Dennis Faas

Infopackets Reader Marty T. write s: " Dear Dennis, I have a bunch of young kids, and they like to compute, play games, etc. Is there any way I can dumb down the PC so they can't wipe out the file system, lose/delete critical files and have their ... own private/personal workspace? Is there something really easy to use for the inexperienced? " My Answer: I did some scouring and found a program to hide programs on your desktop and start menu. The program is called Quick Hide, and it serves two purposes: " First, you can use it as a Boss Key program to instantly hide any non-work ... (view more)

Millions of Internet users got a big shock this week when a popular, free MP3-sharing client, Morpheus Music City, went offline. Before Morpheus became all the rage, Napster was known to the world as the premier music swapping program. What set ... Napster ahead of its competition was its ease of use, and most importantly -- its reliability and transfer speeds. Napster allowed millions of Internet users to locate and share music files through Napster's central computers (also known as "servers"). The Napster servers kept track of who signed in and out of Napster, who had what MP3, and ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Victor R. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently bought a CD-RW 24x10x40 drive and have used to to copy two disk without trouble. Lately, I tried to make an audio CD from files that I downloaded from the net. I got up to 75% completion ... and then my computer had a fatal error. The error was 'Vcache (01) +00000fc7 Error: oe: c004E663'; I wasn't sure if my computer was fast enough for the 24 spin recorder, so I tried slowing the speed of the copying process but still received the same error. As another possibility, I turned off the virus protect and all other running programs ... (view more)

A few weeks ago, I was called to do an upgrade on an older, Pentium 200 (P200) MHz computer. The P200 was equipped with an old-style scanner that used a special interface. After a few years of good use, the scanner died and needed to be replaced. ... Since the Pentium 200 did not come equipped with a USB interface (universal serial bus), shopping for a new scanner was difficult. The options were to buy an old-style scanner which used the Parallel Port (Printer Port) as its interface - but this was not a viable option because it was extremely slow and would not meet the demand in an office ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Annette K. writes: " I think I am going to get another replacement computer from Hewlett Packard. This computer is starting to make noises, and I get error messages in Internet Explorer all the time. Since the warranty expires on ... the 31st of this month, I am going to do this soon. My question is this: Can I take my whole hard drive, just as it is, copy it onto a zip disk and then reinstall it all on the new case? Or do I just take everything but what is in the Windows folder? If not, can you tell me how I can take everything I have right now, just as it is, and save it ... (view more)

Downloading programs and drivers off the Internet and installing them on your computer can get a little tricky, especially if you don't know what to do after the file has been downloaded. This guide provides Windows 95, 98, NT, ME, 2000, and XP ... users a methodical approach to program and driver installation, without any techno jargon or fluff. Although this article is a bit lengthy, it should be known that Steps 1 and 2 provide much of what is to know, while Step 3 reintroduces the familiar concepts with a few extra twists. With that said, let's get on with it! A file has been downloaded. Now ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Fred B. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have a PIII 933 mhz with various softwares installed. Scandisk cannot complete because it keeps resetting while checking file folders. I am told something is activating and causing the reset. Can ... you shed some light? " My response: Scandisk keeps resetting because Windows is constantly performing background tasks that you are unaware of. Try this: Before the Windows splash screen appears (just as your computer starts to boot), keep hitting F8 on your keyboard repeatedly. You'll get a menu if you pressed F8 before the splash screen ... (view more)

If you own a CD Burner, there's a good chance that you've come across a "Buffer Underrun" error message. A buffer underrun happens when information cannot be recorded to the CD because of resource starvation. All CD recorders without buffer underrun ... protection require a constant flow of data to be read from the hard drive to the CD recorder without interruption. If the flow of data is stopped, a buffer underrun will follo w. For example, if your hard drive can only read information at a rate of X and the CD Recording needs information at a rate of X+1, this is referred to resource ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Jayne T. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have a marvelous new computer and I have transferred everything onto my new machine but I cannot get to my e-mail address book contents and save and replace them in my new identical software. Do ... you have any idea how I can do this? I am running on Windows 98SE and Outlook Express 5. I have tried to save the information as a Word document and import it. I have saved the file via Explorer and all it saves is the empty address book software. I have also tried to send them as an e-mail document but once received I cannot activate the ... (view more)

I've been diddling around with Windows XP now and again on my system. My first take on Windows XP was "wow, this looks really different", but then quickly realized that different is not necessarily good. All the die-hard Windows users will find that ... they will spend much of their first hours of using Windows XP in order to re-orient themselves with the new interface. But fear not, Windows XP can be configured to look like its predecessors if you're resistant to Microsoft's monopolizing change. The biggest issue I have with any new Microsoft Operating System (OS) -- specifically ... (view more)