Issue 76 - March 22, 2000

ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements (c) 2000
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Welcome to the 76th 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 (March draw is for StarOffice 5.1) at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml

OPENING THOUGHTS

First off, let me tell you that I am behind in my emails. If you have emailed me over the last week, I received your message, and I still have it, and I will get back to you very soon. Hopefully by the end of the week. This includes all freehelp requests and regular emails.

Not only am I behind with email, but also my web site, and even with some of my clients' sites. For the next couple of weeks, PCIN will be a little shorter. Hopefully in a month or so everything will be back to normal.

Speaking of being busy... I guess most of you are busy too.  No one answered the I Need Help questions last week. No problem, we'll try again this week.

SMILEYS and ACRONYMS of the WEEK

:-(    Frowning
:'-)   Happy Crying
WFM    Works For Me
YMMV   Your Mileage May Vary

Get the WWW. Smileys & Acronyms book for the PCIN special price of $7.00 Cdn (around $5.00 US). You can only get this price by visiting http://www.pcin.net/help/books/reviewed/smileys.shtml

The NEWS

Stephen King's eBook

I don't know why, but I didn't even hear about Stephen King's new eBook until last Thursday. For some reason I didn't hear about it before. Obviously a lot of people did, as the servers that were hosting the book were crashing.  The eBook was in Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format and used technology by SoftLock it lock it. The book was supposed to cost $2.50 US, but I heard that a lot of people were giving it away for free.
If any of you bought this, or downloaded it, I would be interested in hearing what you think. Did you print it? Did you just read it on the screen? If you paid for it, was it worth it?
 
For more info:
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/news/articles2000/000315-4.shtml
http://www.feedmag.com/daily/dy031500.html

Amazon.com's 1-Hour Delivery

Speaking of books, for those of us who don't like to read off the screen, Amazon.com has signed a deal with Kozmo.com to use their delivery service.  Kozmo operates in 6 major cities right now, and if you order a book through Amazon.com, you will have the option to have it delivered in an hour. I don't know how much this will cost, but I would imagine it will be expensive.

For more info:
http://www.upside.com/News/38d668850.html

Former Microsoft Employees Purchase PBA

Rob Glaser, Mike Slade and Chris Peters, who all worked for Microsoft together, have purchase the Professional Bowlers Association. "Peters, Microsoft's 105th employee, worked for the company for 18 years and is credited with leading the development of the Excel spreadsheet and other programs associated with the Office suite of programs. He quit the company two years ago and dedicated himself to becoming a pro bowler."

For more info:
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2472040,00.html?chkpt=zdhpnews01

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 results to mailto:freehelp@pcin.net

Previous Question 1
Every time we empty out the trash bin we get the following error message: "Can not delete M_QDMRV5: Cannot find the specified file. Make sure you specify the correct path and filename." What's this?

Answers to Question 1
None Given

Previous Question 2
How do you turn off the warning message that Windows 98 gives you every time you enter the windows directory and windows\system directory?

Answers to Question 2
None Given

New Questions
Q1) Over the years, I've had different error messages come up when I start Windows like "????.Vxd missing." There have been different vxd files missing. What are these and how do I fix this?
Q2) whenever I un-install a program it will list the shared files and asked me if I want to delete them. Is it o.k to do so? Or will it cause problems later on.

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

**Escaping the 'hood**
Do you ever use that Network Neighbourhood icon on your Desktop? If your PC is not on a network, you don't really need it. So get rid of it.
Right-click on it and...hey, there's no Delete option!
So, you'll have to use the heavy artillery - a Registry hack. (If you're new to Registry editing, check www.WE-Compute.com/registry.html for more instructions and precautions.)
In the Registry Editor, go to:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer. If the Policies or Explorer keys are missing, create them by right clicking on the previous key, selecting New and Key, and giving the new keys their proper names.
Click on the Explorer key to view its values in the right pane. If there is not a value named NoNetHood in the right pane, create it by right clicking on the Explorer key, selecting New and DWORD Value. In the right pane, NoNetHood should have a value data of 0x00000000 (0) next to it. Double-click on NoNetHood and a dialogue box will appear allowing you to edit the DWORD value. In the Value Data space should be a single zero. Change it to a 1 and click on OK. Now the data figure beside NoNetHood should be 0x00000001 (1).
Close the Registry, reboot and you've left the hood.

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)

The BioPassword

I have seen a lot of new devices that act as an authentication method between you and your computer. Instead of passwords, it checks fingerprints or other biological features. But you need to buy the devices and software, which is an extra expense, especially since a password is free to begin with. Well, Net Nanny (yes, the people who brought you an Internet filter) have a program called BioPassword that "uses mathematical algorithms to analyze the dwell time (how long each key is pressed) and flight time (the time spent moving from one key to the next) for a particular typist." This information is then used as your signature. I haven't used it, but it sounds very interesting.
http://www.netnanny.com/
http://www.biopassword.com/

Open/Save File Dialog Box

I've seen this tip a couple of times lately. It is something I've been doing for years. Since Windows 95, when you go to save or open a file in virtually any program, you have been able to move files around just like Windows Explorer. Actually, that is basically what those dialog boxes are... just a mini Windows Explorer. If you go to save a file, and you see another one there that you know shouldn't be there, you can highlight it and delete it. You can also cut and paste files. I find it a lot more convenient to move files around when I see them, rather than opening Windows Explorer and then trying to find them again.

New Page in Word

I just discovered this as I was typing this up. In Microsoft Word 2000, if you press the CTRL key and then press Enter, you'll automatically start a new page. I never knew you could do this. I often put page-breaks in documents, but always did it through the Insert menu. Now I know a shortcut.

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.

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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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