Appearance Tips
This is the page for appearance tips and will updated weekly if we can find loads more for you. This page was set up for beginners, in fact there is no such thing. If you cant spend a lot of time in front of your pc then you don't get the chance to learn the little tricks that we get hold of and have mastered over the years. Some of you advanced user like myself may find this section useful as well as when I was doing the page I came across 2 additions I got hold of from a friend I was not aware of and will be using now. So alas as I say here is a few tips and I hope it is of use to you at some point. Click on the orange txt header and it will take you right the part of how to do it.
What's the right size for a picture? Font too small? Enlarge it yourself! Too many icons on your desktop? Manage those icons. Change the order of the programs in your program menu. Change the size of your scroll bars. Change your resolution! Well, guess what? You can change all that! And you should! WHY? Resolution is generally specified as two numbers for a monitor. Something like “800 x 600” or “640 x 480.” Those numbers indicate how many pixels fit on the screen (horizontally x vertically). The more pixels you can fit, the more information you can display at once. By default, when you increase the resolution in Windows, the system will simply squish everything up into the corner of the screen leaving you a lot more blank space to work with. For some people, that’s the greatest thing since pizza-flavoured bagels (yum!). However, if you like the size of your icons and text, you can tell Windows to use the extra space to display things in greater detail. This has a similar effect to increasing the dpi (dots per inch) on your printer from 150 to 300. The images are the same size, but since they are drawn with more, smaller dots, they look better. HOW? In this tutorial, we’re going to do three things: First,
we’ll check your screen resolution and see about bumping it up. Ready? Keep your arms in, and have a fun ride! 1. SCREEN RESOLUTION Right-click on your desktop and select Properties. This will bring up the Display Properties window. 1. Select
the Settings tab. (If you get a weird flicker screen or static or something strange like that, just sit tight – the system will reset itself to your old screen mode in fifteen seconds. You might want to reinstall your drivers if there are problems here or just pick a different resolution.) 2. DESKTOP SETTINGS With your new, higher screen resolution, you may notice that your icons seem a little smaller, and maybe that cool wallpaper picture you had doesn’t look quite as cool as it did. Let’s fix those! Right-click on the desktop and open up the Display Properties window. 1. Click on
the Appearance tab. This brings up one of the most powerful
customization features in Windows. (Ooh!) Once you’re happy with the changes you’ve made there, you’ll want to check out the Large Icons option available under the Effects tab. 3. INTERNET EXPLORER DEFAULT FONT SIZES Once you have your desktop and system settings the way you want them, you just need to configure your applications. Most will use the settings you chose in step two, but Internet Explorer has its own font system. In Internet Explorer, open the View menu and go down to Text Size. Experiment with the different default sizes to see what works best for the sites you like to visit. Many web pages set their fonts relative to whatever size you have picked in this menu, so some sites may require bigger or smaller settings. In general, though, the bigger your fonts are the better they will look. For other programs, look for zoom options (Microsoft Word, for instance, will let you specify the default zoom) in the View or Display menus. What's the right size for a picture? So, if you want the picture to be 5 inches wide (probably about the biggest you would want for an e-mail message), the picture would be 360 pixels wide (5 inches x 72 dpi = 360 pixels). Pixel is short for "Picture Element" and is the smallest unit of visual information used to build an image. If you have ever zoomed in on an image, Pixels are those little squares that you see. The more pixels in an image, the better the resolution. So, how do you make the picture the right size? Use your imaging software! Most scanners and digital cameras come with some sort of imaging software that will allow you to resize an image. Open the picture in your imaging software and resize the image to your desired resolution. You can usually do this via an Image or Edit menu. Your menu style and commands may vary depending on your software. Usually, you'll get a screen that lets you input the image size in pixels. If there's a
checkbox that allows you to constrain proportions, make sure that's checked
(this insures that when you change the height or width the picture remains
proportional). This comes in handy when you want to place a picture on your desktop or if you send it by email. Now your friends won't wait forever to download a 10 meg picture file that is WAY too big when it could have been 10K and just the right size.
To increase or decrease your font size in either Internet Explorer or Outlook Express, just hit the View menu, Text Size. The procedure is usually similar for other e-mail clients and web browsers. As they say there's more than one way to skin a cat. The same is true with enlarging font sizes (and you'll be happy to know it's not nearly as disgusting as that cat skinning thing mentioned above). Anyhow, if you have one of those handy little wheel mice, you should be able to hold down your CTRL key and scroll to adjust font size.
Have too many icons on your desktop? You probably only have a few that you really use on a regular basis, so why not keep the other ones handy, but hidden? Well, it
can be done by putting a little folder on your desktop and dragging any
infrequently used shortcut icons to it. Here's how: 2. Name the new folder "Desk " (no quotes) or something similar. 3. Now, drag any icons that aren't being used on a regular basis to the folder. Some of the icons are stubborn and refuse to live anywhere but the desktop, so you'll find you can't move them (no amount of colorful language seems to improve this situation either).
Most of them will make the transition with no complaints
though.A much cleaner desktop! If you need one of those little shortcuts, open
the Desk Drawer folder and there they are. You know that toolbar (or bars) that sits on the top of most programs? Comes in handy doesn't it? Well, most good programs will let you customize this toolbar to some extent. Some programs let you customize the toolbars that are shown, some let you customize right down to the buttons you want to see. To see if the program you're working with supports custom toolbars, try either right-clicking or double-clicking the toolbar. You should get either a screen that lets you customize or a menu with an option to customize. If that doesn't work, you may want to try the program's Options or Preferences area (usually these are found under a Tools menu or an Edit menu). Now for an example - Internet Explorer is a good one for custom toolbar support (plus most everyone should have it on their computer :-). Open Internet Explorer and right-click the toolbar with the Back and Forward buttons on it. Select Customize from the resulting menu. A screen will appear that lets you choose which buttons are shown and which aren't. I've set mine to show me only the buttons I use on a regular basis. I've removed the Favorites button (I use the menu) and the e-mail button (I launch Outlook Express manually). I then added the Full Screen button.
If you would like to change the order of the programs in your Programs menu (Start button, Programs), you'll be glad to know it's easy as drag and drop. Here's how: 1. Click the Start button, Programs. 2. Once you're in the programs menu, click and hold the icon next to the item you would like to move. 3. While holding the mouse button down, move the item up or down the menu, you'll see a black line showing where you can drop the item as you move it. If this doesn't work, you probably don't have active desktop installed (in other words, you gotta have IE 4.0 or better).
Are your
scrollbars too small? Do you have a hard time grabbing them with 1. Right-click your desktop and select Properties 2. You'll be presented with a settings screen, select the Appearance tab. 3. The
second drop down box should be labeled "item" select "Scrollbar" 4. You'll be able to increase or decrease the size of your scrollbars by using the little box to the right of the drop down box (it's labeled "size"). I have mine set to 18. You should now be able to make your
scrollbars as big as you like Well, what resolution should you scan it at? Depends. If the photo is just for your computer, e-mail, or the web, then 72 DPI (Dots Per Inch) would be just fine. (72 DPI is kind of the "standard" resolution for computer images). If you scan it too high (say 600 DPI), you'll end up having an image that's way too big to work with - both in height / width and in file size. Remember, people don't like downloading 10 meg picture files. If you want to print photos from the scan, then the best rule of thumb is 300 DPI - assuming you want to print a picture that's the same size or smaller than the original. OK, now
it's going to get a little more confusing (just wanted to warn ya). Otherwise, when you go to enlarge it, you won't maintain the 300 DPI needed for photo quality. Here's why: At 300 DPI a 3x5 picture measures 900x1500 pixels. However, a 5x7 at 300 DPI is 1500x2100 pixels. So, unless you add more pixels to the scan, you aren't going to have enough to enlarge the 3x5 to a 5x7 and still maintain the 300 DPI resolution. Now, you can do the math and figure out the exact resolution you need to scan at (in this case 420 DPI), but it's usually easier just guess at a higher, round number (like 500) then re-size it in your imaging software. It's complex enough as it is, no need to make it harder! Oh, your software may be able to "force" the image to stay 300 DPI through some kind of dot manipulation, but it isn't the same. Avoid making your image higher resolution through your software whenever you can. It's always better to scan it higher, then reduce it if need be. Now, depending on your printer, you may be able to get away with less than 300 DPI. I have gone down to 225 DPI and still had a really good print, but I'm using a photo quality printer too. Finally, this is all theory - you may find that you like the results you get when you scan in a photo at 300 DPI, enlarge it, then print it. Everyone accepts different levels of quality when it comes to this stuff and I know that it's very subjective (I used to be a photographer a career back or so ago).
But there is
an easy way to fix this problem. Create a toolbar with your shortcuts in it! Left click on “New Toolbar”. This gives you a window where we can create your toolbar.Next, left click once on the word “desktop”, so it is highlighted. Then click the button “New Folder”. Give the new folder the name you want for your toolbar. Let’s say… My Shortcuts. Click OK.The window will close and you will notice a new folder has been placed on the desktop with whatever name you gave it. Left click-and-drag this folder to the edge of your screen. When you release the mouse button, the folder will magically become a toolbar. You say “So what? All I have is an empty toolbar.” Well, now that we have created the toolbar, all we need to do is to put some shortcuts in it.
To do this,
just drag the icons you want from your desktop into the toolbar. If you want
some for the start menu, just find them in there and drag them over too. To make the toolbar disappear when your mouse is not over it click on “Auto-Hide”, if it is not already checked. Open this menu again and click on “Always on Top”, again only if it is not already checked. This will allow the toolbar to be displayed over the windows you are using. With this menu you can also change the view, whether the title is displayed, and if you want text with the icons. To enhance the use of this tip you may want to create more toolbars (one for each side of your monitor.) This is great for organization. At one time, I had toolbars for documents, games, and Microsoft Office.
The only problem is that with multiple
toolbars containing lots of icons the start-up time is slightly longer . In my
opinion the wait is worth the ease it provides later. Check back for updates!
|
