# Dumb and dumber computer questions....



## vitauta (Dec 1, 2011)

we seem to have a number of very knowledgeable, computer-savvy people in our group, here at dc.  i may be the most extreme example, but i bet there are others who, like me, simply don't "get" computers.  i'm hoping this thread will help us find answers to some of our often simple, but perplexing computer problems, from those in the know....

my immediate query has to do with a few hundred email messages that piled up while i was off line last week.  how do i delete, or rather, zero out the numbers for the emails?  i don't like seeing all those big, odd numbers showing...okay, so you already knew i was a bit anal, didn't you?

oh, also, when i started up my new computer yesterday for the first time, i was surprised to see that all my information seems to be intact.  somehow, i was under the impression that i would have to pay a computer tech to transfer all my info from the old computer onto the new.  what, if anything, have i lost from my old computer's hard drive?  is there anything i need from that old computer that would justify a trip to the computer place?  thanks.


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## Janet H (Dec 1, 2011)

vitauta said:


> my immediate query has to do with a few hundred email messages that piled up while i was off line last week.  how do i delete, or rather, zero out the numbers for the emails?  i don't like seeing all those big, odd numbers showing...okay, so you already knew i was a bit anal, didn't you?




How you delete e-mail depends on what e-mail client you use.  Outlook, gmail, yahoo mail and aol all have different interfaces.  As far as I know they all have some scheme to do bulk moves to folder or make deletions. Not sure this was the sort of help your were looking for... ?


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## CWS4322 (Dec 1, 2011)

I miss my IT person! I hate doing computer maintenance/setup, etc. I used to be much better at it, but now, well things have changed so much.


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## Timothy (Dec 1, 2011)

Janet H said:


> How you delete e-mail depends on what e-mail client you use. Outlook, gmail, yahoo mail and aol all have different interfaces. As far as I know they all have some scheme to do bulk moves to folder or make deletions. Not sure this was the sort of help your were looking for... ?


 
Exactly!

Highlite folder - Select All - Delete

That should get rid of all emails in that folder.

OR

Highlite folder - Select All - Move to folder (Pick the trash folder)

That will move them all to the trash.


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## CWS4322 (Dec 1, 2011)

Okay--how to import 30 address books from a system that used XP to Outlook in Windows 7 without having to move each address book individually?


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## vitauta (Dec 1, 2011)

Janet H said:


> How you delete e-mail depends on what e-mail client you use.  Outlook, gmail, yahoo mail and aol all have different interfaces.  As far as I know they all have some scheme to do bulk moves to folder or make deletions. Not sure this was the sort of help your were looking for... ?




i have managed to performed both moves and deletions of material (though i'm way too scared to delete hardly anything) from time to time.  what i have looks like this:  inbox(219).  as i open the emails from the inbox, the numbers decrease one by one.  what i'm looking for is a way to get that 219 number down to zero without the time consuming task of going through all that mail.  i'm wondering, what do people do after their vacations, with all their accumulated email?


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## Timothy (Dec 1, 2011)

vitauta said:


> i have managed to performed both moves and deletions of material (though i'm way too scared to delete hardly anything) from time to time. what i have looks like this: inbox(219). as i open the emails from the inbox, the numbers decrease one by one. what i'm looking for is a way to get that 219 number down to zero without the time consuming task of going through all that mail. i'm wondering, what do people do after their vacations, with all their accumulated email?


 
What email cliet are you using on your computer?


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## Timothy (Dec 1, 2011)

CWS4322 said:


> Okay--how to import 30 address books from a system that used XP to Outlook in Windows 7 without having to move each address book individually?


Exporting address books from different systems can be tricky, but if you choose "Export" from within the host sytem and do so in a CSV format, then CSV (Comma Seperated Variables), should be a format that your new system can import from wherever you kept the file.

If you're sending it from work to home, some businesses block the export commands to prevent computer crimes, but you can still do it to a memory stick via USB.

How in the world did you get 30 email address books?


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## vitauta (Dec 1, 2011)

Timothy said:


> What email cliet are you using on your computer?




at this time i have active e-mail addresses at both gmx and hotmail, tim.


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## Timothy (Dec 1, 2011)

vitauta said:


> at this time i have active e-mail addresses at both gmx and hotmail, tim.


Ahhhhh, I see. You only use onine email (Webmail). Do you ever use anything like "Outlook" or any PC resident email clients?

You have a whole bunch of Webmail accounts?

Like several hotmail accounts? That sort of thing?


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## vitauta (Dec 1, 2011)

Timothy said:


> Ahhhhh, I see. You only use onine email (Webmail). Do you ever use anything like "Outlook" or any PC resident email clients?
> 
> You have a whole bunch of Webmail accounts?
> 
> Like several hotmail accounts? That sort of thing?




yes, i only have those two.  how is outlook different?  what is a pc resident e-mail client?  you see, it's real easy to lose me--never heard of outlook til now.


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## Timothy (Dec 2, 2011)

vitauta said:


> yes, i only have those two. how is outlook different? what is a pc resident e-mail client? you see, it's real easy to lose me--never heard of outlook til now.


 
A PC resident email client is a software program that would be installed on your PC and it would do all the database work of collecting, sorting and storing your emails right on your hard drive, physically on your PC.

A Web-Based email program is what you use now. The software for that type of program is installed on a Web Server that specializes for email only and all the email of all it's members is collected, sorted and stored on the Web Server.

A program like Microsoft's Email Client "Outlook" and "Outlook Express" are sometimes installed by default when you buy a PC with software loaded on it. 

I use a software program named MailWasher Pro to download my email in text only format so I can review it and mark each email for deletion or downloading to my PC. This prevents almost all virus code, because it's a text only format that won't download code. Then, if I don't' want one of them, I just mark it as spam and the full code-included email is never downloaded to my PC and thus poses no risk to me.

I then use other software to store my emails in a MS Access Database that I can make sort and manipulate my emails in any way I wish.

As you can see, email can get much more complicated than just signing onto your account and reading it.

I receive upwards of 500 emails each day. Most of them are postings from e-groups that I store in massive databases and use for building other databases.


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## Zereh (Dec 2, 2011)

If you are using either Gmail or Hotmail and you want to mark all of those emails as "read" to get your inbox count down to 0. Instead of you reading each one individually you can do them in large batches.

In Hotmail:
Click the little checkbox on top of the list of emails in your inbox, so that all are selected (which puts check mark in front of each individual email)
Click the *Mark As*, then select *Read*

In Gmail:  
Select All 
Under the *More* option, choose "*Mark all as read*"

Select all, in both cases, only selects all of the emails on the first page. You'll have to do this process on each page but it is still much faster than clicking through them one at a time.


Google, Hotmail, Yahoo and the myriad of other free web-based emails are absolutely perfect for 99.9% of us.  And for the average person there is zero  advantage to using Outlook. For one, it's a Microsoft product that has to be purchased (unless you get a freebie watered down version). If you use Outlook and something happens to your computer which makes your data unrecoverable, you're screwed because everything is lost. If you are an Outlook user and you came to my house and sat at my PC you would be unable to check your email, because Outlook stores everything locally on your hard drive. (And yes, you can sync Outlook with your other devices but again it is really just taking unnecessary steps that the average-joe user doesn't need to be bothered with.)


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## CWS4322 (Dec 2, 2011)

Timothy said:


> Exporting address books from different systems can be tricky, but if you choose "Export" from within the host sytem and do so in a CSV format, then CSV (Comma Seperated Variables), should be a format that your new system can import from wherever you kept the file.
> 
> If you're sending it from work to home, some businesses block the export commands to prevent computer crimes, but you can still do it to a memory stick via USB.
> 
> How in the world did you get 30 email address books?


 
Thanks--I'll try that over the weekend. I set up address books for each of my clients, the charity, and the charity on which I was on the Board (donors, media contacts, etc.)


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## vitauta (Dec 2, 2011)

Timothy said:


> A PC resident email client is a software program that would be installed on your PC and it would do all the database work of collecting, sorting and storing your emails right on your hard drive, physically on your PC.
> 
> A Web-Based email program is what you use now. The software for that type of program is installed on a Web Server that specializes for email only and all the email of all it's members is collected, sorted and stored on the Web Server.
> 
> ...



you get 500 e-mails every day, tim?  how many do you read or deal with directly?  my head is swimming....against all odds, i'm trying to lead a simple life....


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## Timothy (Dec 2, 2011)

vitauta said:


> you get 500 e-mails every day, Tim? how many do you read or deal with directly? my head is swimming....against all odds, I'm trying to lead a simple life....


Yes, I do get that many, vitauta. I belong to about a half dozen e-groups that I have set to email me every post. Those posts are made into records in my databases. I have the databases created to give me a search screen, where I can search for strings of text that are what I'm using in the coding of my database. For example, I belong to an Excel e-group where the coding and formulas used in Excel are what the posts are made up of. By keeping them in a database and using a search screen, I can find all the instances of certain parts of code from every post ever made in that group.

It helped me tremendously in my work life. 

I don't even see these posts or emails until they appear in one of my searches later. I just import the emails directly into my database, where they reside until needed.

My MS Access database now has what were 250,000 emails, now records.


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## CWS4322 (Dec 2, 2011)

Gosh--I'd love to set up MS Access to import my volume of email! I'm terrible at setting up MS Access--using it, no problem.


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## Timothy (Dec 2, 2011)

CWS4322 said:


> Gosh--I'd love to set up MS Access to import my volume of email! I'm terrible at setting up MS Access--using it, no problem.


 
I use a fantastic little program named:

ABC Amber Windows Mail Converter

The program will convert any PC based emails into whatever format you wish. I convert it into MS Access and it actually creates a little database for you.

Very cool program.


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## Zereh (Dec 2, 2011)

I'm pretty sure that importing the CSV file into Outlook will not preserve the address books but merely import the data that was within each of them.


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## Timothy (Dec 2, 2011)

Zereh said:


> I'm pretty sure that importing the CSV file into Outlook will not preserve the address books but merely import the data that was within each of them.


 
The data is what is the goal. I don't understand your comment.


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## CWS4322 (Dec 2, 2011)

Timothy said:


> The data is what is the goal. I don't understand your comment.


 I think she wants the address books to show up as they were in the "other" Outlook application--that's what I want. A transparent transfer when I click, I see the same address books I had before after I've ported them over. I've tried exporting/importing and they don't show up as they were. Maybe I missed a step or did something wrong?


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## Timothy (Dec 2, 2011)

CWS4322 said:


> I think she wants the address books to show up as they were in the "other" Outlook application--that's what I want. A transparent transfer when I click, I see the same address books I had before after I've ported them over. I've tried exporting/importing and they don't show up as they were. Maybe I missed a step or did something wrong?


The manner in which the addresses appear in thier new home will depend on the format of the software they're being displayed in. The only way to preserve the exact appearance is to use exactly the same software.

Going from Web based to a PC based email client will just bring over the data, not the layout of the screen.


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## vitauta (Jan 4, 2014)

WUHELL, i see i haven't gotten hardly any smarter pc-wise than i was 2 years ago when i first began this computer question thread!  oh, i DID learn not to ask what might seem to be a simple question like, 'how do i go about managing my email accounts', cos i now know that the ANSWERS to questions such as these are bound to be way beyond my comprehension....the pc motto i have been living by these past two years? --- 'Don't Ask Don't Tell'....

so, today i'm here to put forth a simple yes/no question to my pc literate dc friends:  'is there any reason why i should NOT upgrade my windows 8 pc to microsoft's windows 8.1 system for free?'   thank you. i know, i miss timothy too....


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## Zagut (Jan 5, 2014)

vitauta said:


> i know, i miss timothy too....




I can't answer your computer question because I'm a computer dummy myself. 



Sorry for the drift but for some reason this song popped into my head.



*Buoys – Timothy 
*




Trapped in a mine what had caved in
And everyone knows the only ones left
Were Joe and me and Tim

When they broke through to pull us free
The only ones left to tell the tale
Was Joe and me

Timothy, Timothy, where on earth did you go
Timothy, Timothy, God why don't I know

Hungry as hell, no food to eat
And Joe said that he would sell his soul
For just a piece of meat
Water enough to drink for two
And Joe said to me, I'll take a swig
And then there's some for you

Timothy, Timothy, Joe was looking at you
Timothy, Timothy, God what did we do

I must have blacked out just 'round then
'Cause the very next thing that I could see
Was the light of the day again

My stomach was full as it could be
And nobody ever got around to finding Timothy

Timothy, Timothy where on earth did you go
Timothy, Timothy god why don't I know

Timothy, Timothy, oh Timothy...


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## Whiskadoodle (Jan 5, 2014)

They don't get around to tell you this in the song,  Timothy was their work mule.  Somebody et' him for lunch.  But I guess they got rescued cuz they lived to tell the tale (song).  So it has a happy ending for everybody 'cept Timothy.  

 I miss Tim too.   I don't have Windows 8, so I can't say.


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## bakechef (Jan 5, 2014)

vitauta said:


> WUHELL, i see i haven't gotten hardly any smarter pc-wise than i was 2 years ago when i first began this computer question thread!  oh, i DID learn not to ask what might seem to be a simple question like, 'how do i go about managing my email accounts', cos i now know that the ANSWERS to questions such as these are bound to be way beyond my comprehension....the pc motto i have been living by these past two years? --- 'Don't Ask Don't Tell'....
> 
> so, today i'm here to put forth a simple yes/no question to my pc literate dc friends:  'is there any reason why i should NOT upgrade my windows 8 pc to microsoft's windows 8.1 system for free?'   thank you. i know, i miss timothy too....



I don't currently use Windows 8, but can offer this advice.

I don't usually upgrade quickly especially if it is a major overhaul, because there will be bugs.  I wouldn't have upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 8 early on because I know that there will be bugs and it is likely to be more buggy than what I currently use.  

With that said, Windows 8.1 should be an improvement over Windows 8. x.1-x.2 and so on are usually updates, patches and fixes to the current software, and not a major overhaul.  You will likely see little difference with the upgrade, with the exception of the windows start button is back (the round thing in the left hand corner that will bring up all of your programs).  Most changes will be behind the scenes.


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## Roll_Bones (Jan 7, 2014)

vitauta said:


> oh, also, when i started up my new computer yesterday for the first time, i was surprised to see that all my information seems to be intact.  somehow, i was under the impression that i would have to pay a computer tech to transfer all my info from the old computer onto the new.  what, if anything, have i lost from my old computer's hard drive?  is there anything i need from that old computer that would justify a trip to the computer place?  thanks.



I still want to know what you mean by this. Everything that is located on your old computer hard drive is still located on your old computer. It cannot magically jump into the new computer.

Do you mean your web based programs are still intact?  This makes much more sense as these things reside on other servers and you look them up in a sense rather than opening them from within your machine.
Is this right?

Example is you save a recipe to "documents".  This must be manually transfered to your new PC.
But if you have G-Mail account, you can access this account from any internet connected PC. 



vitauta said:


> WUHELL, i see i haven't gotten hardly any smarter pc-wise than i was 2 years ago when i first began this computer question thread!  oh, i DID learn not to ask what might seem to be a simple question like, 'how do i go about managing my email accounts', cos i now know that the ANSWERS to questions such as these are bound to be way beyond my comprehension....the pc motto i have been living by these past two years? --- 'Don't Ask Don't Tell'....
> 
> so, today i'm here to put forth a simple yes/no question to my pc literate dc friends:  'is there any reason why i should NOT upgrade my windows 8 pc to microsoft's windows 8.1 system for free?'   thank you. i know, i miss timothy too....



I see no reason to upgrade.  Use the platform (OS) that came with your system.
I am running Vista and my wife is running Windows 7.
We have no issues and can do most any task required.  In fact, since you are a self diagnosed non computer literate, you would never know the difference anyway.
Change your operating system and then you have to learn the new OS.  Just keep what you got.  You will never use all its features as it is.

I do allow Windows to *update* the system as needed though.
If there was a bug or issue with your version, Windows update addresses these things for you. 
How do you have "Windows Update" set up? 
I also hope you are using anti virus and malware protection?  Both can be downloaded for free.

I hope I made sense. And remember. Google is your friend.  From installing a new transmission in your car, to email account questions, all the answers are there for you.  Microsoft.com also can help you.


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## Addie (Jan 7, 2014)

When I turn on my computer, I look at the bottom. If there is a Windows shield there, I just click on it and Microsoft does an upgrade or installs whatever it needs to make my computer run better. It may need to be restarted at the time or I can wait until I shut it off and the next time I turn my computer on, it will do it then. All of this is done in the background and I am totally unaware of what is going on. I never worry about upgrades or fixing bugs in the system. And I also find that a lot of the upgrades are the ones in the next version of Windows. I have W7 and my son has W8. I now have some of the features that came with his computer. Relax and enjoy your computer. It is a great toy for information and playing.


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## Macgyver1968 (Jan 7, 2014)

I have not heard anyone say that 8.0 should not be upgraded to 8.1.  From what I hear, it just fixed a few things people were complaining about.  I installed 8.0 on my machine, but there was no driver available for my RAID drive, so I reverted back to 7.

I'm a professional computer tech, and will help in any way I can.


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## Roll_Bones (Jan 7, 2014)

Addie said:


> When I turn on my computer, I look at the bottom. If there is a Windows shield there, I just click on it and Microsoft does an upgrade or installs whatever it needs to make my computer run better. It may need to be restarted at the time or I can wait until I shut it off and the next time I turn my computer on, it will do it then. All of this is done in the background and I am totally unaware of what is going on. I never worry about upgrades or fixing bugs in the system. And I also find that a lot of the upgrades are the ones in the next version of Windows. I have W7 and my son has W8. I now have some of the features that came with his computer. Relax and enjoy your computer. It is a great toy for information and playing.



I have mine set to alert me when updates are available, so I can see exactly what the update is, before I download and install it.
I get the badge too, but I always wait until I am done with the pc before clicking on it.  In many instances, you cannot use the pc during certain updates. When I see the badge, its one of those times.

Since you have been doing it this way, I would check "Update History" to be certain there are no "Failed Updates".



Macgyver1968 said:


> I have not heard anyone say that 8.0 should not be upgraded to 8.1.  From what I hear, it just fixed a few things people were complaining about.  I installed 8.0 on my machine, but there was no driver available for my RAID drive, so I reverted back to 7.
> I'm a professional computer tech, and will help in any way I can.




Well glad to meet you.  What about failed updates?  I did a factory restore some months ago and had a few updates fail.
I had little luck getting them "unfailed" 

Do the subsequent successful updates correct any issue with the previous failed updates?
I need to check, but I think there is a block (several) of "Failed Updates" in the list.

*Update:  Yes. The failed updates are still listed.  Cumulative update for windows vista".  There are several of them in order that never were successful.  All updates since then have been fine.
I guess i need to get to work on them unless you think its not that important?*


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## Addie (Jan 7, 2014)

I let my son take care of any other problems. I let him know that I clicked on the update and followed through. Then he goes and takes a look at what was downloaded by Windows. I have never had a problem. If a download failed, he looks to see what it was for and usually finds out that the problem it was to fix did not exists in my computer. I never download anything on my own. I will let Norton know if I want a certain program and it will tell me if it is safe or not. 

When I was in the workforce, I used to be computer savvy. But now I let others handle any problems. As long as I can sit down in front of my computer and use it for my own purposes, I am happy.


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## taxlady (Jan 7, 2014)

Macgyver1968 said:


> I have not heard anyone say that 8.0 should not be upgraded to 8.1.  From what I hear, it just fixed a few things people were complaining about.  I installed 8.0 on my machine, but there was no driver available for my RAID drive, so I reverted back to 7.
> 
> I'm a professional computer tech, and will help in any way I can.


Yeah, it's been out for a while and I haven't heard anything bad. I guess it's time to download that, if it's still available free. My DH is professional computer geek, but he does mostly Linux stuff, so he has no idea if it's an okay upgrade.


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## vitauta (Jan 8, 2014)

if i do the upgrade to windows 8.1 and have problems, is it an easy matter to uninstall?


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## Zereh (Jan 8, 2014)

99.9% sure you won't have issues. Unfortunately there is no way to "uninstall" 8.1;  you would have to do a fresh re-install of Win 8.0.


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## taxlady (Jan 8, 2014)

Zereh said:


> 99.9% sure you won't have issues. Unfortunately there is no way to "uninstall" 8.1;  you would have to do a fresh re-install of Win 8.0.


Have you installed it?


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## Zereh (Jan 8, 2014)

Yep, I installed it a couple weeks ago. =) Haven't had an issue or glitch yet.


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## taxlady (Jan 9, 2014)

Zereh said:


> Yep, I installed it a couple weeks ago. =) Haven't had an issue or glitch yet.


Thanks.


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## Roll_Bones (Jan 9, 2014)

Is the 8.1 part of Windows update?  Or is another stand alone program?

Oh...Addie.  Its nice to have someone around to help with pc issues or just for guidance.  I used to have help, now its all on me.


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## vitauta (Apr 14, 2015)

please help!  how can i watch a movie that is running on my computer on my television?  is there a special device i need in order to connect the pc to the tv?


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## Wyshiepoo (Apr 14, 2015)

Depending on what input sockets you have on your TV you can just plug your laptop, computer into your tv and there ya go HDMI is probably the easiest. You might have to press the F4 key to port the signal to your tv.


If you have a smart tv there are usually facilities for streaming information from your various devices wirelessly. But each TV model will be slightly different so you would need to read the manual.


You would also probably find that if you googled connecting my laptop to TV model XYZ then you would get some easy instructions.


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## vitauta (Apr 14, 2015)

Wyshiepoo said:


> Depending on what input sockets you have on your TV you can just plug your laptop, computer into your tv and there ya go HDMI is probably the easiest. You might have to press the F4 key to port the signal to your tv.
> 
> 
> If you have a smart tv there are usually facilities for streaming information from your various devices wirelessly. But each TV model will be slightly different so you would need to read the manual.
> ...



thank you so much, wyshiepoo!  oftentimes, questions i have can easily be answered by simply googling.  i need to be reminded of that once in a while, because i still don't automatically think to google, though i really should by now.


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## Addie (Apr 14, 2015)

My son Spike bought me my flat screen TV and the back of it looks like the board of a computer company. I can plug almost anything into it. Even my computer and have the largest screen in the neighborhood. But I am happy with the flat monitor I presently have. 

I just love having a smart son in the family!


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