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Issue 448 - May 16, 2007

ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements © 2007
==== 1490 Subscribers in 50 Countries ====

Welcome to the 448th issue of the PC Improvement News. PCIN consists mainly of news highlights and tips. There is something for everyone, and if this is your first issue, I'm sure there will be something for you. If you give me two or three issues, I know that you will come back for more!

You can reach me at editor@pcin.net with any suggestions or comments.

Support PCIN at http://PCIN.net/donate.php

Contents

Opening Thoughts

I've mentioned a couple of times an (almost) famous PCIN subscriber. My friend Alex is very gifted musically, and he and his wife have created a music CD for kids to go along with the dance/motion program she created for kids. I've mentioned the CD before, but they now have an official site where you can listen to some of the songs. They are quite catchy!

As I seem to mention every year, the Victoria Day and Memorial Day holiday weekends are the unofficial start of Summer in Niagara Falls (where I work). The weather looks like it will be good, so I'm sure lots of people will be around. I'm off this weekend, but will be working next weekend. This is also the time of year when you can start planting things, so I'm sure I'll be out working my vegetable garden.

Graham editor@pcin.net and Chris chris@pcin.net

News Highlights

Apple and Google - Faith and Heresy

True believers made the pilgrimage to Silicon Valley on May 10, as both Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG) held their annual meetings. The companies' fervent supporters turned out en masse. It took Google CEO Eric Schmidt a mere five seconds to get a round of applause as he opened his shareholder meeting-and all he had to do was mention the lunch Google had served.
Heretics were in the crowd too, however. Some shareholders have become sharply critical of Google and Apple for practices that have recently become public. Apple and its CEO, Steve Jobs, have come under fire for the timing of stock options awards, while Google and Schmidt have taken criticism for the company's policies regarding censorship in China. Never mind that both CEOs have annual base salaries of only $1.
The buzz among bloggers and others on the Web was over the rifts that surfaced at the annual meetings.

Read the BusinessWeek article...
Leave a comment...

Original Dell PC added to Smithsonian collection

Michael Dell never imagined his work would end up in a museum when he was sitting in his college dorm room in 1984, dreaming of building and selling his own personal computers.
Now, one of his original computers is going to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.
42-year-old chairman and chief executive of Texas-based Dell Inc. donated a collection of materials Wednesday to the Smithsonian, including his employee badge, one of the company's newest computers and a PC Limited computer from 1985.

Read the CNN article...
Leave a comment...

New domain names on tap for mid-2008

New Internet addresses for general use could start appearing in the summer of 2008 under a timeline the Internet's key oversight agency announced Thursday.
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers invited public comment on procedures for creating new names, the first expansion for general use since 2000. Names added since then have been limited to specific regions or industries...
ICANN solicited additional applications in 2004 and has approved six regional or industry-specific names, such as ".travel" and ".asia," while rejecting ".xxx" for the adult entertainment industry.

Read the USA Today article...
Leave a comment...

Battling an invisible enemy

In the back offices of the software firm Mailworkz, programmers are hard at work developing technology to battle the fraudsters that plague Internet advertising.
The invisible enemy is known as "click fraud," where a malicious competitor or a bogus website operator is clicking on "pay-per-click" advertisements and listings without any intention to buy or browse, costing the advertisers money without generating results.
Mailworkz, a small firm with five employees, wrote its first software for e-mail marketing campaigns more than five years ago, but found its customers started to ask for monitoring of clicks of the website links they were buying from search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN Sympatico.
"People realized they are spending all this money on pay-per-click advertisements and it looks like I'm getting suspicious activity, and how do I know that legitimate people are clicking on my ad?" says sales manager Lesley Fegerty...
Similar efforts to carefully monitor the use of Internet advertising are under way at companies across the country.

Read the Globe and Mail article...
Leave a comment...

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Digital Photography Tip of the Week

Photographing Flowers - Digital Photography Tip of the Week

Today's tip is a simple one, yet effective one.

A bride and groom can be one of the hardest subjects to expose well. The bride is usually dressed in a very white gown and the groom, a very black tuxedo. Together it is an exposure nightmare. One trick to helping with this is to place the bride furthest from the lightsource. Her gown will act as a reflector and pop a little bit of light back into the groom's tuxedo, thereby helping with the exposure dilemma.

Until next time, Happy Shooting.

Leave a comment on this week's Digital Photography Tip of the Week

The digital photography tip of the week is written by the PCIN Assistant Editor, Chris Empey. Chris is a long time photographer and is currently the President of the Niagara Falls Camera Club. You can see more of his photography at his Photo of the Day website.
If you have a tip to send Chris, or a question about digital photography he can address in the newsletter, send it to chris@pcin.net.

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PCIN.net Site Update

Check out these new or updated pages on the PCIN.net site:

Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 and Adobe Premier Elements 3.0 Software Review
http://PCIN.net/help/software/photoshopEL5_Premiere3.php

ExpoDisc White Balance Filter Review
http://PCIN.net/help/hardware/expodisc.php

Paragon Software Group Partition Manager 8.0 Professional Software Review
http://PCIN.net/help/software/ppm8.php

Update PCIN.net home page with "Top 10 Most Popular..." features
http://PCIN.net/

Microsoft Digital Image Suite Plus Review
http://PCIN.net/help/software/msdimagesuiteplus.php

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Tips and Other Stuff

Vista Remote Desktop Connection Authentication FAQ

The latest version of the Remote Desktop Connection software from Microsoft supports Windows Vista. There are a few different features with it that my be causing you some frustration. A good place to start is at the Terminal Services Team Blog. They have a Vista Remote Desktop Connection Authentication FAQ that answers some useful questions about the new authentication features.

There has been a lot of feedback about the new authentication features introduced in the latest version of the Remote Desktop Connection client. These features are part of our efforts to improve security for Terminal Services (TS) in Windows Vista and Windows Server code name "Longhorn", however some users have run into a variety of problems that have caused frustration. In order to alleviate some of the frustrations, below is an FAQ on various symptoms users have run into, along with solutions and workarounds.

Leave a comment...

Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8.5

hdm85_boxshot.gif

I've reviewed several products from Paragon in the past. They just recently released Hard Disk Manager 8.5. It is Windows Vista compatible, and allows you to perform various partition operations (resize, remove, copy, etc) as well as perform backups and restores.

I haven't tried the product, but I've been impressed with their previous products, so I wanted to pass this information along.

Leave a comment...

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PCIN.net Affiliated Sites

Both of us have other sites other than PCIN.net. These are all sites that we are actively involved in (they aren't client sites). Don't forget to check them out from time to time for updates:

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Disclaimer and Other Stuff

PCIN is brought to you by Graham Wing. The opinions expressed are those of the Editor, Graham Wing and the Assistant Editor, Chris Empey. Graham Wing and Chris Empey 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
Chris Empey can be reached at chris@pcin.net

Copyright 1998-2007, Graham Wing. All rights reserved.

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