Do you have any Power Toys? At the Mini-Seminar in March, Mick showed us where to find PowerToys. Are you needing a magnifying glass to read the tiny print on some web pages these days? Or are your eyes just not as good as they used to be? Microsoft has taken this into account and has provided a Power Toy Magnifier that makes everything readable with adjustments from 1-9x. The magnifier can be made to float anywhere on the screen or it can be docked at the top of the screen. To get the program for Win XP or some other versions, go to www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp and download Taskbar Magnifier. Double-clicking on the file name MagnifierPowertoySetup.exe will start the install program. Tell the installation program to Run and Accept the license agreement. Then to use the program, follow the path: Start > All Programs > Accessories > Accessibility > Magnifier.

Another Power Toy you may find useful is the Image Resizer. Download the program from the same website and double-click on the file ImageResizerPowertoySetup.exe to install it. To use the Image Resizer, in the Windows Explorer (the file manager), select one or more images and right-click for a menu. One of the menu options is Resize Picture. Clicking on this option lets you make resized copies of pictures choosing from Small (fits a 640 x 480 screen), Medium (fits an 800 x 600 screen), Large (fits a 1024 x 768 screen ) or Handheld PC (fits a 320 x 240 screen). The Advanced button also lets you select to Make pictures smaller but not larger and Resize the original pictures without making copies. Pat says she uses this one all the time to resize photos for emailing.

A third Power Toy you might like is the Alt-Tab Replacement for switching between tasks. When the Alt key is held down and the Tab key is pressed once, a window appears with thumbnails of the open tasks and you can easily click to see which one you want to open. This is especially helpful if you have several programs or documents open at the same time and are working between them. TaskswitchPowertoySetup.exe is the file name and you can follow the above instructions for installing the program.

While Microsoft makes Power Toys available, they do not provide any support for them, but that’s okay because we have the forum if anyone has a question.

Have a good time and we’ll see you at the next meeting,

Mary Phillips, President