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The LangaList
Standard Edition

2001-01-18

A Free Email Newsletter from Fred Langa
That Helps You Get More From Your Hardware, 
Software, and Time Online

Please visit our sponsors and help keep the LangaList S.E. free!

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1) MAD about DMA

Wow! What a commotion the current WinMag article on  DMA caused! (See http://content.techweb.com/winmag//columns/explorer/2001/02.htm ) Many, many readers have reported instant speed increases similar to the ones I reported (5-15%); and all just by clicking on the right choice-box in Windows.

There have been some interesting side effects, too, such as this note from reader Ralph Todd:

Your suggestion on turning on the DMA function to increase the speed speed of various drives had an unexpected benefit. For weeks I've been unable to defragment my new 20gig Maxtor hard drive due to a dynamic drive overlay that the software automatically installs. For some reason, when I turned on the DMA function, it apparently bypassed the BIOS limitation on my old pentium pro 200 and the norton utility defragmentation now works perfectly.

But, as the WinMag article said, you have to test to be sure, because it doesn't work on all machines. And sometimes, the test leads to further discoveries:

Your advice to activate DMA mirrors my own advice up until about a month ago. However, a close friend did extensive tests, timing large transfers from drive to drive, some IDE, some SCSI (IDE to IDE, IDE to SCSI). He found that with DMA enabled, the transfers actually took longer (5% or so) !! (Win98) Of course (I suppose) this is irregular, but increases in speed cannot be guaranteed !!

In addition, I have encountered troubleshooting guides for CD writers that request that DMA be disabled if problems occur. There is obviously more to this than meets the eye. Perhaps some MoBoards or perhaps chipsets do not respond properly to DMA transfers.

There was also an issue for certain versions of win95 as whether to use the MS or Intel Bus Mastering drivers, which could alter the results. This is not an issue with win98. 

http://developer.intel.com/design/chipsets/drivers/busmastr/index.htm 

I believe that ALI & VIA chipsets use their own bus mastering drivers, and of course improved versions from what windows installs can always be downloaded. --- Greg

Some users of Win95 SR2  and early version of Win98 found something else, such as:

Check out the article at http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/devdes/idedma.htm  It seems that the good programmers at MS forgot to add a key line in Windows 98 that allows DMA to be enabled at all. You must go manually into the inf file Mshdc.inf and under ESDI_AddReg section add the lines (if you are one of the lucky ones they may actually be there but in a lot of systems they are not) HKR,,IDEDMADrive0,3,01 and HKR,,IDEDMADrive1,3,01 below it in order to enable the driver.--- mouse51

And some CD/CDR/CDRW users dug out additional info on using DMA with those drives, like this:

You may want to mention in a followup to your story on enabling DMA an apparently common problem with CDROM/CDRW. When DMA is enabled, the Windows 98 Explorer will sometimes not recognize the drive, even though it shows up in the System Properties in Control Panel. I spent hours trying to figure this one out, finally ending up (should have gone there earlier...) at the MSKnowlege base. You can read all about it here http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q235/8/59.ASP  Even after reading through the MSKB article it took some fiddling to get it to work, but now my Plextor CDRW is working great...*with* DMA. --- Butch Berney

Thanks to all who wrote!

DMA is a hot topic, and well worth checking out. But if you're going to try modifying the DMA settings on your system, be sure to read both the current article ( http://content.techweb.com/winmag//columns/explorer/2001/02.htm )and the older one it references ( http://content.techweb.com/winmag//columns/explorer/1999/1206.htm ). If you follow the instructions there, odds are you WILL see a speed increase and you WON'T have trouble. But as the combined articles fully explain, even if you do have trouble, there are simple ways to get back to exactly where you were before.

Who wouldn't like 5-15% extra speed for free, and nearly instantly? Click on over and check it out!

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2) DMA on Win2K & NT

The Microsoft Knowledgebase is truly huge--- so huge, it can be hard to dig out information. Part of the problem is in the keywording system: If you happen to frame your query in exactly the way some KnowledgeBase worker imagined you would, using the same keywords in your search as the Microsoftie originally input, then you find a trove of great information.

But if you approach your query from an angle the KnowledgeBase people didn't anticipate, or use keywords they didn't expect, you may get zilch.

That's what happened to me when I tried to dig out DMA information for Windows 2000: I got almost nothing. But fortunately, reader Bob Wilson struck pay dirt:

Hey Fred! Thanks for the update and great article about DMA. FYI, regarding your observation that the Knowledgebase has almost nothing on DMA in Windows 2000... I did find THIS Article (Q182532) for Windows NT http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q182/5/32.ASP 
It works like a charm in my NT 4.0 machine, so I assume it might also apply to Win2K!

And specifically for Win2K, reader Jason Aughton offers:

If, like me, you're OS is Win2000, then you'll need to open Computer Management (right click My computer and choose manage), then select Device Manager. Expand the IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers list. For each IDE channel right click and choose properties, then select Advanced Settings. Select "DMA if available" from the Transfer Mode combo.

Thanks, Bob and Jason!

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3) "NTLM" Security Problem

If you're running  Office 2000, Windows 2000, or Windows Me, there's a problem in the "Web Client NTLM Authentication" that you need to know about.

The full story is at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS01-001.asp , but the short form is simply that the "web folder" feature in O2k, Win2K and WinME has a security hole that potentially could allow malicious hackers to try to gain access to your PC or resources.

It's not a "stop the presses" vulnerability because the hacker/cracker would then have to go through several additional nontrivial steps, and would have to find yet another vulnerability, before he/she could do anything. The odds of this whole chain of events playing out are (IMHO) very slight.

But since there's a patch available, you might as well grab it. Click over to http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms01-001.asp for more info, and the patch.

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4) Plus Edition In High Gear

The LangaList Plus! Edition got off to an excellent start Monday. No, not a perfect start--- there were some minor glitches--- but given that it involves three new versions of the newsletter and a new web site, it went pretty well. <g>

I got a lot of positive email about the first issue (and thank you, all who wrote!), but one mail stopped me in my tracks. I hope you don't mind if I share reader "Richard's" note with you:

Today I ordered your Langalist Plus. Not because I want the deluxe version .. not because I want to skip the advertisements ... not because I just like to send someone $10. I ordered it because your Langalist has been the single most helpful computer reference I have yet to find. The $10 is more a "thank you" for your being my "on-call help line." If I ever need guidance that can't be found anywhere else (or even if it can), I look at Langalist and/or your associated columns or articles. Even your "ah, ha's!" that you share with your readers are a help (such as the website Ctrl-Enter shortcut in MS Explorer). Thank for being there .... even if you didn't know you were!

Thank you, Richard; you made my day. <g> 

Interested in seeing what all the Plus! fuss is about? Check out: http://www.langa.com/plus.htm 

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5) Awesome Free Resource For Solving OE5 Problems

Readers often ask how to back up their Outlook Express files; others ask how to correct problems in OE itself. Reader Mordy Cohen--- in the process of solving his own problem--- found a great resource that addresses all those issues:

Installing IE5.5 over IE5.0 is not recommended by many (including you - if I recall correctly). Some time ago I updated my OE to version 5.5 (ver 5.50.4133.2400 in the about window) from the Microsoft site without updating IE (it is ver5.00.3105.0106IC). I then started to see some strange printing phenomenon. Some E-Mails would print with small fonts and others with larger fonts without any logical reason. Knowing that all those E-Mails where regular text - not HTML ones, I started looking in to the problem and here is what I found out.

First, the printed font size of OE is controlled by the font size in the View|Text Size menu of the IE. Second, Changing the font size in OE has no effect on the printed font size of its own E-mails only on the screen fonts!

So, I backed up all information (accounts, E-Mails, news and address book) and then uninstalled OE5.5. I used Microsoft's OE5RegClean.exe (at http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q256/2/19.asp  to clean the registry, rebooted and installed OE5 from the original WIn98SE CD. The problem was solved even after I went to the Microsoft site and updated the two to IE5 SP1.

It's worth reiterating: That page--- http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q256/2/19.asp --- contains full information on "How to Manually Uninstall and Reinstall Outlook Express 5," including how to back up your files and "identities." AND it links you to a special version of RegClean that roots out bogus OE5 entries in your Registry that may foul up later installations.

Great find, Mordy, thanks!

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6) $10,000 For Your Trouble?

If you think the LangaList is a worthwhile read, just use the following link to recommend the LangaList to a friend. You just may win $10,000(!), your friend just may find a new source of useful information; I just may gain a new subscriber (full details also available via this link): 

http://www.langa.com/recommend.htm#1

Or, win a no-strings $30 Gift Certificate for any item at Amazon.Com--- books, software, hardware, kitchenware, toys... (Full details available via this link):
http://www.langa.com/recommend.htm#2 

Either way, thank you, and good luck!

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7) Putting the "Deep Web" To The Test

In the last issue, we talked about an amazing white paper ( http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2001/2001-01-15.htm#7 ) that claimed that most web search engines actually only scratch the surface of what's available online. The authors of the white paper believe they have a way to dig out information from the "deep web," which is available from online databases and such rather than in the normal web pages that standard search engines catalog. It's an interesting claim, and thought-provoking reading.

Reader Jerry Shallenberger's interest was piqued enough  that he actually decided to put the claims to the test--- with fascinating results!

I found the article at Bright Planet interesting. I downloaded the evaluation copy of Lexibot and gave it a try. For comparison, I also used Google (my personal favorite). Surprisingly, in two separate searches, Google returned a greater number of relevant hits than Lexibot. It also ran much faster. Lexibot would search for perhaps a half-hour, while Google would complete in a second or so. It strikes me that there may be a "deep web", but it either doesn't have much of value, or Lexibot doesn't do too well searching it. FYI, the terms I searched were 'sleep apnea' and 'computer forensics'. Lexibot produced 299 hits for 'sleep apnea' while google produced 144,000. For 'computer forensics', lexibot produced 493 hits, while google found 7,230. Plus, google allows you to further refine the search within the original hits. I didn't see this capability in lexibot. For me, I will continue to use google, and save my money.

So, even if the claims about the "deep web" are true, that abundant additional information  may not mean much in terms of what it gets you. <g>

Thanks, Jerry!

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8) Reader Sites Top 1,000

Well over 1,000 of your fellow readers have "Loaded the code." Please click over to http://www.langa.com/code.htm , and maybe you can join them! (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:

View A Randomly-Chosen Reader Site
http://www.langa.com/cgi-local/rand_link.pl 

Manually Browse All Posted-to-Date Sites Starting At
http://www.langa.com/readersites.htm 

2nd Chance Computers
http://sites.netscape.net/tom1pc4u/homepage 

Kandi Technologies
http://www.kanditech.com/

James Henne's Personal Page
http://www.angelfire.com/or/henne/

Geno's Place
http://www.geocities.com/emarczak/

Dev's Den
http://dev.topcities.com/index.html

KCS Computer Consulting Inc. (Calgary)
http://fp.kcs.ab.ca/

D&S Computers
http://davesworld.bizland.com/

My PC Dr.
http://www.mypcdr.net/

John Blair Moore (cartoonist, illustrator)
http://www.nuerble.com/jbm.htm

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9) Son of PUKA!

If the word "puka" doesn't mean anything to you, or if it only conjures images of Polynesian seashells, then read on:

I really enjoy just about all of the info that I get from you and thanks for it. I must have been one of the first to subscribe to your new list... I have had a pentium3-450, 128 meg, win98se, for 18 months. About 6 months ago, the system started trying to access drive A on random basis. It is not regular and I cannot determine what program tries to access it. The store mentioned that it may be a pif file with an A drive reference. After exam, it was not the case. I am lost and it is getting on my nerves. Do you have a suggestion ? --- Marc Gaudreau

Oh, boy, do we have suggestions, Marc. <g> Long-time readers may remember the great onomatopoetic "PUKA PUKA PUKA" discussions, and the eventual spin-off  "PUKA Lives." If you've EVER been bothered by random floppy drive accesses, check it all out at:

http://www.langa.com/newsletters/1999/May-17-99.htm

http://www.langa.com/newsletters/1999/May-27-99.htm#puka 

http://www.langa.com/newsletters/1999/aug-2-99.htm#puka

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10) Just For Grins

It's midsummer in the southern hemisphere, which prompted reader Quentin, from New Zealand, to send along these "Australian rural computer terms." (As for me, I declare my total neutrality in the great New Zealand/Australian rivalry. 8-) )

Log on - Make the barbie hotter.
Log off - Don't add any more wood.
Monitor - Keeping an eye on the barbie.
Download - Get the firewood off the ute.
Floppy disc - What you get lifting too much firewood at once.
Hard drive - Camooweal to Birdsville.
Window - What you shut when it's cold.
Screen - What you shut in the mozzie season.
Byte - What mozzies do.
Bit - What mozzies did.
Megabyte - What Townsville mozzies do.
Chip - A bar snack.
Micro chip - What's left in the bag after you have eaten the chips.
Modem - What you did to the hay fields.
Dot Matrix - Old Dan Matrix's wife.
Laptop - Where the cat sleeps.
Software - Plastic knives and forks you get at Red Rooster.
Hardware - Real stainless steel knives and forks.
Mouse - What eats the grain in the shed.
Mainframe - What holds the shed up.
Interface - Spit out the window of the ute.
Web - What spiders make.
Web site - The shed or under the verandah.
Cursor - The old bloke that swears a lot.
Search engine - What you do when the ute won't go.
Upgrade - A steep hill.
Server - The person at the pub that brings out the counter lunch.
Mail server - The bloke at the pub that brings out the counter lunch.
Sound card - The bower that wins the hand of 500.
User - The neighbour who keeps borrowing things.
Network - When you have to repair your fishing net.
Internet - Complicated fish net repair method.
Netscape - When fish manoeuvres out of reach of net.
Online - When you get the laundry hung out.
Offline - When the pegs don't hold the washing up.

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See you next issue!

Best,

Fred
(fred@langa.com)

For even more content, downloads and special services,
check out the LangaList Plus! Edition: http://www.langa.com/plus.htm

Please recommend the LangaList to a friend! (And maybe win $10,000!I)

An easier-to read formatted HTML version is available in the "Current Issue" section of http://www.langa.com.  (The HTML version of each issue normally is available by 9AM EST [UT-5] of the issue date.) All past LangaList issues are also available at the Langa.Com site.

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Administrivia:

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Disclaimer: (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 service of Langa Consulting LLC and is Copyright © 1997-2005Langa Consulting LLC. All rights reserved. LangaList: ISSN 1533-1156

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