Windows 7 - Using Speech Recognition

Before you run out to buy Dragon Speech or a similar software program, use the Speech Recognition software that has been built into all Windows Operating Systems, since Windows XP.  Voice/Speech Recognition is becoming common today in so many devices including iPhone, iPad, iPods, Android tablets and smartphones, computers, automobiles and other devices... So the more comfortable you get with it, the more you will use it with all of your devices...

If you haven't played with "Speech Recognition" yet, and are now using Windows 7, give it a try.  The program in Windows 7 is quite powerful and allows you to tell your computer what to do and you can also use it to dictate text into a document. 

Speech Recognition uses a special voice profile to recognize your voice and spoken commands, so the more you use Speech Recognition, the more detailed your voice profile becomes, which will improve your PC (and other mobile devices) abilities to understand you

As with so many things we do with the computer, using the speech recognition to give commands is just another way, in addition to using the mouse and/or the keyboard and/or

keypad.. 

Before you set up your Speech Recognition, make sure you've plugged a microphone into your PC so these steps will work.. Personally I think using a headset microphone; which is less likely to pick up background noise, is best when I'm using any speech recognition program to give commands or dictate into documents, doing voice recordings for slide shows and movies and using other programs such as Skype..

In Windows 7, click the Start Button

• Type Speech in the search box of the start menu
• Choose Windows Speech Recognition from the menu
• Note-if this is the first time you've used it, the Set-Up Speech Recognition Wizard will open and walk you thru setting up the system & settings. 
•  When you are in settings, it gives you the option to "Train your computer to better understand you" that helps it to recognize your voice.. 
•  In the Set-up, Windows also offers a tutorial that will help familiarize you with how to give commands and use the software - Take the tutorial - it really helps... 
• As with any new program or piece of hardware you are learning, remember to also use www.yotube.com, to find additional tutorials that will help you master just about anything..

Be patient and practice - like so many other things, the more you do it, the easier it will become and the more comfortable you will be...

Changing the default settings in your Office Programs

Default simply means “Standard” – the way in which a program will work each and every time you use it and you can change/modify many of the “default” settings on computer programs that we use daily, including our browsers and office programs…

This is a personal choice – certainly you can continue to use the default settings established by the provider that are built into the program.  But, changing the way your Browser or Office Programs work can make life so much easier.

Customizing your Office programs can impact the way in which documents print, how they are saved, the way they appear on the page, margins, paper layout/orientation – such as portrait or landscape, the font you use, whether the red & green squiggle lines appear as you type indicating spelling & grammatical errors - these are just a few of the many ways in which you can “customize” the way in which your Office Programs work for you.  Decide for yourself – making each program easier for you to use can be done as often as you’d like – some compare it to adjusting the seat position and rear view mirrors when you get into a car…

In Word 97-2003:

Click TOOLS, Then Click OPTIONS

You will see various options available for you to be able to modify to your liking

Click SAVE (set at 1 minutes – doesn’t affect your work, simply saves in the background)

Click SPELL (whichever options you’d like & Auto Text Entries and many others)

In Word 2007-2010:

Click on the Office Button or File Tab

At the bottom of the dialog box/page that opens, left click on “WORD OPTIONS”

This opens the Control/Dialog Box, which lists on the left various categories which allow you to “customize” the software you are using to your own liking..

Special Note for anyone using 2007-2010 Office Programs it is very important to save everything you do as “97-2003 compatible” so that you can share your documents with others who may not have the newest of these software programs.  You can do this as you save each and every document, or do it once when you are in your Options Settings, under the Save category..

CHANGE YOUR SCREEN DISPLAY SETTINGS

CHANGE YOUR screen display settings

You can access your Display settings by right-clicking anywhere on the Desktop and then:

• In Windows XP choose Properties
• In Windows Vista & Windows 7 choose Personalize

Both of these bring you to the Display section of the Control Panel (so you can also get to the same spot by going to your Start Menu, Control Panel & Appearance/Display)

When you access the Properties or Personalize command:

• In Windows XP you will open the Display Properties Dialog Box – there are five tab choices: Themes, Desktop, Screen Saver, Appearance and Settings
• In Windows Visa & Windows 7 a Page of Lists appear and you’ll have the ability to make changes in all these same categories – you will just have many more options…

Basically, this is what each segment allows you to do… 

Themes

This allows you to choose a theme which will apply to all your Windows screen,the icons, sounds and colors – such as jungle, underwater & many more.

Desktop

This will allow you to choose different desktop background images, from samples which are inlcuded or you can use the BROWSE button to find a photo you have saved in you’re My Picture Folder…  Remember – if you find a photo in an email or on the internet that you want for your background, when your cursor is on the image, right click on the image and choose Set as Desktop Background. In Windows 7 there is a grat new feature which allows yiu to have the desktop change using  photos from Windows or your own photos-similar to what happens in the Screen Saver segment

Screen Saver

Screen Savers are the “motion” choices we use when our computer is idle – many different ones are built in, or you can use the photos in you’re my Picture Folder or when you are on vacation you can purchase “screen savers” to remind you of your trip… This is also where we can change our Power settings for the monitor, noting how long it should stay on when we leave our computer alone.. Remember you can change how quickly you want the screen saver to go on and other choices…

Appearance

This choice allows us to change the style and colors and size of fonts for our Windows and buttons.  Just click on the drop-down arrow buttons to choose different settings; the font size option is great if text is too small – just change it to large fonts or extra large fonts..  The advanced tab allows us to change size & colors for all our screen items including borders, icons and the menus.

Settings

This choice allows us to change screen resolution and color quality – remember the resolution determines the number of pixels used to make up the display. The higher the setting, the more detailed your display and the higher resolution gives you a larger screen area to work with, but if you find text and icons are now too small you may need to increase font size and use larger icons to compensate.

You can only go up to the highest resolution that your monitor can support. Experiment to find a resolution you are comfortable with – many opt for the highest setting.

When you set a high resolution, increasing the DPI (dots per inch) setting – it makes all screen items including text appear larger.

Windows 7 – tip to improve performance

Windows 7 Operating System has a lot of different visual effects which are totally cosmetic but serve no practical purpose. They simply enhance the “look and feel” of this operating system…

But all of these enhancements don’t add anything to the systems functionality and can in fact, slow the system impacting the systems resources… So you might want to change the default setting from the default “Adjust for best appearance” to “Adjust for best performance”.. It only takes a minute to make this change, simply:

• Go to Start, Control Panel, System, Advanced System setting
• Next choose the Setting button under Performance
• When the dialog box appears, choose the Tab – “Visual Effects” and you will see 4 choices lists

 Choose:

• “Adjust for best performance” (or you can disable them individually in the list noted below) Your choice… Disabling them all does have a significant impact on the way the Windows looks, but it will run much more effectively…so it’s a personal choice for sure…

Instead of any of the other 3
• Let Windows choose what’s best for my computer
• Adjust for best appearance (default setting)
• Custom

Automatic Operating System Updates

For those of you with Microsoft Windows Operating Systems, you can keep your computer up to date automatically with the latest updates by turning on the Automatic Update setting to make life easier…
By doing this, instead of you having to search for critical updates or reacting to those announced to you, Microsoft/Windows will download them directly to your computer when you aren’t typically using your computer, such as the middle of the night...but remember your computer would have to be on for this to happen.. If your computer is not on, the next time you turn your computer or laptop on, the “call out notice” will appear in the bottom right hand corner of your monitor prompting you to do the update…
Microsoft/Windows recognizes when you are online and uses your Internet connection to search for downloads from the Windows Update Web site.
An icon appears in the notification area each time new updates are available.
How to Turn On Automatic Updates:
• Right-click on "My Computer".
• Left-click on "Properties".
• Left-click on the "Automatic Updates" tab.
• Select "Automatic (recommended)".
• Select "Every Day".
• Select a time when your computer will be on and online.
• Left-click on "OK".

Just set it and forget it – it’s so easy.

Periodically, Microsoft/Windows will ask you to restart your computer after an update. You can restart at your convenience -- just make sure to save any data you're working on – if you have the automatic updates set, then your computer will automatically restart whenever it is needed…

How and Why's of Setting Up Users Accounts (with Windows 7)

How to set up different User Accounts on your Computer..
Windows Operating Systems have always allowed us to set up different user accounts for different users of the same computer, so that when each user signs in they will see the desktop icons/software – wallpaper, screen savers and of course files & folders that are just theirs…

Although it’s a little different in each of the operating systems – Windows 7 makes it easier than ever to do this…

Note: Whenever two or more user accounts are created, one of them MUST BE an administrator account. It is then the administrator account that is able to set restriction on what additional user accounts can and can’t do…

• Go to Start, Control Panel, User Accounts, then left click “Manage another Account”
• Now left click on “create a new account”
• Choose an account type, enter a name and then left click, create account
• To password protect the account, click that choice. You will see different account options in addition to creating a password

Remember passwords are always case sensitive, so be sure to note what the different passwords are that you assign to each user

Why set up different user accounts? I’ve found it helpful to have a user account with my name on it and another user account that says “kids” for the grandkids to use and another user account for “guests” which allows anyone else to use the computer… This way, the grandkids and guests can use our computer, and I'm never concerned that any of our personal and/or work information will be compromised - it remains private and can’t be accessed by anyone else using the computer…

Facebook - Update your privacy settings

Despite all the bad press Facebook gets about their site and the privacy issue, one of the basic reasons there is a problem is that we, the users, don’t pay close enough attention to our privacy settings, which we should carefully and often..

As technology changes, Facebook has also changed and continually is adding more privacy options for us to use to help protect ourselves –but we have to use them…

Not sure how and what to do – then see what’s news:

Click Account in the top right corner of the Facebook window and then click Privacy settings to adjust who is capable of seeing what on your Facebook profile. We highly recommend going through all the privacy settings to verify your privacy is properly protected.

Understand, that anything that is not set to FRIENDS ONLY or FRIENDS OF FRIENDS can be seen by anyone searching on the Internet. Some good tips for most of us…

• Under Search in Privacy settings uncheck Public Search Results. This will prevent users from finding your account and profile picture in search results such as Google


• Under Application settings, make sure you're only allowing applications you want to have access to your information. Applications that you grant rights to can have access to your Facebook profile information.

PowerPoint Tips: Slide Background choices

Adding color to the background of your slides makes them more interesting. Simple is better so step back and review your presentation and think twice before using “wild colors” that detract from your slides.. To add color to your slide backgrounds:

If you have PP 2000 OR 2003:

1. 1. Select "Format" - "Background".
2. 2. A "Background" dialog box appears and you can left click on the pull-down menu to choose from one of a few selected colors, "More Colors", or "Fill Effects".

More Colors

• If you choose "More Colors" it opens a dialog box with several tabs which shows you different standard colors or you can choose “custom colors” which shows you the color prism and the colors RGB values if you are trying to match a specific shade of a color.
• When you are done, click "OK" to close the dialog box.

Fill Effects – This option opens another dialog box with several tabs for different fill types:

• Gradient – One – two and preset multicolor gradient fills and there are different fill type, colors, transparency, shading styles, and variants.
• Texture – There are a variety of textures, or click "Other Texture" to import a texture graphic of your own.
• Pattern – There are different pre-made patterns and you can adjust the pattern foreground and background colors.
• Picture – This allows you to select your own photo for your presentation background.

When you are done, click "OK" to close the dialog box.

Apply your Changes - When you are happy with your changes, decide if you want the background graphic to appear on printed slides (doing so increases print time and requires more toner/ink), but if not – you can check "Omit background graphics from master". Then click "Apply" to apply the changes to the current slide only, or "Apply to All" to apply the changes to all slides.

If you have PP 2007 or 2010:

As with earlier versions, backgrounds can be applied to individual slides or to all the slides in a presentation - choices in 2007 & 2010 are located on the Design Ribbon. To access the Design Ribbon:

• Click on the Design Tab and you will see the Design ribbon options & features.
• Hover your mouse over any of the design themes shown.
• The design is reflected immediately on your slide.
• Click the design theme when you find one that suits your needs.

To change the background on an individual slide - click on the background button on the right end of the Design ribbon, which opens the Format Background dialog box – If you want to apply your choice to all the slides in your presentation, once you make your choice, be sure to choose the “Apply to All” button at the bottom of the dialog box.

Like earlier versions - you now have choices of colors and effects, but the newer versions have more choices in easy – such as the Gradient Fill now has multiple choices to play with:

• Linear - the gradient colors flow in lines which can be from preset angles or a precise angle on the slide
• Radial - colors flow in a circular fashion from your choice of five different directions
• Rectangular - colors flow in a rectangular fashion from your choice of five different directions
• Path - colors flow from the center out to form a rectangle
• Shade from title - colors flow from the title out to form a rectangle

Be careful using Background Textures: they can be very busy and make text difficult to read, which can detract from your message. If you do use a textured background, choose a subtle design and be sure to choose a text color that will stand out from the background.

A great feature in the new PowerPoint 2007 & 2010 is DESIGN & COLOR THEMES that change not only the backgrounds but totally coordinate the colors, font styles and sizes used for a total look… These are similar to the design templates which were available in earlier versions of Power Point. What I like, is that when you are choosing a design theme in the new PP 2007 & 2010, you will immediately see the effect on your slides, so you can decide before making your decision final…

Facebook - Photo Tagging Safety

One of the most popular features on Facebook is "photo-tagging" but it's also an easy way for companies to "send advertisements" by tagging their products with your name & your friends. Hopefully these tips will help you to avoid that from happening and also show you how to protect your privacy and your friends...

The privacy settings on Facebook allow you to limit who sees photos tagged with your name, and you can even prevent your name from showing up in your friends' photo-tag suggestions. But you can't opt-out of photo-tagging completely, and you can't stop third-party applications from tagging your friends' names on photos on your wall once you've accidentally given the apps access.

It's important to be careful and to make sure your privacy settings are “secure” so that you don't inadvertently allow advertisers and/or spammers to see your profile and get to your friends to spread their advertisements via your Facebook wall, for all your friends to see! across Facebook

How it's done: When you click the link to the photo album, thinking you're about to see a photo album of your cousins wedding or your friends birthday party, instead, it's something like a photo album full of the amenities at some hotel or the latest menu specials from a local restaurant chain and they are tagged with many names of people who don't appear in the picture but have simply been “tagged”. When you first see it, if you don’t see your cousin or friend – don’t go any further, because if you do click on the photo to find out more and go too far, you might just be agreeing to give the application access to your account and your friends on Facebook will begin to receive notices that you’ve been tagged in a photo – and the unfortunate cycle has begun!!

Hopefully we’ve warned you in time, but if not it’s easy to remedy-just remove the application from accessing your profile by:

• >Immediately remove any contents (posts, photos etc) that the “company/spammer” has posted on your Facebook wall about the phony event
• Now, go to your Account Settings in the upper right side of your screen
• When the drop-down menu appears, click/choose Privacy Settings
• On the bottom right side of the Privacy Settings Page, click/choose the Apps & websites link
• Now choose "Edit your settings."
• On the App page, next to "Apps you use," select "edit settings"
• Now you will see the third-party apps that have access to your Facebook profile. Delete any applications you don’t want and try to check this setting regularly to protect yourself and your friends
• Apologize to your friends who might have been tagged by this company and remind them to do the same thing to protect "your name" - together, if we are all diligent about our privacy settings, we can help to minimize these problems....

PowerPoint Tip: Stop the Black Screen at the End

Typically when we watch any slide show made with PowerPoint, it ends with a “black screen that shows a message at the top: “End of slide show-click to exit”.

If you don’t want to see this screen, just stop it from happening by changing a setting. Note thought, that this setting only applies to the PowerPoint software running on your computer. It is not a setting that is saved with the slide show presentation file itself.

So if you create a slide show presentation and take it to another computer, you’ll want to change this setting again on that computer.

If you have PowerPoint 2000-2003:

• Choose Tools |Options.
• Choose the View tab.
• Uncheck the box for the option End with black slide.

If you have PowerPoint 2007 or 2010:

• Click on the Office button in 2007 and File button in 2010.
• Choose the PowerPoint Options button (at the bottom of the window).
• Choose Advanced from the left side of the next panel.
• On the right side find the Slide Show section.
• Uncheck the box for the option End with black slide.

So remember, if you make this change it's on your computer only - if you take the slide show to another computer, you would have to change the setting on that computer also..

CHANGE YOUR SCREEN DISPLAY SETTINGS

You can access your Display settings by right-clicking anywhere on the Desktop and then choosing Properties in Windows XP (Windows Vista OR Windows 7 – choose Personalize or Customize)

OR

You can always do it the long/old way and go to your control panel (on your start menu), then to Appearance – Themes and the Display icons.

When you access the Display Properties Dialog Box – there will be multiple choices and the newer your operating system the more choices you will have, such as: Themes, Desktop, Screen Saver, Appearance and Settings and within each of these categories the newer your operating systems the more design & other choices you will have...

Themes
This allows you to choose a theme which will apply to all your Windows screen,the icons, sounds and colors – such as jungle, underwater & many more.

Desktop
This will allow you to choose different desktop background “wallpaper” images, from samples which are inlcuded or you can use the BROWSE button to find a photo you have saved in you’re My Picture Folder… Remember – if you find a photo in an email or on the internet that you want for your background, when your cursor is on the image, right click on the image and choose Set as Desktop Background.

Screen Saver
Screen Savers are the “motion” choices we use when our computer is idle – many different ones are built in, or you can use the photos in you’re my Picture Folder or when you are on vacation you can purchase “screen savers” to remind you of your trip… This is also where we can change our Power settings for the monitor, noting how long it should stay on when we leave our computer alone..

Appearance
This choice allows us to change the style and colors and size of fonts for our Windows and buttons. Just click on the drop-down arrow buttons to choose different settings; the font size option is great if text is too small – just change it to large fonts or extra large fonts.. The advanced tab allows us to change size & colors for all our screen items including borders, icons and the menus.

Settings
This choice allows us to change screen resolution and color quality – remember the resolution determines the number of pixels used to make up the display. The higher the setting, the more detailed your display and the higher resolution gives you a larger screen area to work with, but if you find text and icons are now too small you may need to increase font size and use larger icons to compensate. You can only go up to the highest resolution that your monitor can support. Experiment to find a resolution you are comfortable with – many opt for the highest setting.

When you set a high resolution, increasing the DPI (dots per inch) setting – it makes all screen items including text appear larger.

Change the style, size & color of your Cursor/Pointer

Quite often I hear “I can’t find the cursor” – So for those of us who may from time to time “lose the cursor” on our desktop and other screens when we are moving the mouse around – the best thing to do is to make the cursor larger or change the color from white to black – there are numerous choices…you decide.

To change the cursor/pointer appearance & other “hardware” settings follow these simple steps by going to the various settings available in your "control panel"

• Left Click on your Start Button
• Left Click on Control Panel
• Left Click on "Hardware & Sound"
• Now choose & Left Click on "Mouse", then "Change Pointer Appearance"
• You will see is a drop down list of choices under "Schemes"
• Once you decide which you would like, highlight it and click "Apply"
• A good choice is: Window Standard (extra large) system scheme

If you aren't happy with your choice, No Problem - Just repeat the process until you find a style, color & size that you are happy with

These steps may vary slightly based on the level of your operating system (Windows 98, XP, Vista or 7) but remember, they are basically the same for all..

Troubleshoot Common Printer Problems:

Here are a variety of common printer problems and their solutions to make your printing life easier. If nothing has changed on your printer or in your printer settings on your computer then chances are that the problem is quite straightforward. QUICK & EASY:

• Check the printer cable first off.
• Check power. This sounds stupid but it happens.
• Check and make sure printer is online.
• Check paper, toner, ink. These are common to go out and need replacement.
• Try a print test page. There may be a button on the printer itself that will do a test page for you. If the page prints out you know that the problem isn't the printer itself.
• Look at your printer settings. Make sure you are sending to the proper printer. Is the right one installed?
• Be sure that your USB cable is securely connected - if you have an older printer, check the parallel switchers and inspect the cable itself; new printer cables can be faulty (but this is very rare)
• Visit your manufacturer's website-they will have specific troubleshooting advice for each specific printer - simply put in your model # and it will walk you through a troubleshooting wizard

ALTHOUGH YOU MAY THINK YOU HAVE TO USE PAPER FROM THE PRINTER MANUFACTURER, this simply isn’t true. Try various brands until you find one that you are happy with; I’ve used Wal-Mart’s “MultipPurpose” (Georgia Pacific) 20# for many years. The packaging is purple & black - it is inexpensive & works great on any printer I've used it on..

Facebook - Privacy Settings

For those of you using facebook - be sure to make this change to your settings today to protect your privacy.. Are you aware that as of today – December 15, 2009 - Facebook will automatically index all your info on Google, which allows everyone to view it.

To change this option, go to:

• Settings -->
• Privacy Settings -->
• Search -->
• then UN-CLICK the box that says 'Allow indexing'

Be sure to Copy and paste onto your status for all your friends ASAP so that we all protect our privacy..

CHANGE YOUR DISPLAY SETTINGS

You can access your Display Settings by right-clicking anywhere on the Desktop and then choosing Properties (Windows Vista – choose Personalize) or you can change these settings by going to your control panel (on your start menu) and then going to Appearance – Themes and the Display icons.

When you access the Display Properties Dialog Box – there are five tab choices: Themes, Desktop, Screen Saver, Appearance and Settings.

Themes
This allows you to choose a theme which will apply to all your Windows screen,the icons, sounds and colors – such as jungle, underwater & many more.

Desktop
This will allow you to choose different desktop background images, from samples which are inlcuded or you can use the BROWSE button to find a photo you have saved in you’re My Picture Folder… Remember – if you find a photo in an email or on the internet that you want for your background, when your cursor is on the image, right click on the image and choose Set as Desktop Background.

Screen Saver
Screen Savers are the “motion” choices we use when our computer is idle – many different ones are built in, or you can use the photos in you’re my Picture Folder or when you are on vacation you can purchase “screen savers” to remind you of your trip… This is also where we can change our Power settings for the monitor, noting how long it should stay on when we leave our computer alone..

Appearance
This choice allows us to change the style and colors and size of fonts for our Windows and buttons. Just click on the drop-down arrow buttons to choose different settings; the font size option is great if text is too small – just change it to large fonts or extra large fonts.. The advanced tab allows us to change size & colors for all our screen items including borders, icons and the menus.

Settings
This choice allows us to change screen resolution and color quality – remember the resolution determines the number of pixels used to make up the display. The higher the setting, the more detailed your display and the higher resolution gives you a larger screen area to work with, but if you find text and icons are now too small you may need to increase font size and use larger icons to compensate.
You can only go up to the highest resolution that your monitor can support. Experiment to find a resolution you are comfortable with – many opt for the highest setting.

When you set a high resolution, increasing the DPI (dots per inch) setting – it makes all screen items including text appear larger.