Problem: The movement of your mouse on the screen
is erratic & you find it hard to position it where you want. (Note: I have a Logitech
mouse but the instructions below should be appropriate for just about all mice.)
Cause: The inside of the mouse is filthy!
(Normally)
Solution:
CLEAN THE MOUSE!
Method: Get some rubbing alcohol, a clean cloth and a number of cotton swabs
(Q-tips).
(It is probably a good idea to do this when the computer is turned off, just in case.)
- Turn the mouse upside down & you should see the trackball and something that holds
it in place that can be turned to release the trackball. Turn the holding thingie
(normally counter-clockwise) to release the trackball. Put the holder and trackball to one
side for now.
- Open the rubbing alcohol and dip one end of a swab into it. Get rid of any excess
liquid, you want the swab damp not dripping. With the swab wipe the entire inside of the
place where the trackball was. Use more than one swab if required.
- When it's clean, look inside & you should see a number of small wheels.
They're what is used to move the trackball. Check EACH of them to make sure they are free
of dust & lint. If they are not clean the grunge off, wipe with alcohol and spin them
to ensure they rotate properly. If they don't you have some other problem and you should
see a REAL technician.
- Now take the clean cloth and dampen it with the alcohol. Put the trackball in the wet
spot and rub it to remove any accumulated grunge. You should see it getting cleaner,
hopefully.
- Let the mouse & trackball dry for a minute or 2, then insert the trackball into the
mouse, put the holding thingie back in place and turn it to lock the ball in place.
- If the mouse is STILL erratic there's one more thing to try. Carefully remove the screws
that are usually on the bottom of the mouse and separate the two sides. You may find a ton
of accumulated grunge inside the mouse body. Gently blow it out & verify, while you
have it apart, that there's not any junk left on the various rollers. Put the mouse back
together & replace the screws.
NOW - The mouse should work a LOT BETTER.
If it doesn't, at least it's clean for the technician to look at.
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If you dump a cup of coffee on your keyboard and it looks
like it is finished, you could try a last ditch effort to try and revive it. Go
down to your local drug store and get a bottle of 99% Isopropyl Alcohol. Unplug
your keyboard from the computer and take it outside. Dump the whole bottle of
alcohol over the keys and swish it around. Then dump it out and shake the
keyboard until most of the liquid is gone. Let the keyboard dry over night
before you plug it in to see if it works. The alcohol evaporates and doesn’t
leave any thing behind and so it shouldn’t hurt any of the components and it
should clean out any coffee left in the keyboard.
REMEMBER:
This is a only after you have decided to replace the keyboard anyway.
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Tip courtesy
of Bravenet
[A
new window will open if you select Bravenet] |
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Here are some things to do and NOT
to do.
The "DO NOT" list should come first because it
hurt the most:
If you are running any type of virus software in
your system, Never, but NEVER go into the BIOS setup and enable the BIOS virus checking on
startup feature that are on most chips. The result, as I found out, was that EACH
virus checker (bios&installed) thought the other was a "virus" & almost
brought the system to a standstill until I turned off that !@#$% BIOS virus
checker.
Repeated AGAIN altho you've probably seen it
before:
a) Diskettes from anywhere other than YOUR SYSTEM should be scanned before you run any
program on them.
b) Files downloaded from the Web should also be scanned, regardless of file type.
c) **NEW** Apparently it is possible to receive virus infected files "attached"
to email which means if you run the attached EXE or ZIP file, you're toast (maybe).
I guess a good rule of thumb would be only run an attached exe if you know well the person
that sent it to you. I'd be quite suspicious of an EXE attached to a spam. You can always
save the attachment as a file and then scan it before running it and even then(????).
BTW: Most good anti-virus software scans
e-mail automatically as part of the package.
The DO list is quite short:
If you don't have an anti-virus program,
GET
ONE!!
I am currently using Norton and recommend it for being an efficient,
well-mannered anti-virus system. Be prepared for frequent alerts that 'Virus
updates are required and should you do it now?'. You could say
'No', but that would be just like shooting yourself in the foot.
a) When you install your A/V software make a
system boot disk AND a recovery disk for the A/V software.
NOTE:
If and when you choose to make your backup/recovery diskette(s) make
certain you have at least a couple of boxes of diskette(s). With more
virus' out there Recovery disk sets only get bigger.
b) Although it's a bit of a chore, maybe, do the same thing EVERY TIME you receive an
update to your A/V software. There will come a time when you'll be happy you did. (may it
be a loong time away, preferably never)
I generally try to do it at least once a month. I know it 'should' be
done for each but it does eat away from doing stuff like this.
Re-read the DON'T list, hehe.
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Win95 & Win98 provide a way to quicken the pace
at which your dial-up connection calls go through. Click on Start/Settings/Control Panel,
double-click the Modem icon, highlight your modem's entry in the box at the top of the
window. Next click Properties/Advanced. In the Extra Settings box type S11=50. To save the
new setting, click on OK.
NOTE: If your Extra Settings box already contains data put this setting at the end
of the data and precede it with a space. (Worked for me.)
The above makes the modem act as a speed dialer and
seems to make the whole connection process a lot faster. I have not tried playing with
adjusting S11 to a value other than 50.
On testing with a slow computer (75mhz) that was
trying to use Bell's Internet Call Answer system unsuccessfully, I found this addition
actually allowed the user to answer the phone while on the net. Not easily, as there
are still MANY bugs in the Bell application but it's a step in the right direction anywho.
Credit to: Practical Windows magazine #45 July/99,
P.61. An EXCELLENT magazine for DOS/Windows 95/98 users. (SADLY - This
magazine has stopped publishing due to the economic climate!)
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Ever see the message "Error Writing to drive
C:\", or on startup "Hard Disk Failure" ??
Well - I have & it scared the pants off of me with visions of data loss &
mega-repair bills! As it turned out - I WAS LUCKY, YOU MAY NOT BE.
Being a 'normal computer user' I clean the outside of my computer & the vents now now
and then but that's as far as it went. When I saw the above error messages I did the usual
checks, testing for virus', boot from DOS startup & look at the HD to see if any
obvious problems, none of which were helpful. So I called the computer doctor &
disconnected the system to take to the hospital. Then noticed that ALL vents on back of
system covered with dust. Vacuumed that & removed cover to check inside. WELL ! Every
possible orifice that could admit air to the computer's power supply, HD's, etc. were
totally clogged with dust. Vacuumed entire inside of system & powered up again with
cover off to let system fan blow away any missed dust. Lo & behold: The computer works
again!! I lost a few sectors of the HD but thankfully no data. WHEW!!
How to avoid the above:
Keep the computer in a 'clean room' with no
chance of dust getting to it. (ya - right!)
Install it on the top of your desk or somewhere
at least 3-4 feet above the floor.
Install it in some kind of cabinet (ventilated
with filters).
In any case about every 3-6 months (Depending on
how dusty your work area is) you should disconnect everything from the system, remove the
cover and vacuum everything.
NOTE:
Cleaning the computer with a standard vacuum cleaner can be risky as there is a chance of
that culprit "STATIC!", which can screw up the system faster than dust. Make
sure ALL connections to the computer peripherals are removed and the vacuum is grounded.
Either that or - don't take a chance & let a technician do it properly - BUT DO IT !!
A Word on Dis-Connecting and Re-Connecting
Peripherals:
If you are NOT a computer techie and most of us
aren't, then, BEFORE DISCONNECTING ANYTHING from the back of your computer make a
small diagram of the back of the computer noting where all the various connection plugs
are located. (You can usually find an example of the plug layout in the manual you got
with the computer - You DID keep it didn't you?) Next mark the name of each cable plugged
into the back of the computer on the diagram along with the particular plug/slot/hole that
it is currently connected to. This can save alot of time and alot less @#$%^ when you are
attempting to re-connect all those various cables that must have gone somewhere on the
computer but you'll be dammed if you can see just which one goes where. Trust me on dis
one, I been dere.
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My hard disk/system was complaining! On system boot
it would constantly tell me there were problems with shutdown and insist on running the
automatic Scandisk and (usually) physical scan of the drives. After verifying that problem
#1 was not the culprit I was at a loss to determine what/where the problem originated.
After determining it was not a virus (as far as I know) and running various disk utilities
I then by ACCIDENT one day decided to disable the power saver system for my monitor
because I was trying to run some software and wanted it to be always on.
On looking at it's parameters I noted that there was a second option I had never
paid attention to and that was to SHUT DOWN the disk drives after a certain period of
inactivity. I immediately reset this parameter to SHUTDOWN=NEVER and all of a sudden my
disk problems went away! I am currently hoping that the above was the ONLY reason for
these problems but as they have not re-occurred so beit! If you have the same type of
problem this may help you, or may not.....all systems being different.
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There IS a way to
protect your email address from being 'harvested' by web SPAM SPIDERS! You
put your email address on your website so people can contact you or your
clients and you/they wind up getting TONS of spam or 'junk emails'.
Your standard email address link
probably looks similar to this:
Email
me for Information
which in HTML appears as:
<a href="mailto:emailme@mydomain.com">Email
me for Information</a>
A
SPAM SPIDER trolls the net looking for words like 'mailto' and '@' and adds them to
it's list of potential victims.
Fix
this with a simple section of Javascript that disguises the things the
spider looks for:
<script LANGUAGE="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
<!-- Begin
var showlink = "Email me for Information";
var showname = "emailme"
var site = "mydomain.com";
document.write("<a href=" + "mail" + "to:" + showname + "@" + site +
">" + showlink + ")
// End -->
/script>
When you use this change the
parameters:
showlink - to the text you want to be displayed on the page
showname - to your email name
site - to your domain name.
The
above Javascript can be embedded in the text of a sentence or put into a
table. You can set the FONT display of the text be shown by highlighting the
JS applet and selecting the font/size you want. It must be duplicated for each time you want to disguise an email
name. There may be a way to make it 'common code' in a javascript library by
making it a 'function' but I haven't figgered it out yet (Please let me know how2 if you
know how2 at email address below). I would advise that you type in the code
as shown above and not cut&paste it. Note that the '@' character should
be disguised as "@" which is it's HTML equivalent and
further disguises the address.
If
you have problems with this just use the
View Source feature of your browser and CUT&PASTE
the following
and replace the names to reflect yourself!
GOOD LUCK & HELP OBLITERATE THE SPAM!
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More to follow as the need
arises!
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