What You Need to Know about All Things PC
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The Naked PC - http://www.TheNakedPC.com What You Need to Know about All Things PC Publisher: Lee Hudspeth and T.J. Lee Editor: Dan Butler This issue is for Friday, July 17th - Vol. 1 No. 2 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Table of Contents ** 01. Letter from the Publisher ** 02. Recipe for Disaster: A Large Hard Drive, Third-party Partitioning Software, FAT32, Windows 98, and Norton Speed Disk (by Frederic Gordon) ** 03. More Lynx Tips and Tricks ** 04. Privacy and the AnyWho Directory ** 05. Featured FAQ - Stopping Applications from Starting When Windows Boots Up ** 06. Featured Book Recommendation - "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" by Edward R. Tufte ** 07. Featured Product Recommendation - Microsoft Internet Explorer PowerToys ** 08. Featured Web Page Recommendation - Amalgamated Binaries ** 09. Newsworthy - a potpourri of current events and interesting stuff ** 01. Letter from the Publisher Welcome to Issue 2 of TNPC! We've received plenty of responses to our first issue and that's great because we need and want your input. (If you missed Issue 1 you can read it on our Web site: http://www.TheNakedPC.com/backissues/v1i1.html or you can send email to mailto:tnpcv1i1@PRIMEConsulting.com and a copy will be forwarded to you.) We started this newsletter because as writers and consultants we share information for a living, and we think this is a venue that can get us closer to our many readers and clients. Our technical know-how goes into our books and the magazine articles we write, but the long lead times keep us from being as interactive with our audience as we'd like. The newsletter format lets us cover timely topics right now, and also address the problems and questions you send in. For example, David S. sent an email to tnpc@PRIMEConsulting.com asking how to run both Win98 and Win95 at the same time so he can make the transition in stages. Our colleague Frederick Gordon has tackled this very problem with some very unexpected results which he describes in this issue. Another TNPCer, Ray Strong, made a dynamite suggestion to improve navigation in TNPC, so this issue includes a different numbering scheme for our topics. You can search on a "** " prefix and thereby jump quickly from topic to topic. Several of you have experienced problems with the colors of the text and links on our TNPC Web site, and we're working on a better scheme. We are also open to suggestions! Meantime... Please keep it up! Let us know what interests you and we'll try to cover it or point you to the information you need. We won't be able to solve every problem or individually answer each piece of email we receive, but your input is helpful and listened to. And if TNPC is at all helpful to you please tell at least one person about this newsletter this week. The more subscribers we have, the easier it is to justify the significant amount of time it takes to publish this free newsletter. You can reach us from the TNPC Web site: http://www.TheNakedPC.com/tnpfeedback.html or by email: mailto:tnpc@PRIMEConsulting.com +++------------------------- sponsor -------------------------+++ Outlook driving you crazy? Despair not, the latest book in the Annoyances series from O'Reilly is out! Outlook Annoyances (covers both 97 and 98) from Woody Leonhard, Lee Hudspeth, & T. J. Lee, takes you through the Outlook 97 and 98 minefields unscathed. Tame the Outlook beast and make Microsoft's premiere information manager do your bidding. http://www.PRIMEConsulting.com/annoyances/outlookannoy.html +++------------------------ sponsor -------------------------+++ ** 02. Recipe for Disaster: A Large Hard Drive, Third-party Partitioning Software, FAT32, Windows 98, and Norton Speed Disk (by Frederic Gordon) A not-so-funny thing happened to me on the way to preparing an article on how to install Windows 98 while preserving a Windows 95 installation: I had a catastrophic, unrecoverable loss of data on the primary partition of my hard drive. Which is to say my brand spanking new Windows 98 installation was totally trashed. Stuff happens in the computer world, including data loss. But this is the first time I ever experienced it without hardware failure and without being able to salvage things with recovery utilities. Worse, some of the principal players in the drama claim to have no knowledge of the problems. The particular combination of ingredients necessary for the problem to occur is: (a) a hard drive larger than 8 GB; (b) using Partition Magic, or other dynamic partitioning utility, to create FAT32 partitions; (c) using a multi-boot utility, such as System Commander, to swap among different operating systems on separate partitions, and (d) running Norton Speed Disk to defragment the FAT32 partitions you created with the partitioning utility. All that SOUNDS obscure, but actually, it's a fairly likely combination if you attempt multi-booting, or even if you just use a partitioning utility to break up a large hard drive into several partitions. Win98 setup will allow you to save a backup of your old Win95 setup, but if you want to have your old Win95 and your new Win98 operating systems working in parallel, you need to multi-partition. Also, the partitioning tools included with Win98, such as Fdisk, will erase all data while a third- party utility like Partition Magic preserves it. This experience is the ultimate tech support nightmare: a data- destroying problem caused by the interaction of separate programs made by different companies. Inasmuch as the bug cannot be assigned fairly to any one of the programs, customers are at the mercy of the companies' willingness to take the initiative and finding a solution. In this case, that initiative was in very short supply. V Communications, which makes System Commander, was on top of the problem, has a fix, and I am indebted to their tech support department for patiently walking me through the bug. The eagle- eyed editor of this newsletter, Dan Butler, finally helped pinpoint the key to the problem: unknown to most computer users, Microsoft has devised more than one type of FAT32 formatting: a standard version and "FAT32X," which was invented to get around the technical limitations of current generation PCs when using hard drives larger than 8 GB. (It looks as though FAT32X may simply be a coined term, and not a new feature or variant of the FAT32 file allocation scheme itself. Early reports indicate the term "FAT32X" might be slang for capabilities of FAT32 to which partitioning and other hard drive utility developers hadn't paid attention until more people started using drives larger than 8 GB. Stay tuned. -- Ed.) To make a very long story short, the current version of Partition Magic does not support FAT32X, and for some reason, Speed Disk will rearrange the contents of a standard FAT32 partition on a large hard drive into FAT32X format. As noted, V Communications knew of the problem when I called their technical support department, and has a fix. PowerQuest (Partition Magic) knows about FAT32X, but hadn't been aware of the problem with Speed Disk until I called it to their attention. They are developing a version 4.0 of Partition Magic that will support FAT32X. However, as this is a written, Symantec has yet to acknowledge a problem with Speed Disk. Microsoft, whose format this is, has nothing about FAT32X in their Knowledge Base, nor was the Microsoft technical support person I contacted able to provide any information about it. At this point, there appear to be only two fixes: first, stop using Speed Disk and instead run Win98's Disk Defragmenter utility, which doesn't cause the problem. Or, alternatively, install the "4.01 Maintenance Release" of V Communications' System Commander Deluxe, which has revised partitioning routines intended to avoid this problem. (System Commander 3.x, the multi- boot-only utility, does not include this capability.) Upgrading to Partition Magic 4.0 when it becomes available is another option, of course. Given the potential for catastrophic data loss, the uneven (to be charitable) response from the tech support shops involved is unacceptable and disturbing. V Communications didn't get its information out of thin air, if they knew about the problem, why didn't everyone else? FAT32 is a new technology that is married in Win98 to some of the old DOS-based technology, which is being outrun by modern hardware. In the issues ahead, we will be looking at some of the problems that may crop up as the old and new technologies collide. [Frederic Gordon is a Boston-area journalist who has been working with Microsoft Word and other Office applications since Version 1 days, which, all things considered, adds up to an enormous amount of aggravation and annoyance. You can reach him at mailto:frederic5@aol.com.] ** 03. More Lynx Tips and Tricks In TNPC 1.1 we covered Lynx at length. Here are a few additional things you'll want to know as you begin using this text-only Web browser. For documentation on Lynx command line switches, start at the main help page, go to the Lynx Help Menu, follow the "Lynx Users Guide" link, from the Table of Contents follow the link entitled "The Lynx command line." Some quickies... To quickly see just the body text and link URLs of a Web page: lynx -dump http://www.yourdomain.com > test.txt Of course substitute your favorite URL. This command strips the HTML tags, leaving just the page's textual content, and puts a list of URLs at the end of the listing. You can even browse your hard drive using Lynx; type "lynx c:" and navigate from there. We've received some reader comments that while Lynx is fast, it's not all that much faster than Internet Explorer or Navigator with graphics turned off. What's missing in this equation is that Lynx loads almost instantly, and Lynx does not have to deal with Cascading Style Sheets, Dynamic HTML, JavaScript, VBScript, or Java applets, among other technologies, as does a graphical browser. When you add in Lynx's small footprint (especially for road warriors using laptops and modems over hotel phone lines), Lynx is as handy as a pocket on a shirt, pen optional. ** 04. Privacy and the AnyWho Directory If you've been on the Internet very long you've probably heard about several threats to your privacy. Cookies, Viruses, Java, ActiveX, JavaScript and other things are often the targets of wide and varied claims. We're not going to get into the validity or non-validity of these issues here, but may do so in a later issue. What we do want to concern ourselves with is online directories. You've probably seen these -- you enter a name or address and the directory returns a phone number for you. These directories are usually advertised as a good way to find long lost friends among other things. Spend a few minutes going by these places some night and just see what kind of information they do or don't have stored on you. You'll find a list of the directories at the end of this article. My wife heard about an online directory called AnyWho. You can find it at http://www.anywho.com if you want to have a look. One of the major features of AnyWho is a reverse telephone directory. The concept is simple -- you enter a street address and AnyWho returns the phone number for you. But it doesn't stop there! AnyWho goes a little farther by allowing you to enter a street name and then returning all of the residents of that street along with their addresses and phone numbers. My wife tried it out and found two of her family's listings, which is what we expected her to get. The she tried her sister and found both of her numbers. Next she typed in her street name and was greeted with a full listing of her family and all of her neighbors. How comforting to know that someone can easily gather this much information on you in such a short time. AnyWho states on their main page that directories of this type have been around for a long time in many formats. Most every city has what's known as the City Directory (also called a "Reverse Directory") which is used extensively by door-to-door salespeople and telemarketers. To us the issue isn't availability, it's accessibility. In the past you had to go out of your way to locate this information, it wasn't just handed to you on a silver platter. The result of this being that the merely curious didn't access the information. For example, since AT&T owns AnyWho, try calling AT&T and try to get phone numbers for a given street in the US. To AnyWho's credit they will let you update or unlist yourself. But here's the rub, you have to go there and unlist yourself. You could spend a great deal of time removing yourself from all of the directories on the Internet, assuming you could find them all. AnyWho mentions that the way to stay out of these directories is to have an unpublished number. Unpublished is not the same as unlisted and you must ask for it. We're not opposed to directory listings on the Internet -- we've used them ourselves at times. It's the concept of publishing information about people that was previously not so easy to get that makes us uneasy. What other databases will be coming on line in the future? And lest you think we are picking on AnyWho, the concerns in this article apply to all online databases and directories including Yahoo, Bigfoot, Database America, and the rest. Here are the addresses to some of the more popular online directories: http://www.anywho.com http://www.four11.com http://www.bigfoot.com http://www.infospace.com http://www.whowhere.com http://www.switchboard.com http://www.databaseamerica.com and of course http://www.yahoo.com/Reference/Phone_Numbers/ ** 05. Featured FAQ - Stopping Applications from Starting When Windows Boots Up Ever install some seemingly innocuous piece of software only to find when you restart Windows it suddenly takes on a life of its own? Every time you start Windows, Program X starts up. This annoys you because if you want it to run you're capable of running it yourself. You'd like to think you're in control of your computer and not subject to some software developer's whim. But try as you might you can't find where this application gets its marching orders when Windows starts. The list of usual suspects ranges from the Windows Startup folder (C:\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\StartUp\) to the good old WIN.INI file (yes, this relic is still around and capable of launching applications), to several sneaky places in the Registry where a program can be launched at startup. We have a FAQ on this subject that walks you through checking all these possible nooks and crannies to see where that errant application is being started from. It's on the PRIME Resources site at: http://www.PRIMEConsulting.com/faqs/faq3456.html ** 06. Featured Book Recommendation - "The Visual Display of Quantitative Information" by Edward R. Tufte Published by Graphics Press; ISBN 0-96139-210X. If you create charts or graphs in Excel, or any graphics or charting software whatsoever, or even if you draw pie charts on cave walls, GET THIS BOOK! No one should be allowed to click on a chart wizard button unless they've read this amazing book on the visual display of quantitative data. There is much more to charting than you might suspect. This book is an incredible resource. Order from Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/096139210X/tnpcnewsletter/ ** 07. Featured Product Recommendation - Microsoft Internet Explorer PowerToys PowerToys are a set of free, unsupported tools designed to enhance your Internet Explorer browsing experience. And enhance they do. Created by the Internet Explorer developers themselves, who categorically (but with a wink and a grin) warn that, "By downloading these unsupported tools you are using them at your own risk -- you know, like bungee jumping in your underwear or dating your best friend's sister. Go ahead, live life on the edge for once! We're sure you'll like them!" We won't comment on their choice of imagery or humor, but we do use and heartily recommend PowerToys. You'll find them at: http://www.microsoft.com/ie/ie40/powertoys/ Did we mention they're free? Image Toggler -- toggles images off and on. When you click the Toggle Images.exe button in the Links bar, it's six mouse strokes for the price of one (no more laborious View / Internet Options / Advanced / click to scroll down / un-check "Show pictures" / OK... whew). Reload the current page to clear the images on that page, if desired. The page you browse right after the toggle will behave according to the way you toggled. This'n is our favorite. Links List -- shows an ordered list of the current page's links. Right-click on the page (except for a link or graphic) and select Links List. A new window lists every link as, naturally, a link. Pure simplicity, pure genius! Open Frame in New Window -- see the content of a particular frame without all those irksome sidebars. Right-click inside the target frame and select Open Frame in New Window. Quick Search -- lets you quickly access search engines from right inside your Address bar. Like so, type hb lynx into the address bar and this launches a search with HotBot on the keyword "lynx". Since these PowerToys are undocumented, you might find using this one awkward until stumbling onto the trick: you must first "save" specific Quick Search keystroke shortcuts. To have the command hb your_text_here search HotBot for the desired text, activate the Links toolbar, click on the Quick Search.exe button, select the hb shortcut item from the list, and click Save. Type hb your_text_here in the Address bar and up comes HotBot's main search page and your search. The annoying part about Quick Search's user interface is that when you run it the next time to set up another search service, the Internet Explorer Quick Search dialog box doesn't tell you which shortcuts you've already saved. You either have to remember, or waste time creating a shortcut you've already saved. Text Highlighter -- the Internet Explorer equivalent to Microsoft Word's highlighting feature. Select text you want to highlight, right-click, choose Highlight. Word offers a rainbow of 15 highlight colors, whereas Text Highlighter offers one: yellow. Even with only yellow, it's still a cool tool. Web Search -- only visible when you right-click on some selected text. If "Lynx" is the selected text, when you choose Web Search a new Internet Explorer launches and does an AutoSearch on Yahoo. In brief, Internet Explorer's AutoSearch allows you to search directly from the Address bar by typing go, find, or ? followed by a space and a search string. The Default value of the Registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\SearchUrl, typically something like "http://home.microsoft.com/access/autosearch.asp?p=%s", determines what search service is used. You can use the must-have Windows 95 PowerToy -- that's Windows, not Internet Explorer -- called TweakUI to change this behavior. (The Windows 95 PowerToys are at: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/contents/powertoys/ TNPC Hot Tips:
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