FAQS! FACTS! FAX! 138 (03/12/98)

BAR NONE

I have lost the right hand slider bar on my Word 97 installation. I therefore decided to undelete Office 97 and re-install the program. However, after doing this the slider bar still did not re-appear and a number of the user-defined features had not returned to their default installation settings. Presumably there is some form of file which uninstalling and reinstalling does not delete. Can you advise, as I really do not wish to re-install Win 95 completely again!

Michael Clegg

A

Whoa steady on! It has nothing to do with Windows 95, and reinstalling Office 97 was a bit drastic. If your car doesn't start in the morning you don't change the engine… The most obvious explanation is that the slider has been disabled. Go to Tools, then Options and select the View menu. Towards the bottom you will see a check box for the Vertical Scroll Bar, click it and the slider should reappear.

PAC IS BACK

Following on from your advice about where to find Space Invaders (F!F!F! November 19), do you know where you can find the original Pac-Man game?

Carl Barlow

A

Sadly yes… Pac-Man and its many derivatives are scattered around the Internet, there is even a couple of home pages with a detailed history of the game and character biographies. (Did you know the ghost monsters were actually called Shadow, Speedy Bashful and Pokey…?). Try http://www.classicgaming.com

/pac-man/Pac-Games/Pac-Man and http://www.rollanet.org/~khigh/pacman.html for a good selection of downloadable games and demos for the PC. Pacmania, a small DOS-based program seems to be closest to the 1980's arcade game. Microsoft also have a collection of whiskery old games updated for Windows 95 on CD-ROM. It's called Return of Arcade and it features -- in addition to Pac-Man -- Dig-Dug, Galaxian and Pole Position.  Incidentally, to save anyone else the trouble of writing in to F!F!F! for sources long-lost games, try an Internet search that's how we do it. Yahoo (www.yahoo.com) and Lycos (www.lycos.com), both threw up several dozen sites using the keyword 'Pacman'.

DOTTY ABOUT ZOË

I have a small problem.  My daughter's name is Zoe with two dots over the ë. My problem is this. Every time I want to type her name in a Word document I type Z-O-E. Word then underlines this spelling as incorrect and offers me a number of options, the second of which is the correct spelling.  As I type her name frequently this can be very frustrating and time-consuming.  How can I insert the diaeresis without spell checking? Would it affect just Zoe or all words with an e with and two dots, such as Noel?  If it is easy for a single letter then perhaps I could do it for words with an 'i' which also have a diaeresis, such as naive and Aïda?

David Freedman, London NW2 4SJ

A

You can use Word's AutoCorrect facility to make sure the modified character appears as you write. Type in Zoe then run the spellchecker. Highlight the spelling you want to use then click on the AutoCorrect button. To automatically insert special characters into other words go to the Insert menu and click on Symbol. Highlight the character you wish to use then click the AutoCorrect button. Enter the word, as you would normally type it in the Replace field, click the 'With' checkbox, and type in the word you want to appear, using the special character. Select Add and it's done.

ANOTHER RESULT

Regarding David Burge's letter in F!F!F! (November 19) readers may be interested to know that there is an E-mail service that delivers football results and updated league tables for the Premiership, Nationwide Divisions 1, 2 and 3 and the results for the Worthington Cup and the FA Cup. You can subscribe by going to:

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

And click on the Stat-Mail icon.

Simon Lewis

A

Thank you for passing on that useful tip

MISSING MONITOR

Please could you tell me the name of the file I am looking for on my Windows 95 CD, to get the System Monitor facility that was described in Boot Camp (Connected November 19) Tip of the Week.

David Dawson-Taylor

A

As was mentioned in the Tip, System Monitor is not loaded by default on a typical Windows 95 installation. Go to Start-Settings-Control Panel-Add/Remove Programs and click the Windows Setup tab. System Monitor should be listed under System Tools, put a tick in the check box and follow the instructions. It can happen that System Monitor doesn't display the Modem Statistics item, if so double-click the Modems icon in Control Panel, highlight your modem entry, click properties and on the Connection tab click Advanced. Check the box marked 'Record A Log File' and click OK.

FOOD ON THE NET

You managed to help Sandra Bilton (F!F!F!, 19 November) find a couple of websites offering British foodstuffs in the USA. Do you know of any Internet sites specialising in sending American food to the UK?  I have searched many times to no avail.

Paul Stafford

A

There doesn't seem to be much of a demand for US food by post, maybe American ex-pats and tourists get a fix from McDonalds or Pizza Hut? The only site selling we could find sells speciality items, the address is:

http://www.worldsourceinc.com/

world_source_home_page.htm

SECOND FIRST?

I am trying to encourage a relative to get involved in computers and one possibility is to buy a second hand machine as a starter so that if the initiative fails the loss would not be too much. Are there such companies about?

David Dowd

A

There are but a second hand PC is a bit of a gamble and quite honestly you're not going to save that much. In the current issue of Computer Shopper magazine we found more than a dozen companies advertising well-specified Pentium and Pentium class systems for less than £400, and that includes the VAT!

ER….

The correspondence on capital locks has highlighted one problem common to a lot of readers but there is another, which must drive millions round the bend. Have you tried drawing a single or double line across a decimal tab so that, like any neat accountant wishes, one can single overline, and double underline the figure before the decimal point, the decimal point and the figures after the decimal point?

In Windows 3.1 there used to be a useful typeface MSLinedraw which, by using insert symbol, one could find a single line and double line which would look neat and tidy. In Windows 95/98/NT that has apparently been line 'designed out' (according to the Microsoft Knowledge Network) and, by a great deal of searching, one can find those symbols in the 'Courier New' typeface. However, whichever typeface one uses the line can still not be made to go across a decimal tab so that a continuous line is obtained over the whole number, the decimal point and the decimal figures. Any suggestions?

Nigel Horder

A

We have to say you are the first to have highlighted this problem, but since you say it affects millions we feel it deserves an answer. However, since we can't actually figure out what on earth you're talking about, we'll throw this one open to our ever resourceful readership. Over to you on this one…

FISHY TAIL

Some moths ago in F!F!F! you mentioned a swimming fish screensaver called After Dark from Berkley Systems. I am not on the Internet and am unable to find their address. I would appreciate it if you could mention it in your column.

Gordon Richard, Falmouth, Cornwall

A

After Dark was the first and arguably the best suite of screensavers, sadly it seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. None of the software retailers we spoke to stock it any more and the US web site (http://www.berksys.com) gave no clues to UK distributors. If anyone knows of a source please let us know and we'll pass it on.