Renewing Books Online

Did you know that you can renew your books online even when the library is closed?

• Go to www.durhamcountylibrary.org
• Click on My Account in the upper right corner.
• Type in your library card number without any spaces.
• Type in your pin number (the last four digits of your phone number). Click on Login. Call your local library if you have trouble getting in to your account.
• You will now be on the account overview page. Click on Checked Out/Renew Items.
• You will now see a list of all the items that you currently have checked out on your library card with their due dates.
• Check the little boxes next to the individual items that you would like to renew, or click the box directly underneath the Renew button to select all the items at one time.
• Click Renew.
• You will now see the new due dates after the items that you renewed.

Please feel free to add comments to this post with any questions about how to use the catalog. – Kathy

How Messy is Your Desk?

I’ll admit it, I am a total neat freak – I am a librarian for goodness sake! What really amazes people though is my computer desktop. Usually the only icon on there is the Recycle Bin. So how do I keep my desktop clean? I use the Quick Launch option in Windows and an organized file system.

First the Quick Launch. This little bar lives down on your Taskbar. To check if yours is on, you should see some program icons on your taskbar like the big blue E for Internet Explorer. If you don’t seen any program icons you can turn it on by right clicking on the taskbar and selecting Properties. Under the Taskbar tab check Show Quick Launch.

Now that it is turned on you can move icons from your desktop to Quick Launch. Click on one of your Program Icons, hold the mouse button down, and drag the icon to the Quick Launch bar and drop it. The program will now be accessible from the Quick Launch bar and the icon should still be on your desktop. If you want, you can now delete the icon from your desktop.

A lot of people are afraid that if they delete something from their desktop, it will go away forever…this is usually not the case, plus Windows will stop you and ask you if you really want to delete something forever.

Icons that can be safely deleted have a little black arrow in the left corner of the icon. These are usually shortcuts to programs that are also available from your Program menu. It’s a good idea to check your program menu first, before you delete any of those icons.

For file organization I think of my hard drive as a giant filing cabinet where I can create an endless number of folders and put an endless number of things in each folder. To learn how to organize your entire life I recommend reading Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-free Productivity by David Allen. This book can change your life!

So try cleaning up your desktop. — Jill

Taxes

It’s that time of year. While no one at the library can give you any advice on how to fill out your forms or which forms to use, we can direct you to information about taxes, and services to help you fill out your forms.

Forms

Federal income tax forms and instructions are available from the IRS website. If you have trouble navigating the IRS website, you can also go to Google and type in: site:www.irs.gov followed by the number of the form and the year for which you are filing. For example, say I want to find 1040A for the year 2007; I would type:
site:www.irs.gov 1040A 2007
and click the search button.

For individual income tax forms and instructions for North Carolina, go to the North Carolina Department of Revenue’s website.

You can also come into the Durham County Main Library at 300 N. Roxboro Rd. in downtown Durham to pick up paper copies of the most common federal and state income tax forms.

Rebate

You’re eligible to receive an economic stimulus payment in May if you have a valid Social Security Number (SSN), can’t be claimed as a dependent on a tax return and have either an income tax liability or “qualifying income” of at least $3,000. Retirees, disabled veterans and low-wage workers who usually are exempt from filing a tax return must file a tax return this year in order to receive an economic stimulus payment in May. Package 1040A-3 is the informational package available from the IRS for those who would not ordinarily file taxes, and are filing this year only for the stimulus rebate. There are paper copies available from the 2nd floor of the Main Library at 300 N. Roxboro Rd. in downtown Durham. For other questions about the stimulus rebate, please refer to the Economic Stimulus Payments Information Center. There is also an economic stimulus payment calculator available if you would like to see an estimate of how much your payment would be.

Pagos de Estímulo Económico: Conozca sobre los pagos del estímulo económico, a cuanto ascienden los pagos y cuando estos se enviaran a los contribuyentes.

Tax Preparation

If your adjusted gross income was less than $54,000 for the year 2007, you can file your taxes online for free using Free File. You can also file for free if you do not ordinarily file taxes, but must file this year to claim the stimulus payment rebate.
Si su Ingreso Bruto Ajustado fue menos de $54,000 en el año 2007, usted puede utilizar Free-File para preparar su declaración de impuestos y presentarla electrónicamente.

Free, in person tax preparation is available at different locations around Durham from VITA for low to moderate income individuals (generally $40,000 and below) who cannot prepare their own returns. Call 560-0110 for more information.

Let’s talk about toolbars

While you are reading this entry, click your mouse on the View menu at the top of your browser. From there, roll on down to Toolbars. What do you see? Is there a navigation toolbar, an address toolbar, bookmarks, Google, Yahoo!? Although most browsers come with some extra toolbars sometimes when you load new or update old stuff on your computer new toolbars will appear.

It only takes a second to turn these on and off to see what they are doing and if you are using them. Give it a try, I’ll wait.

So are you using any of those toolbars? Here’s a surprise, you may think you are not using them, but actually some of them are in use, even when you can’t see them. A good example of this is the Yahoo! toolbar. A staff member and I were recently working on her computer and we kept having problems seeing stuff on the web she needed to get to. We eventually figured out that her Yahoo! toolbar was blocking pop-up windows even though the toolbar wasn’t even showing in her browser window. Blocking pop-ups can be a good thing, but your browser will usually do that for you. (I’ll be writing a post on configuring your browser where I will talk more about blocking pop-ups.)

So, if you are not using the toolbars, you can remove them, and here is how. Go to Start, Control Panel, and Add or Remove Programs. Carefully look through the list of programs installed and see if you can find the toolbar. When you select the toolbar there will be a remove button or a change/remove button. If you are absolutely, positively sure you want to remove it, click the button and say so long.

Toolbars can be great in making your web surfing easier, but if you are not using them, take a minute and remove them. Remember, you can always go out and find the toolbar again and reinstall. — Jill

Browser Wars

Since I started here at Durham County as the library webmaster I have run into a lot of issues with the way our web site looks in different web browsers. These issues are a common headache for those of us trying to create user-friendly web sites.

Here are some notes on different browsers and why I like or do not like them.

Firefox – by far my favorite browser. This little open source program offers just about everything you need to find your way around the web. I love the tabbed browsing and the download manager. Since Firefox is open source, there are lots of add-ons you can use. I like synchronized bookmarks between my home and work computers. Please do be aware that you won’t be able to use Firefox for some Microsoft sites or some web applications.

Internet Explorer -  by far my least favorite browser. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has bugs. Depending on the version you are using you may see more bugs. Version 7 is the latest, and although it offers some new features liked tabbed browsing, many web pages just do not work the way the web designer made them. You should always have a copy of IE on your computer, but stick to Version 6 with all of the service pack upgrades it offers.

Netscape – The most popular browser when the web started is no longer being supported after March 1st 2008. The last version is 9 and it does offer some good options, I like the Link Pad. However, since Netscape will be no more, I recommend moving over to Firefox.

Opera – Have you ever even heard of Opera? This browser is sleek and fast. It has some great widgets you can add and it also offers tabbed browsing. If you like the look and feel of a Mac browser, Opera will give you just that.

Safari – This browser has been a Mac-only browser since it first came out in 2003. As of now though, there is a Windows version available. If you like the look and feel of a Mac on your Windows PC, this is the browser for you. It has great functionality and I like to use it to remind me that there are other users out there in the world besides us PC users.

Summing up – If you have always only used one browser, try something new. A Google search will get you to the download pages for all of these browsers. Don’t be afraid, you can run multiple browsers on your PC, just not multiple versions of the same browser.

Do hold onto the IE Version 6 if you can, although it doesn’t offer the tabbed browsing of the other browsers, it is still a very stable and necessary component on any Windows PC. — Jill

Welcome

Welcome to the Durham County Library Tech Blog. This blog has been created to help you learn about the latest in technology from the Durham County Library Staff. We welcome your comments, suggestions and questions. — Jill