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You may be asking, what does playing cards have to do with computers (besides my Solitaire game, that is)? Wild Cards are used in a similar way on computers that they are in playing cards. For instance, if in the Find Box that we opened earlier we placed our cursor in the "Named:" field and typed B*.* you would find every file that started with the letter B. "Wait a minute!" you say. "How did you figure that out?"

The * (located above the 8) is the character that Windows interprets as "one or more characters". Therefore, by saying B*.* we're telling the computer to find files that start with B, and have one or more characters (such as A-Z or numbers, etc.) after that B. Then the dot comes. The last * is the extension. Do you remember from the last page? The * after the dot tells the computer that any extension is O.K. The examples below should help, but take some quiz questions to help you learn even further.

For instance, if you asked the computer to find files named B*.doc the computer will try to find all files that start with B, and have the extension doc.

If you ask the computer to find the files Bulldog.* your computer will search for all files named Bulldog (exactly, because there is no * before the dot) that have any extension (because of the * after the dot)

If you ask the computer to find Bulld*.* it will find all files that start with Bulld and have any extension.

NOTE: One thing to remember. Wild cards are not always necessary, but they will be to perform certain searches. You should have a basic knowledge of how they work, and when to use them. We will discuss this more in the pages to come.