Computer Info – September 22, 1999

GuitarCoach by Charanga Guitar
(to be demonstrated by Barbara Stone this week)

        GuitarCoach is a complete guitar course which has been specifically designed for CD-ROM by the Charanga team. It takes people from the complete beginner stage to a point where they can play fluently in a number of different styles.
        It is a true multimedia product boasting specially commissioned audio clips, video footage, photography and graphics. These media elements are tightly integrated into a highly motivating environment which offers the student excellent interactive learning facilities.
        The course is divided into 5 levels of increasing difficulty. Each level contains a lesson in technique, chords, classical, strumming and fingerstyle and contains 4 to 8 individual screens. The whole product contains over 220 screens - roughly the equivalent of having a weekly guitar lesson for SIX MONTHS!

Life Application Bible
(to be demonstrated by Barbara Stone this week)

        SEE THE PLACES. MEET THE PEOPLE. HEAR THE WORDS. EXPERIENCE THE BIBLE LIKE NEVER BEFORE!
        Notes from the Life Application Study Bible provide direction on timeless issues such as child rearing, marriage and depression. Powerful search capabilities allow you to quickly and easily find the passages and topical advice you're looking for. The built-in dictionary allows you to find definitions for key Bible words and doctrines. Trivia questions introduce you to the fascinating scope of knowledge and help you find your way through the Scriptures. PhotoBubble images put you right in the middle of significant holy land sites. These unique spherical images are the next best thing to being there. Hundreds of pictures and maps are linked to key points in the Bible text to add to your understanding of the Scriptures.

Storing Digital Camera Pictures
(from PcComputing Magazine – October, 1999)

        Store all of your images in one logical place. In the past, it didn’t much matter where you put your digital photos. In Windows 98, you’ll find a folder called My Pictures (it’s located within the My Documents folder). You should store your images in My Pictures for two good reasons. First, it’s a handy, centralized location for all your image files. More important, though, is that more and more programs look in the My Pictures folder by default when you choose the File Open dialog box. It’s simply more convenient to store your images where all your software is going to look for them. Of course, you should still create subfolders within My Pictures to organize and categorize your images. Storing hundreds of pictures in a single folder not only makes it hard to find the picture you want, but it also makes the folder itself open very slowly – which is frustrating when you’re trying to find something in a hurry.

Sending E-mail in the year 2099

        This was a strange problem -- when running Netscape 4.02 (the same problem arises in version 4.5). The problem was that e-mail could be received – you could browse the web – BUT you could not send e-mail. As soon as the SEND button was pressed, it would create an error in the program and Netscape would be shut down. We uninstalled the program and reinstalled it – same problem. We tried Outlook Express to send the e-mail – it worked. As we were copying the bookmarks back into the Netscape directory, we noticed that the date that the file was created was in the year 2099. We said this couldn’t be the problem, but it needed to be corrected away, so we corrected the date. Guess what --- the people could then send e-mail. I began wondering if Netscape would be able to send email in the year 2000 – tried it – it worked – so all we really know is that it doesn’t work correctly in the year 2099.
        Looking at a problem like this, you can see how hard it is to troubleshoot someone else’s computer. You also realize that many programs are linked to the settings you have in your operating system (Windows). We spotted this problem only by accident --- who would have thought to check the date to correct a problem with sending e-mail!

Upgrading Isn’t Easy

        We have a TV tuner card in our computer. Decided to try running the program (STB VirtualReality – which allows you to watch television on your computer or listen to FM radio) last week and it wouldn’t even open. Finally checked on the internet, and found out that the version of the program that we have, will not work with the Windows 98 Second Edition; so we downloaded the upgrade to it. The readme file that comes with it details the steps to take to install the upgrade – and it wasn’t the usual steps of uninstalling the old program and then installing the new version (there were many files that you had to manually delete). We received an error while installing the new version, so the program wouldn’t run. We called Gateway tech support and they helped us install it. It seems that there is a PATCH directory that has a couple of files in it associated with the registry that had to be executed also.

My Computer vs. Windows Explorer

        My Computer and Windows Explorer are two different ways to view files on your hard drive. But which one should you use. My Computer provides a friendlier interface, but Explorer gives you a broader view of your system.
MY COMPUTER
        To view your files on your hard drive, double click on the MY COMPUTER icon on your desktop – and then double click on your C: drive. You will probably find that everything is displayed as LARGE ICONS. You can change this by going to the VIEW on the top menu and choose to display everything as SMALL ICONS, LIST or DETAILS. The choice is yours.
        A helpful hint (Instead of opening a stream of new windows, click FOLDER OPTIONS from the VIEW menu, select the General Tab, and click "Custom, Based on Settings You Choose". Next, click the Settings button, choose the OPEN EACH FOLDER IN THE SAME WINDOW option, and click OK.)
        Using this method of browsing your hard drive is a great way to view many of your picture files. When you click on a picture file, the picture is displayed in the lower left corner of the screen.
WINDOWS EXPLORER
        To open Windows Explorer, you can right click on the START button, and choose EXPLORE – or you can go to START – PROGRAMS – WINDOWS EXPLORER.
        Windows Explorer provides a sleek, hierarchical tree-type view of your system. It is divided into two panes --- the left pane shows you all of your directory structures --- while the right pane shows what is in the opened folder. You will notice that some folders on the left have a plus symbol or a minus symbol next to them. Click the plus symbol to extend the hierarchical tree out further and display more of its folders and files.

Use stationery for your email in Outlook Express 5.0

        When you compose an email in Outlook Express 5.0, you can choose to use stationery to add an interesting touch to your email. In the COMPOSE window, choose FORMAT – APPLY STATIONERY – MORE STATIONERY. This will give you a large list to choose from.