Month: September 2007

…… XTREE Gold!! Hello? What was wrong with Win 3.1 File manager? People said that it didn’t do much. No kidding! It was a file manager. What did anybody expect? To see it move around the screen like the Windows screensaver clock? I could never quite work out why it was not liked. File Manager stored files, listed files, copied files, moved files, showed file size. It managed files. Explorer took over from File manager and lived on way past Xtree Gold, the Windows version summarily buried by Symantec in 1995. Apart from the functions already mentioned with regard to … Continue reading An exciting night in with …..

Microsoft Office 2003 SP3 update has been released recently so, if you are running this version of Office, now is a good time to get it. The easiest way is to open Word 2003, click on HELP and then select ‘Check for Updates’. Having arrived at the Microsoft Office Online web page, close down Word 2003 as the updates will not run with any Office application still open. With the advent of Office 2007, no more development is being done with Office 2003, so this is purely a catch up service pack to date. You will also require the original installation … Continue reading Compatibility and Updates..

I would like to bring your attention to this subject. Users of SpyBot S&D and SpywareBlaster will know that both applications essentially immunize a system against incursion by parasites, assuming that the parasites are known to either application. There is another string you can add to your bow, and it is not so well known, hence the reason for this post. The next paragraph is taken directly from the MVPS Hosts web site.. “What it does …The Hosts file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. This file is loaded into memory (cache) at startup, then Windows checks the Hosts … Continue reading Keeping parasites at bay..

It is widely accepted that a 3rd party firewall has a major advantage over a Windows firewall in that it will warn the user of unsolicited outgoing traffic. The trouble with 3rd party firewalls is that they have a tendency to generate popups advising of some process that is not always clear to the average user. So should you allow or disallow the process? I have absolutely no idea as I can’t see your popup, and even if I could see it, I would not necessarily know to what it related. Worst case is that saying no to it will … Continue reading Phoning Home..

It surprises me that many people do not know about <CTRL> and <SHIFT> when dragging files around their systems. For those of you who still do not know, dragging + <CTRL> results in a copy of files to wherever you drop them and dragging + <SHIFT> moves the files to wherever you drop them. These conditions applied to Windows 9x family and Windows NT family up to and including XP. I haven’t included Vista because these conditions do not always work. Drag + <SHIFT> sometimes only leaves copies, and sometimes will not do anything at all.  I haven’t  always moved … Continue reading To Move or to copy or not..