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Free Tune-Up! Roadside Service Pull over on the information highway for some quick repairs. by Cynthia Morgan
The next time you're tooling along online, you might want to make a pit stop--pick up a patch or two, make a couple of repairs and hit the road again, all without spending a penny.
All-encompassing diagnostic and
repair Web sites such as TuneUp.com (http://www.tuneup.com) and Cybermedia's Oil Change (
http://www.cybermedia.com/products/oilchange/ochome.html) offer free trial services, then charge a small fee after an introductory period. For $3.95 per month, Windows 95-only TuneUp.com will check your PC's software for version numbers, inject the latest antivirus measure and optimize/defragment your hard disk. Then it checks its database of bugs, patches and updates, and installs the latest fixes with your approval. The service will store 5MB of data for you for $4.95 a month (additional megabytes cost 75 cents per transfer) or build a data archive for you on CD-ROM for $25. Oil Change searches the Internet for updates of your software, notifies you of the updates and installs them for you.
But you can find many such services
for free. Dan Kegel's ISDN Page (http://www.cerf.net/dank/isdn) is one of the best sources of information on ordering, installing and using ISDN service. It's a great example of technology-specific collections presented by expert enthusiasts.
Stephen Jenkins' Windows95.com can tell you if a new BIOS is available for your older machine, help you find a 32-bit driver for hardware Microsoft doesn't yet support and offer excellent TCP/IP connection advice. Frank Condron's World of Windows (http://www.conitech.com/windows) includes a new touch--a Windows CE page--plus collections of advice, bug notifications, patches and updates about virtually any flavor of Windows.
TechWeb's TechHelper (http://www.techweb.com/helper) offers a wide range of free advice, from a massive FAQ troubleshooting database to WINDOWS Magazine's Tips issues. Microsoft's Trouble-shooting Wizards (http://www.microsoft.com/support/tshooters.htm) page and its Knowledge Base (http://www.microsoft.com/KB) technical database are invaluable Web resources for Windows information.
Scott Wainner's System Optimization Information Page (http://www.sysopt.com) offers tune-up tips, performance-enhancing utilities, BIOS update advice and more. One of the more useful free PC tech shops, it will go as deeply into chip technology as you care to ... and then some.
McAfee's new SecureCast (http://www.mcafee.com/securecast) uses the BackWeb news broadcast service to send out the latest computer vandalism notices and antivirus updates.
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