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The PC Improvement News
Issue 1-39
July 07, 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, please cut and
paste.
Note 2: You can only win one contest every 30 days.
Welcome to the 39th 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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The results are in...
After all of that, it ends up that more people like the original
name, The
PC Improvement News. There were 108 votes cast, with TechTalk
receiving
43, The PC Improvement News receiving 46, and Computeracy
receiving 19.
I'd like to thank everyone who voted (and voted again and
again). This
sure does make it easy as I don't have to change anything.
Congratulations to Bob Ingalls for suggesting I keep the
name. He has won
a 2-CD Set from HP with full versions of PrintMaster from
Mindscape (basic
version) and PhotoDeluxe 2 from Adobe.
One thing that will
be changing is where the newsletter will be coming
from. Up to now, I have been using ListBot to manage the newsletter.
Starting next week, I will be doing this myself. About a month
ago I
signed up with a new hosting provider and after playing
with their list
manager, I think I'm ready to switch. The company is Cedant
Hosting and
they have some great packages. You get 25 mail accounts,
1 mailing list,
anonymous FTP, a secure server, 25MB of storage. All for
$12.95 per month
with an extra 20% off if you pay by the year. Visit http://www.cedant.com/ for
more details.
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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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Monkey Bars and Racism
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I've never been able to figure out if the political correct
society that
we live in is a good thing. Sometimes it seems to make
sense, at other
times it seems to go to far. I'm not quite sure which
one this fits under.
Microsoft has been accused of being racist because of
its Publisher 98
software. When you use its image search feature and type
in the phrase
monkey, you will see a picture of a black couple sitting
on monkey bars.
Some people are saying that this was done on purpose
by one of the
programmers. Microsoft says that it is just a result
of the search. The
couple would have appeared under monkey, under couple,
and under bar.
Microsoft has issued an update to the software to fix this.
Obviously if
this was done on purpose, it is inexcusable. My problem
is, does this mean
that companies are going to have to check all of the search
possibilities
for something offensive? That would be impossible. If a
search algorithm
finds something on its own, is it still offensive since
the computer has
no intent? I don't know. If any one has Publisher 98, I
would be
interested to see if the couple does show up under all
3 search term as
Microsoft claims.
For more info:
Official Microsoft Response
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/misc/herboldltr.htm
Publisher 98 program update
http://cgl.microsoft.com/clipgallerylive/pss/
Fast Internet Access
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Matt Ponke told me, "I have cable access through @Home.
It is blazingly
fast and very affordable in my opinion, since you don't have
charges for
an extra phoneline or long distance charges if you don't
have a local
dialup number. I'm very pleased with the service...when it
works. In the
first two months I had it, there were no problems. Then all
of a sudden,
the node for my neighborhood dies. The downtime was about
two weeks.
Problem with the cable access systems are that they are great
and very
fast, but they don't have enough trained technicians to fix
problems when
they occur. I since have not had any more problems. All in
all, I
definitely think it's worth $40 a month."
I think everyone
can understand that @Home is Internet access through
cable. What might be less understood is ADSL, or asymmetric
digital
subscriber line. ADSL service is very fast service through
your phone
line. Your phone line can support 3 channels of data when
using ADSL. The line can handle upstream, downstream, and
the regular telephone service.
So if you can get ADSL service in your area, you don't
need another phone
line. You can be on the Internet through your phone line,
but you will still have the phone ring like normal and
you can use the phone while you
are connected to the Internet. If the ADSL service fails
for some reason,
it will not interfere with your phone service. Bell Canada
is offering it
around Central Ontario, but hasn't got here yet. Cogeco
cable, the local
Cable Company, is also offering @Home service in almost
every area except
for mine. Hopefully some day I can get something faster
than this 56k
modem.
If you have experience with a fast Internet connection from
home, I'd
still be happy to include your comments in upcoming newsletters.
Email me
at editor@pcin.net
Barbie
Printer
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Over the years,
Barbie has done many things, and apparently now she has
lent her name to a computer printer manufacturer to appear
on a printer.
Apollo Consumer Products Inc. (a subsidiary of HP) and
Mattel have a
colour ink-jet printer that is covered in Barbie stickers
and decals. It
also comes with some Barbie software. You can buy it at
Best Buy for about
$80 US.
For more info:
http://www.bestbuy.com/
http://www.hp.com/pressrel/jun99/02jun99.htm
http://www.myapollo.com/
Windows 2000 on Track
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Microsoft is always receiving criticism for promising products
by a target
date and then missing it. Although Windows 2000 is already
behind, it
looks like that the current target date will be met. The
latest Beta was
surprising relatively bug free and a release candidate has
now been sent
to testers. There will be more testing, and probably another
release
candidate before it is released to the public. That should
be in the fall.
For more info:
http://www.news.com/News/Item/Textonly/0,25,38700,00.html
Bush Strikes it Rich in Silicon Valley
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Gov. George Bush, who is running for President in the next
election in the
US, just finished a trip through Silicon Valley where he
collected $1.7
million in campaign funds. Although most people in the computer
industry
wish that governments would just leave them alone, they are
beginning to
realize that "if you can't beat them, join them." According
to one survey,
Silicon Valley is about 15% Democrat and 10% Republican,
with the
remaining trying to stay out of politics all together.
Back Orifice 2000 Coming
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Back Orifice is a program that can allow others to control
your PC from a
remote location. The remote user can watch and listen to
everything that
you do on the computer. They can also make your computer
do things, so it
appears as if they computer has a life of its own.
Well, a brand new version of the program supposedly will
be released on
July 9. This is a Trojan Horse program, because you have
to install in
before it will work. I only know one person who has had
a problem with
Back Orifice and she said that while she was online, here
CD-ROM tray
started popping in and out and she had no idea what was
going on.
As with most viruses and Trojan Horses, there isn't much
cause for alarm.
If download from respected sites and have a good antiviral
program
installed, then you should feel safe. The protection isn't
perfect, but it
is very good.
For more info:
http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/20493.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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There were no questions last week.
New Questions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Q1) Is there any way you can get better help from tech support
from your
computer company? I have been tying to get help for the past
three months
from XXXXXXXX. The only voice I have heard is that of a recording,
for
three months.
This is a very good question that someone sent to me, and
I was hoping for
some of you to share some of your solutions.
Q2) Can't open files from folders in PowerPoint -- Get message:
I/O error
6. I found that PowerPoint wasn't recognizing the proper
path to open
them. After deleting some orphans in the registry (with a
utility
program), I can now at least open files if I type in their
name.
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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Customizing Your System Applet
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This is from a Toronto newspaper called We Compute!
Check out your System control
panel. On the General page just under the
pointless graphic of the monitor may he a big gray space just
waiting for
you to put some-thing cool there. This space may also be
taken up by your
computer maker's logo and have a few words of promotion
beside it. How
about putting a picture of yourself, or your logo, and
your own info there
instead?
First you need a graphic that is 160 pixels wide and 120
pixels high. If
you don't have higher-end image-editing software, you can
edit or create
an appropriate picture in the Paint program that comes
with Windows. In
Paint you set the size by going to the Image menu, selecting
Attributes
and entering the dimensions in the dialogue box. (The 160x120
dimensions
should be okay for most systems but you may have to adjust
the size
slightly to get a perfect fit).
However you make the graphic, save it in the bitmap format
with the name
oemlogo.bmp in the Sys-tem subdirectory of the Windows
directory. If a
windows\system\oemlogo.bmp file already exists, you should
rename it, then
save your new one.
The next step is to compose the info to appear beside the
graphic. Using
Notepad or some other text editor, enter the following
text:
[general]
Manufacturer=Your name or company
Model=Your computer model or anything else you want to say
[Support Information]
Linel= Anything you want to say
Line2= Anything you want to say
Line3= Anything you want to say
Line4= Anything you want to say
Line5= Anything you want to say
Whatever follows the equal sign in each line is your choice.
Save the file
in a plain text format under the name oeminfo.ini in the
same directory as
you placed the graphic file. Again, rename any other file
with this name
first, so you can restore it later if necessary.
Now check the Systems Control panel again. There's your smiling
face or
logo and a bit of your text beside it.
But that's not all. Click on the Support Information button
and there's
the rest of your message.
You can download http://www.pcin.net/help/download/system_applet.zip
for a
sample that I made with my company information.
The best thing about his computer
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A few issues ago, I asked people to tell me what they liked
about their
computer. Well, Jerry emailed me this week with his. A little
late, but
still worth hearing about. "MY FAVORITE PART OF MY
COMPUTER IS MY VOICE RECOGNITION SOFTWARE (DRAGON
NATURALLY SPEAKING), I AM STILL LEARNING BUT IT IS
GREAT TO SAVE MY FINGERS." It is good to hear that someone
has had
a good experience with voice recognize software. A lot of
reviews seem to
say that they aren't good enough yet. It seems that Jerry
thinks it is
well worth it.
Shred you tracks
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One of the most common questions that I am asked is how to
get rid of your
digital tracks. How do you permanently delete cookies? Browser
cache?
Browser history? Well, I just finished reviewing a program
by WebRoot
Software athttp://www.webroot.com/
that will get rid of all of these
things and more. The program is called Window Washer and
you can run the
program automatically at startup, shutdown, or whenever you
want. You can
just delete the files and registry entries, or you can shred
them, meaning
that the files are erased several times over so they are
totally
unrecoverable. The program costs $29.95. I know how to do
all of the stuff
the program does myself, but I have even found it useful.
It saves me
time. I have no tracks that I need to hide, but it saves
me the hard drive
space (of course the program takes up room so I don't think
I'm ahead
any). If you want some privacy searching the net, at least
privacy on your
computer, then Windows Washer would be worth while.
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CONTEST STUFF
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A few weeks ago I reviewed a fancy clock program that has
a nice graphical
interface and a lot of neat time functions. Well, the people
at Logo
Research Systems have been kind enough to donate 2 copies
of ActiveEarth
to give away as prizes. I have posted my review at http://www.pcimprovements.com/help/software/activeearth.html and
you can
visit the ActiveEarth site at http://www.activeearth.com/ or
the Logo
Research site at http://www.logos.com/
Anyway, the web is full of good sites that help you with
your computer
problems. This week's contest is I want you to send me the
URL for the
site that has helped you the most with your computer (other
than mine) and
how it has helped you. The best 2 sites and explanations
will win a copy
of ActiveEarth.
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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
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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 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
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
editor is notified.
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