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Pogue's tech tips for basic computer users

Filed under: Windows, Macintosh, Productivity, Search, Troubleshooting

I have a confession. A friend of mine sent me a link to a list of tech tips written by David Pogue in the New York Times. Upon reading the title, Tech Tips for the Basic Computer User, I basically ignored it. Then this week, it showed up in my Instapaper list of articles to read, and I decided to give it a try. I'm glad I did!

While I don't want to toot my own horn, I have to admit that I would not consider myself a basic computer user. Yet this article pointed out at least two tips that I had not heard before. I'd love to send it to all of my computer-using friends and colleagues (essentially, everyone I know), but I'm afraid of them interpreting it as an insult. So instead, I'll write about it here and hope that some of them notice and go read it.

Probably my favorite tips from Pogue's post relate to digital cameras:

• The number of megapixels does not determine a camera's picture quality; that's a marketing myth. The sensor size is far more important. (Use Google to find it. For example, search for "sensor size Nikon D90.")
• Forcing the camera's flash to go off prevents silhouetted, too-dark faces when you're outdoors.

The one I most wish people knew about is:

• You generally can't send someone more than a couple of full-size digital photos as an e-mail attachment; those files are too big, and they'll bounce back to you. (Instead, use iPhoto or Picasa-photo-organizing programs that can automatically scale down photos in the process of e-mailing them.)

And a great tip when searching:

• When you're searching for something on the Web using, say, Google, put quotes around phrases that must be searched together. For example, if you put quotes around "electric curtains," Google won't waste your time finding one set of Web pages containing the word "electric" and another set containing the word "curtains."

I would add one more search-related tip that in my experience most people don't know about. If your search seems to be full of information about something different than what you're looking for, you can remove search terms so that Google ignores pages with the words specified. So if you're looking for information about the Java programming language, but not coffee, you can search for Java -coffee, though I'd probably add the word programming to make it more specific: Java programming -coffee.

There are a ton more great tips in Pogue's blog post. What tips do you wish your friends and colleagues would learn?

Pogue's tech tips for basic computer users originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 11 Nov 2008 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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