This & That: Ready For A New Year

     by Elizabeth B. Wright    January 2005

Most businesses are run now with computers and other automated devices. With that in mind, the old ways of doing inventory, primarily in retail establishments, have probably changed with the times. Not only do many companies hire outside firms to send teams of people in to do inventory, but with sophisticated software, running tabulations of stock are made every time a transaction is made with the cash register.

But for those of us who use our computers at home, more as a hobby than as a business, what does inventory mean to us? For starters, how old is the computer? Most of us know what hardware is hidden inside (and outside) the case. But for those who bought machines that came preloaded with programs, it is relatively easy to be unaware of what we have at our fingertips. So it might be well to take the time to look into all the programs that are at your beck and call.

You can go to Start>Programs and see a list that possibly scrolls down the screen, or takes up several columns or has multiple branches. Those programs are part of the inventory of your computer. There might even be some that don’t show up in the list, but can be found by searching the file directory using Windows Explore. When you find a program which you have seldom or never used, open it and see what it has to offer.

Then comes the next step in my New Year’s suggestions.

When you find a program that you thought you would never use, set yourself the task of finding out how it works. You might be pleasantly surprised to find that it will add a new dimension to the other things you do. If you have an office suite, it will almost certainly contain a spreadsheet function. If you have never used it before, start with a simple address list. Include names, addresses and phone numbers. Be sure to save it before you do anything else with it in case you need to return to the original sheet. Then experiment with sorting the list. The instructions for sorting are pretty straightforward, although you might make mistakes the first few times. If you do, just close the sheet without saving it and reopen the original copy and try again. This very rudimentary table just shows how to setup a simple sheet. There are often special rules for entering numbers such as real phone numbers, but they should be explained in the manual or help file.

There are other things that can be done with the data you input into your spreadsheet and it is time well spent to look into them. Making the data jump through hoops is kind of fun. This works really well when the spreadsheet you create contains numbers, such as keeping track of the costs of medications or other products you buy. Using even the simplest mathematical functions provided by the program can be very enlightening. Yes, you might have to read the manual to learn functions, but once you get the basic idea, they are pretty easy to use.

Then there are programs that possibly you loaded yourself because they seemed like a good idea at the time. Sometimes those programs are just sitting there taking up valuable hard drive space. If so, that is part of your inventory that needs to be declared a dead loss and removed. Since removing programs is often difficult to do without some residual garbage left behind, it is wise to do a backup or create a restore point before you begin cleaning house.

More than anything else, make this the year that you really stretch your computing skills, more for the exercise than anything else. We really do need to keep moving ahead and not just stick to the same old routines. Over and over we read and hear that by learning new things we are more likely to avoid some of the pitfalls of aging. I am still fascinated by what wonderful things a computer can do, but how infinitely dumb it is until we, the operators, tell it what to do. So head ‘em up, move ‘em out and keep on truckin’. After all, this is 2005.
 

Elizabeth Wright is a member of the CCOKC and a regular writer for the eMonitor