Computer Quandaries
by Dale Atchison
Tampa Bay Computer Society


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.


Lately, I've been having a problem with my Favorites list.  I've sorted out all the folders in my Favorites, and I've deleted all the 'orphan' URLs which were sitting at the bottom of my Favorites list.  But when I reboot my computer, the Favorites list reverts back to the way it was before I cleaned it up.  What's going on?  Where can I find this old Favorites list and remove it?

I believe your problem is with a setting in Internet Options.  Start  »  Control Panel  »  double-click Internet Options  »  click on the Advanced tab.  Under BROWSING, put a check mark next to Enable Personalized Favorites Menu.  Click on OK, close Control Panel, open Internet Explorer, make your changes AGAIN (!), and see if they don't 'stick' this time.


Where is the control for the size of a page of scanned text?  I sent an 8.5" x 11" page of scanned text via email, then went into the Sent folder to look at it, and it was much larger — so large that it would require 4 sheets to copy it.  How can I send a page and have it come out as one page at the other end?  I am assuming the received size is the same as that in my Sent folder; is it?

Yes, it's pretty much "What You See Is What You Sent."  The person receiving the file can manipulate it so it only takes one page to print it, but you still sent a file that was much larger than it needed to be.  I agree with you:  Why not fix it before you send it?

When you scan a document, the scanner takes a picture of it, a graphic file, even if the document was just words or numbers.  The scanned file is always much larger than the original; this has to do with the number of pixels per inch the scanner assigns and the number of pixels per inch the graphics rendering engine in your scanner software uses to save the final copy.  Most of the time, a scanned image is saved as a TIFF file; a well-behaved scanner program will save it in a sub-folder of the My Pictures folder called My Images.

After scanning a document, click on Save As  »  make sure you save it on your desktop.    Close the scanner software, right-click the new TIFF file on your desktop, left-click Open With...  »  choose MSPAINT.

Once the file is open in MSPAINT, click on  File  »  Page Setup  »  Fit To  »  put a 1 in both boxes.  You can select either Landscape or Portrait orientation to make the picture as large as it can be and still fit on one page.  You can adjust the margins to make it slightly larger while still using just one page (don't adjust the margins too far, especially if you have an inkjet printer — some of the picture will get cut off).  Click OK when you're happy with the picture.

Now click  File  »  Save As , and save it as a PNG file, for the best compromise between quality and file size.  If quality isn't an issue, save it as a JPEG.  (The JPEG engine in MSPAINT causes tiny little distortions in any large area of solid color; some people don't notice.  Photoshop Elements doesn't have this problem, but it costs $50-$100 and takes forever to load.  Paint.Net (www.dotpdn.com/files/Paint.NET.3.5.2.Install.zip) also does a better job on JPEGs, and it's free.)  For the moment, save the new file to your desktop, also.  Send the new PNG or JPEG file, and it will print in one page wherever you send it.

Delete the orignal TIFF file.  If you're saving the new PNG or JPEG, move it to My Pictures; otherwise, delete it, too.  Got to keep the desktop free of clutter, or the computer will slow down.

If the original document was text only, you might also have scanned it and run it thru your OCR software, so it would get saved as text instead of a picture.  Usually, this requires some editing on your part, because the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software makes a few mistakes and saves a few gibberish words.


I read an article online that said my microwave oven can interfere with my wireless Internet.  Is that true?  And does this explain why my wireless keeps getting knocked out without warning?  Any ideas how to stop these knockouts without throwing away the microwave, and tearing out all walls?

Yes, microwave ovens use the 2.4 GHz frequency range, just like your wireless router and all but the newest cordless 'phones.  The oven has shielding sufficient to protect you from getting burned by stray radiation; but it takes a lot less power to interrupt your wireless service than it takes to burn the skin.

Rules of thumb:

  • If you know how, set your router output frequency to channel 1, 6, or 11; they are the least prone to interference.

  • Position your router and any computers that connect to it wirelessly several feet from the nearest cordless phone, and as far from the nearest microwave oven as practical (and remember that means vertically, as well).

  • Resign yourself:  when the microwave is running, expect occasional slowdowns or complete loss of wireless service.  Endeavor to persevere.


I'm trying to get into email marketing, but both GMail and Yahoo! Mail are blocking a large number of my incoming email messages from the people who are teaching me the business.  Any idea why?

Most likely, because the people you're learning email marketing from send out a lot of unsolicited commercial email, and have ended up on Yahoo's and GMail's blacklist; unlike most folks, you actually want these messages.  Sign in to each of your online email accounts, and add the addresses you want to un-block to your Contacts; that should automatically 'white-list' them, even if they are the worst spammers ever.


When I go to Microsoft Word to type a document, there is a 'bullet' in the blank document that looks like a musical note.  I worked an hour to delete it.  I tried Ctrl-Alt-Delete, I looked under Edit and Bulleted Lists, all to no avail.  How do I get rid of this bullet note so I can have a clean slate to write?
click to PopUp a Larger Image

The musical note is a 'formatting code', normally invisible, unless you've accidentally chosen to display it.  If you were to go ahead and type your letter, list, document, etc., you'd see a lot more of them!  Try clicking the button shown in the attached picture; that's the Show/Hide Formatting Codes control.


I recently found a "Free Utility CD" you were giving away a few years back; it contains a file called "Win ME Defrag".  I don't like the Defrag utility that came pre-installed on my Vista machine; can I use Win ME Defrag instead?

Nope, Win Me Defrag is just that:  the Defrag program that came with Windows Millenium Edition.  You could add it to a Windows 98 computer — it seemed to be an improvement over the Defrag that came with Win 98, so I included it on the Free Utilities CD for a few years, back when a lot more people still had Win 98.  But it won't work on XP, or Vista, or Windows 7.

And I agree with you about Vista's Defrag utility; what were they thinking?  I didn't pay for a VGA monitor to run a utility that doesn't show me numerous pretty colored blocks while it works!  Get IOBits' Smart Defrag, instead; it works in XP, Vista, and "7".  By the sheerest of coincidences, it's mentioned in this month's Hints & Tips column, and there's a link to it there.

Thanks for Asking!

That's all for this month.  I welcome questions on any computer-related problems you might have.  Please email your questions to:

Dale@ComputerRepairShop.biz



I send these guys a few dollars every month... sure wish you would join me.
And 100% of your labor charges go to this rescue, too.