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Q: I need to take a serious decision with regards to my career. I am 27 years old, and graduated in 1995. I then learn about computers from a local institute. I was subsequently employed in a company in the accounts department. Now I am the junior accountant-cum-computer operator in the same company. I have also taken a course on C and find that I can now understand the language and also programme. But I now find it hard to work in the same company. I feel I have no future here. My parents are asking me to do an MCA course. I don't want to try for an MBA (as I am weak in English). But is this a prudent decision?

Would I get a job after I complete my MCA as I will around 30 by that time. Would doing an online certification like MCSD, Sun Java help me secure a job. In a time when B2B has negative connotation, what will the shape be of industry when I complete my course in 3 years. Will other students younger than me with a science background stand a better chance in campus recruitment.
Kaushik Bhattacharjee
via email

A: I don't understand the relationship in your email between MCA and MBA. As also how your weakness in English affects only MBA. You need to improve your language comprehension skills because English is the language for software too. Are you aware there is an age limit for MCA. But you are eligible for part-time MBA if you are working. Another alternative is the Department of Electronics DoEACC O- and A-level courses. But a late-career change now when the economy is in a slump does not augur well. Especially as its becoming increasingly hard for even the trained to retain jobs! Your advanced age will definitely work against you, regardless of your qualifications. Especially when you are competing against those some 5-7 years younger! IUt would be better to keep working and complete certification on the side.

Q: I find Mailbox very useful. What are AGP/PGP Cards? Are they same to the 3d Hardware Accelerator Cards?. How can I detect whether there is a 3d Accelerator port installed in my PC?. If there's no such port then what should I do to install that port as well as the 3D Card. Your help is requested.
S Mondal
via email

A: Thank you for those kind words. We are trying to publish those questions whose answers will also be of interest to other readers. AGP (Advanced Graphics Processor) cards enables 3-D graphics to be displayed quickly on PC. The interface conveys 3-D images much more quickly and smoothly. And uses the PC's main RAM for refreshing the monitor image and to support the texture mapping, z-buffering, and alpha blending required for 3-D image display. The AGP main memory use is dynamic, meaning that when not being used for accelerated graphics, main memory is restored for use by the operating system or other applications.

There is nothing called a PGP card. PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) is a freeware for data encryption and as such is not available on a card. Getting back to your query, an AGP card may have an onboard 3D accelerator card along with its own dynamic video RAM. To find out if your PC has AGP, find out the motherboard type. Typically the Intel 810 series have an embedded AGP controller that uses 8 MB of system RAM. Whatever 3D acceleration you need must be software supplied. You can download the SiSoft Sandra (www.sisoft.com) system utility to get an accurate picture of your system configuration.

Q: I recently upgraded Internet Explorer from 4 to 5 from the Satyam Online CD. Earlier when I used to open ecards it used to play some music. But, recently whenever I open this or other sites which contain music I get a message to download the Media Player and a prompt to insert the Satyam CD. I tried this many times but the problem remains. But there is no problem while playing MP3 files or videos from my hard disk through Media Player.
Anand Agarwal
via email

A: It appears that the Satyam Online CD only selectively upgraded your browser! The error message comes when the Media Player has not been upgraded as well. My only recommendation is to purchase a copy of a computer magazine whose CD includes IE5 complete. Or to download IE5.5 from the Internet or choose the latest IE6 Preview 2 (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/preview/default.asp).

Q: I would like to know is there any method to delete a virus that is write-protected. My computer got infected with the w32.magistr.24876@mm virus while checking a mail online. My Norton anti-virus caught it immediately, but the virus couldn't be repaired or deleted. I've put it in quarantine at the moment. Do I need to worry about my other files or programs getting affected or is the quarantine sufficient precaution.
Supriya Mantri

A: If Norton has quarantined it fine. But make sure never to (even accidentally) disable Norton as that may permit the virus to execute. I suggest you read http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/[email protected] and take the recommended steps to permanently eradicate the virus and its carrier (the email message) from your computer.

Q: Thanks for the excellent article on Freehand 10. There is one most common difficulty which I faces with earlier versions of Freehand that is continuous text (text that carries over to the next page) cannot be converted to path. Has Freehand 10 addressed to this problem?
Rahul Khanna
via email

A: Sorry, Macromedia has still not included this in Freehand 10.

Q: I am a school boy. I found your tips and suggestions very helpful. Firstly, like as screen savers can I put an active desktop which can support moving animations in the background? and lastly, while downloading anything from the net from Internet Explorer, I see few papers getting into a yellow folder from a globe thats very commonly seen in all computers , but my question arises here that can I change these settings in some different animated stuff instead of that globe and that yellow folder ?
Arjun Dey
via email

A: Not that we know of. The Active Desktop is a static HTML page that is saved by Windows as a DLL. Yes, you can change how Windows shows animated icons. You have to create your own animations first. Then the new icon in hex code needs to fit the old icons space exactly. No changes. In any case why try registry editing on core Windows code; its always ends in disaster. Instead download and use WindowsBlinds to change the look 'n feel of Windows.

Q: You people are doing a great job. Could you please tell me how to download Flash files from the Internet. The other day I was going through cartoonanimations.com which contained lot of good cartoons. I wanted to download them or save as Flash files but couldn't. I hear that there are software which can circumvent this, but I don't know. Please help.
Deepak Lunia
via email

A: While browsing any site that uses Flash, to save the Flash animation you should view to source of the page. Let us assume that you are browsing http://www.website.com which has a Flash animation that you want to save.

To do this while browsing on the page, click VIEW -> SOURCE from the menu bar (In Netscape click VIEW -> PAGE SOURCE). Doing this would open up the source of the web page in Windows Notepad or your default HTML Editor. In this window, search for the characters ".swf" (Do not use the "). SWF is the default extension of the Flash animation. On doing this, you will find a file, named say XXX.swf in the source of the page. Now the problem is how do u save this file. For this you would need a download manager like Getright (getright.com) or Download Accelerator (dap.com). In the download manager, type the URL as http://www.website.com/xxx.swf and your Flash animation is downloaded. (NOTE: If your browser doesn't have a Flash plug-in, you could type the URL in the Address Bar of your browser. The browser would then prompt you to Open the file from its current location or Save it to your hard drive. Choose the latter)

In many cases, the SWF file is stored in a different folder. To know where it is stored, read the lines above and below the point where u find .SWF. You will probably find a HTML tag like SRC="/animations" or SRC="/movies/xxx.swf". In your download manager, change the URL appropriately.

Q: Are there any sites are available for downloading software for sending video mail (except bravomail) through the Internet?
Sankar Prosad Mazumdar
via email

A: Well, I searched for "videomail" on MSN.com and got more than 15 links. You could also check out http://videomailstudio.com/.

Answers by G Menon & Vaishali Singh
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