Dennis Faas

Happy Birthday to me! Today, I turn 30. Special thanks to those folks who noted my Birthday pre-announcement in the "today in History" section in Yesterday's newsletter. And now getting on with today's question, Infopackets Reader Roberta W. writes: ... " Dear Dennis, I'm having a heck of a time trying to figure out how to report a hacker that has been trying to hack in to my computer. I have 3 firewalls and plenty of antivirus software installed on my computer. I keep getting messages that dav.bay0.hotmail.com is 'sniffing' my communication ports, and is attempting to send me ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Frank K. writes: " Dear Dennis, I've taken all of my photos and scanned them into the computer. I later decided to record the photos to CD so that I could archive them permanently and view them at my leisure. A friend of mine told ... me that my home DVD player can also play image files, much like a 'photo CD'. The problem is that the photo CD that I made only plays some of the image files. Can you tell me why this is so, and how I can go about correcting the problem? " My response: Most DVD players can play only play .JPG (or 'JPEG') image files. Image files come in ... (view more)

Recall - - Last week I talked about a utility called ISOBuster, which is able to retrieve data from stubborn DVD and CDs. Unfortunately I wasn't 100% correct when I reported that ISOBuster is freeware. To better explain ISOBuster's 'freeware' ... functionality, the author of ISOBuster (Peter Van Hove) emailed me the following message: " Dear Dennis, I saw in today's newsletter that you mentioned ISOBuster which is GREAT! And you're right, ISOBuster is ideal for data recovery from CD and DVD -- especially for getting data back from CDs created with DirectCD, Drag 2 Disc, InCD, DLA and other ... (view more)

Last week, I wrote about a new, free service called answers.com that offers '1-click answers to 1 million topics at your fingertips.' Since the article was published, I've received a number of positive emails. Infopackets Reader Dawn B. writes: " ... Dear Dennis, Recently, my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. I have been scouring the Internet for anything I could find pertaining to his illness, but was discouraged by all the irrelevant pages and 'page not found' errors. After I read your article on answers.com, I decided to give it a try. Let me tell you -- I was completely amazed! ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Nick F. writes: " Dear Dennis, I've been an avid reader of your newsletter for quite some time. My question for you is with respect to a recent article that dealt with problems reading DirectCD discs. The same circumstances ... described in this article reminded me of a problem I had a while ago when I backed up some files onto a CD-RW disc prior to formatting my system. After Windows was reinstalled and we reloaded all the important software again, I found that I could not open the CD-RW disc -- even using the same program, same disc drive, that had written it. Every time ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Betty S. writes: " Dear Dennis, I just finished reading your article which detailed how to sort the Start Menu. My question is somewhat related and deals with the 'Favorites' listed in Internet Explorer. Unfortunately, my ... Favorites list goes on and on and it's a real pain to find the site I want to visit. Could you please tell me how to transfer this list to a CD so I can start over? " My response: If you want to sort and organize your favorites, refer to these articles: Sort favorites in Internet Explorer Organize Favorites in Internet Explorer Organize Favorites ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader 'Woodstock216' writes: " Dear Dennis, Can you please tell me how to erase all the info that Windows stores automatically? Example: when I visit a web page, sometimes Windows will store the web site address so that I do not have to ... retype it all the time ... or when I fill in my email address, name, phone, etc on a web site? I have no clue where to even look to try to find this. Help! " My response: This is a frequently asked question. What you are referring to is called MRU history, which also refers to "Most Recently Used" information. Two of my all- ... (view more)

Question: aside from Google, what's the coolest and the most quickest way to get definitions and explanations for over 1 million topics, including persons, places, and things? Answer: Answers.com. No kidding! Powered by GuruNet technology, ... Answers.com acts much like a hybrid Internet-based Encyclopedia and Search Engine all-in-one on steroids. As opposed to standard search engines that serve up a list of links for you to follow, Answers.com displays quick, snapshot answers with concise, reliable information and incorporates content from "over 100 authoritative encyclopedias, dictionaries ... (view more)

Last week , Infopackets Reader Diane M. asked how to organize items in her cluttered Start Menu. In my response, I suggested that Diane right-click over top of the "Program Files" and use the Windows Explorer to "Explore All Users" of the Start Menu ... to sort her icons. Shortly after emailing my response, Diane wrote in again: " Dennis: thanks for your response. I went to Start -> Program Files, right-clicked, and chose to Explore ... but I did not see the 'Explore All Users' option. I am using Windows XP; would that make any difference? All I want to do is take one ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Fred G. writes: " Dear Dennis, I love your newsletter. I just finished reading the last issue of the Gazette (regarding how to sort the Start Menu) and have a related question. I know there is a way to alphabetize your all ... programs menu -- but is there a way to apply this setting for all users that log into the computer? If so, can you please list the instructions again in the newsletter? Thanks again and keep up the great job! " My response: As far as I understand, the Start Menu appearance (with respect to how it is sorted) is different for each user account ... (view more)