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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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November Q & A
Q: I am very confused about which book I
should buy to use with my computer. How do I know if I am XP or 2000
etc?
A: The difficulty lies in the fact that
you could be talking about your operating system or your Microsoft
Office software.
Operating systems for PCs at the moment can be Windows 98, Windows ME,
Windows 2000 (more likely in office or educational establishments than
for home use machines and often referred to as NT) or Windows XP
(commonly found in new machines bought from high street stores at the
present time).
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To find out what you are running, right-click the My Computer icon on
your desktop and select Properties. You will then see what version you
have. |
If you want help with your word processing, spreadsheets or databases,
then you must look on the CD for your version of Microsoft Office.
These can be MS Office 97, 2000, 2002 (also known as the Office XP
suite) or 2003.
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If you don't have the CD to hand, open one of the programs, click on
the Help menu and select About Microsoft Word/Excel etc. You will then
see what version of the software you are running. |
Q: Where do you generally find
telephone numbers and addresses on websites? I recently wanted to
phone an internet shop and couldn't find contact details anywhere.
A: It is sad that they are often so hard
to find, as you can easily take your business elsewhere. There are no
rules but I think the best ploy, if there is no Contact Us link, is to
click on links to information about the company itself – often
labelled "About Us". You will usually find further links here to ways
of contacting them as well as location maps and policies on how they
carry out their business.
Q: Can you explain how to create
complicated drawings where different objects are visible at the same
time? Is there a 'transparent' option?
A: When building up a diagram or drawing,
each object can be positioned in front of or behind another, and can
be set as semi or fully transparent. Follow these steps to have a go
yourself:
a. Click a shape button on the Drawing toolbar such as a
rectangle or circle, or click the AutoShapes button and select from
the range on offer. (If the toolbar is missing, right-click the empty
space on any toolbar and select Drawing.)
b. Click and hold down your mouse on screen and drag it out.
The pointer will show a small cross and the shape you chose will
slowly appear. To make changes, always make sure a shape is selected
(showing small boxes round the edge.)
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c. Draw another shape and move it by dragging with your
mouse so that it is half over your first shape. If you want it behind
the first shape, open the Draw menu and select Order – Send to Back.
Once you have a number of shapes on the page, you may need to select
Send Backward to move it back one layer at a time. Reverse the order
by selecting a Bring in Front option. |
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d. If the top shape is coloured and you don't want a solid
colour, click the arrow next to the paint pot (Fill Colour) and choose
No Fill. This will immediately show the underlying shapes.
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e. To see one shape behind another but keep some colour, open
the Format menu and select AutoShape. On the Colours and Lines tab,
change the level of transparency by dragging the slider or setting
your own percentage.
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and under the books section select Computers and
Internet.
