Computer Info –
This Week’s Meeting
We will concentrate on browsers – email – internet. And hopefully have some time to give a brief introduction to PhotoShow Deluxe. Questions, answers and information sharing as usual.
The next meeting will be December 3rd.
Internet Explorer 6
A web site that appears on-screen every time you open Internet Explorer is known as your home page. The default selection is MSN --- but you can easily change that. Just open the TOOLS menu and choose INTERNET OPTIONS to access a dialog box of the same name. On the GENERAL tab, locate the Address field and type the URL (uniform resource locator – web address) of your preferred home page and then click OK – or go to the web page that you would like to be your home page and then click on USE CURRENT.
Organize your Favorites. The Favorites folder is suppose to be a navigational aid, but it can become a navigational hindrance if you clog it up with dozens of shortcuts. To prevent this from happening, open the FAVORITES menu and select ORGANIZE FAVORTIES option. Here you can create folders for different categories – you can also rename, rearrange and remove other folders from here.
To navigate among several pages that you have viewed in your browser, use the BACK and FORWARD buttons. For faster movement, click the menu arrow next to each button to open a list of the nine most recently visited sites in either direction.
To view a page that you browsed yesterday, open the HISTORY window. This can be found by clicking on VIEW – EXPLORER BAR – HISTORY.
You can customize the toolbar on Internet Explorer. Open the VIEW menu and choose TOOLBARS – CUSTOMIZE. You add new buttons to the toolbar by dragging icons from the list of available toolbar buttons on the left to the list of current toolbar buttons on the right. Here you can also specify whether you want large or small icons, icons with text or pictures and the order of the icons.
Netscape 7
Netscape 7 can be a busy place – but you can simplify matters by eliminating unnecessary toolbars. Open the VIEW menu and click the SHOW/HIDE option. This will show you a list of toolbars that appear on-screen. Deselect one to remove its check mark. Do this until Netscape looks the way you like it.
A feature of Netscape 7 is its CLICK-TO-SEARCH function. You can access the function by highlighting any word of text on a Web page, right-clicking it and then selecting the WEB SEARCH option from the resulting pop-up menu. Within seconds, a list of matching Web sites will appear.
Netscape 7.1 provides a way of shutting off annoying popup advertisements that accumulate onscreen as you surf the Web. To eliminate them, open the EDIT menu and choose PREFERENCES – double-click the PRIVACY & SECURITY category and select POPUP WINDOW CONTROLS.
PhotoShow Deluxe
This program starts with three choices ---- MANAGE – MAKE – SHARE.
MANAGE --- This allows you to group your photos together into albums --- and then display them as a slide show.
MAKE --
It is very easy to add animated clipart to the pictures and add music to
the background. Pictures can be rotated
– brightened or dimmed – add text to them – or add a frame to them.
SHARE -- This allows you to Burn your slideshow to a CD – create a VideoCD to play on most DVD players – create a Screen Saver – save it in a HTML format that could be placed on the web – or make the slideshow into a Stand Alone file (executable) so that it could easily be shared.
Buying A
Computer
(info from PC Novice – More Than 2,000 Great
Computing Tips – Fall 2003)
Don’t scrimp too much or you will end up paying more for upgrades later.
Check the warranty – it is important to ask some questions beforehand – is there 24/7 tech support (preferably free) by phone?
Make sure the computer will have extra bays available for adding new drives later.
The amount of RAM you have can matter much more than its speed. For example, you may get a 10 to 20 percent speed increase in some applications going from DDR333 modules to DDR400. But going from 128MB to 256MB of RAM will likely have a much greater impact on overall system performance as well as stability.
Not long ago, “integrated” features built into the motherboard, such as audio and video processing, were considered marginal at best. Today, many motherboards feature integrated video, audio, Ethernet, FireWire and more that perform just as well as any low- to mid-range add-on card. So if your needs aren’t very demanding, you can save a bunch of cash by buying integrated.
AMD or Intel? It probably doesn’t matter – the only noteworthy difference between an AMD Athlon XP processor and an Intel Pentium 4 is an Intel feature called Hyper-Threading that shows up in its higher-end chips. But if your applications don’t take advantage of Hyper-Threading (and they probably don’t as of mid-2003) the brands are about equal.
Flat-panel monitors cost more, but they save a considerable amount of desktop, last twice as long as a traditional monitor, have no flicker, and consume far less power. If you go flat, look for units with higher brightness and contract specs.
You need at least a 250W power supply in low end computer systems and up to at least 450W power supply in the performance systems.
Cable Lengths
Ethernet Cable
Maximum practical length is 300 feet – after that signals degrade.
VGA Cable
Maximum length is 30 feet --- after that the signal degrades – the distance decreases as resolution and refresh increases.
USB Cable
USB is rated at 15 feet, though booster and converter products can extend these distances.
USB
If you are having problems with USB devices and you are running a USB hub. Bypass it. In theory USB devices should work through USB hubs. In practice it is found that many don’t. If you are using a hub, be sure it is a powered hub.
Firewire – USB
USB 2.0 has a slightly higher peak transfer rate, but FireWire 400 beats USB hands down when it comes to sustained transfer rates. FireWire 800 is even faster, leaving USB 2.0 in the dust. There are few FireWire 800 drives and interface cards currently available at present.
Sound
The typical
computer provides 2-channel sound --- this is known as stereo. Intermediate and high-end cards provide
surround sound with 4, 4.1, 5.1 or even more channels. Four-channel sound means there are left and right
speakers, plus left and right rear speakers.
Five-channel sound adds a front-center speaker. The .1 means there is also a subwoofer, which
is a speaker that adds rumbling lows to movies and computer games.