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The LangaList
Standard Edition

2001-07-09

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!

1) Has Spam Won?

In fact, when I started digging into anti-spam resources, I ended up with information on the six most-effective steps you can take to reduce spam, a list and descriptions of 18 primary web sites that feature great (and mostly free) anti-spam tools and info, and lots, lots more. It started as a newsletter item, but grew into a full-length feature article! There's *tons* of good information on how you can take back control of your email box!

Because it's too long to feature here, I turned it into the newest "LangaLetter" at InformationWeek.Com.

When the column is posted (2001-07-09) it should be available via this direct link: http://www.informationweek.com/845/langa.htm .  If you arrive early, the link won't work: just try again a little later. <g> Or, you can use the general "front door" to InformationWeek.Com's "Listening Post:" http://www.informationweek.com/LP/

You *can* win the war against spam. Come find out how!

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2) Why Is It Called "Spam," Anyway?

You might think it rather weird that “spam” (UCE, or unsolicited commercial email) is homonymous with “SPAM” (the all-capitalized, trademarked name for small loaves of spiced ham--SPiced hAM=SPAM--- made by Hormel foods).

But there actually is a connection--- albeit an indirect one:

According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Fourth Edition, 2000) the use of spam to refer to unsolicited commercial email was “probably inspired by a comedy routine on the British television series Monty Python's Flying Circus, in which the word is repeated incessantly.”

Of course, true Python fans know the skit where SPAM was almost the only thing on a restaurant menu. ("SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, eggs, and SPAM...")

The Hormel company singles out one particular Pythonesque use:

"Use of the term 'SPAM' was adopted as a result of the Monty Python skit in which a group of Vikings sang a chorus of 'SPAM, SPAM, SPAM . . . ' in an increasing crescendo, drowning out other conversation. Hence, the analogy applied because UCE was drowning out normal discourse on the Internet."

Of course, Hormel may have brought it on themselves: It created the world's first commercial radio jingle in 1937, and the first four words of the jingle are--- and I am not making this up--- "SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM...."

Still, and to their credit, the folks at Hormel are being very good sports about the neologistic use of their tradename, even devoting a page at their Spam.Com site--- yes, there is such a thing--- to the subject: http://www.spam.com/ci/ci_in.htm

And now you know. 8-)

(More spam info: See item #1 above, or http://www.informationweek.com/845/langa.htm )

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3) An Easier "Whois"

In "Email 'Header' Forgery" (http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2001/2001-06-28.htm#7 ) we discussed using any of the many whois ("Who is...?")  services on the web to track down who's behind a web site or spam source.

By coincidence, Karen Kenworthy almost simultaneously released a new free tool: "Karen's WhoIs:"

...the latest Power Tool program, Karen's WhoIs... can locate the current information about the owner of any TLD [top-level domain], by querying ICANN's TLD Registry. It can also provide details about the owner of most SLDs [secondary level domains] around the world.

Best of all, you don't need to know where the information is stored. WhoIs knows the types of information each WhoIs server contains, and directs your request accordingly. If a particular request requires contacting two or more WHOIS servers, that's taken care of automatically too.

Full description: http://www.karenware.com/newsletters/2001/2001-06-27.asp

Download: http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptwhois.html

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4) Test Your Email Defenses

Jason Levine, a fellow former WinMagger and author of the WinMag "Watchdog" tool, also has a new free tool/test available:

Thanks, Jason. The test page is at http://www.jasons-toolbox.com/test-defenses.asp

It generates and sends a simple email with a VBS attachment; when you receive it and run it, the script attempts to read (but not alter) your registry. If a hostile script could get that far, it could do harm, and that's the point of Jason's harmless test: Your defenses should at least give you plenty of warning about the script, and ideally, prevent it from running at all.

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5) Ouch! Large Outlook Folders Can Become Unreadable

I'm an inveterate email-saver--- believe it or not, I still have email from literally 15 years ago! I export my various "Out" boxes, as a whole, once a month, and then purge the old messages from my live mail files. This way, I have permanent access to all old messages (they get backed up along with everything else), but only have about a month's worth live mail in the email client at any one time. This keeps my email client from getting bogged down with fossil messages.

With Outlook, exporting your old messages also can prevent much worse than mere "bogging down," as reader Johan Oost discovered: Truly huge Outlook email folders--- over 2GB--- may become wholly scrambled and unreadable, and the damage may be unrepairable. You can lose ALL your stored email. Ouch!

You can get the gory details at http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q266/7/09.asp , but the gist is:

In Outlook, a personal folder (.pst) file that exceeds the 2 gigabyte (GB) size limit is unusable... but Outlook does not prevent a user from exceeding the 2 GB size limit. Therefore, when your personal folder file exceeds the 2 GB size limit, your personal folder file becomes unusable.

RESOLUTION: Many third-party data recovery services claim that they can recover these files. Contact a third-party data recovery service for more information.

Johan's question was simple: "In the article it says, 'Contact a third-party data recovery service for more information.' Do you know of such a tool? The inbox repair tool from Microsoft does not work!"

The best I could do was suggest http://www.google.com/search?q=outlook+repair+2gb which might help. But alas, it also might not.

Problems like this are always easier to prevent than to recover from: Why not take a look at your mail files now, and save or export some older messages if they're getting large? Almost all email clients will work better if they're not choked with old mail, and with some--- like O2K--- pruning your old email just may prevent a really nasty loss of data.

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6) Is This Information Useful?

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): 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. (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) False Hard Drive Death

Reader Dave Thomas sends in good advice:

Thanks for a great newsletter! I am an original "List" subscriber who quickly saw the value of the "Plus" edition - I have not been disappointed! Regarding the "Bad Sectors" question from JMAX in the 2001-07-02 issue ("Bad Sectors = Hard Drive Death Rattle?" http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2001/2001-07-02.htm#4 ), there are other specific issues regarding this problem which your readers may want to know about, particularly if they have a newer "fast processor" system with a large hard drive. It is critical that these users be aware of a Windows patch which corrects a problem with writing the cache data back to the drive during shutdown. I literally spent months trying to find out why my system (Piii-933 and 75 gig HD) would randomly blow away the Windows operating system and thus fail to boot at the next power on. This then required me to reformat the hard drive and reload the operating system each time it occurred. It got to be very (understatement) frustrating after 7 or 8 failures! Additionally, each time it occurred, the new hard drive would accumulate more and more "bad sectors" until I had several gigs of lost space. There was seemingly no way to recover these sectors.

The answer to the problem came in the form of a Windows Update Patch - "Windows IDE Hard Drive Cache Package" that solved a problem in the timer setting for writing the cache back to the drive during shutdown. This solution was like getting a new computer! At last, I could operate my system without wondering when it would crash next! As for the "bad sectors", the only way that I could find to recover them was to use Norton's Disk Editor (it is buried in the root directory of Systemworks) to physically re-mark all of the "bad" sectors back to "good". This process requires a solid understanding of disk structure, particularly the FAT.

Thanks, Dave. If readers have been keeping up with Windows Update (it's worth visiting http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ every couple weeks), they should already have this patch. But if not, they can get it either through Windows Update or by going directly here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows98/downloads/contents/WUCritical/q273017/Default.asp

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8) One Thousand, Four Hundred and Counting...

That's how many of your fellow readers have already "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 in! (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/randomlink.htm

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

Earthstation9 (impressive resource database)
http://www.earthstation9.com/

Hack Your Car Engine's Computer
http://how.to/calibrate

Contemporary Candles
http://www.contemporarycandles.com/links.html

Badger League Cricket (play-by-email cricket league)
http://www.theoacme.org/Badger/Badger1.html

Peoria, AZ
http://members.home.net/ddetert/

Diplomacy Discussion
http://www.jacksonville.net/~dunk63/

Donohue Bicycle Service (Iowa)
http://showcase.netins.net/web/donohuebikes/index.html

TimberCarver
http://timbercarver.homestead.com/index.html

John's PC Page
http://embark.to/johnpc

Benelux Plane Spotting
http://www.geocities.com/carina_somers/

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9) Just For Grins

When my wife and I go out for an evening, we love to find a place featuring live blues music. Blues--- like only a few of life's special pleasures--- is good even when it's bad. <g>

So I especially enjoyed this note from reader Lew "Lame Kiwi" Kovner, who forwarded his note from "Blind Lemon Jello" Lubin ...

How to sing the Blues . . . A Primer

1) Most Blues begin, "Woke up this morning..."

2) "I got a good woman" is a bad way to begin the Blues, 'less you stick something nasty in the next line like, "I got a good woman, with the meanest face in town."

3) The Blues is simple. After you get the first line right, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes . . . sort of: "Got a good woman with the meanest face in town. Yes, I got a good woman with the meanest face in town. Got teeth like Margaret Thatcher, and she weigh 500 pound."

4) The Blues is not about choice. You stuck in a ditch, you stuck in a ditch--ain't no way out.

5) Blues cars: Chevys, Fords, Cadillacs and broken-down trucks. Blues don't travel in Volvos, BMWs, or Sport Utility Vehicles. Most Blues transportation is a Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Jet aircraft an' state-sponsored motor pools ain't even in the running. Walkin' plays a major part in the blues lifestyle. So does fixin' to die.

6) Teenagers can't sing the Blues. Adults sing the Blues. In Blues "adulthood" means being old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.

7) Blues can take place in New York City but not in Hawaii or any place in Canada. Hard times in Minneapolis or Seattle is probably just clinical depression. Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City are still the best places to have the Blues. You cannot have the blues in any place that don't get rain.

8) A man with male pattern baldness ain't the blues. A woman with male pattern baldness is. Breaking your leg cause you skiing is not the blues. Breaking your leg 'cause a alligator be chomping on it is.

9) You can't have no Blues in a office or a shopping mall. The lighting is wrong. Go outside to the parking lot or sit by the dumpster.

10) Good places for the Blues: a) Highway;  b) Jailhouse;  c) Empty bed;  d) Bottom of a whiskey glass. Bad places for the Blues: a) Dillard's; b) Gallery openings; c) Ivy League institutions; d) Golf courses

11) No one will believe it's the Blues if you wear a suit, 'less you happen to be a old ethnic person, and you slept in it.

12) Do you have the right to sing the Blues? Yes, if  a) You older than dirt; b) You blind; c) You shot a man in Memphis; d) You can't be satisfied.  No, if a) You have all your teeth;  b) You were once blind but now can see; c) The man in Memphis lived; d) You have a 401K or trust fund.

13) Blues is not a matter of color. It's a matter of bad luck. Tiger Woods cannot sing the blues. Sonny Liston could. Ugly white people also got a leg up on the blues.

14) If you ask for water and your darlin' give you gasoline, it's the Blues. Other acceptable Blues beverages are a) Cheap wine; b) Whiskey or bourbon; c) Muddy water; d) Nasty black coffee. The following are NOT Blues beverages: a) Perrier; b) Chardonnay; c) Snapple; d) Slim Fast.

15) If death occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it's a Blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another Blues way to die. So is the electric chair, substance abuse and dying lonely on a broken down cot. You can't have a Blues death if you die during a tennis match or getting liposuction.

16) Some Blues names for women: a) Sadie;  b) Big Mama; c) Bessie; d) Fat River Dumpling

17) Some Blues names for men a) Joe; b) Willie; c) Little Willie; d) Big Willie

18) Persons with names like Michelle, Amber, Debbie, and Heather can't sing the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.

19) Make your own Blues name Starter Kit: a) Name of physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple, Lame, etc.); b) First name (see above) plus name of fruit (Lemon, Lime, Kiwi, etc.); c) Last name of President (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.); d) For example, Blind Lime Jefferson, Jakeleg Lemon Johnson or Cripple Kiwi Fillmore, etc. (Well, maybe not "Kiwi.")

20) I don't care how tragic your life, if you own a computer, you cannot sing the blues.

(Since publication, I discovered that this item is Copyright Judith Podell. My apologies to Ms. Podell.)

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10)Free Ad-Blocking Software;
Freeware/Shareware Bonanza;
Powerful, Free Editing Tool Returns From Oblivion

Today's LangaList Plus! Edition contains all items above, plus about 30% more content including: A free tool that automatically blocks ads from your browser--- plus information on the pros and cons of ad-blocking in general; a gold mine of freeware/shareware that one reader discovered--- including many hard-to-find older items; and information on the return of a popular, powerful editor that went away for a while....

The Plus! edition costs about a dime per issue, or just $10 for a full year's subscription of almost 100 issues. Plus! Edition 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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This newsletter is a free service of Langa Consulting LLC and is Copyright © 1997-2005 Fred Langa/ Langa Consulting LLC. All worldwide rights reserved. LangaList: ISSN 1533-1156

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