What You Need to Know about All Things PC
Volume 1 Number 10Click here to return to the back issues page.Click here to return to the main newsletter page.
The Naked PC - http://www.TheNakedPC.com What You Need to Know about All Things PC Publisher: Lee Hudspeth and T.J. Lee Editor: Dan Butler Contributing Editor: Al Gordon This issue is for Wednesday, October 21, 1998 - Vol. 1 No. 10 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Table of Contents ** 01. Letter from the Publisher ** 02. Free Link Checking with Lynx (by Dan Butler) ** 03. Of Rolled Up Towels and RSI (by T.J. Lee) ** 04. Does Your System Have Warts? (by Lee Hudspeth) ** 05. Annoyances Alley - Fixing Outlook Annoyances with Add-ins and Know-how ** 06. An In-depth Look at PRIME 97 for Word 97 - Find My Dot ** 07. Featured Web Tip - Web Barometers ** 08. Featured Book Recommendation - "The Perl Cookbook" by Tom Christiansen & Nathan Torkington (O'Reilly) ** 09. Featured Product Recommendation - Lifesaver v4.00 by JB Systems ** 10. Featured Web Site - Mamma, The Mother of All Search Engines ** 11. Newsworthy - a potpourri of current events and interesting stuff ** 12. We Get Mail - Comments and Tips from TNPC Readers ** 01. Letter from the Publisher Here's DANGER! Here's EXCITEMENT! Here's another issue of TNPC! It's been a hectic time here at TNPC, Dan has a new addition to his family (congrats Dan!), we're all under one book deadline or another, and Halloween is coming (a very big holiday at Jim's household--kids, costumes, and candy--how can it get any better?). We've gotten tons of feedback from TNPC readers on the computer warts piece in the last issue and still more RSI advice and comments from the article in Issue 8. It appears that both these subjects are of interest to you and we have follow-up articles in this issue and will have more in future issues. Subscriptions continue to increase (currently 13,000+ and growing) and we appreciate you forwarding TNPC to your friends and co-workers (hint, hint). ** 02. Free Link Checking with Lynx (by Dan Butler) If you develop Web sites then you know that keeping all of your hyperlinks working is a never-ending chore. Here is an easy (and free) way to check the links on your Web site. In TNPC #1.1 we introduced you to Lynx, the free text-based Web browser. Less well known is that starting Lynx with the -traversal switch checks a Web site for broken links. Let's say you have a Web site named, oh, http://www.TheNakedPC.com. Start Lynx like this: lynx -traversal http://www.TheNakedPC.com You will soon be watching Lynx merrily traipse through the labyrinth of your site, dutifully recording the errors it finds in the process. After the process is complete you'll find a new set of files in the current directory. Let's look at those briefly: * Reject.dat - list of URL's that will not be checked by Lynx. This includes mailto: links and links external to your Web site. * Traverse.dat - list of all the links on your site. * Travers.errors - list of errors found and which file they were found in. * Travers2.dat - list of all files and their <title> lines. Use the contents of the Travers.errors file to update any of the errors Lynx located. While the reports generated by Lynx may not be as complete as a specialized link checker's reports, they are still useful, quick, and free. What's that? You missed TNPC #1.1 in which we covered Lynx!? No problem. The Naked PC #1.1 can be seen at: http://www.TheNakedPC.com/backissues/v1i1.html or send an email to mailto:tnpcv1i1@PRIMEConsulting.com and our mailbot will send it to your email inbox pronto. ** 03. Of Rolled Up Towels and RSI (by T.J. Lee) Two issues back I mentioned a low-tech wrist rest solution I use and it really sparked a flurry of emails from TNPC readers. Many of you liked the simple, easy maintenance (read: washable) nature of my solution. Several of you have your own personal favorites from gel wrist rests to cotton bags filled with dried shelled corn. I also got quite an earful on RSI, which it seems many of you suffer with to varying degrees, from mild to cases requiring surgery. Several readers admonished me to point out that "wrist rests" are a bit of a misnomer. Many said you should not actually rest your wrist on them at all but rather the meaty part of your hand at the base of your palm (hey, I'm not a doctor, just a computer user like the rest of you <g>). The idea seems to be to keep the pressure off the delicate nerves that run through the wrist and into the hand. I heard from chiropractors and ergonomic experts all who offered ideas like sitting up higher above your keyboard so your hands bend down from the wrists or are straight as opposed to bending up from the wrists making the delicate wrist area the pivot point. A handful of TNPCers recommended that wrist rests be avoided entirely and that a support glove was the answer. I've never tried one of these but you see what they look like at: http://www.craftnetvillage.com/handeze/ I got a ton of RSI related advice, like keeping your monitor where you look slightly down at it rather then looking up, as the latter configuration can strain your neck. Many of you have given up your mice for trackballs, some you swear by stretching routines, doing isometrics at your desk, and perhaps the most popular bit of advice, get up and walk around every half hour or so. TNPCer Steve M. points out that a headset for your telephone can eliminate a number of neck and shoulder problems caused by holding a telephone handset between ear and neck (a situation made worse as you try to type in this awkward position). I second that! Several of us at TNPC would not give up our headsets without a fight! For a number of good common sense ergonomic recommendations check out this feature and related articles on ZDNet: http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/story/story_2495.html ** 04. Does Your System Have Warts? (by Lee Hudspeth) Yes, apparently, your system does have warts. Plenty of 'em. So we are all in good company. Before I take you through an overview of the many responses that poured in, the single most interesting statistic from all your submittals is this. Not one of you replied that you had a wart-less system. Astounding! Are there no well-behaved PCs out there? If you have a system that *never* acts up, hiccups, or infuriates you, please let us know at mailto:warts@PRIMEConsulting.com. Here's how your responses break down by subject: * Microsoft Windows.............................. 42% * Specific suggestions (for one of the 12 warts I described in TNPC #1.9)............. 32% * General comments............................... 9% * Hardware....................................... 4% * Microsoft Office 97............................ 4% * Outlook/Outlook Express........................ 4% * Netscape....................................... 2% * General anecdote............................... 2% Microsoft Windows in all its incarnations snags first place for wartiness. The next most frequently received type of response was a specific suggestion on how to fix one or more of my PC's warts. I'll work my way through your specific suggestions, and how they're panning out here at Wart Central, in this and future issues. Rod R. wrote in with an elegant solution to my "NEC monitor is fuzzy again" problem. He had a NEC MacSync monitor with the same problem, got it fixed free under warranty the first time, but as the monitor kept losing focus about twice every year, he eventually ran out of warranty time. NEC offered to charge him $100 for shipping plus $50/hour to diagnose and repair. That's when Rod took matters, and some tools, into his own hands. "I removed the case of the monitor (taboo, I know)... and eventually found a small hole on the lower left side of the metal radiation cage. Using a flashlight, I found the elusive focus potentiometer lurking on the other side of the hole. Being the resourceful type, after adjusting the focus, I took out my trusty drill, located the correct spot on the monitor housing and drilled a hole that now provides quick and easy access to the focus pot on that monitor. Although the monitor is more than eight years old, it's still sharp as a tack thanks to a quick adjustment every now and then. And it hasn't cost me a dime in labor or shipping." The most amusing anecdote so far comes from Jason M. "The one wart I'll never forget is from the days of the old MFM hard drives. I used to have a Seagate ST-238 20MB MFM drive, which I kept on top of a book on the power supply of my Tandy because I needed to have easy access to it. Why? Well, those drives had a little problem called "sticktion" caused by the heads resting against the landing zone on the platters of the drive having enough friction to physically prevent the drive from spinning up! I would turn the system on and the drive would just sit there and hum lightly. The solution? After turning the power on, if I didn't hear the familiar jet engine noises the drive usually made at spin-up, I would sharply rap the top of the drive with my fist. That's right, I hit the hard drive to get it to work! That was one of the more satisfying fixes I've ever used on a computer problem." Heh heh heh. ** 05. Annoyances Alley - Fixing Outlook Annoyances with Add-ins and Know-how Annoyances Alley is a tiny glimpse into the Annoyances series of Office 97 related books from Woody Leonhard, Lee Hudspeth, and T.J. Lee. This is just one of the detailed tips related to optimization and customization that appears in "Outlook Annoyances" published by O'Reilly & Associates (ISBN 1-56592-384-7) and reprinted here with permission. "Fixing Outlook Annoyances with Add-ins and Know-how There are a number of Outlook 97 add-ins that address several of Outlook's initial shortcomings (to a greater or lesser extent). Microsoft has either incorporated Outlook 97 add-in features into Outlook 98 itself or provides and installs the add-ins as part of the Outlook 98 installation process. You can get Microsoft add-ins from their Web site, which is easiest to reach by going into Outlook, pulling down the Help menu, clicking on Microsoft on the Web, then on Free Stuff. This will kick off your browser and take you to the right area on the Microsoft site. Be forewarned though, Microsoft seems to revamp and reorganize their site with annoying regularity, moving things around and rendering your bookmarks useless. Last time we checked for Outlook add-ins (accessing the MS Web site through Outlook 98's Help menu as described) we wound up on the Microsoft Office Update page. From there we had to click on Product Enhancements and then on the jump to Outlook in order to find the right page. Be prepared to search around. When last there we found add-ins for Outlook, Exchange, and Schedule+; additional converters; the Internet Mail Enhancement Patch; and even additional Help material. If you want to see what add-ins you have installed in Outlook, click the Tools menu, then Options / Other / Advanced Options. On the Advanced Options dialog click the Add-in Manager button (see Figure 2-26). (In Outlook 97 the steps are Tools / Options / General / Add-In Manager.) This lists the currently installed add-ins and shows you which add-ins are presently active (a checked box indicates an active add-in). To remove an add-in select it from this list and click Remove." Annoyances titles are available for order at the Office Annoyances Web site: http://www.PRIMEConsulting.com/annoyances/ or at the publisher's site: http://www.ora.com/annoyed/ ** 06. An In-depth Look at PRIME 97 for Word 97 - Find My Dot Continuing with our coverage of PRIME 97's feature set, in the last issue we featured Create Program Shortcut and in this issue we'll spotlight the newcomer Find My Dot. "If I had a nickel for every time I've done that..." Eliminating the hassle of repeated, complicated actions is the genesis of many utilities from independent development companies like ours. While we were reviewing PRIME 97 for Word's final feature set, we were also slaving away on a book manuscript. Since the publisher's style guide was in a constant state of flux, we were frequently updating the Word template. One of us was the master of the master template, and got tired of having to poke around in Word's File / Open dialog box, navigate to the right folder, find the right file, and open it. Repeat. Find My Dot takes this concept a few steps further. With one click, this tool figures out the current document's parent template and then handily displays a dialog box including the full path and filename of that template, plus these buttons: * Open It -- not surprisingly, but very conveniently, opens the template * New File -- creates a new file based on the parent template Naturally, there's a Help button too. So if you've ever longed for a way to quickly pop open any document's parent template, or fire off a new file based on same, or just see its full path and filename, welcome to Find My Dot. Find My Dot is just one of dozens of productivity-enhancement utilities in PRIME 97 for Word 97. Check out a free 30-day trial at: http://www.PRIMEConsulting.com/software/p97wd.html PRIME Consulting Group backs all its software products with a lifetime, money-back, no-questions-asked guarantee. ** 07. Featured Web Tip - Web Barometers Plenty of Web pages serve as barometers of the Internet's performance, or some aspect of it. However, you should be cautious when interpreting the data presented by any of these barometer sites, and always read their latest About or FAQ pages. You'll find your fill, and then some, at Top Ten Links' current listings: http://www.toptenlinks.com/internet/internettraffic.vote Take the Internet Weather Report for instance, located at http://www.internetweather.com The first thing you'll read on this page is this, "This page is not an indication that one Internet Service Provider is superior to another. Rather, it is intended to be an indication of Internet health from the perspective of OUR connection here at Clear Ink at a given moment." Despite such caveats the information can be quite useful. If your ISP is down for the count, you quickly learn why your surfing performance has slowed to a crawl and won't waste time trying to repair what's beyond your control. If this is a chronic problem you can shop for another ISP. Some ISPs have their own status pages, others have phone numbers you can call for recorded status information, and some have both. Check with your ISP on this. For example, GTE's status page is at: http://www1.gte.net/status/status.asp?StatusType=Connection Much of the traffic that flows between ISP networks passes through WorldCom Inc.'s MAE facilities, in particular MAE EAST (Washington, D.C.) and MAE WEST (San Jose, CA). A WorldCom white paper describes a MAE as "a LAN switch where all the 'pieces' of the Internet connect together in order to exchange traffic at high speeds. The MAE forms part of the 'Inter' in Internet." Check out statistics about any of the seven domestic MAE facilities at: http://www.mfst.com/MAE From there you can choose to see a chart of a specific MAE's recent traffic patterns. Cool! On a slightly different note, if you're interested in monitoring browser usage statistics, the following sites will interest you: * Browser Statistics for the Random Yahoo Link: http://www.cen.uiuc.edu/~ejk/bryl.html * BrowserWatch: http://browserwatch.internet.com * Jayfar's Web: http://www.netaxs.com/~jayfar/sursays.html ** 08. Featured Book Recommendation - "The Perl Cookbook" by Tom Christiansen & Nathan Torkington (O'Reilly) The Perl Cookbook describes itself as "Neither a reference book nor a tutorial book" but rather a reference for other books. And it does this task very well. At 757 pages it's a large book with little padding. Each section starts with a discussion of the topic covered and ends with a full program. The individual recipes each have a clearly stated problem, code sample for solving the problem, and a discussion of the various issues involved in each individual problem. A refreshing change is the authors' willingness to discuss the problems with programming certain types of solutions rather than just throwing out a code snippet that doesn't really do what you expect it to do. An example is the discussion of verifying an email address. The fact is that you can't verify every email address with certainty. The authors discuss why and give you code to try the various alternatives. Several of these recipes have already made their way into the creation of this newsletter. You'll find lots of books talking about Perl, and this is one of the better ones. Very highly recommended. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1565922433/tnpcnewsletter/ ** 09. Featured Product Recommendation - Lifesaver v4.00 by JB Systems What do you do when your Registry is corrupt? Restore it, of course! Do you know how? Did you even back it up? Didn't think so! We suggest you give Lifesaver a try. This piece of software saves a rotating backup of your important system files and Registry. Want to preserve your Registry before installing that new piece of software? Make a quick backup with Lifesaver. In addition to saving your files, Lifesaver makes it easy to restore the files either from inside Windows or from an MS-DOS command prompt. Put Lifesaver in your Task Scheduler and never be without a backup again. Lifesaver works with Win95, Win98, and NT. If you have Windows 98 you already have a built-in Registry backup utility, the free Registry Checker, that saves the last five cold-boot Registry files plus Win.ini and System.ini in a CAB file format. http://www.lifesaverbackup.com/ ** 10. Featured Web Site - Mamma, The Mother of All Search Engines Our featured Web site this go round is Mamma which touts itself as a smart meta search engine. You submit your queries and Mamma analyzes and properly formats the query for each of the search engines it probes. No more remembering which search engine needs which syntax. A side benefit to all of this is that Mamma seems to make some attempt at keeping hits relevant. For the searches tried so far we've been able to find the information we're after and not sift through large numbers of links having absolutely nothing to do with the original search terms. If you need to search the Web, give Mamma a try. http://www.mamma.com ** 11. Newsworthy - a potpourri of current events and interesting stuff *-* If you're curious about Linux then this Web-zine is a place you definitely want to bookmark. Nicholas Petreley, one of our favorite columnists, is the Editorial Director at LinuxWorld. This site is jam-packed with all things Linux and of course has the latest versions of this free operating system for download. http://www.linuxworld.com/ *-* Tektronix has released a new color laser printer, the Phaser 740, which retails for $1,995. It prints 16 pages per minute in black and white and 5 pages per minute color. Amazing. http://www.tek.com/Color_Printers/ *-* Microsoft has announced an early service release of Visual Studio 6.0, of which Visual Basic 6.0 is one component. According to Microsoft, "This service pack, available by the end of October, addresses specific binary compatibility issues with certain runtime redistributable files." For more details see: http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/sp/default.asp *-* Speaking of the year 2000... Dell and Compaq are concerned that problems with year 2000 and real-time clocks in most computers may be more of a problem than they first thought. Both computer makers have plans to post utilities to prevent real-time clocks from causing problems with applications when the clock rolls over to Y2K. *-* The next version of Access comes with the Microsoft Data Engine (MDE), a replacement for the current JET database engine. MDE uses stored procedures for developing server applications that use Access 2000 as their front end. MS says MDE will transparently upgrade to SQL Server 7 without having to change anything in the Access 2000 front-end. *-* Microsoft has posted a 40+ page document detailing their position in answer to the Department of Justice case against them. Things like Microsoft is not a monopoly, never heard of Netscape let alone did them any harm, doesn't say to potential competition "All the better to EAT YOU WITH," believes in the Easter Bunny, is kind to animals, etc. Well maybe we exaggerate; read it for yourself and see what you think: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/10-13record.htm *-* Someone found a new security bug in IE4 (no, not the August bug, this is a new one) that lets bad Web site guys run scripts that can grab your clipboard contents and various files right off your computer. Of course, why anyone would want someone's clipboard contents is beyond us. Hmmm, ever get the feeling that Web browsing is just not secure? Pick up a copy of the fix at: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/security/?/windows/ie/ security/paste.htm (Beware: this URL may wrap in your email reader) ** 12. We Get Mail - Comments and Tips from TNPC Readers *-* Jack S. stopped by the Office Annoyances site and asked a question about a nearly undocumented feature in Word that can drive you bonkers if you come across it unexpectedly: "In word 97 I typed three asterisks in a row (***) and hit return. All of a sudden there was a row of little square dots across my screen! Where the (bleep) did they come from and how do I stop it from happening again? It took a while to get rid of them, too; the dots were NOT selectable and it took me far too much time to figure that they were "attached" to the paragraph mark that preceded them!" Jack ran into one of Word's "Format As You Type" features. Here's how the feature is implemented. You type a sentence and decide it would look great if only it was underlined. So you're supposed to hit a hard return then type three hyphens (---) for a thin underline, three underscores (___) for a thick underline, or three equal signs (===) for a double underline, then hit enter again and the underline is APPLIED TO THE PREVIOUS PARAGRAPH! Pretty annoying given how hard it is to get used to Word's paragraph driven paradigm in the first place where all formatting is applied to the current paragraph. In this case what you are doing on a subsequent paragraph will be applied to the previous paragraph. Ouch! To see what little documentation is available on this subject go to Tools / AutoCorrect / AutoFormat As You Type / and click on the question mark button on the dialog box title bar then on the Borders checkbox under "Apply as you type." The help text talks about the three character types, the hyphen, underscore and equal sign. But as Jack found out three asterisks (***) give you a dotted box underline. And three pound signs (###) give you a thin-thick-thin 3-line underline. Surprise! To stop this behavior uncheck the Border checkbox under Tools / AutoCorrect / AutoFormat As You Type. +++----------------------- classifieds -----------------------+++ Neat Net Tricks Neat Net Tricks is a free twice-monthly email collection of useful computer and Internet tips. Subscribe by Email: mailto:majordomo@majordomo.net with "subscribe neatnettricks" in the body or stop by our Web site: http://www.NeatNetTricks.com +++-----------------------------------------------------------+++ WANT TO GET YOUR WORD OUT? Classified ads in The Naked PC can be yours for the ridiculously low price of $35 per issue. Get your message out to over 13,000 TNPC subscribers. http://www.TheNakedPC.com/tnpcadvertising.html +++-----------------------------------------------------------+++ DISCLAIMER Personal computers are individual machines with performance that can vary with components, software, and operator ability. The Naked PC is not responsible for the manner in which the information presented is used or interpreted. Also, although we work hard to provide you with accurate Internet links in The Naked PC, we are not responsible for Internet links herein that represent sites owned and operated by third parties. We are not responsible for the content, accuracy, performance, or availability of any such third-party sites. Grass stains may not wash out. Do not leave on your car dash with the windows rolled up on a hot day. REDISTRIBUTION POLICY We encourage you to forward this newsletter to your friends, associates, and colleagues for their review and enjoyment. However, please do so only by sending it in full, thereby keeping the copyright and subscription information intact. We do request that, once they've reviewed an issue or two, they subscribe independently rather than continue to receive issues from you. This helps TNPC grow and prosper, thereby funding its continued publication. Also, if you wish to post this newsletter to a newsgroup or electronic discussion group, you may do so if you preserve the copyright and subscription information. Thanks. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES To subscribe or unsubscribe, surf on over to: http://www.TheNakedPC.com/subscribe.html To make comments or suggestions, surf on over to: http://www.TheNakedPC.com/tnpfeedback.html or send email directly to: mailto:tnpc@PRIMEConsulting.com WEB BULLETIN BOARD Check out our 24x7 Web bulletin board. If you've got a technical question about PC issues, or suggestions of your own, this is the place to hang out: http://www.PRIMEConsulting.com/cgi-local/annoy.pl ADVERTISING To advertise in TNPC go to: http://www.TheNakedPC.com/tnpcadvertising.html Mail services provided by Blue Horizon Enterprises, one of the very few "Mom and Pop" operations left on the Web: http://www.bhorizon.com Copyright (c) 1998, PRIME Consulting Group, Inc. and Dan Butler. All Rights Reserved. The Naked PC is a trademark of PRIME Consulting Group, Inc. ISSN: pending RMH: 626 TNPC Hot Tips:
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