PC NEWS DIGEST: October 17, 2000 PC computing, hardware, software, searching, closeouts, news, sites, web design, humor. PLEASE NOTE:
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The SHOP-TALK FORUM for things automotive. 1.0 DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ ON THE WEB"A person who suffers from a heart attack can save himself by coughing vigorously." Myth or Magic? If you said Magic, you guessed wrong. This is an example of a medical myth circulating by email and published on numerous websites. In fact, the American Heart Association does NOT endorse cough CPR. During a heart attack, the organization recommends calling 911, and chewing on an aspirin. And if you're alone in a car (a scenario presented in the myth), the AHA suggests pulling over and flagging down another motorist for help. So what's our point? The same one you've heard before about books, magazines, and newspapers. "You can't believe everything you read." And that goes a hundredfold for the Internet and email. Anyone with time and a little talent can create a website (or a newsletter) or fire off a round of emails. Anyone! There are over two billion pages on the web and millions of emails sent daily. Few were scrutinized by a publisher with a reputation to protect, an editor demanding corroboration, or a fact-checking journalist. What you read in the Times may make you want to throw up, but what you read on the web and in email could kill you! Before you swallow it whole or pass it around, consider the source, consider the sense, and consider corroborating the facts! (You can corroborate our take on cough CPR by reading the American Heart Association's opinion for yourself. You can check out other net hoaxes, rumors, and legends at About.com's Urban Legends and Folklore Forum.) American
Heart Association -- Cough CPR Urban
Legends and Folklore Forum 2.0 RESMAN: THREE-IN-ONE WINDOWS RESOURCE UTILITYHere's a FREE utility that does the work of three and uses almost no resources itself. ResMan, from EnTech Taiwan, integrates a resource monitor, process manager and memory compactor into a single no-frills 124 kb utility that lives in your Windows system tray. ResMan shows you how much of your system resources are in use, permits you to close running programs, including those not listed when you use CTRL+ALT+DEL, and compacts your active memory (RAM) for faster processing. ResMan should be in every tweaker's Startup Group! EnTech
Taiwan 3.0 SEARCHING NEWS ARCHIVES: A FOLLOW-UPIn a recent tip, we mentioned LookSmart's FINDarticles.com, which provides free search engine and directory access to magazines and periodicals. A similar resource, MagPortal.com, not only provides access to magazine articles on the web, but also provides free, customizable listings you can feature on your website. And thanks to several readers who pointed out that many library systems now have web interfaces to their newspaper and magazine databases. All you'll need is your library card and a browser to read and download full text of many articles, both general and specialized, such as medical and financial. FINDarticles.com MagPortal.com 4.0 WANT A WEBSITE OF YOUR OWN? LOOK HERE!For websites that work -- the WebShop at SERVENET.COM Ready to join the Internet explosion? Let our experts build a website for your business, school, club, or group. Call or write today for a quote. Want to see a sample of our work? Check out the site we did recently for Ronald M. Gold, a New York City real estate appraiser. Ronald
M. Gold, ASA The
WebShop at SERVENET.COM 5.0 DRESS UP YOUR PRESENTATIONS WITH PICTURESLetters, reports, newsletters and webpages all look more exciting and professional when illustrated by photos and graphics. CD-ROMs of clip art are readily available at software outlets, but did you know you can easily find attractive and affordable images on the web? Several "mainstream" search engines -- AltaVista and Go.com among them -- will locate images and display thumbnails if you use their advanced search parameters. A handy way to access such engines is through Clip Art Searcher, which gives you access to many engines from a single page. But our favorite way to locate images is Ditto.com, a specialized search engine tapping both the web and news sources. Ditto.com is quick and comprehensive, and stores your search results for free. AltaVista
Search Go.com
(formerly Infoseek) Clip
Art Searcher Ditto.com 6.0 ENDITALL CLOSES WINDOWS PROGRAMS GRACEFULLYSometimes it's necessary to shut down all but the essential programs on your PC to install a new program, run a big game, burn a CD, or run a disk utility like ScanDisk or Defrag. The hard way to do it is to use CTRL+ALT+DEL repeatedly, selecting and ending one program at a time. The easy way is to use EndItAll from PC Magazine's prolific and excellent programmer, Neil J. Rubenking. EndItAll closes all the running processes with a few keystrokes. Of course, it doesn't close Explorer or Systray, Windows' two essential processes. And to forestall crashes, EndItAll warns you if you attempt to close an active process, allowing you to protect it or others of your choosing. PC
Magazine's EndItAll (FREE) 7.0 HOW DOES YOUR WEBSITE GROW? POLL RESULTSHere's an interesting result from a study done in the United Kingdom by the Direct Marketing Association, who polled 393 respondents (including DMA members). When asked how consumers find websites, those polled thought that search engines were a very important source of traffic. But this is a common misconception! Studies of website activity logs show that search engines account for less than 5% of the traffic on most sites. However, those taking part in the poll were on target concerning links from other websites, which account for about 50% of the traffic according to activity logs. With 55% of website traffic actually coming from search engines and other links combined, 45% comes from all other sources. This poll suggests that word of mouth and TV advertising may be important traffic builders. What do you think? Q:
How Do Internet Consumers Find Web Sites?
Source: June 2000 Forrester Research Inc. "UK Internet User Monitor" 8.0 WINKEY: THE WINDOWS KEY ON YOUR KEYBOARDIf you have a newer keyboard, you've probably wondered about thet extra key between the usual Ctrl and Alt keys. Well, it's called the WinKey and here's a full list of its functions: •
WinKey + E = Opens Explorer 9.0 TEACHING WINDOWS MILLENNIUM TO MAKE DOSFor most PC users, DOS is a dim and gladly forgone ghost, one that Microsoft exorcised for good in its new operating system, Windows Millennium Edition (ME). Or did it? The DOS session available within Windows from the MS-DOS Prompt or by running COMMAND.EXE may be more robust than ever in Windows ME, but it still can't handle the occasional game or disk utility that requires a restart in pure DOS mode. Two fixes have emerged. The first, from a chap who identifies himself only as Reines [MFD], is simpler. However, not only can it void your Windows ME warranty, but it can make the operating system fatally unstable. Please ignore this so- called fix! If you must run DOS at startup, the fix by George Aker, Alex Nichol and Ron Badour, three Microsoft trained professionals, will do the job -- if you follow their step-by-step directions to the letter. But be forewarned: These fixes are not for fun, not for the faint-hearted, and not for DOS "Dummies". Reines
[MFD] fix George
Aker, Alex Nichol and Ron Badour's fix
http://www.sgmvp.freewebsites.com/WinME.htm 10.0 HUMOR: STRETCH YOUR VOCABULARY WITH PC LINGOLINK ROT NYETSCAPE SHOVELWARE UNDER MOUSE ARREST THE PC CLINIC AT INSTALLATIONS PLUS+PC PROBLEMS? Help is just a mouse-click away! PC News Digest subscribers get priority treatment at the FREE personal computer clinic at Installations Plus+. The
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