Remove underline from
internet links - HTML editing
Shortcut to shut Windows
98 down fast
Clear Netscape cache,
history, memory and drop down List
Don't delete all those
fonts
Computer system file
backup
Cascade control panel
Properties for multiple
hard drives
Access desktop from
run command
MS CONFIG to select
startup programs
End task to recover
from lock up
Enlarge windows scrollbars
Move active window
with the keyboard
Open text files with
word pad
Close multiple folders
Edit file types properties
Defrag the swap file
F4 function key in internet
and Windows Explorer
Hidden files
Window's notepad tips
Default directory
for applications
Your own private network
New Windows 95 password
Convert BMP file to
Icon
Add control panel
to the start menu
Print system summary
Icon to restart Windows
Change icons
Registry repair Win
98
Print font
Free up space on hard
drive
Replace start up and
shut down screens with new images
Changing default program
to open with a particular extension
To turn down the volume
on your modem
Create a full-screen
capture in Win95 or 98
Delete scan disk leftovers
Remove warnings from
folders
Faster windows restart
Remove underline from Links - HTML editing
The style attribute text-decoration can
be used to add an underline,
overline, or line-through to the text
on your Web page. This can be
specified using either style sheets or
on the fly in script. The
text-decoration value none removes any
text-decoration that has been
added to your text. Make note of the following,
however, related to the
text-decoration attribute:
1. In addition to the text-decoration values
listed above, the WC3
recommendation includes a blink property
that is not supported in IE 4.
2. Web page designers will sometimes use
the text-decoration attribute
to remove the lines under the links on
their pages. For example, the
following style sheet for the ANCHOR tag
removes all lines under links:
<STYLE>
A {text-decoration:none}
</STYLE>
But removing the lines under links can
be confusing for your readers
since the protocol has always been to
underline links; therefore, using
text-decoration in this way is not generally
advised.
Shut Down Windows 98 Fast
As you may know, when you want to shut
down Microsoft®
Windows® 98, you have to go through
several steps. First you
have to click the Start button and select
the Shut Down command.
When the Shut Down Windows dialog box
appears, you have to
select the Shut Down The Computer option
and then click Yes.
That's four steps.
Fortunately, we've discovered a way to
shut down Windows 98 in
one simple double-click. To implement
this technique, launch the
Create Shortcut wizard by right clicking
on the desktop and
selecting the New/Shortcut command from
the shortcut menu.
Once the Create Shortcut wizard loads,
type c:\windows\rundll.exe
user.exe,exitwindows in the Command Line
text box,. (Make sure
that there isn't a space between the comma
and the exitwindows
parameter otherwise the command won't
work.) To continue, click
Next.
When the next page appears, type Shut Down
Windows 98 NOW! in the Select a Name For the
Shortcut text box and click Finish. Now,
when you're ready to shut down Windows 98, close all
your applications as you normally would,
and then just double-click the new Shut Down Windows
98 NOW! icon windows icon.
Clear Netscape Cache, History, Memory and Drop Down List
To clear Netscape memory cache:
1.Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2.Click the Advanced category.
Then the Cache sub-category.
3.Find the Location Bar History at the
bottom of
the window. Click the
"Clear Memory Cache"
button.
4.Click OK.
To clear Netscape disk cache:
1.Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2.Click the Navigator category.
Then the Cache sub-category.
3.Find the Location Bar History at the
bottom of
the window. Click the
"Clear Disk Cache"
button.
4.Click OK.
To clear Netscape history:
1.Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2.Click the Navigator category.
3.Find History at the bottom of
the window. Click the
"Clear History"
button.
4.Click OK.
To clear Netscape drop-down list:
1.Open the Edit menu and choose Preferences.
2.Click the Navigator category.
3.Find the Location Bar History at the
bottom of
the window. Click the
"Clear Location Bar"
button.
4.Click OK.
Don't Delete all Those Fonts
Before you start deleting all those font
files that make
your system boot slowly, make sure that
Windows doesn't
need them. For example, you should not
delete the following
fonts: Arial, Courier, Marlett, Modern,
MS Sans Serif,
MS Serif (or any font with a name beginning
with "MS"),
Small Fonts, Symbol and Times New Roman.
Also, don't delete
any fonts that start with 8514 or VGA.
You may also have some hidden fonts that
some application
installed and needs, so you don't want
to delete them either.
To identify hidden fonts, open a DOS window
and type
CD \Windows\Fonts to switch to the fonts
directory. Type
DIR /AH and press Enter to see a list
of hidden font files.
Computer System File Backup
Prepare for possible PC catastrophes by
regularly copying the
following files to a second hard drive,
removable hard disk or
diskette-especially if you frequently
install and uninstall
applications. From your root directory
(you may find only some
of these), back up AUTOEXEC.BAT, AUTOEXEC.DOS,
CONFIG.SYS,
CONFIG.DOS and MSDOS.SYS. From your Windows
folder, back up
CONTROL.INI, SYSTEM.INI and WIN.INI, as
well as the SYSTEM.DAT
and USER.DAT Registry files (SYSTEM.DAT
probably won't fit on a
floppy disk).
CASCADE CONTROL PANEL
This is an oldie but goodie, and one of
my personal
favorites. Control Panel is a frequently
used folder
in Windows, but Microsoft hasn't made
it as easy to
access as it should have (well, they do
in Windows
2000). But in about 30 seconds, you can
make Control
Panel cascade from your Start menu simply
and easily.
That means you'll be able to open Add/Remove
Programs, for example, without having
to open or
later close the Control Panel folder.
And with this
tip, even if programs add Control Panel
applets,
they'll show up automatically in the cascading
menu.
Or another way to say that is that it
updates
dynamically.
This is also very easy to set up. Leave
this
newsletter on screen to save time.
1. Highlight the whole line below (but
not the
trailing blank space) and then press Ctrl+C
to copy
it.
Control Panel.{21EC2020-3AEA-1069-A2DD-08002B30309D}
2. Right-click the Start button and choose Open.
3. Right-click anywhere on the background
area in the
START MENU folder and choose New/Folder.
Highlight
the New Folder label, and press Ctrl+V
to paste the
long name you copied.
4. Press Enter. Open the Start menu to
see the new
cascading Control Panel. Another great
way to access
frequently used Control Panels is to just
make
shortcuts of individual applets on Start,
your
Desktop or wherever you need them.
An interesting side note: Windows 95 users
can copy
and paste the special Control Panel filename
from the
TIPS.TXT file found in their WINDOWS folders.
Microsoft removed this tip from the Windows
98
TIPS.TXT file for unknown reasons. I've
never, ever
heard of this one causing a problem. It
works on
Win95, Win98 and SE, NT4 and Win2000.
Properties for Multiple Hard Drives
Here's an easy way to view the properties
for multiple hard
drives all at once. Open My Computer and
select all your hard
drives by holding down the Ctrl key and
clicking on each drive.
Next, right-click on any one of the drives
and choose Properties
from the Context menu that appears; Windows
will create a single
dialog with tabs for each drive. It also
works for floppy,
removable and mapped network drives.
Access Desktop from Run Command
Use the Run command line to get fast access
to your Desktop.
Select Start/Run, type a period in the
command line and hit
Enter. Your WINDOWS\DESKTOP folder will
open instantly.
MSCONFIG
When you hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete, you'll see
a list of what's
running on your system. Chances are, you'll
discover drivers
and programs running that you don't need
or want. To find out,
launch the Win98 System Configuration
utility by typing
MSCONFIG in the Run command line and pressing
Enter. Click on
the StartUp tab and deselect the items
you think you might be
able to live without. Click on OK and
reboot. If you later
realize you need one of the items you
deselected, go back and
reselect it.
END TASK TO RECOVER FROM LOCK-UP
Did your system just lock up on you? Before
you reboot your
system entirely, there's one last hope:
Try ending the current task.
Oftentimes (but not always), you can close
only the program that
caused the problem, and get back to work.
Assuming you just locked up, press Ctrl-Alt-Del
to open the Close
Program dialog box. Select the task that
caused the problem
(most likely, it will say Not Responding
in parentheses), and click
the End Task button. After a few seconds,
a separate End Task
dialog box will pop up, explaining that
the program is not
responding. Click End Task again, and
with any luck, Windows will
proceed to close just that program.
(Note: If pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del does absolutely
nothing; or if trying to
end a task results in a total lock-up,
you're flat outta luck. Time to
reboot.)
Enlarge Windows Scrollbars
Do you find the buttons on your windows'
scrollbars too
small to grab onto? (In case you aren't
sure what
scrollbars are, they're the bars on the
right and bottom
edges of windows that allow you to scroll
up and down, or
left and right, to view the contents that
aren't currently
visible.) Then make them bigger.
First open the Display Properties dialog
box by
right-clicking the desktop and selecting
Properties. Select
the Appearance tab, and in the dropdown
list under Item,
select Scrollbar. Adjust the Size (just
to the right of the
Item field), and when you're happy with
the new look, as
displayed in the preview area, click OK.
Can't miss those
buttons now!
(Tip-in-a-tip: To make the change a permanent
part of a
color scheme, click Save As, type the
name of the
scheme, and click OK.)
Move active window with the keyboard
1. Press Alt + spacebar + M. A four-pointed
arrow appears on the
title bar of the active window.
2. Use the arrow keys to move your window
in the desired direction.
3. When the window is where you want it,
press Enter; if you don't
like your move, press Esc instead.
Open text files with word pad
Here's an easy way to always open TXT files
in WordPad rather
than Notepad. Click once on any TXT file,
then hold down the
Shift key and right-click on the file.
Choose Open With from
the pop-up menu, scroll through the list
of programs and choose
WordPad. Check the box labeled "Always
use this program to open
this type of file" before you click on
OK.
Close Multiple Folders
If you're like me, you often drill down
from one folder to the next -- say
from 1999 to Q2 to June -- and wind up
with multiple windows open
simultaneously. (That assumes you've set
up Folder Options, available under
the View menu, to display each folder
in its own window.) Closing all these
open folders down one by one can take
quite a few clicks. Take the easy way
out: To close the whole kit and kaboodle
in one fell swoop, hold down the
Shift key and click the Close button on
the last window you opened. That will
close all the windows you opened from
that last window all the way back to My
Computer.
Edit File Types Properties
Power users, it's time to get really familiar
with your File
Types dialog. This is where you can turbocharge
Windows and
customize the way it works for you. Launch
My Computer, select
Options from the View menu and click on
the File Types tab.
Scroll down the list of file types, highlight
a file that you
use a lot (an HTM file, text file or e-mail
file, for example)
and click on the Edit button. In the dialog
box that comes up,
you can change the icon for that file
type, add extensions of
the same file type, put items on the Context
menu, enable
QuickView and much more.
Defrag the Swap File
Although the Disk Defragmenter utility
speeds up file access,
it doesn't defrag your swap file, which
is t he file Windows
uses as virtual memory. You can get additional
performance gains
by disabling your swap file, defragging
your disk, then re-enabling
the swap file. The new swap file will
be effectively defragged
and therefore faster. To do so, right-click
on My Computer and
select Properties from the Context menu.
Click on the Performance
tab, then the Virtual Memory button. Select
the "Let me specify my
own virtual memory settings" radio button,
then select Disable
Virtual Memory. Click on OK, then OK again.
After defragging your
disk, follow the same procedure above,
but this time select
"Let Windows manage my virtual memory
setting."
F4 Function Key in Internet and Windows Explorer
If you're a killer keyboard commando-we're
guessing that you
are-you should know the function keys
that let you rip through
Windows Explorer. The F4 function key
opens the Address drop-down
menu and highlights it so you can quickly
use your arrow keys to
navigate local or network drives, plus
My Computer and Desktop
folders.
Hidden Files
If you want to keep files-or even folders
full of files-hidden
from prying eyes, just right-click on
each file and select
Hidden in the Attributes box at the bottom
of the Properties
dialog. To see the files you've hidden,
double-click on My
Computer, select Options from the View
menu, click on the View
tab and select Show All Files.
Tips for Windows Notepad
Think there's not much to know about Notepad?
Think again.
For example, you can insert the current
time and date in
Notepad just by pressing F5. Or, if you
want to log the date
and time automatically each time you open
a Notepad file, type
.LOG on the first line, then save and
close the file. Every time
you open the file thereafter, the current
date and time will be
recorded in it.
Default Directory for Applications
Here's how to tell any application where
to look for documents
and where to save them by default: Find
the shortcut to the
app on your Desktop or Start menu (for
the Start menu shortcuts,
right-click on the Start button and select
open, then drill
your way to the shortcut). Right-click
on the shortcut and
select Properties. Click on the Shortcut
tab. Now type the
path to the folder of your choice in the
Start In box.
Your Own Private Network
Most Internet service providers supply
you with some Web storage
space of your own, but you don't have
to use it just to house Web
pages. For example, instead of e-mailing
giant files, just place them in
your Web space and give another person
the URL to download the
files. You can also avoid carrying floppy
disks around by temporarily
storing files between your office and
home on the Web. Putting the
files on the Web usually involves the
FTP process. Check with your ISP for specifics to your
site. If the information is sensitive,
use a utility like WinZip (http://www.winzip.com) to
compress the file and give it a password.
Be sure to keep track of how much space you're
using, because you may be charged extra
for using more space than you're allocated by your
ISP.
New Windows 95 Password
If you forget your Win95 password, just
press Escape at the
password box, bring up the MS-DOS Prompt
and enter dir *.PWL
at the WINDOWS folder to find your .PWL
files. Delete the one
with your name in front of it. Restart
your system and enter a
new password when prompted.
Convert BMP file to ICON
Take any .BMP file, rename it to give it
an .ICO extension,
and voila! Instant icon. You access the
file in the normal way:
Right-click on the current icon for a
shortcut, select Properties
from the Context menu, select the Shortcut
tab and click on the
Change Icon button. Now use the Browse
button to find your new one.
Add Control Panel to the Start Menu
If you're always launching Control Panel
to fiddle with your
system settings, simplify your life by
putting the Control
Panel applet right on the initial Start
menu. Drag CONTROL.EXE
from your WINDOWS folder and drop it on
your Start button.
Print System Summary
Right-click on the My Computer icon and
select Properties
from the context menu. Click on the Device
Manager tab, then
the Print button. Select the "All Devices
and System Summary"
radio button, then click on OK. This will
give you more
information about your hardware, IRQs,
ports, memory usage,
devices and drivers than you ever wanted
to know. Keep this
printout handy for future reference.
Icon to Restart Windows
Restarting Win9x is normally a four-step
process (click on
the Start button, select Shut Down, click
on the
"Restart the computer?" button and then
click on OK). You can
make it a one-step process by creating
an icon on your desktop
that restarts Win9x. Open Notepad and
type @exit. Close the
document and give it a name with a .BAT
extension. Now stash
the file somewhere on your hard disk.
Create a shortcut to the
file by using the right mouse button to
drag it to the Desktop
and then selecting Create Shortcut(s)
Here. Right-click on the
shortcut and select Properties. Click
on the Program tab and
select the Close on Exit box. Now click
on the Advanced button
and make sure "MS-DOS mode" is selected
and "Warn before entering
MS-DOS mode" is not selected. Click on
the OK button twice. Give
your new shortcut a unique icon and name.
From now on, whenever
you double-click on the icon, Win9x will
restart, no questions
asked.
Change Icons
Wish you could make your icons just right?
Right-click on
the desktop and choose Properties, then
the Appearance tab,
then the Item menu. Scroll down and select
Icon from the list,
and then choose the font and size you
wish from the pick lists.
Registry Repair
If you screw up your Registry - or even
think you may have
damaged it - there's still hope. Windows
98 backs up your
registry the first time you boot each
day, and keeps the five
most recent backups. To restore from one
of the backed-up
copies, restart Windows in MS-DOS Mode,
change to the
C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND directory, type "scanreg
/restore"
(without the quotes), then choose the
backup from which to
restore. When you're finished, reboot,
and Windows will
load with the restored registry. If you'd
like to increase the
number of backup copies, find the file
SCANREG.INI, open
it in Notepad and change the MaxBackupCopies=
value
from 5 to the number of your choice.
Print Fonts
Print out all the fonts on your system
by opening Control Panel,
double-clicking the Fonts icon, then on
the font of your
choice and clicking on the Print button.
Free Up Space on Hard Drive
Launch your browser and purge its browser
cache.
To do this in Navigator, choose Edit/Preferences;
click on Advanced and then Cache. You'll
find two buttons for clearing memory
and disk cache. It's a bit more complicated
in IE - the procedure varies for
different versions. Find the Internet
Options item on either your Tools or
View menus. Click on the Delete Files
button in the Temporary Internet Files
area.
Delete the animated Help files, which are
the AVI files in
the C:\WINDOWS\HELP folder.
Replace start up and shut down screens with new images
Requires 320x400 pixel bit-mapped file
Backup the orginal files as Logo.bak,
Logow.bak, Logos.bak
Save start up screen as Logo.sys in the
c:/windows directory
Save the shut down screen as Logow.sys
in c:/windows
Save the "Its safe to shut down" screen
as Logos.sys in c:/windows
Changing default program to open with a particular extension
Ever encounter an application that designates
itself as
the default program for a file extension
previously owned
by another program? The quickest way to
get out of this jam
under Win9x is to find an example of an
incorrectly associated
file. Click on the file once to select
it, then hold down
the Shift key while you right-click on
it. Choose Open With.
Select the correct program, check the
"Always use this program
to open this type of file" box and click
on OK. Or, if you
don't find the program, click on the Other
button and navigate
to the correct program on your drive.
To turn down the volume on your modem
To turn down the volume on your modem (or
silence it
completely), open the Control Panel and
double-click
on Modems. Select your modem, click on
the Properties
button and adjust the Speaker Volume slider
bar to the
desired setting. (Some modems offer on
and off settings;
others provide intermediate levels.)
Create a full-screen capture in Win95 or 98
The easiest way to create a full-screen
capture in Win95,
98 or NT 4.0 is still by pressing the
Print Screen key.
That action sends a copy of the screen
to the Clipboard.
To view the capture, select Start/Run,
type mspaint and
press Enter. Once Paint opens, select
Edit/Paste to paste
the image from the Clipboard into the
Paint window. Choose
File/Save As to name and save it as a
BMP file. (If Paint
isn't installed on your PC, you can use
another image program,
or install Paint from the Add/Remove Programs
applet. Open
the Windows Setup tab, double-click on
Accessories, select
Paint and click on OK.)
Delete Scan Disk Leftovers
If your PC doesn't shut down properly,
Windows will run
ScanDisk the next time you boot. If it
finds lost fragments,
it will delete them for you. Before doing
that, however, it
asks if you want to save them as files.
Unfortunately, it
doesn't say where it puts them or what
the new files are
called. Here's how to find them. Open
Tools/Find/Files or
Folders and search the root directory
for file*.CHK. Typically,
the files are named FILE0000.CHK, FILE0001.CHK,
FILE0002.CHK and
so on. If you're looking to free up disk
space, you can delete
any old files you find. If you suspect
one of these files contains
critical data, open it in a text editor.
If you see anything
that looks important, copy and paste into
a new document for
safekeeping.
Remove Warnings from Folders
If you view your C:\WINDOWS, C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM
and C:\PROGRAM FILES
folders as Web pages in Win98 or IE 4.0/Win95,
you'll receive warning
messages about modifying folder contents.
In addition, the WINDOWS
folders actually hide contents from you,
requiring an extra Show Files
click. Here's how to remove the warning
messages and the extra click
while keeping Web View intact: First,
make sure Explorer is showing
hidden files (select View/Folder Options,
open the View tab and click
on the Show All Files radio button). Next,
open the target folder and
rename FOLDER.HTT to FOLDER.OLD. Copy
and paste the FOLDER.HTT file
from C:\WINDOWS\WEB to the folder you're
modifying. This version of
FOLDER.HTT activates a standard, warning-free
Web view. Make sure the
As Web Page option is checked under the
folder's View menu. Repeat
these steps for each folder, as needed.
Faster Windows Restart
Sometimes you need to restart Windows to
make a settings
change take effect. But there's a faster
way. Select
Shut Down from the Start menu, then press
and hold the
Shift key when you click on Restart the
Computer, then
(still holding down the Shift key) click
OK. When the
screen prompt reads, "Windows is now restarting,"
you can
let go of the Shift key. Performing this
action bypasses the
boot sequence.