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LangaList 2003-05-26 Please visit our sponsors and help keep the LangaList S.E. free! --- ( Your Clicks On Ad Links Help Keep The LangaList Free! ) ---
--------------( the above is an advertisement )-------------- 1) False Sense Of Security
A false sense of security? Alas, yes! A good firewall can block outside hack attempts, and can even make you "invisible" to outsiders. But as soon as you connect anywhere, you're no longer invisible to the place you connected to. For example, when you go to a web site, your browser opens a connection to the server, asks the server to send you the page you want, and tells the server what your internet address is so the server will know where to send the page. (The web is a two-way, request/response medium.) If the web page that you request contains hostile code, that nasty code will arrive along with all the rest of the bits. In this case, because the hostile code isn't an external attack, but rather is something you've invited into your PC, your firewall probably will do nothing at all to protect you. OK, but won't antivirus or antitrojan software protect you? It might--- but it also might not, especially when the problem code isn't an attachment or file, but perhaps is something as simple as a deliberately malformed link that causes your browser to fail in a way a hacker can exploit. You see, often, the security holes that software patches are designed to close are problems of that sort--- small programming errors that can be triggered and exploited by something as trivial as a link inside a web page. So, yes, use a firewall. Use antivirus and anti-spyware tools, too. But you also have to correct fundamental problems in your software--- and that's why you also need to download and install security patches. But some patches cause more harm than good. How can we avoid the time-wasting
problems caused by bad patches? Indeed, how can you tell whether a patch is
worth installing in the first place? But what's *your* experience? Do you accept the default/recommended settings and let Windows manage its own updates, automatically? If so, has the process been reliable, or have you ever had to undo an update? If you opt for manual updates, how often do you check for updates, and how do you evaluate whether a given patch or update is both worthwhile and safe? Let's pool our knowledge, and see if we can lay out a strategy that yields the benefits of having an updated operating system, but without undue risk of system slowdowns or other problems! Join in the discussion at http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=9901256 ! Click to email this item to a
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--------------( the above is an advertisement )-------------- 2) Mouse GesturesNo, I'm not talking about a hand movement that Mickey might make when he's cut off on the freeway. Rather, a mouse gesture is an interesting and useful form of mouse-generated input:
I had originally planned to cover StrokeIt early this year, but it disappeared off the web. I searched again periodically for several months, and when it never returned, eventually dropped it off my "to include" list. I don't know when it came back, but I'm glad it did! It's interesting technology whose origins are in early handwriting recognition software from the 1980's. At that time, researchers found that perfect, 100% accurate handwriting recognition was actually not that hard--- provided that you had mainframe-level computational capacity, and a vast database of letterforms for comparisons! Practically speaking, that made natural handwriting recognition almost impossible because the notebook PCs of the day were anemic--- easily between 100 and 1000 times slower than today's high-end units. (Even today, with that two or three orders of magnitude increase in speed, natural handwriting recognition is still far from perfect.) So, designers of handwriting-input devices concocted simplified gestural languages--- a latter day stenography--- that users would learn and use in place of their natural writing. This shifted the burden of handwriting recognition from the hardware to the human! Eventually, there'll be enough horsepower available to let us use free-form natural handwriting on notebooks and PDAs, but even then, some elements of the gestural languages probably will persist so that users can do everything with a stylus, including erasing words, moving blocks of text, etc. That's where StrokeIt comes in:
So, in a way, you can think of StrokeIt as software for gestural "mouse motion macros." It's donationware, and fun to try. Thanks, Roberto! Click to email this item to a
friend 3) Local Error-Code Rosetta StoneIn "Deciphering Error Codes" ( http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2003/2003-05-08.htm#3 ) we discussed ways to find out what *any* error codes mean via online searches. That's the best way, because it's universal (works for all software, all operating systems, etc.) and is always up to date. But there are times when you can't get online. What then?
Thanks, Karen! Click to email this item to a
friend --- ( Help support the LangaList Standard Edition!) --- Help support the LangaList Standard Edition! Make A Small Voluntary Donation: --------------( the above is an advertisement )-------------- 4) Export/Save Your "Blocked Senders" List
It can be done, but it's a little geeky: Run Regedit (Click Start/Run, type Regedit in the Run input area and click OK.). Use the Find function (either Ctrl+F, or Edit/Find on the menu) and search for "Block Senders" (omit the quotes). If the "Block Senders" list is present in your Registry, it will appear as a highlighted item. Right click on it, select Export, pick a destination for the saved file, and give it an obvious name, such as Blocks.reg. Later, to recreate the saved list, double click on Blocks.reg (or whatever you called it), and the info in the file will be imported into the correct location in your Registry. Repeat the original Registry search (use the F3 key) and similarly save any additional blocked sender lists in your registry, giving each a separate, obvious name. If the searches don't turn up what you want, pick any item from your blocked senders list, and search for that item in the Registry--- that should surely let you locate your block list, which you can then save by the above method. There's more info in Google, via this shortened URL: http://tinyurl.com/cebi Click to email this item to a
friend 5) Avast, Me Hearties!
Thanks, Alan. Another factor: AVG is on the fence about whether future versions of their popular AV tool will be free or not. If they decide to withdraw the free version or limit its usefulness, a lot of people will be looking for a free alternative. At least for now, "Avast Home" is free for home/non-commercial use. Click to email this item to a
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--------------( the above is an advertisement )-------------- 6) Recommend It!If you think the LangaList is a worthwhile read, just
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friend 7) snaF desreveR(That's "Reversed Fans," in case you're wondering.) We've discussed how dust and dirt sucked into a PC can cause all kinds of problems--- from blue screens and other overheating issues all the way up to outright system death. Here's a simple idea--- reversing the fans--- that may help avoid all those problems:
Thanks, Vance. Many "box" type fans are in symmetric housings, and can be mounted with either side of the fan against the case. This means you can have the fan push air out of the case, or pull air into the case, with no electrical changes at all: You just unscrew the fan, flip it over, screw it back, and you're done. Click to email this item to a
friend 8) Another Code-Load Success StoryCode-loader Marat Bandemer writes:
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 thousands 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 ) View A Randomly-Chosen Reader
Site Manually Browse All
Posted-to-Date Sites Starting At Bitsmith Software Double-Hammers Wireless Computer Network Design RPG Page Bill's Place Pigeon River Fran Combar dobysoft software Computer Corner Newsletter Go2Emedia Chad's Homepage Click to email this item to a
friend 9) Controlling "Stacking" In XP's Taskbar
I actually like the auto-grouping--- I usually work with a ton of windows open, and it's handy for me when XP places multiple instances of the same program--- multiple copies of Word, or FrontPage, or NotePad, or a browser, etc.--- all behind a single taskbar button. Clicking on the button brings up a mini-menu so you can select the one window you want (or you can open them all at once). For me, this is far better than having, say, 8 or 10 separate browser buttons cluttering up the taskbar, or forcing the taskbar to double itself, or scroll off into invisibility. But if you prefer each item to have its own separate
button, here's how: Right click in an empty spot on the taskbar, select properties,
and uncheck "group similar taskbar buttons." Lots more taskbar customization options: Click to email this item to a
friend 10) Just For GrinsRandall Perry sent in this modest proposal. He wasn't sure where it started, and Google shows it on almost 2000 sites, so I can't cite its origin. But it suggests one way to avoid all the illogic and idiosyncrasies of English spelling:
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