Editor’s Notes
I keep looking at the heading of the Newsletter and thinking that it is
time for a change. What should I change
it to? What ever it is it needs to look
good in Word since that is how it is distributed. If I was sending out hard copy then I get a
bit fancy, even using the Adobe Acrobat .pdf format I would know that you are
seeing what I had intended. If try
anything fancy in Word I will get complaints that at least one person cannot
read it. All in all I think I will leave
it as it is. Far simpler and much much
less work.
Extend
Vista Activation period
Windows XP had a 30 day trial period before
activation was required. At activation
the operating system is locked to the hard ware present at activation, changing
several components as during an upgrade can cause Windows XP to require
re-activation. Activation is normally
done by connecting to Microsoft servers over the internet but can be achieved
by telephone if you do not have internet access or are paranoid about an automated
session. Telephone activation is readily
obtained with any plausible excuse.
Vista has similar trial period, except for
IE7 Printing
Here’s one for Dave.
Internet Explorer 7 is being pushed out to everybody with automatic
updates set or can be downloaded by anyone entering the updates website. There are lots of complaints and lots of
praise about IE7, when you first load it do not make any other changes for a
while until you have assessed its impact on your system. IE7 is preset to shrink printed web pages to
fit your paper, this can frequently lead to text too small to read. Click on the arrow beside the printer icon on
the menu bar click Print Preview and using the drop down box select the degree
of zoom you require or enter your custom zoom size to tailor your output. You will need to make this change each time
you print.
Outlook
If you are looking for information about Outlook why
not try www.outlookcode.com.
Windows XP SP1 updates
The Windows Update site now states that no more
security updates will be available for XP SP1 only for SP2. If you have not upgraded to SP2 now is the
time to do it. You could of course stay
with SP1 but you will become increasingly vulnerable to security issues and
probably unable to get technical support from Microsoft unless you are fully
patched and up to date. Before upgrading
make sure you have backed up your critical data and anything you would rather
not lose. SP2 can be downloaded from the
Update web site (approx 400Mb) or you may have a magazine disk or be able to
borrow a Microsoft disk to save the download time. This upgrade will be followed by an extensive
list of required updates, issued since SP2 was introduced.
Word responds slowly to typing
There are several possible causes of this including
viruses, 3rd party programs, spelling and grammar checker and the
most likely which is, temporary internet files.
Start Internet Explorer go to menu Tools | Internet Options delete files
button. Select delete browsing history
as well as delete temporary internet files.
This should make a drastic improvement.
Temp folder
Many programs save temporary files in C:/Documents
and Settings/user/temp and some forget to delete them. If there is only a few Mb do not worry but if
it runs in to Gb then there is some benefit to clearing out the junk. Microsoft’s attitude is a bit vague in that
it says if they are important keep them otherwise delete. You could say that since this is a temp
folder that is what it is and everything can be deleted. This folder can also contribute to slow downs
as above.
BT Vision
Video over the internet is the object of BT
Vision. It comes with a PVR (hard drive)
to record videos on an on demand basis.
There is no chance of HD at the moment as the 400kbps of the internet at
peak times is totally insufficient, you would need to order your HD movie 24
hours in advance. Other than an
installation charge it is free to existing BT Total Broadband customers.
New Memory
A new non-volatile memory, a rival to Flash, is under
development. It should be 500 times
faster than Flash and more energy efficient.
It is called phase change because data is stored by heating the
material, slow cooling (if can call cooling over 10 nanoseconds slow) leaves a
crystalline material and rapid cooling amorphous material. A longer life is expected than Flash, which
becomes unreliable after 100,000 rewrites.
Energy Efficiency
PCs can waste a lot of power if left to their own
devices. Screens should be set to turn
off after 20minutes of inactivity not go into screen saver mode which with 3D
animations can use more power than office work.
The only exception to this is people needing the screen without
necessarily interacting with the PC.
Turning the PC off at night and back on in the morning does not put
excessive strain on it and is better for it than running it for the extra
time. PCs do not need to be left on
overnight for backups, wake on Lan is almost universally available of they can
be left on one night per week. In any
case the overheads of updates and scans is highly unlikely to affect
productivity during the day. The start
up time for a PC should not be more than a minute so turning it off a night
should not be a problem. Who comes in to
work and starts immediately, most of us spend a few minutes gathering our
thoughts and shuffling papers. Besides
turning off the PC peripherals such as printers, scanners etc. should also be
turned off.
Car buying
Looking for a used car, why not try http://www.oodle.co.uk it summaries car
advertisements from many sources.
Temporary Mail AddressesEmailias allows you to add a button to your Web browser that will automatically create a temporary xxx@emailias.com address and then have anything that's sent to the disposable address forwarded until you tell it to stop. There is a free trial available at http://www.emailias.com. For one-off, free, short term solutions, there is Ten Minute Mail, which works in a similar way, but 'self destructs' addresses after ten minutes. When the short term e-mail address becomes invalid, spammers can no longer reach you and they get bounced messages instead. http://10minutemail.com
Recycling
PCs
Try www.computer-aid.org or www.donateapc.org.uk or possibly use www.freecycle.org. A list of recycling
companies can be found at www.itforcharities.co.uk/pcs.htm. For companies www.digital-links.org sends PCs to
developing countries or look at www.pcpro.co.uk/links/149_green
for other organisations.
Acronyms
Want to know what all these sets of capital letters might mean, try