Search Engines

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In the following post, you will find an article attached relating to the use of a Search Engine.

This article was created several years ago as part of my CIW  Course, it has since been updated.

The aim of this PDF that is attached is not to demonstrate how to be a master with a search engine, merely it is just a guide with some of the technique’s that I have used over the years, that I have found productive.

This is a basic article on using a search engine, it is by no means the only methods that can be used, but it is a basic guide to what is a search engine is, and how to search using basic term, and or keywords, phrases, and basic concatenation “joining two words or phrases together”

I hope that you find this article of interest, and please give your feedback as to your thoughts.

Thanks

Lee

Create user with Powershell

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Welcome to my User creation video using Windows Powershell.

In this short video I will demonstrate how to create a script based user, without as well as with settings applied. I have added the code that I used in the video.

As the bottom of the scree was cut off, I have pasted the code that I typed

If you wish to view in YouTube click here

“dsadd user “cn=LHaynes, ou=Users,ou=Nottingham,dc=carlee,dc=local” -fn Lee -ln Haynes -pwd  P@ssw0rd -mustchpwd yes

dsadd user (define object type)
cn=First Initial and Full Last Name
ou=Users (This is the childOU)
ou=Nottingham (This is the parent OU)
dc=carlee (Domain Name)
dc=local Domain Prefix(com, co.uk, me.uk, etc)
- fn Type First Name Here
-ln Type Last Name Here
-pwd The password typed here will apply to that user  P@ssw0rd
-mustchpwd yes *This forces the user to change their password an first log in to their account

Desktop Design for Beginners Page 2

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Welcome to Part Two of the Basic’s Article, part 1 of this article, was, my first article of my new website http://www.leehaynes.me.uk

As many of the people that train with me know that whenever possible I try to use everyday real world objects to try to help them understand what I am talking about!!!!!

REMEMBER PART 1 and 2 OF THIS ARTICLE ARE FOR BEGINNERS & OR NOVICE USERS

This is the second part of the article entitled (“introduction to the basics of the desktop“). Like the first part, this part will continue to be looking the basic concepts of the desktop, the icons, and the icons properties.

This article is by no means extensive, and is used as part of my desktop introduction-training course, this is not designed to be a comprehensive training course, it is just a view of what they are, what they can do, and what they can tell you.

In this second part, the article focus will be on:

  • The icons!
  • What they are!
  • What they do!
  • What they can tell you about the application, software, or object that they point you too.

What is an Icon?

In its simplest form it is a shortcut to an object, the object can be:

  • An application,
  • Could be software,
  • Could even be a folder,

By having an icon on the desktop,

  • You do not have to search for the object,
    • You click the icon,
      • After a few seconds the object that it connects to will open.

I like to think of an icon as a property sheet, I like to use the analogy of buying a house!

When you are looking to buy a new property, you want to know as much as possible; You go to the estate agents, and pick up a sheet about a property that you wish to know more about,

That is what the icon properties will do, it will tell you about that icon. But, let’s first concentrate on what it will do!

As you will see:

  • Each icon has a name,
  • That name is used to identify what object it belongs too,
  • You can change the name if you wish,
  • In addition to the name, you can also see that the icon images are different,
  • Again these help you identify what you are clicking,
  • These also help you visualize that they also belong to a different piece of software or object.

 

Icons View Icons and Names Icons names and shortcuts

In the previous images, you can see that there are a range of icons and names that I have on my desktop, they are used almost daily, and it saves time when accessing that file, folder, video or program etc.

Examples:

  • The video shortcut link for example, is linked to a “folder”, that is a folder with my videos in,
  • The icon, next, to my videos shortcut, opens Mozilla FireFox web browser,
  • The yellow folder with Microsoft is a shortcut to a folder that is on another machine,
  • The serif short cut opens my serif draw plus drawing program.

As you can see from the previous images, these shortcuts are all different, but, all do the same job, help me to identify the objects.

The name’s like those on the folders for example, help me identify what they will open when clicked, and also being on the desktop means that I can access them quickly and easily. A desktop shortcut allows you to just point, and, click.

Nevertheless, these can do more than just open a program or folder think back!!!! To when I mentioned a property sheet from an estate agent, this is what we will be looking at next.

To access The Properties Panels, right click on an icon on your desktop and a menu option opens up, select the property option, these can give you information about that object, such as:

  • Were it is located!
  • The amount of size it is using!
  • When it was last opened!
  • What the security level is to a specific person!
  • You can find out who is the owner!
  • And more.

As you can see an Icon is more than just a link to an object.

Right Click for a new menu option

More examples of what you find when right clicking, the panels and the options

Options from right clicking

The location of the target object

The security and permissions of the target object

The security and permissions of an object

This shows the dates of the object and the space used

The Dates, The Size,

By right clicking an icon, any icon, and choosing to open the ”properties panel” Note: you can do no harm to the object, and none to the machine, so go ahead and open one on your machine see what you can discover.

As well as being able to view these icons, you can also:

Modify them:

  • You can create them,
  • You can move them,
  • You can change the icon picture,
  • Names can be changed,
  • You can change the start option,
    • the version of windows that it runs in,
    • the admin options meaning it must run with administrative rights
  • You can even delete them.

Let us look at a folder: to create a new folder on the desktop,

  • Find a blank area,
  • Right click, that is you press the right mouse button down,
  • This will open a menu,
  • You can then simply select the folder option, rename it and save the files in it directly.
The new options

Is it new, or is it a short cut

The icon change options

Do I look right, or do I need to change

Sorting by options

Decide what looks best for your desktop!

To adjust the size, to make the icon larger or smaller, or to make them visible or not visible, right click the desktop and select either view or sort by, from here you can simply, click the option to make the visibility change, the sorting order, the size of the icons will change.

Go ahead, right click a blank area of the desktop and see what happens, you can do NO!!!!!! Damage. if things change and you do not like them simply right click again and try something else.

Another place to find icons is on the start menu, when you open the start menu,

  • You can move your mouse over an icon,
  • You can right click, on the icon,
  • Choose to pin that icon to the start menu, or, the task bar, (that is the bar the runs across the bottom of the screen).
The start menu

More Icons

I hope that you can see that there are many things that can be done to make life simpler when using the desktop, but as I said at the start; this is not a comprehensive tutorial of what you can do.

The basics are far more than just the desktop. If you found this article interesting and you would like an article to be created on another subject then please feel free to contact me, the articles I create have either been requested, or I am aware that an individual needs a little extra help with a specific problem

I have many more articles that are to be completed, so please continue to return, to my site, and as I said, if you want one contact me, then feel free to do so, I work with mostly with complete beginners so do not feel ashamed or embarrassed to ask me for a article, everyone has to start somewhere. If I do not know what you want to learn then I cannot help.

I hope you enjoy learning from this, and I hope that you enjoy using this article as much as I did writing it. If you wish to know more about my training course visit the training page or for my contact details, click the contacts link.

Please note I am dyslexic and often misspell words, and get the wrong punctuation, which I admit so if you do find any spelling mistakes please let me know it would be appreciated.

Also please feel free to let me know what you think of my articles.

Thanks

Lee Haynes

Desktop Design for Beginners

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Welcome to my first article of my new website.

The following article is for the complete beginner, not experienced are advanced users This article as a short introduction to the basics of the desktop, what is found on the desktop.

When you first log on to a computer or laptop you are first presented with the desktop, when working with beginners to the IT world I try where possible to define computer related objects to real world physical objects, to try to make the learning process easier.

The following article is an introduction to the basics of the computer, if you are an advanced or experienced user, then this article is not for you.

Lets start with the basic

What is the desktop?

Well! I like to equate to a TV screen, on a TV you have a picture, on the desktop you have a desktop background picture. In addition to the desktop background picture you also have some small square shaped objects that are icons. We will look at icons shortly, lets start with the main screen.

 

Image 1 Desktop

 

As you can see in my example above, I have an image that I created, and I made this image as part of my desktop, I did that by a process of what is called (“personalising my desktop“). Personalised desktops are common.

To personalise your own desktop you select a blank area on your desktop and right click, and select the option to personalise

When you find a blank area on the desktop and right click also referred to as (“Alternate Click”) you will see the menu appear below, you mouse over the word (“Personalise”) and then left click, to open the personalise panel.

Right click

The Personalise panel as below is opened as in the following image, as you can see, from this panel, you can change the picture on the screen or desktop background.

You can also change the window colour scheme you see and use, I encourage you to click and open the options, a common point that I find with complete beginners is that they are afraid of breaking their machine, the truth is unless you start deleting or removing system objects, in an exploration sense you can do little damage, you cannot break anything by clicking on any of these

Clicking and changing the colours of the bar at the bottom of the screen and the colour scheme is about all the you will change, you can also change the sounds and the screen saver. The screen saver is for want of a better concept a background that will change if the machine is not used for a certain length of time. The screen saver was originally used to stop images being burned to the screen in the days of CRT Monitors.

Dekstop Image Xample 1

Desktop Backgrounds

To change the background mouse over the text that states desktop background, then left click, that will open the desktop background window. This window will give you the option of changing the picture, as I did with mine.

The next screen that will open is as follows. As you can see in the main window, a set of pictures will appear, in my screen shot, I have created an examples folder, in your screen you will see the default pre-installed images that are shipped with your laptop or computer

Desktop Options

If you wish to find different pictures click the arrow next to the Browse button, and a drop down menu will appear like in the screen shot above. As you can see in my example I have created a folder that is add to my you tube account, but, also in the menu are many of the default folders and locations that have been pre-installed in my laptop.

To change your picture simply mouse over the picture, that you want, the picture will then display a small tick box in the upper left corner, click in side to make the picture that one you want, then click the changes, and that is it. You will now see your desktop picture has changed.

Lets look at the browse button and what will it do?

In simple terms it will open a new exploration window, this window will allow you to navigate or move to a different location, as in my example screenshot, and allow you to choose a different picture in a different location and to make that picture your desktop picture. It is up to you. In my example I created a wall paper folder on my laptop, then had to navigate to that location in order to select a picture IF I wanted to add my own desktop picture or desktop (“Wallpaper”).

One important point to notice is that the system will tell you exactly where the picture is that you have selected in my example screen shot I have all my wallpaper in my D:\ location, but, for this tutorial I purposely created a test folder in my C:\ Drive. You can see that my example is in C:\Users\Daily\My Documents\Add to my you tube account.

Image 1 Desktop - Personalise 3

As you will learn, you can add any picture you like to the desktop, you can make it any size you want, you can create several pictures and have them change every 10 minutes or rotate every hour by clicking several pictures whilst holding down the CTRL on the keyboard. In the next screen shot you will see that I have demonstrated this

Image 1 Desktop - Personalise 4

By simply holding down my CTRL key on my keyboard I was able to select more than one image, once I did that more options became available, the “Shuffle” and “Change Picture Every”  as more than one image was selected the system understood that you can only have a single picture on the background open at once, and that, as you had selected more than one image you would like to create a rotating set of pictures to appear on the desktop. Take note that you do not have to click the save changes button strait away, the picture rotation begins immediately if you have the shuffle time at 1 or 10 seconds. If you set the change antiviral at say 30 minutes, then every 30 minutes, the desktop picture will change.

Try it out for yourself

A closing note for beginners It is a little difficult at first, working out if you need to right click, or left click, or should you use the right click menu options, but, trust me, it will get easier,  you will get used to this, it is defined by time and usages of the computer or laptop.

If this helps, being dyslexic, I like to equate the “right click, to the menu option”, and the “left click to perform an action”, that was how I was able to remember the difference, (“right click opens the menu left performs that action”). But we all learn differently.

Page 2 >>

Hello and Welcome to my new website!!”

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Welcome to leehaynes.me.uk

I am a midlands based technology professional that enjoys working with people, I have been working as a trainer on and off now for more than 15 years both in the field of IT and in none IT related employment.

For me working as an IT trainer is the most satisfying and rewarding career that I have found, it is not just about showing how the technology works, it is about the journey the trainee takes, many of the individuals that I work / have worked with are complete beginners, that in many instance are not sure where and how to turn on the machines they have.

Many are more mature individuals that have by need or by choice need to learn about technology a lot of the time is it a family machine, they do not use it, but they wish to learn, and turn to me for help and advice. Much of my training is based on their skill level, budget, and time. Many of the people I train are in their 50’s and above.

This website is here to serve two purposes:

The first is for me to promote myself as an IT professional, and to say that I have many skills that I can bring, and have to teach, I work both paid and voluntary so I am happy to work either way.

The second is also to help the people I train; I will use this site to create videos, write articles, and create tutorials and to help people learn about technology.

If you are looking to recruit a Nottingham based technology professional for a current training position, OR, you are looking for some IT training yourself, then I would be happy to help, and advice, as I said, budget, is also a part of my concern so concessions, reduced rates and even free training is available if the situation dictates that you cannot afford the training but need the skills.

For me the journey the student / trainee takes and the skills they learn is far more important anything else, if you are a mature professional or individual that needs to learn technology, or an individual that needs to learn skills then please feel free to contact me.

Thanks

Lee