North Dakota State University Extension Service - Burke County |
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Tips and Tricks For Your PC |
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| Computers 101 Printing: tired of wasting color ink on web pages and fancy emails when black and white would be good enough? Instead of clicking on the printer icon in most Microsoft programs click on “file” and “print” instead. Your printer preferences window should open allowing you to select “gray scale” or “black and white”. Lost files? If you have worked on a letter and then couldn’t find it to finish it or worked on a photo or other project and then couldn’t find it , you know how frustrating it can be. You can search your hard drive by clicking on “start”, then “search”. You can choose to search for files of certain types, like documents or photos. You can also search for any files that have a word or part of a word in the file name. If necessary you can even search for any file that has a given word or phrase within the file. This will be slower because the search engine has to search each entire document or file instead of just the file names. Spyware? Web sites use spyware to keep track of what programs you use, what websites you visit and other information. Cookies also help websites keep track of you but they just they are just tiny files which a site installs on your computer so the site can recognize you when you come back to it again. Spyware is actually programs which are installed on your computer and run in the background slowing your computer down. Ad-aware and Spybot are two programs which you can download and use to remove spyware that is already on your computer and to prevent new spyware from being installed. One caution you need to be aware of is that many free programs have spyware that comes with them and if you remove the spyware the free program will no longer work. Computer Monitors—CRT or LCD Considering the purchase of a new computer system, or maybe just a new monitor? If you think the new flat panel (LCD) monitors are too expensive compared to conventional (CRT) monitors there are a couple of things you need to consider. A 15 inch LCD monitor has nearly the same viewing area of a 17 inch CRT and a 17 inch LCD is more comparable to a 19 inch CRT. Another factor is shipping weights, if you are buying online or from a mail order catalog, there may be a significant difference in shipping costs. This can also be a factor if you need to return a monitor for warranty service. Another advantage of a LCD screen is a significant reduction in glare and eye strain. MS Word Tips Add a little interest to your Christmas letter by clicking on “View”, “Toolbars”, “Drawing” to turn on your drawing toolbar. It will usually open at the bottom of your screen. Click on “Autoshapes”. You can then select from “basic shapes” like squares, circles, octagons, smilely faces and other shapes. When you click on a shape a “create your drawing here” box will pop open. Click in the box to place the shape you selected. You can then use the handles on the shape to change its size, flatten it, stretch it, move it, or rotate it. Grab the edges of the box to increase or decrease the box size. For some shapes you can click on the 3-D style button at the right end of the drawing toolbar to add a 3-D effect. Function Keys Function Keys are generally found at the top of your keyboard (f1, f2, f3, etc.). They do a variety of functions depending on the program you are working in. F8, for example starts your computer in “safe mode” when depressed during the boot up process. F11 will change your browser to “full screen” mode and back. In addition to the standard functions many of these keys have additional functions which are activated by holding the shift key, the ctrl key or the fn key while depressing the function key. Some of the newest Microsoft and Logitech keyboards now have a function lock key I the upper right corner which needs to be “turned on” to use the standard functions. If you do not turn it on each time you boot the computer the function keys will operate as if you are holding down the fn key. Looking for a Digital Camera? I’ve had quite a few questions about digital camera lately. Here are a few tips to guide your search. Megapixels-More is better! Right? Only to a certain point (which keeps changing) If you plan to do a lot of photo editing, especially cropping, more megapixels is better. If the only editing you might do is taking out redeye or using the auto enhancing button in your software, you probably don’t need to spend extra money for a camera with 7 or 8 megapixels. A 4 megapixel camera will take pictures which look good printed to an 8x10 format. I use an old Olympus C700, which is only a 2.1 and I do print some photos to 8x10 size. Sometimes they look good, sometimes they are pixilated (have those square spots in the sky or other background). If you are not going to do a lot of editing you may want to spend the extra dollars on more removable storage cards. And if you do want the higher megapixel camera plan on spending more money on memory cards because you will get fewer photos to a card than a lower resolution camera. Make sure you don’t buy a camera that doesn’t accept removable storage cards. All but the cheapest and most basic do. Look for a camera which can accept AA or AAA batteries. Some camera models use special rechargeable batteries but will also accept regular batteries if your rechargeable one goes dead. There are a few which will not use regular batteries. If the special battery for your camera goes dead and you can’t just pop in regular batteries, you are done taking pictures until you recharge it. That can be real frustrating just before the birthday cake is served or when that big bull moose is looking in the kitchen window! Web Soil Survey If you don’t like shuffling papers or are not sure how to compare fields with several different soil types, you may want to try using the web soil survey. The web soil survey allows you to use your internet connection and web browser to view and analyze soil maps at any location in the US. Starting with a map of the US you can gradually zoom in on any location. Once you get down to an aerial photo view of the area you want to analyze, like a section, quarter or field, you can use the “area of interest” tool to outline the area. Then click on the soil map tab to view the soils in the outline areas. The program will provide you with the name of each soil found in the area of interest, the number of acres of each soil and the percentage of each soil making up the total. Switching to the soil information tab allows you to evaluate the soils for different purposes. For range production, you can get information about the potential pounds of forage production which might be expected from each soil type in the area of interest on a dry year, an average year, or an above average year. For cropland, you can look at yield potentials for a variety of different crops. To look at and use the web soil survey try this website: http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/ Be Wary of Attachments Whether you have an antivirus program or not you can increase your computer safety by being wary about email attachments. Most computer viruses are spread through attachments. Many of these attachments may seem to be very innocent but they can operate unseen behind a false front. Another problem with attachments is that even if they do not contain viruses, you must have the right software to open them. Even older versions of the program the attachment was created with do not always work. How do you know if an attachment is safe to open and how do you know if you have the right program to open an attachment? By learning to recognize file types you can decrease the likelihood of opening one containing a virus and be more successful at opening the attachments you really want. When viewing an email with attachments in outlook express, the file names are shown just above the window with the text portion of the message. If you are looking at the preview pane information about the attachments is shown in the text window. The file name will have a three or four letter extension on the end of it showing you the file type. Example: invitation.doc is a Microsoft word document which most word processors will recognize and open. P130234.jpg is a photo which many email programs can open within the message it is attached to. Here are a few common file types. .doc - Microsoft Word .exe – executable program file (DO NOT
OPEN) The last three are the ones to be especially careful about. They are the most common virus containing files. If you open an email containing one of these file types do not click on the attachment to open it. Make a note of who the sender is. If it is someone you don’t know, delete the message immediately. If it is someone you know, give them a call and ask them if they have sent you a message with an attachment. If they have not, delete the message. If they have sent you a message with an attachment, find out why they sent it and exactly what it is. If it is some type of animated movie or screen saver or game program which they got off of the internet or received in an email from someone else, I would still delete it without opening the attachment and I would suggest they run an up to date antivirus program on their computer immediately. It may be only a neat little game or screen saver but why take the chance. Adding a Printer Most new printers today (at least the major brands) connect to computers via USB cables (which don’t come with the printer). If you have a Windows XP operating system simply plugging in the USB cable and turning on the printer will cause the “new hardware wizard” to run and your printer will be set as the “default” printer and the next time you click on the print button in any program your new printer will work. However most new printers come with special software for editing pictures and controlling any special features of the printer. If you just plug in the USB cable and let Windows XP set everything up, you may not have access to any special features of the printer. Editing software added after the printer is setup may or may not work the way it should. For the software which comes with your printer, to work correctly it is usually necessary to install it before you actually connect the printer. If you have already connected the printer and then tried to load your software—all is not lost! Shut your printer off and disconnect it. Click on “Start”, then on “Printers and Faxes” (note: on some computers you may need to click on “Start”, then “Control Panel” and then “Printers and Faxes”). After opening your “Printers and Faxes” window, right click on icon of your new printer. A small menu box will open and “delete” should be an option. Click on “delete”. This will remove the printer. Restart your computer and install the software according to the instructions. Computer Tips Do you use a USB cable for downloading pictures from your camera to your computer? Do you use other USB devices like “jump drives” or external hard drives? One thing you need to be careful about is unplugging these devices if any programs are open and using the files on them. If you unplug one of these devices while it is being used you can lose data or even make the device unusable. Using a card reader, either USB or built in can also be a problem if you are removing your camera cards while they are being read or written to. Computerized Record Keeping With tax time here again my people have just finished or will soon finish another year of book keeping. There is nothing wrong with keeping records in a paper ledger but the change to electronic formats continues. Electronic or computerized record keeping can seem overwhelming but it does not have to be. Computerized record keeping for personal and farm financial records can range from simple checkbook type registers to complicated programs which can provide profit/loss reports for individual farm enterprises or investment accounts. Here are a few things to consider when switching to or updating a computerized record keeping program.
Dan Folske |
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