How To Talk To Your Children

It is late at night, you are in the middle of an email – and it disappears. Whom do you call? OS Busters? No, only those who would tirelessly listen to your problem: family.

Even family, however, have limits; so try to be as specific as possible, and to that end, we need to describe the elements of a Microsoft window …

Something somewhere that is covering your desktop (the clouds on blue sky, with postage stamp pictures on it that make little sense: “Shortcut to H…”) is a window with a blue stripe along the top. This would be the current task Title Bar. It may not be your current task, but it is to Microsoft – and they’re the ones with the money. Whatever it is you want is either under or below the window/page with the active title bar. If you see more than one blue line, the uppermost one is the one that can save or hurt you.

If you are (or were) writing, there is a Menu Bar usually right under the task bar; typical items are File – Edit – View – Format – Tools. Forgetting all the other teeny-tiny pictures/icons under the menu bar for a minute, everything you can possibly do under that task bar is hidden in the menu bar. It is always a good idea to go over each item, left to right, clicking once, to see if anything in that horizontal list could be what might possibly answer your question. (“Ah, send mail, save draft, add attachment”.

The bottom of the screen consists of four parts. The first, from left to right, is the Start Menu. (There is a seemingly meaningless key next to the space bar – in fact two – with a picture you can barely make out, but is in fact the flying Windows logo – that will also open the Start Menu; no mouse needed.) Pressing this key will often bring back something familiar, if it appears there is nothing but a single picture over your entire monitor.

The second long item is the Task Bar. Generally, if you have lost an email, it can be found by clicking on the email icon in this area. This line has every task on which you are or were actively working. It is highly unlikely you closed it (hit the X in the top right corner) as almost all writing tools ask first if you want to save your work. That is the good news.

The rightmost box with the clock is the System Tray and consists of many (but not all!) of the tasks you are passively doing – whether you meant to or not. Antivirus icons are often found here, as are sound, video, network status. These are most often opened or jumpstarted when you start windows. If you pass your mouse cursor very slowly over each one you can learn what they are; you can also right-click or even double-click to find further information or settings … but probably not a good idea to go there … Too much information …

The bottom-most line is the Quick Launch bar and is a duplicate in many ways of your desktop with the postage stamps. The bar should consist of tasks that you would normally do frequently: write your autobiography, balance checkbook, play solitaire, Google. As there is no way to reasonably see these tasks without a magnifying glass, they should be few and in an order that you can figure out. If all else fails and the email looks gone, hit the windows key, then quick launch Yahoo messenger, pick a buddy, and type “Help”.

There is another alternative, but it is not for the faint of heart and should be done only under a child’s supervision. There is a super toy called RealVNC from ATT (UK) – yes, the old AT&T has a British address. This lovely little piece of software, lets someone, through the internet, to look at your computer monitor and actually operate it. Rather like the old driving school cars, which came with two sets of everything – just for emergencies.

As I would then have to pour out all kinds of boilerplate legalese about the dangers of allowing this, I will stop. In the immortal words of Eleanor Bron, “I can say no more.” If you know enough to be able to Google it, download it, install it, and communicate with your alter ego, then you are probably advanced enough to use it. It can turn a two-hour phone call into a 10-minute solution.

So while you may still know the difference from a boom vang to an outhaul, you really should start learning the parts of the screen for smoother sailing.

Archie specializes in tutoring and training of seniors in PC security, Windows, Internet, and Microsoft Office. He holds the CompTIA A+ certification and is often featured speaker at Goodwin House in Alexandria; he can be emailed at ama3@tfci-us.com