There are many decisions to make when purchasing a computer or several arrive in your classroom. Additional items such as software (see GLOSSARY) or Internet Service Providers can be free in some cases or bundled in with something else purchased. To take advantage of all options available to educators familiarize yourself with the nomenclature and ascertain your needs. The time spent in achieving this objective will pay off in dollars saved, increased classroom productivity, and provide new forms of entertainment. NOTE: Be sure to purchase a good desk chair that is ergonomically constructed, adjustable, and set for personal anatomical needs.

• Family PC http://familypc.zdnet.com
• PC Magazine http://zdnet.com/pcmag/
• PC Computing http://www.zdnet.com/pccomp/
• PC World http://www.pcworld.com .

• An upgrade will usually incorporate many new features while eliminating some of the less useful features of the original product. These will usually cost you money, but less than the original product. It is to your advantage to review the new product you have heard about by going to the manufacturers home site and reading what they publish concerning the improvement and also to a computer magazine to read some reviews before making the decision to actually buy the newest version. In some cases the new features will not be as useful to you as they are to someone else.

• An update is usually published on a manufacture’s home site. It is usually provided free as a download to correct any problems that may have occurred since the product was sent to market. If you are experiencing any problems with getting a product to work like it should, visit the manufacture’s home site to see if an update is available. If an update is not available there are usually tutorials presented that will instruct you on using the product and also technical help offered either by phone or email? Most manufacturers want you to be a repeat customer and are very conscientious about providing assistance even to the novice.

To select a group of files to either copy, move or delete there is two different methods of choosing the files from the list. It depends on their order in the list which method would be the easier of the two. If they are all in descending order, and there are several of them, rather than doing each individually, highlight the first and then go to the last, hold down the Shift key and left click the mouse. This selects every file in the sequence, and they can now be copied, moved or deleted as a group.

To select a group that are not in sequential order, left click on the first and then hold down the Control key and left click on the next you chose, and then still holding the Control key, click on each file you would like in your group. Each file chosen in both methods will then be highlighted so you know what files will be cut moved or copied.

If you wish to move a file from one place to another you click on the left mouse button and drag it to its new location, and then release the button which drops the file to the new location, (you can actually see a ghost copy of the file moving to the new location). But you can accidentally drop the file somewhere you don’t want and have trouble finding it later. A much safer method of moving or copying a file is to drag it holding the right mouse button and dropping it to the new location. This will bring up a dialog box with several options: Move Here, Copy Here, Create Shortcuts Here, or Cancel. Dragging with the right mouse button gives you more control than dragging with the left, which automatically performs the default action. The Cancel Command can be especially handy. NOTE: See SOFTWARE, and WINDOWS EXPLORER

Useful features to learn are Copy and Paste. They are very simple, and will find these commands pertinent to many situations. The commands are located in the Edit pull down menu, while both icons are located on the edit toolbar along with the Cut command. Cutting automatically places the information on the clipboard viewer, ready to paste it into the location of your choice. See CLIPBOARD VIEWER.

To Copy materials first highlight it, which is accomplished by dragging the cursor down over the selected area. The text and the background will change color as you drag the mouse and adjust the end point by moving the mouse before releasing the button. Then

You won’t see anything change if you used the Copy command rather than the Cut command, but if you would like to make sure of what you copied you can go to Start, Accessories, and then open your Clipboard Viewer program. The material you just selected will be sitting there waiting for you to paste it somewhere else. It’s a good idea to open the Clipboard Viewer Program and then minimizing it so it remains readily available on your taskbar while you are working if you plan on doing several copy and paste operations. Copied material remains on the clipboard even after pasting, and this takes up RAM space, especially graphics or sound files, which can be quite large. These should be deleted after your pasting operation and the open clipboard on the task bar serves to remind you to do this.

Once the material is copied onto the clipboard you are ready to paste it, either to a new window, paragraph, e-mail, or to another document entirely. It can be pasted numerous times without redoing the process and will remain on the clipboard until you copy something else, which will replace it automatically.

1. Click on Edit and select Copy,
2. or click on the Copy icon,
3. or hold down the Control Key and the "C" at the same time.

Once the material is copied onto the clipboard you are ready to paste it, either to a new window, paragraph, e-mail, or to another document entirely. It can be pasted numerous times without redoing the process and will remain on the clipboard until you copy something else, which will replace it automatically.