The PC Improvement News

Issue 56
November 3, 1999

ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements (c) 1999

There are only 2 ways to get on the subscriber list. You have either been
subscribed by filling out a subscription form on any of the pages on my
site, or you have requested FreeHelp from me in the past.

To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit
http://www.pcin.net/

Note 1: If any of the links are too long to fit on one line, you may have to
cut and paste.
Note 2: You can only win one contest every 30 days.

Welcome to the 56th edition of the PC Improvement News. In this newsletter,
I combine news, tips, thoughts, and contests. There is something for
everyone, and if this is your first issue, I'm sure there will be something
for you. I am willing to discuss any computer topics in this newsletter.
Email me at editor@pcin.net with your suggestions.

If you give me two or three issues, I know that you will come back for more!

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SOME OPENING THOUGHTS
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Thanks to all of you who sent in your suggestions regarding the subject
line. The unanimous choice was to put a news blurb there.  Done!

I also had several people email this week with their comments on the free
ISP services they have.  Look for it in the middle of the newsletter.

And finally there is another contest.
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THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
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Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people
always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become
great.
          - Mark Twain

Thought courtesy of http://www.HappyPublishing.com/

To subscribe to the FREE "Aspire to Something Higher" Thought-Of-The-Day
list, send a blank email to HappyQuotes-subscribe@listbot.com

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THE NEWS
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Dirty Junk Email
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A recent study states that 30% of unwanted, junk email is pornographic in
nature (I just got one yesterday asking me, "Why Haven't You Visited Yet!").
The Spam Recycling Center (whatever that is) did the study and Gary Miller,
a Californian Congressman presented the findings to Congress on Tuesday.

For more info:
http://www.cnnfn.com/news/technology/newsbytes/138769.html


Microsoft, Viruses, and Y2K
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Microsoft has an agreement in place to provide free anti-virus software to
everyone for 90 days.
"The nine antivirus vendors that have partnered with Microsoft support more
than 20 languages. The companies are Central Command, Computer Associates,
Data Fellows, Network Associates, Norman ASA, Panda Software, Sophos,
Symantec, and Trend Micro. All will offer free antivirus software,
downloadable from their individual sites and from Microsoft's Y2K site, for
a trial period through Dec. 31. Once downloaded, the software will be
functional for 90 days."

I don't think this is any big deal as most (if not all) of these companies
had trials already.  It is good that this has brought more publicity to the
issue and hopefully more people will be ready.

For more info:
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19991102S0008
http://currents.net/newstoday/99/11/02/news1.html

To download the antivirus program of your choice:
http://www.microsoft.com/y2k/antivirus/antivirus.htm


Speaking of Viruses, Are they Y2K Compliant?
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This is an interesting question that I had never thought of before. This is
an issue that Network Associates (the McAfee people) have been discussing
lately.  They say they have found 6 viruses that are linked to Y2K. Panda
Antivirus has also been debating this.

For more info:
http://www.thestandard.net/articles/display/0,1449,7296,00.html?home.tf

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A Question. Finally Answered (How are the Free ISPs?)
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Two weeks subscriber Charles Breeding asked this question:
"There seem to be more free ISP every day, have you had experience with any
of these?"

Here are some replies. The differences of opinion are interesting.

Leeor Geva said:
I have experience with Altavista's Free ISP. The ISP I pay $18.99 a month to
never has busy signals (and my computer's pretty much online 24/7). The
second time I logged on to Altavista's I had to call 2-3 times to get
through. I'm just not used to that anymore, so I continue to use my ISP.

Henry Halucha said:
I have been using NetZero.net for a few months now.  It has worked better
overall than the paid service I had previously (WebAmerica $9.95/mo.). I
connect at consistently higher speeds (44K on average). The only drawback is
the adbox that flashes advertisements. Of course, this is also the reason it
is free (advertising). Occasionally, they tie ads to the category of the
content that I'm viewing. For example, a "jobs" site will flash when I'm
searching for a job on MonsterBoard.com. So, I know that they are keeping
track of our "viewing habits" when we use the service.

J.M. Monteleone said:
I have personally installed "NetZero" on 8 different computers of my
friends. They all love it cause its free! I personally do not use it for one
reason: If it screws up or if the service goes down, you can't complain to
NetZero because it's "free". Other than that (and the advertisements), its a
great service for people who don't want to pay for Internet.

Sharon said:
My mother gets your newsletters & forwarded this particular one to me. I use
a FREE Internet called NetZero. I have had it for about 6 months now & will
not go back to one I have to pay for! Their website address is
www.netzero.net I really like NetZero. I have yet to be kicked off. You can
still instant message your friends & family via AOL instant messenger. You
can see all sites just like the ISP's you have to pay for. You can download
NetZero right from their site. Give them a try! After all, it's FREE! This
one is totally free. There are some out there that you have to pay a
one-time fee of 100.00-199.00 or more.

 John Hills said:
As many of my clients are now using free ISP I can speak with some knowledge
on the subject - there's a novelty for you. In UK there are now more than 50
free ISP's and in general they are not to bad considering that they are
free. You tend to not get newsgroups on the majority and the Internet is
heavily censored.
Bigwig is one of my favourites - No advertising and simply generates income
from the local telephone call rate.
However, Dixons Freeserve, which was one of the first but not THE first says
that it does not interfere with windows system setting in anyway. I found 52
entries in the registry all pertaining to plastering its name around I.E.
and Outlook Express. Should you wish to finish with Freeserve then there is
virtually no way that these adverts can be removed and the settings freed of
Freeserve entries.
Quite a few people have problems setting up free ISP's and most will charge
one pound sterling a minute for technical support. Sometimes I wonder if
they deliberately cause confusion in their installation instructions to get
people to ring up.
Finally, the difference between a free ISP and for e.g. Demon whom I pay ten
pounds sterling a month to is quite significant for the heavy user. I can
connect virtually instantaneously and download speeds are always high. The
free ISP's obviously gain from you being on the telephone as long as
possible and their delays in retrieving email and slow download speeds are
common place. Nevertheless, for someone wanting casual access to email and
the Internet then why pay for it if you have the time to potter about.
Even more finally, and in summary and getting towards the end of this
thesis, you get what you pay for and if you don't pay, you don't get much.

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I NEED HELP
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As many of you know, I offer a free help service via email. If you have a
question, you can email me and I will try my best to answer them. I can
answer about half of them. Those are things that I do regularly or have
experience with. There are other things that I have never tired or
experienced so I don't have an answer. I hope to post those questions here
and see if any of the readers have any suggestions. I will include all
reasonable suggestions with credit to you. These are NOT my own questions
and they are NOT my answers. I will NOT check the validity of these
comments. That is up to you.

Previous Question 1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Q1) When I click on an Internet Shortcut that is on my desktop (not in my
Favorites), it always opens up in an IE window that I already have open. How
do I open this link in a new instance of IE (in a new window)?

Answers to Q1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tom (or Nicki) said, "To open a new window from IE, hold down the "shift"
key then press the link (internet shortcut)."
-----
Bill R said, "If you have a window open already you can right-click on IE
and a new window will open when you click on open. I
found this by playing around."
-----
J.M. Monteleone said, "This is a no brainer. Go to "tools", then "internet
options", then "advanced", and click by the box that says: "launch browser
windows in a separate process". This will open up all new browsers you
launch in a separate window. (Note* IE5.0) This info can easily be found in
the "windows" help section of any Windows 95 or 98 computer."
-----
One subscriber whose name I lost (sorry!) said, "Right click on the link,
then choose Open. This opens it in a new window. Internet Explorer has
switches that are triggered by its DLLs, and the .URL (the link's actual
extension) triggers the following:
Rundll32.exe shdocvw.dll,OpenURL %l
I tried playing with that, but I couldn't manipulate it to make it work for
the double click event :-( Check out your file's execution settings at
Windows Explorer's menu: View->Folder Options->File Types Tab
-----
John Hills said, "Create an additional shortcut to IE on the desktop and
assuming your link is TEST.HTM for example in a directory called C:\LINKS
then open properties in your newly created shortcut to IE probably defaulted
to Launch Internet Explorer (2) and change the target line to "C:\Program
Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE" c:\LINKS\test.htm. You can then if you
want change the name and icon of this shortcut to your own requirements.

Previous Question 2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Actually, it's not really a problem. I'm having a hard time finding web
pages that are specific to improving performance of my machine, particularly
just raw speed tips and tricks. I work for a very large corporation
(120,000+ employees) and our machines are not upgraded or replaced with very
often, so I'm sort of stuck with what I have for a while. Can you direct me
to a couple of sites that really do a good job in detailing out ways to
improve the speed of my machine as well as maybe troubleshooting techniques
(documented or undocumented) that I can use?

Answers to Q2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Silvan Kuipers said, "I known of a program called WinTune. It runs a
configuration check and gives hints on points of improvement. There is an
online version of WinTune, as well as at http://wintune.winmag.com/ there is
a downloadable version.
-----
Bill R said, "ZDNet has an upgrade site that scans your system and
recommends updates. It is at
http://updates.zdnet.com/my_updates_get_email.asp?GO=1 I think I copied it
right, if not it should get you to the page where you can register. Just
keep the cookie on your system, as it is not real easy to find if you forget
where it was. http://www.koan.com/~dwhr/performance.html is one that have
what you might want, too.
-----
GWise14572 said, "Here are 2 sites that have a lot of free utilities that
might help the person who requested help for his aging computers:
http://www.windows-help.net/windows98/tune-34.shtml Fine Tuning Windows 98:
Improving Performance - Windows-Help.NET
http://www.leroygibbons.com/freesearch.htm Most Concise Freeware Links &
Downloads Freeware Search Results"
-----
John Hills said, "I understand where you are coming from but in my opinion,
and it is only my opinion that whatever you do in terms of tweaking
performance it will be at best a minimal improvement and hardly worth the
effort whilst at the same time increasing the opportunities for software and
hardware failures. Additional memory is really the only worthwhile
improvement you can make on older machines but of course that means money.
If your 120,000 employees each saved 5 minutes on work output per 8 hr day
due to increased memory performance that would give the company an extra
10,000 hours of productivity each day, (I think) and makes the price of
memory insignificant."

New Questions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Q1) I am trying to figure out how to connect my two computers together so I
can just transfer things between them, so I maybe can do a reformat. If you
could either tell me how to or point me to a source that can I would
appreciate it. By the way in about 3 weeks I will be networking them, I'm
just wanting to know if there is another way to this.

Q2) My 3.5 floppy drive will not read one particular application disk.
However it will read any and all other disk. Two other duplicate systems to
mine will read the application without problems. What could be the
problem(s)?

If you have an answer to these questions or have a question of your own,
please email me at freehelp@pcin.net

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NEW CONTEST
----------------------------------------------------------------
I'm sure we've all had our share of problems with our computers. Maybe your
hard drive died and you lost everything. Maybe you accidentally pushed your
monitor off your desk. Maybe you spilled a drink on your keyboard. It could
just be that everyday when you started your computer, the AutoCheck ran even
though there was nothing wrong and it drove you crazy. It doesn't matter how
careful you are; sometimes the accidents are inevitable. Sometimes it seems
as if the computer has a mind of its own.

Here is your chance to confess.  Don't worry, we're all equally stupid here!
Send in your worst experience with a computer to editor@pcin.net
and I will randomly pick 3 winners who will have their choice of:
 -TweakDUN
 -Microsoft IE5 on CD
 -DU Meter
 -Caldera OpenLinux with condensed Linux for Dummies book
 -Window Washer
 -HP CD set with Adobe PhotoDeluxe 2 and PrintMaster Gold 4.0

I can't expect you to prove your claims, so I'm going to have to trust that
all of your stories are true (that is one of the reasons why the winners
will be chosen at random). Please be honest.


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THE TIPS and OTHER STUFF
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Cheap Trick of the Week
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Cheap Trick of the Week: October 25, 1999
**Screen out your screensaver**
Sometimes you leave your desk for a while but you don't want the bother of
having your screensaver take over. But you don't want to permanently disable
your screensaver either, because sometimes you do want it to come on and
hide your work.
So, to temporarily prevent your screensaver from coming on, simply click the
Start button once and walk away.
The Start menu will stay open indefinitely, preventing the screensaver from
activating.

Buy the Little Black Book of Cheap Tricks for only $9.95 Cdn
http://www.pcimprovements.com/help/books/cheaptricks.shtml


HeadScraps: Another Great Ezine
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HeadScraps(tm) is an IMPECCABLY CLEAN E-ZINE suitable for ALL family
members. Humor, Tips, Poetry, Recipes, Contributions, Links, Original
Writing... Columnists: Joseph Walker, nationally syndicated
columnist appears on Friday. StressDoc's Question and Answer on Wednesday
and LL Gray's Thoughts From The Farm on Monday.
SUBSCRIBE: Send e-mail to: HeadScraps-subscribe@onelist.com

I have known the publisher of HeadScraps, Ann, for some time now (I don't
know how it started, though) and it has been a pleasure corresponding with
her. Her style is very open and seems to be a lot of fun.  If you have any
spare reading time left in the day (maybe after you eat breakfast but before
you brush your teeth) then this would be a great newsletter to subscribe to.


Walking the Upgrade Path
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With this whole Y2K thing, it has caused a lot of people to upgrade their
software.  This can be easy at times, at horribly difficult at other times.
Although the following link is from a newspaper, it is worthy of mention as
a tip.  The article gives some very useful tips on how best to upgrade and
what to look out for. Visit
http://www.amcity.com/phoenix/stories/1999/11/01/newscolumn8.html


A Subscriber-Suggested Site
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Alec Thompson sent this in. I checked it out, and it seems to be legitimate.
There is at least no danger in visiting the site anyway.
"This is a really terrific thing. The Hunger Site at the UN This is a really
cool website. All you do is click a button and somewhere in the world some
hungry person gets a meal to eat at no cost to you. Corporate sponsors pay
for the food. All you do is go to the site and click. But, you're only
allowed one click per day so spread the word to others. Visit the site at
http://www.thehungersite.com and pass the word.

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Well, that's all for this week. Remember that if there is anything that you
want to learn about, let me know. You can also send in your comments and
suggestions.
This newsletter is sent to those who subscribed only. If you have somehow
gotten this and you don't want it, please see the subscribe/unsubscribe
options at the start of the newsletter.
The PC Improvement News is brought to you by PC Improvements. The opinions
expressed are those of the editor, Graham Wing. PC Improvements and Graham
Wing accept no responsibility (either good or bad) for the results obtained
from trying the tips in this newsletter.
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Editor: Graham Wing can be reached at editor@pcin.net
Copyright 1999, 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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