Are you a new member of the Inner Circle? Here’s what you need to know
First of all, welcome! You’ve done the right thing by joining. I’m sure you’ll find all the help and advice really useful. It’ll make using the PC easier and less stressful – and you’ll be able to do more things with your computer.
The Inner Circle is all kept private to you and the other members by a password. Every month the new password will be emailed to you. The next time you go onto the Inner Circle Website, you’ll be asked for the password. Once you’ve typed it in once, it’ll remember that you know it, so you won’t have to type it in every time!
(By the way, there’s also a video that shows you all about the Inner Circle, a bit like this a video version of this article. You can watch it here)
So, how do you use it?
To use a particular part of the Inner Circle, click on one of the buttons at the top of the screen. For example, click on Tim’s Journal, or Articles.
Here’s what you’ll find in each part:
Tim’s Journal
Here you’ll read my recent thoughts and news. It might be a tip I’ve just found out about a new piece of software, or news of a particularly nasty virus to beware of, or news about a new article I’ve just finished that I think you should read.
I’ll update my journal often, so you can keep right up to date just by reading it!
You can also reply to my comments here if you want to talk about something I’ve mentioned. But it’s not the best place to ask general questions – for that you want…
The Clubroom
This is the place you can ask questions, answer them and make general comments.
So if you have a technical question, you can ask it here. I’ll answer it – and other people can as well. If, for example, you want to ask what a particular make of printer is like, the more answers the better!
You can answer other people’s questions here as well – or just say “That’s problem happened to me, too. I’m looking forward to hearing what to do about it!”
You can read questions other people have asked and the answers – you might find you’ve had the same problem without even realising it.
You can suggest ideas for a new video, article or even book to me. No promises that I’ll write every suggested book, but if several people ask, it’s more likely!
And you can make general comments or even electronically chat with other Inner Circle Members.
By the way, there’s a video in the Videos section explaining how to use the clubroom. You might want to watch that before getting stuck in.
Articles
In this section you can read articles I’ve written specifically for the Inner Circle. These aren’t available anywhere else – and I can take more time over these than in the ones I publish elsewhere. As a result you get more detail (without getting into confusing technical stuff) and pictures of the screen to make it all nice and clear.
I’ll be adding new articles here often, so keep checking back.
Just click on Articles to see a list of all the articles.
Videos
For some things it’s better to watch it done. So here you can watch videos I’ve recorded specifically for the Inner Circle, showing you just how to do different things with your PC and solve various problems that come up.
These videos range from 5 minutes to quarter of an hour or more. Make sure you’ve got your speakers turned up!
The button works just like the Articles one – just click on it to see a list of the videos.
Phew – it already sounds like there’s quite a lot. But don’t feel you have to use every last thing in the Inner Circle website. The idea is you find the articles, videos and so on that are useful to you. And as I add more every week and month, you can pick out the bits you want to use.
Anyway, there’s one more part to the website:
Downloads
Now, a lot of computer people talk about free downloads. For example you can get a free copy of OpenOffice, Windows Defender or Microsoft Photo Story. And I do give you the links to get them for free here.
But that’s not the main thing. You also get complete books here. Ebooks, they’re called – you can download them and either print them out or read them online.
Some will be ones you can get elsewhere, and I’ve put here so it’s convenient for you. Others are not available anywhere else – they’re only for Inner Circle Members. For example the 50 page ebook “How to Speed up your PC” is only for Inner Circle Members. No-one else can get it, no matter how much they pay. But you can just click on “Downloads”, then click on the book’s title and there it is.
I’ll be adding more ebooks here from time to time – but not as often as I add new videos or articles. I’ll only write a new ebook when something needs explaining in a fair amount of detail. But when it does – this is where to come to get it.
One more thing… the Search box
There’s a special search box on the top right of the page, just under the buttons. If there’s something particular you want to find out about (for example anti-spyware software) and you don’t mind whether it’s an article, a video, an ebook, or a comment in the Clubroom, you can type it in there and press the enter key on your keyboard. It’ll search the whole site for it and give you a list of what it finds. Click on the one that sounds most useful and it’ll take you straight there.
Right that’s it – time to get stuck in
Have a go at the different parts of the website. If you get stuck, you can always come back to this page – it’s the one marked “New to the Inner Circle? Start here”.
I’d suggest starting with my journal – I’ll keep that bang up to date and I’ll mention new articles and so on in it.
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