FAQS! FACTS! FAX! 133 (29/10/98)

SOUND ADVICE

I play audio CDs on my PC but can only listen via headphones. How can I get reasonable sound, or any sound through my speakers? The instruction book for the CD-ROM says consult the manual for the sound card. You

guessed it, the sound card manual says see the CD-ROM manual. There are three audio connectors on the card, but none of them seem to do anything. The CD-ROM appears to be connected to an IDE interface, but I don't know if that is significant.

Ann Morey

A

You need an audio connection cable that plugs into the back of the CD-ROM drive and one of the small 3 or 4 pin sockets on the sound card (they are usually marked 'audio input or 'CD audio'). A cable may already have been fitted; check that it hasn't come adrift. If not you can buy one from most PC hardware dealers for around £5.00 ask for a 'universal' type with two or more plugs at each end as there are several different styles of connectors used on sound cards and CD-ROM drives.

PAINT PUZZLE

A display of computer illiteracy follows… I downloaded Paint Shop Pro as per the article in Boot Camp (October 15th) for a test drive, it exists as a 'zip' file on my hard disk. How do I get it to run?

Derek Adams

A

Now if you were a regular reader of Connected you would have seen the October 1st episode of Boot Camp and known that you need a utility such as WinZip or PKunzip to process compressed Zip files. Once installed an unzip program automatically extracts zipped files, simply by double clicking on them. You can download these essential items of shareware from the Internet at: www.winzip.com  and  www.pkunzip.com. We trust we can count on your support every week from now on?

EX-FILES

Your response to F. L. Turner's letter regarding file removal (F!F!F! October 1) was misleading. Reformatting magnetic storage media does not 'completely erase all data on it', as reported since reverse formatting tools are available. There are only two ways to ensure irreversible data removal: by overwriting information on a PC many times over, or by exposing the hard drive to an electro-magnetic data wiping processes. Alternatively, if you really want your ex-files to stay ex-files the only option left is drilling through your hard disk…

Kevin Riches

A

Point taken, though even drilling holes might not work, as there are companies that specialise in recovering data from discs that have been physically damaged. If you want to obliterate sensitive data there's a useful little shareware program called Shredder, that overwrites deleted files, up to seven times if required -- just to make sure -- you can find it at: http://esn.softseek.com

ANOTHER TWEAK

Now that my son has his own PC I am gleefully removing his games from my Windows 95 machine. Most of the demo games (and ones that did not meet his approval) he already removed to save me disk space. However, I now realise he did this using Windows Explorer simply by deleting the directories they were in. The problem with this is that I now have a large number of items remaining in the Add/Remove dialog box in Control Panel. When I try to remove these items I get messages like 'Cannot locate Uninstall', as it is obviously looking for files he already deleted.  How can I clean up my Add/Remove?

Diana Bevington

A

This is another one of Tweak UI's many talents. This incredibly useful Windows utility is freeware and one part of the Microsoft Powertoys package. It's featured regularly on computer magazine cover discs and can be downloaded from: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/

download/powertoy.exe

Tell your son to use the program's 'Uninstaller' option (if it has one), and it's well worth investing in a disc housekeeping program like Clean Sweep or Uninstaller. They monitor new software installations and make sure programs are safely and fully removed when the time comes. Simply deleting the directory is not a good idea; dozens of files can be left behind, that may cause problems with other programs and Windows. 

MUTE MODEM

I have an annoying problem, which I cannot solve. With my previous computer whenever I log on to my server I heard the modem chirrup away as it makes contact. I now have a Tiny Pentium that remains obstinately silent, but only in this respect. At all other times the machine signals me in all the usual ways. Have I inadvertently switched something off?

George Berry

A

There is control for modem sound in the Windows 95 Control Panel. Double-click on the Modems icon, select the General tab, highlight your modem's entry, click on the Properties button, select the General tab and you'll find the speaker slider control in the middle.

BITS AND PCS

I have a Dell Dimensions XPS M200s together with an Epson Stylus Colour 600 printer.  No, I'm not bragging, I'm just keen to know whether you can recommend a scanner that would be compatible. In the main it would be used to fool around on with the children, i.e. making pictures, scanning articles for school work etc. I have looked at some but prices seem to range from £80 to £2000. How relevant are 'bits'?

Anna Reardon

A

Budget A4 flatbed scanners, costing £80 or less should be perfectly adequate for such straightforward applications. Check through the bundled software packages that come with them, to make sure it includes an optical character recognition (OCR) utility, that can 'read' printed pages and turn them into text documents. Scanners with parallel port interfaces are usually a lot easier to fit; though you won't be able to scan and print at the same time. The 'bits' are a measure of colour depth, most scanners support 30-bit colour, which is more than adequate for your purposes.

GAME-ON

I used to enjoy battling against the computer in my lunch hour by playing backgammon. That was in the good old day of Windows 2.1 (I think!). Now my office computer is on Windows 95, as is my home PC and my old backgammon program won't work on the newer operating system. Where could I find a version of backgammon to play now?

Charles Thomas

A

You need look no further than the web page below. This site contains articles on the history and theory of the game, reviews, freeware and shareware games for you to download plus links to on-line games and other related backgammon sites.

http://www.salnet.demon.co.uk/

backgammon.html

ROLL ME OVER

In order to check whether my PC is 2000 compliant, I have been told to set the BIOS clock to December 31st, 1999, 11.59 p.m., switch off and turn back on after the minute has passed and check the BIOS clock again.  If the time is still accurate and the date rolled over, then okay. But what if the clock doesn't roll over? What happens to the data on the hard disk?

Judy Ganley

A

Absolutely nothing. The 'Y2K' rollover test as it is called merely checks to see if the internal clock in your PC recognises the year 2000. It will have no impact on any of your programs or data, though it is prudent to disable or remove any date-sensitive applications that load automatically or are included in your Windows 95/98 Start-Up group.