by Tom Lassiter
The Spirit of Giving – and Giving, and Giving!
December is the month of giving. We give to our family, to our friends, to our co-workers, to the hairdresser, the teacher, the garbage persons, and just about anyone else we know – or so it seems. Oh yes – don’t forget your PC; you need to give to it as well.
Give to your PC? What is this nonsense? Well, my little PC buddies – think of it like this: Our PCs are a bit like petulant children. They have small amount of intelligence; and when properly supervised and directed will reward us with untold hours of joy and pleasures.
However, like the child, they can sometimes become a bit rambunctious and whine for gifts. They just do it in a little different way,
A child may wait until you are in the supermarket line then grab your pants leg or skirt and whine to the heavens until you bestow upon them a gift of candy or such. Your PC, on the other hand, may wait until that critical report is due then decide it is a good time to give you a blank monitor. That is just its way of whining until you bestow upon it a gift of a new video card. See – PCs really are like children.
Your PC will give you rapid automation of some of your more mundane tasks. It will give you access, via the internet, to practically all the knowledge of the world. It will give you many hours of joy on your favorite games. But you must also give to it. You must give it hard drives sufficient to comfortably store all your precious data. You must give it sufficient RAM to smoothly process all your instruction requests. You must give it a CPU fast enough to provide screen pops at a speed you want – so you don’t sit there and bemoan its slowness.
As with your real life people acquaintances, your PC relationship is also a two-way street. You must sometimes give to it if you are to have a reasonable expectation that it will also give back to you. So while you are doing your shopping this month – pick up a little stocking stuffer or two for your PC.
View Documents in the Printer Queue
A printer icon appears on the Taskbar whenever you print documents. If multiple documents are printing you may view the status of each document in the queue by a DOUBLE-CLICK on that printer icon.
Take a Quick View of Most Files
A right click on most files types will have a Quick View option. Clicking on it will allow a look at the file in its native format without having to open the application. It is handy way to make sure you are going to open the proper file.
Installation Wizard
Don’t forget to try the Installation Wizard when installing new programs. CLICK on START, SETTINGS, CONTROL PANEL, ADD/REMOVE PROGRAMS, INSTALL/UNINSTALL. Then follow the onscreen instructions.
Choose Custom Setups in Installations
Win95 usually gives you a choice of several setup options when you install a new program. One is usually called “Typical” and is allegedly designed for what the software developers thought the typical user would want. Do you consider yourself “Average”? Of course not. So don’t consider yourself “Typical” either. Opt for the “Custom” installation. It will offer you the ability to view and select ALL the options for the program’s setup. You will have the opportunity to verify all settings and to select the exact drivers for your PC rather that have the “Typical” setup provide a generic driver. During the process, don’t select an option for install unless you really need it. If you skip the wallpaper and other extraneous options at this time you may always go back later and add them if you change your mind.
Plug It In – Plug It In
When installing Win95, or most other programs, plug in and connect to your PC all of your peripheral devices (printer, scanners, fax machines, etc.). This will enable the application to see them better and to install the proper drivers for your specific peripherals.
CAB Files at Your Fingertips
Tired of searching for accessories programs or drivers in the CAB files of your CD-ROM disk? If you can spare about 35 MB on your hard drive consider copying them from the Win95 folder on your Win95 Installation CD-ROM to your hard drive; under a folder named CABWIN95 or something. Now you won’t have to dig out the CD-ROM every time you need something from a CAB file.
Classic Keyboard Shortcuts
Even confirmed “mousers” many times find it more convenient and faster to use keyboard shortcuts for certain repetitive tasks. These classic shortcuts work across the board in almost every single Win95 program: CTRL-X to cut, CTRL-C to copy, and CTRL-V to paste. And remember, once you have cut or copied something to the clipboard you can paste it repeatedly without having to re-cut or re-copy it. And don’t forget CTRL-Z to undo and CTRL-A to select all. You can keep the left bottom corner of you keyboard really busy using these handy shortcuts.
RUN to the Internet
Looking for a way to access the internet with less clicks than you currently may use? Try this one. CLICK on START, RUN, type the URL (e.g.- www.hal-pc.org without the http://) and ENTER. Bingo – you’re there.
Next month we start a new year – and at the end of next year we will start a new millenium. As they say – The future lies ahead (but then where else would it lie?).
Tom Lassiter is a member of the HAL-PC Board of Directors. He may be contacted at jamesl@hal-pc.org.
E-mail me at webmaster@hal-pc.org with any comments you have and tell me what you want to see here.