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The LangaList
3-Jan-00
A Free Email Newsletter from Fred Langa About BrowserTune,
HotSpots, Columns, Tips & Tricks, and Other Activities
1) Happy Y2K!
Happy New Year! If you're reading this column, you obviously survived the Y2K bug, so you're already ahead of the game. 8-)
A number of readers wrote to chastise me after I colloquially referred to the last issue as the "last of the millennium." But while I understand why, technically, the new millennium doesn't really start until 2001, for me (and for most people, it seems), the magic moment is seeing all those zeros come up. I guess we treat the turning of years like the turning of an odometer!
Dates are all arbitrary anyway: The starting dates for all calendars---Western, Jewish, Arabic, Chinese, etc.--- are all based on guesswork or mythology or tradition. For example, most historians now agree that the most likely actual year for the birth for Jesus of Nazareth was in what we'd now call 4 B.C. (Plus, the actual day of birth was probably in the spring and definitely not in December: "Shepherds watch their flocks" during lambing season, in springtime, not in winter.) So, the setting of the starting point for the world's most widely used calendar was probably wrong to begin with: If you want to get *really* technical about the "A.D." calendar, the new millennium actually began in the spring of 1996 or so.
That's not the only calendrical error. For example, the Western calendar contains leftovers from an old Roman date-keeping system that was based on a year made up of 10, five-week months. That's why our 12th month, "December," gets its name from the "Dec-" prefix, which usually means "10." Similarly, September is the ninth month, but its name starts with "sept," a prefix for "7"; October is actually the tenth month, but "octo" is a prefix for "8;" and November ("nov" means "9") is actually the eleventh month. It makes no sense.
But it doesn't matter. *All* dates and all calendars are arbitrary, and it's not worth getting hung up on the details. Whether you're celebrating the last year of the second A.D. millennium or the start of the third A.D. millennium, the Chinese year 4698, the Jewish year 5760, the Muslim year 1420, the Sothic year 4782, the Coptic year 1713, the Kigen year 2657---or whatever--- Happy New Year to you all!
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Now's the time for New Year
resolutions, and my current column on the WinMag.Com site lists 10 things you
can do to help ensure trouble-free computing all year long. They certainly
aren't the only steps you can or should take (I'll provide a list of additional
resources with the column), but chances are you'll find several items here that
can either help you get out of trouble with your hardware or software, or better
still, prevent such trouble in the first place. Check out the full list of
resolutions on the WinMag site today (3-Jan-00) starting in late afternoon (EST;
GMT-5): (Note: if you get there early,
you'll see the previous column on the new version of BT2K. Just try again a
little later---and if you haven't read the BT2K column, check that out too!) Click to
email this item to a friend Mine was in the
early 1960s: I was a just kid and (I am not making this up) I saved my
paper-route money to buy a working model digital computer at Boston's Museum of
Science. It wasn't much: It was really just a teaching toy, and could do little
beyond play a simplified version of Nim or Towers of Hanoi. But it was a glimpse
into a world that would later become a major focus for me. Newbie or veteran,
young or old, what was *your* first hardware and software? What was your
all-time favorite computer or favorite software? Why; what made it special? What
was your first real "wow" experience with computing? What were your
PCs highs and lows? If you have old hardware or software in the attic, what is
it? Why did you keep it? Does it still work? Read the rest of my
current Byte column and then share your own memories in the discussion going on
right now at http://www.byte.com/column/BYT19991221S0006 Click to
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It's the time of year for
crystal-ball gazing and making predictions about the year ahead. But first,
let's (ulp!) look back at my predictions for 1999 to see how many actually came
true. <g> One item that I did predict
correctly was when I wrote--- more than a year ago--- that Y2K wouldn't be the
disaster that many people were then saying it would be. At the time, I actually
got angry letters from people claiming I was being irresponsible in not telling
readers about the terrible things that would happen when our cities went dark,
our emergency services stopped, and civilization crumbled.... But one item I did not predict
last year was the widespread emergence of open-source products as a whole. And
in a way, I'm glad I didn't because, once you strip away the hype, open-source
projects have a very mixed record. Linux has been the obvious success story,
except that the Linux market is already starting to balkanize, just as Unix did
before it. Other open-source projects are extremely late (e.g. Mozilla) or have
proven to be less than what was originally discussed (Sun's Java). In fact, open
sourcing may prove to be best as an incubator for new approaches rather than as
a provider of mainstream applications. In any case, I'll tell you the
other hits and misses I made in last year's predictions, and also give you a
link to some of my best-guesses for what's going to happen this year, in this
week's InformationWeek Online column. Check it out, and join in the discussion
at http://www.informationweek.com/langaletter Click to
email this item to a friend Thanks to your feedback, BT2K
keeps getting better and better! Over the last few days, I've added more
explanations to some of the help pages, tweaked some links, and streamlined a
few spots where some people were bogging down. The current versions is 4.03;
check it out on the brand-new server at http://192.215.23.42/bt2kfast/
! Click to
email this item to a friend Congratulations to reader Diana
Hudson who won a free copy of "Poor Richard's E-Mail Publishing: Creating
Newsletters, Bulletins, Discussion Groups and Other Powerful Communications
Tools." This $29.95 book has been described as "An excellent,
straightforward manual on email publishing, banner ads, driving traffic and
especially ethics." (Full details also available via the link that
follows.) All Diana had to do was recommend
the LangaList to a friend using the form at http://www.langa.com/recommend.htm#2 Once a month or so, I draw one
name, at random, from among those who have used the recommendation form, and
award a prize. (Note that this isn't some big-company sweepstakes: It's just my
informal way of saying thanks for your help in spreading the word about this
newsletter.) If you think the LangaList is a
worthwhile read, just use the link above 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! Or, if you'd rather try to win a
Palm III organizer, use this link instead: http://www.langa.com/recommend.htm#1 Either way, thank you, and good
luck! Click to
email this item to a friend So did the Hubble Telescope---
but read on for this eye-opening item from reader Greg Mumbach: Subject: Government
Computing Power Hi Fred, I don't know if you saw
the story or not, but the current Space Shuttle Discovery mission (STS-103) to
overhaul the Hubble Space Telescope included the task of replacing the
telescope's "brain" (computer). On the edge of the year 2000, the
astronauts replaced the old Intel 386-based system with a 486 with 2MB RAM! Boy,
it's comforting to know that our government wants to keep up with the
state-of-the-art... :>) For more info on the
mission, see Happy Holidays! Greg Mumbach Click to
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Reader Richard Rogers sent in
this link to an article about a security problem in Norton's AV 2K--- one that
the folks at Symantec say isn't a problem at all. Hmmmm. If you're using Norton Antivirus
2000, you ought to check out for yourself: Click to
email this item to a friend Reader Anthony Abraham Molina
sends along this timely item, attributed to one Prescott Tolk: SIGNS THAT YOU WEREN'T
Y2K READY: SIGNS THAT YOUR COMPUTER
WASN'T Y2K READY: 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)
Ten Resolutions For Better Computing In Y2K
http://content.techweb.com/winmag//columns/explorer/
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What's Your Best/First Computer Experience?
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Keeping Score
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New BT2K Version 4.03 Now Posted!
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And We Have A Winner!
(Full details on both giveaways are available via the links.)
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Get A New PC For The Holidays?
http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/News/News-STS103.asp
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(At a 20% Discount!)
by Fred Langa and available at Amazon.Com's deepest discounts!8)
Norton Antivirus 2000 Security Hole?
http://www.msnbc.com/news/349602.asp
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Just For Grins
You backed-up your desktop by pushing it against the wall.
You put foam around the computer to prevent it from crashing.
The soles of your shoes are worn out from re-booting the computer.
You try to clear the screen by shaking the monitor up and down.
You're Amish.
It has trouble supporting the latest version of Tetris.
The spell check replaces the word "You" with "Thou."
It takes the same amount of time to re-boot as it does to bake a potato.
The manual advises you to throw a towel over the monitor to use as a screen
saver.
It needs to be updated to binary code.
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Fred
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