Computer Help, Hints and Links

This is not intended to be a fix-all source for computer problems but rather a source of help for machine embroidery users. If you are computer challenged already, you don't need to be further challenged by computer techie lingo, so answers will be as simple as possible. If you cannot find the answer for your problem in the hints below, email George. Always remember and never forget.....

"The only dumb question is the one that doesn't get asked."

Computer Hints Menu

H1 - File Type Association	H2 - File Type Association (Short Method)
H3 - Backing Up Designs and Documents	H4 - Controlling Browser Downloads
H5 - Organizing Designs	H6 - Organizing Designs with Designer's Gallery Studio
H7 - Reserved	H8 - Windows Keyboard Shortcuts
H9 - Using Universal Serial Port (USB)	H10 - Managing True Type Fonts
H11 - Add a Firewall for Security	H12 - Reserved

Click here to download a printable PDF version

Hint #1 - File Type Association

File type association means that Explorer or other programs associates a file type (file extensions such as .pes, .pec, .pem) with the application program used to open that file. For example, the application program for .pes is paledit.exe for BabyLock Palette 1 thru 4 and embedit.exe for Palette 5 and 6.

Open Explorer, click on View, Options, Show All, uncheck "Hide MS-DOS file.....", and select File Type. Type PES or scroll to PES Files and select it, click on Edit, open, Edit, Browse. Drill through the drives and folders until you find the application program used to open .pes files (for Palette it's paledit.exe or embedit.exe and should be located in C:\Program Files\Babylock\palette Ver #). Back your way out of Options by clicking OK. While still in Explorer find a .pes file and double click it. If you did it right, Layout & Edit launches and opens the design file.

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Hint #2 - File Association (Short Method)

Using Explorer find the type file you wish to change. Click once on the file, hold down the shift key, right click the file, and select " Open with..." The Open with dialog box will open. Using Browse, find the program you wish to associate/open the file with, click once, click the "Always use......" box, click OK. The new or changed association is in effect. Wasn't that simple? If you can't find the PES file extension in the list, click on Browse and drill your way to paledit.exe, embedit.exe, etc..

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Hint #3 - Backing Up Designs and Documents

Backing up designs and documents is a must because hard drives do fail. Its simple to back up you data but there are a couple of things you can do to make it even easier. First, keep all you data documents in the Window's My Document folder. Keep all your designs and related files in a single folder, i.e. C:\My Designs, Designer's Gallery, etc. Of course, you'll have all your category folders inside your design folder. See Hint #5 below for hints on getting your designs organized.

When it's time to back up, at least once a month, all you have to do is back up your documents folder, My Documents, and your designs folder, My Designs (or whatever name you give it). There are a number of back up methods and medium but I'll cover only two.

CD/DVD Burner: Nearly all new computers, desktops and laptops, come with a CD burner and perhaps a DVD burner. This is a very handy and quick way to save your backups, following the instructions/software that comes with your burner. If you are using Windows XP you can use Explorer and simply drag the folders to the CD burner and then burn the CD. The draw back to using CDs is that as your design collection grows you may have to burn several CDs to back up all your designs, unless you have a DVD burner. In that case you can save near 5Gig of designs.

External Hard Drive: External hard drive is my favorite and recommended way to back up your data. External USB hard drives are very inexpensive, available from $70 to $200. I found a 40GB at Wal Mart for $69! Using an external hard drive you simply drag your target folders to the external drive. On the external drive create a new folder and name it the current date, i.e. 10 Oct 2004. Each time you back up your data, rename the dated folder to the current date so you'll know when you last backed up.

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Hint #4 - Controlling Browser Download Location

Have you lost the ability to tell your browser where to download a file and what to do with it? This will fix that. First, create a new folder, i.e. C:\Downloads. Now go surfing. Surf to a web site that has a graphic picture or embroidery design you want. If its a picture, Right click on the picture and select, Save picture As. If its a design select, Save Target As. You'll be asked for the location and filename to save. In the Save As window, drill through the drives and folders until you find C:\Downloads and open it. Click Save. This location will be the default for all future downloads until you change the location.

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Hint #5 - Organizing, Managing and Using Embroidery Designs

If you use or plan to use Designer' Gallery Studio, scroll down to Hint #6

The following are “George’s” rules for organizing, managing and using your designs. They will make it “fall off a log” simple.

Rule #1: Create a top-level designs folder on your C: drive to file all of your designs in. This folder could be named, "EmbDesigns." Next, create a system of folders (named by design categories) inside the "EmbDesigns" folder. Categories could be Animals, Alphabets, Bugs, Cartoons, Holidays, Transportations, Sports, etc.. Within each category you may need sub-categories. For example, under Holidays you’ll probably want sub-categories like Birthdays, Valentines, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. The category and sub-category folder names have to make sense to you, the way you store and search for your designs. Try not to put more than a thousand designs in a sub-category folder. If you have two thousand Christmas designs, make two Christmas sub-folders, like Christmas1, Christmas2 or Santas, Ornaments. Also, do not put designs in "EmbDesigns" folder or the category folders. Put them in the sub-category folders.

Not only does this method make it easy for you to find designs, but when it’s time to backup your design collection, all your designs are in one spot, C:\EmbDesigns. Your file structure in Windows Explorer could look something like the following:

Rule #2: Keep a working copy of your designs on your hard drive sorted into category and sub-category folders. Use floppies, CDs, ZIP disks, external hard drives, etc. for backup and long-term storage only. That’s right; keep all those downloaded designs, designs purchased on cards, disks and CD on your hard drive where they are easily found. This won’t eat up your hard drive space or slow down your computer. One thousand designs will only take about 50Mb of space. And if a design fits into more than one category, drag a copy into each one.

Rule #3: Purchase an embroidery design management program to help you organize and manage your design collection. You'll need one that offers thumbnail pictures of the designs. There are a number of excellent programs such as, Baby Lock Designer’s Gallery Studio or BuzzXplorer. In either case, do not use the Catalog function, stick to the Browse mode. Even Palette/PE Design 6 thru 8 has a management module now. Then make the program your home base or starting point anytime you are sorting, managing, searching for, or otherwise using designs. It won’t take long before you’ll be lost without one of these programs.

Rule #4: No need to unzip downloaded designs with a management program listed in Rule #3. All you have to do is drag the design you want from your download/temporary location into the proper design sub-category folder. A usable unzipped copy will be placed there. Once all the designs have been copied to their proper category folders, empty the download/temporary location of the zipped files. If you are using Palette/PE-Design database manager you will have to unzip the designs before it will read them. For this you can use your XP Windows Explorer or an unzip utility like Winzip. Studio and BuzzXplorer have their own built-in unzipping function.

Rule #5: Here are some folders to create that will help you organize and manage files. Create them at the C: drive root level:

C:/Downloads. Use this folder to download all Internet stuff, designs, program updates, etc.. And use it as the temporary holding place when installing purchased designs. Once in the Downloads folder, you can drag and drop designs to the appropriate category folders in "EmbDesigns." After creating this folder, go to your favorite design download site and find one you like. Right-click the design, from the popup menu select "Save Target As" and when the Open window opens, find your downloads folder. Click Open. This not only downloads the design, it establishes the folder as your default download folder. Use regular left-click for all future downloads. You'll never have to wonder where things downloaded.

     C:/Artwork. Keep all your embroidery artwork, clipart, photos, etc. handy in this top-level folder.

      C:/ProgramUpdates. Keep all your program updates and online delivered programs in this folder. Run the installs from here. Of course, keep a copy on a ProgramUpdates CD or backup disk.

C:/EmbDesigns/Workspace. Use a workspace folder to place designs that you plan to merge or otherwise work on in you editing or digitizing program. When you "Open" or "Import" designs to edit or merge you only have to look in one folder, Workspace.

Rule #6: Back Up!! At least once a month backup your design collection. If you keep it organized per the rules above, all you have to do is backup one folder, "EmbDesigns." Simply copy the folder to your backup media, CD, DVD, etc.. Of course you'll want to back up your ProgramUpdates folder and your My Documents folder at the same time.

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Hint #6 - Organizing, Managing, and Using Embroidery Designs

with

DESIGNER’S GALLERY STUDIO
(Most applies to both Studio Plus and Studio III)

By George Pope

Designer's Gallery Studio is a product of Baby Lock USA. The following is not presented by Baby Lock but rather my own personal opinions, advise and recommendations. Consult your manual for official Baby Lock guidance.

Designer’s Gallery Studio, from version 2.40 and up, creates a folder system called Designer’s Gallery (C:\Designer’s Gallery) with three subfolders, My Original Designs, My Free Designs, and My Temps. The My Original Designs subfolder is where LetterWorks and QuiltWorks put their newly created designs. So… let’s make use of that structure and put all of our category subfolders under the Designer’s Gallery folder.

Old Method to New Method: If you set up your folder structure using my old method, creating an EmbDesigns folder, let’s change it. Rename EmbDesigns to Designer’s Gallery and recreate My Original Designs inside that folder. Then in Preferences, File Selection/Folders, reset the New design folder and Modified designs folder per Rule #4.

The following are “George’s” rules. They don’t follow all Baby Lock rules you’ll find in the book so you don’t have to follow them, but I highly recommend them. Organizing, managing and searching for your designs will become simple. These rules apply to the latest updates, starting with version 2.40.

Rule #1: Never use Designer’s Gallery Studio Catalog function, use only the Browse function. The browse function uses the same file structure as every other windows program, such as Windows Explorer, Palette, etc. This is the true file structure of your hard drive. The Catalog function is a text file with a collection of thumbnails and addresses that allow designs to be scattered from A to Z all over your hard drive, floppies and CDs. Only programs that can read the catalog can use it. Also, if you were to move designs around with Explorer or other software, the change does not automatically update the Catalog. In fact, you'll see the infamous black disk. Not good computer usage or management.

Catalog can be used by those that want to keep their design collection on removable disks, such as floppies, flash drives. I do not recommend keeping designs on CD, except for backup.

Rule #2: Keep a working copy of your designs on your hard drive sorted into category folders. Use floppies, CDs, external hard drives, etc. for backup and long-term storage only. Keep all those downloaded designs, designs purchased on cards, disks and CD on your hard drive where they are instantly accessible by Designer’s Gallery Studio and your embroidery machine. This won’t eat up your hard drive space or slow down your computer. One thousand designs will only take about 50Mb of space. In fact, if a design fits more than one category, drag a copy into each one.

Rule #3: Create a system of folders (categories) to organize your designs in the C:\Designer’s Gallery folder. Category folders could be Animals, Alphabets, Bugs, Cartoons, Holidays, Transportations, Sports, etc. Also create one folder named, Workspace. Then within each category you may need sub-categories. For example, under Holidays you’ll probably want sub-categories like Birthdays, Valentines, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. The category and sub-category folder names have to make sense to you, the way you use and search for your designs. Try not to put more than a thousand designs in a sub-category folder. If you have two thousand Christmas designs, make two Christmas sub-categories, like Christmas1, Christmas2 or Santas, Ornaments. Also, do not put designs in the category folders. Put them in the sub-category folders.

Not only does this method make it easy for you and Designer’s Gallery Studio to find designs, but when it’s time to backup your design collection, all your designs are right there in one spot, C:\Designer’s Gallery. Your file structure could look something like the following:

Rule #4: Take control of where Designer’s Gallery saves designs. At this point if you’re Designer’s Gallery Studio isn’t version 2.41 or higher, stop, download and install the latest update.

Under Preferences you’ll find the File Selection/Folders tab. First, ensure the New designs area reads, “C:\Designer’s Gallery\My Original Designs,” then ensure the Modified design folder reads “C:\Designer’s Gallery\My Temps.” The folder My Temps is Designer's Gallery Studio default location for saving the results of various tools. Let’s turn off the automatic TMP function. In this order uncheck, Confirm deletion, Delete modified designs from the temporary folder and Put modified designs in a temporary folder. The later turns off the TMP function but more importantly, you’ll avoid deleting designs from the temporary folder.

This will keep any designs modified by Designer’s Gallery Tools in the same folder where the original design is located, making it much easier to keep track of. LetterWorks and QuiltWorks will put their designs in My Original Designs. The exception is when you load a design and then apply LetterWorks to the design. In that case, the newly lettered design will be placed in the same folder as the original. The only time you need to use the TMP function (My Temps) is when you are working with designs where the original design is on a CD. Designer’s Gallery Studio can’t write back to CDs so you must use My Temps. A Workspace folder is also a handy place to put copies of designs that you plan to merge into new designs in Palette. That makes searching for the design easier when you start your digitizing software.

Rule #5: Before leaving Preferences, click the Conversion tab and set the Largest Hoop size to the largest sewing area you’ll ever want to use. This setting can be used to fool SizeWorks so that you can resize designs to very large sizes for multi-hooping or multi-position split designs. An excellent size for this setting is 260 x 610. If you have the Hoop-it-All Super Giant-L you can resize designs up to the full 5” x 24” size.

At your first opportunity take a class on using SizeWorks and HoopWorks for creating and splitting very large designs. See “Setting Up HoopWorks” at the end for help on setting up your hoops.

Rule #6: Make Designer’s Gallery Studio your home base or starting point anytime you are sorting, managing, searching for, or otherwise using designs. It won’t take long before you’ll be lost without it.

Rule #7: No need to unzip downloaded designs. With Designer’s Gallery Studio all you have to do is drag the design you want to the proper design category folder. Viola! A usable copy is placed there. Once all the designs have been dropped to the proper category folders, start Windows Explorer and delete the zip file. Should be in the Downloads folder (see below). If you use the Downloads folder just right click the folder and select Explorer to remove the old zip files.

George’s Rule #8: Create some other handy folders that will help you organize and manage files:

C:/Downloads. Use this folder to download all internet stuff, designs, program updates, etc. And use it when installing purchased designs. Once you open the Downloads folder, you can drag and drop designs to the appropriate category folders. After creating this folder, go to your favorite design download site and find one you like. Right-click the design, from the popup menu select "Save Target As" and when the Open window opens, find your downloads folder (C:/Downloads). Click Open. This not only downloads the design, it establishes the folder as your default download folder. Use regular left-click for all future downloads. You'll never have to wonder where things downloaded.

C:/Artwork. Keep all your embroidery artwork, clipart, photos, etc. handy in this folder.

C:/ProgramUpdates. Keep all your program updates and online delivered programs in this folder. Run the installs from here. Of course, keep a copy on your ProgramUpdates CD.

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Setting Up HoopWorks

I’m including the settings to create custom split hoops to use with your BBD embroidery machines. The same procedures can be use to set up split hoops for Viking, Pfaff, etc. The BBD Large (3-position 4x4) and Jumbo (3-position 5x7) hoops are factory set but the following will have to be manually added by you. Remember, the “Largest Hoop” setting in Preferences must be as large as or larger than the largest split hoop you plan to set up and use.

To create the hoops, start DG, select a design, any design, go to Tools, Gallery Tools, Gallery HoopWorks, select the Hoops Available icon (last on right side) and click Add. After entering the required hoop data, click “Save” and Add to add another hoop.

Double 10” Hoop – End to End – (6x15): This will create a double-hooping split that uses the 6x10 hoop end to end. This gives a 6x15 design sewing area.

Hoop Name: Double 10” Hoop – End to End – (6x15)

Individual Field Size (mm): X=160, Y=260

Positions: 2

Separation: 130

Compensation: about 1%

Should yield an Overall Size of 160x390 (this can not be changed in this block)

Double 10” Hoop – Side by Side – (10x10): This will create a double-hooping split that uses the 6x10 hoop side by side. This gives a 10x10 design sewing area.

Hoop Name: Double 10” Hoop – Side by Side – (10x10)

Individual Field Size (mm): X=260, Y=160

Positions: 2

Separation: 100

Compensation: about 1%

Should yield an Overall Size of 260x260 (this can not be changed in this block)

Double 7” Hoop – End to End – (5x11): This will create a double-hooping split that uses the 5x7 hoop end to end. This gives a 5x11 design sewing area.

Hoop Name: Double 7” Hoop – End to End – (5x11)

Individual Field Size (mm): X=130, Y=180

Positions: 2

Separation: 100

Compensation: about 1%

Should yield an Overall Size of 130x2800 (this can not be changed in this block)

Double 7” Hoop – Side by Side – (7x7): This will create a double-hooping split that uses the 5x7 hoop side by side. This gives a 7x7 design sewing area.

Hoop Name: Double 7” Hoop – Side by Side – (7x7)

Individual Field Size (mm): X=180, Y=130

Positions: 2

Separation: 50

Compensation: about 1%

Should yield an Overall Size of 180x180 (this can not be changed in this block)

HIA – Giant-L for ESE – 3 Positions – (5x18): This will create a multi-position split that uses the Hoop-it-All. This gives a 5x18 design sewing area.

Hoop Name: HIA – Giant-L for ESE – 3 Position – (5x18)

Individual Field Size (mm): X=130, Y=260

Positions: 3

Separation: 100

Compensation: about 1%

Should yield an Overall Size of 130x460 (this can not be changed in this block)

HIA – Super Giant-L for ESG/ULT – 5 Positions – (5x24): This will create a multi-position hoop split that uses the Hoop-it-All. This gives a 5x24 design sewing area.

Hoop Name: HIA – Suuper Giant-L for ESG/ULT – 5 Position – (5x24)

Individual Field Size (mm): X=130, Y=160

Positions: 5

Separation: 110

Compensation: about 1%

Should yield an Overall Size of 130x600 (this can not be changed in this block)

Following the above procedures you can create any custom size and arrangement that may fit your unique needs.

Settings for the new 180mm X 300mm and 200mm X 300mm hoops are being developed.

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Hint #7 - Print Screen Key Captures Screen

In Windows the Print Screen key captures the screen image and puts it on the clipboard. To use the clipboard image, open any word processor or graphics program and "paste" the image. From there you can print it, save it, incorporate it into a document or whatever you need. This is an excellent way of capturing the true colors of those nasty Tajima designs. While the design image is on the screen, hit the Print Screen, paste to Paint Shop Pro (or whatever you use), crop the design image, Save As and print for later use. No special programs are needed to capture the screen.

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Hint #8 - Windows Keyboard Shortcuts

The following hint was submitted by Kathleen in Seattle where retirement is great. To use the shortcuts hold the Windows Key on your keyboard (key with flag on it) and press the letter key.

Windows-E to open Windows Explorer
Windows-F to open Find
Windows-M to minimize all open windows (or Shift + Windows + M to undo
this command)
Windows-R to open the Run window
Windows-F1 to open Help
Windows-Tab to cycle through the Taskbar buttons
Windows-Break to open the System Properties dialog box

Thanks Kathleen.

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Hint #9 - Universal Serial Buss (USB) Ports

Rather than offer a lengthy description of USB ports, I recommend you do a search on the subject in Google, YAHOO, or your favorite search engine. Search for USB, you'll find all you need to know there.

In short, USB is the wave of the future for external devices, printer, modems, mouses, monitors, and the list goes on and on. USB gives you the ability to chain up to 127 devices. The point of this hint is to make you aware of USB and it's capabilities. If you are shopping for a new computer look for USB ports. If you have USB ports, look for devices that use USB interfaces. USB is a must for laptops! Since few manufacturers of device see fit to add a pass-through you may need to purchase a USB Hub to increase the number of ports available. Be sure to select a quality hub that can be powered or non-powered. If its powered there will be an A/C power adapter that will supply full 500ma to each port. Non-powered hubs will use your computer's power supply and provided only 100ma to each port. Check the power requirements of your USB devices to see which hub you need to use. Mice, security devices (like for Origins) Palette/PEDesign 5/6 card boxes, etc. will work fine on non-powered hubs. External floppy drives, external hard drives, external CDs, etc. will required a powered hub.

When you absolutely must have a serial/comm port, like for the Palette/PEDesign V1-V4 card reader box, and you don't have a port available, you can use a Belkin USB to Serial adapter. It works great.

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Hint #10 - Managing True Type Fonts

A feature of Brother/Babylock software is the ability to use Windows True Type Fonts along with the built in fonts. However, Windows has a limit on the number of fonts that can be installed, a little over 1000 fonts, so don't run out to the computer store or Internet and grab 2000 new fonts and expect to install and use them all.

Storing New Fonts. Create a new folder, i.e. C:\SpareFonts, and store your new font files there until they are needed. Do not put them in the Windows/Font folder.

Installing New Fonts. When you need to installed a font in Windows 98/2000 go to Start, Settings, Control Panel, Fonts, File, Install new and log to your spare font folder. Be sure the "copy" box is checked. For Windows ME or XP, use Explorer and simply copy the font file you want from the spare fonts folder and paste into the Windows/Fonts folder. It will be automatically installed.

To remove fonts from Windows 98/2000 use Control Panel, Fonts and uninstall it. In Windows ME or XP, using Explorer, right click the font and "cut" it.

Using Temporary Fonts. A great feature of Windows 98, 2000, ME and XP is that you can open fonts temporarily for use by application programs without installing them. For example, if you have a font you want to use in Palette, open Explorer, find the location of the font, i.e. C:\sparefonts, double click it and Window's Viewer will open the font. Minimize the viewer, open Palette and you'll find the font in the fonts list. When you are finished, close the viewer and the font closes.

Viewing Fonts. There are a number of font management programs available, most at very reasonable prices. I use a program called FontXplorer, downloaded from TUCOWs that's only $20. With FontXplorer I can view all my fonts, the fonts installed and not installed, and I can install or remove fonts from Windows. I use the program to find the font in my spare font folder that I want to use in Palette or Origins, close FontXplorer and open the font with Windows Explorer/Viewer.

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Hint #11 - Add a Firewall to Increase Security

This hint is intended for those that use cable/DSL connection to the Internet and those with modems that spend long periods of time connected through their Internet Service Provider. Anytime you are connected to the Internet you are vulnerable to attack by hackers. Yes, they're out there looking for you, just for fun.

Ways to Firewall Your Computer:

1. Firewall Software. There are programs ranging from the free ZoneAlarm (http://www.zonelabs.com) to commercial program from Norton and McAfee. All of these are excellent. Most software firewalls control incoming and outgoing Internet traffic. I use Norton Internet Security.

2. Window's Firewall. If you are using Windows XP Home/Professional, up date to Service Pack 2 and use the free firewall that's included. Its also free and works good. This firewall works only for incoming traffic but does not block your computer from trying to send information out, like spyware.

3. Hardware Firewall. The next method is to use hardware. If you are connecting to the Internet via a cable/DSL modem you can install a "router" between your computer and modem. Most good routers contain a hardware type firewall. With a router you can also set up your home network so all your computers can share a single Internet connection. And wireless routers are an excellent choice.

Don't forget to keep you anti-virus software up to date....

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Hint #12 - Reserved

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