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Archive for the 'Mice, scanners, PC hardware' Tag

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PC Club: Convert hundreds of color slides to digital

December 31st, 2008, 9:55 am by

North Orange County Computer Club Q&AThe North Orange County Computer Club helps The Gadgetress tackle the multitude of readers’ cries for help. NOCCC group has experts in Windows, Word and all sorts of computer topics. The club, which meets monthly on various topics, has been in existence since 1976. Visit the club’s site at noccc.org. To get this answer delivered to your computer automatically, sign up for the e-mail update HERE.

QUESTION: I am an old artist trying my best to keep up; any help you can give me will be, of course, much appreciated. I have hundreds of 35 mm slides that I need to transfer to digital format for printing to at least 8 1/2 x 11 inches – please give me any information necessary to this end. 

PC Club: This reminds me of when I scanned 14 carousels of slides to free up some closet space that my wife had her eye on. There were a total of 1,200 slides and I spent an average of 5 minutes per slide for a total of 100 hours to perform some color correction and scratch removal on each slide. The amount of time can vary depending on the quality of the slides and how decent you want your prints to be. At the time, it would have cost me roughly $1 per slide or $1,200. It was an easy decision for me to spend $200 for a scanner and do it myself. Read the rest of this entry »

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Why CD-RWs crash and don’t burn

October 7th, 2008, 12:36 pm by

North Orange County Computer Club Q&AThe North Orange County Computer Club helps The Gadgetress tackle the multitude of readers cries for help. NOCCC group has experts in Windows, Word and all sorts of computer topics. Visit the club’s site at noccc.org. To get this answer delivered to your computer automatically, sign up for the e-mail update HERE.

Question: I am having problems with a CD-RW disc on my Dell Inspiron 5150 laptop. Over a period of about 3 months, I wrote a large number of files (.jpg and Microsoft Word) onto a CD-RW. There were probably 10 folders with umpteen files of about 82 MB – or less than 12 percent of the available space.

A couple of days ago, while writing another .jpg file to the disc, the program suddenly said that the disk could not be written on, and was probably “unusable.” This has happened before, but on those occasions I immediately rewrote that particular file and burned it to CD without further ado. This time… nothing.

When I tried to run the CD after the mishap, only 1 folder of about 20 files was seen, and it was not the new folder that I had been trying to write in. It was just one of the previous folders.

From the “Properties” tab, I could see the disc had only 419 KB of total space, and that this last folder itself occupied 419 KB. Mighty strange! On my trying to run it again and again, the disc at first indicated that it now contained no folder at all, and finally seemed to just get hung up. Help!

NOCCC: There is a simple solution to your basic problem but no simple answer to your question of why the problem occurred. The solution is to accumulate your files (up to about 600 megabytes) in a folder on your computer’s internal hard disk and/or an external hard drive. Then write them all at once in a single session to the CD. This will give you the back up of your files you want and avoid the problem you encountered. Read the rest of this entry »

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How to get control of CTRL

September 9th, 2008, 3:29 am by

North Orange County Computer Club Q&AThe North Orange County Computer Club helps The Gadgetress tackle the multitude of readers cries for help. NOCCC group has experts in Windows, Word and all sorts of computer topics. The club, which meets monthly on various topics, has been in existence since 1976. Visit the club’s site at noccc.org. To get this answer delivered to your computer automatically, sign up for the e-mail update HERE.

Question: I am having a problem using my CTRL key when on the Internet and trying to select multiple categories. On certain Web sites, I need to hold down the CTRL key to choose more than one item. My control key works off line just fine. Have changed keyboards, and it is not the keyboard. No one seems to know how to help me.

NOCCC: The problem is not the keyboard or your computer. The problem is the Web site that is instructing you to hold down the CTRL key while choosing more than one item.

Web sites that do let you use CTRL to make multiple selections are coded to (1) accept the CTRL selection or (2) select additional items without deselecting previously selected items. Sites that don’t follow these simple rules don’t work.

If you have this problem again, e-mail the Web site administrator to change his code or the multiple selection instruction. Make sure to point out which multiple selections are not allowed. This is an excellent question since it examines the functions of your computer vs. the functions of the web site server, both rapidly becoming more complex every day. - Leonard Prince, member NOCCC

Have your own quandary? E-mail thegadgetress@ocregister.com and put “Help ME!” in the subject line. Please include your computer’s operating system and amount of memory. Visit the Q&A archive at ocregister.com/gadgetress/stump

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How to convert Outlook Express; Checking drives for errors

July 8th, 2008, 9:39 am by

North Orange County Computer Club Q&AThe North Orange County Computer Club helps The Gadgetress tackle the multitude of readers cries for help. NOCCC group has experts in Windows, Word and all sorts of computer topics. The club, which meets monthly on various topics, has been in existence since 1976. Visit the club’s site at noccc.org.

Question: I have been using Outlook Express for many years and I also own Office 2000, which contains Outlook. I want to convert from Outlook Express to Outlook, but I also want to keep the address book and copies of e-mails I have stored in “Express.” How can I switch over to Outlook and also retain all the items in my “Local Folders”?

Item No. 2: I have an external Hard Disk (Western Digital WD120B005-RNN). Something happened that won’t allow me to access the data. When I plug it into the USB port the drive appears in “Explorer” but no data shows up. I think the directory is fouled up somehow. Is there a way to correct this?

NOCCC: To upgrade from Outlook Express, first go to the “File” menu in Outlook, and click “Import and Export.”

The Import and Export Wizard opens and presents a list. Click “Import Internet Mail and Addresses,” and then click “Next.”

From that list, select “Outlook Express 4.x, 5.x, 6.x.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Stump: Ergonomic mice and other handy office tools

October 23rd, 2007, 3:00 am by

Stump the GadgetressQ: I’m looking to purchase a mouse that will help alleviate some overuse/chronic pain issues that I have. From among the pen-style mice, is there one you can recommend for ease of use and performance? Thanks, much appreciated!

Pen Mouse from Salient TechnologyAlso, is there some kind of office attachment I can hook onto my desk so as to be able to move the mouse pad down to keyboard height instead of up on the desk surface? ~ Maria

Gadgetress: Sounds like you could benefit from an ergonomic specialist. There is a lot of information on the Web about how to make sure your work area is ergo-friendly. I’ve listed some sites I found below in “Handpicked Goodness.”

Interestingly, none of the sites offer a pen-style mouse. I found one from Salient Technology, the V-Mouse, which hints at being more ergonomic than a traditional mouse.

Gadget wise, it’s difficult for me to make a recommendation since I haven’t tried every ergonomic mouse out there. However, I did review the Evoluent mouse two years ago and gave it a high recommendation (here’s a LINK to the review).

Read the rest of this entry »

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Stump the PC Club: My monitor makes strange noises

October 16th, 2007, 2:00 am by

North Orange County Computer Club Q&AQuestion: Can you help me fix my problem?? When I’m on the computer it randomly makes a loud click like sound and stretches the screen horizontally so that I lose the right and left side. After a few minutes it clicks again and changes back. It continues to do this randomly the whole time I am on the computer. Help!!!!!!!!!!!

NOCCC: I am guessing that you are using a CRT monitor and not an LCD. If the sound seems to be coming from the monitor, the following is probably true. A lot of those units used electro-mechanical relays as part of the electronics that changed the resolution of the monitor. When the relays are opened or closed they make a noticeable clicking noise.

If the sound is coming from the CRT monitor it is probably old and the failure due to some sick electronics and not software commands from the computer. It would be better, greener and not much more money to replace it with an LCD rather than try to get it fixed.

~ Jim Sanders, Vice President, NOCCC

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Stump the PC Club: How to increase font size while scanning

October 2nd, 2007, 12:43 am by

North Orange County Computer Club Q&AIntroducing… a new Gadgetress feature!

With all the questions I get from readers, I can’t answer them all. So, The North Orange County Computer Club – and its experts in Windows, Word and all sorts of computer topics – volunteered to help me out by tackling readers’ technical challenges. The club, which meets monthly on various topics, meets this Sunday, Oct. 7, at Chapman University’s Irvine Hall. For more details, visit www.noccc.org.

Don’t forget to check out the revamped “Stump the Gadgetress” archives HERE.

Q: I have an Epson Perfection 2400 Photo scanner and am using Windows XP. Mail is AT&T YAHOO! I would like to scan some of your articles and attach them to e-mail but the writing comes out too small to read. What can I do?

PC Club: Your basic problem is that scanning the article creates a large picture that has to be reduced in size to display the whole thing on a small screen.

There are a number of things you can do to change your results.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Stump the Gadgetress: Fixing a frozen mouse

July 23rd, 2007, 9:54 pm by

stumpthegadgetress270.jpgQ: Hopefully you can give me a clue as to what gremlin is vexing my computer. I am running Windows XP Ver2 on my laptop (Toshiba). Occasionally, my cursor will freeze during operation navigating the Internet (either with Firefox or Explorer) and the only way I can navigate is to plug in my wireless mouse into the USB port and then the cursor responds immediately.

This is how I’m operating currently. The last few times I have been able to free-up the cursor by hitting the Ctrl-Alt-Del keys after it happens, but this doesn’t work every time. I have tried to reboot, but this doesn’t solve the issue. — Joe Schenk

Logitech’s G7 Laser CordlessGadgetress: The words wireless mouse caught my eye because the same bewildering phenomenon has happened to me. I no longer use wireless mice because losing connection for me can mean losing a story.

I always suspected wireless interference of some kind but never looked into it (besides, I could never remember to keep the mouse charged so ended up using a wired mouse half the time).For this answer, I went to Logitech, one of the biggest brands in computer mice.

Kate Brinks, Logitech’s public relations manager, agrees that it could be wireless interference. Apparently, early cordless mice used the 27 megahertz band for wireless communiqué. It’s the same line used for remote-control toys, CB radios and other low-frequency communication. Plus, she said, older mice used only two channels to switch back and forth in case one was busy.

Read the rest of this entry »

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