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LangaList 2002-05-06 Please visit our sponsors and help keep the LangaList S.E. free!
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1) Excellent GPS FeedbackMany readers have been sharing interesting and practical info about their experiences with GPS units. For example:
I do something similar:
I'm most familiar with a handheld GPS unit--a Garmin V. The screen is small, so
I initially wondered how I'd use it safely while driving. But the software is a
marvel. For the most part, you can ignore the GPS and concentrate solely on your
driving. When the GPS senses that you're approaching a necessary turn, it beeps
twice to get your attention, then prints the turn directions in large type on
the screen. For example, it might say something like, "Turn Right on Main St.,
530 feet ahead." The software also zooms in to show a simplified and uncluttered
view of the upcoming turn, complete with a large directional arrow to orient
you. A glance at the unit, and you know what your next move is. You then can
ignore the GPS until the next time it beeps at you.
Indeed, if you go to the Geocaching.Com site and use their advanced search engine ( http://www.geocaching.com/hideseek/ ), you can find caches near you; and odds are there are a bunch out there that you otherwise would have no clue about. While you're there, look up waypoint GC4C84. That's the geocache my wife and I established a few miles from our house. 8-) As I said in the last issue, although many of you may think "I have absolutely no use for a GPS...", I'm betting that soon, many of you--- even the skeptics!--- will be won over, just as happened before with other forms of high-tech portable devices. Please come check out the article and all the other reader responses at http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020425S0004 ), and then join in the discussion! Am I too far ahead of the curve on this one? Or--- as Google's list of 3.5 million GPS-related web pages indicate--- is GPS about to break into the mainstream? Do you use a GPS, and if so, which one? What are the best GPS resources? What's the best use you know of for small, inexpensive GPSes? Please join in the discussion! Click to email this item to a
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--------------( the above is an advertisement )-------------- 2) CPU Use...
The amount of CPU activity that an operating system uses for its own internal housekeeping varies not only according to what OS you use and--- critically--- how it's set up, but also to what CPU you have, and what speed it runs at. I'm writing this article on an XP-based system right now, with half a dozen foreground apps and 32 (no joke) background processes active. But Task Manager tells me I'm using just 1-8% of the CPU's power (available cycles)--- nowhere near the "30%" Donald's friend quotes. But then, I've well-tuned the software to suit my own style of working, and the system is a fast one to begin with. So: XP (and ME) *can* be sluggish and consume large amounts of CPU time for themselves, but they don't *have* to be that way: You can make them a lot faster, if you spend a little time tuning 'em. To speed them up, see: WinXP: WinME: But Donald's question used the term "resources" and that's a word that triggers lots of confusion. Let's take a sec to clarify, in the next item: Click to email this item to a
friend 3) ... and "Resource" UseIn Windows, the most common use of the term "resources" refers to special, reserved areas of memory. You can think of these areas as scratchpads -- actually, internal tables and pointers -- that Windows uses to keep track of running applications, and the components thereof, including the graphical elements--- menus, buttons, sliders, and so on--- of what's drawn on your screen. In Win9x-family versions of Windows--- and that includes Windows ME--- the memory areas are of a fixed size regardless of how much RAM you have. That's a problem: If you run too many things at once or have too many graphical objects displayed at once, you can deplete one of the memory areas. When that happens, you get error messages or weird behavior or a crash: You are "low on" or "out of" resources. Similarly, in poorly coded software applications, some of the memory used by an app may not be released when the app closes -- or crashes. Over time, more and more resources may be marked as "in use" even when they're really not. Eventually, there's not enough space available in the special memory areas to continue working (again, regardless of how much total RAM you have), and you get an "out of memory" error message or crash. WinNT/2K/XP track resources very differently. In effect, your resource areas are basically the same at your total system memory. While it's still theoretically possible to "run out of resources," it's nearly impossible to do so on a normally configured machine. This is one of the major reasons why this line of Windows OSes is genuinely more crash-resistant than the Win9x family: You can run even the most resource-hungry apps without having to worry about "out of resource" problems. All of this is a digression from the original question about CPU use, which in itself has nothing to do with what are normally called "system resources." But because the question used that trigger word "resources," I though it'd be worth taking just a moment to ensure we were all talking about the same things. 8-) Click to email this item to a
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--------------( the above is an advertisement )-------------- 4) New Letter From DerlanRemember Derlan? He's is a young Brazilian boy who lives with his parents and a younger brother, in a farming community located in the arid Jequitinhonha Valley, northeast Minas Gerais, Brazil. Their self-built adobe-walled home has dirt floors, a clay roof and only rudimentary sanitary facilities. The per-capita family income is less than US$50.00 per month. Almost a year ago, Derlan became one of the children supported every month through LangaList Plus! subscription contributions. These contributions do not increase the cost of a Plus! subscription in any way; the donation is taken "off the top" of any profits. So far, we've been able to offer sustained, ongoing help to six impoverished kids around the world, aided emergency earthquake relief efforts in India, and helped those hurt in the Sept 11th terrorist attacks on the US. (To see all the donations so far, click to http://www.langa.com/plus2.htm#kids ) Derlan is one of the more voluble kids we help. Although mail service is hideously slow, we've heard from him a couple times. You can see his previous letter via the link above, or see his most-recent letter below (translated by an aid worker in his village). It's a long-delayed note just now reaching us to say "thanks" for a little extra contribution we made last Christmas:
As the year goes on, and as more readers sign up for Plus! subscriptions, I hope we'll be able to sponsor more children and assist other charities around the world. Graham Greene once said, "There is always a moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in...." If you're already a LangaList Plus subscriber, thank you! You can feel good about giving back a little to those less fortunate, and opening "a door to the future" for a child in otherwise-desperate circumstances. If you're not yet a Plus! subscriber check it out: With a Plus! subscription, you can not only help yourself make the most of your hardware, software and time online with expanded content and no advertising--- but you also can help those less fortunate (like Derlan) make the most of their very lives. Thanks for your help! Click to email this item to a
friend 5) Password Expiration In XP
There are two sides to this: From the viewpoint of "good security practices" it's actually a good thing to have passwords that expire: Passwords that change every so often are a kind of moving target for hackers: Even if they crack or guess a password, it'll only be good for a while before it's replaced, forcing the hacker to start over. (And, of course, a well-constructed password--- one that's not just an ordinary word--- should be hard to crack or guess in the first place.) But for people who work alone or otherwise have setups where password security isn't a major issue, being forced to change a password at short intervals is a pain. Fortunately, XP lets you change the expiration interval to be anything from 0 to 999 days. (Setting it to 0 means the password will never expire.) XP's default password longevity is six weeks: 42 days. For full info and help on everything about the password system, including how to change the expiration period, search the XP help system for the keywords "password expire." While you're there, also search for the keywords "creating strong passwords" for some good advice on what makes a password hard to crack or guess in the first place. Click to email this item to a
friend 6) Karl Foster Got A Free $30 Gift Certificate. Want One?Reader Karl Foster just got a no-strings $30 Gift Certificate for any item at
Amazon.Com--- books, software, hardware, kitchenware, toys, and Either way, thank you, and good luck! Click to email this item to a
friend 7) K l e z ProblemsThis has been very widely reported elsewhere, so I've stayed away from the topic until now. But after I received (no joke) over 1,000 K l e z-infected emails from readers, I thought maybe I should mention it after all. K l e z is one of several worms/viruses running amok now--- an incredibly high number of system have been infected. And, as is the usual case, these worms hijack the infected machines to mass-email themselves to everyone on the victim's contact list or address book. Some of the worms do other damage as well, although K l e z itself is mainly an annoyance and bandwidth-stealer. But, it's network aware, as one reader discovered:
Thanks, Jason. Neither K l e z nor the other worms in current epidemic distribution have to be a problem: All the major antivirus vendors know how to detect and remove these nasties, some (like Symantec) even offer free stand-alone K l e z removal tools. If your antivirus tools are up to date--- and running (not disabled, like Jason's colleague's)--- you'll be fine. But sad to say, from the volume of worm-infested emails I'm getting, many of you aren't protected. 8-( Why not take a sec to check your system? You can get more info by going to an antivirus site (such as http://www.symantec.com/avcenter/ ) and searching for the word k l e z (minus the spaces). Click to email this item to a
friend 8) More Reader Sites!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 ) Manually Browse All Posted-to-Date Sites
Starting At Linkz Jakker Migrating From IR to NZ 50 Freeware Favorites PegMan's Home Page Nanaimo Arts Council (Vancouver, CA) John Handley High School Math Dpt gibs-web design and consulting "THE FIRST GREAT NOVEL OF THE NEW
MILLENNIUM" CopyLock Click to email this item to a
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--------------( the above is an advertisement )-------------- 9) "Invasion of the Browser Snatchers"We've written before about web sites that covertly reset your home page to something you don't want, and
that make it
very hard to change back to your preferred homepage. See, for example,
But the wonderful title above, "Invasion of the Browser Snatchers" (wish I'd thought of that! <g>) comes from a CNN article on the topic that gives some good how-to information and complements what we've previously covered. It might be worth grabbing a copy, just in case some site tried to snatch/hijack your browser... http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/02/18/browser.snatchers.idg/index.html Click to email this item to a
friend 10) Just For GrinsR. Dan Park sent along these "Politically Correct Statements for the New Century." A Google search didn't turn up the original author, alas; they've been passed around enough for the origins to have been lost.
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--------------( the above is an advertisement )-------------- 11) Plus! Edition Highlights
Today's LangaList Plus! Edition contains all ten items above, plus about 30% more content including: Two readers offer first-hand reports on using various FREE tools to recover from mangled partitioning info that had really messed up their drives; another reader recommends a free tool that lets you edit your Registry with the added safety of a simple "undo" function; and a reader discusses a simple file-copy method of avoiding unnecessary Windows Product Activations. The Plus! Edition costs just $1 a month: http://www.langa.com/plus.htm Click to email this item to a
friend See you next issue!
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