Hello,

Welcome back from the Christmas and new year season, we hope you all had a fantastic time! To get back into the swing of things, I have a “Word to the Wise” for you all. This time, it’s about your “Desktop”.

E.G the screen that appears once your computer has started up

The desktop, or as some people call it “home screen”, is the area that appears once your computer has started up. It has a background image, and often a lot of little icons that link to certain programs or documents. Your computer’s desktop is much like a physical desktop. You probably keep a number of commonly used items on your desk such as pens, papers, folders, and other items. Your computer’s desktop serves the same purpose, which is to give you easy access to items spread about on your computer.

One of the best features of the desktop is the ability to change the background image (also known as “wallpaper”). It’s great to be able to choose what you want your desktop to look like, so you can customize it to suit you! To change the background image on your Desktop, follow the steps below, depending on your version of windows:

Windows XP: Start, Control Panel, Appearance and themes

Windows Vista: Start, Control Panel, Appearance and Personalization, Personalization and then Desktop Background.

Windows 7: RIGHT click on the Desktop and select Personalize, then click on Desktop Backgrounds

The other great feature mentioned above, is adding shortcuts (which appear as “icons”) to the Desktop, so you can access your favourite programs or documents quickly. You can even add links to your favourite websites!

To add a shortcut icon for a program like, for example, Microsoft Word, go to Start, All programs, and find Microsoft Word in the list. RIGHT click on it, and select “Send to” and then “Desktop (Create shortcut). You can also follow the same steps if you want to add a picture or a sound file to your desktop. RIGHT click on it, and send to desktop.

To add a shortcut icon to a website, RIGHT click on the Desktop, and select “New” and then “Shortcut”. A window will appear that gives you the option to enter a website address, and to name your shortcut icon. This is great if you only want to click your mouse a couple of times to get to your favourite website.

I hope you found that useful!

Georgia

I’ve just put a new “poll” on the right of the screen. I’m interested to know whether you’d like to get an automatic email to tell you whenever I add a new journal note, article or video.

At the moment I’m just curious whether it would be useful – it could mean you don’t miss out on an article that could have been useful – but I don’t want to bombard people with emails!

So click over on the right to say whether you think it would be helpful.
Thanks!
Tim

Bandwidth

E.g The upload and download limits on your PC

Bandwidth is a bit of a geeky word, but it simply means how much data you can send through your network connection. It’s usually measured in “bits per second” (bps).

The best way to think of bandwidth is as a motorway with cars travelling on it. The motorway is the network connection (say, a motorway between your PC and the Internet) and the cars are the data. The wider the motorway, the more cars can travel on it at one time. So more cars can get to the destination faster. The same applies to computer data; the more bandwidth, the more information can be transferred within a given amount of time.

Say you are watching a video online. The video will travel onto your computer as millions of tiny “data cars” on the motorway. The faster your Internet connection and the higher your bandwidth limit, the quicker the data cars can reach your PC. And the quicker they reach the PC, the better quality the video will be!

I hope that made some kinda of sense!

Georgia

You hear a lot nowadays about “tablet” PCs, “slates” and the “iPad”.

But what are they – and what would you use them for?
In a nutshell, they’re a portable PC with no keyboard or mouse – but to explain it better, I’ve recorded a video for you.

You can watch it from the videos button above or from here:
http://www.pcinnercircle.co.uk/index.php/videos/whats-a-tablet-pc/
Tim

Hello

The other day I was talking to someone who had a netbook – a very small laptop. They had a few things plugged into it – and were frustrated because there were only two USB ports.

USB ports are the sockets on the computer you use for most things nowadays. Printers, scanners, digital cameras, mice, keyboards… all these things use them.

So it’s quite easy to end up wanting more than two – which can mean you have to unplug the separate keyboard (for example) to use the scanner.

But there’s a way around it. You can get something called a “USB hub”. It plugs into a USB socket and it has 4 (or however many) more sockets on it. So you can plug your keyboard, mouse, printer and so on into the hub, then plug the hub into just one socket on the computer.

Very handy if you don’t have enough sockets – but they can also be handy if you sometimes use your laptop at a desk and sometimes out and about. I have my printer, mouse, separate keyboard and scanner plugged into a hub at my desk. Then when I’m using my laptop there, I just plug the hub into the laptop and all my devices are connected, rather than having to plug them in separately. It doesn’t save a lot of time, but it is a bit more convenient.

They can be handy little things, USB hubs, especially if you have a laptop.

Tim

This week I thought I would tell you about quite a cool site I came across while browsing. It’s really handy if you want an easy way to access all of your favourite websites, or if you think someone else would benefit from the same thing, but they maybe don’t know how to do it.

“Internet buttons” allows you to create a personalized page for a friend or family member so they can visit sites without having to search for them. You can even create a page for yourself. It’s a great little site, and completely free of charge!

If you know anyone who really struggles to find things on the Internet, then this is a great way of gathering together their favourite websites so they don’t have to search for them all. You create a page and add buttons, which link to websites of your choice. So, you can have a button for Emails, a button for Google Maps for example, or perhaps a button that links you to the BBC news site. Even one to take you straight to the Inner Circle! It’s not just for your family and friends, though. You can make a page for yourself, too. It’s really easy to set up, and the best part about it is, it’s free to use, and you can edit it at any time, adding mroe buttons as you find more favourite websites. If you are making the page for someone else, you can even add a picture of yourself along with a message and a phone number, so your friend or relative can call you if they get stuck!

Where can you get it?

www.internetbuttons.org

Hope you found that useful!

Georgia

Hello
From time to time I get asked all sorts of questions about Facebook.

What is it, what do you use it for, how do you do X, Y or Z.

The only snag is, although I know a bit about it, I don’t really use it myself. But I still wanted to do something to answer some of the questions I get.

Luckily, Georgia does use it – lots (she even has a mug saying “Facebook addict” for her tea in the office) – so I sat down with her to ask some of the questions I get – with a video camera running.

You can see what we came up with here: http://www.pcinnercircle.co.uk/index.php/videos/what-is-facebook/ (or from the Videos page).

Hope you find it interesting!
Tim