First things first. A majority of end users, that would be you, tend to save files directly to a floppy disk. Yes, you can do that, and a majority of the time it works fine, but what if the ZIP or STUFF-IT file is larger than the capacity of your floppy? Well the quick answer is your download will fail. Also, saving directly to a floppy can be a little dicey if you buy the "bargain brand" diskettes. Most of these have bad sectors, surface errors and such, and will therefore cause the file you have worked so hard to find and download to be rendered partially or even totally usless.

If you DO choose to download directly to a floppy, we recommend that you perform a FULL FORMAT of any diskettes to be used on YOUR system BEFORE attempting a download. By doing this you will mark any bad sectors and damaged surface areas as unusable to the system, and they will be noted as locked or unavailable in the FAT (file allocation table) on the diskette.

Saving to your hard drive is most always the best option.

For a more stable copy of the file to be downloaded, we recommend saving directly to a known location on your hard drive. There are a number of benefits to this method including:

• Unless your hard drive is packed full of programs and files, you will almost always have sufficient space for the download to complete successfully.
• Downloads are faster because writing to the hard drive is faster than to a floppy
• Downloads are more stable and the risk of file corruption is GREATLY REDUCED!

First find the file or files you want on your favorite site or page. Click the link to get the file and you will see the "File Download" dialog box pop up. Your options are to either open the file from its current location or save the file directly to disk.

For this particular illustration of how to save files from the 'net, we are using Embroidery Designs, located on the Embroidery SA website.

For whatever software files you choose, you will want to save the files to disk. This is typical for almost ALL files you download, unless you want to preview a sound or video file, in which case you can open it from its current location. It will spawn the appropriate program on your computer and run. If you like what you see or hear, you may then save it.

When you select "Save this file to disk" the Save As dialog box pops up. The computer wants to know where you want to put the file. You can either select your floppy drive, which is not recommended, or select a hard disk to save the file to. At this point it is a good idea to create a new folder that you can put that particular file into. In the example shown, I have selected the Make New Folder Icon, and named the folder Embroidery Designs. In this folder I will put ALL of my designs, and create sub-folders based on the type of designs being downloaded.

For example, if I find an angel design I like, I could put it in the Embroidery Designs folder, and in turn, into another folder called Angels, or Religion, or something similar. For every type of design, you should make a folder for it. All dog designs should be put in a dog folder, all cat designs in a cats folder, etc. So in this particular case, I have found a free sample pack of different baby designs. I double clicked on the Embroidery Designs folder to open it, made a new folder by selecting the "Make New Folder" icon and named it Babies. I then double-click the Babies folder to open it and start my download.

The WinZip file is then saved in the Babies folder. Simple huh? Basically when you have many designs, and they are archived properly, it is significantly easier to find them based on a folder name. Not everyone names files alike and will save you many hours of search time in the course of a year.

From the sample dialog box shown to the right, you can see that Babies.zip is being downloaded into my Babies sub-folder in the Embroidery Designs Main Folder.

Please note, this a suggestion on how to properly download an archive downloaded file, and my not represent the way you like to do it. Whatever method you use, remember, a neat and tidy hard drive is a happy hard drive.

If you are using AOL and are having trouble accessing BMT Inc's secure server, follow these simple instructions.

Open your AOL browser
Click on "Settings" in the tool bar.
Click On "Preferences".
Click On "Internet Properties."
Click On "Customize Settings."
Adjust the setting to either Medium Low or Low.
Try Medium Low first. If you still get a page not found or other browser error try going to the Low setting. That will do it for sure.

Once you are satisfied that the download is complete, you can go back and re-set your security settings following the same path as above.