Issue 112 - November 29, 2000

ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements (c) 2000
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Welcome to the 112th 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. The November prizes are copies of PowerQuest's Lost & Found. 10 copies will be given away, so recommend PCIN at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml

OPENING THOUGHTS

One of the benefits of having your own domain is that you can have several POP email accounts. I have some that I use regularly, but each domain I have also has a default account where emails not addresses to a proper account are sent. I set up some new rules in Outlook to move these messages to another folder, and at in one week alone I had 130 messages arrive in that default account, and not one of them was legitimate. I'm sure this isn't any sort of record, but it is still amazing that people think "spamming" works.

This is your last chance to recommend PCIN in the month of November. Only a day left. I will give out 10 copies of PowerQuest's Lost & Found in November to those who recommend PCIN. You'll have a great chance of winning, so recommend PCIN now at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml

The NEWS

Stephen King Book on Hold

"Stephen King is pulling the plug on 'The Plant.'
The best-selling author said on his Web site that he will temporarily suspend the serial novel after the sixth installment, due Dec. 18, to pursue other work.
King posted the first installment of the novel on the Internet this summer as an experiment, saying he would continue the story if 75 percent of readers voluntarily paid for it. But with the fourth installment, for example, less than half the readers were paying for the story, according to his assistant.
To thank loyal readers, King said the upcoming installment would be free. He promised to resume the story in the future.
'Don't despair,' King wrote. 'The last time 'The Plant' furled its leaves, the story remained dormant for 19 years. If it could survive that, I'm sure it can survive a year or two while I work on other projects.'"

For more info:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-3898644.html

Organ Donors

I personally think it is a good idea for people to sign their driver's license (or however it is done in their country) and be organ donors. I do think it is a little weird to be selling your organs so you can make some money. As with most other things, the Internet has allowed people more of an opportunity to do this.
"China has cottoned on to the craze of selling human organs on the Net, with one man prepared to sell everything - as long as the price is right.
The donor in question was a prisoner - a condemned one at that - so he probably thought 'what the heck... if I'm gonna go, I may as well make some cash out of it'.
However, according to the South China Morning Post, the con received no takers."

For more info:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/15076.html

The Microsoft Case Continues

Even though not much has happened over the last few months, the rumblings about the Microsoft antitrust case are starting again. The latest is regarding what Microsoft considers "naked PCs" (computers that are sold without an operating system). They used to have several pages on their site for OEMs (computer manufacturers) that explained why all computers should be sold with an OEM copy of Windows. Those pages on the site have "mysteriously" disappeared and Microsoft is now denying it. These pages disappeared the same day that Microsoft was in court again denying it has a monopoly.

For more info:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/15040.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/14955.html
http://www.microsoft.com/oem/

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 Questions

Q 111-01)

I currently have AOL 5.0. I tried to upgrade to 6.0 by downloading it from the web. That didn't work. When it came to making the connection, it failed to do so, and I got the "error" message that it was unable to connect to the network. I called customer service, which proved to be a waste of time. They told me that my system resources had to be over 85%. I found a store and picked up the disk (after AOL told me that they "acknowledged" having had "some" complaints about the web download not working. I tried to install 6.0 from the disk, but I had the same problem. Does anyone have any suggestions?
(P11 400, 128MB RAM, W98SE)

A 111-01)

John Hills said, "When you get these error messages, it is worth going to Control Panel, Add and Remove and untick Dial up Networking.  The PC reboots and then goes back in again and tick the box thereby causing a fresh install of DUN.
Second thing to check is your settings in DUN making sure that only Tcp\ip is ticked and enable software compression is ticked if supported by your ISP.  Finally, to check to see if it is an AOL problem, join a free Internet provider temporarily and see if their dialup works OK."

Q 111-02)

This is an Internet connection speed question.  I have two computers at home, both are Win 98 (SE), PIII's, and they are in separate bedrooms. Both use my primary phone line (plugged in separately in each room), and the same ISP to connect to the Internet.  My primary computer always connects at 50.667k, but my second computer always connects at 33.600k.  The other day my wife was cleaning and had accidentally knocked out the phone plug jack from the wall on my primary computer, and without me knowing this, I was connecting to the Internet on my second computer and it connected at 50.667k.  WOW!! After that I discovered that the phone jack had been knocked out of my primary computer, so I replugged it in and went to reconnect on my second computer and it was back to 33.600k.  So my question is; what could be causing this?  I have duplicated these exact results several times.
(Primary computer - PIII 800, W98SE, 256MB RAM, Rockwell v90 DSL 56k Data Fax PCI Modem)
(Secondary computer - PIII 500, W98SE, 256 MB RAM, Rockwell 56k V90 PCI Modem)

A 111-02)

Tony Lowell said, "If you have time wander around this site from what looks like AT&T. http://cable-dsl.home.att.net/ It's for Windows settings to increase connectivity speeds. See if it's appropriate for this question. I'm not a networking character but it may help, specially the sharing guide."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pauline said, "Answer for person querying the phone lines speeds. Sometimes when you have a second line put in they simply split the first line so it's slower. Talk to your phone company and ask for two separate in lines not one split line."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Hills said, "I would imagine the results would be affected by whether or not the two PC's are up and running at the same time. The changes in modem connection speeds could be caused (maybe) by the amount of resistance that is caused by one or two PC's being attached to the same line including possibly other ordinary phones.  In UK there is a REN number which means only so many phones can be connected to one line before there is not sufficient power to ring one of their bells without an additional transformer. Perhaps your secondary PC cannot get enough power to ring all its metaphorically speaking, bells. Please note this is a wild guess so don't sue me."

New Questions

Q 112-01)

How do you recommend self-teaching the needed skills to repair computers? Any books or good web resources? Should we buy some basic equipment and old systems to experiment?

Q 112-02)

My speakers don't have sound coming out of them, and I've tried everything including windows 98 troubleshooting. Still nothing.

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

**Clean and mean**
First off, Windows takes way too long to launch. In the second place, you usually end up with a rack of icons for all kinds of programs and utilities, half of which you probably didn't know you have, in the Taskbar across the bottom of the screen. All these items are coded to start when Windows is launched, thereby slowing you down.
And, if you think you can just delete these startup items from your Startup folder, you'll be disappointed. Many of these startup items are not found there.
But wait; if you're running Windows 98 or Me, you have another place where these startup items can be turned off.
It's Window's System Configuration Utility. You can usually find it by clicking on the Start button, clicking on Run, entering msconfig and hitting OK.
When the System Configuration window opens, select the Startup Tab and just uncheck programs you don't want Windows to load. Click on OK to close the utility and your next startup should be faster and leave you with a cleaner Taskbar.

View Images as Thumbnails in Windows

It has been a while since I last added a new article to the FreeHelp Headquarters section of PCIN.net, but I finally got around to it. A while ago I was helping a subscriber set up Thumbnail views on his folders, and I had done a few screenshots. I put this together and have an article available at http://www.pcin.net/help/articles/viewthumbnails.shtml In Windows 95 (with the Desktop Update installed), Windows 98 (all versions) and Windows ME; you can choose to view the contents of a folder as thumbnails. This can be particularly useful for images. This article explains very briefly how to set this up.

System Tray Manager from PC Magazine.

I've often had people email me asking how they get rid of all of the icons that are in their system tray (the bottom right corner of your screen where the clock is). The problem is, most of those icons represent programs that are running, and the icon being there lets you know. Some programs have an option to not display the icon, but with most of the programs you have no choice. If you are using a small monitor, or have a low screen resolution, then having all of those icons there can be a pain.
Well, here is a free utility from PC Magazine that will store all of these icons under one icon. The program is called TrayManager 2 and is available at http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/stories/solutions/0,8224,2650200,00.html The link explains how the program works and contains several screenshots so you can see what I'm talking about. If you are having a problem with too many icons, then you should definitely check this out.

Easter Eggs

Subscriber Crissy Strode sent me this:
"Check out http://www.eggheaven2000.com/ It has Easter Eggs for everything from Operating Systems to Applications. I heard about it at work (while we were supposed to be doing other things). I like going because they're neat."

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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