January | 2010 | Roger Kuder's Blog

A few things every savvy PC user needs to know how to do:

January 24, 2010

If your PC is frozen up and won’t respond – try control alt delete first. If that doesn’t work try re-booting the PC, through the start button.

Always back-up any data files you don’t want to lose, to a CD-ROM or another PC, if you are on a LAN.
Use a Back Up Power Supply (also called a UPS, i.e., an Uninterruptible Power Supply), to protect your PC and monitor against power surges and outages. If you don’t want to hear that horrible chirping noise when the power goes out get an American Power Conversion Corporation (APC) version that has “Power Chute software” in it.
Cut (control x) or copy (control c) text you wish to move to your PC’s clipboard; then paste (control v) the information on the clipboard to the new desired location. If you want to mark everything in a document use control a (for all). These are very essential PC skills worth memorizing, because you will use them often.
A few other shortcut keys are: control-a: select all the text in the open document; control-z: undo; f1: help; alt-tab: cycle between open programs.
Find files on your PC – click on start, search, all files.
Find the control panel on your PC – click on start, settings, control panel. See shortcut, below.
Find the programs installed on your PC – click on start, programs.
Install a shortcut on your desktop – right click on your desktop, click on new, shortcut, browse. Another method: From an icon of a file or program: right-click on the icon, then click on send to, then desktop.
Find out the speed of your PC and how much RAM memory you have: Right click on my computer, click properties. On the general tab, under computer you will see this information; or press the Windows key and the pause/break keys at the same time.
Use the Google advanced page as your home page. The advantage is that you often search for phrases where you want the words to be together. You can just type the words into the phrase box on the advanced page, whereas you have to put quotes around the phrase on the basic Google page. To change your homepage, load http://www.google.com/advanced_search, then click on tools, then Internet options, then under the general tab, click use current.
Use Google’s directory to search for things by topic- http://www.google.com/dirhp
To define any word or phrase, put the word “define:” followed by the word or phrase, with no space after the colon. Don’t use the phrase box in the Google advanced page for this search. If you want a site that pronounces, as well as defines words, use http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/dictionary/dictionaryhome.aspx.
Select or de-select programs that boot up automatically with windows. Click to: start, run, enter msconfig, go to services tab.
Associate file types to determine which PC program opens which file extensions: Click to my computer, tools, folder options, file types.
If you need an answer to anything from a human being, go to http://www.allexperts.com/
E-mails you get that make amazing claims are often hoaxes that are dead wrong. Before you forward such information to others, check out the facts at the Urban Legends website: http://www.snopes.com/.
When you send e-mails to more than one person at a time, put the e-mail addressees into the “Bcc:” block (blind copy). That protects the privacy of the people you send e-mails to, and prevents careless people from accidentally replying to everyone you sent the e-mail to.
Handy free programs you should install on your PC if you don’t have them already, so your PC will open common picture, sound and video files: Windows Media Player, for WMV, MPEG, and AVI files: www.microsoft.com; Realplayer, for rm files: www.real.com; QuickTime, for QT and MOV files: www.apple.com/quicktime/download; Shockwave for SWF files: www.shockwave.com; Adobe Acrobat for pdf files, www.adobe.com. You can download these files at free download sites, such as: www.download.com and www.tucows.com.
How to use the Windows short-cut keys. The Windows key is between the ctrl and alt keys (on the lower left of your keyboard). Press it and the following letter keys at the same time to perform the following functions:
D – Close open windows and show the desktop.
E – Start Windows Explorer.
F – Open the Find window to find files on your PC.
M – Minimize all open windows.
Break – View system speed and RAM.