Issue 87 - June 07, 2000

ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements (c) 2000
==== 981 Subscribers in 46 Countries ====

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Welcome to the 87th 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 June prize will be Software602's 602Pro Lan Suite Lite, a program that lets you connect several computers to the Internet. Recommend PCIN at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml

OPENING THOUGHTS

I stated feeling sick last Thursday, and with 3 days off on the weekend, I was in bed the whole time with the worst cold I've had in years. Crazy! It just seemed to be even worse being in June. I'm feeling much better though. Lisa caught a bit of it, but she's doing pretty well too.

Congratulations to Sachin Athalye of India who won the random drawing for a copy of PowerDesk Utilities 4 Pro. The June prize will be for a copy of Software602's 602Pro Lan Suite Lite, a program that lets you connect several computers to the Internet.

This is the 17th week that I've had the smileys and acronyms below, and I'm finally running out. They will only continue for a couple weeks more. If you have any ideas for another little thing to put at the top of the newsletter, email me at mailto:editor@pcin.net with your suggestions.

SMILEYS and ACRONYMS of the WEEK

[:-)   Listening to Headphones
q:-)   Wearing Baseball Hat Backwards
TIA    Thanks In Advance
IAE    In Any Event

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

Microsoft Ordered to Split in Two

In a decree that was no surprise, Judge Jackson has ruled that Microsoft should be broken in two. This will be all over the news for days, as it has been for months already, so here is just a list of links:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/trial/default.asp
http://cnnfn.com/2000/06/07/technology/microsoft_ruling/
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/special/msdojendgame.html
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-2033666.html?tag=st.cn.1.lthdne
http://usvms.gpo.gov/ms-final.html

MP3 Site Fights Back

Lately it seems that either a recording artist or their studio is suing the well-known MP3 sites. Well, MP3Board, a site that provides message boards and links for MP3 lovers, has reversed the roles. They have taken the pro-active step of asking "a federal judge to find it had not violated copyright laws merely by posting links to material online." MP3Board does not host any songs. They have a search engine, as well as message boards, so they are essentially just a search engine. They claim that having a web page with a link on it does not constitute copyright infringement.

For more info:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-2029114.html?tag=st

Oxygen Fighting for Air

"Privately held Oxygen, an Internet and cable-TV company with content and programming geared toward women, said today it is putting two shows, "Pure Oxygen" and "Trackers," on hiatus for the summer. Some staff and crew will be laid off for the summer, spokeswoman Laura Nelson said." Oxygen is backed by Oprah Winfrey and Paul Allen (among others) and has only been active for a few months.

For more info:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-2033779.html?tag=st.ne.1002.bgif.ni

NEW MONTHLY CONTEST

How many computers do you have? Do you really need more than 1? Do you have them networked together, or are they stand-alone? That is what I'd like to get answered this week.
Once I bought my laptop, I found that setting up a home network was easy to do, and was the best thing to do in order to exchange files between them. But does anyone really need more than 1 computer? Are we too hooked on these things? Or is it better for adults in the house to have their own? What do you think?

I will make a random drawing of all of the replies and that person will receive a copy of Software602's 602Pro Lan Suite Lite. This is a program that will allow up to 3 computers on a home network to access 1 Internet connection. My full review can be seen at http://www.pcin.net/help/software/602pro

lanlite.shtml

Send in your comments/entries to mailto:contest@pcin.net

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
How do I change the folder icons on my desktop to something other than folders?

Answers to Question 1
Dave McClement said, "It depends how creative you want to be. The simple way is to right click on the icon (if it's a shortcut) and select properties from the menu. Select the shortcut tab and click the 'Change icon' button.  The default file for icons - C:\Windows\System\Shell.dll - is displayed from which you can select an alternative by scrolling and clicking your choice. More icons are available if you change the file by 'Browse...' and find 'Moricons.dll' or download icon files from the net and select them here.
Secondly, in 'Paint' you can create your own icon from an existing one. Choose File/New then Image/attributes...  Select pixels and type in 32 for both dimensions. Click Ok and minimize Paint. Find the image you want and take a snapshot by pressing the Print screen (Prt Sc) button. Open Paint and choose Edit/Paste.  Say no when asked to enlarge the bitmap. Drag the pasted image about till the icon appears in the window then click a tool to complete paste. Edit the image to suit, then save as... "icon name.ico" including the quotes. Select the new icon as described above.
Thirdly there is an excellent program called 'Icon forge' available from http://www.cursorarts.com/ which allows you to modify or create icons or animate a cursor. Try it and select the created icon via the above."
 
Previous Question 2
Task bar! It has elongated itself, to the left and to the right. I can view only 1/4 of the start button over on the left, and the clock is out of view - on the right.  Nowhere in the literature can I find mention of how to rectify this. I think I should be able to correct it without resorting to the monitor's controls - which, by the way, do not correct the problem.

Answers to Question 2
No Answers Given

New Questions
Q1) Since I had Mindspring for a internet service provider for one month my browser says "Mindspring Internet Explorer" How can I get rid of the Mindspring header and all of Mindspring files.
Q2) I only have 1 game port. Is there any way for me to connect 4 controllers to this one port so I can play a 4-player game?

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

**Stump the panel**
You can create shortcuts to most files and programs in Windows, as well as to Control Panels. But many Control Panels have multiple pages, so your shortcut won't link directly to the page you want.
Or will it? We know how to do this with at least one control panel.
Suppose you want to make a shortcut to the Screensaver page of the Display control panel to let you switch screensavers quickly. Right-click on an empty area of the desktop and select New and Shortcut. For command line, enter control.exe desk.cpl,display,1 with a space only between exe and desk. Click on Next, type in a name for the shortcut and click on Finish.
You can also make the shortcut go to other pages of the Display control panel by changing the number at the end of the command line. For example, changing the 1 to 0 will call up the Background page and changing it to 2 will bring up the Appearance page.

You can get the Little Black Book of Cheap Tricks yourself for only $9.95 Cdn (about $7.00 US) at http://www.pcin.net/help/books/reviewed/cheaptricks.shtml
(Please mention that you heard about it from PCIN)

Check Your Security

Last week I mentioned how to do a reverse IP lookup, or how to find out from which ISP did a hacker try to get into your machine. Most programs that try to protect your machine from attacks will log these IP addresses. If you don't have any program like ZoneAlarm installed, then visit https://grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2 and run their IP Agent program. It will scan your computer and try to see if there any "holes" that it can get in. This is a harmless check, but you might be surprised when you see how open your computer really is.

Resizing Toolbars

I have 3 toolbars showing on my taskbar, the regular taskbar and quick launch toolbars, as well as the address bar. On the taskbar, or in Internet Explorer, when you have multiple toolbars available on the same line, you can double-click the separator (the line that you would click on to drag the toolbar) and this will resize the toolbar to its smallest possible size. Double-click again and it will become the maximum size. Double-click again and it will become the size that fits the toolbar the best. This is kind of hard to describe, but if you give it a try, you will see what I mean.

A Homegrown Game Site

A received this email from subscriber Bill R this week:

  I just recently started a D&D game and looking for
  many people to make it great. For anyone that wishes
  to play ,code, or build the link will be at
  http://206.168.137.34:1957 If you cannot reach me there
  try mailto:hawke1999@yahoo.com I will reply within
  24 hrs .If you have exp and wish to code or build
  please send a brief description of skills.

I'm not into games, but there are many of you who are, so you may want to check it out and/or email Bill about it.

Office 2000 SR1a CD

If you would like to order the Office 2000 SR1a patch CD (just the patch, not a full version of Office) then you can visit the site below. The CD is totally free, including shipping.
http://order4.microsoft.upgrade.com/office2k_sr1/office2k_sr1.asp

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.
  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.

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