Q. The other evening we were visited by two police officers responding to a 911 call. No one in our household had dialed 911. The 911 center listed the phone number as our dedicated computer line. No one had been online for over two hours; it was 11 p.m. and we were all in bed. The officers dismissed it as being caused by the rain, but said if it happened again they would have to charge us for the visit. When I called the phone company the next day, they had never heard of such a thing and suggested we contact our Internet service provider. AOL had never heard of such a thing either, but suggested I change my local access number. What caused this and what can we do to keep it from happening again?
Dave Smith @aol.com
A. Here’s what probably happened, Mr. S. America Online’s software allows users to adjust the dialing to accommodate those who need to dial a special digit–almost always 9–and a digit for long distance. I would wager that when your AOL software was set up, somebody started to fill out an alternate phone number and ended up with one that starts with 911. They could have started with 9 for an outside line, then 1 for long distance and yet another 1 for who knows what reason.
Usually when your computer dials the first Internet number in its settings it makes the connection fine. But when it gets a busy signal, the software calls up that incomplete alternative number and dials the 911 emergency line.
To fix it, call up the AOL software and instead of signing on, click the button for setup and then make sure your primary and alternate dial-up numbers are all in order. As to that two-hour gap on the night the cops came, you either have your computer set up to automatically dial in to download mail, or maybe some younger member of the family just said he went to bed on time.
Q. Windows ScanDisk used to run whenever I had to restart my computer via the reset button after it crashed. It no longer does this. I found that the msdos.sys file was missing the command line to run ScanDisk. I added this line into msdos.sys, and still no ScanDisk on a reset. What am I missing?
Meredith J. Booker @juno.com
A. Microsoft’s relentlessly nagging hard drive checking program, ScanDisk, probably has wasted more time for humanity than even the Florida recounts. Uncounted millions of times every day people crash their computers and turn them back on, only to get that nasty blue screen and schoolmarmish admonition that Windows was not shut down “properly” and so, as some form of bizarre penance, the user must wait while the computer checks the condition of its hard drive to make sure nothing has corrupted it.
I suspect, Ms. B., that far more people would want to have your problem than would want to fix it. Happily, I’ve got the answer for both you and them. Windows offers a setting that allows users to disable that ScanDisk nagging, and it’s fairly apparent that your setting has been changed to disable the feature, instead of the default setting, which enables it.
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Here is the drill: Click on the Start button and select Run and type the command “msconfig” in the box that appears. You will get a selection of tabs that allow users to alter various startup settings. Look for Advanced in the first display and click that. You will find what you want in the next display, a check box for disabling ScanDisk on a bad shutdown. In your case, Ms. B., remove the check in the box, and the nagging will resume. I suspect many more might be tempted to do what I do, which is to check the box and then run ScanDisk on my own initiative a couple times every week just to be safe.
Q. I goofed up my PC and now my desktop icons are very large. When I run games, especially solitaire, the cards are one-fourth off the screen. How can I get this back to normal?
Don Filip @sauk.com
A. I would say it’s a near certainty that you messed up your screen resolution settings playing one of those games you like so much, Mr. F. Your resolution sounds like it’s set to a bare bones minimum of 640 pixels wide, and you need at least 800 pixels wide to get those icons down to a size you like. A fix is a mere couple of mouse clicks away. Move your cursor onto the desktop and give the right mouse button a click. Pick the Properties choice in the menu that pops up. Select the tab marked Settings in the next display, and you will find a slider bar that lets you move the screen resolution up and down from the lowest possible setting, which you now have, all the way up to the maximum your monitor can handle with your computer’s video card.
A second tip is that if you choose the Advanced button on that same display, you will find a choice to permanently display an icon in your Taskbar that will allow you to change resolutions without messing around with the settings menus I just described.
Q. Every day I open my e-mail (Microsoft Outlook Express) only to find dozens of pieces of spam. The junk mail is basically the same–end debt, start your own Web site, make money, etc. The problem is, I’m not in debt, I have a Web site and I have a job. How do I stop these annoying and many times repetitive ads? Is there a blocking feature that will stop these ads, many from the same sender, from reaching my e-mail box?
Raymond L. Johnson Jr.
@tmgpc.com
A. The Microsoft Outlook Express e-mail software that comes with Windows 98 and Windows ME uses a strategy known as message rules to handle unwanted e-mail, as well as to streamline dealing with mail you want. The software walks a user through setting up any number of rules that will kick in when e-mail comes in from various senders or with selected keywords in the subject line or the body of the text.
You can quickly set up a rule to simply delete any message sent by that one spam specialist you mention in your note, for example. You also could set up rules that would look for e-mail from people you care about, either in your family life or your business life, and route it into special folders instead of into the inbox that catches all incoming e-mail.
Q. I think I have a better suggestion than you gave reader Loren Doppelt of Palatine, who wanted to re-arrange the icons for the Program lists that come up when Windows users click the Start button. You were correct to say that one can rearrange these icons simply by dragging and dropping each in the place one desires. But a better solution might be to sort them alphabetically.
To do this, click on the Start button and select Programs. Then right-click the mouse anywhere in the program lists. This brings up a menu that includes the choice to sort the programs by name, which will put them in alphabetical order.
Jon Grainger, Park Ridge
A. Today’s column ought to be called Ask Jon Why in honor of that superb little tip, Mr. G. It was news to me when your e-mail came in, and I was delighted to find it works just as you say in Windows 98. As you also say, many more people will want to simply arrange their program icons alphabetically than will want to bother with arranging them in special order by dragging and dropping each, one at a time.
I thank you, and I’m sure a great many readers of this column will be delighted to learn that slick little trick and thank you as well.
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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 60611. Questions can be answered only through the column. Add your point of view at chicagotribune.com/go/askjim