The Computer Screen

Word Processors -- Common Features of the File Menu

2008-08-09T03:25:00.001-05:00

In a previous post, we looked at the common features of a text editor. As we move on to the word processor, it is important to remember that the more complex a program is, the more it builds on features of the previous. The text editor is the most basic program for writing text. The word processor allows the user to have more control over how the information contained within are displayed. Because of the complexity, we will go through each menu to discuss more thoroughly the features.

The New menu option will do what you expect. It allows the user to create a new document. The most basic is the default option, that will usually format to a standard sheet of paper. In the US, that is a 8.5 inches by 11 inches with 1 inch margins. These can be changed, though. But in addition to the default, you can also choose to do labels, envelopes, banners, and any number of types of documents. Each option uses a different format that can be edited and changed.

Next in the menu is the open option, which functions as it does in most programs allowing you to open the native format for that program. But you may also open documents of other formats. Sometimes, these are older program formats, but sometimes these might be "competitor" formats. One thing to keep in mind with opening other program formats is that sometimes, the program cannot fully decode the format for another program. Still, in most cases, if this is available, it does at least a passable job of importing the format. Closely akin to the Open option is the Import option, which does pretty much the same thing.

When saving a document, the default is generally for the format of the current program. However many programs also allow you to save in other formats that include standard formats, such as an ASCII text file or an HTML file. For a program with multiple versions, the program maintains backwards compatibility by allowing the user to save in the older format. Also remember that just as you can open with other program formats, you may be able to save with other program formats. Sometimes, this might be through an Export menu option, but can often be found in the save menus.

You may have an option to Reload or Revert. These options will take the document back to the most recently saved state. If you made many changes, but wish to go back to what was saved before, this is an easy way to do that.

A send option may be available to you. This would allow you to use the current document either in or as an attachment to an email.

One last thing to note is that you may have a template option. This will allow you to create a document from a template. Using the template option can be a quick way to create a document that uses a standard format.

Most of the rest of the options are fairly typical to all programs. Using what you know of other programs can help you determine what these can do.

The File menu is, for the most part, fairly standard from program to program. Many of these features will be the same from program to program, regardless of the type of program that it is. Use this to your advantage, and you will quickly be able to use it in any program.

Text Editors -- Common Features

2008-07-31T02:11:00.001-05:00

Of all the text programs, the text editor is by far the simplest of all the programs. Today, we will look at what features are common among text editors.

Because the text editor is the simplest, that is why I chose it first. Everything else you learn about any program will start with this as a basis.

What is a Text Editor?

First of all, what do I mean by a text editor?

A text editor is any program that you can use to create a text document without regard to any formatting. That is what makes the text editor the simplest of all the text programs. It contains only the basic features you need to write and edit text.

Text Editor Menus

When you look at a menu of a text editor, you should see only 4 or 5 of the basic 6. The menu options you are most likely to see are File, Edit, View, Tools, And Help. The one you most likely would not see is the Windows option, because most text editors do not allow for multiple document windows. To have a different text editor window, you would have a separate "instance" of the program. In other words, it would create a new copy of the program in memory that would show in the taskbar of the operating system.

File Menu

When you look in the file menu, you will find all the common menu items for creating, saving, opening, and printing documents. About the only option you won't find is the properties option. As a basic program, most editors do not let the user set any features here.

One note about the Save and Open options is that because text editors are basic programs, they will generally save and open simple documents using a standard format, such as ASCII or UTF-x. If you open a file and it has a bunch of unreadable characters displayed, then the format of the file is a more complex format than the text editor is able to use. The format you are able to save in can either be found in the Preferences or Options that govern the program or you will be given a Character Encoding option that gives you some choices to choose from.

Edit, View, Tools, Windows, and Help Menus

Most of the other menu options are going to be fairly standard. It's possible that you might see a menu option other than one of these 6, but if you do, most likely it has moved one of the common menu items into a separate menu. If the program you are using does allow child windows, you will see the Windows (or equivalent) menu item.

One thing to take note of is where the Preferences or Options menu item is. Most often it would be under tools if this option exists, but it might be under the Edit menu.

A useful option that you will most likely find in the View menu is the option to Wrap Lines of text. What this does is instead of creating a horizontal scroll for lines that are wider than the window allows, the text editor will "wrap" that line of text to the next line. This can be very useful if you have a lot of long lines. For a text editor, a line is considered any text up to the carraige return (ie the enter key is pressed). So wrapping lines of texts makes it easier to read through lines of paragraphs written in a text editor. If you don't see the Wrap Lines option in the View Menu, check the program options to see if you can set it there.

Of all the menus, the Tools is the one that might have non-standard items. If the text editor is a fairly old editor that has not been updated recently, you might not even see this option. But a newer text editor may include spell checking and document statistics. These would be located under the text menu. Also, if it does provide spell checking, you might have an option to autocheck your spelling. This can be a handy feature.

If your text program does have spell checking, keep in mind that the spell checker doesn't necessarily check to make sure you have the right word for the sentence. For example, if you spelled "two" where you meant "too", the spell checker will recognize this as a valid spelling, even though it is the wrong word. This is a simple example, but say you meant to say exhausted, the spell checker might not catch that you spelled exhaled instead.

Toolbars

Most text editors are not going to have a toolbar, but if it does, you can expect to find basic toolbar options. The basic file options include New, Open, Save, and Print. You will likely find editing options here as well, including Undo, Redo, Cut, Copy, Paste, Find, and Replace. The last option you will likely see on a toolbar for a text editor would be a button to bring up the Help contents.

These are all the common elements you will find on a text editor. Remember, a text editor simply allows you to write text, not to format it in any way. This can actually be beneficial if you are writing web pages or any other kind of program. Another great use for a simple text editor is to make a quick note of information that you want to save and be able to recall quickly. Text editors are great for short pages of text, but are not as good for longer documents.

Voice Recognition Software

2008-07-25T14:17:00.001-05:00

I don't often find things that I like in Windows Vista, but the one thing I have found it interesting recently is the voice recognition that is native to Windows. It has its flaws, but I can see where it will be useful. I imagine that Dragon Speaking Naturally would be easier to use, delete that the voice recognition software native to Windows Vista is a little clunky to use.

Voice recognition software can make it a lot easier to do the typing. From what I've seen of Dragon Speaking Naturally, it looks like it would be much easier to use. However, it does cost a lot of money. Coming up with the money may be a problem. In the meantime, using the native Windows Vista speech recognition software can be an affordable alternative.

Using the speech recognition, you can control your programs, the dictation, in even edit your down dictation. In time, the software might be easier to use. One problem with the native speech recognition is that the microphone pick up sounds that it is not supposed to. This makes dictation a little more difficult using to native program. However, if you can use it in a quiet environment you might have better success. Another problem with the Windows dictation is that you have to enunciate the punctuation. From what I have seen of Dragon Speak Naturally, it can insert that punctuation through natural speech.

This post has been dictated using voice recognition software. At the moment, I just have the native Windows Vista, but when I have more money I plan to get Dragon Speak Naturally.

Word Processor Software and Text Editors

2008-07-17T05:06:00.001-05:00

One of the most common types of programs available are the kinds that allow the user to handle text. In fact, dealing with text is such a basic, commonly used function of interacting with computers, many programs, whether they deal strictly with text or not, will have some features that are common to text programs.

The most common type of text programs are:

Word Processors
Text Editors
Code editors

Word Processors

The most commonly used text program is the word processor. A word processor is a program that is used to create a text document. They allow you to format the page, font, and a variety of other things to allow a user to create documents for printing or displaying on the screen. Word processors have tools that make it easy to find and replace text within a document. This feature makes it easy to change text and to rearrange it with ease. They have tools to allow you to check document statistics, such as word counts, and most of the current ones even do spell checking to help make sure that you have spelled everything correctly. Another great feature is the ability to merge one document with another or a database to be able to create multiple pages from a single framework with only a few clicks. Still, despite all this power, word processors still mainly deal strictly with text.

Text Editors

Another common text program is the text editor. A text editor is a word processor stripped of the ability to set formatting and to merge with other documents. You may think that such a program would be worthless, but actually a text editor can be useful for small text files and make a great place to put quick notes that you might want to save for future reference.

Code Editors

A code editor lies somewhere between a text editor and a word processor, but the main function of a code editor is to make it easier for a programmer to write code. Most do this through color coding that allows a programmer to quickly see what the different types of pieces are in a program. For some languages, a code editor might be attached to a compiler, a tool that turns the code into an executable program that can be run on the machine. What features a code editor might have depend greatly on what language, or languages, the program might support.

These are the main types of text programs that one may find. You can find features of text programs in many other programs, so understanding text programs can get you a long way towards understanding and functioning in many other programs.

Most Common Program Type

2008-07-16T03:32:00.001-05:00

When I started this blog, I began by going over the 5 steps to learn any program. Today, I'm beginning a new series covering the basic features of some of the most common types of programs.

So what are the key types of programs you will find?

Text
Communication
Financial
Spreadsheets
Databases
Audio/Video
Graphics
Games

This will be a long, overall series, with several mini series describing each category. I'll mention now that I left one category off of this list, the operating system, because it is a topic that is very complex and will get its own series.

Before we begin the series, let's look at each of these categories and see how they differ.

Text

The first major category, and perhaps one of the most used areas, is that of text. These include word processors, such as Microsoft Word, and text editors, such as Notepad. The main difference between the two is that the latter is stripped of the formatting aspects, but many other features are similar. Another subcategory to this main category would be code editors, which are text editors designed to make it easier for programmers to write programs in a variety of languages.

Communication

Another very popular category of programs are the ones used for communication. These include web browsers, email programs, and chat programs. Also in this group would be programs for uploading and downloading files. While the features on the subcategories vary widely, they all provide a means of communicating with other people using other computers.

Financial

In terms of practical use, this category is a power house. The programs here allow the user to manage their money. There aren't really many subcategories to this, but they do have a look and feel all their own with some features to be aware of.

Spreadsheets

Used more in business settings than in home settings, spreadsheets can be useful tools when you know how to use them and can help manage large amounts of information. The strong suit of the spreadsheet is its ability to organize, manipulate, chart, and graph numerical information of all kinds.

Databases

Although often used, the use is usually behind the scenes. Databases are great storehouses of related information. Some examples of databases you might be aware of include customer lists, library and retail stock, employee information, and a lot more.

Audio/Video

The programs in this category let users create, modify, and display audio and video files. Many of the tools are similar for both, so they are included together here. Some subcategories are movie/video players, cd players, sound editors, video editors, and presentation programs.

Graphics

Graphics programs allow users to create, manipulate, and view graphics. There are several types of graphics that have different characteristics, such as vector graphics, raster graphics, and 3d graphics. The programs that do each of these are varied, so expect a lot of differences.

Games

Outside of all the productivity related programs, games are the most used program on the computer. Games vary widely, but they are an important part of computer life that they have to be mentioned.

Now, there may be many programs out there that don't appear to fit into any of these that I mentioned, but as you will see, most of those combine different aspects of each of these areas, or are programs designed for a specific, narrow purpose, that may include many features discussed in these. If you understand these 8 categories, any other program you come across will have something that relates to one of these basic categories. The order of importance I've put these in may be debatable as far as popularity, but I hope that, as these are expanded further you will be able to see why I placed them in this order.

Working on a new Series

2008-07-14T01:40:00.001-05:00

Well, if you liked the posts so for on the program basics, stay tuned, because I'm getting ready to launch into a new series.

This series picks up where the 5 steps left off and goes in depth of some of the most common types of programs around.

Some other thoughts for the future might include tutorials for programs (designed around the 5 steps for learning programs). I'm thinking of eventually including some information on getting started with programming, particularly web page programming.

I know it has been a few days since I posted here, but I have been working on the ideas. I'll try to post the first part in the series sometime later today.

Learn To Use Photoshop In Just 2 Hours

2008-07-09T02:35:00.003-05:00

Don't have a lot of time but want to get up and running in Photoshop? Check out Learn To Use Photoshop in Just 2 Hours!

Recently, I discovered this great resource for learning the graphics program. I have not used Photoshop a lot, but I have used other graphics programs, and I know that they can be very difficult to learn. Having someone to coach you through how to use them can be a great help.

What can you expect from Learn to Use Photoshop in Just 2 Hours?

How to use various tools and the quick mask to create selections
Painting and drawing
Resizing Images
Working with Layers
And Creating Text

Learn to Use Photoshop in Just 2 Hours can also show you how to do some tasks common to any graphics program, including:

Retouching Photos
Removing Red Eye
Creating montages

The videos are all very short, usually under 5 minutes. This means that they are quick to view and you'll be off to try them yourself in no time. Best of all, most of the videos teach you practical stuff. In fact, if you've done the 5 Steps to Learn any Program, you can skip about half the videos, dive into the practical stuff, and still pick up a trick or two without seeing the video on "how" to do it!

The great thing about the practical stuff is that with a little thought and playing around, some of the things can be done in other programs, besides Photoshop. For example, I had learned one method of red eye correction when I first learned GIMP a couple years ago, but I tried the method in Learn To Use Photoshop in Just 2 Hours on GIMP, perhaps with even better results.

So whether you want to learn to use Photoshop CS3, or looking for alternate ways for learning another program, Learn To Use Photoshop in Just 2 Hours just might be the quick solution to try.

Books, Manuals, or Tutorials? Which is best?

2008-07-06T01:35:00.001-05:00

Once you have completed your overview of the program you want to learn using the strategies I recommended, you may be wondering how best to proceed with learning a new program. I think a lot of what you should do depends greatly on the type of learning you are hoping to do.

Manuals

If you bought a software program from a store, you probably have a manual that came with the program. While manuals have gotten more readable and better to follow in recent years, manuals are still best when you are wanting to learn the features of a program that are available. The manual can teach you where to find a particular feature that you may be looking for. When you have used a program of the type you are trying to learn, using the manual can be a great resource on finding the tools you used in other programs.

Tutorials

When you are new to a type of program (3d graphic software, for example), it may be best to start furthering your education with tutorials, rather than a manual. Sometimes, a manual assumes that you know what you are doing to some degree. Tutorials, on the other hand, can be much easier to follow for someone who is a complete newbie.

Tutorials can often be found for one of three levels: beginner, intermediate, and advanced.

Beginner tutorials assume that the user has no prior experience with any type of software of the type being learned. They will teach not only the fundamentals of the program type, but also generally give step by step instructions on where to find the various tools.

Intermediate tutorials assume that the user has a basic understanding of the software category and generally know their way around the program. It may point out where certain features are, but other things that are considered "basic" are glossed over but might be provided as a reminder.

Advanced tutorials usually assume that the user is fairly proficient not only with the type of program being used, but also with the program itself. Hardly any time is spent on where things are located outside of the advanced features discussed. Advance tutorials get more into the theory of how stuff works and less into the where to find features of the program

Tutorials of all three kinds can be found in audio, video, or text in a variety of places. Some programs may include some tutorials. Other tutorials can be found online. Look around. You might can find some things at little to no charge, but there might be other information that you can learn only by paying for it.

Books

Books bought on a particular program fall somewhere between being another "manual" for the program and providing "tutorials" to teach the user. The best books for learning how to do will focus more on the tutorial method of instruction. That doesn't mean that a book can't be useful if it focuses more on the "manual" method.

Remember, "manuals", whether you bought it separately or it came with the program, work best when you are switching from one program to another. For example, if you already have a solid foundation on Jasc's Paint Shop Pro, reading the manual for Adobe's Photoshop can help you find the similar features.

All three can be useful in learning more about a program once you have a foundation to work with. I always try to spend at least 30 minutes with any new program (or even program version) prior to trying to use the manual. I often figure out just how to do what I want to do without any further help. But then I use the other resources to fill in the gaps and improve my knowledge.

Office Suite Software -- Common Programs for Microsoft Office, WordPerfect Office, and OpenOffice.org

2008-07-04T03:01:00.001-05:00

Since I started this blog, I have spent a lot of time explaining the common program elements. Now, it is time to look at some of the different categories of programs and see what elements are common among them.

One of the biggest collection of programs every user is likely to come across is the office suite. A suite, in computer terms, is a collection of programs gathered for a common purpose. Office suites, the most common type, are generally a collection of programs that are commonly found in any office, whether it be a home office or a mega corporation's office.

The most popular office suites available include Microsoft Office, WordPerfect Office (by Corel), Lotus Symphony, IWork, and the open source OpenOffice.org. While there are some variations in what each of these contain, nearly all of them include a word processor, a spreadsheet, a database, and a presentation program.

Word Processors

Microsoft Works is probably the most well known of all the word processors, followed closely by Corel's WordPerfect (the word processor program). These two are among the oldest and have been around since at least the early days of Windows, if not before. The function of a word processor is to create text documents. These can be anything from letters, to envelopes, to labels -- the list goes on. Many authors use them to write their novels and other books.

All word processors will have tools to modify the text, including font, font size, font and background colors, and more. The ability to adjust margins, page dimensions, and setting headers and footers are also common. Most will have the ability to "create" multiple pages by merging a text document with files from another source, such as a database. Spell check and word counts are also common. Most word processors today can also double as desktop publishers, though there are other programs that may do a better job at this type of task, depending on your needs. Keep in mind, this is only a summary list. There are many other features common to most word processors, but these are the basics that a user might see on a regular basis.

Spreadsheets

One of the oldest, in terms of "brand recognition", may be Lotus 123, though it "disappeared" for a while. Microsoft Excel is probably better known today, followed by Corel's Quadro Pro. Spreadsheets are perfect for "columnar" type data, particularly the kind that involves numbers and math.

In addition to many of the font and page features of word processors, spreadsheets always have some mechanism for introducing formulas. Afterall, mathematics is the forte of spreadsheets. Columns and rows can be adjusted for size, grouped for printing or creating reports, as well as gathering data from other sources, such as a database. Each "sheet" of a database can represent a "page" of a spreadsheet. One great feature of spreadsheets is the ability to reference cells, both within the same page and from other pages, based on a relative or an absolute position. This makes "filling in" columns or rows easy and efficient.

Database

Most office suites have a database program. These will usually be able to connect with a variety of database types, including popular SQL databases, but they usually have a "native" database format that it will use if no other format is specified. One of the oldest around is a program called dBase, though it is not as popular as it might once have been and has not been associated with an office suite. The most well known attatched to a suite is probably Microsoft's Access.

A database can be thought of as an "electronic filing cabinet", able to store vast amounts of data in collections. Most database programs will allow you to create a database (obviously), but many will also let you create "forms" for interacting with a database to perform "queries" that look up information and generate "reports" that detail that information. As such, you can expect to find text type tools available, though maybe not as much as you would in a word processor. Databases can be interconnected, greatly enhancing the capabilities of the storage of data. Chances are that, though you may not have known it, you have interacted with a database at some time or another.

Presentation Programs

Presentation programs, such as Microsoft's PowerPoint, allow someone to create and display "presentations" to groups of people in a variety of situations. They are often used in seminars and classrooms for teaching, in offices for sales presentations, and in other ways for a vareity of purposes.

The most common thing you will find here are text specific tools described for word processors, though you will have a variety of ways to "move" them around. You can also add images such as pictures, graphs from a spreadsheet, and other types of data. These programs will have tools to govern the way the information "transistions" from one "slide" (the basic "page" of a presentation program) to the next. This includes the how, such as a timed delay or a "click" of a button, as well as what the visual transition might be, including wipes, disolves, and other types of transitions. The presentations generated are usually run from within the program, though most programs also give the user the ability to create a "stand-alone" presentation that does not require the "presentation generator" program.

These are the four most common. Some others you might see include drawing programs and email programs, but for the most part, these are the most used programs in the suites.

Firefox -- Are You Using it?

2008-07-02T03:16:00.001-05:00

Mozilla has released the latest version of its open source web browser, Firefox 3.0. Firefox is the browser that I generally use myself. I discovered it a few years ago, and I find that I prefer it to Internet Explorer. Here are some reasons you might consider it.

1. Tabbed browsing

I know Internet Explorer has since integrated this, but Firefox started doing this before IE did. Why do I like tabbed browsing? With tabs, I can browse multiple web pages without creating a new "instance" of the program. Firefox will put tabs just under the menu/toolbars so that you can switch between pages easily. This way, if one page is taking a long time to load for some reason, I can switch over to another page. I often go back and forth between pages as I am browsing. Even now that I am using a high speed internet connection, there are times I like to use the tabbed browsing.

2. Better W3C Standards Conformance

W3C is the organization that defines the standards for web technologies such as HTML, XHTML, XML, and CSS. For the average web browser, this may not mean much. Pages can be displayed on IE. But they may not look the same, depending on the CSS code.

I find the deviance of certain standards by Microsoft to be interesting because they are one of the organizations that helps to provide input for these standards.

3. Customization Through Add-Ons

Firefox has thousands of add-ons to customize your browsing experience. Some tools are useful for web page developers, while others may allow you to add search bars, weather reports, and many other features. Firefox also has many "skins" that allow you to change the way the browser looks.

In fact, I'm using an add-on right now! One of the add-ons is called "ScribeFire", and can allow you to post to some blogs.

4. It's Free!

I know... Technically, so is Internet Explorer, but there are some browsers out there that you might have to pay for. Firefox is free. It always has been, and as far as I can tell, always will be.

5. Multi-Platform Support

Whether you are using Windows, Mac, or Linux, or some other operating system, odds are that if it is a fairly widespread operating system, you can find a port that will run on your computer.

6. Crash Recovery

If your browser crashes unexpectedly, Firefox will take you back to where you were before the browswer crashed. In fact, with the latest version of Firefox, not only can you get this functioning when the program crashes, but now, you can set up Firefox to "remember" where you were the last time you had the program open! This can be handy if you are in the middle of checking something when you have to go off to do something else.

To be honest, for the most part, there is very little difference between IE and Firefox. Maybe I switched to this one to be using something other than "Microsoft". Whatever the reason I switched, I find myself using Firefox more than IE. Try it. What I mentioned is only a few of the features, but it has many more.

Learning Computer Software with Tutorials and Manuals

2008-06-30T15:11:00.001-05:00

In my previous posts, it could be easy to get the impression that I am against using manuals or tutorials for learning how to use a program. That is far from the truth. But, initially, I think the five steps I outlined is the best way to get to know a program.

Programs are so similar, that it is easy to at least begin to understand them simply through the 5 steps that I outlined. However, some programs are so complex that they might require further study to learn. Graphics programs, for example, can be easy to learn, but some of the coolest things you can do with these programs may take some further training on how to do them.

In my opinion, tutorials are far better for learning techniques than manuals are. Manuals can teach you the features of a program, but they don't always teach more advanced ways of combining things in different ways. Tutorials, on the other hand, can teach you the features of a program at the same time they are teaching how to combine tools.

Where can you find tutorials? The first place to look is the website for the program. The people who made the program may have made some tutorials. Even if they don't have tutorials on their site, they may have links on their page to tutorials that can be useful.

Another great place to find a tutorial is to use search engines. Just type in the name of the program you want to learn along with the word "tutorial" and you will probably find a lot of them online.

YouTube, and similar places, are another place to find tutorials. Search for them the same way you would in a search engine. The difference is that the links will be to video tutorials, as opposed to text web pages. These video tutorials can provide you with a visual example of what you are trying to learn.

Some places that you find will offer free tutorials while others may charge a fee. It is up to you to decide how much you are willing to spend to learn a particular program. Remember that what you learn in one program can be useful in another program with just a little thought.

Once you have gone through a program, using a tutorial can be a great way to move from being a beginner to a pro.

Microsoft 2.0 and Windows 7

2008-06-30T02:14:00.002-05:00

Last night, as I browsed the internet, I came across information that Bill Gates has stepped down from being CEO of Microsoft beginning today. I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, Microsoft has become such a giant that it seems impossible for anyone to take it on and win. On the other hand, where would computing today be without the efforts of the multibillionaire?

Whatever you think of Bill Gates, computing today would be very different without him. Just how different it would be is difficult to determine. He has influenced so much in the world of computers in the last 20 years or so. An argument could be made that he is the single most influential person in computers today.

However, his tactics at times leave a lot to be desired. While they are genius for what they achieved, at the same time, they made it more difficult for others to try to compete.

But despite all their clout, Microsoft has shown some signs of weakness in the last few years. One has to wonder what will happen to the software giant without Bill Gates at the helm. In the last eight years, Microsoft has suffered one dismal failure with the Windows ME and has had only slightly better luck with Windows Vista. While the vision that is behind some of the recent developments for the company may seem achievable, in practice, they have missed on delivering on promises consistently over the last decade.

What does that mean moving forward?

We shall see. Microsoft has a great opportunity with the product it is currently developing, currently "named" Windows 7. But to make this a successful product, if Microsoft wants to be bold in the promises it makes for this product, they had better make sure they deliver.

Already, Apple and the Linux community are starting to make inroads on the Microsoft domination. Each time that Microsoft fails to deliver what it promises, someone will be there waiting to pounce. Apple has already begun a move to start supporting Intel architecture, an arena previously dominated by Microsoft. And Linux, though it still has a long way to go, is becoming easier to use and may soon move from being the operating system of hobbyist to being user friendly. All that it would take for that to happen to Linux is hardware support for the community from the manufacturers, and Linux could launch a revolution.

Still, with the strength of the other Microsoft products available, it would seem reasonable to assume that the software giant is not going to collapse anytime soon. Time will tell what will happen there. Who knows. Maybe someone will step up and guide them to greater success.

The clock is ticking. The world is waiting to see what will happen now.

Great Open Source Programs

2008-06-28T02:46:00.002-05:00

First of all, let me apologize for the length of the posts over the last week in particular. It was never my plan to make them so long, and I realize that for a blog, they were way too long, so I promise to watch my length in the future.

Now for today's post!

Are you tired of paying big bucks for software? Looking for alternatives, but unimpressed with the cheaper alternatives you've found? Then perhaps it might be time to check out these open source programs!

First, what is Open Source? It is a method for developing software in a way that allows users to use, review, and modify the code of a program. Okay... This may not be a perfect definition, but if you are interested, you can find out more information at the Open Source Initiative's website.

So, what are some great programs?

Linux is an operating system that has been around for a while. It is gaining ground on the "big" companies. In a few years, hardware vendors may even get to the point where they may have to provide drivers that will work with this operating system. But, for now, it does remain one that is the domain of more experienced users. Outside of hardware support, though, Linux is quickly becoming widely used in the internet industry. It provides great stability and versatility. Gnome and KDE, along with the underlying X.org, have made great improvements in recent years. In fact, it is becoming easier for even the average computer user to run a Linux system with a minimal amount of help. I think this could explode once the hardware support I mentioned eventually happens.

Linux is available in several "flavors", some based on others. My distribution of choice is Debian, but other common ones include Red Hat, Suse, Slackware, and the Debian-based Ubuntu.

For an Office Suite, check out OpenOffice.org. This great collection of programs includes a word processor, a spreadsheet, a database, a graphics, and a presentation program. It even has a program to help you build complicated mathematical equations in a format that you can import into your documents. The biggest drawback with this program in my opinion is that each document requires a new program instance, but this suite is otherwise full of features similar to those of Microsoft Office (minus Outlook). The other drawback is the one I mentioned, the lack of a program comparable to Outlook, but this may come in the future. I have used Open Office over the last few years and have been fairly impressed.

Want to do computer graphics? The GIMP is your program! The Gnu Image Manipulation Program is an image editing program full of features comparable to the way more expensive Adobe Photoshop or even the less pricey Paint Shop Pro. It can do alpha channels for transparency and layer, has a variety of brushes to use with a pencil, paintbrush, or airbrush stroke, and has several pattern images easily applied with the bucket tool. This program has so many features, it is impossible to list them all in the space I have here, but it is definitely worth trying out. The interface, with its 3 window work environment, does take a little getting used to, but it is hands down way better than Microsoft's Paint program that comes with the MS operating systems.

For 3d programs, Blender, combined on occasion with Yafray, can produce stunning, realistic results comparable to Maya. Though it has a steep learning curve, this program has a lot of flexibility and power on its own. When you add some plug-ins or enhance it with some other programs, you can create works of art. Patience is the key to learning this program, but it can be worth the effort. The program does have a compositor and sequencer that is at least serviceable, though there may be better ones out there.

Audacity is a sound editing program. I have not spent a lot of time with this one, but from what little I have done with it, it can be a useful program.

The last program I want to talk about is actually a pair of programs, Firefox and Thunderbird, both available from Mozilla. Spun off from Netscape, Mozilla created Firefox as an open source browser and Thunderbird as an email client. Firefox is every bit as fully featured as Internet Explorer. In fact, I like it even better, because it comes closer to compliance with recommendations from W3C, an organization setting standards for web page development. Thunderbird is comparable to Microsoft's Outlook Express email client, and can do many of the same things, including reading email, newsgroups, and RSS feeds.

The best thing about all of these programs? Every single one of them can be gotten for FREE!! As in NO COST. Most of them operate as FREE software, not because of price (which most of them are) but FREE as in FREEdom to do various things with them. Generally, they are free to distribute, as long as you pass the source code along as well, though check the license to make sure before doing so. But even the ones that may cost you (ie versions of Linux), you can usually get CHEAPER than COMPARABLE products from Microsoft.

Check them out and happy computing!

Learn Any Computer Program in 5 Easy Steps -- Step 5

2008-06-27T03:03:00.002-05:00

We have spent the last couple of weeks examining programs. But so far, we haven't tried to use the program. We've learned how to use the box to make sure that the program will do what you want it to and be able to run on your machine. We looked at the quickstart tutorial book to see how to install the program and while it was installing, seeing what the key features of the program are. We scoured the menus to find the common menu items and toolbars, see the features that were specific to the program, and see what some of the keystroke shortcuts are. Finally, we went into the help files to see what clues they would have about the program. Now that we have done all of this research, it is time to take action.

Experiment With the Program

This may seem like the shortest of all the sections since we started. Don't let that fool you. Of all the steps, this is the most important, the longest to perform, and the most fun.

So what is it?

Experiment! Play! Have fun!

It's that easy and simple. Put the knowledge you have been gaining to use. Open up the program and create a new file. Play with the different options to see what they do. It doesn't matter if the final result looks pretty. That's not important. What is important is figuring out what the different tools do.

Remember that option in the menu that you wondered what it did? Try it out! Take it for a spin.

Try to use the program for why you got it in the first place. See if you have figured it out enough that you can do what you wanted. Even if you don't do it to the level of skill you would like to, I'd be willing to bet that you can at least make a beginners attempt.

Now, I have a little confession. These 5 steps won't make you an expert on any program. Some programs (or even kinds of programs) can take years of study and you might still never find all the features available. But these 5 steps will get you to a level of familiarity of the program that will allow any tutorial, any how-to book, or even the dry boring manual make more sense. When it tells you that the Widget Creator in the Widget menu will create a basic widget that you can customize, you will remember that you played with that feature and thus have a greater understanding faster of how to manipulate that widget because your not sitting there trying to figure out what the heck is a widget.

Let me give you an example from my own life. A few years ago, I found a 3D image creation program called Blender. When I first started using the program, I did a lot of what I'm recommending you do. Blender is an open source program availiable online for free. It's not an easy program to learn because the interface is a non-standard one. In other words, though it does have many features similar to most programs (menus, for example), some of them are in different places than in most other programs and they don't always follow the pattern that I showed you. This is an exception, rather than the rule. But I had been using programs for years prior to first using the program, so that was not a hard thing for me to adjust to.

Because this is a program available online, I didn't have a box to look at, but I did find a specification page on their web site that told me what my computer needed to have for the program to work and a features page that showed me what some of the features of the program were. They even had a gallery of images that had been created using the program. So I downloaded and installed the program.

I didn't really have a quickstart guide, but since I have used programs for years, I didn't really read the readme file. I could have, but I jumped right in.

The first thing I did was to notice that the interface was quite a bit different than I was used to. But there were menus up at the top of the page, so I looked through them. I saw menus in other places, so I briefly looked through those as well. A lot of what I saw I didn't understand at the time (and still don't), but I kept on.

The help menu in Blender just points to a bunch of tutorials and manuals, so I didn't really spend a lot of time going through them.

Next, I tried to create something. I went to the Add menu option I found at the top of the screen and tried to add a mesh object. There was already a square cube in the main view window, so I just added some object. I don't even remember now what I added. Even then, I still didn't know what I was doing.

Eventually, I did go back to the help menu and start trying to do some of the tutorials and manuals. For a program such as Blender, these tutorials can be a great help. But my time that I spent with the program before consulting the manuals did help me.

I would still consider myself a blender newbie. I've learned how to do some pretty interesting, almost realistic looking things, but I have not really had the time to fully study the program in the manner that I would like to. But some of the things I use regularly on that program are things I found in my initial exploration and playing with the features. Even now, when I do learn a new feature, I spend a little playing with it before I "learn" how to manipulate it. Sometimes I can figure out what something does, but other times, it does take a while.

I give you this example, which is an extreme example, and not one I'd recommend for a complete computer beginner, but if you are interested in computer graphics, it can be worth taking the time to learn this useful program. I chose to use the Open Office program in my example because, if you wanted to try the program yourself, it is one that is very easy to learn how to use, at least at a basic level, if you have ever used any kind of word processor or spreadsheet. And that is only the tip of the iceberg with that program, because it has many other cool features as well, including a database program, a drawing program that, though not competitive with commercial image editing program, is easy to use (and probably a lot better than MS Paint), and a Math program that lets you construct a complex mathematical formula in a way no other program I 've seen will let you do.

So there you have it. The five steps to learning any computer software program

Learn Any Computer Program in 5 Easy Steps -- Step 4

2008-06-26T09:26:00.003-05:00

Over the last couple of weeks, we learned how to make sure we have the right program for our needs and how to use the quickstart guide to get us started. Last week, we spent a lot of time looking at the common menu and toolbar items found in most programs. And yesterday, we saw what to do with the menu items and toolbar buttons that we were not familiar with as well as noting the shortcut keystrokes for different tasks. Now, only one more area remains before we start trying to use the program.

Browsing the Help Files

Now that we have familiarized ourselves with the menu, let's check out the Help menu in more detail.

A couple of days ago, we looked at the help menu and saw that it had a Contents section and an Index section. Click on the Contents section to bring up the help screen. In most programs, you can quickly access this screen by pressing the F1 key in the upper left hand corner of the keyboard.

The window that comes up should look similar to the on the right. It may look different, depending on the program and operating system you are using, but that is not important. What is important is the information that it contains. Notice in this example, the Contents screen has two panels. The one on the left will have a list of topics. The window on the right will contain the "page" you are currently looking at. You may notice some buttons up at the top of the page. These buttons should be similar to the ones you would see when browsing a web page and are for navigating the help files.

The Table of Contents

The list of topics on the right hand side can be thought of like the the table of contents in a book. When you click on a topic, you "flip" to that page of the book on the right hand screen.

Some topics will contain other sections. These will be noted by either a book, as in our example, or with a + sign. Once these topics are clicked on and opened, the icon will change to an open book or a - sign. Other topics will be revealed. Some may contain still further sub-topics, again noted by the book or symbol. Others will have a page icon or no sign at all. These are actual content pages. clicking on these content pages will bring up the content for that page in the right hand panel.

As you look through these topics, look for things that interest you. You may have a question about a particular feature you saw when you were browsing the menu. See if you can find a help topic for it here. Click on a few topics just to get a feel for how this particular program deals with the help content.

One quick note about the information panel before we move on to the index. Scroll down to the bottom of the bottom of one of the topics. At the bottom, you will likely see some links. These are links to other help pages and are usually preceded by the header that says Related Topics. For example, in Open Office, the topic of Master Documents links to other pages about Indexes Covering Several Documents. This can be a big help in quickly finding information related to what you are trying to find.

Help Index

Another way to find information that you are looking for is to look at the Index. From within the program, you can access this directly from the Help menu. If you are already looking at the help screen, just click on the tab that says Index.

What you will see right away is that the index of the help files looks just like the index in the back of the book. And, like the contents section, clicking on a topic in the left panel will open up a page in the right panel.

Several topics in the index will be broken down into different categories. The sub categories will be indented slightly to show that they are related to the most immediate term above it that is flush to the left. This is exactly like the index of a book. And, just like in a book, topics are arranged alphabetically.

Some programs will pop up a dialog box when you click on a topic. In these programs, the topic you clicked on may have relevance to several different items, and the help section is trying to let you decide which one is the most relevant to what you are trying to find.

You will also find a search box at the top of the screen. This search box will allow you to quickly find topics. Just type in what you are looking for in the search box. Often, you will notice that the terms "jump" to the first spot that most closely matches what you have already typed in. This makes finding topics very easy.

Take a good look through the index to see if there are any topics you wish to see further information on. Perhaps you were interested in the Word Count feature in the tools tab, but didn't find a topic for it in the contents. Just typing in word count in the search box quickly brings this topic up for view in our example.

In most programs, these two screens are all you will really need to find the topic you are looking for. However, note that some help files include a search that will check the individual pages for a term. If the other two methods don't get you what you need, try this option.

By now, we have learned a lot about the program, really in a matter of minutes. Though it took several pages to get to this point, the truth is that the topics covered up to this point (outside of waiting for the install) can usually be completed in five to ten minutes. Tomorrow, we'll look at the last topic -- the most fun one of the five!

Tip of the day

2008-06-26T02:58:00.002-05:00

Want to make your desktop look cleaner and still have access to the links?

In yesterday's tip, I showed how to set up the desktop toolbar on the taskbar of a windows program. Remember, if you have done this, you have access to any file, folder, or shortcut listed there by clicking on the Desktop toolbar.

So how to you clean the clutter on what you "see"?

That's easy! In most any version of Windows, you can right click on the desktop. Then on the View sub menu, click on the option for Desktop Icons. This will toggle the displayed icons on and off. With them off, you can see whatever image you have on your desktop without any clutter over the top!

Enjoy!

Tip of the day

2008-06-25T03:34:00.002-05:00

In yesterday's tip, we looked at how to add the computer icon to the desktop on Windows XP and Vista. With that set up, you can set up a Desktop Toolbar on your taskbar and have access to all the files on your computer. To do this, right click on the taskbar. Look for the "Toolbars" tab. Then select Desktop. Now, over next to the system tray, you should have a toolbar that says Desktop. When you click on that, you can browse to any file or folder on your desktop. And since we have added the computer icon, all the files on your computer will be accessible through this icon.

Learn Any Computer Program in 5 Easy Steps -- Step 3 pt 5

2008-06-25T03:14:00.002-05:00

So, now we have spent a considerable amount of time looking at the key common menu and toolbar items found in most programs, it is time to take a look at how we use that information to learn our new program.

Navigating the Toolbar -- Pulling it all together

When we are looking at a new program, what are we looking for as we navigate the menu?

First, we want to see what common features are in the menus. Sometimes these things are not in the place where we thought they would be, so this is the time to try to find that out. Also look for the common toolbar buttons to make sure you have an idea of what this program works with.

Next, we want to look through the menus and toolbars for things that we may not be familiar with. If you are not sure what a feature does, go ahead and click on the link. Menu options with an ellipsis (...) will open a dialog box. Menu items with a triangle pointing to the right are sub menus that lead to other options. Be sure and look through all of these as well.

Then, we want to click on a few of the ones that open a dialog box to see what options that dialog box has to offer. At this point, we are not trying to use the dialog boxes, but merely seeing what things can be set as well as try to guess what a feature does. Usually by looking at the name of the feature and the options it controls, we can get a good idea of what that feature is supposed to do.

Finally, as we look through the menu, we are looking for the shortcut keys. These are the things on the right of a command in the menu that says something like CTRL-P or ALT-O. These shortcut keys are keystrokes that we can use from within the document window without having to open a menu. The shortcut keys can save a lot of time navigating the menu when you are working on a project. Note that the common menu items discussed earlier will usually have the same shortcut key combinations as other programs, but as we are looking through the menu, we want to see if any of these common items have a different key combination than we might be used to. Some of the other shortcut keys may be for a feature that you have used in other programs, such as the spell check, but it might have a different shortcut key combination than in the other program you are familiar with.

Now that we know what to look for on the box, how to use the quickstart guide, and have familiarized ourselves with the menu and toolbars, the next step in learning any computer program is to browse the help files. We'll look at doing this next time.

Learn Any Computer Program in 5 Easy Steps -- Step 3 pt 4

2008-06-24T08:00:00.005-05:00

Over the last week, we have been looking at how to learn any computer program. We learned what to look for when reading the box and how to use the quickstart guide to get a quick grasp of the program. We also went through the menu to look at the common menu items.

Toolbars

Many programs today have toolbars. In fact, toolbars are so useful and quick to access that some programs may even be hiding the regular menu in favor of the toolbars, so it is important to know what some of the most common options are.

What options you will see in the toolbar depend greatly on the program that you are using. Some toolbars will only appear when you are doing certain functions in a program, but most programs have a toolbar that is always visible of some kind.

For example, in your browser, you probably have at least 5 buttons on your toolbar. A Back arrow, a Forward arrow, an arrow that circles around for Refreshing the page, a Stop Sign button, and a Home button. Each of these are tasks that are commonly performed when viewing web pages.

One of the great things about the toolbars today is that many of them will give you a "tool tip", or a little window that pops up when you move the mouse cursor over the icon that tells you what that button does. When you don't know for sure what a button does, this is a great way to find out.

Some of the common buttons you will see on nearly all programs are the file function buttons. These include buttons to create New files, to Open existing files, to Save or Print the current document, and maybe even a Print Preview button. You may also find a set of editing buttons that allow you to Undo or Redo tasks, options to Cut, Copy, and Paste. There could be a button to access the Find and Replace feature, a Zoom button, and a Help button.

On a program where you edit text, you will find a drop box to select your Font, and another to set the Font Size. You will also find buttons for Bold, Italics, and Underline. You will find 4 justification buttons for Left, Right, Both, and Center. There could also be buttons to toggle Numbering and Bullets, buttons to Increase and Decrease indents, and to set Font and Background Colors. Most programs have buttons that will be specific to that program, so be aware that there are likely to be more.

Some common buttons in graphics programs may be Paintbrush, Pencil, Airbrush, Gradient, Select, Bucket Fill, Resize, and Move. Graphic programs will probably have a lot more than this, but these seem to be fairly common across all graphics programs.

Remember, this is not an exhaustive list, but merely a sampling of some of the most common toolbars that can be found, usually upon first opening a program, or at least a document within a program.

Next time, we'll take one last look at navigating the menu, and see how we can use what we have learned about the basic common elements to most programs to figure out what to pay attention to when looking at a new program.

Tip of the day

2008-06-24T00:28:00.002-05:00

For quick access to your computer files, add the computer icon to your desktop.

In Windows Vista, you can do this by right clicking on the desktop and clicking on Personalize. Then, click on the link in the upper left hand corner that says Change Desktop Icon.

In Windows XP, you can right click on the desktop and click on preferences. Select the Desktop tab, and click on the button that says Customize Desktop.

In both cases, mark the icons that you wish to have on the desktop, such as the one that says Computer. Click on OK, and close the other dialog boxes you open, and you should see the computer icon on the desktop.

Learn Any Computer Program in 5 Easy Steps -- Step 3 pt 3

2008-06-21T00:32:00.003-05:00

Wow. I've covered a lot in the last few days. I'm sorry for the length of the posts, but only one or two more of them will come close to the size of the one I posted yesterday. I hope that the information should be familiar if you've used even a few programs. And that is the beauty of what I am trying to convey. Once you know how they are set up, most programs really are the same with only varying functionality.

By now, you should have a good grasp of the core of the menu. We've seen the main options for the FILE, EDIT, and VIEW menu options. These are the common options at the start of every menu. Now, let's look at the last three menus common to most programs.

Navigating the Menu -- Part 3

Today, we will look at the last three menu options common to most programs. They are the Tools, the Windows, and the Help menu options.

Tools Menu Options

The TOOLS menu option is a common menu option. Most of the choices in this screen are often tools that perform certain tasks. There are only a few choices here that will be common to most programs. Most programs that deal with editing text of some kind might have a SPELLCHECK option and possibly a WORD COUNT option. The only other one that you will find consistently in this area is the OPTIONS or PREFERENCES option.

SPELLCHECK does just what it sounds like. It activates a function that will check your document for spelling errors. Once that task is performed, it may give you some document statistics. This button will force the program to check the entire document for spelling errors.

Most of the time, I see the word count for the document as a part of the document statistics that are displayed with the spell check. Other times, such is the case with our test case, OpenOffice.org, the word count can be found as an option here in the tools menu.

Of all the choices in this menu, the one I see here almost every time is the one that says either OPTIONS or PREFERENCES. As I mentioned yesterday, sometimes the PREFERENCES menu option can be found in the EDIT menu, but it is most often found here in the TOOLS menu.

Anytime I am looking through a new program, I always make sure to check out this option. The reason why is that the dialog box that pops up, more than any other, can change the way the program behaves. If you haven't done so before, check out the PREFERENCES or OPTION menu choice of the program you are running right now. If you are looking at the one for a web browser, you will find all sorts of things that will affect how the browser operates.

If I plan to use a tutorial to get more information on a particular program, I usually leave the settings alone to start out with, but as I get more familiar with a program, I find making changes to this menu option can make it easier for me to use the program. What choices you will find here depend greatly on the purpose of the program. So much so that I cannot tell you of any one thing specific to all programs but one. In nearly every case, you have the ability to set "default" font, font size, and foreground/background colors. Other than that, the choices here are as varied as the programs themselves.

Although you will find many helpful options in the TOOLS menu, remember, only a few are common to most programs, and even these can lead to widely different choices.

Windows Menu Option

Of all the common menu choices, this is the one seen least, though you will see it on almost all menus of Microsoft programs. That doesn't mean you won't find it on other programs, just that it is not seen as much. The purpose of this particular menu choice is to control the way the current Window appears. In program terms, a WINDOW is the box that contains the visual elements of a program. Some programs allow you to have multiple document windows, where each window within the program window contains a different document. These are the programs you will most often find this windows menu.

What you will find in the WINDOWS menu are tools to ARRANGE the windows. Sometimes these arrangements are shown as menu options. TILE will display document windows either across the window VERTICALLY or down the page HORIZONTALLY. You may see an option to CASCADE the windows, or put one on top of another, slightly offset so you can see the one behind it. You can MINIMIZE or COLLAPSE the window so that one is not visible. You can RESTORE a window, so you can see it. Or you can MAXIMIZE a document window so that it takes up the whole program window. Notice that most of these options are the same things you can do with program windows.

One other thing you will likely see here is a list of open documents. This list allows the user to switch back and forth between documents that may otherwise be "hidden" or not seen.

Help Menu Option

The last menu on every program is the HELP menu option. This is the menu where you can access the resources to learning how to use the program. The program's Help Contents is usually the first option, sometimes followed by INDEX. Some programs have a SEARCH HELP option. Many will have a WHAT'S THIS? option. A few may even have a SUPPORT option. Other than the CONTENTS, the other one that you will always see is the ABOUT option.

CONTENTS is nearly always the first option of the HELP menu. If you don't see something that says CONTENTS, you probably see something that says HELP with the name of the program. In either case, this will take you to the contents of the help file.

If you see this option, the INDEX will take you to a way to find a topic based on the subject you wish to find.

The SEARCH HELP will search all of the help files for the term you are trying to find.

When you see a WHAT'S THIS menu option, this option will let you find out what a particular button or function is and how to use it.

SUPPORT will take you to a page of how to contact the makers of the program if you cannot find the answer to your situation in the help files.

The ABOUT screen will always pop up a box or splash screen that tells you the current version of the program you are running. It will usually include some sort of a build number. A copywrite notice will be found here as well. Sometimes, you might even find some information of the key programmers who wrote the program. If you ever need to know what version of a program you are running, this is the place to look.

I was very brief about much of the help items because looking through the help files can be such an important part of getting a quick start with a program that STEP 4 is dedicated to going through the help files, so we will look closely at each of the different help choices in that step.

Now we have seen all of the menu choices, there is one more area to look at before we move on, and that is the toolbars. I am including them in our discussion of the menus because most of the functions in the toolbars have a counterpart in the menus and some toolbars are so common, it can be helpful to know what to look for. So tomorrow, we'll look at the toolbars and see what we can learn from them.

Learn Any Computer Program in 5 Easy Steps -- Step 3 pt 2

2008-06-20T02:42:00.005-05:00

So far, we have looked at reading the box to see if a program is a good fit for our needs and how using the quickstart guide can help us see what the basic features of a program are. Yesterday, we started talking about the menu and seeing what options are common to most programs. We also went through the File menu option to see what the most common options there are and what they do.

Navigating the Menu (part 2)

Today, we will continue looking at the menu to see what features are common to many programs. Specifically, we will look at the Edit and View tabs.

Edit Menu Options

The EDIT menu option contains several features used in changing documents. Options to undo and redo changes can be found here, as well as copy and paste. Another great tool in programs that use text, such as a word processor, is the Find and Replace tools. Another great tool to look for here is the selection tools.

Some programs might have a preferences option that allows you to control the program settings. This particular option is more often found in the TOOLS tab, so we will discuss it there.

The UNDO option will change the document to the state before the "last" task that was performed. The REDO button will bring back a state that was undone. I put the word "last" in quotes because most programs will maintain a list of steps to undo, anywhere from a few items to as much as memory can hold. Beware, though, that some programs DO NOT have the REDO button, and therefore the UNDO button effectively acts like a REDO button in that it will take the system back to what ever was the last state before the button was pushed. This effectively means that in these few programs, the UNDO button will switch between two states. The most notable program that does this is the Toolpad program that can be found in the accessories folder of the start menu on all Windows programs.

Sometimes, though rare, you can find a REPEAT option that will run the last task performed again.

Some of the most used options in the editing panel are the CUT, COPY, and PASTE options. CUT will delete any item that is selected. COPY will duplicate the selected item to the system's clipboard, a special area of the operating system designed to facilitate the COPY/PASTE functions. PASTE will take the contents of the system's clipboard onto the workspace of the program at the place where the cursor is pointing to. These options allow a user to move selections around and modify them into new configurations.

Near the CUT, COPY, PASTE trio of options should be at least one (if not several) options to SELECT something in the program. Variations on this will select groups or individual items. Nearly always there will be a SELECT ALL button that will select everything that can be selected and in most of these cases, there will be a companion option to SELECT NONE, which will deselect any object that has previously been selected. Another common option is to INVERSE (or INVERT) SELECTION. This choice will take whatever you have selected and unselect it and select anything that was previously unselected.

The last two choices we'll discuss in this section are the FIND and the FIND & REPLACE options, usually found in word processors and text editors. The two are nearly identical. Both will search through the text of a document to find a specified term. The difference between the two is that the FIND & REPLACE option will replace the specified text that is searched for in the document with new text. This can be a great tool when you have a word or phrase that needs to be changed in a large document or if you are trying to find where in the document a term occurs. A related item that sometimes can be found is FIND NEXT which just finds the next occurrence of the term, though usually this option is combined with the FIND option in the same dialog box.

So that is the options in the EDIT menu. Remember, these options will help you change an existing document.

View Menu Options

The View menu options allow you to change how a document is displayed with the window that it occupies. It does not change the document or the way the program interacts with the user. Some of the common options here include a place to set which TOOLBARS you wish to use, whether to use all the available screen to view the file or just the window, and the ability to zoom in and out of the document. You could also see some options to "temporarily" change the "default" text size.

The option for TOOLBARS nearly always is a "folder" option, meaning that it has a little triangle that points to the right, indicating that the option has a sub-menu. In the case of the TOOLBARS, the sub-menu contains the different toolbars that can be displayed. The TOOLBARS are the bars with the buttons just below the menu. Toolbars are very useful because they allow the user quick access to key, often used features of a program.

Take the browser you are using now. On the bar just below the menu (if your program displays the menu -- more recent versions of Internet Explorer hide the menu, but it can still be "revealed") you will see a series of buttons. One points the left, and when the mouse cursor comes over it, a hint window pops up that says BACK. The one next to it is an arrow that point s to the right and says NEXT. Then comes an arrow that circles around on itself and is labeled REFRESH. Then you might see a stop sign shaped symbol marked STOP. Finally would be a symbol that looks like a house and is marked HOME. Each of these represent tasks that a user might use frequently and therefor would desire quick access to.

We'll look at the toolbar and the common options on it a little later, but for now, when you look in the VIEW menu option, note what toolbars are available to you. Some toolbars may "automatically" appear when you are doing certain functions, while other may be visible all the time. The visible toolbars are usually marked somehow, quite often with a check.

If you see an option for the STATUS BAR, that toggles the line of display at the bottom of the window that will tell the "status" of the document. For example, in a web browser, it may display the address of a URL that you are about to click or that is waiting to load or say "Done" after loading a page.

The FULL SCREEN option is a toggle option that allows the user to make the document take up the entire screen of the computer when this option is turned on. When the option is turned off, the document can only take up as much room on the screen as the program itself takes up, minus what is needed for the Title bar, the menu bar, the status bar, and the toolbars.

The ZOOM options allow the user to ZOOM IN, or get closer to a document and to ZOOM OUT, or get further away. Some other options that might be available, either as an option in the menu list or as a part of a dialog box, are FIT WIDTH, which makes the document take up the width of the available window, FIT PAGE, which will fit the page top to bottom in the available window, and usually some predefined percentage options that will display a set amount of a document.

One last option I mentioned you might see is the TEXT SIZE options. While this option does not "change" the default options of the program or even of the document, it can make it appear to change. Choices here usually allow you to INCREASE or make the text size larger, DECREASE or make the text size smaller, and NORMAL which sets the text back to the "defined" setting.

Another option that could be here in some text editors and word processors,, but can often be found in the preferences dialog box to be discussed later, is an option to set WORD WRAP. This is useful feater that will "wrap" text to the next line when it reaches the end of the available screen space. This keeps a user from having to scroll side to side to read text and allow them to concentrate on scrolling on the more natural up and down.

So these are the common options of the EDIT and VIEW menus. Next time, we'll look at the remaining three menu options, the TOOLS, the WINDOWS, and the HELP menu options.

Learn Any Computer Program in 5 Easy Steps -- Step 3 pt 1

2008-06-18T14:09:00.004-05:00

So far, we have discussed what to look at on the box to make sure that the program is right for us, and we have seen how we can use the quickstart guide to get a quick look at the features of the program and to get it installed. Now, we are going to see what to look for when Navigating the Menu.

Navigating the Menu - Part 1

Today, we are going to start looking at navigating the menu. I will split this area up into several sections, not because doing this step takes longer than the others, but rather there is a lot of information to cover here. We will look at what menus are common to most programs. Then, we will go through each of the menus and point out what items are commonly used and function nearly the same from program to program. Finally, we will discuss looking at the menu items that are specific to that program and how to check them out to get an idea of what the program can do.

For this section, I'm going to illustrate with some pictures to show what I am discussing. The images are captured from an open source program, OpenOffice.Org, an office suite similar to Microsoft Office. I'm using it because it may be one you are not familiar with, so it makes it good to illustrate what I am saying. But you can follow alonag using whatever program you have on your computer -- even your web browser you are using at the moment.

Common Menu Options

So, what are the common menu items? Look at the image to the right. The image has the most common options found in many programs.

The first option is File. As you can guess, this options that control the files. The Edit option contains choices to change the file. The View option controls how things are displayed on the screen. The Tools option control different program options. The Window option is not in every program, but it is common enough I mention it here. It has some options for the windows. The last option in every menu is Help.

In addition to these menu options will most likely be several other options. Each of these will be specific to the program. For example, in this window are Insert, Format, and Table.

File Menu Option

Now, let's take a look at the File menu option. This section will always have a way to create new files, open documents, save documents, close documents, set the document properties, printing options, and to close the program. Other common items include recent items, export options, and page previews.

The NEW option is the one to select for creating new files. Sometimes this will give you a sub menu or an option box to set the way the new file is started.

The OPEN option always opens a dialog box that gives you a way to open files that are stored on your computer.

RECENT DOCUMENTS will give a list of files that have recently been opened. Usually there are 5 items, but sometimes there are more.

CLOSE will usually close the current document, but leave the program running. If the program has not been saved since it was last changed, it will usually bring up a box asking if you want to save the document.

SAVE and SAVE AS both work almost the same. They both save documents. The only difference is that SAVE AS always gives you a chance to change the name of the file you are working on. If the document is a new document, the SAVE option will open the SAVE AS dialog box, otherwise, it will replace the version on the computer with the current document being worked on. The EXPORT option, if it exists, is very similar, except that instead of saving in the native program format, it will have options to save in a format for another program.

PROPERTIES has the options for the document. In the PROPERTIES dialog, you can set the name of the author, and put in other comments. There will probably be other options, some of which you can set, and others that contain information about the document.

PAGE PREVIEW will let you see how the page will look when it is printed on the page. Often, the screen that pops up will give you a way to set the page layout.

PRINT will let you print the page. PRINT SETUP will give several options that will affect the printer itself.

The last option on this screen is always EXIT. This option will close any open documents, and will close the program.

Next time, we will look at the EDIT and VIEW options that are common to most programs.

Learn Any Computer Program in 5 Easy Steps -- Step 2

2008-06-17T23:57:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, we discussed what to look for when looking at the box before purchasing/downloading a program. Today, we'll look at the next step.

Step 2: The Quickstart Guide

The great thing about programs today is that many of the ones that come in a box now contain a quickstart guide. These guides are designed to be easy to read and will usually highlight the key features of the program. The quickstart guide will also give you instructions on how to install the program. For games, the quickstart guide may also have the commonly used controls on keyboard, mouse, and joysticks, though this may sometimes be on a separate card.

Follow the instructions in the quickstart guide to start the install. While the install is running, you can browse through the rest of the quickstart guide to see what the key features of the program are and how to access them. One of the best things about the quickstart guide is that the features common to most programs (which we will discuss tomorrow) are glossed over or mentioned briefly and more time is spent on features that actually perform tasks specific to the program you are installing. Remember to check your computer occasionally to see if it is prompting you for input.

Another reason I really like the quickstart guides is that most of them are full of screenshots that show the program in action. This can be helpful not only for the features noted in the guide, but can also give you clues of more advanced features that may be of use down the road. Some quickstart guides may even have a quick tutorial designed to show the most commonly used, basic features.

If you have downloaded the program, you may, or may not, get a quickstart file. Either way, another helpful file to read, whether you are installing from a box or from a download, is the README file, usually called README.TXT (or something close to this). This file may have notes that did not make it into the manual or quickstart guide, and will often contain information about how this version of a program may differ from earlier versions. It will usually have some tips on what to try if the program does not work properly, or can warn you of issues that might be encountered when trying to use certain computer configurations.

Both the quickstart guide and the readme file will give you a foundation of what to look at as we go into the next step. Tomorrow, we'll discuss what to look for as you navigate the menu to explore the new program.