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News Bytes — From Ken’s Korner Edited by Ken Fermoyle - August 20, 1999 at 14:09:32: Intel Plans New Chip Debuts — Intel promises a busy late summer and early fall. At this writing, the chip maker plans to officially announce the launch date and pricing details for its eight-way Xeon processor for servers on Aug. 23; mobile Celeron processors on Sept. 15; and a new chipset for Pentium III, which will support 133-MHz frontside bus speeds and higher speed memory on Sept. 27. Intel previously announced (on Aug. 2) a 600-MHz version of the Pentium III and a 500-MHz version of its desktop Celeron chip. This will be of more interest to corporate power users than most grassroots users, due to high initial prices. Typically, however, debut of new Intel chips means price reductions on "older" CPUs. Maybe now I’ll upgrade our 200- and 300-MHx computers to 400MHz, complete with new motherboard and chipsets. Corel Offers Some Toll-Free Support — Corel recently introduced a toll-free number for its Fax on Demand and IVAN (Interactive Voice Answering Network) services. Previously, all North America customers had to call Ottawa to access these services, and each service had its own telephone number. This meant high toll bills, causing many users to be unhappy campers. Now, both services can be reached toll-free at 1-877-42-COREL.—Fax on Demand allows customers to call the toll-free line and request a document to assist in answering their technical questions. Customers can review an index of available documents and choose, by number, the document they wish to receive by fax. IVAN allows customers to select the product they want and hear information on topics such as Common Issues and Tips & Tricks. "We wanted to make this type of information as accessible to our customers as possible," said Jeffery Bennett, director of technical services at Corel. "Customers can also access free support from the Support section of the Corel Website." Customer can go to www.corel.com/support/index.htm, for online access to technical documents and post free messages in one of the Corel Newsgroups, to get technical responses, when possible, from Corel’s C-Tech volunteers. C-Tech volunteers are knowledgeable Corel software users who volunteer their time to provide free on-line technical support to other Corel users. Okay, it’s not like being able to talk, toll-free, with a real live techie, but it’s a step in the right direction. And I can testify personally that the Website support can be tremendously helpful. Some of these C-Tech volunteers are as knowledgeable as many salaried techies. Patterns Changing in Removable Media Drives — The removable-media disk drive picture is changing. This category includes CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives, CD/DVD writable drives, other read/write optical disk drive formats, rigid disk cartridge drives, card format rigid disk drives, high capacity floppy drives and low capacity standard floppy drives. New types and technologies that enable users to remove data from systems for safe storage or sharing with others are supplanting older ones. A Disk/Trends, Inc. Report covering 61 manufacturers notes that 1999 worldwide sales revenues of such drives will top $10 billion. The sales outlook for the nine disk drive product groups included in the report is a mixed bag. DVD-ROM drives are projected to pass up CD-ROM drives in shipments within two years. Excellent growth is forecast for writable CD/DVD drive formats; miniaturized hard disk drive cards will develop entirely new markets. Shipments of standard 1.44 megabyte floppy drives will peak within two years, and high capacity floppy drives will continue a strong growth pattern. Rapidly declining prices and performance improvements for DVD-ROM drives will make drive customers the big winners in this product transition. DVD-ROM drives will go through the same rapid product cycles of speed improvements and price declines that have characterized the CD-ROM market in recent years. Falling prices and improved availability of CD-RW drives have made this format the leading growth product among all types of writable optical disk drives, at least for a few years. However, by 2002 significant growth in drive shipments is also expected for DVD rewritable formats and for new high capacity rewritable drives using new technologies. Don’t count out the lowly 1.44-megabyte floppy drive just yet. It is adequate for typical word processing applications and prices are now very inexpensive. Shipments should peak in 2001, then start a slow decline. DSL Growing as Broadband Alternative — Coved Communications, a leading broadband access provider, recently reported its 20,000th DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) installation, and Earthlink began a pilot DSL project that it reportedly will expand nationwide. Coved now claims to have more installed lines than any other national provider. The 20,000th milestone represents a growth rate of 133 % over the end of March 1999 and 413 % growth from the end of 1998 DSL offers high-speed, always-connected, simultaneous multi-user access to the Internet over existing copper telephone lines, which proponents say will make it a major player in the broadband arena. Myself, I can hardly wait for a DSL installation in Ken’s Korner, coming soon as part of the Earthlink pilot project. The cost: Only $6 to $9 per month more than our current ISP/phone bill because we can get rid of our second phone line, which has been a dedicated dial-up modem line. Stay tuned for updates. Science, Space Fans Get Online Community — If you are a science and space enthusiast, you now have an online community to call your own. Cosmiverse, http://www.cosmiverse.com/, the Internet portal devoted to science, space, is a one-stop location on the Web where visitors can find a variety of services. Membership is free and entitles users to the following free services: e-mail address; search engine; auction house; daily planner/calendar; address book; stock quotes; news and local weather; web hosting space; file and data storage; chat rooms, and message boards. It also includes a game room with chess, backgammon, and science fiction games where players can play against other people on the web A link from the Cosmiverse site connects members to one of the most interesting and innovative space projects on the Web. At Cosmic Voyage 2000, http://www.cosmicvoyage2000.com/, visitors can read about and even participate in the first-ever private space-exploration mission. The Near Earth Asteroid Project (NEAP), a mission organized by SpaceDev Inc. of San Diego, is intended to be the first in a long series of profitable commercial deep space missions to be conducted by SpaceDev Inc.. NEAP is currently scheduled to launch at the turn of the new millennium. Does all this light your jets? If so, prepare for liftoff! Brass Thumbscrews — The least expensive, but probably the most convenient, items I use in maintaining our office computers are brass thumbscrews that replace the normal screws used to attach case covers. They make quick work of removing and replacing the "lids" on our four computers. The thumbscrews have the same diameter and pitch as the hex-head screws they replace, of course, but you don’t need a nut driver or Philips-head screwdriver to remove and replace them. One of our Tugnet stalwarts, Bruce Doshier, found the thumbscrews at a computer show (a.k.a. "swap meet") and bought several hundred. They were packaged in sets of six and sold to members for $2 per package (a slight profit that went into the group’s coffers). Bruce reports that you could probably get similar thumbscrews at local stores or Websites that specialize in electronic components, if they don’t show up a computer shows in your area. Copyright 1999 by Ken Fermoyle, Fermoyle Publications. Ken Fermoyle has written some 2,500 articles for publications ranging from Playboy and Popular Science to MacWeek, Microtimes & PC Laptop. Ken’s Korner, a syndicated monthly column, is available free to User Groups. For information or permission to reprint this article, contact kfermoyle@earthlink.net |
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