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Houston
We Have A Problem 100, 17/04/10
The Range in Spain….
I am living in Spain
for a short while and rely on my laptop for Internet communication. The
apartment block has a Wi-Fi connection and I have been using it very
successfully. However, I have just had to move apartments, one floor up from
the previous one, and I am finding the connection weak and intermittent. I have
tried sitting at the bottom of the stairs and there the connection is rated
Good. I’ve spoken to the apartment Manager and his laptop had no trouble at
all. Is there anything I can do to improve my reception?
Chris Dursley, by
email
On most laptops the
Wi-Fi adaptor module is built into the machine and there's not much you can do
about its sensitivity, or lack of it. One solution is to dispense with its
services, switch it off and use a USB Wi-Fi dongle instead. They are not
expensive, prices start at around £10 - 15, however, in your case it’s worth
spending a little more on one that claims to work well in low signal areas or
has the facility to use an external antenna.
Title
Deeds
I've used
the Microsoft picture Azure of a coral island and seascape for my desktop
background. I've changed all my Icons into fishes and seagulls and it looks
great, except that the Icon titles spoil the effect. There should be a way of
hiding the titles until the cursor is passed over each Icon. Can you help?
Gerald
Diss, by email
Here’s a simple
trick to make desktop icon title text disappear. Press Numlock, right-click on
an icon, select Rename, hold down the Alt key and tap in 255 on the numeric
keypad (Alt 255 is a non-printing character code). The text vanishes but the
shortcut details, which includes the program’s name and location, still shows
when you hover the mouse over it.
Documentary
Drama
I have
Windows XP, Microsoft Word and a multifunction printer. I am able to scan
documents into an email, however, I cannot find out how to open the scanned
document in my word processor and then be able to alter it.
Dennis
Turner, by email
That’s
because when you scan a document you are effectively taking a photograph of it
and the resultant file is a bitmap or jpeg image. If you want to edit the
document it has to be electronically read and converted into text. Don’t worry,
it’s not as difficult as it sounds and most scanners come with an Optical Character Recognition or OCR program;
check your scanner’s installation or utilities disc. In case you’ve lost the
disc you should be able to download the scanner’s software suite from the
manufacturer’s website. Otherwise you can use a freeware program, like TopOCR (http://tinyurl.com/olhl5). Incidentally,
OCR programs work best with crisp, clean and contrasty printed text; otherwise
you’ll probably have to do a fair amount of cleaning up and correcting.
Outlook
Express Open Sesame
As this is
an oft-repeated action, I should like to use a macro to enter my Outlook
Express mailbox on the screen. This can be done in word processing packages,
but can it be done from within Internet Explorer or Firefox?
Christopher
K. Stannett, by email
There is a
Read Mail button on the IE toolbar and this opens your default email program’s
Inbox but the easiest way to have this functionality always available, whatever
program you are using, is to create a Windows key (or Winkey) shortcut.
To do that
you‘ll need a little freeware program called WinKey (link to download at: http://tinyurl.com/ylz96b9). The program
has been discontinued but it works fine in XP and Vista. All you have to do is
tell it where to find your email program
(in XP the path or ‘command’ for Outlook Express is C:\Program
Files\Outlook Express\msimn.exe), chose your WinKey shortcut and it’s ready to
use.
Printing
Puzzle
After
upgrading from Vista to Windows 7 I am having problems with Picasa. My printer
is a HP OfficeJet All-In-One and each time I try and print a photo using Picasa
a message says that Picasa has encountered a problem with Microsoft XPS
Document Writer. Microsoft and HP tell me they do not have a fix for this
error, which I find unacceptable.
John
Pickford, by email
I don’t
think it’s an error as such but I am surprised that both MS and HP didn’t offer
you a solution. Basically your PC is set to send printer data to a document
file, rather than your actual printer. You should be able to put this right by
going to Printers in Control Panel on the Start menu, make sure your HP printer
is listed and set as the default. If not reinstall it using the correct Windows
7 driver. Also, when you want to print an image in Picasa go to Print on the
File menu, and check that your HP Printer is showing next to the Printer
button, if not click the button and select it from the list
Double
Trouble with WordPad
I have
Windows Vista, and use WordPad. I have to write an essay with double spacing
between the lines. Is there any way I can get WordPad to do this? It would have
been so easy on my old typewriter. I have tried the Help facilities but to no
avail.
Sylvia
Moorman, by email
WordPad is
not a proper word processor and there’s no excuse for using it, as there are
several excellent word processing programs available, such as AbiWord and
OpenOffice Writer, that won’t cost you a bean (download links at: http://tinyurl.com/28hx9k). And what’s
more they’re compatible with Microsoft Word. But to answer your question, there
is no automatic double-space function in WordPad but there is a workaround.
Simply highlight the block of text you want to double-space and press Ctrl + 2;
Ctrl + 1 returns it to single line spacing.
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© R.
Maybury 2203 2010
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