PCTips - Setups

Click the links below:

Screen Resolution

Network Attached Storage

FreeNAS

Can I connect an Apple Mac to my router to share the internet?

No Floppy!

Copying a Software CD

Understanding Mice

Access your old files

What’s the difference between SATA and PATA hard disks?

CDs to play in the car

Networking two computers

DPI - Dots Per Inch

IDE Drives

DVD Confusion

Two Primary IDE Channels?

My Printer Margins have changed

Dell ditch IDE drives!

Put a Printing Preferences Shortcut Icon on your Desktop

Put a Printer Properties Shortcut Icon on your Desktop

Power Supplies

No Printer Port?

Read a Mac Drive

How to stop kids using Instant Messaging

Network Resource is not Accessible

Does changing the DPI use more RAM?

Maximize Laptop Battery Life

BT Voyager 190 ADSL Modem

Screen Resolution

Everybody wants a nice new Flat Panel (TFT) Monitor. But you wouldn’t believe the number that I see being used at the wrong screen resolution.

Screen resolution means the number of pixels (picture elements) being displayed. Ten years ago the standard screen resolution was 640 horizontal by 480 vertical (640 by 480). As monitors and graphics cards improved this gradually increased to 800 by 600 then 1024 by 768.

The old Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) monitors used to have a maximum screen resolution, but would happily support lower resolutions without any problem. But this is not the case with the new Flat Panels.

Every Flat Panel has a “native” resolution - it is made with a certain number of transistors horizontally and vertically so has a “native” resolution defined by its physical construction. i.e. a 15 inch panel usually has a native resolution of 1024 by 768 and a 17 inch panel usually is 1280 by 1024.

If you use a panel at its native resolution you get a superb crisp display.

BUT people that have been used to an old screen, running at say 800 by 600, complain that the icons and writing are smaller. Which of course they are. So they change the resolution to what they were used to before and are happy. But they have lost the perfectly focused and sharp display that they paid all that money for and have got a display that is probably more blurred than their old CRT monitor.

So, what to do? DON’T change the screen resolution - CHANGE THE SIZE OF THE ICONS AND TEXT!

Right click on an empty part of the desktop and then left click Properties.
Left click the Settings tab and then the Advanced button.
In the DPI setting box select Large Size
Left click OK when it tells you that your new setting will take effect after Windows is restarted.
Left click OK again to use the existing font files and then Close the Display Properties box.
You will be asked if you want to restart your computer now. Left click Yes or No.

When you restart your computer everything will be more legible. Great for those with aging eyes!

Or you can work on the icons, text and icon spacing separately:

Right click on an empty part of the desktop and select Properties.

The Display Properties box will open. Select the Appearance tab and then the Effects button.

The Effects box will open. Select Use large icons and left click OK.

Back in the Display Properties box click Apply.

Marvel at the large icons.

Whilst still in the Appearance tab of the Display Properties box, left click the down arrow in the Font size box and select Large Fonts or Extra Large Fonts.

Click Apply again and admire the large fonts.

But now things are larger they are overlapping - so we need to increase the icon spacing.

Still in the Appearance tab of the Display Properties box, left click the Advanced button.

The Advanced Appearance box opens. Under Item:, select Icon Spacing (Horizontal) and then under Size: change it to 60. Do the same for Icon Spacing (Vertical).

Left click OK to exit the Advanced Appearance box and then OK to exit the Display Properties box.

You may need to reboot your PC to see the effect of the Icon Spacing change. You might like to experiment with these settings - an Icon Spacing of 50 might suit you better.

Network Attached Storage

If you have a network with a router or switch then it can be useful to have a central data server so that any PC on the network can access and use files.

This is standard practice in an office environment, but it can also be useful in the home, even if it only means that all your MP3s can be accessed from any of your PCs.

In both cases a central data store can also make backups much easier and safer.

A Network Attached Storage device is little more than one or two hard disks in a box with minimalised PC hardware running a single program to share files. You can buy them. They are expensive.

But if you have an old PC lying around you can make one yourself. You need a keyboard, monitor and CDROM drive to do the initial setup but after that you can operate it without any peripherals. You just connect it to the mains and to the network and then control it from any other PC on the network (just like controlling a router).

The software to make this happen can be anything from Microsoft Windows Server Edition through to Unix, Linux or Linux Live CDs.

But there is a free program called FreeNAS (from www.freenas.org) that does the job. Because it’s free the documentation is a bit ropey and still incomplete, but once you’ve set it up it just works.

It even supports RAID disk arrays for extra speed or security (or both)!

Try it - it’s open source software so you have nothing to lose. Microsoft Small Business Server edition costs about £300. FreeNAS might be all you need!

FreeNAS

In my tip Network Attached Storage I mentioned a free program called FreeNAS.

I have now spent more time experimenting with this Open Source (that means it is, and always will be, completely free) program and here are my comments:

1) It works - you can set up an old PC to be a file server for your home or company network, then take away the monitor, keyboard and mouse and leave it in a corner to do its job, just switch it on and off with the switch on the front.

2) The PDF documentation looks good, but is a work-in-progress and is incomplete, but if you follow it correctly you will end up with a functioning server.

3) Your server obviously needs at least one hard disk (otherwise it can't really be a server can it!) but it can have more. You need a CD-ROM drive for the boot CD to set it up initially, but if required the program will configure the first hard disk to have a tiny first partition to hold the program and setup information. Then you can do away with the CD-ROM drive.

4) If you want to install existing hard disks with data already on them you can do that either by adding them in addition to the first hard disk (the one with the program on), or:

5) (This bit is not explained in the Manual) If you start the PC with the boot CD in the drive and a dos formatted floppy in the floppy drive then all the set-up information will be automatically saved to the floppy. You won't have to reformat the hard disk(s) and nothing will be lost or written to them. You will then, of course, have to leave the floppy and CD in their drives for every subsequent reboot.

6) You can set up the program on a hard disk with the tiny first partition as in 3) above and then transfer the disk(s) to another PC and that will become the server. Or transfer the hard disk(s), floppy disk and Boot CD as in 5) above to another PC.

7) It supports RAID 0, 1 and 5 but I have not tested that yet.

8) It says that it needs at least 96MB of RAM, but will work as a normal CIFS (SAMBA) file server with only 64MB.

9) Not only does it behave as a normal (SAMBA) file server but it will also support FTP, NFS, RSYCD, SSHD and AFP. But this is where the PDF manual rides off into the sunset!

10) You can download the CD image from www.freenas.org. If you need to know how to burn the CD image file to a CD see my tip “How to burn an ISO-image with Nero”.

Can I connect an Apple Mac to my router to share the internet?

Yes. Macs and PCs both use TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol so you can connect a Mac to an ordinary router (ADSL or cable) and access the internet.

But when it comes to file and printer sharing - things are a lot more complicated. You need special software to do it. A program called “Dave” from www.thursby.com promises “easy, bi-directional file and printer sharing between Windows and Macintosh computers”. But I have not tried it.

I advise you to download and test the free trial from the Thursby web site before forking out $110 dollars for the full product.

No Floppy!

“I’ve bought a new PC but I didn’t realize that it wouldn’t have a floppy disk drive. How do I read all my old floppys?”

First consider if you really do want to be able to read those old floppy disks. Why waste money on a drive that you may never use?

Modern PCs don’t come with an internal floppy drive as standard - but you can usually specify that the manufacturer fits one for you (Dell charge an extra £17.34 at mid August 2006 for supplying a floppy drive in a desktop).

But you can buy an external floppy drive for about the same price.

An external floppy drive is not much bigger than the floppy disks that go in it and it connects by USB. No software or driver is required by Windows XP.

You just use it like you would an internal floppy drive.

Note: If you try to fit an internal floppy disk drive into your new PC you may find that the metalwork is not there to support it - the manufacturer can save a few pennies by leaving it out.

Copying a Software CD

Almost all software CDs will autorun when you put them into your computer. That is, the installation will start immediately and ask you if you want to install the software.

If you copy that CD by just copying the files to a blank CD it will not autorun. This will then confuse the “man in the street” who receives your disk because he will not have the foggiest idea how to run it.

To get a copy that works properly you have to use the correct option in your disk copying program. In Nero the correct option is “Copy Entire Disk”.

Understanding Mice

Most of the mice that I have to work with in customers homes and offices are in a terrible state.

They don’t work properly and I sometimes have to resort to rolling the ball with my fingers to get the pointer to go where I want. The customers are usually very apologetic and invariably say that they keep meaning to buy a new one.

They don’t need to buy a new one - just clean the old one! It takes about 5 minutes.

A mouse with a ball transfers the rolling of the ball to two rollers inside - one for forward and backward motion and one for side to side motion. The rotation of the rollers is changed into electronic pulses which are then used to move the pointer on the screen to match the movement of the mouse.

Unfortunately the ball also transfers dust and fluff to the rollers which then build up a thick band of compressed muck. This interferes with the smooth movement of the rollers.

Simply remove the mouse ball by giving the locking ring a quarter turn and then clean the muck off the rollers using a pair of tweezers (or even finger nails).

Once the ball is making smooth contact with the rollers the improvement is amazing. But it doesn’t last! Mice need cleaning every few months or even weeks if well used in a dirty environment.

Better still, buy an optical mouse (the ones with a little light underneath). No moving parts so no dirt can get in.

I avoid wireless mice because they have a time lag between moving and responding. They can also be problematical to set up and suffer from flat batteries when you are in the middle of something important.

Best mouse is an optical wired mouse connected to the PS2 socket. That should work in all situations.

By the way, if you unplug a PS2 mouse while the PC is on you probably can’t get it going again without rebooting the PC. (But the same does not apply to PS2 keyboards - they usually can be unplugged and plugged back in again without any problem).

Access your old files

A popular option when people get a new PC is to install the hard disk from their old PC into it as a slave. Then if they need any files from their old PC they can just get them off their old drive.

But if their username on the old PC needed a password to logon they will be in trouble - the new PC will refuse to read the old “My Documents” files, even if set up with the same username and password as before.

There are several ways to get over this problem. My preferred option is to boot the new PC with a Linux Live CD (Puppy, Slax, etc) and then just copy the required files from the old disk to an external USB flash drive or hard disk. Believe it or not, the Linux CDs will quite happily read the password protected files without any problem.

But Linux does not (yet) fully support writing to NTFS disks, that’s why I write the files to an external disk which is DOS formatted.

Then when you reboot the PC with Windows you can copy the files off the USB disk.

What’s the difference between SATA and PATA hard disks?

Until recently, all hard disks were PATA (Parallel Advanced Technology Attachment). They are the ones that connect to the motherboard with the flat 80 wire (or 40 wire) cables. The fastest PATA interface is 133MB/s and will never be any faster.

SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) is the new standard and connects with much thinner and more flexible cable (and a different power connector). The fastest SATA interface was initially 150MB/s but with the recent introduction of SATA2 this has gone to 300MB/s.

Physically the disks look exactly the same (except for the connectors). Early SATA disks were actually modified PATA drives, but new disks are now being designed from scratch as SATA.

In terms of performance, even though SATA is theoretically faster, practically there is very little difference at the moment. But presumably that will change.

SATA drives are slightly easier to install because of the smaller cables and not having to set masters and slaves.

If you are buying a new PC you should ensure that it has a SATA drive - if not it may have been sitting in the shop for a long time. (Point that out and haggle for a big discount!)

At the very least ensure that a new PC or motherboard has a SATA interface for future proofing.

Optical drives (CD and DVD) still use PATA connectors so SATA motherboards always have PATA connections as well.

I don’t know if BLU RAY or HDDVD optical drives will connect with SATA, PATA or maybe some new connector. Watch this space!

CDs to play in the car

With hundreds of MP3 music tracks on their PC and MP3 player many people want to burn their music to CDs to play in their car or home hi-fi. But.....

There are two types of recordable CDs -
CD-R that you can only record once, and
CD-RW that you can reuse many times.

Most domestic and car audio players will not play CD-RW. A few do, and the newer they are the more likely it is that they will, but most do not.

Only the very oldest of players will not play CD-R.

So stick to using CD-R for use away from the PC - they only cost about 20p after all.

Or get a cheap cassette adaptor for your MP3 player - you put a dummy cassette into your car cassette player and a wire from it goes to your MP3 player’s earphone socket. The car radio thinks it is playing a cassette but it is really playing the tunes from your MP3 player. About £10.

Later this year it will be legal to use adaptors that turn your MP3 player into a mini FM radio transmitter. You can then tune your car radio into it and hear your tunes that way. But it will need a power source - batteries or the cigar lighter. And will cost about £75.

Networking two computers

It is possible and easy to connect two PCs so that one can share the others internet connection and they can exchange files.

You don’t need a router, hub or switch, you only need a Crossover cable.

Normal network (ethernet) cables are used for connecting computers to routers hubs and switches. They are wired exactly the same at each end. The router switches the signals from the outgoing connectors on the sending PC to the incoming connectors on the target PC.

But crossover cables have the incoming connectors at one end connected to the outgoing connectors at the other. And vice versa.

Connect the ethernet sockets of the two PCs with a cross over cable and you have created a basic network.

Switch on Internet connection sharing and File and Printer sharing and you should be able to to just that.

You can buy crossover cables of various lengths, but they are much more expensive than normal network cables (why?). Alternatively you can use a normal cable with a crossover adaptor on one end (not both ends, that would be stupid). Crossover adaptors are cheap, but hard to find.

DPI - Dots Per Inch

There is a lot of confusion about this term although on the face of it, it’s crystal clear.

It’s the number of dots (pixels on a screen or printed spots of colour on paper) per inch (that’s per inch of length, not square inch).

So, for example, my PC screen is a 15 inch screen - that means it is 15 inches from one corner to the diagonally opposite corner. And because it is a normal (not widescreen) screen it has its sides in the ratio of 4 along to 3 up. Which means it must be 12 inches along the base and 9 inches up the side. Thank you Pythagoras!

My screen has a native resolution of 1024 pixels along by 768 up. So the DPI of my screen is 1024 pixels divided by 12 inches which is 85.333 Dots Per Inch. Or I could have said 768 divided by 9 - comes to the same thing.

But my PC is only a computer and has no eyes or inbuilt intelligence, so if I were to unplug my monitor and plug in a projector and projected the output on a wall to make a picture 4 feet wide by 3 feet high IT WOULDN’T KNOW (or care). It would still keep outputting 1024 by 768. But the DPI would have changed to 21.333. (You do the sums)

The point I am making is that a computer display and a digital photograph (or movie) does not have a DPI - it just has a number of pixels in each direction. The DPI depends upon the size of the picture when it is displayed or printed and can be changed without changing the original digital picture.

Now when colour PC monitors went into mass production there was a limit to the density of coloured phosphor dots that could be deposited on the inside of the picture tube. So the state of the art at the time meant that monitors were at their best at about 96 DPI. So 96 DPI came to be the accepted standard. And Microsoft designed Windows with standard Icons and Fonts that THEY THOUGHT were just the right size when viewed on a monitor set to 96 DPI.

(Working it out, if the “normal” monitor at that time was set to 800 by 600 pixels, then at 96 DPI the screen would only have been about 10 inches diagonally. But thinking back, that’s about what they were!)

As CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) monitor technology developed the manufacturers were able to pack the phosphor dots closer together so that the screens were able to display at up to 120 DPI. But if you set your 10 inch screen to display at 1024 by 768 (roughly 120 DPI) then all the icons and writing were very small. So Microsoft included an option to globally enlarge those items to suit a display running at 120 DPI.

You will find that option by right clicking on an empty part of the desktop, left clicking Properties, then the Settings tab, then the Advanced button. Change the DPI setting to Large size (120 DPI) to get bigger Icons and writing.

But remember that when you do that you are NOT changing the DPI of your screen, you are changing the Icons and writing from a size that Microsoft thinks suitable for a 96 DPI screen to a size that Microsoft thinks suitable for a 120 DPI screen.

But you and I are not Microsoft. WE will decide what size we want our Icons and writing. So Windows also gives you the option to choose a custom size in the same place. So play around - get the Icons to the size that YOU want. It calls this the Custom DPI setting - but it is not changing the Dots Per Inch at all - think of it as changing the Dots Per ICON. Perhaps that’s what the programmer thought DPI stood for!

Just out of interest, now that we have moved to Flat Panel Monitors (TFT) the maximum DPI that can be displayed has gone down to between 85 and 100 DPI.

This is because the pixels are made from 3 transistors instead of 3 phosphor dots. No doubt the technology will catch up with CRT eventually.

But many of my older customers buy a bigger TFT screen because they want the whole picture to be bigger - and are disappointed when they discover that the icons are the same size (in pixels and in measurement), which means that they are smaller relative to the larger screen size.

See my tip Screen Resolution for more information on dealing with this problem.

IDE Drives

IDE = Integrated Drive Electronics

These drives are also known as:

ATAPI = AT Attachment Packet Interface

PATA = Parallel AT Attachment

UDMA = Ultra Direct Memory Access

Normally PC motherboards have two IDE channels (Primary and Secondary) each able to support 2 IDE drives (Device 0 and Device 1). By IDE drives I mean hard disks or CD/DVD drives. (Not floppies, zip disks, flash memory or anything connected by USB.)

The main hard disk has to be Device 0 (Master) on the Primary channel. If you then only have one other drive it would normally be connected as Device 0 (Master) on the Secondary channel. Master drives should be connected to the end connector of the flat cable and configured as Master (move the jumper appropriately).

If you have 2 Optical (CD/DVD) drives they should really both be connected to the Secondary channel as Device 0 (Master) and Device 1 (Slave). The Master drive should be connected to the end connector of the flat cable and configured as Master (move the jumper appropriately). The Slave drive should be connected to the middle connector and configured as Slave.

(If your motherboard supports Cable Select you can configure all drive jumpers to CS and then the ones connected at the end will become the Masters and the ones in the middle will be the slaves.)

If you have a second hard disk and have one or more optical drives on the Secondary channel already then the hard disk should be connected as Device 1 (Slave) on the Primary Channel (with jumper set appropriately)

DVD Confusion

Commercial DVDs are neither DVD+R or DVD-R - they are just DVDs. The two different suffices are only for recordable (and rewritable DVDs - +RW & -RW). The two different standards were developed by two groups of companies who could not agree on a common standard. (The same thing is happening right now with High Definition commercial DVDs - Blu-ray versus HD DVD.)

Older domestic DVD players were not originally designed to play recordable or rewritable DVDs - they didn't exist then. But some older DVD players are able to play one or the other. Newer domestic DVD players should be able to play both, but check the specifications. If they don’t say that they can, then they probably can’t.

So home produced DVDs cannot be guaranteed to work on all DVD players. That is no fault of the disks, it's the players.

Two Primary IDE Channels?

Problems with hard drives or optical drives are sometimes caused by Windows slowing down the Transfer Mode speed of the drive. This can be checked in Device Manager. See: IDE Drives for more details.

But some people with newer PCs are shocked when they check IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers within Device Manager, to find that they have TWO Primary IDE channels. It is easy to assume that this is some erroneous duplication by Windows and is the source of the problem that they were trying to solve.

But this is probably not so, because although it used to be impossible to have two Primary IDE channels (or two Secondary) it IS possible when the PC motherboard supports some SATA hard drives. The addition of another IDE channel appears to be a “workaround” to enable the PC to boot from the SATA hard drive.

Attempts to delete the additional Primary IDE channel will be fruitless because Windows will find it and install it again at the next reboot.

So your problem probably lies elsewhere.

My Printer Margins have changed

“My printer is printing fine except for one problem. Until recently I could set the bottom Margin at 1.13 cm. Now it will not accept a printer bottom margin under 3.03 cm on portrait.

I have deleted all the drivers for my printer and re-installed but to no avail.”

We have to thank our American cousins for this one. It's the classic difference between European A4 paper and American "Letter" paper.

Somewhere in your setup you have got one thing set to Letter and another set to A4.

The paper size that you are printing needs to be set in two places - in the printer settings and in the program that is producing the document. They should both be set to A4 in Europe, but because the programs and drivers are produced by Americans they usually install by default as Letter. So even if you used to have everything set for A4, when you reinstall the printer drivers the printer will probably revert to Letter. And new programs will also start off assuming Letter size paper.

So first left click through: Start, (Settings,) Control Panel, Printers and other Hardware, View installed printers or fax printers.
Then right click on your printer and select Properties.
Now different makes and models of printer vary from here on, but on the General tab, maybe on Printing Preferences, maybe on Layout, Advanced you will find Paper size. Select A4 and left click OK. You will also need to select A4 in the Auto Sheet Feeder box on the Device Settings tab and left click OK.

Now go into the program that you want to print from (I’ll assume it’s Word for this example). It will usually open at a blank document. Click through File, then Page Setup to Paper. Select A4 then click the Default button in the bottom left hand corner of the box. That sets all future new documents to A4.

OK out of that and open the document that you are having problems with. Click through File, then Page Setup to Paper. Select A4 again and then OK.

Now you should be able to sort your margins out.

(To further complicate things in Word, on the Paper page there is a Print Options button that leads you to a setting to "Allow A4/Letter paper resizing". Goodness knows what effect that has when you're trying to set margins! Experiment with it and see! But if both the printer and the document are set to A4 it shouldn't have any effect at all.)

You might want to check the Paper size settings for every other existing document that you already have!

And of course you need to repeat the above procedure for every other Program that you print from (Publisher, Excel, etc.). And for every new printer that you connect to.

The Americans don't have these problems - they just leave everything at the default setting.

Dell ditch IDE drives!

New Dell desktops now seem to be coming with motherboards that HAVE NO IDE SOCKETS!

The hard drives and optical (CD/DVD) drives are connected using the new SATA connectors.

So if you were thinking of hooking up one of your old hard drives or your nearly new DVD drive then forget it - there’s nowhere to plug them in.

The old IDE (Parallel) standard has been with us for longer than virtually everything else in the PC so it had to happen one day soon I suppose.

The problem is that it is almost impossible to find optical drives with SATA connections in the shops. And when you do find them they are twice the price of the IDE equivalents. I think Dell have cornered the early production from Samsung so that there are very few available for retail sale.

I had a hard job persuading my local supplier that anyone was actually making them yet!

Put a Printing Preferences Shortcut Icon on your Desktop (XP & Vista)

When you want to change a setting on your printer, like changing from normal to draft printing, you have to trawl through a torturous route (see below) to get to the Printing Preferences box. Would a shortcut icon on your desktop help?

1.Find the exact name that your PC calls your printer:
Go through: Start, (Settings), Control Panel, Printers and Other Hardware, View installed printers or fax printers.
Record the exact name of your printer, including upper and lower case characters, spaces, punctuation, etc. e.g. My current printer is: "Epson Stylus COLOR 640 ESC/P 2".
Close the Printers window.

2.Create a new text document on your desktop:
Right click on an empty part of your desktop background.
Hover over New and when the next box opens, left click on Text Document.
An icon will appear on your desktop called New Text Document.

3.Create a new shortcut to that document on your desktop:
Right click on an empty part of your desktop background.
Hover over New and when the next box opens, left click on Shortcut.
The Create Shortcut wizard will open.
Left click the Browse... button and under Desktop, find and select the New Text Document.
Left click OK and then Next to continue.
In Type a name for this shortcut: type "Printing Preferences"
Left click Finish to create the shortcut.

4.Open the Properties of the new shortcut:
Right click the new shortcut and left click Properties
The shortcut's Properties box will open with the Target already highlighted. Just hit the Delete Key to blank the Target Box
In the Target Box type:
rundll32.exe PRINTUI.DLL,PrintUIEntry /e /n "Your printers name"
THIS MUST BE EXACT - I suggest you highlight the above in your browser and copy and paste it into the Target box - then replace "Your printers name" with YOUR printer's name. BUT KEEP THE SPEECH MARKS ("").

5.If you want to change the Icon for your new shortcut:
Left click the Change Icon... button
In the box to the right of Look for icons in this file: type %SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll
Left click OK
Select an icon
Left click OK

6.Left click OK
Your shortcut icon should now be working
And you can delete that New Text Document - it was just something to initially aim the shortcut at.

If it doesn’t work, check the EXACT name of your printer again. Get it exactly right and it WILL work.

If your printer is a network printer then the printer name that you use should be of the form “\\computername\printer share name”
i.e. “\\joespc\JoesCanon”.

The printer share name of a network printer is probably not the same as the actual printer name (it will have been set up manually when the printer was first shared). You can get the share name from the Printer Properties Sharing tab.

Put a Printer Properties Shortcut Icon on your Desktop

Printer Properties is where you can check and change some of the “higher level” printing parameters. And it has the button to Print Test Page.

To save hacking through the menus to find it, go straight to it with a desktop shortcut icon.

Follow the previous tip but make the following changes:

In section 3, In Type a name for this shortcut: type "Printer Properties"

In section 4, In the Target Box type:
rundll32.exe PRINTUI.DLL,PrintUIEntry /p /n "Your printers name"

Follow the rest of the tip exactly as above.

Power Supplies

One of the most common components to fail in a PC is the Power Supply (PSU). I always keep a few in stock so that I can do an “on-site” replacement and avoid having to take the PC away and return it.

But PSUs have, like the rest of the PC, evolved over the years and when buying replacements you need to check that you have got all the connectors that you need.

Older PCs had a 20 way motherboard connector but modern ones use a 24 way connector. Some PSUs provide a 20 way connector with an additional 4 way connector that can be added at one end if required.

All PSUs provide plenty of 4 way Molex connectors for hard disks and optical drives, but modern PCs need SATA power connectors for these. Luckily you can but converter cables for a couple of pounds.

Some ATX boards need a new 4 pin 12v connector and some SLI boards boards need a Molex connector for the graphics cards.

Older PCs need a floppy disc power connector, but they are dying out now.

So if your PSU fails (and they frequently do), don’t buy a new one until you have counted up exactly how many of each type of connector you are currently using and how many of each you might need for future upgrades. Then buy one that meets your requirements - some of the cheaper ones do not give everything that you might need.

Oh, and when you have got the connectors right, check the max power rating. Take the old PSU out and read its power rating. Then buy one that provides MORE. PC manufacturers specify the lowest that they can get away with but you want to power more devices and you want to make sure that your new PSU will be up to the job. (Maybe that’s why it failed in the first place?).

No Printer Port?

Some new PCs (especially the small ones) don’t have a printer port - otherwise known as a parallel port. (Its the long D shaped connector with 25 holes staggered in two lines down it)

Most of the peripherals that used to connect to the parallel port are now made with USB connections so it is a largely redundant connector that occupies a lot more space than a USB port.

But what if you want to run an old printer which only has a parallel connection on a new PC that only has USBs?

Well you can buy a USB to parallel converter cable for less than £20. It just looks like a cable with a USB plug on one end and a parallel printer connector on the other, but the printer connector also contains some electronics that converts the serial data from the USB into parallel data for the printer.

The cable comes with a tiny piece of software that needs to be loaded onto the PC before connecting up. Once that has been done you can install the printer as though it is a USB printer.

Belkin sell one of these converters (Part No. F5U002VEA) for just under £20 but you can get a similar unbranded (Chinese) one for half that price if you search around.

Parallel ports don’t work at USB2 speeds so don’t expect your old printer to go as fast as a modern one!

Read a Mac Drive

My friend recently changed his job, but before he left his old job he copied all his personal "stuff" (music, photos, etc.) from his company laptop onto a portable hard drive.

When he started his new job he was given a new company laptop.

But the problem was that his old laptop was an Apple Mac and his new laptop is a Windows PC! And the PC couldn't read the files on the portable drive.

The portable drive that he bought to use with his Mac
was formatted in a MAC format (HFSJ) which Windows cannot read.

The solution was to install a Windows program called MacDrive 7 on his PC. It says in the write-up that it is "the ultimate solution for sharing files between Mac OS and Windows". It can be downloaded from here and comes with a six day free trial (which was enough to enable him to copy all the stuff from the portable drive to the PC!).

Once the program is installed the Mac formatted drive just appears like any other drive. Files can be written and read in the normal way.

It costs 50 US dollars to activate the program after the 6 day trial.

Now that the files are safely on the PC laptop it would be possible to reformat the portable drive (losing all the files on it) into a PC format (NTFS) so that the files could then be copied back for security.

But my friend paid the 50 dollars to avoid the hassle of doing all that!

How to stop kids using Instant Messaging

This is a long process depending upon the age and deviousness of the kids concerned!

Stage 1

Uninstall all the instant messaging (IM) services that you can find in Start, Control Panel, Add or Remove Programs. As well as the obvious ones like Windows Live Messenger, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Chat, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) and Google Talk you may find others like GAIM, Meca, Trillian, ICQ, etc.

Now all that should be left on your PC is the IM program that comes as part of Windows XP - Windows Messenger.

To remove Windows Messenger click through Start, Control Panel, Add or Remove Programs, Add/Remove Windows Components and untick MSN Explorer and Windows Messenger. Left click Next and eventually Finish to exit the wizard.

Stage 2

Now we need to stop users downloading and installing the IM program(s) again. The only way to do that is to make their accounts into limited user accounts. See this tip for details of why and how you should do it. Then they will be unable to install new programs from their accounts. And don’t give them the password for the Administrator account!

Stage 3

It is still possible with a limited user account to download and then burn a “Live CD” (usually Linux based). (Or they could get one from a friend.) If this is placed in the CD drive at start up then the PC can be booted completely from the CD, bypassing Windows and everything on the hard drive.

And these live CDs usually come with an instant messaging program!

So to stop booting from a CD you need to make changes to your BIOS. This is usually accessed by pressing F2 or Delete at start up. BIOS’s differ between motherboard manufacturers, so all I can say is that you need to ensure that the hard drive comes before the CD/DVD drives (and floppys and USB drives) in the boot sequence.

Then, of course, you need to set a password in the BIOS security settings to stop that sequence being changed back by your little darlings!

Stage 4

(Why did I start this?) Yes, it’s still possible for them to get round all your protection! They can open the PC and either disconnect the hard drive (so that the BIOS automatically goes to the CD drive on boot-up) or they can find the jumper that resets the BIOS, hence removing the password.

So you need to physically lock the PC - this just may not be possible in many cases. (pun intended!).

Stage 5

Lock them in the house to stop them from using their friends computers! (Yes, it’s a joke, but you see how difficult it is to completely control.)

Network Resource is not Accessible

After setting up a wireless router to enable several PCs to connect to one internet connection, the next step is to enable them to share each others files and printers.

This is usually quite simple to do by running the Network Setup Wizard. Make sure that all the PCs share the same workgroup name (usually MSHOME or WORKGROUP), switch on file and printer sharing on each PC and make sure that each PC has some “shared” files or a “shared” printer.

But sometimes you get the message:

"\\computername is not accessible. You might not have permission to use this network resource. Contact the administrator of this server to find out if you have access permissions. Access is denied".

In other words, the problem PC will not allow the client PCs to access its shared resources. So they can’t connect to its printer or see its shared folders.

There is a Registry setting that can cause this - the usual warning applies - editing the Registry can wreck your PC, don’t blame me if it all goes horribly wrong!

From an Administrator’s account, left click Start, Run... then type regedit in the box and hit OK. Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\CurrentControlSet\Control\Lsa and check the restrictanonymous DWORD value. It should be 0. If it is not 0 then right click on it, select Modify and change it to 0. (Ignore the restrictanonymoussam DWORD).

The Registry change will not have any effect until you have rebooted the PC.

Why and how this setting ever gets changed I don’t know, but knowing about it can save you hours.

The most common thing that prevents file and printer sharing is third party firewall settings. The Windows firewall doesn’t usually cause any problems, but the Norton and McAfee ones can! Temporarily switch them off and try to connect - then if they were the problem you will need to change the settings when you switch them on again.

Does changing the DPI use more RAM?

“My new Toshiba A200 has a maximum resolution of 1280 x 800. I set the dpi from 96 to 120 and liked the readability.

However, my primary concern is the relationship between RAM and DPI - does a DPI change use more or less RAM?”

Changing the DPI does not actually change the dots per inch. It just makes the icons bigger. See my DPI tip

So changing the DPI does not use any more or less RAM.

Your notebook's screen uses a fixed amount of memory which may be part of the system RAM or may be additional RAM in the graphics adaptor. Changing any display settings will not change the amount of RAM used - the graphics adaptor is still addressing the same number of transistors that go to make up your display screen (1280 x 800 x 3 in your case).

Maximize Laptop Battery Life

“My manual says that the AC power should not be on if the battery is fully charged. However, this means taking out the battery after a full charge and running the risk of losing data. The manual also recommends using the computer only on battery power to maximize battery life. I am not sure how to maximize battery life. e.g. if the battery is being charged while the AC power is on, it will take a long time to charge as per the manual (around 12 hours), which suggests that the battery is in use. wouldn't this also effect the battery life?”

Laptop batteries are judged by how long they will power the computer, by themselves, without mains.

To get the best "battery power" time the batteries should be fully charged, used until you get the battery low warning, then fully charged again.

If you mostly use your laptop plugged into the mains then the battery will remain fully charged and will rarely go through a full charge - discharge - charge - discharge cycle. It will just be constantly trickle charged. So when you DO use it away from the mains the battery charge will not last as long as it could.

What I do with my laptop is to use it plugged into the mains most of the time, but at least once a week I unplug the charger and use it until I get the battery low warning. Then I plug it in again. That way the battery gets "cycled" at least once a week.

But no laptop battery will last for ever, you should expect to have to get a new one every couple of years.

BT Voyager 190 ADSL Modem

This is not supplied by BT but by AOL. BT will not support it in any way.

And it’s not a modem - it’s a modem router with a single ethernet port.

AOL supply it with firmware that is pre-configured with the customers username and password and none of the settings are changeable by the customer.

This prevents support calls from users that cannot configure their modem or have messed with its settings.

But for 99% of the customers it is of no benefit over a modem and requires an additional power supply.

If you have one of these, and want to use it with a different ISP and or user you will have to install different firmware.

Download the firmware from:

http://www.jas0r.com/downloads/BT_Voyager_190_fw.bin

Save it somewhere easy, like the root of your c: drive.

Access the router through http://192.168.0.1 and hit the upgrade button. Browse to where you have saved the firmware and select it. Proceed with the upgrade.

When the green Power and Ethernet lights come back on access the router through http://192.168.1.1 (note the sneaky change) (username admin, password admin) and configure the router by clicking Quick Setup (not Quick Start).

Configuration settings for the UK should be:
VPI=0, VCI=38, PPPoA, VCMUX, automatic IP address, MTU=1400 (some ISPs will tolerate up to 1500), username, password, Session Always On, DHCP Server On. Anything that I haven’t specified should be left at it’s default value.

So now you can use your BT Voyager 190. Quite why you would want to I don’t really know. Maybe to connect a computer with an ethernet port but no USB port. Or maybe to prevent other users messing with the settings (change the username and password for the router in the configuration menu). That’s why AOL provided it in the first place!


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