Issue 124 - February 21, 2001

ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements ©2001
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Welcome to the 124th 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 February and win a copy of Serif 3Dplus and PrintMaster 7.2. The more you recommend PCIN the more chances you have to win. Recommend PCIN now at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml

OPENING THOUGHTS

Last week I went to my first ever Microsoft event. It was excellent. In the morning there was a seminar about Windows 2000 and Office 2000 and then at the end there was a preview of Windows XP and Office XP (the next version of each). The afternoon wasn't as exciting (a lot of dry information about licensing), but overall it was a good day.

Not much else to share with you this week. The news section is a little shorter this week. All you see are articles about Microsoft and Napster, and those can getting boring real quick (although I did include one Napster blurb below).

Lastly, don't forget to recommend PCIN in February and win a copy of Serif 3Dplus and PrintMaster 7.2. Recommend PCIN now at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml

The NEWS

Napster Offers $1 Billion to Settle Suit

"Acting on the eve of the Grammy awards, Napster Inc. offered $1 billion Tuesday to the recording industry to settle a copyright infringement lawsuit.
The offer follows last week's damaging ruling from a federal appeals court that the company knew its users were violating copyright laws through its music file-sharing service.
Under the offer, Napster would pay $150 million per year for five years to the major record labels -- Sony, Warner, BMG, EMI and Universal -- and pay $50 million per year for five years to independent labels."

For more info:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/LAW/02/20/napster.settlement.03/index.html
http://news.excite.com/news/r/010221/14/net-tech-napster-dc

Majority of Web traffic outside United States

From the February 5, 2001 issue of InfoWorld magazine, pg 16:
"Non-US web surfers now account for 55 percent of all web traffic worldwide, according to Internet measurement firm WebSideStory."
Web traffic share by country, January 2001
45.0% United States
 5.6% Germany
 5.0% Canada
 4.6% South Korea
 4.4% Japan
35.5% Others

MOBILE COMPUTING NEWS AND NOTES

In Mobile Commerce, or m-Commerce, one of THE "killer applications" is the foresight that one day you will be able to buy things in stores by pointing your phone at the cash register and pressing a button. The purchase is charged to your phone bill... which concerns some financial institutions & overjoys some wireless phone providers.

Brought to you by 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 123-01

I recently got myself a DVD drive for my computer. I have read\seen about such devices that covert the signal from a video card and connect to your TV. That's what I'm interested in. Any recommendations?

A 123-01

Brandon Gotch said, "My Recommendation is to purchase a new Video card that supports TV output such as the ATI All-in-wonder, or the Voodoo 3 card (these are probably more expensive examples). A good place to look for cards and other computer hardware like this is www.pricewatch.com .If you don't want to go this route there are converter devices that will do this job, however these can get expensive are sometimes hard to find (The only ones I've seen are in specialty Electronics catalogs). Hope this helps!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Silvan Kuipers said, "The device you need is an MPEG card, which you put inside your computer, attach to the DVD and it decodes the signal for you. Make sure the MPEG-card has the appropriate outputs (TV-signal)."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Hills said, "Probably your best bet is to change your graphics card to an ATI All In Wonder, available in 16, 32 and 64 SDRAM. This has not only TV\Video out facilities but also TV, Video and everything else in facilities. It comes with all cables needed and, provided your TV is within an inch of your PC, the cables supplied should reach. Otherwise, you need to buy new or cable extensions."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Matthew Chapman said, "I run a desktop with a Creative DVD & DXR3 Card (250 Meg Pentium), also a Laptop with a DVD and WinDVD Software (750 Meg Processor.
Without doubt, the Desktop with the DVD and Card is the best solution, it comes with a short link cable that to take the graphics card output into it, then you plug the monitor into the DXR Card.
There are several more outputs. I have a 10 Meter lead from the PC to my TV - works perfectly.
The latest Creative DVD kit comes with a remote control - may be worth considering."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** said, "You need a card that provides TV-out. Even nowadays even the cheapest of video cards can supply this. You can even run your computer with 2 video cards so just adding one with TV-out is easy. You can search the net for one, e.g. www.yahoo.com, or go to www.ebay.com for second hand ones or just start off at www.asus.com or www.aopen.com"

Q 123-02

This may not be enough information, but here goes. I run Windows 98 on a custom built computer. The computer has an Athlon 500 chip, a Voodoo3 video card, Internet Explorer through Mindspring, 128K RAM. The system regularly freezes, especially when I am on the Internet. I expect it to freeze periodically, but this computer freezes too much. Any advice?

A 123-02

Brandon Gotch said, "I have a very SIMPLE solution to your problem ... Get rid of Windows 98! I had the same problem with Win 98 not too long ago. Change your operating system to Windows 2000 or 95 (these are both exceptionally stable Operating Systems) Stay away from Windows ME; it too is extremely unstable (I had it for one day and it destroyed its own registry files). Windows 98 has this incredibly BAD problem with Resource management (in has NO clue how to do things ;-)). Hope that helps...!"
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Silvan Kuipers said, "There's a program called Norton CrashGuard. Although I am not too fond of this program, it may give you more information about the crashes and prevent from data loss."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Hills said, "I can only list the some likely reasons but in doing so, I am omitting hundreds more.
1...Your PSU is not powerful enough. You normally need 300w and not 235 or 250w but depends on what other power drainers you have on your PC. Check your BIOS to ensure you CPU is not overheating.
2...You need the latest driver for your graphics card.
3...Could try sticking your modem in another IRQ or address range - this is the least likely.
Also try using your PC with as many programs that load up on start up i.e. virus checkers, disabled and see if that makes a difference. If all that fails then possibly you may have an iffy memory module. If you have two 64's, try one at a time.
Hope at least one of these suggestions, brings you success."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** said, "1) It could be one of literally dozens of reasons. I suggest you try using one program at a time to see which will crash the machine. Try running video/audio programs only. It's best to draw up a list of all the possibilities and test them all individually.
2) _Don't_ expect machines to crash, its _not_ normal.
3) If it's under warranty just take it back."

New Questions

Q 124-01

I have an old computer and I would like to reformat the hard drive. I made a boot disk on a floppy and I can boot up to the A drive but when I type in "format c:" it tells me that is an "Invalid drive specification."

Q 124-02

Regularly, when I try to turn off my PC, I get the "yellow triangle", "wait...end task...cancel" window coming up, and I can't turn off the computer without pressing the reset button.

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

**Your own meter maid**
If you ever work on your Windows computer for long periods of time, you've probably noticed it seems to slow down after a while. If you want to really find out what's going on, press your Start button and select Run. Type "rsrcmtr" in the Open box (without the quotes). Click OK.
You now have your a Resource Meter that will tell you if your system is getting bogged down. Double-clicking on the green icon for the meter in the system tray will give you all the details.
Computers often slow down over time because of the amount of RAM memory you have. The amount of RAM memory is always much less than what is in your hard drive and it thus doesn't take long to use up most of it. Once you restart your computer however, it's like charging your batteries; you're all ready to go again. Just keep in mind that the Resource Meter uses your resources too.
If you look in your system tray in the bottom right corner of your screen, you'll find a lot of applications that you may not need running. Some programs like RealPlayer will be open down there even though you're not using it. Double-clicking or right-clicking the icon should show you options for closing the program and freeing up system resources.

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

Changing File Associations in Windows 2000

One of the complaints I get the most about Windows is that users have a hard time getting the right program to open the right file types. Windows 2000 has implemented a couple of useful features to help with this:
1) You can right click on any file and there will be an "Open With..." option. You can choose any program. Then once you've used a certain program to open a file, it will be listed each time. If you use Notepad, Editpad and Metapad to open text files, then all 3 of them would show up.
2) You can view the properties of a file, and on the General tab, you can change which program is used to open that File Type. This brings up the regular Open With... dialog box, but it is an easy way to get to it.

Switching Between Windows

No matter how many times these tips are shared, there are always people who have never heard of it.
If you have a lot of Windows open, it is possible that you can't read the Window name in the taskbar (they are squished up when there are a lot of programs open on the taskbar). Here are 2 ways to get around:
1) If you press Alt and Tab together, a small Window will appear and you can browse through the list and choose the program you want.
2) If you press Alt and Esc together, then you will rotate through the open Windows without seeing the little Window.

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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