Other than work or school, what do you use your computer for most regularly? I’ve listed some common activities below, but feel free to mention something that’s not on the list… and please keep it clean.

• Play music
• Watch movies or video, including YouTube
• Play games
• Look up stuff on the Web, including answers to questions or solutions to problems
• Email
• Socialize – Facebook, Twitter, blogging, etc.
• Date
• Share photos
• Shop, including looking at product reviews
• Sell stuff
• Get directions
• Get news, including sports, movie reviews, etc.
• Manage finances, including online banking & tax prep
• Find a job

Bluehost has a great tool for creating custom online forms called phpFormGenerator. You can set up the form to email data to you. Getting that form to email you the data in a secure, encrypted format, however, is quite a challenge.

In this post, I show you how to configure a form to encrypt the form data, have the encrypted message sent to you via email, and then decrypt the form in Microsoft Windows Outlook Express.

I’m assuming you already created a form using phpFormGenerator and have it set up to email you the form data.

Shameless disclaimer: This works for me, and I think it’ll work for most Bluehost users running Windows and using Outlook Express. I’m not sure how helpful it will be for others. If anyone knows an easier way, please share.

Create Your GnuPG Keys

If you haven’t created your GnuPG encryption keys yet, do so – on the Bluehost Control Panel in the Security box, click GnuPG Keys and then follow the instructions. You’ll need the email address you used to generate the keys for the next step.

Edit process.php

phpFormGenerator creates a file called process.php, which processes the form data and emails it to you. Open process.php, and delete the following line:

mail("yourmail@whatever.com","Form Submitted at your website",$message,"From: phpFormGenerator");

In its place, insert the following code… right before the closing php code ?>. And make a few adjustments as indicated in the code’s contents. (I got most of this from an article called “How to send encrypted messages using PGP and PHP scripts” but had to make changes to get it to work with my form.):

//replace yourmail@whatever.com with the email address you used to generate the GnuPG keys
$pgpuser = "yourmail@whatever.com" ;

//replace yourmail@whatever.com with the email address to which you want the form data sent
$testemail = "yourmail@whatever.com";
$emailsubject = "Encrypted Information";
$emailfrom = "From:". $_POST[email];
$body = $_POST[message];

//Indicate the location of your .gnupg folder. When you login to the Bluehost Control Panel, the left column shows your "Home Directory." Replace /home/username with your home directory, keeping the .gnupg at the end
putenv("GNUPGHOME=/home/username/.gnupg");
$infile = tempnam("/tmp", "PGP.asc");
$outfile = $infile.".asc";
$fp = fopen($infile, "w");
fwrite($fp, $message);
fclose($fp);
$command = "gpg -a --always-trust --batch --no-secmem-warning -e -r $pgpuser -o $outfile $infile";
system($command, $result);
unlink($infile);
if ($result==0) {
$fp = fopen($outfile, "r");
if(!$fp||filesize ($outfile)==0) {
$result = -1;
}
else {
//read the encrypted file
$contents = fread ($fp, filesize ($outfile));
//delete the encrypted file
unlink($outfile);
//send the email
mail ($testemail, $emailsubject, $contents, $emailfrom);
print "Thank you!! Your encrypted e-mail has been sent. ";
}
}
if($result!=0) {
print "Their was a problem processing the information.";
}

Make sure you have the closing php code at the end: ?>

At this point, you should be able to pull up the form, complete it, click the Submit button, and receive the data (encrypted) via email. Now, you need to decrypt it.

Install GnuPG on Your Computer

I’m assuming you never installed GnuPG on your computer. If you have or are not sure, follow the “Step-by-step GnuPG Installation and Configuration on Windows.”

If you’re sure you don’t have old GnuPG files on your computer, head to the GnuPG Download page, scroll down to the Binaries section, and click the link to get the Microsoft Windows version. Run the file you downloaded to install GnuPG on your computer. Don’t change any of the default installation settings.

Now, copy your key files from Bluehost to the GnuPG folder. This is easier said than done, because, by default, Bluehost hides the .gnupg folder where your keys are stored. Here’s what you do:

1. Go to the Bluehost Control Panel.
2. Under Advanced, click Index Manager.
3. Click the option to show hidden files.
4. Go back to the Control Panel and launch the File Manager.
5. Click the Home directory above the file list.
6. Click .gnupg. (If you still don’t see the .gnupg directory, try searching for gnupg using the Search box in the upper right corner of File Manager.)
7. Download the files pubring.gpg, secring.pgp, random seed, and trustdb.gpg into the folder C:\Documents and Settings\<UserProfile>\Application Data\GnuPG.

Tip: After downloading your encryption keys, consider deleting your private key – secring.pgp – from the Bluehost server for extra security. GnuPG will create a new secring.pgp on the server later when form data is submitted, but the file will be empty.

Configure GnuPG to Run from Anywhere

To avoid problems, configure GnuPG to run from any directory on your computer. In Windows XP, here’s what you’d do:

1. Right-click My Computer and click Properties.
2. Click the Advanced tab.
3. Click Environmental Variables.
4. Under System Variables, click Path and then Edit.
5. At the end of the path statement, type ;C:\Program Files\GNU\GnuPG
6. Keep clicking OK to close the dialog boxes and save your changes.

Test the Installation

To make sure GnuPG is installed correctly…

1. Click Start, Run.
2. Type cmd and press Enter.
3. Type gdp --version and press Enter. You should see a bunch of information about GnuPG.
4. Type gdp --list-keys and press Enter. You should see information about your pubring.gpg.

Install GnuPG for Outlook Express

Now, you’re ready to install GnuPG for Outlook Express. Head to the Wald GPGoe Project page, click the gpgoe download link and follow the link trail to the latest version.

Download and save the file to your computer, unzip it, and then run the file named GPGOEInit.exe. You should see a little keyhole icon in your system tray indicating the program is running.

Try It!

At this point, all the pieces are in place. Head to your website, pull up the form, enter some data, and click the Submit button. Then, run Outlook Express, check for mail, and you should receive an encrypted email message. When you open it, you should see the encrypted message along with a dialog box asking for your pass phrase. Type the pass phrase you used when creating your GnuPG keys, press Enter, and you should see the form data you entered.

My last electric bill was a whopping $566 – just what I needed to motivate me into thinking about energy conservation. (My bills generally run around $250 in the winter. I suspect that most of the increase had to do with the fact that our geothermal furnace wasn’t working properly during the deep freeze of December 2009.)

At any rate, we sealed off the upper floor, where we suspect much of our heat was going; swapped out some incandescent light bulbs for compact fluorescent bulbs; and tried monitoring our electricity usage more carefully.

I suspected that leaving my computer on all the time was probably gobbling up a lot of electricity, so I purchased a Kill A Watt EZ Electricity Usage Monitor to find out for myself. I plugged the Kill A Watt unit into the nearest outlet, entered my cost per kilowatt ($.109 or almost 11 cents), plugged all my computer devices into the unit, and then checked back 24 hours later.

I used the computer for about 10 hours, and it remained on for the other 14 hours. Here’s everything I had plugged in:

• Dell Dimension 8100 desktop PC with two hard drives, CD-ROM, and speakers
• Sony 15-inch flat-screen monitor
• Netgear wireless router
• Wildblue satellite modem
• HP Officejet Pro L7580 printer
• 4-port powered USB hub with thumb drive
• Electric pencil sharpener

The result? It costs me 40 cents per day to keep my computer running constantly. That’s $2.80 per week, $12.00 per month, and $146 per year. My computer wasn’t quite the energy hog I had suspected. I could save $70 a year by turning it off for half the day, but I’m not sure that would be worth the savings.

I’ll be checking some other devices in the coming days – the second refrigerator, the washing machine, my TV/DVR/DVD/VHS, and so on. Stay tuned.

Although I prefer writing books, I have done some ghost blogging for co-authors and clients. One of the main challenges I face in this area is developing unique content that is both relevant and compelling. After all, as many successful bloggers will tell you, “Content is king.”

When I co-author a book with a client, overcoming the challenge is much easier. The book functions as a valuable source of accurate, timely information. You don’t want to hurt sales of the book by giving away the content on your blog, but the book provides ideas for posts, and the posts can drive book sales rather than undercutting them.

Regardless of whether I have co-authored a book with a client, I prefer collaborating with clients to develop and vet the content for blog posts rather than doing pure ghost blogging. Prior to working clients, I let them know up front that I am not an expert in their field – they are. Sure, I can poke around on the Web to do some research and generate ideas for posts, but I am not qualified to judge whether what I am reading is timely or accurate. Nor am I qualified to provide creative insight on topics in their areas of expertise – for topic experts, this often comes easy, because their heads are in the game 24/7. My role is to…

• Assist in identifying ideas for posts
• Assist in extracting insight and information from the topic expert
• Present the insights and information in easily accessible, understandable, and compelling language for mere mortals to read and understand

After the content expert provides some starter material, I can run with it and produce a fairly final first draft. Having my client, the topic expert, perform one final review and sign off on the piece allows me to post it with confidence, knowing that the information is accurate and expressed in a way the client approves.

Over the past several days, I’ve begun to feel overwhelmed by the pace of change in the world and the challenge of trying to keep up with everything. In the publishing business, for example, authors are expected to build and maintain an online presence through websites, blogs, and social networking. Just as I began to get a handle on this blogging thing, Twitter becomes the new rage.

Now, in addition to researching topics, preparing proposals, writing books, reviewing edited manuscripts, and doing the hundred and one other things required to run my own business, I’m maintaining several websites and blogs, including…

• DrRobertWood.com
• JoeKraynak.com
• Bipolar Blog
• Bipolar Beat
• ComputerChimp

On top of that are the social networking sites – MySpace and Facebook. Now, with the arrival of Twitter, I have to make bird noises to try to get some attention. Sheesh.

I’m not complaining. I do what I can and let the rest fall between the cracks. I’m just curious to hear how other people feel:

• Do you get excited over the latest, greatest stuff on the Web, like Facebook and YouTube and Twitter?
• Do you feel overwhelmed… like somebody keeps cranking up the speed on the treadmill, and you just can’t keep up? 
• Do you just ignore it, writing it off as a complete waste of time?

You can use WordPress to manage a website complete with a blog. You do it by creating a static home page that functions as your landing pad (to greet visitors) and then creating a new blank page that will contain all of your blog posts. With recent versions of WordPress, the process is pretty simple (requires WordPress 2.3.1 or later):

1. Create the page you want to appear as your home page. (Make sure it’s a page, not a post.)


Create the page you want to use as your static home page.

2. Scroll down to the Discussion options and remove the checks next to Allow comments and Allow pings.


Disable comments and pings for this page.

3. Click the Publish button to publish your new page.
4. Create and publish a blank page to use for your blog, and call it something like Blog or Nick’s Blog, whatever.


Create a blank page for your blog.

5. In the WordPress Options or Settings group (on the Administration panel), click Reading.


Under Settings, click Reading.

6. Under Front page, click the Static page option.


Choose the pages to use for the static home page and blog posts.

7. Open the Front page list and choose the page you want to use as your static home page.
8. Open the Post page list and choose the page you want to use to display your blog posts.
9. Save your changes.

If you’re using Thesis, you need to choose to have new pages displayed as tabs in the navigation bar:

1. On the WordPress Administration panel, click Appearance, Thesis Options.


Select Thesis Options.

2. Under Navigation Menu click the plus sign next to Select pages to include in nav menu.



3. Check the box next to the blog page you created. (Do not check the box next to the new home page you created. As long as you have the option checked to show the home link in the nav menu (see the following step), a tab for the page will appear.(Optional) In the list of pages, you can drag pages up or down to rearrange the order they will appear in your navigation bar.
4. Click the plus sign next to Home Link and make sure the Show home link in nav menu option is checked. You can edit the link’s name to use something different for the link than you used for the page name.



5. Click the Save button.

Your new static home page now opens whenever someone chooses to go to your site, and they can click your new Blog tab to go to your blog.

Your new static page greets visitors who can click the new blog tab.

You’ll find other tutorials about this topic that recommend creating a separate template, which you can do if you want to give your home page a unique appearance, but I think most folks just want to have a static page with some unique content to greet visitors.

For more about using Thesis to design your website or blog, check out Redesigning My WordPress Blog with Thesis.

Over the course of the last few weeks, I’ve been knee deep in blogging software. With the publication of our latest books, my friend and co-author Marc Kelly Smith wanted to revamp his blog at Slampapi.com/blog. He was using GoDaddy’s Quick Blogcast, which is a terrible blogging platform. I recommended that he switch to WordPress, which is infinitely better.

After switching from Quick Blogcast to WordPress, the next challenge was to find a suitable theme (the code that works behind the scenes to control the layout and appearance of the blog). With over 4 million WordPress Themes to choose from, we were a little overwhelmed. I contacted another friend and colleague, Mikal Belicove, who recommended I check out a theme he had heard a lot of good things about – Thesis. I watched the 16-minute Thesis Demo and was sold. Thesis seemed powerful, flexible, and easy-to-configure.

As with most tasks, “easy” is a relative term. It’s always easy once you know what you’re doing.

Well, let me qualify that statement. The truth is that in many ways, Thesis makes it very easy to configure the look and layout of your blog. With a click of the mouse, you can change font styles and sizes; choose a 1, 2, or 3 column layout; adjust the width of each column; rearrange the columns; add a YouTube video to a media box; and much more, as shown below.

Thesis makes it easy to change the look and layout of your WordPress blog.

This is all very nice, but I wanted to make some additional changes. For example, instead of having the navigation bar appear above the blog’s header, I wanted it below the header. I also wanted the cool header image that Marc’s son Adam designed for the blog to appear in place of the standard blog name and tagline. How to make changes like these was not so apparent. In fact, just looking at my Thesis options, I didn’t even know whether what I wanted to do was possible with Thesis.

Time for plan B: Read the manual.

The manual says that to make the types of changes I wanted to make, I would need to edit one of two files in the theme’s “custom” directory. Now the whole reason I bought Thesis is because I didn’t want to edit theme files or deal with CSS or php functions. This was a definite bummer, but I forged ahead like many others and am now a strong advocate for the Thesis theme.

I soon discovered the idea behind Thesis. In most WordPress Themes, you have to edit multiple files to control the look and layout of your blog. These files are packed with codes and settings. If you make a bunch of changes, tracking down those changes later can be nearly impossible. With Thesis, the core theme files remain unchanged. You make all changes to two files: custom.css (for style changes) and custom_functions.php (to add or remove functions through the use of “hooks”… more about hooks later).

In the following sections, I show some examples of changes I made to my blogs by editing these files.

How To Edit custom.css and custom_functions.php

The manual recommends downloading the file you want to edit, opening it in a text editor, like Notepad, making your changes, saving the file, and then uploading it. I have one word for you – don’t. I tried that. Here’s what custom.css looks like in Notepad.

In Notepad, custom.css is like editing a bowl of oatmeal.

Before you even think about editing custom.css or custom_functions.php, consider installing the Thesis OpenHook plugin – it’s free. With this plugin, you can edit the custom.css file directly in WordPress. In addition, you don’t have to touch the custom_functions.php file. You can disable functions and add new functions via OpenHook much more easily. (I’ll show you how to make changes with and without OpenHook to cover all the bases.)

The Thesis OpenHook plugin provides the tools you need to customize Thesis.

If you don’t want to use OpenHook, I recommend using the text editor that your domain hosting provider offers. For example, on Bluehost, I log into my account, choose File Manager from the Control Panel, navigate to the public_html/blog/wp-content/themes/thesis-15/custom folder, click the file I want to edit, and click the Edit button. The contents of the file appear as shown below. I simply enter my changes and click the Save Changes button.

Edit the contents of your files online.

Changing Styles with custom.css

Most WordPress themes contain a file called style.css that contains most of the formatting directives for the blog. Each CSS code is structured something like this:

selector { property: value; }

The selector indicates the object that the style applies to (such as a heading, paragraph, or image), the property defines the aspect of the object that will be modified (such as its color or alignment), and the value defines the setting for the property (such as blue or center). Here’s an example:

p { text-align:center; font-family:arial; }

In Thesis, you can choose to use the custom stylesheet. To do so, log into WordPress and then click Appearance, Thesis Options, Custom Stylesheet, and make sure Use custom stylesheet is checked. With the custom stylesheet enabled, you can use the custom class selector to override any existing style for any selector.

Here are some of the easy changes I made to my custom.css file (above each is a comment explaining what the new CSS declaration does):

/*Remove padding above and to left of header*/
.custom #header { padding-top: 0; padding-left: 0; }

/*Indent the tagline in the header 130px*/
.custom #tagline { position: absolute; left: 130px; }

/*When images are left-aligned add no extra space to the left, top, or bottom but 1em space to the right*/
.custom img.alignleft { margin: 0 1em 0 0; }

/*Separate list items by 10px space in the content area – does not affect list items in sidebars*/
.custom #content li { padding-bottom: 10px; }

/*Reduce the space between widgets in the sidebars*/
.custom li.widget { margin-bottom: 10px; }

Note

Before you can change the property of a selector, you need to know what the selector is. To find out which selectors are used to format something in a post, create a post as you normally would in WordPress and apply the formatting. Then, click the HTML tag to see how it’s formatted. For example, a bulleted list will begin with <ul> and each item in the list will begin with <li>. The selectors for these items are ul and li respectively.

However, it’s more complicated than that, because selectors can be refined; for example, the selector li allows you to apply formatting to all list items, whereas li.widget applies formatting only to widgets arranged as list items. #content li applies formatting only to list items in the content area, not the header or footer, for example.

In some cases, you may have to open the Thesis syle.css file to see what Thesis calls a particular selector. Look, but don’t touch – do NOT edit this file.

Customizing Thesis with Hooks

Using hooks, you can embed HTML tags or php functions in the Thesis template wherever you wish them to execute. Following are two easy hooks to get you started. The first removes the navigation menu that appears above the header. The second adds the navigation menu below the header. You simply add these statements at the end of your custom_functions.php file.

remove_action('thesis_hook_before_header', 'thesis_nav_menu');
add_action('thesis_hook_after_header', 'thesis_nav_menu');

In the example above, the hooks merely move an existing function (one that’s built into the Thesis theme) from one place to another.

You can create your own functions with HTML tags or php. Following is a function I created to replace the footer text with my own footer text:

function my_footer() {
echo '<p>Copyright &copy; 2009 Joe Kraynak</p>';
}

remove_action('thesis_hook_footer', 'thesis_attribution');
add_action('thesis_hook_footer', 'my_footer');

Caution: You’re allowed to remove the Thesis footer attribution only if you purchased the developer’s edition. If you purchased the single user version, you can still edit the footer, but be sure it includes the following attribution code:

<p>Get smart with the <a href="http://diythemes.com/thesis/">Thesis WordPress Theme</a> from DIYthemes.</p>

With the Thesis OpenHook plugin, the process is even easier. You don’t have to deal with all that function stuff. You can disable built-in functions by clicking an option to remove them and add functions by pasting the HTML or php code in the appropriate text box, as shown below.

The Thesis OpenHook plugin simplifies the process of configuring the Thesis theme.

Adding a Header Image

You can add a header image in place of or in addition to the header and tagline text that appear at the top of your blog, and you can do it either by editing the custom.css file or through the use of hooks. The following sections show an example of each method.

Adding a Header Image with CSS

You can add a header image to your blog by editing your CSS file with or without the Thesis OpenHook plugin. Thesis guru Rick Beckman developed css specifically for this purpose. I don’t use a header image on this blog, but I have done so on both ComputerChimp.com and Slampapi.com/blog. In both cases, the graphics contain the blog title, so I wanted to hide the title and tagline that the blog inserts in the header. This code did the trick.

Before you begin:

1. Upload the graphic you want to use and note its address – such as http://www.sample.com/images/example.jpg.
2. On your WordPress dashboard, choose Appearance, Thesis Options, click the plus sign under Display Options next to Header and make sure Show site name in header and Show tagline in header are both checked. Otherwise, your header area will be blank – no text and no header image.
3. Paste the following into your custom.css file. Be sure to edit the code to include the correct dimensions and location and name of the image you want to use.

/* This line sets up our clickable background image based on the site title's link */

/* DIY: Adjust the height & width attributes to reflect the actual size of your image */

/* DIY: Change the url of your image to reflect the actual header's location and file name */
.custom #header #logo a { display: block; height: 125px; width: 875px; background: url('http://computerchimp.com/logos/computerchimp_3.jpg') no-repeat; outline: none; }

/* This line gets rid of the site title & tagline by casting them out to far left field */
.custom #header #logo, .custom #header #tagline { text-indent: -9999px; }

/* This line collapses the vertical space of the tagline so that there isn't unnecessary white space after the header image */

/* This is a bit of a kludge, but it seems to work. */
.custom #header #tagline { height: 0; }

/* This line removes the padding from the header so that the background image sits close to the nav menu, the bottom border of the header, and the sides of the content */
.custom #header { padding: 0; }

Adding a Header Image with Hooks

Sugarrae has a good tutorial on using hooks that includes code for adding a header image with hooks. I modified the code slightly to avoid the use of backslashes. Again, replace any text and settings specific to my blog with text and settings specific to your blog.

/* Custom Header Image */
function add_header_image () {
echo '<a href="http://www.computerchimp.com/" title="ComputerChimp.com">
<img src="http://computerchimp.com/logos/computerchimp_3.jpg" alt="ComputerChimp" height="125" width="875" style="border:0px" />
</a>';
}

add_action('thesis_hook_after_title', 'add_header_image');

Note: If you’re using the Thesis OpenHook plugin, you simply add the HTML portion as shown below in the Header box.

You can insert the HTML code for your header image with OpenHook.

You can click the Remove Thesis default header option to remove the blog title and tagline. Otherwise, the title and tagline will appear below your header image. If you prefer leaving the default header in place but simply want to hide the text, add the following to your custom.css file:

.custom #header #logo { display: none; }
.custom #header #tagline { display: none; }

/* Optional to remove space around header image so image sits on divider line */
.custom #header { padding: 0; }

This hooks option inserts the header image fine, but it doesn’t insert it as a background image like the css method. If you want the blog title and tagline to appear in front of the header image, you’ll need to make some additional adjustments.

Adding the Pixopoint Multi-Level Navigation Menu

One last customization I want to discuss. Instead of the navigation bar that Thesis displays above or below the header area, I wanted to use a drop-down menu for this blog. I found a nifty plugin called Multi-Level Navigation Menu from PixoPoint and installed it. The instructions call for adding the following php function wherever you want the dropdown menu bar to appear (usually in the header.php file).

<?php if (function_exists('pixopoint_menu')) { pixopoint_menu(); } ?>

Important
If you used hooks to move the Thesis navbar from above the header to below the header earlier, remove those hooks before proceeding. Otherwise, you’re likely to end up with the Thesis navigation bar and the multi-level navigation menu.

Well, I knew that editing the header.php file was a big no-no in Thesis, so I would have to either use hooks in the custom_functions.php file or add the code using Thesis OpenHook. Let’s look at the easy way first. With OpenHook, you scroll down to the Before Header box and click the Remove Thesis nav menu option. Then, scroll down to the After Header box and paste in the code as shown below. Be sure to click the Execute PHP on this hook option. Click the save button, and you should be good to go.

Adding the Multi-Level Navigation Menu is a snap with OpenHook.

The other option is to edit the custom_functions.php file; simply insert the following at the end of the file.

function my_nav_menu() { ?>
<?php if (function_exists('pixopoint_menu')) { pixopoint_menu(); } ?>
<?php
}

remove_action('thesis_hook_before_header', 'thesis_nav_menu');
add_action('thesis_hook_after_header', 'my_nav_menu');

After getting the menu bar to display, I made some additional tweaks to its design using the PixoPoint Multi-Level Menu Navigation CSS Generator and making some additional adjustments to its stylesheet. (Yes, the menu bar has its own CSS stylesheet that controls the menu’s appearance.)

I have a notebook PC that won’t even power up. After discussing the possible issues with Dell, the tech support person informed me that replacing the AC adapter and motherboard would probably do the trick. I replaced the AC adapter first, because that was the cheapest fix – $80.23 after tax. Well, that didn’t solve the problem, so I checked out the price of a new motherboard – $403 before tax – for a refurbished motherboard that carries a 3-month warranty, doing the work myself.

I looked up the trade-in value: $0. If I want to recycle it, it’ll cost me $17 for shipping and another $15 to have my data erased from the hard drive.

I looked up the price of a newer version of the same notebook – a Dell Inspiron 1525. The new one’s processor is three times as fast. It has over six times the hard drive storage capacity and six times the memory. It carries a 1-year warranty. The cost? $579 before sales tax.

I’m returning the AC adapter and sticking with my desktop PC for now.

I think it should cost less to fix something than replace it. Wouldn’t that be the green thing to do?

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Computer Basics, 5th Edition

Price: $19.95, February 2009, Penguin – Alpha Books

Most introductory computer books focus on hardware – CPU, RAM, motherboard, hard drive, expansion cards, and other high-tech gear. The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Computer Basics, Fifth Edition, takes an entirely different approach. It assumes computer users are about as interested in what’s inside their computer and how it works as drivers care about what’s under the hood of their cars. People want to use their computers to perform practical tasks, such as typing letters, managing their personal finances, shopping online, communicating with friends and family using email and online messaging, editing digital photos and videos, listening to music, and tuning in to YouTube. The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Computer Basics, Fifth Edition shows them how.

This book puts the “personal” back in personal computing. It places the power of the computer back into the hands of the people. Instead of expecting readers to understand their computers, it shows readers how to put their computers to work for them – how to make them more productive and improve the quality of their lives.

In The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Computer Basics, Fifth Edition, readers discover how to:

• Compose letters and create custom publications.
• Track down lost and misplaced documents.
• Decorate documents with professional clip art and other graphics.
• Shop at mega-malls and specialty shops without leaving their home – and save money, too!
• Send and receive e-mail with the click of a button.
• Carry on conversations with friends, relatives, and complete strangers anywhere in the world free with instant messaging.
• Plan their vacation, get medical advice, and find maps and directions to nearly any location.
• Copy music clips from the Internet and from their CD collections and burn their own custom CDs.
• Take photos with a digital camera, transfer them to the computer, make prints, or e-mail photos to friends and family.
• Create their own websites or blogs (web logs) to express their views, communicate with family and friends, or market their products and services.
• Edit their home videos and copy video clips to CDs, DVDs, or VHS tapes.
• Tune up their computer to keep it running at peak performance.
• Practice green computing to reduce, reuse, and recycle.

My plan to become rich and famous is off to a roaring start… the famous part, anyway. Fellow freelancer Tara Swords recently wrote a piece for The Online Family entitled “Tricks to Buying Good Used Computers,” with several quotes from yours truly. Now, I just have to figure out how to leverage my new found fame into a life of opulence. Thanks, Tara!