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Help for a Holy Scroller Q.  In one of your wonderful newsletters, you explained how to change the size of scroll bars. I’ll now prove to you how little I know about computers, Mr. M: What is a scroll bar and where is it located? I’m sorry to waste your time with such an elementary question, but thanks for your patience with people like me.  Rev. M.B., Dallas. A.  Fear not, kind reader! No question is too basic or too silly here in Mr. Modemville, so no apologies are ever necessary. As a subscriber of my weekly newsletter, if you have a question, send me an email and I’ll be happy to personally respond. A scroll bar appears at the right side of a window and often at the bottom.  Using a scroll bar, you can view what can’t be seen on a Web page or document that’s too large to fit on screen.  These bars are sometimes called elevator bars or “those little slidey things.” To use a vertical scroll bar, while holding down the left mouse button, drag the slider bar up or down to see what’s hidden from view. For example, if you go to my Web site at www.MrModem.com, the entire first page will not fit on the screen. If you look to the right, you’ll see the scroll bar that you can drag down towards the bottom of the screen. As you move it, the rest of the page will come into view.  If you click the up or down arrows located at either end of the scroll bar, you’ll move a screen at a time, which has the same effect as pressing the PgUp or PgDn keys on your keyboard. Q.  When I look at my XP Desktop, there used to be a ruler at the top of the page, but it’s gone. How can I get it back? Thanks for being there, Mr. M. If it weren’t for you, there are times I’d throw my computer out the window. A.  I think we’ve all shared that feeling at one time or another, but let’s leave computer tossing to the athletes at the Summer Olympics. It’s one of my favorite events along with Synchronized Downloading. Turning to your question, there is no ruler associated with the Windows Desktop as you described, so dollars to donuts you’re referring to Microsoft Word or another word-processing program, which does have a ruler toolbar. That being the case, click View > Ruler to toggle it on, and you’ll be ready to rule the roost once again. Mr. Modem’s Sites of the Week: Colorado’s Historic Newspaper Collection This fascinating collection is a joint project of the Colorado State Library and the Colorado Historical Society. The publications in this collection span 1859-1923 and cover more than 100 newspapers from 60 Colorado cities. More than 350,000 digitized pages are available for your viewing pleasure. I found this site to work best with Internet Explorer.  www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org Etymology Dictionary Etymology is the study of the origin of our words and how they sounded hundreds or even thousands of years ago. Searchable by language, single term, or any term within a phrase, the dates beside a word indicate the earliest year for which there is a surviving written record of that word. If you’re a fellow verbivore, you’ll love this site. www.etymonline.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. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.  Read More →

Memory vs Space: It’s soooo confusing! Q .  How can I check the amount of memory I have in my computer? I used to have a pink and blue pie chart of the space used and how much was free, but I can’t seem to remember how to get to that. A.  Hard drive space and memory (RAM, which is short for Random Access Memory) are two different items, though they are frequently confused. Think of your hard drive as long-term storage and memory (RAM) as short-term. Your hard drive is where all your data files and software programs reside. It doesn’t matter if your computer is on or off, that data remains on your hard drive.  When you’re using a program, it emerges from its long-term storage on the hard drive and moves into short-term memory (RAM) for ease of use and speed of access. When your PC is shut off, nothing in memory is retained. That’s why it’s a good idea, even if you leave your computer on all the time, to periodically purge your system’s memory by restarting your system.  To check your hard drive space, open My Computer, right-click your C: drive, and select Properties. On the pie chart that represents your hard drive, you’ll see free space in pink and used space in blue. To check how much memory is installed in your system, go to your Control Panel and double-click the System icon.  RAM appears in the Computer Section of the System Properties screen.  Q.  What’s the story behind all the weird words that appear in the text of spam? I got one today that read: “His acquirements entitled him to the honour. The Admiral’s kind urgency turned him on shore.” What does that jibberish accomplish? A.  Those types of nonsensical messages are an attempt by spammers to circumvent content filters used by spam blockers. Spam filters, which are based on Bayesian algorithms, attempt to determine the context of words that are possible spam triggers. (As an aside, if you’ve never had a Bayesian algorithm, try it lightly breaded with a lemon-butter sauce. It’s to die for.) For example, if an email contains the words “Order Viagra!!!” it’s easy for a content blocker to evaluate those words and delete the message as spam. But if those same words are buried in an avalanche of meaningless text, the job of determining whether or not a message is legitimate becomes more difficult. So spammers send out millions of nonsense messages to attempt to bewitch, bother, and bewilder content filters. They then quantify the number of undeliverable messages that bounce back, which lets them know how many were successfully delivered. Spammers then adjust their diabolical techniques accordingly, paving the way for even more spam. Lucky us. Mr. Modem’s Sites of the Week: Burma Shave http://hugsandsmiles.com/burmashave In the early days of cross-country travel, roads were dotted with clusters of sequential signs, placed approximately 100 feet apart, that displayed wise and witty sayings, always ending with a pitch for Burma Shave. If you’re old enough to remember them, enjoy this scroll down memory lane; if you’re too young to have shared the experience, here’s an example of what you might find along America’s highways and byways: She kissed the hairbrush By mistake She thought it was Her husband Jake Use Burma Shave NoSlang.com As the Internet continues to evolve, so does its native language. This site translates Internet acronyms and other terms commonly used in email, chat rooms, and text messaging, into readable text. This service is especially useful for parents whose children are now talking in virtual tongues. For example, the Slang Translator can take an incomprehensible sentence, such as “lol. i’m afk, bbiab d00d,” and translate it into an easier to understand, but equally unintelligent, “Laughing out loud, I’m away from keyboard, be back in a bit, Dude.  (This is the end of civilization, I’m just sure of it.) www.noslang.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. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.  Read More →

Farewell, Fair Floppy Q.  Do floppy disks serve any purpose these days? A.  If you’ve been using computers for a few years, you probably have an impressive collection of 3.5-inch floppy disks, and possibly even some of the old, old, 5.25-inch disks. (Historical Note: Prior to the 3.5-inch floppy, we old geeksters used 5.25-inch disks that were flexible and thus truly floppy. Before that we used stone tablets.) Today, floppy drives have gone the way of the LP record and are little more than a relic from an earlier age of computing — not unlike Mr. Modem, I might add. Newer technologies have resulted in storage options that are more cost-effective and efficient. A thumbnail flash drive, for example, can hold gigabytes of data, has no moving parts, and is instantly recognizable by any PC. Just insert it in a USB port and it will be assigned its own drive letter which you can then access from My Computer. Other popular forms of data storage include CDs, DVDs, external hard drives, ZIP drives, online storage sites such as Xdrive (www.xdrive.com) or backup services such as Carbonite (www.carbonite.com). For my backups, I use a Seagate FreeAgent 250GB External Drive. It’s very easy to use and no additional software is required: You simply plug it in and off you go. I purchased mine from NewEgg (www.newegg.com) but 250, 500GB and other size drives are available at finer external drive retailers everywhere. If you need to access data from your old floppies, you can purchase an external, USB floppy drive from most consumer electronics stores.  Q.  How can I add the date and page numbers to Web pages that I print? A.  You can customize the information that appears in the header or footer sections of your printed page by using what are called page set-up codes. To view these codes, open Windows Notepad (Start > Programs > Accessories > Notepad), and click File > Page Setup. Click the question mark (?) in the upper right-hand corner of the Page Setup dialog box, then click the Header or Footer fields to see a list of available codes. You’ll note that the code “&d” (without the quotes) results in the date and “&p” inserts the page number. You can combine the codes with text, so “Page &p” will result in the word “Page” appearing before the actual page number. Your browser will also have a variety of available page set-up codes. If you’re using Internet Explorer, with a Web page displayed, click File > Page Setup. Click the question mark in the upper right-hand corner, then click again in the Header or Footer field to review the available set-up codes.  Firefox (www.mozilla.org/firefox) makes it even easier: Click File > Page Setup > Margins & Header/Footer tab. In the “Headers & Footers” area, use the drop-down menus to select the information you would like to appear in either the header or footer area of each printed page. Mr. Modem’s Sites of the Week: Early Recorded Sounds From wax cylinders to DVDs, sound recordings have come a long, long way. This site provides an excursion back to late 19th and early 20th century experiments that started it all. Wax cylinders emerged in 1888 as the recording standard. Hear preserved sounds such as the Liberty Bell March from 1897 or Thomas Edison, in his own voice. Listen for free online, read the history, or visit the music store to purchase recordings. www.tinfoil.com Toaster Museum “They call you crazy if you collect toasters,” says the toaster hoster of this site, world-renowned toaster collector, Jens Veerback. (Kindly hold your applause.) The Toaster Museum displays more than 200 toasters, including a rare 1920s German 4-slice device, and a beautiful, red Dutch model named Molly. Seriously. He wants to expand his collection, so if you have an old toaster, Jens has the bread. www.toastermuseum.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. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.  Read More →