FAQS! FACTS! FAX!  201 (02/03/00)

ATOMIC PC

My computer clock is not very accurate.  Is there any way that I can connect to an atomic clock site and have it automatically correct my computer clock?

Roger Hudd

The ‘hardware’ clock on your PC’s motherboard -- which runs all the time -- can drift, so too can the Windows ‘software’ clock, which sets itself from the hardware clock when the PC boots up and the time shown by your PC can be out by as much as several minutes at the end of the day. There are various utilities that will allow your PC to synchronise with clocks or time-servers on the Internet. There are also radio-controlled clock modules that plug into your PC, they receive time signals from the MSF atomic clock at the National Physical Laboratory in Rugby (MSF is the radio ‘call-sign’) and reset the PC’s clock once a minute.

http://www.npl.co.ul

Dawne Instruments produce a range of MSF radio clocks for the PC, you can find out more from:

http://www.dawne-timenet.co.uk/

There is useful web site on the subject of PC timekeeping, with links to various resources and utilities at: http://www.ubr.com

/clocks/timesw/timesw.html

RUN OUT

My computer seems to have lost the ability to ‘autorun’ CD-ROMs when they are inserted in the drive.  I understand that it is possible to recover this feature by some configuration setting, but I have been unable to find any information in any Help files or elsewhere. 

Mark Armitage, Harburym, Warks

Right-click on My Computer, select Properties and the Device Manager tab. Click on the plus sign next to CD-ROM, then click on the drive listed to highlight it, click on the Properties button select the Settings tab and check the item ‘Auto Insert Notification’.

BOX FILES

My neighbour and I produce a village magazine.  She types up copy on her Canon StarWriter, which I then open in Word and produce the magazine in Publisher. The problem is that when I open her file, certain characters appear as something else - the main problem being a new line, which appears in Word as five little boxes.  These then have to be deleted and replaced.  I feel I should be able to use Find and Replace to deal with this but can't find any way of making the five little boxes appear in Find. Is there any solution other than asking her to type some other character instead of a new line?

Rosalind Smith

Try this. Open the file in Word and click on Save As on the File menu. In the Save As Type box select Plain Text then click Save. Reopen the file highlight the text and change back to the original font and the boxes should have disappeared. If that doesn’t work do the same as before but this time save the document in Rich Text or MS DOS formats.

START STOP

Let me first say that I am 87 and not very computer literate. However, I do use my computer, with Windows 95, for letters, e-mail, spreadsheet, and banking.  Recently, whilst writing a letter, using Word, I inadvertently touched the mouse. I do not know where the arrow was pointing, or which side of the mouse I touched, but the immediate effect was to extend the wording beyond the right hand limits of the screen. After some effort and not being quite sure what I did, I have corrected this. However as I found out later this error also transferred the Start button from its normal position at the bottom to the right hand side of the screen and this I have been unable to correct. Sadly Help tells one how to do many things but not how to undo them. Can you help please?
A. F. Pyrah

It seems unlikely the two events were directly connected though it may be that in trying to reset the line length in Word you inadvertently stumbled across an obscure and very well hidden feature in some versions of Windows 95, that lets you reposition the Start button. Here are two possible solutions. Click on the Start button, then simultaneously press the Alt and minus (-) keys and this will bring up a context menu. Click on Move and then use the right and left cursor keys to move the Start button on the Taskbar, it’s locked into position by pressing Enter. Method two, restart the PC in Safe Mode by pressing the F8 key during boot-up, when the message Starting Windows 95 appears on the screen. Choose the Start in Safe mode option from the menu, when Windows has finished loading shut down and restart the PC as normal. Incidentally, if you make a mistake and do something you regret in Word use the Undo command on the toolbar, or the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Z, which also works in most Windows applications.

TYPE APPROVAL

Recently I received and installed a demo version of Paint Shop Pro 6.  Once it was installed all picture files were automatically opened using this demo.  However, I un-installed the demo and now all picture files (.bmp, .gif, .jpg etc.) will not open. How do I set the default picture viewer back to Microsoft Paint?

Adam Ralton

To alter a file ‘association’ – in other words change the program it can be opened or viewed with – launch Windows Explorer, select Folder Options on the View menu and click the File Types tab. Highlight ‘Bitmap’ from the list and click on Edit, highlight ‘open’ in the Actions windows, click on Edit and use the Browse button to find C:\Program Files\Accessories\mspaint.exe; repeat for other image file types.

PC ON TV?

Back in around 1995 Hitachi (I think) came out with a PC that used your TV as its monitor and came with a cordless keyboard that worked like a TV remote control. What happened? I have seen or heard nothing of it since. Does it still exist? What went wrong? It seemed like a jolly good idea at the time.
John Green

Several manufacturers dabbled briefly with so-called ‘PCTVs’ in the mid 1990’s, the best known being Olivetti with its Envision range. However, the big problem with all of these devices is that domestic TVs make poor PC display devices. The picture on a TV screen has a relatively low refresh rate. The image is redrawn 50 times a second, which is okay on a moving picture, but it shows up as an annoying flicker when displaying a static white or light coloured PC-style desktop display. (PC screens refresh rates are from 75 times a second upwards). In addition the phosphor dots or stripes on a TV screen are a lot coarser than those on PC displays, so they are not able to reproduce fine detail; small icons and text appears jittery with fuzzy edges. The idea hasn’t gone away completely however, and devices like BT’s Easicom 1000 e-mail terminal use a TV for the display.