FAQS! FACTS! FAX!  245 (11/01/01)

Q

A friend recently set up my computer after installing a new hard disk and he has entered my surname beginning with a lower case letter instead of an upper case one. As a proofreader I find it very irritating and would like to know where I am able to change it to have a capital letter at the beginning of my surname.

Sandra E Chubb

A.

A PC's registered owner name -- entered during the installation of Windows -- is stored in an important system file called the Registry (the owner name and 'organisation' is also used by other applications when they are installed). Normally the Registry is usualy off-limits to novices, but if you promise to follow the instructions to the letter, no harm should come of it. Open the Registry Editor by clicking Start, then Run and typing ‘regedit’ (without the quote marks) into the Open field, and click OK. Before you do anything else make a backup of the Registry by clicking on Export Registry File on the Registry drop-down menu. Call the file 'regbak' and save it in My Documents or somewhere you will remember to find it. This creates a self-installing file called regbak.reg; if anything goes wrong you can restore the Registry by double clicking on regbak.reg.

Back now to Regedit, in the left hand window click on the plus signs next to the following entries: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows and double-click on Current Version. This opens up a set of files or 'keys' in the right hand window, scroll down the list to find RegisteredOwner, right click on the entry and select modify (or double click), change the entry and click OK. You can also change the RegisteredOrganisation information in the same way. Exit Regedit and re-boot for the change to take effect.

Q

I was interested to see recent letters in F!F!F! about noisy keyboards and the reference to RSI.  When I first started work as a secretary, there were no electric typewriters and you really had to bang the keys.  I have an electronic typewriter, which of course, is much lighter in touch but it wasn't until I got this laptop that I realised just how much hard work went into the old methods. There was no talk of RSI then. I wonder why?
Jack Singleton

A

There are several theories about the causes of repetitive strain injury and its association with PC use. The most likely explanation seems to be that word processors encourage very much faster typing speeds, and the keys on computer keyboards tend to have much shorter travel and less cushioning than typewriter keys, resulting in more frequent and greater impacts on finger muscles and joints, compared with a typewriter. You will find some interesting reading on the following web sites.

http://www.engr.unl.edu/ee/eeshop/rsi.html

http://www.rsi-uk.org.uk/

http://www.rsi.deas.harvard.edu/

Q

How do I get Netscape to be my default browser?
Jack Tardif

A.

The simplest method is not to make Internet Explorer your default browser, Netscape will them become the default, by default as it were. In IE click on Internet Options on the Tools menu, select the Programs tab, click the Reset Web Settings button uncheck the box marked ‘Internet Explorer should check whether it is the default browser’.

Q

Boot Camp advice has been that hard drives should be defragged when fragmentation levels reach 8%. This might mean running Defrag preceded by Scandisk every month or so. Now a local computer technician tells me that fragmentation rapidly reaches the 10% mark then levels off between 10 and 15% and stays at these levels for months. This is quite acceptable, and defrag need not be run more that once a year as the defrag process puts a large strain on the disk drive mechanism. So who is correct? Is defrag a cunning way of drive manufacturers to get us to wear out hard drives quickly, or is the computer technician not the expert he claims to be? How harmful is Scandisk? How often should a full surface scan be carried out? Definitive advice to the confused please!

Gordon Mannering

A

Whilst Defrag and to a lesser extent, Scandisk, makes the hard disc drive work a little harder than usual, it's well within normal operating parameters and I’m not aware of any evidence that it has an impact on a drive's life expectancy. In fact hard disc drives are incredibly reliable and the chances are you will replace your PC long before the drive wears out. The amount of file fragmentation depends entirely on how much use the PC gets, and the type of software you are using. On some heavyweight applications there can be a noticeable reduction in speed when fragmentation reaches just 5%. Running Scandisk and defragging once a month is about right for most home users, personally I run them both once a week, to keep my moderately well used PC running smoothly. In my opinion you only need to carry out a full surface scan if a routine Scandisk session reports errors, which may indicate that the drive has problems.

Q.

Colin Hague asks for a less aggravating alternative to 'www' (F!F!F! December 21st). Logically three lots of double-u must be half-a-dozen-u, hexa-u or even more excitingly sexa-u.
Michael Lewis

I use 'w3dot' as a shorthand reference, but it does depend on the level of knowledge of the person you're talking to. If someone's familiar with Internet addresses why bother with the www. thing at all? One day it will be an unspoken assumption anyway.
Janet Boyd

I tend to use "tripledub".

Paddy Austen

I am on a crusade to get people to use... "treble-u dot". A saving of six
syllables!
Mark Lashmar

With reference to the pronunciation of 'www', in a similar discussion some years ago, I heard the alternative "wibwab"...
Robin E.W. Creffield

Thanks for those suggestions, some interesting and novel ideas, though we would need some persuading to say 'wibwab' with a straight face…

Q
I have two overworked eyes and two under worked ears and am a fast but inaccurate touch typist. Can someone give me the means to have each letter spoken as each key is pressed? Just letters and numbers would be great, - preferably the whole board.... with nice bass and treble voices for upper / lower case. (Surely not too much to ask from today's all singing and dancing PCs?) The Disabilities features are not good enough.
William Hooke

A

Bass and treble voices might be a tad ambitious but there are plenty of programs that speak alphanumeric characters and even words and sentences, as you type. The freeware program Talking Keyboard is designed to help children acquire keyboard skills but it also works in other applications, and it's freeware, available from http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/ezsoft

At the other end of the scale there's Talk To Me, (www.jumbo.com), which is a fully featured talking program that adds a voice to all Windows applications. The download demo is fairly large (8.3Mb), but it's worth the effort and expense.