The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group
Members' tips 'n' tricks
Ron Taylor

With Microsoft shipping it's final beta release of Windows 95 in mid-May, I am sure many of our members have been spending some late nights discovering its abundant new features. Must admit I couldn't resist a peek (or two...) myself, it's quite enjoyable digging into the innards of a 32-bit file system isn't it? Along with a few odd trips around the world, courtesy of that enticing airship melbpc.org.au this month has left me, well netlagged!

And while we are waxing the board; I have also noticed a lot our newer members (and quite a few "older" ones too), are attempting to dive headlong into the Internet with little or no previous PC communications and modem skills. Believe me that ain't the way to the highway, that method only leads to the dirt track!

Fortunately, if it's the Melb PC User Group system you are joining then you have a sporting chance, we have help available in abundance. But remember... it's not all one way, learning some of the talk by reading your software and modem documentation, and an Internet beginners-type book (of course you may not understand it all at first, don't worry - we've all been there!) Doing this will make it easier to explain your problem and quickly get the help you need.

The best source for assistance is the Internet Help message area of the Melb PC BBS, and here again there are ways to make it very easy. First, when requesting advice be sure to provide all details that may be relevant and, above all, download and use an Offline Mail Reader. OLRs are marvellous pieces of software - enabling you to quickly download and read all the helpful answers from others - many times you will not only find the solution you were looking for but learn a lot of other useful tips along the way. Now for the graffiti!

 Have fun with 3.1
  • Adding a couple of lines like the following in AUTOEXEC.BAT can work wonders in File Manager:
    SUBST G: C:\TAX\RECORDS
    SUBST H: D:\UTILS\ARCHIVES\ZIPS
    How? Well you'll get two more Drive icons - G and H, allowing you super quick mouse access to your frequently used directories. Don't forget to alter the LASTDRIVE=x statement in CONFIG.SYS to H in this case.
  • In the [Desktop] section of WIN.INI, these settings will enable your preferred font and size for Program Manager Icon descriptions, in this case 10 point Arial:
    IconTitleFaceName=Arial 
    IconTitleSize=10
  • When your application Window goes off screen and you can't drag it back, press Ctrl+Esc, select the application, then click Cascade or Tile for a quick fix.
  • The startup command WIN /T can sometimes track down memory problems caused by troublesome TSRs, Windows will notify you if it finds any.
  • Always Exit Windows before turning off your PC, this allows the operating system to tidy up and close off all files in the proper manner. It's better to be safe than sorry!
Stay alive in 95
  • Drag the TaskBar in Windows 95 up to the top of the screen if it makes more sense to have it where Menus are usually positioned, you can have it on either side of the screen if you prefer.
  • Most of the time using the Windows standard Ctrl+X/C/V keystrokes for Cut, Copy and Paste or mousing their equivalent icons, is far easier and quicker for file and folder operations when you are Exploring a long tree in the All Folders window.
  • You can still drag & drop in Explorer if you want, an easy way is to first minimise all other running applications--get Minimise All.. by right-clicking Taskbar--and then start up two (or more) instances of Explorer. Again right click the Taskbar and choose your preferred Window Tiling weapon!
  • Don't forget to empty your Recycle Bin every so often. If you think it is consuming too much valuable disk space choose its Properties (Alt+Enter or right-click on the icon) and alter the maximum size. The default is 10 percent of available disk space.
  • Here's a few quick function keys that are worth remembering, they are usable almost everywhere when working in 95:
    • F1 Pop-up Help
    • F2 Rename highlighted object
    • F3 Open a pop-up Find
    • F4 Open a drop down List Box
    • F5 Refresh current window.
The fiddly bits of Winword six
  • Alt+Shift+D brands the current system date into your.DOC file and likewise Alt+Shift+T for time, but if you want them to be updated, i.e. current at printout time for example, go to Insert Menu/ Date & Time../ choose the format you want and don't forget to check the Insert as Field box.
  • Select (mark) a column type block by holding down the Alt key first then the left button while mousing over the area of text.
  • Select a sentence by holding down Ctrl as you click the rodent in any part of the sentence.
  • Select a whole table with Alt+5 on the numeric keypad, make sure the insertion point (cursor) was somewhere in the table first.
  • After selecting the table get Format/ Borders.../ (Presets) Grid, then choose your (Line) Style, that's the only way to get the table gridlines to print out on paper.
  • Rearrange the icons on your toolbars by holding down one of the Alt keys and dragging the icon with the mouse.
  • If you have a few graphics in your .doc files and a fair swag of ram on board then speed up scrolling and redrawing by adding BitMapMemory=nnnn to the [Microsoft Word] section of WINWORD6.INI, the default for nnnn is 1024 KB (1 MB).
  • It's not easy to to remember all the ASCII codes but these three are worthwhile noting and can come in very handy: Alt+0151 inserts an Em-dash (—); Alt+0150 gives an En-dash (-); and Alt+0149 for a standard bullet (•), use the keypad for the numbers.
Batch file instructions

Here is a basic method to have a batch file display instructions to the user when required information (parameters) are omitted on its startup command line. In this case NEWCOPY.BAT is being used as a substitiute for the DOS COPY command. As you know COPY can take two parameters - source and target. If you neglect to supply the target parameter (which is normally a Drive and/or Directory), it will go ahead and copy the file(s) to the current drive or directory.

With NEWCOPY, both the source and the target must be specified, if either are left out, it will display its helpful instructions, put as many lines of instructions as you like, each preceded by an echo statement:
REM NEWCOPY.BAT 
if (%1) == () goto ERROR 
if (%2) == () goto ERROR 
copy %1 %2 goto 
END 
:ERROR 
echo. 
echo Usage Instructions 
echo. 
:END

Reprinted from the July 1995 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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