Should we share our new found tips?.

I was wondering how many members use the internet but only in a very basic way. I have a friend that frequently says "I don't know how to do that" and a relative who will say to me "it won't let me do it", when in fact what they really should be saying "I don't know how to do it".

Yes we've all been there at one time or another. Floundering away, afraid to touch a key in case we lost what we were doing or as I often used to say "I don't want to muck it up".

My son would tell me "you can't go wrong, just hit the back key".

Using forums to ask questions or even asking google how to do something or taking internet magazines, all these things offer help in some way.

Do you wish you knew just a little more? are you still under the impression that you can only have one browser?, have you ever wished adverts wouldn't appear?.

My laptop is old and I use Vista so many things are out of my grasp and they are for Windows 10, but I make do. I use google Chrome but have been trying Oscobo ,
https://oscobo.co.uk/ it is fast and it dosen't allow tracking.

If you have discovered something new and feel you want to share it, then please do so, as someone used to say "I'll try anything once, twice if I like it".

Re: Should we share our new found tips?.

I'm not adventurous at all with the computer, as long as I can google things I'm happy with that - can't absorb too much info now

Re: Should we share our new found tips?.

Good idea, I've got no idea what I'm doing, when I first got a pc I went on a course but since then everything's moved so fast I've not kept up
I've got loads of programmes on my laptop which I have no idea about and when I do a cleaner scan thingy a whole list of stuff comes up which I have no idea whether to keep them or not. Guaranteed if I delete something it will be vital to the performance!
I wish the BBC would do a TV programme telling us what to do!

Re: Should we share our new found tips?.

Here you go.
http://www.gcflearnfree.org/computerbasics

http://www.seniorsguidetocomputers.com/

Re: Should we share our new found tips?.

Thanks, Tregonsee, I'll take a look when I'm more alert !

Re: Should we share our new found tips?.

Patsy, I have lost count of the number of times when engaged in conversation with tourists as we sit and admire the view at Portland Bill for example, tat the subject of computers comes up and some folk clearly older than me, amaze me with their knowledge and leave me standing, then there are those folk who say, "I've no idea what to do". So I suppose age isn't the criteria, but I bow to your opinion.

TessA, I too have lots of stuff on my laptop and like you, have no idea what it does and why it's there. If you go into Start>control panel>programmes, you will see everything on your computer and when it was installed. One day out of boredom, I started to remove things that meant nothing to me. Only a few, but in no time at all, things were going wrong so I decided not to fiddle about with them again. As for you using a "cleaner thingy", I daren't, because if I did, and looked at the result, I'd be afraid to remove the item just in case. My point is, you're not alone.

Tregonsee, thanks for your links, I will have a look at them later and if I do anything, I will report back.

and as they say at the end of the news..........and finally, I mucked my laptop up so much once, that I really thought I'd have to dump i for a new one, but decided to do a factory re-set. I asked someone elsewhere and discovered how easy it is to do. I wrote down the "how to do it" in my book but if I remember right, when you turn your laptop on, in the period when it is firing up, it shows the make (in my case Acer) for a few seconds only. During those split seconds, you press two keys and they vatu depending on the make of your laptop. Once pressed, you are warned that this will lead to a complete reset and have you got everything off that needs to be saved, ie photo's, then you are asked to confirm that's what you want to do, you confirm and sit back.

The machine springs into action and you wonder when it will end. Finally it closes down, starts up and there before you are all the things you saw when you switched on for the first time all those years ago. I was given Internet Explorer as my search engine, I installed Chrome and use that. I have recently installed oscobo which I am undecided about.

I would not recommend you or anyone else embarks on anything like that unless you have someone competent watching over you, but is's worth doing and it cleans everything out and the machine runs faster.

Re: Should we share our new found tips?.

I'm so scared of losing my photos and passwords I couldn't reboot mine!

Re: Should we share our new found tips?.

TessA, I know there are people out there that use things like Password Manager, but me, I have a note book and in it I have listed all my favourite websites and user name like this:-

50's....Islman.......abc. If for whatever reason my laptop went dead on me and it was replaced, I would google "over 50's" which would bring up this site and I'd log in using the clue Islman for islandman and the abc would tell me I needed the password beginning with the middle letter, "b" which I use on many sites. This is for every site I use on a regular basis.

As for photo's, I have stored them in picasa for donkeys years and as such, been of the opinion they were taking up space, so I was recommended google photo's. I installed that and transferred all photo's from picasa to google photo's where they are stored "in the cloud" and not on my laptop. To make it more interesting, I then istalled google photo's on both ipad and android phone and every one of my photo's can be seen on either device.

To make it more interesting, if I take a photo on my phone and save it, it goes straight to Google photos on ALL three devices, laptop,ipad and phone. Picasa is due to close this year, so it won't matter now as they are elsewhere in the cloud.

Re: Should we share our new found tips?.

Ooo must look into Google photos, thanks x

Re: Should we share our new found tips?.

I just took a photo of the Over 50's home page with phone/camera, uploaded it to Google Photo's and it now appears on my ipad and this laptop:-



and just out of interest, whenever I picture is shown using google chrome, it normally shows the photo in the top left corner. If you use Firefox, they show it in the centre. But today I installed an add-on for Chrome, called "show like firefox" and hey presto, chrome now displays photo's in the centre. It's only a small thing, but it's something I learnt today.