What You Need to Know about All Things PC
Volume 1 Number 8Click 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 Thursday, September 24, 1998 - Vol. 1 No. 8 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Table of Contents ** 01. Letter from the Publisher ** 02. Keyboard Comfort with Cheap Washable Wrist Rests ** 03. A Primer on Large Drive Support, the Enigmatic FAT32 and FAT32x, and Things that Go Bump in the Night (by Peter G. Barnett, Technical Analyst for Norton Utilities) ** 04. Featured Windows 98/IE4 Tip - Rearrange Your Start Menus ** 05. Featured FAQ - How to Open and Convert Word 97 Documents from within Word 95 and Word 6 ** 06. Featured Book Recommendation - "Woody Leonhard Teaches Microsoft Office" by Woody Leonhard (Que) ** 07. Featured Product Recommendation - MouseTool by JR Software LLC ** 08. Featured Web Page Recommendation - Web Search Cheat Sheet ** 09. We Get Mail - Comments and Tips from TNPC Readers ** 10. Newsworthy - a potpourri of current events and interesting stuff ** 01. Letter from the Publisher Welcome to Issue Number 8 of The Naked PC. We have a lot to cover in this issue so we'll make this letter short. Our main article is from Peter G. Barnett, a Technical Analyst for Symantec, makers of Norton Utilities. Peter replied to Al Gordon's initial query about problems Al experienced after converting to FAT32, detailed in TNPC #1.2 (see the backissues page http://www.TheNakedPC.com/backissues/v1i2.html to read this issue), and the two struck up an engaging correspondence. The upshot is Peter's outstanding primer on large drive support, and the enigmatic FAT32 and FAT32x, written especially for you our TNPC subscribers. Thanks Peter! We also dive into the world of Repetitive Stress Injury (RSI) with an article on cheap, washable wrist rests (say that 7 times quickly) and a Featured Product that helps those who have trouble working a mouse. Several of us here at TNPC have RSI to varying degrees, so the topic is of interest to us. We'd like to know how many of you have an interest in the subject as well. Send us an email at mailto:rsi@PRIMEConsulting.com if you'd like to see more info on RSI and its prevention in future issues of The Naked PC. A final note: be sure to check out our newsworthy tidbit on problems with the latest Office 97 upgrade, Service Release 2. +++------------------------- sponsor -------------------------+++ Blue Horizon Enterprises Blue Horizon Enterprises is one of the very few "Mom and Pop" operations left on the web. Stop by our Web site and feel free to look around. We specialize in virtual web hosting, World Wide Web development, mail services, including mailing lists, and everything else that can enhance your presence on the Internet. HTML, Perl, Java, CGI development, as well as custom graphics. http://www.bhorizon.com +++------------------------- sponsor -------------------------+++ ** 02. Keyboard Comfort with Cheap Washable Wrist Rests I was reading Nicholas Petreley's "Down to the Wire" column in the September 7th issue of InfoWorld the other day (it's a great column and I never miss it). Nick was talking about getting old in general (I can certainly sympathize, the warranty expires at forty, folks) and his problems with carpal tunnel syndrome in particular. Mindful of this painful and debilitating affliction that can strike people who spend long hours at their keyboards, I've probably tried every wrist rest, arm support, custom keyboard, and the like to come down the pike. The custom keyboards that look like they were broken in the middle have never caught my interest. I like the old IBM standard layout, thank you very much. The problems with wrist rests are many. The more elaborate require that you bolt swinging arms to your desk or attach pads to your keyboard. Which is not going to help you if you have to jump up and work at another workstation on occasion. I've tried a number of the foam pad rests and the biggest problem I have with them is that the material covering the foam starts to peel off, they're too hard and inflexible, and you can't clean them. They get, well, grimy after hours and hours of use. It's easier to clean your keyboard than the wrist rest that sits in front of it. And this brings me to the low tech, low cost, easy to clean solution that I've adopted. Prepare to be under-whelmed. Take a hand towel, like you'd dry your hands on after washing up, and tightly roll it up along its length. This gives you a cylinder about 16 inches long with a diameter of an inch and a half. I rubber band each end and plunk it down in front of my keyboard. Hey, don't laugh. After hours of typing I can fluff it up (giving me a chance to work some of the kinks out of my hands in the process), roll it a half turn to give it a different feel, and best of all, once a week I can pull off the rubber bands, toss it in the washer, and get a nice clean one from the linen closet. When I worked in an office I bought several plain beige hand towels (another benefit is you can pick from a myriad of colors to match your office décor) and kept them in my desk drawer. Once a week I pulled out a new one and tossed the old one, still rolled up, into my briefcase and took it home for a trip through the laundry. My wrists have long stopped complaining and I now do the same thing with a washcloth, which I keep in front of my mouse pad. ** 03. A Primer on Large Drive Support, the Enigmatic FAT32 and FAT32x, and Things that Go Bump in the Night (by Peter G. Barnett) (In TNPC #1.2 Al Gordon wrote about woes he experienced after converting to FAT32, and wondered about the nature of the so-called FAT32x file system. Peter Barnett of Symantec read our article and provided the following helpful details about large hard drives and other new technologies, and the problems of adopting them. -- Ed.) Introduction To effectively use a computer one does not need to know how it works. Rather, one only need know how to do whatever task it is that is required. To drive a car one does not need to be a mechanic. Nevertheless, a cursory understanding of computer file storage systems and physical hard drive characteristics is one area that can save you from a host of troubles. There are a number of danger areas when it comes to hard drives and file storage systems where it is very easy to get into serious trouble. Serious trouble is defined as loss of data. Similar situations exist for all types of computers and operating systems, but our focus here is exclusively on DOS, Windows, and NT. Why should you even care? In short, one only needs be concerned under one or more of the following conditions: 1. A virus or system failure damages your hard drive. 2. You add another drive to your system. 3. You upgrade your operating system. Obviously, having a backup will prevent data loss. Nevertheless, knowing how your particular system works including any peculiarities and/or limitations can save you many long hours of frustration as well as keep your repair bills to a minimum. Hard Drive Requirements and Limitations Hard drives are physical. Operating systems are logical. Logical systems run on top of physical systems. Therefore, understanding physical limitations comes first. Physical hard drives are divided into two basic categories, IDE and SCSI. IDE drives are divided into IDE, Enhanced IDE (EIDE), and Ultra DMA. SCSI drives are divided into SCSI II, Wide, Fast, and a few other categories as well. For our purposes we only need to concern ourselves with the size or capacity of the drive. The other distinctions have relevance for performance (speed) and do not impact data integrity. Consequently, IDE is meant to refer to all IDE drives and SCSI to all SCSI types as well. The following table shows the size thresholds where problems can arise. IDE----------------- Greater than 528 MB Greater than 2.0 GB Greater than 4.0 GB Greater than 8.4 GB SCSI ------------------- Greater than 1.0 GB Greater than 8.4 GB All hard drives are physically dependent on a BIOS (Basic Input Output System) chip and a controller. For IDE drives these two components are almost always separate, while for SCSI, they are always one integrated unit. It is this integration that gives SCSI drives their speed edge over IDE drives. Furthermore, this integration all but eliminates the kind of mismatches that can plague IDE configurations. In short, one only needs to confirm that your SCSI drive is supported by your SCSI controller and you are done. Either it works or it does not. It is that simple. IDE drives, on the other hand, have to be matched with the computer's BIOS as well. Unfortunately, there are so many variations available to do this that there is no easy way to describe how to determine it. Still, there are some guidelines that you can follow. The first of these guidelines is size, as already mentioned. The second is the date of manufacture of your hard drive and the date of your computer's BIOS. The latter is usually displayed on your computer screen on startup. The former is more difficult to determine. BIOSes began supporting IDE hard drives greater than 528 MB in mid-1994. Support for 2 to 4 GB drives began around 1996 and for above 8.4 GB in 1998. That seems rather straightforward except that while the support began on those dates, it does not necessarily follow that support by your BIOS began at that time. Furthermore, many BIOSes are upgradable and the upgrade does not usually change the date. In other words, you can have a BIOS with a 1994 date that supports drives greater than 8.4 GB. If you are not yet thoroughly confused and frustrated, hold onto your hats, there is more to come. In order to circumvent these limitations, manufacturers came out with controllers with updated BIOSes on them (kinda like SCSI) and with software that enhanced BIOS limitations. Consequently, finding out what you have can be a difficult exercise. Before you run off to your nearest computer repair shop, be advised, many of those places do not understand all this either. Not to despair, there are things that you can do. 1. Next time your computer starts up, press the "pause" key and write down your BIOS information. You can then go to the Web site of that manufacturer and check on the specifications of your BIOS (e.g., www.award.com). 2. Boot off a floppy diskette. If you have software that is enhancing your BIOS, it will fail and you will not be able to access your hard drive. This will not hurt anything unless you try to write to your hard drive. 3. If you determine that your BIOS does not support your hard drive and that you do not have software doing it, then you must have a controller with BIOS support. Unfortunately, you cannot tell by looking at the card itself. As mentioned earlier, these issues only come up if you have a system failure or if you want to add a new large drive to your system. Operating Systems and Large Drive Support For the most part, your operating system runs on top of the hardware layer and it could care less as to the size of the drive it exists on. Nevertheless, there are a few size related issues. FAT32 and FAT32x from Windows 95b and Windows 98 are the only ones that come to mind. All of the aforementioned hardware considerations remain valid with only a few exceptions. FAT32 and FAT32x Explained Briefly, FAT stands for File Allocation Table and the number 32 refers to the number of bits (8 bits = 1 byte) reserved to store the required file information. The "x" refers to eXtensions to the original FAT32 specification. Prior to FAT32, DOS and Windows systems used FAT16. As drives increased in size, 16 bits became increasingly disadvantageous. In short, 16 bits maxed out at the 2 GB size (1 Gigabyte = 1,000 megabytes). FAT16 was originally limited to 32 MB drives and it was updated over the years until it became necessary to increase its basic structure from 16 to 32. FAT32 can safely address drives up to 2 Terabytes which is 2,000 GB. With the advent of drives exceeding 8.4 GB, a new limitation was reached. Prior to this, all drives used some form of CHS (Cylinder Head Sector) translation. Under this scheme every sector was given three numbers. In anticipation of this limitation being exceeded, both SCSI and IDE manufacturers developed Logical Block Addressing (LBA). With LBA, each sector is given a unique number. Depending on the BIOS, the operating system could use either CHS or LBA or both. Above 8.4 GB, only LBA is available. FAT32x tells the operating system to only use LBA. Consequently, it is not uncommon to see FAT32x in use below the 8.4 GB threshold. Conversely, if the operating system tries to use FAT32 or FAT16 beyond 8.4 GB, bad things are sure to happen. One last caveat. Windows 95 and 98 come with an enhanced 32-bit disk driver that is LBA aware. It is rare, but there have been cases where a BIOS' limitations are overcome in Windows but not in DOS. DOS does not use the enhanced driver that is available in Windows. This is only a problem when using DOS mode exclusively. One symptom of this is to try and run FDISK from DOS mode and FDISK from within Windows (MS-DOS Prompt). If they behave differently, then you know to beware of DOS mode. Conclusion The main rule of thumb is to understand that if you add software or hardware to an existing system that DID NOT EXIST when the system was originally built, you run the risk of conflicts. This is truer of hardware than of software. Remember, 8.4 GB EIDE drives did not exist until early 1998. Furthermore, there are a lot of computer "experts" that are not up to date on the latest and greatest. Hence, it can never hurt to get more than one opinion. References How to Check Hard Drive Configuration (Symantec Knowledge Base) http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nunt.nsf/docid/1996112575859 Hard Drive Configuration Simplified (Symantec Knowledge Base) http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nunt.nsf/docid/1997125142832 How to Diagnose Hard Drive Bootup Problems with Disk Editor (Symantec Knowledge Base) http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nunt.nsf/docid/1996112112544 3 (Peter G. Barnett is a Technical Analyst for Norton Utilities.) ** 04. Featured Windows 98/IE4 Tip - Rearrange Your Start Menus This tip was posted on the Annoyance Board and is reprinted here with permission. In Windows 98 you can easily rearrange the Start menu (and its sub-menus) by clicking-and-dragging a menu option from where it is to where you'd like it to appear. This works the same way in the Favorite's bar in Internet Explorer 4. This means you are not limited to having things displayed in alphabetical order or resorting to goofy naming tricks to keep some things higher on the menus than others. You can't move the Programs, Settings, or Find options from the main Start menu, but you can move most everything else, including dragging things from one sub-menu to another. The hot tip is to start Windows Explorer prior to moving items across sub-menus. If you accidentally drop something on the wrong menu, activate Windows Explorer and pull down the Edit menu. The undo option will read Undo Move and you can reverse your mistake. Note that you cannot undo the action of rearranging items on a menu, only when you move an item from one menu to another. ** 05. Featured FAQ - How to Open and Convert Word 97 Documents from within Word 95 and Word 6 Anyone still using Word 95 or Word 6 has run into the problem of trying to open documents sent to them by people using Word 97. The newer version of Word uses a file format that's incompatible with its predecessors, which left users of earlier versions unable to open Word 97 documents. This FAQ tells you where to get the free Microsoft converter that installs on Word 6/95 and that lets those versions of Word open Word 97 files. http://www.PRIMEConsulting.com/faqs/faq3600.html ** 06. Featured Book Recommendation - "Woody Leonhard Teaches Microsoft Office" by Woody Leonhard (Que) An introduction to Microsoft Office by Woody Leonhard (co-author of the Office Annoyances book series). If you're trying to get your feet wet with Microsoft's market-leading software suite, this is the book for you. While the Office Annoyances books are intended for users familiar with Office and who have beat their heads against walls comprised of its more annoying aspects, "Woody Leonhard Teaches Microsoft Office" is meant for people who aren't familiar with Office at all (or even PCs), but need to come up to speed quickly with a minimum of fuss and hassle. A great introductory book. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0789717050/tnpcnewsletter/ ** 7. Featured Product Recommendation - MouseTool by JR Software LLC Repetitive Strain Injuries (RSI) are becoming more and more common. If you have trouble clicking a mouse, this little utility will help. The author of this utility suffers from RSI and wrote MouseTool to alleviate the pain he experiences. With this utility you move the mouse and MouseTool does the clicking. Very slick and surprisingly easy to get used to. The author says, "I want people to use this if it helps them. I want to help people get back to doing their jobs and using their tools without fear of pain." The site also has a nice set of links to further information about RSI and how to avoid/live with it. Download your free trial of MouseTool; the registered version is $19.95. http://www.mousetool.com ** 8. Featured Web Page Recommendation - Web Search Cheat Sheet Searching the Web is getting to be trickier every day. Each search engine uses a different syntax for submitting complex searches and it's difficult to keep them straight in your mind. This issue's featured Web site sports a simple form interface to the top search engines. You've seen this before but what sets this site apart is the little "cheat sheet" under each form listing the search syntax for that search engine, making it easy to construct complex searches without remembering the details. We save time with this, and you will too! http://www.colosys.net/search ** 9. We Get Mail - Comments and Tips from TNPC Readers *-* In TNPC #1.7, James Kinard pointed out that you can reinitialize your scanner by selecting the SCSI device in Device Manager and clicking on Refresh. A number of readers (including William J. and Todd L.) point out that you can refresh the entire equipment list by opening Device Manager and clicking on the Refresh button without selecting any particular device in the list. Kathleen R. reports that since installing Windows 98 (beta) she has not had to play reboot games with her SCSI scanner. She turns it on only when she needs it and scans away. If you are running Windows 98 and have a scanner attached to your system you might drop us a line and let TNPC know if you can just turn it on and scan or not. (Be sure to include the exact version of your operating system. Thanks!) ** 10. Newsworthy - a potpourri of current events and interesting stuff *-* Problems are starting to surface with the Microsoft Office 97 SR-2 Update. A requirement of SR-2 is that you have SR-1 installed, but some users can't get SR-2 to recognize that SR-1 is already on their systems. Users who installed the SR-1 Enterprise Update seem to have the fewest problems (the Enterprise Update CD was a complete set of SR-1 updated Office files). BugNet has actually issued an alert on the SR-2 upgrade. http://www.bugnet.com/alerts/bugalert.html Your best bet is to call Microsoft at (800) 370-9272 and order the Office 97 SR-2 Replacement CD which requires an uninstall and reinstall of Office but avoids the problems reported with the SR-2 patch. *-* Microsoft has posted a fix to the Access Bookmark bug (discussed in Charlotte Foust's article in TNPC #1.7) that has been traced to the Jet database engine. There's a MS Knowledge Base article on this: http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q172/7/33.asp You can download the fix, JET35UPD.EXE, from: http://support.microsoft.com/download/support/mslfiles/Jet35upd.e xe *-* "Excel 97 Annoyances" debuts in Taiwan! The publisher of the best-selling Annoyances book series, O'Reilly & Associates, has just opened an office in Taiwan and among the first titles released in Chinese is "Excel 97 Annoyances." This popular Excel tome will be followed shortly by the Chinese version of "Word 97 Annoyances." If you are interested in getting the Chinese language versions of these or other O'Reilly books, contact Ben Han (mailto:benh@oreilly.com) or Mori Su (mailto:mori@oreilly.com). *-* Do you have a Web site? Does it contain links to other Web sites? Hang on to your cyber-hats! Photographer Gary Bernstein has filed a lawsuit against JC Penney claiming that JC Penney has a chat page that linked to another JC Penney page, that linked to a page created by Internet Movie Database Ltd., that linked to a page owned by the Swedish University Network, that showed two photographs, the display of which Mr. Bernstein claims violates his copyright. How would you like to be responsible for not just your own content but the content of sites that your page does not even link to directly? TNPC is of the opinion that cooler heads will prevail and throw this lawsuit into the bit bucket. For details check out: http://www.abcnews.com/sections/tech/DailyNews/websuit980921.html *-* Microsoft announced PhotoDraw 2000, a photo-editing and drawing package, due to be released in October. Estimated price tag is $149. There's talk that Microsoft will bundle this graphics application with the Office 2000 suite. *-* Searching the Web may get easier thanks to the Clever technology developed at IBM. Clever is a sophisticated algorithm that can take a query that would normally return hundreds of thousands of hits on search services like Alta Vista or Yahoo! and give you a more relevant targeted list (to say nothing of more manageable) of 30 or 50 sites. Of course if it's *your* site that is filtered out you might not think this is so great. You can read about it on C|Net: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,26600,00.html?st.ne.fd.mdh *-* New Naked Horde Members TNPC would like to welcome CompHelp Net to the ranks of the Naked Horde. CompHelp is a general computer and HTML help site fed by user input put together by Bob Matcuk. Good luck Bob! http://www.comphelp.net/ Amok would like to personally welcome Jen's Links to Keep You Up All Night! site to the Naked Horde. An eclectic collection of Web links to interesting, useful, and just plain fun sites. http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/4810/ +++----------------------- classifieds -----------------------+++ INTELLIGAMER Intelligamer is the intelligent choice in online Computer Game information! We've got the best in computer gaming news, reviews and more. Check with Intelligamer before buying that next game. http://www.intelligamer.com +++-----------------------------------------------------------+++ Outlook Annoyances Outlook driving you crazy? Despair not, the latest book in the Annoyances series from O'Reilly is out! Outlook Annoyances from Woody Leonhard, Lee Hudspeth, & T. J. Lee. Covers 97 and 98. http://www.PRIMEConsulting.com/annoyances/outlookannoy.html +++-----------------------------------------------------------+++ PRIME 97 for Word 97 Clear History Lists, File Delete, Find My Dot, Make a Mark, Reverser, Bookmark Manager, Create Shortcut, Document Variable Manager, Zoomer, Proof Controller, Window Manager, plus a dozen Quick Clicks make this an indispensable Word add-on. http://www.PRIMEConsulting.com/software/p97wd.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: 593 TNPC Hot Tips:
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