Tips and Tricks

97 JANUARY 2003

1

insight ■■ tips and tricks

Power WindowsPower WindowsSecrets to attaining peace of mind whenworking with Windows—here’s everything youneed to know to run a lean, mean, killermachine

contents1 Windows 98

5 Windows 2000 Professional

7 Windows XP Professional

Tweak UI for Windows 98 and 2000,

Tweak UI for XP

Tips on becoming a Photoshop Guru

Find it on the Mindware CD


98 JANUARY 2003

2

Turn off Task SchedulerFirst of all, turn off the TaskScheduler, unless it really is scheduling somethingimportant. Most users haveno critical programs sched-uled, especially after freshlyinstalling Windows. Thescheduling utility keeps run-ning in the background,unnecessarily hogging mem-ory. To disable it, double-click the Task Scheduler iconin the system tray and clickAdvanced > Stop Using TaskScheduler. When you create ascheduled task, the featurewill be enabled.

Nix the Active DesktopFor a healthy Windows, youhave to get rid of the ActiveDesktop. Microsoft hadadded this feature withInternet Explorer 4 and laterinto Windows when it integrated the browser andthe operating system. Itallows you to display Webcontent on the desktopitself. The Active Desktophogs a ridiculous amount of memory and often causesthe system to be unstable.Simply right-click on anempty area of the desktopand disable View as WebPage to turn this off. If you set JPEG or GIF files as your wallpaper, this feature needs to be turnedon. It is better to convertthem to BMPs before settingthem as the wallpaper.

Enable DMADirect Memory Access(DMA) is a technique thathard disks and CD-ROMdrives can use to transferdata directly to and frommemory, without passingthrough the processor. DMAreduces the load on the sys-tem processor since datatransfers do not requiremonitoring by the CPU.With DMA, a write or readoperation can be executed intwo to four clock cycles.Without DMA it will cost theCPU a minimum of 16 clockcycles per operation. Notonly do disk read/write oper-ations gain a significantboost in speed, but Windowsalso works faster, since it canload system files much fasterand also accesses the swapfile at higher speeds.

Older hard disks and CD-ROM drives do not supportDMA, but almost all com-puters today use DMA-com-pliant devices. In case youface a problem after enablingDMA, reboot Windows toSafe Mode and disable theoption. Also, DMA needs tobe enabled from the BIOS,

but again, on most comput-ers, this is on by default.DMA is supported only inWindows 95 OSR 2 and later.

To enable DMA, openControl Panel > System > DeviceManager. Expand the Diskdrives tree, select the harddisk and click Properties.Under the Settings tab,check the DMA option.Repeat this for all other hard disks and the CD-ROMor DVD-ROM drives.

File system propertiesChanging the File Systemsettings can also provide bet-ter performance. First,change your computer’s roleto a Network Server, even ifit is not one. Open ControlPanel > System > Performanceand click File System. Underthe Hard Disk tab, changethe typical role of the com-puter to Network serverinstead of Desktop comput-er. The setting controls thesize of various internal datastructures used by the 32-bitfile access driver (VFAT).When you use the Desktopcomputer setting, VFAT allo-cates memory to record the32 most recently accessedfolders and 677 most recent-ly accessed files, consumingapproximately 10 KB ofmemory. With the Mobile ordocking system setting,VFAT allocates memory torecord 16 folders and 337files, taking up around 5 KBof memory. As a Networkserver, VFAT allocatesaround 40 KB of memory torecord 64 folders and 2,729files. With the kind of memory available on sys-

tems today, this slight over-head hardly makes any difference, especially consid-ering the performance gainit provides.

Optimise virtual memoryThe way virtual memory isconfigured tremendouslyaffects Windows perform-ance. This is true for all versions of Windows,including the now-obsoleteWindows 3.1. The swap fileis what Windows uses tostore temporary data when itruns out of RAM. Thus, yourworking is not limited by theamount of RAM on yourmachine. However, for aprogram to be able to usethis data, it must be trans-ferred back to the RAM. Thedata that is not immediatelyrequired is moved to a partof the hard disk and recalledwhen required. However,since hard disks are nowhereas fast as RAM, swappingdata back and forth drasti-cally reduces speed. No mat-ter how much RAM youhave, Windows will alwaysuse the swap file for someinfrequently used parts ofthe OS (read the next tip to seehow to avoid this).

By default, Windows

■ tips and tricks

Enabling DMA significantlyimproves speed

Optimise the Windows swapfile for better performance

WINDOWS 98This most widely used OS is more tolerantthan later versions and allows many power

JANUARY 200399

3

uses a variable swap file that iscreated on bootup and wherethe size is dynamically modi-fied when required. Thoughthis works just fine, it is notthe most optimal. You cannever get the speed of RAMfrom the hard disk, but youcan make it slightly faster.The best way to configure theswap file is to have a perma-nent swap file, preferably on adedicated partition. This min-imises the effect of disk frag-mentation and increases seektime. Another practice that afew power users have adopt-ed is to place the swap file onthe first partition and theoperating system on the fol-lowing partition. Data closerto the centre of the drive isread slightly faster than dataat the periphery. This is espe-cially useful for PCs with only

64 or 128 MB of RAM wheredata would frequently beswapped to the hard disk andcan be easily done with BIOS-es that allow booting fromthe D drive.

To change the swap filesettings, open Control Panel >System > Performance and clickVirtual Memory. Choose ‘Letme specify my own virtualmemory settings’ and selectthe drive for the swap file.Note that no matter whatpartition you boot from, itwill always appear as the Cdrive from DOS and Win-dows 98, and the first parti-tion that is recognised as C bythe BIOS will be assigned ahigher drive letter. Set theminimum and maximumsize for the swap file. Boththese numbers should beidentical to set a permanent

(non-variable) swap file. Ide-ally, it should be two-and-a-half times the amount ofRAM on your system, but ifyou have a separate partitionfor it, you may not want it tobe less than 512 MB—if it islower, it will have to be aFAT16 partition, not FAT32.

Avoid the swap fileWhen Windows loads, itmoves certain parts of theoperating system to the swapfile anyway, regardless ofwhether it has run out ofRAM or not. This is very goodfor systems with less memo-ry, since it leaves some freeRAM and applications willstart much faster. Otherwise,when you start an applica-tion and memory is required,Windows will have to firstmove all this data to the swapfile to free up RAM. Thisfunctionality is usually notrequired on systems with 256MB or more RAM, especiallyif they only run commonproductivity tools such asOffice and Internet applica-tions. You can prevent Win-dows from using the swap fileuntil absolutely required byadding the line below to the[386Enh] section of the\Windows\ system.ini file.

C o n s e r v a t i v e S w a p f i l eUsage=1

You can edit this file inNotepad. In case you face anyproblems such as programscrashing frequently, removethis line and reboot.

Display settingsThe display settings affect thespeed of Windows too. Themore animations and transi-

tions the OS has to show, thehigher is the processor andRAM usage. Typically, turningoff all such features instanta-neously shows the differencein speed. Right-click anempty area of the desktopand click Properties. Underthe Effects tab, uncheck theboxes for ‘Animate windows,menus and lists’, ‘Smooth

edges of screen fonts’ and‘Show window contentswhile dragging’.

Temporary cleanerRegularly removing files thataccumulate in the Temp fold-er can also show better per-formance—these files areusually very small andunnecessarily fill up the harddisk. This also causes highdisk fragmentation andpushes important datatowards the periphery of thedisk, where read/write opera-tions are slower. Ideally, cre-ate a batch file that emptiesthis folder and place it in theStartup, so that it runs everytime you boot to Windows.You could do this from theautoexec.bat too, but this fileruns while still in DOS mode,so disk access will be much

Regularly defragmenting thehard disk maintains optimumperformance for read/writeoperations. Hard disks storedata in sectors and clusters,the latter being the smallestaddressable unit. Clusters areof a fixed size, depending onthe file system (FAT, FAT32,NTFS, etc). A cluster can holdonly one file, but a file mayspan over several clusters.For FAT32 partitions, thecluster size is 4 KB. Thus, anyfile between 0 bytes to 4 KBwill occupy one cluster.Should its size increasebeyond 4 KB, it will look forthe next free cluster to fill up.With frequently changing

files such as documents,spreadsheets, images, etc,the fragments of the file maynot be on contiguous clus-ters. Reading and writing tosuch files spread all over thepartition is obviously slow.Defragmenting brings piecesof the file together, so thatthey are accessed faster.

All versions of Windowsare bundled with defragment-ing tools. In Windows 98, youcan run it from Start > Pro-grams > Accessories > SystemTools > Disk Defragmenter. InWindows 2000 and XP, right-click My Computer and clickManage. Look for DiskDefragmenter under Storage.

Defragmenting

Turn off unnecessary graphiceffects


100 JANUARY 2003

■ tips and tricks

4

slower than when in Win-dows. You should strip all fileattributes before running thedelete command, since hid-den and system files will notbe deleted from the Com-mand Prompt. Also, using thedeltree command instead ofdel will ensure that even fold-ers are deleted. Thus, yourbatch file should contain thefollowing commands:

attrib -a -s -r -h c:\Windows\Temp\*.* /s

Deltree/y C:\Windows\Temp\*

Managing powerPower Management is a veryuseful feature for notebooks,but not as critical on a desk-top PC. With default powermanagement settings, thecomputer will automaticallyreduce the spinning rate ofthe hard disks and blank offthe monitor after a few min-utes of idle time. In older sys-tems, this sometimes causesWindows to lock up. Depend-ing on the settings, everytime you need to use the PC,the hard disk will have tospin up again before data canbe accessed on it. Turning off power management completely will not harm thesystem in any way. At most,

set only the monitor to beturned off. Open Control Panel> Power Management andchoose Always On underPower schemes to disable allpower saving features.Optionally, you can set onlythe system standby and harddisk settings to Never.

Disable AutorunAutorun was an innovativefeature to automaticallylaunch programs from CD-ROM and DVD drives. How-ever, the way it works, itaffects system performance,apart from being irritating attimes. While this feature ison, Windows polls the driveevery 5 seconds to check ifsome media has been insert-ed. If it finds a new disc, itwill check it for theautorun.inf file and executethe commands within this.This is quite an overhead,especially when you need thefeature only sometimes. Thisis true for all versions of Win-dows. To turn it off, openControl Panel > System > DeviceManager. Expand theCDROM tree, select the driveand click Properties. Underthe Settings tab, disable ‘Autoinsert notification’.

Boot fasterBefore Windows loads, itprocesses certain files to setthe correct environment andload initial drivers and Win-dows settings. The config.systypically loads drivers andthe autoexec.bat sets theenvironment and runs pro-grams before Windows loads.If these files are loading anyunnecessary items, you

should remove them. Bothfiles can be edited inNotepad.

A third file, the msdos.sys, sets several parametersfor Windows. It specifies theWindows folder, the locationof the startup files, behaviourof the boot menu, etc.Changing a few parameterscan ensure faster booting ofthe operating system. If anyparameters exist, you canchange its value, or simplyadd a line with the parame-ter. Before you can edit thisfile, however, you must stripits read-only and hiddenattributes. To do this, open aCommand Prompt windowand type this command:

attrib –h –r msdos.sysWhen Windows is not

shut down properly, it auto-matically runs Scandiskwhen it boots again. You candisable this by usingAutoScan=0. Setting its value

to 1 will bring up a promptasking if you want to runScandisk and setting it to 2will run Scandisk automati-cally. BootDelay=x sets theamount of time you have topress [F8] to bring up theboot menu. The default valuefor this is 2 seconds. If Boot-Menu is set to 1, it willalways bring up the bootmenu, BootMenuDelay sets thenumber of seconds thismenu is displayed for, beforebooting with the defaultselection. When BootWarn isset to 0, Windows will bootto Safe Mode without warn-ing, whenever it does notstart properly.

By now, you probablyhave FAT32 on all drives, sodisk compression utilitieswill not work. You shoulddisable the driver for this bysetting DblSpace and Drv-Space to 0. Also, if you do nothave a SCSI controller, set

Changing certain BIOS settingscan reduce the amount of timeit takes to hand over control tothe operating system, therebyreducing the time taken toboot. Although there are sev-eral different BIOSes with vary-ing options, there are somesettings common to all. Lookaround your BIOS to find theseoptions. Usually, to enter theBIOS setup, you have to pressthe [Delete] key while it isloading.

Configure your hard drivesin the BIOS, instead of settingit to automatically detect themevery time it boots. For most

BIOSes, you can simply selectthe Auto Detect Hard Disksoption. Disable Boot Up Flop-py Seek. This option checks ifthere is a floppy in the drive.You also don’t need the VirusProtection feature. Enablingthis from the BIOS often caus-es problems with systemupdates and also slows downthe booting time. Change theboot order so that it loads theoperating system from thehard drive first. You wouldhardly ever boot from a floppyor CD-ROM and when youneed to, you can switch to thisconfiguration in the BIOS.

BIOS Tweaks

Turn off power saving features

DoubleBuffer to 0. You candisable logging of the bootprocess by setting the valueof DisableLog to 1. SettingSystemReg to 0 will disablescanning of the Registry atstartup, but it is better toleave this on.

Defragmenting torearrange programsWindows 98 has a pretty use-ful feature to help load appli-cations faster—over time, ittracks your usage patternsand logs the frequency withwhich you use each applica-tion. It can then rearrangethe files of the application onyour hard drive so that theywill load faster. After youhave used your computer fora few weeks, run the DiskDefragmenter and select thedrive you want to defrag-ment (usually C). Click Set-

tings and check the box to‘Rearrange program files somy programs start faster’.Plus, you also have the addedadvantage of the disk gettingdefragmented.

Windows logonIf you are not on a networkand Windows is not config-ured for multiple users, ornetwork users are notauthenticated by an NTdomain, you should turn offthe Windows logon dialog

box. Open Control Panel > Net-work to configure the net-work properties. You don’trequire the Microsoft FamilyLogon, so select it and clickRemove. Ensure that the Pri-mary Network Logon is Win-dows Logon and click OK. Ifyou don’t have any passwordfor the user, Windows willautomatically log on withoutthe prompt. If you did set apassword, you can locate anddelete the PWL file from theWindows folder, restart Win-dows and this time enter ablank password.

Using Tweak UITweak UI is a very powerfulsoftware that lets you changevarious system settings with-out having to edit system filesor fiddle with the Registry. It is free and can be downloaded from www.microsoft.com/ntworkstation/downloads/PowerToys/Networking/NTTweakUI.asp. Version 1.33 is aconsolidated version that willwork on Windows 9x as wellas NT systems—it will giveyou different options on dif-ferent OSes. After it isinstalled, it will be availablefrom the Control Panel.Using Tweak UI is prettystraightforward, but here are

a few changes you must maketo get better performance.

Under the General tab,disable Window animation,Smooth scrolling, Menu ani-mation, Combo box anima-tion and List box animation.On the Explorer tab, disable‘Animated Click here tobegin’. Next, switch to theIE4 tab and disable ‘ActiveDesktop enabled’. On theBoot tab, you can controlboot settings such as thebehaviour of the boot menu,Scandisk, etc. Autorun forC D sc a n

be disabled under the Para-noia tab.

101 JANUARY 2003

5

Defragment the hard disk torearrange programs

Log on to Windowsautomatically

Use Tweak UI to speed upWindows 98

Get rid of servicesServices are background appli-cations that run on Windows.They may be system-relatedprograms without which Win-dows cannot run, or helperapplications, providing cer-tain functionality to otherprograms. For example, theSecurity Accounts Managerservice stores security infor-mation for user accounts to be used by all applications for authentication. Windows2000 starts several services bydefault, many of which youmay not require. You caneither permanently disable aservice, or set it to be manual-

ly started. If you are unsure,choose the Manual mode—the service will be started onlywhen required, but will notcause any errors. If perma-nently disabled, dependentprograms will throw up errorswhen they need the service.

Right-click My Computerand click Manage. On the leftpane, expand Services andApplications and click Ser-vices. Sort the services indescending order by the Sta-tus column to bring the serv-ices that are currently run-ning on top. You can selecteach service and double-clickit to read its description,change the Startup type toManual or Disabled and tostop it. As you go through thelist, you may realise that youdon’t require more than halfthe services, such as Distrib-uted File System, Task Sched-uler, Remote Registry Service,Stop services you don’t require

WINDOWS 2000 PROFESSIONALWindows 2000 lacks little in terms

of performance and stability, but can besqueezed for even more juice

6


102 JANUARY 2003

RunAs Service, etc. If youdon’t have any NTFS parti-tions, Distributed Link Track-ing will not help in any way.Similarly, if you don’t haveany printers installed, youcan turn off Print Spooler.

Personalised menusWindows 2000 introducedpersonalised menus, trackingusage of menu items across alllocal users. Items that havenot been used recently arehidden away, providing fasteraccess to frequently usedshortcuts. This is a veryresourceful addition to theuser interface, but comes at aprice. Every time you open amenu, Windows checks upwhich items are to be dis-played and which ones are to

be hidden. This is quiteunnecessary and one canactually feel the delay on slowsystems. Turn off personalisedmenus from Start > Settings >Taskbar & Start Menu.

Active DesktopThough there haven’t beenany known issues with ActiveDesktop on Windows 2000 asagainst 98, it can slow down

the OS. You should avoidusing GIFs and JPEG images asyour wallpaper. To disableWeb content on the desktop,right-click on the desktop,click Properties and switch tothe Web tab. Uncheck the boxto ‘Show Web content on myActive Desktop’ and click OK.

Away with displayeffectsWindows 2000 brought withit a new set of display effectsfor menus, lists and windows.Turning these off will save upsome resources. The perform-ance gain will be more appar-ent on low-end computers,but you will definitely notice itwhen minimising or maximis-ing windows. Right-click onthe desktop, click Propertiesand switch to the Effects tab.

Disable ‘Use transition effectsfor menus and tooltips’,‘Smooth edges of screen fonts’and ‘Show window contentswhile dragging’.

Performance optionsBuilt over the NT architec-ture, Windows 2000 providesperformance options similarto Windows NT 4. Open Con-trol Panel > System > Advancedand click PerformanceOptions. Here, you can setWindows to optimise proces-sor and memory usage for

applications or backgroundservices. For desktop PCs, youdon’t need to change this set-ting. If it were a server, youwould choose to optimise forbackground services. You canalso change the virtual mem-ory settings. You can haveone swap file per drive, eachwith different sizes (Checkthe tip Optimise virtualmemory in the Windows 98section for more on swapfiles). You will notice thathere you can also set the maximum registry size. You should not set this to avery low value, or you willstart facing problems as you

install more programs. Settinga small size does make a difference though—Windowsloads the registry into memo-ry, so the smaller the registry,lesser is the memory used.

Maintaining temporaryfilesBy default, Windows 2000 setsup different Temp folders foreach user along with the\Winnt\Temp folder. Thus,when clearing out temporaryfiles, you have to check thisfolder, as well as the Tempfolder under each user’saccount profile, under \Docu-ments and Settings\<User>\Local Settings\Temp. This isas unmanageable as it is irri-tating. Fortunately, you canchange this behaviour. OpenControl Panel > System >Advanced and click Environ-ment Variables. You will seetwo boxes for User variablesand System variables. Deletethe TEMP and TMP variablesfor the user, or set their paths

to %SystemRoot%\TEMP. Youwill have to repeat this forevery local user.

Power bootOn the System Properties dia-log, under the Advanced tab,click Startup and Recovery tochange the boot options forthe NT Flex boot loader. Ifyou have only Windows 2000installed, disable ‘Display a

Setting the swap file sizes andthe maximum registry size

Change environment variables

Web content on the desktophogs resources

Disable personalised menus inWindows 2000

Squeeze out even the last dropof power by turning off displayeffects

list of operating systems’. Ifyou dual boot with anotherOS, reduce the amount oftime for which the bootoptions are displayed. Thus,when you switch on your PC,you will not have to hangaround to press [Enter] toload Windows.

Automatic LogonIf yours is a single-user PC, ora particular user logs on toWindows 2000 most often,you can have the operatingsystem logon automaticallywith that user’s credentials.You should not use this ifsecurity is a concern. If thecomputer is part of a work-group and not logging on to adomain, open Control Panel >Users and Passwords anduncheck ‘Users must enter auser name and password touse this computer’. On theAdvanced tab, uncheck‘Require users to press Ctrl-Alt-Del before logging on’.

If Windows is set to log onto a domain, you can enablethis functionality by editingthe registry. Start regedt32from Start > Run and navigateto HKEY_Local_ Machine\Software\Microsoft\Win-dowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon. Create the keysDefaultDomainName, Defaul-tUserName, and DefaultPass-

word and enter the domain,user name and password toautomatically log on to.

Using Tweak UI for Windows 2000Tweak UI for Windows 2000is a very powerful tool tomodify system settings.Though the installer is thesame one as for Windows 98,the options available and itsbehaviour are different in sev-eral respects. On installingTweak UI, you can launch itfrom the Control Panel.

On the General tab, turnoff Combo box animation,

Cursor shadow, List box ani-mation, Menu animation,Menu fading, Menu selectionfading, Smooth scrolling,Tooltip animation, Tooltipfade and Window animation.Switch to the IE tab anduncheck the box to ‘AllowActive Desktop to be turnedon/off’. On the Paranoia tabyou can disable Autorun foraudio and data CDs.

Options on the Cmd tablet you configure keys to auto-matically complete file anddirectory names at the Com-

mand Prompt. For example,you can type in the first char-acter of the file or directoryname and press Tab to haveWindows fill in the rest foryou. This is extremely usefuleven if you work only occa-sionally

with the Command Prompt.On the Logon tab, you can setan account to automaticallylog on after booting Windows.This is useful for single-userPCs, or where security is notcritical.

103 JANUARY 2003

7

Change the themeThe default Windows XPtheme looks very pretty, buthogs a lot of system resourcesfor the eye-candy effects suchas bevelled objects and transi-tions. If looks are not impor-tant to you, switch over to theclassic Windows look. To dothis, right-click an empty area

of the desktop and click Prop-erties. Under the Themes tab,set Windows Classic as thecurrent theme and click OK.

Turn off display effectsSwitching off transition andanimation effects can save alot of system resources. Theseeffects are not required to runprograms and cause anunnecessary load on the

processor and RAM. Right-click on an empty area of thedesktop, click Properties andswitch to the Appearance tab.Click Effects and clear all thecheckboxes.

Choose performanceWindows XP has some verygood features to maximiseperformance. Unfortunately,the default settings are nogood. You can choose to haveit optimise itself for fastercomputing. To change thesesettings, click Start, right-click My Computer and clickProperties. Switch to theAdvanced tab and click theSettings button under Perfor-mance. By default, ‘Let Win-dows choose what’s best formy computer’ is selected.Choose ‘Adjust for best per-formance’ instead, and youwill almost immediatelynotice a boost in speed. Thisis because all graphic effectsare turned off. You can

Tweak UI for Windows 2000

Log on automatically toWindows 2000

Switch to the classic Windowstheme

Disable all display effects on XPXP lets you optimise the OS forperformance

WINDOWS XP PROFESSIONALXP is quite user-friendly with an impressive

interface, but is sluggish on low-end systems

optionally choose each typeof effect that should beenabled from here, but if it’spower you are looking for,leave them all off. Note thatthe behaviour and appear-ance of a lot of Windows suchas the Control Panel, willbecome quite different. If youprefer the helpful wizard-likeinterfaces, you may want tosacrifice a bit on performanceand enable the option to ‘Usecommon tasks in folders’.

Paging optionsOn the Performance Optionsdialog (right-click My Com-puter and click Properties >Advanced > Settings), click onthe Advanced tab to accesseven more performance fea-tures. You can adjust theprocessor and memoryoptions, but for desktop PCs

you should leave the defaultoptions (optimise for Pro-grams). What you shouldchange are the virtual memo-ry settings. You can have oneswap file per drive (Check thetip ‘Optimise virtual memory’ inthe Windows 98 section formore on swap files). Set the

optimum size and click OK.

Boot optionsIf you are not booting multi-ple operating systems, you canturn off the option perma-nently, until it is required. Ifthere is another OS on yoursystem, say Windows 98, youcan reduce the amount of timethe option to choose whichOS to load is displayed. Right-click My Computer, click Prop-erties > Advanced and click theSettings button under Startupand Recovery. Here, you canchoose which operating sys-tem to boot by default. Youcan uncheck the boxes toshow the boot options, orselect the number of secondsfor which the choices are dis-played. Five seconds is usuallymore than enough.

You will notice recoverysettings in case of a system fail-ure. Alerts and debugginginformation will not be veryhelpful for most users, so youcan turn these options off too.

Turn off servicesDepending on your comput-er’s configuration and optionschosen when installing Win-dows XP, it will have certainservices enabled. Many ofthese you may never requireand can safely switch off. Youcan disable a service so that it

never runs, or set it to bemanually started.

Right-click My Computerand click Manage to bring upthe Computer Managementconsole. On the left pane,select Services under Servicesand Applications to control allinstalled services. The easiestway to filter through the list isto sort it by the Status column.Services that are ‘Started’ arethe ones you need to look at.(Read more on services in the tip‘Get rid of services’ under Win-dows 2000 Professional’.)

Quit indexingThe Indexing Service storesinformation from documentsand organises it for fastersearches. This is not useful tomany users, especially if thedocuments are well organised.Not only does this service takeup system resources, it alsoinvolves frequent read/writeoperations to the hard disk,which are particularly slow.From the Computer Manage-ment console (right-click MyComputer and click Manage),select Indexing Service fromthe left pane under Servicesand Applications. You will seethe list of catalogues on theright pane. If any of them arestarted, you can stop themfrom here, and even delete thecatalogue. Optionally, you canexpand the tree on the leftpane for each indexed itemand restrict the folders it scans.

Tweak UI for XPTweak UI is available for Win-dows XP too. It gives youaccess to quite a few systemsettings that are otherwise notreadily available, and can help

gain that extra inch of powerfrom XP. You can downloadthis version from www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp.

Under General, you canturn off display effects such asfading and animations.Under Explorer, uncheck theboxes for ‘Allow Web contentto be added to the desktop’and ‘Enable smooth scroll-ing’. Expand the Explorertree, select Thumbnails andmove the Image Quality slid-er to around the centre. Next,expand the My Computer >AutoPlay branch. Under Dri-ves, you can disable AutoPlayfor all drives, thus reducingthis overhead. Under theTypes branch, you can chooseto disable AutoPlay for CD,DVD and removable drives.

Under the CommandPrompt branch, you can con-figure special keys to auto-matically complete file anddirectory names, as on a Unixsystem. If you have a single-user system, you can have XPlogon automatically fromLogon > Autologon. UnderLogon > Unread Mail, you candisable the notification ofnew e-mail messages for eachuser. Not only is this moresecure, but it also reduces theoverhead of polling for newmessages for every user.

8


104 JANUARY 2003

Changing swap file settings in XP

Power up with Tweak UI for XP

Reduce load on CPU and RAMby turning off services

FEBRUARY 2003

Power BuilderPower Builder


97

9

contents10 Intel-based systems

11 Athlon-based systems

12 Installing mother-

boards

13 Power supply

15 Cooling tips

15 Overclocking tips

Power tweaks for

Windows 98

Find it on the

Mindware CD

Want to build thatdream machine? Hereare tips from powerusers on how to builda souped up system—the fastest and moststable, this side of theArabian Sea

ILLUSTRATION: Mahesh Benkar


98 FEBRUARY 2003

10

Keeping your coolSince processors are con-tinuously stressing on

faster speeds, cooling becomesan important issue—gift yourprocessor a rated heatsink andcooling fan combination.Most processors come withthe heatsink and cooling fanin tow, but you may require abetter cooling solution, espe-cially in the case of the Pen-tium 4 processors.

How much thermalpaste?If your heatsink is cov-

ered by thermal tape, youdon't need to apply any ther-mal paste. Otherwise, apply

just a dab—too much thermalpaste and it will ooze out. Alsomake sure there are no airbubbles.

Power to runDue to additional powerrequirements, all Pentium

4 processors need the extra+12 V rail to run correctly.Therefore, make sure thepower supply for your newprocessor has the necessaryfour-pin +12 V connector thatgoes into the ATX12V connec-tor on your motherboard—both your power supply andmotherboard should supportthis connector.

Go for qualityDon't skimp on themotherboard—a high-

quality motherboard maymake you a few thousandrupees poorer, but will guar-antee far greater stabilityand support for hardware,chipset and BIOS. You’ll alsoget more features such asmore overclocking optionsand integrated peripherals.

BIOS updatesMake sure you buy amotherboard that offers

regular BIOS and driverupdates on the company Website. This spells great supportfor newer hardware and helps

iron out the bugs and flawsthat may crop up. Newer BIOSupdates can also mean signif-icant performance boosts.

To HyperThread ornot?Intel’s new 3.06 GHz

processor now incorporates atechnology called Hyper-Threading, which enables theprocessor to perform far betterwhen running multiple appli-cations simultaneously. How-ever, this comes at a price andyou should opt for it only ifyou need the high perform-ance for executing multipletasks. You will also need toconfirm if your motherboardsupports HyperThreading.

A question of memoryThe current scenariogives users the choice of

SDRAM, DDR and RDRAMmemory in a Pentium 4-based system. DDR memoryoffers high data transferbandwidth and is pricedlower than RDRAM. Howev-er, RDRAM's higher datatransfer rate makes it ideallysuited to demanding applica-tions such as gaming, CADmodelling and graphics-intensive, texture-heavy app-lications. Also, RDRAM needsto be installed in pairs, unlikethe DDR or SDRAM—thisneeds to be kept in mindwhile buying memory mod-ules. These three types ofmemories cannot be used onthe same system, therefore,choose your camp with careas you will not be able tochange your memory typelater without also changingthe motherboard.

Willamette or North-woodWhile the newer North-

wood Pentium 4 processorsbuilt around the 0.13-micronfabrication process are morepopular than their older 0.18-micron Willamette counter-parts, the latter is still availablein the market. The Willametteprocessors draw more powerand therefore generate moreheat. Also, the Northwoodprocessors integrate twice theamount of L2 cache (512 KB)as compared to 256 KB inte-grated by the Willamettes.

Special driversIntel supplies drivers forthe new 800-series

chipsets (including the 845,845-DDR and 850 chipsets)called the Intel ApplicationAccelerator driver—anotherfancy name for the UDMAdrivers. These increase theperformance of your IDEdevices quite significantly.They offer better boot timesand also surpass the 137 GBlimitation of the IDE drives inthe native Widows drivers.

Application sup-port for specialinstruction sets

Intel processors have specialinstruction sets such as SSE2that help deliver better per-formance with certain typesof data. Ensure that you lookout for applications that sup-port these special instructionsets when using a P4 proces-sor. In some cases, you mightneed to install specificpatches that let these appli-cations use the specialinstruction sets.

■ tips and tricks

The Pentium 4’s Thermal HeatSpreader protects anddissapates heat from its core

10 POWER TIPS FOR INTEL-BASED SYSTEMS

The right installation will pave the way fortrouble-free operation and let you harness the

full potential of your PC. Keep in mind thefollowing tips while buying and installing an

Intel-based processor

1

2

3

6

8

9

10

7

4

5

FEBRUARY 200399

11

Take care whilemounting the processorAMD processors have a

very delicate processor core asthe silicon is exposed on topof the chip. Therefore, great

care needs to be taken toensure that the processor isnot damaged by rough andincorrect installation of theheatsink. Ensure that theheatsink is installed flat

down—do not angle it or tryto slide it in, as this wouldgraze the top of the processoror chip its sides and render ituseless.

Keep it coolAMD processors areextremely susceptible to

heat and it is critical thatthey be kept cool. Therefore,the CPU has to be plugged inbefore powering on the sys-

tem, otherwise the CPU andpossibly the motherboardwould be damaged withinseconds of switching on thesystem. Also see that the CPUfan is correctly mounted onthe system using thermalpaste so that it maintainsgood contact between theheatsink and the processor(refer to the box, ‘The RightWay to Install a Processor’, formore details on how to do this).

10 POWER TIPS FOR ATHLON-BASED SYSTEMS

Since you belong to the AMD camp, consider the following steps to build a reliable and

high-performance system

Preparing themotherboard

Set your motherboard to runat the correct core voltage,bus frequency and clockmultiplier settings by con-sulting the manual. In somecases, you may need to dothis through the DIP switch-es on the motherboard or

the Frequency/Voltage set-tings in the BIOS.

Preparing theprocessor

Next, apply thermal paste onyour processor by using athin plastic visiting card—a plastic card is best suited tospreading the paste smooth-ly all across the surface of theprocessor core. You can alsoextend this paste around the

core, but smoothen out thepaste such that there are noair bubbles. Also, the pasteshould be in contact withevery portion of the proces-sor core.

Preparing theheatsink

Next, locate the region onthe underside of theheatsink where the proces-sor is going to touch theprocessor core. This is usual-ly in the centre of the flatarea of the heatsink. Onceyou have ascertained this

zone, wipe it clean of anydust. Then evenly spreadsome thermal paste, careful-ly avoiding any air bubbles.

Seat the processorin the socket

Clamp the processor firmlyinto the socket on the moth-erboard and make sure thatit is correctly aligned withthe pins. Do so withoutapplying too much force onthe processor.

Install the heatsinkPlace the heatsink on

the processor gently, butfirmly—take care not todamage the core of theprocessor. Make sure thatthe heatsink is seated suchthat it is in complete contactwith the processor core,then fasten the clasps into

the retention hooks of theprocessor socket to ensurethat it is in firm contactwith the processor.

Connect the CPUfan

Finally, connect the CPU fanon the correct point on themotherboard. Make surethat the heatsink assemblyis firmly seated—thereshould be no play in it.

There, you're now goodto go!

THE RIGHT WAY TO INSTALL A PROCESSOR

On theheatsink,apply thermalpaste on thearea that willbe in contactwith theprocessor core

Smoothly apply the thermal pasteto the processor core so that thereare no air bubbles

Firmly seat the processor in themotherboard socket

Make sure the heatsink is firm-ly latched onto processor socket

Connect the CPU fan to themotherboard

1STEP

2STEP

3STEP

4STEP

5STEP

6STEP

DIP switches to set the correctbus frequency and clock multi-plier settings

1 2


100 FEBRUARY 2003

■ tips and tricks

12

Stick to ratingsAlways use a CPUheatsink and fan combi-

nation that has been certifiedby AMD. If you prefer to buya separate one, make sure itis rated and can run withyour particular processor asAthlon has stringent coolingrequirements.

Power considerationsIf you plan to use thefaster Athlon processors

(2000+ and above) alongwith power-hungry peripher-als such as a CD-Writer, largehard disks and a powerfulgraphics card, use a high-quality power supply with arating of at least 300 watts.Most low-end power suppliescannot deliver clean power tosystems built on these com-ponents, resulting in anunstable system.

Follow the instructionsAMD processors alsohave specialised instruc-

tion sets like 3DNow! which

streamline the power of cer-tain applications. To realisethe full potential of theseprocessors, make sure thatyour applications integratesupport for the specialinstructions. In some cases,you might need to load spe-cial patches to enable thesupport.

A matter of memoryThe AMD processors letyou choose between

SDRAM and DDR memory.While SDRAM is the cheaperof the two, DDR memoryoffers higher bandwidth andit is continually evolving interms of technology andspeed. SDRAM is a good cost-effective option if you plan torun memory-intensive appli-cations. However, DDR'sinherent speed and fallingprices make it a good invest-ment for the future.

Which processor?AMD gives you threechoices in processors.

While the Duron range offersreasonably good perform-ance given its price, it makessense to choose the Athlonsas Duron processors are ontheir way out. Here again,you get to choose betweenthe older Palomino proces-sors built around the 0.18-micron process and thenewer Thoroughbred proces-sors built around the 0.13-micron process. While thelatter boasts higher clockspeeds, lower power con-

sumption and consequentlybetter performance, not allmotherboards support them.Ensure that your motherboard

inherently supports theseprocessors before buyingthem. Optionally, you coulddownload a BIOS update thatwould enable the support, ifyour motherboard allows it.

Don’t scroungeA cheap motherboardwill run your processor,

but will also put the stabilityand reliability of your systemat risk. Also, there are plentyof features that a good-quali-ty motherboard allows you inthe form of better hardwaresupport, cutting-edge fea-tures and even support foroverclocking. A brandedmotherboard will also featureBIOS and driver updates onits Web site.

Drive it inEnsure that you down-load and run your AMD

motherboard with the latestchipset drivers for high per-formance and to eliminatepossible bugs and compatibili-ty issues. Visit the chipsetman-ufacturer's Web site frequentlyfor newer driver updates.

BIOS updatesMake sure you buy amotherboard that

offers regular BIOS and driverupdates on the company Website. This spells great supportfor newer hardware and helpsiron out the bugs and flawsthat may crop up. Newer BIOSupdates can also mean signif-icant performance boosts.

Get it set rightBefore you install themotherboard, consult

the accompanying manu-al—you may have installedmotherboards numeroustimes, but manufacturersadd last minute addendumsthat describe special consid-erations or last-minutechanges incorporated intothe board. Also, mark out allthe jumper settings in themanual tables so that theycorrespond to your proces-sor, RAM and other system

components. Tick theappropriate jumper settings;this makes it easier toimplement these settingsduring installation.

Handle with cautionThe motherboard hasvery sensitive electronic

components that are suscep-tible to damage by staticcharge. Therefore, ensurethat you are properlygrounded (touch a metallicobject to get rid of static elec-tricity) and that the mother-

10 TIPS ON INSTALLING MOTHERBOARDS

The motherboard is the physical and electronic foundation of your system.

Here are a few tips that will help smoothen the installation process and enable it to be

installed in a stable manner

The AMD’s exposed core invitesdamage

3

4

5

6

1

2

7

8

9

10

101 FEBRUARY 2003

13

board is kept in its anti-staticpackaging until the time ofinstallation.

Setting the jumpersbefore installing itSet the jumpers to their

correct positions beforeinstalling the motherboardinto the system cabinet.Doing this lessens yourchances of missing any criti-cal settings and it is also far easier to access certainjumpers when the board isoutside the system.

Mount the processorand RAM beforeinstalling

It can be quite difficult tomount the processor, espe-cially the heatsink, after theboard is seated in the cabinet,since the power and IDEcables get in the way. There-fore, mount the processor, theheatsink and fan and theRAM modules when themotherboard is outside thesystem. This also allows youto visually verify if theheatsink is properly seated onthe processor.

Remember to connect theCPU fan to the correct pointon the motherboard.

Ensure a comfortablefitThe power conditioning

capa-citors next to the proces-sor socket can get in the wayof mounting the CPUheatsink. Make sure that yourheatsink does not pushagainst these, as this coulddamage or even dislodgethem from the motherboard.Also, in the case of special

heatsinks, veri-fy that it is notlarge enoughto push againstother surfacemounted com-ponents closeto the proces-sor socket.

Anchor-ing theboard

Make sure thatyour mother-board is com-fortably seatedin the cabinet.P r e f e r a b l y ,your cabinetshould have ad e t a c h a b l ebackplate—thislets you mountthe motherboard using thespacers and mounting screwsoutside the system. Ensurethat the motherboard hasanchor points near all theextremities of the board sothat it will be firmly seatedand all its edges are adequate-ly supported.

Tighten laterMost of the time, onewould tighten all the

screws of the motherboardupon placing it into the sys-tem. A better option is tolightly fasten all the mount-ing screws so that there isstill a bit of play in themotherboard after it hasbeen mounted. Tighten themotherboard’s mountingscrews after the rest of theadd-on cards have beenplaced in their respective PCIor AGP slots. This helps alle-

viate any unnecessary build-up of stress by cards thatmight have been forced intoa slot.

Take care whileattaching the IDEcables

The IDE cables are usually sit-uated near one edge of themotherboard. Therefore, careneeds to be taken that theboard is not bent when plug-ging in the ends of the cables.This could cause breakages inthe delicate tracks on themotherboard’s surface, ren-dering it useless.

Attach the CPU fanThis cannot be stressedenough—ensure that

the CPU fan is plugged intothe correct point on themotherboard. Failing to doso could result in your CPU

and motherboard being per-manently damaged—and allthis could happen withinseconds of powering up thesystem, leaving you withabsolutely no time to correctyour mistake!

Listen for diagnos-tic beepsRemember to con-

nect the motherboard speak-er. Study the motherboardmanual for deciphering thesequence of the diagnosticbeeps that are emitted whenthe motherboard is poweredup—a single short beepmeans things are in order.Otherwise, you need to diag-nose what’s wrong with thehelp of the beep sequence.Check if all fans are spin-ning, and that the cards andRAM modules are properlyseated.

Some boards, like this MSI KT4 Ultra, include a fan for its chipset—something tolook out for

3

4

5

6

78

9

10

14


102 FEBRUARY 2003

Make sure you haveenough juiceVery often, the standard

power supplies that comewith the system casings havea bare minimum power rat-ing of 235 watts. While thisis suited to very basic sys-tems, the power require-ments in your super systemcould soon supersede thislow-end power supply. It istherefore wise to choose thehighest rating your budgetwill allow—at least 300 watts,or in the case of peripheral-packed gaming rigs andworkstations, even 500 watts.

Trust the brandThere are numerousbrands of power supplies

on the market, many ofwhich use very low-qualityparts. Stay away from theseand spend a little more on areputable and reliable brandsuch as Codegen or Antec.

Watch the weightAs a rough rule of thumb,take two power supplies

of the same rating but differ-ent brands and see which oneis heavier. Usually, a heavierpower supply implies thathigher quality componentssuch as heat sinks, capacitorsand transformers are used andthis translates into higherquality. Lighter power sup-plies usually comprise of

lower-quality componentsfabricated of cheaper andhence lighter materials. Thelighter weight may also meanthat some components, suchas the heatsink, are complete-ly left out.

Special processor compatibilityDepending upon your

processor, make sure that yourpower supply can provide thejuice required to run theprocessor. Look for any indi-cation that the power supplyis rated for use on AMD orIntel-based systems specifical-ly. In the case of Pentium 4-based systems, look out forthe presence of the ATX12Vfour-pin connector that isneeded to power Pentium 4processor-based computers.

Beware the bundles Most power suppliesbundled with the system

casing are of low qualitysince their cost has to be inte-grated into the cost of thesystem. Beware of thesepower supplies and makesure that their rating is highenough for your particularprocessor, peripherals andinternal system components.If need be, opt to trade in theintegrated power supply withanother of a higher rating,quality and brand, and offerto pay the price difference.

Go in for the highestEven though you mightnot need the additional

power, it makes sense toinvest in a power supply thatis rated slightly higher thanfor your application. Also, ahigher rating does not meanthat it necessarily draws morepower—it will only draw asmuch power as is needed byyour particular mix of systemcomponents.

How's the head count?You may find out, muchto your dismay, that the

number of power supplyheads from your SMPS maybe lesser than the numberneeded by your hard disk,CD/DVD/CD-RW drive, etc.This is another factor youneed to consider—yourpower supply should haveenough power connectors, so that you do not need to invest in additional Y-cables for powering all yourcomponents.

SMPS coolerIn most systems, theSMPS fan shoulders the

burden of cooling all the

c o m p o -nents. This

makes it important for thefan to be powerful enough tohandle the airflow in the sys-tem, without letting toomuch heat to be developedwithin the system.

Lower the noiseThe SMPS fan tends tomake a lot of noise due

to the vibration. To preventthis, the SMPS unit must befirmly fastened to the casing,with no play in it. A looseattachment causes the powersupply to vibrate excessivelyand can also cause compo-nent stability problems in thefuture.

Clean the fans regularlyThe SMPS fan is one

of the biggest components inthe system and sometimesserves as the only duct fordirecting the heated air out-side the system. Hence, it isvery prone to dust and needsto be cleaned regularly to pre-vent dust build-up within theSMPS and the fan. A bloweror brush does a competentjob of dislodging any dirt ordust stuck on the fan blades.

Some SMPSesfeature two fans—one forcooling the processor and the other for ventilation

10 POWER SUPPLY CONSIDERATIONS

With today's power-hungry processors andsystem peripherals, a good power source iscritical for a smooth and reliable operation

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

9

8

10

103 FEBRUARY 2003

15

Case cooling fansIf your casing has provi-sions for cooling fans,

invest in a couple of goodones. A CPU fan concentrateson only the processor andadditional system coolingfans draw hot air from heat-generating components suchas the CD-ROM, chipset andgraphics card, maintaining aconstant airflow within thesystem cabinet.

Upgrade your proces-sor coolingWhile the bundled

heatsink and CPU fan do agood job of cooling the CPUduring normal operations,you will need a more robustsolution if your system is sit-uated in an especiallywarm environmentor while over-

clocking. In such cases,choose a more powerful solu-tion from brands such asThermalTake or CoolerMas-ter. Also, see to it that theCPU fan has an airflow of atleast 34 cfm (cubic feet perminute) for reliable coolingunder strenuous thermalconditions.

Of frequencies andvoltages While installing your

motherboard and processor,make sure that your voltageand frequency settings are attheir correct values, unlessyou mean to be overclockingthem. An incorrect settingcould run sections of yoursystem with higher voltage

and frequency ratings thanthey are meant to, resultingin higher heat levels. There-fore, consult the mother-board manual while settingthe voltages and frequencies.

Get a system dash-boardMost systems have

applications that monitor thesensor chip on your mother-board to keep you informedabout the current tempera-tures, frequencies and volt-ages of its criticalcomponents. This is especial-ly useful while overclocking,when you want to keep therated thermal levels undersafe limits.

Arrange your cablesInternal cables such asyour IDE, power and

sensor cables can cause amess within the system andhamper the airflow. Makesure that these cables are cor-rectly ordered and tiedtogether to circulate the airwithin the cabinet for moreefficient cooling.

Double-barrel cool-ingOpt for a casing that

has at least two blowholeswith provisions for coolingfans. One fan should beplaced in the front and theother in the rear of the sys-tem for smooth circulation.

Additional coolingIf you are going tocarry out overclocking

experiments, make space foradditional cooling for yourprocessor, graphics card,

RAM and motherboard bymodifying your system cas-ing and installing more fans.

Go with the brushlessInvest in a brushlesstype of cooling fan as

these are far more efficient—they ae silent and feature ahigher rpm as compared toolder fans.

Clean the fans regu-larlyCase cooling fans are

susceptible to picking up dustand dirt from the environ-ment and need to be takencare of. If they are tooclogged with dust, they couldslow down or even stop rotat-ing completely, causing over-heating or even failure ofcomponents. Clean out thesefans with a brush or a blowerso as to dislodge any build-upof dust on the fan blades. It iswise to keep your system cov-ered during the day when itis not being used as this pre-vents dust from settling on it.

Keep the systemaway from dustyenvironments to

prevent dirt cloggingKeep your system away fromdusty environments—thisincludes open windows fac-ing main roads or construc-tion sites. While a sealed, airconditioned room is bestsuited to a computer, today’scomputers are hardy enoughto work well in a normalroom, but care needs to betaken that they are not indirect sunlight, causingunnecessary build-up ofheat.

10 TIPS FOR COOLINGNow that your system is up and running, it is

important that you keep it cool for greaterreliability. A cool system is also better

equipped to handle overclocking experiments

A good heatsink and fancombination is vital for coolingyour processor

5

1

23

5

6

7

48

9

10

With a little help fromyour motherboardFirstly, consult the manu-

al to make sure that yourmotherboard supports over-clocking through jumper set-tings or BIOS tweaks. Once youare sure that you can changethe CPU’s core voltage, clockmultiplier or bus speed, onlythen should you go aboutpushing your system harder.

Tighter control of voltage/frequenciesOpt for a motherboard

that offers fine control ofparameters such as the corevoltage, clock multiplier andbus frequency. If these param-eters can be incremented bysmall units, your overclockingexperiments can be that muchmore controlled and safer.

Processor permissionMost processors allowoverclocking only to a

certain extent. Others, byvirtue of their design, allowoverclocking to greaterdegrees. A processor with alower amount of L2 cache, asmaller fabrication processand a lower bus speed supportcan be overclocked to fargreater extents as it has moreroom for expansion.

Most processors todayhave their clock multiplierslocked and this prevents

them from being tweakedthrough that component. Insuch cases, the bus speedneeds to be used, but take careso that the rest of the systemis not adversely affected.

You are on your own!Keep in mind that yourwarranties will not cover

any damage cause by tweak-ing; so be very sure of theextent to which you can pushyour system safely. This isespecially applicable if youwant to modify any part ofyour hardware to accommo-date experiments.

Ramp up your coolingThe first by-product of atweaking experiment

will be the generation of heatin your critical components.Therefore, make sure that you

have adequate cooling forcomponents such as theprocessor, RAM and mother-board chipset. If necessary,purchase a better heatsink orcabinet cooling system.

Multiplier or busspeed?You can increase the

effective speed of your sys-tem by either increasing the clock multiplier or the busfrequency. However, sincemost processors are clock-locked, you will have to takethe bus-frequency route.However, in this case,installing a system monitor-ing software would be a goodidea to keep tabs on yourtemperatures, voltages andfrequencies. See that limitsare not exceeded—tempera-tures should not exceed 60º C and voltages shouldnot swing more than 5 per cent away from theirrated values. Throttle back as soon as you feel that your system is reaching itslimits and if it shows anysigns of instability.

Overclock in stepsStart out your overclock-ing at the rated settings

and work your way up insmall increments—do not beoverzealous. Working in smallsteps allows you to closelymonitor your system for signsof instability, before pushingit to the next level.

Tablulate your find-ings and find out themost stable setting

for your systemAt each step of your over-clocking adventure, tabulatethe present frequency, voltageand thermal levels of yourprocessor and system. At eachstage, run a strenuous appli-cation such as a looping gamebenchmark and look for anysigns of instability. Your tabu-lated results will pin downthe point at which your sys-tem runs most stable.

Monitor the status ofyour system Throughout your over-

clocking efforts, monitor yoursystem temperatures and volt-ages very closely. It is criticalthat they remain within limitsfor your system to run reliably.Failing to do so will result inshortening the life of yourprocessor or even failure.

Run an acid testOnce you’ve over-clocked to satisfac-

tion, you need to run aburn-in application for atleast 4 hours. This will ensurethat your overclocked com-puter will run all your appli-cations reliably, without lagor failing.

16


104 FEBRUARY 2003

10 OVERCLOCKING TIPSNow that your system is all set firmly,

you may feel the urge to push its performancethat extra mile. Here are a few things

you need to keep in mind before embarking on any overclocking adventure

Some AMD processors require their L1 bridges to be shorted with agraphite pencil before overclocking them

1

4

6

7

8

95

2

3

10

Freewarefor all

Freeware


131

17

contents18 Developer Tools

18 Home Tools

19 Office Tools

21 Internet Tools

22 Multimedia Tools

23 System Tools

24 Essential Tools

Tips on some powerful freeware toolsthat you can use everywhere—at home, inthe office and while online. Fortified withthese tools and the secrets to getting themost from them, you can thrive entirelyon freely available software!

MARCH 2003

More than 75 freeware!

Find it on the Mindware CD

ILLUSTRATIONS: Mahesh Benkar

*Also see ‘All the Software you’ll ever need’ on page 64

Occassions*Occassions*


132

18

Bloodshed Dev-C++ 4Smaller EXE filesYou can ensure smaller filesizes for your EXE files com-plied from the C/C++ code.Go to Options > CompilerOptions. Under the Linkerpage, make sure the ‘Generatedebug information’ box is leftunchecked. Also, under CodeGeneration/Optimization,select Best Optimization.

Setup CreatorTo create a setup packagewhich will let others installyour executables, click Tools> Setup Creator or press [F11]to open the Setup Creatormenu. Fill in the details suchas the software title andorganisation name; set otheroptions such as the back-ground colour scheme. Youcan set the license detailsand add the files you intendto distribute along with theirfinal location. Finally, clickon Build to create the setupEXE file.

Package ManagerWhen you install additionalDev-C++ packages such asextra libraries, you can man-age them using the PackageManager utility. The PackageManager gives you detailedinformation at a glanceabout the contents of thepackage, including file list-ings, descriptions and ver-sion details. It also lets youremove any packages. Toaccess the Package Managerwithin the main window, goto Tools > Package Manager, orpress [Ctrl] + [F12].

■ tips and tricks

Optimise your EXE files

Setting Classpaths in JCreator v2.50JCreator is a fast IDE for Java, offering you all the functionalitywithin commercial IDEs. With JCreator you don’t need to headoff for the command prompt while working with Java—with apowerful GUI-based interface, everything is a mouse-click away. When working with multiple libraries scattered across different

folders, adding all the paths tothe Autoexec file makes itrather unwieldy. Also, you runthe risk of the program refer-ring back to an older library,which is located on the class-path. In JCreator, you can setup custom classpaths and pro-files by clicking on Configure >

Options and selecting JDK Profiles from the list at the left side.Clicking on New lets you select the directory where the JDK islocated. Then, you can add additional paths and libraries byclicking on Add > Add Path... or Add > Add Archive... This letsyou define custom paths and libraries, unique to that profile.

If you work across several versions of the JDK or would like tocreate unique profiles of the JDK for different uses, click on theNew button to add in another profile. Remember that the firstprofile listed will be thedefault.

You can choose a specificprofile or add a library class-path for a project withoutopening the Options menu.Click on Project > Project Set-tings and select a JDK profile.You can also set up therequired Libraries and JDK Tooloptions specific to that project.

Create custom setup files withthis tool

Set the profiles and classpaths

Set project-specific profiles andclasspaths

ClickTray CalendarSetting alarmsTo set alarms, selectAlarms from the list onthe right in the mainwindow. Under theData Input tab, enterthe time of the alarmand choose between dis-playing an alarm mes-sage or starting orclosing a program. Ifyou choose to display amessage, you can enter themessage in the message field.If you choose to start or enda program you will need toenter the program’s location

or name in the field. Flipthrough the other tabs to seteven more detailed prefer-ences.

Finally, from the list at the

DEVELOPER TOOLS

HOME

MARCH 2003

133

19

OpenOffice.orgTurning off AutoFormatand AutoCorrect in WriterWriter, the word processorwithin the OpenOffice.orgsuite, comes with automa-tisms, namely the auto for-mat and auto correctfacilities. While these may beuseful, they can also be irri-tating especially when text isbeing corrected or formattedwrongly. For example, withthe default settings it willcapitalise the first letter ofevery sentence, or every URLis recognised and is colouredto mark it out as a hyperlink.To turn off such auto formatand auto correct options, goto Tools > AutoCorrect/AutoFor-mat. Under the Options tab,uncheck the specific optionsthat you don’t want. You canchoose not to have it autocorrect and auto format whileyou modify the text or whileyou enter the text on to thepage. To turn back the autocorrect and auto formatoptions, select the optionsthat you want enabled.

Inserting special charac-ters in WriterTo insert special characterssuch as the ® or © or ™ sym-bols within the document,bring the cursor to the placewhere you want the characteror symbol inserted, and then

go to Insert > Special Character.Choose Symbol from the Fontlist and click on the symbolyou want inserted.

Locking text in WriterWriter also has the optionwhere you can lock in a sec-tion of the text to prevent itfrom being edited or changed.Select the portion of text that

you want protected, go toInsert > Section and under theentry for Write protection,select the Protect option.Finally, select Insert. Theselected text is now locked;you cannot overwrite the text.

If you would like to safe-guard the section with apassword, choose the WithPassword option, provide apassword and click OK.

Freezing the panes in CalcIf you would like to see row orcolumn captions for a longAdding special characters

Lock up your text from herebottom of the Data Input tab,select Insert Alarm (this is thefirst button from the right).You should see the alarm listed in the alarm text list on top. You can then min-imise ClickTray Calendarback to the system tray, andcontinue working.

To Do listsClickTray Calendar will helpyou maintain a comprehen-sive To Do list, which youcould sort separately by cate-gory. In the main window,choose To Do List and set thecategories and tasks. First,

create a new category by click-ing on the Add New Categorybutton on the bottom left. Youcan choose an existing catego-ry by highlighting and check-ing it. To add a task to thecategory, enter the text intothe Text Enter Area windowand click on Add Entry. Final-ly, click on the OK button.

If you have finished yourTo Do tasks, just click onDone!

Countdown ClockIf you are driven by time andwould like to have a count-down clock ticking away onyour desktop, select Count-down Clock from the list atthe right side in ClickTrayCalendar. In the window thatcomes up, you can set thecountdown time under theSettings tab. Once the time isset, click on the display taband click on Start Clock. Yourtime starts now!

Create your own Multimedia Card with FreeCard 2.0FreeCard 2.0 will give you agreat multimedia card in ajiffy. To create the card, firststart the FreeCard application.You can add pictures by click-ing on the Select Graphic orVideo button (the first buttonto the left). You can addBitmaps (BMP) or videos (AVIformat). If you choose a

Bitmap, then you can set the way the presentation opens, byselecting it from the drop down list. To add music, click on theSelect Music button. You can use MIDI or WAVE files. You canwrite a personalised message on the text field to the right.Finally, preview the card by clicking on Run. You can now seethe card that you have created. To send the card, click Send.You can choose to have it sent by e-mail or through WindowsMessaging or make a standalone EXE file.

Set your daily alarms here

Create colourful multimediafiles instantly

OFFICE

MARCH 2003


134

■ tips and tricks

20

spreadsheet as you workthrough it, you can freeze thefields that hold the caption. Ifit is a single row or columncaption that has to be frozen,click on the cell just below orto the right of the row or col-umn that will contain the cap-tion. Select Windows > Freeze. Ifyou have either column cap-tions or row captions, you cancreate a cross freezing by click-ing on the uppermost left sidecell that does not contain acaption. For example, in asheet with single row and col-umn captions, you shouldchoose the B2 cell.

If you have multiple rowand column captions to befrozen, you can split the sheetwindow. Click on the cell justbelow or to the right of therow or column where youwant to insert your caption,and select Windows > Split. Thesheet window will be split.Now you can scroll both partsof the split window, display-ing the caption as per yourrequirements.

Cell protection in CalcAll the cells in Calc are pro-tected by default. However,you can turn off this feature.To do so, select all the cells inthe spreadsheet. Go to Format> Cells and select the Cell Pro-tection tab. To turn off protec-tion for all the cells, uncheckthe Protected option. Click onOK to finish.

If you would like to enablethe option, just select the Protected option.

To selectively enable theprotected option, select thecells you want protected, go toFormat > Cells and select the

Protected option under theCell Protection tab. You willneed to turn on the protectionat the sheet level. Select Tools >Protect Document > Document.You can provide a passwordhere to ensure that those fieldscannot be edited.

###….?You may see ### in a cellwhere you have entered somedata value in Calc. This hap-pens if the value is too largeto be displayed—Calc will clipit and display ‘###’. To readthe value, you can resize thatparticular cell. If the cell con-tent is text, you can double-click on the cell. This will

show a red triangle that indi-cates that the field is over-flowing.

Saving as text filesYou can output the Calcspreadsheet into an ASCIIdelimited text file. Go to File >Save As and select Text CSV asthe File type. Enable the Editfilter settings box. Set thedelimiters that you need.

Finally, click on Save and thetext file is generated.

Saving Draw documents asstandard formats in DrawDraw is the OpenOffice.orgapplication that lets you workwith the images in your doc-uments. It saves the images inthe SXD format, which is adocument format. To save theDraw document as a standardgraphics format, go to File >Export and from the dialogbox that appears, choose thegraphics format you want thefiles saved as; click Save.

Cropping images inOpenOffice.org DrawOnce the image is insertedinto your drawing file, clickon the image to open theimage toolbar. Within the

image toolbar, select Crop(the right-most button). Thiswill open up the Crop menu.You can add the exact meas-urements of the canvas thatyou want cropped. Finally,click on OK.

Microsoft NetMeeting3.01Sharing it allMicrosoft NetMeeting also letsyou share entire programs,which you can access asthough you were at theremote computer. Go to Tools >Sharing and select the pro-grams you want shared. You

can enable total sharing byselecting Allow Control underControl. This will allow peo-ple to access the remote appli-cation and make changes to it.

Transferring files To send a file to another com-puter on NetMeeting, go toTools > File Transfer. This willopen the file transfer menu.Go to File > Add Files and addthe file that you want sent.Then click on the File > Send AFile to send the file to theother computer or highlightand right-click the file andselect Send A File. To sendmultiple files at the sametime, first add all of them tothe menu, then go to File andselect Send All. This will sendall the files to the other computer.

WhiteboardingTo create an area for all theparties to interact, you can setup a common whiteboardthrough Tools > Whiteboard inNetMeeting 3.01. This willopen the Whiteboard, whichcan be viewed and used by allthe parties in the meeting.

Protecting the data within yourcells

Unhashing the hashes

Share your programs from here

Cropping the image in Draw

MARCH 2003

135

21

AI RoboFormAdding your vital stats With AI RoboForm you cansave a lot of your confidentialpersonal data. Click on AIRoboForm in the system trayand go to Edit Identities. Hereyou can flip through the tabsto enter details for the currentidentity, such as name,address, password, e-mailaddress, credit card informa-tion, bank account informa-tion and so on. Since all thisdata is encrypted and storedlocally on the disk, it is safe.Use it for accessing pages thatrequire registrations and pass-words, shopping sites andeven for logging into yourHotmail account!

Protect Your IdentitySince you may tend to entrustquite a lot of confidential andpersonal data to AI Robo-Form, it makes sense to pro-tect your identities andpasscards. To do so, chooseOptions from AI RoboForm

on the system tray andthen flip over to the UserData on the Optionsmenu. Select Set MasterPassword and enter a mas-ter password. This will beused to protect your iden-tities and passcards.

Auto filling formsTo auto fill a form, click onAI RoboForm in the systemtray; go to More on thetoolbar and chooseOptions. Under the FormFilling tab, select Auto FillWithout Asking. It will fill

forms from a passcard if a pass-card matches the current Webpage. If no passcards match thecurrent page, it will fill formsfrom the Current Identity.

Opera 7Google within OperaIf you are a heavy searchengine user, you will find thisvery handy. To run a Googlesearch on say, SETI, just type

‘g SETI’ in the address bar andyou will immediately link upto the search result page atGoogle.com. To access othersearch engine options, go toFile > Preferences and selectSearch from the list. You can choose from Google,AllTheWeb, Lycos, Down-load.com and other searchengines. For each there is akeyword to be entered beforeadding the search term.

Customise and disguiseIf you would like to stop open-ing (or start opening) pop-upwindows or access otheroptions on the fly, you can doso by pressing [F12] while inOpera and set options such asaccepting or refusing pop-upwindows or enabling/dis-abling Java and cookies as wellas identifying your browser asIE or Mozilla. You could accessall these options from theQuick Preferences option fromthe File menu.

Mouse GesturesOne really useful feature with-in Opera is the Mouse Ges-tures feature—it allows you todo common tasks within thebrowser without clicking but-tons on the toolbar. For exam-ple, to access the previous pagein the history, you need tokeep the right button pressedas you move the mouse to the

left. To close a page, just holddown the right mouse buttonand move down, and then tothe right, tracing an ‘L’. Thereare mouse gestures for nearlyall commonly done taskswithin Opera—you wouldn’treally need to press the but-tons on the toolbar!

Zoom and full screen viewsTo zoom in and out of a Webpage, don’t look around foran option within the toolbar-just press [+] to zoom into aWeb page and [-] to zoom outof a Web page.

Full screen views in Operaare accessed by pressing [F11],but here is where the differ-ence lies: within Opera youget a totally ‘full’ screen view.Unlike IE, there are no tool-bars on top.

Remembering where youwent lastIf you abruptly stopped yourlast browsing session, Operaremembers where you wentlast. When you restart Opera,you will be prompted to start

from where you stopped andresume what you did last.

Netscape 7Tabbed BrowsingWith tabbed browsing being

AI RoboForm’s AutoFill stands by

Set search keywords here

Crashed? Resume effortlessly

INTERNET

MARCH 2003

22


136

one of Netscape’s better fea-tures, this is how you canenable it in case it hasn’tbeen enabled. Click on Edit >Preferences to access the Pref-erences window. Expand theNavigator tree and selectTabbed Browsing. Select theoptions you want. You canopen a new tab by pressing[Ctrl] + [T] and cycle throughall the opened tabs by press-ing [Ctrl] + [PgUp] or [Ctrl] +[PgDn].

Searching from NetscapeThe default search engine for searching from withinNetscape is Google, but youcan set another search engine.Go to Edit > Preferences andselect Internet Search. You canspecify the search engine thatyou want to work with fromwithin the drop down list.Finally, click on OK to set thepreference. If you enter a termon the Address bar that cannotbe resolved into a Web page,Netscape will now automati-

cally search for it in the defaultsearch engine.

Enabling Quick LaunchIf you have not configuredNetscape to load at startup,then enabling the QuickLaunch option will give youfast loading times. To enableQuick Launch, click on Edit > Preferences and selectAdvanced from the list at theleft. In the Advanced menu,under ‘Enable features thatincrease performance’, selectEnable Quick Launch andselect OK. After a reboot, youshould see Netscape loadingfaster.

Set in the search preferences

VirtualDubCompressing VideoIf you have large MPEG filesand would like to see themconverted into smaller sizes,you can choose to re-encode them into the AVI(Audio Video Interleave)format. The best AVI codecis the DivX codec series.However, you would needto have the DivX codecinstalled in your computer.You can also use the Indeocodecs, which give goodresults.

Open the file in Virtual-

Dub and go to Video > Com-pression. The options listed willbe the ones for which thecodecs are present in yourmachine. Choose the DivXcodec, which gives the idealbalance between file size andquality. Click on OK; thisbrings you back to the mainscreen. Click on File > Save asAVI and save the output file.The conversion then starts andyou can monitor the progressof the encoding from the Vir-tualDub Status indicator.

If you are using the IndeoAVI codecs, then in the Video> Compression screen, you willneed to specify the videocompression quality—choos-ing a value between 80 to 90per cent should give yougood file sizes with little lossin quality. Lower settings willaffect the quality, but willgive you lower file sizes. Youwill also need to enter thevalue for a keyframe inter-val—this will ensure quickfast-forwards and rewindswithin the video file. A lowervalue here is recommended.Select a value of 85, whichwill give you good results.

FiltersVirtualDub comes with somevery useful filters. You can usethese to resize or realign yourvideo files, crop or integrate

special effects such as motionblur or smoothing into thevideo files. The filters areaccessed from Video > Filters.For example, if you would liketo have still smaller file sizes,you can resize the video. Toresize the video, open thesource file. Then click on Video> Filters and then click on Add.This will open a list of avail-able filters. Choose 2:1 Reduc-tion (High Quality) and clickOK. You can add more filtersto the list in the same way.Then choose your compres-sion settings and save as anAVI file. You select the orderin which you want the effectsapplied.

dBpower AMP MusicConverterRight-click!To start using dBpower AMP,all you need is to have the plu-gins for the format into whichyou need to encode youraudio files. Once you have

Encoding with the Indeo codecs

Using the filters in VirtualDub

MULTIMEDIA

MARCH 2003

137

23

them installed, you can startright away. Within Explorer,locate the file that you wantencoded. Then right-click andchoose Convert To. Youshould see the listed optionsfor the audio formats support-ed. Select the format of yourchoice and click on it. Thiswill bring forth the Optionsmenu where you can setparameters such as encodingquality and type. When youhave entered the options,click on Convert to start con-verting the file.

Audacity Removing noiseTo remove excess noise orhiss from the audio file, firstselect a few seconds of hiss(at the beginning or the endof the clip) and then click onEffects > Noise Removal. Clickon Get a Noise Profile. Thiswill generate a profile of thefrequencies you need

removed from the file. Final-ly, select the audio sectionfrom which you want theunwanted sound artefactsremoved, go to Effects > Noiseremoval, and select theamount of audio you wantfiltered. Experiment withhow much sound you wantremoved—too little and theartefacts remain, too muchand the audio portions maybe lost. Finally, click onRemove Noise. That is it.Audacity will start cleaningthe audio file.

ZoneAlarmProgram controlClicking on Program Con-trol lets you set securitylevels for programs thatmay access the Internetfrom your computer. Click-ing on the Main tab letsyou set broad-based rules;set Medium here.

To set specific rules foreach program, open theProgram tab—here you willfind listed all the programsthat have tried to connect.You can also add any pro-grams here that you wouldlike to allow access to.

These could be your brows-

er, mail client, or any otherspecialised programs. Forexample, if you use file-shar-ing programs over the Inter-net, you can add the file namehere through the Add option,

and set the parameters for it.You can choose betweendenying access, to allowingoutright access or settle on theprogram asking for permis-

sion every time it wants toconnect.

Server rightsZoneAlarm may alert youabout granting server rightsto certain programs—this isthe case with chat and filetransfer software that allowfor real time conversations,

such as Yahoo! or MSN ormIRC. You can assign theserights from Programs Controlunder the Programs tabpanel. ZoneAlarm continu-ously monitors the activity ofthe programs and hence pre-vents unauthorised access.

AlertsIf you have chosen to viewalerts while installing ZoneAlarm, you will be alerted assoon as a program tries to con-nect to the Internet or net-work. The alert will specifywhich program is trying toconnect, and you can chooseto allow or disallow it. You canensure that programs that youfrequently use, such as yourbrowser or mail client, can beallowed to establish such con-nections. There may be otherprograms that may try to

PC Inspector File RecoveryThis is an indispensable tool for those times when you delete afile, only to realise that you need it back! Relax, you are forgiv-en—you can use this excellent file recovery tool

First, start PC Inspector File Recovery. You can choosebetween recovering lost files, finding lost data, and finding alost or inaccessible drive. Select Recover Deleted File. Then,within Select Drive, click on the Logical Drive tab and choosethe drive on which your data was located, then click OK. Withinthe Explorer-like interface, choose Deleted and locate the folderwhere the file was located. The deleted file will be indicated ingreen and alongside you would be able to view the status ofthe deleted file. Right-clickon the file and choose toSave To… to save it. Youwould need to save it onanother drive (physical orlogical). Choose the loca-tion and click OK.Depending on the diskand the deleted file, youshould have a working filerecovered.

Cleaning up scratchy audio files

Recover those deleted files

Set Program Control from here

SYSTEM TOOLS

MARCH 2003

24


138

access the Internet—somemay be legitimate, but theremay also be some spywareprograms. Use your discre-tion before allowing them toconnect. Clicking on theMore Info button at the AlertAdvisor connects toZoneLabs online, and givesmore information regardingthe alert.

Full stopIf you would like to stop allInternet connections, exceptinbound and outbound, clickon the red Stop button—thiswill stop all connections atonce. The Internet lock can beconfigured from the ProgramControl screen, in the Maintab. This is obviously a drasticmeasure—you would need touse this in the event that youare certain that a Trojan orsome major security loopholeexists within your computer.

Temporarily steppingdown securityYou can step down the secu-rity if your programs tend toconflict with ZoneAlarm.This may happen if you usesoftware such as VNC orPCAnywhere that let you

control a remote computer.But be sure to restore it later!

PGP FreewareCreating your key pairEncryption with PGP requiresthat you generate a public anda private key. The public key isdistributed to everyone so thatthey can encrypt and send yousecure messages. The privatekey is kept confidential and isused to decrypt the messages.After installation, PGP willprompt you to create your keypair. To create additional keys,click on PGP on the systemtray and choose PGPKeys. Tocreate a new key pair, go to

Keys and select New Keys. Thiswill open the Key GenerationWizard. Choose Expert if youwamt to specify additionalparameters such as the key sizeand key type. Clicking on Nextwill prompt you for apassphrase, and finally, youcan generate the key pair.

Distributing the public keyYou should distribute yourpublic key so that people cansend you securely encryptedmessages. Simply right-clickon the key and choose Send To> Domain Server to send yourkey. To send your key by e-mail, choose Send To > MailRecipient.

Internet Explorer 6Image toolbarThe Image toolbarpops up when youhover your mouseover certain Webpage images. It letsyou save/print/e-mail pictures andalso opens up theMy Pictures folder. Ifyou find the toolbar to be anuisance, you can disable itby right-clicking on the tool-bar and selecting DisableImage Toolbar.

You can later restore theImage Toolbar through Tools >Internet Options > Advanced.Scroll down to the Multimediasection and select the EnableImage Toolbar option. Thenext time you launch IE, youwill get the Image Toolbar.

Enabling/disabling autoresizeThe Auto Resize function inIE 6 resizes large images to fitinto the browser window soyou no longer need to scrollhorizontally or vertically toview the file. This is enabledwith the default install, butyou can can enable/disablethe function from Tools > Inter-net Options > Advanced. Withinthe list, scroll down to theMultimedia section and

select (or deselect) the EnableAutomatic Image Resizingoption.

Deleting cookies and personal informationYou can get rid of tiresomecookies through Tools > Inter-net Options. Under the Gener-al tab, locate TemporaryInternet Files and click onDelete Cookies.

If you use IE6’s AutoCom-plete feature you may end upwith IE hanging on to much

of your confidential informa-tion. To erase this informa-tion, go to Tools > InternetOptions and click on the Con-tent tab. Click on Clear Formsand Clear Passwordst

Alerts warn you about inboundand outbound connections

Creating the key pair

IE6’s Image Toolbar

Clearing out personal data fromthe AutoComplete feature

ESSENTIALS

MARCH 2003


99


CCoonnnneecctteeddStay

contents26 Windows Networking

32 Network Printers

31 Internet Explorer

If you have just puttogether somecomputers, cables andadapters, and arevying to venture intothe networked world,you definitely needsome help. This monthwe bring you easytricks to get yournetwork up andrunning, and help youmake the most ofyour time

25

APRIL 2003

100 APRIL 2003

■ tips and tricks

26

NetWatcherNetWatcher is installedwith the full installation ofWindows 98. If it is not soin your machine, go toControl Panel > Add/RemovePrograms and click on theWindows Setup tab toinstall it. Click on ‘SystemTools’ and then ‘Details’,and then scroll down toselect NetWatcher; you willbe prompted to insert theWindows 98 CD.

NetWatcher lets you seewho is using the sharedresources on your computer atany given moment in time,across the network. You canuse it to add shared folders, aswell as disconnect users fromyour computer or just a specif-ic file. Note that disconnectingthe users does not preventthem from reconnecting toyour machine. For that, youneed to either hide or unsharethe specific resources.

System monitor System Monitor is a standardutility in Windows. If it is not

already installed, you caninstall it from Control Panel >Add/Remove Programs, herenavigate to Windows Setup >System Tools > Details. Scrolldown and select System Monitor.

Within System Monitor,click on the Add button andchoose Microsoft NetworkServer from the category field.Choose the parameters thatyou want to track. This will be

added to the chart. Use this todetermine if your system isslowing down on account ofshared resources. You mayneed to disconnect a user orunshare a resource to remedyit.

Win IP ConfigWin IP Config can beaccessed by going to Start >Run and typing in winipcfg inthe open dialog box. Win IPConfig lets you view all yourcurrent TCP/IP settings in asingle menu. By clicking onMore Info, additional infor-mation regarding the net-work can be viewed.

If the IP address wasdynamically allocated by aDHCP (Dynamic Host Con-figuration Protocol) server,then you can use the Releaseand Renew buttons to releaseand renew the IP address.

The information displayedon Win IP Config is describedbelow.

Adapter address This is a hexadecimal addressthat is unique to everynetwork adapter. It is hardcoded into the card by themanufacturer, and consists ofsix 8-bit numbers. Howeverremember that modems(both internal and external)do not have this address—this is restricted to networkadapters while the numberfor a modem or dial upadapter is set to a meaninglessdefault number.

IP address This is the current IP net-working address. Dependingon whether DHCP is used,

this may be static, fixed ordynamically allotted. Thestatic value would be enteredin the TCP/IP network con-figuration menu.

Subnet MaskThis is used to mask a portionof the IP address to determinethe subnet where the com-puter is located, that is,where the computer is locat-ed within the internal net-work. All computers runningTCP/IP must have the subnetmask defined.

Default GatewayThis is the IP address of thecomputer that provides theconnection to a remote net-work. The gateway computeris the computer that TCP/IPwill use to communicate androute data destined for com-puters on remote networks.

On clicking on it for moreinformation, the followingsettings are displayed.

DHCP ServerThis entry indicates the IPaddress of the DHCP server.The DHCP server, when present, will dynamically

WINDOWS NETWORKINGWindows features some very useful tools to

troubleshoot your network. You can use themto ensure that your network is up and running,

and detect problems, as well as find outimportant network parameters

System Monitor graphs yoursystem performance

Use NetWatcher to track whatresources are users accessing onyour machine

See your complete TCP/IPconfiguration on Win IP Config

APRIL 2003101

27

assign an IP address to themachine upon connecting to the network. Clicking onthe Release button willrelease the IP address, andthe Renew button requests anew IP address from theDHCP server.

Primary and SecondaryWINS ServerThese settings specify the IPaddress of the Primary andSecondary WINS Server, ifpresent. The WINS serverstranslate the NetBIOS namesinto the corresponding IPaddresses.

Lease Obtained and LeasedExpiredThese values show when thecurrent IP address wasobtained and when it is dueto expire. You can use theRelease and Renew buttons torelease and renew your cur-rent IP address. In any case,the DHCP client automatical-ly attempts to renew the leasewhen 50 per cent of the leasetime has expired.

PingThe Ping utility will let youdetermine whether a specificIP address is accessible. Itworks by sending a datapacket to the specifiedaddress and waiting for thereply. Ping is a simple, yethighly configurable tool.

Trace Route You can troubleshoot yourInternet connection with theTrace Route option. To useTrace Route, type tracert in thecommand line. Tracert tracesevery hop (router on the Inter-

net) that a packet takes toreach its destination, givingthe path and the amount oftime taken between each hop.On a LAN, this can be used todiagnose problems in routing.Use it on the Internet tochoose the nearest and fastestdownload sites.

NetstatUse Netstat to display proto-col based statistics, as well asall current inbound and out-bound connections. Netstatcan be configured to display

all connections and listeningports and Ethernet statistics,as well as statistics on a pro-tocol basis. This wouldinclude statistics for TCP,UDP, ICMP and IP. This is avery useful command lineutility that lets you knowwho is accessing the machine.

IP ConfigIP Config is a very useful toolthat displays the entire TCP/IP

configuration in yourmachine. The IP Config utilitydisplays all the information inthe Win IP Config utility, buton the command line. Toobtain all the information, usethe ipconfig/all command.

NetThe Net utility in the com-mand line contains a host ofother interlinked utilities. Youcan choose to do basic net-work configuration, diagnos-tics, inspect print queues, aswell as connecting and dis-connecting to the networkfrom the command line. Typein net /? on the command lineto access more informationon the different commandswithin the Net utility.

For command line utili-ties, in order to be able to readthe text output one screen ata time, type in the commandthrough the More pagingcommand—this would be ofthe form net /? | more.

LAN protocolThe exchange of informationtakes place through estab-lished protocols. Windows 98supports the following trans-port protocols:

TCP/IP: TCP/IP is installedby default in Windows 98. Ifyour computer is located onan interconnected networkwith diverse hardware andoperating systems, you wouldneed to use the TCP/IP proto-col. TCP/IP is the standardprotocol for the Internet, andalso the de-facto standard forLAN communications.

NWLink IPX/SPX Com-patible Transport: This is thestandard network protocol

that is used to communicatewith NetWare networks. Itsupports routing too.IPX/SPX is needed only ifyour computer is connectedto, or communicates with aNetWare network.

NetBEUI: You need toinstall this protocol only ifyour network uses NetBEUI asa transport protocol.

Generally, for a small net-work, all you need to haveinstalled is the TCP/IP proto-col suite that is installed bydefault in Windows 98.

Driving for DOSIf you use DOS applications,you may not be able to usefiles and shared resources thatare located across the net-work, since these programsneed a full path to the files,starting with a drive letter.Within Windows, you canmap folders that are sharedacross the network, to freedrive letters to your computer.Use Explorer to get to theshared folder and then right-click and choose ‘Map Net-work Drive’. Select any freedrive letter in the configura-tion screen. Now you can

Use tracert to troubleshoot yourrouting problems

Netstat shows you inbound andoutbound connections throughall the ports

Mapping frequently usednetwork shares

102 APRIL 2003

■ tips and tricks

28

access the shared folder asthough it were located onyour hard drive. If you intendwork within this shared fold-er regularly, tick and enablethe ‘Reconnect at Logon’option, to make the drivemapping permanent.

Now these drives will befully accessible through DOSor any older Windows pro-grams.

Searching for a serverIf you are working on a largeLAN, then getting into ashared network resource orfolder would mean makingyour way through the Net-work Neighbourhood and thevarious workgroups. Theentire list of computers acrossthe network could take quite awhile to build up; instead, goto the address bar and type\\computer_name to directlyconnect with and browse theremote computer. You can alsogo to the Start > Run menu andtype \\computer_name to accessthe computer. This is the Uni-versal Naming Convention(UNC) style network name.

File and Printer Sharing To share resources across thenetwork, you will need toenable the ‘File and Printersharing’ option. If you do notintend to share any folders orprinters from your computer,you can uninstall the samefor Microsoft Networks. To dothis, go to Start > Settings > Con-trol Panel > Network and clickon the File Sharing. Uncheckboth the ‘Give access to files’and ‘Give access to printer’.You will have to restart yourcomputer for the changes to

take place.Now no one will be able

to access any files on yourmachine, since your comput-er will not appear on the net-work. You will, however, beable to access files and folderson other computers as long asClient for Microsoft Networksis installed.

Protecting your shares To ensure safe sharing of yournetwork shares, you canrestrict access to your sharedresources. Right-click on thefolder or drive you want toshare, and select Sharing.Here you can set the level ofaccess. You can mark a folderas read-only, give it full accessand assign a password foreach. A quick way of hidingyour shared folders is to addthe ‘$’ sign as the last charac-ter in the share name. Thisway even though the folderappears to be hidden frompublic view, it can still beaccessed and viewed—so ifyou really have to lock it

down and protect it, add in apassword too.

Messaging across the LANYou can send a quick messageacross the LAN using a stan-dard tool within Windows.WinPopUp is a standard andeasy-to-use messaging utilitywithin Windows. To use Win-PopUp, go to Start > Run andtype in winpopup in the Openfield, and click OK. This willopen the WinPopUp window.To send a message throughWinPopUp, click on Send—

this opens up the Send Mes-sage window. Type message inthe Message text field, and thename of receipient (the com-puter’s name) and click on OK.Incoming messages are alsodisplayed in the WinPopUpwindow. Keep in mind that forthe recepient to be able toreceive your message, he orshe would also need to haveWinPopUp running.

FirewallWindows XP comes with afirewall known as the InternetConnection Firewall or ICF.ICF provides only inboundprotection—unlike a full-fledged firewall, it only moni-tors data coming into yourmachine from the Internet. To

turn on ICF, go to the Controlpanel and select Network Con-nections. Open this, and right-click on the displayedconnection, and click onProperties. Under theAdvanced tab, you can enableICF. While the default settingsmay work fine, you may wantto tweak the settings. Click onthe Settings button to accessall the ICF features and set-tings. You can fine tune thenetwork services under theServices tab, set logging detailsunder Security Logging anddetails about ICMP under theICMP (Internet Control Mes-sage Protocol) tab.

ICF - Do you need it?Keep in mind that ICF is foruse only with a direct con-nection to the Internet, suchas a dial-up or cable modemconnection. This means thatcomputers connected to theInternet through a LAN orInternet Connection Sharing(ICS) or a hardware routerdon’t need an ICF. Moreover,you may tend to have sometrouble with networkingwith other computers on a

Removing File and PrinterSharing Services

Using the WinPopUP messagingutility

Configuring the ICF

APRIL 2003103

29

LAN, as File and Printer Shar-ing services are blocked. Itwould make sense to disablethe ICF if you intend to useFile and Printer Sharing serv-ices that would be essentialin a LAN environment. Todisable the ICF, go to theControl Panel, and select theNetwork Connections. Openthis and right-click on thedesired connection, click onProperties and under theAdvanced tab, disable ICF.

Viewing the network utilisationYou can view the current per-centage of network utilisationin the Windows XP task man-ager. Open the Task Managerby holding down [Ctrl] +[Shift] + [Esc] and click on the

Networking tab. You will thensee the real-time graph of net-work utilisation.

IPConfig in XPWindows XP doesn’t featurethe GUI Win IP Config tool,so to quickly locate all therelevant TCP/IP configura-tion details, you will need touse the command line IPConfig tool, accessed by typ-ing ipconfig.

Faster Windows sharingWhen you try to view theshared folders on a computerrunning Windows 98 or MEfrom a PC running Windows2000, there may be a delay ofup to 30 seconds. This is

because Windows 2000 triesto determine if any ‘Sched-uled Tasks’ are enabled on theother computer. You can fixthis delay by deleting a Reg-istry entry on the Windows2000 machine—but only afterbacking up the Registrybefore making any edits.

Go to Start > Run and type REGEDIT to open theRegistry Editor. Navigate toHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Soft-ware\Microsoft\Windows\Cur-rentVersion\Explorer\RemoteComputer\NameSpace, and locatethe subkey that reads{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-

8D87-00AA0060F5BF}. First click on Export and

save the selected branch as, say, restoreshare.reg in a folder. Once you haveexported a copy of the key,right-click on this subkeyand click on Delete. Thisshould fix the problem.

Network indicatorOn a PC with a modem, youcan see the little flashingcomputers in the System Tray

that shows you that there issome data flowing. Now inWindows 2000, you can seethe same flashing computersstyle indicator for your localnetwork.

Right-click on My Net-work Places, click on theLocal Area Connection. Clickon the Properties button. Atthe bottom of the Propertieswindow, you will see theShow Icon in taskbar whenconnected option. Enable thisand you will see the indicator.

Routing your wayWindows 2000 has a verypowerful command line tool,the Route command that canbe used to view, and evenchange the computer’s rout-

ing table. This can affect thepath that the network traffictakes to get from one place tothe other. Be careful whileediting the routing tablethough—a little mistake herecould play havoc with yournetwork communications.You can find out the differ-ent options for usage by typing route/? at the command line.

Pathping The pathping command lineutility in Windows 2000 givesyou the best of ping and trac-ert, by sending out packets toeach router on the way to afinal destination over a period

of time, and then computesthe results based on the pack-ets returned from each hop.Since pathping shows thedegree of packet loss at anygiven router or link, you canuse it to determine whichrouters or links might be caus-ing network problems.

Type pathping /? at thecommand prompt to getadditional information on

Disabling the ICF

View the network utilisation

Open up shared folders withinWindows 98/ME faster

Use pathping to determine anyweak links on the network

Routing data in Windows 2000

Turning on the network monitor

104 APRIL 2003

30

Installing File and PrintSharing Services

To access and print filesstored in your computerthrough other comput-ers on the network, you

will need to install Fileand Print Sharing Services.

To do so in Windows 98, goto Start > Settings > Control Paneland click on Network. Thiswill open up the Network

NETWORK PRINTERSSharing a printer on the network saves a lot oftrouble, not to mention time and resources. Webring you some tips on sharing and accessing a

Networked printer

syntax and options.

Net SendYou can use the net sendcommand line utility tosend messages to anothercomputer, or choose to sendmessages to everybody in

the domain. Just typing innet send computer_name andtyping in your message afterthat should do it! For moresyntax and options type innet send /? at the commandprompt.

Connecting two computersFor networking two comput-ers, you need two networkadapters, and a crossover net-work cable of adequatelength with the RJ-45 con-

nectors on each end. To getthe two computers physicallyconnected, just connecteither end of the cable intothe slot on the networkadapter of each computer.

Connecting three or morecomputersFor networking three or morecomputers, you would needto have standard CAT5cabling with standard con-nectors, one network adapterfor every computer and a hubor a switch that acts as a central connection point fornetworking the computers

Hubs and Switches.If you are setting up a

SoHo network with not morethan four to six computersthat you will use for relativelylight network traffic, considerusing a hub instead of aswitch to network the com-puters.

Sending messages through net send

utility menu; click on File andPrint Sharing. Enable theoptions and then click on OK.

Installing network printersYou can access a number ofshared printers across the net-work. To do so, you need toinstall the printer within Win-dows—locate the computerthat is sharing the printer onthe network from Network

Neighbourhood. Right-clickon the shared printer andchoose Install—the Add Print-er wizard will guide you dur-ing the install. If you areprinting from within Win-dows, tick No for the printingfrom MS-DOS programs. Thewizard will offer to print a test

page to confirm that the print-er is properly installed.

Setting a printer as adefault printerYou can install the networkprinter as a default printer—within Windows, both localand network printers arelocated under Printers in theControl Panel. Simply right-click on the printer and clickon Set as Default.

Mapping the printerFor some applications, youmay need to assign a print jobto a specific port number, suchas LPT1 or LPT2. This way,within an application, you cansend the print jobs to the portsinstead of specifying the print-

er by name. To do so, firstlocate the printer on the net-work from the Network Neigh-bourhood, right-click on it andgo to Capture Printer port.Choose the appropriate portnumber from the drop-downlist and assign a value such asLPT2. This value needs to begreater, if you already have aprinter attached locally to yourcomputer. Enable the Recon-nect at logon option if youwant the mapping option to bepresent every time you login.

Sharing a local printerIf you have a printer attachedto your computer and wantto share it across the network,go to the Control Panel > Print-

Set up File and Print Sharingservices from the Control Panel

Installing the network printer

Mapping the printer to aspecific port

APRIL 2003105

31

ers. Within the Printers folder,right-click on the printer youwant to share and select Shar-ing. Here, select Shared asand type in the name of theprinter in the Share Namefield. To finish, click OK. Theprinter will now be sharedacross the network.

Restricting access You can restrict access to the

printers to specific users bytyping in a password in theShare Printer menu. This wayonly those people with thepassword will be able to usethe printer.

Queuing upBefore giving a print com-mand, find out if there isanother print job that ispending. You can do this bygoing to Start > Settings > Print-ers and selecting the printer.Click on the selected print-er—this will open up theprint queue window.

Once you have issued aprint command, you canpause or cancel the same byright-clicking on the printericon on the system tray.Locate the job, and right-click and select Cancel Printing. This will terminate the job.

Sharing your local printer acrossthe network

Speed up the Dial-Up Net-work (DUN) initialisationThe Windows DUN tools arerelatively easy to set up andcan be tweaked to con-nect faster toyour ISP. One ofthe most irritat-ing delayso c c u r s

after theconnection hasbeen estab-lished, beforethe DUN has sig-nalled the successfulconnect. This can be

speeded up in a couple ofsteps:

Click on the Dial-Up Net-working folder in My Com-puter. Right-click on theconnection that you want tochange, and go to Properties >Server Type. While keepingTCP/IP turned on, turn offsupport for NetBEUI andIPX/SPX. Note here that turn-ing off support for IPX/SPXwill disable access to NetWare.Another time saving trickwould be turning off the Logon to network, which youneed only if you are diallinginto a Windows LAN. Finallyclick OK to set the changes.

Backing up the ISP settingsIt pays to backup all theinformation stored in yourDUN connection for easyretrieval, in case you need toreset all the values for futureinstalls, or while transferringto another computer. All theinformation that you need todial into your ISP—namelythe authentication details,telephone number and IPaddress information for allDUN profiles—is stored inthe registry.

Go to Start > Run and type

REGEDIT. Now, in the leftpane, navigate to theHKEY_CURRENT_USER\RemoteAccess key. To backup thisbranch of the Registry, go toRegistry > Export Registry Filecommand. Choose the select-ed branch option and assigna name, say INTERNET.REG.To import this setting toanother computer, just copythe key to the second PC, runREGEDIT, and import this fileinto the Registry.

Monitoring the modemYou can use your SystemMonitor to monitor the qual-ity of your dial-up connec-tion. To do this, start SystemMonitor from Start > Programs> Accessories > System Tools. Goto Edit > Add Item and click onDial-Up Networking Adapter >CRC Errors. Finally click onOK. If you encounter a lot ofCRC errors, then there maybe problems either with yourphone line or modem. If both

Getting online faster with DUN

The RemoteAccess key holds thekey to your Dial-Up settings

System Monitor can track yourInternet connection

INTERNET EXPLORERGet networked on the Web

(toolbar.google.com). Mostpopular search engines, suchas Google, Yahoo!, Ask Jeevesand Toema, have free searchtoolbars that are tightlyintegrated into InternetExplorer. These toolbarsmake searching onlinequicker and easier.

Speeding upYou can speed up navigationwithin Explorer 5 or Explor-er 6 by disabling page transi-tions. To make this change, in Explorer, go to Tools >Internet Options. Under theAdvanced tab, disable theoption for ‘Enable Page Transitions’ and click OK.This will allow for fasterbrowsing.

Faster loading If a text or graphics-heavypage takes a long time todownload its graphics, hit-ting F5 or clicking Refreshcan speed up the loading thesecond time.

Automatic refreshing IE cache keeps a record of theWeb pages you have visited;this can be used to retrieve

those pages faster. To changeany cache settings, go to Tools> Internet Options > General >Settings. To automaticallycheck for updated versions ofvisited pages, enable the‘Automatically’ option under‘Check for newer versions ofstored pages:’. This will giveyou faster and updated ver-sions of the Web pages youfrequently visit.

…Or disabling itYou may want to disable theabove feature, if the pagesyou visit are not updated veryoften. To do this, set theoption to Never. If you wantto open the latest version ofthe page, click Refresh, orpress F5.

Cache SizesIf you want to store versionsof the Web pages that youvisit, adjust the amount ofspace in your cache. Go toTools > Internet Options andselect General. Move the slid-er to select the amount ofhard disk space you wouldlike to devote to your cache.Ideally, keep aside about 75to 100 MB.


106 APRIL 2003

32

appear to be fine, try addingFraming Errors and TimeoutErrors from Edit > Add Item >Dial-Up Networking Adapter topinpoint the problems inyour connection.

Automatic re-dialling If you often need to dial morethan once before you con-nect through your ISP, youcan setup automatic re-dialling. This can be done bygoing to Start > Programs >Accessories > Communications >Dial-Up Networking > ConnectionName > Settings. Check Redial,and select the number oftimes that you want to re-dial(between 2 and 100). To wrapit up, click OK and close Dial-Up Networking.

Honest modemsWhen you open up themodem icon from the sys-tem tray, it indicates thespeed at which the comput-er and modem communi-

cate. But this is not the truedata transfer speed—thespeed at which your modemcommunicates with themodem on the other side isthe true speed. To see this, goto Start > Settings > ControlPanel > Modems > Properties >Connection. Click on theadvanced button and in theExtra settings, put ATW2L0.You should now get the cor-rect speed.

Getting your modem's truthfulspeeds

Automatic refreshing: Enablingand disabling it

...Speed it up

New WindowsA single page may take its ownsweet time to load, so optimiseyour time by opening links innew windows. To open a Webpage hotlink in a new window,hold down [Shift] as you clickon the hotlink; this is fasterthan right-clicking and select-ing ‘Open Link in New Win-dow’. This is particularly usefulwhen you have a Web pagethat has numerous links thatyou want to open as you readthe Web page. Note that thiswill not work with JavaScriptpages.

Faster Searching To search in Internet Explor-er 5 or greater, instead ofjumping to your favouritesearch engine, press [Ctrl] +[E]. The Search pane opensinto MSN search. Here,choose your category, enterthe search term you’re look-ing for, and click Search.

Smart Searching If you are one of those whotrusts Google to get to a pageworth your while, then youshould get hold of theGoogle search bar

Smart searching with searchtoolbars


99

contents18 Microsoft Outlook

21 Eudora

23 Evolution

E-mail is a part of everyday life,whether you are aentrepreneur or astudent. Here are afew tools to makeyour everyday e-mailexperience moreefficient

33

MAY 2003


34


100 MAY 2003

Bypass read receiptsTo skip read receipts youneed to know which e-mailsrequest them. To do this, youneed to change the look ofyour Inbox. Select yourInbox and click Field Choos-er, in the combo box. Select‘All Mail Fields’, and locatethe ‘Receipt Requested’ field.Drag and drop this field tothe Inbox window. You willsee an additional columnwith the values ‘Yes/Blank’.

Here ‘yes’ means a readreceipt is requested.

To bypass, you have twoalternatives—the first is toclick ‘No’ when such an e-mail opens. You can makeOutlook remember youranswer for all e-mails thatrequest read receipt.

Another alternative is togo to Tools > Options > E-mail Options > TrackingOptions, and select any ofthe three responses—Always, Never or Ask—thatneed to occur when e-mailswith read receipt arrive.

Printing blank calendarsSometimes you urgentlyneed a blank calendar forthe week/month. Outlooklets you do so. It is as simpleas creating a folder andprinting it. Just click on theCalendar icon and selectNew Folder. Key in a name

for the folder and press OK.Now select the newly creat-ed folder and print it in thedesired print style.

Move fastThere are some shortcut keysin Outlook, which are veryhelpful while navigating.Pressing [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [I]moves you directly to theInbox folder and similarly[Ctrl] + [Shift] + [O] movesyou to the Outbox folder.

Similarly, if you areworking with Calendars andconstantly need to switchbetween the weekly andmonthly view, then you canuse the keys [Alt] + [-] and[Alt] + [=] to do so.

Categorising e-mailsA lot of people do not writesubjects to their e-mails.There are ways you caninsert the subject, making iteasier to categorise andmanage e-mails even afterreceiving them. Just openthe e-mail, click on the sub-ject line, modify the subjectand save it.

Abbreviated timeIf you need to insert thetime anywhere in an e-mail,Outlook has some simpleshortcuts. For example, totype 5 pm, just type 5p,while 6:45 am can beentered as 645a.

Days at a glanceYou can view 1 day, 5 days, 7days or 31 days at a glance,in the Outlook calender. It isalso possible to view 2 to 14days at a glance—any 14days irrespective of themonth or year.

While in the Calendar

view, press [Alt] + [0 to 9].For example, if you press[Alt] + [0], you get a viewthat shows the next 10 daysfrom the current selectedday. Say you wish to plan allSundays of the month, clickthe first Sunday, press [Ctrl]and select all the Sundays ofthe month.

Forward contact(s)The simplest way to forwardcontacts is to switch yourview to Phone list in Con-tacts. Select the single or mul-tiple entries that you wish toforward, right-click and selectForward Items. Now, type the

■ tips and tricks

Print a blank calendar bycreating a new folder

Choose to bypass Read Receiptsin the Tracking Options

You can choose to view anyselected date

MICROSOFT OUTLOOKOutlook users can tweak and tune to get what

they want, using these tips and add-ins

101

35

e-mail address of the intendedperson and press Send.

Manage PST file sizeAll the e-mails in MicrosoftOutlook are saved in a singlefile with a PST extension. Ifyou have used Outlook for along time, the size of the .pstfile will be large. Keeping thefile down to a manageable sizeis a problem. One way toreduce the file size is to archivethe old items. The archiveditems are then moved toanother PST file. But thearchive file size will alsoincrease over a period of time.

Another way is to createmany data files—one for per-sonal mail, one for depart-ment mail, one for companymail, one for external clientmail, and so on. In this waythe mails will be split overdifferent files, resulting insmaller single files.

To make a new data file goto File > Data File Management.Press Add to add a new datafile, then select the ‘Types ofstorage’ as Personal Folder File(*.pst), name the new PST fileand press OK. You can nowview the new folder. Bydefault, it contains a DeletedItems folder. Now you need toadd sub-folders to store e-mails in, and create new sort-

ing rules that will redirect yourincoming mails to this folder.

Add holidaysMarking the holidays onyour Outlook calender willmake it easier for you to planaround them. Outlook doeshave a way to add holidays,but you will find no entry forIndia. To personalise it toIndian holidays, you need tomodify the Outlook.txt orOutlook.hol file.

Locate the Outlook.txt orOutlook.hol file and openit using word pad. The file

contains a list of holidays—

one per line, grouped by thecountry name. Go to thebottom of the file and add anew group name—‘India’ insquare brackets, followed bya number, denoting thetotalnumbe of entries.Finally add the names anddates of the holidays youwant to mark.It should look something like this:[India] 3Republic Day: 2003/01/26Independence Day: 2003/8/15Gandhi Jayanti: 2003/10/2

You can add as many hol-

idays as you want, as long asyou add the proper countafter the square brackets.Now, go to Tools > Options >Calendar Options > Add Holi-days, search for the entry‘India’, select it and press OK.

Add-insOutlook has add-ins to facil-itate and automate many fre-quent tasks. These are easilydownloadable from theInternet. Here are some ofthe more popular ones.

Manage attachmentsAttachment add-ins help inextracting attachments frome-mails into a folder. Mostadd-ins remove the attach-ments but add a link to thefile in the e-mail. An exam-ple of one such add-in isTODI. The add-in and infor-mation on how to installand use it is available at

http://www.aufgang.org/koch/homepage/software/todi.htm

. Auto printThe print add-ins are foroffices that constantlyrequire to print e-mails. Add-ins in this category print the e-mail as soon as itarrives. One such add-in

can be bought at http://www.sperrysoftware.com

Always inform BOSSSome organisations passabout a large amount of cor-respondence in the form ofe-mails. In such cases, it ismostly mandatory to mark acopy to the project ordepartment head, so thatthe progress of the projectcan be tracked. Certain add-ins put in a default e-mailaddress, that is added toevery e-mail that is sent,without the knowledge ofthe sender. One such add-in,called ‘Always BCC’, can bebought at www.sperrysoft-ware.com

Time stampSometimes your e-mails takehours to reach the recievers,even over an Intranet. Thereare add-ins that time stampthe exact time and date ofwhen you sent an e-mail. Thishelps to keep an exact recordof important e-mails. Theseadd-ins can be enabled or dis-abled with a mouse click. Youcan get one such add-in fromhttp://www.sperrysoftware.com/jcTimeDateSignature.asp

Mass mailMass mailing has become thenew mantra of marketinggurus, add-ins that enableMass mailing from Outlookare available. The add-insvary in the features they pro-vide—some just help yousend e-mails, while othershelp you sort the responses aswell. PC iMail is available athttp://www.prosoftapps.com/pcimail.htm. It can extract

You can add holidays using thecalender options

Automatically sort yourattachments in to specific folders

Control the PST file size withData Management

MAY 2003

36

102

■ tips and tricks

addresses from your Outlookaddress book. Depending onyour security settings, youmay get a pop up asking forpermission to carry out theoperation or stop it.

Auto zip attachmentsThis add-in helps to reducebandwidth requirements.Whenever you attach a filein a new e-mail, this add-inconverts your attachmentinto a zip file reducing itsfile size, in turn, reducingthe time taken to transferthe e-mail. One of the add-

ins in this category is bxAu-toZip from www.baxbex.com.Before any e-mail is sent,bxAutozip compresses andzips attached files.

Reminders via e-mailSome might wonder about theuses of e-mail reminders. Theycan be sent to yourself, yourcolleagues, subordinates, boss-es, or even friends. Anotheradvantage is that thereminders aren’t limited toOutlook users, as they can besent even to non Outlookusers. This add-in is availableat www.sperrysoftware.com.

Access files from homeThis is a unique add-in andperhaps the most exciting.

Once installed it lets youaccess any file remotely fromyour computer via e-mail.You just write an e-mail spec-ifying the path of the file andyou get a return e-mail withthe file as an attachment. Ittakes care of the security issueby allowing you to specify thereturn address initially. Thuswhenever a request arrivesthe file needed is sent to onlythat e-mail addtess. Howev-er, you should know the pathof the file in advance, as itdoes not allow you to viewdirectory structures.

Auto redirectNot all companies have a Web-mail facility, they just providePOP3 access from com puters,within the organisation. Youwon’t be allowed to accessyour e-mail from outside thecompany premises. In such asituation, you need a tool thatredirects your e-mail to a Web-based e-mail account,which will allow you to accessthem from anywhere outsideoffice. One such add-in isAutoRedirect from IvaSoft(http://victori. hypermart.net/autoredirect.html). This add-in

creates a folder within theInbox, called Redirect: [email protected].

As soon as you restartOutlook, it will ask you forthe e-mail address to whichyou wish to redirect your e-mails to. If you drop any e-mail into this new folder itwill automatically be for-warded to the e-mail addressyou have set. Next, createsome rules in Outlook thatwould drop a copy of all yourmail to the redirect folder

created. You can now accessyour e-mails through a Web-mail service.

If the e-mails are not for-warded, you might be usingOutlook in Internet MailOnly (IMO) mode. In thiscase you will need anotheradd-in called redirector2002to support AutoRedirect. Thisadd-in is also available at theIvaSoft Web site http://vic-tori.hypermart.net/redirec-tor.html. To check what modeOutlook is running in, go toHelp > About Microsoft Out-look, the second line or textstring will tell you whichmode your Outlook is con-figured in.

Whenever an e-mail issent Outlook might pop

up a message box asking for permission to forward the e-mail. You can disablethis message box by addinganother add-in from IvaSoftavailable at http://www.express-soft.com/mailmate/clickyes.html

Auto replyReplying to each and every e-mail in your mailbox can takeup a lot of time. Add-ins canbe used to send pre-formattedresponses, depending uponthe content of the e-mailYou can configure the add-into search for words such asresume, bio-data, etc andinstruct it to send a precom-piled e-mail to the sender.The add-in is available athttp ://www.nextword.com/autoReplyprod.htm

SMSTyping an SMS on your cellphone can cause eye strain.With this new plug-in youcan SMS in the form of an e-mail, using a personsmobile number as the e-mail

address. The plug-in is available at http://www.tamingthebeast.net/ringtones/sms-plugin.htm. However, thereis a fee applicable.

You can redirect company e-mail to a Web mail account foreasy access away from work

You can automatically Zipoutgoing e-mail attachments

You can use e-mail reminders toorganise your daily schedule

Use the auto reply to answeryour mails when on vacation


MAY 2003

103

37

Insert recipients quicklyIf you send frequent e-mails tocertain addresses, then youcan make use of the ‘RecipientList’ in Eudora for quick accessto their e-mail addresses. Toadd a user to this list, go toTools > Address Book. Click onthe desired user and you willsee the entire details for theselected user. In the RecipientList checkbox, select Yes.

Once you have added thedesired users to the RecipientList, sending e-mail to themwill be much easier. To do this,right click in the To, Cc or Bccbox, select ‘Insert Recipient’and click on the desired user.

Remove bar while replyThose who are irritated by thebar that appears while reply-ing, there is some good news.There are shortcut keys toremove those bars. Select thelines from which you wish toremove the bar and press [Ctrl]+ [.]. If you need to add those

bars again, select the lines andpress [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [.].

Sponsored mode problemThe free version of Eudoraavailable on the Internet is asponsored version. Hence,sometimes you might get anerror message that saysEudora could not download

ads. To tackle this problem, youneed to locate your Eudorafolder, and go to eudpriv > adsfolder. Delete all files within theads folder, and restart Eudora.The problem will vanish.

Change mail arrivalsoundYou can change the soundplayed whenever a new mailarrives by assigning a .wav filewithin Tools > Options > GettingAttention. Click the unnamed button, locate the .wav file,and click Open. Now, when-ever you receive a mail, yourchoice of sound will be played.

Backing up allBacking up your Eudora e-mails is as simple as copy-past-

ing. Find the Eudora folder—it’s location in Windows 98 isc : \ w i n d o w s \ a p p l i c a t i o ndata\qualcomm\eudora— selectall the files with *.mbx, *.pce,*.txt and *.fol extensions.Copy the selected files to abackup storage device. The*.mbx, *.pce and *.fol filesrelate to e-mails, while *.txtfiles contain the address book.

Delete the entire e-mailEudora, by default, does notdelete attachments. To deleteboth the attachments and thee-mail, go to Tools > Options >

Attachments. Select the ‘Deleteattachments when emptyingtrash’ option. From now on e-mails will be deleted in their entirety.

DraftsInstead of typing similar e-mail body text for commonlyformatted e-mails, such asresponses to standard infor-mation requests, You can savegeneral layouts of the e-mailsyou most commonly send.These are saved as ‘Stationery’in Eudora, and are all ready tobe sent later with minor lastminute changes. To create

new ‘Stationery’, go to Tools >Stationery, a blank windowwill open up. Right click inthis window and select New.In the composition window,fill as many fields as you wish,and save the stationery. Send-ing the e-mail is as simple asdouble clicking a Stationeryitem and making last minutechanges, if any.

Mail listSometimes, people have morethan one e-mail address. Youcan send an e-mail to all apersons addresses easily bycreating a Mail list. To do this,when you create a user entryin the address book, you see abox stating ‘This nicknamewill expand to the followingaddresses’, just enter as manye-mail addresses as you wantand your list is ready.

Hot chilliesWhenever you are composingan e-mail, Eudora determinesyour mood by checking forspecific words in the message.Depending on the words and language used, it checks thedegree of offensive material.Eudora gives a symbolic rep-resentation to each e-mail—1chilly, 2 chillies or 3 chillies—to represent the type of lan-guage. As the offensiveness of

You can delete e-mails in theirentirety when exiting Eudora

You can customise the tune thatplays when an e-mail is recieved

EUDORA

For all you Eudora fans out there, learn how toenhance your e-mail experience

Eudora can gauge your moodwhen you type an e-mail

MAY 2003

38


104

the language used increases,so does the number of chill-ies. To check or change thesettings, go to Tools > Options >MoodWatch.

Work fasterThe fastest way to send e-mailis to press [Ctrl] + [E] to openthe send e-mail box.

View all headersGenerally e-mail clients don’tshow all the header fields. Toview all header fields, openthe e-mail and click the ‘BLAHBLAH BLAH’ button.

Filter on nickEudora provides a differentway to filter e-mails. Instead ofthe normal filter, using the e-mail address, Eudora allowsyou to filter using nicknames.In this way even if the e-mailaddress of the person changes,the mail will still be consid-ered recognisable. Though, ifboth nick and mail Id change,it would bypass the filter. Tosetup a filter go to Tools > Filter> New. Specify the condition,and action, and you’re done.

Vacation replyWith the help of Filter and Sta-tionery, you can configureEudora to reply to all e-mailsthat arrive within a specifiedperiod. The filter acts adummy controller—you candraft a personalised reply andwhenever an e-mail arrives,during this vacation period,the personalised draft is sentas a reply to the sender.

E-mail traffic reportOne of the useful features ofEudora is the graphical analy-

sis of the amount of e-mailsbeing handled. It shows agraphical chart for e-mailsarrived, e-mails sent andEudora usage. It shows thereport for the current day andthe previous day. Similarly, italso shows a weekly, monthlyand yearly report.

Add-insEudora has add-ins to facili-tate and automate many fre-quent tasks. These are easilydownloadable from theInternet. Here are some ofthe more popular ones.

Mail alertThis add-in runs as a stand-alone program, using Eudo-ra’s e-mail settings to poll thee-mail server at regular inter-vals. If it detects new e-mail

at the server, then it pops upa window indicating thearrival. It also provides waysto read, reply and delete thee-mails directly from the server. The MailAlert add-incan be downloaded fromhttp://www.diamondridge.com/software/mailalert/index.htm.

Address book to HTMLYou may want to publish youraddress book on your Web sitefor others to refer to. This add-in helps to export Eudora’saddress book to HTML format.It consists of an executableprogram, which needs to

know the folder location ofthe address book. In Windows98 the default folder is C:\Win-dows\Application Data\qual-comm\eudora. The add-inneeds ‘NNdbase.txt’, whichcontains the entire addressbook of Eudora. On clickingthe convert button an htmlfile is created in the same fold-er by the name NNdbase.htm.The add-in itself provides away to view the convertedfile. This add-in is available athttp://www.mindspring.com/~aegreene/eudora/.

Mail to HTMLSimilar to the address toHTML, is the Mail to HTML.Let’s say you subscribe to amailing list and have an inter-esting e-mail in your inbox,which you would like to sharewith others. You can uploadthis to a Web site, Intranet orInternet based, with just a fewmouse clicks. The add-in effec-tively converts the entiremailbox into HTML pages. Itgenerally finds the source fold-er, and you have to specify thedestination folder where the

HTML files will reside afterconversion. Apart from thisyou can even convert themails into normal text files.The plug-in is available athttp://users.erols.com/tgitlin/

Synchronise two PCsIf you have two computers,both running Eudora, withseperate address books. Youcan use this plug-in to syn-chronise the address bookbetween both machines. It hasan interface window whereyou have to select the addressfile, NNdbase.txt, from firstcomputer and then theaddress file from second com-puter. A destination file thatconsists of a compiled addressbook from both machines iscreated. The plug-in is avail-able at http://eudora.interweb.be/addins.html

BackupBackDora, an add-in fromajsystems.com, helps to back-up Eudora e-mails and theaddress book. It combinesimportant files into a com-pressed zip file. The add-in isavailable as a free download athttp://eudora.interweb.be/addins.html. The add-in works as a

standalone application, butuses Eudora’s settings. Whenyou run BackDora for the firsttime, you will be requested toselect the profile to backup.

This add-in alerts you as soon asthere is an e-mail on the server

You can convert your addressbook to HTML, in order toupload to a Web page

Convert your e-mails to HTMLand upload to Web pages

You can backup your importante-mails and your address book

MAY 2003

105

39

Setting up LDAPMany companies provideLDAP (Lightweight DirectoryAccess Protocol) servers fortracking people’s contactinformation. To configure anLDAP server in Evolution goto Tools > Settings, select the‘Directory Servers’ tab andclick Add. You will see theLDAP configuration assistant.Click on Next and enter theserver name, for exampleldap.somecompany.com, andselect the login type. ClickNext, select the port numberto use—by default it is 389—and enter the search options,if any. Select a display name,click Next and click on Finish.

vFoldersvFolders are virtual folders,which can be used to receivemail using specific search cri-teria. This is quite similar tofilters except that vFolders donot contain any e-mail—what appears in the virtualfolders are just links to actuale-mails contained in theinbox. Deleting mails invFolders does not delete themfrom the inbox.

To create a new virtualfolder, select Tools > VirtualFolder Editor. Click Add andspecify the rule name, forinstance, Huge Mails. Selectthe If criteria, for example,file size, and the vFoldersources, and click Ok.

Emptying trash It is tiresome to delete mailsfrom the inbox and then againfrom the Trash. A better optionis to let Evolution delete the

trash, when you exit. To set thisoption, click on Tools > Settings,and select the Mail Preferencestab. Under deleting mail, checkEmpty trash folders on exit.

Importing contactsfrom OutlookUsing Outlook, export all yourcontacts to a .csv file. A perlscript csv2vcard.pl is providedin Evolution to convert .csvfiles to VCard (.vcf) files. Usethe command: csv2vcard. pl file-name.csv filename.vcf and importthe .vcf file into Evolutionusing File > Import. Select‘Import a single file’ and clickNext, then select the file typeas Vcard and type in the file-name. Click on the Importbutton and select a folder, towhich the file will be import-ed, and click Ok to finish.

Managing recent mailIf you get annoyed by thehuge e-mails lined up in yourmailbox and only wantrecent mail, then Evolutionhas the perfect solution foryou. You can set it to displayrecent mails by going toSearch > Advanced. Type in a

rule name, such as daily mailor recent mail, select Datereceived under the If criteria.Click on ‘Click here to selecta date’, and select Compareagainst ‘A time relative to the

current time’. Adjust thenumber of minutes, hours,days, etc., according to yourpreferences and click Ok.

Prevent image loadingIn order to prevent imagesfrom loading in Evolution, goto Tools > Settings, click on theMail Preferences tab. Here,select HTML Mail and click

on ‘Never load images off theNet’, and click Apply/OK.

Creating a new e-mailaccountTo create a new account, go toTools >Settings and select MailAccounts. Click Add, fill inthe details, and select theserver type—generally POP.Give the name of the POPserver, such as pop.jasub-

EVOLUTIONUsing Evolution just got simpler. Learn how to

use the add-ins and tips to your advantage

You can prevent images fromloading in Evolution

You can use Evolution settingsto set up an LDAP server

Use vFolders in Evolution to sorte-mails virtually

Letting only recent mail into themailbox

You can Empty the trash folder onexit to save time

MAY 2003


106

40

hai.com, and your username.Make sure that the Authenti-cation type is Password, andthen click Next. Set the e-mailchecking and message storageoptions as per your personalpreferences. Select the servertype (generally SMTP), type inthe host name and your user-name. Click Next. Type thename of the account (by

default it will be your e-mailID). Click Next and then Finish to complete theaccount creation.

Using colourQuoted text can be highlight-ed using various colours inEvolution, unlike the tradi-tional methods of indentingquotations. Go to Tools >Set-tings and click on Mail Prefer-ences. In the General tab,select ‘Highlight quotations

with color’ and select the preferred colour.

Enable spell checkingGo to Tools > Settings, select

Composer Preferences andclick on the Spell Checkingtab. In the option section,select ‘Check spelling while Itype’. Adjust the colour of mis-spelled words and click Ok.

Adding folders to SummaryIn Evolution, the Summarypage displays your mostimportant folders. By defaultit displays the inbox of thedefault account. But what if one of your accounts isequally important anddeserves a place in the Summary? You can addanother folder by going toTools > Settings. Click on ‘Summary Preferences’ andselect the required folders.

Adding news feeds The Summary page displaysnews feeds from many Websites using RDF (ResourceDescription Format). To addnews feeds, go to Tools > Set-tings, click on Summary Pref-erences and then the NewsFeeds tab. Select from thegiven list of Web sites, andclick on Add. To add a Website of your own choice, other

than those provided in thedefault list, click on the ‘Addnews feed’ button, give thename and address of the Website and click on Ok. The Website will now appear in the listof available news feeds.

Adding emoticons To add emoticons or smileysto messages, start composinga message and place the cur-sor at the required line. Thenselect Insert > Smileys and insertthe emoticon you want. Incase the emoticons don’tshow, go to Tools > Settings,

click on Composer Preferences >General, uncheck ‘Automati-cally insert smiley images’and click Ok.

Open folders in a new windowSometimes it is much better toopen many folders in multiple

windows so that you are notrestricted to doing one thing ata time. To do this in Evolution,just right click on the folder inthe folder bar and select Openin a new window. If the folderbar is not visible, select View >Folder Bar from the menu.

Default forward styleForwarding e-mail is one ofthe most frequent e-mailactivities. Forwarding mailcan be done in a number ofways—inline, quoted, or asattachments. In Evolution,you can specify a defaultmethod. Go to Tools > Settingsand click on Composer Prefer-

ences > General. In the Defaultbehavior section, select theForward Style as Attachment,Inline or Quoted.

Composing HTML mail Writing an e-mail in plain textcan be monotonous, which iswhy users may prefer usingHTML. Evolution providesfacilities for formatting text ina variety of ways using HTML.To enable this, go to Tools > Set-tings and click on ComposerPreferences. Select the Generaltab and check ‘Format mes-sages in HTML’.

You can add news feeds of yourchoice in Evolution

Highlight quoted text with yourchoice of colours

Subscribe to news feeds usingEvolution

Set the forwarding and replystyles in Evolution settings

Select the Automatically insertsmiley option to customise youre-mails

Configure new accounts easilyusing the Account: Assistant

MAY 2003


237

For Windows and LinuxOpera 7.10 with JavaMozilla 1.3

For Windows Plug-ins for both browsers

IMAGING: Atul Deshmukh

contents42 Opera

45 Mozilla

We dissect two of the best Web browsersthat serve to tame the Internet experience:Opera and Mozilla take up the Webgauntlet and teach Internet Explorer a trickor two. With features galore, we show youhow to get the best of the two

41

JUNE 2003

Leavingxplorer

behind

42


238

MMuullttiippllee sseessssiioonnssYou can start your browsingexperience with the same setof Web sites every time bysaving those sites as a session.This done, you can ask Operato start with your saved ses-sion whenever you boot thebrowser. For example, if youvisit a Web-based e-mail anda few news sites, open themand click on File > Sessions >Save session. A session is savedwith a .win extension. Youcan save this file anywhere,but the default location is

advised. Note that you canalways recall these saved Website sessions even whilebrowsing some other sites;File > Sessions > Insert Session willtake care of this.

Next, press [Alt] + [P] tobring the Preferences dialog,and head to File > Preferences >Start, and Exit. Then click onthe ‘Show startup dialog’check-box. This will showthe startup dialog box everytime you boot into Opera.This box allows you to main-tain multiple sessions andeliminates the frustrationassociated with a browsercrash—you can start brows-ing at exactly the pointwhere the crash occurred—avery useful feature.

The default path for thesaved sessions is:

Windows 2000/XP:C:\Documents and Settings\<login name>\ApplicationD a t a \ O p e r a \ O p e r a 7 \profile\sessions\opera.win

Windows 95/98: C:\ Win-dows\Application Data\Opera\Opera7\sessions\opera.win

TTaabbbbeedd bbrroowwssiinnggOpera comes with a greattabbed browsing feature. Touse this, first ensure that thePage Bar is enabled; View >Page Bar > Top should do this.Call a new tab by eitherpressing [Ctrl] + [N] or by dou-ble-clicking on an emptyPage Bar area. You can alsoopen a tab in the back-ground by right-clicking on

a link and select-ing ‘Open inb a c k g r o u n dpage’—a betterfeature as it letsyou browse theparent page whilethe link openswithout disturb-ing you. Note thatonce a background tab fin-ishes loading a Web page,the text of the tab willchange colour to indicatethis.

You can browse betweentabs using the [Ctrl] + [Tab]

combination. You can alsouse the mouse to do this:Keep the right-mouse buttonpressed and use the scrollbutton to move up anddown the list of tabs.

Any active window, suchas a tab, can be closed bypressing [Ctrl] + [W]. You canclose all open tabs by press-ing [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [W]. Toclose all tabs but the one youare browsing under, press[Ctrl] + [Alt] + [W]. You canalso change the position ofthe tabs by dragging anddropping them whereveryou deem them to be fit.

CCllootthheess tthhaatt mmaakkee tthheebbrroowwsseerrThe default user interface ofOpera is a space-hog but

thankfully, canbe tweaked intoa leaner inter-face. Right-clickon the MainBar, click on‘Images only’,and thenuncheck ‘Largeimages’. Right-

click on it again and chooseLeft; then disable the Per-sonal Toolbar by right-click-ing on it and selecting ‘Off’.Switch off the Hotlist bypressing [F4].

Go to View > Status Bar >Bottom, View > Page Bar > Top,View > Address Bar > Top, ViewNavigation Bar > Auto. You candrag-and-drop elements tothe toolbars. We will do sofor the Address Bar. Right-click on it and choose ‘Cus-tomize toolbars’. You willfind three tabs here, Large,Small and Fields. The last tabis where you will find searchoptions—Zoom and Statusfield. Let us add the Googlesearch field to the AddressBar. Just click on it and dragit to the bar. Note that it is adrop-down field and anespecially useful search crite-rion is the ‘Find’ in pagesearch, which highlightskeywords within the Web

■ tips and tricks

You can recover your crashedbrowsing sessions from here

Done rendering background tab

OPERATabbed browsing, mouse gestures and a great

e-mail client Opera never looked better

You can drag and drop toolbarsto customise the Opera UI

Press F11 for the full-screen

mode toggle; [Shift] + [F11] is thesmall-screen mode,for handhelds andother small-screendevices

JUNE 2003


239

43

page as you type in the field.

BBoouunndd ttooggeetthheerrYou can create copies of thecurrent page that you arebrowsing. This enables youto maintain a cloned copy ofthe page for cross-referencingor comparison. Right-click ona page and select ‘Duplicate’or press [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [N] todo this.

MMaaggiicc WWaannddLogging into Web sites is amuch simpler task, thanks tothe Wand feature—a pass-word and forms manager. Login to a site and let Opera saveyour username and password.When you next come to thesame site, the login boxes willbe bordered golden. Press[Ctrl] + [Enter] at the loginscreen and Opera will fill therequisite personal informa-tion and automatically login.

All Wand passwords canbe cleared from Delete privatedata on the File menu. Yourusernames and passwords arescrambled by the Wand beforethey are saved to disk. Howev-er, for added protection youmay set a master password inOpera's Security preferences.Press [Alt] + [P] and go to theSecurity section of the Prefer-ences dialog box. Click on ‘Setpassword’ next to ‘Master

password’ for added security.You can also change it whenOpera asks you for the pass-word, and when it askswhether the same should beused for both the e-mail clientand the Wand.

DDoowwnnllooaadd mmaannaaggeerrOpera comes with a down-load manager (Transfers) thatcan pause, resume andretransfer a corrupted down-load. You can specify a defaultdownload directory. Press [Alt]+ [P] > Programs and Paths andthe relevant pane can be

found on the right. You canalso choose external pro-grams for viewing the sourcecode of a page, etc here. Press[Ctrl] + [Alt] + [T] to quickly callthe Transfer window.

SSeeaarrcchh mmeeOpera supports severalsearch engines. You caneither type in a query intothe search field—[Shift] +[F8]—or you can use theAddress Bar to do the same.Every engine is associatedwith a single alpha-bet, thus Googlegets a ‘g’, Down-load.com gets a 'w',etc. Press [Alt] + [P]and go to theSearch option for

the list of engines supportedand the associative alphabet.Here, you can also changethe number of results dis-played per page.

To use the Address Bar fora Google search, press [F8] andprecede a query with a g, eg:g X-Men movie Web site[Enter], will search for the ‘X-Men…’ string in Google.

FFoorrwwaarrdd rreewwiinnddWhen viewing a page with nouser forward history, Operawill try to detect a possibleforward link that you canaccess. The Forward icon willchange into a FastForwardicon when this is possible.Certain Web sites, mostlyforums and search engines,have a single link at the bot-tom that takes you to thenext page of posts. Try it witha search engine to go to theNext page link, or when read-ing a multi-page article. It candetect link-next elements,and will perform checks to

find one if not.Press the

spacebar to follow the linkto the nextpost, or page.Rewind takes

you back to a site in the history. If you have jumpedfrom Google.com toThinkdigit.com, you canrewind back to Google bypressing [Shift] + [Z]. Rewindtakes you back a Web site, sounless you have followedmore than one link atThinkdigit.com, you canpress [Shift] + [Z] to go instant-ly back to Google. Pressing[Z], on the other hand, wouldtake you just one page back.Note that [Shift] + [X] takesyou forward in a similar vein.

SSlliiddeesshhoowwIn a Web site that has a lot ofimages linked in a continu-ous manner (eg. a site thatdisplays family photos orscreenshots of games), youcan use the Slideshow featureof Opera to enjoy the pic-tures better. The FastForwardbutton displays photo fileson the Web in a slideshow.To see photos full-screen on ablack background, press [F11]to invoke Opera’s presenta-tion tool OperaShow.

RReellooaadd ttiimmeeOpera can reload a Web siteafter a user-specified time.Right-click on a Web page andgo to Reload every > Enable. Note

Opera supports searching from the Address bar, find the appropriate alphabets for engines here

You can enable or disable theWand from here

Choose a default path todownload all files to

Press [F12] forquick access to

preferences, suchas pop-up block-ing and disablingGIF animations

JUNE 2003

Opera can automatically reloada Web page after a set amountof time

44


240

■ tips and tricks

that you can also set a customtime to reload at, say, every 2minutes and 30 seconds. TheCustom dialog box also letsyou reload only if the Web page has expired (as determined bythe site programmer).

BByy pprrooxxyyTo set up a proxy server, press[Alt] + [P] > Network > ProxyServers. Add the address andport number for the appropri-ate proxy server type here andmake sure that the check boxis ticked. You can also disableproxy for certain addresses,

such as within a LAN, and can point Opera to an auto-matic proxy configurationURL, if your ISP requires sucha setting.

MMoouussee ggeessttuurreessMouse gestures are a novel wayto navigate the Web usingOpera. For example, you canhold the right mouse buttonand draw an 'L' into a Webpage to tell Operato close it. Similarly,you can hold aright-clicked mouseover a link andmove the mousedown, then up toopen the link in the

background window. Here aresome of the gestures support-ed by Opera, to use them: Clickand hold right mouse button,move the mouse in the indi-cated directions then releasethe right mouse button.

Open new documentMove downReload Move up and downRestore or maximize window Move up then rightMinimiseMove down then leftDuplicate window Move down then upClose documentMove down then right,or move right-left-right

NNoottee iitt ddoowwnnOpera lets you keep snippetsof text from Web sites asnotes. For example, a partic-ularly interesting piece ofnews can be saved for pos-terity as a note. To do thisselect any amount of text offa Web page, right-click andclick on Copy to note ([Ctrl] +[Shift] + [C]). Notes can thenbe accessed by pressing the[F4] key, to invoke the Hotlistunder the Notes section. Youcan delete notes here andcreate new ones as well. Youcan also send a note via e-mail by right-clicking on it.

TThhee HHoottlliissttThe Hotlist panel istoggled by the [F4]key. It is a reposito-ry of useful stuff—Bookmarks, Mail,Contacts, Historyand Transfers canbe accessed from

here. It also provides a quicklisting of all the windowsopen (Windows), informa-tion on the Web page thatyou are browsing (Info), and alisting of all the links off aWeb page (Links).

If that is not enough, youcan customise this panel byadding games, news pages,dictionaries, etc. To show aWeb page in the Hotlist,bookmark the page by press-ing [Ctrl] + [T] and select toshow it as a panel. You can

Enter information on your proxyserver here

You can play a game like Snakehere, right inside the Hotlist

Keyboard shortcutsHere is how you can use the keyboard to navigate and use Operamore efficiently:

Command Key combinationFind text [Ctrl] + [F]Find next instance of text [F3]Find previous instance of text [Shift] + [F3]Display context (right-click) menu [Ctrl] + [M]Preview page as if printed [P]Close all pages and exit Opera [Ctrl] + [Q]Enter a Web address [F2]Paste and go [Ctrl] + [D]Enter nickname for fast bookmark access [Shift] + [F2]Go to parent directory [Ctrl] + [Backspace]Go to next page in history (or Fast Forward) [X]Go to previous page in history [Z]File a page as new bookmark [Ctrl] + [T]Save selected link as new bookmark [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [T]Manage bookmarks [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [B]Show transfers [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [T]Set your preferences [Alt] + [P]Set focus to address field [F8]Set focus to search field [Shift] + [F8]Check e-mail [Ctrl] + [K]Write new e-mail [Ctrl] + [E]Go to next e-mail [J]Go to next unread e-mail [Shift] + [J]Go to previous e-mail [U]Go to previous unread e-mail [Shift] + [U]Reply to e-mail [R]Reply to all recipients of e-mail [Shift] + [R]Recognize sender of e-mail as new contact [A]View all e-mail associated with sender [E]

Double-click on a blank

page or press[Ctrl] + [Space]to go to yourhome page

JUNE 2003

241

45

IImmaaggee bblloocckkiinnggYou can change the behav-iour that Mozilla defaults tofor images. Image loadingcan be turned off complete-ly, image animations can beforced to loop once or never,

or you can specifically askMozilla to only load imagesthat originate from the server you are visiting—effectively eliminatingadvertisements and bannersthat are hosted on otherservers. Go to Edit > Prefer-ences > Privacy & Security >Images to defines such intent.Note that you can also blockimages in Mail and News-

group messagesfrom here.

PPooppuuppWWiinnddoowwss

Those annoyingpopup ads can beturned off from Edit >

Preferences > Privacy& Security > Popup

Windows. You canalso define Web sites as

exceptions for both,allowing and suppressingpop-up windows. Additional-

ly, Mozilla can play a confir-mation and can display anicon in the status bar, uponsuccessful popup blocking.

FFoorrmm mmaannaaggeerrTo better fill out forms onWeb sites, the Form Mangercan remember your personalinformation. Go to Edit > Pref-erences > Privacy & Security >Forms and click on the ‘Savedata from…’ check box. Fur-ther more, you can also pre-fill personal details byclicking on the 'Manage

You can change defaultbehaviour for images here

MOZILLA

Claiming to be the fastest browser out there,Mozilla has lots of tricks up its sleeve, such as

an IRC and an e-mail client

find more panels, specificallydesigned for the slim, verticallayout that the Hotlist offers,at http://my. opera.com/cus-tomize/panel/.

BBooookkmmaarrkkssTo file a bookmark, press[Ctrl] + [T], you can show thepage under the Hotlist or onthe Personal Bar here. Youcan also give a bookmark aNickname. For example, bygiving Thinkdigit.com thenickname of Home, you canenter Home in the Addressbar and Opera will take youto the Web site. Make sureyou do not assign a com-mon URL such as Microsoft.A bookmarked site getsprecedence over a URL. Sotyping Microsoft will takeyou to Thinkdigit.com inthis case.

Manage your bookmarksby pressing [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [B].Note that deleted ones arestored in a Trash folder. Youcan import bookmarks fromIE, Netscape, Mozilla, etc, overhere. You can also export yourcurrent bookmarks for backupor other purposes.

MMaaiillIt is possible to import e-mails to Opera’s M2 e-mailclient, from earlier versionsof Opera, Outlook Express,Eudora, Netscape Mail (onlyversion 6 and 7), or anymailbox stored in the gener-ic mbox format, includingolder versions of Netscape.Select File > Import > Mail toimport your e-mail. You canimport different accounts,folders, settings and con-tacts. When importing fromOpera 6, the folder structurewill be copied to My folderand the imported e-mailswill be saved to the Receivedfolder.

Quick reply is useful forchat-like conversations. Youcan type a short text that willbe appended to the top of theoriginal quoted message.When you are viewing a mail,type your message in the textbox and click on the Quickreply button. This will sendthe reply to all the recipientsof the original e-mail.

Set up filters for Myfolders and Spam by right-clicking on a folder andthen Properties. Click onAdd filter, Boolean operatorsare supported—you canmatch your filters by com-ponents such as Sender, Toheader, or Entire mail. Thecondition can be set to‘Contains’, ‘Doesn’t con-tain’, or ‘Matches regularexpression’. When you arefinished with each filter, setthe filters to ‘And’ if yourmessages must satisfy all the filter terms or ‘Or’ if they only need to matchone of them.

Assign a nickname to a Web siteto visit it via the nick in theAddress bar

You can specify certain Websites, which Mozilla will allowpop-up windows for.

JUNE 2003


242

46

Stored Form Data' button.Contact information, billingdetails and shipping particu-lars can all be separate sets of data, grantinggreater flexibility.

After you haveconfigured this,you can save a rel-evant form's datafrom Edit > SaveForm Info and thesaved data can beloaded by clickingon Edit > Fill inForm. You canselect which fields to auto-fill here.

PPaasssswwoorrdd MMaannaaggeerrThe Password Manager canstore your login informationfor password protected Websites, mail and news servers.You can turn on this optionfrom Edit > Preferences > Privacy& Security > Passwords. You canalso encrypt this stored data.Stored data such as passwordscan have a master passwordacting as a safety mechanism.This way Mozilla can confirmyour identity before auto-fill-ing login information, andsuch. You can ask the brows-er to ask you the master pass-word the first time it isneeded or every time. It can

also be tagged to a timelim-it—useful if your PC is usedby multiple users.

SSeeaarrcchhMozilla lets you perform asearch on Google, amongst

other popularengines. Youcan type thetext that youwish to searchfor in theAddress Bar.This shouldbring down ad r o p - m e n ufrom where

you can select the searchengine and press [Enter].

To change the engine used,go to Edit > Preferences > Naviga-tor > Internet Search; you canalso choose to display searchresults in the sidebar.

If you choose theAdvanced radio button of theSidebar Search Tab Preference,you can type in text to search

right into the Sidebar.

SidebarThe Sidebar can displaybrowsing History, your Book-marks, and the search enginesamongst other things. These'other things' can be down-loaded from http://dmoz.org/Netscape/Sidebar/. There, youwill find calendars, games,news, and reference sites. Toadd something to the Sidebar,click on its name, and a con-firmation window will let youcomplete the process. TheSidebar can be toggled on andoff by pressing the [F9] key.

You can add, remove andchange the order of entries inthe sidebar by right-clickingon the bar and selecting Cus-tomize Sidebar.

MMiisscceellllaanneeoouuss ttoooollssMozilla comes bundled withan IRC client, press [Ctrl] + [3]to invoke it. You can choosefrom the default list of serversthat are tagged within theclient or go to a personalfavourite by typing in theaddress in the input linebelow. To join a channel type‘/join xyz’ in the input line,where ‘xyz’ is the name of

the channel.Also available is a down-

load manager—Tools > Down-load Manager—which lets youpause and resume your down-loads (double-click on a file todo this) without the need for

an external manager. Howev-er, it cannot split a file intomultiples for faster downloads.

PPrrooxxyy sseerrvveerrYou can define your network'sproxy server (if it has one)under Edit > Preferences >Advanced > Proxies. If your net-work uses a script for proxydetection and switching, youcan type the address of thescript file under the Automat-ic proxy configuration URLradio text.

TTaabbbbeedd bbrroowwssiinnggTaking a page out of Opera,Mozilla also allows openingnew Web pages onto tabs.

A master password can be usedto effectively lock your sensitivedataThe Form Manager can store

your personal data to better fillonline forms

You can change the searchengine from here

The contents of the Sidebar canbe customised to suit your need

Mozilla’s in-built IRC client canbe accessed with [Ctrl] + [F3]

Pause and resume downloads,using the Download Manager

Type about:configin the address bar toget a comprehensivelisting of all thetweaks and under-the-hood operationsthat Mozilla will letyou play with

JUNE 2003

243

47

You can play with how thisworks under Edit > Preferences >Navigator > Tabbed Browsing.Click on ‘Load links in thebackground’ to open links inthe background tab. You canalso define a middle-click ona link or a [Ctrl] + [Enter] in theaddress bar to open a tab bydefault, instead of a new win-dow. Tabs can be navigated byusing the [Ctrl] + [PgUp] and[Ctrl] + [PgDown] keys. Tabs,like any daughter window inMozilla, can be closed bypressing [Ctrl] + [W].

Save sets of tabs as a groupbookmark by going to Book-marks > File Bookmark([Ctrl]+[Shift]+[B]) and check-ing File as group. Now, whenyou go to this bookmark, allthe tabs will open at once.

Multizilla is a Mozilla add-on that adds better tabbedfunctionality to the browser.Get it at http://multizilla.mozdev.org/. A stable version isslated to be out by the timeyou read this.

BBooookkmmaarrkk kkeeyywwoorrddssKeywords are custom short-cuts to bookmarks. To set akeyword, go to Bookmarks >Manage Bookmarks (or press

[Ctrl] + [B]) and select thebookmark you want to set akeyword for. Click Propertiesor press [Ctrl] + [I] and enter akeyword for that bookmark.You will now be able to go tothat address by entering itskeyword in the Mozillaaddress bar.

BBrroowwssiinngg oonn ssppeeeeddGo to Edit > Preferences >Advanced > HTTP Networkingand check Enable Pipelining.Mozilla defaults this to ‘off’ ascertain servers and proxieshave problems with pipelin-ing, but when ‘on’, the browser fetches everythingon the page in asingle connec-tion, rather thanone connectionper item, boost-ing browsing per-formance.

AA ddiiffffeerreenntt mmaaiillTo make Mozilla use anothere-mail program, you can eitherinstall or re-install just thebrowser using the Custominstallation method. Or youcan customise the profile

file—Exit Mozilla,including QuickLaunch, go toyour profile folder(see the Who amI? box for furtheri n f o r m a t i o n ) ,back up theprefs.js file in caseof problems, andCreate (or edit)the file user.js. Add this line to the file: user_pref(“net-work.protocol-handler.exter-nal.mailto”, true).

This will open the defaultsystem e-mail program whenyou click on an e-mail link inMozilla.

EExxppoorrttiinngg mmaaiillSince Mozilla stores e-mailfiles in the standard plain textmbox format, almost all mailprograms can use or import it.Your e-mail files are insideyour profile (see Who am I?),in the Mail and (if you useIMAP) ImapMail folders. Eachmail folder (Inbox, Sent, etc.)is stored as two files; one withno extension (e.g. Sent),which is the mail file itself (inmbox format), and one with a.msf extension (e.g. Sent.msf),

which is theindex to themail file. Tellthe other pro-gram to importe-mail from thefile with noextension.

If you want to transfer an e-mail file to anotherMozilla profile or anotherinstallation of Mozilla, simplyput the e-mail file into the other installation’s Mail folder.

FFiilltteerreeddmmaaiillYou can set upfilters for e-mailmessages. Startthe e-mailclient, go toTools > MessageFilters > New andenter the appro-priate informa-

tion. You can filter by Subject,Attachment, Sender, etc. Fil-tered messages can be movedto another folder, labelled dif-

ferently, deleted, etc.Mozilla has automatic

junk mail detection; some-thing that can be helped bytagging spam messages asjunk using the Junk Mail toolbar button. Tools > JunkMail Controls under the e-mailclient can be evoked tochange spam settings.

MMaalliicciioouuss ee--mmaaiillJavaScript is switched off bydefault for mail and news, soan e-mail cannot run scriptcode just by being opened.Mozilla Mail will not allow avirus or worm to executeautomatically. Attachmentscan be viewed without a virusbeing able to execute. Youwould need to save an attach-ment to your system and

Tabbed browsing in Mozilla isnot as appealing as it is inOpera Assigning a keyword to a

bookmark acts as a nicknamefor the address field

The Windowsversion of Mozillacan notify you ofnew messages if Mail or News isopen. Go to Edit >Preferences > Mail & Newsgroups >Notifications

JUNE 2003

Open Mail/Newsand go to Tools >

Import to import e-mail messages fromother mail clients

Here any message fromProgrammers Heaven will bemoved to the PH folder

48


244

run it to causeharm, if it is a virus.

PPrrooffiilleessYour profile iswhat Mozillaidentifies youwith. It containsyour bookmarks,mail, news files, account set-tings, stored passwords,address book, security certifi-cates and preferences. Youcan set-up multiple identitiesif others share your comput-er. Mozilla will boot with the Profile Manager if multiple profiles exist. Go toStart > Programs > Mozilla > Pro-file Manager to add multipleprofiles.

For Linux: Open a shellprompt, cd to the Mozillaprogram directory and entermozilla -profilemanager.

To find out where yourprofile is stored, look in the‘Who am I?’ box.

RReessccuuee mmeeIf your old profile has beencorrupted, follow these stepsto rescue your data:1. Note the name of the

folder containing the oldprofile.

2. Start the Profile Manager

and create anew profile.Exit Mozilla(also QuickLaunch).3. Go to theprofile foldersand copy allfiles from theold profile

folder to the new profilefolder, allowing existingfiles in the new profile’sfolder to be replaced.

4. If you want to copy yourform data and passwords:save some any form dataand passwords in yournew profile. Find the twonumbered files with *.wand *.s extensions in yournew profile’s folder. Findfiles with the same exten-sions in your old profilefolder, make copies ofthem and rename themso that the numbersmatch those of the files inthe new profile folder.Copy them to the newprofile, replace files.

5. Restart the Profile Manag-er and start as the newprofile. The contents ofyour old profile shouldnow have been successful-ly restored to the newprofile.

AAdddd--OOnnssVISIT HTTP://WWW.MOZDEV.ORG/

PROJECTS/ACTIVE.HTML

FOR MORE ADD-ONS

MozBlogBlog with Mozilla while yousurfhttp://mozblog.mozdev.org/Mouse Gesture SupportNavigate the Web using click-and-drag mouse gestureshttp://optimoz.mozdev.org/gestures/ PiemenusA radical way to access the

Mozilla UI, piemenus reducemouse movements and arethus easier and faster to getused tohttp://www.gamemakers.de/mozilla/radialcontext/

Keyboard shortcutsHere is how you can use the keyboard to navigate and useMozilla more efficiently:

Command Key combinationClose Window [Ctrl] + [W]Find [Ctrl] + [F]Find Again [F3]Find Links As You Type ['] (apostrophe)Find Text As You Type [/]Open search engine page [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [F]Open Context Menu [Shift] + [F10]Exit Mozilla [Ctrl] + [Q]Start Navigator [Ctrl] + [1]Start Mail & Newsgroups [Ctrl] + [2]Start IRC Chat [Ctrl] + [3]Start Composer [Ctrl] + [4]Start Address Book [Ctrl] + [5]File a Bookmark [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [D]Reload [Ctrl] + [R]Select all text in Location Bar [Ctrl] + [L]Open Web Page Location [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [L]Caret Mode (toggle) [F7]Full Screen (toggle) [F11]Zoom text Smaller [Ctrl] + [-]Zoom text Larger [Ctrl] + [+]New Navigator Tab [Ctrl] + [T]Switch to next Tab [Ctrl] + [Page Down]Switch to Previous Tab [Ctrl] + [Page Up]Sidebar (toggle) [F9]

Who am I?Mozilla creates profiles for storing various settings, passwords,etc. This information is located at different places for differentOSes; note that some of these files or directories may be hidden:Windows XP/2000: C:\Documents and Settings\[Windows LoginName]\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\[Profile Name]\[randomstring].slt\ Windows 95/98: C:\Windows\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles\[Profile Name]\[random string].slt\Linux: ~/.mozilla/[Profile Name]/[random string].slt/

Add Piemenu to Mozilla

You can exportyour bookmarks by

pressing [Ctrl]+[B] tobring the BookmarkManager, then click-ing on Tools >Export. Import in asimilar fashion

JUNE 2003

insight nn tips and tricks

117

Winamp 2.91, Winamp3, Media Jukebox 8, Media Jukebox 8, MusicMatch Jukebox 8, Windows Media Player 9, iZotope Ozonefor Winamp 2 and Winamp3, MuchFX2 for Winamp 2, Bobware Stereo Delay for Winamp 2, iZotope Vinyl for Winamp 2,Enhancer 0.17 for Winamp 2

Find them on the Mindware CD

contents50 Winamp52 Media Jukebox 853 MusicMatch Jukebox 855 Windows Media Player 956 Enhancing you music

If the audiophile in you is looking forways on making the most of themusic (and videos) sitting on yourhard disk, here come some poweruser tips on managing the best mediaplayers in the world today.

49

JULY 2003

Jumpin’Jukeboxes

GRAPHIC DESIGN: Atul Deshmukh

50


118

Meet the libraryWinamp now comes with amedia library—the WinampLibrary. This looks prettysimilar to the Media Libraryin Winamp3, but doesn’tcontain all the advanced fea-tures. Open it by right-click-ing on the Main window andselect Library. You can navi-gate over the main sections,called Views, from the leftside pane. To add your files,click on Library and selectthe directories containing allyour media files. Winampimmediately separates theaudio files from the videofiles, and puts each underthe correct Views.

You can also choose tocreate custom Views with

specific rules foreach View.

If you flip acrossthe default audioand video Views,

you will notice thatthere is a lot you can

do in each View. Forexample, under Audio,

you can view your collec-tion by artiste or album.

There’s also a useful searchfacility that lets you search forfiles within the library, with

the results displayed in theResult pane. You can narrowdown your search by enteringin multiple keywords. You canchoose to either enqueue theresults to the current playlistor play it straight off thelibrary. Here’s another cooltip; if you right-click on thetrack in the Results pane, youcan choose to play all thetracks by the same artist, orplay all the tracks in thealbum, or add the files to aplaylist. Right-clicking on thetrack in the Result pane willlet you access and change fileinformation, as well as

remove the file from thelibrary and the drive.

Playlist EditorWinamp 2’s Playlist Editorhasn’t really changed in itsnew makeover. However, itstill remains the easiest towork with. If you have just

loaded a huge playlist, andwant to search for one spe-cific track, getting hold ofthe search plugin forWinamp 2 could do it. How-ever, you can get a quicksearch-and-select done bypressing [F3]. This opens upthe ‘Jump to file’ window,where you can enter thesearch criteria.

Bookmarking If you want to list your

favourite tracks such thatthey can be accessed in ajiffy, you can bookmarkthem with Winamp’s con-venient bookmarking fea-ture. To bookmark tracks,right-click the selected tracksin the Playlist Editor andselect Bookmark Item(s). Youcan also use the [ALT] + [ I ]combination for the same.To access the bookmarks,right-click on Winamp, go toBookmarks and pick up yourtrack from the list there.

Movies Arguably, the coolest featurein Winamp 2 is the additionof video playback. Winampnow supports a wide varietyof formats including MPEG,WMV, AVI and DivX. Toplayback all the DivX videos,

n tips and tricks

The Winamp Library looks

Search for files within the libraryusing the search facility

WINAMP 2This is the classic llama rocker—with its simple

exterior and plethora of features. Thisskinnable player comes with video support as

well as tons of new features

You can also watch moviesusing Winamp 2

Winamp 2's Playlist Editor iseasy to work with

JULY 2003

ILLUSTRATIONS: Farzana Cooper

Task Shortcuts

Play, or Restart, or Unpause [ X ]Stop [ V ]

Pause [ C ]

Next Track [ B ]Previous Track [ Z ]

Winamp Preferences Menu [ C t r l ] + [ P ]

Winamp Library [A l t ] + [ L ]Adding Bookmarks [ A l t ] + [ I ]

Volume Increase/Decrease [áá] / [ââ]

Cycle focus around the windows [ C t r l ] + [ T a b ]

Shortcuts

Main windowThe Main window inWinamp3 is the hub of allthe activity—you can con-trol all playback settingsfrom here. Winamp3 also

has built-in support forcrossfading that you cantoggle from here.

Advanced Equaliser settings The default Equaliser inter-

face doesn’t let you accessthe crossfading and channelbalance functions. You canenable this by clicking onthe third button from theright, on the top-right handside of the window.

The ThingerThe most visible feature inWinamp is the thingiecalled the Thinger. It pro-vides single-click access toall the other components.Use the Thinger to access

the Playlist editor, the MediaLibrary, and the Preferencesmenu. You can also use it tostart the Video Window thatwill let you load yourfavourite video clips and movies, as well as theAdvanced Visualisation Stu-

dio and the Winamp brows-er. To toggle the Thinger,click on the Winamp sym-bol on the bottom right sideof the main window.

Playlist EditorThe Playlist Editor has justabout all the features thatWinamp 2 has, and somemore. You can use thePlaylist editor to drag anddrop in files from all overyour collection, and thenuse the extensive sortingand organising features tosort your music and videos.For example, if you haveduplicate entries in theplaylist, weed them out bygoing to S e l > S e l e c t d u p l i c a t e s .This will highlight, and listthem in the Playlist Selec-tion window at the rightside. To remove them, clickon D e l > D e l e t e d u p l i c a t e d i t e m sor right-click in the Playlisteditor and select ‘Removeduplicated entries’.

Quick selectionThe Quick Selection box, letsyou search for files quicklyusing specific search terms.

The results of your search aredisplayed in the PlaylistSelection window. If this fea-ture has been turned off, youcan enable it by making thePlaylist Editor window activeand pressing [F3].

Media LibraryThe Media Library is a splen-did Winamp3 addition, andlets you catalogue youraudio and video files. Youcan enable this through theThinger or by right-clickingat the main window andselecting Media Library.Start by adding in all youraudio and video files. Youcan then use the MediaLibrary to add the selectedsongs to the Playlist Editor.It also features a handysearch option and the inter-face has four windows thatyou can use to sort the titlesin the list by artist, album,genre, comment, genre andyear, and also use a combi-nation of all of the optionsto filter out the results.

Multiple PlaylistsYou can open up multiple

you need to install the DivXcodec bundle separately.

Winamp’s video windowis tightly integrated intoWinamp itself. Just drop thevideos into the playlist andclick on them—your movieswill start playing!

Right-click anywhere onWinamp, and navigate toO p t i o n s > P r e f e r e n c e s . Fromhere, you can configure videoplayback. If the video play-

back quality appears to beinferior, try turning off theAllow video overlay option.

Plug-insWith Winamp, you haveplugins for just about everything-from generalplug-ins to input and output, as well as DSP and visualisation support. You can find them atw w w . w i n a m p . c o m .

119

51

JULY 2003

Tweak all playback settings inthe Main window

WINAMP3

Use the Advanced EqualiserSettings to tweak crossfading

NullSoft’s Winamp3 is Winamp 2 on steroids. It comes with support for a whole load

of audio and video formats

Use the Thinger to access theVideo Window

Task ShortcutsPlay, or Restart, or Unpause [ X ]

Stop [ V ]

Pause [ C ]Next Track [ B ]

Previous Track [ Z ]

Winamp Preferences Menu [ C t r l ] + [ P ]Volume Increase/ Decrease [áá] / [ââ]

Cycle focus around the windows [ C t r l ] + [ T a b ]

Video in full screen mode [ A l t ] + [ E n t e r ]Exit full screen mode [ E s c ]

Shortcuts

52


120

n tips and tricks

JULY 2003

Setting optionsIt’s very easy to configure your

Media Jukebox set-tings. To accessthe Settings andOptions win-dow, go to S e t-t i n g s > O p t i o n s .Tweak all thesettings includ-

ing the General, Playbackrecording and Encoding set-tings from there. Flip acrossthe options using the scroll-able list at the left side. Thecrossfading option here isjust ideal for smooth cross-fading for a long partyplaylist. You can configure

this from the Playback set-tings in the Options window.Another cool feature is thatyou can set in all file associ-ations straight from the FileAssociations settings in theOptions window..

Making librariesThe Media Jukebox libraryand organisation features aresecond to none. To start with,you can import all yourmedia files by going to Fi le >L i b r a r y > I m p o r t M e d i a . You canchoose the drives and foldersin which you want MediaJukebox to search from here.

By clicking on Advanced, youcan configure additionalparameters such as the typeof media file, and also setother advanced options.Finally, click on Start Searchto start the search. MediaJukebox will display theresults and let you add themto the library.

Using the libraryThe library can be accessedfrom the main window, byclicking on Media Library inthe left pane. The organisa-tion tree opens up and youcan browse the library byalbum, artiste, genre, and soon. Clicking on each of themfurther opens up the tree, andthis lets you see individualentries under each section.You can add the files that youwant to play to the currentplaylist by right-clicking onthe file and selecting Play.

MEDIA JUKEBOX 8Compared to other shareware jukeboxes,Media Jukebox comes with a rather plain

interface. But beneath its ordinary exterior liepowerful organising and playback features

The Settings window

Adding your files to the Library

Playlist Editor windows by selecting P l a y l i s t > C r e a t ep l a y l i s t i n n e w e d i t o r . In thismanner, you can edit yourplaylists without makingchanges to your existingones. Since the new playlistopens up in a new window,the old playlist continues to play uninterrupted. Thenew Playlist Editor windowfeatures full drag and drop support from the old window as well asExplorer. When you aredone, you can play files in

the new window by clickingon them.

Viewing videoWinamp3 now supportsMPEG, AVI and WMV for-mats, as well as the ASFstreaming video format.NullSoft also has its ownstreaming video standard,the NSV that is fully sup-ported by Winamp3. If you have the DivX codecs

installed, then you will beable to see DivX videos.

Winamp3 supports the ASFstreaming video format as well

Catalogue audio and video filesusing the Media Library

Task ShortcutsPlay or Pause [ C t r l ] + [ P ]Stop [ C t r l ] + [ S ]Previous Track [C t r l ] + [ L ]Next Track [ C t r l ] + [ N ]Media Jukebox Settings [ C t r l ] + [ O ]Jump to Search [C t r l ] + [ F ]Jump to Playing Now [ C t r l ] + [ 2 ]Jump to Media Library [ C t r l ] + [ 3 ]Jump to Playlist [ C t r l ] + [ 4 ]Toggle between mini-player and Jukebox mode [ C t r l ] + [ E ]

Shortcuts

You can also rename, move,or delete the file, by accessingthe options when you right-click on the file.

The library comes with apowerful search feature too.To access the search feature,click on the Media Library inthe main window. In thesearch text pane, you canenter in the search string.The really cool thing aboutits search feature is that youcan search using just aboutany criteria, including theusual artist and album, andyear searches. For offbeatsearches, you can search bycomment, bit rate, the lastplayed songs, the playlists,and also search giving thefile types option.

Playlists and SmartlistsCreate custom playlists byright-clicking on Playlists onthe left pane of the main win-dow, and select Add Playlist,or go to E d i t > A d d P l a y l i s t .

Once you have created theplaylist, you can fill it up withyour favourite songs. You candrag and drop the media filesfrom Explorer. To do so fromMedia Library, select thesongs or the criteria that youwant to import. Right-clickon it, head to S e n d T o > P l a y l i s tand select the playlist thatyou have created. You caneven do this from the PlayingNow list.

Smartlists are better thanPlaylists—you can embedspecial rules within themusing select keywords. Forexample, if you want tomake a selection of songs byone particular artiste for atime limit of sixty minutes,

enter ‘a r t i s t = O f f s p r i n g ’ and‘~ t = 6 0 ’ in the search pane.Here ~t limits the playtimeto ‘t’ minutes. Typing in‘d o o r s ’ and ‘j i m m o r r i s o n ’ willcreate a smartlist that nar-rows down the results to TheDoors and Jim Morrison. Youcan create any number ofsuch smartlists based onnumerous criteria that youcan define.

Party mode lockupMedia Jukebox is perfect forcreating party playlists whereyou would like to have yourguests browse the playlistsand have non-destructiveaccess to the files. To accessthe party mode, go to Viewand select Party Mode. You

will be prompted for a pass-word. In the party mode, themore advanced disk and filefeatures (such as deleting)are protected. You will needto use the password to switchback to the normal mode.

Movies on the JukeboxMedia Jukebox can also playyour favourite videos andmovies. With support for theDivX, QuickTime and Realformats, this is a versatilevideo player. To play mediafiles in the QuickTime andReal formats, you will needto have the QuickTime andReal players installed sepa-rately. To play DivX videos,you will need to have theDivX codec bundle installed.

121

53

JULY 2003

Making a Smartlist

Keyword Usage Examplea r t i s t = ar="jim morrison"a l b u m = al="morrison hotel" n a m e = name="blue sunday"n u m b e r p l a y s = numberplays=10

(returns all files played 10 times)b i t r a t e = bitrate=256

(returns all files with bitrate equal to 256 kbps)~ a ~a blue sunday

(get full album containing this song)~ s ~s 700

(limited to 700 MB size)~ t ~t 60

(Time limited to 60 mins)~ n ~n 25

(limited to 25 tracks)

Some common Smartlist keywords

MUSICMATCH JUKEBOX 8In the age of all-in-one complete players

and jukeboxes comes MusicMatch Jukebox.The all-new Version 8 of MusicMatch Jukebox

has slick, colourful skinnable interface,increased Super Tagging features,

as well as unique visualization features

Recorder quality settingsYou can set in your own per-sonal file quality preferencesin MusicMatch Jukebox. To

do so, go to O p t i o n s > S e t t i n g sand click on the Recordertab. You can set file encodingquality here, for all the sup-ported formats. MusicMatch


122

54

JULY 2003

Jukebox lets you rip andencode MP3s at upto 320Kbps encoding quality. Youcan also set additional set-tings, such as the location ofthe encoded files, delayedrecordings and changing theRecording Source.

Slideshow featuresYou can use MusicMatchslideshow to display yourpersonal photographs asyour music plays. To enablethis, go to View and selectV i s u a l i z a t i o n s > C h o o s e r . UnderSelect Visualization, choosethe ‘MUSICMATCH Slide-show Visualization’ and clickon Configure. This will open

the Slideshow menu and letyou tweak the settings. First,select the picture folder, andthen choose the interval inseconds. The slideshow candisplay pictures that transi-tion from one to the other,with many transitioneffects—you can choose andapply them from here. Final-

ly, select the screen resolu-tion at which you want tosee the slideshow, and clickOK. You can preview it byclicking on Start in the SelectVisualisation menu.

Music libraryThe music library manage-ment in MusicMatch is verygood. You can add MP3s,MP3PROs, WAV and WMAaudio files to My Library. Youcan choose to have Music-Match scan all your local

drives, as well as mappednetworked drives for audiofiles. To do so, go to O p t i o n s >M u s i c L i b r a r y > S e a r c h a n d A d dT r a c k s from all Drives…, andscan the whole drive, orrestrict the search to specificfolders. You can also add by dropping a file into theMy Library window from theExplorer.

Looking up your tags MusicMatch Jukebox hasenhanced tag support, whichmeans that you can nowembed more than just textinto your digital music files.While editing and addingtext and images to youraudio files, you can chooseto update them using theSuper Tagging process. Thisautomates the process by

looking up the data on theInternet. To use this service,highlight the track in MyLibrary, or the Playlist, right-click and select Edit TrackTags. Within Edit Track Tags,select Lookup Tags. Music-Match will attempt to locatethe information on theInternet, and return theresults in the Lookup TagsResults window.

Sorting and searchingthe libraryYou can sort the files listedwithin My Library. To dothis, click on My Library inthe Music Center, and underView By, choose a new wayto browse for tracks.

To locate any file withinthe library, click on Find inthe Music Center, and enterthe name of the track youwant to locate. If multipleentries are present, the firstinstance is highlighted andshown. You can narrow downyour search by being case-spe-cific (uppercase or lowercase)and also restrict searches tothe exact string specified.

Spinning with theAutoDJ The AutoDJ option lets youcreate custom playlists auto-matically from those tracksin the library that have theTag info filled in. Click on

AutoDJ in the Music Center,or select O p t i o n s > P l a y l i s t >A u t o D J. After setting theplaytime in the window,you can choose from anexhaustive list of criteria,that include selecting byArtiste, Album, Genre,Mood, and so on. You cancombine this across severalcriteria. Click on Preview togive you an idea of whatyou will get and when done,click on Get Tracks to add itto the current playlist.

This is where Quality matters!

Tweak visualisations here

Adding tracks to the library

Setting up the AutoDJ

Task ShortcutsPlay [ C t r l ] + [ P ]Stop [ C t r l ] + [ S ]Pause [ P a u s e / B r e a k ]Increase Volume [ A l t ] + [ áá]Go to Previous Track [ A l t ] + [ ßß]Go to Next Track [ A l t ] + [ àà]Decrease Volume [ A l t ] + [ ââ]Mute [ C t r l ] + [ M ]Jukebox Settings [ C t r l ] + [ S h i f t ] + [ S ]Open AutoDJ [ C t r l ] + [ D ]Slideshow full screen [ F 1 1 ]

Shortcuts

123

55

JULY 2003

Graphical equaliser:Windows Media Player has a10-band graphic equaliserthat you can access and tin-

ker around with. You canaccess it by going to V i e w >

E n h a n c e m e n t s > G r a p h i cE q u a l i s e r.

SRS WOW EffectsTurn it on by going to V i e w

> E n h a n c e m e n t s and selectingSRS WOW Effects. You can

optimise the output, specificto your audio set up, by select-ing the kind of speakers thatare attached to your comput-er. To improve the bass out-putted, move the TruBassslider to the right. If you wantto widen and enhance the

stereo effect, move the WOWEffect slider to the right.

Media libraryBefore you create playlists,you should add links to your digital media files in theMedia Library. The easiestway would be to add files intothe library by getting Win-dows Media Player to scanyour computer. To do so, goto F i l e > A d d t o M e d i a L i b r a r yand choose ‘By Searching

computer’. Select the optionsand click Search. This willscan your hard drives formedia files and add them toyour Media Library. You canalso add tracks that are cur-rently playing, or all thetracks in the playlist by going

to F i l e > A d d t o M e d i a L i b r a r yand selecting ‘Add CurrentlyPlaying Track’. Also, all the

WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER 9

With support for encoding on the acclaimed Windows Media Audio codecs,

this is one skinnable player you need if you are an WMA fan!

Tweaking the SRS WOW effects

Burning CDsMusicMatch Jukebox Basic,that is bundled in the free ver-sion MusicMatch Jukebox,allows you to make musicCDs. The Burner Plus, that isbundled with the sharewareversion, comes with plenty ofadvanced features that makesit almost as good as any stand-alone CD writing software. Tocreate Audio CDs, first open asaved playlist, or create onethat contains the tracks thatyou want to burn; this will

open the Burner Plus window.To add any more files, click onthe Add button. You can alsoadd tracks by dragging anddropping using WindowsExplorer. Finally, when youare ready to write the CD,click on the Burn button.

SmartSplit If you have lots of files to burnand you aren't sure how manyCDs you will need, here is anifty utility within Music-Match that will help you.First, select all the files thatyou want to write on the CDand drag them into the Burn-er Plus window. Then, click onthe SmartSplit button. Allyour files will be divided intothe required number of discs.Finally, click on Burn to getstarted!

The slick Burner Plus interface

Task ShortcutsAccess the Now Playing, Media Guide, Copy from CD, Media Library, Radio Tuner, Copy to CD or Device, Premium Services, and Skin Chooser taskbar features [ A l t ] + [ V ] + [ G ]Making your videos run in full-screen mode and restoring them back again [ A l t ] + [ E n t e r ]Playing the previous track [ C t r l ] + [ B ]Playing/Pausing the selected track [ C t r l ] + [ P ]Stopping the selected track [ C t r l ] + [ S ]Playing the next item [ C t r l ] + [ F ]Muting the volume [ F 8 ]Turning down the volume [ F 9 ]Turning down the volume [ F 1 0 ]Opening the Search box (in the Media Library) [ A l t ] + [ S ]

Here are some of the more commonly used shortcuts

for Windows Media Player 9.

Adding files into the library

Shortcuts

56


124 JULY 2003

Owing to the lossycompression tech-nology of the MP3

standard, some of the finehighs and lower thumpingbass are lost after encoding.

Most players today make upfor this by restoring the crys-talline highs and the lowrumble of the bass, and alsorestore some stereo separa-tion by piping the soundthrough DSP plug-ins.

In Winamp 2, to accessall the DSP plugins, right-click anywhere in Winampand select O p t i o n s > P r e f e r -e n c e s and scroll down the listto Plugins. All DSP plug-insare located under DSP.

In Winamp3, DSP plug-ins are loaded as you startthe player, and you can con-figure the settings there.

In Media Jukebox, youcan access all the plug-ins bygoing to S e t t i n g s > P l u g - i nM a n a g e r and picking out theplug-in from there, andclicking on Configure.

MusicMatch Jukebox letsyou access and configureplug-ins from V i e w > S o u n dE n h a n c e m e n t .

iZotope Ozone Izotope Ozone is a DSP plug-in for Winamp 2 andWinamp3. It is one of themost powerful plugins avail-able. The Winamp3 versionlets you try out all the set-tings for a trial period. Youcan access all the presets, andsave your own custom onesby clicking on Presets in themain Ozone window. Ozonelets you tweak the acousticcharacteristics of the room,making your music soundcleaner and better.

MuchFX2MuchFX2 is a Winamp 2DSP plugin stacker that hasbeen designed to let you add

more than one DSP plug-inat one go. This can be usedto stack up all the DSP plug-ins that you want by click-ing on the ‘+’ (Add) button.You can also configure themthrough MuchFX2, by click-ing on the CFG button.

Bobware Stereo Delay This plug-in lets you config-ure stereo delay, crossoverand delayed amplification foryour music, and restoressome of the stereo loss thatoccurs on account of the MP3compression technology.

iZotope VinylWhile all the other plug-inshere will enhance the way

your music sounds, iZotopewill toss you back intoanother age. Vinyl can makeyour MP3s sound as thoughyou were playing musicfrom an age-old LP.

Enhancer 0.17Enhancer is a tweaker'sdream, and lets you config-ure your DSP settings to themaximum in Winamp 2. Youcan use Enhancer to optimiseyour base and treble settings,and also set precise values forthe dry signal volume.

Oops, I just unscrewed thefaceplate!

music that you copy is auto-matically added to the library,as is all the media contentthat you purchase and down-load from the Internet.

Sorting the libraryYou can locate all the musicfiles that you have enteredinto the Media Library bygoing to Media Library andexpanding the All Music tree in the left pane. Tosearch for any file within the Library, click on thesearch button. In the SearchFor field, enter the searchterm that you would like to search. The results are displayed in the detailspane.

Editing media informationTo edit information on anymedia file, locate the file with-in the Media Library. Then

right-click in the details pane,and select Edit to change the

media information.Within Windows XP, you

can edit the tags with theAdvanced Tag Editor. Accessthis by locating the file,right-clicking and selectingAdvanced Tag Editor.

Using the InternetWindows Media Player hasbeen fully integrated withthe Internet. You can locateinformation about thealbums in your playlist byright-clicking on the albumin the Media Library andclicking on Find Album Info.In this manner, you canupdate or change informa-tion regarding an album.

Make videos look betterWindows Media Player sup-ports a large number of pop-ular video formats, includingthe VCDs, DVDs and DivXformats—you will need toinstall the DivX codec sepa-rately. It also comes withrobust video playbackenhancement features.Adjust the playback controlsby clicking on V i e w > E n h a n c e -m e n t s and then Video Set-tings. You can fine-tune thehue, saturation, brightnessand contrast controls usingthe sliders. When you aredone, click on Close.

Editing information

ENHANCING YOUR MUSIC

If your MP3s sound dull and lifeless, then here is how you can enliven them

AUGUST 2003


111

contents58 Paint Shop Pro 8

61 Adobe Illustrator

63 Adobe Photoshop

57

Imagine

GRAHIC DESIGN: Atul Deshmukh

We tell you how to make yourimaginations a reality. Master these tipsand tricks on the three major graphicssoftware. Create jazzy effects, and playwith images in a much faster andefficient way.

Imaging...

58


112

Curved textTo create curved text, firstyou need a curve on whichto place the text. With thePreset Shape Tool, draw acircle on a new canvas.Switch to the Text tool. Thecursor changes to theCurved Text cursor whenyou move it over the image.Click, and enter the desiredtext in the dialog box pre-

sented. If your text isnot visible, it is

because both,the fill and out-line colours,are white.Click anycolour onthe paletteto choosethe outlinecolour andright-click to

fill in thecolour. If the let-ters overlap eachother, increase

the kerning—the spacebetween the letters. Nor-mally, auto-kerning workswell. Click OK, and thecurved text is seen.

To make the circle invis-ible, locate the layer thatcontains your text andvector object. Click on the‘+’ to expand the layer,right-click on the ellipse,and click properties.Uncheck the Visible check-box; click OK, and the circlewill disappear.

Custom moulded buttonOpen a new image with awhite background andimmediately add a newlayer (layer 1). Select anybackground colour, andwhite as the foreground

colour. Create a circle, usingthe Preset Shape Tool withthe following specifications:Type: Circle; Style: Stroked& Filled; Line Width: 22;with Antialias checked.

Add a new layer—Layer2. Using the Webding font,hold in the Shift key,and type @ for the hammerand spanner symbol thatwe will be using in thisexample. Type in a font sizeof 100, and select ‘Createas Selection’.

Back in your image, theselection will appear as adotted line around the text.Do not release the selection,and your type will instantlydisappear. If the entire fontis on your screen you’re ok,if part of it is off the screen,you will need to try again.Place the cursor in the mid-dle of the window, and clickto go back into the text editor. Click ok, and see ifthe entire phone symbol ison the window. Go to Selec-tions > Modify > Expand on theMenu Bar, and expand theselection to 4.

Using the Flood Filltool, fill your selection withthe solid colour you used fora background colour. Usingthe Move tool, position thehammer and spanner sym-bol in the centre of the cir-cle. If all has gone well, thephone symbol should belarge enough to fill theinside of the circle, barelytouching the edges. Unse-lect any selections, andmerge all of the layers.

Once the layers aremerged, use the MagicWand to select the figure

again, and fill it with a Sun-burst Gradient fill. Adjustthe settings so that thewhite part of the sunburst isin the top left corner of thepreview square.

Go to Image > 3 D Effects >Outer Bevel, and select the following settings: bevel,smoothness: 13; depth: 5;ambience: 0; shininess: 0;light white; angle: 315;intensity: 38; elevation: 47.

Invert your selection.Using the Flood Fill tool setto solid, fill the interiorareas of your figure with thesolid colour, selected as thebackground colour. Invertthe selection again, and adda drop shadow with the fol-lowing settings; Opacity:100; Blur: 13; Horizontal: 0;Vertical: 0.

Glowing textCreate a new file with ablack background, set to 16million colours. For theforeground colour, selectlight purple—RGB (128,128,255). Enter some text. Uns-elect the text by going toSelections > Select none. Go to

■ tips and tricks

Use Paint Shop Pro to curveyour text as desired

You can create your buttonsand icons easily in few steps.

PAINT SHOP PRO 8

Glowing Text

JULY 2003


This image editing software from JASCSoftware now has a more polished look than

ever before, and has lots of features which areunique to it. Find out how you can achieve

special effects in few easy steps.

AUGUST 2003113

59

Effects > Edge Effects > Dilate,and repeat this thrice. Thiswill expand the text. Nowgo to Adjust > Blur > Blur More.Do this thrice to create theglowing effect around thetext.

Now, select dark pur-ple— RGB(0,0,64) as yourforeground colour. Enter thesame text again, and move it so it superimposes theblurred text. This is the final image.

This effect looks bestwith a lighter colour on theoutside, and a darker colouron the inside.

Golden textCreate a new image withwhite as your backgroundcolour, set to 16 millioncolours. Enter some textusing in light grey—RGB(192,192,192). Keep the textselected throughout theentire tutorial. Now go toSelections > Modify > Feather.Enter 3 in the ‘Number ofpixels’ field, to expand theselected area. Now, select

white as your foregroundcolour, and give the text ahot wax coating by selectingEffects > Artistic Effects > Hot Wax Coating.

Now, go to Adjust > ColorBalance > Red/Green/Blue, andenter these percentage val-ues: Red: 100; Green: 50;Blue: 0. Do this twice to geta realistic gold colour.

Finally, add a drop shad-ow for a 3D effect. Go toEffects > 3 D Effects > DropShadow with the followingoptions; Color: black; Opac-ity: 100; Blur: 10; VerticalOffset: 4; Horizontal Offset:4. This is the final image.

This method can also beapplied to shapes such ashearts, found in the Webd-ings font, for example.

Neon textCreate a new file with ablack background, set to 16million colours. With whiteas your foreground colour,enter some text. Unselectthe text by going to Selections> Select None. Go to Adjust >Blur > Blur More. Now go toEffects > Artistic Effects > Solar-ize. Set the Threshold to128, and click OK.

Now, click the Adjust >Color Balance > Red/Green/Blue, and enter these per-centage values; Red: 100,Green: 0, Blue: 100, for alight purple colour. This isthe final image.

Water textCreate a new image with a white background, set to16 million colours. Entersome black text, preferablywith a thick font such asArial Black. Keep the textselected. Now, select thePaint brush tool, and set it to Size: 50; Opacity: 100;Texture: Marble.

With white as your fore-ground colour, click and

Keyboard shortcuts for PSP 8

Golden Text

Neon Text

Menu CommandFile > Import > Screen Capture > Start Edit > Paste > Paste As New Layer Edit > Paste > Paste As New SelectionEdit > Paste > Paste As New Vector SelectionEdit > Paste > Paste As Transparent Selection

Image > Crop to Selection

Image > FlipImage > Rotate > Free Rotate...Adjust > Brightness and Contrast >Brightness / Contrast...Adjust > Brightness and Contrast > Gamma Correction...Adjust > Hue and Saturation > Hue/Saturation/Lightness...Selections > Float

Selections > Invert

Shortcut[Shift] + [C]

[Ctrl] + [L]

[Ctrl] + [E]

[Ctrl] + [G]

[Ctrl] + [Shift] + [E]

[Shift] + [R]

[Ctrl] + [I][Ctrl] + [R] [Shift] + [B]

[Shift] + [G]

[Shift] + [H]

[Ctrl] + [F]

[Ctrl] + [Shift] + [I]

DescriptionStart a capture

Paste the clipboard contents into the current document as a new layerPaste the clipboard data into the current image as a new selectionPaste vector data in clipboard, into thecurrent image, as a new vector selectionPaste the clipboard contents into the current image, using the backgroundcolour as transparentCrop Tool: Used to eliminate, or cropareas of an image.Flip imageApply rotation to imageAdjust brightness and contrast

Apply gamma correction to the image

Adjust the hue, saturation and/or lightnessConvert the current regular selection into a floating selectionInvert the current selection area

Water Text

60


114

■ tips and tricks

AUGUST 2003AUGUST 2003

drag the paint brush overthe text once. Unselect thetext by going to Selections >Select None. Now go to Effects> Edge Effects > Dilate. Thiswill increase the lighterareas of your text.

Go to Adjust > Blur > Blurmore. Create a watery effect,by going to Effects > ArtisticEffects > Hot wax coating. Thiswill create a liquid effect. Toadd some colour, go to Adjust > Colors > Red/Green/Blue, and use Red: 0; Green: 20; Blue: 100.

Note that all colours arepossible.

Burnt edgesOpen an image, and select awhite background, set to 16million colours. Use theMagic Wand tool, and clickon the white area aroundthe image. Invert the selec-tion by going to Selections >Invert. This will allow you towork only on the image,and not the white border.Use the Paint Brush toolwith white as your fore-ground, and create an edgeas if has been burnt.

Click Selections > SelectNone, and select the whiteareas again, using the MagicWand tool. Invert the selec-tion, and if you wish, feath-

er the selection by 2 or 3pixels. This will give you asmoother edge. Use the AirBrush tool with black asyour foreground colour.Select a brush size of 10, andopacity 50. Go around theimage close to the edges tocreate a dark border. Useopacity of 20 to create alighter border, further infrom the darker one. Youcan also use dark brown togive more realistic burntedge effect.

Flying textStart with any colour back-ground. Choose a font, andsome text. Press [Ctrl] + [C]

to copy the text to clip-board. Now, unselect yourtext. Flatten the image byclicking Layers > Merge >Merge All (Flatten). Then, goto Image > Rotate > RotateClockwise 90. Next, go toEffects > Distortion Effects >Wind. Set the strength at100, from the Right.

Then, go to Image >Rotate > Rotate Anticlockwise90, to bring the image backto its original position. Nowpaste the text you hadcopied to the Clip Board.Flatten the image onceagain. Now, click the Selec-tion tool from the tool bar,and drag it across your windeffect to cover the effect inthe selection rectangle.

Now go to Effects > Geo-metric Effects > Perspective-ver-tical. Set the Distortion to100 and Color to the back-ground colour you areusing. After that, unselect,and you’r e done.

Creating styled lines To create a styled line, pressthe arrow or preview win-dow for Styled Lines on theTool Options palette, thenpress the Custom button atthe bottom on the LineStyle selection list.

Here, you can manipu-late several line properties.To set one of the caps, pressthe arrow button near thecaps preview window, to getthe selection box. Choosethe cap you want by click-ing it. You can then set thecap size relative to the linewidth, by pressing the cap’sSize button and then settingthe Height and Width for the cap. You add dashes andgaps in the Style pane ofthe Styled Line dialog box.The first time you press Add,you add a dash, which youcan size by setting a valuewith the Length control, orby dragging the pointed

thumb in the control box.Press Add again, to add agap. You can keep addingdashes and gaps.

To save your styled line,press the ‘Save As New’ but-ton. Once you save yournew line style, it’s availablewith any drawing tool. Youcan create styled lines for allsorts of purposes, includingnavigation buttons for aWeb site, or separator barsfor a Web site, or newsletter.

The Seamless Tilingeffect

Turn any selection intoa seamless pattern for appli-cations such as painting,adding text, or creating

backgrounds, with theSeamless Tiling Effect underthe Effects > Image Effectsmenu. This feature givesyou the option to createtiles using three methods.Try this effect. You are sureto like it.Burnt Edges Effect

Flying text effect

With Paint Shop Pro 8, you cancreate your own Styled Lines.

The Seamless Tiling Effect inPSP 8

AUGUST 2003115

61

Create custom stylesTo create custom styles, setup objects with the strokesand fills you want to save asstyles. Drag each of them tothe styles palette. Do notdelete them from the pageyet. On the Styles palette,click the options triangle,

and choose ‘Select allunused’.

The unused styles areselected. Click the trash can

at the palette’s bottom,and say yes, when

asked if you wantto delete the

selected styles.Follow thesame proce-dure for brush-es, swatchesand symbols(symbols are inAI 10 only). You

will now onlyhave items used in the

document in the palette.Next, delete the objectsusing the styles from thepage. New styles are storedin the styles palette. Savethe file, give it a descriptivename, and close it. Remem-ber, the file must be closedto load the styles.

To use the styles, go toWindow > Style Libraries > OtherLibrary, and navigate towhere you saved the file.Highlight it and click Opento open it. The styles will bein the styles palette, readyfor use.

Transferring vectorsbetween Illustrator andPhotoshopVectors are important asthey are resolution inde-pendent—so they can bescaled up or down with noloss of detail—and they

print clean, and crisp. Vec-tor shapes can be easilymodified; just a little tug ona handle turns a line into acurve. Vectors can be easilyrasterized into pixels; ittakes specialised programsto convert pixels into vec-tors. If vectors could betransferred between differ-ent programs, it would be avery handy feature. Here ishow we can do it betweenPhotoshop and Illustrator.From Photoshop to IllustratorBetween Illustrator 9 andPhotoshop 6, you can dragand drop paths, directlyfrom Photoshop intoIllustrator. Previously, youcould only export, or copy,and paste. Just select thePhotoshop path, and dragit to an open Illustratordocument.

Export paths from Pho-toshop, by going to File >Export > Paths to Illustrator.You can choose a specificpath from the Paths palette,a path from a shape layer, orcrop marks that define thePhotoshop file size. Notethat the path exported toIllustrator, will have no fill,or stroke. Select all, orswitch to the outline modeto see your vectors. From Illustrator to PhotoshopYou can also get vectorsfrom Illustrator into Photo-shop. If you select the Illus-trator objects, and thencopy and paste, a dialog boxappears that lets you controlwhether you want the pathconverted into pixels (ontheir own layer), paths

(added to Photoshop’s Pathspalette), or shapes (as a newshape layer).

Photoshop lets you con-trol the conversion fromprecious vectors to blandpixels. If you choose pixels,a transformation boxappears around the import-ed art work. Use the bound-ing box handles to scale,rotate, or skew the art workany which way you want. Aslong as you don’t double-click, or press [Enter],you’ve still got resolution-independent vectors.

Finally, if you want todrag and drop from Illustra-tor into Photoshop, you cancontrol the created objecttype as follows. With nokey pressed, drag to createa pixel layer. Hold [Ctrl] tocreate a path. If a shapelayer is currently active, thepath will be added to thatshape layer. Hold [Shift]and place the new objectin the centre of the Photo-shop file.

Make your own gifttagsYou can create your own tagsthat are business card sizedto put on gift boxes. Bydefault, the 0 on the ruler isset to the left side horizon-tally, and the bottom verti-cally. Change it by clickingon the crosshairs on therulers’ top, and dragging it tothe top left corner.

Unfortunately, you can’tchange the page margins inIllustrator. They’re set to theunprintable area of yourprinter. You can move themaround on the page, but you

Create your custom styles anduse them later to ease yourwork and attain consistency

ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR

If you want a top of the line graphics programthat deals with both raster and vector

graphics, Adobe Illustrator 10 is the softwarefor you. Use these small time saving tips to get

the best out of this powerful tool.


116

62

can’t change their size.Hence, you’ll need to pullout horizontal guides to0.75, 4.25, and 7.75 inches.Click on the ruler, and dragwith your mouse, to pullout guides. You’ll also needto drag vertical guides out to0.5, 2.5, 4.5, 6.5, 8.5, and10.5 inches.

Place the image youwant to use. Select File >Place, and navigate to thedirectory with your imageand double-click on the filename. Select the image,once you have it placedproperly. Once it’s selected,the bounding box, andsmall rectangles appeararound it. Then, chooseObject > Transform > Move.

Put in 0 for the horizon-tal position, and -2 for thevertical position. Negativenumbers move objectsdown; positive numbersmove objects up. Press thecopy button—this places acopy of the object you select-ed, at the chosen position.Choose Object > Transform >

Transform Again, or the key-board shortcut [Ctrl] + [D],three more times.

Select everything ([Ctrl] +[A]). Then, choose Object >Transform > Move again. Thistime, enter 3.5 for the hori-zontal position, and 0 for thevertical position. Press copy,and all the graphics will bepositioned as desired.

Print this, and you areready with your Gift Tags.

Changing the defaultIllustrator fileIf you want a brush, symbol,swatch, or style to be avail-able whenever you create anew document in Illustra-tor, you can edit the Illus-trator Start up documents inthe Illustrator plug-ins fold-er. For example, if youinstalled Illustrator 10, thestart file for CMYK will becalled ‘Adobe IllustratorStartup_CMYK.ai’ and willbe located in ‘C:\ProgramFiles\Adobe\Illustrator 10\Plug-ins’. Just open the filein Illustrator, add thecontent you want available,save, and close the docu-ment. The next time youcreate a new documentin Illustrator it will be there.

Remember that unlessyou do a cleanup on everyfinal document you save, bydeleting unused brushes,symbols, swatches, andstyles, everything you addincreases file sizes. Hence,delete items you will neveruse from the start up file.Once again, this is not forthe casual user. It’s akinto changing the Windowsregistry.

Turn guides into vectorlinesGo to View > Guides > LockGuides, to unlock lockedguides. Then, go to View >Guides > Release Guides, andthe guides will turn into vector lines.

Changing tool pointerYou can change the point-er’s appearance, from thetool pointer to a cross hair,for more precise control.More artwork is visible,when using a cross hairpointer. This is convenientfor detailed drawing, andediting. To change a draw-ing tool pointer to a crosshair, press [Caps Lock],before you begin drawingwith the tool. To make thischange permanent, openEdit > Preferences > General,and check ‘Use Precise Cur-sor’, and click OK.

Draw straightWhen you draw, or moveobjects, hold down the Shiftkey, so as to move themwithin a range of 45 degrees.This angle can be changedfrom Edit > Preferences > Gener-al. Enter the new ConstrainAngle, and click OK.

Scratch diskFor best performance, pro-vide Illustrator with ampleswap space on the hard diskwhere it can temporarilystore information such asthe image information,undo information, etc. Thiswill ensure its smooth func-tioning, especially if youwork with large, complexgraphics. Change the loca-tion of the scratch disk, byclicking on Edit > Preferences >Plug-ins & Scratch Disk.

Easter eggBy default, in the lower lefthand corner of the drawingarea, Illustrator displays thecurrent tool being used.Click on it to view otheritems such as, the Date andTime, the amount of FreeMemory, and the Number ofUndo’s. If you hold down[Alt] while clicking on thedrop-down, you can choosesuch items as number ofshopping days left tillChristmas, a pair of eyesthat follow your cursor, thenumber of mouse clicks,and the moon phase,among other things!

Custom brushesTo use an object as a brush,

Create your own gift tags andput them on gift boxes!

you can personalise a lot ofthings, through this PreferencesDialog.

Alt Click and keep yourselfupdated with some interestinginformation.

AUGUST 2003

AUGUST 2003117

63

select the object, and clickon the new brush iconin the brushes palette. In thenew brush dialog box, selectthe kind of brush to create,and click OK. Set theproperties for the brushfrom the Brush Options dia-log box, and click OK to cre-ate the brush.

Artwork and previewYou can view some items inPreview mode, and otheritems in Artwork simultane-ously. Place the objects onseparate layers. Double-clickthe layers you wish to see inArtwork mode, and disablePreview from the layerOptions dialog box.

Text on pathYou can apply text aroundany object in Illustrator.First, create the objectaround which you want thetext to appear. Select thePath Type tool. To do so,hold down the mouse but-ton on the Type tool, untilthe options below it appear.Create an insertion pointnear the object’s edge, andtype the text.

Enter the new height orwidth value in the transformpalette; hold down [Ctrl],and hit Enter, or Return. Theother value will be enteredautomatically. More trans-form tricks here.

Use that Knife nicelyUsing the Knife tool, canhave an uncertain outcomeif you don’t know the short-cuts to making it work.If you select the Knife Tool,and begin cutting a shape,

it is very hard to try andkeep that cut straight. Press[Alt], and then begin cut-ting, because if you begincutting, and press [Alt] later,the cut will be crooked. Ifyou have several layers with-out any item selected, andyou begin cutting it with theKnife Tool, the cut willapply to all layers. If youwant to cut only one item,make sure that it is the onlything selected.

Moving objectsHere’s how to move oneitem from one layer to thenext. Select the item youwant to move. The layerwith the selected item has alittle square in it. Hover overthe little square and you’llsee a hand with a pointingfinger. Press the Alt key, and drag that item to a new layer.

Find the complementa-ry color for a selected itemby holding down [Ctrl], andclicking inside the bar,when working in the colourbar area (the area at the bot-tom with all the colors).This gives you the colourimmediately. It will notchange the actual art piece,unless you actively selectthe item.

Use Path Type tool to curveyour text the way you like.

Manipulating layersSelecting layersPress [Ctrl] and click on alayer in the Layers palette toautomatically select every-thing. This is the best way toselect small, complex objectson a layer. To show only onelayer, and hide all the others,press [Alt], and click on theeye icon to the left of thelayer, in the layers palette. Deleting layersTo delete a layer set, but notthe layers within the set, goto the Layer palette drop-down menu, and chooseDelete Layer Set. Click on SetOnly, when the dialog boxappears, and click OK.Linked layers

If you want tomake the samechange to morethan one Typelayer at the same

time, just linkall of thelayers youwant fromthe Layerspalette, thenhold [Shift],

and make yourchanges to one

of the linked layers. All of thelinked layers will show thesame change.

To delete your activelayer, and the layers linked toit, hold [Ctrl], and click onthe trash icon in your Layerspalette. You can quickly lockall of your linked layers, bychoosing ‘Lock All LinkedLayers’ from the layer palettedrop down menu. You caneasily align your linked lay-ers by selecting the MoveTool and looking at theOptions bar. There’s a selec-tion of buttons that willalign your layers to the left,right, horizontally, vertically,to the centre, and evenadjust the spacing.Using masksIf you want your Layer maskto have clean sharp edges,add a Vector mask. To do this,hold down [Alt], while click-ing on the ‘Add a Mask’ but-ton, at the bottom of theLayers palette. Mask a layer, orset of layers with Layer Masksalready attached, by adding

Delete only the set, not thelayers that are contained in it.

PHOTOSHOP

Use everyone’s favourite image editing tool in asmarter way with these smart tips.

64


118

them to a layer set, andadding a mask to that set. Toquickly and easily copy yourLayer Mask, just click on theLayer you want the maskcopied to, then click directlyon the Layer Mask you wantcopied, and drag it to the Lay-ers Mask icon.More Layer settingsIf you want to move morethan one layer in your doc-ument, just link the Layerstogether. Do that, by click-ing on the little empty boxnext to the eye icon in theLayers Palette.

Change your backgroundinto a fully functional layer,by double-clicking on it inthe Layers Palette.

If you want to save yourpersonal style as a LayerStyle, you can add a LayerStyle to its own layer bygoing to Layer > Layer Styles >Create Layers. It will appear onits own Layer beneath theoriginal layer.

Change the opacity of thelayer you’re working on, bypressing a number on yourkeyboard. For example, typ-ing 4 will set it to 40 percent, typing 5 sets it to 50per cent, etc. If you want itto be 52 per cent, just type in5, and 2 quickly.

File handlingYou can double-click any-where on your open work-space, to bring up the Opendialog box.

When using the ‘Save forWeb’ dialog box, you can seehow your image will look ondifferent platforms by usingthe arrow in the preview’supper right corner, and select-

ing which platform you wantto see. Don’t keep saving yourimages as JPEG, because Pho-toshop compresses the fileeach time. Save it as a loss-lessformat until you’re done withthe editing.

After working on a Photo-shop document for a while,you may have some unseendata lying on the outside ofthe image. To get rid of this,and hence, shrink your filesize, press [Ctrl]+[A] to select,and then, go to Image > Crop.To shrink the size of yourPhotoshop files further, go toPreferences > File Handling, anduncheck the box that says‘Always Maximize Compati-bility for Photoshop PSDFiles’.

To undo the save, justpress [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Z] a cou-ple of times, until you seeyour layers coming back. Toclose all of your currentlyopen images, press [Ctrl] +[Shift] + [F4].

Manipulating imagesUse the Clone Stamp tool, toclone from one open imageto another quite easily. Justhold down [Alt], and click onthe image you want to clone,then go to the original image,and start painting.

To quickly change thesize of your preview thumb-nail in your palettes, justright-click in an open area ofthe palette, and a menu willappear with your selections.

Gain lost detail of ashrunken image, by goingunder Filter > Sharpen >Unsharp Mask. In the dialogbox that appears, try using aRadius of 1.0 and a Thresh-

old of 4, then play aroundwith the amount until youare satisfied with the result.Crooked scans are common,and annoying. Fix them eas-ily by selecting the Measuretool, and dragging it alongthe top edge of your image.Now, go to Image > RotateCanvas > Arbitrary. Press OK,and Photoshop straightensthe image automatically.

Playing with coloursText colour changes whenhighlighted. To view the orig-inal text colour, and yet keepit selected, press [Ctrl]+[H], tohide the selection.

To get a finger paintingeffect, hold [Alt] while usingthe Smudge tool. Whenusing a spot colour gradientthat fades to white, makewhite a zero percent tint ofthe spot colour. This ensuresthat the entire gradient ismaintained in the separation.CMYK coloursIf you’re working in CMYKmode, the colour picker isstill in RGB. To get aroundthis, press [Ctrl] + [Y], whilethe colour picker is open.This is the Shortcut for ProofColours found under theView menu. Get the besteffect when sharpening flesh

tones in CMYK mode, byapplying the filter to theimage’s cyan channel.

Text effectsTo numerically enter theexact size for a type box, holdthe Alt key, and click on yourdocument using the Texttool. A ‘Paragraph Text Size’dialog box will pop up. Toquickly render your text layer,just right-click on the layer’sname in the layers palette,and select Rasterize Layer. Toget your fancy quotationmarks back (the real ones, notthe block foot, or inch mark),look under Preferences, andchoose General Preferences.Here, you can choose to tog-gle the quotes with the ‘UseSmart Quotes’ selection.

Other useful tipsGradient banding: To elimi-nate gradient banding whenprinting, go to Filter > Noise >Add Noise. When the dialogopens, enter 2 in the Amountfield, select the Gaussianoption in the Distributionsection, and check the Mono-chromatic box. Now, justclick OK. View at 100 per cent: Nomatter what your currentzoom level is, to view yourimage at 100 per cent, justdouble-click on the ZoomTool icon.Kerning and TrackingAdjust: To set the Trackingtighter, highlight the type,and press [Alt] + [Left arrow].To loosen, use [Alt] + [Rightarrow]. Adjust kerning, byclicking the cursor betweenthe two layers, and using thesame shortcuts.

Clone one image into another

AUGUST 2003

SEPTEMBER 2003


133

65

Print

GRAHIC DESIGN: Solomon Lewis

From cleaningcartridges to newideas on how to use your printer,here’s all theprinter-related information youneed for home oroffice use

Away contents66 Toner and ink cartridges

66 Using the Right Paper

66 Maintenance

67 Printing Images

68 Power Tips

69 Fun with your printer

70 Troubleshooting

70 Network Printing

71 Miscellanous Tips

66


134 SEPTEMEBR 2003

Toner and InkCartridgesCartridges are not only themost important part of aprinter, they are also theonly part that is maintainedand handled by the user. Wetell you how to squeeze thelast drop out of your car-tridges, and get crisp andsharp prints that won’t bur-den your pocket.

Laser PrintersGenerally, over 50 per

cent of printing problemsrelated to laser printers areresolved when the toner car-tridge is cleaned. So, cleanyour toner cartridge regularly.Never touch the drum sur-face while handling tonercartridges since this couldlead to oil spots and scr-taches which will be evidenton your printouts. Also, thecartridge should be protect-ed from sunlight so it’salways stored it in its origi-nal box.

At times, in certain HPprinters, the screw in the car-tridge cover becomes loosedue to vibrations. This screwneeds to be checked andtightened, if you see a hori-zontal white line in the cen-tre of a printed page.

Another common prob-lem is the black dots thatappear on printouts. This isusually because of a nick onthe drum, caused by a for-eign object. If this has hap-pened, there’s no way youcan get the cartridgerepaired—you’ll have toreplace it. So make sure youare using dust-free paper.Also, keep the printer clea—

clean the outer surface regu-larly. Use a damp cloth toclean the accumulated debrisand dust, whenever you arechanging a cartridge. Payspecial attention to the rub-ber rollers—never use alco-holic cleaners on these.

Inkjet PrintersIf you are installing a

new cartridge in your inkjetprinter, keep it in the uprightposition for a few momentsbefore fitting it in. Thisensures that the ink will beat the nozzle when you areready to use the printer. Also,store the cartridge in anupright position, in an air-tight, rigid plastic container.Whenever you feel tha yourprints aren’t as crisp as theyshould be, run the printer’shead-cleaning utility. This isnecessary especially if youare using your printer after along time.

Using the Right PaperThe regular paper thatyou use for printingdoes fine for day-to-day print jobs. However,at times, you may want toprint on special types ofpaper. Different types ofpaper are available for differ-ent printing needs.

Photo PaperThis is similar to the paperused by film developers, andis designed to produce high-quality images. They comein both, matte and glossyfinish, and in standardphoto sizes such as 4 X 6inches. Use photo paper forstudio quality photos.

Greeting cardsThese papers are thicker, pre-folded, and smaller than reg-ular paper. They come withmatching envelopes. Printerstypically come with bundledsoftware, with several tem-plates, for creating greetingcards. Use this paper to cre-ate personalised greetingcards that have a profes-sional look.

Glossy paperGlossy paper has a shiny,coated surface on one or both sides. This producesvibrant colours, but the prints

a r e

susceptible to fingerprints.Use glossy paper forbrochures, flyers and reportcovers.

TransparenciesThese are clear plastic sheets,and are used to create over-head-projector presentations.These can only be used withinkjet printers, as transparen-cies cannot tolerate the heatgenerated by laser printers.

Craft papersCraft papers come in a huge

variety. For example, iron-onpaper allows you to print andimage and transfer it to acloth. Banner papers, used tocreate banners, also come inthis category. Other papers inthis category are Vellum,parchment, printable fabricsheets, shrink-wrap plasticand so on.

Stickers and labelsStickers and labels are avail-able for mail, folders,diskettes, CDs and whateverelse you can think of. Youcan use fonts, images andcolours to customise them.Re-stickables allow for a lotof creative flexibility.

Remember to check yourprinter manual for compati-bility, before using specialtypapers. Otherwise, you mayexperience paper jams andsuch.

MaintenanceClear paper jams

Carelessness while clearinga paper jam could lead toaccumulation of tonerdust, which could be haz-

ardous to the health ofyour printer. If the paperjams before it reaches theFuser roller—the roller thatfuses the toner with thepaper—the toner will just lieon the page, in the shape ofthe image being printed.Caution is necessary here, sothat the toner doesn’t fallinto the printer while you’repulling out the paper. If ithas not yet begun to comeout of the printer, pull thepaper towards the inside ofthe printer. If the paper hadjust begun to feed, and you

■ tips and tricks

ILUSTRATOR: Mahesh Benkar

SEPTEMEBR 2003135

67

pulled it back through theFeed rollers—the rollers thatfeed the paper in the print-er—the toner on the papercould fall onto the rollers.This could cause followingcopies to come out dirty.

Avoiding paper jamsThe thumb-rule is not tooverload the printer. Toomany papers can lead topressure on the paper sepa-ration tabs, and result indouble feeds. Special care isneeded to feed specialtypapers such as photo paper.Since these are thicker, thebest thing to do is to feedthem manually, one by one.Also, do not use transparen-cies, or other media that can-not tolerate high levels ofheat. Cleaning your printer,especially the roller, plays animportant part in avoidingjams. This is because dirtyrollers hamper the move-ment of paper inside theprinter.

Static electricityThe laser printers that aremost affected by static elec-tricity are those based on theCorona Wire technology.

Static electricity increas-es because of two things—wind or movement, and dryair. In winter, the problem iscompounded by low humid-ity, and dry heat in officesand homes. You may noticerandom black streaks, orblotches of toner on yourpages because of this. Toremedy this, the humiditylevel in the room should beat least 35 per cent. Further,you can decrease the static

electricity around the printerusing a solution comprisingone tablespoon of liquid fab-ric softener and about 300ml of water—spray this onthe carpet around the print-er. Do not spray it directlyonto the printer.

AB switchesBe careful when using man-ual AB switches forprinter sharing.In mostc a s e s ,t h ev e n -

dor’s warranty becomes voidif you use them. A betteroption would be to use elec-tronic switches.

Ozone filtersOne more component thatneeds to be taken care of isthe ozone filter. A cloggedozone filter can harm yourprinter by increasing its tem-perature, and by blockingthe airflow—thus slowingdown the fan. A fan that’sslow causes harm to printercomponents, and the ozoneproduced oxidizes them.Change the ozone filter oncein 6 months.

Corona wireSome of the older laser print-ers, such as the HP Laserjet IIand III, are based on coronawire technology. Special care

is needed to clean them.Most vertical streaking

caused by a dirty Coronawire will be hazy or uneven,and intermittent. The wire isfound in a metal furrow thatruns the width of the paper,along the bottom. It may becovered with angled wire.The wire is very thin, like astrand of hair, and care

should be taken not tobreak it while clean-

ing. First, the fur-row should be

cleaned witha vacuumcleaner, andthen with acotton swab

d a m p e n e dwith water or

peroxide. Afterall the toner isremoved from the

floor and walls of the trough,gently brush the length ofthe corona wire with a drycotton swab to remove anydust or debris.

Many toner cartridgeshave a charge wire insidethem. Removing dust fromthis will prevent most verti-cal streaking.

Inkjet Printers

Cleaning the headThe head cleaning utility,that comes with almost allprinters, does not always doan efficient job. Often, inkdeposits build up on the endof the print head, causingthe cartridge to function sub-optimally. It’s better to cleanthe head manually, to ensureproper functioning andcrisper prints. Clean the

head by wiping it gentlywith a soft cotton cloth—don’t use tissues since theytend to stick onto the head.Snap the cartridge in and outa couple times, to get a goodconnection after cleaning.

GGeenneerraall CleaningIf the printer is printing instreaks, and is smearing,there’s excess ink in the car-riage area. Open the printerand remove the cartridges.Fold a letter-sized piece ofpaper in half, and then inhalf again the other way, sothat it is quartered. Insertthis paper into the regularfeed slot or space. Move thepaper to the left and to theright, to remove excess inkunder the carriage. Once theexcess ink is removed, theprinter should resume print-ing normally.

Apart from this, do callyour technician at least oncea year to get your printercleaned thoroughly. Thereare parts that are impossibleto get at without disassem-bling the machine. Theseneed to be attended to by aprofessional.

Printing ImagesThere are a few general rulesthat can be followed to printhigh quality photographs.The first rule is to use spe-cially designed photo papers.Several well-known brandssuch as HP, Kodak and oth-ers have their own brand ofphoto papers. The secondrule is to use a photo car-tridge. Your inkjet printerwill have to support this,however. The third rule is to

68


136 SEPTEMEBR 2003

■ tips and tricks

choose the correct settings inthe ‘Print’ dialog box. Forthis, click ‘Printer proper-ties’, and set the print quali-ty to the highest possiblevalue. Also choose ‘photopaper,’ if you are using one,as the paper type; use highresolution.

Customising images First off, the photo that youwant to print should have aresolution of at least 300 dpi,otherwise the prints won’t begood enough. If you’re scan-ning a photo to print, scan itat 300 dpi. Use a format suchas TIFF that preserves thecolours and sharpness, if youintend to print the image.You should therefore alsosave your digital cameraimages in the TIFF format,if there’s an option to do so.Also, don’t enlarge theimage using an image-edit-ing software. This is becausean image of 1280 x 960 pix-els at 72 dpi, has the sameamount of details, as a 4 x 3-inch image at 300 dpi. How-ever, this also means thatyou can safely use a 1280 x960 pixel image to print a 4by 3-inch photo.

You might notice thatthe printed image doesn’tlook exactly like the one onthe screen—this is simplybecause the images on thescreen are in the RGB (red,green and blu) format, andthe printer uses CMYK inks(cyan, magenta, yellow andblack). There are colours thatcan be rendered in RGB, butnot in CMYK. To avoid thisproblem, convert your imageto the CMYK mode, using

image editing software suchas Adobe Photoshop, orPaintShop Pro.

Also use a photo editingsoftware to edit your image,to correct the red eye, dustand specks problems. Youcan use sharpening filters toimprove photo edges.

Print settings andpaperNext comes the printer. Theprinter should be able toprint atl e a s t600

x 600 dpi. The higher thedpi, the better will be thequality of the printedimages. You also need tokeep your printer driversupdated.

The next step now, is toadjust the print settings. Setthe print-quality to maxi-mum, and choose the rightpaper setting, as it controlsthe amount of ink that getsonto the paper. It’s better touse the same brand of paperas your printer’s as a compa-ny usually customises itspaper for its printers.

After printing, you needto allow the printout to dry.

Normally, the drying time isone hour. If the photo will bein close contact with some-thing else—for example, ifyou’re going to frame it—it’sbetter to let it dry for 24hours. If you are printingmultiple copies, remove eachcopy from the printer assoon as it is printed.

Printing black andwhite photosThe best way to print blackand white photos is to printthem using the colour car-tridge. Yes, you read right!The black cartridge isdesigned to print black text,and cannot produce shadesof grey as efficiently as acolour cartridge can. Use animage-editing software forgood quality results. Open

the photograph in yourfavourite image editing

tool, and convert thephoto to greyscale.Now, print the photo-graph with ‘Automat-ic’ colour settings, the

highest print quality and thecorrect paper type. You’ll geta fine photo.

Power TipsPrinting marked

selectionWhen printing selected textsay on a Web page, select thetext, and go to File > Print. Ifyou’re using Internet Explor-er 5 or higher, choose toprint ‘Selection’ in the dialogbox that pops up. Most ofthe newer browsers have thePrint Preview in the Filemenu. This feature can bevery useful if you want toprint only selected pages.

Decide upon the pages thatyou want to print in thePrint Preview dialog box,and then click ‘Print…’. Nowin the Print dialog box, enterthe page numbers and clickOK. This procedure is practically the same for most browsers, includingNetscape.

Printing large documentsSometimes, you might wantto print a large documentthat is laid out in manypages—one being the indexpage, and all the chapterslinked to it. Internet Explor-er has an easy solution forthis problem. Just print theindex page, and in the Printdialog box, tick the ‘Print alllinked documents’ option.

Printing with back-groundBy default, the backgroundof the page—that mayinclude images—is notprinted. To print backgroundimages and colours in Inter-net Explorer, go to Tools >‘Internet Options…’. Click onthe Advanced tab, and scrolldown to Printing. Here, tickthe box that says ‘Print back-

Use the Print dialog box inInternet Explorer to choosewhat you want to print

SEPTEMEBR 2003137

69

ground color and images’,and click OK. Now, you willbe able to print a Web pagewith its background imagesand colours.

If you use Netscape, goto File > Page Setup. Under‘Format & Options’, you willsee a check box labelled‘Print Background (colors& images)’. Tick this, andclick OK. Now go to File >Print and click Print.

Fun with your printerCreating monthly

calendarsMost word processingapplications come withspecific methods to createcalendars. In MS Word, youcan find it by going to Insert> ‘Object…’, and then choos-ing ‘Calendar Control.’ Butthis might not provide thelevel of customisation thatyou want in order to markcertain important occasions,like your anniversary. Aneasy solution is available athttp://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/. This Web site has cal-endars customised for manycountries, which you coulduse as your template. Copythe calendar pertaining tothe months you wish to

print, into your word pro-cessing or image-editing pro-gram, customise it andthen print them.

Anotherway is

to use specialised softwaresuch as Calendar 200X,which can be downloadedfrom www.graffman.net. Youcan also use Outlook to printa calendar. Just switch to cal-endar, and go to File >‘Print…’. You will be present-ed with a dialog box, askingyou to choose the printingstyle. You can print weeklyor monthly views of yourcalendar, with your appoint-ments marked out.

Creating a person-alised mouse-pad You can create a personalisedmouse pad, using a 3mmthick foam sheet, double-sided adhesive sheets, inkjetcoated-satin finish fabric,coated paper, glossy-finishacrylic spray, and a pair ofscissors. First, choose adesign that you can print oncoated inkjet paper. If youare satisfied with the results,take a final printout on thesatin-finish fabric. Allow theink to dry completely. Then,

spray it with acrylic, andleave it to dry again. Peel

away the covering fromone side of the adhe-

sive, and apply it tothe flipside of the

fabric. Cut outthe design,

a n dremove theother cov-ering ofthe adhe-sive. Now,paste it on

the foamsheet. Cut outthe foam sheetin the shape of

the design, and your mousepad is ready!

Card modellingCard modelling is the art ofcreating a scaled model withcard paper. This is somewhatsimilar to Origami—the craftof folding paper. You can useyour printer to print ready-made kits, available on someWeb sites, or create themyourself from scratch. Hereare a few Web sites that will help you get started:www.fiddlersgreen.net, www.digitalnavy.com, www.paperpar-adise.com and www.cardfaq.org/faq. All you need in orderto create these paper modelsis a computer, printer, scis-sors, glue and good qualityprinting paper.

Computerless printingThus far, you’ve needed acomputer to act as an inter-face between your digitalcamera and your printer.Now, with newer camerasand printers, you can print

photographs from digitalcameras without a PC! Someof the latest printers provideyou with a special slot for thememory card of your digitalcamera. You can downloadyour pictures to the printer,preview them on the print-er’s LCD, choose the onesthat you want printed, makeadjustments, and then printthem. HP has come up withits Photosmart series of cameras and printers, whichprovide you with this functionality.

Some printers do notrequire a memory card to beinserted; the camera is direct-ly attached to the printer viaa cable. Canon’s Powershotseries is one such example.You can customise photo-graphs by using the cameracontrols and the LCD, andprint directly to the printer.

Page setupMost of the printing softwareprovide you with a ‘PageSetup’ feature. This lets youdetermine how your page isgoing to print. The firstthing that you can set is mar-gin. The margin is the dis-tance of the printed materialfrom the edge of the paper. If you were printing formaldocuments, you would prefer larger margins—espe-cially the left margin. Other-wise, you can opt for smallermargins. Remember that youcannot set the margins to bezero—most applications aresmart enough to warn you ifyou try to do so.

The next customisablething is the gutter. The gutteridentifies a blank space on

You can print the Outlook calendar with all notes and meetings reminders

70


138 SEPTEMEBR 2003

the paper that will betrimmed off or bound intothe bind of a book. Set thisoption only if you plan tobind the pages. You can set itto be on the top or on theleft of the page.

You can also choose thePage Orientation. It can beLandscape or Portrait. InLandscape prints, the widthis more than the height. ForPortrait prints, the heightexceeds the width.

TroubleshootingInkjet PrintersIf horizontal or vertical linesappear on your printouts,the first step would be to runthe print head cleaning util-ity three or four times. Inmost cases, this solves theproblem. Check the paper ifthe printouts appear faint.The paper should not bedamaged, old, or loadedincorrectly. If you use spe-ciality paper such as photopaper, make sure you’reprinting on the correct side.Also, check the printer’smanual for informationregarding the compatibilityof the paper with the printer.

To unblock a cartridge’sprint head, place the printhead in a shallow bowl ofhot water for 20 to 30 min-utes. This will soften thedried ink so that it flowsthrough the print head. Youshould see the ink bleed out.Repeat if necessary. Next,insert the cartridge into theprinter, and run the printhead cleaning utility. If soak-ing the cartridge in waterhasn’t cleaned and dissolvedthe dried ink, place the print

head part of the cartridge ina shallow bowl containing amixture of very hot waterand bleach (or ammonia) inequal amounts—just enoughto cover the print head, fortwo or three minutes. Thisshould hydrate the dried ink,causing it to flow throughthe print head, and the inkshould bleed out. Repeat ifneeded. Now, insert the car-tridge into the printer, andrun the printer’s print headcleaning utility.

Laser PrintersStreaks appear onprintouts when thedrum cleaning bladesmake improper con-tact with the drumsurface. Theseblades are made ofrubber, and sorequire replace-ment. If the streaks look likethin pencil lines, the drumitself has scratches, and mustbe replaced. Try cleaning thedrum with alcohol. Wipe it gently with a soft tissue. If this doesn’t work, youhave to change the drum. Do check the Fuser unit,where the toner is fused withpaper. Be careful, as this may be very hot. You willneed to clean the upper heatroller, which is usually blackin colour.

Sometimes, a brand newcartridge may not work prop-erly. A reason for this could bethat there is no pool of ink atthe exit port (the pre-cham-ber) that the built-in printhead can suck from. Some ofthe sponge-filled cartridgescan develop air pockets at the

bottom of the cartridge thatcan block the flow of ink.Wrap the cartridge in a towelor cloth, and place it in a plas-tic bag. Hold it in your hand,with the head or exit portspointing down. Extend yourarm, and swing the cartridgedown towards the floor rap-

idly, as if youwould if you

w e r et o

throw it. Repeat this a coupleof times. Then, remove thecloth wrapping. There shouldbe a visible spot of ink fromeach chamber. Repeat if thereisn’t. Now, place the cartridgeback in the printer.

Network PrintingInstalling Network

PrintersIn order to access a sharedprinter on a network, youneed to install it first. Youcan install any number ofprinters on your machine.You’ll need to first locate thecomputer that has put theprinter up for sharing, usingNetwork Neighbourhood.Right-click on the printericon within that computerand click Install. Alternative-ly, double-click the printer

icon—this will bring up theAdd Printer Wizard. Followthe on-screen instructions toinstall the network printer.

Sharing a local printerIf you want to share theprinter that’s connected toyour computer, go to ControlPanel > Printers. Right-click onthe printer icon, and clickSharing. Here, select ‘ShareAs,’ and type in the name ofthe printer in the ShareName field. Click OK.

Controlling net-work printingIf your computerhas Windows 98 andthe print server isrunning Windows NTor 2000, you don't

have much controlover the printing

process. One solution tothis would be to install aRemote Procedure Call PrintProvider (RPCPP). To installRPCCP, insert your Windows98 installation CD into yourCD-ROM drive, go to Start >Settings > Control Panel anddouble-click Network. Fromthe configuration tab, selectAdd. In the ‘Select NetworkComponent Type’ dialogbox, choose Service and thenclick Add. Then click HaveDisk. In the ‘Copy Manufac-turer’s File From’ box, type in‘E:\tools\reskit\netadmin\rpcpp’ (where E is the drive letterof your CD-ROM). Thenclick OK. Click OK againafter the installation, andreboot your machine.

After you’ve done this,you’ll be able to choose theremote printer to send your

SEPTEMEBR 2003139

71

job to, as well as being ableto see the print queue. Youcan also cancel any printjobs by going to Start > Set-tings > Printers.

Installing additional driversIf you’re sharing your print-er, you’ll want users runningany version of Windows tobe able to use it. If you'rerunning Windows 2000 orXP, it is advisable to installadditional drivers, so thatothers don’t have to look fordrivers before using yourprinter. To do this, go to Start> Control Panel > Printers.Right-click the printer iconand choose Properties. Inthe Sharing tab, click the'Additional Drivers…' but-ton. Follow the on-screeninstructions to install thedrivers. Now all users will beable to install the drivers byjust double-clicking theprinter name.

Disabling printerannouncements If you are sharing a printeron a Windows 2000/NTmachine, it will announceto the other print servers onthe network that it has aprinter available, every 10minutes. These announce-ments can cause excessivenetwork traffic. To disablethem, go to Start > Run andtype in ‘regedit’ to open upthe registry editor. Navigateto HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print, and add a newvalue with the name as DisableServerThread, andthe type as ‘REG_DWORD’.

Enter a value of 1. This disables the announce-ments, but also means that the printer will not bevisible when one is brows-ing the network. It can still be accessed by enteringthe name in manually. To turn the announcementsback on, change the valuein the registry back to 0.

Instead of disabling theannouncements altogether,you can change the timeinterval between announce-ments. Simply add a new keynamed ServerThreadTimeoutat the same location asabove. Enter the value forthis key in milliseconds. Forexample, if you want toextend the interval to onehour, enter the value‘3600000’.

Restricting printertimesYou can set a schedule forwhen a printer will be avail-able for use. In Windows2000 and XP, go to Start >Control Panel > Printers, right-click on the printer, andchoose Properties. On theAdvanced tab, there are two

choices near the top: ‘Alwaysavailable’ and ‘AvailableFrom...’, where you can setthe time during which printjobs can be printed. Userscan still submit jobs anytime they want, but the jobswill not be printed exceptduring the times set for theprinter as available.

Command Line ControlYou can use the Net Printcommand to control whatprint jobs are currently running on a computer.The syntax for the Net Print command is NET PRINT\\computername\sharename[\\computername]job_id[/HOLD|/RELEASE| /DELETE].

Here the vertical barsmean ‘or’, job_id is the iden-tification number of the joband the optional fields are insquare brackets. If you typein just the command with-out any options, it will dis-play the current print jobs. Ifyou don’t remember theshare name of the printer,type in ‘NET VIEW \\computer-name’ to list all the sharedresources.

Miscellaneous TipsPrinting shortcuts

You don’t have to launch an application and then go to File > Print in order toprint a file. Go to Start > Set-tings > Printers. Select theprinter of your choice.Right-click the selectedprinter, and select ‘CreateShortcut’. Windows will tellyou that it can’t create theshortcut here, and will askyou if you want it on yourdesktop. Click Yes. Then,

whenever you want to printin a hurry, just highlight the file you want to print,and drag it onto the printershortcut on your desktop.

You can also add a short-cut to the Send To menu ofthe Explorer for immediateprinting. To do this, openC:\Windows\SendTo, and cre-ate a shortcut there for your printer. Next time youwant to print a file, simplyright-click the file in theexplorer window, andchoose your printer from the Send To menu.

Economic printingTo save toner or ink, it’s agood idea to keep yourdefault print settings toDraft, or EconoMode—espe-cially when you don’t alwaysneed high quality prints. Todo this, go to Control Panel >Printers, and choose the print-er properties by right-click-ing the printer icon. You canlater change the settingstemporarily through thePrint dialog of the applica-tion that you are printingfrom, as and when you needhigh quality prints.

Further, save paper byprinting on both sides of thepage. If your printer doesn’tsupport two-sided printing,feed the paper manually, andflip it over to print on theother side. You can also usesoftware such as FinePrint(www.fineprint.com) for dou-ble-sided prints. Do remem-ber to set the page marginsto the minimum value supported. This will allowmore matter to be printed onfewer pages.

You can restrict the times whena printer will handle jobs

72


140 SEPTEMEBR 2003

Two printersGenerally, black text print-outs are taken in economymode, while images areprinted using the best qualitymode. This requires you tochange the printer options, tosuit the print job at hand.Avoid this by installinganother copy of the printer,but with a different name. Dothis by going to Control Panel >Printers, and clicking Add NewPrinter. Now, use differentdefault print settings for thesetwo printers. You can chooseeither of them, to suit yourprinting needs.

Speed printing Windows normally spoolsprint jobs before sendingthem to the printer. Spoolinginvolves writing the data tobe printed, to a temporaryfile. This allows you to workwhile the printing inprogress. However, this slowsdown the printing process.On most printers, you canturn off the spooler by goingto Start > Settings > Printers.Right-click on the printericon, select Properties, andthen click Details. Click‘Spool Settings’ at the bot-tom of the dialog box. Selectthe ‘Print Directly to Printer’option. This will tie up yourapplication until the printerhas all the data, but yourprint job will be done faster.This option is handy if yourprint spooler crashes, andyou need to print before youreboot your PC.

Print-related software The standard print dialoguebox doesn’t provide all the

flexibility and customisa-tion that you would like to have. There are various soft-ware that let you do them.One such software isFinePrint (www.fineprint.com).FinePrint is a Windowsprinter driver that providesyou with advanced printingcapabilities. It has somevery useful features, such asthe ability to add blankpages, and delete pages. The ‘Ink Saver’ providesoptions to convert colouredtext to black, and to skipgraphics. You can print multiple pages on a singlesheet of paper, add water-marks, headers and footers,and you can even insert customised letterheads. Italso allows you to designyour printouts as an image,and also to retain the text format maintained inthe Web page that you’reprinting from.

Another useful softwareis Directory Printer (www.gal-cott.com). With this, you canprint the directory structureof your hard drive. It canprint all the folder names andfile names. It can also exportthe structure to a text file.

PaperlessPrinter (www.rarefind.com) allows you toconvert printable documentsto HTML, JPEG and BMP for-mats. You can use it to pub-lish documents in HTML,JPEG or BMP, preserving theirlook and content—completewith fonts and graphics. Youcan distribute your HTMLdocuments by e-mail, or store them on the Web, anintranet, a file system, oron a CD.

Stuck Print JobsSometimes a print job getsstuck in the print queue.Viewing the queue showsthat the job is being deleted,but it never is actually delet-ed, and other jobs don’tmove forward. To resolvethis, you don’t have torestart the print server, butonly the print spooler. To doso, if you are using Windows2000 or XP, open up the DOSprompt, and type in thecommand ‘net stop spooler’.Wait until the service stops,and then type in ‘net startspooler’. You can also do thisby going to Start > Settings >Control Panel > AdministrativeTools > Services, highlightingthe Spooler service, right-clicking it and choosingRestart. Now you should beable to delete a stuck printjob, if it is not deleted auto-matically.

Cleaning up old printer files

By default, any print jobssent to a printer will be tem-porarily spooled to a folderon the hard drive. Usually,these files are deleted whenthe job has printed. Some-times, these temporary filesdon’t get deleted. If you’renot expecting anything to beprinted, you may safelydelete any files in that folder.The default folder location is%systemroot%\system32\spool\printers, where %systemroot% isusually either ‘C:\windows’or ‘C:\winnt.’

If you want to change thelocation of this folder—because you want to free upspace on your drive, or for

any other reason—go to Start> Settings > Control Panel, andclick Printers. Now go to File> Server Properties. Under theAdvanced tab, you’ll see afield that says ‘Spool Folder.’Here you can type in the new location path of thespool folder.

Printer poolingIf you are using Windows2000 or XP, and using sever-al identical printers, you can create a pool of theprinters, that will enableWindows to balance theprint jobs. To do this, con-nect all the printers to your

machine on different ports.Install the drivers for oneprinter. Now go to Start > Set-tings > Control Panel, and dou-ble-click Printers. Right-clickthe printer name and clickProperties. Under the Portstab, tick ‘Enable printer pool-ing.’ Now tick all the ports towhich your printers are con-nected. Click OK. Windowswill automatically handlethe allocation of print jobsacross the printers.

Create a pool if you havemultiple, similar printers

OCTOBER 2003


117

73

A Short Cut

IILUSTRATOR: Mahesh Benkar

Here are a wholebunch of keyboardshortcuts to rescueyourself from thosetiresome ambleswith the mouse...

away

contents74 Windows

75 Microsoft Office

78 Windows Media Player

78 Winamp

79 Graphics software

80 Internet

74


118 OCTOBER 2003

Select a menu; select or clear acheck box by the letter under-lined in the menu nameSelect or deselect an activeitem—after selecting a groupof items using [Ctrl]Select the main toolbar,beginning from the first item(generally File). After the firstoption is activated, navigatethrough menu options usingthe appropriate arrow keys.Press [F10] or [Alt] to exitRename a selected item Open the drop-down list boxin Windows Explorer

Bypass the AutoPlay featurewhen you insert a CD-ROM;to suppress the AutoExecmacro in MS WordDelete items permanently,without moving them to theRecycle BinMake a selection from the lastselected item, to the currentitem, in any extended selection dialog box, combobox, or list boxDisplay a shortcut menu that shows a list of commands

[Alt] + [Letter], where the[Letter] is the underlined letter in a menu command

[Ctrl] + [Spacebar]

[F10], or [Alt]

[F2][F4], Pressing [F4] againmoves the keyboard focusback to the previously useditem

[Shift] (while inserting theCD, or while opening Word)

[Shift] + [Delete]

[Shift] + [Spacebar]

[Shift] + [F10], or the Application key (the key

next to the right-hand Windows key)

[Alt] + [Spacebar] + [C] or[Alt] + [F4][Alt] + [Spacebar] + [N][Alt] + [Spacebar] + [R][Alt] + [Spacebar] + [X]

[*] (on the numeric keypad)

[Backspace]

[Alt] + [Enter]

[Alt] + [-], or [Alt] + [Spacebar]

Hold [Ctrl] and drag on thefile will copy a file. Holding[Shift] and dragging a filewill move it

■ tips and tricks

relevant to a selected object—same as right-clicking themouseClose an active window

Minimize an active windowRestore an active windowMaximize an active windowExpand the view of everythingunder the current selection,when working in WindowsExplorerGo one folder level up in MyComputer or WindowsExplorerDisplay the properties of aselected item, while workingin a windowDisplay the document menu—the same as left-clickingthe top left of a windowCopy or cut a selected file toa folder by dragging it there

WINDOWS

If you want to... Press


If you want to PressDisplay Windows HelpOpen the Start menuOpen the System Propertiesdialog boxOpen the Find Computer dialog box Open Windows ExplorerOpen the Find All Files dialog box Minimize all open windowsExpand previously openedwindows, and go back tothe window you wereworking in lastDisplay the Run dialog box Select and cycle throughthe taskbar buttonsSet focus on a notification(only in Windows XP)

[Windows] + [F1][Windows], [Ctrl] + [Esc][Windows] + [Pause Break]

[Windows] + [Ctrl] + [F]

[Windows] + [E][Windows] + [F]

[Windows] + [M][Windows] + [Shift] + M

[Windows] + [R][Windows] + [Tab]

[Windows] + [B]

SPECIAL SHORTCUTS

OCTOBER 2003119

75

Insert the copyright symbol (©)Insert the euro symbol (¤) Insert a comment Switch to Normal viewSwitch to Outline viewSwitch to Page Layout viewMove the cursor to the top ofthe windowInsert an ellipsisInsert the trademark symbolGo back to the cursor's previous locationReturn cursor to first cell in arow, when working with atableMove to the first cell in a column when working with a tableInsert a Date field into a documentInsert a Page Number fieldinto a documentInsert a Time field into a documentExpand text below a heading, while working in a document outlineMove between a master document and its associatedsub-documentsIncrease the font size of selected text by 1 point

[Alt] + [Ctrl] + [C][Alt] + [Ctrl] + [E][Alt] + [Ctrl] + [M][Alt] + [Ctrl] + [N][Alt] + [Ctrl] + [O][Alt] + [Ctrl] + [P][Alt] + [Ctrl] + [Page Up]

[Alt] + [Ctrl] + [.][Alt] + [Ctrl] + [T][Alt] + [Ctrl] + [Z]

[Alt] + [Home]

[Alt] + [Page Up]

[Alt] + [Shift] + [D]

[Alt] + [Shift] + [P]

[Alt] + [Shift] + [T]

[Alt] + [Shift] + [+]

[Ctrl] + [\]

[Ctrl] + []] (])

[Ctrl] + [0]

[Ctrl] + [1]

[Ctrl] + [2]

[Ctrl] + [5]

[Ctrl] + [E]

[Ctrl] + [Enter]

[Ctrl] + [=]

[Ctrl] + [M]

[Ctrl] + [Page Down]

[Ctrl] + [Page Up]

[Ctrl] + [Q]

[Alt] + [Ctrl] + [-], and thenselect the menu item toremove[Alt] + [Ctrl] + [+], select amenu command and add,change, or remove thedesired shortcut key fromwithin the dialog box[Alt] + [Ctrl] + [=], select thetoolbar button—Word auto-matically adds the button tothe appropriate menu[Ctrl] + [Shift] + [>]

[Ctrl] + [Shift] + [A]

[Ctrl] + [Shift] + [D]

[Ctrl] + [Shift] + [Enter]

[Ctrl] + [Shift] + [F]

[Shift] + [F8]

Insert or delete one linespace preceding a paragraphSingle-space the lines ofselected text within a documentDouble-space the lines ofselected text within a documentSet the spacing betweenlines of selected text to 1.5Centre align a paragraphwhere the cursor is locatedInsert a page break at the cur-sor's position in a documentApply subscript formatting(with automatic spacing) toselected textIndent a paragraph from theleftMove cursor's position tothe top of the next pageMove cursor's position tothe top of the previous pageRemove current formattingof selected paragraphRemove a command from amenu

Display Customize Keyboarddialog box and create ashortcut key for a menucommand

Add a toolbar button to amenu bar

Increase the font size ofselected charactersFormat selected letters as all capitalsDouble-underline a selection of textInsert a column break at thecursor’s positionSelect the font field on themain taskbar, to change thefont of the selected textReduce the selection size

MICROSOFT OFFICE

If you want to...

Microsoft Word

Press


76


120 OCTOBER 2003

■ tips and tricks

Apply hidden text formatting to a selectionFormat selected letters assmall capitalsRemove a paragraph indentfrom the leftSelect the font size field onthe window toolbar tochange the font size ofselected textUnderline selected text, butnot the spaces in betweenthe wordsActivate the ruler whileworking in a documentDisplay a shortcut menuDisplay Save As dialog boxChange the cases of selectedlettersActivate Extend mode, EXTappears in the lower rightcorner of the window;pressing [F8] repeatedlyextends the selection to theword, the line, the docu-ment; press [ESC] to cancel.

[Ctrl] + [Shift] + [H]

[Ctrl] + [Shift] + [K]

[Ctrl] + [Shift] + [M]

[Ctrl] + [Shift] + [P]

[Ctrl] + [Shift] + [W]

[F10] + [Ctrl] + [Shift]

[F10] + [Shift][F12][F3] + [Shift]

[F8], EXT appears at the bottom right-hand cornerof the window. Pressing [F8] repeatedly expands the selection; press [Esc]to cancel


If you want to... PressAdvance to the next slide

Return to the previous slide

Go to a particular slideBlacken or un-blacken thescreenWhiten or un-whiten thescreenShow or hide the arrowpointerStop or restart automaticshowEnd, or exit slideshowErase drawing on screenGo to hidden slideRehearse-use new timeRehearse-use original timeRehearse-advance on mouse-clickChange pointer to penChange pointer to arrowChange pointer to eraserHide pointer and buttonAutomatically show or hidearrowAll Slides dialog boxView taskbarShow or hide ink mark-up

[N], Left-Click, [Spacebar], [!],["], [Enter], or [Page Down][P], [Backspace], [#], [$], or[Page Up][Number] + [Enter][B], or [.]

[W], or [,]

[A], or [=]

[S], or [+]

[Esc], [Ctrl] + [Break], or [-][E][H][T][O][M]

[Ctrl] + [P][Ctrl] + [A][Ctrl] + [E][Ctrl] + [H][Ctrl] + [U]

[Ctrl] + [5][Ctrl] + [H] [Ctrl] + [M]

MS PowerPoint


Select a Help topic whileusing Office Assistant

Move to the left betweennonadjacent selectionsDisplay the Style command;works even in a spreadsheetInsert the AutoSum formula;works within a cell, or formula bar of a spreadsheetSelect the entire activecolumn

[Alt] + [Number] (hitting [1]selects the leftmost option,[2] the next, and so on)[Ctrl] + [Alt] + [##]

[Alt] + [']

[Alt] + [=]

[Ctrl] + [Spacebar]

MS Excel

Ever thought of browsing your desktop using only the keyboard? Here's how you can do it:% Press [Windows] + [D] to show the desktop% Press the [Windows], to bring up the Start menu% Press [Esc] to make the Start menu disappear, but

keep the taskbar active) % Press [Shift] + [Tab] once to toggle between the

taskbar and the desktop. Your desktop will now beactive, although you may not notice any visual indi-cation of it

% Press [Down Arrow] to see which desktop icon isactive, and continue to use the cursor keys to moveto the icon you want to use

% Press [Enter] to run the icon, or press [Shift] + [F10] tosee the context menu for that icon

KEYBOARD CONTROL FOR DESKTOP

OCTOBER 2003121

77


Select a folder or a file in theOpen and Save As dialogboxes—use the arrow keys tomove through the listed fold-ers and filesScroll through a block of datawithin a row or column, inthe direction of the arrow keyMove to the last cell in thecurrent row that isn't blank—only works if you haven'tselected the Transition navi-gation keys check box on theTransition tabMove to the last cell on theworksheetInsert a new worksheet into aworkbookOpen Office Assistant in orderto display context sensitiveHelp, or to reveal formattingof selected charactersMaximize or restore theworkbook windowCreate a chartDisplay Visual Basic EditorInsert a new worksheet into aworkbookDisplay Save As dialog box(file menu)Edit a cell commentPaste a function into a formulaRepeat the last actionDisplay the Go To tab on theFind and Replace dialog box Turn Extend mode on. Thisallows you to select as muchof a worksheet or workbookas you wantIncrease the size of selectedareaDisplay the AutoFilter list forthe current columnExtend or reduce a selectionby one cellIf multiple cells are selected,select only the active cell

[Alt] + [0]

[End] + Arrow key

[End] + [Enter]

[End] + [Home]

[F1] + [Alt] + [Shift]

[F1] + [Shift]

[F10] + [Ctrl]

[F11][F11] + [Alt][F11] + [Shift]

[F12]

[F2] + [Shift][F3] + [Shift]

[F4][F5]

[F8] to turn on, [Esc] to quit

[F8] + [Shift]

[Alt] + ["]

[Shift] + Arrow Key

[Shift] + [Backspace]


With scroll lock on, extendthe selection to the cell inthe lower-right corner of thewindowExtend a selection to the endof a field, when working inData formSelect from the insertionpoint to the end of the textbox entryComplete a cell entry andmove up in a selectionDisplay a shortcut menu thatshows a list of commands relevant to the selected objectMove to the previous paneMove a selected field into thePage area when working withthe Pivot Table WizardOpen Microsoft OutlookMessage Options dialog boxwhen sending an e-mailDisplay next screen to theright, while working in aworksheet or workbookDisplay previous screen tothe left, while working in aworksheet or workbookOpen the Address book whileworking in the To: field,when sending an e-mailMove a selected field into therow area while working with-in the Pivot Table WizardSend the active spreadsheetas an e-mailSelect only visible cells in theactive windowUngroup selected Pivot Tableitems, while working withPivot TableUngroup rows or columns inan outlined spreadsheetGroup selected Pivot Tableitems, while working withina Pivot TableGroup rows or columns whileworking within a worksheet

[Shift] + [End]

[Shift] + [End]

[Shift] + [End]

[Shift] + [Enter]

[Shift] + [F10]

[Shift] + [F6]

[Alt] + [P]

[Alt + [P]

[Alt] + [Page Down]

[Alt] + [Page Up]

[Alt] + [.]

[Alt] + [R]

[Alt] + [S]

[Alt] + [;]

[Alt] + [Shift] + [#]

[Alt] + [Shift] + [#]

[Alt] + [Shift] + [!]

[Alt] + [Shift] + [!]

78


122 OCTOBER 2003


Play an itemSwitch to full mode (on theanchor window menu)Display the skin shortcutmenu (in skin mode)Shuffle the playback orderof items in a playlist (in skinmode)Repeat the playlist (in skinmode)Increase the volumeDecrease the volumeMute the volumeSwitch to full mode (in skinmode)Access the Features TaskbarPlay or pauseStop playback Play the previous itemPlay the next item Rewind (available onlywhen playing video files)Fast-forward (available onlywhen playing video files)Display the menu bar in fullmodeDisplay video in full screenZoom to 50 per centZoom to 100 per centZoom to 200 per centEject the CD or DVD

[Enter], [Spacebar][Ctrl] + [1]

[Shift] + [F10]

[Ctrl] + [H]

[Ctrl] + [T]

[F10][F9][F8][Ctrl] + [1]

[Ctrl] + [Tab][Ctrl] + [P][Ctrl] + [S][Ctrl] + [B][Ctrl] + [F][Ctrl] + [Shift] + [B]

[Ctrl] + [Shift] + [F]

[Ctrl] + [M]

[Alt] + [Enter][Alt] + [1][Alt] + [2][Alt] + [3][Ctrl] + [E]

WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER 9

Action Shortcut

Miscellaneous CommandsAlways on top toggle (all butplaylist editor).Cycle through the WinampwindowsGo to PreferencesJump to time in current trackOpen new Winamp windowMain window ShortcutsToggle the Repeat option.Toggle the Shuffle option.Open the current file info boxPlayback ControlsPlay or restart a trackStop a trackStop a track with fade-outPause or restart a trackPlay the next trackPlay the previous trackRewind 5 seconds

Fast-Forward 5 seconds

Open or play a fileOpen or play a directoryTurn the volume up

Turn the volume down

[Ctrl] + [A]

[Ctrl] + [Tab]

[Ctrl] + [P][Ctrl] + [J][Ctrl] + [Alt] + [N]

[R][S][Alt] + [3]

[X], [5] on the numeric keypad[V][Shift] + [V][C][B], [6] on the numeric keypad[Z], [4] on the numeric keypad[#], [7] on the numeric keypad[!], [9] on the numeric keypad[L], [0] on the numeric keypad[Shift] + [L], [Insert][$], [8] on the numeric keypad["], [2] on the numeric keypad

WINAMP

OCTOBER 2003123

79


Start a capturePaste the clipboard contentsinto the current document asa new layerPaste data from the clipboardinto the current image as anew selectionPaste vector data from theclipboard into the currentimage as a new vector selectionPaste data from the clipboardinto the current image usingno background colourUse the Crop Tool to elimi-nate or crop areas of an image.Flip an imageApply rotation to an image.Adjust brightness and contrastApply gamma correction tothe imageAdjust the hue, saturationand lightness.Convert the current regularselection into a floating selectionInvert the current selectionarea

[Shift] + [C]

[Ctrl] + [L]

[Ctrl] + [E]

[Ctrl] + [G]

[Ctrl] + [Shift] + [E]

[Shift] + [R]

[Ctrl] + [I][Ctrl] + [R][Shift] + [B]

[Shift] + [G]

[Shift] + [H]

[Ctrl] + [F]

[Ctrl] + [Shift] + [I]

GRAPHIC SOFTWARE

Paintshop Pro 8

If you want to... PressViewingFit an image in the window Get 100 per cent magnificationScroll left, right, up or down10 units

Toggles layer mask on or offEditingMove type in image

Align left, centre, or right

Align top, centre, or bottom

Show or hide a selection onselected typeToggle Small Caps on or offToggle Superscript on or offToggle Subscript on or offToggle paragraph hyphen-ation on or offToggle single and every-linecomposer on or offDecrease or increases typesize of selected text by 2points or pixels

Path editingSelect multiple anchorpoints

Select the entire path

Switch from Path Selectiontool, or Pen tools to DirectSelection ToolSwitch from Direct SelectionTool to Convert Point Tool

[Ctrl] + [0][Alt] + [Ctrl] + [0]

[Shift] + [Page Up] to go up,[Shift] + [Page Down] to godown, [Ctrl] + [Page Up] to goleft and [Ctrl] + [Page Down]to go right.[\]

[Ctrl] + drag type when Typelayer is selected[Shift] + [Ctrl] + [L], [Shift] +[Ctrl] + [C], or [Shift] + [Ctrl] +[R] (while the type tool isselected)[Shift] + [Ctrl] + [L], [Shift] +[Ctrl] + [C], or [Shift] + [Ctrl] +[R] (while the Vertical typetool is selected)[Ctrl] + [H]

[Shift] + [Ctrl] + [H][Shift] + [Ctrl] + [+][Shift] + [Alt] + [Ctrl] + [+][Shift] + [Alt] + [Ctrl] + [H]

[Shift] + [Alt] + [Ctrl] + [T]

[Shift] + [Ctrl] + [<], or [Shift] +[Ctrl] + [>], hold down [Alt] todecrease or increase by a fac-tor of 10

[Shift] + left-click, while theDirect Selection tool isselected[Alt] + left-click, while theDirect Selection tool isselected.

[Ctrl]

[Alt] + [Ctrl]

Photoshop 7

80


124 OCTOBER 2003

INTERNET

Command

Add BookmarkBack

Access BookmarksClose WindowAuto-complete .com AddressDecrease Text SizeDeleteFind AgainFind on pageForward

Full Screen

History

Home PageIncrease Text SizeMove to Next FrameMove to Previous FrameNew TabNext TabNew WindowOpen FileOpen Address in New TabPage SourcePrevious TabReloadReload (override cache)Select Location BarSelect Search Bar

[Ctrl] + [D][Backspace], [Alt] + [#]

[Ctrl] + [I][Ctrl] + [W][Ctrl] + [Enter]NA[Delete][F3][Ctrl] + [F][Shift] + [Backspace] or [Alt] + [!]

[F11]

[Ctrl] + [H]

[Alt] + [Home]NA[F6][Ctrl] + [Shift] + [Tab]NANA[Ctrl] + [N][Ctrl] + [O]NA[Ctrl] + [F3]NA[F5], [Ctrl] + [R][Ctrl] + [F5][Alt] + [D], [F6], [F4], [Ctrl] + [Tab][CTRL] + [E]

[Ctrl] + [T][Backspace] or [Alt] + [#], [Ctrl] + [#], [Z][F4][Ctrl] + [W]NA[9][Delete][F3][Ctrl] + [F][Shift] + [Backspace] or [Alt] + [!]or [Ctrl] + [!], [X][F11]Show entire forward history:[Alt] + [X] Show entire backward history: [Alt] + [Z][Ctrl] + [Space]NANANANANA[Ctrl] + [N][Ctrl] + [O]NA[Ctrl] + [F3]NA[F5], [Ctrl] + [R]NA[Ctrl] + [H], [F8][Shift] + [F8]

Internet Explorer Opera Netscape

[Ctrl] + [D][Backspace] or [Alt] + [#]

[Ctrl] + [B][Ctrl] + [W]NANA[Delete][F3][Ctrl] + [F][Alt] + [!]

[F11]

[Ctrl] + [H]

[Alt] + [Home][Ctrl] + [+]NANA[Ctrl] + [T][Ctrl] + [Page Down] [Ctrl] + [N][Ctrl] + [O]NA[Ctrl] + [U][Ctrl] + [Page Up][Ctrl] + [R]NA[Ctrl] + [L]NA

Keyboard shortcuts are useful when you need that little extra control over your surfing ways. Indeed, they are of

great help when when filling Web forms,moving to a different tab, completing a Web address that’s been typed over

a million times, etc. Here are some useful key combinations that give you a tighter grip over your Web cruises

NOVEMBER 2003


133

81

Power Tweaks

ILLUSTRATOR: Mahesh Benkar If gaming’s your thing,here comes a collection

of tips to get thebest gaming rigever. Right fromhardware andsoftware issues,to tweaking andextracting that

extra from yourgraphics cards,this is the place to

park your rig andget to work

contents82 Windows XP

83 Under the Hood

84 ATi Tweaking

85 nVidia Tweaking

86 Game Tweaks

87 PDA Tweaks

82


134 NOVEMBER 2003

Prevention is better than cureMake sure you back up allyour data before you attemptto change anything—thiscould save you a lot of timeand hair later. Create a Sys-tem Restore Point by going toStart > Programs > Accessories >System Tools > System Restore,click ‘Create a restore point’and then click Next. Now,name the restore point, andthe date and time will beautomatically added. Finally,click Create. Also, rememberto backup your registry. Go toStart > Run, type ‘regedit’ andpress [Enter]. Go to My Com-puter > File > Export, and select‘All’ in the ‘Export Range’area at the bottom, choose adirectory and file name, andclick Save.

Boot-up time Use the Welcome screen forlogging in, as it enables fasterboot ups. Disable Fast UserSwitching, and if you haveonly one user account on

your PC, leave your passwordblank. Now you won’t beasked for your password everytime you boot, thus reducingyour booting time.

If you have multipleaccounts on your computer,go to Start > Run, type ‘controluserpasswords2’ and press[Enter]. Clear the checkboxthat says ‘Users must enter ausername and password touse this computer’. Now, goto Advanced tab and click

Advanced. Click the Usersfolder, and right-click the‘HelpAssistant’ account.Choose Properties, and makesure the ‘User cannot changepassword’, ‘Password neverexpires’ and ‘Account is dis-abled’ checkboxes arechecked. This is necessary forsecurity purposes.

Healthy hard drivesGo to Windows Explorer,right-click your hard driveand choose Properties. Clearthe checkbox that says“Compress drive to save diskspace”. Also, clear ‘AllowIndexing Service to index thisdisk for fast file searching’—this relates to the IndexingService, which indexes yourfiles to reduce the time need-ed to search the hard drive fora specific file. If you disable it,normal performance becomesbetter. In the subsequent dia-log box choose ‘Applychanges to [Drive letter]:\,subfolders and files’ and clickOK. This will improve the per-formance of your hard drive.

For optimum perform-ance, it is necessary toensure that your harddrives are error-free. Forthis, scan your harddrives and defragmentthem regularly. Right-click on your drive let-ter in WindowsExplorer, go to Toolsand click ‘Run Now…’or ‘Defragment Now’.You can also useDiskkeeper, which isfaster and more power-ful, to Defragmentyour drives.

To increase the per-

formance of the disk drives,press [Windows] + [Pause / Break]to bring up the System Prop-erties dialog box. Click onHardware, and then DeviceManager. Now click the ‘+’sign next to Disk drives toexpand it, and double-clickthe disk name to bring up theProperties box. Click on thePolicies tab, and select ‘Opti-mize for Performance’, checkthe ‘Enable Write Caching onthe disk’ checkbox and clickOK. Now under ‘IDEATA/ATAPI Controllers’, dou-ble-click on ‘Primary IDEChannel’, go to AdvancedSettings and check ‘DMA ifAvailable’. Do this for all theIDE channels.

Looks or power?Open the System Propertiesby pressing [Windows] +[Pause/Break], go to theAdvanced tab and click onthe Settings button underPerformance. Click ‘Adjustfor Best performance’—thisturns off all the bells andwhistles, sets the theme toclassic Windows andimproves performancetremendously, especially inlow-end systems. Now, clickon the Advanced tab andclick Change in the Virtualmemory area. For optimumperformance of your comput-er, it is necessary to set the vir-tual memory size correctly,depending upon the amountof RAM installed. It’s better tohave a dedicated partition forthe paging file, rather thanusing the system partition.Make sure that Virtual Mem-ory is around 1.5 times theRAM, or higher if you use

■ tips and tricks

XP LOVIN’

Decrease the bootup time by disablingpassword entry by users

NOVEMBER 2003135

83

memory-intensive games andapplications. Make sure theinitial and maximum sizesare the same—if Windowshas to increase the paging filesize, the performance gain islost. For more information onVirtual Memory, visit http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.php.

Fine tuningGo to Start > Run, type ‘mscon-fig’ and press [Enter] to openthe System ConfigurationUtility. In the Start Up tab,uncheck programs that youdon’t want to load at start up.If you’re not sure about anentry, leave it unchanged.Finally, click OK and restartyour PC. Now, go to Start >Run, type ‘gpedit.msc’ and press[Enter] to open Group PolicyEditor. This is applicable onlyfor Windows XP Professional.Enable the following policies:

User Configuration > Adminis-trative Templates > WindowsComponents > Windows Explorer> Remove CD Burning Features

User Configuration > Adminis-

trative Templates > Win-dows Components > Win-dows Explorer > RemoveShared Documents fromMy Computer

Computer Configura-tion > Administrative Tem-plates > System > Removeboot / Shutdown / Logon /Logoff messages

User Configuration >Administrative Templates> Start Menu and Taskbar> Turn off user tracking

Computer Configura-tion > Administrative Tem-plates > System > Turn offAutoplay

Computer Configura-tion > Administrative Templates >Windows Components > InternetExplorer > Disable Showing theSplash Screen

Computer Configuration >Administrative Templates > Win-dows Components > WindowsMessenger (Enable both items)

User configuration > Adminis-trative Templates > Desktop >Remove My Documents icon fromDesktop

Tuning the registryThough editing the registrycan give you power, it candamage your operating sys-tem as well. Always backupup your registry before edit-ing it. Once you’ve taken abackup, open the registry edi-tor—go to Start > Run, type‘regedit’ and press [Enter]. Toimprove the shutdown andrestart process, navigate toHKEY_CURRENT_USER\ControlPanel\Desktop, and edit thefollowing entries:

‘HungAppTimeout=4000’,‘WaitToKillAppTimeout=4000’,‘MenuShowDelay=20’ and

‘AutoEndTasks= 1’. Here, 1000means 1 second.

Now, navigate to ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Man-agement\PrefetchParameters’and change the value of‘EnablePrefetcher’ to 5.

To remove the OutlookExpress splash screen, go to ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identi-ties\{Unique Identity}\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0’,create a new DWORD valuenamed ‘NoSplash’ and set itsvalue to 1.

To disable Balloon tips, go to ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Cur ren tVe r s i on\Exp lo re r\

Advanced’, and create aDWORD value named‘Enable BalloonTips’ and set itto 0.

To turn off the ‘low diskspace’ notification, go to‘ H K E Y _ L O C A L _ M A C H I N E \SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanserver’ and cre-ate a DWORD value named‘DiskSpaceThreshold’ and setits value to between 0 and 99.This will denote the thresholdfree space in percentage,before the notification popsup. This is especially helpfulwhen you have a partitionthat is almost full, but don’twant to delete anything fromit such as a swap partitionwith a fixed swap file.

Set the same initial and maximum VirtualMemory size for better performance

UNDER THE HOOD

BIOS tweaksOn POST, press [Delete]—or[F2], depending on yourBIOS—to enter the BIOSSetup utility. You can also useutilities such as TweakBIOSfor this. Customise the fol-lowing settings:

Disable ‘Boot Up FloppySeek’. Most newer systemsdon’t require this.

Set the Boot Sequence toboot from the drive whereWindows is installed.

Disable ‘Video BIOS Shadow’.

Enable Shadow SystemBIOS—see if it increases per-formance for your system,otherwise disable it.

Disable ‘Video BIOSCacheable’—most new video

84


136 NOVEMBER 2003

■ tips and tricks

cards do not need this. Enable ‘Video RAM

Cacheable’, only if you haveolder cards, Disable it fornewer cards with more than16 MB RAM.

Set ‘8 & 16 bit I/O Recov-ery Time’ to 0 or N/A, if youdo not use ISA cards.

Enable ‘SDRAM PrechargeControl’ unless it causesproblems with your system.

Set the CAS Latency Timeto 2 for fastest performance.This sets the time delaybefore the SDRAM starts tocarry out a read command.

Set the RAS-to-CAS Delayto 2T. This inserts a delaybetween the RAS (RowAddress Strobe) and CAS (Col-umn Address Strobe) signals.

Set the RAS Pre-chargeTime to 2T. This is used to setthe number of cycles for theRAS to store its charge beforethe memory refreshes.

Disable ‘Memory Hole’. Disable ‘Passive Release’. Disable ‘Delayed Trans-

action’. Choose PCI or AGP for

‘Init Display First’, as peryour display card.

Set the KBC Input Clockto 16 MHz. This set-ting is related to theSuper I/O chip.

The AGP Aper-ture size determineshow much of yoursystem RAM isshared with yourgraphics card, tohelp it functionsmoothly. Set itaccording to theamount of RAM onyour system: If youhave 128 MB or

more, set it to 64 MB or 32MB. If you have less than128 MB of RAM, set this tohalf or quarter the amountof RAM you have—if youhave 96 MB, set this to 48MB, or 24 MB, etc. Make sureyou allot at least 16 MB tothe graphics card.

Overclocking Caution: Overclocking yourCPU will void your warran-ty, and if done improperly,will shorten the life of yourCPU, or even cause aburnout. If you still want to overclock, do so withextreme caution—do notpush your CPU beyond areasonable limit. Done prop-erly, it can yield significantperformance boosts.

If you have an Intelmotherboard, chances areyou cannot overclock yourCPU, as Intel desktop moth-erboards are generallylocked. On the other hand,the performance mother-boards from Gigabyte andMSI let you tweak a little.

Before overclocking yourCPU, you have to change theFSB. Increase the default

value from the BIOS in smallincrements, say from 133 to135 or 140. Now, change theCPU ratio setting marginal-ly. As all Intel CPUs arelocked, this is only applica-ble to Athlon CPUs. Remem-ber not to change thevoltage settings, as it maycause overheating.

Fan pleaseIdeally, ensure that there areat least two fans within thecabinet. A fan in the frontwill suck fresh air into thecase, while a fan behind willpush out the warmer air. AnSMPS with two fans will also help.

Cables, cablesCables from the SMPS arequite often slack; wind upthe excess length; if possi-ble, tie up the power cableswith string, anchoring themto the top of the cabinet.

Bunch data cablestogether using duct tape—or split flexible PVC tubing,and place the cables withinit. Not only does this keepyour cables tangle free, italso keeps them from collecting dust, as well as keeping your cabinetairy. Also, make sure thatthere are no cables directlyabove the CPU or graphicscard fans.

Change FSB first, before changing theCDP ratio

OpenGL settingsFor optimal performancewith the OpenGL API, flipacross to the OpenGL tab.Under Main Settings, enablethe Custom Settings option.

Under Custom settings,move the slider for the Anti-Aliasing settings to theextreme left, which in thiscase, is 2X. Select the Perfor-

mance option here, and setthe Anisotropic Filtering slid-er to the least possible value.Similarly, set the Texture Pref-erence, as well as the MipmapDetail Level, to High Perfor-mance. You can choose toleave the Application Prefer-ence options for all the set-tings disabled. Finally, turnoff the Vertical Sync option.

ATi TWEAKING

NOVEMBER 2003137

85

Direct3D settings The Direct3D settings menuis similar to that of theOpenGL settings. In themain settings, enable theCustom Settings option.Under Custom Settings,reduce Anti-Aliasing andAnisotropic Filtering to theleast possible values, and

enable Performance insteadof Quality. Adjust the Texture Preference andMipMap Detail levels toHigh Performance, and turnoff Vertical Sync.

Advanced ATi TweaksTo access some of the hid-den features of the ATiRadeon cards, use Power-Strip. It will let you compre-hensively tweak all standardand hidden features of yourRadeon card.

Performance countsPowerStrip resides in the Sys-tem Tray. To access all thefeatures, right-click on theicon, and choose from the

available options. The per-formance options are locat-ed by going to Performanceprofiles > Configure. Fromhere, you can tweak the per-formance features of theRadeon without entering theCatalyst driver applet. UsingPowerStrip, you can alsotweak other settings, such as

the ideal Colour andDisplay profiles.

Overclocking and pushing itTo obtain the best outof your card, you canoverclock your GPUand graphics memoryspeed; but remember,doing so will void yourwarranty. Moreover,you may damage yourcard irreparably.

You can overclockyour Radeon usingPowerStrip; the stan-dard ATI Catalyst driverinterface will not let

you tweak the GPU andmemory speeds. This can bedone by moving the sliderswithin the Clock controls sec-tion of the Performance pro-files applet. If they appear tohave been disabled, checkand see if the ‘Disable clockcontrols’ option has beenselected, and if so, deselect it.Overclocking will lead to aperformance boost, but do itcautiously, in 5 MHz incre-ments. Move both the EngineClock and the Memory Clockspeeds up by 5 MHz, and testthe system to ensure that it’sstable. Once you feel thatyou’ve got that additionalpunch in performance, leavethe sliders in position.

Remember, too big an incre-ment will damage your cardirreparably. You can chooseto save the setting as a per-formance profile for future

use. Watch out for excessivetemperature increases; ensurethat your cooling unit isworking properly beforeattempting this.

Use the Direct3D settings menu to finetune your ATi graphics card

PerformanceUnder the Performance andQuality Settings option inthe fold out menu, you cantweak the card for best per-formance. First, move theImage Settings slider to HighPerformance. After that,move the Anti-Aliasing slid-er to the left, to ‘Anti-Alias-ing - Off’. Similarly turn theAnisotropic Filtering to theOff position. After this, de-select the Texture Sharpen-ing option.

Direct3D settingsUnder the Performance andQuality Settings option, youcan set the Performance andCompatibility options forthe Direct3D API-basedapplications. Select ‘Best Per-formance for Mipmap DetailLevel’, and leave the PCI Tex-

ture Memory Size at itsdefault level. You may needto enable Fog table emula-tion if you see a plain whitescreen while playing a game.

OpenGL settingsThis is located next to theDirect3D setting; set the‘Default Color Depth’ to 16bpp for good performance;remember that setting it to 32 bpp will result in a performance hit. Turn off Vertical Sync and disableAnisotropic Filtering.

Unlocking hidden featuresTo unlock the more subtlefeatures within the Detonatordrivers, use tools such asnVHardPage (http://www.nvhardpage.com). Run the util-ity. To get the hidden options,

nVidia TWEAKING

NOVEMBER 2003

86


138

under the Tweaks tab, enableActivate Cool Bits, ActivateHardware options, ActivateAGP Options and ActivateDisplay Orientations.Depending on the nVidiacard you have, you shouldsee several new options acti-vated within the Detonatordriver, including Clock Fre-quencies, AGP Settings andHardware Options.

Hardware optionsHardware Options will letyou reset the AGP settingson your machine. The moth-erboard setting is automati-cally detected and you canmanually set your AGP set-ting to the highest value sup-ported by your motherboardand graphics card.

Overclocking yournVidiaOverclocking your nVidiacard might give your gaminga performance boost, butagain, this needs to be donewith caution. Keep in mindthat if you recklessly over-clock, your graphics cardmight go kaput.

By default, the overclock-

ing options are not exposedwithin the nVidia driver, butif you have enabled the Acti-vate Cool Bits optionthrough nVHardPage, youcan run up the clock fre-quencies of your GPU andgraphics memory.

To do so, click on theClock Frequencies option.Enable the ‘Allow clock fre-quency adjustments’ option.You may need to reboot toenable it. Once enabled, youcan change the Core ClockFrequency, which controlsthe frequency of the GPU.The Memory Clock Frequen-cy controls the speed of thegraphics memory on thecard. Ideally, increase thefrequencies by a factor of 2to 5 MHz at a time and testthe settings. Raise the levelsof the GPU speed, as well asthe graphics memory, syn-chronously. Remember,don’t move the sliders byridiculous intervals—youwill damage the card. A littleoverclocking, on the otherhand, may give you just thatlittle boost you crave for.Also, watch out for excessiveheat—it might make sense to

get additional coolingfans mounted withinthe case.

TNT and TNT2cardsIf you have a TNT or TNT2-level card, this will beof interest to you. Whilea lot of new games maydemand no less than aGeForce class card, thefact remains that with aslight tweak, you couldstill command the best

from your TNT card. You mayhave a little trouble with thevery newest Detonator driv-ers, since these have opti-mizations for the latest cards,and may tax TNT. Be on thelookout for older, stable driv-ers, such as those in the 20-series family.

Setting the cardsSet the AGP aperture size to

half or quarter your systemRAM size. Now, open thenVidia settings and makethese changes: Set MipmapLevels to ‘Best Performance’.Enable ‘Enable Fog TableEmulation’, under the Direct3D Settings tab. If you havea powerful CPU, choose‘Default Color Depth’ as‘Always use 32 bpp’, other-wise choose 16 bpp.

GAME TWEAKS

Quake IIIAdvanced Tweaks

Simple tweaks can be setstraight from within thegame, and these commandsshould be entered at the con-sole. The console is accessedby typing ‘~’ during the game.To invoke the same settingsevery time, you could create anew document and enter allthe desired settings. Thenname it, say, custom.cfg. Dur-ing game play, pull down theconsole and type ‘/exec cus-tom.cfg’ to load in your cus-tom configuration file. Youcan also enter the settingsinto the q3config.cfg file, andinvoke it automatically at

runtime. Make sure you pre-cede each command settingwith the word ‘seta’.The Gun: This commandwill allow you to toggle thegun display; for the best per-formance, turn off the gundisplay. Use cg_drawGun 0 toturn it off, and cg_drawGun 1to turn it on. Shelling hard: Though see-ing the ejected shells pop-ping out of your gun mayfeel realistic, it takes its toll on performance; to get thebest, disable it by usingcg_brassTime 0 and cg_brassTime 500 to turn it onSixteen makes sense: Whileyou may be scoffing at run-

Overclock your nVidia card bydragging a few sliders, but be careful

NOVEMBER 2003139

87

ning Quake III at 16-bitcolour, keep in mind thatswiching over to 32-bit ren-dering, though it’s higherquality, will definitely givethat frame rate drop. Opti-mal settings would be r_col-orbits 16 while going back to32-bit would be r_colorbits 32.Sky, no sky: While all thedynamic sky effects and see-through portals look great,turning them off will yieldmuch better performance. Toset optimal performance user_fastsky 1. To go back to eyecandy, use r_fastsky 0Pretty flashes: Weapons inQuake III come with somevery realistic lighting andflare effects, but at the cost ofperformance. To turn it off,use r_dynamicLight 0. Turn itback on with r_dynamicLight 1Curves cost more: Turningoff those pretty curves inQuake III could do wondersfor performance. Do that bysetting r_nocurves 1. If youwant to get back to thecurves, use r_nocurves 0

UT2003 Advanced tweaks

UT2003’s main settings canbe accessed from theUT2003.ini file located underthe System folder of the

install. While all the simplergraphics tweaks can be setfrom within the settingsmenu, you can tweak this fileto give that extra perform-ance boost. Open theUT2003.ini file in any texteditor to try out these tweaks.Before you start to edit thefile, be sure to back it up, incase you want to restore the original settings. Scroll down the file and locate all these settings under[D3DDrv.D3DRender Device],unless mentioned otherwise. Pre-caching textures: Set‘UsePrecaching=False’ to dis-able loading of textures intovideo memory while loadingthe level, especially if you areusing a graphics card with32 MB of video memory.This should give yousmoother gameplay. On theother hand, should you havea card with 64 MB or more,you can set this to True.Trilinear texture filtering:Setting ‘UseTrilinear=True’ willenable trilinear texture filter-ing, which will give youenhanced quality but youmight suffer a performancehit on older cards. To turn itoff, set it to FalseCompressed lightmaps: Ifthis is enabled, your loadingtimes will increase, but youshould see increased in-gameperformance. Enable it with‘UseCompressedLightmaps= True’.On the other hand, if youhappen to have a very high-end graphics card, such asone with 128 MB of videoRAM or more, you can disablethis to get more realistic,uncompressed lightmaps. Minimum frames: Again,

this one is recommendedonly if you happen to have

jumping frame rates andwould like to stick to adefined value. Locate ‘MinDe-siredFrameRate= 35.000000’under [WinDrv. WindowsClient].As you can see, the default is35 frames per second.Increase this to a value thatyou believe is sustainable foryour system. UT2003 willcompensate by reducing eyecandy through the game play,and try to maintain the framerates around this number.

Unlike mobile phones,PDAs are like mini-computers and can

be tweaked to yield betterperformance. A PDA can betweaked in two ways—over-clocking and using a tweakutility. Everything is fasterwhen a PDA is overclocked;unfortunately the batterydrains quicker too. The otheroption is to use a tweakingutility that raises the CPUclock speed only whenrequired—such as whenplaying a game—and lowersthe clock when using lessCPU intensive applications.This provides you with adevice that is fast when you

need it, and the battery lastslonger too—unless you playgames all day!

Caution: before playingwith clock frequencies, makesure you know what you’redoing, or else you mightdamage the CPU. Remember,overclocking increases CPUpower and reduces batterylife, while underclockingreduces CPU power andincreases battery life. Also, becareful to make changes insmall increments, and checkthe performance-to-stabilityratio. Last but not least,always backup your data.

The utilities availabledepend on what CPU and

Anti-Aliasing, AnisotropicFiltering turned off in UT2003

Turn off eye candy in Quake IIIto get higher frame rates

TWEAKING PDAS

NOVEMBER 2003

88


140

operating system your PDAruns. For example, in PDAswith Intel XScale processorsand Palm OS, such as theSony CLIÉ and Palm Tung-sten, there is a utility called Lightspeed (http://www.clievideo.com). If youhave a Pocket PC with anXScale processor runningWindows CE, you can usePocket Hack Master. It allowsyou to overclock your 400MHz CPU to 500 MHz.

Pocket Hack Master hasTurbo and Run modes, whichtweak the memory and LCDmultipliers to run according-ly. You can also set theSDRAM latency, refresh-rateor refresh-cycles. This pro-

gram also shows you runningprocesses, threads, loadedDLLs, etc. One of the best fea-tures is the ability to set Scale

triggers for the CPU load—this basically increases theCPU speed when a particularload is reached. Download itfrom http://download.com.com/3000-217810193651.html.

Another utility forXScale processors is XCPUS-caler (http://www.immiersoft.com). It allows you todynamically scale theprocessor speed of PocketPCs and Windows Mobile2003. It allows for a changein speed of up to 50 percent. A very useful feature ofthis application is Auto Scal-ing—it increases or decreas-

es CPU power dependingon how CPU-intensivethe currently running

application is, thus increasingbattery life.

iPaq 1910 users can useClear Speed (http://revolution.cx/speed/speed.htm). This givesyou the option of control-ling the Pocket PC speedsand backlight, based on howmuch power is remaining inthe batteries. Basically, whenyour battery is full, the CPUruns at full power, and as

the batteries drain, thespeed reduces—this increas-es battery life. iPaq users can also download the JSOverclock utility to squeezeevery ounce of speed from their CPUs. Get it athttp://www.jimmysoftware.com/Software/Overclock.

You should turn off unwantedservices. This frees up systemresources, which the gamescan utilise.

Creating a HardwareProfile

Go to Start > Control Panel >System. In the Hardware tab,click the ‘Hardware Profiles’button. You will see a profilenamed ‘Profile 1(Current)’ inthe Available Hardware Profilelist. Click the Copy button tocopy this profile and name it‘Gaming’, or any other con-venient name. Don’t make anyfurther changes, and click OKtwice to close the windows.

Disabling Services for Gaming

Go to Start > Run, type ‘servic-es.msc’ and press [Enter]. Disable all the services men-tioned below by right-clickingand selecting Properties > LogOn > Disable.

! Routing and Remote Access! Alerter! Application Layer Gateway

Service ! Application Management! Background Intelligent

Transfer Service! ClipBook! COM+ System Application! Computer Browser! Distributed Link Tracking

Client! Distributed Transaction

Coordinator! Error Reporting Service! Fast User Switching

Compatibility Help andSupport

! IMAPI CD-Burning COMService

! Indexing Service! Internet Connection

Firewall (ICF) / InternetConnection Sharing (ICS)

! IPSEC Services! Logical Disk Manager

Administrative Service! MS Software Shadow Copy

Provider! Net Logon! NetMeeting Remote

Desktop Sharing! Network DDE! Network DDE DSDM! Network Location

Awareness (NLA)! NT LM Security Support

Provider! Performance Logs and

Alerts! Portable Media Serial

Number! Print Spooler ! Protected Storage! QoS RSVP! Routing and Remote Access! Remote Desktop Help

Session Manager! Remote Procedure Call

(RPC) Locator! Remote Registry! Removable Storage

! Secondary Logon! Security Accounts Manager

Server! Smart Card! Smart Card Helper! SSDP Discovery Service! System Restore Service! TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper! Task Scheduler! Telnet! Themes! Uninterruptible Power

Supply! Universal Plug and Play

Device Host! Upload Manager! Volume Shadow Copy! Windows Image Acquisition

(WIA)! Windows Installer! Windows Management

Instrumentation DriverExtensions

! Wireless Zero Configuration! WMI Performance Adapter! Windows Time

At Your Service

Use Pocket Hack Master to overclockyour XScale-based Pocket PC

DECEMBER 2003


163

89

UnpluggedRegistry

IMAGING: Solomon Lewis

Editing the registry is not black magic; it is justanother step towards taming Windows. Learnthe top registry tweaks to get complete control

contents90 Customisation

92 Office

93 Performance

94 Annoyances

95 Ease the Task

95 Covering Tracks


164 DECEMBER 2003

The registry is the placewhere Windows storesall its settings. These

settings are used to controlhardware, installed applica-tions, the user interface—practically every setting inthe system. So to make anychanges to the default set-tings, the registry has to beedited. To open the registryeditor, go to Start > Run, type‘regedit’ and press [Enter].The registry editor containstwo vertical panes. The leftpane has a Windows explor-er-like hierarchy structure.Each item here is called key,and a key can have sub-keys.When you select a key, you’llfind some items in the rightpane. These are the entriescorresponding to the selectedkey. The keys are organisedcontainers for the entries; it isthe entries that store the set-tings. The entries can storedifferent types of data: String,Binary and DWORD values.

Back up...back upThe registry is critical for thehealth of any Windows sys-tem. Any damage to it willcause the system to behaveerratically. It’s recommendedthat you don’t make anychanges to the system reg-istry without backing up thecurrent settings. To take abackup of the registry, openthe registry editor and selectRegistry > Export Registry File. Inthe dialog box that appears,select ‘All’ and enter a namefor the backup file. It’s alsopossible to back up specificregistry keys. To do so, selectthe key to be saved, and goto Registry > Export Registry File,check ‘Selected branch’ andclick OK.

Windows Me and XPusers can create systemrestore points. This featurelets you revert to a particularstate in case of a systemcrash. To take a snapshot ofthe current state of the sys-tem, go to Start > Programs >Accessories > System Tools > Sys-

tem Restore and select ‘Createa restore point’. To revert tothis point later, you will haveto start System Restore andselect which point you wantto restore to.

Creating a new keyTo create a new key, justright-click the parent keyand select New > Key. To cre-ate an entry, select the key inthe left pane, right-click overin the right pane and select

the data type of the entry tobe created.

RestartWhen a change is made to theregistry, the effect may or maynot be visible immediately. Forexample, when changing thetitle bar text of IE, you need torestart it for the changes to be reflected. For OS-relatedtweaks you may need to logoff and log on again, or evenrestart the machine.

■ tips and tricks

CCrreeaattiinngg iiccoonnssThe icon of a bitmap file can be set as the file imageitself. To effect this setting,navigate to the key HKEY_ CLASSES_ROOT/Paint.Picture/DefaultIcon and set the valueof ‘Default entry’ to ‘%1’.Also navigate to the keyHKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/.bmp andset ‘Default entry’ to‘PAINT.PICTURE’. The flip sideof this tweak is that folderswith a lot of bitmap filesmight take longer to load. In

such cases, try increasing theicon cache to make the fold-ers load faster. The iconcache can be increased using the ‘MaxCachedIcons’entry (type string) in theH K E Y _ L O C A L _ M A C H I N E \Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer key.Increase the value of thisentry to increase the iconcache; use any value between100 and 4,096.

Start Menu scrolling When your Start menuoverflows, it isn’t pos-sible to list all theentries in a single col-umn. Then, Windowseither creates a secondcolumn or a scrollingmenu. You can controlthis through the registry. Navigate to the HKEY_CURRENT_Use bitmap images as icons

CUSTOMISATION

90

ILUSTRATOR: Farzana Cooper

DECEMBER 2003165

91

USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced, and select theentry called ‘StartMenuScrollPrograms’. If it’s notpresent, create a new Stringvalue called ‘StartMenuScroll-Programs’. Specify the valueas ‘Yes’ if you want the Startmenu to scroll, and ‘No’ ifyou need the Start menu asmultiple columns.

IE Title bar textInternet Explorer installa-tions distributed by compa-nies other than Microsoftmight have their names inthe title bar. If you want to change this, navigate toHKEY_CURRENT_USER\Soft-ware\Microsoft\Internet Explor-er\Main, and edit or create astring value entry called‘Window Title’. Double-clickthe entry and enter any

string you want. Leave itblank if you want to removethe default string. You’llneed to restart InternetExplorer for the change to take effect.

Size of desktop iconsUsing the Control Panel dis-play settings, icons in Win-dows can be displayed inonly two different sizes.Tweaking the registry allowsyou to have any size foricons. Go to HKEY_CUR-RENT_USER\Control Panel\Desk-top\WindowMetrics, and createor modify the string value‘Shell Icon Size’. Give thevalue of your desired iconsize, in pixels.

Extracting the product keyThe Windows product key issometimes forgotten or mis-

placed after the Windowsinstallation. This serves as ablockade during theinevitable Windows reinstall.In case of Windows 95, theproduct key can be obtainedfrom the system propertieswindow (Windows key + [Pause\Break]). For Windows 98, it’spossible to extract the keyfrom the registry. Select theH K E Y _ L O C A L _ M A C H I N E \Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion key, and in theright pane, the value of theentry ProductKey will givethe product key of the cur-rent Windows installation.

Logon message To create a personalised logon message in XP, go toHKEY_ LOCAL_ MACHINE\ SOFT-WARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon. Inthe right pane, double-click

the stringentry ‘Legal-N o t i c e C a p -tion’, enterthe string ‘MyWindows XPMachine’ andclick OK. Next, double-

click the ‘LegalNotice Text’string entry, and enter themessage to be displayed.

Screensaver grace periodIf you’ve set a screen saverpassword in Windows 2000or XP, and the screen saveractivates, there is a graceperiod before which Win-dows doesn’t prompt for apassword when you press akey or move the mouse. Forsecurity reasons, it is advisedthat you remove this graceperiod. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Cur ren tVe r -sion\Winlogon, create a stringentry named ‘ScreenSaver-GracePeriod’ and give it avalue of ‘0’. If the key exists,modify its value to ‘0’, or elsecreate a DWORD entry, withthe above details.

Display Administratorin logon screenLike the root user in Linux,Windows XP has a defaultuser called ‘Administrator’.This user is not displayed inthe logon screen where all theusers in the system are dis-played. To view this account,go to HKEY_ LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows-NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList. If thebinary Administrator keydoes not exist, create it.Assign its value to ‘1’ to seethe Administrator, or ‘0’ tohide it.

Change the welcomescreen Windows XP displays threedifferent screens duringboot-up. The second screenis the one that says “Welcome”. To change this, navigate to HKEY USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desk-top. Under this key, you willfind an entry named ‘Wall-paper’; double-click it andenter the path of the imagefile you want displayed.The file can be a BMP or JPEG image. If you wantto tile the image, set thevalue of the ‘TileWallPaper’entry to 1. If you want to stretch the wallpaper, setthe value of the ‘WallPaper-Style’ entry to 2.

Colour of encryptedand compressed files Windows XP displaysencrypted and compressedfiles and folders in a differ-ent colour. To change thedefault colour, go toHKEY_CURRENT_USER\Soft-ware\Microsoft\Windows\Cur-rentVersion\Explorer. Underthis key, create a binaryentry named ‘AltEncryp-tionColor’. Set its value asthe RGB ratio of the desiredcolour for encrypted files;the format is RR GG BB 00.The last two digits arealways ‘00’. Similarly, tochange the colour of com-

pressed files and folders,create or modify a binaryentry named ‘AltColor’.Specify its value as men-tioned above. For this tweak to work, the ‘Showencrypted and compressedfolders in color’ must beenabled via the folderoptions window.

Detailed informationin the device managerWhen this tweak is applied,the device manger in Win-dows 2000 and XP willshow an extra tab called‘Details’. Selecting this tabwill provide additionalinformation about thedevice. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Current-ControlSet\Control\Session-Manager\Environment. Here,you’ll find a string entrywith the name ‘DEVM-GR_SHOW_DETAILS’; ifthere isn’t one, create it.Assign this entry a value of‘1’ if you want the system to display the details tab; tohide the tab, assign it a value of ‘0’.

Prevent access to specified drivesUse this tweak to preventaccess to drives to certainusers. Remember, once thisis applied, the prohibiteduser can’t access the drive byany means. Log into Win-dows using the user accountthat you want to restrictaccess to, open the registryeditor and go to HKEY_CUR-RENT_USER\Software\Micro s o f t \ W i n d o w s \ C u r -rentVersion\Policies\Explorer. Create a DWORD valuewith the name ‘NoViewOn-Drive’. Double click thisentry and in the dialog boxthat appears, select the radiobutton named ‘Decimal’. Inthe value data field you needto enter a number thatdepends on the drive thatneeds to be hidden. Use theformula ‘2n-1’, where n is 1for your A drive, 2 for B

Remove unwanted text from the IE title bar


166 DECEMBER 2003

■ tips and tricks

drive, and so on until 26 fordrive Z. If you need to hidemore than one drive, addthe respective drive numbersand enter it into the valuedata field. For example, tohide drive C you need toenter 4 (23-1); to hide drivesD and E you need to enter 24 (24-1+25-1). To apply thechange to all users in thesystem, follow the samemethod, but use the keyH K E Y _ L O C A L _ M A C H I N E \S o f t w a re \ M i c ro s o f t \ W i n -dows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer instead. To removeall restrictions, just deletethe entry.

Know your real writ-ing speed in NeroWhile writing a CD usingNero 5.5, only the averagespeed is displayed in the burn status dialog box.To force Nero to display the actual writing speed, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_U S E R \ S o f t w a r e \ a h e a d \Nero-BurningRom\Recorder.Under this, open theDWORD entry ‘ShowSin-gleRecorderSpeed’ (createone if it doesn't exist).Change the value of thisentry to ‘1’ to display theactual writing speed, and ‘0’to display the average writing speed.

OFFICE

Minimise Outlook tothe system trayOutlook 2003 can be min-imised to the system tray,but it’s possible with earlierversions of Outlook as well.Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Outlook\Preferences and create

a DWORD entry named‘MinToTray’. Give it a valueof ‘1’. Restart Outlook for thechange to take effect.

Give four digits foryear in ExcelWhenever a date is enteredin an Excel cell, the year fieldis automatically truncated totwo digits. For example,when the user enters the date9-11-2000 in a cell, it is auto-matically replaced with9/11/00. This is bad whenspanning across a century,such as records from 1999 to2003. This tweak makesExcel display dates with fourdigits for the year field.Locate HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\[Version]\Excel\Options, where[Version] indicates yourOffice version (Office XP is

‘10.0’, 2000 is ‘9.0’, etc.).Create or modify theDWORD entry ‘EnableFour-DigitYearDisplay’ and enter avalue of ‘1’.

Change the number ofundo levels in ExcelBy default, Excel can perform

16 undo operations. Youcan customise the num-ber of undo levels, butremember that increas-ing the number of levelsresults in more RAMbeing allocated to Excel.Go to HKEY_CURRENT_

USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\[Ver s ion]\Exce l\Opt ions .Under this key, create aDWORD value with thename ‘UndoHistory’. Youcan turn off the undo featureby giving a value of ‘0’, usethe maximum allowed level‘100’, or provide an interme-diate level of your choice.Remember to select the deci-mal radio button whenentering a value between 0and 100.

Remove attachmentsrestrictionsWhen an incoming e-mailhas attachments such asEXE, SCR, etc., Outlook XPdoesn’t download the attach-ments, for security reasons.The complete list of fileextensions which aren’tdownloaded in Outlook XPand 2003 is: ADE, ADP, ASX,BAS, BAT, CHM, CMD, COM,

You can minimise Outlook XP tothe system tray

Get extra information aboutsystem devices

92

DECEMBER 2003167

93

Disable Windows XPsupport for Zip filesWindows XP comes with in-built support for Zip files,but this can be a curse in disguise. While searching for files, XP automaticallysearches through Zip files,resulting in a slow search. To disable support for Zip files, go to Start > Run, type‘ regsvr32/u%windir%\sys-tem32\zipfldr.dll’ and clickOK. If you want to enable it

later, go to Start > Run andtype ‘regsvr32 %windir%\system32\zipfldr.dll’. Disablingsupport for Zip files in XPdoes not in any way affectthe functionality of third-party tools such as WinZip,WinRAR, etc.

Speed up access to folders with AVI filesWindows XP sometimestakes a really long time toopen folders with AVI files.

This is because XP tries to getinformation about the files.To disable this feature, openthe registry and go toH K E Y _ C L A S S E S _ R O O T \CLSID\{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}. Appenda [-] (a minus sign) in frontof the ‘{87D…’ key, so that itbecomes something like ‘-{87D…’.

Prevent OS beingpaged to disk At times, when there’s adearth of RAM, the systemwill move some portion ofthe main memory to thehard disk. Obviously, thisslows down the system, butthere’s nothing much thatcan be done about it. In caseyour system is blessed withloads of RAM (256 MB ormore) and runs WindowsNT, 2000 or XP, you can usethis tweak to prevent thekernel mode code frombeing moved to the harddisk. While this will improvesystem performance, it mayaffect programs that rely onWindows swap space. So ifyou notice any eccentricbehaviour after applying thissetting, revert to the previ-ous setting. Go toHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYS-TEM\CurrentControlSet\Con-trol\Session Manager\MemoryManagement. Look for aDWORD entry called ‘Dis-ablePagingExecutive’; set itto ‘1’ to disable the kernelbeing paged. if you faceproblems, set it back to ‘0’.

Increase USBpolling interval By default, Win-dows checks forconnected USBdevices once everymillisecond. Thismight prevent theprocessor fromgoing into powersaving mode, whichis vital for laptopsto conserve batterylife. This tweak

allows you to increase theUSB polling interval. ForWindows 98 and Me, go toHKEY_ LOCAL_MACHINE\Sys-tem\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\Usb\0000; for Windows2000 or XP, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Sys tem\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\ { 3 6 F C 9 E 6 0 - C 4 6 5 - 1 1 C F -8056444553540000}\0000.Create a DWORD entrycalled ‘IdleEnable’ and giveit a value of ‘1’. To revert tothe previous refresh rate,give the entry a value of ‘0’.

Quicker access to network foldersWhen you open a remotelocation by entering thecomputer name in the Rundialog box or through Net-work Neighbourhood, Win-dows takes a long time toopen the location. Instead,when the complete addressof the location is given suchas ‘\\computername\folder-name’, it opens immediately.Microsoft has confirmed thatthis occurs when a Windows2000 system tries to access aWindows 98 system. Thesystem tries to read thescheduled tasks of theremote system—a fairly use-less step. To solve the prob-lem, open the registry anddelete the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVer s ion\Explorer\RemoteComputer\NameSpace\{D6277990-4C6A-11CF-8D8700AA0060F5BF} key.

CPL, CRT, EXE, HLP, HTA,INF, INS, ISP, JS, JSE, LNK,MDA, MDB, MDE, MDZ,MSC, MSI, MSP, MST, PCD,PIF, PRF, REG, SCF, SCR, SCT,SHB, SHS, URL, VB, VBE,VBS, WSC, WSF and WSH.

If you want Outlook todownload any of the abovementioned file extensions,go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Outlook\Security (11.0 forOutlook 2003), and create ormodify the string entrynamed ‘Level1Remove’. Thevalue of this entry is the fileextension that it will down-load; so, add the file exten-sions that you wish Outlookto download, separated by asemicolon—for example, toforce Outlook to downloadEXE and BAT files, assign thevalue ‘exe;bat’.

Add custom places tothe open/save dialog boxIn the MS Office Open andSave dialog box, there’s a

bar on the right that con-tains links to common loca-tions such as My Computer,My Documents, etc. Usingthis tweak, you can add cus-tom locations to this bar.For example, if you oftensave your work on a net-work drive, you can add itto the places bar. Navigateto HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\[Ver s ion ]\Common\Open -Find\Places\UserDefinedPlaces,where ‘[Version]’ indicatesthe current office version.Create a sub-key with thename ‘PlaceX’, where X is aunique number. In otherwords, name the first cus-tom location ‘Place1’, thesecond ‘Place2’, and so on.Now select the newly creat-ed sub-key and create twostring entries in it: ‘Name’and ‘Path’. The value for‘Name’, is whatever youwant to call that location,and that for ‘Path’ is theexact path to that folder.

Performance

DECEMBER 2003


168

Menu display delay When a menu is opened,Windows opens the menuafter a small delay. For exam-ple, after clicking on Start, thePrograms menu takes ages toexpand. This is because the‘Menushowdelay’ entry hasbeen given a large value.Open the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\ Desktopand modify or create a stringvalue named ‘MenuShowDelay’. In this entry, give therequired delay in millisec-onds; the accepted limit is 0 to 999.

Disable low disk space warningWindows XP willshow a warningmessage wheneverthe drive is low ondisk space. For somereason, whether wehave an 8 GB or 80GB hard drive, it’snever enough, andthis message justgets irritating after awhile. To suppress it,go to HKEY_CURRENT_U S E R \ S o f t w a r e \Microsoft\Windows\

CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorerand create or modify theDWORD value called‘NoLowDiskSpaceChecks’. Avalue of ‘1’ will disable thewarning message, ‘0’ willenable it.

Disable CD burningWindows XP comes with in-built support for CD writing.Since this offers limited func-tionality, power users mightnot need it. To disable sup-port for CD writing, go toH K E Y _ C U R R E N T _ U S E R \Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer.Create or modify theDWORD entry called‘NoCDBurning’. A value of‘1’ disables CD burning and‘0’ enables it.

Hide the links folderInternet Explorer incessantlycreates the ‘Links’ folderunder the Favourites section,even if the user deletes it.You can get rid of it perma-nently by going to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\InternetExplorer\Toolbar. Set the value of the‘LinksFolderName’ entry as ablank string. Now, open IEand delete the Links folder. Itwill no longer be displayedunder Favourites.

Turn off support forUnPnPUniversal Plug and Play(UPnP) devices can be con-nected to any system overthe network instantly—like aPnP device being connectedto a local system. WindowsXP supports this feature, butMicrosoft has acknowledgeda security flaw. Though thereis a patch, it is recommendedto turn off this feature—thereare so few UPnP devicesavailable anyway. Navigateto HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \System\CurrentControlSet\Services\upnphost and doubleclick the DWORD entrynamed ‘Start’. To disable sup-port for this service, give it avalue of ‘4’; to enable itagain, give it a value of ‘3’. If

you use any UnPnP devicesover your network, leave it enabled.

Window refresh rateAll open windows arerefreshed at a predefinedinterval; but when there’retoo many windows open,and a paucity of memory,they often appear blank—afile copied to a folder may notappear immediately on thewindow. This tweak allowsyou to set a faster refresh ratefor open windows. Go toHKEY_LOCAL_ MACHINE\SYS-TEM\CurrentControlSet\Con-trol\Update. Create or modifythe DWORD key called‘UpdateMode’. Assign it avalue of ‘0’ for a faster refreshrate, and ‘1’ for default.

ANNOYANCES

94

Stop the annoying low diskspace warning

DECEMBER 2003169

95

Beep on printer errors Use this setting to enable themachine to beep every fewseconds when a print erroroccurs. For local printers, goto HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print and create ormodify the DWORD entrycalled ‘BeepEnabled’. A valueof ‘1’ enables beeps and ‘0’disables them.

For network printers, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVers ion\Pr int\Providers\LanManPrintSer-vices\Servers and create ormodify the DWORD entrycalled ‘BeepEnabled’. A valueof ‘1’ enables beeps and ‘0’disables them.

Include Copy to andMove to in the contextmenuWhen you right-click a file,you get a menu called con-text menu. This tweak showsyou how you can add twouseful entries to it, namely,‘Copy To’ and ‘Move To’.Therefore, copying and mov-ing files can be done in2 steps. To add the ‘Copy To’option, go to HKEY_CLASS-ES_ROOT\ Directory\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers and cre-ate a sub-key called ‘Copy

To’. Select the key you creat-ed and in the right pane,modify the value of the‘Default’ entry to ‘{C2FBB630-297111d1A18C00C04FD75D13}’. Similarly, navigate toH K E Y _ C L A S S E S _ R O O T \ * \shellex\ContextMenuHandlersand create a sub-key named‘Copy To’ and give the samedefault value as above. Forthe ‘Move To’ option, dupli-cate the above mentionedsteps, but rename the sub-keys as ‘Move To’ and the Default values as‘ {C2FBB631-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}’ .Now when you right click onany file or folder—except onthe Desktop—you will getthese two options.

Start button contextmenuUsing this tweak, you canopen applications from thecontext menu of the Startbutton, i.e. by right-clickingon the Start button. Openthe registry and select theHKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ Directo-ry\Shell key. Create a newsub-key named after the pro-gram you want to associate itwith, say, Notepad. Nowselect this key and createanother sub-key named‘Command’ and set its

‘Default’ entry value asthe path to the executablefor example, ‘C:Windows\notepad.exe’.

Make Google defaultsearch pageGoogle-holics ahoy! You canset IE to search using Googleas default. Enter the searchterms in the address and selectthe option that appears

below: Search for ‘<searchterms>’. This will take youdirectly to the results page inGoogle. Open the registry andnavigate to HKEY_ CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Inter-netExplorer\Main; change thevalue of ‘Use Search Asst’ to‘no’; change the value of‘Search Page’ to ‘http://www.google.com’; change the valueof ‘Search Bar’ to ‘http://www.google. com/ie’.

Next, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\InternetExplorer\Search URL and change thevalues of ‘Default’ to ‘http://www.google.com/keyword/%s’and ‘provider’ to ‘gogl’. Thengo to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Search keyand modify the ‘SearchAssistant’ entry’svalue to‘http://www.google.com/ie’.

Get the ‘Copy to’ in the contextmenu

EASE THE TASK

Selectivelyremove cachedRun commands Commands enteredin the Run dialogbox are automatical-ly cached to be usedagain later as AutoComplete. You canselectively removeentries from thecached list ofinstructions. Go toH K E Y _ C U R R E N T _U S E R \ S o f t w a r e \

COVERING TRACES

DECEMBER 2003


170

Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\RunMRU, andon the right pane, you willfind entries, each one repre-senting a cached instruction.Delete the unwanted entries,or delete all if you want toclear the cache.

Remove Logoff fromStart MenuIn Windows 98, the startmenu will have a Log Off but-ton, but many users don’t useit, especially in stand alonesystems. To remove this but-ton from the Start menu, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer,create a binary entry andenter its value as 01 00 00 00.

Removing typed URLsfrom IE address bar Internet Explorer stores 25URLs that were previouslyentered into the address bar.Click on the drop down but-ton at the end of the addressbar to view the cached URLs.To selectively remove URLs

from this list go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\TypedURLs.In the right pane, you willfind the list of URLs orderedwith names url, url2, …url25.Delete the entries you wish toremove. Rename the remain-ing entries so that the order ismaintained. For example, ifyou delete two entries,rename the others so thatthey list as url1 to url23.

Remove Start menuitems Most users don’t use all theitems in the Start menu.Entries such as Help and Logoff are sometimes never usedat all. Using this tweak, you

can selectively remove itemsfrom the Start menu. Go toH K E Y _ C U R R E N T _ U S E R \Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer,and add a DWORD entry for each item you want to remove.

Here’s a list of items:‘NoRecentDocsMenu’

removes the Documentsmenu.

‘NoFavoritesMenu’re-moves the Favourites menu.

‘NoFind’ removes theFind command from the Start menu.

‘NoRun’ removes the Runcommand.

‘NoClose’ removes theShutdown command (be care-ful as it prevents you fromshutting down Windows).

‘NoSetTaskbar’ removesthe Taskbar command in theSettings sub-folder on the Startmenu. Adding this entry willalso prevent a user from mak-ing changes to the taskbar byright-clicking on the taskbarand selecting Properties.

In Windows 2000 and XP, adding‘NoSMHelp’will removethe help item and‘ N o C o m -monGroups’will remove

all the entries located inC:\Documents and Settings\AllUsers\Start Menu and its sub-folders.

After adding any entry,assign it a value of ‘1’ toremove the itemfrom the Start Menu,or ‘0’ to bring it back.

Remove theRecycle bin If you’re tired of hav-ing to delete thingstwice and the Recy-cle Bin seems redun-dant, you canremove it. Using thistweak, you can forceWindows to deletefiles directly—be sure

that you don’t want files to be stored in the Recycle bin.Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\BitBucketand create a DWORD entrynamed ‘NukeOnDelete’. Givethis a value of ‘1’ to disable the Recycle bin and ‘0’ toenable it.

Disable recent files listin Media Player 8Windows Media Player 8maintains a list of filesaccessed recently in the Filemenu. Use this registry tweakto do away with that list.Open the registry and navi-gate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Sof tware\Mic roso f t\Med iaPlayer\Preferences. Here, doubleclick the ‘AddToMRU’ entry.Give this a value of ‘00’ if youintend to disable the recentfiles list. You can enable it bychanging the value to ‘01’.

Clear Add/Remove Pro-grams list Certain program entries doremain in the Add/Removeprograms list owing to anuninstallations that go hay-wire. This tweak enables youto do away with those. Go toH K E Y _ L O C A L _ M A C H I N E \S O F T W A R E \ M i c r o s o f t \Wi n d o w s \ C u r re n t Ve r s i o n \Uninstall. Under this key, you will find sub-keys foreach program installed. Right-click and delete all the entries you want removedfrom the Add\ Remove pro-grams list.

Selectively remove cached URLs in IE

96

JANUARY 2004


123

1

Finish!Photo

IMAGING: Mahesh Benkar

contents2 Digital Photography

4 Scanning

6 Processing

Click thosecho-chweet moments,scan that Swisslandscape, and doll itup...with aplomb!

2


124 JANUARY 2004

FocusingYou might face this problemif you use an auto-focus cam-era—the camera captures thedistant background and blursthe subject. This is becausecameras are usually designedto have a central focus. Thesolution is quite simple. Pointthe camera at the subject andposition it in the centre of theframe. Keep the shutter but-ton pressed halfway down tolock the focus on the subjectand re-position the camera sothe scene is framed to yourliking. Finally, press the shut-ter button down completelyto take a snapshot.

The Rule of ThirdsOne of the most popular rulesof photography, it applies toboth traditional, as well asdigital photography. Accord-ing to this rule, if the frameof the viewfinder were to bedivided into thirds, both hor-

izontally and vertically, thenthe four intersections are thebest places to put your sub-ject, instead of the centre ofthe frame. This yields an

appealing image.In case of a landscape

shoot that needs an empha-sis on the sky, get the horizonon the lower horizontal grid.

Foreground and back-groundZoom in and choose a largeaperture setting for sharperforegrounds and blurredbackgrounds. This setting is

appropriate for portrait pho-tos. Zooming out and choos-ing a small aperture results inan equal focus on the back-ground and foreground.

Shooting fireworks Snap up those beautiful fire-works using a digital camerawith a shutter speed longerthan ½ a second. Ideally, optfor a shutter speed between 2to 10 seconds to capture allthe sparkle and razzmatazz.You will also need a tripod toavoid jerky, haphazard pho-tos. Eliminate even the slight-est possibility of vibration byusing a camera that comesequipped with a remote shut-ter release.

Set ISO to the lowest set-ting to reduce noise—the tinydots across such snaps.Enable long exposure noisereduction, if the cameracomes with it.

Preview the shot on theLCD screen, and accordinglyadjust the aperture so that it’sjust the right size to get brightsharp photos. Keep spare bat-teries with you.

Warm tonesNormally, the default whitebalance setting for most digi-tal cameras is set to ‘Auto’.Though this is fine in mostcases, sunny landscapes andportraits taken in bright lightcould turn out dull. Hence,change its setting to ‘Cloudy’to get warmer reds and yel-lows that make the picturelook better.

Polarising filterPolarising filter is used foroutdoor shoots since it

reduces glare and reflection,and results in more saturatedcolours, especially in the caseof sky. Use your sunglasses incase your camera doesn’thave support for one. Placethe glasses as close to thecamera as possible, check theLCD to see that its frame doesnot obstruct the view andshoot. For better results, useit when the light source andthe subject are at right angles,i.e., when the sun is exactlyover your head. Further, setthe white balance to ‘Cloudy’for warmer photos.

Flash modesNormally, digital camerashave three flash modes—Auto Flash, Fill Flash and RedEye Reduction.

Auto Flash mode is usedfor general photography. Inthis mode, the flash deter-mines whether it needs to befired or not, based on the amount of light present. This mode isrepresented on the LCD by a lightning icon with a capital ‘A’.

In the case of Fill Flash,the flash is always fired. Thisis useful when the subject issitting in the shade withbright sunlight around. If setto Auto, the flash would nothave fired, resulting in darkspots around the eyes. In theRed-Eye Reduction mode, theflash is fired several timesbefore the shutter actuallyopens. Thus, the eye-pupilsare contracted and the red-eye effect reduces. Use thismode when there is very littlelight and the photo dependson the flash.

■ tips and tricks

Use these tips to breeze through a photo shootusing a digital camera!

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY

Follow the Rule of Thirds to clickappealing photos

JANUARY 2004125

3

Snapping water A camera with a shutter speedthat’s slower than a second ortwo can be used to shootflowing water and make itlook like a painting. Set yourcamera on a tripod. Adjustthe aperture either to f-8, f-11, or f-16 for better depth offield. Now, set the shutterspeed to 2 seconds, andshoot. Since you are usinglong exposures, make surethat the subject is positionedin the shade. Use polarisingfilters to enhance the effect.

Master the modesDigital cameras have manypresets, called modes ormacros that let you click pho-tos differently. Some of thecommon modes are Auto,Portrait, Landscape, Sportsand Night. Auto mode is thegeneral picture-taking mode.When you use this mode, theexposure, focus, and flash areset automatically. When thismode is active, there is usual-ly a small camera icon onyour LCD to indicate it. Por-trait mode, usually shown onthe LCD as a face, sharpensthe subject and leaves thebackground out of focus.

Landscape mode is indi-cated by mountains on theLCD, and is suited for shoot-ing subjects that are at a dis-tance. Often, a slower shutterspeed is chosen and hence,it’s better to use a tripodwhile using this mode. TheSports or Action mode pro-vides a faster shutter speedand is use to shoot fast mov-ing objects. Night mode, asthe name suggests, is used toshoot in poor light condi-

tions. Since this also meanslonger exposures, use of a tri-pod is recommended.

Taking silhouettesSilhouettes make for appeal-ing photographs. To shoot asilhouette, first position your-self with the sun somewherein front of you. Now, set theexposure on the brighter partof the scene. Use the expo-sure lock button to secure theexposure. Re-compose thephoto and shoot. If it doesn’thave an exposure lock but-ton, set the exposure com-pensation to -2 or -3.

Slideshows and screen-saversTo view your pictures as aslide show in Windows XP,open the images folder inWindows Explorer and click

on ‘View as slide show’ underPicture Tasks in the CommonTasks area. Alternatively,right-click any image, selectOpen With > Windows Pictureand Fax Viewer’. Once theimage is opened, press [F11]to start the slide show. Youcan also view this slide show

as a screensaver. Right-clickthe desktop, select Propertiesand choose ‘My PictureSlideshow’ in the ScreenSaver tab. Click on Settingsto specify the folder andother settings.

In case you use Windows98, or intend to create ascreensaver file, use utilitiessuch as Irfanview (www.irfan-view.com). In Irfanview, clickFile > Slideshow, specify thefolder and other settings, andclick on ‘Save as .scr’. Savethis file in C:\Windows\Systemin Windows 98, or C:\Win-dows\System32, if you useWindows XP.

Transferring pictures There are two ways to transferimages from a digital camerato a computer. One is tether-ing, wherein the camera isdirectly connected to a PCusing the cable provided withit. This can be slow and cum-bersome and drains the cam-era’s batteries, unless it has anAC adapter. The other way isto use a CardReader. Simplyinsert the memory card of thecamera into the reader, andconnect the reader to the PC.Most readers don’t requireseparate drivers and supportall major card formats.

Download pictures auto-matically You can configure your digi-cam in Windows XP todownload pictures automati-cally when it’s plugged in.However, the camera shouldeither have the WindowsImage Acquisition driver, orsupport Picture Transfer Pro-tocol (PTP). Right-click the

camera icon in My Comput-er, and choose Properties. Goto the Events tab, click ‘Saveall pictures to this folder’ andspecify the folder. Now,whenever you connect yourcamera, the pictures will beautomatically downloaded tothat folder.

Care and maintenanceCarry your camera and otheraccessories such as memorycards, batteries, cleaning kitand tripod in a separate bag.Keep your camera coveredwith a plastic bag to protectit from moisture. Also, placesome silica gel bags alongwith it to absorb moisture.

Never use paper tissue ornapkins to clean lenses. Theycontain scratchy wood prod-ucts and may damage thecoating on the lense. Use acamera-cleaning kit thatincudes special brushes and alens-cleaning solution. Keepthe bristles of the len-clean-ing brush from coming incontact with your hands asbody oil gets transferred ontothem. After cleaning with abrush, put a drop of lens-cleaning solution on a lens-cleaning tissue, and clean thelens in circular motions.

Avoid high temperaturesas these affect the camera.When in bright sunny light,keep the camera covered ina white towel when not inuse. Keep the camera awayfrom strong magnetic fields,as it may damage its memo-ry card. Finally, remove thebatteries and store them in adry cool place if you do notplan to use the camera for afew weeks.

Use WIndows XP’s ‘My PicturesScreen Saver’ option to viewyour photos as a screensaver

JANUARY 2004

4


126

■ tips and tricks

SCANNING

buy a model which comewith these accessories, asbuying them separately isexpensive.

Calibrating the scannerCalibrate your scanner everyone or two months for opti-mum results. Calibrationinvolves scanning a knowncolour and adjusting theoutput to match that colour.In case the scanner doesn’tsupport calibration, get astandard gray (RGB=128,

128, 128) reference colourcard from a photo lab, andscan the image along withit. Open it in Photoshop andpress [I] to activate the Eye-dropper tool. The InfoPalette shows the RGB val-ues as you move the mousepointer over the colour card.If it matches with the actualcolour (RGB = 128, 128, 128in this case), your imagecolours are perfect. Other-wise, change the colour bal-ance and brightness of the

A scan lets you get that lovely little pictureonto your desktop. Using these nifty tricks

while you are at it!

Buying a scannerBefore buying a scanner, youneed to keep your budget inmind and evaluate the scan-ner on the following points:Resolution, measured indots per inch (dpi), deter-mines the sharpness of thescan. Typical flatbed scan-ners offer a resolution rang-ing from 600 to 2400 dpi.The second factor is Dynam-ic Range. Scanners thatreproduce white perfectlyhave a minimal optical den-sity or Dmin of 0.0. On theother hand, scanners thatoutput a perfect black have amaximum optical density orDmax of 4.0. These two val-ues constitute the dynamicrange of the scanner. Typicalvalues for these are 2.5 and3.5.

Another factor is the BitDepth. This is concernedwith the analog to digitalconversion of images, dur-ing scanning. Typically,scanners have 48-bit con-versions, with 16-bit eachfor red, blue and green. Thenext feature that you shouldconsider is the speed ofscanning. Though there isno standard method ofmeasuring the speed, youcan compare the time takento scan the same image atthe same settings by differ-ent scanners.

Finally, look for trans-parency adapters for scan-ning slides and negatives,Automated Document Feed-ers (ADF), etc. If you arelooking for any of these fea-tures, make sure that you

Use Descreenfilter when

scanningprinted

material

Calculating image size and PPIUse this table to calculate the scan dpi, depending on the

print resolution and printed size desired:

Printer Type

Print Resolution

Scan Resoltion

Printed Size

2 x 3-inch

4 x 6-inch

5 x 7-inch

8 x 10-inch

Standard inkjet

printer

300 to 320 dpi

150 ppi

300 x 450

pixels

600 x 900

pixels

750 x 1,050

pixels

1,200 x 1,500

pixels

High-quality

inkjet printer

600 to 720 dpi

150 to 240 ppi

400 x 600

pixels

800 x 1,200

pixels

1,000 x 1,400

pixels

1,600 x 2,000

pixels

Photo-quality

inkjet printer

1,200 to 2,880 dpi

240 to 360 ppi

600 x 900

pixels

1,200 x 1,800

pixels

1,500 x 2,100

pixels

2,400 x 3,000

pixels

Actual Pixel Dimensions (Average)

JANUARY 2004127

5

image until you get the pre-cise reference colour. Final-ly, crop out the scannedreference colour card.

Scanning magazinesScans of magazines or news-papers often result in dottedimage patterns, commonlyreferred to as moiré. Min-imise this effect by scan-ning the image at 300 dpiwith the scanner software’sDescreen filter on, and thenre-sizing it to 33 per cent ofits size using photo-editingsoftware such as Photoshop.Finally, apply the UnsharpMask filter.

Scanning line-artLine-art is a clip art, drawingor pencil sketch, consisting oftwo colours. There are threemethods of scanning line-art.The first is the Black andWhite Mode, or 1-bit scan-ning that just picks up theblack areas. This methodsuits line-art that does nothave shades akin to that ofpencil sketches as it keeps the

image size to them i n i m u m .Remember to re-size and rotate atthe time of scan-ning, to preservethe final imagequality.

The othermethod is thegrayscale mode,or 8-bit scanningthat recordsshades of grey.This results inmuch largerfiles, but it’s suit-

able for line-art with shades.The third method—halftone—is a format thatprints black dots in a mannerthat simulates shades of grey.

Scanning for faxScanning at 200 dpi in LineArt mode, 100 per cent ismost suitable when theimage has to be faxed. Theeasiest method would be toprint the image to the faxdriver directly from yourscanner program. Faxalways uses the Line Artmode—even if you scan itin some othermode, the faxsoftware con-verts it intoLine Art.

ScanningoversizedimagesIf the image tobe scanned islarger thanyour scannerglass, but itslongest side is

smaller than the double thelongest side of your scan-ners glass, you can followthis method:

Make a mark after everyeight inches on the longestside of the image from theright to the left. Now, rotatethe image by 180 degreesand mark it in the samemanner, on the oppositelongest side. Here, weassume that the image has alandscape orientation, i.e.,its width is greater than itsheight. Now, align theupper-right corner of theimage with that of the scan-ner glass. Choose the set-tings at which you want toscan the whole image andstart the scan. Save this fileas Image1.tif. Move theimage to the next mark andscan without altering thesettings. Save this file asimage2.tif. Repeat theprocess till you havescanned the entire image.To scan the lower half of theimage, turn the painting by180O and repeat the aboveprocess. This time use a dif-ferent naming convention

like lower1.tif, lower2.tif.This is necessary because wewill have to flip these lowerimages before creating thefinal image.

Open all the images inPhotoshop. Create layers foreach image by clicking Layer> New > Layer from Background.Rotate the canvas by click-ing Image > Rotate Canvas >180O for all the lower-halfimages. Create a new blankimage, large enough toaccommodate all theseimages. Put all the layers onthis image and align themappropriately to get the finalpicture. You can also usePhotoshop CS’s (CreativeSuite) Photomerge feature toautomate the last step.

Saving scanned imagesSave images scanned to beused on the Web or be sentas e-mail attachments in the.JPEG format. . GIF is a betteroption for images such asline arts that have less than256 colours since it results insmaller file sizes.

If you plan to edit theimages later, save them inan uncompressed format.You may also save them inthe TIF format as it allowscompressing without caus-ing loss of image quality. Ifyou are scanning images forarchival, it’s always recom-mended that you save onecopy in your image editor’snative format. For example,if you use Photoshop, savea copy in the PSD format.You might want to save thesecond copy in high qualityJPEG format.

Scan images larger than the scanning area bydividing it into sections

Use the Lineart mode in the scanner softwareto scan line-arts

Image 1 Image 2OVERLAPPED

JANUARY 2004

6


128

PROCESSING

Reducing red-eye effectEye pupils dilate in the dark,thus reflecting the flash lightin the eye’s blood vessels.This gives the person a ‘redeye’. Hence, avoid photo-graphing in the dark. If it’sabsolutely necessary, use acamera with red-eye reduc-tion feature.

Tell the subject do notlook directly into the lens. Ifpossible, use a removableflash that is placed at somedistance from the camera.You may also use photo man-agement software such asPhotoshop album, Picasa,ULead Photo Explorer, JASCto remove red eye.

CroppingCropping is used to editunwanted portions of a pho-tograph. Maintain the aspectratio for prints when crop-ping using software. Forexample, if you need a 5 x 7print, you will need to crop

the image precisely to thatsize. Open Photoshop andpress [Ctrl] + [R] to enablerulers. Right-click on theruler, and select Inches tochange the ruler unit. Now,drag the horizontal guidelineto 5 inches, and position thevertical guideline at 7 inch-es. Press [C] to switch to theCrop tool, and drag a rectan-gle of 5 by 7 inches. Move itto a suitable position, anddouble-click to crop; tryingunusual shapes may be agood idea. For example,heart for a couple’s photo.Cropping comes handywhile correcting horizonlines or straightening yourphotos.

Automated featuresImprove the quality of yourphotographs by using theautomated functions in Pho-toshop. Go to Image > Adjust-ments > Auto Levels and thenapply Auto Contrast and

Auto Color. Finally, sharpenthem via Filter > Sharpen >Sharpen.

Sharpening You can sharpen any imageusing Photoshop’s UnsharpMask filter (Filter > Sharpen >‘Unsharp Mask…’). This com-pensates for the blurringcaused by the low-pass filter

that is found in almost alldigital cameras to improveimage quality. Apply it beforethe image is re-sized, orresampled, but after othercorrections have been done.Its ideal settings would be aradius value of 0.3 to 0.5,threshold value of 0 to 2 andamount between 200 to 500per cent.

For compensating theblurring done by outputprocess, it should be sharp-ened after resize/ resample.Generally, finer the print,the lower will be the radius.For example, you will needa radius of 1.0 to 1.5 forphotos that are printed onpremium inkjet photopaper.

Wipe off dust andscratches Make use of dust and scratch removal software toget clean scans. One suchplug-in is Kodak’s DigitalICE (www.asf.com). Apply thenoise filter to the photo inPhotoshop by going to Filter> Noise > ‘Dust and Scratch-es…’. Next, despeckle theimage by going to Filter >Noise >Despeckle.

You may also use theClone Stamp Tool to clone acleaner area to the dusty one.To use this Photoshop tool,press [C] and click on an areathat resembles your targetarea, while holding down[Alt]. After defining thesource, release [Alt] and paintin the normal way. Doremember to zoom in andkeep the brush size smallerfor better results.

Creating panoramasThe latest version of Photo-shop CS comes with Pho-tomerge—a feature thatallows you to create panora-mas in just a few clicks. Thebest part is that you don’teven need to fix your cameraon a tripod while takingimages, as Photoshop adjuststhe level automatically. OpenPhotoshop CS and click onFile > Automate > Photomerge.Click on Use Files and usethe browse button to locateall the images that want touse for creating the panora-ma. Make sure that the‘Attempt to AutomaticallyArrange Source Images’check box is checked, andclick OK. A dialog box with

Snapped and scanned, but satisfied you arenot? Here’s how you add that touch of class to

them!

Use Photoshop’s Unsharp Maskfilter to sharpen your images

JANUARY 2004129

7

your images identified andadjusted comes up. Click OKto accept and use the Croptool to crop out unnecessaryportions.

Visit www.panoguide.com—a Web site dedicated to cre-ating panoramas, for moretips and software.

Distortion correctionDistortion in photographscould be Barrel distortion—alens effect that leaves photoswith a spherical distortion atthe centre, or it could be Pin-cushion distortion, which

results in images that arepinched in the centre.

An easy solution to cor-rect this would be to use thePanorama Tools plug-in forPhotoshop that can bedownloaded from http://home.no.net/dmaurer/~dersch/Index.htm. Open the ZIP

file, andextract thepano12.dllfile in thefolder wherePhotoshopis installed.Now, extractall the filesinside the‘PhotoshopPlugin’ inthe ZIP fileto the Pho-

toshop Plug-Ins or Filtersdirectory. Restart Photoshopand open the photo in needof correction. First, go to Fil-ter > Panorama Tools > Correctto bring up the ‘CorrectOptions’ dialog box. SelectRadial Shift, and click onthe option next to it tobring up the ‘Set Polynomi-al Coefficients for RadialCorrection’ dialog box. Set‘a’ and ‘c’ to zero for allcolours, and choose a valuefor ‘b’ and ‘d’ such that theirvalues add up to one. Thevalues for ‘b’ should be neg-

ative to correct barrel dis-tortion, and positive torectify pincushion distor-tions. Start with 0.015 for ‘b’and 0.085 for ‘d’ to correctpincushion, and -0.015 and+1.015 for barrel distortion.Increase or decrease the val-ues gradually until the

images are corrected proper-ly. Refer to the Readme.htmlfile inside the ZIP file forfurther details.

Warning!There are two ways to rotateimages in Windows XP. Youcan right-click on thethumbnail view in WindowsExplorer and choose RotateClockwise’ or ‘RotateCounter Clockwise’, or usethe rotate image button inWindows Picture and FaxViewer. However, every timean image is rotated, it’ssaved, which results in someloss of quality. Thus, make ita point to use specialisedphoto-editing software thatsave only the final image. Ifyou use Photoshop, it wouldbe best to keep saving theimage that is being workedupon in the PSD format.Save it in the JPEG formatonly when you’re done withall the editing. The use of therotate image function inWindows XP should be thelast step of your editingprocess.

Image resolutionPerhaps the most important

thing to keep in mind whileprinting images is the reso-lution. Ideally, a 4 x 6 inchesphoto should be have a reso-lution of at least 800 x 600.For 5 x 7 prints, it should be1024 x 768 and for 8 x 10prints, it should be 1600 x1200 pixels. Furthermore,you need to have a dpi of300 for sharper, clearerprints. Use Photoshop tochange all these parameters.Access them by going toImage > Image Size.

Tinting black and whitephotosUsing photo-editing applica-tions, you can add colour toblack and white photos.Open the image in Photo-shop. Go to Image > Mode,and ensure that the colourmode is RGB or CMYK. Now,press and hold down [Shift]and use the Lasso tool toselect a certain area, say, theskin of the photographedperson. That done, go toImage > Adjustments > Varia-tions and adjust the levels toobtain the desired colour.Now, select other elementsin the photograph andadjust the colour variations

in the samemanner. Use thePath tool for bet-ter control overselections.

Finally, createa new layer with‘soft light’ blend-ing mode and 85per cent opacity.Now, use thedodge and burntool to lightenand darken theAdjust image resolution before printing

NoDistortion

BarrelDistortion

PincushionDistortion

Create an impressive panorama in minutes usingPhotomerge in Photoshop CS!

JANUARY 2004

8


130

specific areas to finalise theimage.

Print easyThe easiest way to print yourimages is to use the PhotoPrinting Wizard in WindowsXP. Open the image folder inWindows Explorer, select theimages you need to printwhile holding down [Ctrl]and then click ‘Print theselected pictures’ under Pic-

ture Tasks. Follow theinstructions to print yourimages in Full Page, ContactSheet, 8 x 10, 5 x 7, 4 x 6, 3.5x 5 or Wallet prints.

File naming By default, images down-loaded from a digital cameraare named as DSCN0001,DSCN0002, … Use the batchfunction in Windows XP torename them. Open theimage folder in WindowsExplorer, hold down [Ctrl],select all the desired imagesand press [F2]. Name themappropriately and press[Enter]. If you entered ‘birth-day’, the last selected file willbe renamed ‘birthday’ andthe preceding files will berenamed ‘birthday (1)’,‘birthday (2)’, etc.

Photos on the WebWindows XP’s Web Publish-ing Wizard stores photo-graphs online, as private orpublic albums. Open thefolder that contains yourphotographs, hold down[Ctrl] and select the picturesyou want to share. Next,

click ‘Publishthe selecteditems to theWeb’ under ‘Fileand FolderTasks’ to startthe Wizard.After you haveconfirmed thephotos youwant uploaded,specify its loca-tion to the Ser-vice Providersin the nextscreen. Here,

we choose MSN Groups—thestandard option. The wizardthen gives you the option ofkeeping your files public orprivate. Accordingly, you areasked the name of the group

and a few other details aspart of the registrationprocess. It then displays theWeb address of your group.Finally, the Wizard uploadsthe photos.

E-mailing To e-mail photographs,right-click the image in Win-dows Explorer and chooseSend To > Mail Recipient. A dia-log box in Windows XP pro-vides you with three optionsto re-size the image prior toe-mailing it: 640 x 480 strict-ly for computer viewing, 800x 600 for 4 x 6 prints and1024 x 768 for 5 x 7 prints.Of course, you can alwayssend it as it is!

HistogramExposure is one importantfactor that differentiatesgood photos from shoddyones. A good photo has all itselements illuminated prop-erly. Use the histogram tocorrect exposure. Thoughmany cameras show a his-togram on their LCDs afteryou take a picture, it’s betterto view the histogram in aphoto-editing tool and makecorrections there. Access the

histogram in Photo-shop by going toImage > Adjustments >Levels.

The right sideof the histogramshows the lightestportion or ‘high-lights’ of theimages, the middlesection shows themid-tones and theleft most side showsthe darker portions

or ‘shadows’. The verticalaxis shows the pixels in each

level. An underexposedimage has many pixels con-centrated in the shadows.Move the sliders to improvethe distribution of brightnesslevels. Alternatively, use theAuto button to let Photo-shop make the adjustments.Further, you can also adjusthistogram of channels, i.ered, blue and green, if theirdistribution appears improp-er. For example, adjust thehistogram for the blue chan-nel if the sky looks dull inyour photograph

Print your images easily with Windows XP’sPhoto Printing Wizard

Use Windows XP’s Web Publishing Wizard toshare your photos easily

Use Histogram to correct theexposure in your photographs

Use Adjust Variations dialog tocolorize Black and WhitePhotos.

FEBRUARY 2004


145

9

Tracking itDown

Mahesh Benkar

contents10 General search engines

12 Metacrawlers

14 Metacrawler tools

15 Peer to peer searches

15 Database searches

Sturgeon’s Law statesthat 90 per cent ofeverything is useless.You know this is truewhile searching forinformation online.TnT comes to yourrescue with fast andrelevant searchesthat help you defySturgeon’s Law

Grokker2Copernic Agent Basic

10


146 FEBRUARY 2004

GoogleThink search, andchances are you’llthink www. google.com.Here’s how we makethe reliable horse workbetter for you.

At Google’s homepage, if you click onAdvanced Search, youcan access advancedoptions that narrow downresults to more specific links.

Language You tend to get a lot ofnon-English results whilstsearching. By restrictingyour search to English sitesfrom the drop-down box,you don’t waste time onresults you can’t understandanyway.

Getting format specificYou can search specificallyfor, say, PDFs or PPT files.Choose the format of yourchoice across the six listedon the Advanced page, orexclude the results that

return formats that youdon’t want, by selecting theformat and clicking ‘Don’t’.

Here’s a wordIf you usually look for spe-cific words in a Web page,fine-tune Google to do justthat. Use the Occurrencesoption that lets you specifywhere you want to see thesearch terms, whether in thetext, URL, title, or anywhereelse in the page.

Domaining itThe Domain option lets youlimit searches to a particulardomain, or avoid bringingup results from it. Fill in the

domain box with a Web sitethat you want to restrictresults to, and select Only, oravoid picking up resultsfrom, by selecting Don’tfrom the drop-down box.

Pageing specifically The options under the Page-Specific Search heading allowfor quickly locating pages thatoffer services, or have contentsimilar to that of a specifiedWeb page. For instance, if youenter ‘space.com’ (a site forastronomy enthusiasts), thesimilar pages listed includesome from NASA as well asSky and Telescope magazine,and several other well-knownspace-enthusiast sites.

PreferencesIf Google is your tool oftrade, it makes sense totweak it to your quirks—head to Preferences on the

main page. If you want yourbrowser to remember yourpreferences, you need to setit to accept cookies—Tools >Internet Options > Privacy for IE.

Language, pleaseYou can choose to restrictsearches to only Englishpages, but remember Googlealso provides a reasonablyaccurate translation of pagesin five listed languages—Ger-man, French, Spanish, Italianand Portuguese. Also, youmay occasionally need resultsthat are listed in another lan-guage—say, if you’re research-ing French poetry. If you onlyneed English results, set itfrom the Advanced Searchpage instead.

Numbers and pagesYou can set the number ofreturned results on a singlepage, and the way in which

■ tips and tricks

Want more than plain HTML? Look forspecific document file types

GENERAL SEARCH ENGINES

Google KeywordsAction

Looks for documents containingboth ‘Chevrolet’ and ‘Camaro’Results will contain ‘Chevrolet’but not ‘Camaro’Searches for the term ‘trans-ducer’ as well as its synonymsResults will have either ‘May’ or‘June’, or both Returns Google's cached pagesof www.yoursite.comGives the definition of theword ‘virus’Will restrict search to pagescontaining ‘apple’ only atwww.food.comWill fetch results of sites similarto www.greatvacations.comWill present information thatGoogle has on www.sweep-stakes.com

Usage

Chevrolet +Camaro

Chevrolet -Camaro

~transducer

May OR June

cache:http://www.yoursite.com/define:virus

Apple site:www.food.com

related:www.greatvacations.cominfo:www.sweepstakes.com

Keyword/symbol [+]

[-]

[~]

OR

Cache:

define:

site:

related:

info:

For more search terms check out http://www.google.com/help/operators.html

Illustrations: Farzana Cooper

FEBRUARY 2004147

11

results are opened—under‘Number of Results’, select anumber from 10 to 100 fromthe drop down box. Obvi-ously, the larger the number,the more time it will take forthe results page to load. Tickthe Results Window check-box to open search results ina new browser window.

Content censoringTo ensure that search resultsdo not turn up explicit sexu-al content, use the Safe-Search option. This can beset under SafeSearch Filter-ing. Choose from three lev-els—no filtering, moderatefiltering that only blocksexplicit images, and strictfiltering for explicit textand images.

All across GoogleOnce set, your Googlepreferences are main-tained throughout all ofGoogle’s services, sobetween general search-es and Google Groups,there are no differencesin settings.

AltaVista AltaVista (www.altavista.com) has powerfulsearch capabilitiesunder its plain and sim-ple skin. It’s one of the

older engines around, butstill comes with a bounty offeatures.

Truly fast searchesWhile AltaVista is fast,nothing’s ever fast enough!If you want even fasterresults, switch over to thetext-only version athttp://www.altavista.com/web/text. It’s plain and sim-ple, with no graphical ele-ments to spice up and slowdown the page.

Advanced searchAdvanced Web searching isaccessible from the mainpage. You can build upqueries using exact phrasematches, as well as by thepresence or absence of key-

words across apage. This ispossible fromthe ‘Build aquery with…’option.

If you’dprefer Booleanoperators, theoption is avail-

able under ‘Search with…’.Use keywords such as ‘AND’,‘OR’, ‘AND NOT’ and‘NEAR’. ‘NEAR’ is used tospecify that two termsshould be located closetogether—within 10words—as in ‘iit NEAR admis-sions’ for a search on ‘IITadmissions’.

Advance advanced Other Advanced Searchoptions trim your searches.‘Date’ will limit the date andtime-range of the Web pagesyou are looking for and ‘File-type’ will let you specify theformats. You can also limitsearches to specific top-leveldomains or site domains.Site Collapse, if enabled, willdisplay a maximum of tworesults per site. If disabled, itwill show you all results,grouped by relevance.Results from the same siteare indented beneath thefirst result.

Advanced? Not quiteIf you prefer the query-build-ing tool, check out the ‘MorePrecision’ version of AltaVistaat http://www.altavista.com/?qbmode=. You don’t get allthe advanced features, butyou do have access to thequery-building options.

Wildcarding AltaVista supports wildcardcharacters; use [*] to getsearch results based on varia-tions of words. This is how itworks: there have to be atleast three letters before the[*] sign. Remember, any letteror letters can take the place ofthe wildcard character, so asearch for ‘Micro*’ can resultin ‘Micro’, ‘Micron’,‘Microsoft’, ‘Microscope’,‘Microscopic’, and so on.

PreferencesClick on Settings on themain page to set your prefer-ences. You can choose to setlanguage settings (English or

Make sure all your searches are safe for the family

The true strength of AltaVista is itsAdvanced Search

AltaVista KeywordsAction

Looks for pages containingboth the words (any order,anywhere in the page) Looks for pages containingboth the words, if not at leastoneResults served up contain ‘Custard’, but not ‘Apple’Looks for pages containingboth ‘Colour’ and ‘Color’Finds documents from the .edu domainFinds pages that feature animage called boating Finds sites that are similar incontent to eBay, the auctionsite

Usage

Custard AND Apple

Custard OR Apple

Custard AND NOTApple Col*r

domain:edu

image:boating

like:ebay.com

Keyword/Symbol AND

OR

AND NOT

[*]

domain

Image

Like

See the complete list at http://www.altavista.com/help/adv_search/syntax

FEBRUARY 2004

12


148

■ tips and tricks

METACRAWLERS

MammaClaiming to be the motherof all search engines,Mamma (www.mamma.com)gives fast results for yourqueries. And it’s got somepretty cool advanced fea-tures as well.

Search operatorsSearch operators make life alittle simpler when you’researching through reams ofpages to locate elusive infor-mation. In Mamma, youcan use both mathematicaloperators, as well as Boolean

operators, to separate thewheat from the chaff.Here’s how.

Refining your searchMamma provides a prettynifty service called ‘RefineYour Search’ that provideslinks to further sub-topicswithin a search. This featureprovides more specific topicsearches. If you input ageneral query, such as ‘Linuxkernel programming’, the refinesearch options will include‘kernel programming’ as wellas ‘Linux device drivers’.

Mamma search keywordsAction

Looks for pages containingboth the words (any order,anywhere in the page) Looks for pages containingeither of the words, if there areno results with both the words Results served up contain‘watch’, but not ‘casio’ Looks for pages containing‘watch’ and ‘casio’. Results will contain ‘watch’ butnot ‘casio’ Results will have the exactphrase ‘casio watch’ present,and in this order.

Usage

watch AND casio

watch OR casio

watch NOT casio

watch +casio

watch -casio

"casio watch"

Keyword/Symbol AND

OR

NOT

[+]

[-]

" "

Spanish), or access theFamily Filter page. ForWeb searches, set theoptions for displayingWeb page information,the number of results tobe returned per page, aswell as browser languagetroubleshooting, shouldyou have trouble withjunk text being displayed.

FiltersAltaVista takes explicitcontent very seriously; bydefault, all family filteringagainst sexually explicit con-tent is turned on. You canaccess it at http://www.altavista.com/web/ffset. You can choosethe sort of filtering, whetherrestricted to image video andaudio searches, for all or nosearches. To enforce this, youcan also protect the settingswith a password.

AltaVista other searchesYou can also search for morethan just Web pages—thinkimages, MP3 audio, video andnews. Like the Yahoo! Directo-ries, AltaVista too has a direc-tory that you can use whilesearching for information. TheImage Search has limitedoptions, in terms of size andcolour; however, it is very fast.

Cool toolsWhile not in the traditionalrealm of search, these toolswill undoubtedly help youwhile you work on academicresearch.

BabelfishAltaVista’s coolest tool hasgot to be the Babel Fish Trans-lation engine (http://babelfish.

altavista.com/babelfish/). It’sreasonably accurate for gen-eral use, and lightning fast—be it a few lines of text, or anentire Web page. Enter thetext in the blank text block(up to 150 words), or enterthe URL of the Web page youwant translated in the URLbox, to get it translated to thelanguage of your choice.

ConvertersWith AltaVista around, youdon’t have to dip into yourpocket calculator for anyquick mathematical conver-sions. Use AltaVista’s quickconverter functions to helpyou work between conver-sions—for example, enter-ing ‘convert 1 in’ at theAltaVista search box willgive you all the metric andimperial equivalents of 1inch. So, you can converttime by using ‘convert 45 sec’;convert speed by typing‘convert 1 mach’; do tempera-ture conversions by entering‘convert 40 F’; convert weightusing ‘convert 170 lb’; do areaconversions by enter ‘convert25 acre’; and do cooking vol-umes conversions by typing‘convert 1 gal’.

Parlez-vous Français? Babelfish tothe rescue…

FEBRUARY 2004149

13

Power searchUse the Power Searchoption found on the mainpage to fine-tune yoursearch. Here, under ‘Selectsearch sources’, you canselect the directories andindexing engines to be usedby Windows. Under Pay-Per-Click, you can safelychoose to ignore all theoptions, since the resultsdisplayed here may not be relevant to your search. Setadult content reduction, ifdesired, and other optionssuch as highlighting searchterms. Also, set the otheroptions for speed, numberof results displayed (keep itlow for fast page loading),descriptions, and whetheryou want the results toopen in a new window.

DogpileAnother of those massiveWeb crawling searchengines, Dogpile (www.dog-pile.com), gives you resultsfrom across a wide varietyof search engines. Use Dog-pile to search from Google,Yahoo!, AltaVista, Ask

Jeeves, About, and othersearch engines at a sin-gle go.

Web search Dogpile’s Web Search issimple and easy to use.You can pre-refine yoursearch by choosingbetween Web searches,images, audio, multime-dia, new and shopping.This will limit yourresults to those cate-gories.

Setting preferences Setting the adult filter herewill ensure that all yourDogpile searches are filtered.Also, set the other optionssuch as language, automati-cally correcting misspelledterms—clicking on this willauto-correct all spellings, afeature you may not likeunless you make typosoften. You can also set theway you want the results dis-played. This can be arrangedeither by relevance, orgrouped by search engine.Ideally, choose relevance, asthis will remove obviousduplicates in the results.However, if you find too fewresults, it makes sense toview results by searchengine. You might also liketo have all results open in aseparate browser window;this feature can be enabledby checking ‘Open SearchResults Links in NewWindow’.

Remember, you need tolet your browser acceptcookies so that youcan save these preferencesas default.

Advanced searchDogpile’s advanced search isaccessed from the main page.Start off by qualifying yoursearches with key terms thatyou want or don’t want listedon the results—the Dogpileadvanced search optionmakes a exact phrase search,as well as a search using eithersome or all of the listed key-words. You can also useBoolean search terms instead,by using a combination of‘AND’, ‘OR’ and ‘NOT’.

More search optionsFor more search power, youmight consider using thedomain search option underAdvanced Search. You couldstart with restricting search-es to, or excluding searchesfrom, top-level domainssuch as .com or .edu, or getmore specific with specificdomains such asMicrosoft.com. The ‘LastPage Update’ option will letyou obtain results that werelisted before an update onthe target date, or you couldchoose to see results after anupdate on a certain date.

Audio search The audio search is a prettynifty tool. Input search key-words, and you‘ll get linksto audio files that fit thedescription, or the key-words you entered. And no,this isn’t a smart way tostart downloading warez;copyrighted content is pret-ty much non-existent.

MultimediaThe multimedia option isfor searching for video files.The results you get are inthe formof links to siteshosting video content in avariety of formats.

News, shoppingDogpile’s primary newsfeeds are culled from ABCNews, and they aren’talways the latest around,but you can also get feedsfrom the FAST searchengine, with quick, up-to-the-minute results.Shopping is also an optionwith Dogpile, but it’s US-centric, and will, at best,give you an indication ofproduct prices.

Use Dogpile to sniff out elusive Web pagesEven more refinements popping up,thanks to good ol’ Mamma

FEBRUARY 2004

14


150

METACRAWLER TOOLS

Copernic Agent BasicCopernic Agent Basic(www.copernic.com) is ametasearch tool that allowsyou to query multiplesearch engines with a singlerequest. At installation,Copernic adds a toolbar toIE and works with itthroughout.

Working smartYou can search from within

the Copernic applicationwindow, or from the Coper-nic toolbar on InternetExplorer. The Copernicapplication window searchtakes place at the extremeleft, and results are dis-played in the right-handbottom pane. All previoussearches are listed in the toppane. Click on any of themto open the search results inthe results pane.

Enabling searchenginesThe quickest way to look atall the enabled searchengines is by clicking on thehot link above the Categorypane at the left. By default,this reads ‘13 enginesenabled’. Click on this toselect the search enginesyou want to work with.

Verifying resultsOver a period of time, if youare looking at saved results,it makes sense to ensurethat all the results still exist.Go to Results > Verify Links toverify all the links in thesaved results.

Viewing resultsYour search results areonly good if they’re under-standable. So, if you havea cluttered result pane,click Result Layout to getthe results either moredetailed or made simpler.With the advanced features inC o p e r n i cProfessional,you cangroup resultsu s i n gnumerouscriteria, butfor the Basicversion, thec o m m o ndisplay toolis a goodplace tostart.

GrokkerGrokker (www.groxis.com) is a30-day trial software that’s nota metasearch tool in the tradi-tional sense. It works with the

information that it drawsfrom search engines such asGoogle, as well as shoppingsites such as Amazon, and rep-resents the information invisual maps, making the rele-vance of the search results eas-ier to understand.

Visual mappingGrokker takes search termsand draws maps; the size ofthe resultant mapped spherescorresponds to the relevanceof the document. When youclick a link, Grokker opens upthe pages in a browser paneon the right.

Metasearch toolsYou can use Grokker to runsearches by ranking, sourcesand domains—commercial,educational, non-profit orother. The slider controlsare located at the bottom,and let you tweak theseresults. You can see theeffect on the map drawn.Grokker is an excellent tool

to understand the relationsbetween search keywordsand analysing the informa-tion obtained.Copernic helps you perform a smart metasearch

Grokker draws a map and delivers visual searchresults that will make more sense

FEBRUARY 2004151

15

KaZaA (using theKaZaA Lite K++ client)KaZaA Lite is a popular P2Pclient software Whether it’smusic, movies, software oreven games, chances areyou’ll find it on the KaZaAnetwork. The best bit is thatyou can choose to searchusing Google, or chooseinstead to perform a P2Psearch. Take a look at howto make advanced intelli-gent searches in KaZaA.

Specialise, specialise Searching KaZaA is fairlyeasy. If you’ve chosen P2Psearches over Googlesearch, in the main searchsidebar on the left, choosefrom searching for specificbinary files such as music,video files, images, or doc-uments. It makes sense todo an ‘everything’ searchonly if you can’t locate aspecific file.

Timing searchesBy default, KaZaA Litesearches for only two min-

utes. This can give a hugenumber of results, or noneat all—depending on thecriteria, the rarity of the fileyou’re searching for andyour connection speed. Toincrease this time, click onAuto Search More (top-leftside-bar). You can choose tosearch for longer for moreresults, or do continuoussearch—as clients keep con-necting to the network, youshould see more results.

Audio searchingHere’s the quickest way tolocate the right audio file inKaZaA. First, select P2Psearch and choose theAudio option. Once done,keep the default ‘All’ optionchecked, and enter theartist’s name and song. Siftthrough the multitude ofresults by clicking on ‘MoreSearch Options’. Now, youcan choose to refine thesearch by the ‘quality’ and‘integrity’ ratings to ensurethat you get the best down-load from the lot.

Family filteringTo keep the ‘U’ rating onyour P2P searches, you canset in search filter limits.These can be accessed byclicking on Search Filter onthe sidebar, or by going toOptions > Kazaa Lite K++Options and flipping across

to the Filters tab. You can setthe filter here, and choosefrom pre-configured modesthat filter adult content.Optionally, all such filteringcan be password protected.You can also choose to filtersuspicious file types, basedon file extensions.

PEER TO PEER SEARCHES

DATABASE SEARCHES

Articles and extractsA good place to start searchingfor articles online is www.find-articles.com, now owned byLookSmart. FindArticles storesarticle listings across manygenres such as automobiles,art, computers, computingtechnology, etc., from as farback as 1998.

Searching for articlesThe ‘Advanced search’,accessed from the main page,is limited. However, the sitestill features listings on manyarcane subjects with substan-tial results. For a narrowed-down list, search from themagazine genre drop-downlist to the right.

You can also tweak thesearch here with searches for

exact phrases, or the presence(or absence), of keywords.

DirectoryAs you search FindArticles,you can see the directory fromwhich you’re receiving theresults. To narrow in on asource, inspect the sourcepublications.

Papers onlineOne of the biggest reposito-ries of papers online iswww.itpapers.com. With linksto over 25,000 whitepaperson diverse topics, this sitecan be invaluable as a centrallisting for research papers.Search here is, unfortunately,limited to plain searches,with little tweaking possible;however the site main page

FEBRUARY 2004

16


152

lists the groups into whichthe papers have been dis-tributed—whitepapers onLinux, for instance, areaccessible under Platform/OS> Linux/Open Source.

Going back in timeIf you’re searching for a pagethat existed and was updatedlater, or was taken offthe Internet, there area couple of nifty tricksfor accessing it.

Google cachingUse Google’s cachingfeature to access sitesthat are unreachable,or haverecently shut down.Do this either bysearching for the siteon Google and click-ing on the ‘Cached’option, or by typing‘ c a c h e : w w w . s o m e s i t e .com/somepage .html’.

Note that Google typical-ly caches a recent copy ofthe Web page as it crawls theInternet, so looking for real-ly old versions of a page maynot be possible with Google.

The WayBack MachineThis is how you get years

back in time, thecyber way. TheW a y B a c kMachine, locatedat www. archive.org(mirrored at http://archive.bibalex. org),is the super-repos-itory for all thatwas there, andmay not existanymore.

Advanced searchClick on Advanced Searchto launch the WayBackMachine’s advanced searchpage. You can specify theURL of the page you wantretrieve and its time (month,day and year). You canretrieve pages dating from1996, although there won’t

be every version of the page;most will be cached, depend-ing on popularity.

Other great featuresThe WayBack machine alsooffers you options such ascomparing two versions ofWeb pages. In case a Web pagehas several similar cached ver-sions, you can choose to seeall versions, or just one. You

can also choose to generate aPDF of a Web page.

For more than the WebThere’s more than just text atwww.archive.org. As one of theInternet’s premier indexingand archiving organisations,you can also access a largeamount of statistical data,free historic videos, and freehigh-quality audio that spansthe Internet age.

UsenetThere’s nothing like theUsenet to access informationfrom peer groups and peoplefrom across the world. At onetime, the biggest source forarchived posts, in the Usenetcommunity, used to bewww.dejanews.com. But afterGoogle took it over, allarchived Usenet posts arelocated at Google Groups(http://groups. google.com)

Advanced Groups SearchThe Advanced Groups Searchaccessible from the Groupspage will allow you to locatemessages by keywords, exactphrase matches, as well as bynewsgroup posted to, subject,author, message ID and lan-guage. You can also checkposts by message dates—all

the way back to 1981.Advanced Group Search alsolets you set in SafeSearch fil-ters to prevent adult contentfrom being displayed.

DirectoriesDirectories are aggregatedcollections of Web pages and sources of information,under common subject-based groupings. Searchesusing directories turn upresults of similar sites, fromwhere more detailed Website specific searches can be done.

Yahoo directoryLocated at http://dir.yahoo.com,the Yahoo Directory featuresa wide variety of subjectsfrom which you can searchfor similar Web sites.Advanced Search options(from the Directory mainpage), will let you searchusing keyword and phrasematches, as well as domain,country and languagesearches, which helps gener-ate results based on narrow,specific searches.

DMOZThe Open Directory Project,located at www.dmoz.org aimsto be the largest human edit-

ed directory ofthe Web, withover four millionWeb sitesgrouped across5,00,000 cate-gories. Advancedsearches let youaccess limitedf i n e - t u n i n goptions for a fewcategories.

Use Find articles to locate documents from asfar back as 1998

Go back in time to search for now-defunctpages using the Wayback Machine

Perform a Usenet search from as far back as1981 using Google Groups

MARCH 2004


115

17

To be aWriter...

Atul Deshmukh

contents18 Web toolkits

20 Blogging

21 Accessibility

23 Resources

For those smitten by the writing bug, but facingthe writer’s block, we’ll make a writer of youyet…

18


116 MARCH 2004

1st Page 20001st Page 2000 (www.evrsoft.com) is a simple HTML editorwith loads of features to helpyou create some dramaticWeb sites with little effort.

Working aroundThe coding workspace com-prises tabbed windows. Bydefault, the Edit window isdisplayed, followed by thePreview and Reference panes.Click on the Reference paneto access a copy of severalHTML guides, including theW3C HTML Reference.

Moding around1st Page 2000 lets you accessvarious modes, depending onyour familiarity with the software. You are in the Easyor Normal mode, by default,when you start off for the first time. The page will show you large icons and simple controls, with all theadvanced features within therespective menus. Once you

are familiar with the tools athand, you can go to Optionsand switch to the Advancedor Expert mode.

Quick workTo access simple spell-check-ing, press [F7] for all textualcontent; use LiveSpell (Tools >LiveSpell) to mark out incor-rectly spelled text; use the the-saurus by pressing [Shift] + [F7].

TaggingFind all assorted tag shortcutsfor start, end, bold, italics, etc.,under the Tag menu. Click toinsert them into the HTMLdocument. In the same menu,are the common font faces,font colours and font sizes.

Cleaning upTidyHTML, a nifty customis-able tool that comes with 1stPage, helps you clean andtidy up your HTML code ofall its errors—go to Tools >TidyHTML Format and Fix.Warnings are generated for

any problems that TidyHTMLcannot solve.

Quick and tidyUse TidyHTML’s quick-fix fea-tures (Tools > TidyHTML QuickTools) to apply source-format-ting, upgrade to a style sheet,or convert to XML or outputtags in uppercase.

InsertThe Insert menu easesthe task of addingmaterial onto the page.Whether it’s adding ananchor to another Webpage or another service,an e-mail link, images,tables or Java applets,etc, you can do it all.For instance, shouldyou want to add in atable to the page, click on

Insert > Tables…, and key in theformatting as desired.

Perls of wisdom1st Page 2000 comes withloads of features to jazz upyour Web pages. Go to Script-ing > Full Featured Perl Scripts,and choose from countdowntimers, credit card validators,

etc. Your servershould be runninga CGI service, incase you wish touse the script.

JavaScriptmagicGo to Scripting >Instantz Scripts toaccess a list ofJavaScripts, such

as Audio Effects, BackgroundEffects, Buttons,Calendars, Clocks,Menus, Passwordsand so on; click onany of them to getfurther options.Choose the kindof effect you wantto display, andclick Insert.Selecting Scripts >Commonly UsedJavaScript Wizard

■ tips and tricks

Use TidyHTML's powerful features to cleanup your HTML code

WEB TOOLKITS

Illustrations: Farzana Cooper

Use the Insert menu's numerous options toinsert lots of little HTML code with ease

The Instanz JavaScript wizard has lotsof easy-to-use JavaScripts

Your own Web site is one of the best ways todisplay your art. These site creation tools willhelp you bring forth your creativity online…

MARCH 2004117

19

lets you access JavaScripts for several common applications such as drop-down menus, documentfade effects, browser typeand so on.

Rollover ImagesOne really cool effect youcan add to your page is therollover image effect. Whilein the Easy mode, click onthe palette icon on the tool-bar, and select Insert

Rollover Image. In the appletthat opens, specify theanchor and the ALT text tobe inserted, and the imagename as well. Click OK whenyou’re done.

FrontPage 2002FrontPage 2002 isMicrosoft’s standard HTML-editing and Web site cre-ation tool that comes withOffice 2002.

Creating your sitesFrontPage 2002 comes with ahost of templates for all sortsof Web sites. Setting up a sim-ple personal Web site is just amatter of minutes. StartFrontPage, go to File > NewPage or Web, and select Per-sonal Web from the right-hand pane. Select PersonalWeb again and click OK.Thus, FrontPage creates adirectory structure, as well asall the pages that you imme-

diately need foryour Web site.

You canedit the pagecontent direct-ly in the Nor-mal pane. TheHTML paneshows you all

the HTML content forthat page, while Previewgives you a preview of thepage in Internet Explorer.Finally, publish the pageby going to File > PublishWeb wizard. You mayupload the pages directlyto your Web site using theFile Transfer Protocol(FTP). Note that you need aWeb server with theMicrosoft FrontPage 2000Server Extensions turned

on, or else the pages will notdisplay accurately.

Creating database-driven sitesFrontPage 2002 lets you buildnifty database-driven Websites that work with yourbusiness even if you don’tknow how to work with data-bases, HTML, or ASP. Here’show you can, for example,capture e-mail addresses and

phone numbers in a data-base. Go to File > New Page orWeb. In the right-hand pane,select Database Interface Wiz-ard and click OK. Choose‘Create a new Access databasewithin your web’. Click Next,and set a name forthe database con-nection. Specifythe names andtypes (whetherstring, numbers,etc.), of the data-base fields in thenext screen. Clickon Next, and thedatabase is created.In the next screen,specify the pagesyou want created; by defaulta submission page and aresults page are alreadyselected. Finally, click Nextand then Finish. Upload the database and the pages to aWeb server that supportsActive Server Pages (ASP),ActiveX Data Objects,Microsoft FrontPage 2000Server Extensions or Share-Point team Services.

Creating all sortsFrontPage also lets you createWeb sites that provide a cor-porate façade, or Web-based

customer support.Go to File > NewPage or Web, andchoose Web siteTemplates fromthe right-handpane. This opensup the Templatesapplet for you tomake a choice.

ViewsYou can employ

FrontPage to inspect yourWeb pages too. Use theViews panel on the left-hand side of FrontPage tosee various parameters onyour Web site. For instance,clicking on Page lets you see

the entire page in the work-space; Folders shows thefolder structure; Reportsbuilds up a site summarythat details various Web siteparameters such as pictures,unlinked and linked pages,broken hyperlinks, etc. Nav-igation shows you see a tree-like layout of the entire Website, where you can add,delete or link in more pages.Hyperlinks shows youhyperlinks or anchors foreach page in the folder list.Finally, Tasks shows you anylisted tasks for the Web site.

JavaScript for rollover images is nowvery easily inserted into your code

FrontPage 2002's menu-based interface setsup database and front-end HTML in a jiffy

The Views menu lets you inspect and changeyour whole site schema

MARCH 2004

20


118

■ tips and tricks

Live Journal Live Journal (www.livejournal.com) is an excellent Web siteto start your blogging

odyssey. It lets you set up asimple blog with images. Reg-

istration is verystraightforward.After logging in,

go to Journaland chooseUpdate… Thisopens theUpdate page,

where you can key in yourthoughts, adventures, experi-ences, etc., into the text field.Additional options let youput in access levels to makeposts public, private or acces-

sible only to friends. You can also disallow comments.You can define pictures youwant to use, as well as clickthe Pictures link to add newpictures. Finally, click onUpdate Journal to load theentry onto the blog.

CustomisationLive Journal allowsfor limited cus-tomisation withinthe page. ClickManage > Customize.Here, the settingslet you choosebetween S1, the oldsystem and S2, thenew system.

S1S1 lets you customise yourblog page layout using thePage Layout Style that has anumber of listed styles. Lay-out customisation is possiblewith recent events and views.Also, set colour themeoptions here. A cool feature isStyle Override thatlets you tweak spe-cific things aboutyour page layout.These are valid atthe beginning of adocument, and arelimited to <title>,<base>, <style>,<link>, and<meta>. Finally,

change the lookand feel of yourMood icons andsave the changes.

S2The layout cus-tomisation in theS2 system lets you

change language and themes.Choose to blog in English, sixother languages, or opt for acustomised language. Finally,click Customize, under Indi-vidual settings, to set colour,font, presentation and textoptions. Even more detailed

presentation styles are possi-ble with their style systemlanguage, also known as S2.

Adding friendsYou can add friends who willbe able to access specific sec-tions of your blog that are

Add in tasks from Edit > Tasks> Add Tasks… Use the Tasksview to track these.

Page optionsFine-tune compatibilityoptions for your HTML proj-ects so that they are accessed,either by several browsers, or aspecific one. You can even

host them on Apache orMicrosoft IIS Web servers. Goto Tools > Page Options. Flipover to the Compatibility tab,and select the browsers thatyou want to provide access to.Likewise, choose the appro-priate version of the browseryou’re targetting. Servers letsyou choose between Apache

and IIS. For example,select Microsoft IIS forpages that are dynam-ically generated withASP. Be sure to checkthe ‘Microsoft Front-Page Server Exten-sions’ checkbox forprojects that need it.You can also select theappropriate settingsfrom the remaining,such as ActiveX controls, VBScript,JavaScript, ASP, theCSS version, etc.

BLOGGINGBlogging is a neat way to get your work online,

as well as a channel to communicate withother people of similar interests. Let’s look at

two popular Weblogs—Live Journal and Blogger

Set the custom page options from thePage Options applet

Live Journal lets you interact with a vastcommunity of bloggers

S2 lets you customise your blog’s layout, andeven has a style system language called S2

The Friends tool lets you read your friend’sposts, and lets them read all yours

MARCH 2004119

21

not available tothe general public.You can also viewtheir posts on the Friends page.Friends have to beLive Journal users.Go to Manage >Friends to edit, addand filter friends.Finally, click onSave Changes andaccess the updatedFriends page there.

Blogger Blogger (www.blog-ger.com) is anotherpopular blog spot. It has nowtied up with Google. Postingis simple—all you need to dois click on your blog name.Blogger immediately putsyou at the posting page,where you can add newposts by clicking on CreateNew Post. Once done, clickon Publish Your Post.

Getting personalIf you have Web space, youcan create your blog page,using Blogger’s editing andpublishing tools. You need tosupply the FTP authentica-tion details (username andpassword), and create theappropriate directory on

your Web server. Choose to‘FTP it to your own server’while setting up your blog,and provide the necessarydetails. Now you can add inall posts at Blogger.com, andview them on your Web site!

Settings, and moreClicking on Settings lets youaccess a lot of things aboutthe way your blog works.Under Basic, you canchange titles and thedescription of your blog.Publishing lets you set allyour publishing details; For-matting sets time, date, lan-guage, etc.; Site Feed letsyou link RSS feeds to your

blog; E-mail lets you specifyother e-mail addresses toroute comments to, andMembers lets you add inteam members who can alsoblog on the same page—the best way to set up acommunity blog.

ConTemplatingYou can change templates,from Templates > BlogTemplate and tweak theHTML code a bit. ChooseNew Template lets youselect from a list of existingtemplates.

Blogger is one of the most popular blog spots

Set the FTP details to blog directly to yourpersonal Web space

ACCESSIBILITY

So said Tim Berners-Lee,W3C Director and inventor

of the World Wide Web, andthis aspect can be put intopractice with a little effort.Once you have put togetheryour Web site, use these tips toensure that your pages areaccessible to all.

ImagesFor those who do not usegraphical browsers, or cannotaccess graphics in a browser, asimple accessibility tip is to usethe ALT attribute and describethe image.

Detailed description With HTML 4.0, you can now

choose to put in full-picturedescriptions along with theALT text. Use the LONGDESCattribute to add this descrip-tion. It can also take the formof a separate page referencedby a d (descriptive) link.

Quick imagesUse the width and heightattributes for every IMG tag tospecify the dimension of animage. This speeds up imageloading, and the text aroundthe images starts to fill in rap-idly. Here’s their syntax:

<IMG SRC=“coolcar.gif”height=“200” width=“200”ALT=“My concept car” LONGDE-SC=“car_detail.html” ALIGN=left>

“The power of the Web is in its universality.Access by everyone regardless of disability

is an essential aspect.”

MARCH 2004

22


120

Flashing Java For all your efforts to make aclassy Web site withFlash effects, it’s possible thatsomeone may beaccessing it with a browsersans a Flash player. Hence,keep an alternative link thatlets people bypass sucheffects. It is unreasonable toexpect people to downloadan extra plug-in just to viewthe information on your Website, especially when they canfind the sameelsewhere.

Keep thesame in mindwhile optingfor Flashmenus. Whilethe eye-candyis pleasing,with slowI n t e r n e taccess, peoplewould preferto have a no-

fuss access to information.The same argument goes forusing Java applets on yourWeb site. It’s possible thatNet-surfers may not have theJava Runtime Environment(JRE) installed. Downloadingit from the Internet takesquite a while. Hence, keep anon-Java version too, and dis-play a visible link to it.

FramesFrames may make your Web

pages look organised andneat, but they can be quite ahassle for those using abrowser that does not sup-port them. Hence, keep a linkto a version of your Web sitesans frames. This ensuresaccess to all, regardless offrame compatibility.

Here’s what you can do.After ‘</FRAMESET>’, write‘<NOFRAMES></NOFRAMES>’,and include the HTML codethat you would want to dis-play in a frame-disabledbrowser within these two tags.

TestingTesting each page on all the possible browsers makesa lot of sense, as if your pagesare not instrict con-f o r m a n c eof the W3Cstandards,then yourc o m p l e xp a g e sappear dif-ferently ind i f f e r e n tb r o w s e r s .Ensure thatyour HTML toolkit has sev-eral popular browsers, name-ly, Opera, Netscape andMozilla. Also, consider test-ing the page with the Lynxtext browser.

Checking and validatingIt doesn’t take too mucheffort to have your Webpages tested and validated.With little effort, you can usefreely available services andtools over the Internet thatwill validate your Web pagesand Web sites.

W3C’s check The W3C Web site(www.w3c.org) offers you freeHTML and Cascading StyleSheets (CSS) validation serv-ices. Access the free HTMLvalidation service at http://val-idator.w3.org/. It checks andensures that your HTML codefollows the W3C’s Web Con-tent Accessibility Guidelines(WCAG). Either submit theURL, or upload an HTML filefor inspection. Access thetweakable features for thisservice by clicking on‘Extended Interface’ or‘Extended File Upload Inter-face’ on the home page. Alter-natively, gain access to themat http://validator.w3.org/

detailed.html for a submittedURL, or http://validator.w3.org/file-upload.html for anuploaded file. W3C’s servicedepends on Document TypeDefinition (DTD) to validatethe code. Lack of a properDTD would lead to non-vali-dation of the page.

Validating the page CSS Visit the W3C CSS validationservice (http://jigsaw.w3.org/ css-validator/), and choose toeither validate by giving theURL of the CSS, or uploading

Here’s a site with reasonable frames, which allowfor easy navigation through the site

W3C’s site offers a free validation check. Just enterthe URL to get the page validated

Standards of AccessThe various accessibility standards ensure that the Internet andthe World Wide Web is accessible to all, irrespective of the surfer’smode of access or disabilities. There are two well-known stan-dards and guidelines of accessibility. The first is the World WideWeb Consortium (W3C) standard called the Web Content Acces-sibility Guidelines (WCAG), under their Web Accessibility Initiative(http://www.w3.org/WAI/). These guidelines have three levels ofspecification that provide various priority levels. The other is theUS Government’s Section 508 guidelines (www.section508.gov),which look at a relatively lesser level of accessibility guidelines,

concentrating mostly on basic accessibility,whilst leaving out many other pressing issues.Both services offer free accessibility testingservices and tools.

Bobby is a free service that tests Web sitesfor ease of use, adherence to standards andaccessibility by people with disabilities. Displaytheir endearing mascot on your Web site onceit’s Bobby-tested successfully.

Get this mascotto grace yourWeb site onceyou pass theBobby test

MARCH 2004121

23

Domain-ing itWith domain names available for as low as US$9.95 (approx. Rs 448), it’seasy to get yourself one from Web sites such as Network Solutions (www.net-worksolutions .com). In fact,you can also visit Web sitessuch as GoDaddy (www.godaddy. com) that has spe-cial economical offers fordomain-name buyers. Onceyou register your domain,you can use free DNS servic-es such as ZoneEdit (www.zoneedit.com) that lets youspecify several sub-domains.Finally, you need space on aWeb server. While most freeservices give you decentspace, your Web site wouldbe listed under theirdomain, and you will haveto suffer their ad banners onyour Web pages. Host your

Web site using space boughtfrom an ISP to use yourdomain name.

GeoCitiesWith GeoCities (www.geocities.com) now a part ofYahoo!, signing up for anaccount is as simple as usingthe one existing with Yahoo!.GeoCities gives you 15 MB ofspace. Set up your Web siteusing their free Web site cre-ation tools such as the Yahoo!PageWizards and the Yahoo!PageBuilder.

The PageWizard is a sim-ple five-minute page set-upwizard that lets you select apage from the available pagethemes, and then customisethe text, images and links andpersonal information. ThePageBuilder wizard is a littlemore detailed in its cus-tomization. You will need JRE

it. You can also enterthe code of the CSSwithin the text scanarea. There is also astand-alone toolavailable at the Website for the same pur-pose.

BobbyBobby (http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp) is afree service that vali-dates and tests yourWeb site, and ensurescompliance with accessibilityguidelines. Bobby checks forW3C’s WCAG guidelines, as

well as the U.S. government’sSection 508 guidelines. Enterthe URL of the page, andchoose to test it for Section508 compliance, or for theWCAG compliance. Use theCustomisation page (http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/advanced.jsp) to tweakBobby for better results.

Section 508 The US Government’s Sec-tion 508 guidelines requireall data in electronic formatto be accessible to peoplewith disabilities. At their

Web site, (www.section508.gov), find a free tool calledSTEP508 (Simple Tool for

Error Prioritisation) thatlooks at the severity of acces-sibility errors as well as theeffort to fix them.

Customizing BobbyIn the advanced features,select checkboxes for full text output, complete HTMLsource for the lines, as well as the Analyze HTTP errorpages option. Finally, forpages that respond differentlyto different browsers, Bobbyimpersonates a Netscape, IE,Opera, or Lynx browser, aswell as AOL and WebTV.

RESOURCES

Use STEP to make more accessibleWeb pages

Bobby offers check services for both, the W3C guidelines, as well asthe Section508 guidelines

If you are ready to host your Web site andpublish your work online, check out the

following tips on free and paid hosting, andmake it look absolutely professional

MARCH 2004

24


122

installed to access it though.Also, the PageBuilder takes awhile to open if you are using a dial-up connection.For more customised pages,you can create yourown page, thenupload the pagesand the associatedfiles into yourGeoCities account.Upload files thatsize up to 5 MB byclicking on EasyUpload in theAdvanced Toolboxsection of yourGeoCities account.

Getting free spaceSeveral Web sites offer free space to host your Website. Most of them have adecent amount of space.They also come with basicWeb site building tools and wizards to guide youthrough such services.

FreeServersFreeServers (www.freeservers.

com) is yet anotherplace where youcan access Webspace for free. Thebasic account pro-vides you 12 MBspace, with anupper file-sizelimit of 256 KB.FreeServers alsogives out freeW e b - h o s t i n gspace for any ofyour domainnames. For thatthough, the pagewill have its adbanners.

BrinksterThe basic free account atBrinkster (www.brinkster.com)entitles you to a maximumof 30 MB space. Brinkster

lets you run ASP pages thatinterface with an onlinedatabase; the FrontPageServer Extensions thoughare available only for thepaid account. The file sizerestriction here is 1 MB(larger for databases). Usetheir browser-based filemanager to upload files; FTPis restricted to the paidaccount.

150mHuge is definitely what youcall 150m.com’s (www.150m.com) offer of 100 MB freespace—restricted to a maxi-mum of 1 MB for individualfile sizes. 150m allows for FTPaccess to your space on theirsite. It also lets you redirectyour domain names to thepages that you have put uphere. Finally, 150m.com itselfhas a simple Web site creationtool and additional tweaks foryour pages.

Space, more spaceFor those of you who wouldlike still more space, check outO-F.com (www. o-f.com). Thefree basic free account givesyou 100 MB of space, 150m.com style. You are limited to adaily bandwidth of 40 MB.The user manager interface isvery similar to that of 150m.com, so if youhave been look-ing for lots ofspace, try thisfree web spaceservice as well.Apart from a sitebuilder tool,there’s a pluspoint for usingthis service—their free FTPservices, just like150m. com. Thisway, when itcomes touploads, you arenot restricted tosome browserbased file manag-er. Again, for allthe extras such as FrontPageExtensions, you would needto be a paid account user.

TemplatesWeb sites Web site templates are agreat way to start workingwith, since they come complete with images andinterlinked pages. Start with MyFreeTemplates(www.myfreetemplates.com)that hosts a variety of tem-plates for personal as well asbusiness Web sites.

NewslettersNow that you have yourWeb site up and running, it makes sense to let the whole world know, and what better way than a newsletter? Get freenewsletter templates atMyFreeTemplates (www.myfreetemplates.com), andstart working on despatch-ing them. Of course, e-mail etiquette demands that you

give people the option ofreceiving them, and not spam mercilessly.

MyFreeTemplates gives you an easy way ofmaking classy looking sites

Brinkster is free, has a clean interface, butlimited features

Set up your GeoCities site in a jiffy, andexperiment with the available styles

APRIL 2004


115

AnimatingInstincts

Atu

l Des

hmuk

h

contents26 MayaNifty tips compiled by

Suzzanne Rebello,

a Maya consultant,

who has lent her expertise

to many international

animation projects.

29 3ds maxHere are 13 useful nuggets

by Sachin Puthran. He

handles art direction for

audio visuals, especially

in the area of film and

televison.

So you want to be a graphicsanimator... You’re definitelygoing to need these tips toto make Maya and 3ds maxwork for you...

25

APRIL 2004

26


116

■ tips and tricks

General user tipsManage your scenes

A project lets you group dif-ferent files such as renderedimages, needed for a scene ora group of related scenes. Goto Create Project and click the

‘Use Default Button’ option,set the Project as Currentand save your working

scenes. Transfer all filetextures to theSource Image folder.Before you render,

delete all unusednodes. To do this, go toFile> Optimize Scene Size.

Clean the Channelbox

Select Object and thengo to Window > General

Editor > Channel Control.Select channels that you

won’t use on your currentobject. Click on Move totransfer them to the NonKeyable attributes. Also, lookout for Non Keyable attrib-utes such as Shear, Ghosting,etc.—you can transfer themto the Keyable attributes with

the Move button.You can split an

outliner in two toefficiently manage anumber of objects.Click on the greyline at the bottomof the outliner anddrag it upwards to do so.

Lock the cameraTo the right in thechannel box, selectthe channels byname, click on theone on top, drag it tothe last, right-clickand select LockSelected.

To revert to selections Go to Create > Sets > QuickSelection Sets and name theselection. Next, go to Edit >Quick Select Set. This is handywhen you have to revert toselected vertices in acomplex mesh. Usethe Lasso tool or go toEdit > Paint Selection Tool,to make Selections.

ModelingMaking polygonal

Models To keep a check on yourpolygonal count, Go to Dis-play > Heads Up Display > PolyCount On to do so. Make apolygon smooth proxy bygoing to Polygon > SmoothProxy. For symmetrical char-acters or models, model onlyone half, and when complete,mirror the other half. Do thisby going to Polygon > MirrorGeometry. Here, choose therespective axis and select Mir-ror. You can also opt to‘Merge the Vertices’ at this

time. Rig this LowPoly model,and keep checking the skin-ning results, the Outputs onthe hiRes model, or theSmooth Proxy. Keeping theLowPoly and HiPoly on two

different layers is usuallyhelpful, for files with largescenes, and also when youhave to edit vertices—thefewer the better.

To make wires, tails forpolygonal meshes To create creatures, pipes, orget multiple appendages toprotrude quickly, use theextrude process. To do this,select the edges or faces youwant to extrude and thecurve you want to extrudealong. Go to Edit Polygons >Extrude Face or Edit Polygons >Extrude Edge. Here, turn on the

MAYAGet the most respected animation software to

create breathtaking animations for you

Transfer unused channels into the NonKeyable attributes

Group different files needed for a sceneinto a Project

Use the sel box to name the selection

Farz

ana

Coo

per

APRIL 2004117

27

‘Use selected curve for extru-sion’ option and clickExtrude. Press [Ctrl] + [A] toaccess the Attribute Editorand use its controls to edit theextrusion.

Use the Twist option torotate the extruded polygons,and ‘Taper/Taper Curve’ toscale them along the curve. Tocontrol the taper exactly,open the Taper Curve sectionand use the graph control toset scaling along the length ofthe curve.

Nurbs at render time To get rid of jagged edges ofnurbs at render time, go toAttribute Editor and drop-down Tessellation. Check theDisplay Tessellation box andincrease the ‘Curvature Toler-ance’ by using the drop downmenu. You can Increase the Uand V divisions factor by typ-ing in a higher value. Thisincreases the meshcountwhen rendering, thereby out-puting a smoother geometry.

AnimationReordering inputs

The way the deformers orinput nodes are assignedaffect the object to a consid-erable extent. To reorderthese, right-click on Objectand go to Inputs > All inputs,click the middle mouse but-ton on the input node andplace it below or above anoth-er in the same stack.

Evaluate nodes This feature is present in theModify menu. It’s great, espe-cially when making a tinychange in a completely riggedcharacter setup. Just put the

respective function on, makeyour changes, and go back toEvaluate All.

Smoothing weights It’s a bit unnerving to keeprotating the joints, or movingthe Inverse Kinematics (IK) tocheck the influence of thejoints and their weights onyour skinned character.

Instead, simply animatethe joints at their extremepositions. Set one key at bindpose at frame 0 and anotherat another pose, at, say, frame50. Now, compare or adjustthe weights as you scrubalong the timeline.

Editing smooth skin bindTo change the weighting ofthe CVs, other than by paint-ing weights, go to Windows >General Editors > Component Edi-tor and under the SmoothSkin tab, type in the values forthe selected vertices.

GhostingThis is a direct translation ofthe classical animation tech-nique of flipping through ahandful of cell drawings to geta feel for the timing of theaction you are working on.

You can control ghostingon each object in your scenewith the ‘Ghost Selected’ and‘Unghost Selected’ optionswindows, or with the Ghost-ing Information attributes. Inaddition to ghosting individ-ual objects, you can nowghost entire skeletons orobject hierarchies.

The appearance of ghostsin the scene view is alsoimproved for Maya 5. Thecolour of ghosts before and

after the current frame orkeyframe lightens as their dis-tance from it increases. This isvisible only when scene viewShading is set to Wireframe.

Move along rotation axesUse the Move tool to movealong the Rotation Axisoption to orient the movemanipulator to the local rota-tion axes of the object.

Freeze joint orientationMaya 5 lets you freeze thelocal joint rotation axes tomatch world space. To do so,go to Modify > Freeze Transfor-mation and turn on the Orientoption. If this option is turnedoff, the local joint rotationaxes are not affected by FreezeTransformation.

Parent constraintsWith a parent constraint, youcan relate the position—trans-lation and rotation—of oneobject to another, so that theobjects behave as if they are apart of a parent-child rela-tionship that has multiple tar-get parents.

An object’s movement canalso be constrained by theaverage position of multipleobjects.

Maintain offsetUse ‘Maintain Offset’ to pre-serve the original, relativetranslation, rotation, and scal-ing of a constrained object.This option is present in allconstraint option menus

IK/FK blending lets youapply keyframe animation tojoints, and also control themwith IK animation. In addi-tion to blending IK and For-

ward Kinematics (FK) anima-tion over multiple frames, ablend can occur over a singleframe as well. This switches IKto FK or FK to IK instantly.

Indirect skinning Here’s how you can conformthe shape of the skeletonthrough a lattice: Construct ashape in the form of a snake—draw a curve, create a circle,and Extrude on Path. Draw askeleton of 10 or more jointsinside the model. Create an IKhandle that’s the length of theskeleton. Select the skin andcreate a lattice with ampledivisions. Select Skeleton and‘Bind Skin to the Lattice’. Thislets you deform the hardest ofobjects convincingly.

RenderingPelting

Reduce the effort and timeyou spend on adjusting thoseUVs when texturising charac-ters or models: The techniqueis called pelting. Take yourmesh, for example, the face,duplicate it and flatten out allthe CVs onto a single plane,almost as if you were to ham-mer them. Apply a planarmap to it. Now, transfer theUVs back to the original facemesh and then open the UVeditor. Isn’t that something!

Paint FXFlip Tube directionUse this to switch the direc-tion of the current brushbetween Along Path (ideal forcanvas painting of plants) andAlong Normal (ideal for scenepainting of plants). This is available as a hotkey.

A ‘Force Tube to be Along

APRIL 2004

28


118

Path’ checkbox is added tothe Canvas section of thePaint Effects Globals. Whenchecked, this causes brusheswith tubes whose elevation-Min is greater than 0.5 to bedrawn along the path ratherthan along the normal in can-vas mode. Thus, the plantbrushes draw in the expecteddirection when painting inthe canvas.

Paint effects and polygonsYou can convert Paint Effectsstrokes to polygonal meshes,including construction histo-ry, using Modify > Convert >Paint Effects To Polygons.

This allows you to: Ren-der in any renderer, includ-ing the Maya Softwarerenderer—mental ray forMaya—the Hardware ren-derer, and the Vector ren-derer. Also to have PaintEffects show in reflections,refractions and throughtransparent objects. Lastly,you can use other polygon-editing tools on them.

Turn on Quad Output, tooutput to quadrilaterals. Thedefault is off, defaulting out-put to triangles.

LightsIntensity and colour curves Use a custom brightnessdecay rate to increase a spot-light’s brightness, or a customcolour decay rate to change itscolour with distance.

Intensity curves andcolour curves are graphicalrepresentations of a light’sbrightness and colour withdistance. Use the graph editor(Windows > Animation Editor), toview them.

The vertical axis repre-sents the intensity or colourintensity value, and the hori-zontal axis represents dis-tance from the light source.Intensity curves and colourcurves are similar to anima-tion curves, except that thehorizontal axis of an anima-tion curve represents time.

RampShader brightnessUse this Shader Type to createcartoon-style shading with thehelp of a ramp with steppedvalues. The right side of theramp shows the colour outputwhere the brightness of thediffused and translucent light-ing is 1.0 or greater. The leftside displays the colour withbrightness set to zero.

3D Paint ToolEdit existing texturesYou can now edit both, thesize and the file format ofexisting 3D Paint texturesusing the Assign/Edit Texturesbutton in the File Texturessection of the 3D Paint Toolsettings. This button was pre-

viously named AssignTextures and used onlyfor assigning new tex-tures; it had no effect on existing textures.

The displacementattribute Displacement is addedto the Attribute to Paintdrop-down list in theFile Textures section of the 3DPaint Tool settings. It is now apaintable attribute.

OutputThe Maya Vector renderer Make good use of the MayaVector to stylise renderings.

It offers cartoon, tonal art,line art, hidden line, wire-frame in various bitmapimage formats such as IFF,TIFF, etc. It also offers in thefollowing 2D vector formats:Macromedia Flash (non-inter-active) version 3, 4 or 5 (SWF),Adobe Illustrator version 8(AI), Encapsulated PostScriptLevel 2 (EPS), Scalable VectorGraphics (SVG).

Render layersThese are used to renderhuge scenes. Below theChannel box, there are dis-play layers. Click on thedrop down menu, andchange to Render. Add theobjects to the layers as youcreate them.

Now, go to Windows >Rendering Editor > Render Glob-als. Here, in the Maya soft-ware Tab, drop downRender Layers/MultiPassControl and turn on theoption to Enable RenderLayers. All objects areassigned to the default lay-ers. Also, look for trans-parency throughout thelayers at render time.

FcheckAccess Fcheck by going toStart > All Programs > Maya >Fcheck. This utility is provid-ed by Maya to view imagesand animation sequences.Use it to view high-resolu-tion image sequences. If yourRAM doesn’t support play-back of larger images—because the image sequenceis too large—you can shrinkit and reduce the image by 50 per cent. Fcheck is also used to re-number thesequence or rename it.Adjust the brightness of a spotlight to suit your animated needs

The Maya Vector to render in style!

APRIL 2004119

293ds max is one of themost popular 3D appli-cations used in the

broadcast and film industry.Its intuitive toolsets help youcreate professional-quality3D models, photo-realisticstill images, and film-qualityanimation on your PC.

The new channel, Pogo,has made excellent use ofanimation to package itself.We will use the Pogo logo asan example to help under-stand the plethora of featuresthat are hidden in 3dsmax.

Creating the elementThe basic element of Pogo isa square with its top-rightcorner rounded.

Let’s create this shape:Click on the Front viewportto activate the viewport.

Click the Create tab in thecommand panel. Click theShapes button to display theSplines shape type.

On the Object Type roll-out, click rectangle. Click theKeyboard Entry rollout toopen it. Here, select a numer-ic field with the mouse andenter a value of 50 in theLength and Width field.Leave the Corner Radiusvalue at 0 and click Create.

Observe the Front view-

port. You now have a squareof 50 units. Name this ele-ment as Pogo_element in theName and Color field.

Create embeddedshapesWe need to embed a circleinside the square, so that wecan modify the size of the cir-cle in animation. While thereare many techniques to do so,3ds max offers you a simplemethod to create this effect.

To embed a new shape,select the ‘Pogo_element’that you have created in theFront viewport. Go to theCreate panel and uncheckthe ‘Select New Shape’option in the rollout. Now,click the Circle button. Openthe Keyboard Entry rollout.Enter 10 as the Radius valueand click Create.

The new shape is a part of

the ‘Pogo_element’. Move theshape in the Top Viewport,using the Select and Movetool, and both move together.

Dynamic mouse undoIf you are moving the‘Pogo_element’ from theexisting position to a newposition by left-clicking anddragging the mouse, you cancancel this action by keepingthe left-click pressed andclicking the right buttononce. This is a handy tool tocheck certain functions with-out committing your actions.

Animating the holeFirst, convert the object intoa mesh. Select the object,click on the modifier list andselect Edit Mesh. Alterna-tively, press [E] after clickingon the modifier list to jumpto the Edit Mesh modifier.

Expand the EditableSpline modifier controls andselect the spline module.Click on the circle in theobject and the selectedspline is displayed in red.Click on the ‘Show endresult on/off’ toggle button

The basic form of the Pogo logo

3ds max3ds max is one of the most sophisticated 3Dsoftware that makes your images come alive.Here, we take you through nifty tips that take

your work to a new animated dimension

Select circle to get that shape inthe animation

View the shape from the Frontviewport

The magic icon to preview theend result

for the mesh preview whenkeyframing. You can see themesh in shade view in thePerspective viewport.

Now go to Frame 1 onthe timeline and hit theAuto Key button to activateit. Go to frame 20 and usethe Select and Uniform Scaletool to scale the circle. Simi-larly, go to each successivetwentieth frame andkeyframe the circle usingvarious scaling values. Thebest way is to scale up anddown during keyframing.Remember to scale the circlewithin the square.

Now your basic shape isanimated. Save this file as,say, Pogoanim_ master.max

The rounded cornerUse the Fillet option to createthe rounded top-right edge.To get a better view, click onthe ‘Zoom Extents All’ but-ton. This fits the shape to thebest size in all viewports.

Here’s how you fillet theedge: select the ‘Pogo_ele-ment’ and click the Modifytab in the Command panel.Here, the selected object isshown as an editable splineobject. Click on the ‘+’ toopen up the sub-object con-trols. Click on the ‘Vertexsub-object’ and then on thetop-right vertex of the‘Pogo_element’ in the Front

viewport. Now, enter ‘10’ inthe Fillet box and press[Enter]. Your Pogo shape isnow ready. Save this file asPogo_master.max. For othertechniques, remember to

save it as a new file beforestarting a new project.

Creating an array ofanimated shapesUse the array command tocreate duplicates of the basicshape. Remember to save asthis file as tech2.max. Selectthe object, and go to theTools > Array command fromthe top menu bar. We willnow duplicate 10 copies onthe X-axis. Note that the sizeof our master object is 50units. In the Move incre-mental field, set a value of50. Select type of object as

Copy. In the array dimen-sions, select 1D with a countof 5 and click OK. The shapeis repeated across the X-axiswith edge-to-edge accuracy.Move the slider on the time-line from 0 to 100 and youwill find that even the ani-mation parameters arecopied with the object.

Randomising animationNotice that all the circles areanimated in a similar wayon the timeline. We cannow bring in some variationby selecting each object andshifting the keyframe.

Select the second object inthe series and move eachkeyframe marker that appearson the timeline to a differentposition. For example, movethe keyframe marker 1 toframe 5, keyframe marker 20to frame 35, and so on. Thisdone, check the playback byselecting the perspective viewand clicking the Play Anima-tion button next to the time-line. Repeat this procedure forall the objects. On playback,the circles are animating atdifferent time intervals.

Save this file astech3.max.

Make an instancedarraySelect all the 5 animatedobjects and go to the Tools -array command again. Clickon ‘Reset All Parameters’.Enter 50 as the value in theincremental Y Move field.Select instance as the type ofobject. Enter 5 as the arraydimensions 1D and click OK.

Notice that this creates anew set of objects on the Y-axis. Go to the timeline and

APRIL 2004

30


120

Make multiple duplicates in a jiffy

The Play/Pause toggle controlsplayback

The Perspective viewport showsthe model with instanced arrays

The Fillet dialog box helps youcreate those round edged corners

The magic button to fit views inall the viewports

hit ‘Play animation’. All thevertical objects have thesame animation. The baseobject keyframes can now bemodified. Remember we hadused the Instance optionwhile creating an array. Let’ssee how to use this feature.Select the 3rd object in thebottom row. Observe thatthe keyframes are the samefor the objects placed verti-cally above it. Modify thekeyframe position of thebase object. All thekeyframes in the instancedobjects above it are updatedautomatically. Group all theobjects using the groupcommand in the menu bar.Save this file as tech4.max.

Using Instance whilecopying, allows you to mod-ify the parameters of themaster object. All instancescreated from the masterobject are updated automat-ically. This is useful whendeveloping animation—say,with a school of fish, whereyou modify one fish toupdate all instanced objects.

Camera animationCreate a free camera in theFront viewport from thecamera command panel.Move the camera along theY-axis so as to view thegrouped objects. Select Cam-era view in Perspective view-port or press [C] while there.Your animation is displayedas seen through the camera.

Move the camera till theobjects just fit to the extremesof the view. This is your viewin Frame 1. Now, turn onAutoKey and go to frame 25.

Move the camera in the

left view along the X-axiscloser to the object. Move italong the same axis awayfrom the object in frame 50.Use your own creative cam-era compositions. Repeat thesame for frame 75. For frame100, copy the keyframe fromframe 1 to frame 100 by click-ing and dragging the frame 1marker, while holding down[Shift]. Your basic animation isready. You can preview youranimation by selecting theAnimation > Make Preview com-mand from the menu bar.Save the file as tech5.max

The Make Preview win-dow has options that allowyou to set the size and param-eters of your preview. Ensurethat you have chosen Cam-era01 from the Render View-port drop-down option. Youcan also create multiple cam-eras in the same scene andanimate them. You can namethese cameras for your con-venience. Set the cameraname during preview in theRender Viewport dropdown.

Adding dynamism tocamera animationRegular keyframing givesyou a very standard lookinganimation. You can addspice to your animation byusing Track View > Curve editor.

Select the camera andselect the Track View > Curve edi-tor from the Graph Editorsmenu to open the curve-edi-tor window. Select the Trans-form Y position of the camerain the left panel of the editorwindow. A green curvedefines the movement of thecamera. It starts with an easein, takes a peak and then endswith an ease out. This is the

default attribute assigned toanimated objects in 3dsmax.However, we can assign dif-ferent controls to change thenature of animation required.

You can modify thenature of curve in the grapheditor to change the tempo ofthe animation. Click on thesecond node to display the

Bezier control handles. Dragthe left node vertically downto change the nature of curve.Preview the animation usingthe camera viewport.

Similarly, select the fourthnode and select the Set Tan-gent to Fast icon on thecurve-editor top panel. Pre-view it to see the difference.Save the file as tech6.max.

Handheld cameraeffectAssign controllers to the X orZ-axis to make the cameramovements look wacky orlike the effect of a jerk whenusing a handheld camera.

Assign a controller byright-clicking on the X posi-tion of camera01, transformthe position in the curve-edi-tor, and select ‘Assign con-troller’ to open the AssignFloat controller box. Select‘Noise Float’ and click OK.

An irregular wave patternappears in the Noise Con-

troller property window.Preview the animation.Observe that your camerahas shifted to the left andthe movement is a bit jerky.Adjust the Group01 object

31


121 APRIL 2004

Quickly check your animationsin Preview mode

Curves that can set things right

Adjust the curve to change thepace of the animation

Tweak the curve controls to getthat jerky look

32


122 APRIL 2004

by moving it to the left ofthe X-axis in the front view-port. Use the camera view-port to move it till you aresatisfied with the framing.You can also change theproperty of the noisestrength by right-clicking onthe X position name andselecting properties. Changethe values of Roughness andStrength to get variations. Asmall feature called Ramp inand Ramp out allows you tosmoothen the start and endmovements. Preview youranimation at this stage andsave the file as tech7.max

Using SkylightNow we can set up the basiclights required for the ani-mation. Choose an Omnilight from the lights pane.Position this to the right ofthe camera and in front ofthe object group. Reduce themultiplier intensity of thelight to 0.5 in the lightproperties box.

To make your illumina-tion convincing and softer,use Skylights. Click on theSkylight button in the Createlights rollout. Create this

light anywhere in the scenesince the effect isn’t based onits position. You need to acti-vate the Advanced lightingcontrol to use the Skylight’slighting property. To do so, goto Rendering > Advanced light-ing, and select Light Tracer.

Next, create a spotlightusing the create Spot Target

in the lights create panel.Use the Top viewport to cre-ate light from the left of thecamera, pointing towardsthe group object. From theLeft viewport, move the tar-get upwards, pointing to thecentre of the group.

Here’s a special featurethat lets you project an

image onto this object.Select the spotlight andopen Advanced Effects fromthe Modify Light panel.Click None to open theMaterial/Map browser win-dow. Select Bitmap and press

OK. Select a bitmap imagefile from your imageresource and press OK.

Notice that the imagename is shown in the Pro-jector Map box. Open thespotlight parameters in theModify Lights panel.Choose rectangle as theoption for the shape of thespotlight. Use the Bitmap Fitbutton to automaticallyresize the rectangle of thespotlight to the rectangularproportion of the projectedimage. Click on the BitmapFit option and choose theprojected image again.

You can also change theHotspot/Beam and Falloff/Field values to adjust the cov-erage area of the spotlight.

Render the scene. You willsee the projected image ren-dered onto the group object.To make the animation inter-esting, animate the spot tar-get from the Front viewporton the X-axis and Y-axis.Save the file as tech8.max.

Texturing shapes for acolourful final animationThe animation will look verycolourful and contemporaryif we can assign a differentcolour for each square.

To apply colour maps, firstopen the group object. selectit and go to Group > Open fromthe menu bar. Now, selecteach shape one by one andapply different colours usingthe Material editor.

Open the Material editorby pressing [M]. Select the firstsample sphere and changethe diffuse colour to blue.Select the shape at theextreme-left and top of the

opened group and click on‘Assign Material to Selection’.

Create 5 such colours inthe Material editor and assignit to each object. Render a sin-gle frame to see the result.

You are now ready to ren-der the entire animation.Select the Camera viewportand hit the Render Scene but-ton on the toolbar. Select theActive Time segment of 100frames. Select the custom filesize of 320 x 200 pixels. Inthe Render Output sectionselect the Save File optionand enter the filename asrender. Select MOV - Quick-

time as the Save As type. Hitthe render button and enjoyyour Pogo animation.

Remember to render inD1 PAL size, ie, 720 x 576 pix-els for professional television-quality ouputs. Also,remember that the televisonformat requires 25 frames persecond. Happy Animating!

The magical light meter

The focus beam light

The ultimate makeup toolkit

Let there be light

Ready to render

MAY 2004


143

Speed secrets


contents34 Hardware35 Windows XP39 Gaming40 Forum

You don’t need thelatest hardware andthe bestconfiguration forboasting rights. Fine-tune your existingsystem with thesetweaks to raceahead

33

MAY 2004

34


144

n tips and tricks

Quickly press [Delete] asyour computer starts up toenter your PC’s BIOS. Thisis where you set yoursystem for better perform-ance—no matter what OSyou’re running.

FlashersBefore anything else, if yourBIOS version is over a year ortwo old, chances are yourmotherboard manufacturerhas released an updated ver-sion that will significantlyincrease performance andstability. If the flashingprocess is interrupted, yourmotherboard will be rendereduseless: flashing is thereforenot for the faint hearted. Getyour system assembler toupdate your BIOS.

Beyond clockspeedsThe first step to overclockingyour CPU is to increase theFront Side Bus (FSB). Beforeyou start, ensure you have awell-ventilated cabinet, withat least three fans—one forventilation, one for theSwitched Mode PowerSupply (SMPS) and one forthe CPU. Increase the FSB inthe smallest of instalments—from, say, 133 MHz to 135MHz. Now change your CPUratio marginally, and keeptesting sytem stability andperformance. Of course, thisonly applies to Athlon CPUs.

Intel locks theirs to pre-vent overclocking accidents.Don’t give in to thetemptation of trying to

change voltage settings—thiswill significantly increase theamount of heat produced.

Basic BIOS tweaksHere are some generic BIOStips to increase performance.The gains are limited, butthe tweaks aren’t as risky asoverclocking.

Firstly, set the First BootDevice to your C: drive anddisable the Second, Thirdand Other boot devices. Onthe rare occasions when youneed to boot from a floppyor CD, a deft move on[Delete], and changing theFirst Boot Device option toFloppy or CD will remedythe situation.

Change the ‘CAS LatencyTime’ from 3 to 2—thisreduces the amount of timeyour RAM waits before itstarts a ‘read’ command.

Change the ‘RAS-to-CASDelay’ and the ‘RAS Pre-charge Time’ to 2—thisreduces the delay betweensignals and lets the memoryrefresh faster.

Make sure that thebootup virus checkingoption is disabled to increaseboot times significantly.

Disable ‘Boot up Floppyseek’ so that the BIOS won’twaste time looking for afloppy drive. Disable theVideo BIOS Shadow.

If you have a graphicscard with over 16 MB ofmemory, disable ‘Video RAMCacheable’.

Set the initial display cardas either PCI or AGP, and not‘Auto’, depending on theconfiguration of yourgraphics card.

Dirty hardwareCleanliness is next to godli-ness, even in technology.Keep your cabinet clean andin a well-ventilated area.This is especially importantfor surfaces such as those ofthe CPU, GPU and powersupply that heat up. As longas these are clean, the heatwon’t build up.

Use soft paint brushes toclean fans to prevent themfrom slowing down orlocking up, which can causehardware damage.

Cable chaosArrange and tie your cableswith rubber bands or cottonthreads to prevent entangle-ment and improve ventila-tion. Also, try and spacehard drives as far away fromeach other as possible. Con-sider adding a fan for yourhard drives if your cabinet is too small.

Separate IDEspleaseA common assumption isthat if the hard disk and CD-ROM drive are on the samecable, data transfer will befaster. This isn’t true, sincedata transfer rates dependon Integrated Device Elec-tronics (IDE) controllers,which run at the speed ofthe slower device. Since theoptical drive is slower thanthe hard disk, connectingthem to the same IDE portslows down performance.

Also, transfer speedsbetween drives on two dif-ferent IDE channels is fasterthan that between deviceson the same IDE channel.

HARDWAREHardware is the first stop on the Tweak

Express. A few right and quick fixes, and yoursystem will surprise you

MAY 2004145

35

File system firstWhen installing WindowsXP, make a clean install, asopposed to updating from anolder version. This is becauseformatting your hard drive touse the NTFS file system isbetter, since FAT32 is slowerand less stable. To changeyour drive’s FAT32 file systemto NTFS, go to Start > Run andtype ‘command’. At the com-mand prompt, type ‘convert X:/FS:NTFS’ and press [Enter]—here ‘X:’ is the drive you wantto convert.

Start with the bootWhat you should look toimprove upon is bootuptime. You can save as much as30 seconds by optimisingyour boot options. If onlyone person uses your com-puter, leave the passwordblank. Also disable Fast UserSwitching by going to Start >Run, and typing ‘control user-passwords’ and pressing [Enter].

In the User Accountswindow, click on ‘Change theway users log on or off’; makesure the ‘Use the Welcomescreen’ option is ticked, anduncheck ‘Use Fast UserSwitching’. Click on ApplyOptions and closethe window.

Prettier equalsslowerThe first thing you notice inXP is the look. Unfortu-nately, the crisp menus, thenew fade-in and fade-outeffects and the breathtakingwallpapers drain yoursystem’s memory. For any PCwith less than 256 MB ofRAM and a CPU slower than1 GHz, turn off all the frills.

The easiest way to do thisis to press [Windows] +[Pause/Break] to launch theSystem Properties dialog box.Here, click on Advanced.You’ll see three ‘Settings’ but-tons. Click the one related to

‘Performance’. The dialogbox called PerformanceOptions pops up. UnderVisual Effects, select ‘Adjustfor best performance’ andclick Apply.

Again, in the Perfor-mance Options dialog box,click on Advanced. UnderP r o c e s s o rschedulingand Memoryusage, makesure the Pro-grams optionis selected ineach case.

Doaway withpasswordsTo disablelogon pass-w o r d sentirely, go toStart > Run,type ‘controlu s e r p a s s -words2’ and

press [Enter]. In the UserAccounts dialog box thatpops up, uncheck ‘Usersmust enter a username andpassword to use this com-puter’. Since you are doingaway with passwords alto-gether, disable the HelpAs-sistant account. In the User

…because your RAM doesn’t oblige XP’s bellsand whistles

WINDOWS XP

If you have only one user on your computer, itmakes sense to disable password requirements

From within theSystemProperties dialogbox, you can setWindows XP togive preferenceto performance.You can allocateits resources togive preferenceto the programsyou run

MAY 2004

38


148

check ‘Display file size infor-mation in folder tips’ and‘Display simple folder viewin Explorer’s Folder list’.Under Offline Files, uncheck‘Enable Offline Files’.

DefragmentationOne cause of system slow-down is fragmented data.When writing to your drive,whatever space is available isfilled, so even small files

can be distributed all overthe place.

Windows may also splitlarge files into many partsand spread them over thehard disk. This is fragmenta-tion. To counter this, youneed to defrag your harddisks once a month.

Go to Windows Explorer,right-click on a drive, select‘Properties’ and in Tools,click ‘Defragment Now…’.When Disk Defragmenteropens up, click Defragment.After the process is done,check your hard disks forerrors. In the disk propertiesbox, click ‘Check Now…’under ‘Error-checking’.

No compressionand indexingDrive compression andindexing is a feature of Win-dows XP that helps you savespace and search your harddisk better—provided thedrive is formatted in NTFS.

To begin with, if you haveslower 5,400-rpm drives, oran older, slower computer, it’sbetter that you leave thesefeatures turned off. The eas-iest way to check if this isenabled, is to double-click MyComputer, right-click on anNTFS drive and select Proper-ties. At the bottom of thedialog box that pops up,you’ll see two check boxescalled ‘Compress drive to savedisk space’ and ‘AllowIndexing Service to index thisdisk for fast file searching’.

If you don’t search yourhard disk for files frequently,you can safely uncheck the‘Allow Indexing Service toindex this disk for fast file

s e a r c h i n g ’option. Turningoff disk com-pression, how-ever, is a littlemore compli-cated. Not allusers have 40GB and 80 GBdrives, andsome wouldrather saveevery MB ofdisk spacethat they can,gladly waitinga few seconds longer for pro-grams to load.

Another thing toremember is that if disk com-pression is already enabled,and your drive is almost full,turning it off can haveunpleasant consequences—prepare to lose a little data.We suggest you turn off diskcompression only if youhave large hard disks, withspace to spare.

If you change any settings,click OK and then make sureto check the ‘Apply changesto <Drive>:\, subfolders andfiles’. You can do the same forall your NTFS drives.

Boost that driveGo to System Properties([Windows] + [Pause Break]) ,and then to Hardware > Devicemanager. Look for ‘DiskDrives’ and double-click onit. In ‘Properties’, check‘Optimise for performance’and ‘Enable Write Cachingon the disk’. Now, go to IDEATA/ATAPI Controllers, anddouble-click ‘Primary IDEChannel’. Under AdvancedSettings, make sure ‘DMA if

available’ is enabled. Do the same for the Sec-

ondary IDE Channel. You’llneed to restart for thechanges to take effect.

Unwanted fontsand applicationsNot only do extra fonts slowdown your system, they alsoincrease bootup times. Usea font management toolsuch as Typograph (http://www.neuber.com/typograph/).Refer to the Quickstartarticle—‘Fonts Sans Confu-sion’—in the January 2004edition of Digit for tips touse Typograph.

The same applies tounwanted programs. Unin-stall all that you don’tneed—too many applica-tions slow the system down,even if you have space tospare. All installed programshave associated keys andvalues in the registry, and ref-erences to them are all overyour hard disk. Try asking ahard disk that’s sortingthrough 2,000 fonts andapplications to hurry up!

DMA access will let your drives communicatefaster with other components

Defragment disk drives once amonth, for faster data access

Setting the right folder optionswill let you work faster in Explorer

39


149 MAY 2004

To make your PC playfaster, access thegraphics card settings

by right-clicking on thedesktop and going to Properties> Settings > Advanced. You cantweak all options from here.

OpenGL settingsFor faster fps, and a moreenjoyable experience, turn offeye-candy.

Make sure all the optionsin your graphics card settingsare tuned for high perform-ance. Set the minimum levelsfor—or turn off—resourcehungry settings such asAnisotropic Filtering, Anti-Aliasing, Mipmap Detail andVertical Sync.

Direct3D settings In your card’s Direct3Dsettings, set all eye-candy to a minimum, or just turn the settings off. Here again,turn off Anti-Aliasing,Anisotropic Filtering, Mip-map Details and VerticalSync. You may need to enableFog table emulation for

nVidia cards to avoid seeing ablank screen.

A clean winKeep your graphics card cleanand airy. All that gaming canreally test the hardware, andif you’re not careful, be pre-pared to see a BSOD, or worsestill, corrupted files after arather ‘hot’ reboot.

The area around thegraphics card should be openand cables shouldn’t obstructthe fan. If possible, install anadditional fan on top of yourcabinet. With typical mother-board placements, this newfan will blow air straight ontothe AGP graphics card.

Get by with a littlehelpYou can get power-user-typecontrol over your graphicscard drivers with third-partytools. These will furthertweak your card settings forbest performance withdecent visual effects.

Radeon users can try outPowerStrip (http://www.entech-

taiwan.net/util/ps.shtm), andnVidia card owners, nVHard-Page (www.nvhardpage.com).For those still hanging on toTNT and TNT2 cards, we suggest you use older, stabledrivers, instead of the latest Detonator drivers(www.nvidia.com).

The Detonator drivers areoptimised for the latest breedof graphic chipsets, and maytax your older cards. Ofcourse, if you can’t find theolder drivers, stick to the new.

OverclockingYou can overclock your GPUto get better graphics, butthere is a limit. Don’t expectto get 9800 Pro performanceout of your TNT2. There’s avery fine line between a fasterGPU, and a minor explosion,so be wary. And do bear inmind that overclocking isconsidered tampering, whichvoids your warranty. If youhave no clue what you’redoing, skip these tips.

Using third-party utili-ties mentioned earlier—

PowerStrip for Radeons andnVHardPage for nVidia’scards—you can tweak yourGPU. Go to the clock fre-quency controller in yourrespective utility, andincrease the clock speedand memory speed at notmore than 5 MHz at a time.Keep testing for stabilityand excessive heat emittedby the card.

The performance increasebegins to go down as youoverclock more and more.Use your judgement to get theoptimal setting where theoverclocking is moderate andthe performance gain is satis-factory. As always, add a fewfans to your cabinet beforeyou do this.

LAN partiesBefore connecting to a gameserver, close all programs thatuse the Internet to maximiseyour connection speed andminimise your ping times.Don’t spare even IM applica-tions. Also, exit as many pro-grams and services as you can.

Don’t forgetthe gameApart from settingthe graphics cardoptions, you alsoneed to adjust eachgame’s settings forhigh performance.This is usually foundin the game menuunder Options > Set-tings > Graphics , orsomething similar.Set colour depths,‘details’, and allother such settingsto Low.

GAMING Now for some help with your fps...

Using tools such as nVHardPage cangive you that performance boost yourequire so badly

40


150 MAY 2004

Some of the smartest users we meet on the forum are long term Digit subscribers. Wait, isthere a pattern here?

Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2004 9:30 pm Post subject:

Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2004 10:01 am Post subject: Re: My XP freeze

gauravsuneja wrote:

LOL! How can you expect XP to run properly with 128 MB of RAM? Time to upgrade to 384 or 512 MB. Deep

Posted: Mon Feb 23, 2004 3:36 pm Post subject:

BTW Deep, my comp ran beautifully on 128 MB. All I did was:1) Changed the visual options2) Disabled the worthless services3) Made my page file 512 MB, spanning two hard drives4) Used a RAM optimiser5) Used Hare

My XP freezes so that I can’t press even [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Del]. I have to cold reboot when this happens,especially while using Photoshop.My configuration is XP Pro, 128 MB RAM, nVidia 64 MB graphics Cre-ative sound, 40 GB hard drive. Any answers?

DeepDigitized

Joined: 23 Jan 2004Posts: 324Location: Mumbai,India

iceDigitized!

Joined: 28 Dec 2003Posts: 1635Location: Mumbai

Tweaking UR OS:1) Get XP antispy (freeware). Block all the worthless services. (It has a description for the services too)

2) Get System Mechanic... Run a registry check and a junk file remover check every week or so. Also, tweak the OS accord-ing to your needs., eg, in the Optimization sub-menu, choose startup manager and remove stuff like kernel check and MSOffice. Btw, don’t delete the entries, just disable them, so that u can re-enable them later…In the Tweak Windows Set-tings, you can change the options according to your needs. I’ve enabled Prefetching to monitor bootfile and applicationlaunch

3) I use Tweak XP. It has a lot of cool options like cache optimization, hardware optimization—they are all depend-ent on your RAM, hardware, etc. All you need to do is spend a good 30 minutes with the software.

4) Cable nut (for Net speed) Yes the name says cable, but it also works with dial-ups, ADSL, etc Install it (freeware )choose Start > Programs > Cable nut > Css > your connection speed > your OS. For XP, choose Windows 2000 as the OS.

5) Install Naviscope. It will tell you about your network usage—what goes on between your PC and the Net, blockadds, etc. Thus it speeds up the Net and has options of optimizing MTU/RWIN Settings in Windows 9x.

6) Install Hare, and change your kernel to 88-bit. If it isn’t stable, go back to 64-bit. BTW, never use Hare’s RAM opti-mizer. It sucks! You can use Hare to change your GFX card options, Prefetching, etc.

7) If you want to decrease your boot up time, install Zoom. Enable boot file caching, and if you don’t change yourstartup files regularly, enable Startup Snapshot, or whatever it’s called. It works! Also try BootVis, though I don’t guar-antee it—it helped me, but didn’t help Dexter.

8) This is a big post. Do I get paid for this?

9) Yeah! Defragment! The most important thing is to defragment your drives regularly. Windows defragmenter isslow, so try [Windows] + [R], type ‘cmd’ and press [Enter]. Now, type ‘diskeeper’ and press [Enter], choose the optionthat best suits your needs and defragment. My comp defrags itself using this bat file every night at 3:diskeeper c: -f diskeeper d: -f diskeeper e: -f diskeeper e: -fMy C: is FAT32, so it takes ’bout 20-30 minutes. The rest are NTFS, and take less than a minute each.

iceDigitized!

Joined: 28 Dec 2003Posts: 1635Location: Mumbai

JUNE 2004


177

Its a Free-FreeW orld

Farz

ana

Coo

per

contents42 Essentials42 Multimedia43 Internet46 System47 Office48 Developer Tools

Tried the free software on the CD along with this issue? Now here aresome quick tips to give you the winning edge

41

JUNE 2004

42


178

■ tips and tricks

Adobe Acrobat ReaderFull 6.0Adobe Acrobat Reader comesin two flavours—the Basic andthe Full version. The differenceis that the Full version hascomprehensive help, supportfor accessibility features, andmost importantly, the provi-sion to search within AdobeCatalog Index files. The Indexfiles provide access to a full-textsearch system. This makes itsimpler and faster to search fortext within multiple PDF files,through a single interface.

The search interface sup-ports search using simple, compound or Boolean argu-ments. Advanced search capa-bilities, such as stemming andproximity, help you refine thesearch results.

To search via an index,drag and drop the index file,with the PDX extension, intothe application. The searchbar opens on the right handside. By default, the searchapplication will be in Basicmode, but by using the link atthe bottom of the page, you

can enable Advancedmode. Remember, youneed to use the Full versionof Adobe Acrobat Reader6.0 to avail these options.

The results obtained canbe sorted in various ways.Relevance sorting keeps themost probable results onthe top. ‘Sort by filename’is self-explanatory. TheDigit Archive filenames inthe second free CD withthis issue, have been cho-sen such that, on beingsorted, they appear in

chronological order.

dBpower AMP MusicConverterTo start using dBpower AMP,all you need are the pluginsfor the formats into whichyou need to encode youraudio files. Once you havethem installed, you can startright away.

Within Explorer, locate thefile you want encoded, right-click on it, and choose ‘Con-vert To’. You should see thelisted options for the audioformats supported. Select theformat of your choice andclick on it. This opens theOptions menu where you canset parameters such as encod-ing quality and type. Whenyou have entered the options,click on Convert to start con-verting the file.

Winamp 5.03Global Hotkeys

Winamp 5.03 features globalhotkeys that allow you to con-trol your player using the key-board. The fun thing is that

the shortcuts work even ifWinamp is not in focus. Thus,even if you’re working in Word, you can pause, play, stop, or increase or decrease volume with the following configurablekey combinations:

Welcome the MediaLibraryWinamp boasts of a powerfulfeature called the MediaLibrary. Open it by right-click-ing on the main window andselecting Library, or by press-ing [Alt] + [L]. You can navigateover the main sections, calledViews, from the left side pane.

To add your files, click on

ESSENTIALS MULTIMEDIA

Acrobat allows you to searchwithin an index for quick search

Action Shortcut

Play/Pause [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Home]

Stop [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [End]

Next Track [Ctrl] + [Alt] +

[Page Down]

Previous Track [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Page Up]

Increase Volume [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [ ]

Decrease Volume [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [ ]

Left Seek [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [ ]

Right Seek: [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [ ]

JUNE 2004179

43

Library, and select the directo-ries containing your mediafiles. Winamp immediatelyseparates the audio from thevideo files, and puts eachunder the correct View.

If you flip across thedefault Audio and VideoViews, you’ll notice there’s alot you can do in each View.For example, under the AudioView, you can view your col-lection by artiste or by album.There’s also a useful searchfacility that lets you search for files within the library,with the results displayed inthe Results pane. You can nar-row down your search byentering multiple keywords.You may choose to eitherenqueue the results to the cur-rent playlist, or play it straightoff the library.

If you right-click on thetrack in the Results pane, youcan choose to play all tracksby the same artiste, or play allthe tracks in the album, or addthe files to a playlist. Right-clicking on the track in theResults pane lets you accessand change file information,and remove the file from thelibrary and the drive.

You can even create yourown custom views, such as‘High Bitrate’ to automaticallyfilter only those audio

files which have a bitrate of, or more than, 192 Kbps.

The media librarycan also keep trackof various playlists. Italso allows you tokeep track of mediafolders—your musicsources. These can belocal or shared fold-

ers. They can be scannedautomatically for new media.Tags are used to generatesearchable info in the libraryfor later reference.

The Playlist EditorWinamp’s Playlist Editor has-n’t really changed in thismakeover. It still remains theeasiest to work with. Ifyou’ve just loaded a hugeplaylist, and want to searchfor a specific track, a quicksearch-and-select can bedone by pressing [F3].

This opens up the ‘Jump tofile’ window, where you canenter the search criteria. The filtered song can be played immediately, orenqueued to be played afterthe current song.

Forget me notIf you want to list yourfavourite tracks such that they

Eudora

Insert recipients quicklyIf you send frequent e-mailsto certain addresses, then usethe ‘Recipient List’ in Eudorafor quick access to their e-mail addresses.

To add a user to this list,go to Tools > Address Book.Click on the desired user to

see all his/her details. In theRecipient List checkbox,select Yes.

Once you have addedthe desired users to theRecipient List, sending e-mail to them will be easier.Just right-click in the To, Ccor Bcc box, select ‘InsertRecipient’ and click on thedesired user.

INTERNET

The Media Library is a manageable bird’seye-view of all your music collection

Winamp is full of featureswaiting to be utilised

can be accessed in a jiffy, youcan bookmark them withWinamp’s convenient book-marking feature. To bookmarktracks, right-click the selectedtracks in the Playlist Editor andselect ‘Bookmark Item(s)’. Youcan also use the [Alt] + [I] com-bination for this. To access thebookmarks, right-click onWinamp, go to Bookmarksand pick up your track fromthe list there.

Not just skin deepThe new Winamp boasts ofskin support which, apartfrom looking really great,has some new and impres-sive features. To begin with,

the ‘repeat’ button is now athree-way toggle. It togglesbetween ‘No repeat’, ‘repeatplaylist’ and the new ‘RepeatTrack’, which will keeprepeating the current track.Also on offer is the Notifica-tion feature, which, if theplayer is minimised will popup details of new actions,such as a track change, aplayback pause etc.

Additionally, you canmake Winamp transparent,and as unobtrusive as youwant. Also, for those withchanging moods, Winampcan now wear multitudes ofcolours. Change the colourto suit your mood.

JUNE 2004

44


180

You’ve got tweet!You can change the soundplayed when a new mailarrives, by assigning a wavfile within Tools > Options >GettingAttention. Click theunnamed button, locate the.wav file, and click Open.Now, whenever you receivean e-mail, your sound ofchoice will be played.

A backup a day keepsthe doctor awayBacking up your Eudora e-mails is as simple as copyingand pasting. Find the Eudorafolder—in Windows 98, it’slocated at C:\Windows\applicationdata\qualcomm\eudo-ra—and select all the fileswith the .mbx, .pce, .txt and.fol extensions. Copy theselected files to a backupstorage device. The .mbx,.pce and .fol files relate to e-mails, while *.txt files con-tain the address book.

Drafts, or stationeryInstead of typing the samebody text for oft-formattede-mails, such as standardresponses to informationrequests, you can save gener-al layouts of such e-mails.These are saved as Stationeryin Eudora, and can be read-ied to be sent with minor,last minute changes. To cre-ate new Stationery, go toTools > Stationery. A blankwindow will open up. Rightclick in this window andselect New. In the composi-tion window, fill in as many fields as you wish, and savethe Stationery.

Sending the e-mail is nowas simple as double-clicking

a Stationery item and mak-ing a few changes, if any.

Mail listSome people have more thanone e-mail address. You cansend an e-mail to all of theseby creating a mail list. To dothis, when you create a userentry in the address book,you see a box that says ‘Thisnickname will expand to thefollowing addresses’. Enter asmany e-mail addresses asyou want, and your list isready.

Work fasterThe fastest way to send e-mail is to press [Ctrl] + [E] toopen the send e-mail box.

Filter on nickEudora provides a differentway to filter e-mails. Insteadof the regular filter, using thee-mail address, Eudoraallows you to filter usingnicknames. This way, even ifthe e-mail address of the per-son changes, the mail willstill be considered recognis-able. Of course, if both thenick and e-mail ID change, itwould bypass the filter.

To set up a filter, go toTools > Filter > New. Specify theconditions, and the action tobe taken, and you’re done.

Vacation replyWith the help of Filters andStationery, configure Eudorato reply to all e-mails thatarrive within a specified peri-od. The filter acts a dummycontroller—you can draft apersonalised respnse, whichwill be sent as a reply mailduring the vacation period.

Eudora add-insEudora has add-ins to facili-tate and automate manyfrequent tasks. These areeasily downloadable fromthe Internet. Here are someof the more popular ones.

Mail alertThis add-in runs as a stand-alone program, using Eudo-ra’s e-mail settings, to pollyour e-mail server at regularintervals. If it detects newmail at the server, then itpops up a window indicatingthis. It also provides ways toread, reply to and delete thee-mails directly from theserver. The MailAlert add-incan be downloaded fromhttp://www.diamondridge.com/software/mailalert/index.htm.

Address book to HTMLThis add-in helps you exportEudora’s address book toHTML. This is handy, whenpublishing your addressbook on your Web site forothers to refer. It consists ofan executable program,which needs to know the folder location of theaddress book.

In Windows 98, thedefault folder is C:\Win-dows\ApplicationData\qual-comm\eudora. The add-inneeds ‘NNdbase.txt’, whichcontains Eudora’s entireaddress book. On clickingthe ‘Convert’ button an htmlfile is created in the samefolder, by the name NNd-base.htm. The add-in itselfprovides a way to view theconverted file. This add-in isavailable at http://www.mindspring.com/~aegreene/eudora/.

Mail to HTMLSimilar to ‘address book toHTML’ is ‘mail to HTML’.Suppose you subscribe to amailing list, and get an inter-esting e-mail which youwould like to share. You canupload this to a Web site,Intranet, or Internet basedwith just a few mouse clicks.

The add-in effectivelyconverts the entire mailboxinto HTML pages. It general-ly finds the source folder,and you need to specify the destination folder wherethe HTML files will resideafter conversion.

Apart from this, you caneven convert mails into textfiles. The plugin is availableat http://users.erols.com/tgitlin/

Synchronise two PCsUse this plugin to synchro-nise the address books of twoPCs running Eudora.

There’s an interface win-dow where you have toselect NNdbase.txt—theaddress file, from the firstcomputer, and then theaddress file from the secondsystem. A destination filethat consists of a compiledaddress book from bothmachines is created. The plu-gin is available at http://eudo-ra.interweb.be/addins.html.

Opera 7.23Down with the mouse!

Opera supports a whole lotof keyboard shortcuts. Welist some of them here:

To go to a URL directly,you can press [F2], and enterthe URL in the address barwhich pops up. If your

JUNE 2004181

45

address bar is enabled, youcan press [F2] to take the key-board focus to the address bar.Additionally, you can load adocument from your harddrive by pressing [Ctrl] + [O].

Document images can beeasily toggled simply bypressing [G]. This is a three-way switch, and will cyclebetween ‘Show all images’,‘Show loaded images’, and‘Do not show images’. If youcome across a Web page withbad formatting, making itunreadable, you can press[Ctrl] + [G]. Of course, you canalways use the classic [F5] or[Ctrl] + [F5] combination for apage refresh.

Once you are done with awindow, you can hit [Ctrl] +[F4] to close the active MDI window.

Zip zap zoom!Opera boasts of true zoomfunctionally, which allowsyou to zoom not only text,but even images and stylesproportionately. You canexploit this feature using thetrusty old keyboard by repet-itively pressing [0] and [9] fora 10 per cent zoom out, orzoom in respectively. [7] and[8] can do.

If you’re lost, you canalways press [6] to revert to100 per cent zoom.

Scroll that pageYou don’t need a mouse touse the scroll bar. You can hit[Ctrl] + [F7] to toggle the scrollbar on or off. The arrow keyscan be used to scroll up anddown. [Page Up] and [PageDown] scroll page-wise. Like-wise, [Home] scrolls the

document to the top, and[End] takes you to the end ofthe document.

Additionally, you can use[Q] and [A] to navigate to theprevious and next text linkon the page respectively.Once on a link, press theSpace Bar or [Enter] to openthe link in a new window.Handy, eh?

If there’s a form on page,despair not; you still don’tneed a mouse to enter theform. Press [Tab], and Operawill promptly take you to theform fields. Don’t feel likemaking a purchase at thatmoment? Press [F9], and focuswill return to the Web page.

Looking around for a his-tory of URLs visited? Press[H], and you get the list atyour fingertips…literally.

Manage that documentOpera boasts of keyboardshortcuts for just abouteverything. It allows you to manage your documentwindows easily using key-board shortcuts:

Put across a pointApart from being an excel-lent browser, Opera doubles

up as a fabulous presenta-tion tool.

Press [F11] to transformOpera into presentationmode. Scrollbars vanish, thedocument opens in fullscreen and menus hide. Cer-

tain parts of the documentmay be hidden, and fontsand formatting may changeto reflect presentation status.

The M2 factorAnother weapon in Opera’sarsenal is the feature-packedM2 client that fulfils allyour news or mail clientneeds.

To configure a newnewsgroup account, go toMail > New Account. Choosethe type of account—in thiscase, it will be a newsaccount. To subscribe to athread of the Microsoftnewsgroup domain, entermsnews.microsoft.com as theincoming server and yourSMTP as the outgoing serv-er. The outgoing server willbe used to send your poststo the news server via e-mail. Use the following set-tings to better refine youraccount usage preferencesin your mail account:

Leave messages on

server (POP accountsonly): This will leave a copyof the message on the servereven after you have down-loaded and read it. Good ifyou might need mail againat another computer.

Mark messagesas read if alreadydownloaded: Thisoption will ask M2 tomark a mail as read ifthe mail has beenmarked as read fromsome other mailclient earlier, or fromsome other location.

Download mes-sage body whenchecking: This

selects if M2 should down-load only the message head-er, or the complete messagebody as well. Choosing todownload only messageheaders can come in handyso you can delete spam, oran unsolicited, large mailjust by reading its header.

Keep local copy of mes-sage body: This makes alocal copy of the mail forlater viewing.

Check for mail every #minutes: This forces M2 tocheck for new e-mail after aspecified duration.

Play sound when newmessages arrive: M2 canoptionally play back a soundalert to indicate the arrival ofa new mail.

Queue messages (do not send immediately):Enabling this option causesM2 to halt a message imme-diately. Instead, it queues itin the outbox. All messageswill be sent only when theSend button is clicked.

Opera is capable of transforming a Webpage to a slide

Action

New document

Duplicate window

Reload all

Cascade windows

Tile horizontally

Tile vertically

Restore focus

Switch to next

Switch to previous

Minimise current

Maximise current

Close all

Shortcut

[Ctrl] + [N]

[Ctrl] + [Shift] + [N]

[Ctrl] + [F5]

[Shift] + [F5]

[F6]

[Shift] + [F6]

[F9]

[Ctrl] + [Tab]

[Ctrl] + [Shift] + [Tab]

[4]

[5]

[Ctrl] + [Shift] + [W]

names, not limited to chang-ing of case.

If you have a number offiles downloaded from, say,your digicam, and you needto prefix all filenames with aword, say, ‘goatrip_’, you canturn on the Prefix option inthe Serial Filenames tab andenter the word you need toadd before all your filenames.

Serial menderSo you downloaded a hun-dred different photographsfrom a hundred differentsites for your project, but themixed filenames are makingit hellish for you to keeptrack of them?

Go to the Serial Filenametab and enable the Auto-Ser-ial Naming option. Theresult will be filenames suchas ‘picnic_trip_1.jpg’, ‘pic-nic_trip_2.jpg’, etc.

A powerful feature wait-ing to be exploited here is ‘Auto Suggest’. Onceenabled, it analyses the tar-get folder to automaticallysuggest a prefix for a file-name, which, most often,makes sense.

The General StuffStopYell’s General tab ischock-full of features youcan use. Often, Web sitesrename the filenames toadhere to online Webresource locator namingstandards, which are brows-er friendly, but forget tochange the filename back toits human-readable form.This is when special charac-ters in the filenames get

replaced with codes. Forexample, space becomes%20, and so on.

Fixing this on 50 files canbe a headache withoutStopYell. Go to theAdvanced Options andswitch to the Advanced tab.Here, in the General tab,check Enable Replace. Bydefault, underscores and‘%20’ are converted tospaces. Other configurationsare available as well.

The same tab will alsoallow you remove all digitsfrom filenames, or removeextra whitespace, at the clickof a button.

Eventually, filenames

JUNE 2004

46


182

StopYell can suggest filenamesto use for serial filenames

StopYell 2002

Mend your filenamesStopYell is a one-stop solutionfor all filename renamingjobs. You can make elemen-tary or complex filenamechanges, and StopYell will do it all at the click of a but-ton. This feature comes in handy when there are mul-tiple file sources, and youhave to follow various filenaming conventions.

Use the simple dialog boxto change your filenames to

lowercase or keep it all caps.You can also choose to con-vert a long filename to sen-tence case, which convertsthe first letter of the filenameto caps. If there are numbersor special characters in thefilename, you can define ifyou want the characterimmediately after the specialcharacter to be capitalised.

Similar changes can be made on filename exten-sions too.

StopYell, by default, keepsthe advanced filenamerename options disabled sothat no accidental filenamechange happens. Click the‘Enable Advanced Options’option to enable advancedfeatures. This will allowStopYell to generate new file-

Change your filenames fromHiCcUpS.jpg to Hiccups.jpg

Replace bad characters such as % from filenames quickly and easily

SYSTEM

Advanced options allow StopYellto improve filenames by morethan just the case

OpenOffice.org

Turning off AutoFor-mat and AutoCorrect inWriterWriter, the word processorwithin the OpenOffice.orgsuite, comes with automa-tors, namely the auto-for-mat and auto-correctfacilities. While these maybe useful, they can also beirritating, especially whentext is being corrected or for-matted wrongly. For exam-ple, with the defaultsettings, it capitalises thefirst letter of every sentence;every URL is recognised and

is coloured to mark it out asa hyperlink.

To turn off these, go toTools > AutoCorrect/AutoFormat.Under the Options tab,uncheck the options thatyou don’t need. You canchoose not to have it auto-correct and auto-format,while you modify the text,or while you enter the textonto the page.

Inserting special char-acters in WriterTo insert special characterssuch as the ® or © symbols,place the cursor in thedesired position, and thengo to Insert > Special Character.

47


183 JUNE 2004

OFFICE

such as ‘34_gOa%20Trip.JPG’, get converted to‘Goa Trip.jpg’. Did we hear“Cool”?

Name your tracksNot resting at its capabilitiesto rename simple and com-plex naming requirements,StopYell manages to auto-matically rename MP3s byreading their ID3 tags.

Give it a folder full ofsongs, and it will look in

each song to get relateddetails such as Title, Artiste,etc, and build up a logicalfilename for each file, so youknow the song just by look-ing at the filename.

StopYell changes thenaming convention depend-ing on how much informa-tion is found in the ID3 tagof a given song. Default andrecommended naming con-ventions are provided bydefault, but can be changedif needed. Info tags getreplaced by the actual infor-mation. For example, a filecalled ‘so young.mp3’, with‘%a - %t(%m)’ selected

builds up the filename ‘TheCorrs - So Young (Talk OnCorners).mp3’.

ZoneAlarm

Program controlClicking on Program Con-trol lets you set security lev-els for programs that mayaccess the Internet fromyour computer.

Clicking on the Main tablets you set broad-basedrules; set Medium here. Toset specific rules for eachprogram, open the Programtab—here you will find a listof programs that have triedto connect.

You can also add pro-grams such as your browser,e-mail client, or a specialisedapplication to which youwould like to grant access.For example, if you use file-sharing programs over theInternet, you can add thefilename here through theAdd option, and set itsparameters. Choose betweendenying access, to allowingoutright access, or settle onthe program asking for per-mission every time it wantsto connect.

Server rightsZoneAlarm may alert youabout granting server rightsto certain programs—this isthe case with chat and filetransfer software that allowfor real-time conversations,such as Yahoo!, MSN ormIRC. You can assign theserights from Program Controlunder the Programs tab.ZoneAlarm monitors theactivity of the programs con-

tinuously and prevents unau-thorised access.

Full stopTo stop all Internet activity,click on the red Stop button.You can configure the Inter-net Lock from the ProgramControl screen, in the Maintab. This is obviously a drasticmeasure—use this if you arecertain that a Trojan or some

other major security loopholeexists on your computer.

You can also configurecertain software to bypassthe Internet lock. This isuseful, if, for example, youwish to leave for the day, butneed a download to com-plete. In this case, you cangive, say, your downloadmanager rights to bypass theInternet Lock.

Rename a file from good_song.mp3 toCalifornication.mp3

48


184 JUNE 2004

Choose Symbol from the Fontlist, and click on the symbolyou want inserted.

Locking text Writer also has an option thatlets you lock in a section oftext to prevent it from beingedited or changed. Select theportion of text that you wantprotected, go to Insert > Section,and under the entry for Writeprotection, select the Protectoption. Finally, select Insert.The selected text is nowlocked; you cannot overwritethe text.

If you like to safeguard the

section with a password,choose the ‘With Password’option, provide a passwordand click OK.

Freezing panes in CalcTo view row or column cap-tions for a long spreadsheet asyou work through it, you canfreeze the fields that hold thecaption.

If a single row or columncaption needs to be frozen,click on the cell just below orto the right of the row or col-umn that contains the cap-tion. Go to Windows > Freeze. Ifyou have either column cap-

tions or row captions, youcan create cross freezing byclicking on the uppermostleft side cell that does notcontain a caption.

For example, in a sheetwith single row and columncaptions, choose the B2 cell.If you have multiple row andcolumn captions to be frozen,you can split the sheet win-dow. Click on the cell justbelow or to the right of therow or column where youwant to insert your caption,and go to Windows > Split. Thesheet window splits. Now,you can scroll both parts of

the split window, displayingthe caption as per yourrequirements.

About those pesky####sIf you see ### in a cell whereyou have entered some datavalue in Calc, it means thatthe value is too large to be dis-played, and that Calc hasclipped it to display ‘###’. Toread the value, resize that par-ticular cell. If the cell contentis text, you can double-clickon the cell. This shows a redtriangle that indicates thatthe field is overflowing.

NSIS 2

Showing the doorsAny installation package isincomplete if a correspondinguninstall module is not bun-dled. Uninstallation is asessential a component as theinstallation module. Hence, itis necessary to add the correctvalues in your NSIS script toallow for a successful unin-stall.

The information has to beadded to the following reg-

istry key: HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVer-sion\Uninstall

You need to add the fol-lowing mandatory keys:DisplayName (string): Thisis where the name of yourapplications goes.UninstallString (string):Path and filename of theuninstaller. Always quote thepath to ensure that spaces donot prevent Windows fromfinding the uninstaller.

Optionally, add the fol-lowing information to helpusers get more data about

your application:ModifyPath (string): Pathand filename of the applica-tion modify program InstallSource (string): Loca-tion from where the applica-tion was installedRegCompany (string): Com-pany name of the applicationHelpLink (string): The Website of the applicationHelpTelephone (string): Thephone number for applica-tion supportURLInfoAbout (string): A linkto the application home pageDisplayVersion (string): Dis-played version of the applica-tion VersionMajor (dword): Majorversion number of the applica-tion VersionMinor (dword): Minorversion of the applicationNoRepair (dword): This is setto 1 if the uninstaller has nooption to repair the installa-tion

DEVELOPER TOOLS

NSIS has many configurable options, such as which compression touse for the final install package

JULY 2004


119

contents50 Easter eggsTake a look at some of the smart little fun things you

can find hidden within some of the most commonly

used software

54 Game cheats

Tired of struggling with that game? We’ll show you

how to become a gaming god in no time—cheats

for 23 of the most popular games inside

Take a look at how to have fun with someprofessional software, and also become aserious force with the most popular of games

49

APRIL 2004

50


120

■ tips and tricks

Easter Eggs are undocu-mented, hidden tidbits in

software, games, etc., thatusers accidentally stumbleupon. These are fun to find,and thousands have alreadybeen documented.

Easter eggs started out asa rebellion by early program-mers who did not get creditfor their work. That’s whysome of them are as simpleas a scrolling list of program-mers. However, you also findsome as advanced as ahidden car racing game inExcel 2000. So read on toexplore the amusing worldof Easter eggs.

Windows XPUnexpected shutdown

For this, you need a softwarecalled Resource Hacker. Getit from our July 2004 Mind-ware CD, or download itfrom http://www.users.on.net/~johnson/resource-hacker/. Resource Hacker is afree tool to view and modify

32-bit Windows executablesand resource files.Open the msgina.dll file,located in the C:\Windows

\System32 directory, inResource Hacker. In the leftpane, expand Dialog > 2210 >1033. A dialog box opens atthe bottom right hand of thescreen. Notice the line justbelow the drop-down list

EASTER EGGS entitled ‘Why did thecomputer shut down unex-pectedly?!’

Solitare Win WinForce Solitare to win by ahack. Here’s how: Opensol.exe located inC:\Windows\System32\ usingResource Hacker. ExpandString Table > 64 > 1033 in theleft pane. Notice a line in theright pane saying 1010,“Force a win”. Use thesenumbers to enable the EasterEgg. Now expand Menu > 1 >1033. Create a menu bytyping the following justbefore the last closing brace:POPUP “&Easter Egg”{

MENUITEM "&Egg 1", 1008MENUITEM "&Egg 2", 1009MENUITEM "&Egg 3", 1010

} Now, click the

Compile Scriptbutton. Next, go toFile > Save and save itin the original loca-tion, i.e.,C:\Windows\System32\sol.exe. Also, replacesol.exe in theC:\Windows\System32\dllcache folder.Now, a new menuEaster Egg appearswith Egg 1, Egg 2and Egg 3 asoptions. Click Egg 3to force a win.

WinRARFalling Book

Works on: WinRAR 3.20,3.30WinRAR—the popular filecompression utility—has asmart Easter Egg. Start

WinRAR and go to Help >About. Next, click the bookicon and it starts to fall.Further, if you press and hold[Shift], and click the logo, yousee a small sail boat near theletter ‘R’. You may have toclick a few times to see it ,though.

WinampFull Screen Credits

Works on: Winamp 2.91Start Winamp, go toWinamp menu, click Null-soft Winamp and switch tothe Credits tab to see ananimated screen. Now, holddown [Ctrl] + [Alt] and right-click twice on the animation.This changes it to full-screenmode and alters the anima-tion a bit. Repeat the samestep to get back to normalmode. This full-screenanimation depends on theactive visualisation. Changeit to spectrum and then oscil-loscope and repeat theprocess to see the difference.

Full Screen CreditsWorks On: Winamp 5An animated logo comes upas you go to Winamp menu >Nullsoft Winamp and click theWinamp tab. Press and hold[Shift] and double-click onthis logo to change it to anASCII art.

Dancing LlamasWorks On: Winamp 5This is one amusing egg inWinamp 5. First play a songwith fast beats and heavybass. Now, switch to themodern skin and resize themain window. Increase itswidth to make the Beat

Resource Hacker is a handy tool to find outwhat’s hidden inside Windows System files.

APRIL 2004121

51

Analyzer visible to the left ofthe Spectrum Analyzer. Now,hold down [Shift] + [Ctrl] +[Alt] and click the centre ofthe Beat Analyzer. You’ll see two llamas striking theirheads on the ground in tunewith each beat.

Transparent BeatsWorks On: Winamp 5,Windows XP or 2000Play a song that’s akin to theone described above. Now,ensure that the main windowhas the focus (its title barshould be brighter than thatof other windows) and type‘NULLSOFT’. However, sincepressing [L] opens the FileOpen dialog, you’ll have topress [Esc] after each [L].Hence, you end up typing [N][U] [L] [Esc] [L] [Esc] [S] [O] [F] [T].This done, you see that themain window goes transpar-ent at each beat and thenreverts to being opaque.

This Easter egg consumesa lot of system resources. Ifyour system runs slow, typeNULLSOFT again to turn itoff, or just exit Winamp andrestart it.

In Winamp 2.91, the titlebar shows a funny changewhen you do the same thing.Try this and see yourself.

MS Excel Excel hasseveral interest-ing Easter eggs,some of which wementioned inthe article ‘ExcelEntertainment’in the Decem-ber 2003 issueof Digit. Find

that in the 36 issues archive CD of June2004. Here, we repeat some‘Excel’lent (Eggcellent?)Easter eggs.

Dev Hunter GameWorks On: Excel 2000,requires DirectX This Easter egg is compli-catedness re-defined. Toaccess it, create a new file inExcel 2000 and go to File >Save as Web Page. Choose‘Publish Sheet’ and ‘AddInteractivity’. Next, saveand open it using InternetExplorer. You see the Excelfile in the middle of thepage. Go to row 2000,column WC and select thisrow. Press [Tab] to highlightthe cell WC:2000. Thenpress and hold [Shift] + [Ctrl]

+ [Alt] and click the Officelogo in the upper-leftcorner.

A car racing game SpyHunter should start. Use thearrow keys to steer, [Space] tofire, [O] to drop oil on theroad and [H] to turn on yourhead lights.

Windows 98Teapot

Works on: Windows 98,Windows 95Right-click on the desktopand select Properties. Go to the Screensaver tab

and choose the Pipesscreensaver. ClickSettings and selectPipes as Multiple, PipeStyle as Traditional,Joint Type as Mixed and SurfaceStyle as Solid. ClickOK and then click the Preview button.Watch the screen-saver churn outteapots instead of joints!

Windows 98 teamGo to C:\Windows\ Applica-tionData\Microsoft\WELCOMEand find the file Weldata.exe.Right-click it and selectCreate Shortcut. Now, right-click the shortcut andselect Properties. Inthe General tab, addY o u _ a r e _a_real_rascal to theTarget text box, afterthe path, and chooseMinimized in theRun combo box.Click OK, double-click the shortcutand enjoy!

Windows 98 teamVersion 2Works on: Windows 98There is another way to viewWindows 98 team credits.Double-click the clock in thesystem tray to bring up theDate and Time Properties.Click the Time Zone tab, holddown [Ctrl] and click and holdthe mouse button on Cairo,Egypt. With the mousebutton still pressed, drag thepointer to Baton Rouge, LA.Release the mouse button butkeep [Ctrl] pressed. Click onBaton Rouge, LA again anddrag it to Redmond, WA. Thecredits movie starts to playonce you release the mousebutton. You can also trydoing the same thing inRegional Settings underControl Panel.

Hearts CheatWorks on: Windows 98Interested in the cards ofother players while playingHearts? Try this. Go to Start> Run, type ‘regedit’ and press[Enter]. Navigate to the keyHKEY_CURRENT_USER\Soft-ware\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVers ion\Applets\Hearts .Here, create a new string,name it ZB, and enter 42 asits value. Now, close the

Find Easter eggs in Winamp to reveal two llamasheadbanging, and also to make it transparent

The hidden windows 98 credits

It’s hard to believe that this is an Easteregg hidden inside Excel 2000

APRIL 2004

52


122

registry editor and startHearts. During the game,press [Shift] + [Ctrl] + [Alt] +[F12] to see what cards theother players have.

MS AccessMagic Eight Ball

Works on: MS Access 97, MSAccess 2000Create a blank database inAccess and then go to Macros> New. Now, press the Space-bar and clickClose. Save themacro as MagicEight Ball.Click and dragit to the tool-bar. The iconshould changeto the pictureof an eight ball.Click it forsome advice!

Access 97Setup “Lizard” creditsWorks on: MS Access 97MS Access includes a Setupwizard to create setupprograms used to distributedatabases. This Easter egg isincluded in this Setupwizard. Start this Setupwizard from the Start menu,select ‘Create a new set ofsetup options…’, click Nextand then Add. Browse to thefolder C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\, selectAll Files in the ‘Files of Type’ field and choosemso97.dll.

The screen goes blank andthe credits appear. Noticethat the letters are made upof tiny lizards. Also, look outfor the warning at the end of them.

MacromediaFlash

Gary’s Car Jump

Works on: Macromedia Flash4 and 5

For this, go to Help >About in Macromedia Flash.Now, double-click theMacromedia logo—the onewith two upward arrowslocated at the right of theabout box. Click the Thanks

button and the logobounces up and down. Click the Team button toplay a cool game—Gary’s Car Jump.

Six GamesWorks On: Macromedia FlashMXWhile Flash 4 and 5 haveone hidden game each,Flash MX has six. To accessthese, go to Help > About.Now, click underneath the Xof the logo. Clicking thecorrect spot may need a fewtries. Once you do so, yourscreen turns dark blue andoffers you a choice of sixgames—Gary’s Bike Jump,Gold rush, Asteroids, LunarLander, Breakthrough andFlash Blox (Tetris).

Adobe IllustratorWorks On: Adobe Illustrator10

Teri, one of the developersof Adobe Illustrator 10, codedthis egg for his daughter. Openany document in Illustrator,open the Symbols palette andset it to List view, so that yousee the symbol names.Double-click a symbol torename. Type in “Teri’s daugh-ter’s” and press [Enter]. Notethat this is case-sensitive. Now, double-click it again andrename it to something thatmight logically be associatedwith Teri’s daughter’s—forexample, name, eye colour, etc.Now, when you press [Enter],instead of renaming, it treatsthis as a query and renames thesymbol to the answer, or arandom failure message.

For the next question, youwill have to rename it back toTeri’s daughter’s first and thenrename it to the question.After a certain number of fail-ure messages, it starts givinghints as to what to ask for—You haven’t asked about herfavourite food yet.

Birthday Cake Works on: Adobe Illustrator8, 9 or 10

Create a new document inIllustrator. Now, open theBrush palette and click the‘New Brush’ button. Select‘Calligraphic’ and enterangle 5, roundness 26 anddiameter 56. Now, whenyou start drawing with thisbrush, instead of the normalbrush strokes, it draws birth-day cakes. To make differentcakes, set the sliders on theright to ‘random’.

ImageReadyDucks

Works on: ImageReady 7.0and CS mageReady developersseem to have a soft corner forducks. This is evident fromthis Easter egg, which is actu-ally composed of more thanone egg. First, press and hold[Ctrl] and go to ImageReady> About ImageReady. You seea different About screen, withits code name, for example,Taconite in case ofImageReady CS. That’s the firstegg. Wait a few seconds for thesecond and the credits will start scrolling.Speed them up by pressing[Alt]. At the bottom, you seetwo big ducks with the line,“Long live the Ducks!”

More ducksWorks on: ImageReady CSFor the really funny duck’segg, press [Ctrl] and go toImageReady > AboutImageReady. Now, if you pressand hold [Ctrl] again, themouse pointer changes to arubber stamp. Click anywhereon the image and a duckappears. You can stamp up toten ducks. To erase all ducks,press [Ctrl] + [Shift] and click.To ‘shoot’ ducks one by one,press and hold [Alt] + [Shift],aim and click.

This is one of the six games hidden in Flash MX

Duckerboard in ImageReady CS

APRIL 2004123

53

DuckerboardWorks on: ImageReady CSBy default, the grid that yousee is similar to a chessboard.To change its look, open anew file with a transparentbackground. Click anywhereinside the canvas window andtype ‘duckerboard’. Yourchessboard like grid turns intoa duckerboard.

PhotoshopCredits

Works on: Photoshop 6, 7, CSand ImageReady 7, CS

This egg works on almostall versions of Photoshop andImageReady. Click [Ctrl] andgo to Help > About. In case ofolder versions, you may haveto press [Ctrl] + [Alt]. Thisbrings up a different screen,with the code name of thesoftware. The credit list startsscrolling after a while, and ifyou press [Alt], the scrollingspeeds up. Read the last linesof the credits carefully—they’re really interesting.

Cat EyesWorks on: Photoshop 7Go to Help > About Photoshop,while holding down [Ctrl].The Liquid Sky splash screenappears. Now, press [PrintScreen], click File > New andpaste the clipboard contents

using [Ctrl] + [V]. Now switch to

the Channelspalette and clickthe Red, Greenand Blue channelsone at a time.Notice the eyes ofthe cat move.Change the Hueusing [Ctrl] + [U]

and an interesting effectcomes your way.

BegoneWorks on: Photoshop 7, CSTo see this egg, open any fileor create a new one. Next,press and hold [Alt], click thetriangle at the top-rightcorner of the Layer paletteand then click Palette options.You see a Merlin windowappearing. If you can’t readthe text on the title bar, right-click it and then click Move.Use the right-arrow to resizeand then press [Enter]. Clickthe Begone button to close it.

OutlookRen Hoek

It is named after the charac-ter from the animationseries Ren & Stimpy Show.Open Outlook 2000 andtype Ren Hoek in the ‘Find aContact’ textbox. Outlookwill show a dialog boxsaying that it cannot findthe contact. This egg maynot work if you do have acontact named Ren Hoek inyour address book. Now, goto Tools > Marco > Macros.In the Macro Name box,type OL2Rocks. Click theCreate button to open theAbout Microsoft Outlookdialog. Hold down [Shift] +

[Ctrl] + [Alt] and click OK.The Outlook 2000 teamcredits appear. Try to catchthe names as they fly to themailbox.

MS WordWord Credits

Start MS Word 2000 and goto Help > ShowOffice Assistantto bring theoffice assistant.In the ‘Whatwould you like todo?’ box, type inCast and clickSearch. From theresults, click Microsoft Office2000 User Assistance Staff.Then, click the graphic onthe Word help screen.

VB CreditsWorks on: MS Word 97,Word 2000Start Word and press [Alt] +[F11] to open Microsoft VisualBasic Editor. Right-clickanywhere on the toolbar andclick Customize. Now, go tothe Help Menu and right-click‘About Microsoft Visual Basic’.In the Name field, you see&About Microsoft VisualBasic, which is editable.Change it to Show VB Credits.Now close the Customizedialog box and then go toHelp > Show VB Credits. Turnon the speakers and enjoythese credits. You can use thearrow keys to adjust the speed.These will be different for boththe versions of Word.

DreamweaverToast your own

Works in: DreamWeaver 2.0or later

Create a blank page inDreamWeaver. Then, go toInsert > Layout Objects > Layerand create a new layer. Now,open the Layers palette bygoing to Window > Layers.With the layer selected,double-click its name in theLayers palette and rename it

to ‘ToastYourOwn’. Press[Enter] and you see a dialogbox saying, “So, I see youwant to toast your own...”.Click OK to be taken towww.dreamcentral.com/tyo/.Interesting!

A GameWorks in: Dreamweaver 4 orlater, requires FireWorks to beinstalled

Start Dreamweaver and goto Commands > Create Web PhotoAlbum. Enter the title of thealbum as play a game. ClickOK and have fun!

Developers’ PicturesWorks in: Dreamweaver 2.0or laterOpen a page that has imagesin Dreamweaver. Now, selectthe image, hold down [Ctrl],and double-click the imagethumbnail in the Propertiespalette. Keep on double-clicking, while holdingdown the [Ctrl] key and you see photographs ofthe developers and their names.

The credits screen with ducks in ImageReady

See the photographs of the developers inMacromedia Dreamweaver

Age of Empires 2To use these cheat codes,press [Enter] while playingthe game, type in the codeand press [Enter] again.

Age of MythologyTo use these cheat codes,press [Enter] while playingthe game, type in the codeand then press [Enter] again.

Airport Tycoon 2To use these cheats, press [~]to get the console while play-ing. Enter these codes andpress [Enter] to activate.

America’s ArmyTo use these cheats, press [~]to get the console while play-ing. Then enter these codesand press [Enter] to activate.These will only work onservers with cheats activated.

Unlock online levels To use these cheats, press [~]to get the console while play-ing. Thereafter, enter thefollowing commands and

press [Enter] to activate:‘mpcheat changeclass<code>’. Substitute ‘<code>’with one of the codesmentioned below

Call of DutyTo enable cheats on thisgame, locate the executable

file in Windows Explorer.Most probably, it will beC:\Call of Duty\CoDSP.exe.Right-click the file, go toSend To > Desktop (Createshortcut). Now go the desk-top, right-click the createdshortcut and click Properties.In the target box, add thefollowing to the end of the path: ‘+set thereisacow1337 +set developer 1+setsv_cheats 1 +setmonkeytoy 0’

Now click OK and double

click the shortcut to start thegame. Then, press the [~]during the play and enterfollowing codes.

Counter-StrikeCondition ZeroTo enable cheats, press [~]and enter ‘sv_cheats’. This

APRIL 2004

54


124

behindview 1

God

Fly

Ghost

3rd person view

God mode

Flying

No clipping mode

God

give all

notarget

noclip

give ammo

God mode

Weapons, items and amm

Enemies don’t target you

No clipping mode

Max out ammo

G

S

AK

S24

F

GP

SVD

M16A2 (w/ grenade launcher)

M81 (sniper)

AK47

M24 (sniper)

Fists

AK47 (w/ grenade launcher)

Dragonov sniper rifle

ROCK ON

LUMBERJACK

ROBIN HOOD

CHEESE STEAK JIMMY’S

MARCO

POLO

AEGIS

NATURAL WONDERS

RESIGN

WIMPYWIMPYWIMPY

I LOVE THE MONKEY HEAD

TORPEDO#

BLACK DEATH

I R WINNER

1,000 stone

1,000 wood

1,000 gold

1,000 food

Reveal map

Remove shadow

Fast build

Control Nature

You lose

Destroy yourself

Gives VDML

Kill opponent #

Destroy all enemies

You win

THRILL OF VICTORY

SET ASCENDANT

DIVINE INTERVENTION

JUNK FOOD NIGHT

TROJAN HORSE FOR SALE

ATM OF EREBUS

THRILL OF VICTORY

SET ASCENDANT

GOATUNHEIM

WUV WOO

ISIS HEAR MY PLEA

RED TIDE

LETS GO! NOW! (2 spaces between go and

now)

Win scenario

Show all animals

Enable used God power

Get 1,000 food

Get 1,000 wood

Get 1,000 gold

Win scenario

Show all animals

Turn enemy to goats

Flying purple hippo

Heroes from the campaign

Changes water to red

Faster gameplay

GAME CHEATS

MassDrop

DoEarthquake

DoTornado

INeedCash

SetBudget <number>

SetCash <number>

HideGame

ShowGame

Huge airport

Start earthquake

Start a tornado

Get $100 million

Replace <number> with the budget you want

Replace <number> with the cash you want

Hide game

Show game

Age of Empires 2 Cheats

America’s Army cheats

America’s Army Cheats

Call of Duty Cheats

Age of Mythology cheats

Airport Tycoon2’s cheat codes

enables the cheat. Then pres[~] during the game play andenter these cheats.

DX-Ball 2During the game, type ‘eureka’. You will hear a tuneif it is typed correctly. Now,press any of these keys:

Grand TheftAutoTo use these cheats, first go tothe Character Select screenand press [Delete], enter thecode and then press [Enter].If [Delete] doesn’t work, use[Backspace] instead.

Hard Truck 2Pause the game and type inthe following cheats:

Hidden and DangerousTo enable the cheats, type‘unlockcheatmode’ at theCampaign Select screen. Aclicking sound indicates thatthe code is entered correctly.Use these specific cheatsduring the game play:

The HulkEnter cheats by going toOptions > Code. Activate themby going to Options > SpecialFeatures > Cheats.

Max PayneTo enable the cheats, you needto enable the console first. Todo so, start the game with the‘-developer‘ parameter. Create ashortcut for the game and addthis parameter at the end ofthe path in the target box.

Start the game and press[F12] to bring the consoleand enter any of the fol-lowing cheats:

Midtown Madness 2To enter cheats, press [Y] dur-ing the game play and enterthese cheats:

Motocross Madness 2

Various Cheats

Type Big Heads at the mainmenu and everyone’s headbecomes heads . If you falldown, press [Tab] and you getup immediately. To do a nosewheelie stunt, take a smalljump when the landing spaceis clear. Before you land, leanforward until the bikebecomes vertical. Now holdthe break button and seeyourself doing the stunt.

Need for SpeedUndergroundGo to the Main > Statistics. Goback again by pressing [Delete]or [Backspace]. Now enter thecodes below:

No One Lives Forever 2Press [T], then enter one of thefollowing codes:

125 APRIL 2004

God

Fly

notarget

Noclip

impulse

101

God mode

you will fly

No one will target you

Go through

You’ll receive a sniper rifle,

an AK 47, 3 grenades and adesert eagle

6031769

itsgallus

stevesmates

itcouldbeyou

suckmyrocket

itstantrum

Unlimited life

All levels all cities

No police presence

999,999,999 points

All weapons, armour,

and jail key Unlimitedlives

zombie

bighead

killthemall

missiondone

openalldoor

allammo

noplayerhits

goodhealth

After death return aszombieBig heads

Kill enemies

End current mission OK

Open all doors

Get all weapons

High falls are the onlything that hurts player

Resistant to gunfire

[Right]

[Left]

[Down]

[Up]

<any key>

[F6]

[F5]

Advance to next board

Return to previous board

Advance to last board in set

Return to first board in set

Random power-up

Turn Music Off

MIDI On/Off

GMMSKIN

FLSHWND

ANGMNGT

GRNCHTR

HLTHDSE

BRNGITN

MMMYHLP

FSTOFRY

BRCESTN

TRUBLVR

Be Invincible

Get regenerator

Rage Meter to Max

Unlimited continues

Double HP

Double HP for enemies

Half HP for enemies

Killer punch

Solve puzzle

Get all levels

winalottery

openallroads

hardtruck-isthebestadvancedmap

fillup

minesoff

[Backspace]

Display all policeunits on the map

All other vehicles arebuses

All other vehicles arecompact cars

All other vehicles areairplanes

All other vehiclesmove much faster

All traffic vehiclesdrive around inreverse

showme cops

big bus party

tiny car

jet planes

warp eleven

amizdA eoJ

Counterstrike Condition ZeroCheats

DX-Ball 2 cheats

Grand Theft Auto cheats

Midtown Madness 2 cheatsThe Hulk cheats

Need for Speed UndergroundCheats

Hard Truck 2 Cheats

Hidden and Dangerous cheats

Unlock circuits

Unlock sprint

circuits

Unlock drag

circuits

Unlock Petey

Pablo

Unlock Rob

Zombie

Unlock Mystikal

Unlock Lost

Prophets

All level 1 perform-

ance parts

All level 2

performance parts

All drift tracks

Drift physics

gimmesomecircuits

gimmesomesprints

gimmesomedrag

gimmeppablo

gotcharobzombie

havyamystikal

needmylostprophets

allmylvloneparts

seemylvl2parts

driftdriftbaby

slidingwithstyle

55

Get money and license

Get all roads

Get money and license

See hidden containerson map view

Unlimited fuel

Get rid of mines

Use it to repair a damagedtruck sans any cost

Here we’ve only given thecheat codes themselves, asthey’re self-explanatory:god c_addhealth

GetAllWeapons GetInfiniteAmmo

GetBaseballbat GetBeretta

GetBerettaDual GetDualBeretta

GetDesertEagle GetSawedShotgun

GetPumpShotgun GetJackhammer

GetIngram GetIngramDual

GetDualIngram GetMP5

GetColtCommando GetMolotov

GetGrenade GetM79

GetSniper GetHealth

GetPainkillers GetBulletTime.

56


126 APRIL 2004

Postal 2Press [Shift] and [@] (or [~] onsome systems) to make theGame Console Windowappear. Type in ‘SISSY’ to

enable cheat mode, and thenenter the cheats:

Serious SamBring up the console using[~], then enter one of the fol-lowing codes

Tony Hawk’s ProSkater 4

Leaving the practice areaWhile playing in the Practicemode, go to the fence at endof the ramp, lie down, allotand then just only slip

through. You’re now out ofthe practice area and canskate on the road.

OTHER CHEATSUnreal Tourn-ment 2004Single Player Cheats Press[~] in the game to bringdown the console, or press[Tab] for quick console.

Road RashTo enable cheats, first type‘XYZZY’. Then use the fol-

lowing cheats to really gocrazy on the road:

Duke Nukem 3DTo cheat your way throughDuke Nukem 3D, just type inthe following codes duringthe game play:

Hitman:ContractsFind the file hitmancon-tracts.ini in the game’s fold-er. Open it with a text edi-tor, and add this line to theend of the file: ‘EnableCheats1’. Now during gameplay putin one of the followingcheats:

Skip the current level

Become invisible

Get weapons, ammo,

armour and health

Get the silencer, scope

and camera zoom

Become invincible

maphole

poltergeist

Kfa

Mods

God

Puts you in God Mode

Gives you all weapons, maximum ammo, and makesyou invincible

Gives you lots of cash

Gives you all radar-related items

Gives you lots of catnip

Gives you body armour

Gives you cop clothing

Gives you full health and several (4) medkits

Ghost mode (toggled; enter code again to turn off)

Fly mode (toggled; enter code again to turn off)

Alamode

IAmSoLame

JewsForJesus

SwimWithFishes

IAmTheOne

BlockMyAss

IAmTheLaw

Healthful

IFeelFree

LikeABirdy

All Levels

Get Moon Gravity

Matrix Mode

Perfect Rails

Perfect Manuals

Watch_me_xplode

MOON$HOT

FBIAGENT

BELIKEERIC

FREEWHEELIE

Toggles God Mode

Enables you to walkthrough walls

Gives you full ammo onall the weapons youhave

Gives you all weaponsand full ammo

God

Ghost

AllAmmo

Loaded

Flight mode

All items

Invincibility

Invisibility

Kill enemies

please fly

please giveall

please god

please invisible

please killall

No one lives for ever 2 cheats

Tony Hawk’s Pros Skater 4cheats

Duke Nukem 3D cheats

Postal 2 cheats

Unreal Tournament 2004 cheats

Removes the police officer

Gives you a bat

Gives you nitrous oxide

Gives you a chain

Disables cheat mode

Kill cops

BRIBE

K’THUNK!

SPOON!

THWACK!

PLUGH

YES,OCCIFER

Road Rash cheats

Bomb

Be Invincible

Max out health

Gravity

Lethal Charge

Nail Gun Unlocked

Max Force Mode

Boxing Mode

Slow Motion

IOIER

IOIRULEZ

IOIHITLEIF

IOIGRV

IOILEPOW

IOINGUN

IOIPOWER

IOIHITALI

IOISLO

Hitman contracts cheats

dnunlock

dnhyper

dnskill#

dncoords

dnitems

dndebug

dninventory

dnweapons

dnmonsters

dnlooksfunnyshade

dncashman

dnstuff

dncornholio

Unlocks doors

Steroids effect

Set skill level

Shows your coordinates

Gives you power-ups

Displays debug info

All power-ups

All weapons and full ammo

Toggles the monsters off

Make monsters pink

Throws money when you hit the use key

All weapons, keys and power-ups

God mode and unlimited jetpack

Game TrainersA game trainer is a third-party program that allows you to turnon and off certain qualities that weren’t included in the game.These can be Terminal Stay Residents (TSRs)—usually for DOS-based games, or can remain running while your game is inprogress (for Win95-based games). This can range from unlim-ited lives to unlimited ammo, invulnerability, etc. The traineralters the original memory locations to allow you to cheat whereyou wouldn’t be able to without it. Visit http://www.cheatplanet.com/pctrainers.html to downloadtrainers for various games.

UPENDRA [email protected]

Date post:	12-Nov-2014
Category:	Documents
Upload:	anzrain
View:	14 times
Download:	1 times