Computer help

What happens when you start up your computer?

The BIOS screen

Computer help

The first thing you see, when you start up your computer is the BIOS screen

The BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) is a small program running in the

background and usually the only time you ever notice, that it's there is during start
up. The BIOS enables and controls the communication between your hardware and
your operating system.
Maybe you noticed a command in the BIOS screen during start up saying "hit DEL if
you want to run SETUP"

Warning!
If you don't know much about computers don't try and make any changes to your
BIOS settings! If you make any wrong settings it can keep your computer from
working right or even at all!

So....just enjoy looking at the black BIOS screen while you wait for your computer to
start up (or go make yourself some coffee!) and leave any changes to the BIOS to
the professionals / the technicians. Believe me - I DO!

The Windows start up screen

Then you'll see the Windows start up screen.

You just have to wait until your desktop shows and all your programs have loaded and
you're good to go!

If you have a user account, the start up will include a login. If not, the start up will just
continue and after a short while you'll see your desktop.

How to manage your user account

When would you want to set up user accounts?
If you are the only one using your computer, or if you don't plan to setup a network
between your computer and another computer, you don't need to setup accounts.

If you're sharing your computer with someone else, having your own account can be
usefull. It allows you to:

• Create your own desktop Look & Feel

• You'll get your own "My Documents" folder to store your documents in
• You'll have your own set of Favorites and the history of which web pages,
you have visited

Those parts of the computer will only be accessible for you

Go to your Control Panel

Start > Settings > Control Panel

Look for the icon for your user Accounts

When you click the Icon for User Accounts, you'll get the choice of Creating a new
account or changing an existing account

To create a new account - click "New Account" Then you'll see a new window, where
you have to type in the name of your new account
Click "next"

In the next window, you will be asked to Pick an account type There are two types of
accounts, you can create: The administrator account and the limited account

If you share your computer with your son or daugther, you may want to limit their
account "Rights". You can see on the next picture, what the difference in the two account
types are:

Both account types will allow the user, who are logged in to change the desktop (add
their own desktop image), and they will have their own "My Documents" folder for
storing files, but the limited account will NOT allow the user to change any windows
settings or install any new programs.
 Your desktop
How to manage and customize your desktop appearance

Lots of computer users just leave their desktop with the default windows settings, but if
you are a little bit creative and want your computer to be more "you", you have various
options for customization.

To get to where you make changes to the look & feel

• Right-click on an empty area of your desktop

• Click Properties

From the drop-down menu under the "Themes" tab, you can choose a Theme. A theme
will give you a background + a set of sounds, Icons and other elements, that will change
the Look & Feel.
You don't have to choose a Theme - you can also make your own settings.

From the Desktop tab in your properties window you can choose between many different
pre-installed patterns and pictures. Scroll through them and pick one, if you can find one
you like. The images have different proportions, so you get another option on the right
hand side of the window. You can choose to:

• Center the image

• Tile the image
• or Stretch the image

If you have a picture stored on your computer, you can choose to add you own picture to
the list and use it as a wallpaper image.

• Click the browse button on the right side of the window

• In the drop-down menu on top of the window choose the location of your
picture
• Select the picture by clicking on it
• Click open
 Computer help - how to managed files
How to manage your files and folders

I know - being organized can be boring, but after you have made countless amounts of
files, stored all over your computer and you have 754 "New Folder"s, you'll see the point
in being organized!

Just like with everything else in your house, it is nice to know where to find things.

Your windows operating system even makes things easy for you by giving you several
pre-made folders like "My Documents" and inside that folder, you will find "My Music",
"My Pictures" etc. Of course you can make your own folders for pictures and music
files,too,if you want.

Double-click your "My Documents" Icon on your desktop

- and you will see all the folders already provided for you
When you want to save a document or a file you have created, you have several choices
to where you want to save it.

Double-click your "My Computer" icon on the desktop

and a window like this will appear

The window will be showing you YOUR drives. The picture above is just an exampel.
Some computers will have a D: drive under the section of hard disk drives (sometimes
called a Data drive)- like in my exampel above. If you have one, I suggest to you to use
that drive for storage. If you DON'T have a D: drive use the "My Documents" folder. If
you have D: drive, you can store you files in folders you create.

WARNINGYour "My Documents" folder is a system folder. You can store files, create
new sub folders in it, and even back-up (make a copy) of that whole folder to another
location, just don't move that folder to any other location on your computer! If you
remove it or move it somewhere else, you'll might mess up your system!

Computer help

Okay....so how do you save a file, so you can find it again?

Try this:

• Open your Wordpad program Click Programs > Accessories > Wordpad
• write your name - or anything you like
• click "Files" on top of the window
• choose "Save as" - a new window appears
• on the top of that window you will see a "save in" field. Choose Desktop as your
destination from the drop-down menu (if it's not already shown)
• in the bottom of the window *.txt will be highlighted. Write your first name on
top of what's here
• Click "Save"

Your file will appear on your desktop. If you double-click that file, it will open.

Okay....try it again from the top of the list above - only this time, when you click Files >
Save as..choose your "My Documents" folder from the Drop-down menu and click Save.

Remember to delete those files again - having random, useless files lying around on
your desktop or in your "MY Documents" folder is NOT being organized.

It's no big deal having a few "loose" files on your desktop or in your private folder, but
after a while finding a specific file will be difficult, so do yourself the favor of being
organized about your saved files from the beginning. You will thank yourself later on for
that!

Computer help - How to create your own folder for storing files
Computer help

To create a folder, you first have to think of where you want to store it.

Assuming you want to create your own folder inside your "My Documents" folder

• double-click the "My Documents" Icon on your desktop.

• Inside your My Documents folder click Files on the left hand side of the top of
the window
• Choose "new" and hoover your mouse over to Folder and Left-click on your
mouse.
• The New Folder will be added to the list of folders and files and the name of the
folder will be highlighted
• name your new folder (you can name it what you want - i.e Birthday pictures) by
typing over the higlighted area
• Click OK

- and your new folder will be added, and will be ready for storing your files. You can
create as many different named folders, as you like.

File-formats
When certain files / file-formats don't open, it's most likely because you don't have the
software, these particular file-formats were created with or relate to.
Some files need a certain piece of software to open, and others, such as different graphics
file formats, will open in most any graphics editing software.
By looking at the file *extension you can idenfy the type of software you will need for
that particular file.

*the letter showing after the "." in the file name

Picture/graphics files:

• .cpt - Corel Photo Paint

• .psd - Adobe Photo Shop
• .tif - Tagged Image File format
• .jpg - Joint Photographic Experts Group
• .gif - Graphics Interchange Format
• .bmp - bitmap
• .png - portabl Network Graphics

Vektor grafik:
 • .pdf - Portable Document Format
• .eps - Encapsulated Postscript
• .ai - Adobe Illustrator
• .cdr - Corel Draw

Movies and animation:

• .gif - Animated gif file

• .mpeg/mpg - Moving Picture Experts Group
• .mov - Quicktime movie Format
• .avi - Audio Video Interleave
• .swf - Macromedia Flash file

Sound

• .wav
• .mp3
• .mid

Internet:

• htm/html - Hyper Text Markup (language)

MS Windows program files:

• .txt - Notepad file

• .rtf - MS Wordpad file
• .accdp - Microsoft Access File
• .doc - MS Word document '97-2003 version
• .docx -MS Word document - 2004 and later versions
• .dot - MS Word Template - '97-2003 version
• .dotx - MS Word Template - 2004 and later
• .xls - MS Excel - '97-2003 version
• .xlsx -MS Excel - 2004 and later
• .pub - MS Publisher file

Other files:

• .pdf -Portable Document Format - Opens with Acrobat Reader

• .wks - MS Works file
• .vsd - MS Visio file
• .cap - Microsof Cabinet file
• .zip - compressed/archive file
• .dot - Windows document template file
• .ttf - True Type Font file
• .exe - Executable file / program file
 • .ppt - Microsof Powerpoint Presentaion
• .pps - Microsof Powerpoint Show

Accessories
Tools to meet special vision, hearing and ability needs
Windows Accessories The Windows operating Systems provide you with some handy
tools that I would like to point your attention to. Some of the tools are for configuring
your system to meet your vision, hearing and ability needs, other tools are for helping
you maintain your system for optimal performance.

Here is how you find your Windows tools. Click: Start > Programs > Accessories >
Accessability

Let's start with a few vision, hearing and ability tools. The first one is:

• The Magnifier

In all windows OS's

The Magnifier is a display utility that makes the computer screen more readable by
people who have low vision by creating a separate window that displays a magnified
portion of the screen. Magnifier provides a minimum level of functionality for people
who have slight visual impairments.

Tip! Usually the Magnifier by default is set to show up at the top of the screen, but you
can move it around by using your left mouse button: Click ad hold down the left button
and move the magnifier window to where you want it, then let go of the button.

When you open the Magnifier a new window appears: The Magnifier Settings window
From that window you can change the level of magnification, change the tracking and the
presentation. To get out of the magnifer mode simply click Exit

Here is another tool:

• The Narrator

From Windows 2000 and newer

The Narrator is a text-to-speech utility for people who are blind or have low vision.
Narrator reads what is displayed on the screen—the contents of the active window, menu
options, or text that has been typed.
Note1 The Narrator is designed to work with Notepad, WordPad, Control Panel
programs, Internet Explorer, the Windows desktop, and some parts of Windows Setup.
Narrator may not read words aloud correctly in other programs. Narrator has a number of
options that allow you to customize the way screen elements are read.

The third tool I will mention is:

• The On-screen Keyboard

On–Screen Keyboard is a utility that displays a virtual keyboard on the computer screen
that allows people with mobility impairments to type data by using a pointing device or
joystick. Besides providing a minimum level of functionality for some people with
mobility impairments, On–Screen Keyboard can also be helpful for people who do not
know how to type.

Note! The program in which you want to type characters must be active while you are
using On–Screen Keyboard. The accessibility tools in the Windows operating system are
intended to provide a minimum level of functionality for users with special needs.

Windows tools
to help you optimize your computers performance
In the Windows Accessories you wil also find some very handy tools that will help you
keep your system running smoothly. It's a good idea to get aquanted with these tools and
how to use them.
You find the tools by clicking System Tools from the Accessories menu

The most important accessories to know are:

• Back Up
• Disk Cleanup
• Disk Defragmenter

Backup!
Where I come from, we have a saying "Real men do not back up!". The very same "real
men" always come to me for help, when they run into trouble from NOT having backed
up anything and their hard drive crashes. Unfortunately there is nothing I can do to help
them - other than point out to them that in MY opinion "real men" are smart men, who
DO back up important files on a weekly or monthly basis, - time frame depending on
how much they use their computers and how important to them their work is.

So take my advice and learn how to Backup!

The Backup accessory in the Windows Accessories menu makes it easy to backup all
your important files. If you click through the backup wizard presented to you when you
click Backup from the System Tools menu you will find several choices for backing up
your files. If you took my advice on how to manage your files and saved all your files in
the Documents folder or on the D: drive (if you have one), backing up your personal files
is easy.

The Backup wizard gives you the oportunity to create a "System recovery Disk", too.
This is a handy tool if you're not TOO sure how well rotected you are from virus and
other malware. The restore dsc will include all data on your computer and the iles
neccesary to restore windows in the case of a major failure.

Note! Backing up means making a copy of files and store it on another media, such as a
CD Rom disk, a Smart drive or another hard drive. Choose the one that suites you the
best. For the CD Rom backup option - of course - you will need a "Burner" to make a
copy.

An external hard drive attached to your USB port is a good choice for backup media.

The next of the important accessories is:

• The Disk Defragmenter

When you click the Disk Defragmenter from the Windows accessories > System Tools
menu
you will see this window.

The Disk Fragmenter sorts out the files on your drive(s) to optimize the space you are
using. Defragmenting you drive(s) perodically is a good tool for optimizing your
computers performance.

If you click the Analyze button first, the defragmenter will analyze the specific drive
selected in the window and tell you, whether or not it is time to go through the
defragmentation process.

Commonly used computer terms

Computer terms
 An Operating System (OS) is a software program that
enables the computer hardware to communicate and
operate with the computer software. Your computer
would be useless if it didn't have an operating system.
Different OS's:
Operating Windows '98 (is almost obsolete, but some people still
System (OS) like them)
Windows ME
Windows 2000
Windows XP Home
Windows XP professional
Windows XP Media Editon

Basic Input/Output System

The BIOS controls how your hardware and your
operating system communicate. Maybe you noticed
that your BIOS screen has different commands like "Hit
Bios
DEL to run Setup". WARNING! If you don't know
much about computers DON'T make any changes to
your BIOS settings. Leave that to the technicians.
Believe me - I DO!

Central Processing Unit

Processor / The processor is the brain of the computer. Unlike the
CPU human brain, it doesn't "think, feel and reason" like we
do, but it processes data.

Your storage device.

The bigger your HD is the more room you have for
storing data. The size normally vary from a few GIG to
hundreds of GIG. Look at the HD as a huge box or a
Hard drive basement you can store data in.
(HD) In order to find specific files again, it's neccesary to
divide your box/basement into sections - your drives,
folders and sub folders. You can find more details on
how you organize your files and folder by clicking the
navigation tab "Organizing Files"

The motherboad is the main circuit of your computer.

This is where all your hardware - your CPU, your
Motherboard hard drive(s), RAM and all other hardware, is
plugged into. The motherboard allows all your
hardware to function together.

RAM Ramdom Access Memory

All the visible and touchable parts of your computer -

Hardware monitor, keyboard, cards, printer, scanner, cables
etc, drives etc.

Software Programs (applications) that you can Install on your

computer
Describtion from the Dictionary: The programs,
 routines, and symbolic languages that control the
functioning of the hardware and direct its operation.
Youcan divide the software into two catagories:
Software related to your operating system and
utility software.

A device that connects the computer to a phone line. A

modem allows a computer to talk to other computers
Modem through the phone system. You coukd say that
modems do for computers what a telephone does for
humans.

ISDN Or Integrated Services Digital Network

(A)DSL Or Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line

Network Interface card - also called a Network Adapter

NIC is the piece of hardware you need to be able to connect
to a network or another computer

A network is a number of computers linked together. A

network allows these computer to share data and
Network
hardware such as printers, internet connections and
programs

The plug-in card in a computer that creates the

Graphics electronic signals required by the monitor. It
card / determines the maximum resolution, refresh rate and
Video card number of colors that can be displayed, which the
monitor must also be able to support.

Also called a "sound board" or "audio adapter," it is a

plug-in card that records and plays back sound.
Supporting both digital audio and MIDI, sound cards
provide an input port for a microphone or other sound
Sound Card
source and output ports to speakers and amplifiers.
Sound circuits are typically built into the chipset on the
motherboard, but can be disabled if a separate sound
card is installed.

A driver is the software needed to run a hardware

device, such as a printer, sound card, monitor, or
scanner.
Driver New computers usually come with all the drivers
already installed. But if you buy a new printer later
or upgrade you video card, you will have to install
the driver for it from the manufacturer.

Bytes – The primary specifications of hardware are rated in

kilobytes, bytes; for example, an 80-gigabyte (80GB) disk holds
megabytes, 80 billion characters of software and data. A 256-
gigabytes megabyte (256MB) memory allows 256 million
characters of instructions and data to be held internally
 for processing.

(Universal Serial Bus) A widely used hardware

interface for attaching devices to the computer. USB
ports began to appear on PCs in 1997, and Windows 98
was the first Windows to support it natively. Within a
USB
few years, USB became popular for connecting almost
every external peripheral device. Replacing the serial
and parallel ports on a PC. Usually todays computer
comes with at least four USB ports.

A pathway into and out of the computer or a network

device such as a hub, switch or router. There are
numerous ports on the back of every desktop computer
for hooking up the keyboard, mouse, modem, printer
Port and network. Laptops have many ports as well,
because external monitors, keyboards and mice are
generally supported. On network devices, the ports are
for communications, typically connecting Ethernet
cables or telephone lines.

Small handy storage devices used for transferring files

Smart drives
from one computer to another. The sizes (or storage
/
capability) varies from 64 MB to a GIG. You attach
Flash drives
them to your computer through a USB port.

Computer help - commonly used Windows Terms

Windows Terms
The screen background of a graphical user interface
(GUI).The covering of a computer desktop is called
Desktop "wallpaper," which makes no sense at all until you realize
that the screen is vertical like a wall, rather than
horizontal like a real desktop.

A pattern or picture used to represent the desktop

surface.
Wallpaper
Learn how to customize your desktop Look & Feel here

Screen A utility that prevents a screen from being damaged by

saver an unchanging image.
After a specified period of time without keyboard or
mouse input, it blanks the screen or displays moving
objects.

It would actually take many hours to burn in an image on

today's color monitors, but a lot of people find screen
savers nice to look at and it "covers" up your work, if you
have to leave the computer for a while.
 Pressing a key or moving the mouse restores the screen.

Learn how to customize your desktop Look & Feel here

To transfer a file TO your computer FROM somewhere

Download
else, such as the Internet

To transfer a file FROM your computer TO another

Upload
computer

Software used to infect a computer. After the virus code

is written, it is buried within an existing program. Once
that program is executed, the virus code is activated and
attaches copies of itself to other programs in the system.
Infected programs copy the virus to other programs.

The effect of the virus may be a simple prank that pops

Virus
up a message on screen out of the blue, or it may
destroy programs and data right away or on a certain
date. It can lay dormant and do its damage once a year.
For example, the Michelangelo virus contaminates the
machine on Michelangelo's birthday.

Learn how to protect yourself from Virus here

(ADvertisementWARE) Software that periodically pops

up advertisements on a user's computer. It displays ads
targeted to the individual user based on key words
Adware entered in search engines and the types of Web sites the
user visits. The marketing data is collected periodically
and sent in the background to the adware Web server.
Adware is known as "contextual marketing."

Software "secretly" being installed on some ones

computer to monitor the use of the computer in some
way without the users knowledge. Most spyware tries to
get the user to view advertising and/or particular web
pages.
Spyware Some spyware also sends information about the user to
another computer over the Internet.

Spyware is often downloaded along with a software or file

download, such as music files or images

E(lectronical) mail is a transmission of a text message

and optional file attachments over a network.
E mail To manage e-mails you willl need an e-mail program such
as Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express or a similar
program.

Web The program that serves as your front end to the Web on
Browser the Internet. In order to view a site, you type its address
(URL) into the browser's Location field; for example,
 www.basic-computerskills.com, and the home page of
that site is downloaded to you. The home page is an
index to other pages on that site that you can jump to by
clicking an underlined hyperlink or an icon. Links on
that site may take you to other related sites.

A predefined linkage between one object and another. On

hyperlink Web pages, a hyperlink can be either text (hypertext) or
a graphic element (hypergraphic).

In a graphical user interface (GUI), a small, pictorial, on-

icon screen representation of an object, such as a document,
program, folder or disk drive.

Browsers have a Bookmark or Favorites feature that lets

you store references to your favorite sites. Instead of
Bookmarks
having to type in the URL to visit the site again, you
select the bookmark.

Basically, you can say that a cookie is a small piece of

information sent to your browser program from a web
server. The cookie allows your browser to recognize a
Cookie
website, but it might also contain certain other
information, such as login or registration information,
online "shopping cart" information, user preferences