Find Best Gas Prices

Q.  My wife and I are on the road with our RV most of the year. With gasoline prices skyrocketing, is there some Web site where I can find the lowest prices as we travel around the country?  Keep up the good work with your weekly newsletter, Mr. M.

A.  I imagine filling up an RV these days has to an eye-opener. Talk about gas pains! Yes, indeed, there are several excellent sites where you can find the best gas prices in any area. At the American Automobile Association’s Fuel Price Finder (http://tinyurl.com/2hhteg), type in your ZIP code and click the Search button. The searchable database contains prices at more than 100,000 stations. Additional gas-price monitoring sites include: Fuel Me Up (www.fuelmeup.com), Gas Buddy (http://gasbuddy.com), Gas Price Watch (www.gaspricewatch.com), and Cheap Gas (www.cheapgas.com).

Q.  What is the Windows Registry I’m always hearing about?  It sounds mysterious, but it also sounds like something I should know about.  Thanks for being there, Mr. M.

A.  The Windows Registry is a database that contains all of your computer’s settings, plus settings for programs and hardware installed on your PC. Entire books have been written about the Registry, though it’s doubtful anybody has ever read any of them.

Because the Registry is such a volatile area of Windows, a place where one false move (known as an “oops” in computer parlance) can potentially derail Windows, the Registry is not a place for the faint of heart or those not schooled in the ways of the Registry.

If you are interested learning more about the Registry, how to access it, how to edit it, or simply want an overall perspective, visit Part 1 of an excruciatingly tedious three-part Registry Tutorial (http://tinyurl.com/2j5×5w) that I wrote for no particular reason and without being requested to do so. It was originally planned as a five-part tutorial, but even I couldn’t stand it, so I wrapped it up in three. Trust me, you’ll thank me for it.

Mr. Modem’s Sites of the Week:
Password Generator
This handy utility will generate random-character passwords, which are the best kind, though the most difficult to remember. You determine the number of characters and whether to include or exclude upper-case and lower-case letters, numbers, and hard-to-distinguish characters such as the numeral one and the lower-case letter “el” (1 vs l).
http://tinyurl.com/2dv5wc

What Don’t We Know?
Although we have learned so much about the world in which we live, there are still many mysteries, questions, and undiscovered answers. This section of the Science Magazine Web site explores 125 scientific questions that intrigue, baffle, and confound us. Profound questions include, “What is the universe made of?” “What determines species diversity?” And one question to which I have devoted years of personal research: “What’s the best way to remove the cap from a bottle of maple syrup bottle?”
www.sciencemag.org/sciext/125th

WiFi Free Hot-Spot Directory
This site is a must for Internet users on the go this summer.  It provides an extensive directory of free wireless hot spots in all fifty states and internationally. Included are hot-spots at cafes, restaurants, coffee shops, libraries, downtown business districts, malls, stores, laundromats (yes, laundromats), auto repair shops, RV parks, airports, and hotels.
www.wififreespot.com

For plain-English answers to your questions by email, plus useful PC tips, subscribe to Mr. Modem’s Weekly Newsletter. For information, visit www.MrModem.com.