FAQS! FACTS! FAX!  496 (17/01/06)

Q

I have tried unsuccessfully to create a Knoppix Rescue disc following your instructions. I have managed to download the file and copy it to a CD but whenever I load it into my Windows XP computer it still boots up as normal, what am I doing wrong?

Chris Dalgleish, via email

A. The first thing to say is that the instructions in Boot Camps 403 and 404 were correct as published and we’ve had a lot of feedback from readers who have been suitably impressed with Knoppix and what it can do. The most likely explanations are that you haven’t set your PC to boot from the CD-ROM drive, or that you haven’t burnt an ISO image file on the CD.

To change your PC’s boot order you need to enter the BIOS or Setup program that configures your PC immediately after switch on, the procedure should be explained in your owner’s manual. To burn an ISO file you will need either Nero or Roxio CD writer programs on your PC. You can’t do it using the built in Windows XP CD writer, but there is a freeware add-on called ISO Writer and a stand-alone program called Burn4Free that you could try.

Q

If I scan a journal page I can then run it through Optical Character Recognition software and send the results to Word, for example, and I have a nice clean facsimile of the original in black ink on a white background. However, if I save the scan results as an image, the original white background is never white. It’s a blue shade or grey. What am I doing wrong? Line drawings scanned for inclusion into documents always look awful.

Mike Hyde

A. You’re not doing anything wrong as such but I suspect that you are leaving the scanner on its default settings. In OCR mode the scanner converts just the text on the page into a word processor document but in an image scan it works like a photocopier. It will attempt to reproduce any marks or fold lines on the document as well as the subtle variations in the colour and texture of the paper.

To clean it up you need to experiment with the scanner’s controls. If the original document contains no images and is in black and white you should try the greyscale, monochrome or line art modes and reduce the resolution to between 75 and 100 dpi (dots per inch). Also try increasing contrast and reducing brightness by a notch or two each time.

Q

The useful feature in Outlook of showing individual country Bank Holidays seems to have expired at the end of 2005, according to Tools Options Calendar. I have been unsuccessful in contacting Microsoft directly and wonder whether you had any information on this.

Peter Barker

A. It appears that you have Outlook 2002 as this is the only version I’m aware of that has a calendar that expired in 2005. Outlook 2000’s calendar ran out in 2002 and Outlook 97 will see you through to the end of 2006. The dates are contained in a small text file called Outlook.hol and an update that will cover you until the end of 2007 is available from Microsoft. It’s actually meant for Outlook 2000 but with a little fiddling around it can also be used with 2002.

Go to the Outlook 2000 Add-in: Holiday Updates page click the download button and download the file OutlHol.exe. Open the file with WinZip, extract Outlook.txt, copy it to the location of the expired Outlook.hol file (usually (C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE10\1033\). Rename the existing Outlook.hol to Outlook.old then rename the newly downloaded Outlook.txt to Outlook.hol.

Q

When sending a message to a club membership list of 60 the message is sent twice to each address. This also happens occasionally with smaller address lists. Is there any solution?

Hamish Loudon, via email

A. I have managed to find a couple of reference to this obscure problem but the first thing to do is check is whether or not this is happening to all recipients. If not the problem is at their end, or with their ISPs. Otherwise if you are using Outlook Express check your Sent folder. It has a capacity of 2Gb and if it is full messages may be sent twice. The solution is to empty the folder or thin it out to make some room for new messages. If you are using Outlook and Norton AntiVirus the latter may be scanning outgoing messages twice. The workaround is to go into Norton’s email Properties box and deselect ‘Scan outgoing messages.

Q

I have a shiny new Dell PC running on XP. It came with IE6 and OE6 and various McAffee free trials. It also had Mozilla Firefox so I took your long-standing advice and started to use it (successfully) alongside IE6. Encouraged, I also started to use Mozilla Thunderbird as well as OE6. All went well for several days, except that I didn't like McAffee. I deleted this and went back to good old Zone Alarm and AVG Free Edition. Zone Alarm is currently on the 15 days free trial of Professional. IE6, OE6 and Firefox are still working fine and I can send e-mail from Thunderbird - I am using it for this one - but I can't receive mail on it, (but I can on OE6).

Alan Hobby

A

Oooer, that’s quite a mixture! They should all work together but problems can arise, depending on the order the programs were installed, conflicts with other programs and recent releases of Zone Alarm and AVG have been known to argue with one another so I don’t think there is anything wrong with Thunderbird.

My guess is AVG is causing the problem, but it’s impossible to say without a lot of messing around with configuration settings. I would start over and uninstall both AVG and ZA, make sure that Thunderbird is working properly then reinstall AVG and providing Thunderbird is still okay re-install ZA.

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© R. Maybury 2006, 1101