Tuesday, January 8th, 2008 MEETING
Our Website is: http://brightoncomputerclub.org
Our e-mail address for Meeting Questions
is contact@brightoncomputerclub.org
Questions and Answers.
Moderated by Frank Myers
NOTE: The first 5 questions were submitted via our website.
- Is there any way to take advantage of the new LCD monitors?
Answer:
- Windows XP (all versions)
If you are using Windows XP and you have never heard of the ClearType feature,
you are going to love it. While ClearType was originally included in Windows XP for
laptop users, it can make a huge difference on LCD monitors - and CRT screens too.
- Right-click on the desktop and choose "Properties" to access display properties
- Click the "Appearance" tab and click the "Effects" button
- The second affect listed says "Use the following method to smooth edges of
screen fonts:" the options are "Standard" and "ClearType". In XP this is "Standard"
by default. Pick ClearType and press OK.
- Click "Apply" to the display properties window.
- Use Windows Explorer and go to the following site to "fine tune" clear type.
Fine Tune Clear Type.
- I want to do a back up and want to include the Contacts in my email Address
Book but can’t find a file which includes the contacts information. I am
using Microsoft Outlook (not Outlook Express) as my email program. Can you
direct me to the appropriate file so that I can back up my contacts.?
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- I recently updated Zone Alarm to v7.0.462.000.
After the update, I was not able to send or receive emails. I am using
Microsoft Outlook. When I disabled Zone Alarm (turned it off) I was then
able to send and receive emails. Therefore, I assumed that the new version
of Zone Alarm was causing the problem. I used system restore to go back to
the previous version of Zone Alarm v7.0.408.000 and have had no further
problems.Has anyone else that you know of reported this or had a problem? Is there
something that I may have done wrong to cause the problem?
Answer:
- The first place to look for a solution is to ensure that you are not running more than one
Firewall at the same time. For example: Windows Firewall and Zonealarm. You must
turn one of them off.
- Because Zonealarm, as well as other controlling software, inter-relates with the your system,
there could be a conflict with programs that run concurrently. You may be running without any
problems until you introduce a new release. This could be the version that conflicts with something
on your computer.
- This is a common occurence. The programmers test their product but can never test with every
other program that is currently being used.
- Your solution was correct, but you have to go one step further and send an email to Zonealarm
Technical Support and report your problem - if you didn't create it [See 1st line above]
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- I have been advised that Windows Media Player (wmv files) can be
corrupted. Should I download the free VLC Media Player 0.8.6c?
Answer:
- I use VLC Media Player. I have been having all kinds of difficulty with Windows Media Player and stopped using it about 6 months ago.
- It is from VideoLan, a French company.
- VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video
formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.
- I am currently in the process of evaluating this program for inclusion on our Club CD and listing on our Software page.
- You can download it from
Videolan .
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- Received this message from one of my readers. I email a weekly column as
an attachment using Microsoft Outlook. Any idea how this can be overcome and corrected?
For some reason, the last two BBs you have sent show a "Runtime Error", and will not open.
It has not happened before...and...whether your comp. or my comp. is causing this I do not know.
I forward it to my gmail and open it with HTML instead of "Word".
Answer:
- About your Outlook situation......
- Check "Tools", "Options" and Tab: "Mail format"
- Under "Message Format" at the top, where it lets you choose a format for outgoing mail,
- If you use "Rich Text" or "Plain Text" your readers can open it with anything.
- If you use "HTML" and Word combination, it could cause some of your readers difficulty.
- You must be using "HTML" if it can be read easily in GMail because that is the default in GMail.
- If you want to keep your formatting, you probably want to use Rich Text.
- That can be read with Microsoft WordPad which is on every Windows system.
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- Is there a procedure on the Brighton Computer Club website to get on Gmail?
Answer:
- Not now. There use to be a connector on the Members Page when GMail was restricted but now that it
is available to anyone and everyone, that connector was removed.
- You can use this connection:
Switching to GMail .
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- Can you use Google as a remote hard drive?
Answer:
- Yes! Set up a folder in GMail named "Storage"
- Send yourself an EMail with .zip storage file(s) attached
- Be sure to put a meaningful topic in the Subject line to identify your attached file(s) content.
- When it arrives in your Inbox, apply the Label "Storage", put an "X" in the refrence box and click "Archive"
- It is now stored.
- When you want to get at the files, just open the "Storage" folder and Viola! there they are.
- Google just recently raised the storage to 6 Gigabytes - per GMail address.
- Therefore, if you needed 60 Gigabytes of storage, you would need 10 different GMail accounts.
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- Can you run Windows XP and Vista simultaneously?
Answer:
- Yes! You do it by installing a virtual environment inside Vista.
- There are currently two popular ones available for Vista: VMWare and Microsoft Virtual Servers
- Charlie LeBer and I are currently testing both on the Club's new Laptop.
- The restriction found so far is that neither recognizes 2,0 USB ports.
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Frank Myers
Thanks to Jenny Alker who recorded the questions asked at the meeting.
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