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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...!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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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Graham Wing can be reached at mailto:editor@pcin.net
Copyright 1998-2000, PC Improvements and Graham Wing. All
rights reserved.
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