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Of Windows and Men                  (Never used a Mac. Sorry.)

     Recently, in a rousing new volume by the beloved humorist, Merle Twain, called "Up Computer River Without A CPU", an ancillary character, a wise old man of the river, said to young protagonist,  Tom, "Young Tom, the basic underlying principle of the Windows operating system is...Copy and paste. To know and understand this will bring you much joy and happiness."
     Unfortunately, the wise old man of the river was later mangled by a ravening beaver, but I won't tell you more lest I divulge the surprise ending of the epic river journey of young Tom. The truth given to young Tom by the wise old river rat lives on, however...

╞The Directory
     One of the first things an aspiring young computerist does is to start saving files willy nilly. Click/save. Click/save. The only problem is that when he goes back to find his beloved treasure, where's he going to look? The trick is to have a game plan first. I suggest that you put as few folders in the root directory...the little pane on the left in your Windows Explorer, as possible. Make only folders that will contain folders. For example...Temp. I LOVE my Temp folder. I have buhzillions of folders inside my temp folder, yet, in my all important root directory, there is only...Temp. It's neat!
     If your directory needs adjusting, then, my friend, employ copy (or cut) and paste to reorder everything so that it's neat and tidy. In my directory, the three main root folders that get use are my temp folder, download folder, and my picture folder. I made them all myself. If you are into music, you can make a music folder as well. Inside these folders you'll place everything that is to come. Makes sense, doesn't it? Of course, you will make a very sparingly few other root folders depending on your needs and situation, but the operative word is...sparing.

     You know, you can copy and paste nearly everything on your computer. This goes for text, files, pictures...You name it. Even your desktop is a folder, of a sort. Learn the art of wise copy and paste and you'll be a happy computerist for sure!

╞Surprise! You got mail... and more stuff too!
     The last thing you need is a virus mail. Why do you think young Tom left the world as he knew it to become a river raft bum? Every other mail he got had a virus in it and he brought every one of them into his computer. Sigh! If he had only known there is an easy way around this problem!
     While I have no reason to believe this will work with AOL, it will work with most any other ISP. (Internet Service Provider.) I use a little chat program called ICQ to check my mail on the server. Yes, ICQ is a chat program, and you can use it to chat, but the greatest thing about it is that you can also use it to preview mail on your server before you ever download it. It will give you the headers and some of the text. You decide if you want it or not...and if you don't, with a couple of clicks you can dispose of it. It's the neatest little thing, and it's free! You can't beat that!
     If you want to give it a try, visit ICQ.com and download version 2003b. This is not the current version, btw, but an older one which works just fine!
    

Ignorance is Bliss! Don't Backup!

╞Don't do today what you can do tomorrow!
     The old man of the river never worried about backing up...but then he got devoured by a ravening beaver. Sometimes it's best to back up.
     On the other hand, statistics prove conclusively that folks who don't back up live longer and happier lives. Why? Because they are ignorant. Ignorant people are invariably happier because when life hands them a lemon instead of a juicy apple they are just too dumb to know it. Wouldn't it be great to go through life like this? Gee!
     But, then, there are the responsible people...the folks who have to watch out for all the others. They have to backup, and do it frequently. And when they don't, not all the Mylanta and Tums in Calhoun County will put out the raging fire in their belly when woe of woes, the data has poofed.
     The cure for heartburn is to backup and backup frequently. You begin backing up as soon as you start that letter in your word processor. You hit that CTRL-S (Save) key frequently, and with force.
     After your day's work is done, you backup your efforts to CD, DVD, floppy, tape, external hard drive...in short, whatever you have. While backing up may in itself cause high blood pressure, the consequences of not backing up is too terrible to contemplate. Don't let it be you who screams and screams and screams when the day's data is flying out the window to Mars never to be seen again. Backup, and backup frequently. This is a primary secret of happy computing!

Computer Anomalies The famous Face on Mars picture, left, is an example of an anomaly... Before you send your computer to Mars with a swift kick, check this out.

╞You have a mystery computer thing?
     So you have developed a really strange computer anomaly? (I have never used this word before, having seen it only in science fiction movies. I think it fits nicely!) It means literally, something unexplainable using your God given wetware logic process and native intelligence.
     Fret not my friend! In all likelihood, someone has already plowed this field. Do what I do. Go to Google and type in your question. Similarly, you can go to to Ask.com, and ask Jeeves. The chances are very high that you will find copious amounts of solutions to your perplexing computer question.   
     Assuming you are somewhat computer literate...and this is no slight, for I have often said that learning computer is like going to college, you'll find the fix for your computer fit! Googling is often more productive than going straight to the Microsoft Knowledge Base, which, if you have to use it, proves that you are beyond redemption in the first and second place. (The third place is customer support, which you can do if you speak Hindu. Toodeloo!)

Computer Battery Feeling A Little Low Lately?
     One chapter in the rousing book by humorist Merle Twain called "Up Computer River Without A CPU" describes how young Tom, stuck upriver, repaired his beaver infested raft after the battery ran down. "It's a low down feeling I got," said young Tom, when the lights went out. He knew he had only moments to act as the ravenous fanged beavers started edging closer to his river raft home...
     Similarly, you'll have a low down feeling if your CMOS battery runs down. There are ample resources on the internet to explain how to replace your CMOS battery, but first you must know you need one!
     The first clue that the little coppertop is running out of juice is that your clock starts getting really addled, like reporting the date as August 87, 3411. If you keep your machine long enough, (and usually this means really long) it's going to happen some day. Keeping it in storage for long periods can also wipe out the battery.
     The problems it can cause! If your computer depends on the little battery bugger, and most do, an errant clock is the least of the problems you can face. See, your computer in and of itself about as smart as a lead boat anchor. When you press the start button, it has just enough primal intelligence in it to fire up your hard drive to put all that computer type smarts into its ram brain. The startup brains are called the CMOS which then fires up the BIOS, which in turn fires up your hard drive, which loads the stuff to make your computer actually work. The CMOS stuff is held held together only by your little computer battery. When the battery dies, the CMOS evaporates and you can be in a world of hurt. Recently I had a computer that didn't know it even had a brand new expensive hard drive due to a dead battery. Of course, other problems can crop up, some even meaner and more nasty! So, when that clock starts going goofy, replace that little CMOS battery in the innards of your computer!! Your computer will then love you long time!

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About the contributor: Mr. Morrison, frequent contributor, editor and publisher of GetCalhoun.com and OceanView Graphic Designs, has done just about every dumb thing you can do with a computer....and survived, by learning how to get out of trouble quicker than he got in it. Got a tip or trick? Pass it onto someone you love!