Issue 132 - April 18, 2001

ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements ©2001
==== 1617 Subscribers in 51 Countries ====

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Welcome to the 132nd 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 April and win a copy of PrintMaster Platinum and Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia. Recommend PCIN now at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml

OPENING THOUGHTS

I commented last week how the nice weather has allowed Lisa and I to get outside and start working around our new house. Well, yesterday we woke up and there was a little bit of snow on the ground. No wonder people think that in Canada we all live in igloos!

Not much to else to share this week. I've been working on redoing the PCIN.net site. Read the PCIN.net UPDATE section below for details.

Lastly, recommend PCIN in April and win a copy of PrintMaster Platinum and Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia. Recommend PCIN now at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml

The NEWS

Please Throw Your Phone Away

From the April 2001 Issue of mBusiness Magazine:
"The cell phone already sops up disposable income like a doughnut in coffee, but a suburban New Jersey inventor has taken disposable a step or two further. Inventor Randi Altschui says her inspiration for this ecologist's nightmare and marketer's dream came in 1996. 'I was driving with my cell phone - which I shouldn't be, but I'm always on the phone - and I kept losing the damned cell signal, and it was driving me nuts,' she explains. 'I just wanted to throw the bloody thing out the window. And that's when it popped into my head - disposable cell phones.'"

For more info:
http://www.mbizcentral.com/m-business_story/new/mworld

Network Solutions Gripes

Network Solutions (NSI) has been getting in to trouble lately:
"One recent example is the number of readers who took up NSI/VeriSign on a recent promotional offer to renew their domain names for 10 years at a discounted total price of $210. After completing the renewal form on the NSI Web site, they received an e-mail notification that their renewal exceeded the maximum allowable limit; so their domain was instead renewed for nine years at a cost of $252. Try as they might via e-mail, phone, and fax, readers were unable to get this changed back to the price they'd been promised."

For more info:
http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/01/04/02/010402opfoster.xml

It's Chic to be Geek?

Why anyone needs to know this, I don't understand...
"Adult male nerds have sex more often than ordinary American blokes according to IT recruitment site JustTechJobs.com.
Following a survey of more than 7,500 male nerds it concluded that this often-maligned group has sex 108 times a year compared to the average of just 79 times.
The results have staggered those behind the survey who've concluded that it's 'chic to be geek'."

For more info:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/18340.html

MOBILE COMPUTING NEWS and NOTES

A cool site of the day for you to check out is "Cool WAP Site of the Day". This is really a good place to go to find quality wireless web sites. If you look in their archive, it will show some really good past features. Go to: http://www.coolwapsiteoftheday.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

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 131-01

Sometimes, not always, when I click on the start button the menu will pop up as it should but then go back down right away. I sometimes, not always, have to click on the start button 2 to 3 times in order for it to stay open. When I click down it pops up. When I release the button, it goes down (the menu) Other times it works well the first time. The same problem happens sometimes, not always, with some drop down menus.
(PIII 700, 64MB RAM, 15GB HD, Windows ME, IE5.5)

A 131-01

John Hills said, "I can only think that the mouse is double clicking on the menu rather than single clicking.
If you believe you are single clicking, then perhaps your click speed needs adjustment in Mouse - Control Panel. A remote possibility is that you have Accessibility options engaged, useful for some disabilities, which have become active."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chuck said, "Any menu opened in win95, 98, me or 2000 will close if another program is performing any action that will cause a change in the display. Pay attention to the mouse cursor, if it is indicating 'working in background' default cursor for working in background is the hour glass), it will cause any open menu to close.
The most common time I see this occur is just after the desktop appears at startup. Any program that loads at startup, such as a firewall, virus scanner, etc., will usually display the 'working in background' cursor. If I get impatient trying to get to the start menu, it will collapse each time the cursor changes from the normal cursor to 'working in background cursor'."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
cnlson said, "Try a different mouse. Some mice when they fail will begin to send static back into the ISA bus. If a different mouse eliminates the issue you know what the problem is. I have had this happen with a touchpad and a PS2 mouse which was operated on a HARD plastic mousepad (that built up enough static in the winter to make the mouse get warm)."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** said, "I find that this happens a lot during startup, as every time a program loads it can make the start bar disappear. Maybe if you're trying to load more than 1 program at once this is causing the problem. Less likely but also possible (with a newer computer) is a faulty mouse."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Brandon Gotch said, "Commonly (in my experience) problems like this are caused by "fragmentation" of the hard drive that the operating system is on (in this case Windows ME), OR by failure in the Operating system itself. My suggestion is to first try "Scandisking" and "Defragmenting" your hard drive (both SHOULD be found in the Accessories / System Tools Menu). If that doesn't work, reformat the hard drive and re-install Windows ME."

Q 131-02

One certain web page (and the only one) I try to access freezes up on me at the same place every time (with 5 items remaining). No others will do this, just this one.

A 131-02

Rob said, "What browser are you using? Try using a different one. Or trying loading it with Java and/or Java Script disabled, especially so if you are trying to view it in Navigator. Chances are your browser is having difficulty with the markup on the page.
A second possibility for a large page is that your system is choking without enough RAM, try saving the page locally and viewing it that way."
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Joe said, "You don't mention what browser you are using IE, Netscape, Opera etc. The web page could have badly written java code or an active x control causing your browser to lock up. Try accessing the web page with java and active x turned off in your browser and see if that helps NOTE: with java and active x turned off the web page might not display properly or not display at all if the site requires these. If it is a site you would like to access you could try to notify the web site's Webmaster about your problem as it could be (probably) the web site that's causing your browser to lock up. If your using an older browser version upgrade to a newer version or see if there is a patch for the browser you are using as this might also solve your problem. If all else fails I would suggest not to go to that site."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Hills said, "Don't go there would solve the problem and possibly deleting all your stuff in the Temporary Internet Folder and Temp folder might do the trick. There is of course a possibility that the fault lies with the web site which you need to check on another PC."
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** said, "rest assured you're computer should ok if it can handle other web pages ok. Unfortunately you didn't give examples of those web pages that work and the one that doesn't and the phrase "freezes up" is a little vague, if you mean that your computer literally stops responding for at least a few minutes then you may need a new browser (try downloading IE 5.5 from Microsoft.com) if you mean that some pictures don't download they may Simply not exist, due to an error by the person who put the page there (email them in this case), or your browser couldn't download them: try clicking 'refresh' or 'reload'. The page may contain some java, which can take a looong time to both download and run (simply have to wait here).
Or if you use a modem to dial up to the Internet, then there may simply be something really big there to download (like java or a big pic), again it's the waiting game here."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Brandon Gotch said, "Now this is an interesting problem probably the best advise in this situation is to figure out what the computer is attempting to load and then check your browsers security settings, It sounds complicated, however this may be indicating an even LARGER problem."

New Questions

Q 132-01

Is it possible to change the printer default from "Print All" to "Print Selection"?

Q 132-02

I plan on replacing my video card. Is there anything special I should do? Do I uninstall the old drivers? Do I just change cards and install the new drivers? Any advice to make this as smooth as possible would be appreciated.

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:

Most of my time this week has been working on the new look for the PCIN.net site. You can visit the main page at http://www.pcin.net/ to see the new look. There is a JavaScript/dHTML script that is the dropdown navigation button. I've also played around a bit with some of the Server Side Includes I use to complete the pages. The site should load properly (and fairly quickly) in all browsers. If something doesn't work for you, please let me know at mailto:editor@pcin.net

Adding the Control Panel to the Start Menu
http://pcin.net/help/articles/desktopshortcut.shtml

THE TIPS and OTHER STUFF

Line Spacing in Microsoft Word

I don't know how people can live without keyboard shortcuts. Here are a couple of good ones that help you with line spacing.
Press CTRL and 1 to format the selected paragraph with single spacing
Press CTRL and 5 to format the selected paragraph with 1.5 spacing
Press CTRL and 1 to format the select paragraph with double spacing
Press CTRL and 0 to insert a blank line above the selected paragraph

Windows ME Shutdown problems

Two weeks ago there was an I Need Help question about a Windows ME shutdown problem. A subscriber emailed me suggestions too late for last week's issue, but they were very good. Here are his comments:
cnlson said, "Check the driver date for the item which stops the computer from shutting down. If it is PRIOR to 8/00 then it is NOT a WinME driver. WinME disconnects different from networks when shutting down to make it shutdown faster. Win98 waits and sends a disconnect notice. WinME just drops the connection. So sometimes with a WinME system with win98 net card (or DSL MODEM which is a combination of network card and modem) you will not be able to shut down correctly unless you pull the driver FIRST.
You are not however hurting the computer if you shut it off manually. The OS just shutdown before the net card finished its business
This btw is a HUGE problem with cable/DSL as the providers are using old 10mb cards with old win95/98 drivers rather than brand new 10/100 cards with new WinME compatible drivers
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q261/7/66.ASP
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q272/4/86.ASP
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q273/7/46.ASP
One of the links may help."
The last link is an article that explains how to deal with general shutdown problems and is probably the best place to start if you are having Windows ME shutdown problems.

Another Use for the Pause/Break Key

A couple of weeks ago, the Cheap Trick of the Week was about the Pause/Break key. Subscribers have been sending in their uses for it, and Leeor Geva sent in another one. He shared that the "Pause Key is also available in 99% of all games today :)"

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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