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Volume:001 Issue:001 September 8, 1998 |
| Welcome to the premier issue of Knat's Knews,
written by Ken (KnatTheRat) Natco . Most of you
already know how crazy I am--about computers that is--and
that's why I've initiated this newsletter.
Aladdin Expander! The only unzipper you'll ever need. Every net surfer must have a way to open *.zip and other strange files. Thought of by many to be mainly a Mac utility, it's my number one choice for quickly expanding archives nicely and neatly into their own directories. The first time you run it, you are given the opportunity to associate various archive formats. Thereafter, just click on your downloaded *.zip files and voilą! Cost: freeware. Available from Aladdin Systems, Inc. - Aladdin Expander. Spam Free Email is possible if you take a few sensible precautions. Unless you're already getting those unwanted sales pitches for everything from cable TV descrambler plans to pheromones, it may not be too late to protect the sanctity of your email box. If you've already fallen victim to the spammers, consider getting a new email address (and you might want to anyway after reading the feature article in this issue). Here are a few suggestions. 1. Only give out your email adress to people you trust and businesses who won't sell your address indiscriminately. 2. Never post your primary address in a Usenet Newsgroup. Use a web based email address instead. Same thing goes for your web site. 3. NEVER participate in an email chain letter. I can't think of a better way for spammers to gather vast email lists of easy marks. 4. Don't use your AOL mail account. During my limited time with AOL, I saw so much junk filling my AOL mailbox, I think spammers just sent mail out addressed: [email protected]. 5. Complain to your congressman. NO! DON'T! JUST KIDDING. If politicians ever pass legislation on spam, I'm sure of one thing--political spam will clog the whole internet. WWWebster's? If you're a wordsmith and would
rather not drag out all those heavy dictionaries and
thesauri to finetune your writing, here are some top-notch
resources: Merriam-Webster
Online, Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, dictionary.com, The Wordsmyth English Dictionary-Thesaurus, The DICT Development Group, Strunks Elements of Style(A must
read), and Bartlett's Quotations.
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"I can't get Knat's Knews in HTML because I have AOL"..... While solving this problem I discovered: What will you need? Five things:
How do you get them? By signing up with two free services iName and Geocities, you'll get everything you need. iName will give you a free email address and also provide an outgoing (smtp) mail server. And, key to our perfect setup, they will forward your iName mail to another email address. With membership in Geocities, you get several megabytes of web space, a geocities email address and a pop3 mailbox. Now if you have iName forward mail to your Geocities address, you're ready to... Set up your email program: Use your iName address as the email address, for example let's say it's "[email protected]." The iName mail server, "mail.iname.com," goes in the outgoing (smtp) mail server field. The incoming (pop3) mail server will be "mail.geocities.com." For userid (or pop3 username) it is important that you enter your Geocities username, the part of your email that comes before "@geocities.com." Your email password will be your Geocities password. Different programs handle the password different ways. Some have a place in the setup for it, some prompt you for it when you receive mail. Either way, be sure to keep all of your passwords and usernames written in a secure location. Your iName userid and password and Geocities email address are not used by your mail program. Wrap Up. You can find other free mail servers for your email setup (I just set one up using Net@ddress's pop3 mailbox), but iName and Geocities are both great sevices, so if you want reliable, free internet email, what are you waiting for? To send feedback or request to unsuscribe from Knat's Knews, click here. |
| CRASH CLINIC |
The Win95 Startup Group, c:\windows\programs\startup contains shortcuts to programs that are started automatically when Win95 starts. Create a folder to move some of these shortcuts into it, especially ones you don't think you need to run. You can always move them back later if you change your mind.
The Registry can also launch programs at startup. Before you take a look inside the registry, be sure you have backup copies of your user.dat and system.dat files and know how to restore them (more on this in a future column). Open the registry (Start Menu, Run, regedit) and navigate through its Explorer-like interface to [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows \CurrentVersion\Run]. Any programs here will also be auto-started by Windows as will any that are in the neighboring keys, RunOnce, RunOnceEx, RunServices, and RunServicesOnce. If you decide that you don't want some of these programs to be running, it's a good idea to first export the registry key that starts them as a *.reg file. Then you can delete the entry that calls a program, knowing you can easily restore the key to its original state later, should you need to.
*.ini files can also start programs to add to your system's state of chaos. Look in c:\windows\win.ini for any lines that begin "run=." If you find anything that you don't think needs to be running, add the word "REM" before the line that starts it. Other programs may start things with their own *.ini files. You may need to open such a program's settings and find a check box that sets your preference to run the program when Windows starts and uncheck it.
Close programs and windows when you're done with them. While Windows will let you run a lot of programs at once, the more things you leave open, the more of a drain there will be on your system resources and the more unstable it will become.
Remember, if you leave a lot of windows open, a few bugs are apt to fly in.
©1998 Ken Natco