AYM... Tips and Tricks




Tips and Tricks Virus Prevention We have included extensive information regarding virus prevention in our Maintenance section. Click here, to see how to avoid the serious consequences of computer viral infection.

Using your Mac at home, with word processing files from your PC at work

Unless you have one of the oldest Macs, all Macs have the built in ability to read PC formatted disks (they don't work the other way around, PC's aren't smart enough to do that, without buying expensive software). So, if you put the file on a PC disk at work, you can put the disk in your Mac, and it will show up on your desktop.

Next, you need to open the file. For most machines with standard software installation, this should be a matter of just double-clicking the file. You should see a dialog box asking what software you wish to use to open the file (with suggestions).

If your installation isn't standard, you should still be able to open the file. Start your Mac's word processing program (many users have ClarisWorks - now AppleWorks, which is perfect for this), and use the file>Open dialog box to navigate to the file on the floppy (or zip, or syquest, etc.) disk. If you don't know how to do that, you may want to read a basic Macintosh book, or obtain some Mac Basic lessons from a great company (shameless plug).

You would then just use it like normal, and save it to your computer (not the floppy) in whatever format you need (use the Save As dialog box). If you needs to get it back to work, the Save As should work for that, too. Just pick a PC format that works on the PC at work, and save to the floppy. If you use the right format (eg: Word for Windows), the PC will never even know the file had been in a Mac!

Blocking Email in AOL

You can tell AOL to block all e-mail from individual addresses or domains that send you a lot of junk mail. Suppose, for example, that you get lots of junk mail from "buck@winmillions.com." The domain name in this address is winmillions.com.

To block all mail from this domain, follow these steps:
Sign on to AOL, using your master account name.
Enter Keyword: Mail Controls.
Click the Set Up Mail Controls button.
If you have multiple screen names, click the one you want to modify and click Edit.
Click the Block E-mail from Selected AOL Members, Internet Domains and Addresses option.
In the Type Domain Name or E-mail Address Here box, enter the e-mail name or domain name you no longer want to receive mail from.
Click Add.
Click OK to save your change.
Click OK when you see the message saying that your mail controls have been changed.

Happy blocking!

Keep coming back for all sorts of Tips and Tricks!

You have lots of RAM, but you keep getting "Out of Memory" errors

So, you know you have plenty of RAM installed in your Mac, but you seem to get an awful lot of errors claiming that you need more. Firstly, you need to know that this is NOT an unusual situation, and it is easily remedied.

You see, the Mac OS doesn't dictate how much RAM a program should use. Instead, it gives that power to the user. The problem is, Apple doesn't seem to have told everybody about this.

When a program is written, the programmer determines the basic amount of RAM it should use. These amounts are generally written so that a user with a basic RAM installation may use the program, however those of us with upgraded RAM may tell the program to make use of that available RAM. (This is called "Allocating RAM")

First, we need to access the first line under the Apple Menu. On older OS's the line will say "About This Macintosh…" (notice, this is where our company took our name!). Newer systems (7.5 and up) will say "About This Computer…", and the newest systems will have deleted the ellipses (the "…"). You will be presented with a window which includes lots of information about your system and your RAM. We won't discuss the entire window here, but you do want to note the amount of RAM listed next to the line "Largest Unused Block".

Next, you have to locate the original icon for the program which you wish to change (be careful NOT to select an alias!). Make sure the program isn't running, and select (single-click) the icon for the program.

With the icon highlighted, go to the file menu and select "Get Info" (users of OS 8.5 and above will select "Get Info" and then "Memory" at the arrow). This will open a box which contains a multitude of information about the icon you selected. Find the box which references "Preferred Size", and replace the amount of RAM indicated with a larger amount (but NOT larger than the amount noted in the "Largest Unused Block" amount above.)Note that the amounts indicated are listed in "K" (kilobytes), so the amount you enter should be in the thousands (eg. 16MB = 16,000K). (Actually, for the really anal-retentive, one MB = 1024K, therefore 16MB = 16,384K).

Also, be sure to leave at least 2MB or RAM unallocated. This will allow for the system to access functions like printing, etc.

A Faster Way To Access Your CD-ROM's (From MacOS Planet)

Believe it or not there are still plenty of users who use slow CD-ROM drives, and in the field of business time is money so anything that slows you down isn't good. If you're looking to speed up CD-ROM browsing you don't have to buy new units for all of your computers, you can simply use this tip I recently stumbled upon.

To use this tip you must first have a copy of Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer started up and a CD in the CD drive. If you have these things you can simply open a new browser window by using the command-N key combination, switch to the finder, and drag the CD to the empty browser window. If this is done correctly you should see a complete disk directory of the CD's content in an easy to use format that will allow you to browse each folder in a very fast fashion, because you will no longer have to load a ton of time-consuming custom icons over and over. (David Shapiro)


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