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Ask Rick 025, 13/02/09, Houston 018, 28/02/09
Blinking Broadband
I have a Windows XP PC
and my broadband connection is through a wireless ADSL router. Every day there
are periods when the connection goes on the blink sometimes for 5 or ten
minutes at a stretch. I can usually tell when it is happening before I connect
through the browser as the ADSL light on the router blinks instead of being
steady. It can happen several times in an evening. Is this something to do with
my equipment, my ISP or too many people connecting locally?
Roger Peart, by email
It could any of those things however, the majority
of broadband modems/wireless routers operate independently of the PC
they're connected to (the exceptions are some older USB modems). Intermittent
connections may be due to the modem, the phone line and the wiring in your
home, and not forgetting the equipment at the exchange. Problems with the
latter are fairly unusual, though, and normally fixed fairly quickly. The
number of users sharing a broadband exchange link -- the so-called Contention
Rate -- usually results in a slowdown rather than broken connections.
The distance from the exchange is a major factor and
the further away you are the more likely you are to suffer stability problems caused
by line noise and signal attenuation. Even if you are well within the nominal
4-6km service area there are plenty of other things that can go wrong. These
include bad connections in the junction boxes between your home and the
exchange. Inside your home there’s the possibility of dodgy wiring in phone
sockets and interference from other devices connected to the line.
‘Microfilters' are notoriously unreliable and the cable connecting the
modem to the microfilter can also cause problems. In short there’s a lot that
can go wrong.
The first thing to do is see what happens when you
unplug all other telephones and devices, including fax machines and SKY boxes,
if you have them. Also change the microfilter and the modem cable. If you are
still having problems then it’s time to check the connection. Line noise is one
of broadband’s worst enemies; I suggest using a secret BT facility called the
'Quiet Test'. Dial 17070 on any BT phone and choose option 2. The
line should be almost completely silent. If you hear anything more than an
occasional crackle, pop or barely audible background hiss then that could
be your problem and you should contact BT to check the line. (There are
several other interesting tests on this number but you need a BT engineer's PIN
code to access them). If the line is clear and you still have a problem
then it’s starting to look like the modem could be to blame, but eliminate all
other possibilities first.
Untangling Word
I am in the middle of
typing a manuscript using Word. Suddenly I find that I have, inadvertently,
introduced a hyperlink in the middle of the script - I think I must have hit
Ctrl + K, rather than Caps + K - and I can't get rid of it. Everything I now type comes out in red and
is underlined, and there is a long vertical bar along the left side of the
printing, and I have a red horizontally elongated box, which says Delete, and
then has anything in it that I try to delete. I don't seem to be able to do
anything to get rid of all this and allow me to continue with the manuscript -
and I have a tight time deadline!
Jill Firman, by email
It sounds as though you
have enabled Word’s ‘Track Changes feature’, and you can toggle it on and off
by pressing Ctrl + Shift + E. On a more general note, whenever you get into a
tangle with Word’s extensive range of obscure text-mangling options the
quickest and simplest remedy is usually to save the document as a text file and
this strips out any unwanted formatting. All you have to do is go to SaveAs on
the file menu and on the Save as Type drop-down menu choose ‘Text Only (.txt).
Click OK, close the document, re-open the .txt version you just created and use
SaveAs again to save it in Word Document (.doc) format. If the document is a
long one with lots of formatting that you want to keep then just copy and paste
the affected block of text into a new document, save that as a text file,
delete the original block and paste the cleaned up text block back into the
original document.
Jittery Java
My PC has recently
developed a very annoying problem! It started to operate extremely slowly and I
eventually got the Task Manager up to show that the CPU was 98-100% busy with
something called
"jusched.exe. I have
no idea what this is or where it comes from - or what it might be doing, and
why. I deleted it and emptied the
Recycle Bin but it was there again the following morning and I have since had
to repeat the whole process about ten times. How can I get rid of this wretched
thing permanently?
Andrew Ward.
Jusched.exe is the Java updater Service, which usually
checks for new versions once a month. Yours may be stuck on a failed or corrupt
update. I suggest that go to Java in Control Panel and disable it on the Update
tab and ignore the warnings. Leave it for a few weeks, by which time a new update
file should be available and re-enable it.
Where’s
Word?
Whilst tidying up
her computer my wife accidentally deleted the Word program in Microsoft Office
XP. Is it possible to recover the software rather than having to re-install it?
Keith Thomson, by
email
It’s very difficult
to remove Word by ‘accident’; my guess is she has just deleted the desktop or
Quick Launch shortcut. Check the Recycle Bin, it might still be there, if so
right click on it and select Restore. If you’ve emptied the Bin recently you
can easily create a new shortcut to Word by opening Windows Explorer or My
Computer and go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office. Look for the blue
Winword.exe icon, right click on it and select Send To > Desktop (Create
Shortcut). If the program really has been uninstalled then I'm afraid that
you'll have to re-install it from your Office disc.
--end---
© R. Maybury 2009 2001
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