The PC Improvement News
Issue 1-48
September 8, 1999
ISSN 1488-3163
Published electronically by PC Improvements (c) 1999
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 48th edition of the PC Improvement News. In
this newsletter,
I have a couple of tips to make your computing life easier
as well as
highlights of the past weeks PC Industry News. I am more than
willing to
discuss any PC related topics in this newsletter. Just email
me at
editor@pcin.net with
your suggestions. I would also appreciate it
if you let me know if there is any strange formatting in the
newsletter so
that I can fix them.
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.
Give me two or three issues, and I know that you will get
something great
out of this!
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SOME OPENING THOUGHTS
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I just started Semester 3 yesterday for my Computer Programmer/Analyst
course. Last year I learned about Linux, C++, computer hardware,
and more.
This year, I will be working with databases (Access, Oracle,
and SQL), and
learning Visual Basic. I've always understood a lot about
computers, but it
is even more interesting when you get into the technical stuff.
I'm sure I
will learn some stuff that will be good for me to share with
all of you.
Tomorrow is September 9, and some people wonder if this will
be a Y2K-like
day. Using 9999 (9th month, 9th day, 1999) was a way that
some really old
programs would signify a bad date. Most of the "experts"
don't think it will
be an issue. We'll see.
Last week I shared a bit on new coke machines. It read:
> you wear harass can no
> how much pop has been sold and whether it needs restocking.
Just in case you are wondering, I was using IBM ViaVoice Executive
98. I
have been really impressed. Besides the odd mistake (as above),
it does an
exceptional job. The line should have said, "Your warehouse
can know how
much pop." If it weren't for Ann, I never would have
noticed that there was
an error (as there were no spelling errors for Word to catch).
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THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
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"Every successful man I have heard of has done the best
he could with
conditions as he found them, and not waited until the next
year for better."
-
Edgar Watson Howe
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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Why do you abandon online transactions?
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Last week I shared some statistics as to why people abandon
online
transactions. Here are some of the subscriber comments:
Kay Hill said, "Yes, it's definitely, in my case, because
of slooooooow
downloading. And yes, I do buy things online. Just bought
some Omaha steaks
this morning."
Tom Parr said, "Yes I buy things online and the stats
you listed look about
right. A hard to navigate site is the biggest deterrent for
me."
Dennis said, "I will abandon a website if it is (a) too
slow, (b) too many
pages to go through, and (c) errors at the last and final
page and you have
to re-enter all the data again because the programmer's were
too lazy or do
not know how to trap info for later use."
A Question of Babies and Body Parts
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It seems that eBay is always in the news with someone trying
to sell some
strange thing. Well, this past week and a half have been no
exception.
Lately, eBay has had a person try to sell a kidney and just
yesterday, it
was discovered that there were 3 auctions to sell babies.
eBay says that
these were all hoaxes and removed the auctions. One of them
had actually
reached $109,100, but of course eBay is saying that was a
hoax, too. This
has once again raised the question of Internet regulation.
People do not
want babies sold on the Internet (not that they would want
that through any
other medium either). Even if these were hoaxes, it still
shows that it is
possible.
For more info:
http://www.mercurycenter.com/breaking/docs/003331.htm
Y2K Compliant Screwdrivers
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From the Lee Valley Tools site at
http://www.leevalley.com/correspo/mar99/y2kscrew.htm
Y2K Compliant Screwdrivers
I see in your new "supplement" you have Y2K compliant
screwdrivers. Please
send verification of this, my company requires this before
buying material.
Thanks.
LEE VALLEY'S Response
Thank you for your inquiry. We have had a few members of our
staff do
extensive testing on these screwdrivers. We changed our wall
calendars to
Dec. 31, 1999, ran a battery of tests waited a few minutes
and then changed
the calendars to Jan. 1, 2000 and then re-tested the screwdrivers.
Without
fail, every single screwdriver worked as well as it had before,
and no dates
were altered, i.e., none of the dates on the screwdrivers
reverted to 1900
or 1980. The slot screwdrivers tested flat on our test equipment.
We
initially thought we might have a problem with the Phillips
screwdrivers but
they just got crossed in the testing, and the Robertson, I
mean square drive
screwdrivers, worked well, as long as we didn't put them in
a round hole.
Unfortunately we cannot supply our test data to your company.
We destroyed
the test results to prevent them falling into our competitors'
hands. We
can't be too careful these days. No animals were harmed in
the testing of
these screwdrivers, although we did have hamburgers for lunch
on the day of
the testing.
The above paragraph, along with the catalog copy about our
new screwdrivers
and, we suspect your e-mail, were written with tongue planted
firmly in
cheek.
I trust this answers your question and we look forward to
having you as a
customer.
Secure Transactions?
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RSA Data Security announced that at the end of August they
had a team of
people crack the encryption code that is used to make Internet
transactions
secure. Should you be worried? No way! It took 292 computers
at 11 different
locations over seven months to break the 512-bit code. Internet
transactions
are very secure. This sort of thing is done to demonstrate
that the codes
are 100% secure and that new encryption standards are always
needed to keep
up with the crackers.
For more info:
http://www.zdnet.com/filters/printerfriendly/0,6061,2323766-2,00.html
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CONTEST RESULTS
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I guess it was kind of strange that I was asking for stuff
for my birthday
from all of you, but it sure was fun! I received many greetings
and I'd like
to thank you all for them. My wife also really liked them.
Thanks to Shawn,
Jennifer, John, Ben, Lou, Judy, MW, Ann, and JR.
Lou is the first winner. He sent me 6 emails, each with a
different
greeting. To see them, visit:
http://members.aol.com/sweiss6650/Smile.html
http://www.hampsterdance.com/ This
was my favourite! I love the music!
http://www.freedwings.com/
http://www.3dgreetings.com/pickup.asp?cardid=KD_birthday_surpriseparty_09012
14545
http://www.ohmygoodness.com/cgi-bin/g-card.pl?990903PCGYBUDLTPLA
http://www.angelfire.com/wa/RussellConnection/bday1.html
Judy is the other winner. She sent me 2 emails. To see the
greetings, visit:
http://www.greeting-cards.com/cs/766444131128.1/1/ This
is very good!
http://www1.bluemountain.com/cards/box6835e/smh6czpimehpci.htm
Judy was very honest with me though and said that she doesn't
even know what
the program is, or what it is for, and to give it to someone
else.
Shawn Bremner of Happy Publishing (yes, the guy who does
the quotes at the
beginning of every newsletter) would then have won, but he
won less than a
month ago. He sent me 3 emails. The coolest one was the "Mex-Files",
a cross
between the Taco Bell Chihuahua and the X-Files. You can see
his 3 greetings
at:
http://www.messagemates.com/ecard/pickup.asp?id=II8715CRWMPE
http://www.messagemates.com/ecard/pickup.asp?id=II8864UFCYOU
http://www.messagemates.com/ecard/pickup.asp?id=II9162FIDDOC
I guess that leaves me with John Hills. John wished me a
happy birthday and
told me to visit http://www.thespark.com/deathtest
and I found out that I
will live until I'm 85. I guess that is as good a gift as
any.
Congratulations to all of them. They win a copy of AbsoluteFTP.
Thanks to
Dan Rask of Van Dyke Technologies for donating the prizes.
I would sincerely like to thank everyone again who sent me
birthday
greetings, or even if you had the thought to. It is nice having
so many
friends all over the world. If would recommend that you visit
some of these
sites and see some of the cool things you can do for your
friends and family
on their birthday.
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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. I will not check
the validity of
these comments. That is up to you.
Previous Questions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Q1) Does anyone know what problems there are with DirectX6.1
(its bugs,
shortcomings, etc)? I had problems with it and I don't know
what the cause
is? Could it be compatible problems with the Banshee card,
or SBLive card?
A1) No Answers Given
Q2) As usual us deadbeats are out there, and I am one of
them I Reckon. My
Problem is: I tried to install Win98 (from a copied CD). It
changed my
Mouse, CD-ROM, and Display. Now I'm looking at a black and
white DeskTop,
Cannot access properties on Display and a bunch of other problems.
(I know
...my fault for trying to go "cheap". It won't happen
again I assure you. I
can't even run win95 CD any more. It gives me an "illegal
operations"
message. If You could just tell me how to avoid the "illegal
operations and
will be shut down" message I will be as happy as a pig
in slop. Thanks in
advance.
A1) John Hills answered, "I don't think the problem was
caused by using a
copy of Win98 even though it would be nice to think so. First
try booting up
in safe mode to rescue data. Them advice is to trash your
hard drive and do
a fresh installation. Windows 9x always prefers to be first
on the hard
disk - it's a Bill thing. It is always best to use the full
version Windows
9x rather than the upgrade versions that invariably cause
problems
eventually because of all the duff entries in the system files
that are
retained when upgrading. Of course if you do this you will
lose all your
data files. If saving your data files is prerequisite you
could try deleting
your registry and system.dat and user.dat files and then try
another install
of windows 98. If successful I would then back up any data
and trash the
hard disk and start from scratch. The other way is to take
your hard drive
out and secondary master or slave it on someone else's PC,
then copy all
your data across to your friends drive, trash yours, reinstall
windows 98
and put the hard drive back on again to get your data back.
I have a feeling
that you will waste an awful lot of time from the position
you are in trying
to get a satisfactory install. This is only my opinion based
on the scant
information received. They may be better ideas around but
I believe that
Windows behaves like a battery. It gets slower and slower
until it stops and
a fresh install gets it back to its' old sprightly self."
New Questions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Q1) Many times when I receive mail (jokes, etc.) it has been
forwarded
dozens of times and all those people who have received it
are listed. Takes
forever to get to the message! Now, if I want to forward the
message on to
yet another group of people but don't want to show all the
previous people
who've received it, how do I delete those names?
Q2) I have a solution to the Y2K problem. Ha ha. Set your
clock and calendar
BACK 1 or 2 years. Will that work? What will happen to your
"stuff" that is
dated after the date you set it back to?
If you have any answers to these questions, please email
me at
freehelp@pcin.net
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NEW CONTEST
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When I did the Scavenger Hunt contest, one of the questions
was about a
program that will speed up your CD-ROM. Almost all of the
links pointed to
CD-Quick Cache. This is a program that I did a review for
a while ago. You
can see my review at http://www.pcin.net/help/articles/cdromspeed.shtml
or a shorter one in the tips section. Anyway, I contacted
Peter Volpa of
Circuit Systems, the programmer, and he generously donated
2 copies of
CD-Quick Cache to give away as prizes. The 2 winners of this
week's contest
will each win a copy.
This contest is this. If you could only pass on one piece
of advice to a new
computer user, what would it be? This could be an invaluable
book, web site
or TV show/video that really helped you. This could be something
you learned
the hard way (like always having a boot disk), or it could
be neat trick you
learned from someone else.
Remember, the best 2 entries win a copy of CD-Quick Cache
Email you contest entries to editor@pcin.net
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THE TIPS and OTHER STUFF
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F5 to refresh windows and desktop Part II
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Last week I said the tip that F5 will refresh a Window in
Windows, Opera and
IE. I said, "You can also do it on the desktop or virtually
any other place
in Windows." David Thompson wanted to add, "You
can also use F5 to refresh
the display of your A: drive when you have a bunch of floppies
to scan their
contents. Just pop out the old floppy, put another one in
and press F5."
Very good tip David. I always do this. Thanks for mentioning
it
specifically.
We Compute Magazine Cheap Trick of the Week
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**Silly outlook on the Internet**
This starts off as one of those lame Easter eggs that reveal
an application's
credits - and then ends up somewhere else. In the contacts
module of
icrosoft Outlook 97, add a new contact with the name Ren Hoek
(no other
info is needed). On the main Contacts page, click on Ren Hoek
to highlight
it. Go to the Help menu, and select About Microsoft Outlook.
In the Windows
that appears, hold down the Ctrl, Alt and Shift keys while
clicking on OK.
Ho-hum, a list of Outlook developers. But you want to see
these geeks at
work and play? Click on the instruction at the bottom of the
window. It may
help if your Internet connection is open.
Buy the Little Black Book of Cheap Tricks for only $9.95
Cdn
http://www.pcimprovements.com/help/books/cheaptricks.shtml
Increase Your CD-ROM Speed
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People are always asking me how to make their computer faster.
There are
many different utilities out there to help you go faster,
and the best one
to help you with your CD-ROM drive, is CD-Quick Cache by Circuit
System.
CD-Quick Cache doesn't actually make your CD-ROM drive spin
any faster. It
caches (stores) the data on your CD to your hard drive so
the next time you
need to access the CD-ROM drive, it is easily accessible from
the hard
drive. You can set how big a cache you want to have, depending
on what size
your hard drive is. One of the slowest parts about a CD-ROM
drive is that it
needs to spin up before it can find your data. Once it has
found it, it
transfers it, and then spins down. You may hear a whirring
sound when this
happens. The actually data transfer is quite fast. It is spinning
up and
finding it that is slow. Since the data is on your hard drive,
you can save
this time.
You can visit the CD-Quick Cache site at:
http://www.cdquickcache.com/
Read how it works at:
http://www.pcin.net/help/articles/cdromspeed.shtml
Too Much Information
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If any of you have seen the Robert Redford movie Sneakers,
you know that the
bad guys in that movie were trying to make a device that could
decode any
password-encrypted device. They said there were "Too
Many Secrets." Well, I
think that in today's world, especially since the explosion
of the Internet,
we now have too much information. There is something like
1 billion web
sites. Everyday I receive 50 email messages. We can watch
CNN or other news
channels all day. Do you ever feel like you have had enough?
David Shenk, the author of Data Smog: Surviving the Information
Glut has
some insights into this and how to solve the problem. He spends
the first
half of the book tracing the roots of this information glut
and what the
consequences are. One of my favourite quotes is, "Data
smog gets in the way;
it crows out quiet moments, and obstructs much-needed contemplation.
It
spoils conversation, literature, and even entertainment. It
thwarts
skepticism, rendering us less sophisticated as consumers and
citizens. It
stresses us out."
In the last half of the book Mr. Shenk shares solutions that
range from
simply turning your computer off, to passing some laws (yes,
he suggests
government intervention) that will protect us from SPAM and
other
information pollutants.
You can read my online review at:
http://www.pcin.net/help/books/reviewed/datasmog.shtml
You can visit David Shenk's Smog-Free Home Page at:
http://www.technorealism.org/dshenk/homepage.html
Geek-free Commonsense Advice
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As I said above, Judy won a prize this week, but turned it
down. She didn't
know what the program was for. Obviously Judy isn't an expert
in the
computer field. She is one of the best participants I have
in this
newsletter because she isn't afraid to ask questions.
If Judy were interested in learning about FTP, and other
web site terms and
technology, then a very good resource for answers would be
Poor Richard's
Web Site: Geek-Free, Commonsense Advice On Building a Low-Cost
Web Site.
Peter Kent, the author of The Complete Idiot's Guide to the
Internet wrote
this book. He obviously knows how to write books in a down-to-earth
tone,
and it is readily evident in this book. The book walks you
through all of
the things that you may want for a web site and he very candidly
tells you
whether you need it or not. He constantly warns, "The
Internet is a giant
jobs program for computer geeks" and tells you if a certain
feature is a
waste of time. He will often give you 2 or 3 points of view
to look at it
from, and lets you make your own decisions.
The book also contains an invaluable collection of links
to sites that offer
all of the services and features that he mentions in the book.
He also
maintains a site himself where the links are updated regularly.
You can visit some of the sites yourself:
Poor Richard's Web Site
http://www.poorrichard.com/
Poor Richard's Web Site Links
http://www.poorrichard.com/links/index.html
Poor Richard's Web Site Newsletter
http://www.poorrichard.com/newsltr/index.html
Top Floor Publishing Web Site
http://www.topfloor.com/
Read the full online review at:
http://www.pcin.net/help/books/reviewed/prws.shtml
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Lastly, send in your comments, tips and news and you too can
be included in
The PC Improvement News with a reference to your name and
web site.
Send email to pcinews@pcimprovements.com
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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 and I will try to accommodate
you. Also,
feel free to send any comments about the newsletters and the
topics covered.
This newsletter is sent to those who subscribed only. We don't
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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. 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
editor is notified.