Newbie Guides Top Tips and Tricks Computer Tips Part 2

Useful guides for high power readers looking for general computer tips and tricks.

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General Computing Tips and Tricks - Part 2

21. Rapid Reboot Usually after installing software or changing settings, you’ll need to shut down your computer. There’s a way to bypass the whole boot process. Go to Start, select Shut Down, then press the Shift key and click Restart. While still holding the Shift key, click OK. The screen should read, “Windows is now restarting.” This is a nice little time saver.

22. Virus Protection A virus can be a simple line of code or an entire program, that once gaining entry to your computer, will rewrite itself inside a program or programs, changing data, causing destruction and consuming valuable space on your hard disk. Of course some are worse than others, but they are relatively easy to avoid by installing an antivirus program. McAffee and Norton make good ones with free updates. To avoid viruses, don’t open email attachments from strangers, or download anything from unfamiliar sources. If you do pick up a bug online, your updated antivirus utility should alert you and help you get rid of it fast.

23. Using The Restore Disk Sometimes computers act up. Not long ago a virus got into mine and wiped out my CD-ROM drive as well as damaging some important boot files (I hadn’t updated the virus scan, shame on me). After trying everything under the sun to correct the problem I realised there was no choice but to use the restore disk that came with the computer. This can be a time consuming task because all of your files will need to be backed up and all of your applications will need to be reinstalled. I bit the bullet and did it, and the computer is running better than ever. If you run into a problem you can’t overcome, check to see if your machine came with a restore disk. Back up all files, and run the restore program (actually it’s a copy of your computer’s operating system along with the drivers for various hardware). This repair is usually the method of last resort.

24. Add A Toolbar You can create a toolbar containing the components of “My Computer” by going to the desktop, left clicking on My Computer and dragging the icon to the left, top or right margin of your screen. This immediately creates a toolbar with icons for your main and secondary drives, the Control Panel, printers and dial-up networking. To remove the toolbar from that location, right click in an unoccupied space and select close.

25. Delete Programs If you want to delete a program, it should be done properly. Go to Start, Settings, Control Panel, select the program and click on Add/Remove. Locating the program folder in the directory, right clicking on it and selecting Delete can leave scattered bits of the application on your hard disk taking up valuable space. Do it properly.

26. E-Z Fix Computers don’t always behave exactly as we would like them to. When encountering an error or other unexplained problem you can’t solve, close all applications, shut down your computer and restart it. More often than not, rebooting will eliminate the problem.

27. Find A Folder There are usually several ways to accomplish the same thing in Windows. To view the folders in your hard drive you can open My Computer and click (C:). You can also click on the Start button, select Run, type in a backslash and press Enter. Yet another way to get to the (C:) directory is to right click the Start button and click on Explore.

28. Oh No! It Crashed If your computer freezes up (a polite way of saying crash) there are several ways to attempt to shut it down without flipping the power switch. First try pressing the Esc key. This often brings no result, so try pressing the Ctrl Alt and Delete keys together. This may ask you if you want to close the program running. You do. Select End Task. A couple of things might happen, the program will shut down, which is what you wanted. You may get a message that the program isn’t responding, which isn’t news, or, nothing at all will happen. If you achieve either of the last two results, try pressing Ctrl and Esc together. This should bring up your Start menu, with the Shut Down option. Give that a try. If all of these attempts to shut down fail, you have no choice but to flip the power switch. You’ll lose any unsaved work, but don’t feel too bad, it happens to the best of us.

29. View Properties To quickly view the Properties of any object, press the Alt key and double click the object. The Properties will appear.

30. Say Goodbye When you delete a file in Windows, it is sent to the Recycle Bin. From here you can “empty” the bin, which eliminates the file for good, or “restore” the file, which places it back in its folder. However, if you are certain you want to get rid of a file, holding down the Shift key while deleting it bypasses the Recycle Bin and sends it to computer never-never land immediately.

31. Set Time & Date To set the time and date on your computer, either right click on the time and select Adjust Date/Time, or go directly to the setting by double clicking on the time.

32. The Character Map Windows contains an assortment of interesting and useful characters not found on your keyboard. Here you'll find the copyright symbol, the trademark symbol, the four suits found in a deck of playing cards, and many others. To access these characters, click Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and finally, Character map. To use one of the symbols, click on the desired one, click Select, then Copy. The character is now on the Clipboard. From here you can minimise the program for future use or close it. Bring up the target document, place the cursor where you want the symbol, click on Edit in the menu bar, and select Paste. You should have the symbol.

33. Naming Shortcuts You can give a shortcut any name you want. Simply right click on the icon, select Rename, and type in the new name. There are a few that won’t allow you to rename them. If right clicking on an icon doesn’t allow you the option of renaming the shortcut, then you'll have to live with the name the manufacturer gave it. The Recycle Bin is one that can’t be renamed.

34. Scrolling As we’ve discovered, there are usually several ways to accomplish the same function with Windows. When viewing a long page in Internet Explorer, you can scroll up and down using the scroll bar and mouse, you can use the arrow keys to position the page, or you can use the space bar to scroll down and Shift, spacebar to scroll up.

35. Adding Fonts Want to add some interesting and fun fonts to your computer? Many inexpensive clipart collections come with cool fonts that are easy to install to your permanent font folder. They can also be found on many Websites for free. Type “clipart’ or “fonts” into any popular search engine and you'll find more than you know what to do with. If you choose to load them from disk, insert the Floppy disk or CD-ROM with the font collection and open it. Resize the window by clicking the middle button in the upper right corner of your screen. Now go to the desktop, double click on My Computer, and reduce this window as well. Select Control Panel and open Fonts. You should have two windows visible, the one with your system’s fonts and the one on CD-ROM or floppy. Now simply click on the ones in the CD you want, drag them to the system fonts folder and drop them in. If you get your fonts from the Web, you'll first need to download them to a folder you create (see tip 114 for easy downloading instructions). You can then resize that folder and drag and drop the fonts to the permanent system fonts folder. From then on, the new fonts will show up in all of your applications. Just click Format and Fonts to find them. It’s that easy.

36. Moving Fonts Not everyone needs an endless number of character styles. Some people feel Windows comes with more fonts than they will ever use. You can free up a considerable amount of hard disk space by removing unneeded fonts. Notice I didn’t say delete. Lets just move them to a floppy for safekeeping. You’LL do everything you did in the previous tip, only instead of moving files into your computer, you'll be moving them out, by holding the Shift key while dragging and dropping them onto a floppy and storing them. Don’t forget to label the floppy disk.

37. Even More Shortcuts You can easily create a shortcut to a document file and place it on your desktop, just like the shortcuts you use to open programs. Go to the folder where the document is kept. For example, many are kept in My Documents. First reduce the size of the folder, then locate the file and right click on it. Select Create Shortcut. Then drag the new shortcut to the desktop and drop it there. To remove it, just drag the shortcut to the Recycle Bin and drop it in. Don’t worry, you won’t be deleting the entire file, just the shortcut icon.

38. Finding Files & Folders Sometimes we forget things. If you’ve forgotten where you created a file, or even the name of the file, but remember the day it was created, you can probably find the file. Click the Start button, go to Find, and select Files or Folders. Click on the Date tab and enter the date or suspected date you think the document might have been created. The computer will find all documents that were created that day.

39. Print Screen Key The Print Screen keyboard button can come in very useful. When pressing this key the computer saves whatever is on your screen to the clipboard, not to the printer as you might expect. To print the image from the clipboard, first open the Paint program by following these steps, Start/Programs/Accessories/Paint. Once Paint is open, go to the menu bar, click Edit and select Paste. If you receive a prompt asking if you would like to enlarge the bitmap, click yes. Now, to print the image, go to File and click on Print.

40. Digital Colouring Book If you’re feeling artistic, you can create drawings and other neat artwork in Paint and display it onscreen. To do this, you'll need to right click on the desired image and select Set as Wallpaper. From then on, your artwork will serve as your computer’s wallpaper.

41. Make It Big Windows has a useful feature for getting a close look at your work called Magnifier. To activate the program go to Start/Programs/Accessories/Accessibility/Magnifier. With this utility you can place the mouse cursor on your work and see a magnified version in the upper section of your screen. The settings can be changed for individual preferences.

42. About Drivers A driver is a program that helps run a hardware device. Without them, printers, CD-ROM drives, monitors, scanners and just about every other significant piece of hardware you rely on won’t work. Sometimes, after upgrading your operating system, you'll find devices that worked just fine before the upgrade no longer function. Chances are, the new operating system doesn’t like the old driver. There is usually a simple solution. First, try using the software that came with the device. If it won’t run, uninstall it and turn your computer back on. You’ll get a message that the OS has detected a new hardware device and wants you to instruct it as to which driver to use. There will be options to insert a CD-ROM, floppy, or for the OS to search for a compatible driver. Windows includes lots of popular drivers for all kinds of devices. If you’re lucky, a prompt will appear telling you that the system has located a suitable driver and you'll simply need to click Finish to be up and running. If that doesn’t happen, you’ll have to go the Website of the manufacturer and download the driver. Most hardware manufacturers make all of their drivers available free on the Net. Click on Downloads or Driver Updates, and be ready to enter the model number of your device. From here just follow the prompts and you’ll have the latest software installed to run your equipment.

43. Get A Better View We’ve said it many times. There are many ways to accomplish the same thing in Windows. To get a full screen view in Internet Explorer there is a button labelled Full Screen in the toolbar. If it isn’t there, you can place it there by clicking on an empty space on the toolbar and adding it. If that’s too much trouble, press F11 and the screen’s display image will instantly go to its maximum size.

44. Quick Disk Copy Windows allows you to make a copy of an entire disk quickly. Simply insert the disk you want to copy, go to My Computer, right click on the floppy drive icon, and select Copy Disk. When the computer has copied the contents of the disk, it will ask for a fresh one. Remove the first, insert a new one and click OK. You’ve got a quick duplicate.

45. Hard Disk Space Check As you load new software and create files with your computer, hard disk space is used. To find out how much storage space remains on your hard disk, go to My Computer and right click on (C:). A pie chart will appear onscreen showing how much disk capacity is used and how much remains. You can do the same thing for floppies and CD-ROM's.

46. Setting Frame Colours If looking at drab grey window frames onscreen gets you down, why not change them to a colour more to your liking? To change the colour scheme of your desktop and all display windows, go to My Computer, Control Panel and click on Display. From here, click on the Appearance tab. You’LL find options for a wide range of colours. Experiment. Select from the colour menu and click OK. If you decide that grey isn’t so bad after all, simply select Windows Standard, click OK and your display will return to its previous default settings.

47. Remove That Disk! Before removing a floppy disk, CD-ROM, Zip or Jaz disk, be sure to shut down the drive. Removing a disk without first closing the drive can cause a crash, as the computer will try to read all support drives before reading the permanent hard drive. An absent disk can cause a fatal error, sometimes causing system failure. Rebooting is often the only cure.

48. Attach That File You’ve just finished a letter and decide that sending it as an attachment to an email message would get it to the recipient faster than the Post Office. In the menu bar, select File and click on Send. If you are using Windows Outlook Express, this will attach the file to a new email. From here, you'll need to type in the address, place a little note in the body of the message telling the receiver about the attachment, and send it off. The recipient will get your note and be able to open the letter as an attachment.

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