Dave "Bytes"

Please remember to use your thinker, before you tinker!

September 5, 2006

A Periodic Newsletter for the Members of the Sarasota PC User Group and the World!!

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Let's Start With A Windows Tip

We’re all familiar with moving program windows around the desktop. You can click-and-hold the window’s title bar to move it around. But what do you do when you accidentally move a window’s title bar off the desktop so you can’t grab it anymore? The window is stuck in that inconvenient position.

Solution: Use your keyboard to help move your window

The trick to moving these stubborn program windows is by using your keyboard.

To use your keyboard to move a window:

1. Select the program window you’re trying to move. Then, press ALT + SPACEBAR on your keyboard. The program’s shortcut menu is displayed.
2. On the menu that appears, click Move.
3. Use your LEFT ARROW, RIGHT ARROW, UP ARROW, or DOWN ARROW keys to move the window so you can see its title bar on your screen.
4. Once you’re done moving the window, press the ENTER key.

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The Bits and Bytes Radio Show has a new feature, an Internet Bulletin Board!

It has a section devoted to the radio program, another for Questions and Answers regarding your computer problems, and a section for the User Group.

You do not have to register to visit the board. However, registering will allow you to join the fun and post comments, questions, and opinions with the rest of the listeners and group members. Registering is easy – just click on the word “register” in the upper left-hand portion of the main page of the board, and enter your email address, a user name for the board, and create a password. Shortly thereafter, you will get an email verifying your registration. There is a link to the board on the Bits and Bytes Radio Show website, or you can get to it directly by clicking on this link – Bits and Bytes Bulletin Board

You’ll be able to keep the show alive during the week by continuing discussions on the board, as well as commenting on PC Tips mentioned by Dave, Forrest, and Vinny. In this same manner, we can have topics discussing items mentioned at SPCUG meetings or at SIGS.

If you’ve never been to one of these Web-based Bulletin Boards then part of the fun will be discovering how to move around on the board, opening topics, and posting replies. We even have a section where you can ask questions about “How to do” stuff on the board.

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Please let me know by clicking HERE when your merchandise is sold so that I can remove it from the listing.

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Here's A USB Tip

One subject that often comes up is how Windows handles USB (Universal Serial Bus) devices and what you can do when USB devices don't work as
you expect. First, let's talk about the two versions of USB that you'll probably encounter:

USB 1.1: these were the first widely-available devices and usually ran at a speed of 1.5 mb/sec. They were meant to replace old-fashioned serial and parallel (printer) connections that ran at only a fraction of the speed and could connect only one device at a time. While this speed was OK for slow devices like mice and keyboards, it wasn't useful for transferring large amounts of data, like from digital video cameras. For faster speeds, you needed SCSI or FireWire (IEEE 1394) connections. Since these were used mostly on the Mac, you often needed an add-in card for your computer to use them, which is one of the inconveniences that USB was supposed to alleviate.

USB 2.0: typically runs at the much higher speed of 480 mb/sec, which is faster than the original FireWire standard and much faster than SCSI. This is more appropriate for large data transfer, such as to external hard drives, and necessary to connect CD or DVD burners.
However, some people still prefer FireWire for devices like video cameras, because FireWire is really a network that allows devices to be more interactive.

So how do you know which USB you have? If your computer was made sometime in the last few years, chances are its USB ports are version 2.0, which are backwards-compatible with 1.1 devices. One way you can tell which version your computer has is to look at the Device Manager in Windows XP:

Press Windows Key + Break to open Device Manager (or click the Start button, then right-click My Computer and select Properties).
Click the Hardware tab, then click Device Manager.
At the bottom of the list, click the plus sign next to Universal Serial Bus controllers.
If your computer has is equipped with USB 1.1, you'll see a device or two called a Host Controller or Open Host Controller. If your computer
is equipped with USB 2.0, you'll see a device or two called an Enhanced Host Controller or USB 2.0 Controller.
Any USB device you buy will have the regular USB trident logo and any high-speed USB device will have the red, white and blue high-speed
logo.

If you connect a high-speed USB device to a low-speed USB port on your computer, Windows will probably give you a message that the device can
run faster if you connect it to a high-speed port. A USB 2.0 internal expansion card costs about $20 and a USB 2.0 notebook adapter (fits in
the PC Card slot) costs about $40.

The most common problem people have is when they connect a USB flash drive (sometimes called a thumb drive) to a computer and the computer
doesn't recognize it. First, let me say that these are great devices.
Connect one to your computer and it works like a removable hard drive.

When you connect a USB device to a computer running Windows XP, the computer will detect it immediately. When that device is a USB drive, you'll probably see a message on the taskbar that Windows detected a new device, followed by a dialog box that asks if you want to open the drive to see its contents, play a movie and other choices. Windows will also assign a drive letter to the device. But sometimes you won't get this dialog box, and when you open My Computer manually ( Windows Key + E), you won't see the device listed. That means there's a drive letter conflict.

Here's how you fix it:

Select Start/Control Panel, then double-click Administrative Tools. (You may also have Administrative Tools directly on the Start menu.)
Double-click Computer Management.
On the left side of the Computer Management console, select Disk Management.
On the right side, you should see a device listed as a removable drive, probably with the same letter as another drive you're already using.
Right-click the white bar where it shows the letter, then select Change Drive Letter and Paths.
Select the letter, then click the Change button.
Pick a letter not already in use from the list, then click OK.
Click OK on the warning message, then click OK again. (I assign U: to all USB flash drives, since I never use more than one flash drive at a time.)
Close the Computer Management console. When you go back into My Computer, you should see the USB drive with the new letter.
Another common problem is running out of ports. When USB started being implemented, the idea was that you would daisy-chain the devices
together. So computer manufacturers would put in only two ports (always in the back) and only one port on laptops. For a variety of reasons, the daisy-chain idea never caught on, and computers made today typically have four ports in the back and two in the front, for quick access.

If you run out of ports, you can fix the problem -- as with so many others -- by applying cash. Buy an external USB hub for anywhere from $10 to $40, depending on size, number of ports and power. A hub will split a single USB port into several more. The better ones have their own power supply, so your devices don't have to rely on the computer for powering the USB connection. When there isn't enough power to go around for all the devices, they can go offline.

This brings me to the last problem I'll mention: USB devices going offline because of reasons unrelated to power shortage. This was fairly common when you had many devices connected using USB 1.1 in versions of Windows older than 2000, where the devices had to supply their own software to get USB to work. (Native USB drivers were first included with 2000, then made more robust in XP -- and Vista, presumably). If this happens, simply unplug all the USB devices, then plug them back in one-by-one. If any are daisy-chained together, connect the parent devices before connecting the child devices.

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