Questions and Answers
SPCUG Answer Guys
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Questions and Answers
Here are highlights from recent Q&A sessions. Questions and responses have been edited for clarity and correctness.
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Comcast Emails
Q: Comcast cable, which I have now, allows 7 e-mails. Does anyone know how to set them up on Netscape? If I set up more than one, it only allows one account.
A: There was no answer to this question. The answer guys use Outlook and IE.
Networked Transfer Speed
Q: I have a question the Belkin guy might answer about file transfer speed between two networked computers, say a 266 Pentium over here and another 650 Pentium over there. I'm transferring through a hub and getting a 15-times difference transfer speed depending on direction. I've replaced the Ethernet hub. One NIC is a 10 and the other is a 10-100. The hub runs at ten, so the transfer speed should be the same.
A: Your duplex may not match. I can tell you right now that the problem is your PCMCIA card. That's old technology. It will have to be a card bus type 2 or 3 to get the full duplex. The hub speed doesn't matter, it's the speed to the hub and that half duplex versus full. If you can make your PCMCIA a type 2 or 3 device, replace it, such as with an Intel. What you have is only a 16-bit device.
R: But why are the speeds different going different directions?
A: That I can't explain.
ATI Video Capture
Q: I'm hoping to find someone doing successful video capture on an ATI card. It locks my system up. ATI spent a lot of time trying to help me.
A: Microsoft just put out an ATI critical update upgrade, a new driver. My software checks every 15 minutes on the Web and I just downloaded it. You might try the Mentor list.
Diamond Stealth Video Accelerator Card
Q: I've got a problem with a Diamond Stealth II video accelerator card which I'm running under a Windows 95 upgrade. If you simply install the OS and let it identify the card's components and install the recommended drivers, it works. If you install the Stealth II software, the system boots, comes up, screen is working fine, and as soon as Windows comes up, it locks up.
A: If you go to the Diamond MM (multimedia) site, it tells you how to run a little debug thing. It identifies the card, then talks about the card you have that can be matched with the driver.
R: It's the driver that came in the box.
A: Yes, but is it the driver for Windows 95 or 98? Because it does make a difference. They all do that. So go to the site, figure out which card you have and then figure out which driver to download.
Hard Drive Speeds
Q: What's the difference between hard drive speeds today? Is it really that big a deal?
A: If you're not doing video, it doesn't really matter. If you are, get the fastest one. But even the speed of the drive is not an indication of the throughput.
A: How many people have defragged their drive and noticed the difference in speed in milliseconds? It's like that.
USB Problems
Q: So far I am 0 for 1 in installing USB devices. When I first plugged in a printer I had been using elsewhere, I didn't want to go through the bother of installing, so I hit Cancel. Apparently that's not a good thing to do with a USB. Went to the HP Web site and they had an answer, and I went through the whole routine and nothing works. The end of the instructions said: If all else fails, use your parallel cable. (Laughter) Do you have any ideas short of reformatting?
A: You have to do some RegEdit.
A: On my HP I couldn't get anywhere, but on the CD there was an uninstall program. I ran it and re-installed it.
R: I did that.
A: I had the same problem and the instructions were next to useless. You have to rip out everything, all the parallel stuff, all the USB stuff. The only way you can install it is to have Windows recognize it when you plug it in. And if it can't recognize it, or thinks it found a parallel port, it will never pick up the USB.
A: There was a driver on my CD that I had overlooked, and that worked. There is a downside of USB. If you have a printer hooked up to USB, you can't capture to it. You can't run a DOS application and print to it, because there is no capture device. That's the only down side.
Internet Download
Q: I have a question about Internet connections. I can load, and it will go about 5 pages, from one spot to another four or five times, and then it will just sit there for a while before it downloads the next page. I wonder if I missed a setting or something.
A: I have a client who has a 12-second delay every 26 minutes and it's bugging me. I can't figure it out. I don't know.
Comcast USB Modems
Q: Another USB question. Comcast just installed a modem, but they did it USB because I had no place for a NIC. So can I anticipate any problems if I pick up a Handspring and want to put it in the USB cradle?
A: No, no problems.
Calweb Accounts
Q: Does anyone have a Calweb account? Have you got the e-mail saying Calweb is leaving the dial-up business? It's transferring everyone to Earthlink, unless you tell them differently. By default they will put you into the Universal classification, which is $19.95 for unlimited usage, although they do have a cap on how much transfer you can do.
A: To find out where you stand, send an e-mail to postmaster@calweb.com and ask about your account. But even though they gave the announcements out, they aren't shutting you down for six months or so.
Q: I have my domain on Calweb, I have 3 supplementary accounts and received from Earthlink bills where I start paying $20 a month for each new account Calweb had set up. I was not asked that information. When Calweb said they were going to change things over and get rid of their dialups they sent me that message. I called and reminded them I wasn't one of those kinds of accounts, but they still set them up. When I checked with EarthLink, they said "You don't' have any problem because you weren't being billed with a credit card, so we can't automatically charge you." So anyone who has an account with Calweb, you are now being charged $20 a month to your credit card by EarthLink whether you want to or not unless you get hold of them and cancel it.
A: They did send out a big e-mail apology on that. They accidentally included the business customers on that. All you have to do is call Earthlink and cancel, and there won't even be an account created. Now they did go ahead and create the accounts the day they did the cutovers, and tried to put me into MindSpring, which I didn't want, so I canceled and went to Earthlink. Evidently the way they did their verification was erroneous and they apologized and said "You are not being forced off if you are a business customer." Just contact them and tell them you are not a part of that and they'll take you off.
A: It's funny, because I think that's what the IRS said when they audited my company. "We accidentally audited you." (Laughter)
A: They also sent bills for accounts I had cancelled 2 years ago and I got bills for $20 a month for each of those, and also they never notified me at my main e-mail account for my business account, they only sent the notices to my lower division account. When I called to have it cancelled, after an hour and a half on hold with Earthlink, I finally found someone that could fix it. So it only costs you an hour and a half each account. I called them three weeks before to prevent this happening. When I got through to Calweb they said the new corporate office, Verizon, dug out an old list and sent it in against the wishes of the local Calweb office.
A: I've renewed my domain name for 10 years now, and I got one of those notices that said to renew until 2010, but I had already done it and they said I hadn't. And they said I could switch companies and go to Register instead of Network Solutions. So you have to watch what you do and what scams are out there.
Netscape Encryption
Q: I have Netscape Navigator. I tried to buy something on the Internet lately and got back a message saying I hadn't got an encryption program in. I contacted my Earthlink provider to see if they had an answer, but they say it's in Navigator.
A: I suspect that by default the browser installed a 64-bit encryption, instead of the 128-bit encryption. The smaller one they can ship overseas and bigger one can only be in the U.S. So you have to go to their site and download the 128-bit encryption.
A: The higher encryption lets you get into secure pages, like your banking records. If you notice, the http automatically changes to https and at the bottom there is a little lock that shows up to tell you you're on a secure page. And some will not accept the lower encryption, which is easier to break.
A: If you're not sure if your browser is at 128 SSL level encryption, you can go to Fortify.net, and that is a page built as a plug-in for an add-on that you can patch Netscape with to make it 128-bit SSL even if it wasn't to begin with. The guy who built the site will go through some tests and will tell you if your browser is running at the level, and what you can do. It works.
Net Browser Machine
Q: I'm setting up a machine to be only a Net browser. So I'm scrubbing the hard drive clean with Slate and it works great. Three seconds later, your machine is clean. I've set my machine up as a Net browser and am getting some subtle problems which may or may not be due to the Web. I'm running Windows 98, full version, and when I go to exit, it come up with the logo and says that Windows 98 is shutting down, only it never does. Once it gave me the orange message of "It is now safe to turn off your computer."
A: Okay, write this down. Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, System Configuration. Get into System Configuration, click on the Tools menu, and there's another system configuration as well. Get into that program, and there's an Advanced key. When you click the Advanced key, the top menu is Breakpoints. Click that button. It will ask you to reboot, and after that, it should solve the problem. By the way, don't click that button if your computer shuts down normally, because every machine is different. Some use the high ROM breakpoints, and some don't.
JavaScript Error Messages
Q: Frequently when I'm on the Web, I get an error message saying "Javascript error" and "such and such is not a number." I click Close, and it seems to have no effect on my going through the Web. Sometimes it's there a lot, sometimes I go the whole evening without seeing it. At the moment I'm running totally unsecured. This even happens on Netscape's Home Page.
A: You can always use another Web browser.
Windows ME Program Exit
Q: I think this may be just a basic problem with Windows, but when I want to close down programs in Windows ME and I have a lot of programs open, I get really tired of hitting Ctrl-Alt-Delete, Close, over and over. Is there a shortcut to just shutting them all down at once?
A: You need to close them down individually.
A: In ME you can go to the Start menu and find Log Off. It will tell you if you are logged on or not. But you have to have the right protocols for that as well.
A: If you right click on the Task Bar, you can just close. You don't have to wait for them to come up.
R: I know how that works, but some of my programs are not in Task Bar and they're not down on the launching bar.
A: Are they agents? The little things that show up on the very bottom right hand corner?
R: I don't know, just that when I do Ctrl-Alt-Delete, I might have six or seven things running.
A: Well, that little utility I mentioned earlier, where you get into the system configuration, before you get into the Advanced button, there is the Win.ini and System.ini and Autoexec.bat and Config.sys, and Startup. Selective Start. You can shut off your agents instead of going into RegEdit.
To close down multiple windows, hold the Control key down and left click each window at the bottom. Just click, click, click all the ones you want to close. The last one, right click and click close, and all the ones you've indented will close. That's because the Control key selects, so you can select them all. It creates a problem with the ones that don't show up on the Task Bar. But some of them are part of Windows and you have to run those.
Pentium 4 Chip
Q: I'm contemplating buying a new computer and need to know the story on the Pentium 4 chip. It's a good chip, so what's going on with it?
A: There's nothing wrong with it, but the price is kind of high. You could go with a high-end Pentium 3 or high-end AMD and get as good performance. Until software actually picks up the additional Pentium 4 instructions, and who knows if it ever will, there's no significant reason to go to a Pentium 4.
A: If you want to be on the bleeding edge with the bleeding pocketbook, go for it.
Win ME and AOL
Q: I had the unfortunate experience of having AOL 6 in combination with Win ME USB with Comcast@home and the first thing that happened is Comcast said to go back to AOL 5, so I did. The USB kept crashing with the Win ME, so I finally gave up on that and now have a couple of paperweights. I bought an Intel Ethernet card and put that in. So my question is, does anyone have any familiarity with just Win ME and AOL 6? AOL advised me that there is something called Step 5 that supplies missing drivers, but I am still leery of going back to AOL 6.
A: Well, I installed AOL 6 on a Win ME machine with a dialup modem and there are no problems.
R: That must be the difference.
A: I don't allow my clients who are on the network to have AOL.
Win ME on Laptop
Q: I installed Windows ME on top of Windows 98 on my laptop. Everything works fine, but every once in a while my mouse just freezes. It's a PS/2 2-button Microsoft mouse.
A: On a portable, you say, so you have it plugged in externally.
R: I've got it plugged in with the keyboard. I have one of those Belkin dual ports so I can plug the keyboard and the mouse into the PS/2 port on the side of my Toshiba laptop.
A: Have you tried it without the device? Try that—isolating one piece of hardware from the equation—and if that solves the problem, then you know what it was. Otherwise, I would try changing the driver, going either with a Microsoft mouse driver, if that's what you're using, or a Logitech or whatever.
A: I bet it's Find Fast.
A: That's a possibility as well. Did you have Microsoft Office previous version?
R: Yes, I have Office 97 on the computer.
A: That's probably it. You probably have Find Fast installed, and Find Fast says: "Whenever I have some time, I'm going to steal all the resources and check to see what's been changed on your hard drive." It automatically installs and you have to turn it off. It's a horrible bandwidth hog. Supposedly it speeds up finding files, but is annoying in action.
A: A 12-second freeze every 26 seconds. That's what they say.
A: I suspect that's what your problem is. You need to run MSCONFIG, look for the little check mark, and uncheck it in the Startup thing, and see if it works. If it isn't Find Fast, there is another program that is causing it, another program that goes out when you're idle, and its definition of idle is different from your definition of idle.
Photoshop 6
Q: I have some comments about Photoshop 6. They have modified it so that it will save files as TIFFs directly and that's a big plus for us who don't like to redirect.
A: How many here use Photoshop? Quite a few! You should write an article about that.
Astalavista to Hackers
For any who are worried about hackers, there is a Swedish site called Astalavista. They want to sell you a $25 book. Microsoft wants to know who wrote it. It's a pretty solid book on hacking.
RealAudio Time Shifting
Q: How can you time-shift with something like RealAudio like later in the day, for live broadcasts. Record it live so I can listen to it later in the day?
A: RealAudio does not allow you to do that. If you can get a third party program to capture your output from your speaker back into your in-feed, your inline, although that would be a little tricky.
R: Would it be a problem getting it to click at a specific time onto the link to bring it up? How would you do that?
A: Every operating system now has a scheduler built into it, the Task Scheduler or the AT Command in NT or whatever. That's a possibility as well, you could trigger an external program. RealAudio is very proprietary, very different.
A: I did have a program that would set itself up as your audio driver and intercept everything so you could take anything that played through your sound card, and it would be tapped off to record and could be hooked to any other recorder. I couldn't get it to work, but maybe I could figure it out. You'd want to record it on something like MP3s.
Six Machine Network
Q: I have a network running six machines (all W98SE) with TCI and TCP/IP. On one of the machines, after anywhere from two days to three weeks, its response to the network is either very slow or non-existent. I reboot Windows, and it brings it back up, but it just kind of mysteriously goes away. I don't have a server, it's peer to peer.
A: It's all peer to peer unless you're using broadcasting. So there's no LM Hosts file to make it quicker? That might be a possibility, because that will make it quicker. Probably every machine wants to be a master browser, and so they are all browsing and broadcasting and that's why they are slow, and then one probably somehow loses its broadcasting capabilities and doesn't know how to go out and find the other machines. Are you running any other kind of protocols like NETBUI or IPX?
R: Yeah, NETBUI is on the machine, too, but it's also running DSL, and we never had the issue before DSL got involved in it.
A: Is the DSL connection going through a Network Address Translation device?
R: It's a standard Pac Bell install.
A: Let me explain real quick. Network Address Translation is what they call, toward the only real IP addresses on your router, and everything beyond that, up to 255 different computers, is on what they call a non-routable IP address. So, in a sense, your router is your firewall. Everything else behind that is just like a random number, or they give you a set of numbers to put on everybody's machine that's network-addressed that allows you to proxy into that router, and then the router then gets you out to the Internet as well.
The other way of doing that is to actually have a physical router that has routable IP numbers. And they are real numbers. There are three sets of numbers that all routers in the world do not let go, or let through, basically. There's one on Class A, one on Class B, and one on Class C. Most of them on what they call Network Address Translation are done with the 192.168. They seem to think that that's probably one of the easiest ones to use. So it just depends on how it's set up. It could be set up with permanent IP addresses or not. That's why I was questioning that, but that still shouldn't make any difference on why you are broadcasting around. Because basically the router only routes TCP/IP packets. It doesn't route IPX packets and it doesn't route NETBUI packets. So if you are doing broadcasting and it's trying to find those machines by sending out a request to see if that machine is live, sometimes you can speed things up by putting an LM host file on everybody's machine with the IP address and the name of the machine on everybody's machine. It actually helps quite a bit.
The old way of doing it was just the host file back when the ARPANET was around. The host file would have to be on everybody's machine. It would have an IP number; back then it was like 1, 2, 3 and 4, and then the name of the machine. The LM host is Land Manager Host, it allows you to have a domain name or like a work group name at the end of it, and you can preload it and so forth. So it's just an extension of the host file. And it's still used if you don't have a server, cause if you have a server then you usually use WINS, which is Windows Internet Naming Service, or BNS or something like that.
R: You are saying from peer to peer, you need to use a host file.
A: NETBUI does it, too. In the Windows Directory you create a file with an IP address and then a couple of spaces and then the name of the machine. On the next line do another IP address and the name of that machine. Name it LM Host dot nothing. Save it in the Windows Directory and then reboot the machine and it has that preloader. Do a pound pre and it will preload it into the machine, so that it knows what IP address to look for every time it runs it. It gives you an example.
There's an example on everybody's machine right now called lmhosts.sam. It's a sample, and it tells you exactly how to lay it out, with the #PRE so that it'll preload every time you start your machine, so it'll have it in its internal tables. It knows where to look, it doesn't have to broadcast any more. And a DOM for domain name, which you can put in if you have a server or something, or work group, so it knows to broadcast on that work group. It's pretty powerful and it helps quite a bit.
R: How do you have a network without using NETBUI? Isn't that kind of unstable?
A: TCP/IP is Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol and it works very well on the internet only. But on work groups it doesn't work all that great. It'll work, but it doesn't work all that great. NETBUI is very small, it was made by IBM and originally called Netbio, and was enhanced by IBM for the PC for networking. 3Com had something to do with it as well and it's a very fast protocol, extremely fast, but it uses broadcasting to continuously broadcast back and forth. Of course, it can slow down one of your machines. If you watch your little hub and it's flashing all the time, you know, if you are running that protocol, that it is slowing you down. The point is, it works great from peer to peer. But you don't really need it.
As a matter of fact, when Microsoft came out with NT3.51, they did away with the default protocol of NETBUI. They made the default IPXSPX, and then when they came out with 4.0 they just made a default TCP/IP. It took them a while to get used to it, as well.
Microsoft Urban Legend
Q: A couple of weeks ago I heard an urban legend, which like most urban legends has just enough believability to make you wonder. I heard Microsoft products are so programmed that the user absolutely cannot ever see certain file types. Is there any truth to that or no?
A: No, you can turn that feature on and off. There is a file system called the Object File System that they say they are working on. It still hasn't been released. I'm using the Whistler Project, which is the next release of Windows XP, and they are playing around and dabbling around with that, but I can't really discuss too much about it right now.
Garage Startups
Q: You mentioned Calweb starting up in the garage and there are a couple of other companies like HP and Apple. I wonder if this is some sort of a prerequisite that might guarantee some sort of success when you start a tech business?
A: No, there's probably been more garage failures than there are successes.
New hard Drive File Transfer
Q: When you are putting in a new hard drive and you want to transfer all your files, rather than using something like Drive Image or a program, X Copy or X Copy 32, what's an easier method to just transfer your files from one drive to another and making it the master drive, your new one, without a big hassle.
A: You can drag and drop but the problem with drag and dropping, and then swapping physically the drives' connectors and making them master and slave, is when you are dragging and dropping, Windows itself is using some of those files so therefore it won't copy them, because they are in use at the time. So you are kind of stuck. That's why they have programs like Ghost or Drive Image to do things like that. MaxBlast is a small version of Ghost. Max Blast is primarily a drive overlay but it's easy. It does the whole copy routine.
There is a product called Drive to Drive that will make a mirror image of your drive including overlays, so if you happen to have overlays then it will take and put that on another drive. I use that as a backup. I just have two drives in the machine and I just copy one drive to the other one as a complete backup. But then, Ghost does that, Drive Image does that, they all do that.
R: But I talked to both the companies and they said I cannot take that second drive and put it in the position of the first drive and boot from it. Whereas, with Drive to Drive I can.
A: That's not true.
R: Well, they told me. I asked them. I asked their tech support.
A: When I worked for the Medical Center, we'd have 20 machines lined up and one master machine, and I would broadcast the drive across, using the hub and they'd all boot up and be completely compatible.
A: And I'll have to differ with that statement. I just recently went from a 10 gig to a 60 gig drive in my machine. I used Ghost and actually I did kind of a flip flop. I had a 2.2 and a 10 gig. I took the 2 point 2 for the 10 gig, copied it onto the 60 gig, and then copied my 2.2 onto the 10 gig and the 10 gig is my boot drive now. Works fine, no problems at all.
A: There's also a company called PC to PC. I guess you can do all this on the Internet and just shift all the stuff up and bring it back down. Of course they charge a fee.
A: Well, these bring up interesting concepts. But I know for a fact that we used Ghost, 20 machines at a time. We'd get all these new machines at the Med Center and we'd just Ghost them all through a broadcast. We'd take a hub completely off the Internet, stick it on the floor, hook up 20 machines to it, actually 23 machines because it was 24 port hub, and the one would be the pusher and everybody else would get it and then we'd walk away with 24 machines, 23 machines all Ghosted exactly the way we wanted.
Registry Drag and Drop
Q: Would you get a problem if you just installed your same version of Windows on your new drive and then started dragging and dropping files over in that manner?
A: Well the problem with the drag and the drop is it isn't going to do the Registry stuff. So it's fine for data, but not for programs.
A: There's a version of Drive Image, a junior version called Drive Copy that Barlow peddles also, and that's what I've used and it works very well.
3Com Layoffs
Q: I found one of those sites on different modems and they recommend the 3Com, but I think there's some sort of relationship between the person putting up the site and 3Com, being that he works there.
A: Well, I don't know about that, considering 3Com just announced a 30% reduction in work force last week.
A: Well maybe that was the Web Master then, huh?
A: They just cut 3,000 positions.
Owning Cable Modems
Q: I'm having problems with the cable modem I bought from my service provider.
A: Remember that with any of your services whether it be cable, DSL, even dial up in some cases, when you are on their service and you are using one of their modems, if you run into a problem where they've done an upgrade or you've got bad firmware or something like that at a later date, if you are renting from them, it's a fairly trivial process it get it replaced. If you own it, you've owned it, you have to buy a new one.
There's a couple of places you can check on the Internet for information on modems. One is called DSL Reports and the other is called Cable Modem Info. They list some information on the different modems.
Q: I've considered buying. You know if you own the modem and they own the line, and something goes wrong, obviously it's your modem that's screwed up.
A: If you stick with a name brand, you're in better shape than with one you haven't heard of. 3Com is certainly a good name, or Motorola.
A: When I recommend equipment for people that hook up networks and so forth, I usually go to the hardware compatibility list on the Microsoft site. If it's supported there, then the software is going to be supported because there's a driver. 'Cause usually there's a driver problem.
Cable modems are completely different. Cable modems are basically a hardware device. If they can change the settings remotely and they support it, then you can call them up and say hey, I'm looking at a Cabletron, for example, and if the cable company says, yeah, we recognize that, we can program that, we've had satisfactory support with one of those things, then go for it. But if they say we've got them out there but they don't work that great, we are always resetting them, then I would ask what they recommend. They may say they can't recommend officially, but if you ask specifically about another brand, they may be able to answer your questions.
A: You can always use the Fry's method. It's always good at Fry's to look to see how many return stickers there are on boxes. If there's a lot of return stickers, you don't want it. (Laughter)
Win Modem for DSL
Q: Has anybody had any experience with Winmodems for DSL?
A: Keep in mind that a true Win modem doesn't have a processor in it. You use the processor of the machine. But since this modem basically is designed to work with your network and you plug that Network Category 5 in there, there's really no processor to control it. So there's no such thing as a Winmodem for cable. As a general rule on both DSL and cable, I do not usually recommend the internal versions of their network interface. I recommend the external, because then you can put whatever box you want behind it without having to worry about drivers.
Roseville DSL
C: I want to make a comment about Roseville. I know probably about 15 people that have DSL up in Roseville and they have had absolutely no trouble, except some minor stuff when they were trying to first get on. Their text seems to be good. I've heard no bad reports up there at all.
A: Actually, they do have very good service, very good turnaround. The only problem I had is they outgrew themselves. They bought another class of licenses and so they gave away their old numbers and upgraded them to a new set of numbers, so there's now six. If you have Roseville now and your number starts with 63, they are going to do away with that. They didn't notify my clients, they just flat changed it. So they called me up, said hey, we are dead in the water, what's going on. I had to call the company and say, what's going on? They said, Oh yeah, we switched that over, didn't you get a call? Other than that, they actually have very good service and I'm very pleased with them.
DSL Providers
Q: Who are the major DSL providers in the area besides Pac Bell?
A: There's a list. Go to DSL reports and use DSL Finder. It will give you hundreds of different companies for the whole area.
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