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
Frozen Mice
Q: I must be
doing something wrong as my mouse pointer often stops working and I can't open the menu or
close down the program properly. Can you tell me what has happened and what to do about
it?
A: We all get a 'frozen' mouse at some
time and it's often hard to know what went wrong. I think it's usually because we ask the
poor old computer to do too many things at once. When it happens, you should try this
first of all:
Hold down the Ctrl and Alt keys with one hand and press the Delete key with the other.
A small window should appear listing the programs on your computer with your frozen one
highlighted. If you click the End Task button, and then do it again when a second button
appears, you should find yourself back at the desktop and may even recover your work if
you re-open the program you were running.
Sometimes this method doesn't work. Instead, try pressing the Reset button on your main
computer unit and, as a last resort, turn off the machine, wait a few minutes and then
turn the power back on.
Favourites
Q: Often when
I'm on the Web I come across a really interesting page that I will want to return to in
the future. Is there a quick way to get back there another day?
A: If you look at the menus listed in
an Internet Explorer browser window, you'll see one of them is labelled Favorites. If you
open this menu next time you find a useful page, you can click Add to Favorites to add the
page address to others already listed. Amend the wording in the Name box if it would be a
better reminder of what the page is about, and click Create In to place the address with
similar pages in an existing or new folder. For example, train and ferry Web sites could
all be grouped together in a new folder you create called Travel.
Next time you want to go to the page, open the Favorites menu and then the Travel
folder, click the name and the page will be downloaded. (Netscape has a Bookmarks menu
that works in a similar way.)
Changing Sizes
Q: Please help with
a very frustrating problem. When I try to reduce the size of letters in a word processed
document I am typing, it jumps back to a larger size whenever I start a new paragraph. How
can I stop this happening?
A: When you start a new
document, the size and type of font is laid down - e.g. Times New Roman size 10 - and is
called the 'default'. You can change many aspects by selecting and reformatting text, but
as you work down the page the default reasserts itself.
There are two different ways of dealing with this:
a. Before you start typing, open the font dialog box via the Format - Font menu
and set all the font features you will want e.g. style, size, type etc. Then click the
Default button. Say "Yes" when asked if you want this formatting to apply to
future documents and then open a new, blank document. You will find that your new settings
are now the norm.
b. Type your document without applying any formatting. Then select a section, or press
Ctrl plus A to select the whole document, set your preferred font type and size and press
Enter. The selected text will now be in your chosen size and style of font and you will
have had to make changes to it only the once.
Reducing Columns
Q: I
have started to use Excel spreadsheets and find that some of the headings for columns are
so wide they make the spreadsheet look rather silly, especially as the contents of the
columns are only a few numbers. How can I display a large heading but keep the column
width narrow?
A: The answer is to wrap
the text 'down' the column. To do this, type the full heading in one cell as normal, click
the tick in the Formula Bar and then go to Format - Cells - Alignment and check the
Wrap Text box. All words will now be displayed fully. The heightof the header row will
have increased to accommodate the heading, and you can make the column as wide or narrow
as you want.
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Aimed at first-time Internet users, the guide, co-written by TV
personality Carol Vorderman and Internet expert Rob Young, offers a thorough and
non-intimidating introduction to the Internet.
and under the books section select Computers and Internet.