Announcements

Thanks!

Thank you to all of the readers that wrote in to thank me for yesterday's "EZ Read" tip! And, yes, Larry and Craig, highlighting the text by left clicking and dragging your mouse across the dark text on dark background is great way to make it more readable. Thanks for the tip!

Magnet Update

The other day we ran an issue about being careful when placing your disks next to magnetic sources. Well, one of our readers reminded us that your monitor can also cause problems.

Most modern monitors have a Degaussing Coil built into them that activates each time you turn your monitor on. These help keep your monitor's color looking its best.

However, at the same time they create a magnetic field that can ruin data on your disks. So, keep 'em away from the monitor too!

Awesome Download

Ever get a Windows error with some bizarre error code? Like we're supposed to know what that means or something. Well, now we actually can. We've found a handy little download that will tell you what those error message mean. Cool huh?

You can see that and tons more at our homepage:

http://www.worldstart.com

WOW! Lotta Burnin' Goin' on!

We continue to have an incredible response to our Nero 5.5 and Print Shop CD Label Creator bundle. If you missed out, there's still time to get in on this deal. Again, this has a retail value of nearly $95.00, but your cost is only $19.97! (and YES you get FREE US Shipping!).

Here's a quick overview of what you get with both:

NERO:

This is probably the best CD Burning software on the market. It's extremely powerful, yes still very easy to use.

To say this is program is full featured is an understatement (take a look at the page on our site). Naturally, it can do all the basics - create CDs (or DVDs if your drive supports it), make copies of CDs, do backups, etc. It also lets you use your CD-RW drive like a giant floppy drive (just drag and drop), includes an MPEG video encoder, and even lets you create a video CD slide show from your JEPG pictures that you can pop into a DVD player!

The PrintShop CD Label Creator:

The second part of this deal is The PrintShop CD Label Creator. This fantastic program makes creating professional looking CD tables a snap. With 100,000 online images, 10,000 images on the CD, plus over 1000 different layouts, creating that perfect CD label is easy! Oh, and yes - you can use your own photos - it even lets you edit them from within the program!

Just think, for $19.97, you can have the ultimate burning kit! Oh, if you only want one of the programs described above, you can buy them individually. Click the link below now!

http://www.worldstart.com/store/nero-printshop.htm

PS - Don't miss out! Remember, if you don't think it's as good as I say it is, just return in within 30 days for a refund! Nothing to lose - unless you wait and miss out!

Computers 101

Q:
When I try to click my icons, they seem to "run away" from my mouse. I can't get to them and I'm having a hard time using my computer. What's wrong?

A:
I get this question a ton, so I finally looked into it. It's actually a virus, the "magistr" one to be exact.

If you've been infected with it for more than two months, it will cause the jumpy icon phenomenon referenced in today's question. In addition, it causes massive system instability, can mess up your BIOS, and delete all kinds of files. It will even take some text files and fill them with as many dirty words as it can (rated G newsletter or I'd tell you what word in particular :-)

Needless to say, this one is nasty and can really cause some damage. In fact, if it messes up your computer's BIOS, it can potentially render your computer useless. It's extremely well written and very robust for a virus. In other words - you don't want it playing around on your machine - ever.

Although it comes via e-mail, the subject line varies, as does the attachment. There's no way to even guess what to look out for. This is another one that distributes itself by sending to the people in your address book, so remember - just because you get an attachment from a friend doesn't automatically mean it's safe! If your friend is infected, he won't even know he sent it to you!

For more info on this one, Click Here.

Be sure to check out our Virus Guide at the address below, too. It'll teach you how to be safe when dealing with e-mail attachments and such:

http://www.worldstart.com/guides/virus1.htm

Have a question for the newsletter? Submit it at the link below:
http://www.worldstart.com/submitquestion.htm

Tip of the Day

Refreshing Sites

OK, do you visit web pages with dynamic, frequently updated content? You know, stuff like news, stocks, and weather-type sites.

Anyhow, have you ever noticed that sometimes you just can't get the stupid page to refresh? Sure, you hit the refresh button but it's the same page (and you just know it's been updated). Explorer is stubbornly refusing to re-load the thing properly.

Is there any hope? Are you going to be stuck looking at outdated information forever?

You'll be glad to learn there is a little trick you can use. Just put a question mark after the URL. Your browser, not being all that bright, will think it's a new page and re-load it for you. The question mark won't affect the page or the way it's displayed, so don't sweat that part.

Anyhow, here's an example. Let's say you went to:

www.worldstart.com

To make the page completely re-load, type this instead:

www.worldstart.com?

Oh, if you need to keep re-loading, you can keep adding junk after the question mark:

www.worldstart.com?1kjsdk

Cool huh?

Why does this work?

When your browser sees the question mark, it only loads the page in front of it. However, since the whole URL changes, you get a complete re-load of the page.

-- Steve

Have a tip for the newsletter? Submit it below:
http://www.worldstart.com/writers-guidelines/index.htm

Amanda's Cool Site of the Day

Grey Wolf Cub’s World

This site is showcased only for the articles on the front page. I thought they were very interesting and worth a read. With headlines like “Bush lieutenants push UN over Iraq” and “Time running out for Saddam, say Swell,” how can you not stay informed of the day's hot topics?

You will also find links to U.K. Ministry of Defense, The British Home Office, Bank of England, British Secret Service. I hope you enjoy my Current Events piece for the week!

http://www.greywolfcub.co.uk/

Do you have a cool, non-commercial site that you want to share?
Send it to Amanda at amanda@worldstart.com