FAQS! FACTS! FAX! (19/11/98)

DRIVE TO DISTRACTION

I have an Escom P120 -- well somebody has to have one… A couple of weeks ago a friend installed a couple of memory boards for me to improve the paltry 8Mb bytes that I had at my disposal. All seemed fine but when we started up the PC it informed us that drive A: was not installed. On dismantling the machine we found that the lead to the A Drive had become disconnected, so we reconnected it and screwed everything back in place. However Windows 95 told us that it could not read the floppy which we had inserted in the drive. Also the little light remains permanently on, even when the drive is empty! We tried another drive from a discarded machine, but got the same result.  We asked Windows to recognise new hardware but it informs me there isn't any. Help!

Brian Farrell

A

Check to make sure you haven't inserted the ribbon connector plug the wrong way around -- it can easily happen -- the connectors are not 'polarised' and can go in either way. However the more likely explanation is that you've been using the wrong plug on the ribbon cable. The one intended for Drive A: is towards the end of the cable. It's easy to identify, immediately in front of the correct plug, about one third of the way in from the edge of the ribbon, there should be a group of seven wires, twisted through 180 degrees.

CAPITAL IDEE

I am writing in regard to the problem Charmain King was having with the caps lock function on her keyboard (F!F!F! October 22nd. I cannot understand why the keyboard manufacturers you contacted did not know the answer. All you have to do is go to Settings in the Start menu and then Control Panel. Click the Keyboard icon and select the Language tab. Change the language to French (Standard) and the keyboard is now like a typewriter with Caps Lock released by pressing Shift.

Jonathan Chong

A

Remarkably it works, however you omitted to mention the fact that you also need a French keyboard, otherwise the key assignments are completely wrong! Perhaps someone can tell us why the French get this function and not us; perhaps someone could tell us if there is a simple way of integrating the facility into the English keyboard setting.

Whilst we're on the subject, you may recall that a few weeks ago (F!F!F! October 22nd), we published details of a program, written by David Allsopp that released Caps Lock by pressing the Shift key. He has written to tell us that following reports of a couple of bugs he has produced an upgrade, and a new version of Caps Shift for Windows 3.x users.

Existing Caps Shift users will find a small upgrade zip at:

http://www.ksrit.demon.co.uk/dra/caps101.exe

New users can use the original at:

http://www.ksrit.demon.co.uk/dra/caps.exe

The Windows 3.1x version can be found at:

http://www.ksrit.demon.co.uk/dra/caps16.exe

A RESULT!

My son is spending a year in Mexico. We are E-mailing one another regularly

and I would like to be able to send him the football results. He says that using the Internet to try to get the results is incredibly slow. Being a relative newcomer to the net I have been unable to save the football results as a file to attach to an E-mail. Would you please advise me of the most efficient way to do this?

David Burge

A

We tried a few experiments on your behalf. Most football results services on the Internet use fairly elaborate tables that can take a long time to send and may not survive intact when sent as attachments, however several sites present the figures as plain text, that can be sent as an E-mail. Mabel's Tables (address below) works well.  Simply highlight the results table and copy it the Windows Clipboard using Ctrl + C.  You can tidy it up by pasting it into an open word processor page, or paste it directly into an E-mail window.  

Mabel's Tables: http://members.aol.com/mabstabs/daily.html

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

I have MasterCard and Visa credit cards but seem unable to order groceries from the Internet to send to my son in New York.  Do you know of any suppliers who will take regular orders from England and deliver in New York?  

Sandra Bilton

A

American food import regulations are very strict and we suspect that sending small one-off shipments is probably more trouble than it is worth. On the other hand there are several US companies that specialise in selling British foodstuffs, who will be only too willing to accept your credit cards, and despatch goods to your son. We found two advertising on the Internet, they are:  

http://www.flavourofbritain.com and http://www.britishdelights.com

MALEVOLENT MAIL

I am a volunteer with the Citizens Advice Bureau. We have just got on to the Internet and started using E-mail as the initial step out of the dark ages. We have been warned of two viruses being passed round via Email. Both are said to wipe the hard disk. Can viruses be transmitted via E-mail? If they are new can virus checkers detect them?

Arthur Barwellarthur.barwell@btinternet.com

A

An E-mail message cannot on its own contain a virus, E-mail is simply text, and has no programming capabilities, however viruses can be carried on the back of E-mail as attachments. In order to activate the virus the file has to be opened or executed. The actual risk of you being sent a virus is fairly small but to be on the safe side, never open an attachment unless you are expecting it, or have requested it and you know what it contains. Always run downloaded files through your virus checker first. Whilst it is true that new viruses are being created all the time, and virus checkers may not have it in their 'library', viruses tend to have predictable behaviour patterns and 'signatures', that checkers can spot. Most anti viral programs can be regularly updated via the Internet.

BACK TO BACKGAMMON

Having lost Backgammon from my Windows programmes (this could be because I have upgraded to '98!) I feel the same as Charles Thomas (F!F!F! 29th October) and would love to be able to play again! However, I have tried the Web site you recommended and have received absolutely no response other than 'the site or URL could not be found or no longer existed'! Help!

John Elmont

A

For some inexplicable reason the address has changed slightly and should be:  

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

You should also have a look at:

http://www.bkgm.com

MORE  FREE LUNCHES

With reference to the comments about Freeserve in F!F!F! (November 5th), I note a number of them referred to interference by the Freeserve installation to other applications on the computer. Readers may be interested in looking at:

http://www.tech-info.freeserve.co.uk/win95&.htm This describes a method of signing up to Freeserve without the CD-ROM that doesn't interfere with any other applications. It merely uses the Dial Up Networking (DUN) facilities built into Windows 95 and 98.

Robin Harvey

AND FINALLY…

There's an Internet site with full instructions on how to get rid of Freeserve from your desktop: http://members.xoom.com/Instigator/freeserve

Phil Houghton

We've had a massive response to this item, thank you to everyone who wrote in. The balance of opinion has shifted with over half of our respondents singing Freeserve's praises. It clearly isn't to everyone's taste though, and we advise anyone considering installing the program to read through the very informative FAQ (frequently asked questions) on the Freeserve website first.

http://www.freeserve.net/support