Tips for the Digital Pack Rat
House Cleaning for the Not so Geek
You clean your house (most of us at least monthly), take care of your yard (lately almost weekly), and your body (hopefully at least daily). But when was the last time you took care of your computer?
We are starting a series House Cleaning for the Not So Geek. Through the next several posts, we are going to show you how to clean out, back up, and take care of your computer. This will prolong the life of your computer, as well as increase the performance.
Tips for the Digital Pack Rat
This week we will start to clean out our computers. Maybe you downloaded that game two years ago because it looked really cool, but havent played it in the last year. Why are you still hanging on to it? Maybe your teenager likes to download music files and now you have more music downloads than you can listen to in a year? It is time to clean it out. It is just like cleaning house, sometimes you need to get in the refrigerator, the closets, and all the corners, but I promise it doesnt take nearly as long, and you wont be sore afterwards.
To remove that game or other program: Start > All Programs > and look at the programs you have. Click on the folder for that program or right click on the program and you may see a uninstall or remove. If you click that, it will open the uninstall wizard, which will guide you through the process. If the program does not have an uninstaller, simply go to Start > Control Panel > and chose Classic View to the left. Look for Programs and Features (Vista) Add and Remove Programs (Windows XP) and double click on it. You will then see a list of programs, choose the one you no longer want/need and click Uninstall at the top of the page (Vista) to the right of the selected program (Windows XP). Continue until you have removed all of those old programs.
I would recommend to repeat this process every two to three months. Each time will get quicker, as you are consistently cleaning up your computer now.
Now you are on your way to a more efficient computer. Stay tuned next week for a quick tip on backups.
Also take this opportunity while you are in the cleaning mode and go through the documents (I am sure you dont need everything from 5 years ago). To delete those, simply right click > delete. Also, go through all the other closets and see what else you dont need. You may be surprised what you find.
Dont forget to take out the trash when you are done (empty the recycle bin) or you havent freed up any space. Then one final step. Time to run a Disk Cleanup. This tool searches your hard drive disk for files that can safely be deleted. (files such as temporary internet files, program installer files, etc) If you are using Windows Vista or XP, go to Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools. Click on Disk Cleanup. Select the drive(s) you want to clean up. You will then see a box that will let you choose which items you would like to delete. The program will find files to delete or compress.
I would recommend to repeat this process every two to three months. Each time will get quicker, as you are consistently cleaning up your computer now.
Now you are on your way to a more efficient computer. Stay tuned next week for a quick tip on backups.
Quick Five
I have seen a lot of tips that others assumed every computer user knew but, if it was new to me or someone else here in the office, then it may be new to you. Im sure that I can find enough quick tips to fill a book, and maybe one day I will. Here is a quick five that I discovered this week and there will be much more to follow in the weeks to come.
1. You can double-click a word to highlight it in any document, e-mail or Web page, or triple-click a word to highlight the entire paragraph.
2. You can tap the Space bar to scroll down on a Web page one screenful. Add the Shift key to scroll back up.
3. You can switch from one open program to the next by pressing Alt+Tab (Windows) or Command-Tab (Mac).
4. Just putting something into the Trash or the Recycle Bin doesn't actually delete it. You then have to *empty* the Trash or Recycle Bin. (Once a year, I hear about somebody whose hard drive is full, despite having practically no files. It's because over the years, they've put 79 gigabytes' worth of stuff in the Recycle Bin and never emptied it.)
5. You can hide all windows, revealing only what's on the computer desktop, with one keystroke: Windows key+D in Windows, F11 on Macs (or, on recent Mac laptops, Command+F3; Command is the key with the cloverleaf logo). That's great when you want examine or delete something you've just downloaded to the desktop, for example. Press the keystroke again to return to what you were doing.
I would love to hear some feed back as to what you think of the tips. Are they helping? What are some things that would help make your day a little smoother? Do you know a tip that someone else may enjoy?
Enlarge Text Size
I have always heard that you should learn something new every day. Well, working for Kotori, I have definitely learned more than one thing each day lately. I have been doing lots of research for the Quick Tips column, as well as our upcoming newsletters. Yes, I said newsletters. We will start that in October on a monthly basis.
Well, back to the subject at hand, today Neadom emailed me a rough draft of a newsletter article. The first comment I made was bigger text. He had emailed it at a minuscule 7.5. To someone who has had glasses since the fourth grade, it may as well be invisible. The tip I learned from him today was to hold the Control key and scroll-up with the wheel of the mouse. And guess what, it worked. Bet you just did, to see that last part!!! Now my struggling to read tiny font on any website or email are finally over!
Blackle the Green Google... WHAT?
Ok so let me just say before I get on my rant here, I believe we each can do something each day to be more "GREEN". I want to try to save this planet that I loveand live on. I don't litter and I try to do what I can when I remember. Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a Green Ambassador or anything like that. But, I do try in my own way. So, now, on to my rant!
I was at a clients office the other day and we were discussing a project we were currently working on and a few other ideas we had to help save them some 
money withtheir IT needs. When he asked me about something called Blackle. I first thought it was some sort of TV show or a new computer program. He told me that it was a new "Green Friendly Search Engine". Well at that point, I wanted to know more. I mean how can going to a web page and searching for "Great Pizza joint Charleston, SC" be any greener then using a phone book? See, he is on a committee to help their company become greener and he had heard about this site, and he wanted to know my thoughts, before he dove into it as well. Someone had sent it to him too. He showed me the site and explained to me what the claim was. This is from their website, "Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black." They also quote a government article on power saving and Engery Star but the author emphasises that the effects are more for CRT displays rather than LCDs. I was really confused at first, and then it turned to aggravation. I really believe that some of the world just doesnt think. I mean how many Pink Elephants go dancing across my screen, if I sent this email to 24 of my Friends in the next 10 minutes? Try it now. Oh it REALLY WORKS!!! I tried it too!!! Yeah right! This is what I am talking about too many people jump on the bandwagon before they check the facts. I think that is why TV works for so many people. You hear it from someone you trust and then you trust it. This is how viruses attack. I wont go into to all of that, its a totally different post.
So, why was Blackle created?
Blackle was developed to reduce the amount of energy that your computer uses when searching the internet. They also want to remind the user to save energy and do your part. How many times a day do you open up Google, MSN, Bing or (insert your search engine here)? I open Google at least 50 or 60 times a day. If you have not already taken a look at their site, it is simply Googles search engine, wrapped in a black background. By doing this, they can save the planet one computer at a time. This is what the site claims anyways. To the computer users that do not know how display technology works, it sounds like it makes sense. If you show black on a screen, that means the light is off, and thus you save money when the lights go off. Right? I cant count how many times my parents said, "Turn your lights off!" So the site works right?! Not quite. It actually takes more energy to use this site. The reason is that LCD is a pass thorugh light technology. That is MY term for it. Light passes through a panel that changes colors. The panel does not display light itself. The light is ALWAYS on, until you turn off your computer. It is like your old digital watch. When you pressed the little button, to see the time in the dark, the light shined through the LCD display to show you 6:30 AM. Well this is the SAME thing! So if the battery was dead it did not work. In order for you to see the BLACK numbers, it had to have power. LCD displays work the same way. It take more energy to turn a LCD pixel black than it does to make it clear or white. White= NO POWER to the pixel. The darker the screen the more energy that is used to show the site. Different colors have different voltages that get applied to the screen. I am really focusing on LCDs since most people do not have 60" plasma screens or CRTs as a computer monitor. All the color black is, isa bunch of pixels that are blocking the light from shining though the display. That is it! The video card has to tell the monitor to turn the pixels on and the monitor has to have the power to turn it on.
So to all you Environmentalist, KEEP USING GOOGLE. Plain old everyday Google and save the Earth one computer at a time! If you have a CRT, then do the world a favor and recycle it and buy a LCD monitor that is about as green as you can get. If you have an LCD then reduce the brightness on the screen from 100% to 60% or 70%. That is how you can be green.
If you want to read more about the LCD technology then take a look at these sites for more information:
http://www.practical-home-theater-guide.com/lcd-display.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LCD_TV#Basic_LCD_concepts
Tap Tap... Too Much - Keyboard Shortcuts
Do you ever find yourself tapping away on the backspace key to delete an entire line? There is a better way!! If your cursor is at the beginning of the line, simply press Shift + End. If your cursor is at the end of the line, press Shift + Home. These key combinations will select the entire line, and all you have to do is press delete or backspace.
Do you struggle with the mouse to highlight the entire line, just to copy and paste or change the format?
The same key combination can be used for that, too!
What about multiple lines?
Use the same key combination, then press Shift + Arrow Keys. This combination can also be used for partial lines.