Windows XP Home Edition! I Didn't Know You Could Do That

Windows® XP Home Edition! I Didn't Know You Could Do That…™ Sandra Hardin Gookin SYBEX® Windows XP Home Edition! ® ...

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Windows® XP Home Edition! I Didn't Know You Could Do That…™

Sandra Hardin Gookin

SYBEX®

Windows XP Home Edition! ®

I Didn’t Know You Could Do That…™ Sandra Hardin Gookin

San Francisco • London

Associate Publisher: Joel Fugazzotto Acquisitions and Developmental Editor: Chris Denny Editor: Linda Orlando Production Editor: Molly Glover Technical Editor: Garry Weil Book Designers: Franz Baumhackl, Kate Kaminski Graphic Illustrator: Tony Jonick Electronic Publishing Specialist: Nila Nichols Proofreader: Laurie O’Connell Indexer: Lynnzee Elze CD Coordinator: Christine Detlefs CD Technician: Kevin Ly Cover Designer: Ziegler Design Cover Illustrator: Daniel Ziegler Copyright © 2002 SYBEX Inc., 1151 Marina Village Parkway, Alameda, CA 94501. World rights reserved. No part of this publication may be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or reproduced in any way, including but not limited to photocopy, photograph, magnetic, or other record, without the prior agreement and written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Card Number: 2001096666 ISBN: 0-7821-2983-8 SYBEX and the SYBEX logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of SYBEX Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. IDKYCDT and I Didn’t Know You Could Do That are trademarks of SYBEX Inc. Screen reproductions produced with FullShot 99. FullShot 99 © 1991-1999 Inbit Incorporated. All rights reserved. FullShot is a trademark of Inbit Incorporated. The CD interface was created using Macromedia Director, COPYRIGHT 1994, 1997-1999 Macromedia Inc. For more information on Macromedia and Macromedia Director, visit http://www.macromedia.com. Internet screen shot(s) using Microsoft Internet Explorer version 6 reprinted by permission from Microsoft Corporation. TRADEMARKS: SYBEX has attempted throughout this book to distinguish proprietary trademarks from descriptive terms by following the capitalization style used by the manufacturer. The author and publisher have made their best efforts to prepare this book, and the content is based upon final release software whenever possible. Portions of the manuscript may be based upon pre-release versions supplied by software manufacturer(s). The author and the publisher make no representation or warranties of any kind with regard to the completeness or accuracy of the contents herein and accept no liability of any kind including but not limited to performance, merchantability, fitness for any particular purpose, or any losses or damages of any kind caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly from this book. Photographs and illustrations used in this book have been downloaded from publicly accessible file archives and are used in this book for news reportage purposes only to demonstrate the variety of graphics resources available via electronic access. Text and images available over the Internet may be subject to copyright and other rights owned by third parties. Online availability of text and images does not imply that they may be reused without the permission of rights holders, although the Copyright Act does permit certain unauthorized reuse as fair use under 17 U.S.C. Section 107. Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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Acknowledgments First and foremost, I want to thank Chris Denny, my editor. If he hadn’t remembered me from his days at Macmillan, I don’t know that I’d be writing this now. Chris, you’re cool, and you’re a babe! I also want to thank my husband, Dan Gookin, computer guru to the world. Without Dan’s guidance and brutal honesty, I wouldn’t be writing books today. And if it weren’t for Dan, this book wouldn’t have been completed. We are the geek couple that, together, got this book out. And my boys! I love you all. Jordan, Simon, Jonah, and Jeremiah; Mommy loves you! And finally, thank you Matt Wagner, Literary Agent Supreme. You continually remind me of why you do what you do and why I do what I do. Thank you for looking out for my best interests.

Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xv PERSONALIZE YOUR COMPUTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

1

Get Rid of the Windows XP Fluff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2

2

Lock or Unlock the Taskbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

3

Easily Find Open Documents by Grouping Taskbar Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6

4

Rename Everything on Your Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

5

Record Your Own “New Mail” Message . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

6

Use Your Computer to Gather Pictures . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

7

Make a Desktop Slide Show Screen Saver . . . . . . . . . . .19

8

Create Your Own Wallpaper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

9

Customize Your Icons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27

10

Change the Picture Next to Your Name . . . . . . . . . . . . .32

11

Keep Your Computer Clean

12

Move Folders from One Computer to Another . . . . . . .40

13

Make Your Computer Talk to You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43

14

Clean Up the Desktop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33

USE YOUR COMPUTER FOR BOTH BUSINESS AND HOME USE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51

15

Take a Tour of Windows the Proper Way . . . . . . . . . . . .52

CONTENTS

16

Use More Than One Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53

17

Manage User Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57

18

Quickly Switch between Multiple Users . . . . . . . . . . . .62

19

Publish a File or Folder to the Web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64

20

Save a Document in a Universally Sharable Format

21

Save a Graphic Image in a Universally Sharable Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .72

. .69

ENTERTAIN ON YOUR COMPUTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75

22

Play Music on Your Computer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .76

23

Get Entertainment Information from the Internet

24

Turn Your Computer into a Radio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .80

25

Copy Music from an Audio CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .82

26

Create Your Own Library of Songs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85

27

Download MP3 Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89

28

Test Your Sound Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91

29

Burn a Music CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .92

30

Make a Movie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .96

31

Watch a Movie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .98

32

Create a Slide Show . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .99

33

Change the Program That Plays Your Media File . . . .101

34

Add a Custom Palette of Music Selections to Your Desktop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .104

. . .79

ix

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CONTENTS

SET UP YOUR OWN HOME NETWORK

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .109

35

Use Special Hardware to Create Your Network . . . . . .110

36

Configure Windows to Understand Your Home Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .114

37

Share Your Valued Computer Resources on the Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119

38

Peek at Other Computers on Your Home Network . . .121

39

Share Your Wonderful Color Printer with Others on the Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .125

40

Use Another Printer on the Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . .127

41

Share Your Internet Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .131

42

Use Another Modem on Another Computer to Connect to the Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .134

PRINT THAT

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .137

43

Preview a Web Page before Printing

44

Print a Web Page Graphic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .141

45

Print Things on the Screen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .143

46

Print a Window in Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .145

47

Print a List of Files in a Directory

48

Print Your Address List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .150

49

Fax from Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .152

50

Manage Faxes

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .138

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .146

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .158

CONTENTS

51

Receive a Fax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .165

52

Use E-Mail to Send a Fax

53

Print Images . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .169

54

Print Help and Support Documentation . . . . . . . . . . .174

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .168

GET WINDOWS TO HELP YOU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .177

55

Use the Windows Help System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .178

56

Mark a Topic as a Favorite . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .182

57

Use Your Own Options for Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .183

58

Use Outside Groups for Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .184

59

Use the F1 Key for Help

60

Use the ? Button for Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .192

61

Use Help in a Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .193

62

Use Help for the Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .195

63

Update Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .197

64

See Whether Your Old Program Is Compatible . . . . . .200

65

Use Antivirus Software to Keep Out the Nasty Bugs

66

Find Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .207

67

Create Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .211

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .191

.203

MAINTAIN AND PREVENT GOOF-UPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .217

68

Go Back in Time

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .218

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CONTENTS

69

Download Nasty Things . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .224

70

Run Disk Cleanup to Save Disk Space . . . . . . . . . . . . .225

71

Troubleshoot Diagnostic Tool

72

Defrag Your Hard Drive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .231

73

Schedule Your Computer to Work While You Sleep

74

Track Down Memory Leaks

75

Track Down Programs Run Amok

76

Let the Taskbar Run Amok . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .247

77

Get Rid of the Notification Area (System Tray) . . . . . .251

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .229

. .234

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .241 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .245

COMPRESS AND DECOMPRESS A FILE TO SAVE SPACE

.255

78

Make That Huge Bloated File Take Up Less Hard Disk Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .256

79

Store Old Projects in a Compressed Folder . . . . . . . . .262

80

Password-Protect Compressed Folders . . . . . . . . . . . .263

81

E-Mail a Compressed Folder

82

Consider the File Type before Compressing . . . . . . . .267

83

Compress an Existing Folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .268

84

Use WinRAR Instead of Windows XP’s Compressed Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .270

85

Work with Files in a Compressed Folder . . . . . . . . . . .274

86

Do Compressed Folder Tricks

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .265

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .275

CONTENTS

DO LOTSA INTERNET STUFF

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .277

87

Sign Up for a .NET Passport Account

88

Use MSN Explorer in So Many Fascinating Ways . . . .280

89

Send and Receive Instant Messages

90

Send a File with Windows Messenger . . . . . . . . . . . . .289

91

Place an Internet Phone Call . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .291

92

Add Names to Your List of Contacts

93

See If Your Friends Are Online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .297

94

Play with a Whiteboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .299

95

Ask for Help from an Online Friend

96

Share Applications with Windows Messenger . . . . . . .305

97

Organize a Meeting over the Internet . . . . . . . . . . . . .307

98

Set Up a Firewall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .315

99

Play Games with Internet Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .317

100

Send a Photo As an E-Mail Attachment in Less Than a Minute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .319

101

Make a Joke Folder for Outlook Express . . . . . . . . . . .322

102

Play with a Media Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .326

103

Add Another E-Mail Account to Outlook Express . . . .327

104

Set Up a Newsgroup Account . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .331

. . . . . . . . . . . . .278

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .284

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .293

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .301

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .341

xiii


Introduction I got really excited when I first heard about the concept of this book; a book that covers all the cool things about Windows XP that the reader didn’t know were already there. It meant I didn’t have to write about the Start button and how to click on it, but instead I got to dive right into the fun and hidden aspects of Windows XP. Then came my dilemma: What do you not already know and what are you going to think is cool? Well, I have no idea what you know and what you don’t. So, I had to think of my friend Molly, who is a typical computer user in my mind. And I’m also thinking of me. I choose to write about things that Molly and I would think were cool. Then I passed the outline to Chris Denny, my editor, and if he didn’t ever say, “Well, that’s stupid,” then it got into the book. (By the way, he did say, “Well, that’s stupid,” a few times.) Finally, Dan, my husband, got involved. And hence began, “God, Sandy. That’s dumb, how about if you write about this instead?” And so this book was born. I did try to be practical. My criteria for the book fell under two categories: fun and productive. Through lots of reader mail, I’ve found that people really just want to get their work done, but they’re also using the computer more and more for the fun things like music and pictures. Basically, no one wants to be a computer guru who can take a computer apart and put it back together again, blindfolded. I can’t do that. Neither can Molly or Chris, so I have to assume you can’t either and that, moreover, you don’t want to. So, I suppose that’s a long-winded explanation of how I choose the subjects that would be in this book. Molly, Chris, Dan, and I liked the topics, and we all think you may like them too.

Is This Book for You? Yes. Most people are past the beginning computer book stage. You can find the Start button and click on it. You can type a letter and print it. Okay. But there is just so much more that your computer can do for you. Fun stuff. Work stuff. Other stuff. The potentials are huge, and people just don’t realize

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INTRODUCTION

there is so much more potential in that expensive game machine called a computer. So, the answer is yes, this book is for you.

What’s in the Book? Windows XP Home Edition! I Didn’t Know You Could Do That… includes these sections:

Personalize Your Computer A computer should be a part of your home. And, like your home, you want to snazz it up to fit you and your needs. So take some time and personalize your computer. You’ll find that working through these exercises will actually make working with your computer easier and more fun.

Use Your Computer for Both Business and Home Use It’s as if Microsoft finally gets it: people like to work from home. This section shows you how to use one computer for both home and business.

Entertain on Your Computer Computers aren’t for work; they’re for fun! Yeah, baby! At least that’s the philosophy of my teenager. There is a lot of stuff here to do with music, movies, and pictures, all for your enjoyment pleasure.

Set Up Your Own Home Network The home networking popularity is not ending. There was a day when having more than one car was an extravagance. Then times changed, and having two cars was the norm. Now having more than one computer is becoming the norm. And when you have more than one computer, you have the makings of a home network.

Print That Printing is always a topic of confusion with so many things shown on your computer screen, but so little guidance as to how to actually print the thing on your screen.

Get Windows to Help You

INTRODUCTION

Windows isn’t always obvious. And Windows XP really isn’t obvious. So, instead of using precious phone time talking to friends or tech support, learn how to find the information you’re looking for yourself.

Maintain and Prevent Goof-Ups Computers, like your teeth, need care and maintenance. And when you don’t provide care and maintenance, your computer (and your teeth) will start to have problems. So read this section carefully and floss daily (even though both may not be the highlight of your day, but both are necessary).

Compress and Decompress a File to Save Space Compressing and decompressing files make the transfer of them (via e-mail or disk) easier and faster.

Do Lotsa Internet Stuff How did we survive without the Internet? Believe it or not, you can do a lot more with the Internet besides just sending e-mail. You can play games, send pictures, all kinds of neat stuff.

Each of these sections will include step-by-step directions and other insightful tips and tricks, all for the purpose of getting more work accomplished or just having fun.

About the CD in the Back There are two types of programs on the CD in the back of the book:

Shareware. The program developer is sharing the program with you for a while in hopes that you’ll eventually buy the program. I wish Nordstrom’s would do that for their shoes.

Freeware. The program is free and you can install and use it at no charge.

The programs are stored in their own folders.

Installing the Programs on the CD Installing the programs from the CD is a simple process.

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INTRODUCTION

To install the programs from the CD, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose Control Panel. 3. Choose Add or Remove Programs. 4. Click Add New Programs. 5. Choose CD. Now just follow the directions on your screen. What if, for some horrible reason, the CD isn’t in the back of the book or you lose the CD? Not to worry. In the back of the book, you will find the “About the CD” page. That page lists the CDs and the Web sites where the programs on the CD can be found. Simply go to any Web site and download a program yourself. In many cases, it’s just a matter of reading the Web site, finding the DOWNLOAD link, and following the directions on the screen.

Uninstalling the Programs You Mistakenly Installed from the CD You may not want all of the programs you installed on your computer. You may not like them, or you may have found that they are not very useful for you. Or you may just want to practice removing a program. To uninstall a program from your computer, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start Button. 2. Click on Control Panel. 3. Choose “Add or Remove Programs.” 4. Click on the program you don’t want. 5. Click the Change/Remove button. A warning box appears, wanting to make sure you really want to remove this program from your computer. Click Yes.

INTRODUCTION

Getting in Touch with the Author Hopefully, this book is all encompassing and you won’t have a whole lot of questions. But if you do, first go to the Wambooli/Windows XP Web page, located at www.wambooli.com/help/Windows/XP/. We’ll keep things posted there for updates on Windows XP. Also, there are a few things related to this book where you’ll be asked to go to this site to download sounds and pictures for projects in this book. While you are at our Web page, sign up for the free “Wambooli Salad” newsletter. Dan writes this on a weekly basis and includes computer tips, tricks, and up-to-date general computer information. It’s free and it’s fun! If you still have questions, you can write to me at [email protected].

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Personalize Your Computer

Personalize Your Computer

When you first get into a new car, you adjust the seat and mirrors, you change the radio station, find where everything is, move stuff around, put your CDs in the CD holder, and maybe even hang some fuzzy dice from the rearview mirror. In other words, you personalize your car to fit you and your needs. Your computer is a tool much like a car, in that you can take the time to personalize it to make yourself feel more at home. Personalizing your computer gives you ownership. It can also, in some cases, enable you to work more efficiently, although a lot of personalizing your computer is right up there with hanging the fuzzy dice from your mirror—it’s just fun and cool, and darn it, it’s your computer and you can do what you want!

1

Get Rid of the Windows XP Fluff When I first beheld Windows XP, I was immediately distracted with what I call Whistler Fluff. The bubbly icons and the new age colors and that weird Start Menu. Yuck. I found myself wanting to go back to the way things were because I found the shiny gooey look very distracting. I prefer standard and boring and uniform and militant Windows. I want it back! So, I found a way to make Windows XP look like the older versions of Windows. Hence, getting rid of what I call the Windows XP fluff. The fluff-removal process involves two steps. First is to change the desktop theme from the Whistler theme (Windows Fluff) to Windows Classic (militant Windows). Second is to change the Start Menu back to the classic, logical Start Menu.

G ET R I D O F TH E W I N D OWS X P F LU F F

To change the Whistler theme, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start Button. 2. Choose Control Panel. 3. Click “Appearance and Themes.” 4. Choose “Display,” located near the bottom of the screen. The Display Properties dialog box is shown with the Themes tab forward.

N O T E You can also choose “Change the computer’s theme” from the Pick a Task section in the Appearance and Themes window. This also takes you to the Display Properties dialog box.

5. Click the Theme drop-down arrow to display the full list of Windows themes. (It says “Windows XP” in the figure.)

6. Choose Windows Classic. The picture in the sample window changes to the classic look of Windows.

7. Click OK. From this point forward, everything looks like the classic, boring Windows style. This is a boon if you’re using older books or manuals that refer to the (more efficient and quicker) ways of doing things in the older Windows

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P E R S O N A L I Z E YO U R C O M P U T E R

versions. Don’t be fooled though. Just because it looks like the older version of Windows doesn’t mean it is the older version. Windows XP is still there and you have to know how Windows XP works. In other words, don’t put this book down yet. You’re not done. If you want to really be creative, go back through the steps above and instead of choosing Windows Classic, choose More Themes online. This connects you to the Internet where you can snag up more themes. The Web site you visit is http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/Plus/. Microsoft provides you with a host of other themes at this Web site. But wait! You have to buy Plus! for Windows to get these new themes. Go browsing and see if there’s anything else you like. If there’s something there that interests you, there is a Buy Now button you can click. If you don’t like what Microsoft has to offer, go to a Web portal site like Yahoo! and type the words desktop theme into the search box. You’ll get a long list of desktop themes, most of which are free. For example, you can go to www.animalbytes.com for a wide selection of animal desktop themes. (No, none of them deals with pictures of people bitten by animals; the name is a pun.) Desktop themes are all about the way Windows looks. It’s that simple. If this doesn’t really impress you, then feel free to move on to Section 2, “Lock or Unlock the Taskbar.” Now, the second step is to put the Start Menu back to the classic, boring menu you most likely grew up with. To put the Start Menu back to the classic view, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the Start button. (Point to the Start button and click using your right mouse button instead of the more commonly used left mouse button.)

2. Choose Properties. 3. Click the “Classic Start menu” button. 4. Click OK. Click the Start button to see the Start menu the way it used to be. If you want to be bold and daring and learn to maneuver through the Windows XP look, then go back through the previous steps and select Start Menu. This changes Windows back to its fluffy new self.

L O C K O R U N L O C K T H E TA S K B A R

The Control Panel in Classic View The Control Panel is a place you will find yourself visiting often, so you should be able to use it without stumbling too much. If the fluffy view of Windows XP bothers you here, you can change this back to boring Windows Classic, too. To change your Control Panel from fluffy Windows to Classic Windows, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose Control Panel. 3. On the left side of the Control Panel window, you’ll see a pane titled, “Control Panel.” Click on the words, “Switch to Classic View.” This changes the Control Panel back to the classic view of Windows.

4. Click “Switch to Category View” to change it back to fluffy Windows.

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Lock or Unlock the Taskbar A common complaint that I get from many readers is that the taskbar suddenly disappears. Or it moves. Or some jerk moves it for them! Much to the surprise of many, the taskbar isn’t nailed down to the bottom of the screen. You can lock it or unlock it. And its size isn’t fixed. No, you can shrink the taskbar down to a thin, useless strip. What’s the point? To frustrate you? Probably. Fortunately, Windows XP has a marvelous solution. To lock down a taskbar, follow these steps:

1. Right-click an empty area of the taskbar (not on any buttons or icons).

2. Choose Lock the Taskbar. (If you don’t see this item, then you clicked in the wrong spot.) A check mark appears by the Lock the Taskbar menu item, meaning that the taskbar is screwed down tight. The taskbar can no longer be moved or resized until you unlock it.

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To restore full freedom of movement to the taskbar, simply repeat the steps and choose Lock the Taskbar again to remove the check mark.

N O T E Your taskbar may be already locked down when you first start Windows XP. You’ve saved yourself a step if you want to keep it that way. But as you can see, it’s easy to unlock if you want to.

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Easily Find Open Documents by Grouping Taskbar Buttons I’m the worst when it comes to keeping too many windows open at one time. I use a lot of windows when I’m working. For example, right now I have seven windows open, five of which belong to Word. You can imagine how messy my taskbar looks. Windows XP solves this problem by letting you group the taskbar buttons of windows according to the programs they belong to. This makes it easier to locate and work with your open documents. To group the taskbar buttons by program, follow these steps:

1. Right-click an empty area of the taskbar (not on any buttons or icons).

2. Choose Properties. 3. The Taskbar and Start Menu Properties window appears, with the Taskbar tab in front.

4. Click to check the box next to “Group similar taskbar buttons,” if it isn’t already checked.

5. Click OK.

R E N A M E E V E RY T H I N G O N Y O U R C O M P U T E R

Now all of your Word documents buttons will be stacked on top of each other on the taskbar. If you have several documents open at the same time, your taskbar will become too crowded to see the actual name of each document on the taskbar. The name will be abbreviated on its taskbar button and you won’t be able to see the whole document name. There is a simple solution though: Hover the mouse pointer over the button on the taskbar. The name of the document will magically appear.

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Rename Everything on Your Computer There are computer tools you use every day. Useful stuff. And then there are tools you may use every so often. There are tools to avoid. And finally, there are tools for which you say, “Who cares about that?” I’ll admit, this section may be one of those times when you may say, “Who cares about renaming things on my computer?” Honestly, I find myself renaming files and folders all the time. I suppose it’s because I’m not smart enough to do it right the first time. Whatever. I just know that this is one of those tools that I do use, and I use it often.

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Renaming anything—a file, folder, printer, hard drive, song, picture, anything that you find or put on your computer—is a simple process and is handled about the same way regardless of what you’re wanting to rename.

N O T E You can go to Windows Help and Support to read how Microsoft suggests you change a filename, but it gives you a long procedure for the renaming process that I deem as unnecessary. However, the directions are there under “renaming” if you want to check it out.

The easiest place to find all your files and folders is in Windows Explorer. Start there to view a full listing of your files. To rename anything on your computer, follow these steps:

1. Right-click on the My Documents icon on your desktop. 2. Choose Explore. The My Documents window opens. The left side of the window contains a tree structure of the folders on your hard drive. The right side of the window shows the contents in your folders.

3. In the left side of the window, click on the plus sign next to a folder to open it.

4. In the right side of the window, right-click once on something you want to rename, such as the My Pictures folder.

5. Choose Rename from the menu that appears. The name of the folder becomes a text box, with the existing name highlighted.

6. Type the new name. 7. Press Enter. The new name is locked in for safety. This is just one way you can rename a file. I do this in the Explore window because everything is there and it’s the easiest mode if you have several things to rename or to reorganize.

R E N A M E E V E RY T H I N G O N Y O U R C O M P U T E R

N O T E The Explore window provides a convenient place for you to do all of your file management tasks. You can use the Explore window to rename files and folders; organize, copy, or delete them; and search for a particular file or folder. You can even choose a colorful animated character to help you navigate the window. To open the Explore window, right-click on the My Documents icon on your desktop, then choose Explore. (This means using your right mouse button to click instead of the more commonly used left mouse button.)

However, you can rename a file or folder from just about anywhere in your computer:

1. Open the My Documents window. 2. Click on a file or folder once to select it. 3. Choose “Rename this folder” from the File and Folder Tasks pane on the left side of the window. The old name is highlighted and encased in a special text box so that you now know it’s really special. (If you can’t see all the options in the File and Folder Tasks pane, click the maximize arrow to the right of “File and Folder Tasks” to open the box all the way.)

4. Type the new name. 5. Press Enter. You can also press the F2 key to rename any selected thingy. Be sure the item is highlighted, then press F2, type the new name, and press Enter. The Home, End, Left, Right, Delete, and Backspace keys can be used to navigate the cursor for renaming, especially if you want to select just part of the name to rename. Anything you go to rename has its name highlighted so you can press Delete to delete it, or use the arrow keys or Backspace key to select part of the name and rename that. You can also rename files in the Open and Save As dialog boxes. Just point the mouse and click on a file listed in the dialog box, then press the F2 key. Type the new name for the file and press Enter. Another option for renaming a file is by clicking twice on any selected icon or filename. This is not a double-click; just click once, wait, and click again. The filename becomes a text box and you can edit the name or type a new one.

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The renaming option is especially good for those people who like to stay organized. Poorly thought out file and folder names can really mess you up, forcing you to spend a good amount of time opening and closing files just to see what they are. For example, if I had a bunch of files named for people, such as Matt, Marcia, Jordan, or Debra, those filenames wouldn’t tell me much. I might know that they were letters I had written to these people, but I probably wouldn’t remember what the letters were for or when I sent them. However, I could easily create a Letter folder containing a separate folder for each of these people. Then I could name the files gripe, Feb mtg, birthday party, that sort of thing.

FILE NAMING GUIDE

You can name a file just about anything, but you should really just concern yourself with being brief and descriptive. For example: GM Jan 01 This filename describes the General Managers report for January 2001. I could have added Report in the name, but this file is in the Report folder, so I already know it’s a report. Here are the technical rules for naming a file: A filename can be from 1 to over 200 characters long. A filename can contain letters, numbers, spaces, and a smattering of symbols (including the period). Uppercase and lowercase letters look different on the screen, but Windows doesn’t notice any difference. So, you can save a file as GM Jan 01 and Windows will still find it when you type in gm jan 01 or even GM JAN 01 A filename cannot contain any of these characters: “ * / : < > ? \ | These rules apply to files as well as to folders.

R E C O R D Y O U R O W N “ N E W M A I L” M E S S A G E

Files You Cannot Rename You should not rename any file or folder in the Windows folder or the Program Files folder. And you can’t rename the Recycle Bin. Windows relies on these names to find the programs in your computer, so you don’t want to mess with any of these. You shouldn’t rename the My Computer folders. Again, this exact filename is necessary for Windows (and many programs) to find this folder later.

Ideas for Renaming Any file or folder that you create on your computer can be renamed. Also, if you are on a network and have access to more than one computer or printer, you can rename these items. It’s much easier to find printers when they have real names as opposed to searching through a list of manufacturers’ names and model numbers. For example, our printer names are Annie, Fantine, and Color Sprite. Our computer names (since we’re networked and share information) are Edith, Naomi, Neody, Vishnu, Worbletyme, and Gilbert.

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Record Your Own “New Mail” Message Nothing soothes the nerves of fervent AOL users like that melodious, charming voice saying, “You’ve got mail.” Ahhh. Mail. Someone out there likes me. Oh, who cares if it’s all spam—at least someone writes. If you don’t use AOL (and I don’t blame you), then you’re most likely using the Outlook Express program that came with Windows XP. Alas, this program merely chimes when you’ve got mail. Boring. Of course, like many things in Windows, the sounds are configurable. In fact, you can even sing your own rendition of “You’ve got mail,” recording it on your computer and having it play whenever you get mail. All you need is a microphone and a voice, and Windows XP helps you do the rest.

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Use and Install Your Microphone All PCs have a jack (a technical term for “hole”) on the backside of the computer into which you can plug a microphone. Any microphone will do; you can pick up cheap microphones at Radio Shack or any office supply store except for Staples—we hate Staples because they don’t carry our books. Don’t spend too much money for the microphone! If you want high quality audio recording, then you’ll need more than an expensive microphone. Simply plug the microphone into the jack (usually colored pink or red on newer PCs) on the back of your computer to install your microphone. There. You’re done.

Create Your Message Think about what you are going to say and how you’re going to say “You’ve got mail” before you start this. Practice. Are you going to sing it? Are you going to sound like a robot? How about, “Hey sexy, someone is sending you more spam!” Or even, “Someone cares enough to send you e-mail. It’s probably your monthly ISP bill.” To record your own message, follow these steps:

1. Open the Sound Recorder program. From the Start menu, choose All Programs ➢ Accessories ➢ Entertainment ➢ Sound Recorder. The Sound Recorder appears, as shown in the following figure. Note the buttons; they look just like the play, stop, and record buttons on a tape recorder or VCR. If you noticed this right away, then reward yourself with a cookie.

R E C O R D Y O U R O W N “ N E W M A I L” M E S S A G E

2. Get yourself ready. Get the microphone ready. 3. Click the Record button. 4. Speak your noble new mail notification. 5. Click the Stop button. 6. Click the Play button to hear your new message. If you don’t like your message, choose File ➢ New, then click No to start over. Go back to step 3.

7. If you’re pleased (or even if you aren’t and are just eager to finish these steps), choose File ➢ Save As. Choose the proper folder for your sound. For example, Windows may default to the My Music folder. I use the Audio folder I created in the My Documents folder, which is where I keep silly sounds.

8. Give the file a name, such as “You’ve Got Mail” or whatever phrase you spoke.

9. Click Save to save the file. Now the sound is safe and secure inside the computer. The next step is to apply it to the New Mail Notification that Outlook Express generates—the same one that plays the boring chimes now. You need to change it to your new sound.

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Assign the Message Sound Setting up the sound to play whenever new mail arrives is done in the Sounds and Audio Devices Properties dialog box, which is where you set the sound for anything in Windows. To display the Sounds and Audio Devices Properties dialog box, follow these steps:

1. From the Start menu, choose Control Panel. 2. Click “Sounds, Speech, and Audio Devices.” 3. Click “Sounds and Audio Devices.” The Sounds and Audio Devices Properties dialog box opens.

4. Click the Sounds tab. 5. Scroll through the list of Program Events until you find “New Mail Notification.” (It’s in the Windows section.)

6. Click “New Mail Notification” to select it, and then click the Browse button.

N O T E Windows stores the sounds it uses in the C:\Windows\Media folder. I suppose if you really wanted to make things easy, you could save the sound in that folder, although I still prefer keeping the sounds I create separate from the Windows sound stuff.

7. Browse to the folder where you saved your sound file. On my system, that’s the C:\My Documents\Audio folder.

8. Select the new mail sound you created, and then click OK. 9. Back in the dialog box, test the sound. Click the Play button at the bottom of the dialog box to hear the New Mail Notification sound.

10. Click OK. There. You’re done.

U S E Y O U R C O M P U T E R T O G AT H E R P I C T U R E S

YO U’VE G OT DAN!

Dan and I really wanted to help you so we’ve recorded our own “You’ve Got Mail” message on our Web site. Just go to www.wambooli.com/help/ Windows/XP/. Click on the “Download Mail Message” line and follow the instructions. You’ll hear a beautiful (cough, cough) version of Dan singing, “You’ve Got Mail.” (No e-mail criticisms are necessary.) There are a couple of other choices for your listening pleasure, too.

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Use Your Computer to Gather Pictures I never understood why parents and grandparents would whip out pictures of kids at a moment’s notice until I had kids of my own. Now that I have kids, I get it. Now I understand the hype about kids’ pictures. They’re just adorable. Windows XP makes it really easy to use your computer to gather pictures from a variety of places, store them on your computer, and then use them later. In fact, Section 7, “Make a Desktop Slide Show Screen Saver,” is about taking these pictures you store in your computer and turning them into a slide show for your screen saver. It’s very cool.

Put the Pictures in One Place Pictures can be of anything you find interesting, which is not necessarily a photograph. So, here are some ideas for pictures:

Scan a picture and save it in the My Pictures folder.

Download a picture from a Web page.

Draw a picture in the Paint program.

Save a picture that someone sent you via e-mail.

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Download a Picture from a Web Page To save a picture from a Web page, follow these steps:

1. Find a picture on a Web page that you want to save to your My Pictures folder. If you’re completely at a loss, I’ll give you a picture to use. Go to www.wambooli.com/help/Windows/XP/ and you’ll find a picture of me.

NOTE

You must have Internet access to go to a Web page.

Right-click on the picture.

3. Choose Save Picture As from the shortcut menu. 4. Make sure the My Pictures folder appears in the Save in text box. If it doesn’t, click the down arrow next to the Save in text box and click on My Pictures.

5. Type a name for the file in the File name text box. 6. Click the Save button.

U S E Y O U R C O M P U T E R T O G AT H E R P I C T U R E S

N O T E Copying a file or a picture to your computer from the Internet is called downloading. For example, “E-mail me a picture of your kids and I’ll download it to my computer.”

Draw a Picture in the Paint Program To draw a picture in the Paint program, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose All Programs ➢ Accessories ➢ Paint. The Paint program opens. Wow, this looks like fun.

3. If the drawing space looks too small for you, put your mouse on the right bottom corner of the square until the pointer turns into a double-sided arrow. Click and drag the window to the size you can work with.

N O T E If you know the size you want in pixels, press Ctrl+E (hold down the Control key [Ctrl] and press the E key) to open the Attributes dialog box. Type in a number for Height and Width. 400 × 400 pixels is a nice working area.

4. Use the tools and color palette to create a picture. 5. When you’ve finished your masterpiece, choose File ➢ Save As. The Save As dialog box appears. The My Pictures folder should appear in the Save in text box at the top of the dialog box. If for some reason My Pictures isn’t there, click the down arrow to the right of the text box and find My Pictures.

6. Click to place your cursor in the File name text box at the bottom of the window (if it isn’t flashing there already). Type a name for your picture in the File name box.

7. Click the Save button.

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Save a Picture Someone Sent You via E-Mail The barrage of pictures being sent back and forth via e-mail is mindboggling. To use these pictures for your screen saver, save them in the My Pictures folder. Outlook Express has a handy method of telling you when you have an attachment. When you receive an Outlook Express e-mail and you see a paper clip in the upper-right corner of the message box, then you have an attachment, meaning that the e-mail message has one or more files attached to it. For the following steps to work, you must have Outlook Express and you must find an e-mail that someone has sent you that has a paperclip (attachment) in the upper corner of the message.

N O T E This paperclip is also displayed to the left of the note in the list of messages in your Inbox, if you have your options set up to include that column in the Inbox.

To open and save your e-mail attachment, follow these steps:

1. Click on the paper clip next to the filename. 2. Click on the icon next to the filename (which will usually be an envelope, but it may also be an icon of a program). An Open Attachment Warning box appears. This warning is to alarm you to the fact that you should accept attachments only from people you know and trust because bad things like computer viruses can be hiding in attachments.

3. Click “Save it to disk.” 4. Click OK. The Save Attachment As dialog box appears. 5. Click the down arrow next to “Save in” to find My Pictures. 6. Type a name in the File name text box. 7. Click the Save button.

M A K E A D E S K T O P S L I D E S H O W S C R E E N S AV E R

N O T E When you scan a picture to send to someone via e-mail, save the picture as a JPG file.

W H AT I S T H AT AT TA C H M E N T ?

You can usually tell what type of attachment you’re receiving by looking at the icon next to the filename. A little speaker icon means that the attachment is a sound file, and a blue W means that you have a Microsoft Word document attached. An icon that looks like a bucket of paintbrushes means that the attachment is a graphics file (which could be a picture). Basically the icon represents the type of file it is.

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Make a Desktop Slide Show Screen Saver Now you can take pictures of your kids (or pets, or friends, or whatever your obsession is) and have the pictures act as your screen saver so that when your computer kicks into screen saver mode, those lovely pictures grace your screen. To turn your desktop into a slide show, follow these steps:

1. Make a folder just for your slide show pictures. 2. Put the pictures in one place. 3. Change your screen saver option.

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Make a Folder for Your Slide Show Pictures Windows already has a folder called the My Pictures folder, where you can store any graphics or pictures. If you have a lot of pictures in your My Pictures folder, but you don’t want them all to be put on your desktop as a slide show, you can make a separate folder just for your slide show pictures. To make a separate slide show folder, follow these steps:

1. Click Start. 2. Choose My Documents. 3. Double-click the My Pictures folder. 4. In the File and Folder Tasks pane on the left side of the window, click “Make a new folder.” A new folder appears, ready for you to type in a name.

5. Type Slide Show in the highlighted space and press Enter. This locks in the new name. Now you have a place to save all the pictures and graphics you want to use in the slide show.

MOVI NG FI LES

To move selected pictures from the My Pictures folder into the Slide Show folder, simple click on the file you want to use for your slide show, drag the file over to the Slide Show folder until the folder name is highlighted, and then let go of the mouse button. This is actually the way you can move any file into any folder.

Change Your Screen Saver Option Once you have saved pictures in your special Slide Show folder, you need to change your screen saver setting to use that slide show as your screen saver. To change your screen saver options, follow these steps:

M A K E A D E S K T O P S L I D E S H O W S C R E E N S AV E R

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose Control Panel. 3. Click “Appearance and Themes.” 4. Click “Choose a screen saver.” 5. The Display Properties window opens. In the Screen Saver pane is a list box with a down arrow. Click the down arrow and find “My Pictures Slideshow” in the drop-down list (see the following figure). Click on it.

6. Click OK. 7. Click the X in the upper right corner to close the Appearance and Themes window. All the pictures you’ve stored in your My Pictures folder will now appear as a screen saver on your desktop.

Tweak Your Screen Saver Slide Show You’re not forced to live with whatever Windows gives you for your screen saver slide show presentation. You can tweak and tinker to make it just the show you want.

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To tweak the My Pictures screen saver option, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose Control Panel. 3. Click “Appearance and Themes.” 4. Click “Choose a Screen Saver.” If you haven’t chosen “My Pictures Slideshow” from the Screen saver list box, do that now.

5. First, you can set the time it takes for your screen saver to kick in. Right now, mine is set at 14 minutes. Click the up/down arrow next to “Wait (x) minutes” to increase or decrease the time it takes for your screen saver to kick in. Your computer’s internal clock measures the idle time of your computer. So, it starts counting the wait time from the moment it recognizes that you’re not doing anything.

N O T E If you are someone who likes to spend a lot of time reading on the computer, you may want to increase the wait time. There’s nothing more annoying than trying to read and having your screen saver keep kicking in.

6. Click the Settings button. You are now at the My Pictures Screen Saver Options dialog box. It’s time to play and tweak. Move the tags back and forth to control how often your pictures change, or how big or small your pictures appear on your screen. Of course, all this is personal preference and there are no right or wrong answers here. I personally wouldn’t see the reason for having tiny pictures scurrying across your screen, but that’s just me. The “Use pictures in this folder” section is where you are going to find the Slide Show folder you made at the beginning of this section.

7. Click the Browse button. The Browse for Folder dialog box opens with the My Pictures folder highlighted. If you followed the previous steps, you’ll see the Slide Show folder right below it.

8. Click the Slide Show folder to select it. 9. Click OK. Now your screen saver program will use only the pictures in your Slide Show folder.

C R E AT E Y O U R O W N WA L L PA P E R

The other options at the bottom of this options box are other tweaking tools. Try each one to see if these are things you like. The only one I don’t care for is “Show file names.” With this option on, the top of each picture in the screen saver has a geeky computer address, which is just dumb. Also, stretching small pictures can enlarge the small pictures, but sometimes they can appear blurry.

10. When you have all the options set the way you want them, click OK to close the dialog box, then click OK to close the Display Properties window. Close the Appearance and Themes window to return to the desktop.

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Create Your Own Wallpaper This, like many other sections, won’t help you get your work done any faster than normal, nor will it improve the look or quality of your documents. This will, however, be fun and make your friends and neighbors “oooh” and “aaahhh” at your brilliant computer skills. And we all want that, right? All those icons and pictures on your computer screen are called your desktop. It’s where you work. But Windows XP decorates your desktop with wallpaper, which is the image you see behind the icons and pictures. The wallpaper can be either a graphical image, a solid color or pattern, or a Web page. I don’t go for the Web page stuff myself, mostly because I don’t have a permanent Internet connection and without one, having a Web page background doesn’t seem to make sense. (Even with one, it can make the desktop very busy looking.) So instead, this section is about creating your own graphical image to use as wallpaper. Windows controls the wallpaper in the Display Properties dialog box. Here is the fastest way to display that dialog box:

1. Right-click on the desktop. (Remember, right-clicking means to click the right mouse button as opposed to the ever-popular left mouse button.)

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2. Choose Properties from the shortcut menu. The Themes tab in the dialog box seems like it controls the wallpaper, but it doesn’t. Well, in a way it does—a theme is a collection of display attributes, one of which is the desktop wallpaper. But in addition to the wallpaper, themes also define fonts and other colors displayed on the screen. No, what you want is the Desktop tab.

N O T E Windows displays graphics files in the BMP (Windows bitmap image or Paint document), GIF, JPG, and PNG (ping!) file formats. Other graphics formats, such as TIFF or Adobe Photoshop, must be saved in the BMP, GIF, JPG, or PNG format for them to appear in the list of wallpapers.

3. Click the Desktop tab.

In the Desktop tab, you’ll find a preview screen, and below that a scrolling list of all the graphics files that Windows found on your computer; those files listed in the Windows folder, the My Document\My Pictures folder, and just about every other folder on the hard drive. (They are a collection of images, not images that are saved in a specific location.)

C R E AT E Y O U R O W N WA L L PA P E R

4. To choose new wallpaper, select an image from the list. The image appears in the preview window, so you’ll see how it looks. Some images are smaller than others. If the image doesn’t fill the desktop, choose “Stretch” or “Tile” from the Position drop-down list. If you don’t want any wallpaper, then choose (None) from the list. (It’s the first item.) You can then set the desktop color by using the Color drop-down menu/palette. Of course, you may prefer to create your own wallpaper instead. You may want to use an image you snapped with your digital camera, or a photograph of your family’s 1972 Christmas dinner. Or maybe you just want to doodle in your own wallpaper. All of this is allowed, providing that you first gather some intelligence. (Not personal intelligence; I mean information about the desktop.)

5. Click the Settings tab. Look at the “Screen resolution” area. What is the screen’s resolution? On my monitor, it’s 800 by 600 pixels. That means my screen has a size of 800 pixels (dots) wide by 600 pixels tall. That’s a mighty grid of imaging information, but it’s good to know when you create your own wallpaper. Write that number down and start the Paint program. To use the Paint program to draw your wallpaper image, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose All Programs ➢ Accessories ➢ Paint. The Paint program opens. The working area (the white box) may be small, but that’s OK. The next steps will enlarge that for you.

3. Choose Image ➢ Attributes. (You can also press Ctrl+E.) The Attributes dialog box appears. This is where you set the image’s size, which for wallpaper must be the exact same size as your desktop.

4. Click Pixels in the “Units” section. You’re measuring things in pixels here, not inches or centimeters.

5. Enter the proper width and height values for your desktop. On my screen, I type 800 for the width and 600 for the height.

6. Click OK.

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Now Paint is ready for you to create your own desktop image. Note that the image you’re painting will be wider and taller than can be displayed in the Paint window, so use the scrollbars to work on the outside edges of your image.

7. Doodle. Use Paint’s tools to create your desktop. Choose a color. Use the bucket tool to fill vast areas. Use the other tools to create shapes, lines, and designs. (The program encourages you to doodle, so it’s easy to figure out.) If you have trouble, then turn the computer over to any 5-year-old. For some reason, they can figure out the Paint program easily and create magnificent doodles that you can not only use as your wallpaper but also brag about when you show your friends the computer.

8. Save the image by selecting File ➢ Save As. Give the image a proper name, such as—oh, I dunno—DOODLE. Or even MY WALLPAPER. Save it in its own special folder, or in the My Pictures folder. Optionally, you can choose a file type from the “Save as type” dropdown list. The 24-bit bitmap (*.bmp, *dib) file type, which is the default, is perfect for wallpaper. However, if you plan to send the

C U S TO M I Z E YO U R I C O N S

image to someone as an e-mail attachment, choose JPEG or GIF instead. Once the wallpaper image has been saved, close the Paint program and return to the Display Properties dialog box.

9. In the Desktop tab, click the Browse button. In the Browse dialog box, find the picture you just saved and click it, then click the Open button. The Browse dialog box closes, your picture appears in the preview screen, and its filename is listed in the Background drop-down list.

10. Click OK. If you’d like to create your wallpaper using a digital image from a scanner or digital camera, then you must use photo-editing software to resize the image. Set the image’s size equal to your desktop: 800 × 600, 1024 × 768, or whatever. If the image is larger than 1024 × 786, then consider cropping it instead of resizing. For example, if the image is 1024 × 1024 in size, then use your photo-editing software’s crop tool to lop off the extra vertical bits, leaving you with 1024 × 768. In my digital camera travels, I’ve found that sizing the image until it’s just a bit smaller than the desktop works well. For example, if the camera’s image is only 512 × 512 pixels, I’ll leave it. Then in the Display Properties/Background dialog box, I’ll use the Stretch option to stretch the image out to the full desktop size.

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Customize Your Icons Warning: this section will require some creative thinking. (But don’t be frightened—you’ll need only a little.) Icons are symbols that represent something. Marilyn Monroe is the icon for sexiness. Bill Gates is the icon for extreme nerd. The red, green, blue, and yellow flag is the icon for Microsoft.

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Windows is composed of icons that represent programs, folders, files, places to go, etc. And these icons are helpful so that you don’t have to read a lot to do what you want to do. You can quickly glance at a picture (the icon) and know where you need to go. Creating your own icon is another one of those tasks that is fun to do, but it’s not going to help you get your work done more quickly, nor is it going to contribute to making a document look better. However, knowing how to create an icon is helping me in my job because now I can write about it. So it does have a purpose for some people, I suppose! There are a couple of ways you can go about changing your icons:

Create your own icon.

Replace the icon with one that Windows gives you.

Create Icons The Microsoft Paint program is a fun program for those of you with that artistic flair that would love to create your own icon. To create your icon using the Paint program, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose All Programs ➢ Accessories ➢ Paint. 3. Choose Image ➢ Attributes, or press Ctrl+E to open the Attributes dialog box.

4. In the “Width” box, type 32. 5. In the “Height” box, type 32. 6. Click the Pixels button in the Units section. 7. Click the Colors button in the Colors section. 8. Click OK. Now you have a very tiny box to work with, but this is the size that is needed for the icon.

9. Click the icon of a magnifying glass. 10. Click on 8X. This enlarges your screen so you can see what you’re doing, but this also makes the screen so large that you will have to be creative when drawing. For example, you won’t be able to draw what looks like a straight line. Instead, it’ll be a series of tiny blocks. It’ll


look like a line when the picture is shrunk down to its regular size, but you’ll have to deal with the blocks until then.

11. Draw a picture. Having an idea of what icon you want to replace helps. For this example, make an icon that will replace your My Music folder icon. Use the tools on the left of your screen to draw your icon. I like the paint brush the best because it gives you a lot of different choices. Choose the tool you want and then click on one of the colors from the bottom of the screen to use that color.

N O T E The icon that looks like a tilted yellow rectangle is the eraser. You can erase any embarrassing mistakes with this one. The spray can doesn’t work too well for icons because the spray is too large and you just end up with a glob of color. The pencil works really well, but it’s difficult to use (well, at least for me it is).

12. After you finish creating your icon, choose File ➢ Save As. 13. The Save As dialog box appears. My

Pictures should be in the “Save In” line at the top of the box. If, for some reason, My Pictures isn’t there, click the down arrow to the right of this box and click on My Pictures.

NOTE folder.

The My Pictures folder can be found inside the My Documents

14. In the “File name” box, type the name of your new icon. The filename must end with .ico, such as musicfolder.ico or note.ico. The .ico ending (also known as an extension) tells Windows that this is an icon file.

15. Click Save. 16. Click File ➢ Exit to close the Paint program. Repeat this procedure for all of the icons you’d like to replace in Windows.

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Replace Icons There is an interesting new development with Windows XP: the powers at Microsoft don’t want you to replace an icon for a folder that you did not create. You can change icons only for folders that you yourself create. That just doesn’t seem fair, but, oh well. To replace an existing icon for a folder you created, follow these steps:

1. Double-click on My Documents on the desktop or select it from the Start menu.

N O T E If the My Documents icon is not on your desktop when you start Windows XP for the first time, you can easily add it. Right-click the desktop and choose Properties from the pop-up menu. Click the Desktop tab, click the Customize desktop button, and then put a check mark in the My Documents check box.

2. Find a folder you created. If you don’t have one already, then click “Make a new folder” on the left side of the window. Alternatively, you can choose File ➢ New ➢ Folder. Type a new name for the folder, such as Love Notes, and then press Enter to secure the new name.

3. Right-click on the new folder. 4. Choose Properties. The folder’s Properties dialog box appears. 5. Click on the Customize tab to bring it forward. 6. Click the Change Icon button at the bottom of the dialog box. What you see before you is the great and powerful icon folder. Yeah! You can pick one of these icons, or use one you created. (You can use the arrows on the bottom of the window to scroll through the icons and view more.) If you like one of these icons, click on it and then choose OK. Be forewarned, though: If you choose one of these icons and click OK, the Change Icon window closes. If you want to find your own icon artwork instead, click the Browse button.

8. Click the down arrow in the “Look in” box. 7. Click on My Documents.


8. Double-click on My Pictures. And there should be your artwork, as well as all icon artwork you’ve made.

9. Click the icon you created. 10. Click Open. Now your icon is in its own list.

11. Click once on your icon. 12. Click OK. 13. Click OK again. Now your new folder icon has changed.

Put the Icons Back the Way They Were If you’ve gone through this process and you’re really unhappy with the results, you can easily change things back. To put the icons back the way they were, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the folder icon you want to change. 2. Choose Properties. 3. Click the Customize tab. 4. Click the Change icon button. The common Windows icons are listed. Choose the icon you want.

5. Click OK.

N O T E You can also click the Restore Defaults button in the Change icon dialog box. This puts all the icons back to the original way Microsoft had things.

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10

Change the Picture Next to Your Name Click the Start button, and at the top of the menu you’ll see your name and a picture (most likely a fish or some other cutesy picture). This is the account picture, which Windows uses (in addition to your name) to uniquely identify you as the computer’s user (or one of them). You can change this picture to whatever or whomever you want. To change the picture next to your name, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start Button. 2. Click on the picture at the top of the Start menu. This is the shortcut method of getting to the User Accounts, Current Picture window. (The longer way is through the Control Panel.) The window displays your lovely current picture, then a list of canned pictures that came with Windows.

3. Click on another picture in the list. 4. Click the Change Picture button. The picture is changed, and you’re returned to the main User Accounts window. Of course, you may be one of the unique types who like their own images. If so, you can use just about any graphics image on your hard drive:

1. In the User Accounts window, click “Change my picture.” 2. Click “Browse for more pictures.” An Open dialog box appears, which you can use to peek around anywhere on the hard drive for a new image. The Open dialog box shows you the images you have stored in the My Pictures folder; use the dialog box’s controls to browse to any folder on the hard drive.

3. When you find an image you like, click to select it, and then click the Open button. Beware! The image you select then instantly becomes your account’s picture and you’re immediately returned to the User Accounts window.

K E E P YO U R C O M P U T E R C L E A N

The User Accounts window also provides other items for changing various other settings for your account, as well as general account management tools—but nothing as fun as choosing a new picture. To create your own picture, you can use the Paint program and doodle up an image in the same way you created new icons. The image can be any size, although the images that come with Windows are set at 48 pixels wide by 48 pixels tall. (If you doodle something larger, then Windows resizes it down to the proper size square when you choose that picture for your account.) Save the image as a bitmap image (.bmp) when you’re done doodling. Or if you’re using a photo-editing program to create or edit a digital image, then crop or resize the image down to 48 × 48 pixels and save it in the Windows Bitmap format. If you’re curious, the images that Windows shows you in the User Accounts window are all kept in a special folder on the hard drive: c:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\Default Pictures.

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Keep Your Computer Clean Windows XP comes with lots and lots of things. Some of them are programs that were once supplied by other developers. But somehow, Microsoft felt it best that they write all the software in the world. So they’ve just packed Windows full of extra goo, while Microsoft’s former competition just packed up their bags and went out of business. But enough about that! Your ordeal is that you have a computer that has far too much junk on it, most of which you’ll probably never need or use. Some of the stuff you can delete outright. Some you have to uninstall. And some you have to pull out like a swamp tick from a hound dog. There is no central location to this magic. There is neither a single trick nor a button to push. Instead, in the following sections I offer some words of advice on “keeping it clean.” Heed them, and you’ll never again worry about living with a junky computer system.

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Remove the Yet-to-Be-Installed Stuff Just about every computer comes with “bundled” software, which is junk the dealer or manufacturer installs onto your computer’s hard drive as a so-called bonus. Yeah. These are akin to the “free” floor mats and beer cozies a car dealer gives you because you’re such a nice customer. Do you really need that stuff? Is there any value? Either way, you can be assured that it’s utterly safe to remove the stuff, especially if it’s yet to be installed. For example, you most likely have an Online Services folder on the desktop. It contains programs to set up America Online, CompuServe, and other online services. If you don’t plan to use such services, go ahead and delete that folder. In fact, you can delete any program that hasn’t been installed on your computer. For example, if you download a program (which appears as a compressed folder or Zip file in Windows), but you haven’t installed it, then you can delete that icon with no ill effects. The only problem happens when you try to delete a program that’s already been installed. Don’t do that! Instead, properly uninstall the program, as described in the next section.

N O T E While you can freely delete any uninstalled program, I prefer to copy them to a Zip disk or CD-R for long-term storage, ‘cause you never know ‘bout them computers…

Remove Installed Programs Getting rid of programs that are already installed is done through the Add/Remove Programs dialog box. To remove installed programs, follow these steps:

1. From the Start menu, choose Control Panel. 2. Click “Add or Remove Programs.”


4. Click to highlight the program you want to remove. Here is where you need to hunt down the stuff you really don’t use— the stuff the dealer or computer manufacturer may have installed. For example, in the figure, you see the InControl Tools 98. Don’t be jarred when you click; the item you select grows larger to display more information. Most importantly, look to the right side of the dialog box to see how often the program has been used. If it says nothing at all or “rarely,” then it’s most likely a good candidate for removal.

W A R N I N G Unless you have a backup copy of the program, or the original CD handy, you will not be able to recover any preinstalled program that you delete.

5. Click the Change/Remove button. What happens next depends on the program. Some programs may display a warning message, and a nasty one at that. Read it carefully.

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Other programs may run their uninstall utility—the safest way to remove software in Windows. If so, the program is displayed and you can choose whichever options are necessary to remove it. If you change your mind, click Cancel. This is okay; I chicken out all the time, despite the fact that I think I’ll never use the MapPoint program in my entire life.

Remove Parts of Windows Windows is composed of dozens of little programs, most of which were written to put various existing and potential Microsoft competitors out of business. Not all of these programs are installed with Windows, and many of them can be removed. This all happens in the same place, the Add or Remove Programs dialog box. To remove parts of Windows, follow these steps:

1. From the Start menu, choose Control Panel. 2. Click “Add or Remove Programs.” 3. Click the Add/Remove Windows Components button on the dialog box’s left edge. This starts the Windows Components Wizard.

The Components list in the center of the dialog box lists various categories of Windows programs and utilities. You can add or remove categories by checking or unchecking the check boxes beside categories. Or you can add


or remove individual components by highlighting a category and then clicking the Details button. For example, select Accessories and Utilities and click the Details button. Yet another dialog box appears! There are two categories: Accessories and Games. Select Games and click Details. The full list of games is displayed in yet another dialog box. To remove (or install) a specific game, remove (or add) a check mark. Or to remove all of the Windows games, click Cancel and merely remove the check mark by the Games item in the Accessories and Utilities window. What can you remove? Anything and everything. The amount of disk space consumed by a category is listed on the right in the scrolling window. So, for example, you can save a whopping 12.9MB of disk space by removing all of the Windows Games from your computer (and you can save hours of wasted time by not having FreeCell handy). Of course, the purpose here isn’t really to save disk space. Instead, it’s to remove the junk you don’t need in Windows.

Remove Other Things Some programs install themselves like Canadian Thistle: they grow deep roots so that killing off the part of the program you see doesn’t truly eliminate the problem. For example, some “screen savers” on the Internet are merely advertisements. You install the screen saver and discover that it takes over your computer. And you cannot delete or uninstall the thing. The only solution for such invasive programs is to use System Restore. In fact, you should create a restore point before installing any program you download from the Internet.

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N O T E System Restore is used to undo anything that has happened to your computer (either by you or by something you installed). It restores your computer’s system to an earlier state without deleting any files you’ve created or saved such as documents you are currently working on. The best advice I can give you is that you should create your own restore point before you make any changes to your system, including adding any new screen saver or downloading anything.

To use System Restore, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose All Programs ➢ Accessories ➢ System Tools ➢ System Restore. 3. Click “Create a restore point,” and then click the Next button. 4. For a description, type the name of the program you’re installing, such as “Internet Screen Saver that Sandy told me would foul up my system.”

5. Click the Create button. Windows saves vital system information, allowing you to undo an installation that would otherwise be undoable.

6. Click Close to close the System Restore program. Now install your software. Go ahead. I dare you! And when you find out that there is no way to uninstall the program, run the System Restore utility again to restore your computer to the state it was in before you installed the program. (This can be done even if you fail to create your own restore point.)

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose All Programs ➢ Accessories ➢ System Tools ➢ System Restore.

3. Click “Restore my computer to an earlier time.” 4. Click the Next button. A screen appears displaying a calendar plus a highlight window, as shown in the following figure. The highlight window shows the restore points created for whichever day is highlighted on the calendar. The only dates in the calendar that contain restore points are the


dates that appear in bold. The window opens with the current date highlighted.

5. In the calendar, click the bolded date that is the closest date to today. 6. In the list, choose the most recent restore point from that day. For example, in the following figure, the closest restore point is 10:12 on Sunday, July 29.

7. Click Next. Ignore the warning screen.

8. Click Next. Windows shuts down and restores its system to the way things were before you goofed up and installed the program I told you not to install. When Windows starts again, the program will be removed and the problem gone.

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12

Move Folders from One Computer to Another Just because you have a new computer doesn’t mean you have to build everything from scratch. You may have been using an old computer for years and there’s stuff on there that you want to keep. With the Microsoft Files and Settings Transfer Wizard, you can move files and settings from your old computer to your new one using a simple process of working through some steps and answering some questions. You can decide if you want to move entire folders or just specific files, like My Pictures or your Favorites folder. To move files and folders from one computer to another, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose All Programs ➢ Accessories ➢ System Tools ➢ Files and Settings Transfer Wizard. The Wizard opens and you’re off and running. There’s a lot of reading here, so don’t skim through anything. Read carefully.

3. Read this page and click Next. 4. If you’re working with Windows XP, you probably have a new computer. For the following example, I’m working as if this is your new computer, so a green dot needs to be next to New Computer. Click next to “New computer” if the green dot isn’t there. Click Next.

5. You may be asked to wait a few minutes. The next question is, Do you have a Windows XP CD? Read the following sections before you answer that question.

If You Don’t Have a Windows XP CD If you bought your computer and Whistler is already installed on it, you probably don’t have a Whistler CD. That’s OK because the next step is going to walk you through the steps of creating a Wizard Disk.

M OV E F O L D E R S F R O M O N E C O M P U T E R TO A N OT H E R

1. After starting the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard and waiting for the “Do you have a Windows XP CD” question, a window appears with four options for creating a Wizard Disk. Click “I want to create a Wizard Disk in the following drive,” select the 3.5-inch floppy drive from the drop-down list, and then click Next.

2. Put a formatted floppy disk in your A: drive, and then click Next. You are creating a Wizard disk to take to your old computer.

3. Take the floppy disk out of your new computer, put the disk in your old computer, open the Start menu, and then click Run.

4. In the Open text box, type a:\FASTWiz. 5. Click OK. You receive a “Welcome to the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard” message. Click Next.

6. Choose Floppy Drive as your method of transferring information. Click Next.

N O T E You can choose Home Network if you are set up on a home network. However, for this example I’m using the Floppy Drive method because I’m guessing most of you out there don’t have a home network. (But I’m only guessing.)

7. Choose what you want to transfer to your new computer. You can choose “Settings only” if you like. The right side of the window shows you what settings will be transferred. Click the “Files only” to read what that’s about. Then click the “Both files and settings” option. You also have the option to customize your selection of specific files instead of having to take the whole package.

W A R N I N G Notice the alert sign in this window. Transferring files may mean you’re going to need a lot of floppy disks. This also means you may be sitting at your computer for a while. Many files + many disks = lots of time.

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8. Click your option and click Next. The files start transferring to your floppy disk. Watch the screen for prompts to take out one disk and put in another. Keep these disks in order (as in which disk was first and which was second).

9. After all the files have been collected from your old computer, take the floppy disk back to your new computer, insert it into the floppy drive, and click Next.

10. Click on Floppy Drive and click Next. The Wizard moves your files to your new computer. Continue following the directions on your screen. Click Finish when you are done.

S PE C IALIZI N G YO U R F I LE S AN D F O LD E RS

An option is available for deleting and adding what you want to bring over. The options XP gives you are limiting. The Files and Settings option is almost required unless you dig around and use the Add and Delete buttons that appear when you select the Customize option in the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard. You can use this option to search through your folders to find specific files and folders you want to add.

If You Do Have a Windows XP CD You would have the Whistler CD if you upgraded your computer or if you bought your computer and requested that no operating system was on it (which is very rare and I doubt that you did that). If you have a Whistler CD (or it may say Windows XP), then after you start the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard and wait, click Yes and then click Next. The following steps direct you to go to your old computer and insert the Whistler CD, much like the steps given above. Follow the directions on the screen.

If You Don’t Need a Whistler CD This answer works if you’ve collected your files from your old computer on a floppy disk and will transfer them this way.

M A K E Y O U R C O M P U T E R TA L K T O Y O U

This whole process really depends on whether you have the Whistler CD. The best guidance I can give is that you may need several formatted floppy disks and you need to set aside some time to do this. After starting the Files and Settings Transfer Wizard and waiting, just read the directions on the screen. Windows tells you everything you need to do.

N O T E Floppy disks usually come preformatted; just look for the word formatted on the box of disks.

These explanations may seem somewhat vague, but that is because I don’t know what you specifically want to add, whether you have a network or not, and whether you have the Windows XP CD. Hopefully, these basic steps will get you to where you want to be.

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Make Your Computer Talk to You Apparently, we humans have this thing called “inner monologue.” Or, put another way, we like to talk to ourselves. Not out loud. (Well, not often out loud.) But we typically maintain some type of dialog inside our heads, apparently to fill the empty space. Windows XP apparently suffers from the same mental condition, although in this case the dialog can come in handy. There’s a Windows utility called Narrator that reads text, dialog boxes, menus, and buttons. And if your PC has a sound card and speakers, you too can hear what Windows is trying to say. Seriously, Narrator is particularly useful if you have difficulty reading small text or would rather sit back and close your eyes and have Windows melodically lull you to sleep with the soothing poetics of its dialog boxes. Or you can just have Narrator pop up from time to time to inform you that you’ve committed some heinous crime against Windows.

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Now here’s the small print with this Narrator program: “Narrator may not perform well with some applications and only speaks English… Most users with visual impairments will need a utility with higher functionality for daily use.” Well, I take that to mean that Microsoft Narrator is good just if you want your computer to read the dialog boxes and warnings to you. Still, it may be fun. To make your computer talk to you, follow these steps:

1. Open the Start menu and choose All Programs ➢ Accessories ➢ Accessibility ➢ Narrator. A welcome screen appears to give you the scoop on this Narrator program. Click OK to get rid of that welcome screen. The Narrator dialog box is underneath. Narrator Sam starts talking. Or mumbling, depending on how good your speakers are.

N O T E If you move the window that Narrator is reading, Narrator will stop reading. So once Narrator kicks in and starts working, leave the window alone.

The important thing to remember: Press Ctrl+Shift+Spacebar to switch Narrator into action.

W A R N I N G Narrator works only when the Narrator program runs. Click the Minimize button in the Narrator dialog box to shrink it down to a button on the taskbar. That way Narrator is still running (and talking). Narrator quits only when you close the program.

2. The nifty thing in the Narrator dialog box is the Voice button. Click on it to open the Voice Settings dialog box. You can adjust the voice of Microsoft Sam, but not change it. Your settings are probably all at 5 for Sam’s speed, volume, and pitch.

3. Go ahead and play with these levels by pressing the up or down arrow next to each number. My favorite is to give Sam a pitch of 9. He sounds very panicked and anxious.

4. Click OK to save your settings. Minimize the Narrator dialog box.

C L E A N U P T H E D E S K TO P

N O T E To shut up Microsoft Sam (so he quits talking), click the blue bar at the top of whatever window you currently have open. This is like a private message to Sam that you’ve had enough of his talking and you don’t need to hear the rest. When another window opens, he begins talking again until you click that that title bar to stop him or close the Narrator program.

Now you’re ready to start browsing around Windows and listen to your personal tour by Microsoft Sam. Remember to Press Ctrl+Shift+ Spacebar to have him read things. For example, start Notepad and type some text. Narrator Sam reads as you type. (To better hear what you write, press Ctrl+Shift+Spacebar after typing the text.) When you’ve had enough of Sam and you’re ready to turn him off, follow these steps:

1. Click the Narrator button on your taskbar. This will open the Narrator dialog box. Sam says, “Foreground window.”

2. Click Exit. Sam will say, “Foreground window.” 3. Click Yes, you are sure you want to exit. Ahhhh, silence!

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Clean Up the Desktop Windows XP is like a nagging mother. It is very concerned about making sure you know you can clean up unused icons and that you really should keep your desktop clean. Okay. Thanks, Mom. Unlike previous versions of Windows, XP allows you to have an utterly clean or cluttery, obscene desktop. Put another way, you can run your desktop with absolutely no icons on it at all, or as many icons and shortcuts and folders as you’re capable of obsessing over. It’s all up to you.

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The desktop is part of the display, so to mess with the desktop you need to head to the Display Properties dialog box. To find the Display Properties dialog box, follow these steps:

1. Right-click anywhere on an empty area of the desktop (not on an icon).

2. Select Properties from the shortcut menu. 3. In the Display Properties dialog box, click the Desktop tab. 4. Click the Customize desktop button. The Desktop Items dialog box appears. The Desktop Items dialog box is where you have control over a clean or cluttered desktop. Actually, clutter happens, so I suppose it’s proper to say that the Desktop Items dialog box is where you can obsess over cleaning your desktop.

The top area of the dialog box contains four check boxes. Each check box controls the visibility of the four icons traditionally bolted down to the desktop: My Documents, My Computer, My Network Places, and Internet Explorer. Removing a check mark removes the item from the desktop. (Which can be replaced by restoring an item’s check mark.) Alas, there’s no way to remove the Recycle Bin icon; it’s always supposed to be on the desktop.


The Desktop Cleanup area of this dialog box controls the Desktop Cleanup Wizard, which is a handy little program that tells you whether you’re using the shortcut icons that clutter the desktop.

1. Click the Clean Desktop Now button. The Desktop Cleanup Wizard starts.

2. Click Next. The next screen is highly useful. It lists all the shortcut icons on the desktop and when they were last used. This is very handy from an organizational standpoint, to see whether you’re using the icons that clutter your desktop.

3. Select any icon to remove from the desktop by putting a check mark by it.

4. Remove the check marks by any item you would like to keep. Don’t fret over the icons being deleted. The Wizard doesn’t delete the items, but rather stores them in a special folder called Unused Desktop Shortcuts, which it (conveniently) places on the desktop.

5. Click the Next button to see a summary of items the Wizard will be removing.

6. Click the Finish button to move the selected items in the Unused Desktop Shortcuts folder. By the way, that “Run Desktop Cleanup Wizard every 60 days” item can be unchecked. That removes the pain of having the notice in the System Notification Area pop up at awkward times.

7. Click OK to close the Desktop Items dialog box. 8. Click OK to close the Display Properties dialog box. Desktop Cleanup has a few more steps. For example, you can arrange the desktop icons in a number of ways: sloppy, neat and orderly, or even alphabetically:

1. Right-click the desktop. 2. Choose Arrange Icons By to display a submenu.

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There are three areas in the submenu. The first contains four items you can use for organizing the icons on the desktop in a permanent manner. For example:

3. Choose Name from the submenu. The icons on the desktop are organized from top to bottom, left to right by their name.

4. Right-click the desktop. 5. Choose Arrange Icons By ➢ Auto Arrange. The Auto Arrange option tells Windows always to arrange the icons in top-to-bottom columns starting at the left side of the screen, according to whatever order you’ve selected. With Auto Arrange on, you can move an icon up or down in a column, but you can’t move it across the desktop to another location.

6. Try to drag one of the desktop icons to the right side of the screen. You can’t. That’s because Auto Arrange has been set on.

7. Right-click the desktop. 8. Choose Arrange Icons By ➢ Auto Arrange. This removes the check mark by Auto Arrange and returns the desktop back to a more fluid organizational state. If you like your desktop icons in a rigid grid pattern, you can tell Windows to snap-to!

9. Right-click on the desktop. 10. Choose Arrange Icons By ➢ Align to Grid. In this mode, you can still move the icons around, but when you release an icon it snaps into position based on an invisible grid on your screen that keeps all the icons aligned with each other. That way everything is kept neat and tidy. Finally, you can get rid of all the desktop icons if you see fit:

11. Right-click the desktop. 12. Choose Arrange Icons By ➢ Show Desktop Icons.


Thwoop! Everything is gone! Talk about clean. But just like some kids clean their room, the icons aren’t really gone but rather hidden:

13. Right-click the desktop. 14. Choose Arrange Icons By ➢ Show Desktop Icons. And they’re back. The only desktop thing I’m not covering here is putting the Web on the desktop. That’s actually a way to clutter up the desktop, and it works well if you have a constant Internet connection, such as a DSL or Cable modem. Otherwise, that clutter is just too much to go into right now.

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Use Your Computer for Both Business and Home Use

Business and Home Computing

Windows XP is probably the best use of a computer operating system that enables you to do all your personal computing and family computing, yet gives you the security features for a business computer too. In the past, it was a little scary to do a business proposal on the same computer where your 4-year old plays the Pirate Treasure computer game. Why is this scary? Because 4-year-olds have no fear of computers. Only adults fear computers. So when a computer starts to crash on a 4-year old, they start clicking buttons and icons until it is “fixed.” Ugh! Now that is scary. This chapter contains all the great things you can do that make one computer useful for both business and pleasure, including setting your brave 4-year old up on his own user account so your work is safe. Now, if only there was a setting so that he would know not to set his juice glass next to the keyboard…

15

Take a Tour of Windows the Proper Way I have to tell you, I think this chapter is technically illegal in the publisher’s world. But I’m going to try to sneak it through because personally, I found this little tour informative and helpful. Plus, I think it’s a healthy overview of Windows XP. To take a tour of Windows, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose All Programs ➢ Accessories ➢ Tour Windows XP. 3. Click the top button to play the animated tour. Music, narration, it’s a complete show! Click Next. Now just sit back and watch. You’ll have some choices to make as to what you see, but if you sit back long enough, Windows will choose for you.

U S E M O R E T H A N O N E M O N I TO R

16

Use More Than One Monitor I remember Dan getting all excited about having two monitors for one computer. “Yeah, great,” I said rather smugly. “Why or when would I use that?” Then he installed another monitor for my computer, thinking I just didn’t know what I was missing. Boy, as much as I hate to admit it, he was right. I would be lost without a second monitor. I use it all the time. I’ll keep an outline of a book on one monitor and use the second monitor to actually type the text. It’s great! So now that I’m hooked, I believe you could get hooked too. Especially if you’ve been around computers a while, you probably have an older monitor sitting around. Why not put it to use? On the downside, and especially if you don’t have an older monitor just lying around the office, adding an extra monitor does cost money. Besides the monitor you need a second video display adapter or “graphics card,” plus room to plug that into your computer. That’s it for money spent, however; Windows XP comes with all the software you need. The process of adding the second monitor is a little complex and requires that you don’t have a fear of opening up your computer and tinkering with its insides. If you do, then have someone else work through the hardware installation. To add a second monitor, follow these steps:

1. Remove the existing graphics adapter. Shut down Windows, and then unplug the computer. Open its case and remove the existing graphics adapter. If the graphics adapter is built into the motherboard, then you need to find the computer’s documentation for instructions on disabling it.

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U S E YO U R C O M P U T E R F O R B OT H B U S I N E S S A N D H O M E U S E

N O T E Technically, you don’t need to remove the existing graphics adapter. But experience has shown that problems can occur if you leave it in, so removing it is a precautionary step.

The idea here is that you’ll need the drivers and all the software needed to use the first graphics adapter—and all that stuff is already installed on the computer. All you’re doing now is properly introducing the computer to the secondary graphics adapter.

2. Install the secondary graphics adapter. Plug it into a different slot than the first adapter. For example, if the first adapter was plugged into the AGP port, plug this adapter into a PCI slot. Or if the first adapter was plugged into PCI slot 2, plug the second adapter into a different PCI slot. Connect your existing monitor to the new graphics adapter. Then close up the case and plug the computer back in. (Understand that I’m being brief here; the actual things you do may be more complex than this. The bottom line is: Never turn the computer on with its case open.)

3. Start Windows and install the software for the secondary graphics adapter. This should take place more or less automatically; Windows XP is smart that way. If your new graphics adapter came with an installation disk, insert it when the New Hardware Wizard asks you to (if it asks). Note that there is no need to install any software other than the basic drivers. For example, if the graphics adapter comes with games, demos, or a free copy of Grapho-Smaffo, there is no need to install it now.

4. Confirm that everything is working. If the new graphics card is displaying information on the screen just fine, great! Just follow the steps it asks you to do. Nothing to worry about, just one more ugly thing to do.

5. Reinstall the original graphics adapter. Shut down Windows, unplug the computer, pop open the case, and put the original graphics adapter back into the case where it originally

U S E M O R E T H A N O N E M O N I TO R

sat. If it was a motherboard adapter, re-enable it according to the complex and poorly worded instructions that came with your computer. Because you’ve already installed the hardware and software for the secondary adapter, everything will work smoothly when you turn the computer back on.

6. Close up the computer case. 7. Plug in both monitors. It doesn’t matter which monitor plugs into which adapter. If you dislike the arrangement (left-right or right-left), you can fix it using Windows. In fact, Windows lets you position the monitors either side-by-side or top-to-bottom, relative to each other.

8. Plug everything back into the wall. 9. Turn on the computer. Windows again recognizes the original graphics adapter. If you’re asked, tell Windows that it’s okay to use the existing drivers already on the computer. One of the monitors will be the main monitor. That’s the one that comes up first. The secondary monitor displays a message that tells you how it’s activated.

N O T E If you don’t like your choice for the main monitor, then turn off the computer and both monitors. Swap their video connections. Then turn everything on again.

10. Right-click an empty area of the desktop. 11. Choose Properties from the shortcut menu. 12. Click the Settings tab. You will see both monitors displayed in the top part of the dialog box. (More on that in a second.)

13. Click to put a check mark in the “Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor” check box.

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This activates the secondary monitor.

14. Click the picture of the monitor with the 2 on it to select the second monitor.

15. Adjust the settings for the second monitor. Set the monitor’s resolution and number of colors. These settings don’t necessarily have to match the settings for the first monitor.

16. Arrange the monitors’ positions by dragging their icons in the preview area. You can drag either monitor up, down, left, or right to set how the desktop extends between them. As a test, you can drag the Display Properties dialog box back and forth between the windows to see how things line up.

17. Click OK when you’re done. Note that the wallpaper you choose may simply be duplicated on each monitor or it may “tile” between the monitors. You’ll have to experiment with the monitors to see which wallpaper looks best. Maximizing a window makes it fill only one monitor screen, not both. To extend a single window to both monitors you have to manually re-size it (although it’s been my experience that there’s rarely any reason to do this). Older DOS programs and games that run full-screen will use only the main monitor. The screen saver may not extend its animation to the second monitor. Again, as with the wallpaper, you’ll have to experiment here to see which screen savers work best. The taskbar and icons always appear initially on the first monitor. You can move icons to the second monitor, but they will “snap back” to the first monitor when you restart Windows. Some applications may not let you take advantage of the second monitor. For example, the 3M Post-it Notes program displays its notes only on the first monitor’s screen.

MANAG E U S E R AC C O U NTS

17

Manage User Accounts If you’re the only one using your computer, great! That makes user account management simple: don’t do it. You have one account, plus the guest account that Windows automatically creates, and you don’t need to waste any further time with user accounts. So there. On the other hand, you may be one of those people who share a computer with numerous others. If so, Windows XP is utterly configured to handle your needs, giving each person their own account with separate storage areas for your personal documents, desktop and Start menu settings, sounds, Internet passwords, and other important stuff. The place where all that is dealt with is the User Accounts window, which can be accessed through the Control Panel. Before getting started, remember that there are two different types of accounts: Limited and Administrator. The Limited account is the dumb account, giving you limited control over the computer, limiting your ability to run certain applications (such as disk utilities), and limiting your ability to manage other user accounts. The Administrator account has no such limitations, meaning that this person can get in and tinker with everything.

N O T E I recommend that only one person using the computer be given the Administrator account. Everyone else should be a Limited account. This is just my opinion because honestly, you can assign as many Administrator accounts as you want to. However, if you have more than one Administrator, they can take control of accounts and documents and folders and really botch things up.

From time to time, you may need to add a new user to the computer’s list. Say little Simon is old enough to read and type, and—by golly—he wants to go to www.cartoonnetwork.com! Time to add him! To add a new user, follow these steps:

1. From the Start menu, choose Control Panel.

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2. Click “User Accounts” to open the User Accounts window. 3. Click “Create a new account.” 4. Type the user’s name or handle. Actually, you can get by with just typing their name here; anyone can change their name to a handle or code word at any time. Ditto for the graphic image; your job is merely to create the account.

5. Click the Next button after entering the name. 6. Click the Limited button. Hmmm-hmmm. 7. Click the Create Account button. That’s all there is to creating the account. You can make further modifications if you like by selecting the new account from the bottom of the window; then you can change their pictures, add a password for them, change the name or handle, and so on. If you decide that you need to change the account type of a user, it’s easy to do.

1. From the Start menu, choose Control Panel. 2. In the Control Panel window, click “User Accounts.” The User Accounts window appears, as shown in the following figure. If it doesn’t look like the figure, then you don’t have Administrator access. In that case, you see only items you can change with your own account, which isn’t the point of this exercise.


The top part of the User Accounts window lists various tasks you can perform. The bottom part contains a list of users on the computer, telling whether they have Administrator or Limited accounts. (Obviously, your first task as Administrator should be to remove Administrator access from any other account, but I’ll let you go there at your own peril.) As Administrator, you can create new accounts, delete old accounts, change account names and funny pictures, and remove or add passwords. For example, notice that my teenage son has Administrator access, which means he could potentially do to me what I’m about to do to him—change his account type to Limited.

3. To change the account type for a user, click on the account at the bottom of the window. A window opens giving you options for changing that account’s information.

4. Click “Change the account type.” A window opens for you to pick the account type you want to give to this user. If you hover your mouse over the Computer Administrator button, you can see an overview of what Administrators can do. Hover your mouse over the Limited button to see what users with Limited accounts can and cannot do.

5. Click the Limited button. 6. Click the Change Account Type button. You’ll notice that the words “Limited account” are now displayed by the user’s name. It worked! Now he can’t limit me!

7. Click the Home button near the top of the window to return to the main User Accounts window. Now there will be peace… While you can add accounts, change account types, and add passwords to accounts, one thing you cannot do is change another user’s password. Yes, even at the Administrator level. Instead, you can merely remove the password. This still saves the accounts (and all the users’ data on the computer), but it does remove the password. To remove a user’s password, follow these steps:

1. From the Start menu, choose Control Panel. 2. Click “User Accounts” to open the User Accounts window.

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3. Choose the user’s account from the list in the bottom of the window. The user’s account window opens.

4. Click “Remove the Password.” A suitably appropriate warning message appears. Read it carefully. Is it worth ticking off that user, removing their password chain (see the sidebar), and exposing them to potential riffling by other users? Sounds good.

5. Click the Remove Password button. The user’s password is gone.

6. Click the Home button to return to the main User Accounts window.

PA S S W O R D C H A I N

The password chain is a list of all the passwords you use in Windows, the ones that you’re normally asked for: access to the Internet and your e-mail account, plus any online passwords you type. These are stored in this password chain, which Windows keeps for you. This is handy because it prevents you from having to constantly enter passwords; just properly log into Windows and it instantly recalls all of your passwords. But if you delete an account’s password, then all of that password chain information is gone.

Another thing you can do in the User Accounts area is to change the way people log in or out. To change the way the user logs in or out, follow these steps:

1. From the Start menu, choose Control Panel. 2. Click “User Accounts” to open the User Accounts window. 3. Choose “Change the way users log on or off.” There are only two options here, both of which are best left checked. If you uncheck “Use the Welcome screen,” then the old style Windows Logon dialog box is used instead of the Welcome screen. Boring!


If you uncheck “Use Fast User Switching,” then you have to log out each time you want to change accounts. That just slows the process, so there’s no point in unchecking it.

4. You don’t want to make any changes now, so click Cancel. 5. Close the User Accounts window. 6. Close the Control Panel. Now you’re done. Finally, there comes the sad time that a user account has to be killed off. To end a user account, follow these steps:

1. From the Start menu, choose Control Panel. 2. Click to select the account from the bottom of the User Accounts window.

3. Click “Delete the account.” You’ll be asked if you want to keep the user’s files or delete them. Remember, each user has their files (from My Documents) stored in a separate part of the computer’s hard drive. In most cases, you probably want to delete the files, but you can choose to keep them. (If so, then they’re kept in a folder on the desktop with the account’s name.) Click the Keep Files or Delete Files button, depending on which you want to do. A window appears asking if you really want to delete the account.

N O T E You cannot delete the account if the user hasn’t logged out. In that case, you’ll need to switch users (or log out yourself), go to that user’s account, log out, and then return to your own account to complete the removal process.

4. Click the Delete Account button. Thwoop! They’re gone.

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18

Quickly Switch between Multiple Users The normal mode of operations when dealing with multiple users is to log in, use the computer, and then log out again. Windows XP lets you do that, if you want. Otherwise, the various users can stay logged in—with open windows and everything—and still switch to some other user. So if Junior just has to get on the Internet, you can switch over to his account without having to utterly quit what you’re doing. The first thing to check is whether Fast User Switching has been activated. To activate Fast User Switching, follow these steps:

1. From the Start menu, choose Control Panel. 2. Choose “User Accounts.” 3. In the User Accounts window, click “Change the way users log on or off.” Note that this option is available only if your account is set up as an Administrator. (Refer to Section 17 for more details on User Accounts.)

4. Ensure that there is a check mark beside “Use Fast User Switching.” If so, then you’re set. If not, put a check mark there.

5. Click Apply Options to make the change (if a change was made). 6. Close the User Accounts window and then close the Control Panel. 7. To try this out, click the Log Off button at the bottom of the Start menu. The Log Off Windows window appears.

Q U I C K LY S W I T C H B E T W E E N M U LT I P L E U S E R S

8. Click the Switch User button. Ta-da! It’s the Welcome screen again. This lists the various user accounts, allowing you to choose one if someone else wants to log in (or if you want to log in under a different identity—say, the secret identity you have that’s stashing away untold Internet billions into a Swiss bank account). If any user is logged in, it will state so beneath their user name/picture. Also, if they’re running any programs, you’ll see the number of running programs displayed. Note that there is no way to change your mind here. If you’d rather not log in as anyone else or have anyone else log in, you must reselect your account. Optionally enter your password (if you’ve given the account a password), then the screen returns to the way it was when you last were using Windows. But remember that you didn’t actually log out!

N O T E Memorization time: Quitting Windows or shutting down the computer is just that; you quit Windows and the computer can be turned off (or it turns off automatically).

Logging out doesn’t quit Windows. It merely tells Windows that you’re done and you would like to close up all your applications and stop working. Windows, however, continues to work and just waits for someone else to log in. Switching users doesn’t quit Windows, nor does it log you out. It merely lets another person have access to the computer while your logged-in account stays humble, silent, and protected in the background.

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19

Publish a File or Folder to the Web One of the more curious features you’ll find in the File and Folder Tasks pane is the item that states “Publish this folder (or file) to the Web.” Sounds juicy, no? And it must be something important because it’s an item that’s way up there toward the top of the list, near “Make a new folder” and “Share this folder.” Hmmm… Alas, while it sounds intriguing and potentially useful, publishing a file or folder to the Web is more of a curiosity than anything handy, like FTP. And in this instance, publishing to the Web has nothing to do with transferring files to your ISP or uploading new pages to a Web site.

N O T E FTP is the File Transfer Protocol. It’s the more traditional way that files are sent to the Internet from your computer, or received from an FTP site. Windows does let you perform FTP, which is covered later in this book. But keep in mind that publishing to the Web is not the same as FTP.

To publish a folder to the Web you first need to use one of the many Web publishing and sharing sites on the Internet. Microsoft lists two of them for you, Xdrive Technologies and MSN, though there are others you can find by looking up “file hosting” on Yahoo! or any Web search engine. When your files are published to a file host on the Web, then others can go visit the files. So, for example, you could publish pictures of your kids or your personal collection of MP3 files, documents for work, or whatever. The files can be password protected or open to anyone. But the point is that they’re available on the Web and easily published there by using the “Publish this folder/file” command in Windows XP. To publish your information on the Web, follow these steps:

1. Browse to the folder or file you want to publish on the Web.

P U B L I S H A F I L E O R F O L D E R TO T H E W E B

It can be any folder or file. For example, if you have a folder called Cute Dog Pictures in the My Pictures folder, browse to that folder. If you want to share your 9th-grader’s first novella on the Internet, then browse to the folder containing that file.

N O T E The quickest way to browse to a folder is to double-click the My Documents folder on your desktop. This puts you in the right window to use the following steps. Don’t use Windows Explorer to publish your folder to the Web. That option isn’t available.

2. Click “Publish this folder to the Web.” Or if you’re publishing only a single file, select that file, and then click “Publish this file to the Web.” The Web Publishing Wizard starts.

3. Click the Next button. The next window that appears, shown in the following figure, gives you the option of changing your file selection. Click next to one of the files to add a check mark if you want to make more files available. Note that if you selected a folder, then you’ll see all the files in the folder displayed. This is normal.

4. Click the Next button.

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Your dial-up connection box may appear, asking you to connect to the Internet. Click Connect. The next step is the curious step—where to publish the folder or files on the Internet. In my copy of Windows XP, I see only two items: MSN Communities and Xdrive. Now I know that you have to subscribe to MSN to use many of their sites (although they do have some free stuff out there too), but I’m not about to fork over even more of my money to Bill Gates. So signing up for MSN isn’t in the cards. If, however, you’ve already surrendered your credit card number to the Gates Foundation, then you can choose to use MSN. The rest of us will choose to use Xdrive (the only other option available).

N O T E I don’t know how to add extra servers to the list. I tried. I even tried to connect to my local ISP where I know I have disk storage space, but the Web Publishing Wizard wouldn’t let me. So much for a flexible operating system.

5. Click Xdrive. 6. Click the Next button. The next few steps will set you up with Xdrive. Heed these steps to establish your account there. You may be asked to resize pictures or reduce file size to help with the fast transfer of the files. It’s your choice, but I always recommend making things easier for the recipient of your information. I mean, how many times have you rumbled and grumbled because your Aunt Margie sent you a picture over e-mail and it takes forever to download because she saved it in the wrong format?

P U B L I S H A F I L E O R F O L D E R TO T H E W E B

. N E T PA S S P O R T

You need a .NET Passport account to sign up for the Xdrive service. There are other features with Windows XP that you’ll use the .NET Passport account for, if you choose to use the features. For example, you’ll need it for NetMeeting which is a very cool feature covered later in the book. Signing up for .NET Passport is simply a matter of answering questions about your name and e-mail address, and then picking a password.

Eventually you’ll see a screen that tells you where the files will be uploaded, usually your “Online Drive” or some similar location. That’s fine.

7. Click the Next button. The file is uploaded and published to the Web site. The last step of the Web Publishing Wizard lets you automatically open the site to see how your file looks. Do that.

8. Ensure that the item “Open this site when I click Finish” is checked. 9. Click the Finish button. The Wizard quits and your Web browser is pointed to the Web site where you file or folder was published. The very first thing you do when you see your published files is to drop a bookmark into your Favorites list. To do this, follow these steps:

1. From the Favorites menu in Internet Explorer, choose Add to Favorites.

2. Click OK to add the Xdrive site to your Favorites list. By bookmarking your online files, you can instantly return to the Web publishing site without having to remember what to type. Now that you’re bookmarked, you can see what goodies the screen holds. The following figure shows how the files looked on my screen.

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You can click to select the files, then use the buttons near the top of the window to Upload, Download, Move, Rename, View, and so on. To make your file available to others, follow these steps:

1. Click the Share button. Of course, this sharing stuff doesn’t work unless you decide to share the file with others. Xdrive won’t let just anyone browse to your folder and see your stuff, so you must invite others to share.

2. Type in the e-mail address of the person you want to share the file with. You can list several addresses if you want to share the file with many other people. (Of course, I could also point out that it’s possible just to e-mail people files as an attachment, but that would destroy all the fun you’re having on the Web right now.)

3. Type a subject. 4. Type a brief message. 5. Click the Send button. Soon all of those lovely people will be sharing in your online documents.

6. Click the “My Online Drive” link to return to your shared folder.

S AV E A D O C U M E N T I N A U N I V E R S A L LY S H A R A B L E F O R M AT

Play around some more if you’d like. You can create a new folder to help organize your online junk; just click the New Folder button. Then you can move files into that new folder—although that’s a tedious process online because it must happen one file at time. Close Internet Explorer when you’re done goofing around. And, optionally, you can disconnect from the Internet.

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Save a Document in a Universally Sharable Format Want to feel smart? Then you have to know about universally sharable file formats. This is material that no mere beginner’s book would tackle. No, those silly beginners just worry about saving their stuff. They never bother figuring out if Aunt Zelma (who uses a Macintosh because her son is in theater and recommended it) can read the file. They just don’t think! But you do. Creating a common file format is one of the Holy Grails of computing. Unfortunately, like that scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, there are many different Holy Grails to choose from. Not that choosing poorly will kill you in a hideous manner, but just that it often takes a while to find a common file format that everyone else finds common as well. The realm of the common file format is the realm of the Save As dialog box. Near the bottom of the dialog box, you can usually find a “Save as Type” drop-down list. That tells the application which file format to save your stuff in. Simple enough. Normally, the Save As dialog box attempts to save your stuff in the application’s own, native format: Microsoft Word documents are saved in the Microsoft Word format; Photoshop saves its stuff in the Photoshop format; and so on. However, by using the “Save as Type” drop-down list, you can save in file formats that other applications can read. Even applications on other computers.

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Plain Text The most common, universally accepted format for anything in a computer is the plain text or ASCII (pronounced “ask-ee”) format. This format saves only characters plus a few special control codes (tab, return, and so on) in a file on disk. No formatting information and definitely no graphics are saved, but any computer on the planet can read the file. The Notepad program saves in plain text format automatically, although most other applications also can save in plain text.

Delimited File A special type of plain text file is the delimited file. This plain text file is broken up into records and fields, like a database. For example: NAME,FAV_COLOR,DESSERT “Dan Gookin”, “Brown”, “Ice Cream” “Sandy Gookin”, “Red”, “Chocolate”

Each record is on a line by itself. The first line is a special record that describes the fields within each record. Then each following line contains fields surrounded by double quotes and separated by commas. Delimited files were created to share information between incompatible database programs as well as spreadsheets. As with plain text files, however, there is no formatting information or other bells and whistles you’ll find in most applications. But the information can be shared easily between incompatible computers and applications.

Rich Text Format (RTF) A step up from plain text is the Rich Text Format (RTF), an interchange format developed by Microsoft to allow different document preparation applications to open and read files. It’s also a plain text format, but included in the text are formatting instructions. So a word processing document saved in RTF includes information about fonts, margins, and so on. Most word processors can read and save RTF-formatted documents.

S AV E A D O C U M E N T I N A U N I V E R S A L LY S H A R A B L E F O R M AT

When viewed as a text file, RTF looks something like this: {\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\uc1 \deff0\deflang1033\deflangfe1033{\fonttbl{\f0\froman\fcharset0\ fprq2{\*\panose 02020603050405020304}Times New Roman;}{\f54\froman\fcharset0\fprq2{\*\panose 02050604050505020204}Bookman Old Style;}

Now that’s all plain text but when it’s read by any application that understands RTF, that application can translate it into a formatted document. (Don’t bother trying to figure it out.)

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) Another plain text format that appears one way and prints another is Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), which is the format used for creating Web pages. All HTML documents are basically plain text, but they include special formatting commands. And unlike RTF, the HTML formatting information is a lot easier to read:
”Phyllis,you are the most ridiculous person I’ve ever met,” Shelia exclaimed as she stood there half-naked in the shopping mall.

The advantage here is that any computer that can access the Internet can read an HTML document by using its Web browser. So HTML is truly universal, plus it also has the benefit of being plain text. Another advantage of HTML is that it lets you include graphics in addition to formatted text. This is the only common plain text format that does this. So you can save your children’s book project to disk as an HTML document, complete with pictures and background colors, and anyone with an application that reads HTML will be able to read it. HTML also provides a common way to move information between different types of applications. For example, an HTML document saved by a word processor can also be opened by a spreadsheet program that understands the HTML format. The bottom line is that if you want to save a document in a format that someone else can read, you should choose one of these common file formats for your stuff. These are the sharing formats, for that mythical place in computerdom where all the computers like each other and eat the same data.

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Save a Graphic Image in a Universally Sharable Format Suddenly it hits you: Saving a graphic image in a universally sharable format is important. If you were the only person in the universe, then no one would care. You would create your graphics, use them, print them, and your super-duper graph-o-matic program would handle all the details for you. But as you know, Al Gore invented the Internet and now you have the opportunity to share your images with others. Better save them in a format everyone can read. There are five common graphics file formats. Three of them are common to the Internet: JPG, GIF, and PNG. The others, TIFF and EPS, are used for sharing images between professional-level design and publishing programs.

JPG, GIF, and PNG The three most common graphics file formats are JPG, GIF, and PNG. These are all formats widely used on the Internet and each stores graphic images in a compact file size that saves on disk space and download time.

JPG (“jay-peg”) is the most common format, and is ideally suited for photographic images.

GIF (“gif” or “jiff”) is also common, although this format is owned by CompuServe (AOL), and it’s limited in the number of colors it can accurately display. Therefore, the GIF format is used primarily for line art or illustrations.

PNG (“ping”) is the newest format, combining the photographic quality of JPG images with the compact file size of GIF images. The end result is what eventually may become the common graphics file format.

S AV E A G R A P H I C I M A G E I N A U N I V E R S A L LY S H A R A B L E F O R M AT

Generally speaking, if you’re working with a scanned or digital photograph, you should save it in the JPG format. Save any artwork you create yourself, such as designs, logos, graphics, and so forth, as a GIF.

N O T E The Windows Paint program has the ability to open, edit, and save graphics files in the JPG, GIF, or PNG formats.

TIFF For professional graphics people, the TIFF file format is the most popular and common. TIFF images store lots of information and can be opened or saved by any graphics or photo-editing program. They are, however, unsuited for the Internet because of their huge size.

EPS Another common file format is the Encapsulated PostScript format, which is actually the native tongue of the Adobe Illustrator program. Unlike TIFF or the other graphics file formats, however, EPS files save their information as plain text. The text contains the instructions for recreating the image. Like TIFF, EPS files are huge and often used only to share information between graphics or photo-editing programs. However, I give EPS a slight edge in that EPS images are often easier to edit than TIFF images. And because the contents of an EPS file are instructions, this makes EPS files easier to resize and manipulate than any other graphics file format.

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Entertain on Your Computer

Entertain on Your Computer

Your computer is now ready to entertain, make you laugh, make you cry, and make you spend endless hours on projects that will not in any way help you make more money or become more productive with work. Your computer is now the entertainment center for this century. These elements were a blast to write about and I hope you take the time to work through these projects. I’m a big lover of music so that’s why there is so much in this chapter about music. Enjoy!

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Play Music on Your Computer I wish I knew how the whole concept of playing music on the computer actually started. It was probably one of those modern art classes, where someone dropped an old PDP-11 on the floor and the left-leaning artist types applauded lustily at the “experience.” Actually, anyone who knows squat about sound can tell you that noise can be produced by anything that vibrates. My TSR-80 didn’t have a speaker, but it could play music because I could program the cassette tape interface to click at varying rates and speeds. Ta-da! Music. Well, crude music, but music nonetheless. We have come a long way. Computers can now play, create, and even make up their own music. To play music on the traditional CD-ROM drive that the computer has, follow these steps:

1. Pick out some nice music. None of that nasty rap stuff, either. Yuck! 2. Open the CD-ROM or DVD drive (yes, you can play a CD in a DVD drive) and insert the CD. If you have a drive with a tray, push the tiny button by the drive door to open the tray, place the disc in the tray, and push the button again to close it. If your drive is simply a slot, just slide the disc into the drive until the computer grabs it. You’ll see a dialog box asking, “What do you want Windows to do?”

P L AY M U S I C O N Y O U R C O M P U T E R

4. Click on the first option, Play Audio CD Using Windows Media Player, then Click OK. The Windows Media Player window opens. The music is loaded and starts playing. Windows Media Player is set up to look very similar to a CD player you’d find on your stereo. There are buttons for play, pause, next track, and previous track. If you’re not sure what a button does, just hover your mouse over it and its name appears.

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E N T E R TA I N O N Y O U R C O M P U T E R

Playing music is that simple. If, for some reason, you don’t get that “What do you want Windows to do?” dialog box, you can start Windows Media Player another way: From the Start menu, choose All Programs ➢ Accessories ➢ Entertainment ➢ Windows Media Player. Click the big arrow (the Play button) at the bottom of the window to start playing the CD.

Shuffle Music You don’t have to listen to your music tracks in the order they appear on the CD. There is a gray button with three lines on it at the top of the screen. Hover your mouse over the button and you’ll see that it’s the “Turn shuffle on” button. Click it to shuffle the order in which the music is played. This makes it kind of a surprise as to what is going to play next.

Stop the Music The phone rings. It’s your boss. Better turn that music off! Wouldn’t want to give her the wrong impression. Click the button with the square on it. This stops the music. Or you can click what was once the Play button, which has turned into a Pause button. You can also choose Stop from the Play menu at the top of the window.

Change the Music You can easily change the CD you are playing to something else. From the Play menu at the top of the window, choose Eject to pop out your CD. Alternatively, you can hold down the Control key and press the E key (CTRL+E). This also ejects the CD.

Close the Windows Media Player Your boss said she’s heading down to your office. Time to close up the whole Media Player and bring up that spreadsheet you’re supposed to be working on. Choose File ➢ Exit.

G E T E N T E R TA I N M E N T I N F O R M AT I O N F R O M T H E I N T E R N E T

This closes Windows Media Player completely. You’ll need to go through the steps mentioned above (Start ➢ All Programs ➢ Accessories ➢ Entertainment ➢ Windows Media Player) to get your music going again, or simply eject and then reinsert the CD.

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Get Entertainment Information from the Internet Windows Media Player is much more than just a fancy CD player with graphics. It’s an information source, too. If you’re connected to the Internet (yes, everything these days involves the Internet) you can connect to a Web site that has updated links and information about movies, music, and radio stations. You can listen and watch digital media files from the Internet or download them into your computer. This is all from a Web site called WindowsMedia.com.

N O T E WindowsMedia.com is basically a holding location for links to other Web sites. In most cases, if you click on some bit of information, it takes you to some other Web site where that information really is being held. So don’t be surprised when you click on something and you’re transported to another site.

To find entertainment information from the Internet, follow these steps:

1. Start Windows Media Player (Start ➢ All Programs ➢ Accessories ➢ Entertainment ➢ Windows Media Player).

2. Click the Media Guide button on the left side of the Windows Media Player window. You’ll be asked to connect to the Internet (if you’re not already); please do so. You are going to WindowsMedia.com. Your fun media choices are on the left side of the screen. Want to see the latest video of a hot new music group? Click on the Videos/Downloads link.

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Want to find out what top movies are currently playing? Click on the Movies link. Now move over to the Top 10 Lists, and under Box Office, click on one of the movies. You can see the trailer video clips of each of these movies. This is very handy information if you want to go see a movie but don’t know what it’s about. The Lifestyles link is pretty interesting. As with all of the links on WindowsMedia.com, you are whisked off to other Web sites, but there are some fun ones out there. As with Windows Media Player and WindowsMedia.com, there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to get out of some of these windows. The Back button on the toolbar doesn’t always seem to work. So regardless of where you go, when you’re finished, click the X to close the window, click on the Windows Media Player icon on your taskbar, click Media Guide, and go from there. It’s like starting over every time.

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Turn Your Computer into a Radio Playing a CD on the computer is fun. It’s a great example of how you can turn a $1,000-plus computer into a $23 CD player. Oh, I love technology. Alas, like any CD player, it plays only one disk of music at a time. For some purposes, that’s great! But to avoid the tedium, you can also turn your $1,000-plus computer into a $12-or-thereabouts digital radio. That gives you more variety in what you hear, plus it assures you that the $1,000-plus computer is an utterly versatile device—just like the guy in the store promised. To turn your computer into a radio, follow these steps:

1. Start Windows Media Player (Start ➢ All Programs ➢ Accessories ➢ Entertainment ➢ Windows Media Player).

2. Click the Media Guide button on the left side of the Media player window. You’ll need to connect to the Internet if you’re not already

T U R N YO U R C O M P U T E R I N TO A R A D I O

connected; follow whatever steps appear on the screen to make the connection. You are going to WindowsMedia.com.

3. Locate and click on the Radio link. A list of the radio stations Windows can connect to appears, thus turning the computer into a radio. Choose a station by clicking on its link. (Technically, when you choose a station, you’re being connected to another Web site that broadcasts that particular station.) For example, there is a country Web site called cablemusic.com. As with most Web sites, you may have to register in order to listen to the free music. Once the Web site loads, the music on that radio station/Web site starts.

4. To stop this music, click on the Windows Media Player icon on your taskbar. This brings the Windows Media Player window to the front.

5. Click the Now Playing tab on the left side of the screen. 6. Click the Stop button at the bottom of the window (or choose Stop from the Play menu). To change radio stations, click the Media Guide button on the left side of the Windows Media Player window. This takes you back to WindowsMedia .com, where you can choose another option. Remember that you can scroll down to find more options.

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Each Web site is different and after going through many of them myself, the best thing that I can tell you is that you’ll have to do a lot of reading and clicking to find the best stations for you. Just remember that when you want to go back to Windows Media Player, click on its icon on the taskbar. Also remember that when you’re finished with a Web page, click the X in the upper right corner to close the window. Or you can also choose File ➢ Close from the menu.

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Copy Music from an Audio CD The sun will shine and the days will go on. This is true. It’s also true that most CDs have at least one or two songs on them that you always skip over when you’re listening to music. Or the opposite is true: you buy a CD because there is only one stinkin’ track on it that’s worthy of your ears. But does your car’s CD player help? No! Only your computer can help! Using Windows Media Player in Windows XP, you can copy songs from any CD and store them on your computer’s hard drive.

N O T E You have to make sure that the CD-ROM drive setting is set to allow the music to be copied. Go to your Desktop and right-click the My Computer icon. Choose Properties. Click the Hardware tab. Click the Device Manager button. Click on the plus mark next to the DVD/CD-ROM drives. Double-click on the CD-ROM to open the properties box. Click on the Properties tab. Make sure there is NOT a check mark next to “Enable digital CD audio for this CD-ROM device.” If there is a check mark, click on the check box to remove the check mark. Click OK. Your computer will reset to apply the changes, and you can close the Device Manager window and the My Computer window.

You can choose to copy just a few of your favorite songs or go all out and copy the entire CD. After the tracks are copied to your computer, you can play them again (and again) without the CD.

C O PY MU S I C F R O M AN

AU D I O CD

N O T E Of course, all this assumes that you have enough disk space. As a recommendation, create unique folders for your CD songs. If you have a hard drive D (or E or F or…) consider using it exclusively for songs.

To copy music from a CD, follow these steps:

1. Insert a CD into the CD-ROM drive. 2. The “What do you want Windows to do?” window appears. Choose Play Audio CD using Windows Media Player. Click OK. Windows Media Player opens up and the music starts playing.

3. Click the stop button to stop the music. Or you can choose Play ➢ Stop.

4. Click Copy from CD, which is a blue tab on the left side of your screen. All the song tracks are listed and all the tracks are selected to copy (if you have not previously copied them from the CD).

5. If there is any track that you do not want to copy, clear the check box next to it by clicking on the green check mark. Only the songs you want copied should have check marks next to them.

N O T E You can click the check box at the top of the list to clear all the check boxes next to all the tracks.

6. Click Copy Music. This is not the big blue button (Copy from CD) on the left of the Media Player. Nope. It’s the Copy Music button located near the top of the Media Player window and it has a red button next to it.

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7. If copyright protection is enabled the first time you click Copy Music, a message appears notifying you that you will not be able to copy protected or licensed tracks copied from CDs to another computer (does this seem illegal to anyone but me?). Click OK or clear the Do not protect content check box and then click OK. The selected tracks are copied to the My Music folder, and are listed in the Media Library, which is covered in Section 26. In fact, you can see the Copying and Pending messages displayed, showing you that something is happening.

8. Minimize the Windows Media Player window and double-click the My Documents icon on the desktop.

9. Open the My Music folder. The music you just copied is kept in the Artist’s folder—providing that you’ve given Windows Media Player that information. Otherwise, the folder is titled “Unknown Artist.”

10. Open the Unknown Artist folder, or whatever name was given to the folder you just created. There you will find a folder for the album from which you just copied the song—unless you’ve told the Media Player about the album, in which case its name will be listed. Otherwise, it’s named “Unknown Album,” followed by the date and time.

11. Open the Unknown Album folder. And there are your songs.

C R E AT E Y O U R O W N L I B R A RY O F S O N G S

You can also copy tracks from a CD by opening the File Menu, pointing to Copy ➢ Copy from Audio CD, and then clicking the CD-ROM drive you want to use if you have more than one attached to your computer. Choose the tracks that you want to copy, and then click Copy Music.

N O T E To change the folder where your audio files are stored, click “Make new Folder,” type the name of the folder, and then click OK.

N O T E To turn off content protection when copying a CD, on the Tools menu, click Options, click the Copy Music tab to bring it forward, and then click to remove the check mark in the “Protect content” check box.

Read Section 26 to find out how to manage all these songs you are copying.

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Create Your Own Library of Songs You can use Windows Media Player Media Library to store and organize all your favorite songs that you copied in Section 25. Remember: You did buy the computer to help keep you organized. Why not put it to use? The Windows Media Player Media Library can also be used to save links to other digital media files on your computer or the Internet, or to create a playlist of your favorite audio tracks, which you can then copy to a CD or portable audio device. You can group your audio and video files by category, such as album title, artist name, genre, or author. Oh, such a great time-waster! But, hey, if you had all that time last year to download MP3 files “for free” from the Internet, then you have time to get organized, huh?

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To get to the Media Library, follow these steps.

1. Open the Windows Media Player. 2. Click on the Media Library tab on the left side of the screen. This opens the Media Library.

Make Your Own Personal Album You create your own personal album when you start copying music to the Media Library. To create your own playlist, as Windows calls it, follow these steps:

1. Click the New Playlist button. Give the playlist some clever name, like “Motivational Songs,” or as Dan would say, “Whiney Girl Songs.”

2. Click OK.

C R E AT E Y O U R O W N L I B R A RY O F S O N G S

Your new playlist is added under My Playlists.

Add Songs to Your Playlist You may already have some songs saved in the My Music folder if you’ve been following along. To add a saved song to a playlist, follow these steps:

1. Open the My Music folder (or any folder where you’ve saved a song). 2. From the File menu, choose Add to Playlist. Your playlist selections are listed.

3. Click the album you want to add your song to. In my case, the Dixie Chick’s song “Goodbye Earl” goes into my Whiney Girl Songs album. It’s not exactly a whiney girl song, but I like it!

N O T E At this point, I could easily add a new playlist album if I decided that “Goodbye Earl” doesn’t really fit into the Whiney Girl Song category. So I can instead click the New button, type the new album name, such as “Empowerment,” and then press Enter. I now have a new album.

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5. Click OK. Keep going through this process until your albums are full of the songs you like.

N O T E If you have several songs already saved in a folder and want to move them all to the same album, press the Ctrl key and hold it while you click on each song. This selects them all so that you can copy them all at the same time. If you want to select the whole album, hold down the Shift key, then click on the first song and the last song. This selects all the songs in the list.

Play the Songs in Your Album Now that your songs are arranged, organized, categorized, titled, and all neat and tidy, you’re ready to play music. To play the songs in your album (playlist), follow these steps:

1. Click once on the playlist name. 2. Choose Play from the Play menu, or click the Play button at the bottom of the window. Music! Man, I love this stuff!

Move Songs in Your Album My editor, Chris, is great about making me themed CDs of music. And I hadn’t really thought about the arrangement of the songs until one day Chris said he should have put one song before the other because there were too many slows songs together. Gee, I hadn’t really thought about it that way. Well, if you’re as concerned about these things as Chris is, you can move the songs in your playlist so they are arranged oh-so-perfectly. To move songs in your playlist, follow these steps:

1. Click on the playlist you want to work with (assuming, of course, that your Windows Media Player is open and you’re in your Media Library). Choose the playlist from the drop-down list in the upper right corner.

D OW N LOA D M P 3 F I L E S

2. The songs are arranged on the right side of the window. Click on the song you want to move.

3. Click the blue up or down arrows right above the songs to move the selected song up or down in the playlist. Keep clicking songs and arrows until everything is arranged in the order you like it.

Delete Unwanted Songs So you’re tired of hearing “Goodbye Earl.” Okay. Click on that track number in the Media Library to select “Goodbye Earl.” Just above the playlist is a gray button with an X in the middle. Hover your mouse over the button to see Delete media from the playlist or library. Click the button, and a dropdown menu gives you the choice to delete the annoying song from just the playlist or from the whole library. Click on your choice. That zaps that song. It’s gone. It’s outta there.

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Download MP3 Files This is the section that tells you the truth about the MP3 Player that everyone is so jazzed about: You don’t need it. Nope. Not when you have Windows Media Player. I must admit that MP3 did start the current craze. The Windows Media Player is merely playing catch-up. After all, the Media Player has been in every version of Windows since Windows 3.11 for DOS. Back then it merely played CDs. But today, it can play MP3s so there’s no reason to get MP3 playing software (unless you really hate Media Player). MP3 files are wonderful because they can compress one minute’s worth of music into approximately 1MB of disk space. Other audio formats use a much larger file size, which means such files would take longer to download from the Internet, as well as use more hard disk space. So all at once, MP3 files became the rage. To download an MP3 file, you must first visit a site that has an MP3 file available to download. Perhaps the biggest one is www.mp3.com. Even so,

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we’ve set up a sample MP3 file for you to download on our Wambooli Web page: To download the sample MP3 file, follow these steps:

1. Start Internet Explorer, or whatever browser you use. 2. Type in www.wambooli.com/help/Windows/XP/MP3/ and press Enter. This visits the special MP3 Web page on our site. There you will find an MP3 file link you can click to download.

3. Click the MP3 file link. This starts Media Player, unless you have some other MP3 or audio player software (in which case you’re on your own here).

4. Choose Save As from the File menu. This is the key step. If you cannot see the menu, press Alt+F, then press S to choose the Save As command. The Save As dialog box appears, which usually opens to the My Music folder. If necessary, use the Save As dialog box to browse to the folder where you want to save your file. For example, you may have created an MP3 folder in My Music, in which case you can open it to save the file there. You can give the file a different name by deleting the default name in the File name text box and typing in a new one.

6. Click the Save button to save the file. A Windows Media Download window appears. It monitors the progress of the download.

7. Wait. Depending on your Internet connection, it may take a few minutes to download the file. When the download is completed, the song plays in the Media Player. That means that you’re done. By the way, you can visit other places on the Web while you’re downloading. It slows down the download slightly, but at least it gives you something else to do while you’re waiting.

N O T E Go ahead and visit www.mp3.com. There is a lot of free music there, hardware you can buy, and information about new artists. It’s kind of a busy site, but if you take some time to check it out, you’ll find some cool stuff.

T E S T Y O U R S O U N D H A R D WA R E

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Test Your Sound Hardware All of the sound nonsense that computers can do makes you wonder: Can the computer really do that? And what if it doesn’t? Is it your fault, or the computer’s? One way to find out for certain is to test your sound hardware, both the speakers and the microphone. This is easily done using the Sound Hardware Test Wizard. To use the Sound Hardware Test Wizard, follow these steps:

1. From the Start menu, choose Control Panel. 2. Choose Sounds ➢ Speech and Audio Devices. 3. Choose Sounds and Audio Devices. This summons the Sounds and Audio Devices Properties dialog box.

4. Click the Voice tab. Near the bottom of the dialog box you’ll find a Test hardware button.

5. Click the Test hardware button. The Sound Hardware Test Wizard runs. Stand by with your PC’s microphone.

6. Click the Next button. Windows churns and thinks. You need to wait here, but you’re probably used to that by now. The wizard is testing your sound hardware. (This isn’t the fun part of this Wizard.) Eventually, the Wizard will display a paragraph to read.

7. Speak into your microphone. While you’re reading, you should see the sound meter in the Recording area jump and dance. Don’t put the microphone away just yet!

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9. Click the Next button. Now time for the psychology experiment. You will speak and hear your voice a few seconds later, which psychologists tell us really messes with our brains. Try it! Don’t be embarrassed. No one can do it!

10. Click the Next button. You’re done with the Wizard. Whew. Hope everything worked.

11. Click the Finish button. 12. Click the OK button in the Sounds and Audio dialog box. If there are any problems, first check the connections. The microphone and speakers must be connected to the computer. Ensure that the speaker and microphone connectors are plugged into the speaker and microphone ports on the PC’s motherboard or soundboard. If that doesn’t work, then you can run the Audio Troubleshooter: Click the Hardware tab in the Sounds and Audio Devices Properties dialog box. Then click the Troubleshoot button. Continue working through the troubleshooter to help narrow down the problem.

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Burn a Music CD This is big-time Hollywood! Burning your own CD! Windows XP makes it easy to burn your own CDs, and there’s no fire danger either. That’s

B U R N A MU S I C CD

because “burning a CD” means to transfer music from your computer to a CD that can be played on your car stereo or any other device that will play a computer-burned CD.

N O T E Some audio CD players cannot play CDs created on a computer. You generally have to look for a CD player that says it’s CD-R compatible, which guarantees that you can use it for listening to CD-R music.

Before you start setting the night on fire, you need two things:

A hardware device called a CD-recordable (CD-R) drive. A CDrewriteable (CD-RW) drive also works because most of them are hybrid CD-R/CD-RW drives.

A supply of CD-R discs, specifically those designed for recording music. Look at the CD-R disk label; it will say whether the disc is suited for music or just data. If it doesn’t say, then the disc may not be playable in all CD audio players. You can pick up these discs at any computer or office supply store.

If you have those two things, then you’re ready to go. Just follow these steps:

1. Create a playlist of music (see Section 26, “Create Your Own Library of Songs”). The playlist cannot be longer than 74 minutes or larger than 650 Megabytes in size. (The total size is listed below the playlist on the right side of the Media Player window.)

W A R N I N G When you are burning music to a CD, allow for the extra two seconds per song that Windows will insert. If for some reason your math is off and you exceed the allocated space, a “Will not fit” message will appear in the status column. Time to start cutting songs.

2. Insert a blank CD-R into the CD-R drive. 3. Open Windows Media Player (if it isn’t already open).

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4. Click on “Copy to CD or Device.” If you have more than one disc drive, then you’ll have to click on the drive where you want to copy the music. Otherwise, the CD-R drive is chosen automatically.

5. Choose the playlist you want to copy from the Music to Copy dropdown menu.

6. If you don’t want to copy the whole list, then click on the check mark next to any song you don’t want to copy. This will remove the check mark next to it.

7. Click the Copy Music button in the upper right corner of the Media Player window. Windows Media Player starts churning and copying the music. Sit back and wait because this does take a few minutes to get all of this going. You can watch the progress as the files are copied. Incidentally, the speed of the copy depends on the length (in time) of the music being copied and the writing speed of the CD-R drive. For example, copying 60 minutes of music on a 4x CD-R drive would take 15 minutes. When the copying is done, the CD-R drive ejects the freshly created disk. Ta-da!

8. Remove the disk and close the CD-R drive’s tray. 9. Label the disk. You can write directly on the back of the disk using a Sharpie or similar felt pen, or you can create disk labels and get all fancy. Avery (the paper company) makes CD-R disk labels and even sells a program, Avery Label Pro, which I recommend for creating the labels.

Control Audio Quality You have a choice when it comes to copying music from a CD to your hard drive. You can have better quality and have less disk space on your hard drive, or you can have less quality and more space on your computer. I know people who go either way, though for me it’s quality for quantity. To work with the audio quality, follow these steps:

1. Open Windows Media Player (if you’re not there already).

B U R N A MU S I C CD

2. From the Tools menu at the top of the window, choose Options. 3. Click the Copy Music tab to bring it forward. 4. In the “Copy settings” section in the lower part of the window, there is a slider that can be moved either left (for smallest size, meaning the sound quality goes down) or right (which means the sound quality is at its best). Click your mouse on the slider and drag it left or right to adjust the size and quality.

5. Click OK when you are finished.

Copy Settings You can also elect whether or not Windows Media Player uses its own format when copying music or uses the popular MP3 format. For example, if you’re copying music to an MP3 device (or a disk that’s going to be put into an MP3 gizmo), then you would want to use that format instead.

1. Open Windows Media Player (again). 2. Choose Options from the Tools menu. 3. Click the Copy Music tab. 4. Locate the File Format drop-down list in the Copy settings section. Choose either Windows Media Audio or MP3 from that list.

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N O T E Clicking the MP3 Information button takes you to a Microsoft Web site where they try to explain how their Windows Media Format is better than the MP3 format and blah blah blah. If you really want MP3 information, visit www.mp3.com.

5. Click OK when you’re done.

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Make a Movie At least once a month I receive an e-mail from either my Aunt Ruth or Uncle Chet with the subject line, “You’ve got to see this!” And it’s usually some homemade movie of something really silly, like the guy who is using a screwdriver to fix a light socket and then he starts screaming and acting like he’s being electrocuted while his friend stands and watches in horror. Then he just laughs and his friend curses at him, and then socks him really hard. Now that was funny in a sadistic kind of way. With Windows Movie Maker, you too can make your own sadistic movies. Movie Maker enables you to transfer video and audio from a camcorder or digital video camera right to your computer. After you create your Academy Award–winning masterpiece, you can then be like Uncle Chet or Aunt Ruth and send your movie out with the subject line, “You’ve got to see this!” First, you need a couple of things before you get started:

A camcorder or digital video (DV) camera, a Web camera, or a digital camera. There are models available, from real cheap $40 “Web cams” to $9,000 cameras that they use in Hollywood. Or you can use any standard camcorder, providing that you have a way to output the signal to the computer via some video interface adapter thing.

Some bit of action, either something recorded by your camera, or existing media that you imported into Windows.

M A K E A M OV I E

N O T E If you want to import audio files, make sure that they are MP3, ASF, or WMA formatted files. If you want to import a video file, it must be in the MWV, ASF, AVI, or MPG format. If it is a still image (a picture), then the file can be a common JPG or GIF. Portable Network Graphics files (PNG) cannot be imported into Windows Movie Maker. Hope that won’t ruin your day.

After you record the image, save it to disk. This is done by software that came with the camera or by the software that comes with the video capture device on your computer. Or I suppose it could be done by those cameras that come with disk drives or memory sticks, which you then stick into your PC to make a copy of the movie. However it gets there, the files must be saved to disk so that you can edit them into a movie using Movie Maker. To start Windows Movie Maker, follow these steps:

1. Open the Start menu. 2. Choose All Programs ➢ Accessories ➢ Windows Movie Maker. Hey, there it is! I’m going to be honest here and tell you that this is a big subject. Windows Movie Maker really needs a book all on its own for you to discover the howtos and what-fors of this program; I just can’t do it all justice in this brief amount of space. You can find out more about Movie Maker for now by reviewing the help topics associated with it:

1. With Movie Maker open, choose Help Topics from the Help menu. 3. Click on Introducing Windows Movie Maker, which is located on the left side of your screen. I think this is the best place to start because the introduction walks you through the toolbars and a visual chart of what everything does. Sounds interesting. Looks interesting, too.

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Watch a Movie I never thought watching a movie on your computer would ever grow in popularity, but my teenager does it without any problems. He seems to enjoy it, so I thought this should be included in this book. So Jordan, this is for you. Please don’t think that watching a DVD on your computer is in any way related to working. It’s not. It’s playing. It’s turning a computer into a $200 DVD player with a very, very fancy monitor. And, well, I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that. To watch a DVD movie on your computer, follow these steps:

1. Obtain a DVD movie. Most DVDs are, in fact, movies. Some of them do contain software, but for the most part software still comes on old-fashioned CD-ROM discs.

2. Stick the DVD into your computer’s DVD drive. If your computer has two DVD-looking drives, then the DVD drive is the one with the DVD logo on it. Makes sense. The “What do you want to do with this disc” dialog box shows up.

3. Choose Play DVD Video from the list. 4. Click OK. The Windows Media Player appears and you can see the opening screen of your movie right there. Fancy.

NOTE

Press Alt+Enter to view the film using all available screen space.

5. Choose the Play option. This is something the movie shows, and is not a part of the Windows Media Player. (If you’ve been viewing DVD movies for a while, you’ll recognize this.) Each movie has its own “Start Movie” or similar button that you must click with the mouse to get the movie going.

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6. Put the popcorn into the microwave oven. Remember to place the side that says “Face up” up.

7. Push the Popcorn button on the microwave. Or if you have an older, DOS microwave, punch in 5 minutes.

8. Wait until you hear the last kernel of corn pop, then remove the bag from the microwave oven.

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That bag is hot! The steam from the popcorn can burn!

9. Open the bag on the proper end, then dump the popcorn into an adequately sized bowl.

10. Enjoy. When you’re done watching, click the Stop button or just quit the Windows Media Player program. That’s it.

N O T E If you need to see the Media Player controls while the movie is playing, just jiggle the mouse. Or to return to display-in-a-window mode, press Alt+Enter again.

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Create a Slide Show Last year I went to a surprise 40th birthday party for my friend Judy. My other friend, Laurie, collected a bunch of pictures from her family and we brought pictures from college so that we could put together a slide show of Judy growing up and her fun-filled days in college. (Judy was an Engineering major so I don’t know how much fun that could have been.) Anyway, the process was rather time-consuming and would have been a real snap had we used Windows XP.

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You need only one thing to get this going: pictures. You can either scan them in yourself—thus needing a scanner—or you can collect pictures from friends, the Internet, or wherever you find pictures you like.

Collect Pictures Regardless of where you get your pictures, you collect them in the My Pictures folder, which is located in the My Documents folder. To find the My Pictures folder, follow these steps:

1. Double-click the My Documents folder on your desktop. 2. Double-click the My Pictures folder. You’ve located the inside of the My Picture folder. To turn your My Picture folder into a slide show, follow these steps:

1. Click “ View as a slide show” in the Picture Tasks pane of the window. The screen turns black and soon each image in the folder is shown one after the other—a slide show.

2. Wiggle the mouse to see a control gizmo appear in the upper right corner of the window. (More about that in the following section, “Navigate Your Slide Show.”)

3. Press the Esc key to stop the slide show. You can view any folder that contains graphic images as a slide show. Simply choose View as slide show from the Picture Tasks area on the left side of the window. To convert a folder into a graphics images folder, choose View ➢ Customize This Folder. In the folder’s Properties dialog box, choose Pictures or Photo Album from the “Use this folder type as a template” drop-down list. Click OK. If you chose Photo Album, a set of navigation tools will appear on the right side of the window.

Navigate Your Slide Show Once you start the slide show, navigation buttons appear in the upper right corner of the screen. The first button on the left starts the show, the next

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pauses the show, the next button goes back to the previous picture, the next one pushes you to the next picture (that’s for the time you realize that the picture of you in the shower got in the slide show), and the last one stops the slide show. You can also use the keyboard keys to work your slide show:

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Left arrow, page up, or up arrow keys: Take you to the previous picture.

Right arrow, page down, or the down arrow: Take you to the next picture.

Ctrl+K: Rotates the image 90 degrees clockwise.

Ctrl+L: Rotates the image 90 degrees counterclockwise.

Spacebar: Pauses and then plays the show again.

Enter: Takes you to the next image.

Esc: Exits the slide show.

Tab: Turns the slide show toolbar on or off.

Change the Program That Plays Your Media File Sure, they may have laughed at you because your mother sewed your name into your underwear. But what did they know? Had all the students’ underwear somehow wound up in a huge, white pile, you would have easily found yours and been on your way home. Yes, it takes nightmares like that to make us thankful for the twisted little oddities of motherhood. Windows works kind of the same way as your mother did (or as some mothers do). It identifies which program it should use for every file created with a Windows program. This is called file association. So, for example, a sound file created by Windows has the name Windows Media Player sewn into its underwear. That way, when you open the sound file, Windows checks its skivvies and then knows to use Windows Media Player to open

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the file. The same thing happens for Word documents, graphics files, and just about any type of file in Windows. Of course, the program that automatically opens your files may not be the program you want. For example, you may have a fancier MP3 player than the one that comes with Windows, and you may want to have that program open your MP3 files instead of Windows Media Player. And you know what? There is a way you go about doing that. To change the program that opens your MP3 files, follow these steps:

1. Locate the media file. It can be any file, actually. These techniques work with any document or file in Windows, although for this example I am assuming an MP3 file. Those files are typically found in the My Music folder (and its subfolders).

2. Right-click the filename. This displays a pop-up shortcut menu. 3. Choose Open With from the menu. If the Open With menu item displays a submenu of choices, then select Choose Program from the list. The Open With dialog box is displayed, as shown in the following figure. You can see the file’s current association, which is Windows Media Player. Beneath that are other programs that Windows knows about. Keep in mind that this is just a list of available programs, not specifically those programs that are best suited for opening this specific type of file.

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4. Select an alternative program from the list. For example, you could scroll down and find your favorite MP3 player file in the list. If so, choose that file. But be careful! The file must be one that can play (or open) the given document. Windows doesn’t check to see if it’s okay; it just makes the attempt for you.

N O T E If a program can’t be found on the list, then click the Browse button to hunt down the program.

5. Do not put a check mark in the “Always use the selected program to open this kind of file” box. If you want, you can come back and put the check mark there later. For now, just see if this works.

6. Click OK. Windows attempts to open your file using the program you selected. Pray that it works. If not, then nothing is lost and you can try again, starting at step 2. Otherwise, the program will run and proudly play your file (or open the document, or whatever).

7. Close the program. One more thing to check out. Return to the window where your media file or document can be found.

8. Right-click the media file’s icon. 9. Choose Open With from the pop-up menu. You’ll see a submenu displayed, which lists programs you can use to open the file. Now you have a choice. Of course, to make it easier and to simply have the program you want always open the file, select Choose Program from the Open With submenu, and then in the Open With dialog box select the program you want to use that always opens the media file. This time put a check mark by “Always use the selected program to open this kind of file.” That changes the file association—sewing a new program name into that type of file’s underwear from now on.

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Add a Custom Palette of Music Selections to Your Desktop I like to listen to music when I work and I have some great speakers attached to my computer, making the listening experience quite enjoyable. Luckily, you too can order some great speakers to go with your computer (although most typically come with some pretty nice speakers). I’m going to admit something about myself here. I want to listen to just the songs I like and I do not want to keep pressing the forward button on the CD player to get past the boring stuff. And I want easy access too. I want this stuff at my fingertips (I know; whine, whine, whine). So the following task is going to walk you through the steps of making a custom palette of music for your desktop. This involves three steps:

1. Getting the music into a folder. 2. Finding, organizing, and naming your music. 3. Making a customized toolbar to add to your desktop.

Get the Music to a Folder You can make what is called a playlist of your favorite songs by copying only the music from a CD and putting it together on a playlist. Section 25, “Copy Music from an Audio CD,” and Section 26, “Create Your Own Library of Songs,” are the two sections you must read to understand these two functions. Rather than rewrite everything here, I’ll just wait while you go and reacquaint yourself with these steps. Go ahead. I’ll meet you back here. Windows saved your songs in your My Music folder. In fact, Windows Media did some things you’re going to have clean up so that you know what the song titles are. Continue saving music and adding it to your music folder. When you have your favorite tunes gathered, go on to the next step. I’ll wait.

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Find Your Copied Music Windows Media will make you a folder and start sticking your copied music into this folder. To find your music follow these steps:

1. Right-click on the My Documents icon on your desktop. 2. Choose Explore. 3. Click once on the plus sign beside My Music to open the My Music folder.

4. Click on the Unknown Artist folder. This is the folder that Windows made for you. Any songs that you’ve copied will be on the right side of your screen, most likely with the names of Unknown Album along with the date and time they were copied. You might want to go ahead and read the sidebar below on renaming a file. I renamed my Unknown Artist folder as “desktop music.”

5. Double-click on the folder, and there are the songs you copied. 6. Double-click on the icon for a song, and that song will start playing.

RENAMING A FILE

You may want to take the time to go ahead and rename these unknown files. Right-click on the name of the file (if you’re down to the music icon, it’ll probably just have the track number listed). Choose Rename from the File menu, then type the name of the song and press Enter. You can do this with any file or folder you come across in Windows.

Make a Customized Toolbar to Add to Your Desktop The next step is to make a custom toolbar for your Desktop that holds nothing but your favorite music. We’re getting close!

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To make a custom palette (toolbar) of music, follow these steps:

1. Right-click on an empty space on your Desktop. Pay careful attention to make sure it is an empty space.

2. Choose Toolbars ➢ New Toolbar. 3. Click once on the plus sign next to My Documents. This opens up the My Documents folder.

4. Click once on the plus sign next to My Music. This opens up the My Music folder to reveal the desktop music folder you created earlier.

5.

Click once on the “desktop music” folder to highlight it.

6. Click OK. On your toolbar at the bottom of your Desktop, you’ll see the name of your music folder and a double arrow (>>). Click the double arrow to see a list of your songs. Click on one of the songs to start the Windows Media Player, and sit back and listen.

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Set Up Your Own Home Network

Set Up Your Own Home Network

Windows XP is one of the best operating systems out there yet that, in my opinion, is good for both home and office use. All of you out there working from home will really appreciate some of the features Windows XP has to offer. One of those very worker-friendly features is the home-network system. Networking is the process of connecting all the computers in your work or home together so that the computers can talk to each other. You can share files, documents, and even printers. As more and more people are working from home, networking is becoming even more popular. Remember when owning more than one car started becoming popular? Owning more than one computer is fast becoming the standard.

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Use Special Hardware to Create Your Network Like everything in a computer, you need both hardware and software to make networking happen. Windows comes with the software you need, but you must supply the hardware. It’s nothing complex or expensive, but it is necessary if you want all your computers to talk and share with one another. The Windows XP Help system provides an excellent overview of the whole home- and small-office networking scheme. To get to the Windows XP Help system, follow these steps:

1. From the Start menu, choose Help and Support. The Help and Support window appears. Oooo, look at the pretty graphics. It must be friendly!

2. Click “Networking and the Web.” Networking and the Web (or Internet, actually) are all very similar. After all, the Internet is merely a worldwide network. You access it via a modem or special connection, but it’s still a network. Okay, enough side banter.

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3. Click the + by the “Home and small office networking” item. 4. Click “Welcome to home and small office networking.” 5. On the right side of the window, choose “Steps for creating a home or small office network.” This displays the checklist (shown in the following figure), which conveniently lists all the steps and items you need to create your network. Feel free to bone up on the items in the list, although not everything is required.

6. Click the Add to Favorites button. You’ll want to keep this page in your list of Help favorites so that you can easily refer to it later, especially if you encounter a term or device you’re not familiar with.

7. Close the Help and Support Center window. Bottom line: To do networking right, each computer needs to be configured with a NIC, or Network Interface Card. That’s a special expansion card that plugs into your computer’s guts. You need a NIC to network! To tell if your computer already has a NIC, follow these steps.

1. Right-click the My Computer icon on the desktop.

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2. Choose Properties from the shortcut menu. 3. Click the Hardware tab. 4. Click the Device Manager button. The Device Manager window appears, which lists all the hardware in your computer.

5. Look for “Network adapters” in the list. If it’s not listed, then you most likely do not have a NIC and need to get one. However, even if the item is there, you may not have an Ethernet card, which is typically the card you need to have to network computers together. (Occasionally cable or DSL modems appear in the Network adapters list.) Also, you could possibly have a USB network adapter, which may not show up in the Network Adapters area.

6. Close the Device Manager window. 7. Close the System Properties window. Every computer on the network must have a card. To connect the cards you need an Ethernet cable with RJ-45 connectors. The cable plugs into the NIC on each computer, then runs back to a central location called the hub.

N O T E Obviously, you don’t need the cable if you’re building a wireless network. But to do that you need to buy special wireless NIC adapters as well as a wireless hub router.

The hub isn’t a computer, but instead, it is a small box into which all the network cables plug. So the cable from the computer in the office runs to the same hub as the cable from the computer in the basement. You must have a hub! You cannot just connect two Ethernet cards together. That’s not how it works. In fact, if the two computers are back-to-back, you need only a short Ethernet cable from each into a hub that could sit on the same table. That’s a very basic form of network.

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So when you have all the hardware, it’s time to hook the network up. This is the hardware side of connecting the network. The software side, which is telling Windows about the network, comes after the hardware has been set up. To hook up the network, follow these steps:

1. Install the NIC into any computers that need one. You must install one NIC in each computer that’s going to be on the network. Obviously there are more steps involved here; turning the computer off, opening the case, inserting the NIC, and so on. Most NICs come with instructions, although if this part of the operation concerns you, please have someone else set it up. And if you’re one of those people that don’t like the idea of opening their computer, you can use a USB Ethernet adapter. When you turn the computer on after installing the NIC, the New Hardware Wizard will recognize it and continue the hardware setup. You may need to install the NIC’s driver at this time; refer to the instructions that came with it.

2. Find a good spot for the hub. The hub doesn’t need anyone to watch over it, although it does need a power source. If you have all the computers in one room, then you can put the hub anywhere. If the computers are scattered around the house, then finding a central location will make the wiring part a lot easier.

3. Install the hub. The hub plugs into a power source and, optionally, can be hung on the wall.

N O T E Here’s a tip: Often times you can buy a hub, two NICs, and some cable in a home networking starter kit. This comes with all the stuff you need, plus instructions to help you set everything up. You should be warned that these starter kits might not be updated for Windows XP.

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4. Run the cables from the computers to the hub. Of all the steps, this one is the trickiest for me; I keep buying cable that’s too short. So my advice is to measure the distance from the computer to the hub directly, then double that length to get the right cable. Also, it helps if you plan to run the cable along the baseboards, as you probably don’t want the cable running taut across the center of the room. And if you want to get really creative, you can buy different colored cables to keep it straight as to which one is which.

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Configure Windows to Understand Your Home Network The joy of networking is that once you get it to work you can have several computers that share information, disk drives, printers, modems, or highspeed Internet connections, and then begin to have all sorts of fun. The operating words are, however, “once you get it to work.” Like many things in Windows, getting it to work is the tough part. Once it’s working, well then great! It usually stays working forever. (Cross fingers; knock on wood.) But that first getting-it-working step is the tricky part. Providing that all the networking hardware is in place and functioning properly, the following steps will amaze you as they show you how to get the network working: To get the network working, follow these steps:

1. Double-click on the My Network Places icon on the Desktop or choose My Network Places from the Start menu. If My Network Places doesn’t appear on the Desktop and you want to add it, then right-click on the Desktop, choose Properties, click the Desktop tab, click the Customize Desktop button, check “My Network Places,” and click OK.

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If My Network Places doesn’t appear on the Start menu, then open the My Computer window and choose “My Network Places” from the Other Places task pane. The My Network Places window appears. Your window will most likely be blank at this time, providing that you haven’t had a network previously installed or saved any Internet file locations or FTP sites there.

3. Click “Set up a home or small office network” in the Network Tasks pane. The Network Setup Wizard window opens. This wizard does several interesting things beyond just configuring your small network, so it may be a familiar place. The screen shot here is our network system and, as you can see, we’ve been busy setting up all kinds of networks.

4. Click the Next button. If you have not set up your networking hardware, refer to Section 35. Note that you do not need to get on the Internet at this time.

5. Click the Next button. The next few questions deal with Internet Connection Sharing, which is a nifty way to access the Internet from a network. Windows XP can be set up so that only one computer on the network needs a modem. So, for example, if you have one cable or DSL modem in the house, you can elect that computer to be your Internet computer. The other computers on the network will share that modem. The Wizard assumes that you want to share your modem. In fact, it’s aggressively insistent that you want to share your computer’s modem or another network computer’s modem.

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Because you can activate Internet Connection Sharing later, I’m going to assume that every computer on the network has its own modem for now. (Please read Section 41 for more information on setting up Internet Connection Sharing after your network has been installed.)

6. Choose Other. If your modem isn’t connected yet, you won’t have an Other option available. In that case, check “Ignore disconnected network hardware” to move on to the next screen. Again, this option merely postpones the Internet Connection Sharing question until later.

7. Click the Next button. 8. Choose “This computer belongs to a network that does not have an Internet connection.” Okay, so it’s probably a lie, but it’s the most expeditious way to set up the network at this time.

9. Click the Next button. The following figure shows the next screen, where you enter a name and description for your computer.

10. Type a description of your computer. This information is displayed when others on the network try to get more information about your computer. It also appears in the My Network Places window when the computer is up and on the Network.

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11. Type a computer name. Or you can use any name that’s already there. This is the computer’s main ID on the network. Around our offices, we give the computers their own individual names, kind of like pets: Naomi, Edith, Ming, Ed, Nemo, Vishnu, and so on. Go ahead, laugh.

12. Click the Next button. The Workgroup name is merely a way to associate computers together into groups. It’s best suited for large organizations where you may have hundreds of computers. Organizing the computers into workgroups makes it easier to get to computers and resources that are close to you. So, for example, the computers in the Sales department belong to the SALES group and the sales people can browse through that group without wandering off to the R&D group where some real scary computers live.

13. Type a Workgroup name. You can keep the MSHOME name if you like. Or you can type in something like the family name or business name. If the computer is being added to an existing network, then it’s a good idea to type in the existing network’s Workgroup name.

14. Click the Next button. A summary screen appears. It’s very scary. Remember not to do anything—nay, even breathe—after you follow step 15.

15. Click the Next button. Hang in there! Curious question comes up next: whether or not to create a Network Setup Disk. For XP computers, there’s nothing to worry about. But for older computers, it’s a good idea to create the Network Setup Disk. Or, hey, if you’re bored you can choose the “Just finish…” option. It’s up to you, but for the tutorial I’m going to create the Network Setup Disk.

16. Choose “Create a Network Setup Disk.” 17. Click the Next button.

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18. Choose a disk drive for the disk. You’ll see the floppy drive A, plus a Zip drive or any other removable drive the computer may have. Choose the drive that’s most compatible with the other computers in your network. For me, that’s floppy.

19. Click the Next button. 20. Stick a floppy disk into the drive. 21. Click the Format Disk button. All disks must be formatted before they can be used (although most disks today are preformatted). The Format dialog box appears if your disk isn’t preformatted.

22. Click the Start button. 23. Click OK in the Warning dialog box. Yes, you do want to format the disk. Windows proceeds to format the disk. If the disk cannot be formatted, you’ll see a corresponding error message. Remove the disk from the drive and throw it away. There’s nothing you can do with a bum disk. So, start over at step 20 with another disk.

24. When you see the Format Complete dialog box, click OK. 25. Click the Close button to close the Format dialog box. 26. Click the Next button. The Wizard copies itself to the floppy disk. If you encounter any problems, then it’s most likely due to a bum disk. Throw the disk out and start over again (step 20) with a new disk.

27. Remove the Network Setup Disk. 28. Label the Network Setup Disk. You want to remember which disk this is. Also write NETSETUP on the disk, which is the name of the program you run to start the Wizard for that computer.


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30. Click the Finish button. You have successfully networked your computer. Windows merely needs to restart and then you can begin exploring the network. Remember that you must have other computers configured and set up on the Network to “see” them and use their resources.

31. Click the Yes button to restart Windows.

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Share Your Valued Computer Resources on the Network Networking is about sharing resources. It can actually be quite a handy thing, primarily for a business but also for the home. It’s entirely possible, for example, to have only one modem connection to the Internet or one color printer, and still share those resources with other computers on the home network. Imagine Dad’s thrill at having to drill through the walls to connect all that Ethernet cable—and Mom’s thrill over Dad’s insistence that his self-taughtat-Home Depot drywall patching skills are saving the family hundreds of dollars. But I digress. No, once you have the network up and running, share some resources! It’s all up to you. And you can share four different things: disk drives, folders, printers, and your modem. To share a hard drive or folder, follow these steps:

1. Open the My Documents icon on the desktop. Or you can open the My Computer icon if you want to share an entire hard drive. For example, on our network I have a hard drive full of fonts that I share. So, when others need some fancy fonts, they can access that hard drive and grab the fonts. From the My Documents folder, you’ll most likely want to share a specific folder or group of folders.

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2. Locate the folder you want to share. For example, the Holidays folder contains documents the kids create for our Christmas letter. Better share that one with everyone.

3. Right-click the folder and choose Sharing and Security from the popup shortcut menu. The folder’s Properties dialog box appears, with the Sharing tab selected. The following figure shows what’s up.

4. Choose “Share this folder on the network.” This action makes the folder available to anyone else browsing the network. Windows also displays the folder in the My Network Places folder on every other computer connected to the network.

5. Optionally, enter a share name. The folder will appear in the My Network Places icon under this name. Be descriptive! If it’s a folder of MP3 files, then name the folder “My MP3 Files” for sharing. That helps.

N O T E If you create a share name longer than 12 characters, older Windows computers on the network will not see the full name. A warning box is displayed if you do this.

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6. If you want others to change or add files to the shared folder, click to put a check mark by “Allow network users to change my files.” If you leave this item unchecked, then others can merely open the files and look at them, but not delete them or change their contents.

7. Click OK to share the folder. When you see the folder again, note that its icon appears with the little “sharing hand” beneath it. That’s your visual clue that the file has been shared.

N O T E Be sure to share only those folders you want to share. It’s tempting to share all of drive C, for example, which saves you the trouble of plucking out individual folders for sharing. However, when you share an entire drive, you’re giving every dork on the network equal chance to mess something up. If you must share an entire drive, then make it read-only by unchecking the “Allow network users to change my files” item (step 6).

If you find that Mr. Jordan is abusing your files and folders, it is possible, and quite easy, to unshare your stuff: To unshare a shared folder, follow these steps:

1. Locate the shared folder you no longer want to share. 2. Right-click the folder. 3. Choose Sharing and Security from the pop-up menu. 4. Click to remove the check mark by “Share this folder on the network.” 5. Click the OK button. The folder is no longer shared, and the sharing hand icon disappears. You’re safe!

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Peek at Other Computers on Your Home Network Networks are about sharing, like sharing in school. Only instead of the little red haired girl with freckles sharing her tiny pet bird and no one else

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getting to touch it, you get to touch everything in the network. Well, not really everything, but you can see what’s out there and what’s available for sharing. It’s all done in the My Network Places window.

1. Double-click the My Network Places icon on the desktop, or choose it from the Start menu. When you’re there, what you’ll see looks very similar to the following picture (provided, of course, that you’re networked with other computers. If you are using a standalone computer and you’re not hooked to any other computers, you won’t see anything).

The My Network Places window shows what’s being shared on the network—a list of the disk drives or folders that are “up for grabs” on the network. They’re listed by description and then by computer, such as “archives on Vishnu,” which is a short cut to the Archives folder on the computer named Vishnu. If you have saved Internet file sites, they appear in this window as well. A heading titled “The Internet” appears, which lists various folders shared on Internet computers.

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TH E PI PE VS. TH E S HARE D HAN D

Don’t get confused between an icon with a pipe below it and an icon with a hand holding it. The little hand appears underneath a folder on your computer when you share it with others on the network. The little pipe appears underneath a folder that others are sharing with you.

2. Open a shared folder. The contents of the folder appear in the window. What you see are files and folders that are stored on another computer somewhere else on the network. In some cases, you may be asked to enter a password to access the folder. The password you must enter is set by that computer’s owner or by the network administrator. Some shared folders on the network are “read only,” which means you can peek at their contents and look at some files, but you cannot change anything. However, you can copy a file from that network folder to your own computer, where you have absolute dominion over it.

3. Look in the Address bar. The Address bar lists the network pathname to the folder you’re viewing. So, for example, if you’re viewing the Archives folder on the Vishnu computer, the Address bar will read \\Vishnu\Archives. That’s the network pathname: two backslashes, followed by the computer name, then a single backslash, and the folder’s share name. In fact, you can quickly go to any shared resource on the network by typing its network pathname into the address bar.

4. Click the Back button. You’re returned to the My Network Places folder.

5. Click “View workgroup computers” in the Network Tasks pane. Unlike the My Network Places folder, this one shows computers only and not the folders they’re sharing. You’ll see all the other computers in your workgroup, along with their descriptions and names, as shown in the following figure.

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6. Double-click to open a computer. The window shows which folders or devices that computer is sharing. For example, I can see in my workgroup that the Vishnu computer is sharing several folders plus a printer.

7. Choose “Entire Network” from the Address drop-down list. This is tricky: Click the down arrow on the right end of the Address bar. Then scroll down until you see the “Entire Network” item right below “My Network Places.” Click on Entire Network.

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The Entire Network window displays the various networks on your computer system. There might be only one, the Microsoft Windows Network. That’s fine.

8. Open the Microsoft Windows Network. This window displays all the workgroups on your network. For home networking, there will be only one workgroup, the one you set up when you first ran the Home Networking Wizard.

9. Open your workgroup icon. Now you see all the computers in your workgroup. Be aware that browsing the network like this is not considered snooping. While you can always see computer names and descriptions on the network, you can view only those files, folders, or disk drives that a user has elected to share on their computer. You cannot pry into any area on any computer unless you have permission. And Windows is really good about not giving permission to those to who don’t already have it.

10. Close the Microsoft Windows Network window.

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Share Your Wonderful Color Printer with Others on the Network With a network, you don’t need to buy each computer its own fancy printer. Instead, you can share the fancy printer, the color printer, and the fast laser printer with other computers on the network. This philosophy applies to both large computer networks as well as home networks. Why buy two color printers when you really need only one? To share a printer connected to your computer, follow these steps:

1. From the Start menu, choose Control Panel. 2. Click “Printers and Other Hardware.”

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3. Click “View installed printers or fax printers.” This displays the Printers and Faxes window.

4. Right-click a printer you wish to share with others on the network. It has to be a printer directly connected to your computer. (Which seems like “well, duh!”—but you’d be surprised…)

5. Choose Sharing from the pop-up menu. The printer’s Properties menu appears, with the Sharing tab forward.

6. Click “Share this printer.”

7. Give the printer a share name, which should be descriptive of the printer’s abilities. For example, a color laser printer could be named “Color Laser.” The printer that is always stocked with letterhead can be named “Letterhead printer.” And so on. You get the idea.

8. Click OK. As with a shared folder, the shared printer appears with a little sharing hand beneath its icon. That’s your clue that the printer is shared for all others on the network to use and abuse.

9. You can close the Printers and Faxes window.

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Use Another Printer on the Network If your computer isn’t shackled to its own printer, then you can feel free to use any shared printer on the network. For instance, perhaps you’d rather use the fancy color laser that the boss keeps in his office (and never uses). No problem. Providing that old baldy-head has shared the printer, it’s up for grabs and available for anyone to use. To use another printer, of course, you have to be running a program and have something ready to print. Then everything is done in the Print dialog box. To use a shared printer, follow these steps:

1. Run the WordPad program. From the Start menu choose All Programs ➢ Accessories ➢ WordPad.

2. Write a brilliant little poem. Go ahead, do it! You have that creative bone in your body. And use some colored text and change the font as well, especially if you’re printing to a color printer.

NOTE

To change the font color and style, click Format ➢ Font. Start playing!

This is Keith who has big teeth Big ears above, big feet beneath. He works at night, he is a thief. He pinches buttons and zippers, and causes much grief.

3. Choose File ➢ Print. This summons the Print dialog box, which is a pretty common thing in all of Windows.

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N O T E Older Windows programs, and surprisingly enough Microsoft Office XP, do not sport this new type of Print dialog box. You will need to use the dropdown list to select a network printer.

4. If you see the network printer you want to use listed, then choose it by clicking it once with the mouse. For example, in the following figure, you see the Annie printer, which is available on the network—see the hand graphic beneath it? To use that printer, simply click once to highlight it.

5. Click the Print button to print to that printer. That’s all there is to it.

Add a Network Printer Any shared printer is up for grabs on the network. And it’s easy to add such a printer to your computer’s list of printers; there’s no need to reinstall software or fonts or other programs. Windows does it all automatically. To add a printer to your list of network printers, follow these steps:

1. Choose Control Panel from the Start menu.

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2. Choose Printers and Other Hardware. 3. Click “Add a printer” in the Printer Tasks pane. This runs the Add Printer Wizard.

N O T E You can also click the Add Printer button in any Print dialog box to instantly run the Add Printer Wizard.

N O T E You don’t need to worry about any USB or Plug and Play printers as described in the Add Printer Wizard’s first screen; that’s only for connecting a printer directly to your PC, not a network printer.

4. Click the Next button. 5. Choose “A network printer, or a printer attached to another computer.” Don’t worry about the “print server” message at the bottom. Just ignore it.

6. Click the Next button. 7. Ensure that “Browse for a printer” is chosen and click the Next button. You could directly type in the printer’s network pathname, but that can be a bother. Browsing, on the other hand, is something easy to do.

8. Click the Next button. 9. In the Browse for Printer window, double-click on a network computer to display whatever printers are attached. For example, in the following figure, you see the Microsoft Windows Network, DAN’S OFFICE group, and then the MING computer. Double-clicking on MING displays any printers attached, such as the LASERJET 4V shown in the figure.

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10. Click to select the network printer. You’ll see additional information about the printer displayed in the “Printer information” part of the window. The comment is whatever information was entered about the printer when it was first shared. In this case, there is no information.

11. Click the Next button. 12. Choose Yes if you want to use this network printer as your primary (default) printer. This means that your computer will automatically choose this printer whenever you print anything. Otherwise, click No, which makes the printer available to your computer but not as its main printer.

13. Click the Next button. At last, it’s the summary screen. Very good and all that.

14. Click the Finish button. The newly shared printer appears in the Printers and Faxes window. It will also appear in any Print dialog box, where you can select it for printing.

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Share Your Internet Connection Another fun and useful thing to share is the Internet connection. If one of the computers on your network has a fast modem, such as a DSL, cable, or other boffo modem, then you can share it on the network. That way all the computers on the network can use the fast connection. No more waiting for the computer when you want to do your online shopping. Yeah! Now while you can share any modem, there really is no benefit to sharing a plain old 56K modem, especially given that most computers already have 56K modems. No, this option works best when one computer on the network has the boffo modem. Another thing you need to do before setting this up: set up that boffo modem. This option works only if your Internet connection has already been established and connects properly. So if you haven’t yet done so, configure your computer to connect to the Internet now. To share your computer’s modem, follow these steps:

1. Double-click the My Network Places icon on the desktop, or choose it from the Start menu.

2. Click “View network connections” to open the Network Connections window.

3. In the Network Tasks area, click “Set up a home or small office network.” Yes, this is the same item you chose to originally configure the network. And at that time (in one of the earlier procedures), I told you to skip over the modem connection part. Well, now you’re coming back to it. The Network Setup Wizard runs.

4. Click the Next button. Ignore that text! 5. And click the Next button again. Ah, the Internet connection questions again.

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6. Choose “This computer connects directly to the Internet…” from the list. You want to share its fast modem connection with other computers on the network.

7. Click the Next button. The list of your Internet (as well as network) connections is shown. For most folks, there are probably only two items there: your regular Internet connection and the Local Area Connection (the network). If you have any additional Internet ISPs (such as AOL), then they will be listed there as well. The idea here is to choose which ISP everyone will connect with. This must be an ISP that accepts this type of multiple connection. But some ISPs may have restrictions on several people accessing the Internet at once through one connection. When in doubt, or if this utterly does not work, then tell your ISP that you plan on using Internet Connection Sharing and see if they have any restrictions or suggestions for you.

8. Choose your ISP from the list. This is the Internet connection you’re planning to share.

9. Click the Next button. Now the rest of the steps mimic what you’ve been through before. In each case, the information there must not be changed. So on the screen where the computer description and name are input, just check things over and move on. Move on! That’s right, I said “Move on!” “Move on!” A-men, brothers and sisters.

10. Click the Next button. Ensure that your work group name is entered properly.

11. Click the Next button. Review the summary information. Blah, blah, blah.

12. Click the Next button. Ah…your computer is being configured. Basically, all that’s happening is that Internet Connection Sharing is being added to your network. Bottom line: you’re done!

13. Choose “Just finish the wizard. I don’t want to take any more of this stuff.”


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15. Click the Finish button. Now, you need to reset the computer. Okay. Fine. Reset the #%$X($* computer. (I thought this was one of those things Windows XP wasn’t supposed to do? But no. I digress.)

16. Click the Yes button to reset your computer now. An interesting side effect may occur here: if any other folk on the network are using your computer, then you’ll see a warning box telling you so. Clicking the Yes button will reset your computer, but it also rudely disconnects others from your computer. My advice? Click Yes. Time passes. Get a cup of coffee. Have a cookie. Ummmm, cookies!

Confirm That Everything Went Well After a time, you’ll be back to using your computer. To confirm that Internet Connection Sharing is going on, follow these steps:


2. Click “View Network Connections.” This displays the Network Connections window.

3. Look for the icon representing the connection you shared. If the sharing is successful, there will be a tiny “shared” hand beneath the connection. The description by the icon will also read “Shared” in there somewhere. Ta-da! You did it.

4. Close the Network Connections window.

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Use Another Modem on Another Computer to Connect to the Internet So. He thinks he’s such a big shot now, does he? He’s the one with the DSL connection on his computer. He’s the one who is downloading music files and software in no time. He laughs as he walks by the den, looking at you with your meager little computer and its puny 56K dial-up modem. He shakes his head and sips his coffee, an arrogant grin growing on his face. The arrogant jerk! Aha! But little does he know, late into the night, you set up his computer for Internet Connection Sharing. His modem is “up for grabs” on the Internet. Time to grab it. Sip away at your coffee, you silly, stubborn fool of a man! Revenge is mine! Bwaa-ha-ha! To use a shared modem on your home network, follow these steps:


2. Click “View network connections.” You need to visit the Network Connections window. Again.

3. Once again, as you did when you first created the network, choose “Set up a home or small office network” from the Network Tasks area. It’s time to complete what you started and configure the Internet connection part.

4. Click the Next button. Ah, the Network Setup Wizard has begun…again…

5. And click the Next button again. 6. Choose “This computer connects to the Internet through another computer…”. You want to use the other computer’s (hopefully faster) modem to connect to the Internet. This is a cinch for Windows to set

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up—and must crush the greedy ego of the sole owner of the fasterInternet computer. Nya, nya, nya!

7. Click the Next button. 8. Confirm your computer’s description and name. Don’t change anything here!

9. Click the Next button. 10. Confirm the workgroup name. Don’t change it! 11. Click the Next button. 12. It’s the “is this right?” window. Look over the information, which really doesn’t tell you much.

13. Click Next to apply these settings. 14. Please wait…Experience your eyes glazing over as Windows configures your computer. Suddenly imagine that you’re sitting beneath a large, shady tree on a hot summer afternoon. A small creek babbles and gurgles, as you dip your bare feet into the fresh cool water. A gentle breeze blows over you, bringing the fresh scents of a nearby meadow… Oh, knock it off! This is a computer and you’re toiling with Windows. Get used to it.

15. You’re almost done, but not quite. Choose the bottom option, Just finish the wizard…

16. Click Next. You have completed the Network Setup Wizard. Whoo-hoo!

17. Click Finish. You must restart you computer before the settings will take effect.

18. Click Yes. Hope you didn’t have anything opened and unsaved because it’s lost now. Now test it out. Double-click on the little e on your desktop, which is the icon for Internet Explorer. (Or open whatever browser program you use.) The only way you are given any kind of a hint that you’re connecting using someone else’s computer is a very brief message at the bottom of your screen that says you’re connecting to the Internet. It’s always too fast for me to actually see the whole message because it is fast. Whoa, it’s fast.

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Print That

Print That

Before I became oh-so-computer suave, I used to look at my computer screen and think, “How do I get that off the screen and onto paper?” I don’t ask myself too many of these questions now because, well, if I can’t figure it out, I know Dan can. He’s the brilliant one. I’m the cute one. Anyway, we’re going to share tons of printing tricks with you right now.

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Preview a Web Page before Printing I find the Web a bit scary. I believe that there are hidden things and I don’t really trust the Print command to print everything I see the way I see it. I have no idea why I don’t trust it. Maybe it’s because I’ve gone into Web sites and been attacked by pop-up windows opening out of control. (And for you marketing people, that strategy just doesn’t work on me.) Anyway, I distrust the Web, which is one reason I’m thankful that I can preview what’s to be printed before I print it. I can get a grip on what’s printing and make decisions for myself, thank you. No more frustrations. No more wasted paper. To use Web Page Print Preview, follow these steps:

1. Visit some place interesting on the Web. For example, visit Wambooli, our personal place on the information superhighway: www.wambooli.com/.

2. Choose File ➢ Print Preview. This summons the Print Preview window as shown in the following figure. You see your document exactly how it will print—margins, headers, and footers included. But notice that some information may be missing. For example, colorful background images aren’t displayed in Print Preview. This is because Internet Explorer assumes you don’t want the background colors included.

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3. Note the total number of pages in the taskbar at the top of the window. You should be aware that a single Web “page” may take more than one piece of paper to print.

4. Click the Next Page button to view the next page. You can also press Alt+Right Arrow to go to the next page.

5. Click the Next Page button again, which will view the final page of Wambooli. Notice how this page contains only a small amount of information? That’s probably a page you don’t want to print. For example, when I print Web page receipts, I use Print Preview to see which page contains the order number or other important information. Then I print only that page.

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P R I N T I N G S P E C I F I C PA G E S

In the Print dialog box, there is an area called the Page Range where you can specify only the page numbers you want printed. If you want to print only pages 2 through 5, then type 2-5 in the Pages box. This will print pages 2, 3, 4, and 5. The rest of the pages are ignored. If you want to print only the page you are looking at, then click your mouse somewhere on that page (to ensure it is selected) and then click on Current Page in the Page Range area). I’ve heard rumors that you may come upon a Web page or two where this may not work, but generally, you shouldn’t have a problem.

6. Click the Zoom Out button (the little magnifying glass on the taskbar with a minus sign on it). Click it a second time to reduce the size of the pages you see until there are three of them showing in the window. This is a good way to get an overview of how everything prints.

N O T E The quick key combination for zooming out is Alt+Minus. To zoom in, the key combination is Alt+Plus.

Notice that the document is cropped or truncated?

7. Choose 100% from the “Zoom” drop-down list. Look at the right side of the page. There is information missing. This is because the Web page is wider than the paper. There is a solution, which you can try from the Page Setup dialog box.

8. Click the Page Setup button (or press Alt+U). This displays the Page Setup dialog box.

9. Click the Landscape button. The page in the preview part of the dialog box (upper right corner) rotates to a horizontal orientation. That should show more of the Web page.

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10. Click OK. Back in the Print Preview dialog box, you see the new, “wide” look for the Web page. Hopefully that’s closer to what you want.

11. To print the image now, click the Print button. This displays the Print dialog box.

12. Click the Print button to print the Web page. To close the Print Preview window without printing, click the Close button on the taskbar.

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Print a Web Page Graphic It’s silly to print an entire Web page just to grab your scissors and (real world) cut and paste a single picture or image. And it’s even sillier to copy that image or save it to disk, then open it and print it. That’s because Internet Explorer has a handy (and not silly) Print Picture command. So, when you go to visit the grandkids’ Web site, you can point, click, and print off a

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picture of your favorite grandkid. And the other kids? Well, their parents spoil them rotten anyway… To print a single image on a Web page, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the image you want to print. A pop-up menu appears, as shown in the following figure.

2. Choose Print Picture from the menu. This summons the Print dialog box.

3. Click the Print button. And there it is.

N O T E To save the image you need rather than print it, choose Save Picture As from the menu (step 2). Then use the Save As dialog box to save the image to a proper folder on your PC’s hard drive.

PRINT THINGS ON THE SCREEN

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Print Things on the Screen Despite that Print Screen key on your keyboard, there isn’t any easy way to print the information you see on the screen. The Print Screen key does play a role, but it’s not an obvious one. To print the whole screen—wallpaper to taskbar—follow these steps:

1. Press the Print Screen key. It may also be labeled as “Prt Sc” on your keyboard and it may share the same key as “SysRq.” The Print Screen key takes a snapshot of the desktop. The snapshot is copied as a graphic image into the clipboard, from which it can be pasted into any program that accepts graphic images.

2 Click the Start button. 3. Choose All Programs. 4. Choose Accessories. 5. Choose Paint. This opens the Windows Paint program, which is a grand place to paste the desktop image. Maximize the Paint window if it’s not already filling the screen.

6. Choose Paste from the Edit menu. You can also press Ctrl+V, the keyboard Paste command. And there is your desktop image. Of course, this is only half the battle. The rest is printing.

7. Choose File ➢ Print Preview. It’s always best to preview what you’re printing because…as you’ll discover by viewing the preview, the image most likely does not fit on a single sheet of paper, as shown in the following figure. Hmmm…

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8. Click the Close button to close the Print Preview window. There’s nothing wrong with printing on two sheets of paper, but it’s often not the best result you can achieve. So don’t give up yet!

9. Choose File ➢ Page Setup. The Page Setup dialog box is displayed. See how the Preview area in the dialog box shows what will and what will not be printed? Interesting. How about trying something different?

10. Choose Landscape from the Orientation area. Check the Preview area? Better?

11. Experiment with the Horizontal and Vertical items in the Centering area. Better? Better? I’ll assume that nothing is working—I know, that’s a dismal assumption, but you’ve got to consider that I’ve been using Windows for close to 15 years now.

12. Ensure that Landscape mode is chosen, then click OK to close the Page Setup window.

13. Choose Image ➢ Stretch/Skew from the menu. This summons the Stretch and Skew dialog box, where you can resize the image to fit on a single page.

14. Type 75 into both the Horizontal and Vertical boxes.

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15. Click OK. The image is reduced to 75 percent of its size, which still lets you see images without distorting them too much.

16. Choose File ➢ Page Setup. Once again, into the fray of the Page Setup dialog box you go. Observe the Preview area.

17. Experiment (again) with the Horizontal and Vertical items until the gray box in the Preview area is centered. (If the image is still too large, then you’ll need to repeat steps 13 through 15 to resize it again.)

18. Click OK. Now you’re ready to print. 19. Choose File ➢ Print. The Print dialog box appears. 20. Click the Print button to print the image. By the way, back in the old days of DOS, the Print Screen button actually did print all the text on the screen, sending it out in one chunk to the printer. Amazing. We’ve come so far…

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Print a Window in Windows This title, Print a Window in Windows almost sounds like a psychological question, doesn’t it? But that’s really lowercase “window,” which means printing the stuff in a single window that Windows displays. No, wait. My head is starting to hurt. You can use the Print Screen technique covered in Section 45 to print the entire screen and then edit out everything except for a single window. That’s possible. But it’s easier to use the Alt+Print screen key instead. The Alt+Print screen key combination copies the “top” window on the screen into the clipboard as a graphic image. In step 1 from the previous section, press Alt+Print Screen (that is, hold down the Alt key and press the Print Screen button). That captures the image from the top window on the screen, which includes the window’s borders and edges. You can then paste the image into any application that accepts graphics. Note that the Alt+Print Screen snapshot captures only the visible part of the window, not the entire window’s contents when scrolled.

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47

Print a List of Files in a Directory Windows has no method for printing the list of files in a folder. No way. I suppose it’s because there isn’t a great demand for that feature, which seems odd. Having such a list of files could help you become organized or document the list of files required for a certain project. Yet there is no simple or easy way to do it. Welcome to the difficult and complex world of Windows! Printing a list of files is possible, but not in Windows. No, you must drop down into the bowels of DOS to get your file list printed. This can be a hectic and frustrating thing to do, so pay careful attention. To print a list of files, follow these steps:

1. Open the folder window, the one containing the list of files you want to print.

2. Ensure that the Address bar is visible. You need to be able to copy information from the Address bar into a DOS window, so you need to see the information in the Address bar. If it’s not visible, choose View ➢ Toolbars ➢ Address Bar from the menu. Make sure there is a check mark next to Address Bar.

3. Ensure that a pathname is showing in the Address bar and not an alias. For example, if it says “My Computer” or “My Documents” then you have an alias, which cannot be printed using the techniques I show you in this section. Instead, you should see a full pathname, such as: C:\Documents and Settings\Dan Gookin\My Documents

N O T E You cannot print a list of files in My Computer, My Network Places, the Control Panel, and various other places that seem like lists of files but actually aren’t. Bottom line: if you can’t wiggle a pathname out of it, then you can’t print a list of the files there.

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To get to the “real” location of the My Documents and Desktop folders, open the My Computer window. Open drive C, then open the Documents and Settings folder. Double-click on the folder with your name, logon name, alias, or the computer’s name. You’ll then see a list of folders, such as Cookies, Desktop, and Favorites. The Desktop folder contains the list of files you have on the desktop. The My Documents folder is the true location of the My Documents folder on the computer. Open those folders now if you want to print their list of files.

4. Select the pathname in the Address bar. Just click the mouse once in the address bar and that should do it; otherwise, select the text as you would any text in Windows.

5. Choose Edit ➢ Copy from the menu, or press Ctrl+C, the Copy command. This copies the pathname for use later at the DOS prompt.

6. Click the Start button. 7. Choose All Programs. 8. Choose Accessories. 9. Choose Command Prompt. This opens a DOS prompt window, as shown in the following figure. This is actually how the computer looked 15 years ago. Cold. Unfriendly. Intimidating. Like that IHOP waitress at 3:00 AM with the bags under her eyes. She doesn’t even call you “Hon.” And you’re afraid to death to ask if you can have your coffee warmed or if they would allow you to substitute the whole-wheat toast for a cinnamon bun. No, sir.

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N O T E If you really, really want to see how your computer screen would have looked 15 years ago, press the Alt+Enter key combination. This switches the DOS prompt window to full screen mode. Scary! Press Alt+Enter to switch it back.

Tricky maneuvers here: pay attention! The DOS prompt (the C-colon-backslash thing to the left of your typing) may look different on your screen. No problem. You may see the C:\ with some text, such as Documents and Settings\ (your name). That’s okay. What you need to pay close attention to is the typing.

10. Following whatever appears on your DOS prompt line, type cd, a space, and then a double-quote. Don’t press Enter! What you see on the screen must look like this: C:\> CD “

11. Click the Control menu button. It’s the tiny C:\ thing in the upper left corner of the Command Prompt window. Clicking the Control menu button displays the Control menu itself.

12. Choose Edit ➢ Paste from the control menu. This slaps down the pathname you copied earlier, the name of the folder containing the files you want to print. Good.

13. Press the Enter key. The DOS prompt changes to reflect the new location—the pathname of the folder containing the files you want to print. Believe it or not, the technical side is over. The rest is icing on the cake.

14. At the DOS prompt, type: dir/o>filelist.txt Type everything exactly as shown: dir, a space, forward slash, o (the letter o), a space, the greater-than symbol, a space, file list, a period, and finally txt. If you type something wrong, you will get some kind of an error message, such as “invalid switch” or something like that.

15. Press Enter. If you did it right, the next line that appears will be a repeat of the DOS prompt that appeared in step 13. What DOS just

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did was to create a text file on your disk named filelist.txt. That’s the list of files you’ll eventually print.

16. Type exit at the DOS prompt. 17. Press Enter. The exit command closes the Command Prompt window and returns you to the folder containing the files you wanted to print a list of. But notice an extra file in there now: filelist.txt, which is a Notepad document.

18. Double-click on the filelist.txt icon. This starts Notepad and displays the list of files similar to what is shown in the following figure.

19. Choose File ➢ Print. The Print dialog box appears. 20. Click the Print button. And finally, after 20 steps, your list of files is printed.

21. Close Notepad. 22. You can optionally delete the filelist.txt icon from the folder. Unless you need to keep it for future reference, the list of files becomes obsolete over time. Also see Section 45, “Print Things on the Screen,” for information on printing things on the screen. Section 46, “Print a Window in Windows,” covers printing a window’s contents, although that technique prints only the visible part of the window’s contents, not anything hidden that you have to scroll around to see.

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48

Print Your Address List You are sending out your yearly Christmas letter to all your friends via e-mail, and you get half a dozen error messages back with addresses that are no longer valid. Rather than glaze over your address list, you decide to print it out, give the list to your 14-year-old son, and then let him peruse the list for wrong addresses and duplicate names. (Not that I’ve ever done this to my 14-year-old or anything…) To print your address list, follow these steps:

1. Start Outlook Express. There may be a small envelope icon on your Quick Launch bar (small area next to the Start button) that you can click to start Outlook. If it’s not there, click the Start button and then choose Outlook Express.

2. Click the Addresses button. Your address book opens.

3. Choose File ➢ Print. The Print dialog box opens. You have some choices here.

4. Under “Print range,” choose All. Choose All only if you want to print everyone on your address list. If you choose Selection, it will print only the address you have selected in your address book, which in itself can be handy.

S E L E C T I N G C E R TA I N M E M B E R S I N Y O U R E - M A I L L I S T

Hold the Shift key down and click on one name. While the Shift key is still being held down, click someone else farther down the list. This will select everyone between and including these two selected names. If you want to choose only certain individuals in the list, hold down the Ctrl key while clicking on names. Only the names you click on are selected.

P R I N T YO U R A D D R E S S L I S T

5. Under Print Style, choose one of the options.

Memo. This list gives the most information. It’ll list each person’s name and their e-mail address.

Business Card. Very similar to memo, but takes up less room. I like this option the best.

Phone List. Lists the names under each letter of the alphabet.

Select a few names and print using each of these printing styles.

6. Choose the number of copies you want. 7. Click the Print button. 8. Click the X in the upper-right corner of your screen to close the Address Book. And there is your list of e-mail addresses.

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Fax from Windows Faxing is printing. That’s all it is. It’s just that you’re printing to a different printer—a fax machine. Therefore, logically, faxing should be just like printing in Windows. Logically.

Install the Fax Program The fax program in Windows isn’t automatically installed when you get Windows. You must first walk through the steps of installing it. To install the fax program in Windows, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose Control Panel. 3. Click on “Add or remove programs.” 4. Click on “Add/Remove Windows Components.” 5. Click the check box next to “Fax Services.” This puts a check mark there, telling Windows that you want to install that option.

6. Click the Next button. Now you wait a few minutes while Windows works. You may need the Windows CD to finish installation; pray that you kept it.

N O T E Always keep all documentation and disks that came with your computer. Always.

7. Ah, the You’re Finished! window; click the Finish button when you see it.

8. Close the Add or Remove Programs window and the Control Panel window.

FA X F R O M W I N D O W S

Fax a Document Now that the Windows fax program is installed, you’re ready to fax. This works just like printing, although the first time you run the Windows fax program, you’ll need to do a bit of setup. Then it’s time to fax. To fax a document, follow these steps:

1. Open up WordPad to create a document (Start ➢ All Programs ➢ Accessories ➢ WordPad). Or you can fax from any application or window that has a Print option. Remember, faxing is like printing. Anything you can print, Windows can fax. Yes, even graphics programs.

2. Type a wonderful short poem about your mother. Be nice! 3. Choose File ➢ Print. The Print dialog box opens. Look for the Fax icon, which sits there with the icons of the other printers you may have installed. The icon even looks like a little fax machine. A Toshiba, I believe. (Obviously there was major moolah passed from Toshiba to Microsoft for this subliminal endorsement).

4. Click once on the Fax icon. You want to fax, not print. 5. Click the Print button. The Fax Configuration Wizard appears. Oh great. Another Wizard… Remember, I told you you’d have to do a little setup? The first time you fax, you have to run the Fax Configuration Wizard, which is where you tell Windows how to send and receive faxes and other informational tidbits about yourself and your computer. Like a tetanus shot, this is quick but painful.

6. Click Next. 7. Complete the Sender Information. This is the information that will be on the top of every fax you send, so don’t be cute here. You don’t want to put your name as “Stud Muffin” and then forget to change it when you send a fax to your boss. Or maybe you do; I wouldn’t know. I’ll be honest; I’m never complete when I fill this stuff out. I don’t want people to know some of this stuff like “Office location” or “Department.” Well, I don’t have a department. But if you do, you’re

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not really required to fill this out. In fact, you can skip the whole thing if you want.

8. Click Next. 9. Your modem appears listed in the fax device list box Click to put a check mark by “Enable Send” because, well, you do want to send a fax. Only put a check mark by “Enable Receive” if you want to receive faxes as well. Note that this isn’t a wise option if you use that phone line for anything other than the computer.

10. Click Next. 11. If you are so inclined, you can provide a name for your computer, to be used to identify it to fax recipients. Or you can just leave it as Fax, which is what it says in the TSID box now. Click Next. If you didn’t check the “Enable Receive” check box in step 9, then the wizard completion screen appears, and you can click Finish and skip the remaining steps in this procedure.

12. If you did click the “Enable Receive” check box, then the next screen asks if you want to provide a name for your computer to identify it to anyone sending you a fax. Click Next. The next screen gives you options for routing incoming faxes. The wizard wants to know what to do with a received fax. Should Windows print it, or store it in a folder?

13. Click the buttons for the options you prefer. I opt for printing so I know that a fax came in without having to look on the monitor. To do


this, click the check box next to “Print it on,” then click the down arrow and choose a printer. To store a copy in a folder, click the check box next to “Store a copy in a folder,” then click the Browse button to locate the folder you want to use. The Browse dialog box has a Make New Folder button if you want to create a new folder for storing incoming faxes.

14. Click Next. 15. Click Finish. Now the fax machine inside your computer is all set up and you’ll never have to do that again. Hopefully. But remember that you are still in the process of sending a fax. So when you quit the Fax Configuration Wizard, the Send Fax Wizard appears. Don’t let it freak you out. To really, really, send a fax, follow these steps:

1. Click Next. 2. Complete the information, who the fax is going to and the fax phone number. You must type the fax number. The computer won’t know whom to dial if you leave this part blank.

N O T E Once you start collecting fax numbers, you can click on Address Book and choose a fax number from there.

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3. The computer assumes you are making a local call. If you have to send to a long distance phone number, click next to “Use dialing rules.” This opens up some boxes to include an area code.

N O T E Click on the Dialing Rules button. You can add frequently used area codes in this box.

4. The Add button enables you to send this one fax to several people. After you’ve typed in one person’s name and fax number, click the Add button. The fields are blank and you can add someone else to get this lovely mother poem you are faxing out. Keep adding people until you are ready to move on to the next step.

5. Click Next. 6. It’s the cover page step. You can click the box next to “Select a cover page template.” Or you can just ignore this step and not worry about a cover page.

C O V E R PA G E I N F O R M AT I O N

A cover page is the page that precedes your fax. You can use it as an explanation of what is coming and provide information about yourself or your organization. So, for example, if you’re faxing a Mother Poem, you can just send the poem with no explanation—meaning no cover page. But if you want to send a cover page explaining that this is a poem and “I hope you like it and please edit it with suggestions on how to make it better, etc.,” then you can click on the “Select a cover page” check box. The cover page template examples are shown in the window. Click the down arrow next to cover page template to see your other choices. Type a subject line if you want, along with a note about what you are sending. If you want to change the Sender information (information about you), then click on the Sender Information button and edit the information that is there. This cover page thing is all about information. How much or how little you pass along is up to you.


7. Click Next. 8. When do you want to send the fax? Wow, a choice! Yes! Read the choices. They make lots of sense to me. Notice that you can send all your faxes some other time, like when you are asleep or when the phone rates go down (which would probably mean at night). Make your choice and click Next.

9. The final window. Want to see your final product? Click Preview Fax. Ignore the preview fax step if you don’t really care how it looks. Verify that your information is correct, especially the fax number. You don’t want this mother poem going to just anyone.

10. Click Finish. You can hear your modem dialing and a progress window appears.

If all goes well, you’ll see a window at the bottom of your screen that says, “The fax was sent successfully.” My, oh my! Be sure to read the next section on managing faxes, which is important in case anything goes wrong (busy signal, wrong number, and so on).

Send a One-Page Fax Do you just want to send a quickie note to someone? You know, something like: Hi, you stood me up for lunch. Better have a good reason or your ass is grass and I’m a lawn mower.

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You can do this, easy! To send a quick fax, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose All Programs. 3. Choose Accessories. 4. Choose Communications. 5. Choose Fax. 6. Choose Send a Fax. The Send Fax Wizard starts.

7. Click Next. Type the name of who you want to send your quick note to and their fax number.

8. Click Next. Type in a subject line and then your note (see the previous example, or type something of your own making).

9. Click Next. Make sure the Now button is selected and then click Next. 10. Click the Finish button and your fax is off and running. This is just a short and sneaky way to get a message off to someone.

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Manage Faxes In the movie The Firm, a botched fax helps save the protagonist from certain terror. The fax pops out of the machine, but it’s printed on that waxy paper that rolls up. So the fax falls to the floor and rolls under the machine, which buys Tom Cruise more time to foil the mob. Hopefully that won’t ever happen to you. And too bad for Tom Cruise too, because I hear the Mafia has upgraded to Windows XP and now uses the fancy Fax Console to manage all incoming documents. To find the Fax Console, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose All Programs.

M A N A G E FA X E S

3. Choose Accessories. 4. Choose Communications. 5. Choose Fax. 6. Click on Fax Console. The Fax Console resembles an e-mail program in many respects, which is a good analogy. The four “mailboxes” under Fax help you keep track of your computer faxing activities.

Incoming. Click on incoming to see what faxes are coming in to you.

Inbox. These are faxes that have come to you.

Outbox. Faxes waiting to be sent.

Sent Items. The list of every fax you send.

There are many tasks you can accomplish in this Fax Console area. The following sections highlight some of my favorites.

Revise Your Sender Information If you need to change the information on your cover sheet, or you don’t want some people to know certain things about you, such as your habit of visiting cheap motels just for the free HBO, follow these steps:

1. Click Tools ➢ Sender Information. What you see in the Sender Information dialog box is the stuff that currently appears on your cover page.

2. Highlight any information you want to change and then type in the new information.

3. Click OK when you’re finished.

Create Your Own Personal Cover Page Windows XP gives you a few cover pages, but they’re rather boring: Confidential, Urgent, FYI. You can create your own cover page template with the very fun Fax Cover Page Editor.

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To create your own cover page template from the Fax Console, follow these steps:

1. Click Tools ➢ Personal Cover Pages.

N O T E You can also get here by clicking on the Start Button ➢ All Programs ➢ Accessories ➢ Communications ➢ Fax ➢ Fax Cover Page Editor. You can use this path when you just randomly decide to create something, like a new cover page!

Oh no! It’s empty! Time to create a new cover page. Prepare to simmer your genius.

2. Click the New button. The Cover Page editor opens. If you’re familiar with any Microsoft product (Word, FrontPage, Publisher), then this should be familiar territory for you. If not, then the Cover Page Editor Tips window that appears automatically clues you in to some of the finer points of cover page editing. (Close the tip window when you’re done tipping.)

N O T E Point the mouse at any tool on the Cover Page toolbar to see a brief description of what it is or does.


To write your own message on the cover page click the text icon (has the letters ab on it). Click and drag a big rectangle and start typing: Greetings from the People’s Democratic Republic of Kerplechistan You can change the font, size, text style, and alignment just like any Windows text editor; use the familiar buttons on the toolbar to do so. To insert anything about the sender, receiver, or a message for your cover page, choose that item from the Insert menu. The submenus there let you insert various “fields” that will be updated with the necessary information when the fax is sent. Remember: this is just a template editor and not a true cover page right now.

N O T E Notice that as you add things to your cover page, the information is not included, such as the sender’s name and fax number. Windows will include the cover page information for you as you input the fax information.

To insert a picture in your cover page, copy the picture to the clipboard from whatever source you need, such as the Paint program or Microsoft Publisher. Go to the Fax Cover page Editor, open your cover page, and choose Edit ➢ Paste. The art, like the text information, is movable by clicking and dragging the art. To create line art and graphics, use the tools on the Drawing toolbar (the one with the mouse pointer on the far left). You can draw lines, rectangles, rounded rectangles, weird shapes, and ellipses. To fill the shape, right-click it and choose Line, Fill, and Color from the shortcut menu. (Remember that “color” is always shades of gray when it comes to a fax.) To save your cover page, choose File ➢ Save As. The Personal Coverpages folder opens. Type a descriptive filename and click Save. Click File ➢ Exit to exit out of the Fax Cover Page Editor. To test your new cover page, work through sending a fax as shown in the preceding section. When you get to the step on preparing a cover page, click the down arrow next to Cover page template and you’ll find your saved cover page. Click on it once to select it and Windows will fill in all the information you requested on the form.

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Configure Your Fax This wizard helps you configure the sending and receiving of faxes. You are automatically taken through this process when you send a fax for the first time. And you are asked to make some decisions that you may want to change. This is the area where you do this. To find the Fax Configuration Wizard in the Fax Console, follow these steps:

1. Click Tools ➢ Configure Fax. The wizard begins.

2. Click Next. 3. Complete the “Sender Information” fields and click Next. 4. Your modem should be listed in the “Fax device” section. If for some odd reason it is not listed, click the down arrow and find your fax.

5. To send a fax, you must have a check mark next to “Enable Send.” To receive a fax (to your computer) you must have a check mark next to “Enable Receive.”


N O T E If you have a dedicated fax machine that you want to use to receive faxes (like the kind that looks like a printer/phone combination doohickey thing that takes up way too much space on your desktop) then you don’t have to choose Enable Receive to receive faxes. This option is meant to receive faxes to your computer.

More about receiving a fax is covered in the next section.

6. Click Next. 7. The TSID is a name that will appear in the LCD readout on most faxes; it’s similar to a caller ID, but can contain text and other information. So, you could type in Republic of Kerplechistan here for the fax identification. Or leave it alone. Click Next.

8. Again, the CSID is a name. “Sandy’s Fax” works for me here. Click Next.

9. Where do you want your fax to go? You can receive a fax to a printer and you can also save a copy of the fax in a folder. To send to a printer, click next to “Print it on,” and then choose the printer. If you only have one printer, then it makes things really easy. If you have a printer choice, your dedicated printer is listed. If you want your faxes sent to another printer, such as the fast laser printer where everyone else in the office sends their faxes, then click the down arrow to choose the printer you want. To save a copy of the fax in a folder, click next to “Store in a folder.” Click the Browse button to find a folder, any folder. Click the + signs next to the folders to find one you want. You’ll see that under My Documents, you have a Fax folder you can use. Highlight the folder you want and click OK. Or, click the Make New Folder button and create your own folder.

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Once you choose a folder, the path to the folder is listed next to “Store a copy in a folder.”

10. Click Next. A summary of all your choices is listed. Review these choices to make sure this is really what you wanted.

11. Click Finish when you are finished. You don’t get any kind of a “Yeehaw! You did it” celebration noise or anything. You’re just done.

Keep Track during a Fax While you are sending and receiving faxes, the Fax Monitor window automatically appears. In case it doesn’t, in the Fax Console, choose Tools ➢ Fax Monitor. Or you can choose that item in case you want to peek at a status and you’ve already closed the Fax Monitor window. Click the More>> button to see the progress of your faxes. It’ll look similar to the following figure.

R E C E I V E A FA X

What you see is your faxing log. If you want this visible at all times, put a check mark next to the box that says “Keep this dialog visible at all times,” which is nice if you’re curious about the progress of faxes. And it might be a good idea. If the number is wrong, if the line if busy, if there is any kind of problem, it’ll show up here. Or, if the fax goes through just fine, then you can set your mind to rest here.

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Receive a Fax Sure, your computer can receive a fax via its modem. It’s painless and easy. The question really is what to do with the fax once it’s received. Windows gives you two options:

Print the received fax on your printer.

Make a digital copy of the fax and save it to disk.

Printing the fax means that your computer is turned into a fax machine, albeit one with a large keyboard and screen which can play Flight Simulator. Making a digital copy of the fax is a more computer-like thing to do, but I cover both options here anyway.

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Set Up to Receive a Fax Your computer must know that it can receive a fax. It doesn’t automatically know this information. It’s clueless unless you help it out a bit. The last section (Section 50, “Manage Faxes”) covered setting up your fax to receive faxes. Work through the last section if you haven’t already. You must have chosen “Receive Fax” in the Fax Configuration window to make any of this work. So, if you didn’t work through the fax configuration in the last section, go back now and do it. I’ll wait…

Receive Faxes When someone sends you a fax, your computer will ring—well, play a ringing sound through the speakers, like a phone ringing. That’s the first, but not the only way Windows tells you that a fax is coming in. After the ring, the Fax Monitor program displays a play-by-play action guide as to what is happening. The phone is ringing, and it’s ringing again and the call was answered and you are receiving page 1 and the call was completed…. You get the idea. The Fax Console will also tell you that you have an incoming fax. Click the Inbox in the Fax Console to see the date and time you received your fax, how big the fax was, the status of the fax (success is the word you want to see). And finally, there’s a little message on your screen that says, “You have a fax!” Click on the message box and the Fax Console opens for you if it’s not open. If it is already open, it brings that window to the front.

R E C E I V E A FA X

Finally, if you’ve elected to have the fax printed the second it comes in, then you’ll also know that you have a fax because the printer starts printing it.

Copy Faxes to a File The last section (Section 50) covered copying your faxes to a fax folder. Work through the last section if you haven’t already. You must have chosen “Store a copy in a folder” and then picked the folder. If you remember, you can also create a special folder for all your incoming faxes, which I recommend. To view the fax that was copied to your folder, double-click on the icon that looks like a page with a check mark in a green circle. This opens the fax that is sent to your folder. Double-clicking this icon takes you to a preview window for the document you just received. You can use the buttons at the bottom of the window to navigate through this preview. The quality is pretty crummy, so I wouldn’t try to ready anything there, but it does give you a quick look at what you just received. You can click the plus button on the bottom of the screen to get a closer look at the document, and that does help some, but there’s nothing you

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can do to make the quality of the document you are seeing on your screen look any better. The reason the fax looks bad is that the resolution is only 200 dpi, which is pretty low. Most printers have a resolution of 600 dpi. In other words, faxes just aren’t made to be crystal clear like your printer. It’s just a bad.

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Use E-Mail to Send a Fax This may come as a shock, but not everyone has an e-mail account. I know—bizarre, isn’t it? But it’s true. There actually are people who can’t sit back and read blonde jokes all day long or get updated pictures of their grandchildren or their best friend’s newest boyfriend. They are lost souls, they are. They live in the realm of the sad and pathetic. But wait! Now, with Windows XP, you can fax an e-mail message complete with the attachments and everything. Can you believe it? It’s true. To fax an e-mail message, follow these steps.

1. Open Outlook Express by clicking Start ➢ All Programs ➢ Outlook Express. You may already have an Outlook Express icon on your desktop or Quick Launch bar. Just look for the white envelope with a blue arrow wrapped around it.

N O T E Outlook Express is the e-mail program that comes with Windows XP. Outlook is another e-mail (and contact) program that works similarly to Outlook Express, but it is in fact a different program. Outlook is sold either by itself or as a part of the Microsoft Office suite of applications. You can fax in Outlook, but you will need instructions specific to your version of Outlook. Many other e-mail programs allow faxing as well. If you aren’t an Outlook or Outlook Express user, check your documentation to see.

2. Click on the message you want to fax. 3. Choose File ➢ Print from the menu.

PR I NT I MAG E S

That same old Print dialog box you’re used to seeing pops up.

4. Choose Fax from the list of printers. 5. Choose Print. Whoa! Is that a Send Fax Wizard I see? Yep. You know the routine.

6. Click Next. 7. Complete the information: name, fax number, etc. Click the Add button and add more fax numbers if there is more than one person you want to fax this e-mail message to.

8. Click Next. 9. Do you want a cover page? Choose your cover page, then type a note. Click Next.

10. Choose when you want your fax to be sent. Now is always good, or a time in the near future. Click Next.

11. Click Finish. If you open your Fax Console, you’ll see that the fax is sitting in the Outbox, waiting to be sent. If you are currently on the Internet (after all, you’re doing e-mail) then the fax sits in the Outbox and waits until you are off the Internet before it sends. This is because your fax modem can do only one thing at a time, and being on the Internet and sending a fax are two things. (You can send the fax right away if you’re using a Cable, DSL, or other non phone-line modem.) So, if you choose the Now option for sending a fax, it really won’t send it now. Instead, it’ll wait for you to get off the Internet. The quickest way is to choose a time that is about 2 minutes into the future, then get off the Internet. Watch the Fax Monitor and you’ll see it working.

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Print Images From whence commeth thine images? What? Understandeth ye not the language of thine fathers? Never mind. I wasn’t big on all the Shakespeare/King James English stuff. But the answer to the question is that it

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really doesn’t matter where the images come from—digital camera, scanner, the Internet, or your own telephone doodlings. The bottom line is that Windows can print those images, no matter what. It’s cinchy. To print any kind of an image, follow these steps:

1. Find the image you want to print. If you’ve been obedient, all your images are stored in the My Pictures folder or in a subfolder therein. Hunt down the pictures you want. If the pictures are in a digital camera, then you’ll need to transfer the images into the computer, however that’s done (it varies from camera to camera). Ditto for a scanner; you’ll need to scan in the images and then save them to a folder on disk.

N O T E Many scanners and digital cameras prefer to put their images in their own folders. Avoid this. Use the My Pictures folder for your stuff, which is where most of Windows’ graphics applications expect them to be.

2. Right-click the image. 3. Choose Preview from the pop-up menu. This starts the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer program. If there is no Preview command on the pop-up menu, then choose Open With ➢ Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. The image appears in the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer application, as shown in the following figure. The buttons on the bottom of the window let you manipulate the image somewhat. The key button you’re looking for is the one with the little printer icon on it.

PR I NT I MAG E S

4. Click the Print button. Oh no! Another Wizard! This one is called the Photo Printing Wizard.

5. Click the Next button. A window appears showing all the graphics images in the current folder, which seems dumb because you just selected one image. But if you look closer, you’ll see that your selected image has a check mark in the corner. So, I suppose if you wanted to print another image, this step saves you some time; click to put a check mark by all the images you want printed.

N O T E If you want to print all the images in the folder—say you’ve just downloaded a whole “roll” of digital pix from your camera—then click the Select All button.


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7. Choose your printer from the drop-down list. If you normally don’t print on a color printer, now would be the time to choose one from the list. If you’ve gotten to this step and realized you forgot to add that fancy new color printer, click the Install Printer button now and work through the Add Printer Wizard.

N O T E The Printing Preferences button can save you some time and help make your printouts look good. It summons a dialog box where you can further control your printer. You can tell the printer that you’re printing on special photographic paper, choose a higher graphics resolution, and other options. These choices are all specific to your printer, so choose them as you see fit.

8. Click the Next button. Time to choose a layout. This is a real time saver! For example, the “Contact Sheet Prints” item lets you print out all the selected images and preview them, like a contact sheet you’d get from a photo shop. Otherwise, you can arrange your images on the page in various sizes and arrangements. So, if you’re printing multiple images, you don’t waste a lot of paper.

9. Select a layout from the scrolling list. Use the “Print preview” part of the dialog box to help you decide how to waste the least amount of paper.

10. Select the number of times to use each picture. Use the arrow buttons or enter a number. This tells the Wizard how many of each image to put on a page. So if you’re sending out nine wallet size prints of the same image, choose “Wallet Prints” from the scrolling list and enter 9 into the “Number of times to use each picture” box.

PR I NT I MAG E S

N O T E Reselect the layout after adjusting the number of times to use each picture value. That updates the Print preview window.

11. Click the Next button. Whoops! That should be labeled the Print button, because it sends your printer into action, printing off the images you selected.

12. Click the Finish button. Yup. You’re really done now. 13. Close the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer window when you’re done with that. By the way, many digital cameras and scanners come with their own photo editing software. Oftentimes that is the software that gives you the most control over printing images. The Windows Picture and Fax Viewer program is handy, I’ll admit, especially for printing multiple images on a page. But for the best quality, you should go with a true photo-editing program, such as Adobe PhotoShop, or the application that originally created the image.

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Print Help and Support Documentation Ronald Reagan was president the last time Windows came with a complete manual. Ever since then, Microsoft has been putting more and more documentation “on disk.” And, I admit, the Help system has been getting better and better over the years. It’s still not written as well as any book on Windows (particularly this book!), but it’s there as a first shot-in-the-dark for those times you need help. When you get help, especially for complex step-by-step procedures, it’s a good idea to print out the steps so that you can refer to them on paper. Windows makes this easy, thanks to a handy Print button right there on the Help window. Why not take advantage of it? To print help documents, follow these steps:

1. Pop up the Start menu. 2. Choose Help and Support. Go ahead and cancel if Windows decides that it needs to go online. There’s nothing on the Internet you need right now, not for this demonstration.

3. In the “Search” text box, type keyboard shortcuts. Having a list of keyboard shortcuts is always a good idea. Why not make a hard copy?

4. Click the green arrow button, or just press Enter. In a few moments, Windows will have found all the helpful keyboard shortcuts information it can muster.

5. Click the “Full-text Search Matches” tab. It can be found at the bottom of the left side of the window, in the “Search Results” area.

6. Click the link that reads “Windows keyboard shortcuts overview.” The lists of keyboard shortcuts for all of Windows and its various programs appear on the right side of the window.

P R I N T H E L P A N D S U P P O R T D O C U M E N TAT I O N

7. Click the names of all the groups or all of the little plus signs to show the lists of keyboard shortcuts. There are five lists on my screen: General, Dialog box, Natural, Accessibility, and Windows Explorer.

8. Click the Print button. The Print dialog box appears. Choose the printer you want to print to, if it isn’t already highlighted.

9. Click the Print button. And your list prints. The full list printed out to three pages on my printer. Staple or bind the list and keep it handy when you need to review the faster keyboard ways of doing things. (Yes, the mouse is okay, but the people who really use Windows know all the keyboard shortcuts.)

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Where’s that button gadget that does that thing? Which Wizard do I use? I’m supposed to do what with the Control Panel? How did you get your letter to look so nice? Defrag my what? Questions about Windows never cease. I could go on and on about the reason we don’t understand some of the finer points about Windows, but my publisher has a thing about “Microsoft bashing,” so I won’t go there. Regardless of how much you use Windows, there are some steps required to get things done that just don’t make sense, no matter how much you click around. Microsoft knows this and has offered up a Help system to go along with its operating system. To me that’s like including an apology card along with a gift; like having a doctor give out his malpractice lawyer’s card before the operation. You get the idea. I use the Help system a lot. It actually does help! But it’s also a reference, which proves handy because it’s the only documentation you get with Windows; nothing is printed any more. Using the Help system, you can find interesting subjects related to your questions just by snooping around. It’s a voyage of discovery. So, these sections are about all the snooping you can do in Help. Consider it the wind to unfurl your sails on the exotic journey toward Windows possibilities. Hey! That’s kind of romantic.

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Use the Windows Help System Help! Yes, Help is on the way. To find the Windows Help system, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button.

U S E T H E W I N D OW S H E L P SYS T E M

2. Choose Help and Support. The Help and Support Center comes forward, ready to come to your assistance. As you sit there, gazing at the pretty pictures and blue screen, you may see your dial-up connection box appear. The Help system wants you to connect to the Internet. Click Cancel to make the Internet connection go away. You can do this without using the Internet… for now anyway. What you see is Windows doing its best to try to help you, understanding that you may or may not know the specific term you need to find the answers to your questions.

Pick a Help Topic On the left side of the main screen is an area called “Pick a Help topic.” This is not so much of an “I have a question and need a specific answer” area, but more of a “here are some topics you may want to read more about” area. To work through the Help topic area, follow these steps:

1. Hover your mouse over “Music, video, games, and photos.” Your mouse turns into a hand. Click the link and it takes you to topics and subtopics about music, sounds, videos, games, and photos.

2. Click the plus sign next to “Music and sounds.” More topics appear.

3. Click on “Understanding digital media concepts.” The right side of your screen displays a list of topics that are either just an overview of the subject, an article on the subject, or a tutorial that you can walk through.

4. Click on “Supported file formats.” Before you lies a vast field of information on file types and filename extensions. Why or how you would use this information is up to you, but it is there.

5. If you hover your mouse over the icon that looks like a house, the pop up box says, “Go to the Help and Support home page.” Click the icon.

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G E T W I N D OW S TO H E L P YO U

Just for fun, click around on some of the other links on the “Pick a help topic” side. There is some good information there.

NOTE sections.

The “Ask for assistance” and “Pick a task” areas are covered in later

Ask a Direct Question You may have exact questions in mind when you turn to the Help system. When you know specifically what you want to find, go to the Index section of Help. To use the Index section, follow these steps:

1. Click the Index button, located at the top of the Help and Support Center window. The Index window opens.

2. Type a subject or keyword in the space under the words “Type in the keyword to find.” For this example, type the word printing. A whole list of printing options appears.

3. Click on the words “collating pages” and then click the Display button. The right side of the screen opens with a variety of information. If the word is written and underlined in green then there is a definition available. Click on the word to view the definition. If the words are written and underlined in blue, then clicking on that link will take you to the place it is describing.

U S E T H E W I N D OW S H E L P SYS T E M

Search the Help System Just below the Help and Support Center’s toolbar is a box with the word Search next to it. This is for those times when you want to say, “How do you make that thing do that thing with those doohickeys that are on the desktop?” Or, to be more precise, it’s where you can type modem and see every possible question or answer regarding “modem” that’s stored in the Help system. To practice using the search box, follow these steps:

1. Type the words hard drive in the box and then click the green arrow. (In Windows XP, clicking the green arrow means the same thing as pressing the Enter key.) The search results show there are 30 topics related to “hard drive.” Read through the list of suggested topics to see if your question is listed.

2. Click on “Add a new user to the computer.” Again, the right side of your computer displays your information. I find myself going to the Help system just to browse from time to time to see what’s hidden in Windows that I wasn’t aware of. You may want to do this, too.

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And here is where the online aspect of the Help system comes into play: If you do elect to connect to the Internet, then the Help system also searches through Microsoft’s online Knowledge Base, which is similar to the database the Microsoft tech support people look through when you call them (at $35/hour) to get help. To see any help found in the Knowledge Base, click the Knowledge Base button in the Search Results window.

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Mark a Topic as a Favorite Bookmarks are necessary things, which is probably why “bookmark” is a long-standing word in the English language. For example, no matter how many times I’ve done a mail merge in Microsoft Word, I can’t seem to remember the steps. So I’ve bookmarked those steps in Dan’s Word For Dummies book. (No, being married to Dan doesn’t mean I get past having to read his books.) Even without a physical book, you need bookmarks. What would the Internet be without bookmarks? The same goes for the Help and Support Center in Windows. Like the Internet, it has its own “Favorites” list, which you can fill with bookmarked pages. So when you find yourself visiting the same help information over and over, why not bookmark it and keep it handy? That way you don’t always have to hunt it down. To mark a topic as a favorite, follow these steps:

1. Open the Help and Support Center. 2. Click on the Index button. 3. Type in a topic you want to read about. For this example, type the word printing.

4. Click on “Changing print order.” 5. Click the Display button. The right side of the screen opens with the information you need.

U S E YO U R OW N O P T I O N S

FOR HELP

6. Click the Add to Favorites button. You get a message: This page has been added to your Help and Support Favorites list.

7. Click OK. Keep adding things to your list as you need them. Now comes the time when you need to find that page again. To use your Favorites list, follow these steps:

1. Click the Favorites button on the toolbar. You can find this in any screen in the Help system. Your list of favorite items is listed.

2. Click once on the topic to highlight your topic. 3. Click Display. Whoa! There it is. If your description of the topic is too long and not very descriptive, highlight it, click the Rename button, type a new name, and then press Enter. If you finally get it and remember how to work your steps and you want to remove a topic from your favorites, click once on the topic, then click the Remove button.

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Use Your Own Options for Help Help can be offered all day long, but it’s received only when the help is information you truly need. If I want to buy my car a tire, for example, I don’t need to know about the car’s engine, gas mileage or anything else that someone else may guess is “helpful” information. I want to know which tire fits on a 2001 BMW 310Ci, thank you. For me, more information isn’t always better. Sometimes it’s just more.

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Windows Help can be overwhelming too. Of course, you’re the only one that knows the exact answer you’re looking for, so I can see how too many answers could be thrown your way. XP wants to help you help yourself by giving you options when you start searching for information. To change your help search options, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Help and Support Home page. (Click Start ➢ Help and Support).

2. Click the Options button on the toolbar. 3. Click “Set Search options.” The right side of your screen opens to the areas you can tinker with to either tighten your search or simply be more helpful for you.

4. Add or remove the green check marks next to each subject. Read each section and either add or remove check marks, depending on how you want your search to go.

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Use Outside Groups for Help Although I think Windows XP has a pretty accurate Help system, there will be weird, quirky things that develop in your computer that you just won’t find a solution to. When this happens, you may have to think outside the normal realm of things and get help elsewhere. This is when you go to Windows support experts or newsgroups for their help and wisdom. To look for help outside of Windows, follow these steps:

1. Open the Home page of the Help and Support Center. Clicking Start ➢ Help System gets you to the Home page.

2. Click on the line that says, “Get support, or find information in Windows XP newsgroups.”

USE OUTSIDE GROUPS

FOR HELP

Alternately, you can click the Support button on the toolbar (the button with the hammer and wrench). A welcome screen appears that reminds you that you must be connected to the Internet to get any of the following to work. Your options for help are:

Ask a Friend for Help (Remote Assistance, which is covered in Section 96, “Ask For Help from an Online Friend”)

Get Help from Microsoft

Go to a Windows Web site forum

3. Click the option “Get help from Microsoft.” This is actually a link to the Microsoft Online Assisted Support Web site.

4. You may be asked to connect to the Internet (if Windows doesn’t automatically connect for you). Choose Connect or Dial—depending on the screen—to connect to the Internet.

5. You may see a window that says you are going into a secure site. Click OK. The welcome screen appears. Now Microsoft becomes a little pushy and requires you to sign up for what is called a Passport account (which is officially called a .Net Passport account, but Windows users typically drop the .Net part when talking about it). Here is the Microsoft thinking: the Passport account is a log-in/password process that enables you to get into secure sites such as the online Help system. They call the Passport an e-commerce service that makes shopping easier and faster, but I’m personally not sure about all that. Anyway, to get this to work, you must register for a passport account. (I hate bullies, don’t you?) If you haven’t signed up for a Passport account, you can skip ahead to Section 87 and do so. If you’ve snooped around Windows, you may already have an account.

6. If you have already signed up for a Passport account, you can choose the option that you already have an account.

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7. The Passport Sign-in appears. Type your password and click Sign in.

If you don’t want to retype your password, click the check box next to “Sign me in automatically.” This skips this stage.

8. If you haven’t completed this stage in your Passport experience, you may see a Personal Information page. Now I must admit, I don’t like giving this information to anyone. Why do they need my phone number? I just signed in, why do they need my e-mail address? Bullies!!!

9. You must click on the button next to “I accept the License Agreement.” Then choose Submit. If you really like legal-talk, then click on the License Agreement to read what you are agreeing to. Warning: if you go to the license agreement page, the only way to get out of it is to click the close button (X) in the corner. Once this is completed, you won’t be asked this again. After all that is out of the way, the Microsoft Online Assisted Support page is up. What to do? What to choose? Your options are:

Ask a Microsoft Support Professional for help

View my support requests

USE OUTSIDE GROUPS

Update my contact information

Go to the Passport Member Services Web Site

View other support options

FOR HELP

W A R N I N G I must confess that Dan and I both worked through these steps and it turned out different every time we did it. So, if you don’t see these five options, don’t worry. This is not a vital step in the process. Remember, we’re working from the beta copy so hopefully this will be stabilized by the time you have Windows XP.

Going to the Passport Member Services Web site is covered in Section 87, “Sign Up for a .NET Passport Account,” so ignore that one for now.

10. Choose “View my support requests.” 11. Choose “View a list of support telephone numbers.” Wow! Phone numbers. And they kept it pretty hidden. It’s almost as if they don’t want you to call. No, that couldn’t be it. I called the US number, just to see what would happen. You’ll need your product ID number for any help, but there is an option (#2) that will help you find your product ID number, so that’s cool. Listen to the list of options and choose the one that will help you. I was really happy to hear that there was a “Press star to repeat the options.” There are a few other links you may want to click on, just to see what there is to look at.

N O T E This may be a good place to remind you about the Favorites button. A lot of this stuff seems to be hidden and you have to click around a lot to find it. Go back to Section 56 if you skipped or if you simply forgot how to use the Favorites button. If you find a spot that seems particularly useful to you, add it to your favorites.

12. Click the Close button to get out of this page. 13. Choose “Ask a Microsoft Support Professional for help.”

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14. Windows XP will be listed as the product you need help with. Click the Next button. A warning box asks you if you want to download a program called Web Response File Transfer Control. This program enables you to transfer files from your computer to the Microsoft server. Um, I’m feeling uncomfortable myself, but I can see why they would want to do this. If you are truly having a problem and no one can seem to help you, I can see why it would be beneficial for someone at Microsoft to have the ability to browse through your computer to find the problem. Will I do this? No way! I’m clicking No, but that’s just me. If you click Yes, the program will download and you most likely will have to work through some downloading messages. I clicked no and I was whisked off to an Incident form to complete. This Microsoft help can go on and on…. There is a lot here and many links to click on. Hopefully, somewhere in the morass you’ll find a method, trick, or technique to squeeze the juice of help from Microsoft’s online lemon.

Newsgroups A newsgroup is a group of people that are “talking” together online about the same subject. If you’ve explored the Microsoft online help to no avail, it may be time to go to a Windows newsgroup to look for answers. To check out a newsgroup, follow these steps:

1. Open the Home page of the Help and Support Center. Clicking Start ➢ Help System gets you to the Home page.

2. Click on the line that says, “Get support, or find information in Windows XP newsgroups.” The welcome screen appears.

3. Click the option “Get help from Microsoft,” which is located under the Support section of this window. This time, click on “Go to a Windows Web site forum.” The Windows Newsgroup page appears. This newsgroup is designed for people to get together to ask questions and have other Windows users offer advice and guidance because they very well may have had the same problem.

USE OUTSIDE GROUPS

FOR HELP

4. Click on the “Go to the Windows Newsgroup” link. A list of available newsgroups appears, grouped by category (see the following figure).

5. Click on one of the links. A window opens that enables you to do a variety of things.

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6. Click on the plus sign next to a topic to see the subtopics. The people who posted messages related to the topics are listed to the right. If you become a fan of newsgroups, you’ll find these names helpful. They’re just plain old Windows folks, but like the people you know, maybe you always trust what Sam tells you, but Jean always gives advice that never does help.

7. Click on one of the posts. The question and answer to a problem is listed below it, looking like an e-mail message. You can post a reply to something that is said, or you can add a new post (a new question).

8. Click the Search button. In addition to helping you find a post about something that interests you, Search can help you find a post based on something you’ve seen in the From line, the Subject line, or the message body. And if you know about what time you saw this post, you can narrow the search even more. For example, perhaps you’ve come to the newsgroup and you remember seeing a post about the color quality in terminal services, but you can’t find the post. Type in some information to search for and then click Search. A whole list of posts is displayed for you to choose from.

USE THE F1 KEY FOR HELP

9. Click on the post you think may help you. The message appears at the bottom of the screen, so you may have to adjust your screen to fit all this in. Move your mouse to the edge of the message until it becomes a double arrow to adjust each of the fields or columns. The newsgroup home page enables you to choose different subjects by listing them on the left side of the screen. Keep clicking around until, with any luck, you find some answers.

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Use the F1 Key for Help The F1 key is the shortcut key to Help in any Windows program. Wherever you waltz around Windows, F1 brings up the good old Help and Support page. If you are in a specific program, the F1 key proves a quick way for getting right into the Help system of that program. Often pressing F1 gives you help on whatever you’re doing at that moment. This is known as contextual help. To practice using the F1 key, follow these steps:

1. Click Start ➢ All Programs ➢ Accessories ➢ Notepad. Pretend you’re typing something really brilliant here. But—oh no! You don’t know how Notepad formats your fonts! Gads! Should you spend $35/hour talking to Microsoft tech support? Or…

2. Click the F1 key on your keyboard. Notepad Help opens up.

3. Click the Contents tab, then click the book icon (next to Notepad). A whole list of topics pops into view. That’s your online Notepad manual. Chapters and pages are displayed in the list; the contents of those pages appear on the right.

4. Click the Index tab. I’m an Index user myself. Some people—not many—prefer the Table of Contents approach, as shown in the Contents tab. But when you click the Index tab, you get at the online manual’s Index.

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5. Type the word font. 6. Click the Display button. And there is your Notepad font information. If more than one topic is found, a Topics Found dialog box appears where you can choose a topic appropriate to your search. In the case of the fonts, it would be “Change the font style and size.” Click to select that topic, and then click the Display button to see the help page. Here’s another practice:

1. Click Start ➢ Search. The search window opens. This is just an example; you could be anywhere in Windows doing anything. Getting to the Search window is just a place. You’re not using the Search window specifically for help. But what if you needed help on the Search window or any of its commands?

2. Press the F1 key. Help and Support opens back up, but this time it opens specifically to the topics that are related to the Search process. Basically, if you have a question about something, use that F1 key. If there is a help topic that is directly related to what you are doing, the F1 key will take you to that information.

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Use the ? Button for Help I love the question mark symbol. Oh, and I suppose I love the exclamation point symbol as well. Way back before there were such things as “international symbols” there were the question mark and exclamation mark, which are pretty universal. I remember going to an airport in Brussels when I was 17. At the end of a moving walkway was a sign with “!” on it. I looked at the sign and puzzled over why it was so excited without any words, and then I stumbled over the

USE HELP IN A PROGRAM

end of the walkway. “Ah-ha!” I said. The “!” meant to “pay attention” that the walkway was ending. Ditto for the ? symbol. Universally it means that there is a question. So over the information booth you find a “?” symbol. In fact, I’ve seen cartoons illustrating someone who is puzzled and all they need to put into the cartoon bubble is a “?”. Everyone in the world understands that. Well, except for those countries where they also have the handy ¡ and ¿ symbols. So along comes Windows, where some applications actually have a sneaky little button labeled with a “?”. I call it the “Huh?” button. This curious little question mark is found in applications, such as WordPad or NotePad, where it often appears in a dialog box. To use the question mark button, follow these steps:

1. Start Notepad (Start ➢ All Programs ➢ Accessories ➢ Notepad). 2. Choose File ➢ Print. In the top right corner of the Print dialog box is a question mark button next to the big X close button.

3. Click once on the question mark. Note how the mouse pointer changes to a question mark/arrow thing. Now point and click somewhere, like the Page Range box. A pop-up window appears describing what you just pointed at. In this case, pointing to the Page Range box describes that the page range area is where you specify whether to print the entire document, specific pages, or the portion you selected. It’s point-and-click help!

4. Click on the question mark again. 5. Click on the Preferences button. And there’s the description of the Preferences button.

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Use Help in a Program I’m sitting at work, trying to figure out how much money I’m going to save by going to the Nordstrom’s shoe sale now rather than wait until the shoes

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aren’t on sale, when I have a question. No, the question isn’t about how I’m going to explain this to Dan, who just won’t get the whole savings concept. No, the question is about the Calculator program itself. To use Help in a program—the Calculator program in this case—follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Chose All Programs. 3. Choose Accessories. 4. Choose Calculator. Finding help in any Microsoft program works the same, once you are in that program.

5. Click the Help menu. 6. Choose Help Topics. 7. If you know your question, click the Index button and then type in a word to find help on that topic. For example, type statistical calculations. In the box below the keyword, you will see a variety of topics in that subject. Click on the topic you want and then click the Display button.

The information is listed on your right and you are off and running.

USE HELP FOR THE INTERNET

Now tell me this: If you buy a pair of shoes that cost $120 for $40, did you just save $80 or spend $40? Remember that $40 is half of $80, so my guess is that the answer has a “2” in it somewhere.

Help about Help For a nice review on how the Help system works, from the Help section of the Calculator, click on the Contents tab and choose “Using the Help Viewer.” You won’t always see this in every program, but it’s a great little summary of the Help system that can be found in a few applications.

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Use Help for the Internet The Internet is a world of its own. Regardless of how much you know about Windows XP, there’s always a slight twisty difference on the Internet. That’s because the Internet is really like a completely different operating system, something other than Windows XP. Internet Explorer is the eyeglasses through which you view the Internet. Like the Internet itself, Internet Explorer has its own set of rules and regulations. Fortunately for you, me, and the man in the big yellow hat, Internet Explorer has its own Help system. So when you go cruising through Web sites, Windows can help you with some of the basic questions and operational procedures. To use Help in Internet Explorer, follow these steps:

1. Connect to some Web site. For this example, visit my company’s Web site, www.wambooli.com. Notice that Internet Explorer stays relatively the same no matter which Web site you visit. Be aware that some Web sites do have the ability to dispense with the toolbars; a Web site can hide the menu bar, button bar, link bar, address bar, and status bar. Even so, you can always press the F1 key to get to help.

2. Click the Help menu.

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3. Choose Contents and Index. This choice displays the “manual” for Internet Explorer. A familiar thing if you’ve been using Internet Explorer for any length of time.

4. Click the Index tab. 5. Type the words changing home page. 6. Click the Display button. The directions for changing Internet Explorer’s home page are listed on the right side of the Help window. You can also search by word. Unlike searching the Index, searching by a word lets you locate all instances of a bit of text throughout Internet Explorer’s Help system.

7. Click the Search tab. 8. Type printing. 9. Click the List Topics button. All the topics that mention “printing” are listed. I use this search method when I’m not really sure how to phrase my question. If I read through the list, there’s usually something down there that is what I was looking for.

10. Close the Internet Explorer help window. 11. Click the Help menu again. 12. Choose “Online Support.” You are transported to the Microsoft Product Support Services page, where there are lots of choices. The place I find the most helpful is Frequently Asked Questions and Tasks section. These are questions that other Windows users had, and the answers to those questions.

13. Click on “Frequently Asked Questions and Tasks.” Select a topic. If you have questions about Windows XP, you’d click on the Windows XP link. But hey, look at all those categories. If you’re someone who has a lot of Microsoft software, this place is heaven!

U P D AT E W I N D O W S

A Few More Interesting Spots I find the Microsoft Product Support Services page fascinating. My thinking is that Microsoft has developed this Web page to free up their phone support people, because there really are a lot of strange things that can happen in Word. Look for Search Wizard Pilot. Click on the arrow next to Try our new Search Wizard for (and then pick a topic). This area takes you to any articles or news reports on the product you pick. I wouldn’t necessarily go here for specific help issues, but for general information, this is a fun spot. For a randomly useful tip, choose Help ➢ Tip of the Day, which displays helpful information at the bottom of your screen.

A D D T H I S PA G E T O Y O U R F AV O R I T E S

The Microsoft Support Services page would be a good example of something you’d want to have listed as one of your favorite places to go to (as mentioned in Section 56). Click the Favorites button at the top of your page (see the big star?). Click OK in the Add Favorite box, click Create in to find the place where you want the Web page to go (or you can make your own specific folder), and then click OK.

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Update Windows Software is never done. If you’ve ever programmed a computer, then you understand this. Even after a program does everything it’s supposed to, the programmer can continue to work, test, add features, and on and on until he either dies or loses his job. That’s just the way it is. All software constantly evolves, even Windows. Although what you buy with Windows is as complete as Microsoft can make it, there are and will

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continue to be improvements. These updates or “patches” are made available to anyone who owns a copy of Windows XP. You merely need to run the Windows Update program, which lets you review and optionally update various parts of Windows. In addition to Windows Update, there is also the Automatic Update feature, which stealthily connects to the Microsoft Web site every time you’re on the Internet to check for and automatically download new things for Windows. Both this and the Windows Update feature are methods for keeping Windows fresh, healthy, and happy.

Run Windows Update Windows Update is a Web page you can visit to check out the latest additions, improvements, and new features that Microsoft has in store for Windows XP. To find the Windows Update page, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose Help and Support. 3. Click “Keep your computer up-to-date with Windows Update.” (It’s found under “Pick a task.”) Choosing this item connects you to the Internet if you’re not already connected.

4. Click “Scan for Updates.” Your computer sits as the Microsoft Web page looks for something new for you. You may get a message that says there are no updates available, or you may see a list of available updates, what they do, why they’re needed, and how to download copies. Note that some updates are listed as “critical,” while others are merely new features, tools, or fun things you can add. Either way, you make the choice of what to add. I would suppose that the critical updates would be most important. Continue following the instructions on the Web page until the update is downloaded and installed; the instructions are different for each update, so read them carefully. If necessary, print the page or take notes so you don’t forget what to do next.

U P D AT E W I N D O W S

There isn’t any pressing need to constantly check the Windows Update page. I check it about once every six months or so. Or if you read in the news that there is some new virus vulnerability in Outlook Express or Windows XP Home, then it’s a good idea to check the Windows Update to ensure that you have whatever solution Microsoft came up with.

Use Automatic Updates Unlike the Windows Update, Automatic Updates are designed to happen any time you connect to the Internet. When you do, Internet Explorer contacts the Microsoft mother ship and, if needed, downloads important updates and necessary patches for Windows. These are then installed when you receive an Automatic Update Reminder from the notification area. You run the update, which keeps your system current. To check the status of Automatic Updates, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the My Computer icon on the desktop. 2. Choose Properties. 3. Click the Automatic Updates tab. This displays the options for Automatic Updates, shown in the following figure. Of the three options, the top one is best. If you’re a bit paranoid about having Windows update itself, choose the middle option. And if you want to opt out of Automatic Updating altogether, choose the bottom option.

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The updates are downloaded automatically whenever you’re connected to the Internet. Yes, this does slow down operations. But on the other hand, you don’t have to wait for an automatic update to be downloaded; if you disconnect from the Internet in the middle of a download, then Windows continues the download the next time you’re connected. You never need to worry about a thing. When an update is ready to be installed, a pop-up cartoon bubble appears in the Notification Area, telling you what to do next. Simply follow those instructions to add the update.

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See Whether Your Old Program Is Compatible Microsoft tries awfully darn hard to ensure that any program they ever sold still works with the current version of Windows. This means that, theoretically, you could take a 1985 version of MultiPlan (their first spreadsheet) and run it in DOS mode on a Windows XP Home computer. But, like I said, this is merely a “try” situation and not a “will” situation. Although they try, some older software just ain’t gonna work on Windows XP. There is no guarantee that older programs will run on Windows XP. And if they do run, then there’s no guarantee that the programs will run properly or at all. Windows doesn’t come right out and tell you why or how the program won’t run, it just doesn’t. Nevertheless, there are things you can do to check for potential compatibility problems. When you suspect such a problem, you can use the Windows Program Compatibility Wizard. Oh joy, another wizard… To use the Program Compatibly Wizard, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose All Programs. 3. Choose Accessories. 4. Choose Program Compatibility Wizard.

S E E W H E T H E R Y O U R O L D P R O G R A M I S C O M PAT I B L E

If necessary, Windows connects to the Internet at this point. Follow whatever steps are required to do so. Must contact that mother ship! The Program Compatibility Wizard opens with a nice welcome message along with a warning: Microsoft recommends that you do not use this wizard for older utilities, such as virus detection software, backup programs, or system tools.

W A R N I N G The information you are going to be asked in the following steps requires you to know a little about the program that you’re testing for compatibility. You may want to walk through these steps and write down some of the questions, go back, research the answers, and then work through the wizard again. There is no point in working through this wizard if you’re only going to guess at the answers.

5. Click the Next button. The wizard wants to know how to find the program you want to test. You can have Windows search through all your hard drives for all programs (the first option), scan for the program on a CD-ROM drive (second option), or let you browse through your file system for the single file you want to test (last option).

6. Choose the first option. This is easier because the computer does the work for you.

7. Click the Next button. A list of programs is displayed (see the following figure).

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8. Choose a program from the list. For example, there’s a Windows 3.1 program that I’ve enjoyed using for about 10 years now. I keep it on all my computers, so I’ll see if it’s Windows XP–compatible and choose it from the list.

9. Click the Next button. Now you need to choose which operating system the application was originally compatible with. This ensures that Windows understands what the application wants from the operating system. Unfortunately, Windows 3.1 isn’t one of the choices, so I’ll have to select “Do not apply a compatibility mode” from the list. Otherwise, choose which operating system the application was originally designed for.

10. Click the Next button. If the program used any specific video settings, they can be specified on the next screen. For example, some educational software requires 256 colors, so that item would need to be selected. If you don’t know, don’t select anything.

11. Click the Next button. Now you’re ready to test. Brace yourself!

12. Click the Next button. Ah, the program runs! Is this running correctly? Do things seems to be working now? How does it look? Does the program complain or display an error message?

U S E A N T I V I R U S S O F T WA R E T O K E E P O U T T H E N A S T Y B U G S

13. Close the application that you’re evaluating. 14. If your program worked well, click Yes. If your program still seemed to be funky, click No. You are taken back to the window where you can choose a program to compare it to. Choose another program and click Next.

W A R N I N G I tried some of the different choices and got some pretty scary results. I wouldn’t try just clicking on things to see what happens. If you are not sure of the information that Windows is asking for, try another Help system. Click Cancel and get out of this wizard.

15. When you finally click the “Yes, this worked” option, you are asked if you want to send this information to Microsoft. I always say no, but it is your choice. Make a choice and click Next.

16. Click Finish.

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Use Antivirus Software to Keep Out the Nasty Bugs Software crashes. Hardware hangs. You would think that those catastrophes would be enough, but there are things far deadlier: computer viruses. These are programs that deliberately do unwanted or nasty things to your computer. The typical computer virus arrives on your computer via a floppy disk, CD-ROM or, most often, from the Internet. Either you download a program or run a program attached to an e-mail message. That program contains the virus. Like a real-world virus infects a human, a computer virus infects your PC. Some viruses display cute messages, some forward themselves to others in your address book, and others sit and wait and then erase your computer’s hard drive. Nasty, nasty stuff.

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To combat computer viruses you can do two things. First, you can be extra careful when you receive files via the Internet. Never run any program sent to you unexpectedly. Do not download software from chat rooms or questionable Web sites. The second thing you can do is to get antivirus software. Windows doesn’t offer any such antivirus protection itself, but plenty of third-party utilities are available for virus-scanning and active antivirus protection. The two most popular are Norton’s AntiVirus (from Symantec) and McAfee’s VirusScan software. Here are their Web sites, should you desire additional information: www.symantec.com/ www.mcafee.com/

The most common way to get a virus is via an e-mail attachment. A message comes in with a program file attached. The message says something to entice you to open the attachment, which is a program that contains the virus and infects your computer. As long as you avoid that temptation, then you can live relatively e-mail virus free. Outlook Express does have one antivirus setting, although it’s not really antivirus software. To use the Outlook Express antivirus setting, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose Outlook Express. Outlook Express may run and check your mail, and so on. Whatever. As soon as you can get control, you can check the antivirus setting:

3. Choose Tools ➢ Options. The Options dialog box appears.

4. Click the Security tab. The Security part of the dialog box appears. The top part of that dialog box deals with Virus protection.

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5. Ensure that there is a check mark in the top box, “Warn me when other applications try to send mail as me.” A common spoof run by some viruses is to send out a chunk of e-mail using your account. This can be done from any Internet application, not just Outlook Express. So keeping this item checked ensures that Windows will ask/warn you when e-mail goes out from another program. A good thing.

6. Put a check mark by “Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus.” This doesn’t prevent the virus from coming to visit, but it does prevent you from saving certain types of files to disk. Again, a good idea, especially if this virus stuff concerns you.

7. Click OK to close the Options dialog box so that the settings can be put into place.

Virus Protection Tips There isn’t any way a virus can infect your computer without your direct involvement. You must run an infected program in order to get the virus. In fact, the infected program can sit on your computer for months and not do anything; only by running the program does it do the damage.

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At one time there was an exception to this rule. Outlook Express was (and can be) configured to automatically open Visual Basic Script (VBS) files, which run whenever an e-mail message is read or even previewed. Current versions of Outlook Express have been “patched” to fix this. Here are some rules to live by if you don’t want viruses wandering into your computer:

Avoid opening unknown e-mail attachments, e-mail attachments you were not expecting, or any files from people you don’t know. Images are fine. Sound files are fine. Program files are not. Program files that can contain viruses end with the filename extensions EXE, COM, BAT, PIF, CMD, VBS, or JS.

Do not boot your PC from an unknown floppy disk or CD.

Avoid using bootleg copies of programs. Most bootleg computer games are infected with a virus of some sort.

Do not download any software from the Web unless that software comes from a reputable source. Never download any software from a chat room or newsgroup.

Do not let others use your computer, especially people who do not know or will not obey these rules.

Antivirus Software Tips Antivirus software comes in several operating modes. You need to know how to control these modes so that you can set up the software to work best on your computer. For example, in the most aggressive mode, the antivirus software is very intrusive, slowing down the computer and often interrupting your work with annoying pop-up messages. In the full-scan mode, antivirus software watches everything your computer does, monitoring all files all the time. This aggressive mode is perhaps the worst way to run a computer. Well, if it were one of the computers in the public library or a school, then yes, this mode would be useful. But for the typical PC user, it’s too much. It’s good to have the antivirus software perform an initial system check when the computer starts. This tests the boot sectors, partition table, and other vital system information. A good thing, and it doesn’t slow things down much.

FIND FILES

Also good is to have a utility that scans individual files. That way you can download files from the Internet and scan them individually. Or if the software has such an option, the files can be scanned as they’re downloaded. This may slow down the download a bit, but it is an extremely handy thing to have. A final tip is to learn how to disable your antivirus software. This doesn’t mean to uninstall the software, but rather to temporarily turn virus scanning off. That way you can make system modifications, such as upgrading software and device drivers, without having the antivirus software think something nasty is happening.

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Find Files Find my files? Are they lost? Or perhaps I should say that files can be misplaced. “Lost” sounds like they are gone forever. Files typically aren’t lost unless you specifically delete them. (And even then it’s usually possible to rescue a lost file from the Recycle Bin). More often than not, however, you’ll name a file with a non-descriptive filename such as “letter” and then you can’t find where you placed the file. Or you go to save a file and save it in the wrong folder, which just happened to me: I wasn’t paying attention and saved a chapter in one of my books in the wrong folder. Boy, did I feel dumb! It was my fault, but I was able to find it with the Find feature in Windows. Boy, did I feel brilliant! To find files or folders, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose Search. The Search results window appears. Notice all the questions to the left of the window. What do you want to search for? Good question. This question is the first step in refining your search. Decide what you want to look for and choose that.

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3. Choose “All files and folders” (this is just for this example). This choice broadens the search to include all files on the computer, including the weird ones that Windows uses. Choosing “Pictures, music, or video” narrows the search to those types of multimedia files. Choosing “Documents” narrows the search to only those documents you create and store on your computer. Choosing “Computers or people” lets you search your network or the Internet. The choice you make affects the next window you see. In this case, when you choose “All Files and folders,” you see some boxes and buttons to gather more information about the file. The more specific you can be, the more accurate the search results.

4. Type in something that you know about the file. Do you know its name? If you do, type it in the first box. Do you know a word or phrase that is in the contents of the file? For example, if you know the letter you’re looking for has the words, “Uncle John is a Preacher,” then you can type that in the second field.

5. Choose where you want the computer to look. Your hard drive is already chosen, but you can click the down arrow and choose a specific place.

N O T E If you know when the file was modified, then click the Show More arrows by “When was it modified.” For example, if you just created the file within the last week, you can choose “Within the last week” from the list to further narrow the search.

6. Click the Search button. The computer starts reporting its search. This usually takes a few minutes, so sit back and wait. The results of the search are listed on the right. Either you’ll get a notice that no files were found, or you’ll see a list of all the files and folders that match what you’re looking for.

FIND FILES

If you get a “No files were found” message, you are offered more choices. Do you want to change something like the filename or where you think it may be?

7. To open the file you were looking for, just double-click on one of the files the computer finds for you.

8. Click the Close button when you’re finished.

Show Your Most Recently Used Documents There is another method for finding things that you were just working on; for example, my chapter that I put in the wrong place. But first, you have to organize the Start menu to enable you to see your most recently used documents. To see your most recently used documents, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the Start button. 2. Choose Properties. 3. Click on the Start Menu tab to make sure it’s forward. 4. Click the Customize button. 5. Click on the Advanced tab to bring it forward. 6. Check the box next to “List my most recently opened documents.” This is at the bottom of the window in the “Recent Documents” section.

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7. Click OK. 8. Click OK. Now, to test…

1. Click the Start button. 2. Look for the “My Recent Documents” listing. 3. Hover your mouse over “My Recent Documents” to see the whole list of documents you’ve just been working on.

4. Click on one of the documents to open it up.

Tips for Naming Files and Folders I’ve admitted elsewhere in this book that the following analogy is not original or very creative, but it works: your folders and files in your computer are just like a filing cabinet. You make new folders for projects and the files for each project go into each folder. So, when you are creating a document, think about how you name the document and what folder you will put it in so you don’t have to work through these steps just to find what you were looking for. The My Documents folder already has some organizational structure for you. You’re already provided with My Music and My Pictures folders. So it

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would make sense for you to keep picture folders and files inside the My Picture folder, and anything related to music in the My Music Folder. The whole point of this is to think ahead before you start randomly naming folders and files. It’s frustrating to have to take time out of your workday to go to the Search window to find something just because you were being lazy and didn’t name it or save it the right way.

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Create Shortcuts You’re on your way to Grandma’s house when you hear something behind you. Is it the Big Bad Wolf? Is it an Amway salesperson? Is it your mother, wondering why you never call? Whoever or whatever it is, you’d better get to Grandma’s house and fast! Hey, is that a shortcut through the woods? Yeah! Take the shortcut. A computer shortcut is basically the same thing as a shortcut through the woods: shortcuts are designed to make frequently used programs, files, or folders easier to get to. Yes, it’s getting your computer to do the work for you, by keeping far-flung icons in one handy spot—like, say, the desktop! This section contains several common ways to create and use shortcuts. And no wood products or animals were harmed in this section.

Add Common Desktop Buttons Most Windows computers already come equipped with icons for My Computer, My Desktop, My Network Places and Internet Explorer. If, by chance, you do not have these icons on your desktop, you can easily add them. To put these common icons on your desktop, follow these steps:

1. Right-click on an empty area of the desktop. 2. Choose Properties from the pop-up menu. The Display Properties dialog box appears.

3. Click the Desktop tab. 4. Click the Customize Desktop button.

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5. Click on the General tab. 6. Under Desktop icons, click on the items you want to appear on the desktop. You can choose any of the four standard desktop icons: My Documents, My Computer, My Network Places, or Internet Explorer. Note that this book, and most likely other Windows XP books and manuals, assume that these four icons are visible on the desktop.

WA R N I N G don’t even try!

You cannot remove the Recycle Bin icon from the desktop, so

7. Click OK. 8. Click OK.

Add a New Desktop Icon I use the Windows Calculator all the time. I mean, why should I do the math in my head when the computer is more than eager to do the math— and it always gets the proper results? (Well, it gives the correct answer providing that I punch in the correct numbers.) So often do I use and highly do I regard the Windows Calculator that, yea verily, I desireth to have a shortcut to that program on my desktop. You know what else would be handy? A shortcut to my current project’s folder! That would make it easier for me to access my current project’s files and folders, without having to wade through the labyrinth of folders in the My Documents folder. Both of these processes can be handled the same way, but the following are what I consider to be the easiest ways to handle these.

Add a Folder Shortcut to the Desktop To add a specific folder to the desktop, follow these steps:

1. Right-click on an empty area of the desktop.


2. Choose New. 3. Choose Shortcut.

The Create Shortcut dialog box appears. Is it a dialog box? Looks kind of like a Wizard to me. Hmmm….

4. Click the Browse button to find the folder you want to add. The Browse for Folder dialog box appears.

5. Click once on the beloved folder to select it, then click OK. This puts the weirdo pathname of the folder into the location box.

6. Click Next. 7. Type a name for the shortcut. You may notice that the Wizard automatically uses the original folder’s name. That’s fine.

8. Click Finish. The shortcut appears on your desktop. The arrow in the lower-right corner of the folder’s icon is your clue that this is a shortcut to something else, not the original folder.

Add a Program Shortcut to the Desktop Like I said earlier, I use the Windows Calculator and prefer to keep a shortcut to it on my desktop. Creating such a shortcut works similarly to creating a folder shortcut as shown in the previous section. However it pays to know where the original program lives on the hard drive, which makes this task a bit more difficult than creating a folder shortcut. One easy way to find programs, however, is simply to use their references on the Start menu. Those program items in the All Programs menu are

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actually shortcuts themselves and, as such, they can easily be copied to the desktop. But this can be very, very tricky, so you need to follow these steps carefully, lest you screw something up. Follow these steps to add a program to your desktop.

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose All Programs ➢ Accessories ➢ Calculator (do not click it, just point).

3. Right-click Calculator. 4. Choose Copy from the options. Now the program has been copied into the clipboard, ready for pasting.

5. Click the desktop, which closes the Start menu. 6. Now right-click the desktop to display its shortcut menu. 7. Choose Paste. You could also choose Paste Shortcut, but because the icon you copied from the Start menu is already a shortcut, you need only Paste. This gives you the Calculator shortcut on your desktop.

8. If you don’t like where the icon was pasted, then use the mouse to drag it to a nobler place on the desktop.

A Folder Shortcut in a Folder This computer stuff is all about organization and making your job easier. And if you weren’t into this computer stuff, you’d have files and folders all over your desk and it would be a mess. To keep yourself organized, you may start sticking certain folders inside other folders, just so that your work would all be in one place and access to the information would be quick and easy. You can do the same thing on your computer. So for this book project, I can make a shortcut to my art folder and put it in my chapter folder so that I have access to all the information pertaining to this chapter all in one place. To create a folder shortcut to another folder, follow these steps:

1. Click the file that you want to make a shortcut to.


2. Choose File ➢ Create Shortcut. A shortcut folder is made.

3. Click on the shortcut folder and drag and drop it where you want it to go.

Add a Program Shortcut to the Start Menu Quick access to programs is the key here. But you also want to be careful that you don’t create so many shortcuts to your desktop that it becomes messy and hard to find things. Another quick place to find programs is your Start menu. One click and you’re there. To put a program in your Start menu, follow these steps.

1. Find the program you want to add. For this example, add the Windows Media Player, which can be found by clicking Start➢ All Programs ➢ Accessories ➢ Entertainment➢ Windows Media Player (don’t click it, just point).

2. Right-click on Windows Media Player. 3. Choose “Pin to Start menu.” Click on the desktop to close the Start menu. Windows Media Player is now a part of the elite group in your Start menu. Click the Start button to check it out.

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Maintain and Prevent Goof-Ups

Maintain and Prevent Goof-Ups

If I had to pick a topic that was probably the most important and will probably be the one most people will want to ignore, it’s this topic. Maintaining your computer’s health and well-being is right up there with flossing your teeth. Yeah, you think about it. You know it’s important. You know the consequences of not doing it can be painful and expensive, but you never really get around to doing it. All these things can also be said about your computer. Really, computers are klutzy and sloppy and they need maintaining. Maybe if your computer started to smell or bleed like your gums do, then you’d pay more attention to it. Well, that was gross, I know, but hopefully you get my point. Read these sections! Learn. Do. And floss your teeth.

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Go Back in Time One of the better features of Windows XP is time travel. You don’t hear much about time travel any more. Yes, it is possible. The problem is that to move back in time you have to apply negative gravity, which usually (yet always unexpectedly) shoots the time traveler off the planet and into outer space. Fortunately, Windows has a way around this little problem. Actually, Windows itself does the time traveling here. You, the human, stay in the present, fixed to your chair by good ol’ positive gravity. But the computer, it leaps back a day, a week, or a month. This magic is all done by using the System Restore utility, which takes Windows back in time to a situation where it was more stable. For example, suppose you just installed some nifty new device, such as a CD-R drive, or perhaps you changed your networking options. But then you notice that some things don’t work, such as the printer. In that case, you need to send Windows back, back into time! Back to a time when things really did work. That’s all possible, thanks to System Restore.

G O BAC K I N TI M E

Looking at System Restore System Restore is one of those wonderful features of Windows that runs all the time whether you want it to or not. And I believe you’ll want it to run all the time. You can witness this by visiting the System Restore program. To go to the System Restore Program, follow these steps:

1. Pop up the Start menu. 2. Choose All Programs. 3. Choose Accessories. 4. Choose System Tools. 5. Choose System Restore. System Restore runs, which looks like a real program but it’s really a Wizard.

6. Ensure that “Restore my computer to an earlier time” is selected. You’re not actually going to time travel here; I’m just showing you the work that System Restore has already done. Nifty.


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M A I N TA I N A N D P R E V E N T G O O F - U P S

Ah, the cool window. The figure shows how System Restore looks on my screen; what you see on your screen will be different (unless you’re using my computer behind my back). To the left is a calendar with the current date highlighted. Days with bold numbers are days where Windows has created restore points. The restore point itself contains information about the computer and all its settings, plus backups of important files and system information.

8. Click a day with a bold date. Information appears to the right of the calendar. It tells you the time that Windows created the restore point. For example, it may say “12:46:10 PM System Checkpoint.” That’s a restore point. That means sometime during lunch that day the computer made a backup of all its vital system information, jotted down notes, and kept track of all its settings. Why? Just in case! If you ever notice that something is amiss in the computer, then you can revisit a restore point and try to restore the system to its normal operating condition. But more on that in a few pages; for now you’re just looking.

9. Click the Back button. Enough looking! Note that a restore point is not the same thing as a computer backup. In fact, Windows backs up little information when it creates a restore point; it just keeps the vital info. You still should perform regular system backups and backups of the files you create. Click Cancel to get out of System Restore.

Creating a Restore Point Windows is quite smart about creating restore points on its own. Any time you add new software or change the system’s hardware, a restore point is created automatically. Even so, there are times when you may want to manually create a restore point. For example, right before an upgrade or taking the system into the shop, or just before you let your 9-year-old nephew loose on the PC.


To create a restore point, follow these steps:

1. Pop up the Start menu. Yes, we’re starting over. 2. Choose All Programs. 3. Choose Accessories. 4. Choose System Tools. 5. Choose System Restore. The System Restore window opens.

6. Choose Create a restore point. 7. Click the Next button. 8. Type a description for this restore point. For example, “Before Martin used the computer.” Or “Because I’m reading the monkey book.”

9. Click the Create button. Vital system information is now backed up—and without the ill effects of anti-gravity. Finally, the computer responds with “New restore point,” then the date, time, and name you gave. Very good.

10. Click the Home button. Now you can check on the restore point you just created—not because it’s necessary. No, this is more because no one really trusts a computer to do anything right.

11. Choose “Restore my computer to an earlier time,” which you’re not going to do right now, but instead merely check that the computer did what it should.

12. Click the Next button. 13. In the calendar, choose today’s date. Look on the right side and you will see your restore point. Ta-da!

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14. Click the Back button. Should you need it, the restore point is ready to time travel for you. So if Martin changes your desktop settings, dumps your Internet password, deletes the printer, and adds 7,500 new shortcut icons to the desktop, you can instantly undo the damage. And then you have time to go and beat up Martin.

Going Back in Time Restoring the computer to an earlier time is often a necessary thing to do. This solves the “It was working yesterday” problem. And it works well, thanks to Windows’ constant creation of the restore points in the System Restore utility. To restore the computer to an earlier, better mode of operation, follow these steps:

1. Start the System Restore program. (Refer to steps 1 through 5 earlier in this section.)

2. Choose “Restore my computer to an earlier time.” No, you’re not going to suddenly transform your Pentium PC into a Commodore 64. Instead, you’re going to grab a restore point and hopefully tame Windows’ current unruly behavior.


3. Click the Next button. 4. Pluck out a restore date from the calendar by clicking on one of the highlighted dates. If you created a specific one, for example prior to an upgrade, then choose it. Otherwise, you need to choose a date close to today’s date.

N O T E If System Restore won’t let you restore to a date several weeks back, then you’ll need to do several restores to get back to that point. Oh, and it’s a good idea not to wait long before doing a system restore—go ahead and do it when you notice a problem with your computer. Ignoring the problem doesn’t make it go away.

5. Click the Next button. The Confirmation window appears. Yes, Windows does reset during this operation. So quit any programs you have open and save your stuff! Just be patient.

6. Click the Next button. Wait. Wait. Wait. Oh! Look! It’s restoring… Wait. Eventually the computer comes back on and you’ll be back in Windows.

7. Log in. 8. Click OK in the Restoration Complete window. Hopefully this fixed the problem and you’ll notice things are working well again. But be aware that if you undid some hardware or software installation, you will have to reinstall. Or, better yet, check with the developer or manufacturer to see why the installation screwed up Windows in the first place. Yeah, that would be a good idea.

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69

Download Nasty Things If you’re like most people, then you probably enjoy finding new and interesting software on the Internet. It’s fun. And as long as you have antivirus software, you can scan the downloads to ensure that you’re not getting a virus or Trojan horse or some other nasty thing. Or are you so sure? Unfortunately, there are many nasty programs that don’t trip off your antivirus software. There is no official term for these programs, though I like to call them leeches. That’s because, like a leech, they attach to your system and you just can’t get rid of them. For example, I downloaded what I thought was a nifty screen saver. But in addition to the nifty screen saver, I noticed the program displayed countless advertisements and always wanted to connect me to the Internet to view even more ads. So, I tried to uninstall the program, but found out that it had seriously attached itself in a leech-like manner to my system. It took quite a while to unstick the program. If you have such a program, the first thing you should do is attempt to uninstall the program as best you can. If it has an uninstall option, use it. If it doesn’t have an uninstall feature, try the Add or Remove Programs tool in the Control Panel (see Section 11, “Keep Your Computer Clean,” for that procedure). If you’re still having problems and that nasty program refuses to leave, refer to Section 68, “Go Back in Time,” for information on going back and restoring your computer to a point prior to when you installed the program. After System Restore resets all your settings and effectively removes the program’s influence, uninstall it—providing that the program came with an uninstall option. If not, just delete its file from whatever folder you downloaded it to.

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Run Disk Cleanup to Save Disk Space Don’t ever fret about running out of disk space in Windows. There’s a secret little program that runs all the time, the Low Disk Space Notification program. It pops up if your disk space ever gets close to low. When you see that puppy, then panic! No, seriously, you can always buy your PC a second, larger hard drive. But if disk space is a concern you have, and you’re not willing to sit around and wait for the Low Disk Space Notification program to assault you, then you can run the Disk Cleanup program to get rid of unwanted or no-longerneeded files. To run the Disk Cleanup program, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose All Programs. 3. Choose Accessories. 4. Choose System Tools. 5. Choose Disk Cleanup. The Disk Cleanup program runs in a wee tiny Select Drive window.

6. If you have only one drive, Windows will choose it for you. If you have more than one drive, choose the drive to clean up. Drive C is usually the most interesting.

7. Click OK. A tiny Disk Cleanup window appears while Windows calculates how much space it can clean up for you on the selected drive. Ah, the “real” window appears. It’s a window like a dialog box that contains a scrolling list of options—things you can clean up, plus a second tab that contains even more junk you can clean.

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The files shown in the scrolling list are categorized by their file type or the application that created them. When you click on a category, a description appears in the Description area, telling you more about that type of file. Note that Downloaded Program Files are special programs downloaded by Internet Explorer and not the programs that you yourself have downloaded. (I wish they’d use a different term for that…) Obviously, the items that occupy the most disk space should be cleaned out first. On my system, it states that Disk Cleanup could free about 42,225 KB (which is 42 megabytes) of space lickety-split.

8. Check everything. Oh, why not? If the file is temporary or not needed, then why have it around?

9. Click the OK button. A warning dialog box pops up, asking you if you’re certain that you want to delete the files or if are you plagued with doubt.

10. Click the Yes button. Cleanup goes to work! Sooner than you can say “forty-two megabytes,” you have more disk space.

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Drastic Measures There are really two culprits when it comes to gobbling up disk space. The first is the software you install. Obviously, if you install it and don’t use it, then you’re wasting space. I’ve done this repeatedly. Suddenly I think I’m going to become a computer animator and I install some animation package but never, ever use it. There’s 14MB of space I could free up by uninstalling the program. The second culprit is you and all the crap you download from the Internet. Sure, all those silly pictures are amusing, but check out how much space they’re sucking up on the hard drive! That’s why Iomega invented the Zip disk: copy those puppies off to a graphics library on a 250MB Zip disk and give your PC some breathing room. Ditto for MP3 and other media files. Archive them off to a CD-R and save some disk space. Anyway, enough ranting. The Disk Cleanup program has that scary-looking More Options tab; why not take a look at it? To look at the scary More Options tab, follow these steps:

1. Start the Disk Cleanup program; follow steps 1 through 7 of the previous procedure.

2. Click the More Options tab. The Disk Cleanup dialog box presents you with three additional, and more drastic, ways of freeing up disk space. The “Windows components” area allows you to remove some Windows accessories you may not use. Like, for example, the MSN Explorer. If you don’t have MSN, there’s no point in that application gobbling up 14MB of disk space.

3. Click the Clean up button in the “Windows components” area. You’re taken to a dialog box where you can pick and choose which parts of Windows you want to uninstall. Scroll down the list and you’ll see some programs you may have had no idea were installed. MSN Explorer? Uncheck that 13.5MB puppy!

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W A R N I N G You’ll see a very interesting warning should you decide to uninstall MSN Explorer. Read carefully before you make any decisions.

4. Click to select “Accessories and Utilities.” It’s at the top of the list. Just select it here; don’t remove its check mark.

5. Click the Details button. Ah! Even more choices.

6. Click to select Games. 7. Click the Details button. Finally (and that’s the way these things work) you get to choose which hoggy games you can remove. Those Internet games? Ripe for the pickin’. Remove the check marks of the games you want to save. I’m keeping Freecell, Hearts, and Solitaire, so they do not have check marks by them. Of course, any of these things can be reinstalled later on if you feel like you may have made a mistake.

8. Click Cancel to chicken out, or click OK to commit to deleting parts of Windows. Do this until you’re returned to the Windows Components window, then click Next. Windows is configuring these components so you have to sit and wait for a while. Watch the green line move across the window.

9. Click Finish. Now you are back at the Disk Cleanup window. It’s curious that there isn’t a sign or something that tells you what is next because at this point, it looks like nothing has happened. But it has.

10. Click the OK button in the Disk Cleanup window. You’ll be asked the question, “Are you sure you want to perform these actions?” If you’re sure, then click Yes. A message box appears that says it’s cleaning. And you’re finished. No hoopla or anything. It just ends.

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Troubleshoot Diagnostic Tool Because many problems are common, Microsoft has devised a way to let Windows help you work through some common troubleshooting situations. Like a wizard, a troubleshooter takes you step-by-step through a situation and tries to suggest methods for fixing things. I’ve used these many times and they’re really quite handy. Only in a few rare situations has a troubleshooter let me down, such as when I asked how I could avoid paying the FICA tax. To work through a troubleshooter, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose Help and Support. The glorious and foo-foo-like Help and Support Center window opens. Supposedly those graphics make Windows appear friendlier. Right. And a pink leg cast makes you sort-of forget that you broke your ankle. Click cancel if Windows tries to connect you to the Internet.

3. Choose “Fixing a Problem.” It’s the next to last item in the Pick a Help topic list (on the left). What you see next is actually the first step to running a troubleshooter. In the list under “Fixing a Problem,” you see various categories of problems. For example, suppose that your modem isn’t working.

4. Choose “Hardware and system device problems.” This is just a guess; the modem is hardware and doesn’t really fit into any of the other categories. But it’s a correct guess, because on the right side of the screen is a list of items, one of which is the Modem Troubleshooter.

5. Click Modem Troubleshooter.

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Now comes the interactive part. Windows poses a question and you answer it. After answering, click the Next button. Or if the problem is solved, you can just close the Help and Support Center window. Eventually, and hopefully, a troubleshooter will point you in the right direction and you’ll find a solution. Hopefully.

Troubleshoot in a Device’s Properties Dialog Box Each device in Windows—the monitor, disk drives, modem, network adapter, and so on—has its own dialog box that describes various things about that device. In the dialog box is also a button you can click to run a troubleshooter. For example, suppose you’re having monitor problems, you’d follow these steps:

1. Right-click the desktop. 2. Choose Properties from the pop-up menu. The Display Properties dialog box appears.

3. Click the Settings tab. This is where you would make adjustments to the display’s resolution and colors. If you were having trouble with that—for example, if Windows wouldn’t let you use a higher resolution or more colors—then you’re in the right place to fix it.

4. Click the Troubleshoot button. And there you’ve started the Video Display Troubleshooter. Go ahead and close the Help and Support Center window, unless you’re just dying to play with the Troubleshooter. The Properties dialog boxes for other devices also have Troubleshoot or Troubleshooter buttons.

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Defrag Your Hard Drive Before you can defrag something, it must become fragged in the first place. That’s nothing to worry about, because any typical hard drive becomes fragged—well, “fragmented”—during its regular use. What Windows does is to try to make maximum use of the entire hard drive. As files are created and deleted, gaps form between them. These empty spaces don’t go to waste, however, because Windows tries to squeeze new files into them. And if a file is too large, then Windows hacks it into pieces, or fragments, so that it will fit. That works just fine because Windows reassembles the fragments back into a whole when the file is accessed again. On the other hand, this reassembling process does tend to slow your computer down. This is one reason why your computer gets slower and slower over time. Oh, I could provide a beautiful illustration of how all that happens, or go into my classic “Stadium Parking Lot” demonstration of disk fragmentation, but that’s not really the point of this book. Instead, it would be nice to every so often defragment those pieces and speed up your hard drive in the process. To defragment your hard drive, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose All Programs. 3. Choose Accessories. 4. Choose System Tools. 5. Choose Disk Defragmenter. The Disk Defragmenter window appears. This is actually a part of the Computer Management console, which is one of those scary things in the Administrative Tools.

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6. Select a hard drive. This is optional. If your PC has only one hard drive, then it’s already selected. Otherwise, click to choose drive C or whichever drive you want to defragment.

7. Click the Analyze button. Oooo! Look at the pretty colors! Eventually a dialog box pops up telling you whether the drive needs to be defragmented.

8. Click the View Report button. Why not see what’s on the computer’s mind? The Analysis Report appears.

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9. Scroll down in the “Volume information” list until you see the volume fragmentation data. On my computer, the total fragmentation was only 14%, which is apparently not too good since Windows has recommended that I defragment the drive. Oh, and the other information is just soooooooo interesting, don’t you think? Glad that the computer itself is making the decisions here. Otherwise, I’d be baffled.

10. Click the Close button. Farewell, Analysis Report window!

N O T E Before you commit to defragmenting your hard drive, be aware that sometimes this operation may take a few hours. It’s best to start this at the end of the day or when it can run overnight, so it won’t interfere with your regular computer duties.

11. To defragment the drive, click the Defragment button. The program proceeds to rearrange the files on your hard drive so that there are as few fragmented pieces as possible. The end result— which it may take a few hours to arrive at—will be a faster hard drive.

12. Click the Close button when you (eventually) see the “Defragmentation is complete” dialog box. Or you can optionally click the View Report button, although all of it reads like nonsense to me.

13. Choose another hard drive to defragment or close the Disk Defragmenter window if you’re done. By the way, there are better defragmentation utilities out there than the one Windows offers. I am particularly fond of the defragmenter that comes with Norton Utilities, which doesn’t seem to have many of the hangups that Windows’ own utility does.

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73

Schedule Your Computer to Work While You Sleep Actually, the computer can’t work while you’re asleep. It can do things it knows how to do, but if you’re expecting the computer to balance your checkbook, finish a report, or do your taxes, forget it! Of course, there are some dumb routine things the computer can do while you’re away—as long as the computer is turned on. For example, you can schedule periodic maintenance and other chores. Defragmenting the hard drive takes several hours, so why not have the computer do that at 1:00 AM when nothing else is going on? All this while-you’re-sleeping stuff happens in a single place, the Task Scheduler. To find the Task scheduler, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose Control Panel. 3. Choose Performance and Maintenance. 4. Choose Scheduled Tasks.

N O T E You can also open the Scheduled Tasks folder from the Start menu: Choose All Programs ➢ Accessories ➢ System Tools ➢ Scheduled Tasks.

The Scheduled Tasks folder opens. You can see each task, its schedule, when it will run next, when it ran last—and what happened.

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Windows comes with several tasks set up already. The Desktop Cleanup Wizard is that annoying program that pops up every so often to tell you that there are unused icons on the desktop. The PCHealth Scheduler runs every so often to save vital system information—sort of a constant restore point. (See Section 68, “Go Back in Time,” for more information.) Tune-up Application Start is the System Maintenance Wizard, which runs a slew of Windows utilities on a regular basis (Disk Defragmenter, ScanDisk, and so on). Anything else in the Task Scheduler was added later. That adding is done by double-clicking the Add Scheduled Task icon, which runs a—can you guess?—Wizard. Close the Scheduled Tasks window when you’re done messing with the tasks.

Examine a Task To see what’s up with a task, open its icon. That displays a dialog box that tells you which program the task runs, when it’s scheduled to run, and what to do should anything go wrong.

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To view the schedule of a task, follow these steps:

1. If the Scheduled Tasks window isn’t open, then follow steps 1–4 of the previous section to open it.

2. Double-click to open a task. The task’s dialog box appears. The Task tab displays the name of the task plus comments, which tell you what the task does or why it exists. Note the “Enabled” check box. That allows you to turn a task on or off without deleting it. So, if you tire of those “There are unused icons on the desktop” messages, you can disable a task by removing its check mark.

3. Click on the Schedule tab. As you might suspect, this tab controls when the task is scheduled to run. The tasks can be scheduled to run once, at multiple times, on a specific schedule, or however you see fit. And, yes, the computer must be on for the task to run.

4. Click the Settings tab. These controls tell the computer how to handle certain specific situations, such as if the task doesn’t start, or when to start the task if the computer is idle. One key thing to notice is the “Wake the computer to run this task” item near the bottom of the dialog box. While you cannot run a task when the computer is off, you can run tasks when the computer is in sleep mode.

5. Click the Cancel button to close the task’s window. Keep the Scheduled Tasks window open for the next section.

Add a Task Creating a new task to run automatically is really quite easy. There are no secrets, other than many people don’t know that Windows has the ability to schedule tasks or programs to run at specific times. No, the hard part is deciding which tasks to run.


Obviously, system maintenance tasks are a priority. Running things such as backup, Disk Defragmenter, ScanDisk, and other utilities in the wee hours is a desired thing. If you have a knowledge of Windows scripting, then you can make other activities take place at scheduled times, such as picking up e-mail, rebuilding Web sites, synchronizing files, and other things that scripting makes possible. (Alas, this book doesn’t cover scripting. Indeed, we have yet to find a decent scripting book, so we’ll probably just have to write one ourselves!) To add a task, first summon the Scheduled Tasks window. This gives you access to the Add Scheduled Task icon, which runs the Wizard that creates the task. And the green grass grows all around, all around; and the green grass grows all around. Suppose you want the computer to play a certain sound at the top of every hour. That’s easy to set up. To set up a scheduled task, following these steps:

1. Double-click the Add Scheduled Task icon in the Scheduled Tasks window. The Scheduled Task Wizard runs.

2. Click the Next button. Now you get to choose the program you want to schedule, or click the Browse button to find a program or script file.

3. Select Sound Recorder from the list. Or you would select whichever program you wanted to run. For this exercise, choose Sound Recorder. (The Sound Recorder is a primitive version of the Windows Media Player, but it plays only WAV files.)

4. Click the Next button. 5. Type Annoying Sound Thing into the text box. You’ll know why it’s called Annoying Sound Thing in a few hours.

6. Choose when you want your task to run. You’ll notice you have a nice variety of choices.


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8. Enter the start time. Schedule it for the next top-of-the-hour. As I’m writing this, that would be 1:00 PM. Everything else in the list is okay: I want the task to run every day, I want it to start today, and today’s date is shown in the window.

9. Click the Next button. 10. Enter your user name and password. This ensures that you have permission to run the task. When it’s time for the task to run, Windows will log you in to run the task should you not be logged in at the time. It’s all part of Windows security and accountability. When the task shows up in the system log, it needs an owner. You are it.

W A R N I N G You must have a password to get this to work. You can’t leave this blank. You can’t decide that you don’t want to have a password. The Task Scheduler requires you to have and use the password. Bossy, isn’t it? You can work through the steps and skip the password part, and Windows looks like it will accept this, but then the scheduled task won’t work.

11. Click the Next button. You’re done with the Wizard.

12. Click the Finish button.


Alas, you’re not done creating the sound thing. You still have to tell the Sound Recorder which file to play and you need to update the task’s running time so that it goes off every hour on the hour. To continue modifying the task, follow these steps:

1. In the Scheduled Tasks window, double-click the icon next to Annoying Sound Thing to open it. Ensure that the Task tab is selected in the dialog box.

2. Add the following text to the end of the Run text box. This must be typed exactly. Where you see (space), just type a blank space. Don’t type the word “space.” (space)/play(space)/close(space) “c:\windows\media\ utopia windows start.wav”

Double-check what you type. Note that /play and /close use forward slashes and the rest of the slashes are backslashes. And there are spaces between utopia, windows, and start.

N O T E The /play and /close options direct the Sound Recorder program to play the sound file and then automatically close the Sound Recorder program. The long filename is required to tell Sound Recorder exactly which WAV file to play. In fact, you can create your own WAV file and substitute its complete path.

3. Click the Schedule tab. 4. Click the Advanced button. You’ve told the Task Scheduler to run the task once. Now you need to modify that so that the task runs every hour on the hour.

5. Click to put a check mark by “Repeat task.” 6. Enter 60 in the “Every” text box, so that this task repeats every 60 minutes.

7. Enter 24 into the “Duration” text box. Yes, you want this to repeat all day, every day.

8. Click OK. You’re almost done.

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9. Click OK to close the task’s dialog box. Again, you’re asked for your password. The task must have an owner.

10. Enter your password. 11. Click OK. And the task sits in the Scheduled Tasks window, ready to run every hour, on the hour, every day, for the rest of your life, or until you go insane. You don’t have to wait for the top of the hour to see if it works; you can test the task right now. In fact, it’s a good idea to test any task to ensure that you typed in everything properly:

1. Right-click the new task, “Annoying Sound Thing.” 2. Choose Run from the shortcut menu. And the task runs, playing the sound and then closing the Sound Recorder program.

Change a Task’s Schedule You can reset any task’s schedule to whatever works best for you. For example, if you turn your computer off every day, then running tasks in the middle of the night is most likely a bad idea. In fact, you can see that the task never runs in the Scheduled Tasks window; the Status column shows “Could not start” if the computer wasn’t on when the task was scheduled to run. To change the schedule for any task, follow these steps:

1. Open the Scheduled Tasks window (if it’s not already open). See the instructions earlier in this section for the details.

2. Double-click to open the task. 3. Click the Schedule tab. Adjust the task’s schedule using the tools shown in the dialog box. If the task is scheduled to start at 3:00 AM and you’d rather run it at noon when you’re at lunch, change the Start time to noon. If the task is running several times a day, click the Advanced button to make adjustments there.

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When you’re done, click the OK button to confirm the changes. Again, you’ll be asked to enter your name and password. Do so.

Remove a Task This is the easiest thing to do of all: to remove a task, simply delete its icon from the Scheduled Tasks window:

1. Click the task once to select it. 2. Press the Delete key. Click the Yes button if you’re asked whether you want to send the task to the Recycle Bin. Yes, just like other files deleted in Windows, you can undelete a dead task by restoring it from the Recycle Bin. As an alternative to deleting a task, you can disable it. This has the charm of stopping the task from running but not deleting the task itself. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Open the task in the Scheduled Tasks folder. 2. Click to remove the check mark by “Enabled.” 3. Click OK. And the task lies dormant in the Scheduled Tasks window.

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Track Down Memory Leaks Memory leaks are common, although I must admit they have a silly name. There is no need to put a towel down under the computer, nor is there any chance of staining or discoloration of the case due to a memory leak. But memory leaks can be trouble. A memory leak is simply a program that doesn’t quit properly. Either the whole thing stays in memory or just a small part remains (called a thread). The memory used by that program is locked, utterly unavailable to other programs, so the memory is essentially gone. It’s “leaked” out of the computer.

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Another type of memory leak is when a small part of a program continues to run after the main program quits. This program thread may actually continue to consume memory, gobbling it up bit by bit until the entire computer comes crashing down. This is a more dramatic type of memory leak, and in a way really does sound like a true “leak;” the memory drips into the program thread and is gone until you either reset the computer or kill off that program thread. You may want to check for memory leaks if your computer becomes sluggish even though you run the disk defragmenter and disk cleanup. Bottom line: To end a memory leak, you must first find the leak and then plug it up. This is advanced stuff. Honestly, it’s very hard to tell which program is leaking, although it is possible to make a good guess. And because I don’t know any way to force a program to commit memory leakage, the following steps merely outline the steps you would take should you suspect a leak. To find a memory leak, follow these steps:

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to summon the Task Manager. The Task Manager knows everything that’s going on inside the computer—all the programs and processes that you and Windows are running.

2. Click the Performance tab. What you see looks something like the following figure. The two graphs that are running monitor the CPU usage (amount of horsepower the microprocessor is putting out) and the PF Usage (how much memory is being used).

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A memory leak is earmarked by a gradual increase, over time, in one of these charts. The increase takes place despite nothing else going on in your computer. For example, say you quit the MultiPlan program and you aren’t running any other programs. But the computer is acting sluggish. If so, check the Performance tab in the Task Manager. Uh-oh! CPU usage and FP Usage have actually increased since you quit MultiPlan. Something is up.

3. Click the Applications tab. If you aren’t running any programs, then the list should be empty. Otherwise, there is an entry for every program or window open. No problems there. But the Applications tab shows only part of the story.

4. Click the Processes tab. The Processes tab is essentially a more detailed version of the Applications tab. But instead of listing just the programs or windows that you’ve opened, the Processes tab lists all the computer’s programs, such as the little programs that run in the notification area. For example, in the following figure, you see EXPLORER.EXE, which is the program that displays the desktop in Windows (the Windows Explorer).

5. Scroll through the list and look for any process, or Image Name, that is using a large percentage of CPU time as well as a growing amount

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of Mem (memory) Usage, but that you know is not open and running. Chances are you won’t find anything here.

N O T E The System Idle Process typically hogs the most CPU percentage if nothing else is going on. Otherwise, you may find your MultiPlan process in there and note that it’s consuming an ever-increasing amount of CPU time.

6. Click to select the process that is using a large amount of CPU time, other than the System Idle Process. Be careful here! This is the “advanced” part of this operation. Honestly, no one person knows what all of the files listed in that window do. So you may crash the computer here. Be safe: close all programs and save all your files. If you just want to try this out, then select the taskmgr.exe process. That’s the Task Manager’s window itself.

7. Click the End Process button. A suitably scary warning dialog box appears.

8. Providing that the dialog box doesn’t scare you to death, click the Yes button. If you’re goofing around with the Task Manager, then its window closes. No problem. But if you were attempting to track down a memory leak, then the leaky program should close and your CPU and memory usage should no longer increase. To be really safe, go ahead and reboot your computer when you’re out of the Task Manager. In summary, please be careful with this. It’s scary! A memory leak is not your problem. The best thing you can do if you suspect one is to e-mail the software developer and see if they are aware of the problem.

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Track Down Programs Run Amok It’s a delicate thing to determine what, exactly, the difference is between a program run amok and a typically amok-like application. For example, the Windows Media Player can take on a look or appearance that makes it seem as if it’s running amok. No, in this case a program run amok is one that you cannot otherwise seem to stop. For example, suppose you go to work in some application window, but the mouse doesn’t seem to work. Neither does the keyboard. In fact, the window doesn’t move or otherwise respond. The cursor still moves. You can access other windows. But that one window is gone. It looks like it’s there, but it’s really out wandering the hills in search of cheap wine and water nymphs. To rid yourself of the dead program, follow these steps:

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete. The Ctrl+Alt+Delete key combination—once the keystrokes of death in DOS—invokes the Windows Task Manager, which is a nifty window that contains information about all the many things your computer has busied itself with.

N O T E You can also summon the Task Manager by right-clicking the taskbar and choosing Task Manager from the shortcut menu.

2. Click the Applications tab.

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This figure shows what the Task Manager window may look like. All running programs or open windows are displayed in the scrolling list. Those that have “Running” as their status are okay. If it says, “Not responding” in the Status column, then you have a dead program. Note that it’s always possible to have a program run amok that shows up as “Running” in the Task Manager window. That’s because Windows itself hasn’t been alerted to the fact that the program has departed. Happens all the time.

3. Click to select the program that’s apparently dead. 4. Click the End Task button. Windows attempts to kill off that program, hopefully in a manner that doesn’t bring down the rest of the system. If you’re lucky, the program’s window closes and that’s that. In fact, you can close any window or quit any program by using the Task Manager’s End Task button; in most cases, it’s the same as choosing the File ➢ Exit command. If you’re not lucky, Windows may have to use some force to close the window. A dialog box appears explaining that the program you’re trying to eradicate isn’t responding. If so, click the End Now button to kill off that task and ultimately quit the program. Whenever you are forced to close a program by using the End Now button, it’s a good idea to restart Windows. That ensures that all the bits and pieces

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of the program are fully cleaned from memory and won’t cause you any additional problems. If the same program continues to crash, first please recognize that it’s not your fault. Second, consider visiting the developer’s Web page to see if there is any support information about the program and its potential to crash. Third, consider using another program instead, or downloading/ upgrading the program to a more stable version.

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Let the Taskbar Run Amok Actually, the problem isn’t letting the taskbar run amok; it’s nailing it down! But that’s covered in Section 2, “Lock and Unlock the Taskbar.” No, the problem with the taskbar is that ever since Windows 95, you’ve been given the option of having the taskbar in one of four places: top, right, left, or bottom of the screen. Most people are content to have the taskbar where Microsoft put it, on the bottom. I know very few who want to move it elsewhere. I know of more people who find it suddenly moved and who would prefer to have it back on the bottom. And that’s how you get the run amok nature of the taskbar.

Move the Taskbar The taskbar is like a window in many respects; it can be resized and moved. Moving the taskbar is easy. Accidentally moving it is easier still. To move the taskbar, follow these steps:

1. First, you have to ensure that the taskbar is not locked down. Rightclick the taskbar and make sure there isn’t a check mark next to Lock the Taskbar.

2. Point your mouse at an empty area of the taskbar. Don’t point at the Start button, or in the notification area, or on any buttons.

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3. Click on the taskbar and drag the mouse to the top of the screen. You have to keep the button down and drag. As soon as you find the sweet spot, you’ll see an outline of the taskbar crawl on up to the top of the screen. Notice how the taskbar is sticky? As long as you drag, it stays visible somewhere, on one side or the other, until you get it up to the top.

4. Drag the taskbar to all four sides of the screen. Keep the mouse button down as you drag. Eventually you’ll see the taskbar snap to the sides of the screen.

5. Drag the taskbar back to the bottom of the screen. It’s not mandatory for it to go there, but it’s where nearly everyone puts it. If you have a second monitor hooked up to your PC, then you can also move the taskbar to all four sides on it as well. Although when Windows first starts, the taskbar is always on the primary monitor.

Resize the Taskbar The thickness of the taskbar can be adjusted to accommodate more buttons if you like. Or, conversely, the taskbar can be thinned out to a flat ribbon. Again, this is easy—or frustrating—depending on whether you intentionally try to do this trick or discover it accidentally. To resize the taskbar, follow these steps:

1. Point the mouse at the taskbar’s top edge if your taskbar is located at the bottom of your screen, where it traditionally is. If the taskbar is on the side of the screen, then it’s the inside edge. When you find the sweet spot, the mouse pointer changes to a double-headed pointing arrow.

2. Drag the mouse to make the taskbar thicker or thinner. You’ll notice that as you drag up (or in towards the center of the monitor), the taskbar grows incredibly fat. I’m not sure how that could be useful. You’ll also notice that there is a vanishing point beyond which you cannot make the taskbar any thinner. The smallest it gets is a thin strip, which is useless.

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N O T E The smallest useful size you can reduce the taskbar to depends on the size of the icons in the Quick Launch bar (the area to the right of your Start button). If you’re using the smaller sized icons, the taskbar can be reduced to the thickness of a single button; otherwise the taskbar can be reduced to the height of the icons on the Quick Launch bar. (To change the size of the icons on the Quick Launch bar, right-click an empty area of the Quick Launch bar and choose the proper size from the View submenu.)

By the way, one of the earliest and cruelest tricks in Windows was to resize the taskbar to a thin strip. Many beginners cannot find it when it’s reduced that small. Also note that unlike earlier versions of Windows, the Windows key (or Ctrl+Esc) in Windows XP displays the Start menu but does not always display the taskbar.

Hide the Taskbar The taskbar can be made to go away when you don’t need it or even hide behind other windows. The Taskbar’s Properties dialog box makes these things happen. To hide the taskbar, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the taskbar. Do not click on a button, or in the notification area, do not pass Go, and do not collect $200.

2. Choose Properties from the shortcut menu. The Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box appears. The Taskbar tab contains several items that control how the taskbar behaves—or does not behave, which is the run amokness nature of this section.

3. Click to put a check mark by “Auto-hide the taskbar.” 4. Click the Apply button. And the taskbar rolls away like a shy puppy. It’s not gone, of course.

5. Point the mouse at the bottom of the screen. And there it is again. It’s being automatically hidden, hence the Autohide option.

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6. Click to remove the check mark by “Auto-hide the taskbar.” Well, unless you like this option, in which case you can leave it checked on. Another way to hide the taskbar is to keep it beneath the open windows on the desktop. Normally (as if anything in Windows is “normal”), the taskbar always sits on top of any window; you can slide the window beneath the taskbar and, honestly, the taskbar really doesn’t care. But if screen space is at a premium, then you can change that behavior. To keep the window on top and the taskbar behind, follow these steps:

1. Click to remove the check mark by “Keep the taskbar on top of other windows.”

2. Click the Apply button. Now to test it, open a window on the desktop:

3. Open the My Documents icon. The My Documents window appears. 4. Click the Maximize button. And the taskbar is rudely shoved aside to make room for the maximized window. Clever, these Earth people.

N O T E Even with the taskbar hidden, you can still easily switch windows: use the Alt+Tab “cool switch” to shuffle between all running programs in Windows.

5. Close the My Documents window. The taskbar is back!

6. Click to put a check mark back in the “Keep the taskbar on top of other windows” check box, unless you like that mode of operation, in which case you’re just fine.

7. Click the OK button to banish the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box.

G E T R I D O F T H E N O T I F I C AT I O N A R E A ( S Y S T E M T R AY )

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Get Rid of the Notification Area (System Tray) If the taskbar were a teeter-totter, then balancing the Start button would be the Notification Area, which was called the System Tray for previous versions of Windows. The notification area contains useful information, such as the time and date, but it also contains icons of various in-the-background programs and utilities. Plus, it occasionally pops up with an annoying message like, “It’s been 100 years since you last cleaned the desktop. Do it now or you won’t be getting any supper.” Unfortunately, and contradicting this section’s title, there is no way to utterly get rid of the notification area. You can emaciate it, but you can never fully get rid of it. To mess with the notification area, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the taskbar. This displays the taskbar’s shortcut menu. Do not right-click on a button on the taskbar, which displays that button’s shortcut menu. No, you must click on a blank part of the taskbar.

2. Choose Properties. The Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box shows up. The bottom part of that dialog box deals with the notification area.

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3. To remove the clock display, click to remove the check mark by “Show the clock.” You’ll see the clock disappear from the preview area in the dialog box. If you click the Apply button, then the clock disappears from the notification area itself. Removing individual icons from the notification area is a bit trickier, and time-consuming. But if those pop-up warnings are getting to you, these are the steps you have to take:

4. Click the Customize button. This summons the Customize Notifications dialog box (see the following figure), where you can pick and choose which icons you want to show, hide or display when they’re active. Ah, such control…

In the Customize Notification dialog box, there are two lists of items, Current Items and Past Items. Current Items lists those tiny icons currently active in the System Tray. The Past Items are icons that have appeared there from time to time, such as your Internet Connection icon. To the right of each item is its behavior. There are three options: “Hide when inactive,” which is what Windows does automatically; “Always hide,” which gets rid of the icon all the time; and “Always show,” which must be for those who just can’t have enough icons on the taskbar.

G E T R I D O F T H E N O T I F I C AT I O N A R E A ( S Y S T E M T R AY )

N O T E I like to keep my Internet Connection icon visible. That way I can quickly check to see whether I’m online or not.

5. Click on the word Volume to display the drop-down behavior list. The Volume icon is what’s used to set the computer’s speaker volume.

6. Choose “Always hide.” This gets rid of that icon. 7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 for each icon you want to hide in the notification area. Or, do as I’ve done, and “always hide” them all.

N O T E The Restore Defaults button switches everything back to “Hide when inactive,” which is the way Windows comes out of the box.

N O T E Here’s a big tip for those who are annoyed by the “There are unused icons on the desktop” warning: Choose “Always hide” for the behavior of that icon. You may have to scroll down a ways to find the “There are unused icons on your…” item, but it’s there.

8. Click OK to close the Customize Notifications dialog box when you’re done.

9. Click OK to close the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box. The notification area has been subdued. Of course, you cannot hide it entirely. The little Show/Hide button is always there no matter what. And if you click the Show button, you’ll still be able to see the icons in the notification area. Apparently, there is no ultimate way to kill that cockroach—at least not by using the tools that come with Windows.

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Compress and Decompress a File to Save Space

Compress and Decompress a File

Saving disk space and organizing files may seem like it’s for those anal computer geeks who obsess over such things. Well, yeah, it is. But it should be for the casual computer user, too. I’m not very creative in my thinking when I refer to a computer as though it were a big filing cabinet or a large closet. We all have those. And they can get out of hand and become more of a burden than a helpful tool if they aren’t kept cleaned up and organized. Compressing files is part of that organizational tool that will keep you sane in times of needing information, knowing where that information is, and having access to all the information.

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Make That Huge Bloated File Take Up Less Hard Disk Space Yes, it’s true. You can compress a file. It works quite well. The normally large, bloated file, occupying way too much disk space, is mathematically reduced down to a mustard seed of its former self. There is no magic, just folks in white lab coats who dream up such stuff. And the truly miraculous part is that the file can be decompressed back to its original size. It’s like freeze-dried coffee, but in this case, the decompressed file tastes exactly like the original and doesn’t have a bitter aftertaste. Compression is nothing new to computers. The Zip file archiving utility has done compression for years. A single zip file can contain one or more files or folders, and all those files and folders are squished down to a small size. This makes zip files an ideal storage unit for sending files on the Internet and for storing bulky files over the long term. In Windows XP, the zip file has become the “compressed folder.” It’s really the same thing, although on your screen the compressed folder has its own icon and is interfaced directly into the Windows Explorer window. (You can still install and use a zip file utility to manage the compressed folders, but this chapter concentrates on doing things the Windows way.)

M A K E T H AT H U G E B L O AT E D F I L E TA K E U P L E S S H A R D D I S K S PA C E

Make a Compressed Folder A compressed folder is a snap to make. To make a compressed folder, follow these steps:

1. Right-click My Documents from the Desktop. 2. Choose Explore. The My Documents window appears. I just prefer to work in the Explorer window, because it’s easier to navigate in here.

3. If you’re not creating the compressed folder in the My

Documents

folder, then open the folder in which you want to create it. Say it’s an old project you were working on or a folder full of graphics files you want to compress to save disk space. Since I do my own screen shots, I have a lot of these graphic-filled folders.

4. Choose File ➢ New ➢ Compressed (zipped) Folder. The new folder appears in the window with the name “New compressed (zipped) Folder” highlighted, ready for renaming.

5. Give the compressed folder a newer, better name. Say, Squishy. The folder behaves and looks like any other folder in the window, although the icon has a zipper on it, which I find rather creative.

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C O M P R E S S A N D D E C O M P R E S S A F I L E T O S AV E S PA C E

6. Double-click to open the compressed folder. Again, the folder looks like any other folder. The differences are subtle. For example, the Folder Tasks pane on the left side of the window contains compressed folder-specific tasks. Otherwise, the folder can contain files and other folders. You can copy files to the folder, copy them out, rename them, plus a few other tricks described throughout the next few sections. There is one major difference between a compressed folder and a regular folder: files and folders in a compressed folder cannot be opened. Because the files and folders are compressed, they must first be decompressed, or extracted from the compressed folder, and put back into a real folder. Likewise, you cannot use an Open or Browse dialog box to locate and open files or folders stored in a compressed folder.

Add a File to a Compressed Folder To add a file to a compressed folder, simply drag the file to the folder. Because it’s a compressed folder, the file is always copied, not moved. The file is compressed—which happens quickly—and then it is stored in the folder. You can open the folder to view the file. To move a file to a compressed folder, drag it with the right mouse button to the new compressed folder. When you release the right mouse button, choose “Move Here” from the shortcut menu. To add a group of files or a folder, do the same thing: Just drag the group of files or folders to the compressed folder.

N O T E To select a group of files, hold the Ctrl key down while you click on the files you want to select. If you want to choose a group of sequential files, hold the Shift key down, click on the first file in the group, and then click on the last file. Windows will select all the files including and in between the two you clicked on. Try it a few times for practice to get the idea of how this works.

You can also use the Cut or Copy commands, and then open the compressed folder and use the Edit ➢ Paste command to move or copy the file


to the compressed folder. Note that you cannot use the Move to Folder or Copy to Folders commands with a compressed folder.

N O T E After copying a file to a compressed folder, check the size of the compressed folder versus the size of the original file. For the most dramatic results, copy a large text file or Windows bitmap graphic image to the compressed folder.

Also see Section 82, “Consider the File Type before Compressing,” for information on files that should not be copied to compressed folders.

Compress a File On-the-Fly Creating a compressed folder and then copying files to it is one way to work, but there’s a second, handier way. Say you’ve just lassoed several files you want to e-mail off to a friend. With the files selected, choose File ➢ Send To ➢ Compressed (zipped) Folder. Almost instantaneously, a new compressed folder is created containing the selected files. The new compressed folder is created in the current folder and given the name of the first file selected. (You can rename the compressed folder to something else, which is probably a good idea.)

N O T E Remember: To rename a file, you right-click on the file, choose Rename, type the new name, and then press Enter.

Get a File out of a Compressed Folder There’s no point in compressing files if you can’t get them decompressed. Actually, the official term is extracted. You don’t decompress files (or unzip them); instead, you extract them. To extract a file from a compressed folder, follow these steps:

1. Open the compressed folder by double-clicking on it.

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If the file is held in a folder within the compressed folder, then open that folder as well.

2. Select the file you want to extract by clicking on it once. Also, you can select several files as a group if you want to extract them. If you want to extract all of the files, choose “Extract all files” from the Folder Tasks pane (see the next section).

3. Choose Copy this file from the “File and Folder Tasks” list. Or you can use any Copy command in Windows, including the Edit ➢ Copy To Folder command. You can also use any of the Move commands in Windows, which move the file out of the compressed folder instead of merely copying it.

4. Choose a new folder or disk drive for the file from the list of folders in the Copy Items window. The Copy Items window appears, which you should be familiar with if you have experience copying files in Windows XP (or previous versions of Windows).

5. Click the Copy button to copy the file.


Or if it’s a move operation, click the Move button. This is also the place where you can make a new folder for this specific file if you so choose. And the file is free! And fat again. Remember that files occupy less disk space when they’re stored in a compressed folder.

Extract All the Files All at Once To extract all the files and folders stored in a compressed folder, follow these steps:

1. Open the compressed folder. 2. Choose “Extract all files” from the Folder Tasks list. Hey! A Wizard appears. That hardly ever happens in Windows XP…

3. Click the Next button. 4. Choose a folder. Without asking, Windows prompts to create a new folder given the name of the compressed folder. (This works because the compressed folder is really a zip file and it has the ZIP file extension.) If you want to choose another folder, click the Browse button. There is a Make New Folder button in the Browse dialog box in case you need to create a new folder. If any of the files are password-protected, you’ll need to enter a password by clicking the Password button.

5. Click the Next button. The files are extracted. They are not removed from the compressed folder, but are merely copied out.

6. Click the Finish button. And I like to leave the “Show extracted files” check box checked, which automatically displays the folder the files were extracted into when you click the Finish button.

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Store Old Projects in a Compressed Folder Keeping old stuff is an art form. At its crudest level, there is the clutterfilled garage. Archiving older files into a compressed folder is one of the higher forms of this art. There are files you need right now, the stuff that you’re working on today. Then there’s yesterday’s stuff, last month’s stuff, and even older stuff. I refer to all that as archiving and the art of archiving is how you keep it organized. For example, like a clutter-filled garage, you could just have all that old stuff sitting around like hazardous material on your hard drive. Sure, you could organize it into folders, which is a higher art form. But there are other things you can do with it as well. For ancient, finished projects, and for reference information that doesn’t change, you can archive it off onto a CD-R and get those files off the computer. But for older projects that are not quite ready to be archived, or stuff you still use occasionally, the compressed folder is an excellent storage option. To compress an old project, follow these steps:

1. Locate the project’s bits and pieces. I keep all my projects in their own folders. For example, this book has its own folder, and within that folder are folders for each chapter, as well as folders for figures, correspondence, notes, and so on. If your project has pieces in several folders, then you’ll need to gather those pieces up after you create the compressed folder.

2. Create the compressed folder. I actually create compressed folders inside a special Archives folder. In fact, I’m even more organized than that: I have folders for each year and folders within those folders for each client. So, for example, if I want to find stuff I wrote back in 1987 for a specific magazine, I open the Archives folder, then the 1987 folder, and then that magazine’s folder.

PA S S W O R D - P R O T E C T C O M P R E S S E D F O L D E R S

Refer to Section 78, “Make that Huge Bloated File Take Up Less Disk Space,” for more information on creating a compressed folder. In this case, you’ll most likely be creating a new, empty compressed folder. Rename the folder after creating it to reflect its contents.

3. Copy files and folders into the compressed folder. If your projects are all organized in a single folder, then simply drag and drop, or copy and paste, that project’s folder into the new compressed folder. If your project’s files are all over the place, then you’ll need to copy and paste them individually into the new compressed folder. This is the gather and paste method. After archiving the project into the compressed folder, delete the originals! There is no need for them any more; they’ve been saved in the compressed folder.

N O T E The whole purpose for this kind of compressing and archiving of information is to keep your computer organized and clean of any excess information that is unnecessary and that is using up disk space.

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Password-Protect Compressed Folders Even if you don’t need to compress a file, you might consider putting it into a compressed folder for just one reason: compressed folders can have passwords attached to them. While Windows XP will let you password-protect a folder, you cannot password-protect or restrict access to individual files. No, the only way that happens is to copy the file into a compressed folder and put password protection on that folder.

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To add password protection to a compressed folder, follow these steps:

1. Open the compressed folder. Yes, the compressed folder should already be created. Refer to 79.

2. Choose File ➢ Add a Password… 3. Type the password in the dialog box. Type something you will remember. The password is case sensitive; Gnart is not the same thing as GNART. Short passwords are better.

4. Type the password again to confirm that you’re not just randomly typing something at the keyboard. If you can’t remember what you typed in step 3, then you probably need to choose another password.

5. Click OK. The password is applied to the entire compressed folder, not just a single file inside the folder. And the password is applied until you remove it.

6. Close the compressed folder. There is no outward sign that a compressed folder is password-protected; all compressed folders look alike and there are no settings or hints in the folder’s Properties dialog box to indicate that it’s password-protected. If your purpose here is to password-protect a file, then you’ll need to delete the original file. The copy is still safe inside the compressed folder.

N O T E You can apply a password to a compressed folder no matter what format hard drive you’re using. (Unlike applying a password to a folder, which requires that you have an NTFS-formatted hard drive.)

Do not forget the password! There is no power on earth that can remove password protection from a compressed folder. Microsoft itself doesn’t know. If you forget the password, then you’ll have to delete the compressed folder and kiss its contents good-bye.

E-MAIL A COMPRESSED FOLDER

Open a Password-Protected Compressed Folder Actually, opening a password-protected compressed folder is no big deal; they open like any other folder in Windows. The Password dialog box doesn’t rear its ugly head unless you attempt to open or extract a compressed file within the folder. When you do, the Password dialog box pops up, and you’re required to type in the password to access the file. Yes, the same password is applied to all the files in the compressed folder. Refer to the next section for information on removing the password.

Remove Password Protection To remove password protection from a compressed folder, follow these steps:

1. Open the compressed folder. 2. Choose File ➢ Remove Password. 3. Type the password in the “Password needed” dialog box. If you forgot the password, you’re screwed.

4. Click OK. The password protection is gone and all files in the compressed folder can be accessed normally.

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E-Mail a Compressed Folder Do your friends a favor: compress most, if not all, of the things you e-mail to them. Some things don’t need to be compressed, such as a few JPG files or maybe a single Word document. These are okay. Anything less than, say, 100K is okay. But if you plan to send multiple attachments, just gang them all up into a compressed folder and send it off. To e-mail a compressed folder, follow these steps:

1. Create the compressed folder.

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You need something to send before you even start to write the e-mail. I suppose you can multi-task, and be writing the e-mail in one window while you open another window to create the compressed folder. Whatever, but you need the compressed folder to attach before you can send it. To me, that makes a lot of sense. Note that some types of files cannot be compressed well, as described in Section 82. In that case, you should just send the attachments as individual files.

2. Start your new e-mail message. I’m assuming that you’re using Outlook Express here as your e-mail program, although the operation works the same in all e-mail applications. Enter the name, subject, and all that junk. Type a message. And this is important: Be sure to explain in the message the nature of the e-mail attachment. Remember that viruses can be sent through e-mail and people are (justifiably) weary of receiving unexpected attachments. Be very precise in explaining what it is that you’re sending. You may also want to add that if they don’t know how to decompress a file, they should buy this book so that they will know what this compressed file stuff is all about.

3. Attach the compressed folder file. In Outlook Express, click the Attach button on the toolbar in the New Message window. The Attach button looks like a big paperclip.

4. Browse to the file’s location using the Insert Attachment dialog box. 5. When you find the file, click once to select it. 6. Click the Attach button. The attached filename appears in the “Attach” heading in the New Message window. You’re set and ready to go. Now the message is ready to send like any other e-mail message.

N O T E Many ISPs place a size limit on e-mail messages. If your message does not go through, it may be because the compressed folder is too large. In that case, consider sending the files individually, each in their own compressed folder.

CONSIDER THE FILE TYPE BEFORE COMPRESSING

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Consider the File Type before Compressing Some files compress better than others. That’s because some files are already compressed and can be compressed no further. You see, this compression stuff is very popular with computer files. Just when compression technology became widespread, many enterprising individuals decided to devise new file formats that would take advantage of file compression natively. The graphics file formats JPEG, GIF, and PNG are all compressed automatically. MP3 sound files are also compressed, as are MPEG video files. While you can still put these files into a compressed folder, there is no disk space to be saved by doing so. For example, putting a 3MB MP3 sound file into a compressed folder for e-mailing will not save download time; the 3MB MP3 file still occupies 3MB of space in the compressed folder. Net savings is zero. Ditto for the other file types mentioned above. You can still put these file types into a compressed folder for archival purposes. For example, there’s nothing wrong with sticking a bunch of JPEG files into a compressed folder so that you need e-mail only one file (the compressed folder) instead of each individual image. Zip files are the same thing as compressed folders and, therefore, you can’t save disk space by compressing them. But zip files can be stored in a compressed folder for archival purposes. For example, it’s possible to gather up several zip files and stick them into a compressed folder to keep them organized. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it doesn’t save on disk space.

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Compress an Existing Folder Certainly you can compress a folder you’ve already created. It works just like creating a compressed folder and then adding files to it, but it has the advantage of doing everything in one simple procedure. The simplest way to compress a folder is to locate that folder in the Windows Explorer. Right-click the folder and choose Send To ➢ Compressed (zipped) Folder from the pop-up shortcut menu. This creates an identical compressed folder that has the same name as the original folder. Simple, and cinchy too. There is, however, an approach to creating a compressed folder that I prefer over the one mentioned previously. You see, if you create a compressed folder by following those steps, and then open the new compressed folder, you’ll see a single folder—a folder within a folder. To me that’s wasted space. So, I take the following approach. To compress a folder, follow these steps:

1. Locate the folder you want to compress. For example, say it’s a folder that contains all last year’s correspondence with foreign heads of state. Perhaps it even contains folders within folders, such as the Castro folder, and the Random Dictator folder. Whatever. Just find that folder.

2. Open the folder. The folder’s contents are displayed for you in a window on the screen. This is how I prefer the compressed folder to look as well; when I open a compressed folder, I want to see files and not just a single folder.

3. Choose Edit ➢ Select All. Pressing the Ctrl+A key combination works faster and does the same thing.

4. Choose File ➢ Send to ➢ Compressed (zipped) Folder.

COMPRESS AN EXISTING FOLDER

The new compressed folder is created. But it currently lives inside the same folder where all the other files (and folders) that you just compressed live. I prefer to move it.

5. Select the new compressed folder. Clicking it once selects the folder.

6. Choose Edit ➢ Move to Folder. The Move Items dialog box appears.

7. Locate the best place to move the compressed folder to. I just want to move the compressed folder up one notch, to the parent folder. In this case, that’s the My Documents folder. But I also have other places I could move it to, such as various Archive folders on my hard drive, where I put my compressed folder archives.

8. Click the Move button. And the compressed folder is moved to its new location. The Move Items dialog box vanishes and you’re back in the folder you just compressed, but the compressed folder you just created no longer appears.

9. Click the Up button. The contents of the parent folder appear, and there you see the compressed folder you just created..

10. Click to select the original folder you compressed. 11. Choose “Delete this folder” from the File and Folder Tasks pane. Yes, delete it. That’s because you just compressed the entire folder and its contents. The original folder is no longer needed. (And if it was, then you probably shouldn’t have compressed it in the first place.) Again, the difference between this compression method and the previous one is that this compressed folder more accurately represents the contents of the original. That may be a minor difference to you, but it’s how I prefer to work with my compressed folders.

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Use WinRAR Instead of Windows XP’s Compressed Folders There are solutions beyond those that Windows offers. Keep in mind that Microsoft doesn’t really devise anything original; nearly all its stuff is copied from elsewhere. This is especially true of the compressed folder, which existed for years as ZIP files. In fact, the common zip file utility, WinZIP, offers features and functionality far beyond what Windows built-in compressed folders offer. But there are things out there that are better than both of these tools. The current rage in file archiving is the WinRAR utility. It works with all sorts of compressed files and archives, including ZIP files. But it also creates its own native RAR format, which offers more efficient compression than either WinZIP or Windows’ own compressed folders. In fact, WinRAR can archive compressed media formats such as MP3 and JPEG and make them even smaller. WinRAR is available as shareware, which means you can try it free before you buy. A copy can be downloaded from the WinRAR Web page at www.rarsoft.com/, or you can copy the WinRAR file from this book’s companion CD.

How WinRAR Changes Things By installing WinRAR (or any other zip file manager, such as WinZIP), you change the file associations for compressed folders. No major loss, but it means anything you once saw as a compressed folder now has the new program’s icon and is opened by the new program. In the case of WinRAR, the zipper-folder icon changes to a stack-of-books icon. That’s the WinRAR icon. Note that the contents of the file haven’t changed. In fact, it’s still a zip file archive. The file hasn’t been recompressed or altered in any way; all that’s changed is its file association. If you open the file, it opens with WinRAR instead of Windows’ compressed folder program.

U S E W I N R AR I N STEAD O F W I N D OWS X P’S C O M PR E S S E D F O LD E R S

N O T E You can still use the Windows compressed folder program to open the ZIP file. Right-click the icon and choose Open with ➢ Compressed (zipped) Folders from the menu.

Keep in mind that installing WinRAR does not remove the compressed folders from your hard drive. It means only that WinRAR will be handling those files from here on. It’s really a move for the best; WinRAR is far more feature-packed and capable than Windows’ own compressed folder program.

Creating a New WinRAR Archive WinRAR comes with a highly useful and interesting interface, which allows you to create archives in a saner manner than any of the techniques used for creating a compressed folder. (Though many of the compressed folder techniques can also be used with WinRAR.) I’m assuming that WinRAR is installed on your computer in the standard manner, with all the “default” options chosen during installation.

N O T E Make sure, in the WinRAR Setup, you put a check mark next to Pin WinRAR to Start Menu. I like to keep programs there for safekeeping.

(If you elect not to put WinRAR on the Start menu, then the following steps may not work exactly as written.) To build a new WinRAR archive, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose All Programs. 3. Choose WinRAR. 4. Choose WinRAR. This runs the WinRAR window. What you’re seeing is not an archive, but rather a folder window.

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Immediately you notice that WinRAR has a much better interface than Windows’ own compressed folders—despite the fact that compressed folders are built into Windows. For example, there’s a toolbar with big, colorful buttons. Then there’s an address bar, which gives the location of the current folder. And finally, there is a window displaying the files in the current folder. Remember, this is not an archive that you’re viewing, but rather a folder.

5. Select a file to archive. Click to select a file in the window. If you need to open a folder, then double-click it to see that folder’s contents. To move up a folder, click the “up” button to the left of the address bar. Or you can click the down arrow on the right side to drop down a list where you can find a file you want to archive.

6. Click the Estimate button. A nifty window appears that shows you how well WinRAR can compress the file. The 3D bar graph on the left shows the file’s original size and then its compressed size. The table lists various compression methods, new file sizes, and time to compress values.

U S E W I N R AR I N STEAD O F W I N D OWS X P’S C O M PR E S S E D F O LD E R S

N O T E I love to play with the Estimate button. In fact, if you select an MP3 file and click Estimate, you can see how much more compression is possible with the RAR format than the ZIP format (which still isn’t much, but it’s something.)

7. Click the Close button to close the Estimate compression window. 8. Click the Add button. WinRAR is about to create a new archive containing the file(s) you have selected. A new window appears where you can set options for the archive.

9. Type a name for the archive. WinRAR automatically names the archive after the first (or only) file you selected. You can type a new name in the “Archive” text box. Or you can click the Browse button to add the file(s) to an existing archive.

10. Ensure that RAR is chosen for the archive format, if that is the format you want to use. RAR is much better than ZIP, however it’s not as common. If you’re compressing files to e-mail to a friend, your friend must have WinRAR so that the files can be decompressed. If not, then create a ZIP archive by choosing ZIP from the “Archive format” area. There are additional options in the dialog box that you can mess around with; feel free to explore them on your own.

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11. Click the OK button. And the archive is created. To view the contents of the RAR archive, simply double-click to open it. This displays the contents in a WinRAR window, from which further file manipulation is possible.

N O T E Even if your e-mail buddy doesn’t have WinRAR, it’s possible to send them a WinRAR archive: Simply click the SFX button on the toolbar. That converts the WinRAR archive to a self-extracting file. The RAR file becomes an EXE (program) file that, when opened or run, automatically extracts its contents. Just remember to send the self-extracting file version of the archive when you e-mail your pal.

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Work with Files in a Compressed Folder As long as you remember that a compressed folder is not a regular folder, you’ll understand all about file management inside a compressed folder. Basically, there isn’t any. When you open a compressed folder, you see files and folders just as you would in any folder window in Windows. But that’s just for presentation. The files themselves are actually compressed ghosts of their former selves. You can do the following tricks with those files:

Extract, copy, or move them from the compressed folder.

Delete them from the compressed folder.

Open them.

And that’s it! You cannot:

Rename a file.

D O C O M PR E S S E D F O LD E R TR I C KS

Move a file into a folder inside the compressed folder.

Create a new file using the File ➢ New command.

If you attempt to do any of these activities, you’ll discover that they’re not on any menu. If you try to use a keyboard command or any other means of accomplishing these tasks, you’ll see that it just doesn’t work. A special note on opening files in a compressed folder: You can do this. It works just fine. What happens is that Windows decompresses the file as it’s opened. However, you cannot resave the file back to the compressed folder. Also, if you run a media file (sound, music, video) from a compressed folder, the Windows Media Player may become confused during playback and suddenly lose the file it’s playing. The error message says something like “This file format not supported,” which simply means that Media Player cannot further decompress the file. Remember, a compressed folder looks, smells, and possibly even tastes just like a real folder. But it’s not.

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Do Compressed Folder Tricks Sit! Beg! Roll over! Extract! Oh, come on boy! You can extract, can’t you? Maybe not. But a compressed folder can. I am of the opinion that just about anything you can do with a compressed folder is a trick. Slapping on a password is a trick. Shrinking 3MB of files down to 27K is a hell of a trick. Getting the files back out, intact, is perhaps the biggest trick of all. Still, there’s more. The only tricks left to do with compressed folders are right-click tricks. Like so many things in Windows, right-clicking on a compressed folder yields a pop-up menu. Most of the items on the menu are common commands found attached to any file icon in Windows: Open, Send To, Cut, Copy, Delete, Rename, Properties, plus a few other commands depending on the file type.

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When you right-click on a compressed folder, however, you also get another command, Extract All. Choosing Extract All runs the Extraction Wizard, covered in Section 78, “Make That Huge Bloated File Take Up Less Hard Disk Space.” If you right-click a WinRAR archive, two additional commands appear, Extract files and Extract to (folder name). The Extract files command opens a WinRAR window where you can choose a folder and set options for extracting files from the archive. The Extract to folder command can be chosen to instantly extract all the files to a folder, which is given the same name as the RAR archive file. Unlike the Extract files command, this command instantly creates the folder and extracts the files; no dialog box is displayed.

Do Lotsa Internet Stuff

Do Lotsa Internet Stuff

The Internet. Wow. Who would have thought that just about everything you want to do in life can be done over the Internet. Shop, pay bills, talk to people, meet people. You can do it all. These sections cover some of the more interesting functions of the Internet as it is associated with Windows XP. You won’t find the basics of setting up your e-mail account, because I’m hoping you already know how to do that. No, these sections are far more interesting…

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Sign Up for a .NET Passport Account The .NET Passport account enables you to access a number of sites on the Internet without having to repeatedly create new accounts and new passwords. With one .NET Passport account, you can sign into dozens (if not hundreds) of Web sites and use their services without having to reregister and log in every time. Though many people are concerned over privacy issues, I think it’s really a handy thing to have. For example, only with the .NET Passport can you use wonderful toys like the Windows Messenger and it’s various services: NetMeeting, Internet Phone calls, and so on. So getting a .NET Passport is a healthy and necessary idea for several reasons.

N O T E You may already have a .NET Passport account. When you sign in as a new user to Windows XP, you get an invite that says, basically, “Hey, I see you’re new, click here to sign up for your Passport account.” If you went ahead and did that when you first installed Windows XP, great. If you didn’t, then you’ll have to follow these steps.

To set up a .NET Passport account, follow these steps.

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose Control Panel. 3. Click “User Accounts.”

S I G N U P F O R A . N E T PA S S P O R T A C C O U N T

4. Click on your user name. 5. Click on “Set up my account to use a .NET Passport.” This starts the .NET Passport Wizard.

W A R N I N G You cannot set up a .NET Passport account unless you are logged in as that user. For example, I can’t be logged into my computer as Sandy Gookin and try to change Dan Gookin’s Passport account. I’d have to log out as Sandy and log in as Dan.

6. Read the welcome screen and click Next. Your computer will want to connect to the Internet. Go ahead. It’s necessary if you want a Passport account.

7. Choose whether or not you have an e-mail address. If you do, choose Yes. If you don’t, choose No, and the Wizard will walk you through the steps of opening an MSN.com e-mail account. At this point things get kind of confusing.

N O T E Even if you have a current e-mail account, you still have to sign up for the Hotmail, MSN, or Passport account. This account enables you to have the privileges of .NET Passport.

8. Enter your current e-mail address. Click Next. 9. Type a password. The password must be at least six characters long. 10. Answer the secret question. Use the down arrow if you want to find a different question to answer.

11. Provide the “Where do you live” answer. Why does Microsoft need this? I don’t know!

12. Do you want to share your e-mail address? Hmmm. Let me think for a moment. I’d have to say No to this question but it’s your own personal choice. Just click Next.

13. Click Finish.

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D O LOT S A I N T E R N E T S T U F F

Change Your .NET Passport To change anything in your Passport account, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose Control Panel. 3. Click “User Accounts.” 4. Click on your user name. 5. Choose “Change my .NET Passport.” Pick what you want to change. You’ll typically make changes in the Change Passport Attributes area. Your computer will connect to the Internet.

6. Type your Passport password and click OK. 7. Complete or edit any information you want to work with. 8. Click the Update button. 9. Click Continue. 10. Click Yes. 11. Close the window.

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Use MSN Explorer in So Many Fascinating Ways MSN Explorer is a new software package from Microsoft. Thank you, Bill Gates. I can’t say that I’ve found one word that would describe the purpose of the software. Rather, I can tell you all the things that it does, such as enabling you to read e-mail, talk to your friends while online, listen to music, watch videos, and check out the Web. It’s pretty interesting. It’s almost as if Microsoft was a little jealous of AOL. But I’m just guessing. This section is going to introduce this software a bit, and the remaining sections will highlight some of the features. Prepare to have fun!

U S E M S N E X P L O R E R I N S O M A N Y FA S C I N AT I N G WAY S

To find MSN Explorer, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose All Programs. 3. Click on MSN Explorer. The welcome screen appears.

W A R N I N G In order to make MSN Explorer work, you must have a modem, it must be connected to the phone line and it must be turned on. It tells you this in the welcome window, but you may have glazed over this part, as I did the first time I saw this screen.

4. Click Next. 5. Pick a country. Click Continue. 6. Choose whether or not you would like to keep your existing e-mail address or get a new address from MSN. If you already are using any e-mail account, choose the bottom option, “No, I already have Internet Access.” If you want to go ahead and sign up for a Hotmail or MSN account, choose the first option, “Yes, I would like to sign up for MSN Internet Access…” If you already have an MSN account, choose the middle option.

W A R N I N G If you’ve walked through these steps and you haven’t yet signed up for an MSN account or Hotmail account, this part of signing up for MSN Explorer forces you to sign up for one of them. You can’t have access to MSN Explorer unless you sign up for their account.

What happens next depends on the choices you’ve made. Just read the screen and follow the directions. The questions are pretty straightforward and easy to answer.

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N O T E Password guidelines: Your password must be at least 8 characters long but no longer than 16 characters. You can use numbers (0-9) and upper- and lowercase letters from A-Z, but your password is case sensitive, so when you use an upper- or lowercase letter, you have to do it the same way every time. You cannot use any blank spaces. If you really want a password that is difficult to break, use a combination of everything, such as J9dw834WkP. Now, isn’t that nasty? You should try to avoid passwords such as your name, birthday, social security numbers, or children’s names. These are the first things people try when they are trying to crack a password.

Once you finish completing the steps, MSN flashes across your screen. Oh my, it is lovely.

A Five-Minute Tour There is a lot to do here and I’m impressed with how easy it is to navigate. What you see before you is the MSN home page. There are things to do everywhere. If you move your mouse around, you’ll notice that it changes to a pointing hand and the text turns into red underlined words. Those are links to other places. So, if you want to send a greeting card to someone,

U S E M S N E X P L O R E R I N S O M A N Y FA S C I N AT I N G WAY S

look for “Greeting Cards” and click. If you want to find more information and places to go regarding Pets, click on “Pets & Animals” and this takes you to the MSN Pets & Animals Web page. If you find yourself going to more and more Web pages and you want to get back to the Microsoft Home page, the place where you started, click the Home button at the top of your screen. The arrow buttons on the top left corner of your screen are for jumping backward and forward one page.

W A R N I N G A few of the links didn’t work when I was snooping around and that may happen to you to. For example, the My Communities and My Calendar areas said, “Passport is unavailable at this site,” or ”There may be an error on the site.” Whatever. Just click the Back button or the MSN Home button to get out of these places. You may find some Web sites yourself that aren’t up and running.

My temptation is to walk you through the whole MSN Home page. Not because I think you need it or because this Web page is tricky or difficult to understand. No, I’d want to do that because there are some fun things here. This is a very user-friendly page. Just hover your mouse over something and a brief description pops up for most of the links. If you do get lost or need some help, click the More Choices button on the right and click Help.

End MSN You can just close MSN or you can sign out completely. If you choose to simply close the MSN Explorer windows, you will still be signed in. Your cue that MSN is still working is the little butterfly icon on your taskbar, near the clock. But if you want to completely sign out, click the Sign Out button at the top of the screen.

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Start MSN Again Once you log out of MSN, you can find it again by clicking on Start ➢ All Programs ➢ MSN Explorer. If you find that you’re going to use this program a lot, you may want to add it to your Start menu or make it an icon on your desktop. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, then you skipped over Section 67, “Create Shortcuts,” didn’t you? Well, go back now and read it. Then you’ll know what I’m talking about.

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Send and Receive Instant Messages It’s hard to convince anyone of the merits of instant messages until they try it. Then, typically, they’re hooked. After all, at first the thought of an instant message seems rather intrusive. If you live a busy life, you probably have instant messages going off all the time: the kids, the spouse, the boss, the phone—just about everything is an instant message. Help me escape from this chaos! Unfortunately, Windows Messenger, the soul of instant messaging in Windows, is just too addictive to be annoying. Windows Messenger opens the door to instant e-mail, chat, audio and video conversations, file transfer and a host of other seductive and useful options and features. The following sections cover everything from getting started through the basics, and later sections cover some of the more esoteric yet highly useful aspects of Windows Messenger.

Get Started Before you can get Windows Messenger to work, you must have the following:

A .NET Passport account (see Section 87, “Sign Up for a .NET Passport Account”).

The installed Windows Messenger program.

S E N D A N D R E C E I V E I N S TA N T M E S S A G E S

An Internet connection speed of at least 28.8Kbps.

The names and e-mail addresses of other Windows Messenger users with whom you can chat. (They don’t need to be Windows XP users, just folks using Windows who have installed Windows Messenger and who have a .NET Passport.)

N O T E Note that Windows Messenger is not the same thing as AOL Instant Messenger. The two systems are not compatible.

To find Windows Messenger, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose All Programs. 3. Choose Windows Messenger. Your computer connects to the Internet.

4. Click the center of your screen to sign in.

Now you are free to send a message, call someone (which is covered in Section 91, “Place an Internet Phone Call”), or go to your e-mail inbox.

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Start Messenger Quickly On your taskbar, in the notification area, you’ll find an icon that looks like two human figures standing side by side. This is the Windows Messenger thing. Double-click on this to open Windows Messenger. It’s quick!

N O T E If you see that one of the little men has a red circle with an X on him, don’t panic. It just means you’re not currently logged on. It does not mean the little man is suffering from any medical problems nor is he targeted for assassination.

Send a Message Once you are established with Windows Messenger, you’ll accumulate a list of people you call on a regular basis. This list is displayed in Messenger and shows when they are online and when they aren’t. To send a message, follow these steps:

1. On your list of people who are online, double-click the name of the person you want to contact. The instant message window will open.

2. Type your message in the lower part of the window and then click send. Or, you can just press the Enter key. If you want to start a new paragraph, hold down the Shift key and then press Enter. If the person is not online, you’ll receive a message telling you so. Isn’t it kind of scary to know that the computer knows your friend is not online? But don’t fret. Basically, Windows Messenger contacts a special computer at the Microsoft Network (MSN), which logs in all Windows Messenger users and checks to see if anyone you know is available. It’s really rather harmless.

S E N D A N D R E C E I V E I N S TA N T M E S S A G E S

You can see the other person typing their message in the status bar of the window.

N O T E To turn on the emoticons, click the Edit ➢ Show Emoticons. Emoticons are those little symbols that mean happy ☺ or sad . You can’t type :) for example to display the ☺ symbol, or :( for .

If you want to add a person to your contact list, click the Add button and work through the questions.

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Send a Message to More Than One Person You can add up to a total of five people to participate in a conversation. Yahoo! It’s an online party. To invite more people to your conversation, follow these steps:

1. Start a message to someone. 2. Click on the Invite button, which is located below the sent message. 3. Point to “Join this conversation” and then click on a name.

Send a Message to Someone Not on Your List You can send messages to people who are not on your list. But—and this is a big but—the person you are writing to must have a Passport address (which means their e-mail address has to end in @hotmail.com, @passport.com, or @msn.com) and they must have Windows Messenger installed. To send a message to an outsider, follow these steps:

1. Click the Send button. 2. Choose Other. 3. Type the person’s Passport address.

N O T E During the process of contacting friends, you are given the opportunity to send your friend an e-mail invitation that explains how to get a .NET Passport account and how to download the software.

Change Your Screen Name This whole Instant Messenger thing is really all a lot of fun, so your screen name should be fun too. The screen name is what appears as you type your messages. To change your screen name, follow these steps:

1. Open Instant Messenger.

S E N D A F I LE W ITH W I N D OWS M E S S E N G E R

2. Choose Tools ➢ Options. 3. Click the Personal tab to bring it forward. 4. Type in a new name under “My Display Name.” Now when you type a message, your new nickname appears.

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Send a File with Windows Messenger I believe the joy of Windows Messenger is its instant aspect. Being online and instantly receiving not only written messages, but files, is an impressive feat. After Dan and I played with this program, we were both impressed that you really did get messages and files immediately. Well, however long the message told you it would take. The smaller files took less than a minute. A really large music file said it would take about four minutes to download, and it did. To send an instant file, follow these steps:

1. Start Windows Instant Messenger. (Start ➢ All Programs ➢ Windows Messenger).

2. Sign in as instructed. 3. Click on the name or address of the person you want to send a file to. 4. Click the “Send a file” option on the right side of the window. 5. Choose the file you want to send, and click Attach. When someone sends a file to you, the Conversation window tells you what is going on. You can click on Accept or Decline for the file.

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Note that Windows Messenger stores any files it receives in the My Received Files folder, located in the My Documents folder. From there you can open the files, or move them to another, proper folder on your hard drive. Try not to let the My Received Files folder fill up with too much junk. When you are ready to open the files, choose File ➢ Open Received Files. You can change the folder in which Windows Messenger saves received files. For example, for years I’ve been using a Downloads folder in the My Documents folder. To save files in a different location, follow these steps:

1. In the Windows Messenger box, choose Tools ➢ Options. 2. Click the Preferences tab to bring it forward. The folder where files are received is listed on the bottom of the window.

3. To choose a new folder, you can type in its name or locate it by clicking the Browse button in the “File Transfer” area. Click the plus signs until you find the folder where you want these sent files to go. Note that you can create a new folder by using the New Folder button. How handy.

4. Click on the folder once and then click OK. 5. Click OK again.

PLAC E AN I NTE R N ET PH O N E CALL

N O T E This option box is a good place to play around with sounds and alerts and all kinds of fun things. Have fun while you’re here.

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Place an Internet Phone Call “Hello!” “Hello! Can you hear me?” “Yes. Can you hear me?” “Of course. We can both hear each other.” “Isn’t this grand?” “Yes.” “Well then.” “All right.” “I’m hanging up now.” “Very good.” “What was that?” “I said I am hanging up now. Hello?” “Yes. I am hanging up as well.” “Good-bye.” “Good-bye.” New technology can be so thrilling that sometimes we forget what it’s for. The telephone, for example, is all about communications. Honestly, it doesn’t matter if you’re using a phone built by Alexander Graham Bell himself or the voice and audio features of the Windows Messenger. It’s still all about communications.

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Placing an Internet Phone call can be done from your computer to any phone in the world. Your computer must have a microphone and speakers so that you can hear and be heard, plus you need to run special software that connects your computer to the standard phone system. Alas, this isn’t something Windows XP does by itself; you need special software to make the phone call. But you can use your speakers and microphone to chat with an Internet buddy. To talk with someone else on the Internet, follow these steps:

1. Start up Windows Messenger. You’ll need to refer to Sections 88 and 89 for information on getting this set up, including all the options required and hoops to jump through. All of that needs to be done before you can actually talk to anyone.

2. Find a buddy in the list to talk with. Double-click on their name to bring up the conversation window. The talking part doesn’t work until you’re actually chatting with someone—until you can see the Conversation window. Only then can you click the magic button that lets you talk.

3. Get your PC’s microphone ready. I prefer to use the headset microphone for this. That way I can still type while I talk. The headset also has speakers that shoot right into my ears, which keeps the rest of the room out of the conversation.

4. Click the Start Talking button, which is located on the right of your screen. This displays a little drop-down area where you can set the speaker volume and check on your microphone volume. There is also a Mute button for clicking off the mic at awkward times (burping, yelling at the kids, etc.).

N O T E If you need to check the mic and speakers, go back over the Windows Messenger window and choose Tools ➢ Audio and Video Tuning Wizard. Use the Audio portion of the Wizard to test your PC’s mic and speakers.

A D D N A M E S T O Y O U R L I S T O F C O N TA C T S

5. Talk. Everything you say is broadcast to the other computer. Blah, blah, blah. There may be a delay and there may be drops or static, but that’s not a bad trick and can be quite fun—and cheaper than a long distance call. Note that you can still type in the Conversation window while you’re talking. I don’t know why anyone would do this, however.

6. When you’re done talking, put the mic aside and click on the Stop talking button (same as the Start talking button). The Conversation window switches back to text. So, you can type some more, or just quit the conversation and get on with your life.

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Add Names to Your List of Contacts Instant Messenger, or the Internet Phone, is a cool tool only if you have someone to contact. Yeah, what’s the fun of having all these toys if you can’t use them and call people and bug your friends? Then you’d better get busy, because you can add up to 150 contacts to your list. Wow. To add a contact to your list, follow these steps:

1. Open Instant Messenger. (Start ➢ All Programs ➢ Windows Messenger).

2. Log in. 3. Click the Add button. The Add a Contact Wizard opens.

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4. Choose how you want to add the contact. Click Next. 5. If you choose to search for a person, complete the information. If you chose to find the person by e-mail, type in their address.

6. Click Next.

N O T E If the person you’re calling doesn’t have a Passport account, then you are given the opportunity to send them an e-mail inviting them to get one. You can type a little message (you are limited in space, so keep it brief) that will be added to a Microsoft message, which explains the downloading process. It’s like Amway for e-mail!

7. You get a success window if it was a success. If you try to add someone who does not have a Hotmail, MSN, or Passport e-mail address, you get a “Sorry, this person could not be added” message, but if you want, they can send them a message to get a .NET Passport and Windows messenger account.

8. You’re asked if you want to add someone else. If you do, click Next. If not, click Finish.

A D D N A M E S T O Y O U R L I S T O F C O N TA C T S

R U L E S F O R C O N TA C T L I S T N A M E S

When you click “Search for a contact,” you can’t use a wildcard or asterisk when you type the name. That trick works elsewhere, but not here. If you click “Search for a contact” but you don’t see Address Book in your drop-down list, that’s because you don’t have any names in your Windows Address Book. If you want to add names, you can click Start ➢ More Programs ➢ Accessories ➢ Address Book.

Remove a Name from Your List Ok, you’re tired of talking to Rebecca. She just goes on and on and on about her canning zucchini relish and if you have to listen to one more story about little Brian’s soccer game, you’re going to scream. Oh, time to remove Rebecca from your list! To remove someone from your list, follow these steps:

1. Open Instant Messenger. 2. Right-click on the name of the person you want to remove. 3. Click Delete Contact. Buh-bye! Oh, oh. Rebecca’s still writing. Yes, removing a contact from your list doesn’t keep her from writing to you. You have to block them. Keep reading.

Block Someone from Seeing or Contacting You Blocking a person in Windows Messenger is essentially moving them from an Allow list to a Block list. I think this is a great tool to have. I’ve noticed that when people get involved with e-mail or chat groups, they become bold and obnoxious. This blocking method is your way of saying, “Be rude to me, buddy, and you’re outta my life!” Yeah! To block someone from your contact list, follow these steps:

1. Open Instant Messenger.

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2. Right-click on the person you want to block. 3. Click Block.

As in the figure, you’ll see the “do not” symbol (or whatever it’s called) on top of the human figure icon to the left of the person’s name, along with the word “(Blocked)” to the right of their name.

N O T E Just because you block someone from your list doesn’t mean you can’t bump into them sometime. If you are invited to a conversation with a few people, that person you are trying to avoid could be in that group. They won’t be blocked at that moment.

Add More People to the Blocked List You may find that there are a whole lotta people you just don’t want to talk to anymore. You can move whole groups of people at once. To view your blocked and allow list, follow these steps.

1. Open Instant Messenger. 2. Click on Tools ➢ Options. 3. Click the Privacy tab. Ohhh, neat information in here.

S E E I F YO U R F R I E N D S A R E O N L I N E

The My Allow List side lists those people that are allowed to contact you. The My Block List side lists those that you have blocked. To move a person from one side to the other, just click on their name and click Block or Allow. Click OK when you are done blocking and allowing. Notice the two listings on the bottom of this window.

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“Which users have added me to their contact lists?” Click the View button to find out.

“Alert me when other users add me to their contact lists.” This would be a good thing to have checked. Yes, you want to know when this happens.

See If Your Friends Are Online What to do, what to do. I’m sitting here bored and I just don’t know what to do. I’ve surfed Nordstrom’s, but don’t want to shop there until there is a shoe sale. And Drudge is mongering the same old stories he told years ago.

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The CNN Web site tells me that Larry King will be interviewing a oncesubstance-abusing Hollywood starlet about her new anti-substance-abusing book. I’ve checked my favorite teams’ scores and the weather back home. My stocks are still down. It’s raining on most of the Web cams I typically visit. And I’ve not seen an update on the alien abduction Web page since they claimed the world would end seven months ago. What do to, what to do? How about if you check to see if your friends are online? If they are, you can easily start chatting with them. To see if your friends are online, follow these steps:

1. Open Instant Messenger. Remember, you can click on that little bald man icon next to the time on your taskbar.

2. Windows Messenger lists who’s online and who’s not.

As you can tell by the figure, my friend Kathy is the only person online. I think I need more friends. Hmmm. Now, if I want to write to Kathy, all I have to do is double-click on her name and the conversation window appears. Or, if that’s too quick for you, I can click on Tools ➢ Send an Instant Message ➢ Kathy.

P L AY W I T H A W H I T E B O A R D

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Play with a Whiteboard While I’m on this Instant Messenger roll, I thought I’d add a few more fun things you can do with Instant Messenger. After all, you’re here, we might as well explore!

Send an Invitation to Draw Drawing? You want me to draw? I can’t draw much more than a stick man holding a balloon, but this is still fun. If you want to get serious for a moment, I could see how this could be beneficial. Your friend is coming to your house for the first time, so you can go to the whiteboard and draw him a map. This whiteboard drawing feature is only for the Windows XP elite. Other Windows users won’t have this feature. To send an invitation to draw (using Whiteboard), follow these steps.

1. Start Instant Messenger. If you don’t know how to do this by now, you need to go back and do some serious reading.

2. Choose Tools ➢ Send an Invitation ➢ To Start Whiteboard ➢ (choose a name). If you don’t see any names listed, it’s because none of your friends are online. This works only if you have someone online who is able to use Messenger and who has Whiteboard installed. It’s possible to communicate with someone using Messenger who is not able to use Whiteboard because they don’t have it installed. If you have someone online, you see your invitation with the option to cancel the invitation.

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Whiteboard appears and begins to warm up. Also, you’ll see the Sharing Session window. This is another way to start Whiteboard or start one of several shared types of applications. Start drawing and have fun. The tools are very similar to those in the Paint program: choose a tool and then draw with it. You can erase by using the arrow in the top right of the toolbar. Also, the “hand” button can be used to display a hand that the other user can see, so that you can point things out. Literally. You both see and have access to the same whiteboard, so you both can draw and edit each other’s work.

If you need another page for doodling, click the Add Page button in the lower-right corner of the window. You can also save your work by choosing File ➢ Save As. The image is saved as a Whiteboard file, which can be opened in future Whiteboard sessions.

Copy Images from the Desktop to the Whiteboard Now, have some fun! For example, you can put an image of another window into the whiteboard.

AS K F O R H E LP F R O M AN O N LI N E F R I E N D

To add an image into your whiteboard, follow these steps:

1. Summon the image you want to paste into the whiteboard. You need to find that image and open it so that it’s visible on the screen.

2. Return to the Whiteboard program. 3. Click the Select Area button, the icon in the lower-left corner of the tool palette. A warning box is displayed, telling you what’s to happen next.

4. Click OK. The whiteboard disappears for a moment and you can see the desktop and other windows displayed on the screen, including the image you’ve already summoned.

5. Drag the mouse over the image to select it. When you release the mouse button, the image is copied and pasted into the whiteboard. Note that it will take some time for the image to “send” to the whiteboard, depending on the size and complexity of the image and the speed of your Internet connection. You can also click the Select Window button (in the lower-right corner of the tool palette), which copies an entire window from the desktop as opposed to selecting an area; in step 5 you would merely click on the window you wanted copied. Otherwise, the two actions are very similar.

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Ask for Help from an Online Friend There are times when friends call me for help and I feel completely useless because I don’t know what they are seeing on their computer and they’re having a difficult time telling me. I tell them to type C:\ and they type “See colon backslash.” I can’t help. I’m frustrated. They’re frustrated. It’s just a bad situation.

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Now, with Remote Assistance, that frustrating situation of “tell me what you’re looking at” is over. Remote Assistance enables someone to connect to your computer and actually see what is on your screen. Your computer monitor becomes their monitor and they can see whatever you do and see on your computer. To use Remote Assistance, follow these steps:

1. Open Windows Messenger, making sure you’re connected to the Internet.

2. Click Tools ➢ Ask for Remote Assistance ➢ (pick a name from the list). If you don’t see any name listed there, then you don’t have anyone online who can help. Your hero must have a Windows Messenger account and a Windows XP computer for remote assistance to work. After choosing their name, your online buddy receives a prompt, telling them that you’re asking for assistance. They can either accept or decline the invitation. You’ll receive their reply, and hopefully they’ve accepted (and hopefully they can help). If they do accept, a window appears asking if you want to allow them to view your screen.

W A R N I N G If you are working in a corporate setting, or on a local area network, firewalls may prevent you from using Remote Assistance. I’ll assume, in that case, that other help resources are available to you in that environment and you should try them before venturing out to the Internet for help.

3. Click Yes to grant them access. You can click No, but the point is for them to help, and seeing what you see is a big plus. For you, the Remote Assistance window appears. For the person whom you connected to, a window appears that shows the other

AS K F O R H E LP F R O M AN O N LI N E F R I E N D

person exactly what your desktop looks like. They can also control your desktop through their mouse and keyboard. That way they can see exactly what you see and work with your desktop in exactly the same way you work with it.

Part of the Remote Assistance window is for chatting back and forth. If you have something you want to write, type it in the “Message Entry” area. What your friend types will be in the “Chat History” area. If you have a microphone hooked up, click the Start Talking button. Having the ability to talk while using Remote Assistance is a true bonus. To send a file, click the Send a file button, then find the file you want to send. The person who is helping you now has the ability to poke around in folders to see what is going on. For example, my aunt called today and said my uncle had been messing with the computer and now she couldn’t find her Dial-Up Networking and did I know what to do? Well, my aunt lives in Arkansas, so this Remote Assistance would have really been helpful. (My advice was to forbid my uncle to use the computer again.)

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Prevent a Hostile Takeover The whole idea of someone else coming into your computer can be really scary. What if, like so many self-professed “computer geniuses,” they don’t know what they’re doing? What if they screw things up worse than how they are now? What if they see that I’m running my home business from my workplace? What you do is remove the ability to have someone else take control of your computer. To prevent someone taking control of your computer, follow these steps:

1. Click Start. 2. Click on the Control Panel. 3. Click Performance and Maintenance. 4. Choose System. 5. Select the Remote tab. 6. Click the Advanced button. Look for the check box that says “Allow this computer to be controlled remotely.”

7. Remove the check mark in the box. 8. Click OK. Now your computer cannot be accessed remotely. Even so, this is something you really don’t need to fret over. To take over a computer remotely, you must first send an invitation, then confirm the acceptance of that invitation, and then you can break the connection at any time. So, your computer is not open to sneaky access by anyone without your direct permission.

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Share Applications with Windows Messenger Here’s the question: what’s the difference between application sharing and remote assistance? Anyone? Anyone? Oh, I know the answer! Pick me! Pick ME!!! Ok, what’s the answer? Application sharing is an opportunity to enable one person or a group of people to open the same application (or program) that you have in your computer and share it. Not use it in their computers, but use it to view and change things on your computer. Kind of like group work. Remote assistance allows someone else to take total control of your computer to fix some problem. The difference here is that application sharing gives the other person (or people) control over only a single application. So, for example, I have a program that my publisher lets me use to take screen shots for this book. It’s called FullShot. Dan and I used the Application Sharing feature of Windows Messenger and I enabled him to share FullShot. He went into Fullshot and viewed all the screenshots for this book. Had my Aunt Kathy and my friend Ray been online, they could have also shared in the exciting adventure of looking at my screen shots. You, on the other hand, had to go and buy this book to see them. Dan shared his desktop with me. I changed his desktop background and closed some of the open windows he had. It was a messy desktop! The downside of sharing applications like this is that it’s slow. Looking at Dan’s desktop over a standard modem Internet connection was painfully slow. I assume that if Verizon gets off its butt and gives us our T1 service that we requested 18 months ago, this problem will be solved. But I should point out that the connection and sharing did work, albeit painfully slow. To share an application, follow these steps:

1. Open the application(s) you want to share. 2. Open Windows Messenger, making sure you’re connected to the Internet.

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3. Click on Tools. 4. Choose Send an Invitation ➢ To Start Application Sharing ➢ (pick a name). A notice gives you an opportunity to cancel your offer. I suppose Microsoft understands that opening up your computer to someone else on the Internet is a potentially scary thing. Further, you then see if the person you picked to share your application with has accepted or declined the offer. If everyone agrees to share (like in kindergarten) then the Sharing Session window appears. It takes a few minutes to get everything up and going, so sit back and listen to your computer churn. All of your open applications that are available for sharing are shown in the “Share Programs” pane of the Share window.

5. Choose the program you want to share. 6. Click the Share button. The application you chose to share opens and the person you are sharing the application with sees a window with the title bar, “(Your Name)’s programs.” There isn’t any “loading” message, which would be helpful because this takes a while and it almost looks like it isn’t working, but it is.

7. Click Allow Control to let the other person actually manipulate your program from afar. This is optional, and it’s totally under your control.

O R G A N I Z E A M E E T I N G OV E R T H E I N T E R N E T

Allowing control enables the other person to have control of the application you shared. When you do give the viewer control, the title bar adds the word “controllable” to the window’s name. Now the other viewer can open your folders or files or work with the program that is being shared (provided they have control). If they don’t have control, then you’ll have to do the work of opening and working with the program and they can watch. Sit in silence and just watch.

N O T E You can immediately grab control back by clicking the mouse or by pressing just about any key on the keyboard. This instantly halts the other person’s control.

When you are finished with your sharing, click Unshare and then close the application.

N O T E While you’re sharing, keep the Windows Messenger window open so that you can chat. In fact, if you’ve turned on voice chat, you can talk with each other as you share the application. This helps iron things out and lets you work together more efficiently. And it’s fun.

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Organize a Meeting over the Internet Windows XP has a program called NetMeeting, which enables folks to participate in meetings using audio, video, or the chat feature. In fact, here is a list of all the goodies you can do with NetMeeting:

Share programs. One person can have the program and all the participants can work on a document simultaneously. You can also send and receive files to work on.

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Talk to other people who are in a different location.

Use a video camera to see other people while you are working (very James Bond-ish). Even if you can’t transmit a video, you can still receive a video call.

Use a shared application to work with others.

Send files to other people. They can view the files, work on them, and send them back.

Draw with others with a shared whiteboard. Good for visual examples where diagrams must be drawn.

Send messages using Chat. With Chat, you can talk to several people at one time. Chat calls can even be encrypted to ensure your covert meetings are private.

Yes, it’s all very cool. Does this all sound familiar? Doesn’t this sound like all the stuff you’ve been doing in the last few sections? Yes, it does. Very good, you’ve been paying attention. For lack of a better explanation, NetMeeting combines all the other tools like Windows Messenger, Whiteboard, File Transfers, and Application sharing, and puts them all in a little professional looking package called NetMeeting. You’re going to get the five-minute tour here because after reading the beginning part of this section, you will be pretty proficient in working with all of these tools and they all work pretty much the same in NetMeeting as they do individually or with Windows Messenger.

Set Up What You Need before You Start Before you start, you must have a microphone if you want to use some of the NetMeeting options (but it’s not required for using NetMeeting). And you must have an Internet connection.


U S I N G A N D I N S TA L L I N G Y O U R M I C R O P H O N E

All PCs have a jack in the back of the computer into which you can plug a microphone. Any cheap microphone from Radio Shack will do. To install your microphone, plug the microphone into the “Mic” jack on the back of your computer. You’re done.

Set Up NetMeeting NetMeeting requires you to give the computer some information and to check some sound levels of your microphone before you actually get to use this whole process. To open NetMeeting, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose All Programs. 3. Choose Accessories. 4. Choose Communications. 5. Choose NetMeeting.

N O T E After you initially log in, you will see the NetMeeting window appear. If you are signing in for the first time, you have more stuff to do.

The welcome screen appears.

6. Click Next. 7. Enter all that personal stuff that is required. Click Next. 8. The information you input in the last screen is used for a directory, so that others who are on NetMeeting can see who is logged on, too. You can check the “Log on to a directory server” option or “Do not list my name in the directory.” This provides protection for those of you who

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do not wish others to know you’re lurking about. Make your choice by clicking the check box next to an option, and then click Next.

9. Choose your modem speed. Notice, too, that the last option, “Local Area Network,” is for a network system. Networks can be created either in an office setting or your home. Dan and I have all of our computers networked together. It’s geeky, I know. But if the idea appeals to you, Sections 35 through 42 tell you everything you need to know. Click Next.

10. The “I’m forcing you to be organized” screen is next. You can choose either option or neither option. Your choice. I don’t recommend both, because what’s the point. Click next to one of these options to get rid of one of the check marks. Click Next.

N O T E The Quick Launch Bar is toolbar that offers quick access to any programs you decide to put there. It’s located on the taskbar, just to the right of the Start button.

11. The audio tuning setting is next. Close your CD player or anything else on your computer that has a sound device on it. Click Next.

12. If you have speakers or headphones, make sure they are connected, and then click the Test button. Cool sound. Click on the volume lever and move it to make the sound louder or softer. Click Stop when you’re finished hearing the drumbeat and click Next.

13. Your microphone must be working properly in order for any verbal communication to be heard. Check the microphone level, click on the tab under “Record Volume” and then speak the script that is offered. You can see the green, yellow, and red lines going across the screen, indicating that something is going on. Click Next.

14. The “you’ve done it” window appears. Click Finish. After you click the Finish button, NetMeeting puts the icon wherever you told it to put it (either on the desktop or on the Quick Launch bar) and gets you ready for the next step, using the system.

15. Click the Connect box in the Network Connections dialog box. The prompt question “Don’t ask me again until the next time I log on” is


offered. You may want to go ahead and click the check box next to this unless you’re one of those that constantly changes your Internet Connections service. Click Connect if your Internet service is listed there.

16. More questions. Is this user name and password available to anyone (do you want to share) or not? Click the check box next to your choice and then click Dial. You may be able to hear the gentle beeping of your modem working, and then, wow, you’re ready to go.

Start a NetMeeting If you are continuing along from the original sign up stage, you will continue with this. If you have previously signed up with NetMeeting and are just now starting the program, here is what you should do. To start NetMeeting, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose All Programs. 3. Choose Accessories. 4. Choose Communications. 5. Choose NetMeeting.

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Someone (the Host) has to initiate the meeting, and whoever does initiate a NetMeeting is the one who will control what programs are shared and what will happen. Everyone is just participating in what you want to do. Nice, eh? That’s called control!

Host a Meeting To host a meeting, follow these steps:

1. Click the Call button on the menu bar. 2. Choose Host Meeting.

As the host, you decide what happens. You can decide and choose what the meeting password will be (because you may not want those snobby marketing types to jump into the meeting). Look around and pay attention to the middle of the window. This is where you can decide whether you want to be the only one calling the shots in this meeting. Only you can accept incoming calls (if you so choose) and only you can place outgoing calls (if you so choose). Notice the Meeting Tools at the bottom. Again, your choice. If you click or change anything in this window, click OK when you’re finished.

Do Not Disturb “I’m in a meeting!!!” “Please hold my calls, I can’t be bothered now!”


“No, I can’t make Jeremiah give you his Game Boy right now, I’m in a meeting!” (That one is from my real life.) To put up a Do Not Disturb message during your meetings, follow these steps:

1. Click on Call. 2. Choose Do Not Disturb. 3. Clicking OK means that you will not be able to receive any calls until you turn off the Do Not Disturb sign.

4. Click Cancel if you change your mind here. Make the First Call How you make your call is up to you. You can choose:

E-Mail

Telephone

Local Network

N O T E If you use the telephone, you must have a microphone, or this will not work.

To contact someone using NetMeeting, follow these steps:

1. In the Address bar, type one of the following:

E-mail address

Computer name

Telephone number

IP address

2. Click the Place Call button. If NetMeeting can’t figure out what kind of call you are making, the Place a Call window appears. You will have to supply the “To” information, like a phone number, an e-mail address, or a computer name. Then click the down arrow and choose one of the options in the Using list. Click Call.

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What happens from this point on depends on what you want to do. You can continue selecting people to join the your meeting.

Share, Chat, Send, Whiteboard The bottom of the NetMeeting window has four buttons that represent Share Program, Chat, Whiteboard, and Transfer files. To use Chat, follow these steps:

1. Click the Chat button. The Place a Call window appears.

2. Type a message in the Message area. 3. Click Send To and choose who you want to send the message to. Your choices are either “Everyone In Chat” or just one person’s name.

4. Click the Send Message button (or you can press Enter).

To use Whiteboard, follow these steps:

1. Click on the Whiteboard button.

S E T U P A F I R E WA L L

2. Start drawing! To find out more about the Whiteboard, read Section 94, “Play with a Whiteboard.” To share a program, follow these steps:

1. Open any program or document you want to share. 2. Click the Share program button. The Sharing window appears.

3. Click on the program or document you want to share. 4. Click the Share button. You can control whether your friends just look at your program or whether they actually get to mess with your program. The Allow Control button at the bottom of this window is the deciding factor. To transfer files, follow these steps:

1. Click the Transfer Files button. 2. Click the Add File button in the File Transfer window. 3. Click on the file you want to send. 4. Click the name of the person you want to send the file to, or you can choose All to send the file to everyone in the meeting.

5. Click the Send All button. I found NetMeeting to be a lot of fun and I could see how it would save a ton of money in airplane costs if businesses actually started using this feature.

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Set Up a Firewall Egads! No fires, please! To anyone familiar with construction, a firewall is a specially designed barrier. For example, a four-hour firewall takes about four hours to burn

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through, meaning that a building designed with such walls would be relatively fireproof or at least fire-safe enough to get everyone out in time for the firemen to arrive. The term “firewall” is also used with computers, but with regard to online security and not really anything to do with whether or not the computer actually catches fire. I mean, it would be ridiculous to assume that one could sit and continue working for another four hours while the CPU is ablaze. A computer firewall is simply security, either hardware or software, that separates the authorized from the unauthorized. It’s required when something as valuable as all the information on your hard drive could be up for grabs to anyone on the Internet. The firewall filters all requests for information, stomping out the illegitimate ones while allowing the legitimate ones to pass on through. As with “break” and “default,” it’s not the most appropriate term to describe what it does, but it works. You don’t need a firewall for phone line Internet activity. This doesn’t mean that an Internet attack won’t happen, just that it’s unlikely; those who do the attacking are really looking for full-time Internet access over cable or DSL modems, not phone lines. So, in the case of Windows, using a firewall makes the most sense with Internet Connection Sharing. Even so, you can add firewall protection to any Internet connection. To add firewall protection to your Internet connection, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start button. 2. Choose the Control Panel. 3. Choose “Network and Internet Connections.” 4. Choose “Network Connections.” The Network Connections window appears. Your Internet connections are listed in the “Dial-up” section.

5. Click to select your Internet connection. If you use more then one Internet connection, you can repeat the following steps for each connection.

6. In the “Network Tasks” panel, choose “Change settings of this connection.” The Internet connection’s dialog box appears.

P L AY G A M E S W I T H I N T E R N E T F R I E N D S

7. Click the Advanced tab. 8. Click to put a check mark in the check box by “Protect my computer and network by limiting or preventing access to this computer from the Internet.” And that’s it. If the box already has a check mark in it, then you’re all set.

9. Click OK. 10. Close the Network Connections window. The firewall protection offered by Windows is good, but not the best. Better solutions exist. Especially if you’re using a cable modem or DSL connection, contact your ISP about hardware and software firewalls you can implement to ensure the security of your computer system and network.

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Play Games with Internet Friends I’m not sure if playing games is done with Internet friends or just Internet opponents. Oftentimes when I’m online playing a game, I’ve no idea who the heck it is on the other line. I remember being just about to clobber someone in checkers and then—poof!—they logged off, leaving me a hollow victory. Anyway… Windows comes with an assortment of its own online games. These are played through the MSN network’s Zone.com. Even so, you do not have to be a member of MSN or do anything with MSN or Zone.com to play the games. To play one of Windows’ online games, follow these steps:

1. Connect to the Internet, if you aren’t already. I won’t go into the paradox of attempting to play an Internet game while not connected to the Internet.

2. Start an Internet game.

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These are all kept on the Start menu. Choose All Programs ➢ Games and then one of the Internet games, which all coincidentally start with the word “Internet”:

Internet Backgammon

Internet Checkers

Internet Hearts

Internet Reversi

Internet Spades

Obviously, you should be versed in these games before you attempt to play; the games are not a learning forum.

3. Click the Play button. Windows connects you to other players who then have a go with you. The games work like any other computer games, with the exception that you’re playing with one to three other opponents (depending on the game), opponents who could be anyone. (Yes, that’s right, you cannot pick and choose whom you play against.) It is possible to perform limited chat activity with the others playing your game. This is done through a drop-down list of preset comments, putdowns and exclamations. Alas, you cannot add to the list; I suppose Microsoft is trying to make their Internet games a true competitive form as opposed to a place for picking up chicks. Quit the game when you’re done, either because you win triumphantly, lose cowardly, or simply decide to drop your Internet connection and bail outta there. Then you can choose another game to play.

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N O T E There are other online games you can play in addition to those supplied with Windows. For example, Yahoo! offers a host of games, including “friendly” gambling games like Poker and Blackjack, which you play with fake money. You must sign up for a Yahoo! account, which costs nothing, and then click the Games link on Yahoo!’s title page to play one of a variety of games. And unlike Windows Internet games, you can really chat with fellow players in a Yahoo online game.

a Photo As an E-Mail 100Send Attachment in Less Than a Minute Nothing is more disappointing than sitting and waiting (and waiting) for a very, very large e-mail attachment to download, only to find out that it’s a very, very large TIFF image of someone’s cat. Disappointing isn’t the word to describe it. No, perhaps, dismal would be a better word. There are good ways and bad ways to send e-mail attachments. The bad way is just to send a file without paying attention to its size or format. Sure, you may be blessed with a fast Internet connection, and you may not notice the file size, but people with plain old telephones notice anything over 300K, which typically takes longer than a minute to download. And then there’s the file format. Just because you can see the image on your screen doesn’t mean everyone else on earth will. This is why common file formats were created (see Section 21). So here’s the secret: Anyone with a Windows computer can view a JPG image. These images are also compressed, which means they take up much less space than a TIFF image, which is the format used by most photo editing (scanner/digital camera) software.

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Unfortunately, I have to be vague here; Windows doesn’t come with any image creation or editing software that offers a true degree of control over the image being saved. So while the Paint program does let you open graphics files in one format and save them in another, you need something meatier. I assume that if you’re creating such images, you have the programs. To e-mail an image, follow these steps:

1. Open or acquire the image you want to e-mail. If the image is already saved to disk, open it. Otherwise, use your graphic editing program to acquire the image from the scanner or digital camera.

2. Choose a Zoom setting that shows the image at 100% or actual size. You need to see the image as it will appear on the screen, not “zoomed out.” Remember that it’s disappointing to receive an image that’s larger than your screen—and it’s a waste of disk space, especially for an e-mail photo.

3. Resize the image so that it looks good on the screen. This is a subjective measurement. I like to resize images so that they’re anywhere from 300 to 400 pixels wide. That looks about as big as a typical 3-by-5 photograph on my monitor, so I can assume that it will appear either slightly larger or smaller on other monitors.

4. Save the image as a JPEG file. You may need to choose JPEG from the “Save As Type” drop-down list at the bottom of the Save As dialog box. Or you may have to choose some sort of Export command to select the JPEG format. It’s different in each program, but the bottom line is to save your picture as a JPEG-formatted file, which takes up less disk space and therefore takes less time to download.

N O T E There is no need to choose a high compression value for your JPG image. If you’re given the option, choose a middle-to-high value for compression, from 6 to 8. Nothing higher is needed for an e-mailed photo.

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5. Attach the photo to your e-mail message (which is explained in the following section). That’s it. As a JPEG, the image will send in no time at all. If you’ve followed the instructions as outlined in this section, then the file should be anywhere from 30K to 80K in size.

Attach the Picture Attaching anything—a picture, a letter, a song—is all handled the same way. To attach a picture, follow these steps:

1. Open your e-mail program. Outlook Express comes with Windows XP. You can find Outlook by clicking Start ➢ All Programs ➢ Outlook Express. Or there’s also usually an icon on your Quick Launch bar or your desktop.

2. Write an e-mail message. 3. Click the button that looks like a paperclip and has the word Attach below it.

4. The Insert Attachment box appears. Use the arrow key in the Look In box to find the file you want to attach.

5. Click Attach when you’ve found your file. The Attach line is added to your New Message box with the name of the file you selected.

6. Click Send. And your message and your picture are whisked off into Internet land.

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a Joke Folder for 101Make Outlook Express It’s not just a Joke folder you can make, it’s any folder. The idea is to be organized. Outlook Express gives you an Inbox for e-mail received and read; an Outbox for e-mail waiting to be sent; a Sent Items folder for items already sent; a Deleted Items folder, and a Drafts folder. But there can be more! For example, you may want to create a Jokes folder for all the various and sundry jokes people send you over and over again. To create a Jokes folder in Outlook Express, follow these steps:

1. Click Local Folders to select Local Folders in the Folders list. The Folders list appears on the left side of Outlook Express’s window. If you cannot see it, choose View ➢ Layout, then in the Window Layout Properties dialog box, ensure that there is a check mark by Folder List. Click OK.

2. Choose File ➢ New ➢ Folder. The Create Folder dialog box appears, ready for you to name and create a new folder.

3. Type Jokes. Or you can type any name for any category of e-mail. For example, an “Online orders” folder for the things you buy online; “Business” for business e-mail; a folder for your ISP and any correspondence you receive from them; and so on.

4. Click OK. The Jokes folder is created and is placed in the list of folders, ready to be filled with Internet jocularity.

M A K E A J O K E F O L D E R F O R O U T LO O K E X P R E S S

Use the Folder Outlook Express is configured to automatically use its basic folders, Inbox, Outbox, Sent Items, Deleted Items, and Drafts. It’s up to you to make use of any new folders you created. This is done by moving e-mail from the Inbox to one of those new folders, such as Jokes. To store a mail message in a specific folder, drag the message from the Inbox to that folder. You have to view the Inbox; you cannot drag the message if you’re viewing the message in its own window. The secret is to use the envelope icon in the “From” column to drag: grab that icon with the mouse and drag the message over to the new folder.

Store the Message in a Specific Folder Messages can be stored automatically in a specific folder by creating a Message Rule based on the message subject or the person who sends the message. This isn’t appropriate for all types of messages, but it can help presort your e-mail by dividing up known e-mail into specific folders. For example, suppose all e-mail from “Dr. Fred” goes into your Apothecary folder. To set up special folder rules, follow these steps:

1. Select a message in the Inbox. The message forms the basis for the new rule, so in this example it would be a message from Dr. Fred. Or it could be any type of message that you would consistently place into a specific folder.

2. Choose message ➢ Create Rule From Message. The New Mail Rule dialog box appears, as shown in the following figure. The options in steps 2 and 3 depend upon choices made in step 1. As you can see, there is a wide selection of options, allowing you to customize what happens to the message, why, and how.

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3. Ensure that there is a check mark by “Where the From line contains people.” Check the Rule Description in item 3 (near the bottom of the dialog box). The person’s name, or e-mail handle, is listed. The rule so far reads something like: Where the From line contains ‘[email protected]’

You’re telling Outlook Express to look for such messages; now you need to tell Outlook Express what to do with those messages.

4. Choose “Move it to the specified folder” from area 2. Of course, you haven’t specified a folder yet.

5. Click the word “specified” in area 3. A Move dialog box appears.

6. Choose the proper folder from the list in the dialog box. 7. Click OK. Now the rule should be complete—and understandable. On my screen it reads:

M A K E A J O K E F O L D E R F O R O U T LO O K E X P R E S S

Where the From line contains ‘[email protected]’Move it to the Apothecary folder. (You created this folder especially for Dr.

Fred’s stuff.) If any adjustments need to be made, you can click an underlined word and enter new or different information.

8. Type a name for the rule. This helps you recognize the rule later should you wish to edit or delete it. In this case, I’m typing “Dr. Fred Rule” in the text box.

9. Click OK. A message box tells you that the rule was added.

10. Click OK. Outlook Express obeys your rule the next time a message matching the rule’s description is encountered.

N O T E To remove or edit a rule, choose Tools ➢ Message Rules ➢ Mail. Locate your message in the list and select it. Click the Modify button to edit the rule; click the Remove button to delete it.

Make a Subfolder Like folders on the hard drive, your folders in Outlook Express can have subfolders and even sub-subfolders. For example, the Jokes folder can have a Cute subfolder, a Pictures subfolder, even a Dirty subfolder; all used to further organize your e-mail. To create a new subfolder, follow these steps:

1. Click to select the parent folder, the folder in which you want to create the subfolder.

2. Choose File ➢ New ➢ Folder. 3. Type the folder name. 4. Click OK. You can also create a subfolder quickly by right-clicking on its parent and choosing “New Folder” from the pop-up menu.

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102Play with a Media Bar Windows Media Player is cool, but there’s also something entertaining that comes with Microsoft Internet Explorer called the Media Bar. No, it’s not a button you click for an instant gin and tonic. No, the Media Bar is a way to listen to Media files and Internet radio stations while you browse the Web. To find the Media Bar, follow these steps:

1. Open Internet Explorer (Start ➢ All Programs ➢ Internet Explorer). 2. Click on the Media button, located near the Favorites button.

N O T E If for some reason you don’t see the Media button, right-click the menu bar and choose Customize. Look for the Media button in the list under “Available toolbar buttons.” Click the Add button to add it to your list of current toolbar buttons.

The Media Bar, WindowsMedia.com, opens on the left of your screen.

Use the scroll button on the right side of this media window to find the goodies located described in the following sections. You can also click on the down arrows next to the headings “Today,” “Music,” “Movies,” and “Radio” to find links to even more information.

A D D A N OT H E R E - M A I L AC C O U N T TO O U T LO O K E X P R E S S

Play a Radio Station Do you love or hate Rush Limbaugh? Or how about both? You can listen to Rush or Dr. Laura or anyone you love or hate while you work. To play a radio station using the Media bar, follow these steps:

1. Open Internet Explorer. 2. Click Media on the toolbar. 3. On The Media Places menu, click Radio Guide. 4. Select the radio station that you want to listen to. 5. Click Play. You can continue to have fun by clicking the Movies, Music, MSN Music, or Today bar. This is all just a collection of Web sites that play music. What fun!

Another E-Mail 103Add Account to Outlook Express Do you remember when cell phones first came out? Before then, no one ever gave a thought to having multiple phone numbers. You had a home number and maybe a work number. That was it. But now! Oh, the numbers we have to memorize for our friends and relatives. It’s insane! The next trend, of course, will be multiple e-mail addresses. You might already be one of those who have several addresses. First there is your main address, most likely the first e-mail account you went out and got. Add to that your e-mail address at work. Then maybe you have an e-mail account on Yahoo! or Hotmail. And then there’s that secret e-mail account you got at another ISP, the one you just tell your special friends or business associates about. With all those e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and fax numbers, I predict that the business card of the future will be a full sheet of paper! Anyway, no matter how many e-mail addresses you have, Outlook Express can manage them all. As long as you specify the e-mail account’s name,

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password, and mail server, you can fetch e-mail from a number of sources in a single Outlook Express session. You can even send e-mail from several accounts in Outlook Express. It’s all handled quite efficiently and works well—providing you have all the necessary details required to set things up. The following sections discuss configuring Outlook Express to work with multiple e-mail accounts. Note that these must be true e-mail accounts or Hotmail accounts. Outlook Express cannot manage other Web-based e-mail accounts (such as Yahoo!) or AOL e-mail accounts. It’s assumed that you have the necessary information for each e-mail account—name, password, domain, and server names.

Add Another E-Mail Account To tell Outlook Express about your new e-mail account, follow these steps:

1. Choose Tools ➢ Accounts. The Internet Accounts dialog box appears. This is where Outlook Express stores information about various network accounts you have, both Internet and local area network, as shown in the following figure.

2. Click the Mail tab. This part of the dialog box shows your e-mail accounts, which was configured either when you first set up Windows XP or when you ran the Internet Connection Wizard. The typical user has only one item here, your main e-mail account. You’re about to add another e-mail account to the list.

3. Click the Add button. 4. Choose Mail from the Add button’s menu.

A D D A N OT H E R E - M A I L AC C O U N T TO O U T LO O K E X P R E S S

Ah! The Internet Connection Wizard again. But this is an abbreviated form of the Wizard designed only to configure a new e-mail account.

5. Enter your display name. This is the name that appears whenever you send e-mail. It’s placed into the “From” field when you are composing a new mail message. Obviously, that should be your name, unless you want to use your secret identity (for example if you’re also a superhero). Yes, it’s okay to use the same name for all of your e-mail accounts. There is no need to create a new name, unless that’s specifically what you want to do.

6. Click the Next button. 7. Enter your e-mail address for the new account. The Wizard may automatically stick your current address into the text box. You should provide the return e-mail address for the new account. For example, if your existing account is [email protected] and your new account is [email protected], then you would type the new account name into this text box.

8. Click the Next button. 9. Enter the new e-mail account’s server information; make choices and fill in the text boxes according to the information supplied by your ISP.

10. Click the Next button. 11. Enter your account name. This is the name you must use to log in to the ISP. It’s usually the same as your e-mail name (before the @ sign).

12. Enter the password for the new e-mail account. Optionally, you can click the “Remember password” check box. If you do, you won’t be bugged for the password again—which is a good thing. (And this check box works only if you use a password to get into Windows XP.)

13. Click the Next button. 14. Click Finish. The new account appears in addition to your existing e-mail account. They will both be checked by Outlook Express the next time you go to send e-mail.

15. Click Close.

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Check E-Mail from All Accounts There’s nothing different you need to do for checking e-mail from your various online accounts; Outlook Express does it automatically. The only thing you can do is specifically check a mail server by choosing it from the Send/Recv button’s menu. (Or you can choose the server from the Tools ➢ Send and Receive submenu.) That directs Outlook Express to specifically check one server. Otherwise, all of them are checked whenever you’ve scheduled Outlook Express to do so. There is no easy way to tell whether e-mail came from one server or another. The only way to know for certain is to view the details on a message and check for the server’s name in the ugly e-mail header. To check the ugly e-mail header, follow these steps:

1. Open an e-mail message. For example, double-click some piece of mail in your Inbox. Make sure that it’s a message directed to you—not spam, an advertisement, a newsletter, or any e-mail that’s sent out to a lot of people. It must have your name in the “To” field.

2. Choose File ➢ Properties. 3. Click the Details tab. A dialog box appears showing your message “in the raw.” If you look through the crap, eventually you’ll find the original “To” field, which contains the e-mail address to which the message was sent. That’s your clue as to which server delivered the message.

S ET U P A N EWS G R O U P AC C O U NT

4. Click OK to close the message’s Properties dialog box. 5. Close the message.

Send E-Mail from a Specific Account When you’re configured for multiple e-mail accounts, you get to choose the account from which you want to send a message. This is done using the arrow on the far right side of the “From” field in a new message window. By clicking that arrow, a drop-down list appears from which you can choose the e-mail account you want to use to send the message. Does it make a difference? Probably not. But, for example, suppose that I have a private e-mail account I give out only to my important contacts. And I want my important contacts to reply to that account as well. If so, I’ll choose it when I send a message. That way, when they reply, their message will be sent to the proper e-mail account. That’s the best example I can come up with. Note that you need not be connected to the ISP whose e-mail server you’re using. For example, you can log into the Alpha ISP and then receive e-mail from the Beta ISP’s e-mail server, then later send e-mail from that server as well. This works as long as you’re using the Beta ISP’s mail server with a valid account and password.

Up a Newsgroup 104Set Account Newsgroups are an older part of the Internet, far older than the World Wide Web. At one point, they were all the rage. Everyone had a stack of newsgroups they visited, similar to the Web sites we visit today. Recently, however, newsgroups have lost their glamour. Web sites, specifically Web message boards, have taken their place. Even so, newsgroups still exist and can offer some information or amusement.

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In the beginning, newsgroups were created so that groups of people could exchange messages. For example, scientists from all over the world could post messages (like public e-mail) and exchange information on some hot scientific topic. About the time AOL first became popular in the early ’90s, the newsgroups were suddenly flooded with average people and advertisers (spammers). So, where you might have had one group of scientists discussing earthquakes, into the mix would come advertisements for porn, get-rich-quick schemes, AOL users asking for help, and the usual assortment of fruits and nuts who eventually drove the scientists away. Today newsgroups exist to discuss a variety of subjects and share information. They are utterly unregulated; while some groups do have moderators and filter their messages, most groups are open to posts from anyone, which degrades the quality of the information.

Grab the Groups Outlook Express is your newsgroup reading program for Windows XP. This makes a lot of sense, given that newsgroups work similarly to e-mail: posting a message to a newsgroup is similar to e-mailing a friend. And newsgroup messages are read just like notes in your e-mail Inbox. Before you access the groups, you must connect to a newsgroup or NNTP server. This may or may not be provided by your ISP. Some ISPs offer newsgroups, but many don’t. That’s because newsgroups are unregulated and, as such, are a hotbed of illegal software and pornography. (Two good reasons to make sure your kids don’t go wandering off into newsgroups.) Outlook Express may have been configured to access the newsgroups when you first configured Windows for the Internet. If so, then you’ll see the news server listed below the last mailbox in the Folders list. It looks something like news.newserver.com or similar. If it’s not there, then you’ll need to find a news server and add it to the list of servers. To add a news server in Outlook Express, follow these steps:

1. Choose Tools ➢ Accounts. 2. Click the News tab. 3. Click the Add button.


4. Choose the “News” item. Ah. Another Wizard. Whaddyaknow.

5. Enter your screen name. This is the name that appears whenever you post a message to a newsgroup.

6. Click the Next button. 7. Enter your e-mail address. This is the address others can respond to, should they elect to send you e-mail from one of your newsgroup posts.

8. Click the Next button. 9. Enter the name of the newsgroup (NNTP) server. Your ISP should have supplied this. Otherwise, you can enter the name of a public domain newsgroup server. Use Google or Yahoo to search for public domain newsgroup (or NNTP) servers.

10. Click the Next button. 11. Click Finished. The Internet Accounts dialog box appears, showing the news server you just added.

12. Click Close. Of course, you’re not finished. Now that you’ve told Outlook Express about the newsgroup server, it will make contact with the server and attempt to download the complete list of newsgroups. Presently there are about 35,000 English-language newsgroups.

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13. Click Yes. You do want to download the list now. And this will take some time. Go get some coffee.

After the groups are loaded, you can choose which to subscribe to, which is covered in the next section.

14. Click OK to close the Newsgroup Subscriptions window.

Subscribe to Newsgroups You cannot read any newsgroup messages unless you first subscribe to the newsgroup. To subscribe to a newsgroup, follow these steps:

1. Select the newsgroup server. It’s listed in the Folders list in Outlook Express, right below the last e-mail box.

2. Click the Newsgroups button. The Newsgroups Subscriptions dialog box appears. This lists all the newsgroups available on your news server. There will doubtless be a lot of them. You can scroll through the list to read them all, which can take time, but most of the time it’s easier to search through the list for the groups you want.


For example, suppose you want to join one of the many television show newsgroups, say, Star Trek.

3. Type star trek into the “Display newsgroups which contain” text box. Instantly, the list of newsgroups narrows to display only those containing the text “star trek,” which is all of the Star Trek news groups. Quite a few. To subscribe to a group, such as alt.startrek.klingon, click to select that group and then click the Subscribe button. Continue to select groups in this manner. To redisplay the entire list of newsgroups, erase the text in the “Display newsgroups which contain” text box. You can also browse the list, although it is quite long. You’ll notice that there is a sort of hierarchy to the newsgroups. Most of the good ones start with alt or rec and the computer newsgroups start with comp. The prefix is followed by descriptive words separated by periods. For example, the comp.os.ms-windows.* series of groups have discussion topics about various Windows versions and issues. Want to discuss HTML? Look up “html.” Want to discuss Bobby Sherman? Oops! You’re out of luck, because there are no Bobby Sherman groups. Try alt.fan.teen.idols.

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4. Click the OK button when you’re done subscribing. This returns you to the Outlook Express window, where you see your subscribed groups listed below the news server’s name in the Folders list.

Read Newsgroups The most important thing to be aware of about reading newsgroups is that no one is in charge. The quality of information is questionable. The spam and hate mail is great. Porn, viruses, and Trojan horse programs are prevalent. Be wary, but have fun!

N O T E Outlook Express is set up to receive only 300 message “headers” at a time. To set this value higher, choose Tools ➢ Options. Click the Read tab, and in the News pane of the dialog box, change the “Get” value to something higher than 300. I typically set this to 1000 for some of the busier groups. Why is this important? Because you can typically get over 300 messages from a newsgroup. This doesn’t mean you have to read them all; it just means that a lot of people are posting messages about your chosen topic.

To read a newsgroup and fetch new messages, click on the newsgroup’s name in the Folder list. As with your e-mail boxes, new messages appear on the top right part of the window. Click once to read any message in the list. The message’s contents appear in the bottom part of the window. Note that some messages have a plus sign beside them. These are messages with replies (called threads). You can click the plus to read the threads.

N O T E As you become familiar with a group, you may recognize certain “posters” who offer legitimate or useful advice. You can sort the messages by the “From” column; click the “From” heading and all the messages sort themselves. Then you can read only messages from certain posters.


You don’t have to read all of the messages! If you tire of sifting through messages, you can mark them all as read: Choose Edit ➢ Mark All Read. This tells Outlook Express to treat every message as if you’ve read it, which means that message won’t be displayed again when you visit the newsgroup next time—kind of like deleting the message (although you cannot delete newsgroup messages, only mark them as read). Some newsgroups are very, very busy. After reading the messages in the group, you can check to see if there are any additional messages you may have missed while you were reading. To do so, choose Tools ➢ Get Next 300 Headers. (The value of 300 may be higher or lower, depending on how you’ve set your newsgroup options.) This tells Outlook Express to go out to the news server and fetch another batch of messages.

Post to a Newsgroup You don’t have to post to a newsgroup. In fact, it’s estimated that 90 percent of the people who browse the newsgroups never post. (They’re called “lurkers” in geek-speak.) That’s okay! I’m a lurker myself. But sometimes it’s fun to post, especially if it’s a heated conversation and you just can’t help telling some wannabe Net god that he’s a doody-head.

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Or, better still, you can practice posting on any of the various test newsgroups. First, you need to subscribe to the test newsgroup, then you can post. To subscribe to the alt.test newsgroup, follow these steps:

1. Click to select your news (NNTP) server in the Folders list. 2. Click the Newsgroups button. 3. Type alt.test into the text box. There will probably be several matches found; there are many testing groups. The one you’re after is the alt.test group.

4. Select the alt.test group. 5. Click the Subscribe button. 6. Click OK. Now alt.test appears in the list of newsgroups. To see the messages there, click to select alt.test in the list. Outlook Express will go out and fetch the new messages, probably a whole heck of a lot of them. This is one of the busiest newsgroups, though it contains nothing but test messages. You’re about to add to the havoc. (On my screen, I see that the alt.test group currently has over 50,000 messages.)

N O T E Don’t bother reading the messages here. Truly, they are all tests and very boring.

To post a message to the group, follow these steps:

1. Click the New Post button on the toolbar. Your standard New Message window appears. Note that the To field now says Newsgroups and it’s already filled in with the alt.text group. Yes, posting to a newsgroup is just like sending e-mail. Exactly like it, in fact.

2. Type My Test for Sandy’s new book as the subject. 3. Type Testing. Sandy’s book is cool. as the message content. 4. Click the Send button.


The dialog box speaks the truth: your message takes a while to fling through the ether and get back to your ISP’s news server. In fact, I should point out that there is no master news server computer anywhere. The messages on the news fling from computer to computer all over the Internet. Unlike e-mail or instant messages, sometimes it takes days for a newsgroup message to completely circle the earth.

5. Click OK to close the Post News dialog box. (If you plan on posting quite a bit, click to put a check mark in the “Don’t show me this again” check box.)

Reply to a Newsgroup In addition to posting, you can also reply to a message. You have two options here: you can reply via e-mail to the person who posted the message, or you can post your reply to everyone on the newsgroup. They work similarly, with the exception that one reply is sent privately and the other publicly. To reply to the message sender via e-mail, click the Reply button on the toolbar. A standard e-mail reply window appears, with the To and Subject fields filled in, and with the original message quoted. Simply type your reply and click the Send button to instantly send the e-mail. To reply to the newsgroup, click the Reply Group button. Again, you see a standard e-mail reply window, but this time the reply is being sent to the entire newsgroup instead of an individual—just like posting a new message, although the Subject field is already filled in and the original message is quoted for your convenience. Click the Send button to post the reply to the newsgroup.

Unsubscribe It’s simple to unsubscribe from a newsgroup. And it’s a stealthy thing too; the readers of alt.dorks won’t suddenly miss you or deluge your e-mail inbox with requests to resubscribe. No, unsubscribing is quick and silent, and no one knows but your computer.

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To unsubscribe from a newsgroup, right-click that group in the Folders list. Choose Unsubscribe from the pop-up menu. You may be asked to confirm your choice; click OK. That’s it! And if the mood hits you again, you can always resubscribe to the newsgroup, as described earlier in this section.

INDEX Note to the Reader: Page numbers in bold indicate the principle discussion of a topic or the definition of a term.

Symbols ? buttons, 192–193

A accounts e-mail accounts adding, 327–329 checking mail servers for, 330–331 sending e-mail from specific, 331 .NET Passport accounts changing, 280 defined, 67, 185, 278 setting up, 278–279 signing up for, 185–186 warning, 279 user accounts accessing, 32 adding, 57–58 Administrator accounts, 57, 59 changing account pictures, 32–33 changing account types, 59 changing ways to log in/out, 60–61 deleting, 61 Limited accounts, 57 modifying, 58–61 overview of, 57 removing passwords, 59–60 switching between, 62–63 Add or Remove Programs dialog box, 34–36 Administrator accounts, 57, 59 Alt+Print Screen keys, 145

antivirus. See viruses application sharing, 305–307, See also programs archives. See compressed folders ASCII format. See plain text format associations, file, 101–103 audio. See entertainment; sound Automatic Windows Update, 199–200

B bookmarking favorites, 182–183, 197 burning CDs. See CDs business. See home and business

C Calculator program Help, 194–195 CDs, See also entertainment burning audio quality control, 94–95 file format settings, 95–96 items needed for, 93 overview of, 92–93 playlist size and, 93 steps in, 93–94 warning, 93 CD-R disks/drives, 93 CD-RW drives, 93 copying/storing music from, 82–85 playing music on, 76–79 chat, See also instant messages; sound features in NetMeeting, 308, 314

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C O L L A B O R AT I O N T O O L S — D E S K T O P S

in online games, 318 in Remote Assistance, 302–303 while sharing applications, 307 collaboration tools, See also instant messages; NetMeeting Application Sharing, 305–307 Internet Phone calls, 291–293 online games, 317–319 Remote Assistance, 301–305 whiteboards, 299–301, 314–315 Compatibility Wizard, Program, 200–203 compressed folders, 256–276 adding files to, 258–259 compressed file formats, 267 creating from existing folders, 268–269 new folders, 257–258, 259 using WinRAR utility, 270–274 using WinZIP utility, 270 e-mailing, 265–266 extracting files from, 259–261 graphics files and, 267 MP3/MPEG files and, 267 opening files in, 275 overview of, 256 password-protection for adding, 264 opening protected folders, 265 overview of, 263 removing, 265 versus regular folders, 258 right-clicking on, 275–276 running media files from, 275 storing old projects in, 262–263 using WinRAR utility creating archives, 271–274 defined, 270–271 e-mailing archives, 274 Extract commands, 276

pinning to Start menu, 271 RAR versus ZIP formats, 270, 273 working with files in, 274–275 zip files and, 256, 267, 270, 271 computers, See also maintenance; personalizing keeping documentation, 152 naming, 116–117 printing documentation, 174–175 restoring to earlier times, 222–223 transferring folders between, 40–43 using two monitors at once, 53–56 workgroup computers, 123–124, 125 contact lists, See also Internet features adding names to, 293–294 blocking names on, 295–297 removing names from, 295 searching for contacts, 295 contextual help, 191 Control Panel, changing style, 5 copying images to whiteboards, 300–301 music from CDs, 82–85 music to folders, 104 cover pages. See faxes

D defragmenting disk drives, 231–233 deleting, See also hiding; removing invasive programs, 37–39, 224 songs from playlists, 89 user accounts, 61 delimited file format, 70 desktops adding music palettes to, 104–107 cleaning up arranging icons, 47–48 with Desktop Cleanup Wizard, 235 hiding icons, 46, 48–49 overview of, 45–46

D I S K C L E A N U P T O O L — E N T E R TA I N M E N T

removing unused icons, 47 unhiding icons, 46, 49 Web shortcuts and, 49 images on, copying to whiteboards, 300–301 printing entire screens, 143–145 screen savers from the Internet, removing, 37 shortcuts on adding, 211–214 defined, 211 to folders, 212–213 to programs, 213–214 standard shortcuts, 211–212 warning, 212 slide show screen savers changing settings to, 20–21 making folders for, 20 moving pictures to folders, 20 overview of, 19 tweaking, 21–23 themes changing, 2–4 defined, 24 getting online, 4 Windows Classic, 2–3 wallpaper choosing on Desktop tab, 24–25 creating from images, 27 creating with Paint program, 25–27 defined, 23 Disk Cleanup tool, 225–228 Disk Defragmenter tool, 231–233 disk drives. See hard drives Display Properties dialog box Desktop tab, 24–25, 46–47 opening, 23–24 Screen Saver tab, 21 Themes tab, 3 documentation, computer, keeping, 152

documentation, help, printing, 174–175 DOS prompts, printing from, 146–149 downloading defined, 17 JPG image attachments, 319–321 MP3 files, 89–90 Web page pictures, 16 drawing, See also images; Paint; pictures with Drawing toolbar, 161 using Paint program, 17 on whiteboards, 299–300 DVD movies, 98–99, See also movies

E e-mail, See also Outlook Express new mail notifications assigning sounds to, 14 using microphones, 12 overview of, 11 recording, 12–13 from wambooli.com, 15 sending compressed folder attachments, 265–266 as faxes, 168–169 JPG image attachments, 19, 319–321 emoticons, 287 entertainment, 76–107, See also sound adding music toolbar to desktops copying music to folders, 104 creating toolbars, 106–107 finding copied music folders, 105 overview of, 104 playing music, 106 renaming files/folders, 105 burning CDs audio quality control, 94–95 file format settings, 95–96

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E P S ( E N C A P S U L AT E D P O S T S C R I P T ) F O R M AT — FA X E S

items needed for, 93 overview of, 92–93 playlist size and, 93 steps in, 93–94 warning, 93 copying/storing music from CDs, 82–85 making movies, 96–97 in Media Bar, 326–327 media files choosing programs to open, 101–103 running from compressed folders, 275 in MSN Explorer, 280–284 overview of, 76 playing DVD movies, 98–99 MP3 songs, 89–90 music CDs, 76–79 online games, 317–319 radio, 80–82, 327 with whiteboards, 299–301 playlists adding songs, 87–88 creating, 85–87 deleting songs, 89 moving songs, 88–89 playing songs, 88 size of, 93 slide show screen savers changing settings to, 20–21 making folders for, 20 moving pictures to folders, 20 overview of, 19 tweaking, 21–23 slide shows collecting pictures, 100 creating, 100 navigating, 100–101 overview of, 99–100

testing sound hardware, 91–92, 292 Web sites on, 79–80 EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) format, 73 Explore window, renaming files/folders in, 8–9 extracting compressed files, 259–261, 276

F F1 key, 191–192 Fast User Switching option, 61, 62 Favorites adding sites to, 197 adding Web published folders to, 67 bookmarking, 182–183 faxes, 152–169, See also printing cover pages for, 156 creating cover page templates drawing lines/shapes, 161 inserting pictures, 161 overview of, 159–160 saving, 161 testing, 161–162 writing messages, 161 Fax Console choosing printers, 163 configuring options, 162–164 cover page templates, 159–162 finding, 158–159 mailboxes in, 159 overview of, 158 receiving faxes, 166–167 revising sender information, 159 installing Fax Services, 152 one-page quick faxes, 157–158 overview of, 152 receiving icons in, 167 previewing saved faxes, 167–168

F I L E F O R M AT S — H A R D D R I V E S , C L E A N I N G U P

and printing, 163, 165, 167 and saving copies, 163–164, 165, 167 setting options for, 162–164, 166 sending e-mail messages as, 168–169 setting options for, 162–164 steps in, 155–157 setting up, 153–155 tracking in Fax Monitor, 164–165, 166–167 file formats for burning CDs, 95–96 compressed formats, 267 for importing A/V files, 97 sharable file formats delimited format, 70 HTML format, 71 plain text format, 70 Rich Text Format, 70–71 sharable image formats EPS format, 73 GIF format, 72, 73 JPG format, 72, 73, 319–321 overview of, 69, 72 PNG format, 72, 73, 97 TIFF format, 73, 319 files, See also compressed folders; folders changing file associations, 101–103 changing filenames, 8 finding in My Recent Documents, 209–210 naming and, 210–211 using Search tool, 207–209 printing lists of, 146–149 renaming, 105 selecting groups of, 258 finding, See also searching firewalls, 315–317

folders, See also compressed folders versus compressed folders, 258 converting to images folders, 100 desktop shortcuts to, 212–213 moving to other computers customizing transfers, 42 via floppy disks, 42–43 overview of, 40 with Windows XP CDs, 42 without Windows XP CDs, 40–42 via Wizard disks, 40–42 printing file lists in, 146–149 publishing to Web and adding to Favorites, 67 and making available to others, 68 and organizing in folders, 69 overview of, 64 steps in, 64–67 renaming, 105 shared, opening, 123 sharing, 119–121 FTP (File Transfer Protocol), 64

G games, deleting, 228 games online, 317–319 GIF image format, 72, 73 graphics. See drawing; images; Paint; pictures

H hard drives, cleaning up, See also maintenance defragmenting, 231–233 disk space, 225–228 overview of, 33 removing installed programs, 34–36 invasive programs, 37–39, 224

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HARD DRIVES, SHARING — HOME AND BUSINESS COMPUTING

uninstalled programs, 34 unwanted programs, 225–228 warnings, 35, 228 Windows components, 36–37, 227–228 restoring to previous states, 37–39 hard drives, sharing, 119–121 hardware in home networks hubs, 112, 113 installing, 113–114 Network Interface Cards, 111–112, 113 overview of, 110 hardware, sound microphones installing, 12 in NetMeeting, 308–309 testing speakers and, 91–92, 292 help, 178–215 from ? buttons, 192–193 in Internet Explorer, 195–196 in programs, 193–195 Remote Assistance online versus application sharing, 305 defined, 301–302 preventing, 304 using, 302–303 warning, 302 Help and Support Center accessing with F1 key, 191–192 bookmarking favorites in, 182–183, 197 on changing filenames, 8 contextual help, 191 on home networks, 110–111 Index section, 180–181 online help Microsoft Online Assisted Support, 185–188 Microsoft Product Support Services, 197

newsgroups, 188–191 overview of, 184–185 warning, 187 Windows Update, 198–200 opening, 178 overview of, 178 picking topics, 179–180 printing documentation, 174–175 Program Compatibility Wizard, 200–203 searching, 181–182 setting search options, 183–184 hiding, See also deleting; removing desktop icons, 46, 48–49 notification area icons, 251–253 taskbars, 249–250 home and business computing, 52–73 overview of, 52, 110 publishing files/folders to Web and adding to Favorites, 67 and making available to others, 68 and organizing in folders, 69 overview of, 64 steps in, 64–67 saving images in sharable formats EPS format, 73 GIF format, 72, 73 JPG format, 72, 73, 319–321 overview of, 72 PNG format, 72, 73, 97 TIFF format, 73, 319 saving text in sharable formats delimited format, 70 HTML format, 71 overview of, 69 plain text format, 70 Rich Text Format, 70–71 touring Windows XP and, 52 using two monitors on one computer, 53–56

H O M E N ET WO R KS — I MAG E S

user accounts accessing, 32 adding, 57–58 Administrator accounts, 57, 59 changing account pictures, 32–33 changing account types, 59 changing ways to log in/out, 60–61 deleting, 61 Limited accounts, 57 modifying, 58–61 overview of, 57 removing passwords, 59–60 switching between, 62–63 home networks, 110–135 configuring software computer names/descriptions, 116–117 creating Network Setup Disks, 117–118 finishing, 119 Internet Connection Sharing, 115–116, 131–133 overview of, 114–115 Workgroup names, 117 defined, 110 hardware hubs, 112, 113 installing, 113–114 Network Interface Cards, 111–112, 113 overview of, 110 Help and Support on, 110–111 My Network Places adding to desktops, 114 Address bar, 123, 124 icons, 123 opening, 114–115 opening shared folders, 123 viewing Entire Network, 124–125 viewing shared resources, 122, 124

viewing workgroup computers, 123–124, 125 sharing resources applications, 305–307, 315 folders, 119–121, 123 hard drives, 119–121 icons in, 123, 126 modems, 131–135 overview of, 119 printers, 125–130 and unsharing, 121 HTML file format, 71 hubs, 112, 113

I icons, See also desktops changing, 31 on created folders, 30–31 creating with Paint, 28–29 hiding in notification area, 251–253 in My Network Places, 123 overview of, 27–28 in receiving faxes, 167 restoring defaults, 31 for shared resources, 123, 126 images, See also desktops; drawing; Paint; pictures attaching to e-mail, 321 copying to whiteboards, 300–301 creating folders for, 100 creating wallpaper from, 27 e-mailing JPG images, 19, 319–321 EPS images, 73 GIF images, 72, 73 JPG images, 72, 73 PNG images, 72, 73, 97 printing, 169–173 saving in sharable formats, 72–73 single, on Web pages, printing, 141–142

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34 8

I N S TA L L I N G — I N T E R N E T F E AT U R E S

TIFF images, 73, 319 installing Fax Services, 152 microphones, 12 network hardware, 113–114 instant messages, See also Internet features changing screen names, 288–289 defined, 284 items needed for, 284–285 saving received instant files, 290–291 sending, 286–288, 298 sending instant files, 289–290 showing emoticons, 287 starting, 285–286 Instant Messenger. See Windows Messenger Internet Connection Sharing, 115–116, 131–133, 316 Internet Explorer desktop shortcut to, 211–212 help, 195–196 Media Bar, 326–327 Internet features, 278–340, See also Web application sharing, 305–307 contact lists adding names to, 293–294 blocking names on, 295–297 removing names from, 295 searching for contacts, 295 defined, 110 e-mailing JPG images, 19, 319–321 firewalls, 315–317 instant messages changing screen names, 288–289 defined, 284 needed items, 284–285 saving received files, 290–291 sending, 286–288, 298

sending instant files, 289–290 showing emoticons, 287 starting Windows Messenger, 285, 286 Internet Phone calls, 291–293 Media Bar adding to menu bar, 326 defined, 326 opening, 326 playing radio, 327 MSN Explorer closing, 283 defined, 280 home page, 282–283 passwords, 282 signing out, 283 signing up for, 281–282 starting, 281, 284 warnings, 281, 282 .NET Passport accounts changing, 280 defined, 67, 185, 278 setting up, 278–279 signing up for, 185–186 warning, 279 NetMeeting using chat, 308, 314 defined, 307–308 Do Not Disturb option, 312–313 hosting meetings, 312 microphones and, 308–309 placing calls, 313–314 setting up, 309–311 sharing programs, 315 starting, 311–312 transferring files, 315 using whiteboards, 314–315 newsgroups adding news servers, 332–334 changing receipt options, 336

J P G I M A G E S — M A I N T E N A N C E F E AT U R E S

defined, 331–332 getting help from, 188–191 posting to, 337–339 reading, 336–337 replying to, 339 sorting messages, 336 subscribing to, 334–336, 338 unsubscribing from, 339–340 online help Microsoft Online Assisted Support, 185–188 Microsoft Product Support Services, 197 Microsoft Windows Update, 198–200 newsgroups, 188–191 overview of, 184–185 Remote Assistance, 301–305 warning, 187 Outlook Express e-mail adding accounts, 327–329 attaching images, 321 basic folders, 322, 323 checking mail servers, 330–331 creating new folders, 322 creating new subfolders, 325 using new folders, 323 sending from specific accounts, 331 setting message rules, 322–325 overview of, 278 playing games with others, 317–319 Remote Assistance versus application sharing, 305 defined, 301–302 preventing, 304 using, 302–303 warning, 302 seeing who’s online, 297–298 whiteboards copying images to, 300–301

defined, 299 inviting others to draw, 299–300 in NetMeeting, 314–315

J JPG images, 19, 72, 73, 319–321

L Limited user accounts, 57 logging in/out, changing ways to, 60–61 Low Disk Space Notification, 225

M McAfee VirusScan software, 204 mail. See e-mail; Outlook Express maintenance features, 218–253, See also hard drives hiding notification area icons, 251–253 overview of, 218 System Restore creating restore points, 220–222 defined, 38, 218 removing invasive programs, 37–39 restoring to previous times, 222–223 viewing, 219–220 Task Manager killing dead programs, 245–247 opening, 245 tracking memory leaks, 241–244 Task Scheduler adding tasks, 236–240 changing task schedules, 240–241 defined, 234 opening, 234–235 predefined tasks, 235

349

35 0

M E D I A B A R — MY P I C T U R E S F O L D E R

removing tasks, 241 viewing scheduled tasks, 235–236 warning, 238 taskbars hiding, 249–250 moving, 247–248 overview of, 247 resizing, 248–249 troubleshooters, 229–230 Media Bar, See also Internet features adding to menu bar, 326 defined, 326 opening, 326 playing radio using, 327 media. See entertainment; sound memory leaks, tracking, 241–244 microphones installing, 12 in NetMeeting, 308–309 testing, 91–92, 292 Microsoft Online Assisted Support, 185–188 Microsoft Product Support Services, 197 Microsoft Windows. See Windows modems, sharing, 131–135 monitoring. See tracking monitors, using two at once, 53–56 movies, See also entertainment making, 96–97 Movies link, 80 Videos link, 79 watching, 98–99 moving folders to other computers customizing transfers, 42 via floppy disks, 42–43 overview of, 40 with Windows XP CDs, 42 without Windows XP CDs, 40–42

via Wizard disks, 40–42 songs in playlists, 88–89 taskbars, 247–248 MP3 files changing program that opens, 102–103 overview of, 267 playing, 89–90 MPEG files, 267 MSN Explorer, See also Internet features closing, 283 defined, 280 home page, 282–283 passwords, 282 signing out, 283 signing up for, 281–282 starting, 281, 284 warnings, 281, 282 music. See entertainment; sound My Documents folder desktop shortcut to, 211–212 My Recent Documents list, 209–210 renaming files in, 8–9 My Network Places, See also home networks adding to desktops, 211–212 Address bar, 123, 124 icons, 123 opening, 114–115 opening shared folders, 123 viewing Entire Network, 124–125 viewing shared resources, 122, 124 viewing workgroup computers, 123–124, 125 My Pictures folder, See also pictures finding, 100 saving image files in, 16, 20, 170 viewing as slide show, 100

N A M I N G — O U T LO O K E X P R E S S

N naming, See also renaming computers, 116–117 and finding files, 210–211 workgroups, 117 Narrator utility defined, 43–44 starting, 44 turning off, 44, 45 using, 45 voice settings, 44 warning, 44 navigating slide shows, 100–101 .NET Passport accounts, See also Internet features changing, 280 defined, 67, 185, 278 setting up, 278–279 signing up for, 185–186 warning, 279 NetMeeting, See also Internet features using chat, 308, 314 defined, 307–308 Do Not Disturb option, 312–313 hosting meetings, 312 microphones and, 308–309 placing calls, 313–314 setting up, 309–311 sharing programs, 315 starting, 311–312 transferring files, 315 using whiteboards, 314–315 Network Setup Wizard, 115–119 networks. See home networks newsgroups, See also Internet features adding news servers, 332–334 getting help from, 188–191 posting to, 337–339 reading, 336–337 replying to, 339

sorting messages, 336 subscribing to, 334–336, 338 unsubscribing from, 339–340 NICs (Network Interface Cards), 111–112, 113 Norton AntiVirus software, 204 notification area icons, 251–253, 286

O online features. See Internet; Web Outlook Express, See also e-mail e-mail adding accounts, 327–329 attaching compressed folders, 265–266 attaching images, 321 changing New Mail Notifications, 11–14 checking mail servers, 330–331 opening/saving attachments, 18–19 printing address lists, 150–151 sending e-mail from specific accounts, 331 new folders creating, 322 creating subfolders in, 325 dragging messages to, 323 setting rules for, 323–325 newsgroups adding news servers, 332–334 changing receipt options, 336 defined, 331–332 posting to, 337–339 reading, 336–337 replying to, 339 sorting messages, 336 subscribing to, 334–336, 338 unsubscribing from, 339–340 versus Outlook, 168

351

35 2

PA I N T P R O G R A M — P E R S O N A L I Z I N G C O M P U T E R S

preset folders, 322, 323 starting, 150

P Paint program, See also drawing; images; pictures creating desktop wallpaper, 25–27 creating icons, 28–29 creating user account pictures, 33 drawing pictures, 17 image file formats and, 73 Passport accounts. See .NET passwords for compressed folders adding, 264 opening protected folders, 265 overview of, 263 removing, 265 in MSN Explorer, 282 password chains, 60 for users, removing, 59–60 PCHealth Scheduler, 235 personalizing computers, 2–49 changing account pictures, 32–33 Control Panel style, 5 desktop themes, 2–4 Start menu style, 4 to Windows Classic style, 2–5 cleaning up desktops arranging icons, 47–48 hiding icons, 46, 48–49 overview of, 45–46 removing unused icons, 47 unhiding icons, 46, 49 Web shortcuts and, 49 cleaning up hard drives deleting invasive programs, 37–39, 224 overview of, 33

removing installed programs, 34–36 removing uninstalled programs, 34 removing unwanted programs, 225–228 removing Windows components, 36–37, 227–228 using System Restore, 37–39 warnings, 35, 228 desktop wallpaper choosing on Desktop tab, 24–25 creating from images, 27 creating with Paint program, 25–27 defined, 23 gathering pictures downloading from Web pages, 16–17 drawing in Paint program, 17 from e-mail attachments, 18–19 overview of, 15 pixels and, 17 icons changing, 31 on created folders, 30–31 creating with Paint, 28–29 overview of, 27–28 restoring defaults, 31 moving folders to other computers customizing transfers, 42 via floppy disks, 42–43 overview of, 40 with Windows XP CDs, 42 without Windows XP CDs, 40–42 via Wizard disks, 40–42 with Narrator utility defined, 43–44 starting, 44 turning off, 44, 45 using, 45 voice settings, 44 warning, 44

P H O N E C A L LS V I A I N T E R N E T — P R I N T I N G

new mail notifications assigning sounds, 14 installing microphones, 12 overview of, 11 recording, 12–13 from wambooli.com, 15 overview of, 2 renaming everything exceptions, 11 help for, 8 ideas for, 11 methods for, 8–9 overview of, 7 purpose of, 10 rules for, 10 with slide show screen savers changing settings, 20–21 making folders for, 20 moving pictures into folders, 20 overview of, 19 tweaking, 21–23 taskbars grouping buttons, 6–7 locking, 5 unlocking, 6 phone calls via Internet, 291–293 Photo Printing Wizard, 171–173 Picture and Fax Viewer program, 170–173 pictures, See also drawing; images; Paint changing account pictures, 32–33 downloading from Web pages, 16–17 in fax cover page templates, 161 gathering drawing in Paint program, 17 from e-mail attachments, 18–19 overview of, 15 pixels and, 17 making movies, 96–97

My Pictures folder finding, 100 saving images in, 16, 20, 170 viewing as slide show, 100 slide show screen savers changing settings, 20–21 making folders for, 20 moving pictures to folders, 20 overview of, 19 tweaking, 21–23 slide shows collecting pictures, 100 creating, 99–100 navigating, 100–101 overview of, 99–100 watching movies, 98–99 pixels, 17 plain text formats, 70–71 playlists, See also entertainment adding songs, 87–88 deleting songs, 89 moving songs, 88–89 overview of, 85–87 playing songs, 88 size of, 93 PNG image format, 72, 73, 97 printers adding to networks, 128–130 using shared printers, 127–128 sharing, 125–126 printing, 138–175, See also faxes address lists, 150–151 using Alt+Print Screen keys, 145 from DOS prompts, 146–149 entire desktops, 143–145 file lists in folders, 146–149 Help documents, 174–175 images, 169–173 overview of, 138 page ranges, 140

353

35 4

P R O G R A M S — S AV I N G

previewing Web pages before, 138–141 using Print Screen key, 143–145 single images on Web pages, 141–142 single windows, 145 zooming in/out, 140 programs checking compatibility, 200–203 dead, killing, 245–247 desktop shortcuts to, 213–214 grouping taskbar buttons by, 6–7 using help in, 193–195 to open media files, choosing, 101–103 removing installed programs, 34–36 invasive programs, 37–39, 224 uninstalled programs, 34 unwanted programs, 225–228 sharing, 305–307, 315 switching between, 250 tracking memory leaks in, 241–244 publishing files/folders to Web and adding to Favorites, 67 and making available to others, 68 and organizing in folders, 69 overview of, 64 steps in, 64–67

defined, 301–302 preventing, 304 using, 302–303 warning, 302 removing, See also deleting; hiding compressed folder passwords, 265 contacts, 295 installed programs, 34–36 Internet screen savers, 37 invasive programs, 37–39, 224 scheduled tasks, 241 uninstalled programs, 34 unused desktop icons, 47 unwanted programs, 225–228 user account passwords, 59–60 Windows components, 36–37, 227–228 renaming everything, See also naming; personalizing exceptions, 11 files/folders, 8–9, 105 help for, 8 ideas for, 11 methods for, 8–9 overview of, 7 purpose of, 10 rules for, 10 RTF (Rich Text Format), 70–71

Q

S

question mark (?) buttons, 192–193 Quick Launch bar, 249

Save As dialog box, 69 saving as sharable files in delimited file format, 70 in HTML format, 71 overview of, 69 in plain text format, 70 in Rich Text Format, 70–71 as sharable images in EPS format, 73

R radio, listening to, 80–82, 327 recording sound. See sound Remote Assistance, See also help; Internet features versus application sharing, 305

S C H E D U L I N G TA S K S — S O U N D F E AT U R E S

in GIF format, 72, 73 in JPG format, 72, 73, 319–321 overview of, 72 in PNG format, 72, 73, 97 in TIFF format, 73, 319 scheduling tasks. See Task Scheduler screen savers, See also desktops from the Internet, removing, 37 slide shows as changing settings to, 20–21 making folders for, 20 moving pictures to folders, 20 overview of, 19 tweaking, 21–23 searching for contacts, 295 for files in My Recent Documents, 209–210 naming and, 210–211 using Search tool, 207–209 in Help and Support, 181–184 selecting address list items, 150 groups of files, 258 sharable file formats. See saving sharing resources, See also home networks applications, 305–307, 315 folders, 119–121, 123 hard drives, 119–121 icons in, 123, 126 modems, 131–135 overview of, 119 printers, 125–130 and unsharing, 121 viewing shared resources, 122, 124 sharing whiteboards, 299–300, 314–315, See also collaboration shortcut keys accessing Help and Support, 191–192 Alt+Print Screen keys, 145

opening Attributes dialog box, 17 opening Task Manager, 245 renaming files/folders, 9 selecting list items, 150 starting Narrator utility, 44 switching between programs, 250 zooming in/out, 140 shortcuts desktop shortcuts adding, 211–214 defined, 211 to folders, 212–213 to programs, 213–214 standard shortcuts, 211–212 warning, 212 to folders in other folders, 214–215 to programs, on Start menu, 215 slide shows, See also entertainment; pictures collecting pictures, 100 creating, 100 navigating, 100–101 overview of, 99–100 as screen savers changing settings to, 20–21 making folders for, 20 moving pictures to folders, 20 overview of, 19 tweaking, 21–23 software. See programs sound features, See also entertainment Audio Troubleshooter, 92 Audio and Video Tuning Wizard, 292 getting sounds from wambooli.com, 15 Narrator utility, 43–45 recording sounds assigning sounds, 14 installing microphones, 12 overview of, 11 with Sound Recorder, 12–13

355

35 6

S PEAK E R S, TE STI N G — U S E R AC C O U NTS

scheduling Sound Recorder, 237–240 Sound Hardware Test Wizard, 91–92 Sounds and Audio Devices Properties, 14, 91–92 voice chat on Internet Phone calls, 291–293 in online games, 319 in Remote Assistance, 303 while sharing applications, 307 speakers, testing, 91–92, 292 Start menu adding program shortcuts to, 215 changing to Classic style, 4 pinning WinRAR utility to, 271 switching between programs, 250 between user accounts, 62–63 System Maintenance Wizard, 235 System Restore tool, See also maintenance creating restore points, 220–222 defined, 38 removing invasive programs, 37–39 restoring to previous times, 222–223 viewing, 219–220

taskbars grouping buttons, 6–7 hiding, 249–250 locking, 5 moving, 247–248 overview of, 247 resizing, 248–249 telephone calls, Internet, 291–293 testing fax cover page templates, 161–162 sound hardware, 91–92, 292 themes, See also desktops changing, 2–4 defined, 24 getting online, 4 Windows Classic, 2–3 threads, 336 TIFF image format, 73, 319 touring Windows XP, 52 tracking faxes, 164–165, 166–167 memory leaks, 241–244 transferring. See moving troubleshooters, 92, 229–230 Tune-up Application Start, 235 turning off Narrator, 44, 45

T Task Manager, See also maintenance killing dead programs, 245–247 opening, 245 tracking memory leaks, 241–244 Task Scheduler changing schedules, 240–241 defined, 234 opening, 234–235 predefined tasks, 235 removing tasks, 241 scheduling tasks, 236–240 viewing tasks, 235–236 warning, 238

U uninstalling programs. See removing Unused Desktop Shortcuts folder, 47 user accounts, See also accounts accessing, 32 adding, 57–58 Administrator accounts, 57, 59 changing account pictures, 32–33 changing account types, 59 changing ways to log in/out, 60–61 deleting, 61 Limited accounts, 57 modifying, 58–61

VI D E O S LI N K — W I N D OWS M E S S E N G E R

overview of, 57 removing passwords, 59–60 switching between, 62–63

V Videos link, 79, See also movies viruses antivirus software McAfee VirusScan, 204 Norton AntiVirus, 204 in Outlook Express, 204–205 tips, 206–207 defined, 203 getting, 203, 204 rules for protecting from, 205–206

W wallpaper, See also desktops choosing on Desktop tab, 24–25 creating from images, 27 creating with Paint, 25–27 defined, 23 Web, See also Internet Web pages downloading pictures from, 16–17 previewing before printing, 138–141 printing single images on, 141–142 Web publishing files/folders and adding to Favorites, 67 and making available to others, 68 and organizing in folders, 69 overview of, 64 steps in, 64–67 Web Response File Transfer Control, 188 Web sites desktop themes, 4 McAfee VirusScan, 204 Media Bar, 326 MP3 files, 89–90 Norton AntiVirus, 204

Wambooli.com, 15, 16, 90, 139 WindowsMedia.com, 79–82 WinRAR, 270 whiteboards, See also Internet features copying images to, 300–301 defined, 299 inviting others to draw, 299–300 in NetMeeting, 314–315 Windows Classic style, 2–5 Windows Components, removing, 36–37, 227–228 Windows desktop themes, 4 Windows Explorer, 8–9 Windows Media Player, 79–90, See also entertainment Back button, 80 compressed folders and, 275 Copy from CD, 83, 85 Copy Music, 83–84, 95–96 Copy to CD or Device, 94 exiting, 78 Media Guide Lifestyles link, 80 Movies link, 80 opening, 79 Radio link, 81–82 Videos/Downloads link, 79 Media Library, 85–89 Play Audio CD, 77–79 Play DVD Video, 98–99 playing MP3s, 89–90 starting, 79 Windows Messenger, 284–307, See also Internet features application sharing, 305–307 contact lists adding names to, 293–294 blocking names on, 295–297 removing names from, 295 searching for contacts, 295

357

35 8

W I N D OW S M OV I E M A K E R — ZO O M I N G I N / O U T I N P R I N T I N G

instant messages changing screen names, 288–289 defined, 284 needed items, 284–285 saving received instant files, 290–291 sending, 286–288, 298 sending instant files, 289–290 showing emoticons, 287 Internet Phone calls, 291–293 Remote Assistance versus application sharing, 305 defined, 301–302 preventing, 304 using, 302–303 warning, 302 signing in, 285 starting, 285, 286 viewing who’s online, 297–298 whiteboards, 299–301 Windows Movie Maker, 96–97 Windows Paint. See Paint Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, 170–173 Windows Update Automatic Updates, 199–200 overview of, 197–198 running, 198–199

Windows XP CDs, in folder transfers, 40–42 program compatibility with, 200–203 touring, 52 WinRAR utility, See also compressed folders creating archives, 271–274 defined, 270–271 e-mailing archives, 274 Extract commands, 276 pinning to Start menu, 271 RAR versus ZIP formats, 270, 273 WinZIP utility, 270 Wizard Disks, 40–42 workgroup computers, viewing, 123–124, 125 workgroups, naming, 117

Y Yahoo! online games, 319

Z zip files, 256, 267, 270, 271 zooming in/out in printing, 140

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