ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements © 2007
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Welcome to the 474th 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
A couple of months ago I signed up for Internet phone service through Primus. There have been a few quirky things that I'm not sure I like, but you can't beat the price. Yesterday my cable Internet service went down (this is very rare). I called the support line and they said there were no outages, and that the earliest service call would be on Thursday afternoon (almost 2 days later). Obviously I wasn't very impressed. I got a call later in the evening saying that the problem affected our whole nieghbourhood and that it was fixed. In case you're wondering, the phone service will forward your calls to another number in case the voip router is down, so we're never really without a phone.
Graham editor@pcin.net and Chris chris@pcin.net
Japan Saying Sayonara to PCs?
Masaya Igarashi wants US$200 headphones for his new iPod Touch, and he's torn between Nintendo Wii and Sony's PlayStation 3 game consoles. When he has saved up again, he plans to splurge on a digital camera or flat-screen TV.
There's one conspicuous omission from the college student's shopping list: a new computer.
The PC's role in Japanese homes is diminishing, as its once-awesome monopoly on processing power is encroached by gadgets such as smart phones that act like pocket-size computers, advanced Internet-connected game consoles, digital video recorders with terabytes of memory.
OMG!!! The end of online stupidity?
Internet veterans have long complained about the steady erosion of civility -- and worse, intelligence -- in online discourse. Initially the phenomenon seemed to be a seasonal disorder. It occurred every September when freshmen showed up for college and went online. Tasting for the first time the freedom and power of the Internet, the newbies would behave like a bunch of drunken fraternity pledges, filling electronic bulletin boards with puerile remarks until the upperclassmen could whip them into shape...
But there's still hope for intelligent life on the Internet. A team of software developers is hard at work on a "stupid filter" that promises to do to idiotic online comments what a spam filter does to junk and unwanted e-mail: put it in a place where it can't hurt anyone anymore.
Google Options Make Masseuse a Multimillionaire
Bonnie Brown was fresh from a nasty divorce in 1999, living with her sister and uncertain of her future. On a lark, she answered an ad for an in-house masseuse at Google, then a Silicon Valley start-up with 40 employees. She was offered the part-time job, which started out at $450 a week but included a pile of Google stock options that she figured might never be worth a penny.
After five years of kneading engineers' backs, Ms. Brown retired, cashing in most of her stock options, which were worth millions of dollars. To her delight, the shares she held onto have continued to balloon in value.
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.phpExpoDisc White Balance Filter Review
http://PCIN.net/help/hardware/expodisc.phpParagon Software Group Partition Manager 8.0 Professional Software Review
http://PCIN.net/help/software/ppm8.phpUpdate 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
Click for a good cause
The other day I read a Reuters article about a web site that has a goal to "help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free. This is made possible by the sponsors who advertise on this site." I'm not sure how it all works, but a word appears and you are supposed to click on the correct definition. As you do, you donate 10 grains of rice. Visit Freerice.com to see for yourself.
This reminded me of The Breast Cancer Site that has a setup where by visiting the site you are helping to eliminate Breast cancer. The site then links to sister-sites for children's health, literacy, the rainforest and animal rescue. I am normally reluctant to pass this sort of thing along, but apparently these sites are legit, and if you can help any of these causes just by visiting the sites, then it's worth sharing.
System Information for Windows
I haven't tried this myself, but I recently heard about System Information for Windows. It is software that will take an inventory of the hardware and software on your computer, along with a lot of other useful information. The site describes it this way:
SIW is an advanced System Information for Windows tool that gathers detailed information about your system properties and settings and displays it in an extremely comprehensible manner...
SIW is a standalone utility that does not require installation (Portable Freeware) - one less installed program on your PC as well the fact that you can run the program directly from an USB flash drive, from a floppy, from a network drive or from a domain login script.
Since there is nothing to install, it is easy to download and try.
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:
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.
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.
This publication may be reproduced in whole, or in part, as long as the author is notified and the newsletter is presented as is.
Support PCIN by visiting http://PCIN.net/donate.php