As a member of this list, you are also entitled to free tech support. Have a computer-related question or Internet-commerce question? Looking for the best place to buy something, particularly digital cameras? Just email.

I also have another email that goes out about 3 times a week consisting of inspiring stories and the best humor collected from several other jokelists and sites, including Dave Barry and Scott Adams (Dilbert creator). If you would like to get that email, just let me know. Jokes are screened for "family" acceptability.

Win $10,000! Why don't you tell your friends about my site? Each referral gets you another entry in a contest for $10,000. Just click this link and fill in your friends' email IDs. They will get an email stating that you recommended my site. When they click the link in the email, you will get even more entries into the contest.

Visit my Lycos auctions for digital cameras, smartmedia cards, cdrw drives and media.

Digital camera bargains This month's digital camera value is the Kodak DC4800. It is a 3+ megapixel camera with 3X zoom and a "revolutionary" idea: instead of making the user hunt through menus to adjust manual settings, put them on the camera itself, just like a regular camera. Now why didn't someone else think of that? But best of all, right now this camera is selling for about the same price as a 2 megapixel. Only $425 after Kodak's $100 rebate through the end of the month. I have a number of liquidators and surplus merchants that I contact for closeouts. It is difficult to update my web site because these items come and go. I currently have several digital cameras at prices well below any Internet site. These include a Ricoh RDC5300 brand new for $375. I have also tracked down the manufacturer of the hard to find battery and charger for the Fuji MX series, Toshiba PDR series and Kodak DC4800 and have some in stock at $45, which includes shipping. The same manufacturer also makes the recharger and I can now get those as well for $50, shipping included.$5 off if you take both battery and charger.

Universal charger: I am very excited about this new product. Not only does it charge the proprietary Fuji/Kodak/Toshiba batteries, it also charges Ni-cad, alkaline and nimh batteries of all sizes. $75.

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

- the end of the Internet?
- Warning: Don't die on the net!
- Don't be scammed!
- Win2000, ME and XP
- Monitoring and protecting your Internet connection
- Monitoring and protecting your CPU
- Update on the terrabye disk
- Just for fun
- useful sites

Has it finally happened? See for yourself.

Lockergnome Manifesto Someone sent Fred Langa, author of the Langa Letter, an email asking why he has a separate letter for which he charges a fee. After all, it costs him nothing to produce and email a letter, right? Fred responded by posting a link to a manifesto that appeared on lockergnome, a site containing all sorts of free software and support. Though I don't necessarilly agree with every point in the manifesto, I do agree with the general tone. The early days of the Internet set a bad precedent. In an effort to attract "hits," sites gave everything away. Today there are still many folks who think that everything they want should be available to them when they want it, in unlimited quantity and for free. Then they wonder why they are now on their third free ISP, emailing everyone to tell them about yet another ID change, why the free payment service they used just shut down, why their free web host shut down and took all their auction photos along with it. Giving things away for free with no reciprocity is a formula for failure, as many Dot Coms have discovered. Read the manifesto and see what you think. Manifesto.

Warning: Don't die on the net!

A number of web companies have died. Some of these were free email and web services. Northpoint was a DSL company, providing services for 100,000 subscribers. It IS time to worry. What if your ISP goes belly-up without warning? Suddenly all those emails you depend on, such as your daily stock quotes, (not to mention our jokes and this newsletter) can't find you. Plan ahead. Bigfoot.com will forward your email to up to 5 other IDs. Email.com will forward to only one but you can also log into email.com and retrieve your mail there (unlike Bigfoot which is forwarding only.) Now if your ISP dies, you can just have your mail forwarded to another address and it will still find you. You can also access any POP3 account from a Yahoo ID. There were times when I was travelling and away from my PC. It was good to know that all mail to my bigfoot id, or ygoodman id was all being forwarded to my Yahoo ID which I could retrieve from anywhere. Now if only I could do that with my regular mail.

Don't be scammed!

A day in the lives of two hackers

click here for link to the MSNBC Article and discusson on Auction Watch

Online scams

Click here for the link to the PC World article and discussion on Auction Watch

Win2000, ME and XP

This information is extracted from the very useful and highly recommend Langa newsletter, published by Fred Langa of Windows Magazine. You can subscribe to this free newsletter from the main page on my site. Unfortunately, Windows Magazine has just gone belly up and the site has been taken down. You will find that the winmag.com links below will not work. I included these because there is some good information even without the links about how the experts perceive the various Microsoft Operating Systems.

WinME Woes

For systems that were "upgraded" (ha!) to WinME from Win98, and depending on how the upgrade was done, it may be possible to go back via the OS's own uninstall, or via the manual method described in this article: www.winmag.com/library/1997/0301/analy026.htm.

But for PCs that were originally formatted by ME, a fresh "Format C:" from a non-ME boot disk is the ONLY reliable way either to go to Win98 or to Win2K. That's because the WinME format command is a weird mutation that only works properly for WinME itself. Other OSes may choke if you try to install them on a WinME-formatted disk!

Windows 2000/XP

What about Windows 2000? And what about the new "XP" versions of Windows that will be out later this year and that will be based on Windows 2000?

Of course, by now I'm sure you've heard that Windows 2000 is more stable than Win9x/ME--- and it is. But what's not often discussed is the reason why:

Win2K doesn't try to do as much as Win9X does. It supports a smaller base of hardware and software, and is more focused on doing a smaller number of clearly-defined things very well rather than trying to do it all, as Win9x does.

For example, a brand-new 2001 copy of Win98SE can use some of the same hardware and software that ran on the first PCs almost 20 years ago. While that versatility is useful, it comes at the price of complexity. All the "backwards compatible" elements of the operating system are baggage that makes the Win98 OS bigger and more past-rooted than it would be otherwise; you can't be fully innovative if you're also trying to support stuff that's two decades old.

WinNT and Win2K are different. NT was intended to be a clean start; a breaking away from the DOS world. Win2K--- NT's successor--- pushed the break further, shedding support for many "legacy" issues in both hardware and software. While Win2K supports a large and respectable number of products, it's a much smaller number than what Win9X supports.

The duality is this: Win2k is a "cleaner," more modern, more stable OS; but it's far more restrictive in its hardware and software support. I ran into this most recently just last week, when I was upgrading a system here to Win2K. My primary target system wasn't some old dog PC: It was a Dell 500Mhz Pentium III with 128MB of RAM, a 20GB hard drive, and name-brand video, audio and CD. The system is a little over a year old---not an antique--- and it ran perfectly under Win98SE. In fact, until about a month ago, it had been my #1 daily-use system.

But before I could get Win2K to run properly on that system, I had to buy a new CD ROM, buy a new sound card, buy a new network card, and totally reconfigure my LAN, including the networking on all the non-Win2K systems on the LAN. I also had to toss some utilities and apps I routinely use. It was, in short, a major pain. (And I'm *still* having networking trouble.) All the stuff I had to replace was name-brand gear, OEM-installed by a major manufacturer on a fairly recent system: Nothing was very old, and it all had been working perfectly under Win98. But Win2K simply didn't support it.

I knew I'd have these problems going in because I'd checked the Compatibility Lists at Microsoft.Com: Nothing--- except the network card, which was listed and should have worked--- came as a surprise. But the lack of surprise didn't make the experience any more pleasant. I hate to discard perfectly good stuff just for the sake of an upgrade. And I know I'm not alone.

I mention all this now for two reasons: First, Win2K is not a panacea. (No operating system is.) If you're willing to bite the bullet when you upgrade, and maybe flush some otherwise perfectly-good gear, you can end up with a very nice setup. Second--- and in many ways, this is more important--- the new version of Windows called "Windows XP" that will be out later this year will be based on the guts of Windows 2000. With the release of Windows XP, the Windows 9x/ME line will come to an end and merge with the Windows 2000 family. In effect, starting later this year, all new versions of Windows will be Win2K-based.

If you're already using Win2K, the upgrade to XP should be simple. But if you're using Win9x/ME, you may run into problems with some of your current hardware and software, even if it's fairly new and working perfectly.

Because Windows XP isn't out yet, there's no definitive compatibility list, but for now, you can check the Windows 2000 compatibility lists to at least get an idea of what you're in for. A few minutes in the compatibility list now might save you some real headaches later on!

Another tip from the newsletter, if you run Windows setup with the following syntax: setup /p g=3, you will see detailed information on what is being installed. This is helpful if setup hangs on a particular device.

Monitoring and protecting your Internet connection

Monitoring and Protecting Your CPU

I did have a link here to a winmag article which is now gone. In short, heat can damage your CPU. If the fan starts turning slowly or the vents get clogged, you might not even become aware of the problem until it is too late. There are a number of free programs which will monitor your CPU heat and fans and warn you if there is a problem. You can download one right from my site click to download

Why buy videos when you can trade what you have for what you want? Why rent when you can save money buying and/or trading? Visit our video page and trade for free or buy for about the cost of renting.

You're Being Watched

There are lots of useful devices now that let you retrieve information from the Internet. Some of these devices are double-edged. As you retrieve the information that you want, you are unwittingly giving them information about you that you might not want them to have. Click for details.

Update on the Terrabyte Disk

In the last issue I mentioned that companies were working on a layered vesion of DVD drives, capable of placing as much as a terrabyte on one disk. Here is another article about a company that claims it's close to releasing a drive. Constellation's FMD-ROM

Just for fun

A funny post on Auctionwatch, with hilarious responses

Useful sites

Cyberrebate.com How can a site give away merchandise 100% free and continue to exist? Yet Cyberrebate has done exactly that. I have purchased close to a thousand dollars worth of items and have gotten back all the rebates and then some. I say then some because I have received "extras" in my packages and twice when the item that arrived wasn't in perfect condition, Cyberrebate immediately refunded my money and told me to keep the items. And the deal has gotten better. In the past, there was a limit of one of each item per household. That limit has been removed. To top it off, shipping is free. So how do they do it?

The first part of the explanation is obvious. They get most of these items from closeouts and surplus at pennies on the dollar. They then mark it up to about 500% of retail. So the emergency light for which I paid $100 could actually be purchased in a store for $19.95. Cyberrebate probably bought it from a liquidator for $5. This gives them $95 of my money to play with for about three months before the rebate goes through. By the time they have to pay the rebate, they have already earned back the cost in interest they have earned on my money.

Okay, so they made back their $5. But that doesn't explain how they make their money. Here's part 2. A lot of people forget to send in their rebates. Considering that Cyberrebate has done millions in sales, even a small percentage of this adds up. But this is not all. Cyberrebate does market research for some of the companies whose items they carry. Add this all up and their plan seems to be working for them.

But what about for you? Does it make sense to pay $100 for something you can buy for $20 just because you will get your money back after 3 months? The answer is, "it depends." It has to be an item I really need and one that is not easily available. The emergency light is available at Home Depot, but that is quite a distance from my home. When I placed my order with Cyberrebate, it was delivered to my door in a matter of days. I charged it to my credit card, which gave me an extra month to pay, so I was only out the $100 for 2 months. You might argue that I could have invested that money. Yes, I could have put that $100 in a stock or mutual fund and in the two months its value would have become about $70, so by spending it at Cyberrebate, I saved another $30. And like they tell you with investing and gambling (which are probably the same thing only with gambling you have better odds), you should play with your profits. So I placed my first $200 Cyberrebate purchase about a year ago and waited for the checks to come in. Once they did, I placed my next order. There's something nice about getting these packages delivered to the house and then getting the money to pay for them delivered as well. It's like getting something for nothing.

So why does Cyberrebate not get an unreserved "go for it!"? Because as a New Yorker, I have to pay sales tax. When I bought that $20 light for $100, I had to pay $108.25. So in addition to the $100 I had to lay out for two months, I also paid 8.25. Some of their items are so grossly overpriced that they are not even worth the sales tax. Plastic digital watches that I can buy for $1, priced at $59.95. Toy puzzles worth about $5 for $69.95. If you live in New York, you have to be careful not to get into the mindset of "everything's free." For residents of other states, the deal is much better. But as long as you check carefully, there are some bargains to be had even if you live in New York.

If you do visit Cyberrebate, please use the link below. They are supposed to pay me some sort of commission for sending folks. I haven't seen one yet but it couldn't hurt to try.

100% Free After Rebate

arcamax.com - lists of free sites and offers for free software (you pay shipping and handling). I recently ordered a Berenstain Bears CD and a Living Books CD for my 3-year-old for $4 each.

nothingbutsoftware.com and softwareoutlet.com - a nice selection of software but the best thing about these two sites is that they constantly have giveaways where the rebate is 90-100% of the purchase price. I recently bought 1240 Windows games on 4 CDs for $10 with a 9.95 rebate. Okay, some of these games were old and some were silly but my kids have spent days just going through them all. That's a lot of activity for a nickel. Put yourself on the mailing list for their specials.

http://www.bfree.on.ca/HTML/index.htm - detailed, well explained HTML lessons online

www.megapixel.net - in-depth reviews of digital cameras.

www.epinions.com - reviews written by regular folks who have bought and used products.

I hope this letter contained useful information. Please email ccs@ygoodman.com with any comments.