The biggest obstacle to learning how to use a computer is “FEAR”. The fear of learning something new, the fear of failing, the fear of looking stupid. Fear is the great immobilizer.

Age and IQ have nothing to do with learning how to use, and becoming proficient with a computer. Think of the computer as a tool. Tools have a purpose. Some have a single purpose, others are multi-purpose: like a computer. Tools require repetitive use to become skilled with them: like a computer. Tools are not smarter than the people using them: like a computer. They only do what you tell them to do.

People say to me, “teach me how to use the computer”. My first question is, “what do you want to do with the computer?”. Having a purpose, like learning how to create an e-mail account, and sending an e-mail to a friend or a grandchild, makes learning easier. It provides s a sense of accomplishment and makes you want to learn more and try other things. One step at a time.

We can help with that first step. Visit us in the  Public Computer Center in the library. We have several learning programs for developing  computer skills, as well as job information workshops. See our flyers at the information desk, or check out the events calendar at www.mahopaclibrary.org.

With access to the Internet, the world is your oyster, right?  Well, yes and no!  The Internet gives us access to more information than we could ever have dreamed possible only a few years ago, but we need to know how to search it in an effective way.

A search engine (like Google or Yahoo) uses keywords to search for content in a web site.  You can enter one or more keywords in the search box. The more specific you are with the keywords, the better your search results will be. For example: if you search for “cheese” in Google, you get 202,000,000 results. But if you search for “cheese cheddar organic new york”, you get 2,450,000 results. Still a big number, but I think you get the idea. I like to tell people to imagine they’re talking a librarian on Mars – this librarian has access to all of Earth’s Internet information, and doesn’t understand context, so we need to narrow it down!   

Takeaway:  Put as many relevant keywords into your search as you can – if you get 4 results, and they’re what you’re looking for, it’s a much more effective search than getting 6,000,000 results that aren’t!

Secondly, the search engine isn’t looking at what you’re typing as a question; it can’t see the forest for the trees! Although, if you entered “what is the color of cheddar cheese”, it’s smart enough to ignore the words that are not important to the search. 

Takeaway:  Don’t worry about making your search grammatically correct; just make sure it contains relevant keywords.

Not sure about what I’m talking about? 

Visit us in the Public Computer Center in the library (PCC). We have several learning programs for developing computer skills, as well as job information workshops. See our flyers at the information desk, or check out the events calendar at Mahopac Library.

Amy Schapiro, Librarian/Instructor 

One of the most confusing things for people to understand is how a computer stores and organizes data.

What is “data”? Data is a generic term for information stored in a computer. Your resume is “data”, your budget is “data”, and a family picture in your computer is considered “data”.   

In a computer, “data” is stored in “files”. A “file” is a collection of data or information stored on your computer’s “hard disk”, usually referred to as the “C drive”.

Let’s digress for a minute. Why is the “hard disk” called the “C drive”? Because, the computer assigns alphabetic letters to storage devices or drives.  Why “C” and not “A” or “B”? Well in the beginning the Personal Computer had 2 “floppy disk drives” and they were the “A” and “B” drives. Floppy drives are obsolete now, so the first storage device the computer sees is the “hard disk” or “C drive”.

Ok, back to “files”.  When you create your resume (“data”), using a program like Microsoft Word, you must save it with a name, the “filename”.  Your resumes filename might be “My Resume 3-1-2011”. Since you created and saved your resume using MS Word, MS Word attaches a “filetype” to the “filename”, so in the computer it is stored as “My Resume 3-1-2011.docx”. “DOCX” is the “filetype” assigned by MS Word. All “files” have a “filetype”, and all programs assign the “filetype”.

Your computer may have thousands of “files” stored on it: Documents, like resumes, Pictures, Videos, Music, etc. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to categorize your data files, so it would be easy to find a specific file when you need it? Visualize a filing cabinet, that has drawers, and in the drawers are folders, and in the folders are documents. Your computers “file” organization can be set up the same way, using the same concept. But, I’ll save that discussion for another TIP.    

Can’t wait for the TIP? Want to learn how to organize your computer files using “folders”? Visit us in the Public Computer Center in the library (PCC). We have several learning programs for developing computer skills, as well as job information workshops. See our flyers at the information desk, or check out the events calendar at Mahopac Library.

Lou Naclerio, PCC Director   

Copying or cutting and pasting is a fast, easy way to move things around.  Why would you want to learn these things? If you’re on the Internet, and you find a great site that you want your friend to see, all you have to do is copy the link, and paste it into an email!  Or say you’re writing a letter, and realize that a line you wrote or a picture you’ve inserted would go better in another paragraph – you cut it from one location and paste it to another! 

Cutting & Pasting – you will be taking the selected item to another place – there will only be one item that you’re moving around

1.      Select the item by left-clicking on the mouse and holding it down while you drag the cursor across the desired text or picture.  The selected item should change color.

2.      Right click over the area that you’ve selected – this will bring up a menu (if you don’t right click over the selected area, you’ll lose the selection).

3.      Left click on Copy on the menu that appears- at this point the menu should disappear – don’t worry, that means everything’s going according to plan!

4.      Right click at the location that you want to place the item – this will bring the menu up again

5.      Left click on Paste on the menu that appears

Copying & Pasting – you will have made a copy of the selected item – there will be two items, the original, and the copy you’ve made

1.      Select the item by left-clicking on the mouse and holding it down while you drag the cursor across the desired text or picture.  The selected item should change color.

2.      Right click over the area that you’ve selected – this will bring up a menu

3.      Left click on Cut on the menu that appears - the selected item should disappear!

4.      Right click at the location that you want to place the item – this will bring the menu up again

5.   Left click on Paste on the menu that appears

With either copying or cutting items, you are using the computer’s ‘clipboard’- which can only remember one thing at a time.  Paste text or pictures that you have on the clipboard as soon as you can after cutting or copying, so that you won’t forget, and save something over it.  The clipboard’s memory is erased when the computer is shut off, so you will lose anything that you don’t paste.

Does this seem unclear to you?  Maybe you just need some practice?  Visit us in the Public Computer Center in the library (PCC). We have several learning programs for developing computer skills, as well as job information workshops. See our flyers at the information desk, or check out the events calendar at Mahopac Library.

Hope to see you there!

Amy Schapiro, Librarian/PCC Instructor

Tip #5 –Do You Need To Backup Your Computer Data?

Murphy’s Law - "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong". Enough said?

A computer “hard disk”, where 99.9% of your data is stored, like pictures, documents, and music, is an electro-mechanical device. This means that it has an electronic circuit board, like your PC, TV or stereo, and that there are mechanical moving parts. To be specific, your data is stored on platters inside the drive that look like CD disks and rotate at 7200rpm. So an electrical spike or just plain wear and tear on the moving parts can destroy your data. If you have data that is extremely important to you, then YES you must backup.

There are two types of backups, a file backup and an image backup. A file backup just backs up the files you specify, to a device you specify. You can backup your files to an external hard disk, flash drives, CD’s, and DVD’s. A file backup is good, and absolutely better than nothing. If you delete a file or an entire folder of files, you can recover it. Windows has a backup and recovery program built in. You can go here http://bit.ly/4w7400 to learn about it.

If you want to be completely safe, then you should choose the image backup type. An image backup program makes a mirror image of your entire hard disk drive, and stores it on an external hard disk. The backup includes the Windows operating system, your programs, and your files.  If your original hard disk fails, you just buy a new one, do an image restore, and you’re back in business. It takes more time to do an image backup, but it will save you days of work just trying to reload Windows, your programs, and data. The one I have used for several years is Acronis True Image, which you can find here http://bit.ly/gSBWq6.

If you have important data on your computer you have to backup. Doing nothing is not an option. Using the image backup has saved me countless hours and days when I have had a hard disk failure. My image backup runs every night, starting at 1:00am, so I will never be without data that is more than 24 hours old. 

Want to learn more about backing up your data? Visit us in the Public Computer Center in the library (PCC). We have several learning programs for developing computer skills, as well as job information workshops. See our flyers at the information desk, or check out the events calendar at Mahopac Library.

Today’s tip will give you some definitions of the tools that you use every day to use the Internet.

Internet Service Provider (ISP) - If you’re going Online on a computer, you have an ISP invisibly helping you get there.  All the ISP does is connect you with the Internet.  If you have Internet access at home, you probably have one of the following: a dial-up provider, a cable modem broadband, or DSL (Digital Subscriber Line).

Web Browsers – A browser is a program that accesses and displays pages and files on the Web.  I suggest thinking of your browser as your car for the Internet.  Popular web browsers are Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari.  Browsers need an Internet connection to operate.  You’ll notice that there is a band on the top of your Internet window that doesn’t seem to change, no matter what web page you’re on.  This is because you’re seeing the browser tools up there!  If we take the car analogy a bit further, the band you see on top of the page that’s displayed is the window frame, and the web page you’re visiting is seen through the window’s glass.

Helpful Hint – You can just use the Address Bar on the top left of the page to go to another website if you know the address.  If you don’t know the address, use the Search Bar (which uses a search engine) on the top right side of the page.

Search Engines – While a Web Browser displays pages that you ask for directly (by putting in the address in the address bar), a search engine compares the keywords you search for to a database (think warehouse) of web sites and web pages.  These databases are constantly updated, both by publishers of websites that send information in, and by programs employed by the search engine company that search the Web for new sites to be added.

Do you need help sorting through this new vocabulary?  Do you need help searching the Web effectively?  We can help! 

Visit us in the Public Computer Center in the library (PCC). We have several learning programs for developing computer skills, as well as job information workshops. See our flyers at the information desk, or check out the events calendar at the PCC webpage at mahopaclibrary.org.

I am often asked this question during one of our computer help sessions. And frankly, it is a difficult question to answer because people use their computers for different purposes. When asked “why do you think you need to upgrade your computer?”, the usual response is “because it is too slow”.

The price of a new desktop PC has dropped dramatically over the last several years. You can buy a new desktop that will most likely satisfy all your home use needs for $400 to $700, and for an additional $100 to $200 get a new 22” LCD monitor. The same is true for laptop computers, but closer to the $600 - $800 range.

By home use I mean: connecting to the internet, e-mail, writing letters, creating spreadsheets, storing your pictures and music, etc. If you have a home business, do software or web development, are a heavy user of games and video, then you have to consider a higher performance, more costly desktop or laptop. General rule of thumb: if upgrading your existing PC will cost more than 50% of the cost of a new PC, then you should buy a new PC.

Before upgrading or buying a new PC there are some things you can do, and should do.

1. Uninstall any programs that you are not using
2. Clean your hard drive of temporary files, log files, old files
3. Clean out the files left over from browsing the internet
4. Run a disk check on your computer
5. Remove any “startup” programs you don’t need
6. Run an antivirus scan
7. Reduce the number of video effects that Windows uses
8. Upgrade your internet connection speed
9. Defragment your hard drive

If after doing all these things your computer is still too slow, the first upgrade you should consider is increasing your computer’s memory. If you’re a do it yourselfer this is not a difficult upgrade, and fairly inexpensive.

Although we cannot perform these services for you at the Public Computer Center, we can show you how to do it yourself. You may just find your computer is almost as fast as the day you bought it, and save yourself some money.

Want to learn more? Visit us in the Public Computer Center in the library (PCC). We have several learning programs for developing computer skills, as well as job information workshops. See our flyers at the information desk, or check out the events calendar at Mahopac Library.

Lou Naclerio, PCC Director   

You might think that the advanced search options on search engines like Google and Yahoo are for advanced searchers, but it’s the other way around!  Advanced search is actually an easier way for beginners to search the Internet, since it helps you narrow down what you’re looking for and, almost as importantly, what you’re not looking for.

I’m going to talk about Yahoo and Google’s advanced search options; here are the links for them (left click on them to go to the advanced search pages):

http://www.search.yahoo.com/web/advanced

http://www.google.com/advanced_search

When you go to the advanced search, the first thing you’ll notice is that there’s a lot of stuff to fill out, rather than the one bar on the regular search.  Don’t panic – this is a good thing!

Let’s say that I’m looking for a nursing program.  If I just type ‘nursing program’ into Yahoo’s search bar, I get 77,300,000 results!  But now let’s look at the options that I can choose from if I use Yahoo’s advanced search options (the options on Google are the same):

• If I put ‘nursing programs’ into the “Show results with all these words” area at the top of the page, and then click the drop down menu next to it to click on “in the title of the page”, I’ve told the search engine to just give me results with nursing program in the title of the page (making it much more likely that nursing school programs will be the subject of the page).
• I can set the Updated menu to a shorter period of time (which means that we’ll be looking at the most current information – you wouldn’t want to look at a 4 year old page for nursing programs!).
• I can put restrictions on the site endings that I’m searching for (.com means commercial, .edu means a school, .org means organization, and .gov means government).  So using our nursing program example, it’s very helpful to limit the search to just .edu pages.
• I can limit my search to the country that the website is from – so that I can just look at schools in the US – or I can look for a school in a specific country that I’m interested in.
• I can also limit by language.

By using these filters, I narrowed my search down to 5,060 results!  The best news is that these results are more targeted to what I was looking for, so I didn’t have to waste time looking through sites that wouldn’t have been useful to me.

I encourage you to try the advance search option for a difficult search, you might be surprised at how much simpler it makes things.

Need help searching?  We have several learning programs for developing computer skills, as well as job information workshops. See our flyers at the information desk, or check out the events calendar at mahopaclibrary.org.

Hope to see you there!

Amy Schapiro, Librarian/PCC Instructor

Tips for Speeding Up Your PC

Few things are as frustrating as dealing with a slow, sluggish computer. This happens for a number of reasons, but the biggest culprits are things like spyware, adware and other computer threats that are unwittingly downloaded along with other content while online. You don’t have to download thousands of MP3s, movies or other items to experience these problems, either – nobody is immune to them. Instead of accepting the situation, there are plenty of techniques and strategies that you can use to make it better – a few of the best ones are outlined below.

Strategy #1: Clean Your Computer’s Windows Registry

The biggest cause of slow, sluggish PC performance is errors and problems within its Windows registry. Adware, spyware and other threats usually target the registry, damaging or misplacing important files within it. When it comes to PC cleaning, a daily Windows registry cleaning should be at the top of your list of priorities. However, this should never be done manually – there are too many opportunities for major errors that could seriously damage your PC’s operating system. Instead, invest in a high-quality Windows registry cleanup program and configure it to run once per day – you won’t believe the difference that it makes.

Strategy #2: Remove Unneeded Files

Every time you log on to the Internet or otherwise use your computer, temporary files are generated. They are usually only needed once; however, they don’t disappear on their own. Instead, they accumulate over time until they are cluttering up your computer’s file system and affecting its performance. While it’s possible to remove these files one-by-one, it’s much easier and quicker to use a PC cleaning tool that’s designed for the purpose. Try to do so about one time per week to keep your computer humming along with ease.

Strategy #3: Remove Unneeded Programs

Like many people, you probably download and try out many different programs each month. How many of them do you actually end up using on a regular basis? Chances are, not very many of them. By getting into the habit of uninstalling unused and unneeded programs, you can keep your computer’s file system a lot less cluttered. In turn, your PC’s performance will improve dramatically. You can optimize your computer in this way by using its Add/Remove Programs feature. Its location varies by operating system, but you should be able to find it somewhere in the Control Panel.

Strategy #4: Empty the Recycle Bin

When you click “delete” on a file or a program, it doesn’t go away for good – not immediately, anyway. Instead, it sits in a kind of purgatory in your computer’s Recycle Bin. As things pile up in the Recycle Bin, your computer can start exhibiting some very annoying problems. If sluggish startups and frequent crashes are occurring with increasing frequency – and your computer’s recycle bin is very full – go ahead and empty it. From then on, get into the habit of doing so about one time per week. This small but important strategy can make a huge difference.

Strategy #5: Perform a Disk Defragmentation

Windows isn’t very efficient when it comes to storing files. It actually splits them up, depositing them into whatever spaces are available. The more spaced apart the pieces of a file are, the harder your computer has to work to make them run. The Windows disk defragmentation system tune-up utility works to piece all of those files back together again. The process is a long one, though, and only needs to be done about four times per year. Set it up to run automatically once every three months. By doing so, you’ll be able to keep your computer running in tiptop shape.

A computer program that I use to automatically fix all the problems described above is Tune-Up Utilities 2011. Once installed, it automatically runs these and other performance enhancements on a daily basis. I have been using Tune-Up for over 5 years and have been very happy with it. You can find it here: http://www.tune-up.com/products/tuneup-utilities/

Want to learn more? Visit us in the Public Computer Center in the library (PCC). We have several learning programs for developing computer skills, as well as job information workshops. See our flyers at the information desk, or check out the events calendar at Mahopac Library.

Lou Naclerio, PCC Director   

Ready to take the plunge?  Today I’m going to walk you through getting an email account! 

I’m using gmail.com, but most of the free email addresses work similarly, even in terms of filling out the forms, so what you learn today will be useable for other email sites, such as yahoo.com, aol.com, etc.

• Open your Internet browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.)
• Click into the Address Bar (the bar on the top left side of the Internet window) to turn the whole thing blue, or just backspace everything that’s in the address bar out.
• Type gmail.com and press Enter
• On the Gmail.com page, click on the “Create an account” button
• This will bring you to a form.  To use a form, you just click into each answer area (or field) with your mouse.  If you’ve done it correctly, you’ll see that there will be a flashing cursor in the desired area.   When you are finished with that field, just click into the next field.  Don’t press Enter until you are finished filling out the whole thing – pressing Enter means that you’re submitting the form to the program, and if it’s incomplete, you’ll just be sent back to finish it.
• You will need to fill out a form with your information. First type your first name, last name, and your desired login name (this login name will be your email address – you can see on the left side of the field there is @gmail.com – this is showing  you what your email address will look like).
• You can click check availability to make sure that the login name hasn't already been taken (just as there can’t be two identical snail mail addresses, there can’t be two identical email addresses).
• Type your desired password. As with any online service, it's important to choose a strong password - one that is difficult for someone to guess. When you type your desired password, Gmail will tell you whether it is strong enough; if it's not strong enough you can modify it. You have to enter it twice – to make sure that your password isn’t misspelled.
• Choose a security question from the dropdown menu, and type in the answer to the security question that you have selected in the space provided for it – in the event that you forget your password, these questions will be asked of you.
• Gmail will also ask for a recovery email address – in case you lose your password, and cannot answer the questions for any reason.
  • If you have another email address, you can type it in the Recovery email field – this means that if you need your password reset, it can be sent to this email address.
  • If you don't have another email address, you can leave it blank.
• Type your location and birthday – you can set the program so that this information is not displayed.
• You will also need to type the word verification that you see below the birthday (this is to make sure that you are not a computer program applying for email addresses- it’s annoying, but it’s done to protect us from SPAM).
• Finally, review the Terms of Service and click to check the “I accept” box to create your account.
• You should be brought to your email.  Congratulations!!

If you need to go over this in person, or you’ve gotten into email, and need a tour – visit us in the Public Computer Center in the library (PCC). We have several learning programs for developing computer skills, as well as job information workshops. See our flyers at the information desk, or check out the events calendar at mahopaclibrary.org.

Amy Schapiro

Librarian/PCC Instructor

Information for this article accessed from http://www.gcflearnfree.org/gmail/ on 8/3/11