As someone interested in computers, you
probably know many computer basics such as how to turn on a computer, a monitor, and a printer, and how to use a mouse. Click on the underlined text if you are presently connected to the Internet and want to review how to turn a computer on and off or how to use a mouse.
You also have some familiarity with the following, which you are encouraged to review at this time by simply scrolling down the page:
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An operating system manages the hardware of a computer such as the central processing unit (CPU), memory, disk storage, and input/output devices. Application programs (word processors, browsers, etc.) use the operating system to interact with this hardware. There are a variety of operating systems, some of which are more capable, crash proof, or user friendly than others. Windows 98, Windows XP, and Linux are examples of operating systems that have gained recognition among PC users. It is always important to make sure that, whenever you purchase application software, it is compatible with the operating system and hardware setup of your particular computer.
If your computer is using Windows 98 as its operating system, when you turn it on, the view you first get of the Windows looks something like this:
This main page is known as the Desktop. The icons on the aqua-colored background represent various applications and tasks. (Since it is possible to add or delete icons depending on your preferences, you may have more or less icons than shown in this example.) At the very bottom of the screen is a gray bar known as the Task Bar which shows what programs are active and gives easy access to these programs and others such as your browser and email. At the left side of the Task Bar is the Start button. If you press it you will see a menu like this:
Click on the Shut Down icon at the bottom and you will see:
If you click on the left side of Shut down so that a dot shows in the blank circle and then click on OK you will shut down your machine. It is important to shut down your computer properly, otherwise you may lose data and be delayed reaching the Desktop when you restart the machine. Experienced users, after they have saved what they are working on, also often press the Restart button to improve computer performance when a machine seems to slow down greatly or act up in some other strange manner.
The menu you reach when you press the Start button at the bottom of the Task Bar leads other places as well. If you highlight Programs, you will see a list of programs or program folders to your right. (Program folders have submenus to their right containing the actual program buttons.) Clicking on the button for a particular program will launch the program.
The Settings button in this menu is particularly important.
It gives you access to such features as the Control Panel and Printers. The Control Panel has icons for system information, modem and monitor settings, etc. By pressing on the Printers button, you can gain access to the printer your computer uses. You can change to a different printer or stop the printer if there is a paper jam or the printer is spewing out garbage.
Let us look at a screen shot of an actual program. The screen shown below is a draft of the page you are using done in Microsoft's Word program.
The very top bar shown in dark blue is the Title Bar. It provides the name of the file and of the program you are using. On the far left of this bar is the Control Box
which allows you to maximize, minimize, or close the program you are working with. You will have more occasions to use the three
buttons on the far right of the Title Bar. The first of these is the Minimize button. Press it to remove the program from view. It can be brought back to view by clicking on its icon on the Task Bar at the bottom of the screen. Clicking on the third button with an x allows you to close the program. The middle button, shown above with the two boxes, is the Restore button, allowing you to restore to its previous size the screen of a program whose screen has been maximized. If the middle button displayed just one box
, you could press it to maximize the screen view of the program.
The Menu Bar, which is just below the Title Bar, looks like this:
It provides the menu for the particular program, in this case, Word 2000. Many Windows programs have similar menu bars. The File and Edit choices on the menu are common to most programs. Click on File and you may see:
You can create a new file, open an existing file, close a particular file, print the file or document, and even exit the entire program. Of particular importance are the Save and Save As... choices. Save allows you to save the current file with the same name and format. Save As ... lets you change the documents name and type (for instance switching from a Word .doc to a plain .txt file). Click on the Edit choice in the Menu Bar and you may see:
With the Word edit menu shown above you can undo an action, cut, copy, or paste (when the term is not grayed out) a portion of the document highlighted on the screen, and find or replace a word or phrase.
Below the Menu Bar is a Tool Bar(s).
Here you have icons to easily create a new file, open an existing file, save a file, print the file or document, etc. without having to drill down into the submenus of the Menu Bar. Each program can have several different tool bars.
In the Word program there is a work area that displays the actual document you are creating. Below and to the right of the work area are Scroll Bars. The horizontal bar lets you scroll through the document from left to right and vice-versa. the vertical bar lets you go up and down the document. Most programs have Scroll Bars.
At the bottom of the screen is the Status Bar, which is often just above the Task Bar:
The Status Bar provides information about a particular program. The bar above tells the current page and section of the document, as well as the total pages, inches from the top of the page, and the line and column the cursor is at.
There are many tutorials available on the Internet for Microsoft's Word, Excel (a spreadsheet), and other applications. Click on the underlined words for a quick look at some of these applications. More detailed tutorials are also available.
Managing Files
You can find file managers at Tucows or at other shareware sites on the Internet. One favorite is Magellan Explorer. Here, though, we will look at Windows Explorer, a file manager available in several versions of Windows. If you hold down the key with a Windows icon on the bottom row of the keyboard and press the [E] key at the same time, the Explorer program will pop up.
There are several
other ways to launch this program. You can find it under Programs after
(left) clicking on the Start button or you can right click on the Start
button and click on Explore. Another view of the program can be found by
clicking on My Computer at the Desktop and then clicking on a particular
drive.
When we looked at the Word edit menu above, mention was made of copying, cutting, or pasting portions of a document. You can do something very similar with files using the Explorer program. Highlight a file, then click on Edit in the Menu Bar. You will see:
To copy a file hit Copy, then use the left window to go to the drive and/or folder into which you want to place a copy of the file. Click on it. Then use Paste in the same edit menu to place the copied file into the new drive/folder. To move the file (removing it from the old location), click on Cut rather than Copy. This process can be speeded up in a number of ways. One is to use the keyboards shortcuts (Ctrl+X,Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V) shown on the menu rather than clicking on Edit in the Menu Bar each time you want to copy or move a file. Another timesaver is to select a group of files to process at the same time. With the cursor in the right window, it is possible to select all the folders and files in that window by striking the [Ctrl] and [A] keys at the same time. (Note that these same keyboard shortcuts will work in other programs as well, for example to edit documents in MS Word.) If you just want a group of files, hold down the [Shift] key, then click on the first file and then the last file you want. If you want to select files that are not in order, hold down the [Ctrl] key rather than the [Shift] key and then click on each file you want to select. There are other ways of moving files in Explorer, such as dragging a file highlighted in the right window to a different folder in the left window, which you may want to experiment with on your own.
There are some other things you can do with Windows Explorer. You can highlight a folder or file and press the [Delete] key to get rid of it. Deleted files on hard drives go into a Recycle Bin from which they can usually be recovered. Be careful when deleting any files that you may need later, especially files on removable disks which do not go into the Recycle Bin. Another way of deleting the contents of a drive is to format the drive. You will not want to format your C: drive. But you may have a floppy disk that you want to recycle. In this case, put it in A: drive, right click on the icon for that drive in Explorer (or in My Computer), press Format.
You can also use the same procedure to format an unformatted disk. In this last case you will do a full, rather than a quick format.
You may also be able to find a file or folder you have stored on a disk by clicking on Tools in the Menu Bar and then on Find. The contents of file folders can be sorted in a variety of ways. Click on View in the Menu Bar and then on Arrange Icons to change the sort order. You can often view a document or some other data file by double clicking on it. Double clicking an executable file (for example, a file ending in "com" or "exe" after a dot), will launch the application.
Saving Files
We mentioned above the Save and
Save as… choices found in the File menu of Word
and explained that Save as… allows you to change the name and type or
format of the file you are working on. Many Windows applications have
similar options. But where should the data files you create be saved? One
recommended idea is to save them all in the same folder so that you can find
them more easily. Windows 98 comes with a "My Documents" folder
for this very purpose. You should save you work often lest a power
outage or some other unforeseen event causes you to lose the file you have
spent the last 20 minutes working on.
It is very important to realize that IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO SAVE YOUR FILES TO "My Documents" OR SOME OTHER FOLDER ON YOUR HARD DRIVE (usually the C: drive). Hard drives fail, valuable files accidentally get deleted or written over, laptops get stolen, etc., etc. You must have crucial files saved on some type of backup media in addition to your primary hard drive. You can save these files on floppy disks, on tape, on CDs, on Zip disks, or even on a second hard drive. You might want to consider a Zip disk or a second hard drive because of their capacity and ease-of-use. If your computer does not have a Zip drive built in, they are relatively easy to attach through the parallel printer port or the USB port of your computer. You can purchase a 250 megabyte (MB) drive from Iomega Corporation or your local computer/electronics store. Many more of your important files will fit on the removable disk that fits into a 250 MB or even a 100 MB Zip drive than on the 1.4 MB floppy disk that fits into most A: drives. The nice thing about removable media is that it becomes easy to keep one copy of your files off-site, protected from fire or theft, and still have another disk to insert into your drive for strongly recommended daily backups. Iomega now has 10 or 20 gigabyte (GB) Peerless drives that use removable media with which you may be able to backup the contents of an entire hard drive, though you should be aware that a number of external hard drives are available from other manufacturers that will serve a similar purpose. There are several programs that make it easy to backup or synchronize files so that exact duplicates are kept on different disks. For descriptions and ratings of such programs look at shareware software sites such as Tucows. Windows 98 also has a decent backup program which can be accessed by double clicking on My Computer on the Desktop and then right clicking on the particular drive you want to back up. It can put all the files you want to backup into a single job file which you can compress to save disk or tape space. (However, restoring such files can be a challenge for both new and experienced users. You may find it easier to just keep duplicate files on another disk as recommended.)
A computer virus is a piece of
code that attaches to some program or file with the goal of replicating
itself, usually without the knowledge of the computer user. Some viruses
replicate themselves enough to clog up your entire system bringing you
computer to a halt. Other viruses are more
malicious, actually erasing or altering files. Such viruses can spread
from a single computer to a whole network of PCs. Some viruses, called
worms, are self-propagating. A worm might search for the address book of
your email program and send infected files to everyone in your address
book. Still other programs, known as Trojan Horses, disguise their true
intent (perhaps appearing as harmless games) and can give unauthorized
persons access to the files on your computer or, maybe capture your user
id and password to gain access to your online accounts.
Not everyone will agree with the
descriptions given here and it is not necessary that you have deep technical
knowledge about viruses. What is important is that you take the best
possible measures to prevent your computer and the computers of others you
might communicate with from becoming infected. This means using an
anti-virus program to thwart attempts at infecting your system. The program
you install should have on-access scanning, that is, when you open a file or
program, it should check for viruses. It should be effective and be updated
frequently. It is strongly recommended that you purchase a program that will
update its virus definitions by itself, periodically, when you go online.
You should also scan your entire system when you first install anti-virus
software and periodically to minimize the chances of infection. It is a good
idea not to open unsolicited email. Be especially wary of attachments ending
in a dot followed by the extensions: vbs,
exe, scr, shs, chm, or bat. (This list of extensions is taken from Guidelines
for safer computing.) The two best-known anti-virus programs are Norton
AnitiVirus and McAfee
VirusScan. But there are others worth considering, such as Panda
Antivirus and PC-cillin.
If
your connection to the Internet is always on, as is often true if you access
the Web through a cable or DSL (digital subscriber line) modem, then you
should be putting up a firewall for additional security. A firewall limits
the access other computers on the Internet have to your computer, making you
less vulnerable to attacks by hackers. Software firewalls are available from
McAfee and Norton, and there is a firewall, free for private users, known as
ZoneAlarm. Don't
let fear prevent you from using the rich resources of the Internet, but do
take reasonable precautions.
© Copyright 2001, Thomas J. Kehoe. All Rights Reserved. Your comments and suggestions are most welcome. Please email tjkehoe@att.net.
