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THE HOUSTON HOME JOURNAL
Help, my computer is slower than molasses in winter!
Dear TechnoFiles:
My computer keeps
getting slower and slow
er in everything it does,
and the hard drive
grinds like it’s making
coffee. What can I do to
speed things up like it
was when I bought the
thing just a few months
ago? It’s a Dell
Dimension running
Windows XP Home.
Thanks! - Wendy in
Warner Robins
Dear Wendy:
It sounds like your com
puter might be suffering
from excessive fragmenta
tion or possibly just too
many programs installed
and running at the same
time. The first question that
pops into my head is how
much memory do you have
installed?
In today’s software envi
ronment, 256 megabytes of
RAM (random access memo
ry) is the minimum but 512
is preferable especially if
running multiple applica
tions at the same time is
something you do often. You
can tell if memory is a prob-
Who comes up with those stupid warning labels?
I was at the gas station the
other day when I noticed
this on a list of warning
labels on the pump: “In case
of fire, back away and notify
attendant.”
It struck me as ridiculous
for the obvious.
One, “back away,” denotes
a sense of calm and order.
Otherwise it would have
said something like:
“Scream like a girl” (for the
guys), “Scream like a man
having a vasectomy” (for the
ladies), “Pray to God while
you still can,” or simply:
“Run like hell!”
And then there’s the
Open letter to the WRPD
Gentlemen:
Thank you for the patrolman on motorcy
cle last week. He was busy and did a fine job.
However, local drivers seem to be slow
learners and the message is not getting out.
Running the stop sign and speeding contin
ue unabated on Green Street in my local
residential area.
For the last four years, and according to
my neighbors who have lived here, longer,
the speeding problem on Green Street west
of Houston Road goes back for at least ten
years. Here are some suggestions to rein
force the local driving restrictions:
1) Put a note on the utility bill reminding
all citizens about observing speed limits in
residential areas;
2) Publish a letter to the citizens in The
HHJ about efforts to make neighborhoods
safer and enhance quality of life by being
courteous to neighbors as we drive through
residential areas;
3) Triple speeding fines in residential
areas;
4) Get some speed bumps at the stop
signs.
Thank you for your consideration and
keep up the good work, but it is time to “up
the ante” on this issue. Let’s get it fixed!
Jeff Fry
Warner Robins
Who's stingy?
Editor:
The liberal New York Times echoed the
UN official who called the United States
stingy in regard to donations in support of
tsunami relief. The United States has given
$350 million plus enormous amounts of aid
by the military. In addition there has been
an unprecedented outpouring from private
donors.
How much has the New York Times
donated?
Chet Lambert
Warner Robins
Thanks, HHJ, for fair coverage
Editor:
My thanks to The Journal for fair-minded
coverage of last week’s petty flap over ethics
in Centerville government as it relates to
Mayor Ronnie Brand and the writer. I also
value your reporter Teresa’s call asking to
confirm details, and offering a forum for
comment. Thirdly, I congratulate your
paper for addressing the “story” without an
agenda, and reporting on the meeting’s
other activity, something the Macon paper
forgot to do in the midst of their hustling on
short notice, their Milledgeville correspon-
!____BBBHHl_ J HHHL JH SBk
lem by hitting Control-Alt-
Delete and checking your
swap file or page file usage
under the Performance tab
in Task Manager. If it’s over
25 percent when no pro
grams are running except
your default startup ones,
you need more memory or
fewer programs in memory.
Next, check your hard drive
and scan it for errors. Go to
Start, Programs,
Accessories and choose
Defragmenter. Ideally,
invest in a program like
hv ifn
Don Moncrief
Sports Editor
donm@evansnewspapers.com
“notify attendant.”
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Jason and Tina Ashford
TechnoFiles
technoftles2oo3@yahoo.com
Norton Utilities and sched
ule the defrag automatically
in the middle of the night at
least weekly. Do this regu
larly, and you computer
should return to its former
self, but remember there is
no substitute for a thorough
cleaning by reinstalling
Windows from scratch and
install just the applications
you use regularly. Then use
Norton Ghost on it so you
don’t have to do it again.
Good luck! - Jason
Dear TechnoFiles:
“Uh, sir ... your, uh, gas
pump is, uh, on fire ...,” as if
your scorched flesh and the
flames and explosions
weren’t enough of a clue.
Who comes up with this
stuff? Not to belabor the
point (even though you
know that’s exactly what
I’m going to do) can you
imagine sitting in on the
meeting when it was dis
cussed?
President of the company:
“OK, I’ve assembled you
group of public relations
people - who make thou
sands upon thousands more
dollars than a sports editor,
dent to Centerville, and rushing to front
page press a story nobody else deemed wor
thy to carry. Of course, since you guys came
on board with such a successful daily, I
guess they’ll go pretty much to any length to
sell papers.
As for the substance (or lack of it) regard
ing the whole issue, suffice to say the mayor
took “my” advice on an advertising matter
“I” should have better thought out, and “I”
want to make clear to all that he is com
pletely without fault (as is my station),
including for “my” mistake in running the
advertisement in question a single time
more beyond his instruction to remove it
from the air. How ’bout reprimanding me,
Centerville council? Woooo!
Finally, anybody who believes
Centerville’s mayor is other than a super
nice, honest, concerned, exceptionally moral
person regarding the city he represents or
his personal affairs, needs to be on medica
tion. I also want to point out the ads, which
had been running for over TWO months
without anyone’s objection, could have been
put to bed at any time simply by being
upfront and declaring a concern to either of
the involved parties. As to Centerville coun
cil calling down anybody for ethics, that is
like being called ugly by a frog! Thanks
again, HHJ, both for a chance to respond
and for the way you represent yourselves
and our county daily.
Skip Holmes
WNNG Radio
Warner Robins
Why did tsunami happen?
Editor:
To those who wonder why the tsunami
happened, one answer comes from the
“deist” view of God.
He is the creator of all that one sees, but
he leaves it up to mankind to run the whole
show without his divine intervention.
Overpopulation, wars, destruction of our
environment, wasteful government spend
ing, racism, religious differences, all make
our world less than it could be.
Why did all these victims of this horrible
disaster live in the coastal areas of Asia? It
looks like they were just asking for their
own destruction! Their elected leaders prob
ably wasted millions of dollars on defense
and wars and not on coastal warning sys
tems! It’s all so sad and uneccessary!
But we probably won’t learn much if any
thing from this disaster. Homeland security
against terrorism is still inadequate in the
U.S. as we waste billions of dollars on an
unnecessary war in Iraq.
Frank W. Gadbois
Warner Robins
OP-ED
What is your favorite
search engine for the
Internet, and why do you
like it? - T. White
Dear T:
I would say the best
search engine out there is
Google, hands down! There
are numerous reasons why I
and many others think it’s
the best, the obvious being
they have the best technolo
gy for indexing the Web cur
rently available. However,
there are many other sec
tions to Google other than
searching the Web, and
herein lies its real power.
In addition to searching
for Web pages that contain
certain text, you can also
use Google to find images,
current news, and search
the newsgroups. So, if I’d
like to see a picture of a
camellia, I can go to
images.google.com, type
in the term, and see pictures
of the peach and the corre
sponding pages the image(s)
appears on. Likewise,
news.google.com will take
you directly to all the cur
rent news on your topic of
even though even HE is
smarter than you are - to
come up with a label we can
put on the gas pump in case
something happens?”
“Like what?” one asks.
“Our gas pumps are made
out of royal titanium steel
hand-shaped by the finest
workers in America,” says
another. “The digital gauges
come from Silicon Valley.
They were hand-crafted
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah (people begin to doze).”
“Let’s just say one of them
were to catch on fire when
someone was using it,”
interrupts the president.
Ja4
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JL ft | /9
& her
Saturday, January 2 2
11 am- 2 pm
The Surgery Center
1659 Watson Boulevard
(comer of Watson Boulevard & Briarcliff Road - Houston Medical Center Campus)
Clouin and Balloons'!
Blood Pressure Screenings
Seooby Doo
(Bring your own
choice, and groups.google.
com will allow you to search
the Usenet newsgroups,
where anyone and everyone
can post messages on any
subject.
These sections of Google
are pretty common, and
appear on the Google home
page. There are other lesser
known sections that can
allow you to do some pretty
amazing things. For
instance, go to
catalog.google.com to
browse your favorite print
catalog on-line. This is par
ticularly handy when you
want to place an order at
L.L. Bean, but can only find
the 2003 catalog at your
house! If that doesn’t
quench your desire for shop
ping, try
froogle.google.com,
where you can search the
hundreds of thousands of
products for sale on the
Internet, conveniently
organized into categories.
The site
www.google/com/options/
universities.html is used
to search only university
and college Web sites, while
“That could happen?”
asks the same guy who
seemed puzzled before. He’s
never been known for keep
ing abreast of “hot” issues.
“No way,” repeats the
other. “Trojan has assured
me our rubber hoses will
never leak.” (You can make
your own comments in that
regard.)
Finally someone - obvi
ously not with the company
long - stands up and says,
“Why don’t we just cut to
the chase. Put: ‘lf fire
breaks out, YOU’RE
DEAD!’ Or, how about the
oldie but goodie, ‘Stick you
SUNDAY, JANUARY 16, 2005 ♦
labs.google.com/glossary
helps you find definitions to
words from general diction
aries as well as medical,
legal, scientific terms.
Google recently added
scholar, google.com,
which searches scholarly
journals and is prototyping
their own e-mail system.
Expect even more innova
tions from them soon!
Even more sections of
Google available, but I’ll
leave it to you to explore and
find them on your own. You
might want to download
their browser tool bar, which
will keep a search field
handy while you surf. Now,
is there any doubt why
Google is my favorite search
engine?
- Tina
Jason and Tina Ashford
teach information technolo
gy at Macon State College.
Send your computer-related
questions to tech
no files2oo3@yahoo.com.
Jason and Tina are unable
to provide personal respons
es to questions, but will try to
answer all questions possible
in their weekly column.
head between your legs and
kiss your ...”
Obviously those didn’t fly.
They apparently didn’t
want to alarm us (as if: the
scorched flesh, flames and
explosions wouldn’t do the
trick).
Of course the issue recent
ly has been cell phones and
the possibility they can trig
ger an explosion at the gas
pumps.
That being the case, look
for this warning label to
show up soon: “In case fire
breaks out while pumping
gas and using the cell phone,
hang up and call 911.”
5A