Computer and Web Articles

This last week I received an interesting e-mail from a dear reader.

The dear reader explained that he was having problems downloading programs onto his computer.

More specifically, he could do the actual downloading part just fine, but somehow all downloaded items seemed to “disappear into the bowels of his computer.”

Additionally, he wondered what to do when a website “requires you to have javascript or some other software installed” to download and use the program.

Let’s walk through these issues together and figure out what’s going on, shall we?

First of all, when you download anything onto your computer, whether it’s a game or font or big piece of software, there’s an option that ensures you’re always in complete control of exactly where on your computer the completed download file will be placed.

Let’s say you click a link on a website that says “download our program here.” A little pop-up box will open (assuming you’re using Internet Explorer and you’re not on a Mac).

You’ll notice one of the options listed says Save to Disk; this is the option I select 100 percent of the time and is the option I highly recommend you use. Once you select Save to Disk and hit OK, another pop-up box will open, asking you where on your computer you’d like to save your program.

I find it useful to always choose my Desktop. This way I don’t have to go searching around for the file later, and besides, I can always move it somewhere else whenever I feel like it. If, heaven forbid, you don’t choose a specific location - such as your Desktop - and just hit OK, the download will try and guess where on your computer it should go … and trust me … it could end up just about anywhere!

In a nutshell, make sure you specify exactly where your download should be saved and you’ll make the problem of “losing files into the bowels of your computer” disappear.

Next, my dear reader wondered what to do if a site requires javascript or other software in order to download a file or program.

My answer is this: Most of the time, just about nothing is required to download a file. The only thing that websites will, on occasion, require, is a tool like WinZip (not javascript - but they do sound the same, don’t they?).

This is because sometimes download files are compressed (or zipped) meaning you need a tool to decompress the files, such as WinZip (www.winzip.com).

Now, if I haven’t lost you by this point, I’d like to point you to a fantastic page that walks you through the five steps of downloading, slowly and patiently. (Describing the entire process is beyond the scope of my article today.)

This great webpage was created especially for beginners, so if you’re experiencing any form of download problems, I recommend scanning this page to learn how you’re heading off-path: http://tinyurl.com/crnu6.