The LangaList 26-Jul-99 A Free Email Newsletter from Fred Langa About BrowserTune, HotSpots, Columns, Tips & Tricks, and Other Activities In This Issue: Win98 Second Edition Answers! A Computer Time Capsule More Days Of WINE and Trumpets New Microsoft Natural-Language Troubleshooter IE5 Weirdness #1: The FavIcon Mystery (and Security Hole) IE5 Weirdness #2: Killing Bogus "AutoComplete/AutoFill" Entries FREE Palm III Giveaway Roll On! Just for Grins More! Win98 Second Edition Answers! Wow! Last week's column asking for feedback on Win98 SE generated well over 500 responses--- and almost all the comments were negative! Of course, far more people respond when they're unhappy than when they're happy, so you can't draw too broad a conclusion from this---except to say that something unusual and probably not good is going on. I've waded through all the posts to try to look for patterns and regularities so we can try to help all of you who either are currently having trouble with Win98SE, or who might someday want (or have to) use the new version, and run into difficulty then. I've also dug through the Microsoft web site and found disturbing and contradictory information about Win98Se on the site---Microsoft even calls it by different names in different places, and says different things about which versions should be used on which systems! And at the end of it all, I came up with eight separate approaches you can take to help get Win98SE installed and running right. Plus, the editors of WinMag are adding their own special links to the column, so you'll get even more info. The column would take up this entire newsletter leaving no room for anything else, so instead, you'll find it posted on the WinMag "Dialog Box" area starting midday Monday 26-Jul- 99 (EDT; GMT-4) and then running all week. Plus, putting the column there will make all the many links in it fully clickable and easy to access! Once you've checked out my eight possible approaches to avoid, reduce, or ameliorate Win98SE woes, then it's your turn: What SE-related problems did you have, and what were you able to do to help fix them? Once again, let`s pool our knowledge. Join in the week-long discussion at http://www.winmag.com/ . ---------( Please Visit This LangaList Sponsor!)------------ FREE ADDRESS LABELS! Get 300 Personalized Address Labels FREE from iPrint.com! You pay just $1.45 for shipping within the US. This limited-time offer is good for first-time customers only. Click below to get started! http://www.iPrint.com/121.html?ad=384ZU121A -----------( the above is a paid advertisement )----------- A Computer Time Capsule Few computer publications have had the global impact of BYTE: Not only were editions of BYTE published on every continent except Antarctica, but in many parts of the world BYTE was regarded as a priceless window to Western high technology. This was especially true in the former Soviet Union. Computer professionals and users there treated BYTE as if it were a bible, poring over issues and passing them along until the pages literally fell apart from overuse. It was my great good fortune to be the Chief Editor of BYTE from 1988-1991. BYTE reached all-time highs in circulation and global readership then, and thrived in a world that was rapidly changing. It was during this period, for example, that the closed society of the Soviet Union began to open its doors under Gorbachev's policy of Glastnos: Suddenly, a huge part of the world that had been wholly cut off from the Western world--- a part of the world that until scant years before had been the sworn blood-enemy of the West--- started to become accessible. That was a change of such human, societal, political and technological import that the world is still sorting out the repercussions. Some of the things we found about Soviet technology were astonishing: For example, in 1990, most US computer chip leads were spaced 1/10 of an inch apart. The Soviet Ministry in charge of cloning western chips had mandated metric spacing, but one-tenth of an inch works out to be about 0.254 mm.; an odd metric size. The Soviet solution? A "metric inch" with 0.25 mm spacing. This means that Soviet clone chips could be an exact electrical and functional equivalent of their Western counterparts, and even look exactly the same--- until you tried to plug them into a western socket. The Soviet chips would almost fit--- but not quite. That was more than an inconvenience; it also meant all Soviet chip assembly hardware wouldn't work with anything but Soviet chips; and a fair chunk of the Soviet's actual chip fabrication equipment and its products were likewise totally worthless on world markets. Worse, to make their quotas, Soviet chip manufacturers pumped out chips with little or no quality control: A typical DRAM shipment might have 25% to 50% bad chips. For CPUs, it was not uncommon for users to get a defect list with each separate chip---a list of instructions that that particular chip would not run. Can you imagine trying to assemble a system from chips like that? Can you imagine programming for chips like that? But, through the magic of a "command economy" and in order to create a false demand for Soviet computer industry parts, the Soviet Government had mandated the use of Soviet equipment within its borders. For example, State Ministries were forced to use Soviet mainframes that cost 1 million rubles, took up precious office space, and required 30 people to operate and maintain--- and yet had a throughput roughly equal to about 2 western PCs of the era. And even with the birth of Glastnos, the Ministries couldn't get rid of these dud mainframes. In the first place, no one wanted them; no one would pay anything even close to the paper value of the machines. And if they were given away or sold at their real value, it would have looked as though the sellers were doing something illegal--- dumping a machine supposedly worth a million rubles for virtually nothing. So, the Ministries were stuck. I actually obtained the information above during several trips to Eastern Bloc countries (Russia, Hungary, etc) at the dawn of Glastnos: As Chief Editor of BYTE, I was invited to participate in several fledgling trade shows for the then- tiny Soviet commercial computer industry. It was an amazing experience--- I was among the early rounds of Western citizens to first visit the Soviet Union after Gorbachev relaxed the visa requirements. (The obstacles were still daunting--- but at least you could get in and out of the country.) I took copious notes on these trips. Some notes were cleaned up and later posted for public consumption on BIX, the Byte Information Exchange. Some turned into editorials that ran in the print version of the magazine. The rest were originally intended as internal documents, and were ones I shared privately with the staff of BYTE, as background and business-travel information. (One of the reasons for these trips was to hook up with good local writers and stringers, and to dig out local contacts the BYTE staff could follow up with later. Another reason was to seek potential partners for starting local-language editions of BYTE in the Soviet Union and elsewhere.) I still have those notes, some ten years later. They're part of BYTE's history, and interesting in that regard. But they also offer a glimpse into the world as it was a decade ago-- - a time like no other in this century. I've sent in three sets of notes to Paul Schindler, BYTE's current Editor: They really belong in the official BYTE archives. These notes stem from three trips in the 1990-1991 time frame: 1. A literal `round-the-world trip that started at a Comdex in Atlanta and headed west to Japan, Okinawa, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, England, the USSR, Germany, and back to the US. It was an astonishing trip lasting close to a month: I've included the Taiwan and USSR portions in this report. 2. A trip to Hungary for one of Esther Dyson's early East/West forums. It was an amazing cast of characters in an amazing place: a former Soviet-Bloc country just breaking into a free-market economy, on an anniversary of the 1956 uprising in which Soviet tanks had crushed a student-led move towards democracy, attended by heavyweights from all the major western companies eager to make a buck in the emerging eastern markets. Fascinating stuff! 3. A second, later, trip to Moscow. It's instructive to compare this to the first trip to the USSR, above; my first trip is filled with general observations and cautious notes, but the second--- just a year later--- is much more businesslike, showing how rapidly Soviet life was changing from the command economy of the past to a nascent market economy. In these notes, you'll find lots of very familiar names, companies, and places: These notes provide a snapshot, or a kind of time-capsule, of what the computing world was like then. But these notes are also in the form of a very personal and informal journal. Don't expect polished prose: These are my notes as I typed (or in one case, dictated them). And because they're personal and on-the-spot, you'll see and hear and smell what it was like to be in these places at that time--- and what it was like to have the incredible good fortune to be BYTE's Editor then. It was an amazing time, and I'm very glad to be able to share them with you and to return these notes to the BYTE archives--- their rightful home. Check out the notes via the front door of BYTE at http://www.byte.com/ and while you're there, sign up for the BYTE newsletter to stay informed: http://www.byte.com/newsletter/ More Days of WINE and Trumpets The WINE project and Trumpet Software are both developing operating systems that can run Windows software, but are 100% Microsoft-free. As such, they offer many of the benefits of other non-MS alternatives without requiring that you give up all your existing software. But how viable are they? And would you use them? Come get the details and then join in the week-long discussion going on right now at : http://www.informationweek.com/langaletter ! -----------( Please Visit This LangaList Sponsor!)------------ KISS Your ISP LandLord Goodbye !! Internet Access for $149.95 One-Time Fee from WEB 4 LIFE: webCOMBO's Largest Distributor. - E-mail - Personal Web Space - Toll Free Support - 56K, v.90 ALL 50 States, Puerto Rico & Canada Have we got YOUR number? http://www.web-4life.net SPECIAL DISCOUNT for LangaList Readers in July 1-888-267-1122 ------------( the above is a paid advertisement )---------- New Microsoft Natural-Language Troubleshooter I mentioned this in passing in the last issue of the LangaLetter, but it deserves higher profile: Microsoft has opened a brand-new help area: the "Automated Personal Support Assistant," which tries to answer natural-language queries about Win98 in a fast and friendly way. This service is so new it doesn't have a named URL yet! You have to go there by using the numeric IP address: http://206.132.93.108/ . The service also is a little thin on advice, and sometimes just returns definitions rather than actual recommendations---but it's free and it's worth a shot. IE5 Weirdness #1: The FavIcon Mystery (and Security Hole) Reader Brian Dillree was the first of several readers to ask a question about an increasingly common practice: Fred, I'm hoping you can help me on this one.It has me and a couple other people stumped. How do some websites insert their own icon into ie5 internet shorcuts? If you don't know what I mean, go to deja.com (for example) and create a shortcut to it either on your desktop or right in the ie5 toolbar and the standard ie5 icon is replaced with the deja.com icon. How is this possible?? Thanx in advance Brian Dillree If a web designer creates a special icon for a web page, makes it 16x16 pixels in size, uses 16 colors, and names it "favicon.ico," then when you either put that page on your favorites list or create a shortcut on your desktop, IE5 will use the "favicon" icon in place of the standard dog- eared web page IE5 icon. Lots of web sites are doing this now as a way to customize their look and to help make their pages stand out from the crowd. But there can be a problem: As Microsoft puts it, "A specially-malformed icon could overrun the buffer and be used to run arbitrary code on the user's computer." By which they mean someone could hack your system and run whatever software they wanted. About 60 days ago, Microsoft released a patch for this "vulnerability;" If you've been keeping up with all your updates and fixes, you probably already have this one. But if not--- check out http://www.microsoft.com/security/bulletins/ms99-018.asp But there's another snag: It's theoretically possible for a web site to track which IP address is calling for the favicon.ico. This isn't exactly a gaping security hole, but it is at least theoretically possible for a site owner to figure out which IP addresses are bookmarking his or her site. It would be somewhat easier for the site to build a log of your bookmarks if you let the site set a cookie, or if you registered upon entry. I mention low-risk security hole this in the interests of completeness, but I also have to say I think the odds of anyone going to that amount of hassle just to see if you bookmarked a page on their site are quite remote. And even if they did know what you bookmarked from their site, so what? Note that there's no way for a favicon to be used to snoop your other bookmarks, or to see what you bookmark on other sites. So this is a mostly theoretical problem--- and a tiny one at that. But the "malformed favicon" issue is more real--- grab the patch, if you haven't already. ----------( Please Visit This LangaList Sponsor!)------------ InternationalTimes.com The World's Free Daily Print Newspaper. Get an 8 Page Fax-Style Newspaper Free. http://www.internationaltimes.com It looks and feels like a newspaper! It *is* a newspaper! The International Times is available in two ways, download from the Internet or receive it through e-mail, both in Adobe Acrobat format, allowing reproduction on any computer and printer. email: publisher@InternationalTimes.com --------------( the above is a paid advertisement )-------------- IE5 Weirdness #2: Bogus "AutoComplete/AutoFill" Entries A lot of people have been bugged by Internet Explorer 5's "AutoComplete/AutoFill" feature (which appeared in a more limited form in IE4). The AutoComplete feature opens a little text box as you type a URL or fill out a web form, and suggests possible matches from past entries you've made. Trouble is, it remembers your mistakes too. I filled out a form once using fred@langa.cpm instead of fred@langa.com, but IE5 remembered my error forever, offering the bogus ".cpm" version of my email address every time I tried to enter my real address. And I know I'm not alone---I've gotten a lot of mail asking how to clear out bogus entries. Take this note from reader John Quist: Hi Fred! Great job, love your letters and website. But I have a question, is there anyway to clean out the history on the searches on IE5? And the AutoFill feature has some undesirable places and things trapped in it. I've cleaned out the history folder and set it to expire after 1 day, and I've cleaned out the Temporary Files. But nothing I've tried will clean out the searches that were done in the past.. Any suggestions? A thoroughly happy subscriber.--- John Turns out it's easy. To clear out bad form entries: 1. In IE5, click to Tools/Internet Options/Content/AutoComplete. 2. You have two choices. You can "Clear Forms" or "Clear Passwords." This is a good thing because the bogus entries are unlikely to be valid name/password combinations; you can clear out the garbage without deleting any saved passwords. For bad web addresses, it's very similar: 1. Click to Tools/Internet Options/General 2. Click Clear History If all you want to do is clear out one or two bad entries, it's even easier: When you see an AutoComplete entry you wish wasn't on your list, click on the bogus item and then press the DELETE key. Yup--- The FREE Palm III Giveaway Rolls Onward! Just use this link to recommend the LangaList to a friend, and you'll be entered in a drawing to win a Palm III organizer (full details also available via this link): http://www.recommend-it.com/l.z.e?s=143182 Recommend-It is an ad-based site (you'll see banners and such). The advantage to you of using the Recommend-It service (above) is that (1) you can win a Palm III and (2) you can add a personal message to your LangaList recommendation. But if you'd rather use the tried-and-true, ad-free recommendation form, you'll still find it at: http://www.langa.com/recommend.htm . You can't win anything there-except my thanks for helping the LangaList to grow! In fact, either way, thank you! Just For Grins: More Tech Support stories sent in from various readers--- and they're all supposedly true! Tech: "I need you to right-click on the Open Desktop." Customer: "Ok." Tech: "Did you get a pop-up menu?" Customer: "No." Tech: "Ok. Right click again. Do you see a pop-up menu?" Customer: "No." Tech: "Ok, sir. Can you tell me what you have done up until this point?" Customer: "Sure, you told me to write 'click' so I wrote click.'" ======== Customer: "I received the software update you sent, but I am still getting the same error message." Tech: "Did you install the update?" Customer: "No. Oh, am I supposed to install it to get it to work?" ======== Tech Support: "Ok, in the bottom left hand side of the screen, can you see the 'OK' button displayed?" Customer: "Wow ! How can you see my screen from there?" ======== Customer: "I'm having trouble installing Microsoft Word." Tech: "Tell me what you've done." Customer: "I typed 'A:SETUP'." Tech: "Ma'am, remove the disk and tell me what it says." Customer: "It says '[PC manufacturer] Restore and Recovery disk.'" Tech: "Insert the MS Word setup disk." Customer: "What?" Tech: "Did you buy MS word?" Customer: "No . . . ." ======== One woman called Dell's toll-free line to ask how to install the batteries in her laptop. When told that the directions were on the first page of the manual the woman replied angrily, "I just paid $2,000 for this damn thing, and I'm not going to read the book." ======== Customer: "Uhh...I need help unpacking my new PC." Tech Support: "What exactly is the problem?" Customer: "I can't open the box." Tech Support: "Well, I'd remove the tape holding the box closed and go from there." Customer: "Uhhhh...ok, thanks..." See you next issue! Best, Fred ( fred@langa.com ) ------------ your ad here? ----------------- It's more affordable than you think! See http://www.langa.com/rate_card.html --------------------------------------------