A free monthly newsletter from the Home of some of the greatest electronics tutorials on the WWW
A free monthly newsletter from the Home of some of the greatest electronics tutorials on the WWW.

www.electronics-tutorials.com



LAST MODIFIED:

VK2TIP IAN PURDIE'S MONTHLY NEWSLETTER FOR JANUARY, 2001


Hi Ian,

Happy New Year. By the time you receive this it's already new year here
in Australia where this is our 100th birthday as a commonwealth of federated
states. Ah yes I'm up very late as you can see from the time stamp which
is weird at my end (Y2K?).

Please try and start the new year off by taking the time to do one random
act of kindness this week.

"What goes around comes around". A good start to the new year.

You are of course receiving this email because you elected to subscribe
to the Ian Purdie's Monthly Newsletter list at your preferred email address
shown above. Do you like your "preferred name" in the subject line? - hah!
"silly old boys with new toys" <G>

Read this newsletter right through - believe me it is definitely well worth
it.

Your first name is recorded as: "Ian". This being your recorded preferred
name. You can change this!

If your name came out Blank, then this small problem of names can be remedied
here, please copy and paste your email address. The email address I have
on record is:
ianpurdie@integritynet.com.au
https://www.electronics-tutorials.com/corrections.htm

If you wish to receive multiple copies of this newsletter (e.g. work and
home) that is fine with me. Just drop me a line.

I certainly appreciate your participation in receiving my Newsletter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2. My questions?

a) Have you considered writing up that pet project of yours, maybe relate
your experiences constructing a project from a kit?

b) Have you considered joining our Electronics "Questions and Answers
News Group"?
https://www.electronics-tutorials.com/Q&A.htm

This is a mutual help group with a very professional air about it. I've
learn't things. Not for absolute newcomers to ask questions BUT an excellent
learning resource for newcomers, highly recommended.

TRIVIA:

c) Did you know I received the "Golden House-Sparrow Award" for site-of-the
day 25th October? Check out the others.
http://www.hedweb.com/siteoday/2000.htm

d) Did you know my site is listed No. 1 with the real "biggies" Yahoo
/ Google for the phrase "electronics tutorials"
http://google.yahoo.com/bin/query?p=%22electronics+tutorials%22&hc=0&hs=1

e) And is linked from some of the most widely respected educational institutions
in the world?
http://google.yahoo.com/bin/query?p=links+www.electronics-tutorials.com&hc=0&hs=0

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

3. Projects in pipeline

Among the new pages I have added:
a) https://www.electronics-tutorials.com/test-equip/spectrum-analyzer.htm
b) https://www.electronics-tutorials.com/basics/polarization-capacitor.htm

UPDATED:

a) https://www.electronics-tutorials.com/data-sheets/data-sheets.htm
b) https://www.electronics-tutorials.com/downloads/downloads.htm

All well worth a look and I certainly recommend printing out the Spectrum
Analyzer page.

I'm progressively adding an easy "copy and paste" code near the bottom
of all my pages so you can link to my individual pages from within your
own site, if you choose to do so.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

4. What I'm personally up to - if you must know

This is very important to you - so please listen up!

a) One of the many lists I subscribe to was struck by the stupid vandalistic
"Snow White" virus six times in mid December and once again this morning.

This is the reason I will not allow attachments on "Electronics Q&A".

Most of us deleted it of course, although being truthful, I came within
a fraction of a second of opening it simply because I trusted the source
- heh, heh.

Anyway, during subsequent discussions we learnt each copy was a variant
on the earlier one, it was morphing.

WORSE still, none of the big name virus checkers had detected it. Further
discussions brought forth a FREE virus checker from Computer Associates.
That name rang in the back of my mind - they provided my privacy statement.
CA also run extensive education courses but I don't know the details.

http://antivirus.cai.com/

When I installed and ran the free software, it said it detected another
virus - the rotten "Happy99" in my winsock files and trashed them.

No internet connection anymore! Oh well.... I simply replaced them and
was back on air after a couple of days.

The moral, BE ALERT! - the big names didn't pick it up. See an important
helpful story further down.

b) Next, down in the "damn lies and statistics section" below you will
see the explosive site growth continues.

So much so that I boldly predict during the calendar year 2001 - over 1,000,000
individuals will visit my sites and read over 4,000,000 page views.

Also this newsletter will probably expand at a rate something in excess
of an average of 600 new subscribers each month.

At present this newsletter takes close on two hours to automatically email
to all of the subscribers.

Unfortunately this comes at a "real world" price. Probably around March
I'm going to have to do some extensive upgrading of server facilities,
this means increased costs.

Most people know I am retired and there are limits to my resources, I also
derive some modest revenue from affiliate programs which of course helps.

A trip through my book shop https://www.electronics-tutorials.com/book-shop.htm
would be of assistance, however the revenue derived from this source for
the quarter Oct-Dec 2000?, err.. an unbelievable $17.48 - am I doing something
wrong here?

I'm open to constructive, yet practical suggestions! Bear in mind people
who come to my sites and receive this newsletter are from extremely diverse
economic backgrounds right around the world.

Please make a thoughtful suggestion now.
mailto:ianpurdie@electronics-tutorials.com?subject=Site-Upgrade

3. APOLOGIES - I just looked at my "drafts" email folder, it still contains
381 messages where I've been asked questions by people and I've hit reply/quote/save
to answer later. If you're buried in there somewhere my apologies, I'll
try and find some time but experience tells me I'm looking at, at least
60 - 80 hours work to reply to them all.

4. See my whinge about something else at the end.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

5. Updates

We've are now of course a twice monthly newsletter.

See above and below - some excellent FREE downloads.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

6. A continuing plug for one of the most excellent electronics magazines
available.

Have you invested $US 20.00 in the most excellent QRP-Quarterly magazine
yet - cheaper if you live in the USA?

Visit QRP Amateur Radio Club, International - special page for you alone:

Welcome friends from Ian Purdie http://america.net/~w4qo/purdie.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

7. Damn lies and "statistics"

Last month, December was 46,461 unique visitors (Nov. 40,968) looking at
a total of 153,520 page views (Nov. 132,058) - see comments above.

For the calendar year 2000 we have had 216,510 unique visitors looking
at 654,687 page views and https://www.electronics-tutorials.com/ was less
than six months old with a slow start in July!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

8. Feedback

Use this multi-purpose form

https://www.electronics-tutorials.com/contact.htm

Go there and "tell-a-friend" about this FREE newsletter subscription page
by private email.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
9. Real COOL but FREE! downloads -

Digital Simulator - Digital Works 3.04

Digital Works 3.04 is a graphical design tool that enables you to construct
digital logic circuits and to analyse their behaviour through real time
simulation. Its intuitive, easy to use interface makes it the ideal choice
for learning or teaching digital electronics. You can even prototype simple
digital electronic circuits before you actually build them.

You can download a free, fully functional evaluation copy of Digital Works
for Windows 95, 98 and NT 4

http://fac-web.spsu.edu/cs/faculty/bbrown/circuits/howto.html Download Digital Works 3.04

Have you come across any useful downloads? Let me know, I may include it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

10. Club News

Nobody submitted anything to me.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

11. Interesting Sites

a) A topic often asked about is "Theremins", well it's all here at "Arts'
Theremin Page" - very interesting. If you don't know what a Theremin is
then look here.
http://home.att.net/~theremin1/

b) If you have the bandwidth and are able to download streaming whatever,
this is the most creative site I've seen all year - a sound card is an
absolute MUST. It's called "nosepilot", dunno why. Runs quite a long time
but I admire people with creative talent.
http://www.nosepilot.com/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

12. Home Computing News - following the virus story above

*Are You Able To Recover If Disaster Strikes?*

Copyright (C) 2000 by Phil Rigby

It's a chilling scenario.

You've built up your Windows system from the basic installation
on the machine when it came "out of the box" to the fully
customised and tweaked, ultimate "bells and whistles" array of
software goodies you always wanted..

To conserve space here - follow this important news story at:
https://www.electronics-tutorials.com/home-computer/recovery.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

13. Humour (by ever popular demand) -

Johnny's dad was away on a business trip. So he wanted to sleep with his
mother.

The first night she refused. The second night she did it again. On the
third night she decided to let him lie with her and handle it from there.

So Johnny put on his pajamas and jumped into bed on his father's side.

With both his hands behind his head, he said to his mother: "With Christmas
approaching, don't you think it would be a good idea if we buy Johnny a
bicycle?"

AND

The man passed out in a dead faint as he came out of his front door onto
the porch. Someone called 911 or 000 depending upon your telephone system.

When the paramedics arrived, they helped him regain consciousness and asked
if he knew what caused him to faint.

"It was enough to make anybody faint," he said. "My son asked me for the
keys to the garage, and instead of driving the car out, he came out with
the lawn mower."

Best of Humour
mailto:join-bestofhumor@lists.2guys-ezines.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

IF YOU ENJOY RECEIVING THIS NEWSLETTER

Tell a friend to subscribe, tell a news group or a discussion group, tell
the world!

Please feel free to forward this newsletter in its entirety to other interested
people.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

FINALLY -

"THE WHINGE"

I find this amazing. I'm conceited enough to believe this newsletter is
of value, it must be because the ratio of new subscriptions to unsubscribers
is around 100:1 yet each month I get about 15 - 30 bounced emails. Why?

Because you don't tell me your new email address in a minority of cases.

Major reason?, some people apparently using free email addresses have these
newsletters bounced for these reasons:
"Quota used up" / "mailbox full" / "precedence junk mail". The last one
sux!

This is becoming time consuming for me so in future all "bouncers" are
going to be deleted from the list. Please keep your address current!

AND

If I bore you (good heavens!) then to unsubscribe CLICK on the URL below
this line (works to unsubscribe as well):
PLEASE copy and paste this email address into item 9 so I know for certain
who you are - your current email address will NOT identify you. The address
below this line is what I look up, nothing else.

You are subscribed as: ianpurdie@integritynet.com.au

That's all folks
  
72/73's and oink

Ian Purdie Budgewoi N.S.W. Australia - Co-ords S33º14', E151º34'
VK2TIP "I'll give ya the TIP mate" QRP-L #1978. SOC #171 FP#91
URL - https://www.electronics-tutorials.com/

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Please send me your valuable comments and suggestions! Tell your friends, tell a news group, tell the world!

the author Ian C. Purdie, VK2TIP of www.electronics-tutorials.com asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this web site and all contents herein. Copyright © 2000 - 2001, all rights reserved. See copying and links. These electronic tutorials are provided for individual private use and the author assumes no liability whatsoever for the application, use, misuse, of any of these projects or electronics tutorials that may result in the direct or indirect damage or loss that comes from these projects or tutorials. All materials are provided for free private and public use.
Commercial use prohibited without prior written permission from www.electronics-tutorials.com.


Copyright © 2001, all rights reserved. URL - https://www.electronics-tutorials.com/newsletter/jan-2001.htm

Updated 1st January, 2001