The PC Improvement News
Issue 1-35
June 09, 1999

ISSN 1488-3163
Published electronically by PC Improvements (c) 1999
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Welcome to the 35th edition of the PC Improvement News. In this newsletter,
I have a couple of tips to make your computing life easier as well as
highlights of the past weeks PC Industry News. I am more than willing to
discuss any PC related topics in this newsletter. Just email me at
editor@pcin.net with your suggestions. I would also appreciate it
if you let me know if there is any strange formatting in the newsletter so
that I can fix them.

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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After commenting last week that only 2 people told me what their most
important peripheral, I had several more this week. Here they are:

Judy Wilson reports that, "Okay what I love about my computer, it all
works now, scanner, printer, zip, camera, had to go to USB camera however."

Darren Jones says, "I agree with Johnathon a large monitor is an
essential, also virtually any form of external 'large capacity device' is
a god send, but having recently started a new job and been supplied with
an all conquering Mac G3 for my home office, my most essential peripheral
could prove to be a simple network cable. As this connects the Mac to my
trusty PC and is my only means of getting files from a floppy disk into
the Mac. Apple hey! what a company."

Thomas Foley said, "I most like my modem, no it's not a 56k, or wire just
a 33.6 but without it I couldn't connect to the Internet and find info.
I'm a nut when it comes to comparing prices particularly when it comes to
motherboards, CPU's and ram, and just think, without it look at all the
great FREE programs you can come up with, and I have to admit I've come up
with some very useful programs, all for nothing. Also, the modem lets you
communicate with friends and relations (should they have a computer) for
next to nothing compared to a long distance phone call.
I can also communicate with the company for which I work. Yes, I think
without the modem all we would have is a box sitting next to or on top of
our desks going no where. The modem, I feel, has definitely changed our
lives in more ways than we realize. Oh, by the way, we wouldn't be reading
the pcimprovements news letter either!"

Vijeprathap Vijendranath says, "My most important peripheral in my
computer is my SOUND BLASTER LIVE! It is the greatest sound card I ever
experienced with. With its EAX(Environmental Audio Extension) it is great
to experience games and not just playing it."

Alejandro Tanaka says, " Well, my Sony 4X DVD player, my HP CD-Writer +
8100i, and my Graphics Blaster TNT Ultra video card."

If there was a prize for the dumbest response, it would go to an anonymous
woman (actually, I think her name is Susan as that was part of her email
address). She shared that, " I am in love with my computer, I have it in
the living room but I miss it at night and am thinking about moving it my
bedroom, I love the whole thing about my computer I can not live without
it, never."
(Graham's comments: I sometimes say that I love computers, but I don't think
I'd go that far!)


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THOUGHT OF THE WEEK
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None

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

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


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THE NEWS
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Sony Dog Part III
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This week in Canada (I don't know if it everywhere) is National Dog Bite
Prevention Week. I immediately thought of the Sony dogs and wondered if
that was why people were willing to $2000. They wanted a dog that wouldn't
bite. On the other hand, the dog is supposed to be so real, maybe it
bites, too!


Colourful Computers on the Way
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At the Computex show in Taiwan, there was a lot of stuff displayed that
will liven up your computing experience, and they should be available
soon. There were colourful designs, smaller laptops, cheap set-top boxes,
and even a "Web-pad infotainment" computer.

For more info:
http://www.news.com/News/Item/Textonly/0,25,37395,00.html


Internet Access in UK
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This past week a collection of users from England (and maybe all of
Europe, I'm not sure) boycotted the Internet in protest of the high cost
of Internet access. I guess in England you have to pay the by-the-minute
phone charge. The UK government is looking into this. If there are any UK
subscribers who like to shed any light on this for us, contact me at
editor@pcin.net

For more info visit:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/990607-000022.html


Australia Restricts Web Access
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In a very interesting move, the Australian government is expected to pass
a law that would require ISPs to block adult content on the Internet. ISPs
could be fined up to $18,000 per day (US) for not complying with this.

For more info:
http://www.salonmagazine.com/tech/feature/1999/06/07/censorship/index.html


IBM Caught in Bribery Scandal
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IBM tried to bribe Argentina with $4.5 million to get a contract to
install an information system in Argentina's Banco de la Nacion, the
country's largest bank. See, Microsoft isn't the only company that resorts
to dirty tricks in order to do business.

For more info:
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/reuters/REU19990607S0002


Cyber Trial of the Century
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For information on the Microsoft vs DOJ trial, visit:
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/special/msdojtrial.html


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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. I will not check the validity of
these comments. That is up to you.

Previous Questions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Q1) I have an old Apple II Plus for which, years ago, I wrote some
educational software containing cartoon type graphics. I would like to
convert these graphics for use on a PC. Originally, I used a Koala Pad to
draw them freehand in a PIC format. This took several hours for each one.
Hence, I don't want to have to redo them. Do you have any suggestions as
to how I might accomplish this conversion? Please include any specifics as
to equipment I might need.
A1) Teresa told me that, " If the problem is simply that the file is in a
PIC format then the solution is simple enough. First you download a
program for the Apple called GIFConverter. It can be found at
http://www.kamit.com/gifconverter/ Then you convert the PIC to a JPEG or
GIF file and save it onto a PC formatted disk (you can save on PC
formatted floppy from a MAC but not vice-versa) from the Apple. Then you
can use a graphic conversion program such as LVIEW to view the file and
change it to the needed format for the PC."
A1) Silvan Kuipers said, "There is a graphic program for PC called
Paintshop Pro, which can convert graphics from many types. KoalaPad is
not mentioned, but MacPaint is (*.mac), as well as Macintosh PICT
(*.pct). I believe PCX is also a known format on Apple (maybe also *.TIF/
*.GIF). Perhaps you can convert to one of one of those formats and read
it into Paintshop Pro afterwards."
A1) Jason Chong said, "In regards to question #1.... The answer lies in
finding a file format that is used on both platforms.... I myself started
out with a II+ and also needed to convert some graphics from the II+ to
the PC... I can't remember what the software was called (you can probably
find a shareware utility on the net - you might have to look real
hard)....If you can convert your PIC files to GIF, BMP, or JPEG (JPG) then
you have it made.... What's next? The hard part... Getting the files from
the computer to the PC... There's probably numerous ways, this is how I
did it.... I used a modem card in the II+ and an external modem on the
PC.... You initiate a call with one modem and then initiate the answer
sequence on the other one... You should use some terminal software that
uses the same transfer protocol on both computers (x-modem, y-modem, or
z-modem for example).. It's been a very long time since I have tried this,
and I can remember spending lots of countless hours fooling with this
method... It may work better for you or it might not.... But It made sense
to me at the time so I tried it.... "

Q2) I've had several people email me lately asking for help with WebCams.
I do not have one, so I do not really know anything about them. Does
anyone know of any good sites that explain how to set one up that I could
share with this person?
A2) I guess no one has used a web cam. That doesn't surprise me as I don't
think it is very common.

Q3) What is the least expensive modem that is still good quality?
A3) Vijeprathap Vijendranath says, "The Rockwell 56K.V90 internal modem is
the cheapest and best."
A3) Silvan Kuipers said, "You don't want to know. You should never want
the cheapest. Moreover, "good" quality is in the eye of the beholder.
However, to MY experience, TRUST is pretty cheap and still "good" quality.
They do sell modems too. (www.trust.com)"

Q4) I want to power my computer (only mainboard and floppy or hard drive)
from car batteries... I wonder if it can be done with some voltage
regulators (7805, 7812). I will use this for on-board computer for
calculating speed, distance, time of travel of my car ,etc...
A4) Silvan Kuipers said, "In principle, it should be possible. Use your
mainboard's manual to retrieve information about what connection needs
what voltage. Extra stabilization for your power supplies will probably be
wise. Remember: CMOS uses another voltage (in case you want to power CMOS
also by the car batteries). There is one problem, though. When you start
your car, the start engine takes a lot of power from the battery. If you
have your lights on while starting, you can see them go dim. This symptom
will probably cause your computer to shut off and then reboot every time
you start your car. Also, if you have your CMOS powered by the car
battery, it may be erased / reset (unless you have flash BIOS). A better
option would be using separate battery. Then none of these problems will
occur. But then a question arises on how you want to charge the battery.
Using the dynamo on your car may cause an empty (or low) car battery.
Then again, it may not. Did you do some calculations on how much power
the computer demands from your car battery?"
A4) John Mesh thought " What about using one of those cheap 200-300 watt
12vdc to 110ac inverters? Then you could use a normal power supply..."


New Questions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Q1) What is the best OCR program that you have used to scan documents?
Q2) Can you get switch boxes for a monitor, a mouse, and a keyboard so
that you can use them on 2 different machines?

If you have any answers to these questions, please email me at
freehelp@pcin.net


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THE TIPS and OTHER STUFF
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Access Microsoft Knowledge Base via FTP
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I don't know about you, but I don't like to visit the Microsoft site. It
is always busy and always slow. The only reason I go to the site is to
view technical articles. Well, you can do that from an FTP program, or
directly in your browser. The only catch is that you need to know what
article you are looking for.

You can get at the KB via ftp at
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/deskapps/GEN_INFO/KB


Learn HTML
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There are many resources on the Internet to learn how to make web pages.
If you want to learn how to write HTML code, then a good resource is the
Complete HTML Teacher. It is a collection of articles in a ZIP file that
you can download.

If you are interested, visit
http://users.skynet.be/sky88639/software.htm


Change your Startup and Shutdown logos
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Barry Fox shared with me a URL that has some tools for changing the
startup screens:
http://www.winfiles.com/apps/98/startup-tools.html


Do you make CAPS Lock errors?
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If you make a lot of mistakes by pressing the Caps Lock key instead of the
shift key (as I do all of the time), then maybe you should set up an alarm
to sound every time you press the Caps Lock key. Go into the Accessibility
Options of the Control Panel and under the keyboard tab, put a check mark
by the Use Toggle Keys box. Then click OK.


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Lastly, send in your comments, tips and news and you too can be included in
The PC Improvement News with a reference to your name and web site.
Send email to pcinews@pcimprovements.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. Also,
feel free to send any comments about the newsletters and the topics covered.
This newsletter is sent to those who subscribed only. We don't believe in
SPAM, so if you have somehow gotten this and you don't want it, please see
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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. 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
editor is notified.

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