PCWize Edition #29 - Of Mice and Me November 21, 1999 ______________________________________________________________________ Sorry, no horrifying tales from the daughterside this week , but there's plenty of other great stuff for your reading pleasure. I'll tell you what though, just judging from the sheer number of e-mail I'm getting about her, she has become very popular. Looks like I'm going to have to put some pictures up on the web site. Someone even suggested that she get her own section. I don't think I'll go that far...and in response to Brian Lestin's suggestion, "No! I am not going to give Ashley her own rebuttal column to write embarrassing stories about her moronic dad!" :^) She and my wife could probably fill an entire newsletter with my weekly stupid comings and goings. ------ While visiting my wife's sister in Sapporo, I made a stop into Yodobashi Camera, my favorite electronics/computer store in Japan. One of the things I love about this place is that you can play with their entire selection of laptops and desktops without having to have a sales representative standing over your shoulder to type in screensaver passwords. I learned quite a bit about what I wanted out of a laptop by this hands-on experience. You'll get the full details in the next edition of PCWize. One other item I found while perusing their store was a really cool mouse. I've seen mice with the scroll wheel on it before, but this mouse has two scroll wheels. One for horizontal and one for vertical. "What might you need a horizontal scroll wheel for?" you ask. Well, it works wonders on laptops with limited screen resolutions. I can just hover my mouse over any window which needs horizontal scrolling and wheel away. The other thing I really enjoy about my new mouse is that it has a third button located where your thumb normally rests, which I have programmed to zoom in on an area of the screen when clicked. The buttons also have a very satisfying clicky (sorry, making up words here) feel to them. I'd like to tell you who makes the mouse, but it appears to be something of a generic one. The only thing I can tell you is that the logo on the mouse itself says "A4 Tech", and it cost me about $20 USD. ------ Concerning the link that appeared in the warning for the VBS/Bubbleboy worm last week; it doesn't work. That link was part of the actual message body and it didn't occur to me that someone might actually try to follow it. I should have stated something to the effect that the link wasn't supposed to work. Sorry. ______________________________________________________________________ TOC 1. Voting Booth and Other PCWize Stuff 2. Software Review 3. Cool Sites 4. Tips, Tricks, Do's and Don't Do's 5. That's the news! 6. Security Issues, Hoaxes, Viruses and Other Urban Legends 7. PCWize Contests and winner announcement If the columns in the below articles appear misaligned, it's because you are using a non-fixed width font. If you would like to see them nice and straight, change your e-mail font to Courier New. ______________________________________________________________________ ** A word from our sponsors ** ------ * LiveWire! Broadcast - Easily locate and play Live Radio and TV stations on the Internet * MediaGrab! - Find and download MP3s and 18 other types of multimedia files. * WebGrab! - Great web tool for viewing and downloading webpage elements. * UsenetGrab! - Integrated Usenet News browser and more. EastBay Technologies - http://www.eastbaytech.com ------ Want to see your advertisement here? Send mail to with the text 'Advertiser' in the SUBJECT line for more information. ______________________________________________________________________ 1. Voting Booth and Other PCWize Stuff ------ Click here to vote for PCWize as one of the best newsletters in the "E-zines Top Ten Poll"! It's just a click, no need to fill anything out. ------ Come visit the PCWize forum and live chat. You may discuss anything computer related and it's a good place to get help with any computer questions you may have. ______________________________________________________________________ 2. Software Review ------ Name: Design Express v1.1 by MicroVision Development Inc. Genre: Graphics Design Platform: PC Win95/98/NT Type/Cost: Shareware / $39.95 USD Size: 2.01MB Homepage: Download: I ran out of business cards a few days ago, so I went on the prowl for a nice business card/sticker creation program. After trying a quite a few programs, I was about ready to give up. They were either too limited in placement of objects, only worked with certain filetypes, or didn't support the printing specifications necessary to print on the card stock I had (Avery 8376). I decided to try one more and ended up hitting paydirt. Design Express is easy enough for anyone to use, but is so functional as to almost be categorized as desktop publishing grade. One feature that just blew my socks off was the page setup for aligning your printer output with the actual card stock. It has to be one of the most precise I've seen yet. If Design Express doesn't have your exact card stock type available, it only takes a few minutes of easy to use dialog boxes to create your own. Design Express differs from other card/sticker design software like Hallmark and Dogbyte because it doesn't come with pre-made cards or wizard type interfaces. It's just you and the design window with drag and drop objects. ______________________________________________________________________ 3. Cool Sites ------ SDF Public Access UNIX System Off and on through the years, I've played with varying versions of UNIX/Linux, but never long enough to get good at it. I guess the main source of my problem was that I didn't want to repartition my hard drive so that I could load Linux on it. If any of you are in the same boat, this just might be the answer to our dilemma. After signing up for a free shell account via their web site, you then log into their server using telnet (C:\Windows\telnet.exe) and you are immediately submerged into the world of UNIX. Your account comes loaded with pretty much everything that you will need to start on the path to UNIX guruhood. ______________________________________________________________________ 4. Tips, Tricks, Do's and Don't Do's ------ I really have no idea why Microsoft decided to include the "Stretch" option for desktop wallpaper. What an absolute waste of resources. If you have the STRETCH option enabled for your desktop wallpaper, go change it to CENTERED or TILED. Here's why. Let's say that your screen is set up for 800x600 pixels. Let's also say that you have a picture of Dilbert that you just have to have on your desktop and that image is 320x200. Now if you CENTER this image (as wallpaper), you'll have a border on the left and right side of Dilbert's pic of 240 pixels each, and a border above and below of 200 pixels each . Personally, I don't mind the borders, but let's say you're one of those people that does. You decide to try and TILE the image. Well, simple math tells us that this isn't going to be very aesthetic. You have 800 pixels available horizontally, and your image is 320 pixels horizontally. You would see 2.5 copies of Dilbert's pic horizontally, and because you have 600 pixels vertically (with Dilbert's pic being only 200), you'll have 3 copies spanning vertically. All in all, you'll see 6 full images and 3 half images on your screen. Yuck! Apparently the people at Microsoft didn't really like this option either, so they added STRETCH in Windows 95 OSR2 and it held over into Windows 98. What stretch does is to stuff pixels into your image to make it bigger. It does this by averaging between the colors of the surrounding pixels to come up with an in-between value. There are actually quite a few algorithms that do this, and I'm not sure of the specific one that Microsoft uses. In any case, it does do a fair job of keeping the image from becoming too pixilated (loss of detail), but where Windows has its problem, is refreshing the desktop. Refreshing the desktop is what happens each time you move or close applications/windows or otherwise do something to disturb the desktop. When you do this, Windows must recalculate the stretched image and this take a little time. You'll notice sluggishness (especially if you have the taskbar set to hide) in application windows clearing off the screen. I think Microsoft should have done a single recalculation, saved the stretched image as a temporary file and then used it as a standard CENTERED image. So, how do you get an oddball dimensioned image to take up the whole screen without using the STRETCH option? Actually, it's just a simple image resize for most graphics programs. Unfortunately, MSPaint does not have this option. Here is a decent program that will allow you to resize images. All you have to do is open the image file, resize it to the same dimensions as your desktop, save it, then use that file as your wallpaper set to CENTER. ______________________________________________________________________ 5. That's the news! ------ In an effort to help computer users protect themselves from the inevitable Y2K viruses and worms that every doofus little virus writer must be writing right now, Microsoft has teamed up with multiple software vendors (eleven to be exact) to provide fully functional virus protection software for 90 days. This is enough time to get you through the new year if you don't already own a virus protection software package. Seems kind of ironic that Microsoft should be the head of this little venture considering that the majority of the latest viruses are specifically targeted at them. Seems to me like a little preemptive damage control. At any rate, once you get a virus protection package, make sure you use whatever option they have available to get the latest updates. As we get closer and closer to the new year, I predict that we are going to see all sorts of new nasties pop up. ______________________________________________________________________ 6. Security Issues, Hoaxes, Viruses and Other Urban Legends ------ Before we begin, let me define these for you: Security Issues: These are issues affecting your privacy and security while on the Internet. Most security risks that will be mentioned here are ones concerning holes in software which leak information or will allow people to gain access to private information. Viruses/Trojans/Worms: These will be *real* warnings about new viruses. If I'm warning you of a virus, then you can take it to the bank that I've fully checked its validity first. Hoaxes: The most memorable in all of your minds is most likely the Good Times Virus hoax. These are warnings about some new fangled virus that will wreck your life. The difference between this and other virus warnings is that they aren't for real. Their entire purpose is to scare people and bog down mail servers with all the forwarding going on. The reason I'll be telling you about them is so that you'll be in the know and won't forward them to everyone in your address book. Urban Legends: These are stories that will be computer related, but aren't necessarily virus related. A warning/story moves out of the hoaxes category when it keeps making a comeback. An example of an urban legend would be the one about the FCC allowing phone companies to charge for local access to the ISP in which the cost would be passed onto us as users. ------ Name: The Hunger Site Category: Scam or not? This first became a blip on my sleuthing scope when Nick Pharo sent a heads-up on it about a month ago. The message being forwarded around reads something like this: "Quite clever of the U.N. to do this. Go to the Hunger Site at the U.N.. All you do is click a button and somewhere in the world some hungry person gets a meal to eat at no cost to you. The food is paid for by corporate sponsors. All you do is go to the site and click. But, you're only allowed one click per day so spread the word to others. http://www.thehungersite.com." At first look, you have to admit it looks pretty shady. However, after speaking to several of the sponsors, it appears very legit. I also verified their affiliation to the World Food Program at . While the forwarded message makes it sound like the U.N. is actually running the thing, this isn't true. "The Hunger Site" is an entirely volunteer effort by a single individual. The way it works is that after a certain time has passed, the clicks are added up and each of the sponsors sends in their monies to the World Food Program. The owner of "The Hunger Site" never lays his hands on the money. As stated in the forwarded message, clicking the donate button more than once per day doesn't count. Once again, I stand corrected in that sometimes, just sometimes, the truth is out there. So if you get a forwarded message about "The Hunger Site", you can go ahead and forward it to your friends. It has the PCWize seal of legitimacy. ______________________________________________________________________ 7. PCWize Contests and Winner Announcement ------ This weeks contest sponsor is Eastbay Technologies and they have generously offered four of their products to be used as prizes in our random drawing contests. Eastbay Technologies offers a wide variety of software to meet many different user's needs. Take a look at some of what they have to offer: * LiveWire! Broadcast - Easily locate and play Live Radio and TV stations on the Internet * MediaGrab! - Find and download MP3s and 18 other types of multimedia files. * WebGrab! - Great web tool for viewing and downloading webpage elements. * UsenetGrab! - Integrated Usenet News browser and more. EastBay Technologies - http://www.eastbaytech.com ------ Each week PCWize holds a random drawing contest and gives away free stuff (usually software) to its subscribers. We will continue to do this as long as there are advertisers who are willing to provide the prizes. If you are such an individual/company, then please contact me at vbok@biogate.com so that we can work a deal. ------ The winner of this weeks random drawing contest is: Rose Pringle ______________________________________________________________________ Well, that's it for this issue! Have a good week and I'll see you in seven days. Leif Gregory Copyright © 1997-99 by Leif Gregory. All rights reserved. You may share this copy of the PCWize newsletter with others as long as it is reprinted in it's entirety to include the copyright notice and subscription directions. If you've received this edition of the PCWize newsletter from a friend or colleague and wish to start receiving your own copy, then click the below link and send the generated e-mail message. I have made every attempt to ensure that all information contained in this newsletter is accurate to the best of my ability. Due to the myriad of possible configurations in the PC platform, information and software discussed here may not always work with your particular configuration. That being said, Leif Gregory and the PCWize newsletter can not be held liable for any damages you may incur either directly or indirectly from the use of anything contained in this newsletter. PCWize does not endorse any of the products or services provided by advertisers in this newsletter. As with anything in life, please check the credibility of the advertiser as well as to use common sense. If it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. PCWize Editor PCWize Homepage Unsubscribe Back-Edition Titles