Q. After a recent update, I opened the Inbox of Outlook Express and discovered that red x's had taken the place of pictures. Do you have any idea what's going on?

A. The red x's you describe, which are called “placeholders,” are known to crop up in Outlook Express after the installation of the SP2 update on some systems. To fix the problem, click Tools > Options > Security tab. In the Virus Protection section, click to remove the check mark beside "Block images and other external content in HTML email." Click Apply > OK to save and exit, and you’ll be all set.

Q. I love my digital camera. On my last vacation, I took more than 800 photos that I’d now like to make into a screen-saver slideshow. Can you help? I’m using Windows XP.

A. Let’s see, 800 photos, and if each one appears on screen for a scant five seconds, that’s 4000 seconds, so carry the naught, add the square root of 79, divide by the mean ambient temperature in Mozambique, and that works out to 66 interminable/glorious minutes of slide show. Wake the kids and call the neighbors!

What may be bad news for the kids and neighbors begins with good news for you: Windows XP has a built-in screen saver that will display your pictures. To set it up, right-click a blank spot on your Desktop and select Properties > Screen Saver tab.

In the Screen Saver window, click the drop-down list under the heading Screen Saver and select My Pictures Slideshow, followed by clicking the Settings button that appears to the right.

In the Settings window you can customize a number of items to make your slide show extry special—though with 800 slides, that might be special enough. You can change the number of seconds pictures are displayed as well as the size of the pictures. In the cleverly named “Use pictures in this folder,” section, select the location of your photos by clicking the Browse button. When you locate the folder containing your pictures, click OK twice, then sit back, break out the popcorn, and enjoy the show.

Q. I like Outlook, but it annoys me that I can’t see the number of emails I have in each folder. Is there some setting I can change or anything I can do to display this information?

A. Yes, Outlook does provide the ability to change settings for each of your mail folders. All you have to do is right-click a mail folder and select Properties > General tab and look towards the middle of the screen. You’ll see two choices for the folder, “Show number of unread items,” or "Show total number of items." Bingo! You can only select one of them, but once you make your choice, click OK to save your selection. Unfortunately, this only works with Microsoft Outlook, not Outlook Express. Bummer.

Mr. Modem's Sites of the Week:

Birds of America
John James Audubon—yes, the same person who has a worldwide society named after him (the John James Society, of course) spent most of his adult life studying and compiling information on the many bird species native to America. His work resulted in the authoritative "Birds of America," a publication that consists of 435 life-size etchings of each species. If you haven’t had occasion to view this impressive body of work, thanks to the Web, you’re in for quite a tweet.
www.mcq.org/audubon/menu.html

OR-Live
If you’re a wannabee surgeon, or simply curious about medical procedures, this site is just what the doctor ordered. It features a surgical potpourri of live broadcasts covering all types of surgeries, from pesky abdominal aortic aneurysms (I hate it when that happens!) to hip replacement, to various cardiac surgeries. A spleendid (can you stand it?) selection of information about various procedures is available so you can bone up in advance of each surgery, participate in discussion forums, and view archived surgeries. While not for the easily queasily, this site provides a fascinating glimpse into the everyday miracles occurring in operating rooms throughout the country.
www.or-live.com

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