PTNSYSTEMS NEWSLETTER OCTOBER 2007

Part 1 – Knowing your way around/keyboard tips.

Most people who use computers, in some form or other, generally do so for a limited time each day, and even then the same programs will be used; email, Internet, Microsoft Word are all familiar to most of us. As with our cars and washing machines, we don't need to know the finer points of the inner workings, we just want them to work every time we reach for the on switch. Hopefully you've been reading the previous newsletters which may go some way to explaining why the PC doesn't always behave the way it should, and what preventative measures we can take to avoid the tears and frustration. In this newsletter we will start to look at ways of keeping things organised and prepare to mange our computer time more effectively, after all, the computer was introduced to make life easier.......can I hear someone laughing?

People often say "I'd like to learn more, but I don't know where to start". Well, as in all new learning experiences, if you don't get the basics right, the rest will never follow too easily, and one thing which helps people above all others, is the understanding of the file and folder system used by Microsoft Windows. Once you have a clear understanding of this, all sorts of mysteries can be unravelled and the way you approach your work can change dramatically. So in this newsletter we will start to look at files and folders, and throw in a few relevant tips along the way.

Many people get confused because every time they open a new window, they get a different view of the contents, sometimes they see little icons and another window shows thumbnails, another details, another lists etc., let's simplify by making all our windows open in the same way, which will also help us later on. Firstly it would help if you closed any other windows which may be open before proceeding, now open the My Documents window. You should now have this window (Internet Explorer or similar) and the My Documents window open.

You may want to look at tip 1 below, before proceeding.

With My Documents open, left click on the view menu at the top of the page (a single click of the Alt key reveals this in Vista) I would then select Details from the list. Your My documents window should now contain little icons with columns next to them giving all sorts of extra information like date modified, size etc. Now left click on Tools at the top of the window and select Folder options select the view tab and left click on apply to all folders, now every window you open should display the contents as small icons, with extra information in columns to the right, this is the details view.

Note: please click here if you need help with this last section, for screenshots and further explanations, and click here for even more file management info.

If you are familiar with Alt+Tab to switch between your open programs, please skip the next paragraph, if not, try and practise the following.

Tip 1 -  You have two Windows open (Internet and My Docs) but you can only see one of them, if you are one of those people who reach for the minimise/maximise buttons with the mouse, at the top of the window, each time you want to see the one underneath, this alone, could save you a wealth of time, try this: Place your left thumb on the Alt key next to the space bar on your keyboard and hold it down. Now place your left index finger on the Tab key and keep them both held down, you should now see a small window appear in the middle of the screen. This window shows you all the windows you have open, once you have highlighted your desired program with Tab and by letting go of both keys, we can quickly minimise and maximise all our open windows without having to make a single click of the mouse. You can now quickly switch between windows. OK, Alt+Tab into My Documents, and maximise the Window so it fills up the whole screen.

Tip 2 - Want to be able to read from two windows at the same time? Try this, again with only two windows open, maximise both of them so they fill up the screen, right click on the taskbar at the bottom of the screen and select tile windows vertically, to revert, right click on the taskbar and select undo tile. Note: a large screen and high resolution desktop really benefits from this.

The next invaluable tool is the address bar, which should be present in all our open windows, this tells us where  our data actually resides on our hard drive or, in Internet Explorer, where we are on the Internet. This is normally present in Vista but may be hidden in XP so if you can't see it at the top of your My documents window lets get it out of hiding. With the My Documents window open left click on view then toolbars and make sure lock the toolbars is not selected, now left click again on toolbars and make sure address bar is selected. You may now see the address bar appear at the top, or the word address appear in the top right hand corner of the screen, if so, drag the address bar down with the mouse so it runs across the top of the window and you can see it properly.

Vista address bar information can be seen here.

An example of an XP version of the address bar can be seen here which shows a webpage address in Internet explorer.

Again, to keep our changes consistent, left click on Tools at the top of the window and select Folder options select the view tab and left click on apply to all folders, now every window you open will look the same and should also contain the invaluable address bar.

So far we've hopefully changed the way Windows displays the contents of drives and folders so they always display details, we should also be able to Alt-Tab between all our open Windows and, whenever we have a drive or folder open, the window should have the address bar at the top to tell us where the data resides.

Lets make a new folder so we can experiment, to do this open My Documents, select a blank area away from any file or folder then right click, select new then folder, you should now have little manila folder waiting to be named, type TEST FOLDER in capitals in the blue(active) area. Note: An alternative way to create new folders is to click on the File menu and select new then Folder. You should now have a new folder called TEST FOLDER in your my documents folder, please double left click on the manila folder icon (not the text) to open this folder. You are now inside your new empty folder, lets make some files so we can practise selecting and moving things around later on. OK, Right click in the empty space and select new then text document, name this file, in capitals, TEST, now right click on the TEST file and select Copy and finally right click in some white space away from the original file and select paste, do this five times so we have five copies of TEST.

If all is well, you have a TEST folder which contains six TEST files, you are looking at details within our window which in turn has the address bar open at the top of the page.

In our next newsletter we will be using the skills we have learnt today plus utilising our TEST folder, looking at ways of selecting files, moving them around, the benefits of the address bar, more tips and working with shortcuts.