|
k-Byte, January/February 2000
v. 17, n. 1/2
Contents
1 State of the Group - Rick Mattingly
2 About k-Byte
3 December/January Meeting Reports - Mike Meyer
4 To USB or Not to USB - Al Massey and Gill Boyd
6 Acrobat Reader 4.0 - Zoltan Steiner
8 Red Hat 6.0 LINUX - Gus Hrncir, Jr.
8 Scanning Tips Web Site
12 Mijenix PowerDesk Utilities 98 - Fran Wise
14 Calendar of Events
16 February/March Calendars
17 Recycle Your PC
17 Spooky Anagrams
18 Membership Application
19 Mijenix Fix-It Utilities 99 - Irene Pedretti and Fran Wise
21 FREE Internet Discussion Group
22 Clean That Keyboard - Rick Mattingly
23 Sorting Internet Explorer 5 Favorites - Revisited - Rick Mattingly
24 Crystal Clear: A PCI Sound Card for OS/2 - Brad Kell
28 A Web Site For Everyone! - Steve Morgan
31 FRPCUG Contacts
"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
State of the Group From The President
by Rick Mattingly
Well, here we are in the Year 2000. This year marks the seventeenth year of continuous community service for the Front Range PC Users Group. That is pretty remarkable. But, what is even more remarkable is the number of original members who are still active in the group. Let the sharing of knowledge continue!
I want to remind everyone of the FortNet Community Internet Festival which is coming up in Fort Collins on Saturday, January 29. Many members have volunteered to assist with running the FRPCUG booth for this event. I would recommend that all members attempt to stop by this event as there will be a tremendous amount of Internet information available at the booths and ongoing seminars during the day. Click here for details or go to Fortnet's web page at http://www.fortnet.org/CIF for even more details!
FRPCUG Officers For 2000
President - Rick Mattingly
Vice President - Don Anderson
Treasurer - Dennis Nimetz
Secretary - Mike Meyer
Back to the Top
About k-Byte
Published bi-monthly, k-Byte is the official newsletter of the Front Range Personal Computer Users Group (FRPCUG): our mailing address is PMB 152, 305 W. Magnolia, Fort Collins, Colorado 80521-2804.
Opinions expressed in k-Byte are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the group or its members. Publication of information in k-Byte constitutes no guarantee of accuracy. Use of any information found in this publication is at the sole risk of the user. Neither k-Byte, nor its officers, nor k-Byte, nor its editors or contributors assume any liability for damages resulting from use of information in this publication.
Submissions
Articles, letters and short items of interest on computer-related topics are welcome and encouraged. All items submitted for publication are subject to editing. Send your contribution to the editor via e-mail or submit on disk. The deadline for articles is listed in the Calendar of Upcoming Events in each issue of k-Byte. If you have questions about a submission, please contact the editor for information.
Copyright
k-Byte is copyrighted © 2000 by the Front Range Personal Computer Users Group. Unless otherwise noted, other nonprofit users groups may reprint or quote from any articles appearing in k-Byte without prior permission, provided that proper author and publication credits are given and that a copy of the publication in which the article appears is sent at no cost to k-Byte at the above mailing address. User groups wishing to exchange newsletters with FRPCUG are invited to send a copy of their newsletter together with an exchange request.
IBM PC, OS/2, Compaq, MS-DOS, UNIX, Windows and other trademarks occasionally mentioned in k-Byte are registered trademarks of International Business Machines, Inc., Compaq Corporation, Microsoft, Digital Research, AT&T or their owners respectively. Neither FRPCUG nor its newsletter k-Byte are connected in any way with any manufacturer or seller. We, however, gratefully acknowledge sponsorship of our group by Data Service Center, Jim Becker, owner.
Advertising
Classified advertising is free to members for non-business ads. See “Trading Post” for pricing for camera-ready display ads. Charges for ad makeup from sketches, etc., are available on request. Deadline for camera-ready and classified ads is listed in the Calendar of Upcoming Events. Deadline for ad-makeup is the same as for articles.
About FRPCUG
FRPCUG is an independent nonprofit computer society, open to anyone interested in MS-DOS, OS/2, or UNIX microcomputers. Its purpose is to provide an educational and scientific forum of mutual benefit for members of the micro-computer community. FRPCUG holds a monthly meeting and conducts various special interest groups (SIGS) and seminars. Members have voting privileges, subscription to k-Byte newsletter, SIGs and selected seminars. Annual dues are $25 for individual/family membership and $50 for corporate/group membership.
Back to the Top
Scribe's Corner
December Meeting Report
By Mike Meyer
40 people attended the December meeting. During the Announcements Period, President Rick Mattingly stated that the FortNet Community Internet Festival would be held on 29 January 2000 at Rocky Mountain High School. He requested help from the membership to man the club's booth. Glen York and Will Horton mentioned that some interesting job opportunities were available to qualified FRPCUG members. Elections then were held, and the current slate of officers was re-elected for the year 2000.
Discussion during the Open Forum period included a brief presentation by Rick Mattingly on the recently encountered "Bubble Boy" virus, which has some similarities to the earlier "Melissa" virus. He passed out a helpful handout discussing the virus and what could be done about it. He also emphasized the importance of a good anti-virus program. This was followed by a general discussion by the membership about viruses and anti-virus programs. Rick then discussed the new Microsoft operating systems to clarify some misconceptions that arose as a result of some information presented at the November meeting. Doug Boicourt and others brought up some annoying web-site issues they had encountered with Netscape Navigator, which might have been associated with video card problems addressed in previous meetings. Some "Outlook Express" issues also were raised.
The Main Program this month was presented by Rick Mattingly, who happens to be a talented computer wiz, as well as our very busy President. He covered many of the useful features found in the Control Panel of the Windows 95 & 98 operating systems, which many of us were unaware of, or else didn't know how to use properly. He then discussed at considerable length some of the Y2k issues we all have come to know and love. Rick emphasized the importance of testing your backups to insure that they truly are reliable. Issues covered included tape drives, BIOS, hardware and software vendors, and earlier Microsoft operating systems. He also discussed the sources for help on Y2k issues, Microsoft, in particular, has done an excellent job. Their phone number was given as 1-888-MSFTY2K, and they provide a free CD-ROM Resource disk. Rick closed with a discussion about two important Microsoft's utilities, HWINFO (Hardware Diagnostics Tool for registry problems) and MSCONFIG (System Configuration Utility for configuration problems). In summary, we again were presented with some very interesting and helpful information by Rick, and it was much appreciated by us all.
January Meeting Report
By Mike Meyer
31 people attended this month's meeting. During the Announcements Period, President Rick Mattingly reminded those present of the need for some additional help with manning the FRPCUG booth at the FortNet Y2k Internet Festival on Jan. 29th at Rocky Mountain HS. There will be an Internet connection available to visitors to the booth for demo purposes. Glen York stated that there would be some very informative seminars available to those attending the festival. Rick also mentioned the benefits to the club of being a volunteer for teaching computer classes at the Fort Collins Senior Center, as well as to the volunteers themselves (i.e., free club membership for 8 hours of teaching). Glen then mentioned that JYM Information Systems will be providing convenient access to shareware programs judged to be of special interest to club members. Rick then mentioned that member Jim Willard will be a resource person for those interested in Genealogy, and that he will be discussing the use of the FRPCUG web-site "chat room" at a future meeting.
In the Open Forum Session, quite a few problems were discussed. They included Internet printing difficulties with HP printers (older type printer cables, drivers, or BIOS settings?). Another suggestion involved the need to upgrade Outlook Express when upgrading to Internet Explorer 5.0. Rick discussed some problems with Windows 95/98, especially during the shutdown sequences. He re-emphasized the desirability of making use of Microsoft's Tech Support and the importance of registering your software to get notices about potential problems and the availability of new features. Other items of discussion included dealing with the aftermath of crashes, macro viruses, and security measures.
Chris Anderson, President of CommUnique Software USA (Minneapolis), was the principal speaker for our Main Program. He presented a very lively and entertaining discussion of his firm's specialized programs, such as a graphics add-on program (Blade Pro) and rather unique screen savers (Artfx and Fandango). Blade Pro requires another graphics program for operation (e.g., Paint Shop Pro). Artfx will handle your own photographs, and Fandango, which does not require that any other graphics program be running, is fully customizable. Chris also discussed some other rather interesting products his firm had available, which included PC Vision (Digital Video Camera) and EPad (Graphics Tablet). The PC Vision video camera, which he demonstrated, had quite good resolution, capturing up to 30 frames/sec. The software ("Easy Express") had video mail and teleconferencing capability. The EPad graphics tablet, which he also demonstrated, included a pressure sensitive pen that could also function as a mouse. As in the case of Blade Pro, this product required that a graphics program be running.
It was noted that either product would be great as a gift, or for personal use. All of Chris' products cost less than $100 to qualified user groups, and all could be had together for $249. For products purchased at the meeting, the S & H costs were waived. Prices were available for two weeks after the meeting, if using a CommUnique order form Chris passed out at the meeting, but then the S & H costs would be assessed. It was evident from the strong level of interest generated that those attending were particularly receptive to the PC Vision product.
Back to the Top
To USB or not to USB
by Al Massey and Gill Boyd
This month we will attempt to explain USB, what it is and how the user can benefit from it. We will also take a look at a number of USB devices.
Universal Serial Bus
If you have ever had to pry the cover off your PC in order to install an add-in card or set a DIP switch or tried to figure out the proper IRQ setting for a new scanner, digital joystick, digital camera or other peripheral, then you should welcome a Universal Serial Bus with open arms.
USB is designed to work with Windows 98 and Windows 2000 when and if it is released. USB replaces the bewildering array of serial and parallel ports currently in use with one standardized plug and port combination. With USB-compliant PCs and peripherals, you just plug them in and turn them on! USB makes the whole process automatic. It's like adding instant new capabilities to your PC. You never need to open your PC, and you don't need to worry about add-in cards, DIP switch settings or IRQs.
Hot Swapping
Thanks to another USB feature known as “hot-swapping” you don't even need to shut down and restart your PC to attach or remove a peripheral. Just plug it in and go! The PC automatically detects the peripheral and configures the necessary software. This feature is especially useful for users of multi-player games, as well as business and notebook PC users who want to share peripherals USB also lets you connect many peripherals at one time. Many USB PCs come with two USB ports. And special USB peripherals - called USB hubs - have additional ports that let you “daisychain” multiple devices together. Theoretically, you can connect more than 200 peripherals but you should be aware of such things as power drain and bandwidth. You probably don't want to connect more than five or six USB devices.
USB has the ability to automatically sense the power required and deliver it to the device. This feature allows USB to distribute power to many peripherals, thereby eliminating those nagging power supply boxes that clutter up your power supply strip.
Because USB allows data to flow both ways between your PC and peripheral, things just got a little faster. This means your PC can do more things such as manage a telephone call center to maintain voice, fax and data mailboxes, screen and forward your calls, and even deliver a variety of selected outgoing messages. Or you can use your PC to tune a set of USB-compliant stereo speakers to match the acoustics of your listening environment. Of course, to get all these benefits, you need a USB-compliant PC and USB peripherals.
Most PCs, including many notebooks on the market today, are fully USB-ready. You can already select from USB digital cameras, computer telephony products, digital speakers, digital gaming devices, keyboards, pointing devices, scanners and Zip drives.
One thing is for sure - when you're shopping for a new PC monitor, input device or other peripheral in the months ahead, be sure to look for products designed with built-in USB compatibility. USB2 is slated for release sometime next year and will be 20 times as fast as the current standard..
One Final Tip
Every USB device has a unique firmware identification code that handshakes with the interface and reports such things as the device serial number, driver requirements, and power draw to Windows 98. If the power requirement exceeds 100 mA, Windows is supposed to flash an exclamation point on a yellow background. A right mouse click will reveal an error message that there isn't enough power available.The solution is either to unplug one or more USB devices or use an independent power supply for that particular peripheral. Nevertheless, Windows 95 OSR/2 Rev B and early Windows 98 betas did not have this particular feature implemented, so when we plugged in any device that exceeded 100 mA and wasn't independently powered, the computer failed to see it. It took considerable sleuthing to figure out why a particular peripheral couldn't be made to work.
How fast is it?
Speed is an ever-increasing concern in today's modern society, so we have included a list of the maximum transfer rates for various connections in megabits (Mb) and megabytes (MB) per second:
•serial port: 115kbits/s (115Mbits/s)
•standard parallel port: 115kBYTES/s (115MBYTES/s)
•USB: 12Mbits/s (1.5MBYTES/s)
•ECP/EPP parallel port: 3MBYTES/s
•IDE: 3.3-16.7MBYTES/s
•SCSI-1: 5MBYTES/s
•SCSI-2 (Fast SCSI, Fast Narrow SCSI): 10MBYTES/s
•Fast Wide SCSI (Wide SCSI): 20MBYTES/s
•Ultra SCSI (SCSI-3, Fast-20, Ultra Narrow): 20MBYTES/s
•UltraIDE: 33MBYTES/s
•Wide Ultra SCSI (Fast Wide 20): 40MBYTES/s
•Ultra2 SCSI: 40MBYTES/s
•IEEE-1394: 100-400Mbits/s (12.5-50MBYTES/s))
•Wide Ultra2 SCSI: 80MBYTES/s
•Ultra3 SCSI: 80MBYTES/s
•Wide Ultra3 SCSI: 160MBYTES/s
•FC-AL Fiber Channel: 100-400MBYTES/s
Ultimately, speed depends on what the peripheral is and how it is made. For example, a USB keyboard won't let you type any faster than a normal PS/2 keyboard, because your typing speed is limited by how fast your fingers can hit the keys, not by the speed of the keyboard's connection to the PC. Similarly, devices like printers and scanners may be able to run faster on USB than they can with a standard parallel connection, but only if the print head or scan engine can keep up with USB's higher data rate, which is not necessarily the case. On the other hand, USB makes possible peripherals that were impractical with earlier connections, such as video cameras and ADSL and satellite modems.
Companies to watch for USB devices
Imation - CD-RW & LS-120; Sony - VAIO PC's & CD-RW's; SIIG I/O products (4 port Slot/ 3.5 inch Bay Hubs - Meets PC 2001 specs); Speakers from the likes of Yamaha, Philips and Microsoft; Audio Technologies from Roland/Edirol & Opcode; SharkMM; Entrega; Monster Cable; USB Cameras from Philips, Intel, Logitech and Kodak; Entrega; ATEN Technology - iHub and a US-401; OnStream 50 Gig USB solutions; HP Printers, maybe ALPS Printers to name a few.
HAL-PC - October 1999
Back to the Top
Acrobat Reader 4.0
a product review by Zoltan Steiner
The converted file will be the exact duplicate of the original, whether you use the Macintosh, Windows or Unix platform. Acrobat 4.0 is available around the world in Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. You can send a file in PDF format, also known as an electronic document, with e-mail in compressed reduced file size.
A free Acrobat Reader version 4.0 is available for downloading from www.adobe.com.
The Reader has limited capabilities compared to the full version. Files can be printed but not saved or altered. However, you can copy or paste selected text or objects in Microsoft Word, where you can edit and save the file as a document (.doc). The Acrobat Reader selection tool has three selection possibilities: text, column and graphics tools. The full version has an additional tool for Table/Formatted/Select Text Tool used for the Excel spreadsheet. Acrobat Reader users can fill in and electronically submit, online, PDF forms prepared by the full version.
Acrobat Reader 4.0 is compatible with previous versions. This new version has improved integration with Web browsers, faster and more reliable printing, and support for the latest PDF 1.3 version. It also provides support for all PostScript versions, including the new PostScript 3, and better color handling, with support for ICC profiles. The online Help provides more detailed information. Try to download and print required tax forms and instructions from www.irs.gov at income tax time using Acrobat Reader.
The full version has many different applications , including the Reader, Acrobat 4.0 (Acrobat Exchange in prior versions), Search, Catalog, Scan, Capture, PDF Writer and Distiller.
Besides these applications, Adobe includes several Plug-ins. Many third-party developers from all over the world are providing Plug-ins to add more functions to this popular and important software. To have more understanding of PDF, visit this Australian website at www.planetpdf.com -- described as Experts in PDF Technology. A privately owned Australian company, A Round Table Solution (ARTS), has become world-renowned for its expertise in providing software solutions based upon Portable Document Format (PDF) technology. PDF is fast becoming the standard for electronic distribution of documents. The scope of developing software that builds on the PDF technology is vast. You can participate in their AcroBuddies Forum and ask questions, e.g., "Does anyone know of a software tool that will convert PDF (images) to GIF/JPG?"
Sure , depending on your intended application, one or more of the tools below may be appropriate. Follow the links to download a demo and find out more.
Freebird 4.0
Magellan 4.1
Jade 4.0
Gemini
Adobe Document Server
Similar forums are offered by Adobe, PDFzone and Purepdf.
Other Adobe software also can be used to edit PDF files. Adobe PageMaker can perform more tasks without the use of plug-ins. It can create bookmarks, notes, indexes, hypertext links and control of Distiller Job Options. Adobe Photoshop 5.0 can open single or multiple PDF files, batch process and convert to Photoshop (PSD) files. Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia FreeHand and Corel Draw also can export to PDF.
The main user of the PDF file format is the printing industry . PDF has become an increasingly important element in the workflow and in published documents. PDF file format has many advantages. It is cross-platform, and supports IBM PC-compatible, Macintosh, and Unix operating systems. PDF fully supports laid-out pages for print output. With the standards set by the International Color Consortium (ICC) and with proper use of the PDF, a consistent color-managed workflow can be implemented. Acrobat 4.0, with an open architecture, provides developers the opportunity to extend and customize their plug-ins.
My favorite feature is the ability to download information from the Web for offline viewing while maintaining all the hyperlinks of the original document. The Adobe homepage is providing Tips & Techniques for all their products. For guidance try to download and print out "Make your Own Daily Web Digest in PDF" from the Acrobat 4.0 Tips & Techniques.
You can convert files created in Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint to PDF from their file menu. Easy conversion is done by dragging any file to the desktop icon or by scanning. When scanned in Acrobat, the resulting document is in PDF format. Features, such as importing sound and movie files, creating forms, and many more which were in earlier versions of Acrobat are still present.
I can highly recommend Adobe Acrobat 4.0 because PDF is here to stay and remains one of the major universal file formats - unlike Esperanto.
Back to the Top
RED HAT 6.0 LINUX
by Gus Hrncir, Jr.
An Alternate Operating System Review. This article is written from the standpoint of a Microsoft Windows 98 user contemplating a switch to an alternate operating system. I am evaluating Red Hat Linux 6.0 for use in my business. Some of the criteria used to evaluate this system are: ease of installation, user support, and file interchangeability with Microsoft Excel and Word files. Will this run on my current hardware? How will it work on my network? How much support will I need to offer to my users? What benefits will this operating system provide me that my existing operating system won't?
My Background
Currently I am a computer operations manager for a small professional nergy-related consulting business. I provide daily software and network support to a group of about 10-20 users. I deal with Windows 95 and 98 on a daily basis as well as other applications designed to work on these platforms. More importantly, my clients rely on applications used in the Windows environment. Because of this, my company tends to use the same software they do so that information sharing is easy and seamless.
Red Hat Linux 6.0 - www.redhat.com
The software and manuals are available for free download at the aforementioned website. You may also find the same software at your local computer store, packaged with the manuals.
Installation
Installation of the software is difficult and time-consuming for the first timer. Two Linux users, who wish to remain anonymous, assisted me with the installation. I'd like to take a moment to express my appreciation for their assistance. We started this project at 6:00 PM in the conference room at HAL-PC headquarters and finished around 10:00 PM. My guess for the reason why our Linux users wished to remain anonymous is that they also believe that Linux is not as user-friendly to install and operate as what we're used to, that is, Windows.
StarOffice 5.1 for Linux - www.sun.com/staroffice <- Now Version 5.2!
This is an Office Suite that includes word processing and spreadsheet modules that can read and write Microsoft Word and Excel files. The suite has many other components and is a full-featured office package. This version has been available for free download since May 19, 1999. I was able to use this software to read and write Excel and Work files created in Microsoft Office 97. As far as basic application compatibility goes, StarOffice gives me the ability to receive a Word or Excel document from my client, make necessary changes, save as Word or Excel file types and return the document to the sender. This is crucial in my line of work because I must have the ability to work seamlessly with my client with no worry that they won't be able to use the information I provide them.
Networking
Networking is easy. The software recognized the network card (Intel 10/100) upon installation. We were able to download StarOffice 5.1 from other Linux computers on the network.
Y2K Issue
This software has a 4-digit year field and is compliant.
My Computer Hardware Description
Here is a description of the computer used to install and evaluate the software described above. Clone computer, using Intel 200mhz processor, Abit PX5 motherboard, 64mb ram, Trident 4mb video card, 1.6 gig Western Digital Hard Drive, 32X Mitsumi CD ROM drive, Intel network card 10/100, and FX 3D sound card. This is a low-end machine. My intent was to make the software work on this machine; then it would be easy to install and use on the more powerful machines in the office.
Gotcha's (things to watch for)
1. You must start with a clean hard drive, use the dos command fdisk /mbr command to clean up the hard drive. That means NO DOS partitions!
2. Linux requires you to turn off the system correctly. No scandisk to “correct” or identify errors if you don't shut down properly.
3. A smaller percentage of computer users understand Linux so it is harder to find someone to help and answer your questions.
4. A first time user should definitely seek out a Linux user for help with the first installation of Linux. Suggest you attend a Linux special interest group meeting at HAL-PC headquarters on the first and fourth Saturday of each month; the meetings start at 2:00PM. More information at the Linux special interest group website www.astronet.net/linux/
5. Before you take that leap and change the operating system to Linux, ask yourself a few questions:
A: What are the benefits of using Linux over Windows?
B: Of all the applications I currently own, how much will run on Linux?
C: How much will it cost to acquire any necessary applications?
D: Do I know someone currently using Linux to help me if I have problems?
E: Since I won't be able to use DOS, will it hinder my productivity?
Availability
The word on the street is that Dell and Motorola have joined a growing list of companies moving to offer another computer operating system aside from what Microsoft offers. If you guessed Linux, you're right. Dell plans to offer the Dimension desktop PCs and Inspiron notebook computer line with the option of operating systems. Offered are the Windows series of operating systems (95,98,NT) or Linux (Red Hat). Motorola has noted that it will begin to work with Linux based platforms for the smaller computer devices such as the Palm personal digital assistants. What's happening is that Microsoft will no longer be the standard operating system available to the everyday consumer. This move shows that vendors believe Linux offers a quality product and a competitive price. Could this all snowball to the point where the majority of consumers prefer Linux over Microsoft? That remains to be seen. What we do know is that more and more consumers will become exposed to Linux-based platforms and decide for themselves.
Comments
The computer support specialist (Information Technology Specialist) must become familiar with the Linux operating system and related software applications such as StarOffice 5.1 because he or she will be required to support their users. As an IT professional it might be possible to learn Linux Red Hat in a short amount of time. The problem is that your users aren't going to be as technically proficient as you and will constantly rely on the help desk for support. Bottom line, the help line won't quit ringing. I don't believe the general computer users in my office are ready for Linux simply because of the training and learning curve. If you're like me, a Windows operating system is what you've used ever since it's creation and the transition to learning a new Windows OS tends to be simple. An operating system such as Linux has no similarities to Windows; therefore, the learning curve will be greater. Remember that Linux is virtually foreign to common computer users. If you implement this OS to your network, even the simplest task of browsing a drive becomes a concern because your users don't know where “Windows Explorer” is. Even the simplest jobs we do in a Windows environment become difficult because no one knows where certain objects are located. Ask a 7-year-old kid how to access a file or run a program in both Windows 95 and Linux and the good money says he or she will be able to perform that task in Windows and not in Linux.
Recommendation
If you have a lot of time on your hands, won't need to share information with anyone, and have the money to purchase applications that are made to run on Linux, then by all means, pick it up and use it. It's far more stable than Windows 95 or 98, if that's a concern, and you don't want to use Windows NT, this is a good product for you. At the very least, you're not putting any more money in Bill Gates' pocket. But the reason Bill's pockets are so big is that everyone uses his products. They're simple to use because we've used one version or another for all these years, and you can always count on being virtually compatible with others that you work with. For these reasons alone I prefer a Windows operating system. There have been countless times I've needed to repair or upgrade my Windows environment and not once have I had to go so far as the help files to rectify the problem. Ease of use is what brings me back to Windows time and time again.
Gus Hrncir Jr. is a member of the HAL-PC. He may be contacted at ghrncir@globalrightofway.com n
HAL-PC - October 1999
An excellent Internet resource for scanning basics:
Wayne Fulton's "A Few Scanning Tips" at - http://www.scantips.com
Back to the Top
Mijenix PowerDesk Utilities 98
a product review by Fran Wise
I have been using PowerDesk for several years, "wouldn't be without it" and agree with PC Magazine Online (April 1999) that PowerDesk Utilities 98 is "...the best available Windows file manager." It includes the following utilities: PowerDesk, the Toolbar, the Folder Synchronizer, the Size Manager, the File Finder and the Dialog Helper.
Power Desk
The first time you open it you feel like you are looking at a slightly different version of Microsoft Explorer. Like Explorer, PowerDesk has a tree pane and a file pane so the Windows 95/98 (or NT) user would feel right at home. But looks are deceiving. Behind the facade of what appears to be Explorer are a variety of useful tools. Among these are an easily customizable toolbar, a Drivebar and a Launchbar plus an optional viewer pane and command line.
Beyond the usual (but greatly enhanced) file management capabilities, PowerDesk has some additional features worth discussing.
One method of converting or coding data in e-mail attachments is by using UUEncoding/UUDecoding. PowerDesk includes commands to accomplish these functions.
File Security. PowerDesk can encrypt and decrypt files. It also can destroy files so they can never be recovered.
Do you miss having XTree Gold or Norton Commander as your file management system? If so, you're in luck with PowerDesk. You can set the keyboard to function the same as it did in either of these applications.
And, for you DOS aficionados, the Command Line tool provides easy access to many DOS commands without having to open a DOS window. The quickest way to open a DOS box is by placing the "Open MS-DOS Window" button on the PowerDesk toolbar. The DOS box opens to the current path. For example, if your current folder is Desktop, a new DOS box will open to "C:\Desktop."
Working with compressed files is easy in PowerDesk. In addition to the Zip archive support, it also displays and extracts files from a wide variety of other formats. PowerDesk allows you to make, view, extract and add to Zip archives and it has a number of advanced options which are available when working with these files.
Deleting Files . PowerDesk deletes files in three different ways. Recycle (Del) sends your files to the Windows Recycle Bin. Delete (Shift-Del) bypasses the Recycle Bin and deletes the files immediately. Destroy (also found on the File menu) deletes files immediately and writes zeroes over the data so it can never be recovered, even with "undelete" software.
Power Desk Tools
The Toolbar allows the user to create one or more customized toolbars, similar to the taskbar. These toolbars can be "docked" on your desktop or "floating." A Wizard is available to set these up. They have four parts:
Individual tools to perform or monitor specific operations, such as the StartMenu tool, the System Monitor tool, the Print Manager tool. Tool Groups which is a convenient means for arranging the tools in your toolbar.
Toolbars where one or more tool groups are contained in a toolbar.
The Configuration File where a series of toolbars is contained in a single file.
The Size Manager has proven to be a very useful tool for me. It is a utility which allows you to see how the space on your disk is being utilized. For example, it is very convenient to know how much space a seldom used application is taking up on your disk. You might be surprised! The Size Manager window looks very much like the familiar Windows Explorer.
To quote the PowerDesk Utilities 98 User's Guide: "The simplest utility..., Dialog Helper enhances most of your standard Open and Save dialog boxes by adding: a history of previously accessed folders, a history of previously accessed documents, and the ability to resize the dialog box."
There are many other features worth exploring in this package which I will not attempt to detail in this review. PowerDesk Utilities is shipped with Fix-It Utilities 98. It can also be purchased as a stand-alone product for a street price of about $30. PowerDesk Utilities is compatible with Windows 95, 98 and NT.
The Gigabyte Gazette, Nov/Dec 1999 newsletter of the Sun City Summerlin Computer Club
Internet Chamber of Commerce
Northern Colorado Chapter
Contact Matt Tracer at 970.484.8102 or http://www.ulltra.com/icc
Back to the Top
Calendar of Events
- IMPORTANT NOTICE -
FRPCUG meetings are held at the Fort Collins Senior Center. Check below for directions to the Senior Center.
February General Forum Meeting
We will meet at the Fort Collins Senior Center on Tuesday, February 1 at 7:00 pm.
Meeting Agenda
7:00 - 7:15 Announcements
7:15 - 7:30 Election of Officers
7:30 - 7:45 Open Forum
7:45 - 8:00 Break
8:00 - 9:30 Taxes & Accounting - An overview of using tax software, Quicken and QuickBooks. Also, a short tutorial on using the FRPCUG Web BBS messaging system and a presentation on Adobe Acrobat.
March General Forum Meeting
We will meet at the Fort Collins Senior Center on Tuesday, March 7 at 7:00 pm.
Meeting Agenda
7:00 - 7:15 Announcements
7:15 - 7:45 Open Forum
7:45 - 8:00 Break
8:00 - 9:30 Online Stock Trading - Tack Baker of Merrill Lynch will give a presentation on personal online stock trading.
See you at the meetings!
Directions
The Fort Collins Senior Center is located at 1200 Raintree Drive. This site is situated at the northwest corner of the Shields and West Drake intersection, on the north side of the Raintree Shopping Center. Check the marquee at the main entrance for directions to the specific meeting room.
Up-Coming SIG's, Seminars and Meetings
Board Meeting
FRPCUG's executive board meets on the Thursday immediately following the General Forum Meeting at 7:00 p.m. All members are welcome and are encouraged to attend. These meetings are held in the Poudre Fire Authority administrative meeting room which is located in the parking garage building, at the corner of Remington and Mountain in Fort Collins.
LINUX SIG
This SIG, supporting the LINUX implementation of the UNIX operating system, meets at 7:00 p.m. on the fourth Thursday of each month. Participants have adopted the LINUX manual titled "RUNNING LINUX" by Matt Welsh and Lar Kaufman as their learning tool and will be reviewing a section of the manual at each meeting. Meetings are held in the Poudre Fire Authority administrative meeting room which is located in the parking garage building, at the corner of Remington and Mountain in Fort Collins. Coordinators: Glenn York (224-5266) and Chuck McJilton (493-2987) or e-mail at linuxsig@jymis.com.
Northern Front Range Netware Users Group
NFRNUG meets at 5:30 pm on the second Wednesday of each month at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife building, 2101 Oakridge Drive in Fort Collins. NFRNUG meetings are open to any users that are involved with Novell networking products and integration of other networking products into the Novell environment (Unix, NT, Mac, etc.). Contact Jim Stephens at 303-541-3376 or jcsteph@concentric.net or contact Chuck Kluko at 970-663-4770 or c.kluko@ix.netcom.com for further membership information. Yearly dues are $000.00 (yes, FREE) with pizza and pop served at 5:00 pm prior to meeting. Saturday labs and training sessions open to NRFNUG members only, space is limited.
Rocky Mountain Internet Users Group
Meets on the second Tuesday of 'odd' months at NCAR in Boulder. Meetings start at 7:00 pm, but members are encouraged to arrive at 6:30 pm for informal networking and refreshments. NCAR is located in Boulder at 1850 Table Mesa Drive. Contact Chuck McJilton for information (493-2987) or e-mail rmiug@rmiug.org.
Telecommuncation SIG
Telecommunication SIG meetings are held on the third Thursday of each month at 7:30 p.m. Topics usually discussed include modem hardware, communication software, internet resources, and solutions to any communication problems and questions brought up at the meeting. Meetings are held in the Poudre Fire Authority administrative meeting room which is located in the parking garage building, at the corner of Remington and Mountain in Fort Collins. Contact coordinator Chuck McJilton (493-2987) for more info or e-mail Telecomsig@jymis.com.
Web Design SIG
If you're an HTML author/WEB page designer, or would like to learn, contact SIG coordinator Doug Boicourt at 495-6949 or e-mail db@jymis.com for the date and location of the next SIG meeting.
RIBUG Meeting
The Regional Internet Business Users Group (RIBUG) deals with issues of business utilization of the Internet. This group meets the last Wednesday of each month. Contact Will Horton in Fort Collins at 223-0330 or e-mail whorton@jymis.com for details.
Internet Safari
Free Internet discussion group meets first Monday at Stone Lion Book Store in Fort Collins. Meetings start at 7:00 pm. Sponsored by Stone Lion and JYM Information Systems. Coordinators: Glenn York (224-5266) and Chuck McJilton (493-2987).
Upcoming FRPCUG Meetings
Along with presentations of new hardware and software, we will certainly continue to present tips, hints, solutions, as well as what is new with Public Domain and Shareware offerings. If you have ideas for presentations which you would like to see at future General Forum meetings or seminars, please let us know. We would appreciate the input and opportunity to improve your meetings.
Back to the Top
February 2000
1 FRPCUG General Forum Meeting 7:00PM
9 FRPCUG Board Meeting 7:00PM
NRFNUG Meeting 5:00PM
14 HTML SIG Meeting 7:00PM
17 Telcomm SIG 7:00PM
23 RIBUG Meeting 7:00PM
24 LINUX SIG 7:00PM
March 2000
7 FRPCUG General Forum Meeting 7:00PM
8 FRPCUG Board Meeting 7:00PM
NRFNUG Meeting 5:00PM
13 HTML SIG Meeting 7:00PM
16 Telcomm SIG 7:00PM
22 RIBUG Meeting 7:00PM
23 LINUX SIG 7:00PM
Back to the Top
Recycle Your PC
Do you have an unused 486 or better PC taking up space around your home or office? Why not donate it to a local organization which can make use of it. Here are several organizations that can assist in finding a good tax deductible home for that unwanted equipment:
National Christina Foundation
http://www.cristina.org/index2.html
1-800-274-7846
Detwiler Foundation
http://detwiler.org/
1-800-939-6000
Spooky Anagrams
This is really spooky ..... An anagram, as you all know, is a word or phrase made by rearranging the letters of another word or phrase. The following are exceptionally clever. Someone out there either has way too much time to waste or is deadly at Scrabble.
Enjoy .… and think! - Phil
|
| Word |
Rearrange the letters |
| Dormitory |
Dirty Room |
| Desperation |
A Rope Ends It |
| The Morse Code |
Here come Dots |
| Slot Machines |
Cash Lost in 'em |
| Animosity |
Is No Amity |
| Mother-in-law |
Woman Hitler |
| Snooze Alarms |
Alas! No More Z's |
| Alec Guinness |
Genuine Class |
| Semolina |
Is No Meal |
| A Decimal Point |
I'm a Dot in Place |
| The Earthquakes |
That Queer Shake |
| Eleven plus two |
Twelve plus one |
| Contradiction |
Accord not in it |
| Astronomer |
Moon Starer |
| Princess Diana |
End Is A Car Spin |
| And here is the most intriguing part: |
| Year Two Thousand |
A Year To Shut Down |
Thanks to Charlie & Trish Gross
Back to the Top
Mijenix Fix-It Utilities 99
a product review by Irene Pedretti and Fran Wise
Fix-It Utilities 99 is one of the new "suites" that contain utilities and tools to maintain and tune up your PC's performance. Fix-It Utilities 99 ships with PowerDesk Utilities 98, another Mijenix product that has been very popular since 1997. (PowerDesk is a separate install.) Both products have received rave reviews in the computer industry press. Fix-It Utilities 99 has been ranked equally with other major suites but, to quote PC World (August 1999 issue): "Norton gets the nod for including an uninstaller. But if a top-notch file manager is more important to you, go for Fix-It Utilities, with its copy of PowerDesk Utilities 98."
Installation
One of the first things you will notice upon installing Fix-It Utilities is its very small "footprint" on your hard drive - only about 30 MB while other utilities suites use well over 100 MB. Also, you will find that Fix-It runs quite seamlessly in the background on your system. PC Computing, August 1999, says "...Fix-It's low-impact approach to system maintenance pays off in spades...a maintenance package that won't slow you down."
Features
Fix-It Utilities 99 has five major components: FixWizard, Disk and Files, System Registry, System Diagnostics and System Protection. We'll discuss some of their features that you might find of interest. You have the option to customize each of these to fit your requirements.
FixWizard is designed to help you optimize your system and keep it running at peak efficiency by , e.g., performing regular maintenance tasks. Many of the functions included in this Wizard are also included in other sections of Fix-It Utilities.
Disk and Files includes Disk Cleaner, Defrag Plus, System Saver, Disk Snapshot and Disk Fixer and others as shown below.
Disk Fixer performs some valuable functions including checking boot records against the master boot record, verifying the directory structure, and looking for invalid entries in the FAT (file allocation table). This is similar to Microsoft's ScanDisk. However, you can have Disk Fixer notify you whenever it finds a problem so you can fix problems as they occur.
Disk Snapshot is another valuable function provided by Fix-It Utilities. Fix-It stores an image of the FAT boot sectors and other disk structure information in a separate file on your hard drive. By constantly updating these files, Fix-It makes it easier to recover from a system crash and more likely you can recover accidentally-deleted files.
System Registry includes Registry Fixer to repair your Registry, a Registry Cleaner, a Registry Editor and a component to defrag your Registry. Also included is WinCustomizer which gives you an opportunity to adapt many of the features of Windows so they behave as you want.
System Diagnostics checks for hardware problems and includes PC Diagnostics for detecting hardware problems, Year 2000 checks for Y2K compliance and offers solutions, System Explorer gives you real-time information on what is happening in your system, and SystemMonitors keeps tabs on system resources. PC World (August 1999) states: "At hard-core diagnostics - especially hardware - Fix-It Utilities 99" outperforms others. It can "perform a wide range of analyses that delve deep into specific hardware ...This can be valuable for spotting problems before they become major."
Finally, the System Protection module includes components designed to prevent problems. CrashProof 99 runs "behind the scenes" and senses when an application is about to crash. FixIt Scheduler allows the user to schedule certain tools for specific times. UndoIt reverses changes that FixIt Utilities has made. VirusScanner can be run on demand or in real-time where it will run in the background and provide a warning if a virus is detected.
Mijenix Computer Clinic
The Mijenix/Ontrack Insider newsletter recently announced their new online Computer Clinic. It has two main areas: Hardware Emergency Room to assist users maintain, upgrade and troubleshoot computer hardware. The AntiVirus Labs "provide a wealth of information about types of computer viruses, how to protect your system and how to recover from virus infections."
Irene and Fran definitely recommend this utilities suite. However, Irene has one caveat. Every time FixIt Utilities makes a change to your system, it creates an Undo file in My Documents and places any deleted file in the Recycle Bin. FixIt Utilities 99 has so many checks and balances that there is hardly anything you can do that cannot be reversed, but a little common sense goes a long way. (Irene knows - she had reason to undo some actions she took while testing this suite.)
FixIt Utilities will run on Windows 95, 98 and NT and a version of it will soon be available for Windows 2000. Street price is $40 to $50 - remember FixIt Utilities 99 ships with PowerDesk 98.
(In mid-1999, Mijenix became part of Ontrack Data International, a world leader in data recovery software and services.
The Gigabyte Gazette, Nov/Dec 1999 newsletter of the Sun City Summerlin Computer Club
Back to the Top
FREE Internet Discussion Group
JYM Information Systems and the Stone Lion Book Store are sponsoring a monthly "Internet Safari" discussion group. This group meets at 7 PM in the Stone Lion the first Monday of each month. This is an open discussion and we examine current issues involving the Internet, how to use the Internet and subjects raised by those present. This group is open to the public without cost or obligation. This is a good chance learn how others are using the Internet.
Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks.
Back to the Top
Clean That Keyboard
by Rick Mattingly
Let's face it -- the computer keyboard doesn't always get the attention that it deserves. We take it for granted, until it stops working and renders your system to the state of being as useful as a door stop.
Take a few minutes to clean up that keyboard. To clean the grunge off of the surface and the keys, use a commercial cleaner, such as "409." Important! -- do not spray the cleaner directly onto the keyboard. Slightly damped a soft cloth and gently rub the keyboard components until clean. Wipe off any excess.
Next, clean the dustballs and foreign objects from beneath the keys. You would not believe what I have discovered hiding beneath the keys on people's systems, especially when small children are involved -- rubber bands, paper clips, pet hair, candy and other snacks -- you name it! Any of these objects can hide beneath the keys and prevent the keyboard from functioning correctly. Visually check between the keys for unwelcome guests. Turn the keyboard upside down and gently shake out what you can (you may be surprised!). Finally, use a vacuum nozzle to collect the remaining fine debris. Do not place the vacuum nozzle directly on the keys. Hold it a short distance away to prevent vacuuming up any keys which may not be connected as tightly as they should be.
Keep your keyboard clean and prevent undue stress in your life. You can always buy a real doorstop for a lot less than the cost of a computer system!
Back to the Top
Sorting Internet Explorer 5 Favorites - Revisited
by Rick Mattingly
In the last issue of k-Byte I did an article on sorting the Favorites folder in Microsoft Internet Explorer 5. As explained in that article, you open the Favorites folder from the top menu bar of Internet Explorer (NOT the Favorites button on the Tool Bar), right click on any folder or individual entry and choose Sort by Name in the resulting menu. Note that you can also access the Sort by Name option by choosing the Windows Start button and Favorites without actually opening Internet Explorer 5.
Oddly, I have since been contacted by several people who stated that this technique did not result in a Sort by Name menu choice for them. Now what?
Well, it turns out that to use this feature you must also either be running Windows 98 -- or Windows 95 which had Internet Explorer 4 installed prior to installing Internet Explorer 5. It seems that the Sort by Name option is actually a feature of the Active Desktop module, which is provided with Windows 98 or by installing Internet Explorer 5 over Internet Explorer 4 with Windows 95. A definite case of "gotcha!"
If you are using Windows 95 with Internet Explorer 5 and do not see the Sort by Name option as described above, you may be able to correct the situation with the following instructions. Click Start, Settings, Control Panel. When Control Panel opens, double-click Add/Remove Programs. Click Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 and then click Add/Remove. When the Setup dialog box appears, select the radio button labeled "Add a component to Internet Explorer" and click OK to continue. Choose the option to add Active Desktop to your system.
Back to the Top
Crystal Clear: A PCI Sound Card for OS/2
by Brad Kell - bkell@jymis.com
OS/2 Rules Website www.jymis.com/~bkell
Let me start out by expressing my thanks to Crystal Semiconductor for their audio chips as well as their support for OS/2 in the form of drivers that work.
Finding a PCI sound card that would not only work under OS/2 but that had WIN/OS2 support has been a challenge. My current Warp box has only two ISA slots and they were dedicated before I built it. I had thought that the promised Crystalizer Tidalwave128 PCI sound card would be my solution but it has not yet come to market.
While surfing my list of computer vendors recently, I came across a sound card simply labeled "Crystal PCI sound card." A quick check at Crystal's site revealed only one PCI audio chipset (CS4280) and there were OS/2 drivers. So, with a listed price of $12.00 U.S., I ordered it. Upon arrival, its small physical size amazed me.
The box states that it is an ONSpeed CS4280 Advanced PCI, Wavetable, Directsound Accelerator. This is a full-duplex, 64 voice polyphonic wavetable card. A CD-ROM, with Windows and OS/2 Warp3 drivers, came with the card but no hard copy documentation was enclosed. I had downloaded the most current OS/2 driver on my initial inspection of the Crystal site and had familiarized myself with the readme file.
My OS/2 (aka merlin) system consists of:
• Premier ATX mid-tower case w/ 250 watt P.S.
• ASUS P2B-S motherboard (Adaptec 7800 SCSI - d4.12 990408 Award BIOS v4.51PG ASUS ACPI BIOS revision 1010
• Intel PII-400 CPU /w fan
• Vitalic 128M PC-100 RAM
• Matrox G200 16M AGP video card (BIOS: 2.6 Driver: 2.31.100)
• 19" KDS VS195 monitor
• Seagate 4LP 4.3G Cheetah UWSCSI HD w/ BayCooler
• Pioneer DR-506S SCSI-2 CD-ROM drive
• Ricoh 6200S SCSI-2 CD-RW drive
• ONSpeed Crystal CS4280 PCI sound card
• USR x2 ISA modem
• 3COM 509c ISA NIC
• Altec Lansing ACS 48 PowerCube 3-piece speakers
• Cirque Wave Keyboard w/ Touchpad
• OS/2 Warp4 FP12, TCPIP 4.1, HPFS386, etc.
Installation was very straight forward (in my opinion). Turn off the computer, remove the side panel, insert the sound card into an empty PCI slot, connect an audio cable from the CD-ROM drive to the sound card (not included with the card), put the panel back on, and bootup OS/2. (PCI BIOS configuration was already set to "auto" for the PCI slots.)
The driver file was unzipped to a "temporary" directory (it will also fit on a floppy disc) and, as stated in the readme, MINSTAL (Multimedia Install) was run pointing to the "temp" directory.
Up to this point, everything had gone well, maybe too well. Upon rebooting, I was presented with the ominous TRAP 0008. For those that have not ever seen this, it is one of those black screen "system halted, call your service rep" type of errors. I performed the ol' Vulcan Nerve Pinch (Ctrl-Alt-Del) and booted to my BootOS2 utility partition. From there I "rem'd" (remarked) out the lines to the Warp config.sys file that the Crystal installation had added, ran chkdsk /f on that partition, and rebooted.
The Crystal readme file states:
It is not normally necessary, but should it become necessary to start from the beginning, the OS/2 Multimedia subsystem MMPM/2) can be deleted and reinstalled without impacting the rest of the installed system.
a) ERASE \MMOS2 and all subdirectories (this removes OS/2 multimedia support) Some files won't delete, this is okay.
b) Use OS/2 selective install to re-install OS/2 multimedia support. It may auto-detect an audio device. You should override the auto-detection to remove the detected device. When correct, the installation panel will have no audio devices listed.
c) Complete selective installation and reboot
d) You are now prepared to use this diskette to install Crystal drivers.
After rebooting, I repeated the procedure for installing the drivers. So far, so good. Time to reboot and see if this sucker works. Shutdown... BAM! Trap0008 AGAIN! I thought, "this is weird... never had a Trap anything at shutdown. Oh well, what the heck, let's see what happens." Hard reset. Normal bootup... YES, system startup sound! My grin filled the room.
Can I listen to CD's? Slapped in some Tangerine Dream... YES, and it sounds KILLER with those Altec's!
But what about WIN/OS2 support? The readme says I'll get it. Time to open a Full-screen WIN/OS2 session... YES, Windows startup audio!
Now, can I get RealAudio5 to work? After all, that is primarily why the WIN/OS2 support is needed. The Windows Video 1.1e run-time (required by RA) had already been installed so all I should have to do is install RA from a WIN/OS2 window. After installation of RA5 all of the test samples play but it seems that most RA capable sites are now requiring G2. The only platforms that are supported by G2 are WindowsXX and Mac. Also, Netscape 2.02 and Communicator 4.61 seem to be having a problem with running RA as a helper application but I am trying to exterminate that bug.
Conclusion: While I have not put this card through any kind of exhaustive testing, I am very pleased so far. A PCI sound card with WIN/OS2 support for $27.00 ($12.00 for the card and $15.00 s/h & insurance) seemed almost too good to be true. All the vendors that I had talked to about the Tidalwave128 wanted about $140.00 plus s/h! Now I can listen to CD's, wave & midi files - both from within the system and in Netscape, as well as all the other formats that they both support. My confidence also runs high that I will be able to use most, if not all, of the audio plug-ins successfully too. Overall, I would give this card an A-. Additionally, no sooner than the card had been installed than Lesha Bogdanowthe released the LBMixer, as free software distributed under GNU General Public License. This also works with this card (I installed it into the MMOS2 directory). So now there is a level mixer for Crystal sound cards using the 2.x and up drivers. Here is a screenshot taken with PMView 1.05:
As you can see, there are several controls on the screen. Each has one or two sliders and up to three checkboxes.
Sliders set volume (left/right channels if there are two sliders). If "Both" is checked, moving one slider changes both channels. The "Mute" checkbox kills input/output control for that device. The "Lock" checkbox allows the LBMixer to override MMOS2 per stream controls, telling MMOS2 that audio control is done by the mixer rather than applications. Lesha suggests keeping all the unused inputs muted to minimize the noise level.
A Paradise Aureal Vortex1 PCI sound card was my old sound card. While Aureal's OS/2 drivers worked, there was no WIN/OS2 support. As an aside, this same Crystal CS4280 chip is used in some other PCI sound cards. I do not know if they work under OS/2 or not, and Crystal is quick to tell you to check the manufacturers site for drivers first.
Where the card was purchased: PCBroker - www.pcbroker.com
Crystal Semiconductor - www.crystal.com
Crystal Audio Drivers - www.cirrus.com/drivers/audiodrv/:
Info from Crystal on the CS4280 chipset - www.cirrus.com/products/overviews/cs4280.html
Aureal's site - www.aureal.com
LBMix - freebyte.ml.org/~boga/OS2Programs.html: (site may be down; file is also on hobbes - ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/pub/os2/apps/mmedia/util/mixers/lbcsmix100.zip)
PMView - www.pmview.com
Note: I can find no website for ONSpeed.
Back to the Top
A Web Site for Everyone!
By Steve Morgan
Isn't it incredible? The number of Internet users is growing by 20-30% per year. In just a few more years, the industrialized countries will have 80-85% of all their citizens connected. But with all the excitement over the number of people joining the Internet, it is easy to overlook the gigantic number of web sites that are being created!
Personal home pages, business home pages, news articles, retail sites, government sites, the figures are mind-boggling! From November of 1997 to November of 1999, total web pages grew from 320 million to 830 million! And the number will continue to grow exponentially as more people gain Internet access. One of the reasons for this vast increase is because people are creating their own personal web pages like there is no tomorrow! I believe that within 3 years, most people connected to the Web will have their own personal website. Admit it, haven't you at least thought about having a web page with your name on it? Imagine it, big as life! <www.<yourname>.org>, your portal to prestige, convenience and networking possibilities!
Personal web pages can be used for current addresses, resumes, life history, goals, pictures and any other information that you want others to have. Or create an extended family website that would be a 1-stop information resource where all family members could keep information current, show their pictures, tell what they are presently doing, show where they are living and talk about what they are working on. Each family member would have a subdirectory linked to the main page, such as .com/, along with an email address <yourname>@<familyname>.com. Privacy can also be assured by requiring a password before anyone can view your site.
But think, what is the one thing that every one of these web pages needs? Bingo! A unique address! And this is where trouble appears. Believe it or not, your name is probably already registered to someone else! While there may be thousands of John Smith's, there are currently only a few easy ways to set up a web page called Johnsmith. The main ways are with a .com, .net and. org. Additionally every nation has its own designation such as .uk for the United Kingdom, or .to for Tonga. Some countries require that you live there in order to use their designation, while others see it as a lucrative revenue stream to sell the designation to people desperate for an easy to remember address.
Finding a good web address is made even more difficult since many organizations will register all permutations of their name to prevent imitators and gripe web sites. I first came to grips with this when I tried to register Morgan.com. It seems that the J.P. Morgan Corporation has taken all of the morgan.com, net, and org site names out of availability. And let's face it, look in the phone book and there are hundreds of families named Morgan in there. Based on how hard it is to find any available name with Morgan in it, these people are gobbling up web addresses like there is no tomorrow! And who can blame them? Once someone registers a web address, they can keep it as long as they keep on paying the yearly registration! They do not even need to have a web site up!
But cheer up! If you are flexible, there are other ways to get a good web address. Your Internet provider will often host your web page and include 5 to 20 megabytes of web space as a member benefit. The downside is that your name is just a part of the provider's name, such as users. <ISP name>.com/<yourname>. If you belong to a smaller provider, you will be able to get a name that is very similar to your own. As the provider becomes larger, the competition for popular names gets fierce. There are also several commercial web sites on the internet that provide up to 20 megabytes for storage of your personal web site, but they will force anyone browsing your website to look at the floating advertising box that is on every page. Another problem is that your web address will have about 10-20 subdirectory names, which is too many for people to easily remember.
OK, you are now in a panic to find out if someone out there is using your name. How do you find out? ICANN, or the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, is the official non-profit corporation that keeps the Internet naming system in order. But they let other companies actually do all the work. There are hundreds of companies that will check out the names you want and tell you if they are available; most of them also offer web-hosting services for your newly acquired web name. One of my favorite's is a Canadian Company called Net Nation at , There you can find out if any of the .com, .net, .org, .to, .nu and .cc suffixes are available, just by putting in the name you would like to search for. If the name you want is taken, it will even tell you who currently owns it! Once you have decided on a name, registration cost varies depending on what country you are registering with, and what company is registering your name. I have seen a low of $17.00 per year and a high of $50.00 per year. The site you are registering with might also charge an additional fee.
So go and register your name now! With 20,000 domain names registered every week, you can't afford to wait! Next Month we will talk about some great low-cost companies that will host your web site, and also examine the different ways to create your very own web site!
This article is furnished as a benefit of our membership in the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an international organization to which this user group belongs. The author, Steve Morgan, is a member of the APCUG Board of Advisors. He represents Region 5, which covers AK, ID, MT, OR, WY, ND, SD and WA. Steve is also a member of the APCUG Editorial Committee. He's one busy guy!
Back to the Top
|
