We’ve had questions about whether you can download music, either from iTunes® or from other sites connecting though a library computer. The short answer is you probably won’t be able to or really want to. What we’ve learned is that iTunes® requires installation of a particular software package to download music. At first glance this is no big deal, however, they expect you to save personal information, such as your play list. Our computers won’t allow you to do that long term to protect your privacy (every restart clears your changes). Again, this may not sound like a big deal, but it becomes a bigger problem if you don’t realize that syncing your iPod® with iTunes® apparently usually means erasing it and putting on what’s on your iTunes® computer setup, so downloading and syncing the device can cause deletion of songs you have previously purchased. With the difficulty of keeping the software updated and the problems that users can run into with this, we have decided not to install iTunes® on the public Internet Computers. This is not because we object to this service, it is simply not consistent with the expected use of the program and creates difficulties for the users.
On a similar note, you also cannot download e-books and e-audio books and the digital music files that can be checked out from our online catalog on public computers. It seems ironic, but again the expectation is that you will be downloading the files to the computer where they will be used. We’ve considered this several times since becoming involved with the e-book grant a few years ago, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to make it work. The Digital Rights Management on the WMA files that you download need to identify particular devices being connected. By the way, the things checked out from our catalog, don’t work on iPods®, as iPods® can’t handle WMA files with DRM (Digital Rights Management.)
Can I file my taxes on a library computer? Yes, if you don’t mind sitting in a public area with personal papers working on your taxes, it’s permitted and possible.
What you can’t do is load tax software on our computers. So don’t go out and buy a copy of tax preparation software and bring it in to load on our computers. It won’t work for reasons of security and to protect your privacy.
What you can do is use a tax preparation service on the web for your federal taxes. Ohio tax forms and e-filing can be found at http://tax.ohio.gov/ .
On your Federal Taxes, according to the http://www.irs.gov/ website (the official IRS website) “If you earned $54,000 or less in 2007, you can use Free File to prepare your taxes online beginning in mid-January 2008 … at the IRS website.” But you must start from the links on the IRS site to be sure that you get the free file option and not a premium service.
Can I print my forms from a library computer? Yes, if it is a form that the IRS.gov has available to download and print you may, however, you are responsible for any printing costs as the IRS does not reimburse us. The IRS does provide us with many forms that they have printed and these are provided at no additional cost.
Suggestions if You Intend To File Your Taxes From A Library Computer:
Bring your papers in a closed file to keep your tax papers secure, so you don’t drop them in a public area.
Come in at a time of the day when we are not as busy, NOT Noon-One or 2:30 to 5:30. You’ll have a better chance of being able to complete your taxes then. Make sure you allow plenty of time for this. You probably will require more than one day to do this.
Make sure you write down the logins & passwords and keep them in your closed file.
This should not be the first time you’ve used a computer as Staff Cannot Help You With This. You probably should have an email account that you use regularly before taking this on.
Be careful if you wish to e-file, and not paper file, that you have selected a provider who e-files at no extra charge.
Restart the computer when you leave to avoid leaving any information for the next user.
We have setup a Wireless Hotspot for our patrons at Greenfield Library. We are using this branch as our test site to work out the bugs before we consider installing hotspots at our other libraries. This means that if you have a wireless laptop or a wireless device that conforms to the 802.11g, 802.11b, or 802.11n standard, you should be able to bring it to the Greenfield Library and after signing our agreement, to connect to the Internet through our network from your laptop or PDA.
Some points about Wireless Access at our Library:
Why Greenfield? There are additional networking problems to setting up at a branch rather than at the main library. Setting up at Greenfield first allows us to iron out some of those problems and still get a good test on stress to the use our bandwidth by being at our second busiest library.
OK, someone has sent you an email that feel it is necessary to share with others. Follow these simple steps to avoid losing all your friends:
If it is a warning, an item of news other than personal, or a request for help, or in any way inflammatory check this on www.snopes.com FIRST to be sure that you are not lying to your friends, by forwarding an inaccurate email. Also be aware that forwarding “illegal contests, pyramid schemes or chain letters” is often grounds for your email provider to shut down your email account.
Take Out All Those Other Addresses. There is no good reason to share their email addresses with strangers and plenty of reasons to want to avoid it. One quick way to do this is simply to Copy & Paste the part of the email you wish to forward into a new mail message. First Highlight the section of the email that you wish to send on. (This begins after the huge bank of addresses and ends before the advertisements at the end.) After you have highlighted this, Right Click once on the highlighted section. Click once on Copy. Then Click on the button at the top of your screen for “new message” “compose” or something similar (each email package is different). Right click in the body of the message and Click on Paste. This usually will paste what was in the original message into your new message without a lot of clutter.
Don’t put in your friends’ email addresses! Ok, that sounds difficult, since the idea was to send it to your friends, however there is a neat little field called BCC. On Yahoo Mail, you click Add BCC at the top of the screen on Hotmail it is Show CC and BCC. This allows you to insert the email addresses as a “Blind Carbon Copy”. You do have to put in at least one “To:” address on the email, however on many email programs that can be your address. (Send it to yourself.)
Copy and paste or type in a subject heading and put Fwd: in front to let folks know that this isn’t an original heartfelt message.
Last but definitely not least, Don’t Send it To Me! My mailbox has several hundred messages in it already, most just waiting to be sorted or dealt with, so I often delete forwards without reading.
From time to time you will want to copy something and put it elsewhere, either in another program or in another part of the document you are writing. For this Windows uses 3 tools called Cut, Copy and Paste. Let’s look at two ways to use them.
By Mouse
First to COPY the words or pictures or numbers that you wish to use you need to :
1. Highlight (or select) them. Usually the easiest way to do this is to hold down on the left mouse button and drag the pointer across the text or pictures until you have entirely selected all of what you want. (You can’t let go half way, or you’ll need to click elsewhere and restart your selection.)
2. Point to the middle of the selected area, and Right Click on the right mouse button. If you’ve done this correctly then you’ll see a menu of choices that includes “Copy.” Click on Copy. (If you don’t see copy on the menu, you probably right clicked outside the selected area & will need will need to re-select or highlight the area and try again.)
3. If you’ve done this correctly nothing appears to happen!
NOTE: Cut may only work if you are in a program where it is possible to edit the document you are reading. CUT means to copy something and at the same time delete it from it’s present location. You do this to move words in a document you are typing to another part of the document.
Then to Paste :
4. Now, go to the Window, Program or text entry field where you want to put the things you’ve just copied,
5. and Right Click where you want the text or pictures to go.
6. If you’ve done well, then you should see a drop down menu that includes the choice “Paste” in dark letters, as opposed to grayed out. Click on Paste.
7. If all is well your text and pictures should appear.
If what you copied doesn’t paste:
o Consider whether you are trying to copy multiple lines on to a one line text entry box. If so try copying and pasting each line separately, and pasting them at the end of the last line.
o It is also possible you are trying to copy a type of thing into a place where it can’t exist. For example a picture into a text entry line, or a shortcut into a picture.
o When trying to copy a picture, be sure you are indeed copying the picture and not just a thumbnail or tiny linking preview of the picture.
If you are copying information don’t forget to note where it came from!
By Keyboard
First you must highlight what you want to Copy, or Cut.
1. In some programs, you can do this on the Keyboard. You can do this by using the Shift and arrow keys on the keyboard. Or a CTRL+A will often select the whole document. Otherwise, use the mouse.
2. Copy is CTRL+C (while holding the Ctrl key down and tap the C key.) or if you wish to move the selected things Cut is CTRL + X
3. Now, go to where you want to put the things you’ve just copied. If it is already open you may be able to ALT+ TAB to reach it. If it is within the same window you should be able to Arrow or Tab to it with the keyboard.
4. Paste is CTRL + V. (Why V for Paste? Look where it sits on the keyboard, right after X and C.)
Finding local information can be a pain using a web search engine. A search for “Highland County” on Google will net you nearly 4 million results many of which focus on Florida and Virginia.
To help you narrow your web searches for local information we have a Google Custom Search on our search page that only searches pages focusing on the people, places, events of Highland County, Ohio. So where a regular Google search for that “bells festival” will get over 2 million results, using the Local Highland County Sites Search to search “bells festival” will find 11 pages including the http://www.festivalofthebells.com/. We hope this search proves helpful to you.
As of Oct. 5, 2007 we have 68 sites (or sometimes single pages) that are searched with the Local Highland County Sites Search. If you know or have a web page focusing on the people, places, events, or history of Highland County, Ohio and you can’t find it with our search, let us know at highlandco@highlandco.org. We try not to add sites that merely list directories and aren’t truly focused on some aspect of Highland County.
Almost every week we hear people ask about information or pictures that they find on the web, “Why doesn’t this print right?” “I get all this stuff on the sides.” or ” I can’t get the whole document to print.”
Here are a few things I usually recommend trying to get a document to print correctly.
- Look up at the top of the page for a link that says ”Printable View“ or “Printer Friendly Version“ or “No Frames“ and click on that link before printing. (This usually brings up the body of the document removing any of the frames around it).
- Some pages, like Live Hotmail, or pdf documents in Adobe Reader actually display a little printer Icon below the regular toolbar (not on the same bar as the little house for home). Clicking on this is the best way to print in those cases.
- Use Print Preview before you waste paper and money. In Internet Explorer 7.0 you can either Right Click on the page and choose Print Preview (or hit the ALT
key on the keyboard, and then F for File menu and V for Preview.)
Print Preview brings up an image of each of the pages you are about to print, it is important to notice how many pages it tells you there are. This is down at the bottom of the screen where it says if this is page 1 of 1 pages or 1 of 57 pages. It’s helpful to know that before you hit print.
It also gives you a toolbar across the top with a printer to choose to print, and buttons that allow you to change to landscape printing or other options.- Sometimes you just want to print a part of a document. In that case, try highlighting the part of the document that you want to print by dragging your mouse across the text and/or pictures that you wish to print. Then either Right Click in the middle of the highlighted area and choose Print Preview or hit the
key on the keyboard, and then F for File menu and V for Preview.
When Print Preview comes up this time there will be 3 drop down menus at the end of the toolbar at the top. The first may say “1 page view”, the second will probably say “As laid out on the screen.” Click on the second menu and choose “As selected on the screen” instead, or in some cases if the option is available you may want to try “Only the selected frame.”
After changing that selection, the preview should show a new image of what will be printed. This image can be changed if necessary, by playing around with the last drop down menu on sizing and the layout buttons at the beginning of the toolbar to get what you need on the page before you pay a cent.- Lastly if none of the above worked, you can try copying what you want to print to another program, such as Microsoft Word or Wordpad to print. This is especially helpful if you wish to change the text size, font, or color for easier reading. As above, you first highlight the section you wish to print. Then tap the ” Ctrl +C” keys simultaneously to copy. Minimize the window you are in by clicking the Minimize box (the little minus sign button at the top right of the window). Then open Word and tap the “CTRL+V” keys to paste the copied material. Make any formatting changes you need and print from there. Don’t forget to copy where you found what you are copying and who wrote it so you can give them credit and so you can find the resource again.
These 5 steps won’t solve every problem, printing pictures can be a whole different headache. Sometimes copying to Word works for pictures, sometimes not.
Occasionally, the website creator has intentionally used some techniques to protect his graphics from being copied or printed and in that case, I really can’t and don’t want to help you for copyright reasons.
Any time you look at a full record in our catalog or at a search list from a keyword search, you’ll see a little button labeled “Add to Your List.” Most people’s first question is “What List?” Our catalog allows any user to make a quick list of titles that they are interested in. You can even email that list to yourself at your own email address as a set of clickable links if you click on the “My List - …” link at the top right of your screen, without needing to even login.
Here’s a quick list of What You Can Do with “Your List” and then another of what you can’t :
Lists Don’t:
Hope this Helps!