Learn to Use your Computer

JPEG (pronounced jay-peg) is the standard format used by digital cameras to store picture files. If you don't need to resize your JPEG originals, you can share them via email or post them on a Web page immediately. All Web browsers and email programs can display JPEG photos. Chances are, though, that your originals are too large for on-screen use, which means that you need to size them smaller. After you take that step - or do any other photo editing - you must resave the file in the JPEG format before sharing it online. (In case you're wondering, JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group.)

When you save a file in the JPEG format, the picture undergoes lossy compression. This feature creates smaller file sizes by dumping some image data, which can reduce picture quality. So before you save an image in the JPEG format, create a backup copy using a file format that doesn't use lossy compression - TIFF, for example, or the Photoshop Elements format (PSD), if you use that program.
The following steps show you how to use the Photoshop Elements Save for Web utility to save your picture in the JPEG format. Using this feature enables you to see how much damage your picture will suffer at various levels of JPEG compression. If you're using another image editor, check the Help system for the exact commands to use to save to JPEG format. The available JPEG options should be much the same as described here, although you may or may not be able to preview the compression effects on your picture.
To save pictures in JPEG, using Photoshop Elements, follow these steps:
1. Choose File --> Save for Web to display the Save for Web dialog box, shown in Figure 1.
The preview on the left side of the dialog box shows your original picture; the right-side preview shows how your photo will look when saved at the current settings.

Figure 1: The Quality settings determine how much compression is applied.
2. Select JPEG from the Format drop-down list, labeled in Figure 1.
After you select JPEG, you see the other save options shown in the figure.
3. Set the compression amount by using the Quality controls labeled in the figure.

A higher Quality setting results in less compression and a larger file.
The Quality drop-down list offers five general settings: Maximum, Very High, High, Medium, and Low. Maximum provides the best picture quality/least compression; Low provides the least quality/most compression. If you want to get a little more specific, use the Quality slider on the right. You can specify any Quality value from 0 to 100, with 0 giving you the lowest image quality (maximum compression) and 100 the best image quality (least compression).
4. Turn off the Progressive and ICC Profile check boxes.
If you see a check mark in a box, click the box to remove the check mark and turn off the option. Progressive JPEG files generally aren't a good idea, because they take longer to download fully, and some Web browsers don't handle them well. The ICC Profile option has to do with some color management issues that professional imaging folks may want to investigate, but most don't need to worry about. In addition, the option adds to the file size.
5. If your picture contains transparent areas, choose a Matte color.
This feature comes into play only if the bottom layer of your picture contains transparent areas. JPEG files can't preserve transparency, so transparent areas are filled with the color you choose from the Matte drop-down list - white, if you don't select another color.

If you're placing the photo on a Web page that has a solid-colored background, you can make the transparent parts of a JPEG photo appear to retain their transparency. Just match the Matte color to the color of your Web page background. The viewer's eye then can't tell where the image stops and the Web page begins.
6. Click OK.
The Save for Web dialog box disappears, and the Save Optimized As dialog box comes to life. This dialog box works like any file-saving dialog box. Just give your picture a filename and specify where you want to store the file. The correct file format is already selected for you.
7. Click Save or press Enter.
The program saves the JPEG copy of your picture. Your original photo remains open and on-screen. If you want to see the new JPEG version, you have to open that file.

Those old enough to remember DOS days may remember a utility called chkdsk. (Of course, those old enough to remember DOS may be suffering from memory loss, so they may not remember chkdskchkdsk is short for check disk.) It's a command-line utility that checks the operating system and disk drive for any errors, and optionally fixes them. (A command-line utility is one that you run, oddly enough, from a command-line.)

The chkdsk utility is available in Windows XP. It doesn't offer anything different from Windows' disk tools, but some people like using a command-line utility. To use it, follow these steps:

Open a command prompt window by choosing Start, All Programs, Accessories, Command Prompt.

Enter the proper commands to switch to the drive you want to check. For instance, if you want to check drive E:, then type E: and press the Enter key. The drive you specify is made the current drive.

Type chkdsk and press Enter.

Using chkdsk without any parameters runs the program in read-only mode. This means that it doesn't fix anything; it only reports what it finds. If you want chkdsk to fix errors, use the chkdsk /f command instead.

The chkdsk program goes through three checks before reporting its findings:

Checks the file system to make sure that all the file links are valid.

Checks the system indexes for errors.

Checks (on NTFS drives) security descriptors to make sure that file security is intact.

You cannot run chkdsk in fix mode on a disk that's in use. (An in-use drive is one that has files open.) If you try, the program informs you that the disk is in use and gives you the opportunity to "dismount the volume." If you instruct chkdsk to do this, all the open files on the drive are closed and the drive is made inaccessible. This could result in data loss. You should choose to dismount only if you're really sure you won't lose critical data.

If the drive is in use and you choose not to dismount the volume, chkdsk offers to perform the check the

Confused by something in Windows? Ever wish you could watch a demonstration or follow a wizard to solve your problem step by step? Wait, you can!

Choose Start, Help, Help and Support Center. From here, you can locate tutorials here in a couple ways:

Enter the word tutorial in the Search text box and click the arrow button. Links to the first 15 tutorials appear. (Fifteen is the default number of search results.) Click a link to run a tutorial.

When you run a search, the Suggested Topics section of the results typically divides into two sections: Pick a Task; and Overviews, Articles and Tutorials. Any item in the second area that begins with the word Practice is a tutorial.

Click a tutorial link to run it. It runs, opening a window that plays images along with an audio narration and a toolbar. Do one of the following:

When you're instructed to by the narration, perform an action, such as clicking a link in the tutorial window.

Use the tutorial toolbar to navigate through the tutorial. For example, use the Previous Topic, Jump Back, Jump Ahead, or Next Topic buttons to move through the tutorial content, and use the Pause and Stop buttons to take a break from the tutorial or stop it from running.

Use the tutorial toolbar to get more help with the More Information, Glossary, Tip, and Help buttons.

Close a tutorial by clicking the Close button in the tutorial window.

Tutorials are played by using the Macromedia Flash Player. To modify the way the player works, when a tutorial first begins, right click the tutorial screen and choose Settings. These settings control privacy, microphone recording volume, camera settings, and how much storage space is used on your hard drive to play the tutorials. To adjust playback volume, click the volume control on the Windows taskbar and move the sliders up and down to make the sound louder or softer.

Suppose you want to copy a Table of Contents (TOC) to another document. It can be done. Before copying it, however, you need to unlock it. Unlocking means to disconnect TOC entries from the headings to which they refer. To unlock a TOC, click in the margin to the left of the first entry to select the TOC. Next, press Ctrl+Shift+F9. Now you can successfully copy or move the TOC to another document. Because Word gives the text of TOCs the Hyperlink character style, you have to change the color of the text in the TOC (it's blue) and remove the underlines.

The Recycle Bin is a flexible place, willing to enlarge itself, as necessary, to accept your recently deleted files. By default, the space allocated by Windows for the Recycle Bin is up to 10 percent of your hard-drive space. If you think about it, that's a ton of space.

The Recycle Bin is constructed so that it keeps whatever ends up there until you manually delete it (or until the allocated disk space fills up). If the disk space fills up, then the oldest files in the Recycle Bin are deleted to make way for the newer items. If you have 8 GB (or more) set aside for the Recycle Bin, the sheer size of the allocated area means you're wasting a lot of disk space.

The solution is to change the amount of disk space allocated to the Recycle Bin:

Right-click the Recycle Bin icon and choose Properties. Windows displays the Properties dialog box for the Recycle Bin. The dialog box contains a tab named Global and one tab for each system drive.

On the Global tab, select the Use One Setting for All Drives option. You can configure your drives independently, but most people have no need to.

Use the slider to specify a smaller percentage of your hard drive for Recycle Bin space. If you have a large drive or several large drives, consider setting the slider as low as one percent. (Remember that one percent of 80GB is 800MB. That's still a large block of disk space for the Recycle Bin.)

Click OK.

How does resizing the Recycle Bin help unclutter your system? Simple: When Windows doesn't need to track as many deleted files, the operating system is more responsive.

Hackers come in all kinds, and it is difficult to classify them. However, over the years, a distinction has developed that tries to separate the "good hackers" from the "bad hackers." Hackers with benign intentions are referred to as the white hats, and hackers with sinister intentions are referred to as the black hats -- evoking images of the Mad magazine Spy vs. Spy comic strip. The black hats are what we commonly think of when we refer to hackers. These are the people who break into other people's computers, either to access data illegitimately or to joyride. The white hats, on the other hand, are the ones who study security vulnerabilities in order to learn how to protect computer systems. These white-hat hackers may be security professionals at corporations and government agencies who stay up-to-date on security vulnerabilities. White hats study hacking techniques to keep hackers out of computer systems. While most white-hat hackers have the same desire to find new security vulnerabilities that black-hat hackers have, white hats use the knowledge that they gain to protect computer systems, not to attack them. Sometimes, however, it can be difficult to distinguish a black hat from a white hat; in fact, it looks gray. For example, what color is the hat of a hacker who destroys another hacker's data in order to protect the innocent?

Sometimes removing a program and reinstalling it isn't sufficient; the program continues to cause problems in the same way it did before you went through this mind-numbing process. In some cases, pieces of the old program get left behind, even if the uninstaller tells you that it got everything.

If you believe that remnants of an old program are hampering your attempts to get it to reinstall correctly, try this:

Use Add or Remove Programs, as described earlier in this technique, to remove the program.

Even if the uninstaller tells you that it got everything, choose Start, Run, type regedit, and press Enter.

Inside the Registry Editor, search for the name of the program by choosing Edit, Find.

Make sure all three boxes -- Keys, Values, and Data -- are checked. You might not be able to find the precise program name, but you may be able to find something similar to it, or possibly the manufacturer's name.

Keep searching (use the F3 key or the Find Next button) until you find a major entry for the program.

Usually you can find a major entry for the program itself, as opposed to minor entries for certain kinds of documents or filename extensions.

If you find an entry that seems to include lots of settings for the program, right-click it and choose Export.

The Export Registry File dialog box appears.

Use the Export Registry File dialog box to put the contents of this key on your desktop.

Give the exported Registry key a filename that you can remember and click Save.

In the Registry Editor, click this key and press Delete.

That removes all the old information about the entry from your computer -- and may help knock loose whatever was preventing the reinstallation from working correctly.

Reinstall the program that's been giving you problems.

You'll probably insert a CD or double-click a downloaded file.

Chances are very good that going through the additional step of scouring the Registry to remove all the old, potentially bad settings makes the program work right.

If the reinstalled version of the program still doesn't work, double-click the Registry key on your desktop to put the Registry back the way you found it.

That doesn't fix the problem. But it does mean any changes you made to the Registry are undone.