"R2D2Groupie" wrote in message
> I'm a finalist for a computer trainer/support position and Monday
> morning
> they want me to do a 15 minute test teach "on some aspect or option in
> Windows XP that users probably don't know but could probably benefit
> from."
> The users are accountants and financial gurus who have a good but not
> great
> knowledge of computers. I'm unable to come up with anything that would
> impress them. Can anyone suggest anything? Desperate Dan
Tell them about Microsoft's support site (http://support.microsoft.com/)
and show them how to perform basic and advanced searches. That way,
with a hint towards inclining them to do even a little bit of
investigation before crying for help, maybe they'll use that instead of
calling or posting with their knee-jerk inquiries. Telling them how to
use the Start -> Help and Support menu would be obvious but lots of
users never even bother looking there, either.
Otherwise, and besides the security topics already mentioned by other
respondents, tell them the advantage of defragmenting their hard drives,
how to run it, and how to schedule a regular defrag of their drives
during off-hours (but note to them that the computer must not be in
standby or hibernate mode unless they enable the wake-up option - but
that will also bring their computer out of hibernate mode).
Tell them how to use msconfig.exe to disable startup programs to help
when troubleshooting a problem in behavior of their computer.
Try to instill in them the need to backup their system either by saving
drive images and/or by backing up their data. Yes, they are accountants
and should be familiar with backing up their data but often they assume
that a network admin is backing up some networked file server from which
they retrieve and write their files and yet that doesn't help them when
their own workstation crashes because of a hard drive failure. Mention
to them that the included NT Backup program will only span tapes and not
any other type of removable or fixed media, like CDRs, Zip disks, or
hard drives, so they'll need a non-crippled 3rd party backup program to
do that.
For those still too lazy to do backups, tell them how to use the System
Restore utility (to create their own restore points and how to use
them). Remind them that this is for restoring the system and NOT for
their data, so they should not be trying to use it as a equivalent to
GoBack or RestoreIT.
When using NTFS, you can create ADS (alternate data streams) on files.
Their filesize reflected in Windows Explorer will only show the size for
the primary data stream and yet when they try to copy a 10KB file onto a
floppy they lose the 10MB ADS attached to that file. However, it is
likely that you don't know how to manage and create ADS'es, either. See
http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs-multiple.htm as an intro to the subject. There
are tools to let you see if ADS is used, like LADS and CrucialADS. Some
anti-virus products, like Kaspersky, use the ADS to store a hash code of
the file and a status of a scan, so a subsequent scan on an unchanged
file can be skipped and how Kaspersky sped up their scanning.
Unfortunately, uninstalling the product does not also have it remove all
those now superfluous alternate streams that they attached to the files.
Few anti-spyware will scan the ADS (AD-Aware does but only since the SE
version), so malware could reside in the ADS and not get detected;
however, eventually it needs to be read by a program to load the content
of the ADS (to read it or to execute it) and that is when, hopefully,
the anti-spyware's real-time scanner or the anti-virus on-access scanner
will detect the malware on your system. Few anti-virus programs scan
the ADS of files, and some only do so by enabling some option that
doesn't sound like anything to do with ADS, like archive scanning.
Tell them how to create junctions and hard links to files and folders.
Under Unix, you can create soft links and hard links. Soft links are
like shortcuts in Windows: they are fixed in their definition and point
to where the file was when the link was created. If you move the file,
the soft link can't find it (unless the OS helps out to update the soft
link). Deleting a soft link (i.e., shortcut) does not delete the file.
A hard link is another entry in the file table for that file, so
deleting a hard link will delete the file. A hard link will know
wherever is the file after you move it. Peculiarly Microsoft calls hard
links for files as hard links but hard links for folders are called
junctions. Same thing.
Install the Windows XP powertoy for multiple desktops, enable it in the
taskbar, and show how they could have multiple virtual desktops to
reduce the clutter of having lots of windows open on the same desktop.
This powertoy is limited and sometimes popup dialogs will show up in
other virtual desktops, but it will give them an idea if it is something
that they might be interested in rather than using multiple monitors and
video cards.
Have them us the TweakUI powertoy for Windows XP and configure to group
all icons for an application under one button in the taskbar. That way,
they can get the equivalent of tabbed browsing, for example, for
Internet Explorer. Click on the one taskbar button for IE and get a
roll-up listing of all open instances of IE with the full text of their
titles without ending up with a dozen buttons for IE in the taskbar that
get squished into tiny buttons with useless truncated titles.
Show them how to use Fast User Switching (provided your audience
actually perceives any value for that feature).
Tell them how to enable and setup the Fax Service so they can fax from
their computer (provided they have an analog modem with fax
capabilities). Unfortunately, it is not designed to send multi-page
faxes but you could use Word to compose your fax and then print it to
the Fax printer to then send your multi-page fax. Faxing isn't much
used anymore but sometimes they may need to use it.
Somehow, by asking what topics to discuss in just 15 minutes to train
your pupils, it looks like instead are a wannabe trainer in need of
training yourself. I've run out of interest in coming up with more
topics since there are plenty. You could simply walk through your Start
menu looking at all the submenus to pick out something that is little
used or little understood by non-techie users. You could also just lurk
around the newsgroups for Windows XP and look at past posts to see what
type of questions are asked that you are qualified to answer.
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