Summary | Explore your desktop with the mouse and
Control Panel. What kind of computer do you have? What's on your desktop? How
can you set up Windows so that it starts to work for you?
What is it?
You interact with the operating system through a CLI (command
line interface for Unix and Linux) or a GUI (graphical user interface
for Windows and Macintosh). While you have to type everything for a CLI, you can
point and click for most things you want to do with Windows.
Also known as a WIMP (for windows, icons, menus, and pointers),
the GUI also includes buttons, scroll bars, task bars, and wizards. The whole
thing adds up to the computer's look-and-feel. Microsoft has a small army
of programmers fussing with Windows' look-and-feel. The options can be
bewildering.
Tip | There are almost always two and often three or
more ways to do the same thing in Windows.
Tip | The terms directory and folder
are used interchangeably by most people.
Abuser
Interface
by David Weinberger
Darwin Online, August 10, 2001
Perhaps the hardest conceptual lesson to get if you weren't
brought up with computers: the digital world ... is abstracted not only from the
natural world but also from the digital world. A user interface is a purely
invented layer under which there may be guts that have as little to do with the
UI as a desktop has to do with a file directory. Menus aren't things that exist
in the world or even represent something that exists in the computer. It's all
100 percent artificial.
That freedom from the literal is tough to get, but until you get it, you won't
be able to work your computer.
Skills
exploring your desktop
setting
up Windows
tools
Desktop, Control Panel
What do you have?
Someone's sure to ask.
"Hey, I got a new laptop!"
"Yeah, whaddaya have?"
In the lower left corner of your screen, go to Start | Control
Panel | System. You may have to switch the Control Panel to "classic"
view before you select System. You can also display it with Windows +Break on
your keyboard.
That's a screen shot of mine on the right. It has the look and
feel that came with the laptop before I did any customizing
and personalizing. Yours may well look different, but it should have the
same tabs showing the same info.
The General tab is branded with the logos of Microsoft and
Toshiba, the OEM (original equipment manufacturer). The parts are all made by
only a couple of companies. Then the OEM assembles and markets the PC. The
General tab will tell you about your flavor of Windows and your processor as
well as the amount of RAM on the machine. You want as much RAM as possible.
Here's the short answer to the "Whaddaya have?" question above:
"I have a Toshiba Satellite running Windows XP
Professional on a 1 megaHertz Celeron processor with 240 megabytes of RAM."
The Computer Name tab will show you the name the school's
IS&T department gave it. Feel free to change yours.
The Hardware tab's Device Manager panel will tell you about
everything that is part of or connected to your computer. Expand the menu by
clicking on the + signs. Right-click on each device and select Properties to
learn more.
You don't need to worry about Hardware Profiles unless you're
using this machine to move from one physical location to another in a local
network with many peripherals. This may soon define your house, but that's a
story for another day.
The Advanced tab's Performance panel's Settings option will
bring up the Performance Options window. The Visual Effects tab gives you some
customizing options. Feel free to experiment.
Learn more about the Control
Panel.
What's on your desktop?
Extending the metaphor, the desktop keeps close at hand the
documents and tools that you use often. They're in the large open area. You can
leave it almost empty or you can fill it with whatever you're working on.
All the visual icons and the words under them can be changed.
Most of the icons that came on your desktop when you first
turned on the laptop are shortcuts to software by Toshiba or one of its
marketing partners who have paid dearly to get their icon on the Toshiba
desktop. You can drag all those icons to the Recycle Bin or a special folder you
make on your desktop. Then if you need anything later, you can pull it back out.
Right-clicking
In
general, right-clicking will offer you options you may not have known you had.
For example, right-clicking on an open area of your desktop will
give you some useful options, especially New | Folder and Arrange Icons By.
Start Menu
Right-click on it and select Properties. You can customize the
appearance of the Start Menu as well as the taskbar. When you customize the
Start Menu, don't miss the Advanced tab, shown in the screen shot on the
right. Learn more about customizing your Start
Menu.
Taskbar
The taskbar is the
half-inch high strip, probably at the bottom. The
taskbar has the Start button on the left and the system tray on the right. To
move the taskbar, put the pointer on an open area, hold it down, and move
it or drag it to the right edge of your screen. Then Start is on top and the
system tray on the bottom. Between are, perhaps, other taskbars. You can also
move it to the top of your screen.
Right-click in the open area to see the list of five
toolbars and the option to make your own. For example, you can fill the Quick
Launch toolbar with one-click shortcuts to often-used programs and documents. In
the far right end is the system tray. It contains, if you want,
the time and date as well as icons to programs that are set to open with
Windows. They take up RAM. If your computer runs sluggishly, getting rid of some
of the programs in the system tray is a quick fix. (Start | Run, type msconfig,
click OK, choose Startup, uncheck what you don't want.)
You can move the taskbar to any of the four edges of your
screen. You can also make it wider. Grab the top of the taskbar and drag down to
make it disappear or up to make it fill half the screen.
You can detach some of the toolbars and let them float on the
desktop. Right-click on everything and check out some of the options. If you see
one named Properties, try it. It often opens a new set of options. To drag it to
the right edge, hold down the left mouse button on an open blue area of the
taskbar and drag up and over to the right edge of the screen.
While icons can be hard to get rid of, you can rename all of
them as well as replace the icons with an image you like better.
Learn more about personalizing
your PC.
Set up Windows
Start
| Control Panel | Add / Remove Programs | Add/Remove Windows Components Wizard
You have a large array of optional components, not all viewable
here. Also, your color scheme may be different.
The Description area will describe the component. None of these
components is doing any harm. If you're pressed for disk space, get rid of
everything you don't need. The MB tells you how many megabytes of space they
take.
Click Details... for a further breakdown of the component's
parts, which also come with a description. Some include a further level of
detail.
The components that you definitely need, I will mention below.
Everything else is up to you. If you aren't sure, go to the Bistro and ask your classmates
what they're doing.
Accessibility
We will discuss some of these options and tools in MBA 604.
Meanwhile, it's worth learning more about them before you get rid of them.
Accessories
On the left is what you'll see when you click
Details for Accessories.
The Description area will again describe the component. Click
Details... for a further breakdown of the component's parts, which also come
with a description. Some include a further level of detail.
Desktop Wallpaper and Mouse Pointers can be interesting at
first, but after you outgrow them, you can remove them here.
The Games are the standard FreeCell, Hearts, and Solitaire and
many others. If you're into that sort of stuff, you can find more elaborate and
interesting ones online.
You will note a lot of options that support networking and using
your laptop as a server.
Paint
Start | Programs | Accessories | Paint
If that shortcut isn't there, the program is at:
C:\Windows\system32\mspaint.exe
How to take screen shots like the ones on this page.
step 1: Have visible on your screen what you want to take a
shot of.
step 2: Press the Print Scrn key on your keyboard.
step 3: Open Paint as above.
step 4: Press CTRL-V or pull down the Edit menu and select Paste.
You will get the whole monitor screen in
bitmap form. You may well want to crop and save in a compressed file format such
as .gif or .jpg.
Calculator
Start | Programs | Accessories | Calculator
That's the Scientific view on the right. You can pull down the
View menu and select Standard. That will halve the size and let you more easily
keep it on the screen with other programs.
FunCalculator.com
Next: Getting started with Windows XP
Getting Started with
