Announcements

 Real Protection For Your Computer!

Wow, a big "Thank You" to the hundreds who took advantage of our SpikeMaster Surge Protector offer yesterday. You've made a smart purchase and it'll be at your door soon :-)

If your surge protection still consists of one of those outdated, unreliable power strip things (or worse, nothing at all), now's the time to upgrade.

Remember, the ability of those power strips to protect your computer doesn't last forever, and most have no way to tell you the surge protection circuit has failed (that's right - you could be unprotected even as you read this). Don't take chances with your computer - get a surge protector you can really depend on.

Look at these specs:

	$50,000 connected equipment warranty (that's enough for me to know it's good!)
	Surge protection warning light and audible alarm tells you if the unit's surge protection circuit is blown (that way if you can't see it, you'll hear it)
	8 plugs - 3 of which are designed to accommodate those bulky AC adapters.
	Rotating wall plug makes it easy to get this surge protector into an awkward socket location.
	Phone line pass through (unprotected phone lines can really mess up a computer)
	EMI/RFI filter for cleaner power

When you think about it, we spend hundreds of dollars on software to keep our computers - and the data they hold - safe (anti-virus, firewalls, backup programs, etc). Shouldn't a quality surge protector be part of that protection?

Again, this is just $14.97 after $10 mail in rebate and US shipping is FREE. You can hardly get a cheap power strip for that kind of money, let alone a higher end surge protector like this! It's crazy not to have some form of reliable surge protection, and for this price you just can't go wrong. Check it out:

http://www.worldstart.com/store/spike-mster.htm

PS - I forgot to mention this yesterday, but this is a limited quantity item. Once these are gone, we can't get more (and they are selling fast). Don't hate yourself for missing out! Grab yours today!

Computers 101

Q:
When I try to run Scan Disk it keeps resetting. How can I get it to run?

A:
For anyone out there unfamiliar with Scan Disk, I will begin by explaining what it is and how to run it.

Scan Disk will keep resetting if Windows is performing background tasks. Many times you are not even aware that these are happening, nevertheless they are there and can get in the way of a good scan.

There is a way to get around this: just as your computer starts to boot up (before the Windows "splash screen" appears), keep hitting F8 on your keyboard. A menu should come up. Choose the SAFE MODE option then run Scan Disk following the normal procedure and it should work just fine. When done, re-set your computer and be sure to switch back to normal mode.

Windows 95/98/ME Users:
Click on the Start Menu then select Programs, Accessories, System Tools, then Scan Disk. Select the drive you would like to check, then select the type of test you would like to run (standard or thorough). Finally, click Start.

WindowsNT/2000/XP Users:
What we all came to love as "Scan Disk" is not called "Error Checking" (a rose by any other name would smell as sweet...)

Double click your My Computer icon. Right click on the C: drive. Select Properties then choose the Tools tab. Under Error Checking, click the Check Now button. A dialog box will pop up, check both check boxes and click Start.

A dialog box will pop up telling you, "The disk check could not be performed because exclusive access to the drive could not be obtained. Do you want this disk check to be scheduled the next time you restart the computer?" (I don't know why you would go through all of this if you didn't want to click ‘yes’ and why Microsoft held this over with 2000 and XP, but in their infinite wisdom they did! There may be good reasons to back down now but I can't think of any, so…)

Boldly click the Yes button! I guarantee it won't hurt a bit.

P.S: While in Safe Mode, you may want to run defragment as well.

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

Tip of the Day

Illegal Operations

Don't you hate it when you see this error:
"This program has preformed an illegal operation and will be shut down".

It can happen for a variety of reasons. In my experience, most of the time it's due to a software conflict of some sort, usually with a program that's running in the background.

If you find you have a bunch of stuff sitting in your system tray (it's the little box opposite the Start button on the taskbar), you may find that shutting down some of those programs will help tremendously (most have an option to shut down if you right-click their icon) . It's usually one of them that's the culprit (RealPlayer causes *lots* of problems), especially if the program with the problem seems to be the only thing running.

You can also use the CTRL-ALT-DEL key combination to shut programs down manually, but you also run the risk of accidently shutting your computer down (Don't close Explorer or Systray). Only do this after you've shut down all your system try icons and are continuing to have problems.

If you shut all of those background programs down and still haven't resolved the conflict, you may have a Windows driver that's messing things up. Try booting to Safe Mode and running the program. (To get to Safe Mode, hit the F8 key just as Windows starts to boot, before the first Windows loading screen comes up). If all works well in safe mode, you may have to re-install or update your drivers.

Another possibility is the program has a corrupted file. Try uninstalling then re-installing the program.

If you're still having problems, contact the program's vender and see if they know what's going on. Although they may not be able to help you, it's still worth a try. Keep in mind that every computer is as unique as you and I once we start using it, so sometimes even the guy who wrote the program won't know why it's causing a problem on your machine and no one else's.

I can usually resolve the illegal operation problem by taking the steps above. Don't panic if you see this error message crop up from time to time at random intervals. It happens, usually after Windows has been running awhile without a re-boot. Only take the actions above if the problem appears every time, or almost every time, you use a particular program.

~Steve

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http://www.worldstart.com/writers-guidelines/index.htm

Amanda's Cool Site of the Day

Time and Date

This site is the epitome of time and date information. You can find time information from all time zones and calendars of all shapes and sizes. Whatever information about times and dates you need, you can find it here.

Better yet, you can enter the location of the country, and get more specific right down to the city and hit "search"—it will come up with the time for the place you selected. They have a calendar search that works this way too.

The neat part is the counters. Curious how much time has passed since the calendar rolled over to the year 2000? Well you can find out exactly how much time has passed by visiting their counter section. You can even get a counter that is counting down the time left to the year 2004. At 9 am today there were 175 days, 4191 hours, 251460 minutes, or 15087600 seconds left.

Time to head on over to this neat site!

http://www.timeanddate.com/

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