Sarasota PC Monitor

Review Chairmans Industry Comments (02/01)

Reviewing Software

by Herb Goldstein, Review Editor

E-mail comments, suggestions, etc. to Herb Goldstein at: revieweditor@spcug.org

INCOME TAX HELP including forms and all kinds of information is yours for the asking by visiting the official source at www.irs.gov. You can also get the complete scoop on electronic filing of your return here. If you like to hear a human voice at the other end, try 800-829-1040.

ENCRYPTING A CD to make sure that the files you put on it remain private has been an impossibility up until now. We are currently looking at a unique new program that will do the job. Stay tuned and we'll let you know the results down the line in a continuation of "Privacy Restored."

ADAWARE is a great little free utility that will examine your hard drive for traces of spy settings placed there by a variety of places and programs on the Web that will track your every move on your computer. You can detect and eliminate these hidden snoops by downloading AdAware from www.lavasoft.de and running it from time to time.

TOO FAST? We've said it numerous times- You don't need a 1G computer to do word processing or any other related task. It's for gamers, complex graphics and voice software buffs, and a waste for most others! Now comes another caveat. At speeds of 933 MHz or above, you may lose data on your hard drive during the shutdown process. The problem is that the speed of the hard drive may well fall sufficiently behind that of the processor so that cached data may be afforded insufficient time to write to the hard drive during the shutdown process. You can help prevent the problem if you wait a little after your last save before shutting down. Not a very efficient way of doing business however when you are paying a hefty premium for a speedy machine.

IF YOU ARE AN ART ENTHUSIAST, you can lose all track of time viewing and downloading the works of your favorite artists at artmuseum.net, artchive.com, and nga.gov (The National Gallery of Art site). In addition to viewing, you can get a world of information about various artists, works, and timelines of their art period.

INSTALLING WINDOWS ME? If you are thinking of installing Windows ME or are using it anew, an excellent rundown of the who, what, where and when and all the other intricacies of the new OS can be found at http://www.winmag.com/windows/guides/winme/ It's well worth your perusal.

CORELDRAW 10 is the latest hit from Corel for professional illustrators and graphics artists. This latest version includes an excellent module for creating animations.

WANT TO DONATE AN OLD COMPUTER? You can obtain a tax-deduction by donating your old computer to charity. Go to http://www.cristina.org/dsf/.

FAST TRACK TO YOUR FAVORITES. Many people, especially those fortunate souls with dedicated Internet connections, like having shortcuts to Web pages right on their desktops. If you too think you might enjoy double-clicking your way directly to the page of your choice, remember that it's easy to move an item from your Favorites folder to the desktop. In any application that uses Favorites (such as Internet Explorer), simply move your mouse to the desired Favorite, click and hold, and drag the Favorite to the desktop. A shortcut to the page appears, ready for the clicking.

FOR THE ABSOLUTE LOWEST COST IN MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTIONS, computer or any other kind, drop by the Software Review Table at the meeting and ask for a free price list. You are under no obligation to buy, nor are we selling anything. We are only trying to clue you in on an exceptionally good deal!

MP3 AUDIO BUFF? Napster 2.0 Beta 8 is a search engine that allows you to find and download MP3 audio files. http://cgi.zdnet.com/slink?/upd_pr/upd20001229/7477:683154

SORTING YOUR PROGRAM LISTING. How do you get the items in your Start menu's Programs Folder to appear in alphabetical order? Every time you add a new program, after all, it's added way down at the bottom of the list. It's a good trick to know, and one you can also use to alphabetize your Favorites menu. Just click Start, Programs and then, with your cursor in the Programs area, right-click and select Sort By Name. All your programs and program folders will be arranged alphabetically.

DIGITAL CAMERAS KEEP GETTING BETTER. If you've seen some of what our local digital camera expert Chuck Mason turns out regularly, you would agree that in the right hands and properly printed, the results can compete with the best in film. If you are looking for top-notch results and are fussy, a 3 megapixel camera is what you want. PC Magazine recently gave the nod to the Kodak DC4800 as their Editor's Choice. Chuck says almost any of the 3.3 cameras will do the job, and that your choice should be influenced by the individual features of the different cameras. He also indicates that you will achieve optimum results only if you additionally use the right inkjet printer (he recommends the Epson PhotoStylus) and the proper photo quality paper.

GET RID OF YOUR MODEM SOUND. The dial-up sound of a modem can be very annoying. To get rid of it, go to Start, Programs, Accessories, Communications, Dial-up Networking. Right-click on your usual Internet connection and select properties. Click Configure under Connect Using, and you can then choose the volume level for the modem (choosing the lowest volume level turns the modem off). When finished, click OK twice.

FASTER DIALING. Double-click the Modem icon in the Control Panel. Click the 'Properties' button. Select the 'Connection' tab. Click on the 'Advanced' button. In the 'Extra Settings' text box, type S11=50. That will speed up the dial tone from 100 milliseconds to 50 milliseconds.

DISABLE CALL WAITING. If you use your regular home telephone line to access the Internet and you also have call waiting, you'll definitely want to disable the feature whenever you sign on. If you fail to take this step, your Internet session will be interrupted anytime someone calls when you're online. To disable call waiting, go to Start, Settings, Control Panel and double-click Telephony. Check the box To Disable Call Waiting and then enter your telephone company's code for disabling call waiting in the box (some of the more common choices are included in the drop-down menu). When you've finished, click OK. The next time you dial in to the Internet, your modem will include the extra digits to disable call waiting.

SECURITY ALERT! A Quartet of Vulnerabilities Fixed in Internet Explorer. Don't allow a hacker to run amuck on your computer. Get the update that will protect your PC from four exploits. Download the update here: http://cgi.zdnet.com/slink?/upd_pr/upd20001206/14368:683154

Read more about this important update here: http://cgi.zdnet.com/slink?/upd_ax/upd20001206/51137:683154

MORE CONSUMER SHOPPING ADVICE- Looking for consumer advice, reviews and product recommendations in a variety of categories? Our old favorite, Productopia, recently bit the dust. Try consumersearch.com, consumerreview.comdeja.com, or epinions.com. When you get down to the nitty gritty, don't miss MySimon.com. If you want to check out a vendor, try bizrate.com.

IF YOU ARE HEARING IMPAIRED, you probably already use SoundSentry or ShowSounds to alert you to events normally conveyed by sound. In fact, anyone who would prefer to receive visual notification of Windows events might try using one of these programs.

Go to Start, Settings, Control Panel and select Accessibility Options (you may have to install this from your Windows 98 CD if it's not visible in your Control Panel window). Click the Sound tab, and check either the SoundSentry or ShowSounds box. SoundSentry causes part of your screen to flash whenever a sound is made (you can configure the part of the screen that flashes by using the options on the Settings tab. Make sure to choose either Flash Active Caption Bar or Flash Active Window, so you'll know which application made the sound). ShowSounds displays a small caption that stands in for the Windows sound. When you've selected one of these options, click OK.

WHISTLER...SO FAR, SO GOOD. The scuttlebutt among the pros that have seen the beta of the new Microsoft operating system, code named Whistler is cautiously optimistic. Due out this fall, Whistler will combine the best features of Windows NT (2000) and Windows 9x/ME. If you own a PC, this will be your next operating system. One of the great features coming with Whistler will be the capability of using the program CD as a startup emergency disk. Of course, it will have everything you need to run the OS once booted- something we should have had all along in Windows to avoid fudging with that dratted "safe mode!"

DIGITAL MEDIA FOR WHISTLER. At the recent Streaming Media West 2000 conference in San Jose, California, Microsoft President and CEO Steve Ballmer revealed some of the next-generation digital-media features you can expect in "Whistler," the code name for the successor to Windows Millennium Edition and Windows 2000. This next version of Windows will include:

  1. Windows Media Player 8, showing integrated support for DVD playback, easy video transfer to portable devices, and other improvements.
  2. New ways of viewing the My Music folder that give users more control over their digital media files, making content even easier to organize and featuring album art thumbnails for media files.

A MOUSE THAT REMEMBERS FINGERPRINTS. Siemens has a solution for people who constantly forget computer passwords: a mouse that recognizes fingerprints. Called the ID Mouse, the device uses biometrics to take advantage of the unique features of people's fingerprints. German electronics maker Siemens said the device works by allowing pre-authorized people to retrieve information from their PCs or laptops.

WIN ME'S "FATAL EXCEPTION 03H" GLITCH. If you have WindowsME and any one of the following programs, you may be headed for trouble: Cybermedia's Oil Change, Uninstaller version 5 and earlier, Guard Dog version 2.5 and earlier, First Aid 97, 98, and 2000 McAfee Utilities 3.0, McAfee Office version 2, McAfee Office 2000 (version 3.0). When using ScanDisk, you may encounter the following error message: "Scandskw caused Fatal exception 03H in module user32.dll". An update from Windows addresses this very problem and it gives the remedy. You can find it at http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q275/0/03.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=S

PENTIUM 5?? Intel,the world's largest manufacturer of computer chips, says it has built the world's smallest and fastest transistor - a milestone that will allow the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company to build within the next five or 10 years microprocessors that will be 10 times more powerful than those available today.

SAVE YOUR MONEY! Actual tests have proven that the free anti-hacker software ZoneAlarm does a better job of keeping intruders out of your computer than the expensive Symantec/Norton and Sygate firewall products. In our experience, ZoneAlarm really works very well.

MS OFFICE 2000 SERVICE PACK 2! You won't find it via "Office Update" or at the http://download.microsoft.com?, or via any of the most obvious public channels yet, but if you click to http://download.microsoft.com/download/office2000pro/sp/sp2/w98nt42kme/en-us/sp2upd.exe you can grab a copy of "SP2" for Office 2000.

Microsoft has a spotty history with these Service Packs. They're nobly intentioned and are free aggregate patches that correct a slew of bugs and security holes and sometimes add new features. But the Service Packs are large (SP2 weighs in at 9MB), and sometimes end up creating a whole new set of problems. SP2 is meant to work on all versions and most components of the Office 2000 family: the Standard, Professional, Premium and Small Business suites; plus the individual versions of Word 2000, Access 2000, Outlook 2000, Excel 2000, Frontpage 2000 and Powerpoint 2000.

If you need to deploy SP2 across many systems, there's a 30MB administrator's version available at http://download.microsoft.com/download/office2000prem/SP2/SP2/W98NT42KMe/EN-US/Sp2admin.exe You also can order SP2 via CD at http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork/2000/appndx/785_Office_2000_SP2.htm Finally, for more info or to answer other questions, click to http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork/2000/journ/OffSP2.htm.

A good precaution to take before installing new software or major updates is to make sure your system is clean and backed-up prior to an installation.

HOW TO RUN REGISTRY CHECKER FROM START MENU. Select 'Run' from within the Start menu, type 'scanregw' and then select 'OK'. The registry scanner will now run and create a backup of your registry, if needed. Windows automatically does this for you during startup, but it is a good thing to do anyway, especially if you are doing something that will make changes in your registry, like installing or uninstalling a program.

HOW TO RUN REGISTRY CHECKER FROM ICON. Perform a 'Find' on the file 'Scanregw.exe' and you should find your registry scanning utility. It is usually within c:\windows. Now, right-click and drag the file to your desktop, then release the mouse button. Select the 'Create Shortcut.' option and now you have an icon from which you can back up your registry whenever you are so inclined.

GRC WINS AGAIN. Gibson Research Corp has for many years been the computer users advocate in the fields of both computer privacy and hard drive integrity, offering or recommending products (most of them free) for all our benefit. A visit to their site at grc.com is an absolute must for every computer owner. Their "Shields Up" test run from that location is an effortless test of your computer to determine your vulnerability to hackers.

The latest in their test products is a sophisticated "Leak Test" that looks for both hackers and other Trojan horse spyware noxiously planted on your machine, unbeknown to you, by surreptitious vendors at various Web sites that you visit. Pay a visit to Gibson's http://grc.com/su-leaktest.htm for further on this. You will once again find out why the free ZoneAlarm (zonelabs.com) which we have been recommending to you is so essential to your computer if you value your privacy.

BROWSE FROM YOUR TASKBAR. You may not have noticed that you can put an Address Bar on your Taskbar by right-clicking on the Taskbar and selecting Toolbars, Address. With an Address Bar on your Taskbar, you can open any Web page at any time merely by typing the URL and hitting Enter. Windows will automatically launch your browser and open the page. You can also browse files on your computer using the Address Bar. For example, type C:\ and you'll see a list of all the files and folders on your C: drive. If you like, you can scroll through these files using the scroll bar on the right edge of the Address Bar, and open the file and folder of your choice by clicking on it.

GOOGLE'S NEW TOOLBAR EXTENSION may give Web surfers the feeling they're being watched. That's because one version of Google's toolbar keeps track of every site a person visits to analyze search and surfing patterns. "By using the Advanced Features version of the Google Toolbar, you may be sending information about the sites you visit to Google," the company warns during the Toolbar installation process. "In order to show you more information about a site, the Google Toolbar has to tell us what site you're visiting which it does by sending us the URL."

Google is widely considered one of the most thorough search organ on the Web. Much to its credit, Google warns users that this new toolbar does provide user tracking instead of doing it the usual way, surreptitiously. Albeit honestly, the net result is still the same. Bear this undesirable feature in mind if you are using the new toolbar version of Google.

BUYING A CAR? What should you pay for your next new vehicle? Looking to buy a new car, truck, SUV or minivan? Check Edmunds.com True Market Value prices. They research and calculate actual selling prices every week. Additionally they provide a passel of superb features and reviews on vehicles.

CROSSWORD PUZZLE FANS should try www.thinks.com/crosswords. It's a delightful smorgasbord for enthusiasts.

IS THE MOVIE WORTH SEEING? For the lowdown, visit www.rottentomatoes.com.

REBATE ORIENTED SHOPPERS should try www. Cyberrebate.com, or www.ebates.com. Both offer many rebates on a wide variety of consumer items.

SEARCH FOR A FILE BY DATE. If you really need to find a file on your computer but can't for the life of you remember what you named it, you can always try searching for it by date. As long as you have a rough idea of when you were working on the file, you probably won't have any trouble. To search for files by date, press Windows Key-F to open the Find box. Then click the Date tab. Click the Find All Files button and select Modified, if you want to search for the file based on when you last remember modifying it. Click Between and fill in the date range you want to look for, and then click Find Now.

DVD-RW vs. CD-RW. Confusion exists among many users regarding DVD and its usefulness. DVD is currently of limited value except for those who wish to take advantage of its huge storage capacity (5-10 Gigabytes) to watch pre-recorded movies and such. The drives and their media are currently much too expensive for recording your own data in use as a storage medium or for backups. Much in the way of standards have yet to be developed. You can expect all that to change in the not too distant future when DVD will eventually replace CD-ROM. Coming down the pike is DVD with a storage capacity of a whopping 100 Gigabytes, and a credit card size disk that will hold 10 gigabytes. Now that should end the backup and storage problems once and for all!

GOZILLA 3.92 is living proof that the best things in life are free. It is a superb free utility for downloading from the Internet, and has received top ratings from reviewers everywhere. Recover from download errors and resume failed downloads, manage and categorize files to download later and get those files from the most responsive site with Go!Zilla. Gather links to files that you want to download by simply dragging them from your favorite Internet browser or Go!Zilla can integrate with your browser for easy click and download support.

You manage and categorize your files using an intuitive Explorer-style interface. Instantly see file sizes, estimated download times and network connection performance. You can even add as many different locations for a single file as you can find or let Go!Zilla do the work by quickly searching FTP archives. Then when Go!Zilla retrieves the file for you, it checks all available locations and delivers the fastest possible connection. Now with download optimization, GoZilla will intelligently switch between mirror sites to meet your minimum transfer speed requirements. Go!Zilla will even resume a failed download from both FTP and HTTP web sites.

Downloads can be started at any time, or scheduled for later when network traffic dies down. And now with SmartUpdate you will be automatically notified of updates and information about your favorite programs. You can download Go!Zilla from http://www.gozilla.com/download.html

FOUR SEPARATE INK TANKS is one of several advantages you get in the new Xerox inkjet printer, Docuprint M750. The obvious advantage is that you need only replace the color you run out of instead of the whole cartridge at a time. It's 10 ppm black, 6 ppm color, and a list price of $150 is also attractive. They also have the best customer service and support reputation and policies in the printer industry.

Making An Accurate CD Recording. A CD-RW drive for copying or burning your own CD's is commonplace in computers today. Many users, however, frequently run into problems in getting a true functional copy. There are several steps and precautions you can take to make the outcome a lot more reliable. Let's take a look at some of the more prominent:

  1. Use your hard drive as the intermediary for copying. The most common problem you will run into is known as buffer under-run. The data you are attempting to copy is first placed in a buffer on your hard drive, and then fed to the CD you are burning. Frequently, the data coming off the original CD is fed to the buffer too slowly, or the CD-RW drive is running too fast. In either case, the result is an underfed buffer which results in an inaccurate copy. If this is a recurrent problem, you can use a slower record speed to make your copy. Better yet, copy the entire original CD to a temporary directory on your hard drive, then record the contents of that temporary directory to the CD you are making. Since your hard drive is a good deal faster than your CD-RW drive, it will feed the data to your recording without the risk of under-running a buffer.
  2. Using a CD-RW drive to make a recording creates a heavy demand on your system resources. Anything you may already have running in memory depletes your available resources. Shut down any other program you have running except, of course, your CD creator software. If you are using a cable or DSL modem, disconnect it temporarily from your computer. Then temporarily shut down your antivirus program, anti-hacker software, cookie disabler, and anything else you have running in memory. You can right-click on these items in the system tray on your task bar and temporarily exit from them. When you are done recording, just reboot your computer and plug your modem connection back in again.
  3. Turn off your auto insert notification that starts up your CD automatically when you insert it in your CD-ROM drive. You can find this under control panel-system- CD-ROM drives. Select your CD-ROM drive and uncheck the box for auto-insert notification.
  4. Do not open any applications while recording is in process. To do so may cause the buffer to empty prematurely and could crash a CD. This is especially important with parallel port CD Writers.
  5. Defragment your hard drive frequently. A heavily fragmented hard drive will slow down the data transmission process and under-run your buffer
  6. Make sure the CD recording speed you have chosen does not exceed the rated record speed of the blank CD you are using to make your recording. Also, do not exceed the stated capacity of that CD.

If you are making an audio CD, you should use CD-R, not CD-RW media! Some CD players have a problem reading CD-RW disks. As far as disk quality goes, you are probably best off with the least expensive. Different brands are six of one and half dozen of another.

LOOKING FOR A NEW PC?

If a new PC is on your agenda, you may be confused about what to include. Here's our advice to make the proper choice:

  1. 850 MHz Athlon or Pentium 3 processor. Faster is unnecessary for most of you, and slower is not much less expensive. 850 is optimally balanced between performance and expense.
  2. 128 MB of RAM. Don't even think about less in today's high performance world.
  3. 20-30 Gigabyte, 7200 RPM hard drive is plenty adequate for most users.
  4. 64 MB graphics adapter. If you are a gamer, the nVidia GeForce2 Ultra chip is the best.
  5. CD-RW drive, 4x or 8x record speed.
  6. Sound card. The Creative Labs EAX adapter is the current standard. Many computers today have the sound card already built in to the mother board.
  7. Speakers. They all sound alike to me. Match them to your needs and preferences.
  8. Monitor. 17 inch is entry level today. 19 is highly recommended. Flat screen is best. Digital monitors are great, but they are still way too expensive. A good quality CRT is essential. Remember, it's what you are going to be staring at continuously. 9. Modem. The type will depend on your Internet connection.

I prefer a second hard drive for doing backups. It is the only storage medium for doing full backups of today's high capacity hard drives. As far as where to buy a quality PC is concerned, the three most important things to consider are support, support, and support! :

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Copyright 2001. This article is from the February 2001 issue of the Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., P.O. Box 15889, Sarasota, FL 34277-1889. Permission to reprint is granted only to other non-profit computer user groups, provided proper credit is given to the author and our publication. We would appreciate receiving a copy of the publication the reprint appears in, please send to above address, Attn: Editor. For further information about our group, email: admin@spcug.org/ Web: http://www.spcug.org/

The Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc. has 1,600+ members and was established in 1982. We are members of the Assoc. of PC User Groups (APCUG), the Florida Assoc. of PC Users Groups, Inc., and we are members of the America Online Ambassador Program.

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