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The LangaList
Standard Edition

2002-06-27

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) Speed Up Your Start Up

Good Day Fred, Greetings from Australia... I have been reading the recent discussions on 'Start Up' problems and how to control those programs that all want to start at the same time.

I have been meaning to let you know of a great little program called 'Startup Delayer...' It lets you know what programs are trying to load and then gives you the capability - as the name implies - to space your start up programs in a manner that you prefer, thereby allowing an orderly start up.

I have managed to knock 15-20 seconds off of my start up time with 25 items in the start up display. Not being an expert I don't know if this is a lot or not but friends say it is!

This program is available from 'r2 studios' at http://r2.com.au along with some other interesting items and the other good news is that it's freeware.

No, I don't have any interest in them it's pure coincidence that they are Australian!! --- Mike Bartlett

Thanks, Mike! There's actually lots of good stuff at R2 Studios --- not just Startup Delayer; well worth a look. And their startup tool is interesting. Here's what they say:

...Can you learn another language in the time it takes for your machine to boot? Do you turn on your PC when you go to bed, so it's finished booting by the time you get home from work the next day?

When Windows loads its Startup file, it attempts to load every program in there at the same time. Therefore if you have quite a lot of programs starting when Windows starts, each program will try and grab CPU time so that it can load.

If each program tries to do this at the same time, you soon notice the slow down that occurs, due to your CPU trying to help all the programs to load, and your hard disk accessing multiple files.

Startup Delayer allows you to setup how many seconds after Windows has started, to load each program.

For Example:
If you have your mail program and a special clock starting up, then you can make your mail start say 10 seconds after Windows has loaded, and then the special clock start 20 seconds after Windows Starts.... Compatable with Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP

I suspect that users with older, slower hardware, and RAM-limited systems will see the greatest benefit from this kind of tool: In those systems, heavy file access during startup can make the hard drive quite a bottleneck. The more RAM you have, and the faster your CPU and drive are, the less you'll notice such bottlenecking, and therefore the less beneficial a "delayer" tool will be.

But as this is a free  download, it wouldn't hurt for anyone to give it a try. <g>

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2) *Easily* Make Your Own Bootable CD ROMs

Reader Morris Grissom asked:

Can you suggest an easy way of creating a bootable CD... Thanks, Morris

Most CD burner software--- such as Nero--- will let you do this; although some make it easier than others. There are also significant differences in the process depending on what OS you want to boot. (Boot CDs based on the basic DOS components of Win9x are perhaps the easiest of all to set up.)

Assuming your PC's BIOS allows booting from a CD--- and almost all PCs made in the last several years do so--- it can be very handy to place all your maintenance files and utilities on a single bootable CD, and use that when needed: It's far more convenient than booting from a floppy and then digging up your maintenance tools one by one from other floppies or from the hard drive (which may or may not be accessible).

In other cases, a bootable CD may be the only good way to recover from serious problems: My laptop, for example, has no floppy drive at all. If the hard drive has trouble, the bootable CD I made for it (filled with maintenance/recovery tools) is how I'll get going again.

Over the last few months, several readers have suggested one site above all others for comprehensive information on creating all kinds of bootable CDs. It's "Bart’s way to create bootable CD-ROMs" at http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd . It's an outstanding resource!

Thanks to all who suggested it.

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3) Firewalls For Old (And I Mean *Old*) Hardware

Fred, I have several old IBM 486 DX laptops that I, and my family, use as "portable word processors". Unfortunately these machines have a proprietary IBM hard drive type (MCA) that means that Win9X runs in MS-DOS compatibility mode on these hard drives. (see Q134452). And as the machines only have a maximum of 16 MB RAM (the credit card type) and a 110MB hard drive I decided to run them with Win3.11

This is fine when all that is needed is the word processing (Word 6 with extra conversion filters for later Word formats). And the only Y2k update required was an updated version of the File Manager.

But, my problem is that I have installed a TCP/IP stack and a 16 bit version of Eudora and we do use the machines to access the Internet for email.

Actually, I have mentioned this to friends and it turns out that there are a lot of old laptops running Win3.X out there. They work fine if all you need is a portable word processor.

My Question Is there a 16 bit Firewall available? I can't find one mentioned anywhere.

On the machines I have, the TCP/IP stack is installed by Internet Explorer 2.2 (IE 3 crashes on them) so security updates for the very likely numerous vulnerabilities on them are not to be found.

BTW the Win32s emulation is installed, so there is a limited 32 bit functionality.

Kind regards, Mark Winthrop of Copenhagen, Denmark

If there still are true DOS firewalls out there, they're well hidden--- they either don't exist, or are lost in the sauce of thousands of sites that discuss "Denial of Service" firewall attacks--- also called DoS.

So, I'd suggest one of two things: Because you have only 16 MB of RAM to play with, adding any new software to the mix is going to slow things down and increase swapfile activity. For that reason, I'd suggest you first look at providing the firewall by means of an external device. If you can connect through another PC's shared Internet connection, for example, you can use something like WinProxy, Wingate, Sygate, or similar software running on the newer PC to provide protection to the older PCs that connect through it. Or, you can use a router/NAT/Switch/etc with built-in firewalling to do the same thing.

If that's not possible, then I'd suggest you look at some of the software firewalls that list Win95 compatibility among their attributes: Win32S and Win95 apps existed at the same point in time, so it's possible that a simple software firewall that's Win95 compatible will work on Win3.1 with the Win32S add-on. It's worth a try anyway.

Surprisingly, some of the major names in personal firewalls--- ZoneAlarm ( http://www.zonelabs.com/ ) and Sygate ( http://soho.sygate.com/default.htm ) still mention Win95 compatibility in their FAQs, so they might be a place to start.

If they don't work, the discussion area at http://www.isc.org/services/public/lists/firewalls.html may help, as might a general (but laborious) search through
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=dos+firewall&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search

Good luck!

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4) Free Mozilla Add-Ins/Ons

If reader mail is any indication, *lots* of you are experimenting with the new Mozilla browser ( http://mozilla.org ) :

Fred: Re Mozilla:. At first, the one thing I missed about Mozilla was a spell checker. Then I found out it's easy to get one, just download from http://spellchecker.mozdev.org/  -- works fine. --- Billie J. H. Abraham

Indeed, the main site at http://www.mozdev.org/ has links to software "projects" involving alternative user interfaces, "Hide the banners" tools, advanced bookmark management tools, search toolbar applications, and more.

But note: The site MozDev site can be incredibly slow. Please be patient when you access it.

The Mozilla home page itself ( http://mozilla.org ) has many good links; and a number of readers also have suggested http://www.xulplanet.com as yet another good site for skins and other Mozilla add-ons.

Good stuff. Thanks to all who have written in!

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5) Think I Was Exaggerating About Deleted Files?

Sometime, I touch on a subject that makes at least some of you think I'm (ahem) blowing something out of proportion. <g> One such was my recent mention of how easy it is to recover files that had been deleted; even from disks that had been reformatted or "wiped."

Right around the time I wrote that, the Boston Globe carried a story about a local guy (named Farwell) who's made a business of recovering data from hard drives, including those that were purposefully wiped clean with special software.

Here's a snippet from the Globe piece:

Want to delete data from your computer? Here's the Farwell approach: "You take the drive out and you hit it with a sledgehammer — and then you shred it." Anything less, and he's going to resurrect some of that data.

Just in case you think *he's* exaggerating, here's the rest of the eye-opening piece on the art, science and business of data-recovery:
http://digitalmass.boston.com/news/globe_tech/upgrade/2002/0617.html

8-)

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6) Last Days To Enter June's FREE Drawing

On June 30, I'll choose another monthly winner of a no-strings $30 Gift Certificate for any item at Amazon.Com--- books, software, hardware, kitchenware, toys... 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 shopping spree! (Full details also available via this link): http://www.langa.com/recommend.htm

The more times you make a recommendation, the greater your chances are of winning!

Or, if you'd like to try to win $10,000(!), try this link (full details also available here):
http://www.recommend-it.com/l.z.e?s=143182

Either way, thank you, and good luck!

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7) WinXP Power Tools Book

Those of you who used to read the late, lamented Windows Magazine may recall columnist Jim Boyce. Well, he's been busy writing the just-published "Windows XP Power Tools." It's a beast of a book--- over 800 pages, plus a CD full of software.

You can read the book front to back, or jump around by subject areas: Every important topic is covered ranging (at one end of the spectrum) from introductory "what's the difference between XP and Win98 or 2000" to (at the other end of the spectrum) detailed info on networking, security, and customizations.

It's a useful book that I'm glad to have on my shelf.

Want to see some reader reviews? Or: Want to grab a copy at fully 30% off the cover price? Click here: http://www.langa.com/books.htm .

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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/randomlink.htm

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

Sharp Wizard OZ7xx downloads/reviews/ratings/Tips/etc.
http://www.molyda.com/

RODEO'S AUCTIONEERING SERVICES
http://www.rodeos-enterprises.com/

Andrew's PC Help and Consulting Pages
http://www.pchelpandconsulting.com/

McCann's Web Page
http://2waytrucking.com\james\

Mimi's (Green Bay, WI)
http://www.mimi-online.com/

Caffeine Riddled Blog
http://botchka0.tripod.com/

Link Swap
http://www.links-swap.com/

PC Security Tips
http://www.angelfire.com/linux/techtips/

webwork hawaii
http://www.webworkhawaii.com/Details/details.html

The Elder Geek
http://www.theeldergeek.com/

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9) "Fly" Over Aerial Photos Of Your Home/Office

Fred: Check out the web address below. It's a new site (loads kinda slow). Punch in your area code or home address, and it shows you a really cool aerial view of your neighborhood. All kinds of buttons to play with, too. Best, Rich.

http://terrafly.fiu.edu/

Thanks, Rich. The site involves actually an interesting, multi-part technology: Microsoft's "TerraServer" started as a demonstration of the hardware and software needed to manage truly gargantuan databases: They created a library of satellite and aerial photos of much of the earth's surface, comprising something like 3.5 terabytes of live, online data. (See http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn.com/default.asp or a new version at http://www.terraserver.com/ )   BTW, a terabyte is a thousand gigs; 2 to the 40th or 1,099,511,627,776 bytes; something Americans might commonly call a "trillion" bytes, although elsewhere it might be known as a "thousand billion" bytes. Whatever you call it, it's a boatload of bits. <g>

The Terrafly server Rich mentions takes the output of that gigantic database and stitches the images together so you can "fly" over the images, and from one image area to another. It's kinda cool!

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10) Just For Grins

This list of "things you'd love to say at work" is being passed around. I am particularly fond of the last 3. Thanks for all you do, share and teach. I've renewed my Plus subscription with pleasure! Regards, Corrine

1. I see your point, but I still think you're full of it.
2. I don't know what your problem is, but I'll bet it's hard to pronounce.
3. How about never? Is never good for you?
4. I see you've set aside this special time to humiliate yourself in public.
5. I'm really easy to get along with once you people learn to see it my way.
6. I'll try being nicer if you'll try being smarter.
7. I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message...
8. I don't work here. I'm a consultant.
9. It sounds like English, but I can't understand a word you're saying.
10. Ahhh...I see the screw-up fairy has visited us again...
11. I like you. You remind me of when I was young and stupid.
12. You are validating my inherent mistrust of strangers.
13. I have plenty of talent and vision. I just don't give a damn.
14. I'm already visualizing the duct tape over your mouth.
15. I will always cherish the initial misconceptions I had about you.
16. Thank you. We're all refreshed and challenged by your unique point of view.
17. The fact that no one understands you doesn't mean you're an artist.
18. Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental.
19. What am I? Flypaper for freaks!
20. I'm not being rude. You're just insignificant.
21. It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off.
23. And your crybaby whiny-butt opinion would be...?
24. Do I look like a people person?
25. This isn't an office. It's Hell with fluorescent lighting.
26. I started out with nothing & still have most of it left.
27. Sarcasm is just one more service we offer.
28. If I throw a stick, will you leave?
29. Errors have been made. Others will be blamed.
30. Whatever kind of look you were going for, you missed.
31. I'm trying to imagine you with a personality.
32. A cubicle is just a padded cell without a door.
33. Can I trade this job for what's behind door #1?
34. Too many freaks, not enough circuses.
35. Nice perfume. Must you marinate in it?
36. Chaos, panic, & disorder -- my work here is done.
37. How do I set a laser printer to stun?

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-

11) Plus! Edition Highlights:

• Fast, Free File Transfers
• More Free "Superware!"
• Unusual Use For A KVM Switch

Today's LangaList Plus! Edition contains all ten items above, plus about 30% more content including: A free way to move files from server to server at 1GB/min, even with a 56K connection; excellent, free tools for digital imaging work; and a reader's extremely creative use of an inexpensive KVM switch to make his computing easier.

The Plus! Edition costs just $12 for a full year. 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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