Newbie Guides Top Tips and Tricks Computer Tips Part 4

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

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General Computing Tips and Tricks - Part 4

76. Abort Mission Ever start an application that seems like it’s taking forever to open? You might launch a program and change your mind before it finishes loading. You can stop a program from opening by holding down the Ctrl, Alt, and Delete key together. Contrary to computer folklore, this won’t shut down your computer (doing it twice will though). This will bring up the Task Manager asking you if you want to End Task. Click the appropriate button and the launch will be aborted.

77. Reality Check Feel like you’ve been working for days? Lost track of the date? No calendar around? Hold the mouse pointer over the time display and the date will appear.

78. Lost Passwords Have you forgotten your Windows logon password? Don’t have it written down anywhere? Okay let’s fix it. Press Esc on the logon dialogue box. In a DOS prompt window type dir *. PWL Delete the PWL file with your name in front of it. Shut down Windows. When you reboot you will have the opportunity to create a new password.

79. Renaming Stuff You can rename icons, files, and folders a couple of different ways. First, right click on the item and select Rename. Simply type in the new name when prompted. If that isn’t simple enough, then select the item you want to rename and press F2. Type in the new name.

80. Checking System Profiles Ever wonder exactly what you’ve got inside your computer in the way of hardware and software? Microsoft has compiled all of the information specific to your system in a little program called Msinfo32.exe. To take a look at what’s installed on your machine, click Start, Run, type Msinfo32.exe into the prompt box and click on OK. Your system information will be displayed.

81. Setting Screensaver Launch Time How long is your computer idle before your screen saver launches? Good question. You can easily set the time it takes before it takes over your monitor. Click Start, Settings, and click on Control Panel. Double click on Display and click the Screen Saver tab. Here you can set the number of minutes the computer is to be idle before launching the screen saver.

82. Beginning & End Ever find yourself scrolling through a long document to get to either the beginning or end of it? That isn’t necessary. To get to the top of a file, simply press Ctrl and the Home key. To quickly get to the end, press Ctrl and the End key.

83. E-Z Disk Formatting These days virtually all floppy disks come formatted. A formatted disk simply means it is ready to accept and read data. Occasionally you’ll run into an unformatted disk. When you try to use it, you’ll get a message saying, “Disk requires formatting,” or something similar. To format a floppy, insert a disk into its drive (usually A:), click My computer, then right click on the icon for that drive and select Format. In the check box click on “Full.”

84. Delete The Commercials Do you receive annoying little commercial messages when you start up your computer? More than one manufacturer of hardware and/or software has managed to install marketing information for your viewing displeasure immediately after booting. To get rid of it, click Start, go to Programs and Start-up. You’ll probably find the program here. To get rid of it, right click on the name of the program and click Delete.

85. More Scrolling You can scroll up and down in most browsers using your mouse and the scroll bars. You can also scroll up and down with the arrow keys. To scroll down, you have an additional tool in the space bar.

86. Tunes Did you know that in addition to running software, your CD-ROM drive will play music CDs? It’s true. You can pop in your favourite CD while working on your computer.

87. Quick Keys Right clicking on an object with your mouse offers a wide range of possibilities. You can accomplish the same thing with the keyboard by first selecting an object and pressing Shift and F10.

88. Delete Recycle Bin Confirmation Prompt Have you noticed that before you actually delete an item you are asked if you are sure you want to send it to the Recycle Bin? Some users don’t need to answer this question each time they delete a file. To get rid of this prompt, go to the desktop, right click on the Recycle Bin and click Properties. Under the Global tab you’ll find a check box with “Display Delete confirmation box” beside it. Uncheck it and you’ll stop receiving the message.

89. Hardware Inventory Like to get the scoop on every last piece of hardware in your system? Click Start and Run. Type “hwinfo /ui” into the address field without the quotes. A window will appear containing detailed hardware profiles for your computer as well as all connected devices. Windows 95 and 98 only.

90. Setting Click Speed If you have difficulty double clicking your mouse fast enough for it to react, there are a couple of things you can do. The first is to simply click on an object once and press the Enter key. You can also change the double click speed of your mouse easily. Click Start, Settings, and Control Panel. Double click the Mouse icon. Select the Buttons tab. You can adjust the click speed and test it before confirming your setting by clicking OK.

91. Mouse Cleaning Ever have trouble getting your mouse to do what you want it to? It probably needs cleaning. Some mice have a convenient little turn and lock device that allows you access to the inner workings, others have a couple of screws that will need to be removed. Open the bottom of the mouse and clear out any dust or pet hair. There are also small rollers inside that attract dirt. I use a toothpick to remove it. You can buy pressurised air in aerosol cans to blow out the dirt, but usually, blowing will do the trick to get rid of stray particles of unwanted debris.

92. Window Alignment Ever click on a link only to have a window appear too far to the top or right of the screen, making access to the Minimise, Maximise, Close buttons impossible? You can close the new window by right clicking on the icon that has appeared in the taskbar, and clicking Close. You can maximise the window without the button by double clicking on the title bar. But an easier way to deal with it is to simply drag the window into better view by clicking on the title bar with your mouse, and moving it a little to the left with the mouse button pressed. When you have it where you want it, release the button.

93. Minimise Open Windows There are times you’ll have more than one window open. To minimise them all at once right click on any unoccupied section of your taskbar and click Minimise All Windows. To get them back, click Undo Minimise All.
94. E-Z Printing Most applications offer you two ways to send a document to your printer. One way is to click File in the menu bar and click Print. This will bring up a dialogue box with some useful information about your printer. In the section libelled Print range, you’ll have the option of printing the entire document by checking All, or just printing the pages of your choice by clicking the Pages box. To print a single page in the middle of a multi-page document, type the page number into both boxes under the Page option. To print pages two through six in a ten-page document, type two in the first box and six in the second. Another way to send a document to the printer is to click on the printer icon in the Toolbar. This will send the entire document directly to the printer, without the prompts.

95. More E-Z Printing Have you ever wanted to print just a few lines of a document or Web page? Select (highlight) the text by left clicking your mouse on it and dragging the mouse over the desired material. In the menu bar, go to File and select Print Range. You’ll print just the selected text.

96. Close A Program To quickly close an application after saving your work, press Alt and F4. To quickly shut down your computer with no applications open, again, press Alt and F4.

97. Optimal Operating With Smart Clipboard Use When copying large files such as graphics to the Clipboard, don’t keep them there longer than necessary. While there, they use a good deal of your computer’s memory. To clear a file from the Clipboard, you can actually open the Clipboard and delete the file. To open the Clipboard, press Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, and click on Clipboard Viewer. To delete the contents, click Edit and Delete. A quicker way to accomplish almost the same thing is to select a single word and Copy it. That will remove the large file and replace it with the single word, freeing up memory. If you find yourself using the Clipboard a lot, why not place a shortcut for it on your desktop? Go to the Clipboard Viewer as described above, right click on the icon, and select Create Shortcut.

98. Dragging An Object Cutting and pasting is an easy way of moving material around a document, but for some purposes, there’s an even easier way. Say you decide to move the last paragraph in a document to the middle of the page. Place your mouse cursor at the beginning of the paragraph and highlight it by holding the button while dragging the mouse over the text. Once selected, place your pointer on any part of the shaded text. The word “Drag” should appear beside your pointer. Left click the mouse, hold the button, and drag the highlighted section to the new location.

99. E-Z Undo Pressing Alt and the backspace key will undo your last entry.

100. Last 15 Documents Forgotten what documents you’ve opened recently? Press Start and place your pointer on Documents. The last 15 files opened will be displayed.

101. Clever Keys As you access commands in the menu bar you’ll notice some of them have an underlined letter. To initiate the command without the mouse, press Ctrl and the letter.

102. Date Stamp Do you need the date and time in a document you’re creating? Many word processing programs make it easy to enter them. To automatically place the time and date into a document, click Insert and click on Date and Time. A group of date and time options will appear. Select the one you want and click Insert. In some programs, you can even have the current date and time updated at the time of the printing of the document.

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