FAQS! FACTS! FAX!  207 (13/04/00)

GO AWAY!

Whilst reading my e-mail messages, the Dial-up Connection box keeps popping up.  It takes several clicks on "Cancel" or "X" to get rid of it, but after a very short while it appears again.  You can imagine it takes an age to read my messages - how do I stop it?
Jean Gamble

This is another example of software trying to be helpful, whether you like it or not… The option to disable this particular nuisance lives under Options on the Tools menus of Outlook Express (versions 4 and 5). Select the General tab and deselect the item ‘Check for new messages every…’ or increase the interval to 30 minutes, say. On version 5 you can keep this facility enabled but specify that it only checks for new mail whilst you are on line by selecting ‘Do not connect’ in the box ‘If my computer is not connected at this time’

COME BACK!

Can you tell me how to retrieve my little disconnect icon which always used to appear to the left of my clock in the bottom right corner of my screen?  I find it so useful and it's disappeared ever since my hard disc was emptied and all my programmes reloaded.
Kathryn Saul

The winking double monitor icon does seem to have a mind of it’s own. To get it back open Dial Up Networking in My Computer, go to Settings on the Connections menu and on the General tab click a tick next to ‘Show an icon on taskbar after connected’.

NOT CONTENT

Every single web page I visit, a box comes up on the screen that says ’Content Advisor -- Sorry Content Advisor will not allow you to see this site. If you still want to see the site, type in the supervisor password’.

The page won't show up while this box is present.  All I have to do is click OK and the box disappears - which is no bother except doing so delays the downloading.  Every time! What can I do to stop the box showing up? 
Gordon Barlow

At some point you or someone else must have enabled the Content Advisor in Internet Explorer, which is designed to filter out undesirable material on the Internet, according to a set of ratings. (See Boot Camps February 17th and 24th on Safe Surfing). To switch it off open Internet Explorer and go to Internet Options on the View menu (IE4) or Tools menu (IE5) and select the Content tab, under Content Advisor click on the Disable button. 

TOY STORY

Does anyone know what has happened to the wonderful utility site, Office Toys, which I first read about on this page?  I have recommended it to others, who have failed to get access to it. I myself lost one of the programmes -- a font-display utility -- and have been unable to get back from the site.  And an e-mail sent to the owner of the site has been returned to me because it could not be downloaded. 

M. Gwynne

It’s still out there but a lot of sites that used to carry it seem to have dropped it or replaced it with new utilities for Office 2000. You can find it at: http://rocketdownload.com

/Details/Smal/offtoy.htm

DIRECT ANSWER

In ‘Direct Action’ (F!F!F! 30th March) you gave advice on how to print a listing of a folder's contents. I tried it but all I got was a DOS message saying "bad command or file name".  I've checked (and double-checked) your instructions, but no success.

John Gimson

We should have said that when you save ‘folderprint.bat’ in WordPad you must make sure that it says Text Document’ in the ‘Save As Type’ box otherwise it will be saved as a Word document (extension .doc). 

DATE DISABLE

Microsoft Works has the irritating habit of automatically updating the date in a letter each time the file is opened.  There are many situations when this is far from desirable.  How can I permanently disable this function -- removing the tick in the box in the "date and time" slot is of very limited use.

George Birnie, Giffnock, Glasgow

Since we’ve had a few letters along the same lines recently it seems that it’s about time we repeated the tip on how to ‘unlink’ or disable an automatically updating ‘date field’ in letter templates or when using the Insert Time and Date command in Word. The trick is to click on the date field and a grey highlight appears – indicating that it is a field code – next press and hold Ctrl + shift + F9, the highlight turns to black, click the cursor onto a new line and the date field changes to normal text. If you use the Insert Date and Time command make sure that ‘Update Automatically’ is unchecked

HACK AND CRACK

After all your help for people with DVD players, please could you help me sort the regions problem with my Cyberlink Power DVD which came on a PC that I brought recently. I have many US discs bought whilst living there, and some but I cannot play them all. The supplier told me I can change the playback region five times and then it locks! I would really like to do away with all the region nonsense as my partner travels worldwide and I would like to be able to watch discs from any region.

Carol Berry

This is a touchy subject. As you know Regional coding was included on DVDs (Digital Video/Versatile Discs) at the behest of Hollywood studios as a means of controlling distribution, enabling local censorship and preventing piracy, by splitting the world up into 6 Regions. Codes on DVD videos prevent discs sold in one region playing on decks in another; the US is Region 1, Europe, the Near East South Africa and Japan is Region 2, and so on. A growing number of home deck players have easily disabled region locks, or no lock at all in some cases. For a while early PC DVD drives and decoder boards were all ‘Region Free’. However, the powers that be plugged that particular loophole by insisting that the playback region could only be changed a limited number of times. Soon afterwards ‘hacks’ to disable the region lock appeared on the Internet. Within the last year or so a number of ‘software decoders’ have appeared, and these also have region locks. Most can be disabled, including – we understand -- Power DVD, using a readily available utility called DVD Genie. There’s a very useful web site where you can find out more about DVD technology, regional coding issues and details of players and software packages at: http://www.7thzone.com/