|
|
June 2005
|
 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 two 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
|
|
|
June 2005
This month, I am going to explore some of the options that you may
not have discovered but that may be needed in case of emergency or
when things are not working properly.
Internet Explorer
|
From the Tools menu, open Internet Options. This
window has a number of tabs: General, Security, Privacy, Content,
Connections, Programs and Advanced.
Click the Advanced tab and then click in a box to add or
remove any of the features e.g. to show pictures on web pages, reuse
the same window when opening new web pages, or play animations or
sounds in web pages. Click Apply to establish the new settings.
|
|
 |
|
On the General tab, you can delete temporary files, change the Home
Page (the one that opens on every internet session) to a preferred
starting point and delete the display of pages you have visited in
the past (the History).
The Program tab is very useful when you want to restore an
association with a preferred e-mail system, if the link has been
lost. (You will know this has happened when you try to send e-mails
via a web page link and the correct e-mail message window does not
open.)
|
|
 |
Privacy is the tab to click if you are ever asked to “enable
cookies”. Move the slider up or down to block different levels of
cookies and use the Edit or Advanced buttons to make detailed
changes.
Connections allows you to change the default dial-up connection if
you have more than one ISP installed on your computer and you want
to change the number you dial automatically.
Outlook Express:
|
Open the Tools – Options menu in this program to allow you to change
some of the annoying settings you may be struggling with.
General is where to set your start-up folder as the Inbox or to play
sounds when messages arrive.
Receipts is helpful if you want to know that someone has read your
message (or at least downloaded it) or you want to take off this
setting if it appears on all your messages. |
|
 |
Click on the Send tab if you find copies of your messages are not
being saved into your Sent Items folder. You can also check the
boxes to enter people’s addresses into your Address Book
automatically after replying, or recall them quickly when typing
their addresses into the To: box.
Connection is the tab for making sure the machine hangs up after
sending/receiving messages rather than staying connected.
If you write with different “hats” on, or always add lots of details
at the end of messages such as your postal address and telephone
number, click Signatures. Set up a named message ending and then add
this to appropriate messages when composing by selecting the
signature from the Insert menu.
Word
There are a large number of tabs in the Tools - Options window for
this program and you will need to take some time to browse through
them all. For example: do you want a drawing canvas appearing in
Word, white letters on a blue background, or your measurements in
inches rather than centimetres? These are all offered on the General
tab. If you would like to create a backup copy for every document –
go to the Save tab. And if you would like to set up your system to
save documents directly into a named folder – simply modify the File
locations.
Other Programs: Spend five minutes looking at the Tools – Options
menus within any program you use often. You will be delighted to
learn how easy it is to change settings, and if things go wrong –
turn here first to see which checkbox has a tick in it you can
remove.
|
|
