Page 11 - July 2018
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(Continued from page 10) It seems that all the traditional computer input/
output devices are falling out of favor. The rise in
the HomeGroup connection is sometimes popularity of the tablet computer and now espe-
‘disconnected’ without apparent reason. cially the smartphone have played a major part
in this. The previously iconic combination of
If you want to see the HomeGroup, open File
Explorer (the folder icon on the taskbar), scroll to desktop computer, monitor, keyboard, mouse
the bottom of the tree on the left pane and you’ll and printer has not been the norm in the person-
see the homegroup listed. Click on the Home- al computer / tech world for some time. The lap-
Group name and you should see both (all) the top or notebook PC, which generally eliminates
computers in the homegroup and the folders you the need for a separate display, keyboard and
have selected for sharing (except for printers). mouse, has been outselling the desktop for quite
many years already. Now the ultra-portable
If you want to share a folder that’s not ‘standard’ smartphones and tablets, with their integrated
right, click on that folder (such as the Desktop – touch-screen displays, have surely put monitor,
scroll up in the tree view) and click on ‘Share keyboard and external pointing device sales in a
With’ and pick an option. When you do this, you steep decline.
should see the items that are shared in the
homegroup change.
Printer sales are also declining. I’m like most
people in wanting to cut back on the amount of
paper in my life, both to reduce clutter and help
the environment. I’d much prefer a paperless
life, where my bills and financial statements
come as downloaded pdfs, rather than hard cop-
ies in the mail, and my file cabinet of personal
and financial data is a USB external hard drive.
Smartphones are helping in this trend. More and
more, tickets, coupons and other identifying doc-
uments are being accepted when displayed on a
smartphone or tablet screen, instead of having
to present a physical piece of paper (barcodes
have also helped make this happen).
While my goal is to eliminate my home file cabi-
By Greg Skalka, President, Under the Com- nets by scanning my existing paper documents
puter Hood User Group, CA
and insisting on electronic documents in the fu-
November 2017 issue, Drive Light ture, there are still times when I do need to print.
www.uchug.org Some of the continued interest in computer
printing is probably generational. I still own print-
president (at) uchug.org ers; my adult children do not. Just as most mil-
lennials have “cut the cord” in their switch from
cable TV (or televisions in general) to streaming
It was the best of times, it was the worst of
times . . . content from the Internet, they have also aban-
It was time to buy a new printer. (Continued on page 12)
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