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Please note: Older issues may contain information that is now out of date.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 2000-09-11 A Free Email
Newsletter from Fred
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This two-part series on disk cleanup
began as an offshoot of our "Save Your Butt With DOS" series ( http://content.techweb.com/winmag//columns/explorer/2000/17.htm
), which was itself occasioned by the imminent release of Windows Millennium
Edition ("Windows ME"). You see, in WinME, Microsoft has hidden access
to DOS and made it difficult even to create a bootable floppy disk. Alas, while
Microsoft is doing its best to shield utter newbies from DOS, it's making life
harder for the rest of us. Without easy access to DOS, some types of low-level,
powerful disk diagnostic and repair operations become much more difficult. Of course, Windows 2000 goes even
further; by design, it has no component that we would normally refer to as
standalone DOS. The "Save Your Butt With
DOS" series was and is designed to help you create a DOS-based toolkit you
could stick on a shelf against future need; a toolkit that can help you get
yourself out of system trouble even if you can't run Windows itself, or if you
end up in a DOS-free version of Windows. Part of a good DOS toolkit includes
utilities in the form of "batch files," which are simple text files
that contain a series, or "batch," of DOS commands. You can think of
batch files as a form of scripting that can greatly simplify low-level system
maintenance tasks outside of Windows. Knowing how to cobble together a simple
batch file is a very handy skill, and so, as a starting point for our discussion
of batch files, I offered a simple batch file called Cleanup.Bat. Cleanup.Bat was just intended to
show how an extremely simple text file could perform a very useful task--- in
this case, cleaning up anywhere from (typically) tens to thousands of megabytes
of junk files that can accumulate on your system, beyond the reach of Windows'
own cleanup tools. Cleanup.Bat was also a teaching tool: By the end of the
planned article, I was going to show you how to tweak, optimize, and streamline
the basic batch file to do whatever you wanted it to. But even in its basic form,
Cleanup.bat was a huge hit. So big, in fact, it demanded a detour in our planned
coverage of batch files, temporarily shifting to focus on disk cleanup
techniques. "Scrub Your Hard Disk Clean, Part I" ( http://content.techweb.com/winmag//columns/explorer/2000/18.htm
)was the first such column. Part Two will arrive this afternoon (Monday, Sept
11, 2000; UT-4] on the WinMag.Com site. The article is a beast, and far too
long and complex to encapsulate here, so let me give you the outline form. We'll
cover: As I said, the article is a beast,
jam-packed with info--- and two NEW batch files! The article is at http://content.techweb.com/winmag//columns/explorer/2000/19.htm
. Check it out! Click to
email this item to a friend Two issues ago, I wrote about
"DLL Master," a handy, $25 shareware tool for helping to figure
out which DLLs go with what apps, and more. (See http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2000/2000-08-31.htm#10
) As usual, LangaList readers knew of
alternatives that may be even better--- and as usual, they generously shared
their knowledge. Thanks to all who wrote in! Three FREE DLL tools were
recommended far more than any others. Here they are, in the words of the first
readers who recommended them: Hi Fred: As the
others always say, I enjoy your columns greatly and have learned much from
reading them--thanks so much for what you do. In reference to the shareware utility mentioned in your
current newsletter, "DLL Master," there are two freeware utilities
which have worked very well for me, and deserve mention. DLL Archive from AnalogX software, available here: http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/system/dllarch.htm This utility surveys .dll files as to whether they are
currently associated with installed software and creates a backup file of the
theoretically unneeded ones for you to copy back in later if you find they were
being shared at the time DLL Archive removed them from Windows. The other utility, which tells you what .dlls are being used
by what program at any given time is "What's Happening," available
here I use this one often in trouble-shooting other people's system
problems. The only thing I can see that the shareware program [DLL Master] has
going for it is the list comparison feature, which is something easily manually
done with the other two by copying and pasting the data or taking screen
captures and saving the data that way. Hope this helps the financially conservative among your
readers, and keep up the great work! --- Kay Hammil Thanks, Kay! There's another DLL viewer
available (for free) from Sysinternals ( http://www.sysinternals.com
) called DLL View. If you're looking for system tools for Win9x, Win2000, or
WinNT, they've got 'em. Also check out RegMon, FileMon, and VCMon while you're
there.--- Rob Griffiths Sysinternals is a very nice site--- thanks Rob! Several other readers also suggested a plug-in for AnalogX: see the site at http://www.analogx.com/
for that and a ton of other tools. Click to
email this item to a friend I told you about this small, fast
browser several weeks back, and invited you to try it at the same time I did.
(See http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2000/2000-08-24.htm#6
) Many of you gave it a test drive,
and although some of you really liked it, most did not--- and I have to agree
with the naysayers. I disliked it enough not to spend
much time with it at all, but in the short period I did use it, I found few
redeeming qualities. It appears to be just a very, very simple front end tacked
onto the HTML plumbing that's already inside Windows. In fact, it reminds me of
a simple demo browser that Microsoft used to give away with copies of Visual
Basic. For me, this is one Enigma that
doesn't bear resolving. <g> Click to
email this item to a friend --- ( Your
Clicks On Ad Links Help Keep The LangaList Free! ) --- Low Cost,
High-Impact Advertising! Have your
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Everyone has 'em: I call them
"brain freezes," but you may know them by other, more colorful names.
They're those moments of intellectual brownout--- a power failure somewhere in
your frontal lobes--- that result in your either failing to have a good idea
when needed, or (worse) latching on to a really bad idea in the belief that it's
a good one. Duh. http://www.portablelife.com/tips/story/0,1091,2516,00.html If that link gives you trouble, use this alternate link: http://www.portablelife.com/tips/ Click to
email this item to a friend This newsletter is twice-weekly, but
my "Web HotSpots" page is updated fully 365 times a year---a new site
every day, without fail. As such, it's a great mechanism to bring you brand-new,
just-available sites. Often, great new sites will show up in HotSpots before I
can mention them here in the newsletter. Other times, the HotSpots site
proceeds normally in its mission to bring you "Every Day, The Best, Most
Interesting, Most Useful, and Strangest Sites the Web Has To Offer!" For example, the Hotspots page
recently has offered these links: If you're not a regular Hotspots
visitor, you're missing a lot. Check it out (every day!) at http://www.browsertune.com/flanga/hotspots.htm,
and check out past HotSpots in the HotSpots Hall Of Fame at http://www.browsertune.com/flanga/hof.htm Click to
email this item to a friend The Recommend-It site gives away up
to $10,000 as an incentive to use their service to recommend newsletters like
this one! 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 $10,000 or other prizes from the
folks at "Recommend-It:" 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 regularly get emails like this,
and I don't have a good answer. Do you? Fred: I like your
newsletter. Do you have any software suggestions for a PASSWORD GENERATOR or
PASSWORD STORAGE & RETRIEVAL ? With so many web sites using ID's and PW's it
is hard to keep up with them and to recall them. Any suggestions are appreciated
I am sure by your clientele which is vast. Thanks in advance--- Frank Barbarino Of course, IE can remember many site
passwords for you, but it always supplies cached passwords in masked form (such
as "******"); so if something happens to the cache, you may have long
forgotten what the password really is. There are tools such as Gator, which
remember passwords for you. But these ad-supported apps worry me because they
"phone home," ostensibly to refresh their ad cache: The same
"phone home" behavior could theoretically be exploited to send back
your passwords. At one point, I created a simple
text file with all my logons and passwords, and then stored that inside a
password-protected ZIP file (created with WinZip): I only had to remember the
Zip file's password, and then would have access to all the rest. You can do something similar with
password-protected word processing documents and spreadsheets, too. But there must be a better way, and
I bet some of you have found it. Suggestions? Please send 'em to PWSAVE@LANGA.COM
. Thanks! 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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Some topics just won't die. I've
written about Comet Cursor before: It's a popular app that changes the way your
cursor looks when you're on a CC-enabled website. I avoid downloads like that on
principal: The last thing I need is some completely frivolous, cutesy piece of
software cluttering up my system, eating resources, CPU cycles and bandwidth,
entwining itself into the guts of my browser, and doing who knows what else?---
just to change a cursor. And in fact, Comet Cursor is
regarded as "spyware" by some, because its "phone home"
behavior could be used for nefarious purposes. (That's not to say it *is* used
that way, but it could be.) See, for example, http://grc.com/oo/spyware.htm Plus, CC is aggressive and will try
to auto-install itself on your system. With the wrong security settings, it may
install itself on your system without so much as a by-your-leave. You won't even
know it's there! (See http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2000/2000-09-07.htm#3
) Then there's this:
Thanks, Michael. One way to avoid this kind of stealth download is NEVER to accept the "standard" or "recommended" settings when you're installing software. Instead, ALWAYS specify that you want a "custom" installation; you can then pick and choose exactly what will go on your system, rather than taking a predefined package of software that may include unwanted extras, as Michael describes. As for spyware, the link at http://grc.com/oo/spyware.htm will show you a list of known or suspected spyware, and another page at http://grc.com/downloaders.htm will step you through an absolutely amazing, chilling example of how--- through incompetence or malice or something else, I don't know--- potential spyware can get widely disseminated while the vendors loudly proclaim that nothing bad is going on. That's why I avoid this entire class of software. It's just not worth the risk. Click to
email this item to a friend 10) Just For GrinsReader Jody Roy has been playing with UNIX, whose command shell offers these responses to nonsensical commands (the commands are preceded by a "%" sign).
Click to
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See you next issue! Best, Please recommend
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(The HTML version of each issue normally is available by 9AM EST [UT-5] of the
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(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
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