PCWize Vol 4, Issue 16 - A new hole in the head April 16, 2000 ______________________________________________________________________ You could win $10,000 and a Sony DVD player just by recommending PCWize to a friend! ------ My daughter, Ashley, has lately been very interested in earrings-- especially when other little girls have them --so we decided to get her ears pierced. I still remember what it felt like when I got mine pierced. I have (now unused) three holes in my left ear-- Only one of which was done by a professional. Being that Ashley is only 28 months old, I was sure that this was going to be a heart-wrenching thing to watch. Little did I know how true this was going to be... Our first stop was to our local AAFES (Army and Air Force Exchange Service)-- the military version of a department store -- where we inquired about ear piercings. In keeping with the tradition of their spontaneously vanishing services, we were told that they were no longer authorized to do them. Being the inquisitive sort of fellow that I am, I asked why. The previously certified ear piercing expert said that this was a worldwide AAFES policy, and that upper management decided it wasn't necessary to impart the "why". Hmmm, sounds to me like somebody, somewhere in the AAFES world put a hole in someone's head where there wasn't supposed to be one. Our next question was where else we could go to vandalize my daughter's ears. She wouldn't recommend anyplace, but said that we could get one of those new-fangled home mangling systems. "Great!" I thought, "They're going to make me do it." So off we went in search of a home piercing kit. They were easy to find and cost about $18.00. We bought the necessary torture devices, and brought our totally unsuspecting, smiling child home. We mulled over whether to puncture her before or after dinner, and finally settled on the latter. The time of reckoning came soon enough and we whipped out her current favorite (not to mention highly annoying) childrens video. She happily sat while watching a moronic guy in a shiny cowboy suit rescue a stranded elephant from the roof of a barn. How he got up there is anyone's guess. At any rate, we swabbed her lobes with alcohol, told her how cute the elephant was, and I punctured her cute little earlobe with an Olympic sized javelin. At first I think she was surprised. Her little mouth made an "O", kind of like this :-O, and then the "ear piercing" scream shortly followed. We coddled, cuddled, kissed, and apologized. Then I picked up the second piercer and stabbed her in the other ear. For the remainder of the night, she wanted absolutely nothing to do with me and I suffered a few hours of smoldering looks. The moral of this story... Get it done by a professional. At least that way you can scream and yell at them so as to avoid being the badguy. This story brought to you by Leif Gregory and the ad council for legal forms of child abuse. ------ I downloaded BeOS 5 Personal Edition last night-- a 42MB download at 56K --and eagerly installed it. Then I eagerly watched as it wouldn't run. :-( I'm not sure what the problem is, but it might have something to do with my installation of Mandrake Linux 6.1. The helpful users on the Be User Talk discussion list recommended that I remove Mandrake. Even though I'm nothing of a Linux guru, it was akin to someone saying that I should remove Windows. I'll keep playing with it, and I'll let you know how it turns out. If you're interested in giving the BeOS a shot, you can download it from here for free . There is no need to repartition your hard drive, as it runs from an image file created in the BeOS directory which takes up 512MB. However, you might want to take a look at the compatible hardware list first ______________________________________________________________________ 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 ** ------ http://www.freecreditanalyzer.com - Get your credit situation analyzed online without affecting your credit report. ------ 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: WindowBlinds v1.2 build 250 by Stardock Genre: Desktop Enhancements Platform: PC Win 9x/00/NT Type/Cost: Shareware / USD $20 Size: 1.4MB Homepage: Download: WindowBlinds is a desktop enhancement that changes the look, feel, and even functionality of Windows err, windows. :^) What I mean by changing the functionality, is that depending upon the "skin" you use, the author may have included functionality to roll windows up to the scrollbar and/or a thumbtack for sticky windows. I reviewed WindowBlinds quite a while back, and while I felt then that it was a good piece of software, it had some bugs that prevented me from using it on a daily basis. After hearing a friend comment on the latest release, I decided to check it out again. WOW!! It's a pretty stable enhancement now and boy does it breathe new life into the drab Windows we've all come to know so well. If you can't find a skin that suits your style, then you can create your own and even post it for others to install on their machines. One nice feature, is if an application seems to have problems with WindowBlinds, you can add it to an exclusion list and that application will be ignored and show up in all its old lackluster Windows glory. Take a look at a screenshot from my desktop with the Redemption skin by UFO. I left it at 1024x768 so you could make out all the details. Note: The bar sitting at the top of the screen containing the clock, CPU use etc. belongs to PowerPro which was reviewed in the last issue. ______________________________________________________________________ 3. Cool Sites ------ Free e-mail accounts Looking for another e-mail account? Whether it be web based, forwarding, or POP3, you're bound to find something you like from the 3,047 different ones available. ------ Here are some web sites run by your fellow subscribers. Want to get listed here? It's simple! Just go to and grab the PCWize button towards the bottom of the page. Place this button and link it to PCWize, then send me an e-mail of the page you put it on. David Donoho's 37211 PC Users Group --- Sam Uhl's Software Solutions ______________________________________________________________________ 4. Tips, Tricks, Do's and Don't Do's ------ Are you one of those people who are always checking the properties of files and folders? Here's a quick way to get there without having to drag your mouse all the way to the bottom of the context menu. Hold down the ALT key and double-click the file or folder for an immediate properties view. ------ Faithful PCWize reader Marianne wrote in to let me know that the tip mentioned in issue 4.13 about Windows rebooting instead of shutting down when you tell it to do so, didn't work for her. We set out on a quest to nail down this pesky little bug, and our travels were far ranging. One thing Marianne mentioned was that she had given her machine to a friend for maintenance, and with his peripherals, the machine shutdown properly. This got me thinking that Microsoft's Advanced Power Management (APM) was the culprit. After disabling anything to do with APM and the power management features of her BIOS, we still didn't resolve the problem. After numerous other dead-ends, Marianne saved her own bacon by finding the below on the Microsoft Knowledge Base. - Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel. - Click Add New Hardware to start the Add New Hardware wizard. - When you are prompted to search for new hardware, click Yes (Recommended), and then click Next. - Follow the instructions on your screen. - Once the Add New Hardware wizard is completed, do not restart your computer if you are prompted to do so. - Click Start, and then click Run. - In the Open box, type c:\detlog.txt, and then click OK. - In Notepad, click Find on the Search menu. - In the Find what box, type advanced, and then click Find Next until you find a line similar to the following line: Checking for: Advanced Power Management Support Detected: *PNP0C05\0000 = [3] Advanced Power Management support If product support has disabled Advanced Power Management, the line is followed with information about why Advanced Power Management was disabled. Advanced Power Management is usually disabled because the BIOS does not handle it correctly, and possible data loss can occur if it is enabled. If this is the case, contact your computer manufacturer for a possible updated BIOS that resolves this problem. Armed with this info, she was able to put the boot to this pesky little critter once and for all. ______________________________________________________________________ 5. That's the news! ------ A backdoor password in Microsoft net server software with FrontPage 98 extensions can allow those with web authoring permissions to exploit pretty much anything on a site. ______________________________________________________________________ 6. Security Issues, Hoaxes, Viruses and Other Urban Legends ------ Please visit http://www.pcwize.com/tech/computer/secdef.shtml if you would like to know the definitions for hoaxes, viruses, worms and urban legends. ------ I really have no idea how the below was expected to work, but I can assure you that it won't. This is just another forward this to everybody to irritate and congest. TACO BELL AND MC DONALD'S Send this to 6 people and you will see the taco bell dog run across your screen. If you send this to 8 people, Ronald Mcdonald comes out and attacks the taco bell dog. It is really funny and it works! You have to try it. ______________________________________________________________________ 7. PCWize Contests and Winner Announcement ------ 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. ------ This week's sponsor is EasyDesk Software, and they have developed some great applications to make your daily life much easier. Please visit their web site to get the lowdown on all the great products they have, and to help keep the PCWize newsletter FREE! ------ The winner of this weeks contest is: Marianne, because she wasn't content to just sit back and let me figure out how to fix her computer. She was with me the whole way and tried out every option I threw at her. She has won herself a free registered copy of WinSafe. ______________________________________________________________________ Well, that's it for this issue! Have a good week and I'll see you in seven days. Leif Gregory Copyright © 1997-00 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