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The LangaList
Standard Edition

2004-11-01

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) Backups via USB Cable (Good When There's No Burner)

Hi Fred, I am a very happy Plus! Subscriber.
 
My wife has a laptop that was given to her (NEW Dell) Win XP Pro, it has a 30 Gig hard drive, all she uses this for is to play some games, can I with maybe the aid of a USB cable use it for backing up my desktop using Norton Ghost? If so will this be difficult, I have about 15 gig of data on my Desktop computer. (Dell) Win XP Home. If this is not possible can I use a stand alone hard drive for this? Thank You, Phil Burt

Let me answer this in two parts. First:

Sure, it's entirely possible to transfer files--- or even entire disk images--- via a USB cable: See http://www.wown.com/j_helmig/usbmain.htm for a full explanation. Likewise, you can use an external hard drive for the images or backups.

The downside to this is that it can be slow, and there are only a few USB drivers for DOS. ( http://www.google.com/search?as_q=usb+dos&as_sitesearch=langa.com ). That means it can be difficult or impossible to do a full, absolutely-from-the-ground-up restore on a system backed up via USB because there's no way to access the backup/image until Windows is already running. Still, it's vastly better than no image/backup at all.

Second: I use a laptop/desktop setup like yours, except in reverse! My laptop--- an aging Thinkpad--- has a CD drive, but no CD burner. I created my master image/backup for the Thinkpad this way:

1) I used a partitioning tool to create a new empty partition on the laptop's hard drive. ( http://www.google.com/search?as_q=partitioning+tool&as_sitesearch=langa.com )

2) I got the laptop working as perfectly as I could--- cleaned, defragged, updated, etc.--- and then used a DOS-level imaging tool to image the C: drive, storing the image files on the new, empty partition. ( http://www.google.com/search?as_q=imaging+tool&as_sitesearch=langa.com )

3) I then used the partitioning tool to shrink the new partition until it was just large enough to hold the image files, plus a skosh more. I returned the excess free space to the C: partition. (Plus! readers only: See "Moving Free Space Between Partitions; "#14 in http://langalist.com/plus/newsletters/2004/2004-10-21plus.asp )

4) I restarted Windows, and transferred the newly-created image files to a desktop PC via local network (although I also could have used a USB cable: http://www.wown.com/j_helmig/usbmain.htm ). I used the desktop PC to burn the image files to CDs for safekeeping.

5) I used the desktop CD burner to create a DOS-bootable CD for the laptop. ( http://www.google.com/search?as_q=bootable+cd&as_sitesearch=langa.com ) Along with the normal boot files, I placed a copy of all my normal maintenance and recovery tools, and the partitioning/imaging tool I used in steps 1 and 2. (See http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=10818064)

If I ever need to roll the laptop back to the "perfect" stored image, I can boot from the CD, use the diagnostic/maintenance tools to get the laptop healthy, and then use the imaging tool to rebuild the C: drive, using the image files stored on the hard drive. If those files have been lost for any reason, I can restore the laptop's C: drive from the CD copies of the image I created in step 4.

Clearly, this is a little clumsy, but it shows how you can work around things like the lack of a burner or even lack of a network to create a safe, reliable backup or image for just about any PC or laptop you might have.

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"Thanks Fred! Your newsletter is fantastic,
and for less than a buck a month? Who can resist?"---yamahablueblood

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Yes, it's just $12 for a FULL YEAR of issues
 for new Plus! subscribers,
and only $11 a year to renew.

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:
http://langa.com/plus.htm

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

2) Unattended Windows Setup

Hi Fred: I am blind and I have had much experience with this scenario: I have used the following Windows unattended kit with success. Simply follow the instructions in the readme file.  It's mainly inserting information into the already made script file.  You'll need floppy disk access. Start the computer, walk away for a few minutes and then press the key combination to load up narrator for speech assistance during the post setup configuration. You can find this package at: http://www.jfwlite.com/programs.html Just do a search for: "Windows XP Unattended Setup Kit Download" Hope this helps. Cheers, Martin

Thanks, Martin! The Unattended Setup Kit can be helpful to anyone, especially if the same or similar setups are being used repeatedly; and the speech prompting also can be useful to all--- not just to blind or low-vision users. For example, I find some voice-prompt tools useful in my office because I can start a process and then work on another PC across the room, knowing that the first PC will speak to me when it's ready for the next input!

Tools like those on the page you sent can be useful to *all* PC users. Thanks!

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3) Two Free Reader-Recommended Search Tools

Hi Fred, I use 2 search tools, both free -  your readers might find them useful.
 
To search my hard drives for documents and files I use Agent Ransack ( http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/default.aspx ). It does not need to index the drives and can search on file names, extensions and contents. It also allows the use of regular expressions.
 
To search my 600 or so IE Favourites I use Quick Favorite Search ( http://www.geocities.com/kikerl/ ) . A very simple tool which searches for words in the favorite description and the URL. I only need to be careful when adding to IE favorites that I insert a descriptive keyword in the favorite title.
 
The newsletter is great, keep up the good work. The info on XP SP2 that you have provided has come in very handy.
 
Cheers, Sumeet

Thanks, Sumeet!

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4) Free Disk Cleanup Utility

Hi Fred, Speaking of Disk Cleanup utilities, I stumbled across another nifty utility called the Drive Cleanup Wizard. It's free and it does it's job pretty thorough.

http://www.thejackol.com/projects/dclean

Apart from the usual Emptying IE cache, deleting windows temp files, and emptying your recycle bin, it also has three pre-defined filters to delete .bak, *.~* and *.tmp files. It has a custom filter option where you could specify other types of files to search and remove too. So for example, you could have:

index.dat,*.pw,*.bkp

and delete all such files from selected drives. It has the usual "Delete file" feature along with a "Wipe file" feature. Pretty handy, well written tool by Mikhail Esteves that installs by default into your Accessories folder as the "Drive Cleanup Wizard".

It aims at "just 3 small steps to keep your machine clean"! It shows you exactly the files it's going to delete before doing so, etc. I thought you may want to add it to your list of such tools.

Regards, Jim

Nice, Jim, Thanks!

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5) Making Room For Updates

Fred: I have an older laptop that I use for occasional work.  It is currently running Windows XP Professional.  I would like to apply SP2, but this machine only has about 300 megs of hard drive space left - not the 900 required by SP2 to install off the Microsoft CD.  Any ideas on a way around this?  The only thing I find on the Microsoft site is the requirement for the 900 meg.

Thanks, Jim Converse

If I were you, I'd try file compression on some/all of the files; this can make files occupy about half the space they'd otherwise consume:

XP Compression:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307987

General NTFS Compression Info:
http://www.google.com/search?q=ntfs+file+compression

Win98's Compression:
http://www.google.com/search?q=98+drivespace

General Compression Info:
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/file/comprProducts-c.html

And of course, you'd want to thorough clean the drive of all junk, and at least temporarily move less-used files off the hard drive to CD, another PC, etc.

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6) Is This Newsletter Interesting? Useful?

If you think the LangaList is a worthwhile read, maybe a friend would find it useful too! Just use the following link to recommend the LangaList---your friend may find a new source of useful information and you just may win one of three FREE ONE YEAR SUBSCRIPTIONS to the LangaList Plus! edition given each month. (If your name is drawn and you're already a Plus! subscriber, your current subscription will be extended by a full year.)

Check out the details at http://langa.com/recommend.htm . Thanks for recommending the LangaList--- and good luck!

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7) BEEP BEEP

The simple item, "Beep" in http://langa.com/newsletters/2004/2004-10-28.htm#4 , brought the DOS mavens out of hiding. (OK, I admit it; I'm a closet DOS fan too. <g>) Here are just a couple of the letters I received:

Fred, An even easier way to make the system speaker beep from a batch file is with the single line "@echo ^G" (where ^G is Ctrl-G). It adds nine bytes to your batch file, which is more than the 8 bytes BEEP.COM would take, but you have to call it from your batch file, so you end up "spending" more bytes with BEEP.COM. (Of course, with cluster sizes as they are, you'll be using kilobytes of storage anyway.) ---Lance

Hi Fred. In your October 28th issue someone asked about being able to make the pc speaker beep in DOS. I still use DOS daily at work (as in DOS 6.2 running on a 386). I've put the beep in a number of homemade batch files for exactly the reason that person wanted one. In a batch file, just type @echo {Ctrl+P}{Alt+07}. The stuff in curly braces are key combos, you don't literally type the line like that. You should type the 07 on the numberpad. This line works in edit; if you're using Notepad or something similar you may have to find another way to put ASCII character 7 into your batch file. That's really all you're doing: having DOS "print" character 7, which is a bell/beep. And yes, when Microsoft came out with the 20th anniversary edition of Running MS-DOS 6.22, I didn't see it as a nostalgia item but a handy reference book. Go figure. <g> ---- Mike Gurak

Thanks to all who wrote in!

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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://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://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://langa.com/randomlink.htm

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

Computer help forum
http://smartercomputing.ipbhost.com/

D&G Go Caribbean
http://members.lycos.co.uk/davidrmees/

Neris.Org
http://www.neris.org/

News Aggregator
http://members.cox.net/toplist/

Pebble Creek Weather Bluff
http://webpages.charter.net/katlon12/

Senior Citizen Driving Problems
http://members.shaw.ca/cfcv/index.htm

Water Supplies
http://internetwatersupplies.com/

Bhilai Steel City's Nirjhar Jain Home Page
http://www.geocities.com/nirjhar_jain/

Iggy Uncensored
http://iggy.gnomeblog.com/blog

Aircraft Pix
http://www.angelfire.com/al/TDsFunpage/page5.html

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9) SpazBox

Hi Fred, A friend has contracted this spazbox thing and I can't get rid of it.  I tried spybot , but no luck. I cannot load zonealarm or pestpatrol. I get error messages (they were downloaded on my machine and tried to load from cd). windows xp on both machines. Loaded hijackthis but there are some files I am not sure about and do not want to cause further damage. If I have to format and reinstall OS will not be end of the world, but I hate to let the b...rds win. Thanks for great info all the time. brooks tarver

There are two little nasties floating around the web with "spazbox" as part of their name. They started turning up a couple weeks ago.

It's still early in the game, but these sites seem to be on to a fix:

http://www.lavasoftsupport.com/index.php?showtopic=43861
(scroll down to the post from "sebsal")

http://www.askmehelpdesk.com/forum/search.php?searchid=4489

And more generally:

Search for "Spazbox" in the "Malware Removal" section of the forums at http://forums.spywareinfo.com/index.php

and see

http://www.google.com/search?q=spazbox

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=spazbox&hl=en&lr=&sa=N&tab=wg

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10) A Political Aside

This is a tech newsletter, so I won't spend a lot of time on this. I'm also adding this item as an extra in this issue, so it takes away nothing from the normal content. If you're not interested in anything political, please just skip to the next item.

But: Tomorrow is voting day for most US adults. If you're eligible, I urge you to take the time to vote.

If you're unsure of whom to support, the information here may help: http://langa.com/extras/politics.htm

Again, if you're not interested, that's fine: This item took nothing away from your normal newsletter, and is included here entirely at my own expense.

No matter which side of the political divide you're on, please vote so we'll at least get a clear winner this time with no question of the election's legitimacy.

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11) Just For Grins

Another slice of pi:

Fred, In response to the Just For Grins (in http://langa.com/newsletters/2004/2004-10-14.htm#10 ), try the link below. It shows Pi to ...let's see ....10 digits in each column,   ...5 columns. That's 50 across. I count about 88 rows. That'd be 88 times 50 = 4400 places.

There is also a link where you can download a zip file that goes to 10 million digits (10 Megadigits?).

http://lcf.www9.50megs.com/pi.html

Thanks, Stan (BTW, Great newsletter!)

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12) Plus! Edition Highlights:

• Capture Streaming Video/Audio (Free!)
     (save for later viewing, editing, etc.)
• Free Experimental Tools From MS
     (cool stuff from deep in the Redmond labs)
• Reader-Written MP3 Freeware
     (it's a screensaver, too!)

DID YOU KNOW--- that Plus! subscribers have access to 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!

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

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