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The LangaList
Standard Edition

2001-04-19

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) BrowserTune 5.0 Released

On Monday of this week (2001-04-16), the new home of BrowserTune came alive, running version 5.0. This version replaces the version (4.07) that was on the WinMag site.

Amazingly, the switch went pretty smoothly. By the time you read this, the DNS ("domain name server") changes should have propagated worldwide: When you type or click http://www.browsertune.com you should now be taken to the new, Version 5 site; you can tell either by looking at the version number on the opening page, or from the Langa.Com logo in the upper left corner.

However, if you see the older WinMag version--- shown by the 4.07 version number or the WinMag and CMP logos, then your ISP may be slow to update its DNS records or you may be using any of several brands of popular but sloppily-programmed "web accelerator" software. (See http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2000/2000-04-03.htm#5 ) In these cases, the ISP's DNS software or your local "web accelerator" may be linking the domain name to its old IP address, instead of the new, correct one.

You can get to the correct, new version of BrowserTune via its IP address at http://www.browsertune.com/ . You also can use that address to update your "Hosts" file or other DNS cache location, if you're using the kind of software.

The new version of BrowserTune runs faster than before, thanks to the new servers. And I've updated several tests, too. But some things haven't changed: It still has three main parts, two of which you can run in just a couple minutes to determine your browser's basic health, as well as the health of your PC's connection to the Internet. And the third series of tests is still incredibly complete; testing over 300 browser functions and features in all.

Note that now a special shortcut through the test for LangaList subscribers: Instead of entering your email address, if you press the "Already A LangaList Subscriber" button when prompted, you're given a streamlined, web-only version of the test results; this prevents you from getting in the queue for a subscription to the Standard Edition.

It's not a big deal to be in that queue: If you already have a SE subscription, the software will recognize this and automatically decline to subscribe you twice. If you're a Plus! subscriber, you can just ignore the Standard Edition confirmation email you'll be sent--- if you don't reply, you won't be re-subscribed to the SE, simple as that. But rather than go through those extra steps, just remember to press the "Already A LangaList Subscriber" button when prompted to do, and you'll take the cleaner, slicker route through the tests.

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2) WinTune: Lost, And Found

Unlike BrowserTune, WinTune (WinMag.Com's test suite for your PC as a whole: video, hard drive, CPU speed, etc.) is just plain gone. I've gotten a lot of email like this:

Hi Fred, I've been concerned, like everyone, about the loss of winmag.com. It hit me again this weekend as I finished building a new system and wanted to benchmark it. Can you tell me  if anybody is maintaining the 'wintune' tools and where we can find them? On that note, what other tools do you recommend for thorough benchmarking? I'd also like to take a minute and thank you again for all the great info you share with us. I've hooked up with a few of the other former Winmag contributors and although interesting, (for what I do,) yours is the only newsletter I need. (I do miss winmag.com and all those resources though. How do you express it? <sigh>? Yeah, I think that's it. <sigh>) Cheers, Aime F. Watts, Jr.

Well, Aime, WinTune is gone, but its successor is still alive and well at http://www.pcpitstop.com . The tests there were developed by the same people who did the guts of WinTune; you'll see some similarities. But  the PCpitstop tests are actually a later version than what was on the WinMag site. As such, they're better in some ways.

So: WinTune is gone, but you can get the same kind of testing--- still for free--- at http://www.pcpitstop.com .

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3) One-Click CureAll For Windows Problems

I've been getting tons of spam from "affiliates" of various Windows fix-it programs. These affiliates are actually salespersons, hoping to get a commission on sales of the software. The offered programs range in quality and hype-level, but all claim more of less the same benefit: You run their software, and Windows will suddenly be made more stable and efficient.

Reader Kevan Judah got one of those emails:

Dear Fred, I just got an e-mail forward from a friend that advertises software called [name omitted]. This program is supposed to fix Windows problems automatically and keep Win9x machines from crashing. Supposedly, it works at the machine level without depending on Windows for its code, but that's all I can get from the advertising copy. They make it sound as if the program will always work, even when Windows won't. As I've never seen it mentioned at Langa.com I was, of course, skeptical of its value. Have you ever heard of it? How does it work? Is it worth having? I'm the desktop manager for a small (15 seat) shop of Win98 machines and I need all the help I can get. On the other hand, I don't want to be buying something that won't work or worse, make maintaining my herd of machines even harder... Thanks as well for all the great info at Langa.com. I think it's the best Windows site on the Web.

I haven't tried the particular tools that Kevin wrote about, but a while back I tried a *lot* of 'em. And sad to say, I  never found any of these "magic cure" programs to be at all worthwhile. Some did absolutely nothing discernable; others actively made my setup *worse.* None was better able to maintain my system than I was, on my own, with the tools I already had at hand.

If you use common sense, and a few FREE tools such as Microsoft's RegClean ( http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q147/7/69.asp ), Jouni Vuorio's RegCleaner ( http://www.jv16.org/ ) and my own free tools ( http://www.langa.com/downloads.htm ), along with the copy of Scandisk and Defrag you already have, you'll go a long way to keeping your system in good shape. If you have other maintenance tools from mainline vendors--- Symantec/Norton's WinDoctor is one such--- then so much the better.

But there's no need to spend money on snake-oil fixes from no-name vendors that promise to work instant miracles without ever telling you *exactly* how. (For example, the one above claims to "reduce software entropy." But RegClean, Scandisk, Defrag, and *any* tool that repairs, reorders, or removes junk files can claim to "reduce software entropy." It's a nearly meaningless claim.) Almost always, those tools are scams, or nearly so.

Think about it: If it was easy to fix Windows, don't you think Microsoft or a major player--- IBM, Symantec,etc.--- would have figured it out by now? 8-)

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4) New (Still Free!) "Script Sentry" Released

Speaking of good, free tools. ex-WinMagger Jason Levine has been busy:

Hi Fred, I thought I'd just let you know that I've released Script Sentry on http://www.jasons-toolbox.com/

Script Sentry picks up where WatchDog left off and then some. In addition to checking for malicious Windows Scripting Host scripts, it checks for malicious ShellScrap documents (hidden SHS/SHB extensions), HTA files, REG files, and even Word and Excel macros. In addition, I've made a custom install routine that takes up less space and reduced DLL dependence (which drops the download size to 131KB). And I patched a security hole which would have let the Anna Kornicova virus through as safe to run. You can download Script Sentry at http://www.jasons-toolbox.com/scriptsentry.asp

Thanks, Jason!

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5) More Clever Google Tricks

In "Rosetta Stone, Improved" ( http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2001/2001-03-15.htm#3 ) we discussed a number of ways to harness the power of Google (perhaps the current best overall search engine) to search vast sites such as the Microsoft Knowledgebase in ways faster and more powerful than using the Knowledgebase's own front end!

Later, in http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2001/2001-04-05.htm#4 , we discussed how you can use similar techniques to dig out WinMag content from Google's internally-stored copies of WinMag pages--- you can actually still find and read WinMag articles within Google, even though those articles no longer exist on the WinMag site! (The same technique can help you find older versions of pages and sites that may have been changed or removed from their live locations.)

Now, reader Daniel offers even more depth:

Hi Fred. Searching Google by "[Search terms] site:winmag.com is OK but will show all references in domain winmag. There is a way to restrict the results to [say] http://content.techweb.com/winmag//columns/explorer   That is:

search terms site:winmag.com columns explorer

I discovered this long ago (sure I am not the only one) and I think it works. E.g. a search for "free:"

free site:www.winmag.com columns explorer

gives [all the Explorer columns that mention the word "free."]

A search for a word that is always present (like langa) most probably will give all cached pages.

Another way would be to go directly to the cached site by clicking

http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.winmag.com/columns/explorer/

instead of www.winmag.com/columns/explorer/

I hope this is useful to someone.

I'm sure it will be Daniel. Thanks!

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6) Don’t Make Me Beg! 8-)

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 for your trouble (full details also available via this link):

http://www.recommend-it.com/l.z.e?s=143182

Or, win a no-strings $30 Gift Certificate for any item at Amazon.Com--- books, software, hardware, kitchenware, toys... and more. 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 $30 Gift Certificate! (Full details also available via this link):

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

Either way, thank you, and good luck!

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7) R.I.P. Clippy

Reader Claudia Slate found a strange page: http://www.officeclippy.com/indexyes.html

It's an about-face for Microsoft: After making a big deal of  "digital assistants" like "Clippy," the animated paperclip in MS Office products, this site is devoted entirely to dissing the animated helpers, which will go away (hooray!) in Windows XP.

The digital assistant technology traces back to "Microsoft Bob," one of the stupidest Microsoft products I've ever seen: It was Windows with a user interface so dumbed-down and smarmy it was embarrassing to run; an insult to every user with more brains than a cabbage.

"Bob" quickly went away--- it was a well-deserved marketing disaster--- but its technology resurfaced in the animated help systems of Microsoft Office. Most adults I know find the animations cute for about the first two minutes, and then turn them off. Apparently, enough other users do likewise, so these creatures will vanish from the next version of Windows. About time.

You may ask: If the "Bob" technology was so unpopular, why did it take so long for Microsoft to dump it? Well, draw your own conclusions, but Microsoft Bob's original Product Manager, Melinda French, later became Mrs. Bill Gates. (Really!)

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8) They Loaded The Code

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:

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

Mammoth Australian Portal
http://www.psyclonesoundz.com.au/links.asp

Paint Shop Pro Resources
http://www.flyersgraphics.com/

John L. Hedinger's Web Site
http://home.earthlink.net/~jhedinger/

Lady L's Friendship Pages
http://www.ladyli.cjb.net/

"Un-Weaving The Web"
http://www.norrisonline.net/index.html

Training and Site Design
http://www.compufinity.com/index.html

Andy & Angie Torres
http://home.cfl.rr.com/atorres/

Caught In A  Loop
http://caughtinaloop.homestead.com/enter.html

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9) More on Page Redirection

We recently discussed the use of "meta tags" to enable things like automatic page-redirection on your web site; where readers reaching a page can automatically be sent to a different page. (See http://www.langa.com/current.htm#6 )

As usual, several LangaList readers not only had additional information on the subject, but they were generous enough to share it:

I recently used the meta http-equiv="REFRESH" tag to move a web site. Although users were redirected, search engines continued to list the old page months later. I then added this tag to the old page (you need to add the < and  > surrounding the line)

meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow"

(Note the ,follow)

Within a few weeks, the new page was being listed by some of the search engines.--- Bob Parsons (P.S. Great Newsletter!)

Thanks, Bob. The "robots" tag is designed to control the way search engines handle a page--- the search engines are the "robots" the tag is designed for. The "noindex" portion of the tag tells the robot, er, search engine NOT to include that page in its index, and the "follow" tells the engine to follow links on the page. If the above tag is on a clean page with only a link to the new page, the search engines will ignore the redirecting page and go right where you want them at the new location. There's a ton more info on use of the Robots tag at http://info.webcrawler.com/mak/projects/robots/meta-user.html .

Fred, In addition to the META Redirect mentioned in your recent LangaList Plus!, there's another alternative (actually, I'm sure there are quite a few, but this is one I like and use a lot)

% response.redirect "http://www.langa.com" %

(note, the line begins with < followed by %, ends with % followed by > [you have to add the angle-brackets], and the redirection page is double-quoted -- this is mentioned in case my or your email client reformats that)

The caveat, of course, is that this is ASP [active server page] code, so it requires (1) that the file be called something like "index.asp" and (2) it will only work on servers that can interpret ASP (NT/Win2K servers, or *NIX servers with the ChiliASP interpreter). That one singular line is all it takes. The benefit to this is that it doesn't clobber the BACK button on a visitor's browser as META tags can (especially if the refresh is set to 0), since this is actually done seamlessly on the server. If a visitor clicks back, they return to the page PRIOR to this redirect, not the redirect itself. --- Kehvan M. Zydhek

Thanks, guys!

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10) Just For Grins

In the last issue ( http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2001/2001-04-12.htm#2 ) we talked about a little-known function in Word that will automatically generate a specified number of sentences and paragraphs so you can quickly fill a document with fake text. The text that's automatically generated is that old typist's standby, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," which uses every letter in the English alphabet.

But when Canadian reader Donald Alan Roy tried the same trick, he got something different:

Bonjour Fred, do you like French humor? The reason I'm asking is that I tried the =rand Easter surprise in Word. As my Word97 is in French, I got the following result: Servez à ce monsieur une bière et des kiwis. Translated in English it means "Serve this gentleman a beer and some kiwis." This is a riot... much funnier than the lazy dog!!! What would the results be in other languages?!!! Wow.

Reader Alex Lorenzo found a similar surprise in the Spanish version of Word:

The Spanish version deals not with dogs or foxes, here you have the line "El veloz murciélago hindú comía feliz cardillo y kiwi" [The quick Hindu bat ate happy golden thistle and kiwi.], with "La cigüeña tocaba el saxofón detrás del palenque de paja" [The stork touched the saxophone behind the bale of straw] in the font view page. Note that it uses all letters, hence the silly meaning of these sentences. Numbers 1 to 0 complete the sample. The spanish word 'murciélago' (bat) is one of the few with all 5 vowels in it! Thank you again for your (unexpensive) Langa Plus List.

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11) Plus! Edition Highlights

Today's LangaList Plus! Edition contains all ten items above, plus about 30% more content including: Access to a brand-new release of the complete LangaList archives--- all the LangaLists ever published--- in an incredibly convenient Help File Format (see http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2001/2001-04-09.htm#4 for more info); additional information on the standard zip-file version of the archives, and a free download that gives you ultra-cool "Cushion TreeMaps" Of Your Hard Drive Contents.

The Plus! Edition costs just $10 for a full year--- almost 100 issues! Info: http://www.langa.com/plus.htm 

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See you next issue!

Best,

Fred

(fred@langa.com)

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:

Why are you getting this newsletter? This is a 100% OPT-IN newsletter: There are only three ways to get on the list--- signup via direct email request from you, or signup via the WinMag newsletter page or signup via BrowserTune's email-notification service. If you're getting this newsletter; your name came to me through one of those signup channels. At signup, you also received a confirmation email from my list software---no one is signed up secretly or against their will.

SUBSCRIBE (it's free!): Create and send a new email address it to subscribe-langalist@lyris.dundee.net

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

UNSUBSCRIBE: From the same address you used to sign up with (it's shown on the first line in the body of each email issue you receive), create and send a new email address to  unsubscribe-langalist@lyris.dundee.net .

CHANGE ADDRESS? LIST TROUBLE? HAVE QUESTIONS? NEED HELP? See http://www.langa.com/help.htm

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

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