What You Need to Know about All Things PC
Volume 5 Number 07Click 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 in Chief: Dan Butler Contributing Editor: Al Gordon This issue is for Thursday, March 28, 2002 - Vol. 5 No. 07 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Table of Contents ** 01. Letter from the Publisher ** 02. No More Waiting for Next Year (by Al Gordon) ** 03. Fighting Spam - Part 3 (by Dan Butler) ** 04. Office XP: What's New in Excel XP - Part 2 (by Lee Hudspeth) ** 05. Virtual Private Networks (by T.J. Lee) ** 06. The Naked PC Store Update (by Dan Butler) ** 07. Featured Product - Compass (reviewed by Lee Hudspeth) ** 08. Featured Web Site - SupplyNet (reviewed by Al Gordon) ** 09. Newsworthy - a potpourri of current events and interesting stuff ** 01. Letter from the Publisher Our e-store is expanding once again with some new configurations and packages available for Swiss-Tech tools, a new video product, and critical acclaim for one of our software products. For more information see this issue's "The Naked PC Store Update" article. In this issue... Al delves into the fascinating world of 3G wireless with reviews of wireless services available right now from some well-known big hitters. Dan gives you more insights into how spammers get to your inbox and how you can fight back. Lee continues his series on Excel XP's numerous new features. Jim talks about the power and benefits of Virtual Private Networking. Reader support is what keeps The Naked PC free. To this end you can help us by passing a copy on to co-workers and friends (no spam please). We even make it easy to refer people to The Naked PC... check out our Refer page: http://www.TheNakedPC.com/refer/ +++------------------------- sponsor -------------------------+++ Give a MICRO-LIGHT gift for MOTHER'S DAY! Micro-Lights are highly reliable with an incredibly bright light useful for any situation. This AMAZING flashlight is the size and weight of a quarter, easy to clip to your key chain, carry it in your purse or pocket and you won't know it's there. INSTANT LIGHT IN EMERGENCIES right at your fingertips, going up/down stairs, unlocking and entering your car at night, unobtrusively check on sleeping kids at night... unlimited uses. The flashlight that's always there when you need it! Mothers everywhere will appreciate this THOUGHTFUL GIFT. http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/a/tr.cgi?pocketflashlight +++------------------------- sponsor -------------------------+++ ** 02. No More Waiting for Next Year (by Al Gordon) "3G" (Third Generation) Wireless has been one of those things like a World Series championship for the Red Sox, "Wait 'til next year." But suddenly, Next Year has arrived. There is a 3G network available to users in major markets on the East Coast and San Francisco/Silicon Valley--Express Network from Verizon Wireless. http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/507/tr.cgi?al1 That's right, Verizon. Not some flashy Internet startup, but The Phone Company. Verizon Wireless--the #1 U.S. cellular provider-- is a joint venture of Verizon Communications, the Baby Bell in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, and Vodafone, the European cellular giant which acquired the wireless assets that once belonged to the Baby Bells on the West Coast. What all this means to you: these folks mean business. This is not just faster, more efficient wireless data communications for road warriors, but faster, more efficient data transport from companies that are likely to be around for a few years. ALPHABET SOUP TIME: Verizon voice network uses Qualcomm's CDMA standard, so accordingly, Express Network uses Qualcomm's 1XRTT ("1X") high speed data protocol. Data can be sent over CDMA, and Verizon has had a "Quick 2 Net" service for some time operating at 14.4 kbps. Quick 2 Net, in fact, is available to ExNet customers when they are outside 1X coverage. Both services are different from CDPD, also 14.4 but using different cellular frequencies. CDPD is sold by Verizon as "Mobile IP," and here in the Boston area the Verizon CDPD network also handles the traffic of wireless data specialty providers such as GoAmerica and OmniSky: http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/507/tr.cgi?al2 While 14.4 is adequate for plain-text emails and limited browsing on sites especially designed for mobile users, it is frustratingly slow when used for heavy-duty online work. ExNet 1X, in contrast, can run up to 10 times as fast, with Verizon claiming sustained speeds in the 40 to 60 kbps range. Speeds also are boosted by Fourelle's Venturi data compression software, which is part of the Verizon "Mobile Office" software bundle. This does not bode well for the CDPD carriers. Indeed, OmniSky already has folded and has been sold off to EarthLink. In testing with accessing an assortment of online benchmarking utilities, ExNet typically clocked in at 60-90 kbps--not broadband but faster than a dial-up connection, which is the appropriate comparison as dial-ups are what the road warrior likely would be using without ExNet. I put little stock in benchmark testing, though, preferring to see real world results. I used ExNet to go to the Windows XP Update site and download a package of four XP updates totaling 4.5 MB. The download took about 8 minutes, which translates to roughly 75 kbps. Note that text-based data will consistently move faster because it is easier to compress and Venturi, thus, will give a bigger performance boost. Users have two equipment options. The Sierra AirCard 555 PC card ($299.99) or a Kyocera 2235 1X-capable cell phone ($79.99 plus $79.99 for the Mobile Office software and a cable to connect the phone to a notebook's USB port). I have tested AirCards in the past and found them solid units, with easy to install drivers and software. An added feature in the 555 is a headset jack so you can use it for voice calls with bundled software. For this test, I wanted to try the cell-phone-and-cable package. My theory being that it's a heck of a lot easier to take out your cell phone and hook it up to your notebook than to take out your notebook and use it as a cell phone. The Kyocera is a nicely designed mid-sized phone with good sound quality, decent battery life, simple menu structure, and a really cool ice blue backlight. Installation of Mobile Office is simple. However, as Verizon spokespeople warn, you need to actually look at the Quick Start instructions and follow the steps in the outlined order. (First install the USB drivers, then connect the phone with the included USB cable, and then run the Mobile Office setup program.) The end result is a straightforward connection applet. Launch Mobile Office, click on the "connect" button, and a few seconds later your phone and laptop are running 1X. No muss, no fuss. Windows 98, ME, 2000, and XP are supported, but not yet Mac. At the moment, Mobile Office is available only for notebooks. However, with the assistance of the SupplyNet cable company (see this issue's Featured Product) and Verizon technicians, I hooked the 2235 up to my HP Jornada 560 Pocket PC. It worked fine and is a good email/browsing-on-the-run solution. I had to manually set numerous configuration settings on both the Jornada and phone, which is too clunky to be practical. However, a Pocket PC version of Mobile Office is under development, and Verizon will offer it later this year. Under Verizon's initial pricing scheme for Express Network, you must subscribe to a voice airtime plan of at least $35/month and then pay a $30/month surcharge for ExNet--plus the airtime minutes you consume. Remember, the meter is running when you are reading your email, so Verizon advises customers to disconnect once you have downloaded your data and then reconnect to send. ExNet is not intended to be an "always on" service. However, the company has just announced a pricing option based on amount of data transferred rather than online time. It will start at $35 per month for 10 MB of data (going up to 150 MB at price not yet announced). Which price plan is best will depend on your precise usage patterns. I did several calculations on both options, and neither had a decisive advantage. Data-based pricing means you don't have to worry about signing on and off lest you eat up all your airtime minutes. On the other hand, data blocks can be used only for data transmission while a time-based plan gives you the flexibility to use your minutes for voice or data. Verizon Wireless also announced it will expand Express Network next week, making it available in several more Northeast cities, plus a number of metropolitan areas in the Midwest and South. Verizon says that with the expansion one-third of its overall network will have 1XRTT. For the future, higher speed, broadband-level wireless data technology is under development. After all, there always has to be a "wait 'til next year" option. You can reach Al Gordon at: mailto:al@TheNakedPC.com +++------------------------- sponsor -------------------------+++ >> "How Many Ways Will You Use These Amazing Devices?" They're incredibly handy. When we first saw these amazing little devices we thought, "these will look cool hanging on my key ring." Then we started using them. WOW - every day we find more uses. How many will you find? http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/a/tr.cgi?swisstech +++------------------------- sponsor -------------------------+++ ** 03. Fighting Spam - Part 3 (by Dan Butler) So far you've learned how to hide your real address, when and when not to respond to spam that arrives in your box, and a few ways spammers get your name in the first place. This time you'll learn about the "dictionary" attack, one of the more common ways that spam is sent. In a dictionary attack the spammer just sends email to every address in a dictionary of commonly used email addresses. Actually two dictionaries are used. One is commonly used user names. The other is known domain names. So you might have dan, danny, daniel, etc. in one dictionary and aol, netscape, mindspring, etc. in the other. The system then matches the names to the domains and blasts the spam out. We are not talking about hundreds of emails sent but rather hundreds of thousands or more. The spammer is forging the information that identifies what system and who sent the mail. So any mail returned undeliverable falls into a black hole. You see, they really don't care if the mail bounces or not. It's a numbers game to them. A spammer doing this is hoping a percentage of people reading the message will respond to their message. With the email headers forged you can't just reply. Instead you'll find a link to a different Web site or a phone number to call to order. If you decide to purchase from one of these emails you are a braver person than I. Personally I feel that someone who will lie to me via a forged email is not someone I want to do business with. The bottom line? It often isn't worth your time trying to figure out where the spam originated. A true spammer is moving from system to system to hide their evil ways. The casual spammer does need some educating but you can be sure that any responsible ISP will be having a chat with the person soon. Now that you know about the dictionary attack you can understand why some addresses get more spam than others. They are more likely to be in a dictionary list. It's really a kind of catch- 22. You can make your address difficult to spell and remember to avoid the dictionary attacks, but then your friends will have a dickens of a time emailing you. Plus you have no guarantee that what you choose isn't in one of the dictionaries the spammers use. The bottom line: remember rule #1. Never respond to a spam to remove yourself from their list. Honoring this rule will do more to protect your account than anything else. Then use the filters your email program has available. Next time I'll show you some simple ways to use your filters and I'll point you to some additional resources. You can reach Dan Butler at: mailto:danbutler@TheNakedPC.com +++------------------------- sponsor -------------------------+++ "The Book That Should Have Come with Your Computer" "Undoubtedly the most informative and readable book on PCs I've read." "I have dog-eared many a page for later reference. Worth its weight in gold." These are just a few of the comments from satisfied readers. The authors--T.J. Lee, Lee Hudspeth, and Dan Butler--are the same fellows who pen this newsletter. All the content of this book-on-a-CD is easily searchable right from your screen. As an Amazon reviewer said, "The idea of your NEAT box for a home PC is brilliant, and worth the price of the book by itself." If you use computers you need this book! Check it out! http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/a/tr.cgi?tugpc2 +++------------------------- sponsor -------------------------+++ ** 04. Office XP: What's New in Excel XP - Part 2 (by Lee Hudspeth) This article continues my coverage of Excel XP's useful new features. The link to my related supplemental Web page is at the end of this article. 10. Insert and delete columns with AutoFilter on -- In Excel 2000 and prior, if AutoFilter was turned on you could not insert or delete columns. You had to laboriously turn AutoFilter off, do the insertion or deletion operation, and turn AutoFilter back on. With Excel XP you can now insert or delete columns with AutoFilter on. UI: to insert, right-click a column's heading zone and choose Insert; to delete, right-click a column's heading zone and choose Delete. Grade: 7 11. Play back worksheet data -- You can adjust Excel to play back (speak back) your data to you; choose either a selected range or have Excel speak your data each time you press Enter to complete a cell entry. Data can be numeric or text. The feature doesn't read a formula to you, it reads the formula's result; so if the cell contains the formula =AVERAGE(2,3,4) then when entered Excel reads back "three." When speaking back a range data, you can have Excel proceed in row or column order. Speakers are required. UI: To have Excel play back after each cell entry, select Tools, Speech, Show Text to Speech Toolbar, then on the toolbar click the Speak On Enter button. Grade: 10 12. 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, depending on which Office application is the host) and supports actions based on the data type. Excel comes with recognition for stock symbols and recent Outlook email recipients. For a stock symbol you can choose from several actions: financial symbol, insert refreshable stock price, stock quotes, company report, and recent news. For information on other smart tags you can add go here: http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/507/tr.cgi?lee1 UI: to activate this feature select Tools, AutoCorrect Options, Smart Tags, and check "Label data with smart tags". Grade: 10 13. Worksheet protection -- There are several new and useful worksheet protection features in Excel XP. There are now so many different protection options, it can become confusing, so it's best to carefully study and experiment with these features before releasing a worksheet that you want to protect. Prior to Excel XP you could protect contents, objects, and scenarios. Now you can also individually protect the formatting of cells, formatting of columns, formatting of rows, insertion of columns, insertion of rows, insertion of hyperlinks, deletion of columns, deletion of rows, sorting, AutoFilter, and PivotTable reports. There's a powerful new interface for allowing users to edit (or not) ranges. To read Microsoft's Knowledge Base overview article of all these features: http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/507/tr.cgi?lee2 UI: Tools, Protection, Protect Sheet and Tools, Protection, Allow Users to Edit Ranges. Grade: 10 14. Ask a Question -- New to all the Office XP applications is an "Ask a Question" text box right on the menu bar. Look at the far right edge of the menu bar for a text box that reads "Type a question for help" with a drop-down arrow at its right edge. It accepts standard English queries, like "what is a smart tag?" When you press Enter you see a list of relevant topics along with other Help options. This Ask a Question feature is available whether you have the Office Assistant turned on or not. This edit box remembers your previous inquiries (during the current application session only). So whenever you quit an Office XP application the list of your prior questions is cleared. I suggest the next version of Office maintain a permanent history list of your last 20 or more inquiries. UI: Click in the "Ask a Question" text box on the menu bar, type a query, press Enter. Grade: 9 To see my supplemental page containing my reviews of Excel XP and Word XP's new features in a table format, go here: http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/507/tr.cgi?lee3 I'll cover more features in future articles. If you have a favorite feature that's new in the XP version of Excel, drop me a line about how and why you like it. You can reach Lee Hudspeth at: mailto:LeeHudspeth@TheNakedPC.com ** 05. Virtual Private Networks (by T.J. Lee) The Internet has truly changed the landscape of computing. For me, the most profound change has been to provide a networking structure that spans the globe. My first experience with the Internet was like most others, surfing the World Wide Web. While a terrific method to disseminate information, the Web is not really network-like at all. There's no concept of persistent connections so some amazing kludges have been developed over the years to make the Web appear to work like a network. But the Internet itself is very much a network and what's more, it can be used as such. To illustrate what I'm talking about let's journey back to the olden days when most of the crew that cranks out The Naked PC used to work on a printed publication called Woody's Underground Office Newsletter, or WUON for short. One of Dan Butler's first articles in WUON was one called "Peering Across the Internet." I was one of the editors on WUON and I remember the first line of Dan's article, which caught my eye. It was "Imagine editing a document on a computer across the country or even the world for that matter." I was staggered... could the Internet really allow one to do this? As I learned from Dan's article it was very possible to do this. Dan's article was, and still is, a great article on this subject. I spoke with Dan late into the night after that first reading and we created one of the peer-to- peering across the Internet networks that he had written about. I was printing my local documents on Dan's color printer three states away. It was heady stuff for dial-up connections back in those days. You can read Dan's original article here: http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/507/tr.cgi?jim1 It was not a very secure network by any means but we had our machines networked as though we were on a traditional LAN. Only we were using the public Internet as the method of connectivity instead of coax or twisted pair wiring. The drawback was the lack of security. Enter virtual private networks (VPN) over the Internet. VPNs solved the security problem by encrypting the packets sent out across the Internet from a computer at one end and decrypting them at the computer at the other end. I've recently had some first hand experience with VPNs where I work and the results are nothing less than amazing. VPN allows a computer (which I'll call the remote computer) with Internet access to attach to a network using the Internet as though it were a very long patch cord. In other words, a VPN lets you work as though the remote computer were sitting in the office plugged into the network and not a jillion miles away and only plugged into the Internet. A VPN is created by software, one piece running on the remote computer and talking to software running on the network at the other end. This type of connection is often referred to as a VPN tunnel. The software at the network end may be running as part of the network server operating system or it may be a third party product running in firmware such as that found on some CISCO firewalls (CISCO also provides a client component allowing remote computers to VPN into the firewall). Windows XP and Windows 2000 have VPN software "built-in" making the creation of virtual private networks fairly easy depending on how the server or host system is set up and how it's connected to the Internet. When you've established a VPN connection it's as though you have plugged directly into the network you are establishing the tunnel with. However, there are different ways the tunnel can be established and this can influence what you have to do in order to interact with the network. For example, if you log into your local computer before the tunnel is created you will have access to the network but won't have the benefit of the network login scripts that would normally be executed when you log into the network from a computer directly connected. The solution is to create the tunnel before you log onto your remote computer. Establishing the tunnel before logging in lets you log into the network as though you were directly connected. The normal login scripts are run and you get your mapped drives, network printers etc. This saves you from having to do all this manually after creating the tunnel. If your network uses roaming profiles you should see the same desktop you'd see at the office and anything you could do at the office you can now do from anywhere in the world where you can access the Internet with your remote computer except maybe get a cup of coffee from the office coffee pot. Yes, I know, you are always limited when traversing the Internet by your Internet connection speed so it won't seem exactly like you were connected directly. Needless to say, this all works better with a high speed connection such as DSL or cable modem but work it does and is absolutely the berries for working remotely or telecommuting in to the office. You can reach T.J. Lee at: mailto:tj_lee@TheNakedPC.com (John Heffron of McMillan Consulting contributed to this article.) ** 06. The Naked PC Store Update (by Dan Butler) We have several new products in our e-store that we'd like to draw your attention to. First, a great product from Swiss-Tech has been made even greater... The popular Swiss-Tech MicroPlus pocket toolkit is now available in a spiffy Silver or Gold finish. The silver MicroPlus is chrome plated and the gold has a titanium-nitride finish. Both give you a durable finish with a very elegant look. The UtiliKey is also available in the gold finish and we also have gift sets available for each tool. Read more about the Swiss-Tech tools here: http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/507/tr.cgi?store1 And now for something completely different... Dan recently filmed one of the top creators of optical illusions in the world presenting his show. That video tape is now available in our e- store. You'll see incredible illusions that work both on and off your television screen. You'll enjoy watching this tape and showing it to your friends. You even get access to some illusions you can cut out and play with yourself. Read more about this interesting tape here: http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/507/tr.cgi?store2 Our e-store's PRIME for Office Utilities CD has been reviewed by wordsmith Ed Mendelson, Contributing Editor, PC Magazine. "A headache reliever and time-saver in one convenient package, PRIME for Word XP/2002... provides one-click access to features like booklet creating that normally require long study of the Help file. PRIME for Word ships only on a CD with a similar add-in for Excel and a customizable pop-up launcher utility for the Windows system tray." You can read the article here: http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/507/tr.cgi?store3 Follow this link to purchase the CD: http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/507/tr.cgi?store4 ** 07. Featured Product - Compass (reviewed by Lee Hudspeth) I've grown weary of using Internet Explorer's built-in Favorites feature. There's an awful lot of mouse-clicking and dragging and pop-up menu navigating. True, I'm accustomed to it, but I felt it was time to give the shareware bookmark management utility Compass a spin. I'm glad I did. Compass, written by Daniel Liu, does not replace your browser's built-in bookmark feature, rather it is a stand-alone application that offers a profusion of features you won't find in any browser interface. (For convenience, throughout this review I'll use "bookmark" to stand for both bookmarks and favorites.) An initial caveat: if you're an IE user then you'll want to take advantage of the tool's setting "Automatically run Compass when IE starts" which happens to NOT be checked by default, so you'll want to do that yourself: Tools, Preferences, Internet Explorer, check the designated check box, OK. Then, regardless of the browser you use, follow the Import Wizard's prompt to create your own bookmark file. Compass supports these popular browsers: Netscape, Internet Explorer, and Opera. The tool has a two-pane display; tree-style on the left and a synchronized list-style pane on the right. Compass offers a plethora of file import and export features. You can export in standard bookmark file format plus bookmark list (TXT file), complete list (TXT file), folder list (TXT file), folder tree (TXT file), HTML list (HTML file), HTML table (HTML file) and many others. Here are three of my favorite Compass features. There are plenty more, and of course individual tastes vary, so I encourage you to check out the utility's help file. * Right-click on any item and choose which browser to open it with (if you have multiple browsers installed; if not then of course your one browser is still listed in the pop-up menu). * Press Esc from anywhere within Compass, which puts the cursor in the Find text box, then you type in a word or phrase you're looking for and Compass displays a list of matching bookmarks (Compass includes any Description text in its search; the Description field is a great place to add your own notes or memos about a particular Web page). You don't even have to press Enter! * Multi-select a group of bookmarks, right-click, choose Check Links, and Compass checks each item, reporting in a dialog box how many links it checked and how many were dead, good, etc. It then updates the list with icons representing dead, good, and broken states. Compass comes with a 50-day usage counter, after that you'll need to pay $25 to continue using it. If you want to use a freeware version of Compass, check out Compass Lite. http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/507/tr.cgi?fprod Note that Jim has written extensively about bookmarks and favorites, and he mentioned Compass in an article about IE5 Favorites: http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/507/tr.cgi?fprod2 You can reach Lee Hudspeth at: mailto:LeeHudspeth@TheNakedPC.com ** 08. Featured Web Site - SupplyNet (reviewed by Al Gordon) Hopeless gadget hound that I am, SupplyNet is my kind of place. http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/507/tr.cgi?fsite The Valley Cottage, NY, company is a leading supplier of retail and OEM (equipment manufactured under other companies' brand names) connection cables. Name any two electronic devices--phone, PDA, PC--that you want to connect and odds are SupplyNet makes a cable to do it. "Products that other companies would consider a [production and supply chain] nightmare are our niche," says SupplyNet President Rob Berkey. I surfed through the SupplyNet Web site and lo and behold there was item #160027J: a Jornada 560-to-Kyocera 2235 cable for $59.95. Not only that, but also cables to connect the phone to Compaq iPAQ, Handspring Visor and Edge, Palm, Sony Clie, and Casio Cassiopeia PDAs. The cables work from the PDAs serial/sync connectors, meaning no add-on modem sleds are needed and CF or other memory card slots stay free. Modem cables and dongles have been SupplyNet's core products, Berkey said, but wireless data communications are growing rapidly and are now best sellers for the company. Noting that his company's cables run $40-$60 vs. $200-$300 for a wireless PC card, Berkey pitches his connectors as "allowing users with cell phones to add data capabilities for very little money." The company also makes A/C adapters and cigarette light power plugs, and the future holds convergence between the power products and the data-connectivity units. Look for phone-to-USB cables in the near future that can draw power from the notebook to recharge the phone, so you only need to lug the notebook's A/C adapter with you on a trip. Another hallmark of SupplyNet is that there are big "We want your feedback: Click here to suggest future products" links on its Web pages. Without consumer input, Berkey observes, SupplyNet might be in dark about what new widget or dongle someone may need. You can reach Al Gordon at: mailto:al@TheNakedPC.com ** 09. Newsworthy - a potpourri of current events and interesting stuff *-* Hotmail users with free accounts report they are feeling pressure to upgrade to a premium version that costs $19.95/year. http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/507/tr.cgi?news1 *-* Effective April 24th, Yahoo's Mail Forwarding service will no longer be free, instead, Yahoo will charge $29.99/year for the feature ($19.99 for the first year for those who sign up before April 24th). This is one more indicator of the dwindling availability of free Internet-based services. http://www.TheNakedPC.com/t/507/tr.cgi?news2 *-* CERT has released a report warning people who use Internet Relay Chat and Instant Messaging to be aware of bogus warning messages that claim to know the user's PC has a virus and go on to insist the user download a fix. The warning is bogus and, of course, the fix is actually a piece of malware, typically one that enables the PC to be surreptitiously used in denial of service attacks. 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