Dennis Faas

Last week, I received a question pertaining to a free Windows backup program. I took this opportunity to ask the readers of the Infopackets Gazette newsletter, and received MANY suggestions. So, without further adieu, here are some top picks: ... Karen's Power Tools: Replicator : Replicator copies from any source to any destination; it works with ZIP, CD-R, and HD. It can be set to freshen files that are updated/deleted and can be set for unattended operation. Required: Visual Basic 6.0 . My Own Backup (MOB) : A flexible piece of software that allows for Disk Spanning (CD-R backups). Some ... (view more)

Have you ever flashed your BIOS? The BIOS is a chip built onto a circuit board that contains a set of instructions. The instructions are responsible for controlling the device and how it interacts with other peripherals. For example: a main board ... (motherboard) contains a BIOS (CMOS) which stores information about your computer, such as the size of your hard drive, COM ports, buffers, and the like. Flashing a BIOS simply means to update the code of the BIOS instruction. This is done with two separate pieces of software: the BIOS flashing program, and the BIOS update itself. The BIOS flashing ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader 'PJ.' asks, " Where can I find information for making background sounds in emails? " My response: Any email containing sound is a HTML email which uses the Embed command. HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) is the standard format ... used on the Internet when viewing a web page. You can make a HTML document using an HTML editor; here are some good resources: http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/8795/howto.webtv.html http://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutors/embed.html And for a free HTML editor, try Arachnophilia: http://www.arachnoid.com/arachnophilia (view more)

Windows 2000 users have a reason to jump for joy -- Microsoft has recently released Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 (SP3). What is a Service Pack (SP)? If you're new to Windows or have never heard of a Windows Service Pack -- it's a major software ... release which makes Windows more stable. Software fixes generally include: resolved security breaches, compatibility issues, bug fixes, and the like. Generally speaking, a HotFix is a downloadable program that resolves a recently discovered exploit in the Windows Operating system. A HotFix is also referred to as a "software patch", and can ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Ken H. asks, " Can I download films directly to my burner from the Internet? " My response: You can't download files to your CD burner on the fly unless you have DirectCD installed. Even so, I don't recommend downloading and ... directly burning to CD, mostly because you need a complete file to burn to CD. Since files don't always download 100%, the process of "downloading and burning on the fly" would have problems from the get-go and may end up in a waste of media. Usually files have to be downloaded to your hard disk, then burned to CD. Once the files ... (view more)

Have you ever "burned on the fly?" No -- I'm not talking about burning an insect with a magnifying glass like some of us did when we were younger (kids can be so cruel!) Burning on the fly is a technical term that essentially means writing directly ... to a CD recorder from another source other than your hard drive. Usually when a CD is burned, it is read from the hard drive and then written to the CD burner. The important thing to note here is that a hard drive can retrieve information must faster than any other source-medium of information. An example of burning on the fly might be ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Linda S. write s: " Dear Dennis, With regards to the last newsletter , is it possible that you are assuming that Christine R. accidentally stated that Windows Explorer was trying to access the internet and that she actually meant ... that Internet Explorer was trying to get access? My firewall also will not allow me to have access to the internet unless I give both Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer access. Her question may have been a typo but I think maybe she is having the same problem as I am. Can you offer any suggestions to remedy this? " My Response: I'm ... (view more)

Thinking about throwing out that old PC because it can't run the latest version of MS Windows? Hold your horses! In the last few newsletters, there has been much talk about upgrading an old Pentium-1 computer -- which paths to take, and why an ... upgrade may not be the best route. Recently, I received an email from an Infopackets Reader, Stu W., which mentioned a great alternative to upgrading an old PC. He writes: " I would personally NOT upgrade the hardware [of an old PC]. Instead, I would upgrade the operating system (OS) to something like Peanut Linux, Small Linux or even Corel Linux. ... (view more)

You must be wondering: why is the Infopackets Gazette being sent out on a Sunday? In short, I've decided to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak. First of all, I'm going on a small vacation. So, I won't be here to send out the newsletter on ... Tuesday -- so that's why I've decided to send it out Sunday instead of Tuesday. Secondly, I received a lot of feedback regarding my Visitor Feedback suggestion to Judy W. in the last newsletter . Many of you wrote in and asked me if I was crazy for suggesting that she purchase a special adapter for her old and ailing Pentium-1 system instead of ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Christine R. write s: " Dear Dennis, I do not know a lot about Internet Explorer, so I wanted to know why is it that my firewall will not let me browse the Internet unless I give permission to Windows Explorer to access the Net? ... If I say "No" when permission is requested, it comes up 'unable to connect to that site', which leaves me with the only way to browse the site by clicking on "Yes." I have uninstalled and reinstalled the firewall and tried everything I know, but to no avail. So now I'm asking your opinion, as I am worried that if my Windows ... (view more)