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 a prize!)

An easier-to read formatted HTML version of this newsletter is available
<a href=" LangaList Std Edition 2003-11-03 ">here</a>

The LangaList
Standard Edition

2003-11-03

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!

--- ( Your Clicks On Ad Links Help Keep The LangaList S.E. Free! ) ---

"Mr. Langa, Your 'Plus' is the ONLY newsletter that I have found to be
worth more than the subscription fee... I have signed up a friend
as a gift to him, and he is, also, extremely impressed." ---Michael Ludlum

Thank you, Michael!

The LangaList Plus! Edition comes with a MONEY BACK guarantee
from Fred, and is ad-free, spam-proof,
and contains even more content--- tips, tricks, advice, downloads....---
than the Standard Edition you're now reading.

Get all the details:

<a href=" http://www.langa.com/plus.htm ">Click!</a>

--------------( the above is an advertisement )--------------

1) Time To Check your CDRs

Almost three years ago, in "Is Your Data Disappearing?"
( http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20010719S0003 ) we discussed the likely lifespan of burn-it-yourself CDRs--- an important consideration when you're using CDs to archive data for long-term storage. At that time, even the cheapest CD blanks were thought to be good for at least 10 years after burning, with some premium CDR types possibly good for as long as a century.

Those estimates were based on accelerated aging tests performed on the various dyes used in CDRs or CDRWs: The dye layer is what actually carries the data in a CD, and also is what gives the disk its characteristic color--- blue, silver, green, etc.

But the conventional wisdom about CDR longevity was called into question several months ago with a series of tests originally presented in the Dutch "PC-Active" magazine and widely recirculated on English-language web sites. Those tests suggest that many CDs may fail in as little as two years!

That article sent many of your fellow readers (and me!) back into our libraries of old CDs to see how they're holding up.

I've tested many of the over 1,000 CDRs I have in my library, and did indeed find several failures--- but all those problems could be traced to a single characteristic that all my damaged disks shared. What's more, other readers who performed their own tests also saw patterns in the failures.

This is actually good news: If the failures follow repeatable patterns, it stands to reason that avoiding those specific known-troublesome issues should result in very long life for your CDRs.

I spell out all the details and make very specific recommendations in the new article live now at
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=15800263

I'll also include links to other articles, from the general to the deeply technical, so you can explore this issue to whatever depth you want.

If you burn CDs or CDRWs, please check out this important information, and then join in the discussion: Have you checked your old CDs? Have you discovered problems? If so, are there patterns to the failures? If you have no or few CD failures, what storage methods are you using; what tips can you share to help others achieve long storage life?

See you at
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=15800263

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

return to top of page

2) Worldwide Email Test

You folks are amazing! In "Let's Test Email Reliability" ( http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2003/2003-10-23.htm#2 ) I asked for volunteers in a worldwide experiment. I needed maybe 500 volunteers for the test. But your response was incredible. Some 18 hours after my request went out, I had to shut down the email address used for volunteering because over 10,000 people had already signed up. Ten thousand volunteers in 18 hours! And I know that many thousands more tried to sign up after I stopped taking names. Holy cow!

With so many volunteers, I need to redesign the test a bit to make it all manageable.  I'm noodling that through now, and should be contacting the volunteers in a week or two.

My thanks to all who volunteered--- or tried to! Stay tuned!

3) "System Volume Information?" (XP and WinME)

Hi Fred, I am sure this is somewhere in the archives, but I can't seem to find it. I am running XP Professional [but this also applies to WinME], and I have a hidden folder called System Volume Information that is over 6Gb and 31% of the total used space on my computer. What is this folder for, and can I delete it safely? Thanks, Cliff Bassett

You can reduce it, but not by simple deletion. The biggest part of the "System Volume Information" folder is the "Restore Points" created by System Restore--- a Windows utility that's something like "GoBack" that lets you undo or roll back some system changes in the event that something--- an update, upgrade, new software install, whatever--- doesn't work out.

System Restore can be useful, up to a very limited point. But it's really only an emergency tool, and is not meant to take the place of normal backups. (For that matter, tools like GoBack also aren't meant to take the place of backups: Even GoBack's own documentation stresses that.)

On its own, System Restore is a space hog--- hence the large size of the System Volume Information folder. But System Restore isn't hard to control. In fact, the article "Maximizing System Restore In WinME and WinXP"
http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020711S0009 will walk you through the whole process. You can even turn off System Restore completely, which drives the System Volume Information folder down to the smallest possible size.

Note that it wouldn't make sense to try to remove the System Volume Information folder directly because (1) the OS will fight you and (2) if System Restore is still running, the folder will simply come back, and eventually will be just as big as before.

But by controlling what goes into the System Volume Information folder in the first place--- that is, by controlling System Restore--- you can manage the size of the System Volume Information folder, and also gain a little more control over your PC.

More info:

Understanding The Differences: GoBack, System Restore, Backups, Images... http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2001/2001-12-03.htm#1

Easy, Lightweight Rollback Tools:
http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2003/2003-06-09.htm#5

How To Access The System Volume Information folder:
http://www.theeldergeek.com/system_volume_information_folder1.htm

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

return to top of page

4) OpenOffice Feedback

Many of you tried out the free Microsoft-Office workalike, OpenOffice (see "Best-Ever FREE Office Suite Upgraded"
http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2003/2003-10-09.htm#2 ). Most loved it--- but not everyone.

Here are some sample negatives:

Fred, I read your discussion of OpenOffice with considerable interest, because I had just tried switching to OpenOffice as part of a new WinXP configuration for my developers. These machines do not have MSOffice installed, except for MSAccess, so OOo is the default application for MSOffice document types. While basic functionality is fine, we ran into a show-stopper yesterday. When we use Internet Explorer to open a web page that has links to MSOffice documents, and try to open one of those linked documents (whether .doc, .xls or .ppt), OpenOffice fails to load, and generates an error that locks up that session of IE. The only way out is to Ctrl-Alt-Del and abort the "soffice" application. I've searched through Google newsgroups and some OpenOffice and StarOffice sites, and cannot find any reference to this problem. I can't afford to spend huge amounts of time on this, so today I'll probably have to remove OpenOffice from the image I'm configuring for my developers. It's really too bad, because I was looking forward to finding an open-source replacement for most of the MSOffice suite. Thanks, Steve Carter

Hi Fred, At your recommendation, I downloaded OpenOffice 1.1 and tried it out. I was very happy to see that it now supports Hebrew (i.e. it has right-to-left functionability), but I must tell you that, in my opinion, it's still not up to par. Though it's easy enough to change the text direction, spreadsheets cannot, as far as I could tell, be set up from right to left so that the first column is on the right-hand side rather than the left-hand side. Microsoft Excel DOES have the capability and it's essential for anyone creating spreadsheets in a right-to-left language. When I tried to open one of my Hebrew Excel spreadsheets in OpenOffice Calc, I found that all of the column had been reversed my first column, which was on the right in Excel, was now on the left, which makes absolutely no sense in a Hebrew spreadsheet. I was really hoping that OpenOffice 1.1 might serve as a replacement for MS Office (because my MS Office 2000 CD has disappeared into thin air and I'm afraid it's lost forever), but OpenOffice appears to have a long way to go before it meets the needs of those of us who write "backwards". ---Bari Nirenberg

Indeed, no software is perfect; and no software fits all users' needs. But because OO is Open Source, every registered (free) user is actually a tester; and any registered user can report bugs or make suggestions. Bug reports and feature requests are assigned a priority; in theory, the issues that affect the largest numbers of users bubble to the top of the "to do" lists.

I still think that OpenOffice ( http://www.openoffice.org/ ) is a great tool for most users--- especially when you factor in the price: It's free! (See related next item, too.)

Of course, we've also covered other free office suites in the past, especially in the Plus! edition; and some readers wrote in again to specifically highlight these two:

I see that you are touting open office. But I have been using another free office suite called 602..http://www.software602.com/download/  --Martin Borho

Fred, As a Plus subscriber, I am always on the lookout for a good deal. This looks like one. It is also helpful if one has a DSL or Cable Modem for fast download, otherwise it would take several hours to d/l 76MB. EasyOffice:
http://www.e-press.com/demo_downloads.html ------ Carl Wilmoth,

Thanks to all who wrote in!

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

5) Microsoft Office 2003

I'm starting to get questions about Microsoft Office 2003. I'm taking a look, but my initial advice is this: Try a free office suite first. MS Office is ridiculously overpriced--- it can cost up to $500, depending on the version ( http://www.microsoft.com/office/editions/howtobuy/compare.mspx ). That's more than some entire low-end PCs, and more than most operating systems, including Windows itself. That's insane!

Plus, MO3 only runs on Windows 2000 and XP. If you have an older PC with WinME or 98; or if you want to try Linux or a Mac, MO3 is a very bad choice. In contrast: A FREE suite like Open Office ( http://www.openoffice.org/ ) runs on Win98/ME/NT/2000/XP, Linux and Macs, and is happy on older hardware down to ancient Pentiums with just 64MB of RAM--- one tool, many platforms, zero cost.

There are a few nice new features in MO3, but nothing I can see that justifies the ridiculously high costs. With decent alternative office tools available for free or for much less, MO3 makes sense only if your current office tools no longer meet your needs; and/or if none of the free or lower cost alternatives will work for you; and/or if you can somehow get it as a low-cost, below-retail upgrade or bundle. Outside of those conditions, I see no reason at all to move to MO3.

And even if you think MO3 might be what you need, don't fork out the big bucks until you've tried one of the trial versions to make sure MO3 really will do what you need. The trial versions are time-limited things, but can be had for the cost of shipping and handling--- $8. See http://www.microsoft.com/office/trial/default.mspx for details.

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

6) Three More Winners!

"Tvgrams," "Kja-l" and "Txgirl06" each won a FREE full one-year subscription to the LangaList Plus! edition by using the "Recommend To A Friend" form at http://www.langa.com/recommend.htm .

You see, each month I choose three winners of a new FREE ONE YEAR SUBSCRIPTION to the LangaList Plus! edition. (Existing Plus! subscribers get their current subscription extended by a full year.) 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! (Full details also available via this link): http://www.langa.com/recommend.htm

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

return to top of page

7) Linux Boot Times

Not to start a flame war, but...

On one multi-boot system I have here, with Win98 installed alongside several Linux distributions, I've noticed something odd. The system is a 1GHz box with 640MB of RAM; not a fire-breathing machine by any means, but not a wimp, either.

I have a boot manager (BootIt; http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-q=bootit&sp-a=0008002a-sp00000000 ) installed. Using a stopwatch, I timed how long each OS took to fully load. I started timing from the BootIt OS-selection screen--- that is, from the moment BootIt handed off to the selected OS. I stopped timing when the normal, default desktop was ready for use.

Redhat and Lindows Linux require a login; Win98 does not. So as not to penalize Linux, I paused their timings when the Linux login dialog appeared. With the stopwatch stopped, I entered the login info as required. I then resumed timing when I hit "enter" to complete the login. Thus, the timings for Linux are actual "machine time," and are not a reflection of how rapidly or slowly I could respond to a login prompt.

All three OSes were on exactly the same hardware, of course. The only differences were in the OSes themselves. But check this out:

Lindows 3:
1:34 to password dialog; 2:55 to full desktop

RedHat 9:
1:09  to password dialog; 1:28 to full desktop

Win98:
(no password dialog); 0:37 to full desktop

I don't want to make too much of this because it's not entirely fair: Win98 is a smaller, simpler OS than Linux. A better comparison would have been to run XP or Win2K on that box, but that's not how it's currently configured. (Maybe in a future issue...)

Still, compared to Win98, RedHat 9 took roughly three times as long to fully boot; and Lindows 3 took almost five times as long to fully boot. Kinda makes you go "Hmmmm," doesn't it?

If any of you have done similar controlled and repeatable timing tests, I'd be interested in hearing what you found.

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

Shareware Outlet
http://sharewareoutlet.com/

Raftery Family
http://home.nycap.rr.com/rafteryfamily/

Reader Art
http://www.risingfree.co.uk/users1/steevsart/index.html

The Narrative Place
http://www.thenarrativeplace.org/hub_1.htm

Heterogeneous Weblog
http://radio.weblogs.com/0129929/

DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY- CANADA
http://www.digitalphotography-canada.net/abtus.htm

The Long and Winding Road
http://members.aol.com/dcdkitty/

BellaOnline's Birds http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art1528.asp

Rich's Webspace
http://home.earthlink.net/~rmarchand10/

Off-Road Supply
http://www.willysoffroadsupply.com/info.i?cmd=builder&pageid=5

Dog Enthusiast
http://www.dogpage.ision.co.uk/index.html

Sunshine Coast (AU)
http://sunshinecoast.platypus.net.au/computers.htm

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

return to top of page

9) "ErrorLevels" and "Exit Codes"

OK, this item won't be for everyone--- it's definitely a deep-geek kind of topic--- but if you need flexibility in automating various processes on your PC, it could be a real help:

Fred, Just finished scouring your command level programming primer. ("Make Windows XP Self-Maintaining" http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=15600170 ) It was great to be reminded of the (not-so-) good old days of Command Line entry, Batch programming and even JCL! How soon we forget from whence we came.

Anyway I began to think about your reference to being sure "jobs" complete before the next one starts. You alluded to timing things and, I believe, suggesting that batch steps will not begin until the previous one has completed; true. BUT, what if a batch step ABENDS (boy is that old jargon!)? Is there any way in your CleanUp, Defrag, Back-Up batch program to ensure successive "steps" (whew another JCL term) do not execute if the previous step(s) have failed? What comes to mind is the old JCL check for "condition code = 0" otherwise skip next step, etc.

Fred, I'm not trying to go overboard, but some of us might not fully realize that batch steps do not always finish properly and it is not always good to proceed to the next step if a prior step did not properly complete. Thanks for your great work, Jim Bronson

You're almost there, Jim. Instead of "condition code" in Windows they're called "errorlevels" and "exit codes" or "return codes," which actually all refer to the same thing: They're variables automatically set by most programs when they run. These codes are usually a numeric designator that defines which specific error, if any, has occurred. An errorlevel code of "0" might mean "no error" (that is, the program completed normally), while an errorlevel of 1 might mean "failed; file not found" or something similar.

It gets a little complicated because these codes are somewhat arbitrary: You have to look them up in a programming reference for whatever software you're trying to control. But this info is usually available at the web site of the software publisher. (As a random example, here are the exit codes for XXcopy: http://www.xxcopy.com/xxcopy31.htm )

Once you know what to look for, you can build "If... then..." conditionals in your batch files and scripts to do one thing if there's been no error, or to do something else if there was an error. If you get really tricky, you can make multiple conditionals that can perform a variety of tasks, depending on what specific failure may have happened.

Most readers' eyes are already glazing over, so we'll stop here. <g> But if you want more, there's tons of great info available online.

These two specific pages will give you the gist:
http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_Systems/MSDOS/Q_20687843.html
http://www.robvanderwoude.com/index.html
and this search will take you as far as you wish to go:
http://www.google.com/search?q=if+errorlevel+batch+exit+return+code

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

return to top of page

10) Just For Grins

Reader Stefan Schaerli sent this in under the heading of "Funny Data Disasters."

Man! Not only amazing what they do, but even more amazing that they want to tell others about it! <g>

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

return to top of page

11) Plus! Edition Highlights:

Three Part Article:
Expert Advice On CD/DVD Burner/Player Repairs

Have a  CD ROM that reads slowly or not at all? A CD or DVD player that says "no disk found," or that only plays for a short time, or skips or just quits?

This three-part article, written by a Plus! reader who repairs electronics professionally, walks you through the process of correcting the most common causes of the above problems. Best of all, no exotic tools or test equipment are needed: With this guidance, these repairs are fast, easy, and very inexpensive!

DID YOU KNOW--- that Plus! subscribers have access to *many* additional special features, extra content and links on a private web site? All that, plus 30% more content in every issue, for just $1 a month!

Full Plus! Edition info: http://www.langa.com/plus.htm 

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

return to top of page

(Want to give a gift subscription to the LangaList Plus edition?
Click <a href= " http://www.langa.com/plus_gift.htm ">here</a>)

See you next issue!

Best,

Fred
( Editor@Langa.Com )

Please recommend the LangaList to a friend! (And maybe win a prize!)

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 (instant removal!): http://www.langa.com/leave_langalist.htm

SUBSCRIBE (it's free!): http://www.langa.com/join_langalist.htm

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

This newsletter is SPAM PROOF and requires two levels of subscriber confirmation before delivery begins: 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 © 2003 Fred Langa / Langa Consulting LLC. All worldwide rights reserved. LangaList: ISSN 1533-1156

return to top of page