Dennis Faas

My computer sound system is about 10 years old. I remember when I first got my sound system. It was the first of its kind: the Labtec SB-8 came equipped with two satellite speakers and a separate subwoofer. A beautiful sound system, indeed. The ... Labtec woofer sits on the floor and has an adjustment knob for bass intensity. It sure does produce some loud thumps! The two satellite speakers sit near by monitor and allow me to further adjust bass and treble at a push of a button. I can even plug in a headset for quiet listening. All of these options are pretty standard these days on sound systems ... (view more)

Last week's question asked: " I use Outlook Express to read emails. When I click on a web address in an email, nothing happens. I am plagued with the old cut, copy and paste. Is there a way to get Outlook Express to open up the web address in my ... Internet Explorer browser? " My answer: I asked Infopackets Readers to send me their thoughts on this question. The gist is that the problem may be caused if you have installed another browser other than Internet Explorer on your system. This can include ISP providers that install their own version of browsers, including AOL, and Earthlink. ... (view more)

Brian S. writes: " First of all, thanks for your newsletters. They are informative and very helpful. My question is this: When I click on a web address in my e-mails nothing happens. I am plagued with the old cut, copy and paste. Is there a way to ... get Outlook Express to open up the web address in my Internet Explorer browser? " My answer: I've been asked this question a few times in the past but can honestly say that I've never experienced the problem myself. Every link I've ever clicked on in Outlook Express works for me. The only thing I can think of which might block a browser ... (view more)

CMOS or BIOS? What's the difference? The CMOS (pronounced "sea moss") is a computer chip responsible for storing settings of a computer system. The word "CMOS" is actually an acronym which stands for Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor. Try and ... say that 10 times without slipping! Most users have undoubtedly witnessed a message stating "Press DEL to enter Setup", or something similar when a computer has been powered on. If the DEL key was pressed at this instance, something called a CMOS utility screen would appear on the screen. Various hardware settings can ... (view more)

This is the third installment on a series of comments based on the following scenario: " When someone buys a new computer (either brand name or clone) that is preloaded with an Operating System (OS), is the seller obliged to give the client an ... original CD which includes the Operating System? " Last week I provided various short-but-sweet answers to the above question from various readers of the Infopackets Gazette. The gist was that retailers are required to provide Windows on a CD, whether it comes pre-packaged like Compaq, and Dell machines do -- or, if it comes with the basic ... (view more)

Did you mail all your Christmas cards out yet? I've got a small collection starting on top of the mantel, but I'm surprised that I haven't received any (tangible) Holiday cards yet from Infopackets Readers! Sending an e-greeting is nice to receive, ... but it's hard to differentiate the spam mails from the legit. Sometimes when I write a newsletter, I get up to 200 emails in a day! That can get kind of nutty after a while. And, that brings me to my next point. MBMaser emailed me the other day and told me about a web site called FriendGreetings.com which is allegedly responsible for incorporating ... (view more)

Last week, I wrote an article which listed Xmas Gift ideas for under $50 bucks. In the list of suggestions, I mentioned that I've used ink refill kits with my Canon BJ-200 for about 10 years now and have had great success. The same day I posted the ... article, a received an email from Derek M. who disagrees with the use of ink refill kits. Derek writes: " One of the things you recommended in your list of inexpensive tech-related gifts was ink refill kits, and you cited refilling a Canon BJ-200 series printer. Many of the other ideas (optical mice, keyboards, speakers, etc.) were very good ... (view more)

Dustin S. from Texas asks: " I purchased Windows XP home edition some time back, and have always had a question about some of the programs that it executes. The program that I am speaking of is scvhost.exe. I have tried to stop it from running but ... this just has the nice reaction of crashing my system. Any help would be appreciated! " My Response: The Pac's Portal web site says that there is a legit version of svchost.exe, which runs on Windows 2000 and XP; however, there is also a malicious program called svchost.exe floating around the 'net. The nasty version of the program is also ... (view more)

Last week's mind-numbing question was sent in from Jon W. He asked: " I have a few programs listed in my MSCONFIG startup . One of the programs was LoadQM.Exe, and Google's search pointed me to your web site. Good info on the LoadQM.exe program! ... I've now deleted it from the start-up file. The other two programs I'm trying to find more information on are Carpserv.exe and Nwiz.exe/install, but didn't get any clear-cut information on these two when querying Google. Do you have any input on these two items? " My Response:I asked the Infopackets Readers to send me their thoughts on the ... (view more)

Have you heard of Shell Extension City? If you haven't visited this site, you're really missing out! Shell Extension City (Shell X) is a web site which features short-but-sweet reviews of very cool and totally free software on the Net today. What is ... a shell extension, anyway? The phrase "Shell Extension" is actually a computer term used to describe the integration of an installed program and the operating system. One example of a shell extension might be the program Winzip. Winzip is a popular compression agent for Windows that is used widely on the Internet. Once Winzip has been ... (view more)