F A Q

Clicking on my 'eye' or 'camera' icons will take you to a page containing a picture.

Clicking on loudspeaker icon will take you to a page with a link to a sound file. All the sound files are listed together here. There are detailed help comments on sound here. The format I use for sound files is mp3. I am in the process of altering the coding by embeding the sound files so that they will play more easily in browsers other than Internet Explorer.

It is now October 2015. There have been significant changes since I last revised this page. (The text below the rule.)

Most of my music is now with Alegro Music. There are links on the relevant pages.

I have skewed the design of the site to make touch screen use easier, in line with the demands of Google. To this end I have provided some large button links, and made the frames, which freeze some mobile browsers, an optional extra. I am gradually re-jigging my pages to separate link buttons so that their selection is more certain. I have resisted the temptation to re-size my tables to suit modern wide sceen displays.

At the same time I am adding ex-VAT prices for the benefit of clients outside the EU.

The geeks among my readers will have noticed my increasing use of CSS style sheets. They are something of a mixed blessing but I doubt if anyone is using Win95 and Netscape any more. (Netscape's problem is that it screws up on CSS. It would be better if it didn't try and declared itself as not compliant. IE5 copes!)

02/05/2014 Not much has changed. The previous revision of this page was on 11/10/11. Much has changed in the three years since I wrote the first version of this page. Some comments are no longer relevant and have been removed but my basic design strategy is unchanged. Indeed, I will be sticking with it, especially now that I have taken orders from people browsing the site with a mobile phone. The latest change has been to specify the font for Linux users who may have had difficulty with their default fonts taking up to much horizontal space at the browser default font size. I have specified 'Liberation Serif' and 'Free Serif' as they are slightly smaller than the 'Times New Roman' default for Windows boxes.

This page in an attempt to explain how the site is organised and how to make the best use of it. As far as possible, links will be provided, both within this page and to the main pages. However, to be able to search for anything you must have a fair idea of what you are looking for. If you do not, you will, inevitably, have to browse and skim. Do not overlook the links placed at the top and bottom of every page and the buttons. If your browser does not support buttons I have provided hyperlinks as an alternative so that you are never 'marooned'.

All the pages should be "HTML 4. 01 Transitional" compliant. This page is! By cheating with the dictionary I now get a happy chime when I validate it. I have decided not to bother to replace tags that are 'deprecated' in HTML 4. I am unrepentant over my use of frames. I am sure that non-frame browsers are not in use any more and they are the best way to enable you to navigate my lists. However, for those with special needs, frames, I gather, can be a pain. So, I have endeavoured to follow the advice on the University of Rhode Island page, regarding accessibility. Ordinary users should be unaware of what I have been doing... except when I get it wrong. Its difficult to keep track of everything, my favourite editor tends to screw up at times and corrupt text so that links stop working. I hope my efforts meet with approval. I am checking things with lynx_w32.2.8.2rel.1 . Not having served any apprenticeship with DOS it was quite a struggle to find out how to make it work.

The site is made with frames. The left one is named "Menu" and the right one "Data". Over the top there is now a row named "Header". The "contents" are normally in view on the left of the screen, but change with the choice of topic. Information and pictures appear on the right. Some topics share files, and some do not have subdivisions. The background is colour coded to the page to which it refers. The top level is green. Some of the files are rather long and the links may take a little while to load, please be patient. If you want to see the pages full width select them from the page that appears if you click here and work with your browser arrows.

Because I distribute this info on CDROM, for those with computers but without Web access, most of the hypertext links are related to the parent folder. A few refer back to the site, and are marked as "web link", which might otherwise seem superfluous. There are also text alternatives to some "hot spot" hyperlinks. When I started this site I was advised to cater for those who landed in the middle via a search engine, and those who browsed with images switched off. (Does anyone really do this now? It would be interesting to know.) If you come across something which you think I have made a mess of, or could do better, please let me know. Providing search buttons is technically beyond me at the moment. Please see the notes on how to use the facilities within your own machine to accomplish these tasks. If you have installed the Google tool bar you can search only within the site you are viewing. (Internet connection only.)

You can save all the site files for later use (like printing, which is slow) without going on-line. Indeed, if you have not set your browser to delete things in a hurry, you can retrieve the files via your "History" folder. However, .pdf files viewed through your browser by means of a "plug-in" are not available again if you leave the page unless you save them. Use the Acrobat Reader bar to do this. (The same applies to my Word Order Form, I quite often get strange attachments of my own pages. It MUST be saved before it can be attached and mailed back to me after completion.)

I have written the pages for viewing with a display setting of 600x800 and "medium" text size. For best results go to "View" in your browser, choose "Text-Size Medium" and "Full Screen" if possible. (With IE the short cut is "F11". "Full Screen" is not available with Netscape but is now with Firefox.) Other settings will produce acceptable results. If you run with higher resolution on your monitor you will find it better to set "Text-Size Larger". Now that "widescreen" displays are common it can make be difficult to follow text across the screen. It is an issue that affects the pages of lists. A general work round is to resize your window narrower than the maximised option. It may well actually be the best answer but I have re-written these pages with a contrasting background to make the situation more obvious. If you don't like it you can narrow your window to get rid of it. Another solution is to use the zoom (bottom right) and move to more than 100%. Its a good option. beware if you upgrade to IE8... my lap-top went down to 75% and the result was awful. OE6 went the same way, you have to go to
"View>Text Size"
in the message window to change the text size.

If, like me, you have upgraded to IE7 and are confused about the new "auto resize" of images, do not over look the short lived "hamburger" that appears in the lower right corner if you hover over the image. Clicking on this will reveal the full detail of the few large, scrollable, high resolution images on the site. If it escapes you, click the image. By going to
"Tools>Internet_Options>Advanced"
in IE7 you can disable the auto resize if it really annoys you. Another not very welcome IE7 feature is the little control panel which pops up onto images. You can right click it and get rid of it for the session, or for good and all - read the message which appears after you right click. I'm not sure when they changed it, but the 'hamburger' feature on my machine has been replaced by a circled '+' or '-' sign. Its a great improvement.

Finding Stuff.

Once you have clicked on a web page (mine included) you can search it for a text item by clicking in the toolbar. First "Edit" and then "Find". Alternatively go straight to the facility with "Ctrl F". I use Internet Explorer, but I would expect all browsers to offer the same basic facility, Netscape 4.7 certainly does. This works very well. You do not even need to search for a whole word, just a section which you are sure is spelled correctly. If possible, refine your criterium, 'Sonata', for example, will produce many hits. The publisher's numbers are unique. When I list them, initial letters are separated from following numbers and letters by a space. For example, 'AB 123X', not 'AB123X' or 'AB 123 X'.

If you are a frequent visitor, depending on how your browser is configured, you should refresh the page you are viewing, or clear your cache. I have been playing with Firefox and Safari for PC and found that they do not automatically check for an updated page.

The best place to find a specific item is my pdf format whole stock list. If you then want more information you can use the department information to find the matching web page of an item. It is a big file (not much of a problem in these days of broadband) and includes stock status information, updated every few days. Be sure to read all the introductary page. Click here.

Many sites are written in a dynamic language and cannot be recalled, even if saved. All you save is a url. (This site is not one of them, all the pages will stay in your cache until deleted, and may be recalled at any time.) You can work round this by right clicking and selecting "View Source". Then, "select all" and save it (with the extension .htm). Do not be put off if the resulting page looks blank at first. Many programmers place a large block of 'white space' at the start of an html document. Any images are lost this way, but the text is stored and may be viewed by opening your newly saved (small) file.

Printing

Be careful if you wish to print. I strongly advise you to print only from a page displayed with "medium" text size. (Smaller is not easy to read, and larger is wasteful of ink and paper.) Select your text (or at least click on the frame you want to print) and choose "File-Print..." (or Ctrl P). When the printer panel appears chose "Selected". If you do not do this you run the risk of printing everything... all the page, or the wrong frame, or both frames. As I include new coding you may find white space that is not visible on screen, appearing when you print. I am trying to improve the presentation, preventing tables from being fragmented and curing "widow and orphan" problems. Be careful about background colours, you don't really want to print them do you! In IE7 there is a drop down file option for Print Preview. This can be really useful. The page prints according to your text size setting, the larger the text, the more sheets of paper required. There is an option for background colour printing in the "Tools>Internet_Options>Advanced" drop down menu in Internet Explorer. My advice is to leave it switched "OFF".

In case you are interested in such things, this site has been written without a wyswyg programme, I use only text editors. I have been well guided by a couple of books from Babani publications. These books are sound, but the rules have changed! The preferred case for html tags is now lower and all tags should be 'closed'. If you would like to know more, just e-mail me, through the "Contact" menu option.

May 2014 Update. I'm still using WinXP, but with care and always with anti-virus running. I now have a Win7 laptop and I'm getting to know it, if not to like it! For the time being I will continue to use WinXP for work purposes. You may have noticed that the look of my pages is changing in subtle ways. I am getting to grips with style sheets (CSS) and using 'style' to replace the buttons provided by 'Forms'. At the same time I'm reducing the amount of javascript used for navigation, relying instead on hyperlinks in my menu bar and lists.

One 'snippet' of information that may be of use in curing an annoyance is that leaving a CD in the optical drive solves the frequent 'go slow' attitude of 'My Computer'. None of the other complicated fixes I have found on the web do the job for long.

Much of what follows is now irelevant! XP rules (in more ways than one!). Even so, you might glean something from it so I'm leaving it for the time being. My workhorse machine now runs WinXP, and some of my software will no longer run on that machine. I still use AVG anti virus and firewall software. I find it effective and not too difficult to understand.

A few weeks ago my main computer (WinXP SP3) started a 'go slow' routine for an hour or so after it was booted. I wasted a lot of time trying to work out what was wrong and eventually came to the conclusion that updating was involved. Others on the web thought the same. No solution was proposed but I think I have found one... by accident! I have not had any trouble since I turned automatic updates off altogether... not even now that I have reinstated them. There is no harm in running for an hour or two with them turned off. You can find the controls at 'Automatic Updates' in 'Control Panel'. I prefer the second option.

If you are bothered by icons disappearing from the lower right hand corner of your screen (the 'notification area' or 'systray'). I found (by searching) that it is a common problem that crops up unexpectedly and it is related to the time taken to load the various programs at start up. However, you can get them back on a per session basis by logging out and then logging yourself back in again. You can make a 'log out' option appear, but it probably easier for the average user to create a new account if the computer has only one. A 'Guest' account will do. Its not ideal, but it is easy to do and takes very little time. Effective and a safer bet than trying to hack the registry or recompile your shell32.dll as suggested by several contributors to the large body of comment on the problem..

I've just got a new computer going (Sept.2010) and had another go at fixing this annoyance. This answer was provided by Sean Burns a very long time ago.. and it worked for me. Here it is. Not difficult to do. Highlight and copy the text below to a text document, print it and follow the instructions carefully. If you have any doubts, write the current setting against the items that you will change. (You need to be an administrator, of course. You probably are if its your computer.)

1. Right-click on the 'My Computer' desktop icon.(Item no. 4.)
2. Click on Manage.
3. Expand 'Services & Applications'.
4. Highlight 'Services'.
5. Look through list of services on the right....
6. Find Universal Plug & Play Device Host.
7. Right-click on it.
8. Click properties.
9. Change startup type to 'Disabled'.
10. Do exactly the same with 'SSDP discovery service'. (Steps 6 - 10.)

If it doesn't work for you... give up. There are better ways to spend your time.

Computer modems and VOIP enabled telephone lines do not seem to be compatible, and BT cannot help. As far as they are concerned a computer is not a fax machine (which they will help with). To maintain my computer fax facility after I made the mistake of trying the VOIP service (its now disabled, the line has now reverted to its original state... it took a year!) I dug out an ancient parallel port modem. This succeeds where the PCI and USB devices I had used previously failed.

A year on I've been able to use my USB modem again. Something has changed, I don't know what. The upside is one less wire and one less energy wasting power supply permanently plugged in.

Some older programs will not work with modern machines, even if they are compatible with the operating system. They cannot cope with today's huge anounts of memory. (The error message is usually the exact opposite of the problem!) I have found services releases for Office 97, for example, that solve the problems. Just key a few well chosen words into Google.

Many of you will know that I have had a lot of trouble with my home machine. I offer the following snippets of info which might help with similar problems.

If you are using Win98SE do not uninstall the latest media player. You are stuck with it if you want to listen to internet radio. Backtracking to a previous version will result in continual buffering. You cannot recover from this. (Well, I've spent a lot of time trying to without success.) The default original media player will work though.

If you are troubled by a function failing, even though it appears to be enabled, a reliable remedy is to de-select it, click "Apply", then re-select it and then click "OK". My volume control frequently vanishes, it is a common problem. This is the way to restore it (from Multi-Media, in Control Panel).

If the .pdf files will not open in your browser (as the result of re-installing Windows or Internet Explorer) open your Adobe Reader manually and let it fix itself, or re-install it.

I have found that "wallpaper", selected from a folder other than the "WINDOWS" folder is capable of causing a hang. Remedy, copy the wallpaper file to the "WINDOWS" folder, and run it from that location.

I have now abandoned LS120 drives in favour of USB flash disks. If you would like a couple of LS120 drives and some disks (some new) let me know. I would rather give them away than bin them.

With WIN95 and WIN98 there may be something to be said for going to "Control_Panel>System Properties>Performance>File System>Floppy Disk" and unchecking the "Search for new floppy disk..." button. But not for a portable machine, the configuration of which will vary, and remember what you have done if you decide to add another floppy drive to your system!

I have a feeling, particularly if you are running anti-virus software, that close down, again, particularly, with WIN98, is less likely to hang if you do not rush the procedure. Pause until drive activity stops, at each stage of the shut down routine. I have had a lot of trouble with this and abandoned McAfee6 in favour of AVG7 on my shop machine. You can get some idea of what is happening by activating bootlog.txt at start up, it also records the shut down procedure, viewable after the next boot, as bootlog.prv. You can control this and other options like disabling scandisk after a bad shut down with msconfig.exe . Running scandisk from Windows and fixing any problems is helpful in curing shut down hangs. Do not run a thorough scan of your C: drive from WIN98, it will hang. Periodically run it from the DOS prompt.

If you are into these things you may also find that forcing a reconfiguration of your hardware from scratch helpful. (This works for WIN95 and WIN98, I'm not sure about newer Windows versions.) Right Click 'My Computer' (on the desk top) select properties and then select 'Hardware Profiles'. Click 'Copy' and then hit 'c' and 'OK'. Then select 'Original Configuration' and hit 'Rename', then hit 'r' and 'OK'. Close everything and re-boot. When the machine re-boots it will halt and request a decision regarding the correct configuration. Hit 'None of these' (3). Everything will be re-detected and installed. You may have to fiddle with your screen resolution and re-position the icons on your desktop. When you re-boot select 'Original Configuration', strange name, it is actually the new one! At some stage you will need to remove configurations 'c' and 'r' in order to make to boot process run through unhindered.

While the above comments hold good, I have made another step towards reliable closing. It struck me that my "working" machines were the troublesome ones, while the ones I "played" with gave little trouble. I think the answer, perhaps even the whole answer, is not to hold any files or folders on the WIN98 desktop. Additionally, try to keep the "My Documents" folder within bounds. Periodically delete the rubbish or move it to an ordinary folder, for example a new folder named "My Old Documents". Since I have tidied things up and retained only shortcuts on my desktop I have not had a shutdown hang. After clearing up it is best to run Scanregw.exe and backup again otherwise you may suffer one more hang.

The 'InstantAccess' program that came with my parallel port scanner as part of TextBridge OCR software is a memory hog in WIN98. Everything works better without it! FindFast has a similar bad reputation.

I have now completely lost the shut down problems since downloading a WIN98 update relating to mapped drives, which feature on my networked shop machine.

At one stage I had very unreliable boot conditions and eventually traced the trouble to a zipped file which should have been unzipped when the software was installed. If you have this trouble ever, check all the files which are called up in autoexec.bat, and make sure that they do run. You may also run into boot hangs with some pocket drives and mp3 players if they are plugged in when you boot.

My AVG7 hangs while scanning the system files at boot up if my USB modem is connected via a hub!

Software internal modems and older machines do not work well together. Period!! If you have a basic modem and it sounds too loudly, but you, like me, prefer to hear a bit of what is going on, it can be quietened with a layer of sticky tape over the sounder hole. (With advanced models reduce the loudness with the configure button of modem properties, found by right clicking the connection icon in the dial up networking folder.)

Networking has become very easy and most new machines have the necessary hardware as part of the mother board. There are also USB file sharing and virtual network cables adapters available at low cost. If you acquire a new machine it is very well worth keeping the old one and linking the two. Data can be moved very quickly and really important files can be duplicated between the machines so that you can keep working if you suffer a breakdown or virus attack. If you decide to map drives and write a batch file or two to move or copy files between machines on a regular basis you should download the mapped drive update if you use WIN98.

A KVM switch is a very useful device if you run two computers together. If possible select a single mode PS/2 mouse. Combi mice (USB or PS/2) are fussy about which machine is booted first and may need re-plugging if you choose the wrong one.

Enjoy yourself and make good use of the information.

John.