FAQS! FACTS! FAX! 114 (18/06/98)

CLOUDED IN MYSTERY

I would dearly love to change the Windows 95 start up screen (Boot Camp June 4, Tip of the Week), but nowhere can I find the logo.sys image file mentioned. I searched my C:\ drive root directory and all others, but it is not there. I had no problem finding logos and logow.sys and I have modified those two files quite successfully, thank you very much, but logo.sys is bugging me. Have you any ideas?

Ian G. Phillips

A

The Windows 95 'clouds' opening screen that your PC displays when it boots up is almost certainly the default version of logo.sys, which is embedded in a file called io.sys, also in the C:\ directory. The trouble is you can't easily get at it, to change it. Fortunately any file called logo.sys placed in the root directory will override the one in io.sys, but it must conform to the strict parameters outlined in Boot Camp, (i.e. a 320 x 400 pixel, 256-colour bitmap). If, for any reason you want to return to the original Windows 95 opening screen simply remove or rename the replacement logo.sys.

DREAM MACHINE

I think I must be a one-man marketing niche because as far as I can see the product I am seeking doesn't exist. Yet I imagine there must be thousands of people like me who want a basic, portable (A5 size would be ideal) PC in a sturdy case, to enable me to take a break from working at my desk. I want to be able to take it with me to another part of the house, to a cafe, train or weekend cottage, and carry on my work there. My requirements are simple: a good screen, sturdy keyboard, basic word-processing, a small amount of data storage space (a megabyte would be more than enough), a floppy drive and a means of linking to my PC. I don't need a CD-ROM, removable hard disc, video facilities, colour screen, massive memory, modem, soundcard or any other luxuries which seem to be inevitable on every portable nowadays and which clearly drive up the price. I don't see why such a simple machine (given that there is a market for it), should cost more than £200. I considered the Psion but it's too small and over-specified and I would be paying for a lot of stuff I don't need. Does such a low-spec. machine exist?

Martin Plimmer

A

The defunct Cambridge Z88 (and versions marketed by Tandy) came fairly close to your specification but the screen was rather small and difficult to read, and the keyboard wasn't very good. There are a number of 'word-processors' on the market; they're latter-day typewriters with built-in printers. Have a look at the Canon Starwriter, Sharp Fontwriter and Tandy Dream Writer model ranges. Most of them have an A4 sized footprint, and small screens, but they fulfil most of your other requirements and cost from around £250 upwards. Apart from the Psion Series 5, various Windows CE palmtop PCs and obsolete mono laptops there's not much else until you get to the Toshiba Libretto and a handful of new sub-notebook PCs, all of which cost in excess of £1000. Perhaps the Psion 5 is worth another look, it has the best keyboard and you never know some of those other functions might come in handy one day?

MISSING LINKS

What are DLL files? I currently have 1296 of them on my laptop, what do they do?

Vivian Dunn

A

DLL stands for Dynamic Link Library. They're a family of files that contain programming code, bitmap images, icons and other resources that can be shared by one or more applications. Some of them can be quite large and it's not unusual for a PC to end up with lots of duplicate and redundant DLLs, left behind by deleted programs; it is possible that some of the 1300 odd files on your machine are wasting valuable hard disc space. However, mess with DLLs at your peril! Do not be tempted to erase any of them without first making sure they're not being used. The only safe way to do that is with a program like CleanSweep. You can track down duplicates using a small shareware utility called Dupeless. This can be downloaded from: http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/pctech/

content/17/07/ut1707.001.html

EARTHY ADVICE

In a recent edition of Boot Camp it was suggested that you could make an earth strap from a length of wire and some crocodile clips. This is not a good idea! A proper earth strap has a resistor of about 1M ohms in the circuit to limit any current to earth. This provides the wearer with protection if he or she accidentally touches a live connection. It also limits the surge current from static charged component to a safe level that will not destroy the device. In short a piece of wire is not a safe way to make an earth strap.

Dennis Fisher

A

Point taken, and we would like to repeat our original advice, that purpose-made earth straps are widely available from PC stockists and companies like Maplin Electronics for just two or three pounds.

POP THE QUESTION

Regarding your reply to Pete Miller, about his Velo and POP3 mail. I am a CompuServe subscriber, and I use both the old mail system and POP3 with no problems at all. I can pick up POP3 mail with my Psion S5 and via Winsock on my PC. I access my CompuServe mail on the old address with NavCIS, my CompuServe navigator.

Verity Chaplin-Langdon

MORE POP

If Peter Millet is using the Dial-Up-Networking (DUN) in Windows 95 and successfully logging on to CompuServe then he should be able to retrieve his E-mail using Windows CE. The problem potentially lies in the upgrade process from CompuServe mail to Internet E-mail. This generally happens in two steps and each time it creates a new E-mail address.

The trouble is addresses ending with 'compuserve.com' are delivered to the CompuServe mail server and these messages can only be retrieved using the CompuServe program and its mail system, even after you upgrade to Internet E-mail.

Mail addressed to addresses ending with 'csi.com' will be available as Internet mail. The difficulty that Mr. Miller is experiencing is that the mail that he is seeing in his account has gone to the "compuserve.com" address and needs to be retrieved using the CompuServe mail program.  He needs to advise his friends and associates of his change of E-mail address to "csi.com" and in this way his mail will show up in his Internet mail account.

Munro Smith, Whitby, Ontario, Canada

A

Thanks to everyone who came up with ideas and suggestions, but the basic problem remains unresolved. That was a way to retrieve CompuServe mail on a Philips Velo (using Windows CE version 1 operating system), but without changing the user's original CompuServe numerical address. If anyone has actually managed to accomplish this feat -- and remember, we're only talking about CompuServe's proprietary mail system and Windows CE palmtop PCs  -- we would be very interested to hear about it.