Computer Tutor

01/03/2014

Tip of the Day:

Change from a password to a passphrase
It's better to use longer and more complicated passwords, but they are hard to remember. Try using a passphrase like "I love getting to work at 8:00!" It's long, easy to remember, and has a mix of upper case and lower case letters and symbols. Don't use familiar or famous quotations. Don't use any real names, especially your own, your family member's, or your pet's. Nonsensical passphrases are the hardest to crack. Because password cracking time increases exponentially, a criminal with substantial computing resources can crack short passwords quickly; while a 31-character (the length of our example) passphrase would take 231,935,475,118,605,000,000,000 years to crack! Best of all, it's easy to remember. Click here for more: http://www.sans.org/tip_of_the_day.php

Daily Security Awareness Tip courtesy of the SANS Institute.

11/12/2013

With millions of computer users browsing the web at any given time, there are plenty of targets for malicious coders. While computer experts don’t always know why coders choose to build harmful computer programs, the fact is that it happens all the time. Computer viruses can steal personal information, interfere with normal operations, attract spam and even shut down your computer’s hard drive. Protecting your computer is critical for browsing success. For more information on how to protect yourself, read this interesting article: http://www.computertips.com/security-tips/

With millions of computer users browsing the web at any given time, there are plenty of targets for malicious coders. While computer experts don’t always know why coders choose to build harmful computer programs, the fact is that it happens all the time. Computer viruses can steal personal informati...

10/24/2013

Using keyboard shortcuts can greatly increase your productivity, reduce repetitive strain, and help keep you focused. For example, highlighting text with the keyboard and pressing Ctrl + C is much faster than taking your hand from the keyboard, highlighting the text using the mouse, clicking copy from the file menu, and then putting your hand back in place on the keyboard. Below are our top 10 keyboard shortcuts we recommend everyone memorize and use. For more information, click here: http://www.computerhope.com/tips/tip79.htm

Top 10 keyboard shortcuts everyone should know

09/25/2013

Below is a link for a video that contains a few pretty cool computer tricks! Disregard the bad spelling!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0oIw9Zo9LA

Best of the best tricks for windows (7) and (xp)

08/02/2013

If you have made the transition from Windows 7, Vista, or XP to Windows 8, follow the link below to discover some tips that can help you get used to it. (If you haven't made the transition...don't! :) )

Inevitably, with change comes good and bad -- at least until you learn some tricks that get you back up to speed: http://www.techspot.com/guides/506-windows-8-shortcuts-and-tricks/

Inevitably, with change comes good and bad -- at least until you learn some tricks that get you back up to speed. Here's a shortlist of Windows 8 shortcuts and useful quick tricks I've gathered thus far.. Windows 8 Tricks, Tips and Shortcuts.

06/23/2013

If you frequently find yourself using Microsoft Outlook 2010 to send the same email to a large number of contacts, then you may wish to create a distribution list or Contact Group. Creating groups in Microsoft Outlook 2010 allows you to quickly distribute an email. Click here to find out how: http://eodinfo.tamu.edu/resources/technology/computer-tips?tip=399

06/05/2013

Tip of the Week!

Here are instructions for configuring your PC to print to a network printer if you use Windows 7. Click here for more: http://www.cwu.edu/~itstraining/TechTips/NtwrkPrnWin7.html

Do you use Windows XP instead? This is for you!
http://www.cwu.edu/~itstraining/TechTips/PCNtwrkPrn.html

Computing tips

05/28/2013

Tip of the Week!

Got stuff on your Start menu you don't use? How about stuff you'd like to see on your Start menu? You can easily customize the Start menu to suit your needs. When you first get Windows 7, you may or may not like the new look. The Start menu has been altered from previous versions and can seem daunting at times. You can however customize it to suit your needs.

The following instructions focus more on customizing the standard Start menu on a computer running Windows 7.

Read here for more information: http://www.cwu.edu/~itstraining/TechTips/CustomizeStartMenu.html

Computing tips

05/21/2013

TIP OF THE WEEK!

Ever get an email attachment or see a file and not know what program to use for it? Most of the time your computer will figure it out so when you double-click on it, the necessary program will open it up. The extension on the file (what comes after the "." dot), gives a hint as to what the file type is so you know what program you can use to open the file (or if it's a system file you shouldn't mess with) but these days many operating systems will hide "known" file extensions. In this case, "known" means your operating system can identify the file type and should be able to open it. However, you may still want to see the file extensions so you know what the files are too. Read more here: http://www.cwu.edu/~itstraining/TechTips/fileextensions.html

Computing tips