By Debbie Green

For the last couple of months, we have been writing a series of articles Learning to Work with Computers 101 & Learning to Work with Computers 101 (session 2). We have discussed Disk Cleanup, Disk Defragmenter, setting up a file system, saving files and finding a lost file and much more. Basic computer knowledge is essential if you want to work on your computer and not be totally frustrated. I recommend printing each of these articles for future reference.

Bypass Pop-up Windows:

Have you ever clicked on a hyperlink or a form on a website and nothing happened? Your popup blocker has prevented the window from opening. Popup windows are a common occurrence on the internet. Popup windows are used in many websites. Some websites use popup windows to allow advertising, while other websites use popup windows to display features or additional information. When you hear a "chime" (if you have your sound off you will not hear a chime) as a website is opening a popup window is trying to open and your popup blocker has prevented it from opening. To temporarily bypass your popup blocker simply click on the link or website again (or Refresh) and hold down your Ctrl key and then open the site again and the popup window will display. You can set "Allow popup for this website" as a preference for any website by going into the preferences of your popup blocker. Websites can be added to the Allowed Sites list or click Remove to remove a website from the allowed list. For example, I accidentally allowed popups on the Excite website (which is my homepage for my internet browser) since most of their popups are advertisements, I didn't want to see those popups; I had to go into my popup preferences and remove Excite from my allowed sites.

View Two Programs at One Time:

Viewing two programs at the same time can be very helpful when working on projects. For instance, you might have QuickBooks open and at the same time have your online checking account open to confirm a credit card deposit or a check card transaction. You can also open Minutes Matter Studio and then open a paint website and use the eyedropper tool in Studio to touch a paint swatch. These are just two examples, there are many more opportunities this technique would come in handy. This is also the easiest way to move computer files from one folder to another within your computer or within your computer network. I use my Windows Desktop as a temporary holding place for files I am working on or files I have downloaded. When I am finished with the file I use this technique to move the file to the appropriate folder. All you need to do is resize each window so both windows are visible on the screen. First, click on the Restore Down icon (see screenshot below), click, hold and drag to move the window, then resize the window by pushing in on the edit points to reduce the size of the window. Resize the window to the desired size. (see screenshot below)