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Please note: Older issues may contain information that is now out of date. How To Subscribe
and Unsubscribe is at the end of this note. Mailing List Trouble? See http://www.langa.com/help.txt Please recommend the LangaList to a friend! (And maybe win $10,000 !) An easier-to
read formatted HTML version of this newsletter is available on line at The LangaList 2000-05-25 A Free Email
Newsletter from Fred
Langa 1) Readers To Stanford: Who's Isolated?Wow, we've seen some great responses to the current Byte "Monitor" column: It discusses a Stanford study that concludes that Internet use fosters social isolation; and that such isolation is a potential societal danger that 'must be monitored.' In the column, I strongly disagreed--- and so did many of your fellow readers! Here are some interesting snippets:
Not all the responses disagreed with the study; and the "pro-study" responses are worth reading too. (See address below.) Now let me ask *you*: Has the Internet and Web enhanced or detracted from the social connectedness of your life? Does the online world make you feel more isolated, or less? Does it strengthen the social fabric of your life, or weaken it? Do you have email friends whom you've never (or rarely) met in person; if so, are these friendships inferior to ones that rely more on face to face meetings? To post your replies, please join the discussion associated with the column (at http://www.byte.com/column/BYT20000517S0001 ). After you get the rest of the story, please share your thoughts in the Byte Newsgroups either by clicking to http://www.byte.com/nntp/monitor or by using your newsreader to access news.cmpnet.com, and from there, cmpnet.byte.monitor. Join in! Click to
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The responses and emails to the
current WinMag "Explorer" column on finding and fixing Resource Leaks
have already started. For example, reader David Donoho writes: AntiCrash 2K ( http://www.winsite.com/info/pc/win95/sysutil/anticrash30.zip/
) is a Windows utility that runs as a TSR and ensures that when a program
is terminated that the resources it uses are automatically returned. I have
installed this software on my Windows 98 system and it works exceptionally well.
I ran several programs at once and intentionally got the resource stack down to
6% (not recommended!) and then closed all the programs. I actually gained 1% on
my default stack. I then went through a 16 hour straight day of computing (my
computer is a muti-user machine) with out rebooting. At the end of the day I had
lost only 2% of my default stack. This one is definitely a keeper! I'd tried an earlier version of
AntiCrash and could detect no differences with it running. But now, with David's
note in hand, I'm trying it again, and carefully monitoring the results. It's
one of many similar apps I'm currently testing. Come see the other reader replies
and suggestions, and just maybe we'll all find some great tools for recovering
"leaked" memory and resources! Click on over to http://content.techweb.com/winmag//columns/explorer/2000/11.htm
! Click to
email this item to a friend Lee Schwabe writes: Hello Fred, Many of the malicious
things out there rely on the default installations of email programs for them to
work (like the embedded html styled link that points to a malicious file in the
attachment directory). When installing programs, choose the advanced option and
change the directory name or tree. This should defeat any viruses or worms
written to take advantage of security holes using default directory structures. Thanks for the list and
keep up the good work.---Lee Nice, simple trick, Lee. As you
say, this will help defeat malicious apps that assume that files are *in a
standard location.* As such, it could help against attacks by simple worms and
such. (And so far, the most widespread ones have also been the simplest ones!) Click to
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I haven't written about the daily
Web HotSpots page (see http://www.browsertune.com/flanga/hotspots.htm
) in a while, but the page is refreshed every day, 365 days a year; and each
HotSpot selection is a site I've personally found useful, interesting, clever,
weird, or otherwise NOT run of the mill. You never know what the HotSpot will
be--- but I promise to always make it interesting! <g> For example, here's a small
sample of a few recent HotSpots: If you're not checking out
HotSpots, you're missing something interesting, every day! Give it a shot at http://www.browsertune.com/flanga/hotspots.htm
! Click to
email this item to a friend As was discussed earlier (see http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2000/2000-05-18.htm#1
) some readers had trouble with the very handy Reg Patch that changes your
scrolling Start menu to a show-everything-at-once multi-column display. Reader Matt Goodrich discovered
that some systems balk at accepting standard numeric values ("1" and
"0") for "true" and "false" in their reg
settings--- which is bizarre indeed. He suggests this fix: Hello Fred: You write a
mean newsletter! Just wanted to pass along a possible fix for the multi column
.reg file. I too, had problems with it. The menus just didn't go to multi
column. I figured it was due to something else installed on my computer. But
being curious, I dug around a little and found a fix. This involved changing
the following values from; "CheckedValue"=dword:00000000 to "CheckedValue"="false" Shazam, it worked! I found this on the
following web site: www.pcforrest.co.uk/reg_hacks.htm#menucols Thanks, Matt! Click to
email this item to a friend If you think the
LangaList is a worthwhile read, maybe a friend would find it useful too! Just
use the following link to recommend the LangaList---your friend may find a new
source of useful information and you just may win $10,000 for your trouble (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 As with tip #1, earlier in this
issue, sometimes the simplest approaches are the best: Fred: Enjoy your
newsletter very much. Just today, what with all the nuts in cyberspace with so
many sick viruses, I thought about and have begun inserting my initials in the
subject line when I forward or send an attachment to my family and friends. I
have told them what I am doing and that they can rest assured that I have
scanned any forwarded attachment for a virus. They will then hopefully feel more
protected from a virus. This would, of course, be seen BEFORE they open the
attachment and, of course, provided they trust me.---bumcdonald Nice idea! Not foolproof, but at
least among your own correspondents this will help to defeat auto-mailing worms
like the Luv Bug. Click to
email this item to a friend Do you have a home page or
website? (It doesn't matter what size.) Please click over to http://www.langa.com/code.htm,
and maybe you can join the hundreds and hundreds of LangaList readers who have
"Loaded the Code!" Speaking of which: Here's another
eclectic sample of reader sites--- some professional, some very personal: Click to
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Believe it or not, some people
actually thought that the last Just For Grins item (about shutting down the
Internet for annual cleaning) was real--- even though it appeared here in the
"Just for Grins" section, and despite the fact that I specifically
called it a hoax. Makes you wonder, doesn't it? Canadian Reader Tony King points
out that that particular hoax has been around for a while: Fred - Re 'Internet spring
cleaning' joke- an old one. Please see: http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/stooopid/cleaning.htm A quote from it: Origins: This perennial
April Fools' joke used to be told about the phone system and spread by
photocopies and faxes; now it's the Internet being cleaned, and the message is
disseminated by e-mail. Granted,
"cleaning" out the Internet makes a little more sense to the
non-technical user than cleaning out a phone system, but really . . . Prior to
its "Internet cleaning" version, the jape featured convincing the
gullible that phone lines had become dirty, necessitating that the phone company
force air through them to clear the debris. Users were cautioned to place
plastic bags over handsets, lest the dust being blown through the lines settle
on everything in the house. A 1974 version featured
"frozen" phone lines: A radio announcer told his audience that, since
the community had experienced several nights of unusual below-zero temperature,
the telephone company, at a specified time, would put "heat-a-lators"
on all the telephone lines to thaw them out. The disk jockey told his listeners
to put their phone receivers in an empty bucket so that, as the lines thawed
out, water wouldn't run out and ruin their rugs. So many people took
their phones off the hook that the central office was in a "no tone"
condition for four minutes. Click to
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