Computers 101

Q:
I overheard someone talking about "Partitioning" his hard drive the other day. What exactly does that mean?

A:
Most PCs you buy from the retail stores come with one hard disk drive. By default, all of your the pre-installed software and Windows are copied on the "C" drive.

When everything is running along nicely and you are showing off your new shiny purchase to your friends, why even bother to change the status quo by partitioning your drive?

Imagine your hard disk as a large drawer. Everything you store goes in there - letters, faxes, envelopes, etc. Keeping all this stuff organized takes some skill and concentration for most of us.

What happens when you get some dividers to partition the drawer into various sections? Organizing the drawer would become simpler, wouldn't it? Also, the ease of referencing any of the items should be more intuitive.

Being a bit of a perfectionist, I normally partition my hard drive into 3 sections. The letters I use are C, D and V. All Windows and computer programs go into C; my personal data goes into D (Data) and my music, images and video go into V (audioVisual, get it?). Obviously, you are not obliged to follow my naming conventions.

Another not so obvious advantage of partitioning is particularly applicable to people like me who just love to download programs and try them out every so often. Must be a guy thing. But the consequences of doing this regularly has its hazards. Just imagine having a system which is as stable as standing next to a cliff on one foot, on a windy day, blindfolded!

When things go truly, truly wrong and you really must re-install all your programs from scratch, all you need to do is just clear up your C drive (where your programs are stored) and start all over again.

Because of partitioning, your data and multimedia stuff are safely tucked away in their separate partitions. Partitioning can be a bit of a life saver especially when you have spent months upon months accumulating your valuable data and multimedia files.

How do you partition your hard drive, you ask? There are a few products out there that can help you with this, not the least of which is Partition Magic. It makes creating and altering partitions on your hard drive easy.

-- Edmund Lee, Perth, Western Australia

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Tip of the Day

More Moving!

Well, thanks to the readers who continually keep me on my toes. In yesterday's Tip of the Day, we covered a quick way to move messages in Outlook Express (right-click on the message and select "Move to Folder"). This would generally apply if you do not have your list of folders in view in the left hand window. So, here are two additional ways to quickly move e-mail messages to their proper folder.

1. Choose to have your list of folders in plain view, all of the time. To do this, click on the current folder name, which should be displayed just under the general toolbar. A list of your folders will appear and a prompt "Click the push pin to keep open" is displayed. Do just that! Click the little push pin and *presto* your folders are continually at your fingertips. All you have to do is click on the message you want to move and drag it to the proper folder.

2. If you don't want this list cluttering up your screen, you can keep closed and choose to have a Move To button displayed on your toolbar! To do this, right-click on a blank space on the part of the toolbar that has the Create, Reply, Forward, etc. buttons. Select Customize. In the Customize Toolbar window, scroll down the Available Toolbar Buttons list and click on Move To, then click the Add button in the middle. Click Close and instantly a Move To button is installed on your toolbar (all without paying for an electrician!).

3. And again, if you don't like having the list cluttering up your screen, you can keep it closed and follow yesterday's tip of right clicking on the message and selecting "Move To Folder." (Editor's note: I find this method works best if you have Outlook Express set up to read an account like Hotmail, MSN, etc. If I drag and drop a Hotmail message, it copies it to the desired folder and does not move it. You're left with the message in the original place and have to spend extra time deleting it, yuck!)

Obviously, it's all a matter of personal preference, but hopefully these handy tips will make your life easier or at least a bit more organized.

-- Steve

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Amanda's Cool Site of the Day

Extra Sensing Abilities of Cats

OK, you are probably reading the title of this piece and saying to yourself, “What?!?” Well, I found this interesting little article about cats...

According to this site, cats were used in World War II to predict or detect (however you choose to believe) the air bombing over the Southern coast of England. Still curious? Read this page and find out all the details for yourself. You will also find other links to interesting cat pages from this site. Enjoy, I know I did!

http://greenfield.fortunecity.com/rattler/281/abilities/abilitiesengl.html

Do you have a cool, non-commercial site that you want to share?
Send it to Amanda at amanda@worldstart.com