Dennis Faas

Infopackets Reader Diane K. asks, " How can I uninstall Hotbar? It is now an integral part of my Internet Explorer. PS: Thanks for your great newsletter. " My Response: First things first: Hotbar is Adware [now more commonly known as 'Spyware']. It ... explicitly states so on their web site, although, you have to "read their terms of agreement". There are three methods you can use to uninstall Hotbar: 1. Try to uninstall it from your system using Add / Remove programs in the Control Panel; if it isn't listed there, look for an Uninstall program in the Program Files (Start - ... (view more)

It appears that the last issue of the newsletter sparked some real interest amongst many Infopackets Readers (RE: tracert.exe and ping.exe ). At this time, I would like to address the problem that Infopackets Reader Stephen C. wrote to me about not ... being able to access any MS DOS commands from the command prompt under Windows. He writes: " When I [attempt to] run [MS DOS commands, such as ping.exe or tracert.exe] under the command window, I get an error message which reads: 'ping' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. Any ideas? I have ... (view more)

Tracert.exe? Ping.exe? What the heck is that? Trace Route (tracert.exe) is a DOS command line utility program that traces connection pathways along the Internet using the TCP / IP protocol. Ping (ping.exe) calculates how long it takes to transfer a ... packet of information from origin [you] to destination [a web site] and back again [to you]. What is TCP / IP? The TCP / IP protocol is a method used to communicate computers on the Internet. Any computer using the TCP / IP protocol has a unique address, referred to as an IP (Internet Protocol) address. An IP address can be thought of as a special ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader - J Lerch. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have an ethernet card (network card) and external Cisco modem installed on my old computer. I recently purchased a new computer, and would like to transfer my network card and modem to the new ... computer. Could you give instructions on how to do this? I would like to do this myself (this time) because the last time cost me almost $200 dollars! " My Response: Anything to do with networking a computer can be highly involved. I will outline the steps taken, but will not go into too much detail: Open your old computer. Take out your ... (view more)

There's a few things to there talk about in this edition of the Gazette. First of all, you may have noticed that I sent out an issue yesterday for the first time on a Wednesday. I've decided to write the newsletter 3 times a week now. It's just too ... much fun emailing 30,000 people and seeing the response it generates. Besides that, it's a great way to solve a problem! Secondly, I wanted to let you all know that I've been working very hard the past two weeks to get some things straightened around on the web site. It was a real pain in in the butt to have to update links for every issue of the ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader 'George' writes: " Dear Dennis, I have Windows 98 installed on my machine. I have installed Internet Explorer 6.0 which also upgraded my Outlook Express to version 6.0. I still have some Outlook Express 5.5 emails that I would ... like to import to Outlook Express 6.0, but there is only a single option to import Outlook Express version 4.0 emails. How can I get my version 5.5 emails? By the way, I have learned many things from your newsletters -- thanks for that! " My Response: At first, I was under the impression that Outlook 5.5 emails were compatible with Outlook 6 ... (view more)

With regards to the last issue of the Gazettte newsletter, I received many responses. Here's a few more workarounds: Infopackets Reader Chris B. writes: " As you suggest in the last newsletter, Using the Internet Explorer Unsafe File List to Filter ... E-mail Attachments: Start Outlook Express, and then on the Tools menu, click Options. Click the Security tab, and then click to select the Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus check box under Virus Protection. This option is not enabled by default. If you enable this option, Outlook Express uses the ... (view more)

What's a software crack? A "crack" -- as it is commonly referred to -- is program that removes copy protection from software. Commonly, cracks are used on software applications and games that would otherwise require an unlock code or registration to ... continue using the software. Windows XP Service Pack 1 was released September 9th, 2002 Yep, that's right. The big bad Service Pack that the world has been waiting for has finally been released. It promises to fix all those nasty bugs that plague Windows XP and make it a lot more stable. Will it fix my GeForce NVidia MX400 video driver ... (view more)

As some of you may know, I recently installed Windows XP on my system. So far, not so good. My computer system has one of those cutting-edge video cards (NVidia GeForce 400 MX w/ 64 meg) that allows me to output the video to my monitor and my big ... screen TV. I use my DVD drive (inside the computer) to play videos on my TV. Yeah, it's a pretty sweet setup. I have the latest NVidia drivers (30.82) for my video card (for Windows 2000 / XP). When the driver is installed, I get a message that "this video driver has not been certified by Microsoft ... blah blah" warning. Basically, this ... (view more)