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read formatted HTML version of this newsletter is available on line at The LangaList 2000-11-13 A Free Email
Newsletter from Fred
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You folks are amazing! I've been in
publishing for (ahem) quite a while, but I've never met a more generous or
helpful group than LangaList readers. Every day, people take time to send in
tips, tricks, and other useful information for no reason other than to help out
others. I'm honored--- and somewhat humbled--- to be associated with such a
positive crowd. You folks are great! For example, people are still
sending in speed-testing sites to complement the list we've been building. The
new additions are: (1) The absolute best is http://www.speedguide.net
They have a vast array of good stuff. The most important of which is on the left
side of the page called "Tweaks", "Advanced Tweaks" and
"Patches". The patches area has registry patches for just about any
operating system available. Visit and you will see what I mean. Its is REALLY
good. (2) As a test site that's probably not as good as http://www.DSLREPORTS.com
go to http://www.MSN.com and on
then go to the "Computing & Web" area. There you will see
"Speed Test" under Quick Links on the right hand side. It is easy and
painless. Just click and the results come back in about 5 secs. (3) Also go to http://www.speedus.com
and you will find a test at the top of the first page. Its pretty basic though.
Lots of other good stuff though.--- Phil Flusche Fred, this one is quick to
use http://206.170.44.66/NetTest.html
--- Roger Pool Try this one, it gives a
choice of file sizes from 10K to 10meg: http://speedtest.mybc.com/ I downloaded Broadband
wizard from Kissco ( http://www.kissco.com
). I like the graphical report and the fact that you can export the results to
Excel. However, compared to some of the features available in Modem Wizard, I
felt the product wasn't worth $20. --- Robin L. Siebler In recent issues, other readers also
have recommended the tests at: http://www.dslreports.com/stest/0 http://www.pcpitstop.com/pcpitstop/default.asp http://www.computingcentral.com/topics/bandwidth/speedtest50.asp Of course, having many tests to
choose from can sometimes raise new questions. For example: Something of an apparent
discrepancy (not yours). I tested the bandwidth test at 2Wire and found my DSL
bandwidth to fall consistently in the 140 Kbps range. This was at a variance
with the one I usually use at MSN which game me consistent results in the +500
Kbps range. Is there an explanation for this?--- Dennie Kirtley Any online speed test measures your
throughput to whatever server is running the tests. Different servers, different
locations, different packet routing, give you different results. That's why BrowserTune's speed tests
( http://www.browsertune.com/bt2kfast/
) automatically use different servers; and automatically average the results for
you. It's a one-stop way to help reduce geographic variance. Click to
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Peter Crockett, LangaList
reader and webmaster at http://www.putergeek.com/
, has posted an article on how to use the ScanRegW (the Windows-based half of
ScanReg) from within WinME to repair and compact the Registry: See http://www.putergeek.com/scanreg/ WinME requires slightly different
handling of ScanReg because it doesn't easily "drop to DOS." In fact,
Win98 is much easier to work with in that regard; it will automatically run the
DOS-level ScanReg /Fix if it detects a Registry problem at boot; and the
CleanAll.Bat file ( http://www.langa.com/cleanall_bat.htm
) automatically runs the DOS-level ScanReg /Opt for you. But now WinME users have an easy
means of doing something similar. Nice! Click to
email this item to a friend If you depend on third-party reviews
of anything--- hardware and software, movies, restaurants, cars, books, music,
etc.---this item should hold some interest for you. Of late, more and more companies are
trying to control what's said about their products in the press. For example,
Apple's ad agency reportedly threatened to pull ads from any Mac-oriented
publication that printed non-official rumors or gossip or unauthorized previews
and tests of Apple products. Of course, it's Apple's legal right
to spend their ad dollars wherever they want; it's a perfectly legal way to
exert pressure on a publication. But many Mac users were incensed because they
want their Mac magazines to be able to exercise free and independent editorial
judgment; if they wanted only the official party line, they could just read
Apple's ads. (Which, I guess, is what Apple wants. "Think different"
indeed.) It's not exactly the same, but the
makers of LockDown2000, a security tool ( http://lockdown2000.com/
), are suing PCHelp ( http://www.nwi.net/~pchelp/index.html
), a small operation in the Pacific Northwest, about a negative review. (I've
featured some of PCHelp's free tools in this newsletter; you may have used
them.) I have no personal knowledge of what
transpired between PCHelp and Lockdown2000, but the bottom line appears to be
that Lockdown2000 is suing PCHelp to force removal of what they say is (in
essence) a biased and unfairly negative review; and to recover damages. It is
their right to bring suit, of course. But it bothered me. No product---
hardware, software, car, movie, book, etc.--- receives universal acclaim.
Negative reviews are a fact of life. And in my experience, truly unfair
reviews (either positive or negative) are self-correcting because the truth will
get out; a biased or unfair reviewer loses credibility and people no longer
follow his or her advice. Likewise, in my experience, no company can save a
truly bad product from exposure; the truth eventually gets out, and people stop
buying the product. The truth acts as a powerful
Darwinian force in a free society and a free market, weeding out the bad
ideas--- and products, and reviewers--- and rewarding the good ones. That's as
it should be; and I object, on principle, to any attempt to block that natural
process. I don't know if Lockdown2000 is good
or bad, and I take no position on the contents of the suit. But I am very
unhappy that the Lockdown2000 people brought the suit in the first place; and
will "vote with my feet" by avoiding LockDown2000 in the future, as I
tried to explain in this letter I sent to them: I'm a computer author who
(1) reaches about 2 million readers a month and (2) lives in Durham, NH, just a
few miles from you. I'm also a former
editor-in-chief of Byte magazine and Windows magazine. I've been reviewing
software for over 20 years. *Regardless* of the
technical arguments of your issues with PCHelp--- about which I have no
opinion--- attempting to quash negative reviews via lawsuit ultimately is
self-defeating. Here's an example: My
stated policy is never to recommend software I haven't personally tested. Your
litigious attitude makes it dangerous for me to test your software, so when I
recommend security software--- as I often do--- I will *never* recommend
LockDown2000 because, absent testing, I can make no such recommendation. I am not saying that
LockDown2000 is bad; nor will I say that in my published work. In fact, I make
no representations whatsoever about LockDown2000's performance or capabilities.
I simply will steer my readers to products I can and do test, and away from
those I cannot and do not test. There are plenty of other good products out
there that do not carry the legal baggage you have chosen to saddle
[LockDown2000] with, and those products are the ones on which I'll spend my time
and energy. In fact, with so many
excellent and legally unencumbered security products out there, why on earth
would *any* reviewer spend time dealing with one that might involve them in a
legal war? Although I can understand
your unhappiness at what you consider to be an unfair and negative review, I do
not understand your response. My 20+ years in reviewing software tells me your
actions are self-defeating and shortsighted, and harm the computing community as
a whole; and my guess is that, in the long run, it will hurt LockDown2000 far,
far more than it will help, even if you win your lawsuit. In short: You may think
your legal guns are aimed at PCHelp, but in my opinion, they're aimed at your
own toes.--- Fred Langa As of press time, I've gotten no
reply. (I didn't really expect one.) Many of PCHelp's readers have
rallied to create a defense fund. (See http://pchelper.org/
). That link also contains what appears to be a full copy of LockDown's legal
compliant. You can use that link and the links above to explore both sides of
the issue. I leave it to you, dear readers, to draw your own conclusions. For my part, I don't know if
LockDown2000 is good or bad. But I object on principle to the idea of bringing
suit as a response to a negative review, and so I will not test Lockdown2000,
and intend never to mention it again. Click to
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Robbin Schroeder asked one of those
interesting questions that you might never think about until you *really* need
the answer: Fred, Is there any way
large files (over 1.44 mb) can be broken up into smaller sections in order to
save to multiple floppy diskettes? (Example 1 of 3, 2 of 3, 3 of 3) I realize
there is alternative hardware available such as zip drives and CDR's, but for
those of us not yet up to speed with these new devices, any suggestions? Sure: The easiest thing is to
compress the file with something like WinZip--- which also can span a compressed
file across several floppies. WinZip's "high compression" mode shrinks
files a lot: Text files can shrink by half, and some highly-compressible formats
(such as some spreadsheets) can compress to 1/10th their original size. That, by
itself, may be enough to get a large file on a floppy. But, as the WinZip help file states:
"To make a Zip file that spans multiple disks, simply create a Zip file on
a removable disk, then add files to the Zip as you normally would. If the disk
fills during Add operation, you will be prompted for another disk. Simply insert
the next disk and click the OK button." Winzip's home page is at: http://www.winzip.com/ Click to
email this item to a friend I'm still building the
infrastructure, but I wanted to give you a progress report on a new version of
the LangaList. No, this version (the one you're reading now) isn't going away;
and in fact will remain unchanged. But for readers who want something different,
I'll soon be able to offer you new versions. These new versions will: It's all coming soon. Stay tuned! Click to
email this item to a friend Do you use FrontPage, Microsoft's
Web page and site creation tool? If so, you should know that FP silently
truncates your web passwords. I found this out quite by accident
when I was trying to follow good password-creation practice by creating a new
password that's a combination of a word and numbers--- something like
"RUTABAGA8765." Because no normal word contains numbers, this type of
password defeats "dictionary" based password crackers who simply try
every word in a dictionary. Or, to put it another way, a dictionary may contain
"rutabaga" but it will never contain "rutabaga8765."
The trouble is, FrontPage lets you
type in very long passwords, but then silently truncates them at the 8th
character.
Say you set your FP web password to
something like RUTABAGA8765 (any >8 character password). You will be able to
log in simply by typing RUTABAGA (just the first 8 characters of the password). Yes, you still can log in with the
full RUTABAGA8765, but also as just plain RUTABAGA or with RUTABAGA8765765543 or
anything over 8 characters--- because only the first 8 characters count.
This was news to me. I could find
nothing in the Microsoft KnowledgeBase about this; nothing in FP's help about
this; and FP generates no warnings when it truncates your password.
So, if you try to defeat
dictionary-based password crackers by using an alphanumeric FP password, you
must make sure the total password length is <8 characters or your brand new
password may end up as the plain-text word you were trying to avoid! 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): 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
) View A Randomly-Chosen
Reader Site From Among the 500 Listed Manually Browse All
Posted-to-Date Sites Starting At Creative Web Designs FoolFiles Collectables a die-hard Miami Dolphins
fan WebMaster Design MyTech Tim's Home Page Symons Family Reader WebCam WhipJangle Cyber Friendly Technology
Consulting Click to
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your product or service see http://www.langa.com/ratecard.htm <a
href="http://www.langa.com/ratecard.htm">AOL Users: Click
here!</a> The above-titled
"Explorer" column at http://content.techweb.com/winmag//columns/explorer/2000/23.htm
is still generating good comments: I tend to agree with you on
how auto updates function and I also prefer to stay in control of what is added
to my system and how. One function of the update sites you mentioned is that
they do allow you do pick and choose what is installed. I recently came across
another update tool... called Attune Aveo from http://www.aveo.com
--- WingmanMD These guys are good about
listing in preferred order from top to bottom first to last of all common OS
updates. There's lots more in the discussion
area associated with the column. Click on over to http://content.techweb.com/winmag//columns/explorer/2000/23.htm
and check it out! Click to
email this item to a friend Last issue's mention temperatures in
degrees Fahrenheit brought the following list of nonstandard measures to mind. I
have no idea where it came from, but I'd love to met the person who first
thought it up. <g> Ratio of an igloo's
circumference to its diameter: Eskimo Pi 2000 pounds of Chinese
soup: Won ton 1 millionth mouthwash: 1
microscope Speed of a tortoise
breaking the sound barrier: Mach Turtle 365.25 days of drinking
low-calorie beer because it's less filling: 1 lite year 16.5 feet in the Twilight
Zone: 1 Rod Sterling Half of a large intestine:
1 semicolon 1000 aches: 1 megahurts Weight an evangelist
carries with God: 1 billigram Basic unit of laryngitis: 1
hoarse power Shortest distance between
two jokes: A straight line Time between slipping on a
peel and smacking the pavement: bananosecond 10 cards: 1 decacards 1 kilogram of falling figs:
1 Fig Newton 1000 grams of wet socks: 1
literhosen 1 million microphones: 1
megaphone 1 million bicycles: 2
megacycles 500 millinaries: 1 seminary 2000 mockingbirds: 2
kilomockingbirds 1/2 lavatory: 1 demijohn 1 millionth of a fish: 1
microfiche 453.6 graham crackers: 1
pound cake 1 trillion pins: 1 terrapin 1 million billion piccolos:
1 gigolo 100 rations: 1 C-ration 10 millipedes: 1 centipede 3 1/3 tridents: 1 decadent 2 monograms: 1 diagram 8 nickels: 2 paradigms Click to
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See you next issue! Best, Please recommend
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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
any loss, injury, or damage, direct or consequential, resulting from application
of any information presented here. This newsletter is a free
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