Issue 83 - May 10, 2000

ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements (c) 2000
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Welcome to the 83rd 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 (May draw is for Mijenix's PowerDesk Utilities 4 Pro) at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml

OPENING THOUGHTS

You know, it always amazes me how few people actually give me their names when they ask for help. A person will trust me to give them correct information regarding their computers, but they don't trust me to know their name? I get no names, I get crazy user names, I get "Dear Abbey" names (Need PC Help in Texas), etc. All I want is a name. I don't use the names for anything but replying to the emails. I just want to be able to know that I'm talking to Fred or Wilma or whoever. It is nice to know I'm communicating with a real person, and not an autoresponder or something else.

I'm still playing around with my home network. It is so great! I've had my laptop for almost 4 months now and have been using a switch box and my zip drive to transfer files back and forth. Now I can directly access files from either computer, as well as access the Internet from either file. It's great. The program I'm using as a proxy server to get on the Internet is 602 LAN Suite Lite. By next Wednesday I will definitely have a full review for you all to read. It is a great little program.

Thank you to everyone who wished me well with my new job. It is great. There is a little bit of everything involved (Internet, Intranet, programming, hardware, networking, tutoring, etc). I really enjoy it.

Lastly, don't forget to recommend PCIN during the month of May, as you will be eligible for a copy of PowerDesk Utilities 4 Pro.

SMILEYS and ACRONYMS of the WEEK

>:o)  Rudolph
:-{)  Moustache
IAC   In Any Case
TAFT  That's A Frightening Thought

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

The NEWS

1-Terabyte CD?

From the May 23, 2000 PC Magazine (page 85):
"DVD-ROM may face a tough competitor when 140GB FMD-ROM (Fluorescent Multi-layer Disk) drives arrive at the end of the year. That's enough storage for about 20 hours of compressed HDTV. DVD currently supports up to 18GB.
Developed by Constellation 3D, FMD technology may eventually support up to 100 layers of data on a single disk. (CDs have one layer; DVDs have two.) FMD uses clear disks with fluorescent material in each layer that enables the drive to read multiple layers at once. The drives will work with standard CDs and DVDs as well. The company plans to take FMD technology mobile with a credit card-size device that stores 4.7GB, and it predicts that an FMD disk will eventually store a terabyte of data."

For more info:
http://www.constellation3d.com

She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not

So, did you survive the ILoveYou virus? This was a very interesting virus/Trojan horse because it was just a .VBS file that is just a Visual Basic script. When a VB script is run, it can do almost anything. Visual Basic is a Microsoft programming language so there are all sorts of things that are built right into the language to modify Windows and the computer settings. The ILoveYou bug erases certain files, replaces them with files of a different name and sends itself to others. Since the bug hit, there are many copycats out there now as well. It looks like the script originated in the Philippines. A suspect of questioned, but then released.

For more info:
http://toronto.globaltv.com/ca/technology/stories/technology-20000506-154855.html
http://www.antivirus.com/pc-cillin/vinfo/virusencyclo/default5.asp?VName=VBS_LOVELETTER

TV Domains

Back when the original domains came out, they had a purpose. COM was for commercial companies, NET was for Internet related companies, and ORG was for non-profit organizations. Along with those, each country was given a 2-character code (CA-Canada, US-United States, PK-Pakistan). Well, there are a few countries that are trying to make money off of their fortunate code. The country Tuvalu has the TV code, and the Federated States of Micronesia have the FM code. Both countries are trying to profit from these assigned top-level domains, but ICANN, the group in charge of these domains is not happy and is looking into the matter.

For more info:
http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/05/08/tuvalu.domain.idg/index.html

Metallica vs Napster

Every time I heard about this story, it was always about the users "stealing" the music. Napster is a service that lets users swap MP3s. This is basically a copyright violation and Metallica is suing Napster. Then I read an article that mentioned that Metallica had hired an outside consulting firm to monitor the Napster service to see which user names were downloading Metallica songs. This consulting firm didn't have permission to gather this information. Napster didn't give them access to the server. They just "snooped" around. There even some rumblings that users will sue Metallica for invasion of privacy.

For more info:
http://www.napster.com/metallica-notice.html
http://www.metallica.com/news/2000/napsterfacts.html

MONTHLY CONTEST RESULTS

Thanks to everyone who sent in their opinions on 24-7 Internet access from anywhere. As usual, the opinions covered the whole spectrum, some thinking it was totally unnecessary, and some figuring that it would definitely happen. Out of the 23 entrants, Michael Yeomans was randomly chosen and wins a copy of PowerDesk Utilities 4 Pro.

As usual, all of the entries can be found at http://www.pcin.net/contests/20000510.shtml

Until the next contest, don't forget to recommend PCIN during the month of May, as you too can win a copy of PowerDesk Utilities 4 Pro.

I NEED HELP

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
I have lost most of my icons (shortcuts?) that bring up my reports, etc that I had on my desktop. This happened after I changed my password, but I don't think that caused it. Haw can I retrieve my former desktop set-up?

Answers to Question 1
Rob said, "If you're using the same user name then I'm not sure what happened. Was there any kind of system crash while you were changing the password? On Win these icons are stored in the 'Desktop' folder, there's probably more than one. Use FIND to search the whole drive. Look in the folders and if any of them have your icons, if not then they're gone. All I can offer is to recreate your desktop by making new shortcuts."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Hills said, "I think you lost your icons because when u changed your password you may have become a "New User" and therefore initiated a personal desktop layout for that user. From that point it is probably easier to find your reports using explorer, and then right click them and choose "create a shortcut". Drag shortcut on to your desktop from explorer. (or right click on your desktop and select "New" and then "create shortcut" then browse to your reports.)"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Leeor Geva said, "Yes, it did happen because you changed your password :) Somewhere in your computer is the old desktop that you used to use, only your computer now thinks you are someone else, so it gave you a brand-spanking-new one. You would usually find your 'other' desktops at C:\WINDOWS\USERS\Marsha, Leeor, Bobby or best is to do a Find by going to the START button, clicking on SEARCH and choosing "For Files or Folders" there you can search your computer for the missing file, once you find it, copy it over to your new desktop, or make a shortcut to that folder on your current desktop. Good luck."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ken Berry said, "Changing your password is probably what caused it. User profiles are stored in a .PWL file for each user. There can be to users with the same login, but with different passwords. In effect you reset the desktop for a new user. Do a "find files" for *.PWL and you'll see the log in names for everyone on your computer and you can delete the newest file (the on e created when you changed your password). If there is only one instance with your login name then you'll have to recreate all the shortcuts."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Steve Black said, "It may be that Windows is thinking you are a different user. One way to find out is that did your background change or did you lose and facilities you had before you changed your Password? Did you change your user name (This can include a space accidentally inserted!) as well? What I would try is to log on again using your old password and try and re-input your old user name. It may come back with your previous desktop and if it does, then I would very carefully change you password and keep the old user name."

Previous Question 2
When I'm reading mail, if there's an address on it, I can't click on the address to get to the site etc. Before, it worked perfectly. I'd just click on the address, and I'd either go directly to message, or to the website. Not now. Now I have to do it manually. When I click on an address, I get a 'Program Not Found' box with 3-4 various messages. How can I solve the problem?

Answers to Question 2
John Hills said, "This may be a file association problem. I think you need to open explorer, select "View - Folder Options - File types". Page down to nearly the end of the list and have a peek at which program is selected for opening URL's. Most probably it is not Internet Explorer. You may find it a bit fiddly having to edit these settings but hopefully another PCIN member will come up with something easier."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Leeor Geva said, "Would be nice to see those errors, but basically your Internet browser either got uninstalled somehow, or the link to it changed somehow. I don't know what e-mail program you are using, or what browser you are using, but it's basically your settings in your Email Program. Go to the menus look around for preferences or options, and see what it is configured to do when you click on a URL link, you basically want it to point to your web browser. You can get your web browser's location information (which you may need to fix in the email program's options) by right clicking on the shortcut to your browser, if it's on your desktop, and choosing properties, the info is in the Target field."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ken Berry "It sounds like your problem is with extension associations. In explorer, go to view - Folder Options - File Types and check to make sure Internet shortcut opens with RUNDLL32. HTML & MHTML documents with IEXPLORER (if that's your browser). Hope that helps. If not try reinstalling your browser."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tony Lowell said, "Go to MY COMPUTER, CONTROL PANEL, INTERNET PROPERTIES, ADVANCED then scroll down to UNDERLINE LINKS and pick which ever option you want. I use ALWAYS. If you RESET all which you may have done when you changed your password I believe this option gets reset to the default of don't underline."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Steve Black said, "It sounds like something has been deleted. Have you deleted anything just before and if so, is it still in the recycle bin? If it is put everything back and see if that fixes it? If it doesn't then can you tell us what the messages say in full and what type of email package you are using. (If you know someone who is hot on PC's then you can get them to re-install the e-mail program without losing data, but be very careful - I can't tell you how until I know what type of e-mail package you are running.)"

New Questions
Q1) I am looking for advice regarding lost files from a LS 120 floppy disc, the files in question are all my digital camera pictures in the last two years, I have managed to retrieve most of them using Norton UnErase but they have all come back as .TXT files so I still cannot view them even after trying 'open with' procedure.
Q2) For reasons I do not know, my system icon in the control panel has disappeared completely. The file is still in the system folder, but it won't show in the control panel, nor does anything happen at all when I try to run it.
 
If you have an answer to these questions or have a question of your own, please email me at mailto:freehelp@pcin.net

THE TIPS and OTHER STUFF

Cheap Trick of the Week

**Power surfing**
Here's something even many longtime Web surfers don't know: You can download pages simultaneously in multiple browser windows. It can be much faster than downloading one page after another in the same window.
So, if you have several sites you want to visit quickly, enter the URL (Web site address) for the first one and start your browser looking for it, then open a new browser window (probably by clicking on New or New Window in the File menu) and start it looking for the second site, and so on. Then, when all the pages are downloaded you can jump from one to another quickly by switching windows.
Or suppose you find a Web page that has many links you want to check out. You could wait for a page to download and jump back to the original site, download another page and jump back, ad nauseam. But it's much faster to right-click on a link, select "Open in New Window" (this is found in both Netscape and Internet Explorer) and then, as soon as the page starts to download in a separate window, go back to the first window, right-click to open the next link in a new window, and so on, until all the links you want to check are downloading at the same time.
And here's one more secret of power browsing: You can even download simultaneously with different browsers. So you can access a site that works well with Internet Explorer at the same time as you download a Netscape-friendly page.

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)

More Web Page Keyboard Tricks

Ruth of Computer Ease Consulting sent me this:
"Instead of fiddling around with the mouse and scroll button (for those of us without the "Intellimouse") or using the Down Arrow or Page Down button, just hold the Spacebar down. Simple, huh?  And of course, hit Shift + Spacebar and up you go. Little keyboard shortcuts like that are very popular with my clients because a lot of them have arthritis and fiddling with that bloody mouse pointer is a pain in the... well, you get the message."

Recycling vs Deleting

I am a recycler. The city I live in has excellent recycling facilities and there is very little that actually ends up in the garbage. When it comes to files though, most of the time I can't be bothered to recycle. Most of the time if I know that I want to delete something, why should I move it to the Recycle Bin and then erase it again from there. When you are sure that you want to erase a file, hold the Shift key down while you press the Delete key. This will permanently delete the file rather than moving it to the Recycle Bin.

Minesweeper Cheat

I saw this on winfiles.com:
In the game minesweeper that comes with Windows, there is a way to stop the clock. First click somewhere to start the clock. Then hold down the left and right mouse buttons and you should see a 3x3 square imprint on the board. Next hit the ESC key while holding down both mouse buttons, and the timer is stopped!

DISCLAIMER and OTHER STUFF

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.

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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 is presented as is.

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