Links for Sunday August 19, 2001

Defrayment your hard disk
When you install a program on your computer, the program's files are typically broken up, or fragmented, over multiple locations on your hard disk. Disk Defragmenter reorganizes the files on your hard disk -- arranging them closer together -- which improves the performance of your programs.

Downloaded The Latest?

Whether you’re returning to school or have your own personal computer for your business, you’re probably not running the latest software for your machine. I’m not talking only about software upgrades, but also patches and fixes. Every day hackers, viruses, and bugs plague our systems, and these can cause us real problems.

The last thing you need is to be surfing on the Internet doing research for your boss or for a school project and suddenly, BAM! Your system gets hit because of a problem with Explorer or a virus that went undetected! To prevent this from occurring, you need to upgrade your software now! Go to the Internet and visit Microsoft’s Web page for their latest software upgrades, and visit your virus software’s Web page to get their latest updates and data files. Use the links below to upgrade today!

Are there times when you'd like to start Microsoft Internet Explorer in full-screen kiosk mode? If so, all you have to do is create a new shortcut that you can use whenever you need the full screen mode.

To create the shortcut, right click on a blank area of the desktop and select New|Shortcut. Type in "c:\program files\internet explorer\iexplore.exe" -k and click Next. Now, name your new shortcut and click Finish.

When you double-click this new shortcut Microsoft Internet Explorer will open in full screen kiosk mode.

Students between the ages of 13 and 18 can use their online research skills to compete in the Microsoft® Encarta® Challenge 2001. The tournament winner will receive $50,000 cash for college, a 2002 Ford Focus ZX3, a Gateway computer, and more. The top 50 participants will also receive cash for college and other great prizes.

Did you know that you can easily change the message options in Outlook? Simply click the Options button on the Formatting toolbar. You can specify the level of importance of the message, the level of sensitivity of the message, where replies should be sent and if you want a read receipt to be delivered when the message is opened. You can also choose to encrypt the message for security.

Navigating the Microsoft operating system pathway can be a real balancing act between keeping up to date and controlling costs. Gartner offers advice on when to upgrade and when to hold on to a legacy OS.