No Fooling! Hair loss

Welcome to April. While it is a tradition to have April Fools jokes, I chose to maintain a serious issue. Not that I wasn’t tempted.

In an annual ritual, your editor’s cool season moustache gave way as the warmer weather came upon us.

Actually, a moustache has a number of uses besides protecting the upper lip from the cold. For instance, a cup of hot water can instantly be turned into a flavorful drink by dipping ones moustache into the water.

Licking the moustache can often bring a tasty snack as breakfast treats attach savory particles to the bristles of the versatile whiskers.

Apple market share

Despite Apple’s diminishing market share, there is some interesting news. While Apple did lose a substantial share of the market, now less than 5%, the "clone makers" that it licensed had a substantial growth in sales.

Due to the Power Mac clone sales, the total sales of Mac and compatibles actually grew last year to over 11% of microcomputer sales. If this trend continues, there may be a good reason for software developers to continue making products for the Mac. It is the software that makes or breaks the computer. The machine is no good without applications to run on it.

Although this news may seem like good news, the growth is at the expense of the Apple Computer company. As a result, Apple now has plans to increase its licensing fees for the Mac OS (the Operating System). Such a move could put a big crimp on the clone makers and result in a collapse of the Mac market. Stay tuned for more on the licensing deals.

In the meantime, Larry Ellison of the Oracle Corporation (second largest to Microsoft) has again expressed an interest in purchasing Apple. Ellison is a friend of Steve Jobs, and the idea of buying Apple back for Jobs has been bounced around before. Apple stock jumped two points on Thursday, March 27th - likely based on the rumors.

Flat panel display

The flat display panels keep coming down in price. A new unit produced by Portrait Display Labs is now available for only $1,500. This price may seem high, but it is for a unit that has a display similar in size to a 17-inch CRT monitor. A good quality 17-inch monitor costs about $800.

This new display has an added feature of being rotatable. You can rotate the display 90 degrees so that it is oriented like a piece of paper. This is particularly good for word processing.

Conclusion: price is still two to three times higher than the conventional monitor, but no longer just a dream item. Given that it has no radiation problem, and is small in size and weight, the flat panel display could be a winner soon.

Windows 95 tips

Much of the operation of Windows 95 involves the start button and the popup menus that it brings up. It is annoying when your mouse jumps off the desired selection while moving through the menu.

Consider an example where you are trying to select an item START-Programs-Accessories-Games-FreeCell. You know, the card game that replaced Solitaire! Of course this is important.

Anyway, just as you are moving the mouse towards FreeCell, your hand moves ever so slightly and you find yourself starting some work type application by mistake. Terrible.

In a default configuration, the highlighted menu item stays selected for approximately half a second before the next value pops up. Likewise, the popup menu will stay up for the same half second. If your hand moves just as the half second is up, you end up with a wrong selection.

To solve this, we can change the delay for popup to some large number, say 10 seconds. This way, you would need to click on the desired menu item before the next menu shows up. The next menu would then stay put for the 10 seconds unless you clicked on something first.

This tip will also work for those who like the automatic popup operation, but don’t like the half-second delay. For those of you in this impatient category, you can set the delay to zero seconds and have instant popup operation.

This tip is for the advanced user. If you do not fit into this category, but you still would like the feature that I will describe, then have someone make the changes for you.

To change the delay value, you will need to enter the forbidden world of the Windows 95 registry. If you are not scared, follow these steps, but be careful. A wrong change in the registry can render Windows 95 inoperable.

Start the registry editor by pressing Start-Run and enter "regedit" as the program to open. An Explorer-like window will come up. Select the following sequence of folders:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER

---Control Panel

------desktop

In the right side window, look for an entry with the name

--MenuShowDelay

If such an entry exists, look at its value under the data column. The default is 400.

If you don’t find this value, then from the menu bar, select

Edit

---New

------String Value

Name the new value to be exactly: MenuShowDelay

Double click the newly entered item and enter a number in the dialog box. This number will be the number of milliseconds to delay the popup of a menu. A value of "0" will result in instant popup, while "10,000" is a ten second delay.

You need to restart the computer for the new value to take effect.

Easter eggs

Although it is time for Easter, here I am still talking about computers. Did you ever hunt for Easter eggs as a child? Now you can do it on your computer.

Computer programmers often will include some secret code in a program. This code is triggered by an obscure set of input conditions.

Here is one example for the Excel 95 spreadsheet which brings up a virtual world to explore:

• Open a blank worksheet.
• Click row 95 to select the row
• Press the Tab key once to move to column B.
• Select Help/About from the main menu.
• Press Ctrl-Alt-Shift, and click the Tech Support button.
• A window called Hall of Tortured Souls appears.
• Use the cursor keys to move around.
• Take the stairs up.
• Go down the stairs, and type "excelkfa".
• Now you'll have a new room to explore!

MS Office 97

The latest version of the Microsoft Office package includes many features related to the Internet. There is also an improved spelling and grammar checker.

All of the Magitronic computers that were purchased with MS Office are eligible for a free upgrade. However, installation and configuration may be a problem due to staffing limitations.

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