Editor’s Notes

You may not have noticed but the web site is now updated to include the April meeting and Newsletter.  It took me a while to move the data, programs etc to the new laptop and my first attempt failed because I had the wrong password entered.  As I write a quick check shows a couple of problems, probably of my creation, from Newsletter archives you cannot click to return to the home page, and Newsletter Index does not work all.  Any comments or suggestions for improvements would be welcome.  A am afraid the link to the canal society has gone as it was no longer valid.

Pasting column data in Excel

If you need to import data from a web page it is most likely to import into a single column, rather than divided into Excel columns.  A solution to this is available in the Text to Columns wizard in 2003 and 2007, but make sure you have selected the entire page width to the left margin or you might get misalignment problems.  Select your single column of text and go to the Data menu and Text to Columns option, choose Fixed Width.  Set the field widths by dragging the lines that have appeared between columns.  You now are able to choose the data type for each column.  Click Finish and you should have your separate columns.

Excel 2007

In general people seem pleased with Excel 2007, there are plenty of highly desirable new features but they have been balanced by losses in other areas.  Charting, for instance has lost custom chart types including the floating bar chart where the bar does not extend down to the zero on the chart.  This particular loss is not critical as the stacked 2D bar chart can be modified to replace it by making the lower section no-fill and border no line and then removing references to it in the legend.

Image Spam

Now that spam filters have learnt the techniques of identifying the strange misspellings of text originally designed to confuse them they are making big inroads into the volume of spam that is getting through. 

The spammers however are moving on, they are using image spam, what you see is a picture of the text not the actual text so there is nothing for the spam filter to read.  This now requires optical character recognition to read the picture but this is not fast enough to do the job.  You have seen those little boxes where you have to pick out the text from the background in order to log on, well these are designed to prevent computers from pretending they are humans, who are very good at such tricks.  The other options are to use metadata, the info on when, how and by what the image was created, to identify spam, but even this can be randomised.  For those of us on adsl we have noticed increases in spam as an increase in numbers but for those forced to use dial-up they take a double whammy, not only an increase in numbers but an enormous increase in download time.  The average text email is 7 – 10kb whereas a picture email is 40kb or more, 4x the download time.  The real solution to spam appears to be a return to the past.  Spam exists to pass on a message or because html emails can encourage people to click on something live that will cause them harm.  If we returned to text-based emails we might lose the flashy headings and the links to click and gain smaller emails, shorter down load time and very little spam because it would be easier to filter.

No video

Some websites have embedded video files that visitors could play when visiting the site using an external media player.  Since the introduction of IE7 this can fail to work. According to Microsoft this is due to the enhanced security in IE7 and the component now available to play videos within IE7.  Go to IE7 Tools | Internet Options | Security tab and then the Custom Level button and scroll down to “Display video and animation on a web page that doesn’t use an external media player”  Click Enable and then OK out.  Restart IE7.

Mount drives as folders

If you are using NTFS file system then you can set up drives to be addressed as folders, this releases drive letters for other uses.  Or you can set up folders as drives so that you can access a folder in C: and actually save the data to D:  Go to Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Computer Management | Disk Management right click the drive and select Change drive letter and path and then click add and browse for the folder.  This will enable you to access a USB pen drive or a CDRom as if it were a folder freeing it’s drive letter.  To mount a drive letter in a folder, at the right click stage above select Mount in the following NTFS folder and then browse to your chosen location.

Excel list

If you try to create a list of lower case letters in Excel, one letter in each cell, the i will end up as a capital I.  This is because Excel shares Autocorrect with Word and the lower case i is always corrected to I in normal typing.  Go to Tools | Autocorrect and delete the correction form the list.  This will of course mean that when ever you accidentally type a lower case i in Word it will not autocorrect.  In Word you can go back and change an auto corrected character unfortunately in Excel you cannot, as you exit the cell it autocorrects.  What you can do is cut and paste a lower case i from a word in Word or another Excel cell, in this time it does not autocorrect.

Hard disk failure

According to a recent study by Google, hard disks do not fail from high temperatures and high activity.  Early failure (in the first 3months) can be caused by high utilisation but if it survives this it probably has a good long life ahead of it, a sort of survival of the fittest.  The hard disk SMART self monitoring is not great at predicting hard disk failure as a high proportion of disks failed without warning, however the SMART warning is a life saver if you get it.

Yahoo Pipes

http://pipes.yahoo.com makes combining data from different sources easy so that you can build up RSS/Atom feeds supplying exactly the data you want.  If you find building your own data source difficult you can borrow and modify those built by others.

Sage Line 50 problem

This problem specific to Sage Line 50 pay module but indicates failures within Windows.  When trying to pay staff a modem is needed to connect to the bank (com3) and pin card reader connected to com1 to authorise payment.  The modem is working fine but the pin card reader is not, the problem appeared with a Line 50 version upgrade.  Windows properties is happily reporting com1 present and working properly the Mode command mode com1 /status reports it as not present.  Disabling and re-enabling resulted in mode reporting it as present but with the wrong settings 1200, n, 7, 1. whilst properties indicated 9600, n, 8, 1 the required values but it still was not working.  Using the mode command to reset the values mode com1 9600, n, 8, 1 got it working but it also screwed up again during the week and this procedure was needed for each use until Sage get the problem sorted.

Weird email

A PC was randomly sending out multiple copies of emails.  Anti-virus and anti-spyware checking made no difference.  Although an unlikely cause Outlook Express could be re-installed because as part of Windows it can be removed by unchecking a box in Add/Remove Windows Components and then reloaded by rechecking the box.  As this failed to cure the problem it was suggested that HijackThis from www.hijackthis.de/en should be tried.  Run the software components in order and the paste the resulting log into the text box and analyse it.  Go through the highlighted problems, if any, and resolve them.  If you are uncertain about the removal of anything check first.

DISCLAIMER:  This Newsletter represents the ideas and expressions of the members of Maidenhead Computer Club, and is circulated to members only by subscription. The views and opinions contained within are not necessarily those of the Editor of the Newsletter and/or the Maidenhead Computer Club Committee. The Editor and the Committee expressly disclaim responsibility for the ideas and expressions contained in the Maidenhead Computer Club Newsletter Please note that articles in the Newsletter are copyright of the authors and the Editor, permission of both being needed for reprinting or other reproduction. (Requests should be via the Editor)