Windows 95 Tips #11



*1.   WHAT'S GOIN' ON?          
          
April 13th, 1999          
          
Want a hard copy report of everything installed on your system? Load up
your printer and print a Configuration Summary, as follows: 

1. Click Start. 
2. Choose Settings + Control Panel. 
3. In the Control Panel window, double-click the System icon. 
4. In the System Properties dialog box, click the Device Manager tab. 
5. Click the Print button. 
6. Under Report Type, select either of the following: 

- System Summary to print a report of which hardware is currently using
	which system resource (IRQ, RAM, and so on) 
- All Devices and System Summary to print a report on EVERY device
	connected to and/or installed on the computer 

 
7. Click OK. 

Only drawback here: The report MAY look like so much Greek to you (or if
you're Greek, it may look like so much English). But try to slug
through it; you may learn something.


*2.   PRINTER ROULETTE      
  
Is your system set up to print to multiple printers--for example, a
couple of network printers? If you print to one of them more than the
others, make your favorite printer the default. Then you won't have to
change your print settings every time you print. 

Select Start, Settings, Printers and you'll see an icon for each of the
printers to which you're connected. Right-click the printer you use most
and select Set As Default. From now on, whenever you use the Print
command, your system will automatically send the job to that printer.


*3. QUEUE IN TO YOUR NETWORK PRINTER      
  
Do you need to print something on your network printer? Before you click
Print, you may want to check to see how many documents are ahead of
yours. Otherwise, you could end up wasting valuable time standing at
the printer. 

Select Start, Settings, Printers, and you'll see an icon for each of the
printers to which your system is connected. Double-click the one you
want to print to, and you'll see its print queue--a list of all pending
jobs for that printer. 

Nothing there? Go ahead with the print--you're up next. But if you see a
long list, you may want to wait a while.


*4. NEED TO CANCEL A PRINT JOB? GET A QUEUE      
  
In our last tip, we showed you how to display the printer queue for your
network printer, so you can see exactly how many documents need to print
before yours. A printer queue can also come in handy on a non-network
printer. For example, if you just sent a number of documents to the
printer and changed your mind about one of them, you can use the queue
to cancel that job. 

Choose Start, Settings, Printers, and double-click your printer's icon to
display its queue, or list of pending jobs. Right-click the job you'd
like to cancel and select Cancel Printing. Immediately, that document
disappears from the list. (Tip: If an exceptionally long document is
already in the process of printing, canceling that job will stop it in
its tracks.)


*5. CHANGE YOUR COLOR PALETTE--QUICK!     
 
In a previous tip, we showed you how to change your color palette
setting, the setting that determines the number of colors Windows 95 uses
to display images on your screen: Right-click the desktop, select
Properties, click the Settings tab, select a palette under Color palette,
click OK, then click Yes to restart Windows. Want to change this setting
at the click of a button? Download and install the QuickRes PowerToy. 

Point your Web browser to 

http://www.pcworld.com/r/tw/1%2C2061%2Ctw-0412%2C00.html 

and download powertoy.exe to your folder of choice. Double-click this
file to extract its contents, then right-click quickres.inf and select
Install. The next time you start Windows 95, you'll find a QuickRes icon
in the tray of your Taskbar (it looks like a computer screen). 

To change your color palette, click the QuickRes icon and select one of
the resolution/color palette combos in the pop-up list. (Note: You'll
probably want to select one that includes your current resolution, unless
you want to change that, too. If you aren't sure what your resolution is,
check the Settings tab of the Display Properties dialog box.) Restart
Windows 95 to complete the change.


*6. PRINTER ROULETTE     
 
Is your system set up to print to multiple printers--for example, a
couple of network printers? If you print to one of them more than the
others, make your favorite printer the default. Then you won't have to
change your print settings every time you print. 

Select Start, Settings, Printers and you'll see an icon for each of the
printers to which you're connected. Right-click the printer you use most
and select Set As Default. From now on, whenever you use the Print
command, your system will automatically send the job to that printer.


*7. LET JACK BE YOUR GUIDE        
    
Do you feel as though Windows 95 just doesn't relate to your
double-clicks? In other words, do you frequently have to double-click an
item more than once (and faster than you'd like) to get Windows to
respond? Rather than put up with this aggravation, adjust your
double-click speed. 

Open the Control Panel (select Start, Settings, Control Panel) and
double-click the Mouse icon. On the Buttons tab, move the lever under
Double-click Speed closer to Slow. 

Before you click OK, take your new, double-click speed for a test spin.
Double-click the Jack-in-the-box icon (in the Test area) at a comfortable
speed. If Jack appears, you're all set. Click OK. If not, move that lever
closer to Slow and try again until he does.


*8. FONT-SY THIS        
    
Remember back in the days of Windows 3.x, when you could change your File
Manager font? Unfortunately, Windows Explorer doesn't offer this option
(one of its many shortcomings)--unless you're willing to change the font
of every icon on your system--on the desktop, in folder windows,
and so on. 

Right-click the desktop and select Properties. Click the Appearance tab,
and under Item, select Icon. On the line below that, select a new Font
and Size (don't adjust the Size to the right of the Item list, or you'll
change the icon size), then click Apply. Open an Explorer window (or
switch to the desktop) for a preview of the new setting, and if you like
the look, click OK. If not, change it again until you do. 

Change your mind? In case you forgot, the default icon font for the
Windows Standard color scheme is 8-point, MS Sans Serif (Western).


*9. NEED A DATE?        
    
Need to add the time and date to your Notepad file? From inside a Notepad
document, place the cursor where you'd like the date and time to appear,
then press F5 on your keyboard. Presto--the current date and time appears
(as defined by your system clock and calendar). 

In our next tip, we'll show you how to time and date stamp a Notepad file
after every entry....


*10. THE PERFECT DIARY?        
    
In our last tip, we showed you how to add a time and date stamp to your
Notepad file: Place the cursor where you'd like the date and time to
appear, press F5 on your keyboard, and presto--Notepad inserts the
current date and time (as defined by your system clock and calendar). 

If you want, you can make Notepad insert this information every time you
make an entry in this file. Simply type 

.LOG 

at the top of the file, save your change, and it's officially a log file.
From now on, every time you close and re-open that file, a date and time
stamp will appear at the end of the file.
