Double up
Last year, I read in Online that there would be new motherboards that would use two chips instead of one, and that it would be cheaper to buy a 1,000 megahertz machine with two 500MHz chips than one 1,000MHz chip. Now I see PCs coming out with 1.3GHz processors, and presumably by the end of this year they will have gone up past 2GHz. Does this mean I should wait and buy a machine with the new architecture? Of course, next month is always the best time to buy a computer, but what's your advice on this? Jason Pennells
jason_pennells@hotmail.com
Jack Schofield replies: Two-processor motherboards have been available for years, but Microsoft Windows 95/98/Me is a single-processor operating system. For two you need Windows NT/2000 or similar alternative, and they are not widely used by consumers. Maybe things will change when Windows XP appears, but it will take years. Also, overproduction of memory chips, competition between Intel and AMD, and the threat of a market recession has brought down PC prices faster than expected. You can now get a 1GHz PC for about £700 and a great machine from a direct supplier for about £1,000.
The next two months should be a good time to buy a new system - or pack the one you own with more memory, before memory prices recover. I am shopping for two new PCs myself. Faster, cheaper machines will be available next year, as always. However, this year's systems will have no problems running Windows XP, Office XP and any other software on the horizon.
Top marks
I have bookmarks in three different places: two on networks, one on a standalone PC. How do I create a common list that I can use in all three places? Dave Sheppard
dsheppard@charter.southwark.sch.uk
JS: One idea is to make a text file of all the addresses (including the http:// bit) and post it to a Yahoo or similar mailbox. (Don't use Hotmail, which opens links inside Hotmail frames.) Netscape keeps its bookmarks in one file, but you can create one very easily in Internet Explorer by selecting File|Import and Export, and using the wizard to export your "Favorites" to a file called Bookmark.htm However, I suggest you use one of the many websites that will store your bookmarks online so you can get at them from different computers. Examples include: www.favoritesanywhere.com, www.bookmarksplus.com, www.blink.com,, and www.mybookmarks.com.
How the cookie crumbles
I used to be able to use the Postcode Finder at www.royalmail.com/trackandtrace. Now I get a message: "This site requires your browser to support and accept cookies. Please enable and accept cookies." Can you help, please?
Bob Hutton
hutton@ukonline.co.uk
JS: Cookies are small bits of text that record your visit to a site. They are kept in the Cookies folder in the Windows directory. To enable your PC to accept cookies, run Internet Explorer, select Tools|Internet Options and click on the Security tab. Click the button marked Custom, scroll down to the section headed Cookies, and click on the two radio buttons marked Enable.
Sticking point
In Windows Explorer, folders can be viewed in four different ways: large icons, small icons, list or details. Mine persist in opening as large icons, but I want the default view to be details. George Katritzky
gkatritzky@lineone.net
JS: This happens a lot. The cure is to open Windows Explorer and select View|Details. Next select View|Folder Options (right at the bottom), click the View tab, and click the button Like Current Folder. Click Yes to confirm your choice, then OK to exit. This should make it stick - until it doesn't, of course.
Thumbnail views
I have Windows 98 and need the use of thumbnails in My Documents. Recently, after I installed a virus scan program, my thumbnail facility disappeared. Please can you help me retrieve it? Yvonne Kedge
y.Kedge@lineone.net
JS: Go to your directory in Windows Explorer and select View|Folder Options. Click the radio button for Web Style folders. Next, right-click on the folder name, in the left-hand pane, and select Properties. Put a tick in the lowest box on the Properties sheet, which says Enable Thumbnail View, and click OK. Select View again, and this time you should see a new entry for Thumbnails, just above Large Icons. If you select that, your thumbnail views should magically reappear. This works on my PC but Microsoft says it only applies to Internet Explorer 5 (which I use) if the Windows Desktop Update is installed.
This comes with Windows 98 and Internet Explorer 4: see http://support.microsoft.com/ support/kb/articles/Q176/8/ 82.ASP If you just want to handle thumbnail directories of images, then Irfan View, Thumbs Plus (www.cerious.com and ACDSee do the job competently. Irfan View is good and free for non-commercial use.
Excellent
I want to scan/copy documents such as bank statements into Excel worksheets. Do you know if this is possible? Tom Clyde
tclyde@moneymanagersltd.co.uk
JS: It is easy if the type is legible and the columns are regular. Scan your statements and save them as plain text files, then clean them up in a word processor if necessary. Start Microsoft Excel and use File|Open to find the directory containing the file you want to load. In the Files of type box, click Text Files, then double-click the file you want to import. Excel's Text Import Wizard will then let you choose how to divide the text into columns. However, the value of the result will depend on all numbers being recognised correctly. And you can't find errors with a spell-checker.
Seek and you shall find
After complaining about Adobe Portable Document Files that were hard to read, I praised Google for a new feature: it indexes PDF files and holds a plain text version. "However, there does not seem to be a way to limit a Google search to PDF files," I complained. John King
john@kingshome.co.uk has provided a helpful answer from the Search Engine Report: the undocumented inurl command. For example, try searching Google for this: "Jack Straw" inurl:pdf I also complained about the difficulty of saving streaming RealMedia files. Gavin Brelstaff points out that you can use Total Recorder to capture RealAudio streams. However, unlike Streambox VCR, it cannot capture streaming video. Finally, John Nicholson j.nicholson@cableinet.co.uk points out that there is a much simpler keyboard shortcut to close down Windows, bypassing the Start menu: just press Alt-F4. This is, of course, a standard way of closing down Windows applications. Why didn't I think of that?
