Ask DACS
February 2009

Moderated and reported by Jim Scheef.

Ask DACS is a question and answer session held at the start of the monthly general meeting. We solicit questions from the floor and by email (AskDACS@dacs.org). Hopefully we find the answers from those present at the meeting.

There was one email question this month. DACS members can post questions on the DACS Community Forums at dacs.org/forum/ where other members can respond. These will also be considered at the next meeting.

Q: I am using an ACER TravelMate 2423WXCi laptop. My wireless LAN works well in AC mode but when I switch to battery power, I lose my wireless connection. When I boot in battery I have no wireless LAN. When working in AC mode, if I pull the plug I loose my wireless LAN. It will connect again as soon as I reconnect the AC power plug. How can I fix this problem so that I can have a wireless LAN in both AC and battery?

A: At the meeting, the member confirmed that the power management features of the wireless network card were set to protect the battery and turn off wireless when the computer is on battery power. Changing this setting solved the problem. Where to find the power management setting will depend on what software is doing the power management and possibly the wireless device driver. If the wireless network connection is configured using software from the computer maker or the wireless card manufacturer, then that is the place to look. If you are using the wireless setup built in Windows, then the power management check box is probably part of the device driver configuration dialog. Open Device Manager and right-click on the wireless network adapter in the list under Network Adapters. Click properties and then look for the Power Management tab. Uncheck the option to “Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power.” There may be other options in other places. If all else fails, check the manual that came with the laptop or the manufacturers’ support websites.

Q: I have seen advertising recently for external hard drives at dramatically lower prices. Are these products as good as the ones at higher prices? Is this too good to be true?

A: The consensus was that these products are just as good. The discussion followed on to diagnosing a failed external drive with the warning that a failure is often in the enclosure rather than the hard disk itself. Hard drive prices have been dropping dramatically as recording density (and thus the capacity of a single platter) has increased. For drive diagnosis I mentioned a handy adapter I use to connect a bare SATA or PATA (IDE) hard drive to USB. This can be really handy when moving to a new computer or replacing the drive in a laptop. Because there is no need to install the drive in an enclosure, these adapters cost less and are easier to use and an external enclosure.

Q: When downloading pictures from my digital camera, a picture failed to complete. After aborting the process, all the picture files on the camera were gone. Has anyone had this experience and what did you do?

A: Several members suggested using a memory card reader to unload pictures rather than the ‘download’ process as a simple move from memory card to hard drive is more secure. Recova (recova.com) is a freeware utility to recover erased files. This utility may find the files if the memory card was not “toasted” (technical term?). It may be necessary to reformat the card before it will work again in the camera. Formatting it using Windows and then a second format in the camera will often give the best compatibility.

Q: On Windows Vista after closing Internet Explorer, it would reappear many, many times in rapid succession. The solution we found was to uninstall and reinstall the Adobe Flash Player. Has anyone else had this problem?

A: One suggestion was to look in the Windows Event Viewer for any messages produced at the time of the incident. Messages may be in both the Application and System logs that give clues to what is happening. Severe errors are flagged in red. If you find a likely error, copy the text into your favorite search engine or the Microsoft website search to find more information. The search results will often include technical bulletin boards; be sure to consider the source when following the advice on such sites. This type of behavior is often the result of a malware infection so updating your antivirus program followed by a thorough scan is always a good idea.

Q: Can someone recommend a program to take screen shots and partial screen shots on Vista and send them directly to the printer?

A: Personally I have used SnagIt ($50, shareware - snagit.com) and HoverSnap (free - hoverdesk.net) for years. HoverSnap does everything I need these days and can easily capture a portion of the screen. However these utilities produce a file for each capture. The file, generally a JPEG file, must be formatted to send to the printer, so that is a separate step in another application.

Q: Has anyone tried the Windows 7 beta?

A: Several people reported they have tried it. I installed it in a VM using Microsoft Virtual PC (free); others use VMWare. One member reported a problem installing the Open Office suite. The OO install “tanked” Windows 7 – not a good compatibility report. Another member also installed in a VM and does not like Internet Explorer 8. The questioner reported trouble with installing some device drivers, but once installed Win7 seems pretty fast.

Q: This discussion morphed into a discussion of Open Office on Vista with reports of slow performance. A member then suggested using Windows ReadyBoost, a feature of Vista. ReadyBoost uses any flash drive as a disk cache to improve performance.

A: Windows ReadyBoost (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReadyBoost) uses flash memory as a disk cache to improve disk performance. I’ve seen reports that it is particularly effective on laptops with slower hard drives. At the time of the Vista launch, there were many reports that “hybrid hard drives” would become popular. A HHD (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_drive) incorporates nonvolatile flash memory into the drive electronics as a disk cache. Because files can remain in the cache between reboots, performance on boot up is supposed to improve dramatically. Vista’s poor acceptance seems to have quelled demand for these drives.

Q: I use Open Object REXX (http://www.oorexx.org/) on Vista to write small utilities and process files. It seems to hang when processing directories on Vista. Can anyone help?

A: REXX is a language developed at IBM in the 1980s. IBM included it with OS/2 as a replacement for DOS batch files. A member suggested that Vista may require administrator rights to access directories in this manner. Giving the REXX runtime administrator rights may solve the problem. This is an excellent example of how the wisdom of the group can provide what I suspect is a very good answer to an incredibly esoteric question! (Back in my mainframe days, REXX was my favorite language.)

Questions for the upcoming meeting can be emailed to askdacs@dacs.org.

Disclaimer: Ask DACS questions come from members by email or from the audience attending the general meeting. Answers are suggestions offered by meeting attendees and represent a general consensus of those responding. DACS offers no warrantee as to the correctness of the answers and anyone following these suggestions or answers does so at their own risk. In other words, we could be totally wrong!