Computer Info – October 2, 2002

 

This Week’s Meeting

            We will be taking a look at Bookmarks and Favorites – how to add them and organize them.  And as usual, question and answers. 

           

Mouse Buttons in Internet Explorer

            That wheel on your mouse (if you have one) can be useful with Internet Explorer. With the CTRL key depressed, moving the wheel forward or backward resizes the font! Now you can read the print with ease. Wait, there's more---

            With the SHIFT key depressed, the wheel moves you backward or forward to other sites visited in the current browsing session without having to cursor up and click the "back" arrow

 

DVD Writer

            Well, we finally got around to trying out our DVD writer.  So we are sharing our thoughts and learning with you. 

            First we started with a DVD-R (this is a writeable disc).  It will hold 4.7 Gigabytes of information.  We used Roxio EasyCD Creator 5.0 Platinum to write to it.  One of the choices with this version of EasyCD – is the choice for writing a Data DVD.  So we wrote a DVD with over 4 Gigabytes of pictures on it.  It took about 56 minutes.  We found that many of the pictures in subfolders that were three levels deep were listed in the folder but they contained 0 bytes – therefore all of these pictures were no viewable.  Haven’t been able to discover why this has happened.

            Next we used a DVD-RAM (this is a single sided rewriteable disc).  It is called a Type II and is in a cartridge.  When you wish to use it in a regular DVD drive, it can be removed from the cartridge.  With this DVD, you place it in the DVD writer drive and it is recognized – and then you can write to it in the same manner that you do your hard drive.  You can copy files from a folder on your hard drive and then paste them onto your DVD drive – or you can use the Send To command.  Since this is a rewriteable disc, you can delete files – overwrite files – add a few files at any time.

 

Sorting Files – Windows XP

            I just discovered this – but I haven’t been able to find out WHY.  When you sort your files by NAME – and you have numbers as the first part of the file name (ex.  105 – getting ready.jpg    and    1051 – on the road.jpg     and    106 – arriving Denver.jpg  ) – they will be sorted numerically  and not alphanumeric.  In all previous versions of Windows, they have ALWAYS sorted alphanumeric.

 

Organizing Your List of Favorite Websites

Internet Explorer.  First, terminology.  Internet Explorer calls it FAVORITES. 

            When you are at a website that you would like to visit again – save it to your list of Favorites.  You do this by clicking on FAVORTIES from the top menu and then click on ADD TO FAVORITES.  This will open up and windows for adding your favorite. 

            Now here is the BIG secret.  Be sure to choose the folder that you want to place it in by clicking on it to select it.  If you do not have a category (or folder) to place it in --- then click on NEW FOLDER (in Internet Explorer 6) – or a button labeled CREATE IN (in some of the older versions).  Give it a name that will identify the category that you are trying to create. 

            In Internet Explorer 6 – there are two ways that you can clean up your list of favorite websites – If you click on FAVORITES from the top menu – locate a website that you no longer want – right click on it and choose DELETE.  If you want to move it to another location, then left click on it – hold the mouse button down and drag it to the new location.  Another way is to choose ORGANIZE FAVORITES from the FAVORITES menu.

 

Netscape.  First, terminology.  Netscape calls it BOOKMARKS.

            When you are at a website that you would like to visit again – save it to your Bookmarks.  You do this by clicking on BOOKMARKS and then choosing ADD BOOKMARK – which will add it to the bottom of the list or in a folder called New Bookmarks.  Or you can choose FILE BOOKMARK – which will list the various folders or categories that you have and you can then choose to place the bookmark in one of those folders.

            In Netscape 4.7 – you can clean up your list of bookmarks by clicking on BOOKMARKS and choosing EDIT BOOKMARKS.  Locate the website that you no longer want – right click on it and choose DELETE BOOKMARK.  If you want to move it to another location, then left click on it – hold the mouse button down and drag it to the new location.

 

            Both Internet Explorer and Netscape allow you to place bookmarks on your personal bookmark toolbar.  In Netscape, when you are at a website that you wish to add, Place your mouse cursor over the little green ribbon icon (to the right of the word – bookmarks – and to the left of the word – location) you will see your cursor change to a hand.  Now hold your left mouse button down and while keeping it down, drag your mouse down to your personal toolbar – you will notice that the cursor then changes to a chain link – release your mouse button and an icon for the website should appear.  In Internet Explorer, place your mouse cursor over the “little e” icon in the address box, you will see your cursor change to a hand.  Now hold your left mouse button down and while keeping it down, drag the mouse to your LINKS toolbar – you will notice that the cursor then changes to a shortcut arrow.  Release your mouse button and an icon for the website should appear.

            It is very handy to place folders on your personal toolbar – and then you can easily organize many bookmarks (or favorites) to be accessed quickly.

 

Start Menu – Windows XP

            You can have the Start menu in Windows XP in two different modes – one is known as the Windows XP mode and the other is known as the Classic mode.  In the Windows XP mode, when you look at your Start menu, it is in two columns.  The column on the left is where your most used and recently used programs are listed.  I was ask “how do you delete an icon from the left side and then keep it from automatically being added again?” – don’t worry about it, just let it be there.  As I just mentioned, it is automatically added because it was being used.  In the Classic mode, the Start menu will look just like it did under Windows 98.

            To change between these two modes of the Start menu, right click on the taskbar and choose PROPERTIES and then the START MENU tab.   Here you can choose between the Start Menu and the Classic Menu.