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Feature Type:
Technology/Computers/Text

Frequency:
Updated 1x weekly

Target Audience:
Males Age 20 - 45

Fact Sheet:
PDF On Computers

Fun Fact:
Bob has designed telephone systems for AT&T, worked in radiation biology and tackled the ancient systems of archaeology.

By Bob Schwabach

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Searching for computer news that talks your language? Bob Schwabach, whose witty, informative column, "On Computers," may be your source! Covering computers, peripherals, software and programs in language easy to read, easy to understand, and easy to enjoy is what has made Bob Schwabach the leading writer on personal computers today. *Also Available in Spanish

Sample Column

ONE HIGH-SPEED MODEM, MANY USERS

Westell has a high speed modem that allows 64 users to connect to one DSL line. DSL stands for "Digital Subscriber Line" and allows transmission rates 10 to 20 times faster than 56k modems over ordinary phone lines. Such services are expensive (around $150 a month), but if one line can be shared among many users, it's cheap.

The Westell Wirespeed DSL modem with preloaded software lists for $373 (call 630-898-2500; www.dsl-modems.com). You would also need an Ethernet hub to distribute lines to each computer, which in turn has to have an Ethernet card installed to receive the lines from the hub. Hubs run anywhere from $100 to $1,000, cards $30 to $80, depending on speed and maker.

WRITE YOUR OWN WILL

Quicken Will Writer 2001 lets you look at the differences between making a will and a living trust. The $30 program for Windows and Macintosh continues to contain the standard forms and advice for creating final wills and testaments and the granting of "power of attorney." All documents can be revised at any time.

For reasons that are entirely baffling, Quicken Will Writer is distributed by Mattel, maker of the Barbie Doll (call 800-395-0277; 319-378-7319; www.mattel.com).

HOUSE AND HOME

You can get 10,000 home plans in a six-CD set from Homestyles.com. As you can tell from the name, the company is both a publisher and a Web site (call 888-626-2026 or 651-602-5000; www.homestyles.com). In fact, it claims to be the largest publisher of home plans in North America.

There are several big home-plan sets available on CD. Sierra and Broderbund both make sets, and there are others from more obscure publishers. The trouble with most of them is that the selections are mundane. Common styles such as Colonial, Cape Cod, Ranch, Bungalow, etc., are represented in hundreds of variations, nearly all of them quite familiar to anyone who has driven through a suburban subdivision. The Homestyles set, however, includes modern designs along with traditional.

You can do virtual walk-throughs of more than 50 of the homes, and there are color renderings of more than 2,000 home facades. List price is $30, for Windows.

INTERNUTS

Searching the Web:

polls many other search engines and provides a summary of the findings. This service claims to obtain the highest relevancy rankings. In other words, the closest hit to the subject you are looking for may come up as the 15th or 20th selection in a single search engine, but 7metasearch claims it can usually turn it up in the first few listings. I tried the same search with the Bullseye search tool, and the results were the same. NOTE: I have written about several metasearch services, most recently Copernic and Bullseye.
links to search services in more than 130 countries. So, for example, if you are looking for a furniture maker in a particular country, you can go to a search engine service in that country and type in your keywords. Unfortunately, the results nearly always come up in the native language. If you can't read it, try the free translation service at www.systran.com. It doesn't cover all languages, but it's worth a shot.
lets you enlist the aid of a human researcher when all else fails. It will cost you, though. ResearchMaven puts a human on the trail of your information, but charges run $100 to $500 per search report.

EDUCATION SITES
: The "Internet Public Library" is a reference service provided by the University of Michigan and lensmaker Bell and Howell. More than 13,000 texts are online, plus links to newspapers, magazines and libraries worldwide. There are research sections designed for children and teen-agers as well as adults. It's an outstanding service. www. midnightbeach.com/hs/ has links to resources, organizations and people who provide help with schooling children at home, with additional links to the home pages of children schooled at home.
.html offers ideas and links to more ideas for science projects for schoolchildren: lava lamps, magnetic levitation, simple telescopes, etc. has more science-project ideas, these from the science museum in San Francisco.

BOOKS
"Upgrade Your Own PC" by Corey Sandler (McGraw-Hill, $25, www.bookstore.mcgraw-hill.com) has lots of photographs (more than 100) and clear advice that give even novices the help they need to upgrade older PCs. The author was the first editor of PC Magazine. "Encyclopedia of Computer Science, 4th edition" by Ralston, Riley and Hemmendinger, eds. (Grove Dictionaries, $150, www.grovereference.com/science/computerscience.htm) is large and heavy, as any standard reference work should be, with more than 900 illustrations. Nice to have for a school, newspaper or news media.