Computer Industry Almanac
Last time we recommended the statmarket site as a good place to find out various statistics about the Internet.  For a more general set of figures, relating to all aspects of the computer industry past and present, the CIA site (no, not that one) makes fascinating reading.
http://www.c-i-a.com

MCSE Training
Studying for an MCSE or other Microsoft exam?   There are lots of useful sites on the Web that have details of past questions, "brain dumps" from people who have previously taken one of the exams, etc etc.
http://www.microsoft.com/train_cert
http://209.207.167.177
http://www.cramsession.com

Tips, Tips and more Tips
Windows International magazine has a regularly-updated collection of tips for users and support staff on its Web site.  Well worth looking in frequently to see what's new.
http://www.winmag.com/tips

Dual Video Cards
Need a bigger display than your monitor can provide?  Upgrading a machine to a larger monitor isn't the only answer.  You could use two smaller, cheaper monitors, and a multiple monitor card to split the standard Windows display between the 2.   Appian Graphics makes just such cards.
http://www.appiangraphics.com

BIOS ID Retrieval
So, you've a load of PCs linked to the network and you want to know which BIOS they have, in order to sort out possible Y2K issues.  CTBIOS is a program that will dump the BIOS id data to a text file, which you can put in your users' login scripts and then interrogate from the server.  You'll find it, and lots more useful BIOS-related stuff, at this site.
http://www.ping.be/bios/

Novell Y2K Home Page
And if you've a NetWare server that may or may not be Y2K compatible, Novell's Y2K home page will tell you how to find out the good (or bad) news.
http://www.novell.com/y2k

Win98 Lite
IE4 is an intrinsic part of Windows 98 and you can't install the OS without the browser.  True?  No.  This site shows you how to do it, and thus save lots of your users' hard disk space.  Not to mention avoiding the awful Active Desktop, which turns your users' desktops into something completely non-standard.
http://www.98lite.net

Pop-up Reminder
A to-do list program is one thing, but many users also need a pop-up reminder program to help prevent them missing appointments.  Here's one of our favourites.
http://www.agenda.dircon.co.uk

Home of Good Software
ASP is the Association of Shareware Professionals, and some of the best and cheapest software (especially utilities) can be found on its main site.
http://www.asp-shareware.org

FreeMem
Windows is supposed to manage memory itself, shuffling unused blocks around in order to ensure that the maximum amount of RAM is always available to applications.  But FreeMem claims to be able to do it better, leading to more free memory and thus faster execution of programs.
http://www.meikel.com

Site Aid
Got users who are setting up intranet pages or a Web site?  Among the dozens of programs designed to make the process easier is SiteAid.  Which, we reckon, is actually jolly good.
http://www.siteaid.com

Master Documents - Making it Work
The Master Document feature in Word 97 is, in theory, great.  It lets you split large documents into multiple files, and recombine them for printing etc.  But it doesn't work, and often leads to crashes and/or data loss.  This replacement for the feature is excellent, according to a number of our correspondents.
http://www.tech-tav.com

Office Toys
Microsoft has a collection of free utilities to aid users of its Office package.
http://www.officetoys.com

FreeDOS
So whatever happened to MS-DOS?  It got cloned, and turned into free software.  Need an OS for an embedded project, or to run on that 386 that you rescued from the skip?  No need to pay - this'll do.  Or, of course, put Linux on it and turn it into a firewall.
http://www.freedos.org
http://www.caldera.com

Acrobat Reader Is Clean - it's official.
There were reports last week that the final version of Acrobat Reader 4, released by Adobe, was infected with the Netbus trojan.  Turns out to have been a false alarm.
http://www.avertlabs.com/public/datafiles/valerts/vinfo/ar40-info.asp

Find a Picture
We've had text search engines and MP3 music search engines.  Now it's picture search engines.  So if Marketing want a picture of Van Gogh, or a rat, or Titanic, this'll find it for you.  Whether it'll be copyright-free, and thus permissible to use, is another matter entirely.
http://www.arribavista.com

More on Melissa
The NT Bug Traq site, an incredibly useful resource for NT people, now has information on the Melissa virus.  It did, until last week, have the commented source code too, but the source was removed following complaints.  The comments are still there, though, as are pointers to the source if you really want to see how it worked.  Oh, and that warning that was doing the rounds last week, about a virus that downloads Linux in the background and "upgrades" your PC from Windows to Linux?  It was a hoax.
http://ntbugtraq.ntadvice.com

IE 5 Bug
Another day, and another bug in IE5.  This one, apparently, "allows reading and sending local files to a remote server".
http://www.nat.bg/~joro/fr.html
http://pages.whowhere.com/computers/cuartangojc/index.html

Print to TIFF
If you need to convert a screen display to a graphic, for inclusion in a document, the official way is to use a screen grabber such as the excellent PaintShop Pro.  But this means that the graphic's resolution will be no higher than that of the screen.  Much better is to use a printer driver that produces TIFF files directly.
http://blackice.sendfax.com

NT4 SP4 TS
NT Service Pack 4 is now available in Terminal Server flavour.
http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/terminalserver/downloads/recommended/TSESP4/default.asp

HP Web Printsmart
Got an HP laserjet or deskjet printer?  Web Printsmart, downloadable for free, lets you catalogue and manage downloaded images.
http://www.hp.com/go/webprintsmart

RegClean Update On the Way
Microsoft is currently updating RegClean, its free tool for tidying and cleaning corrupted and stuffed Windows registries.  When it's ready, it will be made available for free download.
http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/nts/exec/vendors/freeshare/Maintnce.asp#registry

VB Site
A new site of interest to Visual Basic programmers is now online.
http://www.gingerbull.demon.co.uk

Wingate
Want to share modems under Windows 9x?  Windows doesn't do it by default, but Wingate will add this facility.
http://www.wingate.com

Software Updates
Want to know whether you're using the latest version of a popular Windows app?  There's a big list at www.updates.com that'll help you find out.
http://www.updates.com

Mac OS Online
Dug out an old Mac?  Need an OS for it?  All MacOS versions up to 7.5.5 are downloadable.
ftp://ftp.apple.com

And finally...Hypochondriac Heaven
All the medical information you could ever need.  Now you can become the office medical guru too.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed
 
 

Head-to-head comparative reviews

6 500 MHz Pentium III desktops		Computer Shopper, April		http://computershopper.com
2 Celeron notebooks		Computer Shopper, April		http://computershopper.com
4 Windows CE (Professional edition) HPCs		Computer Shopper, April		http://computershopper.com
2 21" monitors		PC Magazine, 20th April		http://pcmag.com
29 LCD monitors		PC Magazine, 20th April		http://pcmag.com
5 Enterprise servers		PC Magazine, 20th April		http://pcmag.com
2 tape backup software packages for NT		Windows NT Systems, April		http://www.ntsystems.com

Ghosting The Machine
Setting up one workstation with an operating system and a set of core applications is relatively painless.  Rolling that configuration out to 399 similar workstations is harder.  Well, not so much hard as time-consuming.  There are many applications designed to help, and April's issue of Computer Shopper looks at a variety of them.  Recommended reading for any support person who's short of time.
http://computershopper.com

Free Software
In the May issue of Digit magazine, which covers all aspects of graphic design, the cover-mounted CD-ROM includes a full version of NetObjects Fusion 2.0.2, the Web design suite.  Well worth a look if you're currently putting together a Web site.
http://www.idg.co.uk

InDesign
Also in May's issue of Digit, a review of Adobe's InDesign DTP package, designed to see off the competition from QuarkXPress.
http://www.idg.co.uk

Network Storage
In the April 20th issue of PC Magazine, a very readable supplement on network storage.  Got a LAN server that's short of space?  If so, this is required reading.
http://www.pcmag.com

Fast 'Net Connection
Also in the April 20th issue of PC Magazine, a good look at methods of achieving fast Internet connections, such as ADSL, leased lines, cable and satellite "modems", and other technologies.
http://www.pcmag.com

Managing Web Sites
In April's issue of Windows NT Systems, a good feature on the tools available for managing NT-hosted Web and intranet sites.
http://www.ntsystems.com

Automated Printer Installation
Also in April's issue of Windows NT Systems, an article on how to do remote printer installation, ie configuring workstations to use a networked printer.
http://www.ntsystems.com

Heroix RoboMon
Also in April's issue of Windows NT Systems, a review of Robomon from Heroix, a systems management package for NT servers which monitors domains and workgroups for errors.  In many cases, the program can even fix the error before it becomes a problem.
http://www.ntsystems.com

Give us a Tune
Here's a good one that we missed last time.  In Windows NT Magazine, March '99, a useful collection of articles on tuning Windows NT systems, including general tuning of disk systems and optimizing NTFS drives.
http://www.winntmag.com

Fixes, Fixes Everywhere
In Windows International, April,  there's a special feature on fixes.  This includes details of how to fix the 15 most common Windows problems encountered by users, and how to fix the problems introduced with NT by Service Pack 4.  (Incidentally, SP5 is currently in beta - subscribers to PC Network Advisor will receive it on their monthly CD-ROM once it has been officially released).
http://www.winmag.com

WordPerfect 2000
Microsoft may have the largest market share, but that doesn't necessarily mean that its software is the best.  April's issue of Windows International has a preview of WordPerfect Office 2000, and general opinion is that it's fab.  It's just a shame that Corel doesn't have Microsoft's marketing budget.
http://www.winmag.com

Intranet Expo
If you're in London this week, Intranet Expo takes place on April 20th and 21st.  Internet Business magazine, in its April issue, has details of what's being presented and launched at this event.
http://www.ibmag.co.uk

NetWare security and Y2K
March's issue of Network Magazine, which appears to be still on the shelves, has good in-depth articles on making NetWare Y2K compliant and on ensuring the security of a NetWare 5 server.
http://www.networkmagazine.com
 
 

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