You can do IT in later life
                                  January 2009 

You can do IT is a regular feature of laterlife.com aimed at trying to help laterlife visitors make the most of Information Technology on or off the web.     

Jackie Sherman who runs the You can do IT Question & Answer section is an IT trainer and author. Jackie has spent her career in education and specialises in teaching IT to adults. Her courses for adults include such topics as MS Office, the Internet, e-mail and basic web page authoring.  

Jackie has also written the four books shown here - you can find more details about these by clicking on the cover images above. Jackie has also been running a course specifically for over 50s.  

Via laterlife.com Jackie aims to particularly help those new to IT and the web to build up knowledge and confidence, so no question is too basic. At the same time she will cover Q&As for the more experienced user. 

So if you would like to ask a question of Jackie, why not email her jackie@laterlife.com

Or if you have discovered something which may be of interest to others in making the most of the web, then she would love to hear about that too jackie@laterlife.com

January 2009

Q:  Everything takes so long on the Internet, do you have any new time-saving tips?

A:  I can suggest just one thing worth doing for the New Year – and that is to download the Google toolbar.  It will mean that, wherever you may be on the Internet i.e. whichever website you are currently visiting or that opens as your Home page, you can still carry out a range of useful tasks very quickly.

(toolbar)

To download:

1. Go to www.google.co.uk.
2. Click About Google.
3. On the next page, click the Google Toolbar link.

(download toolbar)

1. Follow the instructions and add any extra buttons you feel you would like.

(download toolbar 2)

What my toolbar offers

1. Click the Google word on the far left and you will go to the Google website.
2. The search box is available all the time.  If you type in a phrase or keywords and press your Enter key or click Search, you will open Google with the same range of pages listed that would appear if you had first visited the search engine website and begun your search from there.
3. My first extra button is a link to Wikipaedia.  Click the button for the search box, type in a word or phrase and click Go and you will open the encyclopaedia website offering definitions or explanations.

(wiki)

1. My second button is a calendar, so that I can always find the date.

(calendar)

1. My third button is a News link for the latest stories.

(news)

1. The button with a cross offers a list of extra buttons you can add to the toolbar.

(extra buttons)

1. The button with a red no entry sign on it signifies pop-up blocking, so you can click it to allow blocked images to be displayed.
2. The blue star button is a favourites/bookmark button so you can save the web page address for future visits.
3. The Find button offers a list of the words in your keyword search box that you can highlight on any page (equivalent to the Edit – Find (on this page) option.  It is very helpful when you are searching for information that is presented within a long and dense text-based document.
4. The ABC Check button will check your spelling.
5. My final button is AutoFill.  Once actioned, it will complete any online forms with my basic information.

View previous editions of YoucandoIT for more useful Questions and Answers
 

For a wealth of books on the web and IT generally, visit Amazon and under the books section select Computers and Internet.

Don't forget to visit the general laterlife features section called laterlife interest