The PC Improvement News
Issue 1-9
December 02, 1998

ISSN 1488-3163
Published electronically by PC Improvements (c) 1999
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://www.pcin.net/

NOTE: If any of the links are too long to fit on one line, they will end up on 2 lines so the link won't be accurate. If that happens, please cut and paste. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Welcome to the 9th edition of the PC Improvement News. In this newsletter I try to have a couple of tips to make your computing life easier as well as highlights of the past weeks PC Industry News. As always, I am more than willing to discuss any PC related topics in this newsletter. Just email me at editor@pcin.net with your suggestions. Also, if there is any strange formatting in the newsletter you receive please use the same email address to let me know so I can fix any incompatibilities. With your help and suggestions, it will get better.

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THE NEWS
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Getting answers to health questions online
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Last Wednesday, my 82 year-old grandmother had total knee replacement surgery. Her heart isn't very healthy, so the doctors didn't want to use a general anaesthetic to put her under. They decided that the safest thing to do would be to use an epidural (needle in the spine that takes away the feeling from your waist down). She fretted for 3 days about this, thinking she would be awake for the whole thing and would see them cut open her leg. Her whole family tried to reassure her, but to no avail. I decided that if she didn't trust us, then maybe she would trust the advice of doctors. I promptly went to the Mayo Clinic web site and found several articles about epidural needles, some of which had diagrams, and another which specifically stated the reduced risk of heart complications when using an epidural. My grandmother was still stressed about the surgery, but this did seem to help her.
There was also an article yesterday from USA Online about a group of doctors and nurses who have started up a service to answer people's questions. It is currently available to America Online subscribers, and will be available to all people with Net access starting in January.

Visit the following sites for more info:
America's Doctor Online
I don't know what the URL will be, but if someone knows it, could they please let me know so I can tell everyone else. You can read the article though at:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/ctd925.htm
Mayo Clinic Health Oasis
http://www.mayohealth.org/

What's up with Microsoft?
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Every week, I will provide several links to articles about the Microsoft case with the DOJ. I will provide no editorial comments, other than this. I think that Microsoft should give every company a chance to compete, but I don't think that they should be under such intense scrutiny as they are right now. People complain about the Starr report costing so much money. Well, this DOJ case won't be cheap for either side, and I don't really think that anything will come from this. A waste of time!

Links:
Microsoft keeps pressure on DOJ witness
http://www.news.com/News/Item/Textonly/0,25,29301,00.html
Cyber Trial of the Century
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/special/msdojtrial.html
**Check this site out often. It is updated daily as new case information becomes available**

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THE TIPS
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Get your Easter Egg today
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Some of you may have heard of this, but others may not have, so I thought I'd include a little example of what an Easter Egg really is.
When a software company (usually a large one) writes a program, the programmers will quite often include a small little applet/program that will run only by following certain instructions. This applet will usually show you a list of the software engineers who designed and wrote the program. Some Easter Eggs can be quite elaborate, and others are pretty boring. The one I have chosen to share below was chosen because it is pretty easy to follow. Don't worry though, if you don't have Microsoft Word 97, you'll have chances to get your Easter Eggs in the future.
Open a new document in Word. Type the word Blue in the default type that's available. Highlight the word and click on the Format menu and the Font command. In the dialogue box that appears, select bold as the font style and blue as the colour, and then click OK. With the cursor right after the "e" in "Blue", hit the spacebar to create a single space after the word. Then go to the Help menu and About Microsoft Word. Now hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys and click on the Word logo in the upper left of the About Microsoft Word screen. (Sometimes it seems that clicking without holding down any keys is sufficient. Lo and behold, a pinball game appears alongside sonic scrolling credits. You can play the game, using the Z and M keys to work the flippers. Hit Esc to exit.
Depending on which version of Windows 95/98 you have, this may or may not work. I am running Windows 98 and it worked exactly as it is described above.

Downloading via FTP is faster than by the WWW - Part II
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After I included the link to the FTP Search and sent off the newsletter, I discovered that it was no longer at the URL I gave, that it was now an Excite tool. Go Figure. Anyway, the URL I gave, should have automatically sent you to the new URL, but if for some reason it didn't, or your browser doesn't support that, the new URL is http://ftpsearch.lycos.com/

 

Well, that's all for this week. Remember that if there is anything that you want to learn about, let me know and I will try to accommodate you.

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The PC Improvement News is brought to you by PC Improvements. The Opinions expressed are those of the editor, Graham Wing.

Editor: Graham Wing editor@pcin.net

Copyright 1998, 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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