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Issue 138 - May 30, 2001
ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements ©2001
==== 1856 Subscribers in 52 Countries ====
Subscribe/Unsubscribe/View Archives at http://www.pcin.net/
Welcome to the 138th 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 May and have the most referrals subscribe
and you could win a copy of Microsoft Office 2000 Standard.
Recommend PCIN now at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml
OPENING THOUGHTS
I've added a polls section to the PCIN site. These will be
quick questions that I will mention in each week's issue,
and the results will be in the following week's issue. You
can always see the latest poll at http://pcin.net/polls/ and once we get past
the first few weeks, there will be previous polls available.
This week's question (more of a test run then anything):
What Operating System do you use?
Take part in the poll at http://pcin.net/polls/
This is your last chance to recommend PCIN in May. You're
going to love the Recommend PCIN prize this month. I am giving
away a copy of Microsoft Office 2000 Standard. You need to
visit http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml
and recommend PCIN to others. At the end of the month, the
person who had the most people subscribe in May will win the
software. This is a little different than normal. It is usually
a random draw of anyone who recommended PCIN. No we need some
action. These must be new subscribers to be eligible.
The NEWS
Watch Where You Use That Wingding
"Better think twice before you hit the send button on
your next e-mail. Your choice of font can reveal aspects of
your personality you might prefer to keep to yourself, according
to a new study.
British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported that the study
was commissioned by printer vendor Lexmark International Inc.,
which hired psychologist Aric Sigman to analyze e-mail users'
choice of fonts. Sigman found that font choice conveys its
own message, serving as a form of 'social coding' that can
help classify users."
For more info:
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB20010529S0014
FTC: Amazon practices 'deceptive' but won't act
"Bookseller Amazon and its Alexa Internet subsidiary
probably deceived consumers when their Internet software secretly
passed on personal information to the company, the Federal
Trade Commission said.
But the FTC said it will not take any action against the online
bookseller because one of the software programs in question
-- the comparison shopping service zBubbles -- is no longer
operational and Alexa has changed its stated privacy policy."
For more info:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/industry/05/30/ftc.amazon.ap/index.html
Intel partners with RealNetworks
"Amidst the turmoil surrounding its deflated stock value,
RealNetworks on Wednesday announced that it has struck a deal
with Intel to provide technology for two of the chip maker's
PC boards, according to RealNetworks officials.
Under the agreement, RealNetworks' Media Management Software
will be distributed with two new Intel PC desktop boards,
the D815EEA2 and D815EFV. The RealNetworks software includes
the company's popular RealPlayer and RealJukebox media players.
The Intel boards will ship with upcoming Pentium III and Celeron
desktop PC processors, according to RealNetworks officials."
For more info:
http://iwsun4.infoworld.com/articles/hn/xml/01/05/30/010530hnreal.xml
MOBILE COMPUTING NEWS and NOTES
You know how it's pretty hard to type an email on a wireless
phone? It's easier than I thought. I don't know why it took
me so long to figure this out, but my phone has "T9 Text
Input". I had heard that it would finish words for you,
but I didn't know how to use it. Well, it works like a charm!
You almost don't even need to look at what you're doing. I
typed out "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog"
in "no time" with barely looking or having to go
back and make corrections. I wish I had known this a long
time ago.
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 137-01
I know some really great tips about navigating with the keyboard
rather than the mouse (like holding Ctrl to highlight multiple
objects, holding Shift to "Rubber band" items, pressing
F2 to rename files etc). Is there a help file somewhere or
a website that lists all of these little tricks that the keyboard
can do (Alt/Tab to name another one)?
A 137-01
Kenneth Aspinwall said, "Microsoft has a very comprehensive
article on this for Win 98 at
http://www.microsoft.com/enable/download/products/windows/win98key/w98_kbd.txt"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anat said, "Click on "File" and you will see
"Open Page" on the left side of the drop down menu
and "Ctrl+O" on the right which is shortcut for
the command, and you can find many more on other options "Edit",
"View" and so on."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jean Walsh said, "If you don't find the database you
are looking for, it would be well worth creating one. Meanwhile,
here's a web page I found re the character map, shortcut keys
(PC) and key caps (Mac) and using symbols and keyboard shortcuts
for both PC and Mac.
http://www.aarp.org/comptech/learning/howto/howto040.html
The trick of using Alt+164 for the letter ñ made my
Spanish-speaking friend very happy because he is now able
to write to his mother and refer to 'years' instead of 'anuses'.
(The only difference between the two words being the tilde
over the n.)"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mike D said, "Go here for shortcuts direct from MS:
http://www.microsoft.com/TechNet/win98/Reskit/Part7/wrkappg.asp"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** said, "Well www.microsoft.com would be the logical place
(being the creators of these shortcuts). But the only real
way would be to troll hints and guides for newbies / the interested
on the 'net. Try a search for 'keyboard shortcuts'."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dennis Dorais said, "Some time ago, I was searching for
keyboard shortcuts and found this item on the Microsoft TechNet
site about keyboard shortcuts. It might be what your reader
is looking for. Here's the link: http://www.microsoft.com/TechNet/win98/Reskit/Part7/wrkappg.asp"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Vincent Hannon said, "I think this page has most keyboard
info with a little digging'. There is a lot of useful info
on the Accessibility pages on Microsoft site:
http://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/keyboard/keyboardsearch.asp"
Q 137-02
I have been using Zone Alarm free version for quite some
time without a problem. Lately I up-graded to the latest version
#2.6.88 and it has given me a problem ever since. When I launch
IE it by default connects to my head office via Oracle Developer
Server. Since I have had this new version it take's upwards
of 15 minutes or more to connect. I can disable Zone Alarm
and it connects OK.I can then re-load ZA and I can log on
& off all day with no problem till the next morning. I
can use Sygate Personal firewall and it will not cause this
problem. My PC is a Pentium II, Windows 98,2nd edition. I
wonder if any one can help with this situation?
A 137-02
** said, "Excellent detective work. Since you _know_
the culprit is ZA you can contact ZoneLabs ( http://www.zonelabs.com/support.htm
) to alert them (I'm sure you're not the only person to have
this prob). You could also check for later versions, otherwise
i would suggest he quickest solution would be to re-install
an older version."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Hills said, "Assuming you have ticked the permission
boxes in the Programs menu for the programs you want to access
the Internet and unticked those you don't, I would try unticking
ZA itself in the Programs Menu. ZA connects to its home server
when you start it up and maybe, your arrangements with IE
and Oracle are causing ZA to hunt for its home server it cannot
find. Why it needs to do this gives weight to one argument
that Zone Alarm is itself a spy on your PC. I hope it's not
as I use it."
New Questions
Q 138-01
I get a stack overflow error message whenever I try printing
off the
Internet with the IE5 browser. I can't find any information
on what stack overflow is. What is it?
Q 138-02
Occasionally I receive email messages where the attachments
are just computer gibberish (symbols, letters, numbers, garbage).
I don't know why this occurs, but is there any way to stop
this from happening, or what do I do so I can open them properly?
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:
Some Useful Registry Tips (now 33 tips)
http://pcin.net/help/articles/registry.shtml
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/
I'm working to set up a message/bulletin board script. If
you have any suggestions, email me at mailto:editor@pcin.net
THE TIPS and OTHER STUFF
Cheap Trick of the Week
**Hidden drives**
Want to hide drives with sensitive material on them from prying
eyes? You can prevent any or all disk drives from being displayed
in My Computer and Explorer.
It takes some Registry tweaks, which can be tricky. Check
instructions at www.WE-Compute.com/registry.html
if you are new to Registry editing.
In the Registry navigate to HKEY__USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer.
Right-click on Explorer and choose New and DWORD value. In
the pane on the right, rename the new value NoDrives and double-click
on it to open the Edit DWORD Value box. Click the Decimal
option to select it, instead of the Hexadecimal option.
Now for the complicated part. To hide a drive or drives, a
number that corresponds to the drive(s) must be entered. Enter
the value listed below for the drive. If multiple drives are
to be hidden, add the numbers for those drives together. For
example, hiding drives D and E requires a value of 24, because
you are adding the value for D (8) to the value for E (16),
which equals 24.
A: 1
B: 2
C: 4
D: 8
E: 16
F: 32
G: 64
H: 128
I: 256
J: 512
K: 1024
L: 2048
M: 4096
N: 8192
O: 16384
P: 32768
Q: 65536
R: 131072
S: 262144
T: 524288
U: 1048576
V: 2097152
W: 4194304
X: 8388608
Y: 16777216
Z: 33554432
All: 67108863
These drives will still appear in File Manager, the file-managing
utility left over from pre-Windows 95 days. So if you are
hiding drives, deleting Winfile.exe may be a good idea, as
well. Most users, though, are scarcely aware File Manager
still exists. The hidden drives are also still accessible
via a command prompt, as in DOS.
The boot disk, usually the C drive, tends to show up in Explorer
even if you hide it in My Computer.
To bring back hidden disks, just change the value of NoDrives
to 0 or delete the value altogether.
Get your own copy of "The Little Black Book of Cheap
Tricks: 2001" by visiting http://www.pcin.net/lbbct/
More Books Online
If you visit http://www.visibooks.com/books.html
you'll find 4 PDF versions of books by VisiBooks. These are
all books that can be ordered in hardcopy from Amazon.com,
but they made the PDF versions of the books available for
free. As I said, there are only 4 books, but they plan on
releasing more in the future.
Zone Alarm Problems
A subscriber asked a question last week and a couple of people
tried to help, but the problem is with Zone Alarm. Scot Finnie
(former WinMag.com columnist) wrote about some of the problems
and provided links in his latest newsletter. Check it out
at http://www.scotfinnie.com/newsletter/05.htm#zaupd
Scot publishes a very lengthy, but still excellent newsletter.
I highly recommend you subscribe while you are there.
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.
- You can only win one contest every 30 days.
- To subscribe another address or unsubscribe, please visit
http://www.pcin.net/
and follow the appropriate links.
- Recommend PCIN to others at http://www.pcin.net/recommend.shtml
and be entered in a monthly draw.
- There are only 2 ways to get on the subscriber list.
You have either been subscribed by filling out a subscription
form on any of the pages on my site, or you have requested
FreeHelp from me in the past.
- If you have a web site or run your own newsletter, please
email me at mailto:editor@pcin.net
and I will add it to the subscriber web pages that I have
on my site.
- Support PCIN by visiting http://www.pcin.net/donate.shtml
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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