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NEWBIES, NERDS & NITWITS Your 'support' ezine if you're nervous about the Net June, 2002 Vol.2 Issue 6 Sheldene
Chant, Editor By subscription only. Welcome to the 23rd Newbies, Nerds & Nitwits You are receiving this newsletter because you IN THIS ISSUE
_________________________________________ TIME FOR A BREAK... FIRST of all let me get shot of my moan for the month - remember I told you my printer had gone on the blink before I sent out the last issue? Well it's still being 'repaired' - and I'm trying to work up the courage (because I just know I'm going to be extremely aggravated) to go and fetch it for the third time! If you live in a country where fixers are efficient and reliable this should make you feel good - and if you don't then I'm sure that learning you are not alone should make you feel better. And talking about courage I am working myself up to delve into the depths of my computer (Start Thinking About the Registry) - and if you think you will never want to do that Pam Allen's article, My Home Page Was Hijacked by a Hoochie Mama, might change that. All sorts of PC problems seem to call for a look at the registry so if you are not familiar with this operation perhaps you too should start preparing yourself - now. The NewbiesAndNitwits website will be moving to its new home within the next 10 days and I'm looking forward to getting to know you all better through the NewbiesAndNitwits forum/message board which we will have on the new site. As soon as this exciting happening takes place I will, of course, let you know. _____________________________FREE TUTORIALS BY AUTORESPONDER If you need to know more about backing up 'stuff' on your computer click mailto:pearlsandpigs@fastresponder.com and you should get the first tutorial within seconds. If you are thinking about making your own web page, or merely want to exercise your brain slightly, then send for the web page tutorials by clicking mailto:nerdsandnitwits@fastresponder.com Want to find files fast ?- then mailto:finder@fastresponder.com Organising your computer - mailto:orger@fastresponder.com _______________________________________________START THINKING ABOUT THE REGISTRY YOU must have noticed that most instructions on how to resolve a PC problem involve going into your computer's registry. I am sure you have also noticed that these instructions almost always include dire warnings about what can happen when computer novices mess with registry files because ' if you do not back up before making registry changes you may risk Windows becoming inoperable if you change/edit the wrong thing by mistake.' Which is enough to make any sensible newbie steer clear of the whole operation. Recently, however, I have come to the conclusion I can't do this indefinitely as some of my little pc problems are extremely irritating - and if a sally into the registry can fix them then sooner or later I'm going to be brave and do just that. But very cautiously. I use Windows 98 and by clicking Start-->Run-->and typing in 'regedit' I bring up the Windows Registry Editor. If I type in 'scanreg' and click on OK I am told the system has been scanned and no errors found. I am also told that my system 'has been backed up once today' - which is encouraging. From the Help menu in this Registry Editor I learn that by clicking on Start-->Shut Down-->Restart in MS Dos Mode -->Yes - and typing in 'scanreg/restore' - this will, when I restart my computer, restore the registry to its state when I last successfully restarted my computer. Which also sounds encouraging - and fairly simple - but I still felt I needed to know more. By visiting <http://www.aumha.org/elist.htm> one can find suggestions for backing up registries for all Windows - from Windows 95 to Windows XP - and if you move on to http://www.aumha.org/regfiles.htm you can download a patch (EditReg Registry Patch) which, once installed, changes the default for when you right click on a Registry (.REG) file so that, instead of being automatically merged into your Registry, it is opened in Notepad for editing - which should prevent a lot of accidents. After you have edited the file, you need to right click on the file and select Merge, in order to merge the .REG file into your Registry. So far I've installed the patch, without any problems, but I haven't got around to interfering with a .REG file - yet. I've also found another free program, Registry Explorer 1.4, which I've installed and am now investigating. I have an icon, labelled Registry, on my Desktop and when I click on that it displays the main HKEY folders in my registry. A right click on one of the folder offers quite a wide choice of actions, including 'Create Backup' and 'Restore Backup' which appears to be done in a civilised way without me having to do anything wierd, such as starting up in MS Dos mode. Perhaps I'm not quite ready to embark on any major changes to my Registry but I'm beginning to feel I'm getting there.. Registry Explorer appears to be very user-friendly and you can download a copy at http://www.regxplor.com/download.html. Copyright 2002 Sheldene Chant ____________________________________ RECOMMEND Newbies, Nerds & Nitwits to a friend! MY HOME PAGE WAS HIJACKED BY A HOOCHIE MAMA! The home page, or start page, is the site that loads every timeyou open your browser. Occasionally, an underhanded site will 'hijack' your designated page and change it, leaving you with a less than desirable site loading up. Here's how to get rid of it.. I'D never heard of this happening, until a friend of mine frantically emailed me, begging for information on how to get rid of the dancing porn star page that loaded every time she opened her browser. I did some research, and discovered this isn't as uncommon as one might think. Generally, you'll receive an email with a link to click, though sometimes it can be a link on an actual web page that you visit. When you click the link, you get taken to a website (usually porn). You sigh, write it off as yet another spam, and forget about it. Until you come back the next day, and your browser automatically loads the porn site up first thing.'No problem!' you think, 'I'll just go into my browser settings and change it back'. Dream on, my little lambchop. You quickly discover that your own browser has turned on you, and is refusing to give you access to that function! You are unable to remove the hoochie mama website from your browser settings. However will you explain this to Grandma when she comes over to get her Ebay fix? Fear not, dear unfortunate one. There is a solution! It involves (gack!) editing the registry. By the way, this is for Windows 98 users, it will probably work with Windows 95, too, but I claim no expertise with Windows 2000 or ME. Click on 'Start' then 'Run'. Type in 'regedit' (without the quotation marks) and click 'OK'. The registry editor will open. Click 'edit' in the menu at the top, and choose 'find'. Type in NoBrowserOptions and select 'find next'. If it returns a result that has a 1 in parenthesis, then delete that line. This will allow you to regain control of your browser settings and replace that hoochie mama site with your regular start page (which I hope is NewbiesandNitwits). Sometimes this doesn't work, and that entry isn't even in the registry. If that's the case, do the same thing but in the 'find' box, type in the url that's loading. When it's located and highlighted, simply replace it with the url you prefer. Happy browsing! (c)2001 Pam Allen APPLETS: CAN YOU EAT THEM? IF your memory serves you as well as mine, you can recall that the way to find lost files or folders is with the *Find* applet included with Windows. What's an applet? It's a little program. It's the little engine that could. And there are oodles of these little programs in Windows! I don't know where the 'Applet' name came from. But I'll bet Atomica knows. You can download Atomica here: http://www.atomica.com and look up anything. It's the ultimate database of information at your fingertips. Now, here's an improved method to find files using the standard Start > Find> Files or Folders... routine. Let's say you downloaded an MP3 named 'Home on the Range.' How would you find it? What do you do with the spaces? Just stick a question mark wherever there's a space. If you leave out the question mark, and search for 'home on the range' you'll get every last instance of home, on, the, and range. As well as additional words that include the letters 'on' such as 'question.' Type it like this: 'home?on?the?range' (without the quotes). And you've got your file! No messing about searching the undergrowth or the bush country for the missing sounds. No, you can't eat an Applet. But I hear organgelets are good! © 2001 All RIghts Reserved Roglan International --------------------------------------- 'Take a Look at Your Keyboard Now!' Just look at all those keys! I'll guarantee you've often wondered why
there are so many - F1, Insert, Tab,Ctrl, Pr Scr, End, Home, Alt, Pause,
PgUp, Shift, Sys Rq, and the rest. Why? And what about all those keys
with the funny looking characters like ~ # > ¬ \ ^ ? Surely someone
put them there for a reason! And yet you never use them. 'Keyboard MAGIC!'
by The Newbie Club, outsold all their other products in the first 5
days of release. Find out why, and brace yourself or an eye-opener at:
http://newbieclub.com/keyboard/?pearlsandpigs HOW'S YOUR E-SHORTHAND? *g* - grin (More email acronyms in the PLEASE RATE THIS EZINE... RECOMMENDED DOWNLOAD - Zip Genius IF you haven't yet realised how much enjoyment you can get from downloading a free software program, and discovering how it 'works', ZipGenius is a good place to start. In addition to zipping and unzipping programs ZipGenius does email, accesses the web, provides you with ftp and a great deal more. Visit the ZipGenius website and look under Screenshots for the details. I think you'll be impressed by the user-friendly illustrations. Suitable for Windows95/98/NT4/2000/XP this Freeware can be downloaded at http://www.zipgenius.it/index_eng.htm If you want to know more about zip files, and why one day you'll need to compress a file or unzip one, click on http://www.newbiesandnitwits.com/article1034.html Copyright 2002 - Sheldene Chant _______________________________________ NN&N BACK ISSUES - and don't forget to visit the Newbies, Nerds & Nitwits website, often - there's stacks of information there: http://www.newbiesandnitwits.com ________________________________________ POIGNANT PEARLS & POTBELLIED PIGS - a monthly ezine packed with original and amusing articles, which will remind you not to take yourself too seriously. To subscribe <mailto:pearlypigs-subscribe@topica.com>. Or, if you're wary of pigs in pokes, surf to <http://www.topica.com/lists/pearlypigs/read> to view back issues. ______________________________________ NEED A FRIENDLY, HELPING HAND?.. * ----------------------HOT TIP--------------------- * Use your RIGHT mouse button when dragging and dropping icons anywhere on your computer. When you release the button, a context menu appears... just
choose the option you want your system to perform. Move,
Copy, make a Shortcut, or just cancel the operation altogether.
If only surgery were that easy! * -----------------------HOT TIP---------------------- *
---------------------------------------------------------------------- To subscribe : <mailto:nerdsandnitwits-subscribe@topica.com> To unsubscribe: <mailto:nerdsandnitwits-unsubscribe@topica.com> To view previous issues: <http://www.topica.com/lists/nerdsandnitwits/read> WEBSITE: <http://www.newbiesandnitwits.com> --------------------- Signature File---------------------- Editor/Publisher: Sheldene Chant 6 Strapp Lane, Amanzimtoti 4126, KwaZuluNatal, South Africa. <mailto:sheldene@icon.co.za> ________________________________________ |