|
Issue 91 - July 05, 2000
ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements (c) 2000
==== 1014 Subscribers in 46 Countries ====
Subscribe/Unsubscribe/View Archives at http://www.pcin.net/
Welcome to the 91st 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 July prize will be PrintMaster and Adobe ActiveShare.
Recommend PCIN at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml
OPENING THOUGHTS
I have reinstalled Windows 98 3 times in the last week as
I've tried to do a couple of things on my computer. In the
process I copied a backup copy of my Outlook files over the
most recent files. I lost a day or two of emails, so I lost
some messages. If you sent me an email asking for help and
haven't heard from me, then please email me again. If you
sent in suggestions for the I Need Help section, then sorry,
but they won't be in this issue.
Thanks to those who sent in birthday wishes to Brianna. She
(and my mother) though they were all very nice.
Congratulations to Jim Bateman. He recommended PCIN and won
a copy of Software602's 602Pro Lan Suite Lite. Recommend PCIN
in July at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml
and win a copy of PrintMaster and Adobe ActiveShare.
Lastly, if you are watching the news or reading and article
that you think is interesting/unusual, be sure to email a
message at mailto:editor@pcin.net I have been finding it
exceedingly difficult lately to find anything interesting.
I think the computer world is getting kind of boring.
The NEWS
Here Comes the P4
Last Wednesday (June 28, 2000), Intel introduced its next
generation of processors. Intel has been developing the
"Willamette" chip for some time now, and it will
be officially known as the Pentium 4. The P4 will have an
initial speed of 1.4 GHz and should be available in the
second half of this year.
For more info:
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/dp062800.htm?iid=update+000628&
http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/stories/trends/0,7607,2596704,00.html
The Hyperlink Patent
From the June 26, 2000 issue of InformationWeek Magazine:
"British Telecommunications has issued a broad intellectual
property claim over hyperlinking technology. The company
says it holds the U.S. patent on hyperlinking technology,
which it filed for in 1976 and was granted 13 years later.
The telecommunications company says it may demand licensing
fees from Internet service providers and other companies
using hyperlinking technology in the United States."
For more info:
http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/07/05/patent.tech.idg/index.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
***
Due to my losing many email messages as described above, last
week's I Need Help section answers were lost. We will just
continue on with the new questions.
***
New Questions
Q1) Is there a limit on the size of hard drive I can put in
my computer? It is about a year old.
Q2) My computer seems to be accessing the A: drive quite often.
I don't do a thing and I hear the floppy drive make noise.
Why is this? Do I have a virus?
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
**More than one way to stop a disk scan**
As mentioned last week, some Windows 95 and 98 systems will
scan the hard drive for problems whenever they are shut
down improperly - even if the shutdown is caused by Windows
itself. You can prevent this with a tweak to the msdos.sys
file.
But if tweaking system files makes you nervous, here's another
way of accomplishing the same end (the end of useless disk
scanning, that is).
Click on Start and Run. Type msconfig and hit OK. This opens
Microsoft's configuration utility.
Click on the Advanced button and check the box labeled "Disable
Scandisk after bad shutdown".
That's it. No more time-consuming scans.
It's so simple; it makes you wonder why the configuration
utility is kept such a secret.
No More Pointless Scans?
Last week's and this week's Cheap Tricks mention how to
stop ScanDisk from starting. A subscriber (again, I lost
the email so I don't know who it was) warned against using
this trick. In most cases ScanDisk is useless, but the odd
time there really are problems with the disk that ScanDisk
will fix. If the errors aren't fixed, then you could lose
data and possible continue to lose data until the errors
are fixed. Use these tips with caution.
In an article about shutting down your computer properly
that I wrote a while ago I explained a little of this. You
can read it at http://www.pcin.net/help/articles/shutdown.shtml
An Interesting Security Issue
One of the most recent viruses has been the life stages
virus. This was a "scrap" that contained malicious
code. A scrap is a section of a document that you
can store on your desktop. It has either a SHS or SHB extension,
although even with Show All Extensions enabled, you still
don't usually see the extension. To make a scrap, you can
go into WordPad, create a paragraph. Highlight the paragraph
and the drag it onto your desktop. You will now have a new
icon on your desktop that says WordPad Document Scrap "Your
Text" (with Your Text being the first couple of words
in the scraps.
Now, the point of all of this is that in documents it is
possible to imbed code/commands and that is what caused
the problem with the "Life Stages" attachment.
When someone opened this scrap, it executed code. There
are ways to protect you from this beyond an antiviral program.
Visit http://www.pc-help.org/security/scrap.htm
for a very thorough example of a scrap and the security
risks that are involved.
Searching Microsoft Support
When you visit http://search.support.microsoft.com/kb/c.asp
to do a search at Microsoft Support, try and use the 4 characters
codes they use for their different products. You may have
noticed that all articles about Outlook 98 start with OL98:
and Word 97 articles start with WD97: Select All Microsoft
Products under section one, leave section 2 as the default,
and in section 3, enter the code. Then under the search
options choose title only. You will then have a list of
all of the articles about the product you need help with.
It may take a bit of effort to find out what the code is
for your product (if there is one).
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.
PC Improvement
News Home Page
PC Improvement News
Archive
|
