Computer Info – December 10, 2003

 

Next Meeting Will be December 17th.

 

A Few Helpful Tips From John

Right Mouse Button

            Try the right mouse button where ever you are on your computer.  Everywhere you click with this button, you will be given menu choices that pertain to the item that you clicked on.  Notice that the choices given in this menu change depending on what you clicked on. 

            Using the right mouse button is one way of getting to your COPY – CUT – PASTE – DELETE – and RENAME choices.

Write to a Floppy

            One of the easiest way to copy a file from your hard drive to a floppy – is to right click on the file that you would like to copy and then choose SEND TO from the menu – then choose FLOPPY DRIVE (A:)

My Computer

            Notice the icon for MY COMPUTER.  It is named that because it contains ALL of the information about your computer.  If you double-click on the MY COMPUTER icon to open it up – it will show you an icon for all of the drives that your computer contains (ex. Floppy drive (A:) – hard drive (C:) – CD drives – removable drives (like your card reader) – the CONTROL PANEL (which contains information about all the settings and hardware that your computer contains)).

            Your hard drive will always be C: --- this is where all of your files on your computer are stored.

 

Christmas Card Using Word

            The first thing you will have to do is to decide which picture or pictures that you would like to use for your card.

            Next, open Word.  These instructions will be for Word 2002.  If you have another version, you can look for these same commands and try it.

            From the TOOLS menu, choose LETTERS AND MAILING – then ENVELOPES AND LABELS.  On the LABELS tab, choose OPTIONS.  From here, locate the Avery label (5315 – Note Card) and choose OK.  Now click on NEW DOCUMENT.  This will now give you a document with four areas to type in.  If your document opens and you can not see that you have four areas (like mine did) – then choose TABLE – SHOW GRIDLINES.  That allows you to see where these areas are.  The gridlines will not print – they are there to show you the four areas.

            Remember that a card has to be folded – and when you fold the paper, you have to be sure that your information will not be upside down!  So, print a test one before you invest in printing a large quantity.  Normally the upper left block will be printed (placed) upside down – the lower right block will be printed right side up.  It is easier to rotate a picture that it is to rotate text.

            Now choose INSERT – PICTURE – FROM FILE – locate your picture and choose INSERT.  This will place your picture in whichever frame that your cursor was in – and the best part of it, it will be resized to fit in the desired frame.  When you have the picture placed in the area – you will notice a green handle at the very top of the picture which will allow you to rotate the picture – or use the rotate icon from the PICTURE toolbar.

            Here is another problem that I ran into.  I inserted a picture – but there was NO WAY to move it or get handles on it for resizing or rotating.  I had to go to TOOLS – OPTIONS – and on the EDIT tab where it says  INSERT/PASTE PICTURES AS:  -- I changed it from BEHIND TEXT to INLINE WITH TEXT.

            Place your cursor in the bottom right frame and type some text into it – centered text probably looks the best.

 

Helicopter

            John demonstrated this cute little game – to keep company entertained during the holidays – it requires flying a helicopter above or below obstacles by only pressing the left mouse button (up) or releasing it (down).

            He has placed it in the Full Stuff folder on his web site.  It is a zipped file ( helicopter.zip ) – it contains two files (helicopter.html and copter.swf).  Place them in the same folder and then click on the HELICOPTER.HTML file.  It will open your browser (you do not have to be on the internet to run it) and allow you to run the program.

            He also has a file named  HELICOPTER.DOC – this contains a link to the web site where you can run the program.

                        (  http://www.hdprint.co.uk/ftp)

Sound Card Connections

            Sound card connections are often color coded (although it is no hard fast rule – these are the normal ones).  Also the devices that hook into these jacks are usually colored coded also.

Green – line output (for speakers or headphones)

Pink or Red – microphone input

Blue – line-level input

Orange – digital output (if it is available)

 

Sound Cards – Audio Editors

            Use the shortest cables you can.  The longer your audio cables are, the greater the chance for signal loss and radio-frequency interference.

            Control the audio volume on your computer by double-clicking the speaker icon in the System Tray.  You will see a series of sliders for adjusting sound levels.  The slider on the left is the main volume.  

 

Goldwave

            This looks like a good audio editor program.  It is a shareware program so you can download it to try it out before purchasing it.  The cost is $55 (Canadian --- so about $42 American)

                                    http://www.goldwave.com/

 

Changes in existing Audio Software

            CoolEdit 2000 by Syntrillium Software – was a good audio editor that is no longer available.  Adobe has purchased all the software from Syntrillium – and then discontinued CoolEdit 2000.  The much more expensive program called CoolEdit Pro has been renamed Adobe Audition.

            Sound Forge has been purchased by Sony.

 

Overwrite Your Hard Drive

            If you are giving your old computer away, you might want to think about how to be sure that all of the personal information that you have written to your computer has been destroyed.  This can easily be done by taking the hard drive out of the computer and then physically destroying the hard drive.  Another method  that could be done, would be to reformat the hard drive (this method will stop MOST people from obtaining your information off of the hard drive)

            I read this information in one of Kim Komando’s newsletters – where she mentions that the best way to protect yourself is to overwrite the hard drive.  She said that there are many programs that will do this and  promise to make the disk unreadable.  She mentioned a PC Inspector E-Maxx which meets the strict standards of the U.S. military – no data can be recovered after it is used to wipe a disk – and the program is free:

                        http://www.pcinspector.de/emaxx/uk/welcome.htm

To the standards of the U.S. military – written and sold in Germany!