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Ask Rick 053, 22/05/09
Roll Back Vista
How can we make our new Windows Vista Home Premium operating
system look and act more like our preferred Windows XP?
Pete Loughlin, by email
Give it a chance, once you’ve got used to it you may even grow to
like Vista’s graphics. If you simply can’t stand it then heres’ how, and as an
added bonus reverting to the XP look lightens the load on the CPU and graphics
adaptor and can even help to liven up a sluggish or underpowered Vista machine.
Step one is to change the colour scheme or ‘Theme’. Right-click on
the desktop select Personalise then Windows Color and Appearance. At the bottom
of the page click ‘Open Classic Appearance and Properties…’. On the list that
appears select Windows Standard, or if you want to revive memories of Windows
98, choose Windows Classic, click OK and wait a few moments as the changes are
made.
If you want to go for that old-school look then change the desktop
to a plain light blue colour background. You can do that by clicking Desktop
Background on the Personalize menu. In the Location drop-down menu select solid
colours and make your choice. If you miss the old Windows spinning hourglass
when you are waiting for things to happen you can easily get that back by
clicking Mouse Pointers. On the Scheme drop-down menu select Windows Standard
(Large) then click OK. Finally, to switch to an XP-style Start menu and Taskbar
right-click on an empty area of the Taskbar, select Properties then the Start
Menu tab and select the Classic Start menu option and click OK.
Out of Date Inkjet
The senior's section of a golf club, of which I am Secretary, was
recently given an HP Officejet all-in-one printer and two spare colour
cartridges. Soon after I started using it a message appeared saying that the
ink cartridge was time expired, so I tried the spares, which produced the same
message. I wasn't too bothered so I ordered a remanufactured cartridge from a
well-known firm. Shock horror, when I installed the new cartridge the printer
advised that this cartridge was also out of date. I send this as a warning to other HP printer users.
Frank Goddard, by email
Printer manufacturers are notorious for devising ways to sell
consumables, which is where they make most of their money. It’s mostly water
and if you care to do the sums, on some models it works out at almost £3000 a
gallon!
This particular ploy seems especially mean; cartridge shelf lives
have been reported to be unusually short, preventing users from stocking up
(and costing those who do) but apart from anything else there doesn’t seem to
be any good reason for it. A sealed and unopened cartridges should remain
useable for ages. At one point there was talk of disgruntled US customers
launching a Class Action; nothing seems to have come of it, but for anyone
suffering from this annoyance there is some hope.
There are several of ways to fool the printer into using out of
date cartridges, though I have to point out they are definitely not approved by
HP and will almost certainly invalidate the warranty so you try them entirely
at your own risk. The simplest method involves briefly removing a small backup
battery inside the printer, which resets its internal clock. There are plenty
of guides on the web and a YouTube video at: http://tinyurl.com/ctzdzy.
The other methods I’m less comfortable with, and certainly not for novices as
they involve modifying driver files but again, there’s no shortage of guidance
on the web if you google ‘hp cartridge time expired’.
Seeking the Each Symbol
I've been looking around for a while trying to find the old symbol
for 'each'. It is similar to the @ symbol except it uses an e. Have you any
idea on how I can find it or create it, or is it something that's not been used
since I had my granddad’s typewriter?
Harvey Jubb, by email
This one has me stumped and I’ve been going dizzy trawling through
thousands of images of vintage typewriter keyboards. Are you sure you are not
imagining it, or confusing it with commercial ‘at’ @, which has been featured
on typewriter keyboards since the beginning of the last century?
I haven’t been able to find any reference to a specific symbol for
‘each’; it is normally represented by the letters ‘ea’. The closest I can get
to it in contemporary use is the old logo for Microsoft Internet Explorer.
The only thing I can suggest is to insert an e inside a circle.
There are several ways to do it in Word, including using WordArt and Unicode
fonts but I think the easiest method is to use a Field Code to make one
character ‘overstrike’ another, in this example, an uppercase O with an
lowercase e, so that the e appears to be inside the O, Here’s how.
Launch the Field Code by pressing Ctrl + F9 and you will see a
shaded pair of curly brackets. Inside the brackets type the following, so it
looks like this: {eq \o(O,e)}. Make
sure the only space is the one between eq and \. Now toggle the Field code by
pressing Alt + F9 and you should end up with this: . You can experiment with the
character size and position (Format > Font > Character Spacing >
Position > Raised) to centre the e more precisely in the centre of the O. If
anyone has any information about the elusive ‘each’ symbol please let me know
and I’ll pass it on.
Online Answering No More
I have been using BT's 1571 Online for over 2 years and found it
very handy when I was away from home but it stopped at the end of March. What
is the best way to pick up messages now?
Gus Carnegie, by email
As far as I am aware 1571 Online was a beta test so there was
never any guarantee that it would end up as a permanent fixture, though I
wouldn’t be at all surprised if it resurfaced as a paid for service one day.
Why not get hold of a cheapie answering machine (or a cordless phone with
built-in answering machine) with remote access facility. You can then retrieve
your messages using your mobile, or Skype-Out on your laptop, to keep the costs
down if you are abroad.
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© R. Maybury 2009 2804
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