Leaving your PC's modem connected when not in use blocks incoming phone calls, leaves your Internet account open to unauthorized use, and may rack up phone charges. To keep your phone line open and your network link closed when idle, have your modem shut down after a set time. Double-click the Modems icon in Control Panel, select Properties, and click the Connection tab. Check Disconnect a call if idle for more than and enter the length of time you want Windows to wait before closing your modem link.
The users definition of the action "Shutdown" seems to be at odds with that practiced by Microsoft. Even their latest greatest XP is no exception. For a rundown on possible causes and solutions, visit www.aumha.org/a/shutdowm.htm.
This is one of the most comprehensive and useful treatments of a pain in the Microsoft annoyance that I've seen.
Many times you get one set or search results from one search engine, and a different set from anlther. How about combining several search enginse at once - like the free program Copernic 2001 Basic does?
It offers 7 search categories: The Web (plus one of the 14 language or country-based category), Newsgroups, E-mail Addresses, Buy Books, Buy Hardware and Buy Software. Some 80 information sources are accessible with this version. On the other hand, the commercial versions, Copernic 2001 Plus and Copernic 2001 Pro, offer some 90 categories, providing access to more than 1000 search engines and directories.
You can download this free utility at www.copernic.com.
How fast is your Internet connection, really? Providers of the various types of connections promise different communication speeds, but are you actually getting what you've been promised? Depending on network traffic, actual speeds can be slower. Cable modems are fast-as long as not too many of your neighbors are sharing the line-but can slow considerably with a heavy load. How do you know if you should switch to DSL? NetPerSec lets you check your connection speed in real time. NetPerSec monitors all TCP/IP activity to and from the Internet or other networks, and graphs the communication speed. The utility's dynamic tray icon can show send and receive activity with a bar graph or a histogram. For a detailed report, you can open the program's main window to view current and average send and receive speeds in a configurable, graphical display. You can adjust the sampling rate and the amount of data used to compute the average.
You can download this free utility at www.pcmag.com. Just search the site for "NETPERSEC".
Are you stuck with a mysterious piece of ancient hardware, such as an unmarked modem or video card? It may look like something extremely useful, but unless you can determine the make and model, you can't find the right drivers for it, so you might as well throw it away, right? Not so fast. Most computer hardware has an FCC identification number. Go to the FCC's database, and you may be able to match that number to a name, rescuing the device from the scrap heap.
This database is at www.fcc.gov/oet/fccid/.