Almost every computer program
has a section where you can set options or preferences.
It is often advisable to have a look at this section very early
on when you use a program, because each program comes loaded with
a set of default settings. Depending on
the person that designed your program before selling it to you,
these may be sensible or they may be infuriating. Here are
some examples of really irritating default settings that you may
wish to change ASAP:
Internet Explorer most often comes with a default setting
which sets the first page that you look at everytime you open
it (or press the HOME button) to the homepage of whoever supplied
the program, like PC World, MSN, Dell, or Dixons. Who
wants to subject themselves to aggressive advertising from multinational
corporations when what you want to do is search the net?
Microsoft Word may come supplied with a default setting where
it will check your documents according to American spelling
rules. Another irritating one is to automatically capitalize
the first letter of every sentence, or write ¾ when you
want to write 3/4 (typically for Microsoft programs, changing
this does not come under "options" or "preferences", but that's
another story.
Many programs stipulate a part of your computer that it thinks
is a good place to save your files. This may be a folder
embedded within a folder embedded .... you get the idea.
Some programs will allow you to tell the computer where you
like to keep your files, so that every time you press "save
as" it will find the exact location for your files immediately.