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Viruses, Windows XP, Thumbnails
by Don Edrington, MrPCChat@aol.com - October 04, 2001 at 00:33:01:
Viruses have been spreading at an alarming rate lately. However, some valuable information regarding these threats can be found on the PC World website at the following links: The Sircam Worm - More about Sircam - New Trojan Horse Worm - Code Red Information.I want to apologize to all those who may have written and not received a reply. My mailbox has filled to overflowing while I've been busy rebuilding my website with a new hosting service. (I hope to have it completed sometime this weekend.) In the meantime, I can usually be reached at (949) 646-8615 or (949) 646-4167.
In October new PCs will begin arriving with Windows XP, while users of previous Windows versions will be able to upgrade to XP. After beta-testing XP for the past few weeks, I've learned some pros and cons.
Con: Users of previous Windows versions will find that XP is a whole different world with numerous changes in the way one navigates the system and uses the new features. If upgrading were free, I'd say go ahead and try it. However, I'd be inclined to stick with Win98 or ME before spending about $100 for the upgrade. XP was designed to work best in a networking environment.
Pro: Windows XP comes with easy to use built-in CD-burning software. It also has the ability to view certain graphic files in Windows Explorer as "Thumbnails" by clicking on View, Thumbnails. In current versions, one has to first click on the folder containing the graphics and choose Enable Thumbnails.
In addition to being able to view thumbnails more easily, WinXP will even display thumbnails of two or three of the graphics inside a particular folder by superimposing them over the folder icon. This helps you decide if the folder is the one you want to open.
Speaking of seeing thumbnail views of images, Paint Shop Pro is a program that will display thumbnails of many more types of graphic files, including vector drawings, such as those created with Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw.
Windows thumbnails are limited to bitmap images suc h as BMPs, GIFs and JPGs.
If you're not familiar with PSP, it's one of the most popular graphic programs used by those who create images for Internet Web pages, as well as by those who do professional editing of photographs. PSP has features comparable to those found in Adobe Photoshop and Corel PhotoPaint, but is available for about $100 while the others sell in the $300 to $600 range. You can download a free 30-day evaluation copy of the program at www.jasc.com.
PSP can be found in any computer store, or can be downloaded from www.jasc.com . Jasc also makes other popular software, including QuickView. QuickView used to come built-in with earlier versions of Windows, but, sadly, not anymore. The program lets you click on most any kind of a document and then displays a preview of the enclosed text. Very handy if you have, say, a collection of MSWord files that you want to take a quick look at without having to open each one.
Speaking of viewing thumbnails of JPGs, the most popular file format for editing photographs, if you find that your current version of Windows won't display them, try changing the filename extension from JPG to JPEG.
When I wrote recently about using the Windows Dialer, as well as earlier versions of MSWorks, to dial phone numbers, Tom Inglesby pointed out that this only works on computers using modems for their ISP connections. The feature is not available to those using cable or DSL connections. This is also true regarding the sending of faxes from your PC; you can do it with a modem, but not with cable or DSL.
Speaking of image-editing programs, all Windows users have a "no-frills" one built-in: PaintBrush. This utility can be accessed by clicking on Start, Run and typing in PBRUSH. I've written in the past about how PBrush can be used for simple editing of photos, as well as for resizing them. It can also be used to display a view of how it will fit on a sheet of 8-1/2 x 11 paper. Go to File, Print Preview. If the picture is too large for the paper, go to Image, Stretch/Skew to resize it.
When I wrote recently about finding old friends on Classmates.com, several folks wrote to say that PlanetAlumni.com is another good web site for finding old school chums. When I mentioned looking people up on Switchboard.com, others wrote to say that ICQ.com is another good tool for conducting personal searches.
All of this year's and last year's PC Chats can be found at www.pcdon.com . The site is currently being rebuilt, however, so please forgive any broken links or missing graphics that are still being reconstructed.
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