Computer Help for Seniors

Upgrade vs. Update Upgrades (optional) usually cost money Updates (recommended) free and repair known issues with common software like the Operating System, Flash, Acrobat, Java. ***Carefully read what is happening to avoid installing Affiliate/Partner software which you may not need***   Backup -   Best Practices 1)    Get an external Hard Drive with One Button Back 2)    Sign up with an online backup service like Carbonite, Mozy   New Kindle Devices release 9/11/12 Illuminated LCD Kindle Fire HD, with 8.9" screen. 2 options. Wifi Only OR 3G for $50/year Whitepaper Kindle eReader 2 options. Wifi Only OR 3G ***recommend WiFi only unless you plan to be away for extended periods of time or want to use your device in the middle of the park   Stop repetitive emails from Companies by unsubscribing or opting-out **Scroll to the bottom of the email and look for a link to unsubscribe or opt-out to stop receiving emails from the company**       Jason

M acintosh 8-28-12 Add a NEW contact (manually) to my address book 1)    open the address book icon (brown with @) 2)    Click on the + below the name column 3)    a new contact form appears on the right 4)    fill out each of the fields (especially Last Name and First Name, keep them in their individual fields) -to add a field click on the green + -to remove a field click on the red – 5)    click “edit” on the bottom to keep the entry   Add a NEW contact from an existing email into the address book 1)    click on the white arrow to the right of the person’s name you want to add to the address book 2)    choose “add to address book”   Remove a email that automatically appears in the to of Macintosh Mail 1)    In Macintosh Mail, go to “window” 2)    choose “previous recipients” 3)    find the address you want to remove 4)    click on it and click “remove from list”

Macintosh 8-28-12 I lost my iPhoto or other icon from the Dock   1)    locate the original icon usually in “applications” 2)    to open applications, click on the background leaves, click “go” above and choose “applications” 3)    locate the missing icon 4)    click hold and drag the icon onto the position on the dock, the current icons will make space 5)    release your mouse to drop the icon onto the dock   Individually, run spell check on red underlined words   1)    hold the control button on the keyboard 2)    click on the red underlined word 3)    a list appears with choices, choose the best choice or add the word to the dictionary

Macintosh 8-28-12   Add Photos sent as attachments to iPhoto to be stored 1) locate the email with the photo attachments 2) click and hold the gray arrow beside “Save” under the header of the email 3) choose “save to iphoto” 4) iPhoto will begin to jump around 5) click iPhoto to see your photos

Do it yourself – Send it out to a service that does it for you   *Photographs (Prints) & Film (VHS, 8mm) – Search Google for Online Services Send it Out to be Digitized: Saves time if you have tons of them Many services include color correction and image touch up Picasa – Free Photo Management has Face Recognition *Photographs (Slides/Negatives) Send it out to be digitized: Equipment is expensive *Music (Record Albums) Send it out to be digitized: Additional equipment is needed *Music (CD) Do it yourself: Use iTunes (free download) Open iTunes ->Insert the CD->choose import->wait for the songs to be copied (change or label the info for the songs, select all the tracks -> go to file ->choose get info -> add or change the Album Name or Artist in the Info tab) Digitizing Documents into a PDF Do it yourself: Multifunction Scanner/Print is okay for occasional scanning Better-Standalone scanner with straight paper path Scanne

Software to "possibly" improve the performance of your computer (note you can also search for each product in Google so you don't need to type in the exact website address) Ccleaner - www.piriform.com/ CCLEANER Smart Defrag - http://www.iobit.com/iobitsmartdefrag.html Malware Bytes - http://www.malwarebytes.org/ **Be careful when installing, don't install the partner/affiliate software, by removing checkmarks or skipping** If after you install the software you can always remove it by going to the control panel, add/remove or uninstall program. Steps to complete the cleaning- 1) Download the program (free version) 2) Install choose the free versions, and skip partner software 3) Open and Run the program 4) The program will scan your computer 5) Choose to clean up the problems the scan found or not 6) Close the program and if you choose you may uninstall it and start at step one again the next time you want to run the software USB solut

My Email Messages get lost when I am typing out a message Best way is to type the body of the message into a word processing document 1.   open your word processing program (appleworks, text edit, word) 2.   type out your message 3.   Go to the edit menu 4.   Then choose select all 5.   Go to edit menu 6.   Choose copy 7.   Open your email program 8.   Create a new message 9.   Type in the to: and the subject 10.                Click where the body of the email goes 11.                Go to the edit menu 12.                Choose edit paste 13.                The text will appear 14.                Edit if needed and then send   Sending Text Documents in a universal format that everyone can read Save the file as a Rich Text Format .rtf or Text Format .txt, also very common is the Microsoft Word Format .doc 1.   go to file 2.   choose save as 3.   for save as type choose one of the formats listed above (.rtf, .txt, .doc) 4.   save the fil