This morning I was doing a fresh install of Windows XP SP2 into a Virtual Machine. So far, things are fine I went through windowsupdate and found 3 updates the first time, then rebooted and hit windowsupdate again to see 55 updates available. A lot of times when I set up a new pc for somebody they wonder why I want to check windows update multiple times. They’ll usually say something along the lines “but it’s brand new there shouldn’t be any updates.” Well, this install was from a SP2 disk and there have been a large number of updates since that was released. Many manufacturers use fairly sophisticated techniques to roll out the default install images they use, but it’s still very possible that your machine will have several updates waiting for it when you get it.
Category: Basics
-
Windows XP Print what’s on the screen or make a screenshot using the … print screen button
This is one that’s not as obvious as it should be. Every keyboard has a “print screen” button – usually it’s in the group over above the insert/home/pageup/delete/end/pagedown block. Sometimes (especially on laptops) it’s shared with something else. But…. most people will notice if they press “print screen” on a windows pc… not much seems to happen. (On my KDE/Linux desktop it pops up a program called ksnapshot…) If the print screen key is shared with another function (say on a laptop) you may need to press the function button at the same time as the print screen button to get the following to work.
-
Sometimes the simplest things solve problems….
How many times have I had this kind of phone call…. “my computers not working”… “the light on the monitor is on, but there aren’t any lights on the keyboard. everything seems connected, but there’s nothing on the screen.” Usually, my first question is along the lines of… “have you tried turning it off and back on.” I sometimes hear “I can’t use the start button” or something like that. At this point, I suggest that they try disconnecting the power and letting it sit for a few moments (5-10 seconds is usually enough.) Plugging it back in and trying the switch.
-
Upgrade your mouse
This is going in the basics category. Quite often I visit a computer that has a mouse which is just a trial of patience to use. I mean, you have to pick it up and move it, shake it a bit, turn it over and clean out the lint from the “ball” area…. The good news is that mousing does NOT have to be like this. If your computer has a PS2 (small round plug) for your mouse, or a USB (small rectangular plug) for your mouse, it should be VERY easy to replace that old ball style mouse with an optical mouse.
-
Using the command line in linux – part 4
Dealing with text…. we’ve looked at a couple of basics on logging in and starting to use the command line and hopefully not feeling too helpless there… we’ve seen ways to navigate directories and how to find new commands and how to find out more about how to use them. Now it’s time to talk about how to manipulate (work with) text files. Most every important configuration file in linux is text based and editable from the command line. This can be a VERY good thing at times, or very intimidating if you’re not comfortable with a command line environment. It’s worth noting that you CAN edit configuration files with a graphical interface text editor….
-
Using the command line in linux – part 3
Now that we’ve logged in and learned how to move from one directory to another (and find where we are if we get lost…) it’s probably time to start learning how to find out about other commands. Well, if you press tab at the command line you will likely see something that starts like this….
$
Display all 4601 possibilities? (y or n)
and if you answer with a “y” you will see a long list of programs that could be run. That’s not usually the best way to find a program though. -
Using the command line in linux – part 2
This is part two in a series of “how to use the command line in linux” style articles…. these are intended to be quite basic for those that have not used a command line before…. In part one we logged in (if necessary) and found out about the help command, navigated a bit with the arrows and exit -ed from our login. This time we’ll try to learn a bit more about dealing with files and navigating. In a graphical interface, if you browse files, you’re presented with a list of files and folders for a directory that you can scroll through and read at your leisure. In the command line we have to tell the computer to list the files and folders for the directory that we’re currently “in” to list those in linux, we use the ls command….
-
Using the command line in linux – part 1
I know many people get intimidated with a black screen, white text and blinking cursor. No mouse, not knowing where to start…. well, I’m going to spend a bit of time in this article trying to help show you how to survive the command line in linux. For starters, don’t think that linux is a command line only operating system. In some installs, the administrator may not want a gui, but there are some VERY functional and full featured graphical interfaces for linux. For me though, if you know what you want to accomplish, the command line can be a much more efficient way to “get the job done” for many tasks.
-
Scheduling tasks in linux – the at command
I did an article a while back about cron and scheduling tasks in linux (I also mentioned kron which is a graphical interface for cron scheduling…). That works well and good for things that happen on a recurring basis, but the next question is what if I want to schedule a command (or series of commands) to happen once and not again? Well, to tell the truth I’ve used cron for this on occasion, being sure to revisit the crontab and remove the entry before it repeats again, but there is a better way. At.
-
How to use wireless networking on a laptop
This is one that I run into from time to time. Most laptops the last year or two (actually maybe a bit longer), have built in wireless networking. This is great and makes for easy access to wireless access points just about anywhere. In fact, most current operating systems (Windows XP included) usually do a great job of detecting available networks. (Sometimes they do too good a job which is why wireless security is an issue, but we’ll save that for a future post.) I’ve run into several laptops over the last few years though that supposedly had wireless networking, but the user hadn’t been able to access any wireless networks with the laptop. Usually it’s an easy fix….