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THE ICON MARCH 2008 EDITION
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WINDOWS SIG - MARCH, 2008
by Mary Phillips
E-mail Mary
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| Q. How do I tell which way to plug in a USB flash drive or other USB peripheral? |
A. . Look for the seam in the metal that wraps around the connector, that’s also where the pad is that has to match up with the pad in the USB port of the computer. On the other end of the cable, the one that goes into a printer or other hardware, notice that one side is rounded and can go in only one way. Thanks to June Easley for pointing this out. I checked my flash drives and cables, and all but one have the seam on the bottom.
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| Q. Where is the Run command? |
A. In XP, it’s on the Start menu—Start—Run and (type in the name of the feature you want to run such as msconfig or regedit). In Vista, it has been moved to the Accessories list—Start—Accessories—Run.
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| Q. Why do I continually get the message, "To help protect your security, Internet Explorer has blocked this website from displaying content with security certificate errors. Click here for options…”? It’s driving me crazy. |
A. It’s because of a security setting in Internet Options. Go to Start—Control Panel—Internet Options, Security tab. Click on "Trusted sites” under the large green check mark, then click on the button that says "Sites.” Uncheck the box beside the words, "Require server verification (https:) for all sites in the zone.” Click Close and OK. Now when the "blocked” message comes up and you’re on one of your regular sites, highlight the address in the address bar, press Ctrl + C to copy to the Trusted sites, and press Ctrl + V to paste the address into the box under "Add this website to the zone.” Click Add, Close, and OK. The "s” in https: means "secure,” and it should always be present anytime you’re making financial transactions. Examples: https://www.paypal.com/ or https://ecom.cnbnetbank.com/. There should also be a padlock  . |
| Q. Should I let the battery on my laptop run all the way down before recharging it? |
| A. According to PC World magazine, nickel cadmium batteries were the ones that "remembered,” and if you recharged the battery before it was all the way down, it would remember that it held only that much charge and would hold the charge for less and less time. But with the use of lithium ion batteries, the opposite is true, and I quote: "Draining the battery can shorten its life. So avoid letting the charge drop below 10 percent. Heat affects lithium ion batteries, too. A laptop battery will last longer if you remove it before running the notebook for lengthy periods on AC power." This being the case, when we are going to be using the computer for several hours on AC power, like on our second and fourth Saturday meetings, we should remove the battery unless it needs to be charged. |
| Q. Can I use my computer as an alarm clock? |
A. Yes. If you’re especially creative, you can design your own with a batch file, a media player (Winamp), some music files, and a scheduled task (http://cbll.net/articles/alarmclock-windows).  Or, if you have the Windows Media Center XP Edition, there is a power toy for the sidebar. Or you can download a little freeware program. I needed an alarm to tell me when to check an eBay auction and downloaded Alarm Clock v0.5 by Surber Software from C/Net. All it requires is for you to set the time, check the On box, and be alerted at the set time. Sounded like all you-know-what had broken loose. I won the auction!
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