Issue 147 - August 08, 2001

ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements ©2001
==== 2260 Subscribers in 56 Countries ====

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Welcome to the 147th issue of the PC Improvement News. PCIN consists mainly of news and tips. There is something for everyone, and if this is your first issue, I'm sure there will be something for you.

You can reach me at mailto:editor@pcin.net with any suggestions or comments. If you give me two or three issues, I know that you will come back for more!

Recommend PCIN at http://PCIN.net/recommend.shtml
Support PCIN at http://PCIN.net/donate.shtml

OPENING THOUGHTS

Last Wednesday was the first day that Lisa and I had central air in our house. I got home, started working on PCIN, and sent it out. Well, my Dad is a subscriber and he and my mom were a little ticked that they found out about the central air in the newsletter and that I hadn't called them personally. Oops :-)

The Code Red worm is alive and well. I get about 30 requests to my PCIN web server everyday trying to exploit a particular weakness in IIS (PCIN is on a Linux web server). The request is for a default.ida file and the query string requested is:
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
%u9090%u6858%ucbd3%u7801%u9090%u6858%uc
bd3%u7801%u9090%u6858%ucbd3%u7801%u9090
%u9090%u8190%u00c3%u0003%u8b00%u531b%u
53ff%u0078%u000
I don't know if that is the whole string, but it is at least 356 characters long and I guess a request this long will cause IIS to crash. This hasn't affected the Linux web server, but it is eating up my bandwidth.

Lastly, I finished the FrontX CPX review. There is a short review below in the Tips section, and the full review is on the site.

The NEWS

Software Called Capable of Copying Any Human Voice

"AT&T (news/quote) Labs will start selling speech software that it says is so good at reproducing the sounds, inflections and intonations of a human voice that it can recreate voices and even bring the voices of long-dead celebrities back to life. The software, which turns printed text into synthesized speech, makes it possible for a company to use recordings of a person's voice to utter things that the person never actually said.
The software, called Natural Voices, is not flawless - its utterances still contain a few robotic tones and unnatural inflections - and competitors question whether the software is a substantial step up from existing products. But some of those who have tested the technology say it is the first text-to-speech software to raise the specter of voice cloning, replicating a person's voice so perfectly that the human ear cannot tell the difference."

For more info:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/31/technology/31VOIC.html

Microsoft Passport Security Flaws Now On The Radar

"A scathing critique of an e-commerce service from Microsoft is suddenly causing a buzz among computer security enthusiasts - more than a year after it was published.
Microsoft's Passport service, in use today at dozens of online merchants, 'carries significant risks to users' according to researchers at AT&T Labs, who concluded that until fundamental changes are made to the single sign-in and electronic wallet service, 'efforts such as Passport must be viewed with suspicion.'"

For more info:
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/168725.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/20855.html

McAfee granted patent on software as a service

"McAfee.com announced Monday that it has been granted a patent by the U.S. Patent Office covering the company's method of delivering software as a service through Web browsers.
The patent covers both the business and technology models currently used by McAfee.com to deliver its security, management, and optimization services, Srivats Sampath, CEO of McAfee.com, said in an interview with the IDG News Service. The technology, which McAfee.com has been working on since 1998 according to Sampath, integrates a series of scripts, software objects, and back-end systems, with a mark-up language like HTML or XML to deliver up-to-date applications through a standard Web browser, he said."

For more info:
http://iwsun4.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/01/08/06/010806hnmcafee.xml

The Search Engines' Little Secret

"Ralph Nader has a beef with search engines. A watchdog group headed by the self-styled consumer crusader filed a petition with the Federal Trade Commission on July 16, alleging that eight search engines violate truth-in-advertising rules. Why? According to the Commercial Alert complaint, search results include ads, "without clear disclosure that the ads are ads." So, if you ask for pages about "widgets," you may get not just Web sites with references to widgets on them but links to ads or companies hat sell widgets."

For more info:
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/aug2001/nf2001086_115.htm

PCIN POLL of the WEEK

Here are the responses from the last poll:

If you were to think of the Internet, which of these companies would you think of first?

Microsoft: 39.76%
Yahoo!: 31.33%
None of these: 13.25%
Amazon.com: 8.43%
AOL: 3.61%
eBay: 3.61%

Total Votes: 83

Visit http://pcin.net/polls/ to participate in the new poll this week:

How many computers (desktops or laptops) do you have in your home?

MOBILE COMPUTING NEWS and NOTES

Are cell phones the only way for wireless providers to make money? Japan's DoCoMo plans to introduce wireless non-voice terminals that track cars & bikes if they get stolen, that provide wireless internet for laptops & PDA's, and that track lost pets.  They also plan to seek new revenue streams with terminals for TV's, ships, vending machines, cameras, refrigerators, and even courier packages, each providing a unique new service.

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

Visit the PCIN FreeHelp Forum to post your questions or answer others. Each week I highlight a question, and where to go to get the answer.

Question

My USB Root Hub is disabled and I can seem to get it re-enabled. I have deleted it and re-installed through auto detect with the same disable mark through the USB root hub. When I attempt to reinstall the drivers for USB I get an error message that states NTKERN.VXD cannot load the driver. Three months ago I did not have a problem. I like to use my scanner but cannot connect. I also have and IOMEGA photo show that cannot connect. Any ideas?

Answer

Have you tried to go into Device Manager, highlighting USB Root Hub, clicking properties and checking to see if the box titled "disable in this hardware profile" is checked? Just a thought. If it is, uncheck and then try to reinstall.

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:

FrontX CPX Review
http://PCIN.net/help/hardware/frontx.shtml

Tips of the Day
http://PCIN.net/help/tods/index.shtml

Support PCIN
http://pcin.net/donate.shtml

THE TIPS and OTHER STUFF

Cheap Trick of the Week

**Show me the menu**
Do the new shortened menus in Word, Excel or other Microsoft programs since the 2000 version drive you nuts? Tired of having to click on the arrows at the bottom of menus to expand them to include the command you want?
Well, you know you can always change this permanently. (Select Customize in the Tools menu and you'll find the options you want.)
But you can also call up the full menus quickly without making this permanent change.
Just double-click on a menu heading and the whole shebang will appear with recently used items in relief. In fact, once you double-click on a menu, all the menus will open in full until you click elsewhere.

Get your own copy of "The Little Black Book of Cheap Tricks: 2001" by visiting http://www.pcin.net/lbbct/

FrontX CPX

I rarely play games, and so I don't like to have my game controller out on my desk all the time. I have a laptop and a desktop and like to be able to use my digital camera with both, but it is a pain moving the USB cable from the back of the desktop to the laptop.
The solution to both of these problems is the FrontX Computer Port Extension (CPX). It is essentially a collection of extensions cords that bring your ports from the back of the computer to the front.
I recently received a set, and have a full review at http://PCIN.net/help/hardware/frontx.shtml
The FrontX site is at http://FrontX.com/

Help with Windows 95/98/ME Error Messages

Visit the following sites for good information on common error messages in the above versions of Windows:
Windows 98 and Windows Me Error Message Resource
(Microsoft's own explanations)
http://support.microsoft.com/support/windows/topics/errormsg/emresctr.asp
MS Windows Error Messages
(A database of error messages)
http://www.gregorybraun.com/MSWinErr.html

A Better Search Engine?

Subscriber Brian Hall sent me this:
"A recent report indicated that the search engine Vivisimo, accessed at http://vivisimo.com/ was the one that used the fewest paid listings in its results pages, so I tried it out. Very powerful, excellent organization. I now prefer it even over Google and Ixquick."

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 1998-2001, PC Improvements and Graham Wing. All rights reserved.

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