Q. I bought some memory, and on the package it said “Not for Dual Channel Use”. What does that mean? A. We looked on Google and found that some motherboard/processor combinations support dual channel —essentially this permits simul-taneous reading of two separate ranges of memory, or a write back to one range of memory while another memory area is being read. Memory access has cycles—periods of time while the logic circuits within the memory are recharging the set bits, or the memory is available for reading, etc. Since the memory worked in your system, we may presume that your system is either not attempting dual channel use, or knows that the memory sticks don’t support it. For full description, take a look at this page on the Kingston site: http://www.kingston. com/newtech/MKF_520DDR whitepaper.pdf. Q. I have an Excel spreadsheet that has ZIP codes in it. They are formatted as “special - zip code”. However, when I try to use them in a Word Mail-Merge operation, the leading zero is stripped off. Is there a way to fix this? A. During the Q&A session, we were unable to find a solution, although we did find a reference to a similar problem with Word 98. However, follow up found this technique:
Q. I have a USB solid state memory device (commonly known as a pen drive or flash drive.) To reuse it must I reformat it? A. No, not at all. As matter of fact you probably do not want to format it except for the case of a problem. Instead, you may open up the drive using Windows Explorer (it will look just like any other drive, it will have a drive letter) and click on files or folders to delete them. This brings up a caution: Most devices that use memory sticks (Smart Media, Compact Flash, Secure Digital, etc.) use the FAT 12, FAT 16 or FAT 32 format for the file structure, not the newer NTFS format as preferred by Windows NT, 2000 and XP. ( FAT - File Allocation Table ) If you format a memory card using NTFS it will not be readable by the camera, or a FAT that the camera doesn’t understand, the card will not be usable. If a card is corrupted somehow (such as by trying to write to it from a camera with almost-dead batteries) then the card may require a low-level format. Not all card readers have the correct controller chip withing them that will permit a low-level format. There is a software/hardware package available—OnBelay from CompuApps that I have used to recover corrupted memory cards. Q. I have a son who is looking to get into programming and development. What would be a good starting language? A. This question is almost like picking a religion—there were lots of suggestions of all types. Here are some of them:
No matter which language you choose, you should know that the first one is always the hardest because you have to learn two things simultaneously: the syntax of the specific language, plus program-ming concepts. Once you have this foundation, it is usually not as big a step to add a second, third or fourth language as then you only need to learn the language specifics. Q. On my cable modem there are several lights, most of which are always on. Is the “Power” light an indication that there is a connection to the cable, or is it that there is line voltage? A. The power indicator on every modem we have seen indicates only that you have power coming from the wall outlet (usually via a small transformer/power cube that changes line voltage to typically 5 or 12 volts DC.) It does not report anything about the presence or absence of a cable signal. Q. I get e-mails that have “Undisclosed Recipients.” Are the addresses present internally in the e-mail and thus visible if I know where to look? And if so, how is this done? A. All of the recipients are “Blind Copy” messages (typically marked BCC from the old “Blind Carbon Copy” of typed memos.) They will not be visible. To send a BCC you have to activate the BCC entry field when you compose the message. It is not normally visible in the mail interface. If you are doing a distribution list, such as for a club, one way of doing it is create an address book entry ( Club List, for example, which has as its components the e-mail addresses of the members. You then put the address “Club List” into the BCC field and your mail program will expand it.) A warning—many mail processors will block a message if they see a large number of BCC addressees, since this is a popular mechanism with spammers. You might start with a limit of 100 addressees and see if they go. Note also that it may not be your ISP that does the blocking. For example, lets say that your ISP has a cap of 200, and your address list has 60 addresses at AOL. When your ISP distributes the e-mail, it will establish a link to AOL and try to submit the message with the 60 AOL addresses. If AOL has a cap of, say, 50, it will block the message. Q. My children have really messed up an old computer. I decided to format the C: drive and start over. However, Windows won’t let me format the drive because it says that the drive is “in use.” What do I do? A. It depends upon which version of Windows you are running. If it is a version such as 95, 98, 98SE or Me, you can create an Emergency Recovery Diskette (ERD) that is bootable. Boot from it, and then format the drive and then install Windows. The Windows 98SE ERD is especially nice in that it has the OAK CD-ROM driver which will recognize just about any CD-ROM device out there. For Windows 2000 and XP the distribution CD is bootable and you may boot from it. Q. But the machine doesn’t have a floppy drive ( Or the floppy drive is USB, and you need a loaded Windows to see it.) A. Typically, machines that don’t have a floppy drive are newer and have the capability of booting from the CD. This is usually not ‘armed’ by default. To activate it, you need to get into the ROM-BIOS Setup utility and change the boot sequence order. On many machines, this is done via pressing the DEL key immediately after power-up, well before Windows starts. On other machines (typically DELL ), you need to press the F2 function key during boot. With your computer you should have received either a Microsoft Windows CD, or perhaps a vendor-branded “system restore” CD. When you boot from the CD it will start an install or recovery procedure. Q. Is anyone familiar with a utility called Password Safe - a utility that stores passwords for you? A. No one present had heard of that particular utility, but there are many of them out there. Some members reported liking Robo Form and Password Pro 32. A search on Download.COM ( a CNET company) using the phrase Password Manager found 115 hits. Thee is probably at least one there that will suite your needs and budget. Q. I get images from my family that are too large to view on my screen. How do I fix this? A. Windows XP comes with an image viewer that handles this problem. For older systems, one way would be to download a free utility IrfanView from www.irfanview. com—it will let you size the image to your screen as well as define a slide show, etc. I’ve used it for years. Google recently acquired Picasa software and is distributing Picasa 2 for free. You can download it from http://www. picasa.com/. Next month’s General Meeting topic will discuss this in detail. |
| Bruce Preston is president of West Mountain Systems, a consultancy in Ridgefield, CT specializing in database applications. A DACS director, Bruce also leads the Access SIG. Members may send tech queries to Bruce at askdacs@dacs.org. |
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