Getting Along With Your Computer Column Archive |
 |
|
|
| A big thank you to our friends at Castanet.Net for running our column there. If you missed any of the columns, you can read them here. |
|
|
Happy Holidays! Appeared December 8, 2005 on castanet.net The holiday season is often about family visits. The post-holiday season for me is often about repairing someone’s computer that was fine before their grandkids came for a visit! It’s great to see family and friends, and of course they all have to check their email and IM with their buddies. And it may just be a coincidence that the computer started acting up just when it did. Good news: If you have Windows XP, you can prevent those coincidences by setting up a special account for your visitors. You don’t have to give your grandkids and their friends all the privileges that you enjoy. User Accounts Windows XP has three types of accounts: Administrator, which has the ability to do anything that can be done; Limited, which can’t install software or hardware, but which can access anything that has already been installed, and can change its own password; and Guest, which can do everything Limited can do except make password changes. (The Guest account does not have a password.) If you have young children (or Macintosh users) visiting, they can use the Guest account to check their email, surf the web, or run programs that have already been installed. It’s really, really hard for them to hurt the computer this way if you have your anti-virus, anti-spyware, and firewall programs up to date and running. Trusted individuals can be assigned a Limited account. This will allow them to email, surf, run programs, and also to have their own desktop and document folders, as well as access to any shared folders you’ve set up. Sometimes, programs don’t work properly on a limited account. If that happens, you’ll either have to grant Administrator privileges to the account, or you’ll have to explain to the user that s/he doesn’t have those privileges. To create or modify and account, you need to be logged in to an account with Administrator privileges. Go to Start | Control Panel | User Accounts. From there, you can change or create accounts, and turn on the Guest Account if it has been disabled. You can also click on a subtopic to learn more about User Accounts and how to get the most out of them. When your guests have gone, you can return here to delete their accounts. Fun Family Projects If you’re looking for projects to keep kids (or even yourself) busy over the holidays, check out the HP Printsville Activity Center (American spelling --- I know.) here: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/activityCenterHome?lc=en&cc=us&jumpid=ex_R602_go/printsville. You can make cards, calendars, decorations, posters, and gift boxes. Have a quick look at the projects before you get the kids involved, as you may need to get special paper stock for the best results. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town As the holidays approach, so does the best-known guest of the season. Be sure to check out the NORAD site where you can track Santa’s progress on Christmas Eve. This year marks the 50th anniversary of NORAD (and previously, CONAD) providing information about Santa. How did that get started? It was due to a misprinted telephone number in a Sears and Roebuck advertisement! Read about it here: http://www.noradsanta.org/en/default.php. You can also find out more about NORAD, a joint American-Canadian operation. Check the site on Christmas Eve to see where Santa is located, and to find out how many cookies he’s eaten so far. Be sure to set up an account for Santa to check his email while he’s visiting your house! Links: --- © Cate Eales 2005 – All Rights Reserved -30- |
|
|