A look at Windows Vista
There’s a lot of info all about Windows Vista on the internet, in the
PC magazines and in books (eg Windows Vista in Easy Steps), so
I won’t say much about it here.
From what I’ve read from various sources, it would seem to be a
good idea to wait until you need a replacement PC, if you’re
thinking of upgrading from XP to Vista.
I’d recommend you go for Window Vista Home Premium rather than
the Basic version, or if you do get the latter, get a PC which is
capable of hosting the Home Premium in case you wish to upgrade
to HP at a later date. I’ve read that a lot of PCs are sold as
“Vista friendly”, but which can only take the Basic version.
To see if your present computer (+ existing software + peripheral
equipment) is compatible with Windows Vista, have a look at the
Microsoft Program called Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor … you
can search Google for a link to this.
Vista’s “Welcome Centre” is packed with very useful info on
everything you need to get going with it, in video and text format.
I’ve found it more difficult to navigate around Vista compared with
XP. I demonstrated few ways about how to do this.
For example, I've found that the quickest way of accessing my
Pictures folder, is to hit the Start button to bring up the Start
Menu … you’ll see the Pictures button up on the right hand side.
All your most frequently used programs will be listed on the Start
menu.
A right mouse click on these > Send to > Desktop (create shortcut),
… will do just that … and will enable you to put more shortcuts
nto the Desktop … for Documents, Pictures, etc.
We had some Qs and As after my talk …
One member was having difficulty with his new laptop keyboard,
accessing the “numeric keypad”, which on a laptop are the tiny
numbers in the middle of the keyboard. To access these on my
laptop, you have to press down the Fn key (the Function key,
which is next to the Control key).
Some keyboards are set up for use in The USA or other countries …
to change the keyboard language settings …
click on the Start button > Help & Support > Manual & Specs
In the search box at the top of the menu, type in “change
language settings”, and then browse through the results.
For info on using your keyboard, search for this in Help & Support
as above.
Another question was about how to change the speed of a slide show
of your photos in Windows Vista.
To initiate the slide show, click on the centre button just underneath
the photo. Now with the slide show in progress, do a right mouse
click on the screen. This will bring up a menu which includes
the speed settings … slow, medium and fast, one of which you can
then select.
Our next Computer Club meeting will be on Thursday morning 24 July
at the ICC (10.15am start).
Christine Baxter will lead a Question and Answer session, to which
everyone is invited to attend … beginners are very welcome too.
If there is time at the end, I will give a very short presentation on
iGoogle (which enables you to fill in the huge white space on
the Google page with anything you fancy).
John Hollins
