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The LangaList
27-Jan-00
A Free Email Newsletter from Fred Langa About BrowserTune,
HotSpots, Columns, Tips & Tricks, and Other Activities
1) Loving/Hating Windows 2000 (Part 2)
In the first half of the paired "Loving/Hating Windows 2000 columns" ( http://www.informationweek.com/langaletter/011200langa.htm ), I focused on five things I like a lot about the new OS. In this column, I'll tell you the five things I most dislike.
One of the top items is simply that Win2K is too expensive. Microsoft wants $319 for a full copy of the Professional version; $219 for an upgrade from Win9x or $149 for an upgrade from NT4 Workstation. (These are estimated retail process; actual mail- and web-order prices are currently about 15% less.)
The Win2K server prices are even worse: A full copy Win2K Server with 10 client licenses is $1,200; an upgrade with 10 licenses is $600. The Advanced Server version comes with 25 licenses, but costs $4000 for the standalone version and $2000 for the upgrade.
And curiously: Although many consider Linux to be the most serious threat to the success of Win2K, Linux is NOT among the qualified upgrades. Given that Linux can be gotten for anywhere from free to about $80 depending on packaging and support, Win2K's prices seem unrealistically high to me.
There are other problems too--- including the distance between Microsoft's stated minimum hardware requirements and what you actually need for minimally acceptable performance in the real world. I'll detail it all in this week's InformationWeek Online column.
But what's your take? What are the things you most dislike about the new OS? What are the most-welcome (or most-needed!) improvements Over NT4 and Win9x? Join in the ongoing discussion live now at http://www.informationweek.com/langaletter .
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Several readers (Carl Iverson was
first) wrote to tell me about a new patch posted at Microsoft.Com. Microsoft says: When you are
transmitting data over high-delay networks (for example, satellite links),
transfer throughput may be lower than expected and the number of packets
retransmitted may be unnecessarily high. This problem occurs because TCP uses a
retransmit timer to retransmit packets that do not seem to have reached the
receiver. To set this timer, TCP uses information about the historical round
trip time (RTT) for each connection, which it measures by observing the time
between sending packets and receiving acknowledgments for them. The Windows 95
and Windows 98 TCP/IP stack incorrectly computes the retransmit timer because of
a math error. When you are transmitting packets over high-delay networks, this
can result in unnecessary retransmissions and lower throughput. This isn't a life-or-death issue
for most people, but if you're looking to ensure that you have as few throughput
bottlenecks as possible, I recommend you get the patch at http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q236/9/26.asp Thanks to all who wrote in! Click to
email this item to a friend Encountering a new way of
visualizing something can be a mind-opening experience. For example, the first
maps that showed the Earth as a sphere stretched the minds of those who were
used to the flat, planar Earth of everyday experience. Within the lifetime of most of
the people reading this newsletter, the first photos of Earth from cislunar
space presented literally and figuratively a new point of view: Some people were
struck by the image of the planet as a vulnerable “pale blue dot” hanging in
the empty void, and a new environmental awareness was born. Others, who had
thought of humankind as a mighty force, were struck by the near-invisibility of
any human activity on the planet from more than a couple hundred miles out. Some
who lived and breathed politics were immediately struck by the total absence of
arbitrary political borders on the natural Earth. And almost everyone, with our
inbuilt land-dwelling bias, was struck by the fact that the truly dominant
feature of our planet is actually its oceans. So it is with Cyberspace: No
matter how you visualize it, no matter how you think of it, encountering a new
depiction can be eye-opening and mind-stretching. The “aha!” moment can come in
many different guises. For example, for, some, it might be seeing a high-level
conceptual representation of the web, like the early schematic noodlings of Tim
Berners-Lee as he worked out the ideas of what the web might become. (Tim's
historic actual initial proposal for the creation of the Web is now posted at http://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html
) But there are many other ways to
envision cyberspace, and many other "aha!" moments: And that's the
subject of my current column on the Byte.Com site this week. In it, I'll give
you numerous examples of how different people look at the web and at cyberspace
in radically different ways; show you some examples from research sites around
the world; and talk about works ranging from William Gibson's seminal _Neuromancer_
(in which Gibson actually coined the term "cyberspace") to treatments
in today's movies. So, how do you visualize
Cyberspace? What's the best depiction you've seen? The worst? (Personally, I
thought The Matrix's "green flowing code" was great, but that the
climactic scene's "the world as 3D code" was just plain silly.) How do
you describe Cyberspace to someone who has no idea what it is? What's the best
---and the worst---way to think about Cyberspace? Share your thoughts: Please check
out my "Monitor" at http://www.byte.com/column/BYT20000119S0006
, and then join the discussion in the Byte Newsgroups either by clicking
to http://www.byte.com/nntp/monitor,
or by using your newsreader to news.cmpnet.com, and from there to
cmpnet.byte.monitor. Join in! Click to
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A week ago, I told you about
"BabelFish;" a site ( http://babelfish.altavista.com/
) that offers fast, free translation of web pages or text you type in. (See http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2000/jan-20-00.htm#7) Of the translation quality, I
said "It's not elegant--- it's often more of a simple dictionary-lookup
transliteration than a true translation--- but you'll get the gist." But even with that caveat, and a
specific example of how bad (and funny!) the transliterations could be, I
got quite a lot of mail like this: Dear Fred, I'm sure you knew you
were going to get flack on the language stuff so here goes. Firstly... it comes
ultimately from the Tower of Babel via the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Secondly, your final note in German was presumably meant to translate the
English idiom "See you following issue". Unfortunately, one of
the many, many things BabelFish/Systran will not translate is idioms so your
German expression would make little sense to a German who did not know English.
You'd have to say something like "Bis zur nächsten Ausgabe" to get it
right and only a human translator could work that out. As you yourself rightly
pointed out, BabelFish will, at best, give the gist and, as you saw, when
translating back it doesn't even do that, it just gives you absolute cr*p. In
the several examples you gave, Babel Fish failed with the specialist terms
(email, HotSpots) in all languages. It failed with the homonyms, e.g. tips was
translated in all cases as in tips of the fingers not tips as in hints so it
would be complete nonsense in other languages. It did little better with tricks.
You did not have a verb in there so it did not have to worry about
subject/object matching, agreements, etc which really throw it, nor did you have
any subordinate clauses, typos or multiple noun phrases nor too many idioms or
homonyms, all of which would have completely thrown it. I would point out that
Babel Fish is based on Systran, one of the oldest machine translation systems
and it is still absolute cr*p. Not only is it cr*p, it can be dangerous. I well
remember the Washington Post translating an article from Spanish to English (the
easiest language pair) warning of the danger of car pumps. Unfortunately the
Spanish for pump and bomb is the same. Any human translator would have easily
worked out the difference from the context. No machine can.--- John Alvey My prose does make for
challenging translations because I tend to be very idiomatic and colloquial.
When I was the editor of Byte, the magazine was published in over 80 countries
around the world and translated (by humans) into dozens of languages. I bet the
translators *hated* working on my stuff. 8-) But humans *can* usually figure
out the meanings behind the words, while machine translations just barf out the
words themselves. (BTW, according to BabelFish, the
translation for "barf" in Spanish is "barf." It's also
"barf" in German, French and Portuguese... 8-) ) Reader Ronald Cary suggests an
alternative: Dear Fred, Have you tried GO.com's
translator? I believe it is better than BabelFish, for the following reasons: 1. It does everything
BabelFish does. Thank you for the
newsletter. I've been reading it for nearly three years. Keep up the good work. And Owen Williams says: Hi Fred, Thanks for a great
newsletter, I've been getting it for a long time now, and have learned much. I was reading the last
edition (20-Jan-00) and the article on Translation. I thought this site may be
of use to your other readers: http://www.t-mail.com/
. It will translate your mail for you, and is (very) free. It's automated, so
will be no more reliable than Alta Vista. It handles Spanish, French, Italian,
Portuguese and German. To use the service you simply add a cc: line to your
mail. For example, this has been sent with a cc: line of: English-to-French@T-Mail.com so you should receive a
copy in French as well. The site has more details. Thanks again. I did get the French email, Owen.
Thanks. 8-) Finally, there's this item from
Marv Miller. A warning--- it's slightly risque. Hi Fred-- If you like
the BabelFish gibberish, try "Now is the time for all good men to come to
the aid of their party". Translate to French and then back to English.
Enjoy.--- Marv Hmmm, let's see.
BabelFish initially produces the clunky: "Est maintenant l'heure pour tous
les bons hommes de venir à l'aide de leur partie" And that
re-transliterates as: "Is now the hour for all the good men to come using
their part." Yikes! I think I'll just stop
right here before I get myself into more trouble. 8-) Thank you, Ronald, John, Marv,
and all the others who wrote in! Click to
email this item to a friend With web sites offering
translations, why not also have them speak the results aloud? Bell Labs has had a
text-to-speech site running for quite some time: You can type in just about
anything and the web page will speak it back to you in a variety of wholly
synthetic voices. The page doesn't translate, but can will speak whatever you
type in in English, German, French, Spanish, Mandarin, Italian and--- pig latin!
The site also offers eight styles of speaking: man, big man, woman, child, gnat,
raspy, a way-fast "coffee drinker," and a strange sounding
"ridiculous" voice. If you want to save the resulting
sound files, dig out the downloaded files from your "temporary internet
files" folder. The Bell Labs' site is at http://www.bell-labs.com/project/tts/voices.html
(I used the Bell Labs site to generate the WAV, AU, and AIFF sound files for
BrowserTune 2000's "full test" section! http://192.215.23.42/bt2kfast/
) In the same vein, reader Mike
Baynes suggests another site--- one with a "robot newscaster:" Hi Fred I just found
this site; http://www.vperson.com/index2.html A VerbotT is a Verbal
Software Robot; -- a Verbally enhanced Chatterbot --a virtual character in a
computerized world with an artificial personality. They have a finite ability to
understand and speak English now -- other languages later -- through Natural
Language technology. They are the most advanced form of Cyberbot known. But
VerbotsT are more than that, they're personalities...and those personalities
will be less artificial with each release. Thanks, Mike! Click to email this
item to a friend On Jan 31, I'll
choose another monthly winner of 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." To have a shot at
winning, 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 a book! (Full details also available
via this link): http://www.langa.com/recommend.htm#2 The more times you
make a recommendation, the greater your chances are of winning! Or, if you'd like to
try to win a Palm III organizer, try this link (full details also available
here): http://www.langa.com/recommend.htm#1 Either way, thank
you, and good luck! Click to
email this item to a friend Daniel McBride writes: Thanks! I really enjoy
your e-mails and your site. Took your Browser Tune test and the level two and
three found out I had a problem with my Real player that I didn't know I had. I
was missing some of the files and now have it fixed. Again thanks and keep up
the hard work. I really enjoy hearing from you and recommend you to all of my
friends and family. I tell them you are something they just can't be without. That's what I like to hear. 8-) Remember, in addition to obvious
functions such as determining your for-real, no-BS actual download speed on the
web, BrowserTune can help you either correct problems you know you have in your
Browser setup, or---like Daniel---you may be able to find and fix problems you
didn't even know you had. That way, you can nip them in the bud before they
become major problems that mess up your system or your online experience. Visit http://www.browsertune.com/bt2k Click to
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My sister, Susan Cosgrove, sent
this along--- proving (I guess) that weird senses of humor run in families.
<g> In the wake of the
AOL/Time Warner deal, here are the latest mergers we can expect to see: Hale Business Systems,
Mary Kay Cosmetics, Fuller Brush, and W.R. Grace Company merge to become Hale
Mary Fuller Grace. Polygram Records, Warner
Brothers, and Keebler Crackers merge to become Polly-Warner-Cracker. 3M and Goodyear merge to
become MMMGood. John Deere and
Abitibi-Price merge to become Deere Abi. Zippo Manufacturing,
Audi Motors, Dofasco, and Dakota Mining merge to become Zip Audi Do Da. Honeywell, Imasco, and
Home Oil merge to become Honey I'm Home. Denison Mines, and
Alliance and Metal Mining merge to become Mine All Mine. Federal Express and UPS
merge to become FED UP. Xerox and Wurlitzer will
merge and begin manufacturing reproductive organs. Fairchild Electronics
and Honeywell Computers will merge and become Fairwell Honeychild. 3M, J.C. Penney and the
Canadian Opera Company will merge and become 3 Penney Opera. Knott's Berry Farm &
National Organization of Women will merge and become Knott NOW! Click to
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See you next issue! Best, (Please recommend
the LangaList to a friend! (And maybe win a Palm III) 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!): Send email 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:
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.2)
New Patch For Windows' "TCP/IP Retransmission" Glitch
http://www.langa.com/sendit2.htm
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More Ways To Visualize Cyberspace
http://www.langa.com/sendit2.htm
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More BabelFish and Translation Info
2. Once you've entered the URL, and selected the language option, each time you
follow a hyperlink the page is automatically translated. It does not force you
back to Babel Fish to start over. Here
is the URL: http://translator.go.com/
http://www.langa.com/sendit2.htm
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And In A Related Development...
http://www.langa.com/sendit2.htm
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Last Days To Enter January's FREE Book Drawing
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Another BT2K Example
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(At a 20% Discount!)
by Fred Langa and available at Amazon.Com's deepest discounts!8)
Just For Grins
http://www.langa.com/sendit2.htm
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Fred
(fred@langa.com)
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