The PC Improvement News
Issue 1-13
December 30, 1998

ISSN 1488-3163
Published electronically by PC Improvements (c) 1999
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NOTE: If any of the links are too long to fit on one line, they will end up on 2 lines so the link won't be accurate. If that happens, please cut and paste. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Welcome to the 13th edition (oh, oh, unlucky number 13!) of the PC Improvement News. In this newsletter I try to have a couple of tips to make your computing life easier as well as highlights of the past weeks PC Industry News. As always, I am more than willing to discuss any PC related topics in this newsletter. Just email me at editor@pcin.net with your suggestions. Also, if there is any strange formatting in the newsletter you receive please use the same email address to let me know so I can fix any incompatibilities. With your help and suggestions, it will get better.

***Welcome to all of the new subscribers. I just want to let everyone know, old and new subscribers, that this week's issue won't be the regular format. Because of the Christmas and New Years holiday, I don't have a lot of time, but I didn't want to miss a week. This issue is the last week of the abbreviated format, and next weeks, January 6th, issue will be the regular format.***

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THE NEWS
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January 1, 1998 is New Years Day
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It has been reported that January 1, 1998 is New Years Day. I'll find out for sure and get back to you next week... Oh, and that means there is exactly 1 year until the world explodes (or whatever else will happen because of the Y2K problem).

More about Betas Part V
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I've played with the Office 2000 beta and the IE5 beta and I haven't had any problems running it on my systems. It hasn't crashed once! I've talked about a lot of the good things, and this week I'll tell you a bit about some of the things I don't like.
When you go to read any message, Outlook Express displays a message in the status bar saying that is is checking for links. It is quite a lengthy process, and might take up to 1 or 2 minutes to check over a 20 page newsletter. During that time, my whole system slows down to a crawl, and I might as well not do anything until it finishes. This certainly has to do with my system speed (Pentium 120), but it is still too slow. If Microsoft wants the average person to use their programs, they have to make it work on average machines.
One of the other big complaints I have is regarding organizing the Favorites. It isn't a very user friendly process. If you want to move a number of URL links to another folder, you have to move them individually. Also, renaming and creating new folders isn't as easy as it should be when you are trying to organize them. I liked the IE4.x version much better.
I really haven't had any problems at all running any of the office programs. I have used Word and Excel a lot, and find everything to be just like it was in Office 97. There are a lot of additions, but for the average user, they don't make enough of a difference to make upgrading worth while.
Thats it for now. Ive really enjoyed working with everything. For those of you who have been to my site recently, the new buttons on the main page were created using PhotoDraw 2000, the newest Microsoft program. I'll share more each week about some of the news features of all of these programs.

One Question...
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If someone could email with a description of what "Region Free" is, I would appreciate it. I have a section of my website called the Niagara Region Free Listings, based on the Niagara Region (near Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada) where I live. Since I have the term Region Free I have a lot of people find me in search engines by looking for region free. Any help would be appreciated.

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AND NOW BECAUSE OF NEW YEARS AND WANTING TO BE WITH MY FAMILY, HERE IS A LIST OF ARTICLES THAT WOULD BE WORTH READING THIS WEEK SOMETIME WHILE YOU ARE RECOVERING FROM TURKEY OVERDOSE
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SURFWEBNOW TO CHALLENGE YAHOO, AOL's NETCENTER
http://www.internetwire.com/technews/tn/tn981574.htx
Microsoft antitrust trial hits turning point
http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?981221.ehtrial.htm
Microsoft Refutes Intuit Claims
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/msftdoj/TWB19981216S0008
M'soft Might Examine Merger Documents
http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2176938,00.html
THE BEST, THE WORST OF THE NET IN 1998
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/examiner/archive/1998/12/27/ BUSINESS6256.dtl

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THE TIPS
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NONE
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Next week I will share with you a problem I've found in the Temporary Internet Files directory for users of Internet Explorer.

 

Well, that's all for this week. Remember that if there is anything that you want to learn about, let me know and I will try to accommodate you.

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The PC Improvement News is brought to you by PC Improvements. The Opinions expressed are those of the editor, Graham Wing.

Editor: Graham Wing editor@pcin.net

Copyright 1998, PC Improvements and Graham Wing. All rights reserved. This publication may be reproduced in whole, or in part, as long as the author is notified and the newsletter is presented as is.

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