The PC Improvement News
Issue 69 - February 02, 2000
ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements (c) 1999
==== 776 Subscribers in 43 Countries ====
Subscribe/Unsubscribe/View Archives at http://www.pcin.net/
Welcome to the 69th edition 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 topics in this newsletter.
Email me at
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
(February draw is
for PowerDesk Utilities 98)
http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml
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SOME OPENING THOUGHTS
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Congratulations to Shawn Bremner. He won the draw for ZipMagic
2000. Shawn
provides the Thought of the Week each week. I first thought
that he shouldn'
t be able to win, but then I thought if I excluded everyone
who contributed
to PCIN, it would exclude too many people. The draw
is random (a number
generate by Excel) so I don't think there is any bias in that.
Thanks to
everyone else who recommended PCIN. The February draw
will be for PowerDesk
Utilities 98, a Windows Explorer replacement. My review can
be found at
http://www.pcin.net/help/software/powerdesk.shtml
Speaking of the Thought of the Week, Shawn has several things
going right
now and he isn't sure what is going to happen with Happy Publishing,
so the
Thought of the Week will be discontinued for now. I have an
idea or two
already for a replacement section (a small one), but if you
have any ideas,
let me know at editor@pcin.net
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THE NEWS
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Cost of Net to reach $1.5 Trillion
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With everyone getting connected, the costs of building and
maintaining the
infrastructure of the Internet will reach $1.5 trillion by
2003. Even Bill
Gates couldn't pay for that by himself; but then again, by
2003 he may have
that much money.
For more info:
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2430607,00.html
More Amazon.com Loses
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This is something I've been harping about for almost the whole
time I've
been doing this newsletter. No matter how many times people
explain it to
me, I don't understand how Amazon.com can keep losing money
like this.
Despite a record holiday, Amazon reported that its 4th quarter
loss was its
biggest ever.
The second URL mentions that some investors are even wondering
if they will
even have enough cash to operate the entire year.
For more info:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/364876.asp?cp1=1
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/tech/2000/jan/28/012800190.html
Superbowl Ads
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I'm not much of a football fan, but like most people, I like
to see the
commercials. Unfortunately, the TV station in Canada that
has the rights to
the game shows lame commercials from Canadian advertisers.
I had to go
elsewhere to see the ads. Go to AdCritic.com and you can view
all 35 that
they have. Some are pretty funny.
Companies were spending almost $2 million for a 30-second
time slot, but the
reports are that it is already paying off. Many of the companies
that
advertised have seen a big jump in visitors.
For more info:
http://www.adcritic.com/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-02/02/098l-020200-idx.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/02/01
/BU55490.DTL
http://www.foxnews.com/vtech/0131/t_rt_0131_64.sml
http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/columns/020100superbowl-adcol.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
tried 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.
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 results to freehelp@pcin.net
Previous Question 1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How do you uninstall a program after you run the uninstall
program and you
get a "File Missing" error and the uninstall won't
continue?
Answers to Question 1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Hills said, "I think the best thing you can do is
to reinstall the
software and then re uninstall it."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Leeor Geva said, "You use explorer and delete the directory
(of course
you'll be skipping the deletion of .DLL, registry, or .INI
files that may
not be in that program's respective directory) or you can
call up the help
dept. of that software. The reason is because there is one
file that holds
all of the information as to what to be deleted and where
it is located. You
don't have it, you do it the hard way."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kenneth Aspinwall said, "Easiest way is to reinstall
the program to add back
the missing/corrupted file, then uninstall it with Add/Remove
Programs
applet in Control Panel."
Previous Question 2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm just learning how to make CDs and I have ruined a few
already. Are there
any good places on the net where I can learn what to do?
Answers to Question 2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Hills said, "This may not be the answer you are
looking for, but very
often this is caused by the make of blank CD. You will find
that some makes
of CD disks work better with some types of writer. This is
a trial and error
issue or you may, as you did ask in your queston, find a web
site
recommending the best make of CD disk for the writer that
you have."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Both Leeor Geva and Gary Nelson sent in links to web sites
that would help.
They have been compiled into a new page at
http://www.pcin.net/help/articles/cdrhelp.shtml
New Questions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Q1) I got a major problem in that my PC is slowing down (progressively
gets
slower) over a period of time. This problem is at the moment
solved only by
rebooting. What can I do?
Q2) I can't read my CD-ROM drive when I restart in MS-DOS
mode. How do I fix
this?
If you have an answer to these questions or have a question
of your own,
please email me at freehelp@pcin.net
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NEW CONTEST
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What is the worst product you have ever used (hardware or
software)? What is
the worst web site you have been to? I don't mean little know
products or
site. I mean big name things that were supposed to be great
but that you
thought were horrible. Send in your experiences to me at contest@pcin.net
There will be 1 winner of the 4 utilities that I reviewed
by Glenn Alcott.
The winner will receive:
Super Text Search
FontLook
Directory Print
Directory Compare
You can see al of the reviews at
http://www.pcin.net/help/software/index.shtml
Remember to send in your entries to contest@pcin.net and I will remind
you
again on Saturday
Also, don't forget to recommend PCIN at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml
and be eligible at the end of February to win a copy of PowerDesk
Utilities
98.
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THE TIPS and OTHER STUFF
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Cheap Trick of the Week
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**Bringing shareware back from the dead**
You install a shareware program you want to try, but you don't
get around to
it until after it expires. So you have to download it all
over again, right?
Wrong. If you still have the installation file, you can just
reinstall it.
Oops, this doesn't seem to work - the program is still timing
out. Now you'
ve got to go back to the Web to download it again, right?
Wrong again. The shareware programmer has made the program
create a small
file on your system to record the first installation date.
You'll find it
somewhere on your computer with an ".INI" extension.
Don't confuse it with
other .INI files your computer needs to operate properly.
If you can't tell
from the file name, you can open the file with a text editor
and see if the
contents give you a clue - just be sure to close it without
resaving.
If you find the proper .INI file, you can just delete it and
reinstall the
shareware program.
If the .INI file is not to be found, the clever programmer
may have hidden
the initial installation date in Window's Registry. If you
know your way
around the Registry you can delete this entry in there. (See
http://www.WE-Compute.com/registry.html
for an intro to Registry editing.)
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)
A Free Zip Program
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Everyone has had the need to uncompress a Zip file. ZipMagic,
WinZip, and
PKZip are big names, but there are several good freeware ones
out there as
well. One good one, formerly known as EasyZip, has been
re-released as
Power Archiver and you can download it for free at
http://www.softwarecenter.net/powerarchiver/powerarc.html
A Good Email Program/Tool - Part II
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Last week subscriber Bill R sent in a blurb about 1on1 Lite,
an email
program that you can use that has a feature that allows you
to destroy
messages that you've sent, but decide later you don't want
the other person
to read. Well, subscriber Michael Cloud sent this in, "The
'self-destruct'
only works if you sent the email to another 1on1 lite user.
What 1 on 1 is
really about is secure email within a user group." I've
never used the
program, so I don't know much about it, so appreciate subscribers
sending in
these sorts of comments.
Computer Help
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"A new service, 911 Help Line, uses the latest in internet
technology to
provide online technical support services 24/7 to corporate,
small and
mid-sized business and end users. Using the Internet and push
technology,
911helpline.com links the technician and customer online in
a text chat
session. 911helpline.com support resources have the ability
to send text,
graphics, and knowledge-based documentation instantly to the
customer."
I haven't tried this out, but it looked interesting, so I
thought I'd pass
it on to you. It seems to be geared towards companies, but
I guess an
individual could try it as well. Visit http://www.911helpline.com/
for more
details.
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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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Some General Notes and Rules
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1: If any of the links are too long to fit on one line, you
may have to cut
and paste.
2: You can only win one contest every 30 days.
3: To subscribe another address or unsubscribe, please visit
http://www.pcin.net and
follow the appropriate links.
4: Recommend PCIN to others at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml
and be
entered in a monthly draw.
5: There are only 2 ways to get on the subscriber list. You
have either been
subscribed by filling out a subscription form on any of the
pages on my
site, or you have requested FreeHelp from me in the past.
6: If you have a web site or run your own newsletter, please
email me at
editor@pcin.net and I will add it
to the subscriber web pages that I have on
my site.
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Graham Wing can be reached at editor@pcin.net
Copyright 1998-2000, PC Improvements and Graham Wing. All
rights reserved.
This publication may be reproduced in whole, or in part, as
long as the
author is notified and the newsletter is presented as is.