What You Need to Know about All Things PC
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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, October 8, 1998 - Vol. 1 No. 9 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Table of Contents ** 01. Letter from the Publisher ** 02. Does Your System Have Warts? ** 03. Windows 98 PowerToys, Some Good News and Plenty of Bad (By Al Gordon) ** 04. Annoyances Alley - The Access Database Wizard ** 05. Featured Book Recommendation - "Poor Richard's Web Site" by Peter Kent (Top Floor) ** 06. Featured Product Recommendation - Verifying Year 2000 Compliance with YMARK2000 ** 07. Featured Web Page Recommendation - E-The People ** 08. Newsworthy - a potpourri of current events and interesting stuff ** 01. Letter from the Publisher We've gotten virtual truckloads of feedback from you on our brief RSI discussion in TNPC #1.8, and more comments are pouring in daily. Look for more on this topic in future issues. In this issue we're kick-starting a new theme, one that gets far too little press coverage: warts. System warts, that is. The kind of irritating, vexatious problems that come and go (or, in the more tenacious strain, come and stay). We tackle this pervasive issue, reveal the problems we experience in our everyday consulting and writing practice, and how successful (or not) we've been in eradicating them. Then we go one step further and offer our vision of the way things SHOULD be in our computing future. Effective immediately, TNPC provides advertising services. If you're interested in reaching over 12,000 subscribers (yes, we've grown to 12,000 in less than 20 weeks... grass roots with gusto!), for the nitty gritty on terms and conditions and all that legal stuff go to: http://www.TheNakedPC.com/tnpcadvertising.html If you're enjoying your TNPC subscription, please help us keep this bulletin free by forwarding this issue to one or more of your friends, colleagues, co-workers whom you think would benefit from its content, and ask that they get a subscription too. We appreciate your support. ** 02. Does Your System Have Warts? My system has warts, and I'll bet yours does, too. Not to worry, it's a BIG club. The way to figure out just how bad things are is to keep a list for one day of all the things that annoy and infuriate you about the way your PC and software (mis)behave. Believe me, by noon you'll be starting a second page of notes, and by closing time you'll have a novella. And if you keep a running list for a full week, it's War and Peace time. Here's my week-long list, highly condensed and ranked from most to least annoying, after a full week of PC observation and loathing. Some of these items we've solved (and are so indicated), some are nagging open items. We'll keep you posted in future issues. Meantime, if any of you have a good "my system has warts" story, send email to: mailto:warts@PRIMEConsulting.com Misery loves company. 1. My BIOS gives a false alarm that my CPU fan might be kaput. Experimenting with my BIOS settings as research for a new book we're working on (more about this later in the fall), I realized the "CPU Fan Failure" setting was off so I switched it on. Naturally, the next time the system booted I got a POST warning that "CPU Fan Failed During Previous Operation." I took the chassis cover off, took the opportunity to blow out all the dust bunnies (I do this every 3 months anyway, how about you?), then connected everything and started it up. The CPU fan spun up just fine, so I called Micron technical support. The engineer says, in a classic display of circular thinking, "Oh yes, for that PC model we ship from the factory with that setting disabled because when you enable it, you get a false alarm that the fan failed. Don't quote me on this, but if you enable your APM (Advanced Power Management) setting the CPU Fan Failure setting will *probably* work properly, but I can't guarantee it." Well, I'm quoting him. Ridiculous! I never trusted Win95 as APM compliant (because it wasn't), and there's no really clear documentation or empirical evidence that APM works much better in Win98, although we're going to be giving it a try soon and will keep you posted right here. Meanwhile, I'm through wasting time on this false alarm so I'll leave the CPU Fan Failure setting off and the global APM setting off. But it's a disappointment that the manufacturer (in this case, Micron) can't configure the pieces of its own PC's BIOS and firmware to properly detect if the CPU fan has failed or not. This would have to be a very small incremental cost to engineer and implement. FUTURE VISION: The PC of the future includes a real-time temperature gauge (plus other helpful operational parameters) for the CPU and an easy-to-use graphical interface for inspecting same. 2. Microsoft's Inbox Repair Tool inexplicably runs on startup. For literally six months the Inbox Repair Tool has started automatically, and I had looked high and low for the culprit. It wasn't in any of the usual places (see our Win95 FAQ on this process): http://www.PRIMEConsulting.com/faqs/faq3456.html When upgrading to Win98 didn't cause the problem to go away, I refocused my research on the Startup folder and my Registry. I serendipitously found the answer before using some third-party tools kindly suggested by WOWser Bruce M. There was an entry in Startup called Osa.exe, but I noticed it wasn't actually an EXE file it was a shortcut file, and the Target command being executed by this shortcut was "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Exchange\SCANPST.EXE". Ah ha! The thing that finally caught my eye was that Osa.exe had an icon that looked exactly like the Inbox Repair Tool's icon. Strange, but true. No idea how this orphan got into Startup, or why I was blind to it for so long. I deleted this item with relish and the problem is now blissfully solved. The Office Startup item in Startup still correctly points to the *real* OSA.EXE. 3. The dreaded Low Resources warning message box appears randomly at least every other day. Before Internet Explorer 4, my good friend LR (Low Resources) could be readily dealt with. Just click OK, close all running instances of IE, and go on about my business. That's no longer the case. Now it locks my PC up tight and the only out is a cold boot, with the attendant data loss for any open, dirty files. The first way to deal with this problem is to never have any open files with unsaved changes. I'm pretty well covered there; for years I've been pressing Ctrl+S to save after every sentence or two in Word, and after every other data entry or formula change in Excel. Now it's pure muscle memory. The next tactic I plan to employ is a trial run of Norton CrashGuard 3.0. I predict CrashGuard won't help with this particular class of crash, but I'll give it a try and report back in a future issue. 4. Windows 98 hangs randomly on startup. Windows partially paints the desktop, then just freezes. The only escape is a cold boot. Since this is random, it's virtually impossible to tell whether the culprit is software or hardware. However, this *never* happened with Windows 95 on this PC. To diagnose this annoyance, I'll need to set aside about 2-3 hours of tedious startup monitoring and troubleshooting. I predict that in the end it'll be much easier -- and take less time -- to format the disk and install Windows 98 and all key applications from scratch. More on this in a future issue. 5. I bought McAfee VirusScan over the Web, later uninstalled it to make room for a Win98 upgrade, so with no media I have no convenient way to reinstall it. This little Catch-22 has me chasing my tail with the firm's technical support staff. Naturally, the first email to come back to me was an auto-responder with a long list of FAQs I could go read on-line. Yosarian, help! The final outcome: I had to call phone number A, which routed me to "download support" at phone number B, which routed me back to phone number A with special "do nothing in response to the voice menu system" instructions, at which point I finally got a human being who could give me my product code and password with which I could re-download the latest upgrade, even without any vestiges of VirusScan on my system. Elapsed time on the phone: an unforgivable 26 minutes. Heck, it took half that time for the download. And their secure server did eight resets during the course of a 5 MB download. Then I had to reconfigure VirusScan back to the way I like it. FUTURE VISION: Two issues here. First, the ubiquitous problem of inadequate customer support. The solution is simple: better management practices. Second, the frustration of having to reconfigure software when installing it for the second or subsequent time. The solution is a second Registry-like file that we'll call the Detailer. It would manage *all* application configuration options that you traditionally set through the user interface (UI), along with an inventory of what specific pieces of each application you've installed (like Microsoft Office's Thesaurus but not the Equation Editor). The Detailer, unlike the Registry, wouldn't forget about an application once it has been removed (which, in the case of the Registry, is by design). Instead it would be a history of your application preferences over time. It could be easily passed around from one PC to another, or be used to "refresh" your current PC's application settings. It would be smart enough to work together with your Registry (or the Registry of a "foreign" PC) to piece together its log of what's installed and what's actually installed on the PC, then synchronize all setting details. Yes, we know that some -- but not all -- of these personal preferences are already stored in the Registry, but that's an issue that the architects of the future will have to wrestle with. 6. When running some (but not all) Word 97 macros, I get a run- time error "5981 Could not open macro storage". As VBA guru Mike Craven can well attest, with this one you're up the creek. According to Mike, "This is a typical type of error message when the user either doesn't have Office 97 SR-1 installed or if the user's Word/VBA installation has become corrupted. I've found that either installing SR-1 or completing a reinstall of Office/Word 97 generally takes care of the problem. I have also found that on some machines, installation of Win98 messes up one's VBA installation, requiring a reinstall of Office/Word 97 to fix the problem." Lucky me, it only took three complete uninstall/reinstall cycles of Word 97 to shake this monkey off my back. 7. Word 97's Thesaurus feature is missing. Oh boy, something must have gotten knocked loose in one of those three reinstalls. Back to another maintenance setup. 8. Microsoft Personal Web Server 1.0 doesn't uninstall properly. PWS was in the Registry's "run on startup" list. Uninstalling it is *not* easy; it's so goofed up that there's an entire Knowledge Base article on the process. Which, BTW, has a major spelling gaffe in it so you're left with a folder and its many files wasting hard disk space. It was only by sheer luck that I noticed this (and yes, I've forwarded this on to the appropriate Product Manager at Microsoft). 9. In every outgoing email message, once stored in the Sent Items folder, the From field is empty (ditto when viewed in the preview pane). As we've covered in recent issues, this is an Outlook 98 bug we reported to Microsoft. We do know that, officially, "This behavior is scheduled to be corrected in the next release of Outlook." Read: hold your breath until Outlook 2000. Grrrrr. 10. Outlook 98's junk email filters were destroyed during a recent Office 97 uninstall/reinstall. I had customized this filter file over the past 3-4 months. This is one file among many in Office that are inexplicably scattered around on your hard drive instead of being part of the Registry or another centralized repository for user preferences. One more vote for the Detailer. 11. The Windows 98 version of TweakUI has a feature I really like. It logs you on to the network automatically at startup, but on my PC, it doesn't work. There's nothing I can do about this one. 12. My NEC MultiSync monitor is slightly out of focus. Early in its life, my monitor got fuzzy so I shipped it to the factory and, for free, they tweaked the focus. Of course there's no accessible potentiometer for this particular setting. Now that the problem is back, I think I'll just ask Santa for a new *Sony* monitor for Christmas, with a focus screw. Take that, NEC. Uncle! In future issues, we'll address this warts phenomenon further and see what preventive measures we can all take, and try to paint a picture for a brighter, more intelligent machine- infiltrated future. ** 03. Windows 98 PowerToys, Some Good News and Plenty of Bad (By Al Gordon) One of the more useful enhancements to the Windows 95 user interface came from Microsoft itself: PowerToys -- a collection of utilities written by Microsoft programmers. Although not officially supported by Microsoft, they are readily available on the Microsoft Web site: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/default.asp?CustArea=b us&Site=family&Product=&Category=Power+Toys+%26+Kernel+Toys&x=6&y =6 Microsoft even extended this concept to Microsoft Explorer 4.0x: http://www.microsoft.com/ie/ie40/powertoys/ and to NT4 Workstation (go to the same URL as the Win95 PowerToys). A full description of all the Windows 95 PowerToys can be found on the PRIME Consulting Group Web site: http://www.PRIMEConsulting.com/pdf/powertoys2.pdf http://www.PRIMEConsulting.com/pdf/powertoys1.pdf Alas, for Windows 98, we have your basic "good news/bad news" situation. The good news is that there are PowerToys included in the Windows 98 package. One of the very best toys, QuickRes (which allows you to change your video resolution without rebooting) now is built right into Windows 98. Another of the most useful toys, TweakUI, is supplied on the Win98 CD-ROM. TweakUI allows you to make dozens of changes to the interface, ranging from determining the look of some icons to setting booting procedures, all without manually touching your Registry (a dangerous process at best). I also have tested most of the Win95 PowerToys with Win98, and they generally work. (The usual cautions and disclaimers apply: what works on my system doesn't necessarily work on yours, and we assume no liability for any mishaps.) Unfortunately, the bad news list is a lot longer. For one thing, the version of TweakUI shipped with Windows 98 has bugs. On my system, it would not create desktop icons as files to be placed in other folders. My TNPC colleagues all have experienced similar problems, as have some TNPC readers. More ominously, Microsoft not only will not support the PowerToys -- the same policy as for Win95 -- but explicitly warns against using them with Windows 98. Microsoft technical support people, when queried about operational glitches in Win98, frequently cite PowerToys as a possible problem area. As I noted in the last issue, I am squeezing a few more months of use out of my PC at the price of some technical glitches. So it's hard to tell exactly which glitch is due to which cause. But the use of Win95 PowerToys probably figures in there somewhere. Supposedly Windows 98 PowerToys are on the way, but there's no telling when they may appear. Until then, you have to work around the problem. In this case, there's no specific technical fix; you just have to balance pain against gain. In other words, you should assume that using ANY Win95 PowerToy probably will cause problems, and therefore limit yourself to those toys that offer you useful productivity gains. (Remember, this caution applies just to the Win95 PowerToys. The PowerToys for MSIE 4.0x not only work with Win98, I recommend them highly. Nor are there such issues regarding the separate set of PowerToys for NT4. They are in the Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit, and are another useful improvement for your system if you use that operating system.) The "Round Clock" toy may be kind of cute, but hardly useful. On the other hand, I save a lot of time with such PowerToys as "Command Prompt Here" (right-click on a folder to get an MS-DOS prompt window at that location) or "Send To X" (which expands the "send to" options when you right-click on a file to include the capability to send to another folder, send to the clipboard, send to a mail recipient, etc.). Discretion is definitely the better part of valor. And it certainly cuts down on the aggravation quotient. (Al Gordon is a Boston-area journalist who writes on technology issues. A TNPC contributing editor, he was Technical Editor for "Outlook Annoyances." You can reach him at mailto:al4004@aol.com.) ** 04. Annoyances Alley - The Access Database Wizard 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 "Office 97 Annoyances" published by O'Reilly & Associates (ISBN 1-56592-310-3) and reprinted here with permission. "The Access Database Wizard When you first fire up Access, you can choose to create a blank database (one where you are going to build everything yourself), open an existing database (equivalent to File / Open Databases), or you can run the Database Wizard. The Database Wizard in Access makes creating a ready-to-run database a snap. It is really an impressive piece of software engineering. Novices, experts, and everyone in between will like this feature. You can also kick off the Database Wizard when you click on File / New Database. Choose the Databases tab in the New dialog and choose one of the many database templates that ship with Access. See Figure 5-5. The Database Wizard kicks in after you select a template and assign a name to the file using the File New Database dialog. Note: For some reason known only to Microsoft, some of the template names are in all caps, while most are in mixed case. The list of templates is pretty complete. Which is good, because you can't open, modify, or easily create your own Database Wizard templates. In this respect Access operates in a different universe from Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Part of this is due to the nature of databases, but most is due to how the Wizard works and the amount of code behind it. In any event, using the Database Wizard lets you quickly generate a database containing tables, entry forms, and a ready to use interface. The Wizard displays the tables that it will create (based on the template you started with) and lets you choose from a number of fields that can be used for a particular table. You check and uncheck the appropriate boxes to control what fields are used. You can also have the Wizard populate the table with sample data (by checking the Yes, include sample data check box). This lets you work with the database immediately; you can experiment to see if it meets your needs before populating it with your own data. See Figure 5-6. The next few panels of the Wizard let you pick display styles for the various screens, much like the AutoFormat features in the other Office applications. This is another nifty way to create a very presentable database in a hurry. The style elements are used throughout the various on-screen forms. You can also choose a style for any printed reports that are a part of the database. Next, you can choose a database report format (styles and colors) that controls things like headings and layout. Lastly, you can specify a title for your database that is automatically inserted on the database's main Switchboard screen. If you want a particular picture, like a logo, to appear on all your reports, you can specify that as well. See Figure 5-7. When you're done, Access creates all the components of the database. When you open the database, the main Switchboard form greets you. As you can see, the Switchboard serves as a user interface for working with your newly generated database. See Figure 5-8. The Switchboard is already set up with command buttons for the main functions of the application. If your needs are basic, you can probably use your database as is. Or you can start customizing it and go on from there. Although you could quibble at some of the design features of a database created via the Wizard (spaces are used in field names, database objects are not named according to any accepted naming convention, etc.), most would find these considerations quite immaterial. Instant database in just a few clicks! Very nice." 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/ ** 05. Featured Book Recommendation - "Poor Richard's Web Site" by Peter Kent (Top Floor) If you've ever wanted to build your own Web page but didn't have a clue about how to begin, or how to do it on a shoestring budget, you need to get this book. Author Peter Kent has done an amazing job mapping the ins and outs of assembling a Web site without going bust. Saving you money by the fistful and eliminating huge amounts of time and frustration, "Poor Richard's Web Site" (we *love* the subtitle "Geek-Free, Commonsense Advice on Building a Low-Cost Web Site") has more great ideas and tips than Ben Franklin had witty homilies. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0966103289/tnpcnewsletter/ ** 06. Featured Product Recommendation - Verifying Year 2000 Compliance with YMARK2000 Curious about your PC's Year 2000 compliance? It's easy. Grab the free utility YMARK2000. Go to the NSTL Web site http://www.nstl.com/html/nstl_ymark2000.html and download Y2000.exe (a tiny 35 KB file), run it to extract its two component files 2000.exe and Readme.txt. Reboot into MS-DOS mode and run 2000.exe from its host folder. The outcome is displayed on your screen. If you're curious about possible outcomes, or if your PC fails the test, see the related FAQ at http://www.nstl.com/html/ymark2000_faq.html A Micron Millenia Plus 166 in our lab was Year 2000 compliant according to the manufacturer's Web page, but we wanted to use an empirical utility on the PC itself, and recommend you do the same for ALL your PCs. When we ran the YMARK2000 utility it reported that this PC correctly supports the Year 2000. On an old 486 that we knew would fail the test (it did), YMARK2000 reported that we should be able to deal with Y2K using a manual reboot and then manually resetting the year. The tool then referred us to its README file for more information. ** 07. Featured Web Page Recommendation - E-The People This is a great site dedicated to the principle that all people should be able to address their elected officials at all levels of government and let them know precisely how they feel at the drop of a hat. This particular site is for American citizens (we're all of that persuasion; if you're a citizen of another country and have a favorite cyber-town hall, drop us a line with the URL). The Internet has become the new venue for town meetings. This site puts you in touch (via email) with whomever you think should know that (a) you're mad as heck and not going to take it anymore, or (b) you're happy as apple pie about the job your elected official has been doing. Either way, use E-The People to let 'em have it. (E-The People is an Alex Sheshunoff Initiative.) http://e-thepeople.com ** 08. Newsworthy - a potpourri of current events and interesting stuff *-* Nico Mak has released the latest version of his ubiquitous WinZip utility. Grab a copy of WinZip 7.0, one of the most useful of all computer utilities and a must-have for every Web surfer. http://www.WinZip.com *-* Linux, Linux everywhere... IBM is adding Linux support to DB2 just as Oracle and Sybase announce that they'll be coming up with versions of their flagship database programs for the freeware operating system. Meanwhile, the Linux Office Suite 99 shipped October 5th from S.u.S.E. ($79.97US) and includes spreadsheet, word processor, graphics, database, fax, and more. http://www.suse.com *-* New Naked Horde Members TNPC welcomes Beancounter Ent. to the ranks of the Naked Horde. Bookkeeping and related accounting services offered to Web denizens. http://www.bhorizon.com/~bcounter/ +++----------------------- classifieds -----------------------+++ Basic Bytes Experienced, patient PC training in basic computer functions and applications at home or in the office. Web page, and newsletter design. Basic Bytes, Riverside County, CA. http://basicbytes.com +++-----------------------------------------------------------+++ AMALGAMATED BINARIES Custom Programming - Web Site Development & Enhancement Services Proud Home of "Software that Promises Nothing... and Delivers!" Just released freeware: The Virtual Fly! Get your copy now! http://www.ambin.com or E-Mail us at mailto:info@ambin.com +++-----------------------------------------------------------+++ Annoyance Update Keeping up to date on what's annoying (and what's not) on the Microsoft Office Suite is a full-time job unless you check the Annoyances Update page where the authors of Office 97, Outlook, Word 97, and Excel 97 Annoyances keep you posted on the latest buzz. http://www.PRIMEConsulting.com/annoyances/officeupdate.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: 643 TNPC Hot Tips:
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