WizGidget

Recently we purchased a new PC for spouse Ann.  Her old PC, a 10+ year old Dell, was just not doing the job anymore.  Unfortunately you can’t buy new PC’s anymore with Windows XP (WinXP).  The only choice besides Apple Mac is the newfangled Windows 7 (Win7).  We managed to bypass the Windows Vista debacle, and I’ve mostly heard positive things about Win7 from the windows-centric community, but it has its challenges that you should be aware of when you think about replacing your old computer.

The first thing I ran into is that our scanner (a Canon LIDE20) doesn’t work with the new PC.  This is common with new versions of Windows — the old device drivers don’t work.  I could get new drivers for the scanner for Win7 from Canon — if it were the 32-bit version but the new PC is running the 64-bit Win7 (to handle 4Gb memory), which Canon is not supporting for this scanner.  A similar scanner is $80 or so new, to replace our perfectly good old one.  Maybe Canon is balancing the expense of having to write new drivers with the extra sales of replacements for the unsupported ones.

The next thing was Adobe Acrobat Standard.  This is not the same thing as Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is freely available on the internet.  Acrobat Standard allows you to do some modifications to an existing PDF file, but mostly it provides a “PDF printer” so that we can print any file to a PDF, also we can graft PDF files together into one file.  This is not the kind of thing that we want to go spending hundreds of dollars on every time they upgrade when what we have is working quite nicely, so we’re still on version 6, when version 9 is current.  You guessed it: Acrobat version 6 doesn’t work on Win7.  A new copy of Acrobat is $300 — that and the cost of a new scanner just doubled the cost of the new PC!

We run a network in our home office, which includes other computers running WinXP and Windows server 2003.  Naturally, we do a fair amount of file sharing between the different computers.  Win7 introduced a new concept called a “HomeGroup”, which according to Microsoft “takes the headache out of sharing files and printers on a home network”.  They didn’t mention that doesn’t apply to a mix of Win7 and prior versions.  What I found is that Win7 and WinXP don’t play together out of the box. I had to go in and change the security settings on Win7 to make it play with the remaining WinXP PC’s, and even now it’s not as seamless as it was on WinXP.

Microsoft did include a new tool called “Windows Easy Transfer” that seemed to work fairly well for transferring all Ann’s data from the old computer to the new one.  Next week we’ll continue with a discussion of this tool.  Meantime check out this and other articles at www.wizgidget.com/articles.  You’ll find that the online version includes helpful links.

Last week I introduced the Quick Launch (QL) toolbar, with some usage for Windows XP.  We left off with adding icons to the QL toolbar.

When you have all the icons you want in the toolbar, you can rearrange them by simply drag-and-drop.  Left-click-and-hold on the icon you want to move and drag it to get the order of icons you want, then release.  It’s sometimes difficult or impossible to drop it on the end of the list, so choose your moves to always drop the icon between two other icons.  Sometimes it’s easiest to expand the toolbar within the taskbar (click-n-drag the dotted-lines border just to the right of the toolbar) before arranging the icons, then collapse it back to just a few icons showing when you’re satisfied.

Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom (I’ve neglected to include several colorful adjectives) have chosen to really bury QL in Windows 7.  Getting it back requires a bit of work.  It starts out similarly to turning it on for XP and prior: right-click in the taskbar and pick Toolbars.  This time, though, you’re going to have to pick “New Toolbar” instead because Quick Launch is no longer one of the choices.  You will get a “New Toolbar: Choose a Folder” window that looks a bit like a Windows Explorer window (the one you can use to navigate folders and files on your computer).  There will be an input box labeled “Folder” at the bottom of this window, just above the “Select Folder” and “Cancel” buttons.  Type in (without the quotes) “%userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch”, then click the “Select Folder” button.  Voila! You now have QL on your taskbar.

“But,” you say, “it’s on the right end of the taskbar, away from where I normally go to start programs, and it doesn’t show any of the icons!”  Have I mentioned the term “arcane” in conjunction with Microsoft?  First you have to unlock the taskbar by right-click in empty space on the task bar, then click the checked “Lock the Taskbar” selection, which should remove the checkmark.  When you’ve done this, a bar of dotted lines miraculously appears just to the left of the Quick Launch label on the taskbar, which forms the border for the QL toolbar.  You should now be able to left-click on the dotted line border, and drag QL to the left end of the taskbar next to the start button, like the default for XP and prior.  While you’re at it, you can right-click on the same dotted-lines border to get a dialog window that will allow you to turn off the annoyingly useless label for the toolbar and make the icons smaller. Just click to uncheck the “Show Text” and “Show Title” selections, then click to drop down the View menu and select “Small Icons”. Voila!  It’s now kinda sorta like XP, and somewhat more ergonomic.

Check www.wizgidget.com for online copies of WizGidget articles – this article in particular contains pretty pictures that make it easier to understand.

One of my favorite tools for Windows is the Quick Launch (QL) toolbar.  The QL toolbar fits in the windows taskbar which is the bar that has the start menu button and buttons for windows that are running.  QL provides an easy means of starting applications that you use frequently.  It shows a few  icons normally, and get to the rest via a double-arrow (>>) icon, which will pop up the remaining list of QL icons. Many people put icons on their desktop for commonly used applications, but then if you have a window open (always a yes for me), you must “do something” to access the icons — either close or minimize the window(s).  QL allows me to access applications with one or two clicks maximum, without having to close or minimize any existing windows.   It’s very handy!

Quick Launch was introduced (according to Wikipedia.org) in Windows 98 as a feature of Internet Exploiter Explorer version 4.  This morsel of history explains, by the way, the arcane location for the contents of the QL: for Windows XP users the shortcuts are in a folder like “C:\Documents and Settings\paul\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch” as compared to “C:\Documents and Settings\paul\Start Menu” for  the start menu.  Who but Microsoft would make QL an Internet Exploder Explorer thing rather than a Windows thing.  Would you like strawberries to go with that new tire, madam?

Quick Launch is turned off by default in Windows XP but it’s easy to turn on.  Simply right-click (click with the right mouse button) somewhere in clear space on task bar (try the area just to the right of the Start button), then from the dialog window that pops up, pick Toolbars, then click Quick Launch.  If there’s no “Toolbars” selection in the popup window, you probably clicked in the wrong place: try again.

Once you have QL showing in the task bar, you can add icons and change the width of the QL toolbar within the taskbar. There’s a couple ways to add icons to QL.  The easiest is to drag an icon from the desktop into the toolbar — just left-click one of those icons you’ve been using on the desktop and drag it into the QL toolbar.  As you are dragging the icon, you should see an image of the icon going with the mouse pointer.  When your pointer is over the toolbar, you may see a black vertical bar under the mouse pointer between existing QL toolbar icons: that’s where the new icon will go. The original icon stays on the desktop.

You can also add icons by opening the QL folder and dragging the icons into the folder.  Right-click between the rightmost QL icon and the double arrow “>>”, you should get a menu that includes “Open Folder”.  Click “Open Folder” to get a Windows Explorer window that you can simply copy or drag icons into.  When you’re done, close the window.

Next week: more QL tips, and QL for Windows 7.  Check www.WizGidget.com for online copies of WizGidget articles.

I thought I’d start off with one of my poems this week.  The youth at church will roll their eyes when they see this because they’ve heard it more than once — which is too many for them.

I don’t believe in SHOULD.
Should is such a pain!
For SHOULD implies
there’s just one choice
it goes against the grain.

I DO believe in COULD.
Could is right as rain!
For COULD implies
the choice is mine
to seek the highest gain.

The message here is that as we begin to grow spiritually, we begin to understand that life isn’t black and white, and often the loving thing to do — the action that brings the “highest good” is not cut-and-dried and takes a lot of effort to discern.  Sometimes we make good choices, and sometimes not so much, but as Earnest Holmes said: if you just stick to it, one day instead of hoping and praying… you’ll know.

This applies to computers as well.  One of the things I enjoy about working with computers is that, as the saying goes, “there’s more than one way to skin a cat”.  There’s lots of different ways to do things.  One way isn’t necessarily better than the other.  Some methods may work well for me, but not so well for you.  This can be based on differences in skill levels, but it also may be the result of our “bent” or in Christian lingo, our “gifts”.  If you only know how to do something one way, you may not realize there are ways that might work better for you.  So it’s a good idea to be open to new ways of doing things and try them out.. more than once to get past initial awkwardness.

An example would be how you arrange the windows on your computer screen.  Many people I’ve worked with tend to expand the window they’re working with so that it fills the screen.  I suppose that helps some people focus.  It drives me nuts.. and I don’t have far to go!  Having worked with computers for 35 years, I’ve learned to keep several windows open and showing on the screen at once.  There’s several reasons this works for me.  I can get something started in one window, and then go on to something else rather than waiting for that to finish, like the saucers spinning on sticks trick from the Ed Sullivan show.  Another is that I have some windows that I “keep an eye on”, like the task manager window so I can watch the memory usage.  Lastly, I often refer back and forth between several windows, especially if I’m doing any programming.  I’ll use one window to edit the program, and another to test it, and another where I have some example programming code to use as reference.

I’ll show some other examples of different ways to do things in a future article.  Meantime, you can see this one at www.wizgidget.com/articles

A popular internet thing these days is a “weblog”, or “Blog” for short.   Basically a Blog is an online journal, on whatever topic suits the person doing the “Blogging”. You can find blogs on just about any topic.

Spouse Ann does a daily Blog relative to her business of helping people overcome emotional barriers using “Meridian Tapping” (accupressure) techniques.  Ann’s Blog covers ponderings on the Law of Attraction,  Abundance mindset and spiritual growth. I really enjoy reading her Blog (besides being her proofing editor and a Very Proud Husband), so I want to make sure I read every one.  I could just go to her website (naturallyresilient.com) every day to read her blog, but I’d rather have her blogs delivered to me daily when they come out so I don’t miss any.

It turns out there’s a couple tools that, coupled together, can accomplish this.  The first is something called an “RSS feed”.  RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication”.  RSS is basically a means of making known that an update is available.  Ann’s Blog, as well as WizGidget.com, have an RSS feed — look for the icon or an “rss” link, most blogs have one.

Next we need a tool to check for and download new articles.  I found a convenient (and free!) tool for downloading the feeds into Outlook Express or Outlook, just as if it were an email newsletter.  This tool is “RSSPopper”, you can download it from http://www.paradisoft.com/rsspopper/rsspopper.asp and install it on your PC.  Once installed, it creates a new toolbar in Outlook Express.

The first thing you’ll want to do is edit the list of feeds, because they preload it with a bunch of example feeds you probably don’t want.  Click the “Edit Feeds” in the new toolbar, then select the unwanted feeds and click “Disable” — or “Delete” to permanently delete them.  Next, we’ll use Ann’s Blog as an example for setting up a new feed.  Click the “New” button, and pick “RSS/Atom Feed”.  You’ll get a “Feed Information” window.  Put “http://naturallyresilient.com/blog/?feed=rss2″ (without the quotes) into the “Link” field.  RSSPopper will check that the link is valid and automagically fill in the “Title” field with “NaturallyResilient”.  Put  “3600″ in the Refresh Interval field to check for posts every hour (3600 seconds) and click OK. RSSPopper will create a new folder “RSS”, with another folder “NaturallyResilient” underneath where the new articles will go.

Personally, I want the feeds to go into my Inbox instead of an obscure subfolder.  Fortunately, as the saying goes, “There’s an App for that”. Click the “Settings” item in the RSSPopper toolbar.  You’ll get an “Options” window with a “Default Folder” setting.  Click the Browse button next to the “Default Folder” field, and in the “Pick Folder” window that opens, click the “Inbox” folder, then click “OK”.  Uncheck the “Add feed title” box then click “OK” again in the “Options” window.  You’ll get a dialog window about moving existing feeds, click Yes.  Your RSS feed should now go into your inbox along with your other email.  Enjoy!