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September Computer Quandaries
October
Computer Quandaries
I tried to think of a cute way to start this month’s
column, and I’m drawing a blank --- can you believe it, not one quip, joke,
smart remark, or witty saying comes to mind. So, let’s just dive head-first
into the questions.
Hi, Dale. Do you have any idea where to take an HP printer
for checkout or repair. My PhotoSmart needs a look-over. I thought that CompUSA
did, but apparently not any more.
Ray
Ray,
Go to HP.Com and see where they suggest you take it. In my
opinion, if it's under warranty, or cost more than $150, it's worth having
it looked at; otherwise, it's disposable --- the labor cost will most likely
be more than the value of the used printer.
DaLe
Dale,
-
I have purchased a 250 gig hard drive with SATA 3.0 to use
for backup for the office computer data, as they have a really slow process
for backing up my important data. I am looking for a case to place it in
which has USB
connection to connect to the work computer. I would appreciate suggestions
on the best place locally to purchase such a case. It will need a 3 1/2"
case for the drive with exterior power and
USB connection.
-
In my home machine I have three hard drives: two 40 gig and
one 250 gig. Registry is still using the original C: drive on a slave drive
and I do not know where to look in the registry to tell the computer to only
use the C: in the 250 gig hard drive. The original C: drive is now labeled
V: but is being treated as a C: drive. Question - can you direct me to how
to find the section in the registry to change the Primary drive to the
current C: drive?
Charlie
Charlie,
Re your first question: CompUSA has a 3.5"
USB enclosure they sell for $30.
Here's the
link.
(If Outlook Express
breaks the link, you should tie it back together in Notepad --- it starts
with http: and ends with Enclosure.) I used their parallel ATA USB 2.0
enclosure for our Maxtor 250 GB drive and had no problems with it (except
that they increased the price from $30 to $40 for the Christmas season, the
jerks!).
As far as your second
question, I'm not quite sure what you're asking. I don’t believe it's
possible to tell Windows to swap hard drives; besides, I get the idea you
want to change the drive letter designation before Windows even boots. If
that’s so, you should know that Windows will treat whichever drive it boots
from as C: --- that's just how it works. You can change the boot order in
CMOS to make the PC boot from whichever drive you like, and it will be drive
C: when Windows starts from it. From what I hear you saying though, I think
you'd be better off copying your current, lower-capacity drive in its
entirety to the newer, bigger, better, faster drive --- using something like
MaxBlast 4, which comes free with all new Maxtor drives or can be downloaded
from
www.Maxtor.com. Once the big drive contains
everything currently on the older drive, move cables and jumpers to make the
new drive the master drive on the primary IDE bus, make one of the 40 GB
drives the slave drive on the primary IDE bus, and remove the other 40 GB
drive for use in another machine, or make it the master drive on the
secondary bus (re-designating the CD-RW the secondary slave. (If any of
this seems too complicated, write back with specific brands and model
numbers of the drives, and I’ll respond with a drawing of the correct jumper
settings.)
DaLe
DaLe:
Thanks for the article on EasyCleaner. I added it to my
laptop, and it did a great job. I’m about to add it to my desktop, where I
already have CCleaner, which seems to work pretty well, also.
My Norton expired and I'm about to install the free McAfee
from Comcast on the laptop; any comments?
Also, whilst I'm thinking about it, my son has a Compaq
laptop that won't boot. It gets as far as showing wallpaper and cursor but no
icons, system tray, etc. He says its been getting slower and slower for a
while. Compaq wants $45 for a phone call. Any general hints or tips that might
save us the fee?
Bob
Bob,
If you already have CCleaner, EasyCleaner won't make that
much a difference. They perform pretty much the same function, just with a
different interface. Just click on the Issues icon in CCleaner to access
the Registry and Start Menu checkers. (I prefer EasyCleaner, but honestly I
think that’s just because I saw it first; I can’t think of any areas in
which it is better or worse than CCleaner.)
As far as the free McAfee, it's not as bad a resource hog
as Norton, but it's still bigger and not quite as thorough as AVG, which is
free for non-commercial use. Personally, I won't use Norton or McAfee,
neither one, even for free. I’ve cleaned viruses off computers running
Norton or McAfee, but so far I’ve not found any infections on any computer
running AVG; so, even if the price is the same --- free --- I still prefer
AVG.
Is your son running Windows XP? If he is, he should try to
boot into Safe Mode, then run System Restore to put the computer back in the
shape it was in just before it ceased to boot. Once he can boot into Normal
Mode again, that's the time to run EasyCleaner or CCleaner to clean up the
dead weightIf he's still running Win 98 --- a valid choice, especially for
older hardware --- have him try this:
Boot into MS-DOS Mode: as the computer starts, as soon as
words or a ‘splash screen’ are visible on the screen, alternately press and
release the Ctrl key, then F8; repeat till a boot menu appears. Use the
arrow keys to select Command Prompt Only, and press Enter.
At the C:\> prompt, type SCANREG /RESTORE and press Enter.
You will see a list displayed of the last several --- usually five or six
--- successfully-booted Registry files, stored in .cab format. The word
Started in the list tells you that version of the Registry started
successfully. Use the arrow keys to choose the newest cab file that started
successfully, and press ENTER.
Reboot.
Whichever version of Windows he’s running, after taking the
actions detailed above, the next step is to make sure the computer is
clean. (If the computer slowed down gradually, it’s probably infested with
spyware and/or adware and/or viruses.) Go to
www.housecall.antivirus.com, and
run their free online scan. Once they’ve found and cleaned all the malware
off the PC, install LavaSoft Ad-Aware SE, Spybot Search & Destroy, Ewido
Anti-Spyware, AVG
FREE, and WinPatrol to keep it clean. And EasyCleaner 2.0 or CCleaner to
keep it fast. Turn off real-time monitoring in Ewido and Spybot S & D ---
that’s what WinPatrol is for. Run the three anti-spyware programs once a
month, one after the other. AVG and WinPatrol run in the background,
protecting you all the time, so you can forget they’re there unless they
find a problem and pop up to ask you what to do with it.
Please let me know if this fixes your problem.
DaLe
Hi, Dale:
I have a "computer quandary". Until recently, I used
dial-up. When I worked on my web page offline --- adding, changing, or whatever
--- it did not affect the counter on my web page. Since I got Knology cable
Internet a couple of weeks ago, I guess I am online all of the time, and I am
finding that when I work on my web page, it causes the counter to jump ahead
every time I check to see how it looks before I upload the changes to the web.
My question: is there any way to prevent the counter
jumping ahead whenever I view the page offline (with changes that have not yet
been uploaded to the web), just to see how it looks?
Shirley
Dear Shirley,
I went to your website, and looked at the source code for
your main page, paying attention mainly to the javascript code that
implements the counter. Now, please understand, my HTML skills are very
slim, and while I've read a couple of books about javascript, I haven't
coded any at all. That having been said, it looks to me like your counter
is doing exactly what the javascript tells it to: it increments a counter
every time anyone, even you, views your homepage. The counter is
implemented by a call to another website. When you were using dial-up, that
call went nowhere unless you were online, so the counter didn’t increment;
but, now that you’re always connected to the Internet, even though the page
you’re viewing is only on your hard drive, the call to the counter website
--- somewhere out on the Internet --- goes thru, and you skew your hit
counter just by viewing the page locally.
So, here's an inelegant but effective way to prevent
skewing the count when you're editing the page offline.
-
First, create a Network Connections shortcut on the Quick
Launch toolbar: Open Control Panel. Right-click the Network Connections
icon, and select Create Shortcut. When the dialog box pops up, asking if
you'd like to create the shortcut on your desktop, click on Yes. If your
QuickLaunch Toolbar isn’t displayed --- just to the right of the Start
button in most installations --- turn it on by right-clicking the
Taskbar, left-clicking Toolbars, and putting a check mark next to Quick
Launch. Then, with the left mouse button, click and drag the new
shortcut to your Quick Launch bar. (If it leaves a copy on your
desktop, delete it; each icon on the desktop slows you down just a
little bit, so practice what I call 'desktop austerity' --- get in the
habit of deleting all unnecessary desktop icons.) Right-click the new
shortcut, select Properties
è Change Icon, and choose one of
the icons showing one or two computers, making it obvious this is a
shortcut to something having to do with your network, rather than the
ambiguous default icon, which was a globe.
-
From now on, just
before opening the offline copy of your source file, click the new
Network Connections shortcut in Quick Launch, right-click your Internet
connection, and select Disable from the object menu that pops up.
-
When you've finished
editing and viewing the file, click the Network Connections icon in
Quick Launch, right-click your Internet connection, and select Enable.
Now you can upload your changes to your website. Even if you decide not
to make any changes, remember to go back to Network Connections and
click Enable, or you won’t have Internet access, even after rebooting.
If you're using the free
ZoneAlarm firewall software, there's an even easier way to accomplish the
same thing, without following the three steps mentioned above: just engage
the Internet Lock while you're editing, and disengage it when you're ready
to upload. Same effect: if all your Internet traffic is blocked, you can't
increment an online counter. Here’s how: right-click the ZA icon in the
System Tray (lower-right section of your screen)
è left-click the line that reads
Stop All Internet Activity. After a couple of seconds, you’ll see the ZA
icon turn into a red and yellow padlock --- no traffic to or from the
Internet will be allowed until you say so. To turn off the Internet Lock,
right-click the padlock icon, and left-click that same line to remove the
check mark and restore your Internet capability.
Please let me know if
this helps. (She wrote back, praising the simple elegance of the ZoneAlarm
Internet Lock option.)
DaLe
And while ZoneAlarm is on my mind…
It has come to my attention that the latest version of
ZoneAlarm doesn’t support Windows 98. The version you already have will
continue to work like it always has, but you won’t be able to install any
future updates unless and until you ‘upgrade’ to Windows XP. This surprises
and saddens me, as Windows XP SP 2 has a pretty good firewall built into it
--- it’s the Win 98 users who need ZoneAlarm the most! Nevertheless, they
didn’t ask my opinion, they just went ahead and did what they were gonna do.
(Let’s be realistic here, folks: if you have a PC old
enough to be running Windows 98, your hardware, even if it will let you
install and run Windows XP, isn’t going to run it at a speed you can live
with. So, upgrading to Windows XP on existing Win98-era hardware isn’t an
upgrade at all --- you would actually need to buy a new PC with Windows XP
loaded on it to see any performance improvements. I don’t think that’s
warranted, as long as your computer does everything you want it to do; stick
with Win 98 as long as your hardware lasts, then have a PC built for you
with Windows XP SP 2 --- or Linux kernel 2.4 or better --- loaded on it.)
Which brings me, belatedly, to my point: if you’re running
Windows 98 and ZoneAlarm, you should turn off the automatic updates feature
in ZoneAlarm --- you’re not going to be able to install them, so why waste
time checking to see if they’re there? Double-click the ZA icon in your
System Tray (lower-right section of your screen)
è click the Overview label on the
left-hand side of the ZoneAlarm window
è click the Preferences tab at the
top of the window
è in the Check for Updates section, click the ‘radio
button’ next to Manually. A warning will pop up, asking if you’re sure you
want to turn off Automatic Updates; click on OK, then “X” the window to send
ZoneAlarm back to the System Tray.
BTW, IMHO, this won’t endanger you in any way. I’ve never
understood why ZoneAlarm issued so many updates, unless it was to
accommodate changes to Windows brought about by Microsoft’s update process.
Since Microsoft has ceased to support Win 98, the operating system shouldn’t
change significantly from now on, so ZoneAlarm updates won’t be necessary
for Windows 98 users.
I have ZoneAlarm version 6.1.737. It is fully functional
in Windows 98. It’s included on a CD of free programs I give to anyone who
asks. I’m not currently set up for mail-order, but anyone in the Clearwater
area can email me, and I’ll make arrangements to get a copy to them at a
place they’re gonna be in the near future, like a TBCS meeting. No charge
for the CD or the programs, but be warned: there’s an ad for my computer
repair business on the CD --- that’s how I can justify giving it away.
Simple Screen Grabs
I’ve gotten several emails from folks trying to relate to
me an error message they see on their screen, or trying to describe an icon
or folder they don’t know how to delete or otherwise handle. I wonder if
everyone out there knows how to use Windows to do a ‘screen-grab’, a picture
of whatever is displayed on your monitor screen, be it your desktop, an
error message, a Web page, or whatever. There are numerous utilities out
there that can accomplish this task for you, but Windows came with
everything you need pre-installed.
(I almost never print a hard copy of Internet
transactions. If the confirmation can be displayed on a single screen,
meaning I can center it using the scroll-bars so that all the data I need to
keep is on the screen at the same time, I just save a JPEG image of the
confirmation screen.)
Here’s how: with your screen displaying the item(s) you
want to relate or share, press the PrtScn key on your keyboard --- it’s in
the upper-right corner of the keyboard, near the NumLock key. If you’re
looking at a Web page, first use the scroll bars to ensure the portion you
want to save is displayed on-screen. You won’t see any indication that
anything happened, but you’ve just copied your entire screen to the
‘clipboard’, a chunk of memory Windows reserves for copying, cutting, and
pasting data. Next, open Microsoft Paint by clicking on Start
è Run
è type in MSPAINT
è click OK or press Enter on the keyboard. In the
menu at the top of the page, click Edit
è Paste. The saved screen will
appear in place of your blank picture. The picture dimensions should
automatically expand to whatever size your screen resolution is set to; e.g.
800x600, 1024x768. 1280x1024, etc. Still on the menu, click on File
è Save As
è change the Save As Type to JPEG
è give the file any name that seems
appropriate to you
è click the down arrow next to Save In and choose
Desktop è click Save. Close MSPAINT.
Finally, depending on why you grabbed the screen in the
first place, you can attach the just-saved file to a plain-text email, type
in a line or two explaining why you’ve sent the ‘-grab’, and send it to me
or whoever you’re asking for help or sharing your found treasures with, or
just move the saved file to your My Pictures folder for safe-keeping.
That’s it for the questions, answers, and tips. Till next
month, please email any computer questions you may have for me to
DaLe.aTchiSon@Verizon.net.
But I have a favor to ask: if you ask for my help, and I
send you a reply (and so far, I’ve replied to every request), please write back
one last time and tell me if my instructions or suggestions fixed your problem.
I truly believe I’ve given everyone who wrote the correct and appropriate
advice, but if I’m wrong on any part of it, I’d appreciate knowing it BEFORE I
publish my mistakes for the world to see. I got a ‘rep’ to maintain, you know?
Fair enough?
Okay, see you next month.
DaLe
aTchiSon
Let’s start off with a warning this month: I highly
recommend that you go right this minute and download and install
ALL the critical
updates from
www.windowsupdate.microsoft.com.
Don’t take for granted that your Automatic Updates settings are taking
care of this task for you; every now and then, you should go to the
website and scan manually to be sure you’re up-to-date.
There’s a particularly nasty problem with the Server
function, just recently discovered and fixed. I recommend to everyone
that they turn off the Server service using MSCONFIG. However, I read
the Microsoft Knowledge Base write-up, and I can’t tell if that will
protect you from this latest fault; I’ll assume not and recommend you
apply the fix anyway.
(BTW, if you are running Server on a computer that doesn’t
actually act as a file or print server to other computers on your
network, WHY IS THAT? Go into MSCONFIG
è Services and disable it, now!)
On to the questions…
Dear Dale,
For the past couple of months, I’ve been getting this error
message on my screen:[The feature you are trying to use is on a CD-ROM
or other removable disk that is not available. Insert the TrayApp disk
and click OK.]I don’t have any TrayApp disk and I don’t know what it
is. When I click 'OK', I receive an error message, when I click
'Cancel' nothing happens. I cannot get rid of that message. Since I
have it on my screen I cannot shut off or restart my computer the usual
way; I must cut off the power and put it back to restart.
Thanks for your help
Marc
Marc,
I did a Google search for TrayApp; the first hit I got
seems to be your problem. Do you have a HP printer? Did you
recently try to install or upgrade it? If so, that's it. Put the
HP printer driver CD in the drive and reboot your computer. If it
doesn't finish the install and never give you the problem again,
email me again and we'll dig deeper.
And if your printer isn’t HP, do you maybe have any
graphics or imaging software from HP, like Image Zone? If so,
either insert the install CD to complete the installation, or use
Control Panel
è Add/Remove Programs to
uninstall. Either way, the error message should go away.
DaLe
(He found four unfinished installs of HP imaging software,
removed them, problem solved. Once again, props to Google.)
Hi Dale -
Can you tell me (in the simplest possible language) how to
cut and paste? I keep getting requests to cut and paste items and have
no idea how to do that. The help file assumes that one knows more than
I.
Best regards, and thank you.
Charlie
Charlie,
Put the mouse cursor just before the item(s) you want to
Copy or Cut, press and hold the left mouse button, and move it
across the stuff you want, and let go of the button --- the text or
pictures will highlight. Next, click on Edit ==> Copy if you want
to leave the original text or pictures where they were, or click on
Edit ==> Cut if you want to remove the items from their original
locations at the same time as you put them somewhere else. (What
you just did was put the data on the 'clipboard', a special piece of
memory Windows has set aside just for Cut/Copy/Paste operations.)
Now put the cursor where you want the data to be, and click Edit ==>
Paste. The pictures or text should magically appear.
Please let me know if this isn't clear; I'll find a better
explanation, steal it, and send it to you, just like it was my own.
DaLe
Dale,
I made this banner up and I sent a copy to a friend to see
if he wants me to add more names to it. Unfortunately, he can't open
it. What must I do to make it work?
Ray
[Attached file: Miracles.pdb]
Ray,
I couldn't open it either. From the extension, .pdb, I
figure it was made with Print Shop Deluxe.
You need to open it in the program that made it, then click
on File ==> Save As, and see if you can save it as a JPEG or PDF
file; everyone can read those. If Save As isn't available, try
Export --- I know Print Shop can export to JPEG.
And send me a copy of the JPEG, too. I’d like to see it!
DaLe
Dale,
I purchased and installed the Norton AntiVirus 2006 package
when my 2005 subscription ran out. It's been working fine. But now, in
the last two days when I try to sign in to Word I get a warning:
[Norton AntiVirus 2006 does not support the Repair feature,
please uninstall & reinstall.]
What causes this and how do I fix it?
Thanks,
Terrie
Terrie,
I Google’d your error message and got this
link to the Norton page about your problem:
Apparently, you have to create (or create again) a
directory tree that Norton should have created for you; either
Norton didn’t do it right the first time, or the folders have been
deleted. Specifically, you need to ensure that the folders
C:\Documents and Settings\All
Users\Application Data\Symantec\Norton AntiVirus\Quarantine\Incoming
and C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application
Data\Symantec\Norton AntiVirus\Quarantine\Portal exist. Then, still
according to Norton’s web page, you need to reinstall Norton
Anti-Virus. And if the problem still doesn’t go away, you can
download an AutoFix Tool from the same web page.
In my opinion, a much better fix would be to uninstall all
Norton products from your computer, and install the free programs
listed below; between them, they do a much better job of protecting
your computer than Norton does, and without the loss of
performance. (Norton is a resource hog. In my experience, it slows
your computer, and it causes problems with other programs, as you
now well know. I remove it from the computers of all my clients who
will allow it.)
Here are links to all the security programs I recommend.
AVG
FREE AntiVirus, version 7
LavaSoft Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition. version 1.06
Spybot Search & Destroy, version 1.4
WinPatrol 10
On each page,
just click on the Download Now button, save to your desktop, then
double-click the saved file to install it. This all takes a little
while, but it's relatively easy and very much worth the time and
effort. If you're a TBCS member, you can take your computer to the
Resource
Center on a Wednesday or Friday
morning, and they'll do all this for you.
DaLe
BTW, please don't let anyone push you into installing
Microsoft Defender. It's another free anti-spyware program, and
it's not awful, but it is still in 'beta', and it doesn't protect
any better than the two anti-spyware programs listed above. And its
‘real-time protection’ doesn’t stop and ask you whether it’s okay to
allow changes to your startup files, it just pops up a notice
telling you what changes it already allowed without asking for your
permission. In my opinion, WinPatrol does a much better job in this
respect.
I feel the need to
throw in this disclaimer: All opinions expressed in my columns are
mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect those of TBCS, its Board,
or its members.
Till next month, y’all keep emailing me your computer
questions, and I’ll respond with the best advice I can dream up or
steal. My email address is
DaLe.aTchiSon@verizon.net.
I’m still giving away my free Utilities CD. It includes
all the free software I recommend to all my clients and in these monthly
columns. Just send me an email, and we’ll figger out where and when to
drop you off a copy, at no charge, in the
Clearwater area. I’m
almost ready to start mailing them, but there will be a $4 charge ---
paid via Money Order only --- to cover postage, materials, and bother.
Let me know if you’re running Windows 95, 98, or ME, and I’ll make the
CD bootable, so that you can scan a FAT-16 or FAT-32 hard drive for
viruses, even if it won’t start Windows. (I found a program from
Germany that will let you scan an NTFS disk from a Win98 bootable CD,
but they haven’t responded to my request for permission to include it,
and I won’t steal their work. However, I will include a link to the
software, and detailed instructions on how to include it if you want to
make your own copy, all in strict accordance with their license.)
Thanks,
DaLe
aTchiSon |
