The PC Improvement News

Issue 65 - January 5, 2000

ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements (c) 1999

==== 680 Subscribers in 40 Countries ====

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.

To subscribe, unsubscribe, or view previous issues please visit http://www.pcin.net/

Note 1: If any of the links are too long to fit on one line, you may have to cut and paste.
Note 2: You can only win one contest every 30 days.

Welcome to the 65th edition of the PC Improvement News. In this newsletter, I combine 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 your suggestions.

If you give me two or three issues, I know that you will come back for more!

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SOME OPENING THOUGHTS
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Well, the holidays are over and Y2K has finally come and gone. I must say that I was a little miffed at the television people for not reporting more of the problems. It has come across like Y2K was nothing and that the companies around the world spent too much preparing for it. But that is exactly the reason why very little happened. We were prepared. That doesn't mean there weren't problems (US spy satellite not functioning for 7 hours, timed doors at a nuclear power plant not working, web sites all over the place with bad dates which caused some functions not to work, etc). Overall though, it was a very calm transition, and hopefully we can all move along and talk about more important things.

This week's newsletter is back to the regular length and contains all of the regular segments.

On the main page of my site at http://www.pcin.net/ there is a rating form from InfoJump, a newsletter directory. I have my newsletter listed under the computer category at http://www.infojump.com/cat/Computers/ and as of 10:00 a.m. I am ranked number 2, just behind LockerGnome. I don't plan on catching LockerGnome, but I do have several other publications hot on my heels. Visit my main page at http://www.pcin.net/ and rate PCIN. It's okay, be honest. If you don't like it, unsubscribe. If you like it, rank it well.

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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THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
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A goal not written is only a wish.
          - Unknown

Thought courtesy of http://www.HappyPublishing.com/
To subscribe to the FREE "Aspire to Something Higher" Thought-Of-The-Day list, send a blank email to aspire-request@happypublishing.com with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line.

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THE NEWS
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Authorities Raid Apple's Japan Office
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As reported in Computer Reseller News Canada, December 27, 1999 issue:
"Japanese authorities searched the headquarters of Apple Computer's subsidiary in the country. Media reports said the computer firm was suspected of violating antitrust laws. Reports said the Fair Trade Commission watch-dog group suspects Apple violated antitrust laws by pressuring some retailers not to sell its iMac desktop and iBook notebook computers below retail list prices by threatening to suspend shipments. The computers, which feature see-through covers, are reported to be very popular among consumers in the country"

Digital Certificates Expire
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Although not specifically a Y2K problem, the digital certificates in older browsers expired on Dec 31, 1999. These certificates are what allow a web site to "prove" that they are trust worthy. It isn't that the certificates or the browsers can't handle the 00 of 2000, it is just that when they were programmed, they were given an expiry date of Dec 31. If you have a Netscape browser older than 4.06 or IE for Mac 4.01, then you may have trouble doing secure transactions (purchasing things, online banking, etc.) IE for PCs seems to be fine.
In a way, I think this is a good thing. There are a lot of people using older browsers. The browsers themselves are good products, but with so many of them, it makes it difficult to build web pages. Hopefully this will make anything before the 4.x browsers obsolete.

For more info:
http://home.netscape.com/cms/certinfo.html?cp=hom12p3
http://www.can.ibm.com/news/latest_news/12_29_99_certificate.htm
http://news.excite.com/news/r/000103/07/net-yk-sweden

Clipboard Computers
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In the December 15 issue of PCIN I talked about some new devices that were arriving that looked like clipboards but were computers. I found a company that makes them and the devices are amazing.
Aqcess Technologies makes them and sells them for $3495 US. They contain 400+ MHz chips, 64+ MB of RAM, touch screens, 4.0+ GB hard drives, and modular bays so cameras or bar code scanners can be added. The site has a picture of one and they look quite cool. I guess they are just like a laptop, but they don't open up. Everything is right there.

For more info:
http://www.pcin.net/archive/1999/19991215.shtml
http://www.qbenet.com/

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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 tired 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

New Question
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Q1) This morning I had to do a Norton Rescue disk, never has been a problem, but when it was finished, my recycle bin icon, now has a windows icon on it instead of a trash basket. I tried to find it in my c: drive to make another one on my desktop, but all recycle bin information is now also in a Windows icon. How did this happen and how can I correct it?

Q2) Every time I try to bring up live photo images on my computer when using the Web it never brings up the photo completely. There are always some strange clusters of colored squares in clumps throughout the photo and others are completely scrambled in this way. I have been told that I can fix it by using properties but I don't know how too.

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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NEW CONTEST
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One last kick at the Y2K can.
Did anything happen to you? Did you have an old version of Netscape that you can't use? Did you have any problems at work or at home? Did you see any funny times or dates showing up on web sites? Or did absolutely nothing at all happen? Send in your Y2K experiences (exciting or boring, it doesn't matter) to contest@pcin.net and I will randomly draw 1 person to win a copy of ZipMagic 2000.

To learn about ZipMagic 2000 see my review at http://www.pcin.net/help/software/zm2000.shtml

I will remind you on Saturday again to send in your Y2K experiences to contest@pcin.net

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THE TIPS and OTHER STUFF
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Cheap Trick of the Week
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**Imaginary email**
Here's another delicious but harmless practical joke you can pull on your fellow computer users.
Now you can send email to a friend or colleague from any email address and domain name you can think up. For example, you could send a message to a young woman friend from LeonardoDiCaprio@hollywoodstars.com asking her to join him on a cruise. Even funnier, send it to a male friend! We're sure you could come up with even better pranks. All in good fun of course.
How to do this? Go to the Web site http://www.groundskeeping.com/fun.html and just fill in the blanks. But remember to use this trick, like other Cheap Tricks, only for good, not for evil. To make sure you don't abuse this power, the webmaster at this fun site checks every message before it is sent out.

Buy the Little Black Book of Cheap Tricks for only $9.95 Cdn (about $7.00 US).
http://www.pcin.net/help/books/reviewed/cheaptricks.shtml

Exclude Certain Words from a Spell Check
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I use MS Word 97 to put this together (I don't plan on using 2000). I'm sure most of you have noticed that no matter what word processor you use, the spell checker is only as good as the typist. There are many words that can be typed out and be spelled right but that don't fit in your sentence (their Vs there, etc.) If you make a lot of these mistakes, then it might be a good idea to make an Exclude Dictionary to use with Office 97 (I don't know if there is a similar option in Office 2000 or other office suites). An exclude dictionary lets you keep a list of words that will come up as spelled wrong in every spell check. That way even if they are spelled right you are forced to check it anyway. The instructions are too long to fit in PCIN, so I added the article to my web site.

PCIN FreeHelp Headquarters:
http://www.pcin.net/help/
PCIN - Exclude Certain Words from a Spell Check:
http://www.pcin.net/help/articles/exclude.shtml

Learn About Hard Drives
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I've been off school for 3 weeks now so I've had lots of time to work on some things I've been putting off for a while. One of them is a big article about hard drives. It by no means a complete reference, but it is complete enough to put up on the web. I read through it every once in a while to see if anything has changed or if I've made any mistakes, so there will be updates, but it is pretty good the way it is.

PCIN - All About Hard Drives
http://www.pcin.net/help/articles/harddrive.shtml

You can also visit the PC Guide for all sorts of help with your computer. If someone send me a FreeHelp question that I don't have time to answer, I often refer them to the PC Guide.

The PC Guide
http://www.pcguide.com/
PC Guide - Hard Drives
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/index.htm

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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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Graham Wing can be reached at editor@pcin.net
Copyright 1999, 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.

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