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Please note: Older issues may contain information that is now out of date.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
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Newsletter from Fred
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Parts I-III covered a lot of ground;
Part IV wraps it all up with specific information on how you can get your Win9x
computer to self-maintain, automatically, at night, by using a customized
application of the "Maintenance Wizard" and other tools. Along the
way, I'll show you how to change the Scheduled Tasks to process many more
self-maintenance items, including a custom batch file I use to weed out garbage
that otherwise may elude standard cleanup routines. For example, you can add, say,
Norton's Speed Disk (far superior to Windows' built-in Defrag) as a Windows
Scheduled Task by choosing it from the "Add Scheduled Task" dialog,
and then editing the Scheduled Task "Run" line as follows: C:\PROGRA~1\NORTON~1\SD32.EXE C D /f In this example, the "C D
/f" indicates you want the C and D drives to be fully defragged. (The above
command line assumes that Speed Disk is installed in the standard location.) Norton's Disk Doctor (superior to
Windows' Scandisk) is similar: Add it via "Add Scheduled Task," or by
adding C:\PROGRA~1\NORTON~1\NDD32.EXE to the Run line. Then click the
Settings button next to "Browse" below the Run box (note this is NOT
the same as the "Settings" tab at the top of the Window.) When
"Options for Norton's Disk Doctor" opens, select the drives you want
scanned, and then click "Auto-Repair." You can check the other Options
tabs, too, to make further adjustments that will apply each time NDD runs. Incidentally, most versions of
Norton tools usually come with their own task scheduler. I don't use it because
I can run all the Norton stuff through Windows' built-in task scheduler (as
above), and can also run all of Windows' own self-maintenance items there,
giving me one-stop self-maintenance for my PC. Why run two task schedulers when
you can run one? Note that the method of adding a
task and the options available to you from Scheduled Tasks will vary from vendor
to vendor, tool to tool, and version to version; use the examples above *only as
a guide*--- your specifics may differ. Search your help files for "command
line" to see what options are actually available to you. There's even more self-maintenance
info in the fourth and final installment of this WinMag series, available now at
http://content.techweb.com/winmag//columns/explorer/2000/14.htm
. Click on over, check out the column, and then join in the discussion! Click to
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Charles Turcich asks a question that
many have been wondering about: What's up with "Web Bugs," which are
tiny, invisible graphics files embedded on web pages for tracking purposes. Fred, I've
stumbled onto something your readers might be interested in. I know I was very
drop-jawed when I read about this. Please look at the links below and let me
know what you think. The many uses they could be put to are too many to even
think of. http://slashdot.org/yro/00/07/01/1252210.shtml http://www.tiac.net/users/smiths/privacy/wbfaq.htm http://www.politechbot.com/p-01250.html Thanks, Charles The Web Bug issue is worth knowing
about, but there's a lot of paranoia in those posts. (No wonder you were
alarmed, Charles! Some of the claims on those site would make anyone's hair
stand on end.) Most web bugs are simple calls to a
static graphic file that will register a hit ("a browser asked for this
file") in a web server's logfile, and that's about it. The hit info will
contain no more information than any other ordinary browser action--- no special
personal info, no "how long you were on a page" or "how many XXX
rated sites you've visited," or any of the other extravagant claims made by
some of the above sites. A normal browser transaction does indicate what page
the hit came from, but this is statistical information that isn't connected to
any individual data (that is, it's not trackable to *you*). Usually, a web bug is placed on a
page that contains an ad; the bug calls an invisible file on the ad owner's
server. It's usually there to keep a site owner honest by verifying the number
of times an ad was displayed (ad costs are based on that number). If a site
owner sends a bill to an advertiser saying an ad was displayed 10,000 times, but
the bug records only 1,000 hits, then the advertiser knows the site owner is
playing games with the numbers. 8-) Can web bugs theoretically be used
to try to track personal data? Sure, but so can ordinary server logs, ordinary
*visible* graphics, ordinary links to ordinary web pages, scripts hidden inside
pages, and so on. There's nothing special about a web bug that makes it
inherently more dangerous than many other kinds of links. For the doomsday web bug scenarios
to play out in full-flowered, privacy-robbing nightmare form, at least two
different sites would have to work together to gather data and associate it with
a particular, identified user--- and the user would have to voluntarily
cooperate with at least one of the sites by choosing to enter sensitive personal
data on that site in a registration form or some such. That's a lot of work and
a lot of deliberate, active, (and difficult) collusion. To put it the other way, a malicious
site owner can't somehow sneak a web bug onto someone else's page; and even if
they somehow could, it's not going to get them very far: No site can reach into
your wallet and read your credit card numbers. <g> So, the mere presence of a web bug
does NOT automatically mean you're being personally monitored. In fact, in every
case I know of, the web bug is no more personal than a turnstile counting the
number of bodies passing through--- without any info whatsoever on who the
bodies are. Because they have the potential to
be misused, web bugs are worth knowing about--- but IMHO, they're not worth
worrying over. Click to
email this item to a friend Hi Fred, like many others I
do enjoy your newsletter, thanks. There is a subject that as far as I know
nobody has covered: I am presently very interested in backing up my files on the
web, but what worries me is what happens with whatever I uploaded (text files,
photo albums, etc) if that particular company stops operating, or goes bankrupt,
which is bound to happen with so many of them competing out there ? Good question. Some may disagree,
but for the reasons Antoine mentions, I think it's probably not a good idea to
use most of these free or low-cost web backup services to store essential,
unique, or irreplaceable files, although they can be fine to store temporary,
extra copies; or stuff that's nonessential. Besides, for anything other than
modest, daily backups of just a few files, I find these services way too slow,
even on a cable modem. Plus, what do you do if your system is hosed to the point
where you can't get online? What good do online backups do you when you can't
access them? And not least, be sure you read the
fine print of the user agreement of any service you do use: Some services claim
rights to whatever you post on their site! So, in general--- and as with most
things in life, it seems--- the more important your computer work is, the more
essential it is that you manage your own backups: That's the only way to be sure
it's really done right. <g> Click to
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This email from John C. Anderson was
a surprise: I didn't know AT&T had labs in the UK, and I didn't know they
produced free software: Fred, Thanks for the GREAT
newsletter and all of your careful hints on memory resource tweaking. I've found
a great freeware product that I think the readers of LangaList would be
interested in. It is called VNC (Virtual Network Computing) and was developed by
AT&T Labs - Cambridge, Ltd. It is a small (965K download for server, viewer
and docs), fast (works fine over 24k dialup), and free equivalent to commercial
software such as PCAnyWhere. One wonderful feature is the webserver that is
built in to the software allowing access to your remote box from any
Java-capable web browser! Another great plus is that it is available for many
OS's such as Win32 (including 2000), Linux, Unix, and Mac. The downloadable file
is available at http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/
. I hope everyone enjoys it
as much as I do!--- John C. Anderson Thanks, John! Click to
email this item to a friend Thanks to you and your
fellow LangaList readers, this newsletter has grown almost 40% in just the last
six months! That's an astonishing growth rate even if measured over several
years, but to have the subscriber list grow by that much in just six months is
*awesome*. And this growth is almost all word of mouth--- it's just me working
here, with an advertising budget of exactly $0.00. <g> Almost all the List
growth comes from you and people like you telling your friends about the List.
It makes me me feel great to know that so many of you enjoy the List and find it
useful enough to want to pass it on to your friends. Many, many thanks! In fact, thanks 10,000
times: If you 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 $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 onemail 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 In recent issues, we've discussed
some of the woes experienced by users of Hotmail and some other free email
services. Well, now it looks to be Yahoo's turn: Hello, Fred: I am one
of your subscribers and I am very annoyed at Yahoo. I have been using their
services E-mail etc. for the past few years and I received an e-mail on my yahoo
account telling me that I had to verify my age and to prove my age I had to send
in my credit card information to them which I found to be absurd. I am over
forty years of age own a home and have a significant credit history. I first
asked them to check motor vehicle records and they told me that they could not.
So then I suggested to them that they should use credit reporting and they never
answered back as to the reason that they could not. I don't believe that I or
anyone else should give credit card information to a company that we are not
doing business transactions with. --- Julio Mora I agree. The credit card trick is
often used as a scam by shady sites ("Just give us the credit card number
to prove your age--- no charges will be made against the card....") I
can't image why Yahoo needs to work that way. With all the free email sites out
there, if any one of them gives you bad service or asks for something
unreasonable from you, vote with your feet: Find another free email provider. 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!" (If you've already "Loaded The Code" and
are wondering if your site will appear here or on the Langa.Com web site, please
see http://www.langa.com/link.txt
) Speaking of which: Here's another
eclectic sample of reader sites--- some professional, some very personal: Click to
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You gotta love AOL for its
consistency: Dear Fred, Here's another AOL screw
up. If you are running Windows 2000 (professional version is what we asked
about), you can not install or use AOL 4.0 or 5.0. So we called to see if there
was a compatable version... there is. Now here's the catch, you can only
download the beta version from AOL to the machine you are currently using. If
you are using a machine with Win2000, you can't install AOL (any version) in
order to access the download on AOL. Even the tech was laughing about it! :o)
---Elizabeth B. Hooks, Co-Owner, "No Stress" Computing Click to
email this item to a friend There's something about every season
here in New Hampshire that makes me glad to live here. Well, that's not exactly
true: in addition to the normal four seasons, NH also has "Mud Season"
in March and "Black Fly Season" in June. Those are less than
wonderful. <g> But seriously---it's a fabulous
location. NH is located far enough north to have deep winter, but not so far
north that summer's only a tease. The location provides four very real, very
distinct and fast-paced seasons; their brevity makes each season intense and
memorable. Plus, NH is located at the confluence of two major weather tracks---
the west-to-east continental track and the south-to-north Atlantic coastal
track--- giving the region highly varied, interesting and fast-changing weather.
(Mark Twain said "Yes, one of the brightest gems in the New England weather
is the dazzling uncertainty of it.") Like some much larger states, NH has
both serious mountains and a very pleasant seacoast just an hour or two driving
time apart. I know, I know; most people don't even know that NH has a
seacoast--- but trust me: I live there, just off the Great Bay estuary (home to
the USA's newest National Wildlife Refuge). Great Bay itself has 48 miles of
shoreline, but the actual oceanside seacoast of NH is in fact the shortest in
the USA, variously pegged at a scant 14 to 18 miles, depending on how you
measure the fractal-like inlets and rocky outcrops. I've seen beaches in New
York and California where the aggregate length of the parking spaces probably
exceeds that of the entire NH State coastline. 8-) No travelogue is complete without
photos: Here's a link to a nice directory of the NH Seacoast region. Check out
the Photo Gallery ( http://www.seacoastnh.com/
) for a taste of what it's like here. One photo in particular ( http://www.seacoastnh.com/arts/photosbook/ph12.html
) was taken about a mile or so from my house. Here's a somewhat technoid
description of Great Bay (the site is from part of the output of a world-class
marine research lab situated on the Bay): http://inlet.geol.sc.edu/GRB/home.html And there's an official,
State-sponsored site at http://www.visitnh.gov/
. You can get free maps and a tour book there; the book's actually not bad. 8-) And if you do ever visit here,
you'll no doubt notice the dialect, which fellow NH-resident Herb Whittemore
spoofs in this dictionary of local computer terms: 1. Log on - Make the wood
stove hotta. (By the way, I mentioned Mark Twain
earlier. One thing he never said of anyone's weather, anywhere, was "If you
don't like the weather, wait a minute." According to Twain researchers,
this is one of the 5 most-common quotes misattributed to Twain. If you'd like to
see what he did actually say of New England weather, see Click to
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