The Dux Computer Newsletter
Around the Internet - Volume 1 - 2001
Last updated: 10/2/01

1.  In his analysis, Bert McComas at InQuest Market Research says this year looks bleak for Intel in Can the Pentium 4 Recover?   A very good site for clipart.  Samsung SM-308: Three Drives for the Price of One.  This drive has the ability to read from and write to CD-R and CD-RW media as well as read DVD-ROM disks.  The coolest screensaver I've ever seen.   SDRAM vs. RDRAM, Facts and Fantasy.  Undocumented Windows 9X Setup Switches.

2.  Cable MODEM Tutorial.  Wim's BIOS, a good site with all sorts of info on motherboard BIOSs.  SmartFTP, a good, free, and powerful FTP program with no advertising.  It can resume a file transfer after a connection breaks.  It's a bit complicated and takes some getting used to.

3.  Microsoft just launched its Tools on the Web.  This web site includes more than 120,000 images, over 1,000 sample documents, help for office products, and other free goodies.

4.  How to Connect Remote Users to Your Network.  PowerArchiver, an excellent, absolutely free, archive utility that does not advertise or prompt you to register (I like it better than WinZip).  Atomic Clock Synch is a very simple, no frills, absolutely free, non-advertising, easy to use way to synch your computer clock with the exact current time.  It also has a link to an easy way to find out what time it is anywhere (that could be called advertising; I call it useful).

5.  Convert: a nice free little program to convert Liters to Pecks, Pounds to Kilograms, Celsius to Fahrenheit, you name it.  Lost Circuits' Coverage of Computex TAIPEI 2001: Up-Close and Behind the Scenes.

6.  Dictionaries and other references. The Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing is a searchable dictionary with over 13,000 definitions of words, acronyms, jargon, and anything else to do with computing.  It is frequently updated.  You can download a copy to use off-line, put a button on your web site so visitors can use it, or download the entire dictionary.  If you can't find it there, try Whatis.com.   If you just need a dictionary or thesaurus try the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus.  It beats running to bookshelf and digging through a fat dictionary.  The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.  The OneLook Dictionaries index currently lists 3,230,085 words in 736 online dictionaries.  Dictionary.com has all kinds of dictionaries and a translator.  You can also access it with the Internet Explorer by clicking Search in the toolbar, More., Look up a word.  Alta Vista has another translator that I use.  The Indiana University Knowledgebase has over 7,000 answers to questions about computing.  You can find most of the rest of the on-line dictionaries, etc., really hard to find definitions, and answers to tough questions at Google, my favorite search engine.  The next time you get a Windows error and it mentions a problem with a specific file or driver, try searching Google with the file or driver name, or with the error code itself.  And, of course, one can find a lot of answers in the more than 2,500 web pages comprising the Dux Computer Digest with our Site Search Engine.  I found this info on plastic memory interesting.

7.  If opening a DOS Window to ping an IP address or connecting to a DNS lookup service seems inconvenient, try Netinfo.  It is a quick, easy to use Windows-based toolkit for diagnosing network problems and getting information about users, hosts, and networks on the Internet or on an intranet.  It costs $25.  A fully functional demo is available for download.  I like it.  Monster Ping has some of the same sort of tools in a simple command button interface.  It costs $28.  A fully-functional trial version is available for download.  Qcheck is a supper pinger, throughput analyzer, and tracer for the TCP, UDP, SPX, and IPX protocols.   The easy-to-use interface looks somewhat like a simplified, handheld multimeter.  It's free if you are willing to fill-out a short questionnaire.   Visually trace an Internet connection on a world map with NeoTrace Pro.  This very popular program costs $29.95.  A 30-day trial version is available for download.

8.  What is PPPoE.   DSL and ATMoE. Try MonitorWorld.com to find information on an old monitor, etc.  Do you need a Perl script, etc. for a forum, guestbook, counter, search engine, etc. to run on your website?  You can probably find it among the 3,310 CGI resources currently listed at The CGI Resource Index.  These sites were useful for planning an automobile trip to our family reunion: Travel with Kids all kinds of useful info even if you are empty nesters/don't have kids.  I used MapQuest to generate travel directions and maps.  Click here for help with the SirCam virus.  The HyperTransport Revolution: an easy to understand introduction to AMD's HyperTransport.  The IRS has published a schedule for mailing checks as part of the new U.S. tax-cut law.  Criteria is also provided for who will get a refund and how much it will be. Click here to go there.

9.  TCP port numbers have to be configured in a firewall or router before many Internet games, chat and conferencing services, and other applications will work.  Although one can find many lists of port numbers on the Internet, the most official list and the one that appears to be maintained more frequently is available at Internet Assigned Names Authority's web site here.  Go to FirstGov to track your Social Security benefits, apply for a federal student loan, find the nearest veterans hospital, reserve a campsite at a national park... 27 million Web pages.

10.  VIA KT266A motherboard chipset benchmarks: AnandTech, VIAHardware, and Xbit.

Serial ATA FAQs.  Dell: Serial ATA Interface shows pictures of computers with the old, flat drive cables and the new Serial ATA cables installed.   More ATA Serial stuff at Molex.

For troubleshooting old computers and new disk drives. Overcoming the 8.4-GByte Hard Disk Drive Barrier.

11. Some great disk drive tools (my thanks to "Waddy," a regular visitor to our forums, for this one).  If you are a science news buff like I am, try these links:  Scientific American,  Science News, UniSci, Reuters, NASA, and one I still have not outgrown in nearly a half a century, Popular Science.