o Time for a Break...

o Napster's Dead - So What Now?

o Product Review: ZoneAlarm Pro

o How's Your e-Shorthand?

o Computer 'Freezing'?

o Hot Tip - for slow keyboards
________________________________________

TIME FOR A BREAK...
________________________________________

DO you get that sinking feeling when you hear of the latest
malevolent worm/virus - or read an article listing all the things
you should be doing to really protect yourself on the Internet?

I get the same feeling when I'm sweeping up all the dog fur that
accumulates daily in our living areas - and while I'm sweeping I tell
myself 'I know this isn't going to be perfect but it has to be a lot
better!'

My approach to the threats on the Internet is somewhat similar.
Of course I have virus protection software (which I do my best to
keep updated) - plus a firewall - and, touch wood, this seems to be
working. My free ZoneAlarm firewall keeps itself impressively busy
and if you'd like to know more about this read Richard Lowe's article
on ZoneAlarm Pro. I believe you can get a trial version of this
product (for 30 days) and there's nothing wrong with the free one.

Pam Allen talks about the demise of Napster - and some of the
alternatives. If you are a music enthusiast I think you should make
hay while these particular suns are still shining. Only today I read
that a Los Angeles federal judge has ruled that record companies
and movie studios can sue the parent company of Kazaa
(incorporated in the Pacific island, Vanuatu) as Kazaa software has
been downloaded and used by millions of Californians.

If you have been reading this ezine for any length of time you will
know I have this never ending battle with my PC - which keeps on
freezing - like a mad thing. Very recently I made some progress
after I reluctantly disabled Stand By (see the Newbie Club Tutorial
'Computer Freezing?) - and even more when I gave up Active
Desktop.

Of course my PC is not perfect - but definitely better and it's very
encouraging to have achieved some sort of breakthrough - at last.
So watch this space - this saga is bound to continue...

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Organising your computer - click here
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NAPSTER'S DEAD - SO WHAT NOW?
Pam Allen reports
_______________________________________________

WITH the demise of Napster, music addicts worldwide are wondering
just what they'll do to get their next music fix. Fear not, there are
many wonderful programs that have the same function! Napster's
downfall came from the fact that it used a few centralized servers
which stored the music files. Users would find a song they wanted,
and download it directly from the server. Since the servers were
easily traced, and the majority of the songs were considered illegal
copies, the courts had no problem shutting Napster down.

A new breed of file sharing has arrived. Called 'P2P' (peer to peer)
networking, there is no central server. Instead, each user is an
independent server, connected only by a program that pulls a list of
the user's available files and makes it available to anyone looking for
a particular song. The song is then downloaded directly from that
user's computer.

Yes, this is completely safe. You specify which folder(s) contain files
that you will share. Your files are only available if/when you have the
program running. When a user does a search for a specific song, his
version of the program searches the net to find other instances of
the program running, and checks to see if any of those users have
that song, and returns a list of all the instances of it. The user then
decides which one he'd like to download.

Most of the programs will list helpful information about the people
who have the desired song. It will tell you how fast their connection
is (it's much faster to download a song from a person who has a
cable connection rather than a 28.8 dial up connection), the bitrate
of the song (higher bitrate means better quality), the size of the file
(you can tell fairly easily if it's a complete or incomplete file by the
size), and whether the other person's files are immediately available
or if you'll be in a queue.

What does that mean? Well, when you set up the program, you
specify how may users can connect to you at once, and how many
songs each person can download simultaneously. To keep things
speedy, you probably don't want more than 2 or 3 users
downloading from you at once, or downloading more than a few
songs at a time.

For instance, let's say you specify that 6 people can download from
you at once, and each can get three songs. This means that when
you first log on, you have '6 of 6' available of every file you've
designated as shared. When Joe Smith starts to download a song,
you then have '5 of 6' available to other users. When six people are
all downloading the same song, other users will have to enter a
queue and line up to get it as earlier users finish their downloads. It
is not uncommon to see something like '99 of 6' (or something
similar) which shows that 99 people are waiting to download from
one of the six slots for that one song.

Three programs that work nicely are WinMX, KazaaLite, and Imesh.
WinMX has absolutely the best interface, and you can specify
EXACTLY what results to return. MP3 files of at least a certain
bitrate, users with internet connections of at least certain speeds,
and the ability to search for title AND artist. This last is invaluable
when you're looking for a song that has the same title as a different
song.

For instance, 'Fade to Black' is a popular Rolling Stones song,
but there's a totally cool Goth song by the same title. Enter just the
title in a search window, and you'll probably get thousands of
results, with most of them by the Stones. You'll have to do a lot of
scrolling to find the one you want! However, connection speeds
with WinMX haven't been up to par lately. It takes quite a bit
longer than I like for the search results to come back.

KazaaLite is good, but make sure you get the light version! The full
version (available from the Kazaa website) has a massive amount
of advertising and extra crap that's installed on your computer. The
lite (and unauthorized by Kazaa) version has been stripped of all the
excess.

IMesh is about equal to Kazaa, but installs some 'parasite ware',
which isn't harmful, but it's the cause of a lot of annoying ads that
pop up even when Imesh isn't running. You can get around that by
installing it, then going to www.doxdesk.com and clicking on
the 'parasite' link on the left. The site will tell you what parasites are
on your computer and how to get rid of them. Yes, it's a pain in the
rear, but Imesh is worth the few extra minutes of time this takes.

Neither Kazaa nor Imesh have the fantastic search and filtering
capabilities of WinMX, but they're fast and easy to use, and it's a
quick and painless way to get a song. The main complaint I have
about both of these programs is that they don't tell the bitrate of
the search results, and most users seem to have the low bitrate files
that lack the clarity of the larger ones.

WinMX is available at www.winmx.com
Imesh at www.imesh.com (which takes you to
the correct page at download.com), and
KazaaLite at www.kazaalite.com

COOL DOWNLOAD OF THE MONTH

TweakUI is a nifty little utility that helps you customize how
Windows works for you. Functions that were spread out all over the
place (or not available at all) are now in one handy little application
right in your control panel folder!

You can adjust your mouse settings; how you want your shortcut
icons to appear (with arrows? without arrows?); some additional
options for Internet Explorer; easy to use privacy settings; tons of
repair functions (rebuild icons, repair associations, hotkeys, system
files, etc), and you can even use it to get rid of those 'permanent'
icons that Windows puts on your desktop (recycle bin and network
neighborhood, for example). And you can FINALLY make Windows
stop running scan disk automatically if your computer locks up and
you have to turn the power off instead of doing a normal shutdown!

TweakUI is an invaluable FREE program that you'll love. Oddly
enough, this is a Microsoft program, but it's availability is sporadic on
the Microsoft site, so download it at
www.annoyances.org

TIP OF THE MONTH

Sometimes, I'll be doing something that required typing instead of
mousing (writing this, for instance), but I'll need to refer to
something in another window. This requires grabbing the mouse
and clicking the correct title box in the task bar. Half the time, I click
on the wrong one, anyway.

To bypass the mouse fondling, simply hold down the 'Alt' key, then
press 'Tab'. A small window pops up in the middle of the screen,
showing an icon for each open program. There's a short description
underneath, so you can read what it is, in case you have multiple
windows from the same program open. For instance, if you have to
Internet Explorer windows open, you'll see two identical IE icons, but
there'll be a text description of what each window contains.
Continue to hold down the 'Alt" key and press the tab button until
the correct icon is highlighted. Please note that when you originally
press the 'Alt' key, the window will NOT pop up until you press the
tab key. Hope you find this tip as useful as I have!
____________________________
Pam is co-webmistress at www.newbiesandnitwits.com
and has another site www.quickdecor.com - featuring
speedy and inexpensive decorating ideas.
_________________________

EVERYTHING AT YOUR FINGERTIPS

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to be used as ...

A comprehensive in-depth course,

AND

An occasional learning center to be dipped into as time
permits,

AND

The ultimate reference library to refer to whenever you come
across a PC or Internet problem you don't understand.

That's why it's called Companion, because you can have it
on your PC desktop, ready at all times to delve into as
and when you wish. Take a look now at
www.newbieclub.com
____________________________________

RECOMMEND Newbies, Nerds & Nitwits to a friend!
by clicking here
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NN&N BACK ISSUES
To view all previous issues of Newbies, Nerds & Nitwits
click HERE

_________________________________________

Product Review: ZONEALARM PRO
by Richard Lowe, Jnr.
_________________________________________

I'VE tried using a number of personal firewalls, including WRQ
AtGuard (since purchased by Symantec), BlackIce and ZoneAlarm.
In my opinion, ZoneAlarm Pro is by far and away the best personal
firewall on the market.

I like this firewall because it is the first product of it's kind
that actually seems to have been designed for normal human
computer users instead of techno-nerds. The product simply installs
and runs. You can use it out of the box with no configuration at all.
The program will ask a few questions and learn from you exactly
what is allowed and not allowed. What could be more simple?

This program is one of the very best defenses against spyware,
which is software that 'phones home' every once in a while with
information about you. Unlike most other personal firewalls,
ZoneAlarm Pro (as well as the free version) stops outgoing
transmissions as well as incoming ones. This in itself is a major
benefit to the product.

One of the major advantages to this product is the way you can
configure it to know the difference between intranet and internet
accesses. That's the problem with some competing firewall
products - they do not understand that intranet access is always
to be allowed while internet access must be controlled. ZoneAlarm
makes this distinction easily.

One of the problems that has been found with other firewalls is
the 'pattern' for determining the identity of something accessing
the internet is the program name. Well, as it turns out, this is
very simple for hacker software to fake. ZoneAlarm was the first
product to recognize and fix the weakness by actually performing a
checksum of the product. This allows ZoneAlarm to be absolutely
sure it has the correct program identified.

One of the absolutely coolest things about ZoneAlarm is that it also
protects your system from email viruses. For example, today I
received an email with an attachment. The attachment was a virus,
and it was renamed by ZoneAlarm to make it obvious that it was a
problem. My antivirus software would have caught it as well, but it
was really nice that my firewall stopped the virus even before that
point.

So to sum it all up, yes, I would highly recommend this firewall.
In fact, it is recommended over any other software firewall
product.

Additional Information

Firewalls protect your system
www.internet-tips.net/Security/Firewalls
You must protect your system with a personal firewall,
especially if you are using DSL or cable modem.

Products - Sonic WALL
Products/sonicwall.htm
You really want to protect your personal computer? Another
recommended firewall solution I have found is the SonicWall.

Tanstaaf - Spyware
Tanstaafl/spyware.htm
Be careful installing ad supported products - you may find that
your every move on the internet is being watched!

(c) Richard Lowe Jr. and Claudia Arevalo-Lowe, 1999-2003
_______________
Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of
Internet Tips And Secrets at www.internet-tips.net
Visit the website any time to read over 1,000 complete
free articles about how to improve your internet profits,
enjoyment and knowledge.
__________________________

REGISTRY FOR NEWBIES
So you're not such a Newbie after all? Like to know what
makes Windows act the way it does? Then this ebook will
give you a quick, easy understanding of your PC's Brain. It's
called 'The Registry For Newbies' and you can read all about
it by clicking here...
___________________________________

HOW'S YOUR E-SHORTHAND?
____________________________________

POAHF - put on a happy face
PD - public domain
PDS - please don't shoot
PLZ - please
PM - private message
PMFJI - pardon me for jumping in
POAHF - put on a happy face
POOF - I have left the chat
POV - point of view
PPL - people

(More email acronyms in the
next issue)
__________________________________

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Newbie Club Tutorial
COMPUTER 'FREEZING'?
______________________________________

USING standby mode, is supposed to save energy when your
PC is unattended, and help your Monitor last longer.

How valuable this function is, I don't know.

However, this facility can cause problems, because sometimes
when you try to bring back your 'normal' screen you find
your PC is frozen. No mouse, no Alt/Ctrl/Delete function ...

Zilch!

Then you have to switch off your computer (even that doesn't
work sometimes), reboot and run scan disk, just to get back
to where you were before you took time off for that cup of
coffee.

If this has happened to you, the answer is to disable the
standby mode. Here's how ...

RIGHT Click on a blank area of your desktop.

LEFT Click on Properties ->Screen saver->Settings (or Power)

Check everything in there to 'Never'.

Click OK and OK again.

Job done.

Now you can have a cup of coffee with peace of mind.)

(c)2002 Roglan International
____________________
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_____________________________________________

 * -------------------HOT TIP------------------- *

IF you're a quick typist your keyboard could be slowing
you down. Go to Start -> Settings -> Control Panel - and double
click the Keyboard icon. When the Keyboard Properties window
opens set Character Repeat so the Repeat delay is short.
Then set the Repeat rate to Fast - and the race is on...

 * --------------------HOT TIP------------------- *

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