How To Archives - Page 7 of 9

Internet Explorer Tip – Setting Your Home Page

The first web page that is displayed when you open Internet Explorer can be easily changed to a web page of your choice. This page is commonly referred to as the Home Page and can also be set to not display any default page, leaving the Home Page blank. Here are the steps for setting your home page in Internet Explorer:

1. Open Internet Explorer and go to the web page that you want to use for your Home Page.

2. Click on the drop down arrow next to the Tools button (it looks like a gear) in the Internet Explorer Command bar on the right side of the screen (shown below).

3. After clicking on the Tools button go to the bottom of the list that appears and click on “Internet Options.”

An Internet Options dialog box will now appear (see below). Directly below the row of tabs in the dialog box will be an area labeled “Home Page” and the address for your current home page will show in that box.

Internet Options dialog box for Internet Explorer

4. Click on the button labeled “Use Current” and the web address (URL) for your new home page will now appear in the box.

5. Go to the bottom of the Internet Options dialog box and click on Apply and then on OK.

Windows XP & Vista Tip – Add/Remove Start Menu Items

By MikeM

Pin Programs to the Windows XP & Vista Start Menu

The Start menu for both Windows XP & Vista can be customized for the specific programs you use most frequently. One of the main benefits of having programs on the main Start menu is that it requires only two clicks to launch. While most programs will be located somewhere within the different levels of the Start menu, pinning it directly to the main menu simplifies locating the program.

The left side of the Start menu is divided into two sections. The top section consists of menu items that remain in place or “pinned” to the Start menu. The bottom section consists of shortcuts to other programs you have recently used. These change over time as you launch different programs. All pinned programs appear on the left side of the Start Menu near the top of the list. If you currently search your Desktop for icons/shortcuts to launch programs, pinning programs to the Start menu can simply the launching process for you.

To pin a program to the Start Menu:

Click on the Start button in the lower left corner of the screen and the Start menu will appear.
Then click the All Programs item near the bottom of the Start Menu and a list of programs and submenus will appear.
Locate the program you want to pin to the Start Menu, opening any sub-menus as necessary.
Place your mouse cursor over the program and right-click the program icon. A list of options will now appear.
Click on the “Pin to Start Menu” selection.

The program you selected will now appear near the top of the Start menu along with the other Start menu items. You can move the programs around on the list and change their order by putting your cursor on the program, left-clicking and holding down the left-click button. With the left-click button depressed you can then drag the item to a new location on the list.

Remove Programs from the Windows XP & Vista Start Menu

Programs can also be easily removed from the Start menu. If you find that you have added too many programs to the Start menu or perhaps just want to tidy up the list and remove some of the programs that are no longer use very often, you can do this in a few quick steps.

To remove a program from the Start menu:

Click on the Start button in the lower left corner of the screen
Then locate the program you want to remove from the Menu and put your mouse cursor over the program
Right-click the program icon. The list of options will now appear
Click on “Remove from This List” selection.

The program you selected will no longer appear on the Start Menu.

Other alternatives for quickly accessing the programs you use most often include placing program icons in the Quick Launch toolbar located in the Task Bar at the bottom of the Windows Desktop and placing a shortcut icon for a program on the Windows Desktop.

Tech Tips From David Pogue, New York Times – Part III

By MikeM

This is the third of three parts from a recent lengthy blog post by David Pogue in the New York Times entitled “Tech Tips for The Basic Computer User.” We posted the first two parts previously on our blog – here for Part I and here for Part II.

More Tech Tips

* You can switch from one open program to the next by pressing Alt+Tab (Windows) or Command-Tab (Mac).

* You generally can’t send someone more than a couple of full-size digital photos as an e-mail attachment; those files are too big, and they’ll bounce back to you. (Instead, use iPhoto or Picasa–photo-organizing programs that can automatically scale down photos in the process of e-mailing them.)

* Whatever technology you buy today will be obsolete soon, but you can avoid heartache by learning the cycles. New iPods come out every September. New digital cameras come out in February and October.

* Just putting something into the Trash or the Recycle Bin doesn’t actually delete it. You then have to *empty* the Trash or Recycle Bin. (Once a year, I hear about somebody whose hard drive is full, despite having practically no files. It’s because over the years, they’ve put 79 gigabytes’ worth of stuff in the Recycle Bin and never emptied it.)

* You don’t have to type “http://www” into your Web browser. Just type the remainder: “nytimes.com” or “dilbert.com,” for example. (In the Safari browser, you can even leave off the “.com” part.)

* On the iPhone, hit the Space bar twice at the end of a sentence. You get a period, a space, and a capitalized letter at the beginning of the next word.

* Come up with an automated backup system for your computer. There’s no misery quite like the sick feeling of having lost chunks of your life because you didn’t have a safety copy.

To read the actual New York Times post and the over 1,400 comments that it received click here – NY Times Pogue Post.

For some helpful tips with using Google Search see our previous post: “7 Google Tips to Increase Your Searching Productivity.”

Have any tips of your own that you would like to share? Leave your tips or feedback in the Comments section.

7 Google Tips to Increase Your Searching Productivity

By Mike McEvoy

It is rather amazing to see all the functionality and uses that have evolved from the plain little Search Box that Google released to the Internet ten years ago. In the ensuing time Google had added a vast array of features, services and products for both individuals and businesses. While virtually everyone who uses the web is familiar with the Google search box, not everyone realizes all the not-so-hidden capabilities Google provides.

Here are 7 Google Tips for getting more out of your Google searching. Do you have a useful Google tip of your own to add to the list? Share your own tips by submitting a Comment. Also check out our post on Google Search Preferences. Below are our first 7 Google tips – plus one.

1. Capitalization is Not Important

Google searches are not case sensitive. All the letters you enter, regardless of how you enter them, are seen by Google as lower case. For example, searches for “New York” and “new york” will return the same results.

2. Set Personal Search Preferences

Want to display more than 10 search results per page? How about 30 or even 100? To the right of the Google search box is the word “Preferences.” Click on Preferences and scroll part way down the page to Number of Results. Click on the drop down arrow and select the number of results you want to be displayed on each results page.

There are a few other parameters you can also modify such as Language, SafeSearch Filtering and Results Window. Be sure to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and click on the Save Preferences button when you are done so that Google will remember your preferences.

3. Check the Weather Anywhere

Use the Google search box to easily find the weather conditions and a four-day forecast for any U.S. location. Simply type “weather” (no quotes) and a city or zip code. For example type: “weather 94925” or “weather little falls ny” and click Search.

4. Find Flight Status

Want to check the status of a U.S. flight? Type the name of the airline followed by the flight number into the search box. For example, to view the status for Southwest Airlines flight #122 type in “Southwest 122” and click Search.

5. Area Code Map

Need to find the geographic area where a specific US telephone area code is used? Just enter the three digit area code in Google’s search box and click Search.

6. Find the Time Anywhere

Need to find out what time it is in another city anywhere in the world? Simply type the word “time” (no quotes) followed by the name of the city or country and click Search. Google will show the time, day, and time zone for that location.

7. Convert Temperatures

Would you like to convert Centigrade to Fahrenheit or vice-versa? Type the number for the temperature, the letter “c” or “f” of the starting temperature scale, the word “to” and the ending temperature scale. “[temperature] [c or f] to [f or c]” Example conversion: “35 c to f”

View The Sky

OK, This really isn’t one of your average, every day search functions and we already have seven tips listed — but this is very cool. You can browse the universe by typing in sky.google.com or google.com/sky in the search box or in your browser address field. Similar in many respects to Google Earth, this Google application will allow you to scan the heavens with images from the Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X-Ray Telescope, Spitzer Infrared Telescope and a range of other sources. Enjoy.

For additional useful Google search tips see the posts for Google Search Preferences, plus David Pogue’s Tech Tips Part I and Part II plus Bing Search Preferences.

Vista’s UAC | How To Disable Vista’s User Account Control

By MikeM

One of the more visible differences between Windows XP and Vista is the addition of the User Account Control (UAC) feature in Vista. UAC is a response by Microsoft to the attacks from viruses, spyware and adware that users continue to experience. You can encounter Vista’s UAC pop up screen in a number of different scenarios including when you try to run an installation program, try to view device manager or when you try to accomplish anything else that Vista interprets as an ‘administrator’ level event that could effect other users on the system. Here is how to disable Vista’s user account control if you want.

Some Positives for Vista’s UAC

The positive effect of the UAC is to theoretically make your computer more secure and prevent anything bad occurring on your system without your permission. Nasty items such as viruses and spyware attempting to be installed without your knowledge should now run into the UAC barricade. The UAC pop up can also warn unknowing or novice users about making changes to system settings without realizing it.

The Dark Side of Vista’s User Account Control

The flip side is that the UAC pop ups can be annoying, can break your workflow, are ignore by many people, and the feature can be easily defeated. UAC can be disabled, but this should not be done without some consideration as it does remove a layer of protection against viruses and malware.

Turning Off User Account Control

The easiest way to turn off the UAC feature is through the User Accounts window in the Control Panel. To accomplish this:

Click on Start then Control Panel then select User Account.
In the “Make Changes to your user account” section of the page click on the Turn User Account Control on/off link.
Select ‘continue‘ when the UAC box appears.
Then uncheck the box next to the ‘Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer’ option.

Click ‘ok’. You will need to restart your computer for the changes to take effect. This change disables UAC only for the current user.

For users of Ultimate or Business editions of Vista the process is a bit more involved and will be covered in a later Tech Tip.