Geek Spot 6 by Jeff Timm

Hi! I’m Jeff Timm, personal computer user since 1983. My wife Holly insisted I share my knowledge and answer your basic computer hardware questions.

If you have your new Christmas Computer, January White Sale bargain, or your nephew’s last years model home, what’s the next thing to do? I assume you’ve followed the instructions and have hooked up to the ISP.

First thing to consider: Am I seeing things right? Check the monitor, by RIGHT key clicking on the desktop away from all the icons. In Windows 98 you should see a choice of Active Desktop, Line up Icons, Arrange Icons, Refresh, New and Properties. Let’s leave the rest alone and concentrate on Properties. This gets a window with six tabs.

Background: This allows you to choose the color and pattern on your desktop. Try not to get carried away Vargas did some beautiful work, but do you want your mother-in-law to see it on your home computer?

Screen Saver: This allows you to choose a screen saver and Energy Savings settings. Due to conflicts with hardware I recommend turning off the energy savings. Turning off the computer manually is more cost effective, unless you have special circumstances. Screen Savers are so personal, I refuse to intrude on your privacy. (I prefer 3D Pipes myself.)

Appearance: This allows you to mess with the colors. (Colorblind people can choose B&W) I usually recommend avoiding colors that give you a headache.

Effects: There is little here for most people, but you may want to try Large Icons on a high-density screen.

Web: I generally ignore this. I have no immediate interest in using my desktop as a part of the World Wide Web. I prefer to work through the browser.

Settings: Now here we can do interesting things. This is USUALLY the control panel for your Video Card. Before you play around here have your manuals for the video card and monitor handy and use the PREVIEW function if available. My panel tells me I have a Visual Sensation VS-7e monitor on STB Velocity 4400 this is because my Windows 98 various programs and the Monitor and Video Card and computer, all introduced themselves and decided to work together. The first thing to do is check the Internet for new and/or updated drives for the monitor and video card. If your Video comes from the computer manufacturer you must go to the manufacturers website for updates, not the maker of the video card or chipset. Once the upgrading (if any) is done, then check your monitor manual for the RECOMMENDED settings. This will not be the Maximum setting, but the setting, which gives the best picture for most purposes. My Video/Monitor combination has a maximum screen area setting of 1280 x 1024 pixels. This means it can display 1280 lines of dots high by 1024 lines of dots to create the picture I see. However on a monitor with a real size of 16.1 Inches, well, you just can’t read things easily at that setting. I compromise at 800 x 600 pixels. You should try several settings and pick the one that works best for you. I recommend the manufacturers recommend screen area or LOWER. The color setting is also available. I recommend the highest number of colors to compensate for the lack of detail provided by the monitor’s screen setting, which is relatively low.