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Dear Member, The spotlight is on connections with family and friends in this December issue. You'll learn how to make the most of your tweets to them on Twitter, and get instructions on uploading videos to YouTube. Read on for details about MCC's Santa Day which is coming up next Saturday at a new location. In Great Sites, we feature resources to help you manage family finances, bake sweets with North Pole recipes, navigate the rules of etiquette, build a family medical record, and reminisce about the Sesame Street gang. Of course, there are foes online as well as family and friends. So we begin with a warning about phony IRS e-mails that attempt to steal personal information from recipients. Stay alert this season, and have a wonderful time with those you care about. Here's what's inside our December 2009 eNewsletter! 1) Warning! - Phony IRS E-mail Lands in Many Inboxes 2) MCC Update - Bring Your Kids to MCC's Santa Day 3) Ask The Help Desk - Must Tweets Only Talk About What I'm Doing? 4) Sites Of the Month - Great Sites to Check Out in December! 5) Short Tutorial - Uploading Video on YouTube We hope you enjoy this monthly eNewsletter and feel free to view it on our website as well as past issues at http://www.molalla.com/pressrelease.htm. Tell a friend! -  Your MCC Team Note: If the font in this email is too small to read, hit Ctrl and then the + sign at the same time to increase the size of the font. Or, to decrease the font size, hit Ctrl and then the - sign at the same time.

Warning! - Phony IRS E-mail Lands in Many Inboxes

According to IRS.gov, a phony e-mail claiming to come from the IRS has recently been circulating in large numbers. The subject line is typically “Notice of Underreported Income,” and the e-mail may contain an attachment or link to a bogus webpage directing taxpayers to their "tax statement." In either case, when the recipient opens the attachment or clicks on the link, they download malware including the hard-to-detect Zeus Trojan.

This malicious code can take over the hard drive, giving someone remote access to the computer, or it could look for passwords and other information and send them to the scammer to gain access to bank accounts. Researchers estimate that the Zeus criminals are emptying more than a million dollars per day out of victims' bank accounts with the software, and it's the most prominent spam-delivered virus in the world right now.

Please remember that the IRS does not send unsolicited e-mails to taxpayers about their tax accounts. If you receive an unsolicited e-mail claiming to come from the IRS, do not open any attachments or click on any links. Those who believe they may already be victims of identity theft should find out what to do by going to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's website, http://OnGuardOnLine.gov.

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MCC Update - Bring Your Kids to MCC's Santa Day

Molalla Communications' Santa Day is Saturday, December 12th from 10 AM to 1 PM. Please note the event will be held at a new location, the Molalla Adult Community Center, located at 315 Kennel Avenue. Bring your kids to visit with Santa and get their photo taken. These high-quality photos are free and are slipped into a photo frame for easy display. We will also make photos available online after the event so you can save and send them to family and friends. Each child will also receive a Christmas goodie from Santa. We ask that you please leave your pets at home. See you there!

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Ask The Help Desk - Must Tweets Only Talk about What I'm doing?

Question: The typing box at Twitter.com is labeled: "What are you doing?" Am I limited to answering that question in my tweets?

Answer: No, you are certainly not limited to answering the "What are you doing?" question on Twitter. (Especially if that results in tweets that contain just the mundane details of your everyday life, like the fact that you're now eating a bowl of cereal.) You can use those 140 characters for other things, and doing so often makes tweets more interesting and valuable to others. For example, you can pose questions to your followers such as, "What's got your attention and why?" or "What do you think about _______?" You can also send links to neat stuff you've found online, or spread the word about breaking news events.

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Great Sites To Check Out This Month

Money Made Easy
http://mint.com - Is 2010 the year you'll finally start saving more? Reallocate your investments? Get out of debt? If your New Year's resolutions are financial in nature, a good money management system can help. Mint is free, easy to set up and use, and offers a number of handy tools, including category tracking, budgeting help, e-mail alerts, and updates on progress toward your goals.

Christmas Cookbook
http://northpole.com/Kitchen/Cookbook - If you're not already in the Christmas spirit, cooking up some delicious holiday treats just might get you there. At this site, you can download recipes from Mrs. Claus herself! Recipes are available for cookies, fudge, candy, cakes, pies, and more. And, don't forget to check out other areas of the site to see Disco Dancing Santa, write Santa a letter, or track his travels on Christmas Eve.

Holiday Hiccups
http://emilypost.com/everyday/holiday_FAQs_entertaining.htm - A lot of holiday stress can be attributed to wondering about appropriate behavior: "Is it acceptable to bring an extra guest to dinner?" "How elaborate a gift should I give my new boyfriend/girlfriend?" "Should my tipping habits change during the holiday season?" The Emily Post Institute site offers gracious suggestions to address these and other tricky holiday situations.

Family (Medical) Tree
http://mayoclinic.com/health/medical-history/HQ01707 - This site covers an important topic you may not have given much thought to: your family medical history. Such a history can provide useful information to your doctor in assessing your disease risk, recommending treatments or prevention steps, and ordering tests. The site discusses what information to get, and how to gather it in a way that's comfortable for family members. The holidays are a great time to start collecting this vital data.

Sesame Street Turns 40
http://sesamestreet.org/onair/history  - On November 10, 1969, television history was made as the first episode of Sesame Street aired. This year, the show's website is celebrating the program's 40th anniversary with history, trivia, and fun videos. Vote for your favorite videos, watch rare clips, download character computer wallpaper, and read behind-the-scenes stories. Those who watched the show from the beginning will be happy to know some of the original characters still live on Sesame Street!

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Short Tutorial - Uploading a Video on YouTube

Want to unleash your creativity and broadcast your talents to a global audience? YouTube makes it pretty simple for anyone to upload a video to the site. They accept video files from most digital cameras, camcorders, web cams, and cell phones in the .WMV, .AVI, .MOV, and .MPG file formats. Once you've finished editing your video, make sure it's less than 10 minutes and smaller than 100MB.

YouTube recommends using the following settings to upload a video of high quality:
      •     MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format
      •     320x240 resolution
      •     MP3 audio
      •     30 frames per second

Resizing your video to these specifications before uploading will help your videos look better on YouTube.

To upload a video on YouTube:

      1.    Create a YouTube account by clicking on the "Create Account" link in the upper right corner of any YouTube page and then log in to your account.

      2.    Click "Upload Videos" in the upper right corner of any YouTube page. The "Video File Upload" page will appear.

      3.    Click on the "Upload Video" button. The "Select File" dialog box will appear.

      4.    Navigate to the file you would like to upload and click on the "Select" button. Your upload will begin.

      5.    While your video is uploading, enter as much information about your video as possible, including Title, Description, Tags, and Category. The more information you include, the easier it is for users to find your video. Make your tags as descriptive as you can. For example, if you took a video of your friends at the beach, you might want to tag it like this: party beach surfing. Each tag is separated from the others by a space.

      6.    Determine if you want your video set to Public (so anyone can access it) or Private (so only your friends and family can view it). You also have the options to prevent people from posting comments or to filter comments yourself.

      7.    Click the "Save Changes" button.

      8.    To see your video, click on the "Go to My Videos" link towards the bottom of the page. Depending on your Internet connection speed and the size of the video, it can take anywhere from a few minutes to several hours to upload a video. If you have a high speed connection, you can generally expect the upload to take somewhere between 1-5 minutes for every 1MB.

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We hope you enjoyed this monthly eNewsletter and feel free to view it on our website as well as past issues at http://www.molalla.com/pressrelease.htm. Tell a friend!  

Best regards,

- Your MCC Team

Molalla Communications Company

211 Robbins Street, Molalla, Oregon 97038
503-829-1100


(We have used our best efforts in collecting and preparing the information published herein. However, we do not assume, and hereby disclaim, any and all liability for any loss or damage caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions resulted from negligence, accident, or other causes.)

©2009 Cornerstone Publishing Group Inc.

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