Another Diagnostic Tool

This time I’ve chosen the Auslogics Duplicate File Finder.

In the days before I started this course, my files were not nearly as well organised as they are slowly becoming 😉 and I was aware that I had duplicates of several photos and probably lots of other files as well.

I set this program to look through My Pictures and sure enough it discovered 30 odd duplicates of picture files that I could remove.

I’ve created a set of instructions for the use of this program and you can see them if you click Instructions for Auslogics Duplicate File Finder

A Registry Diagnostic Tool

Our task this week was to download and run a registry diagnostic tool.  I chose CCleaner because it was recommended as being effective for its purpose.

The next part of our task was to create a set of instructions on how to use the tool.  You can see the instructions if you click on this link  Ccleaner_instructions.

Boing Boing

I’ve just discovered Boing Boing which is accurately described as a ‘Directory of Wonderful Things’.

Okay, so I’m obviously not the first to discover it since it’s been voted the most popular blog in the world according to Technorati, and won the Lifetime Achievement and Best Group Blog awards at the 2006 Bloggies ceremony, but what can I tell you – it took me a while but I’m there now…

What makes it a good blog?  Well for me it’s the variety of content. There really appears to be something for everyone.  There are links to video clips of all types, but because my computer doesn’t handle video streaming particularly well I find those a bit frustrating, although they look intriguing .  Somehow video isn’t any fun when you have to wait while your computer struggles desperately to load the content every few seconds! But there’s still plenty of other content for me to look at.

The articles are really varied magazine-style, with several different writers contributing copy.  You’d have to be very hard to please not to find something to grab your attention.  Apart from the general page which has a bit of everything, there are sections devoted to Video, Gadgets and Off World (I think that is about games).  You can also follow your favourite writers’ blogs.

My only complaint is that once you start reading the articles it becomes difficult to get anything else done and hours just disappear while you’re browsing!

Recommend a site with good information about OHS for computer users.

This website has good information about OHS for computer users.

As many workers spend their entire day sitting at a computer workstation it is important that  the work environment is appropriate for the user.  Simple things such as the height of the chair can make a difference to the health of the computer user.  It is actually quite ironic that I’m writing on this subject while at TAFE because my chair is way too low (raising mechanism broken) and I’m developing a nasty crick in my neck from gazing up at the computer screen!  QED …

My favourite software application

My favourite software application at the moment is Microsoft Office OneNote 2007.  It is one of the programs from the Microsoft Office 2007 suite.

An example OneNote page

Basically it works as an electronic notebook (an exercise book for taking notes, not a portable computer).  If you are researching a subject on the internet, you can copy and paste the information you find into OneNote and it will automatically create a link for you back to the webpage you have copied from.  As a bonus, I find articles I have saved to OneNote are often easier to read than on the original website, because the data  is in a narrower space which I find easier on my eyes.

Unlike word processing programs, you can treat a OneNote page as though it were a giant scribble pad.  You can have your data anywhere on the page – just click and start typing or pasting.  You can put separate articles side by side if you want to.

It wasn’t particularly intuitive to use at first. When I initially opened it up it was full of templates and files that I didn’t really want,  however, once I discovered that I could just close those up and make my own notebooks and folders, it began to make a bit more sense.

For a student working on assignments, I think it is invaluable.  I research the topics I need and copy and paste the relevant articles into a note book.  I have one book for each teacher and within that book  I  have different sections such as Assignments, Blogs, etc.  Within each section I can have different pages  for each part of the assignment.

When typing up work I have OneNote and my word document or blog page open at the same time, so that the information and links are readily available for reference.

Microsoft Office’s online help has a great section called the Crabby Office Lady which has some really useful material on the various Office programs.  I use only a very small proportion of the clever things this program can do I’m sure and I’m looking forward to learning more as I go along.

New and unusual USB devices

Today’s assignment is to find three new peripheral devices.  We all know the common-or-garden devices attached to every computer, such as mouse, keyboard, printer, etc; but there are some really strange things you can add to your office space if you are so inclined.

The first item to attract my attention is a USB powered aquarium.

Now, I feel sure that you would happily give up one of your precious USB ports, not to mention space on your desk, so that you could watch, feed and play with, toy fish.  The aquarium even has a blue light – hey, what more could you want?  Presumably these fish won’t die if you go away for a month or so, so I suppose if you can’t have a real pet maybe this would be the next best thing.  At least it’s more amusing than a pet rock.

Not sold on that idea?  Well what about this?

The second item is a USB Mini Fridge

This could be useful.  It has been my observation that most, if not all, young geeks guzzle copious quantities of soft drinks while at their computers.  You could have your spare can of drink nicely cooling, so it was ready for you, when you were ready for it.  I wonder whether they are planning to make them in sizes to fit beer and wine bottles.

This third item is quite silly (not unlike the other ones really).  It’s a USB powered Missile Launcher

I guess if your job was really boring and you didn’t particularly want to hang on to it, you could have missile battles with the person on the desk next to yours.  Otherwise you could have your missile launcher by your home computer and use it to repel unwanted interruptions by your kids/spouse/parents.  I suspect it’s the kind of thing people would buy their kids for stocking fillers at Christmas time and then be greatly relieved when all of the missiles have finally been lost and it could be thrown away.

My first blog

This is my first attempt at writing a blog.  How exciting! I’m doing a Certificate II course in IT at Tafe and this is part of our learning process.

I could call myself a “mature-aged student” but according to university entry guidelines that is someone who has been away from secondary school for more than two years, and I’ve been away from school for an awful lot longer than that!  When I was at school, we not only didn’t have computers but I can’t even remember using a calculator in class.  We learned how to work things out in our heads or on a piece of paper and we looked things up in the library.

However, having said that, I’m thoroughly enamoured with the instant gratification of being able to research whatever I want on the internet and I love everything I’m learning through this course.  I was just born at the wrong time!

This WordPress site seems to be reasonably intuitive and so far, touch wood (Has anyone noticed that is not as easy to do these days? I hope touching particleboard works…) I think I’m getting the hang of it.