Issue 136 - May 16, 2001

ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements ©2001
==== 1849 Subscribers in 52 Countries ====

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Welcome to the 136th 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 in May and have the most referrals subscribe and you could win a copy of Microsoft Office 2000 Standard. Recommend PCIN now at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml

OPENING THOUGHTS

Several of you responded last week to John Hills request for PC parts and software. I thought I'd just mention it again, especially the last part. Subscriber John Hills is working with Wycombe Youth Action to send computers and software to needy countries. You may not be able to send him parts unless you live in or close to England, but sending software is pretty inexpensive. This software will be sent to Romania and Hungary and can be used to help people learn English.
If you can help by donating anything, please email John at mailto:jhills@ukf.net

Don't forget to recommend PCIN in May. You're going to love the Recommend PCIN prize this month. I am giving away a copy of Microsoft Office 2000 Standard. You need to visit http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml and recommend PCIN to others. At the end of the month, the person who had the most people subscribe in May will win the software. This is a little different than normal. It is usually a random draw of anyone who recommended PCIN. No we need some action. These must be new subscribers to be eligible.

The NEWS

WebMD Tallies $1 Billion Quarterly Loss, Sacks 350

"Online healthcare information services provider WebMD Corp. reported a loss of just under $1.04 billion, or $2.91 per share, in its fiscal first quarter, an improvement on the previous quarter.
The company on Tuesday said that the result included charges for restructuring, the integration of acquisitions, and the termination of a contract with Microsoft.
WebMD also said it was cutting 350 more jobs to bring total job losses planned for this year to 1,450. These positions will all be lost during 2001, and the company said about 1,000 staff have been sacked already."
Graham's comment: Oh My! How on earth can a company lose $1 billion in a quarter?!!

For more info:
http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/165475.html

In the Office, You Have No Secrets

"Did you know almost four out of five U.S. companies now keep tabs on their employees on the job? Yes, your e-mail is an open book.
Web designer Brian Ragan, 27, never sends personal e-mail from his work account. Nor does he ever use his work computer for any personal writing or to store personal documents. The reason? He has no idea if his company is monitoring him, 'but I always assume it is,' he says matter-of-factly.
Smart move. A recent survey from the American Management Assn. (AMA) reported that a surprising 78% of major U.S. companies now keep tabs on employees by checking their e-mail, Internet, or telephone connections, or by videotaping them at work. Active monitoring has skyrocketed in recent years, up from just 35% in 1997."

For more info:
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/may2001/nf20010510_852.htm

"Spyware" piggybacks on Napster rivals

"As online file traders stream to Napster alternatives, many find their computers saddled with unwanted piggyback software that tracks their online movements and feeds them unwanted advertising.
In efforts to locate revenues from their free services, companies that create popular programs, including BearShare, Audio Galaxy Satellite and iMesh, are adding outside pieces of software that have nothing to do with file trading."

For more info:
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-5921593.html

Team AMD Tech Tour

Subscriber (also friend and co-worker) Chris Empey went to an AMD trade show last week and sent me his comments:
"Last week I had the opportunity to attend a Team AMD Tech Tour event. The event I attended was held in Toronto, although they have or will be having events in sixteen other cities, and started with a vendor fair with displays and information booths set up by some of the leading hardware producers.
A quick presentation by AMD followed focusing on the production of their processors and the various uses for the many chips they produce. Anyone reluctant to try AMD will probably be shocked to learn they have most likely already used their chips in other products, including cell phones, automobiles and even aircraft. NVIDIA followed the introduction with a discussion on their graphics cards and chipsets, including their new GeForce3, using .15-micron technology with 57 million transistors, capable of 800 billion operations/second. Seagate, FIC, DFI, ASUS were all represented, each with excellent information about their products and their uses and compatibilities with AMD processors. Microsoft provided some information on Office XP licensing and AMD finished of the show with some information on proper system building techniques. They spent about 15 minutes speaking only about proper cooling for AMD systems. Did you know that an AMD Athlon processor uses between 40 and 60 watts of power, from a heat standpoint, think of a grabbing hold of a standard incandescent light bulb! They also talked about DDR RAM, upcoming two processor motherboards and servers and 64-bit processing.
All of the presentations were excellent, dinner was wonderful and they gave away a large number of prizes, from duffle bags to a 19" monitor, Athlon 1.3 GHz processors, motherboards, DDR Ram and Microsoft products. I have been to several shows before by various vendors and have never felt like I went away with a lot of information. I was very impressed by the Team AMD Tech Tour, it was both informative and entertaining."

I NEED HELP

I offer a free help service via email. If you have questions, you can email me and I will try my best to answer them. I can answer most of them myself, 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 135-01

I am just wondering how many parallel ports can a normal desktop computer have, and possibly, how to configure it.
(PIII 450, 128MB RAM, 20GB HD, Win98SE, Navigator 4.76)

A 135-01

cnlson said, "I believe they are only limited by the number of open slots on motherboard and available IRQs as they do NOT share IRQs as non-legacy hardware can
Try http://www.lvr.com/parport.htm and http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/kheidens/ppmfaq/khppmfaq.htm for info."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Hills said, "I believe the number of physical parallel ports you can have is governed by the number of available slots in your PC that you can add i\o cards in and the number of free IRQs you have left. Whether PCI steering will allow you to share IRQs for this purpose, I don't know. I would love to know why you ask this question as I have a feeling that what ever you want to do, there is a better way of doing it."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** said, "Practically speaking i think that LTP ports can only use a certain range of addresses and IRQs (interrupts). But i would guess at about 4 physical ports in the computer (you can add them in with new PCI, ICA cards which have only LPT ports, or even old ISA controller cards which also have COM ports and more.). Don't forget that you can also get 'switching boxes' that take one LPT input and have 2+ outputs, and you just chose which device to use for the moment (of course with this you can still only use one at a time). As for configuration, there should be jumpers on the card, which you can set; the data of your current setup is available in your BIOS. Consult with your motherboard, and LPT card manuals for further details."

Q 135-02

I'm having problems with the floppy drive on my pc. It wouldn't read or open anything, & upon having a look inside, one of the pins had broken off, a new floppy drive has been put in, but still the same problem. It either won't open it because it says the disk has not been formatted, (but they are) or it cannot read it. Although, on some disks it will open, say a word doc. & on another (exactly the same type of disk it won't. Also, you cannot save on them.
(PII, 128MB RAM, 10GB HD, Win98, Navigator)

A 135-02

Chris Stoneham said, "If you used any floppy disks in your old (damaged) drive, then you likely will not be able to read these at all, as they drive could have damaged them. If you are having the problem with brand new (preferably pre-formatted) disks, then I would firstly check all your connections inside the PC (correct cable connections, cable correct way right (red on pin 1), and power cable). Still having problems? Boot into DOS and try copying a file to a new floppy there. If it still doesn't work, take your new floppy drive back - it's busted. If that works, but copying in Windows doesn't, try in safe mode. If it works now, then it's another driver, or a program in startup that's causing the problem. Try eliminating these one by one."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cnlson said, "1) check settings in bios and make certain that they are setup correctly (3 1/2 or 5 1/4 360k,720k,1.44,2.88mb)
2) Floppies are generally cabled the opposite of hard drives and CD-ROMs. The red stripe (pin1) faces away from the power connector
3) Check if there is a jumper setting (most floppies will NOT have this)
4) Replace cable
5) Check in dos
6) Replace floppy."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Hills said, "First of all, all the pins on a floppy drive are not used and some floppies have unused pins missing and I suspect yours was one of these and the pin not broken off, unless you found the pin. If you are right, make sure that the broken pin is still not stuck in your cable. Things that could be wrong other than above are as follows.
Cable defective or not pushed fully home on the mainboard.
Wrong size of floppy selected in the BIOS
The protection tab on the floppy disk\s is not closed.
Try these disks in another machine to ensure they are really formatted.
Unlikely but a defective mainboard.
Possible - a boot virus
Possible - a corrupt master boot record."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kenneth Schaefer said, "Did you replace the cable when you replaced the floppy drive? That pin missing from the drive might be stuck in the cable. Is so, it may have bent the new drive as well. Also, check to ensure that the cable in on the header of the motherboard correctly. It is easy on some boards to either turn it around completely, or miss a row of pins."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** said, "You can test the drive on a friends computer to double check if you wish, but if the floppy drive is new (I'm guessing the warranty is about 1 yr), simply take it back from where you bought it. If it's faulty law requires you receive a new replacement back."

New Questions

Q 136-01

My menu bar was deleted from IE from a web site I visited. Now whenever I open IE, I cannot access File, View, Edit, Favorites, etc.
How can I fix this?
(PII 233, 64MB of RAM, 8 GB HD, Win98, IE5.0)

Q 136-02

Some of my friends forward email to me and they always come as attachments. It's always the same two friends. I will not open attachments because even though I know they are from friends, I have still gotten viruses from them. And I would like to see their attachments.
Other than the obvious of just deleting them, is there some way I can receive them not as attachments, or is it a function of what they are doing? Is there some kind of setting they have on or off that can be changed?

If you have an answer to these questions or have a question of your own, please email me at mailto:freehelp@pcin.net

PCIN.net UPDATE

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

Some Useful Registry Tips (up to 32 tweaks now)
http://pcin.net/help/articles/registry.shtml

I'm still working to set up a good message/bulletin board script but am not having much luck. If you have any suggestions, email me at mailto:editor@pcin.net

THE TIPS and OTHER STUFF

Cheap Trick of the Week

**Explore from anywhere**
If you're looking at files or folders in My Computer, Windows Explorer, or almost any other folder, and then realize you need to open a Web page, you don't need to exit the folder and open Internet Explorer.
In any folder that offers an address bar, just type the Web address there, click on Go (or press Enter) and you'll go straight to the site, provided you are connected to the Internet.
You should also find that your Internet bookmarks are available under the Favorites menu.

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

Desktop Wallpaper

I generally just keep my computer monitor "desktop" black. I figure that with programs open, I won't see pictures anyway. But I know that a lot of people like pictures on their desktop, so check out http://www.macdesktops.com/ for some very good ones. (Yes, I know it says Mac, but they are just pictures and can be viewed on any PC).

File Extensions and Associations

I've featured several sites before which lists file extensions, and which program opens them. Here is a short list of the sites I know of:
ExtSearch
http://extsearch.com/
File Extensions
http://tomsmart.com/tempext.htm
Filex File Extension List
http://camalott.com/~rebma/filex.html
What Is... Every file format in the world
http://www.ace.net.nz/tech/TechFileFormat.html
File formats, standards, specifications
http://fileformat.virtualave.net/
The Programmer's File Format Collection
http://www.wotsit.org/

And also, if you visit http://www.microsoft.com/technet/win98/assoc.asp you will find a nice article that tries to help you understand Windows File Associations.

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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