QUICK TIPS AND FIXES Copyright (c) 1995, Joe DeRouen All rights reserved [Originally published in Feb. issue of Computer Currents Magazine] If you're having a problem you just can't seem to solve, a question you want answered, or just an inherent need to bend a lonely writer's ear, you've come to the right place. Keep those cards and letters coming, folks. Also, please include a daytime and a nighttime phone number with your question. I might have to ask you a couple of questions to get at the source of the problem or question. And, I promise, I won't write your numbers on the walls of bathroom stalls at the Infomart. Q: I read your column regularly, and thought I'd run a problem by you. I have a 486slc 50Mhz 4 Meg of RAM and a 345 Meg hard drive. Also a Omni CD-Rom drive and a soundblaster16 with terrible labtec (battery operated) speakers. Is it possible to connect my Sound Blaster card to my auxilary jack in the rear of my stereo, or am I just asking for trouble? Your advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, John Broadnax via Prodigy A: Thanks for writing, John! Your question is one of the easier ones I've gotten. In a word, yes, you can (and should!) hook up your Sound Blaster card to your stereo. The sound quality will improve tremendously over your labtec speakers, and you'll have better volume control as well. All you really need to do to accomplish this feat is purchase a stereo cable. The cable you're looking for should have a single plug-in jack on both ends. After you've made your purchase (the cable is under $10.00 and should be available at any Radio Shack or store that offers stereo equipment) you need simply to plug one end into the audio output jack on your sound blaster and the other end into your auxilary jack on the stereo. Viola! Your mission is accomplished. You'll have to play around with the volume control on both your stereo and your Sound Blaster to get the right static-free output, but that shouldn't take you more than a moment or two. Soon thereafter, you'll be enjoying the sounds of DOOM II and MYST through your stereo. Happy listening! Q: I'm not sure if this really fits into your column, but I'll ask anyway. What can I do to insure that the BBS I'm calling is legitimate and not some hacker teenager bent on ruining my reputation and wreaking havoc in my life? I recently logged onto (BBS name withheld) and filled out all the new user questionnaires. The BBS seemed normal enough. It didn't really have what I was looking for, though, and I never called back. I later found out that someone was logging onto other area BBS's using my name and password! It had to be this SysOp, as it started happening about 24 hours after I logged onto his board. After about a week of explaining and some long telephone conversations, I was finally able to convince the other BBS operators that it wasn't me that logged on and left nasty comments to everyone, and they let me back onto their systems with new passwords. How can I prevent this from happening in the future? Sincerely, Peggy Madison Ft. Worth, Texas A: I sympathize with you, Peggy. Something similar happened to me several years ago. First and foremost, do NOT use the same password on any BBS that you log onto. I know it's tempting to just use the same password over and over - that's what got me into trouble those several years ago - but the ease of remembering the password isn't worth the potential trouble. That's rule #1 - use a different password on every system you call. And make it a hard-to-guess one, too. Use lot's of symbols and numbers in there, and don't pick anything that'd be at all easy to guess. Your comment on the "teenage hacker bent on ruining your reputation", while understandable, really isn't fair. 99.9% of the SysOps out there, whether they run pay systems or free ones, are decent, honest people. That includes the teenage hacker types. It's that .01% that you have to watch out for, and those SysOps can come in any shape, size, race, age, or profession. Just like non-online life, most of us are "good guys" but you run into the occasional bad apple every so often. When you happen to bite into one of those sour apples, to further the analogy, just spit it out and go on looking through the orchard. You'll find even sweeter apples for the tasting and quickly forget the sour ones. Q: Joe, several weeks ago Windows 3.1 failed startup with "Error loading PROGMAN.EXE". Obviously, there is a problem loading the program manager. I have no idea what the problem is and what's causing it. I do not recall changing anything in Windows setup, etc. Maybe only moving/deleting some icons from application groups. Thanks, Philip Baughman via Internet A: Philip, It sounds to me like you might have a hard drive problem in the way of a unlocked physical defect on one of the sectors. The reason I suspect this is that the error is recurring in the same file when the stuff is reloaded. The best way to detect if this is the case is to rename the file PROGMAN.EXE to a dummy file name, then reload that file onto the hard drive. Resume your normal operations, and, if the error doesn't recur, you've solved the problem. Just leave the dummy file on the hard drive, and you won't have to worry about those sectors ever being used by another application or data file. You can also run a variety of disk doctor programs to diagnose this problem, but, in my opinion, this is the quickest and easiest way to do it. If this doesn't work, write me back, and I'll try to see if I can think of anything else that might be happening. Are you having a problem with your computer? Write to Joe at Computer Currents or via Sunlight Through The Shadows BBS at 214/620-8793. (c) 1994 Joe DeRouen. All rights reserved.