... Windows Tips 'n Tricks 1 ...

So you uninstalled a program the Windows way--using Control Panel's Add/Remove Programs. And yet, the listing is still there and when you try to uninstall it, you get an error message. Or, perhaps you want to prevent someone from uninstalling a program somewhere down the line. One Registry hack can take care of both of these contingencies:

1. Make sure you have a current backup of the Registry.
2. Launch RegEdit.
3. Under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, locate Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Uninstall.
4. Under Uninstall, locate any keys you don't want and press Delete to remove them.
5. Save your changes as you quit RegEdit and restart Windows.

Sure enough, Add/Remove Programs now doesn't list the item or items you've deleted.

Another, and easier way, is to use TweakUi. Open the Control Panel, double-click TweakUi, and select the Add/Remove tab. Select the item you'd like to remove, or edit, from the Install/Uninstall list, click the Remove (or Edit) button, then click Yes to confirm. Repeat these steps for each item you want to remove, then click OK.

Want an easy way to jump from one window to the next? Hold down the Alt key as you press Esc continuously. That’s right, hold your left thumb on Alt and your "tallman" presses Esc. Each time you press Esc, another open window takes its place on top of the open window pile. When the window you had in mind appears, let go.

In Windows, you're almost always multitasking. So what could be more important than getting from one open task to the next? For fast navigation from one window to the next, remember Alt-Tab.

Press Alt-Tab, and you'll see a box that holds a row of icons--one for every open application or window. Hold down Alt as you press Tab to rotate from one icon to the next. When the one you want is highlighted, let go and you'll jump directly to that window.

You can use the arrow keys to move you through the Start menus. The up and down arrow keys move you within a menu. When you get to the bottom of a menu, pressing the down arrow again takes you to the top. (By the same token, pressing the up arrow when you're at the top of a menu takes you to the bottom.) The right and left arrow keys move you forward and back between the cascading menus. When you reach a menu item that you want to run, press Enter.

Your CD-ROM's ability to play inserted CDs automatically takes up valuable memory, especially when you consider the fact that Windows checks an empty CD drive every few seconds. If you want to disable the autoplay feature, follow these steps:

1. Right-click My Computer and select Properties (or open System in the Control Panel).
2. Click the Device Manager tab and then click the plus (+) sign in front of CDROM.
3. Highlight your CD-ROM drive and then click the Properties button.
4. In the Properties window, click the Settings tab.
5. Uncheck the box in front of "Auto insert notification" and then click OK twice.

Having your CD ROM drive set to "auto run" is very convenient for starting the installation programs of your new applications. However, sometimes you just want to access a file on a CD, and waiting for the auto run to stop doing its thing can be a pain. To suppress the auto run feature on an as-needed basis, insert the CD into the drive, then press and hold down the Shift key before closing the drive door. Continue holding down the Shift key as your CD ROM drive fires up. Once it stops its activity (watch the drive's little light), you can release the Shift key and continue about your business.

Be sure to back up any important files. If disaster strikes, you can reinstall your programs from the original floppy disks or zip drive or readable writable disks (RW/CD’s). But you cannot recreate the data files and documents that you have created unless you have a back-up copy

Create backup diskettes of your important floppies by using the Copy Disk utility. You'll need one blank diskette for each diskette you want to copy. Insert the "source" diskette, the diskette you want to copy, into the floppy disk drive. Open My Computer or Windows Explorer and right-click on the floppy drive icon. Choose Copy Disk from the context menu. Select the floppy drive in both the Copy From and Copy To list boxes, then click Start. When prompted, insert the blank "destination" diskette. When the process shows "Copy completed successfully," click Close, remove the new backup diskette and store it somewhere safe. (Note that any previous data existing on the destination diskette will be erased by this process, so make sure you examine the diskette for stray critical files before assuming it's blank).

Battery life is critical to the use of a notebook computer, so it's important to keep track of how much power remains in the battery. To show the battery meter in the system tray on the taskbar, click the Start button, point to Settings, and choose Control Panel. Double-click the Power Management icon, click the Advanced tab, then check the Show Battery Meter on Taskbar box. Click OK to apply the change. To view the remaining charge in your battery, hold your mouse pointer over the battery icon.

Generally, the earliest builds of software are called "Alpha" versions: They're extremely rough passes at what may or may not constitute the final product. As the Alpha version is refined, features and functions may be added or dropped, the entire look and feel may change, and in fact, the product may even be rewritten from the ground up over the course of successive builds.

Once a software product is more or less suggestive of its final form, it's called Beta. This version is used for testing ... "Beta testing" ... to see if the features and functions are doing what they're supposed to; and to track down and kill bugs within the software. Early Betas are often wildly unstable, and sometimes turn out in retrospect to be Alphas: Some feature and functions may not survive Beta-testing, and may be killed or radically redone during early Beta.

Early Betas are usually tested by staff members and by a relatively small cadre of trusted external testers. Late Betas ... once the product is more or less "feature complete" and ready for wider testing ... are sometimes released to the general public so the developers can see what bugs and problems will turn up under real-world conditions. There usually are multiple Beta releases, each trying to correct previously-discovered bugs without introducing too many new ones. As the Beta tests progress, a software vendor's Quality Assurance staff will categorize the products' bugs according to severity and the number of users likely to be affected.

At some point ... it's a judgment call ... the Beta software is declared good enough, and becomes the "gold code" from which the final, shipping version (sometimes called the "Gamma" version) will be produced. The software still contains bugs--- all but the most trivial programs *always* contain bugs, regardless of what software company or category is involved. But software "goes gold" and is shipped to end users when the vendor makes the determination (for good or ill) that the worst bugs have been quashed, and that only a small percentage of users will encounter the serious bugs that are known to remain.

Yes, that's right: "known to remain." ALL software products from ALL vendors contain bugs, some of which the vendor knows about. Some of these will be corrected in later patches or updates or new versions; some will never be fixed because doing so would simply be too difficult, time-consuming or expensive. *ALL* commercial software is based on the "good enough" model, with each company setting its own standards for what constitutes good enough.

It stands for "basic input/output system." The BIOS is what's coded into a PC's ROM to provide the basic instructions for controlling system hardware. The operating system and application programs both directly access BIOS (see below) routines to provide better compatibility for such functions as screen display. Some makers of add-in boards such as graphics accelerator cards provide their own BIOS modules that work in conjunction with (or replace) the BIOS on the system's motherboard.

ROM: a storage chip that typically contains hardwired instructions for use when a computer starts (boots up). The instructions--contained in this BIOS)--load from ROM and start up the hard disk so that the operating system (OS) can be loaded and the whole shooting match can begin.

BIOS = Basic Input/Output System, it's the part of your computer that manages all the data-transport between the different components. The Bios-hardware consists of one or more chips on your motherboard. It can be as complex as your CPU.

If you see your CPU as the engine of your car, then the BIOS is the electrical system of your car. A modern BIOS has many features you can use. Before you make any change, write down what the original settings are. And keep that paper.

Know the stories about using regedit? Be twice as careful when changing your BIOS. Don't do it. Let a friend who is a computer-wiz do it. But save your important files first.

The exact method you will use to access your computer's BIOS may differ, depending on which BIOS your PC uses. As your computer starts to boot, you'll see a message at the bottom of your screen that typically says something like, "Press keyname to access setup." More often than not, keyname translates into either the F1, F2, or DEL keys. (Since this utility opens before your mouse driver gets loaded, navigation and selection within the BIOS setup utility can be tricky; check the bottom of the screen for instructions.)

Warning: Messing around with the BIOS settings can crash your PC faster than cat after a mouse. Once you're in the BIOS, you'll see a gaggle of options that you'll think you want to change. Resist temptation; you probably don't have enough experience to toy around with those settings just yet. And before you change any of the settings, write down the original values so you can reset them if you need to.

Do you ever find yourself opening several *.bmp files to see which is which? You can remove the guesswork--that is, if you don't mind doing a little Registry editing. You can have Windows display a small version, or "thumbnail", of each bitmap as the respective file's icon.

Open the Registry by selecting Start, Run and typing regedit Click OK and then navigate your way to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Paint.Picture\DefaultIcon.

In the right pane, right-click (Default) and Explorer] select Modify. Type %1 (to replace all the data under Value data) and click OK. Close the Registry.

Open a window that includes a lot of BMP files and check out all those icons. (Their quality will vary depending on your color setting, monitor, and so on.) You'll never have to guess which is which again.

The registry is the heart of windows in which you find a lot of references that windows needs to load and execute any program installed.

Besides the references you can change many settings e.g. changing the folder icons, renaming the recycle bin, assigning to each event a sound (other than those in the Control Panel/Sounds), making a bmp picture it's own icon.

Here's how to change the default icon of the bmp picture to make it the picture itself. Now you won't have to open the file to see the picture if you were searching for a specific picture, and so you can even assign this icon to any shortcut you want.

Open Regedit:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Paint.Picture\Default Icon

You'll find in the right pane a string called "Default" double click it (and write down the Value Data. I think it's something like C:\Program Files\Accessories\ms... so if you ever wanted to restore the original icon you do the same and write it once again) and put instead %1, click OK, close the regedit and restart the windows. Locate a bmp file and you'll find that his icon is the picture itself.

You should always have an emergency boot disk handy just in case the worst happens. To create one, open the Control Panel and choose Add/Remove Programs. Click on the Startup Disk tab and click the Create Disk button.

If Windows fails to boot properly, reboot and press F8 for the Windows StartUp menu, and pick the Logged (\BOOTLOG.TXT) option. It will attempt a normal boot while recording the status of every step Windows takes during the process. Use this option to log a failed boot. Then, reboot to Safe mode if necessary and use a text editor to open BOOTLOG.TXT (in your root directory). Search for "fail" to find the boot steps Windows had trouble with. Failed steps are often excellent clues to the cause of any problems.

How long it takes your computer to boot would depend on several things, not least of which is how much software you have installed and what you have set to load at startup (in Start/Run/type msconfig/OK/Start menu), how many files your AV program scans on startup and how fast or slow that program works.

Almost always if someone is experiencing a truly slow bootup, it is a msconfig problem. Follow the trail listed above and in msconfig uncheck any programs you do not want or need to load at startup. This only disables them at startup. They will load as usual when you click on the program shortcut in Start/Programs listing.

Take breaks often when working on the computer. It's good to give both your body and your mind a break.

A) SETTING IT UP
Do you frequently move files from one system to another--for example, from your office PC to a home PC or laptop? If you simply copy the files to a floppy disk and go about your business, you're not taking advantage of a very useful Windows feature. The Windows Briefcase will keep multiple copies of the same files current, so you don't have to spend valuable time trying to figure out which is the most recent version. In this series of tips, we'll show you how to create, use, and update a briefcase on either a desktop or laptop system. To create a briefcase, right-click your desktop and select New, Briefcase.

If you don't see Briefcase in the menu, you'll need to install this component. To do so:

1. Open the Control Panel, select Add/Remove Programs, click the Windows Setup tab.

2. Double-click Accessories, select Briefcase, click OK twice.

3. Insert your installation disk when asked. Select the New Briefcase, press F2 (for Rename), type your name of choice, and press Enter.

4. Now just copy into the new briefcase any files you plan to work on at another location, just as you would any other folder:

5. Click and drag the file(s) directly over the briefcase and release the mouse button.

6. The files in the briefcase, called "sync files," are now linked to the originals.

B) TRAVEL OPTIONS
Let’s consider moving the briefcase to another location. A briefcase can travel via floppy disk or laptop. Assuming you want to carry the briefcase to another location on a floppy disk, just move the briefcase to the disk: Right-click the closed briefcase icon, select Send To, then choose your floppy drive in the resulting list. Planning to do your work on a laptop? Assuming you have a laptop that's connected--via an office network or direct cable connection--to the system on which you created the briefcase, just move the briefcase directly to the laptop, and you're off. (Alternatively, fill the briefcase right on the laptop: Drag-and-drop files from shared folders on the main computer to a My Briefcase icon on the laptop's desktop.)

C) EDITING FILES
How to edit the files in your briefcase: To edit briefcase files on a floppy disk, pop the disk in the floppy drive of the destination computer and copy the briefcase files to any location on that system's hard drive. (Whatever you do, don't move the Briefcase off the floppy disk.) Now go ahead and edit these "sync" (or linked) copies of the briefcase files. If you've moved your briefcase from the originating PC to a laptop, leave the files in the briefcase and edit to your heart's content. (Don't copy or move the briefcase files to a new location on the laptop, or you'll lose your links to the originals.)

A buffer is a temporary storage area a computer, and "buffering" usually means that the computer is in the process of storing data in the buffer area.

A computer will often use some of its RAM (random access memory) as a buffer area for holding data until its central processing unit can transfer the information to a device.

For example, if you are writing in a word-processor program, the computer keeps the changes you are making to your file in a buffer and then transfers them to the hard disk when you use the Save command.

And because the buffer is only a temporary holding area, if your computer crashes (what? it never crashes? unheard of) or the dog accidentally unplugs it before you get a chance to save the file, your changes up until the last "save" will be lost.

Other devices like printers and keyboards also use buffers. That’s all I know about buffers.

The next time you're tooling around a dialog box and don't understand a particular button or option, remember that help is just a click or two away. Right-click a button or option, and click the gray What's This? button. (If no button appears, there's no Help topic associated with that option--sorry.) Alternatively, click the question mark caption button in the dialog box's upper-right corner, then click the option or button with which you'd like some help.

COMPUTER SPEED can be a deceptive thing in some ways. Certainly, the higher the Pentiim, the better and faster it will run, particularly in processing information internally, such as doing calculations, etc.

RAM is the key. See my comments below as this upgrade is what I would recommend first.

Another factor regarding internet use is the modem speed. This speed governs how fast information may be uploaded (sent out) and downloaded (retrieved). Although a 28.8 baud modem is adequate, time in up and down loading will be considerable (compared to more baud). Today a 33.6 baud modem is considered slow but certainly a very adequate speed. A 56K modem will be the usual highest speed for transmitting data over the phone lines because the phone lines generally don't handle speeds much higher, in spite of advertising.

Finally, the more hard drive space one has, the more files of course they will be able to save. And no matter how much hard drive one has, eventually it will not be enough. A key factor with hard drive space is to have enough free memory available for your computer to use what is called virtual memory or memory used to switch in and out need information for the programs running. This memory compliments RAM and is used for the multi-tasking functions.

RAM. The KEY is the ram. The more ram the better. If you have 16 megs of ram, it will matter not what cpu speed you use. Your computer will just lag and have problems with the modern programs. Though the minimum recommended ram is 16 megs, your programs will run but you may only be able to run one or two at a time.

Get as much RAM as you can afford. Thus, in order of priority, I would recommend the following for upgrading if purchasing a new computer is out of the question.

1. Buy as much RAM as possible.

2. If you do not have a 56 modem, then this would be my next purchase.

3. Hard Drive: Get as much as you can afford -- a 2 gig drive should be sufficient.

4. If you are going to upgrade the CPU, consider just buying a new computer.

Also, consider the option of leasing a computer if buying one out-right is not within your budget. Leasing offers a very good way to get an updated system at a reasonable monthly price.

How many KB in an MB? How many MB in a GB?

For all intents and purposes (in other words, if you don't want to think about it too much), there are 1000 bytes in a kilobyte, 1000 kilobytes in a megabyte, and 1000 megabytes in a gigabyte. So the numbers look like this:

Kilobyte = a thousand (1000) bytes.
Megabyte = a million (1,000,000) bytes.
Gigabyte = a billion (1,000,000,000) bytes.

Technically speaking however, there are 1024 (2 to the 10th power) bytes in a kilobyte, 1024 kilobytes in a megabyte, and 1024 megabytes in a gigabyte. So the real numbers look like this:

Kilobyte = 1024 bytes.
Megabyte = 1,048,576 bytes.
Gigabyte = 1,073,741,824 bytes.