The Computer Club Newsletter

September 2003

By Ron Uncapher

The Tellico Village Computer Users Club will host a speaker from Microsoft Corporation at the club’s October 7^th meeting. A new Microsoft Office System is coming, and Microsoft is offering a special preview for Mindshare User Group members. This firsthand look will provide a sneak peek at the new Microsoft Office 2003 System before it is introduced to the public and show you how to maximize your productivity at home and at the office, reduce spam, customize your email, and much more. Microsoft has developed a series of pre-launch presentations to demonstrate how the latest Microsoft Office System is loaded with features that make it better than ever. Microsoft will bring a number of their products to be raffled as door prizes.

An invitation is being extended to the MAC Users Group in the Village and to The Tennessee Valley PC Users Group to attend this meeting. We also invite all Tellico Village residents who are computer users but are not members of the TVCUC. This is a unique opportunity to see the features of the latest in the evolution of the Microsoft Office Suite.

We expect attendance to be greater than the upper level of the Yacht Club is designed to accommodate. Therefore, the October meeting will be conducted in the Christian Life Center of the Community Church at Tellico Village. The meeting will follow the format of recent meetings: Computer Basics from 6:30 PM to 7:20 PM followed by the Microsoft presentation at 7:30 PM. Please visit our website at www.tvcuc.org  for last minute information about this meeting. Channel 3 will also broadcast meeting details. We hope to see you at the meeting.

I have a four-button mouse with a thumbwheel. In addition to the right and left mouse buttons, I have a "thumb" button and a "pinky" button. I set the "thumb" button for "back" and the right "pinky" button for double-click. It took me very little time to get used to the extra functions, just a little digital dexterity. But, the most useful button on any mouse is the right button. "Right-clicking" can be a very labor saving action. You all know that "clicking" the left mouse button causes something to happen; open, delete, close, select, and so on. Well, clicking the right mouse button causes nothing to happen. What it does, is give you choices. Pointing and clicking with the right mouse button nearly always opens a menu. The menu is context sensitive. That is, all of the actions that you can perform on the object that you are pointing to will be listed on the menu that pops up when you right click. Select a function on the menu by pointing to a selection then left click. The labor saving is in not having to search the toolbar or menu bar to perform a desired function.

Lets start with the Desktop. Everyone has the MY COMPUTER icon. Point to the icon and right click. A menu will pop up with at least these options: OPEN, EXPLORE, SEARCH, CREATE SHORTCUT, RENAME, and PROPERTIES. There may be more depending on what applications are installed on your computer. Move the mouse pointer to a selection and it will be highlighted (turns blue). Left click and you start the action. To close the menu with no action, move the mouse pointer to an empty space on the desktop and left click.

Now open MY DOCUMENTS and open a folder so that you see the files in the folder. Point to a folder and right click. Point to a file and right click. The menus are similar. You can OPEN, DELETE, RENAME, and look at the file or folder PROPERTIES to name a few.

When you open any Microsoft application you can right click anywhere and get a popup menu. Right click on the title bar, the menu bar, the tool bar, even on empty space and you get a menu. In MICROSOFT WORD, highlight a typed word or sentence or paragraph, point and right click to see a selection of actions that you can perform on the highlighted area. In MICROSOFT EXCEL, select a cell or highlight a group of cells, point and right click to what you can do to the selected cells. Open OUTLOOK, OUTLOOK EXPRESS, or INTERNET EXPLORER and start right clicking.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea. Now, exercise your index finger and start right clicking.

Check out the TVCUC Website at WWW.TVCUC.ORG  and by the way, have you updated your anti virus definitions this week?