Issue 140 - June 13, 2001
ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements ©2001
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Welcome to the 140th 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 June and win one of two copies of the Software602
Print Pack, software that lets you email any thing you can
print, and that will also create PDFs. Recommend PCIN now
at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml
OPENING THOUGHTS
We're finally getting some nice weather here. Today the temperature
was very hot, and it was beautifully sunny. We've been trying
to live without an air conditioner, but with this sort of
weather (it is terribly humid), I think we're going to have
to break down and get one.
The script for the Bulletin Board/Forum system is working
fine. You can find it at http://pcin.net/cgi-bin/forum/index.cgi
If you want to post a question, you will need to register
(this is just to prevent anonymous users from posting). Also,
the script uses a cookie, but there is no information collected
permanently. Since the forum is a script and the pages are
created dynamically, the cookie allows the script to recognize
you when you are still in the same session.
As I comment below in the I Need Help section, the FreeHelp
Forum will become the main place where questions are asked
and answered.
Congratulations to Debbie who won the copy of Microsoft Office
2000 Standard for recommending PCIN to her friends and for
having them become subscribers.
Lastly, if you recommend PCIN in June, you could win one
of two copies of the Software602 Print Pack, software that
lets you email any thing you can print, and that will also
create PDFs. Recommend PCIN now at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml
The NEWS
Teen writes song about love of instant messaging
"Thirteen-year-old singer Brittney Cleary wanted to
debut with a song most kids her age could relate to. So
she picked a tune about love, right? Wrong.
Her song is called 'I.M. Me,' a reference to instant messaging,
the online technology that allows computer users to carry
on typewritten, private conversations in real time. Cleary,
who lives in Nashville, Tennessee, says she and her buddies
talk online about 'everything.'
After her dad, Mike, and a few others wrote the song, Cleary
says she feared people would think it was 'corny.' Its lyrics
include references to common terms that kids and others
often type during online chats -- from BRB ('be right back')
and G2G ('got to go') to LOL ('lots of laughs' or 'laughing
out loud').
But already released on the Internet -- and slated to hit
music stores sometime in the next six weeks -- the song
has won mostly rave reviews from youngsters who've downloaded
it."
For more info:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/06/13/i.m.me.ap/index.html
Justices Say Warrant Is Required in High-Tech Searches
of Homes
"In an important declaration of the constitutional
limits on new privacy- threatening technology, the Supreme
Court ruled today that the use by the police of a thermal
imaging device to detect patterns of heat coming from a
private home is a search that requires a warrant.
The court said further that the warrant requirement would
apply not only to the relatively crude device at issue but
also to any "more sophisticated systems" in use
or in development that let the police gain knowledge that
in the past would have been impossible without a physical
entry into the home."
For more info:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/12/national/12SEAR.html
(Registration is required, but free)
Chip group is gloomy; AMD isn't
"When will the semiconductor slump end? Depends on
whom you ask.
The chip industry's leading trade group, the Semiconductor
Industry Association, predicted Wednesday that global chip
sales will fall 14 percent this year, the second-worst decline
in the industry's history.
But Advanced Micro Devices, a Sunnyvale maker of the microprocessors
that run personal computers, said Wednesday that it expects
a 'modest' rise in revenue this year, fueled in part by
a revival in PC sales in the later part of the year with
the release of Microsoft's Windows XP. PCs are one of the
biggest consumers of chips."
For more info:
http://siliconvalley.com/docs/news/svfront/chips060701.htm
PCIN POLL of the WEEK
32 people responded to last week's poll:
Will you use Office XP?
No, the version I have is fine: 31.25%
No, it doesn't interest me: 25.00%
Probably, but I'm in no rush: 18.75%
I'll wait and see: 9.38%
No, it's too expensive: 9.38%
Yes, there are new features I need: 3.12%
Yes, I always want to have the latest: 3.12%
Visit http://pcin.net/polls/
to participate in the new poll this week:
How much are you willing to pay for an MP3 music subscription
service per month?
MOBILE COMPUTING NEWS and NOTES
Do any of you remember Iridium? They're the satellite phone
company that went bankrupt last year. They're back in business,
with the U.S. Navy as one of their new big clients. They also
offer a new service: Internet connection. So, now you can
sit on a mountain in Mongolia or a snowdrift in Greenland
and email at the speed of 10 kilobytes per second. It's not
fast, but it beats the pony express...
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 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 139-01
Last time there was a tip about how to hide (some) drives.
Is there a way to hide some directories?
Q 139-02
To hide Drives or Folders are no problem but the problem
starts if I open programs like Word, in Word I get access
to all hidden Drives and Folders. How can I protect my
hidden Drives and Folders in programs like Word?
Answer to Both
** said, "There are programs (like 'magic folders')
which will let you hide drives, folders or just individual
files. And magic folders at least also has the capacity
to hold several 'accounts' so that several people may
use the program, all hiding their own files from each
other."
New Questions
Q 140-01
I have two icons on my desktop, which have changed to
a small size. The rest are still the normal size. Can
anyone tell me why?
NOTE: within a week or two, the FREEHELP FORUM on the web
site will replace this section. You can visit it at http://pcin.net/cgi-bin/forum/index.cgi
You can post questions there and answer the questions of
others.
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:
FreeHelp Forum
http://pcin.net/cgi-bin/forum/index.cgi
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
**Transfer audio CD info**
If you use the audio CD player that comes with Windows and
you've typed the titles of CDs, artists and song names into
the program, then you'll eventually need this tip.
Suppose you replace your computer or upgrade to a new hard
drive - you'll have to enter the information for your CD
collection all over again, won't you?
Not if you know about a little file called cdplayer.ini.
Cdplayer.ini is a file in your Windows directory that records
all the data for the Windows' CD player. Simply copy this
small file to a floppy disk and, after you've set up your
new PC or hard drive, copy it into the new system's Windows
folder. The CD player on the new system will be able to
read all the title and track info.
You can also open this file with Notepad to edit the track
listings directly without inserting the CD, if you like.
Get your own copy of "The Little Black Book of Cheap
Tricks: 2001" by visiting http://www.pcin.net/lbbct/
A Couple of Interesting Sites
Both of these sties were mentioned in the June 4, 2001,
pg 78 issue of eWeek magazine:
Check out http://octanecreative.com/ducttape/fashion.html
and you'll see some interesting fashions made of Duct tape.
(Does it hurt to take off the clothes?)
http://clearfour.com/condiment/condiment.html
is the Condiment Packet Museum. The site has a lot of pictures
of ketchup, mustard, etc. (Why any one would spend the time
making the site, or looking at the site, remains unanswered).
A Free Data Eraser Tool
Probably the question that is asked of me the most is,
"How do I permanently delete a file?" This is
not an easy question to answer. Asking this question at
Google.com brings up 108,000 sites.
Basically, when you delete a file, you aren't really deleting
it. You are just deleting the reference to it in the table
of contents of the hard drive (the File Allocation Table).
There are many utilities out there that are able to scan
the hard drive and retrieve files that still exist, but
that don't show in directory listing. And people want to
know how to prevent this from happening.
Well, this utility was mentioned recently in one of the
Lockergnome newsletters. If you visit http://www.tolvanen.com/eraser/ you
can download Eraser, "an advanced security tool (for
Windows), which allows you to completely remove sensitive
data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times
with carefully selected patterns."
The site has great links to explanations of how a file is
deleted, as well as a link to a page that compares various
file erasers.
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.
- If any of the links are too long to fit on one line,
you may have to cut and paste.
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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.
This publication may be reproduced in whole, or in part, as long as the
author is notified and the newsletter is presented as is.
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