Hardware

Recall -- Two weeks ago, I asked Infopackets Readers to send me their picks for a reasonably-priced economy class printer that has refillable ink cartridges with the print head built onto the cartridge. " ... There are in fact many bubble-jet / ... ink-jet printers on the market today that sell for under $50 dollars. The printers are priced low because ink is consumable -- and in many cases, the name brand cartridges cost almost as much as the printer. I have owned my Canon Bubble Jet BJ-200 printer for over 10 years now and it prints as good as the first day I bought it. The reason for this ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader 'CusterCr' writes: " I have been away from home for quite some time. A friend of mine went to use my computer recently, and now she has to hit F10 on the keyboard to save the time and date every time the computer turns on. Any ... ideas what might be wrong? " My response: It is most likely that your CMOS battery has faded away and now your BIOS settings have been lost. The BIOS settings will keep resetting every time power is lost or the computer is unplugged because there is no way to save the information (which is done with the aid of a CMOS battery). Put in Simple ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Brian P. writes: " Hello Dennis, My Epson printer has just given up on me and I suspect it may have a lot to do with the fact that I refilled my empty cartridges with generic ink, rather than replace them with cruelly expensive ... name-brand cartridges. As a result, my print head has gummed up to the point where I need to buy a new printer. Having re-read your article regarding your printing experience with your Canon BJ-200 , which is no doubt well out of date now [December 18, 2002], I wondered if you could recommend an inexpensive printer that's available on the market ... (view more)

" Dear Dennis, I recently read your article regarding 'PC won't go into hibernation mode with Digital Camera?', dated November 19, 2003. I have somewhat of a related problem. When I click Start -> Standby, my monitor shuts off and the PC appears ... to go into a low power state, but then quickly comes back to life a second later. Any idea why my computer won't remain in Standby mode? " My Response: There could be a number of reasons why the computer won't remain in Standby mode. If Standby mode is enabled, normal PC operation resumes once an interrupt (such as a key press or mouse ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Neal I. writes: " Hi Dennis! I have been reading most of your newsletters since below the 100,000-user subscription level and I find your articles to be very helpful. I may have missed a relevant article, but here is a problem to ... chew on: I have Windows XP Pro with all the Service Packs and updates, and an Epson cx5200 all-in-one printer ... I [have plenty of music that I have downloaded off the 'net and find that Media Player 9 is able to present me with a list of song tracks when I'm sitting in front of the computer, however], I wish to study the play list from the ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Louise S. writes: " I recently bought a DVD disc through eBay from a gentleman in Britain. When I tried to play it on the DVD player attached to my TV, a screen popped up saying I was in the wrong region. I then tried it in the ... CD-DVD player (Samsung) in my computer and it said the same thing. My computer, however, did allow me to change over to region 2, which is Europe, but will only allow me to switch back and forth between Regions 1 and 2 a total of 4 times, and then it becomes permanent. I don't want that to happen as only the one DVD is a region 2. Is there ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Vicky F. writes: " Hello, and good day to you! I just want to know how can I connect to the Internet using a laptop with a built-in modem? Do I still need an Internet Service Provider (ISP) or can I just hook up my laptop to the ... cable outlet? I am a newbie on this stuff, and I will really appreciate it if you could give me some insight. " My response: The built-in modem you are referring to is for dial-up (I.E.: phone line) Internet access, which is very slow compared to a cable modem or DSL connection. Should you decide to use dial-up Internet, all that is ... (view more)

Side note: Because this Visitor Feedback section deals with computer hardware, both the question and answer are somewhat technical. Even if you're a newbie, you should take the time to read this article: I've done my best to outline and explain the ... techy-terms in simple English. Infopackets Reader John T. writes: " Hi, Dennis! I'm sure hoping for your help, if you have the time and are up for a challenge. When I turned my computer on after the recent massive power outage ... I discovered I no longer had D (CD ROM) drive -- it disappeared from My Computer under Windows ... The rest of the ... (view more)

Recall -- Last week, Chris L. asked if it was possible to print out the filenames of all his music files which were stored in a single folder on his computer. I suggested using a DOS command to do the trick, and also asked Infopackets Readers for an ... alternate freeware solution. Print Music Filenames? Many users recommended KarenWare's "Directory Printer". From the web site: " No more fumbling with My Computer or Windows Explorer, wishing you could print information about all your files. Karen's Directory Printer can print the name of every file on a drive, along with the file's ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Brandon L. writes: " Dear Dennis, My computer has this really serious problem. I don't know what is causing the problem, but it only started happening recently. The whole day yesterday, my computer was frozen with a black screen ... at startup. You know: the first screen that says 'Press DEL to enter Setup'? I tried restarting my machine and left it there thinking that the problem would go away, but after a few hours, nothing changed. I decided to go into the computer BIOS and selected 'Load optimized defaults', and like magic, my system appeared OK. I don't understand why ... (view more)