How do you learn to use a computer? Learn to master it's secrets and exploit all it's potential? In point of fact, the answer is a little different for everyone. One other question though would be - how do you remember all the tricks and techniques that make your computer easier to use?
Now here we have an interesting divergence. For "Power users", people who are using their computers a lot to do many things, the answer's simple. Learn the technique, then use it and use it again, and keep using it until it becomes second nature.
But, suppose your job doesn't involve working at your system for half the day? The fact that you won't be repeating your newly discovered trick again and again means that the next time you need to use the trick you've read about or stumbled onto, there's a distinct chance you won't be able to remember it. Of course even the power users can't always remember everything they've learned, which is why they tend to keep reference books by where they do their work, to remind themselves.
The one problem with reference books though, is that they were all written by someone else, someone who doesn't necessarily see things the way you see them, someone who might put the secrets you want in places that don't seem logical to you.
The simple solution is to make your own reference book and use it to store computer tricks that you find useful and want to remember later. And it's easier than you might think, requiring nothing more than a 3 ring binder, a 3 ring hole punch, paper, and a few programs that will either have come with your computer or can be freely downloaded.
First off, you'll want to use a word processing program to write out the main contents of your guide. If your system doesn't come with Microsoft Word, or Wordperfect, or some other word processor installed, there are a number of free word processors you can download and install. Open Office (Available at www.openoffice.org) is a free program including a word processor, as well as a spreadsheet, database, and powerpoint clone.
Now the word processor is good for the heart of a step by step guide, writing out what the steps are one by one. And since you're writing it for yourself, you can write it to your own preferences.
But to illustrate formatting, here's my own preference. I like to start with a nice big centered header. So first I look up, and there's usually two to three drop down menu's near the top of the word processors. One will say something like Times New Roman or some other font name, and next to it will be a box with a number, often 10 - This is the font size. Click the button with the downward arrow at the right of this box, and a list of numbers will drop down. Select a larger number, like 18, and press enter.
Now, center the text by clicking the center box to the right of the font size box. You can identify the center option by moving your mouse so the arrow halts over the box for a second, this will cause the designation of the button to appear. Once I've set the formatting, I write a little summary of what I'm describing the process of doing. Then after pressing enter twice to provide a little space, I use the same technique's to select a smaller font size, and the more standard left aligned text to write up the individual steps of the task I'm describing.
Now, while just a text description will often be all you need, sometimes that text description will be enhanced by adding a few visual aids. For example, in my case, when I find a keyboard shortcut I want to remember but won't use constantly, it's generally enough to just write out the shortcut, and a very short description of what it does. The thing is, I've dabbled in touch typing so I have a fairly clear idea of where all the keys on the keyboard are. My mother is not so familiar with touch typing, and thus to her this sort of reference is complicated by the need to keep looking at the keyboard to identify the keys to use.
The solution was simple. First I took advantage of a font my computer has that looks like computer keys. A little typing in a graphics program and I had an image with most of the standard keys on the keyboard.
If you want to save a copy to your system, you can right click and press Save Image on the drop down menu that opens.
Once the reference keyboard is one your system, open it using some sort of image processing software. Photoshop is the professional grade application, but there are many good quality image editing programs for much less money. And if you don't want to pay any money, log onto www.cnet.com, click Downloads, and then search for GIMP. GIMP is a free image editing program that is very well respected for it's power and versatility.
Whatever the photo editing software your using, here's how you use the reference keyboard. Open it with your editing program. Select the Fill, or Flood Fill button (It's almost universally shaped like a tipping paint can), and click it in the letters and keys you want to highlight. Then hold down the ctri key and press C to copy the image, go into the document where you're creating your reference book, click to set the cursor roughly where you want the keyboard to be, and hold down ctrl again then hit V to paste it into place.
If it needs resizing, move the mouse cursor over one of the dots on the corner of the pictures frame, and hold down the shift key while moving the mouse to resize the picture (The dotted lined outline will be the new frame with the picture fitting inside it.
One other very useful visual reference is screenshots. And in point of fact, that's something that's been built into the OS for a very long time. If you look at the keyboard, at the top right there should be a button labeled PrtScn, which is short for Print Screen. Clicking this button will automatically copy a screenshot of whatever's on your screen (Except for the mouse cursor) into the clipboard.
If the naming seems odd, that's because the key is a legacy. In the original computers of the 80's, the ability to send the contents of the screen to the printer with one key was an invaluable tool that all the computers had built in. As time passed and programs grew more sophisticated, the original application fell out of use and the key was retasked with taking screenshots. But it was never renamed.
By pressing the PrtScn key, you copy a screenshot to your computer's clipboard. Go into the image program and press Ctrl V to open the screenshot. Then if the whole screen has too much information, you can use the paintbrush tool to draw a line around what you want to call attention to, or use the Crop function to get rid of the irrelevant parts of the image. And then go to your word processing document and press Ctrl V to paste it where you want it.
One thing to keep in mind though, is that the system only has one clipboard, so if you take a screenshot, then copy some text, the screenshot will be lost. Which means that if you want to take several screenshots to illustrate your steps while performing a task, you'll have to keep going back and forth between the program your trying to make your reference for and your image editing program. However there is another way to make things simpler. Log back onto www.cnet.com, go to their Downloads section, and type printscreen in their search bar.
The program Gadwin PrintScreen is free, it's small, and once you have it up and running it will also save a copy of any screenshot you make into the folder PrintScreen Files in My Documents. At least that's the default location, you can modify it if you want. With it running, you can simply go through the desired steps, clicking PrtScn whenever you want a screenshot, and once your done, open My Documents, double click PrintScreen Files, and there you'll have all the screenshots you took. Highlight the ones you wanted and drag them into your image editing program to open and work with them, or browse and open from your image editing program, either option will work.
Oh and once you've got your document just as you want it, simply print it up, use your 3 hole punch on it, and put it in your 3 ring binder. You've created your own personal reference book.
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