19.4.2000

Coming from the "Keeping the Dream Alive" department, Lockergnomie David Thatcher suspended windows through the command prompt. Leave your Internet apps alone for longer than a few minutes, and you may lose your connection. There are a few ways to keep it going, even during periods of no activity. One way is to click on the Start Button, select the 'Run' option, then type: "COMMAND" (without the quotes). Once on the command line, type: "PING www.whatever.com -t" (without the quotes). Then, minimize the window (do not close it). If you're in full-screen mode, hit ALT+ENTER to switch to window mode, then minimize it. When you're ready to stop this 'background' process, flip back to it and hit CTRL+C. Now, I'm not suggesting you do this all the time, but it may come in handy when you need a constant (untouched) connection.