Issue 91 - July 05, 2000

ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements (c) 2000
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Welcome to the 91st 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 July prize will be PrintMaster and Adobe ActiveShare. Recommend PCIN at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml

OPENING THOUGHTS

I have reinstalled Windows 98 3 times in the last week as I've tried to do a couple of things on my computer. In the process I copied a backup copy of my Outlook files over the most recent files. I lost a day or two of emails, so I lost some messages. If you sent me an email asking for help and haven't heard from me, then please email me again. If you sent in suggestions for the I Need Help section, then sorry, but they won't be in this issue.

Thanks to those who sent in birthday wishes to Brianna. She (and my mother) though they were all very nice.

Congratulations to Jim Bateman. He recommended PCIN and won a copy of Software602's 602Pro Lan Suite Lite. Recommend PCIN in July at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml and win a copy of PrintMaster and Adobe ActiveShare.

Lastly, if you are watching the news or reading and article that you think is interesting/unusual, be sure to email a message at mailto:editor@pcin.net I have been finding it exceedingly difficult lately to find anything interesting. I think the computer world is getting kind of boring.

The NEWS

Here Comes the P4

Last Wednesday (June 28, 2000), Intel introduced its next generation of processors. Intel has been developing the "Willamette" chip for some time now, and it will be officially known as the Pentium 4. The P4 will have an initial speed of 1.4 GHz and should be available in the second half of this year.

For more info:
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/dp062800.htm?iid=update+000628&
http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/stories/trends/0,7607,2596704,00.html

The Hyperlink Patent

From the June 26, 2000 issue of InformationWeek Magazine:
"British Telecommunications has issued a broad intellectual property claim over hyperlinking technology. The company says it holds the U.S. patent on hyperlinking technology, which it filed for in 1976 and was granted 13 years later. The telecommunications company says it may demand licensing fees from Internet service providers and other companies using hyperlinking technology in the United States."

For more info:
http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/07/05/patent.tech.idg/index.html

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

***
Due to my losing many email messages as described above, last week's I Need Help section answers were lost. We will just continue on with the new questions.
***

New Questions
Q1) Is there a limit on the size of hard drive I can put in my computer? It is about a year old.
Q2) My computer seems to be accessing the A: drive quite often. I don't do a thing and I hear the floppy drive make noise. Why is this? Do I have a virus?

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

**More than one way to stop a disk scan**
As mentioned last week, some Windows 95 and 98 systems will scan the hard drive for problems whenever they are shut down improperly - even if the shutdown is caused by Windows itself. You can prevent this with a tweak to the msdos.sys file.
But if tweaking system files makes you nervous, here's another way of accomplishing the same end (the end of useless disk scanning, that is).
Click on Start and Run. Type msconfig and hit OK. This opens Microsoft's configuration utility.
Click on the Advanced button and check the box labeled "Disable Scandisk after bad shutdown".
That's it. No more time-consuming scans.
It's so simple; it makes you wonder why the configuration utility is kept such a secret.

No More Pointless Scans?

Last week's and this week's Cheap Tricks mention how to stop ScanDisk from starting. A subscriber (again, I lost the email so I don't know who it was) warned against using this trick. In most cases ScanDisk is useless, but the odd time there really are problems with the disk that ScanDisk will fix. If the errors aren't fixed, then you could lose data and possible continue to lose data until the errors are fixed. Use these tips with caution.
In an article about shutting down your computer properly that I wrote a while ago I explained a little of this. You can read it at http://www.pcin.net/help/articles/shutdown.shtml

An Interesting Security Issue

One of the most recent viruses has been the life stages virus. This was a "scrap" that contained malicious code.  A scrap is a section of a document that you can store on your desktop. It has either a SHS or SHB extension, although even with Show All Extensions enabled, you still don't usually see the extension. To make a scrap, you can go into WordPad, create a paragraph. Highlight the paragraph and the drag it onto your desktop. You will now have a new icon on your desktop that says WordPad Document Scrap "Your Text" (with Your Text being the first couple of words in the scraps.
Now, the point of all of this is that in documents it is possible to imbed code/commands and that is what caused the problem with the "Life Stages" attachment. When someone opened this scrap, it executed code. There are ways to protect you from this beyond an antiviral program. Visit http://www.pc-help.org/security/scrap.htm for a very thorough example of a scrap and the security risks that are involved.

Searching Microsoft Support

When you visit http://search.support.microsoft.com/kb/c.asp to do a search at Microsoft Support, try and use the 4 characters codes they use for their different products. You may have noticed that all articles about Outlook 98 start with OL98: and Word 97 articles start with WD97:  Select All Microsoft Products under section one, leave section 2 as the default, and in section 3, enter the code. Then under the search options choose title only. You will then have a list of all of the articles about the product you need help with. It may take a bit of effort to find out what the code is for your product (if there is one).

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.

  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.
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  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.
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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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