Q–I look forward to reading your column every Monday. Now I finally have a problem on which I can ask for your opinion. I have a friend who is sending me .txt files. After downloading, when I try to open the file I get a message that says the file is too big to open in Notepad, do I want to open in Wordpad? I click yes and the file opens, but I can’t read it (it is gibberish). Can you help?
Marion Gryzik, Naperville
A–I can’t help, but your friend sending those files certainly can. The problem is that those files may be labeled .txt but they are really complex word processing files containing binary codes used for fonts, formatting and other fripperies.
Such files almost always exceed Windows Notepad’s 3,200-word limit, so you get that query about using Wordpad, which tends to get stymied unless the file was written in a program sold by Microsoft.
So tell your friend that merely changing the file extension to .txt does not turn a file into plain text. You must use the Save As command and then make sure the choice of “Text” or “ASCII” is selected before saving a file to send your way.
Q–I have a G94 monitor attached to my Aptiva, and I have been running into the following problem on a fairly consistent basis. If I leave the computer untended for more than an hour, the light button goes on standby and I can’t get my monitor back unless I reboot. Once I start the boot sequence, my monitor shows the following message in BIG letters: NO SYNC INPUT!
I have no clue what that means. Do you?
Pete Mugavero @ yahoo.com
A–Your problem lies in the fact that your computer thinks (if you’ll pardon the expression) that it is hooked to a monitor other than the one you describe.
A fix is pretty simple. Click on the My Computer icon on the desktop and then choose Control Panels and then Add/Remove Hardware. Follow the prompts to one where you are asked whether to have Windows search for a new device and select No.
You will get a window that lets you select Displays and then get a huge list of just about every monitor ever made. Pick your brand and then model (G94, I would guess) and the proper drivers will be installed and you’ll be out of the World Wide Woods in a click and a wink.
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Q–I have three PCs–one at my office and two at home. I want to update my Favorite Places on the Microsoft Internet Explorer running on each of these PCs with what I saved on any one of them. You are the mighty “Coatesnac” who knows all, and this is so simple I bet you can do it with a wave of a floppy disk!
Bill Higgins, Oak Park
A–Oh, puhleeze, Mr. H., let Johnny Carson relish his well-earned retirement while I try to earn my own respite from the golden handcuffs of a steady job by writing these columns.
Nevertheless, as Carson’s Carnac the Magnificent might have said, the answer is, indeed, “wave a floppy disk” to answer the question of how one might move Internet favorites from computer to computer. When you click open the Favorites menu in the Explorer Web browser, you will find a choice for Organize Favorites. Choose this and you get a list of all your Favorites. Click on them with the right mouse button and you’ll get a choice box including Send To, and one of the Send To options is Floppy Disk.
Once the floppy disk is filled with your favorites, you can move it from computer to computer and use the floppy instead of the browser to call up Web pages.
This may not be an elegant solution, but like using a hammer and a 2×4 to squash mosquitoes, it offers a certain charm and utter reliability.
Netscape users can do the same thing by tapping Control+B for Bookmarks and then right-clicking bookmarks or bookmark folders to get a Save As prompt.
With the Microsoft browser you can, if you want, transfer the contents of the floppy disk into the folder called Favorites in the Windows directory.
Netscape keeps its bookmarks in a file called bookmark.htm, which you could also move into each machine’s hard drive from that floppy disk. This file is best found by clicking Start and then Find Files/Folders and typing in bookmark.htm.
Q–I am about to purchase a new Gateway computer and was presented with a minor dilemma. In the past I have been a victim of the name brand syndrome and believed Intel and Pentium equaled the best way to go in a computer. Now the Gateway salesperson has presented me with alternatives: Two equal systems, one with a Pentium chip and one with an AMD chip system called Athlon, which was cheaper and was supposedly the better one for the money. Would I be making a mistake not buying the Pentium computer, or are these both reliable chips and comparable systems?
Al Bass, Chicago
A–It’s six of Pentium versus half a dozen of Athlon as far as this writer–and the bulk of benchmark testers–are concerned. To be blunt, both the latest Pentium IIIs and the AMD K6 Athlons are hugely overpowered microprocessors for any of us ordinary computer users. They both go faster than they need to and AMD is neck and neck with Intel, a dead heat on the megabit merry-go-round.
That’s why Gateway, Compaq, IBM and a host of lesser makers offer both chips side by side in their product lines.
Chip speed gets less important as time goes on, much as automobile horsepower became less of an issue as highways got crowded and the 55 m.p.h. signs went up.
What good comes from having chips that move data just a couple of tics below the speed of light when the data they get to move trickles in over a 56-kilobit-per-second modem or even a 1.5-megabit DSL line?
Use an automotive analogy and your question becomes a no-brainer, Mr. B. Will a 400 horsepower Porsche get you through the Hillside Strangler rush hour faster than a wheezy Dodge Neon?
Q–I read in your column about the free-for-the-download RioPort Audio Manager MP3 music software, and I downloaded the audio manager (www.rioport.com).
It is a good program, but I can’t figure out how to change an MP3 file to a .wav file. This would be great if I could do it, because I have a whole bunch of MP3 files that I could record on my CD burner if I could get them into .wav format.
Phil McCloud @aol.com
A–RioPort’s otherwise wonderful Audio Manager software works wonders letting people “rip” tracks off their music CDs and store them as super-compressed MP3 files on their hard drives or on those glorious RioPort portable music players for which the software is designed.
But the command for yet another great feature–that of converting MP3s into the traditional .wav files used by Windows and most music CD burners–is the Lost Dutchman of the Internet. It’s hard to find but also right under our noses.
You simply call up a list of all of your MP3s in the Playlist window and right-click on whichever song you want to convert. A pop-up command asks, “Save as .wav file?” Tell it Yes.
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Contact Jim Coates via e-mail at [email protected] or via snail mail at the baiduhai, Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL 60611. If you think you’ve got a better answer to any of these questions, add your point of view at chicagotribune.com/go/askjim.
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