Pull the Plug!!

One problem with technology is that sometimes we let it overshadow our problem solving skills. In particular, errors on our computer such as “lock ups”, illegal operations, erratic behavior, slow downs, and other computer anomalies can be corrected by simply restarting our computers. The most common way to restart our computer involves clicking on Start–>Shut Down–> Restart. However, sometimes the...

Flash Memory Drives

A flash memory drive (a.k.a. thumb drive or USB drive) consists of a chip of memory (flash) mounted in a plastic case with a USB interface on one end (see the illustration for some examples). With Windows Me, 2000, XP and Macintosh computers, flash memory drives automatically get recognized as another storage drive on your computer. No installation CD’s, no formatting, just fast, safe removable storage. In addition to...

CDR vs. CDRW

This week’s newsletter sparked a tremendous amount of email already about the use of CDR/W drives and their use. Specifically, newsletter readers were interested in knowing the difference between CDR and CDRW. In a nutshell, CDRW allows you to use a CD like a floppy disk and copy, delete and recopy files. CDRW’s do NOT work for music CD’s, and are not easily shared with other computer users. CDRW media also...

Properly Uninstall programs

Deleting files on your computer can become a harrowing experience if you accidentally delete a file vital to your computers health. This week I will outline two ways to delete programs from your computer and a safe method of deleting individual files. Removing Unwanted Programs Method One 1. Click on Start 2. Click on Programs 3. Find the application?s folder in the list 4. Inside the applications folder, look for...

Customize Office Toolbars

Starting with Microsoft Office 2000 and the XP version afterward, software engineers in Redmond decided that showing an entire menu in Word, Excel or any of the Office programs would confuse software users. Instead of showing the entire menu when clicking on File, Edit, Format, etc, from the menus, we are presented with an abbreviated menu showing only two or three options. In order to view the entire menu, we can either wait...

CTRL+ALT+DEL in Windows XP

With all previous versions of Windows, save Windows 2000, pushing Ctrl+Alt+Del on a keyboard would bring up the Close Program dialog box.   In Windows XP, pushing this combination of keys brings up the multi-tabbed Windows Task Manager. A much more ominous looking version of the former Close Program box. The only tab where you will want to occasionally end a program is the "Applications" tab. The programs...

Control Your Recycle Bin

Just to get all of us on the same page, remember that when you delete a file from your computer (like a photo or Word document for example), the file does not leave the computer, it gets moved to the Recycle Bin. If you want to free up the space used by the file, you must delete it from the recycle bin. However, did you know that you can control how much space can be used by the recycle bin, stop the “are you...

Add a new entry to the Send To menu

With the proliferation of the CDR-RW drives, wouldn’t it be nice to have an entry for your CDR (or other disk drive like a ZIP) on your Send To menu? The Send To menu is the handy little menu item that is accessible from a RIGHT click on any file or folder. The most common use is to quickly copy a file to a floppy disk. Follow these steps to add your own entry: Double-click on My Computer...