Q. My question is about the Microsoft Word software that came with my computer. Whenever I use my word processor, it capitalizes my beginning sentence even when I don’t want it to.
Is there a way to turn off this feature, or am I stuck in the land of frustration?
Dr. Clyde R Horn
A. Be careful what you wish for, Doc, because you might not be delighted when you get it.
The auto-capitalization tool is disabled with a single check box in the Word software, but a lot of folks find they miss it when it’s gone. After all, the great majority of us start more sentences with a capital letter than with a lower-case one.
So to shut the automatic capitalization down, click on Tools in the Word display and look for an item called Auto Correct Options. The on/off box comes up in the Auto Correct tab of a menu that appears.
A way to keep the convenient automatic caps feature and still start sentences with small letters when desired is to use a keystroke of Control + Z after the first word is assigned its unwanted cap. This undo command cancels the last operation and can be used in many programs to do things like recover accidentally deleted stuff.
Q. I cannot get my screen saver to work as I want it to. The only way to get the screen saver to come on is to set it for one minute; anything longer and it doesn’t activate at all.
My hard drive just crashed, and Dell sent me a new one. After reinstalling everything, I thought that I might have fixed my screen saver problem, but to no avail. Same old problem–anything over one minute and it simply never kicks in.
Do you have any remedies for this?
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Bob Peters, Nutley, N.J.
A. I assume that you already know that there is no reason for using a screen saver on modern computers other than enjoying the display. These subprograms that blank the screen and then display some form of random pattern were created because earlier monitors had phosphorous-coated screens that would burn in with a ghost image if a single display were left on too long.
The problem was solved by changing screen chemistry nearly a decade ago. So there will be no harm done even if you never found a fix to that fickle screen saver.
That said, here are a few fixes that probably will get your screen saver to kick in whenever you want. The saver software works in the background monitoring signals from the mouse and keyboard, and if nothing is touched for a specified time, it kicks in. Since your saver won’t kick in after one minute, it means that sometime between 1.0001 minutes and two minutes (the next option for waiting), something happens to fool the screen saver into detecting a keystroke or mouse move.
Viruses cause this, but so do all kinds of other items. Because your problem was still there after a complete reinstall, you can assume that the problem isn’t virus-related.
The first suspect should be your hardware: mouse and keyboard themselves. It is possible for a miniscule electrical short to develop, particularly in mice, that causes the mouse cursor to move a fraction of a fraction of an inch and thus stop the screen saver. Try a different mouse.
The next suspect is the driver software for your monitor, a small program that handles monitor operations, including tripping the switch to cause the monitor to shut off when the screen saver sets in. New drivers can be acquired from monitor-makers’ Web sites, but let’s try a few fixes that could very well save you the bother.
Start with stopping energy-conservation settings.
Move the cursor onto the desktop screen and give a right-click and select Properties to call up a tabbed menu, with one reading Screen Saver. You know about this because it is where the user sets those waiting times for the saver to kick in. But at the bottom of the menu is the monitor power-settings button. Click it open and you will find tools to set times for such conservation measures as turning off the monitor, turning off the hard disk, putting the system on standby and putting it into hibernation.
Set them all to “Never” to see if your own power-saver software is causing the trouble. This well-intentioned energy-conservation module has been notorious for causing problems by kicking in at the exact microsecond when something else tries to kick in, particularly keyboards and mice.
Finally, problems can set in if your e-mail software is checking for new messages to download before the screen saver is supposed to set in. Make sure that you have set either Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express to check for mail at longer intervals. The Outlook Express send/receive intervals are set by clicking on Tools and Options and opening the General tab. Set this at 30 minutes.
In Microsoft Outlook the settings are more complex because different waits can be set for individual e-mail accounts. Click on Tools and Options and then Mail setup. A Send/Receive button takes you to a menu where the interval can be set for different e-mail accounts on your machine.
Q. After months of satisfactory operation, I suddenly cannot download stock prices using my Quicken software. When I start that function, I get a Norton note that Quicken is trying to reach the Internet. It suggests I allow it to do so. I hit OK.
Quicken locks up. (The Norton note had not appeared before when everything worked.) I have to restart the computer to do anything.
When I questioned Quicken via the Internet (through DSL), the response I got was to check with the firewall supplier. When I went to Norton, I could not get to anyone directly. From their list of answers it appears that I would have to reduce my level of security. By the way, if I turn off Norton for five minutes, I can then download as it used to work.
I am reluctant to turn off Norton even for five minutes, and I don’t like the idea of reducing the security level.
Any suggestions for what I should do?
David Lieberman @sbcglobal.net
A. Isn’t that just the bee’s knees, Mr. L? You have a problem that is clearly the fault of Symantec Corp., the maker of Norton products, including the firewall. But Norton won’t talk to you, and you’re justifiably worried about losing their security “even for five minutes.”
Norton won’t talk to you because this company, which creates a great number of the problems I get from readers, charges money to talk to its own customers. Your note indicates that you know the drill for calling up the Norton firewall software.
With Norton running the firewall module, look for the “permissions” area. There it is possible for users to list programs that can send stuff through their firewalls. Add Quicken. That should work unless the freeze-up problem is caused by Norton’s complex software. Since your machine works when Norton is turned off, there is a chance that something is wrong with the Symantec software.
One fix is to rely on the firewall built in to Microsoft Windows and drop Norton’s firewall altogether. You’ll still have Norton’s antivirus software, and the built-in Windows firewall is a powerful tool. At the very least you can shut down Norton’s firewall when using Quicken but still find protection behind the Windows firewall to allow this.
Click on My Networks in the Windows Start menu and look for the View Connections line in the pane on the left of the display that pops up. In the next display, click on the line for Firewall.
You will find a menu where you can check a box to allow exceptions. To do this you will get a browser box that will let you go through all of the programs on your machine so you can find Quicken and set it.
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Contact Jim Coates via e-mail at [email protected] or via snail mail at the baiduhai, Room 400, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago IL 60611. Questions can be answered only through this column. Add your point of view at chicagotribune.com/askjim. James Coates