When you shut down your Windows PC you usually get the option to Standby, Turn off or Restart, or some other similar combination. We've just been activating hibernation on our PCs as we now have a Windows Home Server which needs to wake the PCs nightly for back-up.

Sometimes you also get Hibernate. So what's the difference, and how can you choose Hibernate when its not on the menu?

Standby is what it sounds like - the PC is still running but everything is turned off that can be turned off - monitor, hard disks off, processor slowed right down. This uses a small amount of current still. Hibernate, by contrast, does actually switch off the PC after saving the current state of the memory to disk. But it takes a bit longer to wake up again.

So if you are only leaving your PC for a short time, Standby will do. But don't leave it for a long time on Standby. For longer periods Hibernate is better.

Activating Hibernate
If you do not have Hibernate on your shutting-down menu, you need to go to the control panel/settings and choose 'Power Options'. On this setting there is a tab called 'Hibernate'. Go there and ensure that hibernation is enabled. If you still can't see hibernation as an option then hold down shift when you get the shut-down menu. If Hibernate is available it will show up.

Let's assume you're using Windows, and, like us monkeys at Pinkeye Graphics, you also use Googlemail or Gmail for email.

If so, you might well want to have a convenient shortcut to Gmail on your desktop - you know, just like the one that used to go to Outlook Express, all those years ago? In fact, for those changing over to Gmail from Outlook or a similar POP email client, having an email icon in the quick launch bar is a nice bit of comfort. Even if it just opens up a browser it still retains some of that offline look and feel which is reassuring and easy to use.

Find out below how to make this happen in a few brief clicks of the mouse.

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Using: Adobe Illustrator CS and any subsequent version.

Here's a quick and dirty way of creating woodcut-style pictures in Illustrator.

This example image was made by tracing a photograph using the technique shown in this tutorial.

Let's create a woodcut circle. First, draw a circle in Illustrator using the ellipse tool ('l' on your keyboard). Press 'shift' to constrain the ellipse.

Now, using your pen tool (type 'p' to select), draw a rough circle inside the one you have drawn by clicking the pen tool and creating straight lines. Do not bother fussing about with the bezier whatnot or trying to be too accurate. After all, you are replicating quite an unsophisticated artisan work.

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Just like most little girls as soon as The Cat could hold a crayon she didn't stop drawing. Drawing is a great leveller - unlike a lot of disciplines, singing and drawing are things that everyone is encouraged to have a stab at from an early age. And, judging by the endless stream of tone deaf warblers that subject themselves to humiliation on shows like the X Factor, everyone thinks they can sing. Similarly, anyone with a computer suddenly becomes a whizz with the Wordart.

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Today I found in my spam box the following email. It looks as though it really did come from Lycos, although for some reason they sent it to an old email address and so it got filtered.

Customer information

Dear Matthew Chatfield,

As you might have heard in the media, the management and the board of directors of LYCOS Europe N.V. have decided to liquidate valuable businesses and cease unprofitable activities. Unfortunately the webhosting business is one of these.

This means for you, that we will continue providing our webhosting services for only a limited period. A solution is sought, so that online-presences of our customers can be transferred to another provider without causing adverse effects or additional costs.

We will inform you about any upcoming changes in sufficient time. Though details are not yet clarified, we expect the webhosting platform to be operating during the first quarter of 2009.

As soon as we have further details about the planned measure, you will immediately be informed. We expect this to happen in a few days.

We are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused. We strive to enable a smooth transfer of your presence. We ask for your understanding that we cannot provide you with further information at this point of time. We also ask for your understanding that you might experience delays in response times from our support team in the next days as we expect an increasing volume of requests.

Please refrain from contacting our support team with request in this matter as no additional information can be provided by this channel at the moment.

We will contact you as soon as we have any further information.

Thank you for your patience and your understanding.

With best regards

Your LYCOS Webhosting Team

That almost certainly isn't good news. We've been using Lycos webhosting and as domain registrar for over five years. Pinkeye has several clients still on Lycos, altogether we are gradually moving them all across to our favourites EUKhost as each package expires.

If anything happens, we'll let you know. Meanwhile, if anyone's got any information - we'd like to hear it.

External link: http://www.thewhir.com/marketwatch/112608_Lycos_Europe_to_Sell_Close_Assets.cfm