PCWize Vol 3, Issue 51 - Marching to the beat of my own drum December 19, 1999 ______________________________________________________________________ For the many of you who requested to see pictures of my daughter Ashley, they are now posted! Go here to see the love and terror of my life. ------ In my trials and tribulations as an e-zine publisher, I've come to learn a few things about advertising and getting the word out about my publication. One of the things I've discovered is that it is hard, and tends to cost some money. While word of mouth has done fairly well for PCWize, it doesn't seem to be enough. Unfortunately, this means I have to cough up some cash to get advertising space in other newsletters in my genre. It kind of saddens me that many successful e-zine publishers seem to have forgotten how much time and energy it takes to get your proverbial foot in the door. I've decided that I'm not going to be like that. So, if you have a publication you'd like to get the word out about, send me something about it. I'll have to judge the appropriateness of course, i.e. no spam or make money types etc., but I'm willing to give up space in this e-zine which costs me nothing more than a little typing or cutting and pasting. The only stipulation to this offer is that your list have less than 1000 subscribers. I'm not asking for any return favors or money, as I believe that there is plenty of room for more than just one newsletter/e-zine in everyone's inbox. I plan to run a maximum of two of these ads per edition. Send'em to: For those of you who have been letting your friends and family know about PCWize, thanks and keep up the good work! In addition, here's another deal. I've got extra space available in the HTML versions of PCWize in the left-hand column. I'd like to do something fun with it, so I'm asking any of you subscribers out there who would like to have your web site listed in the "PCWize Subscriber Sites" section, to send me your name, web site URL, web site name, and a two sentence blurb about your site. Submissions must be for personal (non-commercial) web sites, and I will determine beforehand if your web site is appropriate. Most likely I'll include two subscriber sites per issue. Send submissions to mailto:editor@pcwize.com?Subject=My_Site ------ Check out the next installment of Leif's Laptop Quest! ______________________________________________________________________ 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? For more information, go here: ______________________________________________________________________ 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: CCTask by Cybercreek Genre: Utils Platform: PC Win 95/98 Type/Cost: Shareware / $25.00 USD Size: 163KB Homepage: Download: Windows being well... Windows, I am a frequent flier on the triad keyways of CTRL-ALT-DEL. Not only have I been there and done that... I created the t-shirt! CCTask is a no-holds barred task manager. Not only can you see what programs are running, but each .DLL / resource it hooks into. In addition to the normal close type of function-- creatively called "Destroy" in CCTask --you also get the "I mean NOW!" kill button. But that's not all! CCTask also comes with a built in CRON function. Want to start a process at a certain time? No problem! or, how about this... Want to kill a process at a certain time? It'll do that too. But wait, there's more.. Want to assign a different priority to tasks? CCTask is the answer! I'm sitting here now, watching Win98 tremble at my might. Well, ok, maybe not.. It appears to lack intelligence enough to be scared. I'm sure that this program will make its way into many a power user's arsenal. ______________________________________________________________________ 3. Cool Sites ------ Browsertune 2K Want to see how your browser stacks up in one of the most gruelling torture tests available today? Fred Langa's Browsertune 2K will put your browser through over 300 non-invasive tests to see where it *doesn't* cut the mustard. Tested by thousands of people already, you'll be able to determine incorrect settings and missing options. If your browser fails a test, you can read up on how to fix it right there on the Browsertune 2K website. Just as a side note, Browsertune 2K is written and maintained by Fred Langa of the Windows magazine notoriety. ______________________________________________________________________ 4. Tips, Tricks, Do's and Don't Do's ------ Let's talk housekeeping! I know that I'm a little on the extreme side when it comes to the volume of e-mail I receive-- about 150 per day -- and I generally keep quite a few of the messages because they contain technical information or are just plain interesting. Unfortunately for me, my pack-rat behavior causes some serious system overload as my e-mail software tries to keep track of the thousands of messages. One trick I've discovered is to archive them to a ZIP file at the end of each year. For example, last year, I archived just a little over 17,000 messages. If you have a hard time deleting your e-mail too, then the below trick is for you. First, depending on what e-mail software you use, you need to figure out what file(s) the messages are stored in. For me-- using The Bat! --they are under a mail folder called mail, and then into subfolders depending on the folders I have in my e-mail program. If your e-mail software supports nested folders (most do), then create a new folder (in your e-mail software) at the top level called "archive". Under this folder create new folders with the same name as all the rest of your folders. i.e. Before: -inbox -outbox -sent -computers -family -mailing lists -work After: -inbox -outbox -sent -computers -family -mailing lists -work -archive -inbox -outbox -sent -computers -family -mailing lists -work Now, after reading a message and deciding to keep it, drag it to the appropriate folder under archive. Most e-mail client software keeps it's folders on the hard drive similar to the folder structure in your e-mail software. So if you have a folder in your e-mail software called "computers/video/tech", then you will most likely have a similar folder structure on the hard drive like: C:\program files\my mail client\mail\computers\video\tech". If not, then you have a little more work cut out for you, but I'm going to base this article on the fact that your e-mail software does do it this way. Once you've got enough messages and decide it's time to archive it permanently, all you have to do is ZIP up the folder called "C:\program files\my mail client\mail\archive". Now go back into your e-mail program and delete all the messages in the archived folder. You'll be surprised at how much faster your e-mail software functions without all the extra message overhead. One thing though, if you want to keep the attachments, you may have to include that directory in the ZIP file too. Later, if you decide that you need an archived message, open your e-mail software, rename the "archive" folder to something like "xarchive" (this is so you don't overwrite your current archive folder when you unzip the old one.), exit your e-mail program, unzip the old archive. Make sure it goes into the right directory and not something like C:\temp. Open your e-mail software, get the message(s) you need, then delete the folder in your e-mail program and rename the "xarchive" back to "archive". Well, that's it. Happy archiving! ______________________________________________________________________ 5. That's the news! ------ This is a tough world we live in. Everybody is out to make a buck. Take a look at the story of this college student who shelled out a couple of thousand to get the races.com domain name, and through a screw-up by Network Solutions, another person registered it and now wants $500,000 USD. You'll probably be seeing a story soon, from me, on my dislike for cybersquatters (people who buy domains at the going rate of $70 USD for the sole purpose of selling them for more money later.) ______________________________________________________________________ 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: W95/Babylonia Genre: Virus Another virus in a never ending stream. This one will infect .EXE and .HLP files. Many times it will corrupt an .EXE by overwriting existing data making the file unusable. It will also propagate itself when you connect to IRC by sending out copies of itself named as "2KBug-MircFix.exe". If you see this file, do not run it. The virus was originally distributed on the alt.crackers newsgroup as a .HLP file purportedly containing a large number of serial numbers for popular software packages. If you see "serialz.hlp", do not run it either. For more info: ______________________________________________________________________ 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 editor@pcwize.com so that we can work a deal. ------ The winner of this weeks random drawing contest is: Leah Cox ______________________________________________________________________ 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 its 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