MAKING A NEW FOLDER

 

So, go ahead and use My Documents for regular stuff.  But make a new folder and call it whatever you want for your very personal stuff.  I have a folder called My Files.  You can call your personal file whatever you want.  Let=s say I wanted to call my file Very personal stuff@.  To make this folder, right click on start@, then click on Explore@.  Up comes your complete computer filing system.  At the left you should be able to find something that says AC@ drive. You will notice that mine says Local Disk C@ I have seem them named all kinds of things.  The important thing is that it says AC@.  That is your hard disk for storing everything in our computer.   Click on your AC@ drive.  Then go up to file - new - folder.  A new folder will appear at the right.  You just type in whatever name you want B in this case Avery personal stuff@.  Now you have a new folder ready to fill with your special files and it is very unlikely that anyone would be able  to create a worm that will attack files in that folder as they would have no idea what you called it.  If you have more than one hard drive on your computer, use the smaller drive that doesn't   contain your operating system for all your files.  It will usually be called AD@, but not always.  If your CD-ROM is AD@ then your extra drive might be AE@.  Check in My Computer@ and see what all your drives on your computer are called.  In my case, I have a Floppy Disk AA@, my local disk AC@, which is my hard drive and AD@ is my CD-ROM.  That=s all I have.  But if you have an extra Hard drive, use it.    That way, if you want to change computers, you can simply physically move that drive from the old computer to the new computer without losing any of your files. 

      

At the last meeting, we explained how to create a new folder so that you can save documents in a specific folder.  We had some problems.  I will explain why.  In order to hook up my computer to the large screen with the computer connection, I have to change the resolution of my screen.  I right click on my desktop and choose properties.  Then I click on the settings tab and at the bottom right is a area which says “screen area”.  I keep it at the most pixels available, which is 1024 x 768.  But it won’t transfer to the big screen unless we reduce it to a lower level.  When you do that, everything on your computer gets larger.  In this case my list was so long that “New Folder” was above the available path and we couldn’t get to it.  With my normal screen as it is now, it is easy for me to make that new folder.  We right click on start and click on Explorer.  Then click on the C drive in the left window.  Under file, chose “New Folder.”  It appears at the bottom right.  Just start typing in the name for your folder and then it will appear on the list of folders at the left.  You now have a new folder in which to put files.

          Last meeting, I mentioned that I don’t want to head up the computer group.  That doesn’t mean I don’t want  to help people anytime.  We both still want to work on computers.  We get a big kick out of fixing and explaining.  I just don’t want to have to prepare notes and get up here and talk about them.  I love the one-to-one teaching.  So keep calling.  If I am busy, I will just say, unless it is a drastic situation, give me a day or two and I’ll be over.   

 

 

CLEARING BASIC PROBLEMS

  In the last couple of weeks I have had at least three instances where people have called because things weren’t working well on their computers.  In all three cases, after listening to the problem, I suggested closing everything on the computer and then turning off the computer and printer.  Don’t just restart the computer.  Turn it off, wait at least fifteen seconds and then turn it on again.  In all three cases, the problems were fixed and everything was back to normal.  Who knows why these crazy things happen originally, but turning the computer off and back on again sure fixes lots of problems. 

          We all know that we are not supposed to just unplug the computer or push the button to turn it off.  If your computer locks up, the best thing to do is to hold down the Ctrl and Alt keys and then press Delete.  That might bring up a small window with various options.  Follow what it says.  Sometimes no window comes up.  Press Ctrl + Alt + Del again.  Maybe even three or four times.  This will not necessarily get you back to your program; it may restart your computer.  This is Windows way of backing out of problems without causing more problems.  Most of the times when you follow this method, you will not have to go through a scan disk when you come back into Windows.  If all else fails, you may just have to turn the computer off by unplugging it and then you will have to do a scan disk when the scan disk window comes up.  This causes a problem when you have a laptop.  If you unplug it, the battery takes over.  For most laptops, to convince it that you really want to shut it down, you have to hold down the start button for four to six seconds.  If anyone has a laptop that uses a different method, let me know, so that I can help others with the same type.  By using Ctrl + Alt + Del, even if you eventually do have to unplug your computer, you may have backed out of Windows enough that your computer will restart normally.   

  SAVING FAVOURITES AND ADDRESS BOOK

 

On the Internet, we have mentioned that it is a good idea to save your favourites and address book in case you have a total computer crash.  Usually in whatever program you are using under file, there will be a heading titled “Send to” or “export.”   Follow what it says in your individual case and save it to a floppy disk, or ask for our help.  However, in the case of AOL, or MSN, they keep this information at their end and I have never found where they give you an option of saving it yourself.  Therefore, if your computer crashes, they still have it, so you don’t have to worry about saving it.  It is a different matter if you want to keep a list of your addresses on AOL or MSN because you are thinking of changing servers.  You have to do it manually.   So I suggest that you keep a handwritten list of all your e-mail addresses as you go along and just add to them.  To make a list of favourites with those long addresses, I suggest highlighting each address in the URL window and transferring it to a word processing program with an indication of what it refers to if the address isn’t self-explanatory.  Then when you get to the new server, you can highlight the address and copy it back to the URL window.  Then save it as a favourite again.    

 

 

          TEXT ATTACHMENTS

I would like to talk a little bit about text attachments to e-mail.  Wouldn’t it be nice if this were a perfect world?  But it isn’t.  There are many different kinds of computers, different systems, and different programs.  Luckily when the Internet was initiated they developed a language, which is compatible with all these systems, called HTML.  Therefore, we can all look at all the Internet pages and send e-mail to our friends all over the world.  A Mac user can e-mail a PC user.  Someone using a Linux system can communicate with Windows.  It’s great.  However, we are beginning to get used to sending attachments.  I so often hear “I couldn’t open the attachment.”  If I were to create a letter on Microsoft word and save it as a document which is .doc, I would be able to send that to anyone who has Microsoft Word, as an attachment and they would receive it in perfect order.  However, if the recipient did not have Microsoft Word, they might be able to open it in WordPad or even Microsoft Works, but it wouldn’t necessarily be in as good shape as the original.  Lines might not be complete, some of the extra characters might be different, it might have to find a different font.  All kinds of things can happen, or you might not be able to open it at all.

    Right now the standard for sending text attachments on e-mail or for downloading text on  the Internet is a PDF format, which can be read with Adobe Acrobat Reader.  Just about all new computers have this built in.  However if you do not have it, on our Carefree website, on the Carefree News page, you can download the Adobe Acrobat Reader.  Then if anyone sends you an attachment with the file extension .PDF, you will be able to read it.  Hopefully, everyone will eventually get used to using that format.  If you try to download forms from the government, most of them are now on PDF. 

              One very important point when you are downloading anything.  At some point it will either ask you where you want to download it or it will tell you where it is downloading.  Make a note of the total file path of where it is downloading.  That way, it is a lot easier to find it later.  Also, once you have downloaded something, unless it is automatically installed, you have to find that program and install it in your computer; otherwise it will just be sitting in your download file doing nothing. 

Say, you have downloaded something and you have lost it.  There are ways to find it.  If you look on your Start Menu you will find “Search”.  Older computers might say, “Find.”  They basically work the same way.  Click on the menu item saying - For Files and Folders.  Type the file name in the window that says “Search for Files & Folders named . . “   Make sure that the window that says “look in” shows that you are on the “C” drive.    I will type in “Carefree.”  Click “Search.”  Note the number of places that “Carefree” appears in my computer.  I wonder why   most of the files are temporary bookmarks relating to the Internet.  But go down the entire list and you will note that at the end there are Carefree appearances in My Files and My Documents. 

If you do not know the name of an actual folder you can try the window saying “containing text” but in that case, your computer has to look through each document and it will take a lot longer.

Many of us grew up in the age where we had to learn how to type on a regular typewriter.  Sometimes it is a bit difficult to convert to a computer, which is an electronic piece of equipment as opposed to being mechanical.  On a typewriter, what you see is what you get.  Not so on a computer.

             On a typewriter, if I want it to look like I have hit the tab key, I can hit the space bar five times and it looks like I have hit the tab key.  But the computer remembers that you used the space bar rather than the tab key and if you alter that document in any way, the spacing can be mixed up and your document will no longer have the same appearance.   Most programs are set up so that the tab key sets a tab every half inch.  Now if you hit the space bar a few times until it looks like a half inch, that will be fine while your font size is 12, but if you decide to print a copy of your article in large print, the tab indent will no longer be half inch unless you use the tab key.  During our question period last time, we discussed the wrapping of text.  That means that when you get to the end of the line you are working on, do not hit the enter key to get to the next line.  Let the computer do it for you.  Once you get to the end, it will automatically wrap to the next line.  Then if you change your margins or increase or decrease the font size, your text will still fill the line and never leave big blank half line spaces.  Learning to work the way the computer wants you to will make it easier for you in the long run and will also improve your e-mails.   

Removing a CD.  Have you ever turned off your computer and then remembered that you left a CD in your computer and you want to take it out and put it away or give it back to whomever you borrowed it from?  You do not need to turn your computer on to get that CD out.  If you look at your CD-ROM drive, you will find a tiny pinhole somewhere on the drawer front.  You can take a pin or an opened up paper clip and push it in the hole.  It will release the drawer and let you take out the CD-ROM.  Then just close the drawer again.    The same thing applies to most Floppy Drive drawers.  

 

          WHAT'S IN THE COMPUTER

Now I will explain a little bit about the insides of your computer. Most of the bits of equipment inside your computer are fitted onto a circuit board. This is called the Mother Board and it has basic items attached to it as well as thousands of circuits going from one to the other. Virtually every basic computer part attaches to the Motherboard in some way. If the motherboard fails, the computer will not function. The most important motherboard component is the microprocessor or CPU. The set up of your Mother board determines how fast your computer operates, and how much more memory you could add to it to make it work faster.

A mother board is designed to take advantage of certain technology. For instance, certain processors function correctly only when installed on particular mother boards. You won't be able to take advantage of new technology (a speedier processor or different type of graphics, for example) if the board installed in your computer lacks the appropriate circuitry.

Memory: Have you ever seen a sign come up saying you are low on memory? There are many types of memory in your computer. As soon as you perform any function your computer immediately goes to work. It first looks in the cache which is the internal memory existing inside the CPU - that microprocessor I told you about that resides on the motherboard. Then, it will find the RAM in your computer. It now has more names DRAM and SDRAM. These are modules that fit onto your motherboard. Lately, computers come with anywhere from 64 megs of RAM to 256 megs of RAM. Our first computer had 4 megs of RAM. A little while later we paid $400 to upgrade to 8 megs of RAM. Now, it is one of the cheapest ways to increase your memory. If you get a notice saying you are low on memory, think about upgrading your RAM. But - it must be RAM that is compatible with your motherboard and the existing RAM in your computer.

Your computer also temporarily borrows space from your hard drive. So if you don't have much space in your hard drive, you might see that memory notice. Most of the times that notice comes up is when you are working with graphics. They take a lot of space. If you are hunting for pictures to put into a presentation, your computer tries to temporarily store them in short term memory so that it can retrieve them whenever you want them. There have been times in my laptop when I have clogged up my memory with graphics. I save what I am working on and restart my computer. That wipes out all the temporary memory and leaves it clean, so that I can start filling it up again.

I think it is time for a lot of you to check and see how much hard drive space you have available. You double click on My Computer, right click on your "C" drive and click on "Properties". If you do not have at least 200 megabytes of pink area which is "free space" you could be in trouble. I have run into that twice in the last couple of weeks when working on other computers. You run the risk of Windows not even starting when you turn on your computer. Windows only takes up a certain amount of your computer when it is operating, but when it is starting it needs an extra amount of space. If that space isn't available, it can't operate. If you know you are a little short on hard drive space and you want to load a program that may not be very big, it may just put you over the top. So if you do load it, check your hard drive before you turn off the computer to make sure you left yourself enough space. It is no fun when Windows won't open. For those of you with new computers, I don't think you are going to have to worry about that for a long time. Most of you have 30 and 40 gig drives and have probably used only a small portion of that.

 

Every time you make any change, certain information goes into the Windows registry. That is why you always try to remove any programs properly by using the Add/Remove Programs icon in the Control Panel. It is supposed to remove any of the items that were added to that registry. Windows uses the registry to try to get all the programs in your computer to mesh properly with each other so that they don't conflict with each other. It is not always perfect which is why we do still have problems. Lets face it, if we bought our computers with all the software in them properly installed and checked out at the factory and our printer and scanner were the exact ones perfect for that computer, we would probably have very few problems - but then we wouldn't be able to upgrade or add new more current software without running into problems. All computers are a work in progress. Get used to the fact that you should be constantly adding things to your computer and updating them.

 

 We learned something last week. A lot of you that are using Outlook Express for your e-mail will notice that you have a spell checker on your e-mail letters. Some of you don't. Outlook Express uses the spell checker in Microsoft Word. Therefore, if you don't have Microsoft Word, you probably don't have a spell checker. A lot of these options aren't necessary, but they sure are handy.

So, if you are thinking about buying a new computer, and you like a spell checker, try to get Microsoft Word installed. They bundle software in a new machine and you can usually get a lot of good software at a cheap price. They might only want an extra $30 for Word, but in the store it would be much more than $100. Or they will offer you a bundle of programs for a certain price. Add up the prices of the ones you like and see if it is worth your while. There are a lot of programs in my computer that I will never use, but I certainly tolerate them as they came with all the other ones that I use a lot and I saved money by ordering them at the same time that I ordered my new computer.

We all know what service a modem provides, but you probably haven't given much thought to how they work. I am not going to get too technical. All computers store data digitally (zeroes and ones). Now a telephone line is analog which means it works on amplitude modulation which is a series of frequencies in a wave called a carrier wave. The modem converts the digital data into analog format, then it is sent through the analog system, and at the other end the receiving modem converts the data back into its digital form. Luckily, or maybe by design, one standard modem language was developed. Can you imagine if it wasn't standard, software developers would have to write programs to work with hundreds of different types of modems. Something as simple as the command to dial a number could differ from modem to modem.

Once you have dialed, your server answers with a carrier tone, which is what you hear. The two modems begin to negotiate a connection. They figure out what kind of modem they are talking to and decide what speed to connect at. All kinds of other things go on which I am not going to get into - its too technical for me. However, when you are downloading (or sending) information, your modem uses error correction to ensure the data wasn't corrupted in transit. It is called checksum. The server modem tells your modem how much data it should be receiving in a certain packet. If your modem doesn't agree with the amount that has been sent, it sends a message back to the server modem that it was corrupt and the server modem re-sends the information. That is why, if you are looking at a data transmission window you will notice when you are downloading that there are bytes being sent to your computer and also bytes being sent back to your server. They are constantly talking to each other.

When one of the modems decides to disconnect, it simply drops it carrier signal (that frequency wave). Because the other modem is constantly listening for signals, it detects that the other modem has gone silent and also hangs up. So there is no way you can have a one way conversation going.

There is a lot of software on the market. And a great deal of it is junk. There are some excellent programs out there, but make sure you ask around and talk to friends before you buy anything. If you talk to the people working in the store, you might get someone who tells you the truth, but you also might get someone who just wants to sell you something. When you buy your computer, your printer, your scanner, you usually get a bunch of CD's as well. I have had people ask me to install and show them how to use some of these programs. First of all, unless you bought the software as an extra, they are not going to throw in free the newest version of anything. So you are usually getting an outdated program. Sometimes the software is a trial version or an abbreviated version. It will work okay, but you are not getting the complete program. You know the saying: "There is no free lunch." Let's face it, if your scanner cost $100 with a $50 rebate, they aren't going to be throwing in a real value of a couple of hundred dollars worth of stuff. If that software works for your needs, fine, but if you are really going to get involved in a specific area of computing, spending a few more dollars on a good program could save you a lot of frustration. Good does not necessarily mean expensive. It means a software program that is user friendly and does what you want it to do. Don't expect a program that doesn't work well to suddenly change and be perfect for your needs. It doesn't work that way. The functions you need have to be there and be readily available.

We have received a few e-mails about how to prevent virus worms from getting into your address book and sending out nuisance messages. There are two or three ways to handle these fixes - and they do work - in a fashion. For instance there is one that tells you to put a number entry at the beginning of your address book and when the virus worm sees it and can't send, it stops trying. But lots of virus worms act in a random fashion in your address book. So that wouldn't work. And all those virus worm makers are just as fast at changing their tactics to get around fixes like that. Try it if you want, but don't rely on it. The only best way to avoid viruses and worms is to get a good anti-virus program, install it, activate it and update it constantly. Do I sound like a broken record?

My last subject is going to be about cleaning out your computer files. First of all, it is not something that someone else can do for you. You have to figure out what you have in your computer and what you can get rid of. That is why it is important for you to label things properly and store them in the same place. Let's use as an example, a VCR. I am sure most of you have a lot of tapes. What would happen if you didn't label them? You wouldn't know what was on one or the other. Anytime you wanted a free tape, you would have to put each tape in and check them all out until you found a clean tape or one you didn't mind erasing. That can be very time consuming. So you label them with a name that tells you what is on them.

Same thing on the computer. Lets use pictures as an example. Give them a name that tells you enough information so that you don't have to open that picture each time. If your computer is new enough that you can get thumbnails, that's even better, but still name them properly. You can use a long name. Take advantage of it. Don't just call the picture "Jane". Call it: "Jane Easter 2002" or Jane Cruise Nassau Big Hat". Keep a minimum number of copies of that picture in your files. You might have a JPG copy and one other. Don't have five or six versions of it in different places in your computer, they could be taking up a lot of space. I have tried to help people clean up their files and every time I ask if we can delete certain things, they usually say "I better keep that one because I am not sure if it is the best copy." You don't need three JPG's of the same picture stored in your files. They are all exactly the same, you have just filed them in different places. You can delete the rest of them. Say you have three copies of "Jane Easter 2002" in there and they are all JPG's. Mark one of them so that you know it is the one you want to keep. To mark it you can change the name. In this case I'll add a "K" for keep. So rename the file Jane Easter 2002K. That way when you start deleting copies of that pictures, you will know to keep the one with the K on it. Then delete all the other files saying "Jane Easter 2002" and you will have gained space in your computer.

Hopefully, I have given you a few things to think about tonight. When I was discussing this with my guru, his comment was: "That's what you have to start doing. Get them thinking for themselves." Understanding your filing system is a great way to feel more comfortable about using your computer. I think the comment that makes my stomach flip the most is: "I have no idea where I filed it." It makes me feel so bad. I know where everything is in my computer. You should always know where you are filing everything. If you only master one thing this year, I would like it to be that.

If you are leaving your printer down here for the summer, as you have another up home, be prepared to have dried up ink cartridges when you come back. You can sometimes avoid this by taking the cartridges out and wrapping them carefully in saran wrap - not hand wrap or clear wrap or a plastic bag - Saran wrap is the only one totally air tight. Ninety percent of the printer problems we encounter happen at the beginning of the season and they always have to do with dried out or empty ink cartridges.

 

We were talking at the last meeting about "Restore" comes with Windows ME and XP. "Go Back" is a program usually installed by Gateway. Both these programs allow you to restore your machine to a previous time, if you have messed up something really important in your computer. We have "Restore." Liz has "Go Back." She discovered that, if you Go Back, you do lose any files that you have saved during the period between when you go back and the present. That doesn't happen to Bill when he uses "Restore." But we think we figured out why. Bill doesn't file anything on his "C" drive. He has a separate hard drive just for his files. So when it restores the C drive it doesn't go anywhere near his files.

 

I guess that means, if you have to use "restore" or "go back", think carefully about anything that you might have saved in the last couple of days (depending upon how far you go back) and transfer it to a floppy disk or CD-RW or another drive where it can't possibly be eliminated. Once you have restored, transfer the files back.

 

There is a big difference between GO Back/Restore and "Recovery." Recovery should only be used when your computer is beyond any other kind of help. Try using Go Back or restore first. Get some help, if necessary. Because, if you have to Recover your computer, you will be back to square one. Your computer will be back to exactly the way it was when you walked in the door with it. You will have to reinstall all your extra software and any drivers and software that you have for your printer, camera, scanner. And, of course, you will lose any files that you have saved. That is why it is so important to back up your files on floppies or CD-Rs.

 

Setting up a file system

Everyone eventually needs a decent computer filing system. This filing system will not include e-mails or favorites. They are stored in a separate filing system in your e-mail area of the computer. Also some accounting software has a separate system for filing. Don't tamper with those systems. They work well. However, for all the little files you make, including letters, forms, pictures, recipes, instructions, etc., you need a retrieval system. Here we go.

If you left click on START, it shows how to get to Programs, Shutdown, etc. But if you RIGHT click on START a different menu appears. The second item down should say "explore." Click on it and your entire filing system in your computer appears. This is where every program that is installed in your computer appears, as well as every file that you save. It is all in there somewhere.

Usually you will notice that "Start Menu" is highlighted because that is how you got to the explorer - by clicking on the "start menu." However, we want to get up to the top of the file tree, so using the scroll bar at the right of the left window, click on it and scroll up until you can see "My Documents" and your "C" drive. "C" drives can have many names, but somewhere you will notice "C" in brackets - (C).

Click on "C" so that you highlight it - indicating to your computer that this is the area you want to work with. Then you go up to the left top of your menu bar and click on file, then "new" and at the right you will see the word "folder." Click on it. Now look at the bottom of the right window - you may have to use your scroll bar. You should see a file called "new folder" and it will be highlighted. Type in whatever you want your file system to be called. We are going to call it "Bill's Files." As the "New folder" is already highlighted, as soon you start typing, "new folder" disappears and "Bill's files" appears in its place. Click just outside that little box and "Bill's files" will now be created. Look in the left window and you should see a new folder called whatever you named your file system. In our case it says "Bill's Files.

Now, we have a basic place to store all our personal files. That's fine if you have only a few little letters or pictures or other items. But eventually this list will get unwieldy. So let's make a couple of sub-folders so that we are a little more organized. Make sure that you highlight the name of your file system (in our case "Bill's files) and let's go up to the top menu to File - New - Folder and create a new folder at the bottom right. As before, let's rename it - in this case, type in Carefree. Click off it and we now have a file folder called "Carefree." Note that "Carefree" now appears on the left under your basic file system folder.

Let's make a second folder the same way, going up to File - New - Folder. When the new folder appears at the bottom right, let's rename it "Belleville" and click just outside the box. Now look at the left. We have a file system with two folders in it. Make as many as you want. As well if you write a letter that doesn't fit in any of your folders, file it in the main folder and then at any time you can move it into a sub-folder that suits the subject.

You now have a basic filing system. So let's file something in it. Just about everybody has Microsoft Word, let's open Microsoft Word and write a short letter. Our letter says "Dear Carefree, How is the weather? Mary Ellen & Bill." So let's file it in our new system. Go to the File menu and click on "Save." A window opens up which says at the top "Save" (or "Save as," or "Save File," sometimes, depending upon your system). You will note near the top of this window it says "Save in" and then there is a little window and a small black arrow at the right. Click on it. Most programs pick a place to save things - but because we set up a filing system, we want to pick our own place to file our letter. We know where we want to file the letter - In the "C" drive, in Bill's Files, in Carefree. So we want to change that "Save in" window. First double click on your "C" drive and it should now appear at the top - and every file folder in the "C" drive will appear below. Find Bill's Files (in your case, whatever you called you file system) and double click on it. Now Bill's files appears at the top. Find "Carefree" below and double click on it. We are now where we want to be. It should say "File in - Carefree."

Now we can go to the bottom of that window and notice a little window saying "File name." Microsoft word assumes that you want to file everything by the first two words of your letter. That wouldn't make much sense, because most letters start with either a date or "Dear sir," so all the files would have the same basic name. In our case, let us highlight the file name which says "Dear Carefree" and change it to "Weather" because that is what we are talking about. Note that after the name there is a dot and then a three letter extension - ".doc" which indicates that this file was created by Microsoft Word. All word processing programs use a different three letter extension. That tells the computer that when you click on that certain file, in order to read that letter it will be necessary to open that word processing program. So, once we see "Weather.doc" in the file name window, we can click on "Save" at the right and our file is now safely saved. We can now safely close our word processing program without losing our important letter.

Let's open our explorer again, by right clicking on start and clicking on explore. Scroll up or down until you find your filing system. We find Bill's files and note that it shows "Belleville" and "Carefree" below it. If you don't see the sub-folders, double click on the main folder and its sub-folders will appear below. To make them disappear, double click on the main folder again. Sometimes it is nice to have a small file tree, but sometimes you want to see everything in it. Play around with double clicking to check it out - just click carefully so that you don't accidentally remove anything. Once you have your Carefree folder showing, click on it and your file should appear in the right window.

I find that sometimes when I am working in my computer I hate having to reduce the program I am working on so that I can find an icon on my desktop. That is where quick launch comes in very handy. "Quick Launch" is the small group of icons just to the right of "Start" on your task bar. If you don't have them, I suggest you right click on the task bar, choose "Tool bars" and click on "Quick Launch."

The easiest way to get a shortcut icon onto the Quick Launch bar is to drag from desktop. Just click and drag the item to the quick launch area. It will appear there and also remain on your desk top. Or you can go to explore and make a shortcut of an .exe file. Every program has an ".exe" file. That is the very small file indicating where to find the program and how to open it.

If you find that the little icons on your quick launch bar are too small you can enlarge them by right clicking on the task bar in the quick launch area and going to view and choosing large.

One of the quick launch icons is your desktop - but, of course, that reduces your open programs to the task bar and you might not want to do that. You might want to keep a program open all the time. One way to avoid that is to put all your desktop icons on your task bar. You right click on your task bar (not in the quick launch area) , choose tool bars and then desk top. Now , all your desk top icons will be readily available on your task bar. Of course, my task bar is a little crowded, so I go to the task bar, look for the two headed arrow and drag the task bar up one level. Now I have just about everything I need sitting right on my task bar. Obviously, if you like a cluttered task bar this is great, but if you like it neat and tidy, don't even bother. Choice is one of the things you have lots of when you have a computer.

I use my task bar a lot. You will notice that I have all my Corel Suite right on my system tray at the right side of the task bar. I never go anywhere else to get to it.

Don't forget to empty your recycle bin now and then. If you have been working with a lot of pictures, you could be using up quite a lot of space with recycle bin junk. Never, never, never use your Recycle Bin to store stuff "just in case." Just in case you accidentally lose it in your computer. The easiest place to lose things is your recycle bin. Your recycle bin only stores so much and once you put extra things in there, it just drops off some of the things. You could lose the exact thing you were trying to save.

 

 

A little bit about installing software. In a perfect world, computer programs would be free of bugs and be compatible with all other software. They would install correctly and uninstall completely. Of course, we know this is not a perfect world. Consequently, you need to take steps to ensure that your PC does not suffer because of the software you use.

Each time you want to install software, or a program, or application (whatever you want to call it) you put the health of your computer system at a certain amount of risk. Therefore, before you install any application, take the time to consider why you need it and how you plan to use it. Then, when you've made up your mind, take some more time and consider the issues again. Does this mean that you should never install new software. Of course not. All this means is that you should try to determine in advance whether the new software is worth risking the fragile equilibrium of a finely tuned computer system. Installing a productivity suite that will increase your work productivity by 25% is worth the risk. Installing a free screen saver you find on the Internet, probably isn't.

Try to make it a rule not to install two programs one right after the other. This is particularly important if you are recovering a machine that had some problems. Install your programs that you really like - one at a time. Work with them and make sure that they don't cause a problem with your system. Then try another program. Then another. That way, if your computer starts to act up again, you can uninstall the last program you put in as it could be the offending one. Check your computer out for a while without that program, and if working well, think twice about putting it in again.

Everyone should be familiar with "file extensions." I know I go over this constantly, but even when I do, I am usually met with a lot of blank stares. Computers always have two sections to their file names. The first part is the actual name given to the file. In a program that you install, the developers have named every file. In work you do yourself, you make the file name. Then after the file name, there is a dot and a three letter file extension. That indicates to your computer what kind of a file has been created, what you are able to do with that file and often it tells the computer the program that created the file. In your "explore" area of the your computer - you know, right click on start and choose "explore", you should be able to see all your file extensions. If you can't, go to My Computer, tools, folder options and choose the file folder that says "View." Make sure there is no tick in the little box beside the item saying "hide file extensions for known file types." I am sure you all realize by now that if there is a tick in a box to remove it you click on the tick again and it disappears.

Now you should be able to see all your file extensions. I don't intend to explain all of them tonight, but you should be aware that all programs will have a file extension saying ".exe" which is actually the button you push to start or execute that program. Each word processor employs a different extension so that your computer knows which program was used to write the article. Once you start working with pictures, you better well know about file extensions as each one gives you a different kind of picture. For instance, originally, Windows only liked to work with .bmp's (usually pronounced bitmap) which are often huge - each picture taking more than one megabyte of space, sometimes even eight to ten megabytes. However, you can save the same picture as a .jpg (usually called Jpeg) and it maybe will only take 64 kilobytes. To put that in perspective, one megabyte is 1,000 kilobytes, so 64 kilobytes is .064 of a megabyte. Now that can make a big difference when you are sending something by e-mail.

Speaking of files, it is a good idea to back up all your important files before you pack up your computer to take it home up north. You never know what might happen. It is a good idea to have all your files backed up on floppy disks or a CD-R. More and more people are getting burners and that makes it very easy. BUT, do not back up all your programs, just the files that you have personally created.

We usually have a question and answer period during our meetings. We still intend to do that, but we would like to expand this section to include "discovery." In other words, it will be questions and answers and discovery. I would like a few of you each night to get up and tell about something new that you found out about on your computer. Unless you heard someone discussing the same thing a few minutes ago, don't worry about repeating the same subject that we might have discussed at another meeting, because of all the things we talk about, only a certain amount gets absorbed and repetition is a wonderful teacher. And besides, you may have discovered something new about the program. We are all involved in a massive learning experience, and considering the fact that our aging brains are jammed packed with information already, I am amazed at how everybody in the park has progressed in the computer world. Do you remember the day you got your first computer and you were almost afraid to turn it on? Think of how much you have learned since that day.

We all have developed an entirely new vocabulary. Here's a few words for you: "Don't send it by snail mail, e-mail it to me - and zip the attachment. I'll save it to my hard disk, then if small enough, I can put it on a floppy, or if not, I'll burn it onto a CD-ROM." Can you imagine, just 15 years ago, hearing those words. You wouldn't have any idea what was going on. And now, I am sure that just about everyone here understood what I was saying.

So you have progressed more than you knew and if each day you learn one or two more things about your computer, think of what you will have absorbed by next year.

I have one more thought before Bill takes over. I know that everyone is always a little tight on money, but I have learned an important fact in this fast moving life. If I see something that I really want, I buy it because it might not be there tomorrow. And, if I buy a piece of equipment that has accessories than can be purchased later, buy what you need when you buy the equipment, or even insist on the store getting the extras before you pick up the equipment, because the world is moving so fast and technology is moving even faster - those accessories might not be available to you - in a week's time. It is a wonderful world, but it sure can be frustrating at times.

• Changing Your Homepage:

 The home page is the one that appears automatically when you open your Internet Browser, MSN, Juno or AOL browser.

You can return to the home page at any time by clicking the home button on the standard buttons toolbar or by choosing Home Page from the Go Menu. In the case of MSN, Juno or AOL you may not be able to change this page but if you are using Microsoft Explorer or Nestscape you can set the page to any link you wish.

 To specify a different home page, follow these steps:

     1.                  Display the page that you wish to use as your home page. Example http://yahoo.com  

2.                  Display the Internet Options dialog box, and click the General Tab.

3.                  Click Use Current, and then Ok.

 Instead of displaying the page you want to use, you can type its address in the Address Text Box.  If you use this method, don’t not click Use Current.

To restore Internet Explorer’s original home page, return to this dialog box, and then click the Use Default button.

 Those of you using servers that maintain you email, address book and favorites on their computers may be destined to use their browsers and email client only, such as Juno,AOL, CompuServe and MSN. Your comments on this are welcome.

 

Accessibility Options

The first one that we see is Accessibility Options. This section comes in handy if you have certain disabilities. For instance, if you are a one finger typist and only have one finger that works, it would be very difficult to hold down CTRL and press "C". Put a tick in the box that says "use sticky keys." By using the "Sticky Keys" in the Keyboard section, you can hit CTRL, then "B" and look, bold has been selected.

We are used to hearing sounds to indicate certain functions taking place on the computer. If you are hard of hearing, you can add visual settings to give you those indications. You can select colors and fonts designed for easier reading. Check out all the options, there might just be something there that makes life a lot easier for you.

  ADD and REMOVE PROGRAMS

Add/Remove Programs makes sense. The first file tab lets you install or uninstall any program. CD Rom programs are usually self-installing these days, but if one doesn't, this is how you install it through your computer. You just follow the instructions. Also, if you have downloaded a program from the Internet, a good way to install the program is through Add/Remove. You press the button that says "browse" and find out where you downloaded the program. Also, if you install your program properly, it will show up on the bottom section and should you want to uninstall the program, it is a simple matter to select it and follow the instructions. The next tab in this section allows you to add a few components that were put on your hard drive, but not necessarily actually installed. You can add any extra component available. The last tab is for setting up a start up disk - which everyone should have in case their computer crashes. It may save making a complete recovery of your computer.

Desktop Themes

Desktop Themes gives you many options to change certain things that you work with all the time. For instance choosing a certain theme can change your mouse arrow into a swimmer, or a little beasty or something else. It will give you a specific screen saver and change all the colors of your windows and the font used for your menus.

I tried a few of them, but then decided that I was really happier with the standard colors and the fancy fonts drove me crazy. But I did try them all for a while.

Display

Most of us are familiar with "Display" but we often get to it by right clicking on the desktop and left clicking on properties. However, another way to get to "display" is through the control panel. The first tab is background and that gives you options as to what picture you want on your desktop. As you can see, I keep Thomas Kinkade on there. You can pick one of the pictures that Windows offers you or you can add a picture of your own. There are many ways to add pictures. If you do so through a program that will set it up for your desktop you only have to click on whatever button says "make this my desktop." However, if you want to add a photo of your own that you like, you must make sure that it is in the BMP format and then you click and drag it into the Windows file in your Explorer. Once you have done that, it will automatically appear on the list that you see in "background." You will also notice a little window called "Picture Display." If your picture does not fill the window, you can press stretch and the picture should enlarge to fill the screen.

The next tab is "Screensaver." which I am sure most of us are familiar with. However, if you have only had a computer for a short time, you might not realize the significance of the name "screensaver." Originally, the computer screens were not as sophisticated as they are now and if you left your computer on and walked away from it for a few hours, or consistently left it on the same program day after day, the image would get burned into the screen and there would be a ghost of that image no matter what other image was on the monitor. Now, with all the technological advancements, that doesn't happen, but nice screensavers are here to stay and as long as you give yourself a reasonable time before it comes on, they can be a pretty diversion. You can even set up a little slide show and have all your family pictures as your screensaver. Depending upon what version you have of Windows, you can also set up your monitor power settings and your hard disk turn off times.

The next tab is "Appearance" where you can change to any color scheme you want for your windows. Here again, you've got a lot of choices, and it's your computer, do what you want. In my case, I am so used to seeing dark blue for my active window and gray for my inactive windows, I get confused if any other color scheme is used.

"Effects" and "Web", I don't use at all. I have looked at them, but never saw any need to go any further. I have a little tick beside "Show web content on my active Desktop." I have no idea what that is, so I unchecked it and I couldn't see any difference on my Desktop, so I ticked it again, figuring that it isn't hurting anything.

The last tab in this window is "Settings" where you can change you color setting. Bill and I like to set our color at the highest setting that will work on the computer. However, if you have a few old programs, they might not be happy at this high setting and in that case, you should change the setting before you play the program and then change it back. When it comes to the screen area, I like mine at the highest available, even though it means that the writing is smaller. That doesn't bother me and it means that I can get more stuff on the screen at one time. But if you are having trouble reading the writing, put in a large font in the "Appearance" section, or change your display area to a lower number.

Fonts

When you open your font window, it will take a short time to load, because every font that is in your computer will now be readily available for you to check it out. At the bottom of that window you should see a figure showing the number of fonts that you have. If you do not see a number at the bottom left, go to "View" and make sure that there is a tick beside "Status Bar." When you get your computer, Windows has automatically loaded a certain number of basic and fancier fonts. Depending on your system, you could have somewhere between 100 and 200 fonts at the start. Then every extra program after Windows that is pre-loaded or that you install from a CD ROM adds fonts, if the program is a word processor, a publishing program, a card program or anything else that might use fonts. Even though computers are very fast now, fonts can still slow down your computer considerably. It is a good idea to try and keep the number of fonts you have under 1,000. If you have more than that, though, do not go into your computer and start deleting fonts. Deleting them only takes them off the active list, it does not remove them completely. And besides, just because the name of a font doesn't sound familiar, doesn't mean that the font isn't actively being used. For instance, I am sure not many of you are familiar with a font called "Marlett." This is the font that Windows uses for all its funny little characters, such as the boxes, "x's" and little arrows. The best way of keep your font list down is to avoid loading extra fonts whenever possible. For instance, when loading a card program, it will often offer you an extra selection of fancy fonts. Don't load them unless you really want them. All the fonts you actually need for that program are embedded in the program and automatically loaded.

Keyboard

The keyboard window gives you the option of changing the repeat rate of your keys. In other words, if you find that when you hit the key you accidentally get two of the letter you hit, go into this window and change the repeat delay. The second tab in this window, allows you to set up your keyboard for other languages. For instance, you will notice that I can have mine for English (United States) or French (Canadian). So when I want to type something with French accents, I just switch until I am finished, and then switch back.

Printers, Default

I discussed printers at the last meeting, mentioning that you should know that this is where you change your default printer. Some of you have different printers in the North and in the South. You will note that I have three printers installed. There is a little tick mark beside the HP DeskJet as that is my default printer. To change it to another printer, you simply right click on the printer you want and tick off "set as default".

You will notice that we have skipped over a few items, mainly because we do not think they are important enough to warrant explaining them. You will probably never have occasion to use them. We will be putting these notes on the web. Bill has set up the computer notes section differently. You can now click on them and only print out that set of notes. So you should be able to take these notes and play around with some of the options in the Control Panel and get a little more familiar with your computer.

Add New Hardware

Most computers have the ability to recognize new hardware through a feature called Plug & Play. By consulting the registry (where current resource assignments for all your hardware are recorded.) Windows can determine if the new device’s default assignments create any conflicts.   If a conflict exists, Windows can make adjustments to avoid the conflict. Just follow the instructions that come up on the screen and the Add New Hardware Wizard will lead you through the process. Those of you with Microsoft XP will find this process even easier that earlier operating system such as Windows 95, 98, ME.

 Auto Updates:

If you have this icon you can select how you want to maintain updates from Microsoft. You can select a least three options, automatically download updates, notify me before downloading updates, turn off updating.

 Date & Time:

To change your computer’s date or time setting, launch Date/Time in the Control Panel.  You can also get to the Date and Time Properties by double clicking on the clock on your task bar.

Dial-Up Networking:

This allows you to connect to a remote computer by means of your modem and then access shared resources on the remote computer such as email and the Internet. The computer you access is usually known as the ISP (Internet Service Provider)

Folder Options re file extensions:

This icon allows you to set your windows desktop to look like Web Style, Classic Style or Custom.

On the View Tab you can make charges to Files and folders such as “ Show or Hide extensions for known file types.

On the File type tab you can change what program you would like to open certain files, i.e. for CD music which may have an extension wmp you may want to have Windows Media Player as your default player rather than say Real One Player. This is where you can make the change.

Mouse:

Depending on the type of mouse you are using, this icon will usually allow you to test your muse, left button, right button, wheel or extra buttons that you may have. These extra buttons can be set to do just about any function you wish. Go into this window and check it out. You can even change the mouse indicator shape or tail. You can adjust the sensitivity and even adjust the wheel, if you have a wheel mouse to move one or whatever number of lines you wish at one click.

 Passwords:

If your computer is not part of a network and you’re the only one who uses it, you don’t have to log on to start windows. If the logon dialog box appears at start-up, you can get rid of it.   Run Control Panel, choose Passwords, click the User Profile Tab, and select the option button labeled “All users of this PC use the same preferences and desktop settings. “You’ll also need to delete your password, if you have one.   Click on the Passwords tab, click Change Windows Password, type your old password, and then click Ok. Leave the New Password and Confirm New Password boxes empty.

 

  Monitor Power

This option allows you to set how long the monitor and hard drives should operate before shutting off. Remember your hard drive turns at 7200 rpm and if your not using the computer during the day, having it shut down is not a bad idea. The same applies to your monitor. A good time to apply is about 30 minutes of idle time.

Regional Setting:

The Regional Settings in the Control Panel allows you to adjust the way Windows display dates, times, currency amounts, large numbers and numbers with decimal fractions, as well as whether Windows should employ the metric or imperial system of measurement.

Schedules Task:

This allows you to schedule maintenance tasks that can be performed by the computer automatically. Tasks such as Disk Defrag, Disk Cleanup, Scandisk, Scan for Viruses, Tune up Application.

Sound & Multimedia:

This allows you to add, remove or change all the sound associated with your operating system such as the sound you hear when opening windows.

It also allows you to check and adjust the volume for sound playback, sound recording and MIDI sound.

You can also check all the drivers needed to make your sound devices work.

System:

This tells you what operating system you are using, what processor you have and how much RAM (Random Access Memory) you have i.e. 64 Meg, 256 Meg etc.

The Device Manager is accessible here and should you have a problem such as your CD player won’t work, check here and see if your computer has recognized the player you are having a problem with.   It also provides a breakdown of your memory performance.

There is also a lot of  help available on-line. I don't use the Internet much, just when I really need something. Bill is great at finding all kinds of things on the Internet. I mean, I have my favorite websites, but Bill is good at surfing and seems to have an uncanny knack of finding just what he wants. I tend to get a little frustrated, and then rationalize that I didn't really want to find that out anyway, and I don't want to tie up the phone line. I could probably find another 10 excuses. But just remember this, you will probably never be good a surfing the net unless you get used to doing a lot of surfing. It's exactly like golf. You will never get good at golf unless you play a lot of golf. Just go to Google Search Engine and type in your question. You may be surprised when you get the answer selection back.

So, a third kind of help is from friends. That's why we have these meetings. Hopefully, we can all help each other. Not all problems are solvable, not all computers are fixable. A few days ago we tried to fix an old computer that wouldn't come on properly, but brought up a message. Bill went on the Internet and called up that type of computer and message and it told him that he could try a couple of things to get it to work, but essentially the computer hard drive was on its last legs.

Which brings me to another suggestion. If your computer isn't working, before you take it to a repair shop, ask around or call us to have a check of it. (We don't mind at all, in fact we rather enjoy it!) Sometimes it is an easy fix. Sometimes it is impossible, but it never hurts to have someone else take a look at it, and these days, the moment you take your computer to the shop, there is a minimum charge + +.

Software can be tricky. When you first buy a new computer it is loaded with certain software, as we all know, to allow you to navigate through the computer, do word processing, get on the Internet, check out your digital photos, play games and have all kinds of fun. All the software loaded on your computer is supposed to be compatible with your operating system (Windows, whatever). However, the moment you put a CD in your computer and load anything, besides loading the program, you are also installing a few little files in the Windows Registry so that it can make that program compatible with Windows and usable on your computer. In a perfect computer world, those files added to the registry will not conflict with other files added by other programs. Usually, it is fine, however, it does not always hold true. When there is a conflict, the software may not work properly and it can also mess up the program that it has a conflict with. Card programs and printing programs seem to be the biggest offenders in this area. Part of the reason is that they are loaded with graphics and use a lot of other resources in your computer. Sometimes the conflict can be because two software manufacturers have chosen the same name for fonts that are different. That really messes things up.

Again, I am going to start with some basics.  Inside your computer, be it a tower or a laptop, there are many components.  Unless you are a real computer wiz and very curious, you don=t need to know about many of these components.  The only internal part of your computer that you get to work with is the hard disk.  It is the physical device in your computer that contains a motor, magnetic heads, and metal platters on which data is stored.  Believe me;  if I go over to your house and we sit down at your computer and you say to me AI know I filed it, but I don=t know where it is.@  It is on that hard disk. 

         Sometimes we call them Adrives,@ but actually one hard disk can have more than one hard drive on it.  If you have a AC@ drive and a AD@ drive, but only one hard disk, they are partitioned both on the same hard disk.  However, if you have a large tower computer, you could possibly have two hard disks.  For instance, Bill has two hard disks, each of which has 80 gigabytes of space.  He needs that when he makes one of his large DVD productions.  I have one hard disk in my laptop and it has only the one drive on it.  Each disk could also be partitioned and space on the partition is now often used to hold all the information needed to restore your computer back to square one should it be necessary.  They used to supply everyone with restoration CD=s, but we are finding more and more computers that have the information stored right on the disk.  If that is the case and your instruction manual says that you should make back-up CD=s of the restoration data on your hard disk, we suggest that you do that as soon as possible after you get your computer.  If something happens to your hard disk, you are out of luck, if you don=t do it.  Even on warranty, the store you bought it from blames the hardware company, the hardware company blames the software company and the software company blames the hardware company B and round and round you go. 

        As far as I know, that is all I really have to know about the inside of my computer.  Now the outside B that=s a different thing.  Your instruction manual always gives you a diagram of where to plug everything in.  But there are some important things to note.  Besides your hard disk, discussed before, there are other ways to store files.  You can put them on a floppy disk, or if you have a CD burner, you can store them on a CD.  How many people here have CD-R drives, called CD burners.  I know that some of the new computers don=t even have floppy drives.  These little disks are very handy for storing anything up to 1.4 MBS.  And if there are no pictures or sound bytes in the file, you could store a complete novel on one disk.  However, one good picture, or one decent sound byte could completely fill up that disk.  A CD is so big that you would need 500 of these floppy disks to hold the same information. 

           Every year, I explain how to understand your computer=s filing system.    I am not going to go into how to make your own filing system, but for those relatively new to computers, I will explain a little bit about the computer=s filing system.   You right click on AStart@ and then left click on explore.  A two-paned window will appear.  In the left pane is the entire tree of your computer=s filing system.  You can reduce that tree to nothingness by right clicking on each section and choosing Acollapse@ and all you can see is your desktop. In older versions of Windows, just double click on the folder and it will collapse.    When you click on something in the left pane, whatever is in that folder will show up on the right pane.  So if it just shows the desktop B all the icons that you have on your desktop will show up at the right.  You can enlarge your file tree by clicking on your desktop.  Then click on Amy Computer@ and everything in Amy computer@ will show.  I have a floppy drive - AA@, my AC@ drive (or hard disk) and my DVD/CD-RW drive, which is AD@.   You might wonder what happened to the AB@ drive.  Well back in the dark ages there was another kind of floppy disk.  It was a 5-1/4" disk, it did not hold much information and it was not contained in a hard case, so it was very prone to getting damaged.  It fell by the wayside about 8 years ago.  

     Your AC@ drive contains all the programs necessary to run your computer including Windows.  There it is alphabetically down near the end of your AC@ drive.  You will also notice a folder called AProgram Files@.  When you load a program it usually loads itself right into the Program Files folder.  Not always, though, so if you can=t find a program there, just look on your AC@ drive and it will usually appear on its own.  For instance, Corel appears right on the AC@ drive.  It really doesn=t matter where the program is, as long as your computer knows where to get it when you call it up.  At one point I asked our Guru if I should force the program to go into AProgram Files@ and he said Ano@ let it go where it wants to go, it will probably install better and if you ever want to uninstall it, it will uninstall easier.   

 

If your computer has a CD burner (or if you installed one later) you should have received software with that burner.  That software will include a means so that you can copy any software disk (to give you a back up copy), so you can copy any music disk and it will also allow you to prepare a CD-RW (that stands for rewritable) so that you can store any files on it the same way you would have done on your floppy drive.  You will be able to store files, change files, and remove files.  It acts as a removable extension of our hard disk.  It is a wonderful way of backing up all your files.  If you have a decent filing system in your computer, or at least you know exactly where everything is filed in your computer, once a week, or once a month, depending upon how much typing, picture taking, etc, that you do, you can copy all those files to the CD-RW and you will have backed up everything that is important in your computer.  You don=t have to back up your programs;  you have the means of restoring those with CD=s or your restoration disk.  You only have to have your hard disk fail once to realize how important it is to back-up your work.  It is not like working in an accounting office where they back their work up daily, but once a week or month should do. 

  If your e-mail window is the same width as the sender’s, you won’t see any difference, but if your window is narrower or wider, and the sender used a hard return at the line’s end, that means the sender hit that return key or enter key rather than letting the computer do it automatically.

 

            I am going to open my word processor to show this more clearly.

 

            In Word Perfect, I can show all the extras when I type.  I go to view in the menu bar and choose “reveal codes.”  Now I will type and let the computer bring me to the next line.  If you notice, it says Srt which means soft return.  Now if I hit the return key myself, it will say Hrt, which means Hard return.  All these little actions are remembered by the computer.  Note that it understands a space by putting in a little diamond.  If I hit tab, it notes it.  Every action you execute on a computer shows up somewhere. 

 

            Remember a few minutes ago when I told you to make sure you have a tick in the items saying, “Display the full path in the title bar.”  Let’s look at what we have when I call up tonight’s notes.  That makes it easy for you to remember exactly where it is filed.

 

            Before starting to make a document in any word processing program, make sure that it is set up the way you want it.  Organize your margins and your tab stops; pick your typeface, size and justification.  The margins, in particular, should be set at the beginning, because if you aren’t familiar with the program, to make it look good, you might use the space bar a few times instead of the tab, or place your cursor where you want it as opposed to using the proper typing technique of using your tab stop, hard return and space bar.  It looks fine, then you change your margins and everything is all confused and in the wrong place.  It is so much easier to do it at the beginning.  Make it a habit.

                              

              I want to talk a bit about all the wires we hook up to our computers. Luckily, most of them are color coded now, making it a lot easier. And they are beginning to put the USB ports on the front of the tower, so you don't have to reach around to the back. The most important thing to remember about hooking anything up to your computer is to make sure that your computer is off as well as the hardware you are adding. That applies to all your main connections, to your monitor, to your keyboard, etc. Anything connected to a parallel port or serial port falls into this category. Those are the ones that are long and thin and have a lot of pins in them. If you hook up to either of these ports while your computer is on, you could do serious damage. Now, they have developed USB's and you can plug in the USB while your computer and printer are on. So the rule is: always turn your computer off unless you are connecting to a USB port, or to a PS2 mouse port, which is only usable for a mouse. As well, your phone cord for the Internet can be connected at any time. If it is any other kind of connection, make sure that your computer is off.

How many people very faithfully run tutorials when they are offered by a program? What I do usually, is run the tutorial when I first get the program and follow along with it, just to get started. Then, once I have used the program for a while, I run the tutorial again and pick up the stuff I missed the first time. Sometimes you will find that the tutorials are on the program CD, and you have to put the CD in again in order to run it.

As most of you know, I am a Corel Word Perfect person, but since the majority here seem to have Microsoft Word, I'll deal a bit with that program. I am only going to touch on a few items, so if there is something that you still don't know how to do, let me know and I'll try to figure it out.

Let's look at "View" in the menu bar. First thing to do is to put a tick beside the "Ruler" so that you can see how wide your page is. Then you will note that you can have a Normal, Web or Print layout. I choose "Print" because I can see my left and right margins and the typing is centered. So the first thing I noticed is that the margins are an inch a quarter. I like one inch margins, so I have to change them. In Microsoft Word you go to "File" Page Set up and when the window appears, you change your margins to whatever you want. I'll make it one inch all the way around. Notice at the bottom left of this window I can click on default, and since the majority of the time I want one inch margins, I will click on it and when the Office Assistant comes up, I will say yes. If you don't want to change the default, just don't click on it and the margins will go back to normal for the next document.

Under "Insert" you will see "break..." The only one I tend to use is the first, being "page break" which means that if you get to the end of a section in your typing and you don't want any more on that page, if you hit "page break", it will automatically start typing on the next page. The incorrect method would have been to press the Hard Return key until you got to the top of the next page. This is fine as long as you don't alter your document. If you were to take a line of two out of the previous section, suddenly your new section would be starting at the bottom of page containing the old section and you would have to put some more Hard returns in. Page Break means that no matter where your previous section ends, after you hit page break, it will always start at the top of the next page, no matter how much you edit.

You can insert a date and time which is a simple click of the mouse.

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You can add a symbol. Say you wanted to write 350 degrees with the degree sign. You type 350, then you go to Insert, Symbol and on the chart that appears, I happen to know that the degree sign is about six down and five over in the Symbol section of the roll down menu. Select it, say insert and close. However, say you decide that you use the degree sign a lot, you can assign a Shortcut key. So click on Shortcut Key and in the section where it says "Press new shortcut key" pick one of the F keys that you are not likely to use. My F9 said something about merging fields and I know I'll never do that, so now when I want the degree sign in Word, I just hit F9. Watch this - 350 (F9) = 350º. You can do that same thing for fractions or a few other specialties. You can also use ctrl + Fkey, or alt + Fkey. So that will give you plenty of extra shortcut keys. You can also use control or alt plus many of the regular keys, but a lot of them are already used, so watch that you don't replace an already very handy shortcut with one of your own favorites. If you make new shortcut keys, remember that the shortcuts will only work in that specific program as each program already has its own formula for various shortcuts.

The Formatting menu allows you to make many changes to the way your document will look. In "Format", drop caps are fun. First you type a capital letter, then you go to "Drop Caps" and choose, let's say the middle one. That will give you a capital letter that will be three lines deep and the typing will continue along those three lines then go back to the beginning of the fourth line.

In the Format Menu you can change your typing to two columns, or more. Always do this before you start typing your document. It's a lot easier, particularly if you don't follow all the computer typing rules..

Whether working in a word processing program or writing simple e-mails, by learning some simple keyboard shortcuts, you can avoid using your mouse which usually takes a lot more time and can sometimes lead to a painful wrist.

My two favorite keys are ctrl and alt. Most of us know about ctrl + C, which is copy and ctrl + p which is paste. As well, ctrl + S is save. It is so much faster when you are typing to just hit ctrl + S to save, rather than finding your mouse and then navigating it up to your favorite method of saving. Try it! Once you get used to doing it that way, you will find it a lot easier to "save" more often, which, of course, keeps you from losing your precious words of wisdom. Ctrl + Z is undo, a very handy tool when you make a mistake and don't know how to fix it, and Ctrl + Y is redo, if you change our mind about the undo. Ctrl + X is "Cut", which means it removes the selected text and puts it on the clipboard so that you can put it somewhere else. Ctrl + B is for bold, Ctrl + I is for Italics and Ctrl + U is for underlining, all of which are self explanatory. Pressing these keys again will take you back to normal mode.

Next, I will open an e-mail and write a sentence. Then I will hit ctrl + S, to save it. Notice that a message comes up saying that "This message has been saved in your Drafts folder," as you can see at the left. To get rid of this message, you don't have to find your mouse and click "OK.". Just hit your return key. As long the button is highlighted, this key will perform whatever action is called for. That was much faster and easier than using the mouse.

I am going to show you some shortcuts using "Alt." Alt allows you to perform a lot of actions using whatever letter is underlined in the appropriate word on your menu bar. As soon as I hold down "Alt", all the words on the menu bar will show an underscore under one of their letters. In an e-mail, let's say you want to select all your text so that you can change the font and size. Usually you would find your mouse, go to edit and hit "select all." I will do that without the mouse. I will hold down alt, then hit E which is underlined in "edit" and A which is underlined in "Select All". Now I will do it really fast. Alt + E + A. See how fast and easy that was. It is the same for every item on your menu bar. Don't assume that Alt + E + A will select all in every program. Each program is a bit different. For instance, in Word, Select All turns out to be Alt + E + L. You have to explore a little bit in your favorite program to pick up these shortcut keys.

Again, in an e-mail, let's go to "Format" which is Alt + O and then "Font" which is Alt + F. Note that the Font section is highlighted. Without the mouse, I can pick a new font by using the down arrow until I get to what I want. I can get to the next window by hitting the Tab key, but let's leave that one regular and tab on to the size. Let's choose 18 with the down arrow. Now we Tab until we get to the box that says OK. Tabbing just takes you round and round every box in the window. Shift + Tab will take you back a box if you go too far. Now all I have to do is hit the return key because OK is highlighted. Hitting the Hard Return Key will always execute whatever action is highlighted.

Once I hit OK, I am back in my e-mail, but it is still highlighted. If I were to hit most of the keys on the keyboard, it would remove the selected text and replace it with the key I hit. To avoid this, hit Ctrl + one of the 4 arrows at the bottom right of your keyboard. If you hit the right arrow it will de-select the text and leave the cursor to the right of the text, just where you usually want it.

I could not find anywhere how to de-select the text without removing it, except if I used my mouse. So I just started experimenting. I highlighted the text, held down ctrl and tried hitting various keys. I removed the text and had to hit undo to replace it every time until I got to the arrows. So a little experimenting can be very helpful and you won't hurt anything. There are two things to remember, though. Always keep track of what you are experimenting with and don't forget that you always have an "undo" function. If you are afraid of messing up whatever you are working on, open a new document and experiment there, then when you have figured out what you need, close that document and go back to the document you were working on.

 

At the last meeting I mentioned using your TUTORIALS. It is not the easiest thing in the world sometimes to find them. For XP, you go to Start + Help & Support. Then, in Search you type XP Tutorials. It gives you a choice. You could take the Windows XP Tour. Click on it and it gives you two formats. Choose the one with the music and animation. Then you just have to follow what it says. I'll start it up . . . . And then go back to the main menu.

Most of the other tutorials are basically the same as going into Help. Let's look at Remove Unused Desktop Icons. Change the view at the top so that most of your desktop shows. It tells you to go to display in the Control Panel. I will do it that way, but we all know that you can just right click on the desktop to get to Display. But we will follow the instructions as written. So, go to Start, Control Panel, and if it looks sort of strange in XP, switch from the category view to the Classic View. Then click on Display. Now that we have set that window up, let's get our Help window up at the right.

It says, on the Desktop tab, click Customize Desktop. Under Desktop Cleanup, click Clean Desktop Now. Then it says Follow the directions in the Desktop Cleanup Wizard. And it says anything that you haven't used in a while that has a tick beside it will be removed to an unused icons folder. I suppose that would be fine if you wanted to do it all at once, but I like some of my icons on there even if I haven't used them in the last couple of months. So I just remove them individually by dragging them to the recycle bin. But this exercise was just to show you how you can use the tutorials and help. And it gives you one way to do something. But there are many ways to do most things in Windows. Once you find a good way, stick to it.

Another little shortcut trick is when you highlight any text, just right click on it and an entire drop menu comes down giving you many options including "copy". So if you already have your mouse in your hand, this is sometimes faster and easier.

SCROLL BARS can be a very effective tool in determining how big your total file is. I am going to open the Control Panel and put it into classic mode. When it opens, there may or may not be a scroll bar at the right. If the window is large, there will be no scroll bar. If the window is small, there will be a scroll bar. I will enlarge and reduce the window to show that there is only a scroll bar when a portion of the information in that window is missing. As soon as I enlarge the window by dragging on one of the sides or getting an oblique arrow in the corner so that I can do both sides at once, the scroll bar disappears. Have you ever noticed that the scroll bar is sometimes very small and sometimes very large. The size of the scroll bar indicates the proportion of information that is visible in the window at that time. Watch as I change the size of the window. The scroll bar alters in size. So, we now know that if the scroll bar is large, there is only a little bit of information not showing. However, if that scroll bar is perhaps one quarter the size of the total length, only one quarter of that window is showing. The size of the scroll bar in the scrolling area is proportional to the amount of information in that file that is showing in the window. So when you are on the Internet and you call up some information, look at the right, if you see a tiny scroll bar you know that there is lots more information on that subject. If there is no scroll bar, or if the scroll bar takes up almost the entire scrolling area, you know that most of the information is already in the visible window.

All files saved in your computer have to have a different FILE NAME, which consists of the file path, the actual file name, plus a dot, plus a three letter extension. You can have many file names that are the same, as long as they all have a different file path or a different extension. For instance, you can have saved a picture as a Bitmap (bmp) which takes a lot of space, but is good quality, you could have a Jpeg (jpg) which is much smaller and good for e-mail, and you could have a TIFF, which allows you to do other functions with the picture. As well, you can have the same name for certain files, if you have saved them in a different drive, such as your floppy drive or your CD-ROM drive. Your computer recognizes that there is a C:\ or an A:\ or D:\ in front of the file name. You can also have files with the same name in different folders on your C drive. (That is part of the file path) Again, your computer recognizes the path as being different and allows the files to have the same name. It could be very confusing though, and if you are not careful, you may end up having the same file of information in many places.

A word of precaution, if you save your work in your computer and then put it on a floppy disk or a CD-ROM or in more than one folder: If it is strictly a back-up copy of finished work, that is fine. However, if it is a work in progress, the moment you add to it, you have to remember to add the extra information to your back-up copy as well. Otherwise, you might forget which is your working copy and you might be adding little bits to one file and little bits to the other, which means that neither of them would be complete. I make it a habit to always make my changes on the copy that I keep in my computer. Then when I back up my files on a CD, once a week or once a month, depending upon how much work I've been doing, I just wipe the CD of all files and transfer a new copy of all the files I have and I then know that everything is complete and up to date on my back up.

MOVING those FILES around is quite easy and there are only a few of things to remember. You can highlight the files and drag them and drop them in the appropriate folder, or you can highlight the files, right click on them and say Copy. Then click on the destination folder, right click and say Paste. I used the word move at the beginning of this paragraph, because when you are moving files around in the C drive, once you have moved the file, it is only in the new place and no longer in the old place.

However, if you use the same method to get files onto a floppy disk or a CD, (copy and paste, or drag and drop) the file remains on the C drive as well as copying to the Floppy or CD and you will now have two copies of the file.

Another point to remember is that you can move your personal files around anywhere you want, but do not try moving program files or an entire program. When programs are installed, there are a lot of little files that go into the Registry of Windows so that your program will interrelate with other programs in your computer. The registry makes note of where you installed the program and if you were to move it, you would lose those connections. If you decide that you don't like where a program is installed, you must uninstall it and then reinstall where you want - but as it doesn't really matter where a program is installed, I'd never bother doing that.

If you find that you are having trouble reading the small text on your computer, but you don't want to enlarge the font size as it enlarges everything and limits the amount you have on your page, there is a way to get a larger view of your text. You go to Start, All Programs, Accessories, MAGNIFIER. When you start Magnifier, the top 15% of the screen turns into an automatic magnifying glass, which follows the mouse cursor around the screen. The Magnifier can be resized or moved with the mouse. If you don't want to see the magnifier window, reduce it, do not close it because it will close the magnifier as well. Just leave it on your task bar at the bottom and then when you want to get rid of the magnifier, bring up the little window again and close it.

The SCHEDULED TASK feature allows you to schedule any program to run at a specified time or repeat at some regular interval. Things you might schedule are your disk defragmenter or your Anti Virus scan. You will find this feature in the Control Panel under Performance and Maintenance. Open the scheduled Task Folder and double-click Add Scheduled task. It takes a bit of time for the computer to go through everything and pick up the possibilities for tasks that could be scheduled. Once that comes up, you pick the item you need to schedule (Let's do Disk Clean Up) and then just follow what it says until you get to the end of the windows. I'll cancel this as I do Disk Clean Up whenever I feel the need. A point to remember, Scheduled tasks will not be performed if you've selected the Stop using Task Scheduler option, if your computer is turned off, if Windows isn't running or if your portable computer is running off its battery.

If someone is helping you with your computer and they start asking you questions about your computer, you might go to Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, SYSTEM INFORMATION. It is a tool used to view information about your computer. You probably won't understand all of it, but some of the things make sense. OS stands for Operating System and you can see that mine is Windows XP. Someone might ask how much RAM you have, look under total physical Memory and it says 512 MB. It tells you the model and manufacturer of your computer and a lot of other stuff that you will probably never need. But at least you now know where to find it if asked.

In later versions of Windows 98 and in Windows XP, there is a SYSTEM RESTORE, which runs invisibly in the background, continuously backing up important system files and registry settings. The idea is that at some point, you may wish to roll back your computer's configuration to a time before things started going wrong. By default, System Restore is turned on, using up to 12% of your computer's hard disk space.

You can find System Restore, by going to Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Restore. Then you make sure "Restore My Computer to an earlier Time" is ticked off and go Next. Select a Bold Date on the Calendar and then just follow what it says. After you have restored your computer, you can still go back to the way it was before the Restore, if you so desire, so you are left with both options. I am going to cancel because I don't need to restore. System Restore replaces some files installed in your computer with potentially earlier versions, resets registry preferences, and in some cases, uninstalls software. While the intention is to solve some problems, it can inadvertently cause others. If you suspect that a particular program you installed is causing the problem, your best bet is to uninstall that program rather than attempting a System Restore. Use System Restore as a last resort only, but a great option if you need it.

It is almost essential in your computer to have some method of SAVING INFORMATION EXTERNALLY either on a floppy disk or a CD-ROM burner. A lot of the new computers do not have a floppy disk drive. They seem to be phasing them out. We were shopping on the Internet for a computer for someone a few days ago and found one that didn't have either a floppy disk drive or a CD burner. If you get a computer like that you have no way of saving information externally to back up your computer should your hard drive fail. AND IT HAPPENS! We had another one fail a few days ago. All information is lost because everything they had was saved on the hard drive and is no longer accessible. So if you are thinking of buying a new computer, one of the main things to look for is a CD-RW which we all call a CD burner. It does not make any sense these days buying a computer that does not come with a CD-RW (burner).

I can see the wheels going around right now. I bet there are many of you who have never saved anything externally and I am sure there are many of you who have CD burners and you have never burned a CD because you don't know how. If you needed to drive to Orlando and you didn't know how to get there, would you say: "I'm not going to visit my good friends in Orlando because I don't know how to get there." NO, you'd learn how to get there. Well, it is the same thing with a CD burner. It is not some magical thing - it is a straight forward process. I am not going to explain to you how to burn a CD because there are too many different programs for burning. BUT, if you have a CD burner or you even think you might have a CD burner, and you have never saved any of your files onto a CD, please give us a call and one of us will help you learn how to burn on your particular computer. Now, I am not just talking about taking a music CD and burning another copy of it, I am talking about transferring your important files off your hard drive onto a CD. You can call that backing up your computer or making an extra copy of your files. Doesn't matter what you call it. You will now have a copy of your important files separate from your hard drive, and that hard drive can operate flawlessly for many years or it could fail in a few days. Hard drives do not usually give you any advance warning that they might fail. They don't say I feel sick or I have a pain in my CPU or make some sort of ominous ticking sound; they just suddenly don't come on when you press that button. Certain computers have diagnostic tools and will give you a warning, but not many and certainly not most of the run-of-the-mill computers that we all have.

 

We mentioned DEVICE DRIVERS earlier this year, but I have a sneaking feeling that this is another area where most of us are in the dark. Before Windows can work with any piece of hardware, such as a printer, scanner or mouse, it requires a compatible, properly configured device driver. DRIVERS are not something physical, they are small, compact control programs that hook directly into Windows and handle the essential tasks of communicating your instructions to a hardware device and then relaying data back to you. After you set up a hardware device, such as a printer, its driver loads automatically every time you need that hardware and runs as part of the operating system, without requiring any further intervention on your part. So say you want to print out an e-mail. You go to the Print button. It doesn't send that e-mail directly to your printer. The e-mail says to your operating system, we have something to print and your operating system, says Ah Ha! I just happen to have a printer that I am communicating with right now. It ships the information to your printer and away you go. If your printer encounters a problem, and lets you know by relaying the information back to your computer, it can often be solved by rebooting your computer. You can also look in the troubleshooting section for that piece of hardware. Another solution might be to download a patch from the Internet. Computers are all so different that  sometimes an incompatibility can arise. If the maker of your printer realizes this, there will usually be another very small program correcting the problem (called a PATCH) available on the Internet. You DOWNLOAD the patch by going to the website of your printer manufacturer and hunting for it, and then you INSTALL it. Don't forget to install it, it won't work if you just download it. Here's another analogy. You can relate downloading to buying groceries and bringing them home in your car. You got them to your house but they are not doing you any good until you bring them inside and put them where they belong in your house, such as the cupboard or refrigerator. Downloading without installing would be just like leaving the groceries in the trunk of your car. This not only applies to device drivers, it applies to anything you download. There are other instances where you don't have to worry about installing because it is done for you. For instance, when you download new virus definitions, you will note if you are watching that once the downloading is done a note comes on the computer page saying that the virus definitions are now being installed. Norton isn't taking any chances. They are making sure that those definitions get installed. You might ask: "Well, if it so important that downloads get installed, why isn't everything that is downloaded automatically installed." Good question. Sometimes people download little programs for other people so you wouldn't want them installed in the computer you used for downloading. As well, in the case of Norton, it knows exactly where that download should go. Other downloads need your input as to what should be done with them.

I got side tracked there. Back to drivers. In the old days, whenever you added a piece of hardware, you had to install the driver. Now, Windows XP includes an enormous library of drivers - for printers, keyboards, scanners, mice, etc. When you hook up any piece of hardware, Windows automatically checks its file of drivers and if it finds a suitable driver, installation proceeds automatically. In addition, Microsoft regularly makes new, certified drivers available through Windows Update. Another good reason to Update your Windows. However, if by chance you have hardware that doesn't have a driver available in your computer yet, you will still have to install the driver from the CD that should have come with your printer or scanner or whatever else it is.

I don't know if any of you have noticed, but I get a lot of fun out of life and that includes playing games on my computer. I never just watch TV. I could be working on one of my crafts at the same time, or playing a game on the computer. I can multitask. I am just going to show one that I was introduced to lately. It is a jigsaw puzzle maker. The game comes with a variety of ready made puzzles and then allows you to take pictures from anywhere on your hard drive or from a CD-ROM and create your own puzzles.

I am going to talk about the START MENU because it has changed considerably in WINDOWS XP. If you look at the start menu by clicking on START, you will note that it has a left and right side and is divided into sections. On the left side at the top you should be able to click on either your Internet or E-mail, so you don't have to find the Big Blue E or Outlook Express somewhere else. There used to be room here for Office Suites and special programs, but they have moved now to the very top of the programs list which I will discuss later.

Below that is a Most Frequently Used Programs list. Windows monitors which programs you use most often and adds them to this list automatically. Each program that is added knocks off a less-used program. You can control the number of items that appear here, or leave it as it is, and you can remove items from this list, but you can not add items or change their order, that is done automatically. Another thing I have noticed is that programs are added to this list if you click them open them from the Start Menu or an icon on your desktop. If they open automatically when you put a CD-ROM in your CD-ROM drawer, they don't automatically go to this list. Another thing, if you open a program, it might not appear on that list until you open the program and second or third time. After all, it is called the Most Frequently Used Program List. For those of you who are new to this. Just because you see that program sitting there on the left of your Start Menu, doesn't mean that the program is open or running, it just means that this is another quick way to get to the program. It is only another short cut.

At the right side of the Start Menu there are a number of things that Windows XP figures are handy to have available. For instance, it used to be that "My Computer," and the way to get to the Control Panel which you should know about, was only available on the desktop. Well, that became a nuisance because when you were working in the program, you had to reduce the program or programs to the task bar, double click on My Computer and double click on Control Panel. Now, with the program open, you just go to Start, Control Panel which is a lot easier. And there isn't even any double clicking necessary. So that is an improvement in my mind.

At the bottom left of the Start Menu, we have All Programs. When you click on All Programs, every program that was loaded when you got your computer and every one that you have loaded since then, should be listed there somewhere. Originally, when you get your computer, all the programs listed will be in alphabetical order. The very first part of the list shows what used to be on the top left of your start menu. It is usually things that Windows or Program manufacturers figure you will need more often. You can add items to this list, but if I am going to be using a program a lot, I would rather make a short cut for my desktop, so I never add anything here. Under that, all your programs that have submenus are listed alphabetically and then all the programs that don't have submenus are listed. So, once you start adding programs, the programs that you add go to the end of the list and eventually your list is no longer in alphabetical order. You can fix that. Right click on any of these program items and choose Sort By Name. Your list will now be in alphabetical order.

 

How to make a SHORTCUT FOR A PROGRAM so that you have it on your desktop. It is so easy now. All you do is right click on the program (that you reached from the Start bar) that needs a desktop shortcut. If it is a program group go through it until you get to the actual item that you normally click on. Right click on it and choose "Send To." There you will see an item that says "Desktop (Shortcut)." Click on it, and then you can check your desktop and you should see a shortcut.

I want to take a little time tonight to explain to everyone where to file anything they want to save. Hopefully, this section is going to be a keeper so that everyone can look at it in the notes, maybe even copy it out and keep it handy so that when you file you have some idea of what you are actually doing. I am really only explaining two basic things: How to make a file folder to put your files in and how to get those files into the folder. Basically, it doesn't matter where you file things in your computer. It only matters that you know where to find them when you need them.

This not only applies to any letters that you write and want to save, but also to any e-mails that have important information on them. It also applies to pictures that you want to keep and to those all important downloads that we all need from time to time.

So, step one is to learn how to MAKE A FILE FOLDER. That is quite easy. You right click on start, then click on "explore". You now have your computer's filing system up on your screen. Everything that is in your computer appears somewhere in here. There are hidden files that don't appear here, but they are hidden for a reason. You really shouldn't be touching them and since they affect the operation of your computer, it is a good thing they are hidden. Once the explorer is fully loaded and settles down, we should scroll up to the top and see "Desktop", "My Documents", "My Computer", and your storage drives, A, if you have one, "C", "D", etc. Decide where you want to file everything. My Documents should be fine for almost everyone. If we click on it, you will notice that there are already some folders in it and you could actually just put everything right in my documents and it would be sort of like putting everything in a file basket in the top drawer of your filing cabinet. But eventually you realize that you should be putting your correspondence all in one folder, your pictures in another, etc. So let's make a folder for "My Letters." It's simple enough. You click on My Documents to highlight it. That indicates to your computer that that is where you actually want to put your new folder. Then go up and click on File, click on New and click on Folder. Note at the right a new folder appears. We want to call it My Letters. So since it is already highlighted, just start typing and "My Letters" will appear in that space. Then click anywhere near it and your new folder, titled "My Letters" will appear at the right and it will also appear at the left under My Documents. You now have a new file folder all prepared ready to put stuff in it. You will notice that every folder listed on the left is repeated on the right side and below the folders are all the individual files that you have put directly into "My Documents."

 

Now let's figure out HOW TO FILE something. Whenever you want to save something, whether you are downloading something, have pictures that you took or saved from e-mail, or you have something that you prepared on your Word Processor, as soon as you hit "Save" a window will come up asking you where you want to save it. It will often choose for you, and that is where the problem starts. If you don't realize where you are saving it, it could be difficult retrieving it later. So I will type a small document in my word processor and say "save." A window comes up saying "Save File"with many options. The first section says "save in". That means "Which folder do you want to save it in? Now most of the Microsoft letter writing programs such as Word, Works or WordPad already have it set up so that beside "Save In" it says "My Documents,' so you would already be in the right place. But say it doesn't say "My Documents" in that window and My Documents is where you want to put it. For instance, mine says "My Files", so I would have to find My Documents. If you click on the little black arow at the right of that window you can scan most of your computer and find "My Documents." It's an easy one to find because they have put it in two or three places. It's the same file folder in all the places. If you put a file in one, it will also go into the other place.

So in the normal fashion, we would click on My Documents and have it show in that window. But we have decided that we want to file our letter in the new folder that we prepared for letters, etc. So look below in the big window, and note that one of the folders says "My Letters." It's the one we just made. We want to get that folder up to the Window that says "Save In." So double click on it and it will go to the upper window. We are now ready to save our file in the correct folder.

The big window in the middle will include the names of all the files you have already saved in that folder - with one stipulation. It will only give you the names of files that you saved with the three letter file extension that is designated at the bottom of the window. Note there are two little windows at the bottom. One says "File Name" and that makes sense, call it whatever you want, obviously something that will make easy for you to remember when you go hunting for it, and the bottom window gives you choices of what type of file you want to make it. In the case of Corel Word Perfect, it chooses to make it a .wpd file. Word chooses to make any files a .doc. I talked about these extensions a few weeks ago and they are very important. All computer programs are written by programmers who use certain programming language. Now the people who wrote the program for Corel Word Perfect did not use the same computer language as the people who wrote Microsoft Word. So the programs are not compatible. You can't normally expect to open a document in a program that was written in different program. But both Microsoft Word and Corel Word Perfect are such powerful programs, that they have sub-programs in them that will convert documents from one program type to another. But that is definitely not the normal case.

Back to saving the file. Look at the bottom window. The wording is always a bit different, but it usually says something meaning "What kind of file type do you want to use to save it?" It will usually choose the standard one for that program. In my case it chooses .wpd. If we look at the list of choices, you will note that there is even one for the Internet. Everything for the Internet has to be saved in the common language for the Internet which is HTML. So after I have finished with my notes which I save in .wpd, I save it again as an HTM document and Bill puts that on the Internet. Everyone on the Internet in the entire world will be able to retrieve that document no matter what programs they have and no matter what kind of computer.

I am sure most of you have noticed when you look at the menu under file, there is one for "save" and one for "save as". The "save as" is for when you want to change the type of file. Let's face it, once you have saved a file and given it a name, next time you hit "save" it just saves in the same place, it doesn't bring up that Save window a second time, "save as" forces the computer to take you to another file saving window so that you can pick a different file extension and save it as a different type of file. "Save as" also has another important function. Say you were writing letters to a bunch of people. The letters were similar except for maybe one paragraph or a few words. You would save the first letter as Request to Mary. Then you make your changes and go to "Save As" and change the file name to Request to Joan, and so on. So you would end up with a copy of each of your letters but you would only have to change them slightly, rather than rewrite each letter. Now don't worry about how much space all these letters would take. Normal typing takes a negligible amount of space. You could write an entire book and have it stored on one megabyte in your computer. So say you have a 40 gigabyte hard drive and 30 gigabytes of the drive are available for storage. You could actually save the contents of 30,000 books in your computer. That is provided you don't have any high quality photos in those books. One good photo could take up the space of 10 books.

So once we have decided where we want to file our letter, what type of file we want it to be, and we have given it a descriptive name, just click on "save."

 

We can now go back to explorer and FIND THAT LETTER. So right click on start, click on Explore, find My document, My Letters, and there is the letter.

When you are working in your word processor, usually at the bottom of the file menu, there are shortcuts to get to the most recently used documents. But, say you want to get to an older one not on that list. You go to open and a window comes up. To find that actual file you need, just as in the save window, you have a choice of moving around in this window until you find what you want. You can back up by using the little black arrow at the right of the "look in" window, or you can double click on items in the big window until you work your way down to the actual file you want. Once it appears in the "file name" window you can click on open, or you can just double click on the actual file and it will open. So you are certainly not limited to the few item that appear at the bottom of your file menu list.

I would like to think that the above has been some help, but if you still need a little instruction, call us and we will help you get started. It is a lot easier for us to explain how to file in your actual computer, than to try to find out where something got filed by mistake. You should know where you have filed everything in your computer.

One last thought. Computers are perfect. Everything is ones and zeroes. It doesn't change. But that is where perfection ends. Because everything that is put into a computer, every chip, every program that is designed, was designed by man. And we all know that men aren't perfect. Well, nobody is perfect. But the point I am trying to get across is that all the programs in your computer were designed by programmers who are a very individualistic bunch. Luckily over the years they are finally coming down to our level and making the programs easier to use. But if you have a program that you want to use and you are having difficulty, don't necessarily blame yourself. It could have just been written by a programmer whose thought processes were totally different. Try to find somebody else who has the program and work with them. Or better yet, before buying a program, talk to your friends and find out what programs are easy to work with.

 

 

COMPUTER GROUP MEETING NOTES - DEC. 5, 2005

What do you do if your Icons disappear from your desktop. First of all, it is not a computer problem. It is a twitchy finger problem with your mouse. It is very easy to remove or restore Icons on your desktop. It usually happens if people right click and then left click while they are moving their mouse. Watch this. I right click on the desktop. A menu appears. The first item says "arrange icons by". Click on it and look down the list. Notice I have a tick beside "Show desktop icons". By now we should all know that if something has a tick beside it, if you click on it, the tick disappears. So I will click on it and all my icons are gone. To get them back, I right click again, and reverse the process, clicking on "arrange icons by" and notice that there is no tick now beside "show desktop icons". I click on that again and voila! They are back.

Also, when you are working in a program, that twitchy finger on your mouse or twitchy fingers on your keyboard can mess up things. I'll open a file in Corel Word Perfect. Say you accidentally touch the wrong combination of keys on your keyboard. Watch this. Oooh! Look at the mess. What do I do. That's when you say. What did Mary Ellen tell me. First. DON'T PANIC! Take your fingers off the keyboard and don't start pushing buttons. Take your mouse and go to the menu bar at the top of your page. Click on Edit, click on Undo. You are right back where you were before.

I'd like to add one more suggestion regarding messing up in the middle of any work you are doing. The first thing you should do when you start any work, is save it to a file. If anyone does not know how to save to a file yet, call me and I will give you a private lesson. It really requires a private lesson to get used to it. Then you keep on saving as you go along. Every few lines or once a minute "SAVE THAT FILE!" Let's assume that you have already saved most of your work to a file. Now, for some reason you really get into a mess and you forgot about the Undo function until you had pressed a few keys or clicked a few times. The Undo function will not work now, because it only undoes the last thing or two that you did. (It depends upon the particular program, how many times it allows you to undo or go back) Since most of your work should be saved, it is already sitting in a file in your computer in good order. You haven't saved the mess you made. So you quietly exit out of your program. When it says "Do you want to save your changes? You know you made a mess, so you say "NO". When you open that file again, it should be in perfect order, and you can continue working. As long as you don't save the changes, you should be fine.

One last comment. Computers aren't smart. They only have good memories. Smart programmers have put wonderful applications in the computer for you to use, but those programs will only react to what you tell them. You are in charge, and never forget that you are smarter than that computer.

Google Mail: A Google approach to email.

A Google approach to email:  Gmail is an experiment in a new kind of web mail, built on the idea that you should never have to delete mail and you should always be able to find the message you want. Check it it out at the following link: CLICK HERE

 

Google Talk:

They say talk is cheap. Google thinks it should be free. Google Talk enables you to call or send instant messages to your friends for free–anytime, anywhere in the world. You must have Windows XP. Check it out at the following link:    CLICK HERE

 

Google Earth:  Explore Search and Discover

Want to know more about a specific location? Dive right in -- Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to put the world's geographic information at your fingertips. Want to see what Carefree looks like from outer space. Check it out at the following link:  CLICK HERE

 

Picasa2  Find and enjoy the pictures on your computer in seconds.

This is another free offer from Google which allows you to organize your pictures, make adjustments to them and send them to your friends at a size they can get on their screens. The software is very friendly to use. Check it out at the following link: 

CLICK HERE

 

COMPUTER GROUP MEETING NOTES - DEC. 19, 2005

Tonight I would like to talk about printers. There are a few major printer manufacturers, such as Lexmark, Epson, Canon and HP or Hewlett Packard. I suppose each printer has good points, but if you ask either of us, we always recommend HP, just because in all the years we have been working on computers we have had less problems with HP printers. You notice I didn't say "no problems", just less problems. Just about any new printer these days will give you high quality printing for your photos. Back in the dark ages of the late 80's, the original printers were black and white and not cheap, or then you could pay a king's ransom to get one that gave you very inadequate color, and if you wanted one, you had to add a separate scanner. The very first color scanner that we saw was priced at $1,200. And I wanted that thing so much, but we weren't about to fork over that amount of money. Now we have an HP printer that also scans and copies in photo quality color and we paid $100 for it. But we all know that that is not the end of the story. The printer itself is just the mechanics of the job. The print cartridges actually contain all the workings necessary to perform the printing. They are the most important parts of the printer. And that is why I always suggest taking good care of the cartridges. I'll do that part again at the end of the season, because there are always a few people complaining that their cartridges don't work when they get back here. I am sure you have seen a lot of places where you can get refill ink, or even places where they will do it for you. We were leery at first, because we know that the important delicate workings are right in the print head and when that fails, the cartridge is useless. But they indicate that you can refill them two or three times, so right now we are working on refill ink and so far so good. If they do it for you, it turns out to be about half price, compared to new cartridges. I tried doing it myself. I managed it once pretty well, but the second time, I ended up black and blue, and red and yellow. I figured, it just isn't worth the hassle. Pay for it and let someone else do it.

The first problem is choosing your printer. At first, most people say they only want it for printing out the occasional e-mail or little letter or note that they write. So they buy the cheapest printer or better yet, one comes free with their computer - or they take someone's cast off (now why did they cast it off? -- could it be that it wasn't a great printer to begin with). Printers are cheap enough now that anyone can afford a good photo-quality printer. And now that printers come with scanners right in them, think about getting a printer that includes a scanner, it not only saves you space but it allows you to copy anything instead of using an outside copier. It just goes right from scanning to printing and you don't even have to have your computer on. And a scanner where you lay the page right on the scanning part is better than the type you feed, because you can't feed a book or magazine.

 

Now the reason for buying a good photo-quality printer right at the beginning, is obvious. People are gradually changing to digital cameras. And even if you don't have a digital camera, photo printing places will give you a CD with your photos converted to digital. The electronic age is amazing. Now that you have a computer, your family will be sending you photos - and you can make a copy of your favorites. Bear in mind though, that the photo they send you will probably not be high quality. If you want to copy one of the photos, and neither of you mind taking the time, ask them to send you the photo in better quality. On high speed Internet, that's not a problem, but on dial up, you would only do that for a special photo because it could take quite a few minutes to send and receive.

 

.Once you have made your decision about which printer to buy and you pick it up, please make sure that you read the directions carefully before you set it up. It used to be that you hooked up the printer, then installed the software. But now that we are dealing with USB connections, it is usually the reverse. Install the software and then hook it up when told to. If you don't do it in the right order, sometimes things can get into your computer registry and even deleting the software won't remove it, making it difficult to get that printer to work well for you. We keep harping on the same things: READ THE DIRECTIONS FIRST!

 

So you finally get your printer working and you print out a few things. Everything seems to be going fine. Then suddenly one day you print something and an extra page with nothing on it spits out of the printer. I am sure that has happened to a few of us, including me. Took me a while to figure it out. Say you are just working on an actual letter that you want to send to someone, by snail mail. You type out the letter, and it maybe takes a little bit more than a page, or you have been messing around and you are not quite sure what you are doing and you hit the return key which adds extra lines, or you move the letter up or down on the page. Whatever it is you do, the computer makes note of it, and as you move things up and down, the computer adds those extra lines and it doesn't delete them if you take them out. You shorten the letter, maybe so that it fits one page, and you are so pleased with yourself. Then when you print it out, it prints that darn extra page. There is a way to get rid of that. You look at the page you want to print. If you look at the right you will see a scroll bar at the right. With your mouse, place the cursor at end of the last word on your letter. Now look at that scroll bar. It's not at the bottom, indicating that you are not at the actual bottom of the letter you are writing. Hit the delete key until that scroll bar suddenly jumps to the bottom of the scroll box. You will now only get one page when you print.

 

Another common printing problem is when you hit print, a few pages that you printed a few days ago keep printing more copies. That happens because at some point you were having problems printing, so you kept hitting the print button. Now eventually it started printing, so when it kept on printing, you probably removed the paper and turned the printer off. Whew! You solved the problem - until you turned the printer on again, and put the paper back. Now it won't start printing on you right away, but as soon as you try and print something else, it has a backlog of documents to be printed and it is determined to complete its task. There is a way to solve that as well.

To clear your printer of unwanted items to be printed, you go to START, CONTROL PANEL, PRINTERS AND OTHER HARDWARE, PRINTERS AND FAXES. On that page you will find your printers. If you have more than one, chose the one that has the little white tick in a black circle beside it. That is your default printer. Right click on it. A menu appears. If you have documents waiting to be printed, on that list you will see a line saying, "Purge all pending documents." Click on it and your printer is now ready for you to print just the item you want to print.

 

It would like to talk about one more item. On your task bar which is that blue bar at the bottom of your computer, there are many useful items, the first of which is the START button. Right beside it you should have a few little icons, right on your task bar. That is called the "Quick Launch." If it is not there, I suggest you get it there. Right click on any open space on your task bar and a menu appears. At the top it should say "Toolbars". Click on it and make sure there is a little tick beside "Quick Launch." You can put any item you want onto the Quick Launch just by dragging it from your desktop. It does not remove it from your desktop, it just adds it to your Quick Launch. Quick Launch is useful for two reasons. First you only have to click once. Second, if you are working in a program and need something that you normally get from your desktop, you don't have to reduce whatever you are working on, it is readily available right on your task bar.

Free Picture Software from Google called "Picasa 2"

Google has certainly come up with a very user friendly software for organizing, picture adjustments, and preparing the picture for email or export. Just read the following report made by PC Magazine. They like it too. CLICK HERE      Download it and try it?

 

 

Computer Group Notes Jan 09, 2006

A couple of meetings ago I talked about printers. I mentioned that you can get your ink cartridges refilled and we tried that. Well, our normal new cartridges last us about 4 - 6 months depending upon our usage. The refilled cartridges only lasted about two months and they cost a little over half as much. So in our case, there really wasn't a saving. So unless they come out with a better system, we will go back to buying our cartridges new, and hang the expense, we're both worth it. If someone else has had a better experience, we would be interested in knowing about it. But you have to keep close track of the difference in how long they last.

How do you like my picture on my desktop. It is from a program called webshots.com and there is a free version as well as the premium version which you pay for each month. In the free version, you can download up to five photos a day. As well, on your desktop, it comes with a monthly calendar, showing you the exact date and two little calendars for the following two months. That is actually why I wanted the program, I am so tired of looking for or calling up a calendar. It's great having it right there. Jean Petrie had it on her computer, so I downloaded it - but that was only two days ago. So far I have only used the sampler photos. I have only had my laptop computer hooked up to the Internet for a couple of weeks, so I am sort of new myself at managing my own downloads, and surfing around on the web. I find I am very tentative and tend to give up if I can't find what I want right away, or it doesn't seem to be working well. But I persevered in this case and soon I had it downloaded and installed and working. So don't give up

I would like to talk a bit about security. I am sure most of us have heard of computer hackers, some of us have heard of computer crackers and this was a new name for something to me - script kiddies.

Hackers have skills. They learn how computers and the Internet work. They learn how software works, how hardware works and they can write code, which means they can program computers. These are real smart cookies! There are good hackers, called white hat hackers. They don't want to harm anything, they are just good at what they do and corporations hire them to try and break into their systems so they can figure out how to keep the bad guys out and how to keep their systems save from invasion of any sort.

Now, the bad guys, the blackhat hackers, want to break into computer systems so they can get something out of it - such as top secret information or corporate formulae. .

Well, if anyone broke into my computer, they would find out that I keep a diary every time we travel, I write computer notes, I enjoy crafts and I play games. Big deal. What have I got to worry about? Nothing much there worth stealing.

Now we have the computer crackers. They work on software and find ways so that they don't have to buy it. Most software now comes with imbedded codes so that you can't copy it, or you have to register it on line. They find ways to eliminate that code, or get around it, so that they have the software for nothing. There are groups for crackers on the Internet. They work on the software, cracking the codes and then they share the software. A little bit of me is annoyed that they get away with this, but these days I'd feel too guilty if I were doing that, and I suppose there is also that part of me that is sure I would be the one that got caught.

Script kiddies are the ones that write the viruses, the trojans, the worms. Those tiny litle programs that get into our computers and cause problems. These people aren't necessarily computers whizzes. They use the tools written by others to create their damage. They are the Internet version of kids who would break into your house and vandalize it just for the fun of it.

The reason for telling you the above is to impress upon you again the importance of having anti-virus software. And, if you are on the Internet a lot, a good firewall is almost a must. It is no good having this protection if you don't keep it up to date. And you also have to update your Windows, because Windows constantly puts patches in its software to counteract invasion of your system. The easiest way to handle this is to set up your computer so that your updates are done automatically every time you log onto the Internet.

There was a new virus out last week that they talked about on TV. Well, I said I better make sure my Norton is up to date, now that I am on the web. I clicked on Live Update, it went through its routine and said that I didn't need to do anything, I'm all up to date, because my computer is set up to do it automatically. Now you have to understand, I'm up here telling you what you should do. I didn't do it on my computer, Bill did it for me. I probably could have done it myself, but it was so much easier just to say "Here Bill, you do it." Thank you Bill. I think I'll keep you!

Now, I know all this may sound a bit overwhelming, but basically, you just need three things, an anti-virus, a firewall, and some common sense.

We have all learned how to protect our homes and ourselves. We lock our doors, we have smoke detectors. But if someone really wanted to get into your house, they'd find a way and you'd deal with it, repair it and get over it. . You just have to assume that because of the law of averages, you are pretty safe. Same thing applies to a computer. Protect yourself and if something happens, deal with it, repair it and get over it.

Just one more comment, if you do use the Internet for your banking, or purchases with your credit card, make sure that you use secure sites and never give your credit card to someone who sends you an email asking for it, make sure you initiated the email or transaction and know who you are dealing with. You wouldn't give your credit card to someone who approached you on the street or telephoned you - Don't give it to someone who approaches you on the web.

These days, everyone has absolutely enormous hard drives in their computers. Someone with a 60 gigabyte hard drive, which is pretty normal, has enough computer space to write 50 to 100 thousand novels. That is why when people say "Well, I've finished with that, I want to get rid of it, it's taking up space." I say just leave it there. Most e-mails are small enough that you would have to have a million of them in there before they would begin to fill up your computer.

Now, obviously, computers have to have perfect filing systems so that you can retrieve information once you have written and stored it. Your complete computer filing system can be found by right clicking on START and left clicking on EXPLORE. Everything that is in your computer is stored somewhere on these lists. At the left is the complete file tree and when you click on anything in the left window, whatever is in that folder will show up in the right window. No one's file tree will look exactly like mine, but there are basic similarities, such as Desktop, My Computer, Local Disk (C), Documents and Settings, Program Files, Windows, DVD/CD ROM drive, etc. Think of this as your filing cabinet.

So now I am going to go to my favorite word processing program. Word Perfect. If I wanted to find a file that I had set up, first I click on file and I look at the list at the bottom of the menu. Recent documents that I have used are listed there. If I click on one, it will open. But say I haven't used that document in a while, it won't be on the list. So I click on OPEN and the normal place where I file my documents appears in the little window at the top saying "Look in" . In my case it is MY FILES. But say for some reason I didn't (or somebody else didn't) file it there. Say they filed it in My Documents. I click on the little Up folder to the right of that window and more of that file tree I was talking about shows up. You can keep clicking on it until you see it say Desktop -- that's right at the top of the file tree. It also should show My Documents. Double click on My Documents to get it into the "Look In" window. In my case, since I don't normally use this, all you see is a little file called "test." So even if there is nothing showing at the bottom of the file menu, OPEN will let you get to any file that you need, from the computer's file tree.

Here's another bit of info. You can get to any file in your computer, by going to that File tree and double clicking on the file. Watch this. I open the file tree. I find My Files, Carefree, Computer Group, Notes 2005, and at the right I see January 9, 2006. I click it and it opens Word Perfect and the notes for tonight. Sometimes this is helpful when you remember writing a letter, but you don't know which program you wrote it in. When you find the file in the computer's filing system, it automatically knows which program you used to write the file, by the extension following the dot in the file name. For Word Perfect, it is .wpd,, for Microsoft Word, it is .doc, for Microsoft Works, it is .wps, for Wordpad, it is .rtf, for Notepad, it is .txt. Understanding a little bit about the workings of this filing system go a long way to making you feel more comfortable with your computer.

Desktop Search Software

Desktop search is a new offering to provide indexing of everything in your computer so you can find any documents fast, whether they are emails, files, pictures or basically everything. The system works just like the browsers you use when searching the web for information. We believe this is a great feature to have to find information you have that may be misfiled or you just forgot where you saved it.

There are two main companies offering this software. They are Microsoft and Google. We tried both but chose the Google offering as the one we liked best.

Windows Desktop Search (WDS) helps you find virtually anything on your computer — e-mail messages, calendar appointments, photos, documents, and more. Searching your computer is now as fast and easy as searching the Web. It can be downloaded at the following link:  http://desktop.msn.com/ 

Google Desktop gives you easy access to information on your computer and from the web. It's a desktop search application that provides full text search over your email, computer files, music, photos, chats and web pages that you've viewed. By making your computer searchable, Google Desktop puts your information easily within your reach and frees you from having to manually organize your files, emails and bookmarks. It makes searching your computer as easy as searching the web with Google. The link to download this software is:  http://desktop.google.com/  

You will save a lot of time if you are trying to find documents or emails related to a project you were working on. It will put all these articles on your desktop in the same format you get when you do a web search.  Great stuff......

 

 

CAREFREE COMPUTER GROUP NOTES - FEBRUARY 6, 2006

I have a picture from 1954 here that I am going to pass around. But I will read you the caption so that it can move around fast. Scientists from the RAND Corporation have created this model to illustrate how a "home computer" could like in the year 2004. However, the needed technology will not be economically feasible for the average home. Also the scientists readily admit that the computer will require not yet invented technology to actually work, but 50 years from now scientific progress is expected to solve their problems. With teletype interface and the Fortran language, the computer will be easy to use. Wait until you see the picture - and wouldn't it be great to be able to go back fifty years with one of our laptops (and a few spare batteries) just to see the looks on their faces.

I still hear people saying that they came to a meeting, but everything was over their heads. I only have one answer to that. If you don't understand anything that we are talking about, you need some basic one-on-one help. We are both willing to show you basics, such as copy and paste, undo, learning how to change margins, add toolbars, dealing with your desktop, finding programs. The list is endless. Now, also, don't forget that most everything we talk about will go into the computer notes which can be reached by going to the Carefree website. Try those notes, if you are having a specific problem. If that doesn't work, try going to Google Search and writing in your problem. Believe me, if you have a problem, there are other people that have the same problem. Google will help you find out how others solved the problem. Don't suffer in silence. Don't feel embarrassed to ask for help.

Now, let's get back to the Control Panel that we were going through at the last meeting. Remember how to get to it. Click on Start, find the Control Panel on the right side. Now, I will put in into the Classic View as I did last time.

 

Next item is Display. Most people by now know about Display. You can get there by right clicking on your Desktop and going to properties, or you can also find it in the Control Panel. The Display Window offers you five pages of things to play with. First is Themes. A theme is a background, plus a set of sounds, icons and other elements to help you personalize your computer with one click. First note what the current theme is so that you can get back to it. Then click on a few and see if there is one you like better than the current one. I don't want to do it, because I have as you will notice, a modified theme as I have made other changes to things and I don't want to mess it up right now. Laptops don't have many themes, anyway. A good desktop usually has a big variety.

 

Next is Desktop. You can pick one of their pictures (more variety on a Desktop model computer, again) or you can also pick a picture of your own, or perhaps you have Webshots, now, like I do and I really enjoy downloading my five pictures every day from the millions available. And that is why my theme says modified, as I have gone outside what basic Windows offers for the desktop.

 

Screen Saver is next. Screen savers used to be very important with old screens as they would burn an imprint onto the screen if left for a long time. It is not so important anymore as the screens are a lot better, but it's still a good idea to either have a screen saver or have your monitor turn off after a length of idle time. You click on Power to change these settings. If you pick a screensaver, go into settings, just to the right of the window showing you which screensaver you have picked, and change some of the options, it could be the color, or the speed, or the number of lines. Have some fun until you find something you like for a while.

 

Next is Appearance which allows you to change the color scheme for the active and inactive windows. Again, many more options in a desktop model. I have a choice of blue or gray on this laptop.

 

Settings allows you to change the size of everything on your screen. My attitude is make it the smallest size that you can see well, giving you room for more data on the screen as you are working. Settings also allows you to change the number of colors available, but don't mess with it. Most programs run on 32 bit color, and if they don't they tend to change things on their own when you open the program and then Windows reverts back to the default once the program closes. I have a couple of older games that do that, but things return to normal when I'm done, so it doesn't really matter.

 

There are a lot more actions that can be handled in the Display section, but those are the main ones and the only ones that you are likely to need.

Folder Options: Hopefully, most of you by now have your folder options set so that you can see your file extensions (indicating which program or type of program prepared the file) and you can read the total path of where you put the file you made. If not, go to the View tab and make sure there is a tick next to the item reading "Display the full path in the title bar" and make sure the tick is removed from the item reading "Hide extensions for known file types." Have you ever received an attachment in an e-mail and you haven't been able to open it. Every file has an extension on it. That extension tells your computer what program was used to make that file. If you don't have the program that will open a file with that extension, you won't be able to open it. That is why you want to be able to see those file extensions. Such as .wpd, or .doc for text files, Or .jpg or .bmp for a picture. I bet there are a few minds turning off right now. Please try to do what I have just mentioned. It's a very basic tool for computing. If you can't figure it out, we'll help you.

 

Fonts: This just tells you what fonts you have and if you have your Status bar ticked, it tells you how many you have. To enable your Status bar, go to view and click on Status Bar. I have 744, and I swear I didn't put any of them in there. They just appeared whenever I loaded programs. So don't load extra fonts. There are usually plenty.. As you double click on each font it shows a display of what the font looks like. But most sophisticated word processing programs do that automatically now. I just have to click on any font in Word Perfect and I get an example of it.

 

Internet Options. If you are connecting to the Internet and the CD you have from the server doesn't work well, you might decide to call the server for help. Most likely you will be directed to the Internet Options window and the server technician, or in the park, a lot of the time, Bill will talk you through the proper way to get connected.

 

Java Plug-Ins are another Internet section. If you are not getting pictures to come up on the Internet, it is often a case of not having the correct Java Plug Ins or of having them blocked by excessive security. If you can't get the pictures on the Carefree website, let Bill know. He has changed the format recently to try to make sure that everyone can see the pictures. Everybody has a different system, so it is hard to make everyone happy, but he tries.

 

Keyboard: If you have trouble with letters repeating when you don't want them to, change the repeat delay. Just work at it until you are comfortable.

 

Mouse: There are lots of things to do with your mouse. If you are left-handed, you can switch the left and right buttons. You can change the speed of the double clicking. You can have a different set of pointers. I like the little red horse working in the background, so I chose Old-fashioned. There are many pointer options. Try them. For better visibility, I display the pointer trails. And I often lose my pointer, so I show the location of the pointer when I hit the control key.

Personalize your mouse. Makes a dull job more fun.

 

The next few items in my Control Panel have to do with the Internet and I'll leave them to Bill. But some of them you will never need. The next one I use is Power Options. I personally try to turn my laptop off when I am not using it, but with a desktop, you might want to leave it on all day, as Bill does. So you can set your power options to turn off you monitor and hard drives after a certain length of idle time. A simple click of the mouse should bring it back on again. If that doesn't work, usually hitting any key on the keyboard will bring it back to life. I have mine set to go into hibernation, just in case I walk away and then forget about it. It is supposed to save all your settings and semi close down. Then you can come back to exactly where you were. I try not to do that because my previous laptop would go into hibernation and then I couldn't get back out again. After a few times of this happening, a message came up saying: "You seem to be having trouble coming out of hibernation. Would you like us to disable this function?" And, of course, I said yes and never had a problem again. You can also check up on your batteries for a laptop here. Now, my battery was doing well. I would use it on battery now and then to run it down and then charge it up again, even though it wasn't supposed to get a memory. But a while ago, I noticed that even if the battery said 100%, within 15 minutes it would be down to about 20%. Since I don't really use it on battery, I didn't worry about it. But one day, my mouse stopped working well and after trying all kinds of fixes, I checked the battery. It was totally dead. Not a flicker. So we tried removing the battery and staying plugged into house power. The mouse worked fine (don't ask me what that had to do with it) and once we found a decent price for a new battery, we replaced it.

 

Printers and Faxes. All printers and faxes that you have loaded into your computer will show up here. You will note a little white tick in a black circle, indicating which printer is the active one. As I mentioned at an earlier meeting, this is the easiest place to purge documents that are waiting to be printed, if you don't want to print them. All you do is right click on the active printer and chose "purge all documents" or "cancel all documents." Some printer software gives ways of doing this, but they are all different. This is the easiest way and works for all printers..

 

Quick Time and Real Player have to do with receiving information from the Internet. Usually, they get installed when you are trying to access information on the Internet and you need one or the other to get the information or be able to view the file. You are prompted to download and install, and you might as well do what they suggest, or you won't be able to get what you want.

We'll finish off with the Control Panel at the next meeting on February 20, 2006.

Recorder

Check out the following link for a great download of a free audio editor/recorder. (Audacity 1.2.4b)

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ 

 

 

CAREFREE COMPUTER GROUP NOTES - FEBRUARY 20, 2006

I am finally going to finish off with the Control Panel. Let's open it up.

Regional and Language Options: Most of us are going to leave it at English(United States) or English(Canada). But say you had to write a letter in French or Spanish, German. You can change your keyboard to another language and you will be able to write with the French accents, the Spanish Cedilla, or the German Umlaut. But you do have to figure out which keys they use for each of these functions. I did quite a bit of French typing at one point and did get used to where they put the accents. But that was years ago and I would have to learn all over again. Another useful thing is you can check here to see how each country writes dates. The short date is different in Canada than in the U.S. January 10, 2006 in short date here is 1/10/2006. That is October 1, 2006 in Canada, because Canada puts the day before the month. So if you are dealing with another country, this is where you can check to see how they write their dates. It could make a great deal of difference if you were making a reservation in another country. .

Scanners and Cameras is obvious. That is where they would appear if one had any.

Scheduled tasks. This is where you would schedule any tasks that you want your computer to do on a regular basis. There is a wizard to talk you through. Just click on the item saying "Add Scheduled Task" and follow what it says. It is a good idea to have your computer update your anti-virus program and to do your Windows updates. It saves you having to think about it. Some people have their computer automatically defrag. But I need to close or disable too many things. So I do that myself.

Security Center. Windows XP has incorporated good security. Just make sure that you have "ON" beside the Firewall, Automatic Updates and Virus Protection. Watch, if I click on Firewall - it comes up and tells me that I am using Zone Alarm as a Firewall. Windows has its own, but if you prefer another one, disable the Windows Firewall and use the one you prefer. If you want to use the Windows own Firewall, that's fine too.

Sounds and Audio Devices. Just what it says. This is where you would adjust your sound and audio. The main folder you might use would be the Audio. When you click on volume it gives you various options for balancing your audio. We often find people saying they have no audio and all we do is take tick out of the column saying "mute all."

Speech. If, for some reason you need to use text-to-speech. This is where you control it. I can hit preview voice and show you what happens.

Symantec LiveUpdate. If you have Norton Anti-Virus this is another place where you can configure it.

System. If you call us with a problem and we ask you information about your computer, you will find it on the general tab in the System folder in your Control Panel. It tells you what version of windows you have, the speed of your computer and how much RAM you have, RAM being temporary memory for fast access to your programs. It also gives you another place where you can set up for automatic updates and go to system restore. Windows gives you a lot of redundancies. Sometimes there are three or four ways to get to or perform the same function. It is sort of like having three or four doors to get into a house. They are all in different places, but once inside, you are in the same house. You just use whichever door is easier for you.

I'd like to talk a bit more about RAM. RAM tries to help you access programs and do functions faster. Say you open Microsoft Works and depending upon the speed of you computer, it takes, say, 8 seconds for it to open completely ready for your use. If you were to close that program and a few minutes later realize that you need it again, when you click on it, it will probably open a lot faster. That is because your computer has saved all the settings and information necessary to open and use this program in your RAM, the temporary memory. The computer tries to decide what you might use again and stores it in your RAM. If the RAM gets full, your computer makes a decision to release programs or files that it is saving for future use. When you turn your computer off, the RAM is completely cleared. Obviously, if you have more RAM, you will have more space to store things temporarily. Now Windows itself uses quite a bit of your RAM. Windows 3.1 would operate with 4 or 8 megs of RAM. Each new version of Windows required more RAM. And now with Windows XP, it will work on 64 megs, grudgingly, likes 128 megs, is happy with 256 megs, rolls along merrily with 512, and does somersaults with 1 gig of RAM. If your computer is sluggish and you check out the general tab in your System folder and you have 256 megs of RAM or less, consider upgrading. RAM is a very simple fix to improve the speed of your computer.

Taskbar and Start Menu. If you don't like your start menu, you can change it back to a classic version from previous windows versions. In this case, I didn't see any reason to do it. I like the one I have. And each Windows version is different. After going through so many versions, I have learned to accept most of the changes. Life goes on. On the Task Bar, you can tick off what you want. You can lock the taskbar or auto hide it. I auto hide it, I like getting rid of it when I don't need it, and you just go down to the bottom of the screen and it appears again. I also keep the taskbar on top of any windows that are open. I show the Quick Launch which is an easy way to get to your favorite programs. I talked about quick launch earlier, so you can go to our previous notes for more info on this, or anything else, for that matter. You can show the clock on the right, or not. You can hide your inactive icons on the right side in the system tray. I decided not to hide them, then found that I had so many it used up a lot of my task bar, so I hid them again. All the above is another case where it is up to you to personalize your computer to fit your needs. You can also customize those icons on the right. It annoyed me that my volume control hid if I didn't use it much, so I have set it up now so that it is always active.

User accounts allows you to change settings and options if two or more people use the computer and you have set it up so that each person has a separate set of options. I find that a nuisance, but I suppose if certain annoying children or grandchildren messed up a computer, it might be a wise thing, but it's not my problem.

Windows Firewall. You will notice that mine is off - because, as mentioned earlier, I use Zone Alarm and you can't use two Firewalls - unless you really know what you are doing. There are computer whizzes that do all kinds of things and even though Bill and I appear to be knowledgeable, we only know a tiny bit of what goes on in the computer world.

The last item is for setting up a Wireless Network, and even though I have on and use one, I get help when I need it. And even Bill gets help sometimes. One thing about the two of us, we certainly have no qualms about asking for help. For one thing, no one person can know everything about computers. And another thing, most computer people, once they know how to do something, just love to show other people and help them get it set up and working.

So that is a basic tour of the Control Panel. Don't be afraid of it. Set things up the way you like them. Try things, change them back if you are not happy. If by changing some settings you really mess up your computer, you can always restore your computer to an earlier date if you are on a later version of Windows 98 or on XP.

Sending Pictures by email

Pictures inserted in email you send should be adjusted to a size that can be open on an average size monitor. If you take a picture with a 4 mega pixel camera at best resolution the picture size would be about much larger than the screen could handle.  The best way to reduce the size of the pictures you insert in email would be to download Goggle's free version of Piasa2 software.  This will allow you to export a picture to your desktop or email and adjust the picture for 640 X 480 pixels. This will provide the recipient with a picture that can easily be viewed.  The software can be obtained by going to www.google.com  more and downloading and installing in your computer. This software works well with those of you using AOL. Just check the FAQ (Frequently asked questions ) and you will find out how to proceed.

 

Computer Group Notes - March 06, 2006

We tested the WiFi  hotspot in the clubhouse (southwest corner).  Four members were able to connect.  We were able to determine in the other cases whether on not people actually did have wireless networks installed on their laptops.  For those who did connect, the system worked well.

If you don't have a wireless network adapter, in most cases with a reasonably new computer you can add an adapter at a cost of about $50.   

In order to connect to the wireless network, you need to get the verification code from the Computer Group designated person and provide them with your MAC address.

 

Finding the MAC address of your wireless network card:

 Click Start, click Control Panel, click Network and Internet Connections, and then click Network Connections.

.Double-click the wireless network connection from the list of available network connections.  This shows you the status of the wireless network connections.

  On the Support Tab, click Details to open the Network Connection Details dialog box. The physical address is the MAC address for that network connection.

OR

 Try looking on the underside of the laptop

OR

If the wireless network is a plug- in, check on the unit its self.

OR,  if none of the above works, contact the computer group leaders for assistance and we will help you get connected, so that you can get your MAC address. 

Once you are connected, click on Start, click on Control Panel, click on Networks & Internet Connections, click on Network Connections, right click on Wireless Network Connections.

click on Status, Support, Details  The physical address is the MAC address.

 

The verification code will be given to you when you sign up with the designated Computer Group Person and give them your MAC address. See Channel 95 for details.