This is provided to assist some people with the use of links, downloading and saving files etc.
We can assume that a large number of our visitors and members are fairly fluent with their computers - if so this page is probably not for you! It is however aimed at the folks who have difficulty sometimes knowing how to deal with awkward links and downloading of files - and is aimed primarily at PC users, although Mac users may well employ similar strategies.
First a quick mention - we welcome all who wish to sign up for our alerts - which you can do on the homepage or from here but watch out for an email coming back with a link to use for confirmation. This comes from our bulk email provider www.aweber.com - so do not think it is spam - just their need to make sure you really do wish to subscribe.
First - Links....
On occasions links can be very long and when sent via email, as plain text, can often be broken due to lines word-wrapping. When this happens, the email program's ability to show the whole link can fail, such that what appears as a complete link on one line, in fact has more that is required 'lost' on the line below. If therefore the unsuspecting user clicks on the incomplete link, they will get a browser error. The answer?
Using copy and paste (see next section below) - the idea is to select all of the link if possible and paste that into the browser address window and then "Go". If however the 'lost' part will not include in the selection as is often the case, copy and paste the first part and then come back to copy and paste the 'lost'part, to add to the browser address - thus completing the link's integrity.
This picture on the right shows a sample from an email message - the top section shows how a link was sent as a double - sometimes happens. Clicking on the first full link (ending in 'html', before the next 'http') would work, however the repeat of the link is broken by word-wrap. Were we to have to use the second link, then two copying stages are needed. In the center section we have highlighted/selected the first portion of the link ... which we copy and then paste to the browser address bar. The third portion shows us coming back to select the last part of the link - which we again paste to browser, adding to the other part and completing the link - then we can hit ''go'' and it should work as intended and expected, taking care to not introduce any spaces. The complete link after this double 'copy'n'paste'' would show the full URL - http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/Fractal_Software.html
Oh and one other thing with links ........ it is not uncommon for a link to accidentally include adjacent text ...... for example using the link above we might have "http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/Fractal_Software.html," or even "http://home.att.net/~Paul.N.Lee/Fractal_Software.html-- blah blah....". In the first case a period immediately follows "html" and if the link is automatically parsed and that is included, then the link if clicked on will not be valid - likewise with the second example where two dashes following "html" could also be included and so again render the link invalid if clicked on. Notice the link's underlines continue to include the unwanted characters - the answer here is again a simple selection excluding those parts, and a copy'n'paste of the real link content into your browser.
"Copy and paste" - how?
Again most people probably know about this and we have no wish to insult intelligences but, to make sure let's run through real quick. 
Here we are talking about copying text and so, we first place mouse cursor one end of the required text, then left click the mouse and drag across until all we want is highlighted then release mouse button (see image on left). Might be blue for most but perhaps you have your own chosen color for this - I use a red. 
Once this selection is made, either right-click the mouse and select "copy" from the context menu, or - press Ctrl+C on the keyboard. Picture to right shows the context menu method.
Your text is now on the Windows "clipboard" - stored. To place it somewhere, we place a curson on the target area (maybe your browser address bar although here this is certainly not a link!) .... and then either right click the mouse and select "paste" - or use Ctrl+V on the keyboard. Easy!
Downloading and saving files - 
This is relevant mainly to saving of images, document files and media files. A picture will usually have the "JPG" extension, most documents will be "PDF" or "DOC", and media files could be MP3 sound files, or videos with extensions such as "WMV", "MOV", "RM", "MPG". With pictures it is often possible if a displayed image is what you want, simply place the mouse cursor over the image and right click - selecting then from the dropdown context menu "save picture/image as" (see picture to right, where we go to save the JPFO logo) and putting the saved image somewhere convenient where it can be stored and found again.
Other saves however will be from links, and the point is there is no need to actually click on the link in most cases. On JPFO, if a link has at the end a file showing any of the above mentioned extensions then, right click with the mouse cursor over the link and choose "save target as" - in the Internet Explorer context menu anyways - (see picture to left where we target an MP3 sound file). This will then allow you to download the file and save to a location of choice, thus allowing for viewing/playing of the file later when convenient.
Viewing and playing files -
Your computer probably has enough basic options for viewing images and playing sound or video but - usually these are not enough. Let's mention some easy to find applications you can download and install to expand your options, for free!
For images nothing is more convenient as a general purpose viewer than Irfanview ( http://www.irfanview.com/ ) - a small and free program, worth its weight in gold. In fact if the available plugins are installed too then it can play sound files and some videos too.
For video and sound there are two or three options better than Windows Media Player. "ALShow" is excellent ( http://www.altools.com/ALTools/ALShow.aspx ), then there is "Windows Media Player Classic" ( http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Media_Player_Classic.htm ) - nothing to do with Microsoft actually but a free package containing, from this link, many needed codecs for playing most media files. Then there is "VLC Media Player" ( http://www.free-codecs.com/download/VideoLAN.htm ) ...... another free player but one that can often manage files others will not always play.
If you add these few programs to your armory you will be well prepared to hear and view most things.
Finally - how you organize your files!!
I know many people who only use either the default locations such as "My Pictures", My Documents" etc or even throw everything on their 'desktop' - things can get confusing and crowded! Some suggestions for you. Get used to exploiting 'Windows Explorer' or 'My Computer' - and see your hard drive as a big filing cabinet - one in which you have folders and, folders within folders. If the hierarchy is exploited to the full then you can compartmentalize your file storage such that retrieval is much easier. In fact a good start is to make many sub folders within "My Pictures" and "My Documents" and name them to suit specific categories. Believe me, even that helps a lot.
Let's give an example of this 'hierarchy' - using a picture to illustrate (see image to right), which assumes you can set up your system to view files properly! I set up XP as I want it and it is more like Windows 2000 classic look, with personal refinements.
Imagine your file storage as if it were a family tree ........ so you have a main folder which might be called "JPFO" ..... inside that perhaps you can add folders such as "JPFO-pictures", "JPFO-videos", "JPFO sound-files", "JPFO-documents" etc. You then wish to have more than one type of picture, so a "JPFO-pictures" folder could well contains sub-folders called "Genocide", "Promotions", "Handbills" and so on ....... all making for a more structured method to store and most of all - make for easy location of a file when wanted.
To those who know all this, apologies though I doubt you stayed on this page long! To those few who perhaps struggle a bit, let's hope this eases your pain just a little.
JPFO Webmaster