Bits'n'Bytes

As heard on CJCD

Episode 37

By now, most of you have figured out that you can make almost any picture your wallpaper by highlighting a picture file and clicking on "Set as desktop background" in the left pane of a Windows XP folder. But, have you ever experimented with any of the other cool features in XP?

The right click button on your mouse is a very powerful tool. By selecting a part of your desktop with the cursor and using the right click of the mouse to get to the "Properties" menu, you can change a whole host of display options.

The first tab in the "Display Properties" window is the "Themes" tab. In there, you can pick the Windows XP theme of rolling green hills, or you can pick the classic Windows theme of a solid desktop colour. Or, if you like, there are many downloadable themes out there on the Internet. Listing them would take too many shows, so I'll leave it to you to explore.

The next tab is the "Desktop" tab, where you can again change your wallpaper to just about any picture file on your computer. Here, you can also decide which of the classic Windows icons, like "My Computer" or "My Documents" will show up on your desktop by clicking on the "Customize Desktop" icon. You can also change the way these icons look by clicking on the "Change Icon" button.

The "Screen Saver" tab lets you change your screen saver and the amount of time that must elapse before the screen saver turns on or your monitor turns off.

The "Appearance" tab lets you change a lot of different aspects of Windows. Here you can change the colour of the stripe at the top of your open windows, the size of your icons, the colour of the little "Tool Tip" bubbles that appear when you hover your mouse over a file and the size of the fonts in your Windows message boxes. The combinations are pretty much limitless.

Finally, there's the settings tab. In here, you can pick your screen resolution. What this can do is shrink and expand the size of stuff on your screen. A higher resolution means everything will look a lot smaller, so you can fit more stuff on the screen. A lower resolution is great for people who's eyes aren't the greatest, 'cause it makes everything appear bigger.

Stay tuned next week when I go over some computer acronyms.

I’m Computer Dave, thanks for your time.