TECHNICAL Q&A

General Computer Tips
Q: How do I get rid of personalized menus in the Start Menu on Windows XP?
A: This is in reference to those double down arrows that occur based on previous menu selection history. I dislike them.
  1. Go to the Start menu > Control Panel OR Start menu > Settings > Control Panel.
  2. Click on Taskbar and Start Menu.
  3. Click the Start menu tab.
  4. Select Classic Start Menu (also much less annoying) and press Customize.
  5. Scroll to the bottom of Advanced Start menu options.
  6. Deselect the Use Personalized Menus checkbox option.
  7. Click Ok. Click Ok.
Q: How do I get rid of personalized menus in Word, Excel or Access 2003?
A: This is in reference to those double down arrows that occur based on previous menu selection history. I dislike them.
  1. Open Word.
  2. Click on the tools menu.
  3. Click customize.
  4. Click on the options tab.
  5. Check Always show full menus.
  6. Press Reset message and menu toolbar data button.
  7. Click Close.
Q: How do I change my screen resolution on a Windows machine?
A: A Web page can look different when viewed with various browsers, browser versions, Operating Systems and screen resolutions (a monitor setting). Try changing the screen resolution to see what your Web page might look like for someone else using a smaller or larger screen resolution. Some good (square) resolutions to try are 800x600, 1153x864, 1024x768, 1280x1024, 1600x1200, 1920x1440 (pixels wide x pixels high). The choices you are able to select will be determined by how powerful your computer's graphics are.
  1. Hold down the <Windows> key and press the <M> key. This minimizes all open applications.
  2. Right click the desktop.
  3. Choose properties.
  4. Click the Settings tab.
  5. Move the slider in the Screen Resolution section.
  6. Click Ok.
Q: How can I tell if my connection to my online banking is secure?
A: Your connection is secure, or should I say, more secure when SSL is enabled. A good way to tell if SSL is enabled is if your browser address line starts with https:// versus http:// (note the 's'). You can also look for the yellow lock in the bottom right hand side of the browser window such as this image depicts.

Q: How do I select multiple items in a Web page multi-select selection box?
A: To select multiple items hold down the <Ctrl> key on a PC or the <Command> key on a Mac and click the individual options. You can also select multiple items by dragging the cursor across the items OR by highlighting one item then hold down the <Shift> key and then highlight another item. This selects all items between. These same concepts, except dragging the cursor, can be applied to Windows Explorer files and folders.
Q: How do I Copy & Paste text?
A: To Copy text, first highlight the text in question then hold down the <Ctrl> key on a PC or the <Command> key on a Mac and press the <C> key. To Paste text, place your cursor where the text's destination is and then hold down the <Ctrl> key on a PC or the <Command> key on a Mac and press the <V> key. <Ctrl> <C> and then <Ctrl> <V> or on a Macintosh <Command> <C> and then <Command> <V>.
Q: How can I access my computer files quickly?
A: Hold down the <Windows> key and press the <E> key. Additionally, on a Windows machine you can click the Folders toolbar button to show the folders on the left pane and the contents of that highlighted folder on the right pane.

Web Programming & Servers
Q: Unable to load dynamic library C:/php/ext/php_mysql.dll?
A: On Windows XP an error occurred after a reboot which caused PHP to stop serving MySQL content. The solution was simple, just copy the file libmysql.dll to \windows\system32 and restart Apache.
Q: Apply a javascript onload event without using the <body> tag?
A: document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0].setAttribute("onload", "funct()"); is a cool way to apply a javascript function that will execute on a page load but unfortunately it doesn't work in IE 6 (Windows). Use "window.onload = funct;" within the script block but don't attempt to pass a parameter or do anything other than just calling the function without the function brackets "()". In other words, use funct not funct() or funct(param).
Q: How to get rid of the dotted line around an active link?
A: Set the CSS style attribute of outline-width to 0px. This works on IE and Firefox at least.
Q: Access a form field value where the field name contains spaces with javascript?
A: If there is a space in the form field name that is submitted to the server many of the typical javascript attempts at accessing that value for validation purposes will fail. For example, document.forms["myform"].first name.value will cause an error due to the space between first and name. The trick is to use the elements[] array querying the field type such as ... var formobj = document.forms["myform"].elements[i]; if(formobj.type == "text") { /* do stuff */ }
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