Computer & Internet Newbie Guide

Help Unzipping Files

You’ve learned to download files and now what do you do with them? Most seem to have the .zip extension. These files (.zip) are compressed PC files which make downloading large files a much quicker job. But to utilize these files, you’ll need to unzip them first. Here’s how to do that:

You need to have installed an unzipping program, such as WinZip (Shareware) or try this freeware that is similar: JustZIPit (Freeware)

• Ensure your unzipping software is installed
• Now whenever you have a file that you need to unzip, just right click on that file and select “Extract To” or “Extract To Folder” (for Winzip) or “JustUnzipit” (for the JustZIPit program).
• Your unzipping program will now unzip the file contents to the location you specified.

You can either trash the zip file or save it to another location on your computer if you’d like to keep a copy ‘just in case’.

Now open your newly unzipped folder and you’ll find everything unzipped.

Help Defragmenting Your Hard Drive

It’s important to keep your computer running smoothly and one way to do that is to regularly defragment your hard drive.

Defragging your computer simply reorganizes your computer bits to run more smoothly and efficiently. Even your computer can get messy! A good rule of thumb is to do this at least once a month. However, if you find you install new software regularly or move files around a lot, try to defrag more often. Here’s how to defrag your computer:

• Click ‘Start’ for your Start Menu
• Select ‘Programs’
• Select ‘Accessories’
• Select ‘System Tools’
• Select ‘Disk Defragmenter’
• Ensure the correct drive is selected (usually you want to defrag your main drive, the C:)
• Click ‘OK’

The defrag process will now begin. Depending on the size of your computer, the defragmenting process could take some time (even an hour). Especially if you haven’t run the defrag in quite some time.

Things to watch:

Ensure there are no other software programs running. Close everything down before your run defrag, this helps speed up the process.

If you haven’t run ScanDisk for quite awhile (also found in the Accessories folder), you may find you won’t be able to defrag. Simply run ScanDisk first, then when that’s done run your defrag.

Your taskbar is the bar located at the bottom of your screen. Here are a few tips to change things up a bit if you wish:

Hide Your Taskbar

If you don’t wish your taskbar to be visible while working within programs or surfing the net, simply tweak the taskbar to hide until you want to use it. Here’s how you do that:

• Click ‘Start’ on your Start Menu
• Select ‘Settings’
• Select ‘Taskbar and Start Menu’
• Select ‘Autohide’
• Click ‘Apply’
• Click ‘OK’

Now while working or surfing the net, your taskbar won’t be visible until you move your cursor to the bottom of the page. The taskbar will then popup whenever you want access to it, otherwise it’s out of the way.

Move The Taskbar

If you’d rather have your taskbar on either side of your monitor or on top, rather than on the bottom, here’s what you do:

• Click on an empty part of your taskbar
• While holding the mouse button down, move your mouse to the location where you want your taskbar to be (left, right, top or bottom)
• Release the mouse button

Your taskbar should now be placed where you wanted.

Setting A Screensaver Password

Here’s an easy way to password protect your computer when you step away for a bit:

• Right click on an empty place on your desktop
• Select ‘Properties’
• Click the ‘Screensaver’ Tab
• Click the ‘Password Protect’ box (or it may say ‘On resume, password protect’)
• Click ‘Apply’
• Click ‘OK’

Now it’s set that whenever your screensaver is activated, a password will be needed to access your computer.

The password will be the same as your windows logon password.

As you download more files and create more documents and notes on your computer, you’ll find that your desktop can get quite full and messy. It’s easy to fix and get organized again!

• Right click on an empty spot on your desktop
• Select New
• Select Folder
• Name the folder (example ‘ebooks’)
• Drag and drop all the files into the folder that you’d like to keep in there

Once you’ve placed all your files in that folder, you can choose to keep the folder on your desktop or tuck it out of the way to another location such as My Documents.

• Right click on the new folder you just created
• Select ‘Cut’
• Go to the place you want to place that new folder – say My Documents for example

Once you’re inside ‘My Documents’:

• Click ‘Edit’ on the top menu bar
• Select ‘Paste’

It’s a good idea to make backups of your files and save them off your computer for safekeeping. You can use floppy disks (also known as diskettes) to do that:

• Go to the file you want to save
• Right click on the file
• Select ‘Send To’
• Select ‘A:’ or ‘3.5″ Floppy’
• Insert Floppy to your A:

Your computer will now proceed with the copy process

Another way to save files to a diskette is to:

• Right click your Start Button (on your start menu)
• Choose ‘Explore’
• Locate the file you wish to save
• In the right pane of the window, left click the file and hold mouse down to drag that file over to the left pane window and drop onto the A: icon at the top left of the window.

Files you may wish to make copies or backups of could include:

• Your email address book
• Your browser bookmarks/favorites
• Your emails
• Important documents

Finding Files On Your Computer

If you can’t remember where you saved a file on your computer, try using the ‘Find’ option.

• Go Start
• Select ‘Search’
• Select ‘Files or Folders’
• Enter the file name in the ‘Search For Files Or Folders Name’ box in the top left corner
• Click ‘Search Now’

Your computer will scan through all your files and folders looking for that file. If it doesn’t find it (usually because you don’t have the right file name), you can try another search with a different filename.

Searching Tip:

You don’t need to know the extension of the file (such as pdf or exe). You don’t even need to know the full file name. If you are looking for a file that is named: computertips.pdf, you can simply do a search for ‘comp’ and all the files that have included the string ‘comp’ will show in the results.

Another Search Option:

You can also try looking for the file manually through Windows Explorer. All the files on your computer are stored in there. Right click on your Start button, choose ‘Explore’ and search through those files and folders. It may be tedious, but your file is in there somewhere (unless you deleted it) as all your files are kept here.

Having files open in the wrong programs (hey even your web browser!) can be quite frustrating, but it’s too easy to set a file association by mistake. Your text documents are opening in Internet Explorer, your picture files are opening in Paint (when you don’t want them to), it’s frustrating!

Here’s how you fix that:

• Right click the Start button (on your Start Menu)
• Select ‘Explore’
• Find the file that you wish to open
• Right click on that file (older versions of Windows may require you to hold the shift button down at the same time)
• Select ‘Open With’
• Select the program (if it’s listed in the right click menu) that you want to open the file with
• If it’s not listed, select the ‘Choose Program’ option at the bottom of your right click menu.
• In the ‘Open With’ box provided, find and select the program you wish to use to open that file
• Click ‘OK’

And that’s it! The file should now open in that program.

If you wish to use that program as the default for opening all files of that type:

• Click the tick box ‘Always Use This Program To Open These Files’
• Click ‘OK’