February 13, 2010 Seminar Notes
Keystone Computer Concepts
We Speak English, Not Geek!

Thank You!  Thank you so very much for attending our seminar on Saturday, February 13, 2010.  Here at the notes from the seminar:

In honor of Valentine's Day, I showed a few cartoons and jokes I had found on the Net.  Click on the thumbnails to see a larger version:

As we turned to more serious things, I asked everyone to write down three things they love about their computers (or, at least like about them).  Seminar attendees came up with many good responses such as: being able to stay in touch with family and friends via email and Skype; the quickness in finding out information; banking online; sharing jokes and playing games.

I mentioned the three things I love about computers and the Internet: 1) subjects like Geography and History, something I found boring in high school, come alive for me; 2) the computer/Internet combo provided Joyce and me with our "Internet Dog" - Zeke, our Cairn Terrier; and 3) how the world seems smaller.  I showed a video from Belgium which most of us may have never seen or even known about if it weren't for computers and the Net.  Here is that video:

Next, we began a discussion on the different "Views" in Windows windows.  Luckily, I already have a HOW TO tutorial on this subject and you can find it HERE.

Having learned about the different views, it was only natural that we talk about how to use columns to sort and organize our information.  Again, we have a tutorial for this and you can find it HERE.

Somewhere within the discussion about views, I mentioned that, although I don't usually like photo gallery programs, I am very impressed with Windows Live Photo Gallery.  In fact, I'm using it on my laptop all the time.  If you'd like to download it and try it yourself (It's free!) you can do so by clicking HERE.  Please note that the installer will want to install other Live programs as well - you can choose which others you want, if any.

After the break at 11:00 a.m., at the request of several people, I reviewed the reasons I believe those using the free version of Avast Anti-virus should move up to one of the two paid versions.  I had already covered this in my blog and you can read it HERE.

Shifting subjects again, Joyce handed out papers with Windows Key shortcuts on one side and process names on the other.  I demonstrated some of the 13 Windows Key shortcuts and urged attendees to try all of them when they got home. 

We discussed Ctrl-Alt-Delete and how you can reach the Task Manager with the key combination.  I also demonstrated how to use the Processes tab to end a program instead of the General tab.  For a PDF copy of the sheet we handed out, click HERE.

Except for the giveaways, that pretty much wrapped up our seminar.  You can view the video of our live seminar below.  Please note: apparently, a technical difficulty prevented the 2nd half of the seminar from being saved.  I apologize for any inconvenience this causes.