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Issue 80 - April 19, 2000
ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements (c) 2000
==== 911 Subscribers in 46 Countries ====
Subscribe/Unsubscribe/View Archives at http://www.pcin.net/
Welcome to the 80th 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
(April draw is for Mijenix's PowerDesk) at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml
OPENING THOUGHTS
I crossed the 900 subscriber mark this week. The growth is
slow, but very exciting. I can't wait to cross the 100 mark.
We also got new subscribers from 4 more countries.
I'm not much of a financial person, so this issue won't have
much about the recent stock market problems. Sure, the tech
stocks were hit hard all over the world, but they go up and
down so much, it doesn't really seem like news anymore.
One of my subscribers emailed me saying that my emails to
him were arriving as attachments. I don't think this is a
problem at my end, but at his end. It is important for me
to hear these types of things, as there may be something that
I can do to make things better. If you ever have any problems
with the way PCIN arrives, or in what format, please let me
know.
SMILEYS and ACRONYMS of the WEEK
-:-) Has a Mohawk
O:-) Angel
JAM Just A Minute
IRL In Real Life
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
Breaking Copyright
Although in Germany, a recent ruling by a judge involving
AOL could have effects around the world. The famous ISP
was found guilty of copyright infringement for not doing
anything to stop their users from exchanging MP3s. If AOL
is guilty, then how guilty must Napster be for providing
software that has this purpose only? AOL is also getting
caught up in this because NullSoft, the creators of WinAmp
(and a subsidiary of AOL) released a Napster clone.
For more info:
http://www.media.mit.edu/resenv/shoes.html
http://www.msnbc.com/news/396195.asp?cp1=1
http://www.nullsoft.com/
http://www.napster.com/
In the beginning...
I don't know the actual statistics, but it sure seems like
Microsoft has made more millionaires and billionaires than
any other company (at least in the last 25 years). There
was an interesting article from the Associated Press recently
about the first 11 Microsoft employees and what they are
doing now. All but one of them is a still millionaire.
Speaking of wealth, Microsoft also just recently announced
that their employees would be getting more benefits, including
more stock options. The company doesn't want to lose so
many employees to "startups."
For more info:
http://www.bostonherald.com/business/technology/ms7804122000.htm
Netscape Engineers are Weenies!
My good friend Shawn Bremner of Happy Publishing first
notified me of this story. I read what he sent me, read
what was on the Internet, and it is still a story that I
find hard to believe. Not that I don't believe that it couldn't
happen, it just seems like such a stupid thing to do.
Anyway, Microsoft this past week admitted that "its engineers
included in some of its Internet software a secret password
-- a phrase deriding their rivals at Netscape as "weenies"
-- that could be used to gain illicit access to hundreds
of thousands of Internet sites worldwide." I don't know
how exactly this phrase would be used, but I guess this
sort of thing is common. Just like "Easter Eggs", companies
put these things into the programs to be sneaky and funny.
Of course this brings up the debate again regarding the
current size of most major programs, and why don't they
cut out any of that garbage, and save a few bytes.
For more info:
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/tech/2000/apr/14/041400543.html
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2543490,00.html
Buying Cars Online
I don't know who would want to buy cars online. When you
want to buy a car, you want to sit in it, touch things,
and test-drive it. Researching cars online is fine, as the
Internet is a convenient place to get a variety of information
without being hassled by salespeople. I am certainly not
alone, as recent studies have shown that only 2% of new
car buyers who researched cars online actually bought online.
When you add in those who don't research on the Internet,
the number is probably virtually 0.
For more info:
http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article/0,2171,4_342001,00.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
Previous Question 1
I have a computer that won't control the keypad, it needs
the driver fixed, but all I can find is to do a reload of
win98, which will put it back to original which I don't want
to do. Any ideas?
Answers to Question 1
Rob said, "Did you change keyboards or something? Are you
saying keyboard input won't do anything? Look to see if when
you startup the computer if it says something like 'keyboard
initialized'. If so then it should work. Check to make sure
it's plugged in appropriately as well. If you're keyboard
worked previously you need to figure out what you've changed
to make it stop. You may have no choice but to reinstall the
keyboard driver - a reinstall may not be necessary. Try going
through Device Manager (rt.click My Computer and updating
driver)."
Previous Question 2
On boot-up, the computer stops and the message is 'hard disk
controller failure.' Occasionally, it will boot, but will
not load Windows 3.11. Scandisk says it is all okay,
but when a surface scan is tried, the first few blocks are
highlighted, but then the program stops, while the hard drive
powers up and down. I wish to give the computer to a local
school, but do not wish to put them to any unnecessary expense.
Hope you can advise.
Answers to Question 2
John Hills said, "I should give it to the school if I were
you as your hard drive is on its last legs. It appears that
you have bad sectors on the hard drive where the master boot
record lives or rather used to live in your case. As scandisk
bails out then u could try chkdsk.exe instead. This
is the older version of scandisk but is still useful when
all fails. If you can get the scan to finish and chkdsk
sorts out the problem, then try scandisk again and see if
it completes a full scan. If it doesn't then you are
on a hiding to nothing.
Two things to try anyway which may prolong the life
of your hard drive and that is to boot up into dos with a
fully loaded boot up disk and type at the a:\ prompt
Fdisk /MBR
This will rewrite your master boot record. Then for
good measure type from the same place
Sys c:
The first thing (Fdisk) will simply go back to the dos prompt
as soon as you press the enter key.
You will get a congratulatory message after your press the
enter key on sys. The sys command rewrites you system files.
Hopefully this will keep your hard drive going a little longer
but by the sounds of it, not much longer.
While on the subject. If anyone gets bad sectors at the other
end of their hard disk then a good idea is to create a partition
and not format it. This isolates the bad sectors. The
primary partition should only be big enough to end just before
the bad sectors start. In other words you need to watch the
sector numbers to get an idea where they are."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Leeor Geva said, "The message you get is usually bad IDE connections,
the cables inside your computer might be loose or not connected
correctly (Maybe even jumper problems). But from the
next description you gave, Looks like a bad Harddrive to me.
And if you give this computer to a college or university,
it will most probably be taken apart to show the different
parts."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Roger said, "You have some bad sectors on the HDD.
1st, start you computer & enter CMOS(BIOS) by pressing
usually DEL go to 1st page, write all the info on the HDD,
type, cylinders, heads, sectors, wpcom, lzone, size. VERY,
VERY IMPORTANT.
2nd, shut down your computer and take the HDD out.
3rd, put the HDD in a newer computer as primary HDD and boot
to CMOS enter all the info that you have written on the CMOS
standard Setup then go to IDE HDD auto detection and
see if the new computer can detect you HDD. If yes, everything
is OK to start Scandisk.
4th, boot to DOS, and run: scandisk C: /all/autofix/surface/time
you must have at least 20 MB of free space on your HDD and
have less than 20 files in C:\ if you use your HDD for undo
disk or have lot of diskettes. After scandisk is done run:
defrag c: /f /s:e /h Check your conventional memory: mem/c|more
if your free conventional memory is less than 540kB free you
have big problem = crash.
If no, than HDD controller is gone and that's call for a new
HDD."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rob said, "Well the hard disc or its controller is going bad.
If it's the hard disc then a new one is about $100 US. As
for the controller, that would probably involve swapping the
motherboard, which is about $100 US as well. I suppose the
controller itself could be replaced but only by professionals
AFAIK. I propose you look for a local Vo-Tech school to repair
the computer for the school, that way they both benefit."
New Questions
Q1) Why when I delete files, my "Recycle Bin" icon shows it's
full, but when I right click it to empty the bin the "Empty
Recycle Bin" command is greyed out and can't be selected?
I have to double click the icon to open the bin and delete
the files manually. There are files in the Recycle Bin, but
the Empty Recycle Bin command isn't available.
Q2) We have an old 486 & currently unable to access Internet,
getting error message "modem not responding, turn modem off."
What does this mean?
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
**Smaller is better **
How many ways can you come up with to minimize all your
open windows at once?
We can think of three:
1. Click on the Show Desktop icon next to your Start button,
if you have one. (It's a Windows 98 feature.)
2. Right-click on a blank space on the taskbar across the
bottom of your screen and select Minimize All Windows from
the context menu.
3. If you have a Windows keyboard, hold down the Windows
key (the one with the Windows symbol on it) and press M.
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)
Portable Scanning
There are many devices out there that are small (some the
size of pens) that allow you to scan. One of the coolest
I've seen is by NEC. The PetiScan is the size of a book.
It only weighs 1.3 lbs and can scan up 6" x 4". I've never
used one (or seen one in person), but they look and sound
neat. You can read about it and see pictures at http://www.nectech.com/petiscan/index.htm
A Good Help Site
Roger, a recent subscriber, emailed me and recommended
Axcel216's Max Speed Windows site as a good help site. It
can be found at http://members.aol.com/axcel216/
I checked it out and it seems to offer all sorts of tips
and tricks, as well as links to magazine articles where
the tips are in more detail.
Capture Screen Image
A lot of people know that pressing PrintScreen in Windows
will copy a picture of your screen to the clipboard. You
can open Paint and paste, and you will see your screen shot.
One less common tip is if you want a screenshot of only
your currently active Window, then press Alt+PrintScreen.
You can try this while reading this email. PrintScreen alone
will capture a screen shot that will show you the email
program Window and the Windows Taskbar. Alt+PrintScreen
should only give you a screen shot of your email program.
You can use Paint of any other image editor to view the
screenshots. Remember that they are stored in the clipboard,
so when you open your image program, you need to make a
new image, and then paste.
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.
- 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.shtml
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 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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