Problems I have been asked about often in recent months concerns Microsoft Office. The difficulties occur in all versions of Office, with Word documents and Excel spreadsheets most often involved. Symptoms vary, from obscure error messages to total system lock-up.
Investigating the complaints and checking several sources, including the Woody's Office Watch newsletter, I found the answer to the problems. In all cases, users were trying to work with a document/worksheet stored on a floppy disk.
Even if it seems that there is plenty of room left on the floppy disk, there probably is not enough. Word and Excel often write a temporary file in the same location as the original file. That temporary file can quickly fill the available space on a 1.44MB floppy disk.
Ideally, and if Microsoft programmers were more thoughtful, you world get an easy-to-understand "Out of Disk Space" message, but no such luck! Instead, you get all sorts of strange actions and/or messages that give you no clue to the true problem.
Floppy disks also are generally less reliable and more prone to failure than hard drives. You're more likely to lose a document through mechanical failure of a floppy disk (or simply to lose it). Floppy disk drives are much slower than hard drives and Office programs run more slowly as a result.
The solution: Always copy a document supplied on floppy disk (after the obligatory anti-virus scan) to a temporary location on your hard drive. Work on the document from there and when you're finished, copy the revised file back to the floppy disk. Voila, no more problems!
Science, Space Fans Get Online Community
If you are a science and space enthusiast, you now have an online community to call your own. Cosmiverse, the Internet portal devoted to science, space, is a one-stop location on the Web where visitors can find a variety of services. Membership is free and entitles users to the following free services: e-mail address; search engine; auction house; daily planner/calendar; address book; stock quotes; news and local weather; web hosting space; file and data storage; chat rooms, and message boards. It also includes a game room with chess, backgammon, and science fiction games where players can play against other people on the web.
A link from the Cosmiverse site connects members to one of the most interesting and innovative space projects on the Web. At Cosmic Voyage 2000, visitors can read about and even participate in the first-ever private space-exploration mission. The Near Earth Asteroid Project (NEAP), a mission organized by SpaceDev Inc., of San Diego, is intended to be the first in a long series of profitable commercial deep space missions to be conducted by SpaceDev Inc. NEAP is currently scheduled to launch at the turn of the new millennium.
Does all this light your jets? If so, prepare for liftoff!
Ken Fermoyle has written some 2,500 articles for publications ranging from Playboy and Popular Science to MacWeek, Microtimes & PC Laptop. He was cohost and producer of a radio show on computers and a partner in a DTP service bureau during the 80s. Ken's Korner, a syndicated monthly column, is available free to User Groups, educational and non-profit organizations. To subscribe or for permission to reprint this article, contact Ken Fermoyle.
Copyright 1999 by Ken Fermoyle, Fermoyle Publications
