WINDOWS Magazine. 2,501 Tips. The content of this file is Copyright © 1997 CMP Media Inc. and is the property of CMP Media, Inc. This material is not freeware or shareware. It may not be resold for compensation of any kind or redistributed in print or electronically or by any other means without prior written permission from CMP Media, Inc. If you have any questions about these terms, or would like information about licensing materials from Windows Magazine, please contact: psilverm@cmp.com, or write to: Paul Silverman Attn: TIPS (REQUIRED) WINDOWS Magazine One Jericho Plaza, 3rd Floor Jericho, NY 11753 Hardware -- Is your hardware difficult to master? Try these tips to make buying and installing much easier. Buying Tips Read First, Then Buy Buying sophisticated, high-technology equipment requires some up-front research before you plunk down the big bucks. You'll need to gather different information for each type of equipment you plan to purchase, but the general rule stands: The more you know, the smarter you'll buy. Look Through the Specs Make sure that you know what's important about the device you want to buy, and, in particular, what's important for you. You may not need the most blazing speed, but you do need to know what speeds are available so you can decide if you need it or not. Ditto for colors, resolution, memory size, hard disk capacity and all other features and capabilities. Buy for Now Once you decide what your requirements are, find the equipment that meets them, and maybe exceeds them a little. You should anticipate your future needs, but don't overestimate and buy something that's too sophisticated-or too expensive-for your needs. Start at the Top The leading vendors have earned their reputations for top-quality merchandise at fair prices. Find out what these top companies, in whatever field, offer and compare your needs with their specifications. You can use the information as a baseline for comparisons with other companies' offerings. Cyber Sources In addition to WINDOWS Magazine, there are many other resources for information about equipment. Among the best are online services and the Web, where most hardware and software vendors vie for your attention. You can literally find information about every product in the Windows PC arena simply by sitting down at your computer and surfing from site to site. Chart Toppers List the specifications that are important to you across the top of a piece of paper (or a spreadsheet) in order of declining importance. Then list the products that you're interested in down a column on the left-hand side, and fill in whether the products have a particular feature (in the case of yes/no features, such as presence/absence of SCSI controller) or how much of the feature the products have (like dot resolution on monitors). This will allow you to see at a glance which products are most likely to fill the bill for you. Sort of a Spreadsheet If a comparison chart gets too cluttered on paper, try using your spreadsheet's data function to make it even clearer. Select the whole chart, then perform a multilevel sort on the data. This will bring the products that have the most favorable of the specs to the top of the chart, where you can see them easily. Compare the Cost The PC market, for hardware and for software, is highly competitive, so once you know what you want to buy, go and shop prices. Check online, check ads for mail-order companies, go to retail stores and check prices, and look in your local newspapers for prices. You'll be surprised how much you can save by doing some good price shopping. Service with a Smile Price isn't the only criteria to consider. Check out different vendors' service and support policies, and try to find out how well they actually deliver on their promises. Go to the vendors' forums on the online services, such as AOL and CompuServe. Computer users are not at all shy about complaining when they think a vendor doesn't provide requisite service. Compulsory Quotes Get a price quote in writing, and you can use it to your advantage in two ways. Use it to bargain with other vendors, and use it as reference when you bargain with the vendor who provided the quote. Vendors can fax quotes to you, and may even offer a lower price on the written quote than they did over the telephone. Options to Buy Different kinds of vendors have different strengths and weaknesses. You can match your needs to their profiles. Dealers and value-added resellers offer the highest service levels, but you pay for it either in the price of the product, in service-contract fees or in time-charged fees. But if you need a local source of support, the cost may be worth it. Retail computer chains have their in-house service departments, but they charge on a per-project basis for repairs. They may lack the detailed level of expertise that you require, however. Direct marketers or mail-order suppliers offer great prices, but support is delivered over the phone with quality and availability that varies significantly. Mass-market chains that carry computers will probably aim their products to the low end, and their support will likely come from the computer hardware or software vendor, rather than from the store itself. In addition, the salespeople may not know much about the products they're selling. It Warrants Questions Does the product you're buying have a warranty? How long is it? Can you return the product for a refund? If you're buying from mail order, does the vendor charge a re-stocking fee? Find out about all the little "gotchas" before you buy. Read the fine print on everything, and make sure that you get warranty and return policy details in writing. Your Credit (Card) Is Good Always make purchases using a credit card. It makes it much easier to solve problems over charges. If you purchase with a check and the vendor cashes it, you won't have much leverage if the product doesn't deliver as promised. Never on Sunday Or on Friday, for that matter. Take delivery early in the week. That way you should be able to get support quickly if there is a problem, and you won't have to wait if the vendor doesn't offer weekend support. Inventory Control When the product arrives, check to make sure that all the parts, accessories, documentation and so forth are included. Hold on to the packaging, because you may need it to return defective merchandise. And if you do need to return items, include only the piece that must be returned. CD-ROM Drives Buffer Up If you have at least 8MB of RAM, and you're still running Windows 3.x, increasing the number of memory buffers in the MSCDEX driver of your AUTOEXEC.BAT file may improve your drive performance. Add the /M:xx flag to the end of the statement, and replace xx with a number between 8 and 12, depending on how much memory you have. Experiment with different settings to get the best results. Control Cache Flow Windows 95 has a built-in cache for improving CD-ROM performance, which can be optimized according to the speed of your drive. However, Windows doesn't always do it correctly on its own. To change the settings, open up the System Control Panel, or right-click on My Computer and bring up the Properties page. Under the Performance tab, click on File System/Advanced/CD-ROM. Under Optimize Access Pattern, choose the selection appropriate to your drive. If you have more than 8MB of RAM, you can also try pushing the slider for Supplemental Cache Size all the way up. Leave it at the maximum unless you see your system performance go down. Letter Rip You can designate a specific letter or range of letters for your CD-ROM drive if you don't like the default D: or E:. Under Windows 95, go to Control Panel/System and click on the Device Manager tab. Locate your CD-ROM model under the CD-ROM list and double-click. Click the Settings tab and pick from the drop-down lists for start and end drive letters (to force the drive to a single letter, make both of these the same). If you're using DOS and MSCDEX, the "/L:x" flag determines which letter gets assigned to your CD-ROM drive, where "x" is the drive letter. You can add or modify this flag with the letter of your choosing. Ought Not to Play AutoPlay is one of those features of Windows 95 that can get on your nerves. You can hold down the Shift key when a CD is inserted to bypass AutoPlay, but there's also a more permanent solution. Bring up the Device Manager, located in the System Control Panel. Locate your drive in the list and bring up its properties page. Click the Settings tab, uncheck the "Auto insert notification" box and restart your computer. Have It Your Way You can have any application you like pop up when an audio CD is inserted. Pull down the View menu in any Explorer window, select Options/File Types. Find AudioCD in the list of registered file types and click the Edit button. Select the Play command from the list of actions and click the Edit button. Under the header, "Application used to perform action," simply replace CDPLAYER with the path to your favorite audio CD application. Music to Your Ears If you enjoy listening to music while you work, Windows 95 ships with a fully-functional audio CD player. It supports Random, Continuous and Intro play modes, and recognizes multi-disc CD changers. You can also edit the play list and type in the names of your CDs, and it will display the artist and song information as it plays. You can find it under Programs/Accessories/Multimedia/CD Player, but it will pop up automatically when a music CD is put in and AutoPlay is enabled. Hear the Music If your recently installed internal CD-ROM drive doesn't play music through your speakers, it could be because it isn't really connected. CD-ROM drives require a separate cable that attaches the drive to your sound card, which has a special input connector for the purpose. Unfortunately, sound cards and CD-ROM drives vary wildly in their implementation of this connector, so if you don't have the right cable already, be sure to specify your drive and card model when purchasing one. Once connected, you can adjust sound volume through the CD slider in the Volume Control applet. If you need a quick fix, you can plug a stereo mini-jack cable into the front of the drive and run it around the back of your PC into the Line-In connector. Track Tracks You've been typing in all the artist and track names in the Windows CD player for all your music CDs. Now what must you do when you switch computers? Fortunately, nothing at all-provided you grab the file CDPLAYER.INI from the Windows directory. It contains all the info from your well-spent hours of meticulous procrastination. Defensive Drivers Even if your CD-ROM drive is working fine, keep tabs on the manufacturer to see if new drivers are ever released. You can usually obtain new drivers from the Web, or check an online service or BBS. If you don't have a modem, you can always call the manufacturer and request an update. This Side Up If you're tempted to topple your tower system or prop a desktop machine upright, make sure your CD-ROM drive can operate in the vertical position. Most caddy-based drives can, and some tray-loading drives can as well with the help of the small fold-out tabs located on the tray around the disc depression. Check your manual for the final word. Keep It Clean If your CDs become dirty or smudged they may continue to work, but the CD-ROM drive's data-transfer rate will quietly drop down to unacceptable. Avoid this problem by simply making sure your CD surfaces are free of dust or smudges. Always try to handle discs by either the edges or the center hole. LASTDRIVE for Last Generation Another legacy tip for DOS and Windows 3.x users: If you're having confusion with drive letters, make sure the LASTDRIVE= statement in CONFIG.SYS is set high enough to accommodate all of your logical drives. Unless you're using a Novell network, setting it to Z should fix any problems. Jammed CD Doesn't Mean Drive Is Toasted On rare occasions, misaligned CDs can become stuck or jammed in a CD-ROM drive. If you should be so unfortunate, don't rush out and buy a new system. Look for the small manual-eject hole located on the front of the drive. Pushing a straightened paper clip into the hole will force out the seditious CD. Know Before You Go CD-ROM drives have become much easier to install, thanks to Windows 95. But problems can still arise from resource conflicts or drives that are unrecognized. The best way to get around these situations is to avoid them entirely by analyzing your system before installation. Find out what resources are in use through the System Control Panel by bringing up the Device Manager and double-clicking on the Computer icon. If attaching an IDE CD-ROM drive, make sure the interface you'll be using is already recognized by the system. If you can anticipate what resources the drive will need, you may be able to shift things ahead of time to accommodate it. Embrace and Extend If you haven't downloaded Microsoft's PowerToys because you thought it had nothing to offer you, think again-the set of shell extensions includes two CD-ROM specific applets. QuickCD resides in the system tray and offers one-click access to audio CD functions. AutoPlay Extender is for those who wish that AutoPlay had been invented years ago-it will pop up whenever data CDs with no AutoPlay functionality are inserted into the drive. It will then ask you to designate an application to run for that particular CD, and it will remember the next time that CD is put back in the drive. Removable Media The Right Medium For the Right Job There are dozens of different removable media devices on the market. The trick is to get the right one to fit your needs. Tape drives are still a cost-effective way of backing up large amounts of data, if you can deal with slow backups and only need to retrieve the data occasionally. Recordable CDs are much faster and more durable than tape, but can only be written once. However, they can be read by any computer with an ordinary CD-ROM drive. Newer drives from SyQuest and Iomega are faster still, rewritable, and hold around 100MB of data. If speed is what you need, the Iomega Jaz Drive is nearly as fast as a hard drive, and each cartridge holds 1GB of data. The most important thing is to identify your needs; there's sure to be a device that fits most if not all of them. Maintain a Happy Medium Even removable disks need to be defragmented periodically, assuming that they are rewritable. They are also prone to the same errors that hard disks are. Fortunately, you can use familiar tools because Windows 95's built-in defrag-ment and ScanDisk utilities work on removable drives. Space Out You can compress removable disks and diskettes using DriveSpace or other compression utilities, just like a hard disk. If you'll only be using the disks in machines that have the compression app installed, it may be the way to go. SCSI Screams Several companies make external removable media drives in both parallel port and SCSI configurations. Unless you plan to move your drive around, SCSI is the way to go; SCSI devices will always be faster, because the bandwidth is higher than what the parallel port can pump through. Since all machines have parallel ports and not all have SCSI adapters, parallel insures compatibility. Add It Up When purchasing any removable media device, don't forget to consider the price of the media in addition to the initial price of the device itself. For example, if you were to buy a $400 drive with 10 $100 cartridges that hold 1GB each, you would spend $1,400 total and have 10GB of storage. However, if you bought a $500 drive and 8 cartridges at 1.3GB each for the same price, you would wind up with 10.4GB of storage for only $1,300. Hard Drives Learn Who's Master When adding a second IDE drive into your system, take care to make sure that each drive knows its place. In a two-drive situation, one drive must be designated the "master" and the other the "slave." Generally, your bootable drive will be the master drive. The status of the drives is determined by setting small jumpers, usually located next to the IDE connector on the drive itself. Often, a label on the drive will illustrate the settings; if not, check the drive's manual. While the issue isn't the same with SCSI drives, they do need to have unique SCSI ID numbers, from 0 to 7. These are also determined by jumpers on internal hard drives. Be a Scan Fan Over time, drives can end up with bad sectors, or misplaced data fragments, that-at best-will slow things down and may even lead to a disk crash. As a preventive measure, run ScanDisk about once a week. Access it through the Properties page for any disk drive, or in the Accessories/System Tools group in your Start menu (if it wasn't installed, use your Win95 setup disks to install it). Windows 95 will even keep track of the last time you inspected the disk. A standard inspection is usually sufficient if you're not experiencing any problems, but you should periodically run a thorough inspection, which will map out any bad areas of the disk and attempt to recover data located in the trouble spots. SCSI Stuff Like IDE, some SCSI drives are more equal than others. Several standards in SCSI have evolved over the years; the most basic is 16-bit SCSI standard. Newer SCSI adapters support SCSI-2 (also known as Fast/Wide), which provides higher bandwidth. The top of the heap is SCSI-3 (also known as Ultra Fast/Wide), which has a physically different connector and is generally overkill, except for high-end applications. Make sure the drive you purchase lives up to what your system can do-or consider giving your system a boost by picking up a new SCSI controller at the same time. Beware the IDEs Of March If your system has more than one IDE connection on the motherboard, check the label; one IDE controller is usually on the system's PCI bus, and the other (known as the secondary controller) is on the ISA bus. The PCI bus is always faster, so make sure your primary hard disk is hooked up to the PCI IDE connector. If you're attaching a second disk, it's better to chain it off the first one rather than to the second controller. Also, it's generally a bad idea to put a CD-ROM drive on the same IDE chain as a hard disk. Too Many Gigs If you're upgrading an older system with a large, new hard drive, you may run into some difficulty. Many old PCs have a system BIOS that won't recognize hard disks larger than 2.1GB. This is a hold-over from MS-DOS days, when the operating system couldn't recognize larger drives. Fortunately, many PCs can get around this problem through flash BIOS upgrades. Often, it's as simple as downloading an upgrade file and running an installation program. Call your system manufacturer or check their Web site or BBS for information. Good IDE Is a Good Idea If you're buying a new IDE drive, make sure it's at least fast enough to take full advantage of your system's capabilities. Many of today's PCs support Mode 4 EIDE, the fastest IDE interface currently available. Slower Mode 3 or Mode 2 drives will work in your system, but you'll be wasting bandwidth and time. Even if your system doesn't have the latest stuff, you may still want to shoot high on a new hard drive purchase. You may be able to use it with your next system. Definitely Defrag One of the easiest things you can do to keep your system running at its peak is to defragment your hard drive on a regular basis. When your hard drive tries to store a file and can't find enough contiguous space on the disk, it has to break up the file across different parts of the disk. Defragmenting essentially "unshuffles" the data, reassembling files and consolidating free space. To access Windows 95's built-in Disk Defragmenter utility, look in your Start menu under Programs/Accessories/System Tools, or just look in the Properties for the disk under the Tools tab. Win95 will keep track of how often you defragment your drive. You should do it at least once a month, if not more often. Spec It Out If you're shopping for a new hard disk and are befuddled by the specs, the key number is average access time. Also consider the physical speed of the drive, measured in revolutions per minute (rpm), usually listed in the manufacturer specs. The faster the rpm, the faster the drive. Too Fast to Keep Cooped Up If you're about to lay out some serious cash for a lightning-fast hard disk, use caution. The high-end of hard disks can operate at 7,200rpm, providing the speed needed for audio/video applications. But while these drives can be purchased as internal units, they may generate too much heat to function reliably within your system. Unless your PC is designed for A/V use, you'd be better off purchasing 7,200rpm drives in external, self-ventilated units. If you don't need the extra power, 5,400rpm drives are a safer bet for your desktop. Partitioning Power You may think that you have all the space in the world because you just installed a 4GB hard disk on your system. Instead, you may be losing space if you haven't partitioned it. Under the FAT file system, cluster sizes are based on the overall size of a disk volume, and every file you put on the disk uses at least one cluster. A disk with one huge volume will have larger file clusters, which can get grabbed up by small files, resulting in a huge waste of space. If you've got a drive that's 1GB or larger, creating partitions of about 500MB each will result in more efficient use of space. You can create partitions by using FDISK on a system running in MS-DOS mode, or by using a third-party disk utility. Remember: Partitioning will destroy any information on the drive, so back up any data on the drive first. Modems Manual Modem Installation If you have trouble getting a new modem to work under Windows 95, try manually installing the modem as though it were a generic unit. Use the Add New Hardware Wizard under Control Panel, but select No when it asks if it should search for the new device. Select Modem/Next/Don't detect my modem/Next/Standard Mode Types or Voice View Types (depending on your modem's capabilities), then select the appropriate modem speed. You can add any special string the manufacturer recommends for the modem's proper initialization in the modem's Properties dialog box. The Art of UART If you're working in Windows 95 and you have a 16550 UART chip governing your serial ports, make sure you're getting your modem's worth. Click Control Panel and select Modems/Properties, then look under the Connection tab for Port Settings. Check the "Use FIFObuffers" option and drag both sliders all the way to the right. If that causes problems down the road, drag the sliders back a little and initiate a new session. Repeat this procedure until everything stabilizes. Hearing Is Believing Sometimes listening to your modem attempt a connection can help you track a problem (like if there's a PBX on the other end waiting for an extension to be entered). You can turn on your modem's speaker by setting options or sending ATL3 when initializing the modem from most communications programs. AT Your Command If you need to pass AT commands to your modem in addition to what Windows already sends, click on Modems in the Control Panel, select the modem, click on Properties, select the Connection tab, click on Advanced, and enter the string in the "Extra settings" box. Be sure to use AT at the beginning of the command string. Windows won't add that command prefix for you. Chronicle Comm Sessions If your modem consistently fails to connect to a service, a log of its progress could be revealing. You can turn on modem logging under Control Panel/Modems. Select the modem, click on Properties, select the Connection tab, click on Advanced and check the "Record a log file" box. Put Call Waiting on Hold If Call Waiting service bounces you out of a modem connection, use the prefix *70 (or 1170 in some locations) to turn off Call Waiting. This command only lasts for the duration of the current phone call, so Call Waiting will automatically resume once you've finished your online work. The Need for Speed Your 28.8 modem should be able to handle 115.2Kbps from your computer, but Windows 95 typically communicates with these modems at 57.6Kbps. To correct that, use Control Panel/Modems/Properties and select 115200 as the Maximum speed. If that causes problems, (perhaps due to a slow serial port), set the Maximum speed back to 57600. Response Review If you're not sure your modem is responding to your commands, go to Control Panel/Modems/Diagnostics, select your modem (if it's internal) or its COM port (if it's external), and choose More Info. After a pause, you should get a list of responses from the modem. If you get an empty list, or an error, check your physical connections and the port and IRQ settings for the modem. Shedding Light on Data Woes One fact that many do not realize: If a modem is placed near a fluorescent light, the modem could experience a loss of data. So if you have a desk lamp with a fluorescent bulb and have data-error woes, move the lamp well away from your modem. Go with the Flow For high-speed modem connections under Windows 3.x, set the serial port to use hardware handshaking (CTS\RTS) by going into Control Panel/Choose Ports, clicking on the proper port, then selecting Hardware under Flow Control. Flash! New BIOS Arrives Modems with a flash BIOS can be readily upgraded with software from the manufacturer. However, you should follow each step of the recommended upgrade procedure carefully, and be sure to complete all the steps. The most important step is typically the last one, which on some modems creates a new default profile for the modem to load the next time power is turned on. If that default profile is not saved, you will never be able to communicate with the modem again. BIOS Compatibility Before using recently downloaded info files or drivers for your modem, you should make sure you have the latest BIOS version if your modem has flash. Sometimes new modem drivers are only tested on modems with the latest BIOS in the manufacturer's labs, which can cause them to overlook compatibility issues with prior BIOS versions. See Through the Hayes People are sometimes confused by the phrase "Hayes compatible," thinking it's a guarantee of compatibility or maximum throughput when used with other Hayes-compatible modems, but that's not true. What it really means is the modem understands a set of basic commands originated by Hayes that allow the computer to set up and control some of the modem's characteristics. To determine the interoperability of a modem, check the company's user groups for complaints about the modem's inability to connect. Red Light District If you have an internal or PCMCIA modem, but you want status lights, try using one of the many shareware software modem light programs. These are tiny applets that sit on your desktop and simulate the lights on the front of an external modem. ASCII, and You Shall Receive Sometimes, you need to log in to an online service or BBS using a plain ASCII interface. Here are the proper settings for some of the more popular services and networks: CompuServe: VT100, 7E1, full duplex; GEnie: VT100, 8N1, half duplex; TymNet: VT100, 8N1, full duplex; SprintNet: VT100, 8N1, full duplex; most BBSes: VT100, 8N1 or 7E1, full duplex; almost all Internet sites: VT100, 8N1, full duplex. Zapped by a PBX One of the more insidious causes of modem damage among traveling computer users is the hotel PBX phone system. Hotel phone jacks often carry high-voltage signals that can fry your modem's innards when you plug it in. An acoustic coupler or PBX adapter, which goes between your modem and hotel phone, or modem and room wall plate, can shield it from harm. Wake-Up Call Sometimes a go/no-go test for peripherals comes in handy. For a modem, you can go to the DOS command line in Windows 3.x or Windows 95 and type ECHO ATDT > COMx, where COMx represents the port you're testing. If you hear a dial tone, it's working (at least from DOS). To hang up, type ECHO ATH > COMx. Alphabet Soup When wrestling with communications hardware and software, folks often get confused between the acronyms DCE and DTE. Data communications equipment (DCE) are devices that simply communicate; they can't display information, they can only send and receive it. Data terminal equipment (DTE) displays information like a PC can. You can remember that by recalling that terminals are used to display information. Troubleshooting MNP5 If your modem uses MNP5 and you're having trouble connecting to a particular site, try deactivating that protocol. When an MNP5-capable modem talks to a modem without MNP5 capability, it often causes problems. Zee Protocol of Choice Some file-transfer protocols are quicker and more convenient than others. Zmodem is a popular protocol you should try because of its speed and features. It compresses files well (making it fast), handles multiple files per download and can resume a download after you restore a connection gone south. Make a Connection When you're buying an external modem, order a new serial cable, too. Most modems don't come with a cable. When You Don't Get More from V.34 If you've added a V.34 modem to an old system but you're not happy with the results, it could be because the serial port on the old PC can't handle the throughput. Check its documentation to see if the PC's ports have 16550 UART chips. If they do, you might need to enable them. If they don't, you'll have to add a high-speed serial port to replace the PC's older ports. Restart Software, Too When modem problems arise, it's quite natural for people to flip their modem on and off to reset it. That's okay, but you should also re-initialize the modem using your communications software. If you don't, the modem will institute its default profile of commands, but that may not include commands needed by your software. Flashier V.34 Reached 33.6 Speed Are you unhappy because your V.34 operates at 28.8-not 33.6 like some of its close relatives? For some modems, a simple flash upgrade is all that's needed to boost their speed. Check with the manufacturer to see if that's true for yours. Read the Right Speed People often find it confusing when communications software reports a speed significantly lower than the modem's rated maximum. That's often because the software has set the modem to tell it the speed of the telephone connection without compression, or the speed of connection between the modem and your own PC. To rectify this, check your modem's documentation for an AT command that'll make it generate the right response, and add that command to the modem's initialization string located in your communications software. ISDN A Fine Line If you want to install an ISDN line, but already have two regular phone lines, you might get hit with a surcharge. Some local companies will install two lines of any kind without a special surcharge, but tack one on for that third connection. You might want to check with your phone company in case you'd rather convert one of your current lines to ISDN instead of adding a line. For Business or Pleasure Before calling for an ISDN hookup, check what packages your phone company offers for both business and residences. Some services may be absent from a business package, and with a residential package you won't be able to list the phone number in the yellow pages. Depending on your needs, you might want to tell them the line is for business purposes even if the service is in a residential area, or vice versa. Don't Hesitate, Accelerate! If you use Windows 95 and an internal ISDN modem, Microsoft's native drivers could give you a performance boost. You can both check your modem's compatibility with the drivers and download the drivers from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/software/isdn.htm. For Your Eyes Only Like regular phone numbers, you can choose to have your ISDN numbers unlisted or unpublished. Unlisted numbers are not printed in the phone book, but can be given out by an operator. Unpublished numbers are not printed or given out. Keep in mind, however, that both services usually cost extra. Pokey Port If your external terminal adapter seems to send data quickly, but chokes when receiving, the problem could be your serial port. Make sure the port has a 16550 UART, and that the port is configured for maximum throughput in Device Manager. Stop Phone Foolery If folks are abusing your ISDN line, you might be able to prevent them from making three types of calls: calls to 900 and 976 numbers; international long-distance calls; and in-country long-distance calls. Check with your phone company for the availability of these blocking options. Notable Numbers Because ISDN phone numbers and SPIDs (service profile IDs) are seldom used, it's easy to forget them. Taping them to the back of your modem provides a good reminder and keeps them close at hand. Buy a Line Online Microsoft offers a great service for ordering ISDN lines. It's actually a series of wizard-like Web pages that can place an ISDN order with your local phone company after you respond to a handful of simple questions. Check it out at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/getisdn/orderwm.htm. Powerful Protection If your external ISDN modem is connected to a UPS-protected mission-critical system, be sure to plug the terminal adapter into a UPS, too. If the TA requires an NT1 device, don't forget to plug that in as well. Traveling Terminal Adapter You might be able to use your ISDN terminal adapter abroad. First, it should not have an integral NT1 (NT1s are provided by the phone companies outside the United States). Second, if you wish to use it for voice calls, it must have a switch to change over from mu-law to A-law encoding. Last, you must check the modem's interoperability with the services and equipment of the country you're headed to. Smart Modem! When selecting ISDN modems for an installation, try to use units that can automatically detect the SPID (service profile ID) for the connection. That'll reduce set-up time and eliminate one configuration parameter. ISDN Hotline Intel has a service that can provide a lot of free advice on ISDN service and equipment, including specifics for your area. Call them at 800-538-3373 x208. Terminate Wisely While shopping for a terminal adapter that you plan to use it solely in North America, make sure to buy one with a built-in NT1 interface. The interface is necessary to connect the TA to the ISDN phone line. Stay in Touch Moving your terminal adapter to another room? If it uses an NT1, try to leave the NT1 connected to the incoming ISDN line. The phone company's equipment might mistake the disconnection for a problem, causing the ISDN line to shut down until you make a service call. Enhance Your Communications If the communications needs of your office are growing, you can use your ISDN line to add services like Call Forwarding, Call Hold, Automatic Recall, Speed Calling, ICLID (incoming calling line identification) and multiline hunt groups. Scanners 32-Bit or Bust If your scanner doesn't have 32-bit driver support by now, get on the manufacturer's case! Almost every scanner maker now provides 32-bit Windows 95-compatible drivers for their scanners, and many also provide Windows NT drivers. Set the Tonal When you're testing a scanner to determine its tonal range by scanning a piece of sample artwork or a photo target, make sure you set the scanner's tonal output to prevent clipping of the image's histogram. Most scanners have a tonal range setting, usually 0-255 on each channel, that can be used to adjust the resulting signal sent back to the computer. Set each channel's tonal range to 5 minimum and 250 maximum to prevent clipping and ensure a proper calibration. Vector-ious When scanning images that you will eventually convert to vector images through a tracing program, try lowering the image threshold or increasing the brightness to decrease the amount of spurious detail. What looks good for a bitmap doesn't always work as well for a raster-to-vector conversion. You might also try applying despeckling filters before tracing to remove stray dots. Suitable SCSI Some SCSI scanners don't like to talk to anything other than a 100 percent Adaptec-compatible SCSI card, and act strangely with others. If you're buying a scanner to operate with a SCSI card you already own, talk to the manufacturer and determine if it supports your card. Also, make sure you're not going to pay extra for a bundled SCSI card you're not going to use. No Bad Vibes If you've got a scanner and a printer on the same workstation, try not to put them right next to each other, especially if you tend to use both at the same time. Vibrations from the printer can cause scans to come out blurred or unfocused. RGB or CMYK? When scanning in a new image, some TWAIN drivers give you the choice of rendering the image as CMYK or RGB. If you'll ultimately use CMYK as your output model, you may want to stay with RGB and convert to CMYK or (CIE Lab-model color) after the fact. Also, the RGB-to-CMYK conversion algorithms in different TWAIN drivers may not produce symmetric results, if you're deriving input from more than one scanner. Scanner Scrubber Both the lens and the glass in scanners need periodic cleanings. Some scanners come with pre-moistened appliquettes for cleaning the lens and glass. You can also use a chamois cloth or Tyvek and some isopropyl alcohol. Smooth Moves For the best results when scanning line art, scan in high-resolution grayscale mode. This way, the smoothness of curves and the crispness of lines can be preserved without the image looking jagged. Fringe Elements If you think your scanner's focus may be off, try scanning a piece of graph paper at the optical resolution of the scanner in full-color mode. Using an image-editing tool, zoom in on the edges of horizontal and vertical lines to see if there are blue and red fringes at the edges of lines-a sign of a scanner that's either improperly calibrated or simply not up to snuff. This is also a good in-store test for trying before you buy. The Ol' Switcheroo Don't be fooled by the smooth performance of 32-bit scanner drivers in Windows 95 and NT. That doesn't mean you can switch away during a scan to do other things. Experiment a little to see if this is safe. Some TWAIN drivers react badly to the CPU being taken by other programs, and images come out distorted and corrupted. Work Better with Batches If you're planning to OCR scanned text from a page with tinted or color areas, scan each colored area separately with different threshold and brightness levels. If your scanner does batch jobs-scanning several different areas on the same images with different settings for each-this is a perfect way to put it to use. Back It with Black Sometimes scans on thin paper can cause material on the other side to show through. Put black construction paper behind the image and lower the threshold or increase the brightness to compensate; what you'll lose in terms of image fidelity is negligible compared to the cleanness you gain back. Diminish DPI Don't waste processor time, scan memory and disk space by scanning an image at way above what your ultimate output resolution is going to be, unless you're trying to deliberately down-sample a larger image. Most scanners slow considerably at above 600dpi, especially since the TWAIN driver is doing software interpolation to obtain the image. Profiles in Scanning Windows NT scanner drivers take advantage of NT's versatility. With NT 4.0, you can create a hardware profile that has the scanner driver enabled or disabled. That's useful if you want to boot the system with the scanner off (without error messages about drivers not starting properly), or just want to be able to save that much more RAM. Keyboards Keyboard Booster Perk up your keyboard's responsiveness when running multiple applications by editing the [386Enh] section of your SYSTEM.INI file. Look for a line that says KeyBoostTime= and change the setting to .005 (the default is .001). If this line does not exist, add it. This setting controls the amount of time allocated to an application when it receives a keystroke. The higher the number, the higher the priority given to the keystrokes going into your current application. Type Another Tongue If you often habla Espanol or parle Francais, use Control Panel to set up your keyboard to work with other languages. In Win95, click on Keyboard, then Language/Add Language. In Win 3.x, click on International. You may have to use the setup diskette to load the new .DLL if you haven't done it in the past. If a driver is already present, indicate whether you want to use the resident file or load a new one. Chairman of the Keyboard Adjust the height of your chair to correspond with the height of your keyboard. You should be able to hold your wrists parallel with the keyboard at seated elbow height. Your arms should come down straight from your shoulders with your fingers on the "home" row of keys and your forearms parallel to the floor. Watch Your Wrists Keep your wrists neutral, at the same level as your forearms, without bending them in any way while typing. Keep their keyboard position as close as possible to the way you keep them when your arms rest comfortably at your sides. Minimizing wrist movement reduces stress to the nerves, blood vessels and tendons, thus lowering your chances of getting carpal tunnel syndrome. Only use wrist rests for support between typing and only if you find them comfortable. They can cause you to bend your wrists if used while typing. Hold Your Head High To reduce neck strain while improving the flow of blood to the upper body, always keep your head above your shoulders. Use a chair that supports the natural curve of your lower back, while keeping your back upright against the chair to support your upper body's weight. If necessary, use a pillow or a rolled towel for extra back support. Get in Position To avoid repetitive motion disorders, position your keyboard so that it is at wrist level, about 26.5 inches high (rather than at the 29-inch desktop height). Often you can add a keyboard shelf to your desk to hold the keyboard at this height. The Right Touch Don't use too much force when you're typing, and use a keyboard that can be operated with a light touch. You should maintain moderate to light pressure on the keys, as the stress caused by placing too much pressure plays an important part in cumulative trauma disorders. Keys should be spaced comfortably and slightly concave to keep fingers from slipping. Mousy Keys Win95 comes with a few options designed to make it more accessible to physically limited users. One of these options is MouseKeys, which lets you move your mouse pointer with the numeric keypad on your keyboard. This is useful if you're recovering from a repetitive strain injury caused by overly vigorous use of your mouse, or you want to use a notebook without a mouse. Turn on MouseKeys by double-clicking on the Accessibility Options icon in the Control Panel; then click on the Mouse tab and select Use MouseKeys. Behavior Modification Edit your WIN.INI file to specify how your keyboard acts. The KeyboardDelay= line specifies the length of time you have to press a key before the character is repeated. The default is 2 (milliseconds). Reducing this value makes creating repeat characters easier; increasing it makes it harder. Editing the KeyboardSpeed= line lets you determine how fast the characters repeat after the initial repeat. The default, 31, is as high as you can go. You can slow the repetition speed by reducing the number. You may also change these parameters through the Keyboard section of the Control Panel. Let Your Fingers Do the Surfing Most people mouse their way through the Web, but keyboard surfing is faster. In Navigator 3.0 or Internet Explorer 3.0, the Tab key takes you from link to link (even within image maps); pressing Enter is like clicking on the link. Ctrl+D puts the current page in Bookmarks or Favorites. Mouse Two Mice Are Better than One Whether you share your PC with a left-handed user or just get tired of using the same old mouse all the time, you can double dip on your input device choices. Attaching one device to your serial port and one to your PS/2 port lets you switch between trackball and mouse or left- and right-handed devices without unplugging and replugging. Note that both devices need to support the same drivers (for example, Microsoft Mouse), or you'll have to switch drivers. To change drivers, go to Control Panel/Mouse and exchange the driver by clicking on the Change button under the General tab. Take a Stroll with AutoScroll The newest Windows 95 applications from Microsoft, including Office 97 and Internet Explorer 3.0, support autoscrolling. In these apps, if you click the middle button of any three-button mouse, you can scroll through your document just as if you had hit the Down arrow on the right side of the screen. In the future, some non-Microsoft programs will also support this feature. Pick a Port Although you can connect your serial port to either COM1 or COM2, Microsoft suggests that you pick COM1 whenever possible. Windows locates and services the mouse more quickly on this port, although either will work. Conspicuous Cursor Use the options in the Control Panel/Mouse menu wisely, and you'll always be able to spot your cursor easily. The newest Microsoft Mouse software, IntelliPoint 2.0, provides a number of options to improve the visibility of your cursor. Engage the Mouse Trails option so that your cursor looks like several arrows in a row when you drag it across the screen. The Sonar feature shows the location of your cursor by enclosing it in a circle when you press the Ctrl key. Rest Your Wrists Add a wrist rest to your mouse pad to help avoid carpal tunnel syndrome. Choose a pad that is separate from the mouse pad so you can adjust the pad and the rest independently for the best fit. Never choose a wrist rest with a prominent front edge, since that can compress sensitive nerves. Cleanliness Is Next to Godliness Do your mouse a favor and clean it regularly. Whenever moving the mouse seems slow or rough, it's time for a brush-up. Turn off your PC, unplug the input device from the system and remove the ball (you can do this by turning the cover over the ball counterclockwise). Clean the ball itself with a mild detergent and wipe it dry with a lint-free cloth. Clean dust and lint from the ball cage using a cotton swab. For hard-to-free grime, use a small amount of rubbing alcohol on a cotton swab. Then you're ready to reassemble and get back to mousing. Location Is Everything Try to place your mouse so that your arms and hands are in a comfortable, relaxed position. Your forearms should be parallel to the floor and your wrists and hands should be in line with your forearms. The best height for your mouse is 26.5 inches, rather than the 29 inches of the traditional desktop. Stay Off Skid Row Look for a mouse pad with a natural rubber base to avoid skids. Either cloth or plastic pads work well; it's a matter of personal taste. If you choose a cloth pad, look for one that is decorated with sublimation (a permanent die process) rather than with a raised silk screen that can wear off. A plastic pad should be textured so it's not too slick. You Deserve a Break Today Don't sit at your computer for hours at a time. A full day of pounding at the keyboard and clicking on the mouse can leave you with sore wrists and aching back. Get up and walk around or switch to a non-computer task every few hours to avoid a build-up of stress and strain. Printing Slim Down Your Print Jobs Less complicated documents print faster. If speed is essential, use normal text and avoid bold, underline or italic text, which take longer to print. Using multiple typefaces also slows down the printing process. Whatever You Craft, Print a Draft Don't print out a new version every time you make a change. If you must print, set your printer to use the draft or low-resolution mode unless it's the final version. This method will speed your print jobs and save toner. Although low-resolution mode uses only half the toner, you'll get a very legible draft. Make Every Day Earth Day Many printers provide earth-friendly features, such as a sleep mode. You may be able to set your printer to go into power management mode after it has been inactive for a certain length of time. These features are usually accessed either through the printer's control panel or the Windows driver. Keep Your Envelopes on the Straight and Narrow Choose a printer that offers a straight paper path, especially if you'll be printing a lot of envelopes. Many units offer a secondary, face-up exit tray that pushes paper straight out the rear of the unit to avoid bent and crinkled edges on your envelopes. Cut the Clutter If you no longer use all of the printers on your printer list, get rid of them. From the Start menu, go to Settings/Printers. Right-click on the printer you want to remove and choose Delete. The old information will be deleted from your printer list, and any files or drivers will be automatically trashed. Get the Latest and Greatest To keep your printer running at peak performance, update your drivers as your printer manufacturer improves them. Many companies update their drivers as often as every three months to enhance speed or address incompatibles. Take a look at your printer manufacturers' BBS or Web page, or go to your favorite online service. To see which version of drivers you currently have, in Windows 3.x, open Control Panel, double-click on the Printers icon, click on Setup and then About. In Windows 95, click the Start menu and choose Settings/Printers. Right-click on the printer you want to check and select Properties. Click on the Details tab, then on the About button to see the driver version. The First Can Be Last When printing multiple documents in Windows 95, you can switch the order of documents by going into the Printers folder, double-clicking on the icon of the printer that you are using, and simply dragging the document you need to move to the desired position within the queue. The one caveat: You cannot move a document that is in the process of printing. Secure Your Printing Resources Windows 95 gives you two ways of safeguarding your printing resources that are shared on the network: You can set a password, or list the names of those users that you will allow to share the printer. In My Computer, click the shared printer you want to limit access to. Go to the File menu and choose Properties/Sharing. If you are using user-level access control, click Add to specify the people you want to allow access to your printer. (Ask your network administrator if you are set up for this type of access control.) If you are using share-level access control, type the password you want to use for the printer. Buy Art Expertise Preprinted papers from companies such as Paper Direct, Beaver Prints or Proterra let you print out colorful documents, flyers and business cards without shelling out hundreds of dollars for a color printer. These companies offer thousands of designs for all types of business documents. Postscript Posthaste You can send a Postscript file directly to your Postscript printer. Assume you want to send a file called hugefil.ps to your postscript printer on your LPT2 port. Go to the MS-DOS prompt and at C:\WINDOWS>, type print C:\hugefil.ps. You will be prompted to enter the name of your list device (LPT2). The printer will then print the file. An even quicker way to achieve the same result is to type copy C:\hugefil.ps lpt2. Protect Your Investment A major cause of printer failure is an electrical surge sent to the fuse or power module. A surge protector, which costs about $20, is quick and easy insurance that could save your equipment from an untimely death caused by a power fluctuation. Take the Direct Route Speed print from Windows 3.x by bypassing DOS and printing directly from Windows. Go to the Control Panel, double-click the Printers icon and then click the Connect button. Make sure that the "Fast printing direct to port" box is checked. Put Your Printer at Your Fingertips Create a shortcut for your printer so you can print your documents quickly and easily without printing from within an application. Find the printer you want to put on the desktop in Control Panel/Printers and use the right mouse button to drag its icon to the desktop. To print a file, just drag its icon onto the printer icon. Plan for Your LAN You can connect a network interface card (NIC) inside your printer or attach it to its parallel port as an affordable way to speed up printing across the network without dedicating a PC to the task. When you make a printer a node on the network, it can be shared by several users. Many NICs support a variety of network operating systems and protocols, and these cards cost less than a dedicated print server. Many cards also provide remote administration applications and software tools for most popular operating systems. Send Your Print Jobs on Their Way If you print to a number of different printers, you may want to add those devices to the Send To menu so you can quickly send the document you want to output to the specific printer you want to use. Go to the Send To folder located in your Windows folder. In that folder, create shortcuts to the printers that you use most often. Even Up Your Toner You can quickly and easily clear up streaking and light print in certain types of laser printers. Try removing the toner cartridge and rocking it back and forth a few times. This will distribute the toner more evenly so that pages print more uniformly. Particular Printer If you have different configurations that you usually use for printing (you print on legal- and letter-sized paper, for example), you can avoid reconfiguring your printer by installing it multiple times and configuring each instance of the printer to suit a particular job. Go to Control Panel/Printers/Add Printer. The wizard will lead you through the process. If your printer is included on the list, choose the appropriate driver or, if it's not there, choose Have Disk. Expert on Board If your printer goes on the fritz, you aren't alone. Put a call into the Print Troubleshooter located in the Help menu of Windows 95. Go to Contents and click on Troubleshooting, then click "If you have trouble printing." You will then be led through a series of questions that will help you rule out or solve the most common problems. Up-to-the-Minute Info When you ask any application to print a document, a printer icon appears on the right side of the taskbar. Double-click on it to access a list of the documents that are waiting to print. Tips from the top Use the Net and Storage; Banish Paper and Noise By Cheryl Currid, Windows at Work Columnist Ditch Dusty Development Tools If your company has already discovered the power of an intranet, try one more tool. Consider using Web-browser authoring tools for application development. These products are faster than traditional programming tools and offer many features necessary to build complete applications. New products let you build attractive hyperlinked pages, and some, like Microsoft FrontPage 97, let you embed programming logic or SQL statements. Avoid a Web Disaster Don't rely on your Internet service provider (ISP) for backup Web access. Configure and maintain a backup access route with another ISP. You'll need to establish different DNS numbers and probably another name, which is a good idea from a security standpoint. Make sure both ISPs use different carriers, equipment and access points into your building. This won't make you 100 percent disaster-proof, but you'll be a lot safer than you were before. Follow The Paper(less) Path Instead of breaking office workers' addiction to paper cold turkey, offer them alternatives. Set up a system for managing certain types of documents. Make electronic files the permanent ones, and ban file drawers. Carry Extra Disk Space External storage devices may extend the useful life of a notebook computer. Iomega's Zip Drive provides 100MB of convenient removable storage. For a smaller, lighter solution, DataFab's Mobile Disk family of enhanced parallel port hard disks connects to just about any desktop or notebook to exchange files at more than 800KB per second. If all you need is an extra CD or CD capability, EXP Computer's CD-620 kit consists of a small 6X CD-ROM drive connected to a proprietary PCMCIA Type I card. Convert Your Notebook to an Answering Machine Don't depend on your hotels' inconsistent (or nonexistent) voice mail system. Instead, bring along your own. Equip your notebook computer with a voice-capable fax/modem and install telephony software. That way you can take your messages with you when you leave. Help Your Help Desk Give help-desk workers a page on your intranet for answers to frequently asked questions. This page is also a good place to post service announcements, training opportunities and links to helpful Internet sites. Encourage Open Office Etiquette Multimedia computers are increasing office din. The sounds may enhance one user's experience, but noise pollution will soon fill cubicles and threaten to disrupt colleagues. Include a set of headphones with each multimedia computer you introduce into the workplace. Mesh Mishmash Many TWAIN drivers now come with a descreening function, an algorithm that removes the mesh-like artifacts that appear when you scan a photo-offset image. Some of these algorithms are not that good, and for comparison's sake you may want to try scanning the image at a very high resolution, then despeckling the image and downsampling it to a smaller size. Despeckling filters are included in Adobe Photoshop and in Paint Shop Pro. Mouse Snaps to Attention in NT Enable the "snap to default" feature in Windows NT 4.0 to make your mouse pointer automatically hover over any dialog box buttons that appear. To do this, go to the Motion tab of the Mouse Control Panel. Enable the check box that says "Snap mouse to the default button in dialogs," and your mouse comes running when you need to click on a button. Printers TASK SHORTCUT Moves file up in the print queue Ctrl+Up arrow Moves file down in the print queue Ctrl+Down arrow Pauses printing Alt+P Resumes printing Alt+R ********************************************** Copyright © 1997 CMP Media Inc. WINDOWS Magazine (ISSN 1060-1066) is published monthly with two bonus issues a year for $24.94 per year by CMP Media Inc., 600 Community Drive, Manhasset, NY 11030. Periodicals postage paid at Manhasset, NY, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to WINDOWS Magazine, P.O. Box 420215, Palm Coast, FL 32142-0215. Registered for GST as CMP Media Inc. GST# 131288078, Agreement Number 0225932. BULK RATE U.S. POSTAGE PAID CMP Media Inc.