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500 Tips
Daily NewsTo have your schedule greet you every time your start Windows, put File Manager and Program Manager side by side on your Windows desktop, then drag and drop the name of your calendar file (the one with the CAL extension) into your StartUp group. Cardfile House of CardsBecause Windows' Cardfile restricts you to 1,260 cards per document, you may end up with several CRD files. Create a new CRD file, then add one card for each of the CRD files. From File Manager, drag each existing CRD file and drop it on the corresponding card in the new file. In theory, this lets you have more than 1.5 -million cards in your new, alphabetized master Cardfile document. Each time you open the master Cardfile document, select Edit/Picture. Then double-click on the CRD file icon of your choice. Configuring Cardfile DialingIf your modem doesn't make a connection when you use Autodial from Cardfile, you may have a problem with COM port configuration settings. From the Card menu, choose Autodial, and click on Setup. For most configurations, the settings should be: Data Bits-8, Parity-None, Stop Bits-1 or Data Bits-7, Parity-Even and Stop Bits-1. Character (Map's) TraitsTo get an enlarged view of the characters in a document, hold down the left mouse button while passing the cursor over the characters in Character Map. Stay on Top of TimeTo keep the Windows clock in view at all times, open the Clock, then size and place it where you want. Open Clock's Control menu, select Always On Top; double-click on the clock face to get rid of the title bar. Finally, add CLOCK.EXE to the Run= line of the WIN.INI file. Multimedia MailE-mail doesn't have to be all boring text; you can use Media Player to incorporate multimedia. Open Media Player, select File/Open, then find the file you want to send--WAV, MIDI or AVI. Select Edit/Options; deselect Caption and Border around object, but select Play in client document. Click on OK and select Edit/Copy. In your e-mail app, select Edit/Paste Special, then send your mail. Don't Be Without SoundMedia Player can't play an audio CD if the line CDAudio=0 appears in the MPLAYER.INI file. This line appears if a problem occurs when the SYSTEM.INI file is written, if the MPLAYER.INI file is updated or if there's a problem with the CD-ROM drivers. The CD Audio driver can be disabled if the CD-ROM drivers (including MSCDEX) are not loaded when Media Player is started, or if there's a hardware problem when the SYSTEM.INI is updated. Media Player updates the MPLAYER.INI file after any changes are made to the SYSTEM.INI file and changes the CDAudio=17 (enabled) line to CDAudio=0 (disabled) if Windows is unable to detect the presence of the CD-ROM player. If the problem persists, rename MPLAYER.INI to MPLAYER.PSS, put an audio disk in the drive and restart Media Player. On some systems, if there's no disk in the CD-ROM drive, CDAudio=0 appears in the MPLAYER.INI file when the SYSTEM.INI file is updated. The SYSTEM.INI file may be updated this way if you use the Windows Setup program to install a new driver when there is no disk in the CD-ROM drive. If this occurs, the CD Audio is disabled. So make sure the drive has a disk loaded before you start Media Player. Timely NotesUse Notepad to help keep track of your jottings. Type .LOG as the first line in a text file. Every time you open that file, Notepad will put the time and date at the bottom of the file (with the cursor right below it). Taking Note of MemoryIf you use Notepad for copious notes, you may run into low memory messages even if you have sufficient memory available. This is because Notepad won't open a file larger than 54KB or let you edit a file larger than 45KB. If you go over these limits, Notepad says you're out of memory. The solution is either to delete some text, start a new file or use a more capable applet like Write. Spitting ImageIt's easy to copy a Paintbrush image--just press and hold the Ctrl key as you drag the image to its new location. (Pressing and holding the Shift key will leave a trail of the image.) Image AdjustmentFollow these steps to reduce the size of a Paintbrush image: From the View menu, choose Zoom Out. From the Tool menu, choose the Pick tool (scissors and dotted box). The cursor will change to a crosshair which you use to select the whole image by placing it at the upper-left corner of the image and dragging to the lower-right corner while holding the left mouse button. Select Edit/Cut, and then View/Zoom In. Then, select Edit/Paste. The Pick option on the control bar will become available. Click on Pick and choose Clear. From the Pick menu, choose Shrink And Grow. Set the size, shape and position of the image by placing the mouse crosshair at the position where you want the upper left corner of the image to appear and drag the cursor down to the right corner while holding the left mouse button. From the Tool menu, choose the Pick tool and select the shrunken portion of the image. From the Edit menu, choose Cut. From the File menu, choose New. (When asked "Save Current Image?", select No.) Finally, from the Edit menu, choose Paste. Recorder OrderView events that have been stored in a Recorder macro file. First, run Recorder, then open the file with the macro you want to view; select from the specific macro you want to see (if there's more than one in the file). While holding Shift, choose Properties from the Macro menu. This brings up a dialog box that shows all the recorded steps in the macro. Silence Is GoldenYou can add to Sound Recorder's default maximum recording time. Click on Record, but don't record anything--just silence--for the entire minute, then save the file as BLANK.WAV. Subsequently, every time you want a longer recording time, open BLANK.WAV, select Edit/Insert File and insert BLANK.WAV once for every extra minute you want to add to the maximum recording time. Instant NetTo create a quick "network," all you need is two PCs with modems and phone lines. To connect the PCs, open Terminal on both systems and select Settings/Terminal Preferences. In the CR -> CR/LF box, select both Inbound and Outbound. Select Settings/Communications and make sure both systems have the same Baud Rate setting. To have one PC call the other, the caller selects Settings/Phone Number, types the other PC's number, then selects Phone/Dial. The recipient types ATSO=1 when "ring" appears on screen. Whatever you type on one PC will appear on both screens. use the Transfers menu to send and receive files. Write OnWhen you create a header or footer in Microsoft Windows Write, you can use ALT+F6 to go back and forth between the dialog box and the header or footer text. Write PicturesTo capture and print screens, use Windows Write rather than Paintbrush. First, copy the image to Windows' Clipboard by pressing the Print Screen key (to capture the active window only, hold the Alt key when you press Print Screen). Launch Write, and select Edit/ Paste. Since Write is a word processor, you can add a title or other text. Select File/Print to send the image to your printer. (This process works with any word processor that supports OLE.) Selection PerfectionWrite doesn't have a Select All option, but you can select the whole document anyway. Move the cursor to the left side of the Write document until it turns into a right-pointing arrow. Hold the Ctrl key, and click the left mouse button once To select a single line, place the cursor to the left of the line, then click the left mouse button. To select all the text from the cursor to the end of the document, place the cursor to the left of the document, hold Ctrl+Shift and click the left mouse button. To select text from the cursor to the end of a line, place the cursor on that line, hold Shift and click the left mouse button. And to select text from a specific line to the cursor, place the mouse arrow on that line, hold the Shift key and click the left mouse button. [ Go to 500 Tips Table of Contents ]
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