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LangaList 2001-10-22 Please visit our sponsors and help keep the LangaList S.E. free!
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--------------( the above is an advertisement )-------------- 1) Happy Anniversary!Exactly four years ago last Friday, the very first issue of the LangaList was published to a very small--- OK, *tiny* <g>--- number of subscribers. Back then, I published the newsletter once a week, more or less. Today, the various editions of the newsletter are distributed twice a week to a combined readership approaching 170,000 subscribers per issue--- that's almost 1.4 million copies of this newsletter mailed every month. And at the same time, the Langa.Com and BrowserTune/Hotspots websites also are busy pumping out a ton of pages. It's been a heck of a ride; all the more so because the LangaList and Langa.Com is a one-person operation. Thank goodness for caffeine! 8-) Your fellow subscribers hail from all around the globe--- 80% of the world's nations are represented here! As you might expect for an English-language missive, readers in natively-English-speaking countries (the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, New Zealand...) tend to make up the largest part of the subscriber base; but there's a significant number of readers in places where English is not the primary language. You may be surprised--- I sure was!--- to find that the same List you read also goes out to people in places like Kyrgyzstan, Mali, the Udmurt Republic, and Kiribati. Heck, you even have fellow readers inside the Vatican. <g> Many people have asked about how the List started: You can find a capsule history at http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2001/list_history.htm , if you're interested. In any case, four years into the project, you're reading the results to date. I hope you're enjoying the newsletter as much as I enjoy bringing it to you! There's lots more ahead: Stay tuned, and thanks for being a part of the LangaList community! Click to email this item to a
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--------------( the above is an advertisement )-------------- 2) Here Comes XPWindows XP becomes available at retail this week, although it's been shipping, preloaded, on PCs for a while now.
We'll be covering more about XP in the weeks and months ahead, but my take is that there's extremely little in XP to make it a "must" upgrade for anyone. If it arrives, unbidden, on a new PC you buy, then you more or less have to live with it (or pay to replace it); but I can't see anything in XP that would justify rushing out to upgrade an existing system. Specifically regarding performance: It will be a short while before off-the-shelf retail versions of XP can be put through the wringer, but the beta test results were more or less along the lines of what Dan reports: It's slow. Reader Bryce Welkin sends along some specific tests:
Thanks, Bryce. That site says, in part:
That's right--- as, tested above, XP is 25-30% slower/more-resource-hungry than even the already-demanding Win2K. Yikes! Click to email this item to a
friend 3) AOL 7 Arrives (Yawn)
AOL actually did some aggressive PR outreach on this version, and contacted me beforehand. They even provided a beta copy, which I appreciated. (Hilariously, the beta copy's password was "grim repast," which has to be one of the worst-ever choices for PR purposes.) AOL describes the new version this way:
When the final software became available for download, I set up a test PC with a simple and 100% known-good configuration. I downloaded and installed the new 35MB AOL software. Two reboots later, I saw that the "new" AOL was up to its old tricks of messing with one's networking setup: It installed a new Dial Up Adapter for VPN support, a Microsoft VPN Adapter and a WAN Miniport (ATW); it bound NDISWAN to the VPN adapter and the WAN adapter; and more: In my office LAN, I use the IPX protocol to handle all internal LAN communications, and use TCP/IP only for external communications via the Internet. This way, I keep all file and print sharing completely disconnected from anything that goes over the Internet--- a basic safety measure. But AOL7 bound my IPX stack to the VPN adapter, and then bound the client for Microsoft Networks and "File and printer sharing" to the TCP/IP stack for Dial Up Adapter #2. In my opinion, this is wrong-headed, bordering on stupid, and creates a completely unnecessary potential security hole in my normally carefully-crafted network security. I tried stripping out the extra stuff--- the VPN software, etc.--- but on restart, AOL complained, and put it all back in. I then tried a more selective cleanup by unbinding the Microsoft Network Client and File/Print Sharing from the new TCP/IP instance, and AOL seemed happy with this. This left me with a far more complex networking setup than I wanted, but at least I was able to manually close the newbie-level, "Networking 101" kind of security setup error the software had caused. When I ran the AOL software, it indeed detected that I had a high-speed connection and offered some streaming media choices, such as a RealPlayer tour of the new features in 7.0. However, twice during the tour playback I got a "Connection to the server has been lost" message, forcing me to restart. What's more, after that I twice got booted off AOL altogether within about 10 minutes with a message stating "Your connection to the AOL service was reset by the remote host." I'm willing to entertain the idea that my diddling with the network settings contributed to this stability problem, but if the price of a stable AOL connection is that I must allow AOL to share my printers and files, then I'll just say "no, thanks." I work too hard on network security to make me want to unlock my doors just to be able run AOL7. If AOL's content were unique or if the service offered something wonderful, maybe it'd be worth the hassle and risk. But going through all the above to get ads shoved in your face and spam crammed in your mailbox--- and all at premium prices--- seems silly. I remain convinced that many or even most AOL subscribers stay with the system simply because they don't know they can get essentially the same stuff at less cost from "real" ISPs, with fewer ads to wade through *and* less garbage added to their system. Thanks for the preview, AOL, but no thanks. Click to email this item to a
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--------------( the above is an advertisement )-------------- 4) A "Wow" Utility: Boolean Searches Of Your Hard DriveThe more information you have on your hard drive,
the harder it can be to find exactly what you want. Until now, I've used (and
recommended) Funduc's $25 "Search and Replace" software; not only does it
provide a very fast search tool, but (as the name suggests) it's also a way to
make changes in one or even many files. For example, lets say you have a large
web site and need to change every instance of URL "X" to URL "Y" across dozens
or even hundreds or thousands of files. S&R can do that in a flash. See: But last week, I learned of a tool called "Advanced Find and Replace" from http://www.vknoware.com/afr/index.htm ($30). It's much like S&R, but with one major difference: it allows easy use of Boolean ("and," "not," and "or") terms in searches of your local hard drive, just as if you were using a major search engine. Although the newest versions of S&R also have a Boolean function, it's much harder to use than Advanced Find and Replace's. I find myself using S&R for basic searching, and--- perhaps because I'm more familiar with it--- for mass search/replace operations. But I'm using AF&R for all my complex local searches now: Highly recommended! Click to email this item to a
friend 5) Norton AV Update
Thanks, Mitch! Click to email this item to a
friend 6) PR Budget = $0.00As explained in item #1, above, this newsletter is a
private project of mine: It's not part of some publishing empire's stable of
ezines and websites. It's just me here, with (frankly) zero budget to mount a PR
campaign to get more readers. May I ask for your help? If you think the LangaList is a worthwhile read, please use either of the following links to recommend the LangaList to a friend. Your friend just may find a new source of useful information; I may gain a new subscriber; and you may win a prize for your trouble (full details also available via the links): Recommend-It (potential $10,000 prize): 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 Click to email this item to a
friend 7) Automated ImagesPeter Kronenberg asks:
The main file for the Drive Image software is Pqdi.exe. Because Pqdi is driven from batch files, you can modify the batch files to do just about anything you wish, including a very high degree of automation. If you open a DOS/Command box and navigate to that Pqdi.exe file on your hard drive or on your DI floppies, you can see what command line input it accepts by typing "Pqdi.exe /?" (without the quotes). Different versions allow different input commands, but the idea is the same: You can easily modify the supplied batch files with any switches or additional commands you wish to add, to make the software do exactly what you want. Actually, I haven't explored DI's command-line automation tricks anywhere nearly as fully as has Plus! edition subscriber Scott Foulk: Last June, he wrote an entire mini-article on batch file tricks he uses to fully automate his Drive Image backups/images, with examples. The article--- much too long to reproduce here--- appears as item #10, "Drive Image Automation Tricks" in an issue of the Plus edition: http://www.langalist.com/Plus/newsletters/2001/2001-06-18plus.asp Click to email this item to a
friend 8) They Loaded The CodeDo 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 Manually Browse All
Posted-to-Date Sites Starting At Linux System Administration
Refresher Course Meatloaf Enthusiast Pages
(the food, not the singer!) Impressive Webs Dragonball Z Marble Falls/Serenity Row Terry Bell Ginger's Diary Gallery of Life A Pictorial View of Yell Online Shopping CelticCraze Jerico Springs, Missouri Click to email this item to a
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--------------( the above is an advertisement )-------------- 9) Free Help
The folks at Protonic do indeed seem to be very helpful. Thanks for the pointer! Click to email this item to a
friend 10) Just For Grins, and MoreThe amount and number of war-related hoaxes and misinformation floating around is alarming, so I actually was relieved to see this in the mail:
While the above is a nice parody of some of the war-related hoaxes, there are others that aren't funny at all. Reader Scott Kaiser points out that the excellent anti-hoax site, Snopes, has created an entire subsection designed to filter out the credible from the crud among war stories. See the Urban Legends Reference Pages ( http://www.snopes2.com/ ) and click on the "Rumors of War" link. Thanks, Scott! And remember--- don't sit down on the 28th! <g> Click to email this item to a
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--------------( the above is an advertisement )-------------- 11) Plus! Edition Highlights:
Today's LangaList Plus! Edition contains all ten items above, plus about 30% more content including: An interesting and powerful replacement for Windows Explorer, ported from the fabled "Amiga" PC; a brain-dead simple way to extend Windows Explorers right-click menus; and a very slick and simple way to add new search engine shortcuts to Internet Explorer's search functions. Plus! Edition info: http://www.langa.com/plus.htm Click to email this item to a
friend See you next issue!
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