Hewie's Views and Reviews By Hewie Poplock 20021127

Welcome to the this issue of Hewie's Views & Reviews. Be sure to visit Hewie's Favorites at http://www.hewie.net/. Hewie's Quick Thoughts appear almost daily at http://www.hewie.net/weblog/.

In this issue:
+ Updating Web Links
+ What You See is What You Buy
+ Stopping Pop-Ups
+ New additions to Hewie's Favorites

November 27, 2002

+ Updating Web Links

I have used various on-line services and software programs to verify the links at The Hewie's Favorite's Web site. The results from these check-ups usually create a list of bad links and a list of questionable links. Monthly, I go through the lists and check 20-30 links individually. Sometimes there has been a site change, or the site takes a while to load, giving an error to the checking program. Many times the site is redirected to another page, but all appears fine. A few URLs have changed from the description or are no longer on-line. I remove these from the list.

For the first time since 1995, when Hewie's Favorites went on-line, I am individually checking all 1,500+ links. It's a big, time-consuming project. I am finding many sites that are being redirected, and I am changing them to the actual URL. Some sites are for sale, and a few are trying to sell their domain names, and the topic is no longer pertinent.

I am surprised that I am not seeing more dead sites, but that is probably due to my monthly checking and updating. However, many sites had merged and created duplicates. CNET http://www.cnet.com and its ZDNet http://www.zdnet.com/ grabbed a good many of them. Internet.com http://www.internet.com/ has accumulated its share of technical sites.

+ What You See is What You Buy

I have added quite a few new sites for WindowsXP. After a year since its release, users are beginning to migrate to XP. However, at a recent Computer User Group meeting, our mostly PC group was captivated by a demo of the latest Apple Macintosh. The Mac with its UNIX-based 10.2 or Jaguar operating system is powerful and can easily be connected to a Windows network and works well in a combined environment. Some of our members were so impressed, they purchased new Macs within the week. Some conclusions can be made from this:

1. Apple has a winner with the Jaguar Operating System (OS X v10.2).
2. Even PC users are impressed
3. Demonstrations to User Groups create customers and enthusiastic discussions after the meeting.

+ Stopping Pop-Ups

I have tried several of the programs that say that they will prevent those annoying pop-up windows. Most of them didn't seem to work. I have been using Popup Stopper Pro from Panicware http://www.panicware.com with mostly a positive result. There are a few ads that get through, but I have the sound turned on and hear a buzz whenever it keeps a window from popping up. It does work most of the time. There are a few choices on the menu bar, so when I am at a site where I want a window to open, I can allow it.