IntroductionWelcome| 00:04 | Hello! I'm Garrick Chow, and
welcome to Computer Literacy for Windows.
| | 00:08 | This course is aimed at
the complete computer novice.
| | 00:11 | So if you're the sort of person who
feels some mild anxiety, nervousness or
| | 00:14 | dread every time you sit down in front
of a computer, this course is for you.
| | 00:17 | We're going to avoid technical
jargon and present everything in
| | 00:21 | easy-to-understand language.
| | 00:22 | We'll develop a foundation of the
basic knowledge you'll need to use your
| | 00:25 | computer effectively.
| | 00:26 | I'll be starting with the rudiments
of what a computer is, explaining the
| | 00:30 | main components, and offering advice
on whether you should choose a laptop or
| | 00:33 | a desktop computer.
| | 00:35 | From now, we'll look at how to use the
operating system to open, create, save,
| | 00:39 | and otherwise manage your files,
applications, and projects.
| | 00:42 | Then we'll look at how to connect
peripheral devices like printers, scanners,
| | 00:46 | projectors for presentations, as well
as how to use external storage devices.
| | 00:51 | The second half of the course is
dedicated to getting things done.
| | 00:54 | We'll see how to connect to your
networking, get online, how to use email, how
| | 00:58 | to search the internet, and we'll
even cover the basics of word processing,
| | 01:01 | spreadsheets, photo editing, and sharing files.
| | 01:04 | There's a lot to get through, so
let's get started with Computer Literacy for Windows.
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| Using the assessment files| 00:00 | Included with this course are short
chapter-by-chapter quizzes that can be used
| | 00:03 | to assess how much you've
learned after each chapter.
| | 00:06 | These assessments are in the Adobe PDF
format, which requires you to download
| | 00:10 | and install a copy of the
free Adobe Reader application.
| | 00:13 | You can download this application
by opening your browser and going to
| | 00:16 | get.adobe.com/reader.
| | 00:17 | You'll also find more information on
the PDF format in the chapter of this
| | 00:23 | course titled "Introduction to Sharing Files."
| | 00:26 | Once you open the assessment in Reader,
you'll be able to take the quiz and type
| | 00:29 | your answers in the boxes by each question.
| | 00:32 | Just click in one of the
fields and type your response.
| | 00:37 | At the end of the last page of each
assessment, you'll find a Reset button,
| | 00:41 | which will clear all of your answers if
you wish to start over again, as well as
| | 00:44 | a Print button, which when clicked
open your computer's Print dialog box,
| | 00:47 | allowing you to print a copy of the
assessment that includes your answers.
| | 00:50 | Note that if you are using Adobe Reader,
you won't be able to save a copy of the
| | 00:54 | completed form with your answers filled in.
| | 00:56 | So be sure you do print a copy of the
assessment once you've completed it, so
| | 00:58 | you do have a copy that contains your answers.
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| Using the exercise files| 00:00 | If you would like to follow along with
some of these specific exercises in this
| | 00:03 | course, you can download and place a
copy of the exercise files on your desktop.
| | 00:08 | All the files for this course are
grouped together into this single folder and
| | 00:11 | you'll see captions appear at the
bottom of movies, letting you know which file
| | 00:14 | I'm using at any particular time.
| | 00:16 | Just open the file in whichever
application I'm using at that time in the
| | 00:19 | movie you're watching and you should
have no trouble following along with the
| | 00:22 | steps I am performing.
| | 00:23 | But following along with me is not required.
| | 00:26 | if you prefer, just sit back and watch
what I'm doing in each movie and then you
| | 00:29 | can try out what you've learned for
yourself using your own files later.
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1. Getting to Know Computers What's a computer?| 00:00 | When using the word computer, in the
context of this training course,
| | 00:03 | I'm referring to the entire package of
everything you need to actually accomplish tasks.
| | 00:08 | Some people refer to a computer as
just the actual unit housing the main
| | 00:11 | components of the hard drive,
processor, memory, and so on.
| | 00:14 | But to use a computer, you also need a
monitor so you can see what you're doing.
| | 00:19 | Now some computers like notebook
computers or all-in-one computers have
| | 00:22 | built-in monitors, but it's important to not
confuse the monitor with the computer itself.
| | 00:27 | The monitor, also called the display,
doesn't do any of the work or processing.
| | 00:31 | It simply displays the computer's
interface, which is still an essential
| | 00:34 | component of the entire system.
| | 00:36 | You also need a keyboard and a mouse,
so you can enter text and commands and
| | 00:39 | control the computer.
| | 00:40 | You'll often need speakers or
headphones, so you can hear the sounds
| | 00:44 | your computer makes.
| | 00:45 | Some computers have built-in speakers,
while others don't. Computers also need to
| | 00:49 | have an operating system, which is the
software that manages the operation of
| | 00:52 | the entire computer system.
| | 00:53 | We'll talk more about operating systems later.
| | 00:56 | To use a computer, you also need
applications, which are the programs that
| | 00:59 | you run on your computer, like word processing,
spreadsheet, or photo editing applications.
| | 01:04 | Many computers come with built-in
software and you can purchase and install
| | 01:07 | thousands of other software
applications you might want or need.
| | 01:10 | You may also need additional hardware to
have your computer perform other tasks.
| | 01:13 | For example, you'll need to have a
printer in order to have paper copies of your
| | 01:16 | documents or scanner to create
electronic versions of paper documents.
| | 01:20 | In fact, these days your printer
and scanner might be the same device.
| | 01:24 | If you want to get online, you'll
need web browsing software, a modem and
| | 01:27 | to subscribe to an Internet service, if you
want to get on the web with your computer.
| | 01:31 | So at the very least, you need the
computer itself, a monitor, an operating
| | 01:34 | system, and the keyboard or
mouse to have a computer system.
| | 01:38 | But all of these things and more can
make up your computer system and generally,
| | 01:41 | when we talk about computers we're
talking about any configuration that involves
| | 01:45 | these basic and essential components.
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| What's inside a computer?| 00:00 | When it comes to figuring out how
capable your computer is, whether you're
| | 00:03 | shopping around for a new computer or if
you've received a hand-me-down computer
| | 00:07 | for work or at home, you
want to know three things first.
| | 00:10 | How large is the hard drive, how much RAM
is installed, and how fast the processor is.
| | 00:15 | Now, a lot of people who aren't
familiar with computers have trouble
| | 00:17 | understating these three terms
and what they mean in terms of the
| | 00:19 | computer's capabilities.
| | 00:21 | Allow me to offer this analogy.
| | 00:23 | This is a hard drive.
| | 00:25 | Your computer's hard drive is also
referred to as a hard disk and it's the
| | 00:28 | computer's storage device.
| | 00:30 | You most likely rarely see out in the open
like this since it is an internal device,
| | 00:34 | but this is what one looks like.
| | 00:35 | You can think of the hard drive as
the filing cabinet where everything on
| | 00:39 | your computer is stored.
| | 00:41 | from programs to documents to videos.
| | 00:44 | Basically, anything that's stored on
your computer is stored on the hard drive.
| | 00:48 | Now this is a RAM or
Random Access Memory module.
| | 00:51 | Most people just call it RAM or memory.
| | 00:53 | Think of your computer's RAM
as this desk I'm sitting at.
| | 00:57 | In order to work with the files from my
filing cabinet, I need to have space on
| | 01:01 | my desk to pile and organize my files.
| | 01:04 | The smaller the desk, the fewer files
and other items I can work with at once.
| | 01:08 | Similarly, the less RAM you have, the
fewer documents and applications you can
| | 01:11 | have running at one time on your computer.
| | 01:13 | That's why RAM is one of the most common
upgrades people have done to their computers.
| | 01:17 | More RAM means more memory to
work with more files, more quickly.
| | 01:21 | Adding more RAM is kind of like
adding these wire boxes to my desk.
| | 01:24 | It gives me more room to shuffle
around the items on my desk and work with
| | 01:29 | more items at once.
| | 01:31 | Now, the third item I mentioned is
the CPU or Central Processing Unit.
| | 01:35 | Most people just call it the processor.
| | 01:38 | The CPU is the computer's brain.
| | 01:40 | It's the item that carries out all
the functions of the computer, from
| | 01:42 | processing the instructions from the
programs you are running to keeping the
| | 01:45 | operating system working.
| | 01:47 | In our desk and filing
cabinet analogy, the CPU is you.
| | 01:51 | You can have a filing cabinet full of
files and a huge desk to work on those files,
| | 01:55 | but without you,
nothing can happen to those files.
| | 01:59 | Generally, you can upgrade your hard
drive space, which would be like getting
| | 02:01 | a larger filing cabinet or even an additional
filing cabinet, so you can store more files.
| | 02:06 | You can upgrade your RAM, which would
be like getting a larger desk or work
| | 02:08 | area, so you can work with more files at once.
| | 02:11 | But the CPU is rarely upgraded, because
it's usually soldered into your computer
| | 02:15 | and requires a lot more skill to replace.
| | 02:17 | So, just as you can't really upgrade
yourself in this analogy, you can't usually
| | 02:21 | upgrade your CPU either.
| | 02:23 | Now, of course, there's a lot more
inside a computer than just a hard
| | 02:25 | drive, RAM, and the CPU.
| | 02:26 | You've got video cards, audio input and
output ports, USB ports, CD and DVD-ROM
| | 02:32 | drives, expansion cards, the list
goes on. But storage space, memory and
| | 02:37 | processor speed are probably the
most important things to consider when
| | 02:40 | evaluating a computer.
| | 02:41 | We'll take a look at some of those other
components of computers in upcoming movies.
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| Laptop vs. desktop computers| 00:00 | When it comes time to pick out and
purchase a computer, one of the first
| | 00:03 | decisions you'll have to make is whether you
want to get a desktop computer or a laptop computer.
| | 00:08 | This is an example of a laptop computer.
| | 00:11 | Laptop computers are also often called
notebook computers, and these computers
| | 00:14 | are designed for portability, often
weighing less than six or seven pounds, and
| | 00:18 | they have the monitor, keyboard,
and mouse-pointing device built-in.
| | 00:21 | So you usually don't have to plug-in
any other accessories to use the computer.
| | 00:25 | This is an example of a desktop computer.
| | 00:28 | Now the term desktop can mean
different things when you're talking about
| | 00:30 | computers, but in this context, desktop
refers to all computers that either sit
| | 00:34 | on or next to your desk or workstation.
| | 00:37 | The computer itself does not have a
built-in monitor, keyboard or mouse, but
| | 00:40 | those items are usually included in the
same box that the computer ships in and
| | 00:43 | they have to be plugged into
the computer when you set it up.
| | 00:46 | Desktop computers are not designed to
be portable or carried around a lot.
| | 00:50 | But how do you decide
what type of computer to get?
| | 00:52 | Well, for the most part, you should
only select a laptop if you genuinely
| | 00:56 | need the portability.
| | 00:57 | Laptops today are nearly if not just as
powerful as your desktop counterparts,
| | 01:01 | but you're generally be spending more
money on laptops for the same amount of
| | 01:04 | power you can get from a desktop computer.
| | 01:07 | Desktop computers also have the
advantage of being more upgradeable.
| | 01:10 | Yes, laptops have USB ports for
adding external hard drives, but desktop
| | 01:14 | computers also have more available USB
ports and also have slots for expansion
| | 01:18 | cards or for additional
internal hard drives or optical drives.
| | 01:21 | Desktops are usually
easier to upgrade yourself too.
| | 01:25 | Also, if your computer is mainly going
to be used in your home or office and you
| | 01:28 | don't need the portability, you can
treat yourself to a much larger monitor than
| | 01:31 | you would get on a laptop.
| | 01:33 | Laptop displays generally top out at
around 17 inches, but these days you can
| | 01:37 | purchase monitors at 23, 27 or
even 30 inch or larger sizes.
| | 01:41 | Of course, many laptops offer the
ability to connect to additional monitors
| | 01:45 | these days too, but you are still going
to be paying more, so unless you really
| | 01:48 | need the portability, you'll want
to go with the desktop computer.
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| Special considerations when using a laptop| 00:00 | If you've decided to use a laptop or a
notebook computer or if you really didn't
| | 00:04 | have any say in the matter and had
one issued to you, there are some things
| | 00:07 | unique to the use of laptops
that you should be familiar with.
| | 00:10 | First of all, the laptop
is an all-in-one device.
| | 00:13 | All of the necessary components are
built-in and for the most part, you can
| | 00:16 | carry it around and have
everything you need to get your work done.
| | 00:19 | Now since it's a portable device,
it runs off an internal battery.
| | 00:22 | Most laptop batteries range anywhere
from two to six hours of usage time on a
| | 00:26 | single charge, but your results
will vary greatly depending on how hard
| | 00:29 | you're taxing the laptop.
| | 00:30 | So you always want to make sure to
carry the laptop's power supply cable along
| | 00:34 | with you, whenever possible.
| | 00:35 | Now when it comes to actually using
the laptop, probably the most important
| | 00:39 | thing to get used to is the mouse or
more accurately, the lack of a mouse.
| | 00:44 | This is a mouse and all
computers need one to operate.
| | 00:46 | Now you can always plug a mouse like
this into your laptop if you prefer, but
| | 00:51 | laptops generally don't come with them.
| | 00:53 | Instead, there's a variety of different
built-in devices to act as the mouse or
| | 00:56 | a pointing device as it is sometimes called.
| | 00:58 | Probably the most common
pointing device is the trackpad.
| | 01:01 | This is a touch-sensitive device,
which you operate by sliding your
| | 01:04 | finger around on it.
| | 01:05 | The mouse pointer on the screen
moves as you move your finger.
| | 01:08 | The trackpad usually has two buttons
below it for left and right-clicking.
| | 01:12 | Some laptops also have this little
nub in the keyboard, which you generally
| | 01:15 | apply pressure to in one direction or
another to move the pointer, and these are
| | 01:19 | also accompanied by left and
right buttons for clicking.
| | 01:22 | As you can see, this laptop I am using
has both types of pointing devices, so I
| | 01:25 | can choose to use either one.
| | 01:27 | And again, you can plug an external
mouse into your laptop's USB port if you
| | 01:31 | prefer to use a real mouse or use a
wireless Bluetooth mouse, which I'll show
| | 01:34 | you how to set up in a later chapter.
| | 01:36 | Another feature you might have to
get used to is your laptop's keyboard.
| | 01:40 | Most laptops these days have keyboards
in which the keys are the same size as
| | 01:43 | their desktop counterparts, but the
key is might be closer together or they
| | 01:47 | might not press down as far as you're
used to, or they may in fact be a little
| | 01:50 | smaller than a standard keyboard.
| | 01:52 | So typing might be a more
challenging at first, until you get used to
| | 01:55 | the built-in keyboard.
| | 01:56 | Also to save space, certain
keys might be combined together.
| | 01:59 | For instance, the F keys, which are
used for a variety of purposes, may require
| | 02:03 | you to hold down the F or
Function button in order to use them.
| | 02:06 | You might find your F keys have been
combined with the buttons for controlling
| | 02:09 | the volume of your speakers or
the brightness of your screen.
| | 02:12 | The layout of keys can really vary from
laptop to laptop, so your best bet is to
| | 02:16 | take some time to examine your
keyboard and read through the portion of your
| | 02:19 | manual that discusses the keyboard.
| | 02:21 | And as with the mouse, you can
usually plug an external keyboard into your
| | 02:24 | laptop if you prefer, although that's
not as common, since most people can't fit
| | 02:28 | a full-size keyboard into their laptop bag.
| | 02:31 | Now depending on your laptop, there
may also be additional buttons and
| | 02:34 | switches to be aware of.
| | 02:35 | I can't really run through every
possible button, key, or switch that you might have,
| | 02:38 | so again, be sure to give your
laptop a thorough inspection and check out
| | 02:42 | your user manual for details.
| | 02:44 | Once you familiarize yourself with your
laptop though, you will probably be able
| | 02:47 | to use it almost as efficiently
as you do at desktop computer.
| | 02:50 | I do recommend carrying an external mouse if
you have to do a lot of work with your laptop.
| | 02:54 | It's just easier to work with the real mouse
than any other pointing device, at least for me.
| | 02:59 | You might also want to invest in a
second power cable for you laptop, so you
| | 03:02 | don't have to constantly plug and unplug
your power cable from your main work area.
| | 03:06 | I personally have a power cable,
external monitor, keyboard, and mouse that I
| | 03:10 | keep at my desk for when I'm using my
laptop at the office, and when I need
| | 03:13 | to travel, I just unplug everything,
pack up the laptop and then I can
| | 03:17 | continue working wherever I happen
be, using the power cable and mouse I
| | 03:20 | keep in my laptop bag.
| | 03:22 | So those are just some things to be
aware of and keep in mind if you have a laptop.
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2. Operating SystemsUnderstanding the operating system| 00:00 | You've probably heard the term
operating system before, but you might not be
| | 00:03 | exactly sure what it means.
| | 00:05 | Essentially, you computer's operating
system is the software that manages how
| | 00:08 | you interact with the computer, how
the programs on the computer use and
| | 00:11 | access the computer's hardware and
it's a big part of how your computer
| | 00:14 | behaves and performs.
| | 00:15 | You can think of the operating
system as the master program that runs and
| | 00:18 | manages all the other programs on your computer.
| | 00:21 | It's the backbone of your computer and
it's the most important program because it
| | 00:24 | controls everything that goes in and
out of your computer, from allocating
| | 00:27 | memory to programs, to copying files
from one drive to another, to receiving
| | 00:31 | commands from your keyboard and
mouse, to telling you the time of day.
| | 00:35 | You can't have a computer
without an operating system.
| | 00:37 | Usually, the operating system
comes pre-installed on your computer.
| | 00:40 | But if you had a computer for a few
years, you want or need to upgrade your
| | 00:44 | operating system to the most
current version the operating system's
| | 00:46 | manufacturer has released.
| | 00:48 | Now that said, there are many
different operating systems out there.
| | 00:52 | On PCs, the most popular operating
system is Windows and as I record this movie,
| | 00:56 | the current version of the
Windows operating system is Windows 7.
| | 01:00 | On a Mac, the operating system is called
Mac OS X with the current version being
| | 01:03 | OS 10.6 Snow Leopard.
| | 01:06 | These are probably the two
most well known operating systems.
| | 01:07 | You've probably heard of Linux,
another popular computer operating system.
| | 01:13 | But generally, any computer or device
that runs programs, especially multiple
| | 01:16 | programs, has an operating system.
| | 01:18 | Game consoles like the Wii, PS3
and Xbox all have operating systems.
| | 01:22 | Your mobile phone has an operating system.
| | 01:24 | Now, in addition to the essential
purpose of managing your computer and the
| | 01:28 | programs you use, most operating
systems like Windows and Mac OS X also come
| | 01:32 | with built-in programs,
also called applications.
| | 01:34 | So applications are also
called apps, programs or software.
| | 01:38 | Now, these can be simple word processing
applications, applications for managing
| | 01:42 | your photos, applications for
sending and receiving email, and so on.
| | 01:46 | In some cases, you can get buy
with the applications included with
| | 01:48 | your operating system.
| | 01:49 | For example, both Windows and Mac
OS X come with built in web browsing
| | 01:53 | applications for surfing the web.
| | 01:54 | But you are also free to install and
use applications made by other companies.
| | 01:58 | Some applications can be downloaded for
free from the companies that make them.
| | 02:02 | Others have to be purchased.
| | 02:03 | It really depends on what
application you're talking about.
| | 02:05 | It's also very important to note that
you usually have to make sure you're
| | 02:08 | downloading or purchasing the version of
software that's made for your operating system.
| | 02:11 | For example, it you're using Windows,
you need to run Windows applications.
| | 02:15 | If you're on a Mac,
you need to run Mac,applications.
| | 02:17 | In many cases, software developers
release both versions of their software but
| | 02:21 | there are many applications that
only work with one or the other.
| | 02:24 | Whether you're downloading software or
purchasing it at a store, you should always
| | 02:27 | be able to find a section called
System Requirements that will let you know
| | 02:30 | what operating system you need to
run the software as well as the minimum
| | 02:34 | amount of RAM, hard drive space and any other
requirements you might need to run the software.
| | 02:38 | You're going to find that some people
are very particular and passionate about
| | 02:42 | their choice of operating system.
| | 02:43 | The goal of this course is not to extol
the virtues of one or the other though.
| | 02:47 | If you want to know more about the
specifics of a Windows or Mac operating
| | 02:49 | system, you can check out the course is
covering those operating systems on the
| | 02:53 | lynda.com Online Training Library.
| | 02:54 | What I want to do here is to make
sure you understand what an operating
| | 02:57 | system is, what it does, and why it's
important to know which operating system
| | 03:01 | you're are using.
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| Understanding files, folders, and directories| 00:00 | One of the most important concepts to
understand when working with computers is
| | 00:04 | the system for organizing, storing, and
locating your files and applications.
| | 00:08 | In this context, the term file refers to
a single item such as a word processing
| | 00:12 | document, a photo, a
video clip, a song and so on.
| | 00:16 | Applications are the programs you run
on your computer with which you often use,
| | 00:20 | interact, or create the
files stored on your computer.
| | 00:23 | Another term you'll hear frequently is folder.
| | 00:26 | A folder is sometimes
referred to as a directory.
| | 00:28 | But I think folder makes more sense
because it's easy to understand the concept
| | 00:31 | of storing files within folders.
| | 00:33 | In fact, every thing you interact
with on your computer is stored in a
| | 00:36 | hierarchy of folders.
| | 00:37 | You can have folders nested within
other folders and files stored within
| | 00:41 | those nested folders.
| | 00:42 | If it helps, you can think of your hard
drive as one big master folder or even a
| | 00:46 | filing cabinet where all the other
folders are stored, accessed, and arranged.
| | 00:51 | Let's take a look at an example
of a file in folder hierarchy.
| | 00:53 | I have this folder on my desktop called
bills in which I want to store scanned
| | 00:57 | versions all my utility and credit card bills.
| | 01:00 | I am going to double click this folder,
meaning I am going to click it quickly
| | 01:03 | two times to open it up.
| | 01:07 | And inside this folder
you can see I have three files.
| | 01:09 | They are clearly labeled electric,
heat and water with the month's name
| | 01:13 | listed in the file name.
| | 01:14 | Now as I receive more bills I could
just continue to save them in this
| | 01:18 | folder called Bills.
| | 01:19 | But as you can probably imagine my
folder will get pretty cluttered and
| | 01:22 | disorganized quickly.
| | 01:23 | This is an example when it's highly
advantageous to create nested folders or sub-folders.
| | 01:28 | So in Windows 7, I just click the buttons
labeled New folder at the top of the window.
| | 01:34 | This gives me a folder called New
folder and notice the name is already
| | 01:37 | highlighted, meaning it's selected and
I can just start typing to rename this.
| | 01:40 | I will call this Water and I will press
Enter or Return to tell Windows I am done typing.
| | 01:45 | And then I create two more
by clicking New Folder again.
| | 01:49 | I'll call this one Electric and one
more and we'll call this one Heat.
| | 01:56 | Now I have created three nested or
sub-folders within my main Bills folder.
| | 02:01 | So with these sub-folders created I can
now easily organize my various bills by
| | 02:04 | dragging them into the appropriate folders.
| | 02:06 | So I can take this electric bill
drag it into the Electric folder and it
| | 02:11 | gets moved on there.
| | 02:12 | I can heat and move it on top of Heat.
| | 02:14 | You notice that it says Move to Heat,
so when I release it pops in there and
| | 02:19 | move water into Water.
| | 02:20 | So if I open up the Electric folder by
double clicking on it, you see my electric
| | 02:25 | bill is in fact sitting in here.
| | 02:26 | I am going to click this Back button in
the upper left hand corner to go back to
| | 02:30 | the main Bills folder.
| | 02:32 | So if you understood that,
you understand the essential principle behind the
| | 02:35 | folders and file system
of your operating system.
| | 02:36 | Now you don't absolutely
have to organize your folders.
| | 02:40 | Your computer can keep track of the
files wherever you place them but the
| | 02:43 | question is whether you can.
| | 02:45 | It's not hard to do when there are only three
files to organize, but how about 300 or 3000?
| | 02:50 | Really I'd say organizing your files is
an essential skill and habit to get into.
| | 02:54 | Now I just want to discuss the different
ways you can view the files within a folder.
| | 02:57 | Here in Windows 7 you have a View
button in the upper right-hand corner of your
| | 03:01 | Windows and clicking this button
rotates you through several views or ways of
| | 03:05 | looking at the contents of your current folder.
| | 03:06 | You can click the downward pointing
arrow next to the button to see the list
| | 03:10 | of different views.
| | 03:11 | And you can actually then use the slider
to further change the way the icons appear.
| | 03:17 | Now the view you choose is totally up to you.
| | 03:20 | Your preferred view doesn't change the
contents of the folder in any way,
| | 03:23 | just how they are displayed.
| | 03:25 | I personally prefer Details, so I can
not only see the file names but other
| | 03:29 | information like the date the item was
last modified, the type of item it is,
| | 03:34 | the file size if it's available.
| | 03:36 | You on the other hand might
prefer one of the various icon sizes.
| | 03:40 | And again even though you can click the
different sizes, using the slider lets
| | 03:45 | you see the effects of the change without
having to click buttons over and over again.
| | 03:48 | Again it's completely your
choice of which view you prefer.
| | 03:52 | But do note that while you are in
Details view you can click on these headers to
| | 03:57 | sort your list of files and folders.
| | 03:59 | This can be especially useful if you
want to say display the most recently
| | 04:02 | modified files in order.
| | 04:04 | You would just click Date
modified to put them in that order.
| | 04:06 | Or if you want to list them
alphabetically again just click Name.
| | 04:10 | Clicking any header twice
reverses the order of the list.
| | 04:15 | Lastly I want to mention that you can
always see which field you are in by
| | 04:18 | looking at the top of your window.
| | 04:20 | So for instance if I open up my Heat
folder, notice that I am looking in my
| | 04:23 | Desktop folder in Bills and in Heat.
| | 04:26 | And if I want to jump back to Bills I can
either click the Back button or just click Bills.
| | 04:31 | Okay so that's an overview of the
thinking behind the file and folder hierarchy
| | 04:34 | system and the various ways you can
view the contents of your folders.
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| Understanding your Home (User) folder| 00:00 | In a previous movie we looked at the
important concept of folders and files, and
| | 00:04 | how this organizational system is
used by you and your operating system to
| | 00:08 | manage all the contents of your hard drive.
| | 00:10 | Now it's important to note that many of
the files and folders on your computer
| | 00:13 | are not for your use.
| | 00:14 | They are there for the
operating system to run properly.
| | 00:17 | In some cases these files and folders
are protected by the operating system, so
| | 00:20 | you'll be unable to move, rename, or delete them.
| | 00:23 | But there are files and folders you can
move around if you know what you are doing.
| | 00:25 | But you can also potentially
damage system if you don't.
| | 00:28 | That's why your personal account on
your computer includes a user folder.
| | 00:32 | Let's take a look at how we get to the
user folder before we learn what it is.
| | 00:35 | Now there are faster ways to get to
some of the folders inside your user folder
| | 00:38 | than one I am about to show you.
| | 00:40 | But I also want you to see exactly where
this folder is located so bear with me.
| | 00:43 | Currently I don't have any windows
open or any applications running.
| | 00:46 | I am going to click the Start
button and here I'll click Computer.
| | 00:51 | This opens a window displaying all the
hard drives currently installed on my PC
| | 00:55 | as well as any drive on my network and
removable media drives like my DVD drive.
| | 01:01 | In this case I only have my local
disk and my DVD drive showing up.
| | 01:04 | The local disk labeled as the C
drive is my main or start up hard drive
| | 01:09 | containing the operating system.
| | 01:10 | I am going to double- click it to open it.
| | 01:13 | And this displays the contents of the C drive.
| | 01:15 | Now most of these folders you see here
are for the Windows operating system's use
| | 01:19 | you generally don't want to mess around
with them unless you know what you are doing.
| | 01:21 | But what I am interested
in here is the Users folder.
| | 01:25 | Let's take a look inside it.
| | 01:27 | In the Users folder you'll find a
folder with your name on it or whatever the
| | 01:31 | name of your account is.
| | 01:32 | And you'll also find folders for any
other user accounts on this computer.
| | 01:36 | To view the contents of your
user folder just double click it.
| | 01:39 | So your user folder is your folder.
| | 01:41 | It's where you can store all of your
documents, music, photos, videos and so on.
| | 01:45 | Now you can store files in other
parts of your hard drive outside your user
| | 01:49 | folder but there are
very few reasons to do that.
| | 01:51 | It's best to keep all of your personal
files here in your user folder so they
| | 01:55 | are all located in one central place.
| | 01:57 | You are also free to create additional
folders in your user folder or within any
| | 02:01 | of these default folders that you see here.
| | 02:03 | So if I wanted to say organize my documents a
little bit more, I could open up My Documents.
| | 02:08 | And in here I could create a new
folder and I might call this Work files and
| | 02:13 | then store all of my
work related files in there.
| | 02:15 | Let me go back to my main user folder.
| | 02:19 | So that's your user folder.
| | 02:20 | Any time you are using an application
and you want to save a file for example if
| | 02:24 | you are writing a paper and want to
save it you should navigate to your My
| | 02:26 | Documents folder in your user folder,
or into a folder you have nested inside
| | 02:30 | the My Documents folder.
| | 02:31 | We'll talk about how to save and
open files in the next chapter.
| | 02:34 | But for now I just want you to know where
you should be storing your stuff on your PC.
| | 02:38 | I also want to point out that since
you'll probably need to access folders like
| | 02:42 | My Documents, My Music and My Pictures
frequently, you should be aware that you
| | 02:46 | can easily get to them by clicking the
Start button and then from here selecting
| | 02:50 | Documents, Pictures or Music.
| | 02:51 | So for example if I select the
Documents here you can see that opens a window
| | 02:55 | showing me the Documents
folder we were just looking at.
| | 02:58 | And here's that Works file folder I created.
| | 03:00 | Okay so that's your user folder in Windows.
| | 03:03 | Again I highly recommend that you store
and organize all your personal files and
| | 03:06 | other media in this location.
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| Using your desktop| 00:00 | Now, let's talk about the word Desktop.
| | 00:02 | This word already came up once at the
beginning of this course but in reference
| | 00:05 | to the type of computer of you
maybe using, as in laptop or sesktop.
| | 00:09 | But that's not the only use of the
word Desktop when it comes to you
| | 00:12 | computer terminology.
| | 00:13 | Another meaning of Desktop refers to
what we were seeing on screen right now,
| | 00:17 | this vast empty blue area.
| | 00:19 | Now the Desktop is in realty just
another folder on your computer.
| | 00:22 | It happens to be the folder you see most
often and it's always open, unless it's
| | 00:26 | completely covered by another window.
| | 00:28 | But if you can see even just a tiny
portion of your Desktop, you can drag flies
| | 00:31 | out of other folders on to
the Desktop and move them there.
| | 00:34 | And the Desktop can be a very
convenient place to store commonly used files or
| | 00:37 | even recently downloaded files.
| | 00:39 | So, for example, I am going to open up
a program called Notepad, which comes
| | 00:42 | installed on Windows, and is found by
going to the Start menu > All Programs >
| | 00:47 | Accessories and here you find Notepad.
| | 00:50 | You will get into opening and ysing
applications in a later chapter, but for now
| | 00:54 | I just need to run an application to
demonstrate how to use the Desktop.
| | 00:57 | So in this blank document I am going
to type To Do, so I have a to do list.
| | 01:06 | Groceries, Laundry and Car Wash.
| | 01:07 | And I will probably continue adding to
this list throughout the next few days,
| | 01:10 | so I want to make sure it's
stored in a convenient place.
| | 01:12 | I am going to choose File > Save, and a
window opens up prompting me to name my
| | 01:18 | file and choose a location
on my computer to save it.
| | 01:21 | Here in the File name field, which is
already highlighted for me, I am just
| | 01:24 | going to call this To Do.
| | 01:25 | Notice one of my choices here is Desktop,
which I select, and then I will click save.
| | 01:33 | And then notice the file called To Do
has immediately appeared on my Desktop.
| | 01:36 | This is the file I just saved, so
if I close the To Do list that I am
| | 01:40 | looking here in Notepad, I can open
it again by double clicking the dile's
| | 01:44 | icon and there it is.
| | 01:46 | So that's just a quick example of
using the Desktop to keep a file.
| | 01:50 | Now as I previously said, the Desktop
really is just another folder in your User folder.
| | 01:54 | In fact if I open my User
folder by clicking the Start menu and then
| | 01:58 | clicking my name, you will see the one
folder here is called Desktop and if I
| | 02:03 | opened it up, sure enough,
there is my To Do list file.
| | 02:05 | I close that Window, but I can still
get to my file right here on the Desktop.
| | 02:11 | Now the Desktop is a very convenient
place to store files you frequently use,
| | 02:15 | but many people use that as kind of a
dumping ground of all sorts of files they
| | 02:18 | have accumulated and they
really go through in and clean it up.
| | 02:21 | But having cluttered computer Desktop is a
lot like when your real desk is cluttered.
| | 02:25 | It can be very difficult to
find things and work efficiently.
| | 02:28 | And when it comes to your computer
Desktop, having tons of files on it really
| | 02:31 | can slow down your computer's performance.
| | 02:33 | So it's a good idea to occasionally
look through all the files on your Desktop
| | 02:36 | and figure out if you still need to
keep them there, or if you can move them
| | 02:39 | into one of your other folders in
your User folder, or even if you can just
| | 02:42 | throw them into your Recycle Bin, which
we will look at later in this chapter.
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| Taking out the trash (recycle bin)| 00:00 | During the course of your day-to-day
managing of the files and folders on your
| | 00:03 | computer, you're most likely come
across items you no longer need.
| | 00:06 | If you really don't need a copy of a
file anymore, you should move it your
| | 00:09 | Recycle Bin, represented by the little
Recycle Bin icon in the upper left hand
| | 00:13 | corner of your Desktop.
| | 00:15 | Also here in my Desktop I have a file
called To Do, which I created in previous
| | 00:18 | movie and I don't really need it anymore.
| | 00:21 | All I have to do to get rid
of it is drag it to Recycle Bin.
| | 00:24 | Notice the Recycle Bin's icon has
changed to like paper has been thrown in
| | 00:27 | a bin, which is a nice visual indication
that there are items in your system trash.
| | 00:31 | Now just like with the real trash can,
that sits by your feet at your real desk,
| | 00:35 | you can still retrieve files if
thrown in the Recycle Bin as long as you
| | 00:38 | haven't emptied it, which
we look at in just a moment.
| | 00:40 | To see the contents of the Recycle Bin
just double click it. So you can see my
| | 00:45 | To Do list is still sitting safe
and sound here in my Recycle Bin.
| | 00:48 | If I change my mind and want to remove
it from the Recycle Bin, all I have to
| | 00:51 | do is drag it back to my Desktop.
| | 00:54 | But if you really do want to
completely get rid of that file, first drag it to
| | 00:57 | the Recycle Bin, where in this case
since the Recycle Bin's window is open, I can
| | 01:01 | drag it into that window, and then here
in the Recycle Bin's Window I'll click
| | 01:04 | empty the Recycle Bin.
| | 01:05 | A message appears asking you to confirm
that you do want to permanently delete
| | 01:09 | the items in the trash.
| | 01:10 | Notice the word permanently. This is
your last chance to change your mind.
| | 01:14 | If you are sure you want to
empty the Recycle Bin, click Yes.
| | 01:17 | Notice the Recycle Bin icon goes back
to the appearance of being empty and
| | 01:21 | there is no longer anything in
the Recycle Bin's open window.
| | 01:24 | So that To Do list really has
been deleted from my computer.
| | 01:27 | Now there are ways to potentially
rescue recently deleted files involving
| | 01:30 | special software and other techniques,
but we are not going to get in to
| | 01:33 | that here, and there are also other
ways to send files to the Recycle Bin and
| | 01:36 | empty it, but now you have the basic
knowledge you need to understand how
| | 01:39 | the trash system works on your PC and
the how to trash and delete files when
| | 01:43 | you no longer need them.
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| The right click| 00:00 | An essential part in learning to
become proficient when it comes to using a
| | 00:03 | computer is learning the right-click.
| | 00:06 | The term right-click refers to the
button found on the right side of a mouse
| | 00:08 | with two or more buttons.
| | 00:10 | Generally if you are right-handed, you
will click the left button of the mouse
| | 00:13 | the majority of the time
with your right index finger.
| | 00:15 | This is the mouse's main button
| | 00:17 | that lets you to select items,
double click things or even fire lasers on
| | 00:20 | enemies in videogames.
| | 00:22 | Both the Windows operation system and
most of the applications you will use
| | 00:25 | have special shortcuts and menus that
will appear when you click items with the
| | 00:28 | right mouse button.
| | 00:29 | For example in a previous movie, we
saw that you can empty the Recycle Bin
| | 00:33 | by opening it and then clicking the
Empty the Recycle Bin button, but another
| | 00:38 | faster way to do it, is to simply right-click
on the Recycle Bin and choose Empty Recycle Bin.
| | 00:46 | You can also right-click on files to
move them to the Recycle Bin. So I have
| | 00:49 | just a file sitting on my Desktop,
I'll right-click on it, click Delete, I'll
| | 00:54 | say Yes, I do want to move it to Recycle
Bin, and it's been moved there and then
| | 00:59 | I am ready I can just, right
click again and empty my Recycle Bin.
| | 01:06 | Or right-clicking on my desktop,
reveals short cuts for creating say a new
| | 01:10 | folder, or personalizing
the appearance of my Desktop.
| | 01:13 | The point is that you should learn to
try right-clicking things just to see
| | 01:16 | what goodies software designers may have hidden.
| | 01:19 | Oftentimes you will find shortcuts to
commands and actions that may otherwise
| | 01:22 | involve navigating through
several menus or dialog boxes to get to.
| | 01:26 | Incidentally, if you are left-handed
and need to switch the actions of left
| | 01:29 | and right mouse buttons, just
right-click on the Desktop and choose
| | 01:32 | Personalize, then click Change mouse
pointers, but choose the Buttons tab in
| | 01:38 | the window that opens.
| | 01:39 | In here you can check Switch
primary and secondary buttons.
| | 01:42 | So if you are left-handed, the right
mouse button becomes the main mouse button
| | 01:46 | and the left button becomes the
button for revealing special menus.
| | 01:49 | I am right-handed though,
so I'll leave that unchecked.
| | 01:51 | So that's all I really wanted to
mention in this movie, but it really is a very
| | 01:56 | important concept to learn.
| | 01:58 | Just take some time when working in
various applications to right-click a few
| | 02:01 | things and see what options might be available.
| | 02:03 | More often than not, you will find and
learn some great time saving shortcuts.
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|
|
3. Software and ApplicationsUnderstanding applications| 00:00 | Applications are the programs your
computer runs and in which you spend most of
| | 00:04 | your time when on your computer.
| | 00:06 | Generally, an application is any piece
of software used to accomplish a task,
| | 00:09 | whether that task is writing a paper,
composing music, printing a digital photo,
| | 00:14 | playing a video game, browsing
the web, or checking your email.
| | 00:17 | There are countless
applications for countless purposes.
| | 00:20 | Some applications come preinstalled
on your computer like the web browser
| | 00:23 | Internet Explorer and the
basic word processor WordPad.
| | 00:26 | And you acquire other applications
either by purchasing them on an installation
| | 00:30 | disc at a traditional store or, more
and more these days, you can buy and
| | 00:33 | download applications over the
web from software company's website.
| | 00:37 | Once you've purchased your applications,
from a store or downloaded them over
| | 00:40 | the Internet, you follow instruction
to install the software on your PC.
| | 00:44 | You then be able to find the
applications you install by clicking the Start
| | 00:47 | button and then choosing All Programs.
| | 00:50 | And as you can see I have quite a
few applications installed on my PC.
| | 00:53 | Some of them are tucked away in
folders which when clicked will reveal those
| | 00:57 | applications and others are just
sitting here in the main All Programs view.
| | 01:04 | To run an application, just click its name.
| | 01:07 | So now my web browser Safari is running.
I can tell it's running, first of all,
| | 01:11 | because I see its window here but I
can also see its icon in the area at the
| | 01:14 | bottom of the screen called the taskbar.
| | 01:16 | In Windows all running
applications icons appear in the taskbar.
| | 01:21 | So for example, I will go back to the
Start menu and I am going to go into All
| | 01:25 | Programs > Accessories and I open up
the Calculator application and I'll also come
| | 01:32 | in here All Programs >
Accessories and open Notepad.
| | 01:37 | And you can see that each application's
icon appears down here in the taskbar.
| | 01:42 | So while you can have multiple
applications running simultaneously, in order
| | 01:45 | to actively use any particular
application it has to be the front most or
| | 01:49 | active application.
| | 01:50 | When you click an application's icon,
you bring it to the front of all the
| | 01:53 | other applications.
| | 01:57 | But if you click the icon of an
application that's already in the front, in this
| | 02:00 | case Calculator, you minimize the application.
| | 02:02 | And the application is still running, as
indicated by its icon being in taskbar,
| | 02:06 | but it's just tucked out of the way.
| | 02:08 | Clicking its icon again will bring it back.
| | 02:11 | Minimizing applications can be very
handy if your screen is getting cluttered
| | 02:14 | while you're trying to work.
| | 02:15 | So for example, if I would, wanted to
work with Safari and I didn't want my
| | 02:18 | Calculator and Notepad in the way,
I could just click their icons to
| | 02:21 | temporarily hide them.
| | 02:22 | But when I wanted to bring
them back I just click them again.
| | 02:25 | And for the most part Windows 7 is
very good at managing multiple running
| | 02:28 | applications at once.
| | 02:29 | But if you're done working in a
particular application, you might just want
| | 02:32 | to quit it so it's no longer running and
taking up any attention from your computer.
| | 02:36 | In just about all applications, you can
click the X button in the upper right
| | 02:39 | hand corner of the window
to close the application.
| | 02:42 | If an application has multiple windows
open, you might have to close all of them
| | 02:46 | before the program quits completely.
| | 02:49 | As long as the program's icon no
longer appears in the taskbar, you know
| | 02:52 | you've quit the program.
| | 02:53 | So the only program I have
running right now is Safari.
| | 02:55 | Now, if you find that you use some
applications more than others, and that's
| | 02:59 | going to be the case for just about
anyone, it's convenient to do what's called
| | 03:02 | Pinning the application to the
Start menu or to the taskbar.
| | 03:05 | For example, I browse the web with
Safari every day and I don't want to have to
| | 03:09 | click the Start menu > All Programs
and find Safari to open the browser each
| | 03:15 | time I want to run it.
| | 03:15 | If I can just close it here.
| | 03:18 | So I follow the path again, All Programs
> Safari, and what I am going to do here
| | 03:23 | is right-click Safari.
| | 03:25 | Notice that two of the choices that
open up in this menu are Pin to Taskbar
| | 03:29 | and Pin to Start Menu.
| | 03:30 | Pinning to the Start menu means
Safari's icon will appear when you click the
| | 03:35 | start button and you can see it's right there.
| | 03:37 | I can click that once and open Safari.
| | 03:40 | So launching Safari that way is reduced
to a two-click process. Yu click the
| | 03:44 | Start menu and you click Safari.
| | 03:45 | Go ahead and close that. I am
going to right click Safari again.
| | 03:51 | So our other option is Pin to Taskbar,
meaning that the icon will appear in the
| | 03:55 | Taskbar and will always
be visible and available.
| | 03:57 | So if I choose that, you can see its
icon appears in the taskbar and now opening
| | 04:02 | Safari is a one-click process.
| | 04:03 | Any time I want to open it, I
just click its icon and it appears.
| | 04:07 | So now I can run Safari without having
to navigate through a series of menus.
| | 04:11 | I suggest doing this for the three or four
applications you use most frequently.
| | 04:15 | If you ever change your mind about
this, just right click on the icon and
| | 04:18 | you can choose Unpin this Program
from the Taskbar and I can do the same
| | 04:21 | thing in the Start menu here. Right-click on it
and choose Unpin from Start Menu to remove it.
| | 04:28 | So there is your primary on what
applications are, where to find them and a
| | 04:31 | couple of tips for being more
efficient when it comes to locating and running them.
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| Opening and saving files| 00:00 | Just about any time you work with an
application in which you are creating,
| | 00:03 | editing, or otherwise modifying some
kind of content, you'll be producing and
| | 00:07 | saving your work as files.
| | 00:09 | For example, when you type up a
report in a word processor, the report is
| | 00:12 | saved as an individual file, which you
can then reopen in the application to
| | 00:16 | continue working on it.
| | 00:17 | Or if you're editing a video you shot
at a grade school recital you're saving a
| | 00:21 | video project as a file too.
| | 00:23 | So it's important to understand the basic
concepts involved in opening and saving files.
| | 00:27 | For this example I'll open the built-
in application called Notepad, which
| | 00:31 | you'll find by clicking the Start
menu, then clicking All Programs >
| | 00:35 | Accessories and then Notepad.
| | 00:38 | And a new blank document
has opened for me to type in.
| | 00:40 | Now in some programs to create a new
document or other project file you'll need
| | 00:44 | to choose File > New.
| | 00:46 | But I already have one open, so I'll
just work with this one and I'll just
| | 00:49 | type a few words here.
| | 00:52 | Now any time you are actively working
on a document or project, it's a good
| | 00:55 | practice to save your file
periodically so you don't lose your work should
| | 00:58 | the electricity go out.
| | 01:00 | To save that I've written so
far I'll choose File > Save.
| | 01:05 | Because this is a brand-new document,
I am prompted to name this file and choose
| | 01:08 | a place to save it on my PC.
| | 01:09 | I'll call this one short story and I
am going to choose to save this on my
| | 01:17 | Desktop for convenience.
| | 01:19 | And notice I also made sure to leave
this .txt at the end of the filename.
| | 01:24 | .txt is called a file extension.
| | 01:27 | The purpose of including a file
extension in the name of your file is to
| | 01:29 | identify what kind of file this is
| | 01:31 | so if it needs to be opened by someone
else their computer has a better change of
| | 01:34 | knowing what application to use to open it.
| | 01:36 | Once you become familiar with the
different types of file extensions, you'll
| | 01:40 | then also know which application to use,
in case your computer doesn't know which
| | 01:42 | application to open the file with.
| | 01:44 | So plain text files are .txt,
Microsoft's Word files are .doc, Adobe Photoshop
| | 01:50 | files are .psd, and so on and so on.
| | 01:53 | Each type of application
has a certain file extension.
| | 01:56 | And for the most part your PC will be
able to open to open files with hidden or
| | 01:59 | missing extensions with the right application.
| | 02:01 | But if you have to share this file with
someone running on a Mac, for example,
| | 02:05 | their computer might not
know what application to use.
| | 02:07 | So I always leave the extension as part
of the filename and I suggest you do too.
| | 02:12 | So I'll click Save and now my document
is saved and you can see it's sitting
| | 02:16 | here on the Desktop.
| | 02:18 | Now you don't see the .txt in the name
here on the Desktop. It's actually hidden
| | 02:22 | but it is part of the filename, but
Windows in this case is choosing to hide it.
| | 02:25 | So I am going to close Notepad, and if I
want to reopen the file, the faster way
| | 02:30 | to do so, in this instance is to
double-click it since it's sitting here in
| | 02:33 | plain view on my Desktop.
| | 02:35 | If Notepad is already open and I want
to open a different document I previously
| | 02:38 | worked on, I could choose File > Open,
which lets me browse for my file
| | 02:43 | wherever it is on my computer.
| | 02:44 | For example, it might be inside
Documents, inside Work files, or some place like that.
| | 02:49 | I am just going to Cancel.
| | 02:51 | Now many applications also have a File
> Open Recent command which gives you a
| | 02:56 | list of your most recently opened
documents so you have quick access to them.
| | 03:00 | Now Notepad being a very basic text
editor doesn't have an Open Recent option.
| | 03:05 | But there is a slightly more power
built-in Word processor on your computer
| | 03:08 | called WordPad, which you'll get to by
going to the Start menu, All Programs >
| | 03:12 | Accessories and WordPad.
| | 03:16 | Now WordPad doesn't have a
traditional File menu but you can get the same
| | 03:19 | options by clicking this icon here.
| | 03:22 | So you see here we have the
New option, Open, Save, Save as.
| | 03:26 | All the things you
normally find in the File menu.
| | 03:28 | And you notice that we also have our
Recent documents listed here as well.
| | 03:32 | So in this case, I can see that there
were two documents I was working with
| | 03:35 | recently in WordPad and just clicking
one of them will open up that document.
| | 03:39 | And you'll find that most other
applications also offer the ability to open
| | 03:42 | recently used documents and files.
| | 03:45 | Okay, so those are the basic things you
should understand about opening and saving files.
| | 03:48 | What I have shown you here applies
to almost every application out there.
| | 03:51 | You will find some applications that
save your files and data automatically and
| | 03:55 | don't even offer a Save
command so you can do it yourself.
| | 03:57 | But those are much rarer and you should
still get in the habit of saving your
| | 04:00 | files regularly while you're working on them.
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| Choosing the right tool| 00:00 | Another part of progressing beyond the
novice level of computer user is being
| | 00:03 | able to quickly determine which
applications to use to accomplish various tasks.
| | 00:08 | Now there is a world of computer
software out there and we can't possibly
| | 00:11 | address all the different types here,
but the most common types of software are
| | 00:14 | probably word processors, image editors,
graphic designer page layout programs,
| | 00:19 | spreadsheet applications and
possibly video or audio editing applications.
| | 00:23 | And it seems like an obvious point, but
you should do your best to create your
| | 00:26 | documents and files in the
most appropriate applications.
| | 00:28 | For example, I have Adobe Photoshop
open right now, which is an image editing
| | 00:33 | application, but I could create a new blank
Photoshop document like I have done here.
| | 00:37 | Select the Text tool and
start typing out a letter.
| | 00:43 | But Photoshop isn't really
designed for working with lots of text.
| | 00:46 | It's great at incorporating text in to
images, but not for just working with a
| | 00:49 | large amount of text.
| | 00:51 | Photoshop is an image editing program
and should be used for editing images.
| | 00:55 | For writing papers or letters,
you really should use a word processor
| | 00:58 | like Microsoft Word.
| | 01:00 | Word processors are designed
to work with primarily text.
| | 01:03 | And you'll just find more tools and
controls for working with text, especially
| | 01:06 | multiple pages of text in a word
processor, than you'll find in Photoshop.
| | 01:11 | And along those lines if you're gong
to be creating a long document that
| | 01:13 | incorporates both text and images, word
processors will work, but you might want
| | 01:18 | to consider even more specialized
software like Adobe InDesign, which is page
| | 01:22 | layout program and it offers much more
powerful tools for laying out documents
| | 01:26 | like brochures,
advertisements, booklets, and the like.
| | 01:29 | And when you are working in a page
layout program you most likely won't be
| | 01:31 | working with it exclusively.
| | 01:33 | Since your brochure or booklet will
probably incorporate images, you'll have to
| | 01:36 | work with an image editing program
like Photoshop to process and prep your
| | 01:40 | images before placing them into your layout.
| | 01:42 | Now word processors, like Word, do
have some image editing capabilities,
| | 01:46 | but they are severely limited when compared
to dedicated image editors like Photoshop.
| | 01:50 | Again, it's all about
finding the right tool for the job.
| | 01:53 | If you need to design your own
graphics or logo, for example, you might find
| | 01:56 | yourself working in Adobe Illustrator,
as well as InDesign and Photoshop.
| | 02:00 | And soon you'll be working with an
entire suite of applications and it's
| | 02:02 | important to understand which
program to use for which task.
| | 02:06 | Now part of this process is just taking
the time to read up on the software you
| | 02:10 | have installed on your computer or the
software you're considering purchasing.
| | 02:13 | Also often manufactures have web sites
where they offer information on their products.
| | 02:17 | For example, I can open up Internet Explorer,
which is my web browser, and go to adobe.com.
| | 02:25 | And I can read up on any of their products here.
| | 02:27 | For example, I'll click on the
Illustrator link, and maybe in here I'll click
| | 02:32 | what is Illustrator and
check it out for Design Projects.
| | 02:38 | And here I can read up on what
Illustrator is and after looking at this I can
| | 02:41 | say okay, it's a drawing program.
| | 02:46 | Also notice that Adobe offers to let
you try their products, so you could
| | 02:50 | download a working copy of Illustrator or
the entire suite and use it for a month.
| | 02:54 | Many software companies offer free or
limited trial versions of their software
| | 02:57 | so you can run them through their
paces and determine if it suits your needs.
| | 03:01 | And as you familiarize yourself with
what software is available out there,
| | 03:03 | you'll be better equipped to determine
which applications to use for which task.
| | 03:08 | Now if you're working entirely on your
own, there is not really a hard and fast
| | 03:11 | rule saying you can't use
Photoshop to type a lot of text.
| | 03:15 | If the only thing that matters to
you is your final product and you're
| | 03:18 | comfortable in using Photoshop to
work with text, there's technically
| | 03:21 | nothing wrong with that.
| | 03:22 | But if you're going to be
collaborating with others, it becomes especially
| | 03:25 | important to use the
software appropriate to the task.
| | 03:28 | In which case sending a Photoshop
document with text for some one to copyedit
| | 03:32 | isn't a great idea, because Photoshop doesn't offer
copyediting tools like say Microsoft Word does.
| | 03:38 | Also when collaborating with others,
you need to be able to make sure that
| | 03:41 | they'll be able to open and
work with the files you send them.
| | 03:43 | If you going to send a Word document
they'll need to have Word or some Word
| | 03:46 | compatible software on their computers too.
| | 03:48 | I the later chapter I talk about some
things you can do like converting your
| | 03:52 | documents to PDF to ensure that
any one can open and read your files.
| | 03:55 | But when it comes to collaborating on
files, the best solution is for every one involved
| | 03:59 | to have and use the same software.
| | 04:01 | So we should take some time to
familiarize yourself with the software that's
| | 04:04 | already installed on your computer.
| | 04:07 | If you're not sure what
it does, look it up online.
| | 04:09 | Or check out the software built-in Help menu.
| | 04:11 | For example, I could go in to
InDesign, click the Help menu and open up
| | 04:16 | InDesign Help and read the
user manual for InDesign.
| | 04:20 | If you don't have the software you
need to accomplish your tasks, ask around
| | 04:23 | your office or school for suggestions
on which software you should acquire.
| | 04:26 | If you work with others you'll probably
find that some or all of them have the
| | 04:29 | necessary software installed on their
computers, and it should be relatively
| | 04:32 | easy to get recommendations of what
software you need to accomplish your tasks.
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| How to learn any application| 00:00 | I think one of the most important
skills to develop when it comes to learning
| | 00:03 | how to use any computer application is
just the skill of just exploring and not being
| | 00:07 | nervous about clicking things.
| | 00:09 | Many people who consider themselves
not a computer people or often afraid of
| | 00:12 | messing around in programs and worry
that they are going to break something.
| | 00:15 | I am going to tell you that when you
are working in any application there is
| | 00:18 | pretty much no chance that you can
irreversibly mess up the application.
| | 00:23 | Now, there is a better chance that you
can mess up the document or file you are
| | 00:25 | working on, but let me show you a quick trick.
| | 00:29 | Just about every application under the
File menu has a command called Save As.
| | 00:35 | This lets you save another copy of
your document on your computer, leaving the
| | 00:38 | original document or file untouched.
| | 00:40 | So for instance this current file is
called 03_04_ggbridge. I'll just add copy
| | 00:45 | to the end of its name. Save it.
| | 00:50 | And now I am working on a
copy of my original photograph.
| | 00:53 | This gives you the freedom to
experiment as much as you want with your copy of
| | 00:56 | the file knowing that you have your
original versions still sitting safe and
| | 00:59 | sound on your hard drive.
| | 00:59 | So really the trick to learning any
application is to embrace the idea of
| | 01:03 | playing around with it.
| | 01:04 | I happened to be working in Adobe
Photoshop right now, but really this will
| | 01:08 | apply to any other application.
| | 01:09 | Just start by clicking around
in the menus in the menu bar.
| | 01:13 | Almost all applications have menus in
common like File and Edit, which we'll
| | 01:17 | talk about in the upcoming movie.
| | 01:19 | And the other ones are the ones that
are usually unique to the particular
| | 01:21 | application you are working in.
| | 01:23 | So you really want to take some time and
explore what's available in these menus.
| | 01:27 | Usually, you'll be able to infer what
the application is capable of based on the
| | 01:30 | commands found in its menu bar.
| | 01:31 | For example, under the Image menu you
can see that most of these commands have
| | 01:35 | to do with affecting the look of a photo.
| | 01:39 | Menus with arrows in them indicate more
selections are available in the submenu.
| | 01:43 | And generally any menu that ends
with ellipses like any of these in here
| | 01:48 | indicate that when selecting that menu
item, a window will open up in which you
| | 01:52 | will be able to make additional selections.
| | 01:56 | And this gives you yet another
area of the application to explore.
| | 01:59 | You can just start playing around
with whatever buttons, dials, or sliders
| | 02:02 | are available in there.
| | 02:05 | Also note that you'll always find a
Cancel button in Windows like this.
| | 02:09 | Cancel lets you close the window
without making any changes, regardless of
| | 02:12 | whether you click some of the buttons,
or menus, or sliders in that window.
| | 02:15 | And many applications also have
numerous toolbars or palettes in which you'll
| | 02:19 | find several other buttons and menus as well.
| | 02:21 | So again, take some time to look over them,
read their labels, and figure out what they do.
| | 02:31 | You'll also find that many
applications reveal additional information about
| | 02:34 | their buttons when you
place your mouse over them.
| | 02:41 | These are often called tooltips, and
again this is a quick and convenient way to
| | 02:45 | learn what a program is capable of.
| | 02:46 | So for example here in Photoshop as I
roll over some of these tools you can see
| | 02:51 | their names up here along with the
keyboard shortcuts for selecting those tool.s
| | 02:54 | So I can see the Crop tool is invoked
by pressing the C button on my keyboard.
| | 02:58 | So if I press that, you can see
that Crop tool has become selected.
| | 03:01 | The Lasso tool is invoked
by pressing L. I can do that.
| | 03:06 | And as always, don't be afraid to try things out.
| | 03:08 | So maybe I want to come in here to
Filters, go in to Brush Strokes, and let's see
| | 03:14 | what Dark Strokes looks like.
| | 03:16 | So I can see this open up another
window in which I can make choices and see
| | 03:21 | how they affect my photo in this case.
| | 03:23 | I am happy of the way one of these looks,
so I can just click OK and I have made
| | 03:26 | a change to my document.
| | 03:28 | Now, another feature I'll talk about
more in an upcoming movie is the Undo
| | 03:32 | feature, which many applications have in common.
| | 03:34 | Undo is always found under the Edit
menu and it lets you take back the last
| | 03:38 | change you made to your file or project.
| | 03:40 | So in this case Undo Dark Strokes.
| | 03:43 | You can see that took away that change.
| | 03:45 | So this is yet another way to allow
yourself the freedom to experiment and explore.
| | 03:48 | Just try something out to see what it
does then choose Edit > Undo to take it back.
| | 03:53 | So as you explore the application's
menus and buttons you really start to get an
| | 03:57 | idea of the language of the application,
how it works, how it's organized, and
| | 04:01 | what you can or cannot do.
| | 04:02 | Now, the goal isn't to completely
memorize every menu or button, but more
| | 04:07 | to just learn what's possible and to learn
the names of the menu commands and buttons,
| | 04:10 | so when it does come time to actually
do some work you'll probably remember
| | 04:14 | seeing a command or a button that fits what you
are trying to do and be able to find it again.
| | 04:18 | Lastly, most applications also have a
Help menu in which you'll be able to find
| | 04:22 | instructions for commonly used
features or frequently performed tasks.
| | 04:25 | In this case I can choose Photoshop Help.
| | 04:28 | That opens up the Help window and
here I can read the Photoshop manual.
| | 04:34 | So those are just some general tips
you can follow to help you get better
| | 04:37 | acquainted with any particular
application you need to learn.
| | 04:40 | Of course, I've only been speaking in
very general terms here and it'll take
| | 04:43 | time to really learn any application in-depth.
| | 04:46 | But these tips will help you get your
bearings and make any application a little
| | 04:49 | less foreign and much more familiar
when it comes time to do some actual work.
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| Five things that work in all applications| 00:00 | Every software application has a learning curve.
| | 00:02 | Some applications are easier to use
and understand than others, but what
| | 00:06 | you're going to find as you become
more experienced with computers and software
| | 00:09 | is that nearly all applications have
features or controls in common with each other.
| | 00:14 | If you're novice with computers at the
moment, you've probably wondered how more
| | 00:16 | experienced users can just sit down and
start being productive with applications
| | 00:20 | they have never used before.
| | 00:21 | And yes, talent and an aptitude for
computers can be significant contributors,
| | 00:25 | but what seasoned computer users know is
that most applications have basic things
| | 00:29 | in common and then they know where to look
for the commands that will allow them to
| | 00:32 | perform the tasks they want to accomplish.
| | 00:34 | So in this video I want to go over 5
features that appear in and work the same
| | 00:38 | in nearly all applications.
| | 00:40 | The first common feature is the File menu.
| | 00:42 | Here are some screenshots of the File
menu from several different applications.
| | 00:45 | Just about every application has a File
menu and usually contains commands like
| | 00:49 | New, Open, Save, Close, and Print.
| | 00:52 | New is for creating a new document, image,
or project, depending on what app you're in.
| | 00:57 | Open opens files or project that
you've previously created or worked on.
| | 01:01 | Save saves the file
you're currently working on.
| | 01:04 | Close closes the file, but
usually leaves the application running.
| | 01:07 | And if the application is one you
can print from, like a word processor,
| | 01:10 | spreadsheet program or a photo
editor, you'll always find the Print
| | 01:13 | command under File as well.
| | 01:15 | Notice I am showing you menus both of
Windows applications and Mac applications.
| | 01:19 | These common features I'm going to be
showing you are not just common across
| | 01:22 | applications, but also across operating systems.
| | 01:25 | So if you're Mac user finding
yourself working with Windows or Windows user
| | 01:28 | having to use a Mac, you won't be completely
lost. But there are differences to be aware of.
| | 01:32 | For example, in Windows applications
you'll usually also find the Exit command
| | 01:36 | under the File menu,
which quits the application.
| | 01:39 | On Macs though, you quit applications
by clicking the application's name and
| | 01:42 | then choosing Quit.
| | 01:43 | That's one of the slight differences
between the two operating systems, but
| | 01:46 | they're always consistent with themselves.
| | 01:48 | You'll always find Exit under File
in Windows and you'll find Quit under
| | 01:52 | applications name on Macs.
| | 01:53 | That's a bit of a tangent, but the
point is that the File menu is found in
| | 01:56 | nearly every application and within it
you'll almost always find the commands
| | 02:00 | to Create, Save, Open, or Print your files.
| | 02:03 | The next common feature is a group of
three commands named Cut, Copy, and Paste,
| | 02:07 | all found under the Edit menu.
| | 02:09 | I refer to these as a single feature,
because they really got hand in hand.
| | 02:12 | They're probably used most
commonly an application involving typing.
| | 02:15 | If you've typed some text that you'd
like to copy or move to another location in
| | 02:18 | your document, these are
the commands you would use.
| | 02:21 | Now, I'll be covering these commands
more thoroughly in the chapter on word
| | 02:23 | processing, but here's a quick overview.
| | 02:27 | So Cut is used when you want to move text.
| | 02:29 | For example, here in Microsoft Word if
I want to move the second sentence of
| | 02:33 | this letter and make it the
opening sentence, I would select it by
| | 02:36 | clicking-and-dragging
through it to highlight it.
| | 02:38 | Now, the default layout of Word
2007, which I'm using here, doesn't have
| | 02:44 | traditional menus like File, Edit,
and so on, as you can see at the top.
| | 02:47 | We don't see those types of menus.
| | 02:48 | But you'll find the same commands
usually found under File by clicking the
| | 02:52 | Office logo here in the upper left-hand corner.
| | 02:54 | So you can see we have New,
Open, Save, and so on.
| | 02:58 | And you'll find Cut, Copy, and
Paste here under the Home tab.
| | 03:01 | So I'll click Cut, but you can see it
temporarily removes the selected text from my document.
| | 03:07 | Again, in any other application you
would choose the Edit menu and then
| | 03:10 | select Cut from there.
| | 03:12 | Now, I'll place my cursor at the point in the
document where I want to cut text to appear.
| | 03:16 | In this case, it's going to be at the
beginning of this paragraph, so my cursor
| | 03:18 | is flashing there and then I'll click Paste.
| | 03:23 | And my cut text reappears.
| | 03:25 | Again, in any other application you
would choose Edit > Paste. So that's Cut.
| | 03:30 | Now, Copy on the other hand leaves the
selected text to where it is, but just
| | 03:33 | makes a copy of it to your computer's clipboard.
| | 03:36 | The clipboard is a special section of
memory your computer uses to temporarily
| | 03:39 | store cut and copied text.
| | 03:41 | So for example, maybe I want to create
another document that begins with this
| | 03:44 | contact information, so I'll just
select that and this I'll choose Copy.
| | 03:50 | Now, it doesn't look like anything
happened, because copying doesn't alter
| | 03:53 | your document in any way.
| | 03:55 | It just places a copy of your
highlighted text into your computer's memory.
| | 03:59 | After that you just place your cursor
at another location in your document or
| | 04:02 | into another document all together and
choose Paste, which places a copy of that
| | 04:05 | text into your document.
| | 04:07 | So for example, I'll click the Office
logo here and choose New to create a new
| | 04:11 | document. I'll choose a new blank document.
| | 04:14 | And in here I'll just click Paste.
| | 04:16 | And there is a copy of the
text here in this new document.
| | 04:19 | So that's the Cut, Copy, and Paste
feature you'll find in many applications.
| | 04:23 | You'll even find Cut, Copy, and Paste
in image editing applications where you
| | 04:26 | can cut and copy photos or other
graphics and paste them into image files.
| | 04:32 | Feature number three is another group
of commands that also appear under the
| | 04:35 | Edit menu of most applications.
| | 04:36 | They're Undo and Redo.
| | 04:39 | Whenever you make a mistake like
accidentally deleting some text or making a
| | 04:42 | change to you a photo or video clip that
you want to take back, you're more then
| | 04:46 | likely use Edit > Undo.
| | 04:47 | In almost every application you'll find
an Undo command, which simply takes back
| | 04:51 | the last change you made to your document.
| | 04:53 | Many applications even have multiple
levels of undo, so you can take back the
| | 04:57 | changes you made to your
document in reverse order.
| | 04:59 | The Undo command can also be a nice
safety net in order to experiment with your
| | 05:03 | file without permanently altering it.
| | 05:05 | For example, maybe you're trying out
different affects on a photo you're
| | 05:08 | editing. You can apply effect after
effect and as long as you keep choosing Edit
| | 05:12 | > Undo between attempts, you'll never
do any permanent changes to your photo.
| | 05:15 | Now, Redo is a little less common than Undo.
| | 05:18 | Sometimes it's called Repeat.
| | 05:19 | And while you'll find Undo in just
about every application, fewer apps have
| | 05:23 | Redo, which is a shame because they
can be a very useful time saving feature.
| | 05:26 | It has two main uses. First, if you
chose Undo, but change your mind you can
| | 05:31 | then choose Edit > Redo, which changes
your document back to before you chose Undo.
| | 05:36 | In some applications Redo can also be
used to take changes you've made to one
| | 05:39 | item and apply the same change to other items.
| | 05:41 | For example, if I selected some text
in the document and changed the font,
| | 05:45 | I can then select other text and choose Edit >
Redo to apply that same font to the other text.
| | 05:50 | So that's Undo and Redo.
| | 05:52 | And again, if the application you're
using has these commands, and most do,
| | 05:55 | you'll them under the Edit menu.
| | 05:57 | Feature number 4 is preference settings.
| | 05:59 | Almost every application has an area
in which you can tweak or adjust the way
| | 06:03 | the application behaves.
| | 06:04 | If you're using a photo editing
application, you might want to change the
| | 06:07 | default image format of files you've saved.
| | 06:09 | If you're using a page layout program,
you might want to change how page guides
| | 06:12 | appear in your document.
| | 06:13 | Every application has preference settings.
| | 06:16 | On Mac you'll almost always find
Preferences located under the application's
| | 06:20 | name in the menu bar.
| | 06:22 | In Windows applications, depending
on the application, you often find
| | 06:25 | Preferences under the Edit menu, but
it might be called Properties or Options
| | 06:29 | instead of Preferences.
| | 06:30 | In some applications in Windows,
you'll find preferences under a menu called
| | 06:33 | Tools or even under an unlabeled
button that looks like a gear icon.
| | 06:37 | So sometimes you do have to do some
hunting around in Windows applications, but
| | 06:40 | those are a generally where
you'll find application preferences.
| | 06:43 | And the fifth feature you'll find that almost
all applications have in common is the Help menu.
| | 06:47 | The Help menu is where you'll find
things like the built-in or online
| | 06:51 | instruction manual for the
application you're using.
| | 06:53 | You might also find links to tutorials
or other special guides to teach you how
| | 06:56 | to use the application.
| | 06:58 | The Help menu is also where you can
check for updates, which has the application
| | 07:01 | check online to see if any newer
versions of the software have been released.
| | 07:05 | But generally, the Help menu is a good
place to go if you can't figure out a
| | 07:08 | feature of the application you're
using or just want to learn more about the
| | 07:11 | application overall.
| | 07:12 | And again, you'll find that
most applications have this menu.
| | 07:16 | So there's a five of the most common
features you'll find in nearly all applications.
| | 07:20 | Knowing about these features can
really help make an application you've never
| | 07:22 | used before a little less daunting,
because at least you'll already be familiar
| | 07:26 | with and know how to use a
couple of these commands.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Computer PeripheralsUnderstanding computer ports| 00:00 | Even though you can accomplish many
common tasks with your PC with just what
| | 00:03 | comes in the box, meaning the computer
itself, the keyboard and the mouse,
| | 00:07 | you'll most likely need to attach and
use peripheral devices such as printers,
| | 00:10 | scanners, digital cameras,
projectors, the list goes on and on.
| | 00:15 | So in this chapter, we're going to
look at how to set up and install common
| | 00:17 | peripherals, but first in this movie I
want to make sure you're familiar with
| | 00:20 | the common ports on PCs into
which you'll be plugging your devices.
| | 00:24 | The most common port in use
for peripherals right now is USB.
| | 00:28 | All computers, Macs and
PCs, alike have USB ports.
| | 00:31 | And as you can see they are sort of a
flat rectangular port with what looks like
| | 00:34 | a small plastic tab inside.
| | 00:36 | And of course you plug USB
cables into your USB ports.
| | 00:40 | This is what the end of the USB cable
that plugs into your USB port looks like.
| | 00:43 | Now, the other end of the USB
cable can vary in appearance.
| | 00:46 | It could look like this or this or even this.
| | 00:51 | The other end of the cable might even
just be the device you're plugging in like
| | 00:54 | a mouse or keyboard, but as long as
the cable plugs into your computer's USB port,
| | 00:58 | it's considered a USB cable.
| | 01:01 | Now another important connector
you'll find on a PC is an Ethernet port.
| | 01:04 | This is the port that lets you
connect to your network or Internet service.
| | 01:07 | It looks like a wide telephone jack.
| | 01:10 | The cable that plugs into your
Ethernet port looks like this and both ends of
| | 01:13 | this cable are the same.
| | 01:14 | One end goes into your computer and the
other end goes into your router or modem.
| | 01:18 | In an upcoming chapter, we'll talk
about how to set up your computer to connect
| | 01:22 | to your router or to the Internet,
but for now that's how you set up the
| | 01:25 | physical connection.
| | 01:26 | Just plug one end of your Ethernet
cable into the computer and plug the other
| | 01:29 | end into your router or modem.
| | 01:31 | Other ports you'll probably be using
are the audio input and output jacks.
| | 01:35 | You can plug speakers into the output
jack so you can hear any sounds your
| | 01:38 | computer is making through them,
including alert sounds or the music you're
| | 01:41 | playing, and if you're recording audio,
one option for doing so is to send the
| | 01:45 | audio into the input jack.
| | 01:46 | Now in most PCs, the audio input jack
is blue and the output jack is green.
| | 01:50 | You might also have a microphone
input jack, which is often pink.
| | 01:54 | But in almost all cases, you'll have
labels on your PC telling you which is which.
| | 01:58 | Lastly, all desktop PCs and many
laptops have monitor connectors for connecting
| | 02:02 | external monitors to your computer.
| | 02:04 | Desktop PCs, which don't have built-in
displays, require a monitor so you can
| | 02:08 | see what you're doing.
| | 02:09 | And even the laptops do have built-in
monitors, it can be nice to plug in a
| | 02:13 | larger external monitors to use
as your main screen when you're not
| | 02:16 | traveling with your laptop.
| | 02:17 | Monitors connect the laptops and
desktops with either DVI connectors, which look
| | 02:21 | like this, or the older VGA style
connectors, which look like this.
| | 02:26 | So that's a rundown of the most
important ports you'll need to be familiar with
| | 02:29 | in order to plug in and
use peripherals with your PC.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting up a printer| 00:00 | One of the most common types of
peripherals you'll probably need to use with
| | 00:03 | your PC is a printer.
| | 00:04 | You can print to printers connected
directly to one of your computer's USB ports
| | 00:08 | or even to the kind of printer that
connect to your network without needing to
| | 00:10 | be tethered to a computer, and setting
up a printer with the latest version of
| | 00:14 | the Windows operating
system couldn't be much easier.
| | 00:16 | Let's take a look at the process
starting with printing to a printer connected
| | 00:19 | directly to your computer.
| | 00:21 | First connect your printer to your computer.
| | 00:23 | You most likely use a USB cable, as
that's the most common type of connection.
| | 00:27 | The first movie in this chapter shows
you what the USB connectors look like.
| | 00:30 | So be sure to go back and
review that movie if you need to.
| | 00:32 | Once your printer is connected via a USB,
turn it on, and you can forget about
| | 00:36 | any installation discs
that came with the printer.
| | 00:39 | The software in those discs is probably
outdated anyway and Windows has hundreds
| | 00:42 | of printer drivers preinstalled.
| | 00:44 | A printer driver is the software
needed for your computer to talk to
| | 00:47 | your specific printers.
| | 00:49 | In fact, just moments after you turn
the printer on, especially if it's a newer
| | 00:52 | printer, Windows should detect it and
immediately start installing the drivers
| | 00:55 | for it, and in just a few moments, you
should see a message like this, telling
| | 01:00 | you that your device is ready to be used.
| | 01:02 | So that's the super-easy way to set up a
printer because Windows does all the work.
| | 01:05 | Now, if you have an older printer, if
your printer wasn't automatically detected
| | 01:09 | or if your printer connects to your PC
through something other than USB, like
| | 01:12 | over Ethernet or Bluetooth, your next
step is to run the Add Printer Wizard to
| | 01:16 | walk through the installation steps manually.
| | 01:18 | Click the Start button and
choose Devices and Printers.
| | 01:24 | And at the top of the window
that opens, click Add a printer.
| | 01:26 | Notice we have two options here, to
add a local printer, meaning a printer
| | 01:32 | directly connected to your computer or to
add a network, wireless, or Bluetooth printer.
| | 01:36 | Most likely you'll choose local if you
have an older printer that connects to
| | 01:39 | your PC via the printer
ports found on older PCs.
| | 01:42 | So click local if that's the case.
| | 01:44 | On this next screen, you would choose
which port your printer is plugged into.
| | 01:48 | LPT1 is the most common type.
| | 01:49 | Then we'll click Next.
| | 01:53 | Then you'll hunt to the list of
manufacturers in this list on the left to
| | 01:57 | find your printer's maker, and then
select the model number on the right,
| | 02:04 | and then click Next.
| | 02:08 | If you want you can give the printer
another name here. I'll leave the default
| | 02:11 | and then click Next again.
| | 02:14 | So Windows then installs the
printer driver for the selected printer.
| | 02:16 | Next, it's asking me if I want to share my
printer with other computers on my network.
| | 02:20 | You can choose either not to share or to
share it. I'm just going to keep Do not
| | 02:23 | share this printer checked there.
| | 02:25 | If you want you can set this as your
default printer and print a test page to
| | 02:28 | make sure it works, and
when you're done click Finish.
| | 02:33 | And now you can see the printer I just
installed is sitting here among all the
| | 02:35 | other printer drivers I have installed.
| | 02:38 | Now, if your printer did not show up in
that list of manufacturers and models,
| | 02:41 | you'll probably have to visit the
company's web site to see if they have drivers
| | 02:44 | for the printer you can download.
| | 02:46 | The chances that you'll have to do this
are slim though unless you have a really
| | 02:49 | obscure or old printer.
| | 02:50 | Now, if you do have a printer that
connects to your network via Ethernet, Wi-Fi,
| | 02:54 | or Bluetooth, you can set that up by
clicking Add a printer again and then
| | 02:58 | choosing Add a network,
wireless or Bluetooth printer.
| | 03:01 | Windows is going to scan your network and
look for nearby wireless printers to add.
| | 03:05 | Once the printer is detected, the setup
steps are the same as adding a local printer.
| | 03:09 | If your printer doesn't show up,
you can click The printer I want isn't
| | 03:11 | listed, and in that case you'll
probably need to call in some help from your
| | 03:16 | IT department or anyone who
understands how to set up a network printer,
| | 03:19 | because you'll need to know specific
information about your network and your
| | 03:22 | network printer here.
| | 03:23 | I'm just going to cancel this because
I don't have a wireless network printer
| | 03:26 | connected, and again the
chances are that it won't come to that.
| | 03:29 | You should be able to set up just about
any printer with ease by either plugging
| | 03:32 | it in via USB or just walking
through the Add Printer Wizard.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Printing your documents| 00:00 | When you go to print a document from
your PC, you'll find there are several
| | 00:03 | print options available.
| | 00:04 | Some options you'll see will be specific
to whichever brand and model of printer
| | 00:07 | you have and to which
application you're printing from.
| | 00:10 | While other options are standard
regardless of the printer you're using.
| | 00:12 | In this movie, we'll take a look
at some of the common print options.
| | 00:16 | Currently I have a WordPad document open,
and this is just the sample document I
| | 00:19 | had opened previously.
| | 00:20 | The contents of the document
really aren't important right now.
| | 00:23 | I just need an open document so I can
walk you through the printing process.
| | 00:25 | So I'm going to click the File
button here in WordPad and choose Print.
| | 00:30 | In most other applications, you'll have
an actual menu labeled File under which
| | 00:33 | you'll find the Print command, and
that opens the Print dialog box and it's
| | 00:37 | here in which we make all the decisions
about how we want our document printed.
| | 00:41 | Again, the look of this
dialog box will vary slightly from
| | 00:44 | application-to-application but this is
a typical version you're seeing here.
| | 00:48 | At the top, you have the Select
Printer area for selecting which printer
| | 00:51 | you want to print to.
| | 00:52 | This area might be a popup menu or a
horizontally scrolling menu like you see
| | 00:56 | here, listing all of the printers I
currently have installed on my PC.
| | 00:59 | In either case, you just want to
select the printer you want to print to.
| | 01:03 | If you need to specify print settings
such as the paper size or orientation,
| | 01:07 | click the Preferences button.
| | 01:08 | Now depending on the application,
this button might alternately be labeled
| | 01:11 | properties, and depending on your
printer, you'll see different tabs here under
| | 01:15 | Printing Preferences.
| | 01:17 | For example, for the printer I currently
selected, I have a tab labeled Features
| | 01:21 | under which I'll find options
like Paper type and Paper source.
| | 01:24 | So if your printer can hold different
sizes or types of paper, you can select
| | 01:28 | the tray you want top print to from here.
| | 01:29 | So also here we can determine whether you're
going to be printing in portrait or landscape mode.
| | 01:33 | Under the Pages per sheet option, I can
choose to print more than one page of my
| | 01:37 | document per physical sheet of paper,
which can conserve paper and ink,
| | 01:41 | Especially if you only need to review
what the document will look like when it's
| | 01:43 | printed out, this is a good option to have.
| | 01:47 | Under the Color tab, you'll often
find options to print in either color or
| | 01:50 | grayscale or black-and-white, but if
your printer is just a black-and-white,
| | 01:54 | you won't see that option here.
| | 01:55 | So you should take some time to
explore your printer preferences to see what
| | 01:59 | other options are available.
| | 02:00 | I'm just going to leave
everything as is and click Cancel to close
| | 02:04 | Printing Preferences.
| | 02:05 | So I still have my main Print dialog box open.
| | 02:08 | Another option you'll find in all
print dialog boxes is Page Range.
| | 02:12 | You have the default choice of All,
which obviously prints all of your pages or
| | 02:15 | you can print the pages you have
selected, the current page, or a range of pages,
| | 02:20 | which you can select and then type in
the range of pages you want to print, for
| | 02:23 | instance pages 17 through 25 for example.
| | 02:26 | Here in the lower right-hand corner of
the Print dialog box, you can choose the
| | 02:29 | number of copies of your
document you wish to print.
| | 02:31 | Just use the arrows to increase or
decrease the number or type the number in.
| | 02:36 | If you do have a multi-page document,
you'll probably want to check Collate if
| | 02:40 | it's not already checked, so each
copy will print in its entirety in order.
| | 02:44 | With Collated unchecked, you'll first
get all the page number ones and the page
| | 02:48 | number twos and so on.
| | 02:49 | So if you want them all in order,
make sure you check Collate.
| | 02:52 | And once you've made your changes in
selections in the Print dialog box and
| | 02:55 | you're ready to print, just click the
Print button and in a few moments your
| | 02:58 | printer should kick out your copy or copies.
| | 03:00 | So those are the basics of the options
that appear in most Print dialog boxes,
| | 03:03 | but again you will see variations
depending on which application you're using.
| | 03:07 | So for example, if I open up a
different program like my web browser, Safari,
| | 03:12 | and I go to lynda.com and I choose
the Print, you can see this Print dialog
| | 03:20 | box looks different.
| | 03:21 | To choose my printer I actually have
a popup menu here, and my preferences
| | 03:25 | are labeled Properties.
| | 03:26 | We can see that opens the exact same
printer preferences dialog box we were just
| | 03:31 | looking at earlier. And just be aware
that even though you'll see different
| | 03:35 | looking menus and buttons from dialog
box to dialog box, they're not going to
| | 03:38 | be so different that you won't be
able to figure out how to use them.
| | 03:41 | Still you probably want to take some
time to browse through the other options
| | 03:44 | that appear in the Print dialog
boxes for the applications to use.
| | 03:47 | But the ones we've looked at here
generally will appear in nearly all
| | 03:50 | applications that print.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting up a scanner| 00:00 | Another device you may need to use at
some point with your PC is a scanner.
| | 00:04 | Setting up a scanner to work with
your computer is pretty straightforward.
| | 00:07 | Since each model is different though,
I can't give you specific instructions for
| | 00:10 | whichever scanner you have, but for the
most part, all you need to do is follow
| | 00:13 | the instructions that came with your scanner.
| | 00:15 | My one suggestion though is to not
use the software CD that comes with your
| | 00:19 | scanner before checking if a new
version of the software is available online.
| | 00:23 | Most scanner manufacturers release
periodic updates for their products,
| | 00:26 | sometimes fixing bugs,
other times adding features.
| | 00:29 | So it is in your best interest to have
the most up-to-date software on your PC.
| | 00:32 | The first step is to visit your
scanner manufacturer's web site.
| | 00:35 | For example, my scanner is made by HP,
so I know their web site is hp.com.
| | 00:41 | So, I'll go there. And then you're going
to need to hunt around to find out where
| | 00:46 | to check for and download
new drivers for your device.
| | 00:49 | HP happens to put a link right on
their homepage labeled Support & Drivers.
| | 00:53 | Now, I just walk through the steps of
choosing to download drivers, entering my
| | 00:59 | product name and number,
| | 01:05 | and then I select my specific model.
| | 01:11 | Then I choose my operating system.
| | 01:20 | And on this page I open up Drivers, in this
| | 01:23 | case Driver(1), and I can see the latest
version was released October 20th 2009,
| | 01:30 | and I can click Download, and I'm going
to choose to run this file so when it's
| | 01:36 | downloaded, it will
automatically start installing.
| | 01:38 | So, now the latest software
drivers are downloading into my computer and
| | 01:43 | when it's done, it will
automatically run the software installation.
| | 01:45 | I'll just need to follow through the steps.
| | 01:48 | Now, the instructions that come with
some scanners specify that you have to
| | 01:50 | install the software
before connecting the scanner.
| | 01:53 | So, do browse through your manual
or setup instructions to see if this
| | 01:55 | applies to your scanner.
| | 01:56 | But once the drivers are downloaded,
go ahead and install them following the
| | 02:00 | instructions that will appear and hook up
your scanner and then you should be ready to go.
| | 02:04 | In an upcoming movie, we'll take a
look at the details of scanning photos and documents.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Scanning a document| 00:00 | Now let's take a look at the basics of
using a scanner with your computer, once
| | 00:03 | you've connected the scanner and
have installed the drivers and software.
| | 00:07 | Most likely your scanner software came
with its own scanning and image editing
| | 00:10 | applications, but since there are so
many types of scanners and scanning
| | 00:13 | software, we are going to use the
scanning application built into Window 7
| | 00:16 | Professional Enterprise and Ultimate.
| | 00:18 | If you don't have any of those
versions of Windows, you can still take the
| | 00:21 | principles covered here and apply
them to other scanning software as well.
| | 00:24 | Let's begin by clicking the Start
button > All Programs, and then finding
| | 00:28 | Windows Fax and Scan.
| | 00:32 | This is the built-in app for faxing
and scanning documents in Windows.
| | 00:34 | To start scanning, click the Scan button
in the lower left-hand corner to go the
| | 00:39 | scanning portion of the
application and then click New Scan.
| | 00:43 | That opens the New Scan window.
| | 00:45 | First make sure your scanner's name
appears up here at the top of the window.
| | 00:48 | If you have more than one scanner and
want to select one other on the currently
| | 00:51 | selected one, you can click Change to
locate it, but I only have the one scanner
| | 00:55 | right now so I will leave it as it is.
| | 00:56 | Next is the good idea to
click the Preview button.
| | 01:00 | This fires up your scanner and gives
you an overview of the entire scan bed, so
| | 01:03 | you can select the portion that
you actually want to scan and keep.
| | 01:07 | For this example, I have just placed a
CD cover on my scanner and now we see
| | 01:10 | everything the scanner sees.
| | 01:12 | This dotted line represents
the areas that will be scanned.
| | 01:15 | Now I don't really need to scan the
entire area, so I will drag in the handles
| | 01:18 | of the rectangle, so it
just selects my CD cover.
| | 01:24 | You can actually place your cursor along
the sides of the dotted line as well to
| | 01:29 | drag them up and down or left and right.
| | 01:30 | All right, so let's go
through some of these menus.
| | 01:34 | First we have the Profile menu where you
can choose what type of item you're scanning.
| | 01:38 | Photo is the Default, and basically
it means you want to scan in color.
| | 01:41 | You can also choose Documents to
perform a grayscale scan of a text document
| | 01:45 | or to create a grayscale or some call it
black-and-white version of the colored document.
| | 01:50 | By selecting Documents, you'll
generally create a smaller file, so if color
| | 01:54 | isn't an issue, you can choose it.
| | 01:57 | If your scanner has more than one way to
scan, for example, some scanners have a
| | 02:00 | document feeder so you scan multiple
pages at once, you can select your source
| | 02:04 | from the Source menu but I only
have the Flatbed in this case.
| | 02:07 | Next we have Color format,
File type and Resolution.
| | 02:12 | The default settings for the Color
format are determined by whether you chose
| | 02:18 | Photo or Document from the Profile.
| | 02:19 | Notice if I choose Documents, Color
format changes to Grayscale or if I switch
| | 02:24 | back to Photo, it changes back to Color.
| | 02:27 | But you can also choose your own
settings here by choosing Color, Grayscale
| | 02:31 | or Black and white.
| | 02:32 | For the File type, you might want to choose TIF,
for the highest resolution and quality scan.
| | 02:37 | JPEG is generally used for photos, for
emailing or posting to the web and same goes for PNG.
| | 02:43 | Bitmap or BMP isn't really
used too often these days.
| | 02:47 | As a rule of thumb I generally go with
TIF for high quality files and JPEG or
| | 02:50 | PNG for smaller file sizes.
| | 02:53 | Next you have the Resolution menu.
| | 02:54 | Resolution affects both
image quality and file size.
| | 02:57 | The higher the resolution, the more
image data is captured by the scanner, but
| | 03:00 | also the larger the file size will be.
| | 03:03 | Resolution is expressed in DPI or dots per
inch. The more dots, the higher the resolution.
| | 03:08 | So if you want an all-purpose scan
of the photo or document, 300 DPI is a
| | 03:12 | good place to start.
| | 03:13 | That will give you the resolution you need to
produce a good-looking print out of your scan.
| | 03:17 | If you intent to email a scan photo or
put it on the web, you can still scan the
| | 03:21 | 300 DPI, but you'll need reduce the
resolution and file size in an image editing
| | 03:25 | program like say Photoshop,
before you send it off.
| | 03:28 | And images for the web
are generally around 72 DPI.
| | 03:32 | But I don't recommend scanning at that level.
| | 03:34 | Ideally, you want a higher quality
scan, so you can grab lots of color and
| | 03:38 | detail from the image, before you
then reduce the DPI through software.
| | 03:42 | But if you are on a rush, or don't know
how to use image editing software,
| | 03:44 | you can scan at 72 DIP when you want to
deliver your scan images over the Internet.
| | 03:48 | I am going to switch mine back to 300.
| | 03:51 | The last two options are Brightness and
Contrast sliders, which gives you a bit
| | 03:55 | of control over the appearance of the image.
| | 03:56 | Now you won't see a live preview of
what the sliders are doing. You have to
| | 04:00 | click the Preview button
each time to see the effects.
| | 04:02 | In fact, anytime you make a change here,
your current preview will disappear and
| | 04:06 | you'll have to click Preview again
to see the effect of your changes.
| | 04:10 | You might have noticed when I switch
from Photo to Document in the profile, my
| | 04:13 | preview disappeared.
| | 04:14 | Fortunately my selection
areas stay the same though.
| | 04:17 | Now as far as the Brightness and
Contrast sliders go, you might want to use
| | 04:21 | these to lighten up a particularly
dark image, but they are not really going
| | 04:24 | to be that much help.
| | 04:25 | You will be better off leaving them as-
is and then using dedicated image editing
| | 04:28 | software to make your adjustments.
| | 04:30 | Some scanners offer software with more
powerful image adjusting tools too, but
| | 04:34 | again, I'll leave those settings as
is most of the time and use dedicated
| | 04:37 | image editing software.
| | 04:38 | All right, once you have made all
your selections in here and you're ready
| | 04:42 | to scan, click Scan.
| | 04:45 | So now my scanner is scanning for real and
applying all the settings I have selected.
| | 04:52 | And once the scan is done, the scan
image appears in the main Fax and Scan
| | 04:55 | window here, and there it is. Let me make
this a little bit bigger so you can see it.
| | 05:01 | Now when you're using other scanning
software, you maybe prompted to select a
| | 05:04 | location on your computer to save the file.
| | 05:06 | Here in the Fax and Scan software,
it just ends up stored here.
| | 05:11 | Now with the file selected, I can click
commands like Forward as Fax, Forward
| | 05:15 | as E-mail and Save As, to save my
file to another location on a computer.
| | 05:19 | For example, maybe I want to save a copy
of the image to my Desktop,so I have a
| | 05:22 | version to play around
with in my photo editing software.
| | 05:24 | So I can click Save As.
| | 05:26 | I will choose save this to my Desktop.
| | 05:29 | I will call this GTE for Goodnight to
Everyone, which is what the album in this
| | 05:34 | case is called, and I will click Save.
| | 05:39 | And I will minimize Windows Fax and Scan, and
I can see the file sitting here on my desktop.
| | 05:42 | If I want to I can right-click on it.
Maybe choose Open with Adobe Photoshop CS5.
| | 05:51 | And there is my CD cover that I
can now work with here in Photoshop.
| | 05:54 | So that's the basics of scanning with a
built-in Windows Fax and Scan software.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting up a projector or a second monitor| 00:00 | Another peripheral device you should
know how to connect to is a projector.
| | 00:04 | If you ever have to give a presentation
using software like Microsoft PowerPoint
| | 00:08 | or if you have to demo something on
your laptop to an audience, you'll most likely
| | 00:11 | need to use a projector like this one.
| | 00:13 | In reality, a projector works just
like a monitor as far as your PC is
| | 00:16 | concerned, and setting up a
projector is just like setting up a second
| | 00:19 | monitor for your computer.
| | 00:21 | Many people these days use a second
monitor for both laptop and desktop
| | 00:24 | computers, so they have more
onscreen room to work with.
| | 00:27 | So whether you need to connect your
projector or just want to use an additional
| | 00:30 | monitor, you'll learn everything
you need to know in this movie.
| | 00:32 | You are going to start by connecting
your projector or monitor to your computer.
| | 00:36 | Now, some newer laptops and projects use
DVI monitor connectors, like the ones
| | 00:40 | found on desktop computers, other
use the older VGA style connectors.
| | 00:44 | In this particular setup, my projector
has both DVI and VGA connectors, while my
| | 00:51 | laptop has only the older style VGA connector.
| | 00:56 | Also, I only have a DVI cable.
| | 01:00 | So I am going to need an adapter, which
I happen to have here, and you can find
| | 01:04 | these adapters at just about any
computer stores that sells accessories.
| | 01:10 | So in this particular setup I am going
to plug the DVI into my projector,
| | 01:19 | and the VGA and the on the adapter into my laptop.
| | 01:29 | So in your own setup, you'll have to
figure out which connectors is on the
| | 01:32 | monitor of projector and which
connector is on the computer and what adapter
| | 01:36 | you'll need, if any.
| | 01:37 | To spare mine though, either be DVI,
VGA, or some combination of the two.
| | 01:42 | Once you got your computer and projector or
monitor connected together, turn them both on.
| | 01:47 | Now we'll see what we have to do
to set up the projector in Windows.
| | 01:51 | Now at this point, you computer may
have already detected your projector or
| | 01:54 | second monitor and the appearance of
your screen might have already changed.
| | 01:57 | Let's take a look at how to
customize your settings in just a moment.
| | 02:00 | Begin by right-clicking anywhere on your
Windows desktop and choosing Screen Resolution.
| | 02:04 | Even the screen resolution settings are
where you change the appearance of your monitors.
| | 02:10 | At the top here we see two icons
representing the main monitor and the projector
| | 02:13 | or second monitor you connected.
| | 02:15 | If you're not sure which is which,
click the Identify button and the numbers 1
| | 02:19 | and 2 will briefly show up
on the respective monitors.
| | 02:22 | If your second monitor isn't showing up
here at all, try clicking the Detect button.
| | 02:25 | Now depending on what you want to
display on your projector or second monitor,
| | 02:30 | you will come down to the Multiple
Displays menu and choosing Duplicate these
| | 02:33 | displays or Extend these displays.
| | 02:36 | I am going to select Duplicate
these displays and click Apply.
| | 02:38 | You're going to get a dialog box
asking if you want to keep these display
| | 02:46 | settings. We will click Keep Changes.
| | 02:49 | So with Duplicate these displays selected,
I see the same thing on both monitors.
| | 02:53 | So for example, if you're using a
projector and wanted your audience to see
| | 02:56 | exactly what you see on your screen,
you would select Duplicate these displays.
| | 03:00 | Let's select Extend these displays again,
which is what we're originally looking at.
| | 03:04 | And again, we will say Keep Changes.
| | 03:10 | So with Extend these displays selected,
the projector or second monitor becomes
| | 03:14 | an extension of your main screen.
| | 03:15 | Meaning you can move your mouse
from one screen to the other, as if they
| | 03:18 | were one large monitor.
| | 03:19 | This can be useful if you're using
presentation software like PowerPoint.
| | 03:24 | PowerPoint supports what's called
Presenter displays, which lets you view your
| | 03:27 | up coming slides, notes, and other info
on your screen while your audience only sees
| | 03:31 | your presentation on the projector screen.
| | 03:33 | So for example, I have a PowerPoint
presentation file that I have opened up on
| | 03:36 | my desktop and this is not included
with the exercise files for this course.
| | 03:40 | I am just using it to demonstrate the
Presenter display or the Presenter View,
| | 03:44 | which you can see is checked up here.
| | 03:45 | So I will click to Start Playing This
Presentation, and as you can see, the
| | 03:50 | right side of the screen
represents what the projector is displaying
| | 03:53 | showing just my slides.
| | 03:54 | So as I go forward in my presentation, I just
see the slide on the right side of the screen.
| | 03:58 | While the left side of my screen
represents my laptop screen, which only I see
| | 04:02 | during my presentation.
| | 04:03 | So I can see my upcoming
slides, my lapsed time and so on.
| | 04:07 | So I will just get out of that.
| | 04:12 | So this is one advantage of using
Extend these displays when using a
| | 04:16 | projector on your PC.
| | 04:17 | Let's take a look at some
more things you can do in here.
| | 04:20 | Now by selecting each monitor,
you can adjust their settings below.
| | 04:23 | Optionally, you can choose which
display you are adjusting using the
| | 04:29 | Display popup menu here.
| | 04:30 | I prefer just to click on the monitor myself.
| | 04:33 | Now the resolution menu controls the
resolution of the selected monitor.
| | 04:37 | The higher the resolution, the more data
in detail can be displayed on the screen.
| | 04:40 | So you can set different
resolution for each monitor if necessary.
| | 04:44 | For the most part, even the highest
resolution available in each list.
| | 04:47 | That's what's called the monitors native
resolution, and it's going to look the
| | 04:50 | sharpest at that size.
| | 04:51 | So if I wanted my monitor to look at
sharpest, I would set this to 1920x1200,
| | 04:55 | which is the recommended resolution.
| | 04:57 | I am currently recording this movie at
1280x800 so, I can't really change that
| | 05:01 | for you right now, but if we are using
this monitor in real life, I would have
| | 05:04 | it set to the highest resolution.
| | 05:06 | Now one think to keep in mind though
is if you've chosen to duplicate your
| | 05:10 | displays and you have different sized
monitors, or you are using a projector,
| | 05:14 | you're going to be limited to the
resolution of the device with the lowest
| | 05:17 | resolution, and usually
that's going to be the projector.
| | 05:20 | Most projectors display at
800x600 and some newer ones at 1024x768.
| | 05:25 | It's going to take some clicking
around and experimenting with different
| | 05:28 | resolutions before you find the one
that works for both the computer and the
| | 05:31 | projector when you have
Duplicate these displays selected.
| | 05:36 | Now as a side note, be aware that when
you change resolutions, the screen may
| | 05:39 | flicker or black momentarily. This is normal.
| | 05:42 | Now if you happen to pick a resolution
that doesn't work, just don't touch your
| | 05:45 | computer for a few seconds.
| | 05:46 | For instance, if the screen just
stays black or flickers non-stop,
| | 05:50 | just don't touch your computer.
| | 05:51 | If you recall, each time I change
from Extend these displays to Duplicate
| | 05:56 | these displays, or vice versa, we saw a dialog
box asking if we wanted to keep that resolution.
| | 06:01 | That same dialog box will appear
when you change your screen resolution.
| | 06:04 | So you have to confirm that a selected
resolution works before it's locked in.
| | 06:08 | If you don't confirm, your PC will go
back to the previously working resolution
| | 06:12 | and that's the basics of what you
need to know to get a projector or second
| | 06:14 | monitor working with your PC.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using a projector| 00:00 | If you do a lot of presenting and often
have to connect your computer to various
| | 00:04 | projectors supplied to you by whatever
vendor you are speaking at, it's going to
| | 00:07 | be helpful to know some basic
things about projectors in general.
| | 00:10 | If you are always presenting in the
same place like a classroom or conference
| | 00:13 | room at your office, you are in good
shape because you will already be familiar
| | 00:16 | with your standard projector
once you've gotten it setup.
| | 00:19 | But if you are the traveling sort of
presenter, you don't always know what size
| | 00:22 | room you are walking into, what kind of
projector you will be using, where the
| | 00:25 | projector is going to be positioned and
there are always other unknown factors.
| | 00:28 | So in this video, I am going to go over
a couple of features and characteristics
| | 00:32 | that most projectors share in common.
| | 00:34 | First of all, all projectors have a Power
button to turn the projector on and off.
| | 00:38 | Now, in some projectors, you are going
to have to press the Power button twice.
| | 00:41 | Once to turn the projector on and
another time so the lamp actually warms up
| | 00:45 | and starts projecting.
| | 00:46 | Then it might take anywhere between a
few seconds to a minute before that lamp
| | 00:49 | gets warmed up and brighten up so
you can see the image on your screen.
| | 00:55 | Now, assuming you've connected the
projector to your computer and your computer
| | 00:58 | is turned on, you should see your
computer screen being projected.
| | 01:01 | In a previous movie, we looked at how
to set up your computer to display on a
| | 01:04 | projector or external monitor, so refer
back to that movie if you need a review.
| | 01:08 | Now, if you still won't see your screen,
look for a button labeled Source or
| | 01:13 | Input on the projector.
| | 01:14 | many projectors allow you to plug-in
multiple sources simultaneously, which can
| | 01:18 | be convenient if more than one computer
or video device like a DVD player has to
| | 01:22 | be plugged into the projector at once.
| | 01:25 | If you don't see your computer's
display up on the screen, it's possible your
| | 01:27 | projector is set to the wrong input.
| | 01:29 | So you are going to want to
press that Input or Source button.
| | 01:31 | Now in some cases a menu will appear
letting you choose an input. In other cases
| | 01:35 | you will press the Input or Source
button repeatedly, and toggle through the
| | 01:38 | sources until your computer screen shows up.
| | 01:40 | Some projectors will even
automatically scan through all the sources, stopping
| | 01:44 | when it finds a video signal.
| | 01:46 | Now, once a projector is properly
projecting on your screen, you will mostly
| | 01:50 | likely need to adjust the focus.
| | 01:52 | Focus is often adjusted
with this ring around the lens.
| | 01:55 | Just turn it until the image looks sharp.
| | 02:02 | Now, even when the image is in focus,
it still might not look quite right.
| | 02:05 | Maybe the image is too large to fit
on the screen or maybe it's too small.
| | 02:09 | Moving the projector further away from
the screen or closer to the screen can
| | 02:12 | usually solve this, but
that's not always an option.
| | 02:15 | Many projectors also have a zoom
dial for making minor sized adjustments.
| | 02:21 | After you zoom, you most likely
will have to focus again as well.
| | 02:27 | Now, another common issue that might
crop up is a slight distortion of the
| | 02:30 | projected image known as key stoning.
| | 02:32 | That's when the image looks more
like a trapezoid rather than a rectangle
| | 02:36 | and this is usually a result of the
projector projecting at two extreme an
| | 02:39 | angle either up or down.
| | 02:41 | Most projectors have an adjustable foot or legs
to raise or lower the angle of the projection.
| | 02:46 | Now, if that doesn't do the trick and
the projector is too low, you can try
| | 02:49 | propping it up on a stack of books or
something else to raise it up a little bit.
| | 02:53 | Projectors frequently also have key-
stoning buttons specifically for adjusting
| | 02:56 | the shape of the projected image.
| | 03:07 | So try adjusting those key stoning
buttons if necessary, and when your
| | 03:11 | presentation is over and it's time
to shut things down, press the Power
| | 03:14 | button once, which usually turns off the lamp,
but then keeps the fan running in the projector.
| | 03:19 | Projector bulbs get very hot and letting
the fan cool down the system before the
| | 03:23 | power goes completely off, can
help preserve the life of the bulb.
| | 03:26 | Depending on the projector it might
shut itself off after it's sufficiently
| | 03:29 | cooled down or you may have to
press the Power button a second time to
| | 03:32 | completely turn off the power.
| | 03:34 | Again, all projectors are different
and you'll have to spend a little bit of
| | 03:37 | time examining the particular
projector you are paired with, but these tips
| | 03:40 | should help you get up in
running a little bit more quickly.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Portable storage devices| 00:00 | Another common device you'll most
likely to use at some point or another is an
| | 00:03 | external hard-drive or storage device.
| | 00:05 | An external drive can be a simple
flash or thumb drive like this one.
| | 00:09 | these typically plug into your
computer's USB port, and have capacities of
| | 00:12 | around 128 gigabytes or under.
| | 00:14 | For significantly more storage space,
you'll have to go with an external
| | 00:17 | hard-drive like this one.
| | 00:19 | These also can connect to your PC via USB.
| | 00:21 | They often require that you plug
them into their own power outlet as well
| | 00:24 | although you'll find some models
that are powered through the USB port.
| | 00:27 | Using an external hard-drive or thumb drive
is simply a matter of plugging it into your PC.
| | 00:33 | I will just go ahead and
plug in my thumb drive now.
| | 00:36 | After a moment you should see
this AutoPlay window up here.
| | 00:40 | By default the AutoPlay window appears
anytime you connect or insert an external
| | 00:43 | hard drive, a flash drive, CD or DVD and
it essentially asks you what you wan to
| | 00:48 | do with this storage device is detected.
| | 00:50 | Notice the options in this case are
Import pictures and videos, Download images,
| | 00:54 | Open folder to view files, Use this
drive for back up, Speed up my system.
| | 00:58 | Since I just want to view the
contents of the drive, I will choose Open
| | 01:01 | folder to view files.
| | 01:02 | Now I am looking at the contents of my
thumb drive that I plugged in to my PC.
| | 01:07 | Now if the AutoPlay window didn't show up
for you, your preferences might have changed.
| | 01:12 | The quickest way to get to your
AutoPlay settings is to click the Start button,
| | 01:16 | click in the Search field and type AutoPlay.
| | 01:20 | And in the results
that show up click AutoPlay.
,
| | 01:24 | Here just make sure Use AutoPlay
for all media and devices is checked.
| | 01:28 | Incidentally, this is also where you can
come to set the default actions of what
| | 01:31 | your PC does when certain types of
media are detected on the disks and drives
| | 01:35 | you connect to your computer.
| | 01:36 | So for instance, I could say anytime
my computer detects an audio CD has been
| | 01:40 | inserted I could choose to play the
audio CD using Windows Media Player, Open a
| | 01:44 | folder, Take no action or Ask me every time.
| | 01:47 | That's pretty much the same choice you
have for all the different items here.
| | 01:50 | I will just cancel that to close it.
| | 01:53 | Now some people do prefer to keep
AutoPlay off, so it doesn't bug them every
| | 01:56 | time it detects a new disk or drive
and with AutoPlay disabled you can still
| | 02:00 | easily and quickly access your hard drive
by clicking Start and then choosing Computer.
| | 02:06 | External hard drives will show up under
Hard Disk Drives and if you inserted a
| | 02:09 | thumb drive you will find it under
Devices with Removable Storage. In this case
| | 02:13 | my removable thumb drive is Disk (E:)
so I can click that and you can see those
| | 02:17 | are the same contents we
were looking at earlier.
| | 02:18 | But whatever the case may be, once you
can see your storage device you are free
| | 02:22 | to copy files to and from it
by dragging them on and off.
| | 02:25 | Essentially, the external drive acts
just like any other folder in that you can
| | 02:29 | create new folders on the drive, add
any files to it as long as they fit on the
| | 02:32 | drive, and you can also drag files
to the Recycle Bin to get rid of them.
| | 02:36 | For example, here on my flash drive,
I'll click the New Folder button to create
| | 02:40 | a new folder and then let's say I just
changed my mind. I will drag that New
| | 02:44 | Folder to the Recycle Bin and
say yes, I do want to delete the folder.
| | 02:50 | You can also access your external
hard drive from any application you are
| | 02:53 | trying to save a file from. So for
instance I could Notepad, type some text, and
| | 03:00 | then choose File > Save.
| | 03:05 | Notice my external hard drive,
Removable Disk (E:), shows up just like any other
| | 03:09 | drive or location on my computer. So I
can select it, name my file call this some
| | 03:16 | text and click Save and if I go back
to the Window for my thumb drive you can
| | 03:23 | see that some text has been
saved here on the thumb drive.
| | 03:26 | Now when it comes time to unplug or
remove your external storage device you want
| | 03:29 | to make absolutely sure that no
applications are using the drive.
| | 03:32 | For example, you don't want to be
working on a document that's stored on the
| | 03:34 | drive and then unplug the drive before you
have a chance to save and close the file.
| | 03:38 | So in this case I want to make sure
that I close Notepad and now I can just
| | 03:43 | unplug the flash drive and it's gone.
| | 03:48 | If I need to get to it or its
contents again I just plug it back in.
| | 03:50 | That's how you work with
external storage devices on your PC.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Pairing with Bluetooth devices| 00:00 | Many of today's PCs and
especially laptop PCs include a piece of
| | 00:04 | technology called Bluetooth.
| | 00:06 | Bluetooth is a short-range wireless
technology, mostly used to reduce the use of wires.
| | 00:10 | You are probably familiar with this
technology in the form of Bluetooth headsets
| | 00:13 | that many people use to
talk on their mobile phones.
| | 00:15 | But Bluetooth is also used for many
other types of devices including computer
| | 00:19 | mice and keyboards.
| | 00:21 | Especially if you regularly use a
laptop PC, you will probably want to consider
| | 00:24 | purchasing and using an
external mouse and possibly a keyboard.
| | 00:27 | Of course you can purchase wired
versions of these devices that plug into your
| | 00:30 | computers USB ports, but for a little
more money you can eliminate the wires and
| | 00:34 | use a Bluetooth mouse or keyboard.
| | 00:36 | I carry a Bluetooth mouse with my
laptop because I find it much easier to use
| | 00:39 | for extended periods of time than the
laptop's trackpad and even if your PC
| | 00:43 | doesn't have Bluetooth included you
can buy a Bluetooth adaptor to add that
| | 00:47 | functionality to your computer.
| | 00:48 | Now we are not going to cover how
to install these adapters but they
| | 00:51 | are generally pretty simple to install by
plugging in to a USB port on your computer.
| | 00:55 | So in this movie we are going to look
at how to use Bluetooth devices with any
| | 00:58 | PC that has Bluetooth, whether
it's built in or through an adaptor.
| | 01:00 | Now because we are dealing with
wireless technology, the important thing is to make
| | 01:04 | sure that your Bluetooth device, such
as a mouse, and your PC recognize each
| | 01:08 | other and that someone nearby using a
Bluetooth mouse couldn't take control of your computer.
| | 01:12 | You accomplish this by performing
a task called pairing your devices.
| | 01:16 | So let's take a look at how we do this.
| | 01:17 | For this example, I am going
to setup a Bluetooth mouse.
| | 01:20 | The first thing you will need to do
is to set-up your Bluetooth device into
| | 01:23 | pairing mode, which is
also called discoverable mode.
| | 01:26 | This is a state in which the device
is sending out a "here I am" signal.
| | 01:29 | You will have to check with the
instructions for whatever device you are trying
| | 01:32 | to pair with your PC to see
how to put it into this mode.
| | 01:34 | I will go ahead and put my
mouse into pairing mode right now.
| | 01:38 | Next, click the Start button
and choose Devices and Printers.
| | 01:44 | Then at the top click Add a device, and
after a moment my mouse's name appears
| | 01:50 | in the window along with all the
other devices my computer has found.
| | 01:53 | So I will select that and click Next.
| | 02:00 | So Windows has now installed all the
necessary drivers to run this device.
| | 02:04 | Now depending on your device, you
might be prompted to type in a passcode in
| | 02:07 | order to complete the pairing process.
| | 02:09 | This is an extra-security measure
some devices use to make sure the person
| | 02:12 | controlling the computer is the one
who wants to pair with the device.
| | 02:15 | If your device requires a passcode,
you will find the code in your instruction
| | 02:18 | manual, but now you can see that the
device driver has been successfully
| | 02:21 | installed, so I can close that window
and I can close the Add a Device window
| | 02:26 | and you can see my mouse is now
paired with my computer and I can actually
| | 02:29 | switch to that mouse now and you'll just
have to take my word for it that I am using
| | 02:33 | my Bluetooth mouse to control
the mouse pointer at this point.
| | 02:36 | Now, if you ever want need to un-pair
your mouse or other Bluetooth device from
| | 02:40 | your PC, just go back to Start button,
click Devices and Printers again, then
| | 02:46 | select your Bluetooth device and click
Remove device. Confirm that you do want
| | 02:51 | to remove it and once it has been
removed, your mouse will no longer work with
| | 02:57 | your PC until you pair them together again.
| | 02:59 | So now I am trying to use my Bluetooth
mouse and it's not doing anything because
| | 03:03 | it's no longer paired with my PC. I've
got to switch back to my regular mouse.
| | 03:08 | But basically that's it.
| | 03:09 | This pairing and un-pairing process
is the same regardless of the type of
| | 03:12 | device you are using.
| | 03:13 | Just put your device into pairing or
discoverable mode, open up the Devices
| | 03:17 | and Printers control panel, choose
Add a device, select your device, and let
| | 03:21 | Windows do the rest.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Networks and Getting OnlineUnderstanding networks and internet access| 00:00 | In the context of discussing computers,
a network is basically two or more
| | 00:03 | computers or peripheral devices such as
printers or scanners, connected to and
| | 00:08 | communicating with each other.
| | 00:10 | Technically, one computer connecting
to another computer is considered a
| | 00:13 | very basic network.
| | 00:14 | More often though computers and other
devices on the network communicate through
| | 00:17 | a device called a router.
| | 00:18 | A router handles and manages all the
network traffic, which is essentially the
| | 00:21 | data being passed from one device to
another and ensures that the right data
| | 00:25 | gets to the right device.
| | 00:26 | You may have heard of other devices
called switches or hubs, which operate
| | 00:29 | similarly to a router, but with a little
less sophistication and capabilities.
| | 00:33 | I am not going to get into the specific
details here, and for simplicity's sake I
| | 00:37 | am going to refer to the network
management device as the router,
| | 00:40 | even though I could also say a hub
or a switch depending on what the
| | 00:43 | device actually is.
| | 00:44 | Now, the point of a network is to make
it easy for all the computers in your
| | 00:47 | home or office to communicate with one another.
| | 00:49 | This allows you to share files directly
with other computers without having to
| | 00:52 | copy the files to a disk or to email them.
| | 00:55 | Networks are also operating system
agnostic, so you can have both Macs and PCs
| | 00:59 | on the same network.
| | 01:00 | A network also allows you to have
shared devices like printers and scanners, so
| | 01:04 | each person doesn't need to have his or her own.
| | 01:06 | Another very common purpose of a
network is to share a single Internet
| | 01:09 | connection among all your computers.
| | 01:11 | Many people these days have high-
speed broadband Internet services in their
| | 01:14 | homes and need to share that
connection with several computers and other
| | 01:17 | Internet enabled devices in their household.
| | 01:20 | Routers generally all have ports to
accept the connection from a broadband modem.
| | 01:24 | High-speed services such as
cable, DSL, and fiber optics are
| | 01:27 | considered broadband.
| | 01:28 | Now it's important to understand that
just connecting to a network does not mean
| | 01:31 | you are connected to the Internet.
| | 01:33 | Connecting to a network means you are
connected to the other devices on the network.
| | 01:36 | This is known as your Local Area Network or LAN.
| | 01:39 | For Internet service to be available
to all the computers on your LAN,
| | 01:42 | the Internet modem must also
be connected to the router.
| | 01:45 | The Internet connection is known
as the Wide Area Network or WAN.
| | 01:49 | Basically, the entire Internet
outside your LAN is considered the WAN.
| | 01:53 | Incidentally, sometimes the modem
provided to you by your Internet service
| | 01:56 | provider is also a router, negating the
need to have a separate router and modem.
| | 01:59 | Now, there are two main ways for
your devices to connect to a network:
| | 02:03 | wired connections and wireless connections.
| | 02:05 | Wired connections involve cables
that look like this, commonly called
| | 02:08 | Ethernet connections.
| | 02:10 | The advantage of a wired connection is it
requires very little setup or configuration.
| | 02:14 | For the most part, you just plug one end
of the cable into your router, plug the
| | 02:17 | other end into your computer, adjust
and check your settings, and you are
| | 02:20 | immediately connected to
your network and the Internet.
| | 02:23 | Wireless connections, often called Wi-
Fi connections, usually involve a little
| | 02:27 | more setup, but offer the advantage
of freeing your device from cables and
| | 02:30 | allowing you to connect to your
network and the internet from anywhere within
| | 02:33 | the range of the wireless signal.
| | 02:35 | That's another important point.
| | 02:36 | In order to broadcast a Wi-Fi signal,
you must have a Wi-Fi enabled router.
| | 02:41 | But most Internet service
providers today give you routers with Wi-Fi
| | 02:44 | capabilities and you can also
purchase Wi-Fi routers inexpensively in
| | 02:48 | any computer store.
| | 02:49 | So in this chapter, we are going to look
at how to connect to a network both via
| | 02:52 | Ethernet and Wi-Fi and we will also
talk more about how to connect to the
| | 02:56 | Internet through your network.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Connecting to wired networks| 00:00 | In this video we are going to look at
how to connect your PC to your network via
| | 00:03 | a wired Ethernet connection.
| | 00:05 | Now this assumes that your network
has already been setup in your home,
| | 00:08 | office, or classroom.
| | 00:09 | If you are connecting to your home
network, you are most likely you are going to
| | 00:11 | run an Ethernet cable from your
computer directly into your router.
| | 00:15 | If you are connecting in an office or
classroom environment, chances are you
| | 00:19 | will be running an Ethernet cable from
your computer into an Ethernet port in
| | 00:21 | the wall or some other fixture,
which in turn connects to your network.
| | 00:25 | In any case, the important thing is
that you have to have a cable running from
| | 00:27 | whatever the source of your network
connection is into the Ethernet port on your PC.
| | 00:31 | Pretty much all desktop and laptop PCs
have built-in Ethernet ports these days.
| | 00:36 | So once you have your computer
connected to your network via Ethernet, chances
| | 00:39 | are you are already on your
network and your so-called setup is done.
| | 00:42 | You should be able to connect to other
computers on your network as well as the
| | 00:45 | Internet, if Internet service is
connected to your router. But let's take a look
| | 00:49 | at some settings to make sure.
| | 00:50 | Click the Start menu and then select
Control Panel, and in here under Network
| | 00:55 | and Internet, click View
networks status and tasks.
| | 01:00 | Then click Change adapter settings.
This reveals the various network connection
| | 01:04 | devices that are installed in your
computer. I only have the one here but if
| | 01:07 | you have a wireless card or Bluetooth
capabilities you will see that most of here as well.
| | 01:11 | In this case, though I am only
interested in this Local Area Connection, which
| | 01:14 | is my Ethernet connection on my computer.
| | 01:15 | I am going to right-click on
this and choose Properties.
| | 01:19 | Then I am going to locate the listing
called Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4).
| | 01:25 | Don't you love that name?
| | 01:26 | Basically this is the property that
determines how your computer talks to your
| | 01:29 | router. Double-click it.
| | 01:32 | In this window the default setting and
the one you will want in almost all cases
| | 01:36 | is Obtain an IP address automatically.
| | 01:38 | Basically this means that you are
going to let the router assign an IP or
| | 01:42 | Internet Protocol address to your computer.
| | 01:44 | Each computer or device on the network
has its own unique address, kind of like
| | 01:47 | how every house in your
neighborhood has its own unique address.
| | 01:50 | That way the router knows which
computer is which and is able to send and
| | 01:53 | receive data to and from the right computers.
| | 01:57 | Again Obtain an IP address automatically
is almost going to be the correct setting.
| | 02:01 | If you need to select another setting,
you are most likely be informed of this
| | 02:03 | by your network administrator who
will probably set it up for you too, by
| | 02:06 | choosing Use the following IP address and
then filling up the proper information below.
| | 02:10 | I am going to recheck Obtain
an IP address automatically.
| | 02:14 | Really the only reason I am showing
you this area is just in case you have
| | 02:17 | plugged in your Ethernet cable and you
are unable to connect to your network.
| | 02:20 | The first thing you should do is to
find this window and make sure Obtain an IP
| | 02:23 | address automatically is selected.
| | 02:25 | In fact I am just going to click
Cancel to close this window so nothing
| | 02:28 | changes in it and then I will click
Cancel again to close my Local Area
| | 02:31 | Connection Properties.
| | 02:34 | So really all you need to do to connect
your network via a wired connection in
| | 02:37 | the majority of cases is to plug
your Ethernet cable into your computer.
| | 02:40 | You should then be immediately
connected to your network and to the Internet if
| | 02:44 | there is an Internet modem
plugged into your network router.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Connecting to wireless networks| 00:00 | A wireless network is a network to which
properly equipped computers can connect
| | 00:04 | by a radio signal instead of physical cables.
| | 00:07 | Wireless network are commonly called
Wi-Fi networks and is usually the main
| | 00:10 | way for laptop users to connect to the
Internet when out and about with their computers.
| | 00:15 | Like a regular wired network, a Wi-Fi
network does not necessarily have to
| | 00:18 | offer Internet access.
| | 00:20 | Although Internet access is probably the most
common reason why people set up Wi-Fi Networks.
| | 00:24 | These days you can find wireless
Internet or Wi-Fi signals just about anywhere,
| | 00:27 | in homes, offices, hotels and restaurants.
| | 00:30 | All you need to connect to a Wi-
Fi network is a computer with Wi-Fi
| | 00:33 | capabilities, whether built-in or through a
Wi-Fi card you can plug into your computer.
| | 00:37 | But one thing to bear in mind is that
most wireless networks are often password
| | 00:40 | protected or in case of Wi-Fi networks
you find in restaurants or hotels,
| | 00:44 | you often have to pay to access their Wi-Fi network.
| | 00:46 | So, even though you may have the
hardware to connect to a wireless network, you
| | 00:49 | might be limited or locked out
by password protection or fees.
| | 00:53 | In the case of connecting to your own
wireless network, you'll know any password
| | 00:56 | you've set up, and if you need to get
on your office or school's Wi-Fi network
| | 00:59 | you should be provided
with the necessary passwords.
| | 01:02 | Pretty much all-current Laptop PCs come
with Wi-Fi abilities built-in, and many
| | 01:05 | desktop models have Wi-Fi as well.
| | 01:07 | If you have a desktop PC though and
you have the choice, you should opt to
| | 01:11 | connect to your network via Ethernet
rather than Wi-Fi, since a wired
| | 01:14 | connection is usually more consistent
and stable, generally more secure and also
| | 01:18 | allows you to transfer files between
other wired computers at a much faster
| | 01:21 | speed than wireless connections allow.
| | 01:23 | So, to connect to a nearby wireless network,
first make sure you Wi-Fi card is turned on.
| | 01:29 | On some laptops you may have to flip a
physical switch on the body of your laptop.
| | 01:33 | Check your user manual if you are
not sure if you have a Wi-Fi switch.
| | 01:35 | Then in Windows click the Start menu
and choose Control Panels. Then under
| | 01:41 | Network and Internet, click View
Network Status and Tasks, and in here click
| | 01:46 | Change Adapter Settings.
| | 01:47 | Here, you will see all the network
adapters installed on your computer.
| | 01:50 | A network adapter is simply the
hardware used to connect to a network.
| | 01:54 | So, in this case I have a Bluetooth
Network Connection, the Local Area
| | 01:58 | Connection is my Ethernet Wired Adapter,
and this is my Wireless Network Adapter.
| | 02:02 | I am going to click the Wireless
Network Adapter once to select it, which gives
| | 02:06 | me these menus at the top,
and I'll click Connect To.
| | 02:09 | Alternately, you can also double-
click the wireless connection icon.
| | 02:12 | That opens this window in the lower
right-hand corner containing a list of all
| | 02:15 | the nearby Wi-Fi Networks
your computer has detected.
| | 02:17 | You can roll you mouse over any
network to see more information about that
| | 02:20 | network, such as the Signal Strength
and whether it's Password Protected.
| | 02:24 | Click the network you want to
connect to to reveal the Connect button.
| | 02:27 | Leave Connect automatically checked if
you want your PC to automatically connect
| | 02:30 | to this network in the
future without first asking you.
| | 02:33 | This is a convenient time saver,
especially for networks you use all the time,
| | 02:36 | like you home or office networks.
| | 02:37 | Then click Connect to join the network.
| | 02:40 | If the network you are trying to join
is password protected, you'll be prompted
| | 02:43 | to type in your password at this point.
| | 02:45 | If you are worried about people looking
over and learning you password, you can
| | 02:48 | check hide characters and your
password will show up as dots.
| | 02:57 | Now, the first time you connect to any
new network, you are going to see this
| | 02:59 | window asking you what sort
of environment you are in,
| | 03:02 | Home, Work or Public?
| | 03:03 | Now, these are just general
types of common locations.
| | 03:06 | What it's really asking you here is what
sort of security settings should be applied?
| | 03:10 | Home and Work networks
are pretty much identical.
| | 03:13 | The only difference is that with
Home selected, you can use Windows 7's
| | 03:16 | home groups feature, which makes it easy
to share photos, movies and music with
| | 03:20 | other PCs on your network.
| | 03:22 | That feature is unavailable
if you choose Work network.
| | 03:25 | If you choose Public, meaning you are
connecting to a Wi-Fi network in a public
| | 03:29 | location like a coffee shop or hotel,
| | 03:31 | Windows will change some settings to
make your PC invisible on the network, so
| | 03:34 | other PCs including those who might be
trying to access your computer will have
| | 03:38 | a hard time finding it.
| | 03:39 | I'll choose Work for this example.
| | 03:41 | Once, you've made your selection you
are now connected to the Wi-Fi network and
| | 03:46 | free to connect to other computers
on your network or to surf the web.
| | 03:50 | If you ever want to change your profile,
for instance, I just chose Work and
| | 03:53 | maybe I want to choose Home, you can go
back to your network settings by going
| | 03:58 | to Control Panel, and here you can
click your current network and then choose
| | 04:04 | one or the other options here.
| | 04:05 | Now, if you follow these steps and were
unable to connect or it looks like you
| | 04:11 | are connected to a wireless network
but you can't get online, first make sure
| | 04:14 | you are close enough to the Wi-Fi signal.
| | 04:16 | I am going to right-click on my
wireless network and choose Status.
| | 04:20 | You can see here my signal
activity shows I have five full bars here.
| | 04:24 | So, ideally you want to have as close
to the five full bars in the signal
| | 04:27 | strength indicator as possible.
| | 04:28 | Now, if you have connected to a
public Wi-Fi network, say in a hotel or
| | 04:32 | restaurant, you might have
to pay to use the service.
| | 04:35 | In most cases once you're connected to
the Wi-Fi network, you just need to open
| | 04:38 | your web browser and try to open a webpage.
| | 04:41 | You'll then be redirected to a page
in which you'll be asked to submit your
| | 04:43 | credit card information or maybe your room
number in some hotels, before you can proceed.
| | 04:49 | When you come across to a Wi-Fi
network like that, just follow the on
| | 04:51 | screen instructions.
| | 04:52 | But for the most part connecting to
a wireless network from your PC is a
| | 04:55 | simple matter of selecting the network
from the list of available networks and
| | 04:58 | then clicking Connect.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working in a networked environment| 00:00 | When most people think of having
their computer on a network, they probably
| | 00:03 | associate it with being
connected to the Internet.
| | 00:06 | While Internet access is a common and
important use of a home or office network,
| | 00:09 | the other major purpose of the network
is to allow the computers on the network
| | 00:12 | to communicate with each other in
terms of sharing files and resources.
| | 00:15 | So, in this movie I want to brief you go
over some common tasks you might perform
| | 00:18 | on your network other
than accessing the Internet.
| | 00:21 | Now, this is going to be fairly
general overviews as there are many types of
| | 00:24 | network configurations and set
ups you might find yourself on.
| | 00:27 | What you're allowed to do on your
network is often controlled by your network
| | 00:29 | administrator, so you might find that
you don't have the ability to perform some
| | 00:32 | of the things I am going to show you here.
| | 00:34 | Let's start with the idea of
showing files between network computers.
| | 00:37 | This is a really convenient feature of
networks because you can transfer files
| | 00:40 | without having to first copy them to a
disk or some kind of portable storage
| | 00:43 | device, which you then have to put into
the receiving computer to copy the files to.
| | 00:47 | Over a network you can simply
transfer the files directly from computer to
| | 00:50 | computer and this is particularly
useful if the files you have to share are
| | 00:53 | large and won't fit on portable drives or disks.
| | 00:56 | Now, of course, it doesn't make sense to
open your entire computer to your whole network.
| | 00:59 | Most likely you have files and folders
you don't want other people getting into.
| | 01:03 | So, by default the ability for others
to access your computer over a network is
| | 01:06 | turned off or severely limited.
| | 01:08 | You need to allow access to your PC
before others can copy files to it.
| | 01:11 | Let's take a look at one way to do this.
| | 01:14 | If you want to be able to share
files with both PCs and Mac, you need to
| | 01:17 | create a shared folders and in
actuality there are already are some shared
| | 01:21 | folders on your PC.
| | 01:22 | I am going to click the Start menu
and just select Computer, just to open
| | 01:25 | a regular window.
| | 01:26 | Notice on the let side of your window-- and
it doesn't matter what window you have open.
| | 01:32 | Under Libraries, you have shortcuts
to your folders, documents, music,
| | 01:36 | pictures and videos.
| | 01:37 | Inside each one of these
folders is a folder labeled Public:
| | 01:41 | Public Documents, Public Music,
Public Pictures and so on.
| | 01:45 | The idea is to place items you'd like
other people on your network to have
| | 01:48 | access to inside these folders.
| | 01:50 | For example, if I wanted to start some
vacation photos with other people on my
| | 01:53 | network I could copy the
photos into public pictures.
| | 01:56 | We'll take a look at how to connect to
someone else's public folders in just a minute.
| | 02:00 | Now, you can also share any other folders you
like and make them available on you network.
| | 02:05 | Let me go ahead and close this window.
| | 02:07 | So, for example I am just going to
right-click on my Desktop and choose
| | 02:10 | New > Folder to create a new empty folder on
my desktop and I'll call this For Sharing.
| | 02:16 | Now, I'll right-click on that folder and
notice one of the options in here is Share With.
| | 02:21 | The default option is always Nobody,
which protects your folder from being shared.
| | 02:25 | You can also select one of the
Homegroup options, which is a Windows 7
| | 02:28 | feature that let's you easily share
files and folders but only with other
| | 02:32 | Windows 7 computers.
| | 02:33 | I am going to select Specific people.
| | 02:36 | In this window I just choose which
users I want to share this photo with.
| | 02:39 | Essentially, I am specifying who is
allowed to access the contents of this For
| | 02:42 | Sharing folder I just created.
| | 02:44 | In this menu I see a list of all
users who have accounts on this
| | 02:47 | particular computer.
| | 02:48 | If I choose one of those accounts, that
user will be able to access this folder
| | 02:51 | from any other computer on my network
using his or her account login info.
| | 02:54 | You can also choose to Create a new
user to create a new account on the fly.
| | 02:58 | You do have the option of choosing
Everyone, but I caution against that, unless
| | 03:02 | you really know everyone who has access
to the network you are on, or if you're
| | 03:05 | just not concerned with everyone on
you network seeing whatever it is in the
| | 03:08 | folder you are sharing.
| | 03:09 | For this example I'll choose Producer
and click Add and you can see that adds
| | 03:14 | producer to the list of people
who have access to this folder.
| | 03:17 | Now, for each user you can specify
whether that person can read or read and
| | 03:21 | write to this folder.
| | 03:23 | Read means the user can only see
what's in the folder and copy contents to
| | 03:26 | his or her computer, but can't alter the
contents of the folder by adding or deleting files.
| | 03:31 | Read/Write grants the user
permission to make changes to the folder, so be
| | 03:34 | careful who you give Read/Write permissions to.
| | 03:35 | I'll just leave Read selected.
| | 03:38 | You can also select Remove if you just
want to remove that person altogether.
| | 03:41 | Now, you can continue to add more users at
this point or just click Share when you are done.
| | 03:46 | You're then given the options to send
your users an email with a link to your
| | 03:51 | shared network folder or you can copy
the link and send it over instant message
| | 03:55 | or paste it into an email yourself
or just click Done when you are done.
| | 03:59 | Now, to make sure that other people on
your network can get to your public or
| | 04:02 | shared folders, you are going to open
a window-- and again I'll just open my
| | 04:06 | computer window here, and then
click Network on the left-hand side.
| | 04:10 | Then at the top click Network and
Sharing Center, and then click Change
| | 04:14 | Advanced Sharing Settings.
| | 04:17 | Here, make sure Turn on network
discovery is on so that other people on your
| | 04:20 | network will be able to see your
computer from their computers and make sure
| | 04:23 | Turn on file and printer sharing is
turned on, so they can see your files as
| | 04:26 | well as any printers you have
connected to your computer, which is kind of
| | 04:29 | convenient because if you only have
one printer and it's connected to your
| | 04:32 | computer other people on your network
will be able to print to it as long as you
| | 04:35 | have printer sharing turned
on and your computer is on.
| | 04:37 | The last one is to make sure that
Turn on sharing so any one with network
| | 04:41 | access can read and write
files in public folders is checked.
| | 04:44 | That again ensures that other people on
your network will be able to get to your
| | 04:46 | public folders many of these, folders
you saw earlier like Public Documents,
| | 04:50 | Public Pictures and so on.
| | 04:51 | Of course only turn on these options
if you want to share these folders and
| | 04:54 | when you are done and here click Save
changes and that's one way to set up
| | 04:59 | sharing your computers.
| | 05:00 | Now, to access other computers on a
network that has been set up this ways, just
| | 05:04 | open the window and click Network.
| | 05:08 | After a moment all the computers on your
network that have sharing on will show up in here.
| | 05:12 | Just double-click one of these to access it.
| | 05:15 | Now, what folders you see ,whether you
can open that folder or copy move files to it,
| | 05:19 | depends on how sharing settings
have been set up. If you recall, you maybe only
| | 05:22 | have Read Permission
instead of Read/Write Permissions.
| | 05:26 | In some cases you might have to enter
your username and password before you
| | 05:30 | can access folders.
| | 05:31 | But as you can see right now, I am
accessing a different computer via my
| | 05:35 | account over the network.
| | 05:36 | That's the basics of
sharing files over a network.
| | 05:40 | Again, your own network settings might
vary and if you are working on an office
| | 05:42 | network, you might want to check with
your network administrator to see what
| | 05:45 | sharing options you can
use and how to set them up.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Staying protected from viruses| 00:00 | You're probably aware of the existence
of malicious programs called viruses and
| | 00:06 | the importance of keeping your
computer protected from them.
| | 00:08 | Viruses or malware as they are also
referred to are often created with the
| | 00:12 | intent of stealing information from your
computer or sometimes just to mess with
| | 00:15 | your computer by erasing important files.
| | 00:17 | As a Windows user, you can downloaded
and install free antivirus software from
| | 00:21 | Microsoft's web site by opening
your web browser and going to
| | 00:26 | microsoft.com/security_essentials.
| | 00:31 | All you have to do here is to
click the Download Now button to start
| | 00:36 | downloading this free antivirus software.
| | 00:38 | And while you are here, you can also
watch a video on how to download and
| | 00:41 | install the software if you need help.
| | 00:42 | I've already installed this
software, so I'll close my browser.
| | 00:46 | And once you've installed the
software, you can find it by going to the
| | 00:48 | Start menu and you'll see it here in
the main Start menu, Microsoft Security
| | 00:53 | Essentials, or you can also go to All
Programs and you'll find it in here as well.
| | 00:58 | Now generally, all antivirus
software programs function pretty similarly.
| | 01:02 | So even if you use something other than
Microsoft's software, you'll get pretty
| | 01:05 | much the same kind of protection.
| | 01:08 | How it works is once a week the
antivirus software scans your entire computer
| | 01:12 | looking for any viruses
you might have picked up.
| | 01:14 | Since new viruses or malware are
always being discovered, the software also
| | 01:17 | checks with an online database for new
virus definition files, so it's always
| | 01:21 | up-to-date with the latest new viruses that
have been found floating around on the Internet.
| | 01:25 | So basically, once you've installed
the antivirus software, there is not much
| | 01:28 | you have to do with it, unless you
want to change when and how often it scans
| | 01:31 | your computer, which you can
do by clicking the Settings tab.
| | 01:33 | Here you can select options in the left
column and change those settings to the right.
| | 01:37 | For example, with Scheduled scan
selected, you can see that the default setting
| | 01:42 | is to scan your computer Sundays at 2 AM.
| | 01:45 | If you happen to always be using your
computer at 2 AM on a Sunday, you can pick
| | 01:48 | another time when you're not
likely to be at your computer.
| | 01:50 | And it's no that you can't use your
computer while the antivirus software is running.
| | 01:54 | It's more that you probably don't want
to have other programs actively doing
| | 01:57 | things while you're working on your computer.
| | 01:58 | Here under the History tab, you'll see
reports of previous scans, what malware
| | 02:03 | has discovered, if any,
and what action was taken.
| | 02:06 | Under the Update tab, you can see
when the last virus definitions were
| | 02:09 | downloaded, and you can click the big
Update button if you want to manually
| | 02:12 | check for and download the latest updates.
| | 02:15 | And under the Home tab, you can
perform a manual scan by clicking Scan Now.
| | 02:18 | You have the choices of Quick, Full and Custom.
| | 02:21 | A Quick scan is going to check the places
where viruses are most likely going to be hidden.
| | 02:25 | The Full scan checks every file and
folder on your computer and could take a
| | 02:28 | couple of hours, depending on the size
of your hard drive and how full it is.
| | 02:33 | And you can also choose a custom scan to
specify particular folders you want to scan.
| | 02:36 | For example, if someone sends you a file
attached to an email, you might want to
| | 02:39 | scan that file before opening it.
| | 02:41 | And that actually leads me to
another important point about keeping
| | 02:43 | your computer protected.
| | 02:45 | You have to play an active role as
well and you shouldn't just rely
| | 02:47 | on antivirus software.
| | 02:49 | Antivirus software attempts to
catch malware once it has already gotten
| | 02:52 | onto your computer.
| | 02:54 | By being vigilant you can take steps to
prevent malware from getting into your
| | 02:56 | system in the first place.
| | 02:59 | First of all, never open files or click links
attached to emails from people you don't know.
| | 03:03 | Often times, these will take you
directly to malicious web sites that may attempt
| | 03:07 | to install malware on your system.
| | 03:09 | And if an email seem suspicious,
don't forward it to other people,
| | 03:12 | especially people who might not be
aware of how to protect themselves from
| | 03:14 | viruses or malware.
| | 03:16 | By forwarding emails, you're doing
exactly what the virus creators want you to
| | 03:18 | do, spreading the virus.
| | 03:20 | When you're browsing the web, don't
click the links to any pop-ups ads that appear.
| | 03:24 | Again, these can start the
process of installing malware.
| | 03:26 | And when it comes to installing
software, ask yourself if it's coming from
| | 03:30 | a reputable source.
| | 03:31 | There's a lot of great free software out
there, but free software can also often
| | 03:35 | carry malicious code.
| | 03:36 | So do your research, see if anyone
else you know has used the software you're
| | 03:39 | thinking of downloading.
| | 03:40 | See if you can find out anything about
the software somewhere other than the
| | 03:43 | web site you're thinking of downloading it from.
| | 03:45 | And just like any other parts of life, if
something is too good to be true, it probably is.
| | 03:49 | Offers of free money and huge
discounts on products often lead to viruses.
| | 03:53 | So, those are just some things to keep
in mind concerning keeping your computer
| | 03:56 | and your information protected.
| | 03:58 | You can find out more information on
the Microsoft Security Essential site we
| | 04:00 | looked at earlier, and if you're on an
office or school network, you can also
| | 04:04 | contact your network administrator to
see what security measures they have in place,
| | 04:07 | and what, if any, specific
settings you should apply to your own computer.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
6. EmailUnderstanding email servers and clients| 00:00 | If you are using a computer with an
Internet connection, you almost certainly
| | 00:03 | have acquired or have
been given an email address.
| | 00:06 | So in this chapter, we are going to
be looking at the basics of emailing.
| | 00:10 | Let's start with a quick overview
of what email is and how it works.
| | 00:13 | Emails are electronic text-based
messages you can send and receive either
| | 00:16 | through the web site of your email
hosting service or through a dedicated email
| | 00:20 | software program called an email client.
| | 00:23 | When you want to send an email to some one,
you need to know his or her email address.
| | 00:27 | Then you compose a message using
your email client or through your
| | 00:29 | email provider's web site.
| | 00:31 | Your email can be plain text, but you
can also include attachments like photos
| | 00:35 | and short audio or video files.
| | 00:36 | When you're done composing your email,
you click Send, which sends your email
| | 00:40 | through your email provider server.
| | 00:42 | Your email service provider server looks
the address of your recipient to figure
| | 00:45 | out where to send it next.
| | 00:47 | Your email is then sent to your
recipient's email hosting service and stored
| | 00:50 | there until your recipient downloads
the email into his or her own email client
| | 00:54 | or reads it from a web browser.
| | 00:55 | Once you click Send, it can be just
a matter of seconds before your email
| | 00:58 | arrives at your recipient's email server.
| | 01:00 | Now whether this email is then read
right away depends upon whether your
| | 01:03 | recipient is sitting in front of his or
her computer at the time or has access
| | 01:06 | to some portable email
capable device like a smart phone.
| | 01:10 | And that's a very basic
description of how email works.
| | 01:12 | Both,you and your recipient have
to have your own email addresses.
| | 01:16 | Usually your work or school
will provide you with an address.
| | 01:19 | If you're at home, your Internet service
provider will give you an email address.
| | 01:22 | Or you can also sign up for free email
addresses from services like Google's
| | 01:25 | Gmail, Microsoft's Hotmail or Yahoo! Mail.
| | 01:29 | You can also have and manage as
many email address as you wish.
| | 01:32 | Some people like to keep their work
and personal email separate and that's
| | 01:35 | generally a good idea.
| | 01:36 | You probably don't want personal
messages going to your work's email address.
| | 01:39 | Many companies have policies in place
stating that any email that goes through
| | 01:43 | their servers are their property and
can be reviewed by them at any time.
| | 01:46 | Also if you were to change jobs, you'd
probably lose access to the emails that
| | 01:49 | came to your work address.
| | 01:51 | Personally, I prefer a free email
service like Gmail, which isn't tied to a work
| | 01:55 | or internet service provider,
because you might find your self switching
| | 01:58 | Internet providers at some time and
you'd have to again change your address and
| | 02:01 | you might lose your old emails that you
received through your service provider.
| | 02:05 | Okay, so those are some basic things
thing to know and keep in mind about email.
| | 02:08 | We'll get in to more specific
topics in the rest of this chapter.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting up your email application| 00:00 | There are two basic ways to access your email.
| | 00:02 | Either through your email provider's
web site, for example, you could go to
| | 00:06 | gmail.com in your web browser to
access your Gmail email, or you can use one
| | 00:10 | of several available email applications to
download, read, write and manage your email.
| | 00:15 | These email applications are
referred to as email clients.
| | 00:18 | If you chose to go to the web-based email
route, there is very little you need to set up.
| | 00:22 | Just go to your email service's web site
and login with your username and password.
| | 00:26 | And this doesn't just apply to free
email services like Gmail or Yahoo! Mail.
| | 00:29 | Many businesses and schools
offer their employees and students web
| | 00:32 | access to their email.
| | 00:34 | The advantage is that it's very easy to
get their email from any computer with
| | 00:37 | an Internet connection.
| | 00:39 | The down side is that you have to be
online to read and compose your emails.
| | 00:42 | So many people prefer to use email
clients because it offers the ability to view
| | 00:45 | your older emails and compose new
messages without having to be online.
| | 00:49 | So if you are on a plane with no
Internet access, for example, you could still
| | 00:52 | review the emails you've previously
received and write new emails to be sent
| | 00:55 | once you land and get back online.
| | 00:57 | If you only use the web-based mail,
you wouldn't have access to any of your
| | 01:00 | received emails and you'd have to use a
word processor to compose new emails and
| | 01:04 | then copy and paste them into your
web mail once you got back online.
| | 01:07 | So if email is a big part of your day-
to-day activities, it makes sense to
| | 01:10 | set up an email client.
| | 01:11 | Now there are several choices of
clients out there for both Macs and PCs.
| | 01:14 | Mac OS X comes with its mail
application built in but you'll also find clients
| | 01:19 | like Microsoft Entourage or
Mozilla Thunderbird for Macs as well.
| | 01:22 | Windows has Windows Mail but many people
use Outlook or Outlook Express or Thunderbird.
| | 01:27 | Regardless of which email client
you end up using, you still need to
| | 01:30 | understand new specific information in order to
set up your email through your choice of client.
| | 01:34 | Let's take a look at the basics.
| | 01:36 | First there are two main types
of email systems, POP and IMAP.
| | 01:39 | POP is the most common type of email
service used by Internet hosting service
| | 01:43 | providers and it basically works like this.
| | 01:46 | Email that's sent to your account is
stored on your email service's server until
| | 01:50 | your email client notices the new
message and downloads it off the server.
| | 01:54 | Once the message has been downloaded
from the server, it's usually deleted from
| | 01:57 | the server anywhere from
immediately to within one or two weeks.
| | 02:01 | At that point the only copy of
the email is found on your computer.
| | 02:04 | The problem with POP email is if you
use more than one computer or device to
| | 02:08 | check your email, you may end up with
some messages on one computer and other
| | 02:11 | message is on another computer.
| | 02:13 | And if you're like, most people these
days, you'll probably have more than one
| | 02:16 | device that you receive
email on like your phone.
| | 02:18 | For this reason, most email service
providers also offer and recommend
| | 02:21 | using IMAP email service.
| | 02:24 | Unlike POP email, IMAP email
is all kept and managed online.
| | 02:28 | So if you read a new incoming message
on your computer, for example, your phone
| | 02:31 | will still download a
copy of the message as well.
| | 02:34 | With IMAP email both received and sent
messages will remain synced across your
| | 02:37 | devices and you'll have access to all
of your messages regardless of which
| | 02:41 | device you're using.
| | 02:42 | So like I said, many email
providers have both POP and IMAP services
| | 02:45 | available these days.
| | 02:46 | So if you have a choice,
I definitely recommend going with IMAP.
| | 02:50 | So the first step of setting up an email
client is to decide if you want POP or IMAP.
| | 02:54 | Next you'll need your username and password.
| | 02:57 | Your email service, your work or
your school will provide these to you.
| | 03:00 | In many cases, you'll be able to
create your own username and password.
| | 03:03 | You'll also need to know your
incoming and outgoing mail servers.
| | 03:07 | This is the unique address that lets
your email client know where to find your
| | 03:09 | email server so it can
download and send messages.
| | 03:12 | Incoming servers often take the form of
addresses like imap.gmail.com or mail.lynda.com,
| | 03:18 | while outgoing mail servers usually begin
with the prefix of SMTP as in smtp.gmail.com.
| | 03:26 | SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer
Protocol, not that you need to know that,
| | 03:29 | but it's the most common
outgoing server address.
| | 03:32 | Now where you enter this information is
going to vary form email client to email client.
| | 03:36 | Most modern email clients have a setup
assistant that walks you through setting
| | 03:39 | up your email with a series of questions.
| | 03:41 | If you have email service through a
fairly common provider you may find that
| | 03:44 | your email client is able to fill out
all the server information for you and
| | 03:48 | that you will only need to
provide your username and password.
| | 03:51 | If you have a less common
provider, you may have to enter the
| | 03:53 | information manually.
| | 03:54 | Just know that all the necessary
information to setup your email will be
| | 03:57 | provided to you by your email service.
| | 04:00 | So that's the basics of what you
need to know to set up an email client.
| | 04:03 | Again if you are using web-based mail,
you don't need to know any thing about
| | 04:06 | incoming or outgoing servers. Just
login with your username and password.
| | 04:10 | But if you spend a lot of time with
email, you should definitely start using
| | 04:13 | an email client.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Receiving and reading email| 00:00 | In this movie I'd like to touch on the
basics of receiving and reading email.
| | 00:04 | In a previous movie, we learned about
the path an email follows to get from the
| | 00:07 | sender's computer to the recipients.
| | 00:09 | Now, once an email arrives on your
computer, depending on the email client
| | 00:11 | you're using, there are usually a
couple of options available for reading and
| | 00:15 | managing your messages.
| | 00:16 | Now, for this example, I'm using the
Windows Live Mail program which either
| | 00:19 | comes installed in Windows or which you
can download for free by pointing your
| | 00:23 | web browser at explore.live.
com/windows-live-essentials.
| | 00:26 | But pretty much everything I'll show you
here applies to the other email clients as well.
| | 00:31 | So first of all, when new email arrives,
it ends up in your Inbox by default.
| | 00:35 | You'll usually see some indication
of how many new messages you have.
| | 00:39 | For instance, you can see I
currently have 23 unread messages.
| | 00:42 | And in the case of Windows Live Mail,
unread messages have a yellow envelop icon
| | 00:45 | and it's closed and read
messages have a white open envelop icon.
| | 00:49 | So it's very easy to see which messages have
been read and which have not been read yet.
| | 00:53 | And with your Inbox selected, you
can browse through your messages.
| | 00:57 | And to read a message, just click it once.
| | 00:59 | Most email clients have a split
window interface like you see here in which
| | 01:03 | you can see your list of messages in one pane,
and read the selected message in another pane.
| | 01:08 | In most cases, you can also double-
click a message to open it in its own
| | 01:10 | window, which can be useful if it's a long
message and you want more space in which to read it.
| | 01:18 | If a message is particularly important
or something you want to get back to
| | 01:21 | later, you can mark it by
clicking the Flag button.
| | 01:24 | Most email clients do have
some way to flag email messages.
| | 01:27 | Or alternately, you might want to mark
the message as unread by right clicking it
| | 01:32 | and choosing Mark as Unread, but you
can see, it turns the icon back into a yellow
| | 01:37 | closed envelop icon.
| | 01:39 | Also notice that unread messages highlight the
name of the person sending the email in bold.
| | 01:44 | Now, all the email clients also let you
create folders to further organize your
| | 01:47 | messages if you like.
| | 01:49 | In Windows Mail, you can click New > Folder.
| | 01:53 | In other clients, it might be File
> New Folder or something like that.
| | 01:57 | But the end result is that you have a
folder into which you can drag related
| | 02:00 | files to keep them organized.
| | 02:01 | For example, maybe I'll create a folder
called Work for keeping all of my work
| | 02:06 | related email messages together. I'll click OK.
| | 02:09 | I could see I now have a sub
folder of my Inbox called Work.
| | 02:12 | It's currently empty.
| | 02:14 | But if I wanted to, I could then select
a work related email, drag it into Work
| | 02:20 | and when I select the Work folder now,
you'll see it's sitting in there.
| | 02:23 | So it's just a way to help
keep your email organized.
| | 02:25 | And along those lines, all email clients
also let you create what are called rules.
| | 02:30 | When you create a rule, you set up
parameters for your email client to
| | 02:33 | automatically checkout incoming messages.
| | 02:35 | For instance, you could create a rule
that all emails from your boss's email
| | 02:38 | address get automatically
moved into your Work folder.
| | 02:41 | The steps for creating rules are going
to vary from client to client, but you
| | 02:44 | should be able to find instructions for
creating them in the client's help file.
| | 02:48 | Here in Windows Live Mail, you
actually have to click the menu button here in
| | 02:51 | the upper right hand corner
and then choose Show Menu Bar.
| | 02:55 | And that reveals the standard menu
bar with File, Edit, View and so on.
| | 02:58 | To set up a Rule, you click
Tools > Message rules > Mail.
| | 03:02 | So for instance, here you could select
Where the From line contains people and
| | 03:08 | Move it to the specified folder,
you then edit the rule by clicking the
| | 03:12 | underlined words that
appear here in the description.
| | 03:14 | For instance, I can click the
specified folder and say I want them to go into
| | 03:17 | Work, click OK and now it's in the Work folder.
| | 03:20 | I can click that contains people link
and the email addresses that are the names
| | 03:23 | of my co-workers whose emails I
want to go into the Work folder.
| | 03:30 | So right now, I have any email that
comes from philfry@lynda.com automatically
| | 03:34 | moved into the Work folder I created.
| | 03:39 | So, there you have a couple of
things to keep in mind about receiving and
| | 03:41 | reading your incoming email messages.
| | 03:43 | Again, the actual interfaces of email
clients are going to vary, but you should
| | 03:46 | be able to find all of these
features I've covered in any email client.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Composing new email messages| 00:00 | There are basically three ways
to compose a new email message.
| | 00:03 | You can create one from scratch, you
can reply to an email you've received, or
| | 00:07 | you can forward a message
you've received to another recipient.
| | 00:10 | Let's start by taking a look at
creating an email from scratch.
| | 00:13 | In just about all email clients,
you'll find a button or menu item labeled
| | 00:16 | something like New Message or Compose or New.
| | 00:18 | Here in Windows Live Mail, I just
click the New button and this opens a
| | 00:22 | New Message window.
| | 00:23 | Now you can fill out these fields in any
order, but let's work way down from the top.
| | 00:27 | In the To field, you'll enter the
email address of the person or people you
| | 00:30 | want to send this email message to.
| | 00:34 | Your email can have any number
of recipients in the To field.
| | 00:36 | In all email clients, you separate
the email addresses with a comma.
| | 00:39 | Now I've just typed a comma and a
space, but here in Windows Live Mail,
| | 00:44 | it changes into a semicolon.
| | 00:45 | I'll continue typing with
another address, and one more.
| | 00:57 | Now, as a general rule of etiquette, you
should only use the To field for people
| | 01:01 | for whom the message is directly addressing.
| | 01:02 | For example, if you're sending out say
an invitation to a party, you can just
| | 01:06 | put all of your guests in the To field.
But realize that each recipient of
| | 01:10 | your email will be able to see the addresses
of the other people you've sent the email to.
| | 01:13 | I'll tell you how to prevent this in a moment.
| | 01:16 | If you want to send an email to
multiple people, but you're only sending the
| | 01:19 | email to one or more of the recipients
as kind of an FYI, you should put the
| | 01:23 | main recipient's address in the To
field and the secondary recipient's
| | 01:26 | address in the CC field.
| | 01:27 | Now here in mail, you need to click
Show Cc & Bcc, which reveals those fields.
| | 01:32 | So, in some email clients the Cc and
more often the Bcc fields are not visible
| | 01:37 | by default, so you might have to hunt
around for the button or menu item that
| | 01:41 | turns those fields on for
the message you're composing.
| | 01:43 | Okay, so Cc stands for carbon copy.
| | 01:45 | Imagine, you're sending an email to
answer a customer's question and you want to
| | 01:49 | make sure your supervisor
sees that you've sent the email.
| | 01:51 | You would put the customer's address
in the To field and your supervisor's
| | 01:55 | address in the CC field.
| | 02:01 | Note that the customer would also
then see that you've sent a copy of this
| | 02:04 | email to your supervisor.
| | 02:05 | Now if you don't want your recipients
to know who else received the copy of the
| | 02:07 | email you're sending, put their
addresses in the Bcc or blind carbon copy field.
| | 02:12 | So for example, if I was sending my
email mostly to this first address, but I
| | 02:16 | didn't want philfry@lynda.com
to know I'm sending a copy to
| | 02:20 | pfarnsworth@lynda.com, I'll just
delete that, I would type the pfarnsworth
| | 02:24 | address in the Bcc field.
| | 02:27 | That way both of these recipients will
receive the email, but only the person in
| | 02:31 | the Bcc would know that it was
also sent to philfry@lynda.com.
| | 02:35 | The Bcc field is also useful when you need to
send an email to a large number of recipients.
| | 02:40 | Maybe you have several dozen
customers on a mailing list.
| | 02:42 | And it's considered very poor email
etiquette to reveal the email addresses of
| | 02:46 | strangers to each other.
| | 02:47 | So if you wanted to let the people on
your mailing list know about a new product
| | 02:50 | of your service, you can put all
of your addresses in the Bcc field.
| | 02:54 | Now with some email clients, you may
still have to put an address in the To
| | 02:57 | field, in which case you can
just place your own address in here.
| | 03:00 | So when someone receives an email in
which they've been Bcc'ed on, they'll
| | 03:04 | only see your address as the sender
and the addresses of any other recipients
| | 03:08 | of the email won't be visible to them
as long as all of your other recipients
| | 03:11 | are in the Bcc field.
| | 03:12 | All right, once you've filled out the
addresses, next we have our Subject field.
| | 03:15 | Now many people tend to leave the
Subject field blank, but it's always a good
| | 03:19 | idea to sum up the point of
your email with a short phrase.
| | 03:21 | First of all, it lets your recipients know what
you're emailing them about right off the bat.
| | 03:25 | And secondly, if they go to search
for your email later on, they'll have a
| | 03:28 | better chance of finding it if you've
used a good descriptive subject line.
| | 03:33 | After that, it's just a
matter of composing your email.
| | 03:35 | Just click in the body of the message
window and type all of your message.
| | 03:46 | Now in most cases, you'll just be
typing plain text with no kind of formatting
| | 03:49 | like bold or italics or
underlines or colors or anything like that.
| | 03:53 | And while many email clients, like
Windows Mail here, will let you format
| | 03:56 | your emails almost like a word
processing document, I recommend sticking with
| | 04:00 | plain text if you can. Because there
are so many different email clients and
| | 04:03 | no guarantees that your email will look the
same on your recipient's computer as you intended,
| | 04:07 | I don't think it's worth the time and
effort to send a formatted email, also
| | 04:10 | known as HTML email in most cases.
| | 04:13 | Now, if you're running a business and
need to include product images and such,
| | 04:17 | then yes, HTML email is probably a good
way to go, but personal email messages,
| | 04:21 | that don't really need that kind of
laying out or design most of the time,
| | 04:24 | you probably don't need to format them.
| | 04:25 | And I will just stick with plain text.
| | 04:28 | Once you're done typing your message,
make sure you read it through to check
| | 04:30 | for typos and make sure you've
said everything you need to say.
| | 04:32 | Now if you need to attach any files
like photos, PDF documents, or short
| | 04:36 | audio and video clips, look for and
click the Attach button, which will let you
| | 04:40 | browse for the file you want to attach.
| | 04:42 | I don't really need to attach anything
right now, so I'm just going to cancel that.
| | 04:46 | Also be aware that many email service
providers limit the size of files you can
| | 04:49 | send and receive over email.
| | 04:51 | So if the file you attached is too
large for either your or your recipient's
| | 04:54 | email server, your email might get
sent back to you. But if everything looks
| | 04:58 | good, just click Send.
| | 04:59 | And that's all there is to
composing an email from scratch.
| | 05:02 | Now another way to create a new
message is to reply to an email.
| | 05:05 | You reply when someone has sent you an
email and you want to respond directly to
| | 05:09 | him or her with the message
related to one they've sent you.
| | 05:12 | So for example, I have a
message here, Thursday Meeting.
| | 05:15 | Can everyone meet after work on
Thursday to go over the presentation?
| | 05:18 | So I would want to reply
to that letting this Mr.
| | 05:20 | Richard Grayson person know that
I can in fact attend this meeting.
| | 05:23 | So to reply, I just click the Reply button.
| | 05:27 | In most cases, this opens a new
message that includes a copy of the email you
| | 05:30 | receive for reference, so I can
see the copy appears right here.
| | 05:35 | And everything else here is the same,
except you don't need to fill in the
| | 05:37 | To field, because you're replying to
a message and the email client will
| | 05:40 | automatically fill out this field
with the address of the person or people
| | 05:44 | you're replying to.
| | 05:45 | If necessary, you can add addresses to the
Cc or Bcc fields when replying to an email.
| | 05:50 | You generally don't change the
Subject field when replying to message.
| | 05:53 | Reply emails usually have subject lines
starting with Re, referencing,in this
| | 05:58 | case the Thursday Meeting.
| | 05:59 | You basically want to leave that there,
so your recipients can see that you're
| | 06:02 | replying to the message that they've sent you.
| | 06:05 | So then just type your message and
then send it off by clicking Send.
| | 06:12 | Now, the third way to create a new
message is to forward a message you've
| | 06:17 | received from someone else.
| | 06:19 | With the message selected, just click Forward.
| | 06:23 | This is similar to replying to a
message and then a copy of the message is
| | 06:26 | included in the body of your new email,
but note the To field is blank and that
| | 06:31 | the Subject field begins with Fw,
sometimes as Fwd for forward.
| | 06:35 | Forwarding an email is basically passing a
message onto another person for them to read.
| | 06:39 | You can type your own messages in the
email as well, and as a general rule,
| | 06:47 | you type your message in the forwarded email
at the top, above the forwarded email itself.
| | 06:53 | Then just make sure your recipient's
email address is in the To filed and
| | 06:57 | then send the message.
| | 06:58 | There you have the basics
of composing email messages.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Reply vs. Reply All| 00:00 | This is going to be a very brief but
important video on the difference in
| | 00:03 | etiquettes of Reply versus Reply All,
when responding to email messages.
| | 00:08 | Every email client gives you the
ability to reply to a message by clicking
| | 00:11 | either Reply or Reply All.
| | 00:13 | The difference between these two
options only matters when you are just one of
| | 00:16 | multiple recipients of an email.
| | 00:18 | If you're the only recipient of an
email, it doesn't matter whether you click
| | 00:20 | Reply or Reply All, but if you're one of the
multiple recipients, it does make a difference.
| | 00:25 | Basically, you'll click Reply to
send your response only to the sender of
| | 00:28 | the original email.
| | 00:29 | You can see just the original
sender's name here in the To field.
| | 00:33 | I'm just going to close
this, and I'll save my changes.
| | 00:36 | If you need or want the rest of the
recipients to receive your reply as well,
| | 00:40 | you would click Reply All and you can see
everyone else's address listed in the To field.
| | 00:46 | And those are the people that
also received copies of this email.
| | 00:50 | So really, it's that simple, but knowing
when to use which can sometimes be tricky.
| | 00:53 | The important thing is to consider
whether everyone needs to read your reply.
| | 00:56 | For example, in this email, the sender is
asking if everyone is available for a meeting.
| | 01:00 | It probably makes sense to click
Reply All, so everyone involved will know
| | 01:04 | whether you're available for it or not.
| | 01:05 | But look at this other email in which
the sender is telling everyone that he
| | 01:11 | won't be in the office today.
| | 01:13 | Now, if I wanted to send him a short
get well message, I probably don't need to
| | 01:16 | hit the Reply All button.
| | 01:18 | The other recipients of this other
email don't need to see that I've sent a
| | 01:21 | personal message to the sender,
unless I'm trying to demonstrate what an
| | 01:24 | empathetic person I am.
| | 01:26 | So just ask yourself if everyone really
needs to read your reply before you hit Reply All.
| | 01:30 | I have been on the receiving end of
endless email threads that have devolved
| | 01:33 | into personal conversations, simply
because a few people kept hitting Reply All.
| | 01:37 | If you already receive tons of email
everyday, it can be kind of annoying to
| | 01:41 | keep getting messages that aren't
addressing you and have nothing to do with you,
| | 01:44 | simply because your address
was on the original relevant email.
| | 01:48 | Another reason to be aware of which
button you click is that maybe you really
| | 01:51 | don't want everyone else in the
list to read what you're writing.
| | 01:53 | There are tons of horror stories out
there in which someone meant to reply just
| | 01:56 | to the sender with personal or
confidential information, but then clicked Reply
| | 02:00 | All by accident and sent a
response to the entire group.
| | 02:03 | So always take a moment and be aware
whether you're clicking Reply or Reply All.
| | 02:07 | You could save yourself and
others aggravation or embarrassment.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Dealing with spam| 00:00 | As anyone who has used e-mail for any
length of time knows, one of the biggest
| | 00:03 | hassles and headaches of e-mail is dealing
with junk mail or spam as it's also known.
| | 00:08 | In this video, I want to go over
couple of tips you can use to avoid and
| | 00:11 | manage your junk mail.
| | 00:12 | Now pretty much all email clients have
built-in junk mail filters these days.
| | 00:15 | Here in Windows mail for example, you
go to Tools > Safety options and in here
| | 00:21 | you can manage your
level of junk mail filtering.
| | 00:24 | The default setting is Low, which moves
only the most obvious junk mail messages
| | 00:28 | to your Junk mail folder, and you do
have the stronger option of High, but with
| | 00:31 | High selected you have to make a
practice of looking in your Junk folder
| | 00:34 | occasionally to see if any
legitimate e-mails got filed there.
| | 00:37 | I was just going to click Cancel for now,
and I am going to select my Junk email folder.
| | 00:40 | Now these all just happened to be
messages from a co-worker of mine named
| | 00:46 | Melanie, and they really aren't junk.
So I am going to right-click on one of her
| | 00:49 | messages here, go to the Junk mail
menu, and choose Mark as not junk.
| | 00:56 | And you can see that instantly moves it out
of my Junk mail folder into regular Inbox.
| | 01:01 | But I don't want to have to do this
every time I see Melanie's emails have
| | 01:04 | been moved to junk.
| | 01:05 | Now another option is to again right-
click on one of her emails, go to the
| | 01:09 | junk e-mail portion of the menu and
one of the options here is Add sender to
| | 01:13 | safe senders list, which is a list
in which you can keep the addresses of
| | 01:16 | people you know and trust
so they never end up in Junk.
| | 01:19 | You can also add the entire
domain to the safe senders list.
| | 01:22 | So for example this message comes
from a lynda.com email address, so by
| | 01:26 | selecting Add sender's domain to safe
senders list I'd make it to no e-mails
| | 01:30 | with a lynda.com email address,
whatever be put into my Junk folder, so I'll go
| | 01:34 | and select that, then I'll click OK.
| | 01:39 | You can see your safe senders list in
Windows Mail, by going to tools > Safety
| | 01:43 | options again, and here you can click
the Safe Senders tab, and you can see that
| | 01:47 | lynda.com has been added here.
| | 01:49 | Under the Options tab you can even
limit your incoming email, so only people
| | 01:53 | in your Safe Senders list will make it into
your Inbox and everything else would go to Junk.
| | 01:56 | But that option requires a lot of
maintenance and you have to constantly check
| | 02:00 | your Junk box for legitimate messages
from people you haven't yet added to
| | 02:03 | your Safe Senders list.
| | 02:04 | So I am going to keep mine set to
Low right now, and I'll click OK.
| | 02:08 | Now your email provider most likely
has spam filters enabled as well, and
| | 02:13 | probably filters that have a good deal of
junk messages that never make it to your Inbox.
| | 02:16 | But it's good to have your e-mail
clients built-in junk filter on your own
| | 02:19 | computer as well to save you from
having to manually delete the messages that
| | 02:23 | do make it through.
| | 02:24 | Now in addition to your email client's
junk mail filter there are some things
| | 02:27 | that you can do to protect and limit
your email address from getting on to the
| | 02:30 | address books of spammers.
| | 02:32 | First of all any time you fill out an
online form or make an online purchase,
| | 02:35 | always opt out or uncheck offers
to share your information with the
| | 02:38 | reseller's partners.
| | 02:40 | Say you want to receive offers and news
is basically saying "please send me as
| | 02:43 | much junk mail as possible."
| | 02:44 | Now for that matter you might want
to create an email account just for
| | 02:48 | providing to online merchants, or for
using any time you need to supply an
| | 02:51 | email address online.
| | 02:52 | That way your friends, family, and co-
workers can have your real e-mail address
| | 02:56 | and you can provide your junk
email address to everyone else.
| | 02:59 | If you do have to post your real
email address online, maybe you are
| | 03:02 | participating in an online form asking
for technical help, try breaking up your
| | 03:06 | email address into a non-standard
address, by spelling out the at's, or by
| | 03:11 | adding words like no junk to your
address and asking those to reply to you to
| | 03:15 | reformat your address
into a proper email address.
| | 03:17 | Spammers are programs that constantly
scan the web looking for instances of
| | 03:21 | email addresses. By formatting your
address improperly when you post it, you can
| | 03:25 | filter the programs a lot of the time.
| | 03:27 | And lastly, never ever reply to a
spam message. Don't send a message that
| | 03:31 | says "Leave me alone," and don't click
links that promise to unsubscribe you
| | 03:34 | from a mailing list.
| | 03:35 | That just lets the spammers know you
exist and you have read their messages, and
| | 03:38 | you are probably be added to even more lists.
| | 03:41 | So following these basic tips, coupled
with your e-mail, server, and client's
| | 03:44 | built-in spam filters, should make
managing the inevitable influx of junk mail
| | 03:48 | a little easier and a
little less time-consuming.
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|
|
7. Internet SearchingUnderstanding search engines| 00:00 | A significant part of being connected
to the Internet is having access to the
| | 00:04 | seemingly unlimited
amounts of information out there.
| | 00:06 | As you probably know, the best way to
find information you are looking for is to
| | 00:10 | perform a search through a search engine.
| | 00:11 | A search engine is an online resource
that systematically catalogs the contents
| | 00:16 | of the web, so that when you perform
a search, it can bring up web pages
| | 00:19 | matching the words or
terms you were looking for.
| | 00:21 | Search engines acquire their data by
using programs called spiders, which scour
| | 00:25 | the web following link after link, and
creating a database of not just the words
| | 00:29 | on the webpage, but also the order of
the words, and their relationship to each
| | 00:33 | other, or their proximity to other
items like pictures or videos, which most
| | 00:37 | search engines also catalog.
| | 00:39 | By far the most popular search engine
is Google, but there are popular search
| | 00:42 | engines out there like Yahoo!
| | 00:43 | and Microsoft's Bing search engine.
| | 00:45 | And searching is such an integral
part of being on the web, the most web
| | 00:48 | browsers have access to one or more of
the most popular search engines built in.
| | 00:52 | Just look in the upper right-hand
corner of your browser window and you will
| | 00:55 | see the field into which you
can type your search terms.
| | 00:58 | This saves you the time of having to
first browse to google.com, or another
| | 01:01 | search engine's web site.
| | 01:03 | In most cases you can also change
your web browser's default search engine.
| | 01:06 | For example in Safari, you open
Preferences and then under the General tab you
| | 01:10 | can select from Google, Yahoo!, or Bing.
| | 01:12 | If you use a browser other than Safari,
you can check your preferences to see if
| | 01:16 | you have options like this available.
| | 01:17 | So in the next couple of movies we will
perform some actual searches and take a
| | 01:20 | look at both basic and
advanced search techniques.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Conducting basic searches| 00:00 | To perform a basic web search, you
first have to visit a search engine
| | 00:03 | through your web browser.
| | 00:04 | As I previously mentioned, most web
browsers these days have access to the most
| | 00:08 | popular search engines like
Google and Bing built directly in.
| | 00:11 | For example, here in Safari I could
just type my search terms into the search
| | 00:15 | field to perform a Google search, but for this
example, I'm actually going to go to google.com.
| | 00:22 | The technical term for
performing a search is a query.
| | 00:25 | Basically, when you perform a query,
you're asking the search engine to provide
| | 00:28 | information relevant to the
word or phrases you searched for.
| | 00:31 | Most people just call it Googling these
days though, which shows you how popular
| | 00:33 | Google is as a search engine.
| | 00:35 | To perform your search,
just type a word or a phrase.
| | 00:37 | Let's say I'm looking for
information on repairing a hard drive.
| | 00:40 | Start by clicking in the Search field
and typing the word repairing, and you can
| | 00:46 | see that even before I finish typing,
Google is constantly offering some
| | 00:50 | suggestions of what it
thinks I might be looking for.
| | 00:52 | These are based on the popularity of
what other people have searched for.
| | 00:55 | Nothing here really matches what I
need so I'll continue typing, and right
| | 00:59 | there is repairing hard drive.
| | 01:01 | So without having to type out the rest,
I can either click it or use the arrow
| | 01:04 | keys on my keyboard to select it
and I can press Return or Enter on my
| | 01:08 | keyboard to do my search.
| | 01:10 | And in less than a second, I see what Google
considers the top results for that search term.
| | 01:15 | You can see that it's actually found
864,000 results, but Google and all search
| | 01:20 | engines try to give you the
most relevant results first.
| | 01:22 | And as you can see, Google not only
found web pages, but it also found a couple
| | 01:27 | of videos on repairing hard drives.
| | 01:30 | In fact, in Google you can click more
in the left-hand column and sort the
| | 01:33 | results from Videos, Images, Blogs and so on.
| | 01:37 | I'll go back and click Everything again.
| | 01:41 | Now one of the keys to a successful
search is to try and think of what words
| | 01:44 | might appear on the kind
of page you're looking for.
| | 01:46 | For example, if I'm trying to find a
fix or explanation for a specific problem
| | 01:50 | I'm having with a hard drive, I'll
imagine how I would describe it to a live
| | 01:53 | person and try to distill it down
to a short phrase that includes the
| | 01:56 | important and relevant words.
| | 01:58 | So if my hard drive is making clicking
noises, I might type hard drive clicking.
| | 02:06 | And search for that. Or I
might type hard drive won't mount.
| | 02:12 | What you want to avoid is using words
that might make your search either too
| | 02:15 | broad or too narrow.
| | 02:16 | For example, don't type something like
'documentation of hard drive repair
| | 02:20 | techniques.' Instead boil it down to
the words that will most likely appear on
| | 02:23 | the page you are looking for,
like hard drive repair tips.
| | 02:29 | In most cases brevity is going to be the
key to finding a good range of search results.
| | 02:33 | Now some people will use quotes around
their words when searching for phrases,
| | 02:36 | but you should only use quotes if you
want the results for the words within
| | 02:40 | those quotes appearing in that specific order.
| | 02:42 | For example, I'll type repairing hard
drive without quotes around the words, and
| | 02:50 | notice that in many of the results,
the words hard drive and repairing are not
| | 02:55 | all together as a single contiguous phrase.
| | 02:57 | Now if I only want search results for
web pages in which repairing hard drives
| | 03:01 | are all together in a row, I put quotes around it.
| | 03:03 | And you can see that in all the results
repairing hard drives appears as a phrase.
| | 03:09 | Notice that also reduces the number of
results to 345,000. Previously for just
| | 03:16 | repairing hard drive had 864,000 results.
| | 03:19 | Using quotes is also a great
computer troubleshooting technique.
| | 03:22 | If you ever have a dialog box show up
and you're not quite sure what it means,
| | 03:25 | try typing the words from the
dialog box in quotes into Google.
| | 03:28 | More often than not, you're sure to
find pages in which others have come across
| | 03:30 | that same message and you will
probably find an explanation.
| | 03:34 | So those are some tips to
performing basic searches, and of course once
| | 03:37 | your search results appear,
just click on any of the results to be taken to
| | 03:41 | that particular web page.
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| Conducting advanced searches| 00:00 | When you're having trouble finding the
information you're looking for, you can
| | 00:03 | sometimes get better results by
implementing more advanced search techniques.
| | 00:07 | Now, most search engines let you use what
are referred to as Boolean search terms.
| | 00:10 | Basically, they allow you to perform a
search, but to exclude certain results or
| | 00:14 | to search only for specific results.
| | 00:16 | Depending on the search engine, Boolean
searching can involve using words like
| | 00:19 | AND, OR and NOT within your searches
or in the case of Google, using special
| | 00:23 | characters like the plus symbol,
the minus, the tilde, and the like.
| | 00:27 | But instead of having to remember
how to use those terms and special
| | 00:29 | characters, it's much easier to go to google.com
and then click on the link for Advanced Search.
| | 00:34 | This takes you to a page on which you
can perform highly-refined searches.
| | 00:38 | You can use any combination
of the fields you see here.
| | 00:40 | For example, I want to find web pages
that include the words tree, fir, and
| | 00:45 | needles, because I am
interested in fir, tree, needles.
| | 00:47 | So under Find web pages that have all
these words, I'll type tree, fir and
| | 00:54 | needles, with spaces in between them.
| | 00:56 | Now because I typed into this field,
this means I'll only see results from
| | 01:00 | pages that contain all of those
words, not just one or two of them.
| | 01:03 | Now if I wanted to search for an exact
phrase, I would type that in the second field.
| | 01:07 | This is similar to searching
for a phrase within quotes.
| | 01:10 | You also have the option of searching
for pages that contain one or more of
| | 01:13 | your selected words.
| | 01:14 | So if I type tree, fir, and needles
into these fields, Google would show me
| | 01:19 | pages that contain at least one of
those words, but I'm going to leave my
| | 01:22 | search terms in the first field.
| | 01:24 | Next you have the option
of excluding certain words.
| | 01:27 | Maybe in this case, I want to find
pages that have the words tree, fir, and
| | 01:29 | needles, but not the word evergreen.
| | 01:31 | Notice that my search parameters
appear at the top of the screen and that the
| | 01:36 | word evergreen appears with a
minus symbol in front of it.
| | 01:38 | This is showing you what would type if
you were going to search manually from
| | 01:41 | Google's homepage or from
your browser's search bar.
| | 01:43 | Basically it's teaching you the
correct syntax for this search.
| | 01:47 | Next you have the option of
specifying how many results you want listed per
| | 01:50 | page, what specific language you
want to search for, and whether you want
| | 01:56 | specific file formats like PDF
documents, Word files, and so on.
| | 02:00 | You can even restrict your
search to a specific web site.
| | 02:03 | This is a great tool if you're looking
for information that's on a particular site.
| | 02:06 | Maybe for this example I'll
limit my search to just Wikipedia,
| | 02:10 | the online encyclopedia.
| | 02:13 | Again, notice the syntax
at the top of the screen.
| | 02:16 | To search a specific site
in Google, you type site:
| | 02:19 | followed by the site's address.
| | 02:21 | And for even more advanced searching
tools, you can click this link at the
| | 02:24 | bottom and as you can see, you can really
get quite precise with your search parameters.
| | 02:30 | When you're ready, click Advanced Search,
and now I'm seeing the search results
| | 02:34 | for pages that are only found in
Wikipedia containing the words tree, fir, and
| | 02:38 | needles, but not the word evergreen.
| | 02:40 | Notice the search terms as they appear in
the Search Bar is at the top of the page.
| | 02:44 | As you perform these more advanced type
searches, you'll start to recognize and
| | 02:47 | remember the proper syntax and you
might not even have to navigate to Google's
| | 02:50 | Advanced Search page anymore.
| | 02:52 | You'll just know to type a minus
sign in front of the words you want to
| | 02:54 | exclude and to type site:
| | 02:56 | followed by the web site address
of the site you want to search.
| | 03:00 | To learn more about how to do advanced
searches with Google, you can go back to
| | 03:03 | the Advanced Search page and
then click Advanced Search Tips.
| | 03:08 | And here you'll find detailed
explanations of how the Advanced Search
| | 03:11 | features of Google work.
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|
|
8. Word Processing and SpreadsheetsIntroduction to word processors| 00:00 | A word processor is a software
application for creating documents ranging from
| | 00:04 | letters, to reports, to flyers, to
brochures, basically any sort of document that
| | 00:09 | involves a lot of text and even images.
| | 00:11 | The most popular word processor is
Microsoft Word available as part of the
| | 00:14 | Microsoft Office Suite of
applications for both PCs and Macs.
| | 00:18 | There are other Word processing
programs out there like Corel WordPerfect,
| | 00:21 | which you also might have heard of, and Apple
has a word processor called Pages for the Mac.
| | 00:25 | The Notepad application that you might
have seen me using throughout this course
| | 00:28 | is also a basic free and fairly capable
word processor that comes included with
| | 00:32 | Windows which you can find by going to
the Start menu, clicking All Programs >
| | 00:36 | Accessories, and here you will find Notepad.
| | 00:39 | This is also where you will find the
more powerful but also freely included
| | 00:43 | word processor WordPad.
| | 00:45 | So while there are many different word
processors out there, each with its own
| | 00:49 | unique set of features, word processors
generally have more in common with each
| | 00:52 | other than they have differences.
| | 00:54 | So let's take a look at the
basics of writing in a word processor.
| | 00:57 | For this example, I am going to use
Microsoft Word, but pretty much everything
| | 01:00 | I am going to show you here applies
to other Word processors as well.
| | 01:03 | In almost all cases to create a new
document, you would go to the File menu,
| | 01:07 | where you would choose something
like New or New Blank Document.
| | 01:10 | In this version of Word, Word 2007
for Windows, Microsoft made a slightly
| | 01:14 | controversial decision to abandon the
concept of the menu bar, which it and
| | 01:17 | other applications have always used.
| | 01:19 | Instead you have a series of tabs and
buttons, but you'll still be able to find
| | 01:23 | most of the items that used to
appear under the File menu by clicking the
| | 01:26 | Office icon button.
| | 01:27 | So here you can see selections of New,
Open, Save, Save As, most of the things
| | 01:31 | you would find under the File menu.
| | 01:34 | Now basic word processors, clicking New
would generally just opens a new blank document.
| | 01:39 | In more advanced Word processors like
Word, you will find clicking New gives
| | 01:43 | you several options including using
starter templates for various types of
| | 01:45 | documents and projects.
| | 01:46 | For example, I can click Installed
Templates and see all kinds of different
| | 01:51 | starter documents I could work from.
| | 01:53 | But I'll just close this because I
already have a blank document open and that's
| | 01:58 | all I need for this example.
| | 02:00 | So in this blank document I just have
my flashing cursor indicating I can start
| | 02:03 | typing, so I'll just
type a couple of words here.
| | 02:09 | To go down to the next line, I just
press Enter or Return on my keyboard.
| | 02:12 | This is called a paragraph break.
| | 02:14 | Notice it put some space between the
first line and the next line of text.
| | 02:18 | Not all word processors do this
automatically though and you may have to go
| | 02:21 | into your settings and locate the options
for adding space before or after paragraphs.
| | 02:26 | Ideally, that's how you should add
space between paragraphs, not by pressing
| | 02:29 | Return twice, which in some cases
adds too much space between paragraphs.
| | 02:33 | I will just press Backspace to
go back to that previous line.
| | 02:36 | Let's type a little bit more, and
now I'll press Return again to enter
| | 02:45 | in another paragraph break.
| | 02:47 | Now, I realize that traditional
typewriters haven't been used very much for
| | 02:51 | years now, but many people are still
taking traditional typing classes and in
| | 02:55 | those classes they often teach you
that you should do things like press the
| | 02:57 | Spacebar twice at the end of sentences.
| | 03:00 | Now in the days of typewriters, where
all the letters and characters were of
| | 03:03 | equal width, that made sense because
you wanted a little bit of extra space
| | 03:07 | before the next sentence begin.
| | 03:10 | But all word processors already add a
little space after the punctuation at
| | 03:13 | the end of a sentence.
| | 03:14 | So it's unnecessary to add that space yourself.
| | 03:17 | So when I had this period here,
I only press a space one time.
| | 03:19 | If I press it a second time, it
almost looks like too much space there.
| | 03:22 | I am going to delete that.
| | 03:24 | If you're in the habit of tapping the
Spacebar twice after sentences, try to
| | 03:27 | break yourself of that habit if you
want to follow basic word processing rules.
| | 03:31 | Another good habit to get into is to
save your document right away and then
| | 03:35 | continue to save it periodically as you write.
| | 03:37 | Here in Word I can click the Save
button. In other word processors you will
| | 03:40 | choose File > Save As, or in Word I can
also click the Office button and click
| | 03:45 | Save from here as well.
| | 03:46 | I'll just save this to my Desktop
and I will leave the default name here,
| | 03:52 | Apartment Rental Rules, and click Save.
| | 03:56 | Now some word processors including
Microsoft Word have an AutoSave feature that
| | 04:00 | will save your document every ten
minutes or so, just in case your system goes
| | 04:03 | down or there is an electrical outage.
| | 04:06 | But you can do a lot of writing in ten minutes.
| | 04:08 | So I suggest getting in the habit of
saving anytime you type a decently sized
| | 04:11 | chunk of text that you wouldn't want
to type again, or anytime you make a
| | 04:14 | significant change to your document.
| | 04:15 | If I hover my mouse over the Save
button here, notice the keyboard command for
| | 04:21 | saving is Ctrl+S. I've gone into the
habit of pressing Ctrl+S with my left-hand
| | 04:26 | anytime I finish typing a long
paragraph or other large chunk of text.
| | 04:29 | It just takes a split second to save
your file and it can save you the agony of
| | 04:33 | having to rewrite your document should
you experience a crash or power outage.
| | 04:37 | So that's about the extent of what I
wanted to cover in this movie on entering
| | 04:40 | text into word processors.
| | 04:42 | Coming up next, we'll take a look at
how to format the text you've typed.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Formatting text| 00:00 | Now let's take a look at how to format
text you have entered into a word processor.
| | 00:04 | By formatting I am referring to the
task of changing the appearance of
| | 00:06 | paragraphs, sentences, words or
even individual letters in your word
| | 00:10 | processing document.
| | 00:11 | For this exercise, I have copied the
file 08_02 Current Policy to my desktop and
| | 00:16 | I am going to open it in Microsoft Word.
| | 00:17 | If you don't have Word and want to
follow along, you can use WordPad, which
| | 00:21 | again is a free basic word processor.
| | 00:23 | It's found by clicking Start > All
Programs > Accessories and WordPad.
| | 00:29 | Optionally, you should also be able to
right-click on the document and choose
| | 00:33 | Open with, and select WordPad that way.
| | 00:35 | I am going to open it with Word.
| | 00:38 | So when it comes to formatting text,
all word processors follow the universal
| | 00:42 | rule that the item you want to format
must be selected in order to be changed.
| | 00:46 | Selecting text usually means taking
your mouse cursor, clicking down on the
| | 00:50 | button and dragging across
the text you want to format.
| | 00:54 | That tells the word processor that
you only want to affect just that text.
| | 00:57 | After you've selected your text,
find your formatting tools.
| | 01:00 | Here in Word you'll find most of your
formatting tools in the Ribbon found
| | 01:03 | under the Home tab going
across the top of your screen.
| | 01:06 | Other word processors have
formatting inspectors or panels or palettes.
| | 01:10 | Wherever they are, they
should be fairly apparent though.
| | 01:12 | So with my text selected, I am going to
come up to the toolbar and click the B
| | 01:16 | button to make this text bold.
| | 01:18 | And you can see the change occurs right away.
| | 01:19 | We also have buttons for italicizing
the text and for underlining the text.
| | 01:24 | We also will find the menu to
change the font of your selected text.
| | 01:28 | Here in Word as I roll over the different fonts,
you can see it changing live in my document.
| | 01:32 | Now, it's probably worth mentioning
right now that another universal feature of
| | 01:39 | most word processors is multiple undos.
| | 01:42 | This lets you experiment with
formatting without having to worry about ruining
| | 01:45 | the appearance of your document.
| | 01:47 | So if I didn't like the last change I
made, which was the font change, I can
| | 01:51 | click the Undo button here on Word or in
other word processors, you'll choose Edit > Undo.
| | 01:56 | The universal keyboard shortcut is Ctrl
+Z and that's definitely when you want
| | 01:59 | to commit to memory.
| | 02:00 | So instead of clicking that button, I
will just press Ctrl and Z on my keyboard
| | 02:04 | to take that last formatting change away.
| | 02:06 | And I can keep tapping Ctrl+Z to
remove the changes I made in reverse order.
| | 02:10 | So that's the basics of text
formatting, and again, it works the same in
| | 02:14 | all word processors.
| | 02:16 | Just select the text you want
to format and then format it.
| | 02:21 | Most word processors also let you make
non-contiguous selections, in case you
| | 02:24 | want to apply the same
formatting to multiple pieces of text.
| | 02:27 | So just make your first selection
and then hold down the Ctrl key on your
| | 02:31 | keyboard and drag to
select another piece of text.
| | 02:34 | So I will select another instance
of Two Trees Olive Oil in this case.
| | 02:37 | Once you've made your selections, click
the buttons for the formats you wish to
| | 02:40 | apply, and you can see they were
applied to both pieces of selected text.
| | 02:45 | So this can be a big time saver.
| | 02:48 | Now I also want to point out these four
buttons here in the Paragraph section of
| | 02:51 | the Formatting Ribbon in Word.
| | 02:52 | You'll find these in all word
processors as well, and these are the
| | 02:55 | paragraph alignment buttons.
| | 02:57 | And that will determine how
paragraphs appear on your page.
| | 02:59 | Now to apply paragraph alignment, you don't
have to drag to select the entire paragraph.
| | 03:05 | Just click anywhere in the
paragraph you want to format and then click
| | 03:08 | an alignment button.
| | 03:09 | Left is the default, but we also
have Center, Right and Justify.
| | 03:15 | Justify spaces out the words in the
paragraph, so both the left and right side
| | 03:19 | of the paragraph aligns
some margins of the page.
| | 03:22 | In this case, I think it has a
little too much space between words for my
| | 03:24 | liking, so I am going to switch
it back to the left alignment.
| | 03:27 | So again, as long as your cursor is
somewhere in the paragraph, you can use the
| | 03:30 | alignment buttons to
affect the entire paragraphs.
| | 03:33 | If you want to change the alignment of
multiple paragraphs though, you have to select them.
| | 03:36 | But you only have to make sure your
selection highlight includes any portion of
| | 03:40 | the paragraph you want to align.
| | 03:41 | So I can just drag to select parts
of these two paragraphs, change their
| | 03:46 | alignments, or experiment with their
alignments, maybe I will just change it
| | 03:50 | back to left, and I will click off to deselect.
| | 03:54 | Lastly I want to talk about Copy, Cut and Paste.
| | 03:57 | We touched on these commands in the
previous chapter, but I want to give you a
| | 04:00 | practical example here.
| | 04:01 | These commands are usually found under
the Edit menu of all word processors and
| | 04:05 | just about any other type of program
in which you can type or create content.
| | 04:08 | Here in Word, you'll find them
under the Home tab in this first section
| | 04:11 | here labeled Clipboard.
| | 04:12 | We have Cut, Copy and Paste.
| | 04:14 | Let's say I want to take this third
paragraph of my document and swap places
| | 04:19 | with the second paragraph.
| | 04:20 | First, I'll highlight the
entire paragraph to select it.
| | 04:22 | Now quickly to do this is to triple
click anywhere inside the paragraph.
| | 04:26 | So that's three quick clicks.
| | 04:28 | Now let me click off of that ones.
| | 04:29 | A double click selects an entire word,
whereas a triple click will select
| | 04:35 | the entire paragraph that words contained
in, just keep that little shortcut in mind.
| | 04:39 | Now with that entire paragraph selected,
I'll click the Cut button. Again in
| | 04:43 | other word processors
you will choose Edit > Cut.
| | 04:46 | Or you can use the keyboard
shortcut of Ctrl+X and I will just do that.
| | 04:50 | Holding on the Ctrl key and pressing X.
That removes or cuts the selected text
| | 04:55 | out of the document, but its contents
are now in a special part of my computer
| | 04:58 | memory called the Clipboard.
| | 05:00 | Now click in front of the second
paragraph where I want the Cut text to appear,
| | 05:05 | because pasting text requires you to
place your cursor wherever you want that
| | 05:07 | pasted text to appear, and then you
can choose Edit > Paste in most word
| | 05:11 | processors or here in the Word I can
click the Paste button or you can use the
| | 05:14 | universal keyboard shortcut
of Ctrl+V, and there it is.
| | 05:19 | So I successfully moved that paragraph.
| | 05:22 | So you'll use Cut when you want to
move text from one location to another.
| | 05:25 | And it's worth pointing out that cut or
copied text can be pasted into any other
| | 05:28 | document or application that accepts text.
| | 05:31 | So in some cases you might have text
inside Microsoft Word that you do want to
| | 05:34 | cut and then maybe put into another
application like WordPad or web design
| | 05:38 | program, anywhere we happen to working
with text on your computer. So that's Cut.
| | 05:43 | Now you'll use Copy when you don't
want to remove the selected text.
| | 05:46 | For example, this is Section 1
of this document I am working on.
| | 05:50 | Maybe I am ready to start working on Section 2.
| | 05:52 | Since the text here is already formatted
the way I want, with the heading Section 1
| | 05:56 | Introduction in Bold and the text
below it and the font I want, I am going to
| | 06:00 | select the heading and the very first
paragraph just by dragging through them.
| | 06:04 | Now I will click Copy. Again, you'd
choose Edit > Copy or press Ctrl+C. Notice
| | 06:09 | the text stays just where it is.
| | 06:10 | All I have done is copied
this text to my Clipboard now.
| | 06:13 | I haven't removed it from the document.
| | 06:15 | Now I just scroll down to the end of
my document and place my cursor where I
| | 06:20 | want the next section to begin, so I
will just click right here and I will paste
| | 06:23 | my text with Ctrl+V. So now I have a
copy of that first heading paragraph.
| | 06:28 | Now I can just change this by making
this Section 2, by highlighting the number
| | 06:31 | 1 and typing 2 and I will
double click the word Introduction.
| | 06:35 | To highlight that hit my Caps Lock, and I am
going to call this section, and there we go.
| | 06:42 | So if you want your typing to replace
existing text, just make sure you select
| | 06:46 | the text and as soon as you start
typing it will delete the selected text and
| | 06:49 | your new text will appear as you type.
| | 06:51 | And the same goes here for the body of
the text. Because I want to keep this
| | 06:56 | formatting, but not the text, I can
just select the text and start typing.
| | 07:06 | So there you have one practical
use of the Copy and Paste commands.
| | 07:10 | Again, I highly suggest learning the
keyboard shortcuts for Cut, Copy and Paste.
| | 07:14 | The reason they're Ctrl+X, C and V is
because those letters are all right next
| | 07:18 | to each other on your keyboard and can
be easily invoked with your left hand.
| | 07:22 | This let's you control your mouse in
text selections with your right hand and
| | 07:25 | Cut, Copy and Paste with your left.
| | 07:27 | Also bear in mind that once you've cut
or copied some text, you can paste
| | 07:30 | indefinitely until you
Copy or Cut something else.
| | 07:33 | So if necessary, I can place my cursor
at the end of this document again, hit
| | 07:36 | Ctrl+V to Paste, and you can see those
introduction text was still stored in my
| | 07:41 | computers Clipboard, and I can just
continue hitting Ctrl+V to make as many copy
| | 07:45 | as I want or need, until I Cut or Copy
something else and then that most recent
| | 07:49 | selection becomes added on my Clipboard.
| | 07:51 | So there you have some basic formatting
and selection skills that will apply to
| | 07:55 | whichever word processor you're using.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Introduction to spreadsheets| 00:00 | Another application you might
find yourself fairly frequently is a
| | 00:03 | spreadsheet application.
| | 00:05 | I currently have Microsoft Excel open.
| | 00:07 | It's definitely the most popular and
well-known spreadsheet program out there,
| | 00:10 | but if you're using another
spreadsheet application, you'll still be able to
| | 00:13 | follow along with what I am
showing you in this movie.
| | 00:15 | At its most basic level, a
spreadsheet is the electronic equivalent of a
| | 00:19 | paper ledger sheet.
| | 00:21 | Like ledgers, spreadsheets are
comprised of a grid of rows and columns and can
| | 00:24 | be used for balancing your checkbook,
calculating loans, managing the addresses
| | 00:28 | and contact information of customers, and so on.
| | 00:31 | One of the advantages of spreadsheet
programs is that they can quickly perform
| | 00:35 | complex calculations once
you've set them up to do so.
| | 00:37 | For example, I am going to click the
Office button, choose New, and check out some
| | 00:43 | of the installed templates that come with Excel.
| | 00:45 | And here I am going to select the Loan
Amortization template and click Create.
| | 00:52 | So this is a pre-made worksheet to
help you figure out how much a loan will
| | 00:55 | end up costing you.
| | 00:56 | In this case, all you have to do
is plug in your own numbers in the
| | 00:58 | orange colored areas.
| | 01:00 | So maybe I am looking at a $75,000.00
loan with an annual interest rate of 3.9%.
| | 01:06 | It automatically added the
percentage symbol for me there.
| | 01:10 | We will do that over a period of 3 years.
| | 01:15 | Number of payments per year, we'll say it's
a monthly payment, so 12 payments per year.
| | 01:21 | And start date of the loan we'll say is
October 1st 2010, and I will press Enter or Return.
| | 01:29 | And instantly the entire worksheet
updates itself to reflect the numbers I have
| | 01:32 | entered, and I am not going to bother
with the optional extra payments here.
| | 01:35 | So I can see the Loan summary to the
right, saying how much my monthly payment
| | 01:39 | is going to be, $2,210.96, as well as
the total interest I am going to pay over
| | 01:45 | the life of loan, $4,594.71.
| | 01:47 | And below that I see the details of
things like how much principle and interest
| | 01:52 | I will be paying with each installment.
| | 01:54 | This is a great way to see how much
your monthly payments will be at various
| | 01:57 | interest rates, and how much you'll
end up paying over the life of the loan.
| | 02:01 | I can easily switch on any of the
original numbers, so for instance, I get a
| | 02:04 | better rate, say I got a 1.9% rate.
| | 02:07 | I can plug that in to instantly
see how it affects my payments.
| | 02:10 | Obviously, if we had to do this with a
paper and a calculator it will take much longer.
| | 02:14 | Now this is more of a
formatted and stylized spreadsheet.
| | 02:17 | In many cases you probably won't create
something quite this elaborate yourself.
| | 02:20 | But let's use this amortization
table down here to go over some basic
| | 02:23 | terminology considering spreadsheets.
| | 02:26 | As I mentioned, in a
spreadsheet you've columns and rows.
| | 02:29 | Columns are vertical and are designated
by letters as you see going across the
| | 02:32 | top of the spreadsheet.
| | 02:33 | So we have A, B, C, D and so on.
| | 02:37 | So what happens when you run out of
numbers of your columns? Well, if you
| | 02:39 | have more than 26 columns, all columns
after Z will be designated with double letters.
| | 02:44 | So after you hit Z, the next
column will be AA, BB, CC and so on.
| | 02:49 | Usually, you'll create your own
more meaningful headers for your columns
| | 02:51 | like we have in this worksheet, like
Beginning Balance, Scheduled Payment,
| | 02:55 | Extra Payment and so on.
| | 02:57 | Now rows are horizontal and
they are designated by numbers.
| | 03:00 | In this case the rows in the
amortization table are used to show the data for
| | 03:03 | each monthly payment on your loan, and
again, you might create more meaningful
| | 03:07 | names for your rows other
than just using the numbers.
| | 03:09 | Generally, you will use that column
letters and row numbers in conjunction
| | 03:12 | with each other when you want to perform
calculations, which we will take a look at later.
| | 03:15 | Now the points where rows and
columns meet are called cells.
| | 03:19 | Cells are refereed to according to
their column letter and row number.
| | 03:22 | So for example, in this particular cell,
the one with $112.33 would be cell H20.
| | 03:29 | The cell up here, Start date
of the loan, would be cell D9.
| | 03:33 | So it's into cells we actually enter you data.
| | 03:35 | The data you enter into your cells can
be numbers, letters, special characters
| | 03:39 | or any combination of those, or the
cells can automatically populate themselves
| | 03:43 | if you apply formulas to them.
| | 03:45 | And that's pretty much how all the
cells in an amortization table work.
| | 03:48 | Their contents are automatically
determined and updated based on the numbers you
| | 03:51 | enter into the orange cells in the
upper left-hand corner of the worksheet.
| | 03:55 | Okay, so that's a brief introduction
to what spreadsheets are and what they
| | 03:58 | can be used for.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a simple data table| 00:00 | Now, let's take a look at how to
create a basic spreadsheet from scratch.
| | 00:03 | Again, I am working in Microsoft Excel,
but everything I am going to show you
| | 00:06 | here, should apply to other
spreadsheet applications as well.
| | 00:09 | I am going to create a new blank
spreadsheet by clicking the Office button,
| | 00:12 | selecting New and then
choosing Blank Workbook.
| | 00:17 | If you are using another spreadsheet
application, you'll probably choose File >
| | 00:20 | New Workbook, or something like that.
| | 00:22 | So, let's say I am trying to decide
between two jobs at an hourly rate.
| | 00:25 | One pays more per hour but offers
slightly fewer hours than the one that pays less.
| | 00:29 | I am going to start by using the first
rows of columns B and C as headers for
| | 00:33 | the two job calculations.
| | 00:34 | So I'll click Cell B1 and I'll type
Job A. To move horizontally from cell to cell,
| | 00:41 | press the Tab key on your keyboard.
| | 00:42 | Notice each time I press Tab,
it moves one cell to the right.
| | 00:47 | You can go back to the left by
holding the Shift key down as you press Tab.
| | 00:52 | So I'll label Cell C1 as Job B. And I'll use
Column A to label all the rows I am going to need.
| | 00:58 | I'll start with A3.
| | 01:00 | This is just kind of arbitrary.
| | 01:01 | I could start with A2, but I like
having a little bit of space in there.
| | 01:04 | Now, I'll type Hourly Wage.
| | 01:07 | Pressing Enter or Return on your
keyboard lets you move down a single row.
| | 01:10 | So each time I press Enter or
Return, you can see I move down.
| | 01:14 | And again, holding Shift while pressing
Return in this case moves you back up.
| | 01:19 | So, I'll make the next cell here,
Hours/week, and I'll press Enter twice and
| | 01:26 | type Annual Income.
| | 01:29 | Now, Column A isn't quite wide
enough for the text that I type.
| | 01:32 | So I am going to place my mouse
cursor between Columns A and B until my
| | 01:36 | mouse cursor looks like this vertical line
with the two arrows pointing in either direction.
| | 01:40 | Then I can click and drag
Column A a little wider.
| | 01:44 | Okay, so far I've added labels to these cells.
| | 01:46 | Basically, cells containing only text and no
numbers are generally referred to as labels.
| | 01:50 | Next thing I am going to add the data
that I know about each job, namely the
| | 01:53 | Hourly Wage and Hours/week.
| | 01:55 | Now, since these are going to be numbers,
I could format the appropriate cells
| | 01:58 | to only accept numbers.
| | 01:59 | It's not absolutely necessary, but
it's a good habit to format your cells for
| | 02:03 | the type of content they are supposed
to accept, especially if other people are
| | 02:06 | going to be using the worksheets you are
creating. You want to make sure they
| | 02:09 | can't fill in any incorrect information.
| | 02:11 | So I'll first drag to select the two
cells where I am going to type in my
| | 02:14 | Hourly Wage information.
| | 02:16 | With those cells selected, I am going to
go over to the Data tab and here in the
| | 02:20 | Data Tools section, I am
going to click Data Validation.
| | 02:23 | That opens the Data Validation window
and here into the Settings tab, I can
| | 02:26 | specify what type of
input is allowed in this cell.
| | 02:30 | Since this will be an Hourly Wage,
I am going to choose Decimal.
| | 02:35 | In order to validate cells like these
that are going to accept numbers, I have
| | 02:38 | to specify a range of numbers.
| | 02:39 | In this case, I'll put in a range of 0 to 100.
| | 02:43 | As I doubt I'll be making more than
$100 per hour, but I could also come back
| | 02:47 | and change this if necessary and I'll click OK.
| | 02:51 | So now if I click in one of these cells
and try to type anything but numbers and
| | 02:54 | I press Return, I get a message telling
me the value I entered is not valid and
| | 02:59 | that the cells have been restricted.
| | 03:00 | It would be nice if it actually told you
what kinds of values are acceptable but
| | 03:03 | I'll just click Retry.
| | 03:05 | Let's say the Hourly Wage
for this Job A is $14.75.
| | 03:08 | I'll press tab to enter it and move to
the next cell and that value is accepted
| | 03:13 | because it is a number.
| | 03:15 | Let's make Job B's Hourly Wage $15.85.
| | 03:17 | I'll just press Return.
| | 03:20 | Those both numbers were aligned
to the right side of their cells.
| | 03:23 | Now since these are both monetary
values, I want to format the cells to make
| | 03:27 | their contents look more like dollar values.
| | 03:29 | So I am just going to select both those
cells again, and then under the Home tab
| | 03:34 | in the Number section of the Home tab,
I am going to select Currency as the kind
| | 03:38 | of number for these cells.
| | 03:39 | And that puts a dollar
sign in front of my numbers.
| | 03:42 | So for the Hours/week cells, I
can do something very similar.
| | 03:45 | Let's select both of those cells and
let's validate those as decimal numbers too.
| | 03:49 | So I am going to go back to Data > Data
Validation > Decimals and let's make a
| | 03:55 | range between 0 and 80
hours per week. I'll click OK.
| | 03:59 | All right, so let's click in Job A's column and
let's say Job A is offering 40 hours per week.
| | 04:07 | Press Tab, and Job B is offering 37.75 per week.
| | 04:12 | I know it's a weird
number but bear with me here.
| | 04:14 | Now, if I wanted to, I could again go
back to the Home tab, select those cells,
| | 04:20 | and this time choose Number as the format.
| | 04:21 | That reformats the number in those cells
and gives them both two decimal places.
| | 04:26 | Now, Job B already had two decimal
places, but it added a .00 for Job A.
| | 04:31 | Now, you can the number of decimal places
using these two buttons in the Number section.
| | 04:36 | So I could add a third decimal place if
necessary or reduce it to only one decimal place.
| | 04:42 | Notice that it
automatically rounds up 37.75 to 37.8.
| | 04:44 | Now if I lose the decimal places
altogether, it rounds the entire number up to 38.
| | 04:49 | But I'll keep this at two decimal places.
| | 04:53 | Okay, by now you should have the
basic idea of how to enter data into a new
| | 04:56 | worksheet from scratch as well as how
to validate the contents of the cells.
| | 04:59 | Now, I could get out of regular
calculator and figure out what my annual income
| | 05:03 | for both jobs would be, but it's worth
entering the proper formulas into Excel
| | 05:07 | so if the terms of the Hourly Wage or
Hours/week change, I'd just have to plug
| | 05:11 | in the new numbers to update my totals.
| | 05:12 | So, to add a formula to a cell, I first
select the cell by clicking it, and then I'll
| | 05:17 | click the Formulas tab.
| | 05:19 | Next, I am going to click the arrow
under the AutoSum button, which gives me a
| | 05:22 | list of common calculations.
| | 05:24 | But I need a formula other than what's
listed here so I'll choose More Functions.
| | 05:29 | That opens up the Insert Function window.
| | 05:30 | So to figure out the annual income for
each job, I need to multiply my Hourly
| | 05:34 | Wage by my Hours/week, and then multiply
that number by the number of weeks I'll
| | 05:38 | be working in a year.
| | 05:39 | So it's going to be multiplication and
multiplication is a basic math function.
| | 05:45 | So in the select a category menu,
I already have Math & Trig selected, and you
| | 05:49 | can see there are other different
categories we could choose from.
| | 05:51 | Statistical, Database, Text and so on,
but I am going to stick with Math & Trig.
| | 05:56 | And then under the Math & Trig
functions, I am going to find Product,
| | 06:01 | which means to multiply.
| | 06:02 | I'll just double-click that.
| | 06:04 | That opens the Function Arguments window.
| | 06:06 | So, now it's just a matter of building
my formula by specifying which cells need
| | 06:09 | to get multiplied together.
| | 06:11 | So, I have Number1 currently selected.
So I'll click Cell B3, which is my Hourly
| | 06:16 | Wage for Job A. And you can
see B3 gets entered for Number1.
| | 06:19 | Then I'll click in the
Number2 field and select B4.
| | 06:23 | Notice the formula I am building
appears in the cell itself as well as in the
| | 06:27 | panel that appears at the top of my worksheet.
| | 06:29 | Okay, so now I need to multiply the
product of B3 and B4 by the number of weeks
| | 06:34 | a year I'll be working,
which we'll say is 52.
| | 06:36 | So I'll click in Number3 and type in 52.
| | 06:38 | Notice each time you click in one of
these cells, it adds another number in case
| | 06:42 | you have more numbers you
need to add into your formula.
| | 06:46 | But that's basically all I need here.
| | 06:47 | I need to multiply B3 by B4 by 52.
| | 06:49 | And I can already see the result
at the bottom of the window here,
| | 06:52 | Formula result 30680.
| | 06:53 | So I'll click OK to close out the
formula and just like that, the calculation is
| | 06:59 | preformed, and I see the annual
income for Job A is $30,680 a year.
| | 07:05 | Now, a really nice thing about most
spreadsheet programs is that if you want to
| | 07:08 | perform the same calculation on another
set of numbers in your spreadsheet,
| | 07:11 | you don't have to build the whole formula again.
| | 07:13 | I am just going to make sure Cell B6 is
selected, which is the Annual Income for
| | 07:17 | Job A and under the Home tab,
I am going to click Copy.
| | 07:20 | You can also use Ctrl+C or choose Edit
> Copy in other spreadsheet programs.
| | 07:25 | Then I'll select the Annual Income cell
for Job B and I'll choose Paste or you
| | 07:29 | would choose Edit > Paste or
press Ctrl+V. It's that easy.
| | 07:34 | Notice the formula area at the top of
my worksheet shows that I am multiplying
| | 07:38 | C3, C4 times 52, which is
swapped out for B3, B4 and 52.
| | 07:44 | Now, I can plainly see that Job B
will offer me slightly more money even
| | 07:47 | though it's fewer hours.
| | 07:49 | And if any of this data changes, maybe
Job B is reduced to say 35 hours/week,
| | 07:52 | I just need to plug that in, hit Enter,
and my product is instantly updated.
| | 07:58 | Now lastly, I should probably reformat
these Annual Income cells as Currency.
| | 08:02 | I'll just select them, change
it to Currency, and there we go.
| | 08:08 | So that's the basics of entering
your own data into a new worksheet and
| | 08:11 | performing calculations.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Formatting a data table| 00:00 | Formatting a spreadsheet is
very similar to formatting a word
| | 00:03 | processing document.
| | 00:04 | You first just select the text or cell you
want to format and then apply your changes.
| | 00:08 | I am working with a very simple
spreadsheet I previously created.
| | 00:11 | So let's take a look at some
formatting things we can do.
| | 00:13 | First of all, we've already seen that
you can use the Number section of the
| | 00:16 | Home tab to specify the appearance of
numbers like Currency or Percentages or
| | 00:21 | Date or Time and so on.
| | 00:24 | The Home tab also contains many of the
same options you'll find for formatting
| | 00:27 | text under the Font and Alignment areas.
| | 00:30 | For example, I'll select the cells for
Job A and Job B by dragging through them.
| | 00:35 | Now I can make them, say
Bold and I can center them.
| | 00:40 | I can also change the color
and outline of selected cells.
| | 00:43 | I'll select the Annual Income cells
right here, and I'll make them a light green.
| | 00:50 | Excel even has several built-in
formatting options under the Style section,
| | 00:54 | under Format as Table.
| | 00:56 | First I'll select all the cells
currently in use for this particular worksheet
| | 01:00 | just by dragging through and selecting,
and then under Format as Table, I can
| | 01:05 | pick any one of these particular designs.
| | 01:08 | Now Excel asks me to verify
which cells contain my data.
| | 01:11 | Since I selected all the relevant cells
before I chose my Style format, this is
| | 01:15 | correctly showing cells A1 through C6.
| | 01:18 | There's A1, there's C6.
| | 01:20 | I am also going to check My table has
headers, which tells Excel to keep my Job
| | 01:24 | A and Job B headers where they are.
| | 01:26 | I'll click OK so you can see my
selected areas have been formatted and I now
| | 01:32 | have a nicer looking table.
| | 01:33 | Also notice the arrows that have been
added next to the headers in the first row.
| | 01:37 | Clicking them allows you to sort
your columns in several different ways.
| | 01:40 | None of these are particularly
relevant for this worksheet, but if you had a
| | 01:44 | column of, say, annual income sources or
something like that, it might be useful
| | 01:47 | to sort them from largest to smallest or
smallest to largest or using any one of
| | 01:52 | these other type of filtering options here.
| | 01:54 | Since I didn't have any text in
Column A1, it just says Column1.
| | 01:59 | If I don't want that there, I can just
select the text and maybe type a space to
| | 02:03 | make that cell look empty.
| | 02:04 | Now I am not going to get into the
details of formatting with Excel exclusively
| | 02:07 | here, but this should give you an idea
of how formatting in a spreadsheet works,
| | 02:11 | no matter what
spreadsheet program you are using.
| | 02:12 | Again, it's very similar to
formatting in a word processing document.
| | 02:16 | Just select what you want to
change first and then change it.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
9. Photo and Image ManagementImporting images from a digital camera| 00:00 | If you are like most people today, you
have a digital camera, and if you have
| | 00:03 | a digital camera, you need to store and manage
your ever-growing collection of photos on your PC.
| | 00:08 | Now, this could be as simple a process
as copying the photos off your camera's
| | 00:11 | memory card and keeping them in
your Pictures folder on your computer.
| | 00:14 | But that's probably not the best plan
for organizing your photos, especially if
| | 00:18 | you shoot a lot of pictures.
| | 00:19 | Microsoft offers an excellent piece
of free photo management and editing
| | 00:22 | software called Windows Live Photo Gallery,
but it doesn't come built into Windows.
| | 00:27 | Instead, it comes as part of the
Windows Live Essential suite of applications,
| | 00:31 | which includes Windows Live Mail which
we looked at in a previous chapter, as
| | 00:34 | well as Movie Maker, Messenger.
You can actually see all the programs that
| | 00:37 | comes with right here.
| | 00:39 | So if you haven't yet downloaded and
installed Windows Live Essentials, you can
| | 00:42 | open your web browser and visit explore.
live.com/windows-live-essentials, or if
| | 00:48 | you don't feel like typing all that in,
you can also click your Start button and
| | 00:51 | in Search Programs and Files, type
Windows Live and then find and click the link
| | 00:56 | that says Go online to
get Windows Live Essentials.
| | 00:59 | That opens up the exact same web page
and here you can click Download Now to
| | 01:03 | download the suite and then follow the
instructions for installing the Windows
| | 01:06 | Live Essentials applications.
| | 01:08 | I've already installed the
Windows Live Essentials suite on my PC.
| | 01:12 | So let's see how to import photos
into Windows Live Photo Gallery.
| | 01:14 | I'll start by opening Photo Gallery by
clicking the Start button, going to All
| | 01:19 | Programs, finding Windows Live,
and opening Photo Gallery.
| | 01:26 | By default, Photo Gallery displays
the photos and videos it finds in your
| | 01:30 | Pictures and Videos folder.
| | 01:31 | These are the folders in your own user
folder you can get to by selecting Start
| | 01:35 | > Pictures, and here you
can see Sample Pictures.
| | 01:38 | Let me switch these to
the icons, so you can see.
| | 01:42 | These are the exact same pictures we're
seeing here, being displayed in Photo Gallery.
| | 01:46 | This video you're seeing here is also in
Videos inside of my Public Videos folder.
| | 01:53 | Now, it's important to note that the
photos in Photo Gallery here are still in
| | 01:57 | their exact same location in
your Pictures and Videos folder.
| | 02:00 | Photo Gallery does not move or
copy the photos to another location.
| | 02:03 | So if you delete a photo here in
Photo Gallery, the real photo gets moved
| | 02:06 | to your Recycle Bin.
| | 02:07 | So be careful when it comes to
deleting photos in Photo Gallery. We'll talk a
| | 02:10 | little bit more about that later.
| | 02:11 | Okay, so what I have here are just the
sample photos and video that comes with Windows.
| | 02:16 | I'm much more interested
in managing my own photos.
| | 02:18 | So, what I'm going to do now is plug
the memory card for my camera into one
| | 02:22 | of my PC's USB ports.
| | 02:23 | Now depending on your camera and memory
card, you might plug the camera itself
| | 02:27 | in via USB or you may use your PC's
built-in SD card reader, if it has one, or
| | 02:32 | use an SD card reader
that plugs into a USB port.
| | 02:35 | Whatever the case may be, after a
moment, you should see the AutoPlay window
| | 02:38 | open, asking you what you want to
do with the device that's detected.
| | 02:41 | Notice one of these options is to view
pictures using Windows Live Photo Gallery.
| | 02:45 | So I'll select that option.
| | 02:46 | So now, we're looking at the photos on my
camera card via the Photo Gallery window.
| | 02:51 | The photos are still on the card and
had not been imported into my computer.
| | 02:54 | So if I were to remove my card, I'd no longer
to be able to view the images on my computer.
| | 02:58 | I can browse through them
using the arrows down here.
| | 03:01 | Now to import these pictures on to your
computer, you're going to click Import to Gallery.
| | 03:07 | That opens a window here
where you have a decision to make.
| | 03:09 | Do you want to take the time to
review your photos and organize them into
| | 03:12 | folders with Photo Gallery's help or do
you want to just import everything all at
| | 03:15 | once and worry about organizing them later?
| | 03:17 | Now, currently, my option to import all
new items now is grayed out and I can't
| | 03:21 | select it because I've actually
already imported these photos previous to
| | 03:24 | recording this movie when I
was testing out this feature.
| | 03:27 | But the first time you insert your
memory card or attach your camera and Windows
| | 03:30 | Live Photo Gallery detects new photos,
you'll have both options available.
| | 03:33 | Now, if you're on a rush, you
could select Import all new items now.
| | 03:37 | But if you have a few minutes, I highly
suggest going with Review, organize, and
| | 03:40 | group items to import.
| | 03:41 | We're going to be talking about things
like organizing and tagging your photos a
| | 03:45 | little later in this chapter, and this
is a good way to get a jump on organizing
| | 03:48 | your photos right off the bat.
| | 03:50 | As you add more and more photos to your
library, it's going to be more and more
| | 03:53 | difficult to find specific ones
unless you take the time to organize them.
| | 03:58 | So keep Review, organize, and group
items to import checked and then click Next.
| | 04:02 | Notice that Photo Gallery is smart
enough to know which photos you took on
| | 04:05 | the same dates, and it uses that information
to organize your photos into separate folders.
| | 04:10 | So I have four different events I shot
with my camera and it'll be nice to have
| | 04:13 | them organized into their own folders.
| | 04:15 | Now you can use this Adjust group
slider to determine how much time difference
| | 04:19 | has to exist between photos in
order for a new folder to be created.
| | 04:23 | So, if I drag this to the right, notice
that eventually they all end up in one group.
| | 04:30 | I'm going to drag it back, so there's
about four hours between groups and that
| | 04:39 | looks about right again.
| | 04:40 | Now at the very least, while you're in here
you should try to enter a name for each folder.
| | 04:45 | Again, it'll make it much easier to find
your photos in the near or distant future.
| | 04:49 | Just type names that mean something to you.
| | 04:52 | So this one would be Santa Barbara Zoo.
This one would be July 4th Fireworks,
| | 05:04 | this one is Downtown Ventura, and
the fourth folder is Horseshoe Curve, Altoona, PA.
| | 05:16 | Now you can also click the Add Tags
button, which we'll talk about later, but
| | 05:22 | I'm going to skip that step for now.
| | 05:25 | But when you're ready,
go ahead and click Import.
| | 05:28 | And in just a few seconds, depending
on how many photos you're importing,
| | 05:31 | the photos are copied into Photo Gallery.
| | 05:34 | But in actuality, they have been
copied into my Pictures folder.
| | 05:36 | Photo Gallery is really, again, just
the management device you use to view the
| | 05:40 | photos stored in your Pictures Folder.
| | 05:42 | So, if I go to the Start menu and
click Pictures, notice the photos are
| | 05:46 | organized into their own folders
with the names that we provided.
| | 05:48 | Downtown Ventura, Horseshoe Curve,
July 4th Fireworks, and Santa Barbara Zoo.
| | 05:53 | Now, currently in Windows Live Photo
Gallery, I have all photos and videos
| | 05:57 | selected which is why I see
them all in a block like this.
| | 06:01 | But I can toggle open My Pictures and
here are all the folders I created and I
| | 06:04 | can click those individually to see
just the pictures in those folders.
| | 06:07 | So that's how you import photos
from your camera or camera memory card.
| | 06:11 | Now in case that AutoPlay window did not
open or if you closed the window used to
| | 06:15 | view the pictures on your memory card,
you can still import photos at any time
| | 06:19 | by clicking the File menu and
choosing Import from camera or scanner.
| | 06:23 | You'll then be asked to select which
device you want to import your photos from.
| | 06:26 | in this case, I only have the one, and
then you click Import and then the rest
| | 06:32 | of the process is the same as we just saw.
| | 06:33 | So I'll just close that.
| | 06:35 | Also, if you don't want Windows to ask
you what to do every time you connect
| | 06:38 | your camera or card to your PC, you
can go into AutoPlay settings by clicking
| | 06:42 | Start, type in autopsy, and click the
AutoPlay control panel and in here,
| | 06:51 | you can determine what your computer does
when it detects certain types of media.
| | 06:55 | Click the menu next to Pictures,
and choose View Pictures using Windows
| | 06:59 | Live Photo Gallery.
| | 07:00 | That way Photo Gallery will
automatically open each time you connect
| | 07:03 | your device to your PC.
| | 07:05 | Go ahead and save that.
| | 07:07 | And lastly, we've seen the Photo
Gallery automatically displays photos it finds
| | 07:10 | in your Pictures folder.
| | 07:12 | If you store your photos elsewhere on
your computer, you can have Photo Gallery
| | 07:15 | display and manage them too.
| | 07:17 | Just choose File > Include a folder in
the gallery, which will let you browse
| | 07:23 | through your computer to find
whichever folder you want to use, and then once
| | 07:26 | you select it, Photo Gallery will display
its content in the main gallery here as well.
| | 07:30 | All of my photos are in my Pictures
folder though, so I'll just cancel this.
| | 07:34 | So, that's how to import and do some
basic organization using the free Windows
| | 07:38 | Live Photos Gallery application
you can download from Microsoft.
| | 07:41 | Now Photo Gallery is not the only free
photo management and editing software out there.
| | 07:45 | There's an application called Picasa
that's available from Google as well as
| | 07:48 | several other applications from other companies.
| | 07:50 | But you should still be able to figure
out how to import photos into whichever
| | 07:53 | application you're using, based
on the steps I've shown you here.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Storing and organizing digital images| 00:00 | Previously, we looked at how to import
images from your digital camera into your
| | 00:03 | PC using Windows Live Photo Gallery.
| | 00:06 | And we saw the Photo Gallery lets you
organize your photos into relevant folders
| | 00:10 | to help you stay organized right off
the bat, but as you'd expect, you can also
| | 00:13 | continue to organize and manage
your photos once they've been imported.
| | 00:16 | So in this video, I'm going to show you
some basic features of Photo Gallery for
| | 00:19 | organizing and locating
the photos you've imported.
| | 00:22 | As previously mentioned, Photo
Gallery acts as the tool for managing all
| | 00:25 | the photos in your personal
pictures folder, again, found by clicking
| | 00:29 | Start and going to Pictures or it
can also manage any other photos you've
| | 00:34 | told Photo Gallery to manage.
| | 00:36 | All the photos appear in the top pane
on the left-hand side of the window.
| | 00:39 | To see the contents of any
folder, you can just click it.
| | 00:45 | Thumbnails for the photos appear on the
folder to the right and you can increase
| | 00:49 | or decrease the size of the
thumbnails by dragging this slider found in the
| | 00:52 | lower right-hand corner.
| | 01:01 | Double-clicking any thumbnail
enlarges it, so you can view it.
| | 01:04 | You can then use the right and left
aerow keys on your keyboard to move from
| | 01:07 | photo-to-photo while on this view.
| | 01:09 | You can also use the buttons at the bottom
on the screen to move back and forth as well.
| | 01:15 | Click back to gallery, to go
back to the thumbnail view.
| | 01:19 | So it's easy to browse
through your photos this way.
| | 01:21 | Now we're currently looking at the
folder scheme that was created when I
| | 01:24 | imported these photos, but maybe I
want to further organize the events.
| | 01:27 | For example, these Fireworks photos were
shot in downtown Ventura, so maybe they
| | 01:33 | belong as a subset of the
Downtown Ventura photos.
| | 01:36 | All you have to do is drag the
July 4th Fireworks folder onto the
| | 01:40 | Downtown Ventura folder.
| | 01:42 | You can see Move to Downtown Ventura
appears there, and when I release, it's
| | 01:46 | added to that folder.
| | 01:47 | And you can see it's now a subset.
| | 01:48 | So if I click Downtown Ventura, I see both
my Downtown photos and the Fireworks photos.
| | 01:54 | If I go to Start > Pictures and
look at My Pictures, there is my
| | 01:59 | Downtown Ventura folder.
| | 02:00 | You can see that the July 4th
photo is in fact inside of it.
| | 02:05 | If I change my mind, I can take the
July 4th folder out, simply by dragging it
| | 02:08 | back to My Pictures again.
| | 02:10 | Now right now, I'm getting this
message saying it's already inside of my
| | 02:12 | pictures, but notice I still have both
Downtown Ventura and July 4th selected,
| | 02:16 | so I'm going to click
another folder to select those two.
| | 02:18 | Then I'll click just 4th
Fireworks and drag it to My Pictures.
| | 02:24 | And let's move back out.
| | 02:25 | Now you can also move
individual photos into different folders.
| | 02:29 | So if you find a photo that's been
imported into the wrong folder, maybe because
| | 02:32 | the time between the photo's cutoff point
wasn't set to enough time, you can just
| | 02:35 | drag its thumbnail to the right folder.
| | 02:37 | So maybe I want to put this one
Fireworks photo inside Downtown Ventura and I
| | 02:42 | can just drag it in there.
| | 02:44 | And when I select Downtown Ventura,
you can see it's been moved there.
| | 02:46 | Now you can also select multiple
photos to move simply by dragging a
| | 02:52 | rectangle that touches the photos you want to
move and then move those into the proper folder.
| | 02:56 | But again this probably belong in the
July 4th Fireworks folder, so I'm going to
| | 03:02 | select them all again and move them back.
| | 03:08 | Now in addition to just clicking on
photos inside folders, another way to
| | 03:11 | find and view pictures is by
clicking the calendar years here in the left
| | 03:14 | column under Date Taken. Clicking a year
| | 03:17 | reveals the months in which those
photos were taken in that particular year.
| | 03:22 | Clicking a month displays the dates in
that month when those photos were shot.
| | 03:26 | This is a nice quick way of finding
someone's birthday photos for example.
| | 03:30 | You can go right to a
specific date very quickly this way.
| | 03:35 | Lastly, there's sure to be some
photos that you don't need to keep.
| | 03:38 | When they're blurry or just bad
shots, it's easy to delete photos, like
| | 03:41 | this toad picture here.
| | 03:43 | I kind of like it, but it is kind of blurry.
| | 03:45 | Probably don't need to keep it.
| | 03:46 | So all you need to do is select a
thumbnail and click the X button here at the
| | 03:52 | bottom of the screen or press
the Delete key on your keyboard.
| | 03:55 | You'll be asked to confirm that you do
want to get rid of the photo. Click Yes,
| | 04:00 | and that sends the photo to your Recycle Bin.
| | 04:04 | So again, be aware that deleting a
photo in Photo Gallery really does start the
| | 04:07 | process of removing it
entirely from your computer.
| | 04:09 | You still have to empty the Recycle
Bin to completely delete the photo, so you
| | 04:12 | could still rescue this photo by
dragging it back into your Pictures folder
| | 04:15 | or elsewhere, but once you empty the
Recycle Bin, that photo will be gone permanently.
| | 04:24 | Okay, so that's the basics of
organizing and viewing your photos with
| | 04:26 | Windows Live Photo Gallery.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Basic image manipulation| 00:00 | Many times the photos you shoot might
not come out as good looking as you'd
| | 00:03 | hoped. Maybe the picture is a little
too dark or bright, maybe some stranger
| | 00:07 | is walking through the background or maybe
there's a slight color tint to the photo.
| | 00:11 | In this movie, I'm going to show you
some basic image editing techniques you can
| | 00:13 | apply in Windows Live Photo Gallery.
| | 00:16 | Again, you'll find many similar tools
available in other image editing programs
| | 00:19 | in case you're not using Photo Gallery.
| | 00:21 | But here in Photo Gallery, start by
selecting the image you want to edit and
| | 00:25 | then click the Fix button.
| | 00:27 | That isolates the image and blows it up, so
you can see it while you're working on it.
| | 00:32 | There are several things you can do here
all listed on the right side of the screen.
| | 00:35 | We're going to skip the first three
items for now, and start by taking a look at
| | 00:39 | Straighten photo and work our way down.
| | 00:40 | We will get back to those
first three items in just a moment.
| | 00:44 | So Straighten photo is for those
times when the picture you shot is maybe a
| | 00:47 | little or a lot crooked.
| | 00:49 | For instance, the pagoda in this photo
looks a little bit crooked to me so I'm
| | 00:51 | going to click Straighten
photo and watch what happens.
| | 00:55 | That places a grid over my photo and Photo
Gallery itself actually rotated the photo a bit.
| | 01:00 | It detected the crookedness and tried to fix it.
| | 01:02 | If you think it did a good job, you can
just leave it as is or you can use the
| | 01:06 | slider here to zoom and rotate the
photo until it looks straight to you.
| | 01:16 | When it looks good, you can click
Straighten photo again to hide the grid
| | 01:18 | and close the tool.
| | 01:19 | Next, we have Crop photo.
| | 01:22 | The Crop tool is nice when you want
to crop out something in the background
| | 01:25 | of your photo or when you want to print your
photo to a specific size of piece of paper.
| | 01:30 | Just click Crop photo.
| | 01:31 | That gives you a crop area,
which you can move around or resize.
| | 01:35 | Anything outside of this
area will be cropped out.
| | 01:38 | Now this is nice if there's somebody
walking through the background of your
| | 01:40 | picture that you want to get rid of or
if you're trying to print to a specific
| | 01:44 | size of photo paper, you can come onto the
Proportion menu, and choose the right size.
| | 01:49 | Maybe I'm printing to a
4x6 piece of photo paper.
| | 01:53 | By selecting a proportion that keeps
your crop area in proportion as you make
| | 01:57 | it larger and smaller.
| | 01:58 | If you're printing a vertical picture,
you can click Rotate Frame to have a
| | 02:03 | vertical crop area, but in this case,
I'm going to keep mine horizontal.
| | 02:09 | Let's position that and resize it.
| | 02:16 | Once you're happy with your crop
area, click Apply. There it is.
| | 02:19 | Next, we have Adjust detail,
which has two features.
| | 02:23 | Let me go ahead and click on that.
| | 02:24 | We have Sharpen and Reduce Noise.
| | 02:27 | Whether these do anything for you really
depends on the photo you're working on.
| | 02:31 | Now, Sharpen doesn't really sharpen
your photo in the sense that you can make a
| | 02:34 | blurry out of focus shot clearer.
| | 02:36 | What it does is increase the contrast
of the pixels that make up your image,
| | 02:39 | making the image look a little more detailed.
| | 02:42 | Now, when you choose the Adjust detail
shot, Photo Gallery zooms in on the
| | 02:46 | picture, so you can see the details,
but I'm just going to zoom back out using
| | 02:48 | the slider, so I can see the
whole thing a little bit better.
| | 02:53 | So just try dragging the Sharpen slider to
the right to see if it improves your image.
| | 02:57 | There's really no rule for this.
| | 02:58 | Just use your own eyes and
see if you like the results.
| | 03:00 | That's probably too far.
| | 03:03 | We add a touch of sharpening right there.
| | 03:07 | Now, the Reduce Noise slider is used
when you have a particularly grainy photo.
| | 03:11 | It basically blurs your photo,
making it look a bit smoother.
| | 03:14 | To reduce the noise, click Analyze.
Photo Gallery will take a look at your
| | 03:18 | photo, try to determine what's
considered noise and smooth it out.
| | 03:21 | You might have noticed that the
background here smoothed out a little bit.
| | 03:25 | You can see how far the slider is.
| | 03:27 | if you don't like how much
you'd applied, you can drag it back.
| | 03:31 | Now incidentally, this is probably a
good time to mention the Undo button at
| | 03:34 | the bottom of the pane.
| | 03:36 | If you don't like the effects of the change,
click Undo to remove the last edit you made.
| | 03:39 | What's also cool about this is you can
click the arrow next to Undo and see a
| | 03:44 | list of the last ten changes you made.
| | 03:46 | Then you can selectively undo them.
| | 03:48 | So if you didn't like the third change
you made, maybe I didn't like the Sharpen
| | 03:51 | effect, you can select this to undo
just that particular edit, but also leave
| | 03:56 | the edits you made before and after it.
| | 03:58 | Be aware though that you can only
undo the last ten changes you made.
| | 04:01 | Anything made before that is permanent
as each change is automatically saved
| | 04:04 | when you make your selection.
| | 04:05 | Now you do have the option of
reverting back to the original photo, but that
| | 04:08 | will wipe out all of the changes you
made and you have to start editing your
| | 04:11 | photo from scratch again.
| | 04:12 | We'll take a look at that in a little while.
| | 04:14 | Okay, the next option here is Fix red
eye, which is great for photos of people
| | 04:18 | in which the flash from the camera
has caused their pupils to become red.
| | 04:21 | I don't have any people in this photo,
but basically all you do is select the
| | 04:25 | Fix Red Eye tool and then draw a box
around the red pupils in your photos to
| | 04:28 | have Photo Gallery automatically fix them.
| | 04:30 | The last item here is Black and white effects.
| | 04:36 | They're just for converting color
photos to various levels of black and white,
| | 04:40 | which you can click on, or to a sepia or
sort of a bluish cast tone, if you want
| | 04:45 | to make it look like an old photo.
| | 04:47 | There's really not much to do here except
click on a few of these and see what they do.
| | 04:51 | Okay, I'm going to click the arrow
next to Undo and choose Undo All to take
| | 04:56 | away all the changes I've made to this photo.
| | 04:57 | Now, let's look at the three
items at the top of the list.
| | 05:02 | The Adjust Color option lets you play with
the Color temperature, Tint and Saturation.
| | 05:07 | Color temperature is for making your
photo cooler by dragging the slider to the
| | 05:11 | left, which adds sort of a bluish cast
to it, or make it warmer by dragging the
| | 05:15 | slider to the right, which
adds a reddish orange cast to it.
| | 05:22 | Tint is useful if your photo
has a bit of a colorcast to it.
| | 05:25 | Dragging to the right adds a little bit
more red or a lot more red, and dragging
| | 05:29 | to the left adds a little
more green or a lot more green.
| | 05:32 | I think this photo could stand a
little bit more green to bring out the trees
| | 05:35 | a little bit more, but I don't want to drag
it so far that the sky starts turning green.
| | 05:41 | Just a little bit of green there.
| | 05:44 | And Saturation is for determining how
intense the colors in your photo are.
| | 05:48 | All the way to the right is very intense,
and all the way to the left drains all
| | 05:52 | the color out of your photo entirely.
| | 05:54 | So I usually drag a little bit to the right
just to make the colors pop a little bit more.
| | 05:59 | Next, we have Adjust exposure.
| | 06:05 | You can use Brightness to make
the entire photo lighter or darker.
| | 06:09 | Contrast increases or decreases the
difference between the light and dark
| | 06:12 | areas of your photos.
| | 06:13 | Frankly, I'm not a fan of either of
these two tools because I find the results
| | 06:16 | are rarely helpful to the photo, so
I tend not to touch them too much.
| | 06:20 | Now, Shadows and Highlights work a
little bit better for me most times.
| | 06:24 | Shadows tries to bring out the details that
might be lost in the darker parts of your photo.
| | 06:29 | See that?
| | 06:30 | Again, you probably don't
want to drag to extremes.
| | 06:36 | Highlights brings out the
details in brighter parts.
| | 06:38 | For example, the sky in this photo is
pretty overexposed, but dragging to the
| | 06:42 | left brings out some of those clouds
that we couldn't see as well initially.
| | 06:48 | There's also a Histogram here, which is
a little more of an advanced tool, but
| | 06:51 | in a nutshell, you drag the dark and
light sliders left to right to try to fix
| | 06:56 | the overall exposure of your image.
| | 06:57 | I'll let you play around with
that on your own. All right!
| | 07:02 | I'm going to click the arrow next
to Undo again and Undo all once more.
| | 07:06 | Let's take it back to its original look.
| | 07:08 | That way I can show you the Auto Adjust button.
| | 07:10 | True to its name, Auto Adjust analyzes
your photo and applies all the changes it
| | 07:14 | thinks are required with just one click.
| | 07:16 | So I'll go ahead and click that.
| | 07:18 | The nice thing here is you can see
exactly what it did because a checkmark
| | 07:21 | appears next to any of
the editing tools it used.
| | 07:23 | So you can see that Adjust exposure
was used, go ahead and close that, and it
| | 07:28 | also straightened the photo.
| | 07:30 | This is a nice way to learn
how to fix photos yourself too.
| | 07:33 | Just click Auto adjust and
then examine what it did.
| | 07:36 | In this case, I'll look in Adjust
exposure, and it looks like it moved a couple
| | 07:39 | of these sliders around. But if you
aren't satisfied with everything it did,
| | 07:43 | you can still come in here and then
make your own adjustments as necessary.
| | 07:49 | Okay, so those are the editing
tools found in Photo Gallery.
| | 07:52 | When you're done in here, click back to Gallery.
| | 07:56 | Photo Gallery reminds me that my edits
were saved, but that I can still undo my
| | 08:01 | changes by clicking Revert. I'll click OK.
| | 08:04 | Now, that means that if I ever change
my mind about the photo, I can select it
| | 08:09 | again, click Fix, and then click Revert.
| | 08:13 | You can see the Undo button
currently is Revert right now.
| | 08:15 | Photo Gallery warns me that all the
changes I made will be removed, but if
| | 08:19 | that's what you want, go ahead and
click Revert, and that takes the photo back
| | 08:23 | to its original state.
| | 08:25 | Now, the way Photo Gallery accomplishes
this is that it actually creates a copy
| | 08:28 | of your photo before you edit it.
| | 08:30 | This really means that there are two
photos for each photo you ever edit,
| | 08:33 | the original and the additive version.
| | 08:35 | Now, if you edit a lot of photos with
Photo Gallery, you can start eating up a
| | 08:38 | lot of valuable hard-drive space.
| | 08:40 | You can reclaim some of the space, let
me go back to the Gallery, by choosing
| | 08:44 | File > Options, and under the General
tab, click the menu under Original Photos
| | 08:51 | which is set to Never move
originals to the Recycle Bin by default.
| | 08:54 | And then here you can
select a different amount of time.
| | 08:57 | For example, if you haven't edited or
reverted a photo after six months or a year,
| | 09:01 | chances are you
probably won't need that original.
| | 09:04 | So maybe select One year, and all a
year-old original photos will then be moved
| | 09:08 | to your Recycle Bin and deleted
when you next empty the Recycle Bin.
| | 09:11 | That's how to use the editing
tools in Windows Live Photo Gallery.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Tagging images| 00:00 | When you have a digital camera, it's
inevitable that your photo collection is
| | 00:03 | going to grow larger year after year.
| | 00:05 | So, it makes sense to take steps to
ensure that you'll be able to find certain
| | 00:08 | photos or types of photos
when you need to later on.
| | 00:12 | In previous movies we saw how to
organize your photos into folders and nested
| | 00:15 | folders, but that only helps to
keep groups of photos together.
| | 00:18 | Or if you want to find say all of your
vacation photos over the past several years.
| | 00:22 | In this movie, I want to introduce you
to the concept of tagging photos, which
| | 00:26 | is an ability common to most
photo management applications.
| | 00:29 | When you tag a photo, you're
attaching a descriptive keyword or multiple
| | 00:33 | keywords to the photos file.
| | 00:35 | It's a pretty simple task but it does
have to be done manually and is therefore
| | 00:38 | a bit time consuming.
| | 00:40 | But tagging photos is a good habit to
get into because it makes finding your
| | 00:43 | photos later much easier.
| | 00:44 | For example, if you've imported
pictures of your cat and dog, you might want to
| | 00:48 | tag those photos with the word pets.
| | 00:50 | Then sometime in the future when you
want to find pictures of your pets, you can
| | 00:53 | just search by keyword and any photos
of your pets you tagged will appear.
| | 00:58 | So, let's take a look at how
to do this in Photo Gallery.
| | 01:00 | You'll need to start by
creating a handful of tags.
| | 01:03 | You can do so in the left pane of the
Photo Gallery window using either the
| | 01:06 | People tags or Descriptive tags.
| | 01:09 | Let me open up People tags.
| | 01:10 | Now, People tags are for identifying
photos of or containing certain people who
| | 01:15 | often appear in your photos.
| | 01:16 | For example, I'll click Add a new tag
and type Parents and now I can add that
| | 01:23 | tag to any pictures of my parents in my
Photo Gallery or you might create People
| | 01:26 | tags like family, or
coworkers, or friends and so on.
| | 01:30 | Now, Descriptive tags are for all
the other types of photos, although you
| | 01:34 | can apply multiple tags to photos including
mixing People and Descriptive tags together.
| | 01:39 | The point of Descriptive tags is to
come up with keywords that are general
| | 01:42 | enough to apply to many of your photos
like Add a new tag and maybe a Vacation, or
| | 01:51 | a Travel, or maybe Animals.
| | 01:54 | Now, you don't want to create tags
so specific like Uncle Bob on a roller
| | 01:59 | coaster unless you have lots of photos
of your Uncle Bob on a roller coaster.
| | 02:03 | More appropriate and useful would be
to create a People tag labeled Uncle Bob
| | 02:07 | and a Descriptive tag labeled roller
coasters if you have a lot of roller
| | 02:10 | coaster photos, and then you could add
the Uncle Bob and roller coaster tag to
| | 02:14 | photos where appropriate.
| | 02:15 | Okay, so, now I have a couple of tags
created and I want to apply them to my photos.
| | 02:19 | There are two ways to do this.
| | 02:21 | The first way to do this is to
drag the photo to the tag, like this.
| | 02:25 | I'll drag this photo to my Vacation
tag, release, and it's has been applied.
| | 02:31 | Now, you would think would make more
sense to drag the tags to the photos but
| | 02:34 | dragging the photos to the tag lets you
apply the same tag to multiple files at once.
| | 02:38 | So, for example, I'll select the other
two of these Downtown Ventura photos and
| | 02:42 | drag them both to Vacation.
| | 02:44 | Now again, you really can't tell that
anything happened but I'm going to come
| | 02:49 | up here and click Info which opens
up the Info pane and when I select my
| | 02:53 | thumbnails, you can see that the
Vacation tag has been added to these photos,
| | 02:57 | but not to these photos.
| | 02:58 | Now, the Info pane is
another way to add tags to photos.
| | 03:04 | First, select your photos. I'll select
all of my photos from the Santa Barbara
| | 03:08 | Zoo and I'll click Add descriptive
tags and here I'll type the letter A and
| | 03:16 | Photo Gallery automatically displays
any tags that begin with the letter A.
| | 03:19 | I only have the one, Animal, so I'll
select that, press Return and now all of my
| | 03:24 | photos here have been
tagged with the Animals keyword.
| | 03:27 | So that's another quick way to add tags and
again you can add multiple tags to your photos.
| | 03:33 | If these Zoo photos were taken on
vacation, I can come in here and click Add
| | 03:36 | descriptive tags again, type a V, select
Vacation. Maybe I should also tag them with Travel.
| | 03:42 | So, now I've added three
tags to all of those photos.
| | 03:46 | So, you actually do have to do this
manually, which is why you should take the
| | 03:49 | time to tag your photos when you
import them and once your photos are tagged,
| | 03:53 | it's just so easy to find them again.
| | 03:54 | So, if I have another photo selected
here just for example and then all you
| | 03:58 | have to do to find photos that you've tagged
is just click the tags over here on the left.
| | 04:01 | For instance I want to find all the
photos I've tagged with Vacation and
| | 04:05 | there they are. And if you ever need
to remove a keyword from a photo, maybe
| | 04:09 | added it by accident, just select the
photo, rollover the tag over here, and
| | 04:13 | then click the X next to it.
| | 04:15 | Confirm that you do want to remove
the tag and the tag is then removed.
| | 04:19 | Now, to delete an actual tag from the
Descriptive tags or the People tags list,
| | 04:24 | just right-click on it and
then choose Delete. Confirm.
| | 04:29 | Now, notice that says that it will
also delete the tag from all the photos
| | 04:32 | it was assigned to.
| | 04:33 | If you're okay with that, click Yes
and now I no longer have a Travel tag.
| | 04:39 | Also you can right-click on tags
to rename them, which is nice if you
| | 04:41 | misspelled something and all the
photos tagged with that keyword will have
| | 04:44 | their tags renamed as well.
| | 04:47 | So, that's a little bit on how to tag
photos with keywords and how they're used.
| | 04:51 | Try to get into the habit of tagging
your own photos each time you import a
| | 04:54 | new set onto your PC.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Sharing images| 00:00 | It's probably safe to assume that you
want to share many of your digital photos
| | 00:03 | with your friends and family.
| | 00:05 | For those times when the people with
whom you want to share your pictures
| | 00:07 | aren't sitting with you in front of
your computer, Windows Live Photo Gallery
| | 00:10 | offers several options.
| | 00:11 | So let's take a quick tour through them.
| | 00:14 | First, start by selecting
the photos you want to share.
| | 00:15 | I'll choose those three, and then
you'll find several options for ways to
| | 00:20 | share these photos under the Publish menu
like Online album, Group album, and Event album.
| | 00:26 | Now these options require you to
have a Windows Live ID account.
| | 00:29 | If I select Online album for example,
that prompts me to sign in to my
| | 00:34 | Windows Live account.
| | 00:35 | If you don't have a Windows Live
account, you can sign up for one by clicking
| | 00:38 | Sign up and then following the directions.
| | 00:40 | I'm just going to cancel that for now.
| | 00:43 | Also under Publish, if you choose
More Services, you'll find the option to
| | 00:46 | publish to your Flickr account if you have one.
| | 00:48 | Flickr is one of the most popular
online photo sharing services and you can
| | 00:52 | read more about it by going to flickr.com.
| | 00:53 | Let me select my photos again.
| | 00:57 | Next, we have E-mail, which with a
single click attaches your selected photos to
| | 01:01 | a new email message.
| | 01:02 | All you have to do here is fill out
the To and Subject fields, maybe type a
| | 01:06 | short message, and you can see the
photos are already attached to the email here.
| | 01:10 | Next to the Attach icon which
looks like a paperclip, you can see my three
| | 01:13 | photos are attached to this email.
| | 01:15 | I'll go ahead and close that.
| | 01:18 | If you remember the good old days when
people actually printed their photos,
| | 01:21 | well, you can still do that
too under the Print button.
| | 01:24 | You can choose to either print to your
own printer by choosing Print or pressing
| | 01:27 | Ctrl+P, or you can select Order Prints
to select from several different services
| | 01:32 | to which you can upload your photos
to have them printed professionally.
| | 01:35 | Some of these services like CVS/
pharmacy and Fujifilm let you pick up your
| | 01:39 | prints from local centers in about an hour.
| | 01:41 | Others will mail them to you
in a few days. Cancel that.
| | 01:45 | Now, if you have a lot of photos to
share, you can also click the Make menu and
| | 01:49 | select Burn a DVD or Burn a data CD,
either of which will walk you through the
| | 01:53 | process of copying your selected
photos to a DVD or CD, which you can then
| | 01:57 | handoff to someone else so they can
checkout the photos on their own computer,
| | 02:00 | or you can use these options to create
backups of your own photos for yourself.
| | 02:04 | So as you can see there are many
options here in Photo Gallery for sharing your
| | 02:07 | photos, and you'll probably find
yourself using several of these features on the
| | 02:10 | many occasions when you'll want
to share your pictures with others.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
10. Sharing FilesCommon obstacles in sharing files| 00:00 | When it comes to sharing files with
other people, there are several factors
| | 00:03 | that contribute to how easy or in many cases
how difficult this process can actually be.
| | 00:07 | The goal of sharing is to get a file
from your computer to another person's
| | 00:10 | computer and the first issue that
comes up is probably the file size.
| | 00:15 | The file size greatly influences
how you are going to share the file.
| | 00:18 | If the file size is small, like a text
document or a couple of photos, you can
| | 00:22 | probably attach the files to
an email and send them off.
| | 00:25 | But if you are trying to share say a
large video or audio file, email is
| | 00:29 | probably ruled out for all but the
shortest clips and you are going to have
| | 00:32 | to find some other method to transfer the
file from your computer to your recipients.
| | 00:36 | One option is using portable media, like
CD-ROMs or Flash drives, and that's the
| | 00:40 | second hurdle, figuring out what sort of
method or media to use in the transfer.
| | 00:44 | How many CDs do you need?
| | 00:46 | Does it make sense to burn a dozen
CDs, a couple of DVDs or a single
| | 00:49 | Blu-ray disc instead?
| | 00:50 | Can your recipient even read Blu-
ray discs on his or her computer?
| | 00:55 | Should you send an actual hard drive instead?
| | 00:57 | And once your files reached their
destination, you may run into the issue of
| | 01:00 | compatibility. Maybe you are sending a
Microsoft Word document, but can your
| | 01:04 | recipient open Word documents?
| | 01:06 | Not if they don't have Word or some
other Word compatible software installed,
| | 01:09 | and even then do they have the fonts
you've used, or is your document going to
| | 01:12 | look different on their
computer than it does on yours?
| | 01:15 | If you are sending a video file, do they
have the proper applications to watch the video?
| | 01:19 | And these are just a handful of general
examples of the obstacles that crop up
| | 01:22 | when you just want to get a file from
A to B. We are not going to be able to
| | 01:26 | look at every possible file sharing
option in this chapter, but I do want to
| | 01:29 | look at two specific ways to help
ensure that your files can be received and
| | 01:32 | viewed by your recipients as
consistently and successfully as possible.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating PDFs for document sharing| 00:00 | One of the most common problems that
occur when trying to share documents
| | 00:03 | between computers and operating
systems is that one or more of the recipients
| | 00:06 | may not have the software used
by the creator of the document.
| | 00:10 | For example, many people
still don't have Microsoft Word.
| | 00:12 | So when their friends or coworkers
send them a Word document, they might not
| | 00:15 | have a way to view it.
| | 00:16 | Even if they do have Word, they still
need to have all the same fonts used in
| | 00:20 | the document in order to see the
document exactly as the creator intended.
| | 00:23 | There is also the possibility that
their version of Word is too old to read a
| | 00:26 | document created by the latest version of Word.
| | 00:28 | So there are many things that can stand
in the way of the seemingly simple act
| | 00:31 | of trying to send a document to
someone else so they can read or review it.
| | 00:35 | The solution to this problem is the
Adobe PDF or Portable Document Format.
| | 00:39 | You've most likely come
across PDF documents before.
| | 00:42 | PDFs ensure that documents look exactly
the way their creators intended with the
| | 00:46 | exact fonts, layout, and appearance.
| | 00:48 | PDFs can be viewed by anyone using a
Mac or anyone on a PC with a copy of the
| | 00:52 | free Adobe Reader application which
can be downloaded from Adobe's web site at
| | 00:57 | get.adobe.com/reader.
| | 01:01 | Again, this is free, so if you don't
have a copy of Adobe Reader yourself,
| | 01:04 | you should go to this page, click the Download
button and install it, since PDFs are so common.
| | 01:09 | But the problem is Reader
only lets you read PDFs.
| | 01:13 | On Windows, if you want to
convert a document to a PDF you need
| | 01:16 | additional software.
| | 01:17 | Now some applications like the 2007 and
2010 versions of Microsoft Word have PDF
| | 01:22 | creation capabilities built-in.
| | 01:24 | Let's look at this document I
have and open it in Microsoft Word.
| | 01:30 | So this is an Employee Manual and as
you can see it's been formatted with
| | 01:34 | colors, various fonts, and
the layout is fairly stylized.
| | 01:39 | Now as the creator of this document I
want to make sure that it looks just like
| | 01:42 | this when employees receive it.
| | 01:44 | But right now, it's a Word document, and
not everyone is guaranteed to have Word.
| | 01:48 | I can convert this to a PDF very
easily by clicking the Office button and
| | 01:52 | choosing Save As, and I can either
choose to save it as a PDF from right here
| | 01:57 | or I can just click Save As and then
from the Save as type menu, choose PDF.
| | 02:02 | Either way works.
| | 02:03 | So I will save this to my
Desktop and I'll leave its name as
| | 02:09 | 10_02_TwoTreesHandbook and click Save.
| | 02:14 | If I minimize Word now and take a
look at my Desktop, there is the PDF
| | 02:18 | document I just created.
| | 02:19 | Now again, in order to view a PDF you need
to have Adobe Reader installed on your PC.
| | 02:23 | I do have it installed and set as
my default PDF Reader, so I will just
| | 02:27 | double-click the file and there is my
PDF looking exactly as it did in Word and
| | 02:33 | anyone else who opens this PDF
will see the exact same thing.
| | 02:35 | So that's how to create a PDF with
Microsoft Word or any other Microsoft Office
| | 02:40 | application. But what if you want to
create a PDF from some other application?
| | 02:46 | In that case, you are going to need
Adobe Acrobat Pro, which costs money, $449
| | 02:50 | currently if you are not
upgrading from a previous version.
| | 02:53 | Now you can download a free trial that
will lasts for 30 days, so you can try
| | 02:57 | out the program and with Adobe Acrobat
Pro installed on your PC, you'll be able
| | 03:02 | to create PDFs from any
application that has a Print command.
| | 03:05 | For example, I am going to close Word,
and I am going to right-click on that
| | 03:11 | Word document and choose
to open it with WordPad.
| | 03:15 | Now WordPad does not have
built-in PDF creation capabilities.
| | 03:18 | But because I have Acrobat Pro
installed on my computer, I can choose Print.
| | 03:22 | Notice I won't see any PDF options
here, but I will choose Print and in the
| | 03:28 | Print dialog box I will find that one
of my printers is Adobe PDF, which I will
| | 03:32 | select and then I will just click Print.
| | 03:35 | I am prompted to name and save my file.
| | 03:38 | I will again save this on my Desktop
and I will just add a 2 at the end of the
| | 03:41 | name so we know this is the second
version we are printing from here in WordPad.
| | 03:45 | Notice Save as type is set
to PDF and I will click Save.
| | 03:51 | Now when I print it from here
I can actually open up the document directly.
| | 03:53 | You can see my Acrobat
Reader icon is flashing down here.
| | 03:55 | So I will click that and here is the
version of the PDF that was created from
| | 03:59 | WordPad, using the Adobe PDF Printer.
| | 04:02 | You can see it looks pretty much
exactly the same as it did in Microsoft Word.
| | 04:05 | I will go ahead and close that, and
we'll close WordPad for the moment.
| | 04:10 | And so again, you can do this from any
program that can print as long as you
| | 04:13 | have Acrobat Pro installed.
| | 04:14 | Now if the cost of Acrobat Pro is a
little high for you, there are alternate
| | 04:18 | applications you can download and install.
| | 04:22 | One popular example is
CutePDF available at cutepdf.com.
| | 04:26 | From here you can download the
CutePDF Writer software, which again is
| | 04:30 | completely free, and then
follow the installation instructions.
| | 04:33 | I have already downloaded and installed it.
| | 04:35 | So I'll once again open this Word
document in say WordPad again and keep PDF
| | 04:41 | works the exact same way as using
the Acrobat Pro plug-in to print.
| | 04:44 | I'll choose Print and once you have it
installed you should see a CutePDF Writer
| | 04:49 | printer selected here.
| | 04:50 | So as long as it's selected, I'll click Print.
| | 04:54 | Again, I am prompted to save my file.
I will just call this version 3, save it,
| | 05:01 | and there is a file sitting on my desktop again.
| | 05:03 | I will double-click that and again, we
have a PDF generated from WordPad, which
| | 05:09 | does not have native PDF building
capabilities, but since it does have a Print
| | 05:12 | command I was able to
print my PDF using CutePDF.
| | 05:16 | So the end result is the same.
| | 05:17 | You get a PDF that looks just like
the original document looked in the
| | 05:20 | program you printed from.
| | 05:21 | So why should you pay for Adobe
Acrobat Pro when CutePDF is free?
| | 05:25 | Well, if you only want to create PDFs,
all you really need is CutePDF, but if
| | 05:30 | you want the ability to modify or
enhance your PDFs within interactivity, form
| | 05:35 | fields, multimedia files and more,
you will need to get Acrobat Pro.
| | 05:38 | So it really does depend on what you need to
do with your PDFs once they have been created.
| | 05:41 | That's why I suggest you download the
free trial of Adobe Acrobat Pro and spend
| | 05:46 | some time with it to see what it can do.
| | 05:48 | You can also checkout our Acrobat 9
Pro Training on the lynda.com Online
| | 05:52 | Training to really run
Acrobat 9 through it paces.
| | 05:55 | But that's how you create PDFs on your PC.
| | 05:58 | Yes, it does take additional software
being installed, but you can view and
| | 06:01 | create PDFs for free from any Windows computer.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Compressing files| 00:00 | Regardless of the type of file you're
sending to someone, if you're using the
| | 00:03 | Internet to send the file, whether
via email or a web-based sharing service,
| | 00:07 | another habit you should get into is
compressing your files before sending them.
| | 00:11 | When it comes to the web, file size
still matters a lot and is a major
| | 00:14 | determining factor in how long it
takes to send and receive a file or whether
| | 00:17 | you can send the file at all.
| | 00:19 | Compressing a file does
just what it sounds like.
| | 00:21 | It makes the file smaller.
| | 00:22 | Fortunately, Windows 7 has the built-
in ability to compress files in the most
| | 00:26 | popular compression format, the ZIP format.
| | 00:28 | Let's see how it works.
| | 00:29 | I have here at my desktop the three PDFs
I created in the previous movie as well
| | 00:33 | as the Word document they were created from.
| | 00:36 | Now I could easily open a new email
message and drag all these files into the
| | 00:39 | message as separate attachments.
| | 00:41 | But you're going to find that
compressing multiple files into a single
| | 00:44 | attachment generally results in all
the files getting to their destination
| | 00:47 | without corruption or errors, much
more frequently than sending everything
| | 00:51 | uncompressed as individual attachments.
| | 00:53 | But this isn't to say that you
shouldn't compress single files.
| | 00:55 | Even if I were only sending a single
word processing document, I would probably
| | 00:59 | still compress it,
especially if it's a large document.
| | 01:02 | Word processors are notorious for not
being very efficient with the amount of
| | 01:05 | space their files take up.
| | 01:07 | So to zip these files, I simply
select them all by dragging a rectangular
| | 01:11 | marquee to touch them all.
| | 01:13 | Now right click on any of the
selected files and choose Send to >
| | 01:16 | Compressed (zipped) folder.
| | 01:18 | Now don't let the wording of this
command fool you. You are not really sending
| | 01:22 | the files anywhere. You are creating a
ZIP file containing compressed versions
| | 01:25 | and copies of the selected files.
| | 01:28 | So l will select Compressed (zipped)
folder and just like that I have this
| | 01:31 | ZIP file on my desk.
| | 01:33 | At this point I'd like to rename the
file to something little less generic and
| | 01:35 | more descriptive. I will call this
Handbook Copies, and you can tell it's a
| | 01:42 | compressed file because the photo
looks like it has a zipper on it.
| | 01:45 | So now I have this single file I
could attach to an email that's a little
| | 01:48 | smaller in size than the
original collection of documents.
| | 01:51 | If I select these documents and
right-click and choose Properties,
| | 01:55 | I can see that their size on the
disk is 840KB, not really that big.
| | 02:01 | But if I do the same for Handbook
Copies, I can see its size on disk is only
| | 02:06 | 764, so just a little bit less.
| | 02:08 | You'll see a much larger difference in
files sizes when you're compressing more files.
| | 02:13 | Now a question often arises
here is how does compression work?
| | 02:16 | Well, to explain that in very basic
terms, compression programs examine the
| | 02:20 | contents of a file and try to locate
redundant information, which it can then
| | 02:24 | use a sort of shorthand to compress.
| | 02:25 | For example, I will just type some
letters here in Notepad like AAAAAIIIIIIEEEE.
| | 02:34 | So let's say I wanted to
compress this exclamation.
| | 02:38 | Well, a compression algorithm might
look at this and say okay, there are 5 As, so
| | 02:41 | I will write 5A, and there are one two
three four five six Is so we will write
| | 02:47 | 6I, and there are four Es.
| | 02:51 | So the compressed version of this
might be 5A6I4E, which is much shorter than
| | 02:57 | spelling out the entire thing.
| | 02:58 | Now again, this is a highly simplified
explanation how compression works, but I
| | 03:01 | think it's a fair representation.
| | 03:03 | Go ahead and close that.
| | 03:04 | All right, so what happens when you are on the
receiving end of a compressed or a zipped file?
| | 03:09 | Well again, Windows 7 will require no
additional software to expand or unpack a ZIP file.
| | 03:14 | Let's say I just received a ZIP
file and I have copied it my desktop.
| | 03:17 | First let me drag these other files
that we compressed into the Recycle Bin, so
| | 03:21 | we are not confused here.
| | 03:22 | Now to see the contents of a
ZIP file just double-click it.
| | 03:26 | That opens a window showing you what
it contains, but you haven't technically
| | 03:29 | unzipped the file yet.
| | 03:30 | Now I can actually open a file in here by double
-clicking it. I will open up the Word document.
| | 03:34 | But currently this file and any other
file that's in a ZIP file is in a Read
| | 03:39 | Only state, meaning, I can't
save any changes I might make to it.
| | 03:43 | Notice it says Read Only
up here in the title bar.
| | 03:46 | That means if I change some text, for
example, if I change the revised date
| | 03:50 | and I click Save, notice I am prompted
to save a copy of this file somewhere,
| | 03:55 | instead of Word just saving the change to
the file that I am working on. Let me cancel that.
| | 03:58 | Now it's really not that big a deal,
but if you want to work with the original
| | 04:02 | files you were sent in the ZIP file,
you need to expand or unzip them.
| | 04:05 | I am going to close Word without saving,
and again here I am looking at the
| | 04:10 | zipped file window, and in here
I will click extract all files.
| | 04:13 | I am prompted to choose a location to
save the files. I will keep them on my
| | 04:17 | Desktop inside of a folder called
Handbook Copies, and Windows will
| | 04:21 | automatically open that folder when
it finishes extracting everything.
| | 04:24 | So I will click Extract. There is
the folder we just extracted. Notice it
| | 04:29 | looks different than the ZIP
version of it, and now I am looking at the
| | 04:32 | contents of the folder here.
| | 04:33 | So now I will open that Word file
again, and notice it no longer says Read
| | 04:38 | Only in the title bar.
| | 04:39 | So if I make that change that I did
previously and click the Save button,
| | 04:46 | it just saved my change to the file I am working
on, instead of prompting me to save a copy.
| | 04:52 | So that's how to both create and
work with zipped files in Windows 7.
| | 04:55 | Mac OS X also has ZIP creating
and opening capabilities built-in.
| | 05:00 | So if you have to send files to Mac
users, you can still zip them up and know
| | 05:03 | that they will be able to open them.
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ConclusionGoodbye| 00:00 | By now, I hope you will feel a little
more knowledgeable and comfortable when it
| | 00:03 | comes to using your PC.
| | 00:06 | Of course, we covered things from a
very basic level here and a lot of your
| | 00:08 | comfort is going to rely on just
spending more time in front of your computer
| | 00:11 | using various applications.
| | 00:13 | You'll probably also want to check out
several more courses on the lynda.com
| | 00:16 | Online Training Library for more in-
depth instruction on specific applications.
| | 00:21 | Some courses you should check out
include Windows 7 Essential Training, which
| | 00:24 | offers detailed instructions
on the Windows operating system.
| | 00:26 | We also have multiple courses on the
Microsoft Office 2007 and 2010 products,
| | 00:32 | which include Word, Excel and
PowerPoint, Microsoft's word processing,
| | 00:36 | spreadsheet and presentation programs.
| | 00:38 | To learn more about photo and image
editing, be sure to check out our courses on
| | 00:42 | Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.
| | 00:43 | There are lots of other courses you
will most likely find useful on the Online
| | 00:47 | Training Library, but most of all you
should spend time just playing with your
| | 00:50 | computer and really getting to know it.
| | 00:52 | Don't be afraid to click around or experiment.
| | 00:54 | It's a great way to learn.
| | 00:55 | So I hope you'll be able to take what
you've learned here and go further with
| | 00:58 | your computer than you ever
thought you would. I'm Garrick Chow.
| | 01:01 | See you next time!
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