Issue 142 - July 04, 2001

ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements ©2001
==== 2123 Subscribers in 55 Countries ====

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Welcome to the 142nd 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!

OPENING THOUGHTS

Happy Canada Day (July 1) and Happy Independence Day (July 4) to whomever this applies to (the first one applies to me) :-)

Wow, last week for only the second time in almost 3 years I missed an issue of PCIN. Let me tell you what happened...
On Thursday, June 21, Lisa (my wife) and I were driving to Brampton, Ontario (we live near Niagara Falls, Ontario) for a church function, and on the way there, a transport truck sideswiped us. Don't worry, we weren't hurt, but had $1600 worth of damage to the car. Dealing with insurance company is so much fun (sarcasm there!). At first we weren't eligible for a rental car, but we finally got one (a Toyota Echo). The car was repaired quite quickly (we have it back now), and everything is fine. Lisa was kind of freaked out by the whole thing. We were lucky to have had such minimal damage.
Then on Friday, June 22, my 83-year-old grandfather passed away. He had been in the hospital for quite awhile, and it wasn't totally unexpected, but it was still hard. Last Wednesday when the newsletter would have gone out, I was on my way back from Smiths Falls, Ontario (near Ottawa, Ontario, about 5 hours away from here) after attending his burial service.
Mix those 2 events, and what a confusing few days... trying to get the insurance company stuff straightened out while we were running back and forth from hospital to house to funeral home to house. Everything is pretty well back to normal though.

I'd like to welcome the 200+ new subscribers who saw PCIN mentioned in LangaList recently. The site was just in a list that is included in each issue of people who link to his site, but there were still over 200 people who took the time to check out the site and sign-up. I hope you enjoy the newsletter and learn something new.

The NEWS

Do you beat your PC?

Taken from the June 11, 2001 issue of Sm@rtPartner magazine, pg 13, by David Hakala:
"Twenty-five percent of PC users admit to slapping, punching, kicking and even hurling their computers, says British manufacturer Nova Tech. The company received more than 4,200 responses to its survey, which explored people's relationships with their machines.
'We were surprised by the number of people who confessed to physically attacking their computers,' the company says.
Said one survey participant, who slapped his Dell system, 'It was so late, and I had so much to do - it was like the computer was taunting me.' There's one Dell customer you can live without."

For more info:
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,44284,00.html

HP Asks Its Employees to Take Pay or Vacation Cut

"Hewlett-Packard said on Friday it was asking employees, including chief executive Carly Fiorina, to either take a pay cut or use up accrued vacation days, as part of cost cutting efforts to help the computer and printer maker contend with a slowdown.
'It's a 10 percent pay cut, or eight paid vacation days,' said Hewlett spokesman Dave Berman. He said that built-up vacation days become a financial liability for the company."

For more info:
http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,27590,00.html

Microsoft Break-Up Overturned

"In an apparent victory for Microsoft Corp., the U.S. Court of Appeals for The District of Columbia Thursday overturned U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's decision to break up the software giant as a remedy to its antitrust violations.
In a unanimous 7-0 decision the court issued a stinging rebuke that Jackson's conduct had been improper and found that Microsoft was not acting unlawfully when it tied its Internet Explorer browser to its Windows OS.
However, the ruling affected only the remedy that Jackson laid out - not his finding that Microsoft had engaged in anti-competitive practices."

For more info:
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article/0,,3_793571,00.html
http://iwsun4.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/01/06/28/010628hnmsrulingup.xml

Napster orders strict service upgrade

"Napster is forcing people who want to trade music through its file-swapping site to upgrade to a severely restricted version that allows trading of only a fraction of the songs previously available.
As expected, people who signed onto the site Thursday morning were greeted with a message telling them their older software would no longer work.
'All previous versions of Napster have been disabled,' the message says. 'We're making this change as part of our ongoing effort to comply with the court's orders.'"

For more info:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-6405561.html
http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,27536,00.html

PCIN POLL of the WEEK

Here are the responses from the last poll:

How many hours do you spend online a week from home?
11 - 20 hours: 26.67%
21 - 30 hours: 22.67%
< 10 Hours: 18.67%
> 50 hours: 16.00%
31 - 50 hours: 16.00%
0 Hours: 0.00%

Total Votes: 75

Visit http://pcin.net/polls/ to participate in the new poll this week:

Have you ever made an online purchase?

MOBILE COMPUTING NEWS and NOTES

iFone, a British entertainment developer for wireless phones is working on putting Atari games on phones. They plan to offer Frogger, Asteroids, and others. They're also working on some other incredible games with amazing graphics like V-Ralley, Unreal, and iSoccer. If people can put great color games on a GameBoy, why not on phones?
By the way, iFone's website is really nice. Go soak it up at http://www.iFone.com

Brought to you by Shawn Bremner and The Wireless Web ezine. Sign up by sending a blank email to mailto:wirelessweb-subscribe@topica.com

FREEHELP FORUM

I used to have a section where subscribers could ask and answer questions via email. The volume of emails became too much to handle, and so I have set up the FreeHelp Forum, and it is coming along.

Each week I will use this section to highlight a question, and where to go to get the answer.

Question
I have Windows '98 and I do not like the defrag program that came with it. Any suggestions as to what defrag programs out there that I can try. I am also looking (I have CD-RW) for a good backup program so I can copy files to CD. Thanks!

Answer
Although I do not like the Norton Utilities suite as a whole, the defrag utility that comes with it is excellent. It is called Speed Disk and is much better than Windows Defrag. Executive Software has a product called Diskeeper that is excellent as well.
There is a free defrag utility called PowerDefrag available at PowerDefrag.com that I've heard good things about, but never tried myself.
If you just want to backup files, the CD-RW drive probably came with some software to do that. If you want to image your hard drive, then try Norton Ghost or PowerQuest DriveImage.

Visit http://www.pcin.net/cgi-bin/forum/index.cgi and check out the Software Forum to post your suggestion, or to post a question of your own.

PCIN.net UPDATE

Check out these new or updated pages on the PCIN.net site:

Some Useful Registry Tips (Now 36 Tips)
http://pcin.net/help/articles/registry.shtml

PC Industry News (updated regularly)
-currently only 6 headlines, but this will grow
http://pcin.net/news.shtml

PCIN Poll of the Week
http://pcin.net/polls/

THE TIPS and OTHER STUFF

Cheap Trick of the Week

**No shutdown allowed**
Some people like to keep their computers turned on all the time. If you're one of them or if you just want to keep others from shutting down your system for a while, here's a trick for you.
(It takes a Registry hack; so if you're not familiar with Windows' Registry, check out our instructions and precautions at http://www.WE-Compute.com/registry.html first.)
In the Registry, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\Policies\Explorer. From the Edit menu, select New and String Value. Right-click the new value in the right pane and select Rename. Type NoClose as the string's new name. Next double-click on it to open the Edit String dialogue box. Enter 1 (the numeral one) as the value data and click OK.
Close the Editor.
Your system cannot be closed or restarted now through the usual Shutdown command.
While this won't make it impossible for people to turn off the computer, it should leave them scratching their heads for a few minutes.
To re-enable shutdown, return to the NoClose string and change its value to 0 (zero) or delete it altogether.

Get your own copy of "The Little Black Book of Cheap Tricks: 2001" by visiting http://www.pcin.net/lbbct/

I've Been Seized

Subscriber Chris Empey sent this in:
"As some of your subscribers may be aware of, grc.com was recently shut down through a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack. Steve Gibson's full report on the attack and information regarding DDoS attacks can be found at http://grc.com/dos/intro.htm Shortly after reading Steve's report I noticed some of the same activity from my computer as mentioned in the report. Most notably was 100% CPU utilization and the send light on my cable modem lit solid for minutes at a time. Task manager would show up to 11 instances of ping.exe running in the background, however usually only 3 or 4.
Upon noticing the activity I would immediately disconnect my cable modem to try to help prevent the attack. A scan of my file system revealed I had been infected with the backdoor.sadmind.dr virus. Surprisingly, Norton Antivirus did not pick up the activity during regular operations but only during a manual scan. I thought I had successfully cleaned my computer when several days later, on June 16, I noticed that activity once more. I was a little more prepared this time. Using a network analyzer and some tips from Steve's report, I was able to verify I was part of a DDoS attack and was able to view some of the packet data heading out over the Internet trying to shut down some server. I was able to pinpoint the server being attacked as well as the content of the packets (the alphabet was being repeated multiple times to fill the 1500 byte packet).
After recording some of the packet data, I again disconnected my link to the Internet and my portion of the DDOS. I installed ZoneAlarm (free from http://www.zonelabs.com/ ), which previously had not been installed and checked my computer using Norton Antivirus and GRC.com's Leaktest and Patchwork, which can both be found at GRC.COM. Subsequent scans do not show any reported virus files. ZoneAlarm has enabled me to prevent ICMP and UDP packets from reaching my computer as well as asking me each time when a program wants to get out to the Internet."

Graham's comments:
If you haven't read Steve Gibson's report (link mentioned above), you definitely should. It is fascinating. It has some sections that are very technical, but overall most people should understand it, and the instructions on how to protect your computer.

Test Your Typing On-line

I've been typing for years. I've never taken a typing class, but since I'm always on a computer (at home or at work), I can type at approximately 90 words/minute. Visit http://www.typingmaster.com/typetest.htm to check out your speed.

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.

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Graham Wing can be reached at mailto:editor@pcin.net

Copyright 1998-2001, PC Improvements and Graham Wing. All rights reserved.

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