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Issue 110 - November 15, 2000
ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements (c) 2000
==== 1225 Subscribers in 48 Countries ====
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Welcome to the 110th 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 November prizes are copies of PowerQuest's Lost &
Found. 10 copies will be given away, so recommend PCIN at
http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml
OPENING THOUGHTS
I had the largest response ever to a monthly question/contest.
I had about 60 people send in their comments on computer maintenance.
Most people did the same thing, but there were some interesting
comments. Check out the results below.
I think I've found a new hosting provider. Next week you
will probably have PCIN come from the LCWing.com domain. Don't
be alarmed. This is the domain I will use to test the service
before I switch PCIN.net or PCImprovements.com. The new provider
has mailing list capabilities so that is why the list next
week will come from there. I need to try it out. I'll give
you all the details when (or if) I actually move the sites.
Don't bother trying to visit LCWing.com, as there is nothing
there. PCIN.net and PCImprovements.com will continue to work
as usual.
Lastly, don't forget to recommend PCIN in the month of November.
I will give out 10 copies of PowerQuest's Lost & Found
in November to those who recommend PCIN. You'll have a great
chance of winning, so recommend PCIN now at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml
The NEWS
ING and PayPal form Partnership
"Dutch financial services group ING (ING) said on
Tuesday it has formed a strategic partnership with U.S.
Internet payments company PayPal to develop the use of e-mail
payments in Europe.
ING said it will take an unspecified stake in privately-held
X.com, the Palo Alto-based parent of PayPal and declined
to give any financial details of the deal.
In the first instance, ING said it will use the alliance
to develop the use of e-mail-based payments in Europe, building
on PayPal's existing customer base of 4.5 million in the
U.S."
For more info:
http://news.excite.com/news/r/001114/17/net-ing-paypal-dc
MP3.com Continues On...
After agreeing to settlements and licensing deals worth
about $20 million each with 4 major record labels, MP3.com
has settled with the last one, Universal Music Group for
about $50 million. All indications were that the judge was
going to order MP3.com to pay about 5x that.
In other MP3.com news, they have announced that they will
restart their My.MP3.com service. There will still be a
free service (supported by advertising) that will have limitations
on the number of songs you can upload. There will also be
a pay service, but there were no details on how much, or
the frequency of the payments.
For more info:
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article/0,,3_511611,00.html
http://news.excite.com/news/r/001115/09/net-tech-mpcom-dc
Shedding the .Com Name
"The Internet has sparked scores of names that start
with a lowercase 'e' or 'i' and end in 'net' or 'systems'
or the ubiquitous '.com'--or several of the above, such
as 'iPrint.com.' But increasingly, companies are dropping
the '.com.' InfoSpace was among one of the first companies
to drop the '.com' when it did so in March as part of a
broader strategy to revamp its image.
Naming experts say that companies should think twice before
picking '.com' names and other time-stamped monikers: The
stock market crash of April, which particularly hammered
e-commerce and other technology companies, has taken away
much of the cachet once associated with being a pure-play
Internet company."
For more info:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-3662275.html?tag=st.ne.ron.lthd.ni
MONTHLY CONTEST RESULTS
It looks like I finally asked a question that people were
interested in :-) I had 58 people send in their responses
on what they do (or don't do) when it comes to computer maintenance.
There were a lot of lengthy responses, and a lot of people
sent in links to some good sites. As usual, you can see all
of the suggestions (including links) at the PCIN web site.
Visit http://www.pcin.net/contests/20001115.shtml
Congratulations to Ken Berry, Jim Bateman, Johnathon, Carlos
Roman, and Bill who each won a copy of PowerQuest's Lost and
Found.
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 Questions
Q 109-01)
Every time I turn my computer on the "Regional Settings"
page pops on the desktop. How can I eliminate that?
A 109-01)
John Hills said, "I don't how on earth it got there
if it did but it sounds like a shortcut to it is in your
Start - Programs - Startup folder. Or the language does
not equate with the country selected. i.e. Japanese in
Iceland."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lino Supino said, "My suggestion is to check the
battery on your pc motherboard as it may need replacing.
If the battery is dead then that information cannot be
saved and windows must ask for it every time."
Q 109-02)
I had 2 USB ports installed, then after having hard disc
reformatted and windows reinstalled there is no sign of
USB in device manager, how do I get them back
(Win98, 64MB RAM, 4.2GB HD, IE5)
A 109-02)
John Hills said, "The only explanation I can think
of is that your USB device has been disabled in your BIOS
settings. To rectify, go into your BIOS settings on boot
up and you may find one setting to enable USB and another
to allocate an IRQ. Both these need to be set correctly
if both settings are available in your BIOS type. Then
windows will find the USBs when loading."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jeff Miller said, "I remember reading recently in
a PC World publication that USB ports may need to be turned
on in the CMOS settings. A search for "usb"
on pcworld.com in the 'here's how' section yielded 21
hits."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Carlos Roman said, "The USB feature is not installed
automatically in Windows98. To install the USB ports you
need to install them manually from your Win98 CD. Under
Win98 SE the USB ports are installed during the system
installation. I recommend you upgrade to Windows ME and
you will get USB capabilities during the installation
process."
New Questions
Q 110-01)
Does anyone have experience using the new double-sided
sheet printers? When you print graphics do the pages stick
together? Does the ink smear? How do they perform with
wet ink on both sides?
Q 110-02)
My PC just keeps rebooting itself whether I'm playing
a game, on the net or even chucking a letter together.
I've tried updating graphics drivers, Windows updates
and defrag and scan disk but still keeps doing it.
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
**Tweak and ye shall find**
When you right-click on Windows' Start button to select
Find, the search takes place by default in C:\Windows\StartMenu
- which is a ridiculous place to look - unless you change
the location manually.
You could also access Find by right-clicking on the My Computer
icon and selecting Find, but in this case the hunt will
begin in My Computer, which likely makes for a broader search
than you need.
How can you change the find default to something more useful,
like the C: drive?
You need to tweak Windows' Registry. (If you're new to this,
check out Registry-editing instructions and precautions
at http://www.WE-Compute.com/registry.html.)
In the Registry, go to HKEY_CLASSES_ ROOT\Directory\shell\find\ddeexec.
In the right pane, double-click on Default which has a string
value of "[FindFolder("%1", %1)]".
In the Edit String dialogue box, replace each %1 with the
location where you want to start the Find. For example,
to make the C: drive the default search location, enter
[FindFolder("C:\", C:\)] and click on OK.
Close the Registry and the change should take effect right
away.
Use Address Bar as the Start - Run command
The other day I was looking for some mortgage spreadsheets.
Normally I just go to the address bar and type in the words
that I want to search for and MSN Search pops up and shows
me results. Well, the other day I was trying to look for
Excel Mortgage Spreadsheets. Excel kept opening up and looking
for the file "Mortgage Spreadsheets". I did this
a few times and then realized that the address bar in IE
(and the same address bar that you can put on your taskbar)
works as the Start - Run command. You can type a: and the
floppy disk drive window will appear. You can type notepad
and notepad appears. If you've got the address bar on your
taskbar, then you can do everything from there and you don't
need to go to Start - Run anymore.
Inexpensive Domain Registration
I know there are all sorts of companies that are out there,
but this one is particularly good. For $15 US, you can register
a domain and have unlimited email aliases and point the
domain to any current web site or IP address. The company
is called Redirection.net and is run by an ISP and hosting
provider in Edmonton, Albert, Canada. They use OpenSRS as
the registrar (which is a part of TUCOWS). Whenever you
want to change any of your domain settings, you can log
into a control panel at Redirection.net or OpenSRS.com and
change them. Very easy.
DNS Hosting
DNS stands for Domain Name System and is what lest you
type in pcin.net and you end up at my web site (which has
an IP address of 208.56.20.62). Each web site has a DNS
record that sets up where email is sent and where the web
site is located among other things.
Anyway, using the DNS hosting capabilities at MyDomain.com
you can control your own DNS record. This mean that you
can point your domain name to any location you want. Here
is what I've done:
I registered the domain GAWing.com at Redirection.net. I
then signed up for a free DNS hosting service at MyDomain.com.
I then went to my OpenSRS control panel and set the name
servers to be the name servers at MyDomain.com. Then from
the MyDomain.com control panel I set it up for the domain
to point to my @Home address. That is why when you visit
http://www.gawing.com/falls (to get the
Niagara Falls wallpaper), you end up at my home computer
as if it were a regular web site. This is a fantastic way
to host a web site at your home computer using a real domain.
This may be against the rules of your ISP, but if it isn't,
then it is fun to play with.
If you didn't follow any of this, then you probably don't
need to or won't use this service. If you followed it at
all, I suggest that you give it a try with a domain that
you are just playing with. It is a good way to learn some
more about the Domain Name System and it's fun running a
web site from home (even if it is just a simple site).
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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