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0) Happy New Year!Hope your holidays were good! One of several changes we've had in the works is starting with this issue--- a minor restructuring of the newsletter content to bring the different versions into closer alignment. Now, instead of having the Plus! edition content tacked onto the end of each issue, it'll appear in the normal body of the newsletter; the "Just For Grins" item will now generally be the last item in all editions. This is minor, and only affects the order of presentation of the content; not the content itself: The Plus! editions will still contain about 40% more content than the Standard edition. But this way, all editions will share the same order and sequence of content. Now, let's get started! Click to email this item to a
friend 1) Free "FireTune"Over the holidays while I was taking a short break, this reader encountered a problem and then discovered the solution. If you use Firefox, you may find it interesting:
And then, a few days later:
It's smart to try different browsers because--- despite what the more ardent fans of each claim--- none of the major browsers is 100% standards compliant, and none will render all pages well. And, even if a browser were 100% standards compliant, but bogs your system or makes some mainstream sites look like a mess, what good is that kind of technical purity? There are de facto standards and official standards, and a good browser ought to respect them both. Alas, no one browser can yet do it all.... Click to email this item to a
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--------------( the above is an advertisement )------------- 2) Reminder For Users Of XP Home Edition Or Win98As we've discussed in the past, Microsoft's "Product LifeCycle" sets a series of end dates for each product; support is gradually withdrawn, stepwise, until the product reaches "end of life," when all support is terminated. And, as we've discussed in the past, XP Home is scheduled to become unsupported at the end of this year: on Dec 31 2006. XP Pro will continue to be supported in the limited form of ongoing security updates (but not necessarily any new features) until 2011. Of course, Microsoft has played with the end dates in the past--- for example, they've scheduled Win98's "end of life" date several times, but postponed it again and again due to customer pressure. So, these dates aren't written in stone. My best guess (but it's only a guess, based on Microsoft's past behavior) is that XP Home's end-of-support date will be extended somewhat beyond the end of the year, though perhaps not as far as XP Pro's. And speaking of Win98: It's scheduled to become unsupported on June 30th of this year--- there'll be no new patches, updates, or fixes after that--- and the Win98 Knowledgebase and self-help web pages at Microsoft.Com will go dark a year later, in June 2007. No immediate action is required; this is just a heads up--- something you should be aware of and thinking about as time goes on. I'll have more on this next week, and (of course) we'll stay on top of it as the year progresses; letting you know your options and alternatives. Stay tuned! Click to email this item to a
friend 3) Telegraphic Questions Re: Partitions
In general, I recommend you start with your backup media, and work backwards from there: In other words, size your partitions so they'll be easy to back up--- easy to fit on your backup media. (The easier it is to make backups, the more likely you are to do it. Or, to put it the negative way: No one wants to try to back up a gigantic hard drive or partition all at once!) For example, if your DVD burner is one of the new dual-layer ones that can hold 8.5GBs, then something in the 8-12GB range is pretty reasonable for a main partition. (With the data compression used by most good imaging tools, you can usually fit a partition's image in no more than about 50-75% of the space of the full, uncompressed partition.) Of course, that assumes the partition is jam-packed with data, which often isn't the case. Because empty space on a partition doesn't occupy space in an image, you often can fit even nominally-large partitions on a medium that's smaller than you might think would be necessary. For example, by keeping my 8GB C: partition relatively clean and lean, using high data compression for my images, and by NOT including swapfiles/pagefiles, temp files, System Restore files, and other nonessential space hogs in the image, I usually can fit everything on a single 4.7GB DVD disc. When the image is too large for a single DVD, I'll burn the overage to a standard 700MB CD. If the overage is larger than one DVD plus one CD, I'll use two DVDs, and so on; striving for the fewest number of disks to juggle and store. So, as a starting point, try the above as a general guide; or you can use the information here for additional detail: http://langa.com/backups/backups.htm But remember--- there's no single "right" answer. The right answer for *you* is whatever partition size makes your backups easy and convenient enough so you'll do them often. And don't worry about not getting it perfect the first time: The better partitioning tools let you resize in-use partitions, on the fly, without having to reformat and start over. So, if you find your first pass creates partitions that are too large or small, no problem: You can adjust them whenever you want until you have things just right for your needs! Click to email this item to a
friend --- ( Your Clicks On Ad Links Help Keep The LangaList S.E. Free! ) --- "Thank you for providing this
service for a reasonable price. --------------( the above is an advertisement )-------------- 4) Lock Down A PC, Free!
Thanks, Bruce. Microsoft offers the download, plus links to necessary additional software and full instructions, here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sharedaccess/default.mspx The tool works on XP SP2. If you're looking for an easy--- and free!--- way to make one or more accounts on a PC relatively bulletproof, this could be very, very helpful. Click to email this item to a
friend 5) Ancient Software On A New OSMany users are new to XP, perhaps as a result of getting new hardware for the Holidays. That can lead to questions like this:
The answer is... probably. <g> It really depends on how "well behaved" the old software is. If it's not well-behaved--- that is, if it tries to control the PC's hardware directly, bypassing the OS to write to the screen or the hard drive, for example--- then it won't work. (XP prevents other software from directly controlling the hardware in order to prevent conflicts and errors.) But well-behaved software that works through the OS (rather than around it) usually can work just fine in XP. In fact I have some ancient DOS software that I wrote years and years ago that I still use in XP, and it works just fine. Lots more info: http://langa.com/newsletters/2003/2003-06-30.htm#1 (BTW, in the context above, "POS" means "point of sale," not "piece of... something." <g>) Click to email this item to a
friend 6) Always Room for One More!Do you know even one other person who might find this newsletter interesting or useful? Please click on over to http://langa.com/recommend.htm to see just how easy it is to recommend that they take a look. You might even win a free ONE YEAR SUBSCRIPTION to the Plus edition for your trouble! 8-) Click to email this item to a
friend 7) Hello Summer, or WinterAlthough we're settling in for midwinter chills here, our friends on the southern half of the planet are starting to cook in summer temperatures:
Glad it helped, Nick. I keep a can of compressed air handy, and tidy up the guts of my PCs any time I have to go inside, now; summer, winter or whenever. It's usually easier and less messy to do several small cleanups from time to time rather than one of those dust-spewing grand-mal jobs at wider intervals. <g> Click to email this item to a
friend 8) They Loaded The CodeDo 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
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://langa.com/link.txt ) Manually Browse All Posted-to-Date Sites Starting At Computer Geek First Class Jewelry from Hawaii RegmagiK Registry
Editor Just Right
Solutions Rich, the
Woodworker Rings-4-You Genootschap van
Vlaamse Misdaadauteurs "Beautiful Dreams
Collection" Silas Super Store Endeavour Motel
and Restaurant (AU) Click to email this item to a
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--------------( the above is an advertisement )------------- 9) Boot Drive Is F: Instead Of C:
Changing most drive-letter assignments is easy, but--- as you've discovered--- changing the *boot* drive letter is a bit harder. But it can be done. The official how-to
from Microsoft is "How to restore the system/boot drive letter in
Windows," at The simpler and more general procedure (for non-boot drives) is "How to change drive letter assignments in Windows XP," at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307844&sd=tech And there's tons more info here: Click to email this item to a
friend 10, 11, 12, 13) Plus! Edition OnlyToday's LangaList Plus! Edition contains all items the Standard Edition plus about 40% more content, including:
The Plus! edition is only pennies per issue, and comes with a MONEY BACK Plus! Edition info: http://langa.com/plus.htm Click to email this item to a
friend 14) Just For Grins
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