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LangaList 2005-06-27 Please visit our sponsors and help keep the LangaList S.E. free!
1) Largest LangaList Ever!Today's issue is the largest LangaList ever! The extra content in today's special, EXPANDED EDITION will give you plenty to digest over an upcoming brief hiatus for (a) heavy maintenance on the mailing list setups; (b) prepping for the technical and logistical challenges of the "House Call" project ( http://langa.com/newsletters/2005/2005-03-21.htm#5 ) and (c) a short summer vacation. None of this requires action on your part; I just didn't want anyone to be alarmed or to wonder what was going on. I'll be in the office and working normally items (a) and (b) above, but won't be able to produce newsletters at the same time. Then, after a short vacation, when I'll be back at the keyboard, re-filling the content pipeline; the next issue will mail to you on July 18th. See you then! And meanwhile, enjoy our LARGEST ISSUE EVER! <g> Click to email this item to a
friend 2) How Do You Know If Protections Are Really Working?
Is your setup good; is all that stuff really working? Well, I think you answered your own question: "Rarely do I find anything worth chasing or worrying about except for what I have allowed in by mistake or just cookies." Plus, you also periodically test your "stealthing," and report no problems. In short, yes, I'd say your setup is working fine! Is there more/better you could do? Perhaps. For example, you can test your firewall's ability to prevent common "phone home" attacks--- the insidious "attack from within" used by some malware--- with the free "Leaktest" ( http://www.grc.com/lt/leaktest.htm ). The other free tools at http://www.grc.com/freepopular.htm also are useful at identifying--- and closing--- some other common attack vectors. BroadbandReport's fast, free "Port Scan" at http://www.broadbandreports.com/tools and its slower, much more thorough "Slow Scan" http://www.broadbandreports.com/secureme can also help exercise your defenses in a controlled way, probing for weaknesses. There are many, many other testing sites available, too, and you'll find quite a list in "The Best PC Help, Reference, And Test Sites" ( http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20010916S0021 ). That article is a few years old, but most of the information and links are still fine. But is this level of protection and testing really necessary? No real-world system can ever be 100% secure; that's just a fact of life. But you can increase security enough so that the odds of a successful breach become quite low. How much security you need depends on what's on your PC. A PC used only for things like IMing friends and playing online games needs only basic security. But if the same PC is also used for online purchases or banking; or is used to prepare taxes; or is used for work; or contains valuable documents, pictures, music collections etc.; then the risk of loss is greater, and the need for protection likewise increases. Even the setup itself represents a kind of "sunk cost" in the hours---or days or weeks--- you've spent getting your system just the way you want it. So, one way to approach this is to ask, "How much would it hurt if my PC vanished today? How much time would I lose getting things back, and would I really miss anything I couldn't get back? Is there anything on my PC I'd have to worry about falling into hostile hands?" If the answer is "not much," that is, if you could get a replacement PC and more or less pick up where you left off without a lot of hassle, worry, or time, then your security needs are minimal. But if you'd have to spend days on the phone with banks and credit card companies; if you'd have to worry about identity theft; if you'd lose legally important and financially sensitive things like missing tax records; if your work would suffer; if you'd lose irreplaceable documents or photos; or lose an expensive music collection; or would have to spend days rebuilding your system; or otherwise would face major pain, hassle, and suffering, then your security needs are much higher. Surprisingly, most people fall into the latter category, even though--- at first blush--- most people seem to think "there's nothing really valuable on my PC." Nowadays, it's actually rare to find a PC that doesn't have at least *something* valuable---or even irreplaceable!--- on it! Perry's level of defenses suggests he either has valuable data on his system, or has invested enough time and effort into getting his system just so that he doesn't want any external agent to mess it up. I feel likewise about my system, and so use a very similar strategy. In fact, I go even further than Perry: My most sensitive information is also locked behind standalone 256bit AES encryption that's not part of my OS's own built-in encryption. So, even if someone found my personal system online (not easy), broke through my multiple firewalls and numerous other safeguards--- or even broke into my physical house and simply stole the PC--- they'd have a heck of a time actually getting anything significant off my system. But your system may not need that level of protection. I suggest *everyone* start with Perry's list, or the one below, and add defenses to whatever level is right for your own unique situation. A firewall ( Sygate: http://www.sygate.com , Zone Alarm: http://www.zonealarm.com/ , etc.); antivirus (Symantec/Norton: http://www.norton.com/ , NOD32: http://www.nod32.com/home/home.htm , AVG: http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php ); antimalware ( MS Antispyware: http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx , SpywareBlaster: http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html , StartUpMonitor: http://www.mlin.net/StartupMonitor.shtml , WinPatrol: http://www.winpatrol.com/ , AdAware: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/ , Spybot S&D: http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html ) So, while not everyone needs every possible layer of protection, just about everyone needs at least *some* protection. That's not paranoia--- it's just good sense! (PS. Perry: My voices say "Hello" to your voices. <g>) Click to email this item to a
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--------------( the above is an advertisement )------------- 3) Yes, Master
This is one of those problems made harder by bad nomenclature: The "Master Browser" name can be a red herring, leading some to think their web browser is involved. But it's a completely different thing--- and one that actually predates most web browsers. Sherman, set the WayBack machine: It's hard to believe, but networking PCs used to be even harder than it is today. <g> In fact, networking used to be a kind of free-fire zone with competing, proprietary methods of doing just about everything. It was a mess. When PCs became more or less inherently network-aware in the early 1990's Windows employed a simple way of setting up a "peer network," that is, a way for PCs to interact with each other over a network without the necessity of a central server to control things. But this was partially an illusion because, under the covers, one of the peer PCs still would have to act as a kind of server: It would scan--- "browse"--- the network and make a list of what PCs were available. The PC with the master list of the available network resources was called the "Master Browser" or sometimes "Browse Master." Several of the other PCs on the peer net would be designated as "Backup Browsers." When a PC on the peer network needed to find a network resource, it'd ask the Master Browser, which would shunt the request to a Backup Browser, which would answer the request. This sounds clumsy, but actually "spread the load" of handling network requests so that no one PC would get swamped in a busy peer net. So far so good. But unlike a true network server, which is always there and always on, PCs could come and go off a peer net. When the PC acting as a Master Browser would go offline (intentionally or not), the peer net could be thrown temporarily into a state of confusion until the remaining PCs would decide among themselves which would be the new Master Browser in a process called "having an election" (really!) Once a new Master Browser was elected, the Backup Browser assignments would be renewed or refreshed, and things would resume normally. (I'm going fast and simplifying things: If you want more detail, Carnegie Mellon has a good overview here: http://www.cmu.edu/computing/documentation/support_WINS/wins.html ; and there's another good third-party overview here: http://www.digitalissues.co.uk/html/os/ms/peer2peer.html ) This approach mostly worked and was all wonderfully automatic (most users have never even heard of a "Master Browser"--- they didn't need to because it mostly just worked!), but things could sometimes fall apart. For example, if two machines ended up thinking they each were the Master Browser, or if no machine thought it was the Master Browser, the peer net could fail, usually until the machine(s) causing the problem rebooted. Some of this peer net design lingers on today, and can be a problem when, say, a local network's Master Browser PC drops into suspend mode or hibernation, leaving the other peer machines in the lurch. If they recover by holding a new election and choosing a new Master Browser, there also can be trouble when the original Master Browser wakes up and resumes where it left off, thinking it's still in charge. There can be other problems, too. But you can control Master Browsing, to a degree, with fairly
simple software settings. Master Browser issues in general are discussed here: A Master Browser toolkit (free signup required) is available
here: And the specific "8003" problem is discussed at length in
these sites: Click to email this item to a
friend 4) Free "KatMouse"
Thanks, Jeff! Click to email this item to a
friend --- ( Your Clicks On Ad Links Help Keep The LangaList S.E. Free! ) --- "Your newsletter is still the
best value on the net! Thanks, Donald! --------------( the above is an advertisement )-------------- 5) Questions On Multibooting
There are actually many ways to accomplish this. The simplest may be to use XP's own, built-in boot manager. But for that to work, XP has to be installed *after* the other OSes are installed. The Microsoft article "Multibooting with Windows XP" http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/multiboot.mspx runs through the details for general multibooting, multibooting with XP and Win2k; XP and NT; and XP with DOS, Win95, Win98, and ME. Third party "boot manager" tools may offer more flexibility, such as not requiring that you install the OSes in a specific order. There are many, many choices ( http://www.google.com/search?q=boot+manager ). My personal choice is BootIt , which is a boot manager, partition manager and disk imaging tool, all in one. ( http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-q=bootit&sp-a=0008002a-sp00000000 ) But it's geeky and a little hard to use, if you're new to any of those concepts. Lots more info: http://www.google.com/search?q=multiboot Click to email this item to a
friend 6) Bad Cables Masquerade As USB Drive Problem
Glad you mentioned that, Rog. Indeed, when your USB drive works on some of your PC's ports but not others, improper internal cabling is the #1 suspect! Click to email this item to a
friend 7) Last Days To "Recommend And Win!"On June 30, I'll choose three more monthly winners of a FREE ONE YEAR
SUBSCRIPTION to the LangaList Plus! edition. (If your name is drawn and you're
already a Plus! subscriber, your current subscription will be extended by a full
year.) Click to email this item to a
friend 8) "Find And Run Robot"
Thank you, Rajeev! Manually organizing your Start menu is always a good idea, but as you say, even with the best organization, a many-levels-deep menu structure can be a pain. The donationware "Find and Run Robot" could be very helpful! Click to email this item to a
friend 9) Code Load Success StoryAfter his site was listed in a recent "Load The Code" section, this reader wrote:
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
) Manually Browse All Posted-to-Date Sites Starting
At Land of The Sausage Tree Architecture coquine Psychological Services of West Florida Frictionary Willoughby WebDesign Antoine's Cookbook of Antoine's Restaurant BestRecipeSite.com New Jersey Highlands New The Siam Sterling Nielloware Site Maxpctech.com Click to email this item to a
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--------------( the above is an advertisement )------------- 10) Who Thought Of "Recovery Partitions," And Why?
Several factors brought about the rise of the "recovery partition." Yes, part of it is Microsoft's anti-piracy kick: By placing the setup files on a system's hard drive, the casual CD-swapping of yore came to a halt. Part of it is simple finances: It's cheaper for a vendor to ship bits on a capacious hard drive than to pay for separate CD manufacturing, packaging, literature and shipping. And part of it is more complex finances: When a whole raft of tech support issues can be cured by having end-users trigger an on-disk recovery option (no CDs to misplace or software keys to lose), support costs go way down. Of course, this kind of "repair" is brute force, and risks losing user data, but it does get the PC's software back to factory configuration in a jiffy. So, it's really a variety of factors, all accelerated by the rise of cheap, gigantic hard drives. Put them all together, ignore the downsides to the end user, and to a bean-counter mentality, a Recovery Partition seems like a really good idea. <g> (N.B. See also item #11, below.) As for hard drive life, you have to consider the design life, which manufacturers spec as MTBF, or "mean time between failures." You can think of this as an average life for a hard drive. Some individual drives will last longer, some will die sooner, but on average the MTBF will give you a rough idea of how long a particular kind of drive will last--- probably--- before it succumbs to normal wear and tear. You usually can find MTBF data on the detailed spec sheets for a drive (or other electronic component) at the manufacturer's site. Note that some external drives are really just ordinary hard drives in external housings. These drives aren't designed for external use, and so may die a premature death compared to a drive used in the safe, stable, and (hopefully) well-cooled interior of a PC case. In fact, as your drive works for a short time and then dies, I'd wonder about a heat-related problem there. Finally, a weird trend of late is for manufacturers to spec a long MTBF, but back their products with a short warranty. When you come right down to it, only the warranty really matters, because that's the length of time the vendor will absolutely stand behind their product. So: Let the warranty be your primary guide, and use the MTBF only for general planning. Click to email this item to a
friend 11) Persistence Pays Off
Good for you, Donald! Indeed, some vendors respond to direct requests for the setup discs, but others don't. Response also seems to vary by product; you're sometimes more likely to get a positive response if you bought higher-end equipment. But it doesn't hurt to ask! Click to email this item to a
friend 12) Freeware Mailer
Thanks, Clarence! Click to email this item to a
friend 13) Free Text Converter
There's other good stuff on that site, too. Thanks, Ed! Click to email this item to a
friend 14) "Teach Me HTML" ToolThe item "Getting Started With HTML" ( http://langa.com/newsletters/2005/2005-05-09.htm#3 ) brought this follow-up email:
Nice find, Deb, Thanks. Click to email this item to a
friend 15) Just For GrinsFred-- In a recent "LangaList" newsletter, you wrote:CDs and DVDs are certainly not a perfect medium, but they are the current best-available choice for long-term data storage."Best-available?" I'd go for punch cards. As long as you keep them away from fire and water, exclude rodents, ... ok, maybe punch cards aren't the most durable. How many thousands of cards would you need to store a typical MP3, anyway? Click to email this item to a
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--------------( the above is an advertisement )------------- 16) Plus! Edition Highlights:Today's LangaList Plus! Edition contains all the items above, plus even more content including:
If you like the standard edition, you'll love the Plus! edition. I *guarantee it*--- or your money back! Full details: http://langa.com/plus.htm Click to email this item to a
friend (Give a gift subscription to
the LangaList Plus edition! See you next issue, 2005-07-18! Best, 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. UNSUBSCRIBE (instant removal!):
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