IT Queries: Computer problems answered

My MYOB accounting program is crashing when I try to export a document such as a pay advice in Microsoft Word. I’m running MYOB 17 and Office 2007 Ultimate edition.

The problem is Microsoft Groove, part of the Office 2007 Ultimate package. You’ll need to uninstall Groove for MYOB to work properly with Office applications.

In Windows XP click Start, Control Panel and Add/Remove Programs. In Vista click the Start button, Control Panel and Programs and Features.

Select Microsoft Office 2007  from the list of programs and choose Change and Add/Remove features, scroll down the list of features and change Groove to “Not Available”. Follow the wizard for the next steps. You may be asked to reboot at the end.

On rebooting, MYOB should be fine.

Can you please tell me how I can speed up page downloading with my current web browser, which is Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.12. I also seem to have difficulty loading pages with ‘youtube’ attachments, as per the news.com daily news website. I am running Windows 2000 Professional with 256 meg ram,  cpu 550mhz, modem 56kbps and a dial up ISP

Can you please refer me to a free tool as I am on a disability pension.

We’ve covered speeding up your computer previously and you may get a speed boost from these sites by downloading  the latest Flash and Java updates.

The real problem though is your Internet connection. Content rich sites like youtube and increasingly newspaper web sites require a broadband connection. Dial up is really only suitable for basic email and surfing to simple sites.

If you want to watch YouTube clips then you are going to have to get a broadband connection. This is not as expensive as it seems as it will save the cost of a phone call with each connection. A $30 a month plan can easily pay for itself in saved telephone costs.

The important thing though is to make sure your plan has no excess charges. Make sure your plan is capped, that is you don’t pay for additional usage if you go over your monthly data limit. Our sister PC Rescue site has advice on plans for Australian users.

It’s important to shop around on these plans as prices and features vary dramatically. If you are a member of a local seniors computer group you may find there are discounted plans available and your fellow members can guide you in making the right choice.

I am using a Mac iBook OS 9.2.2. [I have just got a MacBook Pro (2.5GHz,250g HD) and am about to change to Telstra wireless broadband (Heaven or PC Rescue help me!). I will then be in to OS 10.5.2 (Leopard).]

I have been able to initialise the external HD as HFS+ OK.

I am instructed to use ‘Custom’, enter the number and size and name the partitions, but I can’t get to ‘Custom’ to do it. 

It’s an excellent idea to split up your drive in this way as it makes recovery a lot easier should something bad happen.

In the Silverline pro, make sure you have highlighted the drive and not the Bus or Partition in the first screen. Until you do this, the Custom command won’t be available.

LaCie have detailed instructions on how to do this in OS9 on their website.

It may be worthwhile trying the Mac Drive setup utility to see if this will resolve the problem. In the Drive Setup box you should get the Custom option after you click Initialize.

Generally the Silverlining Pro and LaCie disk should be very reliable and straightforward to use. If the problem continues you should contact your supplier to check the drive is okay.

I use Outlook for my e-mail as well as the Calendar which is linked to my smartphone which is using Mobile 6 software.

Does Mozilla support my calendar function or is there a way of linking these if I change?

Unfortunately Sunbird, the calendar function for Mozilla, is still under development and we’re reluctant to recommend beta software.

The next version of Thunderbird will include calendar support, but we wouldn’t be too optimistic about getting it to work with the Windows Mobile ActiveSync.

For the present we’d recommend sticking with Outlook.

My computer is keep on shutting down every 5 minutes. when I open my computer then after 5 minutes will automatically shutdown. What should I do? do I need to reformat? thanks.

It’s unlikely a reformat will help as this sounds like a hardware problem. The likely cause is your computer is overheating.

A good software package is SpeedFan. This will monitor your  system and tell you if it is overheating. If it is, then you’ll need to open the case and check all the internal fans are working and that dust isn’t clogging heat sinks. Some CPU heatsinks are notorious for collecting dust.

If it isn’t an overheating problem then it could be a driver or software problem. This requires checking in the Event Viewer to find the problem item. This will probably require the services of a specialist computer technician to diagnose.

Hi
I have Toshiba A100 with Dual Mode Pad. I have been using the touch pad as a mouse and sometimes it gets stuck in the 6 button mode and I’m unable to use the mouse. I can’t find any notes in the manual of how the dual pad switches between mouse touchpad and multi function and once it’s in this mode I have to turn off the computer in order to use the mouse again.

Needless to say I have no idea how to use the button functions.

Thank you in advance

Wendy

The dual mode touchpads are funny beasts designed to be both a mouse and a “launch and control center”. I can’t say the idea excites me.

The problem with these touchpads is they have a habit of switching modes when you least expect it. According to Synaptics FAQ on the product you can switch modes by tapping on the top right hand corner and you are probably doing that accidentally.

To turn the feature off, click the Start button and go to the Control Panel. Under the Hardware Settings heading, click Mouse Settings.

In the Mouse Settings, select the Device Settings tab and then Settings. Open the tapping tab then click the tap zones module and uncheck the Enable Tap Zones checkbox.

Over the past week or two every time I send a single e-mail using Outlook the bottom right side of my screen shows 1 of 2 messages being sent even though there is only 1 e-mail in my Outbox.

Can you advise me on what to check for? I do use Adaware, Spybot, Windows Defender & AVG.

The problem lies in your Outbox. You’ve created an email that wants to use your mobile email settings rather than the one you use at home or office. Your work or home email server is refusing to send it because the settings are incorrect.

Open the Outbox and you will see the email. Drag it to the drafts folder.

You might get a message saying Outlook is sending the message. If that happens, cancel the Send/Receive and then try again.

If you still want to send the message, open it and click on the Accounts tab in the top left hand corner. Make sure the correct email account is selected. Once it is, click send.

I work on a Mac computer.  In the program Microsoft Word, I have accidentally hit a key or combination of keys.  Now my computer is striking over currently typed letters instead of interjecting additional letters to the sentence.

What’s happened is you’ve accidently clicked on the Overtype icon at the bottom of the Microsoft Word screen.

Have a look at the bottom of the screen, you should find the status bar and you will see the OVR box has black writing. Click it and it will turn to gray and the problem will be gone.

I installed a digital image editing program (PhotoPlus 11), and now everytime I want to open anything from My Pictures, it opens in this program.  I think I may have made the program the default manager for  all the  image file types I thought I might be likely to use (via the installation wizard on the CD).  I would rather have Windows Picture Manager as the default for viewing my pictures, but I can’t find it as a program on my computer.   Where do I go to change it back?  I have Windows XP SP2 Home Version.

To get the association back on image files, right click one of your images. Click the Open With option and select Choose Program.

In the choose program dialog box select Microsoft Office Picture Manager and tick the box below that reads Always use the selected program to open this type of file.

Click okay and this will fix the problem. Keep in mind you’ll have to do this with each type of image file (eg; jpg, gif, etc.).

“Everytime I open my computer before I log in there is error message “a duplicate name exist on the network”. I already change the computer name on the properties then change computer name. then when I re-start my Computer nothing happen. still the error appears before I log in.

You should check you are actually changing the name. Open the Control Panel by clicking Start, Settings, Control Panel and then click System.

In the System properties click the Computer Name tab. This is where you may be being misled as the “Computer Description” box is different to the computer’s name. The actual name is below under the “Full Computer Name” heading.

To change this, click the “Change” button. Choose a name different to all the other computers on the network and put this in the Computer name box. Keep clicking okay until the computer says it needs to restart and let the computer reboot.

This should clear the problem. If it doesn’t click Start, Run and type ipconfig /flushdns. This should wipe the computer’s memory of other addresses and should get rid of the message on restart.