[  ] [ Jan ] [ Feb ] [ Mar ] [ Apr ] [ May ] [ Jun ] [ Jul ] [ Aug ] [ Sep ] [ Oct ] [ Nov ] [ Dec ] [  ] Recent Developments .. by Roger Davies March 1997 SSDirect Home Page Roger Davies @ Soft Serve Direct Box 389, Magrath, Alberta, Canada T0K 1JO voice (403) 388-4332 fax (403) 758-3505 Please address comments to rdavies@ssdirect.com. Thanks!

Is it plugged in?

I like fixing computers, I really do .. do so .. do so. Earlier this month I ran into a problem with a sound card that would not make any sound. It was very strange. Everything was working the day before. It just stopped making noise. ENGAGE DETECTIVE MODE. Switched sound cards. No change. Updated drivers. No impact. Tried different set of speakers. Still no go. LATE NIGHT WARNING - SLEEP REQUIRED - ZZZZZZ. So, I slept on it (no, not on the computer, on my bed, silly). The next morning I started again. Eventually I noticed that the software volume control was set to zero. Reset it to mid-range and voila, sound! Duhh. What had happened? My lovely daughter had been 'testing' the computer games and had turned down the sound for me. So, what did we learn here? Well, first, sometimes we overlook the obvious. No sound? Did you check the volume switch? Just because you didn't change it doesn't mean that nobody changed it. Second, never assume. Starting at the beginning and checking the most obvious details would have saved me an extra day of work. And finally, "Nopody's Berfect". Oops.

More on WordPerfect Suite 7 ..

Last month, Roger said, "And I didn't even mention the new Quickspot and other features! Maybe next month .."

So, here we are in next month. I must say the the new quick spot feature is one of my favorites so far. I find it much more intuitive to click the Quickspot box than having to memorize just which icon of all those displayed that I need to click on, or which one of all those many pull down menus is the one that I need to select. Only the features that apply to the type of section you are editing are displayed. All you have to do is click the buttons and pick and choose the items you want to change. Even I can do it!

My next favorite feature, which is really a Windows 95 feature, is the implementation of the mouse right click. When you right click on a part of the document, a list of common commands is displayed. For instance, on a regular word processing screen, when you right click on a line of text, the pop up box allows you to select from: Center, Flush Right, Indent, Default Tab Settings, Highlight, Paste, etc. Also, when you right click on some other section type you get a different list which applies to that item type. Right click on a picture image and you get a list of image related commands. Right click on a line and you get a list of line related commands, including the Edit Horizontal Line .. command (which is the same as clicking on the Quickspot) .. Cool. You can learn more about using Quickspots by running the demo movie for Quickspots on your CD-ROM. Have fun!

  [ Feb 97 ] [ SSDirect Home ]

Please address comments to rdavies@ssdirect.com. Thanks!

Revised: June 23, 2001 Design Copyright 1996-2000 by Roger Davies for Soft Serve Direct (SSDirect - Computer Consulting, PC Sales, and Service). Permission is granted for individual use and reproduction provided that this document remains intact, with this copyright message clearly visible.

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