As I was thinking about what I would write about in this column, a strange thing happened... my daughter was about to begin a new semester at HPU, and her 3 kids had pretty much taken over the one computer the family has, so she asked my advice on buying a new one, laptop or PC. When I went through the usual Q&As about what she was going to do with it, it was pretty obvious I had a PC she could have that would more than take care of her requirements. A fairly new Emachine with plenty of RAM and a big HD and even the latest double layer DVD burner already installed. So, I did a recovery (on a partition that comes with the PC) so it was lean and factory-mean and ready to go with only a couple add-ons I installed. I ran it 24 hours a day for a week and did some stuff on it every day and it performed like a champ! The family came over for dinner on a Sunday and I demo'd it for them and they took it home. Would you believe it wouldn't boot up! They brought it back and of course, it worked just fine. They took it home again and it wouldn't boot! So... they brought it back one more time, and I did everything I could think of in the way of maintenance... defrag, disk check, anti spy, anti virus scan, plus disabled a couple small utilities from booting up, and they took it home. Runs like a champ! Why do I tell you this story... cause it illustrates my oft-uttered line that I am convinced computers have a mind of their own. In this case, I have no idea why it wouldn't work at their house when it was working just fine at mine. A similar thing happened with a few folks that tried Uniblue's free quick access download... a couple said they never saw any blue icons when they opened the Windows Task Manager and others said it made their PC unstable; then again, some said it was just fine. Anyhow, Uniblue has since come back to me and said there should be no more problems, but didn't say what they did to correct whatever was causing the problem for some folks, but not for others. (BTW, I had downloaded and installed QA on 2 laptops and 2 PCs with no problems.) So, keep this in mind when you sometimes have problems that seem to make no sense.:)
I also decided this week I had far too many e-mails stored on my main PC so I went about the fun task of weeding out the oldest ones and ones there was no reason to keep. In doing this, I was surprised at the number of e-mails there were that had to do with questions or suggestions about computers, so I decided to count the ones that seemed to repeat a lot, and ones that I have used and/or passed on to others. The result, which follows and with apologies to David Letterman, is my top10 list!
#10. Windows XP has a memory usage setting that controls how Windows allocates your computers memory (RAM). By default, the Programs option is selected which gives your programs as much memory as they need. If you tend to load a few applications (programs) and then run them without loading other applications as I do, you may be better off selecting the System Cache option. The System Cache has priority over the hard disk cache, and it's much faster, so XP on my PC runs better. To change the setting, hold down the Windows key and press the Pause Break key. This brings up System Properties (or you can open control panel and click on system.) Click on the Advanced tab and then in the Performance section click on Settings. Now click on the Advanced tab in the Performance Options window. In the Memory Usage section click System Cache. Click OK. You should see a performance increase the next time you reboot.
#9. One of the things that really works well in a PC that is equipped with enough memory (RAM) is your ability to run or open a couple programs simultaneously. While Windows XP is a pretty stable operating system, every so often a program can crash or freeze-up. Before Windows XP this was a real hassle, but XP changed that. In the event of a program crash or freeze-up, press the Ctrl+Alt+Del keys at the same time. That brings up the Windows Task Manager. In the Applications tab, locate any program that is listed as "Not Responding," highlight the program, and the click on End Task. If this doesn't work, you can always click on Shut Down on the top menu, and then select Turnoff or Restart.
#8. If you use Microsoft Outlook Express to send e-mails, and you're not a particularly good speller like me, this is not a big problem, providing you use the Microsoft spell check that is installed by Microsoft Office, Word, FrontPage, Works Suite and some other apps, you can also use it in OE. After you open OE, click on Tools and then on Options. Click on the spelling tab. Now check the always check spelling before sending box. Your e-mail messages will now be checked for spelling errors before you send them. (Or, you can press the F7 key to start the spell check process.) If you don't have the Microsoft spell check engine, you may need to search the Internet for free spell check programs that work with Outlook Express. One I have used is at http://urlcutter.com/?10264
#7. By default, when you first get a PC, your browser sets an Internet page as your Home page. Some of the malware programs out there intentionally hijack your browser so you are directed to their homepage each time you open your browser. Your antispyware program(s) should alert you to this. One specific program that checks for hijackers is CWShredder, a free download from: www.intermute.com/products/cwshredder.html. You can change your home page in Internet Explorer by clicking on Tools, Internet Options, and then making the appropriate changes in the Home page section of the Internet Options dialog box. A much quicker way is to click on a pages icon in the address bar near the top of your screen, and then drag and drop it on the icon the represents the home page, which looks like a little white house with an orange roof. You may be asked if you want that page to become your home page. Just answer Yes. This also works in Firefox.
#6. Microsoft Outlook keeps all the information available to you in a single file, which is named outlook.pst by default. The file contains your contacts, your calendar entries, e-mail messages, and everything else in Outlook. If the outlook.pst file becomes damaged or corrupted and you don't have a backup, you are in deep trouble. Fortunately, Microsoft offers a small program that will automatically create a backup of outlook.pst every time you close the Outlook program. The Personal Folders Backup file is free and you can download it from the Microsoft Web page. Go to www.microsoft.com and in the search window located in the upper right section of the Microsoft home page, type Personal Folders Backup. Now click Microsoft.com, below and then SEARCH. Now click on the link, Download details: Outlook 2003 Add-in: Personal Folders backup. Click the Download button on the right side of your screen. In the File Download box, you can click on Open to install the program from the Web, or you can click on Save to save it to your hard drive where you can install it anytime you choose. From the setup wizard window, click Next and just follow the prompts to install the program. Now, when you exit Outlook, you will be presented with the backup option, which you will set up the first time it runs. From then on, you can back up your .pst file(s) whenever you want to.
#5. Here is one for all of the grandparents out there who have grandchildren who are expert text "messagers", usually using their thumbs at speeds unbelievable (to me at least!). What if you wanted to send a short text message to their cell phone? Could you do this using the Internet? Maybe. You could try going to their cell provider's Web site. But what if you don't know which one they use? Try this: you can send short text messages to anyone's cell phone by going to the SMS Everywhere Web site at http://www.smseverywhere.com/. Just go to the site, click on the Send SMS button, type in the cell phone number you want to send the message to plus your actual message. Click on Send. You can even send a test message to your own phone to see if you can receive SMS text messages.
#4. If you need to copy both files and folders to a CD, as in backing up your important information, here's an easy way to do it. Click on Start, and then click on My Computer. Now right-click on your hard drive (usually drive c:) and click on Explore. Now you have a complete list of the files and folders on that drive. Click on any file or folder, and then, while holding down the Ctrl key, click on any other file or folder you wish to copy to a CD. When you have finished, click on Copy this file, copy this folder or copy the selected items, which you'll find under File and Folder Tasks. From the list provided click on your CD/DVD-R/W (Read/Write) drive (usually d:) you want to send your selection to, and then click Copy at the bottom of that small window. Now follow the prompts and bingo, your files and folders are copied to your CD disk.
#3. Digital cameras have changed the way we take pictures, one side effect is we tend to store large amounts of pictures on our computers. To organize our pictures, we store them in folders. By default, pictures that you download from your camera are stored in folders. After awhile, you have so many folders that remembering what a particular folder contains is almost impossible. Here's a neat trick I use to help me remember. You can place a picture from the folder right there on the folder itself. Right-click on a particular folder, for example, in My Pictures. Now click Properties, and then open the Customize tab. In the "Use this folder type as a template:" section, click on the down arrow and select Pictures or Photo Album. In the "Folder pictures" section click on Choose Picture. Click to get access to your pictures, double-click on the picture of your choice, and then click OK to close. Now, when you open My Pictures, that folder will have your selected picture on it to jog your memory about what pictures reside in that folder.
#2. Here's another frequently asked question... When Windows was installed on your computer, a code, called the Product Code, was generated. You may need to have this code for one reason or another, and if you haven't made a note of it or you can't find it, you may have a problem. To find your Windows XP product code, click on Start, Run, then type "regedit" (without the quotes) and click OK. Now locate and open the key called HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and click on SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS\CURRENTVERSION. In the right pane you should see a key called "Productid". Just open this key by clicking on it to display your product ID.
#1. And finally, here is the all-time, most repeated question: Should you leave your computer on all the time or turn it off when you are not using it? If you turn the computer off, you probably save on power. But turning the computer on and off everyday potentially could cause extra wear of parts. I have read at least a couple dozen opinions on this one and the only really logical answer I have seen goes something like this: I have a bunch of different programs that all have the capability of doing automatic updates, including MS XP and MS Office. If I run any or all of them during the day when I am using my computer, it slows down what I am doing at the time, so, what I do is turnoff my monitor at night, and schedule the auto checks for various times during the night... BTW, you will notice the MS Windows Update auto download default time is 0300... and that takes care of the problem. Does this put more of a strain on the PC than turning it off at night? So, far I haven't found any experts that will say that for sure! So, it seems that the decision is up to each individual, based on how they use their computer(s).
That's it for now, until next time, have fun with all those computer and electronic goodies, but remember to be careful out there on the ‘net!
Aloha, Lou
