The PC Improvement News
Issue 70 - February 09, 2000
ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements (c) 1999
==== 792 Subscribers in 43 Countries ====
Subscribe/Unsubscribe/View Archives at http://www.pcin.net/
Welcome to the 70th edition of the PC Improvement News. PCIN
consists of
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
any suggestions. If you give me two or three issues, I
know that you will come back for more!
Recommend PCIN to others and be entered in a monthly draw
(February draw is
for PowerDesk Utilities 98)
http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml
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SOME OPENING THOUGHTS
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I was considering removing the I Need Help section from the
newsletter. It
is usually the same people who send in their responses. If
they don't have
anything to say, then the section is pretty bare. What a week
though. I had
a lot of responses, so thanks to everyone who sent in their
suggestions. I
do know that there are many readers who get a lot from those
sections.
Please excuse me if this issue has more than its share of
errors in it. I am
in a rush. I am going into Toronto today to attend the InternetWorld/ISPCon
show. Hopefully I'll see some interesting things next week,
and maybe pick
up a few prizes. I'm hoping for a copy of Corel Linux.
Next week I'm going to send out PCIN as an RTF file. I'm
not going to go all
out, just some basic colour and underlining. Not HTML stuff.
This small
change won't really affect the file size of the message, but
it will help me
divide the newsletter up better. I know some people want this
to stay a text
newsletter, but I don't think this change will bother them.
We'll wait
until next week and see.
The new Thought of the Week replacement is a section with
Smileys and
Acronyms. These come from a book by Making Contact, the same
company that
publishes the Cheap Tricks book.
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SMILEYS AND ACRONYMS OF THE WEEK
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I'd say easily over 50% of the email I get has some sort of
"short hand" in
it. People use "smileys", acronyms, and sometimes
just poor typing to
express themselves quickly. If you are like me, you probably
find some of
them are hard to understand. Well, a good tool would be to
have a copy of
WWW. Smileys & Acronyms by Making Contact. This 65-page
book is similar in
size to the Cheap Tricks book. It contains around 600 different
Smileys and
100 acronyms. Since I got the book, I've showed it to many
people, and
everyone enjoyed it. Some of the smileys are obvious, and
others are very
clever. The acronyms are similar to what you may find on a
license plate.
I know that there are places on the Internet where stuff like
this can be
seen, but I am a big fan of books, and I love being able to
carry them
around.
Making Contact has agreed to give a special price to PCIN
Subscribers. The
book is normally $7.95 Canadian (around $5.50 US), but they
have reduced the
price by over 10% to $7.00 (around $5.00 US). If you look
around the Making
Contact web site at http://www.making-contact.com/ you will
not find this
price anywhere. You can only get this price by visiting
http://www.pcin.net/help/books/reviewed/smileys.shtml
and clicking on the
link there.
And now, the weekly feature:
:->X==|
A Smiley Tuxedo (the X is the bow tie)
:-x
My Lips are Sealed
BRB
Be Right Back
CUL8R
See You Later
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THE NEWS
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Ford Workers Get PCs
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All 350,000 of Ford's workers will get a computer, printer,
and Internet
access for only $5 a month. Ford has a deal with Hewlett Packard
to provide
the computers. The company says that they want to promote
computer literacy,
while others say that it is a way for Ford to make deals with
advertisers.
The 350,000 is a large number, and most of the people would
fit into similar
target groups.
For more info:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/02/biztech/articles/04ford.html
eBay Being Investigated
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eBay has joined Microsoft, IBM, and other high-tech firms.
They are being
investigated by the Department of Justice. This has arisen
over a problem
eBay has had with trying to prevent smaller Web companies
from listing on
their own sites items being auctioned by eBay's customers.
This also comes
at a time when hackers are trying to flood eBay with "phantom"
traffic. EBay
has also been criticized a lot lately for its policies on
what can or can't
be sold.
For more info:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/cth281.htm
More Windows Confusion
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I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Microsoft is always
changing the name
of their future operating system. Well, later this year Microsoft
is going
to release their new Windows code-named Millennium. The official
name will
be Windows Millennium Edition, or Windows Me. Essentially,
this is just
going to be another upgrade to Windows 98 SE. I don't know,
but the "me"
reference just seems a little too cutesy for me.
For more info:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-1541952.html?tag=st.ne.ron.lthd.1003-20
0-1541952
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CONTEST RESULTS
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Last week I asked you to send in your experiences of what
is the worst
product you have ever used (hardware or software)? Thanks
to everyone who
sent in their experiences. I was sure that this would be a
chance for all of
the Microsoft-Haters to send in how much they hate Office
or Windows.
Surprisingly only 1 person made a comment like that.
You can see the contest entries at
http://www.pcin.net/contests/20000209.shtml
Congratulations to Chris Geis who won a copy of the 4 utilities
that I
reviewed by Glenn Alcott. He gets Super Text Search, FontLook,
Directory
Print, and Directory Compare.
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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
tried 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. If you
do try one of
these tips, please let me know how the suggestions worked
out. Did they work
or not? Please send in your results to freehelp@pcin.net
Previous Question 1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I got a major problem in that my PC is slowing down (progressively
gets
slower) over a period of time. This problem is at the moment
solved only by
rebooting. What can I do?
Answers to Question 1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please visit http://www.pcin.net/help/articles/speedup.shtml
for all of the
responses.
Previous Question 2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I can't read my CD-ROM drive when I restart in MS-DOS mode.
How do I fix
this?
Answers to Question 2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please visit http://www.pcin.net/help/articles/cdromdos.shtml
for all of the
responses.
New Questions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Q1) I was wondering if there is a way to make a copy of my
bios and send it
to somebody with the same board who screwed theirs up?
Q2) I've increased my memory from 64 to 128. What can I do
to maximize my
new memory? I guess I haven't seen a real major change it
speed.
Graham's note: I know this is similar to this past week's
question, but I
think this is looking for specific tips or programs to use.
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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No contest this week, but don't forget to recommend PCIN at
http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml
and be eligible at the end of February
to win a copy of PowerDesk Utilities 98.
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THE TIPS and OTHER STUFF
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Cheap Trick of the Week
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**Non-Starter**
Here's another nasty, but harmless, stunt to pull on a friend
who uses
Windows 98: Make their Start button disappear.
Hold down the Ctrl key and press Esc. Press Esc a second time.
Then hold
down Alt and press the hyphen (-). In the menu that appears,
select Close by
pressing the Down-Arrow key and hitting Enter.
Button, button, where's the Start button?
After your friend's had a good scare, you can restore the
Start button.
Press Ctrl, Alt and Del together. In the Close Program dialogue
box that
appears, select Explorer and click on the End Task button.
You'll get
another dialogue box that asks if you really want to shut
down your
computer. This time click on No. A few moments later another
dialogue box
appears. Click on End Task again and the Start button will
be back.
You can get the Little Black Book of Cheap Tricks yourself
for only $9.95
Cdn (about $7.00 US)
http://www.pcin.net/help/books/reviewed/cheaptricks.shtml
(Please mention that you heard about it from PCIN)
Bringing shareware back from the dead - Part II
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Last week's Cheap Trick brought a couple of responses. For
those who don't
remember, you can view the trick at
http://www.pcin.net/archive/2000/20000202.shtml
In short, it had to do with
making shareware last for longer than 30 days.
Bill R said:
There is more than one way to uninstall a program, and not
just by the
uninstall located with the program. Most people are scared
to go into there
system files but here you can do many things including deleting
files that
are needed for system settings. If you have problems trying
to find these
files you can do the find thing. Here is a simple how to:
1) Start, find, type in regedit and open it.
2) Look in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE just click the little plus mark.
3) Look for software and click it.
4) Look for Microsoft and click it.
5) Then windows, current version.
6) This is where all the files show up you normally don't
see.
If you know the name of the software look for its folder,
open it to make
sure it is correct. Then you can close it and delete the folder
by right
clicking it. Next thing, which is just a suggestion, is reboot.
There should
be no more error. A second suggestion if you do not have a
backup of your
system now is a good time to do it. If you have one already
you can
overwrite it and save it to reboot from if necessary. Before
I get asked I
will tell you, this little goodie scared the hell out of me
the first time I
tried it .I am still around and my system doesn't tell me
corrupt or missing
DLL anymore.
Leeor Geva said:
Those are only 2 scenarios, and fooling around with INIs and
registries are
not recommended to be done by the novice users. And, if you
are a shareware
programmer today, you know people search in those places.
What the trick is
hinting at is "cracking", so why doesn't it also
encourage getting a crack
made by a pirate group too? Which actually alters the whole
structure of the
exe itself. :-}
A Good Email Program/Tool - Part III
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2 weeks ago subscriber Bill R sent in a blurb about 1on1 Lite,
an email
program that you can use that has a feature that allows you
to destroy
messages that you've sent, but decide later you don't want
the other person
to read. Subscriber Leeor Geva had this to say:
Something an AOL user asked me was "why couldn't I see
if you read the
e-mail I sent you?"
I wondered if they actually had the option to do so within
the AOL
community. Thinking about a purge of privacy too! I checked
out an AOL 5.0
client and saw the option to delete the sent email if the
recipient did not
receive the email yet, or to see when the recipient viewed
the email. I
think this is a huge privacy problem. In outlook express you
can ask for a
receipt. Nice features, though the AOL one I think goes too
far.
Links to Manufacturers
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I know there are many places on the web where you can find
lists of
Manufacturers web sites. These lists can help you find web
sites with
drivers on them for your devices. Well, subscriber Gary Nelson
has a site
with a lot of support stuff on it and he has a page with one
of these lists.
You can check it out at http://rvi.net/~moke/MokeHlp/support.html
A Subscriber Program Recommendation
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Roger Thompson recommended the following:
http://home.c2i.net/hace/shellgem.html
Go here for a super program [free]. You right-click on any
folder, even My
Computer, and you can follow the tree to whatever you want
without opening
any folders. A TOTAL MUST HAVE!! IT CHANGES COPY PASTE also
but I haven't
used it yet.
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PCIN 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 for the results obtained from trying the tips
in this
newsletter.
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Some General Notes and Rules
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1: If any of the links are too long to fit on one line, you
may have to cut
and paste.
2: You can only win one contest every 30 days.
3: To subscribe another address or unsubscribe, please visit
http://www.pcin.net and follow the appropriate
links.
4: Recommend PCIN to others at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml
and be
entered in a monthly draw.
5: 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.
6: If you have a web site or run your own newsletter, please
email me at
editor@pcin.net and I will add it to the subscriber
web pages that I have on
my site.
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Graham Wing can be reached at editor@pcin.net
Copyright 1998-2000, 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.