computer questions for dummy's

[rlortie]

The forum dummy for computers is having trouble again!

I use Microsoft Office Outlook for my mail. I would double click on any .jpg attachment and it would ask open or save! I would click on open and it would do so. Now for some unknown reason when I click on 'open' it tells me that the application cannot be found.

If I click on 'save' it will download and then I have to go to 'documents' to view it.

Is there anyone out there that can help me rectify this problem that just started yesterday with no apparent reason.

All input would be appreciated.

Ralph

[Fletcher]

Try "open with" in the menu - then select the application you want to use.

[rlortie]

Fletcher,

Sounds easy and simple, now all I need is for someone to tell me where in the Hades I can find the 'Menu' button? I have clicked on everything imaginable and cannot find anything related to a default picture viewer.

Ralph

[Fletcher]

Right hand mouse button.

[rlortie]

Fletcher,

I appreciate and thank you for your time and input. I never did find a way to open any properties or menu preferences.

I re-downloaded my Office Standard Edition 2003 and that did not help. I then ran 'System Restore' set for the 27th of last month, it is now working.

Once again thanks for your response.

Ralph

[erick]

As Fletcher said: save the jpeg to your desktop (or wherever) click on the file with the right button on your mouse. A menu will appear in which there will be several things to choose from. One of them is open with. If you click on open with it will bring up a list of programs that can open the file. Choose windows picture and fax viewer (if that's in you list) or you can use microsoft paint, wordpad or even internet explorer. Once you've selected your program from the list there is a check box that you can tick to have that program be the default application for opening that type of file. Click OK.

Hope that helps!

[rlortie]

Erik,

Thanks for the input, your indulgence is most appreciated. I am sure that the need will arise again when I call for help. I am a computer dummy first class!

I have been trying to get a PC camera hooked up for use with Skype. I am into my second week now with still no results. I am not calling for help on this one yet. :-)

My problem was that when I clicked on the attachment, I had a choice of open or save to file... No 'save as', I use windows picture and fax viewer and all it would tell me was 'Application not found'.

So I would save to documents and then have to go there to look at it.
To put it another way I lost the ability to choose that I wanted it to open with windows and fax viewer.

A reload and repair by re-installing Office Outlook did not help. As a last resort I went to 'System Tools' then system restore, set it for a date when everything was working properly, it worked! I can now double click on an attachment and it opens in Windows Picture and Fax viewer by default, I need not open any other application or file.

Ralph

[rlortie]

Is anyone besides me experiencing the following problem?

When I open a thread with the designated yellow flag, I read the latest posts and return to forum index. The yellow flag use to disappear once posts were read, now they are intermittently staying on.

Is this a 'cookie' problem on my end?

Ralph

[Mark]

Could be cookies, but.....
It used to do that to me, too. That, and getting logged-out randomly.
Found that my Bookmark link was to besslerwheel . com (no www) and some in-house links would switch me to www . besslerwheel . com
Modified my bookmarks to include the www and now things seem to work more like they're supposed to.

[right-click the Bookmark/Favorite link and click Properties]

[rlortie]

Mark,

I thank you for responding to my plea for help.

Unfortunately I cannot find any discrepancy in my Bookmarks. I am using Mozilla Firefox and there is no 'properties' in bookmarks.

I currently have seven stuck yellow flags on 'General Discussion' threads that have been read.

Also my own posts are now showing yellow which never happened before my problem started.

Some times when I log out and then back in some but not all will disappear.

Ralph

[Mark]

Glad to help, Ralph.

no discrepancies, good

using Firefox, good (me too)

properties in bookmarks... if you use a mouse; when you go to 'open' the Forum with a Bookmark, you guide the pointer to the Bookmark link for it. It 'highlights' and if you hesitate on it for a second, a little box appears showing the name you gave the link and the URL.
While you're still hovering on the link, if you right-click it you'll get a sub-menu. At the bottom of the list is the "Properties" link referred to. That's where you can modify the name or URL, if you want. (like, to add a missing www)
if you use the keyboard; once you've highlighted the link, press the sub-menu key. It's the one next to the right-hand CTRL key.
[also, the right-click sub-menu thing works for a lot of highlighted things on a computer]

yellow flags... go to the Forum Index, just above the Index, on the right hand side, is a link that says "Mark all forums read". Click it, the page will change, wait a few seconds for it to re-direct back to the Index by itself (don't "Click Here...").
Then, click the General Discussion link to take you to that Index. There's another link that says "Mark all topics read". Click it, etc.
You can do the same on each sub-forum Index. That should clear the flags.

cookies... on the Firefox browser, click Tools -> Options -> Privacy.
"Accept cookies from sites" should be checked. Click the "Exceptions" button, make sure Besslerwheel isn't listed.
If "Clear history when Firefox closes" is checked, click the "Settings" button to see if cookies is included. Your preference on these.
[My clear-when-closes is un-checked, I prefer to use Tools -> Clear Recent History and clear everything manually, at my whim.]

Now for the fun part, you said that your "Picture and Fax Viewer" failed, and you got it back by doing a Restore operation. Don't go back too far with that, Restore will reset Firefox (and Thunderbird) to that date and you lose any Bookmark (and email) changes that occurred during the interim.
[You can get around this by copying the Mozilla and Thunderbird directories/folders to Documents beforehand and replacing the 'Restored versions' with them afterward. :-) ]
[in XP, they are in C:\Documents and Settings\user name\Application Data (which is usually hidden)]

Losing the Viewer may also be a symptom of Mal-ware. Manually run your protection program(s) in the Full-scan/All-files mode. If your PC's 'clean', it was probably a Windows glitch.

[Fletcher]

Help required please.

I recently had to reinstall Windows OutLook & a new anti-virus program - since then we had the period when BW.com was very slow & had other corruptions etc which Scott fixed.

Here is the problem - BW.com is still loading slowly for me, some days quicker than others - but my main problem is I can barely watch a video on you tube [dave's come to mind] - they take an age to load, buffer only a few seconds worth, so a 2 1/2 minute vid takes about 20 minutes to load up otherwise watch it in fits & starts [frustrating] - once loaded it is buffered & I can watch it all the way thru as usual - previously any video loaded straight up with no noticeable buffering required to slow it down.

How do I fix this problem ?

I'm running windows vista & using outlook & firefox with ESET NOD32 anti-virus on a lap top.

[jim_mich]

Sounds like one of three problems.

[1] Anti-virus slowing things down?
[2] Slow internet service?
[3] Running out of PC memory?

My guess is [1] the anti-virus mucking up the data flow. To test this turn off the anti-virus before trying to load and watch a video from a known safe site. I had a 30 day trial of Norton anti-virus that came with my new mini-laptop. It was horribly slow. Every time I went to a website it would send the link address back to 'mama' then wait for a response as to if the site was safe. With about 4 second round trip time delay though my satellite internet (one second up, one down, out to Norton, back from Norton, one second up, one down) it slowed everything down to a crawl. After switching to PC-cillin things ran a LOT faster.

If you recently changed internet service you might just have very slow internet. Open up C:\Windows\System32\taskmgr.exe and click on networking tab. This will show the data flow in and out to the internet. Click View and Network Adapter History to set bytes sent (red) and bytes received (yellow). This way you can see if the data flow rate is normal, fast or slow. Try taking the laptop to a different WiFi connection location. Many coffee shops have free Wifi.

I doubt that you PC is short of memory, but such can slow it down.




PS. spy-ware can also slow a PC down. A number of the games that came with my new PC contained spy-ware. PC-cillin found it. I uninstalled all the spy-ware infested games.

[Michael]

If this helps any Fletcher, I use to have a lot of problems when I logged into BW where others said they had no problem. Slow, screens wouldn't load sometimes and at times I couldn't get in at all. I found if I came in through a back door, ie; Bills website by clicking on the contact link there the problem went away. Haven't noticed this problem since I got my new computer though.

[Michael]

Well make a liar out of me. Today when I tried to get on I was getting slow screens, and a couple of times a message popped up saying Besslerwheel was currently unavailable. This is the same thing that happpened last week when Ralph got kicked off and some files were corrupted.