U3A Computing Beginners Class Leader – Brian Moore Week 10 of 10 weeks. Mondays 4:15 to 5:45 pm **** Last Class Today***

Buying a Computer or Laptop A desktop computer is more powerful and has more facilities than an equivalent Laptop for the same price. But of course they are not portable and not compact. A good idea is to look in a shop such as PCWorld or Curries and then check for a similar model On Line. Aldi sell Medion products, which are very good value. On Line I favour or which is the On Line version of Curries. Right now Comet have bargains.

What you need in a computer Look for the following specifications = Hardware Minimum requirements = 2Gb Memory or RAM, 300Gb Hard Drive or HDD, For the Processor look at processor-speed.html to get some idea. Get a Dual core >for a LT, Triple I3 or Quad core >for a Desktop, the AMD Phenom II X4 is excellent. processor-speed.html Screen size, Built in Camera – your choice. Laptops should have Wireless built in.

Windows Operating system New computers are now supplied with Windows 8. It is aimed at Tablet use, but can be put back to a traditional Desktop view. Windows 8, W7, XP or Vista Home Basic cannot connect to a network which requires logging in. This is no problem at home but is important for colleges, and schools. Like here. dows-8-professional-upgrade dows-8-professional-upgrade Is £50 to upgrade to Windows 8 Professional. The PC MUST have a Windows already.

Software, what to get MS Office Important to have, check pricing. /list/ThemeID /categoryID Direct from MS. £100 for Word & Excel. /list/ThemeID /categoryID Because you are on this course you are qualified to get the "Home & Student 2010 “ at the student rate of £84.95 at -office-home-and-student-2010 Office 2010 is pretty similar to the 2007 we are using here. -office-home-and-student-2010

Buying Office 2010 from Software for Students You will need to create an account at At the school Postcode put in - KT23 3QG and select “The University of the Third Age”. Call me if any further problem. Uninstall any trial version supplied on a new computer first.

Virus Checker - AVG Virus checker. ** Don't buy one **. AVG is excellent and is free. New computers will come with a limited time virus checker. Then you have to pay. First uninstall any other trial or out of date Virus checker. Its VERY important to have only ONE virus checker installed. Then download AVG Anti-Virus Free 2012 and install from=

Installing AVG free Click on the Orange Free DOWNLOAD from Download.com At the next page click on the big green bar near the top “Download Now Tested spyware free” and on the next box, click on Run. Then after a download Run again. You will see AVG installing. Accept. Click on Basic Protection, Next, Next. On the Toolbar options untick AVG safe search & “Improve my...”. Then a long install. Finally untick “I want to improve...” Finish. It will update. It will ask to run a first time full scan check. Let it.

Firewall. Updates These days a computer needs the following to keep anything that's bad – Malware out. A firewall. All modern routers include a Hardware Firewall, which is setup by default. Windows XP, 7 & 8 include a firewall as well. You can have both enabled. Windows updates or better Microsoft updates enabled. They come in about every week. If it asks, allow them to be installed. Flash & Java updates. Will be automatic, allow them both. But not by a link in an .

Check all these by – Control Panel, Security Center, Firewall, Automatic Updates, Virus Protection – Are all On. Show this Two free programs to run if any problem or strange behaviour and about once a month. Malwarebytes from ytes_free click on the Free Download Now and install. ytes_free. Or Adaware from Click on the Green Download. Next screen Download, I just want free.., At the top select “Download File & Run.

Some web sites to look at Laptops are £270 upwards. A Desktop can be as little as £150 but you need the Windows & a Monitor, Keyboard & Mouse.

Practical. Creating an ebay account Everybody needs one. If only to find prices. New items are sold as well as 2 nd hand. First you need to “Register” see a link in the middle of the first screen. Fill in the form and make a note of all the details entered. For use your secondary account such as a Hotmail account that you could change if it gets full of spam s. Ebay will send some themselves. Passwords do need to be complex and kept secret. Read the bit about “Learn about secure passwords”

Registering on web sites All sites have a backdoor method to allow a password reset by asking you to supply a secret question and answer, typically your mother’s maiden name. Make sure this is also hard to guess. Add some numbers to it. Often you are asked to type in the characters from a small image in which the characters are made hard to read by a computer. Sometimes they can be VERY hard to read, try ask for another. Look for and untick any box which says they can send or marketing literature.

Remembering Passwords This leaves a problem on how to recall passwords. The problem is they must all be different, long and contain a jumble of characters. Where allowed use numbers, capital letters and punctuation marks. There is NO WAY you can remember them. A simple solution is to create and password protect a document called password.docx to store them. Copy & Paste to where required. Or a notebook in a secret place. More advanced way is to use a password manager, I favour

Practical. Password Protect a Word Document. Create in Word 2007 a document “passwords”. File, Save as. On the Save as Pop-up window, click 'Tools' then scroll down to General options (on the bottom left) and in “Password to open” put in the one & only password you will need to remember. To be about 10 characters & mixed ie 545mon19U3A. Please at least this complex. Leave Password to modify blank Press OK, give a filename “Passwords” then Save (To My Documents). Keep a copy of this for safety. Check it works and needs a password to open.

Revision. Onwards As this is the last week please give me some ideas on parts of this course you would like reviewing. All the course material is on Course/Groups, Computing & IT, CMP, at the bottom – Computing (CMP) Downloads. I do keep on updating it, even previous weeks info. I will be running this class again starting Jan 2013 using the same course material if there are enough students. I need at least 10. Book on courses with the Membership Secretary - Dave Jinkinson on