ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements (c) 2000
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Welcome to the 81st issue of the PC Improvement News. PCIN consists of 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 topic. Email me at mailto:editor@pcin.net with any suggestions. If you give me two or three issues, I know that you will come back for more!
Recommend PCIN to others and be entered in a monthly draw (April draw is for Mijenix's PowerDesk) at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml
This is the last Wednesday that the newsletter will be sent out at this time. This is my last week of school, and next week I start a job for the summer, so my schedule will change. I will still be sending the newsletter out on Wednesday, but it will most likely be later in the evening. Not a big deal, but just thought I'd let you all know.
Without any homework to do, in the evenings I will have more time to make some of the changes I mentioned a couple of issues ago. I will keep you updated as I make changes.
(:)-) Scuba Diver (that's a mask) d:-) Wearing Baseball Hat POV Point of View SYL See You Later
Get the WWW. Smileys & Acronyms book for the PCIN special price of $7.00 Cdn (around $5.00 US). You can only get this price by visiting http://www.pcin.net/help/books/reviewed/smileys.shtml
Mafiaboy Caught
There has been speculation since it happened that the person responsible for the recent Denial of Service attacks (users can't access a web site) was a Canadian boy using the handle Mafiaboy. Well, he was officially charged and appears in juvenile court in Montreal, Quebec, Canada last week. Because of his age (15), he is considered a Young Offender, so he can get a maximum of 2 years in a youth detention centre. Mafiaboy was caught by the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) after bragging on the Internet about what he had done.
After his appearance in court, he was back at school the next day attending class.
It is truly amazing that a 15-year-old boy with limited resources could cause CNN, Amazon, ZDNet, and other major sites to be inaccessible for hours.For more info:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/397153.asp?cp1=1
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,35768,00.html
Search Engine Spidering Illegal?
U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte recently ruled that Bidder's Edge has broken the law. It spidered eBay's site and allowed it's own visitors to search the eBay site from theirs. The judge agreed that this sort of things slows down eBay's site and that copying the content was illegal. This could have repercussions with search engines. In essence, when a search engine "crawls" a site, it is copying the text and storing it in their database. There have been several rulings like this lately, so a lot of experts think that current searching/spidering techniques will be changing.
For more info:
http://www.clickz.com/cgi-bin/gt/cz/ebr/ebr.html?article=1618
Fibre Optic Internet Speeds
As reported in the April 20, 2000 Toronto Star newspaper (page H5):
"Researchers at Lucent's Bell Labs recently transmitted 3.28 terabits per second of data over a long stretch of fibre optic cable. A terabit is a trillion bits, or 1,000 gigabits - roughly 20,000,000 times faster than 56kbps speeds most people use. Put a different way, the 3.28 terabit capacity would be capable of moving three times today's daily global Internet traffic every second."
Fighting for Elián González on the Web
I guess depending on where you are, you either have very strong feelings on this (on either side) or you just want it to go away. The latter certainly doesn't seem like it is going to happen any time soon. Pictures of Elián González are everywhere. And as with everything in the world, the web has become a major player. The Cuban government has set up a site (which features a composite photo of the child looking skyward with the caption, "I want you to take me back to Cuba" (Yo quiero que tú me regreses p'a Cuba) in a childlike scrawl). All of the major news sites have sites loaded with pictures, and there are many independent sites that people have set up. The link below links to all of these.
For more info:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2000/04/18/elian_sites/index.html
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 most of them, but there are things that I
have never tried or experienced so I don't have an answer.
I 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. If you do try one of these tips, please let me know
how the suggestions worked out. Did they work or not? Please
send in your questions or results to mailto:freehelp@pcin.net
Previous Question 1
Why when I delete files, my "Recycle Bin" icon shows
it's full, but when I right click it to empty the bin the
"Empty Recycle Bin" command is greyed out and can't
be selected? I have to double click the icon to open the bin
and delete the files manually. There are files in the Recycle
Bin, but the Empty Recycle Bin command isn't available.
Answers to Question 1
John Hills said, "Normally, the "Empty Recycle Bin"
command is greyed out because the recycle bin is empty. It
obviously is not so you could check properties to ensure the
settings are correct. Other than that I think it is a registry
job which is beyond my capabilities."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tony Lowell said, "For WIN98 go to the recycle bin, click
on <VIEW>. At the bottom should be <OPTIONS>.
Choose the <CUSTOMISE> option and check out the various
choices. One of them may need to be turned on or off. Another
avenue to explore is right click on the recycle bin to get
the properties of the page. It may be hidden in there. I can't
reproduce the problem on my box so I can't be more specific.
If worse comes to worse c:\RECYCLED is the hidden file WIN98
uses for this stuff. Blow the contents away using the ATTRIB
and ERASE DOS commands until you figure out what WIN98 is
thinking. Be VERY careful when using DOS to debug windows.
I blew away the advertising driver because I didn't want to
see the ads. After re-installing IE5.1 and 128-bit encryption
and putting in a web washer to stop the ads my machine was
back to normal. 4 hours work. Try and use windows if you can.
Good luck. P.S. if you do want to use DOS, do it by booting
from the A: drive backup diskette. Don't use the MSDOS prompt
as windows is still in control and may thwart you."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Leeor Geva said, "This is an unusual scenario to me,
you might want to search the microsoft site (their "knowledge
base") for that problem, because fixing that may be just
adjusting the fields in your registry or running a "patch"
from microsoft."
Previous Question 2
We have an old 486 & currently unable to access Internet,
getting error message "modem not responding, turn modem
off." What does this mean?
Answers to Question 2
John Hills said, "It means your "modem not responding,
turn modem off." Sounds very much like the modem is not
installed properly and you need to go into Control Panel,
select the modem icon, then select DIAGNOSTICS highlight modem
if there and click on INFO. If the modem responds it will
be obvious: if not an obvious message will appear. If all
is well then you need to have a good look at the software
you are using. Try dialing out a telephone number using Windows
phone dialer. If that does not work then nothing else
will."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Leeor Geva said, "Contact the modem's creator's web site
(such as US Robotics) and get the "drivers" or "connection
strings" for that modem and for the operating System
that you use (win 3.1, windows, Linux :-) ) you may need to
open up the computer case to get the modem's info. Basically
your Internet connection program doesn't recognize your modem,
or it thinks it's external and it's turned off. See if you
can set the modem to a "general modem" in your connection
settings, that may fix the problem without getting the correct
drivers and info for your modem to work."
New Questions
Q1) I seem to have lost my recycle bin icon and the only way
I am able to access the bin is through Explorer (that lets
me see what is in there and manually delete things but I want
my visual bin and easy restore back!). The only change I have
made to my desktop is that I enabled active desktop and "view
as web page". I have tried everything I know including
reverting to the original settings.
Q2) Is overclocking a good idea? Where can I learn about?
If you have an answer to these questions or have a question of your own, please email me at mailto:freehelp@pcin.net
Cheap Trick of the Week
**Back to big**
Last week in "Smaller is better" we came up with three ways to minimize all your open windows at once. So this week we need three ways to get back all the windows you have minimized with any of those methods. Here they are:
1. Click on the Show Desktop icon again next to your Start button, if you have one. (It's a Windows 98 feature.)
2. Right-click on a blank space on the taskbar across the bottom of your screen and select Undo Minimize All from the context menu.
3. If you have a Windows keyboard, hold down both Shift and the Windows keys, and press M.You can get the Little Black Book of Cheap Tricks yourself for only $9.95 Cdn (about $7.00 US)
http://www.pcin.net/help/books/reviewed/cheaptricks.shtml
(Please mention that you heard about it from PCIN)
How Wealthy is Bill Gates
http://www.webho.com/WealthClock
This is a site I saw mentioned in Inter@ctive Week magazine. If you are from the US and you want to consider that all of Gates' wealth comes from you, then you have contributed over $300 to his wealth. If you want to be part of a bigger world, then when you take the entire world population into consideration at http://www.webho.com/WealthClockIntl then you have only contributed around $15. In either case, I have certainly paid more than $300 over the years, so someone isn't contributing their fair share around here!
Another good site that goes into all sorts of details of "How Rich is Bill Gates" is http://quuxuum.org/~evan/bgnw.html
I have mentioned Bill Gates' wealth many times in PCIN. I'm by no means obsessed with money. It is just one of those things that is hard to get a handle on (you could go to the moon and back 12 times if you put dollar bills end to end that equaled his wealth).
After I wrote this, the Microsoft stock went down even more, and recent figures (they change by the minute) had Bill Gates at $49 billion, with Larry Ellison of Oracle closing in at $48 billion. If things keep up, someone is going to have to make a How Wealthy is Larry Ellison? site.
Backspace Key Useful for More than Deleting
When you have a folder window open, you can press the Backspace key to move to the parent folder, even if that folder window isn't currently open. For instance, if you had the c:\program files\microsoft office folder open and pressed Backspace, you would see the c;\program files folder open. If you pressed Backspace again, you would then see the window open for c:\ open.
Poor Richard's Web Site Second Edition
I've done reviews for all of the Poor Richard books so far, so when author Peter Kent updated his Poor Richard's Web Site, I immediately asked for a copy. I probably didn't need to be too anxious. Just like Windows 98 SE, PRWS SE had very little change from the predecessor. There are updated links, some information on new technologies, and some outdated information has been removed, but it basically the same book.
The book itself is still very good. If you haven't read the original PRWS, then I would still highly recommend the book. It is very well written so the read clearly understands the purpose of a given chapter. If you are making your own site, whether it is personal or business, or want to learn more about web site technology to increase your skills, then PRWS SE should definitely be read.
If you have read the original PRWS, then you probably won't get much more out of the SE.
Read the original PRWS review:
http://www.pcin.net/help/books/reviewed/prws.shtml
Read the PRWS SE review:
http://www.pcin.net/help/books/reviewed/prws2.shtml
PCIN 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 for the results obtained from trying the tips in this newsletter.
Graham Wing can be reached at mailto:editor@pcin.net
Copyright 1998-2000, PC Improvements and Graham Wing. All
rights reserved. This publication may be reproduced in hole,
or in part, as long as the author is notified and the newsletter
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