Cool Stuff!

I have been using computers since the first Commodore 64 hit the market. So that’s about 23 years. I went from that computer to a PC using DOS and then to Windows 3.0. My first Internet experience was via Prodigy and WordStar was the first Word Processing program I used. I never looked at a manual and only consulted a help file in cases of absolute desperation. I’m just a “roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty” kind of learner.

Recently I was helping a friend of mine set up her profile on Elance.com and I realized that a lot of us tend to learn this way when it comes to computers and other tech tools. I have become really good at the tools I use a lot. My friend is good at the stuff she uses a lot. But there are also a lot of basic tools and methods that we don’t use because we never realized they were there.

So I decided to slow down and check out the basics of some of the most common tools that every VA needs to use. Wow! There’s some really cool stuff there that I never knew about!

Windows – I discovered that there is just a ton of cool stuff In the Windows Help and Support Center (In XP Click Start > Help and Support, probably similar in Vista). Check out Windows Basic and Protecting your PC: Security Basics.

Internet Explorer 7: Check out the Tour under the Help Menu and Add-Ons – some cool stuff I never knew was there!

MS Office – In any Office application, go to the Help Menu and click on (product) help. In the sidebar, that comes up click on Training and it will take you to Microsoft Office Online. There are some cool free self-paced training courses for Office programs plus some other (yep, you guessed it!) cool stuff!

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg! I never knew that the basics could be so fun!

If you have any cool tips for maximizing the tools we use everyday – please share them!

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