Issue 142 - July 04, 2001
ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements ©2001
==== 2123 Subscribers in 55 Countries ====
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Welcome to the 142nd 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!
OPENING THOUGHTS
Happy Canada Day (July 1) and Happy Independence Day (July
4) to whomever this applies to (the first one applies to me)
:-)
Wow, last week for only the second time in almost 3 years
I missed an issue of PCIN. Let me tell you what happened...
On Thursday, June 21, Lisa (my wife) and I were driving to
Brampton, Ontario (we live near Niagara Falls, Ontario) for
a church function, and on the way there, a transport truck
sideswiped us. Don't worry, we weren't hurt, but had $1600
worth of damage to the car. Dealing with insurance company
is so much fun (sarcasm there!). At first we weren't eligible
for a rental car, but we finally got one (a Toyota Echo).
The car was repaired quite quickly (we have it back now),
and everything is fine. Lisa was kind of freaked out by the
whole thing. We were lucky to have had such minimal damage.
Then on Friday, June 22, my 83-year-old grandfather passed
away. He had been in the hospital for quite awhile, and it
wasn't totally unexpected, but it was still hard. Last Wednesday
when the newsletter would have gone out, I was on my way back
from Smiths Falls, Ontario (near Ottawa, Ontario, about 5
hours away from here) after attending his burial service.
Mix those 2 events, and what a confusing few days... trying
to get the insurance company stuff straightened out while
we were running back and forth from hospital to house to funeral
home to house. Everything is pretty well back to normal though.
I'd like to welcome the 200+ new subscribers who saw PCIN
mentioned in LangaList recently. The site was just in a list
that is included in each issue of people who link to his site,
but there were still over 200 people who took the time to
check out the site and sign-up. I hope you enjoy the newsletter
and learn something new.
The NEWS
Do you beat your PC?
Taken from the June 11, 2001 issue of Sm@rtPartner magazine,
pg 13, by David Hakala:
"Twenty-five percent of PC users admit to slapping,
punching, kicking and even hurling their computers, says
British manufacturer Nova Tech. The company received more
than 4,200 responses to its survey, which explored people's
relationships with their machines.
'We were surprised by the number of people who confessed
to physically attacking their computers,' the company says.
Said one survey participant, who slapped his Dell system,
'It was so late, and I had so much to do - it was like the
computer was taunting me.' There's one Dell customer you
can live without."
For more info:
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,44284,00.html
HP Asks Its Employees to Take Pay or Vacation Cut
"Hewlett-Packard said on Friday it was asking employees,
including chief executive Carly Fiorina, to either take
a pay cut or use up accrued vacation days, as part of cost
cutting efforts to help the computer and printer maker contend
with a slowdown.
'It's a 10 percent pay cut, or eight paid vacation days,'
said Hewlett spokesman Dave Berman. He said that built-up
vacation days become a financial liability for the company."
For more info:
http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,27590,00.html
Microsoft Break-Up Overturned
"In an apparent victory for Microsoft Corp., the U.S.
Court of Appeals for The District of Columbia Thursday overturned
U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's decision to
break up the software giant as a remedy to its antitrust
violations.
In a unanimous 7-0 decision the court issued a stinging
rebuke that Jackson's conduct had been improper and found
that Microsoft was not acting unlawfully when it tied its
Internet Explorer browser to its Windows OS.
However, the ruling affected only the remedy that Jackson
laid out - not his finding that Microsoft had engaged in
anti-competitive practices."
For more info:
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article/0,,3_793571,00.html
http://iwsun4.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/01/06/28/010628hnmsrulingup.xml
Napster orders strict service upgrade
"Napster is forcing people who want to trade music
through its file-swapping site to upgrade to a severely
restricted version that allows trading of only a fraction
of the songs previously available.
As expected, people who signed onto the site Thursday morning
were greeted with a message telling them their older software
would no longer work.
'All previous versions of Napster have been disabled,' the
message says. 'We're making this change as part of our ongoing
effort to comply with the court's orders.'"
For more info:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6405561.html
http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,27536,00.html
PCIN POLL of the WEEK
Here are the responses from the last poll:
How many hours do you spend online a week from home?
11 - 20 hours: 26.67%
21 - 30 hours: 22.67%
< 10 Hours: 18.67%
> 50 hours: 16.00%
31 - 50 hours: 16.00%
0 Hours: 0.00%
Total Votes: 75
Visit http://pcin.net/polls/
to participate in the new poll this week:
Have you ever made an online purchase?
MOBILE COMPUTING NEWS and NOTES
iFone, a British entertainment developer for wireless phones
is working on putting Atari games on phones. They plan to
offer Frogger, Asteroids, and others. They're also working
on some other incredible games with amazing graphics like
V-Ralley, Unreal, and iSoccer. If people can put great color
games on a GameBoy, why not on phones?
By the way, iFone's website is really nice. Go soak it up
at http://www.iFone.com
Brought to you by Shawn Bremner and The Wireless Web ezine.
Sign up by sending a blank email to mailto:wirelessweb-subscribe@topica.com
FREEHELP FORUM
I used to have a section where subscribers could ask and
answer questions via email. The volume of emails became too
much to handle, and so I have set up the FreeHelp Forum, and
it is coming along.
Each week I will use this section to highlight a question,
and where to go to get the answer.
Question
I have Windows '98 and I do not like the defrag program
that came with it. Any suggestions as to what defrag programs
out there that I can try. I am also looking (I have CD-RW)
for a good backup program so I can copy files to CD. Thanks!
Answer
Although I do not like the Norton Utilities suite as a whole,
the defrag utility that comes with it is excellent. It is
called Speed Disk and is much better than Windows Defrag.
Executive Software has a product called Diskeeper that is
excellent as well.
There is a free defrag utility called PowerDefrag available
at PowerDefrag.com that I've heard good things about, but
never tried myself.
If you just want to backup files, the CD-RW drive probably
came with some software to do that. If you want to image
your hard drive, then try Norton Ghost or PowerQuest DriveImage.
Visit http://www.pcin.net/cgi-bin/forum/index.cgi
and check out the Software Forum to post your suggestion,
or to post a question of your own.
PCIN.net UPDATE
Check out these new or updated pages on the PCIN.net site:
Some Useful Registry Tips (Now 36 Tips)
http://pcin.net/help/articles/registry.shtml
PC Industry News (updated regularly)
-currently only 6 headlines, but this will grow
http://pcin.net/news.shtml
PCIN Poll of the Week
http://pcin.net/polls/
THE TIPS and OTHER STUFF
Cheap Trick of the Week
**No shutdown allowed**
Some people like to keep their computers turned on all the
time. If you're one of them or if you just want to keep
others from shutting down your system for a while, here's
a trick for you.
(It takes a Registry hack; so if you're not familiar with
Windows' Registry, check out our instructions and precautions
at http://www.WE-Compute.com/registry.html
first.)
In the Registry, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current
Version\Policies\Explorer. From the Edit menu, select New
and String Value. Right-click the new value in the right
pane and select Rename. Type NoClose as the string's new
name. Next double-click on it to open the Edit String dialogue
box. Enter 1 (the numeral one) as the value data and click
OK.
Close the Editor.
Your system cannot be closed or restarted now through the
usual Shutdown command.
While this won't make it impossible for people to turn off
the computer, it should leave them scratching their heads
for a few minutes.
To re-enable shutdown, return to the NoClose string and
change its value to 0 (zero) or delete it altogether.
Get your own copy of "The Little Black Book of Cheap
Tricks: 2001" by visiting http://www.pcin.net/lbbct/
I've Been Seized
Subscriber Chris Empey sent this in:
"As some of your subscribers may be aware of, grc.com
was recently shut down through a DDoS (Distributed Denial
of Service) attack. Steve Gibson's full report on the attack
and information regarding DDoS attacks can be found at http://grc.com/dos/intro.htm Shortly after
reading Steve's report I noticed some of the same activity
from my computer as mentioned in the report. Most notably
was 100% CPU utilization and the send light on my cable
modem lit solid for minutes at a time. Task manager would
show up to 11 instances of ping.exe running in the background,
however usually only 3 or 4.
Upon noticing the activity I would immediately disconnect
my cable modem to try to help prevent the attack. A scan
of my file system revealed I had been infected with the
backdoor.sadmind.dr virus. Surprisingly, Norton Antivirus
did not pick up the activity during regular operations but
only during a manual scan. I thought I had successfully
cleaned my computer when several days later, on June 16,
I noticed that activity once more. I was a little more prepared
this time. Using a network analyzer and some tips from Steve's
report, I was able to verify I was part of a DDoS attack
and was able to view some of the packet data heading out
over the Internet trying to shut down some server. I was
able to pinpoint the server being attacked as well as the
content of the packets (the alphabet was being repeated
multiple times to fill the 1500 byte packet).
After recording some of the packet data, I again disconnected
my link to the Internet and my portion of the DDOS. I installed
ZoneAlarm (free from http://www.zonelabs.com/ ), which previously
had not been installed and checked my computer using Norton
Antivirus and GRC.com's Leaktest and Patchwork, which can
both be found at GRC.COM. Subsequent scans do not show any
reported virus files. ZoneAlarm has enabled me to prevent
ICMP and UDP packets from reaching my computer as well as
asking me each time when a program wants to get out to the
Internet."
Graham's comments:
If you haven't read Steve Gibson's report (link mentioned
above), you definitely should. It is fascinating. It has
some sections that are very technical, but overall most
people should understand it, and the instructions on how
to protect your computer.
Test Your Typing On-line
I've been typing for years. I've never taken a typing class,
but since I'm always on a computer (at home or at work),
I can type at approximately 90 words/minute. Visit http://www.typingmaster.com/typetest.htm
to check out your speed.
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.
- If any of the links are too long to fit on one line,
you may have to cut and paste.
- You can only win one contest every 30 days.
- To subscribe another address or unsubscribe, please visit
http://www.pcin.net/
and follow the appropriate links.
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and be entered in a monthly draw.
- There are only 2 ways to get on the subscriber list.
You have either been subscribed by filling out a subscription
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Graham Wing can be reached at mailto:editor@pcin.net
Copyright 1998-2001, 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
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