Welcome to the September 10, 2001 issue of Hewie's Favorites News & Reviews. Be sure to visit Hewie's Favorites at http://www.hewie.net/. Please send this newsletter to your friends and ask them to subscribe at the site. I want to double my subscribers, so I need each of you to get at least 1 friend or relative to subscribe.

The articles in this issue:
++ The Orange County (FL) History Center
++ Find old friends
++ WindowsXP again with fix
++ More dot com failures averted
++ OfficeXP and Digital Camera newsletters
++ Office XP on home computer and laptop


++ The Orange County (FL) History Center
Last month I attended the "Sci-Fi in the Square" at the Orange County (FL) Regional History Center. This event featured a talk by Astronaut Scott Carpenter with a chance to speak to him personally. I took a tour of the entire History Center. What a treat! It is located in the old Orange County Court House. The evening was to be capped with an outdoor showing of a movie, which rain forced inside one of the old court rooms. I got to see what is considered to be the "worst movie ever;" Ed Wood's "Plan 9 From Outer Space." The unofficial website for the movie is at http://www.expage.com/page/plan9 . Take a look and see how bad the movie really is.

The museum, which highlights local history, has been featuring "Blastoff! Celebrating 40 Years of American Manned Space Flight", through September 15. There are only a few days left for this feature. Some other special exhibits that are planned are "Dateline Central Florida: A Page One Look at the Century", "Civil Rights - From Jazz to Uncle Tom's Cabin" and the "History of Rock and Roll". See more information at http://www.thehistorycenter.org .

I want to thank the History Center and the Sci-Fi Channel for picking my name for one of the 2 prizes that were drawn. I have a nice bag a goodies including a Farscape DVD, a jacket and a back-pack. The Sci-Fi Channel is at http://www.scifi.com/ .

++ Find old friends
I see that classmates.com has expanded to include all schools from Kindergarten through College. You can add your name to any school that you attended, even if you didn't graduate from that school. I was able to add my name to my elementary school and the first high school that I attended. I am now listed with the people that I grew up with, even though my family moved during my junior year of high school and I graduated elsewhere. http://www.classmates.com/

++ WindowsXP again with fix
In the last issue I mentioned a website that compares Windows XP with Windows 95 and 98. The site is still at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/evaluation/whyupgrade/featurecomp.as p . If you clicked it from your email program and it gave you the message that it didn't exist, the url is so long that it probably wrapped in the message and only part of the address is linked. You may have to type the remaining part of the address. In my case, it was merely the "p" from .asp There are 2 other good articles to see at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/home/howtobuy/choosing2.asp and http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/reviews/0,4161,2773114,00.html

The wrapping of long links is a common problem. Whenever you get a bad link, take a look at the url (address) and see if it could be a mis-spelling, a wrapping problem or just a mistake by the webmaster. If it is an important article or site, just go to the end of the url in the address box of your browser and backspace to the previous slash. If that doesn't get you to a valid page, continue to backspace to the next slash. Keep doing it until you get to the main page. If you still are getting the error message, then the site is down, the site is gone, or you are having an ISP problem. I have found some interesting sites this way.

++ More dot com failures averted
Two more online computer products e-commerce sites almost hit the dust, but Fry's Electronics is purchasing both Egghead and Cyberian Outpost. I have seen some exceptional pricing at these sites, so I am glad to see that they will still be around. I wonder how much the pricing will change. The stores are at http://www.egghead.com and http://www.outpost.com. See the following for more information. http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/news/svfront/frys090501.htm and http://uk.news.yahoo.com/010816/172/c1f8u.html

++OfficeXP and Digital Camera newsletters
There are a couple of new e-newsletters that might be of interest to you.
Office XP Tips offers weekly tips to help you get the most from Microsoft
Office XP. PC World's Digital Focus offers weekly tips to enhance your
expertise with your digital camera, scanner, printer, and image editing
software. You'll find recommendations on digital challenges from shooting
techniques to digital publishing, answers to reader questions, and a photo
contest. To sign up go to
http://www.pcworld.com/resource/newsletters/index.asp

++ Office XP on home computer and laptop
This is from September 2001's edition of the Office News Service from Microsoft:

Since You Asked... Question: Can I install Office XP on my home computer and my laptop?
Answer: According to the End User License for Microsoft Software, you can install and use your retail copy of Office XP on a single PC and on your laptop, for your exclusive use. However, this does not apply to product licenses acquired with the purchase of a PC. These original equipment manufacturer (OEM) licenses are single-use licenses that cannot be transferred to another PC or laptop. Learn more about activation policies. http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/basics/activation/mpafaq.asp

Be sure to visit Hewie's Favorites at http://www.hewie.net/ . Please pass on this newsletter to your friends and ask them to subscribe at the site. I want to double my subscribers, so I need each of you to get at least 1 friend or relative to subscribe.