Tips
& Tricks. Last Updated May 1st 2006.
Are You Updating your “Windows” every month? – for your protection.
Seven Steps to
Securing your Computer - Protect against Spyware, Trojans, & Pop-up etc…
All
About Firewalls – How and
why to use and test them.
Dealing
with Junk-email (spam) - Delete before receiving.(slow to load)
Dangerous Emails – Hoaxes and false virus warnings.
A lesson
for making Photos Smaller for emailing. – Also how to fix it when it does work.
Easy steps to using Outlook
Express for new Users. - (emailing instructions for beginners)
Defragging - The chore that saves.
How strangers can obtain your email address. - Learning to hide email addresses!
Printing to File - Print Docs. & Forms with one click.
Quick Prints for your
Start Menu – Setting up
One click printing.
Using Blind
Carbon Copy to hide email addresses.
Why do I need a Windows Start-up Disk? - When Windows and Safe Mode fail to start.
Password
Protect documents using Winzip.
Using WinZip
– A tutorial on making zip
files.
What
is Adobe Reader? includes
how to open other attachments.
All
about Nod32 Anti-virus Program – trial versions available.
Advice: If I install a
computer, this is what I do…
“The 14 point home computer installation check list”.
Follow this and you will have a great start. (pdf
file)
Preventative Maintenance Schedule – what I do to maintain a healthy computer.
Other Topics of Interest
How to knit TV Slippers.pdf
(276Kb)
Can
You Still Buy Pianola Rolls or Player Piano Rolls?
All about rechargeable
Batteries – for Cameras
Basic Guitar Chord Chart.pdf
(215Kb)
Transposing Guitar Music.pdf
(42Kb) (Changing Keys)
A Pet’s Prayer – Download the pdf file. (116kb)
Using the Telstra Clear Regional
Toll Plan and Ztalk with Flow Chart.pdf (108kb)
What is it?
Imagine your hard-drive as one large semi-tiled floor, and whatever space you have spare, that’s the part of the floor that is not yet tiled. (Technically these tiles are actually called clusters)
Initially when you bought your computer it had Windows on it, plus an assortment of others programs like MS Works, Quicken, and Encarta. These took up the first few tiles of your floor.
As other programs are installed, and as you create files/documents and graphics, more and more tiles become filled. This is in a first come, first found, next filled sort of way.
Now, when you delete a program or a file, it leaves a gap, a hole in the pattern of your floor.
This is not filled again until you install or create something else, which then occupies the first available tiles.
Why defrag?
What if a new program needs 40 tiles and the first 40 spare are shattered across 2000 tiles. The program still works but becomes fragmented, commands & information have to travel further, and this could affect its performance.
Defragging allows the computer to do housekeeping, by moving tiles around to both fill any gaps, and to bring the program’s components closer together.
When should
it be done?
Once every two months for low users, once a month for average users, or once a week if like me, you are always installing, deleting, creating, and moving things around.
How to do it?
The computer comes with it’s own defrag program
[found here: Start Menu\Programs\Accessories\System Tools\Disk Defragmenter],
but if it has not been done in a while, then it may fail.
What can also make it fail is if other programs are operating unseen in the background. E.g. anti-virus, screen saver, ICQ etc, these all have to be turned off because the computer doesn’t like counting sheep while they are still moving.
I’d like to recommend a program that restarts your computer turning everything off, defrags the computer, and then restarts the computer again turning everything back on.
This is called Power Defrag 2 and can be downloaded by clicking here.
Printing to File
Why do I need
this?
If you have documents, reports, forms, lists, charts, coversheets, which you are always printing off, then you could use “Send to Printer”.
Prn files are created for every print request; these are saved into a folder solely for Quick printing.
When these files are used with the “Send to Printer” programme, the document is sent to the printer without opening the programme that created it. It remembers the settings, e.g. 5 x copies/landscape/grayscale.
N.B. There is a manual alternative for those who would prefer the Quick
Print requests to be accessible from the Start Menu. Click
Here.
How to Use?
1. With the document opened in front of you, go to the file menu and click print.
2. Tick the box that says “Print to File”, and alter the properties to your requirements. E.g. x 5.
3. It will now make a prn file, name it and save it into a new folder. Save and store all of your prn files in one folder. I called my folder Quick Prints.
4. Save this tool (PrintFile.exe) into that folder.
5. Make a shortcut for it for your desktop or menu's.
6. You then click on it, select the prn file to be printed, select the printer, and OK.
That’s it! Download Send To Printer here.