Have your computer questions answered here! Search the PC Doctor archive or submit a question of your own at info@athollibrary.org
Dear PC Doctor,
My mother likes to send out email to her friends and me every so often. Thing is, she likes to use the Caps lock because she think it's easier to type her emails that way. I told her that it makes her seem like she's yelling so she shouldn't do it. She's still doing it though, so is there a way I could turn her caps lock off forever?
Jeremy
Dear Jeremy,
I have a couple ideas to help your mom out. First, it's possible that she doesn't realize that she has caps lock turned on and doesn't realize it until after she's started typing. Since she might not want to rewrite her email without caps lock, she might need a reminder that Caps lock has been turned on. This particular setting is found under the Accessibility Options in the Control Panel. When enabled, your computer will play a beep every time the Caps Lock button is hit. Access the computer's Control Panel, which is found on the menu that pops up, after clicking the Start button or orb. From the computer's Control Panel open the Accessibility Options, the icon should be a wheelchair symbol. In the resulting pop up, check the box next to: "Use Toggle Keys," click OK. Now every time you hit that Caps Key, you'll get a beep letting you know that Caps lock is turned on.
If this doesn't help her remember, the next option is pretty drastic. Take your favorite flat-head screwdriver and pry the Caps lock key off her keyboard! Keyboard keys are made to be removed, so don't worry about breaking anything. Once the key is removed, she won't be able to accidentally hit the Caps lock button! Something tells me she might not like this option though!
PC Doctor
Dear PC Doctor,
I've been printing a lot of things off the internet lately for my husband to read since he doesn't like to use the computer. When I go to print news articles and pictures though, I usually end up printing out much more than I actually want since there's so much more on the web page besides the article or picture. Is there an easy way get around this? I've started copying and pasting the text into Word documents to print out and that works pretty well.
Sandy
Dear Sandy,
Aha, the dilemma of printing things off the internet! The internet isn't very streamlined when it is translated to non-internet materials like paper. First off, most news websites have a print option for the news articles. It's so much easier than copying and pasting the text from the web into a Microsoft Word document and it wastes much less paper than just printing a copy of the website along with the article. Most often, the button is at the top or bottom of the article.
Printing a picture is almost as easy. Usually the image you want will be on a website filled with other content you don't need. Right click the picture with your mouse cursor, and select “View Image” Tada! You'll get a blank page with only the image visible! Print using your browser and you're ready to go.
PC Doctor
Until next time... happy computing!
Posted: to Athol Library News on Wed, Jun 15, 2011
Updated: Wed, Jun 15, 2011