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1) What is on My Computer?

2) Quick Way to Increase the Size of Text

Q. People often ask me questions about my computer that I have no clue as to how to answer, like: How fast is it? How much RAM do I have? How big is my hard drive, etc.? How can I find the answers?

A. I am not sure all computers have the following, but you can try this first. Click on the Start button, click on All Programs, click on Accessories, click on System Tools and then click on System Information. This shows a summary of the system. For more info, you can click on each of the plus (+) signs to view each category and sub-category, then click on the individual item. Most of it is pretty technical.

If you don't have the above path to info on your computer, double-click the "My Computer" icon on your Desktop. In the screen that appears, click on View System Information in the left panel. In the System Properties box, under the General Tab, it should tell you basic information: Your operating system (i.e. Windows XP, Home Edition), your processor speed (i.e. 500MHz), and your RAM (i.e. 512MB). To get the size of your hard drive, close the System Properties box, and on the My Computer screen, right-click on Local Disk (C:). In the sub-menu that appears, click on Properties and you will see the capacity of your hard drive and how much free space you have left (i.e. 30GB).

* To learn what MHz, RAM, MB and GB mean, see below.

If you want to know more than just the basics about your computer, you can download a program called Belarc Advisor (it is free for personal use). I have found it to be very helpful and easy to use. It can give you a printout with detailed information about your system, your hardware and also software versions and updates.

To download Belarc Advisor, go to "http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html" (don't include quote marks). Click on the "Click Here to Download" box. Click the Run button in Internet Explorer's File Download pop-up box (if you have your pop-ups blocked, this may not happen). When the Installation box appears, click on Install, read the License Agreement and click on "I Agree" to get an analysis of your computer.

To printout the results of the analysis, click on the File menu at the top of the screen, click on Page Setup and under Orientation, select Landscape, then click OK. Click on the File menu again and click on Print

* A 500Megahertz Processor means your computer can process data 500 million times per second, but the speed with which it can execute an instruction is dependent on a number of other factors too lengthy to go into here.

The storage space on your computer is measured in Bytes. It takes eight Bits (the smallest unit of storage) to make a Byte. A Byte can store a single character like the letter (A) or a number. So, when you get an e-mail and its size is 127KB, that means the file size is 127 Thousand Bytes and will take up that much storage space. If you have 512Megabytes of RAM, that would be 512 Million Bytes of Random Access Memory. RAM is the memory that goes away when you shut down your computer, and that is why you Save your work to your Hard Drive. Some newer hard drives have as much as 500 Gigabytes of storage. That is 500 Billion bytes.

This Tip is for everyone whose eyesight is not what it once was.

If you hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and turn the small wheel in the middle of your mouse, the print size will either get larger or smaller, depending on which way you turn the wheel. If you find yourself squinting at the screen, check it out on the text in your e-mail program, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Word, etc.

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