January 2007
Jim Scheef, Moderator
Lisa Leifels, Reporter

We welcome questions from the floor at the start of our General Meetings. In addition, members who are not able to attend the General Meeting may submit questions to askdacs@dacs.org. We will ask the question for you and post the reply in DACS.ORG. Please provide as much information as possible since we can’t probe during the session.

Q. We are trying to set up signatures that include our logo and contact information in Outlook 2003 SP2, but when we reply to a plain text message the file under “signature for new messages” flips to <none>. How can we keep this from happening?
A. To be honest, this is not the question I answered at the meeting. What I demonstrated was how to create a signature with a graphic. As we started someone pointed out that a plain text email cannot contain graphics and we went on to the demo of creating the signature and demonstrating that it worked in an HTML email. So the answer to the question is that Outlook defaults to plain text format when you reply to a plain text email and you can’t include a graphic in a plain text email. Thus the choices are: change the format and reply as HTML or create a signature without the graphic and set that as the signature for plain text replies.

To create a signature with a graphic in Outlook 2003:
1.Click the Tools menu. Select Options. The Outlook options dialog opens.
2.Click the Mail format tab. Make the default mail format HTML.
3.Click the “Signatures...” button at the bottom. The Create Signature dialog opens.
4.Click the button for new or edit a signature as appropriate. The basic edit dialog opens.
5.Click the “Advanced Edit…” button. On my machine Microsoft FrontPage opens; you will probably have Word open.
6.Create and format your signature in this editor. Use the editor to insert the desired graphic. The graphic should be sized to the exact size you want it to display at screen resolution (72 or 96 dots per inch). Be sure to save the signature as an HTM file. Close Word or whatever.
7.Click OK until you are back to the Mail Format tab.
8.Change the signature for new and/or reply emails to the signature file you just edited.
9.Click OK to close the Outlook options dialog.
10 Click the button to create a new email message. The new message should contain your signature with the graphic.

Q. Last month our SBC/DSL server went down for a week and now I am getting the error message ‘Can’t find server’ when I access the internet. Sometimes it happens on the first tab, other times on the second or third tab.
A. First check for viruses and spyware, also try temporarily disabling any firewall software you may have running. You can also run Hijack This and have someone check the log file. If your HJT log doesn’t indicate that anything malicious is responsible for your broken internet connection try reaching websites using their IP address, for example use http:// 66.102.7.147 to get to google to determine if it is a DNS problem. If it is a DNS problem you can flush your DNS cache by typing ipconfig / flushdns at a command prompt.

Q. I just got a new computer and they had an option for RAID 0, which I opted for. Was this a good decision?
A. RAID also known as Redundant Array of Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks, refers to a data storage scheme using multiple hard drives to share or replicate the data among the drives and it is used frequently on servers. RAID Level 0 involves no redundancy, files are broken into stripes and the stripes are sent to each disk.

This level is becoming increasing popular especially to performance-seekers. The disadvantage to this level is that it doesn’t deliver fault-tolerance. If one drive fails then all data is lost. RAID 0 should not be used on mission-critical systems. It is ideal for the non-critical storage of data that has to be read/written at high speed.

Q. What are the risks of using hibernate mode?
A. Hibernation mode copies your present working condition to the hard disk before going into the deepest of power saving sleeps, therefore no power consumption at all because everything is switched off under software control. It is slower to restart than Sleep mode, since you have to wait for the relatively slow disk drive to restore everything. Many people prefer to use it, instead of shutting down their computer, since it is quicker to restart than rebooting your computer.

Sleep mode on the other hand, powers down the monitor to use the minimal current and stops the disk drives completely after copying the current state of your computer to RAM. Since restoring RAM is faster, sleep mode is a better option for a desktop computer, and hibernate mode is more useful on a laptop to conserve battery life.

Both Hibernate and Sleep mode may fail to wake up properly due to non-compliant peripherals or their drivers. Remember that the size of the hibernate file is equivalent to the size of your total memory. Therefore if you have 1 Gb of RAM, you’ll need 1 Gb available on your hard disk.

Submit any question to: askdacs@dacs.org.

 


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