ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements (c) 2000
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Welcome to the 97th 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 August prize will be Microsoft Word 2000. Recommend PCIN at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml
You may remember that I mentioned a month or so ago that I was working on a new logo. Well, I'm almost done, so the redesign of the site and the HTML version of PCIN will start in another few weeks. I'll keep you posted.
Correction: Last week I stated that Excite was going to run their site on Windows 2000 Datacenter Server. I looked all over the place for a link to include, but I couldn't. Well, that is because it is Lycos that will be doing this, not Excite. You can read more about this at http://www.microsoft.com/solutions/ecommerce/lycosCS.htm
Don't forget to recommend PCIN before the end of August (recommend as many times as you'd like) and win Microsoft Word 2000. Recommend PCIN at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml
Cowpland Resigns From Corel
"Michael Cowpland resigned Tuesday as president, chief executive officer, and chairman of the board of embattled Corel to spend his time on "new start-up opportunities," according to a statement from Corel. The news had been expected, according to analysts, who pointed to the company's ongoing financial struggles as evidence that a change is needed at Corel's helm."
For more info:
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/00/08/15/000815hncowpland.xml?0816weic
The Community Feeling of the Web
From the August 11, 2000 issue of ComputerWorld Canada:
Have commercial interested destroyed the Web's community feel?
76% The Web used to be a fun and freewheeling place. Now business controls it, and it's just another advertising medium.
13% As with any human invention, the web is evolving. Change is good, and the Web is fine.
6% Business is slowly ruining the community feel and the spirit of the Web.
5% The Web is more serious than it used to be, but it's also more useful.
Netscape Admits to Collecting User Data
A few weeks ago there were reports that Netscape's SmartDownload software was monitoring what users were downloading, even from non-Netscape sites. Well, Netscape/AOL has finally admitted it. They say that they never actually kept the data (it was sent to them and was never used?) but that in a soon-to-be released version the collection will stop.
For more info:
http://www.forbes.com/tool/html/00/Aug/0810/mu7.htm
The 10 VISA Commandments
"In an attempt to reduce online credit-card fraud, Visa U.S.A., in San Francisco, announced 10 "commandments" for online merchants to guard its cardholders' information. And next week, Visa will follow up by releasing the details of a broad online security program. John Shaughnessy, senior vice president for risk management at Visa, said merchants would be required to obey these rules or face fines, sales restrictions, or loss of membership."
For more info:
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/00/08/11/000811hncommand.xml?0814mnne
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 96-01)
My PC stops defragging at 65%. Any suggestions?
(PII-400, Win98)A 96-01)
Rob said, "Run scandisk to fix any errors, then shut down any programs running in the background. Those little icons in the system tray, screen saver (maybe), Ctrl-Alt-Del ONCE and shut down stuff in there except for explorer and Systray. This will keep any programs from trying to write data while the defrag is in progress. It might help anyhow :-)"
John Hills said, "I think this problem is one of three things.
1. Your hard drive is nearly full up and there is not enough room for defrag to copy data to another portion of the hard disk or not enough space for windows swap file to add extra memory as required. Try deleting some old or replaceable stuff to create more space.
2. There is a problem with a corrupt file or corrupt File Allocation Table. Try running scandisk from the DOS prompt, which is more efficient than scandisk from within windows. At the C:\> prompt (type) SCANDISK /SURFACE
3. Unlikely but you could have a duff address in your memory modules."Liam Donaldson said, "Try checking that all background programs are stopped or disabled. Programs like Screen Savers, Virus Checkers etc. These can interfere with Scandisk and Defrag."
Joe Crowe said, "I had the same problem a while back. My son had ripped a Sony Playstation cd and stored the file on my hard drive. He used my hard drive because I had the room and he didn't on his hard drive. When I ran defrag it stalled when it came upon the ripped Sony game file. When this file was removed defrag ran normally. This also happened with a file with the Winrar extension I had stored on my hard drive. Having said this my suggestion would be to look for such a file on your hard drive. The file could be the reason defrag stops. If the file can be removed and or saved to a backup device then do so and run defrag again and see what happens. There could be other reasons why defrag stops but this is what happened to me and is only a suggestion. Note: always run scandisk before running defrag! Running defrag without running scandisk first can cause your files to become corrupted!"
Q 96-02)
When I switch the computer on it states that it hasn't been shut down properly and performs scandisk. This message is intermittent and has just occurred. The computer has been shut down properly but the message still appears.
(AMD500, 128MB RAM, Win98)A 96-02)
John Hills, "Scandisk will run because of a bad shutdown as a matter of course. It will also run if it senses the hard drive is not a full ticket. I presume the latter is the cause. Therefore, as in the previous question, execute answer 2. Incidentally, this is a very good reason why it is foolhardy to disengage scandisk after a bad shutdown, because you never know what damage to files may have been caused. There is a possibility that you need to boot into dos and rewrite the master boot record. C:\>Format /MBR This will not reformat your hard drive or cause any data loss, PROVIDED /MBR is at the end. Virus checkers can often cause a MBR problem."
Varden Morris said, "Obviously your computer is not shutting down properly. To fix this problem start up your computer in "safe mode" then shut it down. To start your computer in safe mode press the F8 key when it starts to boot up. A menu listing will then appear. Select the safe mode option."
New Questions
Q 97-01)
I am using IE5 Offline Web Pages. When creating off-line folders it asks you how deep you would like to go. The exact wording is:
Download pages '3' links down from this page.
Is there anyway to increase this value to greater than 3?Q 97-02)
All the icons in my personal folder will change. For no reason at all that I know of. All GIFs to something new and all JPGs as well. Sometimes they will change to an icon that's on the desktop & other times something else.
If you have an answer to these questions or have a question of your own, please email me at mailto:freehelp@pcin.net
Cheap Trick of the Week
**Colourful browsing**
The Internet can be colourful all right, but your Internet Explorer browser provides a pretty dull frame for it all, doesn't it?
But you can easily brighten it up with the pattern or picture of your choosing.
It just takes a little Registry tweaking. (If you're not familiar with Windows' Registry, see http://www.WE-Compute.com/registry.html for instructions and important precautions.)
In the Registry, make your way to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar. Right-click on Toolbar and create a New String Value named BackBitmapIE5 (if you're running a version of IE earlier than 5.0, the value should be just BackBitmap).
Double-click on the new string value to bring up its Edit String dialogue box. In the Value Data field enter the pathname to the bitmap (that is, to a file with a .BMP extension) you want to use, such as C:\Windows\Bubbles.bmp. You'll find lots of such files in the Windows folder where the desktop wallpapers are kept.
Click on OK to close the dialogue box and launch Internet Explorer.
Bye-bye to grey-flannel browsing.
You may have to experiment with various graphics before you get one that's attractive but also the right colours to read icons and menu titles against.
Windows Scripting Tip
Subscriber John Hills sent in this tip:
I thought this might be a useful tip although you may have to tart it up to make it understood by everybody.
With the ever-increasing frequency of script viruses arriving with your email and the inability of virus checkers to pick them up unless you have the very latest updates the following may prove useful.
In your security settings for IE 4 or 5 and accessible through Outlook Express the first 5 options are available to enable, disable or prompt for running Active X controls.
If you disable all Active X scripting none of these script viruses can run. Also, if you have any emails with Active X attached to them, a warning message will come up and prevent the Active X from running.
The downside to this disablement is that spam emails coming to you cannot whisk you off to their website before you know what is happening and some, very few, websites fancy stuff may not work as it should.
Windows NT/2000 Tip Site
If you are looking for a site with lots of Windows NT/2000 tips, then http://www.jsiinc.com/reghack.htm is what you're looking for. As of the last time I looked, there were 2800 tips. You can view them individually, or you can search them.
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.
Graham Wing can be reached at mailto:editor@pcin.net
Copyright 1998-2000, PC Improvements and Graham Wing. All
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