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The PC Improvement News
Issue 71 - February 16, 2000
ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements (c) 1999
==== 803 Subscribers in 43 Countries ====
Subscribe/Unsubscribe/View Archives at http://www.pcin.net/
Welcome to the 71st 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) at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.php
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OPENING THOUGHTS
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This is the first issue I have sent out that is RTF format.
For those of you
who aren't familiar with the term, you can send email in
basically 3
formats, plain text, RTF, and HTML. Plain text is plain text.
RTF is rich
text format which lets you add some colour and formatting
features like a
word processor. HTML is a web page format. I thought RTF
would allow me to
format the document better, and I'm hoping that most of the
subscribers will
approve. Please send me your feedback, not about the actual
formatting (that
will be changing over the next few weeks as I settle on what
looks best),
but on whether or not your email client displays everything
properly. I
especially want to hear from those with troubles. If too
many people don't
like this, then I will go back to the plain text format.
As I said last week, on Wednesday I went to the InternetWorld/ISPCon
show in
Toronto. What a disappointment! It was all the same thing
with companies
claiming that they have an entire "solution" for
your e-business needs. Very
boring.
Lastly, subscriber Leeor Geva will be attending a Windows
2000 launch party
and will report on it next week.
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SMILEYS and ACRONYMS of the WEEK
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:<| A snob
(the stuck up nose)
:-{ Man with
a moustache
F2F Face to face
GBH Great big hug
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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Controlling the Use of Cookies
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"U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.) said Thursday
he would introduce a
bill to regulate the use of personal information and Web
cookies on the
Internet. At the same time, a privacy watchdog group filed
a complaint with
the Federal Trade Commission against Internet data collector
DoubleClick,
saying the company threatens consumer privacy on the Web.
Torricelli said
that while he preferred self-regulation of Internet issues,
he was concerned
about consumers' privacy rights."
For more info:
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2436112,00.html
More Microsoft Problems
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While Microsoft is still in the midst of the US DoJ problems,
word has come
out that the EU (European Union) is planning on investigating
Microsoft and
their new Windows 2000 operating system. The feeling is that
Microsoft will
be able to increase its dominance in the server operating
system market.
For more info:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_636000/636676.stm
Windows 2000 has 63,000 Defects
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Although many people are claiming that Windows 200 is Microsoft's
best
operating system yet, it has also been revealed that there
are around 63,000
problems with the operating system. Some range from no big
deal to serious.
Microsoft programmers are still working hard to fix these
problems for a
service release. Microsoft defends itself by saying that
bugs are inherent
in programming, and with an operating system with as much
code as Windows
2000, there is bound to be problems.
For more info:
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2436920,00.html
eBay Helps the Feds
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From the Tuesday, February 15, 2000 issue of the Toronto Star
(page D2):
eBay Inc, the largest Internet auction site will assist the
US Federal Trade
Commission and other law-enforcement agencies combating the
fastest-growing
type of fraud by turning over complaints from its customers.
The FTC said it received some 10,700 complaints about Internet
auctions in
1999 - a hundred times more than it got 2 years ago.
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CONTEST RESULTS
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There was no contest last week, but there is one next week.
See below. You
can view the results from previous contests by visiting
http://www.pcin.net/contests/
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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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was wondering if there is a way to make a copy of my bios
and send it to
somebody with the same board who screwed theirs up?
Answers
to Question 1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bill said, "Yes there is a way to copy the bios files,
but all systems will
boot the same with the progs installed .You will find it
in system files
under bios. I use find in the start section, which is easier.
Whatever you
do, do not copy it straight to a disk as it has a tendency
to remove parts
of itself from your system. The best way is right click it
then copy and
paste it to a disk. If you bought your system new then you
should have
received a disk to set the flash bios system. Most p/c shops
will be happy
to make you a disk for this and might charge a $1.00 for
it."
~~~~~
Paul Doty said, "There is a page that lists links to
BIOS flasher utilities
at the W bios site. Go to http://www.bootdisk.com/ and
in other is a link to
the BIOS site. The fist thing these do is prompt you to make
a backup copy
of the present BIOS. You can then exit the program. Another
way uses the
fact that most BIOS programs are shadowed into memory at
startup. Using
debug you can read the memory information. Be careful with
debug, you can
write to BIOS of modems, video cards and hard drives corrupting
them. If
your friend's computer is giving the check sum error it may
be possible to
escape and boot to a floppy and flash the BIOS. If not some
BIOS have a
recovery option. This is a small code in ROM that checks
the floppy drive
for a recovery disk. There may not be video support. Phoenix
4.0 had
recovery disc. If the floppy grinds first thing before the
POST this would
be the system checking for the recovery disk. I found a link
to some of
these at the microfirmware site."
~~~~~
Leeor Geva said, "The BIOS does not act like a hard
drive, so you would have
to use special software made in assembly language to fetch
anything that's
in there, for one thing. Instructions may be found in the
BIOS
manufacturer's web site, and he may be able to get it from
them for free
with proof of purchase of the mother board :-}"
~~~~~
Simon Duffy said, "Not unless you have a gigabyte 2000
which has a dual bios
and I'm not even sure if it can be removed but it may be
possible. All I can
say is that if you have NT4 you could increase your paging
file/virtual
memory size by 64. It would also help a little in windows.
I only notice
that in music making programs when you apply an effect on
a wav file for
example it is much faster when you have say a 128 DIMM."
~~~~~
Silvan Kuipers said, "You can, actually. But I do not
know for sure if there
is a tool that actually does that. In principle, BIOS can
be read and
written like memory, yet in a different manner. Norton Rescue
Disk can make
a copy of your BIOS. Uploading to a Flash BIOS is pretty
easy (there are
specific tools for it) but non-Flash BIOSes can usually only
be written to
by a special EPROM programming tool.
Moreover, uploading your BIOS into another computer may not
be wise! An even
slightly different motherboard may crash forever if you upload
a wrong
BIOS."
Previous Question 2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've increased my memory from 64 to 128. What can I do to
maximize my new
memory? I guess I haven't seen a real major change it speed.
Answers to Question 2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Leeor Geva said, "You're probably not running applications
that require
frequent and large use of RAM. I saw a huge difference from
16MB to 80MB,
Microsoft Word would take ~15 seconds before, where after
the upgrade it
took 2. (And now it takes ~6 because of the great way Windows
takes care of
resources build up) You can get programs that tweak the soft
side of RAM,
where the Operating System arranges memory, but it is not
recommended in
your case. Those programs were popular when we had 4MB and
such limit to
RAM. The truth is you won't see a huge difference going from
64MB to 128MB
since, if I'm right, you aren't requesting much from your
computer. Try
playing the newest game on the market :) Or running a graphic
program such
as Bryce 3D, the rendering would be much faster, I promise
you. Also
consider Windows 2000 Pro (or business) I hear it uses memory
better."
~~~~~
Bill said, "Ram does not show as a real speed demon
on any system. Where the
extra ram comes into effect is when you are running memory
hog progs, or run
multiple windows at the same time. Your new ram will show
on boot up as like
64k or 128k the extra numbers after that are what your video
card and cache
so you will see like 68512k or whatever you have for ram.
I run Windows 98
SE, and office. I went from 64 to 128 and was still a little
slow, I
increased it to 256MB ram and now things run smooth with
no crashes or
having to reboot 12 times while playing in power point which
uses major
memory to make slide shows. Your new memory will load automatically
with no
need for you to configure anything."
~~~~~
Silvan Kuipers said, "Depending on the speed of your
computer and the
Windows version you use, expanding memory not always brings
performance
increase. Expanding to 128 MB is useless if you have Windows
95, as it does
not really it. Windows 98 has better memory management, yet
128 MB is really
useful if you have Windows NT or Windows 2000.
Furthermore, if your CPU is slow, expanding from 64 MB to
128 MB won't help.
So you have to find the bottleneck in the performance, and
upgrade
specifically that part."
New Questions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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?
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. 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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Since we've been talking about optimizing your computer's
performance, and
ultimately getting your memory to work the way you want,
this week's contest
winner will receive a copy of FreeMem Pro. I have 2 copies
to give out.
The contest is this... What is the most erroneous technology
forecast you
have heard? For instance, a long time ago, Bill Gates said
no one would ever
need more than 640k of memory. Now his own operating systems
need many MB of
memory. Dead wrong? What other horrible predictions have
you heard? What
ever happened to NCs (network computers)? Send your comments/entries
to contest@pcin.net Also don't forget
to recommend PCIN at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.php
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
----------------------------------------------------------------
**You're entitled to a better Web search**
Here's a tip to make your online experience better.
Suppose your pet aardvark is sick and you want to know how
to help it get
better. So you type aardvark into a search engine on the
Web...and you get
659,157 matches, including 1,450 cooking sites.
You need to narrow your search to sites that are serious
about aardvarks.
Enter title followed by a colon and then your search term.
For example, try
title:aardvark and you'll get sites with the animal in their
title - not
necessarily in their URL, but in their official title, like
"The Aardvark
Page" or "The Care of Pet Aardvarks".
Using the title prefix increases the likelihood that the
sites found by a
search engine really have to do with the subject.
This trick works for several search engines like Yahoo, HotBot,
AltaVista
and InfoSeek, though with Yahoo you can also just use the
letter t with a
colon, as in t:aardvark.
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)
Recommended Browser Tool
----------------------------------------------------------------
Roger Thompson and Alec Thompson have both recommended the
following:
This is the best idea since spellchecker. It is from the
same 4 guys that
made ICQ in Israel. Right-click any word on the net and get
EVERYTHING about
that word. No need for any programs on your computer. Dictionary,
thesaurus,
or encyclopedia. Also FREE. GuruNet! It lets you point at
any word, in any
Windows program, and, if you're online, it brings you instant
info about
that word. Check it out at http://www.gurunet.com/
Recommended Tech Site
----------------------------------------------------------------
Alejandro Tanaka sent me this:
Ok, I got a link recommendation for your newsletter that
most people will
use.... It's:
http://www.motherboards.org/
It features all the motherboards information from all boards
manufacturers
including IBM, GATEWAY, NEC (non standard motherboards) It's
great....
More Memory Talk
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Over the last several weeks, we have been discussing a lot
of memory issues.
How do you avoid Out of Memory errors? How do you optimize
your memory usage
with 16MB, 32MB, or even 128MB of RAM? Windows does a fairly
decent job on
its own (compared to DOS and Windows 3.x), but there are
still things you
can do. One of the best things is to use a program like FreeMem
Pro, by
Meikel.
One of the problems that comes with programming, is the way
that variables
use memory. It is quite complicated, but you can end up with
memory being
used even though the program doesn't need it. This is often
referred to a
memory leak. When you run FreeMem Pro, it loads at startup
and monitors the
memory used. It tries to free memory if it isn't allocated
properly.
I have been using this on my laptop for about a month, and
I honestly
haven't had a single Out of Memory or Low Resources message.
During this
same time, my desktop (without FreeMem Pro installed) runs
into one of the
mentioned problems. I know there are many things to consider,
but I do
attribute some of the stability of my laptop to having FreeMem
Pro
installed.
There is a standard version of FreeMem, which is free, and
the full version
of FreeMem Pro. You can visit the Meikel site at http://www.meikel.com/ and
you can read my full review at
http://www.pcin.net/help/software/freemempro.php
Great Help for Email Newsletter Publishers
I finished this book a long time ago, and the full review
is available
online, but I couldn't find where I mentioned it in PCIN,
so here it is:
A while ago I did a review of Poor Richard's Web Site by
Peter Kent. Well,
the second book in the series is Poor Richard's Email Publishing
written by
Chris Pirillo. I know many of you subscribe to Chris's newsletter
LockerGnome. Chris has had phenomenal success with LockerGnome,
with a
subscriber base of over 150,000. In the book he goes over
the basics of
email publishing, and shares examples of what he has done.
This certainly
sparked my creative juices (although I haven't acted on them
much yet). If
you publish an email newsletter, you would certainly benefit
from reading
this book. I am expecting a couple copies of this book to
give away as
prizes, so look for a contest in the future.
You can visit the LockerGnome site at http://www.lockergnome.com/
You can visit the Poor Richard site at http://www.poorrichard.com/email/
You can read my full review at http://www.pcin.net/help/books/prep.php
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. Some General Notes and Rules
- If any of the links are too long to fit on one line,
you may have to cut
and paste.
- You can only win one contest every 30 days.
- To subscribe
another address or unsubscribe, please visit http://www.pcin.net and
follow the appropriate links.
- Recommend PCIN to
others at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.php and
be
entered in a monthly draw.
- 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.
- 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.
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 hole, or in part,
as long as the
author is notified and the newsletter is presented as is.
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