LAPTOP-NOTEBOOK TIPS FOR THE PORTABLE COMPUTER 7-6-1998 Ojatex@aol.com Ojatex's Laptop Tips pages: http://user.aol.com/ojatex/laptop.htm Ojatex's Complete Laptop, Laptop98, Laptop2000 + LaptopME Tips in Windows HELP format (freeware): http://user.aol.com/aljoajo/LapHlp.zip Ojatex's Laptop + Laptop98 Tips in Adobe Acrobat PDF format (freeware): http://user.aol.com/ojatex/lappdf.zip You need Adobe Acrobat reader (free) to view PDF files: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html If you have questions, tips of your own or portable problems, please contact the author at Ojatex@aol.com NEW FEATURE: Feedback from readers of Laptop Tips often raises questions about how to use different types of software. Although I try to answer each question individually, there are certain types of software which generate many questions and problems, especially among newer users. Therefore, a new feature entitled "BY SPECIAL REQUEST" has been added to Laptop Tips. A link to the current and prior Special Request items can be found on the initial page of Laptop Tips at the URL above. HINT: This text file is growing larger as I keep adding new tips. Therefore it might not open properly using Notepad (Windows default ASCII text editor/viewer), limited to 64 KB maximum file size. I recommend using WordPad in Windows 9x or Write in Windows/WfWG 3.xx, to read/print it. Your portable computer doesn't have to be the poor step-child of the computing world. Afterall it cost plenty. Though there are inherent limits vis a vis a desktop, there are several things you can do to power up your machine. Portable users have one over-riding advantage. They don't have to go to their machines; their machines go with them - outside, inside, all around the house. NOTE: Most of the following tips are for Windows 95/98, but many also work with DOS 6.xx and Windows/WfWG 3.xx systems. 1. HARDWARE UPGRADES- Most useable peripherals cost $200 or less and, if you upgrade your computer in the future, most of these peripherals can work with the upgrade. Increase your memory if your machine is expandable; memory prices are low, but don't buy from the manufacturer of your computer; the catalogue outlets are usually appreciably cheaper. When you increase memory go for the maximum amount; with many laptops, previous memory expansion chips are useless when you make another upgrade. Unlike desktop computers, you usually can't "piggyback" more memory on what you already have; there is only enough space for one added chip, so get the biggest one your machine can take. Other "internal" upgrades are either not feasible or are not cost effective. A 10MHZ increase in your CPU can cost 1/3 to 1/2 as much as the original cost of your machine. Display upgrades are also not usually cost effective compared to the original purchase price of the computer. A. THE HARD-DRIVE DILEMNA: There are tons of apps many of which are free, but many portables are banging the hard-drive limit. You may want the latest software, but there is little room left. 1.] COMPRESS that hard-drive to about double its original size if yours is 250MB orless. Certain compression programs [such as Drivespace3 on Windows 95 Plus] will let you run in uncompressed mode at your option when you just have to have that extra speed. 2.] PORTABLE DRIVE - These start at $150 and just one disk holds from 100MB to 250MB. Before investing make sure you have a port that is bi-directional. The principal purpose of these drives is for backing up the hard drive, but for a portable computer with a "small" hard-drive, these portable drives are a life saver and usually daisy-chainable to a printer or scanner. You can reserve hard-drive space for your operating system and your very favourite and utilitarian programs. Banish the rest to the portable drive. Why waste precious hard-drive space on a 10-15MB program, that you use once a week or less? [If you use WIN95, toss out the somewhat clunky portable drive software to save space and get the latest 32-bit drivers. When you access Control Panel/System/Performance (tab), you want to have 32-bit all the way done the line with the magic words "Your system is configured for optimal performance". This is often a matter of getting the right drivers.] While you're checking for 32-Bit optimization, access the "File System" under Advanced Settings. In the "Typical role of this machine" option, select "Network server" rather than "Mobile" or "Docking System", unless you have a very small hard-drive. B. OTHER PERIPHERALS- Besides the ubiquitous Printer, other useful add-ons are a CD-ROM [PCMCIA type if your portable drive is on the parallel port], a modem and a scanner. With these peripherals you can have a full functioned computer system which can emulate a desktop and still maintain basic portability. 2. SOFTWARE: The sky's the limit once you have a portable drive. All that free stuff that's downloadable off the web you can try out and keep it if you like it. There are certain programs that are ideal for a portable computer and meet the "hard-drive worthy" test: I. A "ZIP" program. Zip up those little used files. Once you learn a program, zip up those Help and readme.txt files along with others that the program doesn't use. And delete the "gid" files. If you use Win95, go into Windows Explorer, select Tools from the Menu Bar and then select Find. Type "*.gid" [without the quotes] in the NAMED box, select "My Computer" in the "LOOK-IN" box, make sure the "include sub-folders" is checked and press FIND NOW. When the results of the search appear, go to EDIT on the Menu Bar and choose "Select All". Now go to File on the Menu Bar and select Delete. NOTE: By selecting "My Computer" in the "LOOK-IN" box, you will be cleaning out the ".gid" files that might be residing on any portable disk that is currently in your portable drives. 1) SLIM DOWN: If you get in the habit of zipping up files which you don't need or rarely use, send the zip file off to a portable disk. 2) LEAVE TRACKS: Create a "txt" file in the directory where you zipped and removed the program files. Name the file "About this folder.txt" and document what files were removed, when removed and where they went. II. An "IMAGE CONVERTER" program. There are several full blown and free graphics programs, but they can take a lot of space and take time to open. Often they are best used from a portable disk. For the hard disk, download a small and free, IMAGE CONVERTER program that unzips to about 1/2MB. Use this program to compress those fat bmp, wmf, and pcx files into gif and/or jpg formats. You will save a lot of byte space and your pixs will be homepage ready if you're a web author. You can always re-convert the files into the old format if you need to. 3. THE HARD-DRIVE WORTHY TEST - Unless you have a monster hard drive on your portable, review the programs and files that you have. Eliminate, zip-up or transfer these programs. Adopt a "battle of the bulge" mentality for your hard-drive. Basic hard drive programs should include your operating system, one or two browsers, your internet software, basic word processing [save the giant "suites" for a portable disk], a "no frills" graphics program and an image converter. From there you can add some favourites which you use often. 4. SECURITY - If you use your portable computer to go online and/or other parties use your machine, keep your personal data on portable disks. You can always transfer your data [temporarily] onto your hard-drive or use your data files direct from the portable disk. Before you go online always take your personal data off the hard-drive and pop-out any portable disks from their drives if they have personal data on them. You can run internet software and/or browsers off portable disks as long as you keep personal data on another disk. 5. SHORTCUTS [WIN95 USERS] - Shortcuts are the great time savers, but you pay a price. They may be teeny but they take up a whole cluster on your hard-drive. So use them wisely. If you have a portable drive, make a shortcut on your desktop to the drive - it will work with any disk in the drive at the time. Another very handy shortcut on the desktop is a "Master Short-cut" to all or most of the Apps/folders on your portable disks. For example, if your portable drive is lettered "D" make a new folder named "D - Apps" on every portable disk. Place shortcuts to oft-used programs/folders on that disk in this new folder [If you include a number in the shortcut name that refers to which disk the program is on, you can save yourself a hunt thru a pile of portable disks]. Now make a shortcut to the D - Apps folder and paste it on your desktop. You will now have only one shortcut on your hard-drive, but a full list of Apps/folders when you click on it. Do you collect/use a lot of similar programs such as several "icon extractors", "paint/graphics" or financial software? If you keep them on a portable disk[s] make a "Programs of Type" folder such as "Icon Programs" and put shortcuts to the applicable "EXE" files in the "Icon Programs" folder. Now make a shortcut to the"Icon Programs" folder and put it into the "D - Apps" folder. If you have spread out your Icon Programs on several portable disks, be sure to make an Icon Program folder on each disk and put the shortcuts to the "EXE" files in that folder; then follow through with pasting a shortcut to the Icon Program folder in your D - Apps folder. 6. SEND TO: Make a shortcut to each portable drive and paste them in the Windows/sendto folder. Then send the desired folders/files to a portable disk and delete the original from the hard-drive. Sometimes you will get a message that moving the folder/files will impact one or more registered programs. Generally, not to worry. You can manually edit the "ini" file and/or the Registry - it is usually a matter of just changing the drive letter from C:\ to the portable drive's letter. [I am obliged to say back up the "ini" or Registry before the edits are made - but if you are moving something like Quicken or Lotus 1-2-3, you are not moving any Windows system files. Mistakes made to an "ini" file or the Registry, in these cases, are easily fixed.] 7. DISK GARBAGE: For WIN95 users the Recycle Bin can be a life saver when you change your mind; you just have to "restore" the deletion to its prior location. But there is no recycle bin for deletions made from portable drives. Well make your own. Put a folder named "Disk Garbage" on your hard-drive with a shortcut to it in Windows/Sendto. So before you delete a file on your portable drive, send it to Disk Garbage. Put another shortcut to Disk Garbage on the desktop. When you are ready to empty your Recycle Bin, delete all the files in Disk Garbage first. 8. INSTALLING PROGRAMS: By default, most programs are targeted to your hard-drive. When the installation program suggests a target location, "browse" to a location on a portable disk - this new program may not be hard-drive worthy. You can always move it to the hard-drive later. 9. HOLDING: Do you often do projects, large or small, such as making a new web-page? Often your project requires you to use files from different locations. In order to gather all your work together, create a folder on your hard-drive named "Holding". Then put a shortcut to the "Holding" folder in your Windows/Sendto folder. You can then easily gather up your raw materials in one place without affecting the contents of the original files. 10. DOWNLOADS - Do you download a lot of programs from the internet? Some may be keepers and other just tryouts. After you install them, keep those downloads (usually in ZIP or EXE) format. Put them on a portable disk - you may need them someday if you have to do a re-install, and you may have trouble finding them again on the internet. Besides you will save a lot of time not having to re-download the same program. 11. CLIPART COLLECTOR? Do you collect/make a lot of graphics files? Do you add it to your "ARTGALLERY"? If you use a portable computer without a massive hard-drive, all these graphics can soon over-run your system. Here are a few hints to making pictures manageable. a. Use an "Icon Extractor" programs that allows you to extract pictures from "EXE" or "DLL" files and then save them as libraries rather than as individual pictures. b. Convert little used pictures to compressed formats such as gifs or jpgs. c. If you use a scanner, convert the output bmp files to gif or jpg files. If you have OCR software that outputs scanned documents to formats such as RTF, zip up the RTF documents. If you use the Artgallery from Windows 3.x and regularly scan your drives for new/updated picture files make sure your scanned documents do not have file extensions [such as bmp, pcx, or wmf] that will put them in your Artgallery. d. If you want to see the contents of your Artgallery, generally you must have an application open that supports it such as MS Works for Windows. However if you want to see what's in your ARTGALLERY without opening another application first, just associate a little used file extension with it such as WMF. Then when you click on a WMF file your ARTGALERY will open. e. Did you know that the ARTGALLERY is a very inefficient way of storing/retrieving pictures? The ARTGALLERY which is found in the Windows/MSAPPS folder has an idx file and a thm file. Everytime you add a picture to your ARTGALLERY a description of that picture is added to both files. These files can soon balloon to 2MB or more if you are a big clipart collector. You can save all that hard-drive space if you keep the ARTGALLERY to a minimum size and arrange your clipart by sub-folder such as people, animals, patterns, etc. Then move all the clipart to a portable disk. When you need to use clipart, just use the "sendto" function. If you have "iconized" your bmp files where the contents of the file are a thumbnail picture of the contents, it can take a long time to open the Clipart folder. By categorizing types of clipart into sub-folders, opening time will be reduced considerably. You can paste a shortcut to your Clipart on the desktop if so desired. f. ART THEFT? Does one of your friends have terrific clipart that you want? If they keep their pictures in the clipart gallery ask them to zip up their "idx" and "thm" files and send them to you. Now before you steal, you must conceal. Move your "idx" and "thm" files to a different location and unzip your friends "idx" and "thm" files into Windows\Msapps\artgalry folder. Now open the artgallery, and voila, you can see all your friends clipart. Of course you don't have the actual bmp, pcx, wmf, etc files, but you can take screen-shots of the ones you like and save them as pictures. Now when you have taken what you want, move your own "idx" and "thm" files back into the Windows\Msapps\Artgalry folder. 12. CLEAN-UP: If you are concerned about security as well as saving disk space, before you go online with your portable computer be sure to empty Disk Garbage, the documents contents [put a shortcut to Windows/Recent on the desktop, the Clipboard [put a shortcut to the Clipboard on the desktop] and the Recycle Bin. Check that there are no "personal" files on your hard-drive and pop out any portable disks that have personal files. 13. TIME ADJUSTMENTS: Does your battery lose "time"? Open Control Panel, select Date-Time and create a Shortcut which will automatically paste onto the desktop. 14. FREEZE UP: Are you sometimes plagued with a computer freeze-up? Even a cold shut-down and boot-up won't solve the problem. Here's an undocumented solution that often works. Shut down your computer, unplug the AC current if you are connected, and remove the battery. Then reverse the process - put the battery back in, reconnect to AC and restart your computer. 15. PAUSE THE PRINTER: If you move around with your computer a lot, chances are you are not connected to your printer very often. Always keep your Printer on Pause until you get connected. And if you are going to print pages as well as envelopes, put the latter on "Documents-Pause" so you can make the necessary printer adjustments before you print envelopes. 16. RE-PRINT: If you are going to print documents from files which are on a portable disk [but not an internal drive] and you don't want to drag your portable drive along when you go to your printer, then send the files to "Holding" before you give the Print command. Print from the files in the "Holding" folder; too often you may not get the expected results when you print the first time and if the source document is on a portable disk you will have to reconnect to the portable drive. By printing from files on the hard-drive you can easily re-access them if necessary. Remember to delete the hard-drive file copies after printing and to re-pause the Printer. 17. HOLDING FOLDER REMINDERS: Are you taking your portable computer on a "trip" but don't want to drag along the portable drive. When I say trip this can be as short a move as from one room to another. If you are going to need some files that reside on the portable drive, be sure to collect them in the "Holding" folder on the hard-drive using the sendto function. If you got several things to do while you are without your portable drive, make a txt file in your "Holding Folder" with a list of what you need to collect. If you find you forgot some clipart files that are on a portable disk, if that clipart is attached to the Artgalry, then you can get it with a screenshot and paste it into your "Paint" program. 18. COOL IT DOWN: If your portable drive has an electrical adapter that plugs into AC current, it may get very hot. When the Portable Drive is not connected to your computer, unplug the adapter. 19. RE-START: If you are moving your computer while it is turned on to a new location and you want to shed those plugged in peripherals that are currently "live", then unplug them when you are in the early stages of a "restart". 20. GET A PILLOW: Portable computers are notorious for broken hinges. After a while, your machine may look like a flatbed. A doubled-up pillow behind the screen will hold your monitor up. 21. THE STICKY TRACKBALL: Does your trackball get balky cause your don't take it apart and clean it as often as you should or maybe you are a muncher and your computer is eating your cookie crumbs? What a nuisance it is to take off and put back the trackball retainer for a quick clean up. On many portable computers that retainer can just be tossed in a drawer and forgotten. Your trackball will work fine without it and clean up time is shortened. 22. THE SCREENSAVERS: Some people like to change their screen-savers all the time. Well that's fine but they take up byte space. Store the unused ones on a portable disk and keep only the active one in your Windows folder. 23. DISPLAY: The portable computer has a small screen which, with some judicious choices, can be made more visible. To make the screen more visible, WIN95 users can access Control Panel/Display Icon/Appearance Tab. Set the Desktop to a bright colour such as yellow or aqua. This helps bring out a high contrast with the icons. Set the fonts to "bold". Set the "Window" colour to plain white - this is especially useful if,you do a lot of work by nite-lite or sometimes even flashlight. 24. DISASTER: If (and maybe it should read when) your operating system is beyond repair and you have to re-install the basics possibly all the way down to an entire re-format of the hard-drive, many of the programs that are kept on a portable drive don't have to be re-installed. Usually the only loss is the *ini* file which can be retrieved either before the reinstallation or from an old hard-drive back-up. 25. E-MAIL: Does the E-MAIL you sent and receive pile up in your Internet software program. Get in the habit of regularly saving the desired missives to portable disk and then deleting it all. Overgrown E-Mail files waste byte space and are subject to annihilation in a crash. 26. AOL USERS: If you use AOL and run WIN95, you may be able to use the lastest software [AOL3.0 for Windows 95] even if you don't have the recommended PENTIUM processor. Many 486's handle this 32-bit program with no problem. 27. MODEM PROBLEMS: If you start getting all sorts of connection problems when trying to sign on to your ISP and you use an external modem, the cause could well be the modem cable. With a portable computer, cables take a lot of wear and tear. Before you undertake expensive solutions, go get a new cable and give it a try. 28. CABLES IN GENERAL: The instructions about cables generally advise you to tighten up the screws on the side firmly and batten down the side clips. In many cases, this is a waste of time and just causes more wear and tear. Just stick the cable in firmly and a good connection can be made. 29. POWER UP: Is your battery getting old? You seem to be in a fast drain mode. First check your battery settings to make sure you are getting efficient use of the portable power. Second, whenever possible connect to an AC source. Carry a small "power surge" adapter when on the move with your computer and plug in. 30. ORGANIZE: When used with a portable drive, a portable computer sports a gigantic hard-drive cut into chunks. Organizing these chunks successfully can make your portable computer an efficient and secure computer system. Through trial and error and a review of how you use your computer, you can organize these chunks to fit your needs. Dedicate groups of portable disks to: 1] Backup of your Hard-drive and critical portable disks. 2] Downloaded programs and files in zip or exe format. 3] Removals of files/folders/programs from your hard-drive and other portable disks. 4] Your "working" programs and folders/files separated by those with "personal" data and those that can safely be exposed to the internet and/or actually run internet software/browsers. 5] Try out programs. If you download "freebies" faster than you can try them out, move them onto a portable disk for future use. 31. MULTI-ASSOCIATE: Are you a web author or a collector of graphics programs? Often you want to see or use a file in more than one application. And those applications are both on the hard-drive and portable disks. Rather than open each application from the Program's "EXE" just to see the file, try a programs called "multilaunch" [AKA mlaunch.dll]. It is actually a dll file [143KB] that will "register" into the Windows\System directory and it's free. With this "dll" you can open a file with any program you like by just right clicking on it and selecting your choice from the drop down menu. [NOTE: If you don't have multilaunch.dll and can't find it on the WWW, E-mail me at the address below and I will send you a copy of the setup program and it's readme.txt file all zipped up.] 32. DOS: Whether you cut your computer teeth on DOS or shudder at the mention of the word, it can be a real vacuum cleaner when cleaning out your hard-drive and portable disks. {If you are not a DOS maven, get the latest "Power Toys" from Microsoft if you don't already have them. [They can be found at: http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/info/powertoys.htm ]. Be sure that the "DOS PROMPT HERE" feature is installed. In order to check for unused files, enter the DOS command "dir /v/o/p/s" for each directory [i.e. folder and/or sub-folder] on your hard-drive and portable disks. This will show the date of last access of each file. If the files haven't been accessed for several months, you generally can zip them up and send them to a portable drive for removals. Be sure to make a small txt file in the directory where you removed the files documenting what was done and where the removed files went. (Note: If you use WINZIP, don't remove or zip up the Winzip.hlp file. WINZIP is one of those odd programs that will not open without its Help file. If you inadvertently zip up the Winzip.hlp file and have another unzipper such as PKUNZIP, you can retrieve Winzip's Help file.) 33. SAVE THAT SERIAL #: If the serial # on your laptop is just printed on a small sticker on your machine, copy it down before it disappears forever. Write the Serial # in your User's Manual. More than one owner has been denied free Tech Support because of a faded serial number. 34. TRIP TIPS: If you are going on a trip with your portable, don't stuff all your valuable disks in the carrier case along with your computer. Portables are a favourite target of thieves - guard your machine and pocket those disks with personal and critical data. 35. EASY DOS IT: Once you've had a computer for a while and especially if you download/purchase a lot of new software, the number of files and folders on your hard and portable disks seems to multiply. To make a record of the names, sizes and creation dates of all your files in any folder, there is a simple DOS command you can use to either print or send to file all this information. A - Right click on the folder whose contents you want to list. B - Select "DOS Prompt Here". C - If you want to PRINT the contents of the folder, at the DOS prompt type: DIR /S > LPT1 and then hit the ENTER key. D - If you want to send to a FILE the contents of the folder, at the DOS prompt type: DIR /S > COPY and press ENTER. [Note: This command will place a file named "COPY" in your current directory.] E - To close the DOS screen and return to Windows, type EXIT and hit enter at the DOS prompt. 36. CACHE - USE IT THEN LOSE IT: Your Browser's cache can grow to an alarming size if you browse the net alot, but it can be a real time saver and a mini-gold mine. From the cache, you can read offline rather than online all the web-pages you visited. It is also not necessary to save web-pages and their related graphics while you are online - they are all in the cache. Maybe you saw some graphics you liked while browsing or several links to sites you want to visit later; they are all available in the cache. No need to separately save them while online. A - GET THERE FAST - Make a shortcut[s] to your cache[s] folder and paste it on your desktop. 1] Internet Explorer and AOL members using the 3.0 version for Windows 95 [32Bit]: The cache files are named "Temporary Internet Files" - Make a shortcut to this folder which is in the WINDOWS directory. a) INTERNET EXPLORER 3.X: To get at the "HARD" cache files, right click on the cache shortcut on your desktop and select "Explore from here". The four cache folders hold the "hard" cache files. For ease of use, it is advisable to move all the files in each cache folder into just one cache folder. Also rename "html" extensions to "htm" and "art" extensions to "gif". Some files may have very strange names such as "AV%2|6%U?/0". These won't "read" unless you rename with acceptable characters and an extension. b) INTERNET EXPLORER 4.X: The cached files in the "Temporary Internet Files" folder are readable without going into the sub-folders as long as the "Work Offline" mode is selected; this option can be selected from FILE on the Menu Bar. When you first attempt to open a cached file, an error message usually appears that "Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site" then a "Navigation Canceled" screen appears. Not to worry. Just select "Work Offline" from the file menu, close the "Navigation Canceled" file, and re-open the cached file you originally tried to open. Generally the files in the "Temporary Internet Files" folder retain their original names and do not have to be manipulated as with IE v3.x. 2] NETSCAPE'S cache files are in the NETSCAPE folder. These are "HARD" files but they do not have the same name as the original file. Hence trying to read these HTM files or their associated graphics is generally a guessing game. There is a free program available called "MOZ.EXE" at http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Lakes/2414. This is a DOS program, but if DOS is a foreign language to you, there is an easy work-around. To avoid all the switches, paths and commands you don't know, just stick a copy [not the original] of MOZ.EXE on your desktop. When you need to convert your cache to the original file names, right click on "MOZ.EXE" on your desktop and select COPY. Now right click on the NETSCAPE cache shortcut on your desktop, select "TARGET" then select "OPEN CONTAINER" which will show the "CACHE" folder. Open the cache folder and paste in and open MOZ.EXE. To convert the cache files from the DOS screen of "MOS.EXE", type in R for RENAME when asked to choose COPY, RENAME or SKIP. If queried to overwrite "MOZBACK.BAT", type in Y for YES and exit the DOS PROGRAM. B - RE-OPEN A PAGE: When you want to re-visit a site that has some interesting links, before going online, open that cache file and minimize it. After signing on, re-open the page on the TASKBAR and you now have a page with "LIVE LINKS" to your next destination. C - PURGE THE CACHE: When you're through with using the cache files, delete them to reclaim hard-drive space. D - MISSING PIXS?: When opening an HTM file from the cache, often the graphics don't show up because they originated from a different directory. By opening the underlying "TEXT" file of the web-page and deleting the sub- directory name preceding the "GIF", the picture will become visible in the web-page. For instance, if you see: img src="/images/red.gif", just delete the term /images/ and the graphic will become visible. If you use an "enhanced" text editor such as Notepad+ that has a REPLACE capability, there is a fast way to remove all graphic subdirectories which precede the "gif" entries.Open the REPLACE function.Using the preceding example,mtype /images/ in the FIND WHAT box. Leave the REPLACE WITH box empty. Select REPLACE ALL. This will delete all the subdirectory entries which prevented the graphics from showing up on the cached page. 37. GET IT FASTER: Do you frequently fall prey to the allure of all that free software plastered all over the net? But it seems everybody wants it at the same time you do or the company that is offering it sends you 15 cookies and 4 different web-pages to get at your prize. This software resides in an FTP directory and if you can get into that directory, you can usually get the software without the hassle of surfing to a web-site and joining a cue. A - FTP - HOW TO GET THERE: With a little intuition and experience, you can get into most FTP sites to download the software you want often faster than you can grab it off an "HTTP" site. As an example, if you know that "PCWORLD" is offering the program, you can go right into their FTP directory where PCWORLD uploads that software. Their FTP address is fairly simple to figure out - it's ftp.pcworld.com. In order to get there, make a bookmark, favourite place or just type the FTP address in your browser's address box as fttp://ftp.pcworld.com. Or, some ISP software has a direct route to FTP; for instance AOLers can use KEYWORD "FTP" or just add "FTP" to their "GO TO" menu. B - WHICH DIRECTORY? Now that you hve entered the FTP, what do you see? Usually you will see files and directories [i.e. folders].{If you have your own web-site, this FTP will look a lot like the one you upload to.} So where to go? Usually the answer is the directory named "PUB" or sometimes it may be WIN95, LIB or PROGRAMS. When you get into the "PUB" directory you may see a list of files in alphabetical order wherein your desired program is listed or you may get a more detailed list of program types in their own folders such as DESKTOP, GRAPHICS, MULTIMEDIA and UTILITIES for example. By drilling down through the directories [much like one does in FILE MANAGER or WINDOWS EXPLORER], you should get to the program you want to download. With a little experience, direct download from "FTP" is often the fastest and most reliable method of getting what you want. 38. BACKUP BLUES? Hate to do those full system back-ups because they take so long? Speed them up a litte. Before backing up, clean up and zip up. First empty the recycle bin, the "recent file", and all the caches. Second zip up large groups of files such as the Help files. After zipping up, delete the unzipped files, do your back-up then unzip. If you ever have to restore later from the backup, just unzip the restored files. Attention AOL Users [Win95 version]: If you have set your "GRAPHICS" preferences to 10 MB's or more, it is likely that your Main.idx file is several megabytes large. [The "Main.idx" file can be found in the AOL/IDB folder. It is mainly a graphic "cache" file that increases as you visit web-sites.] Just before backing up, open the AOL program [no need to sign on], access Members/Preferences on the Menu Bar. Select the graphics box and set the Graphics size to 1MB. After back-up is finished, reset the graphics preferences to its former value. 39. INTERNET EXPLORER #4 - ONE BIIIIG BROWSER: Unless you have a portable computer with a Gig or bigger hard drive and a 100+mhz CPU, IE 4.0 is going to cause a noticeable hit on your system's performance. Akin to running Win95 with 4MB of RAM - it can be done but it's a real strain. There is a real "problem" with IE 4.0 - it automatically overwrites IE 3.x and loads the Windows\System folder with new and revised DLL files. For a portable user who runs or stores programs on portable disks, the "ideal" programs are the ones who keep their "dll" files in their own folder. Conflicts and crashes are minimized and the size of the Windows\System folder is optimized. IE 4.0 is not just a browser, it is a revision to Win95's operating system and it sucks up a lot of your system's resources. This may very well impact your ability to run several apps simultaneously. If you install IE 4.0, before installation do a full system backup as well as separate registry and emergency recovery backups [Windows95 Emergency Recovery Utility is a freely available "CD-ROM extra" program which is very user friendly to those who "don't do DOS". Critical files including the Registry are backed up on a Floppy Disk. Restoration is as simple as changing the C:\ prompt to the A:\ prompt and typing Erd.exe. You may wish to go back to the lighter load of IE 3.x. [Note: AOLers-If you are now using AOL 3.0 for Windows95, once you install IE 4.0, your AOL built-in browser will become IE 4.0. If you use one or more of the Netscape browsers, your browsing performance is impaired because of the IE 4.0 overhead.] 40. WEB AUTHOR? Do you have your own web-site? If so, visitors to your site may be using one of several browsers and your web-page(s) may look very different to them than the way you want it to. As a web-author you want to be aware of how your pages are going to look to the major browser programs because they all have differences in they way they "read" HTML. With a portable computer, you can most likely install and run Netscape Navigator 3.x, Netscape Communicator 4.x and either Internet Explorer 3.x or Internet Explorer 4.x especially with the aid of a portable disk. As you create/edit your web-pages, you can check their appearance with at least 3 browsers and make any necessary adjustments. If you want to keep your system running at its current performance, keep IE 3.x as the active browser. [You can install IE 4.x and then rename the "Program Files" folder and the "Windows" folders to something like "4Program Files" and "4Windows". Then restore the old "Program Files" and "Windows" folders from the back-up you made before you installed IE 4.0. You may have to create a mini "Windows\System" folder just to make your back-up program perform the restore operation - Windows will generally tell you which files are "missing" as you proceed with the restore. Just copy/paste the files Windows wants into your mini - "Windows\System" folder and NO others. Avoid any unnecessary cross-contamination between the Windows folders for IE 3.x and IE 4.x. If at the end of the restore operation, a message occurs telling you that there is trouble recreating the old registry, use the Emergency Recovery files on a Floppy Disk to restore your old files. Reboot to get your pre-IE 4.0 configuration up and running. With 2 separate sets of "Program Files" and "Windows" Folders on your hard drive, you are probably overloaded. Send the "4Program Files" folder and the "4Windows" folder off to portable disk(s). When you want to "see" what your web-pages look like to IE 4.0 users, copy/paste the "4Program Files" and "4Windows" to the hard drive, rename the existing "Program Files" and "Windows" folders to "3Program Files" and "3Windows" folder, then rename the "4Program Files" and "4Windows" folders to "Program Files" and "Windows". Re-boot and you will have IE 4.0 running as a stand alone browser and as the AOL3.0 for Windows 95 browser if you use AOL. When you are through using IE 4.0, delete the "Program Files" and "Windows" folders and then rename the "3Program Files" and "3Windows" folders to "Program Files" and "Windows". Re-boot and your old configuration is back with IE 3.x. Be advised with all this folder moving and renaming, Windows is going to warn you that you may be impacting your programs. Well, that's exactly what your intentions are. Also, this shuffling of Browsers and their related files is a time consuming operation and must be done with care.] 41. TECH SUPPORT: When trouble comes that requires outside help, don't become a Tech Support "guinea pig". You could well end up in a lot worse shape than from where you started. Some of these "engineers" shoot from the hip or are just plain over their head but will still offer a "solution" that will become your "dissolution". Try a variety of sources and compare the "cures" before proceeding. If the "engineer" you contacted has no experience with your problem, try to get a little higher up the chain to find someone who does. It's not your job to break in new tech help employees. You will end up paying for their errors. 42. PROGRAM OVERLOAD: When you access "PROGRAMS" on your "START" menu, does your screen fill with layers of items that you rarely/never use such as readme and help files along with the applications exe file.? Since these items are generally shortcuts, they not only result in screen clutter but also take up hard drive space. You can delete these items through "Start/Settings/Taskbar/Start Menu Programs/Remove", but that is the long way around and you can only delete one item at a time. For faster access to the delete/add function, just open the Windows/Start Menu folder in Windows Explorer and open the "PROGRAMS" folder. 43. JUICE UP START MENU: For direct access to your most often used programs, put shortcuts to them in the Windows/Start Menu folder; you won't have to dig through layers of items in the "START-PROGRAMS" Menus. Whenever you need fast access to a favourite program while working in another venue, just press CTRL+ESC. That will bring up your list. 44. ADOPT A FILE: Often when you install or use a new program, it creates its own file types with extensions unassociated with any program. For example, depending on the version, possibly 6 new files types are created when you use Quicken. These new types show no association with Quicken. Windows will just show the generic windows icon. When you click on one of these files they will not open. To make these files open the program that created them and to give them the icon which denotes the "exe" file, click on "VIEW" on the MENU bar in Windows Explorer and select "OPTIONS". Select the "FILES TYPE" tab and the "New Type" option. When the "Add New File Type" dialogue box appears, fill in the "Description of Type" box with the applicable program name such as Quicken Data File. In the "Associated Extension" box fill in the three letter extension. For this Quicken example, use "qdt" [without quotes]. Now select "New" under the "Actions" category. This will open the "New Action" dialogue box. In the "ACTION" box of the "New Action" dialogue box, type in the word "Open" [without quotes]. In the "Application used to perform action" box, select "Browse" and find the path of the application's exe file which, for Quicken, is often C:\Quickenw\Qw.exe. Click on OK. Then close the "Add New File Type" and "Option" dialogue boxes. 45. COMPRESS THE CLUTTER: Is your desktop overrun with icons? Not an empty spot to be found? Some icons have even fallen off the right edge of the screen. If you can't bear to part with them, then squeeze them down to fit your little screen. Open the Control Panel and select DISPLAY. Click on the Appearance Tab and from the ITEM line scroll to ICON. In the relevant SIZE box shrink the current size to a lower value until you get a good fit of the icons on your desktop. You can also decrease the size of the font that is used in the Icon's Title. Additional desktop free space can be reclaimed by decreasing the spacing between icons. Re-access the Appearance Tab as before and from the ITEM line scroll in turn to Icon Spacing [Vertical and Horiziontal]. Decrease the size to move the icons closer together. 46. E-MAIL ERASURES: Have you ever received e-mail which seems to have been cutoff in mid sentence? Or have you sent e-mail which the recipient can't read? The e-mail may have contained HTML tags which are not supported. AOL E-mail does not recognize HTML tags when there is a valid HTML command between the pipes. A common spreadsheet "trick" can overcome this shortcoming; you can insert an apostrophe just before the command like this: <'BR>. Then your tag will be visible because the command has been disabled and reverted to plain text. To test how your E-mail handles HTML tags, compose an E-mail to yourself, then save it and re-open or send it and read it. And don't forget to do a friend a favour; if your e-mail supports "live-links", when you send a web address, use them in your e-mail along with the URL. 47. MORE MAIL: If your E-mail provider goes "down" when your really need it or you are travelling without access to your regular provider, get some free e-mail accounts with someone else. There are several providers such as Geocities, Hotmail, USA.net, Rocketmail, etc. If your web server gets knocked off the air and you can't access it, try Juno e-mail. It has its own e-mail servers. Not only are the extra e-mail accounts a good back-up but also you can create multiple screen-names/accounts for different purposes. 48. WINDOW WIGGLES: There are many keyboard shortcuts, but few of us learn them all. One handy keyboard shortcut that can keep you from reaching for your mouse when you want to maximize /minimize /restore /close a WINDOW is to use the following commands: ALT+SpaceBar-X Maximize a Window ALT+SpaceBar-N Minimize a Window ALT+SpaceBar-R Restore a Window ALT+SpaceBar-C Close a Window If there are additional open windows running inside the application, just press Alt+SpaceBar-RightArrow to access each Window's top left icon. 49. PLUS the RIGHT ARROW: Another use of the Right Arrow is to quickly reveal or "explode" a folder in Windows Explorer that holds subfolders. When in the left pane of Windows Explorer, to reveal the sub-folders, just select the "+ folder" and hit the Right Arrow. The use of the Right Arrow to open the "+ items" is especially useful when in Safe Mode as you navigate Device Manager with the default cursor. 50. SOFTWARE UPGRADE?: Companies that issue software generally come out with an "upgrade" to their old standards every so often; that doesn't mean you need to buy it. Try a demo if available - many of these "upgrades" are filled with a lot of zingy new graphics but little in the way of new content. When an upgrade goes from 16-bit to 32-bit it won't necessarily be any faster because several megabytes may have been added. Often your old stripped down version will be just as fast or faster without all the cute little pictures and added "features". 51. HTML AIN'T JUST FOR WEB SITES: If you have sort of a "Plain Jane" E-mail program that supports attachments, write your friends an HTML file with graphics of your choice. Just zip up the HTML file with the associated "gifs" and attach it to your E-Mail. If you haven't created your own web-page yet, it's a good way to practice the skills you will need. 52. CAN YOU SCAN?: If you have scanning capabilities, there are many uses you can put it to such as receipts for large items especially computer hardware/software with the date of purchase and serial number. Often receipts fade in time, are partially unreadable or are missing salient information. After you scan, open the item in a graphics program and add the missing or unreadable information. It's much easier to find a scanned item on a disk than looking through a pile of papers for an elusive receipt. The scanner is also ideal for saving tax information especially those W-2's and 1099's that have to be dealt with by April 15th. If you are making or collecting monthly payments based on an amortization schedule, scan that schedule into your computer. Save it as a graphic or a word processing document if you have an OCR program. Each month, mark off each payment with the date and check number. 53. ORGANIZE THE SCAN: If you have a lot of scanned documents, make a folder named "Scanned Docs" and organize them into sub-folders by type such as Taxes, Insurance, Computer, Monthly Payments, Utilities, Correspondence, Appliances, etc. Don't forget to convert those large byte scanned documents to smaller "gif" files and toss the originals. If you use a portable drive, put the Scanned Docs folder onto a separate disk along with your scanning software, OCR program, form-filling applications, and any other software which involves scanning. Now make a new folder on the portable disk named "Scanning" and put all you scanning-related folders in it. For your "Scanned Docs" folder [or for the individual sub-folders if they are extensive], Scanning software, OCR program, form-filling applications, etc. make shortcuts and paste them into the "Scanning" folder. Make a shortcut to the "Scanning" folder and paste it on your desktop and/or into your Windows/Start Menu folder. Now when you have scanning to do or want to retrieve a scanned document, all the relevant tools are available from your master shortcut. 54. SUPER ORGANIZED SCAN: Now that you have your scanned documents all sorted and converted to gifs, wouldn't it be great to see each group all at once rather than having to open each picture individually? No problem. Just write a little HTML file to which the gifs will attach. For example, if you happen to scan your monthly electric bill, write an HTML file and embed each month's bill. You can write a template HTML which will hold a whole year's bills as follows: <CENTER><B>ELECTRICITY 1998</B><P> Jan98<A HREF="jan98.gif"><IMG SRC="jan98.gif" ALT="Jan 1998"></A> Feb98<A HREF="feb98.gif"><IMG SRC="feb98.gif" ALT="Feb 1998"></A> Mar98<A HREF="mar98.gif"><IMG SRC="mar98.gif" ALT="March 1998"></A> Apr98<A HREF="apr98.gif"><IMG SRC="apr98.gif" ALT="Apr 1998"></A> May98<A HREF="may98.gif"><IMG SRC="may98.gif" ALT="May 1998"></A> Jun98<A HREF="jun98.gif"><IMG SRC="jun98.gif" ALT="June 1998"></A> Jul98<A HREF="jul98.gif"><IMG SRC="jul98.gif" ALT="July 1998"></A> Aug98<A HREF="aug98.gif"><IMG SRC="aug98.gif" ALT="Aug 1998"></A> Sep98<A HREF="sep98.gif"><IMG SRC="sep98.gif" ALT="Sep 1998"></A> Oct98<A HREF="oct98.gif"><IMG SRC="oct98.gif" ALT="Oct 1998"></A> Nov98<A HREF="nov98.gif"><IMG SRC="nov98.gif" ALT="Nov 1998"></A> Dec98<A HREF="dec98.gif"><IMG SRC="dec98.gif" ALT="Dec 1998"></A></CENTER> Everytime you scan your monthly electric bill, convert the output to "gif" format and the bill will show up in your HTML file in chronological order. You can create many types of HTML files such as ones for taxes of all kinds, computer expenditures, credit card statements, etc. Also you can easily use a prior year's HTML file to make one for the next year by just replacing 98 with 99 for example. 55. CORD WRAP: Laptop AC adapters are prone to breaking right near the connection where the adapter plugs into the computer. A little prevention is in order. Use vinyl tape to wrap the cord from the connector for a length of about two inches to prevent constant crinking/bending of the cord in the same place. Often the handle of the laptop is partly to blame for stress on the cord; remove the handle to relieve the pressure. 56. CORD DOCTOR: When your AC cord breaks you don't necessarily have to shell out $100 or more for a new adapter. Your local electronic store (e.g. Radio Shack) may have the repair part you need for a couple of bucks. Get a matching connector and splice it onto the good part of the old cord. [Unplug the power first.] Be sure the two wires do not make contact with each other. Very small pieces of vinyl tape wrapped around exposed wires can prevent the wires from touching. 57. CAN'T DO SPREADSHEETS? Spreadsheets are ideal vehicles for keeping track of income and expenses as well as other numerical data. However if you are not a "numbers" person but can do some simple HTML, you can keep track of figures by just making some basic templates. Additionally you can add links to underlying scanned documents such as outlined in item #54 above. Just create a simple text file that you can use to record the amount of monthly electric bills as follows: <BR>1998 ELECTRICITY<BR>JAN $<BR>FEB $<BR>MAR $<BR>APR $<BR>MAY $<BR> JUN $<BR>JUL $<BR>AUG $<BR>SEP $<BR>OCT $<BR>NOV $<BR>DEC $<BR> A- After saving the text file, rename it with an HTM extension and open it in your browser. It will look like this: 1998 ELECTRICITY JAN $ FEB $ MAR $ APR $ MAY $ JUN $ JUL $ AUG $ SEP $ OCT $ NOV $ DEC $ B- When the Jan 98 electric bill is sent, open the htm file as a text file and fill in the "form" by entering the amount next to the dollar sign. When the file is re-opened in your browser it will look like this: 1998 ELECTRICITY JAN $121.68 FEB $ MAR $ APR $ MAY $ JUN $ JUL $ AUG $ SEP $ OCT $ NOV $ DEC $ C- If you also scan in your electric bills, you can tie the image to your file with a link. From the example in item #54, add a link like this: <A HREF="98elecbills.htm">1998 Electric Bills</A> D- You can use this htm-template approach for many categories of text documents and add links to other text and scanned documents within your file structure. 58. SCANDISK FILES: Have you ever run Scandisk and ended up with some CHK files that Scandisk created when it found errors? First add the CHK extension to registered file types, then associate it with a word processing program. Often when you open these CHK files, they may be nothing but blanks. However they may hold some lost files that you want; check over the file to find clues from where it came. Sometimes these files are from DOS programs that were run in a DOS window that did not shut down properly. If you can't determine exactly what the proper file name and extension should be, compare the file's size to a directory list as outlined in Item #35. 59. TAKE A PEEK: If you don't already have it, get and install Quickview - a free CD-ROM extra from Microsoft. Go through the list of FILE TYPES [accessed from VIEW/OPTIONS on the MENU BAR of Windows Explorer as outlined in item #44]. From the "Add New File Type" box, check the "Enable Quick View" option for the file extensions you often use. Using Quickview to "look" at a file doesn't require the underlying application to open or even be available. For instance a spreadsheet file whose application is on a portable disk that isn't currently loaded in the portable drive can be opened with Quick View. If you are an AOLer and want to review the E-Mail you have stored in the Personal Filing Cabinet without opening the AOL program, you can rename your "screenname" file in the "Organize" folder with a Quick View enabled word processing extension. Then just open the file with Quick view; after reading the "screenname" file, eliminate the file extension. 60. BIGGER IS BETTER: Laptop screens are small at the onset; some programs add top and bottom bars that put a real squeeze on working screen real estate. Most programs have an options or preference menu wherein you can turn off the "extra" bars; the standard MENU BAR is usually enough to operate many programs satisfactorily. For Windows 95, hide the TASK BAR by selecting SETTINGS/TASKBAR from the START button and checking the "Auto hide" option in the Taskbar Properies box. 61. GOLDEN OLDIES: If you suddenly are not able to get on the web even after re-installing your internet/browser software, drag out an older version of your software and give it a try. For instance if you are a Win95 user with a 32Bit browser and you cannot connect to the internet, drag out the 16bit software and try again. The good news: it is likely you can connect with the oldie. The bad news: a re-install of Win95 may be necessary to return to 32bit browsing. 62. GET AN ARM: Unless you have a really skinny laptop, you can add a swinging arm to hold printed materials. Get a two-part, adjustable arm where you can remove the arm and leave the bracket attached to the side of your laptop case. 63. TAPE IT UP: When you receive those free floppies in the mail, do you erase them for your own use after you disable the write protect function by moving the tab over the opening? Join the club. Well some companies that send out these floppies have tried to foil your efforts by removing the tab. An old VCR trick works on floppies too. Just put a small piece of vinyl tape over the opening and delete the contents. The floppy is now yours. 64. FIX A FORM: If you have a scanner, you can fill in forms such as registrations even without form-filling software. Bring your scanned form up in a graphics program [Windows Paint will do] and fill in the blanks. But there is a downside; it's difficult to stay well positioned between the fill-in lines on the form. Try this: before filling in the form, delete the fill-in lines with Paint's eraser "tool" and add "underline" to the font you are using. If it is a two-sided form, after filling both sides in Paint send them to a "paused" printer. Before printing, pause the second document in the que so you can print on both sides of the same piece of paper. If the fill-in form is of the "fold, seal and mail" type, just put your printed filled-in form inside the original, seal and mail. A. FAST RETURN: When you receive a letter which requires minimal response, scan it and write your answer on the bottom of the page. If you have a colour printer, use a bright colour and a bold font. B. THE CHECK IS IN THE MAIL: When you buy merchandise that merits a rebate, scan the rebate form and the receipt. Depending on whether the vendor requires originals or accepts copies, mail your forms accordingly. Also if you use financial software such as Quicken, record your expected rebate as a Receivable [asset]; this serves as a method of following-up on an expected rebate check; even if you don't have a scanner, record expected rebates. And, if your financial software has that nagging "reminder" feature, set up a "bogus" future transaction that will remind you 6 to 8 weeks hence of the expected rebate. 65. SCAN FOR SAM: Uncle Sam [IRS Division] wants proof for all those figures on your 1040 plus his share of the take. A. GAMBLING WINNINGS: Did you win a jackpot of $1,200 or more at a casino? When you are paid off the casino fills out a W-2G much like the regular W-2 your employer sends to the government to report your wages. The IRS taxes gambling winnings as regular income. Although you can't claim gambling losses as a deduction, you can offset your winnings up to the amount of your losses. So maybe you lost twice as much or more during the tax year in pursuit of that jackpot. The IRS wants you to submit proof of your bad luck; so save and scan those cash withdrawal slips especially the ones from the ATM machine in the casino. Print your scanned slips and attach them to your return. B. WHAT DID IT COST? When you sell securities, your Capital Gains are taxable; your Capital Losses can be used as offsets and [with limits] are deductible. Scan the details of each purchase and sale you receive from your broker. You may need those details to prove the cost of a security you purchased several years ago. Somewhat similar rules apply to the sale of Real Property; scan the documents which back-up the original cost and additions to the property. 66. SHAKE, RATTLE and ROLL: Have you ever booted up and heard an ominous grinding sound? Maybe even a message on your screen of "Disk controller failure"? Don't panic. When a laptop sits around for awhile unused or isn't in a relatively level position, it may need a more gentle wake-up. Just shut down, wait a few seconds, level the laptop and re-boot. Usually boot-up will then proceed normally. 67. DEAD LINKS REVIVED: Do you get E-mail which has lots of links but they are all dead, i.e. clicking on them gets you nowhere. Of course you can always copy and paste them into your browser /bookmarks/ favourite places one by one. But if you see several URL's that you want to investigate, you can make those links come alive as long as your text editor [such as "Notepad Plus"] supports a REPLACE function. First save the e-mail as a file. Now take a look at the style of the dead links; suppose you see a link like this: http://www.webstuff.com/index.htm With the REPLACE function [usually from EDIT on the MENU BAR] change the front end of the URL by replacing the term: http with <A HREF="http and select REPLACE ALL. Now to change the back end of the URL, replace the term: .htm with .htm">click here</A> and select REPLACE ALL. Often URL's don't end with the standard .htm or .html extension; there are various configurations. To fix these non-standard endings, find the first link in the file and enter: ">click here</A> at the end of the URL. Now, COPY what you just entered and PASTE it at the end of each non-standard URL. Save your work and open the file in your browser. The links are now alive. 68. FIX YOUR PRINT: Does your printing sometimes go awry? Maybe you tried to print some numbers on a spreadsheet and ended up with a series of ###### where the numbers were supposed to be even though the spreadsheet itself showed no sign of character overflow as denoted by ######. To fix this problem you can reduce font size, increase column width, and change the number format to eliminate dollar signs, commas and number of decimals. Now open the "Print Preview" selection and zoom-in to see if the ###### symbols have been eliminated. A. More Print Space: When you print documents especially multi-column spreadsheets, you may need as much width as you can get. Decrease the print margins to the minimum using "Page Set-up". Keep your column width and font to the smallest useable sizes. Set the print style to Landscape rather than Portrait. Eliminate printing the grid-lines and disable Print as Draft, if applicable. B. Bigger Paper: Buy a supply of legal size paper if your Printer supports it. Most Copier stores will sell you a small supply if you don't need an entire ream. With all these adjustments, a 14 columm spreadsheet with a Description column and 13 columns for monthly and yearly totals is feasible - ideal for an Income Statement. 69. FORCE A FONT: If you like to use a special font such as a "float" or other non-standard font on your web-site or other graphic-enabled document that you transmit to others, your recipients may not see that font. For instance, if they have specified user defined fonts or have turned off dynamic fonts when viewing web-sites, your special font may be translated to a less unique configuration. Suppose you want to start your page with a large-sized heading in your special font. To accomplish this open your favourite graphics program, even "MSPAINT" will do. Select the Font tool and your target font with the desired attributes. Create your heading and save the file; if necessary convert the file type to a "gif" from a "bmp". If you want to enhance your header for a more striking presentation, make several colour variations of your file. Then string them together in an "animated gif". 70. SIGN IT: When you compose and print a letter, before mailing do you always remember to sign it? If you have a scanner, sign your name on a blank sheet of paper or on a piece of paper where you have typed your name and address. Now scan the sheet of paper and save the output as a "bmp" file. You can alternatively add your address after scanning with a "paint" program. Your Signature Street Address City, State, Zip When you write a letter using a program that supports images, such as Wordpad or MsWorks, just insert the Signature "bmp" at the end of your letter. If you use HTML to write letters, convert the "bmp" file to a "gif" file. If you are an accomplished graphic "artist" you can skip the scanning by writing your signature directly in your graphics program [or "cheat" and use a "handwriting" font]. Then save the results as a bmp or gif file. 71. THE NAME GAME: If you have Windows95, naming a file is no longer constrained by length like Win3.x and DOS files. The aim is to make file names descriptive of the contents regardless of the constraints. Naming E-mail [both incoming and outgoing] that you want to save serves as a good example. A straight forward practice is to name e-mail by correspondent and date, then send it off to a floppy disk where you can bundle up a month's worth of e-mail into a zip file. Adding a code letter to the file name such as "i" for incoming and "o" for outgoing will futher help describe the contents. For instance if you receive an e-mail from "Sender@xyz.com" on 12-07-97, name your file "sender12-07i.txt". If you send an answer on the same day, name your file "sender12-07o.txt". Now if you have multiple e-mails back and forth on the same day with the same correspondent, add a little more detail such as "ai", "bi", "ci", etc. for successive e-mails received on the same day. For instance if you received and sent 3 e-mails on the same day with "Sender@xyz.com" your floppy disk directory would look like this: sender12-07ai.txt sender12-07ao.txt sender12-07bi.txt sender12-07bo.txt sender12-07ci.txt sender12-07co.txt To complete the storage of your e-mail, create a new "zip" file on your floppy disk with the name "Dec97-email.zip". Periodically, drag your saved e-mail files into the zip file and delete the uncompressed files. Also file attachments which came with the e-mail can be stored on the same floppy in zip format. 72. CLIPBOARD TIMES MORE: Window's clipboard is a handy utility but limited - have you ever overwritten its contents with something you copied subsequently and then had to go back to re-copy the original contents? Sometimes there are several different items you might want to save when creating a document or browsing the web and must work back and forth because the clipboard only holds one item at a time. Now there are several freeware/ shareware multi-clipboard programs which can hold many items at the same time. 73. INSTALL TARGET: If your system is configured to run both Internet Explorer 3.x and 4.x [as outlined in items #39 and #40], when you install new software to the hard-drive, selecting the proper location can save disk space and preclude a dual-install. Since the IE 3.x and IE 4.x maintain separate "Program Files" and "Windows" folders, do not install the new software to these locations unless they are specifically for a certain version of Internet Explorer. Some software will install or update some files [usually "dll" files or "ini"] in your Windows folder. If you want to have the newly installed software work in both the IE 3.x and IE 4.x modes, you may have to install the program twice or at least copy the "ini" file from one Windows folder to the other. To update the dll files in the Windows\System folder, delete the installed files [but not the folder] for the new software. Then re-install the software in the same folder. Some program authors will indicate if the Windows\System folder is modified when the program is installed; you can also monitor the installation to see whether any files are landing in the Windows\System folder. 74. DOWNLOAD SPEED: So you have a fast modem and your system is tweaked for speed. Then when you download software off the net, the bytes seem to be dribbling in. Take a look at the File Download box and check the Transfer Rate of the incoming bytes; if the speed is down to a few hundred bytes per second, cancel the download. Look for another download site or get into the FTP location as outlined in Item #37. You can probably get a dramatic increase in speed. 75. GET THE FREE STUFF: You want more software - Don't run off to the store just yet. There's loads of new software on the web and it's free. But where is it and who has it? There are freeware and shareware web-sites; locate them through the search engines. The big services like PC World and ZDNet have large software libraries with hundreds of programs. To find the latest offerings, sign up for free e-mail newsletters. You will get a description of the software and the URL to its location. Unless you like to walk the wild side, stay away from BETA software; the bugs can bring your system down. And if you are looking for a specific type of program such as icon extractors or multi-clipboards, try out several programs with an eye to ease of use, features and size. 76. OPEN A BLANK: To speed up the opening of your browser and to keep the cache folder small, open your browser on a blank page. Set the start-up preference to a Blank Page. This works for both Netscape and Internet Explorer whether online or offline. 77. SCAN NOT: If you scan the same type of document regularly [such as an electric bill or a mortgage receipt] and have OCR capability, you can make a template from the "RTF" document that resulted from a prior scan. Copy the "RTF" document's contents, such as a mortgage receipt. Paste the copied document into a blank spreadsheet to make a fill-in-the-blanks template. Eliminate the non-recurring information; format the cells which are to be filled in with coloured backgrounds [or borders] and the appropriate "number" formatting such as fixed, currency, date, etc. Save the template as a spreadsheet file and use a copy of it to fill in the recurring data in the coloured cells instead of scanning and OCRing the document. By substituting templates, you will save time and disk space. Even if you do not have scan and OCR capability, you can make a spreadsheet template with fill-in-the- blanks functionality which emulates the document. 78. MAKE A RECEIPT: If you regularly collect rent, utilities, loan installments, or payments of any kind, instead of purchasing a Receipt Book and handwriting receipts, make a receipt template in a fill-in-the-blanks format. On a spreadsheet template, fill in the cells with the permanent information. Format the cells to be filled in on receipt of payment with coloured backgrounds or borders and the "number" style of each cell such as date, text, fixed, currency, etc. After filling in the template, save the file with a descriptive name and date. When printing the receipt, specify "no gridlines". 79. EAZY CHECKING: There are many financial programs available such as Quicken and Microsoft Money with a myriad of features for tracking income and expenses. But these large programs are not for everybody for any number of reasons. Many people have these programs and never progress further than the checking account feature. You can make your own checking account "program" on one spreadsheet and save megabytes of disk space. A spreadsheet with a few formatted columns will serve as a template you can use year after year. With a few modifications to the checking account template, it can be used as a credit card template to track charges, payments and the outstanding balance. 80. DISASTER PROOF: Backup your files is a common caveat and it's good advice, but it can be expanded to encompass more than just computer files. When harm comes in the form of fire, theft or other forms of natural and unatural disasters, backup disks may fall victim as well as other property. 1- Store a copy of your vital backups in a secure location; a safety deposit box is ideal. 2- Create files detailing the cost basis, age and description of your real and personal property that is subject to physical disaster. Insurance companies, police departments, the legal system and the taxing authorities may require proof of loss and original cost of lost assets. a- You can use a commercial asset program, construct your own files preferably in spreadsheet form or even create separate data sets using popular financial software for "asset information" about your property. b- If you have scanning capability, add scanned files of at least major purchases to your asset listings. c- Keep copies of these "asset information" files on portable disks in a secure location. Ideally your vital asset information is disaster proof and, after a disaster, you can prove the value of the assets you owned. d- These "asset information" files can also be use as evidence if you are involved in an income tax or assessed valuation dispute. 81. MASH YOUR CASH: If you use one of the popular financial programs [such as Quicken, MS Money, etc.] and have a hard time keeping current with making the daily entries, you can consolidate multiple cash transactions into one daily, weekly or even monthly entry. Typically small cash expenditures account for the majority of financial transactions, and they can be a real pain to keep track of. For example, suppose you had $50 at the start of the week, got $100 out of the ATM machine and now have $35. You went to the grocery store several times, the gas station, a few fast-food spots and the hardware store. You may have receipts for some of these items and remember how much some items cost, but other expenditures you don't remember; besides making a whole list of small entries into your financial program isn't the most efficient use of your limited time. Rather than trying to reconstruct [and estimate] these transactions, allocate them to various expense categories based on prior patterns of expenditures. Review one or two month's prior cash expenditures, calculate the percentages that constitute the major expense categories, and allocate current cash transactions by the calculated percentages. 82. 97 CLEAN-UP: If you use financial software, before archiving the 97 data set and starting a new data set for 98, review your account balances for accuracy and completeness. Even if not yet paid, record amounts you owe for 1997 as well as income you have earned in 97 but not yet received. Typical unrecorded expenses/income include utilities, taxes, interest, insurance as well as holiday purchases made by credit card and year end bonuses. Make estimates if actual amounts are not available. A - For income earned but not received by the end of 1997, create a Receivable [asset] account. Record the expected income to the Receivable with a credit [increase] to the applicable income account. B - For expenses incurred but not recorded/paid by the end of 1997, create a Payable [liability] account. Record the expense to the Payable with a debit [increase] to the applicable expense account. C - For further information on how to adjust account balances see the website: MONEY SOFTWARE at http://user.aol.com/ojatex/homepage.htm - in particular the subject covering Integrity of Accounts. D - If you expect a material income tax refund in 1998 for 1997, record this expected refund in 1997. This may well cause a debit, i.e. receivable, balance in your tax liability account, but will accurately reflect the income tax expense for the year. E - When each item that was recorded in 97 to an asset/liability account is received/paid in 98, the clearing entry is made to the Receivable/Payable account in 98, not to income or expense. If there are differences between the original entry and the final receipt/payment, then an adjusting entry to income/expense can be made which will clear to zero the unresolved difference. F - NOTE: Most financial software has an "archive" option. By archiving prior year's transactions, your new data set will be much smaller, your program will run faster and the necessary periodic back-ups will take less time. 83. CORRUPT DATA SETS: On occasion or even more often, a data set for a financial program becomes "corrupt"; the program's "exe"file cannot open your personal financial data. There are various solutions/workarounds to this problem. Remember, although a fully functional data set is the ideal condition, what you really are aiming at is the recovery of your data which may be accessible in another format. 1- Replace the corrupted set with your back-up set, if you have one. Before replacing the corrupted data-set, save it to a new location; you may be able to recover data that post-dates the back-up set. 2- Many financial programs have a restore/re-index function which can straighten out the problem. 3- Look in your "Temp" folder or other locations; sometimes an improper shut-down puts your data set in limbo as a "tmp" or other type file [such as an .01 file]. 4- Run scandisk; part of your data-set may be corrupted and scandisk may be able to recover it or create a useable "chk" file. 5- Call Tech support; they may have suggestions. But be advised; they may charge for data recovery and/or want you to send them a copy of your data set which exposes your private financial data. 6- If you have another financial program which is "dormant", try the export/import function. 7- Re-install the program from the original disk[s]. 8- Use the "Quick View" function and/or a word processing application to "read" the data set files. Often you will be able to find your account names, entries and scheduled transactions which you can re-construct into a new data-set. Most any file on your hard-drive, regardless of type, can be "opened" with a standard word processing program; although it will act as a word-processing file in this mode, you can recover data from it. 9- Future problems can be minimized with current back-ups, running two different financial programs simultaneously [using import/export to save time if desired], and/or periodically printing to disk or paper current financial information in your data set. 84. COMPRESS FINANCIAL ENTRIES: If you want to track your profit/loss but can't be bothered with all the accounts and myriad transactions, you can boil them down to two account types and one entry per day or less. There are only two account types: 1- REAL ACCOUNTS - These are all the Balance Sheet accounts, that is the Assets and Liabilities. 2- NOMINAL ACCOUNTS - These are all the Income Statement [AKA Profit and Loss] accounts, that is the Income and Expense accounts. Since a net debit [increase] to Real accounts is a net credit [profit] to Nominal accounts and conversely a net credit [decrease] to Real accounts is a net debit [loss] to Nominal accounts, all financial transactions over a time period can be reduced to one. [The vernacular term "in the black" describing a Profit refers to the Real accounts; the simultaneous condition in the Nominal accounts would be "in the red".] Even if you only have a spreadsheet program or happen to use investment software [such as Fund Manager, Fidelity Investments, Wealth Builder, etc.], you can create a Profit/Loss account to emulate financial software that will track your ongoing financial activity. 85. EXIT ON CANCEL: When trouble comes, many of us blame the computer, the operating system or the current program. But sometimes the trouble is of our own making. There are a few simple routines you can use to avoid these troubles: 1- When working in dialogue boxes, where you can change settings or delete items, always EXIT the box on the CANCEL option unless you purposefully want to change a setting and know what your old setting was. Do not select the OKAY option just to close a box; exit on CANCEL; you may have inadvertently changed something. 2- Backup often. And create new registry back-ups, and emergency recovery and system disks. 3- When working on long files, SAVE your work at various intervals. 4- Don't delete files unless you are sure of the outcome. Save a copy in a safe location until you are sure you won't need it. 5- If you deleted E-mail you want to read again, many e-mail providers have an option where you can save recent e-mail on their server. For instance for AOL, access MAIL on the MENU Bar and select Mail You've Read/Sent; AOL will save mail up to seven days if you so choose. 6- When "reading" files in their non-native applications, such as using a word processor to open a "dll", "exe", "ini" or scandisk created "chk" file, do not save the original file in the word processing format. 86. RE-TARGET SHORTCUT: When you click on a shortcut that gets a message that the target is missing, it may be because you moved the target to a portable disk. Windows will try to find the target and even suggest an alternate location, but Windows does not generally look on portable disks. You can select the "Browse" option to find the target, but to re-target the old Shortcut, right click on it. Then select "Properties" from the drop-down menu. In the Properies dialogue box, select the "Shortcut" tab; change the drive letter on the "Target" and "Start in" lines. You can also "jazz" up the shortcut icon by selecting the "Change Icon" option. After correcting the Drive letter, check the related "ini" file [if any] in the Windows folder. References to the old drive letter should be changed to the new drive letter. 87. IDLE WEB SPACE?: Do you have empty web-space from your ISP or other servers? {AOLers have 10MB available; several providers offer from 200KB to 3MB for free.} There are a few ways to use it other than storing a web-site. 1- If your correspondent has an E-mail program that cannot handle attachments, then use the WWW to send the files. As long as you both have access to the WWW, upload the file attachment through FTP. Then send the URL in the e-mail to your correspondent who can download the file. Alternatively you can write an HTML page with a download link to the attachment and upload it. 2- If your hard-drive is low on free space, store files on unused web space in zip format. If you have a posted web-site that has reached its limit of byte space, start linking additional files to a different FTP directory. If you are taking a trip without your computer or portable drive and want access to certain files, upload the files to your web-space. 3- If you like to send greeting cards [such as Birthday, Christmas, Valentines, etc.], make up a card, upload it then send it's URL to your friends via email. One "card" can be used for multiple recipients. 4- If you ever have lost the ability to access the WWW but can still connect to your ISP, often you can still connect to FTP. From there you can upload and download from your own directory or that of others. 5- Have you lost or corrupted your web-site files on your own system or are not sure what are the last files you uploaded? Then download files from your own FTP directory to recover them. 88. E-MAIL COOKIES: If your E-mail server only supports plain text, then the URL addresses must be converted to live links to access the web-sites. But with an HTML E-mail server, the links are live; this is very handy and time- saving. But there is a price to pay - COOKIES. Since HTML e-mailings are much like web-pages, the sender often attaches "cookie" files with the principal "letter". The e-mail cookie looks similar to a web-site cookie such as this one received while using the Netscape browser: The server ad1.xyz.com wishes to set a cookie that will be sent to any server in the domain xyz.com The name and value of the cookie are: SB_ID=0724099831627945631073910456382 This cookie will persist until Fri Dec 31 05:00:00 1999 Do you wish to allow the cookie to be set? If you accept the cookie, a line of text will be placed in the "cookies.txt" file in the Netscape directory. Internet Explorer's cookies are in the Temporary Internet Files folder as txt files. For further information about cookies, how to handle them and how to set browser preferences please see "Are The Cookies Watching You?" at http://user.aol.com/ojatex/cookies.htm 89. STRIP THE PIX: Often when browsing the web, you run across banners that have some picture elements in animated gifs that are very attractive. You would like to incorporate these elements in a picture of your own, but, of course, you don't want the advertising or some other elements. With a little free software [such as an animated gif program], you can strip off those pictures you want. When you see a banner you like, either save it directly or snatch it out of your cache folder. Using the "animated gif" program, open the file and select the "image strip" function. The result will be an entire strip of all the individual pictures. Save the strip in a format you can work with [such as "gif" or "bmp"]. Now you can cut out the pictures you want from the strip using a standard graphics program and save them as individual files with which to build your own pictures. 90. ARISE FROM THE DEAD: When a shareware program expires because of the time limit [commonly 30 days], if you reset your computer's date, often the program will work. Instead of making a shortcut to the expireware's "exe" file, make it to the program's folder. Inside the folder, create a "txt" file entitled "STOP-RESET DATE.TXT" whose contents enumerate operable dates. Before opening the expireware, reset your computer's date. A shortcut to the date/time function [located in the Control Panel] can also be placed in the same folder. [Note: when making a shortcut from the date/time function, Windows95 will advise that the shortcut will be placed on the Desktop. From the Desktop, just copy or cut the shortcut and put it in the desired folder.] When you have finished with the program or just after you open it, reset the date to the current day. 91. WEBSITE WALLFLOWER?: Is your web-site lonely? Nobody but you ever seems to stop by for a look. A little free self-promotion is in order: 1- List your site with Search Engines and Directories. If a description of your web-site is requested, use Keywords which cover broad categories. 2- When you visit other web-sites, look for an "Add URL" graphic. 3- Add Meta Tags to your web-page's Header using terms which "generously" describe your site's contents. 4- Request Links [with description and graphics if possible] to your friends and correspondents web-sites. 5- Announce your Web-site via E-mail with your correspondents- use Live Links if your e-mail supports them. 6- Offer "freebies" or links to sites which offer free stuff. 7- Enter your homepage in a Web-site contest. Be aware there are a few tricks and winning strategies to make your site do well in these contests. For some helpful tactics, see Everybody Wins This Contest at http://user.aol.com/aljoajo/ 92. LOST DLLS: Sometimes after a "crash" or re-installation of the Operating System, certain system files may be lost which are needed by some of your older programs. Old system files such as "mfcoleui.dll" or "cmdialog.vbx" may turn up missing. There are a few places you can look to obtain a replacement: 1- Backups of your Windows\System folder. [Backing up this folder periodically can save future time and trouble.] 2- Libraries of archived files that "clean-up" and/or "space-saver" programs make. 3- File libraries on the WWW that are maintained by various companies and the FTP directories of such organizations as Winsite, Simtel and Microsoft. 4- Web Search Engines can be useful tools for finding information about similar missing files which other users have experienced. 93. PAGE AFTER PAGE: When you get involved in reading a web article that goes on for page after page after page, there is a faster way to get the entire article into your system so you can read it later at your leisure. As soon as a page loads, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Next Page. Keep loading all the pages until the end of the article is finally reached. Now the entire article is "cached" where you can read it offline. [See Item #36 for instructions on how to use your cache files.] If you didn't have time to load all the pages of the article, when you are in the cache folder, right click on the "Next Page" of the last page loaded. Select the function that copies the URL to the next page in the article. Paste this URL to your Bookmarks/Favourites; next time you go online, you can resume downloading the rest of the article. 94. GAS POWER=12 VOLTS: Many airlines are now outfitting with laptop outlets. You can use several other types of transportation to power your laptop. First you need a 12 Volt DC adapter [about $100]; most auto cigarette lighters will accept these adapters. In addition other 12 volt vehicles such as travel trailers and boats either have 12 volt outlets or can be easily fitted with these outlets since most have 12 volt systems along with standard 110 volt AC. Even a generator can be used to run a laptop while charging its battery, the 12 volt system battery and run other appliances. But be careful - generators can surge especially when called on to power up an air conditioner. Use a good surge protector, and try to plug in to a receptacle that is on an isolated breaker. 95. 2000 READY: If you have an older portable computer, when the year 2000 comes your machine may not recognize it properly. A good first resource is your computer manufacturer's website. Often they have lists of which machines are year 2000 compliant and which are not. They also may have BIOS update software that will correct the inability to recognize the year 2000 properly. Other resources include free testing software on the WWW such as "2000.exe" by National Software Testing Laboratories which tests your system's BIOS for year 2000 compatibility. Also there are free fix-it programs such as "Year2000.com" by the Right Time Clock Co. 96. GET YOUR HANDS DIRTY: If you use an inkjet printer you know that new ink cartridges are often very expensive. If you don't mind a little messy work [or you can use surgical gloves], buy ink refills for your empty cartridges. Many computer supply catalogues offer refills at prices which are 50% or less than new cartridges. 97. HIDDEN WEB-SITES: Sometimes when you access a web-site on certain servers [such as Geocities and Tripod which offer free web space], an advertisement page appears rather than the site you targeted. The page you want is "behind" the ad page. To show the page you want, either click on the upper left corner of the ad page or hit Alt-Spacebar and select Close from the drop-down menu. The ad page will disappear and the page you want will appear. 98. TAKE A MEMO: If you regularly use spreadsheets, sometimes it would be advantageous to make an entry for information purposes only similar to the "non-add" key on a calculator. For instance if you keep your checking account on a spreadsheet and want to reflect the receipt of a check that you endorsed to a second party, make a MEMO entry that will not affect the checking account balance. To do this, make a regular entry in the description column with the word MEMO in the number column. In the deposit/credit column, precede the amount with an apostrophe [']. The apostrophe converts the amount to a text entry. Other uses of a MEMO entry in a Checking Account include cash expenditures that you may want to keep a record such as car repairs/ maintenance, medical prescriptions, and charitable contributions. Investment activity in a brokerage account such as dividends, interest, and purchases/ sales of securities can also be recorded as MEMO entries. A comprehensive checking account record with supportive MEMO entries can serve as the principal source of financial information when preparing one's yearly income tax returns. [NOTE: If you want to hide the apostrophe that "disables" the MEMO entry, place the cursor in the Formula Bar just behind the apostrophe. Hold down the Shift key and hit Backspace.] 99. IT'S IN THE WASH: If you use financial software such as Quicken or Microsoft Money, MEMO entries as outlined above [Item #98] will not work because only numerical entries in the debit and credit columns are acceptable. However workarounds are available in the form of WASH entries. A WASH entry is one which has no effect on the overall income or expense accounts. Depending on the program which you are using, you can use a VOID entry, two offsetting entries or an entry which debits and credits the same account. When using two offsetting entries, it is handy to create a Clearing Account whose balance will ultimately be zero; it is used as a temporary repository of values which will be offset by a subsequent entry. As long as the final effect is zero and a record is made, any transaction format which your software will accept is a satisfactory platform for a Wash entry. 100. BAD DISKS: If you have a portable disk or two that just won't mount in your portable drive, you may have lost your data but maybe not your money. Check your portable drive documentation, look for the manufacturer's free 800 numbers, and go to the company's web-site. Often you can get free replacement disks and save $15-$20 per disk. The same replacement policy frequently applies to program disks gone bad, and replacements often contain an upgraded version of an older program. 101. SQUEEZED FOR SPACE?: If you have a compressed hard-drive and the Drivespace program [usually in the Windows folder], you may be able to add a few more megabytes to your hard-drive. Open Drvspace.exe; from the Menu Bar select "Advanced" then the "Change Ratio" option. If you are at the limits of allowable compression ratio, select "Drive" from the Menu Bar and choose "Adjust Free Space" between the compressed drive [usually C:\] and the host drive [usually H:\]. Move the slider to the far left to add more space on the hard-drive. 102. BUILD A LIBRARY: When you want to change a file extension icon or shortcut icon, the usual default is the program's standard icon or one from a "dll" file which is often just a plain Windows symbol. You can make your own library of icons and customize the look of shortcuts and Windows Explorer directories. Many of the "icon extractor" programs [which are plentiful and free on the WWW] also have a feature which allows the user to make their own icon library in the form of a "dll" or "icl" file. Gather your favourite graphics that you want to use as icons from all your disks into a single library [a dll or icl file]. Then put the file on your hard-drive; new pictures can be added at any time and old ones deleted. If you have an artistic bent, you can make your own icons with a Paint program and add them to your library. 103. CREAKY CURSOR: Is your cursor just creeping around; even cleaning the trackball does not seem to improve anything. Check your mouse settings in the Control Panel to adjust the pointer speed. If you somtimes have a hard time locating the cursor when reading or working on a text file, open the Keyboard icon in the Control Panel to increase the cursor blink rate. Many laptops also ship with OEM trackball/mouse software which allows you to reset the distance the cursor will move in relation to a movement of the trackball. Set these values up the maximum. If you have configured your browser settings to warn for cookies and if you have enabled "Smart Move" where your cursor automatically moves to the next dialogue item, this can be annoying when surfing the web. Before going online, disable "Smart Move". 104. RENAME README: Windows has several "Readme.txt" files in many folders; many applications have their "Readme.txt" file also. Readme has become the conventional information file which is fine, but with many applications on your hard-drive and portable disks, the large number of readme.txt files can be a source of confusion. Also when you move/install files and applications, a readme.txt may inadvertently get over-written. {To find out how many "Readme.txt" files you have, use the Find option [Win95] on the Start Menu, or Tools/Find from the Menu Bar [Win95] in Windows Explorer, or File/Search from the Menu Bar [Win 3.x] in File Manager.} To customize the readme.txt files, rename them with a title which is descriptive of its governing application. 105. DRIVE BY CONTENT: When you create new files, the default location is often the folder of the application that created the file or just the Windows folder. That approach scatters files of similar content or subject through-out the entire list of files. Try a "content-driven" file structure instead - that is similar categories of personal documents are filed by subject such as correspondence, taxes, medical, insurance regardless of the application[s] that created them. 106. EXPORT REPORT: If you use financial/investment software, such as Quicken or MsMoney, the Reporting function can be used to add informative data to your file system. On a regular basis, create Income and Expense reports using your financial software by those categories for which you maintain personal folders. For instance, if you have a folder named "Taxes" [which may contain files of correspondence, tax forms, scanned documents of tax returns, bills, receipts, etc], create a "Tax Expense Report". Using the Report function of your financial software, select the pertinent tax expense categories to create a "Tax Expense Report"; then export the report in text or spreadsheet format to your "Taxes" folder. 107. FROZEN BROWSER: Sometimes a browser freezes when certain web sites are accessed. The only escape is usually pushing Ctrl+Alt+Del to close down your browser. Repeated attempts to reach this site suffer the same fate. Often the problem is some feature of the web-site that your browser doesn't recognize such as Java or ActiveX. However, the situation may not be hopeless; the web- site may be accessible from your cache folder when in offline mode. From the cache, you can read the web-site and copy any links you might want to follow- up on. This is especially useful when you are after software downloads, but can't get past the first web-site page. Just paste the copied link[s] into your browser to leap over the problem page. 108. SOFTWARE JUNKIE: For those who download a lot of software and save the original "zip" or "exe" downloads as well as those "patches" and updates that are issued, one's disks are soon overloaded with files that have strange names. It's time to categorize all these downloads by type such as graphics, icon extractors, text editors, browsers, etc. Make folders for each type of download and in each folder create a "txt" file with the file name, description of each file including the version number and other pertinent data. 109. FIND A FILE: Often you get a new program that requires certain system files or programs. Or you are looking for a specific type of program or file but don't know its name. Try the FTP directories of those sources that keep large libraries of files. For instance, Microsoft has a library of files at FTP.Microsoft.com; their FTP directory includes a complete listing of the contents in a file named "index.txt" that lists files by name, date and description. 110. GET PUBLISHED: Anyone who has available web-space and can make a web- page, can publish their own pages. But that can really limit your potential audience. If you have some "valuable" ideas/programs/files of your own making, submit them to those organizations that will accept uploads and offer them to others as free downloads such as Simtel.net or Winsite.com. Now, if you have a bold streak, run through several FTP directories and look for a folder named "Upload". Be sure that your files are all zipped up in a package [add a file named readme.txt with all the particulars about your files including instructions for installation, system requirements and your email address along with the URL to your own web-site]. Now try uploading your "zip" [as a binary file]; sometimes you'll be successful. 111. FTP ACCESS: Many FTP directories are freely accessible to all users. Others are restricted and require a user name and password. But don't be discouraged too easily. Often you can just skip the user name and password boxes and enter the FTP directory as a "Guest". If that doesn't work, try finding the home web page [the HTTP address]; you may be able to sign up for membership. HINT: When picking out a user name and password, keep it simple and use the same ones for these "membership access" sites. 112. TAKE IT OFFLINE: Filling out forms on web-sites while online can often lead to errors in the submitted data. Fill in the forms while offline instead, then go back online to submit the completed form. For example, if you use IE 4.x, the CACHE [i.e. the "Temporary Internet Files" folder usually found in C:\Windows] holds the web pages you visited. For instance, if the page which has the fill-out form is named "submit.html", open the page as follows: 1. Open the "Temporary Internet Files" folder. [Making a shortcut to this folder and pasting it on your desktop will give you fast access to the Cached files.] 2. Find the "submit.html" file or whatever is the name of the file where the fill-in form resides. Open the file in the usual manner; this will result in an error notice that the file can't be located. Just click "Enter" on the keyboard. 3. When the Navigation Cancelled screen appears, select "Work Offline" and then "Close" from "File" on the "Menu Bar". 4. Re-open "submit.html" and fill-in the form completely. DO NOT PRESS THE SUBMIT BUTTON. 5. Select "Work On-line" from "File" on the Menu Bar. Then "Minimize" the filled-in form page from the Title Bar icon. 6. Go back Online, Maximize the "submit.html" file and press the SUBMIT button for your completed form to be proceessed. 113. FORMS FOR SALE: Sometimes when filling out web forms, questions go beyond the usual request for your screen-name even though you may be only subscribing to an online newsletter or asking for a link or listing of your web-site on another site. For the sake of privacy, security you may not want to give out this information. Besides your name, address and telephone number are often sold to advertisers who may target you with unwanted solicitations. Just giving out your screen-name can result in lots of unwanted e-mail, but you can unsubscribe or just delete the missives from your inbox. To avoid other types of unsolicited materials, either don't fill out the form or "invent" an identity with a fictitious name, address and phone number. {Be clever enough to at least agree the zip and area codes.} 114. MAIL A FONT: If you want to send a font to an e-mail correspondent as an "attachment", when you try to attach the font directly from the font folder [usually C:\Windows\Fonts], it won't work. First, copy the font [from "edit" on the menu bar], then paste it into any other folder. Now the font is "hardened" and will attach to outgoing e-mail. While you are in the font folder, look around at what you have. If you have some fonts you rarely or never use, weed them out - it's a waste of resources. Just copy [the cut function doesn't work in the "Fonts" folder] and paste them onto a portable disk in an "idlefont" folder; zip them up to save more space. Then go back to the Fonts folder to delete the fonts that were sent to a portable disk. If you need a stored font later, it can always be pasted back into the C:\Windows\Fonts folder. 115. HOLD THE PHONE: Calls to Tech Support often entail a long wait period on hold while your call works its way up the que. Get a speaker phone or for fewer bucks buy a stand-alone telephone amplifier. You can free your hands and just listen to the music until your turn finally comes. If the Tech Help employee wants you to access your computer, your hands will be free to work the keyboard and mouse as well as write down information. 116. DRAG IT OUT: When your cache is filled to bursting[such as when the little flashlight icon comes out looking for the contents when you open the cache folder], it may be time to empty the folder. But if you have a few files in there you want to read later because you don't have the time now, then pull out those "read later" files: 1- Create a new folder on your hard-drive named "ToRead". 2- Make a shortcut to the "ToRead" folder, then cut and paste the shortcut on your desktop. 3- Open your Cache folder to "window size" and drag the "read later" files into the "ToRead" shortcut. 4- Now it's safe to empty the overgrown Cache folder. 117. LOST FILES: If you just saved/downloaded a file and can't find where it went and maybe don't even know its name, do an all file search: 1- Select Tools/Find/Files or Folders from the Menu Bar in Windows Explorer. 2- From the Name and Location tab, enter "*.*" [without quotes] in the Named box. 3- From the same tab, in the Location box, select "My Computer" from the down arrow. This will cover the hard-drive as well as floppy and portable disks which are currently active. 4- From the Date Modified tab, enter todays date in the from and to boxes. 5- Select the Find Now option to get a list of files by name, location and date/time modified. Note: You can also use this Find procedure when looking for a file that PKFIXZIP.EXE created when you have "fixed" a zip file. [The resulting fixed zip is often named "Pkfixed.zip".] 118. MINI-MULTITASK: When you are working on a project often several applications are needed as a file is created. With a laptop's small screen, some apps are real screen hogs even in "Windows" size. Look for programs which are "Laptop Friendly" - when running they take up a small amount of screen real estate similar to Window's own Character Map. There are icon converter and extractors, reminder notes, multi-clipboards, program and color selectors, and other kinds of software [freely available on the WWW] that are ideal for the small screen. 119. TILING: With a small screen, the Windows feature of tiling is often a disappointment when working with 2 or more open files. But there are a few tweaks to get the most out of tiling: 1- Hide all the Bars and Boxes that the application permits. 2- Turn on "Word Wrap", if applicable. 3- Select a small font size to get more text on the screen. 4- When working with two files, "Vertical tiling" is usually the easier method of working back and forth between files. 5- When working with three or more files, "Horizontal tiling" is usually preferred because screen width noticeably exceeds screen height. 120. HELP FILES: If you zip up the contents of the Windows/Help folder to save space [average compression will save about 50% of the original size of the files], when you try to use a Windows help file a message will appear that windows can't find the pertinent help file and asking whether you want to try to find it yourself. You know where the file is, but the default file type[s] presented by the dialogue box do not include zip files. 1- If you think you are going to need the Help file before you use the application, extract it and its related "cnt" file, if applicable, from the zip file into the Windows/Help folder. 2- A faster method would be to just open the zip file then minimize it. If you find a need for the help file, just restore the zip file. Extracting the help file isn't always necessary; it can be read directly from the zip archive. Because a Help file [hlp extension] is often accompanied with a Table of Contents file [cnt extension], open both the hlp and cnt file simultaneously from the zip file unless you just want to access the Index feature of the help file. 3- Internet Explorer [V4.x] Help files generally carry the "chm" extension wherein both the Help and Table of Content file has been combined. It is only necessary to open the "chm" file in the zip archive for a functional help file. 4- When you are through using the application, don't forget to delete any extracted files, close the zip file, and delete any "gid" files that were created which may reside in the Windows\Help or Windows\Temp folders. 121. BROWSER MAIL PROGRAMS: E-mail applications with Internet Explorer and Netscape such as Outlook Express and Messenger may require special management in order to contain their size. The various mail folders such as Inbox, Sent, Trash and Deleted Items will continually increase in size unless you manage them: 1- The normal management method of saving space is to compress all folders. 2- After reading incoming and sending outgoing mail, save the letters you want and delete the remainder. 3- If you don't have the time or inclination to make separate saves of incoming/outgoing mail but don't want to delete it, make descriptive folders to hold the mail which you can periodically remove. For instance, when running the mail program create new folders named: "Sent-Feb 98" and "Received-Feb 98". At the end of the month create new folders for the next month. From Windows Explorer, open the mail folder and cut/paste all the Feb 98 mail files to a portable disk. 122. CLICK OF DEATH: If you are using a portable drive, particulary a Zip Drive [Parent corporation: IOMEGA], there have been numerous reports of drive and disk failures indicated by what has been termed the "Click of Death". For a comprehensive discussion of these failures including reports from Zip Drive users, see the web-site: Click of Death Home Page at http://www.thirdeyesp.com/jatin/iomega. A "click of death" is indicated when the drive starts repeatedly clicking when accessed. Also a disk[s] may not mount and the data will not be recoverable. Currently causes and cures are not available. If you experience this problem, contact the manufacturer for replacement of a damaged drive (if still under the one year warranty) and disks (lifetime warranty). This problem has serious side effects: 1- Placing a good disk in a bad drive can ruin the good disk. 2- Placing a bad disk in a good drive can ruin the good drive. 3- Data recovery from a bad disk is impossible or very expensive. 4- Users with bad drives are forced to replace them with the same type of drive in order to use their existing disks. 123. E-MAIL ATTACHMENT: Some e-mail programs will not support file attachments. If your correspondent has such a program, and you want to send them a text file it is easy enough to copy the file's text into the body of your e-mail. If you want to send a Web-page, just open the "html" in Notepad, then copy/paste it into the body of your e-mail. On the other end, your correspondent can save the e-mail as HTML and [possibly with a few HTML adjustments], read the web-page. If your correspondent doesn't have a browser, before sending the web-page, use an HTML "stripper" program which will convert the web-page to a text file. Also some word processing files and spreadsheets can be copy/pasted as text files but some re-formatting may be necessary in order to send a readable file. 124. HARD-DRIVE HOGS: Some programs insist on installing on your hard-drive even though you want to put them elsewhere. For example, Dr. Solomon's Anti- Virus program [v7.80] will refuse an installation path to a portable disk and wants hard-disk space. This program requires nearly 4MB of space; many laptop hard-drives just don't have that much extra space to use on a virus program. After installation, move the program to a portable disk. First, re-target the Desktop Shortcut Icon from C: to the portable drive letter. The program still won't work properly because when installed it put entries in the Window's Registry with reference paths to the hard-disk. To change these reference paths, open Regedit.exe and access Edit/Find on the Menu bar. Using the "Dr. Solomon" example from above, in the dialogue box enter a short description of the software, in this case "Solomon" [without quotes]. Examine all entries in the Registry which refer to the Dr. Solomon program. [Use Find Next from Edit on the Menu Bar.] When you find an entry that starts out with C: [the hard- drive], change it to your portable drive letter. If you rarely or never work in the Registry, back it up first; if you are used to making drive letter changes when moving programs a back-up isn't mandatory. 125. USING ANTI-VIRUS PROGRAMS: Computer viruses can be destructive system killers. But often their effects have been exaggerated beyond their true power. 1- Viruses do not lurk in every nook and cranny on the Internet. Most software providers on the WWW take extra efforts to protect against spreading viruses by scanning programs before offering them for download. Their reputation depends on providing safe applications to their users. However, scanning any download or new program for a virus is a prudent practice. 2- Just reading web-sites or e-mail doesn't infect the user. For a virus to do its damage, you must install the file/program into your system. 3- Portable computer users who use virus programs can run them from portable drives as long as certain accommodations are made: A- Before moving a new download/program to a portable disk, scan it for viruses first. B- Move the download to the portable disk which contains the anti-virus program for scanning. C- Some anti-virus programs require that your portable drive be configured as "non-removable" in order to scan the disks therein. If this configuration is not to your liking, find another anti-virus program or move the files to be scanned to your hard disk temporarily. 126. UNINSTALLERS: When a new program is installed on your system, an "uninstaller" program is often included. Many uninstallers share the same folder with its active program; other uninstallers reside in the Windows folder. To save space and weed-out unused files, these uninstallers can be removed from the hard-disk. But don't delete them; move them. Since these programs will only be needed if and when its application is uninstalled, move the uninstallers to a portable disk with a note about their original location. For users of Internet Explorer 4.x, the uninstaller and related information files [usually found in the folder named "Uninstall Information"], can result in a 3+MB space savings if moved to a portable disk. Additionally the file named "IE4bak.dat" [usually found in C:\Windows], if moved to a portable disk, can save an additional 3 to 4 megabytes in hard-disk space. 127. GET A TRACKER: When you move files and programs to different locations, it is a good idea to document what was moved and when. This usually involves making a small file such as a text file to record what was done and when. These little files take minimal disk space, but they take an entire cluster. To avoid this waste, a program such as "What is This?" is an ideal vehicle for recording information about the moved file/program, where it went and where it came from. For example, the "What is This?" program adds an entry to the right click context menu. From that selection, the history of the file/ program can be added in text form which will follow the file/program to any location and which can be updated when necessary. 128. MAKE A MIRROR: If you are in the habit of removing unneeded files from your hard-drive, but you don't want to delete the files permanently, make a "mirror" of the removed files on a portable/floppy disk. A "mirror" is the exact folder and file structure on a portable disk that was orginally found on the hard-disk. For instance, removals from various C:\Windows folders would "mirror" as follows on a portable disk: - Removable Drive [D:] | -Windows | -Cursors | -Fonts | +System | -Web If, in the future, one or more of the files are needed they can be easily retrieved and returned to their original location. 129. FIX ZIP FILES: When a "zip" file becomes corrupted, often a program named PKFIXZIP will repair it regardless of which zip program made the file. However, sometimes PKFIXZIP can't repair the corrupted files. Try this first: run the Scandisk utility on the corrupted zip file. Then run PKFIXZIP. Often the repair can now be made though some data may be lost. 130. HOMEPAGE MULTIPLIED: Several companies offer free web-space. If you already have a home-page somewhere else, you can still sign-up and upload your page to other sites. However if you have a relatively large homepage with many pages and lots of graphics and/or you are constantly updating your home-page, there is an easier way to maintain multiple copies of the same home-page. Create a small web-page with the pertinent information about your home-page with absolute references to your original web-site; upload your small page to your new "satellite" sites. You will now be able to maintain multiple copies of your home-page with little or no maintenance required for the satellite sites. 131. PRINTING PIXS: Printing a graphic file, such as a "bmp", can result in multipage output even though you want the picture all on one page. This often happens with scanned documents that are saved as graphic files. Re-sizing the bmp before printing is feasible but may degrade the output to the point where it is unreadable. 1- To avoid resizing or to minimize its effects, first open the graphic file (in Windows Paint for example). Trim any "white-space", i.e., the four margins of the file (in Paint use Image/Attributes). Decrease the Width and Height attributes; flip the document to access the top and left margins. 2- Second, before printing the graphic, access Print Setup to decrease the four margin values to the minimum allowable. 3- Third, access Print Preview to determine whether the graphic now fits all on one page. If it still doesn't quite fit either horizontally or vertically, use Image/Stretch to squash the document one increment at a time (i.e. use 99%). After each resize, open Print Preview until the graphic fits all on one page. 132. WEB-PAGE FROZE: If your browser is configured to alert you of incoming "cookies" [i.e. Security Alerts] and your Taskbar is hidden, sometimes you try to open a web-site and it never finishes opening even though all the elements appear intact. The problem may be just a "stuck" cookie. Make your Taskbar visible by moving your cursor to its hidden location [usually the bottom of the screen]. If you find a Security Alert there, just click on it in order to accept or reject it. Now, the web-page will completely open. 133. FLOPPY ON BOARD: Avoid that pile up of incoming E-mail which gobbles up hard-drive space. Keep a disk in the floppy drive as you receive and read your e-mail. Save to floppy what you want to keep, make any Bookmarks/ Favourite Places for later browsing, and then delete the e-mail. Next, compact your mail folders if your mail program has that function. 134. E-MAIL LINKS: If you use a stand-alone E-mail program such as OUTLOOK EXPRESS, the links in the e-mail you receive may appear alive. But when you click on them nothing happens. Certain Internet Service Providers, such as AOL, do not open your Browser when you sign on. In order to use the links in the E-Mail, open your Browser [minimized], then click on the e-mail link. [Note: To save time, set your Browser preference to open on a Blank page rather than a web-site.] 135. DEFRAGMENT-DO IT MORE: The Defragment program is a useful utility but sometimes the message that Windows sends can be deceptive. Often when you access the Defragment program you get the following message: "Drive C is 0% fragmented. You don't need to defragment this drive now. If you want to defragment it anyway, click Start." Defragment anyway. Sometimes you may have just removed several megabytes of files from your hard-drive, but Windows doesn't recognize the large number of empty clusters scattered throughout your hard drive. 136. PORTABLE DRIVE SELECTION: For many older laptops, a portable drive is almost a necessity because of a small hard-disk. Be aware that these portable drives use not only different capacity removable disks ranging from about 100MB'S to 250MB's but also use different technologies which yield remarkably different speeds. Some of these drives use a technology similar to a standard floppy drive which are near the low end of the speed range. Newer portable drives [either from the parallel port or PC card slot] approach the speeds of a hard-drive because of their technology with little increase in price over the older portable drives. 137. NO TOUCH TONE: Hate those long phone waits for tech help or customer service? You call and get a list of options for which button to push and then you wait and wait at the end of a long line of calls. Often, there's a way to jump to the head of the line. At the end of the list of options is the No Touch Tone Phone. Of course, you probably have a touch-tone phone; rotaries are down right rare. But somebody on the other end has to answer that option to route calls. So select the "rotary" option; you may get through a lot faster. [This even works with the IRS.] 138. BACK-UP PROGRAMS: Typical advice from many computer souces: BACK-UP regularly and often. Disaster will strike. Fair enough advice, but many back- up programs are a long way from reliable, and they can take a long time to execute successfully. Try an easier way: Use the "copy/paste" or "send to" function to transfer key folders [such as Windows and Program Files] to a portable disk. It's a fairly fast, simple and reliable back-up procedure; you can also check the accuracy of the operation by comparing the byte size of the original folder to its copy. 139. ILLEGAL OPERATIONS: "Illegal Operations" and just plain freeze-ups often leave files behind in their wake. Usually they will be in the Windows/Temp folder; crashed web-pages land here quite frequently which you can open or delete. 140. GET IT TOGETHER: Often when you download a program from the WWW, there is a web-page which contains special instructions on how to install the program, what to do with prior installations of similar programs or other important information about the downloaded program. Save the informative web- page in the same location as the downloaded program or save the downloaded program in your Cache folder where the information page is cached. 141. STUCK IN CACHE: Occasionally, when you delete files from your cache folder, they will not leave. Repeated attempts to delete these stuck files all fail. Often, these stuck files can be deleted if you open your browser, select options/preferences from the Menu Bar and clear the Cache folder. 142. VANISHING E-MAIL: E-Mail programs which support HTML and graphics such as Netscape Messenger and Outlook Express are a big advance over straight text e-mail. But the added capability can cause unexpected results. Sometimes mail you just read or sent seems to vanish. Closing and re-opening the mail program may help as well as a re-boot. But when these steps fail, it may be that the missing mail is "stuck" in the respective files such as "Inbox", "Sent", and "Deleted". You can get at this mail and with a little work even reconstruct it to a readable form: A. Find your mail-folder files via Windows Explorer. For Netscape 3.x and 4.x, they are within the browser folder; for Internet Explorer 3.x and 4.x, they are in stand-alone folders because the mail program is separate from the browser. B. Mail files come in pairs: 2 for the Inbox, 2 for the Outbox, 2 for Deleted/Trash, etc. These files may or may not have file extensions; the smaller file of the pair usually has mail header information and the larger file has the actual e-mail. C. Use a program such as Quick View to open the larger file. [You can generally determine which files have mail just by their byte size; when empty, they may range from 0 to 2.5K bytes depending on your mail program.] If Quick View doesn't work, use a Word Processor such as Wordpad or MSWorks. Text editors, such as Notepad, usually cannot render the contents. D. If the missing mail is in text format and you want to save it, then copy/paste each letter from Quick View or a Word Processor into a new text file. E. If the missing mail is in HTML format, to save it or at least make it more readable, it can be copy/pasted into a new text file then renamed to an htm extension. F. If you just want to read missing email without saving, then copy/paste the entire mail file into the same directory. Rename the pasted file by changing the extension to htm. Open the new file with your browser. There will probably be some formatting oddities many of which can be corrected if you know a little HTML. G. If you experience missing or garbled email often, get in the habit of saving it to portable disk as you receive/send it if you want to read it later or save it permanently. 143. LAZY BUTTON: Working in Windows often requires a lot of repetitive functions such as selecting OK/Cancel or Yes/No in a Dialogue Box. There are a few freeware/shareware programs that allow you to pre-select the button to be pushed thereby saving repetitive functions. These are nifty little time savers, but depending on what items you have pre-selected, unexpected results may occur. Where this becomes a problem is when you are trying to select a specific file from a list of files and the "Button" program activates. As a result either no file or the wrong file is selected. No need to get rid of the "Button" program - just disable it temporarily. 144. FRAMED BY AOL: If you are using AOL3.0 for Windows95, the built in browser is Internet Explorer. There are two noticeable problems with using this browser within the AOL framework: A. Certain features found on web-pages which Internet Explorer can handle are disabled by AOL. B. AOL's Tool Bar cannot be hidden. With the small size screen of a laptop, this tool bar materially limits the exposed view of a web-page. C. Solution: After signing on to AOL, when you want to browse the web, open your browser [either Internet Explorer or Netscape] as a stand-alone program. You'll increase viewing space and enable the full functionality of your browser. For fast access to your browser, put a shortcut to it on the Start Menu; press Ctrl + Esc when you are ready to open it. 145. OFFLINE GAMING: Ever get knocked off the web while playing a game or cut your play short because your ISP charges are piling up or you don't want to tie up the phone line? If these games are created from Javascript or Java Applets [such as word games, fill-in-the-blank, crosswords, hangman, jigsaw puzzles] and your browser is Internet Explorer4.x, then play offline instead. You can try to save the game while online but often this fails to get the desired results. As discussed in Tips #36, #93 and #112, the "Cache" for IE4.x [and AOL3.0 for Windows95] is very useful for offline activities. Once you have accessed the game while online, you can play it offline. Just be sure the game page has fully loaded - it's not necessary to play it online. After you sign off, open the "Temporary Internet Files" folder and find the game file [usually an HTM/HTML extension]. Try to recall the game's URL to locate the proper file. You can now play offline. If you want to keep the game, you need to copy the game file and all its related files which may be several "gifs", "jpgs" and "class" files strewn throughout your Cache. If you have alot of other browsed pages in your Cache at the same time, it may be difficult to find all the correct game-related files. If you know the URL of the game file, then clear the Cache completely, go back online directly to the game page and cache it. [For this operation it is best to set your browser preference to "Open on a Blank" if you are using a stand-alone browser rather than a shell like AOL provides. This will keep your Cache clean of other pages.] After caching the game online, sign off. Your Cache is now populated with just the game files. Copy the entire contents of the Cache, create a new folder, and paste all the cached files into the new folder. The game is now permanent to play whenever you want. 146. AWOL HOMEPAGE?: Web-site authors, after uploading new material to their FTP directories, should always re-check their web-sites. When there are unexpected results, a few simple steps can be taken: A. Clear your Cache before you access the revised site. B. If a picture appears to be missing, right click on the missing icon symbol and select Show Picture. C. Close and reopen your browser. Sign off your ISP and/or close your ISP software. D. If problems still occur, re-boot then re-access your web-site. E. If still having problems, then re-upload the missing files. F. Finally, complain to the web-site provider; they may be having FTP problems. 147. SHOW YOUR FILE: If you have a full-blown HTML-Mail program such as Netscape Communicator's Messenger or Outlook Express and your recipient can handle HTML mail, then send an HTML file on your system as a page instead of an attachment. A. In Netscape's mail program, open the HTML file in Composer, copy it and then paste it into a new message. [The Send function from Navigator will only place a link to your internal file in the mail message; copying the file from Navigator will paste as text into your message without any graphics.] B. In Outlook Express, open the HTML file with Internet Explorer, copy it and then select Mail from the GO Menu. Paste it into a new message. [The Send function on the File Menu will only place an attachment of the html file with no graphics in your message.] C. If a picture is missing from the outgoing message, backspace over the missing picture icon, then insert the picture manually. 148. AOL "ART" FILES: If you use AOL3.0/4.0 for Windows95, then copying files from the Cache may produce "art" files in place of the expected "gif" or "jpg" files. When you try to read a copied-from-cache htm[l] file, some graphics may be missing. The graphic files with the "art" extension can be read in your browser individually, but it is necessary to rename them with a "gif" or "jpg" extension in order for them to appear in the htm[l] file. However, even though renamed, the graphic files cannot be opened with a graphic program. To make these graphic files work in your graphic program[s], there are two methods: A. When you open "art" files individually in your browser, right click on the picture. Save it is a "bmp" file. Then you may convert the "bmp" file to the graphic format of your choice. B. If you have already re-named an "art" file to a "gif" or "jpg" extension in order to make it appear on a copied-from-cache htm[l] file, then right click on the graphic when you open the htm[l] file. Save it as a "bmp" file. To avoid "art" file problems completely, don't browse the web with your AOL software. After signing on, open your browser as a "stand-alone". Then your copied-from-cache graphic files will maintain their native extensions. 149. ARTWORK OF YOUR OWN: You don't have to be a graphic artist to construct unique pictures. Many of us just stick a few pictures from our clip-art collections on a document rather than try to create our own "art". As discussed in Tip #131, graphic files can be manipulated, resized, flipped, shrunk, etc. in order for the graphic to fit on one page for printing. The same approach can be useful when creating a "compound" graphic - a new graphic that is a conglomeration of one or more clip-art files. If an existing graphic has a border that is unsuitable in the new compound graphic, shrink the width and height in both the normal view and upside-down view to shave the border off; usually just a one or two pixel reduction will work. Dissimilar background colors among pictures created with different colour palettes can be eliminated by a copy/paste operation into new files that use the same colour palettes; then backgrounds can be painted the same colour. With a little practice, you can make your own art-work that is customized to the content of your document and does not have that obvious "clip-art" look. 150. POPUP SLAYER: Geocity and Tripod offer free web-space, but there is a penalty for site visitors: the Popup Advertisement. [If you access Tripod or Geocity sites with the AOL shell over your browser, a full page ad rather than just a popup ad appears. All the more reason to never access the WWW with AOL as long as you have a browser which can be run as a standalone.] To the rescue comes The Close Popup Program at http://www.homeonthewww.com/ryan which will kill the popup ad to reveal the entire web-page. The Popup killer works with both Netscape and Internet Explorer; it's small and it's free.Download Driver Pack
After your driver has been downloaded, follow these simple steps to install it.
Expand the archive file (if the download file is in zip or rar format).
If the expanded file has an .exe extension, double click it and follow the installation instructions.
Otherwise, open Device Manager by right-clicking the Start menu and selecting Device Manager.
Find the device and model you want to update in the device list.
Double-click on it to open the Properties dialog box.
From the Properties dialog box, select the Driver tab.
Click the Update Driver button, then follow the instructions.
Very important: You must reboot your system to ensure that any driver updates have taken effect.
For more help, visit our Driver Support section for step-by-step videos on how to install drivers for every file type.