PC Plus SuperCD (UK) 1995 September/Image.iso/asksam2/pcplus.ask

askSam Database | 1995-06-30 | 552.3 KB | 6,218 lines

askWiS
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Date:
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Search for an Article
^.{CAP VAL ALL SKI 0 FIE [
""Enter a word or phrase (or press ENTER for a complete Listing)"
Article List by Date
ARTICLES BY DATE ^c
Double click on an article title to view the article. To return to the report press <CTRL><TAB> ^c
To close this report choose FILE -> CLOSE. ^C
Issue
Title ^l
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""Enter a word or phrase (or press ENTER for a complete Listing)"
{SORT :C[ Date: :R3[ Issue: :R5[ Page: :[ Title:}
Article List by Title
ARTICLES BY TITLE ^c
Double click on an article title to view the article. To return to the report press <CTRL><TAB> ^c
To close this report choose FILE -> CLOSE. ^C
Title
ADate
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^body
Title:
@Date:
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^.{CAP VAL ALL SKI 0 FIE :
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{SORT :[ Title:}
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Search for an Article
Article List by Date
Article List by Title
Instructionsu
Instructions
Paging
    Searching
Reports
Printing
askSamu
Paging
Instructionsu
Searching
Instructions
PC PLUS
TIPS & TRICKS
   Search for a Word or Phrase
    List Articles By Date
   List Articles by Title
  Close this File  Click on an icon above Instructions
 Instructions...   Return to Main Menu
   Paging thru the Documents   Searching the Documents
   Executing Reports   Printing an Article or Report
 About askSam
Click on an icon to move to a specific area of instructions
or use the scroll bar, cursor, or
PgUp and PgDn
Paging thru the Documents
You can move through the documents using the video buttons in the Tool Bar or by using the
keyboard:
    Move to the next document  (Keyboard ALT + PgDn)
    Move to the previous document (Keyboard ALT + PgUp)
    Move to the last review  (Keyboard ALT + End)
    Return to the first document (the Main Menu)  (Keyboard ALT + Home)
When the text of a document is on your screen, you can scroll through it using the scroll bar or
Instructions
Paging
Instructions
Reports
Instructions
the cursor keys. You can also edit the documents by placing the cursor in the desired area
and making the changes. At any time in this file you can press ALT + Home and you will return
to the main menu.
  Go to Instructions Menu
Searching for the Documents    Go to Instructions Menu
askSam lets you search for any word or phrase in any of the Documents. The easiest way to
search is using the Search Line:
1. Press ESC or click in the search line.
2. Type the word or phrase you wish to locate.
3. Press ENTER or click the Search Button  .
Your Searches can include the wildcard symbols * and ?. The * replaces multiple characters
(upto 80). The ? replace a single character.
 For example:
 Entering: 486*
 Finds: 486/33, 486DX2, ...
 Entering: *CAD
 Finds: AutoCAD, NiCad, ...
When you enter two words in the Search Line, askSam will retrieve all Documents containing
these two words:
 For example:
 Entering: Windows Write
 Finds: With XYZ for Windows you can write mail merge letters.
To find words directly next to each other, place square brackets [ ] around the phrase.
 For example:
 Entering: [Windows Write]
 Finds: The Readme file was written in Windows Write.
Searching
Instructions
Printing
Instructions
askSam
Instructions
For more complex searches see the actions menu. From this menu you can choose a variety of
search options including Boolean, Numeric, Date, and Proximity. You can also enter search
requests in the pre-defined reports (see below for more information on reports).
  Go to Instructions Menu
Reports
  Go to Instructions Menu
Reports offer alternative ways to search and view your information. We're pre-defined several
reports to give you an overview of the documents in this file:
The Search report can be used to enter a search request and retrieve documents containing
that search.
The Article List by Date report can be used to produce a summary of articles, sorted and
listed by date.
The Article List by Title report can be used to produce a summary of articles, sorted and
listed by article title.
To Run a Report:
 Click on the appropriate icon in the Main Menu  or
 Choose TOOLS
 RUN REPORT and select the name of the report.
After a Report is Run:
When you run an askSam report, the list created by the report is output to a new
window.You can scroll through the report, print it, and even save it.
To return to your Reviews Database after you've run a report you have the following options:
1. Choose FILE
 CLOSE to close the report.
Reports
2. Double click on a review title, product name, author, or any other item in your report,
and askSam will automatically return to the Reviews Database and display the Review
that you selected.
3. Press CTRL+ALT to return to the previous window.
  Go to Instructions Menu
Printing   Go to Instructions Menu
To print an individual document, a report, or the entire file:
Choose FILE -> PRINT
Choose the appropriate print type:
A. Current Document - prints the current document visible on screen
B. Report - prints the output of a report instead of showing it on screen.
C. File - prints the entire file
3. Choose OK
About askSam   Go to Instructions Menu
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For more information contact...
Guildsoft LTD
The Software Centre / East Way
Lee Mill Industrial Estate
Ivybridge Nr. Plymouth, PL21 9PE
England
Phone: [phone]  Fax: [phone]
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What is askSam?
askSam is a free-form database for information
FREE-FORM: askSam does not require a uniform structure in your information. It lets you
Printing
askSam
manage information that doesn't fit into traditional databases. You can include several hundred
pages (up to 16,000 lines) of notes, comments, memos in each record. You can also import
downloaded texts from the information highway, as well as Word and WordPerfect documents -
askSam turns information from a wide variety of sources into a personal database.
MAKING A DATABASE EASY: With askSam we set out to make a database that resembles a
word processor. Not just the user interface, but the entire application. Unlike traditional
databases, askSam does not require the user to define fields, structure data, program, or
understand relational concepts. Creating a form in askSam is like typing a form in a word
processor. Searching in askSam is like searching in a word processor (you're not required to
specify a field). askSam is not a programming tool, it's an easy way for a non-programmer to
record, search, and manage a wide range of information.
How is askSam used?
Like any database askSam is used in a variety of ways - from standard address / contact
databases to more information intensive applications such as tracking customer feedback,
market research, or help desk information. A large number of users turn text and data from the
information highway into a personal database using askSam. In networks users organize
government regulations, research notes, and company policies with askSam.
How does askSam work?
Gather Information from Many Sources: Type into askSam's WYSIWYG word processor, import
Instructions
information in a variety of formats, or use an optional OCR module to scan texts into your
database.
Integrated WYSIWYG Word Processor includes...
- Special mode for entering structured data
- Support for True Type Fonts
- Support Graphics and OLE Objects
- Drag & Drop Editing
- Headers, Footers, Page Numbering
Import Filters for...
- Text (ASCII)
- Word for Windows 6.0
- WordPerfect 5 - 6
- CompuServe Information Manager (WinCIM and DOSCIM)
- Lexis/Nexis
- RTF files (Microsoft's Rich Text Format)
- DBF files (dBASE, FoxPro, Clipper, etc.) Imports Memo Fields.
- Comma Delimited Data (CSV files)
- Tab Delimited Data
- Fixed Position Data
Powerful Search Capabilities: Find any word or phrase
 anywhere in your database. No need to
concern yourself with fields, indexes, or field lengths. Nothing could be simpler.
Searches ...
- Full-text searches for any word or phrase
- Wildcard searches with * and ?
- Boolean searches (with AND, OR, and NOT)
- Proximity searches
- Numeric searches (>, <, >=, <=, <>)
- Date searches
- Search through multiple askSam databases
- Case sensitive searches
Reports: See what you want to see
 askSam lets you find an entire document or generate a report
containing specific pieces of information.Use pre-defined reports or create your own.
Reports ...
- Drag & Drop Report Writer (no programming required)
- Sort alphabetically, numerically, or by date
- Include totals and subtotals
- Group fields
- Create summary reports
- Use headers and footers in reports
Instructions*4
Create Electronic Documents with askSam's easy-to-use Hypertext Functions.
Hypertext ...
- Set Hypertext Links to Bookmarks
- Set Hypertext Links to other askSam files
- Run Report from Hypertext Links
- Execute askSam Menu Commands (such as FILE -> OPEN) from Hypertext
- Viewer can be purchased for distributing data
Additional Features:
- Support for OLE version 1.0
- Include graphics, videos, and sound
- Spell Checker
- Bookmarks
- Mail Merge
- Automatic phone dialer
- Password protections and encryption
- Automatic date and time stamps
- Network version available (w/ record locking)
Pre-defined Templates: To make getting started even easier, askSam includes templates for:
Addresses, Calendars, Clippings, CompuServe Messages, E-Mail Archives, Mail Logs, Notes,
Questionnaires, Phone Messages, Phone Directories, Help Desks, Todo Lists, and much
more...
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS:
- An IBM compatible computer with at least a 386 processor.
- 4 MB of RAM
- 4 MB of free disk space
- Windows 3.1
- A mouse of other pointing device is recommended
ADD-ON MODULES AVAILABLE FOR ASKSAM:
- the ReadIris OCR module which scans text directly into askSam ($99.95)
- the Word for Word Filter Pak with extra import/export filters ($29.95)
For more information contact...
Guildsoft LTD
The Software Centre / East Way
Lee Mill Industrial Estate
Ivybridge Nr. Plymouth, PL21 9PE
England
Phone: [phone]  Fax: [phone]
    Return to Main Menu
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 Date: September 1994
Issue: 96
Page: 321
Title: SAVING FACE
I work in an open-plan office and often have sensitive information on my
screen. I don't need a high level of security, but I do need to prevent
visitors and passers-by from accidentally seeing what is being displayed.
I use Windows and the standard screen-saver is part-way to a simple
but adequate system - once it starts, it hides the screen and can be made
to demand a password before letting anyone back in. The problem is that I
can't switch it on at will. If I set a short delay, it rather annoyingly
kicks in when I sit back to ponder.
Is there a way to bring the screen-saver under instant control?
Being able to start it by pressing a function key would be ideal. Oh yes,
and the budget allocation for this one is nowt.
Robert Page, Barnsley
Yes I know the problem - one's Solitaire score can be such an
embarrassment. Being able to turn on the screen-saver at will is a
feature often found in commercial programs, for example Opus 'n Bill on
issue 93's SuperCD. In its setup options you can define a keypress or
mouse position that causes it to kick in.
You can, though, persuade Windows to do it anyway. The technique
hinges on the fact that the screen-savers - the files in the WINDOWS
directory ending in .SCR - are in fact ordinary programs. If you rename
XYZ.SCR to XYZ.EXE, you can run it and get the saver's control panel,
which includes the option to set a password.
To make the saver actually save screens, you run it with the parameter /S. Try it from
File Manager. Go to the WINDOWS directory and
rename SSSTARS.SCR as SSSTARS.EXE. Select File, Run and try these two
command lines:
SSSTARS.EXE
SSSTARS.EXE /S
You can build on this with Recorder. I'll use the star field simulator as an example, but
you should substitute your screen-saver module of choice.
First, temporarily turn off password protection. This is important, since having it
switched on will foul up the macro recording we're about to make. Now use File Manager
to create separate copies of the screen-saver program file: SSSTARS.SCR for the
Windows screen-saver
engine, and SSSTARS.EXE for our macro to invoke.
Close File Manager and run Recorder in the Accessories group. Select Macro, Record
from the menu. Name the macro SCREEN BLANK. Specify a short-cut key. I chose [Ctrl][F9]
because that's what came out of the random keypress generator, a utility program that's
long been a favourite tool in many an application developer's toolkit. If it clashes with a
keychord in any of your applications, use something else.
Make sure the Playback To box says 'Same Application', that Enable
Shortcut Keys is checked, that Continuous Loop is unchecked and that
Speed is 'fast'.
Now hit the Start button. You will be taken back to Program Manager. Press [Alt][F],
then [R] for the Run command. Enter a command line of
C:\WINDOWS\SSSTARS.EXE /S
and press [Return].
The star field program will now start up. Press [Alt][Tab], and a
Recorder dialog box will appear. Click on OK. You can now test the macro by pressing
[Ctrl][F9].
Press [Alt][Tab] again to get back into Recorder, where the macro will be listed. Go to
File, Save, and enter a filename of BLANKER.REC.
Minimise Recorder (don't close it down). The macro is now stored on disk for future use.
We now need to make it available every time Windows
starts up.
Back in Program Manager, select File, New, Program Item, OK. Enter a description of
'Screen Blanker'. Put the cursor in the Command Line box and enter
C:\WINDOWS\BLANKER.REC
Click the Run Minimized box. Hit OK.
You will be taken back to Program Manager with a new Recorder-type
icon, labelled Screen Blanker, sitting in the currently active group.
Drag the icon into the Startup group. Turn password protection back on,
and you're ready to roll.
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 Date: September 1994
Issue: 96
Page: 325
Title: CARDFILE LIMITS
I have over 1,200 records stored in Cardfile and it won't let me store
any more. It complains of insufficient memory and says I should close
down some applications, yet my machine has 4Mb and there are no other
applications running.
How can I add more cards? If I can't, is there a way of transferring the
information to another database?
James Anzani, London
Like Notepad, Cardfile can only store up to 64K of data. That may seem
odd in these days of wide open vistas of memory, but it's a consequence
of the way the PC's processor works. When Cardfile was written, Windows
had to run on the old 8086 and 8088 CPUs. These doled out memory to
applications in 64K chunks known as segments.
While it was easy enough to write programs to use more than one
segment, programmers often settled on a single segment as an
application's limit - particularly lightweight ones not expected to be
used for huge rafts of data.
A card uses a minimum of 52 bytes, 1K is 1,024 bytes, so 64 x
1,024/52 gives 1,260 as the absolute maximum number of cards. If records
contain significant amounts of information, the limit is lower.
You will either have to put the extra cards into a second file or
export the data to a more capacious database.
Most databases are able to import and export files in different
formats to facilitate moving of data between programs. Cardfile isn't
most databases. It will only save files in its native .CRD format, and
most other programs don't recognise these files.
One of the few that does is buttonFile on the June SuperCD. If you want
something less heavyweight, more Cardfile-like, I recommend you look at
Quickdex for Windows.
This shareware database imports .CRD files directly (just specify a
.CRD filename when opening a file), but it has huge capacity and enhanced
and additional features. The program is also cheap to register - just 20
Canadian dollars.
It allows embedded graphics, but can't import them in Cardfile
files, so you'll have to put them on the cards manually after importing
the text. The latest version of Quickdex is on this month's SuperCD.
Instructions are included in the file README.TXT and its help system.
Start the program by running QD.EXE, then press the '?' button to see the
help file. A lot of Quickdex's functions are accessed via the application
control menu - the '-' button at the top left of the window.
Most databases (and spreadsheets) will import data held in a plain
text file, provided it is structured in a regular way that makes it
possible to work out which bits go in which records and fields. There are
two ways of converting a Cardfile database into text. One is to print it
out using the Windows generic text-only printer driver, and to divert the
information to a disk file. The other is to run the database file through
a public domain or shareware conversion utility.
Both methods suffer the disadvantage that Cardfile records tend to
be unstructured. If you are storing contact details, for example, the
postcode and telephone number will be on different lines from one card to
the next. When you convert a Cardfile database to text and try to import
the result into a conventional database program, it expects the postcode
and telephone number to be on the same line each time.
You can process the intermediate file using your word processor or
by writing a program, but it could be a lot of work and still leave you
with some tidying up.
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 Date: September 1994
Issue: 96
Page: 325
Title: THE INFINITE DIRECTORY
Somehow I have managed tocreate an infinite directory on my hard disk. I
was exploring its inner depths through File Manager when I came upon a
directory I had no recollection of making. On opening it I found the
complete contents of my hard disk.
I thought I had mis-clicked and failed to open the directory, so I
scrolled down to it and opened it again, with the same result. I
continued to open copies until I reached 10 at which point I gave up. I
was then able to carry out the same exercise from DOS.
How can I remove this infinite directory? I cannot erase the hard
disk and start again because I do not have master disks for all the
software - some of it was pre-installed. Nor do I have a backup of 130Mb
of gumph: I just do not have that many disks. I have a program to edit
the FAT, but don't know what to do with it. My PC is six months old, has
a 170Mb hard disk and is running MS-DOS 6.2 and Windows 3.1.
John R Clayton, Kings Lynn
You have 130Mb of stuff on your hard disk, it's doing loopy things, and
you don't feel just a bit tempted to back it up? Personally I'd feel
safer bungee jumping on frayed knicker elastic!
Backing up is an issue every PC user has to face. Either address it,
or eventually address the consequences of not addressing it. All or part
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of a hard disk can easily become unusable - a fate that has been visited
upon me several times. When it happens to you, what will you do? Think
about it.
Software pre-installed on the hard disk by the dealer should be
accompanied by the original floppy disks. What happens if you need a file
not copied during installation? Or the software has to be reinstalled for
some reason? Original disks are vital.
OK, rant mode off, boffin mode on. Each directory has a number
associated with it which tells DOS where on the disk it can find the list
of files it contains. A likely reason for the loop is that the number for
this subdirectory now points back to the root directory. Every time you
CD into this subdirectory, DOS is misdirected back to the list in the
root directory. I managed to duplicate the problem by creating a test
directory and changing its cluster pointer to zero.
You can get odd phenomena like this if you switch off or the machine
crashes while the disk is being written to. It gets caught with its pants
down in the middle of updating information, so the disk ends up in an
uncertain state. A more common problem with the same cause is
cross-linked clusters - see my introduction to hard disks in this issue
on page 292. Don't mess about with disk editors if you don't understand
what you're doing. Instead, run a disk doctor program - Scandisk,
supplied with MS-DOS 6.2, will do.
Exit from Windows to the DOS command line. Running any disk fixer carries
the risk of getting into an even worse mess. If you want to take the next
step without backing up your hard disk, that's your look-out, OK? At
least Scandisk offers you the option to create an undo disk that contains
the information necessary to reverse the changes it makes.
Type scandisk and follow the prompts. I won't give you a description
of the process because there are lots of messages and prompts, but no
choices to make that can make the operation malfunction.
Fingers crossed, you will end up back at the command line with a new
directory called DIR00001. It may contain the lost files, unharmed, it
may not - it's a matter of luck. If you can't see an obvious use for the
files, copy them to floppies in case they turn out to be important. Then
delete them from your hard disk.
You may also find files in the root directory with the extension
.CHK. These contain the information from lost files, but not in a usable
format unless it's plain text which you can pick out with Notepad or
Write. Have a look, and if you can't make sense of what you find delete
the .CHK files too.
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 Date: September 1994
Issue: 96
Page: 329
Title: IT'S A DATE
I regularly print out copies of AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS and the output
from MEM /C. I recently came across a batch file that does the job
remarkably well, but the only thing missing is it doesn't print the time
and date.
Is there a simple way to append these? I enclose the batch file in
question.
Bill Fry, Maidenhead
Yes there is. I am reproducing a modified version of your batch file here
because other readers might like to do the same thing before installing a
new piece of software or tinkering with the setup files, so that a record
of changes is kept.
My modifications produce the same result with fewer instructions and
include the date and time as you want:
@echo off
REM REPORT.BAT
echo. | date | find "C" > PRN
echo. | time | find "C" > PRN
echo *** CONFIG.SYS *** > PRN
copy C:\CONFIG.SYS PRN
echo. > PRN
echo *** AUTOEXEC.BAT *** > PRN
copy c:\AUTOEXEC.BAT PRN
echo. > PRN
echo *** MEMORY REPORT *** > PRN
mem /c > PRN
echo [^L] > PRN
The last line forces a form feed, which with a laser printer avoids
having to press the Form Feed key to get the last page to print. [^L]
means ASCII character 12. Don't worry about how to enter it into a file -
REPORT.BAT is on the SuperDisk and CD.
It is possible to copy files to a device just as long as you know
the special name DOS has assigned to it. The printer is called PRN, and
the > PRN commands redirect output to the printer.
The date and time lines are neat. Echo. produces a blank line, which
is the same as pressing the [Enter] key. The pipe symbol (|) redirects
this faked keypress into DOS's DATE and TIME commands to prevent them
waiting for you to type in the current date and time.
The multi-line output from each of these is piped into the FIND
command, which filters out the only line containing a capital C - the one
that begins with 'Current'. This is the one containing the current date
or time. Finally, these lines are posted to the printer.
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 Date: September 1994
Issue: 96
Page: 329
Title: CRASH LANDINGS
I have intermittent problems withGeneral Protection Faults. Sometimes I
can press the Ignore button and carry on work. Other times the button is
greyed out and I cannot get back into my application. What are General
Protection Faults, and why do I sometimes lose my work?
G Rogers, Aylesbury
General Protection Fault (GPF) reports from Windows result mainly from
two problems. Firstly, an application writes information to an area of
memory that doesn't belong to it. Secondly, when an application passes
information to Windows, the information is in some way faulty, possibly
causing the recipient program to do something it shouldn't.
The reason for the bad behaviour is a malfunction in the offending
application. The word 'malfunction' covers everything from a minor
glitch, after which the application is no more than a bit dented and
still drivable, to a full-scale crash after which it's upside down in a
ditch and completely trashed.
When Windows detects a GPF it likes to offer the opportunity of
ignoring the fault so that you can at least save your work before
quitting the application. When you press the Ignore button, it tries to
make the application carry on where it left off.
You may find that you can click on Ignore, but you quickly get
another GPF, or it locks up. In this case the application is too damaged
to run so you can only close it down. If it has locked up, try pressing
[Ctrl][Alt][Del].
If the error was such that Windows can see the system is holed below
the water line, it doesn't even offer the opportunity to continue. Hence
the Ignore button is greyed out.
Writing to a no-go area of memory might kill or damage program code
which lived there - either another application, or part of Windows itself
- causing further unpredictable problems. For this reason, you should
always quit Windows following a GPF and restart it. Even if pressing the
Ignore button enables you to continue, the application is potentially
unstable and it is safest to quit.
The potential causes of GPFs are many and often unfathomable to
anyone but the application's programmer. A general troubleshooting guide
would take an article in itself, but I shall look at some of the
techniques in future Help Screens.
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 Date: September 1994
Issue: 96
Page: 329
Title: FAST SERIAL PORT
I want to buy a modem to be used
mainly as a hobby. I have read
many articles and bought the Modem and Communications Handbook by Sue
Schofield, which I have found most informative and entertaining.
My problem is that the UART chip in my computer is an 8250. Does
this mean that I will have to open up the box and put in a 16550 UART
card to run the modem at optimum speed?
A Cromack, Oban
It depends on the modem and the software. I assume that you're going to
buy a 14,400bps modem. Slower ones aren't worth bothering with; faster
ones command a premium price, though that will change soon.
A 14,400bps modem pushes the 8250 UART (the chip that provides the
guts of the serial port hardware) near to its limits. One of its
shortcomings is that it has nowhere to store incoming information if the
comms program isn't ready to receive it.
Comms software running from MS-DOS has almost exclusive control of
the PC, so it is unlikely to miss anything coming through the serial
port. I can't guarantee the 8250 UART will be OK under DOS, but you stand
a good chance of getting away with it at 14,400bps.
However, in a multitasking system like Windows or DESQview, control
rapidly switches between programs. If the serial port is trying to
deliver information while software other than the comms application has
control, the data could be lost. You will see characters missing on the
screen, file transfers will be unreliable, and you may experience other
odd difficulties.
You may get away with an 8250 UART and a 14,400bps modem under Windows,
but it is likely that you won't. You would then need a 16550 UART chip.
Not only is it capable of handling higher speeds, but it has a 16-byte
storage area (buffer) where it can temporarily hold data until the
software is ready for it.
You have three options:
l Replace the 8250 UART with a 16550. You can do this if the chip is in a
socket and don't mind pulling it out and fitting the new one. The chip
could be soldered into place, or its circuits could have been
incorporated in an I/O chip which also controls the disk and other ports.
In this case a transplant is either difficult or out of the question.
l You could buy a serial card, first checking with the supplier that it
is compatible with the rest of your system.
l You could buy an internal modem card with a 16550 UART built in. This
is what I did recently - I bought an internal Zoom modem which is working
well. Internal modems can be fiddly to configure; if anyone is having
difficulties why not drop us a line?
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 Date: September 1994
Issue: 96
Page: 331
Title: MEMORY IMPROVERS
In issue 92's Help Screen, reader F Jacobs complained about lack of DOS
memory following a CD-ROM drive installation. Dave Willmore of Walsall
was prompted to send us some memory-boosting tips.
First, put copies of AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS on a bootable
floppy so that if a change causes a problem, you can copy the files back.
Before you start, and after each change, run the MEM command so that you
can see the difference. You're looking at the Free column on the
Conventional and Upper lines.
Here is a selection of Dave's tips with some comments of mine:
1. Use extended memory for the buffer/driver installed from CONFIG.SYS by
adding /X after the device driver name.
For example:
DEVICEHIGH=C:\PANA\CDMKE.SYS /X
Dave says he's tried this with Panasonic, Mitsumi and Sony drivers. He
also uses a further switch, /M:32, to increase the number of buffers
available without loss of DOS memory. My Sony driver automatically uses
extended memory, so I didn't see an improvement. It's worth checking,
though.
2. If the memory configuration requires you to use expanded memory, you
can redirect MSCDEX.EXE to use it for buffers by adding /E to the command
line, for example:
LOADHIGH C:\DOS\MSCDEX.EXE /E /D:MSCD000
MenuQ
3. Dave found another useful tip in the README.TXT file which comes with
MS-DOS 6.2. It enables you to use SVGA card memory for Upper Memory
Blocks, which are used to store TSRs and device drivers outside
conventional memory. Here's the core of what README.TXT says:
l Open your Windows SYSTEM.INI file, and find the [386Enh] section.
l Add a DEVICE command for the MONOUMB.386 file, which is located in your
MS-DOS directory. If your MS-DOS files are in C:\DOS, for example, add
the following line to this section:
DEVICE=C:\DOS\MONOUMB.386
l Save the file, and restart your computer.
l After your PC starts, run MemMaker by typing MEMMAKER at the command
prompt.
l Choose Custom Setup. On the Advanced Options screen, answer Yes to the
question "Use monochrome region (B000-B7FF) for running programs?".
l Follow the instructions on your screen.
Before trying this one my total free conventional and upper memory was
624K. Afterwards it was 638K. If you haven't run MemMaker for a while (or
ever) you're likely to get more conventional memory free than before. I
tried this tip a week ago now, and haven't had any problems.
4. When running MemMaker with the Custom option (press the spacebar when
prompted 'Express or Custom setup'), try answering Yes to the question
'Scan upper memory aggressively'. This can free up more upper memory
under certain circumstances. If it makes the PC crash when booting up,
answer 'no' in future.
This worked well on my system, increasing free upper memory from 22K
to 54K.
5. If you find you cannot load your mouse or keyboard drivers high, try
placing them at or near the beginning of AUTOEXEC.BAT. This may help,
since MOUSE.COM and KEYB.COM require a lot of memory during installation,
but thereafter only use a small amount. It's even worth loading them from
CONFIG.SYS using the INSTALL command.
6. If you want to boot your PC without any device drivers, hold down both
[Shift] keys as soon as you see the 'Starting MS-DOS...' message.
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 Date: September 1994
Issue: 96
Page: 329
Title: FASTER PRINTING
Often when you're printing from a word processor or text editor you only
need the raw text, for example when making a hard copy of a macro, some
notes or a Help topic. With dot-matrix printers in particular, this can
be slow as the high-quality bitmapped fonts are lovingly hand crafted.
For a quick no-frills text listing that uses the printer's native
text mode rather than graphics, use Print Manager to install the
Generic/Text Only print driver. Go to Options, Printer Setup, Add. Select
Generic/Text Only in the list at the bottom, then press Install.
You may be asked for one of your Windows disks to copy the driver
file on to the system if it isn't already there. Now click on the Close
button. Highlight the new driver, then exit. If the application has a
Print Setup menu, select the Text Only printer there, too.
Not only will the text be clearer on older printers, but on any
dot-matrix it'll print in a fraction of the time. You can always switch
back to the original driver when you want quality output.
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 Date: September 1994
Issue: 96
Page: 323
Title: AMI PRO TIP
You don't need to press the [Tab] key at the start of each paragraph. Go
to Style, Modify Style. In the resulting dialog box click on the
Alignment button. Make sure F2 Body Text is selected as the style and
enter 0.4 in the box marked First. This automatically gives the first
line of Body Text paragraphs a 0.4-inch indent. Click on OK. The first
paragraph under a heading won't have an indent if you set it to F3 Body
Single. Test it out by putting the cursor in a paragraph that you haven't
tabbed, and press the [F2] and [F3] keys alternately. Two other
immediately useful things you can do by modifying styles are:
l If you use sub-heads, change the subhead style so that it automatically
has a blank line above it.
l If you're entering a lot of text, change the body copy font to make it
more readable on-screen. 14pt Arial suits my weakening eyesight. You can
change the style back to what you want printed when the bulk of the text
entry and editing are complete.
And if you do have weak eyes and are using a high-resolution screen
mode such as 800 by 600, make the SmartIcons easier to see by selecting
Tools, SmartIcons, Icon Size, Large.
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 Date: October 1994
Issue: 97
Page: 325
Title: REPLACEMENT COPY
In issue 93 Paul Winterton asked if there was an easy way to copy files
from one directory to another only under the condition that a version of
the file is not in the destination directory. Wilf replied with a batch
file.
I'm probably not the first to point out that he missed a DOS command
that will do the job perfectly well. Or maybe I am, because the fact that
even the omniscient Wilf did not appear to know about it serves to
confirm my theory that few people are familiar with the fine detail of
the REPLACE command.
Using the /A switch you can, to quote the MS-DOS online help, "add
new files to the destination directory instead of replacing existing
files". Suppose directory \TEMP1 contains the files FILE1 and FILE2, and
directory \TEMP2 contains FILE2 and FILE3. The command:
REPLACE /A \TEMP1\*.* \TEMP2
will then only copy FILE1, not FILE2 because it already exists in \TEMP2.
Rupert K Montgomery, Basingstoke
Well spotted, Rupert, and yes, you are the first. More details on REPLACE
are to be had by typing the following at the DOS prompt:
HELP REPLACE
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 Date: October 1994
Issue: 97
Page: 325
Title: A WRITE MESS
Can you tell me why Windows Write has recently taken to using Albertus
Extra Bold as the default font? It used to fire up in Arial.
Martin Wall, Horwich
Write defaults to the first sans serif font in the font list, which is
the list Windows reads when it boots up, and is not necessarily in the
same order as the alphabetically sorted list that an application displays
in its font selector box.
Load WIN.INI from your WINDOWS directory into Notepad. Find the
[fonts] section and move the Arial lines to the top of the list. Resave
WIN.INI and restart Windows. You should now have Arial back as your
default font.
If you want Write to start up in something more tasteful than Arial,
in Windows 3.0 you can configure it through a section in WIN.INI. This
feature got trampled underfoot in the march of technology towards version
You can doctor the [fonts] list to some extent. Moving Univers to
the head of the list makes it the default Write font because it is sans
serif. However, the trick doesn't work with Times, because it is a serif
font.
Microsoft's official hologram-badged kludge is to create a new Write
document, and then select the font and any other page settings you want
to set as the defaults - the margins, for example.
Type a space to bring the font into effect, then save the file with
a name like SETFONT.WRI. Highlight the Write icon in the Accessories
group, and select Properties from the File menu. Change the command line
from:
WRITE.EXE
WRITE.EXE SETFONT.WRI
This ensures that the dummy document is loaded automatically when you
start up Write. Remember not to overwrite the file when you save your
document. Setting SETFONT.WRI to read-only using File Manager will guard
against this.
By the way, you may be wondering how Write knows whether or not a
font has serifs - after all, the distinction is visual, (serif fonts have
twiddly bits at the ends of lines, while sans serif ones don't).
TrueType files contain lots of information about a font, including a
flag to say which style the font is - or so I deduce from the way Font
Assistant on the July SuperCD
is able to show only typefaces in one of
the styles.
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 Date: October 1994
Issue: 97
Page: 327
Title: UNATTRIBUTABLE FILES
When using the ATTRIB command to list files under DOS 6, I find two files
which don't appear when I use DIR or look at the disk with File Manager
under Windows. The names are slightly different each time, but are
something like 'AABEDAI'.
What are these files and why are they invisible outside ATTRIB? I
strongly suspect that I have a virus, but the scanner can't find
anything.
Harold Carwell, Preston
The files only exist while ATTRIB is running, which is why they don't
show up at other times. Don't panic - they're quite normal and healthy.
These are known as temporary files. Programs often create them to
use as extra storage space when they run out of memory, or think they
might do. When the program terminates, it deletes the file. If you reset
the PC while the program is running, the temporary file isn't deleted and
will be left lying around the disk until you erase it manually.
When ATTRIB or any other program needs to open a temporary file, it
must choose a name which isn't already in use. Otherwise the file that
already has the name will be overwritten. At the programming level DOS
has a function which an application can call upon to generate a unique
filename. It comes back with what are apparently meaningless combinations
of characters such as the ones you are seeing.
It is up to the application concerned where it puts the temporary
file. If you have a directory set up to be the repository of temporary
files then it should place them there. If you don't, then it will
probably use its own directory, the root directory, or the current
directory. The location of the temporary directory will be specified in
one of two places, depending on the program.
Most software either has an option in its setup or configuration
routine to specify which directory is to be the temporary one; otherwise
it looks for a DOS environment variable called TEMP (usually) or
TMP (sometimes), which stores the name of the location.
You can create TEMP from the command line, though it would normally
be specified in AUTOEXEC.BAT:
SET TEMP=C:\GARBAGE
This assumes you have made a directory called \GARBAGE. It's a good idea
to have both TMP and TEMP, and to point them at the same directory, so
that you've got both possibilities covered.
So, why does ATTRIB create temporary files, especially when earlier
versions didn't need to? At this point we have a guest appearance by Wilf
Hey, former Help Screen host, who kindly offered to hack around inside
ATTRIB for the edification and delight of the assembled throng.
It turns out that the cause is ATTRIB's new /S switch, which enables
it to list or change file attributes in all subdirectories below the one
it starts in.
When it does the equivalent of a CD command to change into a
subdirectory it has found, it has to remember where it was up to in the
list of files in the current directory so that when it returns it can
carry on processing where it left off.
If you have a directory tree that is many layers deep, the
accumulated heap of remembered positions is potentially quite large.
Should ATTRIB be running on a machine with a limited amount of free DOS
memory and a complicated directory structure, it would probably run out
of RAM and need to overflow into temporary files.
Our hunch is that in order to save a few lines of code that test
whether the /S switch was used and how much memory remains, ATTRIB uses
temporary files whether or not it needs them.
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 Date: October 1994
Issue: 97
Page: 333
Title: DIRECTORY SAVER
Is it possible to save the current directory in an environment variable?
I have tried using pipes and per cent signs, but nothing I've done so far
seems to work.
Steven Hunter, Washington
You can with a bit of fiddling, and the end result is rather useful as we
shall see. The basic problem is how to get the current directory name on
to the end of a DOS command line that reads:
SET FRED=
Now the CD command used by itself reports the current directory. If we
graft its output on to the end of the above line, then execute it, the
environment variable 'fred' will contain the name of the current
directory.
Create a file with just that line in it, called SETENV. The catch is
that there mustn't be a carriage return on the end. If your text editor
or word processor won't allow that, use the old COPY CON trick from the
DOS command line:
COPY CON SETENV[ENTER]
SET FRED=[^Z][ENTER]
[ENTER] means press the [Enter]/[Return] key, and [^Z] means press [Ctrl]
and [Z] together. Put this file somewhere safe, because it will be needed
each time you set fred to a new directory name. I've saved mine in a
directory called UTILS on drive C:\. The way to use it is demonstrated in
this batch file:
ECHO OFF
COPY C:\UTILS\SETENV SETENV.BAT
CD > SETENV.BAT
CALL SETENV.BAT
DEL SETENV.BAT
ECHO Current directory is %FRED%
The second line makes a working copy
of SETENV in the current directory,
calling the new file SETENV.BAT. The next line appends the output of the
CD command on to it, so SETENV.BAT will read something like:
SET FRED=DIRNAME
You can see why a carriage return after the = symbol would be a problem;
DIRNAME would be on a line by itself. SETENV.BAT is then run and deleted.
So what can you do with it? Well, how often have you run a program
which, when you exited from it, left you in a directory other than that
you started from? A number of programs do this, and it's tedious to keep
typing a CD line to take you back.
With the above technique you can run programs from a batch file and
use the environment variable to return you to the right directory
automatically. Replace the final ECHO line in the above example with the
command to run the application concerned, and follow it with:
CD %FRED%
Alternatively (or in addition) you can have a general-purpose batch file,
called RUN.BAT, that runs any application:
ECHO OFF
IF ""%1=="" GOTO ERROR
COPY C:\UTILS\SETENV SETENV.BAT
CD > SETENV.BAT
CALL SETENV.BAT
DEL SETENV.BAT
%1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7
CD %FRED%
GOTO END
:ERROR
ECHO Err... which program?
The line with %1, %2 and so on allows you to run a program with
parameters:
RUN PROGNAME PARAM1 PARAM2
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 Date: October 1994
Issue: 97
Page: 335
Title: EMBROIDERING: THE TRUTH
My wife has been able to have a cross-stitch pattern produced from a
photograph. There would appear to be a program that allows a photograph
to be scanned and then converts the image to a six or seven-shade
pattern. Each shade is made up of a different
symbol allowing a sepia type tapestry to be produced.
Where would I be able to obtain such
a program?
A P Reid, Nairn
From IL-Soft on [phone]. It's called Xstitch Designer and comes in
several versions for both DOS and Windows. Prices start at
34.99
including VAT and postage for a basic package, but for imports of scans
you need one of the more fully featured editions with prices kicking in
152.69.
I haven't seen any of this stuff in action, but I'm told the
versions capable of using scans import them in PCX format, rather than
handling the scanner direct. In the Windows versions you can also paste
from the clipboard.
With a good graphics file format convertor it sounds as though you
could embroider almost anything, from a one-dimensional automata
screengrab on a tea towel, to
napkins featuring highspots from your
GIF collection.
How about special Nightmare Edition pillow cases, embroidered with
the General Protection Fault dialog box?
Another star in the Future Publishing firmament, Cross Stitcher,
will be reviewing a selection of cross-stitch programs in its November
issue.
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 Date: October 1994
Issue: 97
Page: 335
Title: BANKING ON EXCEL
I have a small but irritating problem with an Excel worksheet. It's a
simple bank account record which calculates the outstanding balance after
each deposit or withdrawal, using a formula which adds/subtracts each
row's transaction values from the previous balance in the row above.
Having replicated this formula all the way down the balance column,
I now get the balance from the last 'active' row appearing in all the
later rows as well. How can I stop them appearing, and show new balances
only in those rows where I've actually entered a transaction?
K Leyland, Manchester
Apologies to users of 1-2-3, Quattro et al for having two Excel questions
in one month, but Paul Stephens came up with this one out of the blue and
not a man to turn down a free answer. However, concept applies to other
programs. Paul writes... You can't stop the unused formulae from
calculating their results, but you can hide the balance column and use a
different column to display a copy of the balance only, in rows where
there has been a transaction. Choose a blank column, and in the same row
as the first balance cell enter a formula like this:
IF(E4=E3, "", E4)
In this example cell E4 contains the first balance, and E3 is the cell
above it, containing the column heading (the word 'Balance')
The IF function takes three parameters - a logical expression and
two values. If the expression is true, then the function returns the
first value, otherwise it returns the second. The expression E4=E3 means
'is the value in cell E4 the same as the one in E3?'. If it is, then the
balance hasn't changed, so we return the first value - "", meaning null
or blank. If E4 isn't the same as E3 then the balance has changed, and we
return the value of E4 - the latest balance.
Replicate this function down the column, and format the cells for
the currency symbol as required. In Excel 5.0, you can hide the column by
right-clicking on the column heading (E) and choosing Hide from the
pop-up menu (other programs do this differently). If you want to see it
again, drag its right-hand border out.
Although column E is hidden, you can still refer to it in formulae,
for example MAX(E4:E99), to see the high point of your finances. All
modern spreadsheet programs have the IF function and column-hiding
features used here. In Lotus 1-2-3 and compatible spreadsheets, the
formula begins @IF, but is otherwise the same.
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 Date: October 1994
Issue: 97
Page: 333
Title: THE WINDOWS HOT TIP SPOT
Along with the Help Screen editor's traditional regalia of Superman
costume and magic wand, I inherited from Wilf a collection of mostly
Windows-related tips from Shane Devenshire of Walnut Creek, California.
Here's a small selection:
1 General Protection Faults: When an application goes off the rails and
causes a GPF you get a dialog box which invites you to ignore the fault
and continue, or to close the offending application. If you click on
Close you lose your work, and if you click on Ignore quite often nothing
happens. I explained what's going on in last month's Help Screen.
In this situation Shane's tip is to keep clicking on Ignore. After about
20 or more tries the application will frequently come back to life. You
can then save your work before re-starting Windows.
What's very likely to be happening is that every time you hit Ignore,
Windows tries to resume execution of the application immediately after
the program instruction which caused the GPF. Because things have gone
off the rails, the next few instructions cause GPFs too, so the dialog
box comes up again.
Eventually, though, you get through to the end of the block of code
that's causing problems and move on to an area of program that behaves
itself. With a bit of luck, even though the copy of the application in
memory and other parts of the system will be damaged, it will be
functional enough to do a save.
2 Managing files: Shane gives two examples which highlight the Search
command on File Manager's File menu as a powerful but underused
housekeeping tool. Let's say you want to collect all the .DOC files on
your hard disk into a single directory.
Enter *.DOC in the Search For box and check the Search All Subdirectories
box. File Manager will produce a list of all the files on the drive whose
name ends in .DOC. Select them all by highlighting the first one, then
[Shift]+click on the last one. Hold [Alt] and drag all the files into the
destination directory window.
Using [Alt] as a modifier key forces File Manager to move files rather
than copy them, and [Alt] instead of the usual [Shift] allows you to drag
an entire list of files, rather than just one of them. Shane goes on to
say that the search command can also be used to delete all files that
meet a specific condition.
3 Vertical tiling: Two tips for tiling windows in Windows 3.1, not
Windows for Workgroups. When you select Window, Tile in File Manager, by
default it makes a column of drive panes. If you hold down [Shift] and
select the same menu option, it will put them
in a row.
Shane says that although a lot of people know that, not many know that
Task Manager will perform a similar trick. Start a few programs running,
then press [Ctrl][Esc] to bring up the task list. Clicking the Tile
button arranges the programs in a row. [Shift]+Tile makes them into a
column.
4 Drop-down shortcut: Shane sent a keyboard shortcut aimed specifically
at Access users new to Windows who prefer keyboard actions to mouse
movements. Shane says that when you are positioned in a field which has a
drop-down list button, [Alt][Down arrow] will open the list. You can then
move up or down with the arrow keys.
What Shane says is useful, but it has more widespread application as an
accelerator. For example, in the Desktop section of Control Panel, which
has a lot of drop-down lists, you can press [Tab] to move between fields
and [Alt][Down arrow] to open a list. Alternatively, just pressing the up
and down arrow keys scrolls through the options without showing the list.
    I will publish more of Shane's tips in future Help Screens, and,
of course, selected highlights from those sent in by other readers too.
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 Date: October 1994
Issue: 97
Page: 335
Title: WinFax Lite?
Can you solve a problem I am experiencing with WinFax Lite? Outgoing
faxes don't match their on-screen appearance. The lines of print seem to
be slightly longer when faxed. Where print meets the right-hand margin,
the right-most word will be wrapped round on to the next line. This can
play havoc with a carefully designed form, for example.
John Turnberry, Gainsborough
You're quite right about the difference in widths between screen and
printer fonts, which correlate with each other, and WinFax Lite's
interpretation of them. The effect isn't consistent - two lines of text
in different fonts that end in the same place on the printer can be
different lengths when faxed.
As you may know, TrueType fonts are stored as a set of line
definitions, or vectors. In effect, these provide a set of instructions
to guide an imaginary pen around the font outline - 'draw a line from
this point to that point' - leaving the output device (or its Windows
driver) to translate these instructions into a pattern of dots. The
conversion from vector definitions to bitmap is known as rasterising.
Discrepancies between what you see on the screen and what's faxed
can occur for one of two reasons. Major problems result when a document
that has been designed with one printer driver installed, is then printed
on another without first being reformatted. If the fonts and capabilities
of the first printer don't closely match those of the second, and the
application is using information about the printer obtained from the
driver as the basis of the formatting, you can get major misalignments.
The way to solve such problems is to design with WinFax set as the
default printer, and to use TrueType fonts throughout.
However, small differences, such as the ones you are experiencing,
are a consequence of the way faxes are constructed. Pixels on the screen
and most printers have a square aspect ratio: they are the same size
vertically as they are horizontally. However, the fax protocol is defined
in such a way as to give a non-square ratio. Although the resolution of a
high-quality fax is nominally 200dpi, it is in fact between 196 by 203dpi
and 196 by 205dpi, meaning that pixels are rectangular. WinFax has to map
font shapes on to this non-standard grid.
Some fonts work better than others, meaning that after compression
the edges of characters fall near to a pixel boundary, so the result is
fairly accurate. With other fonts the right-hand edges tend to fall well
away from a pixel boundary, and the software has to decide whether to
fill that pixel or leave it blank - round it up or down, in other words.
What you're seeing is an accumulation of rounding errors. If a rasterised
line turns out to be too wide for the page, WinFax performs a word-wrap.
In the worst cases, the knock-on effect (or reflow) can carry through
right to the end of the document, disrupting your careful design. Even if
you don't get a reflow, the differing inaccuracies of the various fonts
can foul up horizontal alignments if you rely on character width to
determine the position of an object.
The only way to avoid the problem is to design pages with all this in
mind and proof-read potentially troublesome ones before they are sent
You can view a file before transmission by checking 'Save to file'
in the WinFax dialog box - the one that comes up after you click OK in
your application's Print dialog box. Then click on Save and specify a
filename. Go to WinFax's View module, and you can see the file by
selecting File, Open.
Another mini feature I noticed when tinkering with Winfax Lite was
that the printed area on received faxes is about 10 per cent smaller in
each direction than the same document output on a laser printer.
Finally, you might bear in mind that although dropping the
resolution from 200 by 200 to 200 by 100 makes fax despatch quicker (and
therefore cheaper), unless you use bold or larger fonts, you are likely
to lose legibility and fine detail - particularly the fine horizontal
lines in character shapes and lines drawn in small point sizes.
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 Date: December 1994
Issue: 98
Page: 407
Title: EASIER SAVINGS
With reference to your answer in issue 96 on starting the Windows screen
savers at the touch of a key, you could of course add SCR to the
PROGRAMS= line in the [Windows] section of the WIN.INI file. The screen
savers can then be added to any group and the shortcut key box in the
Properties dialog can be used as normal.
Still, I'd never learnt to use Recorder until now, so your reply was
useful.
Alastair D B Burr, Hertfordshire
I had a nagging feeling that a slicker way of doing it was staring me in
the face. And there it is.
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: December 1994
Issue: 98
Page: 407
Title: SPIKE THE WORD
I recently found a useful tool in Word 6 called the spike. It lets you go
around your document cutting out pieces of text and graphics, and as you
do so they are put on an imaginary spike. You can then re-insert
everything on the spike at any point in the same or another document.
It's a really quick way of reordering your text because it cuts out
multiple pasting. To put an item on the spike highlight it and press
[Ctrl][F3]. When you've collected the various bits and pieces, put the
cursor at the insertion point and press [Ctrl][Shift][F3].
Now two questions. When highlighting a block of text I find it
impossible to start or end the block part-way through a word. The
selection automatically fills out to encompass whole words only. I find
this annoying. Also, Word always turns the second letter of a double
capital into lower case - PCs becomes Pcs automatically. This is more
than annoying; it's driving me insane. Is there a cure?
Martyn Jeffrey, Shipley
For insanity? Not here - try The Lancet. Word's spike feature appeared in
v2.0 too. You can turn off the automatic word selection feature under the
Tools, Options. Click on the Edit tab and clear the check box labelled
Menur
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: December 1994
Issue: 98
Page: 407
Title: DATING WITH CLARIS
I am trying to set up a spreadsheet (Claris) to do purchases and sales
invoices. In the first column I would like a formula so that whatever the
date and whatever order it is entered, the column will always end up in
date order and will also insert the correct information along the right
line.
David Cooper, Towcester
In general it is possible to keep columns of information in order
automatically, but not with a formula. A formula performs a calculation
and delivers the result in the cell it is entered in; it cannot rearrange
the contents of other cells.
Most spreadsheets give you another tool for moving cells around.
With a stand-alone spreadsheet program like 1-2-3, Excel or Quattro the
macro feature does this sort of job. ClarisWorks has a macro feature too,
but it differs from the ones found in more powerful programs.
It's worth looking at how it differs, because this illustrates the
shortcomings of modules in integrated packages. Don't get me wrong - I
think integrated software can be excellent value for money, a good way to
introduce yourself to applications and, in many circumstances, as good or
better an option than the heavyweight packages. However, you aren't
getting as full a range of features and sometimes this causes problems.
At best you end up doing things by long-winded means. At worst the
program just won't do what you want.
At its most basic, a macro replays a series of keystrokes, so you
can automate frequently-used sequences. This is what a ClarisWorks macro
does and it can save you time and effort. In the stand-alone programs,
however, macros have been extended.
For example, you could have a macro set up to present a dialog box
that asks for a new entry. It might store the data in a convenient group
of cells you've set aside for the purpose, find the correct insertion
point, move all the data below it down a line, then move the information
from its temporary position. Alternatively it could find the next blank
line at the bottom of the column of data, select the range of cells
containing everything already entered, then perform a sort on it.
To do either of these things requires the macro to be able to build
a dialog box and detect blank cells, or compare the contents of one cell
with another. These abilities go beyond what you can do with a straight
replay of menu options and keyboard shortcuts. So ClarisWorks macros
don't lend themselves to a complete solution.
In fact, because you can't do something like place the cursor at the
bottom right corner of a block, then highlight the block by using a
keyboard shortcut, even if the top left-hand corner is always at A2, say,
there's nothing you can do with macros at all.
The best answer I can see, in terms of minimising effort, is to type
your new entry at the bottom of the column, select the entire block of
data with the mouse, then press [Ctrl][J]. This brings up the Sort dialog
box, also available from the Calculate menu.
Make sure the sort key is a cell in the date column, choose ascending or
descending and vertical as the direction, and then click OK. Your new
entry will wind up in its correct position.
You'll need to ensure dates are entered as numbers formatted to
appear as dates. If you enter them as text, the sort won't produce the
right order. You can recover from a mistake (for example if you didn't
highlight a column) with Edit, Undo Sort.
I'd seriously consider a dedicated accounts program or a more
powerful spreadsheet, though in the latter case you're letting yourself
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: December 1994
Issue: 98
Page: 411
Title: DELL DILEMMA
I have a Dell 486P/50 with low-profile 3.5-inch and 5.25-inch drives. The
problem is that the computer case is also low-profile, and there is no
more drive space.
What options are open to me for installing a CD-ROM? So far I have
identified two:
- To buy an external drive, but this seems to be about three times the
cost of an internal unit.
- To buy a large tower case and reinstall my entire Dell system.
I would like to hear other suggestions or to know of published
information relating to this difficulty.
Bruce Condell, France
Short of buying a new PC I think you've got it covered. Lack of expansion
potential is always a problem with slimline or low-profile cases.
How high is the low-profile 5.25-inch drive? A CD-ROM needs a tad
over 42mm. If it would fit the 5.25-inch bay, I'd be tempted to replace
it with the CD. Most new machines are supplied with a 3.5-inch drive
only, so you are unlikely to find new software unavailable in that
format.
If you need access to 5.25-inch disks, is there a way round the
problem? If the disks come from one other person, it would be cheaper to
buy them a 3.5-inch upgrade. If the disks are all your own, can you copy
them to 3.5-inch format?
If none of these suggestions is feasible, then as you suggest, your
options are to buy a larger case or an external drive. If your machine
has a Christmas tree arrangement for the expansion cards (the cards are
mounted parallel with the motherboard) you can forget the larger case,
these are designed for boards with the conventional arrangement of
expansion cards at 90 degrees.
If you do go for a generic tower case rather than a Dell original,
it's going to cost you in the region of
90, possibly plus odds and ends
like longer cables, screws, and mounts for your drives and motherboard.
Read our motherboard upgrade feature (September issue, page 292) for an
indication of other potential difficulties.
Roughly
90 is the price premium of an external drive compared with
the same model in internal format. External drives tend to be the
higher-end models, so changing the case is probably the most economical
option if you're looking for a cheaper drive. You do risk experiencing a
higher level of hassle, though.
Bear in mind that a CD-ROM drive needs an interface card. If you're
going the multimedia route you will also need a sound card and speakers.
The sound card can act as the interface for certain makes of CD-ROM, so
it makes sense to match the two together.
If you don't have a sound card, a multimedia kit with external drive
is the least troublesome option. Creative Labs' Easy CD16 Pro is such a
Menu{/
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: December 1994
Issue: 98
Page: 411
Title: MONSTER FONT PROBLEMS
In the September issue on page 325 I told you about a font cataloguing
macro for Word 6 that I had written and included on the SuperDisk/CD. I
also mentioned a shareware font cataloguing utility called Font Monster.
I have had a few letters concerning the management of fonts and two about
the macro, so I will deal with them together.
I was so taken with Font Monster that I've since acquired permission
from the author to put it on the SuperCD. It's the answer to your font
management problems under Windows. With Font Monster you can easily
install and uninstall fonts, group them, edit their names, print samples
and so on - well worth a shufty. Sorry, but it was too big for the
SuperDisk, though you should find it easy to pick it up from a shareware
library or on-line service.
While I was exchanging Internet e-mails with the author in Taiwan,
he mentioned another font manager he'd written called Font Control. This
is much simpler than Font Monster and you may find it preferable. It,
too, is on the SuperCD.
I had a letter from John Botting who wanted to look at the macro
commands, but, although he could run Fontcat, he was unable to select it
for editing. That is because I missed a step in the instructions. In
File, Templates you need to click on the Attach button, choose
FONTCAT.DOT again, and then OK.
Joe Odukoya e-mailed me on CIX with a request for a Word for Windows
v2 version of the macro and installation instructions. Knowing that the
Word 6 WordBASIC language has new commands, I thought that the macro
would be totally incompatible with Word 2. On importing it, though, I
found it only needed minor modifications to get it running, though I did
have to REM out some commands concerned with printing the fonts in
alphabetical order and making the output tidy.
The modified macro is on the SuperDisk and SuperCD. It's in the template
file called FONTCAT2.DOT. Go to File, Open. Select List Files of Type
Document Templates (*.DOT). Find and open FONTCAT2.DOC. Go to Tools,
Menud9
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: December 1994
Issue: 98
Page: 411
Title: CD EXCERPTS
Owners of PCs fitted with CD-ROM drives who also have a collection of
audio CDs might be interested to hear about a technique I discovered
recently. Essentially it allows you to play pre-set excerpts of a CD from
within another application like a database or word processing document.
Put an audio CD in the drive, and run Media Player - it's in the
Accessories group. Under Device, choose CD Audio. Under Scale I find it
easier to have Time selected. You can now click on the play button (the
one marked with a forward arrow symbol) to hear the music play.
Find and mark an excerpt you're interested in. It can be a whole
track (or a set of tracks) or just a few seconds within a track. The
quick way to move around is with the fast forward and reverse buttons, or
just drag the moving pointer with the mouse.
At the start of the section to be used press the left of the two
marker buttons - the pair on the right of the control panel. At the end
of the section click the button furthest to the right. You will now see a
grey area in the progress indicator bar representing the selected music.
You can make fine adjustments to the start and end positions under Edit,
Selection.
Now choose Edit, Copy Object. Switch to the application in which you
want to embed the excerpt. In a word processor you would move the pointer
to the place in the document where you want to make the insertion.
On the application's Edit menu, select Paste. An icon will appear in
the document which, when double-clicked, will play the clip. Note that it
plays it from the CD; the excerpt is not copied sound. It is simply a
record of whereabouts on the CD it will play from.
As a sometime musician, teacher and avid collector of CDs, I've
already used it to great effect in some applications. I wrote a tutorial
document about a symphony. Throughout this I've placed icons which can be
used to play the part I'm referring to.
I also have two other documents. One is called Good Tunes. It
contains a list of CDs containing good tunes. Each item has one or more
icons so that I can play just those bits after inserting the relevant CD.
The other is called Catalogue and lists my CD collection. On CDs with
multiple tracks it not only lists each one, but will play a quick snatch
to remind me what it sounds like.
If you have Video for Windows installed, you can do the same sort of
thing with video clips.
Jim Burgess, Kidderminster
Welcome to the world of OLE (object linking and embedding). The handy
thing about only recording the start and end points of the clip, rather
than the clip itself, is that hardly any memory gets used and it works
    Main Menu
I am a business adviser and lecture to businesses on the skills
required for same. I wish to be able to run a training programme via an
OHP overlay panel. The content would in
I am a business adviser and lecture to businesses on the skills
required for same. I wish to be able to run a training programme via an
OHP overlay panel. The content would iny
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: December 1994
Issue: 98
Page: 415
Title: PAPER CHASE
I wish to print short runs of business cards with my laser printer, but I
do not want plain black-and-white that brands the card (and its owner) as
low-rent.
I have myself received a card that on close examination looks as
though the text was printed on a tired laser, but there is a properly
printed coloured design. It is obviously possible to buy blank cards
suitable for a computer printer. Have you encountered these, and if so
where may they be purchased?
Steven Heston, Southport
I found a company called PaperDirect which sells sheets of blank business
cards suitable for a printer or photocopier. There are a variety of
designs available and with a good laser it ought to be possible to
produce cards indistinguishable from professionally printed ones.
Some other things that caught my eye in the company's catalogue are
special sheets that enable you to produce metallic printing in various
colours on a laser, and paper that's pre-printed with smart designs
intended to fold over into brochures. Certificates, postcards and
designer labels suitable for printers are produced too.
Anyone wanting to print their own business stationery should find
this catalogue interesting. PaperDirect can be contacted on (0800)
616244, or fax [phone].
MenucM
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: December 1994
Issue: 98
Page: 415
Title: SUNK HARD DISK
Is there any reason why my computer now refuses to acknowledge my C:
drive and will only boot from a floppy disk? My hard disk was partitioned
to C and D, but now it won't read the D: drive either.
M McClintock, Wareham
There are three main reasons why a hard disk might sink from view:
* The CMOS settings have been lost. The CMOS is an area of memory whose
contents are maintained by a battery when the PC is switched off. It
stores configuration information, such as vital statistics about the hard
disk which enable reading from it to take place. These settings could get
lost, possibly owing to the battery expiring or the memory becoming
corrupted by a mains spike, program crash or, less commonly, because of a
failure on part of the motherboard.
The PC's manual will tell you how to access the CMOS set-up screen
from which the settings are made.
You will also need the hard drive documentation so that you can
check, and if necessary correct, the information you find there. At a
pinch you can open up the PC to look at the drive.
If the settings, such as the number of heads and cylinders, are not
on a label on its case, you can at least read off the drive manufacturer
and model number and try to obtain the information from the maker of the
drive or the PC.
* A physical failure of the hard disk, the controller, the cable between
them or, possibly, the expansion slot in which the controller card sits
(if it isn't built in to the motherboard) has taken place.
The only way for you to test is by substitution. Try re-seating all the
connections. If the disk controller is an expansion card, try it in
another slot. Try another cable. Try another controller card or fitting
the disk into another system. Failing that, it's off to a repair shop for
testing.
* The disk is physically intact, but the data on it has become corrupt -
in particular the part of it which stores the boot program and the
partition information.
You can try running disk diagnostic software like Norton Utilities
which may be able to sort it out. If not, and there is important data on
the drive which you want to try to recover, the disk needs to be sent to
a data recovery specialist like S&S International (telephone 0296
318700).
If you can afford to abandon the disk's contents, try Fdisk on it to
repartition the drive, then format both logical drives:
FORMAT D:
FORMAT C: /S
The /S switch instructs Format to put a copy of the operating system on
C: so that it can be booted from.
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: December 1994
Issue: 98
Page: 415
Title: SLOW VIDEO
I would welcome your suggestions as to how I may best achieve a quality
solution to a problem.
I am a business adviser and lecture to businesses on the skills
required for same. I wish to be able to run a training programme via an
OHP overlay panel. The content would include a Windows spreadsheet,
showing the build-up of a forecast interspersed with video clips, and
sound commentary explaining important points.
Because of the detailing required in the spreadsheet I require a
fairly high resolution, but this unfortunately causes the video virtually
to halt.
Alastair Wood, Grangemouth
I see from the information you enclosed about your system that this is a
high-specification multimedia PC fitted with 16Mb RAM, double-speed
CD-ROM drive, Windows for Workgroups, and a PCI ATI Ultra graphics card.
Video clips contain so much information that they are always a
problem when you try to play them back with a purely software-based
solution like Video for Windows, even on a fast PC. The bigger you run
them, the slower and chunkier they get.
While there is a certain amount of tweaking you can do to optimise
speed, with the way your system is already set up, I doubt it will make a
significant enough impact to give you the quality you require. I assume
you're running the clips from hard disk rather than CD? CD, as you are
probably aware, is relatively slow.
My suggestion is to fit additional hardware dedicated to the
playback of video clips. In particular, try to see a demo of a
replacement video card produced by VideoLogic, called 928Movie.
The key component is VideoLogic's PowerPlay chip, which can scale up
AVI files to any size, as far as full-screen, and maintain 30 frames per
second playback rate. What is better still is that, when scaling up, it
interpolates new information between pixels so that there is little or no
degradation in image quality.
The one problem from your point of view is that at the time of
writing, the advertised models are ISA or VL-Bus. VideoLogic tells me,
however, that it has just released a PCI version called PCI Movie. This
sounds like a very quick graphics card in its own right and it is claimed
that is twice as fast as earlier versions for normal Windows graphics
work. It has the PowerPlay chip, too, but doesn't have the optional sound
support of the ISA and VL-Bus versions.
Check through the adverts for it, or contact VideoLogic on (0923)
MenuQ
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: December 1994
Issue: 98
Page: 417
Title: INKJET REFILLS
I own two inkjet printers - a Canon Bubblejet BJ-200 and an Olivetti
JP-350 WS. I have been refilling the cartridges for almost a year. My
experience shows that Parker Quink ink is an excellent alternative to the
re-ink sets which you can buy from your computer shop.
I found that the permanent black ink gives a light grey print after
two or more refills. Permanent blue/black will give a faded blue print.
But mixing the two types gives a very good firm black print. The mixing
is not complicated; just alternate the types of Quink at each refill.
If the print-head gets clogged, you can use the tricks that you
learned to unclog fountain pens. Letting ink flow through the nozzles by
holding the head against tissue, blowing ink through the nozzles, or just
rinsing the head under the hot water tap (60-70 degrees Centigrade) and
blowing through afterwards will do the job.
E G H Riedel, Netherlands
I pass this one on untested, but since the heads are disposable there's
little to be lost if you try it on one that's nearing the end of its
life. Perhaps anyone who tries it could let us know how they get on.
MenuRj
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: December 1994
Issue: 98
Page: 417
Title: DOS DUMPS IN WINDOWS
I use an elderly and simple DOS program which is still very useful for
its purpose, but it does require a screen dump on some screens in order
to print information.
I normally run the program from within Windows, but the process is
overly long-winded. Can you tell me if there is a simple way either to
disable the Windows clipboard screen dump, or to allow a
direct-to-printer dump?
At present I have to be out of Windows and run the program just for
the screen dump. I am running a 486DX machine, Windows 3.1, DOS v5 and
have a number of cups of coffee on the go at one time.
Richard Clive, Cheriton
I must admit to sneaking back to DOS occasionally, especially when I want
to get something done quickly. Most writing gets done on Word, Ami, or
whatever takes my fancy that day. Rush jobs see me reverting to DOS-based
Protext, much to the incredulity and disgust of passers-by.
Fire up PIF Editor (it's in the Main group) and load the PIF file
which runs your application. Click on the Advanced button, and under the
Other Options section you will see a group of check boxes labelled
Reserve Shortcut Keys. Click the PrtSc box. Click OK. Do a File, Save and
then exit.
Next time you run the application, you will find that [PrtSc]
initiates a normal screen dump.
If you aren't already running your application from a PIF file, you
need to set one up. Run PIF Editor and fill in the boxes at the top. Save
the file as PROGNAME.PIF, where before you were running PROGNAME.EXE or
PROGNAME.COM.
Back in Program Manager, highlight the icon from which
you run your DOS application and select Properties from the file menu, or
alternatively create a new program item now. The command line should be
PROGNAME.PIF.
Setting up a PIF file for a program and running that instead of the
application directly allows you to tell Windows about special settings
that relate only to the application in question.
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: December 1994
Issue: 98
Page: 415
Title: ALL CHANGES DROPPED
Regarding Wilf's comments on static electricity in the August edition
(page 319): you are quite right that it is very important to avoid static
voltages on your body when working on a computer, particularly if doing
any servicing or enhancements. Voltages well below those at which you
feel shock can upset the operation of sensitive electronic systems and
can damage semiconductor components.
To remove charge from your body before you touch the computer you need to
contact something connected to earth, for example a plaster wall or a
metal radiator. Direct contact to the earth of the computer system is not
advised. This may discharge you, but the associated spark discharge may
upset the computer.
To avoid problems you should contact earth through a material which
removes charge sufficiently slowly for you not to feel a shock at contact
- even though you may be at 10,000 volts or more. However, it must also
remove charge sufficiently quickly for a brief touch to be sufficient to
reduce your charge to a safe level.
The suggested cloth for beneath the computer needs to link to earth and
needs to be touched. The best solution is a material which ensures quick
but not too rapid discharge of the static of the body. Such a material is
offered by StatPad Ltd in Macclesfield - [phone].
J N Chubb, Cheltenham
I must confess that I used to be blase about static, having poked around
inside many a PC and manhandled many an expansion card into place without
problems. But I was finally convinced when I found an acquaintance
sobbing over
80 worth of SIMMs that had died in his hands. I notice
Powermark (081-951 3355) features a
3 static-discharge wrist strap in
the 'Pup of the Month (Yap!)' box on some of its adverts.
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: December 1994
Issue: 98
Page: 409
Title: THE INVULNERABLE DIRECTORY
When I read Wilf's answer to Tony Tai in the July issue I thought my
prayers had been answered before I'd got round to writing to you for
help. But this was not the case, unfortunately. My problem is similar to
Tony's. I made a temporary directory called \JUNK. Later I found I could
not delete the directory from the hard disk, and similar messages to
Tony's appeared: 'Invalid path; not directory or directory not empty'. A
closer look at the directory listing showed the name of this directory
appearing with a leading space. When I ran the Microsoft Backup program
it halted at this subdirectory, saying it could not access it. I have
similar symptoms with other programs.
I tried Wilf's DIRU program from the SuperCD but got the message
'Function not possible'.
Navid S Qureshi, Blackpool
I don't know how this non-printing character got on to the front of JUNK,
but, as you will have appreciated from the Help Screen reply, a space
cannot normally be part of a directory or filename. If you do manage to
make an illegal character part of a name, the file or directory becomes
largely inaccessible. I can think of three reasons why DIRU might fail.
The first is that the directory isn't empty. You need to CD into it to
Menu^
check for files, including hidden ones. The ATTRIB command will help you
out there.
Secondly, a space (ASCII code 32) is not the only character that is
displayed as a blank. Characters 0 and 255 are the other two. If you feed
DIRU the name JUNK, preceded by a blank whose code is 32, it won't delete
a file whose name is JUNK preceded by character 255. They look the same,
but as a string of character codes they are different.
I doubt the leading space is ASCII code 0, because that would introduce a
further problem. Most programs use code 0 to mark the end of a string, so
if you insert it at the start of the string your remaining characters
will be ignored. In fact the name won't even show up in the directory
listing.
I'd try character 255 first. You don't even need DIRU for this - the MD,
CD and RD commands will accept [Alt]255 from the DOS command line, where
the 255 is typed on the numeric keypad while holding down the [Alt] key.
If you don't have any luck with that, one way to shift a stubborn
character is to use a disk sector editor to alter it to something legal.
With a sector editor you directly alter individual bytes on the disk,
bypassing the DOS file management routines that won't accept some
characters.
Using Disk Editor in Norton Utilities, for example, you would approach
the operation as follows. Go to the Tools menu, select Configuration, and
turn off read-only protection. In the main display, navigate your way to
the root directory, and highlight the aberrant directory name. Press [F2]
to switch to hexadecimal view.
The peculiar numbers you can see are in base 16. On the right you can see
the characters these numbers represent. Move the cursor to the one before
J (which is hexadecimal 4A) and overwrite whatever you find there with a
legal character code. Another 4A will do, making the name JJUNK.
Go to the Object menu, and select Exit. Confirm that you want to write
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: January 1995
Issue: 99
Page: 407
Title: CD-ROM UPGRADE
I have spent many hours trawling through computer magazines to assess the
type of CD-ROM drive I would like. Can you answer the following
questions?
1. Is it possible for a CD-ROM drive to operate without sound?
2. Can a parallel port CD-ROM drive be speeded up without too much work
on the innards of the computer?
3. I read that the postage stamp picture format of certain CD-ROMs is not
what one expects, so if a video card such as Videologic 928 is added, is
the enlargement of the picture at the expense of sharpness and are other
video cards similar in performance to the Videologic 928?
4. Sound cards are recommended, but should one opt for a combined
video/sound card, particularly if expansion slots are not a limiting
factor? What is the preferred route?
5. Adverts show external drives that don't operate through the parallel
port. How do these work?
Wilfred Jones, Enfield
1. CD-ROM drives will usually run without sound if you mean without a
sound card. You won't be making the most of many CD-ROMs, however. I
imagine a title like Multimedia Schubert would be a bit lacking, though
Multimedia Beethoven would have a certain authenticity. Sound isn't
confined to games and if you want the full benefit of CD-ROM, audio is
essential.
2. There are four types of parallel port: the standard uni-directional,
the more recent bi-directional, EPP (enhanced parallel port) and ECP
(extended capabilities port). The latter two are similar and offer
increased data transfer speed over the first two, which are what you'll
find fitted to most PCs.
Whether the port or the drive is the limiting factor depends on what
type of port you've got fitted and the speed of the drive. As a test I
hooked up a double-speed parallel port CD-ROM drive to a couple of PCs.
Both had standard non-enhanced ports. One gave data transfer rates around
that of a slowish single-speed drive, while the other was an astoundingly
bad 40K/sec (double-speed is 300K/sec).
The conclusion is that not all supposedly standard parallel ports
are equal and some are completely impractical. I don't know the
theoretical maximum speed you could expect from a good standard port, but
I very much doubt that it would be up to double-speed performance.
I didn't have a machine with an extended or enhanced port to hand,
but the manual accompanying the drive claimed to give double-speed
performance levels if one was fitted, which seems reasonable. Features ed
Mary tells me that we will be testing a selection of parallel port drives
in a couple of months' time.
You could fit an enhanced port. It should simply be a case of
plugging in an expansion card and making it the second parallel port, but
Menu.
it's a quirky option for a multimedia upgrade. It's wiser to spend the
money on kit designed for the job - a sound card with built-in CD-ROM
interface, or a SCSI CD-ROM drive and SCSI adaptor.
It appears that not all software will recognise a parallel port
CD-ROM drive - I was unable to use Corel's ScanCD test program for this
reason, and had to concoct my own approximate speed tests.
Parallel port drives are intended for use with portable computers,
or where one drive has to be shared around several machines, or if there
is no room for an expansion card - otherwise they are to be avoided.
3. I mentioned the Videologic 928 video card last month (turn to page 515
if you missed it). To recap, it uses VideoLogic's proprietory PowerPlay
chip to achieve faster frame rates at larger window sizes when playing
back video files. When increasing the window size, loss of quality is
minimal since the chip generates extra pixels to fill in the gaps and
smooth out the jaggies.
These extra pixels obviously are unable to contain extra picture
detail, which would have been in the video clip had it been shot at
higher resolution. Instead, the chip fabricates detail that wouldn't bear
close examination, but in a moving picture is good enough to fool the
As to performance, it depends whether you're talking about video
replay or ordinary graphics. The VideoLogic is fairly quick as a graphics
card, though not the fastest you can buy. A few other boards also have
dedicated video replay hardware, for example the Matrox MGA Impression
Plus (with upgrade module). These cards will be comparable with the
VideoLogic on video replay performance and far superior to an unassisted
graphics card.
4. Buying a dual-function card is a bit like buying a music centre - it
may sound OK, work out a bit cheaper than buying separates, and occupy
less space, but is unlikely to perform as well as carefully chosen and
matched components from different manufacturers. Upgrading just the video
or the sound at a later date might also be tricky.
5. External drives plug into a socket on the back of the interface card.
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: January 1995
Issue: 99
Page: 409
Title: SQUEAKY DOS BOXES
How can I use a mouse in a DOS box when the program is reduced from
full-screen to a window?
Richard Friedman, Sheffield
Edit the SYSTEM.INI file in your Windows directory. In the
[NonWindowsApp] section insert this line:
MouseInDosBox=1
Save the file, restart Windows, and you'll be rodent-enabled as long as
you have a DOS mouse driver loaded before Windows starts.
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: January 1995
Issue: 99
Page: 409
Title: A TIP FROM WILF HEY
Do you ever struggle when trying to connect or disconnect leads round the
back of your PC or other equipment? An inexpensive remedy is to fix a few
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: January 1995
Issue: 99
Page: 409
Title: HAIRY HALFTONES
I publish a newsletter using Microsoft Publisher, which usually contains
photographs scanned with a 256-greyscale hand scanner. The printer is a
Hewlett Packard LaserJet 4 printer fitted with a PostScript module.
Recently, while playing around with Graphic Workshop (GWS) on the
October SuperCD, I noticed that prints of .TIF files from GWS were
distinctly better than when included in my newsletter. I was printing
from GWS in the LaserJet's native PCL5 mode. My newsletter is printed in
PostScript mode because it also includes artwork given to me in EPS
(Encapsulated PostScript) format which wouldn't otherwise print out.
Why is there a difference, and is there anything I can do to improve
matters?
Wayne Keane, Gravesend
As you probably know, a laser printer can only print black dots, not grey
ones. It has to simulate shades of grey with fine patterns. Increasing
the number of dots in an area makes it appear darker; lighter areas have
fewer dots.
It's a simple idea, but there are several ways of implementing it.
The main issue is how to minimise the brain's perception of the dots, and
maximise the impression of greys. Different strategies are used in
LaserJet and PostScript modes. In LaserJet mode you get a well-tuned
MenuK
algorithm which takes good advantage of the HP's 600dpi resolution. Each
grey shade is turned into a dot pattern that's been optimised to fool the
brain into seeing greys rather than dots. The algorithm is also rather
good at transitions from one shade to another - there is little evidence
of graduations of grey turning into unsightly contours of different
shades.
With PostScript you get an imitation of the method used to print
photographs in newspapers and magazines, called halftoning. A halftone
forms a picture from a grid of square cells tilted at an angle known as
'the halftone angle'. The resolution of a halftone picture is measured by
the frequency of the cells (the number per inch). Imagine this grid
overlaying a photograph. Each cell will have an average level of grey.
That same cell when output on the printer will contain a pattern of
printer dots that approximate the shade of grey. Quite how those patterns
are formed depends on the PostScript interpreter inside the printer.
If you look through a magnifying glass at a halftone picture printed
on a laser, you will often find that the cells are clearly visible
because each one contains a single black blob. A larger blob gives a
darker cell. The point is that the blob is formed from several printer
dots. Had that same number of dots been arranged in a more random way
inside the cell, the level of grey would be the same but the pattern
would be less visible.
A company called Tomorrow's Office is going to be eternally grateful
to me, because at this point I suggest all 90,000 of you hunt out
magnifying glasses and turn to the advert on page 122 of the October
issue. Examine any of the pictures and you will see what I mean. Now turn
to the Cherry advert on page 76 and examine various parts of the anatomy
of the bloke on skates; you will see better ways of forming cells.
In the LaserJet's printer driver setup dialog box, click the
Advanced button. Here you can change the halftone angle and frequency.
Adjusting the angle is unlikely to improve matters - diagonal lines are
less perceptible than horizontal or vertical ones, so the default setting
of 45 degrees is probably the best for most pictures. A frequency of,
say, 10 will give you a very coarse picture which reveals how that
particular PostScript interpreter forms a halftone cell.
Increasing the halftone frequency from its default setting of 85 may
bring a small improvement, but the limitation of the underlying printer
resolution means that little is to be gained beyond 100. In fact, beyond
a certain point the picture will get worse because the fineness of the
grid exceeds the capabilities of the printer resolution. The alternative
in your case is to investigate the possibility of changing your EPS files
to another format. If you could abandon PostScript, you could take
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: January 1995
Issue: 99
Page: 411
Title: ICON'T DO IT!
Is there any way I can make Program Manager icons larger? I know how to
alter their spacing and how to change the font (Help Screen, issue 90),
but not the size of the picture itself. I realise that by switching to
640x480 resolution the icons will occupy a larger area, but how can I
make the icons an equivalent size in, say, 800x600 mode? They would need
to be stretched.
Roger Fawcett, Douglas, IOM
Program icons can be 16, 32 or 64 pixels on an edge. Although icons are
bitmap files which aren't by their nature scalable, I notice that if you
create a 64x64-pixel icon with an icon editor, Program Manager reduces it
to 32x32 by missing out every other pixel.
As far as I can tell there is no way to make Program Manager scale
up icons or use 64-pixel ones at their full size. There's nothing
documented for WIN.INI or PROGMAN.INI. If anyone knows different, we'd
all like to hear about it.
Menu<
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: January 1995
Issue: 98
Page: 411
Title: DRIVEN TO DESPAIR
I have a two-year-old Olympic Technology 386SX, which is fitted with a
40Mb Conner CP3000 hard drive. I decided to upgrade the hard disk, and
purchased a Conner CFS420A.
Both drives work fine as C: when fitted individually, but I cannot
get the system to run with one configured as C: and the other as D:. I
get drive failure messages.
The original drive had no jumpers fitted at all on the J4 plug. The
new one, according to the data sheet, should have pins 1-2 and 3-4
linked. This does not work, no matter what jumpers I try on the original
drive.
I have checked the ribbon cable to ensure it is OK. Are these drives
incompatible, or am I missing something simple? I know the easiest thing
would be to forget about the 40Mb drive, but it contains some business
programs that won't run when I copy the files over to the new drive and
it would cost me quite a sum to repurchase these programs.
L R Armsrong, Glenrothes
The print-out of your CMOS setup screen looks OK - the CMOS is set up for
drives. You're probably aware that when you connect two IDE drives
together one has to be set up as the master, the other as the slave. The
jumpers on each drive need to be changed from their default settings,
which will be for stand-alone operation.
You would probably be best making your original drive C:, as these
unmovable programs will probably be set up to run that way. In this case
your old drive must be the master, and the new one the slave.
The jumper setting detailed in the CFS420A manual isn't necessarily
correct for the CP3000. On jumper block J4 of the CP3000 there should be
four jumper positions, with these markings and functions:
HSP: Some systems require the slave drive in a two-drive setup to provide
a 'slave present' signal. Jumpering these pins enables this signal.
C/D: Jumpered = master drive (C:), unjumpered = slave (D:).
DSP: When this drive is a master, it indicates that a slave is present.
ACT: The lead to the LED.
You therefore need jumpers on C/D and DSP on the CP3000, and whatever is
specified for the CFS420A in slave mode.
A few cautionary points arise from this:
1. Don't count on being able to jumper a drive if you haven't got the
documentation. Even if you can guess the meaning of the legends next to
the jumpers, the ones which should be connected or disconnected cannot
always be guessed.
2. Although the jumper settings from one drive in a manufacturer's range
may work on another model, this won't necessarily be the case.
3. Older IDE drives don't always adhere strictly to the IDE standard and
won't always function in a two-drive system. Buying a second drive from
the same manufacturer improves the chance of success but doesn't
guarantee it. I cannot say how well the CP3000 and CFS420A combination
works in this respect. If everything has been set up correctly and both
drives are OK individually, you are left with an incompatibility as the
most likely problem.
It's easy to be wise after the event, but for the benefit of other
readers I would advise that in similar situations orders should specify
that the new drive is compatible with the old one. It is then a condition
of sale and you can claim your money back if the two are incompatible.
4. With regard to being unable to copy your programs, what happens when
the 40Mb drive "hands in the ice pail", as P G Wodehouse put it, and goes
to live in the big 386 in the sky? Terminal senility can strike an older
disk at any time and it is better to work out what you're going to do now
rather than wait till it happens and all your data has been lost. My
drive at home is just starting to look poorly after five years, but I
only use it occasionally so that equates to a couple of years' everyday
Can't you reinstall from the original disks? If not, it is possible
that the copy protection is primitive and only requires the presence in
the program's home directory of a hidden file created by the installation
routine. Normal copy commands will miss it. Look for hidden files with
ATTRIB. Type:
ATTRIB *.*
and look for files with anything but the A flag set, indicated by the
letters R, S and H, either individually or in combination. The most
likely is the H flag, which means hidden. You can unhide the file:
ATTRIB -H filename
copy it and hide it again with the +H switch.
Matters may not be that simple and there are other ways of
implementing copy protection. For example, the program may write
information to unused space in the final cluster taken up by a file.
Because this information is not part of the file, normal copying
operations will not pick it up. The copied program will refuse to run
because it can't find the hidden data.
Copy protection has gone out of fashion and the program's
manufacturer, if still in business, may be amenable to telling you how to
do it. You would have to prove purchase and say why you want to know.
As a last resort, I would think about switching to an up-to-date
alternative. Once you've bitten the bullet of transferring your data, you
can enjoy the benefits of a more up-to-date program between now and the
MenuC
   Return to Main Menu
Date: January 1995
Issue: 99
Page: 413
Title: SUMS IN WORD 6
I have written some short Word for Windows 6 macros that may interest
other readers.
I recently upgraded to version 6a. It is packed with extra features,
while other facilities are implemented in a different manner. One of the
changes is to the Tools menu where the Calculate option is no longer
present. Its function is to calculate the mathematical expression in the
highlighted area and transfer the result to both the clipboard and the
status bar.
Under Word for Windows 6 its more comprehensive replacement has been
moved to the Table menu and renamed 'formula' in order to reflect its
wider spreadsheet nature.
For those who preferred the basic Calculate function in version 2,
it's easy to restore to version 6 with this macro:
Rem Macro Name: Calculate
Sub MAIN
ToolsCalculate
End Sub
Assign the macro to the Tools menu or an icon, using the Customise menu.
Just transferring the result to the clipboard is not user-friendly.
More usefully, with one extra command it can automatically replace the
highlighted expression:
Rem Macro Name: CalculateReplace
Sub MAIN
ToolsCalculate
EditPaste
End Sub
The next, slightly more complex version of the macro may suit your work
Menum
style. As well as making the calculation, it automatically inserts the =
symbol after the highlighted expression and then paste in the result.
Finally, to improve readability, the macro will replace all instances of
the * and / symbols with the x and _ symbols:
Rem Macro Name: Total
Sub MAIN
ToolsCalculate
EditReplace .Find="*",
.Replace=Chr$(215), .ReplaceAll
EditReplace .Find="/",
.Replace=Chr$(247), .ReplaceAll
WordRight
Insert " = "
EditPaste
Insert Chr$(32)
End Sub
(The two .Replace= lines should be typed on the end of the preceding
EditReplace lines.)
Finally, let's not forget about the handy Calculator program
supplied free with Windows. A short macro will launch it from within
WfW6. Data can be transferred to your document by means of the normal
Copy and Paste functions:
Rem Macro Name: LaunchCalculator
Sub MAIN
If AppIsRunning("Calculator") Then
AppActive "Calculator"
Shell "C:\WINDOWS\CALC.EXE"
End If
End Sub
I hope these macros will be of interest to other readers.
Tony Massing, Ilford
I'm sure they will - they certainly found a welcome home on my own
system. To enter the macro of your choice, go to Tools, Macro. Enter the
macro's name, then click on Create. Enter the instructions, and save the
template from the File menu. Close the macro document.
Using the facilities available through Tools, Customise, I created a
new menu bar item called Calculate. It has four options, as illustrated
in the screenshot below. Click the Menu Bar button, enter &Calculate into
the box, click on Add, then Close. Click on the Change What Menu
drop-down box arrow button and select &Calculate. In the Categories box
scroll down and select Macros. Highlight a macro name in the right-hand
box. Type a menu item name into Name on Menu. Click on Add. Repeat for
each macro/menu item. Press Close.
Does anybody have equivalents for other major word processors?
  Return to Main Menu
Menu#
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: January 1995
Issue: 99
Page: 415
Title: BACK TO THE BANK
With reference to the answer 'Banking On Excel' in issue 97's Help
Screen, I wonder why you found it necessary to go to the trouble of using
and hiding another column of the spreadsheet when the formula in the
balance column could have been:
=IF(C3+D3<>0, D2+C3-D3,"")
As with your formula, it assumes that the columns are formatted to
contain currency or numeric values. However, if it is used in the first
row then a #VALUE error will appear (because the title is text, and in
this example the titles are in row 2). This can be resolved by using
either:
=IF(C3+D3<>0, IF(ISNONTEXT(D2), D2+C3-
D3, C3-D3), "")
throughout the whole column, or:
=IF(C3+D3<>0, C3-D3,"")
in the first row, and:
=IF(C3+D3, D2+C3-D3,"")
in subsequent rows.
The better solution is to use the first row to contain a
brought-forward figure in the balance column and then use:
=IF(C3+D3<>0, D2+C3-D3,"")
in all subsequent rows.
Whichever solution is used, with spreadsheets you should always
avoid unnecessarily using and hiding rows or columns, if only for peace
of mind in the future when you wonder where they are and why you did it.
Bob Jacobs, Mountsorrel
I'll concede that this and similar techniques you and other readers have
outlined are more efficient, but it seems that the biggest danger of
using a hidden column is the number of indignant correspondents who
object to it in principle!
Aren't the jump in column letters and the references to it from
column F a bit of a giveaway? On larger and more complex spreadsheets the
underlying mechanics should be documented by the programmer, after which
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: January 1995
Issue: 99
Page: 415
Title: LOCKED WINDOWS
During the day our PC is used in a small office run from home. At night
the kids take over. Despite threats of being giftwrapped and turned over
to the bogey man, they still muck around in Program Manager and run
programs they shouldn't. Is there any way to stop them messing around
with the system?
Simon Spencer, Cleethorpes
Yes, as long as they aren't PC experts. I'm devoting a fair amount of
space to this because I know a lot of people would like to be able to
limit access to their PCs, and I have come up with an answer that will be
adequate for Windows-based systems in many situations.
You can use Program Manager's security features along with a simple
reconfiguration of your system to restrict access to chosen programs and
limit the changes that can be made to Program Manager itself. In addition
you have the option of adding password protection to individual
applications.
First, let's look at the security features offered by Program
Manager. By making alterations to PROGMAN.INI (Program Manager's
initialisation file) you can install various levels of security. By
themselves they're flimsy and potentially inconvenient, but as we shall
see they can be built upon.
Load PROGMAN.INI into Notepad. At the bottom of the file add a new
section heading, as follows:
[Restrictions]
Under here, there are five things that you can add:
norun=
noclose=
nosavesettings=
nofilemenu=
editlevel=
After each of these you put a number. 0 is always the default setting -
the same as if the line wasn't there at all. Here are the other numbers
you can include:
norun=1:
The Run command in the File menu becomes inaccessible.
noclose=1:
Disables the ability to exit from Windows with
[Alt]+[F4] or File, Exit.
nosavesettings=1:
Disables the ability to save changes to Program
Manager settings.
nofilemenu=1:
Disables the File menu.
editlevel=1:
Unable to create, delete or rename groups.
editlevel=2:
As above, plus can't edit program item settings
editlevel=3:
As above, plus can't change the command line entry in
a program's properties setting.
editlevel=4:
Everything in levels 1-3, plus no changes at all to
an item's properties.
Specify the features you want, and save PROGMAN.INI. Restart Windows to
bring the changes into effect.
Even with everything enabled a skilled user can sidestep these
restrictions, and they are a pain when a legitimate user wants to make
changes. You also have the problem that File Manager, the DOS prompt and
Control Panel are still usable.
You could put a password on these or any other program. All you need
is the program Password on this month's SuperDisk/CD. It's something I
ran up in Visual Basic and since this is a plug for PC Plus, we give
permission to distribute it freely on a not-for-profit basis, although we
retain copyright.
Copy PASSWORD.EXE into your Windows directory. You will need VBRUN300.DLL
in \WINDOWS\SYSTEM. A lot of programs use this and many of you will
already have it. It is also on the SuperCD and subscriber's disk, but is
too large to fit on the SuperDisk.
Use File Manager, or Program Manager's File, Run menu item, to run
PASSWORD.EXE with a /S switch:
C:\WINDOWS\PASSWORD.EXE /S
Adjust the path to the Windows directory if it is different on your
system. This will bring up a dialog box that enables you to change the
password from its default setting of dropthebird. All lower case, no full
stop, and a brief moment of glory in a future Help Screen to the first
person to write to me explaining the allusion. The one password applies
to every icon you want to protect.
Now, for each program to which you want to restrict access, select
its icon in Program Manager and bring up its Properties dialog (go to
File, Properties or press [Alt][Return]). Click Change Icon and make a
note of the filename in the box. Quit back to the Properties dialog.
Change the command line to run \WINDOWS\PASSWORD.EXE with the
previous command line as its parameter. So the following command line:
C:\MYDIR\PROGNAME.EXE /T
becomes:
C:\WINDOWS\PASSWORD.EXE
C:\MYDIR\PROGNAME.EXE /T
Click on Change Icon again, and restore the filename you noted earlier.
If more than one icon shows up, choose the appropriate one. OK your way
back to Program Manager.
You will now find that you are asked for the password before being
allowed to run the program. Be sure to protect File Manager and other
routes to places where files can be changed - Write, Notepad, SysEdit the
MS-DOS prompt and DOS programs that allow you to shell to DOS.
Finally, make all the alterations to
PROGMAN.INI that are detailed above. It will then be impossible for
someone to run a protected Windows application or change the icon's
command line unless they know the password or how to disable the extra
lines in PROGMAN.INI.
The password is stored slightly scrambled in a file called
PASSWORD.DAT. This is placed in your Windows directory when you first run
Password and locked by turning on its read-only, hidden and system
attributes. Not exactly Fort Knox, I know, but good enough to deter
casual interference.
Another solution you might like to consider is to have two Windows
configurations, one that you use during the day, while the other comes
into play at night. The children's version features a single group
containing only the programs you want to make available.
The trick is achieved by having two versions of PROGMAN.INI - the
file that contains the list of groups that Program Manager displays. You
swap these files from MS-DOS before Windows is started. The children's
Menui
version could have restrictions set, the other not. This would provide a
reasonably quick way of maintaining alternative configurations.
To set up a system like this, proceed as follows. In Program Manager
create a program group called 'Just For You'. Specify a group file of
JUST4YOU.GRP. This group is for your wild barbarian horde. Copy into it
the icons for the programs you want to be available to the children. The
quickest way to copy an icon from one group to another is to hold down
[Ctrl] while dragging it with the mouse.
Make sure the Options menu has the Save Settings On Exit set, then
quit from Windows. Go into the WINDOWS directory and make a copy of
PROGMAN.INI:
COPY PROGMAN.INI PROGBAK.INI
Restart Windows. Fire up Notepad in the Accessories group, and then load
\WINDOWS\PROGMAN.INI. At the bottom of the [Groups] section there will be
a line like:
Group21=C:\WINDOWS\JUST4YOU.GRP
The number (21) might be different. Delete the line, along with the
corresponding number in the Order= line further up. Do a Save As on this
file, calling it \WINDOWS\JUST4US.INI. This is the version of PROGMAN.INI
that contains your daytime configuration.
Now load PROGBAK.INI. Delete all the lines under [Groups] except the
one with JUST4YOU.GRP in it. Change the Group21= part (or whatever number
is used instead) to Group1=. Change the Order= line to:
order= 1
Now do a Save As again, this time calling the file \WINDOWS\JUST4YOU.INI.
All you need now is a mechanism which allows Windows to be easily
started with whichever PROGMAN.INI file is appropriate. Firstly, use
Notepad to create the short batch file shown.
@echo off
if %1""=="" goto kids
if %1==GROWNUPS goto grownups
:kids
copy C:\WINDOWS\just4you.ini
C:\WINDOWS\progman.ini > nul
goto exit
:grownups
copy C:\WINDOWS\just4us.ini
C:\WINDOWS\progman.ini > nul
copy C:\WINDOWS\progman.ini
C:\WINDOWS\just4us.ini > nul
:exit
Call it WIN.BAT and save it in your \WINDOWS directory. Go back to DOS
and type these lines:
CD\WINDOWS
REN WIN.COM ~W.COM
WIN.COM, the program you normally run to start Windows, has now been
renamed as something less obvious. To start Windows you now run WIN.BAT
with one of the following command lines:
WIN GROWNUPS
Note that GROWNUPS on the command line and the same word in WIN.BAT must
be typed in the same case, or the system won't work.
WIN by itself invokes the children's version of Program Manager,
while the second line starts the adults' version. An additional tweak is
that when the adult version exits, the batch file copies PROGMAN.INI to
make an updated JUST4US.INI, so that changes to groups are saved.
Finally, please remember that these security features are all
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: February 1995
Issue: 100
Page: 399
Title: DRIVESPACE, DRIVE SLOW
Since installing DriveSpace I find that some programs have slowed down
considerably, despite Microsoft's claim that it should have no noticeable
effect. Is the claim not to be relied on, or does the problem lie
elsewhere?
Jay Burgess, Bangor
Any on-the-fly disk compression is going to take up processor time and
will therefore slow down your computer. In order to balance this, less
data is being written to or read from the disk. Since disk reads and
writes are relatively slow processes, any reduction in the volume of data
is going to save time. Whether the net effect is a slow-down or a
speed-up will depend on the relative speed of the processor and the disk,
and how well the data compresses.
A slow processor coupled to a fast hard disk will incur a greater
performance penalty than a fast CPU talking to a slow disk, where there
might even be an overall gain.
If you take the writing of a ZIP file which is already well
compressed as an extreme example, the processor is spending time trying
to squash it further but with no effect. It will therefore be slower than
if the file was being written directly to an uncompressed drive. At the
other extreme, a huge BMP file containing little detail will compress
quite a lot, giving a good chance of a net gain in data transfer speed.
In fact a ZIP file isn't that extreme an example - some software
these days is pre-compressed. The EXE file may have been run through a
compression utility, and big data files may be in a compressed format
too. A .JPG graphics file is already more efficiently compressed than the
best disk doubler can achieve.
Small files give the compression algorithm less scope for finding
repeating patterns, so larger files tend to compress better. If an
application makes intensive use of files that are small or already
efficiently packed, it will slow down unduly.
A good-sized disk cache may help reduce the speed degradation, but
the number of variables makes it impossible to predict by how much. It is
worth trying having only part of a drive compressed, and putting the
speed-critical files on the uncompressed section.
If you're using Windows, double-check that you have 32-bit disk
access turned on (in the 386 Enhanced section of Control Panel) and, if
available, 32-bit file access as well. Also check that the cache setting
is a reasonable size and that, in compensation, SmartDrive, if it is
installed at all, has minimal or no size under Windows.
To get a rough idea of whether DriveSpace (The MS-DOS 6.22
replacement for DoubleSpace) incurs much of a speed penalty, I ran some
tests on a PC with an uncompressed drive. I then DriveSpaced it, and
repeated the tests. The machine was a 25MHz 486SX. The tests were simple
Menu\
measures of the times taken to start Windows, read a graphics file into
Graphic Workshop, and to start up Control Panel.
I ran them on a new Windows for Workgroups installation with
SmartDrive loaded. I then turned on 32-bit file and disk access,
accepting the default cache and virtual memory settings. Finally, I
DriveSpaced the disk and ran them a third time. Note that installing
DriveSpace disabled 32-bit file and disk access - I had to turn them on
again.
You can see what happened in the table. On this particular setup
under these particular circumstances, 32-bit access speeds up disk
reading, particularly in Control Panel. The point about Control Panel is
that it reads lots of small files. On the initial run (when the files
aren't in the cache) DriveSpace brings performance down by 50 per cent.
Loading Windows is about 15 per cent slower first time and, for some
reason, 40 per cent slower subsequently. There is little to choose with
the graphics file, which was mainly white and lent itself to compression.
You would expect the performance penalty on disk writes to be a bit
worse, since the processor has more work to do encoding a file than it
does decoding one.
These results aren't scientific but the exact figures aren't
important - they are enough to prove that under some circumstances disk
compression software can have a marked effect on data transfer rates. I
imagine there are worst-case scenarios in which the slow down is more
extreme.
A point worth making regarding other compressors is that they may
not be compatible with 32-bit file access - Stacker 4 turns it off
(without telling you), for example - which means that speed will be
further curtailed.
Timing Disk Reads
%New Windows
32-bit disk
%installation 1st
and file
DriveSpace
%time / subsequent
access
installed
%times (seconds)    enabled
Load Windows
10.5/10.1
View graphics file
2/1.85
1.8/1.7
1.9/1.75
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: February 1995
Issue: 100
Page: 401
Title: IT'S A CLOCK UP!
I run Windows 3.11 Clock 'Always On Top'. It usually surfaces in the
vicinity of the bottom right of the screen, and I have to drag it to
where I like it, beside the top right-hand main minimise button.
I have tried unsuccessfully to edit the CLOCK.INI file in \WINDOWS.
However, I have so far failed to find any combination to move it where I
want it. Any ideas?
R H S Bellhouse, Uley
I'm surprised that Clock doesn't remember its position and size when you
shut down Windows - that's what CLOCK.INI is for!
However, it is only updated if you close down Clock with the Close
option in its control menu. If you just switch off with Clock running,
CLOCK.INI will be unchanged. Similarly, if you alter CLOCK.INI manually
with Clock already running, then close down Clock, the changes you made
will be overwritten.
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: February 1995
Issue: 100
Page: 401
Title: BUSINESS CARD UPDATE
Steven Heston of Southport wrote about short runs of business cards
(issue 98). When I was in America earlier this year I found Avery had
just produced perforated cards for laser printers. Some of the boxes had
a 'NEW' flash. I purchased a few at $9.99 plus local sales taxes.
If your correspondent cannot obtain what he is looking for, he could
telephone one of the major office suppliers in the States and order some
with his credit card.
I bought mine from Office Max in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The chain has
a mail order 1-800 number which cannot be used from the UK, but the Ann
Arbor branch has a local number [phone]. The catalogue number of
these cards is 0702-1885.
Dr Russell Walshaw, South Humberside
I checked with Avery here in the UK, and there is indeed a newly
introduced range of business cards suitable for laser printers. The
product code is L7413. You get 25 sheets per pack, each sheet containing
10 plain white perforated cards. On the sample Dr Walshaw sent me the
perforated edge is barely perceptible. The RRP here in the UK is a
princely
16 per pack.
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: February 1995
Issue: 100
Page: 401
Title: QUATTRO ADDRESS LABELS
I have set up a database of names and addresses in Quattro Pro for
Windows with each name and address line occupying adjacent horizontal
cells. I am now trying to get the data to print out on to labels for
mailing. Is there an easy way of doing this? I use A4 sheets of labels in
an HP DeskJet Plus printer. Each sheet will be two labels wide by seven
deep - or three by seven if I can make the information fit.
Andrew Lockwood, Liverpool
Address labels are possible, but a bit more difficult than with a
database or word processor program already set up for the job. If you
possessed another program in which label printing was catered for, I
would recommend that you exported the data to this, however, I see from
the additional information you sent that this isn't the case.
One way of tackling this problem is to develop the idea I presented
in issue 98. A separate worksheet page can be set up as a template, with
the layout, cell sizes and fonts matched to a sheet of labels. You then
copy this data across from your primary worksheet into the label
template.
The main difference between this and issue 98's order form setup is
that if you have a lot of names, you want to avoid turning the label
template into a replica of a complete print run.
In other words, if your print run amounts to 100 sheets of labels,
you don't want all 100 pages' worth of filled templates running down your
worksheet - it would be too cumbersome and you might run into memory and
speed problems.
A far neater solution is to set up a template for just one sheet of
labels, then write a macro which follows this logic:
* Copy a label sheet's worth of data into the template.
* Print it.
* Copy another sheet's worth.
* Print it...and so on, until there's nothing more to print.
First, set up your template. I have based the answer on sheets of
3x7 labels - you should find that the font and line spacing can be sized
to fit. Click on the B tab at the bottom of the display to get on to a
new sheet. A label has five lines of text, so cells A1 to A5 will be our
first label, C1 to C5 will be the second label along, and E1 to E5 will
be the third.
We leave blank columns so that the horizontal inter-label spacing is
easy to alter. Similarly, we leave row 6 blank and make the second line
of labels occupy rows 7 to 11.
On a sheet of Avery L7160 3x7 labels, each one is 63.5mm wide by
38.1mm deep. Horizontally, there is a gutter 2.75mm wide between labels.
Vertically, the labels are adjacent. The sheet has a 16mm border top and
bottom, and a 7.5mm border left and right. To help avoid problems with
text overflowing, we set the print area as 60mmx35mm within each label.
With some simple arithmetic we can work out the required heights and
widths for rows and columns. To fit five rows in an area 35mm high
requires a row height of 7mm. Select cells A1 to A5. Press [F12] to bring
up the Property, Current Object menu. Select Row Height in the list on
the left of the dialog box, click on Centimetres, and enter a measurement
of 0.7. While you're at it, set Column Width to 6.0.
Select Line Drawing and then press the Outline button. Click the
thick line in the Line Types box. This puts an outline round the block of
cells that we can use for test prints to see where the print areas will
fall.
Move to a cell in column B, press [F12] again, and set its width to
0.625 - the width of the gutter strip plus two vertical borders between a
label's print area and its edge. Click Ok.
Next select a cell in row 6. Press [F12], and set its row height to
0.31 - a measurement which is again arrived at by arithmetic: two borders
of (38.1-35)/2 with no gutter strip.
Select the block A1 to B6. Go to the Block menu, then Copy. In the
To box enter C1. Check the Model Copy box to un-grey its contents. Click
Ok. Copy again, this time to E1. Each copy replicates the outlines and
the width and height settings sideways. Now select the label row A1..E6,
and block copy it down to A7. This duplicates the row. Repeat the
downward copy until you have seven rows.
Go to File, Page Setup. Set the left margin to 0.9, and the top
margin to 1.75. The header, footer, right and bottom margins should all
be zero. Check that the paper size is set to A4, that Options has Break
Pages ticked, Scaling is 100 per cent, and Print Orientation is Portrait.
Save your worksheet. Highlight cells A1:E42 and do a test print.
Labels are too expensive to waste, so print on paper. You can hold the
printout up to the light behind a sheet of labels to see how the boxes
fall. Make any dimensional tweaks as required.
The second part of the task is to write a macro. This can go anywhere on
any page in the notebook. In this example the macro will go on page C,
out of harm's way. To save typing, I have put the whole worksheet on the
SuperDisk/CD complete with template and dummy data. Run the macro by
pressing [Ctrl][L].
You will notice that at the top of page C you can change cell values
which represent the number of labels on a sheet. Note that if you change
these values, you will have to modify the cell dimensions on page B. You
can also alter the typeface and size used on the labels.
The ultimate macro would set up the cell dimensions on page B
itself, based on some typed-in dimensions. It would also set up the page
margins, then restore them to your normal values afterwards. I leave such
mods to interested users.
The macro is too complicated to go into here, but I have commented
every line. A possible point of confusion is the sprinkling of {ESC}
commands, equivalent to pressing the [Esc] key. I had to put these in
because certain macro commands leave Quattro Pro with the cursor on the
data input line at the top, meaning that subsequent commands were entered
into a cell rather than being acted upon. My debugging efforts may have
left surplus {Esc} commands in place, but some are necessary to switch
MenukI
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: February 1995
Issue: 100
Page: 403
Title: FAKING THE ACCOUNTS
I need to be able to set the PC on which I do my accounts to an
artificial date each morning so that, as far as the software is
concerned, transactions are recorded on the day they actually happened.
I also need to be sure that I have backup copies of all the data and
that the backup copies are labelled with the correct date reflecting the
day and time at which the backup was performed. My tape streamer software
obligingly puts the system date and time into the header details on the
tape as the backup is made. At present this is always the artificial date
to which the system has been set.
I run the backup software from a batch file which reminds me to
reset the date before making the backup, and also to restore it to the
artificial date afterwards. However, I am sure it would be possible in
the first part of the batch file to save the artificial system date, then
restore it again after the backup software has finished.
Despite enough pipes to rival the Channel tunnel, just like Eurostar
I can't seem to get there.
Nick Fluck, Stamford
You'd think this was dead easy - just redirect the output from the DATE
command to a file, then later feed the file back into DATE. The problem
is that DATE's output isn't in the same format that it requires for its
input, even if you manage to trim off the extraneous text. If it can be
done with batch file commands, I suspect the answer will be a triumph of
lateral thinking.
On the SuperDisk/CD is a little utility I lashed together called
DateFix. Run it without parameters to have the date saved in the root
directory on drive C in a file called DATE.DAT. Run it again to have the
date set to the saved value, but this time with a command line parameter.
Choose whatever parameter tickles your fancy - the program merely checks
Menu}R
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: February 1995
Issue: 100
Page: 405
Title: MS VIDEO NASTY
I recently had a CD-ROM drive fitted to my system. Included with the
package was The Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia. I believe the
encyclopedia's setup program installs some Windows drivers for the
encyclopedia to work with video output.
The drivers are installed via a Microsoft Video 1.0 Setup dialog.
This all worked fine until I installed MS Video 1.1 from the September
1994 SuperCD.
The setup ran alright until the Display Profile dialog appeared.
This got to the second stage of output then crashed. I can now no longer
run my encyclopedia nor other video-based applications. Could you please
tell me how to delete the needed drivers from the Windows SYSTEM
directory and start again, to clear this up.
O Gibbs, Kempston
Video for Windows installs a lot of new files and changes some of the
ones already there. To find out which ones, I used a utility that logs
files added during installation. Its report is on the SuperDisk/CD as a
plain text file called VIDWIN.RPT.
Video for Windows 1.1 can clash with some software (or the software
clashes with Video), although there isn't a general problem - it runs on
the vast majority of PCs without problems.
I would check your video driver - try running Windows with one of
the standard Microsoft drivers available through Windows Setup, then
reinstalling Video 1.1. If the crashing programs suddenly start working
again, you should try to get an updated driver for your particular card.
If not, or in the meantime, you need to reverse the changes listed in
VIDWIN.RPT as far as you can. Not all of these necessarily happened
during an aborted installation. Also, go to the Drivers section in
Control Panel, select Video for Windows, then click on Remove. Then
reinstall Video for Windows v1.0 - this may well involve reinstalling the
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: February 1995
Issue: 100
Page: 405
Title: BREAKING AND ENTERING
I recently bought a PC at an auction of office equipment from a company
that had gone under. When I turn the machine on, it immediately demands a
password which I do not know. Is the machine unusable without it? I tried
the default password listed in the manual, but it has obviously been
changed.
Don Fogarty, Belfast
The standard fix for this one is to lift the lid and disconnect the CMOS
battery. It will probably be a recognisable battery pack attached to the
motherboard by a pair of wires, or a can-like device soldered to the
board. If it is impossible to disconnect, shorting it out momentarily
isn't recommended from a longevity point of view, but may be your only
option.
The password will then be returned to the default setting specified
in the manual. Unfortunately you will lose any other modifications that
have been made to the default CMOS settings - the hard disk details or
memory size, perhaps. Make sure you are armed with these before removing
the CMOS's power, so that you are ready to reset them.
It sounds as though you bought the PC without seeing it in operation
- which is a very risky thing to do. A PC bought at auction can be good
value, but it can also be a disaster. It is imperative that you see the
thing running before bidding.
MenuW
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: February 1995
Issue: 100
Page: 405
Title: A TRIO OF TIPS
In response to your request for reader tips, here are some of mine:
* I am in the lazy habit of switching off my PC at the end of the day
without exiting from Windows. Unfortunately, when I next boot up, any
changes made to Program Manager in the previous session, such as which
groups are open and their size and position, are lost. I have found a way
round this - whenever I make a change that I would like to remain in
force, I press [Alt][Shift][F4]. This saves Program Manager changes
without exiting from Windows.
*If you want to start Windows without executing the programs in the
Startup group, just hold down [Shift] while it boots.
*Finally, users of Lotus Organizer may be interested to know that you can
change the logo on the opening page. Edit ORGANIZE.INI (it's in
Organizer's home directory). In the [Title] section you will find the
line:
Logo=
All you need to do is append the filename of a .BMP
format picture:
Logo=herman.bmp
The file must be 235 pixels wide by 200 high.
I hope other readers will find these tips useful.
Ian Smith, Swindon
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: February 1995
Issue: 100
Page: 407
Title: ALL CUT UP
My computer is the tool with which I earn my living, but one of my
hobbies is woodworking. I occasionally spend much time working out the
most economical way to cut a variety of oblong shapes from a 1200x2400
sheet of plywood, chipboard etc. I know that, in industry, there are
programs for this purpose, but is there one for my PC?
Ron Grace, Epsom
I'm told the type of software you want is called nesting software. The
problem is quite difficult to compute and I'm told that halfway-decent
examples of the genre rely on artificial intelligence techniques and
'cost big bucks'.
I did hear of a company called Phoenix Software which is supposed to
have such a program, but was unable to find contact details. Optimising
the use of sheet materials is such a common requirement that it's hard to
believe suitable software doesn't exist. Can anyone help with the name of
a suitable package, preferably a cheap one?
Someone suggested that you use a CAD or drawing program, but in my
view it would be easier to cut scale models of the components out of
graph paper and push them round inside a rectangle representing the sheet
- which is presumably what you're doing already.
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: February 1995
Issue: 100
Page: 409
Title: SQUANDERING RESOURCES
I am writing to see if you can help with my problem of running out of
Windows resources. I am using Print Manager, Word for Windows, Winfax Pro
v3, Sage Financial Controller, Windows Calculator, Clock and Lotus
Organizer. These are currently minimised and I still have 47 per cent
resources available.
During the course of the day I open and close various other
programs, but if I go back to my current configuration the resources are
greatly reduced. In time they reach nil and I have to re-start Windows.
Graham Double, Tring
One (or more) of your programs is guilty of resource leaks - allocating
itself system resources, and not releasing them afterwards. It's a known
problem with some software, as Dave Jewell has noted in recent months in
Developers' World.
Sometimes the problem lies in program code that the application's
programmer wrote, sometimes it's code put in place by the language
compiler used to write the application, or even the code inside a DLL
that the application is using.
I can't say which of your applications is or are at fault, though
WinWord is known to nibble away at resources occasionally. The way to
find out would be to monitor system resources before and after running
each of them, ensuring that you closed down programs in reverse order of
starting them up. I would leave the standard Windows accessories until
last - I don't know of any problems with those.
If you know anyone who writes Windows software, then BoundsChecker
(see issue 99) will report on applications not returning resources, even
if you don't have the source code. I recognise, though, that the
likelihood of you having a tame programmer either in possession of or
willing to buy BoundsChecker is pretty slim.
If all your programs appear to be leaking, that suggests some piece
of software which is always present is at fault -possibly a driver. It is
highly unlikely that VxDs will be at fault or your screen driver. A
printer driver could be problematic, though - you would have to isolate
it by systematically removing one driver at a time. When you've
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: March 1995
Issue: 101
Page: 399
Title: FADING SX APPEAL
Being fed up with poor Windows performance, I am thinking about
upgrading
my old 386SX to a 486DX/2-66 motherboard with 8Mb of RAM. Will 70ns SIMMs
work? Do I need a CPU fan, and if so how does it attach to the processor
and where do I take the power for it? Can you see any drawbacks in this
upgrade?
J Edwards, Wrexham
70ns RAM will work. The DX2-66 can be used with only a heatsink. However,
for peace of mind in a hot room at the height of a globally-warmed summer
I would fit a fan - especially in an older case which may not have been
designed with modern processors in mind, and so could have poor airflow
in the region of the processor.
A fan I bought a while back has a two-headed lead. One head is a
socket that goes into the plug on the end of a disk-drive power supply
line; the other head is a socket into which you can plug a disk drive.
The power consumption of the fan is minimal (less than 1 watt) and it
just clips on to the processor. Not all fans have a double-headed
arrangement, so check beforehand. I got mine from Oasis on 0707 329801.
The other things to consider are the hard disk and the video card. New
PCs tend to have a fast hard disk in excess of 300Mb capacity. If you've
got the slower 40-80Mb drive typical of the era, it will restrict
performance and limit you to a select collection of applications.
Similarly with the video card: modern PCs usually have a local bus
accelerator, so your old unaccelerated ISA card is going to strangle
performance.
If you decide to upgrade the video, you may find that your monitor can't
handle the higher resolution video modes. If it will do 800x600 you may
be happy with it, though less so if you compare its image quality with
the sharpness of a new monitor: they are much crisper than they used to
One other thing I would think about is the expansion potential of
the case. CD-ROM and a sound card are becoming ever more desirable, and
the time is not far away when they become the norm. You may not want to
consider multimedia right now, but if your machine does not have
sufficient expansion capacity you may later have cause to regret not
spending the money on a new PC, or at least a new case.
Cost this lot up, throw in a bit extra to account for your time and
possible problems, then compare it with the price of a new PC which also
buys you a guarantee, backup support, and the aura of newness. An upgrade
of this magnitude is only worthwhile if it saves a significant amount of
money or you get your jollies that way.
  Return to Main Menu
Menuf
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: March 1995
Issue: 101
Page: 401
Title: SCANJET SUBTLETIES
I am putting together a family tree on my PC, including scanned photos,
old documents and maps. I bought an HP ScanJet IIcx for the scanning
work. I am not saying that this is not a good scanner, but being new to
scanners I was disappointed. I have found it near impossible to get good
results and my graphic files are taking up far more disk space than other
graphic files on the market which are of near photographic quality.
I would be grateful for any help and advice in getting better
quality scanning results without using the disk space I am using at
present.
R A Wooster, Bushey
It should be possible to get some good results with the ScanJet. I was
impressed with the quality of the images it produced. Don't expect
miracles, though. The ScanJet is good at the price but can't hope to
compete with the standard of high-end equipment used in professional
publishing.
Quality and file size are affected by a number of factors, two of
which we will dispense with before looking at the ones directly relevant
to you. If you were taking photographs for the purpose of scanning,
transparencies scanned with the add-on transparency adaptor will give
superior results. This is an expensive option, though, and you don't have
the material in that format.
A further point is that if you want small quantities of quality
scans from your own photos, have the developer put them on PhotoCD - a
CD-ROM drive is far cheaper than a good scanner, and the results should
be excellent.
The remaining factors governing file size are: resolution (number of
dots per inch); colour depth (maximum number of colours supported in
file); file type (TIFF, PCX and so on); and compression method, if any.
Some of these affect quality, too.
A key point about the supplied DeskScan software is that it matches
the resolution of the scan to the currently selected output device. If
you have the output path set to a low-cost printer you'll get a different
resolution than if it were scanning for screen output or a professional
printing device such as a Linotronic. Experiment with the output device
setting in the Path box - you'll find
differences in resolution, and therefore file size and image quality.
The number of colours in a scan is governed by the setting in the
Type box. For monochrome photos you obviously want the Black and White
Photo setting; maps will probably be best on one of the Drawing settings,
as will plain text.
For colour photos, though, going for the Millions Of Colours item is
not necessarily the best. You will get a file that makes provision for
16.7 million colours (24-bits per pixel compared with eight bits for a
256-colour file) and consequently it will be huge.
If your display doesn't support 16.7 million colours, the viewer
software will probably try to simulate them in 256-colour mode by
dithering, the process whereby a pixel in an unavailable colour is
simulated by mixing together several pixels of other colours. Dithering
can look nasty. Try 256-colour scans (the Colour Photo setting).
Furthermore, if the colour range of the original picture is limited, it
will not benefit from 24-bit format: the number of colours in the picture
can be adequately represented by a palette of 256. I assume you aren't
using a 16-colour display! A further problem with 24-bit files is that,
when printed out, in order to simulate shades of grey, each screen pixel
must be converted into a pattern of printer dots. Larger patterns can
represent more shades. In a 24-bit file, the pattern for one screen pixel
is a rather big grid. Unless you print the picture very large, the size
of the pattern will not leave room on the page for all the screen pixels,
so you get a coarsening in resolution.
The combination of resolution and colour depth that gives the best
quality depends on the source material and the display hardware. All I
can say is that you should experiment with the settings for the different
types of material you are scanning. I expect you have already tried the
image processing controls on the main panel and under the Tools menu.
These should be fine-tuned when you have found the best resolution and
colour depth settings.
The file type can make a huge difference to the size. When you click
on the Final button to perform a scan, the resulting dialog box gives you
the option to change the format. Of the seven options, EPS and EPSF are
only for PostScript printers. Don't use Windows bitmap format unless the
reader software specifically requires it - there is no in-built
compression, so the files are big. Not many programs support OS/2
bitmaps, so ignore that too.
That leaves a choice of TIFF, Compressed TIFF, and PCX. If the
software you are using these files with supports TIFF, try Compressed
TIFF. This gives the smallest files. If that's a problem (some software
won't read it, even though it claims to support TIFF format), experiment
with the other two to see which gives the smallest files.
Results are variable. I tried some sample scans in the three
formats. One picture gave file sizes of 198K, 196K and 155K for PCX, TIFF
and compressed TIFF. The second gave 217K, 178K and 106K respectively.
This was for a 256-colour 100dpi file. Higher resolution and colour depth
increase these sizes considerably - 456K for a compressed 200dpi version,
for example.
Note that increasing the picture size by choosing a higher scan
resolution is not the same as choosing a higher scale factor on the
slider bar. More dots per inch in the scanning process gives you more
detail; upping the scale factor setting just makes the pixels chunkier.
You can further reduce the size of the files by converting them to JPEG
format. The compression in JPEG files (they have the extension .JPG) is
Menuy
very efficient and can give massive savings over compressed TIFF (50 per
cent of the size, or even a lot less), though with JPEG there is a
trade-off between compression ratio and picture quality. A program that
writes these files should allow you to alter the degree of compression.
An inconvenience associated with JPEG is that fewer applications
support it than TIFF and PCX, so you're more likely to have to convert
the files back to a more common format when they are required. To convert
to and from JPEG, you need a dedicated graphics format conversion
utility. Graphic Workshop featured on the issue 97 SuperCD is ideal. The
Windows (recommended) and DOS versions of this are also available from
most shareware libraries if you aren't CD-enabled.
Graphic Workshop (GWS) has two more features relevant to this
answer. First, if you have a lot of scans in 16.7-million colour format
and want to reduce them to 256 colours, GWS will do it for you and give a
number of options. The one to choose is Colour Reduction, Remap/Bayer,
256-colour quantised.
Second, going back to TIFF format, the rules governing this type of
file allow for no compression at all, or for one of several compression
schemes. The best of these is LZW. Some software writes TIFF files
uncompressed, or using one of the less efficient methods. DeskScan
already uses LZW, so this tip is a general one: you can get a good size
saving by converting these files to LZW compression.
In GWS's File, Setup menu, you can tell it to use LZW compression
when writing TIFF files. With this switched on, just convert existing
TIFF files into the same format. The only problem is that not all
applications that import TIFF understand LZW, and will refuse to load the
file. Try a sample before going in for a wholesale batch conversion.
Finally, get into the habit of cropping pictures to the area you are
interested in. This can save a lot of space. Both DeskScan and GWS allow
you to exclude unwanted areas of the picture.
  Return to Main Menu
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: March 1995
Issue: 101
Page: 403
Title: A CUNNING DEVICE
I would like to add to your answer to Jez Buxton in issue 97, where you
suggested that the name of a standard device driver be used to test
whether a subdirectory exists. Not everybody knows that a similar
technique can be used with any named device driver. To test whether a
particular device driver is installed, try this syntax:
IF EXIST driver_name
If you want to make sure, for instance, that DoubleSpace is loaded, here
is how you do it:
IF EXIST DBLSYSH$ ECHO DoubleSpace is installed
In this way you can test for the presence of any device driver you want:
SCSI, CD-ROM, scanner, network etc. You can use the MEM /D command in
MS-DOS 5 or higher to list all the I/O device names.
Maciej Szymczak, Poland
But not ANSI.SYS, whose device driver name is CON once it is installed.
Without ANSI.SYS, there is still a CON device to deal with the screen and
keyboard.
  Return to Main Menu
Menu>
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: March 1995
Issue: 101
Page: 405
Title: DATING LANTASTIC
I use Artisoft's Lantastic v6 in DOS guise over a small network. I find
that the system clocks across the network lose time at different rates.
The main program I use datestamps certain information and it is essential
that all terminals have approximately the same time and definitely the
same date. Can you think of a simple way for the terminals to copy the
server's date and time?
Nigel Jones, Blandford Forum
According to the manual you can set your computer's clock to be the same
as any server on the network with this command:
NET CLOCK \\servername
You must be already be logged on to the server, although when logging on
you should have been asked whether you wanted your computer's clock to be
set to be the server's.
You may also like to know that it is possible for some or all of the
servers to synchronise clocks with one server or a workstation. That too
is detailed in the Lantastic Installation and Management Guide for
version 6.0, on pages 140 and 141 in my copy.
  Return to Main Menu
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: March 1995
Issue: 101
Page: 405
Title: DEADLY BUT SILENT
Can you help me get my sound card working with the shareware game Doom?
It is supposed to be Sound Blaster compatible, but nothing comes out of
the speakers.
Daniel Hunter, Bromley
The most likely answer is that you haven't configured Doom to use your
sound card's settings. In the directory containing Doom is a program
called SETUP.EXE. Run this, and check the music and FX card options. They
should be set to Sound Blaster.
Press [Enter], and you will be prompted to select first the port and
then the IRQ that the sound card is using. This information will either
be available by checking the jumper settings on the card with the manual,
or through a utility supplied with the card. Alternatively, if you have
another piece of software able to make noises, have a look what that's
set to.
  Return to Main Menu
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: March 1995
Issue: 101
Page: 405
Title: SAVING YOUR CMOS
A sense of impending doom and woe befell me when I read M McClintock's
letter Sunk Hard Disk in the December issue of PC Plus. Perhaps I should
say that it was your reply that bothered me more.
I may be in a minority, but I am one of those people who bought a
second-hand PC without any books, documents or disks. Would you please be
kind enough to publish for my benefit (and I suspect a few others') how I
can locate and copy the CMOS settings, so as to be prepared against being
'sunk'!
Andrew Lockwood, Liverpool
There is normally a key you can press during the early part of the
boot-up process that brings up the CMOS settings screen, for example the
[Del] key. Look out for a message to that effect after switching on or
pressing the Reset button. Alternatively, once the PC is running, many
have a hotkey that brings up the settings screen.
Try [Ctrl][Alt][S], [Ctrl][Alt][Esc], and experiment with other
[Ctrl][key], [Alt][key] and [Ctrl][Alt][key] combinations. If you succeed
in getting into the setup screens (there is likely to be a collection of
them) write down what you find. You may encounter a menu option to save
the settings to disk. If so, save them to floppy, as the situation in
which you need the file may be one where the hard disk is inaccessible.
The alternative is to run a utility that saves the contents of the
CMOS memory to disk, and can later restore them. Such utilities don't
always save all the settings. I suspect this is because the documentation
on the CMOS found in books covers the 64 bytes in the original IBM AT.
There may not be room for information on additional features found on
later motherboards from other manufacturers. The utility should leave you
with a usable PC so it is still worth a shot, but keep a written record
of the settings if you can get at them. If you are already using such a
utility, check the size of the file it generates. If it is 64 bytes or
less it may not provide complete insurance.
Where do you get a CMOS saver? They're available from shareware
libraries and sometimes included with utility toolkits. For example,
Doctor Solomon's Antivirus Toolkit has one, as do Norton Utilities and PC
Tools. In each case the CMOS image is saved and restored as part of the
rescue disk routine.
Interestingly, Norton's CMOS image was 576 bytes on my Panrix, which
inspires more confidence than the 50 bytes of a shareware utility I
found, or indeed the 54 bytes of CMOSAVE.EXE presented below. PC Tools
puts its CMOS info inside a file which contains other things, so it was
impossible to see the size. Solomon crashed my PC during creation of the
rescue disk and I didn't have time to pursue it further.
The basic 64-byte CMOS is easy to read or write, so I ran one up and
MenuB
put it on the SuperDisk/CD. It's called CMOSAVE.EXE. To save your CMOS to
a file called MYCMOS, run it from the DOS command line with the /S
switch:
CMOSAVE MYCMOS /S
To load the CMOS from the file, use the /L switch:
CMOSAVE MYCMOS /L
The program doesn't save or restore the system time/date, as there would
be little point.
Be sure to keep MYCMOS and CMOSAVE.EXE on a floppy disk in case your
hard disk becomes inaccessible, and bear in mind that a corrupted or lost
CMOS could leave your floppy drive inaccessible too.
If I can find some information on how to save the full set of CMOS
data, I will see if CMOSAVE.EXE can be updated to a more comprehensive
level of capability.
For the programmers among you, the CMOS memory is read or written
through ports hex 70 and 71. You write the address of the byte you're
interested in (0-63) to port address hex 70, then read or write its value
through port address hex 71. Look up the INP and OUTP (or equivalent)
instructions in your favourite language. The interpretation of the values
is too involved for here.
Tinkerers should be careful how they go: this is deep into skull and
crossbones territory. I ended up having to reformat my hard disk after
deliberately stuffing some dud figures into the CMOS to test that the
image reloaded properly. I think DriveSpace did the dirty in the ensuing
confusion over the invalid hard disk parameters. Even if you boot up from
a floppy, DriveSpace tries to get at the compressed hard disk vol
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 Date: March 1995
Issue: 101
Page: 407
Title: DODGY DRIVE
Help! I'm stuck. I added a Quantum Pro Drive LPS420 as a slave to my
system. On first boot-up all is well, except an occasional nothing until
switched off and on again. If I reset, I get:
D: drive failure
Press <F1> to resume
after which the CD-ROM is drive D: (usually it's E:) and the second disk
has disappeared.
Dennis Martin, Halifax
It is impossible to give a firm diagnosis without testing the kit
concerned because the symptoms could be owing to a number of causes - not
all of which I can guess at!
It might be an incompatibility between the drives, a faulty cable,
or an intermittent fault on the new drive. For example, if there was a
hairline crack in a circuit board, or a sub-standard soldered joint, heat
or vibration could make and break the contact. Or it might be an obscure
bug in your BIOS.
The only way to narrow down the cause is to use the general
troubleshooting strategy of substitution: try another cable, test the
drive in another PC, test another drive in your own PC, swap the master
and slave status of the drives to see what happens. If you haven't the
facilities to do that, the alternative is a repair shop.
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 Date: March 1995
Issue: 101
Page: 407
Title: CHECKDAY TIP
Thanks for the Checkday program with the January issue. My tip for a
once-a-week action is:
echo y | del c:\temp\*.*
Windows leaves all sorts of space-consuming junk in TEMP, especially when
it crashes. I know somebody who reclaimed 13Mb of disk space by clearing
it out.
A twice-a-week action is to copy your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files
into different places on different days. You will be glad of this next
time some installation routine rearranges the originals so that your PC
doesn't work, or you delete the contents of your root directory.
Jim Heywood, Lichfield
It's a good idea to save WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI, too.
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 Date: March 1995
Issue: 101
Page: 407
Title: CONTROLLING CONTROL PANEL
A perennial problem with letting inexperienced users loose on a PC is
that they tinker with things they didn't ought to tinker with. You can
restrict the list of icons that appear in Control Panel. In CONTROL.INI
add a new section:
[don't load]
Under here put the names of the icons you wish to be excluded from
Control Panel. Follow each one with an = sign, and then some non-blank
character:
Fonts=x
Network=x
Printers=x
These would make Control Panel omit the Fonts, Network and Printers
icons.
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 Date: March 1995
Issue: 101
Page: 409
Title: BUTTONFILE DATA TRANSFER
I've been using buttonFile from the August 1994 PC Plus CD-ROM to
maintain an address book. Now I have SmartSuite and I like the look of
Lotus Organizer. Is it possible to transfer my data file?
Alan Greenhorn, Chelsea
You can't load a file in buttonFile's native format directly into
Organizer, but it is possible to migrate the data without retyping it. In
ButtonFile you need to do a Save As, and save the file in dBase format.
We do this because Organizer can read dBase files. When you save the
file, you will be asked which fields you want to export. Presumably you
will want them all, though there is the option to export only a
selection.
Go into Organizer, and select Import on the file menu. In the three
boxes at the top of the resulting dialog box, choose the Address section,
dBase as the import format, and then the name of the file. Don't bother
with the Options button, just press Ok.
You now need to tell Organizer how to deal with the fields in the
imported file. Since Organizer fields are fixed, you have to make your
original set of fields fit into the Organizer way of doing things.
From the Field Mapping dialog box, fields in the source file are
mapped on to Organizer fields. You're unlikely to have an exact match:
for example, I've got a separate field for each line of the address,
while Organizer only has a single address field. You can get round this
by mapping several source fields on to one Organizer field. Targeting all
my buttonFile address lines on to Organizer's Address field conglomerates
their contents.
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 Date: March 1995
Issue: 101
Page: 409
Title: GREEN ISSUES
A visiting maintenance engineer told me that it is best to leave our PCs
switched on 24 hours a day, as this makes them more reliable. Is this
true, and if so do the increased running costs offset future repair
costs? And what about the cost to the environment of the extra power
consumption? This has almost as much concern for me as the financial
implications.
Ros Price, Cardiff
It is true that a PC's components are subjected to most stress when the
power is turned on or off. The surge in electrical current and the
expansion and contraction caused by warming and cooling are major
contributory factors towards failure. To that extent your engineer is
correct. However, if you try to build a profit-and-loss account for your
finances and the environment, it turns into an ever-widening web of
imponderables.
Suppose you buy a new PC every three years so that you are always
able to run up-to-date applications. I think it unlikely that a component
will fail simply because the machine was started up once or twice a day.
10 times a day, then maybe.
If the PC is running some hoary old accounting system that you
intend to use forever, you'd be inclined to want to use the PC until the
bitter end, and follow the engineer's advice. But the PCs of three years
hence may have a fraction of the power consumption of today's hardware,
so is it better to plan on upgrading? In which case, is the environmental
impact of manufacturing the new PC worse than any possible gains from
energy saving?
What if the modern software such a machine would enable you to run would
reduce the environmental or financial burden in other ways, enabling you
to sack some people, for instance, or let half your staff work at home?
If you sack a few, will their lives become more or less environmentally
detrimental than they would otherwise have been?
If you opt for the more breakdowns, less electricity option, how
much money does your down-time cost? How highly does the fuel burned by
more frequent visits from the engineer figure on your personal list of
values, especially in the later years when the machine needs frequent
attention?
When you've got the central heating turned on, if it is
thermostatically controlled then the waste heat from the computer system
reduces heating costs. What's the cost and environmental equation of
using heat produced by electricity generated at a power station, against
heat produced by your gas-fired central heating?
Arguments like these can be pushed round all day without leading to
a conclusion. We might as well all flip coins - half of us are sure to
get it right.
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 Date: March 1995
Issue: 101
Page: 409
Title: DROP THE BIRD
The promised moment of glory for the first person to tell me the
allusion
of 'dropthebird' (Help Screen, Program Manager passwords, issue 99) goes
to Brian Davison of Nottingham. In an early text adventure called Advent,
it was what you had to type (with spaces) to get past the giant snake in
the Hall of the Mountain King. The bird should have been collected
earlier in the game. He added that he later played Colossal Cave from
Rainbird Software on the PC, which was an obvious rewrite. Actually, the
original mainframe Colossal Cave Adventure was the first widely known
text adventure, and it was cloned and adapted ad infinitum. 'How do you
get past the snake?' was one of the burning questions of the day, judging
by the number of times I heard it!
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 Date: April 1995
Issue: 102
Page: 399
Title: UNSTOPPABLE AUTOEXEC
We've many PCs on open access for student use, which are booted up as
required. They are connected as workstations to the school admin network
system which runs via Novell 3.12. The problem is making the system
secure from prying students. The Novell securities make students' work
secure and your recent Password program has made Windows secure.
At bootup I run Automenu, which is password protected, enables you
to log into the network and gives disk utilities as part of the menu. I
have put BREAK=OFF and SWITCHES=Y/F/N as the first two lines of
CONFIG.SYS, to disable the function keys [F5] and [F8].
The main problem still to be solved is stopping them from breaking
into the hard disk. Is there a means of disabling [Ctrl][C] and
[Ctrl][Break] during the bootup of a PC? I have tried various measures
without success.
Dr R M Megit, William Parker School, Hastings
Perhaps the simplest thing you can try is making this line the first one
in AUTOEXEC.BAT:
CTTY NUL
Then, immediately before the command line to start your menu system, put
this:
CTTY CON
The first of these two lines redirects console input from the keyboard to
the NUL device. The second line restores the input stream to the
keyboard. Between the two commands, DOS ignores the keyboard.
You might think AUTOEXEC.BAT could be stopped by someone jabbing
[Ctrl][C] or [Ctrl][Break] during the execution of CONFIG.SYS, so that
when AUTOEXEC.BAT starts, or between the execution of the second CTTY
line and the start of your menu system, the batch file will stop.
I haven't attempted this under versions of DOS other than 6.22;
however, it appears that the first line of AUTOEXEC.BAT gets processed
before a break check, and that it is difficult to time the keypresses so
as to slip them into the short timespan between CTTY CON and the menu
command. I managed to get the PC to freeze up, but not to go back to the
DOS prompt.
Also on the subject of security, Richard Paul-Jones e-mailed me with
a warning about the noclose=1 line for PROGMAN.INI, which I mentioned in
issue 99 when talking about my password program and discussing Windows
security in general. Although this line prevents exit from Windows via
[Alt][F4] or the File menu, it doesn't stop a reboot with
[Ctrl][Alt][Del] - or the Reset or Power buttons, of course!
If you haven't already done it, browse through the CMOS setup
screens. You may find it is possible to set the order in which the BIOS
checks for a boot drive to C:, A: instead of A:, C:. This would close
another loophole through which the system could be booted up from a
floppy disk.
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 Date: April 1995
Issue: 102
Page: 401
Title: AUTOMATIC DATES IN 1-2-3
I have a small investment portfolio held on Lotus 1-2-3 v4 for Windows. I
wish to insert automatically the current date in a cell adjacent to the
value of the investment held, thereby indicating when the investment was
updated. Currently I am forced to resort to tedious mouse strokes to use
@TODAY, and feel sure there must be a simpler and more reliable method.
P Moles, Reading
Doesn't putting @TODAY in a cell make it update with the current date
whenever your spreadsheet is recalculated? Unless you have automatic
recalculation turned off, you want a plain value in a cell, not a
formula. In
1-2-3 v4 for Windows there is a SmartIcon to do this for you - when you
know what it's supposed to be, it looks like a calendar showing the date
as '16'.
This icon isn't in any of the standard SmartIcon toolbar sets, but
it is easy to add it to one, or put it in your own custom set. Make sure
you have the SmartIcon toolbar turned on; this is the button at the
bottom of the screen that looks like three blue-bordered squares and
enables you to view, hide and select icon sets.
Go to Tools, SmartIcons. In the drop-down list at the top of the
resulting dialog box, choose the icon set to which you want to add the
new button. Scroll down the list of available icons (the one on the left)
until you reach '16'. Drag the icon into the list on the right, at the
position you want it to appear. Push the Save Set button, and, after
confirming that you want to overwrite the existing file, press Ok. Now
just click the '16' icon to insert the day's date in the current cell.
It's in text format, so it cannot be changed by recalculating the sheet.
Had this SmartIcon not existed, one way of achieving the same result
would have been to have a short macro which did the following:
* Enter @TODAY in the current cell
* Copy the cell with [Ctrl][C]
* Overwrite the cell with the copied value by invoking Paste Special on
the Edit menu, selecting the 'Formulas as values' option.
This macro could be created by selecting Tools, Macro, Record, and then
following the sequence above. It could then be assigned to a SmartIcon of
your own design, or to a keyboard shortcut.
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 Date: April 1995
Issue: 102
Page: 401
Title: COPYING FILES
In the January issue we published a letter from Hannu Lehto. He asked if
it is possible to write a batch file to copy all the files in the
subdirectories A1, A2 and A3 to B - where A1, A2 and A3 are
subdirectories of A, and A and B are both sub-directories off the root. I
stuck my neck out and said that I didn't think it could be done. Would-be
executioners immediately got to work on some serious batch filing.
Some attempts missed the mark. The idea was to avoid typing in A1,
A2 and A3 as parameters - what was required was the functional equivalent
of the XCOPY's /S switch. Others resorted to a full programming language,
which is what I said would be needed. The best efforts just drew blood,
though.
The neatest solution, from Nigel Steele-Davies, was just three
lines:
xdir *.* >fo6appl.no7 /b /s
xcopy @fo6appl.no7 c:\%1
del fo6appl.no7
where the batch file is called up with the destination directory as its
parameter. The file FO6APPL.NO7 is a temporary one, the unlikely name
being a measure to avoid overwriting an existing file. The catch is that
it requires DR DOS 6 or Novell DOS 7, whose versions of XCOPY understand
the @ switch to import the list of files to be copied.
So, with neck bruised rather than bleeding (I like DR/Novell DOS,
Menu@
but most readers don't have it), we come to Colin Cownden (FX: fall of
guillotine, sound of head bouncing into basket) who delivered the killer
batch file by e-mail. It's convoluted, as I knew it would be if it were
possible, and appears as TRANS.BAT on the SuperDisk/CD. It requires two
accompanying files, CD.TXT and DELTREE.TXT to be in the root directory on
drive C:. It also requires utilities found in late versions of MS-DOS,
such as CHOICE.COM and DELTREE.EXE. Use the batch file as follows:
TRANS source destination
For the directory structure described above, the command would be:
TRANS A B
Note that TRANS.BAT also relies on your ability to test for the
existence of a directory using the trick described on page 329 of issue
97. This may fail if you are using a non-standard DOS command processor,
such as one of the enhanced ones available for Windows. Thanks to all
those who wrote in, especially Kimmo Lahtinen who drew my attention to a
shareware program called TurboCopy which will also perform this function.
The command line is:
TC sourcedir\*.* destdir /S /C
TurboCopy is packed with enhancements over XCOPY. Regrettably my
e-mail message to the South African author was returned undelivered, so I
couldn't ask for permission to distribute it via the SuperDisk/CD. The
program can be obtained over the Internet from the FTP site nic.funet.fi.
The filename is TCPY202.ZIP, and it lives in the directory
/pub/msdos/Simtel/diskutil.
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 Date: April 1995
Issue: 102
Page: 403
Title: CRACKED WINDOWS
I bought my IBM PS/1 Pro Model 2123 two years ago with Works and Windows
3.0 preloaded. There were no accompanying disks, only manuals, so I
backed up the whole of the hard disk. I recently wanted to divide the
hard disk into two volumes, and at the same time delete many unwanted
files. I did this by copying files I needed to floppy disks,
repartitioning and formatting the hard drive, and then restoring the
files to C:.
The problem is that Windows will not start, returning me to the DOS
prompt. Can you throw any light on what the cause of this is?
K D Crisp, Swindon
I am not printing this letter so that I can look clever by reeling off an
easy answer. There isn't one, I'm afraid, but the question does provide
an excuse to deliver our periodical warning about buying a PC without
installation disks.
There are occasions when a backup of the hard disk directory is not
an effective safeguard. Some packages come with files that are not
automatically transferred to the hard disk as part of the normal
installation routine, but which in the future you may need. Other
software isn't easily reconfigured if you change the way the machine is
set up, for instance adding a second hard disk and copying the software
to the new drive. Windows comes into both categories.
Everyone buying a PC should insist on installation disks, even if
the software has already been loaded on to the hard drive. If you can't
get them, don't buy the PC. Don't be fobbed off with the argument that
making a backup will cope with all eventualities. You run a high risk of
problems and inconvenience at a later date.
I can't offer a solution in this case, since it is impossible to say
which of several possible problems is the cause. You could try running
Windows in Real or Standard modes:
WIN /R
WIN /S
If either of these works, it suggests that a component associated with
386 Enhanced mode is missing or at fault. In this case, try recreating
the permanent swap file using the Swapfile utility - go to File, Run in
Program Manager, and enter SWAPFILE.
Your best bet might be to trawl the adverts for a cheap replacement.
You should be able to find a remaindered Windows 3.1, for example, for
around half the typical
70 cost of Windows 3.11. You can console
yourself with the thought that you're getting an upgrade.
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 Date: April 1995
Issue: 102
Page: 403
Title: PUT THE BOOT IN!
For the last few months I have been using a Seagate ST3391A hard drive as
a slave in a two-drive setup without any problems. Now I have decided to
start using it as a single drive in another computer.
I've changed the jumper from slave to single setting. I ran MS-DOS
6.22 Fdisk on the drive, to delete the old partition and create a new
active DOS partition occupying the whole disk. I then formatted the drive
with the /S option.
Why won't my PC boot from it? I can boot from floppy, then log on to
drive C: and use it as normal. The problem does not lie with the
controller or other hardware components - I get the same result when
fitting the drive into another PC.
Richard Hargreaves, Handforth
These symptoms normally mean that the master boot record (MBR) code is
corrupt. To reinstate it, there is an undocumented Fdisk switch:
FDISK /MBR
There is no message on the screen to indicate that anything has happened,
but you should find that the disk will now boot. Since this function of
Fdisk is undocumented, it is particularly important to back up your data
before using it. I have read warnings about FDISK overwriting the DOS
Boot Record and part of the FAT during MBR restoration, though I haven't
tested this.
You may be interested to learn a little about the way the MBR works.
It lives in the first sector of the disk and contains the partition table
and a small program which is loaded and run during the bootup process.
Spare space in the MBR may also be used to store the disk ID information
from which an auto-configuring BIOS can read the disk specifications to
be put in the CMOS.
The program checks that the partition table is intact and finds the
active (bootable) partition. It then tries to load the DOS loader program
in the DOS Boot Record (DBR) at the start of the active partition. If
that goes OK, control is passed to the DOS loader.
If you see one of these messages: 'Invalid partition table', 'Error
loading operating system' or 'Missing operating system', it indicates
that the MBR code has encountered a problem. The fact that your computer
hung before getting this far points to the MBR code being corrupt.
Anyone who wants more detailed information, such as a disassembly of
the MBR and partition table, plus some advanced disk recovery techniques,
should get hold of The Hard Disk Survival Guide by Mark Minasi. It's
published by Sybex, ISBN 0-89588-799-L.
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 Date: April 1995
Issue: 102
Page: 401
Title: EXCEL AXIS LABELS
Suppose you have an Excel 5 worksheet which looks like this:
Object A
100000
Object B
120000
Object C
80000
Object D
150000
and you want to represent it in a Columns chart. How can you tell the
chart to include in the Y axis those values divided by 1,000 - something
like a thousands indicator?
Fernando M C Dias, Portugal
After creating a chart, double-click on the Y axis. This brings up a
tabbed dialog box which enables you to alter its format. Click on Number,
and then choose the Custom format. In the Code box, enter #, (a hash
symbol followed by a comma). The comma makes Excel divide the number by
1,000. Division by a million would be two commas.
Further information on defining a custom format may be found in the
Help system. Buried in among the options here is an interesting feature
to which I will draw your attention. You can extend the Y axis below zero
(using the Scale tab) and set up different colours for the values, with
negative ones are in red.
This is set up by including conditions in the custom format code
string. In this case the condition is: 'if the value is less than zero,
it in red':
[<0][RED]#,;[>0][BLACK]#,
You can string several such conditions together, separating them with
semicolons. In the above example, since I have black as the default
colour, the [>0][BLACK] is redundant. The following code would work just
as well:
[<0][RED]#,;#,
Note that you still need a #, to cover positive values, though, or they
will revert to the number format used in the cells. From this you can see
that not only the colour can be conditional; the number format can be
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 Date: April 1995
Issue: 102
Page: 405
Title: A CUTTING RESPONSE
In response to the enquiry by Mr Ron Grace ('All Cut Up', Help Screen,
issue 100) here's a possible tip: the 13th edition of PCSIG CD-ROM
Library contains two shareware programs called Linear Optimizer 2 (Disk
#1062) and SheetCut (Disk #2509). These are located in the Business
category.
S M Abdullah, Malaysia
Thank you for the information. I have since established that PDSL (01892
663298) has these packages, which should be worth evaluating for anyone
who needs to work out the most economical way to cut up sheet materials.
Mr Abdullah is particularly interested in swapping finance-related
shareware with other readers, such as WinForecast, which he already has.
He can be faxed on [phone].
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 Date: April 1995
Issue: 102
Page: 401
Title: CALCULATING WITH AMI
I rather liked the look of the Word 6 macro to perform calculations
('Sums In Word 6', p413, issue 99). I would like to do the same thing in
Ami Pro 3.0 but cannot see how. Can you help?
Bob Collins, Whitehaven
The easiest way I could see is to highlight the calculation and have a
macro to deal with it, which will act as follows:
* Copy the formula
* Create a single-cell table
* Select Edit Formula from the Tables menu
* Put the copied string in the resulting dialog box
* Copy the result, which is in the table cell, into the clipboard
* Delete the table
* Paste the answer into the document.
You can see the macro in the screengrab below. In order to avoid
overwriting the formula with the result, or pasting the result into the
middle of the formula, the [End] key action deselects the highlighted
text and moves the insertion point to the end of the line. The macro also
inserts an '=' sign.
You can modify the macro to handle errors (for instance it will fall
over if you highlight an '=' sign or anything else Ami's formula
processor doesn't understand) and provide variations on the style of
input and output, as per the original Word macro.
I've included the macro file, CALC.SMM, on the SuperDisk/CD. Put it
MenuW8
in your AMIPRO\MACROS directory. Through the Tools, Macro, Playback
dialog box, assign it an accelerator key (such as [Ctrl][Shift][C]). You
can now highlight things like (14+2)*19 and have the result placed in the
correct position, as long as there is nothing after the formula on the
same line.
I was going to run up a similar macro for WordStar for Windows
users. I installed the program specially, patiently feeding disks to what
seemed an exceptionally slow installation program. WordStar seems to have
no built-in calculation features a macro could make use of - if anyone
knows different, please let me know - so I decided to write a parser
which would split the highlighted text into a series of values and
operands. The macro would then process these to give a result which could
then be written back into the document.
About two thirds of the way through I found that WordStar's macro
language doesn't do floating point numbers. It's possible to write a
suite of subroutines that perform arithmetic on numbers represented as
strings, using only integer calculations even if the string represents a
floating point value, but life's too short and I gave up in disgust. I
suppose limitations like these are the price you pay for a low-cost
product.
The best solution for WordStar, DTP programs and the like is
probably a Recorder macro which copies the highlighted calculation to the
clipboard, pastes it into Calculator, then copies and pastes the result
back into the document. You would need an '=' sign on the end of the sum
you enter, or have the macro enter it after pasting the sum into
Calculator.
While this technique works well if you are happy to invoke manually
the Recorder macro for each calculation, WordStar's own macro language
cannot use it by simulating the relevant hotkey. Consequently, it seems
impossible to build the macro into an automatic invoice template, for
example.
I didn't experiment with the one remaining avenue, which is to use
the Winexec DLL function to call up the Recorder macro. You can see this
function being put to work in the supplied CALC macro, which starts up
Calculator. If a Recorder macro couldn't be used from here, it should be
possible to knock up an external utility (in Visual Basic, perhaps) which
accepts an arithmetic expression on its command line, and put the result
on the clipboard before exiting.
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 Date: April 1995
Issue: 102
Page: 407
Title: AUTOMATE THE BORING BITS
I am looking at ways to cut down the amount of unproductive time I spend
at the computer by having certain tasks happen while I am not using it.
Also, this would be a good opportunity to be more disciplined about
backups and general task management. My initial wish-list is to have a
Windows-based system which does the following automatically:
* Collects and transmits e-mail every weekday lunchtime and in the early
hours of the morning
* Backs up certain files and directories from drive C: to drive D: every
night
* Reminds me to switch on the tape drive and insert a cartridge on Friday
afternoons
* Performs a backup to tape, then defragments the hard disk late on
Friday nights
* Reminds me to turn off the drive and remove the cartridge on Monday
mornings
* Automatically pops up Notepad containing my to-do list in the morning
and after lunch each weekday.
I am prepared to leave the PC turned on permanently. I know that I need
some sort of scheduler program. Can you possibly recommend one that will
enable the above to be accomplished?
Steven Husk, Ripon
PC Tools for Windows contains two programs which you can combine to
perform these tasks. Its scheduler enables you to construct a list of
events that are launched at predetermined intervals. The timing options
can cope with events like every Monday at 8am, or 9am and 2pm every
weekday. An event is defined as launching a program or displaying a
message.
The other component of PC Tools which you would need to use in some
cases is its scripting feature. In essence, this is an enhanced macro
recorder and editor, with a separate playback program which can be
launched manually or by the scheduler. The script language goes beyond
Recorder by allowing you to edit scripts in a text editor, and use
features not available through normal keyboard and mouse actions.
For instance, you can display custom-designed dialog boxes, read
text from the screen, perform file management, access system settings
such as the current time, and apply processing at the level of simple
Basic - string and integer variables, arrays, loops, IF..THEN and so on.
Simple scripts can be recorded in the same way as with Recorder, however,
in order to make full use of the language you would need to be a half-way
competent programmer.
The only problem I can see is what happens when a scheduled process
doesn't go to plan; your comms program can't log on, for example, or the
host system throws up an unexpected message. If your comms software's own
scripting feature will deal with that sort of situation gracefully, you
will be able to build a reasonably trouble-free system.
You can construct all sorts of useful utilities with the script and
schedule programs. For instance, a few months ago in Visual Basic
MenuNO
Workshop we published a utility sent in by a reader which implemented an
autosave feature for those applications that accept the key-sequence
[Alt][F],[S] to save a file. It is possible to do the same thing with
Scheduler and a suitable script, limiting the autosave to the editing
windows of particular applications - you don't want the key sequence fed
to Program Manager for example, or in the middle of using a dialog box.
Here is a script set up to autosave when using Write:
if FocusWindow$()="WRITE_MSWRITE_DOC1" then
Type "{Alt}FS"
endif
With this script scheduled to run at regular intervals, [Alt][F],[S]
will be replayed when you are in Write's editing window, but not when
other apps are running or when you're in a Write dialog box.
You could add more applications to the script. The function
FocusWindow$() returns the name of the currently active window, which is
how you test whether it is an appropriate time to replay the keystrokes.
You can find the required window name by playing this script every minute
or so:
a$=Focus$()
b$=FocusWindow$()
messagebox("Present focus", a$+" "+b$, 48)
When it executes, it tells you the filename of the currently active
program, and the name of the active window within it. Incidentally, this
also gives you an insight into the workings of Windows itself.
If the script executes while you're in the font selection dialog in
Write, for example, the currently executing program is shown to be
COMMDLG.DLL - which is an illustration of how Windows applicationsare
able to call upon program routines in DLL(dynamic link library) files to
implement commonly
used functions.
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 Date: April 1995
Issue: 102
Page: 409
Title: WINWORD 2 QUIZ
I have written a Word for Windows 2 macro which writes another macro,
when given information entered into a dialog box and input box sequence.
The end product macro is an interactive multi-choice quiz that is started
from the File menu from a new entry called Quiz.
The starting macro ('Quiz') can be used by anyone, even if they have
no macro experience. First it asks how many questions the quiz should
have, and what name the dialog boxes should have. Then, suppose 10
questions were selected, 10 dialog boxes would appear, one after the
other. For each one you supply a question, its answer and three dummy
answers. The position of the correct answer is indicated by clicking a
listbox. The quiz macro is then written and placed on the File menu. It
will give marks out of however many questions were requested.
Graham Brown, Brent Cross
I think this macro is as interesting as an illustration of the power of
modern macro languages and for the range of techniques it employs, as it
is for what it does. WinWord 2 users can use it as follows:
* Load QUIZ.DOC
* Highlight all the text apart from the title line, and copy it to the
clipboard
* Go to the Tools, Macro menu
* Type Quiz into the macro Name box, then click on Edit
* Delete the lines in the document that now comes up, the press [Ctrl][V]
to paste in the macro text
* Click on the Start button and follow the prompts.
You can save the macro if you want to use it again. There is also another
macro of Graham's on the SuperDisk/CD; WORDGAME.DOC, which runs a small
word guessing game along the lines of hangman, but without the gallows.
It might keep the kids amused for a while.
I know that, as part of Microsoft's bid for world domination, Word
for Windows has the lion's share of the word processing market. But the
balance of letters to Help Screen about word processing is unduly biased
in its favour. Useful macros and interesting questions about other
leading packages would be welcome.
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 Date: April 1995
Issue: 102
Page: 409
Title: CHANGING WALLPAPER
I used CHECKDAY supplied with the January edition to give me a different
Windows wallpaper each day. All you do is have a section for each day in
the week in AUTOEXEC.BAT, and in each one include a command to make a
copy of that day's wallpaper file. Always name the copy TODAY.BMP. In
Control Panel select TODAY.BMP. This is a once-only operation, but you do
need a file of that name to exist so that you can select it. From then
on, on the first bootup of the day a new TODAY.BMP is created.
Robert Ward, by e-mail
You could do the same sort of thing with your screen saver. If your
version of DOS asks you for confirmation prior to overwriting a file with
COPY, the /Y switch will force an unconditional copy without the prompt.
To conclude, here's an example of how your AUTOEXEC.BAT would then look:
c:\utils\checkday mon
if errorlevel 1 goto donemon
copy \windows\monday.bmp \windows\today.bmp
:donemon
c:\utils\checkday tue
if errorlevel 1 goto donetue
copy \windows\tuesday.bmp \windows\today.bmp
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 Date: May 1995
Issue: 103
Page: 399
Title: UPDATE ON DATES
I have a similar situation to Nick Fluck ('Faking the accounts', issue
100) and I have found an easy way to redirect the current date and recall
it using two batch files.
First, you make the entry:
echo|more|date>c:\today.bat
This creates the file TODAY.BAT in the root directory, with two lines
being:
Current date is Sun 22/01/1195
Enter new date (dd-mm-yy):
The first line will vary, depending on your country setup and, of course,
the date. Then you create a batch file in the root directory called
CURRENT.BAT using
the entries:
@echo off
Date %4
Having done this, all you need to do to revert to the current date is
call up the batch file TODAY.BAT. The PC reads 'Current' as a batch file,
which in turn tells the command DATE to read the fourth variable in
TODAY.BAT, thus resetting the current date.
I have set up a line in my AUTOEXEC.BAT to create TODAY.BAT, and set up
my accounts batch file like this:
@echo off
[Accounts commands...]
call today.bat
I hope this is of help to anyone who can't use DateFix.
James Borthwick, Binfield
Is that last sentence a sideways reference to the fact that nobody could
use DateFix because it didn't work? This is the sort of nightmare
egg-on-face scenario that makes software developers wake up screaming.
I developed the program with the SuperDisk/CD version of the Borland
C++ Lite compiler. I tested it, and it did what it was supposed to.
Because the Primer Edition doesn't generate standalone programs, I then
recompiled it with an early version of Symantec C++.
At that point it no longer did what it was supposed to, but I was
fooled by the fact that DateFix still printed all the right messages. It
turned out that Symantec's version of the setdate() library function,
which is used by DateFix to set the date, does nothing. The bug may have
been fixed by now. I would check it out if you use Symantec C++.
I have tweaked the program to use another method to set the date,
and it now works. It is on the SuperDisk/CD together with the source
code.
The batch file method of extracting the system date is useful in
other contexts. For instance, I had a letter from Brian Clark of
Sheffield, who wanted to know how to get the current system date in a
batch file so that he could feed it to XCOPY's /d switch automatically.
This looks like the answer.
The use of echo|more to generate a carriage return is interesting. I
would have used:
echo.|date>c:\today.bat
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 Date: May 1995
Issue: 103
Page: 401
Title: WORDSTAR IMPROVED
Contrary to your expression of disgust at WordStar for Windows in issue
102, I have been impressed. For that price, you can't expect a full
bell-and-whistle orchestra.
I've written four macros for WSwin that others may like to install.
The first two make single-key corrections to my two most persistent
typing errors: typing the wrong case and swapping characters. The third
decreases the size of highlighted text by one point, and the fourth
increases it a point. The filenames are CHARSWAP.WMC, CASESWAP.WMC,
PT-MINUS.WMC, and PT-PLUS.WMC, respectively. Copy these into the MACROS
subdirectory of your WSwin installation.
I have these macros assigned to function keys - [F5] for Charswap,
[F6] for Caseswap, [F7] for Pt-minus and [F8] for Pt-plus. The
assignments are made through the Tools, Customize, Keystrokes menu. Click
the List Macros button. Highlight the name of the macro file, then click
on Add. You are prompted to press the key to which the macro is to be
assigned. Click on OK, then on Close.
To swap a pair of characters, put the cursor bar between them and
press [F5]. To swap case, put the cursor bar before the text you want to
change, and press [F6] to change the character that follows it. The
macros for point-size change work on highlighted text, and are good for
rapid styling of headlines and so on.
When you assign macros to function keys, it helps to have the keys
suitably marked. I enclose a template I use to make labelling strips. Cut
out the black areas (preferably with a sharp knife and a ruler), and it
drops over a standard-sized row of function keys. The file for this
template is FKEYTEMP.WST. Move it into your TEMPLATE subdirectory to make
it available for use. If printing on thin paper, you may want to stick
the template on to card before cutting it out. Fix it to the keyboard
with Blu-Tak.
Vernon Millman, Basingstoke
Thank you for the macros and the template. When I said that I gave up in
disgust over the inability of the macro language to handle floating point
numbers, I wasn't expressing an opinion on the program as a whole. It
appears to be a very capable package for the price.
The one annoying thing is that, on my PC at least, it's crumbly. For
example, it readily GPFs over simple mistakes in macros; I found that a
particular group of graphics objects wouldn't print unless I ungrouped
them; the screen doesn't always update properly; and when running your
point size macros the point size indicator does not update.
I spotted these in my first couple of hours with the program, so
what awaits a long-term user who wants to do more than simple text
editing? Some of these problems could be specific to my system, but other
software generally behaves itself. If the package could be tightened up,
I would be happy to recommend it as a value-for-money program that does
most of the things that most people need a Windows word processor
 for.
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 Date: May 1995
Issue: 103
Page: 401
Title: SELLING YOUR SOFTWARE
I have just finished a DOS program which searches files on hard disk or
floppy for a keyword or string, and would like to have it published. Do
you know who would publish such a program for me, and would I have
copyright?
Peter Darling, Purley
Copyright is yours automatically, unless you choose to sell it. Finding a
publisher could be difficult, though.
Putting on my hard-nosed businessman's head for a few paragraphs, I
wonder how much of a market there would be for such a program. Commercial
software requires investment in packaging, marketing and distribution. A
publisher will assess the likely returns on a prospective program by
setting the overheads against estimated sales and the price the market
will stand.
DOS software is going out of favour commercially. Windows is seen as
the way forward because that's where most of the sales are. If somebody
wants something better than the DOS Find command, utility programs which
do a better job already exist as shareware and as part of commercial
toolkits. Your program would be a latecomer in a specialised and
well-served market. Unless cheap, it wouldn't sell. And if it were cheap,
it would have to sell lots to bring a decent return.
If you disagree with that assessment, you could consider putting it
out as shareware. Include a text file describing how the program works
and how people can register. It's a good idea to offer an incentive to
register, such as an updated version with extra functionality or with
nagging turned off. Don't restrict the shareware program so much that you
annoy users, though. It's a hard balance to achieve.
The main outlets for shareware are libraries, bulletin boards and
commercial on-line services. You have to post out and upload copies. As
with writing novels, the returns are small unless you're one of the lucky
few to come up with a program that catches on. But even a small number of
registrations can give you the feel-good factor and valuable feedback on
how the product could be improved.
If you are determined to go the commercial route, you need to
research the market for companies whose existing product lines would be
complemented by your own program, then put your case to them. None comes
to mind, but I will be happy to pass any contacts on to Peter. To back up
your sales story, or as an alternative, you could test the market
yourself with small ads in the computer press.
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 Date: May 1995
Issue: 103
Page: 403
Title: 1-2-3 RANGE NAMES
I have recently set up a system to produce cost and time estimates for
jobs we may be asked to carry out. Each job is broken down into a number
of tasks which have costs and times per unit.
To enable quicker estimate production with less chance of typing
errors, I began by setting up a spreadsheet in 1-2-3 v4 for DOS. The
first three cells of each row (containing the code, the cost per unit of
work and the time taken to carry out each unit of work) were named with
the code contained in the first column. In this way, the task of
producing an estimate can be semi-automated by using the COPY command to
copy the three relevant fields into the calculation worksheet (using
/copy <rangename>).
In the estimate, each line is input by copying the named range, and
a simple addition provides the job estimates. This is also used to feed
into SuperProject and produce work loadings.
There are over 1,000 codes, so it was time-consuming to set up the
range names. I considered the use of a macro to select the three fields
and name them with the string in the first column, but have been unable
to do this with the Lotus macro language.
Now it has been hinted that the whole coding system may be changed,
and we will have to start again from scratch. I don't relish the task of
retyping a similar batch of figures, and hope you can come up with a
solution.
Peter Allwright, Ashford
The answer is a macro that uses self-modifying code. The macro itself
builds the command required to name a range, incorporating the label
contained in a cell in such a way that it becomes the range name. The
macro, which I have put in column G, goes like this:
'/C~G3~~
+"/rnc"&G3&"~{R}{R}~"
Enter this into your own worksheet, ignoring the error report in cell G5,
and name the range G4..G6 as \Z. This will cause the macro to be run when
you press [Alt][Z]. You can put in another column as long as you adjust
the cell references to G3.
Place the cursor in a cell whose contents you want to become a range
name, and press [Alt][Z]. The command in G4 copies the label into cell
G3, which we use as a temporary storage location. In 1-2-3 macros, a
tilde character corresponds to pressing the [Return] key.
At this point G5 is recalculated to yield a string which begins /rnc
(Range, Name, Create), followed by the label copied from G3, followed by
a carriage return, two cursor-rights to select the range, then another
carriage return - exactly the sequence you would follow to create the
range name manually. The & characters, by the way, join strings together.
Finally, {D} moves the cursor down a cell, ready for next time.
You could build this macro into a loop if you want to, incorporating
a check for cells that don't contain a code. I developed this with 1-2-3
R2.4 for DOS, but it should work in any version.
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 Date: May 1995
Issue: 103
Page: 403
Title: A QUICK PRINT
I use Windows 3.x to produce good-quality documents for circulation in
small quantities. Frustrated at the cumbersome process of loading Windows
and then the relevant (large) application whenever a one-off print-out
was needed, I found a shortcut using the Windows print-to-file facility.
If I think I might need the odd extra copy, I set up my printer
connection to File (usually through the File, Printer Setup, or through
Printers in Control Panel) and print a copy to a directory in which I
dump all my print files. Windows always asks for a print filename, so
it's possible to use the same name as the original document with a
different extension (I habitually use .FIL). The advantage is that it's
then possible to print a copy of a document, even from DOS, using the
COPY command:
copy /b filename.fil lpt1:
The /b switch is essential for DOS to treat the file as binary data. You
may even set up a batch file like this:
@echo off
echo.
echo Printing %1...
copy /b %1 lpt1:
echo.
echo finished!
echo.
Call it something like DUMP.BAT and locate it in the same directory as
the print files.
Bob Groves, Whitley Bay
How about this for a useful extension to the idea? If you have runs of
several documents to print, perhaps from different applications, modify
the batch file to feed them to the printer one after the other, and leave
it running at night or over lunch. This is handy on a network where other
people would be waiting for your monster print job to finish. You could
set it to run at a time when you're sure everyone will have gone home -
start the batch file from a Windows scheduler, as discussed last
month.
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 Date: May 1995
Issue: 103
Page: 403
Title: HARD DISK FORMATTING
Is it safe to use the CMOS format utility? The hard disk autodetect
utility only gives me 327Mb rather then the full 340Mb and I feel this is
because of the initial formatting. Fdisk will only allow me to format to
the 327Mb, due to the latter. The hard disk is a Conner and the setup is:
Heads
Sect 63
Size (Mb) 327
Scott Ballard, Belgium
Only if you fancy playing Russian roulette with your disk. The formatter
built into your PC's BIOS (the CMOS is just an area of memory that stores
settings; the CMOS setup screen is generated by the BIOS) is probably a
low-level formatter. On some disks it will erase reference tracks the
drive uses to position the heads over the cylinders. A hard drive damaged
in this way has to be reformatted at the factory or by a technician.
The reason for the discrepancy in size is that hard disk
manufacturers frequently use a multiplier of 1,000 when converting bytes
to megabytes, instead of the 1,024 used by almost everyone else. A single
sector on a hard disk usually contains 512 bytes so the capacity of yours
is: 665x16x63x512 = 343,203,840 bytes. Divide it by 1,024 to turn it into
kilobytes, again to convert to megabytes, and you're left with 327.3Mb.
Had we used 1,000, the figure would've been 343.2Mb.
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 Date: May 1995
Issue: 103
Page: 405
Title: A GREAT LINE-UP
I have used several drawing packages on the PC, from the ones integrated
with word processors to CorelDRAW!. None of them has the feature I sorely
miss: a quick way of positioning a set of objects so they are equally
spaced between two arbitrary points, for example the left and right-most
objects in a group. Here are two techniques that work quite well.
To distribute objects on regular centre-centre spacing, draw a
rectangle. Copy it with [Ctrl][C]. Paste several copies back by
repeatedly pressing [Ctrl][V] - you need a total of one less than the
number of objects. Move each copy so it forms a row of adjoining
rectangles. Turn off Snap to Grid if desired. Group them together. Move
the group so the left-hand edge aligns with the left-hand edge of the
left-most object. Stretch the group so the right edge touches the left
edge of the right-most object.
Move the other objects to line up with the intervening vertical
bars. Finally, remove the guide object and use the vertical alignment
tool to straighten the objects. This is a lot easier than messing about
with the grid settings, or working out the coordinates and adjusting each
object's position via a dialog box.
The above method can be easily adapted for vertical alignments; by
rotating the guide it works diagonally too. If you want equal spaces
between differently shaped objects, you can draw a rectangle which you
sandwich between, to provide equal spacing. To work out the size of the
rectangle, queue up all the objects on the left, except for one. This
lumps together the total space you want distributed evenly between
objects. Fit a rectangle into it. Bring up its properties dialog and
divide its horizontal dimension by the number of inter-object gaps.
Adrian Ward, Birmingham
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 Date: May 1995
Issue: 103
Page: 405
Title: WRITE TEMPLATES
In issue 97 Martin Wall asked how to change the default font in Windows
Write. You suggested he created a dummy document with the font and had it
load automatically when Write started.
I use a similar trick, but instead of a one-space dummy document I
create a personal letterhead, since most of my documents are personal
letterheads anyway. I use Save As... to save the letter under a new name.
If I don't want a letterhead, I highlight the top section and hit Delete.
That way I retain my preferred page layout and font.
Merv Matthews, New Zealand
In case you delete the header then inadvertently use Save instead of Save
As, make the file read-only so that Write will automatically pop-up the
Save As dialog.
If you regularly work with several standard layouts, you could
create a Write icon for each of them, the difference being the name of
the document fed to Write on its command line. Collect all these icons in
a group of their own, and you have a selection of templates ready to be
launched from the Windows desktop.
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 Date: May 1995
Issue: 103
Page: 405
Title: MARK MY WORD!
Word for Windows 6.0 has a bookmark feature which lets you mark a place
in the text and return later. When reviewing and editing a long document
this is cumbersome because you have to enter and select bookmark names
via menus and dialog boxes.
I would like to be able to press a single key to mark a place in the
text, perhaps leaving many such marks throughout a document. I then want
to be able to jump backwards and forwards through the markers by pressing
the equivalent of a [Page Up] or [Page Down] key. I also want to be able
to remove all markers in one easy command. Finally, the markers mustn't
print. Your starter for 10 is: can it be done, and how?
Gerrard Rooke, Folkestone
On the SuperDisk/CD you'll find this set of macros:
BMaddauto: add an auto-bookmark.
BMfindnext: move on from the current point to the next auto-bookmark.
Other bookmarks are ignored.
BMfindprev: move back.
BMclearall: clear all auto-bookmarks, leaving ordinary bookmarks intact.
They're inside a template file called BOOKMARK.DOT. Use the macro
organiser (Tools, Macro, Organizer) to copy them into your NORMAL.DOT
template. I suggest you then put them on a custom toolbar (View,
Toolbars, New and so on - see the help system for precise details). The
toolbar is in BOOKMARK.DOT, too. You can then tear off the new toolbar to
make it float.
My icons are taken from the set supplied in WinWord. Design better
ones if you can stomach Microsoft's buggy and feature-sparse icon editor.
I am already finding these tools useful. For instance, I marked the
start of each item in my Help Screen file. The arrow buttons enable me to
page backwards and forwards on a question-by-question basis.
The macros build on WinWord's existing bookmark feature. BMaddauto
accomplishes automatic naming and insertion of bookmarks by reading the
existing bookmark names, and applies a sequential system to decide what
to call the next one.
Auto-bookmark names follow a convention that runs from A0 to A9, B0
to B9, and so on up to Z9. Don't manually insert names that fit the
pattern, unless you have a specific reason. Adding a marker called Z9,
for example, would make BMaddauto think that there were no more names
available. The delete macro, BMclearall, would also wipe your manual
bookmark.
When looking for the marker closest to the user's insertion point,
it doesn't seem to be possible to get WordBasic to report the position of
a named bookmark. This is odd because WinWord must be keeping a list.
Instead, we have to move the insertion point to the bookmark (The
equivalent of Edit, Go To, Bookmark), and then ask for the current
position.
To jump to the next auto-bookmark forward of the current editing
position, the insertion point is moved to each bookmark in turn, starting
at the head of the list. When the reported position changes from being
before the remembered editing position to after it, the macro stops.
Moving backwards is the reverse process, beginning at the bottom of the
list.
You could develop the system further; for example have extra macros
to show and hide bookmarks, and one to delete individual bookmarks. All
the macro code is commented so you can see the techniques I have used.
The macros ignore any bookmarks you may insert manually, so you can
clear all auto-bookmarks without losing special reference points. If you
want to remove individual auto-bookmarks, use the Edit, Bookmark menu
item. You will see that the last selected bookmark is highlighted. Just
press the Delete button.
If there's demand for versions of these macros for WinWord 2 or
other word processors, I'll see what can be done in a future Help
 Screen.
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 Date: May 1995
Issue: 103
Page: 407
Title: THE GREAT ESCAPE
At last! I refer, of course, to your coverage of PC Tools' wonderful
scripting language in issue 102.
Considering the amount of publicity given to the package over the
years, and the number of people using it, this is a massively
underexposed feature. I would like to share with you my favourite script:
ExitWindows 0
It's just one instruction. Call the script WINEXIT.RUN. Create an icon
for it, with the command line:
c:\pctools\wnsrun.exe c:\pctools\data\winexit.run
Set up a shortcut key - I use [Alt][Shift][F4]. The result is the ability
to quit from Windows, either via the keypress or by double-clicking the
icon, without that goddamed dialog box headed "This will end your Windows
session" where you then have to click OK.
Mark Fenton, Stafford
Great - something that I, for one, have been looking for. You could
extend the script to do other things before exiting if you wanted a
custom shut-down procedure. Has anyone else got useful scripts?
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 Date: May 1995
Issue: 103
Page: 407
Title: DODGY CDs
If, like me, you are perplexed by your CD-ROM drive's inability to read
parts of certain discs, your CD driver could be at fault.
I bought my CD-ROM drive from Silica Systems, one of its Amitek
packs, with the dual-speed SCSI-2 MedaVision CDR-H93 MV. I am very happy
with it. It's an excellent bundle that came crammed with software at a
good price.
When I tried to install some coverdiscs, especially from within
Windows, I got messages about files being corrupted or not found. The
problem was with the CD-ROM driver supplied by Corel. The install script
that came with the drive sets it all up for you. It is also pre-installed
on certain PCs by some manufacturers.
The solution is to use the CD driver supplied by Microsoft. It is
called MSCDEX. To do this you must edit your CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT,
whichever contains the line CORELCDX.COM. Take a copy of the file in case
you make a mistake. Change the line to:
device=c:\dos\mscdex.exe
Don't touch the parameters following it, as these are very important.
Save the file and reboot your PC, and it should be able to run those
problem CDs successfully.
D Rowland, Bridgwater
I can't vouch for problems with Corel's software in particular, but the
underlying point about difficulties with certain CD drivers is certainly
valid. The SuperCD hotline receives a steady trickle of calls about
apparently dud SuperCDs, which result from this problem.
Even older versions of MSCDEX have caused trouble on certain
combinations of CD and drive, and it may well be that the latest Corel
driver is better than the one you have. If you are experiencing problems
similar to Mr Rowland's, try an update or an alternative. The latest
MSCDEX.EXE is shipped with MS-DOS. In my copy of MS-DOS 6.22 the file is
dated 31/05/94.
If MSCDEX.EXE was supplied with your version of DOS, type HELP
MSCDEX at the DOS prompt for detailed information on its command line
parameters.
Note that MSCDEX is not the only driver your system needs to access
a CD-ROM. It provides a range of CD-related functions that programs may
call upon. You will still need a device driver supplied by the CD-ROM
manufacturer in order to give MSCDEX access to the CD hardware.
Furthermore, MSCDEX must be installed after the low-level hardware
support. If you use SmartDrive to cache the CD, it must be installed
after MSCDEX.
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 Date: May 1995
Issue: 103
Page: 407
Title: NON INTEL INSIDE
I am the owner of an Amerigo PC. I had been looking forward to obtaining
a copy of Windows 95 when it is eventually released; that is until I read
Huw Collingbourne's comments in the February issue of PC Plus (page 45)
concerning Excel 5 and Word 6 for Windows NT.
In this article he commented that "unlike Windows 95, NT can be run
on non-Intel machines". As my processor is an IBM Blue Lightning, does
this mean I will not be able to run Windows 95 on my machine? If this is
the case, could you advise if Windows NT is the right package for me?
Derek Hintze, Edenbridge
The IBM, AMD and Cyrix chips found in PCs are all designed to run the
same software that will run on Intel 386, 486 and Pentium processors. In
fact Intel produces other processors not compatible with the ones fitted
to PCs, so strictly speaking we're talking about Intel x86 chips -
descendants of the 8086 and 80286, though Windows 95 will need an i386 or
better.
There will be no problem running Windows 95 on PCs fitted with
x86-compatible chips from manufacturers other than Intel.
The business about NT running on non-Intel processors means it will
run on some specific types of processor that are not compatible with the
i386, i486 and Pentium series.
My tip of the moment is don't buy NT. It's an industrial-strength
version of Windows that demands a PC pumped up with ruinously expensive
amounts of RAM and processing power. The features you gain will be, on
the whole, of little use if you are un-networked.
  Return to Main Menu
MenuB
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: May 1995
Issue: 103
Page: 409
Title: FIGURES INTO WORDS
In issue 101 we published a question from Mark Raffell asking how to turn
figures into the equivalent in words, as you would on a cheque. My answer
illustrated a technique which would need refining for use in a live
spreadsheet.
Since then we have had a number of letters from readers who had
already worked on this problem, or whose interest was sparked by the
question. I have chosen one submission from Dave Heafield, MD of
Speedwell Computing in Newark, for inclusion on the disk, because it was
the most complete and professional solution. The main file is
NUMTEXT.WK3. Type a figure into cell C37, press [Return], and see the
output in B45.
The worksheet is in 1-2-3 .WK3 format. Study and use it for private
purposes, but please read Dave's copyright notice in relation to
commercial applications.
  Return to Main Menu
Menux
   Return to Main Menu
 Date: May 1995
Issue: 103
Page: 409
Title: PROCESSOR UPGRADES
My machine has an Intel DX2-50 and I am thinking of upgrading because I
do a lot of graphic work and feel that the processor is slowing things
down. I have a Kelvin 64 VLB graphics card, an enhanced IDE VLB disk
controller and a reasonably fast 540Mb hard drive.
I am considering changing to a DX4 processor. Can I upgrade to
either of the DX-4 CPUs - 75 or 100MHz? My motherboard has settings for
both DX2-50 and DX2-66, so I assume I could fit either of the upgrades.
The motherboard has a Type 3 ZIF socket. Should I wait for the Pentium
OverDrive CPU?
P J Copley, Frome
I would first look at the amount of memory installed and the way your PC
is configured. With heavyweight graphics programs you can't have too much
RAM: 8Mb is the bare minimum, 12Mb or 16Mb is better, and virtually a
necessity if you are running two or more applications at once. Otherwise
a fair amount of disk swapping is inevitable.
Make sure you have 32-bit disk access turned on, and 32-bit file
access too, if your version of Windows supports it - this can make a big
difference. Ensure you have a permanent swapfile allocated, rather than a
temporary one, and that there is a good-sized disk cache allocated. Use
the one in the virtual memory settings of the 386 Enhanced section of
Control Panel, not SmartDrive unless you have good reason to do so. Keep
your disk defragmented, and avoid disk compressors.
If you have bitmaps in your documents, see if it is possible to
display them in low resolution, or even have them greeked when you aren't
working on them. Finally, experiment with the different display modes
offered by the screen drivers supplied with your video card. The ones the
manufacturer expects to be the most commonly used may well have had more
development work put into them, and run quicker than you expect.
If these suggestions do not bring sufficient improvement, then, yes,
your next step is a processor upgrade. On a motherboard such as yours you
should be able to fit a DX2-66, a DX4, or possibly a Pentium OverDrive.
The DX2-66 won't make an impressive difference, and I wouldn't have
thought a 75MHz DX4 would be a big enough jump to make an improvement
you'd be happy with.
Read last month's test on the latest DX4 and Pentium OverDrive
processors. To summarise, they are a 100MHz DX4 for use in 33MHz boards,
and a 64MHz Pentium OverDrive for 25MHz boards. They give similar
performance, but the DX4 costs
50 less.
The Pentium requires a motherboard which makes provision for a P24T;
if the manual doesn't mention it, then your only option is the DX4 which
should work as a straight plug-in replacement for a DX2 in a Type 3 ZIF
socket.
Both chips run on 3.3 volts, not the 5 volts of your motherboard,
although the reviewed OverDrive versions are designed to work as
replacements for earlier chips so have on-board regulators to enable them
to step down from 5 volts. There will be a 33-to-84MHz Pentium OverDrive
later in the year.
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askSam0093
StdFileEditing
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askSam0435
StdFileEditing
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askSam0438
StdFileEditing
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askSam0095
StdFileEditing
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askSam0441
StdFileEditing
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askSam0444
StdFileEditing
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askSam0097
StdFileEditing
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askSam0447
StdFileEditing
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wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
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askSam0450
StdFileEditing
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askSam0099
StdFileEditing
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askSam0453
StdFileEditing
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askSam0456
StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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askSam0459
StdFileEditing
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askSam0462
StdFileEditing
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askSam0103
StdFileEditing
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askSam0465
StdFileEditing
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askSam0468
StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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StdFileEditing
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<Help
mirror tiles to the wall behind the machine so that you can see what you are doing.
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arguments about forgetting or losing hidden columns seem insignif
icant.
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quickly. It's also legal.
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They generally use SCSI, or an adaptation of it.
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in for a fair amount of time spent learning how to set it up.
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kit. Trawling the ads in PC Plus I spotted this advertised between
490 so it pays to shop round.
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point when the drive fails, when you would have had to do it anyway.
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Run Control Panel
4.2/3.7
2.4/1.1
3.4/1.2
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that something was entered, and reads DATE.DAT if it has.
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advantage of the improved photographic reproduction of the LaserJet in
its native mode.
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superficial. A determined person with a moderate level of skill and a
little time could break through them.
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Macro. Highlight Fontcat2, and run or edit it as you wish.
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encyclopedia from scratch.
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the focus away from data entry.
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260511 for the address of a dealer.
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Automatic Word Selection. The autocorrection of double capitals is turned
on and off from Tools, Autocorrect. Just clear the appropriate ch
eck box.
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identified the leaky software, it's really a matter only the author can
sort out.
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changes to disk when prompted, and you should now be able to access the
directory.
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