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Computers 101

Q:
What is "UPS"?

A:
Well, if you need to ship a package across the country, around the world, or down the street, you might choose UPS as your carrier. The United Parcel Service began in 1907 by 19-year-old James E. Casey, who delivered packages via bicycle! He and his brother, George, then expanded their business to...

Oh, wait! You probably want the computer term "UPS" seeing as this is a Computer Tips newsletter.

Well, in that case, UPS stands for Uninterruptable Power Supply. This is a back-up power supply that provides power to a system in the case of a drop in voltage or a power outage.

In the case of small or private systems, this usually consists of a battery power supply that will last several minutes, allowing the user to save their work and shut down the system in a proper fashion. This helps protect whatever they may have been working on and the files of any application that may happen to be running.

-- Lee Trulove

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http://www.worldstart.com/submitquestion.htm

Tip of the Day

CLEAN YOUR OWN WINDOWS

Have you ever seen one of those ads that says, “Your computer is storing a secret record of every site you’ve ever visited?”

Did you know that's true?

If you are using Internet Explorer and Windows, the computer stores TWO copies of every URL you visit! Even if you click ‘clear history’ and ‘delete temporary files’, the secret history files remain in a hidden directory that you can’t even get to through Windows!

These secret files can get pretty big and slow down your machine. They can also hold copies of your passwords and other personal information that you might not really want sitting around on your machine.

The good news is you don’t have to shell out $40 for whatever programs those ads are trying to sell! You can "wash" your Windows yourself even faster than you could download one of those programs. And it’s free!

HOW TO FIND THE HIDDEN FILES

Microsoft has hidden these files extra carefully. They are each called index.dat, and they are stored in secret directories. Windows Explorer will not display these files, even if you have your folders set to ‘display hidden and system files.’ So for this little adventure, we’re going to call up trusty ol’ DOS. (Still the ultimate power in the universe.)

If you’ve never used DOS before, don’t worry! We’ll go through this step by step for Windows 95 or 98. (If you’re using 2000 or XP, you’ll just need to find your Internet History and Content directories.)

First, open a DOS shell. To do this click Start / Programs / MS-DOS Prompt (or Command Prompt).

We need to move into your “history” directory, and on most systems, typing in the following commands will do that:

c: <enter>
cd c:\windows\history <enter>

If you type dir and hit enter, it will give you a list of all the files in that directory, except for the secret hidden one. If you’re running Internet Explorer 5 (which something like 95% of the world is using), type the following:

cd history.ie5 <enter>

Now you’re in the secret directory! Type dir and - voila! - see the very large index.dat file it lists. That file contains every URL you’ve ever visited and information you’ve typed into forms like search engine boxes or form mail submissions.

If you want to see the information yourself, you’ll need a special ‘hex editor.’ Look on Google, there are a bunch of them around.

There is another hidden file in your content directory (in c:\windows\content\content.ie5) that has similar information.

HOW TO DELETE THEM

These files are also protected by Windows, so if you try to delete them, you’ll get an error message. But we can get around that, again with DOS. But this time, we need to unleash the full power of DOS by restarting into MS-DOS mode.

From the Start menu, select Shutdown and on the pop-up window, select Restart in MS-Dos Mode if that option is available. If not, restart normally and hit F8 as your computer restarts and says ‘Now loading Windows.’ (I usually just hit it over and over because the timing can be a little tricky. Just keep hitting it until the special menu comes up.) Then, select Command prompt only.

Now you’re in real DOS mode, and Windows can’t block your access to any files.

Deleting the index files is simple from this point. Just type the following commands:

cd windows <enter>
deltree history <enter>
deltree tempor~1 <enter>

‘Deltree’ will erase the directories and everything in them. It might take a while, because there can be a whole lot of files in those directories. Just hang on, and it’ll do it’s thing.

Be EXTREAMLY CAREFUL not to use this command on any directories you need to keep (You know, like Windows)

Once that’s finished, restart Windows by typing exit or physically restarting the machine.

Windows will make new directories when you restart the computer, but the directories will now be clean and empty.

Rinse and repeat as often as necessary. :o)

-- Tom Dalton

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Amanda's Cool Site of the Day

What Font are You?

This quiz is for all of you font lovers. Yeah, I know you’re out there! I’m a crazy, closet font lover too. I have over a 1,000 fonts on my computer.

It’s under 10 questions, that just ask for your preferences on things like music, movies, and your favorite snack food. Then you click the grade me button and the quiz calculates the font you would be.

My Grade was (drum roll here) "Bauhaus: creative and always on the cutting edge."

What Font Are You?

http://www.fontlover.com/

Do you have a cool, non-commercial site that you want to share?
Send it to Amanda at amanda@worldstart.com