Disk Cleanup and
Defragging your Hard Disk
Why should we defragment machines?
When you defrag your machine, you are making your machine work better. Defragging puts all of the pieces needed to run your program in a close proximity to each other on the hard drive. When you delete programs in your hard drive, you leave empty spaces where pieces of the program were inserted during installation. When you load a new program, the computer goes to the first available slot to place all the parts, so your program could be loading pieces at the beginning, middle and end. This forces your hard drive to hunt all over in accessing all the pieces and putting them together to run your application. By defragging the machine, all the program pieces will be moved and put together so your hard drive can run optimally and access programs as fast as it is capable of doing. In WinXP, the machine is smart enough to realize which program you use most often and make them more accessible in the hard drive itself so that it can be accessed even more quickly.
Defragging your machine should be part of your regular maintenance. Twice a month should keep your machine running at optimal level. If you load and delete programs often, then defrag more often.
Before defragging your machine, close all open Windows programs.
Step 1:
Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Disk Defragmenter
Follow this shorthand until you open ScanDisk. If you have not done a ScanDisk in awhile, I would suggest clicking on Thorough. If you have a weekly schedule for maintenance, then just the Standard will be sufficient. Select the hard drive you wish to scan and click on start. After this process is finished, go to the next step.
Step 2:
Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Disk Defragmenter
Follow the shorthand steps until you open Disk Defragmenter.
Select the drive to defrag and click ok and it will defrag your hard drive.
Depending on how large your hard drive is, this process will take anywhere from 20 minutes to over an hour.
It is advisable to do this at the end of the day when you don’t need to use your machine.
KEYBOARD AND KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS
The Keyboard
Escape - Esc is used to back out of situations. When you find yourself in a place where you don’t want to be, try the
Esc key. In PowerPoint this key will stop a running slide show. The keyboard combination
Ctrl + Esc will open the
Start menu.
Windows key – brings up the START menu
Print Screen - Don’t look at your printer after pressing this key. This sends a copy of whatever is on the screen to the clipboard. One common use of this action is to paste the clipboard into Paint to copy a portion of an image for use in another application. If you wish to copy only the active window, hold down the
Alt key, then tap on the
Print Screen key. It will copy only that window that is active, not the whole desktop.
Scroll Lock
Pause/Break - On modern keyboards, the break key is usually labeled
Pause/Break. On many games this (and/or the
P key) is the key to pause the game. In most Windows environments, the key combination
Windows key+Pause brings up the system properties.
Keyboard shortcuts to use on a Windows/PC computer
You can avoid reaching for the mouse if you are familiar with keyboard shortcuts. If you forget one of these, use the mouse and go to the menu bar. In each pull down menu you will see keyboard shortcuts given on the right side of the window.
Commonly used keyboard combinations
To use one of these combinations Hold the Ctrl or Alt key down and strike the letter key
| | Open a new word document quickly.
| | Cut- Removes the selection from the active document and places it on the clipboard.
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| | Opens a previously saved document.
| | Copies the selection to the clipboard
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| | Closes the active window, but does not Exit Word.
| | Paste - Inserts the contents of the clipboard at the insertion point (cursor) or whatever is selected.
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| | Saves the active document with its current file name, location and format.
| | Selects all text and graphics in the active window.
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| | Prints the active file, also gives the opportunity to change print options
| | Find - Searches for specified text in the active document
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| Exit - Closes Microsoft Word.
| | Bold - Formats selected text; make text bold, or remove bold formatting
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| | Undo the last action. This selection can be repeated several times.
| | Italic - Formats selected text; make text italic or remove italic
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| | Redo - After an action has been undone, it can be reinstated in the document.
| | Underline - Formats selected text; make text underlined or remove underline
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