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The LangaList
2000-04-10 A Free Email Newsletter from Fred
Langa
(2000-April-10)
That Helps You Get More From Your Hardware,
Software, and Time Online
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Ever wonder why some PCs start up
in what seems like seconds, while others grind on for minutes before they're
ready to use? "Sleep Mode" and "suspend" features help
somewhat, reducing the time from when you sit down at the keyboard to when you
can begin working, but everyone needs to fully reboot from time to time, and it
can be excruciatingly slooooow. Some parts of the boot process
depend on how the PC and its BIOS (the "Basic Input/Output System that
controls the lowest level of hardware functionality) work together, as designed
by the manufacturer: As such, some parts of the boot-up are beyond end-user
control. But other parts---including some
BIOS functions--- *can* be controlled, and can make your PC much faster
starting. I'll present some of the most universally applicable Windows 9x
speedups in my WinMag.Com column this week, and I invite you to join the
discussion to share brand- and model-specific tips and tricks to make our PCs
start faster. By the time we're done, we could have quite a collection of
speedup tips! Here's one small example:
Sometimes the fastest way to restart an already-running PC is simply to bypass
completely all the low-level hardware checking that normally bogs down a
restart. And although this trick has been around forever, amazingly few people
know of it. Here's how it works: Next time you need to quickly
restart Windows (when your PC already is running) go to the Windows Start button
and select Shut Down/Restart as you normally would. But before you click
"OK," press and hold the *left shift key*; keep the left shift key
depressed until you see the words "Windows is now restarting…" This
one little trick alone can shave as much as a couple of minutes off the reboot
time on slower systems! Click on over to http://content.techweb.com/winmag//columns/explorer/2000/08.htm;
Join in! Click to
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Over at http://www.byte.com/column/BYT20000321S0002,
the current column on "Affective Computing" is generating some
excellent mail. (Thanks for your comments!) The column examines current,
near-term developments and product prototypes of computer devices that can
actually read your mood and react accordingly. One example: Some students at MIT
have designed a Palm Pilot-based "affect-adaptive CD player" that
actually senses the mood you're in, and then plays the music that fits
your mood. No conscious user input is required--- the CD player just
"knows" what music you're in the mood for! It's a wild concept, but working
examples like these, coupled with heavy duty R&D from the likes of IBM,
indicate that this stuff is for-real, and headed for products sooner rather than
later. Check out the column--- I think
you'll find it an interesting read! And by the way: Contrary to the
emails I got from a number of well-meaning souls who wanted to correct my
spelling, I do mean "affective computing," not "effective
computing." Although "affect" and
"effect" are often confused, I'm using "affect" in the
psychological sense of "a feeling or emotion as distinguished from
cognition, thought, or action," or "a strong feeling having active
consequences." It's the same root meaning as "affection," and
that's one easy way to tell the noun affect ("feelings; as in
affection") from the noun effect ("consequence; as in cause and
effect"). The verb forms are roughly
analogous, but the distinctions between them are more subtle and far more
complicated to explain ("affect" as a verb can mean "to bring
about an effect")--- so that's a topic for a grammar newsletter, not the
LangaList. 8-) In any case, the Byte column
topic really is accurately described as "Affective Computing," and if
you click on over, you'll see a whole new kind of user interface being developed
around emotional responses. Fascinating stuff! http://www.byte.com/column/BYT20000321S0002 Click to
email this item to a friend Last week, I made a few polishing
tweaks to the speed-measurement portions of BrowserTune 2000, partly in response
to the rash of all-but-useless speed tools that have cropped up, including the
one on the MSN site. Most of these one-shot speed tests run too fast to be
meaningful, and on just one server, giving you only an instantaneous and
incomplete snapshot of your real speed. In contrast, even the simplest
BrowserTune speed test actually performs nine separate automatic measurements on
different servers to give you a far more reliable picture of what your speed
really is. And the full "level three" BrowserTune tests let you
perform up to 16 separate speed measurements using a wide range of servers and
file sizes so you can really see exactly what's going on with your connection
speed. What's more, BrowserTune 2000
(BT2K) doesn't just spit a number at you: It analyzes the results and actually
makes specific recommendations as to how you can correct any bottlenecks that
might be making you surf more slowly than necessary. I freely admit my bias (because I
built BT2K myself) but I honestly believe it's the best web-based speed test
there is. And of course, it's still 100% free. If you haven't run BT2K in a
while, or (gasp!) if you've never run it at all, click on over and try it out!
It's free, the basic tests take only literally a couple minutes to run, and it's
100% noninvasive (it makes absolutely no changes to your system or browser) so
it's as safe as can be! Check it out: Click to
email this item to a friend Microsoft Excel 97 and Excel 2000
(in both standalone and Office versions) have a small security hole that could
leave you vulnerable to a special kind of malicious macro. A macro is a kind of automated
script. Excel and most of the MS-Office family software have had built-in
safeguards to prevent hidden macros from running: If someone sends you a
spreadsheet with a hidden macro, Excel normally will pop up a dialog saying
something to the effect of, "Hey, there's a macro here. Should I run it or
skip it?" If you trust the person who sent it, you can run it; otherwise
you can skip the macro and later examine its contents to make sure it's not
going to do something bad if you run it. But it turns out there's a way to
bury Excel Macro (XLM) commands in an external file, and in that case, Excel
doesn't pop up a warning. So if you're in the habit of sharing spreadsheets,
there's a small but real risk that some malicious person could exploit this
security hole to try to harm your system or your data by sending you a stealth
macro file. Microsoft just released a patch
for this "XLM Text Macro" vulnerability. If you think you need it, you
can grab a copy: Excel 97 (note: you must first be
running Office 97 Service Release 2): Excel 2000: More info: Click to
email this item to a friend Wow! A lot of you were having
trouble with your "Hosts" files! (See http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2000/2000-04-03.htm#5
) For example, reader Lynn A. Johnson writes: Fred!!!! Since last
SEPTEMBER 9th, I have been unable to get into the sign-in
pages for Yahoo and Netscape. I've contacted both places for
support and the systems administrator at my ISP for support in
trying to fix this problem and no one had any idea as to what the
problem was. I tried going to
all the on-line "HELP" websites and I've lost count
of how many "experts" that I've asked about this and no one could
help. I
went into newsgroups and told of my problem and no one had had the
problem themselves. I was resigned to just "living" with the problem
until.......... Your Langalist on
April 3rd. and the article #5 - "The Evil 'hosts'
problem." I decided to just
give your suggestion a try (never expecting for it
to work in MY case) and went to the C:\windows000\hosts file and
renamed it hosts_bak and rebooted. My first stop was
Netscape to see if I could access my webpage for
the first time since September 9th. BINGO! First shot and
I was in. Next
stop - Yahoo. Same thing. While I was there I deleted 287 email
messages that had filled my email box since September 9th. I
continued.....C-net, www.com, and on and on and on. I could get
into all the websites that had said (since September 9th: "The
server is not responding or could be down. Contact the systems
administrator for details". Thank you, Fred.
You've solved a problem that's been plaguing
me since September 9th, 1999. Glad it helped! Many other readers wrote in too,
and some named names regarding the software that had diddled with their Hosts
file. I have no personal experience with any of these programs, but the ones
readers most frequently pointed the finger at Modem Booster, Download
Accelerator, Fastcar, and Fastnet. Your mileage may vary--- but I
think it's dumb for any software to try to treat the dynamic addressing of the
Internet as if it's static. It ain't static, and as we've seen, static Host
addresses often cause nothing but trouble. Click to
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Problems? Get
answers from some of the same sources Fred uses Information/Order
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Many of you wrote in with
questions and additional ways to avoid have your email address fall into the
hands of spammers. (See http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2000/2000-04-06.htm#6
and http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2000/2000-04-06.htm#7
) Reader JW asked: Fred, I've used your
"solution" before which works for me also because
I have my own domain name. But the problem with this
tip comes when you want to unsubscribe. If you can't reply
from the address they send the mail to (fred_xyz@langa.com)
then the unsubscribe typically won't work
and manual intervention is needed (look up email contact
and make an explanation or get on the phone). I got into
a problem unsubscribing from some MS emails that took months
to resolve, sigh... Any solutions to this problem? Eudora and other good email
clients let you determine your own "from" address; you can change it
temporarily (for example, to fred_xyz@langa.com) to unsubscribe, and then change
it back. And although this isn't nearly as
good an answer, you can always let the newsletter come, and build a filter to
delete-on-receipt. And Eric Mathis writes: Hi Fred, LOL! Thanks, Eric,
and to all who wrote in! Click to
email this item to a friend If you think the
LangaList is a worthwhile read, just use the following link to recommend the
LangaList to a friend. You just may win $10,000(!), your friend just may find a
new source of useful information; I just may gain a new subscriber (full details
also available via this link): http://www.langa.com/recommend.htm#1 Or, win a copy of
"Poor Richard's E-Mail Publishing: Creating Newsletters, Bulletins,
Discussion Groups and Other Powerful Communications Tools." This book has
been described as "An excellent, straightforward manual on email
publishing, banner ads, driving traffic and especially ethics." (Full
details also available via this link): http://www.langa.com/recommend.htm#2 Either way, thank
you, and good luck! Click to
email this item to a friend I've added a new feature to the
reader site listings at http://www.langa.com/readersites.htm
. So many of you have "Loaded The Code" that the list was becoming
unwieldy. So I made a database of all the sites I've posted so far, hooked them
to a random-link picker, and called it "Reader Site Roulette."
<g> Now, you can either browse
through the readers sites one by one if you wish, or click on the
"Roulette" link on the pages starting at http://www.langa.com/readersites.htm
and each time you'll click, you'll see another reader site. It's kinda cool to see what your fellow readers are up to,
and the growing list is very eclectic with sites ranging from the very
professional to the very personal. Do you have a home page or website? (It doesn't matter
what size.) Please click on over to Load
The Code and maybe your page can be featured here, and in the Reader Site
Roulette, too! This issue's new sites: Click to
email this item to a friend Martin Heller from PC PitStop
wrote: Fred, we've just put up
a new feature on PC Pitstop, called Disk Health. Once you've
downloaded the control (which we don't expect to change often) it's
a 10-second check of your PC's disks for FAT copy mismatches, FAT chain errors,
cross-linked files, and fragmentation. We developed this in partnership
with Golden Bow, of Vopt fame. The URL for the
Disk Health quick check page is http://www.pcpitstop.com/pcpitstop/diskhealth.asp
. We've also incorporated the
Disk Health checks into the full PC Pitstop test sequence, at http://www.pcpitstop.com/pcpitstop/
. We recommend that people check their PC's
Disk Health at least weekly, and run a full PC Pitstop test at least monthly. As is the case for
the PC Pitstop tests, the Disk Health test uses an ActiveX
control and JavaScript, which means that it requires IE 4+. Right now
it works on Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me. Nice addition, Martin. Thanks. Click to
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"LorenAven" sent this
around last week. It's an oldie--- but a goodie. MAJOR U.S. RESEARCH
UNIVERSITY DISCOVERS NEW ELEMENT! The heaviest
element known to science was recently discovered by investigators
at a major U.S. research university. The element, tentatively named
Administratium, has no protons or electrons and thus has an atomic number
of 0. However, it does have 1 neutron, 125 assistant neutrons, 75 vice
neutrons, and 111 assistant vice neutrons. This gives it an atomic mass of
312. These 312
particles are held together by a force that involves the continuous exchange
of meson-like particles called morons. It is also surrounded by vast quantities
of lepton-like particles called peons. Since it has no
electrons, Administratium is inert. However, it can be detected
chemically as it impedes every reaction it comes in contact with. According
to the discoverers, a minute amount of Administratium causes one reaction
to take over four days to complete when it would have normally occurred
in less than one second. Administratium has
a normal half-life of approximately three years, at which time
it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which assistant
neutrons, vice neutrons, and assistant vice neutrons exchange places.
In fact, an Administratium sample’s mass actually INCREASES over time,
since with each reorganization some of the morons inevitably become neutrons,
forming new isotopes. This characteristic of moron promotion leads some
scientists to speculate that perhaps Administratium is spontaneously formed
whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical
quantity is referred to as "critical morass." Click to
email this item to a friend See you next issue! Best, (Please recommend
the LangaList to a friend! (And maybe win $10,000!I) An easier-to read formatted HTML version is
available in the "what's new" section of http://www.langa.com.
(The HTML version of each issue normally is available by 9AM EST [GMT-5] of the
issue date.) All past LangaList issues are also available via the same link. Why are you getting this newsletter? There are
only two ways to get on the list (direct email request or via the WinMag mail
list signup page) so if you're getting this newsletter; your name came to me
through one of those channels. SUBSCRIBE (it's free!): Create and send a new
email address it to subscribe-langalist@lyris.dundee.net About
the advertisers: Langa Consulting LLC will never knowingly accept
advertising for a fraudulent product, company or service. However, Langa Consulting LLC makes no implied or explicit warranty, recommendation or endorsement
of or for the products, companies or services mentioned in the ads. Disclaimer:
(Please see full disclaimer here: http://www.langa.com/legal.htm.)
Abbreviated version: The tips and other information given in the newsletter are
researched and are believed to be accurate, but we cannot and do not guarantee
that all the information here will work on all systems, for all users, all the
time. All information herein is offered as-is and without warranty of any kind.
Neither Langa Consulting LLC, nor its employees nor contributors are responsible for
any loss, injury, or damage, direct or consequential, resulting from application
of any information presented here. This newsletter is a free service of Langa Consulting LLC and is Copyright © 2000 Langa Consulting LLC. All rights reserved.
1) Curing Sloooooooow Restarts
http://www.langa.com/sendit.htm
return to top of page2)
A CD Player That Senses Your Mood!
http://www.langa.com/sendit.htm
return to top of page3)
BrowserTune Update
http://www.browsertune.com/bt2kfast
http://www.langa.com/sendit.htm
return to top of page4)
Excel Security Problem, And A Patch
http://www.officeupdate.com/downloadDetails/Xl8p9pkg.htm?s=/downloadCatalog/dldExcel.asp
The patch is part of Office 2000 Service Release 1, which is available at
http://www.officeupdate.com/2000/downloadDetails/O2kSR1DDL.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/fq00-022.asp
and http://www.microsoft.com/technet/support/kb.asp?ID=255605
http://www.langa.com/sendit.htm
return to top of page5)
Host File Culprits
http://www.langa.com/sendit.htm
return to top of page
---and also get a full 20% discount in the process!6)
More "Trackable" Email Info
Thanks for the info on how to deal with SPAM. I'm sure you know that there are
organizations devoted to fighting SPAM like http://spam.abuse.net/
and http://www.cauce.org/ .
Although, if you don't want e-mail from the requesting site at all, my favorite
way to deal with having to put in an e-mail address is to give them
name@127.0.0.1. "127.0.0.1" is the localhost IP address. If anyone
tries to use this address, they will only be SPAMming their own e-mail system.
http://www.langa.com/sendit.htm
return to top of page7)
$10,000 For Your Trouble?
http://www.langa.com/sendit.htm
return to top of page8)
Reader Site Roulette!
http://webhome.idirect.com/~wpetelka/
http://www.earthcare.com.au/eclectic/
http://members.theglobe.com/rerdey/freebies.htm
http://members.home.net/gtbell/index.html
http://www.unclehughie.com/
http://userzweb.lightspeed.net/~dseibold/
http://users.idcomm.com/trevithick/
http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/1911/cerro2.htm
http://lightning.prohosting.com/~dhill/
http://www.candibowman.com/
http://tandcconst.homestead.com/
http://www.langa.com/sendit.htm
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New PC PitStop Feature
http://www.langa.com/sendit.htm
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over 1,000,000 times a month!10)
Just For Grins
http://www.langa.com/sendit.htm
return to top of page
Fred
(fred@langa.com)
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