This page is from material prepared for a church seminar.
The popular web browsers are Internet Explorer, Firefox, Bing, and Chrome.
Your e-mail program is different from your web browser.
Internet Explorer is the browser native to Microsoft Windows but has a long history of virus susceptibility. Firefox is popular as a download and may be more resistant to virus.
Bing is by Microsoft, Chrome is by Google.
computer tips seminar handout June 22 2015.odt ©John Engelbrecht 2015
Is Microsoft® Windows® 8 Secure Boot on? It protects against “root kits” but it requires certain hardware that may only come on business-class computer.
Open a PowerShell window as an administrator, and use following commands to see if Secure Boot is on:
Confirm-SecureBootUEFI
Get-SecureBootPolicy
$100 pen tablet by Wacom to avoid carpal tunnel aggravation and repetitive stress. Problems: with a keyboard, your hands are continually twisted. With a mouse, you have to hold your hand up.
Solution: a pen tablet avoids all this long-term musculoskeletal stress.
http://www.rsitips.com/pen-tablet/
http://101.wacom.com/rsi/rsi.php
Ctrl - and Ctrl + to make web-browser text & graphics bigger
Alt F4 to close a window, when you need to go back to a previous window.
Or move mouse pointer to a corner to get various options.
Anytime you are editing a document and ☹ do something wrong, get it back by going to the menu bar and click edit-undo. You can reach back through several levels if needed. Related tip: accidentally having Insert off, which replaces characters rather than inserting them.
Insert Wingdings ☑ ☛ ☤ ♫ ✃ ➴
Windows Button-PrtScrn followed by Paint>paste to capture the screen
Clipboard is invisible but that is where the copy resides, both for text and graphics.
Use Wordpad (built into Windows) to make a report with illustrations. Copy-paste text from browser, also photos. Copy-paste the web address. Copy-paste from other documents on your computer. May use Paint to make illustrations, or OpenOffice Draw or GIMP. Resize illustrations using handles.
Why Computer Exchange advises against Windows 8
The Start screen and the hidden corner controls are too much of a change. Augusta's Computer Exchange customers end up asking too many questions and being unhappy with the computer they bought. Computer Exchange sells Windows 7.
MB and GB
kB is kilobyte, MB is megabyte, GB is gigabyte, TB is terabyte.
One MB = 1000 kB. One GB = 1000 MB.
A typical, text-only document of three pages is 10 kB.
A compressed picture, JPG format, is 30kB to 500kB.
A 10 minute audio recording is 2 MB.
A digital camera does 4 MB per photo.
A movie of 10 minutes is 3 GB.
A CD is 640 MB, DVD is 4.7 GB, large USB external drive is 2TB.
File History requires use of external drive, like USB Flash drive
Photo editing through Photos, click on a photo, then right click. Crop, contrast, red eye, color temperature, rotate, tint, saturation, selective focus, etc.
Enlarge screen text through Appearance-and-Personalization>Display>Change only the text size
File Explorer (three pages previous) to create new folders, and to search for file names. Sort the columns of File Explorer and adjust widths. When to make a new folder: when you are starting a project that will have multiple documents.
Open a new browser tab, such as to research something in e-mail, seek alternate sources during on-line shopping, check word spelling when writing e-mail.
Text search within web pages: in your browser, Edit>Find
A second computer for use as the family financial computer is advised by security expert Brian Krebs at http://krebsonsecurity.com/online-banking-best-practices-for-businesses/
If you do online investments and banking, you have better security if you have a second computer that you use only for these purposes, & use the first computer for browsing, shopping, games, and downloads.
Buying the cheapest computer doesn't get you the best security. A mark of better security is that your computer has a hardware TPM chip to protect the BIOS, booting, and operating system, and to support Microsoft Bitlocker.
Microsoft 2013: “Currently, TPM is included by nearly all PC & notebook manufacturers, but only on professional product lines.” On Wikipedia, look up TPM.
Wired Internet, using an Ethernet cable, is safer than a wireless connection. The teenager living next door may be snooping into your wireless-connected computer. All the snooping programs are downloadable for free.
The problem of having your Internet connection “always on.” How to use an RJ-45 A-B switch to stop that. Beware that your computer is exposed to hacking even if you don't have a browser open. See the open-ports example in two pages.
Turn off file sharing if you get onto a public network
When thunderstorm approaches with lightning, you get the best protection by removing the wired Ethernet cable & power cord from your computer. You may also remove the cable-TV cable from your cable modem.
Desktops (towers) are cheaper than laptops because miniaturization is expensive. A laptop or tablet is difficult (therefore expensive) to repair. Cloud storage of your documents is available on all these devices, so hard-drive failure is becoming less of a concern.
Copy pictures and documents between computers with a USB Flash drive. But beware that a Flash drive can become virus infected and can spread virus.
Business-grade hard drives and RAID: Western Digital RE4 drives & other enterprise-level drives with 5 year warranty; 40% higher price
Partitions; Windows 8 Storage Spaces; RAID is drive redundancy, not a backup strategy. External hard drive as a backup strategy, but external hard drive is susceptible to virus.
Use two USB keyboards & two USB mice on one computer when training a child or collaborating with a friend. You may need a powered USB hub.
computer tips seminar handout June 22 2015.odt ©John Engelbrecht 2015
Good source of accessories: Cyberguys.com
1050050 RJ-45 A-B switch to easily isolate your computer from Internet when you aren't actively using Internet, to limit intrusions into your computer (needed only if you are using wired Ethernet) $11
1310790 USB 2.0 extension cable, like when you are using a big-screen TV for your monitor & you need mouse & keyboard 15 feet away from the computer $3.29
2020535 USB Active Repeater Cable, 33Ft $17.95
1380371 mini keyboard (smaller keys) $36
1330112 optical mouse (don't use a “ball mouse,” optical mice work better) $7
1212220 VGA extension cable to let your blue-connector monitor be further away $4.69
Hacking Attack from too many network ports open
Speech Recognition to save your wrists
What a Virus looks like on your screen
Start Screen, Desktop, File Explorer confusion
The Blue Screen of Death is cozier, now also, data backups