The August guest speaker was Bryan Marquis from Orion Group Software Engineers. Bryan explained about eCommerce (Electronic Commerce). Bryan is also an EPCUG member and I want to thank him in advance for sharing information about what he and his company does.

eCommerce is defined as any transaction between buyers and sellers through electronic media. It’s not new, it’s been around for more than 20 years but it has grown tremendously in the last year or so.

Why do eCommerce? To make money — because the opportunity is a possibility now; and to save money — by integrating with suppliers and distribution chains which allows companies to reduce costs and become more profitable. 1998 is the year eCommerce crossed over from a real possibility, to a real opportunity. Why? There are more than 100 million current online users with Internet traffic and this number will swell to over 147 million this year (larger than Japan’s population) and 81% of Internet users plan to shop online in the next year. The bottom line is that there has been an upward spiral for eCommerce. More consumers are confident about using their credit cards to pay for online purchases. And there is a steady increase in the use of eCommerce with business supply chains.

The online selling of products between businesses decreases overhead costs allowing information such as stock levels and order status to be readily at hand. 24/7 (24 hours times 7 days a week) means your customer can purchase anytime at their convenience. This can create a new sales channel and extend sales beyond the in-person sales force. Companies that sell on the Internet find that they attract new customers, and lower their sales and marketing costs, with little or no additional costs.

There are five pieces required for successful Electronic Commerce: Secure Server, Internet Connectivity, Online Catalog, Shopping Cart, and Payment Processing. There are three methods of obtaining a Secure Server: 1) Use your ISP or a web hosting provider, 2) place your server at the ISP to get a faster connection to the Internet, or 3) setup your own secure server (usually requires costly high-speed Internet connections). The types of connections to the Internet are a dial-up modem, ISDN or 56K, T1 & up, or a DSL (depending on how much money you want to spend).

An Online Catalog is an application that allows your products to be displayed on the Internet. Be certain that the online catalog vendor meets the requirements of your product line. If you are selling clothes, will they need to specify size, color, quantity, etc., and will the software allow that. A Shopping Cart is where the information for a visitor’s order is stored and is provided with most online catalog software.

Finally, Payment Processing enables the consumer to pay for the products from your site. To accept credit cards over the Net requires a secure server and a merchant account with a bank that allows you to process credit cards. To process and verify credit cards online your shopping cart must support a credit card processing vendor such as CyberCash, ICVerify, OpenMarket, etc. and you must establish an account with one of these processing vendors.

Some Products which enable you to begin Electronic Commerce include: Actinic Catalog, Drumbeat eStore, IBM Net.Commerce, ICat ONline, Intershop 4, Mercantec Softcart, Microsoft Site Server Commerce Edition, OpenMarket Shopsite, Yahoo Store (see web addresses in URL article). Prices for these products start at FREE and go up, up, up.

Make a plan; consider the costs; decide what your goals are; take it a step at a time; and GET STARTED!

From the size of the crowd that night, there is a huge interest in eCommerce and its effect on the way we do personal and company business. I found the presentation very helpful and I hope you did too. If you have other questions about eCommerce I’m sure Bryan will be glad to answer them.

Due to a conflict in scheduling the RedHat Linux program we expected to host in September has been moved to a date not yet determined. GOOD NEWS! Our esteemed President, Jon Slough, has agreed to give us another valuable training session. HARD DRIVE 102 will continue where 101 left off. Jon gave those who attended that meeting lots of good information on the basics of hard drive setup and maintenance. This time we will learn about multi-drives, partitions and more. When I made the announcement at our last meeting, I was delighted to see the number of hands raised when I asked if another Hard Drive meeting would be appreciated. I am certainly one of those who will gain much needed help in that area.

As you know, Jon has been working very hard to spread the good word about EPCUG. Wouldn’t it be great if our attendance to the September meeting exceeded the numbers generated by Microsoft? You can help you know. Simply come to the meeting and bring an interested friend.

As I work on my computer I can’t help but think of the changes that have taken place during my lifetime (especially in the lives of women) since technology - any kind of technology - came along. I remember when I was very young my mother washed clothes using a scrubbing board and a wringer that was turned by hand (that was my job). What a big day it was when we got our first washing machine - what a wondrous laborsaving device - new technology! And I remember when we got our first crystal radio. My mother often sat up until three in the morning with headphones listening to KDKA Pittsburgh - it was the most powerful station on the air. And then what a miracle it was when we got our first regular radio! Advanced technology!!!

And then there were typewriters - type a little, throw the carriage, type some more, throw the carriage twice when you wanted a paragraph - make a mistake and try to correct it so it didn’t show too much. In high school in the ’20s I learned there was something called a ditto machine to make copies. I also learned that when you used it you’d probably get blue ink all over your hands. A better way - at least I thought it was better - was to use a mimeograph. We had to type the original material on a special blue-filmed paper. There was correction fluid to fix any mistakes. Then we’d ink up the drum of the mimeograph (more ink on your hands), fasten the blue copy onto the drum and turn the handle to crank out whatever number of copies were needed. Ah, those were the days - we really had laborsaving devices.

When I went to work at Ryerson Steel Company in 1934, we had a big room for the largest computer - and it had to be kept at a certain temperature. I remember the punch cards going through at what seemed like a hundred miles a minute - and of course there was always the “do not spindle, fold or mutilate” sign on the cards. I didn’t have to take shorthand any more - there were Dictaphones for our transcription work - big advancement. It was an unbelievable time for the fast processing of information and most of this work was done by women - a lot of men didn’t even know how to type and besides that was “women’s work.” But it presented an opportunity for more and more women to enter the business world.

Then came World War II and everyone’s life changed. It didn’t make any difference what the job was - whoever was available did it. We all learned to do things we never thought possible.

After the war came a big boom period and things began to happen - television!!! Who could ever imagine that we could get a picture through the air? And then later we even got color reception! Technology was advancing so fast we couldn’t believe it.

And then came computers and copy machines! Wow! Right on the heels of that were fax machines and it seemed almost every month we’d hear of something new - scanners, Internet, computer programs that could handle any task - it would be difficult to list them all. But what a tremendous period we have gone through with technology and what a boon it has been to give more and more women an opportunity to advance in the business world.

But here is an interesting observation. There is a book by Tom Standage called The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century’s On-Line Pioneers. He reminds us that, as revolutionary as the Internet may seem, it has all happened before! He says the advent of telegraphic communication in the mid 19th century did more to change society than the development of today’s Internet. And he certainly could be right when you think back to how things were then.

But how about technology that has really changed the lives of women? I think that today’s advancements have changed women’s lives more than it did back then. Now there are many, many more women in the business world - some of it caused by economic necessity but also because technology offered them the chance to be on an equal footing. And how about women in their 60s, 70s, 80s and even 90s who have computers and go on-line to keep abreast of events? A lot of us never had the chance to be involved with this new technology in the business world - either because it was before computers or we were busy raising families. Today more and more women are saying “I can’t let this Age of Technology pass me by - I want to get involved!” Nowhere is this more in evidence than in our own Computer Club! Yes, lives of women have really changed and how wonderful it is!

Dear Paul: This might be a great month for you, as publisher, to take a long vacation. You see, I plan to write about the Linux operating system, and not everything I have to say is going to be upbeat and rosy. And we both know how testy the Linux community is about any perceived slight. If we write anything bad about Linux, the mailbags start overflowing, and this column will likely start a flash flood of incoming mail.

Linux is, as you know, yet another derivative of the venerable yoo-nix operating system. We all remember yoo-nix. This was the operating system that was going to save the world. Just ask any yoo-nix supporter and he’ll tell you that yoo-nix can do it all. It is easy to use, it is real-time, it is popular, it handles every application imaginable.

Yeah, right!

Of course, the yoo-nix community has become its own worst enemy by repeatedly fracturing the operating system. There is basic AT&T yoo-nix. There is the Berkeley version, there is Zenix, there are a handful of others and now there is Linux. The problem with this fracturing is that, while yoo-nix code is supposed to be transportable across platforms, different versions means you have to compile applications for each version.

Paul, Linux has something that no other version of yoo-nix has ever had, namely a cute little cartoon figure that we should try to run with this column. Maybe the Linux community will be so happy seeing their little mascot that the column won’t generate as much mail.

Linux, as yoo-nix derivatives go, is the best of the lot. Red Hat is certainly to be commended for its groundbreaking efforts at producing a moderately user-friendly distribution. I think we even use the Red Hat distribution on the Linux server we run here at the Computer Bits publishing empire.

But Paul, here is where the Linux advocates are going to go insane. Linux is not even close to being ready to be a mainstream desktop operating system. The very nature of yoo-nix is antithetical to the desktop. Linux has done a commendable job of attracting the rabidly anti-Microsoft crowd, but their crowing that Linux is going to replace Windows is wishful thinking that really needs a harsh dose of reality. Neither Linux nor yoo-nix is ever going to be a mainstream desktop operating system. Neither will ever replace Windows as the desktop operating system of choice. Only Bill Gates can tear down the empire that he has built on the desktop.

But, they will counter, “we have a Linux version of something like Microsoft’s Office, and other developers are promising applications.” Yes, peripheral manufacturers are developing device drivers, and there may even be an application or two, but Linux and its universe of applications is still a long, long way from “being ready for prime time.”

The Linux advocates who go running around claiming that Linux is a see-all, do-all, Bill Gates killing operating system are doing themselves and their pet operating system a great disservice. Linux has some great strengths, and its advocates would do well to promote those strengths. It is great for server applications; in some ways, it may even be better than NT. This is what the Linux community should be crowing about, and promoting, and demonstrating. What they are doing now is akin to the manufacturers of the Hyundai comparing its product to the Mercedes Benz.

Further, Linux is about to be co-opted by the major computer manufacturers. They are all waiting in line to announce their support for this operating system. Why not; promises are free, and these are generally the same folks who pledged their undying love for Yoo-nix System 5.

Rabid support of an operating system is fine. Just ask the fans of Apple. But until that rabid support translates into real market share, real competition within that market share, an opportunity for profit, and some realistic market strategies, then like Apple of the early 1990s, the Linux community is not going to see much real success.

And their insane claims that Linux is the perfect desktop solution to replace Windows is only going to alienate the very people who will be looking for an operating system alternative when Bill Gates and Company eventually shoots itself in the foot.

So, Paul, let me know when you want my column on Linux to run, and see if you can be in Hawaii the week it hits the streets.

(Computer Bits Associate editor’s note: Mr. Harwood was unavailable to respond to this column. Instead of coffee rings, there are mysterious oily marks smelling of coconut oil on his papers, and twenty or thirty of the Computer Bits staffers report that he was seen flattening and cobbling together odd bits of hardware housing into a surfboard-like shape. The petty cash fund, which formerly contained the hefty amount of $27.54 and several 32 cent stamps, now has only some dusty rubber bands and a few fast-food monopoly pieces. But we assume he will be back shortly . . . )

Go to the EPCUG home page and click on the e-mail list link, or go directly to the signup page at:

Fill out the form and then FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS on the ThankYou page which you will be sent to after you submit the form.

The EPCUG E-Mail List is set up to aid EPCUG members in helping each other, and for occasional messages from the Board of Directors. A place to ask questions, share news, and discuss other computer related topics.

If you have JUNO or the web page does not work for you (some older versions of AOL don’t). Send an email directly to the list manager at:

If you would like to know more about Freecell and the people (nuts) that play it, here are two places you can learn more about Freecell than you probably want to know but here they are:

1. http://www.freecell.org
2. http://users.aol.com/wgreview/freecell.html

If you are a beginner, here are some hints on strategy.

1. Don’t dive into posting aces immediately.
2. Concentrate on all moves that get the columns in order. (This will usually expose aces unexpectedly).
3. Try to empty one column as soon as possible. The more the better.
4. Never, unless absolutely necessary, leave less than two open spaces (free cells plus empty columns) unless you can see your way out of it.
5. As in Chess, think ahead several moves before making a play.

If you want to relax and have fun, try these easy ones: 164, 892 1012, 1922, 2514, 2985, 5295, 8842, 13302, 13809, 14042, 19034, 23098, 29949, 30584, 31316.

If you’re a masochist, make yourself happy (miserable) with these games:

169, 1025, 11114, 14965, 24063, 30000, 31465 which are all solvable but not without some effort and mental pain.

Don’t waste your time with 11982, since it is impossible.

Some freecell aficionados use only three free cells and others try to do it with only two, one or no free cells.

Some players think that only 32,000 games are possible. This is not true! There are millions of arrangements. Only 32,000 of them have been documented and stored in Freecell for instant retrieval and their solutions published. If you have one you can’t solve, go to the URL’s listed above and you can find out how to get the solution.

Well, the August meeting was my first as President and several people told me I talked too much. Well, I was a little nervous being in charge for the first time, and I even made Russ hook up the projector without me.

I am looking forward to next year, even if two of our regular board members will not be with us next year. Don Hershberger, Paul Frushour, and Amir Sanjari are not returning as board members, and their contributions will be missed. Paul has been on the board longer than I have and I believe has held almost every position on the board at one time or another.

It was almost but not quite like pulling teeth to get all the positions filled for next year’s board. I am sure that you will read Sherry’s list of the slate of offices elsewhere in the newsletter. We will take nominations from the floor before the September election. So, if you have a burning desire to be a board member, put your name in for the office of your choice.

It should be an interesting year, even if we do not count the Y2K rollover. Russ asked the group for things you wanted to have presented, and I think in one form or another we will get all of them presented in the next few months.

I do have one duty that I feel is important to fulfill in this newsletter. That duty is to thank all the current board members for the time and effort that they have put into EPCUG. I know that everyone sees Russ, Sherry, and myself at the meetings, but there are many others on and off the board that help every month and do not get the recognition as they should.

For some of you, what I’m going to tell you won’t be any surprise. But for others it will be welcoming news. What I’m talking about is free computer stuff. Or at least, almost free.

Over the last 18 months, I’ve received over $150 worth of computer items from local stores here in El Paso for little or no cost. I remember years ago when I used to buy a box of 10 reams of printer paper for around $20. That was good deal and the box would last a long time for my normal home usage. Now, I get my paper for free (or close to it) by using the “FREE with Rebate” ads in the newspaper or in the stores.

How’s it work? It’s simple. When you see an item marked as “FREE with Rebate” simply purchase the item and get the rebate coupon either from the cash register clerk or from the coupon rack in many stores. Fill in the coupon, attach the receipt, and wait anywhere from 6-10 weeks for a check to be sent to your home. That’s it. All it costs is a postage stamp and the sales tax.

How can these companies do it for what appears to be free? There are a couple of reasons. One, they use the same principle that the grocery stores use to get you into their stores. It’s called a “loss-leader”. In other words, they will knowingly take a “loss” on one item in the hope that when you come in you will buy something else that they can make money on. How many times have you or someone else in your family gone to a certain grocery store to get that free dozen of eggs and then also bought some milk, cereal, lunchmeat, etc? The computer stores are hoping you’ll do the same thing and buy some other computer supplies at regular price. Everybody wins.

Another reason you can get these cheap is that you may be buying an “end-of-the-version” edition. The publishers of the software, for instance, may be getting ready to introduce their new version. By offering the current version for free or very cheap, they are hoping they can get you interested in their product and perhaps you will buy the upgrade or new version when it becomes available. Almost all this year, you can get Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 99 for free. The store will generally offer a small instant rebate, then Microsoft offers a $25 rebate right on every box. When it’s all said and done, it’s a free encyclopedia. If you like what you got and want more, you can then purchase Encarta Deluxe 99 or Encarta Reference Suite 99 with even more articles, photos, videos, maps, etc.

In case you’ve missed them, here are some of the things you could have gotten free or very cheap “with rebate” in the last month or so: mouse, joystick, Microsoft Encarta 99, 1999 IBM World Book encyclopedia, 32MB of RAM, ergonomic wrist pad, surge protector, CD and Zip cartridge cases, clipart, graphics software, family tree software, and the infamous package of floppy disks in quantities from 10 to 150. About four months ago I even saw a steering wheel, gear shift and footpedal set for games for $60 with a $60 rebate. Every week there is something different.

Where do you find these deals? Here in El Paso, the best stores for these deals are, in order, CompUSA, OfficeMax and Best Buy. I check out the advertisements in the Sunday paper to see who has what. In addition, I have noticed that CompUSA will also have other free or extensive rebates that are not advertised in the paper. Generally, after our club meetings on Saturday, I will browse the aisles at CompUSA to see what kind of bargains I can find that are not advertised.

I know some of you don’t like to take the time to fill out the rebate forms, or maybe had some bad experiences where you did not get your rebate money back as promised. I have had good luck in this area. About three years ago I bought some printing paper at Computer City Superstore and never received the rebate in the mail after about three months. I called the store and they told me to come by and they would honor the rebate directly from the store. They did and I was happy. Also, many of the rebate offers have an 800 number to call if you have not received your money.

This is a great idea because it doesn’t make you feel like you’re stranded with nobody to talk to. Just remember one thing: Always make a copy of everything you send in for future reference. I maintain a simple log sheet with the name of the product rebate, the company offering it, the original price, rebate price, date mailed, date due and finally the date I received the check. I keep this in a folder along with the copies of the original coupon and receipts.

I think that rebates are a win-win situation for all parties involved. I win because I get something at little or no cost, and the store and product manufacturer win because they got me exposed to their product and possibly won me over as a customer. Check out next Sunday’s paper and maybe you’ll find a nice piece of software that you can try out for FREE. Good Luck!! :

If you are like me? You’ve got old CD’s taking over your computer space. Demos even fall out of the Sunday Newspapers. Didn’t know what to do with them.

I was looking at some souvenir coasters my wife picked up on a recent vacation. There was the answer, make novelty coasters from the old CD’s.

The local Arts and Craft store has cork in 12 x 24 inch sheets, 1/16 inch thickness for $2.79. By carefully laying out a cutting pattern you can get ten coasters from one sheet. Stagger the pattern.

I used a grade school compass set at 2 ½ inch radius (5 inch circle) and a ball point pen rather than a pencil. The cork cuts easily with common household scissors. This will give you about 1/4 inch extra on each coaster. We will trim later.

I used a “hot glue gun” to attach the cork to the CD. I made mine with the title side up. That’s where all the nice art work is. A hot glue gun can inflict painful and serious burns. Read and follow the manufacturer’s directions carefully.

I placed a 1 inch bead of hot glue about 1/4 inch from the edge of the CD and then placed the CD on top of the cork disk. The extra cork gives you room to work with and you do not have to be precise in your placement. Set the CD and cork assembly aside to cool. I sandwiched mine between sheets of wax paper and weighted them with a can of beans.

After the assembly has cooled, place it on your work area, CD down. Lift and roll the cork back, exposing as much of the CD as possible. Place a bead of hot glue about 1/4 inch from the exposed edge of the CD. Roll the cork back over the CD and smooth any lumps that may result from an uneven bead. The cork is an insulator and will protect your hands and fingers. Again place the assembly between the sheets of wax paper to cool under a weight.

After they have cooled, use a pair of scissors to trim the cork, using the CD as a guide. Some glue may have oozed out. It cuts easily. Next sand the edge of the cork (medium grit sandpaper) to match the edge of the CD. Use finer grits of sandpaper until you are satisfied, and at the same time round the bottom edge of the cork.

You probably will have some glue “threads” and melted wax (from the wax paper) on the front of the CD. Lighter fluid or a similar solvent will clean the CD.

PS: AOL is not the only company sending out demo CD’s.

I hope I did not “reinvent the wheel!”

This is a continuation of the Y2K and the Family series, and part of this series must include a section about the communities where your family lives. If you make all the necessary preparations for your family, but your community is not ready, how will that affect you?

For those of you who live in South Bend, Mayor Stephen Lueche has for almost one year had a task force looking at the Y2K issue. I was somewhat surprised to find that many of the South Bend City departments have been actively making plans for Y2K. While I have not heard all of their plans, there is at least a shell of a plan to deal with some of the possible emergencies that can be caused by Y2K.

South Bend, and to some extent Saint Joseph County, are planning to get Y2K information to the citizens, especially senior citizens, via pamphlets delivered by Meals-on-Wheels. They also plan to have newspaper articles and places to hand out information. You can visit South Bend’s Y2K page at http://www.ci.south-bend.in.us/sby2k/default.htm for more information.

Right now, there is no plan for a real Y2K drill in South Bend. Saint Joseph County Department of Emergency Management may have a tabletop drill in the next months if there is time to get one ready.

Now compare this to another city in Elkhart County. I will not directly name the city in question as I do live in Elkhart County, and the company I work for does business in that county. I have called the mayor’s office of that city three times, and I have never been able to talk to that mayor directly. Instead, I have been told by the Mayor’s secretary that, “The City Engineer assures us that all the computer hardware and systems purchased in the last five years are Y2K ready.”

Now think about that statement for a second. In 1994, only a handful of people were even thinking about Y2K and no computer companies that I know of, were making computers that were Y2K ready with the possible exception of Apple. How did this city in Elkhart County get the current (1999) Y2K specifications in 1994 to make sure that the hardware they purchased was really Y2K ready?

I have heard statements like this from several other local governmental officials and that confirms my opinion that most of the local governmental agencies still have not made complete contingency plans in case the worst happens. Plans for a Y2K drill should have been made months ago and the drills should be already scheduled for this fall. At this time, no drills have been announced for any city in Elkhart County, or for Elkhart County Departments themselves.

Now compare this to the actions taken by the city of Lubbock, TX or Monroe County here in Indiana.

Lubbock, TX Mayor Windy Sitton, asked four years ago to have a full Y2K drill, not a tabletop exercise, but a full drill. On September 30, 1998, the city of Lubbock held a major Y2K readiness drill, things went right as planned, and it shook people off their complacent seats. The drill had no one-big problem to face, just a much larger number of small problems than usual. This drill was written as a mid-case scenario, not a worst-case scenario.

Right off the bat, the primary 911 was shut down as the city had just found that it was not Y2K compliant. The 911 operators were forced to go back to the backup systems for the rest of the drill. There were staged power outages, a riot, a Y2K party in the Civic Center that lost all power and things got out of control, and a flood of other small emergencies. The drill found several major problems that have since been fixed, or other contingency plans made for even a worst case scenario.

Two major things that came out of the drill were first, communications were the first casualty of the drill. The second was the air conditioning in the Emergency Operations Center (EOC). (For once, the room was full of all the people who would be there in a real emergency, and the room got too warm for several computer systems, which failed.) People were asked to think on their feet, as they had not been briefed on what all was to happen so they could not plan. As you can expect, some people did better than others. You can information about the drill at http://y2k.ci.lubbock.tx.us/ the City of Lubbock home page for Y2K.

Monroe County here in Indiana has also been active in helping to get families ready for the Y2K rollover. They have put a large group of county governmental, civic, and voluntary groups to help with the program. The idea is to allow the county to focus on those who are “truly needy” in case of a major Y2K problem and not those who just did not know what to do. You can read the article on this at http://www.indepen.com/1999/jul2299/columns/y2k.html where mayors of several large Indiana cities said that they feel there will be problems and that they need to set up contingency plans.

The natural next question is how is the State Government doing. On August 29, 1999, I went to the Official Indiana Y2K page at http://www.state.in.us/dpoc/y2k/y2khome.htm and read the information. The state claims that by the time you are reading this article it will be Y2K ready. If you believe that, then you need to go to the page describing the progress of the project at http://www.state.in.us/dpoc/y2k/work_july99.htm. This page on the official State of Indiana Y2K page shows that in July of this year only 32% of the state’s main frame computers have the required implementation completed. That means that in less than 60 days they have completed 78% of a project that has taken 19 months to get to 32% completion.

Some Y2K experts have criticized the state of Indiana, as they are taking certifications from manufacturers that their systems are Y2K ready as proof that the hardware is Y2K ready. The State of Florida tested systems after they had received vendor certifications and found half either false or only partly correct. A ‘partly correct’ is when only part of a system works.

Locally, there is one small ray of hope. Recently, several sources have said that if there are railroad tracks in town, you may be able to get the railroad to position locomotives on sidings near critical buildings like hospitals, a city hall, or a warming shelter. You can take AC power from the newer locomotives to power the buildings. Think this does not work? In the ice storm last year in Quebec, the Montreal City Hall was powered by two Canadian Northern (CN) locomotives.

I hope with this article that you see that you do need to do some planning for yourself and your family. If you are waiting for the local and state government to come to your aid, it could be a very long wait.

What goes better with computing than pizza? Computer users, for ages, have subsisted on carry-out or delivery pizza. Many operating systems were probably developed over a bed of pizza crust. College students can go through a half dozen or more pizzas in a week as they stay up long nights working out a C++ problem. So, since pizza is vitally important to the diet of computer users, I decided to go straight to the source on the Internet.

But first, people have asked me, “how do you come up with ideas for the Web Travels articles? It’s almost like you are looking for web addresses everywhere, or you are just entering random addresses into your web browser.” That’s exactly what I do.

I typed in http://www.pizza.com into my web browser to see what it would come up with. Not much, unfortunately, but I found out for a cool three hundred grand I could buy that domain. Hmm . . . tempting offer, but I will have to pass. I did notice another interesting web address mentioned on the page, http://www.pizzaclub.com. “Mail-order Gourmet Pizza Club - Makes a great gift!” the page says.

If it’s not delivered in thirty minutes, is it free?

So I was curious. I ventured forth into uncharted territory and was told there were six clubs I could join. Mail order beer? Chocolates? This site has something for everyone. But I came here on a mission - I must find information about pizza on the Internet. I clicked on the Gourmet Pizza Club link . . .

Lo and behold, it was exactly what I expected. For just a few dozen dollars a month, I could receive specialty Chicago-style pizza delivered straight to my doorstep. Beef pizza and shrimp pizza were mentioned on this page, and I learned that if I joined I would even receive a newsletter giving ‘insights’ on the specific pizzas I could receive.

Very interesting offer. Unfortunately, when I want a pizza, I usually want it within the same day, so I will have to pass for now. I next tried http://www.pizzadelivery.com, but just got an ‘under construction’ site. Fine - since I’m looking for pizza on the web, how about http://www.pizzaontheweb.com? Yes - that is a site, and it has some very interesting information. For example, did you know that in the United States, 350 slices of pizza are consumed every second? But back to the good stuff - if you are in Saugus, Villa Park, or Newhall, California (the only locations I could find), you can read pizza store menus or even order pizza online.

Unfortunately, that’s still quite a bit of a drive for me (or for the delivery person to my house), so I went to a pizza store that most cities have - Pizza Hut. Typing in http://www.pizzahut.com brought me the choice of two versions of their site, both a high bandwidth and a low bandwidth version - a great idea! Surfing through the site, I found news releases, descriptions of their specialty pizzas, history of the chain, fun facts (doesn’t everyone love pizza trivia?), and much more. I could even find the nearest restaurant and the directions to drive there -a nice touch.

I’d write more, but I’m really starting to get hungry now. Think I’ll have mushrooms and black olives, perhaps a little extra cheese . . .

Problems I have been asked about often in recent months concerns Microsoft Office. The difficulties occur in all versions of Office, with Word documents and Excel spreadsheets most often involved. Symptoms vary, from obscure error messages to total system lock-up.

Investigating the complaints and checking several sources, including the Woody’s Office Watch newsletter, I found the answer to the problems. In all cases, users were trying to work with a document/worksheet stored on a floppy disk.

Even if it seems that there is plenty of room left on the floppy disk, there probably is not enough. Word and Excel often write a temporary file in the same location as the original file. That temporary file can quickly fill the available space on a 1.44MB floppy disk.

Ideally, and if Microsoft programmers were more thoughtful, you would get an easy-to-understand “Out of Disk Space” message, but no such luck! Instead, you get all sorts of strange actions and/or messages that give you no clue to the true problem.

Floppy disks also are generally less reliable and more prone to failure than hard drives. You’re more likely to lose a document through mechanical failure of a floppy disk (or simply to lose it). Floppy disk drives are much slower than hard drives and Office programs run more slowly as a result.

Online Catalog Sites
These are the companies listed by Brian Marquis in his presentation:
http://www.actinic.com
http://www.drumbeat.com
http://www.software.ibm.com/commerce/net.commerce/index.html
http://www.icat.com
http://www.intershop.com
http://www.mercantec.com
http://www.microsoft.com/siteserver/commerce/
http://www.openmarket.com
http://store.yahoo.com

Online Essentials
From Netcenter. "eBusiness Basics - Simple Steps to a successful business online. With eBusiness Basics, Netscape has carefully selected the core web-based services you need to do business online." They also have some great looking links to help round out your information. http://home.netscape.com/netcenter/smallbusiness/onlineessentials/

Comics.com!
This site has over 90 comics and archives. Use the drop down menu in the banner to select one. Be sure to visit the archives for them too! http://www.fborfw.com/index.html

Windows 95 Tip of the Day
http://gc6.freeshop.com/pg01416.htm

Hot Shareware Tip of the Day
http://gc6.freeshop.com/pg01414.htm

Dummies Daily Online Shopping Tip
http://gc6.freeshop.com/pg01413.htm

Excel ODBC Driver Vulnerability
Patch for security issue involving the Excel’s ODBC database driver. http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/Articles/mdac_typ.htm

Favorite Brand Name Recipes Website
Recipe index, menus, coupons, even special section for diabetics. This is an excellent site. http://www.fbnr.com/CONTEXT.html

H.O.T! Coupons
Save on products and services you use everyday near your Home, Office or when you Travel. http://www.hotcoupons.com/

FreeShop
Free samples, trial issues, demos, coupons, catalogs, trial periods, and product information. http://www.hc.freeshop.com/

(Editor’s Note: When Doyle first brought up this column, I thought it was a very good idea, and would personally love it if we could do 3-4 each month! I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have a real hard time keeping names with faces, I hear the name, and think, “I ought to know who that is.” Or, I see the face and think, “I wish I could remember their name!” Well, we don’t have the picture format down yet, but hopefully soon we can put faces with these names, and give us all a helping hand. Give us some feedback, we’d love to hear from you. For that matter, we’d love to interview you! —Sherry

As if keeping track of the links on your own web site isn’t hard enough, you will also want to know who is linking to you. It’s a way of measuring the success of your site. When you move your web site or change your directory structure, you can also use the information to let those that are linking to you know about the changes. A less pleasant (but very useful) way to use the technique is to discover if other sites are appropriating your content. Even if you have content you allow others to use freely, you generally want them to take a copy of your material, not link to your host.

So how do you do it? There are a number of ways, but one of the quickest and easiest is via AltaVista.

Point your browser at http://www.altavista.com/

In the search box enter the following search string link:YourURL -host:YourDomainName

Where you replace “YourURL” with the appropriate actual information. For example: link:www.melbpc.org.au -host:melbpc.org.au

This specifies a search for pages that contain links to Melbourne PC’s web site, but excludes those which are on Melbourne PC’s site (that is to say, internal between Melbourne PC’s own pages.

A search for link:melbpc.org.au -host:melbpc.org.au is less specific and finds pages any link to our domain name (including mailto links). For our example search, there were about 10 times more pages with any link with our domain name, as there were links to files on our web. Since many of these are pages with a mailto link to a Melbourne PC Internet subscriber, it’s an interesting way to get a glimpse of the kinds of things that interest our members. We are, as you might already imagine, a very diverse lot!

I’m a sucker for the latest plugins, if you are too, you may also find yourself wondering which plugins you do (or don’t) have, and whether or not they are enabled.

Netscape Communicator has several cool commands to display information about your browser’s set up, and one of the most useful is about:plugins, which will display information about all the plugins you have installed, including version number, file type and whether or not they are enabled.

How do you get this useful information? Simple.

Launch your browser, click on File, and then select Work Offline

Now, in your browser’s address bar, type in the following: about:plugins you should see something.

Three more commands which you invoke as above, are
* about:cache
* about: memory-cache
* about:image-cache
which report on the status of your disk cache, memory cache and which images are in the cache, respectively.

Fix-It Utilities 99 is from Mijenix Corporation, makers of ZipMagic and PowerDesk Utilities. As I began the installation, the first thing I noted was concern for the number of .dll and other helper files being installed, especially since I could see that some of them were ones already on my hard drive. My reason for concern here, as most know, is that some programs will not run on other versions of .dll & etc. files. My genealogy program is one such file. However, the file names were already flashing across my screen, so I put worry aside and hope for a good outcome. On to the restarting of Windows.

The first step recommended with Fix-It Utilities is to set up the Fix Wizard, so that’s where I headed. Intuitively, I clicked on the Fix Wizard button on the side and the Home screen changes to represent that module and then sits there. Hmmm, that’s not very bright of some programmer! I double click the button. I click the graphic in the Main Home module. Nothing. I see a tab out from the Wizard Button. I click it, double click it, try to drag it out. Nada. I happen to move my mouse out of the window and as I do, I pass over the description lines for Fix Wizard and lo, they react! I found the button. I say a little prayer that this is *not* an indication of how the rest of this session is going to go!

OK. Now I have the Fix Wizard module open and I need to click the plus signs in front of some categories and individually configure them for my system. I start with the first one - Scan for Viruses which expands to show me 1) Drives to scan and 2) Scan categories. The check box for drives is gray with a checkmark. Clicking the plus to expand this reveals the gray is because my floppy drives are logically not selected. However, I do have to manually unselect my CD-Rom, as I do not want it scanned. Choices under Scan categories include: Memory, Boot Sector, Macros, Executables, and Inside Archives. These are all good choices, and are all checked. Done with this section

I leave checked ‘Check for Y2K compliance’. We’ll see what it tells me. (I know my system will flunk everything at this point.) I also leave checked ‘Save system files to a backup archive’ and wish it had asked me that before installation!

The next category is “Disk Structure Image Creation”. I’m back at the manual to see what this is all about. The manual and help file call this “Disk Snapshot” and overall I read that this is the usual utility to backup and safeguard files on my hard drive. This utility can be configured to run automatically whenever Windows restarts.

Next, is a good section, “Remove unused files”. Select the drives, then your options: empty Recycle Bin; Delete web cache folders; all files in temp folders; all files ending with .bak .tmp; files beginning or ending with ~ or ??; .gid files of zero length; and shortcuts that go nowhere. I unchecked the ‘clean all temp directory folders’. I make extra temp folders and I may sometimes have files in them that I need to move elsewhere. I’ll take care of those manually.

Disk Fixer is included and I gather that I need to manually configure it before I can run it in Fix Wizard. Wonder why they didn’t recommend I start with it then?

The next two sections deal with the registry. I leave checked the choices to remove unnecessary items and scan all the sections and fix any broken links.

Finally I tell Fix Wizard to defrag my hard drives.

Since I need to configure Disk Fixer instead of clicking on next, I click the Home button and go into Disk and Files, where I find;

Disk Fixer Where I can select preferences for scandisk to automatically fix my disk problems.

Disk Cleaner Cleanup old and unused files.

Disk Verifier Ensure that every file on a disk or CD can be read without errors.

Undelete Plus Find and recover deleted files.

Defrag Plus Which defrags your files according to your selections using IntelliCluster Technology.

Disk Snapshot Here you can configure this to run on startup.

System Saver Select specific files to have backed up and monitored.

Easy Update Download the latest software and anti-virus information.

With these sections all configured for my preferences, I move back to Home and into System Registry. Here I find individual sections dealing with the Registry which will help me clean and edit it much more safely than on my own.

In addition to Registry sections, there’s a section on customizing the way Windows looks and works. I can finally get rid of that stupid inbox that I’ve never used!

Next is “System Diagnostics” This is a cool place where I could spend quite a bit of time learning about my system in great detail. And tests? I’ve never heard of half the tests I could have done on my hard drives let alone the things it wants to do to my video card! I think I’ll leave those for later, after I get the other things done. Next just for fun, I clicked the “System Explore” option and clicked thru all the things I ‘never wanted to know’ about what was currently running on my system. Although, it was interesting to see just how many files were actually running at that moment. Geesh, scary to think of how many would be in the list at those times when I’m running 6-7 programs!

This is also the section where “PC Diagnostics”, Year 2000, and System Monitors are at, but I will leave them for later also.

Next, I move to the final, yet first section. System Protection may be last in the column, but it contains the first thing I’m going to actually do. Before making any changes, it is very important to make a rescue disk. When one of the things I’m going to be working in is my registry file, you can bet I’m making a backup file of it first! Fix-It will actually help me make a 2-disk rescue set. It will add anti-virus utilities to them, just in case one comes along!

So my strategy here will be to start at the bottom by making my rescue disks and backing up my critical files. Then reclaim some wasted space hogged by unused files. Verify my hard drives, then set up Defrag Plus and then let Fix Wizard take over and go to bed.

I’m a little concerned by the fact that just as I’m ready to make the final configurations, Fix-It Utilities performs the ever common “Illegal function” and with the next click disappears. But, then again, if I wasn’t having some problems, I wouldn’t be needing to run this program and should have looked for someone else to evaluate it. Shut down and restart Windows and then let’s see how much of my configurations were saved.

Everything seems to still be checked so here I go. Wish me luck. First I just checked my rescue disk. It has my CD-Rom driver correct, and it loaded up a very good DOS version of Fix-It. There I could run my anti-virus, check and repair disk data, alter partitions, restore system backup files, or format and start over!

Next I clicked “Disk and Files” then Disk Snapshot, and saved images of specific hard drives. My next choice under Disk and Files was “System Saver” and backed up my system files. Then in Defrag Plus I analyzed my C drive and found the Fix-It will even tell me WHICH files are fragged! Then using the legend, I could see which blocks were in each category: Free, Partially Used, Used, Not Optimized, Frequently Modified, Rarely Accessed, Unmovable, and MFT Zone. I set Defrag Plus to finish my hard drives, and went to bed.

In the morning, I began with the Registry Fixer. It came back with 1174 items to be deleted. About 400 of these were caused by two programs I had moved and not moved back. Since I plan on deleting them, as I still am not using them, I went ahead and deleted the references too. Several other sets ( from 1-30 entries per group) were to other programs which I had deleted and then discovered that you can’t remove them from the ‘Add Remove Programs’ list if you just ‘delete their directory’. Now hopefully this will fix those. What a nice thing it will be now that the install reference to the old CD-Rom location will no longer be used by Win 95.

Next, I defragged my registry. As Fix-It says this can help reduce access time and the size of the registry database. After all the deletions I’d just made, I was sure this was a good idea. Although I did first restart Windows so it could collect itself from all the deletions and *then* I defragged the registry. (I checked to see if this may have corrected a problem I was having with Corel Address Book, but I guess I’ll just have to reinstall it.)

I think that’s enough for this article. My space, I’m sure, is getting full. I didn’t even get to some features such as Year 2000 data and the System Monitor section. One thing I will tell you is that I did go to properties, above the Home section, under Fix-It properties, and checked ‘IntelliCluster data collection’. I’m going to try this for a while and see how it does. This is the feature that monitors your programs, dll files, and other files that work with them. Then when you defrag, it not only moves them all together, it moves them where they will be accessed the fastest.

I can also tell you after having shut my system down and rebooted several times during the various optimization processes of running Fix-It ( and a couple extras just for my peace of mind), I can tell a distinct difference in the amount of time involved. Now if I can see that same overall improvement in the reduction of conflicts and GPF’s I’ll be VERY happy. Maybe once I get into the Crash Proof 99 section, those will be history as well!