Kenja's Newsletter & Updates

Hello everybody

Welcome all new-comers to the list(s), for Stationery, Desktop Themes and the Newsletter. I hope you enjoy the updates and stay with us for a long time.

As you can see I made it safely back from my trip to California... and in record breaking speed I might add. Being from overseas originally, has left me with a bred in "lead foot", which in turn enabled me to shave a total of 11 hours off the suggested trip time of 36+ hours. *smile*
Work was piled up upon my return, and I am finally getting to where I am almost caught up. Some of you may have noticed that you finally received an answer to your e-mail after a month or longer, but better late then never I guess. *smile*

If you ever plan a driving trip to California, check out California Driving before you get started. Drive around the country frequently? Keep these other very informative sites in mind too: Road Construction (Rand McNally), Cyber Router (Cyber Maps) and Speeding Tips.

List Member Gift:

The Gift for this issue is a Stationery with scrolling background, a marquee with a special message and a midi. You may change the words of the marquee and/or the midi, if you know how. A word of caution on that last statement: The operative words here are "if you know how". If you do not know how to change them, please do not email me for instructions, instead refer to previous newsletters for tutorials on HTMl and/or how to make Stationery!

If you use Outlook 98 (upgrade for Outlook as part of Office 97) in conjunction with Internet Explorer 5.0 or Office 2000, then you also need to install the OE5 version and not the OE4 version.

Please note that the gift is only for actual subscribers to this newsletter and not for visitors to the archive copies based on the net. Gift from the previous newsletter has been removed and the new one is now in effect.

Theme News:

Before I left on my trip, I created and added 2 new themes to Kenja's Theme Creations, effecting the Animal section:

• Arabian Beauties (Horse Theme with Country & Horse wave sounds)
• Poker Game (Dogs playing a Game of Poker with Blues music wave sounds)

Other Site Related News:

A new section has been added called Kenja's PSP Tubes & Tube Links. Here you will find many links to some of the best Tubes available on the Net and a small selection of my own Native American tubes I have created. If you have a site with tubes, feel free to email me with the URL and I will add your site as soon as it is verified.

Fall is almost here and so is the beginning of the holiday season with Halloween as the kick off. I have worked on the Halloween section and also created some new treats. So the Texas Haunted House | Boo Page has now been officially re-opened. Some of the treats available in this section include Halloween Stationery, which is now available for both OE 4 and IE/OE 5 versions.

Don't forget to stop by the Gift Shops for browsing and/or early Christmas Shopping Kenja's Gift Shop with Gift items like Glass & Crystal Figurines, Fine Jewellery, Clocks, Sports items, Porcelain, Toys, Garden Accessories, with up to 20% Savings. Or visit the Native American Music Shop for Native American CD's/Tapes, Books and Videos.

Chat Programs & Enhancements:

Out of all the chat and instant message programs out there, ICQ is the most popular and also the most imitated by other programs. In this section I will show you some new available features to ICQ and a similar messaging program called Yahoo! Messenger:

• Sending messages across the Internet with ICQ, is like sending a post card in the mail. Someone finally saw the need for more security and offers a free program called IC-Crypt, which lets you encrypt your ICQ messages and also text files created with MS Notepad. Encryption make messages unreadable, and your recipient may only decrypt them if they too have the same program installed. IC-Crypt enables a Public Key or a Personal Key option (make your own by choosing a name and/or number combination).

• Now to the latest rage for ICQ... skins. Make sure you have ICQ Plus installed and then check out the following sites for some great skins:
  1. ICQ Skinz 1 - Dizzinz offers numerous pages of skins ranging from religion, angels, mixed variety to animals and fantasy.
  2. At ICQ Skinz by Oasis @ VirtualDreams.Net you will find 11 categories, ranging from Animals to Native American (one skin there is called "Maiden Spirit" & would go perfect with my Native Theme "The Gift").
  3. Kathie's ICQ Plus Skinz offers 8 pages with 4 skins each in mostly light or pastel colored skins. These type of skins are easiest on your eyes I think and she also offers a very nice variety.
  4. Peel Our SKinZ By Silly and Smartdog! has to be one of the largest skin sites around. Currently they offer 82 pages with 9 (plus or minus) skins per page. If you can't find nothing here, then I guess you can't be helped. *smile* Skins are also offered for the older and the latest version of ICQ Plus. A must see site!
• Yahoo! Messenger is gaining in popularity, but that may be due to the fact that up until now you were unable to send/receive files (cause of viruses), and so a lot of offices & public libraries offered it on their terminals. Now with the latest version of Yahoo! Messenger you are able to send/receive files (limited to 500 KB), check your e-mail accounts (both Personals & general accounts), check on Stocks, go into different visibility modes and even use skins:
  1. Yahoo! Messenger Skins explains how to install/make skins and also has a general usage tutorial for users of their latest version.
  2. At Weezie's Yahoo Skins you will find a nice selection of 24 skins ranging from religion to animals and fantasy. She also offers ICQ skins in 19 categories ranging from Animals, Anime, Military, Fantasy down to Disney, Cartoons, Native, SciFi and many more. Well worth visiting and spending some time to browse. *smile*

Halloween & Entertainment:

I would like to start setting the mood for the upcoming Halloween with this and the next 2 issues of the newsletter. If you have a great Halloween related homepages, send me an e-mail (subject line:"Halloween"), with your URL & a brief description. I will list them here in the following two issues, after they get my final stamp of approval. *smile*
So let me start by introducing you to some great Halloween sites, that will help you create anything from cards (printable & e-mail), Stationery, homepages and much more:

• To learn all about how Halloween came to be, visit a site called Holiday Hut | Learn about Halloween, and you may learn some amazing facts about Halloween. *smile*

• If you are in need of some Halloween graphics for your various projects, make sure to visit Mistress Demonica's Horror Graphics with over 600 Halloween graphics in 21 categories, and Mistress Demonica's Horror Backgrounds with 75 bordered and tiled Halloween backgrounds. Thumbnails and full previews in a separate window are offered for a better overview and easier selection. The graphics on both of these sites are free to use and is one of the largest Halloween graphic collections I have ever seen.

• 3-D Animated Greetings | Halloween offers a great way to send some awesome 3-D e-mail cards for many occasions including Halloween to your friends and family. They also offer a free program that lets you download most of their cards and/or create your own new cards from scratch. The initial program is only about 4.5 MB in size, but the add-on cards is what makes this program great and also so much larger in size (about 27 MB total installed). Still, overall I find the program easy to use, the cards are great, very unusual, great fun and it's all well worth the effort to download/install it all. *smile* New cards (ad-ons) are offered in regular intervals.

• Last but not least there is Crypt Wars: The Internet's First Premium Horror Website Competition with their Grand Opening on October 01, 1999 just in time for Halloween. They offer a chance to win some awesome prizes and awards and an annual competition for all winners for the big prize! Here you can also acquire a personalized Crypt Wars email account, horror graphics, horror backgrounds, horror electronic greeting cards, horror links, and tons of other cool stuff for the best price available... everything is FREE! Click here to download your free Crypt Wars wallpaper for 800x600 screen settings.
  *NOTE* This site may not be suitable for the very young!

On the Lighter Side of Life:

After the sad story about "Ugly" from the last newsletter I thought it was time for something more pleasant and the following falls under "Office or Corporate America" Humor. Hope you enjoy it! *smile*

Is the Horse really Dead?

Indian tribal wisdom says that when you discover you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount. However, in business we often try other strategies with dead horses. See if any of these look familiar:

The Finishing Touches:

I hope you enjoyed this edition of the newsletter, found lots of useful information and learned something. Remember that the next newsletter will not be published until the first week in October. If you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to e-mail me.

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