Barnard Residential Computing: Tutorials: Tips, Tricks, and Fun

Tips, Tricks, and Fun Stuff Tutorial

Who doesn't waste endless amounts of time downloading ringtones? And I'm sure we've all played a game or two on our cellphones. We've become experts at text-messaging, programming ringers, downloading wallpapers and screensavers, inputting contact info., and gaming. In turn, we have all grown to love our cellphones. How about if you could have that same great relationship with your computer?! Computers have gotten a bad reputation because they're so 'hard to use". But really, with a little bit of guidance, they're no more difficult than a camera phone or an iPod. So, without further ado, let me share with you my wealth of tips, tricks, and fun stuff!

Media Players

Everyone has a (legal, I hope!) music and movie library. In order to listen to/watch them, one has to have a media player. So, let's talk about those.

Windows Media Player

Windows Media Player (WMP) is a free download which you can find at www.microsoft.com
If you have Windows XP, chances are, your computer actually came with WMP
The latest version, WMP 11, is VERY cool (if you don't have it, don't worry. You can upgrade for free from their website)
This player supports both audio (mp3, wma, etc.) and video (mpeg, avi, wmv, etc.)
WMP comes with several visualizations that you can display while playing a song to make it a bit more interesting, and you can download additional visualizations from the Microsoft website.
WMP also comes with skins, or you can download more from Microsoft
What is a skin? A skin is different format of the actual player. For example, this is a heart skin for WMP:
You can purchase music from the Microsoft online music store for $0.99 for almost any song
If you are bored with your music collection, you can stream music from the MSN radio stations, or you watch streaming video of news, sports, or entertainment.
You can easily use WMP to burn music CDs, which is very handy.
Overall, a very nice, all inclusive media player fro Windows users.

iTunes

iTunes is a free download that you can find at www.apple.com, or if you have an iPod, it is on the CD it came with, and is the only way to put music on your iPod
iTunes is compatible with both PC s and Mac s, and plays both video and music files.
iTunes does NOT play wma files. However, it will automatically convert your wma files to aac format so that you can listen to them through iTunes
The latest version, 7, is also very cool! It has new features such as movie rentals and ringtones.
iTunes also comes with a lot visualizations that respond to the music you are playing and make a pretty cool visual addition to your favorite songs.
Although iTunes does not have any skins, it does have a Mini Player option which makes iTunes really small so you can keep it on top of other programs without disturbing your viewing space
You can purchase music through iTunes from the Apple music store for $0.99 for almost any song, or you can purchase entire albums for much cheaper than a CD
Like WMP, you can also listen to streaming music from one of several online radio stations
With iTunes Party Shuffle feature, the player will play continuously a random sampling from your music library
If you are on a network (which you are as soon as you connect to the internet at Barnard) you can even see and listen to other people s music libraries who are also online and using iTunes! No, you can t download their music but you can listen to it on your computer as long as they are online and sharing their library
Just like WMP, iTunes makes burning audio CD s a breeze
To sum it up, a very easy to use and versatile player

Of course, these are not the only media players out there. There are a whole bunch: way too many to go through in this short packet. However, these are some of the most popular, and they are free. These should be sufficient for about 99% of your music and video needs. Sometimes, if you want to watch a DVD on your computer, it will require a specific player. Sometimes, the player will be included on the DVD. However, if not, it will always tell you what it s called so you can download it and install it from the internet.

Quick Video Tip:Sometimes, you ll have a video file, you ll try to play it in WMP, and it won t play because it s missing a codec . This codec is just a piece of info. your computer needs to understand exactly how to play the movie (similar to drivers that help Windows understand how to use a piece of hardware). Sometimes, Windows is able to find the codec automatically. If not, you can download it. A good website to find these codec s is www.codec-download.com.

Google Tools

Google is the search engine we ve all come to know and love. It s fast, it s easy, and it has hall kinds of cool services, like image searching, and local business searching, and all that jazz. But, did you know they also offer a whole bunch of nifty tools? Of course, we can t talk about all of them in this short space, but I d like to highlight two of what I think are the coolest and most useful tools.

Google Desktop Organizer

This is a free download that you can get to by going to www.google.com and then clicking on more.
We all know the Windows search is absolutely horrible, it s really slow, and it never finds what you re looking for. The Google desktop search searches your harddrive as fast as it searches the internet. And it works.
It will search in all kinds of files (word doc. s, music files, pictures, etc.), emails that are saved on your computer, web history (websites you ve been to recently), and it will even temporarily save your online chats (like AIM conversations) and search those too.
Here s an example of what Google desktop search found when I searched for the word computer on my laptop:
As you can see, the search only took 0.2 seconds.
The only downside to this search is that it doesn t search for programs. So, if you install a program and forgot where you saved it, this won t help you. But for everything else, this is clearly a better bet than the built in Windows feature.

Picasa Photo Organizer

Picasa is a photo album program that you can download for free in the same place that you can find the Google desktop search
You can organize, edit and view your pictures in this program
Picasa offers cool features like backing up your pictures to a CD, making a gift slideshow CD, creating collages, and even ordering prints over the internet
With Picasa s built in editing features, like red-eye erasure, color enhancement, (and the list goes on and on), you can make not so great pictures look pretty darn good
By using collections, folders, and labels, it s incredibly easy to organize your pictures
Basically, it is a totally cool and easy and free way to organize your pictures and waste enormous amounts of time when you don t want to do your homework

Desktop Add-On s

Every time you look at your computer, you see your desktop. Obviously, you want it to be fun, not too boring, and resemble you. With these nifty little add-on s, you can customize your desktop to your hearts content.

Wallpaper

Both Windows and Mac based computers come with a whole bunch of built-in wallpapers for your desktop
On PCs, set the desktop by right-clicking on the desktop, going to properties, and then clicking on the desktop tab. You can pick which one you want from the list that pops up.
On Mac s, go to System Preferences, and under Personal, select Desktop and Screensaver. You can pick your wallpaper from there.
On PC s, if you see a picture you like on the internet or somewhere else on your computer, you can also right-click on it and select set as wallpaper
Of course, if you want to save these pictures for future use, you can right-click them and select save-as. If you d like them to show up in the wallpaper list in your Display properties, you can save them in the wallpaper folder. To get there, go to My Computer. Then double-click on your harddrive (the C:\ drive), then Windows, then the Web folder, then the Wallpaper folder.
There are also some website that are dedicated to providing cool wallpapers. A very cute, girlie sort of website for that is www.mcdeb.com. The desktop wallpapers are extremely cute, and every month there is a new calendar wallpaper which is pretty convenient

Dock for Windows

For Windows users who are totally obsessed with the coolness of the Dock in Mac OS X, there is hope.
There are a lot of freeware programs out there that are pretty similar to the Mac dock. My personal favorite is the Mobydock (you can get it at www.download.com) because it can give you email alerts, show you the weather, and is very customizable

Good Websites

There is a whole bunch of safe, free stuff out there that isn t exactly advertised. I m here to tell you about just a few of those things. Hopefully, this ll get you interested enough to do some more research!

www.mgshareware.com

This website offers a whole bunch of free programs
FreeRIP is a program that allows you to rip music from a CD onto your computer
FreeNote is like Post-Its for your desktop. Very cool, and helps keep you organized.

www.helpwithpcs.com

This is an incredibly awesome website
It has a whole tips and tricks section for Windows programs and for keyboard shortcuts, so that when you just really don t feel like using that really annoying touchpad, you don t have to!

XP Powertoys

For those of you using Windows XP, this will probably be the most exciting section for you. XP Powertoys are little extra programs that Microsoft developers write for fun. And they re free. Some are fun, some are helpful, and some are just very cool. You can find these Powertoys at www.microsoft.com. Let s explore.

Alt-tab replacement

For those who don t know, if you hold down the Alt key and press the tab key repeatedly, you can scroll through all the windows you have open
The built-in Windows feature just shows you an icon of the window. But with the Alt-Tab Replacement, you can see a screenshot of the window. This way, if you have more than one Word document open, you can actually tell which document you re choosing
Here s an example of what it looks like after you ve installed the powertoy:
Now, you can see a screenshot of the very document being written! Haha.

Tweak UI

Just so you know, UI stands for user interface, which is basically what you see when you use Windows
Anyway, Tweak UI enables you to access part of Windows that Microsoft doesn t make all that accessible
For example, you can turn off those wildly annoying bubbles that pop up from the System Tray (bottom right of your screen on the taskbar)
It also gives you a new tip about Windows XP and some of its hidden capabilities every time you open the program. It s a fun way to learn about your operating system and customize your computer

Power calculator

For any of you who are math majors, or just enjoy calculating stuff, this power calculator could be very helpful
You can make graphs, do conversions, and evaluate functions. Calc students, take notice.

Image resizer

With this powertoy, you get an extra option when you right-click on any picture on your computer; resize!
You get preset options of sizes that you can chose from, our you can specify your own size
You can also save the picture, or save it as a new picture that you also have the original size saved

Wallpaper changer

This powertoy is definitely the most fun
It is not listed with the rest of the powertoys, so the best way to find is to go to www.microsoft.com and just search for it. It should be the first result.
This powertoy will help you manage those wallpapers we talked about earlier.
You can set it to change your wallpaper every 30 minutes, or however often you d like it to change, set so that on certain dates, it will display a specific wallpaper, and other kinds of options
In order for the wallpapers to show up in this toy, they must be put into the folder I told you about earlier (the Wallpaper folder)
This really helps keep your desktop exciting and it confuses people, too, which is pretty funny

Games

For all of you out there who like to play computer games in your spare time, you should be made aware of these two website. They both offer an incredible number of games, and all different kinds of games. There is no way you can get bored with these two.

www.addictinggames.com

www.candystand.com

Dangerous Stuff That Looks Cool

Some things look like they d be really great add-ons for your computer. But be warned; some things can be really dangerous. My suggestion would be to research things before downloading them. You can Google them and see if anyone has written any reviews/opinions about the thing you re interested in. www.cnet.com is a trusted website that releases a lot of reviews about all kinds of products. You may want to check that out too. Here are some ones to look out for.

Weatherbug

Certainly, having the weather on your desktop is convenient. But this is not the way to do it.
Weatherbug tends to get into your system and never get out. It can also come saddled with, or make your computer more vulnerable to, spyware, which we all know is not good at all.
Instead, set www.weather.com as one of your favorites, so that you can check out the weather whenever you want
Or, if you use Firefox (free web browser) instead of Internet Explorer, there is an add-in that you can download that keeps the weather in the lower right-hand corner of your browser and updates automatically.

Screensavers

Anytime you see an ad for some cool, 3-D screensaver, I know you want to download it. Because so do I.
However, screensavers are not as innocent as wallpapers. They are programs that have to be installed
You never really know what you re getting when you install a program
If you ever have to give any information, like an email address, DON T DO IT. It s just an excuse for spyware, adware, and spam
The only time I would say go for it is when you are downloading a screensaver from a trusted source (for example, Mercedes-Benz has screensavers that you can download; I do not think Mercedes is going to give you spyware)

Well guys, that's it! I hope this has made you a little more excited about using, customizing and getting along with your computer. These tips and tricks are meant to make using your computer a little more fun. And, if you ever have any questions, or are interested in learning more, the best bet is to Google it. There are always people out there coming up with new and exciting ways to love your computer!