Brighton Computer Club

Questions and Answers
Dated: 16th January 2009

Moderated by Frank Myers

The first question below was presented to me at coffee break. I don't normally include such questions, but it is such an aggravating situation that I made an exception.

Internet Explorer message pops up "Do you want to allow this webpage to access your Clipboard? - How can this message be stopped from popping up?

Answer:

This security feature can be disabled.

To disable the pop up warning message about possible harmful or unauthorized Clipboard access, follow the steps below:

Click Tools -> Internet Options.
Click Security tab.
Select “Internet” zone, then click on “Custom level" button.
Scroll down to “Scripting” section (near the bottom).
Under “Allow Programmatic clipboard access” option, check or select Disable. Default action for this option is Prompt, which cause the pop-up message whenever there is any attempt to access the Clipboard.
Click "OK" twice to exit from Internet Options.

NOTE: When the preference is set to "Enable" for the “Allow Programmatic clipboard access” option, it increases your security risk because that means that a website can view the last information that you placed in the clipboard and that could be a password, banking information, etc. Fortunately, the member option was set to "prompt" which warned of someone trying to access the clipboard.

Re. Windows messaging - can I delete this?

Answer:

Suggest running "Shoot the messenger"
It is on the club CD.
It is also avalable on our software page for downloading

On the website, link to e-mail goes to Outlook Express. How do I change the default to g-mail?

Answer:

You have to keep Outlook Express as you default email account. When you are surfing the net, and want to Send a Link by Email, Gmail will not do it.
This is because Browsers are run under Windows and Windows cannot recognize an on-line email candidate such as GMail because it is not a program running under Windows - such as Outlook Express.

Member has a new system - dial up noise is annoying.

Answer:

Check the settings in Windows "Contol Panel" - "Phone and Modem - turn speaker off or slide the sound level down to you can just hear it.
NOTE: Some members suggest that you leave the sound at a level you like because if one of your programs tries to dial out without your knowledge, you can then hear it and investigate>

Screen had the taskbar on the side. How can I get it back on the bottom?

Answer:

Right click on an empty area of the taskbar and click to unlock the taskbar
Click and hold the mouse button and cursor on the taskbar
Move to the position where you want it, and release the mouse button.
Then right click on an empty area of the taskbar and click on Lock the taskbar.

Member does not want to hear the modem dialing out. How do I shut off the dialing sounds?

Answer:

See #3 answer above.

A member has old Photoshop Elements program. Will it work with new machine and Vista?

Answer:

If it installs correctly it should work O.K.
Frank said he has loaded 15-20 yr. old programs and they have worked O.K.

Advantages of flat screens to old screens?

Answer:

The question is why choose LCD over CRT?

There are several pros and cons to consider,

The price of LCD monitors is much lower than a few years (or even months) ago, but still far exceeds the price of a comparable CRT monitor.
Desktop real estate is precious, and an LCD will require only a small fraction of the depth that a CRT would require. And if there isn't even enough room on your desk for a slim LCD monitor, the low weight makes them perfectly adaptable to be hung on the wall, or off of a radial arm mount
Image quality is generally considered to be better on an LCD, as each pixel is generated by a specific set of transistors in the screen, which produces a crisp image. But some features that fall under the general heading of image quality might not favor an LCD, including viewing angle, brightness, and contrast.
LCD monitors definitely hold the edge over CRT monitors when it comes to being energy efficient. The huge tube in a CRT monitor is the source of most of its energy consumption, and a comparably sized LCD may use just a fraction of the electricity.
The main benefit that LCDs have when it comes to comfort is the reduced strain on your eyes. The reduced glare on the screen's surface, and the elimination of a typical CRT's "refresh", can prevent your eyes from getting tired from extended use. A CRT monitor redraws the image on the entire screen as it refreshes, whereas an LCD monitor only changes the necessary pixels during a refresh.
The transistors that create the image on a TFT LCD can be a bottleneck to its performance, especially in fast paced 3D games where speed is critical. Related to the different approach taken with screen refreshes, the amount of time it takes the pixels to change in order to display the new image is referred to as the response time. The response time has improved dramatically the last couple of years in LCD monitors.

Acronis program - version 11. Member has two hard drives in his computer. Will it backup both?

Answer:

Yes it treats the hard drives as partitions.
You can backup an image of each hard drive on DVDs

Disk Imaging - what is it?

Answer:

Takes a byte by byte image of your complete hard drive, or each partition if your hard drive has more than one partition.
It is the perfect back up system.
It doesn't use windows because it starts up the computer using it's own operating system.
Because it copies byte by byte within each sector on the hard drive, it cannot miss a thing.

Member bought an external 250 GB hard drive. He did a backup - if he does a second backup will it overwrite or save again?

Answer:

Not unless you use the same file name.
Once you have created an image of your hard drive, the next imaging can add the incremental changes from the last imaging if you so choose.
A pattern that I follow is that once a month I take an image and depending on my activity I will do the incremental updates either daily or twice a week.
Once I take my monthly image I get rid of the second oldest image.

Member is on dial-up. Wanted to update a program from the CD. Does it update from the CD or take you to a website?

Answer:

All the programs shown on the menu of the Club CD are physically stored on the CD.
They are located in the folder "ftp"
If you open that folder in Windows Explorer and double click on any program and it will install on your computer.

Re Word files. How do you transfer files from one place to another?

Answer:

Highlight files in the Word folder
Right click and select "Copy" from the menu
If you want to move the files select "Cut" in the above menu instead of "Copy"
Open the transfer folder (or USB stick, etc.)
Right click and select "Paste" from the menu

Is Acronis #7 is free - can it write to a DVD?

Answer:

There was magazine releases of Acronis 7 which were "Free". If you contacted Acronis about registering one of these release, they would send you a free registration number. They have stopped this offer two weeks ago. We may discuss this situation at the next meeting.
Acronis 7 specialises in hard drive housekeeping software and True Image is the company's offering for saving and restoring complete hard drive images. It runs from Windows, but also includes a facility to prepare a boot floppy or CD, so you can get at the images even when Windows won't load.
All the main tasks the program can undertake are Wizard-driven, taking you step-by-step through the process in a clear and logical way. Backups can be created on a variety of different media, including recordable CDs and DVDs, external drives connected through USB 2 or FireWire ports, and network drives.
You can restore complete images or selected files, making the program particularly versatile should you corrupt or inadvertently delete important information. Support on the desktop and in the PDF manual for cloning an image from one drive to another is particularly clear and, although Acronis also sells a dedicated utility for hard drive upgrading, True Image 7 handles this task