The PC Improvement News
Issue 1-29
April 28, 1999

ISSN 1488-3163
Published electronically by PC Improvements (c) 1999
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Welcome to the 29th 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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HELLO! This week I finish up the feature on what the Internet is like
around the world. I currently have reports from Netherlands, Belgium,
South Africa, Pakistan, Singapore, Argentina, Italy, and New Zealand. I'm
still waiting for response from people from India, Ireland, Norway,
Vietnam, Israel, and Sweden. Some of the reports are very interesting. If
you live in a country that isn't mentioned above, please send me a
paragraph or two on what the Internet is like in your country.


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THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
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This is a new feature that is being brought to you by Happy Publishing.
This is a company started up by a good friend of mine, Shawn Bremner. We
have been working on getting his web site up and running as well as
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          - Margaret Fuller

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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To Bid or Not to Bid.
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Web auction sites have received a lot of bad press recently. The May 1999
issue of PC World magazine had an article under their Consumer Watch
section warning about auctions. Here in Canada, a bedroom suite that was
supposedly used by our first Prime Minister (our version of the President
for those who don't know) Sir John A. Macdonald was up for auction at
Bid.com and sold for several hundred thousand dollars. A few days after
the sale it was discovered that a teenage boy had bid on it and obviously
didn't have the money for it. Also, the web site maytheforcebewithyou.com
was available on eBay.com and the winning bid went up to over $1 million.
As far as they can tell the last real bid was $300,000.

The moral of the story. Be Careful!


Windows 95 Y2K Patch cont.
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Last week I discussed the upcoming Windows 95 Y2K update. You can visit
Visit http://www.microsoft.com/technet/year2k/product/user_view68382EN.htm
for more details. This was last updated on April 28 but I don't know if
this is the final fix or not. I don't think it is. I think that is the
date the page was last updated.


Windows 98 Second Edition
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According to PC Magazine, an upgrade CD of the new Windows 98 will be
available for $19.95 to registered users of Windows 98. That is a bit of a
relief to people who thought they would have to pay another $80 to get all
of the latest fixes.

Apparently the beta version of this update is very good. The systems it
has been tested on seem to be more stable and there are some nice new
features.


The E-Check is in the E-Mail
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I love electronic banking. Whether it is through the Internet or through
software, I love it. I hate standing in line at a bank I have been with 2
different banks since in the last couple of years and neither one had good
customer service. To me electronic banking is a way to avoid banks as much
as I can.

Anyway, there are several companies that are working on getting e-checks
rolling. An e-check is an electronic check that you write on your computer
and that can be sent through your Internet connection. The person
receiving the e-check would have a device of some kind that will receive
the check on deposit the money in their account. Experts say that the use
of these e-checks is still about 2 years away.

For more info:
http://www.smalloffice.com/miser/mmnew.htm


Cyber Trial of the Century
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For information on the Microsoft vs DOJ trial, visit:
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/special/msdojtrial.html


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The Internet is a World Wide Web
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Here are some descriptions of what the Internet is like in some of the
countries that my subscribers live in. Entries were edited for length, not
for spelling or grammar. If you live in a country that isn't listed,
please email me at editor@pcin.net and fill me in.

Argentina
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Virgilio A. Mendoza reports that, "Average Cost (unlimited hours +
1 E-Mail): U$S25 + 21% Tax There are cheaper connections (6hs.per month,
costing US$12 + tax), whereas exceeding minute cost 0,05 +
tax. 1 hour phone connection 8am/8pm (office hours) : 1,47 U$S + Tax 1
hour phone connection 8pm/8am : 0,47 U$S Average price Modem 56K : U$S100
Government doesn't control any sites. Conexions via v.90 56K, although
there are still ISP with 33,6K Cable modem in aristocrats area only,
costing U$S99 + tax. Aprox.10/15% of 38.000.000 hab. has Internet
connections, mainly in Buenos Aires. There aprox.30/40 ISP here in Bs.As."

Italy
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Francesco Caizzi reports that, "In Italy, connection may
vary from VERY fast (like mine :))) ) to ones completely
BLOCKED with consequent users HIGH angryness!!! It depends form many
factors, but mainly problems starts form number of users of each single
provider vs. max. bandwidth that each provider has to give. Here in
Italian high speed backbones are very little in comparison to that you
have in USA. Main backbone-that is owned from bigger provider (TIN,Telecom
Italia Network hhtp://www.tin.it/ )-is somewhat about 34 Mb only!!!
Inadequate telephone rates for a serious use of Internet. Apart the fee to
pay to the ISP, is necessary to put in account the time urban calls (TUT).
In the better work timeframe (from 6.30 PM to the 8.00 AM of the following
morning, on the Saturday from 1.30 PM to the 8.00 AM of the following
Monday), price is 12 cents every 6 minutes and 40 seconds. In the other
scheduled times, the price climbs drastically. So is very easy to have to
paid from 120$ to 160$ each month of urban phone calls for a middle-low
use of Internet."

New Zealand
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Stephen Munns reports that, "We have 3 large ISP's as well
as many smaller ones in New Zealand. Most ISP's in New Zealand
offer the usual services such as web hosting, e-mail accounts, etc... Two
companies The Internet Group and another company called Voyager have just
started telephone services through the Internet (voice over IP) and have
been getting good reviews. In terms of costs and performance basically
you pay for what you get - The cost vary between NZD $ 1.50 to NZD $ 3.00
per hour with a couple of ISP's such as The Internet Group who offer flat
rate accounts for NZD $ 40.00 per month. All costs are GST (Govt Tax)
exclusive. I hear a lot of complaints about The Internet Group based on
their download times and help desk support - I used to belong to them but
moved elsewhere cause of this."

Malaysia
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Santa Kumar reports that, "In Malaysia currently we have 2 ISPs.
One is TMnet the other is Jaring. Internet access is charged
by the hour. At 2.5 Malaysia cents a minute. This includes the 1 cent
charge to the ISP and 1.5 cent to the telephone company. This works out to
Malaysia Ringgit RM 1.50 per hour. In USD it is a mere 40 cents an hour.
This is for the TMnet. For Jaring I guess it will be about the same. For
the access part. I am able to connect at 56K all the time perhaps I
staying in a none congested metropolis. I have friends who can only
connect at 33Ks or less all the time even with 56K modems. Internet usage
currently is around 1-2 million people. Telephone infrastructure is
improving by the day. The government's policy on the integration of IT
into society have brought about MSC.(Multimedia Super Corridor). This is
an ambitious project by the government to develop software and hardware
companies in this country and region. So there is no restrictions on
internet sites whatsoever. Access is quite good and improving.

Mexico
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Luis Cepeda reports that Internet access is similar to
some of the other countries already mentioned. It depends on
where you are. One comment that I thought was interesting was,
"In the present time, I'm working for a company that is far away from any
city and the Internet service is not offered by any provider. The only way
is to get a long distance call and connect to a provider, but this mean of
connection is expensive. The company has a private communication system,
via satellite, for connecting with all other plants that belong to this
industrial group (I'm sorry. I haven't told you any thing about the
company. It's a Mexican Industrial group, named Peñoles). This plant,
where I'm working now, is placed in the middle of the Coahuila state
dessert. Our actual Internet access is made by connecting this facility
with the headquarters located at Mexico City, where they have the service.
This connection is also made by satellite, so the service becomes slow and
mainly at peak time, you can be waiting much time for a page to download."


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THE TIPS and OTHER STUFF
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Browser Cache Tip
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Dirk, the publisher of The Weird Side E-zine at
http://users.skynet.be/sky88639/ wrote in to give a tip for viewing a web
page offline. Some pages "expire" and you can't view them
offline. Dirk's tip is, "If you wish to view a WebPages (with the
graphics) offline, you should select all (words and graphic) copy, then
paste to an email (you should be in HTML format for this) and save this to
your draft folder. You can then view this page as if you were online. A
good tip for people who have to pay for the telephone connection."

This does work, although you may have to connect to view some of the
graphics. Of course you can just cancel the dial-up process and just look
at the text.


Restarting Windows
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Tom "Radar" Parr reminded me of something that you could do
to restart Windows 9x faster. "If you want to reboot Windows
95/98 only without a full restart, just press the Shift key when selecting
the restart option in the shutdown dialog box."

I have tried this before and it didn't really make the restart process any
quicker, but it may for you.


Having a lot of crashes?
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When you are sick, you go see a doctor. Well, Windows 98 has a doctor too.
His name is Doctor Watson. He can't cure your computer, but he can tell
you what went wrong. Go to Start-Programs-Accessories-System-Tools-System
Information. Select Dr. Watson from the Tools menu. This will load a small
icon into the system tray. When something goes wrong, Dr. Watson will make
a log file of the system configuration at that moment. You can add a
shortcut to Dr. Watson from the startup menu by point it to
c:\windows\drwatson.exe and you can find the log files in the
c:\windows\drwatson folder.


A couple of Keyboard Shortcuts
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If you want to minimize all of the running applications and you don't have
the Show Desktop icon on the Quick Launch toolbar in Windows 98 or you
have Windows 95, then try this:

To minimize all running applications press the Windows key and D or press
the Windows key and M (different versions of Windows 9x use a different
key combination).

To maximize all running applications press the Windows key and D or press
the Shift key, the Windows key and M (different versions of Windows 9x use
a different key combination).


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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 editor@pcin.net
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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.
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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.

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