March, 2002      Diablo Blue     Page 3

Moving? Changing Your E-mail Address?

Tell us so you will continue receiving Diablo Blue!

E-mail your name and new information to changes@dvpc.org

(Continued from page 2)

Rebates

Here is another installment of my ongoing gripes about computer store rebates. The culprit this time is CompUSA. On 12/31/01 I purchased a floppy drive from CompUSA that had a $5.00 rebate. As soon as I got home I jumped through all the hoops including cutting out the bar code, copying the receipt, filling in the rebate

form, and mailing it. I also put the rebate information in my rebate abeyance file noting that I would get my refund in 10 weeks or about the 13th of March.

Today I received an e-mail from CompUSA proudly announcing that my rebate had been APPROVED and that I would be receiving my rebate in approximately 8 weeks. 8 weeks from today is 4/13/02. (It takes 8 weeks to write a check and mail and envelope??????)

So, now let us do the arithmetic.

        Rebate mailed                  12/31/01

        Rebate approved e-mail         02/16/02

        "Promised" receipt of check      04/13/02

        Total time:   14.7 weeks to receive form, approve rebate, write a check, and mail it. It is too bad that I can't pay my tax payment to IRS using the same time schedule using April 15th as the start date!!!!!!!

Change of subject: Windows XP.

We discussed the possibility of setting up a “DVPC” user on my notebook PC with the resolution settings that our projector uses. This would also involve using large fonts for the higher resolution and larger font size.

Well, I tried it today.

No problem setting up a DVPC user (limited). I selected the desktop image that I wanted to use and adjusted the resolution to the lowest setting. So far so good. DVPC should now be set up to work with the projector.

Next I went back to the WALT user which had been set for middle of the range resolution Unfortunately it appears that when I changed the resolution for the DVPC user it also changed the resolution for all other users. BUMMER.

Any ideas?

IrfanView — A Freeware Graphic Viewer

If someone wants a free picture viewer (from a comment in one of the articles), the following program is simple to use — just press the space bar to view the next picture in a subdirectory. IrfanView will also do other editing functions such as batch renaming, downsizing pictures to send over the internet and index print.

IrfanView is free for personal and non-commercial use. You can download it at http://irfanview.tuwien.ac.at/english.htm.

Highly recommended!