files

Recall -- Back in late January of this year, Infopackets Reader David J. asked me if I knew of a program was capable of archiving web pages from web sites for offline reading. I responded by providing instruction on how to use Internet Explorer's ... built-in web page archiver ( article here ), but then asked Infopackets Readers if they knew of a better solution. Infopackets Reader Michael O. writes: " Dennis, it's funny you should ask about Webpage archiver programs... I was just thinking (a few days ago, in fact), 'I haven't seen many of them around, I wonder if people just don't have a ... (view more)

Have you ever had a program that just won't uninstall? Nowadays almost all programs provide a facility for uninstalling themselves -- usually through the Add / Remove Programs section in the Windows Control Panel or by using an uninstaller that came ... with the program. The trouble is, most uninstalls do the absolute minimum required to remove an application completely from your system. Subsequently, files which should have been removed end up scattered throughout the system, along with hundreds of inactive entries in the System Registry. Side note: The Windows Registry is a database where all ... (view more)

I'm a frustrated musician at heart, only because playing music doesn't come naturally to me. In fact, I'm a poor piano player and a pathetic guitarist -- but I love it all just the same. Finding sheet music for songs is always a challenge, ... especially for someone of my skill level. When I discovered MidiNotate, it solved the sheet music problem and gave me the extra push I needed to play better. What is MidiNotate? In a nutshell, MidiNotate is software designed to convert MIDI and Karaoke files to onscreen or printable sheet music. MidiNotate works by evaluating sound descriptions stored in a ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Ronald O. writes: " My computer has crashed a few times and I have lost everything from the hard drive. What can I do to retrieve all my files on the hard drive? Please help! " My response: If the drive still works and detects ... under Windows but your files are missing, you can attempt to repair your master boot record (if it's damaged) by booting into DOS (from a DOS disk) and use the command "FDISK.EXE /MBR". Side note: The Master Boot Record [MBR] is located at the beginning of the hard drive. This part of the hard drive is referred to as the boot ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Berlin B. writes: " Dear Dennis, As part of my stringent preventive maintenance plan, I recently ran AdAware 6.0 and Norton AntiVirus software on my PC. Norton reported a number of 'at risk' files on my system. After I ran AdAware ... 6.0, the document files listed in the My Documents folder now show a .DOC extension with no associative icon. When I try to click these files, a window appears and asks me to select the appropriate file extension. It also warns me that if I select the wrong type, the file may become unusable. I was unsure what to do, so I ran System Restore ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Brad B. writes: " Dear Dennis, I would like to create a text document which contains a list of my files in a directory. I asked a techie friend of mine how to do it, and he told me to open up an MS DOS Window and use the command: ... 'dir *.* > list.txt' I did that but my file names aren't showing up in full. Can you help?" Side note: MS DOS is the predecessor to Windows. The MS DOS prompt provides an optional way to access or modify files through a command line interface. An MS DOS command prompt can be opened by clicking Start -> Programs -> MSDOS, or if ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader 'Captain HRY' asks, " I would like to send files over the Internet to my son. Any ideas how I can go about doing this? " My response: There are a number of ways to send files to someone over the 'net. The easiest way to send a ... small file is by email attachment or through an Instant Messenger [chat] program. I use both MSN Messenger and ICQ and happen to know that MSN will only allow 1 file transfer at a time. On the other hand, ICQ can send multiple files, providing that the files reside in the same folder on your hard drive. If you're looking to share large files ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader 'Pigginbabe' writes: " Hi, I really like your newsletter and it has really helped me a lot when I sometimes have problems. Question: A while ago, my hard drive went on me and I lost emails that I wanted to keep. Is there any way ... of getting these back? " My response: If the hard drive is completely toast (I.E.: if it won't power up / detect during boot up), then you won't be able to retrieve any data unless you mailed the drive away to a data-recovery company -- which is probably very expensive. However, if the drive still detects under BIOS and still appears under ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Terry from PlanetSave.com writes: " Dear Dennis, I am running XP Professional. I have a large amount of background images listed in my Display Properties -> Desktop tab. Do you know how I can shorten this list? Happy Holidays. ... You have great newsletter! " My Response: I searched google.com for a utility that could modify / remove the list of entries found in Display Properties -> Desktop, but wasn't able to come up with anything. However, I do happen to know that a Windows will list .BMP picture files in the Backgrounds menu if there are .BMP picture files ... (view more)

Have you ever wondered what your loved one is doing online? Infopackets Reader Lisa E. addressed a few of her concerns over the weekend: " Dear Dennis, I have Windows XP. I have several people using this computer and would like to know how to access ... chat files. Everyone has their logon password protected, and my children do a lot of chatting on Yahoo and MSN Messenger. Can you tell me how to find and access these files?" My response: I only use MSN Messenger on my Windows XP system, so I downloaded and installed the latest versions of Yahoo Messenger, ICQ Pro 2003, ICQ Lite, and AOL ... (view more)