How To Subscribe and Unsubscribe is at the end of this note. Mailing List Trouble? See http://www.langa.com/help.htm
Questions about the advertisers? See the end of this note. Please also see legal notices at the end of this note. LangaList: ISSN 1533-1156

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

An easier-to read formatted HTML version of this newsletter is available
<a href=" http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2002/2002-05-09.htm ">here</a>

The LangaList
Standard Edition

2002-05-09

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) Reader Was A GPS Pioneer

You're an amazing bunch: I'm constantly awed by the depth and breadth of knowledge and experience among LangaList readers. For example, in response to our recent discussion of GPS, Rick Shaffer wrote in from Sedona, AZ:

Hi, Fred, Thanks for your item on GPS. I have a few comments. (Since I did the orbit determination and some of the maneuvering of the original GPS spacecraft, the Navy's NTS-2, I go back a ways in the GPS field...)

1. That first spacecraft carried a full GPS package. But, since there was only one spacecraft, there was no way to triangulate among the three spacecraft required by modern GPS receivers. How did it work? They obtained a "pseudo-range" at, say 9AM, then waited a couple of hours and did it again at 11AM. They then got a third range at 1PM. The receiver then determined the position of itself from those three readings.

2. As I remember it, the first receiver was made by Motorola. It occupied about 3-feet of a 19" relay rack. I asked the engineer who was in charge of it what the production models would cost. His reply? "We hope to keep it under $12,000!"

3. The Gulf War "made" GPS. How was this? Many reservists found themselves on the Arabian Peninsula with inadequate maps and needed to know where their units were actually located. They wrote home and asked friends and relatives to buy a GPS-receiver and ship it to them. (They were selling for $500-600 via mail order.) The original importer of these receivers were swamped with orders, and had to gear up for production of many more units than they had anticipated. The rest is history.

4. There are actually two capabilities on each GPS spacecraft. The "classified package" features accuracy sufficient to lay in artillery fire (~0.5-m). The "civilian package" uses the same technology as the other package, but the data are deliberately "dithered" so as to compromise accuracy. President Clinton ordered the USAF to disable dithering sometime about 1996-7. I believe it was reinstituted right after 11Sep2002. I don't know if any announcement was made. I just noticed that the results of using my GPS became more "noisy" shortly after that tragic date.

5. The deliberate compromising of the accuracy of GPS receivers was first defeated by a geologist from Caltech. She wanted to use inexpensive receivers to measure the subtle drift of receivers placed on each side of the San Andreas Fault. But the "dithering" was defeating her work. So she worked out a way to make thousands of measurements each day. She then did statistical analyses of the points to obtain one very-accurate "pseudo-point" each day. I doubt if the generals were much amused by this!

6. Note that MapBlast! returns the lat and long of any point shown on its maps. Their accuracy is a bit much, though. They specify lat and long to something like 0.00001-degrees! Best Regards, Rick Shaffer

Thanks, Rick. Cool info. 8-)

Curiously, different mapping software packages may use a different datum (measuring starting point), which can lead to curious effects when you get down to precise measurements: For example, I live on the coast, and many points on land (according to my GPS and my dry feet) are actually slightly in the water, according to sites like MapQuest and MapBlast! But generally,  as long as you stay within one mapping system, everything matches fine. <g>

While most of the GPS-related email was positive, several readers expressed privacy concerns. For example:

Dear Mr. Langa, I'm a German criminal defense attorney. While I agree with you that GPS is most useful as a navigation tool, it also represents a very "useful" instrument for people who want to know where you are. Easy to find out as GPS is increasingly used in Mobile Phones, for example. Try and make an "Emergency Call" to somebody's phone company and ask them if they can tell you where you friend who forgot to take his medicine currently is driving around; they may tell you.

While this may be useful when you want to know where your kids are, it's definitely something that allows third parties - whoever that may be - to know exactly where you're going, where you were last night, etc.; and in this case it does nothing but seriously interfere with anybody's privacy rights. And I really don't care if this third party is the government (or your local police station). I'm not sure if your country's laws protect the privacy rights regarding these GPS issues. But I certainly like to know who knows about my travel habits. Btw Do you know if your GPS in your car has some sort of a built-in "spyware" that tells the satellite where you currently are, instead of only telling you where you want to go? And I very much appreciate your newsletter. Kind regards, Hans J. Hauschild

Standard handheld consumer GPS units are receive-only. Nothing is sent to the satellites: The GPS units only listen to the time signals transmitted by the satellites, and transmit nothing.

You can get GPSes that transmit, but you have to pay extra: There are some hand-held 2-way radios with GPSes built in, for example, and there are special tracking units (used by, say, the trucking industry) that have location-broadcasting capabilities. But these capabilities require extra hardware, so so you pay more. Normal handheld units don't and can't broadcast your location.

On the other hand, cell phones by definition can and do broadcast: They are two-way devices. This means a cell phone location can be tracked without any GPS: Triangulation from the cell phone towers is all that's needed.

So, normally, using a GPS by itself does not make you trackable unless you've deliberately paid extra for a GPS with broadcast capabilities. Standard GPSes are no privacy threat. <g>

More excellent reader feedback on GPSes:
http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020425S0004

Click to email this item to a friend
  http://www.langa.com/sendit2.htm

return to top of page

2) "CrazyBrowser"

Dear Fred, I've found a browser that has a neat built in popup ad killer. It is called Crazy Browser (CB) http://www.crazybrowser.com . To kill a popup ad, all you need to do is hit F8, then OK when a dialogue box comes up with the URL of the unwated ad. The ad will immediately close and you will never see it again.

In addition CB is fast, has the Opera feature of multiple web sites inside the browser and remembers last websites opened when restarting. It uses the resources of IE, but gets rid of the junk bells and whistles that make IE such a pain at times. CB rarely crashes (even when using WinME). It has an uncluttered interface, and I've leaded 20 web sites in almost no time using a 56K dialup modem.

I have all the major browsers including IE6, MSN, NS 4.78, NS 4.79, NS 6.2, Opera 6.0 (which I had to uninstall because it kept giving me messages of not enough resources when it was the only program operating, and I only had one web site open) and Smart Explorer, but CB beats them all. --- Oh - Yes it's free. Howie Mirkin, Bangkok

Thanks, Howie. This appears to be one of a class of browsers that's actually a front end that hooks into the browser plumbing built into Windows. One clue: Crazy Browser is just a 700K download--- nowhere nearly enough to comprise a complete, stand-alone browser.

That's not a criticism: It makes some sense not to reinvent the wheel. By reusing the web components already built into Windows, browsers like CrazyBrowser can change the way browsing looks and feels and works, without having to start completely from scratch.

Click to email this item to a friend
  http://www.langa.com/sendit2.htm

return to top of page

3) More On System Resource Issues

Hi Fred, Enjoy your Langa List. Your latest issue refers to a loss of resources. [See "Resource Use" at http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2002/2002-05-06.htm#3 ] This is exactly the issue I have had to work with for over four months. In my case, it takes about an hour before my system crashes for lack of resources. I think it would be very helpful if in a follow up comment you could point (to those of us who suffer from this malady) in the right direction to correct the problem. My problem is that I know I've got a problem but I don't know what to call it and therefore don't know what words to research to find the underlying cause of the problem so I can correct it. Keep up the good work. I really appreciate that you are out there. Jim Hughes, (a Lanqa List Plus! subscriber).

I've been reluctant to give back-links to older WinMag articles because the Techweb servers they live on are spotty: Many times, an article will be reported as "not found." I've asked for permission to post these old articles on my own site, where I can ensure they'll be available, but so far, there's no word on whether or not I'll be able to do that.

Meanwhile, if the Techweb links are working, you'll find everything you need to know about System Resource issues here:

http://content.techweb.com/winmag/columns/explorer/2000/11.htm
http://content.techweb.com/winmag/columns/explorer/2000/12.htm
http://content.techweb.com/winmag/columns/explorer/2000/13.htm
http://content.techweb.com/winmag/columns/explorer/2000/14.htm

Click to email this item to a friend
  http://www.langa.com/sendit2.htm

return to top of page

4) Search Engine Snooping?

Hi Fred! I'm a long time enthusiast of your LangaList... I ran across an interesting article by Marc Roessler about the information that is leaked by some of the most popular search engines and the privacy risks associated with it.
Check out http://www.franken.de/users/tentacle/papers/search-privacy.txt

This might make an interesting mention for the LangaList as privacy whilst surfing is something you discuss fairly often. Simeon Nevel

Thanks, Simeon. Indeed, the potential for snooping is enormous: You can learn a lot about a person by knowing what sort of things they search for.

The above article goes into considerable depth to examine the behavior of many of the most popular search engines, including:

www.altavista.com
www.excite.com
www.google.com
www.lycos.com
www.hotbot.com
www.webcrawler.com
www.yahoo.com
www.metacrawler.com
www.looksmart.com
www.directhit.com
www.goto.com
www.go.com (same as www.infoseek.com)
www.mamma.com

If your favorite search engine is listed, it's worth checking to see what kinds of snooping it might be doing. (BTW: The search engine we recommend the most--- Google--- is quite "clean" and above board; the report's author discovered no Google snooping going on. Whew! <g>)

Click to email this item to a friend
  http://www.langa.com/sendit2.htm

return to top of page

5) Weird Problem

Every now and again, a reader sends in a problem that leaves me scratching my head:

Hi Fred, I am getting pretty desperate here. I have a copy of XP Pro running, and everything works very well except for the clock! It cannot keep time. I checked the internal battery and it is fine. I even replaced it. That is not the problem.

Here is where it gets weird. For the past 24 hours it has kept time perfectly. No problems. Sometimes though, I can watch the seconds tick by, only they take 1.5 seconds! I have played with the automatic update option, turned it on and off. Nothing seems to work. And again, the computer will go weeks at a time without a problem and then suddenly I'll be an hour late for something. Any ideas? Thanks in advance. --- Jonny Lieberman

That is truly bizarre. But here's what I'd suggest:

First, reboot and enter your PC's BIOS setup program when the system starts (usually, you have to press the DEL or some other specified key just as the system wakes up). Look at the time reported by the BIOS setup program--- it's usually on the first page of the BIOS settings.

If that's wrong and shows the same half-second per second error, your system's firmware "real time clock" (RTC) is suspect. It's often part of the BIOS chip; they're normally extremely reliable and rarely have problems: As long as these clocks get power, they usually last just about forever. So, if there's a problem at the BIOS level, check out the power being delivered to the clock.

You said you replaced the battery; if you're sure the new battery was fresh and correctly installed, we'll assume that's not the problem. But you still might want to ensure that the battery's socket or contacts are clean and making good connections. If the BIOS/RTC is a socketed chip or assembly, you might want to ensure the entire chip or assembly is firmly seated in its socket, and that there's good electrical contact between the pins and the socket.

This gets a little geekier, but you may want to check the voltages being delivered to the motherboard by your power supply: An inexpensive digital multimeter and the specs listed in your owner's manual can let you explore this avenue.

If none of that reveals the source of the problem, and the BIOS setup still shows a timing error, I'd suggest replacing the BIOS and/or real-time-clock. Your system vendor or BIOS specialty vendors ( http://www.google.com/search?q=replacement+bios ) should be able to provide the part.

But if the BIOS setup never shows the half-second per second timing error, and the software-driven Windows clock *does* show the problem, that would suggest that your hardware is OK, but that some software problem is preventing the software-driven clock from incrementing in a timely fashion. I have no clue as to what would interfere with the OS at so low a level, but whatever it is must be very bad indeed. I'd do a complete reformat/reinstall as the next step.

Other than those vague and perhaps not very helpful suggestions, I'm out of ideas. (Sorry!) Maybe readers have other suggestions?

Click to email this item to a friend
  http://www.langa.com/sendit2.htm

return to top of page

6) Want $10,000 To Spend This Summer?

The Recommend-It site gives away up to $10,000 as an incentive to use their service to recommend newsletters like this one!

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 or other prizes from the folks at "Recommend-It:"
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!

Click to email this item to a friend
  http://www.langa.com/sendit2.htm

return to top of page

7) Spyware And Worms And Trojans, Oh My...

The publisher of a local website here in New Hampshire ( http://www.seacoastnh.com/ ) asked me to pull together a list of five simple, free things people can do to help shore up their defenses against viruses, worms, Trojans, and the like. The information is basic, but I thought it might be useful to some readers here, or perhaps to friends or relatives who may not be as up to speed on safe surfing as you are:

Tens of millions of computers are currently infected with viruses, worms, trojans, spyware and other malicious software. If it's on your pc, this evil software can damage your system or invade your privacy.

It's a bad situation, but it's also totally--- and I mean virtually 100%--- preventable. No one ever has to suffer from this kind of data loss or privacy invasion, because the tools and information exists to make yourself safe.

In fact, there are free tools that can get you almost all the way to total safety. These free tools, coupled with a small amount of effort--- we cover the techniques for making yourself safe in my newsletter, for example--- effectively "bolt the door" to your PC so nasty software either can't get in at all, or if it does, gets rooted out immediately, before it can do any harm.

Here are 5 FREE ways to improve your PC's protection:

1) No one antivirus package by itself can be 100% effective against all viruses, worms, and Trojans, 100% of the time. It makes sense to use two different tools from time to time, so they can double-check each other.

For example, here are two FREE online antivirus scans that can check any system in minutes: http://www.symantec.com/securitycheck/ and http://www.pcpitstop.com/antivirus/default.asp

2) If you discover a virus, worm, or Trojan on your system, most of the major antivirus sites (like http://www.symantec.com ) offer free step-by-step instructions for removing the pests. Better still, many also offer free automatic pest-removal tools. For example, see the free Worm/Virus removal tools halfway down the page on the right at http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/

3) Although they may also catch other kinds of evil software, antivirus tools focus on mainly on viruses. Other free software tools may be better at seeking out other forms of malicious software on your PC:

For example, PestPatrol ( http://www.pestpatrol.com/promo/langa/0506.asp ) has a free download that searches your hard drive for something like 25,000 kinds of spyware, hacker tools, and other unwelcome additions. And Ad-Aware ( http://www.lavasoft.nu/ ) has a free tool that detects and removes "spyware" that can covertly gather information about your online activities and secretly send it to a distant web site.

Once your system is clean of all types of malicious software, keep it that way by running the tools listed above periodically. Then, do the following:

4) You can help prevent nasty software from ever making it onto your system in the first place with a good, free software firewall such as ZoneAlarm ( http://www.zonealarm.com/ ) or Sygate Personal Firewall ( http://soho.sygate.com/products/shield_ov.htm )

5) Help ensure that any evil files that do make it onto your system are nipped in the bud before they can do any harm with good antivirus software. You can download a free full-blown antivirus software package from http://www.grisoft.com/html/us_index.htm

Click to email this item to a friend
  http://www.langa.com/sendit2.htm

return to top of page

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/randomlink.htm

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

5,000+ References
http://www.myacademiconlyhomepage.com/

Freeware
http://www.scorpiosw.com/badf300/

Bergen County Internet Tutor
http://members.aol.com/jbjtutor/olhelp2w.htm#newspaper

Two Trips To Europe, 50+ Years Apart
http://members.shaw.ca/cfc/index.htm

Ritualo Family
http://www.ritualofamily.bravepages.com/

RTC TechWeb
http://www.ruminski.com/rtc/

Bruce Heckler
http://members.cox.net/bbhecker/

LA QUINTA HIGH SCHOOL
http://dreamer.www2.50megs.com/coolsite.htm

Message Center
http://sixmessagecenter.homestead.com/

Soundwaves (Chicago band)
http://www.soundwavesband.com/

Fianna (Paintball)
http://www.geocities.com/fiannapaintball/index.html

Click to email this item to a friend
  http://www.langa.com/sendit2.htm

return to top of page

9) More On XP Password-Expiration Woes

Hi Fred, As an addition to the XP password issue ( http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2002/2002-05-06.htm#5 ), there is an 'issue' if you're on a domain that XP Pro may not remind you that it is expiring. This can be a real pain when your rights are unexpectedly taken away... Explanation:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q313194 --- Dylan Pegoraro

Thanks, Dylan.

This might look like a pretty specific problem--- it pertains only to people using Windows XP Pro and logging onto Windows 2000-based domain; in that case, Windows XP may not tell you when your password is about to expire, and you can end up locked out.

But while this sounds like an arcane issue, on the same day that Dylan sent in this tip, I got an email from a reader who found himself locked out for exactly this reason, so it does happen! 8-)

Microsoft has a fix for the problem; you can get more info via the above link.

Click to email this item to a friend
  http://www.langa.com/sendit2.htm

return to top of page

10) Just For Grins

Reader Brian Hermans sends this along, to be "sung to the tune of 'Help!' with apologies to Lennon/McCartney." (A Google search didn't turn up any prior postings--- but I don't know who the author is.)

When I was younger and quite desperate for pay,
I worked the help desk for eight hours every day.
End users called me up to tell me what was wrong,
And now I find, it fried my mind, I worked "the desk" too long.

"Help me if you can, my system's down!
And a reboot didn't bring it back 'round!
Should it make that awful grinding sound?
Help desk pleeeeeease, please help me!"

And now my work has changed in oh so many ways,
I wrangle data; I'm an MCDBA.
But now and then the help desk sneaks into my dreams,
I'm taking calls, I'm up the walls, I wake up with a scream.

"Help me if you can my system's down!
I read virus-laden e-mails by the pound!
All my data's one big steaming mound!
Help desk PLEEEEASE, PLEASE HELP ME!"

When I was younger and quite desperate for pay,
I worked the help desk for eight hours every day.
But now I wish that I could travel back in time,
I wouldn't cry, if only I could leave that desk behind.

"Help me if you can my system's down!
Spilled my coffee, now my hard drive's full of grounds!
Lost my pictures filled with women bound!
HELP DESK PLEEEEEEASE, PLEASE HELP ME!
HELP ME!
HELP ME! Oooooooo...."

Click to email this item to a friend
  http://www.langa.com/sendit2.htm

return to top of page

11) Plus! Edition Highlights

• "Handy Little Piece of Freeware"
• Curing Windows Update Problems
• "Splitter" For Large Files And Directories

Today's LangaList Plus! Edition contains all ten items above, plus about 30% more content including: A freeware tool that gives you an easy way to control every possible file attribute, even on files that Windows doesn't want you to touch; a way to force Windows Update to work in safe, step-by-step mode so you can better monitor exactly what it's doing and see what (if anything) is going wrong; and a tool lets you fit even gigantic files or directory structures onto small media, like floppies.

The Plus! Edition costs just pennies per issue! http://www.langa.com/plus.htm 

Click to email this item to a friend
  http://www.langa.com/sendit2.htm

return to top of page

See you next issue!

Best,

Fred

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.

return to top of page

Administrivia:

UNSUBSCRIBE: From the same email account you used to sign up with), send an email to
unsubscribe-langalist@lyris.dundee.net

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

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

This is a 100% OPT-IN newsletter: See http://www.langa.com/info.htm

About the advertisers: http://www.langa.com/privacy.htm#ads

Disclaimer: http://www.langa.com/legal.htm  In brief: 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 your choosing to use any information presented here.

This newsletter is a service of Langa Consulting LLC and is Copyright © 1997-2005 Fred Langa/ Langa Consulting LLC. All worldwide rights reserved. LangaList: ISSN 1533-1156

return to top of page