OS/2 Shareware BBS: 24 DOS/24-DOS.zip/doswitip.zip/LAPTOP.TXT

Text File | 2002-05-07 | 133KB | 2,283 lines

        LAPTOP-NOTEBOOK TIPS FOR THE PORTABLE COMPUTER
                7-6-1998
                 [e-mail]



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
[e-mail]

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 "[e-mail]" 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 "[e-mail]" 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.