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Page 12 Diablo Blue April, 2002 |
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If you have a complicated return, and someone does your taxes, try a tax program and compare the results. Do that for a year or two and if you don’t see much of a difference, consider working exclusively with the software. To get the best price on tax preparation software, compare the prices of local discount stores to mail order companies Many mail order firms bundle the federal and state versions for a lower price. |
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Here is a collection of miscellaneous tips and random jottings for Windows users, whether 98, 98se, ME, XP Home, or XP Pro. Where the Heck Did My Volume Control Go?? Has the volume control icon in your system tray disappeared? I’ve found that some multimedia programs, for their own perverse reasons that aren’t announced in the manual or readme file for the program, remove the volume control icon. Here’s how to get it back: Go to Start — Settings — Control Panel, and double-click on Multimedia. At the bottom left of the Multimedia Properties dialog box put a check in the “Show volume control on the taskbar” box. Click OK, and close Control Panel. Your volume control has been resuscitated. But the Volume Still Isn’t Loud Enough!! OK, go to Start — Programs — Accessories — Entertainment and click on Volume Control. You’ll see the Play Control (it’s named Volume Control in XP), a much more capable volume control. In fact, you’ll see a gaggle of volume controls. The one at the left marked “Play Control” (again, “Volume Control” in XP) controls the overall volume. The others are for each media type: CD Audio, Wave, and more, each control letting you make individual adjustments. And if you have a media type that’s not listed, you can add it by selecting them from the Options menu. Each media also has a balance control, and the Advanced button let’s you adjust the overall bass and treble. If you want the Play/Volume Control to be available every time you run Windows, add it to your Startup Group. You can do so by doing the following: Right-click on the Start menu, select Explore (Explore All Users for XP) from the Pop-up menu, click on Programs on the pop-up menu, double-click on each Accessories and Entertainment, right-click on Volume Control and select Copy from the pop-up menu, back under Programs in the left pane click on Startup, and in the right pane right-click and select Paste from the pop-up menu. Close Explorer, and from now on when you start Windows the Volume Control application will be loaded automatically. A New Way to Use Your Wheel Mouse If you have a wheel mouse you probably use the wheel to scroll in documents and Internet Explorer. But you can also use it when you want to select from a drop-down menu and there are more choices than room to show them. When you want to select from such a drop-down menu, use the wheel on your mouse to scroll through the menu choices; it’s a lot faster than using the elevator bar at the right edge of the menu. I’ve found that this works in almost all applications, whether they are from Microsoft or not. Why is My Computer so Slow? Windows XP (Home and Professional) users can see a graphical representation of their system’s performance by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del which will open the Task Manager. Click on the Performance tab. You will see how your CPU and Paging File are being used. For other Windows users, go to Start — Programs — Accessories — System Tools and select System Monitor. You can add whatever you would like to monitor; just click the Add icon or click on Edit — Add Item. |