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The LangaList
Standard Edition

2005-05-09

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!

0) Back From Spring Vacation

He's ba-a-a-a-ck! <g> My wife and I both enjoyed our Spring break; we spent several days in Pennsylvania Dutch country, and then explored some of the back roads through the mountains of central Pennsylvania. Lovely countryside! (As before with some trips, I've posted more info in the "Just For Grins" section.) But now: Back to work!

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1) Google's New Tools: Proceed With Caution

I'm a huge fan of Google. I think the company has done more than any other to organize and make available the vast resources of the Web.

There's more to Google than it's main search engine, of course, although that's its principal strength and is how most people know Google. There also are many new spin offs and additional technologies, such as the more than a dozen betas and test services you can see displayed at the Google Labs site http://labs.google.com/ , and the newer add-ons that have graduated from the Google Labs as released services. Some of these are fairly well-known, but others are just now making it to the consciousness of the online world at large: Gmail, Google Desktop Search, Google Groups 2, Google Deskbar, Web Alerts, Search by Location, Google Glossary, Google News Alerts, Froogle, and more.

Google's services are immensely useful, and the company's reach is huge and growing. I believe this is mostly a good thing, but with several major caveats, as the questions raised in these reader letters suggest:

Fred, We are hooked on using Google's Gmail even as a Beta user. We have our own email servers but just like convenience and features of their email. We have asked Google how safe our stored email is on their servers but they simply won't answer this question. We want to send important email to them as a backup of our local computers POP's but this question should be very important to most users as they start storing important emails along with pictures etc. Can you shed any light on this? Thanks very much, Bob Collina

Fred, I particularly like how you balance issues of security, privacy and the like on the one hand and functionality and practicality on the other. In light of this balance, I'm curious as to your views on gmail. Anti-gmail reviews provide valid criticism, which may be a tad extreme, while pro-gmail reviews seem naive and simplistic, and their joyful embrace of the services and technology is possibly even more disturbing. While one can avoid getting a gmail account, it seems less and less realistic to ban any communications with gmail users, as some anti-gmail sites suggest. I'd love to have your input on this issue, and there are probably a lot of other readers for whom the information would be relevant. Thanks, Ceruleancat

Fred, Several times you have discussed programs to index your PC. It was recently brought to my attention that Google is in the process of developing Google Desktop. An option I find rather neat since it indexes your files when your computer is idle and allows you to search all your content from a Google interface. Check it out at http://www.desktop.google.com . Best wishes, Adam

Google's strength, of course, is in its ability to sort, index, categorize and make useful massive amounts of data. But there's an obvious risk when you include your personal, private, and/or corporate information (such as in email, or in indexing the contents of your hard drive) as grist for Google's mill.

Some users are going to end up with essentially everything they do on their PCs at work and at home indexed and categorized by Google's bots. In fact, a large percentage of their information may actually reside on Google's servers, and nowhere else: Consider Gmail's gigabyte of free storage, for example. That's a lot of email and attachments, and it will all reside on Google's hardware. That poses obvious privacy risks.

Google's newer services only increase the potential for harm. For example, the brand new "My Search History" service keeps a record of all your past Google searches, which could be very useful, but which also could be a problem. On a personal level, the record could be used to infer a lot about your interests--- tech topics, hobbies, sports, vacation interests, online shopping, and things like (ahem) perhaps the occasional "naughty" topic or site. Records of these searches exist on Google's hardware, beyond your real control.

In a business environment, it also creates a major potential liability in the form of persistent records of what a company's employees have been looking for, that likewise exists external to the company, beyond the company's control. Patent searches, legal records, human resource matters, contract negotiation items, and yes, searches of "naughty" sites... the records of it all sit on a Google server, under Google's control.

There are similar risks in some of the other services, too.

I've looked at the vulnerabilities, tried to weigh the pros and cons of the various Google services, and come up with what I think is a reasonable approach that addresses some of the very real privacy and security issues that the growing Google tool suite poses.

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
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=162600345 .

Click on over, and check it out. See you there!

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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
literate friends and they have told me that they are learning things at
a prodigious rate. I find your hints and links invaluable and await each
issue. Please keep up the good work. --- Tom Sobieski"

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2) Dial-Up Dies For No Obvious Reason

Hi Fred, I'm currently visiting my dad down in sunny Florida and am trying to help him out of a jamb with his dial-up connection. He connects through wmconnect.com (WalMart's offering through CompuServe/[AOL]) under Windows XP SP2. Ever since 'upgrading' to SP2 his connection gets dropped after a few minutes online, regardless of activity -- though it seems to happen more quickly during file downloads with no browser activity. I've discovered that disabling Windows Firewall eliminates the problem, and I've uninstalled a version of McAfee's firewall that I discovered had some lurking processes running in spite the fact that dad disabled it long before the SP2 upgrade. I've encountered connection problems in the past resulting from users installing a software firewall without first removing all traces of an existing firewall, but these have always been totally dead connections. In this case I've got a fantastic (for a 56k dial-up) connection that goes dead after 10 minutes or so (it seems to vary), then disconnects entirely.
 
Ideally, I'd like to dump Windows Firewall altogether and install Zone Alarm, but it appears that it is not uninstallable. If I had to make a wild guess, I'd say it appears that wmconnect.com is monitoring activity indirectly, and Windows Firewall keeps it from seeing the activity. Dad has been in touch with tech support prior to my arrival, but they've yet to come up with a solution.
 
Thanks in advance for any suggestions you can offer. ---Mark Spencer

I don't use wmconnect, so please understand this is a "best guess" answer, but many dial-up ISPs do monitor activity (not content) so they can free up idle dial-in points of presence; that is, to prevent "camping," where someone logs in and stays online for very long times, whether they're actively using the connection or not. It's expensive to set up dial-in points of presence, and each port can only serve one customer at a time, so it's in the ISP's interests to get you offline as fast as they can so that another customer can use the freed-up port. Trouble is, the ISP may not see all activity; they may, for example, mistake a long FTP download as "no activity" if what they're looking for is HTTP data; and so they pull the plug on that connection.

Sometimes, the ISP will "ping" a seemingly-idle connection to make sure a PC's still on the other end. But if your firewall is set up not to reply to Ping requests, the ISP will have no way of knowing that the connection is still alive; again, it pulls the plug.

One answer is "keep alive" or "stay alive" software that simulates human activity on your connection. These tools--- both free and commercial--- occasionally trickle out a few simulated keystrokes or commands through your connection; these little data bursts don't do anything except reassure the monitoring software that the connection is active and in use. This often prevents the kind of disconnects you may be experiencing.

So, that's where I'd start--- install a "keep alive" tool. With a little luck, that'll fix the problem in one easy--- and free!--- step. <g>
http://www.google.com/search?q=stay+keep+alive+connection

BTW: Although you can't remove the Windows firewall--- it's always available as a last-ditch defense--- you can disable it so it won't interfere with more capable firewalls: With SP2, just click Start/Control Panel/Security Center and then click the "off" button for the firewall. That's all it takes! More/fuller info:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/learnmore/icf.mspx

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3) Getting Started With HTML

Fred: long time reader of your wonderful newsletter and i would love to know the *code* or whatever it is that would let me create links like the "Please visit the LangaList Home Page" hyperlink at the top of the newsletter. Can you explain it or head me in the right direction? it would be much appreciated...chet norris

Hypertext uses what are called "anchors;" code that ties (or anchors) a URL to a specific piece of text.

The code to start an anchor is the letter "a" and the code to end or close an anchor is "/a".  HTML commands are called "tags," so a and /a are "anchor tags." HTML commands are normally enclosed in pointy brackets like these < >. (Note: Putting HTML commands in this item may confuse some email clients--- they may try to act on these example tags, and get horribly confused. 8-) If this item looks weird in your email client, just use the links at the top of the page to read the web-version of the newsletter, which is formatted correctly.)

To turn the words "Home Page" (or any word or phrase) into a hyperlink, just enclose the phrase in anchor tags:

<a>Home Page</a>

Of course, there's no URL in the above, so the hyperlink doesn't go anywhere yet. To make it a real, functioning hyperlink referring to another location, you need to add a hyperlink reference or "href" command to the anchor tags. Let's say we want a hyperlink reference to the langa.com site: The tag would look like this: href="http://langa.com"

Adding that to the anchor tags gives you a complete, functioning hyperlink:

<a href="http://langa.com">Home Page</a>

A web browser, or html-capable email reader will turn the words "Home Page" blue and underline them, to show the reader that it's a clickable link--- in this case, to langa.com . Of course, the words "Home Page" are arbitrary: you can put any word or words there.

All HTML commands follow similar logic: A tag starts or opens a given command, and may contain other modifiers or subcommands; that's followed by the actual text or image you want the tag to work on; and that, in turn, is followed by a "close" tag to end the sequence. In most cases, the close-tag command is the same as the open-tag, except preceded by a forward slash. Thus, if open anchor is <a>, then close anchor will be </a>, and so on.

You can learn a lot by examining web pages: Use your browser's View/Source command to see the underlying source code--- the raw HTML--- of any given page. (Start with simple, mostly-text pages.) Copy the source code to your system and play with it--- try changing, removing, or adding tags to see what happens; or try editing the text between the anchors or other tags to see what happens. It's the fastest way to learn I know of.

Many tags are pretty obvious and mnemonic: Bold text, for example, is created by enclosing text inside a <b></b> pair of tags. italic text is created by <i></i>; underlined text by <u></u>; etc. You change fonts with a <font></font> pair; start and end paragraphs with a <p></p> pair, and so on.

While many tags are pretty obvious, you'll need some reference tools to help explain what unfamiliar and more exotic tags are, and how to use them. Fortunately, there are many free information sources, including some excellent interactive tutorials that can have you coding your own web pages in no time. See http://www.google.com/search?q=learn+html

Although the HTML waters can get deep pretty fast, it's not that hard at all to learn basic coding--- and that's all most web pages require!

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4) Email Server in Home/Small Office?

Hey Fred. I have just  registered my first domain name for my family, and would like to set up an email server in the home.  I have done searches for email servers, and have found many on the market.  The problem is I can't find any information on setting up email the explains the needs from the domain to the email server.  Is there some recommended reading you have that will make this clearer? Thanks in advance ---James D. Crawford

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5) Powerful Tools For Customizing Windows

Dear Fred, Recently I put together a new computer. I was determined this time to have the computer organized the way I wanted: The operating system on one partition, *ALL* data files on a separate partition, and *ALL* program files on a third partition. This is possible to do with Windows XP, but it is not easy.

As you know, Windows sets the hidden folder "Documents and Settings" on the System (C:) drive as the default. Although you can move the "My Documents" folder, this still leaves a tremendous amount of user data residing in "Documents and Settings". You can also tell programs where to install, but this does not move the programs in "Program Files" that Windows installed originally.

The solution was to do an unattended install. With this you can set the default directories (partitions) of Program Files, Common Program Files, and Documents and Settings where you like. It can be done with the Windows Deploy Tools located on the XP CD, but I found two tools that made this process easier.

The first is Bart's PE.
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

This tool allows one to create a bootable CD that contains a basic XP operating system, file manager, and many worthwhile tools. It is built from the XP setup files, and is not an unlicensed copy of the Windows PE (Preinstall Environment) available to developers. With Bart's PE disk one can read and write files to the NTFS files system, edit files, partition, assign volume labels, and properly prepare a virgin disk for install. XP need not reside on the hard drive.

The second tool is nLite.
http://nuhi.msfn.org/

nLite is a Windows installation customizer. This tool helps build a slipstream XP install disk with the proper answer files needed for an unattended install. Drivers can be added to bypass the need for SATA or RAID drivers from floppy. The serial number, user name, administrator password, can all be contained. Most importantly, for me, it allows the configuration of the proper location of the Programs and Documents partitions.

I now have a C: drive with Windows and nothing else. The P: drive contains all program files. As the environment variables were created during install, all installations default to the P: drive, except for a very few older programs. With the older programs, you can set them to install to the P: drive manually.

And ALLUSER DATA now resides on the D: drive. Not only the My Documents folder, but the start menu, outlook mail files - in short - all data that formerly resided on the C: drive in the Documents and Settings folder. When programs install user data directories, they are  automatically created on the D: drive.

With this setup it is trivial to image the System drive in a pristine state. It is also trivial to image or backup the D Drive and have all user data backed up without looking in separate directories and folders. --bc

Thanks, BC! We've discussed both tools before; and Bart's, in particular, has evolved a great deal over the years. It can be a little daunting to first-time users, but it's enormously powerful. And, as you said, the two tools can be combined to give you wonderful flexibility in setting up Windows exactly the way you want it to be!

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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) Alternate Lock-Identifier

Fred: Another program on this type that I use here is WhosLocking. It has an advantage over WhosLockingMe in that you can attempt to terminate the process from within the interface by either ending the process politely, terminating it, or ending the service (if applicable).

Can get it off of CodeGuru here:
http://www.codeguru.com/Cpp/W-P/dll/article.php/c3641/

---Lewis Jones

Thanks, Lewis!

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8) They Just Keep Coming And Coming...

Well over three thousand 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

Amazing Multimedia
http://www.amazingmultimedia.net/

Jonathan Omer-Man's personal website
http://omer-man.com/

Mac News
http://www.bowlarium.com/

Backup4all
http://www.backup4all.com/

"Site of Dreams"
http://www.linkers.me.uk/

Tadej's homepage
http://users.volja.net/tayiper/events.html

web business  builder
http://members.aol.com/ezbizbuilder/BulletinBoard.html

aircraft and more
http://gocalipso.com/

Rubber Excavator Tracks & Repairs (AU)
http://www.vtar.com.au/

The Computer Guy
http://www.computerguyofgastonia.com/

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9) Searching For Fixes

Hello Fred, I have been looking in Microsoft and Dell and can't find a fix to my problem. I keep getting this error message.  Rundll   Error loading C:\WINDOWS\DOWNLO~1\ymmapi.dll  This specified module could not be found. Any help will be appreciated. Sincerely,Sandi

Fred: I am running XP Home SP2 with all  updates.  I have had the following error messages appear while trying to install new programs on this computer.  All the problems occur when the new installations are associated with Installshield. Most of the programs I have installed work fine, but lately some of the newer programs will not install. I have tried microsoft site and installshield site, to solve the problems but nothing works.  The message is "Error 1606. Could not access network location...." I have even tried updating the Installshield but it will not update because it says I have the latest file. Any help resolving this issue would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, Ray

That one trick--- feeding a unique part of an error message into Google--- will usually get you to within a few clicks of finding the answer to even very obscure PC problems. Try it!

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10) Just For Grins

In the past, I've posted some of my more offbeat adventures in this space. In some cases, the response was huge--- so much so that I followed up with full length articles, such as this coverage of a GPS-guided two-week driving trip through the Alps: http://langa.com/newsletters/2002/2002-08-05.htm The photos I posted from that trip turned into some of the most popular downloads I've ever offered: http://langa.com/newsletters/2002/2002-08-08.htm#1

Our most recent trip wasn't as spectacular as the Alpine vacation, although it was still GPS-guided, as are virtually all our travels now. But it was still a nice trip, and odd in a way that might surprise you.

We live in a suburban-to-rural area where things are too spread-out for convenient walking; where public transport is poor; and where most of the major roads are not well-designed for bicycles. Cars are really the only practical way to get around.

About a year ago, we found ourselves with four drivers in the family, but three vehicles. That was mostly OK, as I work at home, and we could ride-share or juggle cars to get everyone where they needed to go. But with increasing frequency, we ended up needing to be in four different places, in four dispersed locations, with three vehicles to accomplish the feat.

I hated the idea of getting a fourth car--- it seemed hugely wasteful. So, as an experiment, I bought a small, cheap gasoline-powered motorscooter. It was street-legal, but required no special license. It barely sipped gasoline, and had a 4-stroke engine, so it wasn't one of those highly-polluting, blue-smoke-spewing jobs. It was great for running into town, to the post office, and the like.

To my surprise, it also was a blast to ride. <g> I ended up putting the little scooter to use far beyond what it was designed for: It suffered an early, major mechanical failure. I gave it to someone with the tools and time to tinker with it, and bought a full-sized Italian scooter--- a gorgeous Aprilia Scarabeo 500. It was larger, and could even carry two in comfort, but still was extremely fuel-efficient and minimally-polluting. (It even had a catalytic converter to help clean up the exhaust.)

I loved it, and started racking up the miles. The Aprilia was handy around town, but also was capable of sustained Interstate speeds: I got a full motorcycle license, insurance, and took a multi-day, professionally-taught Motorcycle Safety Foundation training course so I could ride safely.

I loved the bike. My wife and I started riding two-up, and really liked that, too. We began taking longer and longer trips, eventually reaching the limits of what the Aprilia could reasonably carry. (You can see where this is going, right?) We've just put the Aprilia up for sale ( http://tinyurl.com/899t9 ) and got a full-sized touring motorcycle.

But before we took any *really* long trips on the new bike, I wanted to test its capabilities--- and my own! Enter the "Iron Butt Association." (Really!) It's a long-distance motorcycle riding group; their minimum qualifying ride is 1000 documented miles (1600km) in 24 hrs. They call it a "Saddlesore 1000." Using the GPS, I found that a round trip from my house to the Niagara Falls (NY) visitor center and back is 1047 miles. I did that ride last month; an 18 hour ride. Although I'm more of a couch potato than an "Iron Butt," it still was fun, and showed me what the bike can do. Here's the write up of that trip, as posted in a motorcycling forum I participate in:
http://www.gl1800riders.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=221102#221102

Our trip to Pennsylvania this last week was a full dress-rehearsal for a much longer trip through Nova Scotia and Newfoundland my wife and I are planning for later this summer. The PA trip was nice in its own right, but was also long enough to let us fully test our gear, our packing abilities, and riding skills in a variety of weather and road conditions. That writeup is here: http://langa.com/bike/pa-trip.htm

Yes, it's silly. But it's also fun, and perhaps worthy of just a small grin. <g>

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11) Plus! Edition Highlights:

• New Version Of Archives En Route
     (Coming soon: all the LangaLists ever published, at your fingertips!)
• Nonexistent USB Floppies?
     (more ways to rescue 5.25" floppy data)
• Telling Good Encryption From The Bad
     (expert resource!)

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>)

See you next issue, 2005-05-12!

Best,

Fred
( Editor@Langa.Com )

Please recommend the LangaList to a friend! (And maybe win a prize!)

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