Answers to some common computer problems

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): Recently, a friend distributed a file through a mailing list. When I received her e-mail, I simply clicked on the attachment icon on the top right hand corner of the 'Outlook Express'(OE) preview pane. When the list of attached files appeared, I clicked on the filename. Normally, if the file is a MS Office document, this will launch Word, Excel or PowerPoint and automatically open the file inside the application.

If it is not an Office document, OE will give us an option to open the file or save it in the hard disk. If the attachment is a zipped file, trying to open it will launch WinZip, which is already installed on my computer. If it is an image file, my CorelDRAW or CorelPHOTO-PAINT will start and the file will be displayed.

It turned out that the file was not recognized as an Office document, so I got the Open Attachment Warning from OE. I clicked on the Open it option. It did not work. Instead of launching MS Word, the action started my VCD player utility, and the file remained inaccessible.

So I e-mailed the sender, asking her about the format of the file. As I was using the same mailing list, the question was sent to everybody else in the group. Immediately afterwards, I got a message from another friend, saying: "How come you cannot open it? I had no problem with it. You are the computer expert!" I laughed, because I knew she was just joking. But, honestly speaking, I never consider myself an expert. Nobody can be a real expert when it comes to computers, because there are just too many things to learn and to know. The problems that computer users experience are so varied that no one can ever have the answers to all of them. What is more important is whether we keep learning new things or not. So I replied to her right away and asked her how she did it. She must have been too busy to give me the explanation.

However, in the evening I received the copy of the same file in Word format from a friend in Belgium, which I could open without any problem. The question remained unanswered: Why were these people able to open it and I was not?

I decided to change the approach. I clicked again on the attachment from the original sender. This time, instead of clicking on Open it, I clicked on Save it to disk. I saved it on My Document folder. Then I started Word, and opened the file from inside Word. Voila!, there it was.

When I checked the document properties, it turned out that the file was not originally created in MS Word. It might have been created in WordPerfect or WordPro but then converted to a Word document. That was why Word did not launch when I clicked on it.

Just then another friend, Jason, called me. After some chitchat, he also told me that he had been having difficulty opening files that people had sent him. You can definitely understand why I laughed so hard. He did exactly what I usually do -- try to open the file without saving it first. So, I told him to try to save it first and open it from inside Word. He did, and he was so exhilarated to see it worked.

"All this time I kept telling them to please just include the text in the body of the e-mail." What an interesting co- incidence.

File Association

When a new application is installed on our system, the association is created automatically so that all the files with the .JPG extension will be automatically opened in CorelDRAW instead of MS Paint, for instance. However, Windows also allows us to manually associate files with certain applications.

Here is what you can do to manage your association list. With all applications closed or minimized, click on My Computer icon on your Windows Desktop. Click on Folder Options, and then click on File Types. Scroll down the list until you get the type of file that you want to associate with a different application. Click on the Edit button to make the change. You can browse the hard disk to get the right application.

On my system I have both Ami Pro and WordPro. I keep Ami Pro files, with the .SAM extension, associated with Ami Pro, not with the newer WordPro. Incidentally, you can also access File Types through Windows Explorer. In Windows Explorer, click on the View menu and then on Folder Options. The right association will also enable you to open files from inside Windows Explorer with the application of your choice.

Call Waiting

A reader, Glenn, sent me a message a couple of weeks ago. He had been having problems with his phone line, which had the call- waiting feature. Each time a call comes in while he was online, his connection to the Internet Service Provider would be rudely cut off.

"I have patiently spoken with representatives from Indosat.net.id, Dnet.net.id, TELKOM and several computer stores and there is not a single competent person who can tell me the special code that I need to put before the server's computer's telephone number. For example, if in Canada my server's phone number is 123-4567, then in order to "defuse" the call waiting I must type #22,123-4567 as the telephone number," he wrote. He was asking me whether I had the solution to this irritating problem.

I did not. When TELKOM quietly turned on the call waiting feature on my phone line, I never got disconnected, so I was not aware of such a problem. The caller just heard a ringing tone, and thought that I was not at home, while I was still happily browsing. However, it did not hurt to ask around and learn new things, right? Fortunately, I had several good friends at RisTI, TELKOM's IT research division, and they were very helpful. I was told that to disable the call waiting feature, we have to press *30# before you dial the number. To reactivate it, we have to press #30#.

On the computer, here is what you have to do if you experience the same problem as Glenn: Open Control Panel (Start, Settings, then Control Panel). Then click on Modem. Select the modem that you use, and then click on the Dialing Properties button at the bottom. Activate the option To disable call waiting, dial and then type in *30# in the box provided. Glenn e-mailed me that this solved his problem.

My friends from RisTI also reminded me that the codes may vary from location to location. In Jakarta, the codes are basically the same. Now, are there any questions and solutions that you would like to share with us? (zatni@cbn.net.id)