Tips+and+Hints

Want your computer to be faster??

You need to clean up you hard drive. Click START Hold your cursor on ALL Programs Go to - Accessories -System tools -Disk Clean Up (if it asks, choose c drive) It calculate areas to clean up. I usually check everything it finds (caution—if you are not sure at least get rid of temporary files, recycling bin, and compress old files). Then it will clean up those files.

Then you will need to Disk Defrag—same steps as above but click **disk defragmenter** instead of disk clean up. Click analyze. (if it asks -C drive again). After it analyzes it, click Defragmenter. This will reorganize all the data back into order (it’s like pages in a book—it puts them back into order.) This will take a while, so minimize it and work on something else.


 * Organizing your Documents**

If you have a lot of documents in your My Documents folder—or worse you have them all over your desktop screen. It’s time to get organized. The secret is to create folders. If you have your documents on your desktop, you can create a folder on your desktop. Right click on your mouse, click new folder. Type in the name of your folder (ex. Lesson Plans). Then drag your documents into that folder. You can then right click on that folder. Go down to Send to—choose My Documents. This will send this folder to your My Documents folder. If you want to back up your documents, you need these in that folder. When you are in My Documents, it’s all about organizing. Create folders for your documents. Ex. Lesson Plans 07-08, Data, Homework Sheets, etc. Then drag the correct documents into those folders you made. You can even create folders in folders. For example, in my lesson plan folder, I have folders for the each month. The more you create folders, the easier it is to stay organized.

Flash drives

Thanks to the Technology Committee, this year all teachers are getting a 1gig flashdrive. Some of you are probably wondering how much 1 gig will hold ,I found this information at http://www.coolnerds.com/Newbies/kBmBgB/SizeAndSpeed.htm

Disk type Equals this many floppy disks Floppy disk (1.4 MB) 1 CD (70 MB) 700 DVD (7 GB) 4,700 Hard disk (20 GB to 120 GB) 20,000 to 120,000

So as you can see a 1 gig flash drive can hold well over 700 floppy diskettes. This flashdrive goes into a usb port on your computer. Most of the computers have usb ports on the front of your computers. On the old Dell computers (GX 240’s), you will need use the usb in the back on the CPU. I know it’s a pain, but the usb’s on the front don’t read fast enough.

When removing your flashdrive

You need to always safely remove your flashdrive. You need to look for a little flashdrive with a tiny green arrow at the bottom of your desktop screen. (It’s on the same bar as the word START.) Right click on it. Click Safely Remove Hardware. Click Stop on USB Mass Storage Device. Click on your flashdrive name. Click OK. This turns off your flashdrive. Now you can remove it. I was told if you don’t safely remove your flashdrives, your computer will quit reading the flashdrive. Now you can work on documents at home, save the document on your flashdrive and bring the document to school.
 * Hint—if a card reader or flashdrive doesn’t read automatically, give it a minute . Sometimes you may have to restart your computer the first time your use your fashdrive. You should also be to see your flashdrive when you open the My Computer icon.

Looking for new clipart pictures?

I usually just use the online Microsoft clipart gallery. When you’re creating a document, click insert on toolbar, click piture, clipart. Now click clips online. This connects your to the online clipart gallery created by Microsoft. Type in the search box your topic. Find the picture your want. Look for the little box under the picture. Click in that box. Then click download (look for a little red arrow). Click** download now **button. Click open. Then click on the picture and insert it in the document. You can also right click on the picture, click copy. Then click in your document, right click paste.

Want a page border?

I usually have the students add a page border to the documents they create in the lab. You have these same borders on your computer too. With your document open, click Format on your toolbar, click borders and shading, click the tab page border, click the little arrow beside the word** __art__**. Pick a border, click OK.** If your border falls off the page, go back through the steps, but before clicking OK choose the Options button, change Measure from edge of page to **__text.__** Then click OK. This puts the border close to the words.