The PC Improvement News
Issue 1-34
June 02, 1999
ISSN 1488-3163
Published electronically by PC Improvements (c) 1999
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Welcome to the 34th 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.
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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Sorry this is late. I spent the day yesterday digging up some
stumps in
the back yard. I worked for about 4 hours, and have half dozen
blisters to
show for it. I fell asleep at 6:30 p.m. and slept for 12 hours.
It was
great. The only problem is that I have a lot to do today.
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was starting to
play with Linux.
Well, this past week I tried out my new USR external v90 modem
and after a
little bit of tweaking, I managed to get on the Internet using
Linux. It
appears to be faster than through Windows. Not a lot, but
enough to notice.
Last week I asked what is the most essential peripheral on
your computer?
Well, only 2 people answered. I'm assuming that means no one
likes their
computers.
Anyway, Jumpin' Johnathon said that his essential thing was
his 19"
monitor. "I don't think I could get by without my 'NEC
MultiSync XE21'
Monitor. I do a lot of graphic and video work on my computer,
and being
able to work on a large screen really helps me, especially
when I'm adding
touch-ups to a scanned print, or creating a spectacular customized
effect."
Charlie said he like his Jaz drive. "The most important
peripheral to me &
my computer is my 1GB JAZ drive. I can use it to take stuff,
and take home
from work."
I have a 17" monitor now and I know what Johnathon is
talking about. For
long time readers, you also know that I have a Zip drive (bought
it after
my hard drive crashed and I had no back up). It is great having
something
to put those large files on.
If you would like to share what you like most about your
computer, please
email me at editor@pcin.net
and I'll include the
comments in upcoming newsletters.
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THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
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"Goals are stars to steer by, not sticks to beat yourself
with."
-
Barbara Smith
Thought courtesy of http://www.HappyPublishing.com/
To subscribe to the FREE "Aspire to Something Higher" Thought-Of
The Day,
send a blank email to HappyQuotes-subscribe@listbot.com
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THE NEWS
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Sony Dog
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I reported a couple of weeks ago about the new robot dog that
Sony had
made. It has hundreds of joints and supposedly can move and
react very
much like a real dog. Guess what. At a price of about $2000
the dogs sold
out in 20 minutes! I guess a lot of people want a dog, but
not the mess.
For more info:
http://news.excite.com/news/r/990601/03/net-japan-robot
Voting
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Today is Election Day in Ontario. We have until 8:00 p.m.
to vote for our
local Member of Parliament. The leader of the party with the
most elected
member then becomes our Premier (Governor-type person). Since
it is
important to vote, I thought I'd send you to a site where
you can all vote.
I love baseball. The Blue Jays aren't very good this year,
but it is still
great watching the games on TV, at the SkyDome, or listening
to them on
the radio. The All-Star game is going to be in Boston this
year, and you
can vote for your favourite players from the Major League
Baseball web
site.
Visit http://allstarvote.majorleaguebaseball.com/
and vote for Shawn
Green and Carlos Delgado.
FBI Site Hacked
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First it was the White House site. Then it was a site naming
UK spies. Now
the FBI site is getting hacked into.
The FBI had served warrants for several members of the Global
Hell hacker
group and not long after that the site was hacked and unreachable.
For more info:
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2266648,00.html?chkpt=hpqs014
Remember When...
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ZD Net recently ran a story about the top 10 web sites of
1996. It was
interesting to see which sites are still popular. There were
a couple of
sites I had never heard of before.
See for your self at
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/story/story_3437.html
Cyber Trial of the Century
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America Online Inc. Chairman Steve Case Friday conceded his
company has
convinced computer makers to feature the AOL service directly
on the
desktop of most PCs sold. Microsoft lawyers have long used
that fact to
suggest Microsoft doesn't have the monopoly control over the
PC desktop
that AOL and the government claim it has.
For more info:
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2263387,00.html
For information on the Microsoft vs DOJ trial, visit:
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/special/msdojtrial.html
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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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No one had an answer for either of last weeks questions. I
will leave them
open again this week. Here they are again:
Q1) I have an old Apple II Plus for which, years ago, I wrote
some
educational software containing cartoon type graphics. I would
like to
convert these graphics for use on a PC. Originally, I used
a Koala Pad to
draw them freehand in a PIC format. This took several hours
for each one.
Hence, I don't want to have to redo them. Do you have any
suggestions as
to how I might accomplish this conversion? Please include
any specifics as
to equipment I might need.
Q2) I've had several people email me lately asking for help
with WebCams.
I do not have one, so I do not really know anything about
them. Does
anyone know of any good sites that explain how to set one
up that I could
share with this person?
New Questions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are also 2 new questions:
Q3) What is the least expensive modem that is still good quality?
Q4) I want to power my computer (only mainboard and floppy
or hard drive)
from car batteries... I wonder if it can be done with some
voltage
regulators (7805, 7812). I will use this for on-board computer
for
calculating speed, distance, time of travel of my car ,etc...
If you have any answers to these questions, please email
me at
freehelp@pcin.net
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THE TIPS and OTHER STUFF
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Scrolling in Word
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I had a fellow email me saying that he used to be able to
move the scroll
bar in Word 97 and see what was scrolling by. Now he couldn't.
He said he
knew it was a registry trick, but didn't know where to find
it. Well, I
found it.
Usually when you move the slider in Microsoft Word, you can
not see what
is scrolling by. The page kind of freezes in place and then
reappears when
you stop scrolling. There is a registry trick to change this
so you can
see things as they scroll by.
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\8.0\Word\Options
and
right-click in the right pane. Make a new string called LiveScrolling
and
give it a value of 1.
Get a Folder/Directory Listing Part II
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Last week I told you how to get a directory listing. Well,
No Nonsense
Software has a program called PrintFolder that when installed
gives you a
right-click menu option to print out a folder listing. I haven't
tried it
yet, but it looks great. Best of all it is free.
Check it out at:
http://www.no-nonsense-software.com/freeware/
Set up User Profiles
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Do you have a lot of people using the same computer? Do you
want to be
able to have it set up differently for different people? Well,
don't
forget that you can set up multiple profiles in Windows. This
will
specifically set up the Desktop differently. To do this, go
into the
Passwords applet of the Control Panel and on the User Profiles
tab, choose
User Can Customize. You can then customize the settings. In
newer versions
of Windows, there is also a User applet of the Control Panel
that can set
up the same sort of thing.
What time is it where you are?
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With the help of the Internet, it is quite possible that you
will be
communicating with people around the world. Problems can arise
when you
forget that in Taiwan it is the middle of the night when it
is only noon
here. You could wait another 8 hours before you hear from
anyone. That is
where ActiveEarth comes in. ActiveEarth is a program that
shows you what
time it is in 12 major cities around the world. It gives you
essential
data on date and time as well as giving you a great screen
shot of the
globe that is lit up where it is daytime and darkened where
it is
nighttime. At the very least it is a neat program. But it
could also be a
great help to those who do international business. You can
download a
trial copy and if you like it, you can pay the $29.95 registration
charge.
For more info:
http://www.activeearth.com/
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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.