Help For Intelligent Old Chap On Windows 7.

[cheeryble]

Hi there

I have a great friend who is 85yo.

He has a 42 inch TV as his computer screen and I have managed to expand the font.

He has one pretty useless eye and the other one the retinal scarring being held at bay by injections.

BUT

this guy has an IQ of 158 and studied under Jung, and knew some of the great minds of the C20th.

His interests are completely intellectual, and he has a very large library.

Sadly his eye deterioration has got to the stage where he can read Kindle enlarged on the big screen from computer OK (and I made it white on black which he prefers), but it's not great. Expanding text means that normal web pages tend to get confusing even for me.

A shaking thing stops him typing more than an occasional stab, but his wife is capable of helping.

I have been trying to introduce him to the world of podcasts and torrent downloads. If his sight deteriorates even further this would be a lifeline and I told him there's a whole world in podcasts, and growing.

Yesterday I was round there and the computer was crashed and after getting it going (quite quick) I noticed the C drive was 95%+ full. (May have been the reason for crash).

D and E were empty.

So the drives need repartitioning.

This is an example of the simple problems he hasn't got a clue about and can't fix anyway with his disability.

Anyway the problem is I'm an Apple guy and I find Windows very frustrating.

I recommended my friend pay a Windows cogniscento a modest amount to come occasionally to clean up and optimise his computer for his needs.

I have left him a flash drive with podcasts for the time being, but he needs to be set up to open them himself from iTunes or whatever (an example of the problems is iTunes is not very readable for him. Is there some simpler "kiddy app" he could use for podcasts?)

Maybe a longer session first time then a check through every fortnight. He lives in Mae Jo.

His wife is a truly great cook both western and Thai and that might be a bonus.

He is really special in the intellectual sense and still witty and sharp as a razor.

Whoever helped him would gain in return, he's a special chap.

Is there anybody there can help?

If not.....any advice?

Edited May 13, 2013 by cheeryble

[commande]

Lives in Chang Mia on the Golf Course Resort area??? I only figured out where this is by searching google ....

Windows is easy and repartitioning the drive much easier than on Apple. Easiest thing to do is move some of the data to an external drive, 95% full drive on any computer makes them dreadfully slow and prone to crashing due to dynamic swap file creation and deletion. You normally don't want any HD to go beyond 80-85% max capacity or you could have random issues to include data lose.

Best option, get a bigger hard drive, back up current data, install new hard drive into computer. Partition new drive in to parts, 2 Gig for Windows OS, remainder for Data. Reinstall windows 7 fresh, copy all data to new HD on computer... (((Now if the drive is big enough with all partitions combined you can use MMC Console Manager to combine partitions but I still recommend backing the data up to an external drive as this can sometimes be tricky with a full drive or partition on a drive, swap file again comes into play.)))

One thing with computers, Apple or Windows, etc. is once they have an issue that is troubling it is generally faster to just start over than it is to find the issue and resolve it. Linux and UNIX being different animals of course but they are not on topic at all here and I don't recommend switching to them.

Unfortunately I live in Pattaya or I would be happy to help. Sounds like a brilliant guy, I hope you can find someone to assist you with all this - My IQ was 138 years ago, now, I'm sure less LOL.

Edited May 13, 2013 by commande

[BlackPuddingBertha]

"Yesterday I was round there and the computer was crashed and after
getting it going (quite quick) I noticed the C drive was 95%+ full. (May
have been the reason for crash).

D and E were empty.

So the drives need repartitioning."

That does indeed sound like a possible reason for the crash.

You can easily change the partition sizes using this tool:

http://www.easeus.com/resource/partition-manager/free-partition-manager-software.htm

reducing the D and E drives to lesser size and expanding the C drive.

If you are certain that the extra drives are empty and unused (and that one of them isnt either a DVD drive or a factory backup partition) you could even delete them and then expand the C drive to fill the empty space all using the same free tool. Help videos available on YouTube.

You might also like to investigate free and pay voice-control software, and free and pay text reading software (Windows 7 includes a free text-to-speech tool that works quite well).

If the person would like to listen to British radio then this allows for automatic downloading of all the BBC radio broadcasts:

http://www.nerdoftheherd.com/tools/radiodld/

A thoroughly excellent tool which I use daily.

[thaimite]

Suffering from eyesight problems myself and dreading the day when I may be in the same position, I feel for this guy and wish I was able to help, but alas being far away it is not possible.

I hope he finds another friend like you but with a little more windows experience.

Then he would have 2 very good friends

Edited May 13, 2013 by thaimite

[cheeryble]

Lives in Chang Mia on the Golf Course Resort area??? I only figured out where this is by searching google ....

Windows is easy and repartitioning the drive much easier than on Apple. Easiest thing to do is move some of the data to an external drive, 95% full drive on any computer makes them dreadfully slow and prone to crashing due to dynamic swap file creation and deletion. You normally don't want any HD to go beyond 80-85% max capacity or you could have random issues to include data lose.

Best option, get a bigger hard drive, back up current data, install new hard drive into computer. Partition new drive in to parts, 2 Gig for Windows OS, remainder for Data. Reinstall windows 7 fresh, copy all data to new HD on computer... (((Now if the drive is big enough with all partitions combined you can use MMC Console Manager to combine partitions but I still recommend backing the data up to an external drive as this can sometimes be tricky with a full drive or partition on a drive, swap file again comes into play.)))

One thing with computers, Apple or Windows, etc. is once they have an issue that is troubling it is generally faster to just start over than it is to find the issue and resolve it. Linux and UNIX being different animals of course but they are not on topic at all here and I don't recommend switching to them.

Unfortunately I live in Pattaya or I would be happy to help. Sounds like a brilliant guy, I hope you can find someone to assist you with all this - My IQ was 138 years ago, now, I'm sure less LOL.

Thankyou Commande

For the time being I dumped some stuff off the C drive that day and got it down to about 75%. I, or preferably someone else who knows Windows better, will organize the C for the system and put the user stuff on D.

[cheeryble]

"Yesterday I was round there and the computer was crashed and after

getting it going (quite quick) I noticed the C drive was 95%+ full. (May

have been the reason for crash).

D and E were empty.

So the drives need repartitioning."

That does indeed sound like a possible reason for the crash.

You can easily change the partition sizes using this tool:

http://www.easeus.com/resource/partition-manager/free-partition-manager-software.htm

reducing the D and E drives to lesser size and expanding the C drive.

If you are certain that the extra drives are empty and unused (and that one of them isnt either a DVD drive or a factory backup partition) you could even delete them and then expand the C drive to fill the empty space all using the same free tool. Help videos available on YouTube.

You might also like to investigate free and pay voice-control software, and free and pay text reading software (Windows 7 includes a free text-to-speech tool that works quite well).

If the person would like to listen to British radio then this allows for automatic downloading of all the BBC radio broadcasts:

http://www.nerdoftheherd.com/tools/radiodld/

A thoroughly excellent tool which I use daily.

Thanks BPB

I shall use your app suggestion if i can't recruit someone else to do it.

I shall look at nerdoftheherd now I love British radio.

Update: nerdoftheherd not for Apple!

Edited May 13, 2013 by cheeryble

[cheeryble]

Suffering from eyesight problems myself and dreading the day when I may be in the same position, I feel for this guy and wish I was able to help, but alas being far away it is not possible.

I hope he finds another friend like you but with a little more windows experience.

Then he would have 2 very good friends

Thanks for the kind words and good luck with the eyes.

My advice to him about the wonderful world of audio is appropriate to you.

I always play a podcast on my drive to the wife's house in the country at night, it often hasn't finished, and I am so enjoying myself I sometimes sit in the dark in the car on arrival just listening to the end. I consider it one of my best times.

Not only BBC radio 4 is good.

Also Radiolab and the Leonard Lopate Show and Fareed Zakaria from across the pond. All marvellous.

People generally seem to do fairly OK with eyesight loss if they can hear OK.

Edited May 13, 2013 by cheeryble

[aarn]

I imagine all you really need to do is copy all files in C drive over to D and/or E. You didn't mention the size of each drive (just Rclick, then go to 'properties').

There was a post on TV last year, a TVer had filled up C drive, not sure what to do... just get all the stuff not in use on a daily basis off C. Cheers, AA

[BlackPuddingBertha]

I, or preferably someone else who knows Windows better, will organize the C for the system and put the user stuff on D.

No, dont do it that way. Assuming it is empty you should delete the D partition and resize the C partition to take up the available space, using the tool I mentioned. It is very easy to use.

If in doubt, install the programme, run it, allow it to analyse the disks/partitions (this is instant) and post a screen grab of the result.

Any other procedure like moving files in bulk is likely to cause more trouble than it is worth unless you also know how to move user folders. But do watch out for small hidden partitions containing the manufacturer's factory restore programme. These should not be deleted.

[BlackPuddingBertha]

Update: nerdoftheherd not for Apple!

Good things rarely are! Sorry.

[xylophone]

Good on you for helping this guy.

I am not a computer whiz by any stretch of the imagination but a couple of things have helped me with a similar situation: – I have downloaded the free edition of "CCleaner" which can cleanup a lot of rubbish on the computer and speed it up somewhat/make it more efficient (I suppose he uses the disk defragmenter and disk cleanup programs to also help?).

You said he has problems typing, well some 15 years ago I developed a bad case of RSI/OOS and couldn't type at all without bringing on much pain, so I invested in Dragon Naturally Speaking (now produced by Nuance) which is voice recognition software and it has been brilliant for me, and although I started with the basic program of version 4, I am now on version 11.5 and have stuck with it all this time. It would be fair to say that the later versions do have their hiccups when interfacing with with Windows 7, but these are easily worked round.

I did try the voice recognition software inherent within the Windows 7 ultimate package, but that too had its problems and was nowhere near as good as Dragon. May be worthwhile considering if the gentleman still likes to communicate via computer.

Good luck.

[verywierd]

Opera browser (freeware) has built in voice command and text-to-speech. Google "Opera with Voice" for details.

Also it has extensive (and customisable) keyboard shortcuts and easy zoom controls.

Disclaimer - I have never tried it myself, although I do use Opera.

[MichaelJohn]

Resizing the partitions is easy with many tools available on the net - one mentioned above. Having said that there is always an inherant danger with resizing partitions so make sure you back up anything important first.

BUT, it's quite easy to move (re-point) My Docs or MyPictures etc to D or E rather than C - as mentioned above right click, properties and change. It's a simple 5 minute job without risk and will certainly solve your problem.

[cheeryble]

Thanks again for all advice!

I am coming more to the conclusion I should not do this myself. I think I would be too prone to mistakes.

I am really quite good with Apple, but for me the slightest things to do with Windows becomes a very frustrating experience.

For instance someone above said to check out the drive sizes right click and properties.

I right clicked when I was there and looked for something like Apple's "get info" and didn't think anything on the list offered was appropriate to "getting info". But I now learn it's "properties".

This sort of thing happens every minute ha-ha.

No, better not me.

[BlackPuddingBertha]

Actually the contextual right-click menu exists on Apple machines also; but the stupid single-button Apple mouse doesnt let you access it directly! You have to push ctrl + click. Aint progress grand?

In Windows a right-click (ie a click using the right-hand button that all Windows mice have) on anything will bring up a contextual menu of functions that apply to that particular thing. But you do need to be right-clicking on the thing you want in order for it to work. You can also bring up the menu using the menu key on the keyboard, having pre-selected the item you want the menu for.

To see drive properties, open Windows Explorer (Start: Computer) and then right-click on the various drives that will be shown. The bottom option of the menu will be "properties".

But I still recommend installing that tool I mentioned as it is a much simpler way of knowing what is going on and seeing the full relationship between the physical drive(s) and the partitions, which Windows Explorer does not show.

Assuming that you do indeed have just one hard drive which has been partitioned into C and D drives, the latter of which is empty (and this is extremely common practice with many PC manufacturers) then really all you need to do is to delete the D partition and expand the C partition to use the empty space. This will not stop anything from working. Moving user folders may cause problems that may be hard to recover from, and should be avoided.

[BlackPuddingBertha]

No, better not me.

If you are really stuck on this, PM me and I will do it for you remotely.

[cheeryble]

Thanks for that BPB.....sorry to be impolite have had my mind elsewhere will get back to this shortly stay tuned. (now 3am!)

[cheeryble]

thought about a new thread but I'll try to revive this one first.

The short is a friend and I have made some big improvements to vision impaired and shaking hand friend's system.

1. New battery in UPS stops crashing all the time.

2. Reduced icons on desktop to 10 (each big as a tennis ball so he can see on the 42inch screen).

3. Subscrptions to podcasts up and running.

4. Ready to receive ebooks by email from me and read them on Kindle.

5. New better mouse and better keyboard.

6. Workable magnified section of screen can on/off.

etc etc.

I would like to know one more thing.

I can make colour reversals happen so he can read white on black and magnified....which his semi-blindness prefers.

HOWEVER all the colours reverse and frankly it's a mess.

Is it possible to read white on black for text....in Firefox and wherever.......without reversing colours elsewhere?

Edited June 12, 2013 by cheeryble

[ThaidDown]

The 'No Squint' addon for Firefox will set text/ background to many colour combinations including white on black. also allows zooming etc. Since a browser addon will not affect other programs.

Available https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/nosquint/

After you have installed it a web page will come up with general info, click the 'no squint global settings box' to set things initially.

[cheeryble]

Wow that sounds ideal.....will look later rushing out pls stay tuned.

[cheeryble]

Thaiddown

Well I installed Nosquint a few days ago!

What an improvement over simple magnification, thankyou.

it is not absolutely perfect and takes a bit of tweaking to get it rightish, but there is much less screen confusion with overlap. It's

pretty good.

In his case I set full page zoom to 105% and text zoom to 240%. This way the text doesn't go off the page.

I set it to yellow text on black background, which he likes better as less glare.

Anyway, I got everything working pretty fair, but my friend since told me there are no bookmarks available.

I know the top menu bar with File Edit View History Bookmarks etc was there when I left.

What could have happened?

8 hours later:

Went over there, right clicked on the toolbars add menu bar, done. He must have accidentally unticked it.

Added a bookmarks toolbar and loaded it which will also be a help for him.

I was rewarded with a chat about Wittgenstein compared with Nagarjuna, also about Thomas Traherne, the English poet ha-ha.

Anyway thanx to all for yr help and especially for NoSquint!

Just a thought:

Even with NoSquint on the menu bar, bookmarks etc all remain the same size, and are very hard to read for him.

Is there NO way to enlarge them.

Edited June 26, 2013 by cheeryble

[BB1950]

Just a thought:

Even with NoSquint on the menu bar, bookmarks etc all remain the same size, and are very hard to read for him.

Is there NO way to enlarge them.

Yes there is, use the Windows 7 built-in magnifyer. These are the keyboard shortcuts:

Open: {Windows key} + {Plus key}

Close: {Windows Key} + {Esc key}

I've set the magnifier window to follow the cursor. Works great to see parts of the screen that I can't see so well!

I also have used a Microsoft optical mouse (http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Notebook-Optical-Mouse-3000/dp/B000A6NUU6/ref=pd_sim_e_4/184-7684951-2824443) that has a side button which I assigned the side button to open the magnifyer. Unfortnately with Windows 7 the side button doesn't close the magnifyer, like it does on Windows XP.

Edited June 27, 2013 by BB1950

[cheeryble]

Thankyou BB1950

in fact we previously set up the magnifier, and we painted the WINDOWS and + and _ keys with white nail varnish so he could see them.

I personally found it a bit clumsy to use, but was OK when the whole top portion of the screen....which we adjusted for size.....was the magnifier.

But when I went round a few days ago to do NoSquint it had "changed itself" to just the magnifying lens. For some reason I could not get the larger top portion working easily, and time was limited.

So, I'm trying to keep it simple stupid for my friend and I suggested he doesn't use it, and wondered if there was another way for enlarging just the menu/navigation/toolbars.

Maybe not and I have to try again......

Thanks for the very welcome input!

[NeverSure]

Just a thought, but a 42" TV screen isn't going to have very good resolution. It's going to be quite grainy compared to a quality monitor. I'd like to see him try a smaller quality monitor where he could see all of it, and see how he does with it. Maybe a 24" LED back lit? They really don't cost all that much now.

I have good eyesight and I think a 42" TV would be a pain in the tail for me. Too big and too grainy.

[sirchai]

D and E were empty.

So the drives need repartitioning.

You don't need that! Just move ALL the files you're not using for your system to drive D and E. Download all tools (free!) from a bay where most Pirates go for a swim. Use AVG 2013 and AVG TUNE UP.

If you need a partition makes, download it from same source. Made an IQ test and forgot the result already. Good luck!-

Edited June 29, 2013 by sirchai

[cheeryble]

Just a thought, but a 42" TV screen isn't going to have very good resolution. It's going to be quite grainy compared to a quality monitor. I'd like to see him try a smaller quality monitor where he could see all of it, and see how he does with it. Maybe a 24" LED back lit? They really don't cost all that much now.

I have good eyesight and I think a 42" TV would be a pain in the tail for me. Too big and too grainy.

The thing is the resolution is probably OK compared to the size of the script....which is like letters a couple of inches high.

He seems happy enough with that part of it.

[cheeryble]

D and E were empty.

So the drives need repartitioning.

You don't need that! Just move ALL the files you're not using for your system to drive D and E. Download all tools (free!) from a bay where most Pirates go for a swim. Use AVG 2013 and AVG TUNE UP.

If you need a partition makes, download it from same source. Made an IQ test and forgot the result already. Good luck!-

Already dealt with that side of things everything going swimmingly and not sure where antivirus comes in.

We just need larger font for toolbar, bookmarks etc now.