The PC Improvement News
Issue 72 - February 23, 2000
ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements (c) 1999
==== 813 Subscribers in 43 Countries ====
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Welcome to the 72nd 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
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
(February draw is
for PowerDesk Utilities 98) at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml
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OPENING THOUGHTS
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Last week's venture into RTF didn't work out to well. Several
people didn't
receive well. Many people had the >> along the side
like it had been
forwarded. And perhaps most importantly I didn't like the
way it looked.
What I plan on doing is keeping this as a text newsletter.
It will be
smaller in size (kb) than RTF. I know some people like colours
and other
formatting, so I will attempt to make the online version a
little flashier.
I will probably start next week, the first issue in March.
As I mentioned in the contest reminder, Lisa is in the hospital
right now.
She is having some surgery done on her jaw. For those who
are interested,
here are the technical terms:
LeForte 1 Osteotomy (upper jaw)
Sagittal Split Ramus Osteotomy (lower jaw)
Genioplasty (chin)
For the reasons of the surgery, this issue is a little shorter
than normal
and probably isn't very good. I am sitting here and all I
can do is think
about how she is. It is 11:30 a.m. now, and hopefully by 2
p.m. I will be
able to see her.
Oh, and by the way, enjoy February 29th.
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SMILEYS and ACRONYMS of the WEEK
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:-/
Skeptical
|-O Yawning
GBH Last week it meant Great big hug.
John Hills tells me that in
England it is commonly understood to be Grievous Bodily Harm
FYA For Your Amusement
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
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The NEWS
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Corel and Inprise to Merge
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This news is a couple of weeks old, but I thought it was worth
mentioning.
Corel Corp. is buying Inprise/Borland Corp. In the beginning,
there was
WordPerfect Corporation. Then came Novell who bought WordPerfect.
Currently
Corel owns WordPerfect. But also in the beginning there was
WordPerfect, but
nothing else. Then came Borland, who sold QuattroPro (spreadsheet)
and
Paradox (database) to Corel and now the 3 are together in
WordPerfect Suite.
Borland also makes several application development tools including
the
CBuilder and Jbuilder. Now all these are will be part of the
Corel family.
Both companies are claiming that they are doing this to be
able to build
Linux applications, but there still is a bit of competition
with Microsoft
involved. Corel acquired the other office programs to compete
with Microsoft
Office. Not they have competing products to Microsoft's Visual
Studio.
For more info:
http://www.borland.com/about/press/2000/inprise_corel.html
http://www.plesman.com/cc/news.html?CONTENT=news/cc260401a
No Use for the Internet
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According to a study by CyberDialogue, 27.7 million US adults
tried the
Internet and decided they have no use for it. 1/3 of all US
adults have no
intention of getting online ever. This was report in the March
issue of
Small Business Computing Magazine. You can visit the CyberDialogue
site at
http://www.cyberdialogue.com/
though I couldn't find any reference to this
survey on the site.
MS Trial Restarts
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The Microsoft antitrust trial has started again, and Microsoft
is trying to
defend itself against a breakup or the release of their code.
You can keep
up to date on these stories at the following sites:
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/special/msdojendgame.html
http://www.msnbc.com/news/COMJUSTICEVSMS_Front.asp
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CONTEST RESULTS
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Last week's contest was on Crazy Predictions. I only had 8
people send in
entries, and with 2 prizes, they had a 25% chance of winning.
Not bad. Well,
Herman Steeman and Martin Taulu were the winners. Martin talked
about Y2K
and Herman mentioned something about Windows 2000. Their entries
along with
the others are available at http://www.pcin.net/contests/20000223.shtml
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I NEED HELP
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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 results to freehelp@pcin.net
Previous Question 1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Q1) I have a modem... but I didn't know WHAT its driver is
because my friend
gave it to me... could you please help me to find where can
I get its
driver?
Answers to Question 1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Marty said, "There should be a FCC # on the modem board
somewhere. Make note
of it and go to a site like www.driverzone.com or www.windrivers.com and do
a search for it under the advanced sections. This should tell
you who made
it. Another idea is to look at the chips on the modem. A lot
of them have a
mfg name on the chipset. You might have to dig a little, but
this should be
enough to get you going.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Paul Doty suggested going to http://www.56k.com/ and seeing if there
is
information there that would help. He also wrote up a very
nice and easy to
follow article on how to setup unknown modems. This is too
long for this
section, but can be found at
http://www.pcin.net/help/articles/unknownmodem.shtml
Previous Question 2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Q2) When I enlarge my screen by clicking in the right hand
corner, the
scroll bar is out of the screen. Can't seem to get it
back where I can
operate it properly. Not too sharp on the computer.
I can't size it or drag
it when it is enlarged.
Answers to Question 2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You can hit "Alt" and "Space" at the same
time. Then hit the down and right
arrow key until you see the top of the window. Then
you should be able to
move it around and resize it. Also, you can right click
the application on
the taskbar, and choose "Size", then use your arrow
keys to bring it up or
down. Good Luck...
New Questions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Q1) Whenever I try to install a program, it tells me there
is a problem with
_setup.dll. What is the problem? I know my download is good.
It installs
fine on other computers.
Q2) My mouse is hesitating, the music and games are skipping
or studdering.
It is very difficult to point the mouse. What could be causing
this?
If you have an answer to these questions or have a question
of your own,
please email me at mailto:freehelp@pcin.net
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NEW CONTEST
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Last week I included a review of Poor Richard's Email Publishing
and you can
see the full review at http://www.pcin.net/help/books/reviewed/prep.shtml
The kind people at Top Floor Publishing have donated 2 copies
of the book
for me to give away as prizes. So, here goes:
What makes a good newsletter? Is it the personal touch? Is
it the fact it
comes from a big name (Dummies, ZDNet, etc)? Is content really
King? Or is
it something else? I don't necessarily need to know what your
favourite
newsletter is, but rather what makes a specific newsletter
appealing to you.
2 random entrants will receive a copy of the Email Publishing
book. Send
your comments/entries to mailto:contest@pcin.net
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. You only have 6 days left.
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THE TIPS and OTHER STUFF
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Cheap Trick of the Week
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**Windows of opportunity**
This is one of those little tricks that are not all that spectacular
but,
once you get used to them, you find yourself using them all
the time.
You're typing away and you realize you want to make the window
you're
working in larger or smaller.
Naturally you reach for the mouse and drag the bottom-right
corner of the
window to a new position to stretch the box.
But you could resize the window without taking your fingers
off the
keyboard.
Hold down the Alt key and the Spacebar and press the S key.
A four-pointed
cursor appears on screen. Press any two arrow keys (cursor
keys) and the
window will expand in those directions.
Press the opposite arrow keys and the window will shrink.
Press Enter when you've reached the size you want, or Esc
to cancel the
resizing.
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)
Stop Your Cat from Typing
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I don't know where this commercial can be seen, but there
is a commercial on
TV for Purolator (the shipping company) that says there software
is so easy
to use. It has a cat clicking mouse buttons and then a dozen
Purolator
people show up.
Well, if you have a cat that likes to wander, you have probably
noticed that
the keyboard is a good place for them to start. My cat Misty
always jumps up
on my desk and wants me to scratch her. Where are my hands?
On the keyboard,
and that is where she ends up. You can end up with all sorts
of crazy
character combinations on your keyboard.
A company called BitBoost has created a program PawSense that
looks for the
pattern of characters being entered and the speed at which
they are being
entered, and if it isn't "normal" will stop the
entry from taking place. I
haven't tried it myself, but from what I hear, it does a very
good job.
http://www.bitboost.com/pawsense/index.html
Poor Richard's Internet Marketing and Promotions
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Another book in the Poor Richard series of books, this book
covers the basic
of promoting your business on and offline. Obviously most
of the book
focuses on things like search engine registration, online
directories, and
other ways to promote your business online. There is a nice
section though
on how to promote your business offline. I know that there
are many sites on
the Internet where you can get a lot of this sort of information
for free,
but this was a good book to grab when I had a few minutes
and read it
wherever I want (you don't need a power supply to read a book).
As with all
Poor Richard books, they also offer a 365 money back guarantee.
If the book
doesn't help you, they will give you your money back.
You can read my full review at
http://www.pcin.net/help/books/reviewed/prim.shtml
or you can visit the Top
Floor site directly at http://www.topfloor.com/pr/promo/
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DISCLAIMER and OTHER STUFF
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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.
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
mailto:editor@pcin.net and I will
add it to the subscriber web pages that I
have on my site.
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.