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June 2007 - Vol. 5 No.6

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Minutes Matter

Learning to Work with Computers 101 (session 5)

By Debbie Green

For the past several months, we have been writing a series of articles Learning to Work with Computers 101, Learning to Work with Computers 101 (session 2), Learning to Work with Computers 101 (session 3) & Computers 101 (session 4). To make sure you don't forget any of the topics we covered, be sure to print all of these articles for future reference.

Properties of File

You can instantly display information regarding any file by right clicking on the file and selecting Properties. The size of the file, file type and date the file was created are all displayed when you select Properties. For instance, you may have an image/file which is located on your Desktop and would like to email the image/file and you need to confirm the size of the file. Displaying properties is a quick why to determine the file size. Hovering your mouse over an icon will also display the file size. The Properties window also allows you to change the file association.

Reduce the Size of an Image/Photograph

Photographs taken in the highest quality have a great resolution, however, this also creates a very large file size. There are times when you might need to reduce the file size of an image or photograph. Reducing the size of an image is very easy to do. You can use IrfanView, a free software program, to accomplish this task very quickly. You can download IrfanView from our website.

Open IrfanView > click File > Open > locate your image or photograph and open > click Image > select Sample/Resize. There are two options in which you can reduce the file size; you can reduce the size by a percentage or you can set a specific size. Most people find it easy to reduce the size by a percentage. IMPORTANT: Be sure to keep the Preserve aspect ratio box checked. Notice in the screenshot below I have chose to reduce the file by 50%.

Removing a Thumb/Flash Drive Correctly

A thumb drive is a very small compact storage device that is inserted into a USB port in your computer. To use a thumb drive you simply insert the thumb drive, copy or retrieve files from the drive. When you are ready to remove the device you MUST double click on the Safely Remove Hardware icon. This icon is located in the bottom right corner of the Start up menu > select the device > click Stop. (see screenshot below with the white circle) A thumb drive can become corrupted if it is removed from the USB port without stopping the device.