Issue 93 - July 19, 2000

ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements (c) 2000
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Welcome to the 93rd issue 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 topic. Email me at mailto: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. The July prize will be PrintMaster and Adobe ActiveShare. Recommend PCIN at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml

OPENING THOUGHTS

I have made a new logo for PC Improvements/PCIN which you can see at http://www.pcimprovements.com/images/keypad-pci.gif If you have any suggestions regarding colour or layout, email me at mailto:editor@pcin.net Once I have the logo finished and the colours settled on, I will start redesigning the PCIN site. Part of that will be the HTML version of PCIN. If you'd like to see what the HTML version will be like and be part of the testing, send an email to mailto:pcin-html-request@pcin.net with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.

I have a Kodak DC-220 digital camera that I would like to sell. It is a 1-megapixel camera that comes with the original software, manuals, USB and serial connectors, 8MB memory card, and rechargeable batteries and charger. I would like $200 US or $300 Cdn for it. It is an excellent camera, much better than similar HP or other brands. If you want more details on the camera or have any questions then email me at mailto:editor@pcin.net

Last Wednesday I went to Comdex Canada. I wasn't impressed! The first section of PCIN today is a brief summary of the event, and then the newsletter continues on as normal.

Comdex Report

Still Nothing New

Chris Empey and I went to Comdex together last Wednesday, and we both came to the same conclusion. There are little or no new technologies out right now.
You could divide the show into 4 groups: 1) Companies that were selling e-commerce "solutions" (they were all the same) 2) Companies offering to protect your network from internal or external attacks 3) Small companies who just wanted the exposure of being there 4) Big companies that had to be there or people would have wondered why they weren't there.

Show vs. Substance

The most entertaining show was probably the TurboLinux presentation. A man stood on a platform and spoke like a magician/hypnotist. We watched him for 5 minutes or so and he didn't once talk about what his product could do. He mentioned that no one else could do what they could do, but never said what it was. This really stuck out. Novell and Corel were similar. They both had flashy presentations that looked good, but really seemed to be lacking substance. I certainly don't think it is any co-incidence that these companies are all having problems. Microsoft and Adobe on the other hand had large booths, but the lack of hype was very noticeable.

The NEWS

New Domains Are Coming (Eventually)

"At the end of the a four-day meeting here, the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) voted unanimously Sunday to create new top-level domains for the Internet. Under the resolution, ICANN will appoint an unspecified number of registry operators by the end of 2000 to operate new top-level domains as alternatives to the current .com, .net and .org domains."

For more info:
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/00/07/17/000717hnicann.xml?0717mnpm
http://www.thestandard.net/article/display/0,1151,16880,00.html

CNET buys Ziff-Davis

"Online technology news service CNET will swallow up tech publishing company Ziff-Davis in a $1.6 billion deal unveiled Wednesday." For those of you unfamiliar with Ziff-Davis, they are the ZDNet people. They run the zdnet.com web site, as well as publish PC Magazine.

For more info:
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/00/07/19/000719hncnetziff.xml?0719wepm

Suing Over Domain Names

Recently the International, US, and Salt Lake City Olympic Committees filed a law suit that disputes 1804 domain names. 700 owners in 53 countries have registered names like Olympicporn.com, 2008Olympic.com, etc. The lawsuit does not seek damages. They just want the names given to them, or to be erased from the domain name registry.

For more info:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40476-2000Jul13.html

A Computer-Free Day

From the July 10, 2000 issue of eWeek Magazine (page 3):
"A town in Japan was set late last week to begin a weekly ritual in which officials and clerks must turn off their computers and write out all correspondence and documents by hand.
Mayor Mitsuyasu Ota, who instituted the once-a-week ban on computer use in the town of Hirata, told the Mainichi Daily News that he was not a Luddite but an avid computer user who had learned through his own experience that people can become too dependent on information technology.
Some in Hirata worry that workers will simply put off written work until they can log back on to one of the town's 244 computers."

I NEED HELP

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 most of them, but there are things that I have never tried or experienced so I don't have an answer. I 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 questions or results to mailto:freehelp@pcin.net

Previous Questions

Q 92-01)

I would like to right click a selected paragraph in a web page or email message and print just that selection. Is there a way built-in to Windows or a utility that will help me do this?

A 92-01)

John Hills says, "That does happen in a web page but not in outlook express. Try selecting your text in an email, copy, then right click on desktop and select new, text doc, and then click on it to open and then paste, then print. Sounds long winded but takes a couple of seconds."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Frellie says, "In Windows, if you simply want to print a sentence, paragraph or whatever, simply select what you want to print, click file/print, and when the print screen come up, click the "selection" button. You will only print that part which you have selected/highlighted."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Carlos Roman says, "Well, I just made a test and tried to do it myself. It can be done, at least for web pages. In your browser just select the text you want to print. From the FILE menu select the PRINT option. In the Print Range area of the Print Windows make sure you select the SELECTION option. Click on PRINT and your printer will print just the text selected. I performed this test with an Epson 600 connected to my computer. It is possible that you may see a different Print Window, but I don't think there is a problem to accomplish the same results. Doing this with my email client (Outlook98) was not possible. It sends the whole message to the printer queue."

Q 92-02)

How can you disable the automatic shut down (I want to see the message: It's now safe to shut down) and then press the power off button? I don't want the system to power down by itself.

A 92-01)

John Hills says, "Go to System tools, system info in start menu. Select TOOLS then system config utility and then select General and then Advanced. Then untick disable fast shutdown and wait for a few years."

New Questions

Q 93-01)

When my computer goes to sleep (the screen saver comes on) it won't wake up. I can't even ctrl, alt and delete to bring it out. I have to manually turn it off. What can I do to fix this?

Q 93-02)

When I try to shut down by going to start, shut down, then selecting shutdown. The computer will shut down and re-boot, all over again. It won't stay off.

If you have an answer to these questions or have a question of your own, please email me at mailto:freehelp@pcin.net

THE TIPS and OTHER STUFF

Cheap Trick of the Week

**No Go logo**
It's a small matter but it can be annoying - that animated logo some company stuck in the upper-right corner of your browser, in place of the Netscape or Internet Explorer logo.
But it's easy to get rid of this unwanted promotion.
Find the Internet Explorer or Netscape folder on your system. Look in it for files ending in .BMP and with names that seem related to the company whose logo is intruding. And delete them.
It's that simple. Open your browser and only Netscape or IE will be advertising for free in the corner of your browser.

More Security Concerns

Chris Empey and Tony Lowell both brought this to my attention...
Steve Gibson of GRC.com (the Shields Up! web site) has discovered that Netscape SmartDownload, RealDownload, and NetZip Download Demon all track your downloads. You are assigned a unique ID and a packet of data is sent back to the company. They know your computer name, your IP address, your operating system and more. The data is stored in a cookie as well as in a section of the Windows Registry. The information is very interesting, and whether or not you use any of these programs, you should definitely check out the article at http://grc.com/downloaders.htm

Force Windows to redetect all hardware

Go into the system applet of the Control Panel and click on the Hardware Profiles tab. Click copy to make a copy of the Original Configuration. Call it Original Configuration 2. Then rename your Original Configuration to Original COnfiguration1. Then restart your computer. When you restart you will be prompted for which configuration to use. If you choose none of the above, all of the hardware will be redetected as if the operating system was being run for the first time. This can be very helpful if you don't think all of the devices are being detected properly, or if you would like the drivers to be reinstalled.

Close the Active Window

When you are in Windows and would like to close the window that you are currently working in, you can press Alt-F4. This will close the active window.

DISCLAIMER and OTHER STUFF

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.

  1. If any of the links are too long to fit on one line, you may have to cut and paste.
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  3. To subscribe another address or unsubscribe, please visit http://www.pcin.net/ and follow the appropriate links.
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Graham Wing can be reached at mailto:editor@pcin.net
Copyright 1998-2000, PC Improvements and Graham Wing. All rights reserved. This publication may be reproduced in hole, or in part, as long as the author is notified and the newsletter is presented as is.

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