Winnefox needs you to make sure to use correct e-mail addresses!

Here are The Top Five Most Frequently Mixed-Up E-mail Addresses in Winnefox:

The good news is that in the case of mis-spelled or non-existent addresses like these:

your e-mail software should give you an error message like this:

For any other or future address questions you might have, make sure to check (and bookmark) the Winnefox E-Mail Address Directory, located in the Winnefox Library System Staff Pages. You'll need to use the PIN to access the staff area, but once you're in you'll find the Winnefox E-Mail Address Book --in alphabetical order by the person's last name, but also sortable by library or department.

If you've ever tried to print a page from a Web site but gotten the message "No pages to print", here are some steps you can try:

1. Use Print Preview, which can "force" your browser to show the page, and then use the Print button from within Print Preview
   
   
2. In Page Setup choose Black Text and Black Lines. This works when your printout is blank because it tried to print a page with white text on a black background.
   
3. When printing a framed web site, make sure you've made a mouse click somewhere in the frame you want to print; now Print Frame is an option.
   
4. As a last resort, Windows 95/98/NT users can press the Alt and Print Screen keys. Even though it looks like nothing's happened, you've actually copied the screen to the Clipboard. Next, open Microsoft Paint (Start | Programs | Accessories | Paint)
   
   and press the Ctrl and V keys to paste the copy you just made. Now you can use Paint to print the web page.
5. Some pages offer a "printer friendly" version. For an example, compare the look of these two versions of a ZDnet page: regular mode versus the same page in print mode.

I recently visited a library that has a PC that was sooooo slooooow to run software like SmarTerm that we had to walk away from it and come back later to see if the program had finally opened. Sure, the PC wasn't the newest or the fastest, but it still should have given us better performance than that!

I decided to run the Disk Defragmenter utility, and was surprised to discover that the PC's hard drive was 8% fragmented. I know, I know, 8% might not seem like a lot, but actually 2% fragmentation is considered a serious impediment to PC operation.

The deal is, fragmentation of a hard drive occurs naturally when you use the PC by creating, deleting, and modifying files. Windows doesn't write files in adjacent areas on the PC's hard disk, so these files get divided into pieces scattered around the disk. When you reopen your files and programs again, the hard disk heads may have to skip all over the drive -- beginning, middle and end -- to read all the data into memory. This is invisible to you, but it can slow down the speed that data is accessed because the disk drive has to search through different parts of the disk to put together a single file. Even creating new files takes longer because Windows must locate free space that's scattered around the hard disk.

Without regularly scheduled disk defragmentation, the performance of even the fastest MHz PC can get bogged down.

A defragmenter or disk optimizer reorganizes the file structure of your hard disk by placing individual pieces of a file into consecutive order on the disk. Luckily, Windows95 and Windows98 come with a defragmenter utility already installed!

In Windows 95, you can run Disk Defragmenter by:

1. clicking on the Windows Start button
2. placing your mouse pointer over Accessories
3. then System Tools
4. and clicking on Disk Defragmenter.
   
5. It will ask you which drive you want to defragment, and you can choose "All Hard Drives"
   
6. You may also see this message:
   
   If the hard drive is 4% fragmented or more, you may want to defragment it now rather than wait until the level goes any higher. Disk Defragmenter runs faster when the drive is less fragmented, as it has less work to do.
7. Click the OK button and it will start up.

Information on the details of running Disk Defragmenter in Windows 98 can be found at Microsoft's Windows98 Maintaining Your Computer: Tips and Tricks page. WindowsNT does not come with a Disk Defragmenter as part of the operating system, but Pete and I are investigating a piece of software that may be of use to NT users.

Try to defrag your PCs:

• on a regular basis
• before installing new software (so you can be sure your new files are stored efficiently)
• after performing major disk maintenance, such as deleting a large number of files
• if possible, schedule the defrag utility to run as a background task on a regular schedule, at least weekly.

Note:

• Although Disk Defragmenter can work in the background while you perform other tasks, this will usually slow down considerably both the defragmentation process and the work you're trying to do. It is much less frustrating (and probably safer) to run these programs during lunch or at a non-peak time at your library.
• Should you receive an error message like this one...
  
  click the Help button to run the ScanDisk utility.

By defragmenting regularly you'll keep your PCs running at peak speed!

If you've ever considered accepting food donations in lieu of fines, but wondered how to set it in motion, read "'Food for Fines' Drives: Positive PR That Works!" to find how the Williamsburg (Virginia) Regional Library has run and marketed their successful program.

And if you don't already know about these tax Web sites, here are three essential resources for the next 32 (yikes!) days:

• Wisconsin Department of Revenue
  Get tax forms, tips on filing, check on the status of your refund, and more
• The Internal Revenue Service (IRS)
  Online access to federal forms, instructions and publications
• TaxWeb
  A consumer-oriented meta directory for federal, state and local tax-related information

Note: many of these tax resources require the free Web browser plug-in Adobe Acrobat Reader to view and print tax forms.

'Tis the season for the Oscars®, the Screen Actors Guild Awards®, and the Sticky Site of the Moment... Yes, Winnefox recently received this message:

Congratulations! Winnefox Library System's Web site has been selected as the InternetBumperStickers.com Sticky Site of the Moment! Only Websites which have Internet Bumper Stickers™ on them are eligible for this dubious honor, and we're sure you'll be filled with pride (or numbed with shame) to receive this accolade. All we can say is . . . it's yours!

Winnefox's Web site won this award(?) because I used an Internet Bumper Sticker in the March 2000 issue of The Ides.

Alas, our 15 minutes (in Internet Time) of fame has passed, but not before I took a screenshot of it:

And here's a few more good Internet Bumper Stickers:

"A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to."

-- Dr. Laurence Peter

From the New Hampshire Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Manual

is Jackpot.

This issue of The Ides was written on March 15, 2001
Copyright 2001, Winnefox Library System

The Ides is written by Joy Schwarz.
Please direct any questions, comments or recipes to schwarz@winnefox.org

URL: http://www.winnefox.org/ides/idesmar01.html