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Issue 155 - October 03, 2001
ISSN 1488-3163; PC Improvements © 2001
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Welcome to the 155th issue of the PC Improvement News. PCIN
consists mainly of news and tips. There is something for everyone,
and if this is your first issue, I'm sure there will be something
for you.
You can reach me at editor@pcin.net
with any suggestions or comments. If you give me two or three
issues, I know that you will come back for more!
Recommend PCIN at http://PCIN.net/recommend.shtml
Support PCIN at http://PCIN.net/donate.shtml
CONTENTS
OPENING THOUGHTS
Last week I was complaining about how cold it was. Well,
I think that Mother Nature listened to me, at least for the
last few days. It has been beautiful. As many of you know,
I work in Niagara Falls, and most days I go for a walk through
the park that runs along where the Falls are. The sun was
shining, the leaves are starting to turn colour. It was beautiful.
I'm still having a lot of people email me at the old FreeHelp
email address. Remember, if you want help with a computer
problem, then visit http://www.pcin.net/help/forum/ and post
a message there. That way I, or anyone else, can respond to
your question.
Return to the top
The NEWS
Google May Get Personal
"With last month's acquisition of Outride, Google
may be poising itself to go forward into an area of search
refinement that no major player has gone successfully before:
personalized search results.
With personalized results, a person would get back a list
of results that takes into account some of their demographics.
For example, if you had registered yourself as a man, you
might see a different set of results when searching for
flowers than a woman might see."
For more info:
http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/01/10-personal.html
DoCoMo unveils 3G, with caution
"After a bumpy four-month delay, NTT DoCoMo Monday
unveiled the world's first commercial third-generation (3G)
service in Tokyo.
The service will allow users to receive data at six to 40
times faster than current speeds, making fast mobile Internet
access and video downloads possible.
The launch was originally slated to take place in May, but
technical hiccups forced DoCoMo to postpone the commercial
service by three months."
For more info:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/BUSINESS/asia/09/30/tokyo.docomo3Gdebut/index.html
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,64103,00.asp
PayPal To End Dot-Com IPO Drought
"PayPal is the first Internet company to file for
an IPO in about three months.
Online payment system PayPal filed for an initial public
offering (IPO) on Friday, looking to leverage its rapid
growth and close ties with auction giant eBay (Nasdaq: EBAY)
to help itself raise as much as US$80 million through a
stock sale.
PayPal said that the money it raises will be used in part
to provide collateral for the payments it makes. Other intended
uses include development of new products and additional
expansion.
PayPal's registration form with the U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC) did not disclose details of the
Palo Alto, California-based firm's offering, such as how
much shares would cost or when the sale would take place.
'We seek to become the global standard for online payments,'
PayPal told the SEC."
For more info:
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/13856.html
Amazon Needs a Christmas Present
"To deliver his long-promised operating profit, CEO
Jeff Bezos is counting on a strong holiday season. Forecasters
aren't so cheerful.
Investors are fretting already about how retailers may suffer
through a sluggish holiday shopping season, but nowhere
are those fears more acute than at Amazon.com. The online
e-tailer, still hanging in there many moons after the demise
of hundreds of lesser-capitalized e-commerce companies,
saw its stock drop once more in late September after the
National Retail Federation made downward revisions on growth
prospects for holiday shopping -- predicting 2.2% growth
instead of 4%."
For more info:
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/oct2001/nf2001102_1493.htm
Return to the top
POLL of the WEEK
Here are the responses from the last poll:
Do you use any voice recognition software?
No: 82.54%
Yes: 14.29%
What's is voice recognition software?: 3.17%
Total Votes: 63
Visit http://pcin.net/polls/
to participate in the new poll this week:
Do you bank or manage any other financial assets online?
Return to the top
FREEHELP FORUM
Visit the PCIN FreeHelp Forum to post your questions or answer
others. Each week I highlight a question, and where to go
to get the answer.
Question
Since I have installed IE6 I get an opening message of
"Enter your network Passord for Microsoft Net Working".Clicking
OK,Cancel, or close all let's the computer to start. How
can I remove this message?
Answer
No answers posted yet
Do you know the answer or have a suggestion? Visit http://www.pcin.net/cgi-bin/forum/index.cgi
and check out the Software Forum. Post your answer or post
a question of your own.
Return to the top
PCIN.net UPDATE
Check out these new or updated pages on the PCIN.net site:
Some Useful Registry Tips (Now 54 Tips!)
http://PCIN.net/help/articles/registry_tips.php
PCIN Poll of the week
http://PCIN.net/polls/
Support PCIN
http://PCIN.net/donate.php
Return to the top
THE TIPS and OTHER STUFF
Cheap Trick of the Week
**Banish clouds and rectangles **
When you open Explorer in Windows 98 or Me, there's a little
graphic in the upper left corner, or in the upper left corner
of the right pane if you use the two-pane layout. In Win98
it's a cloud design and in WinMe it's usually a set of colourful
rectangles.
This graphic is set in Win98 by the file wvleft.bmp, which
is a hidden file in the Web folder inside the Windows folder.
WinMe also has a cloudy .bmp file with that name but the
rectangles graphic seems to come from another file, wvleft.gif,
in the same folder.
In either case, you can replace this graphic with whatever
design you would like.
Create a .bmp or .gif file in Paint or another image-editing
program and save it as wvleft.bmp or wvleft.gif in the Web
folder in place of the previous file with that name. (It
may be a good idea to make a backup of the old file first,
in case you want to restore it later.)
When you create your graphic, be sure to make the bottom
part of it lighter, so the information displayed in that
corner of the Explorer pane will be legible.
Get your own copy of "The Little Black Book of
Cheap Tricks: 2001" by visiting http://www.pcin.net/lbbct/
Google Search Tip
Most search engines have ways to search for specific words
in domain names, in links, in picture names, etc. Google
is no exception. But Google also allows you to search for
results that come from specific file types. For instance
if I wanted to search for the terms "free computer
help" and see only results from PDF files, I would
type:
free computer help filetype:pdf
Give it a try. You can use file types of pdf, html, asp,
txt, htm, shtml and I'm sure many more.
A Couple of Fun Sites
Here are links to a couple of sites that I check out occasionally.
http://www.ringling.com/
is the site of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey
circus. They have facts, history, pictures, and some games.
http://www.magictricks.com/
contains a lot of items you can buy (special cards, etc.),
but it also has bios on famous magicians, statistics, and
world records.
Return to the top
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.php
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 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.php
Graham Wing can be reached at 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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