Here are questions from some of my clients and TBCS members, along with the best answers I could give them; most of my answers were arrived at by searching the Internet using Google.   In those cases where I say things nice or otherwise about a particular program, please note that I'm expressing only my opinion, and not necessarily that of TBCS, its members, or its board of directors.

I recently deleted several files, then tried to empty the Recycle Bin, but I got an error message that says the files are in use by another program.  I rebooted in Safe Mode, tried again... no help.

Drag them from the Recycle Bin to the desktop.  Then double-click each to open it, then close it.  Next, highlight all the files, and press Shift-Delete to delete them permanently, bypassing the Recycle Bin.

If that doesn't work, download and install UnLocker, a utility that will sever all locks and bindings between specified data files and their associated program(s).  Then they can be deleted normally.

My inkjet printer is nearly out of ink.  Is there an alternative to buying new cartridges or refilling the old ones myself?

Try ASAP-Ink in Largo; folks outside the Clearwater area can check them out at  www.ASAP-Ink.com .  I have no first-hand experience with these folks, but have heard only good things about them from friends and clients who have dealt with them.

Staples and Office Depot offer their own brand of replacement ink cartridges at a substantial discount off the printer manufacturers' prices.

Additionally, a Google search for ink for printers near clearwater yielded nearly 4500 results for companies that will ship refills to you. 

But here's a warning:  only use refilled or off-brand cartridges AFTER the warranty has expired on your printer.

I'm taking a class.  The instructor handed out a CD that's supposed to contain video presentations relevant to the course, but when I try to view the CD, I get nothing.  "My Computer" shows drives E: and F: are present, but there are no labels other than the drive letters.

Are you sure the CD was plugged in?  The letters E and F should represent the CD-type drives on your system, yet neither of them acted like it had a CD inserted.  (If the CD doesn't have a label assigned by the person who created it, there should at least be a serial number assigned by the CD burning program.)

Remove the CD, reboot the computer, plug in the CD, and try again.

After processing a text/letter ready to be printed, there is always a summary of the action --- filename etc. etc. --- being printed ahead of the actual letter.  ???

Look in your System Tray, and see if there's a program resting there, waiting for you to print; it will look a lot like a printer.  Open it, and look for a button marked Options or Settings.  Somewhere in there, there should be a setting that says something about "Print a Status Report".  Un-check it, and the superfluous page should go away.

Today I bought a web cam, but I can't install it.  When I load the cd in the drawer, then close it, it will not read the disk, and the red light does not come on.  The computer hasn't been used in a few years; do CD drives go bad?

Yes, CD drives fail on a regular basis.  That having been said, if your computer was in storage long enough, I wonder if you're still running Win 98 on it.  Does the box say the webcam will work with Win 98?  Some won't.

Do other CDs read properly in the drive?  Plug in a music CD and see if it will play.  If it does, the drive is okay; plug in the webcam CD.  If it doesn't start automatically, click on Start  »  Run  »  D: (or whatever drive is your CDROM)  »  OK.  The CD Setup program should start.  If not, look for a file on the CD called Setup or Install; double-click it to start.

[Follow-up:  the music CD played fine, but the box said the webcam was for Win2K and above, and she did indeed have Win98 on her old PC.  Back to the store...]

I got an email that told me I could keep viruses and spyware from sending email to all my contacts, if I would just create a new contact with this email address:AAAAAA@AAA.AAA.  How true is this?

Sorry, it would be great if this trick worked, but it won't.  It would work if viruses and spyware used your email client to spam your friends, but they don't:  most, if not all, malware contains its own SMTP engine.  You'll get a bounce message from the AAAAAA address, but all the good addresses will already have been spammed by the time you know there's a problem.

We recently bought MP3 players for our children, and our parents pitched in Napster cards.  Sadly, the cards are not compatible with the players.  How do we make them compatible, or can we buy or download a program that makes files downloaded from Napster compatible with our players?

Sorry, no offense intended, but you're mistaken:  the Napster cards are used to download plain old mp3 files to your hard drive.  THEN you use whatever program came with your players to transfer the mp3s to the player, maybe even converting the file format at the same time.

Read the booklet that came with the players, install the included software (or you may even have to dowload the software), and read the help files in that software package.  I promise you, the files downloaded with the Napster cards will work with your mp3 players, regardless of what brand they are.

I have two computers at home, networked via a router.  One of the computers can see the other, but not inside it; the other can't even see any computer other than itself; I get an error message that says something about my not having permission to access the network.  Both computers have been set up on network MSHOME, both have file and print sharing turned on, and both have folders designated as shared.

That's all good, especially the part about the computers being in the same workgroup, but there are a few more things you need to check.

Browsing the network doesn't work * Most Of The Time * if you're using a router.  It's different with a hub, but that's not what we're talking about in this instance.  Sometimes, though, you can browse more readily if you install the protocol NETBEUI or NETBIOS Helper in both computers.  Reboot after installing to see if this helps.

Make sure the computers have different names, even if they're only different by one digit.

Software firewalls can mess up the network browsing environment.  Even if you tell the firewall to make an exception for file and printer sharing, there's no guarantee the other computers on the network will be able to see past the firewall.  Since you have a hardware firewall in your router, try turning off the firewalls on both computers whenever you need to share files.  Turn the firewalls back on for regular everyday usage, and especially when taking the laptop on the road and connecting to someone else's router.

But you don't have to be able to 'browse' the network to use it.  If you know the 'share name' of the folder you want to share on one of the computers, and the name of that computer, you can map a network drive or a 'Network Place' using the format \\[server-name]\[share-name].