Computer Info – November 1, 2000
This Week’s Program
John Watkins will again be
hosting the meeting. His program will be "How to make a Calendar" using
family photos and just maybe it will solve a few Christmas gift ideas.
Ping and WS-Ping
Ping
Ping is a DOS program that
comes with your computer if you have Windows installed on it. To use it,
click on the START button – then PROGRAMS – then MS-DOS PROMPT (if you
are using Windows ME, you will find the MS-DOS PROMPT located under the
ACCESSORIES folder). This will take you to a black window where your cursor
will be flashing after the words C:\WINDOWS>. Type ping – press
the spacebar once – then type in a web address (no HTTP:// is needed –
try something like ping www.iag.net) and press the ENTER key. A
signal (message) will be sent to see if that address is active – that address
will respond with a similar signal (message) – and a calculation of the
time it took for the signals to be sent and returned will be given.
WS-Ping32
WS-Ping32 is a Windows program
that can be downloaded from John’s ftp server in the out-going folder (
http://www.hdprint.co.uk/ftp/out-going/ping
). The program is in a zipped format – so if you do not have a copy of
WinZip – check John’s out-going folder for it. Here is a web site that
gives a very good tutorial for beginners on how to run WinZip. ( http://autumnweb.com/Roxys/2Tutorials/4WinzipTutorial.html
).
When you have the program installed, you can double-click on the icon and
run the program.
You will have a few choices
in this program. Start by typing a web address (either the groups of numbers
or the name (no http:// is needed). It is a good idea to change the NUM
PKTS to 3. Click on the LOOKUP button This will return the official name
and IP address. Now click on the PING button. This will do the same function
that is listed above for the DOS Ping. Now click on the TRACE button. This
will show you all of the stops (computers) your message or request passes
through on its way to the web site that you are trying to connect to.
These programs can be helpful
tools in determining where the problem might be when you are having problems
connecting to a web site. It might let you know if the problem is with
your provider – one of the hops (or connections) on the way to the site
– or the web site itself that you are trying to connect to.
UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply)
Are you using a UPS? UPS stands
for uninterruptible Power Supply. It is also a surge protector. And it
is really a must for anyone living in Florida where we seem to have
numerous power outages. By using a UPS, you have the time to save any document
or photo that you are working on -- rather than having your computer immediately
reboot and all of your work that has not been saved would be lost. A
UPS has an on/off switch – BUT this switch should be left ON – so that
it can keep the battery fully charged.
Problems Notifying Newsletters When You Change Your
E-Mail Address
If you subscribe to numerous
newsletters, you might be worried about how to notified them if your e-mail
address was to change. If you right click on the letter in Netscape or
Outlook Express, you can add the sender to your address book.
Another way might be to
create a mail folder named NEWSLETTERS in your email program and then save
one copy of each newsletter in that folder. Then if you change your e-mail
address, you can use the contents of that folder to remember which sites
you were receiving newsletters from.
Pentium 4
Intel’s Pentium 4 chips are
scheduled to be released sometime in November. The Pentium 4 chips will
run at up to 1.5 GHZ. Information from Intel’s web site states -- a 400
MHz System Bus -- this advanced, split-transaction, deeply pipelined system
bus delivers three times the bandwidth of the Intel® Pentium® III
processor system bus. It has 128-byte lines with 64-byte accesses (32-byte
lines on the previous generation). This provides a 3.2 gigabyte transfer
speed between the Pentium 4 processor and the memory controller and is
the highest bandwidth desktop system bus available.
Another Virus (June, 2000)
E-mail marked "US President
and FBI secrets" are tainted with a new worm and should be avoided, Computer
Associates officials warned.
"We haven't seen it in large
quantities yet, and we hope it doesn't spread," "We are giving it a pretty
low-risk assessment." stated by Computer Associates officials.
The worm is attached to
mail with a VBS and has the extensions ".GIF.vbs," ".BMP.vbs" or ".JPG.vbs."
Users will see the e-mail
subject line "US President and FBI secrets =PLEASE VISIT => (www.2600.COM).
The mail also includes the message text "VERY JOKE...! SEE PRESIDENT AND
FBI TOP SECRET PICTURES."
It attacks the Microsoft
Outlook address book, similar to the "ILOVEYOU" worm that caused billions
of dollars in damage in May. The new worm can overload e-mail servers and
cause a denial-of-service.
Files with the extensions
.vbs, .vbe, .js, .jse, .css,.wsh, .sct, .hta, .jpg and .jpeg will be replaced
with a copy of the worm if it is opened, and the extension will be appended
with "VBS," CA officials said. MP3 and MP2 files will be marked "hidden",
and a copy of the worm will be placed using the same filename with a VBS
extension, they said.
Users can avoid the worm
by installing antivirus software and not opening e-mail with VBS attachments.
The information is available
at this web site.
http://www.datafellows.com/v-descs/love.htm