The PC Improvement News
Issue 54
October 20, 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 54th 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.
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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With the move and everything that goes along with it, I've
been pretty busy.
I haven't had a lot of time to pay attention to many other
things, so please
forgive me if this isn't the greatest issue. I also
haven't had time to
summarize all of the survey results, so nothing has changed
this week. I
will have all of that done for next week and announce any
changes (if any)
then.
One simple note. when you send me email, please at least give
me your first
name. I hate it when people just send me a note with
no name, or just their
ISP user name. I am a real person. My name is Graham. What
is your name?
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THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
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Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who
dared believe
that something inside them was superior to circumstance.
- Bruce
Barton
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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Do you own a horseless carriage?
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In Maine, many owners of new model 2000 cars received titles
to their
vehicles stating that they were "horseless carriages".
The state has spent
a lot of money trying to prepare for Y2K, but with a 00 year
ending, the
computers thought the cars were vintage cars (pre-1916) and
so put the wrong
information on the registration.
For more info:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/ctg412.htm
Intel-Inside
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A porn site operator has registered the domain name Intel-Inside.com
and was
using it to redirect people to his other sites. Intel's lawyers
got
involved, and if you go to the site now, you will see that
it is for sale.
The owner was originally selling it himself and claimed to
have an offer of
$450,000 for it. He is now selling the domain through eBay,
and as of 8:40
on Wednesday morning it only had a bid of $ 2,605.00. What
a guy! Not only
is he wrong for using the Intel phrase to redirect people
to his porn site,
he also then lies and claims that he's going to get half a
million dollars
for the domain.
For more info:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/991013-000018.html
http://www.intel-inside.com/
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=182577329
E-Paper Almost Here
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I spoke several months ago about paper-thin electronic paper
that was being
developed. It would be used for advertising posters (change
the image,
change colours, etc.) and it is almost ready. E-Inc,
the company developing
it, has set up a partnership with Lucent to help them develop
it.
For more info:
http://www.wired.com/news/print/1,1294,31877,00.html
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What are Cookies? Results
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Last week I asked you what you thought cookies were good for.
Almost all of
you said you didn't like them. Some people tried to erase
them; others tried
to reject them all together. Most of you felt it was just
something you were
going to have to live with.
As I said last week, there is no way I could explain what
cookies are and
how they work. There is a lot that can be said about
them, and it has
already been said elsewhere. For information on cookies, visit:
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/cgi-bin/print_story.cgi?story=story_3957
http://www.cookiecentral.com/
http://www.ciac.org/ciac/bulletins/i-034.shtml
I made a random drawing of the entrants, and Don S. won a
copy of ZipMagic
2000 by Mijenix. ZipMagic is a full-featured zip archive extraction
program,
similar to WinZip. I have been using for a week or so now
and have been very
impressed. I have done some reviews for their products and
they generously
sent me several copies of each product I reviewed. A special
thanks goes out
to them.
To see what everyone thought of browser cookies, visit
http://www.pcimprovements.com/pcin/contests
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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 Questions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Q1) After leaving Windows98 for some time and returning to
the computer my
desktop icons frequently, but not always, become illegible
due to having
taken on a "bar code" appearance. Why?
A1) John Hills said, "Either you need to update your
graphics card driver or
and more likely, you have a duff screen saver trying but not
succeeding to
load."
A1) Graham Wing said, "There may be something wrong with
the Cache file that
stores your icon information. Try to delete the ShellIconCache
file (note:
it is called that, no extension). The file will be rebuilt
and this may
correct the problem.
Q2) The first time I restart Windows98. I often get the message
"Explorer
has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down."
None of my task
bar programs are there for me and I need to restart Windows.
Usually all is
fine on second attempt. Norton System Works tells me all is
fine with my
system!
A2) John Hills said, "And that is probably your problem
- Norton."
Q3) A short while ago my Dialup Networking functionality became
unstable, I
couldn't access my email with Eudora, and I had to remove
and reinstall
Dialup Networking. Ever since there have been bits and pieces
not working as
they did before and I suspect that Windows Logon may be the
problem, or part
of it. I didn't have a Windows Logon before the reinstallation
of dialup
networking. Now there is an option to Log Off in the Start
menu, just above
the Shutdown and Suspend options. I've poked around in the
Windows
install/remove and in the Control Panel Network function but
can't find how
to eliminate the Windows Logon.
A3) B. Allen said, "Try looking in the Control Panel
under Network. Double
click the Network icon and see what "Network Components"
or protocols you
have installed. I run a 56K connection to an independent ISP
and use Win98
SE as the OS. The only components I have installed are "Dial-Up
Adapter" and
"TCP/IP". If you have "Client for Microsoft
Networks" installed you may need
the logon dialog to connect to an external LAN. If your connection
is simply
for home Internet connectivity and you are using a Dial-Up
connection, you
shouldn't need anything other than the two components mentioned
earlier
(unless you have AOL, in which case you need the AOL adapter
as well)."
A3) B.R. said, "This is a well know problem in your settings
for dialup you
need to uncheck the log on blocks. These will show up when
you click make
new connection and the follow the screens until you get to
the logon section
and make sure they are not checked. Another way to see if
you have any
little tweaks is to run SFC if it finds a problem it will
tell you the name
of the file needed. It is easier to find going through find
and type SFC on
my computer or you can find it in the program group. A good
email checker is
Pegasus mail, I found it about 4 years ago and have used it
since with no
problems. Most of the files you can find in a site called
ZDNet software
library http://www.zdnet.com/swlib/
this is the main page and you can find
the search engine there where you can find the file by typing
in what you
need and it will take you right to the page.
New Questions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Q1) Have put in Win.98 on a p166, 2GB harddrive, Netscape4.5.
I'm put off,
can't get 98 updates for y2k unless I download Internet Explorer
and I like
my Netscape Browser. Is there another way to get the couple
of files I would
need?
Q2) K, J & M on keyboard has to be pressed several times
to get them to
work. The A will type twice when pressed once. Advanced Power
Management
says I definitely have a problem but I can't figure out how
to identify the
driver in Register. How do I identify it and how should it
be set?
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
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Sorry :-)
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THE TIPS and OTHER STUFF
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Cheap Trick of the Week
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**Pre-mail**
If you're always sending email to the same people, you can
create shortcuts
on your desktop to launch your email program with pre-addressed
messages to
those correspondents.
Right-click on a clear area of the Desktop; select New and
Shortcut from the
context menus. In the Command Line of the Create shortcut
dialogue box, type
mailto: and the email address without spaces, as in
mailto:editors@we-compute.com.
Click on Next, give your shortcut a name,
like Angry letter, and click on Finish.
You can also set up the shortcut to send the same message
to several people.
After you've addressed the shortcut, add ?cc= and your other
recipients,
separated by a semicolon, all without any spaces. For example,
in the
Command Line you could enter mailto:editors@we-compute.com?
cc=publisher@we-compute;circulationmanager@we-compute.com
and so on.
Or use the blind carbon copy feature by using bcc instead
of cc.
Or if you want to include the same subject line in each message,
use subject
as in mailto:editors@we-compute.com?subject=Your
magazine stinks. (You can
use spaces in the subject.)
Or, finally, you can combine any of the above with the use
of an ampersand
(&). Example: mailto:editors
@we-compute.com?subject=Your magazine
stinks&cc=pubisher@we-compute;circulationmanager@we-compute.com.
The only
spaces are in the subject phrase.
Buy the Little Black Book of Cheap Tricks for only $9.95 Cdn
http://www.pcimprovements.com/help/books/cheaptricks.shtml
The Visible Human Project
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Several months ago on Guinness Book of World Records TV show
on Fox, I saw a
segment about a university that was cutting a frozen human
into micro-thin
pieces and taking pictures of each piece. They were then using
computers to
model the body. Well, there is a web site that goes along
with this project,
and it is really neat. If the human body fascinates you, then
you should
definitely check it out.
Visit http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/visible/visible_human.html
See More with Lycos
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I know there are lots of little utilities out there that help
with your
"surfing", but one of the better ones is Lycos SeeMore.
It is a little
program that runs with your browser. You can right-click on
a word in your
browser window and a pop-up window appears. From that window
you can then
search for information regarding that word. Very neat.
For more info:
http://www.lycos.com/seemore/Install.html
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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
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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.