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Text File | 1993-08-16 | 14.3 KB | 304 lines

The following information is reprinted with permission, Ultimate Power Tips 1.0A (c) 1992, 1993 Paul Scanlon, Scanlon Enterprises ------------------------------------------------------------ OTHER POWER TIPS ------------------------------------------------------------ System Security If you are the owner of a 286 or 386 system then you may have the means to add additional security to your system. If you don't want unauthorized users putting software on your system which may be infected by a virus, then this procedure will work for you. This procedure requires access to the Bios Setup. If you have an older AT without a Bios Setup (you have to run an external program to set the Bios) then I suggest you upgrade. First, reboot your system (hard reset, not <Ctrl><Alt><Del>) and during the reboot process your system will suggest entering the Setup Option by pressing a certain keystroke, usually <Ctrl><Alt><ESC>. NOTE, on some newer systems, you don't even have to reboot to use the HOT key sequence to start the Bios Setup. If you have one of the older machines, without a Bios Setup, pull out your Setup Disk, and start Setup from there. Once setup is started, select the Floppy Drive Option, and set The Drive to NONE. Before changing the current setting to NONE, write down the current setting and place the note with other important papers, you have regular access to. Now select exit and reboot. Your system will now think, you don't have floppy drives. If your system has two floppy drives, be sure to set both to NONE. When the time comes to update software, or add a new application, simply start your Bios Setup (as per above) and reset your Floppy Drive(s) selection(s) back to their original settings, and reboot. Perform the software installation or change (update), then redo the above procedure to set the Floppy(s) to NONE. Now unauthorized persons can't bring unwanted software to your system! External Modems Light Up If your external modem is having trouble making a connection, you might want to check the headlights (front panel lights). When the modem is powered up, the modem ready (MR) light should come on. The terminal ready (TR) light tells you, that the modem and your PC are in communications, and are ready to make a call. If you've set the modem to answer the phone, the auto answer (AA) light will be on. And, whenever the modem "picks up the phone", the off hook (OH) light should light. Once your modem and the remote modem make a connection, the carrier detect (CD) light is supposed to come on. While the modem is sending and receiving data, the receive date (RD) and send data (SD) lights will flicker. As soon as the connection is severed, the carrier detect light (CD) should go off. If your modem lights behave differently than the above, you may, have a hardware problem. If this is the case, call your modem manufacturers technical support line and report what your lights show (light combinations). Money-Saving Protocols If you transfer large files with a high-speed modem (9600 baud or faster), you can save time and money by using an asynchronous error-checking protocol, such as ZMODEM, windowed XMODEM or windowed KERMIT. Synchronous protocols like XMODEM and YMODEM send a block of data and wait for the remote PC to check the block of data before sending another, leaving periods of idle time on the line between blocks. Asynchronous protocols transmit data in one continuous stream, enabling you to make cost efficient use of all you phone line time. Now You See It With Procomm With Procomm and Procomm Plus, some monochrome monitors don't display all the text or highlighting of the help screens. If missing text is a problem, try starting the program with the "/B" option, to use ProComm's black and white settings. Type "ProComm/B" and you'll be able to see the status line and all text. Procomm's Handy On-Line Log To capture data easily during an on-line session, use Procomm Plus's Log File command instead of the usual method, which requires you to select a protocol and enter a filename. To begin recording just press <Alt><F1> and either enter a file name or simply press <ENTER> for the default file name "PCPLUS.LOG". Press <Alt><F1> again to finish recording . If you want to pause the log to skip over extraneous on-screen data, press <Alt><F2>; to continue, hit <Alt><F2> again. To read the log, press <Alt>-V and enter the file name. Speedy Norton Menus Batch File menus made with Norton Utilities' Batch Enhancer (BE) can be very slow if there are many BE commands, because BE.EXE must execute (read from disk) for each BE command. To speed up the process, place all your BE commands in one text file. Now, you can launch your menu from a batch file from a batch command line of "BE filename", where filename is the file containing all the BE commands. From the Oven to the Laser In humid climates, laser printers can warp the paper coming out of them and seal envelopes as well. If you have this problem, try baking your paper and envelopes in the oven at 125 to 150 degrees, for 1 to 2 hours, prior to printing. Norton MCI From Anywhere Norton Commander 3.0 users can write MCI Mail with any Word Processor, as long as the letter starts as follows : Via: 1 To: MCI mailbox Subject: Subject After the letter is complete, save it as an ASCII file in Commander's OUT directory, and it will be sent out the next time Commander logs on to MCI. If you wish to attach a binary file, insert the line "Attach: drive:\path\ filename" between the "To:" and the "Subject:" lines. LaserJet Toner Down but NOT out If your LaserJet printer turns out pages with vertical streaks on them, you're running out of toner. Don't throw that cartridge away, yet. Take the cartridge out, hold it by the handle and the opposite side, rock it gently back and forth several times, to redistribute the toner. Now, you can print several hundred more copies. This is also a good bet for copiers. Easy Exchange Between Compuserve and MCI Mail It's easy to exchange messages between Compuserve's Easy Mail and Mci Mail. Just address as follows, inserting MCI and Compuserve ID numbers in place of the #s. From Compuserve to MCI : TO >MCIMAIL ###.#### from MCI to Compuserve : TO EMS | Compuserve MBX : #####,### Crosstalk's Screen Snapshots During an on-line session, you may need to save a screen of data to disk, such as a new host system's commands. Crosstalk XVI+ has an obscure command that saves a snapshot of a screen to an ASCII file. Press "<ESC>pi <ENTER>" during the session, and enter a path and the file name. Run Programs Full Screen Under Desqview If you want an application to always open full screen in Desqview, take these steps. In the Change a Program Advance Options screen, give the program a 'Starting Height' of 25, a 'Starting Width' of 80 and both a 'Starting Row' and 'Starting Column' of 0. Now when you launch the application, it will run full screen. Speeding Modem Dialing Through Office PBX's If you have a nonstandard dial tone on your office phone system, you may have to tweak your modem's attention (using AT) command strings. Start your communications software, enter it's setup menu, and under modem setup, find the strings that begin with "AT". the modem's initialization string (the longest string, usually), add S6=n, where 'n' is any number, in seconds (2 or greater) which your system takes to get an outside line (dial tone). Setting the S6 register forces the modem to stop listening for dial tone, after the 'n' number of seconds, and to begin the dial sequence. You can further speed dialing after the modem gets an outside line by adding W to the tail end of the command string that starts with "ATDT". This sets the modem to dial the phone number immediately once it hears a normal dial tone rather than wait the entire duration set by register S6. Swap Mouse Buttons By default, PC Tools Deluxe's shell program doesn't care which mouse button you use to open menus or select a file. But if you want to copy, delete, or otherwise manipulate a group of files, you must use the left mouse button. If you're left-handed, however, this can be a pain. The solution: Swap the mouse button functions by using "PCSHELL /LE" at the DOS prompt, to load the shell. Easy LaserJet Printing With Norton Utilities Norton Utilities 4.5's LP (Line Print) program assumes you can print 66 lines per page, but the HP Laser Jet allows only 62. In order to use LP easily with the LaserJet, create a simple one- line batch file of : "LP %1 /H62". Call it HPLP.BAT and put it in a directory listed in your system PATH variable. Then from any DOS prompt, enter HPLP filename, where filename is the file to print. Chameleon PaintBrush A lot of people use PaintBrush in more than one video mode or with different printers. Instead of running PBSETUP to change PaintBrush's defaults, create variations on the PAINT.BAT file generated when the program is first installed. Say for example, that your system (and PAINT.BAT) is currently configured for 256 colors at 640 x 480, yet you sometimes need to run the program with 16 colors. Rename PAINT.BAT to "256.BAT", run PBSETUP, and generate a new PAINT.BAT with the appropriate settings. Exit PBSETUP, and rename that new PAINT.BAT to "16.BAT". Now, you can run PaintBrush in either mode with a few keystrokes. Modem Trick, Don't Compress Compressed Files If you own a modem with built in data compression (using MNP-5 or V.42bis), be sure to turn off the modem compression when downloading or uploading files which are already compressed, with utilities such as ARC, LHA and ZIP. Uploading or Downloading a previously compressed file with a data compressing modem, takes more time, than up or down loading the file without the modem compression. Check your modem manual for instructions on how to turn off your modem compression. DeskJet 80 Column Help HP DeskJet printers provide near laser-quality printing at a much lower price. There are, however, drawbacks. For one, the DeskJet prohibits you from printing close to the edge of the paper, so text files with 80 column lines don't always print correctly. To fix this problem, create the following one line batch file, calling it something like DJ80C.BAT. ECHO [(s1Q[&a5[&L7.27c[&k11.25H>PRN Replace the above "[" bracket characters with <ESC>. Many text editors allow entering the <ESC> character, by holding the <Alt> key down and entering "27" from the numeric keypad. If your text editor or word processor do NOT support this feature, use EDLIN, which comes with DOS. ProComm and Auto Scripts Users of the popular shareware telecommunications package, ProComm can take advantage of ProComm's script language and automatically log on to Delphi and other online systems. The following is a listing of a ProComm script file that will dial the Telenet number stored as Number 1, in the dialing directory and automatically log on to the Delphi at 8 bits, 1 stop bit and no parity. DIAL "1" WAIT "3" TRANSMIT "!D!" WAITFOR "@" TRANSMIT "C DELPHI" WAITFOR "Terminal=" TRANSMIT "D1!" WAITFOR "Username:" TRANSMIT "{YOUR NAME}" WAITFOR "Password:" TRANSMIT "{YOUR PASSWORD}" WAITFOR "MAIN >" TRANSMIT "GR PC" For more information on the ProComm script language, see the ProComm's documentation. Procomm is available for downloading from most major BBS systems. Many other communications programs also support script languages of their own. The above script listing, can be converted to other script languages with relative ease. Pascal TypeCasting Typecasting in Turbo Pascal 4.0 works very well on variables and values. However, if you try to typecast a function result to match a variable, you will run into trouble. A solution to this problem, is to typecast the variable to match the function result. An example : POINTER(LongIntVar) :=PointerFunction; Tutorial finished. Have you registered PC-Learn to receive your bonus disks? Registration is encouraged. Shareware works on the honor system! Send $25 to Seattle Scientific Photography, Department PCL6, PO Box 1506, Mercer Island, WA 98040. Latest version of PC-Learn and two bonus disks shipped promptly!