Pic to email
Taking a screen shot by depressing print screen in Windows produces a bitmap image. Could you advise a silvertop how to convert to JPeg for quicker transmission by email?
Mike Baker
Queensland, Australia

Jack Schofield replies: You can change the format of an image by pasting it into a graphics program and then saving it as something else. In Windows, you already have Microsoft Paint (see Start| Programs|Accessories|Paint). Open it and press Ctrl-V to paste in the bitmap. Next, choose File|Save As, go to the "File save as" box, select either JPeg or Graphics Interchange Format (*.gif), and give it a filename. Doing this reduced a bitmap of my desktop from 2.25 megabytes to a 58K GIF, though the colour was a bit off. (GIF is better for flat images such as cartoons while JPeg is better for complex images and photographs.)

You can do more if you have a proper graphics program such as Microsoft's Picture It! or Jasc's Paint Shop Pro. JPeg is a "lossy" compression system - it reduces the information in a picture - and you can often choose how much quality you are willing to sacrifice when you save it. This may be done on a sliding scale or by choosing high, medium or low.

You can also use the "resize" command to change an image intended for printing (such as 1280 by 960 pixels and 300 dots per inch) to one suitable for viewing on screen (such as 640 by 480 pixels and 72dpi). Right-click any image file, select Properties and then click the Summary tab to discover a picture's current format.

Sneaky
I came across a web site (www.interneteraser.net) that advertises protection software. A popup window listed all the files on my C: drive, which when double-clicked, would open, displaying any subdirectories. I have Zone Alarm installed and was wondering how this was possible.
Neal Edmunds

JS: It is a trick. Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer have a lot in common and either can do the other's job. To see all your files in IE, simply type C:\ in the Address box instead of an internet address. It is not surprising that you can see your own files on your own PC, but the information has not left your desktop. (To complete the circle, paste an internet address into Windows Explorer and it will display the website.)

Email maxed
When I open an email in Outlook Express, it opens in a window when I'd prefer it full-screen maximised. Is there a way of getting it maximised by default?
Kevin Bell

JS: There should be, but Outlook Express seems to have a bug that prevents it from doing so, except perhaps under Windows XP. However, Microsoft programs usually remember how they were last opened, so if you set a window how you want it, then close it, the next one should open in the same position. So, open an email (eg, by double-clicking it), use the mouse to drag the window to its maximised size, and other emails will open like this.

Gone missing
My hand-me-down Windows 98 PC does not appear to have defrag or disk compression programs and other system tools. Is there any way of re-introducing them?
The Rev Julian Dunn

JS: The core Windows tools are not optional and cannot be re-installed using the Add/Remove Programs applet in the Control Panel. The simplest way to restore them is to reinstall Windows over the top of the current installation. This will retain your settings and files, but obviously you must back up your data first, in case something goes wrong.

In Windows 98, you can also restore and replace files by using the System File Checker. Go to Start|Run and type sfc in the box, then click OK to run it. You can choose Scan for altered files or Extract one file from installation disk. The disk defragmenter is DEFRAG.EXE and goes in C:\Windows. The process is not user-friendly. In Windows Me, Microsoft replaced it with the msconfig utility, which has an Extract File button under the General tab. See the Microsoft Knowledge Base article How To: Extract Original Compressed Windows Files - search Google for Q129605.

There are so many cheap or free hand-me-down hard drives around, I do not recommend disk compression utilities. Your best bet could be to appeal for a new hard drive and re-install Windows.

Web spells
Do you know of a way to make www.spellcheck.net, mentioned in Webwatch, check spellings other than in American?
Richard Cooper

JS: I don't, but Web Spell in Japan offers a choice of American and British dictionaries. See: http://lsd.lab.nig.ac.jp/spell/spellcheck.html

Backchat

· Surprisingly, only two readers responded to Anita Batas' question about saving an email to a floppy disk. Ron Graves and Russ Reid pointed out that you can use File|Save As and use the drop-down list marked Save in: to choose Floppy (A:). This is true, but saving direct to a floppy can cause problems. I prefer the right-click drag-and-drop method described last week for two reasons. First, you can see what you are doing. Second, if you want to copy several emails, you can drag and drop them all at once. If they are not next to one another, you can hold down the Control key and select individual emails with the mouse.

· Also last week, Deryck Johnson wanted an alternative to Twigger, a website that lets you check an email box. Richard Struck recommends www.mail2web.com.

· There were more responses to Reg Bauckham's confession (August 8) that he kept forgetting to close his internet connection. Michael Salem says: "There is a free Windows program, NetLaunch, which will disconnect automatically after less than x bytes have been transferred in y minutes. This is a minor feature of a program which will do many other things". Peter Rowland says that after sessions, "I have made it a rigid ritual for all the family to pick up the receiver and check for the dialling tone."