There are two very useful, yet not very well known, settings in the Mac OS Leopard System Preferences. Open the System Preferences and go to the Appearance preferences. You will notice two settings: “Use smooth scrolling” and “Minimize when double-clicking a window title bar”. Smooth scrolling allows pages to scroll on screen without any jittering, making reading much nicer. The second setting is rather self-explanatory, but quite useful if you want to quickly minimise a window.

On my old computer (running Windows 98 SE) I was able to play .RMI music files by double-clicking on the file. However, on my new computer running Windows XP SP2 with Windows Media Player 10 an error message appears saying “Unable to find or execute SynthCore11.EXE program!”. How can I play the .RMI files on my new computer? (more…)

Some years ago I purchased a locally made program which has run on Windows 98 successfully. However, I recently upgraded to a Lenovo laptop with Windows XP installed and whenever I attempt to start the program a message appears saying the program is already active and should be closed. However, I have checked and the program is definitely not active. I spoke with the person who wrote the program who says it is caused by Windows XP but is unable to fix the problem. Do you have any ideas? (more…)

When creating a DVD using Sonic everything works alright until the “Make Compatible” step, when about half way through this stage the blue screen of death appears and the computer immediately restarts. This all happens so fast I cannot write down the error message that appears. I have ensured that “Use with DLA” is enabled on the drive and I am using compatible DVD+R discs with the burner. The computer is running Windows XP. (more…)

Internet Explorer 7 includes several new features, including a pop-up blocker function. However, if you frequent websites which use legitimate pop-up windows (such as internet banking), and do not often encounter sites with unauthorised pop-ups (such as pop-up advertising), then the pop-up blocker can be more of a hindrance than useful feature. If you wish to disable the pop-up blocker, open Internet Explorer and go to the “Tools” menu > “Internet Options” . In the Internet Options window click the “Privacy” tab and untick “Turn on Pop-up Blocker”. Click OK to save and close.