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FAQS!
FACTS! FAX! 217 (22/06/00)
ROUTE
CAUSES
In
F!F!F! June 8 Ron Bowler asked us to recommend route finder
software, we passed it on to you, here’s just a small sample of the huge
response we received…
In our office we use TNT TraveManager every day for
working out schedules for our team of service engineers. It is easy to use
and cheap! You can check it out - and many similar products at www.elstead.co.uk who are a firm of map
sellers
Roger Smith
Having
tried them all I strongly recommend InfoMap v7 by PJSoft: www.directions.ltd.uk.
Walter
Blanchard
Try the Time Computers ANDRoute 99 Planner for
Britain and Northern Ireland.
Kenneth Jenkinson
I
use Microsoft AutoRoute Express Great Britain 2000 and find that almost every
village and hamlet is included as well as a first class route finder with
detours etc.
E J Redfern
Although it does get it's knickers in a
twist if you ask it to take you to Junction 11 on the M40, I have been
very pleased with Personal Navigator Professional, by ISYS Systems Ltd. It uses
Ordnance Survey maps and not only produces and prints road routes
(fastest, shortest, cheapest etc.) but it is also a very useful device
for locating and indicating places if you know the town, street name
and/or Post Code.
A. E. Colman, Pulborough, West
Sussex.
CD ROMs are out of date before they hit the shelves.
By far the better solution is the Internet. I find the following two sites are
very good, they handle both UK and Continental motoring: www.iti.fr or its mirror site www.mappy.com both are French sites with
English versions.
Bill Hall
Why not use an online route planner like www.rac.co.uk/routeplanner, or www.cwlease.com/cwlint/index2.htm.
They don't take up valuable hard disc space and you don't have to get
upgrades when new roads are built.
Graham Reeves
Try
the AA website www.theaa.co.uk for route
planning. But beware! If you opt to go via a town, it will take you into, through, and out of it! He
might also like to try www.multimap.com
and www.streetmap.co.uk.
Bob
Johnson, Rowlands Castle, Hants
AA
MileMaster 99 is available for free on one of the cover CDs of the current
(July 2000) issue of PC Plus - available from most newsagents. It's not
shareware, but the full product, as sold for £50. It may not quite beat
Microsoft's offering, but it's UK-based, and the directions and maps are very
detailed and up-to-date.
Tim Wakeling
Visit
www.ShellGeoStar.comwhere you can
get an astonishingly detailed route between two places in the U.K.
Nigel Hurll
Thanks to everyone who wrote in with suggestions, as a
matter of interest the Microsoft AutoRoute Express GB 2000 and the AA and RAC
on-line route finder services received the most nominations.
CURSOR
CHOICE
Can
you advise how or where I can find a program, which will provide enhanced
cursors for Windows 98? I find the generic cursor too small and it also
remains white on a white (or light) background. I seem to remember some time
ago a cursor on Windows 3.1 which would change white/black/white as the
background changed and was larger than my current one.
I prefer a rapid cursor movement to minimise
mouse movement but often lose sight of it on my relatively slow screen.
Andrew K.Clokie
There
is a huge choice of alternative cursor designs on the Internet, including
several programs that allow you to design your own, a good place to start would
be:
http://www.froebel.freeserve.co.uk
/access/frames/html/pointer.htm
TAKEN TO TASK
Following on from Kevin Smiths problem with his tool
bar (F!F!F!
June 8th), I accidentally cleared my Windows 98 tool bar of its
Quick Launch icons and following your advice managed to restore them but now
they are in
the middle of the task bar and not on the left. A
minor change I know but it's bugging me. Any advice would be much
appreciated.
Nige Caine, Newton-in-Furness
Move
your mouse pointer to the vertical bar immediately to the left of the Quick
Launch icons and it turns into a horizontal two-pointed arrow. Click and hold
the left mouse button and drag the bar over to Start button and release and the
icons should lock into the new position, you can now drag the Taskbar into its
rightful position using the same technique.
WHICH
WINDOWS?
I
currently have Windows 95 on my PC. Should I upgrade to Windows 98 or
2000? If so, which one?
Chris Hicks, High Wycombe
Windows 2000 is essentially an update of Windows NT and is
primarily designed for demanding business applications and networking. If your
PC mostly runs small office, email, Internet, games and multimedia programs
then the latest version of Windows 98 is your best bet. Later this year
Microsoft will be launching a new version, called Windows Millennium, and this
will be aimed mainly at home users, however you might want to hang on before
planning yet another upgrade, until all of the bugs have been sorted out…
JOINING
THE EURO
As an elderly novice, could you please tell me how
to type the Euro sign on my keyboard? The symbol appears next to the number ‘4’
key with the dollar sign as the upper case character.
John Durkan
Windows 98 PC keyboard configurations vary but nine
times out of ten the Euro symbol can be accessed by pressing Ctrl + Alt + 4, or
Alt Gr + 4. Alt Gr is the right-hand Alt key, and in case you were wondering,
Gr is short for ‘Green’. It’s a throwback to the olden days when ‘alternative’
keyboard characters and functions were labelled in green. See, you learn
something new every day…
MINOR
ICONS
The icons (clock etc) on my
toolbar are so small I can't even read them. I've worked out how to enlarge all
the other icons on my start menu and desktop but how do I change these?
Nick Storer
If your eyesight is normal and you are not sitting too far
away from the screen then your PC’s display resolution may be set too high, you
can change the setting from Control Panel, click on the Display icon and select
the Settings tab, on most PCs with a standard 14 to 17-inch monitor it should
be 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768. You can increase the size of Windows menu items and
the taskbar icons by changing the display scheme. This is also on Display in
Control Panel, click on Appearance and under Scheme try Pumpkin (large). Don’t
worry if the colours are not to your taste, you can change each element or item
by clicking on it in the example display window and then the ‘Color’ drop-down
menu. If you don’t like the colours on the default palette click the ‘Other’
button and create your own custom colour.
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