The following information is not intended to insult, rather, help those who may not be completely knowledgeable of the ins and outs of the computer world. My first encounter with a computer was at work, around 1986. It was a Gateway 386 with about 500 KB of RAM and a 50 MB hard drive. The fastest thing on the market; WOW!! It wasn't much good for anything but word processing. It was my good fortune, though, to be introduced to it by a young man who knew a little something about computers. He showed me the basics, i.e. how to log on, how to write a memo, how to print it, a little about MS Excel, etc. and I was pretty much on my own from there. The most important thing he told me, however, was "Don't be afraid of it. There is nothing you can do that can't be undone." I took some company-offered courses, but mostly I learned from trial and error. The more I tried and the more I played, the more I learned. That is the very best way to learn your way around a computer.
I email back and forth with a number of friends. On occasion, I've asked them to send me something and they didn't know how to do it. The only thing they knew about a computer was how to write a message, or forward one. So, let's start there. An "email client" is any program that will let you send and receive email. Mine looks like this:
Yours may look like this:
or any number of other email clients. The most common thing I hear is they don't know how to send me something I want. Every email client I know of has a way to attach and send a file. You can attach and send any kind of file you want, pictures, gif animations, Word documents, pdf files, etc. etc. The only thing you need to be concerned about is how big the file is. For instance, friends send me Power Point shows or movies or several pictures at one time, some of which might be 5 MB (= to 5000 KB) in size. I have a DSL provider, so it doesn't take long to download. People with a Cable provider can download it even faster, but the poor guy who has a telephone dial-up provider would be sitting there for an hour or more, waiting for it to download. Keeping that in mind, suppose I want to send someone a picture I have on my computer. I can start a new message, or reply to their's.
Next
After clicking Attach, your file manager will open. From there, you can go to whatever folder you have the item you want to send.
All I have to do is click (or double click) on the picture. It will automatically be attached to the message and look like this.
If I wanted to attach all 8 of the pictures, I would mouse over, or click on the first one, hold down the Shift key, and mouse over or click the last one. That would select all 8 pictures, then I would click on Insert. All 8 would be attached to the message. You can write anything you want in the message, or just send it as is.
In Outlook, you can also Insert a picture, but I don't know of any way to do that in Yahoo.
Notice, there is a cursor line above the picture. I put a blank line in there, so I could write anything I want above the picture. If I didn't do that, I would have to write under the picture and whomever I send it to may not see it.
Attaching files to Yahoo involves the same steps above. Just click on the paper clip and go for it.
Let's talk about Forwarding messages. We've all received forwarded messages with line after line after line of previous addresses on it. I've received some I didn't even read, because I got tired of scrolling through the previous addresses. Here's what you should do. Look at the message below. Out of respect for my friends, I've blurred out the sender.
Click on Forward and remove all that crap before sending it to your friends. I know it's time consuming, but they don't want to see all that stuff any more than you do.
If you don't want to do that, just copy the main part of the message and paste it into a new one.
And then, of course, there are these. I absolutely hate these forwards. Again, I've blurred out my friends to protect them.
If you get these and choose to wade through the envelope after envelope after envelope, until you finally get to the one with the subject in it, forward that one! You don't have to go back to the one you received. Just remember to clean it up before you send it.
You would be amazed to know how many of those heart-warming, gut-wrenching email stories are originated by people wanting to collect email addresses for SPAM purposes. However, some people have a handle on it. I received the following message just a few days ago and similar ones previous to that. I just want to thank all of you for your educational emails over the past year. Thanks to you, I no longer open a public bathroom door without using a paper towel. I can't use the remote in a hotel room because I don't know what the last person was doing while flipping through the adult movie channels. I can't sit down on the hotel bedspread because I can only imagine what has happened on it since it was last washed. I can't enjoy lemon slices in my tea or on my seafood anymore because lemon peels have been found to contain all kinds of nasty germs including feces. I have trouble shaking hands with someone who has been driving because the number one pass-time while driving alone is picking your nose (Although cell phone usage may be taking the number one spot) Eating a Little Debbie sends me on a guilt trip because I can only imagine how many gallons of trans fats I have consumed over the years. I can't touch any woman's purse for fear she has placed it on the floor of a public bathroom. Yuck! I must send my special thanks to whoever sent me the one about poop in the glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet sponge with every envelope that needs sealing. Also, now I have to scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason. I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Brown) who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time. I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the $15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program. I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me, and St. Theresa's novena has granted my every wish. I no longer eat KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers. I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day. Thanks to you, I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward an email to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes. Because of your concern I no longer drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet stains. I no longer can buy gasoline without taking someone along to watch the car so a serial killer won't crawl in my back seat when I'm pumping gas. I no longer drink Pepsi or Dr Pepper since the people who make these products are atheists who refuse to put 'Under God' on their cans. I no longer use Saran wrap in the microwave because it causes cancer. And thanks for letting me know I can't boil a cup of water in the microwave anymore because it will blow up in my face...disfiguring me for life. I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS. I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me. I no longer receive packages from UPS or FedEx since they are actually Al Qaeda in disguise. I no longer shop at Target since they are French and don't support our American troops or the Salvation Army. I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number for or which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica, Uganda, Singapore and Uzbekistan. I no longer buy expensive cookies from Neiman Marcus since I now have their recipe. Thanks to you, I can't use anyone's toilet but mine because a big brown African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when it bites my butt. And thanks to your great advice, I can't ever pick up $5.00 dropped in the parking lot because it probably was placed there by a sex molester waiting underneath my car to grab my leg. I can no longer drive my car because I can't buy gas from certain gas companies! If you don't send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70 minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00 PM this afternoon and the fleas from 12 camels will infest your back, causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbor's ex-mother-in-law's second husband's cousin's beautician... Have a wonderful day...
Do me a favor. Go to the following link Snopes.com and add it to your Favorites. Any time you get a forwarded message that bashes a politicle figure, tears at your heart, or scares you to death, look it up on Snopes to see if it's true. Even if the message says it was verified on Snopes, it probably wasn't and it probably isn't true.
I know this is writen like Computers For Dummys, but don't look at it that way. Many older people are totally lost on a computer. It just wasn't a part of our generation. If the information I've prvided helps just one person, then spending the time was well worth it. If you have any questions I might be able to help with, feel free to contact me. If I don't have an answer, I'll do my best to point you in the right direction. Send your questions or comments to Webmaster@lrafferty.net.
One More thing. If you still take pictures with something other than a digital camera, most every place that develops film will put the pictures on a CD if you ask for it. You can get the hard copies as well, but with the CD, you can load the pictures on your computer and easily attach them to an email.
And/or place a marker on my guestmap where you're located.
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