This Month:

What's New

  • More Industry Suits

  • It Was Inevitable

  • Spam Increasing?

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    Warnings

  • Check Your Antivirus

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    Internet

  • The Future is Here

  • Somewhat a Dark Hint

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    FYI

  • Outlook Express

  • RealOne Causes Problems

    •

    Laugh a Little

    We are PC correct but not necessarily when it comes to humor.. :-)
     

    Any suggestions, recommendations or ideas found on this site are applied at your own risk.

     


    August - 2005

    11th year in business

    8th year of newsletters

    Have problems or ideas you would like to have us address?  Let us know!
    Like most sites, this one is designed for an 800x600 screen resolution.
    Printed copies are available at the store. (Web Printing Hints)
    For previous newsletters click here.

    A Few Reminders...

    If you have a new computer: Save your orignal CDs!
    No Operating System Restore CD?  See our July 05 Newsletter

    • Be sure to activate the antivirus application immediately! 
       
    • If your new computer is more than *90 days old, or
      if you have not paid for a subscription within the last year,
      your antivirus application is out-of-date and you are not protected.       More details on this issue in the 0302 newsletter.

    * Many new computers come with a 90-day free trial version, but after that period you must pay to renew the subscription.  Wonder if your antivirus is up-to-date?  Click here

    Looking to buy a new computer: 

    Click here for some ideas that may help your decision.

     

    Price and availability subject to change. Sales tax not included.
    Available at the shop only (we do not ship.)

    --top

     

     

    If you Cannot Beat Them, Sue Them

    Like Netscape (and many others to Microsoft), AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) is taking legal action against Intel claiming industry monopolization. 

    AMD is one of only a few Intel competitors, makers of the Pentium and Celeron processors.  Intel has dominated the CPU (Central Processing Unit) market for many years.  The article.

    It Was Inevitable

    Microsoft has been warning about this action for sometime now...

    If you want the latest Windows XP (non-security) updates from Microsoft you must confirm ownership of the Windows operating system.  To confirm ownership you need to simply click a confirmation button. 

    If the website cannot confirm your version you may have to supply the product ID or you may even have to contact Microsoft. 

    The product ID is typically found on the CD packaging or on newer computers, a sticker on the side of the computer.

    Non-security updates include things like audio and video drivers, media player updates and the like.  Security updates will apparently still be available without typing that (really long) product ID.

    Always Someone a Little Smarter...

    Hackers quickly found a way to bypass the above mentioned Microsoft authenticity check.  The story.

    Spam on the Increase?

    For quite sometime our provider's Postini spam filter would catch about 300 spam messages per week but within the last month, that number is occurring nearly every other day. 

    So much for "regulating" spam...

     

    --top

    Check Your Antivirus

    Be proactive!

    Open your antivirus application and check the expiration date, virus definition date and the general condition/operation of the application.  Also go online and force an update making sure all available updates install without error.

    Some of the more recent viruses we have seen are causing extensive damage to the operating system and data files.  In about 20% of the cases, we are unable to repair Windows but about half of those cases we were unable to salvage any data!  

    Scan the computer weekly.  By default, Norton will scan the computer Friday evening about 8 pm but if the computer is not on, the scan will not occur.  If you computer is typically off at this time, force a system scan. 

    All viruses scanners will report what was found (if anything) when they complete the scan.  If you begin a scan and come back and find no scan results and the scan page has closed, there is a problem. 

     

     

    --top 

    The Internet Traffic Report monitors the flow of data around the world. It then displays a value between zero and 100. Higher values indicate faster and more reliable connections.

    The Future is Here

    We are consistently amazed by the capabilities of computers and the changes in the industry but this is right out of a SCIFI movie...

    Really cool but be forewarned, you need a very healthily computer running Windows 2000 or XP, a 3D capable video card and an (extremely) high speed Internet connection.  Sorry dialup users but don't even bother...  Also, if you suffer from motion sickness, this may not be for you.

    http://earth.google.com/ competing with Microsoft's Terra Server and has an online mapping and image service that is frankly incredible. 

    Try searching for (Google calls it Flying To) Annandale MN and turn on the roads option.  While the image Annandale is a blurry resolution of the area, the roads options presents a very good map.  The "fly to" location for Annandale is slightly off but close enough for this beta service.

    From Annandale, try flying to Fort Snelling then zoom in. 
    Note: You can actually zoom in closer than this...

     

    No, it is not live.  Google indicates the images were snapped within the last three years unlike Microsoft's Terra Server which may date back to the early nineties.  Obviously there are not close-up images of every part of the world (hence the blurry images) but major cities and many other areas of the U.S. are well covered.

    As with Google maps, you can click, grab and move/rotate the view easily, spin the earth and quickly zoom in on any place.  GPS users can purchase additional service/software.

    The development of this Google service will be interesting to watch.

    --top

    Outlook Express Limitation

    Outlook Express (not Outlook) apparently has a limitation that causes newly created messages to "get stuck" in the outbox.  OE will then repeatedly send the  message(s) that are stuck. 

    The sent folder limitation is about 2 gigabytes, however you will likely start having problems before this size is reached.

    If you want to keep old messages, creating a separate folder within OE will not resolve the problem as the limitation is on all folders not just the inbox, outbox, etc.  Your alternatives are to delete old messages or create a folder elsewhere, e.g., My Documents, save the messages there and remove them from the OE.

    Outlook (itself) does not have this problem but it is a good idea to create new folders and move messages you want to save out of the inbox.  If you want to store messages for an extended period, archive the folder. 

    • For more information on archiving, click here. 
    • Microsoft also offers a PST backup utility, click here for more information and the download link.

    If you have problems with Outlook, try repairing the PST file.  See February 05

    RealOne Causes Problems

    During shutdown if you see "WND for RNAdmin" is not responding and/or you find MSHearts or other minor applications stopped working properly, try uninstalling RealOne!

    Dark Hint

    If you have ever right clicked to save an Internet image and received a message indicating right clicks have been disabled, here is a somewhat dark hint. 

    Most sites use Javascript or ActiveX to stop this type of activity but both can be turned off effectively bypassing the site's security.  In the Internet Browsers Tools menu > Options, look in the Advanced (tab) or Security tab's Customize button to disable the various scripting.

    Of course turning these off will mean certain other Internet capabilities you may want will no longer function correctly.

    -- top

    While a picture may be worth a thousand words, it uses up three thousand times the hard drive space!

    Is Microsoft Embarrassed?

    We visit the Microsoft Knowledgebase a few times a day but the other day we finally noticed that Microsoft does not list the Windows ME (Millennium) Edition under the Operating System category.  If you need help with ME you need to click the "more Windows" link to find it.  See for yourself...

    http://support.microsoft.com/select/default.aspx?target=search