Whenever you delete a file it will be sent to the Recycle Bin so that it can be restored if you change you mind (unless the file is too large for the recycle bin).Sometimes, however, you may want to bypass the Recycle Bin and delete a file completely(ish), to do this highlight the files you wish to delete, hold down the Shift key and press Delete. As with a normal deletion you will be asked to confirm the action.These files can still be restored by using appropriate software, as I have explained in a previous post, unless the drive they were deleted...
Wednesday, 30 January 2008
Monday, 28 January 2008
In a new regular feature I will try to translate a few technical terms into plain English. In the first post I will look at some terms about software that you may have seen.FreewareSoftware that the authors retain the copyright for, which is free to use for an unlimited period. The term has come to refer to any free software, such as public domain and open source.SharewareSoftware that can be used for free for a limited period, after which the user will have to pay to continue using it.Public DomainAny software that is free to use, which the authors...
Sunday, 27 January 2008
I have decided to start a blog carnival to provide a monthly digest of the best blog articles that offer computer help and advice, preferably those that are written in novice-friendly language.This carnival will be published on the 27th of each month.The submission deadline for new articles is the 20th of each month.Like all blog carnivals, this is a community effort. If you wish to host a carnival you can leave a comment on this article or click here, and if you wish to submit an article for inclusion please click here. The carnival's website...
Friday, 25 January 2008
We have to install many programs to open the variety of files we are sent or download off the Internet, and we have to install more programs to keep in touch with people on the Internet.These programs are often quite large and the install files can take a while to load, even on broadband connections. Thankfully there are some free lightweight alternatives to these bloated applications.Foxit Reader is a fully featured PDF (Portable Document Format)...
Tuesday, 22 January 2008
When you are using Windows Explorer - the file management program that opens when you double-click on 'My Computer' and the like - you can move to the parent folder by clicking the back-space key.By 'parent folder' I mean the folder that contains the one you are looking at. In the following image we see that the 'parent folder' of Adobe is Program Files.Another way to achieve the same thing is to press the F4 key followed by the up arrow, and then...
Monday, 21 January 2008
The GIMPThis is a fully featured image editor with an interesting name - it stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program (apparently). This is an incredibly powerful application with features that rivals professional software like Photoshop. Whilst this software was originally developed for a Linux environment there is a Windows version available; however, in my experience it does not work well on Windows. Nevertheless many people do use it on Windows...
Saturday, 19 January 2008
Here is the scenario, you have copied some text from somewhere and pasted it into Word; however, the text ends up looking something like this.To see the cause of this problem, press the 'Show/Hide ¶' button. As shown, the original text has carriage returns - as indicated by the '¶' marks - at the end of the original lines. When this text was pasted into word the lines were no longer the same length, so, the carriage returns were in the wrong place.The...
Friday, 18 January 2008
This is the first guest article here at Bloody Computer! It was written by James Ricketts from Instant Registry Fixes. I hope you enjoy it and find it useful. K Windows errors can occur at any time due to several reasons. Most of the time, these errors leave us helpless and may even cause us to lose important data and spend large amounts of money on expensive computer repairs. We end up going through a lot of trouble, when in fact, there are some very simple steps that can easily help prevent these problems from happening in the first place. The...
Wednesday, 16 January 2008
After recently writing about context menus and the 'Applications' key, I remembered that you can eject your CD or DVD drive tray using Windows, rather than having to press that little button, which - for some reason - the drive manufacturers put beneath the tray. So if you have to reach down to your PC, you have to whip your finger out of the way so as not to impede the opening tray. To eject the drive right-click on its icon in My Computer and click...
Monday, 14 January 2008
Continuation from part 1Networking TabThe 'Networking' tab provides a visual representation of the amount of data that your network connections are transmitting and receiving over time. Note that the percentages quoted are of the maximum possible capacity under ideal circumstances, and do not take other factors into consideration, such as the amount of Internet bandwidth that is available on your connection. Users TabThe final tab may not be available...
Sunday, 13 January 2008
Starting the Task ManagerThere are a couple of ways to show the Windows Task Manager: hold down the Ctrl and Alt keys and press the Delete key - Task Manager will then open some versions of Windows, in others you will be presented with a small dialog box that has a button you can click to open the Task Manager; alternatively you can right-click on empty space on the Taskbar and select Task Manager from the menu.Applications TabThe first page on the...
Saturday, 12 January 2008
The 'Application' KeyMost Windows compliant keyboards have a rarely used key between the Windows Key and the Ctrl key to the right of the space bar. This key can be used to bring up what is called a context menu for whatever is selected at the time. Context menu is the name for the menu that pops up when you click the right mouse button.For example if you press the key when you have Word open, you will see the following.Or if you have a drive icon...
Monday, 7 January 2008
After a period of disruption in my life I am hoping to be able to post regularly to Bloody Computer! again. I am going to start with a review of posts from 2007.Top 3 Most Read Posts1. Where has all my hard-drive space gone? (30th August): 51 views2. The mystery of the disappearing Taskbar. (10th December): 47 views3. Keyboard shortcut of the week: control your selections (8th December): 30 viewsData from the excellent Google AnalyticsTop 3 Most Commented on Posts1. "Bloody Computer!" Author Wins Award (27th October): 6 comments2. From screen to...
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