P C Help

Ricki's Basic Information About PC's

the url for this page is: http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Villa/5280/pchelp.html

Don't forget to access my Links page. You can find your way to a zillion neat places from there. Just click on this word: Links.

You and me and our P.C.'s. Heaven protect us all from this monstrous machine whose goal it is to thwart at every opportunity our computer equilibrium. The score: Machine 1,243.50 Human 12.3 If you have comments or suggestions, email me at [email protected] If you have questions you may also mail me, however, you shouldn't actually expect the correct answer to any question you submit.

This is under construction. You will see headings without information following. That's because they are just notes to myself. Check back periodically because I hope to update this regularly.

At the bottom of this page are links to some of my other pages.

http stands for: HyperText Transfer Protocol Aren't you glad you asked?

Info that is obvious and basic unless it's not: (miscellaneous info about general computer stuff without any help from this dumb machine.)

The biggest secret of all: Unless you pick up your computer and smash it against a wall, YOU CAN'T BREAK IT. It can, and frequently does, break itself, but YOU can't break it. The saying, 'When in doubt, reboot' has its origins in truth. The computer locks itself up. No one knows why, least of all the computer "experts." Bill Gates, for all his genius and billions, doesn't know why, or at least can't fix it. It just happens. When this happens, you are the last person to blame. Computers are hardware and hardwire, primarily, but the mysticism derives from the stuff it does to itself and you. Repeat after me: 'It's not my fault. It's not my fault.' Your only defense is to save your document frequently or to bookmark your page every time.

Computer Lingo:

The language that cybergeeks use to exclude the rest of us from their little worlds:

ISP: Internet Service Provider, e.g., Erols, Juno, AOL, Compuserve

Browser: Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer

Search Engine: Infoseek, Alta Vista, Yahoo, Netscape, Lycos, Excite, etc.

Application - Is just a word for program like WordPerfect, Microsoft Works, Netscape, games, etc.

Hard Drive - Once you learn a little computerese, it's very easy to use it as if every one knows what you're talking about. Your hard drive is actually a little disk-like thing inside your computer. It resembles a miniature turn-table on a record player. It actually has a needle-like thing that travels over it looking for stuff or writing stuff onto it. The larger your drive's capacity, the more info and programs (applications) you can put on your computer. A drive is measured in 'gigs,' e.g. 4.2 gigs, 9.0 gigs, etc.

Peripherals - Monitor, printer, scanner, zip drive, etc. Anything that isn't your actual computer.

Tower (aka box) - The guts of your computer. That tall thing that you put your cd's or your floppies in. Sometimes the computer is a box, smaller than a tower, that sits under your monitor.

RAM - Random Access Memory or just Memory. Memory is what allows you to open and run two or more applications at the same time. While doing this task, I have my message function, my navigator and Netcaster as well as the composer all open at the same time and I can move between them without having to close any of them.

ROM - Read Only Memory (as in your CD-Rom) Basically, this means that you can't write to the CD, only copy from it to the pc. There are now systems which allow you to write to a CD but a normal PC would not have this capability currently.

Meg - Short for megabytes. A meg is 1000 bytes. A gig (gigabyte) is 1000 meg. A byte, the smallest unit measured is some ones and zeros that only Bill Gates, some super geeks, and programmers understand.

BackUp - The process whereby you store important files on another storage format, e. g., Floppies (as in your A drive, or a zip drive, or a tape drive.) Usually you don't backup your programs because, usually, you have the original on a cd or floppy. If you spend three days creating a spreadsheet (Excel, Lotus 1-2-3, etc.) and you would consider slitting your throat if you lost it in cyberland, then you would want to back it up to a source that is not your hard drive. (Directions to complete this task to follow.)

Storage - Often mistaken for memory, but storage is the size of your hard drive, e.g., 4.3 gig. As a general rule the more storage you have, the more memory you will need. For instance, if you go from 2.5 gig to 5.0 gig, you would go from about 16 meg of memory to 32 or 64 meg. Also, the more meg you have the faster your system will probably operate. (This is another thing I don't really understand, I'm just parroting what I was told.)

Speed - For instance 233mhz. Unless you are a power user, you are unlikely to notice the difference between 167mhz and 300mhz. The slowest speed you would probably want is 133 mhz. There are systems that now run at 400mhz or faster. The ads will scream 400 MHZ!!!, but most adult users would be making a mistake to pay for speed.

Navigator - In Packard Bell PC's, this is a program which allows you to access your software from the shelves of a cyberspace room. There is absolutely no relationship between Netscape Navigator and Packard Bell Navigator. The terms are simply an unfortunate coincidence Most users outgrow this method of moving around in your pc's, and bypass it altogether.

Desktop - The screen that you see when you first turn your computer on. It has the icons (little picture thingies) that are the short-cuts to the programs you either need to run the computer or the ones you use to do stuff on the computer. You have shortcuts on your desktop for signing on to the internet, run your browser, Microsoft Works, your ISP, etc. FYI - icons on the desktop are not the actual programs but just short-cuts to the program. If you delete one of the icons on the desktop you've only deleted the short-cut, not the program itself.

Recycle Bin - If you delete anything in the computer it will go to the recycle bin. If you change your mind, or delete something in error, you can go into the recycle bin and restore it. This is one of the many safeguards the computer uses to protect you from yourself. You are always asked if you really want to do what you just told the computer that you really wanted to do. One of the reasons to send stuff to the recycle bin is to make room in storage for new stuff. Seems sort of straight forward doesn't it? Well, yes and no. Just because you send something to the recycle bin doesn't actually mean you have deleted the file/program from the the storage on the hard drive.

The recycle bin is sort of like purgatory. The files in there are not available to be used, but they aren't gone either. When something goes into the recycle it still takes up space on your hard drive. The space hasn't been freed up. You have to go into the recycle bin, hit File and then Empty Recycle Bin. If you want to resurrect that which you sent to the recycle bin: 1. Double Click on icon, 2. Highlight file(s) you want to restore, 3. Click on drop down File, 4. Click on restore and the file will go back from whence it came.

What does the right button on the mouse do? Lots of cool stuff. Dave Barry has discovered the joys of the right mouse button, and so can you. From an empty spot on the desktop click once on your right mouse button. You will see a drop menu with various options. The bottom option is 'properties.' There you will find options which allow you to change: the colors in your windows, your screen saver, your wallpaper (the background on your desktop) and other stuff. Try it, you'll like it. Also, you can line up or sort your icons, create shortcuts, and other things.

To cut, copy or paste:

These functions are usually found in the drop-down edit menu and on the buttons which are located below the list of drop-down options. Almost every program you use will have some sort of copy/ paste/cut function. What does it mean?

Cut erases any highlighted data (see highlighting below).
Copy allows you (duh) to copy any highlighted data.
Paste allows you to put data in another place on the page you are working on or another page where you want to move it to.

Huh?

If you cut you can still paste the data you just cut. If you copy you can paste the data somewhere else so that you will have two copies of the same data. Actually you can paste what you have cut/copied an infinite number of times. You can paste the data minutes or even hours after you have either cut or copied it. The data will remain in the background unless you power off the computer or you cut/copy something else.

Line Up /no mouse
My Documents
backing-up to a floppy
Task bar -
shortcuts
organizing bookmarks
Justification -

Did you Know? You can save a file from the internet? Go to File, Save as, and name your page. Choose where you want to save it, for instance in Microsoft Word in Microsoft Works, Word Perfect and others. Then you can edit it or manipulate the data to suit your needs. You can also save your bookmarks to a file. Go to Bookmarks, edit then again click on file, save as, etc. This is a good way to back up your bookmarks in case your browser crashes or you upgrade the browser to a newer, more powerful edition.

My Yahoo: Is a home page you can customize with info that is most useful to you. The address (URL) is http://my.yahoo.com You can ask for headlines (with the related stories) in categories you choose, e.g., weather, politics, health, etc. You can tell it which sports and scores you want to have published, which cities you want weather forecasts for. You can build portfolios with the stocks you own or just want to track and you can edit and re-edit your page as often as you like. And you can ask your pc to load this page first every time you sign on to the www. And it is password protected.
How? Go to preferences (usually in the Edit drop down menu) and put the my yahoo url in the home page window rather than your isp or browser url.

To Scroll or not to Scroll:

When you want to arrow down (with your keyboard arrow) a page rather than using the scroll bar, but your page won't move down: Click once anywhere on the screen except on a link and the arrow down will move you down the page. This is especially useful when you are reading email. (When you are reading your email and you arrow down without clicking on the message itself, you will just move down through the messages. If you click on the message, you will move down within the actual message.)

Also: If the page you are reading is very long and it seems to take forever to arrow down, rest the mouse arrow on the scroll bar just above the arrowhead and hold your mouse button down. The page will scroll down very, very quickly. Another way to move quickly from top to bottom or reverse is: hold down CTRL and Home to go to the top of CTRL and End to go to the bottom.

Changing or Editing Data:
To highlight a section of data in a word processor (like microsoft Word, Corral Word Perfect), or a spreadsheet (like Lotus 1-2-3, or Excel) or email, etc.:

1. Click mouse at beginning or end of area you want to highlight.
2. Hold down left mouse button and drag across data OR:
3. On keyboard, arrow to beginning or end of data to highlight, hold down shift key and arrow across, down or up to highlight area OR:
4. Hold down shift key on the keyboard, and hit the 'home' or 'end' key or hold down the shift key and use the arrows right, left, up, down.

Why do you want to highlight an area? To change fonts, font size, colors, delete, cut or copy.

Warning: After highlighting an area, if you type anything on the keyboard, you will erase or replace data. This is the time you will find the Edit Undo function invaluable. Keep in mind, however, that you can usually only undo the very last act you performed. You can't go back and undo stuff from six moves ago.

To Move Around within a Document: From anywhere within a line you can press HOME or END on the keyboard. To move within a printed line use arrows on keyboard or click your mouse at the point on the line where you want to edit, make a change, insert a word or punctuation, etc.

Lost? A little trick: If you can't find where you were when you did word processing or a spreadsheet, or whatever - 1. Go to Start, 2. Go to Documents, 3. Click on the document which you had saved. Your document as well as your program will be loaded! Slick, what?

What are Links:

Some words about Links: Frequently when you get email it will have a URL (a site that starts http:/www.something or other.net) somewhere on the page. If it starts with http:// www. etc., and is underlined in blue you can click on that link and it will take you to that page on the World Wide Web. You may also see words like those listed above and they are also links but they are more informative and tell you where you are going rather than the http://www .asldkfjsldk.com sort of jumble. Either way if you click on the line/link and a hand with one extended finger comes up you know that that will take you somewhere else.

You will frequently see an underlined word within a document or below a document and you can also click on that to take you somewhere else (usually a site which will tell you more about the page you are visiting.) After you have clicked on a link or a URL you want to get in the habit of bookmaking it or making it a favorite. Even if you think you don't want to bookmark it because you believe you won't need it again, I suggest you bookmark it anyway because you never know. AND you may never be able to find it again. THOUSANDS of new web pages are published each day.

When you are waiting for a page to load, you can bookmark/favorite it. Once the URL shows up in the "location" window, even if nothing has shown up on the page yet, you can bookmark it (you have probably noticed that the noun bookmark has become a verb in cyberworld.)

If you are on a roll and going from one site to another by clicking on link after link, you will find that browsers have been very thoughtful and changed the color of that link. For instance, if you are going back and forth between sites, or you get distracted, you may forget if you have opened a particular site. The browser remembers. It changes the color of the link once you have accessed the page it refers to. Different sites use different colors but very often the "unvisited" links are blue and the "visited" links are red/pink.
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