MATTERS ARISING FROM THE MEETING ON 27th OCTOBER
Future Themes
After Christmas, sessions will continue, but I do not propose to repeat the current course for the third time. I am looking to you, the audience, for suggestions as to what YOU would like to see discussed in these sessions. Please e-mail me you ideas, to questions@billnot.com
Saturday's Meeting
We had an attendance of 10, which gave those present a more personal session. I'm sure we're all grateful to Gillian, who stepped into Ann's shoes to make the tea in Ann's absence.
Once again, we discussed was the problem with computers hanging (failing to respond to keyboard or mouse), which they will all do from time to time, even when you have done nothing wrong. It's worth repeating the test sequences.
(1) Press the ESCape key, which means "get me out of here". If this doesn't work,
(2) Press Alt-F4, which means "close the current program". If this doesn't work,
(3) Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete, the "three fingered salute". This should bring up a box listing the current running software, one of which will be shown as not responding, and which you can close. If pressing Ctl-Alt-Del once doesn't work, try pressing the combination twice. This should initiate what's called a "warm reboot", i.e. a clean shut down followed by a restart.
(4) Sometimes none of the above will work. This is the point at which you give up, turn the computer off, wait ten seconds, and turn it back on again. Windows (assuming you are using it) will complain it was improperly shut down and go through various diagnostic checks, most significantly a hard disk check (called Scandisk). Resist the temptation to cut this check short, and allow the computer to complete the checks. Hopefully, your patience will be rewarded with a functioning, rebooted computer.
A HUNG COMPUTER IS SELDOM THE FAULT OF THE OPERATOR!
We also talked about shutting down. Everybody was aware of the need to shut down correctly, but not everybody was sure how to do it. There are various ways, but the easiest and most common is through the Start button.
Click on the "Start" Button
Select "Shut Down"
You are presented with four options. Select "Shut down (again)
Depending on your computer, it will now either shut itself down (after a pause) or display the "It is now safe to shut down your computer" screen, at which point you can physically turn the machine off.
The "Log off <somebody> option has nothing to do with either turning your computer off, nor with the Internet. It is for the uncommon situation where a computer has been set up for two or more independent users, each of whom will have their own desktop, start menu etc. For the average user, this option is meaningless.
The other major topic was the use of the clipboard. You can copy almost anything from one application into another by use of this always available, usually hidden, tool. Suppose, for example, you wanted to quote a snippet of this page in an e-mail to a friend. There would be no need to re-type what I have already laboriously written. Simply highlight the passage you want by dragging the cursor over it, either by using the mouse with the left button held down, or with the arrow keys, holding the shift key down. Once the passage is highlighted, copy it to the clipboard either by using an edit - copy menu if there is one, or by pressing Ctrl-C (hold the control key down while pressing C). To paste into your e-mail, move the cursor to the insertion point, and either select edit-paste, or press Ctrl-V.
Finally, we got into the realms of software licencing. This is such an important issue that I am going to devote at least part of one of my sessions to it, so watch this space!
You may recall that two weeks ago I wrote:
>After tea, we had a volunteer wishing to obtain a new account with Wanadoo. Once again, things conspired against us, >and we could not get the Wanadoo server to accept the details. I am going to find out what went wrong, and will report back >to you.
It appears that something wasn't quite right with Gillian's details, maybe the NIE number, as I had no problem creating a new account for theoasis@wanadoo.es for use with the sessions.
The next session, about Internet Explorer, is on November 10th.