Pulborough Computer Club

Hints and Tips

Recordable CD and DVD Longevity

We've talked about this in the past, but the US National Institute of Standards and Technology has now done some serious research into the subject and published its results. A one page summary of their recommendations is here and a 50 page full report is here.

Right Click

Within Windows itself and within most applications, right clicking on an object or even empty space will bring up a context menu which lets you alter the object's behaviour or perform some action on it. Experiment and see what comes up. Try right clicking the Start button, an Excel cell or a word in MS Word.

Use right click when dragging files around instead of the left click. Windows will ask you if you want to move, copy or create a shortcut.

Ticks and Crosses

You can show these in a document or spreadsheet cell as follows.

Select where you want the symbol to go.
Set the font to Wingdings.
Hold down the ALT key and type 0251 on the numeric keypad for a cross or 0252 for a tick.

Configuring Windows Explorer

By default, Windows Explorer tries to ease the user's lot by hiding information about files and even the files themselves. It's your computer and you can alter this behaviour and take charge .

Start Windows Explorer.
Click Tools, Folder Options, View.
In Hidden files, select Show all files.
Untick Hide file extensions for known file types.