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Our Top Internet Information Sites 2005

We started publishing this list about three years ago. I fully admit that I am an information junkie and enjoy finding the answers to questions as soon as they come up. I tend to use a core group of sites to find my information. In this list you will see some perennial favorites and some new ones that I started using over the past year.

In no particular order, my favorite information gathering web sites are:

  • Google – Hands down the best place to start when you are searching the Internet

Another Safe Mode Boot Command

I mention entering Safe Mode many times on the show to help people solve problems or perform system utilities. Safe Mode is used when there may be a problem with your monitor or other device drivers required to start Windows normally. Safe Mode uses default settings and a minimum amount of device drivers to run Windows.

The screen, in safe mode, displays only 16 colors (ugly) and all the icons seem out of place and abnormally large. In safe mode, Windows prevents access to CD-ROM’s, modems, sound cards and other hardware ‘extras’. 

I usually recommend users press F8 after the machine starts to boot up. However, I recently discovered another method of getting into Safe Mode. All you need to do is hold down the CTRL key at the first sign of any text on the screen during boot until the Microsoft Windows 98 Startup Menu appears.

This method may be easier than the F8 method because of the timing involved using the F8 key…start pushing the key too late and Windows will boot into normal mode.

Again, safe mode is primarily for troubleshooting purposes or performing some key system utilities that don’t run for you in regular mode. Here are some past tips where we mention Safe Mode:

Resize an emailed photo for printing

Have you ever been frustrated when trying to view or print a picture that you received via email?

Today’s tip will solve this annoying problem for you quickly and almost effortlessly.

1. When you receive one of these large pictures, save it to your hard drive (and remember where it is).
2. Start Microsoft Word (Word Perfect and newer versions of Works will work as well).
3. Click on Insert –> Picture –> from file from the menus
4. Click in the “Look in” box and navigate to where you saved the photo
5. Double-click on your photo
6. Word automatically resizes the photo to fit in the document.

Unblocking Attachments in Outlook Express

Many computer users over the past few months lost the ability to receive attachments normally in Outlook Express for seemingly no reason. As with all problems, there is a cause. In this case, the loss of attachments starts after a Windows Update session or an upgrade to the latest version of Internet Explorer/Outlook Express. Microsoft decided that since attachments can bring along a virus, by default they would prevent attachments altogether from reaching users of Outlook Express. The sentiment is admirable, but the execution is flawed.

Fortunately, you can reverse the process and get your email attachments normally again. Start Outlook Express and follow these steps:

Use Email Filters to Organize Email

If you receive more than a few email per day, you could probably benefit from using email filters. All major email programs can be used to look at your email as it comes in and then shift it to a designated folder or even delete it.

Before starting to use a filter, set up some email folders to organize your messages. Simply having an Inbox that collects all incoming mail can be cumbersome to work with and makes it easy to lose important messages.

In my email program, I have set up over 25 folders that collect and organize everything from listener mail, newsletters, daily tips that I receive, mail from specific contacts and more. When I check for email, the program applies the rules (filters) that I have setup and shifts the mail to where it belongs.

Cookies…are they dangerous, harmless or do they just taste good?

Cookies are small (very small…hundreds of cookies will take up less than a tenth of a megabyte on your hard drive) text files that are deposited on our computer systems by some web sites. For example, the polling service I use for our listener poll will deposit a cookie on your hard drive to prevent more than
one vote per question, but that is all it does.

In the majority of cases, cookies pose no threat to you, your computer, or your privacy. Cookies contain as little data as your Internet providers identifying address or your name and preferences for a web site (like Amazon.com or a personalized Yahoo! page). There have been instances of some advertising
companies attempting to ‘track’ your whereabouts on the web, but again it is more your ‘number’ than you and the data collected is for statistical information only. And to reiterate, cookie files take up a minuscule amount of your hard drive space.

Windows XP Makes Computing Easier

When Microsoft released the latest version of Windows in October ’01, one of the most touted features was its redesigned user interface. The press and reviewers of the software initially called the interface “Fisher Price” like, but after working with the operating system over the past four months, I have come to appreciate some of the new usability features.

Some basic computing functions like renaming, copying, and even deleting files remain elusive to many computer users. The new “Explorer Bar” that runs vertically along almost every window in Windows XP addresses the problem quite admirably. For example, in the My Documents folder (or any other folder for that matter), one click buttons along the left side of the window offer easy access to functions such as moving, copying, printing, deleting, and even emailing files.

Quick Tweaks to Make Windows Snap

When I make a house or office call during the week to work on a computer, I almost always run through a few quick tweaks to make Windows perform just a little bit better. No matter how new a computer may be, it can’t be too fast. Try these tweaks on your computer to see if you can eek out a little more performance.
Disable Visual Effects

Starting with Windows 98 Second Edition, Microsoft added visual effects to menus and windows that do nothing but make us wait a little longer to perform our computing tasks. To cut down on these visual effects, do the following:

1. RIGHT Click on a blank part of the desktop

Power Toys for Windows (Windows 98)

Many computer users enjoy tweaking and customizing their computers. However, at times, this can cause problems with the performance and even the operation of the computer. 

Power Toys is an unofficial add-on (meaning Microsoft does not officially support it even though they include it on the Windows 98 CD)  to Windows. Power Toys allows you to adjust items like:

Mouse
General
Explorer
Internet Explorer
Desktop
My Computer 		Control Panel
Network
New menu
Add/Remove menu
Boot
Repair
Paranoia