Q And A

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday April 21, 2008

Nicole Manktelow

Q A couple of months ago I changed from dial-up to broadband but it may only be coincidental that shortly afterwards, when I put my computer in "Standby" mode, it jumped out of this a few seconds later so that the Desktop screen was again visible. The keyboard was still jammed and could not be unlocked until I closed down the computer. Have you any suggestions on how I might fix this, please?

A Problems with standby can have different causes, such as power management, video cards and, yes, peripherals. You may need to check the modem manufacturer's site for a more recent driver and update it. Kelly Theriot's help guide for Windows XP is a good reference and covers some of the most common issues for these glitches (www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp-standby.htm).

Q How do I delete permanently those email contact names that are not in use any more?

A The easiest way to remove incorrect items is to start typing in an address, use the down arrow on the keyboard to select an incorrect one and press Delete. The AutoComplete feature in Outlook works by remembering addresses you've previously typed in, not by looking up your Contacts. If you want to clear all the remembered entries at once, the How To Geek website (www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows/outlook-2003/clear-the-auto-complete-email-address-cache-in-outlook) has details on deleting the profile folder.

Q When sending emails, a copy of the email sometimes ends up in the Drafts folder and it remains there even though the email has been sent (and I have confirmed that has been received by the addressee). So, do you know why I am getting an extra, unnecessary copy?

A It may be a slow or intermittent internet connection or a slow-responding mail server. The email program probably saves a copy in Drafts as you work on a message. Then, it may wait for a response from the mail server to confirm that the email was actually sent before removing the draft message. That confirmation may have taken too long to arrive. You can try lengthening the mail server timeout setting by a couple of minutes more. In Outlook, for example, the setting can be found by going to Tools, Email Accounts, then View or change existing email accounts. Select your email account, click More settings and look under the Advanced tab for Server Timeouts.

qa@nicolemanktelow.com

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