Computer Tips (25)

All systems can differ and may work in different ways (so the steps described may vary for your own system) and any actions you take have to be at your own risk

COMPUTER TIPS (25)

HOW DO YOU “GOOGLE”? – The results you get depend a lot on the criteria you set and how you do it. For example:

Memorial: produces 116m results

War memorial: produces 7.2m results

Orpington war memorial: produces 11,300 results

“Orpington war memorial” (with “quotes”): produces 711 results

“Orpington war memorial”–buses: produces 546 results (and excludes references to buses)

“Orpington war memorial”+buses: produces 188 results (and includes only references to buses

Using “quotes” round words means this exact phrase appears in the results. Putting a “-“ eliminates this category, while putting a “+” gives results that satisfy both criteria; but do not put a space either side of the +/- The above numbers will probably change each time you do this.

“HIGHLIGHTER” – Have you ever wanted to use the effect of a “highlight” pen within a Word document? Just click onto the “highlight” icon – choose a colour by clicking on the little down arrow to the side of the icon – and then highlight the desired text. The “highlight” icon looks like a pencil and provides a range of colours. If you don’t have it on your toolbar at present just “customise” your toolbar (see C/Tips 11 and 17). You will find the “highlight” icon in the Format section under Commands

PAST COMPUTER TIPS – For the benefit of newer members who may wish to refer to earlier C/Tips, if they would like to send me an e-mail I will forward to them a complete set of tips 1 to 24.

COMPUTER TIPS (26)

TEMPORARY INTERNET FILES – From time to time you should clear out your Temporary Internet files. They slow down your PC and can fill up your hard-drive (even though they are supposed to be “temporary”). While in Internet Explorer, go to Tools, then Internet Options. Then in General click Browsing History and then Delete. You can now delete Temporary Internet Files, as well as “cookies” if you wish (although I never find these are much of a problem). [This applies to Windows XP, but Windows 98 is different]

CONTROL SIZE OF RECYCLE BIN - In order to control the size of your Recycle Bin - from your Desktop, right click on Recycle Bin and then Properties and then Global. You may as well select "Use one setting for all drives", but this is not important. Then just move the slider - it gives you from 0% to 100% (10% seems as good as any though)

PRINTING PART OF A WEB PAGE – Apart from doing a “copy/paste” or “special paste” (which is my preferred option, because I can change the layout, font etc as I wish), you can also highlight the part you want within the web page. Then click on File/Print and then under Page Range click on Selection. Then Print as normal.

COMPUTER TIPS (27)

HAVING TROUBLE WITH DOUBLE-CLICKING? - You have to double-click to open icons on your desktop or items in a folder, and some of the icons in the tray beside the clock can be double-clicked to make a window appear. A lot of other things open with a single left click. If you find double-clicking difficult, either just click the item once (which highlights it) then press the Enter key on your keyboard. For most of the items on your desktop and in folders, this achieves exactly the same as a double-click. Alternatively right-click an item instead. When you do this, a menu will appear and one of the items on that menu should offer you the chance to Open the item – so just click on this.

BROADBAND SPEED CHECKER – Go to www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk. Click on “Click here to start speed test” and test your system – it takes about 20 seconds, and its free. There are a number of other pages with useful information – although be warned, these sites are always trying to sell you something and I give no guarantee as to its reliability or accuracy.

COMPUTER TIPS (28)

HAVING TROUBLE WITH DOUBLE-CLICKING? - You probably have to double-click to open icons on your desktop or items in a folder, and some of the icons in the tray beside the clock can be double-clicked to make a window appear. Many other things open with a single left click. If you find double-clicking difficult, either just click the item once (which highlights it) then press the Enter key on your keyboard. For most of the items on your desktop and in folders, this achieves exactly the same as a double-click. Alternatively right-click an item. When you do this, a menu will appear and one of the items on that menu should offer you the chance to Open the item – so just click on this.

RECIPIENTS OF B.C.C. MESSAGES – You have sent a message b.c.c. but how can you later on find out the recipients to whom you sent the message? Go to the item listed in the Sent folder and right click. Select Properties and then Details. This will show all the recipients

COMPUTER TIPS (29)

E-MAIL “GROUPS” – If you often need to send messages to a number of people together (i.e. a Group), in Outlook Express click on Addresses and then New. Then select New Group and give it a name e.g.Tennis Club and then Select Members. Drag all the people you want into this Group. Now when you click on “To” and then Tennis Club, your message will go to all these people. [Remember about using “bcc” when sending, to retain confidentiality]

BROWSER – Instead of Internet Explorer you may wish to consider using Mozilla Firefox as an alternative web browser. As a result of a recommendation I have recently downloaded this with no problem. Why use this you may ask? Well I believe Internet Explorer may be rather more vulnerable to virus attacks. Secondly if for any reason you lose I/E at least you have another way of accessing the Internet.

HAVING TROUBLE WITH DOUBLE-CLICKING? (Part 2) I touched on this in C/T (28). It may not be the double-click itself that's tricky, but the speed at which you have to do it before Windows takes any notice. If that's the case, you can change the double-click speed, allowing you to leave a longer or shorter pause between the two clicks and still have Windows interpret it as a double-click (rather than as two separate clicks). Go to Start/Control Panel (or Start/Settings/Control Panel) and then click "Mouse". Select the "Buttons" tab and go to "Double-click speed". Here you can drag the slider between the words "Fast" and "Slow" to alter the double-click speed, and you'll probably want to drag it towards the "Slow" end. After dragging the slider, try double-clicking the picture of a folder in the "Test Area" alongside it a few times: with each double-click the folder should open or close. After a little experimentation with the slider and that test area, you should find that every double-click on the folder is successful. When you reach that point, click Apply and OK to keep the new double-click speed.

COMPUTER TIPS (30)

SPELLING – If you want the spelling checked on your outgoing e-mails (and you have MS Office), then open Outlook Express and click on Tools and then Options (or Spelling). Click on the Spelling tab, then tick “Always check spelling before sending”. It is also worth ensuring that the Language tab is on English (United Kingdom).

ERROR REPORTING - Windows XP is very stable but sometimes crashes and when it does you are presented with an offer to report the error to Microsoft using Windows Error Reporting (WER). It should, in theory, help Microsoft to identify problems a lot faster, but it can become very annoying when the message keeps popping up. To switch it off go to Control Panel and click System, select the Advanced tab then the Error Reporting button at the bottom and tick the item ‘Disable Error Reporting’ and click OK. But you may wish to tick the box "But notify me when a critical error occurs.

GENERAL TIPS TO NOTE –

1. Disinformation is not as good as datinformation

2. Windows: Just another pane in the glass

3. All computers wait at the same speed.

4. Press any key... No, no, no, NOT THAT ONE!

5. I hit the CTRL key but I'm still not in control!

6. Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes.

7. Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are.

8. The definition of an upgrade: Take old bugs out, put new ones in

COMPUTER TIPS (31)

TAB KEY – When you are filling in an online form onscreen, you do not have to use the mouse to go from one box to another. Instead, use the Tab Key (you will usually find this at the left-hand end of the second row on your keyboard – the one with arrows pointing left and right)

BORDERS – If you like the idea of a decorative border e.g. round a Christmas letter perhaps or for some other occasion, this is what you do. In Word click on “Format”, then “Borders” and then “Page Border”. Here you are presented with various options: “Art” gives you the chance to select one of many designs (the default is “none”), “Width” enables you to choose the size of the design (and there are several other options). It may also be a good idea to go to “Options” – I often find it best to select “Measure from” and “ text” (rather than ”edge of page”); a spacing of 25 pts may be OK, but try others. Then OK your way out. You can easily go back in and change any of your selections.

TASKBAR – If you want to alter your Taskbar (e.g. add items to the Quick Launch section, or shift the division bars – those faint vertical dividers - etc.) you may need to “unlock” it first. Right click on a blank bit of the Taskbar and then make sure that “lock the taskbar” is not ticked. While you are at it, you are given options to do other things with the Taskbar. [This tip may not work with Windows 98]

COMPUTER TIPS (32)

“FINDING” AN E-MAIL - If you want to trace an e-mail received some time ago just click on the Find icon on the Outlook Express toolbar (some versions of O/E may differ e.g. look under Edit). Here you can search for an e-mail from a particular person (or sent to them, or by subject, or by date) – and then click Find Now. If you already know the folder you want to look in, it may be quicker to go to this first.

THE WINDOWS KEY – Do you have a key on your keyboard with the Windows logo on? (It looks like a flag and may be towards the bottom left of your keyboard). Have you ever wondered what it’s for? Well if you hold this down and click “E” this is an easy way to open Windows Explorer (which was covered in C/Tips 20). If you hold down the Windows key and press other letters it will give you other results; you can try for yourself using: M, U, F and L (although you may not find these especially useful – and on some systems not necessarily available)

RENAME – You can easily “rename” a file or folder. Just right click on the listed item you wish to change and click on “Rename” in the drop-down menu that appears, then type in what you have chosen for the new name. You cannot “rename” if the file is open. This works whenever you get file names as a list” e.g. in Windows Explorer, My Pictures (photos) etc.

COMPUTER TIPS (33)

“PC Knowledge for Seniors” – This is a (free) weekly newsletter which I find very useful, and so have other members of the Computer Group who have tried it. If you log on to the website www.pcforseniors.co.uk you will see a flashing icon in the top right corner which says ‘Click here for your free weekly newsletter’. If you click on this, enter your name and email address and click “subscribe”, this will register you for the email newsletters sent every Friday.

DESKTOP FONT SIZE – If you find the font size on your desktop icons a bit difficult to read, go to Start/Control Panel/Display/Appearance/Font size. Here one can choose between Normal, Large and Extra Large

PAST TIPS – Are there any members who would be interested in having copies of “old” tips? They are now accessible on the Orpington U3A web site, which was announced at the February general meeting. Go to www.u3asites.org.uk/orpington

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ENLARGE WEB PAGES – You can enlarge or reduce the size of what you see on a web page by holding down Ctrl and then pressing "=" to enlarge or by pressing "-" to reduce. In fact you can see a range of fixed options by going down to the bottom right of the screen (where there is a +, a percentage and a small triangle – click on the latter)

SOLVING YOUR PROBLEMS – If you have a problem that you have no way of solving, try to “Google” it. Just by way of example I had difficulties when I accidentally held down the shift key for 8 seconds (by the way, don’t try this at home, as they say). Anyway this caused an immediate problem - with the keyboard partially locking up! - although it eventually seemed to sort itself out. Later I found that by “Googling” the phrase “shift key 8 seconds” it offered a number of possible solutions. Similarly I “Googled” the words “width of cursor” and was led to what one should do to achieve this – why not try this as an exercise?

WORKING OFFLINE – If, in spite of having proper antivirus protection etc., you feel happier working offline (and going online when you need to e-mail or browse) whether you are in Outlook Express, Internet Explorer or Mozilla go to File and tick “Work Offline”. When you are ready to go online, just go to File and untick “Work Offline”. Don’t forget to go back online before switching off (otherwise you may find your modem is switched off)