What You Need to Know about All Things PC
Volume 1 Number 6Click 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 This issue is for Thursday, August 27, 1998 - Vol. 1 No. 6 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Table of Contents ** 01. Letter from the Publisher ** 02. An FTP Primer (by Al Gordon) ** 03. Auto-FTP Program Recommendations from Our Readers ** 04. The Naked PC Staff Discover a New Outlook 98 Bug ** 05. An In-depth Look at PRIME 97 for Word 97 - Bookmark Manager ** 06. The Budweiser Frog Virus Alert Is a Hoax, and Where To Go To Dispel Many a Tenacious Virus Myth ** 07. Featured Book Recommendation - "Outlook Annoyances" by Woody Leonhard, Lee Hudspeth, & T.J. Lee (O'Reilly) ** 08. Featured Product Recommendation - Anonymous Cookie from Luckman Interactive ** 09. Featured Web Page Recommendation - Mike's Radio World ** 10. Newsworthy - a potpourri of current events and interesting stuff ** 01. Letter from the Publisher Welcome to the sixth issue of The Naked PC. Here in the Underground Labs we've been having "spirited" discussions of what we should include in future issues. This is your chance to be heard and help set the tone. Send us email at mailto:tnpc@PRIMEConsulting.com and let us know what you'd like to see in future issues. Be sure to let us know what you like, what you don't like, and what you want to see more of. We are particularly interested in what you need that you are unable to find elsewhere -- we may be able to supply it! Can we ask a favor of you? It won't cost anything and will only take a few moments of your time. We're on a subscription drive and want to increase our subscribers around the world. Do you know anyone who would like to receive this type of information? Whether it's 1 person or 1,000, if the answer is yes why not send them a personal note and tell them about The Naked PC? Please don't spam our newsletter to anyone! It's FREE and we appreciate your help. We get lots of email asking technical questions and we try to answer as many as possible. For a quick answer to technical problems try posting on our Annoyance Board at: http://www.PRIMEConsulting.com/cgi-local/annoy.pl The board is turning into a great resource with tips, tricks, and fixes posted daily. Everybody's welcome! Don't have a question? Perhaps you can give an answer. Just this week TNPCer Scott B. (Texas, US) reports that he found a tip from TNPCer Jim K. that he says will save him time every time he uses his scanner. http://www.primeconsulting.com/cgi-local/annoy.pl?read=2044 In this issue we uncover yet another Outlook bug with details on how it affects you. Al Gordon makes his life easier with FTP automation, and you can too by following his advice. Plus several reader recommendations for auto-FTP programs. There's a lot to talk about -- we appreciate you joining us! +++------------------------- sponsor -------------------------+++ Neat Net Tricks Neat Net Tricks is a free twice-monthly email collection of useful computer and Internet tips. Subscribe by Email: majordomo@majordomo.net with "subscribe neatnettricks" in the body. http://bounce.to/jteems +++------------------------- sponsor -------------------------+++ ** 02. An FTP Primer (by Al Gordon) In computing, like pop music, there are "oldies but goodies." One of the older and better is "ftp" -- "file transfer protocol" -- an Internet technology that's been in use for so many years that people have begun to forget it's there. Compared with so much other computing technology, FTP is refreshingly simple. It provides quick file transfers with minimal muss and fuss. Even the term is straightforward compared to most computer acronyms. File Transfer Protocol is just that: a protocol (technical specification) for transferring files. It's typically quicker than Web protocols. There's no special wizardry here. In fact, the secret is the absence of wizardry. Because of the simple, non-graphical FTP mechanism, the server computer can devote more of its computing power to the downloads. You often use FTP without knowing you are using it. FTP support is built into Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and most other standard browsers. Further, many Web sites use FTP as their method for downloading files to you. In most instances, unless you happen to look closely at the download dialog box, you never will notice that FTP is being used. And you go to FTP sites by giving your browser the sites' URLs (the syntax typically is ftp://ftp.somplace.com). FTP remains a major method for software vendors and many other institutions, particularly universities, to distribute files over the Internet. If you are regularly dealing with such sites, you may be better off supplementing your browser's specialized FTP application suitable for Industrial Strength downloading. Generally, FTP software is shareware (that is, software that you download and try before you purchase) or freeware. There are dozens, and they are all similar in principle. Basically they emulate the Windows 95/98 "Explorer" file manager so that the server file structure looks, and can be accessed, like any drive or directory on your own computer. The key features you want in an FTP program are the ability to resume an interrupted download (a key FTP capability that browsers rarely support), to store information about the contents of server directories so you can quickly switch back and forth among them, and to make repeated attempts to connect to limited-capacity servers. (Note: The automatic restart feature -- the technical term is "reget" -- has to be supported by both the server and the client.) Some FTP programs have a command line interface which can be useful for often repeated tasks like updating a Web page or automating repeated downloads. However, in my estimation, for the average user this command line feature represents the kind of complexity that justifies a Windows application. Use your own discretion here. PrimaSoft AutoFTP is a TNPC featured product. It comes in Standard and Pro versions. And there's a free -- yes, free -- version, which has advertisements at the bottom of the application window. If you can put up with the advertising, the price certainly is right. Other choices: the two best known are Cute FTP by GlobalSCAPE, Inc. and WS-FTP Pro from Ipswitch. Another good program is Bulletproof FTP, which among other things, allows you to run multiple instances of the program (like opening a new window in a browser), so you can have more than one download going at once. Let's hear it for the good old days. PrimaSoft AutoFTP -- http://www.primasoft.com/ftp.htm Cute FTP -- http://www.cuteftp.com/index.html WS-FTP Pro -- http://www.ipswitch.com/Products/WS_FTP/index.html Bulletproof FTP -- http://www.bpftp.com/ ** 03. Auto-FTP Program Recommendations from Our Readers A number of TNPCers responded to a recent article with their own recommendations for auto-FTP programs. TNPCer Ian B. likes GetRight from Headlight Software. With GetRight you can schedule downloads and when a download is complete have it disconnect or even shut down your system. http://www.getright.com/ From Down Under, Ian W. highly recommends Bullet Proof FTP that lets you specify files to download, their download order, handles reconnection and picks up where it left off, and will even log off and reconnect if you are on a metered site and exceed your download time credit. You can have it monitor the clipboard and when you copy an FTP or HTTP URL and filename to the clipboard it will automatically start downloading the file in the background. http://www.bpftp.com/ ** 04. The Naked PC Staff Discover a New Outlook 98 Bug We've discovered a bug in the second "long filename security issue" patch of Outlook 98 (version 8.5.5603.0). It appears to be limited to systems running "Corporate or Workgroup" mode (all systems we've tested have the bug), but we haven't seen it occur on systems running Outlook 98 "Internet Only". Here goes... The bug cropped up recently on a system configured like this: Win95.0a, Office 97 SR-1, and Outlook 98 "Corporate or Workgroup" mode with the second "long filename security issue" patch, version 8.5.5603.0. The last message stored "properly" in the Sent folder on this PC was on Tuesday, 8/18/98 at 5:41 PM. When we look at that message in the Sent folder the From field correctly reads "Lee Hudspeth [leehuds@gte.net]". Ditto in the preview pane. If we do a test Forward of that same message, Outlook creates a new message that begins like this: -----Original Message----- From: Lee Hudspeth [mailto:leehuds@gte.net] Sent: Tuesday, August 18, 1998 5:41 PM To: Dan Butler (E-mail) Business as usual so far. The very next message sent was on Wednesday, 8/19/98 at 1:20 AM. In the Sent folder the From field for that message is mysteriously empty. The From field is also empty in Outlook's preview pane. Empty!? How disconcerting! How could such a simple, fundamental thing be wrong? A test Forward now looks like this: -----Original Message----- From: Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 1998 1:20 AM To: Timothy-James Lee (E-mail) Outgoing messages still arrive at their destinations with proper Internet headers, so there appears to be no impact on email deliveries with this bug. But the empty From field in the Sent folder and preview pane is most aggravating. We are constantly forwarding messages from our Sent folders and it looks very odd when the forwarded message has a blank for the original From: line. To fix this bug, we got out our trusty and dog-eared copy of "Outlook Annoyances" and turned to page 81 and the "Problems Sending Email" section. There we followed the prescription for email repair tactics. Unfortunately, we had to work all the way through to item 23 ("Uninstall and reinstall just Outlook") of this 25-item checklist. Here's an overview of the basic steps we took to eliminate the problem before we recognized it was due to the second patch: Removing and adding back the Internet E-mail service did not fix the problem. Nor did creating a new profile and connecting to it. We had to un-install and re-install Outlook 98 to fix the problem, or so we thought. Then we realized that maybe this was all related to the "long filename security issue" patches. Sure enough, the time for the download -- and an immediate run of the patch -- of the second Outlook 98 patch was 8/18/98 at 11:59 PM. Bingo, the second patch immediately precedes the first improperly formatted message header. Here's how we isolated this bug: 1. Uninstall Outlook 98; 2. reinstall Outlook 98; 3. test and at this point it's okay (a newly sent message is formatted properly); 4. run "long filename security issue" patch 2; 5. test and it's broken again (Sent folder and preview pane's From field is empty). As of this writing, there's no Knowledge Base article on this bug. We've reported this bug to Microsoft program management. Meanwhile, if you are an Outlook 98 user and you've installed the second patch, check your Sent folder and preview pane and see if the From fields are now empty. If so, send us some email at mailto:Outlook98Bug@PRIMEConsulting.com including a brief system description (PC model, OS exact version, Outlook 98 exact version, including "Corporate or Workgroup" or "Internet Only", and your email address in the body of the message). We'll batch- forward them on your behalf to Microsoft program management in a campaign to get this bug fixed in Office 97's upcoming Service Release 2. ** 05. An In-depth Look at PRIME 97 for Word 97 - Bookmark Manager PRIME 97 for Word 97 is PRIME Consulting Group's latest Office add-in for Word 97. PRIME add-ins have a rich history, going back to the halcyon days before Office was Office. In fact, the very first version of PRIME ever published was designed for Word 1.1, released in 1991. For the next few issues we'll be highlighting one PRIME 97 utility per issue. Let's kick off this series with Bookmark Manager. Bookmark Manager goes far beyond Word's native user interface and reporting capabilities for bookmarks. Bookmark Manager displays a dialog box containing the following controls: * Bookmark Names -- alphabetical list of all bookmarks * Rename to -- a text box for renaming any bookmark * Bookmark Contents -- a text box showing the bookmark's contents * Statistics frame -- dynamically reports statistics for the bookmark selected in the Bookmark Names list control: character count, section and page number, bookmark number (name order), and bookmark number (location order) * Command buttons -- a variety of command buttons we'll discuss shortly One of the many neat things about Bookmark Manager is that you can use your mouse or arrow keys to browse the document's list of bookmarks and see the dialog dynamically and instantly update itself, displaying the contents and statistics for each bookmark as you select it. If you need to see precisely where a bookmark is inside the document, just click the Goto Now & Wait button and your cursor jumps right there, leaving the dialog running. (You can click the Goto Now & Close button to jump to the desired bookmark and exit Bookmark Manager.) In Word, if you want to rename a bookmark you have to delete it and recreate it, a clumsy and error-prone process involving seven mouse stokes. With Bookmark Manager this is as simple as selecting the bookmark to be renamed, typing a new name, and clicking the Rename button. Bookmark Manager also makes it a one- click operation to delete a bookmark. After the deletion, the dialog box automatically updates its list of, and statistics for, the remaining bookmarks. Log All is perhaps Bookmark Manager's most innovative feature. Word has no provision for listing bookmarks and their contents by name or location. Bookmark Manager's Log All does this and more. It works through the current document and produces, in a separate log document that you can save or print, a table of the following information: name order, location order, character count, section number, page number, name, and the contents -- including formatting! So you can easily see how your documents and templates are organized, even sorting by name or location order, page, section, and so on. This is a powerful tool for folks who develop, use, or debug Word online form templates, since you can instantly inventory all your form fields and sort them any which way, all without disrupting your master document or template (since the log is a separate document). If you click the Redefine Contents button you can change any bookmark's text contents right inside the dialog. You can also use the Toggle Bookmarks button to do in one click what takes four in Word (Tools / Options / View / Bookmarks / OK). There's plentiful online Help, too. The majority of Bookmark Manager's features simply are not available in any form or fashion in Word. PRIME 97's Bookmark Manager is the Swiss army knife for Word bookmarks. Check out a free 30-day trial at http://www.primeconsulting.com/software/p97wd.html or order your copy via our secure server at https://secure.clickdata.com/prime/order.asp PRIME Consulting Group backs all its software products with a lifetime, money-back, no-questions-asked guarantee. ** 06. The Budweiser Frog Virus Alert Is a Hoax, and Where To Go To Dispel Many a Tenacious Virus Myth A friend recently corresponded with us and inquired about the Budweiser Frogs virus alert, and he attached the suspicious message as well. As we explained to our associate, this is a complete hoax. When you get a piece of email like this, don't forward it to anybody! Instead, immediately go to Rob Rosenberger's Computer Virus Myths page (which you should definitely bookmark): http://www.kumite.com/myths/ Then tell whoever sent you the message to stop passing the message along, puh-leeze, and point them to Rob's page. Rob's very accurate and objective in the midst of all the hoopla surrounding viruses. For the straight scoop on this particular hoax, see: http://www.eliashim.com/vcenter/irina.html#BUD Go get 'em, Rob! ** 07. Featured Book Recommendation - "Outlook Annoyances" by Woody Leonhard, Lee Hudspeth, & T. J. Lee (O'Reilly) Microsoft's premier and long-awaited PIM is now in its second version. In our estimation, Outlook 97 was more like a beta release, and Outlook 98 is really a version 1.0 product. In this book we show you why Outlook is a frustrating, annoying, yet incredibly useful piece of software. And we show you how to work around or avoid the vast majority of its annoying gotchas. Covers both Outlook 97 and 98. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1565923847/tnpcnewsletter/ ** 08. Featured Product Recommendation - Anonymous Cookie from Luckman Interactive Anonymous Cookie is a free utility that, with a deft click of your mouse, disables all the cookies being kept by your browser. This gives you instant privacy when surfing an unknown Web site. Click again (if you're using Internet Explorer) and your cookies are instantly re-enabled. http://www.luckman.com/products/anonymouscookie/ ** 09. Featured Web Page Recommendation - Mike's Radio World Tired of MIDI files and the same old Real Audio clips playing on the Web pages you visit? You say you're wondering why you bothered to download the Real Audio player in the first place? Is that what's bothering you, Bunky? Well, wonder no more. Mike's Radio World has links to hundreds of live broadcast radio stations that play on the Internet. Pick a station format and get a listing of stations that you can tune into via Real Audio on your computer. Next time you're sitting at your desk filling out those expense forms, tune into the latest in news, rock, classical, and many other categories. http://ds.dial.pipex.com/town/place/abn39/ra.htm ** 10. Newsworthy - a potpourri of current events and interesting stuff *-* JavaScript Security Patch for Internet Explorer Microsoft has posted a Knowledge Base article on a JScript security bug that affects Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0, 4.01, and 4.01 SP1 running on Windows 95, 98, and Windows NT 4.0. To be affected you have to visit a Web site that is running a script designed to cause you a problem (meaning someone has to set a trap for you). Read the KB article at: http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q191/2/00.asp Download the patch at: http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/vbscript/scripting.asp *-* New Naked Horde Members TNPC would like to welcome DownCity in Norwich, Connecticut, to the Naked Horde (www.TheNakedPC.com/horde.html). DownCity offers complete Internet and computer solutions, including Internet access; web design and hosting; custom Linux servers; consulting; and training: http://www.downcity.net *-* Bizarre Win98 Reboot Bug The first bug in Windows 98 acknowledged by Microsoft can affect the night owls out there. Reboot your computer just before the system date changes at midnight and the date can reset itself either two days forward or one day back! Strange but true. Microsoft is working on a fix. Stay tuned. *-* A Whole Lotta Surfin' Going On! For those of you keeping score, Nielsen Media has reported that one-third of all Americans over the age of 16 use the Internet. That's an increase of 8 million over the last 9 months. Cowabunga! *-* Microsoft Office 2000 You can find the latest official marketing hype on the next version of Microsoft Office at: http://www.microsoft.com/office/2000/default.asp We think Microsoft should have named it Office 2001, then they could have gone with a HAL-9000 interface. "I'm sorry, Dave. I can't find that spreadsheet you were working on, but I can publish directly to the Internet." Hmmm, maybe not. *-* Win98 Rolldown Menus and ToolTips Windows 98 is making some of us here at TNPC seasick with the way the menus whoosh down as they display. ToolTips also roll down instead of just appearing as we'd like them to, and you now get ToolTips when you mouse over things like the Maximize, Minimize, and Close boxes in an application title bar. To prevent Win98 from displaying these unnecessarily, run the Win98 version of TweakUI (on the Win98 CD-ROM, \Tools\Reskit\Powertoy) and on the General tab uncheck the Mouse Hot-Tracking Effects check box. You can also stop the whooshing menus by unchecking the box for menu animations in TweakUI. If you figure out how to stop the rolldown effect for ALL ToolTips P-L-E-A-S-E be sure to let TNPC know about it! *-* Microsoft has updates to Dial Up Networking (DUN) for both Win95 and Win98: Windows 98 Dial-up Networking Security Upgrade Available http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q191/5/40.asp Dial-Up Networking 1.3 Upgrade Available http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q191/4/94.asp *-* A bug in Microsoft Access can scramble records (edits to one record may appear in another record). There are conflicting reports as to the versions of Access that are affected. Microsoft has only confirmed the bug in Access 97. For the details check out this article on C|net (which details the workaround): http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,25671,00.html?st.ne.fd.gif.d +++----------------------- classifieds -----------------------+++ Excel 97 Annoyances Ever get the feeling there's more to Excel than meets the eye? That there's got to be a better way to make it work, if only you knew how? From Woody Leonhard, Lee Hudspeth, & T.J. Lee, now get the most out of Excel without getting annoyed! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/156592309X/tnpcnewsletter/ +++-----------------------------------------------------------+++ Word 97 Annoyances Word doesn't have to be so darn annoying! Get the book that sets you straight and gets you up to speed on Word in a hurry. The definitive word on Word. From Woody Leonhard, Lee Hudspeth, & T.J. Lee. Start working smarter today! http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1565923081/tnpcnewsletter/ +++-----------------------------------------------------------+++ WOPR -- SUPERCHARGE WORD -- WOPR Woody's Office POWER Pack is THE way to make Word better. Better Enveloping, document management, toolbars, duplex and other fancy printing - plus lots more! FREE TRIAL available! http://www.wopr.com/ +++----------------------- classifieds -----------------------+++ 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 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 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:584 TNPC Hot Tips:
|
