InBox

By DON McALLISTER

Welcome to InBox, where we attempt to answer your internet questions.


Q: Neville has been copying his old records from his stereo to his computer using a soundcard and Moviemaker. With the Media Player 9 update the ability seems to have gone. He asks if there's another option.

A: Moviemaker is not the ideal sound creator, Neville. Ideally, switch to one of the many (often free) after-market programs available, many of which have little extras to digitally remaster these recordings. Also, they can often facilitate burning to CD or DVD as MP3 or even raw audio. Search Tucows for "audio", which will yield a substantial number of shareware, demo-ware and freeware programs. Hint: four or five cows means most highly recommended.

Q: Murray recently changed his old computer, running Win 95 and Works 4 word processor, to a new one running Win XP Home and Works Suite. Now he has problems opening and reading his old Works 4 documents and saving them to Word or WordPad.

A: It can be frustrating when these new versions aren't backward compatible. Try the Works 4 converter: Microsoft. Select "Works" from the dropdown menu and type "converter" as a keyword. The results show one each for Word 6 and 4.

Q: "How often should I do Norton Anti-virus updates through the Maintenance Wizard (scan disk, defragmentation etc)?" asks Heather.

A: Updates for all programs should be done daily or each time you connect to the internet. Maintenance should be at least monthly - weekly if the machine is used often.


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