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The
LangaList
9-Aug-99
A Free
Email Newsletter from Fred Langa About BrowserTune,
HotSpots, Columns, Tips & Tricks, and Other Activities
In This
Issue:
Windows’ "Short Date Format" Scare
Major Update Of BT2K Beta Coming
ICQ Debate Roars On!
Bogus "Office 2K Beta Expiration" Warning
Trouble with Internet Connection Sharing (ICS)?
PR Budget = $0
A Grinlet...
...and a Grin
More!
I’ve gotten maybe 50 emails in
the last week about a "new" Y2K issue---maybe you got one too. The
heart of the letter is something like this:
Every copy of Windows in
the world has default settings that will make it FAIL on Jan 1, 2000!!!! I’m
not kidding!!!! Check for yourself!!!! PASS THIS LETTER ON!!!!!
TEST:
Click on "START"
Click on "SETTING"
Click on "CONTROL PANEL"
Double click on "REGIONAL SETTINGS" icon
Click on the "DATE" tab at the top of the page.
Where it says, "Short Date Sample," look and see if it shows a
"two digit" year (yy). That is the default setting for Windows 95,
Windows 98 and NT
This date RIGHT HERE is
the date that feeds application software and WILL NOT rollover in the year 2000.
It will roll over to 00.
Click on the "SHORT
DATE STYLE" pull down menu and select the option That shows, mm/dd/yyyy.
(Be sure your selection has four Y's showing and not two.)
Click on "APPLY"
and then click on "OK" at the bottom.
Alas, this note is mostly
wrong--- in fact, Microsoft calls it an outright hoax. The worst part of the
email is that it fails to distinguish between the way dates are calculated and
the way they're displayed. The "date format picker" above affects only
how Windows displays dates and interprets the way you type in
dates. It tells you nothing about the underlying software calculations or about
your PC’s date-keeping hardware.
If your PC hardware is Y2K
compliant and if you’re running a newer version of Windows and/or have applied
the Y2K patches available (for free) from the Microsoft site, Windows will
calculate Y2K dates correctly regardless whether or not the date is displayed in
two- or four-digit format.
On the other hand, if you don’t
have a Y2K-compliant PC, or if you haven’t applied the Y2K patches, then
changing the date-display format is just rearranging the deck chairs on the
Titanic: Changing the format does nothing except to give you a false sense of
security.
In fact, using four-digit dates
won’t do you any good at all if the rest of your version of Windows, or the
rest of your software, or your PC itself has any of about five completely
separate Y2K issues. This "set a four-digits date format and you’ll be
fine" approach is way too simplistic. It’s totally misleading. It’s
wrong.
Fortunately, the real Y2K tests,
and the real fixes, are ridiculously easy: To fully address this issue (which
has alarmed many of you; and caused others to have false sense of Y2K security)
I’ve made this the topic of my Dialog Box column on the WinMag site this week.
There, in more detail than I
could fit in this newsletter, I’ll give you the full scoop on the "Date
Format" scare, and why it can be perfectly fine to continue using two-digit
dates. I’ll show you where to get free fixes and patches for any Y2K problems
your copy of Windows may have, and I’ll show you a simple, free, five-minute
do-it-yourself test anyone can do to ensure that your PC is fully Y2K-safe at
every level.
Y2K scares---and bogus emails---
abound. But don’t be taken in: Come get the facts, starting midday (EDT;
GMT-4) Monday Aug 9, 1999 via the front page at http://content.techweb.com/winmag/
.
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Once again, many, many thanks for
all the great feedback! Many of you wrote in outstanding suggestions on
everything from how the navigation buttons should be grouped to solving the ‘why
don’t people use the help files?" question I posed last issue. It’s
wonderful having so many fresh eyes look at BT2K: Your comments and suggestions
are helping a lot! (And please keep them coming!)
I’ve been keeping track of the
bug reports and the server logs, and it appears that BT does its job properly in
over 95% of cases. Some small percentage of users appear to experience basic
mail errors (mail is misrouted or lost; often due to a non-BT problem, such as a
mistyped email address, a mail failure in the general internet, or at the user's
ISP). Another group of problems occurs with random, undefined problems such as a
dropped packet or other error in transferring collected test data from a user's
PC back to the server for processing, especially when the server is *extremely*
busy as it's been the last few days.
And yes, there's also a residuum
of bugs in my code, but neither too many nor too bad. I'm fixing them as fast as
I can. 8-)
BTW--- More than 5% of users
report bugs, but in many cases they’re still of the "my browser failed to
complete a test (or crashed, or hung, or whatever), so therefore BT2K is buggy
(or broke my browser or crashed my system…)."
BT2K is noninvasive---it doesn’t
even try to alter anything on your system or in your browser settings. It just
thoroughly exercises what’s already there. But by poking into the nooks and
crannies of a browser setup, BT may uncover or activate problems you had, but
were unaware of. BT isn't causing the problem, but it may bring the problem to
light. That's it's job!
But I guess that’s still not
clear from the descriptions in the BT lead-in pages. I have some more rewriting
to do!
FYI: The BT2K full beta is at http://www.browsertune.com/bt2k/
The BT2K demo (think of it as
"BT2K Lite" is still available at http://www.browsertune.com/bt2kdemo/
And the tried-and-true manual
version of BrowserTune (BT98) awaits you at http://www.browsertune.com/bt98/
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The debate of AOL’s attempt to
lock out other parties in the Instant Messaging game has drawn a lot of
interesting (and very partisan!) dialog.
Some players feel that anyone who
can stick it to Microsoft is a Good Guy and thus is automatically right.
Others feel (as I do) that it’s
hypocritical for AOL to claim (even in federal court) it’s all for Open
Standards and then to go do something as self-serving, closed, and
monopolistic as preventing other IM systems from working with AOL’s massively
dominant IM system.
But what’s your take? Do you
use instant messaging? If so, which one? Would universal and interoperable IM
systems be a benefit? Do you see AOL’s moves as a justifiable attempt to
retain control of a huge part of the web-communication market, or is AOL
engaging in exactly the kind of behavior it accuses Microsoft of doing? Is sauce
for the goose also sauce for the gander? Join in the week-long discussion still
going on at http://www.informationweek.com/langaletter
!
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Some readers have complained
about getting false expiration warnings from the Office 2K beta—even if they
never installed it!
It turns out that the IE5 beta
installed what eventually became an O2K feature: "web folders." The
O2K beta---including web folders, expired on August 1st. If you still have the
beta web folders on your system, you’ll get the O2K warning, even without the
rest of O2K.
Here’s the fix, straight from
Microsoft:
"Install the final
version of Web Folders. If you are running Internet Explorer 5 Beta (Version
5.00.0910.1309), upgrade to the final version of Internet Explorer 5 and install
Web Folders. To install Web Folders while you are installing Internet Explorer
5, choose the Customize option, and then select Web Folders under Web Authoring
Components.
If a final version of
Internet Explorer 5 (Version 5.00.2014.0216, 5.00.2314.1003, or 5.00.2614.3500)
is already installed, you can add Web Folders from the Windows Update web site
or by following these steps:
1. Click Start, point to
Settings, and then click Control Panel.
2. Double-click Add/Remove
Programs.
3. On the
Install/Uninstall tab, click Microsoft Internet Explorer 5, and then click
Add/Remove.
4. Click Add a component
to Internet Explorer, and then click OK.
5. Under Web Authoring
Components, click the Web Folders check box to select it.
6. Click Next, and then
follow the instructions on your screen to complete the installation of Web
Folders.
NOTE: Microsoft Internet
Explorer 5 is not listed in Add/Remove Programs if you are running Windows 98
Second Edition. If you receive this error and are running Windows 98 Second
Edition (Internet Explorer 5 Version 5.00.2614.3500), you can add Web Folders
from the Windows Update site: http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com
Thanks to reader Max Spyridakis,
who dug this info out of the KnowledgeBase for us!
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Many users are having trouble
with Win98SE’s "ICS" feature. Some of it is that the concepts and
techniques of networking are not all that obvious at first, and some of it is
that ICS isn’t the simplest piece of software ever made. 8-)
I was going to write a
mini-feature on ICS, but then Canadian reader Mooney Sherman pointed me to this
site: http://www.infinisource.com/ics.html
It has great information on ICS
(and a lot more besides). Thanks, Mooney--- you saved me a couple hours work!
8-)
But I still think that ICS is
harder than it has to be. I've recommended an alternative so often some people
assume I own stock in the company (I don't---in fact, I don't own any high-tech
stocks in order to avoid any conflicts of interest with the companies and
products I write about); or that I have some other kind of deal with the vendor
(nope): I still prefer Sygate ( http://www.sygate.com
). It's inexpensive, it sets up very simply, offers better security than ICS,
and works very, very well.
If you have Win98SE, ICS may be
worth trying because you've already paid for it. But if you're looking for a
very simple, safe and reliable way to share an internet connection, check out
Sygate.
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Long-time readers know this
newsletter is a private project of mine: It's not part of some publishing
empire's stable of publications. In fact, I write these newsletters on my own
time, and pay with my own Visa card for a list-manager service to send them out.
8-)
I've started running small ads in
recent months to help defray my out-of-pocket costs, but I have neither the time
nor the budget to mount some kind of PR campaign to get more readers. And that's
where you come in.
Each issue, I try to offer you
useful, interesting and amusing factoids to help you with your hardware,
software, and time online. Can you take just a minute to help me out in return?
If you think the LangaList is a
worthwhile read, just use the following link to recommend the LangaList to a
friend. Your friend just may find a new source of useful information; I just may
gain a new subscriber; and you just may win a Palm III organizer for your
trouble (full details also available via this link):
http://www.langa.com/recommend.htm#1
The "Recommend-It"
service is an ad-based site (you’ll see banners and such). The advantages to
you of using the Recommend-It service (above) are that you can win a Palm III
and that you can add a personal message to your LangaList recommendation.
But if you’d rather use the
tried-and-true, ad-free recommendation form, you’ll still find it at: http://www.langa.com/recommend.htm#2
. You can’t win anything there—except my thanks for helping the
LangaList to grow!
In fact, either way, thank you!
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Last week, reader Jonas S. Madsen
sent along a funny and cynical guide to what software version numbers (from 1 to
4) really mean. This week, reader Jim Girard sent along a comment:
Jonas left out version
5.0:
A great big software
company bought it from us, changed the interface a little, added a couple of
junk utilities that nobody needs, put it in shrinkwrap and doubled the price.
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And A
Grin:
Many readers sent this in--- it
appears to have started on the "Joke of the Day" service at subscribe-jokes@lyris.mullencorp.net
There is a new virus going
around, called "work." If you receive any sort of "work" at
all, whether via email, internet or simply handed to you by a colleague...DO NOT
OPEN IT.
This has been circulating
around our building for months and those who have been tempted to open
"work" or even look at "work" have found that their social
life is deleted and their brain ceases to function properly.
If you do encounter
"work" via email or are faced with any "work" at all, then
to purge the virus, send an email to your boss with the words "I've had
enough of your crap... I'm off to the pub." The "work" should
automatically be forgotten by your brain. If you receive "work" in
paper-document form, simply lift the document and drag the "work" to
your garbage can. Put on your hat and coat and skip to the nearest bar with two
friends and order three pints of beer (or rum punch). After repeating this
action 14 times, you will find that "work" will no longer be of any
relevance to you and that "Scooby Doo" was the greatest cartoon ever.
Send this message to
everyone in your address book. If you do NOT have anyone in your address book,
then I'm afraid the "work" virus has already corrupted your life.
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See you next issue!
Best,
Fred
( fred@langa.com )
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