Thursday, May 01, 2003

Use Custom HotKeys to Open Programs Want to open Outlook Express super quickly? Create a HotKey sequence. It's easy and fun. Here's how: Click Start, point to All Programs, and right click on Outlook Express. Click on Properties. In the Outlook Express Properties dialog box, click on the Shortcut tab. Click on the Shortcut Key box and then press the letter "o" (without quotes) on the keyboard. Notice how it changes to CTRL+ALT+O. Click Apply and then click OK. Now press and hold down the CTRL key. Keep the CTRL key held down, and press and hold down the ALT key. Now with the CTRL and ALT keys held down, press the "o" key on the keyboard. Outlook Express opens! Thanks to Charles McLennan for reminding me about hotkey combinations. WinXPnews™ E-Zine Feb 18, 2003 (Vol. 3, 7 - Issue 63) 7:40:53 PM    comment [] Another Way to Instantly Return to your Browser Homepage Many of you wrote in last week about another way to instantly return to your homepage. Just press the ALT key on the keyboard and hold it down and then press the HOME key. Bingo! You're home. Chris LaRose wrote in and reminded us of a cool trick that places "www" and "com" at the beginning and end of a name. Try this: Open Internet Explorer and type "winxpnews" in the Address bar. Hold down the CTRL key and press the ENTER key. The browser takes you to www.winxpnews.com. One more Internet Explorer tip: press the F6 key on the keyboard to highlight the address in the address bar. Let us know if you have a favorite IE trick. WinXPnews™ E-Zine Feb 18, 2003 (Vol. 3, 7 - Issue 63) 7:40:33 PM    comment [] Put Email Contacts into the Favorites Menu Here's a cool trick on how to use the Favorites list to send email: Open Internet Explorer, click the Favorites menu and click the Add to Favorites command. In the Add Favorite dialog box, type the person's name. For example, we'll type Bob Dobbs in the Name text box. Click OK. Click the Favorites menu, right click on the Bob Dobbs entry and click Properties. In the Bob Dobbs Properties dialog box, remove the information in the URL text box and replace it with the person's email address. In this example, we'll type in mailto:bob@dobbs.com. Click OK. Click on the Favorites menu again and click on the link you created. It opens an email message and automatically puts in the person's email address in the To: text box. Want to have the link on your desktop? Click the Favorites menu, right click on the link and point to Send to. Click on Desktop. Now the email link appears on the desktop. You can even take a picture of that person and if you format it correctly, change the icon so that the person's picture is the icon! Just click on Grandma if you want to send her mail. :) WinXPnews™ E-Zine Feb 18, 2003 (Vol. 3, 7 - Issue 63) 7:40:01 PM    comment [] To Shut Down or Not: That is the Question Recently, a reader wrote in response to the article on using Remote Desktop to connect back to your home computer when you're on the road, surprised that we leave the computers turned on when we leave. Yes, we have fourteen computers on the home network, and all except the laptops run 24/7, whether we're here or not, and have been doing so for years. In fact, we have some servers that haven't been rebooted in over a year. There are a number of advantages to leaving the computers on, but the reader mentioned a disadvantage: the risk of lightning, and that's a good point. I probably should have mentioned in the original article that all of our systems are plugged into high quality Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS). In fact, so are the widescreen TV, the digital piano and all other high dollar electronics. We have very few things plugged directly into the wall. And just using surge protectors may not protect you; many of them are built to only protect against one surge - after it gets hit the first time, the "protector" is fried, and you may never know it. Good personal UPS units are expensive (over $100), and cost much more if you want advanced circuitry and management features. You can get them cheaper, but for your expensive and mission-critical equipment, it pays to invest in the better units. We have close to $1000 invested in UPS equipment, and it's well worth it. A UPS protects from more than just lightning; it "evens out" the flow of electricity to your computer when voltage sags or surges for any reason, and if your power goes out completely, it can communicate with your computer to cause it to gracefully shut down so that no data will be lost and no files will be corrupted. There are two types of UPS - standby and continuous. The continuous type costs more, but with it, the computer always runs off the UPS battery (which is continuously being charged from the AC power). So the computer is never running directly off the AC, which means there's no chance that a power spike will ever affect the computer. Let us know how you run your systems, and how you protect them from power fluctuations. Do you turn the computers off at night and/or when you leave? Do you use a UPS? Next week, I'll summarize your answers in the Follow-up section. WinXPnews™ E-Zine Feb 18, 2003 (Vol. 3, 7 - Issue 63) 7:39:40 PM    comment [] Grab a Static Graphic from an .AVI Movie File Some of you have asked how to grab a screen shot from an .avi file. You've tried to do this using the print screen function built into Windows and it hasn't worked. If you're in this situation, then try out this trick. This works in Windows Media Player 8 (this is the version of Windows Media Player that came with Windows XP), but we're not sure yet if DRM breaks this method in WMP 9. Open Windows Media Player. In the Windows Media Player, click the Tools menu and click the Options command. Click the Performance tab. In the Performance tab, drag the Video Acceleration slider to None. Click Apply. If you see a message that says the changes won't take place until you play another video, click OK to make it go away. Now click OK. Close the Windows Media Player. Play the .avi file from which you want to copy the static image. When you reach the point where you want to snap the still image, pause the movie. Press the PRINT SCRN button on the keyboard. This copies the entire display to the clipboard. Now paste the image to your favorite image editor, such as Microsoft Paint [g]. WinXPnews™ E-Zine Feb 25, 2003 (Vol. 3, 8 - Issue 64) 7:38:39 PM    comment [] Get Yahoo Mail using Outlook Express Many people were left out in the cold when Yahoo decided to charge for its POP3 mail service. POP3 mail allows you to use programs like Outlook and Outlook Express to download mail to your computer. If you want free Yahoo mail now, you have to use their Web service and read your mail online in the browser. But there's a solution. Check out YahooPOPs! if you want to download mail from Yahoo mail without paying the fee. WARNING: this is for advanced users only: http://www.winxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=030225TI-YahooPOPs WinXPnews™ E-Zine Feb 25, 2003 (Vol. 3, 8 - Issue 64) 7:38:20 PM    comment [] OLEXP: Your Outlook Express Password Is Not Retained in Windows 2000 or XP Every week, we get messages from people who have problems with Outlook Express not remembering POP3 email account passwords. This happens in spite of instructing Outlook Express to remember the password. The good news is that there's an easy fix. Of course, you should also consider the security implications of having OE remember your password. Anyone who sits down at the computer will be able to open OE and read your mail. You can find the fix at: http://www.winxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=030318CO-OE_Password WinXPnews™ E-Zine Mar 18, 2003 (Vol. 3, 11 - Issue 67) 7:36:23 PM    comment [] Wireless Networking Security Last week we talked about how to connect computers to each other and the Internet using Windows XP built in wireless networking support. While wireless networking with Windows XP is great, you have to be mindful of the fact that it works like radio broadcasts: anyone with the proper motivation and equipment can "listen" to your wireless communications. You should secure your network by carrying out all of these steps: Change the default Service Set Identifier (SSID). The software that came with your Wireless Access Point (WAP) will allow you to change the SSID (the SSID is the name that appears for the wireless network when Windows XP detects the network). Stop your WAP from broadcasting your SSID. This means that anyone who wants to connect to your WAP will need to know the SSID in advance; they can't just get within range and pick up the name automatically. Use the Wireless Equivalent Privacy protocol (WEP). This encrypts the data moving between computers and prevents people from picking up your communications and reading them. Yes, WEP has been cracked, but it takes time and effort. Use MAC address controls. Your WAP software allows you to specify which wireless network cards are allowed to use it, based on the Media Access Control (MAC) address. Every computer has a different MAC address assigned to its network card. While no security scheme is perfect, carrying out the above steps is like locking your doors before you go to bed and turning on your alarm system. With enough determination, a bad guy can still get in - but you've made it harder. You don't have a machine gun nest on your roof - so your computer probably doesn't need one either ;-) WinXPnews™ E-Zine Mar 18, 2003 (Vol. 3, 11 - Issue 67) 7:36:00 PM    comment [] Set WordPad to Open Text Files and Save as Text Lenora Porcella wrote in asking if there was a way to have WordPad open text files instead of Notepad, and to have WordPad save as text by default. No problem! Try this: Find a .txt file on your desktop or in the Windows Explorer. Right click on that .txt file, point to Open with and click on Choose Program. In the Open With text box, find the WordPad entry. You should see this listed with the Recommended Programs. Put a checkmark in the Always use the selected programs to open this kind of file checkbox. Click OK. Open WordPad. Click the File menu and click Save As. In the Save As dialog box, select the location where you want to save the file. Name the file and then click Save as type drop down list box arrow. Select the Text Document entry and then put a checkmark in the Save in this format by default checkbox. Click Save. You'll see the toolbar change at this point to show only the icons that support text files. Another way to change the file association is to open the Tools menu in Windows Explorer and select the File Types tab. Scroll down to the TXT extension, highlight it, and click the Change button under Opens with.   WinXPnews™ E-Zine Mar 18, 2003 (Vol. 3, 11 - Issue 67) 7:35:37 PM    comment [] Allowing VPN Connections to a Windows XP Computer Question: I read the article on March 25, 2003 about "Connecting Computers via VPN Over the Internet." My question to you is if it is possible to use a Windows XP computer (a client PC operating system) and make it a VPN server? I thought you would need a VPN server or service from Windows NT/2000/2003 or routers preinstalled with a VPN service. Thanks! -Alex Lu. Answer: Hi, Alex! Your Windows XP computer can act as a "mini VPN server". It can accept a single VPN connection (one at a time). You can use just about any version of Windows to connect to your Windows XP mini VPN server. If your Windows XP mini VPN server is not directly connected to the Internet, you'll need to configure the router in front of your Windows XP computer to forward the incoming VPN connections to your Windows XP mini VPN server. Most Internet connection devices ("routers" or NAT servers) allow something called "VPN passthrough" or "PPTP passthrough". You can allow PPTP connections from the Internet to be passed from the Internet (external) IP address on the "router" to the IP address of your Windows XP VPN Server. The setup would look something like this: After configuring your router to forward incoming PPTP connections to your Windows XP computer, all you need to do is set up the VPN client to call the Internet IP address of your router. Connecting Computers via VPN Over the Internet - Setting up the VPN Client In the last issue, we went over the steps required to make your Windows XP computer a VPN Server, capable of accepting a single VPN client connection at a time. Now it's time to create the VPN client connection. Here's how: Click Start and click the Control Panel. In the Control Panel window, make sure you're in Classic View. If you're in Category View, click the link on the left side of the window that says Switch to Classic View. Double click the Network Connections icon to open the Network Connections applet. Double click on the New Connection Wizard entry in the Network Connections window. Click Next on the Welcome to the New Connection Wizard page. Select the Connect to the network at my workplace option and click Next. On the Network Connection page, select the Virtual Private Network Connection entry and click Next. On the Connection Name page, type in a meaningful name for the connection. Click Next. On the VPN Server Selection page, type in the IP address or the Fully Qualified Domain Name for the Windows XP computer to which you want to connect. The computer may not have a FQDN, so type in the IP address if you don't know the FQDN. Click Next. Select the option to Add a shortcut to this connection to my desktop and click Finish. Type in a user name and password in the Connect dialog box and click Connect. If everything is working correctly, you'll connect to the other Windows XP computer and be able to access resources on that computer, as well as the network behind it. Next week, we'll go over some important things to consider when putting together a VPN client/server connection. Meanwhile, have fun! WinXPnews™ E-Zine Apr 22, 2003 (Vol. 3, 16 - Issue 72) WinXPnews™ E-Zine Apr 1, 2003 (Vol. 3, 13 - Issue 69) 7:20:32 PM    comment [] USB Port May Stop Working After Removing or Inserting USB Device Here's one that drives a lot of us insane: you remove your USB hard disk and put it into another machine. You finish up what you're doing on the other machine and you plug it back into the original machine. Whoops! No workie. What's up with that? For a description of the problem and a fix check out: http://www.winxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=030422CO-USB_Port WinXPnews™ E-Zine Apr 22, 2003 (Vol. 3, 16 - Issue 72) 7:19:59 PM    comment [] Windows XP Stops Responding (Hangs) During Windows Shutdown You've been there and done that. You click Start and then click Shut Down. The machine tries to shut down, but gets stuck. A "three finger salute" doesn't fix the problem. Now what? You need to fix your IME, that's what! What's an IME and how do you fix it? Check out the link: http://www.winxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=030429CO-IME WinXPnews™ E-Zine Apr 29, 2003 (Vol. 3, 17 - Issue 73) 7:14:49 PM    comment [] Windows XP PowerToys Fun Pack The Windows XP PowerToys Fun Pack is one of four new Fun Packs Microsoft made available to the public last week. There are two PowerToys Fun Packs: a wallpaper changing PowerToy and a Video Screen Saver PowerToy. You can download these PowerToys at: http://www.winxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=030429HT-PowerToy Let's install the Full Fun Pack that includes both PowerToys and see how they work: Download the PowerToys_Full file from the Web site and double click the file once it has been downloaded. Click Next on the installer's welcome page. Select the I accept the terms of the license agreement option and click Next. Click Install. The Welcome to the Windows XP Video Screensaver Powertoy Setup Wizard page appears. Click Next. Select the I accept the agreement option and click Next. Click Install. Click Finish on the Completing the Windows XP Video Screensaver Powertoy Setup Wizard page. Now some pretty strange things might happen. On our test machine, we got two messages: one said that we had to download and install Windows Media Player 9 and the other said that the Wallpaper Changer has been installed before (which was interesting, given that we didn't do it, and no one else has been near the machine). Which one should you do first if you run into the same thing? Download and install WMP 9 first. If you're not sure about installing WMP 9, then forget about the Screen Saver PowerToy. (We'll go over installing WMP 9 next week and tell you which options to pick to maintain your privacy). Now, what about the Wallpaper Changer problem? Click on the Reinstall button and see what happens. You should now be on the Welcome page of the Wallpaper Setup program. Click Next. Click I Agree on the License Agreement page. Click Next on the Apply Options page. Click Finish on the Finish Install page. Click OK on the dialog box that tells you the Wallpaper Changer has been installed successfully. The Wallpaper Changer Options dialog box appears. Here you can pick how often the Wallpaper changes by moving the Wallpaper changes every slider bar. You can create wallpaper for special days of the year and tell the changer to override the changes on your special days. You can even see a slideshow of your wallpapers. Click Apply and OK to save your changes. Next week we'll go over the Screen Saver PowerToy and show you have to create special days for your wallpaper. WinXPnews™ E-Zine Apr 29, 2003 (Vol. 3, 17 - Issue 73) 7:14:25 PM    comment [] Fix for Folders Not "Sticking" Problem? A number of WinXPnews readers wrote in with suggestions on how to fix the Windows Explorer folder settings not sticking problem. One suggestion that came up several times has to do with setting the "BagMRU" value higher in the Registry. The default value allows Windows to remember the settings for 400 folders. You can up this to 8000 and (maybe) fix the problem. Try this: Download the following file from our site and save it to your desktop: http://www.winxpnews.com/misc/folderfix.reg Double click on the file to merge the information into your registry. You can also view the contents by right clicking and choosing "Edit". Remember to always create a system restore point before making changes to the Registry! WinXPnews™ E-Zine Apr 29, 2003 (Vol. 3, 17 - Issue 73) 7:13:46 PM    comment [] Cool Batch File to Clean Your PreFetch Folder Last week we showed you a way you could speed up your Windows XP start times by cleaning up your PREFETCH folder. Tony Rairden wrote in with a neat suggestion on how to make it a simple batch file to clean things up quick: "Why not put this procedure into a batch file (I call mine XP SpeedStart.bat) containing the single line: del c:windowsprefetch*.* /Q Then either schedule that batch file to run weekly or include it in the Startup folder." WinXPnews™ E-Zine Apr 29, 2003 (Vol. 3, 17 - Issue 73) 7:13:18 PM    comment [] Dynamic or Dud? [Dynamic Disks] One of our readers this week mentioned having problems with disks that have been converted to dynamic status. Windows XP Pro, like W2K, supports two disk types: basic and dynamic. Basic is the default status and this is the type of disk we've known and loved since MS-DOS days, the type that's divided into primary and extended partitions with logical drives in the extended partition. You can upgrade your disks to Dynamic using the Disk Management console (right click My Computer, click Manage, select Disk Management in the Storage node in the left pane). To do so, just right click the Disk number (for example, Disk 0) in the bottom right pane and choose Convert to Dynamic Disk. Dynamic disks are divided into volumes instead of partitions. They have several advantages over Basic, the most notable being the ability to create spanned volumes and striped volumes to better arrange your disk space and increase disk performance. As our reader notes, Microsoft recommends converting and implies that dynamic disks are better in every way. Experience has taught us that, unless you need to create these special volume types, it's usually best to leave your disks in Basic status. Dynamic disks are prone to a host of problems. If you're dual booting with a Win9x or NT operating system, the other OS won't be able to "see" the dynamic disks, and even if you have multiple instances of XP Pro or W2K, you shouldn't convert because all the partition entries on the disk will be removed except for the system and boot volumes of the operating system in which you do the conversion (meaning you won't be able to boot into your other OS instances). As our reader rightly complains, there's no warning message that this will happen. WinXPnews™ E-Zine Apr 29, 2003 (Vol. 3, 17 - Issue 73) 7:12:25 PM    comment []

© Copyright 2003 Eric Hartwell. Last update: 6/23/2003; 6:58:27 AM.