Computer Info – February 20, 2002

This Week’s Program

Still basics. We are bringing our computer with Windows ME in for this week. And, of course, we will have our normal question and answer session. John Watkins will host the meeting next week.

Some Basics

Turning on your computer

Remember to turn on your monitor first and then the computer.

DON’T MOVE YOUR COMPUTER WHILE IT IS BOOTING UP --- THIS CAN DESTROY YOUR HARD DRIVE.

Files and folders

Folders are much like the folders in a file cabinet. They can contain files and other folders. Files are much like paper documents – letters, spreadsheets, and pictures – that you keep on your computer.

Copy and paste

When you copy and paste a file or folder, you place a copy of the file or folder on the Windows clipboard, which stores it. Then when you decide what folder you want the copy to go in (the destination folder), you paste it there.

Cut and paste

When you cut and paste a file or folder, you remove the file or folder from its location and place the file or folder on the Windows clipboard. When you decide where you want the file or folder to go, you paste it there.

Change Color settings

Right click on the desktop and choose PROPERTIES. Click on the SETTINGS tab. Usually you will want to be running at least HIGH COLOR (16-BIT). To save your changes, click on the OK.

Desktop Icons

What is the difference between deleting what’s on your desktop and the effects on the base program? MOST icons on your desktop should have a bent arrow in the lower left corner – this indicates a shortcut. Deleting any shortcut, does not affect the operation of a program.

Many times when you are downloading a (program) file from the internet, their instructions tell you to save it to your desktop. The ONLY reason they do this, is so that you can find it afterwards (because people don’t pay attention to where they are saving it). These icons on your desktop will not have a bent arrow in the corner – because they are not shortcuts. Deleting these, WILL delete the (program) file from your computer.

The BEST policy is not to download files to your desktop – download them to a folder on your hard drive – maybe a folder named DOWNLOADS.

Startup Folder

Look under PROGRAMS on your START menu and you will find a folder named STARTUP. Everything in this folder runs when you first start Windows. Do you need all of these programs to run? The answer is “You don’t need any of them”. So why are they there? They can be helpful – but only if you use them.

Greeting card programs and Quicken are two programs that will run a program when you start Windows to remind you that “Little Johnnie” is having a birthday next week or you have to pay your electric bill next week. If you are not using these features, then delete these items from your Startup folder.

To delete something from your Startup folder, click on the START button – then PROGRAMS – then STARTUP. Right click on any item you wish to delete. This bring up a menu, where you can choose DELETE.

Extra items on Start menu

Notice how the Start menu is divided into three sections. The bottom section contains the SHUT DOWN features – the middle section contains the basic WINDOWS features – and the top portion is where you are able to add items you would like to have easy access to.

This, again, is one of those places where you might have a number of items that are never used. Word always puts the ability for you to open a new Word document here. Again, MOST people already have a shortcut to their Word program via an icon in the quick launch area of their taskbar.

These are all shortcuts.

Save and Save As

What is the difference between SAVE and SAVE AS? Don’t they both save your document – picture – file??

While they both do save your work (changes, your latest editing) – it does help to know when to use each of them. If you open a document in Word – make some changes to it – AND YOU WANT TO REPLACE THE EXISTING COPY – then use SAVE. If you open a document in Word – make some changes to it – AND YOU DO NOT WANT TO OVERWRITE THE EXISTING COPY – then use SAVE AS.

Installing a CD Writer

This is the message a member got when running a copy program – to copy a CD that was in his original CD drive to the CD that was in his writer.

“It looks like both your source and your destination drive for the “on the fly” copy process are connected to the same IDE bus. We would strongly recommend to connect your source and the destination drive to different IDE busses. An IDE bus cannot handle interleaved read and write commands. This will reduce the data transfer rate during “on the fly” copies and may therefore cause a buffer under run error”

This was something that I had never thought of – but after reading that message, it sounded logical.

First a little background. You have two IDE busses that you can connect hard drives and CD drives to in your computer. One is a PRIMARY – and one is a SECONDARY. You are able to attach two items to each buss – when two items are connected to a buss, then the first item is the MASTER and the second item is the SLAVE.. Normally you will have your hard drive as the MASTER on the PRIMARY buss and your CD drive as the MASTER on your SECONDARY buss.

So back to the message – what they are suggesting, is that you add your CD writer as the SLAVE on the PRIMARY buss after the hard drive.

USB 2.0

USB 2.0 is 40 times the speed of USB 1.1. It is backward-compatible with 1.1 devices. You can mix 1.1 and 2.0 devices under a USB 2.0 system and both will perform at their maximum speeds – this means that 1.1 devices still run at their normal speeds.

One big thing to note – Noisy, poorly shielded cables cause problems. To play it safe with 2.0 connections, always use cables marked “high-speed USB 2.0-compatible”.

FireWire (IEEE 1394)

(Info from Smart Computing – March 2002)

FireWire (IEEE 1394) is a high-speed serial bus, similar to USB. IEEE 1394 supports Plug and Play, so you can use an IEEE 1394 device as soon as you plug it into your PC – without restarting your computer. It can transfer data at a constant rate, which is especially important when you are working with digital video devices. You can connect up to 63 IEEE 1394 devices to one port.

It is unlikely that IEEE 1394 will replace USB ports – because mice, keyboards, and joysticks, do not need a fast data transfer rate.

The new and improved version of IEEE 1394 is called 1394b. The data transfer rate for the 1394b will be from 800Mbps to a lightning fast 3.2Gbps. The new standard will be backward compatible with the current crop of IEEE 1394 devices. Many traditional consumer electronics devices, such as VCRs, set-top boxes, and HDTVs are expected to .incorporate 1394b ports beginning in early 2002.