Issue 121 - January 31, 2001

ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements ©2000
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Welcome to the 121st 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. Recommend PCIN in January and win a copy of the book "The Unauthorized Guide to Windows ME" by Paul McFedries. The more you recommend PCIN the more chance you have to win. Recommend PCIN now at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml

OPENING THOUGHTS

Thanks to all who have asked about our move. It went well and we love being here. We are officially out of our old place now. We just got the cable hooked up on Saturday, so I was without Internet access at home for a week. That was not fun! I don't sit at my computer a whole lot, but it sure is nice to have that connection available on demand.

The DNS records have been updated for the GAWing.com domain where I have all of the desktop wallpaper. You can view the autumn and winter Niagara Falls wallpaper at http://www.gawing.com/falls

Don't forget about the PCIN summer BBQ that will probably be happening in the summer. If you live close enough to come to a summer BBQ or something like that, then please email me to let me know that you are interested. For those people interested, I'd also like to hear what you'd be interested in doing/discussing/seeing while hear. Email me at mailto:editor@pcin.net

Lastly, today is your last chance to recommend PCIN in the month of January and have a chance to win a copy of the book "The Unauthorized Guide to Windows ME" by Paul McFedries. Recommend PCIN now at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml

The NEWS

Napster to Charge for Access

"Napster, the controversial but popular music file-sharing Web site, will start charging users a membership fee later this year, the head of Bertelsmann, Napster's parent company, said Monday.
"We have an idea of the price range but it is too early to publicize it," Bertelsmann chief executive Thomas Middelhoff told journalists on the fringes of the World Economic Forum held in this Swiss resort town.
The California-based Web site has allowed some 44 million users to easily pass along digital music files, most of which have been copied from CDs. Music companies however have sued the site for copyright infringement.
Middelhoff expressed confidence a membership fee would not deter users of Napster's controversial site."

For more info:
http://www.nandotimes.com/technology/story/0,1643,500304557-500487943-503379107-0,00.html

Virtual Reality Retailing

From the January 15, 2001 issue of InformationWeek magazine, pg 17:
"Manhattan retailer Hugo Boss' new sales associate, Cameron, is good looking, intelligent, friendly - and guaranteed never to ask for a raise. Create by Virtual Characters, he's the first 3-D "digital model" of its type, a form of hologram. Cameron is projected into free air and activated to inform shoppers of new products or sales. Virtual Characters senior VP Elliot Nathan says characters such as Cameron eventually will be able to interact with customers.
By Eileen Colkin"

Troubled Go.com to Stop

"Walt Disney said Monday that it will discontinue operations of its troubled Go.com Web portal, becoming the latest big media company to fold its Internet efforts back into core TV businesses.
Go.com's entire work force, about 400 employees, has been laid off with the closure, said Disney spokeswoman Susan Murdy. The layoffs will shut down the portal's Sunnyvale, Calif., office, where the majority of its employees were based. The laid-off employees were given severance packages that included 60 calendar days of pay and benefits, according to one source.
In addition, Infoseek, a search engine in which Disney acquired a controlling interest in 1998, will likely disappear if the company can sell its technology to a third party, Murdy said. The company may also sell the site's traffic, giving the rights to redirect people who visit Infoseek to another Web site, she added."

For more info:
http://cnnfn.cnn.com/2001/01/29/technology/disney_go/
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-4637253.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 Questions

Q 120-01

I checked the "Send E-Mail using plain text only" box in two addresses in my address book but if I click on a link to either of them in an e-mail then it still sends HTML messages. I have to manually change it for each message. Is there a way to change this? (Using Outlook Express 5)

A 120-01

** said, "In Outlook Express go to click the menu tools, then options (down the bottom ). In the new window select the 'send' tab, down the bottom you will be able to choose to send _all_ emails as text. My personal choice as it does the same job faster."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Leeor Geva said, "Answer: Tools -> Options -> "Send" Tab choose Plain Text as default."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Hills said, "If you send a new email to these contacts then it should go in plain text. If you are replying to an email you have received your settings are set up to reply in the format of the message you received and if it arrived in HTML then that's what it will go out at. Problem may be solved by copying your body text and creating a new email rather than replying or forwarding."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Neil McMullen said, "Check Tools-Options-Send and make sure "Reply to messages using the format in which they were sent" is unchecked."

Q 120-02

I have recently acquired a pc and wish to dump everything on it and fdisk it and reload win 98 on, but it does not boot the 'A' drive first. And I can't get in to the bios as it is password protected to change the bootable drive, is there a command I can enter to get it to read the start up disk, when I need to use the start up disk. Any suggestions?

A 120-02)

Thanks to John Reeves, Rob, Tony Lowell, Jon, John Hills, Leeor, **, Varden Morris, Joe Atkinson, Simon Duffy, John Patmore, and Joe who all suggested that you either pull out the battery or find jumpers on the mother board to reset the password (I had 4 printed pages of responses that all said this).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kenneth Aspinwall suggest getting help at http://sysopt.earthweb.com/cmospass.html

New Questions

Q 121-01

I purchased some CDRWs. The problem with them is that if I put them in any computer that has a CDRW or DVD, they cause the cd drive to get an afl.vxd error. If I turn off auto run and format the disk then this doesn't happen. I scanned the disk for viruses and nothing showed up. If anyone could explain what has happened I would really appreciate it. I had a really difficult time with this. I tried reinstalling the disk drives and everything finally I figured out how to get the drives working again. I would really like avoiding having this happen again. I thought it was a problem with my computer but I gave some people some disk that have never been in my computer and they ended up having the same problem. I was not very popular for a while.....lol. I would really like to avoid having this happen again.

Q 121-02

I have a problem with Outlook Express. All settings are as they should be and font size is set to 10 points. I have uninstalled Outlook Express and reinstalled it to make sure that default settings are set.
The problem is that the first character typed comes out as it should in 10 point. But the moment the second character is typed it changes to 12 point. In fact, just a space will cause the 10 point to visibly click over to 12.
Pulling my hair out on this one.

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

**My Logo**
Are you tired of seeing that spinning globe in the corner of Internet Explorer? You can change it to a graphic you'll be happier with. This can be a picture you create yourself using Paint or another program - or you can use a file you may already have.
The key here is to make sure your graphic is 26 pixels high by 26 pixels wide. You may even want to put a little picture of your face up there, or your loved one, be it human or animal. Save the graphic as a bitmap file (with the .bmp extension) and remember where you saved it.
To make this graphic your new IE logo, you have to tweak the Windows Registry. If you're not familiar with this process, check out the instructions and precautions at www.WE-Compute.com/registry.html.
In the Registry Editor, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar. Select Toolbar, right click on it and select New and String Value. When the new value is created in the right pane, rename it SmBrandBitmap and double-click on it. Under Value Data type the full path to the graphic that you saved and click OK. Exit the Registry Editor and restart your computer. The next time you start Internet Explorer you should have a new logo to enjoy.
Your graphic will not spin like the globe but that may be a good thing for many people. However, it is possible to replace the logo with an animated bitmap graphic too if you know how to create such an image. You can find such images on the Internet at freeware and shareware sites.

Windows 98 Knowledgebase

I have the book "Que's Using The Microsoft Windows 98 Registry" and it comes with a CD. The CD has an HTML-based knowledgebase that covers Windows 98 installation, system management, networking, optimization, and more. I've copied the directory to my home computer site and you might want to check it out at http://www.gawing.com/win98kb
Remember that this is coming from my home computer (through my cable connection), so at times it can be quite fast, and at times it can be quite slow.

Command Line Switches for Defrag

A couple of weeks ago someone asked how often you should run Defrag. There were many responses with many opinions. Subscriber Brian sent me this:
"If you're using Win95 then there are switches to pass on command line for defrag:
/a - All local non-removable drives
/f - full (files and free space)
/noprompt - start and quit automatically
These are useful if you want to schedule a defrag task or have a shortcut you can just click on then walk away from your computer."

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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