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The LangaList
Standard Edition

2005-12-05

A Free Email Newsletter from Fred Langa
That Helps You Get More From Your Hardware, 
Software, and Time Online

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1) No GPS? No Problem!

Imagine: You're in a hotel room, partway through a trip. Your plans must change: Instead of traveling to familiar places by well-known or planned routes, you're faced with having to plan a new and somewhat complex multi-stop route on unfamiliar roads. The classic online mapping tools you've probably used before--- Yahoo, Expedia, and the like--- are meant for simple point-to-point navigation, and can't handle complex, multi-stop routes. What do you do now?

Or: Perhaps you've rented a car with a GPS unit, or have your own self-contained, whole-continent GPS unit with you. These units are meant for point-to-point navigation, and some can be hard--- or even impossible--- to use to build complex routes with multiple stops along the way. What do you do now?

Or: Perhaps you have a full-featured GPS, but unexpectedly need to travel beyond its coverage area; say, to a region beyond whatever maps are in the unit. What then?

Or: Imagine you're midway through a business trip, and want to plan a short sightseeing side trip. On the business portions of the trip, you want a fast route that saves the most time, but on the sightseeing trip, you want a route that avoids freeways and takes a deliberately inefficient, scenic path to the destination. How do you accommodate both?

In all these cases and more, you're beyond what the classic online route-planning tools can offer. Sites like Expedia ( http://www.expedia.com/ ), Mapquest ( http://www.mapquest.com ), Yahoo ( http://maps.yahoo.com ) and Google ( http://maps.google.com ) are all good for what they are; but they simply are not meant for planning complex, multi-stop routes; or for finding deliberately off-the-beaten-path directions. At the very least, you'd have to manually break your route into simple, point-to-point subsections that these mapping services could handle, and then print out the maps and directions for each segment. The resulting sheaf of paper would not only be awkward to manage, but is also potentially dangerous: a distraction for the driver.

Fortunately, there are a number of specialized mapping and routing sites that will help you develop custom, complex routes in one pass, for destinations almost anywhere in the world. I've been poring over literally dozens of these sites, trying to find the best ones for you: Ones that allow for complex routing; that let you specify variables such as preferred road types or driving speeds; that present clear, well-drawn, detailed maps; and so on. What's more, all the best sites I found are free, and accessible from anywhere--- even internet cafes or public kiosks--- so you'll never be far from access to world-class mapping/routing tools.

If you don't have a GPS, you'll find that these sites give you almost as much travel-planning flexibility as the best and most expensive GPS units.

And if you DO have a GPS--- as I do--- these free online services can be a marvelous supplemental tool.

In a moment, I'll link you not only to capsule summaries of the best mapping/routing sites I found, but also to a print-and-pocket list of the sites and their URLs that you can copy/paste and save in your laptop or PDA, or even carry in your wallet. Then, no matter where you are when you need to plan or change a trip, you'll have quick access to some of the very best tools available.
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=174402923

Click on over!

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2) Last-Ditch Data Recovery

Hi Fred, I'll keep the accolades brief: Your newsletter is hands down the most useful and informative on the net. I recommend it all the time.  I trouble shoot computers constantly. Not surprisingly, I spend as much time helping family and friends after hours as I do wrestling with PCs at the office.  Now my sister has come up with a glitch that truly has me stumped. She has a USB hard disk where she keeps her school work. Recently one of the folders became unreadable and the system (Windows XP) told her it was corrupt. I suggested she run Scandisk and now the folder is gone! I checked the Recycle Bin and used an undelete program (Restoration) but it doesn't show up. I checked a backup made before running Scandisk but it's
not there either. (I suspect that's because the folder was unreadable and thus never backed up.)

I searched the net for info on Scandisk deleting corrupt files/folders but came up empty-handed. Any ideas? Thanks, Stefan

Ouch. The data may be recoverable, but you probably aren't going to enjoy the experience. <g>

What occurred can actually happen on any disk--- if the data is hosed badly enough, or if the records of where the data is located are themselves hosed, there may be nothing that Windows can access or save on its own. If Chkdsk can't correct the problem, then the data is, in effect, abandoned; it doesn't immediately get deleted or overwritten, but its space is marked as "unused/available." That means it *will* be overwritten at some point in the future if you continue using the disk. But if you stop using the disk, the data is still there (although unavailable to Windows); and you may be able to get some of the noncorrupted data back. The key thing is to stop using the disk so the old data won't get overwritten.

Your best option may be to try a manual data-recovery with a low-level disk editor, sometimes called a "hex editor."  If the data is on the disk, you'll be able to find it that way--- but it's a laborious, excruciatingly slow, and mind-bogglingly boring task! You either have to scan the disk, sector by sector, looking for recognizable snippets among the unreadable machine language and garbage files; or you can search for known words, phrases, etc., from specific files you're trying to get back. (The latter is faster, but only finds the specific data you're searching for.)

To make matters worse, if the disk hasn't been defragged regularly, bits and pieces of each file may be scattered at random all over the disk, further complicating recovery.

I've only had to try this kind of low-level data recovery maybe twice in 25+ years of using PCs, and the last time was a loooong time ago. Still, it's an ugly enough process that I never want to do it again. This is, in part, why I'm religious about backups (so I don't have to try to dig stuff of a disk that's gone bad); and defrags (so that, if I ever do have to try a low-level recovery, the data will be in contiguous blocks); and why I keep a hex editor on hand (so I can try recovery, if need be, immediately after the problem happens, when the odds of success are highest).

If you want to try a manual recovery yourself, pack a lunch, bring a thermos of coffee, and practice your deep-breathing exercises. <g>

http://www.google.com/search?q=disk+hex+sector+editor
http://www.google.com/search?q=disk+hex+sector+editor+free

Of course, you also can farm out the disk to a data-recovery service; but it's not a lot easier for them to do it, either; which is why those services can be so freaking expensive.

http://www.google.com/search?q=data+recovery+service

When you're done, one way or the other, it'd be a good time to sit down and have a gentle chat with your sister about the value of *regular* backups (not just after a problem has occurred), which let you avoid all the above hassles. <g>

http://langa.com/backups/backups.htm

(Plus! readers: See also #12, "Free Tool Copies Even Corrupted Files," below.)

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3) The Other "WMD"

Hi Fred, Thanks for all the good work.
For the past few months I've been plagued with Blue Screens twice per week, and very many error reports to send back to Microsoft. I have spent much wasted time looking into drivers etc... And have been unjustifiably suspicious of perfectly decent software.
I got lucky - one of my error reports to Microsoft was itself corrupted - this provoked a message that I should try Windows Memory Diagnostic (a download). Problem solved - I quickly identified one dodgy memory stick. Perhaps not a lot of people know about WMD? Regards, Vaughan Mitchell

Thanks, Vaughn! RAM is highly reliable these days--- so much so that some is made without error-correction circuitry. Trouble is, in those rare cases when there is a problem, it can be very hard to track down. WMD can help a lot:

The Windows Memory Diagnostic tests the Random Access Memory (RAM) on your computer for errors. The diagnostic includes a comprehensive set of memory tests. If you are experiencing problems while running Windows, you can use the diagnostic to determine whether the problems are caused by failing hardware, such as RAM or the memory system of your motherboard. Windows Memory Diagnostic is designed to be easy and fast. On most configurations, you can download the diagnostic, read the documentation, run the test and complete the first test pass in less than 30 minutes.

The two nice things about the Windows Memory Diagnostic are (1) that it's free, so you can grab it and keep a copy in your emergency toolkit for times when you face a hard-to-diagnose problem); and (2) that this WMD actually exists. <g>

We wrote about it once before: Free Memory Diagnostic Tool http://langa.com/newsletters/2003/2003-08-21.htm#2

And you can grab it here: http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

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subscribed to the Plus! edition with a few reservations. After a few
weeks however, I think it would be cheap at twice the price. The
newsletter is great! I have recommended it to a few of my less computer
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a prodigious rate. I find your hints and links invaluable and await each
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4) Faster Troubleshooting

Google keeps growing, and spinning off tools and sub-tools that can be enormously helpful:

Fred, I found a service running on my Windows XP Pro workstation when I checked via MSConfig.... So I thought I'd check google for possible problems and found that google has added a special lookup page devoted to Microsoft sites.  http://www.google.com/microsoft.html  ---David

Thanks, David!

Google today is like what Microsoft was in the early 1990's--- a seemingly unstoppable juggernaut rapidly assuming a totally dominant position over its competitors. Microsoft's subsequent missteps cost it the confidence of the computing community, and overshadowed the enormously positive contribution the company made to personal computing; a problem Microsoft is only now starting to get past. I hope Google can manage its success without such missteps.

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5) OnSpeed And Other Connection Accelerators

Dear Fred, recently resubscribed, and loving it. Can you comment on this product, I spotted in UK paper, when I was over there. Called OnSpeed. Supposed to speed up dial up internet connections, making for quicker downloads. Await your impression. Web site http://www.onspeed.com . ---Geoffrey & Jayne Geeson

OnSpeed is actually available in several locations, including the US and the UK: They keep their servers local, which helps keep the speeds up.

Most accelerator services use either advanced data compression or special caching, or both, to achieve higher-than-normal throughputs. None of these services actually change the speed of your connection, but they can reduce "lags" and latencies and/or increase the amount of data that gets through in any given time period.

OnSpeed appears to be primarily a compression service: You install their special, proprietary decompression package on your system, and surf the web through their servers: They gather the pages you request, squeeze them down using their special compression methods, and squirt the highly-compressed files to you. Your PC then decompresses the files and displays the web pages normally. If the compression/decompression happens fast enough--- and it should in most cases--- the effect is that you get more bits delivered to your screen than otherwise--- your connection operates as if it were much faster than it really is.

Other services cache popular pages: If an acceleration service sees that many of its subscribers go to (say) microsoft.com, its servers may store a local copy of microsoft.com's pages, and deliver that copy to the subscribers, saving them from having to bounce out through the net to the real Microsoft.com, wait for the Microsoft servers to respond, and then get the requested page back via many interim hops across the net. The acceleration service's cached pages may pop up immediately in the subscribers' browsers, rather than slowly and after a delay. Some caching services also compress the pages they store, which further amplifies the apparent speed.

Both ways work, up to a point. Compression works fine for text, graphics, etc., and so is great for general surfing. But it can't help in interactive activities (such as gaming) or in other latency-dependent applications; and can do nothing for the outbound clicks or data that may be leaving your PC on their way to a web destination. Data compression technology can make your downloads feel faster; but doesn't actually increase the real connection speed.

Caching also works fine on pages that already have been cached. But there may be delays between when the "real" page changes and when the cached page gets updated; users of the cached service may see an outdated page without realizing it. (The AOL caching technology has been infamous for this....) That means caching services may be a poor choice for viewing time-sensitive material. Plus, someone has to be first to view a page: That first viewer may actually experience a slowdown via a caching service, as the servers retrieve the page, cache it (and perhaps compress it) before sending it to the subscriber. Subsequent views of that page will be faster for other subscribers of the caching service, but that unlucky first accesser may take a hit for the team.

So these services aren't a panacea, but can help; as long as you realize what they can, and cannot, do.

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6) PR Budget = $0.00

Long-time readers know this newsletter is a one-person private project of mine: It's not part of some publishing empire's stable of publications. It's just me here! <g> There's no budget, staff or facility to handle outreach and promotions: The newsletter depends on word of mouth to grow.  May I ask you a favor? In each issue, I try to offer you useful, interesting and amusing factoids to help you with your hardware, software, and time online. Can you take just a minute to help me out in return?

If you think the LangaList is a worthwhile read, just use the following link to recommend the LangaList to a friend. Your friend just may find a new source of useful information and you just may win one of three FREE ONE-YEAR SUBSCRIPTIONS to the Plus! Edition that I award each month.

Full info and "Recommend" form: http://langa.com/recommend.htm . Thank you for helping to spread the word about the LangaList!

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7) More on "Circumventing Censorship"

In Circumventing Censorship ( http://langa.com/newsletters/2005/2005-10-24.htm#5 ) we wrote about some ways to surf anonymously; which prompted this letter.

Hi Fred, Here is a suggestion for J. Saleh from Iran who wanted some way of getting around the blocking of certain sites (presumably by his government). The idea of metabrowsers (which basically aggregate content from other sites) was popular a few years ago, but the only one I could find which still seemed to be running was: http://www.quickbrowse.com/

While I am not a subscriber, they have a demo on the site where they grab a few pages from Yahoo, CNN etc and compile them all together on one meta-page (which of course has the 'Quickbrowse.com' web address). You can also dynamically grab any of the links in the demo page and create a new meta-page with them using a handy little widget in the bottom-right of your browser. There is a monthly subscription of $2.95 for the full service, which gives you the capability of selecting the exact web addresses which you want aggregated together and you can even get this mailed to you via a html-format e-mail.

Presuming that the blockers don't block the QuickBrowse.com domain, then this would work perfectly for J. Saleh. Another, less noble, use of this is as a way of getting around corporate web filters (eg. surfcontrol, etc...), if you are desperate to surf 'blocked' sites while at work... ;-) You may laugh at that, but my company even blocks the Weather Channel web-site (to stop staff inappropriately finding out what the weather will be like on work-time!)...  Many Thanks for a great Newsletter, Cathal Moane

Thank you, Cathal.

Yes, I'd plain forgotten metabrowsing---  my apologies. It originally emerged years ago as a way to save time, mainly when web connections were mostly all dial-up and slow. QuickBrowse rapidly became one of the very best of the metabrowsers:

With the advent of faster connections, most of the metabrowsers faded away, but Quickbrowse is still going strong not so much as a way to improve dial-up efficiency, but as a way to pre-filter and aggregate the content you desire into a single, easy-to-access feed.

And yes: It may also help in instances like J. Saleh's. Nice catch, Cathal; thanks again!

More:
http://langa.com/newsletters/2001/2001-04-23.htm#8
http://www.google.com/search?q=MetaBrowsing

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8) They Just Keep Coming And Coming...

Thousands of your fellow readers have "Loaded the code." Please click over to http://langa.com/code.htm , and maybe you can join them! (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

Science News Forum
http://www.sciscoop.com/

David M. Kelly
http://www.davidmkelly.net/

Add-ins for Microsoft Office
http://www.officeboosters.com/links.htm

"101 Uses For A Dead Spammer"
http://www.killallspammers.com/

Vintage Magazines and Ephemera For Sale
http://www.siamman.com/forsale.html

'If Only We Could Listen'
http://home.iprimus.com.au/bristow/

Reader's experiences surrounding the NYC World Trade Center (warning: graphic)
http://highminion.com/

Geek Galaxy
http://www.geekgalaxy.blogspot.com/

Bill's Links and More
http://www.billslinksandmore.com/

Human Welfare Center
http://humanwelfarecenter.org/a/

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9) Why "Compact" Mailboxes?

Fred, I have a question about outlook express regarding compacting. What is the reason for compacting? Is there a limit for email storage that causes compacting? Can I or should I disable compacting? If I can and should, how do I stop it? When it runs it slows down my computer considerably. The only way I have been able to stop it is control-alt-delete and end process. It is very annoying & if I let it run it comes up with a message about not enough memory or space (can't remember which) to continue. Please help. Art (Plus subscriber) and grateful member

Here's a great explanation from http://itinfo.mit.edu/answer.php?id=7878 :

Q: Why does Outlook Express keep asking me to compact my mail? Should I do it?
A: Like most database programs, OE does not actually remove an item from the *.dbx file (your local mail store) when you delete a message. Instead, it tags the item for removal at a later time, mainly when you next compact your folders. Until then, the deleted message is still occupying disk space, which can cause OE to perform more slowly when accessing the *.dbx file. To recover disk space and keep your files as small as possible, you need to compact your folders regularly.

To compact all your folders:

In the OE Folder list (View > Layout> Folder List), select Outlook Express so that no mail or news folders are open.
Now select File> Work Offline so that no new messages will be arriving.
Finally, select File > Folder> Compact All Folders.
Result: This process may take several minutes and you should not attempt to use your computer until it is finished. Your news folders, all of your mail folders and the all-important Folders.dbx have been compacted.

Hint: If an error occurs, such as "cannot compact, folder in use", just close OE, wait a second or two, then re-open OE and begin the process again. To compact only news folders, click Tools| Options| Maintenance| Clean up Now, then click Compact.
To compact a single mail folder:

Click once on the folder to select it.
Select File > Folder > Compact.

To compact a single newsgroup folder:
Right-click on the newsgroup
Select Properties > Local File > Compact.

Note: Some other mail clients use similar techniques--- this isn't just an OE thing.

If you've never, or only rarely, compacted your mail, then you'll have a ton of wasted space, and the initial compacting can take quite a while. You might start it at the end of the day, and leave the PC running; when you come back the next day, it should surely be done. Future compactings, if done on a regular basis, should only take seconds or minutes.

There's another good reason for compacting mail, beside recovering space:

The Other E-Mail Threat: File Corruption in Outlook Express:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/community/columns/filecorruption.mspx

Compacting mail also speeds mail filing operations, and can even improve security, by making old mails much harder for a snoop to get at.

It's worth doing--- really!

See also:
http://www.google.com/search?q=compacting+express+outlook

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10) Just For Grins

Hi, Fred. I think this site is worthy.... http://www.emotioneric.com/ : Eric Conveys an Emotion  [Pick from the menu on the left and see how good a job Eric did. I suggest "Stressed out", "Working on a Tech Support Line..." and "Realizing it's not toothpaste" for starters.... ---Len Steele

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11) Plus! Edition Highlights:

Today's LangaList Plus! Edition contains all ten items above, plus about 40% more content including:

• WinZip Coda
    (more reader tips, suggestions...)
• Free Tool Copies Even Corrupted Files
    (don't be stymied by disk errors)
• Primary/Secondary Drive Issues
    (avoiding unnecessary speed losses)
• Buying Refurbished Hardware
    (you can save money, but be careful...)

The Plus! edition is only pennies per issue, and comes with a MONEY BACK
GUARANTEE from Fred. How can you lose? Check out the details:
http://langa.com/plus.htm

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

The LangaList is published about 72 times a year, or about 6 times a month. See you next issue, 2005-12-08!

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://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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