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.

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