Dennis Faas

After emailing my suggestion on how to use Landscape / Portrait modes to get a large web page to fit properly using a printer, a few users emailed me with thoughts of their own. Infopackets Reader John D. writes: " You could also suggest a program ... such as Gadwin Printscreen , which will print exactly what is on the screen and fit it properly. " Infopackets Reader Theo T. also wrote in: " Another approach to this is to copy what you want to print by pasting in to either a text editor, or WordPad. The downside to using either method is that you will lose pictures and graphics ... (view more)

I bet you're just dying to know "what's new in the land of infopackets.com?" Seek the answer to that question no further! Since I developed "How to Install / Reinstall Windows: downloadable Video and eBook Ultimate Guide", the response from users ... has been tremendous. What can I say? First, I'd like to personally thank Microsoft for introducing so many bugs in the Windows Operating System and for making everyone's lives miserable because of it. If it wasn't for their valiant effort, I would not have taken time out of my busy schedule to produce such a helpful guide. Hey, I ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Arlene M. writes: " Dear Dennis, When I get a web page that is wider than my screen and there are scrollbars on the bottom, my printer won't print the entire page. Repositioning the scrollbars at the bottom of the page and ... attempting to print what I see on the screen not seem to help. I also tried selecting the text I wanted on the screen and then using the "Print from Selection" option, but it didn't help either. Can you explain this and what I can do about it? " My Response: One way to get around this problem is to print the page in Landscape Mode. ... (view more)

Yesterday I wrote about a problem concerning the usage of the mail queue on the infopackets web server. To recap: whenever the Infopackets Gazette newsletter is sent out (to the list of readers), some emails are entered into a temporary holding area ... (called a "mail queue") if they are unable to reach the recipient. This is a potential problem for the infopackets web server because the mail queue can "overflow" and cause the server to run out of storage spac e. Recall: The Mail Queue Polling solution I was able to save the web server from potentially running out of space by ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Rick J. asks, " How do I get back something that I deleted from the recycle bin? " My Response: One way to empty a Recycle Bin is to right-click over top of the Recycle Bin and select "Empty Recycle Bin." If you deleted a file (or ... files) permanently by emptying the Recycle Bin, there is no way for you to get it back -- it's gone for good. This is true, unless you use some sort of special software to retrieve a deleted file from your hard drive -- but even that is not not always 100%; furthermore, the effort involved in file recovery is usually 'over the ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Arlene M. asks, " For some reason, the little speaker icon is gone from my system tray. Do you know how I may get it back? " My Response: If you're talking about Windows XP, the volume control is available from the Control Panel ... under Sounds and Audio Devices; place a check-mark by the Place Volume in Task bar. If you don't have Win XP, you can try to reinstall your sound icon by going to Control Panel -> Add / Remove Programs, Windows Setup tab and then double click the Multimedia icon and place a checkmark on Volume Control. If it's already there, take the ... (view more)

With respect to the title of this newsletter: you might be wondering, "What the heck is a poll?" -- better yet, what is a "mail queue?&quo t; Those are definitely good questions. A poll (in computer lingo) is responsible for sending the computer ... a special request -- usually at a specific time frame. A mail queue is a place where emails are deposited on a computer (for example, a web server) where it awaits to be sent or resent at a later time. How it all Works Whenever I send out the Gazette newsletter, some emails don't get through to their destination. These emails are then ... (view more)

This Sunday, I received the "friendship4u" (W32.Yaha.E) email virus about 30 times. I couldn't believe how this little bugger of a virus kept emailing itself to my mailbox. Thank goodness I have a virus scanner in place and Outlook Express 6 which ... do a decent job of protecting me from dangerous email attachments . Although this is a somewhat effective combination of software to combat an email worm virus, it didn't stop the fact that the virus kept showing up in my INBOX under Outlook Express. Every time I received the virus, I would have to weed through good emails and delete all ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Bob T. write s: " Dear Dennis, First of all, thanks for all the great info. I have a security question for windows. With all the security I have, such as a firewall, and virus protection, I thought I was pretty safe when online. ... However, the other day I stumbled upon a web site that had the contents of my hard drive revealed to me through a link. The software is called Spy Detect . This is from a security firm that is selling software to stop this sort of thing from happening. I would like to know -- is my computer at risk? " My Response: This is a scam that preys ... (view more)

After typing up some heavy-duty Gazette articles this week, I thought I'd take a break and just shoot the breeze. Yeah, yesterday's article was pretty hardcore. I kind of figured that it would be over the head of some readers... but maybe that's the ... kind of stuff you need to appreciate. Hey, I never understood everything while I was at the University of Windsor as a Computer Science undergraduate. My biggest problem when learning / reading new information was accepting the fact that I didn't understand it. It's hard to visualize things that you don't understand. Eventually I just accepted ... (view more)