Were going to start out with some things that you already know but a lot of my customers still have a little trouble with. It' cant be too much trouble since you are here reading. So the first topic that we pull out of the hat is MICE.
No need to call the exterminator, this one is under you control, or spell, which ever you wish to call it. Although from time to time you may not think so.
The buttons are the whole thing about mice. On a lap top you will have two buttons in the center closest to you and some will refer to them as Flippers. This is the same thing as the left and right button on a mouse. Another thing about lap top's, most have a touch pad in front of the flippers and rather then use the flippers, you can gently tap in the center one time for a single and two times for a double click.
Note: These Instructions are for a mouse set up on the right side of the keyboard, reverse the button side for the left side of the keyboard.
The LEFT BUTTON on the mouse is to select whatever your cursor (pointer) is on. The RIGHT BUTTON is to open a menu of options. This menu will not always be the same since it depends on what you have the cursor such as the desktop, or an icon on the desktop, also each program has its own menu once you are doing something within it.
A few Examples: If you right click on this web page take a look at the menu. You have choices for saving things, and some choices are not highlighted. Now right click on the picture below:
Okay now you have the choice to save the picture, e-mail it, print it, and so on.
Now lets see what kind of a menu you get when you right click in a clear area on your desktop. This is any place that is not near an Icon or open window.
The menu you will get gives you the choices that pertain to the desktop and such as: Arrange the icons, Refresh will make your desktop blink once, which is good for getting rid of pieces of windows that didn't close. I'm not going to go through each and every choice here, the big ones here are:
1) Under arrange icons by if you look at that menu you will see a check mark next to show Desktop Icons, if the check mark was not next to it, you will not have desktop icons and this is how you turn them back on also one more thing just above this one you will see Auto Arrange and Align to grid, now if you want to be able to choose where to put your icons and how, click on each of these which will remove the check mark and now you will be able to set your icons up your way (see below for Drag and Drop).
2) New, this is both a short cut to some programs and if you are into organizing, how you make a new folder on the desktop (we will cover this more in Instructions Part 2).
The Biggie 3) Properties, if you click on properties this will take you to the Display properties in the control panel. Here you can change the background, screen saver, or even turn a theme on, also the appearance of the windows, and also the display resolution for the screen from the Settings tab. Now for the window you are reading, you can get this window back up by clicking (left Once) in the tool tray below on the Explorer icon, if you look below right now you will see a dark blue spot, that is this window and that is where you can click now and it will minimize me and when you click it again it will restore me, you can also right click it and that will give you a menu with, close, minimize, and a few other choices, most not filled in, also you can minimize this window by clicking on the horizontal line up in the top right corner, 2nd button to the left of the X .
You can change the cursor (pointer), if you work with a word processor, such as Word, word pad, note pad and then you will know the "I" beam, pictures you will know the cross. You can change all of these things in one area:
Click on "Start"
go to Control Panel and click on it
find Printers and Other hardware and click on it
Then click on Mouse
click on the Pointers tab, you will see it at the top of the window
In this section of the window all you have to do is:
Left click on each item to highlight it
Once you have the you want to change highlighted, click on Browse, located below on the right
The next window that opens will be the folder in windows that has all the cursors, pointers and such in
Left click to highlight the one you want to use and then click Open
Now your back to the pointers window, click on Apply, then click Okay
You can X out of the control panel and this will put you back at your desk top
One last word about menu's
If you right click on an icon on the desktop you can open the program or folder by clicking on Open. The properties choice will open a window that shows you the properties such as where the program is located in the program folder, now on a folder other than My Documents or My Briefcase you will have an option to change the Icon, on the General tab you can see how much space the files are occupying, the total number of folders and files.
A few possibly useful additions
If you create a folder either on the desktop or within another folder you can name it at the time you click new folder in the menu as long as you start typing the name before you make any other clicks. Should the need or case ever come up, you can open a folder or start a program, or even a document by simply clicking once to highlight and then hit enter on the keyboard. Also if you want to move from folder to folder, or icon to icon (after one is highlighted) you can either hit the tab key or the 4 arrow keys. When you land on the one that you want just hit Enter on the Keyboard.
Drag and Drop can be done on the desk top to move icons around, to move files from folder to folder or even take them off a CD, floppy disk or from computer to computer on a network. Put your cursor on an icon on the desk top and then left click, but keep the button down, then roll or move the mouse in any direction. Let go of the button where you want the icon at. Now if you are moving a file to a folder the way to tell that you are over the folder is that it highlights when the cursor is on top of the folder, same goes for moving a folder into another folder.
For most this is your mail program. When you open it in the tool bar on top you will see a number of icons, the one on the left will say new. If you put your cursor on it the little bubble (this is called a tool tip) will say new mail message. This is one way and probably the same way that you have already used to send a new mail message. Now these icons (or as they are called Short Cuts) can be added to or taken out. To do this right click on that bar in a blank spot and you will see what ones are on by checks next to the tool bar name and what ones that are not on. Another way to get to the same thing is to go to View just above next to Edit. You can also change the way Outlook express looks by going to Tools, then down to Options.
OPTIONS: Here you can change the way the program starts. You can set it to open on the Inbox by adding a check mark next to the choice. If you are having trouble receiving photos within e-mails or are unable to send attachments. On the security tab you will see check mark next to do not receive attachments, uncheck mark this and then just above a pull down box will say restricted sites, change that to Internet. Now you will be able to send and receive attachments. I would only change these settings if you have an anti virus program and make sure that it is set to scan incoming and outgoing e-mails. Another thing which is helpful to other is the Compose tab, you will see the font settings change them to something that suits you. Any font in a 12 works good to get started. You can close the options tab by clicking apply and then Okay.
Address Book You will see an icon towards the right up in the tool bar that looks just like a book, this is you address book. To get to this when you aren't in Outlook Express:
Start
All Programs
Accessories
You will see Address Book, that is your address book. This will do more than just hold e-mail address's, you can put birthdays, notes, work phone numbers, home numbers and such in it. If you want to use it as a real address book, follow the directions above to get to it in the programs menu.
To Create a shortcut on the desktop for the Address Book:
When you get to it in the program menu
right click on it and then either select (Left Click) Copy, or Create Short Cut
COPY: all you have to do is right click anywhere in a clear area on the desktop and click Paste.
Create Shortcut: look at the bottom of the list where you are looking at the Address Book, you will see Copy of Address Book or (1)Address Book. Move your cursor down to it, with your cursor on top of it (it will be highlighted). Left click, hold the button down and drag it out onto the desktop.
Sending E-Mail: First lets write one out of Outlook Express, open Outlook Express.
Click on New
A message opens up, the first line To: if you put your cursor on To: it will raise up, this is a button, click on it and your address book opens.
Highlight the name you wish to mail the message to, you can double click on the name instead of highlighting which will allow you to skip the next step.
Now in the middle you will see To: again, click on that, now you will see the person in the top right hand box.
If you click on okay at the bottom your message is addressed and we are back at the message. Click in the white area of the Subject box and type something in it.
Then click in the big white area below (this is the body). Now all you have to do is type, the cursor will come back to the left when it runs out of space.
In the tool bar just above you will see different things you can use, such as font (the letters style), size of the letters can be changed, you can italicize, underline, and next to that is position (left side of page, center right, and so on). If you can not see all of this you will see an arrow next to the last and if you click on that or maximize the message (click on the middle box in the top right corner of the message between the line and the X) you will be able to see all the tools.
To insert a file attachment or a photo: To do this look up at the top to the right of where it says File you will see Insert click on that and go down to File this one is simple click on it and take a look, same as saving an e-mail, although, instead of storing we are copying it and sending it with the e mail. Now go to pictures, here another menu opens, now go to From File, click on that and now open a folder where you have a picture, if you go to My Pictures you will have sample pictures, double click on one (the double click saves a few clicks) or just single click a photo and then click on Insert (or Open). the picture is inserted into the message body, now hit your Enter button twice on the keyboard and this will put a space between the photo and the text that you will be writing or the next photo. The reason for the space is not for the text, for that you could just hit the enter button to move down one line, but for another photo two spaces works better for the person at the other end if they want to save the photo quickly, if you have no space all the photos would come out as one big one if they saved it from within the e-mail. You will find out more about that below in receiving e-mail.
Any message that is important to you you can save to a folder that you have made and named just for what ever reason or just to My Documents. With the message highlighted in the top pane and displaying in the bottom just as if you were reading it go to File (top left corner) and click on it.
Go down to Save As and click on it
In the window that opens, at the top next to where it says Folder it should say: My documents. Now if the folder that you want to save the message in is on the Desktop click the little arrow next to My Documents and then locate Desktop in the list (it should be at the top) and click on it.
Now in the big area of the window you will see all that is on the desk top, locate your folder and double click on it to open it (this works the same way if the folder is in My Documents).
Now to Save it you can save it as an e-mail or you can save it as a .html file (like a web page) or you can save it as a text file (notepad style) or .rtf (word pad or Word document).
Now if it has photos or any graphics in it the only choice would be .html, some one sending you a web page or an ad from a store (lets just say something that looks like a web page) those things would need to be saved as a .html file (Save as, Web Page choice). Back to the text only, all the choices in File Type will work. File Type is just below where you see File Name next to it is a pull down box, select the type according to whether or not it has any form of graphics. Don't forget to put a name it in File Name.
Save Photos from an E-mail, If all you want are the photos (not a news letter, or sales brochure) as long as they separated the photos by at least one space this works well, if they are not separated by a space, you will have one very long photo, if its just one photo it doesn't matter. Scroll to the photo or first photo, right click anywhere on that photo (within the photo) and click save as. Make sure you name it, do not use the long mail number which is usually what you will see in the name box, delete that name and put your own in. When you click save as you will be doing the same thing we did as above when saving the e-mail, select your spot the same way and click Save. do this for all the photos. Now if you receive forwards (e-mail forwarded to you from people on AOL or attachments like photos, this is a little more complicated. you will need to double click on the e-mail either in the top pane, or on the header, this is where the senders address is displayed just below the line that separates the top from the bottom, now the e-mail will open in another window, if the whole message isn't displayed or more is with it, you will see a narrow white box above the body of the e mail, kind of like the subject area is on a new message. Double click in this area until it is a gray area instead of white. (my record is 160 times doing this). If it is over 25, you will need to open the message to full screen to read it. This is the other way to save a photo attachment, when you see it listed next to attachment, you can right click it and click save as. You can do this with anything that is attached, or save it from the clicking on file in what ever program it opens in.
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