TURNING THE COMPUTER ON AND OFF
So, you bought a new computer,
and you don’t have the faintest idea what to do with it. You’ve been staring
at it for days, and are afraid you’ll immediately hit the wrong button and blow
the whole thing up. That would be OK, wouldn’t it, since it’s under warranty?
So worse case scenario, you blow up your computer and return it for a brand
new one. Not so horrible. The
good news is, the chances of that happening are virtually null, that is unless
you take a stick of dynamite to your computer. I’d stay away from the dynamite
if I were you.
Bottom line,
absence dynamite, hammers, or dropping it on the ground, it’s pretty hard to
permanently mess up a computer. So let’s rationalize our fears, and turn that
thing on!
First you have to find the power button, which has a little symbol that looks like a little circle with a line going through it.
On a desktop, the power button is usually located on the front of the tower (that tall, rectangular box sitting either beside you or on the floor somewhere). On a laptop, it’s probably somewhere above your keyboard.
PUSH THE BUTTON!
You should hear the power go
on. Now, if you own a desktop, you also need to turn your
monitor on by pushing a button usually located below the screen.
(If you own a laptop, you don’t need to do this – your screen will turn on automatically.)
Next, you’ll probably see something on your screen relating to the maker of the computer, like a Dell Or Sony logo. Then, after the computer spits out a bit of jibberish, you’ll probably see what’s called a “splash” screen, telling you what Operating System you have – the software that operates your particular computer - Windows 98 or Windows XP, for example. And after that…drum roll please…you should see a bunch of little pictures with writing underneath them, set against either a colored, pattern or picture backdrop. Congratulate yourself. You have just turned on your computer! The little pictures on your screen are called icons, and your screen’s background is called the desktop.
OK, so we’ll learn how to work
the thing later. First you need to know how to turn your computer off, because,
contrary to your first hunch, pressing the same button you pressed to turn it
on is, 95 percent of the time, NOT the way to do it. Pressing that button will turn the
computer off, but the computer doesn’t like that way very much, and over time
using that method will make your computer very unhappy. Bottom line, pressing
that button (except in emergencies) to turn your computer off is
very hard on your precious little machine.
This is how you turn off your computer:
Take your
mouse and click on the button that says Start
on the lower lefthand portion of your screen. I know. I know. Why are we clicking
on a “Start” button when what we really
want to do is turn the thing off? Well, because Microsoft designed it that way.
Don’t blame me. But the method works, so let’s just go with the flow and trust
me a little.
After you click on the Start button, you should see something right above it that says either “Shut Down” or “Shut Down Computer.” Move your mouse up or over to where you see that written, and click.
A box should pop up. For those
of you who do not
have a Windows XP operating system, make sure there is a black dot
in the circle next to the choice that says “Shut Down.”
(For all you curious folks, that circle is called a Radio
Button, and with a radio button you can only make one choice.) Click
on OK. Your computer should turn off momentarily.
OK, now for all you 21st-Century
people who have a computer with the Windows XP® operating system,
you need to click on the red button that says Shut
Down Computer. Your computer should turn off momentarily.
Hopefully you should now know how to turn your computer on and off – two very important steps in the road to mastering the machine. So if your computer is on, and you ever panic and don’t know what to do, you can turn it off!