As you can see there are a lot of things that you can set or change. All of these options allow you to alter the appearance and functions of the computer. By selecting this “date and time” icon you are navigated to he date and dialogue. This option will allow you to change the settings and appearance of your date and time. This is the date and time dialogue. As you can see there are three tabs for you to select; Date & Time; Time Zone; Internet Time. You can set the date by clicking the desired date on the calendar.

You are able to navigate through the months by clicking on the dropdown menu and selecting the month you want and the scroll menu to select the year you want. To adjust the time you simply click on the Digital display, then click on the hours (highlighted in blue) and then use the up and down roll arrows to select the hour you want. You follow the same procedure to adjust the minutes also. Any adjustments that you make will not come into affect until you either click the apply button or close the dialogue box using the red “X” button. TIME ZONE SETTING The Time Zone TAB is for use when the computer is being used in a different time zone.

In England we live in the GMT (Greenwich mean time zone) and all other time zones around the world are measured in relation to the GMT, either + pr – a certain amount of hours depending on where in the world you are. Here you can see that the time zone is set to West Central Africa 1 hour in front of GMT. Here I have changed the Time Zone to GMT by selecting it form the dropdown menu. I have also ticked the box for Daylight Saving Changes. When this box is ticked the time will automatically be adjusted by + or – one hour at appropriate days in the year.

As World Club Travel is a UK company, the time zone is set to GMT. The internet TAB is used to synchronise the computer with a particular Internet Server which could be located anywhere in the world but will not be shown as it is not relevant to this particular course. DISPLAY SETTINGS By selecting this “Display” icon and double clicking, it gives you access to the Monitor Display settings. This is the Display properties dialogue. As you can see there are 5 TABS on the dialogue. They each in turn control a different aspect of the screen appearance and function of the Monitor.

When the dialogue first appears you are automatically on the theme TAB but you can move through the TAB’s by selecting the ones you wish to look at and change setting on. The first TAB is “Themes”. These are settings that control the system sounds, background, icons and colours in just one click. There are a limited number to choose from but if you have enough time you can develop a customised theme of your own and save it as you background and it will appear on the Theme dropdown list. This is the Theme that the Computer is currently set to. To change the Theme you select the desired theme from the theme dropdown menu.

Here I have selected the Windows Classic Theme. This is the Windows Classic Theme that I have chosen. This will be my background unless I change it. And this will be the style of any windows I open. The Next tab is the Desktop tab. In this dialogue you are able to change the Background of your Monitor. You can choose either a plain paint colour or a picture as your Background. To set a colour as your Background you can either select a standard colour from the paint palette or you can click on the colour chooser and select a colour of your choice that isn’t present on the palette, you can also change the intensity of your chosen colour.

Here I have chosen a colour from the palette. To do this you first have to select none so there is no picture set. Then click on the colour dropdown menu Then I selected the colour I wanted which is the bright aqua colour the pointer is currently hovering over. This is the colour I have selected as my background. If you don’t wish to use a colour from the colour palette then you can select one using the colour chooser. To do so you must follow the same steps as selecting a colour from the colour settings but instead of clicking on the colour you select other. The colour dialogue then appears.

From here you move the colour slider by clicking and holding it down and dragging to your desired colour. You can also change the hue of the colour by moving this arrow up and down. Whilst you move it the hue number will change. I have chosen the colour I want and then I will click add to custom colours which will transfer my new colour to the pain palette so I can select it as my background. Here I have clicked on Add to custom colours and the colour has been added to my custom colour palette. I must then press ok to set the colour as my background. Then when I close all windows I will be able to view the background on my desktop.

Once the chosen colour has been added to the custom colour paint palette you must then select “OK”. Once OK has been selected you will be taken back to this dialogue and now when “Apply” is clicked the chosen colour will be set as background. To set picture as your computers desktop background you simply select the picture you want from the background scroll menu. When you click on each picture name the picture will automatically appear as a mimic in the dialogue. I have chosen “Moon flower” and when I select apply it will appear as my desktop background. The next TAB is Screen Saver.

In this window you can change your screensaver from a dropdown menu and set the time the computer should wait before the screensaver is put into action when the P. C is left untouched. From the Screensaver dropdown menu I have selected ‘Beziers’ as my screensaver. I then clicked Settings and a setting dialogue appeared. I have selected 5 Beziers in each loop and for each loop to be repeated 39 times. I then used the scroll bar to fix the speed. When I finished I selected OK to save my changes. When OK I selected the screensaver chosen appears in action on the virtual monitor.

If you wish to see the desired Screensaver in action on the actual monitor you should select ‘Preview’. . The next TAB is appearance The appearance TAB allows you to change the style of the windows you open. These options are used for specific users who may have colour blindness or poor sight and need high contrast schemes. I have set the Windows and buttons to ‘Windows XP style’ from the windows and buttons dropdown menu. To change the colour of the windows the colour scheme dropdown menu must be selected and then the desired colour scheme. Here you can see I have chosen silver. These are the changes I have made to the window style so far.

I have set the Font Size as ‘Large Fonts’ to increase user friendliness for anyone who would have trouble reading Normal Sized fonts e. g if the user has poor aesthetical abilities. In the appearance dialogue there is a button labelled Effects which allows you to set different effects on your windows e. g. shadows. When you select the Effect button you are navigated to this Dialogue box and it is in here that you can change and set visual effects. As you can see I have selected the fade effect for menus and tool tips, standard edges of screen fonts, shadows under menus, for window contents to be whown whilst the window is being dragged.

And to hide underlined letter until alt key is pressed. When OK is selected the changes that have been made will be saved. There is also an Advanced button in the Appearance Tab. The Advanced button allows you to choose colours for each individual feature of the Windows- Buttons, border colour, Background colour etc… To set these options you simply click on the item in the ‘item’ dropdown – then choose a colour for that specific item. Here you can see I have changed the font colour of my menus to aqua. This was jst an example I wouldn’t actually use this colour in an office as it I not user friendly because it is hard to read.

The next TAB is settings. This final TAB is used to set the number of colours that windows uses to display pictures on the screen. (16 bit low resolution or 32 bit high resolution). From the dropdown menu I selected Medium (16 bit). Additionally you can also control the size of the screen resolution. You may get a greater range of choices if a high quality monitor is connected. The Advanced button gives access to advanced option that are not relevant to this course as the deal with alteration to monitor driver software settings.