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The LangaList
Special Holiday Double Issue!

A free email newsletter from Fred Langa

Year's End,  1997

Season's Greetings---and a free gift!
To each and every one of you---Happy Holidays, and my very best wishes for a great New Year!

Here's a free Holiday Applet that will either make you groan or smile, depending on your mood. 8-) It's just under one meg in size; it runs fine on my machines and has been fully virus-checked by Norton AntiVirus 4. But be warned---It's very, very silly! Click here (http://content.techweb.com/winmag//flanga/xmas97.htm) to grab a copy. Did I mention that it's very silly? 8-)

LangaList
This is a special double issue; the regular weekly editions will resume after the New Year's holiday.

Long-time readers may notice a name change: Now that CMPnet is featuring a weekly column from me called "the LangaLetter" (at http://ww.cmpnet.com/voices/langa.html) the name of this newsletter had to change. Thanks to all who sent in suggestions---LangAlert, Lang-E, and (ahem) LangaBytes were among the entries. 8-)

An IE Exclusive, from WINDOWS Magazine!

Win95 Registry Guru John Woram has been busy! Here's news from WINDOWS Magazine:

"Don't believe everything Microsoft says. The company claims that you
can't extricate Internet Explorer from Windows 95. We say you can. In
fact, we have. After analyzing the Windows 95 Registry and Internet
Explorer for several weeks, WINDOWS Magazine has safely deleted IE 3.0
from Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2.1 without damaging the operating
system's stability or performance. No easy feat, but it can be done.
Here's how."

http://content.techweb.com/winmag//news/1201/1218a.htm

CMPnet's LangaLetter and WinMag's BBS Area
My CMPnet column and discussion area is scheduled to be updated through the holidays (it's refreshed every Wednesday). Please stop by! This week, I'll be discussing a myth---an often-repeated falsehood---about IE4. Many people use IE4 and have no problem at all. Others can and have run afoul of several serious "gotchas" that can crop up, especially with video drivers, the Desktop Update, and an enabled Active Desktop. But there's no reason for falsehoods and downright bad information to circulate; let's stamp out the bogus information and have a discussion on browsers that's based on fact--- not fear.

The WinMag discussion area (http://content.techweb.com/winmag//bbs/columns/default.htm) will also be alive during the holidays, although no new columns will be posted until the New Year. There's still tons of great info in the current and recent threads: You can access everything---including the recent gold-mine discussions on problems and solutions with IE4 and Communicator4--- through the page at http://content.techweb.com/winmag//bbs/columns/default.htm. Check it out!

BrowserTune98
This past week was a milestone: the "skeleton" is finished. The stylesheets are done, all reusable components are completed (there's a bunch!), the site complete navigation is worked out, the full directory structure is in place, the essential graphics are mostly finished (some purely-ornamental graphics are a bit further down the to-do list), the infrastructure that should allow the pages to live happily on the WINDOWS Magazine web server is complete, and I'm now marrying the actual test pages to the above framework. Barring some unforeseen glitch, you should see a beta in just a few weeks. The initial beta will not be promoted in print---instead, it will be offered first to you and the readers on my online columns. You'll have first crack at what I hope will be a very useful tool for evaluating the current generation of browsers.

Relatedly, BT98 also offers you a floating checklist you can leave on screen or print out: As you finish each test, you can check off whether your browser passed, failed, or "needs retest."

It should be pretty cool. 8-)

Meanwhile, BrowserTune97 (http://content.techweb.com/winmag//flanga/bt97/bt97-1.htm) got an additional  minor refresh last week (the second in two weeks!). I'm getting more and more reports from readers finding anomalies and glitches with both IE4 and Communicator 4.04. BrowserTune97 remains a great tool (and the frequent refreshes ensure it's still fully current). If you've recently upgraded your browser, check it out with BT97!

Do You Build Web Pages?
I'm always looking for great, eye-popping examples of advanced browser features or functions for BrowserTune--- things such as Layers, DHTML, great scripting, or whatever. If you've built something you're very proud of, drop me a note (at fred@langa.com) with a pointer to the page, or attach a sample page to the email. If I can use your page as the basis of a test or example, I'll give you credit, on-screen, in the final version of BrowserTune98---millions of people will see your work! 8-)

HotSpots
I can't give you all the HotSpots for the Holiday season because they're not all selected yet. 8-) But you can trust that each day you'll find a site that lives up to the HotSpot site criteria: that is, one that's "Unusual, Cutting-Edge, Useful, Interesting, Weird, Funny, or Technically Slick." Over three million people have visited the HotSpots site, so something good's going on there. 8-)

Always Looking for More HotSpots!
The HotSpots mailbox is always open! Whenever you find a great site, could you take a second and tell me about it? It'd just take a minute--- email your favorite URLs to hotspots@langa.com. No explanation is needed---just paste the raw URLs into the body of the mail message, ideally, 1 URL per line. I'll sift through them and queue 'em up for possible inclusion as future HotSpot. Thanks!

Reader Mailbox
I get hundreds of emails day, many from readers of the LangaList. Although I can't answer them all, I do read each and every one.They're often fascinating---I learn a lot from people like you! Others are funny, informative, or just plain nice to read. Some letters are interesting for the tech content, some interesting for the personalities they show, some for where the writers are located---or all the above! Here are just a few; a potpourri of recent email:

==============================

From: JLSE jaimel@netscorp.net
Organization: Mexican Border Web Projects

To: Fred Langa fred@langa.com

Subject: Re: Communicator 4.01 mass mail?

Dear Fred,

I have an educator's version of 4.01 - free but no technical back up. I've been trying to discover how to set up separate mailing lists for different groups of addresses, but everybody's very evasive. The nearest I got to a hint from the really very unhelpful "Help" file was that all persons with the same "nickname" would be in the same mailing. It just doesn't seem to work. The second time I try to use the same nickname, I'm messaged that someone already has the name.

[Here's the way I discovered that does work:] You make a list of a particular group by entering all group members in your address book first (click on Communicator to find it.) Afterward, click File on the ADDRESS BOOK. One of the menu options is "New List". You click it and type a name for your group. Then on each line, you type the first few letters of the names already entered in your book. They pop entirely into the address book when you go to the next line.

THIS IS REALLY UNINTUITIVELY CLUMSY. Has no one at NETSCAPE ever used the AOL version? It is simplicity, itself.

Jim/Jaime Lopez

==============================

Dear Fred,

I have been receiving your newsletter for a couple of months now, and have used a few of the pointers. But for the last 6 days, I have been pulling what's left of my hair out trying to figure out what happened (or what I messed up) when I blew out MSIE4. Your newsletter this week just let me know what happened...I did use RegClean and not to much later, MSIE4 was inaccessible. I never even thought that it could have been Microsoft wiping out its own stuff!!! Well, thanks to you and your readers, I just went back in and re installed my own back up of Reg.dat and Sys.dat and bingo....MSIE was back. Now I am going to wipe out MSIE since I have taken off the Favorites URL's, and am going back with Jim Barksdale and the Netscape people's Navigator 3. I hope these guys get their act together and stop treating browsers as red headed step children! Also, I want to control my desktop, not Netscape or IE. Thanks for the info. I have sent your newsletter this week to all the 85 members of my Pattaya Computer Club here in Thailand in hopes they also will sign up for your newsletter.

Thanks Fred..

Glenn "Jeep" Holthaus, President, Pattaya Computer Club

==============================

From: "GKeramidas" gkeramidas@email.msn.com

To: "Fred Langa" fred@langa.com

Subject: re: newsletter on ie 4.01

fred:

there are a few of us that have problems with the new ie 4.01. all are related to being connected to a network. several of us are logged into an nt domain server and the others just running 95 peer to peer. the problem is: the pc hangs on the shut down screen. i have let it sit for at least 10 minutes and it never shuts down properly.i can't believe they could release 4.01 with this problem

i am not an ms basher. i use and resell all of their products.

gary keramidas
president
service consultants

==============================

Dear Fred,

I have read with total interest every article you have written in WinMag. I have come to know the issues you have addressed and enjoy your style. I agree with everything you have said so far, which is unusual for me. I find this daunting and scary, since I am very particular and picky, exacting, etc. (and grouchy when awoken until the first cup of coffee is in the bloodstream). No, I am not your unknown, long lost twin brother, and I am sure we did not have the same milkman deliver milk to our homes (Yes I am 39 years old and was living when milk was still delivered to ones home).

The reason I have written to you is not to make your head swell, nor spouse the fact that I like milk. The reason is far more important AND of which I have found a solution.

The problem is that I have a US Robotics 28.8/33.6 external modem. The ISP I have belonged to was bought out by another ISP in town awhile back. My old ISP had a modem bank with nothing but US Robotics. Mine was the exact same modem as theirs. The new ISP made some fundamental changes to the service I belong to. They absorbed the service and while leaving us still within that service, made equipment and programming changes (including using unix machines versus linux).

None of this was important until they decided to go to the Rockwell chip 56KFlex modems. Their entire bank of modems are the 56KFlex modems and nothing else. I noticed the changes immediately. I had become used to download speeds that exceeded 33.6 often, and it wasn't uncommon to have speeds that exceeded 40K (yes, even with my 28.8/33.6 modem). I noticed after the new service made their modem bank changes that my download speeds were now averaging 10 to 20K consistently.

After about a month, I went into the SunsetNet office (Chico, CA) to complain. I talked to one of the assistant managers, Bob (bob@sunset.net). I was mentioning the download speed problem I had been experiencing. He acknowledged that he was aware of the incompatibility problem and they were searching for a good fix to the problem. In the meantime, he suggested that I make a modification to my Dial Up Network setup and if that didn't work, to call back and he would suggest some initialization string changes. I tried the first suggestion and it worked.

The recommendation is as follows; within the DUN setup, place three commas immediately after the ISP telephone number, then exit and use as normal. What this does he explained to me, is that it prevents my modem form making the KFlex handshake when connecting to their modems, therefore letting my non-Rockwell chip modem to work as designed. I don't know if it's hocus pocus or not, but my download speeds have climbed dramatically since then (6 days later and still going strong). I now average 20 to 34K, just about what it used to be. Call me happy (pun intended).

Jerry Stites
( chicosw@joshaunet.com )

[NOTE FROM FRED: I don't know how turning off handshaking could help resolve the X2/Kflex issue, but this approach might at least let the modem work at 33.6 instead of falling back to an even lower speed...]

==============================

From: john@johnmack.demon.co.uk
To: fred@langa.com
Subject: Registry Restore
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 1997 00:18:32 GMT
X-Mailer: Forte Agent 1.5/32.451

I read your letter dated from the 14/12/97 and the tip from wayne is a
good one except that the User and system files that comprise the
registry are located in the windows folder and not windows\system
folder

By the way do you have any information on scanregw.exe from windows 98

I've got a tip , If I use a folder a lot to drop files in I right drag
it into the windows send to folder and create a shortcut and then I
can send any files to that folder a lot quicker it also works great
for putting shortcuts to applications in there (especially Graphic
apps) so I can open any graphic formats in a number of apps.
This beats holding the shift key down and selecting open with....
option anyway keep up the langa letter its fantastic

==============================

[anonymous]

Dear Fred:

I like receiving your newsletter. It is my second issue that came today. I have one problem.

In Microsoft response, users have a problem with Norton Utilities and Norton Navigator with Active Desktop. Why doesn't Symantec post this information on their web page? Where are the patches?

Thanks

==============================

From: terryc@midkan.com (Terry Clark)
To: fred@langa.com
Subject: LangaLetter

Hi Fred,

Have you seen Microsoft's "Solution" to fixing problems with Active Movie? What's really outrageous is that the Fix was Posted 11-26-97, BEFORE IE4.01. Why the heck couldn't they have fixed the problem before unleashing 4.01, and fixed the problem with 4.0 in 4.01??? The Link is:

http://www.premium.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q176/2/21.asp

And while we're sharing gripes: I tried all of the IE4 Betas. The first one took a week to get the bugs worked out on my system. The rest worked without notable problems. Why did Microsoft make such dramatic changes to the Final Version without giving the Bleeding Edge Beta Testers a shot at it? It's not like they're charging for the Final Version...

The biggest problem with Netscape 4.03 was that, if you leave it running for awhile, it will send the G.D.I. Resources into the basement. Why isn't anyone griping that, under any version of Netscape 4, at least those I've used, you still can't alphabetize the Bookmarks automatically? Drag & Drop is not feasible when one has numerous Bookmarks.

By the way, your newsletter's great, and the best source on IE4 problems and solutions that I've found.

Terry

==============================

To: fred@langa.com
From: Lee Swanson swanson@willinet.net
Subject: new site ( http://www.langa.com )

It's been awhile since I saw your "old" site, so don't really remember it, but I do like your new site. Even in my remote, rural area where 33.6K access is more fiction than truth, it loads relatively fast & is easy to follow. Thank you.

swanson@willinet.net
Lee Swanson
Lake Norden, SD

==============================

From: "Norman D Courage" couragen@lon.ionline.net
To: fred@langa.com

Hi Fred

Just thought I would pass along a little tip for anyone who runs into a problem with IE 4.0 after they run Reg Clean. I simply reinstalled IE 4.0 and it put everything back to normal.

Regards
Norm
couragen@lon.ionline.net
http://lon.ionline.net/~couragen

==============================

From: "Antonio Kleber Araujo" kleber@openlink.com.br
To: fred@langa.com
Subject: fred langa br

dear sir,

you may find a substantial growth of .BR [brazilian] subscribers. We published in a major brazilian newspaper (+2M readers) your address and comments. Your service deserves our recommendation. Keep up the good work...

Antonio Kleber de Araujo
R. Gen. Barbosa Lima, 83
Copacabana - Rio de Janeiro - 22011-060

==============================

Keep those emails coming---it's great to hear from you!

See you after the Holidays!

Fred
(fred@langa.com)


A live web version of this note is online in  the "what's new" section of http://www.langa.com.

Why are you getting this newsletter? My intention is to send this free email newsletter only upon request. There are only two ways to get on the list so if you're getting this newsletter; your name came to me through one of these channels:

1) Email request. I use email inbox filtering to place requests for free subscriptions into the right category, and it usually works. But like all automation tools, it sometimes doesn't. If you wrote to me recently or used my mailbox for a BrowserTune "mailto" test or HotSpots suggestion, it's possible my mailbot placed your mail in the wrong category. If so, please accept my apologies and use the instructions below to remove yourself from the list.

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