Volume 1 - Issue 3
Hello Again To All Those in Cyber-Space ???
Welcome to the ongoing education in what may or not be the most important device in your home or office. I am sure that there are those who wish that they stayed in school and learned all they could while the brain cells were still able to absorb new data quickly and efficiently. But like me many of us did not make that choice and drifted into jobs and life and may have fallen by the wayside of all things technical. So as I have said before education today costs nothing if you know where to look " And You Look Marvellous " . Whoa ! What the heck was that???? Sorry can't stay serious for too long it hurts. Anyways I am just here to help and without any further commercial interruptions let's get serious!!!!
One topic I would like to spend some time on for this session is downloading safely .I would like to think that everyone knows what happens in the computer as far as opening directories and storing data. This is important to even take advantage of all the downloads I post for you. It's not much good for anything if you don't know where and what to do with them. So although it will be a lot of reading I will try to take you through it step by step.
First you need to create a directory or folder to keep your downloads in. Windows provides folders for various subjects and all you have to do is find them. How might you do this you ask??? Well let me say that in all of us there is a little bit of an Explorer .Hey !!!! Hold on there Baba Louie, there is a Windows program called Windows Explorer. How do you find it you may ask??? Go to the Start button in the bottom left corner of the Windows desktop with the cursor and left click on the mouse button . Then move the cursor up to programs and it will open up a program list.You do not need to click anything as this is called a rollover function. As you move the cursor around with this window open when you stop on something it will open another window
. As you can see it brings up various windows. Now stop for a moment to absorb this data !!! From the first click on the start button you opened up a list of directories. Then when rolling over the program directory you opened up another list of things called sub-directories." Grasshopper close your eyes and see a tree trunk in your mind, then imagine branches off the trunk and again all the way out to the leaves". Sub-sub directories all the way down to each and every little bit of data in that main folder. Get It !!!! Practice moving around in this area a lot without clicking on anything except the Start button to open up the list of directories. Okay now I know that the sweat is on your brow, are you ready for more? Sure you are !!!
Click on the Start button, roll up to Accessories then roll over and down to Windows Explorer and left click the mouse button. This will open up to a list of directories on the left side of your screen with a separate preview window on the right. Now I want you go slow and remember that now you are in an area where you can delete or erase important data that your computer needs to run so if a window opens up any time you are clicking on things and asks if you are sure you want to do this ( delete any data for example) click no or cancel. Relax you're doing fine !!!! Remember to breathe !!!!!
On the left you will see a list of directories which comprise the contents of your hard drive. If you only have 1 hardrive it will be lettered C: . If like some computers they have these new monster drives it may be partioned into smaller drives( 1 hard drive split into smaller ones ) and the one drive that has Windows on it is called the Boot Drive and is lettered C: , all others after that are D E F G and so on.One of these letters is your CD- Rom or CD-RW ( CD-Rom means CD -Read only memory and CD- RW means Read, Write, Re-Write and is the one called a Burner. COOL, YOUR LEARNIN IT !!!!!!
As you look over the contents of your drive you will see that this information is more detailed than what you saw at the click of the Start button because with Windows Explorer you can now find those folders that we discussed Oh so far back !!!!! Not really but I'm sure it may feel that way to a novice. Keep going !!! You will see a folder called My Documents and if you look to the left of it you will see a little +, opens up sub directories or - ,closes sub directories, if you can also see folders called My Pictures, My Music or My Videos, all the better it means that the folder is already opened (If you click on the - sign beside My Documents it will close the sub directories and you would'nt see the sub folders. OK all confused now , Go slowly and look to the left side of the directories and you will see a line going up and down the side of the list " Remember what I said about the tree trunk " that line connects all your main folders and is called the Route Path WOW !!!!
You can use the forementioned folder called My Documents and sub folders called My Pictures, Music or Videos to download into. Remember what these folders names are because you don't need to open up Windows Explorer to download but you do need to find the files you download so they can be installed or used after downloading.
You can also create your own folders in Windows Explorer to customize to the name you want simply by selecting C (clicking on it once will hi-lite it) then go to File in the top tool bar and you will see New, when you roll over this you will see Folder click this and you will create a new folder. It will be outlined in a little box and will be hi-lited in blue and will be blinking at this point you can re-name it whatever you want eg. Stuff or Downloads. When you have named it click anywhere in a blank area and that will finalize the name change.
At this time you can just click the close button ( the X at the top right of the screen ) and close the Windows Explorer, then remember that you can put things in this folder so you can find them later.
If you have trouble with any of this get someone who is computer savy to lead you through these steps I have outlined and you will see that I have broken them down as much as I can for you to try.
