Friday, May 27, 2016

Class Summary 5-26-2016

Windows 10 Custom Guide


Get the full guide here: http://tinyurl.com/h74sqls

How To Password Protect Files. We have talked before on how to password protect Word and Excel files right at the Save As screen. This program will give you the capability of password protecting any file on your computer.
http://tinyurl.com/zskzvfr

How to go back to Window 7 and how to stop the 10 upgrade. Some have gotten Windows 10 forced onto their computer and really do not want it. I do not understand why, but they can get rid 10 and roll back to their previous OS as long as they do it within 30 days of the 10 upgrade. This article explains how.
http://tinyurl.com/h9hqdgy

How To Mount ISO Files In Windows 10/8.x. Most do not know what an ISO file is, so if that is you, this is not an article you need to look at. But those that use ISO files will find this useful.
http://tinyurl.com/zfnjuga

How To Speed Up Your PC. We have talked about the free maintenance programs I use to clean my computer (ccleaner, glary utilities, malwarebytes, and superantispyware). This article talks about some of them and others.
http://tinyurl.com/hn3wytq

Printing an email is not just pressing Ctrl+P. In Yahoo you press P on the keyboard and your email prints without showing everything else on your screen. In Gmail you click the tiny icon of a printer in the upper right of the email on the screen. You can also select the portion you want to print and then press Ctrl+P. Make sure the checkbox on the left side of the window after pressing Ctrl+P is checked for Selection. In all cases a preview window shows in Chrome.

Separating tabs from a browser. You do not have to open a second browser to look at two views at the same time. Open the second window in another tab, then drag the tab down and it will disconnect from the browser and show a second browser window. You can then resize each and see them both on the screen at the same time. To put them back into one window, drag the tab to the tab area on the other browser window. They are not back together as one window.

MailChimp is a great way to send multiple emails. If you send them using your normal email like comcast, embarque, yahoo, gmail, or whatever you can send multiple emails by inserting more than one email address in the TO, CC, or BCC boxes. However, each email service has a maximum number of emails you can send in a month without being considered spamming. Using a free service like MailChimp lets you maintain a database of names and email addresses and when you send using their service everyone gets an individual email. You can even write it now and schedule it to be sent in the future. After it is sent you can check the reporting feature to see how many were actually read and even who read it.

Phonevite is another free online application that will make phone calls for you. You set up a database of phone numbers, record your message, and tell phonevite when to make the calls. Everyone on your list gets a phone call with your messsage. Great way to invite people to a meeting or a party and then again to remind them.

Friday, May 20, 2016

Class Summary 5-19-2016

Most of the class was all about Google Docs. Here is the link to the white paper I wrote:
http://tinyurl.com/zrju7yt



Not in the white paper is what we demonstrated about using your voice to type a document and being able to translate a document from one language to another. To turn on voice click Tools > Voice typing. Then you choose the language you want to type in and click the microphone. As you talk your words appear on the screen with no need to use the keyboard!

Have a letter or email from someone in another language? Copy and paste into a blank Google document and choose Tools > Translate document… Pick the from and to languages and in seconds the document will be translated.

Then a question came up about translating a web page. Easy to do with the Google Translate extension. Then it is as simple as opening the page and then clicking the Translate button in the toolbar:



Click Translate This Page



Choose the language



Instantly the page appears in the language chosen.

Revolver extension for Google Chrome
Turns your Tabs into a slide show as it displays them one at a time every few seconds
http://tinyurl.com/pdz2pbe

A new Notepad in the cloudGreat for viewing entries across PC’s and for using on Chromebooks
http://notepad.pw/

Safe Forwarding
Be careful when forwarding emails. Here is the bottom of the page I forwarded recently:



Notice the links that go to areas like Unsubscribe? If I forward this email as is, then then the person this is being sent to can unsubscribe me from an email list I enjoy receiving. And I will not even know it. This is how some have been dropped from my email list for the class.


So before sending the forwarded email, I select the items that link back to my account and press the Delete key to remove them. Now they cannot change my email standing.



Facebook Scam Alert
Don’t accept a friend request from someone you are already friends with
http://tinyurl.com/jr5mrvx

Chrome Hits #1
Last month Chrome took over with 42% of users. IE dropped to 41% and Firefox dropped to 10%
http://tinyurl.com/jtytseb

Act NOW to Keep Your Windows 10 Upgrade Free After July 29
http://tinyurl.com/jo8xf5s

Friday, May 13, 2016

Class Summary 5-12-2017

We spent some time on OneDrive again. Remember that OneDrive is a folder on your PC. The difference between the OneDrive folder and your Documents folder is that anything saved on OneDrive is synced to your cloud storage on Microsoft Live. Both your Document folder and your OneDrive folder exist on your hard drive. Only OneDrive is synced to the cloud.

We talked about ransomware and the need to do an image backup often. In between images your OneDrive keeps all your data backed up in the cloud. And your Google photos keeps all your images with its unlimited free cloud service. A system crash or attack that leaves you PC useless can be restored from the image. Then your OneDrive will sync all your data back to the restored drive. The only thing missing will be the program and updates that occurred after the image was made.

Obvibase makes creating an online database as easy and fast as creating a spreadsheet. A good online database to keep track of address books and more.
https://www.obvibase.com/

We downloaded and demonstrated slimbrowser. It appeared to work well and faster than Chrome. And it works with Windows XP. It uses very little memory. A light, fast, and free web browser. Faster startup, faster web browsing, 10x faster file & video download, 20x faster photo upload.
http://www.slimbrowser.net/

Understanding Copy and Paste
First let’s define some key concepts:

Right-click means to point at something on the screen with the mouse pointer and
then clicking the right button on the mouse. Click means to click the left button
on the mouse.

Drag means to point at something with the mouse pointer and then, while holding
down the left button on the mouse, moving the mouse. This is generally used move
what is being pointed to or to select what is dragged over. Right-drag means to use
the right button instead of the left.

Select means to drag across a series of words or objects on the screen. This action
causes what is dragged over to change color indicating it has been selected.

Copy and Paste is such a simple but misunderstood concept. Your computer has a
hidden from view area called the clipboard. To copy something, select it—words in a
document, an image, the URL of a Web site, or even text on a Web page. Then right-click
on the selected piece and select Copy. You can also use the keyboard command
that has been around since the beginning; Ctrl+C. To use it, hold down the Ctrl
key, tap C, and then release both keys. Do not attempt to press both keys at the
same time.

What you had selected is now in the clipboard. You cannot see it, but just take it
on faith. It is there and will stay there until you either copy something else
which replaces the content of the clipboard or you turn off your computer which
clears memory.

Open the app you wish to copy the material to, like Word. Click to place the
insertion point (that vertical line indicating where your next keystroke will
appear) where you want the pasted material to be located, and then right-click and
select Paste. You can also Ctrl+V to paste from the clipboard.

This same method can be used to copy a file to another location on your computer.

The Shift+Click Method

This method works whenever you want to select multiple items. It could be file
names in a list of files, a series of sentences or paragraphs in a document, or
even a part of a Web page to use in a document.

Locate the first word in the section to be copied and mouse over it to select it.
Without touching any button on the mouse, bring the pointer down to the end of the
section to be copied.

The key is to hold down the shift key, point to the ending position, and then click
the mouse and all between the first selected entry and the place you last clicked
have been selected.

Now that you have selected all of it, you can right-click and select Copy or simply
Ctrl+C to copy it to the clipboard for pasting in another application.

Copying from a Web Page
When copying from a Web page even the behind the scenes coding is copied. You
cannot see this information, but when you paste the selection into another app,
like a Word Processor, the results are not just the text. Included are all the
formatting, links, images, and often other things we may not understand.

To avoid this “mess”, I suggest pasting first into a pure text app like NOTEPAD.
This app accepts only the raw text dropping any other coding and images. Then
select all the new data. Another shortcut is Ctrl+A which selects all data in the
window having focus. Then right-click and copy to place that text data into the
clipboard for pasting elsewhere.

And we learned we can drag photos from Facebook to a folder on your PC. The name is a long strange one so you might want to rename it to something making sense to you after the copy.

Thursday, May 5, 2016

Class Summary 5-5-2016

The mouse pointer sometimes referred to as the cursor is white and very small by default. By opening the Control Panel and Mouse, you can change the size, color and other attributes.



On the Pointers tab, pull down the Scheme list



Choose the desired size and color, then click Apply.



Under the Pointer Options tab, you can change other options. I check the bottom one so that when I have “lost” the pointer I can press CTRL and and easily find it.

Startup Files are executed when windows is starting, before you can have control of it. Access them from the Task Manager. Open it by right clicking on the task bar and selecting Task Manager.



Click the Startup tab to see a list of all programs that start first. To disable one, click it and then click Disable.



Ninite is a great website to use to install a number of useful programs without having to worry about getting unwanted programs or browser toolbars installed as well. Simply access ninite.com and check off the programs you want to install or update and then click the Get Your Ninite button to download and run the installer.

Can we capture a video? This was asked of a member who is a participant in an online discussion. He would like to capture the video of the streamed event so he can review it later. The simple answer is yes.

Auctions50.net is a loal auction site hwere you can bid on items for sale or even post an item to sell.



Zip Files are found with the extension ZIP. They can be created by selecting one or more files, right-clicking and selecting Send To > Compressed… The file or group of files will be placed in a container with the ZIP extension. The size of the zipped file is usually less than the sum of the sizes of the files being compressed. To see files inside a zipped file, double click the file and the list of its contents appears. In the ribbon above select Extract Files to create a new folder containing all the files in their original form.



MWsnap does a much better job of capturing something from the screen than the Snipping Tool.
http://tinyurl.com/mhvg