PETE'S SOMETIME NEWSLETTER
June 26, 2000

No matter where you go, there you are

 

 

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If you dig screensavers and/or wallpaper, check out a free program called "Webshots" at Webshots.com. It seems to be extremely popular, as there have been over 16 million downloads, and 97% of the 22,000+ people who have submitted "ratings" on it have really liked it. Webshots can be used as a screen saver only, or wallpaper displayer only, or for both. It can change your wallpaper on a schedule you define, using your choice of thousands of photographs.

 

 

After choosing your first picture set (I chose the fly fishing sampler) and downloading the program, go to the Sep. 22, 1999 Daily Photo selection and click on the left hand picture to add it to the program. It's gorgeous. Makes a wonderful screen saver, but lousy wallpaper (too bright; can't find icons.)

 

Requirements:

Registration to download additional pictures: Name, E-mail, ZIP code.

PC: Windows 95 or better; Internet Explorer or Netscape; Display Properties, Settings, Colors = 16 bit minimum.

MAC: OS 8 or better; above browsers preferred; above color setting.

 

 

A professional English marine artist has two free screensavers displaying some of his works. Go to The John Groves Studio and click on "Screen Saver". I'm very partial to the Version 3 collection. The Version 2 collection is good also, but the pictures are a bit too dark for my tastes.

 

Special Note to FC:  Be the envy of your boss. Put this on your computer at work.

 

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Why does my e-mail sometimes display have a little square instead of a character?

 

Those squares are used when your e-mail program or browser cannot interpret the intended character. Usually these will occur where double-quote and single-quote marks would be. I believe the problem stems from people using word processors to compose mail (and Web pages) and use the word processor's special characters for "proper" opening and closing quotes and apostrophes instead of the generic keyboard characters.

 

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The Resource Meter is a handy little gadget which sits in your System Tray and displays a bar graph showing available System Resources. If the bar falls below 25 percent, it means you are in immanent danger of having Windows lock up and/or crash and it's time to close some programs or reboot.

 

"Resources" are not related to the amount of RAM in your computer. As far as I can figure, "resources" are allocated from a fixed size block of memory. Each program requires some of this reserved area, and the amount required depends on each individual program. When a program is exited, it should return its "resources" to the system. But some programs don't return all of what they took. When that happens, it's called a Memory Leak, because that still allocated amount of memory is unavailable for use by any other program, so, in affect, it's gone, disappeared, vamoosed, leaked away.

 

You can use the Resource Meter to look for those memory leaking programs. Using the Resource Meter tells you how to do it. I found a program which grabbed 15-16 percent of the resource block when it started up, and failed to give back 5-6 percent when it exited. The program was "Backweb". It was not a must-have for me, and I deleted it from my computer. My Windows crashes have been significantly fewer ever since. Hard to believe one badly behaved program can make that much difference, but it did for me.

 

Even some of Microsoft's own programs are leakers. All versions of Internet Explorer through 5.0 leaked. They seem to have finally plugged the last holes with version 5.01.

 

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Windows Me has been finalized and is being shipped to computer makers now. Expect to see it on new machines later this year. Details and a summary of "what's new" at PC World.com.

 

Getting to the bottom line if you're keeping your present computer: Windows Me requires a minimum 150MHz CPU and 32MB RAM (meaning it will work with those specs, but you won't like it), and will set you back $109. Upgrading from Win 95 to 98 cost $98 last time I checked. Will it come down in price now? Ha! When has Microsoft ever lowered a price?

 

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IRC/Stages.worm is spreading rapidly. It's received via an e-mail attachment called LIFE_STAGES.TXT.SHS *but* the .shs extension will probably not be shown, making you think it's just a plain old text file. The e-mail Subject will vary, but it and the message body will indicate the attachment is a joke. If you execute it, it actually will display a joke. While you're reading it, the virus is doing it's dirty work in the background.

 

Go to http://vil.mcafee.com/dispVirus.asp?virus_k=98668&&cid=1585 to read about this virus, and more importantly, to find out how to modify your Windows Registry so that .shs extensions are always displayed.

 Misc.

 

Mediterranean Falls While Oceans Rise. How is that possible?

 

New Calculations Extend Life Expectancy in US by 2.5 years by 1050. That translates to Social Security and Medicare being in even deeper trouble that they are now, because there will be even more people drawing out of those plans but no additional workers paying into them (unless the US birth rate takes an immediate upward jump, and the economy can absorb them.)

 

Is Sonar Killing Whales? Beached whales found to have ear hemorrhages.

 

Salty Space Water. 4.57 billion year old salt found in two meteorites. In the salt are water droplets. Space.com has more details and pictures (click them to enlarge.)

 

IBM Has a 75 Gigabyte Disk Drive for desktop PC's (just in case you're running out of disk space.) Price not available.

 

Same Song, Second Verse. AOL again says they will work with other Instant Messaging producers to develop a "secure, standard protocol" which will allow all IM products to talk with each other. Do they mean it this time? Or is it more vapor hype to get the Government off their back?

 

I Haven't Seen This Before. HumanClick is a Free program which notifies you when someone visits your Web page(s), and enables either of you to initiate a chat. What a way to add some humanness to the Internet. Ever looked in vain on a site for something you know is there, somewhere, because you saw it last month? Don't you wish you could push a button to ask someone where to find it? Or wouldn't it be nice for someone to notice you appear to be looking all over the place for something specific, and have a little chat window suddenly pop up asking "May I help you?" Wow! A dot.com with a human clerk.   What's the biggest deal with this program? It run's on your computer, not on the Web site, and the visitor doesn't have to have it on his computer (unlike a regular instant messaging program.)

 

Pseudo TV, an Internet-only TV station, will broadcast 24 hours a day from the Republican and Democratic Conventions (7/31-8/3 and 8/14-17). They promise their broadcasts will *not* be CNN and CSPAN clones. Click on the Pseudopolitics link to tune in.

 

Gigantic Solar Flare in Astronomy Picture of the Day for 6/8/2000. Full sun view with hugh spouting flare just north of center. Click on picture to enlarge somewhat.

 

Software Thieves claim "We just didn't have to play by the rules. We were above that."