Q: I have a popup advertisement for Vegus red and other similar items jumping onto my screen and I don’t know how to get rid of them. My popup blocker settings are at the highest level. At the moment I have am using Windows XP pro and have NOD32 as virus protection. Also I run Ad-aware but nothing seems to help. I use Internet Explorer and have Google as my home page search engine. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Anti-virus software alone will not block pop up ads as these to not have the virus signatures, and other measures are required. There are many sites that offer free pop-up blockers as well as Google and Microsoft. As well as this, Microsoft has Internet Explorer v7 (beta) available from their web site which has improved pop up blocking. This upgrade is available from the Microsoft site under Downloads but you must have SR-2 installed.

For the others see: http://toolbar.google.com/popup_help.html for the Google blocker. For ensuring that you have your current version of IE configured correctly see: www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/web/sp2_popupblocker.mspx and for one of the many free pop-up blockers see: www.panicware.com/product_psfree.html

Making the DOS box bigger

Q: I have loaded the old Q & A program and can get to the DOS prompt (command prompt according to Windows XP.) I can not get the Q&A window to open up bigger than about a quarter of the available screen space. Any suggestions?

You have two options. One is to right-click on the top border of the DOS box and select Properties then from the Font tab select a larger font or window size. The other option is to press Alt + Enter to toggle to full screen display.

A free file recovery?

Q: I was wondering if you might be able to give me some guidance, please. I have been looking for a free software tool to perform undelete/recovery of deleted files. In my searches some tools have appeared as free but require a licence fee to activate or to be able to utilise all features. I have downloaded several tools - some will do a scan and show files for probable recovery (but won't let you actually perform the recovery), others will only do recovery of some file types on certain media. My issue is that I would like a tool that allows recovery of deleted files from disks and memory cards (eg USB flash drives, cameras memory cards etc). Is there any program that you know of and would recommend? Or is the best avenue to buy a recovery tool such as Nortons?

I am not aware of any free programs that can do what you want. Many programs claim to be able to recover deleted files but I have tested only a few of them. I suggest that you consider O & O UnErase and works on the hard disk and USB and cameras. This is one of the programs that has always worked for me and for a couple of my clients. See: http://www.oo-software.com/en/products/oounerase/index.html for details.

You can download a trial version of this program and it will show the files that can be recovered but will not actually recover them. This allows you to find out if your file can be recovered without having to spend money. If your file is found you can buy the unlock code, which will be emailed to you within a few minutes, and then you can make the program active and ready to recover files.

Cannot send mail with new ISP

Q: Since moving to a new ISP (and installing the modem that came with it), I am finding that my e-mail is not working properly (using webmail, via this ISP or the previous one, with which I have retained an account).  I can receive and read emails, but when I try to send one it holds for several
minutes and then I get a pop-up saying "Document contains no data", though I have occasionally been able to send very short messages (a few words). Any suggestions as to how to fix this?

By far the most likely cause is that you have not set one entry in your mail reader program. The sending is controlled by the SMTP entry in the e-mail configuration. Ensure that you have set this to the entry given to you by the new ISP. Although you can download mail from several ISPs, outgoing mail must always be directed through the SMTP server of the ISP you are connected to.

If you are using Outlook then click on Tools, E-mail account, View or Change .. Change and alter the Outgoing Mail Server line.  For Outlook Express it is Tools, Accounts, Mail then select the account and click on Servers and alter the SMTP entry.