Computer CANny! Tip 11 – The Control and Alt keys ===================================== The Control and Alt(ernate) keys make your keyboard much more versatile, and if you can reduce the number of times you move your right hand to the mouse, and then back to the keyboard, you'll find you save a lot of time. The Control key is usually labelled Ctrl. You use the Control key in the same way that you use the Shift key - keeping it pressed down while pressing another character. The result is called a 'control key combination'. For instance in most programs Ctrl+p takes you to the print dialogue box, and you can select the options for the printing job you want to do (how many copies, quality etc). The slow way of accessing the printer is to take your hand off the keyboard and put it on the mouse, click on FILE, click on PRINT... If you don't want to change the options in the Print Dialogue Box you can tap Ctrl+p, then the ENTER key, and the file will start printing. What a timesaver! If you click on FILE now, you will see that the shortcut for printing is shown against the Print option. There are other shortcuts there too, which you can learn at your leisure. Similarly the ALT key makes your keyboard even more versatile. If you tap the ALT key you will notice that on the standard Toolbar a letter in each Sub Menu is underlined (F in File, E in Edit, and V in View etc). If you hold down ALT and tap V the drop-down View Menu is displayed. Once again, you can learn shortcuts and can reduce your reliance on the mouse. When you are doing a lot of repetition you can teach yourself a shortcut pattern; for instance in Word I had to convert a series of tables to text, and wrote down a series of moves to save a lot of time (highlight the table, then ALT + A, V, B - then move to the next table). The job was finished in a matter of seconds. On Apple Macintoshes the Control key is called the Apple Key or Command Key, and the Alt key is called the Option key. Computer CANny! Tip 12 – Keeping up with the news ================================================= We've all got special interests, and it's nice to hear the latest news on the subject. Last year when NZ was lined up in the Academy Awards, I wanted to be one of the first to know the outcome(s), and I enlisted with Google (my favourite search engine) to send me daily updates. Name your interest - and Google will do the rest. And you can specify EXACTLY how many "interests" you want Google to keep you informed about. For instance, one of my areas of interest is about the Monarch Butterfly. I went to http://www.google.co.nz and then clicked on News. Some of these events have just happened. Halfway down the page, on the left, click on News Alerts and then complete your details, based on your choice of query, topic, and frequency. Just as you request, you will get an email about your topic in the news daily or weekly, or as it happens. You receive the sentence or a few lines with your topic in them, and a link to the full article. I have received some enchanting stories about Monarch Butterflies as it appears in the newspapers all around the world - much quicker than searching myself. Hope this proves useful for you too! Computer CANny! Tip 13 – Signature files ======================================== A signature file can appear at every one of your emails, and reinforce details like telephone number – making it easier for people to respond if they want to phone you, or a special slogan you want people to remember. Signature (or sig) files are easy to create in Outlook Express. Here’s how to do it: Open your email program. Select Tools, Options, Signatures. Click on New. Put a tick in the top box if you want to have your signature showing on all messages. It will also let you add your signatures to messages that you reply or forward. The simplest of signature files are text only – and these will show up adequately whether your recipient receives messages in text (simple) or html (short for hypertext mark up language, which is fancier, e.g. with colour, bold, italic etc). I suggest that you start out with a text file. So click in the box next to the word Text, and I suggest that you put in three or four ENTERS before you start your signature – so that you won’t have to put these on each email you send. It looks bad if your signature is crammed up right next to your message! Then type what you want your signature to be, something like. Joe Bloggs ‘The Homestead’ at Akarana Telephone 09 123 4567 or 0274 654 321 Now click on APPLY and then OK – and send a test message to see how it works! You can also have fancier sig files, which are fun. If you would like to have a go at creating a fancy one in html (like mine), please email me directly to BraeNZ@ihug.co.nz. I will send you instructions as an attachment. Computer CANny! Tip 14 – Learning new terms =========================================== Are you like me, find it easier to deal with acronyms if I understand what the acronym stands for? I used to wonder what a PDA was, until I found out it was short for ‘personal digital assistant’, those little handheld things that look like a calculator but are so much more. One day I found a website which explained so many things to me, and it proved invaluable as I learned more and more about computers. Seems like the more I learned, the more I wanted to know! The website is webopedia.com, and you can type in a term and hit the ENTER key and it will tell you all about it. What I really like is that if it introduces you to another unknown term/word, you can click on the hyperlink and it will take you through an explanation for that term as well. Try it! You’ll like it. Add it to your Favourites so you can look up anything unknown. Computer CANny! Tip 15 – Sorting folders ======================================== My previous bosses will tell you I always used to procrastinate when it came to ‘doing’ the filing. But not with computers – it’s so quick and easy. Just as you can in your ‘filing cabinet’ you can create a multitude of folders and put files relating to the same issue in to the same folder. Within the ‘My Documents’ folder I have other folders for various clients, and I have folders for personal matters. I create a new folder for every issue of the paper I put together. You can tailor your filing system to suit your own lifestyle – it certainly makes it easier to find files. The same system can be used within Outlook and Outlook Express. I don’t delete messages that I have answered, or with important information in, I like to create a paper trail so I can see how we came to a particular decision. Instead each month I create a new folder labeled 0401 and 0402 (for January and February this year) and so on, and drag all of the emails from My Inbox to their respective month. Similarly that’s where I put my Sent emails, into their respective month. You can also create a separate folder for things like “Bookings to be confirmed” or “Quotes under action”. In Outlook (and OE) you can flag files by clicking in the column with the flag at the top of it. Now you will see quite quickly which emails need attention. You can sort the emails into any order too, by clicking on the heading (From, Subject etc). So if I click on ‘From’ it will sort all the messages from one particular email address together. If I click on Subject it will arrange them in order of subject, alphabetically. Click it again, and it reverses the order. The same tools work in Windows Explorer too, and make it a breeze as you learn the tool, then apply it to look for tools. Would be interested to hear if you use these shortcuts and if not, when you do, if you find them useful. Computer CANny! Tip 16 – Understanding new computer terms ========================================================= Are you like me, find it easier to deal with acronyms if I understand what the acronym stands for? I used to wonder what a PDA was, until I found out it was short for ‘personal digital assistant’, those little handheld things that look like a calculator but are so much more. One day I found a website which explained so many things to me, and it proved invaluable as I learned more and more about computers. Seems like the more I learned, the more I wanted to know! The website is webopedia.com, and you can type in a term and hit the ENTER key and it will tell you all about it. What I really like is that if it introduces you to another unknown term/word, you can click on the hyperlink and it will take you through an explanation for that term as well. Try it! You’ll like it. Add it to your Favourites so you can look up anything unknown. Computer CANny! Tip 17 – The powers of e-marketing ================================================== Whatever we’re doing we’re all in the sales and marketing game. Yes, even if you’re retired or manufacturing or a student. Something will impact on your lifestyle, and you’ll want to lobby support... to market your cause. And that’s when email addresses come in very handy.   E-marketing is the way of the future. Since I started using the internet and email over ten years ago I’ve seen the benefits of being able to communicate with a large body of people simply and effectively. Prior to email we would write letters, putting creativity and a splash of fun into them to make people want to read them, and add a response vehicle so people would do exactly what you wanted them to do. One of my first campaigns was to send out 30,000 letters to sewing machine owners encouraging them to come and see the latest model. We had a great response. But today we would do something similar by emailing them. An art gallery proprietor encourages people to sign their Address Book. (Before they depart they make sure they can read their email address.) A few days later they drop them an email thanking them for their visit and/or purchase. And then bulk email these and other visitors twice prior to a showing, about a month before and then again 1-2 weeks before. Attendances and sales are up! A clothing shop does something similar, contacting clients as new ranges come in. A restaurant keeps patrons informed of changing hours, staff and menu items. When you’re on the receiving end it’s a good feeling knowing that these businesses remember you and like to see you back there. Of course, it’s good business practice too. So how to do it? The first thing is to start capturing email addresses – and you know how precise computers have to be, you must make sure that you get them right! The second thing is to keep them in a data base or somewhere where they are readily accessible. If you have a Visitors Book you might even like to keep their name and address in the same data base, which can be as simple as a table in your wordprocessing program. (Email me the name of your wordprocessing program and I’ll send you back a template to get you started... free!) Keep the list safe! What I do is I “seed” the list to ensure if anyone steals it – or uses it without your knowledge – someone at another address will also receive that email. Create an address under another nom de plume with yahoo, hotmail or another free provider – and add that address to your list. NEVER put these address in the TO or CC portion when you’re sending out an email. To do that is, well, a major crime. Check at least three times before you send out an email and never delegate this task to anyone else. ALWAYS put the emails in the BCC portion -- and if you missed the earlier tip about this, please email me. When writing your email, make sure you keep it simple AND keep it brief. Go over and over it and ask yourself, am I putting these words there for my own ego, or the needs of the person reading. Now put something short and appropriate in the SUBJECT LINE. And send! And watch the results. I live in a small community in the Far North of my country, and hold a list of well over 300 email addresses for notices of community interest. Last week I sent out an email about a needy family, like, this is a very needy family. The response already has been overwhelming and very gratifying, these needy folk might be having a comfortable Christmas after all. The power of e-marketing. Computer CANny! Tip 18 – Explore your screen! ============================================= I’ve been asked to cover some really basic stuff today – and it does help to know the right names for what is showing on your screen. The space to the right of the Start button is called the taskbar.   To the far right of the taskbar, and next to the clock, where you have a number of icons, is called the system tray. If you hold the mouse over the clock today’s date will show. Right click on the time and you can adjust the clock, or investigate other time-zones around the world. If you’re connected to the internet, you can make sure your computer clock is showing the right time. Double click or right click on an icon in the system tray to view and access details and controls. Going back to the taskbar, the area between the system tray and the Start button you will find ‘minimised’ Windows, that is documents/programs that are in use but not uppermost in your stack of Windows. (I liken the Windows multitasking function to the naughty child at church having the comic open inside a prayer book!) Minimise means to convert a window into an icon Windows allow you to execute several programs at once. By dividing your display into windows, you can see the output from all the programs at the same time. To enter data into a program, you simply click on the desired window to make it the foreground process. Windows can be arranged so that they do not overlap (tiled windows) or so they do overlap (overlaid windows). Overlaid windows (also called cascading windows) resemble a stack of pieces of paper lying on top of one another; only the topmost window is displayed in full. You can move a window to the top of the stack by positioning the pointer in the portion of the window that is visible and clicking the mouse buttons. This is known as popping. You can expand a window to fill the entire screen by selecting the window's zoom box. In addition to moving windows, changing their size, popping and zooming them, you can also replace an entire window with an icon (which I explained above, minimising it). By converting a window into an icon, you can free up space on the screen without erasing the window entirely. It is always possible to reconvert the icon into a window whenever you want. Computer CANny! Tip 19 – Fonts ================================================== You may find that you want to add or remove certain fonts that appear in the Font dialogue box of various programs. The programs you use, use the fonts that are installed on your operating system. How do you know what fonts you have? In Control Panel, double-click Fonts. This shows you the fonts that are stored on your computer. 1. On the File menu, click Install New Font. 2. Click the drive, and then select the folder that contains the fonts you want to add. 3. Click the font that you want to add and follow the prompts. To remove a font from your computer: 1. In Control Panel, double-click Fonts. 2. Click the icon for the font that you want to delete. 3. On the File menu, click Delete. If you want to copy a font to a disk or to send it to someone, it's a little more complicated. Font makers want you to buy their fonts, and only a certain number come with the compliments of Microsoft. However, there is a way. Have the Fonts folder open, with the Desktop in the background. Click and drag the font you want onto your Desktop (it is MOVED not COPIED). Now drag it back again, and you will find you have successfully COPIED it in to your Fonts folder. You can now click and drag the version on your Desktop into an email or a CD, floppy disk etc. Note   To select more than one font to add or remove, hold down the CTRL key, and then click each of the fonts that you want. Try going to this website and copying one of the fonts there onto your computer. I'd be interested in hearing how you get on! http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/freefonts.asp Computer CANny! Tip 20 – Developing a Website ============================================= How did you get on with your website tips a few tips ago? This is only half the battle, though. You still have to find somewhere/someone to HOST your site, and if you have your own domain name (like mine, http://bitbybit.co.nz) it can help create traffic. I suggest that you find someone in a similar business to yours, someone who's got what you'd like, and ask them! So if you do a search in google to find out where there are websites similar to what yours would be like, a good website hosting service will know how to get yours up to the top of the list in search engines. In case that's not clear, if I search in google.com on Jacqui+Zealand my website comes up top of the list of about 51,500. Now imagine that there are 51 thousand bits of advertising your potential client is looking at, the odds are one in 51,000 that you'll get some business out of it. Very remote. Obviously my son knows what he's doing! So what sort of service are you selling (as that's what someone who lives down the road from you would key in, no doubt) and also put your state or region or city. Have a look at the results - if you like what they've got, send them an email and ask them who did their site, who hosts their site. Or you can find that out by going to http://register.com, click on WHOIS, and follow the prompts to find out who owns that domain name and who is the technical contact for it - they'll know who designed/developed the website if that appeals to you. In fact, register.com might be a good place to start to talk about domain names, hosting etc. For NZ domain names, http://domainz.net.nz provides a similar service.