Search for the stars
I am developing a simple website for my band, which is easy using Microsoft FrontPage. I can obviously get people to visit the site by telling them verbally or by displaying the address on a business card. But how do I ensure that someone can locate my site using a search engine such as www.alltheweb.com? And how do I make sure that my site appears near the top of the retrieved website list? David Dobbie
david.dobbie@ntlworld.com
Jack Schofield replies: Dozens of sites will submit your address to hundreds of search engines free (try http://selfpromotion.com/ ), and a few companies claim to help you get better ratings for a fee. But different search engines use different criteria, and in general, the best results are obtained by the careful choice of a title, good use of keywords in metatags, and by submitting your site to each search engine individually. I recommend www.virtualpromote.com and www.bignosebird.com for useful information on setting up and promoting your site. You should also read the notes at Microsoft's bCentral business site at www.submit-it.com/subopt.htm and check out Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Watch.
Unscrambling attachments
I do most of my word processing in Word 7 (Microsoft Office), but run into problems whenever I open a Word document sent as an attachment by just about any one else. Very occasionally it works well, but more often than not the document opens minus all its formatting, and with pages and pages of extraneous 00000000s. I have to constantly ask people to re-send me documents saved as .rtf, but this is a real pain. Why does this happen, and is there something simple I can do to sort it out? Melanie Henwood
melanieh@email.msn.com
JS: You are using an old copy of Word, and people keep sending you files created with newer copies, which your version does not understand. This is very confusing because they all have the same extension (doc) instead of different ones (wp1, wp2 etc). The obvious solution - and the one that would make Microsoft happy - is to upgrade to Word 2000. Alternatively, you could download a copy of the free Word Viewer 97-2000 from Microsoft's website. This should read most or all the files you are sent, but won't let you do anything with them. My preferred solution is to insist that people send only plain text, so I make a point of deleting unsolicited attachments unread. This works best when your mailbox is full of press releases.
Slow Zip
I bought an Iomega Zip drive, attached by parallel port to my Toshiba Satellite 2610 laptop, because I was told at PC World this would be the answer to backing it up. However, although I can transfer files containing many scans to the Zip disk, each takes 20 minutes to open there. After some email correspondence with Iomega Help, I was told that the parallel port is not suitable for files of scanned material - just what I'd bought it for! Can you help me? Joan Zilva
JZilva@aol.com
JS: Big mistake! The Satellite 2610 has a USB serial port, so you should have bought a Zip drive with a much faster USB connection www.iomega.com. Change it if possible.
There are three common types of parallel port, and the Zip installation software always selects the slowest. According to the Readme.txt file on your Zip Tools disc, the transfer speed is 2-6MB/minute for a standard parallel port, 6-17MB/minute for a bi-directional or Enhanced Capabilities Port (ECP), and 17-22MB/minute for an Enhanced Parallel Port (EPP).
I think the 2610 has ECP (check the manual and BIOS chip setting), so use the Readme file to change the Zip set-up, if possible.
It is also worth making sure you have the latest driver from www.iomega.com/software/ drivers.html To update the driver, find the ppa3.mpd file and rename it (eg to ppa3.mpd.old). Copy the new ppa3.mpd file to C:\\Windows\ System\Iosubsys and restart your PC.
Explorer glitch
Sometimes when I open Internet Explorer 5, instead of going to the pre-set homepage (Google) I am redirected to res://C\Windows\ System\SDHOCLC.DLL. I also find that my temporary internet file disk space has been reset to zero and cannot be reset, and my internet history has been deleted. What's going on? Stephen Lafferty
stephen@slafferty.freeserve.co.uk
JS: I'm glad you asked that, even though I don't have clue, because the answer has much wider applications.
When a Windows 98 file seems to be causing a problem, you can try replacing it using the System File Checker that Microsoft has not told you about.
Go to Start|Run, type sfc and click OK. This utility will attempt to check your system files and replace damaged ones.
If that doesn't replace shdoclc.dll (I'm assuming the spelling mistake is in your query, not in your file), then run sfc and select: Extract one file from installation disk.
Type in the filename (in your case, shdoclc.dll) or browse to select it in the Windows\System folder. Say Yes when asked to save the original file, just in case.
Incidentally, Microsoft suggests using the Internet Explorer Repair tool. See http://support.microsoft.com/ support/kb/articles/Q194/1/ 77.asp
