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Welcome to today's edition of the Computer Kindergarten Newsletter.
Today is Sunday, August 18, 2002
In this Issue:
Special Feature: Text Wrapping in Emails
Featured Computer Term: Scroll Mouse
This Week's Topic: Replacing Text Quickly
Question: Monitor Adjustments
Learning Series: Microsoft Word - Bookmarks
Featured Websites: Your Health, Part I: Nutrition and Exercise; Fitness Online; The Inner Body; KidsHealth for Parents
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Using Links
A Link is a reference to a website. In this newsletter you will see links to many worthwhile, informative and fun websites. Here are the instructions on how to use links:
A link will be used one of two ways, depending on your email program.
If you see the link in blue, underlined text, all you have to do is click on it and a window with the Website in it will automatically appear on your screen.
If you see the link in plain text, you can copy and paste it into the address bar on your browser. Highlight the link with your mouse, click Edit up on the menu bar, and then click Copy from the menu that you just opened up. Open your browser (click the Start Button, point to Programs, click on Internet Explorer); click on the address bar. Click Edit up on the menu bar, and then click Paste from the menu that you just opened up. Press the Enter key on the keyboard and this will take you to the Website.
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Special Feature: Text Wrapping in Emails
Question: Why do some of my emails have a full sentence and then one, two or three words on the next line and then skip to the following line?
Answer
When you send an e-mail message, most e-mail programs wrap the lines at a certain number of characters. For example, some email programs will make sure that each line in an outgoing e-mail messages is no longer than 70 characters.
Here’s how that works: If you send an e-mail message to your friend, each line will be 70 characters or less. If your friend then forwards the e-mail message to someone else, and that person’s e-mail program is set to wrap the lines at 60 characters, the result will be that each of the lines will be shortened by one or two words and the e-mail will have a long line followed by a shorter line, all thru the e-mail message.
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Today's Computer Term: Scroll Mouse
Question: I recently purchased a new computer. It came with a mouse that has a little wheel between the buttons. What is this for?
Answer:
Newer computers still include a mouse, but new to the mouse is a small wheel between the left and right buttons. This wheel serves as another way to scroll through windows that have a vertical scroll bar. Roll the wheel with a finger and your window will scroll up or down.
Also, some software allows you to click the scroll wheel and move the mouse up and down and the screen will scroll with the mouse's movements.
Not all software supports the new scrolling function of the mouse. If you have an older computer, you will need to install special drivers to allow the scroll mouse to work.
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Today's Topic: Replacing Text Quickly
A quick way to replace text with other text is to highlight the text to be replaced and then simply type the new text. You’ll see that this instantly removes the old text and the new text appears in its place.
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Question: Monitor Adjustments
Question: The window on my monitor does not fill the whole screen. The last couple of weeks when we turn the monitor on there is a black strip at least an inch wide on the top, bottom, left and right. Can you tell me how to fix this problem?
Answer:
Step by step directions on how to fix this problem will vary from monitor to monitor. Most monitors purchased in the past few years, however, should have some sort of controls on them.
What you need to adjust is these controls on the monitor itself. Look for buttons on the front of the monitor next to or below the screen, or dials just beneath the front edge. Some monitors have one large dial on the front that you push in to select a function and then turn the dial to make adjustments. Some have a little door that you’ll have to open to find buttons or dials.
You just need to find the function that makes the screen wider, and another function that makes it taller. Using these you should be able to get rid of the black border and make full use of your screen.
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Progressive Learning Series: Microsoft Word - Bookmarks
Bookmarks allow you to assign names to text or to positions in your file. In this way you locate them easily, just like when you put a physical bookmark in a book to save your place. Once a bookmark is defined, you can use the Go To option from the Edit menu to move the insertion point to the bookmark location.
In Word, bookmarks are saved with the document file. This way, you can assign bookmarks in different files that use the same name. Each file can have up to 450 (approximately) bookmarks defined. Names for bookmarks must follow these rules:
* Names must begin with a letter of the alphabet * Names can contain only letters, numbers, and the underscore * Names cannot contain spaces or punctuation marks
To insert a bookmark, follow these steps:
1. Position the insertion point where you want the bookmark to be inserted. Alternately, select the text you want named with the bookmark.
2. Select the Bookmark option from the Edit menu. (If you are using Word 97 or Word 2000, select the Bookmark option from the Insert menu.) You will see the Bookmark dialog box.
3. Enter a name for your bookmark.
4. Click on Add.
A word of warning with bookmarks: they can move! If you define a bookmark as a location only (in other words, you don't select text before defining the bookmark), and then move the text which appears at that location elsewhere, the bookmark stays where it was; it does not move with the text. It is not always intuitive when this will happen.
For example, if you insert text ahead of a defined bookmark, the bookmark will stay with the original text. If, however, you position the cursor at the beginning of a bookmarked line and press Enter a few times, the bookmark does not move. The unmoving bookmarks become a real pain if you use them within tables, at the beginning of a column. It is not unusual to sort the table and have the bookmarks not move with the text, as you might expect.
The solution to this problem is to anchor the bookmark to selected text (select text and then define the bookmark). However, this produces other side effects. For example, if the selected text includes a complete paragraph (including the paragraph marker), and you add some text in a new line or paragraph, the added text becomes part of the selected text for the bookmark.
Also, moving or copying bookmarked text to a new document will copy the bookmarks as well as the text. Moving bookmarked text to a new location in the same document also copies the bookmark, but copying bookmarked text to another location in the same document does not replicate the bookmark.
Finally, bookmarks are internally implemented as fields in a Word document. The more fields you have in a document, the longer it will take to both load and save the document. For instance, if you have a lot of fields (a hundred or more), the time delay in saving and loading becomes quite noticeable, even on a fast computer..
Seeing Where Bookmarks Are
The bookmarking feature in Word has many uses. As you start to learn those uses and create more and more bookmarks, it can be difficult to remember where bookmarks are in your documents. While you can easily jump from one bookmark to another, sometimes it is easier to just see where your bookmarks are at a glance. Word makes this easy by following these steps:
1. Choose Options from the Tools menu. This displays the Options dialog box.
2. Make sure the View tab is selected.
3. Make sure the Bookmarks check box is selected.
4. Click on OK.
Now you will see small, gray brackets around words or phrases that are bookmarked. If you see a small gray I-beam in your text, it means there is a bookmark set at that single location, rather than a word or phrase specified. These marks appear only on the screen; they do not print out with the document. If you reverse the above steps, the bookmark indicators are removed from the screen.
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Today's Featured Websites: Your Health, Part I
Nutrition and Exercise
On this site you can get a free fitness plan, a free personalized meal plan, and just about any type of advice you need on the hows and whys of losing weight.
http://www.efit.com/
Fitness Online
Fitness Online claims to be Your Online Guide to Total Fitness. There are interesting articles on exercise, nutrition, and health and wellness.
http://www.fitnessonline.com/
The Inner Body
So what's going on inside this machine we call the human body? This site offers an amazing inside peek, using illustrations, descriptions, and animation of the body's systems in action.
http://www.innerbody.com/htm/body.html
KidsHealth for Parents
This site covers health-related topics in sections such as general health, infections, medical problems, first aid and safety, medical care, and the latest health news.
http://www.kidshealth.org/parent/ |
