Hi Folks,

From a WorldStart news letter.

Geni

I am so happy to bring you this site! For all of you avid family tree makers, it just got a whole lot easier. Here at Geni, you can easily make an online version of your own family tree.

To get started, on the My Tree tab (if it didn't take you directly to the start page, please click that you are a new user), just add your information and from there, you can expand it. Click the yellow arrows around you and you will get the option to add a brother, sister or spouse. Once they are added, you can edit their information and add lots of other useful information about them. You can add where they were born, how old they are, where they live, their occupation, maiden name, photo and much more.

You'll notice there are some navigation tools as well. There is a slider bar, which makes the page zoom in and out for you and there is a house surrounded by arrows, which will let you scroll the page either right, left, up or down.

Once you have all the people you'd like to add at the moment, you can click the My Profile tab and start filling out your profile. You'll need to confirm your account by checking your e-mail address and setting a permanent password for yourself.

To share your tree with your other family members, all you need is their e-mail address. And in this day and age, not many people are without an e-mail address. Even my grandparents have one! Geni will even keep track of who you have invited, so you won't repeat yourself.

If you get lost or confused at any point while creating your tree, scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Help link. Geni's Help section is really very helpful. It's well thought out and it answered all my questions. You can even search Geni Help with the search engine at the top of the page.

So, are you ready to create and share your own family tree? I can't wait to share mine. Check it out!

http://www.geni.com/tree/start

~ Amanda

Q:
I have noticed that sometimes when I click an e-mail link, I get a new message with the subject line already inserted. Now, is this some kind of programming trick or can anyone pull it off?

A:
Excellent question! And to be honest, it's actually very easy to do. Below is a sample with my e-mail address inserted. When the link is clicked, a new e-mail message will start with "hi steve" as the subject.

mailto:steve@worldstart.com?subject=hi steve

Note: If the person who clicks it is using AOL or a Web based e-mail program, this probably isn't going to work. Their e-mail software may start it (AOL), but I'm not sure if there's going to be a subject line that says "hi steve" in the end. If you use a Web based e-mail client, this is a for sure no go. Sorry!

For the rest of you, here's how it all works with compatible software.

mailto: - This tells your Web browser or e-mail client that the link you're clicking is an e-mail link and to start your e-mail program. With most e-mail software, the "mailto" part is automatically inserted (in a sneaky, behind the scenes sort of way) when you type an e-mail address out and hit Enter.

steve@worldstart.com - This is just the e-mail address you want the message sent to.

?subject= - This tells the software that you want whatever comes after the "=" (equal sign) to be in the subject line of the e-mail.

hi steve - Okay, here's the tricky part. This is where you specify what you want automatically inserted in the subject line. Note that there is a space between the words "hi" and "steve." If you type this into Outlook Express (and most other e-mail clients), you'll find it only links the word "hi" and not "steve." (Nope, computers still can't read minds!)

So, what's the trick? Well, you have to use an "insert hyperlink" tool. Most e-mail programs will have this and surprisingly enough, it's usually found under the Insert menu.

Let's try an example using Outlook Express. Start a new mail message and hit the Insert menu, Hyperlink. Note that you can only do this from the new message screen, not the main program.

On the resulting screen, type: mailto:steve@worldstart.com?subject=hi steve

Note that you can pull the "mailto:" part down from the little drop down box, so you don't have to type it.

Click the OK button and you're all set. When your link is clicked, the subject line you specified will be put in automatically.

Now, what if you send the e-mail in plain text and can't insert a hyperlink? Well, it's not as pretty, but you can use something like:

mailto:steve@worldstart.com?subject=hi-steve

The little dash between the words "hi" and "steve" keep the string together. When your recipient gets the e-mail, their software will probably make the link "clickable." (And who knows, maybe your software made it clickable when you hit Enter).

But, by using this method, you'll get a subject line that looks like: "hi-steve."

Not too terribly bad either way, I guess.

Happy e-mailing!

~ Steve

If you have Google Desktop on your machine, unload it and try this.  You will find your computer running faster and more efficiently.

Ava Find

I would honestly have to say that the person who designed Windows' search feature was probably half asleep when they were doing it. I mean, it's so very slow! It can take up to one hour to complete a search with just a simple and common criterion. And I don't know about you, but I am often forced to use it, because I have files scattered all over my computer. So, even though using it drives me up the wall, I have to. So, one day I became so frustrated that I decided to look around for a better alternative. The results I found were shocking and I'll share them with you right now!

The program I found is called Ava Find. One user claimed that this product is a search feature on steroids and boy, were they right! Ava Find can complete even the hardest searches in less than one second. It's absolutely wonderful!

To Use Ava Find:

1.) First, download Ava Find from this link. Follow the instruction procedure and when you are done, open Ava Find. It will then immediately start building its search cache for your computer. This can take up to a few minutes, depending on how many files you have on your computer.

2.) As you can see, Ava Find has a very simple interface.

3.) The search criteria box is at the top of the screen. Let's put our new program to the test, shall we?! Type anything in the search box that you want.

4.) As long as there is a file on your computer with the name you type in, you should have received your results in less the one second. Cool, huh?!

To see exactly how long it took and how many files were found, look slightly below the search box.

In this picture, it took 0.4 seconds to find 200 files. How amazing is that?!

Now, let's dive into some of the features of Ava Find. Ava Find has a filter that will let you see only music, picture, movie and downloaded files. To activate this filter during a search, just click on of the Filter Buttons.

Newly saved, created or downloaded files appear right in the small window on the right, which is called Scout Bot. It's also useful if you didn't pay attention to where you saved a file.

Ava Find also has a feature called My Picks and it shows files recently opened with Ava Find. It also lets you pin frequently used items to the top of the list.

Ava Find also allows you to save your searches so you can run frequently repeated searches without having to retype them every time. You can also save the results if you want to print them or anything else.

One more thing: Ava Find can also help you mange your computer. You can sort all of your files by size to see which ones take up the most space, etc. The file size is displayed right next to the file, so you don't have to right click and choose Properties, like you have to in Windows Explorer.

As you can see, a lot can come in a little package and I hope you enjoy this program as much as I did!

~ Neil Patel

More Next Friday,
Chuckstr
----My Web Site----

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