NWA-PCUG Newsletter Article, October 2006
The Deals Column
by Bob (the Cheapskate)Click, The Dealsguy
Greater Orlando Computer Users Group
bobclick@mindspring.com
(click to email author)


I wanted to change to a new cardiologist, but finding one who does not make me see a nurse practitioner to do the normal routine office visits is difficult. I have talked about this before and the situation is getting more common. I visited one cardiologist who told me point blank that I would have to see his NP most of the time since that was their policy, so I am trying another one. This doctor also uses a NP but I don’t know yet if they have the same policy and will discuss it on my next visit. I am not trying to discredit nurse practitioners or physician assistants, but if I am paying for a doctor, I think I should see one. The response to my complaint is that “there is a doctor on the premises.” However, when I saw an NP in the past, they did not consult a doctor, but gave me their instructions after they asked me some questions. While NPs and PAs are probably very competent in what they are qualified to do, the NP or PA has nowhere near the training the doctor has and I want the benefit of that since the office call is no cheaper when you see the NP rather than the doctor.

I read where there will soon even be clinics that will be run by NPs. They will be cheaper and claim these offices will only be for minor medical conditions. On the other hand, I have no doubt that there are some NPs and PAs who might be better for an office call than a poorly trained doctor, and I have been to a few bad doctors. In fact, that’s why I’m looking for a new cardiologist. Since I’m not a doctor, why am I not happy with the doctor? Even my MD agrees with me after hearing my complaints.

While the doctors started this trend to bolster their financial bottom line in the office, perhaps it will start a trend of people shopping for cheap medical attention by forgoing the expensive doctors for the NP because there are an increasing number of people who no longer have health insurance.

Caution
Remember that I have not tried any of the following products in this column, so be sure to do your homework.

Need More Windows Maintenance?
Advanced WindowsCare v2 Personal: A Click a Day Keeps All PC Threats Away!

IObit.Com announced the release of the newest version of Advanced WindowsCare v2 Personal. It is a multi-purpose Windows care tool that is intended for solving an entire list of computer problems: Removing spyware and adware, preventing security threats, privacy protection, fixing Windows registry errors, temporary files cleanup, startup cleanup, repairing Windows, speeding up system, etc. The program is 100% free.

The newest version has a multitude of improvements and is easy to use. There is an updated database, online search function is added to “Startup Manager” and “Help” is linked to “Support” page. One click and the program is ready to start a comprehensive examination of your OS. Secondly, the program features a special restore center, which is always ready to undo all of your changes automatically. Just one click in the RestoreCenter and a user can undo all of his\her changes. Thirdly, Advanced WindowsCare v2 Personal contains the Auto-Update option, which helps you to be abreast of new threats. Apart from that, the program has a built-in module, which is always ready to give you a preliminary assessment of your computer configuration. You can save the latter as a text file.

IObit says the program is the only one capable of challenging Microsoft's new service—OneCare. Advanced WindowsCare v2 Personal is compatible with all major anti-virus and firewall solutions. Apart from doing very hard work for keeping all intruders out of your files and keeping your Windows safe and sound, the program has some artistic merits. For example, the interface allows you to switch between varieties of themes. Advanced WindowsCare v2 Personal runs under Windows 2000 and XP and is available as a free download at http://www.iobit.com/BetaDownload.html 4.08 (Mb)

Product page link: http://www.iobit.com/AdvancedWindowsCarePersonal/index.html
E-mail: support@iobit.com
Web: http://www.iobit.com

Don’t Let Your Printer Control You, You Control IT!
Regulate Printer Usage with O&K Print Watch Version 4.00. It allows users to specify printing “budgets” for users, groups, and printers, and limit document printing by pages, cost or keywords used in the name of a document. Combing the features of a network print spooler and a print job register, this program lets users control print jobs, paper usage and collects statistics from the print servers. The latter is helpful in creating a company-wide chargeback plan that ensures that all users pay their fair share of the printing budget.

Unlike the standard print manager in Windows, O&K Print Watch correctly counts the number of printed pages and offers an excellent mechanism to set limits on printer usage. O&K Print Watch creates a wide array of reports, which are available for viewing even from a web browser. New to version 4.00 is a radically improved mechanism that enables users to set limits on printer usage and an ability to view printed jobs as images. Users will also discover an ability to organize users into groups and set up printing rules for each group individually.

You can set up a rule to limit printing based on the number of pages in a document. Or, you can specify keywords and no document with these keywords in its name will ever be printed.

O&K Print Watch 4.00 runs under Windows NT4/2000/XP/Server 2003. The company offers a flexible licensing policy based on the number of printers that can be monitored by the program. Discounts are available to educational institutions, and a 20% discount is provided to all DealsGuy readers by using any order link from our buy page http://www.prnwatch.com/registration.html and insert the coupon code “REGJY”. Additional information on O&K Print Watch, as well as its free 15-day evaluation version, is available from http://www.prnwatch.com.

DealsGuy note: It appears the printer(s) are required to be connected to a print server to work properly.

Product web site: http://www.prnwatch.com/okpw.html
E-mail: info@prnwatch.com

How Good Is Your Link Collection?

FREE Link-Popularity Checker!
This tool allows you to instantly check the Link Popularity of your Website as well as all of your competitors. It is said that Google heavily favors Websites with many links. Now you can instantly compare yourself to the competition and see how many more links you need to climb to the top of Google's rankings. Save countless hours with this and many other useful tools available for FREE at: http://www.monthlyreport.org.

What’s Hiding On Your Disk?

How about discovering everything that’s hidden on your hard drive? “Disk Investigator” will do just that. It can also help you recover lost data. Display the true drive contents by bypassing the operating system and directly read the raw drive sectors. You can view and search raw directories, files, clusters and system sectors; verify the effectiveness of file and disk wiping programs and undelete previously deleted files. This free software is available at http://www.theabsolute.net/sware/dskinv.html.

I found the above in The DataBus, (newsletter of The Dayton Microcomputer Association) some time back thanks to Robert Lewis of who found this one.

Are You Missing Any Money?
It’s doubtful you would know about this kind of missing money or assets. http://www.missingmoney.com is where you can find a record of the missing assets for 26 states and DC. It’s doubtful you will find anything for yourself there, but it wouldn’t hurt to take a look, just in case. States do eventually liquidate some assets such as stocks, but even then, you could later recover the value at that time.

Sorry but I didn’t make a note of which newsletter I found this one in.

That's it for this month. Meet me here again next month if your editor permits. This column is written to make user group members aware of special offers or freebies I have found or arranged, and my comments should not be interpreted to encourage, or discourage, the purchase of any products, no matter how enthused I might sound. Bob (The Cheapskate) Click bobclick@mindspring.com. Visit my Web site at http://www.dealsguy.com

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