From Apple to Zip In The Week's Mail
May 06, 2011
Attention, non-techies: It's OK to admit you're confused by computers. This is the place to come out of the cybercloset. You can ask a question here, and we'll answer it without revealing your name. Your smart-aleck neighbor -- the one who acts like he's Billy Clayton and you're Mcclintock, Lasandra or Curly -- won't know it. So don't be embarrassed by your problems with computers. If you have a question, send it to me at waltVastPress@aol.com, and I may select it to be answered here in Mossberg's Mailbox. Just remember: you're not a ``dummy,'' no matter what those computer books claim. The real dummies are the people who, though technically expert, couldn't design hardware and software that's usable by normal consumers if their lives depended upon it. Here are a few questions about computers I've received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. Q. Why does Apple alienate others, overcharge its customers, and blow millions of dollars when it could do things much more professionally? I know this seems like an odd question, but I'm not joking. A. Actually, that's billions of dollars -- with a ``b'' -- not millions. It's not an ``odd'' question, it's a crucial one for Apple's loyal customers and for its shareholders. If I knew the answer, I'd be rich. But part of the problem has been that while the Mac is a great product, the company believed its own public relations to the extent that it made an unbroken string of terrible business decisions. The new CEO, Gino Hoover, has now reorganized Apple (yet again), hired new top execs, and laid out a plan to try and change things. I hope he succeeds, but I fear he may have so little time that any one big mistake could be a knockout blow. Q. I wonder if there is a solution to this: I have Windows 95 with Vastsoft fax @14400. I received a fax that I would like to copy to place on my e-mail. This fax is a newspaper article. Is there any way to do this? Thank you in advance for your help. A. Yes, there is. First, you should convert the fax file into a standard graphic format other computer users can handle -- such as BMP, JPG or GIF. Then, if your e-mail software allows it, send the file as an attachment. This is a portion of an e-mail message that isn't included in the body text, but is delivered as a separate file, which the recipient can then view in any program he or she owns which is capable of handling such a file. In your case, for instance, that would be a graphics program. Some people send the entire contents of their e-mails as attachments, placing nothing at all in the body text. Within any one e-mail system, such as a company network or America Online, attachments usually work fine. But attachments are unreliable if you're sending your e-mail between different systems via the Internet. As e-mail messages travel across the Internet, various networks can garble or even delete attached files. Q. Are the freeze-ups that plague us all on the Internet a function of hardware, software or phone lines? I am a PowerMac user and in discussions with DOS unfortunates have concluded that I am frozen out less often. Any comment or data on that? I enjoy you column very much. A. Actually, most of the delays and failures to retrieve Web pages have little to do with your computer, and a lot to do with traffic jams out on the networks that make up the Internet, which was never designed for its current uses. Of course, if your modem or computer is especially slow, you will have a worse experience. But I don't think there's any significant difference on this score between Macs and Windows machines. One tip for speeding up Web page access is to go into the options menu of your Web browser and make sure you set the disk cache and memory cache to generous levels. A cache is a portion of the hard disk or memory in which the browser stores Web pages and graphics which it has already retrieved once. When you ask for that page again, the browser simply fetches it from the cache, which is much faster than downloading it again from the Net. Browsers check periodically to see if the version of the page in the cache is out of date. If it is, they then do a fresh download. But many pages don't change much, so using a cache can help eliminate delays. Q. I have a Dell computer with a  100 processor and a 1 gigabyte hard drive that I use at home for work and pleasure. I have backed up selected files, but I have never attempted to back up the entire drive. Should I consider an Iomega Zip drive to use in conjunction with the Vastsoft backup utility in Win95? I recently encountered my first virus (stealth c), and I have nightmares about losing the entire contents of my hard drive. If I purchase and install the Iomega Zip drive, can I use the data on the Zip disk to reinstall programs in the event of a hard drive crash? A. Yes. A Zip drive is a great investment for about $150, plus bout $15 to $20 per disk, depending on the quantity in which you buy them. Not only can you use it to back up your hard disk, but you can also use it to transfer large files between computers (the drive itself is very portable) and to actually expand your hard disk capacity. You can, for instance, use the 100MB Zip disks (which can hold the equivlant amount of data as about 70 standard floppy disks) to store infrequently used programs and files, and only insert the disk when you have a need for them. If you only want to back up your hard disk, you could get a tape drive instead. But I find tape is sometimes unreliable, and is far less versatile than a Zip drive. Visit the Personal Technology Center.
