Pete's PC and Web Tips
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  Introduction and Disclaimer
  Computer Maintenance
  Internet (The World Wide Web - WWW)
  Useful Websites From My Favourites
  Miscellaneous Tips
  => Get Copy of Your Screen
  => Memory Sticks Do's and Don'ts
  => Removal of Duplicate Files
  => Adding Program Shortcuts To Your Desktop
  => Print to Electronic PDF File
  => Log Off Instead of Reboot
  Operating Systems
  About Pete
  View my other genealogical site
Miscellaneous Tips
Miscellaneous Tips
·         One often has to make a note of what is on the screen and at other times one needs to make a copy of something. It is possible to take a “photo” of your screen at any time by holding down the Shft key and pressing the PrtScn key usually situated somewhere towards the top right of your keyboard. What this does is copy what is on your screen to the clipboard. Now to make a copy of this open one of the following: Wordpad, Office Word or Paint and then either use the Edit tab and select Paste or click Ctrl + V and you will see what was on your screen reappear. You can save this as a file. Please note that this can be a fairly large file so it is advisable to paste it to Paint and then save it as a .jpg or .bmp file and one can cut and edit it to suit one’s requirements.
·         I have seen too many people lose data in the following manner and strongly advise you all NOT to use your memory sticks as a data back-up but rather only use it as a temporary holding place. From time to time copy all the contents of your memory stick to a folder on your hard disk and call it something like memstick 6Nov2009 Once you are sure you have copied everything then use MyComputer and format your memory stick to “refresh” it and then copy back any important stuff you want on it from your hard disk. A rather useful program I use for checking if all files were copied or for finding duplicates is called Clonespy which is a very small program and runs direct from an .exe file and so requires no installation. I will demonstrate it’s use shortly.
·         Something else along the same lines can lead to many problems and I see people doing this all the time. Never use a memory stick or stiffy disk to open and save files from and to. Rather copy and save the file to hard disk first and then open the file in word or whatever before saving it back to where you opened it from. Then AFTER closing the program that you were working with eg. Word, use windows explorer to copy the file from hard disk back to the memory stick. This way ensures that you have a copy of the file on the hard disk if you lose your memory stick or if it goes bad. I’m not sure about the more recent versions of office but in the past if one wrote/saved a file direct to a stiffy disk/memory stick and then ejected that disk/stick before closing the program, then at a later time when trying to open the file, problems would arise and often the file could not be opened.
·         Most of probably know how to add a shortcut to a program on the desktop already but for those who don’t I am going to show you how.
·         In this age of saving carbon points we should be looking at cutting down on the amount of stuff we print. Most of the time we tend to print out something in order that we have a hard copy of it for our records. Now instead of making a paper copy it is often just as useful, if not more useful to have an electronic copy of the print such as a .pdf file. Like the rest of you I prefer to make use of things that are free than having to pay for it, particularly when it comes to software. The best one of these .pdf file creators I have come across is Primo pdf creator which I have put on a cd together with various other useful utility programs such as clonespy which I referred to earlier.
·         A lot of us now-a-days tend to leave our computers on all the time and just re-log on if required. Over a long period of time the pc slows down as it seems to get full of clutter which is not deleted/removed/cleaned out. You will find that a complete reboot can take ages whereas if one logs off and then logs back on, it is a lot quicker and yet still gives that speedier rebooted feeling.
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