Q. I have a new printer (Hewlett-Packard) and an old cookbook software program (Micro Cookbook 3.0) that does not recognize my printer. All my family recipes are on there, and I need to know if there is a way, without retyping them, to move them into a new program. I wrote to the company, Pinpoint, for an upgrade that would pull all the recipes over to the new program, but they must be out of business. I am a novice at the computer and need help.
Carol Lopez @earthlink.net
A. Uncounted thousands of fiercely loyal computer-savvy cooks have been bummed out by the confusion surrounding change of ownership for that sweet Micro Cookbook software that dates to the dinosaur days of Intel 486 PCs running Windows 3.0. That software not only accepted one’s family recipes, but also analyzed them and created reports showing calories, vitamin content and other nutritional data.
Happily, IMSI Software of Novato, Calif., which bought the product from Pinpoint in 1997, maintains a Web site where you can download the software patches you need to drag that 486-era relic kicking and screaming into the Age of Pentium. Go to www .imsisoft.com/support/microcookbook /index.cfm to track down Micro Cookbook. Bon appetit.
Q. I read your column a lot, but either didn’t see or don’t remember the remedy to this problem, which involves a software problem that keeps my USB scanner from working. It started when I bought a Belkin four-port USB hub so I could add a Microsoft joystick as well as a USB scanner and a USB printer. Both the scanner and printer worked fine before the addition of the port. Now the printer works, but the scanner does not. From an application program, I’m told the “scanner is not ready.” When I go to Control Panel, then System, and look under Device Manager/Imaging Devices/Scanner, I’m told the device is working properly, when it obviously is not. Do you have any ideas?
Ellen McKeon, Lombard
A. You need to force the computer to restore the small bits of software called drivers that have become corrupted in the course of your joystick upgrade, Ms. McK. It’s a bit complex but certainly doable. First you need to remove the USB software from the machine and then reinstall each of those peripherals one at a time–the four-port hub, the printer and the scanner.
To deep-six the drivers, start by clicking on the My Computer icon then open the Control Panel folder. In the Control Panel find the icon called System and open it. Next find the tab for Device Drivers and scroll down to the item for your USB add-on. With USB highlighted, pick the choice Remove.
After you click the OK button you will get the message that you need to restart the computer. Say no to prevent Windows from automatically doing a restart. Now use the Start button to shut down the machine. Once it is turned off, unplug all of your USB devices and restart the computer. It will reboot and restore the USB drivers as they were before you started adding equipment.
Now plug in that hub and let Windows’ Plug and Play module recognize it and load the hub drivers. Once the hub is up and running, reinstall the printer and the scanner, and it’s an all but mortal lock that you’ll be printing and scanning with the best of them.
Q. Some outside force has taken over the Internet browser. While surfing the Net recently, I must have hit a button that allowed an outside entity to virtually take over my PC. Whenever I fire up my Internet Explorer browser, it takes me to an unwanted URL (gohip.com). I go under Tools, Internet Options, Home Page and click on Use Blank, which clears it out for that session. But whenever I open a new browser page, it takes me right back there. I’ve deleted all my temporary Internet files, to no avail. Where is this creepy program lurking, and how can I get rid of it?
J.D. Lasica, Pleasanton, Calif.
A. That gohip.com site is among the nastiest of Web bullies that use tricky HTML scripts to open repeated windows once a sucker lands there. But even while working that mischief, which many in the e-commerce world consider a valid marketing practice, gohip.com does not hijack your browser’s home page. It does, however, hijack the Search button on the browser if you click the wrong icon on the gohip.com page and let it install itself as your search engine.
In your efforts to fix things you are going to exactly the right page, but you are stopping one click short of fixing whatever caused your browser to make gohip.com the default portal. Look at the top of the display that you are calling up for Internet options and you will see a tab for Programs. That tab includes a handy “Reset Web Settings” button that negates gohip.com’s registration as your default Search choice and also restores the original starting page to the Microsoft Network, thus eradicating gohip.com’s nasty shadow from your life.
Q. My computer keeps freezing up when we use the America Online service for Internet connections and try to listen to music with the Windows Media Player. This is a brand-new Gateway PC (800 mHz, 64 megabytes of RAM) which came with a number of default options installed, including AOL as my ISP. This has caused us to have no other option than to turn off the whole system via the power strip, something that concerns me.
Nick Athas @aol.com
A. I’ll bet your crashes are caused because of the huge combined footprint on a mere 64 mb of RAM while running the bloated AOL 6.0 software and the even more resource-hungry Windows Media Player 7 at the same time. Even that red-hot 800 mHz Pentium chip you own can’t keep up with this deadly duo of memory munchers, Mr. A. Your best bet is to lay out another $100 or so and increase your RAM to 128 mb.
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If you don’t want to throw money at the problem, a possible and less costly solution is to tinker with the settings in Media Player 7 and shut down as many of its bells and whistles as you can. This includes a visualization module that displays lava lamp-type graphics that pulse in time with the music and eats up a pile of memory. You also can disable surround-sound options and change the display of the equalizer to decrease the memory consumed by Media Player 7, a very sweet program for those whose machines have the memory to make it hum.
Q. I am aware of your recommendation of shareware Multimedia Xplorer from Moon Software for handling picture viewing and slide shows in the Windows world. Do you have a recommendation for software with similar functionality for the Mac world?
S. J. Rogallo @att.worldnet.net
A. In my humble opinion, the best of all the Mac picture display and manipulation programs is the venerable Graphics Converter, offered by the German company Lemke Software and sold as a $30 shareware offering. I can’t heap enough praise on this program, which lets Mac users quickly view images of almost every conceivable format. It also runs slide shows or creates thumbnail displays, allowing a user to handle large volumes of pictures.
As the title suggests, the program also converts files from one format to another, and the selection of formats here is as wide as anything ever created. The icing on the cake is a sweet paint-box module that lets users tweak photos by cropping them or by changing hue, saturation, brightness and contrast. You’ll find Graphics Converter at www.lemkesoft.de.
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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. Questions can be answered only through the column. Add your point of view at chicagotribune.com /go/askjim.