Complete Computer Services, Inc.
2412 Oceancrest Blvd
Far Rockaway, N.Y. 11691
(718) 868 - 3000
hardware & software * sales & service since 1983
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
- New Forums on Auctionbytes
- Your Own Post Office - Right in your home
- All About Spam
- What does Free Internet mean?
- Update: my batter with ebay
- Major Bug in WinMe
- Beware of Foistware
- Death to Virus Writers
- the "Net's John Dillinger" Caught
- Who Owns that Domain Name?
- An End to CD Pirates?
- CD-eating fungus
- Search Engine Smarts (part 4)
- useful sites and freeware
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 values: the Casio QV-3000EX, a 3+ megapixel zoom with high quality Canon lens for $400, shipping included. Megapixel.net rated it as one of the best cameras in its class. It has just been discontinued, so the price has crashed as dealers look to unload it before its replacement comes on the market. Hurry before they're gone. The Toshiba PDR-M65 (3+ megapixel zoom for $450, Toshiba PDR-M61 (2.3 megapixel zoom for $300) and Agfa CL20 (1.3 megapixel camera and webcam at $145). 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 have also tracked down the manufacturer of the hard to find battery for the Fuji MX series, Toshiba PDR series and Kodak DC4800 and have some in stock at $33 with free shipping if you choose our label (we pay a few dollars more for the name brand labels, though they are all the same battery.)
We have the specific Toshiba/Fuji/Kodak chargers! The long-awaited chargers designed specifically for the Kodak Klick3000 battery, Toshiba BT-1 and BT-2 (used in PDR-M4/M5/M70) and Fuji NP-80 and NP-100 (used in almost all the MX series cameras) have arrived. The charger is $42 (shipping included). Charger plus battery is $70 (shipping included).
New Forums On Auctionbytes
Auctionbytes has just started their own forums, where folks can discuss auction-related issues. I am very excited about these new forums because Auctionbytes has no ties to any specific company. While OTWA and Auctionwatch pretend to be impartial, they do censor posts from companies which are critical of or compete with their sponsors. While Paypal is given free reign to post ad after ad of promotional messages, when someone like Payingfast makes a post, AW is quick to announce, "We have deleted your post because it is promotional in nature." When two posters start attacking each other, it is always the anti-paypal poster who gets warned. The Auctionbytes forums promise to be administered even-handedly.
But the real reason I am excited about Auctionbytes is because I will be the moderator of the payment services forum. I hope to be able to exercise some control over how this forum will work and keep it from becoming the "free-for-fall" that OTWA and AW have become.
Participate in the new Payment Services Forum on AuctionBytes.
Your Own Post Office
One of the biggest hassles about running an Internet business is shipping. Now there is a better way. I wrote an article explaining this which has been published in the Auctionbytes newsletter. Because of space constraints, they had to cut a few things such as my raving about the excellent technical support. When I posted a question of AuctionWatch, the president himself responded, both on the board and in a personal email. If you are not already a subscriber to the free Auctionbytes newsletter, I recommend that you sign up.
I had this article all ready to go and decided to ask Endicia if they had anything they would like to add that I might have missed. That's when they told me that if someone signs up and names me as the referrer, I get credit for a month's usage. So if you do want to give them a try, please use this link or enter account 501553 as the referrer.
All About Spam
(From the Langa Newsletter) Why Is It Called "Spam," Anyway?
You might think it rather weird that "spam" (UCE, or unsolicited commercial email) is homonymous with "SPAM" (the all-capitalized, trademarked name for small loaves of spiced ham--SPiced hAM=SPAM--- made by Hormel foods). But there actually is a connection--- albeit an indirect one:
According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Fourth Edition, 2000) the use of spam to refer to unsolicited commercial email was "probably inspired by a comedy routine on the British television series Monty Python's Flying Circus, in which the word is repeated incessantly."
Of course, true Python fans know that SPAM cropped up in several skits, including one where it was almost the only thing on a restaurant menu. ("SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, eggs, and SPAM...")
The Hormel company singles out one particular Pythonesque use:
"Use of the term 'SPAM' was adopted as a result of the Monty Python skit in which a group of Vikings sang a chorus of 'SPAM, SPAM, SPAM . . . ' in an increasing crescendo, drowning out other conversation. Hence, the analogy applied because UCE was drowning out normal discourse on the Internet."
Of course, Hormel may have brought it on themselves: It created the world's first commercial radio jingle in 1937, and the first four words of the jingle are--- and I am not making this up--- "SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM...."
Still, and to their credit, the folks at Hormel are being very good sports about the neologistic use of their tradename, even devoting a page at their Spam.Com site--- yes, there is such a thing--- to the subject: http://www.spam.com/ci/ci_in.htm
Incidentally, Hormel has announced that for the first time since it was introduced in 1937, sales of spam have been going up (coincidence?) and they are in the process of making a second batch.
What does free Internet mean?
Some of the free Internet services have gone out of business. Others have started charging. Others are now giving your personal information to companies that will target you with ads, spam and junk mail. Juno has taken this to the ultimate level. Their new terms will require that you leave your computer on 24 hours a day. They will upload programs that will run on your machine and then send them back the results. Is this all worth the savings of "free" Internet? I don't think so. There are plenty of good hosts with no ads and no selling of your info starting as low as $9.95 a month. Juno story.
In last month's issue, I raved about a very comfortable chair I bought on the Net and invited others to order it. Due to the demand, the dealer is now accepting Paypal. You can visit my site rocker/recliner or email for more info.
Update: My battle with ebay
In the last issue I told you about my battle with ebay. After over a year of selling specific camera batteries, ebay suddenly started yanking my auctions and telling me I am not allowed to mention the camera that uses these batteries. Someone alerted me to the fact that ebay shuts down auctions when someone complains. If a bigger seller wants to get rid of his competition, he complains to ebay and they find some excuse to shut him down. Their rules are so ridiculous there is practically nothing you can post that doesn't violate at least one of them. Until now, I had no competition. Suddenly a large seller starts offering the same batteries and ebay shuts me down. Since I was selling them at half of my competitor's starting price, honest competition was not an option for him. I was ready to boycott ebay when they announced a free listing day. I placed ten auctions with different ending dates. He gave up and went away. Since then, ebay has allowed my auctions to run their course. Thanks to everyone who sent email in support and offered to contact ebay on my behalf. Sometimes the good guys do win a round.
Major Bug in WinMe
In case the story gets taken down before this newsletter reaches you, here are the highlights:
The Windows ME operating system from Microsoft Corp. contains a memory leak that has apparently not been fixed, according to a lengthy chain of emails provided by an ExtremeTech reader. ET reader Matt Vlasaty, a Chicago-based electrical engineer, discovered that when, after opening large files of 200-Mbytes or so (such as Outlook email attachments or Usenet downloads), Windows Millennium Edition did not then increase the amount of free memory after the files were closed.
According to the documentation provided as part of Vlasaty's email, Microsoft officials have confirmed the problem and are researching a solution. After initially responding to ET inquiries concerning the problem last week, however, Microsoft officials did not provide an acknowledgment of the problem or an explanation by press time. "We're still working on it," a spokesman said Thursday night, four business days after the original inquiry.
Vlasaty is not alone in his complaint, however; other ExtremeTech readers have also experienced the same problem. Vlasaty said he reproduced the problem after a clean install of the operating system, and even on the new PCs sold by his local CompUSA retail store.
"I have figured out what the "Me" stands for in Windows Me: Memory Eater!" Vlasaty wrote.
Microsoft makes one reference to a memory leak on its Knowledge Base web site, a memory leak common to the atmuni.sys file in Windows 98, Windows 98 SE, and Windows Me. However, Vlasaty also said he was able to perform the same actions under a clean install of Windows 98 with no problems, which would eliminate the atmuni.sys leak as the source of the error.
After providing log files, screen shots, and other documentation of the problem, Vlasaty finally received confirmation of the problem.
"Thank you for your patience during my testing. I have done more testing on my side. The problem could be reproduced definitely," wrote Xiao-Rong "Selena" Wu, a Microsoft support engineer, to Vlasaty's emailed inquiry. "This particular issue has been reported to our development team and they are currently investigating possibilities for resolution with the HIGHEST priority. While we cannot guarantee that this issue will be fixed immediately, we would like to ensure you that we will make every effort to see that it does."
Beware of Foistware
(from the Langa newsletter) Foistware is a new term for software that surreptitiously adds hidden components to your system - foisting them on you, on the sly. The term is used to differentiate the kind of sneak-installation done by commercial apps from classic Trojan horse apps, which are usually hacker/cracker products.
But there is a new, horrendous version of foistware making the rounds. These apps track you around the net and report on your activity so you can be targeted for ads. However, some of their components replace required components of Windows, so if you try to remove them, you will be locked off the Internet completely. Here is one report passed on by a Langa newsletter reader:
There are two new nasties around called Webhancer and NewDotNet. Not only do they put nasty spyware on your PC if you try to remove it by simply deleting it, your winsock will get trashed and you won't be able to get to the Internet at all. Ad-Aware claims it safely removes these programs but I can assure you that the latest version might safely remove Webhancer but it does not safely remove NewDotNet. Indeed, when I used Ad-Aware to remove NewDotNet, I was unable to reconnect to the Internet and even reinstalling Windows did not get me back (I ended up having to uninstall and reinstall Windows). If you do find either on your system, you should uninstall Webhancer using the standard Add/Remove Software feature in Control Panel. NewDotNet claims the same method will work but others have had problems and alternative methods are offered in the resources below.
NewDotNet seems to come with Earthlink,, @Home, Juno, Webshots and NetZero; Webhancer comes with AudioGalaxy and Bearshare (both post-Napster P2P programs).
Resources:
Webhancer 1 Webhancer 2 Newdotnet
Incidentally, this is another reason why I no longer recommend free ISPs. Juno's new terms appear to allow them to put anything they want on your machine and sell or share your information with anyone they want. Netzero is merging with them. Yahoo/Kmart/Costco's offering has changed their terms, limited access and installs huge video files on your PC that annoyed me terribly when I was at a client's home showing him how to use his email. It also seemed to me that his access was incredibly slow. Is all this aggravation worth it for the $10 a month you would save over a real ISP?
Death to Virus Writers
This is a ZD Net article from David Coursey. If you don't already belong to ZD Net, I recommend you sign up for a free subscription to a daily newsletter with computer news, free software and helpful tips. For the full article, Click here.
The Net's John Dillinger Caught
Note in particular this sentence from the article: "Nelson often took payment using online service PayPal.com because the service allowed him to hide his actual location; checks mailed to him as payment were simply returned." MSNBC story
Who Owns That Domain Name?
Until now, ICANN was the organization which controlled the assignment of domain names. COM, ORG and NET were the only TLDs (Top Level Domains) available. But then as all the "good names" were taken, companies found ways around these restrictions. What they did was create additional TLDs, such as Shop, Travel, Tech, TV and XXX.
(That last one is a really good idea. There has been talk of making all sex sites changed their domain to XXX and then have the entire XXX domain protected against unauthorized access. If this goes through, we might be able to worry less about what we or our kids might stumble over accidentally. There have already been a few scandals when an X rated site took a domain name very similar to an innocent site. I frequently visited ZD Net's hotfiles.com for software downloads and recommended it to others. I once got an angry call from a client whose son had tried to go there on my recommendation. He had left out the "s," entering www.hotfile.com and found an entirely different site. Another scandal involved a nasty purveyor of porn who created a site similar to a Disney site and called it something like Snowite.com. Then a magazine for children recommended the Disney site. I don't recall if they misspelled it in the magazine or if the kids did it, but the magazine issued a clarification in the next issue.)
How do these new TLDs work? Addresses on the Internet are actually numeric. When someone creates a web site and puts in on a server, that server has a numeric address on the Net. You have probably seen these addresses. They look like 197.23.144.21. When you create a new web site, at least two steps are performed. First, you register the domain name. This means that a lookup is done to make sure no one else has that domain name. Then it is assigned to you (or to the service that registered the name for you.) Next, your site is created on a Web server and the name you registered is associated with an address pointing to that server.
The name-and-address association is recorded in a registry called a DNS. Since it would be too slow and cumbersome to go to the central registry every time anyone entered a web site URL, ISPs keep their own local DNS on their servers and update them periodically from the central registry. This means that when you create a new web site, it may take several days until you can actually find it on the net. When I first established my web site, the server it was on developed a problem. The site was moved to another server. Since this server had a different address, the DNS had to be changed. For several days, some folks saw the new site and some folks still saw the old one, until all the local DNS entries were updated.
You can actually get to a web site using either method, the name or the number. The number is more accurate, since it points to the direct address. When you enter the name, it does a DNS lookup to find the numeric address.
While everyone was using COM, NET and ORG, all domain names were first cleared through ICANN and two people could not own the same name. But now companies have found a way to create new names. They will register a name such as great.shop, point it to an address on their server and then register it with ICANN once the site was created.
To better understand the process, think of an apartment building. The one address is assigned to the building and contains many apartments. Wolfgang Beethoven can move into the building and then that address is his, with an apartment number tacked on to the end. He can move out and that apartment is now available for someone else. He moves to another building and now his address has changed. If a letter to him is returned to the local post office and an address change has been filled out, they can redirect it to the new address. This is similar to how a web site URL and DNS work. The server (apartment building) has an address such as 123.45.678.90. A new name of mysite.com is registered with ICANN which points to a directory on the server, such as 123.45.678.91. If he moves to another server, the DNS entry is changed just like an address is changed when someone moves.
Now suppose someone rents an office in a building and never registers with the Post Office or puts their name on a mail box. Yes, the office is there, but any letters mailed there will be returned with "addressee unknown." There are folks who buy domain names strictly for the purpose of reselling it. In my opinion, this activity is similar to ticket scalping. There was a time when these domain name scalpers rushed to buy the names of large companies and famous people just so that they could resell it back at a profit. In one famous case, a scalper bought the name altavista.com and then resold it to AltaVista for several million dollars. Eventually, after a number of complaints (I think the landmark case was the person who tried to sell Juliaroberts.com to Julia Roberts) the courts declared that the company or person whose name was contained in the domain name had first rights. But this did not stop the scalpers who bought generic names not associated with a specific company. It was only a matter of time before a scalper bought the name Free.Shop in order to resell it. But since he never created an actual web site, he never registered the name with Icann. Along came a businessman who wanted the name for his business and created a site called Free.shop. He then found a server, registered the name with Icann and began to use it. The problem is that the scalper bought the name first. So who owns the name? The one who bought it first or the one who actually registered it? Right now this is headed for the courts.
An End to CD Pirates?
CD-eating fungus
Story. A scientist returning home from Belize discovered that a CD had become infected with a virus that had actually eaten some of the material. Though this virus is known to infect plants and occasionally even animals and humans, it has not been known to infect inert material. Scientists are now investigating to see if it can somehow be used in environmental control.
Search Engine Smarts by Irving Weiss
Part IV - The difference between a directory and an index
We all know about Yahoo, Google, Alta Vista, Excite, Looksmart, AOL, MSN and others. How do all these Search Engines build up their databases? Do they all operate the same way? Do they each have their own unique robot that finds sites for them? What kinds of algorithms do they have for search results against their respective databases?
Needless to say this is a very complex question and we will only touch upon the basic premises. Due to revenue concerns, the search engines business is a constant changing marketplace and the various methods we will discuss can change dramatically, especially in terms of costs on the consumer side. Ultimately the sites with the deepest pockets will be the sites most prominently listed on the search engines (we're almost there already).
Putting that aside we need to understand the difference between a search engine directory like Yahoo and a search engine index like Google and their relationship to each other. Of course any respectable search engine directory also indexes their database to allow one to perform searches against the database. The most respected and maintained directories are Yahoo, Looksmart and DMOZ. Search engine directories are comparable to the Yellow Pages, listing sites by Category and location.
A search engine index is a flat index of all sites the search engine knows about (e.g. Google). A specially designed algorithm is designed to figure out what the site description is and what ranking a sites keywords should get in related searches. OK, but how does these Search Engines know and find about sites to index? There are four possible methods. The first is that it takes all the sites from various directories and indexes them. It will even score higher sites coming from established directories as being authentic and will be listed more prominently for related keyword searches.
It should be clear now of the importance of getting listed in the 3 directories. The reason why they are considered excellent directories is because they are picky whom they list in their directory. Yahoo and Looksmart will set you back $199 and going even higher soon. (A Chutzpah - more about these charges next issue.) DMOZ will list you free. You pay to
apply and are not guaranteed to get listed. There are many rules involved so read them well before you apply. Crazy rules like no pages that say "construction zone: come back later" or the omission of an 'about us' page can result in Yahoo's blacklisting your site forever.
Consider paying a Search Engine expert for the submission process. Hopefully, they will have a fair share of experiences with Yahoo and Looksmart. Unlike the firms that tried to do it on their own, an expert would have known that Yahoo would not accept two unique sites because they shared some information about the same doctors. More important is the Title and short Description that you provide to the directories. Are they valid and do they contain the keywords? You can get severely penalized or Yahoo can change your description to something meaningless and nobody will ever find your site by doing keyword searches.
Need help with the Search Engines? Optimization or advice. Feel free to contact me.
Winpulse shows you lots of useful information about your system's current configuration, including how much memory, swap space, cpu power and disk space is being used. Download Winpulse.
Ever send someone email and not get an answer for days or weeks? You sit there wondering if the emails are getting "lost in the ozone" or if the person is deliberately ignoring you. Here's a nifty way to know. Go to itraceyou.com and register for a free account. Now you can send mail one of two ways. You can send it directly from the itraceyou site or you can send it from your regular email but change the TO field just slightly. Itraceyou will send you a confirmation email when your email has been delivered to the recipient's mailbox and then a second email when it has been read. The recipient isn't notified of the trace. Next time you get that "Sorry for not responding but I've been away for a few weeks" reply, you'll have some idea if it's true. A free account at Itraceyou is limited to 15 secretly traced messages a day. After that, Itraceyou places a banner on the email saying something to the effect of "This email was traced using Itraceyou.com."
While most of us use spell-checking with our word processors, how many of us spell-check email before it goes out or posts we make on web sites? Here is a free program that can check the spelling of anything in windows All Purpose Spell Checker.
Do your drive letters come up differently depending on which computer you use or which removable drives you plug in? I use a removable drive and while I love it, there is one annoying feature and that is that if I plug it in, it becomes my D: drive and my D: becomes E:. This interferes with all the other programs I have set up. Outlook prompts me for a new PST file and applications can no longer find the files I last worked on. I just recently learned of a free program that will let you assign just about any device to any letter. letter assigner.
Here's one you can do yourself. Create a file in notepad with the following two lines:
[InternetShortcut]
Save the file as: last_modified.url in the favorites directory of your machine (usually c:\windows\favorites but it might be c:\winnt40\profiles\favorites). Now whenever you are on a web site, you can go to your favorits and click this URL to see the date that site was last changed.
Here's a useful one for folks who are very exacting or find their PC clock inacrruate. It's a utility that can sync your PC's clock with the atomic time. You can run it manually or set it to run automatically in your start up. Atomic Time.
Co_citer - this free utility lets you grab info from a web page into a mini database. It also stores relevant information like the URL, date grabbed, etc.
CDR identifier - this free utility will read a CD and tell you the manufacturer and some other information.
the Langa Letter tips and tricks on using your PC, emailed to you absolutely free. I have included some of his tips in my previous letters.
Irving Weiss searchenginesmarts@hotmail.com 718-337-6907
Useful sites and freeware
Another service that does a similar job is Confirm.to. No need to register for an account. Just add .confirm.to to the end of your email, as in: izzy@ygoodman.com.confirm.to. This will send the email and send you a confirmation when it has been read. Confirm.to limits you to 30 messages a month.
URL=javascript:alert(document.lastModified)
Note: In the past I sent out this list from my Outlook folder. This was a tedious process because Outlook often choked on the large number of subscribers and sometimes when I stopped and restarted the process, some folks got two emails. Starting last month, mailings are being done directly from ASP scripts on my server. Instead of bundling the email (sending it to everyone on the list as a group), the process sends each one individually, using a database of email ids. This is why you will see your email ID. Previously, I used BCC (blind carbon copy) so that the email would not start off with a few pages of all the email IDs on the list. Sending individually will also allow me to more easily track and eliminate such problems as bad emails, duplicates and unsubscribes. A few folks asked me to remove them but the email they sent the message from did not match any on my list. Now if you simply reply "remove" when you get this, I will see the email it was sent to and be able to remove you promptly. Because I had to convert my outlook list into a database, it is possible the during the process some names of folks who were previously removed, or didn't belong on this list at all, somehow got on. Though I reviewed the final result, there may be a duplicate record. It is also possible that someone got left off the list. So if you received this letter and had asked to be removed, I apologize. Please reply with remove and this time I promise it will be taken care of. If you get two copies, let me know and I will delete the duplicate record. If you don't get this letter at all, let me know that too :) There are now 3 ways you can read this letter. You can get it in HTML as you are seeing it now, you can view the link on our site or I can send you a PDF file which is readable using the free Adobe Acrobat reader. If you don't aleady have the reader, I suggest you go to www.adobe.com and download it. There are a lot of sites providing documentation and forms in this format. Let me know which format you prefer. I have just obtained the software necessary to create PDF files. If there are enough folks interested, I will turn this page into a PDF file and send it out that way. Just FYI: a PDF file is NOT a script. It can not excute and it can not infect your PC even if you open it. It is just a document file that can contain fonts and graphics and can only be read with Adobe Acrobat Reader.
I also have another email that goes out about twice 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.
I hope this letter contained useful information. Please email ccs@ygoodman.com with any comments.