The PC Improvement News

Issue 59
November 24, 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 59th 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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Many people used the topic of Software602 to rant about how no one can
compete with Microsoft. Some of the comments were quite interesting. Not all
of them were contest entries, but even some of the entries were interesting
reading. Check them out below.

** I need some advice. It seems as if the short form for this newsletter is
PCIN. I didn't come up with it, as I always used to write out the whole
title (The PC Improvement News). Many of my subscribers abbreviated it, and
I liked it so now it is in the subject line. I was all set to go and
register PCIN.com so I could set up a domain for it, but it was taken. My
question is this. is PCIN.net a good name? Do you look down on sites that
aren't .com's? This isn't a contest, just a question. If you don't like
PCIN.net, then send in your suggestions (keep them centered on my company
and newsletter name). Send in comments/suggestions/criticisms to
editor@pcin.net

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THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
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It is never too late to be what you might have been.
          - George Eliot

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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Go Network Must Stop - Part II
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I don't know how many of you went to check out the ABC, ESPN, GO, or Disney
sites, but for several days, they had this pathetic Go Network text graphic
on their site. If you visit there today, you will see that the old logo is
back. Well, they appealed the court decision, and until there is a final
decision, they can continue to use the logo.

For more info:
http://www.cnnfn.com/news/technology/newsbytes/139519.html
http://www.go.com/
http://www.goto.com/


Watch What You Forward
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My wife got an email from a friend last week about a little girl who was
missing. The mother had sent out an email hoping that the word would spread
and they would find the girl. At first I thought it was just a hoax, but it
seemed sincere enough. Then later the next day, I came across a news item
about the story. The girl had gone missing in October and was found the very
same night. People were getting this email all over the country and calling
the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Since the child was
found, there wasn't a record of her missing in their database. I don't know
if it is the mother's fault for sending out the mail so quickly, or if it is
the fault of all the people who forward the message that the story is still
around a month after the girl was found.

For more info:
http://www.techserver.com/noframes/story/0,2294,500058262-500096003-50037448
3-0,00.html

Y2K Trips Undersold
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A lot of travel agencies thought it would be cool to plan trips that would
span the New Year. They thought every one want to be in the middle of the
ocean when the clock strikes 12. Well, apparently, that isn't the case.  As
of a couple of weeks ago, only 2 out of 14 of Carnival Cruses ships were
fully booked. Part of the problem is that tickets can be up to 30% more
expensive than normal.

For more info:
http://www.detnews.com/1999/nation/9911/14/11140092.htm


DoJ May Block Win2000
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With Windows 2000 set to be released in February, the buzz going around is
that the Justice Department will ask Judge Jackson to temporary stop
Microsoft from releasing Windows 2000 until the case is settled.

For more info:
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/msftdoj/TWB19991110S0025


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CONTEST RESULTS
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Well, many of you thought that the 602Pro PC Suite was a good program, and
might be useful, but that there was no way that Software602 could compete
with Microsoft. I guess this is probably true, but it is too bad, because it
really is an excellent program, and is fully compatible with Office.

This was a week of the Thompsons. 3 of the contest entrants had a last name
of Thompson (Alec, Dave, Roger). The winners ended up being John Hills and
Alec Thompson. They each win a copy of 602Pro PC Suite so they can try it
out themselves. Once again I'd like to thank Software602 for donating the
prizes.

For those who are still interested, you can check out the 602Pro PC Suite
home page at http://www.602pro.com/index.html and my full review of the
suite at http://www.pcin.net/help/software/602propcsuite.shtml

As usual, all contest entries are available on my web site at
http://www.pcin.net/contests/19991124.shtml As I said, some
of the rants were very interesting. Check it out.

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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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My PC started acting weird, and now it will not even boot up. I have been
running it normally and haven't made any recent upgrades or changes. When I
turn it on, the screen is blank, and the computer doesn't even go through
the POST or test memory. The only thing that happens is it gives a series of
beeps: one long beep, 8 short beeps and 2 more short beeps. Can you help?

Answers to Question 1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dan Ference said, "If the series of beeps is the same after multiple
attempts to power up the PC, that is meaningful POST information and is can
probably be deciphered via a link on the web page of the motherboard
manufacturer to the BIOS manufacturer."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Andy said, "Getting a beep code and not being able to boot the computer
usually indicate a hardware malfunction or failure. Different motherboards
with their BIOS's chirp different beep codes when there's a problem. You
must know what motherboard and BIOS you have in order to decipher the code.
I've included a link that you can visit to start searching for the solution
to the code http://www.techadvice.com/tech/B/BeepCode.htm You might want to
try doing a search on http://www.altavista.com and just input "beep codes"
you'll be surprised with what you'll find. I hope that helps."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ken Berry said, "I had the same exact thing happen. Assuming you have an AGP
graphics card you need to reseat the card. It's come loose somehow. That
particular set of beeps means the computer is not "seeing" your graphics
adapter. Same deal if it's a PCI adapter. Sometimes with an AGP card you
have to push really hard to fully seat it. Either that or your graphics card
is fried."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Hills said, "Sounds like a graphics card issue. Open up the lid and
make sure the card is seated in its slot firmly. While you are there, do the
same thing with the memory and CPU. If this doesn't work trying swapping
slots with the graphics card and then try the swapping the memory around. If
none of that works I would first try another graphics card."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Leeor Geva said, "1. Check the connection of your monitor and to the
computer, 2. The monitor may be bad, 3. This usually means the Mother Board
is fried, and I saw it happen to 2 eMachines, 3. How old is your computer?
3, 4 or maybe even 5 or more? You might need to change the little round flat
battery on the motherboard. But first check that the wiring is all in place,
the IDE cable is hooked up tightly to your Master Hard Drive or you may have
had a virus (such as a spin off of CIH) which knocked your system out. There
is some thought, but you might want to have it checked out physically at
this point by a professional!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bill R. said, "Seeing your p/c just beeps on start up says it is not
recognizing a piece of hardware. The first thing I would do is check the
hard drive. I can't tell how old/new the system is but I had a similar
problem with the first p/c I bought, and had it checked out to find the h/d
bit the dust. If no one minds a suggestion it is a good idea to have 2 h/d
on a system use the second as a backup. Prices have came way down just
recently so it might be a good investment."


Previous Question 2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Is it possible to dualboot Windows 95 and Windows 98?

Answers to Question 2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dan Ference said, "More Microsoft self flagellation. Easily done if dual
hard disks are installed and Changes are made via FDISK. On a single hard
disk, assuming no BOOT.INI or third party program which would direct the
user to choose an OS, and that both Operating Systems are in separate
folders, the most recently installed would boot always. Exiting to a dos
shell and changing directories to the other OS would enable it to be
launched from its executable."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Hills said, "This probably explains it better than I could
http://www.wugnet.com/articles/multiboot/mboot.html "
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Leeor Geva said, "This is something you do when you get really bored, but I
remember an article from Graham about this long ago, where a Linux
application ran a few OSes at the same time. But here is something I stepped
on: http://wugnet.com/articles/multiboot/mboot.html Have fun."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bill R. said, "As for question 2 there is no way possible to dual boot both
win 95 and 98 at the same time. They are designed to overwrite files to
update your system to the newer version .As I suggested in question 1 if you
wish to have both systems on your p/c you would need to have 2 HDs and boot
to the system you wish to use. That is the only way I have found to run both
OSes on one machine but you will always get the message updating your
system."


New Questions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1) I have a ZIP drive as a back up medium. This takes care of the physical
requirement but managing backups is still a nuisance and the only way I can
be sure I'm doing it is to back up everything each time. I've heard of
software that manages backups, tracking what needs to be saved and managing
restores, but the one I investigated is pretty expensive. Does anyone have a
good way to deal with this or know of a cheap/free application that will
make it easier?
2) Does anyone know of an email client or an add-in for any of the usual
email suspects (we use Eudora and MS Outlook) that will selectively apply a
process like zipping attachments depending on the characteristics of the
mail, e.g. The size of the attachments or the who it's going to? I would
like to automate the process.

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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NO NEW CONTEST
----------------------------------------------------------------
No new contest, but please send in your opinions about a new domain for the
newsletter as mentioned in the "Opening Thoughts" section. Send comments to
editor@pcin.net

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THE TIPS and OTHER STUFF
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Cheap Trick of the Week
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**The Name Game**
Here's a Registry trick we keep getting asked to repeat:
When you buy a new computer, you'll often find Windows 95 or 98 is installed
as registered to the name of the store or to something generic, like
"Customer" or "XXXX". How do you change that to your name, without
reinstalling Windows?
You can do this by editing your system's Registry. (If you are unfamiliar
with editing the Registry, look for instructions and precautions at
http://www.WE-Compute.com
Hit the Start button, type regedit and click on OK to open the Registry
Editor. Make your way through the keys to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version. When you
click on CurrentVersion, you should see RegisteredOwner in the right pane.
Double-click on its icon and in the Edit String window, type the name you
want to appear as the registered owner. Hit OK and close up the Registry.
You can also change the company name by editing the string for
RegisteredOrganization.

Buy the Little Black Book of Cheap Tricks for only $9.95 Cdn (about $7.00 US)
http://www.pcimprovements.com/help/books/cheaptricks.shtml


What Does that Gibberish Mean?
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Sometimes you have files and you don't know what they are. You view them
with notepad and there are all sorts of crazy characters on the screen. What
does it mean? Quite frankly I don't know, but I do know that sometimes these
files are actually supposed to have another extension. One that your
computer will recognize. Keep this in mind when you are looking at the
files. The first couple of characters can indicate which type of file it is:
Characters      File Type
     BM                 BMP
     GIF                 GIF
     JFIF                JPG
     MZ                  EXE
     PK                   ZIP
To check this out, find a bitmap file on your computer. Hold the sift key
when you right-click on it. This will bring up an "Open With." option.
Choose it. You can then choose which program you want to view the file
with. Choose NotePad, but make sure that the "Always use this program"
checkbox is UNCHECKED. This is so the next time you want to open a BMP file,
it will use the original program, and not NotePad (note: You may not even
have the option to check a box, if you don't, then everything is fine). The
first two characters in all the mess will be BM.
This trick can be especially helpful if you run scandisk and it recovers
some info into file0001 (or whatever it is). You can use notepad to view
them and sometimes can find out what type of file it should be (I did just
that on the weekend). When you know what type of file it is, you can then
just rename it with the proper extension.


The Public 8-Ball
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Have you ever owned an 8-Ball? You know, one of those things you can shake
and it will answer a question. Well, if you don't own one now, you can use
it on the web. The person who set this up has used a Lego Mindstorm kit to
make a device that can shake the ball when asked. This device connects to
the computer that is running Linux. You ask the question, the program tells
the robot to shake the ball, and a camera shows the result. It is very neat.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work in IE, only Netscape.

Check it out:
http://8ball.federated.com/


Watch out for HTML SPAM
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I was always under the impression that the only way for a junk emailer to
know if an email address is good is if the person actually tries to reply to
unsubscribe (all of the experts tell you not to do that). Well, as HTML
messages get more popular, they can find out in another way. They can use
graphics on the page to know that someone has looked at it and their email
address. When they make the page, they name one of the graphics to be some
script that will put the email address in the code of the image link. When
the picture loads, the source server (where the picture is being loaded
from) will know that graham@pcimprovements.com is a good email address.
The moral of the story is, it may be a good idea to read HTML junk mail
offline, if you are going to read it at all.

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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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