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IN THIS NEWSLETTER
Introduction
Recent News and Commentary
Interesting Products
Tech Tips
Around the Internet
Recent Web Site Articles, Etc.

Introduction

Recent News and Commentary

Visit the news section our web site for more news..

Interesting Product. I just swapped the SMC7004BR Barricade I was using for an SMC7008BR Barricade.  It has seven LAN ports, 1 WAN port, Serial interface, and printer server. It's very nice package and works great with Surfboard SB2100D cable MODEM on a 2-way cable. It's fanless, plugs directly in the wall (no power adapter), and uses the same HTML interface as the 4-port version. The LEDs are better than the 4-port Barricade and all of the Ethernet jacks are on the front of the unit. I've seen prices of about $167 on the Internet. I currently have five PCs plugged into it and plan to speed test it with seven PCs next week when I am scheduled to build two Athlon XP computers for a customer.

Tech Tip. TweakUI.  Matt Thyng posted the following tip in our forums sometime ago:

"There's an incredibly handy utility on every Win98 disc called TweakUI (User Interface). Do a filesearch for TweakUI.INF on the CD, and then right click on it and choose "Install". The program will be installed in your Control Panel, and lets you customize Windows, including Icons, startup/shutdown screens, clearing various caches automatically, etc. Very handy for any type of user."

It is on the Win 98 CD at D:\tools\reskit\powertoys, where D: is your CD-ROM drive.  It can also be downloaded from Microsoft here.

"Play with it for a while to see what it can do

Copyright 2000 Brian Livingston

TweakUI's Control Panel tab lets you choose which applets are available in the Control Panel. Hiding applets in this way does not uninstall them, but simply protects them from tampering. Similarly, you can use the My Computer tab to hide disk drives from users.
The Repair tab lets you fix all kinds of problems. Among others, you can rebuild icons that have gotten lost or corrupted, repair file associations, repair the Fonts folder, and repair the Registry editor.
You can also use the Desktop tab to remove or rename special icons such as the Recycle Bin. It's worth exploring TweakUI in advance, so you'll remember it's there when you need it.

Copyright 2000 Brian Livingston"

Once installed, go to Start, Settings, Control Panel, double-click the TweakUI icon, select the Paranoia (and appropriate name?) tab, check Clear Run history at login, and restart Windows. On my computer running Windows Me I had to reboot for it to take affect; the Clear Selected Items Now button did not work (even after clicking the Apply button). The Windows Me CD does no have the resource kit or TweakUI.

If you don't find TweakUI on your CD or need a more recent version for Windows 2000/ME etc., you can download it at this URL:
http://www.microsoft.com/ntworkstation/downloads/PowerToys/Networking/NTTweakUI.asp

Obscure IP address http://www.pc-help.org/obscure.htm

Around the Internet.

Free online virus scan: http://housecall.antivirus.com/housecall/start_pcc.asp.  A bit slow compared to a disk-based virus programs and and it scans all files, but it works.

Larry

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