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The LangaList

1-Jun-99
(Special double issue due to the US Holiday!)

A Free Email Newsletter from Fred Langa About BrowserTune,
HotSpots, Columns, Tips & Tricks, and Other Activities

In This Issue:
Warning! A New Kind of Invasive Web Ad May Pose Risks!
Netscape's Demise?
Be Still Bopping
At Long Last, Cable!
LangaList Ads: Major Changes!
More Re: New Win98 Patches & Updates
Win98 Menus---Serendipity Up The Wazoo!
HotSpots!
BT2K's Rockin'!
Microsoft’s "Oops" #1… (IE4 & 5 Bugs!)
... and "Oops" #2 (NT Bugs!)
Everybody Likes Free…
How To Keep Windows Running Forever
A Grinlet
And a Grin
More!

Warning! A New Kind of Invasive Web Ad May Pose Risks!

Let me come out and say it: I’m not against ads. If the web were a pay-as-you-go medium, it’d be nowhere nearly as rich, interesting and useful as it is. And on most sites, banner ads make it all possible. Advertisers pay site owners somewhere from a fraction of a penny to a nickel or so to place an ad in front of your eyeballs in the hopes that enough people will find the ad interesting, click on it, and buy whatever’s being advertised to make the investment of advertising dollars worthwhile. Those ad dollars pay for the web servers, the connectivity, the HTML coders, the writers, the artists---and for everything that goes into the web sites that we all visit for free. It’s not a bad deal at all.

Even the small ads here in the LangaList help defray the costs of running the list.

But let me also come out and say this: I don’t like it when anyone diddles with my PC without my knowledge. And there’s a new class of banner ads on web pages that comes perilously close to doing just that.

Banner ads normally are just animated GIFs--- a series of still images that your browser plays in flip-book fashion to create the illusion of motion. They’re just images--- they don’t and can’t do anything except display themselves. That’s cool.

But now there’s a new crop of very sophisticated ads that actually are stuffing CAB files filled with Java applets onto your system. These ads aren’t static flip-books, but actual Java programs that run. Some of these ads slightly reprogram your browser (temporarily changing the browser’s status line, for example, so it displays a message coordinated with the banner ad, for example); others create more sophisticated animations than simple GIFs can provide; and others are whole little front ends that turn the banner area into a mini-window you can navigate inside without leaving or changing the main browser window.

It takes a bit to explain, so rather than turn this email into something huge and too-long, I’ll devote this week’s Dialog Box column on the WinMag site to giving you all the details. But here’s a quick example:

I went spelunking on my system, looking for ad CABs added within one 24-hour period: I found 16 CABs from American Express, Disney, FTD Florists, Dell, the NBA, Sharper Image, and others. CABs are a form of compressed file, so most of these are small---three to six KB--- but I also found two copies of a master CAB module for showing these new kinds of ads: the master module contains Java components called fetcher.class, cacher.class, and so on--- eight modules in all, compressed down to 18K. In total, I had close to 100K of highly-compressed ad CABs from one day’s worth of normal surfing!

One of the Java applets in one of the CABs misloaded and stopped my browser cold. That’s bad enough, but I also have to wonder about the potential for abuse or misuse: Java has built-in safeguards to help prevent a rogue app from damaging your system, but there are ways around them. Plus, CAB files can contain other things besides Java applets--- they can contain far more dangerous ActiveX controls, for example, or DLLs or other applets that lack Java’s relative security. The potential for trouble is, well, far-reaching.

No, ads aren’t bad. CABs aren’t bad. Java isn’t bad. But the confluence of all three makes me uneasy. How about you? I’ll tell you all the details, as well as show you how to find the ad CABs lurking on your system---and even how to peek inside the CABs to see what’s inside--- starting late afternoon (EDT, UT-4) on June 1st via the Dialog Box link on the WinMag home page at www.winmag.com ! Join in!

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Wither Netscape?

That’s "wither," not "whither:" With Steve Case’s announcement that AOL bought Netscape for the portal, not the browser, you have to wonder if Mozilla has a real future. Here's what I mean:

First, there is good news: Gecko (the tightly-coded next-generation page-rendering engine that will be the heart of Mozilla 5) is coming along nicely. The target level of standards support is impressively high. The project as a whole has just closed Milestone 6 (see http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/); the M5 code is still live, but the M6 code is slated to become the live version on July 2.

But there’s also plenty of bad news. For one thing, the project as a whole is running very late. Part of this is a result of the early disastrous attempt to use Netscape’s ‘spaghetti code’ Communicator 5. (Netscape had essentially just piled on features and code from Version 1.0 onward; by V5, the code was a mess.) Deciding to scrap the existing code base and start over with a new core engine was a brave and necessary move, but cost the Mozilla project months of development time.

Another factor is that the open source project has attracted fewer developers than some expected. It’s taken the Mozilla team 6 months to reach Milestone 5; by Mozilla.Org’s own internal reckoning, there are 13 major milestones to go before the anticipated final release of Milestone 18 on Dec. 17 of this year. Can the Mozillans realistically expect to complete 13 additional major milestones in less than six months?

But to me the most serious obstacle to Mozilla’s success is the acquisition of Netscape by AOL--- a marketing company acquiring a technology company. When the takeover first happened, there were many assertions by various middle managers inside AOL that Netscape’s technology was a jewel that AOL would nurture and develop, via the Mozilla project. (The Mozilla project depends on Netscape for more programming talent than any other single source.)

Those assertions rang false in April with project leader Jamie Zawinski’s very public, very angry resignation from the project and from AOL/Netscape (see http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/nomo.html).

In the weeks following the resignation, we saw another round of vigorous affirmations from AOL that Mozilla was alive and well, and central to AOL’s vision. But then, just a week ago, the Wall St. Journal ran an article titled "AOL’s Case Denies Any Plan to Compete With Microsoft Corp." The text begins: "Steve Case, America Online’s chief executive, testified that AOL bought Netscape Communications Corp last year for its popular ‘portal’ web site, not its flagging Navigator browser, and he dismissed any plan to compete with Microsoft Corp…."

It’s hard to see any positive spin in this for Mozilla.

I have no doubt that the Mozillans will eventually ship a browser, and I fully expect it to be very good. But I also am coming to believe that it will be too little, and far too late; and thus unlikely to unseat IE as the mainstream browser of choice.

What’s your take? Can Mozilla 5 ship a year after IE5 and still compete? Is AOL’s acquisition of Netscape a good thing? Can the Mozillans hang on? Or is it "game over" for all practical purposes? Come get the full scoop (the above is just a taste) and then join in the week-long discussion starting Wednesday June 2 at http://www.informationweek.com/langaletter !

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Be Still Bopping

Meanwhile, the discussion of the BeOs---a new dark-horse operating system contender you can run on your PC (or Mac)---is still generating quite a few comments. Most people who’ve tried BeOS like it, as did I.

It’s also nice because you can run Be right alongside your installation of Windows; the two OSes coexist very peacefully!

Catch up with the end of the week-long discussion of this dark-horse OS contender at http://www.informationweek.com/langaletter !

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At Long Last, Cable!

Long-time readers may recall the "bandwidth bends" I went through when I moved from New York to New Hampshire. I went from flat-fee, all-you-can-eat ISDN to (initially) a 28.8 dial-up service.

Don’t get me wrong---I love New Hampshire---but some parts of the state’s infrastructure were just a bit behind the times.

After a while, the local ISPs converted to 56K; and the phone company finally offered 128Kbps ISDN. But it was (and is) expensive: I’m online a lot, and my ISDN bills averaged about $500 a month! (That adds up pretty fast, lemme tell you!)

But my local cable company is reasonably aggressive and on the ball, and they replaced my neighborhood’s metal cables with fiber optics about a month ago. Last Monday, my immediate neighborhood became cable-modem ready; I got on the phone, and by Thursday, I was hooked up (the fifth person in my town to do so).

(Well, some parts of the cable company are on the ball. The installer was very sharp for instance, but the order taker was a bit at sea. When I saw the written work order, it included a comment that "the customer needs an Ethernett NEC." Of course what I'd requested was for the cable company to supply an approved and compatible Ethernet NIC (Network Interface Card). But the installer knew what I needed. 8-) )

In any case, now, instead of variable charges averaging $500 a month I have a flat-fee $39/mo for all-I-can-eat connectivity with speeds averaging 256-500Kbps, and sometimes higher. Plus, cable modem is an always-on service, so there’s no dial-out, connection, handshaking, and logging on. It’s just always there. It’s the next best thing to being on a T1 connection at the office.

I’m using the affordable and robust Sygate ( www.sygate.com ) software to share the connection across my home LAN so my wife and kids and access the high-speed service from their machines, too. We’ll probably be able to drop three other ISPs and retire several dial-up modems over the next few weeks. (I’ll keep one standard 56K modem and my ISDN lines as backups, but will shift almost everything over to cable ASAP.)

If, or when, you have the chance to get cable modem--- grab it. There’s no comparison---especially if you have a high-cost service like ISDN.

And that brings me to the next item:

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LangaList Ads: Major Changes!

My enormous reduction in communication costs means it costs me much less to produce the LangaList each week. So, I’ve taken the proverbial axe to the ad rates I originally had to establish under the high-cost structure. I now can offer various types of ads at extremely affordable prices. If you or your company has any non-adult (i.e. X-rated) product or service you’d like to bring to the attention of other LangaList readers, check out the new rates at
http://www.langa.com/rate_card.html

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More Re: New Win98 Patches & Updates

I kinda knew it’d happen: when I wrote about the new Win98 patches and updates last week (see http://www.langa.com/newsletters/May-27-99.htm ) I knew some readers would write to say "I can’t find ‘em!"

There are many reasons why you might not see every patch or update I tell you about. For one thing, the "wizard" that sniffs your system at the update site tries to show you the things it thinks you need. It won’t show you things it thinks you don’t need.

For another, the wizard actually seems to be more dunce-like than wizard-like at times: there seems to be a fairly high failure rate in what’s picked up and acted on. What the wizard shows you may be very different from what it shows me. So there will be times when you need to hunt down a patch or update you’re interested in but can’t find via the update wizard.

Try one of these pages:

General Windows Support: http://support.microsoft.com/support/
Win95: http://support.microsoft.com/support/windows/serviceware/win95/default.asp
Win98: http://support.microsoft.com/support/windows/serviceware/win98/default.asp
WinNT: http://support.microsoft.com/support/default.asp?PR=ntw&FR=0&SD=SO&
IE5: http://support.microsoft.com/support/ie/serviceware/exp50/default.asp

You also can use the general Search engine there: just enter the name of the patch or update you're looking for.

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"Serendipity" Up the Wazoo!

Last week, we asked the musical questions "How do you sort alphabetically the favorites file in ie? And for that matter how do you sort the programs list in Windows alphabetically?"

We gave one clever answer from a reader that involved an export/import type of function; it should work on almost any system. But many, many, many of you then wrote in to point out that in Win98 you can accomplish the same thing simply by right-clicking on any menu and then selecting "Sort by Name." Also, in Win98, you can grab and drag menu items to put them in an arbitrary order, if you choose.

That's true, but it may not work in other versions of IE or Windows. And that's not all---even in Win98 itself, there are about nine different ways you can accomplish the same thing. (This is at once one of Windows' greatest strengths and weaknesses---there are many ways to accomplish the same task.)

For example, several readers also told me about a registry hack that can accomplish the same alphabetizing. For example:

There's a registry hack for re-alphabetizing the Start Menu, Favorites, etc. In doing a net search for the key responsible, I found a page at http://newlife-win98.server101.com/reg_fixes.htm  with the .reg file below.

To re-alphabetize the Start Menu, put the following lines into a .reg file (with an enter at the end) and import it.

REGEDIT4
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MenuOrder\StartMenu\&Programs\Menu]
"Order"=hex:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MenuOrder\Start Menu\Menu]
"Order"=hex:

I'm sure there are other keys where you can do the same thing for the Favorites and other submenus--- Scott Leibrand

Your 5/27/99 newsletter mentioned a way to reorganize your Favorites menu alphabetically. I've used the technique listed below for several months without any side effects. The technique is based on Microsoft Article Q177482.

Run Regedit then browse to and delete the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\MenuOrder

Close regedit and restart Windows. Windows will scan the registry and recreate MenuOrder with the default settings (all menus in alphabetical order). ---Scott Randolph

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