Explore the World of Software 2: Kids, Adults, Educational

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████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ TIPS, TRICKS AND TRAPS - SECRETS FOR EVERY BEGINNER PLUS A SECTION ON ENVIRONMENTALLY SAFE COMPUTING! ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ Sometimes it takes months or years to stumble onto the ESSENTIAL tips, tricks and traps with which every new PC user should become acquainted. Let's discuss a few of the more important items which never seem to be covered adequately in the instruction book which arrives with the computer . . . Don't experiment with ORIGINAL copies of your files! If you want to tinker with a word processing file or slice and dice your accounting data FIRST make a floppy or hard disk copy of the file and then work on the COPY in case something goes wrong. That way you will have the original to fall back on in case you need it. Don't buy floppy disks when the price is too good to believe. If your data is worth anything at all, a few pennies more can make the difference between having that important business letter obtainable or a dreaded error message on the screen that your file format is unreadable just when you needed that file at 3 AM. Make backup copies of important files. If the data is REALLY important, keep yet a second or third copy in a safe deposit box in case your home or office burns down! Sounds a little severe, but just wait until you discover the joy of doing your income tax return on your PC (fantastic compared to the old pen and pencil way) and then discover somehow the ONLY copy of the file is no good when the IRS decides to perform a routine audit! For backup you might want to switch from the COPY command to the sensational DOS XCOPY command (available in DOS versions 3.2 and later) which also allows file copying and backup using additional parameter switches which you can read about in your DOS manual. For example the /S switch used with XCOPY will copy all files from your subdirectories to the new target disk. Adding /P to XCOPY will cause a pause at each step to ask whether you want each file copied. Using the /D switch followed by a date will allow you to copy only those files created or modified on that date or later. All three of these switches can be used in tandem. Here's a standard tip which is so simple most people overlook it. Whenever you buy a box of new diskettes, FORMAT them immediately. Why? Reason one: you will find out if any disks are bad and be able to return to the store rather than be down to your last (surprise: defective!) disk when you need it. Reason two: usually you are right in the middle of a long word processed document and need to save the file, but WHOOPS, your current disk is full. No problem. Just reach into the desk drawer and grab an empty floppy disk. SURPRISE! The floppy disk is NOT FORMATTED which forces you to exit your word processor, lose the data permanently from RAM memory, and format the disk just as you should have in the first place. Beginners luck, I guess. . . Here's an extremely important tip most beginners should consider: AT class computers and those containing a 80286 CPU chip also contain a special battery to maintain the "setup configuration." This battery will eventually die and thus cause you to lose your important setup data. The first sign that your battery is going are mysterious losses of time and dates. Other "strange" data losses may start to occur. Eventually your computer will even refuse to start! Preventative maintenance suggests that you dig around on your DOS disk(s) and locate the SETUP program. Run setup and when you see the configuration report screen (lots of funny numbers and settings), hit the SHIFT-PRTSC (Shift key and Print Screen key pressed at the same time). This will force a printout of the valuable setup data to paper. You can also obtain shareware and commercial software programs that will store this data to disk. Most experienced users deal with the situation by making a copy of this setup data onto a "safety disk." If your battery dies, you will be able to quickly reconstruct the setup data from your paper sheet or safety disk after replacing the battery and running the setup program (or safety disk backup program.) A better method, of course, is to realize that the battery contained inside the computer lasts for about 2 to 4 years and simply keep a record (much like oil changes on your car) and manually replace it well before the deadline. Of course when you replace it, run the setup program and record the setup data on paper, since once you remove the battery the data will be lost from memory. You might investigate newer battery systems which automatically recharge themselves from the power source of the computer and thus never need replacement. IBM originally designed this feature, by the way, to supplant the older "dip switch system" on the first PC's. In older computers of the XT design, a user had to remove the PC cover and carefully set tiny switches deep inside the computer whenever a different circuit board or monitor system was used. This was tedious, so the electronic equivalent of the tiny swtiches were created in memory and stored with a battery system (when the comptuer was shut down). This allowed users to change the setup from the keyboard using the DOS setup program from the DOS disk rather than removing the cover and fiddling with switches. The downside is that now we must replace the battery periodically and of course record the setup data on paper or disk. Technology marches on! Beginners also need to know about the alternate keyboard. Sometimes you need a special symbol like the cents sign or the one half numerical symbol. Here they are: ¢ ½ The secret worth sharing with beginners is that there is an "alternate keyboard system" built into your PC. The source is a special ASCII chart of information in your DOS manual (and many computer books in the appendix) which shows you the alternate or extended ASCII characters. It's very easy: while you are in your word processor or other program, press AND CONTINUOUSLY HOLD DOWN the Alt key and then USING ONLY THE NUMBER KEYS ON THE NUMERIC KEYPAD (to the right of the keyboard - not the normal number keys above the keyboard) hit the three digit DECIMAL number code of the special character you want. For example, from the ASCII table in the back of my DOS manual I note that the symbol for the British currency Pound is decimal code 156. I hold down the Alt key and press the three numbers 156 on the numeric keypad and I get: £ There are many useful symbols for foreign languages, math, fractions, foreign currency, symbols to draw boxes and lines and so forth in this extended character keyboard system. You'll note that I use a wide bar in PC-LEARN to denote chapter headings like this: ██████████████████████████ I construct that symbol by using the alternate keyboard to make this: █ (code 219) then I put several exactly side by side to make the final bar! Note: these special symbols will usually print properly on your screen but may NOT always print properly on your printer since some are used for special control codes and other activities. Many will, however work quite well on both your screen and printer. Give it a try and jot down the codes for the most interesting symbols and keep it near your keyboard! Absolutely lethal trick: If you get the message ABORT, RETRY IGNORE? from DOS while you are attempting to copy files from one drive or disk to another DO NOT EVER switch disks in the target drive (i.e., the drive to which files will be sent) then answer RETRY. If you do, you will end up with a hopelessly scrabled mess on the target disk if it already has important files in place. This can occur, for example, when you try to copy files to a disk which has a write protect tab in place. Your temptation might be to insert another different disk and retry. However, when DOS copies files, it first reads the directory of the target disk and stores it in memory. If you switch disks, the in-memory copy of the directory of the OLD disk will overwrite the directory of the new disk. Best situation in this case is to answer abort and rekey the operation again (shortcut with DOS is hit F3 to automatically reissue the last command) then try another disk, if necessary. There are other ways this dangerous sitation might arise besides a write protect tab, so be careful. Don't install or change add-in circuit boards or cards within your computer with the power on. And be extremely careful about static electricity. Try to briefly touch a metal ground such as a lamp or metal window frame to discharge stray static electricity before you touch your fingers inside the PC. Static electricity discharges can blow out one or several integrated circuit chips and leave you with a repair bill of $300 or more! If you ever see the message: ARE YOU SURE (Y/N)? always answer no unless you really know what is going to happen next! This sort of message usually precedes disaster as DOS prepares to delete all of the files on a floppy disk or format your hard drive and wipe out all data. Don't invite dumb power problems. You are typing the last draft of a valuable client contract and your 30 foot long power cord dangles in front of both family cats on its meandering way across the middle of the living room carpet to the wall socket. It is plugged into a rat's nest of four way plug adapters along with high-current drawing air conditioners and toaster ovens. This is a great way to send your data to toaster heaven while we are on the subject. Treat your hard drive with EXTREME tender loving care while it is spinning. No bumps, jolts, slams or ramma-lamma-ding-dongs! One little bump will send the read/write heads plowing into the spinning disk surface. Kind of like a 747 jet crash into the library of congress. Translation: large data catastrophe! If your data is sensitive and you lock the keyboard with that cute little key which slips into the front panel of your machine, DON'T forget to remove the mouse or other input devices. Since a mouse is an alternate input device, a savvy user can easily direct the computer to spill forth its information even while the keyboard is locked. Use the DOS command DISKCOPY in ONLY two cases: to make a backup copy of new commercial software OR when you have somehow damaged a disk and want to work on it with the Norton utilities or some other fixit program. For all other copies you are safer to use the COPY or XCOPY command. Reason? DISKCOPY does not remove file fragmentation which COPY does. Second reason? DISKCOPY can attempt to copy good information onto a target disk sector which has formatted bad or is otherwise unavailable to DOS. Use COPY *.* to copy all files on a disk and you will simultaneously copy everything and unfragment the files. Two operations for the price of one! Thunderstorm coming? Shut down the computer and unplug it from the wall INCLUDING the modem or telephone line! LIghtning hits to the power or phone line send very high voltages hurtling down the wire. If you prefer you can leave the computer plugged in and chose as to whether you wish your PC scrambled, sunnyside up or just deep fried! Never switch or remove disks in the middle of an aborted program operation. If for some reason you get an error message in the middle of a file copying session or disk writing operation, don't swap in another disk! DOS may think the old disk is still there and continue to write the remainder of the data over something valuable on the new disk! Better to stop what you are doing and issue a non-writing command such as VER or DIR or even shut down the computer in extreme situations rather than mangle two disks with misinformation. Be careful using the DOS commands ASSIGN, FORMAT and RECOVER. Especially if you are being a little too clever and change disk drive letters with the DOS commands ASSIGN, JOIN and SUBST. What happens is that you might temporarily rename your hard drive the B: drive and then absent-mindedly try to format B: or recover B: which will lead to a lot of deleted data on your hard drive. Generally the RECOVER command is best removed from your DOS subdirectory and never used. It is just too dangerous! If you delete some files by accident, Norton Utilities, PC Tools and several other utility programs can bring them back if you are quick to use them and haven't created or changed any files since the accident. Best to go out and get a copy of Norton, PC Tools or a shareware unerase utility (e.g., Bakers Dozen) before the need arises. Then practice using them on a dummy disk for the likely day you need them. Be careful when using the powerful DOS redirection and piping commands discussed in our earlier DOS tutorial. (example) a>sort < this.doc (sorts contents of this.doc on column one and displays contents on the monitor - a nice idea!) (example) a>sort > this.doc (trashes any existing this.doc and gives it a file length of zero! Bad news!) The same advice also applies to using the MORE command with redirection arrows < > since you can likewise wipe out data files. Watch the direction of those cute little redirection arrows! Same thing applies to using the redirection arrows when you write batch files. Look at the sample line from a batch file listing below: (example) ECHO --------> This message is important! In the above example, DOS will erroneously think the little > redirection symbol is telling it to create a file named THIS and use ECHO to redirect text from that line of the batch file into the file. A goofy, dangerous result! Another good boner is the following batch file example: (example) REM Now use the c>prompt to return to program system. The above perfectly innocent batch file line creates a file called PROMPT because DOS spots the > symbol and does what you told it to do! Instructions mean business! If program documentation says MUST BE USED ON A COLOR MONITOR don't try to run it on your hercules or monochrome system. Software can indeed destroy a monitor and it only takes a second! Know what your monitor and display card can handle and be SURE that the intended software matches hardware capabilities. If you use a RAMDISK to hold data be sure to stop every half hour and copy the information into a more permanent floppy or hard disk area in case of power failures. In fact every half hour, check to see that your data from ANY program is transferred to magnetic disk. No exceptions! For those using the newer disks having 1.44 Meg and 720 K sizes - those little plastic diskettes - don't swap and mix formats willy nilly. Label the diskettes clearly and know the format density (1.44M or 720K) with which you are working. If data is sensitive and you want it GONE from snooping eyes, use a utility like Norton's WIPEFILE to truly delete it from the disk so an office curiosity seeker can't bring it back with an unerase utility! Likewise, some word processors create backup files having the extension BAK. You may think you have deleted that sensitive client proposal when a second document CLIENT.BAK also exists! DOS manuals make reference to the VERIFY command. You can add the /V switch to the COPY command to supposedly verify the accuracy of the second file copy. Likewise you can turn VERIFY ON and VERIFY OFF from within your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Unfortunately, the VERIFY command does a rudimentary CRC check which can test only gross errors in file transfers. To be sure the second copy is good, use the COMP command which, although slow, is deadly reliable when you "gotta be sure." The FC command found in MSDOS versions is even better and DOS manuals discuss its use. Likewise use the DISKCOMP command whenever you use DISKCOPY if you absolutely have to be certain that the second diskette is PERFECTLY identical to the first. ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ ENVIRONMENTALLY SAFE COMPUTING FROM THE PC-LEARN COMPUTER BEGINNERS TUTORIAL DISK POB 1506, MERCER ISLAND, WA 98040 206/236-0470 ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ Computing has impacts on the earth and I would like to share a few constructive suggestions and tips about saving resources and protecting the environment. Computing uses paper. Keep two wastebaskets by your desk and recycle. Same for cardboard packing boxes and packing materials which arrive with computing equipment. But let's go a little deeper with the paper issue: Do you really need to print on multiple part carbonless forms and heavyweight computer paper? I use a lightweight 18# paper in my little dot matrix printer. How about carbonless and two part forms? The chemicals used in the manufacture of carbonless paper are toxic. Do you really need a two part form (or 6 part form in the case of some corporations which go wild with multipart forms?) Why not see if a single part form can be made with a tear off stub or perhaps a file saving feature in the software that traps the data and saves it to disk for "your copy" of the form? Just like banks: ask the customer if they want their checks back: meaning does your customer need seven copies of a form or will your monthly invoice statement cover the bill? Environmentally responsible computing also means ONLY upgrading machines when you really need to or buying a used computer. Here's why: the manufacture of integrated cirucits used in computers uses large amounts of concentrated acids, gasses and caustic chemicals. These are stored, recycled or (hopefully) dumped into approved waste sites in normal practice, but the point is do you really need the latest machine and its impact on our planet given the toxic nature of computer manufacturing processes? PC-LEARN is programmed on an XT class machine. I don't need anything better, and when I do, I hope to find a USED "recycled" computer of higher quality rather than buying a new one. Same with printers, modems and so forth! Here in Seattle, several computer brokers specialize in reselling used computers on consignment. Head that direction for your next purchase! It's less expensive and helps the planet! As a commercial photographer by training, I use a Seattle film lab for some of my photo processing. The lab uses an 8 1/2 by 11 inch TWO part carbonless form to log in each order, they later mail me a THREE part carbonless invoice for EACH order within a few days by mail, then a final billing statement at the end of the month AND they have 4 computer terminals in the order processing customer counter area of the lab! I am sure their accounting is extraordinarilly well documented, but there may not be enough trees on this earth to support this kind of "information flow" if every business operated this way. I could do with a small claim stub when I drop off my film, a little itemization printed on the paper envelope which contains the finished order and perhaps a monthly statement printed on recycled paper to summarize the account activity. The ironic footnote is that the same lab has a sign promiently posted in the lobby as to willingness to accept cardboard and plastic (from things like film containers) for the benefit of the environment! Clearly the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing and sadly computers are pushing the waste factor in this real life example. If you suspect I am beating the environmental drum too loudly, back up and consider the financial COST to an operation like the film lab mentioned above. Unwise from the financial end and equally unwise from the environmental end. Computing uses electricity. If you are just stepping out of the office for a half hour or so, it is probably best for the machine to leave it on and the hard drive spinning to prevent the wear and tear of machine startup which eventually wears out a hard drive. However, turn off the monitor if you are away for even short periods using its own separate power switch (leaving the PC on) even if you use screen blanker software since the monitor is still drawing power! When should you turn off the machine completely? Use the two hour rule: if you are away from the PC NO MORE than two hours, leave the machine on. If away MORE than two hours, shut it off. Also factor in the dust argument which follows: Don't leave a PC on all night or LONG periods of time. The dust sucked through your machine by constant fan use will more than offset the savings in wear and tear you may gain by leaving the hard drive spinning! The dust impacts the power supply which is the heart of the system. If the power supply goes bad due to overheating (because of a thick blanket of internal dust) it can destroy your entire PC! For the curious or mechanically adept, open the power supply WITH ALL APPROPRIATE PRECAUTIONS IN AN UNPLUGGED AND COMPLETELY DISCHARGED MACHINE. You will be stunned by the dust you see! I regularly take my pc and power supply cover off and give the internals a LIGHT blast of compressed air (not ozone-destroying freon) to free the dust and help the machine run cooler. I do this every six months. Do a calculation for your office on your PC: how much wattage does an average PC in your office draw per hour? How many PC's in your office? What is the TOTAL economic cost leaving them ALL on during the night (12 hours?) versus turning them off? Now how much a month, then how much a year. Finally, multiply by the cost per killowatt hour for cost per year. This doesn't even consider maintenance savings or waste - just electricity! Plastics and computing are everywhere. Talk to a recycler and see if they can accept polyethelene packing bags, stryrofoam packing, printer cartridges and so forth. If you are involved in large corporate purchases, ask the vendor to supply a one page sheet describing how they use LESS in an environmentally safe way in providing your computing equipment needs (e.g., do they use popcorn from a growing plant (which is now common) rather than styrofoan chips for packing, do they recycle paper in their organization, etc.)? Vendors just might take notice if large organizations asked for a one page "computing impact statement" from each computing supplies vendor. If your vendor doesn't know what you mean by a "computing impact statement," send THIS printout as an example and ask them again for their statement. Try to recharge printer ink cartridges if possible. Same with laser printers. A nutty but workable method of recharging a FABRIC printer cartridge is to take it outside, lay it on a piece of newspaper, pry off the plastic cartridge lid and lightly spray the ribbon with the lubricant WD-40. Replace the lid of the printer cartridge and allow a few hours for the WD-40 oil to redistribute ink from the edges of the ribbon (where the printhead does NOT strike the ribbon) to the center strip of the ribbon. Recharged cartridges at the cost of a few pennies of WD-40! This method works best with cloth fabric ribbons not mylar ribbons, but I am told a few people have even tried this with the mylar ribbons too. Professinal ink and ribbon recharge companies exist, invesgate this option! Consider using shareware rather than commercial software. How does this positively affect the environment? Simple. Shareware uses simple packaging or NONE AT ALL since it frequently travels electronically by BBS/modem methods, isn't returned to the wholesaler to be sent to the garbage dump if too many packages are manufactured, supports a small software programmer who has less impact on the earth as a single human being rather than a large corporation and provides you with high quality at a fair price which goes well with the environmental features. This isn't just a sales pitch, shareware DOES have less negative impact on the environment than commercial software! Speaking of laser printers, the environmental cost and economic cost is NOT favorable. Toner, paper, electricity, everything about lasers is less favorable to the earth. Use a humble dot matrix printer unless you are ready for the final draft. Lasers need more maintenance, too. Finally people are forever buying MORE plastic font cartridges and upgrades for lasers. Back to the paper issue. Do you really need to send a memo or submit a rough draft on paper? Can you get the boss to accept the memo on disk and teach the boss how to use a simple file browser to read the file? Pick up the phone and call with the information, it is a lot faster, more human and socialable and saves resources. Let's talk about envelopes: if your office uses window style envelopes for billings or mailings, try to design or use window envelopes WITH EMPTY WINDOW OPENINGS RATHER THAN CLEAR PLASTIC WINDOW OPENINGS. The billing address peeks out the front just the same and becomes recycleable! Plastic containing envelopes cannot be recycled. Otherwise try to pre-print the address on the return envelope - anything but plastic windows. FAX processes are wonderful. Investiage FAXing onto disk (using a FAX board installed in your computer) rather than paper printouts of FAXES. This produces an electronic FAX file which is saved on disk rather than printing on paper. Do you program or sell software? Why not recycle disks? Simply slap your new label over that old disk no longer needed and add a line that "this is a recycled disk" on the bottom of your disk label or jacket. Most folks approve of greeting cards printed on recycled paper. Do you really need to use a fresh new disk to impress your client when a recycled one with a new label will do? Keep your keyboard, computer and printer clean. Once in a while vacuum or dust out the power supply which collects loads of dust. Reason: you prevent breakdowns which require repairs or scrapping of the computer. End result: more earth resources used which could have been prevented in the first place with a little preventative maintenance. Look at your software and documentation shelf. Stacks of old computer magazines and documentation pile up! Have a once a month PC recycling party where you rip out pages from documnetation and magazines you really need and recycle the remains. Same goes for old disks, binders, the works. Donations. If computers help you make money, and they do, set aside a small contribution to the non-profit group of your choice which is involved in conservation and recycling. Submit suggestions for this little part of the PC-LEARN tutorial on "how your office saves the earth using computers WISELY." I'll try to insert it if valuable and of course, it will float all over the world on BBS systems and shareware distribution points so your small or large suggestion WILL possibly make a difference to somebody in Brazil or China. PC-LEARN is a shareware package which lives electronically on the Compuserve network which is accessed by people all over the world! If possible, send your suggestion on disk in ASCII using your wordprocessor so I can electronically merge it. Then I will put the LATEST copy of PC-LEARN on the disk you sent and return it in your own recycled disk mailer if you also enclose a couple of stamps! Don't compute when you don't need to! Sometimes it is too easy to turn on the machine and bang out a spreadsheet or draft a memo. Can you solve the problem with your BRAIN or grab your rolodex to find that phone number? Our brains our much more capable than the most modern computer. What can you do better by leaving the machine OFF and not using electricity, paper, plastic, ink and toner? Finally, turning off the computer means we spend a few minutes with each other, rather than our (let's face it) addictive computers. You just may come up with a solution to that budget problem by visting with a collegue at the next desk rather than recalulating that monster spreadsheet for the millionth time trying to find an optimum budget solution for the office. The vast majority of business problems are solved by CREATIVITY which organic brains do best! Print (on paper, unfortunately) this little section of the PC-LEARN computer tutorial and place it on the company bulletin board. This is a win/win situation: your co-workers will start to think about earth conscious computing and if more beginners will use PC-LEARN they will learn how to use a computer more efficiently SOONER and thus WASTE LESS paper, electricity and natural resources, does that make sense? Computer beginners can waste a lot of paper, money, time and electricity learning how to use a computer. If PC-LEARN helps them learn faster, then they should waste less and become proficient more quickly! Consider renting computer equipment for short term and special projects. Obviously you can save money in most cases, but the larger issue is that you don't impact the environment by using resources for something you can share that computer equipment with many other people via a rental arrangement. When you print lengthy documents from a disk to paper, investigate clever software products (many of them shareware) which allow you to print FOUR pages in tiny but readible typeface and on BOTH SIDES of the paper. Another idea: help me connect with people to translate PC-LEARN into foregin languages. Computers are everywhere and many people cannot find out about this list or the concept of computing with minimum environmental impact because as Americans we think that English is dominant. Environmentally sensitive computing takes many forms in many languages! Non-english speaking countries may need help with environmentally conscious computing concepts, and I can't speak or understand all of the wonderful languages the world has to offer! But you can bet PC-LEARN will float around and find a computer - I have to date received registrations from customers as far away as Australia, Saudi Arabia, Africa and China! Sadly, people in those countries have to read it in English . . . Add your suggestion here or mail it to me. You do not need to be a registered user of PC-LEARN to submit a suggestion to this section!