FAQS! FACTS! FAX!  339 (12/11/02)

Q

The Telegraph Magazine cover and most other magazine covers use colour photos with the title lettering script superimposed. Is there a program to do this on a home computer?

Robert Adams, m03i3n00@cwcom.net

A

This is a fairly standard facility on many picture editing and graphics programs though it’s not always included in the ‘lite’ versions bundled with digital cameras and scanners. Have a look at Paintbox Pro, PhotoShop Elements, PictureIt, PhotoSuite etc., the freeware program PhotoPlus 5.5 is also well worth trying, it can be downloaded from: http://www.freeserifsoftware.com

Q

I recently upgraded from Freeserve Hometime to Anytime. Since then when clicking the IE icon to go online the "Save password" and "Connect automatically" buttons on the Dialup window are greyed out. The Username is shown but I have to enter my password each time. A minor but irritating fault. Can you suggest anything?

Walter Eggert, Poringland, Norwich

A

Usually this is caused by a corrupt or missing ‘Client For Microsoft Networks’, which is a networking component that allows your PC to communicate with networks using Microsoft protocols. The cure is normally quite straightforward. With your Windows 95/98 installation disc to hand go to Start > Settings > Control Panel, click the Network icon then the Add button. Select Client > Add > Microsoft > Client for Microsoft Networks then OK, follow the prompts and reboot. When Windows restarts you’ll see a password box, leave it blank and just click OK. If that doesn’t work you should try the solutions outlined in MS Knowledgebase article Q148925. (The quick way to get to it is to just type ‘Q148925’, without the quotes, into the search field at www.google.co.uk)

Q

Having returned to work after two weeks holiday I had about 90 e-mails unopened. Of these about 80 were selling something (including one pornographic).  Is there anyway of stopping these e-mails coming through? 

Gill Cressey, via email

A

There are lots of programs that purport to stop so-called ‘Spam’ messages but in most cases you have to teach them how to recognise advertisements and repeat offender’s, addresses, which can be time consuming. The senders are cunning and change addresses and disguise ads to look like pukka e-mails. Moreover there’s always the risk an overenthusiastic Spam ‘killer’ program will delete a wanted message because it contains a suspect keyword or phrase. You can also set your email program to ‘Block Senders’ and create ‘Rules’ around certain words or email addresses but in the end the quickest and most efficient Spam filter is you.

When confronted with a full mailbox don’t be tempted open them one at a time. Simply hold down the Ctrl Key and go down the list checking the subject line and clicking on the rubbish. When you’ve finished right click on the highlighted messages and select Delete to send them to the Deleted Messages folder. If you want to get rid of them permanently hold down the Shift key before you press Delete. With a little practice you can easily clear 50 to 60 messages a minute. 

Q

My PC came with Windows 98 and Office installed on the hard disk but I do not have either product authorisation key, which could be a problem in the event of a crash or hard disc failure. I seem to remember some time ago you mentioned how to find the MS product authorisation key (in the registry?) but I cannot find the article. Is it possible?

Phil Wallace, philip_wallace@talk21.com

A

The keys are stored in the Registry but it behoves me to say that this file is critical to the well being of Windows and all of the programs on your PC so look but don’t touch, unless you know what you are doing. In any event it’s wise to always make a backup of the Registry, just in case…

To find the keys and make a backup type ‘regedit’ (without the quotes) in Run on the Start menu. To backup the Registry click Export on the File menu, give it a name (today’s date for example) and click Save. If anything goes wrong simply click on the saved ‘*.reg’ file and the Registry will be automatically rebuilt.

Now for those product keys, the one for Windows can be found by working your way down the following tree (by clicking on the ‘plus’ signs):

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\

Windows\Current Version\

The ‘Productkey’ is on the list in the right hand pane.

The Office registration key can be found at:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\

Office\9.0\Registration and look for ‘ProductID’ in the right hand pane.

Q

My husband recently bought a digital camera and he’s very pleased with it, except for one problem. He is not computer literate and to be able to use the images for his work as an artist I (being lady in charge of computers) have to print out the images for him. Having seen the images on my computer screen he is very impressed with the quality but he is reluctant to both buy and learn to use a computer. What would be ideal is to be able to show the images on a TV screen. Is there any way that this could be done without having to go through a computer? I could download the images onto a CD. Perhaps there is a gadget similar to a viewer that was available for 35mm slides but the screen would need to be a minimum of 12 inches square. 
Kate Pickard, pickshaftesbury@compuserve.com

A

It’s worth persuading your husband to confront the one-eyed beast, as you know it’s really not that difficult but if you can’t convince him you can copy the images to a CD-R/RW disc as JPEG files. They can be viewed on an ordinary TV using a DVD player. JPEG Replay is a relatively new facility but it’s now becoming quite common, especially on budget models. Here are a few to look out for and they are all currently selling in supermarkets and online for less than £100: Aria PDVD-2255, Cyberhome CH-DVD 402, Schneider DVD-857

Q

I have a minor irritation on starting my computer. During the initialisation
it defaults to the black screen requesting me to select a start-up mode. On clicking "Normal" it opens and works OK. I'd like to know how to get it to boot up on its own.
Edward Waddon, ed_waddon@tinyonline.co.uk

A

Windows is starting in its diagnostic ‘Safe Mode’, even though it was correctly shut down previously. This is usually because a file called ‘Wnbootng.sts’ is still lurking in the Windows folder. Normally this file is automatically deleted every time Windows boots up properly. The solution is to manually delete this file with Windows Explorer and after a successful reboot all should be well. If that doesn’t fix it then there’s another trick you can try, which is outlined in MS Knowledgebase article Q143283.

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Ó R. Maybury 2002, 0511