Just wondering about language
GBS would have conniptions
On either side of the Atlantic are “two nations divided by a common language”, a quotation variously attributed to Oscar Wilde, Winston Churchill, and Irishman George Bernard Shaw. Who knows who plagiarized whom? The world of IT has compounded the issue and introduced many new problems in dealing with the vagaries of American and British English.
We in the Southern Hemisphere, and most other Commonwealth folk, cling stubbornly to British English, albeit somewhat bastardized, but the spread of MacImperialism has given an American bias to English speakers in many other nations where it’s not the first language, particularly in Asia.
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There are several ways of inserting special characters (ASCII characters) into your deathless prose when using Mac OS X. The easiest way for characters you might use often is to use their keyboard shortcuts. Many of these are revealed in the Keyboard Viewer which we’ll deal with soon. It’s a great time-saver to memorize the shortcuts for those characters which you are most likely to use regularly.
The Character Viewer
For characters which you don’t use often and aren’t worth remembering a shortcut for, you can use the Character Viewer. In most programs it can be accessed from the menu bar under Edit ➩ Special Characters. In some programs it has the keyboard shortcut option+command+T (⌥+⌘+T)
All you have to do when using the Character Viewer is locate the relevant character, double-click on it, and it will be inserted into your text at the cursor position. Location amongst the hundreds of available characters is made a little easier by selecting the appropriate group in the left column.
You can drag regularly used characters into the Favorites group.
The Keyboard Viewer
Before you can use the Keyboard Viewer you need to add the Input Menu “Menulet” to the Menu Bar at the top of your screen. To do this: [click to continue…]
Here’s what to do to improve Windows’ performance.
Although Windows 7 is a big improvement over its predecessors it still gets bogged down with junk, infections and messed up files. The procedures here apply to Vista and XP as well as Windows 7.
Run antivirus and anti-spyware programs
Update and run your antivirus at least once a week. It may be automatically updated but if it’s not, get onto it. Find out the best program for your antivirus use on this page. In addition to antivirus you need more than one anti-spyware program. I use three and run one of them every 2 or 3 days. Here are the best ones.
Run Disk Cleanup
This is mainly to free up disk space, but it can help unclog Windows. To run it, click: Start » All Programs » Accessories » System tools » Disk Cleanup. In Vista and Windows 7 you can just tap the Windows key and start typing disk cleanup, after a few keystrokes—in my case just 2—you’ll see something similar to this:
Press Enter or click on the Disk Cleanup icon and you’ll be presented with the window below. Check the boxes for the files you wish to get rid of and click the Clean up system files button. [click to continue…]
System File Checker is a very useful tool in the armoury of Windows users. It repairs broken or missing Windows system files, it often fixes obscure problems which defy resolution, and it usually improves Windows performance to a greater of lesser degree.
In Windows 7 or Windows Vista run the command sfc /scannow from an “elevated” Command Prompt. For a more detailed description of System File Checker, elevated Windows Command Prompts and how to use them see this mistywindow page.
You really need System File Checker.