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Q. Can you please tell me of some other sites like HotPOP that provide excellent mobile email service? Do Yahoo, Gmail or Rediff provide such a facility?
Debjit Pal
A. One of the best mobile email services is from Gmail. You can access it in two ways. Point your phone’s browser to www.gmail.com/m. An even better way to access Gmail on your mobile is to download a small Java application from http://gmail.com/app. This is a very quick way to access Gmail and you can even read Word documents and see your attached pictures. Yahoo and Rediff can both be accessed with your phone’s WAP browser. Rediff is at http://mobile.rediff.com and Yahoo can be found at http://in.wap.yahoo.com. In fact, Yahoo has an excellent service called SMS backup where you forward your SMSs to 82438243. This way, you can keep all your precious SMSs that you had to delete for want of space on your phone.
Virtual memory
Q. How do I increase or decrease the virtual memory on my computer? At present, it is 32 MB.
Indranil Pal
A. Virtual memory extends the memory of your PC by using the hard disk. With the help of this, you can run larger programs or more programs concurrently. Your computer then behaves as though it has more RAM than it actually has. To increase or decrease it, go to Start —Settings — Control Panel — System. Then click on the Advanced tab. Under Performance, click on Settings and then again on the Advanced tab. Under Virtual Memory, click on Change. Remember that the initial page size for all drives should at least total the recommended size shown under Total Paging Size for All Drives. If you are not sure about the change, select System Managed Size instead of Custom Size. Once you have made the change, click on Set.
Converting videos
Q. I have a Motorola mobile. How can I convert the videos I capture on my mobile from the .3gp format to mpeg or some other video format compatible with all media players?
Babu Islam
A. You will find several .3gp converters at www.mrfreefree.com/free_telephone_stuff/3GP.html. Most of these applications are free as you can make out from the name of the site.
Removing Win 98
Q. I have a Pentium 4 PC with 256 MB RAM. I have two operating systems, Windows 98 on the C drive and Windows XP on the E drive. I want to remove Windows 98 from my machine. How do I go about it?
Anubhav Kolay
If you had your Windows XP on your C drive, you could have easily removed Windows 98. Unfortunately, since your XP is on the E drive, you have to reinstall everything. Take a backup of your important files and then format the drives and reinstall Windows XP. Make sure you have a genuine version of Windows XP Service Pack 2.
Installation error
Q. I tried to install the AVG free version downloaded from the site grisoft.com. However, I repeatedly get an installation error: “Action failed for file avgupsvc.exe: starting service, the starting service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion(1053).” Could you please suggest a solution?
Ravi Kumar
A. Please do a disk cleanup with the programme available in Windows XP. You will find this under Accessories — System Tools. Next, download CCleaner from www.ccleaner.com. Use this to clean your PC. Download a fresh copy of the installation file from free.grisoft.com.
Now, install AVG. This should give you a flawless installation. In addition, before you install AVG, get your PC checked for any viruses with the online scanner available at http://housecall.trendmicro.com.
Transferring ringtones
Q. I have a Samsung X620 mobile phone with BSNL’s Cellone connection. I can only access WAP with my instrument, but cannot get Internet service. How do I get Internet access? Also, the phone has infrared, but I cannot transfer ringtones from my friends’ mobile phones with Bluetooth. How can I solve this problem?
Gautam Nath
A. You will only be able to browse websites if your phone supports Internet browsing. Unfortunately, your phone does not have this facility and you can only visit wapsites.
Secondly, infrared and Bluetooth are two different technologies. Your phone does not have Bluetooth. You can only transfer pictures and ringtones using infrared.
Infrared must also be present in the phone from which you are doing the transferring. When you do the transfer, make sure that you place the phones very close with the infrared ports pointing towards each other.
Old antivirus
Q. I have tried to install a genuine version of Norton Antivirus 2005 which I had bought from the market. It installed successfully, but when I tried to activate the software using the Internet, it says “A8key abuse” and it tells me to visit the Symantec site. My activation fails. What can I do? I have windows XP Service Pack 1.
Aditya Roy
A. First, I would like to point out that you were sold an old version of Norton. If you bought it recently, it should have been Norton Antivirus 2007.
Most likely, your software was given to someone else too who activated it before you did. Second, you must upgrade to Windows XP Service Pack 2. If your Windows XP and the software you bought are genuine, the programme will get activated without any problem.
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