You can do IT in later life - 58
October 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 several books - you can find more details about these by
clicking here. 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, 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. Why not email her jackie@laterlife.com
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Google Services.
In case you only use the Search Engine Google for simple web
searches, I thought you might like to be updated on the variety of
services the website now offers.
1. Finding pictures: If you click the word Images on the main page,
you can look for just pictures, rather than websites containing
mentions of your keyword.
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For detailed searching, click the underlined words
Advanced Image
Search. You can now choose a specific file type or size of image as
well as limit the search to particular words.
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2. News: Clicking the News link will allow you to find out what is
going on around the world or just in the UK. |
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3. Discussion groups: Google now offers links to Newsgroups via the
Groups link which have been set up to allow people to communicate by
e-mail to others with similar interests. Work down through the
categories to find a suitable group. You can read what is being
discussed or join the group and receive messages to which you can
'post' your replies. If you are interested, you could even start
your own group. |
4. Shopping: Cashing in on the large number of shopping and
price-finding channels, Google has now set up Froogle. You can sort
by price and will avoid finding websites that do not offer products
for sale.
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5. By clicking the More label, you open up a whole new world of
services.
Here are some of the most useful: |
6. Local tradesmen: When looking for a plumber, window cleaner or
roofer, you can now use the Local service. Type in your trade and
location and you will get addresses, links to their websites and the
location on a local map. |
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7. Maps: This is an amazing development as you not only get the
normal roadmap but, in many cases, the satellite image or even, by
selecting Hybrid, a mixture of the two. You can use the on-screen
buttons to zoom in or out and print a copy of the map to take on
your journey. |
8. Books: Many publishers are now providing parts of their books
that you can look at before deciding to buy the publication. This is
particularly useful for picture books or those where the contents,
writing style or layout are useful to know. Click Print and then
search for your chosen book. |
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If you look at the links on the More page you will see that you can
also search scholarly texts (Scholar) , university websites, pay for
questions to be answered by an expert (Answers) and search through
categories of topics (Directory). In time, Google are likely to add
a vast number of new categories as they try to cater for more
specialist interest in using the Internet.
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