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LangaList 2005-05-12 Please visit our sponsors and help keep the LangaList S.E. free!
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1) Valid Privacy Concerns With Google's New Tools
That article ("Google's new toolbar: Now more evil than ever") is kind of out there in its harshness. But, while I don't think there's anything to gain by claiming "The Sky Is Falling," there *is* some truth to the concerns expressed in that article. If you use Google's new tools--- Gmail, Google Desktop Search, Google Groups 2, Google Deskbar, Web Alerts, Search by Location, Google Glossary, Google News Alerts, Froogle, and more--- you need to be aware of what the risks are, so you can make an informed judgment as to the risks and benefits. I've looked at the vulnerabilities, tried to weigh the
pros and cons of I've spelled it all out--- including telling you which Google services I use and
which I avoid--- in a new InformationWeek article available (free!) at Click to email this item to a
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--------------( the above is an advertisement )------------- 2) Delete Cookies For More Speed?
Windows actively sorts and indexes your Cookies and other temporary internet files. That's why it creates data (.dat) files in the "Temporary Internet Files" areas; and why those .dat files are normally locked "in use" (and thus hard to delete) when Windows is running; and why they're regenerated if you do delete them. In normal use, with default browser settings, you can end up with vast amounts of disk space--- hundreds of megs--- of temporary files, much of it a churning mass of snippets, images, web pages, cookies, and such, all requiring the attention of the operating system. It's not a trivial task for Windows to manage all that, and it can exact a noticeable toll on performance. On the other hand, when you clean out the temporary files, Windows has that much less housekeeping to do, and less data to actively manage. Indeed, your PC may run perceptibly faster. That's why I recommend a two-pronged approach: First, reduce the amount of, um, crud that gets into the Temporary Files area in the first place. In IE, click Tools/Internet Options, and in the "Temporary Internet Files" area, click Settings. If you have a high-speed connection, set the "Amount of disk space to use" to 10MB. If you have a dial-up connection, try a 25MB setting. That's usually all you'll need; although you can always come back and increase the temporary storage allotment if you need to. Click OK, returning to the General tab. You now may wish to try the two "clear..." buttons in the "Temporary Internet Files" area, erasing the stored temporary cookies and files. Note that this action takes place only with nominally *temporary* files; nothing valuable or permanent should ever be in a "temporary" location in the first place, and so it should be safe to delete all these temporary files. But (as always) if you want 100% safety, you should back up the files before cleaning out the temporary files area. You can keep the Temp areas clean using any number of tools, including the free scripts I offer here: http://langa.com/cleanup_bat.htm I run that script on my PC every day, as part of an automated cleanup. If you keep your Temp areas relatively small and relatively clean, your PC may indeed run better, and you'll gain other benefits too, including smaller, faster backups! Click to email this item to a
friend 3) Capturing "Uncopyable" Text
Yes, some dialogs are presented in such a way that you can't swipe the text to highlight and copy it. The dialogs are usually not actual graphics, but the text is still unavailable for easy copying. It is, however, still text, and can be dug out with the right tool.
I use SnagIt, a commercial tool that's proven excellent
at capturing the uncapturable--- dialog texts, video playbacks, etc.
There are many other tools available as well, both free
and commercial: Click to email this item to a
friend --- ( Your Clicks On Ad Links Help Keep The LangaList S.E. Free! ) --- "Fred, I , like so many computer geeks get
in the habit of trying out --------------( the above is an advertisement )-------------- 4) Protecting Kids From Bad Content
The more specific term for this kind of thing is "content filtering,"
but the common, casual term is "nannyware;" and we've covered it some: http://langa.com/u/9o.htm
. Natch, Google also offers a ton of links: But I have never, ever seen content-filtering software that does a truly reliable job. It's either so lax as to be useless; or so strict that you can't talk about "every Tom, [blank], and Harry" without the software thinking it's seen a dirty word. <g> Content filtering is, at best, only a weak adjunct to active parental supervision. Ideally, place the kids' PC in a spot where you can keep an eye on things. If that's not possible, wander by the PC from time to time when the kids are using the system. With younger kids, check the PC's "History" file periodically to see where they've been going. (As the kids get older and develop a track record of trustworthiness, you can give them more freedom and privacy.) And with all kids, have "the talk:" No, not the birds and bees, but about cyberstalking, about never giving out personal information online, never agreeing to meet in real life someone who is only known to them online; about using care in what they download or allow on the PC; and so on. Good info: Click to email this item to a
friend 5) Salvaging Old "Favorites"
The "Favorites" list is really just a folder containing shortcuts to web pages. In older versions of Windows, the folder usually was \Windows\Favorites . In newer versions of Windows, it's usually in \Documents and Settings\[username]\Favorites . In any case, as you discovered, you can find the Favorites simply by hunting for any/all folders with "favorite" as part of the name. Once you've found them, you can access and edit these folders the same way you can any other folder. (If you can't see or access some of your files and folders, such as system folders, see tip #2 here: http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20011204S0009 ). You can copy URLs into or out of a Favorites folder at will; rearrange, rename, sort, create subfolders, copy/paste URLs from other locations or other Favorites folders; do whatever you want! When you're done, open IE normally, and click Favorites: You'll see your changes reflected there. Click to email this item to a
friend 6) Is This Newsletter Interesting? Useful?If you think the LangaList is a worthwhile read, maybe a friend would
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friend 7) Stuck Laptop Keys
If you're in a "nothing to lose" scenario, here's what I'd suggest: Make a full backup, as best you can. Remove all batteries from the system, including the coin-type CMOS/clock battery, if you can get at it. Put the covers back on, leaving the batteries removed. Buy a jug of distilled water and a new (or very thoroughly cleaned) pump-grip spray bottle. Fill the sprayer with distilled water. Leave the laptop unplugged, and hold it upside down--- keyboard-side down--- over a sink. Spray a fine mist of room-temperature (or bathwater temperature, if you want it warm) distilled water *up* into the keyboard, letting the water drip into the sink. Each key has four sides; spray as best you can from every angle, trying to get the clean water to flow under the keys, and to drip into the sink, carrying whatever it's dissolved or washed with it. Avoid getting water inside the laptop case, using care not to squirt water into drive bays, card slots, etc. As you work, concentrate your spraying on the keys around the known problem, but wash the whole keyboard area. From time to time, stop spraying and work all the keys, keeping the laptop upside down as you do. (Might be good to have a helper for this!) Repeat until the water's gone and/or all the keys work normally. BTW: Some laptops have keycaps that pry off fairly easily. If yours is one such, you might get better results by removing the caps before washing the keyboard area. The caps themselves can be washed separately in a sink. When you're done, keep the laptop upside down, and place the wet laptop keyboard-down on a thick towel to dry off all the water you can. When the obvious water is gone, place the laptop keyboard-down in a dry, well-ventilated place. If possible, it'd be great to elevate the laptop slightly, perhaps using something like a (cool, clean) oven rack, so air can circulate beneath the upside-down keyboard. Let it sit for a day, then try the keyboard with the unit unpowered. If it's OK, put the batteries back in, plug it in, and you're done. If the keyboard's still stuck, you can try the distilled water again, or decide if it's worth more aggressive treatments, such as increasing the water temperature (to dissolve the sugar better), or trying a right-side-up wash. More on washing your electronics: http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-q=washing&sp-a=0008002a-sp00000000 Click to email this item to a
friend 8) Code-Load Success StoryCode-loader Bill Cain writes:
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 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://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 Manually Browse All Posted-to-Date Sites Starting At Robbin's Amazing Art Smart Hair Styles Diary of a Centaur Dogs On Holiday--UK Link Collection Herold Engineering Noble PC Quantum Rift Software Jupiter Information Technology MatthewHooper Click to email this item to a
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--------------( the above is an advertisement )------------- 9) Speaking Of Laptops...
Thanks, Lucy, both for the good site suggestion, and for reminding me to mention the HotSpots: This newsletter comes out 72 times a year, but my "Web HotSpots" page is updated fully 365 times a year---a new site every day! As such, it's a great mechanism to bring you brand-new, just-available sites. Often, great new sites will show up in HotSpots before I can mention them here in the newsletter. Other times, the HotSpots site proceeds normally in its mission to bring you "Every Day, The Best, Most Interesting, Most Useful, and Strangest Sites the Web Has To Offer!" If you're not a regular Hotspots visitor, you're missing a lot. That's why tens of thousands of people actually have the HotSpots set as their home page, so every day, at log-on, they automatically get to see "The Best, Most Interesting, Most Useful, and Strangest Sites the Web Has To Offer!" Check it out at http://www.browsertune.com/flanga/hotspots.htm , and check out past HotSpots (going all the way back to 1995!) in the "HotSpots Hall Of Fame!" Click to email this item to a
friend 10) Just For Grins
Thanks, Scott. It's a little scary how computer-generated grammatical gibberish can masquerade as typical academic prose! <g> It's also kind of fun to have the site generate a paper, and then look at the citations. I did one and ended up with this as a footnote:
Gosh: Einstein, Isaac Newton and me, all collaborators. Wonderful! Click to email this item to a
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