As stated on the preceeding page, I just got through a teaching/learning experience by giving a course on computer basics to a group of students here on Manitoulin through Cambrian College.
I have to admit that it was my first time at the front of a classroom other than years and years ago when Christian Brothers called me up to the front of the class for a demonstration of corporal punishment. It was rather refreshing not having to bend over and have a goaltenders hockey stick applied to my bottomside.
So, .......to continue on...
Burn Baby Burn:
It is important that when you go to buy some cd's at the store that you pick the right kind. If you are after cd's make sure you don't by dvd's.
You can expect a cd to last anywhere from five to ten years and when you consider that a cd costs less than a dollar when on sale, you really can't go wrong using this medium.
CD's are manufactured by many different companies - stick witha well known name brand to ensure your data will be safe and available when you go to access it.
A cd marked as CD-R is one that you can burn on and add additional files later. A cd marked as CD-RW is one that you can delete the contents of and start fresh. In Windows XP there is a built-in cd burning utility that will allow you to erase a cd-rw. Double-click the CD recording drive, then under "CD Writing Tasks", click "Erase this CD-RW". The CD Writing Wizard will walk you through an easy 2-step process giving you a blank CD-RW to use.
Quick Tip - Speed Up XP:
If you’ve ever wondered why your hard disk is working away for no apparent reason, it’s because the indexing service has been activated. It’s supposed to help increase the speed of searches but can often slow you down while you’re doing other things. If you’re not concerned about having faster searches, you can deactivate this and stop it from hogging resources whenever it runs.
Click Start > Run, type services.msc and then press Enter. Scroll down in the list of Services until you reach Indexing Service and then double-click to open its Properties. In the Startup type drop-down box, ensure that Disabled is selected.
Services should not be changed willy nilly. Make a note of the above change and see how it goes - you may want to return to the original setting some time later. Remember that with tweaks like this, YMMV. (your mileage may vary)
Is Your Harddrive Partitioned?:
Unless you bought your computer from a source that you really know well and they were extremely considerate, your harddrive was configured as one large partition.
Having only one partition makes no sense. In my case I have three partitions set up:
C - Windows and all installed applications go here by default.
D - all my data is stored on this partition.
E - this is the partition where I have all my web design files.
My primary reason for the above setup is file management - I know where everything is and files aren't scattered all over the place. This allows me to keep my files defragged a lot easier to speed up my computer. Additionally, I could multi-boot a second operating system located in a partition other than C. If you wanted to learn Linux - this would make it easier for you as you wouldn't need a box dedicated to that operating system.
Remember - Microsoft only supports operating systems for so long and considering the sad state that Windows Vista is in, you may wish to convert to Linux sometime down the road.
So, what do I do?
You can have this done for you by any tech shop or have your computer mentor do it for you, but please note - NEWBIES should not consider doing this themselves as one slip and your computer is unbootable!
Don't come asking me to do this for you - I have
Claude do all this kinds stuff for me as this kinda crap scares the hell out of me.
Step by step instructions are available to your mentor
here. Make sure that preliminary harddrive cleanup is done first.
Yes, it's true
Your fearless webmaster wimps out when he has not done something critical before and knows all the ins and outs.
Laugh if you must, but I also don't skydive, rebuild engines or sing in operas - those things are best left to others.
My old choirmaster from grade school would be glad to hear of the latter.
The "Show Desktop" Icon:
If you have four or five windows open on your desktop it is a real nuisance to have to minimize them to get to the desktop so the nice folks at Microsoft created the Show Desktop shortcut.
A simple click of this icon minimizes all the open windows to the taskbar so you can see your desktop.
This little jewel sits in the Quick Launch Toolbar so you can easily get at it. If for some reason it has disappeared, you can easily recreate it by doing the following:
Open Notepad and type the following exactly, line for line.
Save the file to the Desktop as Show Desktop.scf - this will create a shortcut that you can now drag to the Quick Launch Toolbar.
For those of you that do not use the Quick Launch Toolbar, clicking both the Windows and D keys on your keyboard will get the same job done.
Measurements:
Newbies seem to get flustered when dealing with certain measurements that involve computers. The following are offered to alleviate any confusion;
A 3 1/2 inch floppy disk holds 1,474 kilobytes (kb's).
Your typical cd holds 650 to 700 megabytes (mb's).
Your 20 Gig harddrive would equate to 31 cd's or 14,222 floppies.
Dial up users have to wait between 7 to 10 minutes for a 1 meg download.
It takes 3 coffees and about half a dozen smokes to get my heart started on a typical morning.
Unlike humans, computers can chew gum and walk at the same time (multitasking) and work at high speeds:
nanosecond - one billionth of a second (measuring ram speeds)
millisecond - one thousandth of a second (measuring harddrive/cdrom speed)
The amount of time it takes to defrag your computer depends on the number of files and their level of fragmentation
Can I Update My RAM?:
One of the simplest methods of improving your computer's speed is to add more random access memory, but you don't know what you have, its type and if there's room for more.
Not a problem - go to
this Crucial web page and run the free scan. You'll have to allow the install of an activeX - I've done it and it's safe.
Alternatives To Google Search:
Google certainly is the main search engine and if you'd like to try another way to search the web, you can try any of these alternatives:
Brainboost
Google will find Web pages based on keywords you supply. An answer engine will find Web pages that actually answer your question directly.
Exalead
Left pane gives you a preview of the page listed. Right pane allows you to narrow your search.
Dogpile
A Meta-Search Engine that blends the results from many search engines.
I kid with a buddy of mine when we send e-mail back and forth. He's in Southwestern Ontario and if he doesn't get the mail right away I tell him it's lost somewhere over Lake Ontario. Eventually he'll get the mail, but instead of it being transmitted in a straight line, it could have been redirected through servers anywhere in the world.
Google had a contest for people to submit how they think mail was delivered and the winning video follows:
I would've had this company do a web page, but Marie wasn't too keen on it.
Go ahead and call me henpecked. You weren't the guy who had to sleep with her.
We could have wiped out the Nazis in eight weeks if only we had this guy in our IT department.
I asked him but he had the idea that I was connected to a porn site.
Tony Curtis was hot, but I would never had sung to the President if this guy was born twenty years earlier.
I bet I'd still be alive too!
Yes, it's true
I sleep very soundly and when I do I am prone to talking with dead people and sponges. Don't let that scare you away - you can depend on a well-designed website and it is guaranteed not to be spooky.
I'm just a cartoon character from
Day by Day but I know a whiner winner when I see one. Visit us on our web page.
And Please...
If it's past your bedtime and you can't sleep, please think of your good friends around the world who just may or may not be in bed.
Being Indispensable
Sometime, when you are feeling important,
Sometime, when your ego's in full bloom,
Sometime, when you take it for granted,
You're the only qualified one in the room...
Sometime, when you feel that your going,
Would leave an unfillable hole,
Just follow these few simple instructions
And see how it humbles your soul.
Take a bucket and fill it with water,
Put your hand in it up tio your wrist,
Pull it out, and the hole that is remaining,
Is the measure of how you'll be missed!
You may splash all you please when you enter,
You can stir up the water galore ~
But stop and you'll find in a minute,
That it looks quite the same as before.
The moral of this quaint observation,
Is to do the very best that you can,
Be proud of yourself, but remember,
There is only one indispensable man.
This above Is Dedicatated To The Memory Of Correctional Sergeant Hal Burchfield
12/16/47 - 6/8/85 Killed In The Line Of Duty
San Quentin State Prison, California Department of Corrections
Dang,
Looks like I gotta find some content to fill this thing up more...
I would've had this company do a web page, but Marie wasn't too keen on it.
Go ahead and call me henpecked. You weren't the guy who had to sleep with her.
We could have wiped out the Nazis in eight weeks if only we had this guy in our IT department.
I asked him but he had the idea that I was connected to a porn site.
Tony Curtis was hot, but I would never had sung to the President if this guy was born twenty years earlier.
I bet I'd still be alive too!
