Our list of Frequently Asked Questions has grown too long to be easily read in this format. To make it easier to find the questions and answers you're looking for, we've split them into the following categories:

1. What is known about www.fixit.com?

2. What is the best way to send a document through e-mail? I'll be using Outlook Express and would like to make sure the receiving person can read the document.

3. How do I know where cookies from the Internet come from?

4. Which Internet cookies can I delete and does this cause any damage to my software or hardware of my computer?

5. Can Internet cookies be directed to a master location?

6. How do you check your free or used space on your e-mail account?

7. I copied Outlook Express from my old computer. Where are my old messages and address book to move that information?

8. I removed Netscape 6 and now can't read mail that I had there.

9. When sending an email and including an attachment, I also cc (carbon- copy) myself. However, I got a notice back that the server couldn't deliver the message. I checked my copy and it was gibberish. What happened?

10. In Win95, why are several copies of each Internet file kept?

11. I just got DSL. What do I need to know?

12. I got an e-mail in which each line started with +AD4-?

13. How can I block unsolicited commercial e-mail on Netscape?

14. What is the setting for newsgroups in Netscape using <whichever ISP>?

15. Where is 'Bookmark.htm'?

16. I have lots of files with the extension of .CSV after installing Black ICE. I also get lots of illegal operations from SIRC32 and secure32.dll.

17. What would be gained by going from Internet Explorer 4.0 to 6.x?

18. My computer does not disconnect from the Internet when trying to shut down Dial-Up Networking.

19. I get an illegal operation message often while reading e-mail.

20. I just installed Norton Firewall & Anti-Virus. Now the internet is slow and I can't go to many sites

21. I have problems sending online cards. My computer will lock up and the card is not sent.

22. What harm is done by forwarding hoax email? How can we get people to stop forwarding this junk?

23. Using Netscape 4.x and I changed ISP's and Netscape password for email.

24. I recently used an FTP program, which reportedly can resume a download if the download is interrupted. For large file transfers, FTP could be quite convenient by being able to resume where the file download was interrupted, rather than from the beginning. When I retrieved the Netscape browser from its download site, it gave explicit directions on how to navigate to the source directory for the 30M file. But Microsoft is not so accommodating. It is set up to have IE users download a 500k fetch and install program. Has anyone located the FTP directory form Internet Explorer 6 on the Microsoft web site? And how can I save the large file so that I can install it into my other computers and not have to start from scratch with the fetch and install program for each of my computers?

25. I don't want chain letters, often with large pictures. When downloading, I can notice a large files. Is there a way during download to exclude a specific file? One in a while, I do get pictures from friends (they tell me before sending one), which is fine.

26. How do I erase my old e-mail?

27. I have a laptop and need to access my e-mail while on the road.

28. My PC is set for 300 entries a day for newsgroups. Yet my PC keeps on downloading thousands of messages. When I stop the download (of headers and/or messages), all the other messages from other newsgroups are stopped. Is there an easier solution?

29. There are reports of widespread fraud in the ‘register a domain name’ realm. How does one determine who can legitimately register a domain name? Are there really legitimate, registerable domain names for $14.95?

30. When online and I have a logon or enter a password, the computer does not respond, but I am still online.

31. Why does the AOL window just appear?

32. My address book is full of names that I have no idea who or why they are there?

33. I see a questions about frames when visiting websites.

34. What is a good firewall to use with a DSL line?

35. How can I look at the images I have downloaded from AOL?

36. Internet Explorer Favorites: I sorted them by name and when I add new bookmarks, they are added at the end. How to I resort?

37. WebShots are being sent in .jpg format now and do not fill the screen.

38. Can you explain briefly how a firewall like Zone Alarm works with an Ethernet DSL modem & whether you need a firewall on each PC connected to the network.

39. Is the free version of Zone Alarm good?

40. Browsers fail to establish DNS link (?) after connecting to the Internet Supplier - this happened after installing Norton System Works & Firewall.

41. What are the minimum requirements for DSL when you have a router?

42. MS Messenger - is there a way to get online and not let others know you are online?

43. I can not find the draft folder in Outlook Express.

44. What are cookies?

45. When I open IE sometimes it opens full screen and sometimes small.

46. I get messages stating there are updates available for my computer and one of them is IE6. Why do you recommend not upgrading?

47. I have two PC's.Can run the same internet dialup in each?

48.I get e-mails that have been forwarded and want to forward without the other e-mail addresses.

49. I sometmes get messages that have nice music or graphics. How do I save them?

50. When I type a long e-mail, I sometimes get disconnected from my ISP. What can I do about that ?

51. I have a group of people that I want to send messages to frequently.How do I do that?

52. How can I change an e-mail to send to someone else?

53. Any recommendations for high speed ISP's?

54. How do I read MIME text?

55.Can web pics be downloaded from our club's website http://www.mc3computerclub.org ?

56. Where can I go to find out what the various abbreviations mean i.e.ISP URL...

57. Why do the letters on the left side of email get cut off when I print and email?

1. www.fixit.com leads to www.worldnews.com, a news headline website. The software troubleshooting program Fix-it: “... four modules ... tune up, clean up, and resolve conflicts. There is also an effective crash-protection module...” You can find out more about it by going to this web page:
http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/features/utility/diag/ud2.htm

If someone has actually used this program, please let us know.

2. The quickest way is to attach the file to the e-mail message. This will keep the formatting and will let the receiver see how this was done. It would be a good idea to tell the receiver what format and version number the document is in so it can be read on the other end. If you do not know if the receiver has the program you have used to crate the document, you can cut and paste the text from a word processor and past this into the e-mail message. All of the formatting will beremoved, but the receiver will get all of the text that you wanted to send. This works for any e-mail system that I have seen.

3. These typically come from the Internet site that you are visiting. They have information on your user name, password, the type of information you have looked at and the last time you have visited the site. If a person can get into your computer, they would be able to see this information, so you should have a good firewall installed on your system when you get in the Internet. My first choice would be BlackIce.

4. You can delete all of them if you like. What will be lost is the information that was listed above. This will not cause any software or hardware problems. The only issue you might have is that you might be considered a new user to the Internet sites that you normally visit.

5. They could be copied to a general location, but some software will put them where it wants to. If you want to delete the cookies, you can look for them with the Start, Find, Files and Folders and this will tell you where the location of the Internet cookies are on your computer.

6. That depends on your provider. First of all, ask them. Second, if you use the default setting of Netscape Messenger or Outlook, they download all messages onto your hard drive and delete them on the e-mail server. For Hotmail or Yahoo mail, please check with their support for this information.

7. Your old messages in Outlook Express are kept in a .PST file. Use Find from the start menu and search for *.pst on your old computer and copy it to a floppy. The address book is in a .PAB file. Use Find again and look for *.pab. Copy it to a floppy. Look for those two files on the new computer and overwrite them with the old ones (as long as you don’t have messages in the new .pst or .pab to keep).With Netscape, mail, by default, is kept in c:\program files\netscape\users\<user name or default>\mail. Your bookmark file for Netscape is kept in c:\program files\netscape\<username or default> directory.

8. Depending on what version of Netscape you put back on your computer, that may be normal. See above for usual locations of your mail files. And Outlook won’t be able to read that mail either.

9. It would help to know what exactly the error message was and which server (your service provider's server or the recipient's service provider's server). This message will tell us why the message was not success- fully delivered. It could be that the person you are sending to is using a free mail service and their mail- box was full or the message was bigger than the max size set by their mail server or (being a free service) their e-mail server was off-line.

As to the gibberish, when attaching a file, did you attach it as a file or insert it into the document? If your e-mail program tried to insert a Word document as text into an e-mail, it will turn out as gibberish. The same thing can happen if you try to attach a graphic and it gets pushed into the e-mail as text. On the other hand, it might have been trashed by the e-mail server and that's why your copy is gibberish.

10.That's called caching and what it is supposed to do is to keep you from having to download a file twice when revisiting a website. It doesn't work very well and your browser doesn't always delete old or outdated files until it runs out of cache hard drive space. The amount of hard drive set aside is set inside your browser and then it deletes the oldest file first.

11. By default, DSL is there all the time. If you are using a DSL modem (as opposed to a router), you need to take some security precautions such as BlackIce or ZoneAlarm. Otherwise, enjoy the speed!

12. Someone wanted to put a little color in your life and either you have RTF or HTML turned off or the headers got mangled between the time they wrote the message and you got it. That is a command for RTF (Rich Text Format) to make the line of text a certain color. You can turn this on or off in your e-mail reader and on theirs. Also, you can set a preference in the address book for the format of email they prefer. However it requires that certain information be placed in the message header. Normally, you have headers turned off and don't see them. But if a mail server along the path of this message took out a line of header information or mangled it, the same thing will result. Your mail reader can't recognize that code was supposed to be a color code and doesn't turn color on for the message and you are seeing the raw code to do that.

13. Normally you can't really do that. But you can create rules to auto-delete messages, but be careful doing that as you might accidentally create rules that delete more messages than you wanted.

14. Ask their support for the name of their newsgroup (or NNTP) server.

15. This is a Netscape specific file. It is on the drive where you installed Netscape, under /program files/Netscape/users/
<username or default user>.

16.Wish I had noticed SIRC32.dll at the club meeting. You have the SirCAM virus. Visit one of the anti-virus websites and get their SirCAM removal tools ASAP.

17. Versions of IE prior to 5.01 are vulnerable to getting the Nimda worm by merely visiting an infected site. All versions of IE 5.x need to be patched to SP2 also. Window Software Installer also requires IE 5.01 or better. So staying at IE v4.x should not be an option. Download or purchase? Purchase is quicker to install, but the purchased versions go out of date very quickly.

18. Uninstall Dial-Up Networking and reinstall it. Go to Control Panel, Add/Remove programs, Windows Setup, select Communications and deselect (uncheck mark) Dial-Up Networking. Exit out and restart computer then reverse the check mark to re-install DUN. This will not delete the dialup information for your ISP.

19. Not sure, but make sure the computer is scanned thoroughly for viruses, delete all temp files and maybe re-install IE or Netscape (whichever you use to read e-mail).

20. It's probably two things. The firewall is misconfigured preventing you from getting to many sites. Try disabling that first. Then if you want it installed, you have to fine tune it better. As far as the slowness, antivirus software, buy default, scans all files that are opened or written to. This slows the machine down a lot. I recommend scanning all e-mail and scanning the computer weekly.

21. This is probably a browser problem. Make sure you have the latest patches and updates for your version of the browser you use. If using Netscape, 4.79 is the latest 4.x browser and 6.21 is the latest 6.x browser. If IE, 5.x should be patched to SP2. Not sure what version IE 6 should be.

22. Some of the hoax e-mail asks you to erase system files on your computer that are legitimate files, possibly disabling your computer. Other hoax e-mail wastes your time and the time of the person that sent it and wastes huge amounts of disk space on mail servers. Other times, hoax e-mail asks you to send somebody something that they don't want and can't get these 'good hearted people' to stop spreading the hoax that they want it. Education is the best way to stop it. Find the truth behind the hoax and forward that to the person who sent it to you and tell them that they should ask or find out before resending that junk.

23. Open Netscape and select Edit -> Preferences -> Mail & Newsgroups -> Mail Servers. Highlight the new mail server and select Edit. On this screen, select Remember Password. You will be asked for your password one more time when checking your e-mail and then Netscape should remember your new password.

24. Welcome to the world of Microsoft where they don't really believe people still use modems for their primary connection to the Internet. The other option is to order IE on CD. It costs about $10 for shipping and handling.

25. One way is to ask your ISP (Internet Service Provider) if they have a web interface for email. Then you can look at who the message is from and the subject and possibly delete the message before you download it.

26. You can delete each message one at a time and then empty the trash or deleted folder in your e-mail client. Or if you have a whole page full, select the first one, take the mouse down to the last one, hold the shift key down and then click on the last one. Then all in and you can delete all the highlight e-mails. Or you can hold the Control key down and click on individual e-mail messages and select several at random and then delete those. And remember to empty the trash or delete folder in your e-mail client to fully delete the messages.

27. Earthlink, ATT's WorldNet, and AOL have the widest number of access points across the country. AOL would be my last choice, but that's my personal opinion.

28. When you set 300 entries, that’s for each newsgroup you want. Many newsgroups get more than that each day, so 300 times the number of newsgroups that you want equals a whole bunch of messages. One solution is to use the ‘catch up’ feature. This is in your mail client and marks all messages currently on the news server as read and you start downloading only messages from this point forward. Newsgroups can be informative if they are well managed. Unfortunately, many newsgroups are wide open, and you will get more spam than useful information

29. I have not heard of widespread fraud in domain name realm except the fiasco over the .biz names. That was a case of California claiming the method used to decide who got a domain name if two or more requested it was an illegal 3 lottery. I am not sure if the lawyers have ironed that one out or not. The top-level domain name registrars are listed with http://www.icann.org and they have to check out before they are allowed to be listed here. Many of the rest of the register’s bulk record with these organizations. Most of the ‘fraud’ that I have seen revolves around a web developer registering the domain for you, but puts it in his name and not yours.

30. One possibility is that you have ‘logon to network’ selected in Dial Up networking. This is found in the setup for the dial out for your ISP in the Servers section. Also you may have an automatic dial out for another ISP setup and it’s trying to connect to the Internet for you.

31. AOL installs itself so that anytime something on your computer wants to get to the Internet, AOL tries to be helpful by trying to connect for you.

32. Outlook Express has a ‘helpful’ feature to put any address in your address book automatically when you reply to a message. Even if that person did not send the message, but was merely copied on the original message. In Outlook Express, Tools, Options, Send. Uncheck “Automatically put people I reply to in my Address book.”

33. Browsers version 4 and higher support frames. Selecting no frames works and maybe is faster. Frames are a way to treat portions of the screen as independent areas.

34. The best is a DSL router. Nothing in software beats a good hardware firewall. That said, a DSL router requires an Ethernet DSL modem. The USB DSL modems are not compatible with DSL routers. If you insist on a software firewall, Zone Alarm is my first choice with the Norton or McAfee personal firewalls second. I put our old preferred software choice, Black Ice, dead last. It does not inspect outgoing traffic at all. Many viruses, Trojans, and hackers will use your machine for their evil deeds on the Internet. Black Ice does not stop this at all. This is one area where we must be good neighbors by not putting out garbage onto the Internet. If you have a fast full time connection, please consider that you can send as fast as you receive.

35. Depends on what format they are in. Paint can pull in many formats, and I use a product called ACDSee as a general purpose graphic viewer.

36. Open Favorites, right click somewhere in the Favorites pulldown. Select
Sort.

37. Right click on the desktop and select Properties from the popup dialog box. On the lower right side of the screen, there is a select box called: Picture Display. Change that from Centered to Stretch.

38. An Ethernet DSL modem (without a router) just passes the Internet traffic directly to your PC. Bad idea, if you don’t have some kind of software firewall like ZoneAlarm. If you have a DSL router, they normally are set up to do NAT’ing (Network Address Translation). You can tell by looking at your IP address on the computer. Using WINIPCFG, select your network card (as opposed to the PPP adapter) and the address should be 192.168.x.x. Or if you are using Win2K or WinXP, open a command prompt (start —> run —> cmd) and input ‘ipconfig’. Sometimes a large company or AOL will use addresses that are 10.x.x.x, those are NATed addresses. This means the Internet can’t directly connect to your computer and you have a fair amount of protection from hackers. However, ZoneAlarm also looks at outbound traffic, so it will catch viruses or worms trying to send bad stuff out to the Internet. For the price, Zone Alarm is a good product to have on your computer.

39. Yes

40. The Norton firewall is blocking DNS traffic(TCP & UDP ports 53). I don’t have any experience with this firewall to tell you how to get around this. Try looking at Symantec’s website. In addition to online tech support, they have forums or discussion groups that can be helpful to solve this problem.

41. you need a computer with a working TCP/IP stack. You will also need a Network Card.When using a router, you should not need any of the add-on software that comes from your DSL provider or router provider just to use the internet via the router.

42. Right click on the icon for Messenger and you should find options just for that purpose.

43.Under views, select Folder view, you will see it there.

44. Cookies are used by website to let them know something about you and your last visit to their website.What is in them varies widely from website to website. But basically its so that when you re-visit that website,they can see something about you and present material that they hope will be better suited to you.

45. IE remembers what size it was closed at. When you go to close IE and there is a popup in the backround, they are almost never full screen. Sorry, but thats just the way it is.

46. Which is better is a matter of opinion, but if you have a dialup connection,IE6 takes way too long to download for what advantages/improvements there may be. There are some online services that don't work with version X of whatever browser. Unfortunately there are some that don't work with IE6. You can't have more than one version of IE on your computer at a time. With Netscape you can have as many different versions as you like.

47. There is no problem with doing that as long as you don't try to get both machines connected to the Internet at the same time.Depending on the ISP,you can lock out your account by doing that.

48.whenever you forward or reply to a message, you are in a basic editor similar to Notepad or Wordpad and you can do basic editing, such as highlight and delete or cut and paste.

49. Depends on how they were sent. usually to cut down on the size of a message, the e-mail is HTML formatted (just like a web page) and the graphics or music are actually stored on a webserver somewhere else. You would need to find and store those files. On a web page.on a web page you can right click on a graphic and save it, but it really depends on the format of that page. This topic is beyond a simple explanation that I can write about here.

50.There are inactivity timers on most computers and ISP's, so that if you happened to walk away from your computer, it doesn't stay dialed up forever. The easiest way around this is to let the computer do something frequently, like check for e-mail . In Outlook Express, go to Tools, Internet Options, and on the General page, there is an option to check for new e-mail every x number of minutes. Turn on that option and 10 minutes. I don't recommend setting it shorter than that as that wastes CPU time; that is, it slows down the computer when checking e-mail.

51.Open the address book in your e-mail program and creat a group and add e-mail addresses to it. Just be aware that Outlook &Outlook Express have some bugs with groups. If you delete or change an e-mail address that is part of a group you have to manually go into the group and delete that entry and re-add it to the group. It does not happen automaticlly. Also when you export your address book to share or backup, you can't export your groups.And if one address in the group is bad, you may not be able to send to the group until you fix it. This depends on the exact error message you get back from your ISP . And Outlook will do all kinds of things, like not tell you which address is bad. Groups are helpful, but can have their problems also.

52.Use the forward or reply functions in your e-mail program.

53. DSL is provided primarily by SBC.If you are not in an area serviced by DSL,DSL.NET in Lake in the Hills is a wireless provider.Also check with your cable provider. My last choice for high speed internet is satellite.This looks attractive but because of the distance the signal must travel, it is slower than other alternatives.

54. MIME is a method of encoding non- text for use with e-mail. Your e- mail program should be able to read and decipher and display it properly. If not, you need a plugin for your e-mail program or a better e-mail program.

55. yes right click over a pic and select "save image as".

56. You can certainly use www.google.com to search for some of this stuff. I don't normally use these services, but I know that there are websites that explain these items, but I don,t have any in my collection. How about a little help from the club on this one?

      Editor's suggestions:

                       http:/kresch.com/ab/ab.htm

   http:/www.geocities.com/ikind_babel/babel/babel.html

57. If the original email is in HTML format, that's the way it is. HTML format is not very forgiving. Another problem might be an incompatibility with the fonts used vs. the font the printer is printing the email with. This is one of those problems that can have more than one cause and the answer depends on why it happens.