Kenja's Newsletter & Updates

Hello again everybody

Welcome to the Mother's Day edition of Kenja's Newsletter & Updates. Sorry about running a bit late with this issue, but it has been a bit hectic in the last few weeks. *smile* Hope all you mothers out there enjoy your special Day on May 14th.

I am still trying to catch up with a mountain of work, and it just keeps piling on. There are a lot of changes and additions to the website and I finally found a very reliable volunteer to help me with my work load for the website.

Before I begin with the newsletter, I would like to take a minute to thank Dia (volunteer/friend), for all the time and effort she puts into helping me, but mostly for her patients when she has to listen to me whining, griping and having my temper tantrums. *smile*

Site Related News:

Kenja's Stationery for Outlook is being remodeled. This is a huge under taking as there are so many of them. Currently about 400+ Stationery and countless pages. I could not do this without the help of Dia, and we are making great progress. You will notice that we are not only updating all stationery to be compatible with OE 5, but that the whole section is also getting a whole new look. For navigation reasons I have decided to place everything into frames, and change to a new background.

To compliment all desktop themes in all categories found at Kenja's Theme Creations, I have created a new section for WinAmp users. Now you can find the matching Winamp Skin for a particular theme in the matching category at Kenja's WinAmp Skinz. Winamp is a free program that supports the popular MP3 music files (also many other file formats like waves etc.), includes Internet Radio and of course loads of free plug-ins & skins.

New Desktop Themes:

I didn't have much time to make new themes along with the changes and updates that had to be done to the site as well, but I managed to make one new theme and a matching screensaver for that section as well:

• Teddy Outing is a new Teddy Theme which includes one of my original wallpaper (created from ground up with PSP6 brushes, filters and tubes) for 800x600 screen settings, set of cursors (2 animated), set of original icons, set of mellow music wave sounds for all Window events, set of original Logo SYS files (start-up, wait and shutdown screens). WinAmp Skin to match this theme can be found in my WinAmp Teddy Skinz section.

• Adorable Teddies Screensaver includes 10 of my original pictures featuring Teddies in various seasons for 800x600 screen settings, over 20 display effects, 3 classical midis for background sounds, and automated install/un-install features. This screensaver is intended for high-color settings of at least 16-bit colors and/or higher.

* NOTE* I use Zip Magic to compress Stationery and/or Desktop Theme files into EXE format. If you ever get a password prompt during installation... ignore it and proceed. They are not password protected! For more installation help visit either the Stationery Help or the Theme Help sections.

If you need Java Scripts, don't forget to visit the Steal My Java Scripts section, where you can choose from 23 of the most popular Scripts, test them on the site and then copy & paste them into your own homepage(s).

Visit the Native American Music Shop for great Native American Music selections.

For great gift items visit Kenja's Gift Shop. Gift categories include Fine Jewellery, Gardening Decor, Crystal, Clocks, Brass, Sculptures and so much more. Now with a time-limited Discount of 40% on all items!

I may have talked about Copyrights before, but in light of what is happening Internet wide and/or as I found out in recent weeks that effects my site as well, I believe it necessary to talk about Copyright on the Internet yet again.

Generally speaking, anything and everything you see on the Internet is copywritten. This includes but is not limited to HTML code, HTML (the mere layout of your website... i.e. frames or no frames), Meta Tags (key-words you use so that the search engines find your website), Java Scripts, Java Applets, Graphics (web graphics, logos, pictures etc), Desktop Themes (also considered a software package), programs, text, any written words on a website, e-mails, software etc... just absolutely everything! Copyrights are broken down into Copyright and/or Intellectual Copyright (this site is a Law primer).

Let me see if I can explain this a bit better:
If for example you create a graphic from scratch (start with a blank screen), use brushes, filters, tubes etc and create a picture, that graphic (picture) is yours. Along with the original copy of the graphic (maybe even the different steps you saved along the way) is proof enough of your copyright to that picture. This is also referred to as tangible proof... something you can see and maybe even touch (if you keep a copy of it on disk). There are other methods as well to proclaim your copyright, one is by visibly adding text to a picture by writing "Copyright" (or like this: © ) with date and name, and/or the other by choosing to Watermark the graphic which is invisible to the eyes. For more information visit the Visual Arts and Software copyright sites.

A week before last it came to my attention that people are literally cleaning out my website by downloading all my desktop themes (also wallpaper, stationery etc), dismantle them (alter the wallpaper and/or graphics), then proceed to post them in their altered state elsewhere on the Internet (mostly photo album sites offered free at large community sites like webshots and others). I too surf the Internet from time to time, but it is time consuming for me having to search through large sites (over 70,000 pictures in that case) and having to take steps to get them removed.

True enough, for now most everything on my website is offered as Freeware, this however does not make it Public Domain (you may not do so with it as you wish!) nor Royalty Free, meaning that if you are using graphics and/or software for anything other than what it is intended and/or you make money with my graphics and/or software (desktop themes, screensavers etc.), I expect my share in monetary compensation (this amount is set by me and not by you!).

Many of you may have noticed that I have started to display "User Agreements" in various sections of the website, namely the Stationery, Hotbar Skins, WinAmp Skins and of course the Desktop Theme sections. I am now also forced to include a User Agreement text (this is a binding document), that opens as soon as you install a desktop theme. I am not doing this in an attempt to discourage people from downloading my work, but merely trying to protect my property!

Some people make it hard on someone like myself to derive pleasure from sharing when all I see how people abuse my work and/or software, without any regards to law and how much work goes into everything I make. Over time I would say that you might see less and less free quality work offered on the Internet. So please be considerate before you take anything off the Internet and do not use the phrase "I am new to the Internet" as an excuse for bad behavior.

Man walks into a drug store with his 8-year-old son. They happen to walk by the condom display, and the boy asks, "What are these, Dad?" To which the man matter-of-factly replies, "Those are called condoms, son, men use them to have safe sex."

"Oh I see," replied the boy pensively. "Yes, I've heard of that in health class at school." He looks over the display and picks up a package of 3 and asks,"Why are there 3 in this package?"

The dad replies, "Those are for high-school boys. One for Friday, one for Saturday, and one for Sunday."

"Cool!" says the boy. He notices a 6-pack and asks, "Then who are these for?"

"Those are for college men," the dad answers, "TWO for Friday, TWO for Saturday, and TWO for Sunday."

"WOW!" exclaimed the boy, "then who uses THESE?" he asks, picking up a 12-pack.

With a sigh, the dad replied, "Those are for married men. One for January, one for February, one for March one for........ "

If you have any comments or suggestions, e-mail me at webmaster@kenja.net

Copyright © 2000-2001 Kenja's Newsletter & Updates   ISSN: 1530-700X    All Rights Reserved.
Content written & edited by A. Way aka Kenja. The opinions expressed herein are my own. The reproduction and/or unauthorized use of any parts of this Newsletter, it's content and/or graphics is strictly forbidden.