PENTIUM III

The Pentium III has been released. What does this new processor (chip) do for us. It has 70 new instructions. These instructions will give you advanced imaging, amazing 3D, streaming audio and video, and better voice recognition. This chip was designed with the internet in mind.

USB

USB (Universal Serial Bus). It is a new interface for connecting peripherals such as printers and scanners to PCs. Eventually, it will probably replace serial and parallel ports as the primary means for connection of peripherals. An advantage of the USB is the simplicity of setting of your peripheral – plug it into the USB port and the computer will sense that it is there and automatically load the software needed for the device. You can add or remove a peripheral without shutting down the computer (this is known as hotswapping).

RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON

Your mouse has two buttons. Clicking with the left mouse button will make something happen. But the right mouse button will give you a menu with choices of what you might like to do. Use your right mouse button often.

MAKING A NEW PROGRAMS MENU

To make this new Program Menu, right click on the START button and choose OPEN from the menu. This will open up a window entitled START MENU. Right click in this window (on an empty spot) and choose NEW – FOLDER from this menu. Name this folder --- maybe MY FAVORITE PROGRAMS. Double click on this folder to open it. Leave that window open while you right click on the START button and choose OPEN from the menu. Now double-click on the PROGRAMS folder to open it. Size these two windows so that you can see both of them. In the Programs folder, locate a program that you would like listed in your MY FAVORITE PROGRAMS. Right click on this Program and drag it to your MY FAVORITE PROGRAMS folder. When you release the button, you will be given a menu choice --- choose COPY HERE. Repeat this procedure to finish creating your MY FAVORITE PROGRAMS folder.
 
 

MUSIC ON THE INTERNET

Here’s a great place for music files ---- mostly the oldies.

http://www.ahooga.com

CUSTOMIZING SOUND FOR RECEIVING EMAIL

Why not add the Model A horn for notifying you that new messages have arrived. Be sure that your browser is set to check for new messages and that you wish to have a sound file notify you.

Visit the above web site (http://www.ahooga.com) and right click on the player that demonstrates the Model A horn. From the menu, choose SAVE AS. Save your Wave file to your C:\Windows\Media directory. You can name this file whatever you wish --- how about MODEL_A.WAV

Next go to START – SETTINGS – CONTROL PANEL – SOUNDS. Scroll through the list until you see NEW MAIL NOTIFICATION. Left click on this item to select it (it turns blue). In the box below, it will list the name of the Wave file that is currently being used. To have it play the new wave file (the model A horn), click on the BROWSE button. This will allow you to locate the file that you saved. Now wait for email messages to arrive to test it out.

Y2K AND WINDOWS 98

Many think that it should be easy to fix the Y2K problems. Why haven’t they looked into this problem many years ago --- they should have known this was going to happen. If that’s true, then what is wrong with Microsoft – they released Windows 98 and it seems to have a number of problems dealing with the Y2K problem.

Microsoft has released a set of patches to address Year 2000 issues with Windows 98. You can pick up the patches by visiting http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com Year 2000 fixes are included for the system Time/Date Control Panel, Microsoft Wallet, the Java Virtual Machine, the Phone Dialer applet and other minor items. The README file for the update is in Microsoft’s support database as document Q168116 at http://support.microsoft.com

SYSTEM INFORMATION

There are many helpful utility that can be found in the System Information program. To find these programs, go to START – PROGRAMS – ACCESSORIES – SYSTEM TOOLS – SYSTEM INFORMATION. From System Information, choose the TOOLS menu. Here you will find

(1) System File Checker

With this utility, you can extract one file from your Windows 98 cabinets.

(2) Registry Checker

This utility checks your registry for any corruption and allows you to create another backup

Here you can view and edit your CONFIG.SYS – AUTOEXEC.BAT – WIN.INI – SYSTEM.INI

And it also lists what is running on StartUp.

(4) Version Conflict Manager

This will tell you if there were any files that had a more recent version number or was in a

After upgrading to Windows 98, the Power Management settings I created seem to be ignored. Even when I set the sleep choice to NEVER, suspension still occurs. How do I disable the Power Management feature?

There are at least two places you can control the power-down/sleep (power management). The software controls are found in your CONTROL PANEL – POWER MANAGEMENT. But, the hardware control which is found in your BIOS (CMOS setup) can overrule these settings. To activate the CMOS setup, watch for a message when your computer starts up, it will briefly flash a message saying something such as "Press the <DEL> key to enter setup." Once in there, you’ll probably find some screen settings similar to what Windows 98 tries to use, including whether, and when, to put the computer, monitor, and hard drive into suspended low power modes. Disable those settings. CAUTION: Don’t mess with anything else in CMOS unless you’re absolutely sure you know what you’re doing. If you incorrectly adjust some settings there you can make your computer unreliable or completely disable it to the point you can’t even get back into CMOS to fix the problems.

ENCARTA 99 (ENCYCLOPEDIA)

Encarta 99 is available at Best Buy through March 6, 1999 for $25.00 and you get a $25.00 rebate offer --- which makes the cost to you of FREE.