More Computer Hints and Tips

Introduction

 

This document covers in a little more detail the topics introduced at the Carefree Computer Club meeting held on 14 Jan 2008.  The principal subjects include:

 

Saving and managing your favorite websites

We often need to view the same websites that we opened the last time we turned on our computer, or even some time after we looked at it during the same session.  Some examples would be the local area weather forecast, or your bank account details.  Even if you only want to visit a website very occasionally, it’s nice to let the computer know exactly where to find it in as short a time as possible.  Let’s say you are viewing a website that you decide you’d like to see again at some future date.  You may have spent a long time ‘drilling down’ from a website home page to your final destination.  That can be time-consuming and frustrating when you don’t remember which links you clicked on to get to the desired page.  When you save a favorite you are literally giving your browser an address to add to its own address book.

All the Internet browser software producers make this simple.  Here’s how you do it using the following well-known programs:

 

1.            Internet Explorer

To display Favorites, there are 2 ways to proceed:

Method 1:  Click the yellow star at the top, left corner of the main window.  This will open a ‘sidebar’ containing your favorites at the left of the main window.  Now ‘pin’ the favorites to the display by clicking on the green arrow at the top, right of the sidebar.  You can adjust the width of the sidebar by dragging the vertical limit line to the left or right.  Displaying the sidebar is most useful if you want to see your list of favorites at all times.

Method 2:  Click ‘Favorites’ on the Menu Bar.  This will cause a drop-down menu to appear showing your list of favorites.  To avoid partially obscuring your main viewing area, once you pick a favorite website from the menu, the list is no longer displayed.

To save Favorites, there are also 2 ways to proceed:

Method 1:  Click the yellow star with the green ‘plus’ sign at the top, left corner of the main window.  Now click on ‘Add to Favorites’.  The web page will fill in the Name box but you may want to edit the name to something short and easy to remember.  For the ‘Create In’ box, you can leave the default folder (Favorites) or make a new folder to store the address.  Finally, click on the Add button and your favorite is saved and displayed in your sidebar.

Method 2:  Click ‘Favorites’ on the Menu Bar.  In the drop-down menu that appears, click on ‘Add to Favorites’ and do the same as in Method 1.

When you have saved several favorites, you might like to organize them into folders.  This is useful when you save addresses of similar subjects, like weather forecasts, or hobby sites.  As always, Internet Explorer gives you 2 ways to do this.

Method 1:  Click the yellow star with the green ‘plus’ sign at the top, left corner of the main window.  Now click on ‘Organize Favorites’ and a box appears that allows you to create a new folder and to drag and drop favorites into the relevant folders.  By doing this you can limit your list of favorites by displaying just a few folders.

Method 2:  Click ‘Favorites’ on the Menu Bar.  In the drop-down menu that appears, click on ‘Organize Favorites’ and do the same as in Method 1.

 

2.         Firefox

The procedures for saving and managing favorites in Firefox are similar to the Internet Explorer instructions above.  The difference is that, in Firefox, favorites are called Bookmarks.  You will find Bookmarks in the Menu Bar at the top of the browser page.  (This is the only method to access your bookmarks.)

 

3.         Netscape

To display Bookmarks, there are 2 ways to proceed:

Method 1:  Click the small arrow at the top left corner of the main window to open your ‘Sidebar’ where favorites, once again called Bookmarks, are listed.  You can also display the sidebar by clicking View in the top Menu Bar, and then click My Sidebar.

Method 2:  If you would rather not display a sidebar, click Bookmarks in the top Menu Bar.  This will give you a drop-down menu list of your bookmarks.

Saving and managing your Netscape bookmarks is similar to the methods given above for Internet Explorer.

 

4.         Exporting your Favorites/Bookmarks

It would be a pity to lose all your favorites in the event of a computer crash.  To avoid this experience, you can ‘export’ all of them to an external drive, such as a flash drive.  The following hyperlink will send you to a useful website where ‘export’ instructions are given for different browsers.

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000524.htm

 

5.         One last tip!

If your favorite is a link to a website where you need to sign in with a Username and Password, you can include that information in the name of the website when you first save it.  (We need so many usernames and passwords these days that you should also keep a book in which to record this information.)  Moving the mouse pointer over the favorite/bookmark will generate a ‘tool tip’ balloon containing your title, with the necessary username and password, and the full website address.  Here is one way to name your favorite:

Music Club....fred34....2g56h567

(Where fred34 is your chosen username, and 2g56h567 is your password.)

 

Windows Task Manager

Using Windows you can open many different programs at the same time.  This is called "multitasking" and it is a great feature of today's operating systems.  Depending on your age, you might not actually remember the days when all you could do was use ONE program at a time.  So how do you keep track of all these programs running on your computer?  Well, Microsoft has given us the Windows Task Manager.  Let’s take a look at some of the uses for Task Manager.

First of all let’s open it up on your screen.  As usual, there is more than one way to do this.  You can simply click these 3 buttons together:

Ctrl + Alt + Delete
Alternatively, you can right click on a blank area of the Task Bar at the bottom of your screen and click on Task Manager in the box that appears.

Now you should have the Windows XP Task Manager on your screen. 

Click on all the Tabs and see what they display.  OK, so what can we do with this program?  Let’s take a look at the following popular uses:

·         Killing an application

·         Killing a process or application in the Processes tab

·         Checking out the central processor unit (CPU) usage

·         Leave the Task Manager running in the system tray.

1.         Killing an application

There are times when Windows XP will just cease to respond when you are using a program.  For instance, you may be typing a document and MS Word just freezes.  So how do you shut down the program when the mouse will not let you click the close button?  Open up the Windows XP Task Manager and select the Applications tab.  Now look at the programs running and check the Status. In the example of MS Word freezing on you, you will more than likely see the Status for Word as Not Responding.  If this is the case, click MS Word in the list and then click the End Task button at the bottom of the window.

The program that is not responding should now close. If not, repeat the process again.  (You may see a second smaller window appear that shows an End Now button.  Click this button if it appears.)  This is a very handy remedy to clear ‘frozen’ programs!

2.         Killing a process or application in the Processes tab

The Processes tab is very useful as it tells us what programs are running on your computer and how much CPU/memory they are consuming.  If you are trying to troubleshoot a program that has frozen, and using the advice in the previous section has not helped, you can locate the program on the Processes tab and click the End Process tab at the bottom of the window.

Note:  To avoid further computer problems, you should only end processes that are being used by your own User Name.

3.         Checking out the CPU usage

You can get a great idea of how things are performing on your computer by using Windows Task Manager.  Start up the Task Manager and then select the Performance tab.  Now you will see a graphical representation of the CPU and Memory usage.  This is useful if for instance your computer seems a little sluggish or running like molasses.  By looking at the data here, you can see how much of your memory being used. Maybe the CPU running at 100% constantly and this would be a good indication that there is a problem with a program or process.  In this instance you can look in the Processes tab and locate the offending program (see previous section).

4.         Leave the Task Manager running in the system tray

Sometimes it is useful to minimize the Windows Task Manager and have it running in the system tray (the bottom right hand corner of the screen).  This might be if I am running an application and I want to see how much CPU it is using on starting up and for how long.  It will appear as a small, green square icon in the system tray. When the CPU is busy you will see the icon change color.  By hovering over the icon with your cursor you will see the CPU percentage being used.

Now there are many more features of the Windows Task Manager but these are some of the most useful tips I can share with you.

 

6.       Setting up your computer after moving from North to South

 

           ·Using Outlook Express Up North

 

 

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For assistance with these, or any other computer-related problems, please contact Dave Clark at 875-2801, or Bill Roach at 324-7787.