The PC Improvement News

Issue 54
October 20, 1999

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

Note 1: If any of the links are too long to fit on one line, you may have to
cut and paste.
Note 2: You can only win one contest every 30 days.

Welcome to the 54th edition of the PC Improvement News. In this newsletter,
I combine 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 topics in this newsletter.
Email me at editor@pcin.net with your suggestions.

There are only 2 ways to get on the subscriber list. You have either been
subscribed by filling out a subscription form on any of the pages on my
site, or you have requested FreeHelp from me in the past.

Give me two or three issues, and I know that you will get something great
out of this!

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SOME OPENING THOUGHTS
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With the move and everything that goes along with it, I've been pretty busy.
I haven't had a lot of time to pay attention to many other things, so please
forgive me if this isn't the greatest issue.  I also haven't had time to
summarize all of the survey results, so nothing has changed this week. I
will have all of that done for next week and announce any changes (if any)
then.

One simple note. when you send me email, please at least give me your first
name.  I hate it when people just send me a note with no name, or just their
ISP user name. I am a real person. My name is Graham. What is your name?

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THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
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Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe
that something inside them was superior to circumstance.
          - Bruce Barton

Thought courtesy of http://www.HappyPublishing.com/

To subscribe to the FREE "Aspire to Something Higher" Thought-Of-The-Day
list, send a blank email to HappyQuotes-subscribe@listbot.com

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THE NEWS
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Do you own a horseless carriage?
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In Maine, many owners of new model 2000 cars received titles to their
vehicles stating that they were "horseless carriages".  The state has spent
a lot of money trying to prepare for Y2K, but with a 00 year ending, the
computers thought the cars were vintage cars (pre-1916) and so put the wrong
information on the registration.

For more info:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/ctg412.htm


Intel-Inside
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A porn site operator has registered the domain name Intel-Inside.com and was
using it to redirect people to his other sites. Intel's lawyers got
involved, and if you go to the site now, you will see that it is for sale.
The owner was originally selling it himself and claimed to have an offer of
$450,000 for it. He is now selling the domain through eBay, and as of 8:40
on Wednesday morning it only had a bid of $ 2,605.00. What a guy! Not only
is he wrong for using the Intel phrase to redirect people to his porn site,
he also then lies and claims that he's going to get half a million dollars
for the domain.

For more info:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/991013-000018.html
http://www.intel-inside.com/
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=182577329


E-Paper Almost Here
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I spoke several months ago about paper-thin electronic paper that was being
developed. It would be used for advertising posters (change the image,
change colours, etc.) and it is almost ready.  E-Inc, the company developing
it, has set up a partnership with Lucent to help them develop it.

For more info:
http://www.wired.com/news/print/1,1294,31877,00.html


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What are Cookies? Results
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Last week I asked you what you thought cookies were good for.  Almost all of
you said you didn't like them. Some people tried to erase them; others tried
to reject them all together. Most of you felt it was just something you were
going to have to live with.

As I said last week, there is no way I could explain what cookies are and
how they work.  There is a lot that can be said about them, and it has
already been said elsewhere. For information on cookies, visit:
http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/cgi-bin/print_story.cgi?story=story_3957
http://www.cookiecentral.com/
http://www.ciac.org/ciac/bulletins/i-034.shtml

I made a random drawing of the entrants, and Don S. won a copy of ZipMagic
2000 by Mijenix. ZipMagic is a full-featured zip archive extraction program,
similar to WinZip. I have been using for a week or so now and have been very
impressed. I have done some reviews for their products and they generously
sent me several copies of each product I reviewed. A special thanks goes out
to them.

To see what everyone thought of browser cookies, visit
http://www.pcimprovements.com/pcin/contests

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I NEED HELP
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As many of you know, I offer a free help service via email. If you have a
question, you can email me and I will try my best to answer them. I can
answer about half of them. Those are things that I do regularly or have
experience with. There are other things that I have never tired or
experienced so I don't have an answer. I hope to post those questions here
and see if any of the readers have any suggestions. I will include all
reasonable suggestions with credit to you. These are NOT my own questions
and they are NOT my answers. I will NOT check the validity of these
comments. That is up to you.

Previous Questions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Q1) After leaving Windows98 for some time and returning to the computer my
desktop icons frequently, but not always, become illegible due to having
taken on a "bar code" appearance. Why?
A1) John Hills said, "Either you need to update your graphics card driver or
and more likely, you have a duff screen saver trying but not succeeding to
load."
A1) Graham Wing said, "There may be something wrong with the Cache file that
stores your icon information. Try to delete the ShellIconCache file (note:
it is called that, no extension). The file will be rebuilt and this may
correct the problem.

Q2) The first time I restart Windows98. I often get the message "Explorer
has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down." None of my task
bar programs are there for me and I need to restart Windows. Usually all is
fine on second attempt. Norton System Works tells me all is fine with my
system!
A2) John Hills said, "And that is probably your problem - Norton."

Q3) A short while ago my Dialup Networking functionality became unstable, I
couldn't access my email with Eudora, and I had to remove and reinstall
Dialup Networking. Ever since there have been bits and pieces not working as
they did before and I suspect that Windows Logon may be the problem, or part
of it. I didn't have a Windows Logon before the reinstallation of dialup
networking. Now there is an option to Log Off in the Start menu, just above
the Shutdown and Suspend options. I've poked around in the Windows
install/remove and in the Control Panel Network function but can't find how
to eliminate the Windows Logon.
A3) B. Allen said, "Try looking in the Control Panel under Network. Double
click the Network icon and see what "Network Components" or protocols you
have installed. I run a 56K connection to an independent ISP and use Win98
SE as the OS. The only components I have installed are "Dial-Up Adapter" and
"TCP/IP". If you have "Client for Microsoft Networks" installed you may need
the logon dialog to connect to an external LAN. If your connection is simply
for home Internet connectivity and you are using a Dial-Up connection, you
shouldn't need anything other than the two components mentioned earlier
(unless you have AOL, in which case you need the AOL adapter as well)."
A3) B.R. said, "This is a well know problem in your settings for dialup you
need to uncheck the log on blocks. These will show up when you click make
new connection and the follow the screens until you get to the logon section
and make sure they are not checked. Another way to see if you have any
little tweaks is to run SFC if it finds a problem it will tell you the name
of the file needed. It is easier to find going through find and type SFC on
my computer or you can find it in the program group. A good email checker is
Pegasus mail, I found it about 4 years ago and have used it since with no
problems. Most of the files you can find in a site called ZDNet software
library http://www.zdnet.com/swlib/ this is the main page and you can find
the search engine there where you can find the file by typing in what you
need and it will take you right to the page.


New Questions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Q1) Have put in Win.98 on a p166, 2GB harddrive, Netscape4.5. I'm put off,
can't get 98 updates for y2k unless I download Internet Explorer and I like
my Netscape Browser. Is there another way to get the couple of files I would
need?

Q2) K, J & M on keyboard has to be pressed several times to get them to
work. The A will type twice when pressed once. Advanced Power Management
says I definitely have a problem but I can't figure out how to identify the
driver in Register. How do I identify it and how should it be set?

If you have an answer to these questions or have a question of your own,
please email me at freehelp@pcin.net

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NO NEW CONTEST
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Sorry :-)

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THE TIPS and OTHER STUFF
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Cheap Trick of the Week
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**Pre-mail**
If you're always sending email to the same people, you can create shortcuts
on your desktop to launch your email program with pre-addressed messages to
those correspondents.
Right-click on a clear area of the Desktop; select New and Shortcut from the
context menus. In the Command Line of the Create shortcut dialogue box, type
mailto: and the email address without spaces, as in
mailto:editors@we-compute.com. Click on Next, give your shortcut a name,
like Angry letter, and click on Finish.
You can also set up the shortcut to send the same message to several people.
After you've addressed the shortcut, add ?cc= and your other recipients,
separated by a semicolon, all without any spaces. For example, in the
Command Line you could enter mailto:editors@we-compute.com?
cc=publisher@we-compute;circulationmanager@we-compute.com and so on.
Or use the blind carbon copy feature by using bcc instead of cc.
Or if you want to include the same subject line in each message, use subject
as in mailto:editors@we-compute.com?subject=Your magazine stinks. (You can
use spaces in the subject.)
Or, finally, you can combine any of the above with the use of an ampersand
(&). Example: mailto:editors @we-compute.com?subject=Your magazine
stinks&cc=pubisher@we-compute;circulationmanager@we-compute.com. The only
spaces are in the subject phrase.

Buy the Little Black Book of Cheap Tricks for only $9.95 Cdn
http://www.pcimprovements.com/help/books/cheaptricks.shtml


The Visible Human Project
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Several months ago on Guinness Book of World Records TV show on Fox, I saw a
segment about a university that was cutting a frozen human into micro-thin
pieces and taking pictures of each piece. They were then using computers to
model the body. Well, there is a web site that goes along with this project,
and it is really neat. If the human body fascinates you, then you should
definitely check it out.

Visit http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/visible/visible_human.html

See More with Lycos
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I know there are lots of little utilities out there that help with your
"surfing", but one of the better ones is Lycos SeeMore. It is a little
program that runs with your browser. You can right-click on a word in your
browser window and a pop-up window appears. From that window you can then
search for information regarding that word. Very neat.

For more info:
http://www.lycos.com/seemore/Install.html

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Well, that's all for this week. Remember that if there is anything that you
want to learn about, let me know. You can also send in your comments and
suggestions.
This newsletter is sent to those who subscribed only. If you have somehow
gotten this and you don't want it, please see the subscribe/unsubscribe
options at the start of the newsletter.
The PC Improvement News 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 (either good or bad) for the results obtained
from trying the tips in this newsletter.
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Editor: Graham Wing can be reached at editor@pcin.net
Copyright 1999, 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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