in 2 years, the link will still work.

Try it yourself!

CC Update: Core I Month Extended

Good News!

With less that a week left in January, Core I Month has been extended to the end of February. Core I provides the foundation for all the other competencies so this extra time will give staff a chance to attend additional training sessions to be offered in February and a chance to apply the competencies learned from Core I.

Want an easy way to keep up with the CC Blog? Check out the subscription box on the navigation bar on the left side of this page and you can enter your email address for email notification whenever a new post has been added.

Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki

Looking for programming ideas from other libraries? Or a listing of free online reference resources? Then pop on over to Library TechBytes and find out more about Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki.

For more info about wikis in general, click here.

Mouse Cleaning

Is your mouse misbehaving? Does it jump around the screen or not respond to your movement? Well if it is, it may just need a good mouse cleaning. If your not sure how to clean a mouse (a computer mouse that is) check out this illustrated guide...

How to Clean Your Mouse: An Illustrated Guide

1st Trivia Question

Ok here it is. Your first chance to earn some points for your branch. Who is reading this blog? The first 5 people to post a comment will each get 5 points!

What Web site do you use to identify your network settings?

You can post a comment as "anonymous" but be sure to include your name and location in the post.

January Contests

Core Competencies Trivia Contest

For the month of January, Core I Month, staff will have a chance to earn points for their branch by answering questions about Core I. Questions will be assigned points based on degree of difficulty and will be randomly asked via e-mail, phone, and branch visits. Additional points can be earned by answering questions posted on the Core Competencies Blog, Core Competencies site on PLCMC Central, and other random places. Be on the lookout for a chance to earn points for your branch! At the end of the month the branch with the most points will win a pizza party.

Spirit Contest

Each month of the Core Competencies training project a "spirit stick" will be awarded to the branch, department, or staff member who displays the most spirit. The stick will travel from month to month and the Core Competencies newsletter will feature an article about the winner of the "spirit stick."

CC Update: January Declared Core I Month

The first issue of the Core Competencies Report is hot off the press, and January has been declared Core I Month for PLCMC. Be ready Julia and I are going to start making random phone calls and branch visits this week and continue them throughout the month with Core I trivia. Prizes will be awarded for highest numbers of correct responses and for team spirit. Show us some spirit!

By the way Helene added a new feature for this blog where you can receive e-mail notification when new blogs are posted. Thanks Helene! This is a great way to keep up.