Dennis Faas

Synopsis: What's the ultimate research engine? Answer: MetaProducts Inquiry! If you need a fast and easy way to save and analyze web pages for later offline browsing, then MetaProducts Inquiry is just what the doctor ordered! With MetaProducts ... Inquiry you can collect, organize and view information from the web quickly, easily -- and with little effort. MetaProducts Inquiry comes fully integrated with Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) as a service toolbar, plus it offers right-click context menus for IE, Mozilla, Netscape, and Opera Browsers. Coupled with an unparalelled ability to grab almost ... (view more)

Today's issue of the Gazette is a series of very important announcements. Let me begin by telling you what's been happening in my life. I don't normally write about personal stuff, but this circumstance is different because it directly affects ... infopackets.com. At any rate, here goes: As of November 2nd, 2005, I finalized the deal on my new home. Prior to the 2nd (and beginning October 20th), I was running around like mad trying to get everything settled -- such as: meeting with the builder regularly, the bank, the lawyers, and making tons of phone calls to service providers. All of this ... (view more)

A checksum is a form of redundancy check, a very simple measure for protecting the integrity of data by detecting errors in data that is sent through space (telecommunications) or time (storage). It works by adding up the basic components of a ... message, typically the bytes, and storing the resulting value. Later, anyone can perform the same operation on the data, compare the result to the authentic checksum, and (assuming that the sums match) conclude that the message was probably not corrupted. The simplest form of checksum, which simply adds up the bytes in the data, cannot detect a number ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Michel S. writes: " Dear Dennis, First, thank you for this very informative and welcoming website. My question today is in regard to a corrupt DVD disc. After having burned some of my favorite downloaded files to DVD disc (using ... the 'D-well' brand blank DVD), some files appear to be OK, but part of the DVD disc cannot be accessed at all. ;-( I am using an ASUS DVD writer and Nero 6.0 for my backup. So far, my computer friends haven't been able to help me with this issue. I'd certainly appreciate if you can help me to clarify this mystery. Thank you in advance! " ... (view more)

Synopsis: Add eye candy and extend the functionality of Windows XP (you won't want to miss this one)! AlphaXP is a *very* cool desktop enhancement utility that adds advanced transparency effects to any Windows 2000/XP computer. It has won many ... five-star awards for excellence and is regarded by thousands of users worldwide. Some of the features have been incorporated into AlphaXP include: three direct ways to set transparency, two automatic ways to set transparency, smooth fade effects, menu transparency, tooltip transparency, taskbar transparency, and much more! To get a better idea of what ... (view more)

A mouse is a handheld pointing device for computers, involving a small object fitted with one or more buttons and shaped to sit naturally under the hand. The underside of the mouse houses a device that detects the mouse's motion relative to the flat ... surface on which it sits. The mouse's 2D motion is typically translated into the motion of a pointer on the display. A mouse is called a 'mouse' primarily because the cord on early models resembled the rodent's tail, and also because the motion of the pointer on the screen can be mouse-like. In popular usage, the plural can be either mice or ' ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Jamie T. from the UK writes: " Dear Dennis, When I hover my mouse pointer over a window, it automatically brings that window to the front. I don't understand why this happening all the sudden. I can't seem to find any settings in ... the Control Panel where I can stop the mouse from stealing focus. Can you help? " My response: The mouse focus setting may be the result of a program you recently installed. At any rate, you can adjust mouse focus (enable or disable) it with a freeware Microsoft utility, called TweakUI (a part of the PowerToys collection). A download link ... (view more)

Synopsis: Are you a download-a-holic? Do you suffer from slower than average download speeds? Do you often get disconnected in the middle of a download? Do you use Internet Explorer and wish there was a way you could resume a broken download (and ... avoid having to start from the beginning)? Do you have trouble remembering where your last downloaded file was saved to? If you answered 'Yes' to any of these questions, then you'll definitely want to find out why PC Magazine bestowed the Editors' Choice Award to Conceiva DownloadStudio for best Internet Download Manager -- but only if you read ... (view more)

The term Internet fraud refers to any type of fraud scheme that uses email, web sites, chat rooms or message boards to present fraudulent solicitations to prospective victims, to conduct fraudulent transactions or to transmit the proceeds of fraud ... to financial institutions or to other connected with the scheme. Identity theft schemes Most Internet fraud is done through the use of stolen credit card information which is obtained in many ways, the simplest being copying information from retailers, either (online or offline). There have been many cases of hackers obtaining huge quantities of ... (view more)

Synopsis: It is estimated that digital cameras account for half the cameras in the world and now represent well over 50% of all photographic devices (Source: analysphere.com ). If you're a digital camera owner, then you most likely store your photos ... on your computer. However, what most folks don't take into consideration is that fact that by storing your photos on the computer, your precious memories are also at the mercy of a hacker, a new strain of virus, or even a disasterous computer crash! So what would you do if you lost all your photos? Introducing: Acoustica Photos Forever If you have ... (view more)