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Sunshine Coast Queensland |
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Lifestyle Australia |
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Computers Local Clubs Like many others on the Sunshine Coast, we make good use of our computer and spend considerable time on the internet. I have joined the Maroochy RSL Computer Club and the computer group of the Buderim Probus Club, both small groups that meet monthly to educate members about computers, discuss problems and exchange ideas and information about web sites and public domain software. The Sunshine Coast Computer Club is a larger active group on the Coast with several sub-groups serving a variety of educational functions. The Sunshine Coast Macintosh Users Group serves a similar function for Mac users, who could also try the Ozemail Mac User Group support site. The Kawana Computer Club Inc. also holds monthly meetings and is a member of The Australian Seniors Computer Clubs Association whose site has lots of useful information and links, especially for seniors. These clubs have small membership fees, are happy to welcome visitors and are very friendly sources of assistance, information and support for novice computer users. Other community groups may also like to send me their e-mail or web site addresses for inclusion here. On-line help Help Topics Click on the links below to go directly to more specific help topics on this page.
General Help There is no end of help available on-line. A good local starting point is the Sunshine Coast Home Computer Users Guide, which has information on beginning computing, where to shop, solving problems and computer maintenance, etc. If you'd like to know just about everything about computers in a concise, humorous and readable form, check out The Secret Guide to Computers an on-line book worth revisiting often.
Australians
considering a broadband internet connection can compare available offerings at
Broadband Choice, but do realise that
prices are coming down rapidly. You should check with the ISP you favour for the
latest details. Ever
had trouble knowing what program to associate with a particular file extension?
Try the FILExt site for help. For
interesting tips, reviews and links to free newsletters, you may find the Knowledge
is Power site worth a visit.
Having problems
getting the best settings to scan photos or documents? Try the tips at
Scantips.
Those who find it hard to remember special
occasions such as birthdays and anniversaries may like to take advantage of the
reminders and cards available from
BirthdayAlarm. It pays to be familiar with the web sites of your operating system manufacturer and to be aware of the free software updates that come out regularly to patch up problems with functions and security. There are also support sites for most of the applications software such as Internet browsers, office software, etc. All Microsoft Windows users should become familiar with the Microsoft sites. Follow the links under support > product support to see what is available. Learn how to access the Knowledge Base, FAQs (frequently asked questions) and Community Newsgroups where you can ask questions of Microsoft or users of Microsoft products who have similar problems to your own. Check the Downloads site for software updates and service packs. Tired of all those annoyances that keep cropping up in Windows? Take a tour through the many solutions at annoyances.org. Wondered what all the processes are that are shown in the Windows Task Manager and whether they are necessary? For answers to these and other questions, try Answers That Work.
Trouble with
Microsoft programs including e-mail? You may find a solution at
Rick Selby's General Help with Microsoft
page or Outlook and Outlook Express Help page if you don't mind the religious
and moral messages.
Upgrading to
Windows XP? Visit Microsoft's
Windows XP site. Check out
Fred Langa's article on 10 more ways to make Windows XP run better. Type
windows XP tutorials into Google or other search engine to access lots of
tutorials on using Windows XP.
Tech Support Alert has links to a
variety of sites with free and paid support and free utilities, all of which are
reviewed.
Apple
Macintosh users should likewise be familiar with the Apple web
site, its Support services, Knowledge
Base and Downloads
site. Apple also has a community Discussions
centre for interaction amongst users and a series of Manuals
on its various products. Another useful Macintosh site is
Tidbits.
Mac problems are covered at MacFixIt. Anyone
considering a Windows-based laptop might also benefit from some of the reviews
there, too. Other useful tips for Mac users can be found at
macOSXhints.
Mac
OS-X flaws have recently been discovered which allow Macs to be attacked.
Courses
There are numerous sites that offer free
courses and tutorials on computer topics. Try typing, for example,
Microsoft Word
tutorials in your search engine
to find tutorials on that software. Be aware that some software (adware) is
supported by ads and some contains cookies, small programs inserted into your
computer to send back information about you and what is on your computer (spyware).
Not all cookies are bad, as some allow sites you have contacted to record your
details to save you having to enter them each time or to help provide the sort
of information you require. Spyware sends information you may not want revealed.
Look in the download sites for software that will screen the ads coming in (Ad-aware
is a popular one) and software that will screen spyware from coming in (e.g.,
SpywareGuard)
or search and destroy spyware that is already on your computer (e.g., Spybot
- Search & Destroy).
For a thorough review of anti-spyware
and adware products, see the
Spyware Warrior Guide to
Anti-Spyware Testing. Two recent additions to the available
security software are
Microsoft
Defender and
Prevx (a free home version), both of which
are reported to prevent intrusions that may not be detected by other software.
Another useful program is
BHODemon, which identifies browser helper objects on your computer and rates
them as benign or otherwise. Malicious BHOs can be installed without your
knowledge and can redirect your browser to sites you don't want. For an excellent summary of viruses, trojans,
worms, spyware and other nasties, along with advice on preventing or removing
them, see online and safe, which also
has 5 steps to safety and links to free anti-malware software. Is your computer secure?
A home user's security checklist for Windows is available at
SecurityFocus. Useful
articles on other security issues such as
browser
hijacking,
eBay and PayPal scams and
reading the
e-mail header are also well worth reading and saving as favourites. Dire
warnings about viruses often come in well-meaning e-mails, but most of them are
hoaxes. Before acting on any of these messages, go to
Hoax Encyclopedia. A popular anti-virus
program is the free version of AVG from
Grisoft. Everyone should have an
effective firewall. One of the most popular is the free version of
Zone Alarm. As with most free programs, trial and paid versions with more
features are available.
Search
Engines and Directories These
are the programs that allow you to search for particular topics on the World
Wide Web. Before you start searching, be sure to visit searchengines.com
so that you understand the basics of search engines and how they work.
Take the brief course in Search
Engines 101 or the search engine tutorial by
Pandia. If you'd like to find out which search engines are most
popular around the world, go to Search
Engine Watch. Web searching tips on all aspects of web searching, including
some fun stuff, are provided by Search
Engine Watch.
If
you haven't already done so, you might like to download the Google toolbar or
search button to have a favourite search engine readily available on your screen
any time you are on the Internet. Go to the Google
options site for a look at the options and then choose Google
toolbar or your preferred option. There are several other excellent search
engines, but Google is currently the most popular and comprehensive. Others also
allow you to download their toolbar or make them your default search engine.
Google has recently
released a new search service that searches scholarly literature and research
journals. Go to http://scholar.google.com
for access to authoritative research in fields such as computer science,
economics, medicine, sports science, therapies and other fields of study.
For scientific information, another search
site is http://scirus.com, which searches both
journals and websites in science and can be limited to either of these.
Surprisingly, I even found summaries of cricket batting and bowling records from
my past. For an account of how to write or refine a
search statement and avoid being swamped, read Nick's
Tricks, go to the Google Help page
or try Soople.
Patrick Crispen's excellent
Powerpoint presentations on
numerous computer and internet topics are
available at NetSquirrel. Also check
how to use MSCONFIG,
the weekly fab five
weekly computer maintenance tasks,
how to unzip a file and
other useful how to articles.
Whether or not you have Powerpoint, if you want to
do presentations, you may like to try the free and easy-to-use
presentation program
PowerBullet. If you just want
to read and/or print Powerpoint presentations, download the free
Powerpoint 2003 Viewer from Microsoft.
Yahoo!
has recently released a new search engine,
which, although it won't replace Google, may be a useful complement. For a
comparison of search results of these two, try the
Googleguy site.
Meta
search engines are available that will submit your search query to several
individual search engines. However, these have
disadvantages
as well as advantages. Dogpile
is one meta search engine that has been well-regarded, but there are numerous
others. An alternative
to search engines is Answers.com, a site
that allows you to type in a question or word and get a quick answer,
explanation or definition on a wide range of topics from arts, business,
medicine, science and sports, etc. You can also download the 1-Click Answers
program which allows you to get answers even while offline. A
great deal of advice and information is available in the form of regular free
newsletters from around the world: everything from computer advice; access to
freeware (free software ), shareware (try and then pay a small donation) and
tryware (try free for a limited period and then pay full price); on-line
shopping including auctions; travel; financial advice; and much more. Be aware
that to remain free these generally rely on advertising or having you visit
their sponsors' sites. Here
I've included just a few websites with computer-oriented newsletters that I and my computer club friends have found
particularly worthwhile:
About.com -
an alphabetic index to almost anything you can think of, a series
of free newsletters on literally dozens of topics plus forums, chat
rooms and free tutorials and classes on topics including desktop publishing,
graphics, web design, HTML and many others. RayShaw - Ray
is a local Brisbane computer guru with a computer program on radio 612 ABC
Brisbane at 2 p.m. local time on some Fridays and a useful newsletter with good
recommendations Tech Support
Alert - tech support, how-to guides, freeware utilities and free
newsletter Tourbus -
get the scoop on computer viruses, search engines, spam, cookies, urban legends,
and the most useful sites on the Net Tudogs - a regular account of useful freeware and shareware with good descriptions and links Tucows - a daily account of freeware and shareware with brief descriptions and links ZD Net Australia - ad heavy, but some useful information LangaList - general information on computer use, solutions to problems and useful software
There are many other sites that provide access to useful software, much of it freeware. Here are a few worth a look, mostly for Windows software:
To speed up your downloads and allow them to resume where they left off if interrupted, try the free Download Accelerator Plus or Star Downloader or Get Right. Faster than the Windows program to defragment your hard drive is Diskeeper Lite. The easy-to-use free version is available from Majorgeeks. If you'd like to know the details of all the hardware and software in your computer, download the free Belarc Advisor or Everest Home Edition, a system information, diagnostic and benchmarking program. Concerned about the temperatures in your computer in the hot weather? Two free programs that will monitor the temperatures of your motherboard and case and your hard disk drive and show them continuously in the system tray are Motherboard Monitor 5 and HDD Temperature. You can also set alarms. Alternatively, you can run Everest Home Edition if you just want to do an occasional check. A useful freeware program for rapid interpretation of Australian weather reports from the Bureau of Meteorology is available at Birdcage Software. If you send photos or other images by e-mail or put them on a website, you should keep the file size fairly small. An excellent little free program that will do this and also allow you to change the image size, brightness and contrast or rotate images by degrees is Easy Thumbnails, which I used to put the images on this website. Other useful free image editing programs well worth a look are Irfanview, Picas2, PhotoFiltre and VCW VicMan's Photo Editor.
Website Design and Development I'm no expert, as this is my first attempt, but I have found a lot of resources on the WWW at sites like About.com. If there is sufficient interest expressed, I'll add a section here with all the free aids to help beginners like myself. A website can be very easily constructed with WYSIWYG editors that don't require any knowledge of the underlying HTML code. It can be as small as a single page and it's a lot of fun. A good learning experience, too! There are also plenty of tutorials on HTML as you gain in expertise. You can try yourself out by using the Composer program under the Window menu in the free browser Mozilla or Netscape. There is a tutorial as well as the Help menu to guide you.
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Windows XP, under Help and Support, has the
facility for Remote Assistance. This allows you to request assistance from a
knowledgeable friend or guru to operate on your computer from his/her remote
computer. For a free detailed account of how to request remote assistance, see
