Afosco Computer Technology

Customising Your Desktop in Windows XP The computer desktop like any real desktop can be customised to suit the individual’s needs. Items that are often used can be placed close to hand while lesser used ones can be cleared away leaving an uncluttered work area. Computer desktop icons can be added or removed as needed, likewise the background may be altered to suit the users own tastes. The standard XP desktop designed to be uncluttered, to add some usually seen icons Right click the desktop From the menu select Properties The desktop settings box will open Select the desktop tab and Select Customize Desktop Desktop icons can now be selected and added Icons for My Documents, My Network Places, My Computer and Internet Explorer will now be placed on the desktop. The Desktop is now starting to look similar to that of previous versions of Windows, which had these icons in place by default. The background of the desktop can also be customised from the same deskt...

Simple Guide to Backup And Restore in Windows It is important to backup your data regularly so you do not lose it. In this lesson we look at the Backup & Restore tool included with Windows. This tool is very powerful but we will look at the most basic features. To begin a backup open the Start menu. Begin typing ‘Backup’ and you should see the Backup and Restore tool appear: Click ‘Backup and Restore’. You will see the Backup window. We want to set up a backup, so click ‘Set up backup’. The tool will ask you where to store your backup. It will show you a list of your drives and recommend one to choose save it on. If you have an external drive attached (for example via a USB cable) then this is a very good choice: this way your data is in a separate physical location from your computer. Choose which drive to save your files on. Now Windows will ask you what you want to back up. If you want to do this easily you can select “Let Windows Choose”: in...

Connecting to Wireless Networks in Windows In this lesson we look at connecting to a standard wireless network in Windows. To access the internet you must be connected to a network. Often nowadays these networks are wireless, also sometimes called WiFi. When you connect to a wireless network you are connected to a nearby box called a router. These routers have limited wireless range so you often have to be close to the router and not have too many obstacles between your computer and the router. Once you are connected to the router it acts as a gateway to the internet for your computer. In order to connect, you look for the Wireless Network icon. This is usually in the bottom right tray of your computer near the clock, and usually looks something like this: When you click your wireless network icon it shows you a list of available networks. This looks different in every version of Windows but always shows the network name and how strong the connection is to...

Cloud Computing Don’t be confused by the expression “cloud services, you are probably already using them if you use Amazon, Gmail, Hotmail, or Facebook. All it means is that your data is stored virtually. Cloud computing is the delivery of hosted services over the Internet .The origin of the term cloud computing is not known but it may be based on practice of using drawings of clouds to denote networks in diagrams of computing and communications systems. Cloud computing provides easy, scalable access to computing resources and IT services. It can be thought of as similar to a utility like an electricity grid, delivered over a network .It involves the sharing of resources, services and infrastructure and can often be very cost effective. Amazon played a key role in the development of cloud computing by modernizing their data centers, which were using a fraction of their capacity . The new cloud architecture gave significant efficiency improvements and small...