ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements (c) 2000
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Welcome to the 101st 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 September prize will be a copy of Caldera OpenLinux, and Corel Linux OS (original CDs from each company, not copies). Recommend PCIN at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml
It's amazing how fast the time goes by. Life is good though so at least when the time flies by and its all good.
Congratulations to Mark Shimmin who won the random draw. He sent in his comments about digital cameras and won a copy of the book HTML Goodies.
With Windows ME arriving, I'd be glad to include any comments that you have on it. Why you will get it, why you won't get it, etc. You can email me at mailto:editor@pcin.net
Don't forget to recommend PCIN in September and win a copy of Caldera OpenLinux, and Corel Linux OS (original CDs from each company, not copies). You can recommend PCIN at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml
Amazon.com Pricing Problems
"Amazon.com acknowledged that it's been presenting different prices to different customers in its DVD store, but denied that it does so on the basis of any past purchasing behavior at Amazon.
"We want to measure what impact price has on a customer's purchasing patterns. It's a limited test," Amazon spokeswoman Patty Smith said. "Different customers will see different prices."
She said those prices are doled out at random."
Amazon.com has since said they will reimburse people who paid more.For more info:
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,38758,00.html
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/SeattleTimes.woa/wa/gotoArticle?document_id=
134231773&zsection_id=268448455&text_only=0
Linux Popularity
Since the September prize for recommending PCIN is a couple of versions of Linux, I thought including this was appropriate. The August 28, 2000 issue of Sm@rt Partner Magazine surveyed its readers as to which version of Linux was their favourite:
41% Caldera 18% Red Hat 14% SuSE 6% Corel 5% Debian 1% TurboLinux 15% Something Else
Windows ME is Here
I'm sending this out later at night on the 13th so by the time most of you get this, it will be the 14th and Windows ME will be here. There are plenty of reviews out there that you can study:
http://www.zdnet.com/special/filters/reports/0,11414,6016192,00.html
http://www.cnet.com/software/0-2111110-7-2154338.html?tag=st.sw.3709.txt.2111110-7-2154338
http://www.winplanet.com/winplanet/previews/2023/1/
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsme/
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I didn't understand how you could do a full upgrade if you don't have Windows installed. I was thinking of upgrade purely in the sense that it is installed and you are upgrading it. Carlos Roman and Vernon Wolf both emailed me to remind me that as part of the installation process you are prompted for the original CD from Windows 95, 98, or whatever it may be. Thanks Carlos and Vernon for setting me straight!
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 100-01)
I have a "Rockwell soft 56k Data Fax Speakerphone PCI" modem. Basically I am suffering auto disconnect all the time. My server advises no problems on their end, but for a month now I can't even get the home page from my server loaded before I'm cut off. The dial up sequence seems ok if a little slow and after some attempts I get the message "Could not detect modem. It may be turned off in use or not installed properly".
(PII-233, 32MB RAM, Win98, IE 4 or 5)A 100-01)
Skeeter Lewis said, "My PC had one of those in it when I bought it. It did the same and when I took it in, the tech checked it out... it was fried."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Hills said, "The problem is caused by a corrupt DUN. They need to go to add and remove, communications, Dial up Networking. Then reboot and back again to reinstall DUN. Try this first and then actually delete the Dial up Network icon pertaining to the ISP in question and create a new one with a DIFFERENT name using the same settings."
Will Chatham said, "It sounds like you are making a connection and the modem is working if your home page is at least loading half way. If that is the case, then it may be the same problem I had a couple of years ago. I learned that I was at the end of the phone line. This meant my signal was weak, and only on a light traffic day could I stay connected for longer than 15 seconds. A lot of noise was on the line, which would cause the modem to disconnect. I was very susceptible to power surges in the phone line as well, and fried a modem this way. I had to move into the city in order to solve the problem. You may need to have the phone company come test your line. Good luck."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Roger Michaud said, "Go to: Start>Setting>Control Panel>Internet>Connection modem dial up >Setting there should be this line:
X Disconnect a call if idle for more than ___ minutes
Enter the highest # you can, either 59 or 255 that should stop your modem from disconnecting."Q 100-02)
I recently tried to compress my hard drive, and it stopped about half way with a msg. "not enough memory to complete". Now it won't boot up at all. I tried using my backup off my zip drive, but it says "not enough memory to complete". So, I thought I should format my hard drive in order to free some space to load my backup. Unfortunately, DOS doesn't respond to all commands. When format c is typed in it says, "Access denied". Do you have any suggestions?
A 100-02)
John Hills said, "This looks like a Master Boot record issue probably caused because DriveSpace or DoubleSpace has been activated when trying to compress the drive. Best thing to do here from the point he is at is to repartition the hard drive and then format it. If he\she doesn't want to partition the hard drive then they need to use FORMAT /MBR followed by the normal FORMAT C: /s."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Roger Michaud said, "You should have a boot disk, check if you have these files on disk: Command.com, fdisk.exe, format.com
Boot for the boot disk, at A:> enter this command: format C: /u /s
If you try this and it doesn't work, enter your Setup (BIOS) and go to HDD Detection. There is a low format in that section, it take a good 4 hours for a 2.5GB HDD. Don't rush anything."
New Questions
Q 101-01)
I am looking for free voice to text converter programs that 'listens' as you speak into microphone and converts it into typed text. Are there any out there?
Q 101-02)
I use only Netscape - how do I forward a web page forwarding only the URL location underlined so that the recipient can download upon receipt of email. Up until now, I being right clicking on the article and clicking on Send Page - which in the case of a long article can mean time at my end and recipients.
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
**New gateway to your files**
If you have Internet Explorer 4 or better installed on your Windows 95/98 system, you can have a quick gateway to your folders and their files. Here's how to set it up.
On your desktop, left-click on the My Computer icon and drag it all the way to the left of the screen. Release the mouse button and the contents in that folder will cascade, as a menu, down the left side of your desktop. Now left-click on the C: drive icon in that menu, and drag it up to the middle of your screen, all the way up to the screen edge. Release the mouse button.
Now you have a cascading menu across the top of your desktop, listing all the folders and files in your C: drive.
But you likely have too much content for that little menu, in which case you'll see two tiny right-pointing arrows at the far right of that menu bar. Click on those to get the cascade to continue down the right side of your desktop. And if you hover your mouse over any of those folders cascading down the right, another menu will explode out, showing you the folder's contents.
While this trick does cut down on your desktop space, you can now efficiently get to any of your files, right from your desktop.
And if you don't like this arrangement, just right-click on an empty spot of each menu and choose Close.
Open New IE Window
The whole point of Windows is to have Windows. Huh? There are a lot of people who only like to have one window open at a time, but they are missing out. It's great to be able view several windows at once. When using Internet Explorer, to open a link in a new window, you can right-click on the link and choose the "Open Link in New Window" option. A quicker way is to hold the shift key down while you left-click on the link. This will automatically open a new window. This works in all versions of Internet Explorer. I don't know if this works in Netscape, or what an equivalent keystroke combination to do this would be.
Use the CTRL key in documents
It's amazing what you can learn by accident. When you hold the CTRL key down and press the arrow keys, you can move around quicker than by using the arrow keys on their own. When you press the CTRL key and the right or left arrow key, you will move the cursor to the next/previous word. If you hold the CTRL key down and press the up or down key, you can move to the next/previous paragraph (or the location where the closest hard return is). Try both of these and you'll see what I mean. Both of these tips work to different degrees in different programs.
Non-English Commercials
Since Hollywood is on the same Continent I'm on, I usually think of people like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sean Connery as being North American stars, but of course this isn't true. They are famous everywhere. They are in commercials all over the world. If you visit http://www.zeroonedesign.com/gogo/main.html you can see commercials from Meg Ryan, Sean Connery, and Leonardo DiCaprio (to name a few) that are from Japan.
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
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