Typing Spanish Accent Marks On A Computer

Ever needed to type something in Spanish on your computer or in a word document file? Or in a vast number of programs? Some examples of these accents are:

• Niño
• Mañana
• ¿Como Estas?

These are simple Spanish words/phrases that carry accents in them...
A tedious way of achieving these characters are by copy pasting them in. A smarter way of doing this is by installing a Spanish Keyboard which will allow you to use accent marks in any program... this is available for Windows only though. Fortunately for MACs, accented characters are embedded into the operating systems. This is very good.

Here is the webpage that you may use as your guide and reference to achieve Spanish accent characters:

http://faculty.weber.edu/tmathews/grammar/Compmark.html

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Restore Missing Menu Bar And Address Bar In XP

It finally happened on my personal computer and I honestly did not know what to do. Every window I opened, whether it was 'my documents' or 'my computer', I just wasn't getting my menu bar and my address bar which I found so useful. I realized their importance when they weren't present anymore. So I googled a few sites here and there and finally stopped at a forum discussion which helped me restore both bars:

www.techsupportforum.com

The helpful folks at the forum recommended a few things to try out which resulted to the restore. I will list them here along with my suggestions (numbers 4 and 5):

1. What happens when you hold alt+ press 'f'? Does that bring you a toolbar? If so, go to 'View' and select the toolbar and address bar.
2. Press F11
3. After restoring the bar/s, right click on any bar and make sure "Standard Buttons" and "Address Bar" are checked.
4. You may have to re-arrange your bars to make them look how they were before they disappeared on you. To do this, right click again on the menu bar and uncheck "Lock The Toolbars". Move your mouse over the address bar and/or menu bar and hold down the left click button on your mouse while shifting the bar until you bring it to your desired position.
5. Right click on the menu bar again and make sure "Lock The Toolbars" is checked to avoid accidental movement on your menu bar and address bar.

I have no idea if this works on Vista but it definitely does on XP.

6/22/10 Update:

Should all else fail:
Check out the following links below which suggest to delete a certain file called "ITBarLayout". Though I highly recommend you proceed with CAUTION as the suggested methods require you to tweak with the registry. It is further explained here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/962963
also someone did something similar here:
http://www.techsupportforum.com/837411-post27.html

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Windows Does Not Want To Start

Have you ever encountered a situation where Windows just can't start? Well in this post I will describe 2 procedures that I follow when this issue occurs. I use this as a basic way of solving the problem as sometimes with computers, a problem is usually solved in a simple manner rather than a complex manner.

Procedure #1:
Power down your computer and check to see if all cables are fitted well... any loose or slightly detached cables could cause startup problems. Connect everything well including keyboards, mouse, monitor etc... move your computer if you must to get to all the connections. Now power up your computer.

If you got it to start then good for you! If not proceed to Procedure #2 if you can...please read the note before proceeding...

Note: Procedure #2 requires that you have some working knowledge and expertise in handling internal computer components and cables and are authorized to open your case/tower (some cases/towers have a warranty sticker which may still grant you free service, so check first before you attempt this procedure). It also requires that you have an Antistatic Wrist Strap so to reduce the chances of damaging any of your internal components. If you are not qualified to do this then seek a computer repair person to do this for you, might as well even tell him/her the problem you are encountering.

Procedure #2
Power down your computer and detach all your external cables so that you can literally place your computer tower/case on a clear sturdy table. Open your case access panel and wear an Antistatic Wrist Strap. Begin checking your internal cables to see if they are all well fitted. This includes all ide cables, all sata cables and all power cables to and from all your devices and motherboard. Make sure everything is well fitted. Take off your antistatic wrist strap when you are done inspecting all cables. Close your case/tower. Plug all external cables again... mouse, keyboard, power cables etc. Power up your computer and hopefully windows starts up normally!

The 2 procedures are very basic and could save you a trip to the repair person if you can perform procedure #1 and are qualified to perform procedure #2 should #1 not solve your issue.

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Increasing Font Size On Windows

This is fairly simple to achieve:

On Windows XP

1. right click on desktop
2. select properties from the pop-up menu
3. select the "Appearance" tab
4. under "Font size", you may choose from the 3 available options (normal, large, or extra large)
5. after making your preference, click "apply" and then "ok"

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Restore Missing DVD Drive

So your dvd-rom icon under My Computer decided to runaway?! I had this happen to me early this year and have only recently had the urge to fix and restore my missing dvd drive. Restarting many times did not help, and at one point I almost came to the point of reformatting my computer. Instinct had me do a more comprehensive search in the internet before using my last resort option of having to reformat. I found to forums which helped me fix and restore the missing dvd drive:

• www.theeldergeek.com
• support.microsoft.com

The first link is pretty straight forward with instructions and the second link has a more in depth explanation with instructions along with instructions for various windows operating systems.

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