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Ask Rick 054, 25/05/09 & Houston 131, 06/06/09
Skype Caps
I have been talking to my sister in South Africa using Skype and
my PC’s webcam. She has used up her monthly broadband allocation and I am
concerned that I may be doing the same. How can I measure my use without
dealing with my provider’s call centre? Can you provide an estimate for a 1
hour Skype video call, and also for a call without video?
Babs of Herts, by email
Consider switching to an uncapped tariff but if that’s not
possible check the Help or Support pages on your ISP’s website to see if
there’s a record of your data usage. Otherwise the simplest way to keep tabs on
it is to install some monitoring software. I suggest Tautology Bandwidth Meter,
which displays daily and monthly totals at a glance. It’s free, and you’ll find
a link to the download at: http://tinyurl.com/c79du8.
As for Skype, there’s a lot variables but as a very general rule of thumb you
should reckon on between 20 and 30Mb per hour for voice-only calls and 40 to
80Mb an hour for video.
Silent Treatment by BBC iPlayer
I am having trouble increasing the volume on the BBC iPlayer. I
have tried adjusting the PC volume but although all sliders are at maximum, the
sound is very low.
Peter Joyce, by email
It would have been helpful to know something about your computer
and its sound system and whether or not it is a global problem. If it is and
the sound level is low on all applications check what happens when you change
the speaker settings in Sounds in Control Panel or see if there’s a dedicated
audio control panel for your audio system. Otherwise try updating your PC's
audio driver. If only iPlayer is
affected then make sure that the player’s own independent volume control is set
to maximum, and it goes all the way up to '11'...
Turn Off Track Changes
Do you know if a simple way to kill ‘Track Changes’ in Office
2007? I have used Help and it seems to require me to edit every change before
removing it.
Graham Sasse, by email
As far as I am aware the only way to permanently disable Track
Changes in Word 2007 is to use Group Policies, a fairly complex procedure not
recommended for novices. However, you can easily turn it off on a per-document
basis; just click the Review tab then the Track Changes icon. You can also
toggle it on and off using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + E. If you
prefer you can put a clickable Track Change button on the Status bar, at the
bottom of the screen, by right clicking on it and select Track Changes. If you
want to retain the facility to track changes but don’t want to see them on
screen in the Tracking Group go to the Final Showing Markup dropdown menu and
select Final.
Over Protective Windows
I have Windows XP Home Edition, and transfer photographs from my
digital camera using the Windows wizard. Occasionally a few photographs cannot
be put into a file, nor can they be deleted. If I click on the offending photograph
the computer freezes and the following message appears: ‘Data Execution
Prevention… Microsoft Windows has closed the program’. On closing the window
another appears which says: ‘Windows Explorer has encountered a problem and
needs to close’. Is this because I have tried to put too many photographs on
the file and can I prevent it?
Keith Lewis
Windows Data Execution Prevention (DEP) is supposed to help
protect your PC from unknown programs trying to open, run or install viruses
and malware but it can be quite touchy and can be triggered by perfectly benign
files or files that have been corrupted, which may be the reason you are seeing
this message. If you are absolutely certain that these photos were taken by
your camera then you can safely reduce DEP’s sensitivity. To do that open
System Properties, and the fastest way to do that is to press Winkey +
Break. Click the Advanced tab, then the
Settings button under Performance and select the Data Execution Prevention tab.
Click ‘ Turn on DEP for essential Windows programs…’ and click OK to close the
boxes and reboot. You should now be able to open or copy the files, though if
they are corrupt you may see another error message to that effect. If you have
a good anti-virus program and Firewall installed on your PC you can leave DEP
as it is, otherwise return it to the original setting, which is ‘Turn on DEP
for all programs…’.
New Life for an Old PC
I am loath to give up on an old PC though it has become very slow
and access to the Internet takes a long time. The PC has a 566 MHz processor,
256 Mb memory, and a 15GB hard drive and runs Windows ME. I would like to have a go at upgrading it,
even if it should cost more than a new one. I assume I will probably need a lot
of new parts. However is it really possible
to do all this with any expectation that it will work? I have an up to date laptop so it doesn't
matter if the PC is out of action for a time.
John Brigham, by email
Upgrading a PC as old as this one is simply not worth it as you
will have to replace the CPU and motherboard, hard drive, add new memory and
possibly install a new power supply as well. In fact the only thing you’d be
left with (apart from a much lighter wallet) is the case. If you really want to
hang on to it for old times sake then why not install the Linux operating
system? Even a machine as old as this one will fly along with Linux; Internet
log-on will be lightning fast and you’ll be able to do all of the usual things
as most versions or ‘distributions’ of Linux come with a Microsoft compatible
Office Suite (word processor, spreadsheet, presentation program etc.). It’s not
difficult to do either, and it needn’t cost you a penny, Linux distros like
Mandriva and Ubuntu are free, they look and feel a lot like Windows and you’ll
learn a lot along the way. There’s a simple to follow tutorial in Boot Camp 446
at: http://tinyurl.com/cguygj
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© R. Maybury 2009 0505
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