Dennis Faas

Infopackets Reader Wayne M. writes: " Dear Dennis, My question is regarding the two types of the Outlook program that come with Windows (Outlook and Outlook Express). Outlook Express comes with Internet Explorer and Microsoft Outlook comes with MS ... Office. What I would like to know is how can I make it so that I only have one on my system? It becomes very confusing with two of them. I have found that when installing MS Office, it asks to configure MS Outlook but does not transfer emails or address over from Outlook Express. I have to setup a computer for some friends who are very new to ... (view more)

Do you have any idea how to add a hard drive to your system? What about using an old hard drive as a backup unit? I get asked these sorts of questions a lot. It's definitely not a one-line answer -- this type of stuff is highly involved. First, you ... have to open up your computer and decide where to put the new hard drive. Next, you have to play with jumper settings (master/slave), hook it up to the main board, turn on the system, add the hard drive to the BIOS, restart, boot into DOS... following that, run FDISK and set up a Primary or Extended (Logical) drive unit, then format the drive and ... (view more)

This past Sunday, I loaded up Outlook Express only to find that my Inbox was flooded with emails from people that I didn't know, inviting me to install a "cool" screen saver which was conveniently file-attached to the email. The email messages ... varied in topic. Most of the file attachments ended in .SCR, some of them ended in .EXE. How nice. Of course, I know better than to open an email attachment from someone I don't know, because 99.999% of the time it contains a virus. If you know a little bit about computers, you might know that a file that has the extension .SCR is generally a ... (view more)

I recently received a question from a fellow Infopackets Reader, R. Barnes. He writes: " Great newsletter as always. I was wondering if you could explain the new AMD processor speed ratings. I've seen them in mail order catalog and TV, but haven't ... heard an explanation of their '2200+' statements. I would assume that it is indeed the speed of their processor but how are they in relationship with say a 1.2 GHz Athlon processor, or even a Pentium 4 1.3GHz? " That's a good question. The speed rating that AMD is using for its new line of XP processors represents their new " ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Barb J. asks, " My Outlook 97 isn't compatible with my ISP. I'd like to use my Outlook to send/receive messages using Hotmail. Please help! " My answer: I'm not sure if Outlook 97 supports Hotmail -- but I can tell you that if you ... update your Internet Explorer, your Outlook Express will also update... and I know Outlook Express supports Hotmail. And hey, it's all free! You can download my video on Outlook Express and also grab my free report on how to set up a Hotmail account here. (view more)

I recently received a question from a fellow Infopackets Reader, R. Barnes. He writes: " Great newsletter as always. I was wondering if you could explain the new AMD processor speed ratings. I've seen them in mail order catalog and TV, but haven't ... heard an explanation of their '2200+' statements. I would assume that it is indeed the speed of their processor but how are they in relationship with say a 1.2 GHz Athlon processor, or even a Pentium 4 1.3GHz? " That's a good question. The speed rating that AMD is using for its new line of XP processors represents their new " ... (view more)

Last week, I received a question pertaining to a free Windows backup program. I took this opportunity to ask the readers of the Infopackets Gazette newsletter, and received MANY suggestions. So, without further adieu, here are some top picks: ... Karen's Power Tools: Replicator : Replicator copies from any source to any destination; it works with ZIP, CD-R, and HD. It can be set to freshen files that are updated/deleted and can be set for unattended operation. Required: Visual Basic 6.0 . My Own Backup (MOB) : A flexible piece of software that allows for Disk Spanning (CD-R backups). Some ... (view more)

Have you ever flashed your BIOS? The BIOS is a chip built onto a circuit board that contains a set of instructions. The instructions are responsible for controlling the device and how it interacts with other peripherals. For example: a main board ... (motherboard) contains a BIOS (CMOS) which stores information about your computer, such as the size of your hard drive, COM ports, buffers, and the like. Flashing a BIOS simply means to update the code of the BIOS instruction. This is done with two separate pieces of software: the BIOS flashing program, and the BIOS update itself. The BIOS flashing ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader 'PJ.' asks, " Where can I find information for making background sounds in emails? " My response: Any email containing sound is a HTML email which uses the Embed command. HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) is the standard format ... used on the Internet when viewing a web page. You can make a HTML document using an HTML editor; here are some good resources: http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/8795/howto.webtv.html http://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutors/embed.html And for a free HTML editor, try Arachnophilia: http://www.arachnoid.com/arachnophilia (view more)