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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 in Chief: Dan Butler
Contributing Editor: Al Gordon
This issue is for Thursday, May 31, 2001 - Vol. 4 No. 11
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Table of Contents
** 01. Letter from the Publisher
** 02. You Have Coupons - Just in Time for Father's Day
(by T.J. Lee)
** 03. Office XP: What's New in Word (by Lee Hudspeth)
** 04. Home or Small Business Gateway (by Al Gordon)
** 05. DSL - Not Always a Walk in the Park (by T.J. Lee)
** 06. Featured FAQ - Windows Shutdown Troubleshooting: 15 Steps
** 07. Featured Product - Quick Info
** 08. Featured Web Site - NetFlix
** 09. For Recent Subscribers to The Naked PC
** 10. Newsworthy - a potpourri of current events and
interesting stuff
** 11. We Get Mail
** 01. Letter from the Publisher
Summer is full-blown here in central California with the mercury
up in the low 100s. Good thing Jim likes it hot! Oh, and he's
feeling better as well and wants to thank all the TNPCers who
wished him a speedy recovery when they read in the last issue
that he was under the weather.
You may not already be a winner but you may very well have
discount coupons! Check out Jim's lead article on the coupons
that went out with our ebook "The Book That Should Have Come with
Your Computer." You could be in a position to get the perfect
Father's Day gift while using a 10% off coupon at The Naked PC
Company Store.
Al Gordon reviews a very slick piece of hardware that can make
sharing a broadband connection among your PCs a snap as well as
linking disparate types of network architectures.
Today is the launch date for Microsoft Office XP. To celebrate,
Lee dives into, and grades, all of Word XP's new features.
Lastly, Jim has experienced a DSL reality check and wants you to
be aware that all may not be coming up roses with DSL, at least
not if Pacific Bell is the service provider.
Reader support is what keeps The Naked PC free, so PLEASE help us
and pass a copy on to co-workers and friends (no spam please!)
and remember to always say "I saw it in The Naked PC!"
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/refer/
So now you know.
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** 02. You Have Coupons - Just in Time for Father's Day
(by T.J. Lee)
Several thousand of you have ordered our ebook on CD-ROM, "The
Book That Should Have Come with Your Computer," but you may not
realize that as part of that purchase you received several
coupons that can be used for discounts at The Naked PC Company
Store.
If you purchased the ebook you'll find your discount coupons by
choosing the main menu's second button labeled "Click here to
access CD Bonus Material". The ensuing menu includes several
nifty bonus goodies, and the button labeled "Discount Coupons"
will access your Discount Coupons. You can then display the
coupons in your browser window. One coupon is good for 10% off
any Micro-Light purchase while the other is good for 10% off the
purchase of any item in our store. Just make a note of the six-
digit coupon number.
To use a coupon you place your order at The Naked PC Company
Store. When you enter your shipping address in our new shopping
cart you'll see a place to enter your coupon number. Your
discount will appear on the order summary so you can see how much
you're saving before you check out.
Speaking of our store... Father's Day is just around the corner
and what better gift for dear Dad than a spiffy Micro-Light? Hey,
don't leave Dad in the dark this Father's Day! We've put together
the killer gift set for Dad. A Red Micro-Light and a Turquoise
Micro-Light along with a great Accessory Kit that contains
replacement batteries for each light, a bunch of cool stuff for
carrying your Micro-Lights, even a tiny #00 Phillips screwdriver
to make changing batteries a snap. Order now as Father's Day is
only seventeen days away!
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/411/tr.cgi?fathersday
Sales through The Naked PC Company Store are used to help finance
this newsletter, which, while free to subscribers, is not free
for us to produce. We thank everyone who has purchased something
through our store.
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/a/tr.cgi?tnpcstore
You can reach T.J. Lee at:
mailto:tj_lee@TheNakedPC.com
** 03. Office XP: What's New in Word (by Lee Hudspeth)
Today, May 31, 2001, marks the official launch date for
Microsoft's latest suite: Office XP. Most of you will want to
upgrade to Office XP. No, I don't own any Microsoft stock,
honest! The real value in Office XP is its overall usability,
which is well represented by its impressive new feature set. To
tell you *exactly* what I mean, I'm embarking on a series of
articles to evaluate every new feature in Office XP. And I'll
grade each one so you can make your own upgrade decision.
In this article I cover Word 2002's new features, describe each
one briefly, and grade each one on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 =
useless and 10 = top-notch.
Some of these features also apply to Word's sibling applications
but due to space constraints I'll cover that overlap in future
articles. Whenever describing any Office feature, regardless of
the version, 90% of the time there are at least two different
ways to get there through the UI. Due to space constraints, in
this article I focus on the UI techniques that I think are the
most "discoverable."
Note: We didn't do it, honest! We didn't have anything to do with
the dizzying array of names Microsoft uses for Office XP, also
known as Office 2002, and in some circles Office 10 (this name is
rarely used). If you run any Office XP application--for example,
Word--and click Help, About, the resulting dialog box will
display the text "Microsoft Word 2002 (10.xxxx.yyyy)". So... XP =
2002 = 10. That's the formula.
1. Digitally sign a document -- Digitally sign a document to
prove it was you--or your company--who created it. You need a
digital certificate to actually sign a document yourself,
although you can always see who, if anyone, signed a document.
UI: Tools, Options, Security, click Digital Signatures, and add
your digital certificate.
Grade: 7 (nice feature, but a tad hard to discover)
2. Customize the Places Bar -- Put your own drives or folders
here, rearrange them, and rename them.
UI: File, Open (or Save or Save As), right-click on the Places
Bar, pick commands from the list. Also (and this is the awkward
part), select the *parent* of a drive or folder object in "Look
in" then select the desired object, click Tools, Add to "My
Places".
Grade: 7 (nice feature, but the add operation is hard to
discover)
3. New from existing document -- Create a new document using an
existing document as a template. Before Word XP you could only do
this with a macro or by right-clicking on a document in Windows
Explorer and clicking New.
UI: View, Task Pane, pick New Document from the Task Panes drop-
down list, click the "Choose document..." hyperlink under "New
from existing document".
Grade: 6 (works fine, but limited usefulness)
4. Task Pane -- a/k/a "side pane" in some circles, this pane
appears on the right margin at startup. It offers a raft of
often-used features: New Document, Clipboard, Search, Insert Clip
Art, Styles and Formatting, Reveal Formatting, Mail Merge, and
Translate.
UI: View, Task Pane.
Grade: 10 (cool, but I prefer keeping the pane turned off until I
need it: scroll to the very bottom of the pane and clear the
"Show at startup" check box)
5. Speech recognition -- I am fortunate to not have RSI and to be
a fast, accurate typist. So I'm personally not very motivated by
this aspect of Word XP (read: I haven't tested it). No doubt it
will be a compelling feature for some people, but as of right now
I can't vouch for its implementation. I'll review it in a
subsequent article. If you're going to use it, Microsoft
recommends a high quality headset mike with gain adjustment, and
Word won't let you install it unless you've got a 400MHz or
faster processor and at least 128MB of RAM.
6. Handwriting recognition -- Write by hand inside Word with your
mouse or via other standard handwriting input devices. This
feature doesn't have the stringent system requirements of speech
recognition. There's a writing pad, a drawing pad, a "write
anywhere" feature, and on-screen keyboard and symbol tools. You
must do a custom setup to install it: you'll find it hiding under
Office Shared Features then Alternative User Input.
UI: The Language bar isn't an Office toolbar, its part of the
operating system.
Grade: 6 (limited usefulness except perhaps for some handheld-
stored handwriting, but maybe I'm missing something; let me know
if you have a good use for this feature)
7. Reveal formatting -- A detailed display of font, paragraph,
and section formatting attributes of the selected text. (In Word
2000 and prior you could get a terse approximation of this by
selecting Help, What's This, and pointing to some text.) Plus you
can make format changes from right inside the task pane!
UI: View, Task Pane, Reveal Formatting.
Grade: 10
8. Format consistency checker -- Word can now make judgments
about how consistent a document's formatting is. If it sees an
inconsistency while you are typing it adds a blue wavy underscore
to the suspect text. When you right-click you get a variety of
options to choose from. Fastest way to see it work is to create a
list of at least two paragraphs, then set one's font size to be
twice that of the other.
UI: Tools, Options, Edit, check "Keep track of formatting" and
"Mark formatting inconsistencies" check boxes.
Grade: 4 (the success rate I've seen is spotty, and the internal
rules aren't easily discovered; see my supplemental link at the
end of this article)
9. Outlining toolbar tweaks -- Some new and convenient changes
here. An "Outline Level" drop-down, a "Show Level" drop-down, a
handy "Promote to Heading 1" button, and some table of contents
buttons.
UI: View, Outline.
Grade: 7
10. Word Count toolbar -- Authors and editors around the world
rejoice. You no longer have to click Tools, Word Count, and wait
for the dialog. It's now as simple as leaving the toolbar on and,
when you want a count, click its Recount button.
UI: View, Word Count.
Grade: 10 (I *never* turn this toolbar off)
11. Enhanced searching features -- Basic and Advanced search
modes can now rummage around Web Folders and Outlook folders in
addition to traditional file folders.
UI: View, Task Pane, Search (or File, Open, Tools, Search).
Grade: 8
12. Office Clipboard and Paste Options -- The Office Clipboard
now resides in the Task Pane, and holds more stuff (24 items).
When you paste, a Paste Options action button automatically
appears at that location and sagely offers you these options:
Keep Source Formatting, Match Destination Formatting, Keep Text
Only, and apply Style or Formatting.
UI: View, Task Pane, Clipboard (or Edit, Office Clipboard).
Grade: 10
13. Clear formats -- Sets the selected text back to Normal.
UI: Edit, Clear, Formats.
Grade: 8
14. Multiple unconnected selections -- Excel has long supported
the selection of multiple but unconnected ranges (sometimes
called discontinuous or noncontiguous ranges). Now Word does too.
UI: Make your first selection, then press and hold Ctrl, make
your second (unconnected) selection, ad infinitum. See also Edit,
Find, note the new "Highlight all items found in" check box/drop-
down. Cool.
Grade: 10
15. In-place language translation -- The UI looks cool, the idea
is promising, it works for single words, but it doesn't work for
multiple-word phrases. You must do a custom setup to install each
translation dictionary: Office Shared Features, Proofing Tools,
French, English-French Translation, repeat as needed for other
languages.
UI: View, Task Pane, Translate (or Tools, Language, Translate).
Grade: 5 (this would be an 8 if it worked with multiple-word
phrases)
16. Smart tags -- A smart tag is an intelligent hyperlink that
recognizes a data structure (like human names, addresses, phone
numbers, stock ticker symbols, airport codes, and so on) and
supports actions based on the data type. For example, type in
Fred Smith and a smart tag action button appears; when clicked
you get these choices: Send Mail, Schedule a Meeting, Open
Contact, Add to Contacts, Insert Address, etc.
UI: to activate select Tools, AutoCorrect Options, Smart Tags,
and check "Label text with smart tags" and "Show Smart Tag
Actions buttons".
Grade: 10 (my #1 favorite Office XP feature)
17. AutoCorrect smarts -- Two new features. First is "don't fire
on retype"... when AutoCorrect fires you now have the option to
tell it to stop making that correction in the future, right from
the AutoCorrect Options button. Second, multi-word corrections,
e.g., type "wh ydid" and Word corrects it to "why did".
UI: hover over the corrected word with the mouse (or click in
it), then touch the purple bar beneath the head of the word,
click the AutoCorrect Options button's down-arrow and choose Stop
Automatically Correcting "".
Grade: 8 (great features, but "don't fire on retype" is a bit
hard to discover)
18. Reviewing -- Plenty of good changes. View, Markup to quickly
toggle the display of markups. New Reviewing toolbar controls:
Display for Review drop-down, Show drop-down, Reviewing pane that
categories all changes; plus balloons in margins to highlight
markup elements.
UI: See the centralized Reviewing toolbar and Tools, Options,
Track Changes.
Grade: 10
To be continued in the next issue. Meantime, to take a peek at my
list of the remaining new features, and get additional
supplemental information about Word 2002, see:
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/411/tr.cgi?lee1
My overall grade of Word XP's new features: 7.7 out of 10.
My personal top five new features:
1. Smart tags
2. Word Count toolbar
3. Task Pane
4. Office Clipboard and Paste Options
5. Reveal Formatting
Microsoft Office XP Standard Upgrade, $229 & free shipping:
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/411/tr.cgi?lee2
Microsoft Office XP Professional Upgrade, $299 & free shipping:
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/411/tr.cgi?lee3
Microsoft Office XP Developer Edition Upgrade, $549 & free
shipping:
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/411/tr.cgi?lee4
Microsoft Office XP Professional, $549 & free shipping:
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/411/tr.cgi?lee5
Note: If you have a Microsoft Office consulting project,
development idea, macro quandary, or are just plain stuck trying
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** 04. Home or Small Business Gateway (by Al Gordon)
Let me make this very plain: I really hate messing around with my
networking setup. Hate it. Which is why I truly love the
HomePortal from 2Wire.
The product is one of a number of broadband gateways that have
come onto the market this year. It supports Ethernet, home
phoneline, and wireless networking architectures, and has a
built-in firewall. HomePortal also has the requisite IP address
masking feature needed to allow your network to share a single
broadband connection across all your networked PCs, without
needing to pay extra fees to your ISP.
What stands out in 2Wire's implementation is that its software
really works.
Pop the CD-ROM into your PC, and a wizard takes you step by step
through the startup process, including generating the electronic
address of the portal that your ISP will need to connect you.
(The wizard literally tells you to call your ISP and give them
this number.) When it is done, the portal is working and your PC
is on the network.
The software provides for file, printer, and Internet connection
sharing. To add additional PCs to the network, you run the same
software on them. Whatever network settings might have been
present before installation are saved as a "Work" profile and the
new settings are designated as a "home" location. With two clicks
and a reboot, you can switch from the "home" to the "work"
network settings. This allows you to bring an office computer
home and hook it up to your home network without messing you up
when you take it back to the office.
If you only want to share the broadband connection, and don't
need the file and printer sharing, you can even skip the
HomePortal software installation. Any supported networking method
will still get Internet access through the HomePortal.
2Wire makes the HomePortal in four versions: the 100 is a
phoneline and Ethernet gateway; 100W adds an integrated Wi-Fi
(802.11b) wireless access point; HomePortal 1000 is phoneline and
Ethernet plus a built-in DSL modem, and the 1000W adds Wi-Fi to
that. Prices range from $200 to $600. You pretty much pay for the
set of features you need.
Any Wi-Fi or HomePNA 2.0 networking card or USB connector will
work with HomePortal. 2Wire's own $50 PC Port USB/phoneline
adapter is not required, but it is a very tidy unit that compares
favorably to competitive units.
Don't be misled by the "home" terminology. HomePortal will be
more than adequate for a small office. If I have any complaint it
is that I would have liked it to support more than one Ethernet
connection without having to add on a hub.
Overall, though, it is an excellent product. Networking is a
pain, but HomePortal is easy.
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/411/tr.cgi?al1
You can reach Al Gordon at:
mailto:al@TheNakedPC.com
** 05. DSL - Not Always a Walk in the Park (by T.J. Lee)
Way back in TNPC #2.21 (October 1999) I wrote about my experience
getting my DSL broadband connection installed and running. It was
really an anti-climatic story once PacBell actually showed up to
do the installation. The guy hooked up the router while I
installed a second NIC card in my PC. We plugged everything in
and it just worked. Turn on the computer and, bingo, I'm
connected to the Internet.
As you might imagine, over the last 18 months I've come to expect
my Internet connection to simply be working. Not having
experienced any problems I got quite lax about my "always on"
connection. Needless to say the DSL demons decided that I was
ripe for trifling with and they have plagued me with a vengeance.
Earlier this month my connection would just go to sleep and when
I'd try to get email or surf the Web I'd get a DNS error
indicating I was not connected. The router showed I was in sync,
no error lights lit up, but try as I might there was no joy in
connectionville.
Fortunately, I had Lee Hudspeth's excellent articles "High-speed
Internet Connection: What To Do When Yours Goes Down" (Parts 1
and 2) to fall back on, although the only modem still in my shop
was an old 28.8 model. PacBell provides dialup support with every
DSL account so at least I was able to get connected via dialup.
Getting email was tedious and surfing was positively painful.
Once you get used to a high-speed connection it's tough to go
back to slow dialup speeds.
What's really troubling is the lack of information that my DSL
provider, Pacific Bell, is willing to make available. At first
the technical support staff insisted that there was nothing wrong
at their end and did I try unplugging and replugging my cables?
Reinstall all my TCP/IP protocols? I jumped through their hoops
but the connection was still unreliable. The next day a different
tech owned up that they were experiencing a problem on their side
but that it would be working again in a few hours. And it was.
But then last Friday, May 25, I could not connect and it stayed
down straight through until Tuesday morning. Down for four days
in--according to the PacBell Internet (PBI) Status page--areas
covering all of California and parts of Nevada. But some places
in California were connecting fine. It would be a much more
useful page if it listed which PacBell DSL routers are not
working so you could see if the one you connect to was having a
problem.
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/411/tr.cgi?tjl1
The PBI Status page is misleading as well. They do record the
time a problem starts so you'd think you'd be able to see how
long something bad has been going on. But the Status page is
periodically updated and each time the start date/time is updated
to the time of the new update. This makes it look like a problem
has only been going on a short while when in reality it may have
been going on for days. The technical support people who answer
the phone truly try to be helpful but they are working off
scripts for troubleshooting, most are not really technically
knowledgeable about IP addresses or settings (depending on which
call center you're routed to). They walk you through a script and
any deviation results in them putting you on hold for long
periods of time while they call a real technician and try to get
them to explain something to them so that they can explain it to
you. I asked them about a credit for the downtime and tech
support just suggested I call the billing office and complain.
The bad news is that judging from Lee's and Dan's experiences
there is no DSL provider that is not subject to problems of one
kind or another. Cable may be more stable but I'll guess that
they have the same types of problems as well. Unfortunately it's
tougher to switch broadband providers than just your ISP. First,
there's usually a couple of hundred dollars you pay up front for
your equipment. In my case I paid $200 for the router (what
PacBell calls a DSL modem) and a network card. If I go with a
wireless broadband service like Sprint I'll have to pay $299 for
the dish receiver/transmitter and their assorted hardware. Plus
the pain and agony of going through the installation waiting
game.
Still, if PacBell can't get the problems worked out I may know
more about switching DSL providers than I'd like to. If you have
any war stories about changing DSL providers I'd like to hear
about them.
You can reach T.J. Lee at:
mailto:tj_lee@TheNakedPC.com
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** 06. Featured FAQ - Windows Shutdown Troubleshooting: 15 Steps
It's amazing how many people we run across who have a problem
with Windows shutting down properly. Even on systems where
Windows runs with a hiccup it's not unheard of to see the blue
screen of a fatal error when trying to shut the computer down. A
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time they turn on their computers because Windows did not "shut
down properly" (whatever that means exactly). On this FAQ page
you'll find 15 steps to resolving the elusive shut down problems
that plague some Windows systems. Jim Eshelman is the FAQ's
author and he's scoured the Microsoft Knowledge Base and
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lot of version-specific tips and advice.
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/411/tr.cgi?ffaq
** 07. Featured Product - Quick Info
This is a handy freeware utility that lets you quickly look up
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A small, quick, and very slick little utility.
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** 08. Featured Web Site - NetFlix
Got a DVD player? Spend at least $20 a month renting movies? Has
NetFlix got a deal for you. Rent all the DVD movies you want and
pay just $20 a month, no due dates and no late fees. Here's how
it works: you pick out a list of movies you want to rent from
their extensive list of 10,000 titles (they claim to have nearly
every DVD title published). They send you three of the movies
from your list by mail. When you've watched one just stick it in
the prepaid return envelope and drop it in any mailbox. Once
NetFlix gets the return they send another of the titles from your
list. The faster you watch the movies the faster you get more
titles. So for your flat rate of $20 a month you can have all the
DVDs you want, the catch is that you can only have three at any
one time. If you're a movie buff bitten by the DVD bug this is a
heck of a deal.
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/411/tr.cgi?fsite
** 09. For Recent Subscribers to The Naked PC
The Naked PC has been adding nearly 1,000 new subscribers to our
readership list every issue, so a lot of our current readers may
not be aware of some of the articles that have appeared in past
issues of our newsletter. Here is a quick recap of some all-time
winners that you may find interesting if you missed them the
first time around.
*-* Just Who Are These Guys Anyway? (TNPC #3.26.04)
Meet the crew responsible for bringing you The Naked PC every
other week. Brief bios found in this article on T.J. Lee, Lee
Hudspeth, Dan Butler, and Al Gordon.
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/411/tr.cgi?archive1
*-* Low Tech Solutions for High Tech Problems (TNPC #2.01.04)
We asked readers for ways to recycle old and unwanted CD-ROM
discs. We got some very creative responses.
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/411/tr.cgi?archive2
*-* Outlook Email Archiving Tips and Tricks (TNPC #3.04.03)
In this article Lee explains his system for keeping his Microsoft
Outlook email repository tidy and how to archive old email for
safekeeping. Even if you don't use Outlook, you can apply these
same general principles to whatever email client you do use.
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/411/tr.cgi?archive3
Remember, you can find a listing of all prior The Naked PC
articles at:
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/articles/index.html
** 10. Newsworthy - a potpourri of current events and
interesting stuff
*-* The good news is that the Usenet archive is online again. The
bad news is that searches are not sorted by date. Google acquired
the Deja Usenet archive in February and there is now a beta
interface for searching the terabyte of data that makes up the
archive.
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/411/tr.cgi?news1
*-* The FBI busted sixty-two people for bilking tens of thousands
of consumers out of $117 million through Internet scams.
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/411/tr.cgi?news2
*-* Having doubled in just over five years it's been reported
that three-quarters of U.S. businesses now electronically monitor
employees in some fashion. Web and e-mail monitoring software
make it easy for employers to see how much time is wasted in non-
official uses of the Internet. Voice mail retrieval software lets
your telephone use be monitored as well.
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/411/tr.cgi?news3
*-* If you like to stay up on the coming trends in hardware be
aware that IBM has a new technology that it predicts will make
400 Gigabyte drives commonplace within two years.
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/411/tr.cgi?news4
Get more Newsworthy bits on The Naked PC Web site:
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/newsworthy/
Have you come across something newsworthy? Drop us a line:
mailto:hottips@TheNakedPC.com
** 11. We Get Mail
A large number of readers responded to T.J.'s article "Email
Fraud and Common Sense" in our last issue (TNPC #4.10) by asking
where they can report the fraud and scams that they've
experienced on the Internet and in their email inbox. Here are
some of the places on the Web where you can report scams:
How to Report Internet-Related Crime
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/411/tr.cgi?crime1
Internet Fraud Complaint Center
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/411/tr.cgi?crime2
Reporting Consumer Fraud
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/411/tr.cgi?crime3
National Fraud Information Center
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/411/tr.cgi?crime4
Be sure to stop by the Letters to the Editor page for more:
http://www.TheNakedPC.com/letters/index.html
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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
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Naked PC, we are not responsible for Internet links herein that
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Copyright (c) 2001, PRIME Consulting Group, Inc. and Dan Butler.
All Rights Reserved. The Naked PC is a trademark of PRIME
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ISSN: 1522-4422
TNPC Hot Tips:
Email out of control? Spam filling your inbox? People trying to steal your identity? Same here - until I applied these tips. You can too in a new multimedia e-book. Tame Your Email.
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