Summary | Using the Control Panel, personalize the
look and feel of your PC, especially the screen display. Develop an attitude of
explore and discover; right-clicking. Change your folder options and file
associations. Display file extensions. Decide whether to use the high-overhead
Active Desktop.
What is it?
How you customize your PC is probably as personal and
inscrutable to others as how you manage the documents, surfaces, cabinets, and
drawers in your physical office. In my mind, the goal is to be able to do things
with the fewest number of clicks, which usually means the least cognitive
load.
The terms customize and personalize are often used
interchangeably. In e-commerce they have some specialized meanings. In terms of
setting up Windows, customize means choosing among the options Microsoft gives
you and personalize means doing it your way. It's important that you have some
feeling of ownership for your business tools, and customizing helps you do that.
The drawback is that helpful instructions and screen shots may
not apply. For example, if you move your taskbar to the top of your screen,
instructions telling you to go to the Start menu on the lower left will not be
literally true. Conversely, if you're helping someone, you have to remember the
defaults, which is what most people use. In short, to the extent that you
customize and personalize your PC, you're going to have to adjust when
communicating with others.
Skills
customizing or personalizing your Windows PC
optimizing the
operation of your computer, especially file associations
and folder options
Tip | There are almost always two and often three or
more ways to do the same thing in Windows.
Tip | The terms directory and folder
are used interchangeably by most people.
AOL users
Set your preferences
Control Panel
Start | Control Panel
If yours opens in Category view as in the screen shot on the
right, select Switch to Classic View. If it still doesn't look like mine below right, pull down the View
menu and select Details as in the screen shot below. That view gives the most
information,
specifically, the Comments.
To learn more about your PC, you should explore every one of
these. In a couple of months, return and explore them again, when many of the
options will make more sense. Depending on what you chose when you set up Windows,
some of these options may not be available as described here.
You can also read the comment for each name by hovering over the
name and waiting for the tooltip to pop up. For those you use often, you can
right-click on the name, select Create Shortcut, and then drag the shortcut onto
your desktop or taskbar.
Some highlights not mentioned elsewhere:
Add/Remove Programs
You'll see three tabs, Change or Remove Programs, Add New
Programs, and Add/Remove Windows Components.
Use the Change or Remove Programs tab to uninstall a program.
Tip | Deleting the .exe file or deleting the whole folder in C:\Program Files will not
change the registry entries. This is a good way to end up in
dll hell.
Display
See below.
Folder Options
See below.
Fonts
From here, you'll get access to the same
Windows folder you can see via Windows Explorer.
Internet Options
You can also get here in Microsoft's browser by pulling down the
Tools menu and selecting Internet Options. (In the Netscape 4 browser, use Edit
| Preferences.) You'll find screen shots and details on the Webmaking section's browser page.
Keyboard
Change your cursor's blink rate if it bothers you.
Mouse
Your
laptop didn't come with a mouse because the
wide variety of inexpensive ones (under $30) will let you get exactly what you
want. The settings here for my IntelliPoint mouse may well be different from
yours.
The Pointers tab has a pull-down Scheme selection that
will let you change the look of yours.
My Pointer Options tab shows in the screen shot to the right. You
should try personalizing your double-click speed.
I have checked the SnapTo option
even though it occasionally backfires by letting me inadvertently close or stop
something. The other three options don't work for me at all.
On the Visibility
section, you'll be able to add a trail to
your pointer. Personally, that drives me crazy.
The Motion and Orientation tabs have options that may
greatly improve your comfort, to say nothing of delaying the onset of RSI
(repetitive stress injury). Go for it!
Tip | Drag your My Computer icon onto the taskbar to
create a pop-up menu that allows you to navigate directly to anything on your
PC, including the Control Panel.
Customize your screen display
Start | Control Panel | Display
or
right-click on an open area of your desktop and select
Properties
While
you're there right-clicking, you might note the options in the screen shot at
left for arranging your desktop icons.
In most of the screen shots below, you'll see
five tabs: Themes, Desktop, Screen Saver, Appearance, Settings.
The Themes tab has several sets of background, icons, "earcons"
(sounds) and default chrome. You can come up with a combination you like and
then save it.
Use the Desktop tab (screen shot below left) to choose
the background, aka wallpaper, for your desktop. These .bmp and .gif files are
also available in the C:\WINDOWS\ folder. You can browse to make any image on
your computer the background. You can right-click on almost any image in your
browser and one of the options will be Set as Background. If that's not enough,
there are a gazillion more at Wallpapers
HQ.
You can also stretch, center, or tile the image. Clicking on
Customize Desktop... will bring up the screen on the right below. Select one of
the icons and click Change Icon... .
Use the Screen Saver tab (below right) to choose yours.
Depending on the capabilities of the screen saver program, the Settings button
may give you some handy options. Remember that screen savers load in RAM and a
fancy one can slow your computer.
Tip | Before you make a presentation, set your screen
saver's Wait time to longer than the presentation.
How
Screensavers Work
by Jeff Tyson
Use the Appearance tab (screen shot below)
to finely tune the look of your windows. The Advanced button will give you the
options below middle. You can make item-by-item changes by pulling down that menu. For example, if you select
icon in the Item menu, you'll be able to change the size of the icons on your
desktop as well as the color, font face, and size of the words labeling it. The
Effects options, below right, give you yet more ways to change some subtle
visual effects. I recommend Clear Type for better readability.
Back in the Themes tab, you can save your new
look and feel so that you can
switch to it at any time. These appearance options can give you a great feeling
of ownership. Your PC will not look like anyone else's. You can have one whole
look for work and another for home.
You can also use this tab to select which icon
you want to associate with the four functions that Windows won't let you remove
from the desktop. Their default names, before I changed them, were My Computer,
My Documents, Network Neighborhood, and Recycle Bin. If you click the Change
Icon button, you'll have some options as well as be able to browse to any icon
on your computer.
How many icons are on your computer? Go to Start
| Find | Files or Folders and type *.ico into the Named box and Look in: (C:). I
have over two hundred icons on mine.
How do you make a new icon? In a graphics editor, make a 16 pixel by 16
pixel bitmap (.bmp file) and save it with a .ico extension. Then browse to it
from this Effects tab.
Also, the Web tab won't do anything unless
you are using the Active Desktop, which I am not. As I
have said, personalizing your PC may make you have to adapt these instructions.
Use the Settings tab (screen shot on
left) to change the amount of information you can see on your screen. What
happens between the colored pixel and the human eye is some kind of magic. How
the computer deals with that magic adds more magic. Then how it's all referred
to by the geeks is beyond confusing. This is not the place for a discussion of
magic and confusion, so I'll just give you a link to
The
Structure Of A Digital Image, a fascinating demo by John Henshall. I
recommend it highly.
My settings shown here produce a screen that shows as much
information as possible. That is, I slid the Screen Resolution slider all the
way to More.
On your computer, you'll probably find a trade-off
between bit-depth of colors and possible screen area. I recommend the largest
screen area you can get. Then set the colors for your personal preference while
retaining the screen area setting. At home, I have my 19" monitor set for 24-bit
color and 1280 x 1024 pixels. The screen shot above left shows the settings for
my laptop, where I don't expect as much.
In summary, to change your settings:
Step 1: Right-click on an open area of your
desktop.
Step 2: Select Properties | Settings.
Step 3: Try to increase both colors and screen area until you get the most you
can of both at the same time.
Step 4: Click Advanced | General to adjust the size of the text and icons
displaying on the desktop.
Step 5: Click OK. It may ask you to confirm.
Tip | If you plug a larger,
higher-resolution monitor into your laptop, you will want to adjust these
settings whenever you go back and forth.
The Advanced button may well bring up a lot more
options. As you can see in the screen shot above left, mine brings up a new window with
nine tabs. The General tab
lets me set the overall font size -- mine is set for normal-size fonts. You note
that you can also attach a television to my laptop.
Let's turn it around. If you can display the
contents of your computer on your television, why can't you display TV
broadcasts on your computer screen?
Set your file associations
Every file has an extension, the three or more characters after
the file name. For example, this page is called personalizedpc.htm, and .htm is
the file extension.
How many file extensions are there? Thousands, as you'll see at
the sites that list file extensions.
Tip | If your file extensions aren't showing, in
Windows Explorer, pull down the Tools menu and select Folder Options | View.
Uncheck the box next to
"Hide file extensions for known file types".
Regardless of what you name the extension, the information in
the file still has a certain type of content. A text file is very
different from an audio file. If you try to open a spreadsheet with an image
editor, it won't work. Nor can you turn a text file into an image just by
changing the extension.
As long as the extension is appropriate to that content
type, then the question becomes, what application will open or view or play it?
You have dozens of choices, but you have to settle on one.
In the screen shot (to the right) of part of my desktop, the
blue e icon stands for Microsoft's browser, Internet Explorer, which will open
that file. The notepad icon stands for the text editor that will open the .txt
file. The green X icon stands for Microsoft's spreadsheet Excel, which will open
that file.
Your PC comes loaded with software (what Microsoft's competitors
call "illegal bundling") that will open almost any content type that
you encounter.
If it doesn't have an application associated with that
extension, it will show the generic Windows icon --
above
504lins.xyz on the top right of the screen shot. Windows will bring up the Open
With window, a long list of all the applications on your PC, and ask you to
choose one.
Note the check box to Always use the selected program to open
this kind of file.
That's why you have so many different icons associated with the
file names on your desktop. In Windows, the icons are supposed to make the file
extensions redundant. Not in my experience, but maybe I'm just an old-timer. I
highly recommend that you follow the yellow Tip above and show your extensions.
An example would be your browser. I recommend that you have both
major browsers installed on your PC. But which one should open .htm files? The
one that is set to open them is the one whose icon appears above the file name
on your desktop. If you open the other, it will ask whether you want to make it
your default browser.
Some of these players are built into the Web client or browser
(for example, all browsers
come with GIF and JPEG image players as well as the ability to handle HTML
files). You may need to download other players.
Sometimes when you download software, you'll get asked the same
thing. For example, by default, Windows Media Player will open most .avi video
files. If you download QuickTime, which will probably open all .avi files, the
installation software will ask whether you want to make QuickTime the default .avi
player.
Regardless of the default, you can still use any application for
any relevant file type. One way is to open the application and to then open the
file from within it or to drag the file onto the application from your desktop
or from Windows Explorer.
Another way is to change the association, as explained in the
Folder Options section below.
Lists of file extensions
Whatis?com's Every File
Format in the World
EXT Search
ComputerUser's High-Tech Dictionary - File
Types
Advanced: Wotsit's Format
File format information on hundreds of different file types
and all sorts of other useful programming information; algorithms, source code,
specifications, etc.
AceNet Hosting Service's Almost Every file format
in the world!
Center for Innovative Computer Applications' Image File
Formats List
Common extensions
Features, attributes, and pros and cons of the file types you
will use most often:
text files
.txt
.htm, .html
.css
.js
image files
.gif, .jpg, .psp
proprietary Office file types
.doc
.ppt
.xls
Folder Options
Depending on where you are, there are at least three ways to get
to the windows that let you change your folder options.
Start | Control Panel | Folder Options
or
My Computer | View | Folder Options
or
Windows Explorer | View | Folder Options
On the General tab, I use "Open each folder in the same
window".
On the View tab (screen shot above left), I have selected "Show
hidden files and folders". I have not selected "Hide extensions
for known file types".
Thus, the *.htm or *.css or *.jpg always displays so I can keep them
straight. (The icon associated with the file name on the desktop is supposed to
convey the same info.)
Cookie crumbs. Note that I have chosen to redundantly
display the full path on both the title and address bars. That is, it will list
the C:\ and every nested folder in a straight line to whatever folder is being
displayed. Using the tree metaphor, the bars will display the name of
every parent folder all the way down to the root. Unchecking either option will
change it to display only the last folder in the path. When you're still unsure
about file management, display of the full path as I do here can help you learn
your way around.
On the File Types tab (screen shot above right), you have a lot of
options. What you're doing is deciding which application opens which file type.
By scrolling down, you'll note that Windows can handle dozens and dozens of file
types. To learn more about them, check out these the sites that
list file extensions.
I'll give an example and then you'll have to experiment on your
own.
In the list of Registered file types, click on extensions to
make sure it's sorted alphabetically. Then scroll down and select
Cascading Style Sheets in the white area. In the Details area below, you'll see
a description of what it does and a Change button. It will let you change the
software tool that will open that file type. The Advanced button will let you
change the icon image associated with the file type.
While you're looking at the Folder Options, explore the various file types on
your computer. I have over five hundred on mine. Seventy-some are Microsoft
proprietary types.
To change the software application program associated with
an extension, you can also right click on any such file anywhere on your
computer. Choose Opens With and then Choose Program... After you choose the new
software program, don't forget to check the box "Always use the selected program
to open this kind of file".
Custom Toolbar
step 1: Make a folder on your desktop or somewhere less visible.
step 2: Stock it with files or shortcuts, for example, commonly
used programs or all the files you're using for a project.
step 3: Drag the folder onto the taskbar next to the system
tray.
step 4: Resize the toolbar. Detach it so that it floats. Attach
it to the side or top of your desktop.
Details and screen shots at Web Attack's Create custom toolbars
tip.
Active Desktop
Bill Gates "got" the Internet in late 1995. Within a
year, he had made Microsoft one of the most netcentric and webcentric
organizations on the planet. He went from richest American to richest human. The
one caused the other.
The showpiece of this change was supposed to be making the
browser the GUI to the operating system. The desktop would go away. So would
applications such as Word and Excel. For you and me, at least in the short-term,
this would have been a Good Thing. Our lives would be easier and we would be
less geeky. The Internet would be more popular. And Bill Gates would be so very
rich that his wealth wouldn't be fathomable nor his assets countable.
The rest of the computer industry thought that was a very Bad
Thing. They prevailed on the Justice Department to at least slow down Microsoft
if not stop it entirely. They succeeded beyond their expectations as you know if
you followed last year's trial in Washington, D.C.
Extra! Behind the Headlines
A detailed explanation of what got Microsoft in trouble with the Justice
Department.
Predatory Pricing -
Microsoft's Modus Operandi
by William C. Spaulding
What's left of Microsoft's grand plan is the Active
Desktop. Now that the trial is winding down, Microsoft has revised and
renamed the whole effort Microsoft.NET.
Meanwhile, you can choose the Active Desktop as an option. If
you do so, some of the instructions in this PC Workshop won't be exactly as
explained.
Also, Active Desktop eats RAM and will slow down your computer's
performance sooner. Personally, I don't use it though I can understand why you
might.
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