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LangaList 2001-12-06 Please visit our sponsors and help keep the LangaList S.E. free!
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1) 10 Tweaks To Make Windows XP Run BetterWe have a long tradition (dating back over a decade!) of showing you how to change the default settings in each version of Windows. See, for example, the articles "10 Ways To Make Windows ME Run Better" ( http://content.techweb.com/winmag/windows/features/merunbetter/default.htm ) and "Ten Ways To Make Windows 98 Run Better" ( http://content.techweb.com/winmag/windows/features/98runbetter/default.htm ). There's also a plethora of WinMag Windows 2000 information available via search engines here, or at http://content.techweb.com/winmag/columns/powerw2k/backissu.htm . This previous content arose from the fact that Microsoft ships each copy of
Windows with "default" settings that control how the operating systems works. These
settings are designed to be "good enough" for most people--- a kind of lowest
common denominator that ensures that the operating system will work OK for the
mythical average user. Join in! http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20011204S0009 Click to email this item to a
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--------------( the above is an advertisement )-------------- 2) Not A Tweak, But A Double XP Surprise!Neither Win2K nor WinME has the ability to create a simple, basic, DOS-based boot floppy (a "startup disk") unless you jump through hoops or do things in nonstandard ways. Without a boot floppy, there's no easy way to start your PC if the hard drive has trouble or if Windows is hosed so badly you can't get it to start. Without a boot floppy, there's also no easy way to do low-level DOS maintenance. Because XP is the fusion of Win2K and Win9x/ME, I assumed it would follow the same "no boot floppy" tack. But instead, I was surprised to poke around in XP and see that the format option there does indeed offer a "Create MS-DOS Startup Disk." As an experiment, I created a startup disk, and all went smoothly. I was able to use the disk to boot my PC without any problems. But when it started up, I got the second surprise. The DOS boot message showed "Microsoft Windows Millennium." To confirm this, I typed "Ver" to see what version of DOS was running, and the screen showed: Windows Millennium [Version 4.90.300] ! Although it's jarring to see the WinME startup message on an XP-created floppy, all this means is that Microsoft cribbed a few essential DOS boot files from WinME, and made it so XP can drop them onto a freshly-formatted floppy for you. I'm glad they did: It's a very good thing that Microsoft restored the ability to make a simple boot disk. But, ironically, their use of WinME's versions of DOS also shows that WinME could have had boot-disk ability all along. And the bundling of a write-to-floppy DOS subsystem in XP also shows that the same kind of thing could have been done in Win2K, too. Click to email this item to a
friend 3) The DMA MatryoshkaLast issue's "DMA 'Doh'" ( http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2001/2001-12-03.htm#3 ) brought a flood of email, and no small measure of frustration on both sides of the email exchange. Many readers were frustrated because my quick mention of Direct Memory Access didn't provide as full an explanation as they wanted. (The top two questions I got--- from a *ton* of readers--- were "My system doesn't have a DMA box, so how can I check it?" and "My system shows something other than DMA--- such as 'PIO.' What should I do?) And that, in turn, was frustrating for me because the newsletter item included a direct link to other articles that could answer those exact questions, and many, many more! Many articles are conceptually like Matryoshka, those nesting Russian dolls where opening one leads to another, inside: The brief newsletter item on DMA provided a link to a full article on implementing DMA called "The Nearly Secret DMA Can Speed Up Your Drives" ( http://content.techweb.com/winmag/columns/explorer/2001/02.htm ). In addition to going into some detail on implementing DMA, that article also provided direct links to Maxtor and Seagate information on using DMA settings with those brands of drives; and also pointed to an earlier article called "Soup Up Your Hard Drive with DMA" ( http://content.techweb.com/winmag/columns/explorer/1999/1206.htm ) that provided fairly broad background to understand DMA technology and the various "modes" of data transfer available to and from hard drives (including PIO). That article also included direct links to a Microsoft article called "What To Do If Your Drive Does Not Have a DMA Check Box" ( http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=KB;EN-US;Q229085 ) and "What To Do If The DMA Check Box Does Not Remain Checked" ( http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=KB;EN-US;Q159560 ); links to information from Western Digital; plus information on how to add DMA to systems that don't already support it; and links to the two newsletter items that sparked the original DMA discussions, long ago ( http://www.langa.com/newsletters/1999/nov-29-99.htm#dma and http://www.langa.com/newsletters/1999/nov-26-99.htm#dma ). In short, just about any DMA question you might have is answered somewhere in those articles: Like those Russian nesting dolls, all you have to do is keep opening links until you find what you want. <g> All the major search engines also have a ton of info, including material on newer standards that have emerged since the above articles were written. For example: Google:
http://www.google.com/search?q=enable+dma+ata+udma If you were one of the readers frustrated with my shorthand reference to DMA in the last issue, I apologize, and hope this helps. But the full story was there all along: All you had to do was click. 8-) Click to email this item to a
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--------------( the above is an advertisement )-------------- 4) "A Great Outlook Patch Nobody Uses"Rajiv Nair writes:
Thanks, Rajiv. It's curious that the article quotes Microsoft statistics showing that "fewer than 1 percent of all Outlook users have installed the update," which was released almost 18 month ago. I'm amazed at that statistic! Just 1%? Wow! Perhaps it's because the patch is a mixed bag: On the plus side, it can help block the spread of virulent attachments, including this week's bumper crop of malicious emails. But the bad news--- as we originally reported in May of 2000, before the patch was originally released--- is that the patch can make it hard to receive benign attachments that you may actually want. In short, the patch makes Outlook more secure--- but less convenient If you're one of the 99% (I'm still amazed by that
number!) who haven't installed this patch, and are interested in
exploring what it does, please read up on it before you download and install it:
The article at Click to email this item to a
friend 5) Clever Way To Grab Old Drivers, Etc.About a month ago, we first mentioned the "Internet Archives Wayback Machine," a site that lets you "surf the net as it was." (See "Useful--- And Interesting--- Pages From the Past" at http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2001/2001-11-05.htm#3 ) Well, reader Tim Jordan discovered they're even more useful than we thought!
I'd thought the WayBack site was mostly useful for reading old web-page content. I had no idea some old downloads were there, too! Coverage seems to be a bit spotty, but where it works, it's great. To pick up on Tim's example, you can use the Wayback site to download a version of the 3Dfx D3D ("Voodoo") drivers as they existed on 1/30/97. If you're working on an older machine, access to files like this could be a real timesaver. Thanks, Tim! Click to email this item to a
friend 6) Mike Mullen Got A $30 Gift Certificate. Want One?Reader Mike Mullen just got a no-strings $30 Gift
Certificate for any item at Amazon.Com--- books, software, hardware,
kitchenware, toys, and more. Mike got it by using the "Recommend" link at
http://www.langa.com/recommend.htm
. Either way, thank you, and good luck! Click to email this item to a
friend 7) Free PC Software Audit
The "Belarc Advisor" is indeed useful, and free for personal use. It "builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware." It runs on Windows 95/98/Me, NT 4, Windows 2000 and XP, and in just a minute or so, creates a local web page (one that resides on your PC--- nothing is sent back to Belarc). The page contains a rundown of all the hardware in and attached to your system, plus information on all the installed software including license and version numbers. Makes a handy reference! Thanks, John. Click to email this item to a
friend 8) They Just Keep Coming And Coming and Coming...Almost 1,700 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 ) Manually Browse All Posted-to-Date Sites
Starting At myMichelangelo Hear/Say (college music magazine) Internet Tips and Secrets "The strange...and somewhat boring world of
Russ M. Collier" Cece's Scottish Tartan Themes And
Screensavers "Cleaning the world, one body at a time." Desert Land For Sale Kenneth 'Gene' Bate Eclectic Lite A Computer Users' Group In Springfield,
Missouri Click to email this item to a
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--------------( the above is an advertisement )-------------- 9) "Unable to Open a Link in New Window in Internet Explorer"
Thanks, Michael. Indeed, several problems that can befall IE also can affect the applications that rely on the guts of IE to render HTML content. That can include Outlook or Outlook Express. This particular problem is that sometimes, when you click on a link, the page may not load correctly; or pop up windows may appear blank; or may load with script errors. In this case, the problem stems from a corrupted DLL. The LockerGnome write-up is based on a Microsoft KnowledgeBase article, but you can go right to the source this way: "Open in New Window" May Not Load Page in Internet Explorer
5.01 SP1 Unable to Open a Link in New Window in Internet Explorer (5.5 and 6): Click to email this item to a
friend 10) Just For GrinsReader James Francis sends in this list of neologisms. I've seen parts of this list in other formats and places, but never all together like this:
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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: information on a free tool that puts an interactive Windows front end in control of the goings-on inside a command window ("DOS box"); a reader rave about a Swiss-army-knife type of utility; and and another FREE tool that's not only useful for automatically handling repetitive dialog boxes, but also has one of the best names I've every heard for a piece of software.<g> 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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