PETE'S SOMETIME NEWSLETTER

No matter where you go, there you are

Hi Ya'll,

AOL users

Read AOL 6.0 wreaks havoc with some PCs before upgrading to AOL 6.0 for Windows. Also AOL 6.0 not what some expected: Part 1, Part 2 has a mixed bag of good and bad user experiences with it.

AOL Instant Messenger users

If you use the stand-alone AIM for Windows, the latest is AIM 4.3.2188 (not a Beta) released Nov 6, 2000. If you're also using AOL 6.0 for Windows, you need to immediately download this AIM release to remain compatible.

The latest Mac version is AIM 4.2.1193 Beta released Nov 9, 2000.

McAfee VirusScan for Windows

If you're using Version 4.x, did you notice the scan engine was been updated three weeks in a row? You should be at Scan Engine 4.1.20 (or 4120) now. To update your scan engine and get the latest DAT file at the same time, download/install the SuperDAT file at McAfee VirusScan Updates. If that page also shows an EXTRA.DAT file, download that one too. Compaq users, notice there is a separate link for updates especially for your computer, as the regular ones won't function properly on it. Always reboot after making any VirusScan updates.

Need A Windows Anti-Virus Program?

Computer Associates is still offering its InoculateIT Personal Edition free for home use. Version 5.1.4 supports Windows Me. This program is certifed as being effective by the International Computer Security Association which continually checks out all the home and corporate anti-virus programs out there; not many vendors pass muster.

You can check the effectiveness of your antivirus program at ICSA-Certified Anti-Virus Products.

Tribal PowWow Cancelled

PowWow has announced its Instant Messenger service will cease functioning on Jan 19, 2001.

Which is best for a Web page:  JPEG (JPG) or GIF?

I didn't have an answer for that then, but this Hottip I just received may provide one. Reading between the lines, it appears to hinge on which results in the smallest file, and thus quicker display.

Whether or not you choose to save an image as a JPEG or GIF should depend on the nature of the image itself. Is the image mostly large areas of individual colors, like a logo [clip art or icon]? Then GIF compression is the best choice. Does it contain subtle changes in color, such as gradients [as] in photographs? Then JPEG compression will do a much better job of keeping the image size down [and result in a more pleasing picture].

Of course, the final arbitor is your own eyeballs, and remember to test the picutres at different monitor resolutions so you can see them as your various Web page visitors will.

Via Technologies announced chip sets for Intel and AMD CPUs which moves data between memory and the CPU at 2.1GB/sec. If only my hard disk could move data that fast - I could do a complete backup in two seconds! Cost? $40 to motherboard and computer manufacturers. As usual, they're targeted for makers of servers and high end desktop computers for openers, but I expect movement into the "consumer" chain within a year.

Why? Cost and space savings, plus competition. Acer will be shipping similar chips this Fall and both companies have to sell them somewhere. The chip sets not only contain the sound and AGP video support common in today's consumer computers, but they up the ante with 6-channel sound, 6 USB ports, a hard drive interface, a modem (dial-up?), and an Ethernet controller. Besides freeing up card slots, I see the cost savings especially in the modem ($50+ retail), NIC card (about $10), additional USB ports ($??), plus time to test and install separate boards. I wonder how much of the manufacturer's cost savings will be pased on to us.

The chip sets will also support 4 GB of memory. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to afford that much memory, and copy Windows and most of your programs and data files to a RAMdisk. Bootup will take longer, but once you're running everything will happen seemingly instantaneously. Of course, if you crash before you get any new/modified data files copied back to disk ....

On the subject of speed, notebook computers with 850MHz CPUs and 20GB disks have hit the market.

There's a motor cycle coming! Swerve! Whew - missed it. Splat!!

You're a bug flying down the road trying to miss road kill, trees, road signs and motor cycles. The faster you go, the more points you can chock up during your 8 lives (you're a bug, not a cat).

Download the free BikeFlyter (3.79MB) for a bit of time, errr, bug, killing. It's a simple game, but a bit harder to accumulate points than it first appears.

Requires Windows 95+, 266+MHz CPU, 32MB RAM, Mouse.

Coffee time. This is a long one.

Everyone using Windows has installed ZoneAlarm by now and is running Version 2.1.44, right? (See "Personal Firewall Issue" mailed 8/11/00. Copy available if needed.) Here is another true ZoneAlarm story by a Los Angeles Times writer.

If you ever have a program called MSIPCSV.EXE or IPC Server knocking to get out to the Internet, tell ZoneAlarm "No" and "Remember". It's another spyware program trying to phone home. In case you have that program and have already let it have Internet access, click the Programs tab and look for IPC Server; clicking the Program column label will alphabetize the list. If you find it, and it doesn't have an X in the Allow Connect column, click the center dots to place X's in them. You should already have disallowed TSAdBot (spyware), Elf Bowling Game (may contain spyware), and Free Solitiare (contains spyware) if you have any of those.

You know by now that ZoneAlarm tells you the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the people knocking on your firewall door, but seldom who they are. If you'd like to get an idea, you need a tool called a "WhoIs Client". Whois is actually a UNIX command. A Whois Client accesses a Web site which runs the Whois command and returns the result to you. The "result" is information about the owner of the Domain Name the IP address ties to. After trying a few other Whois Clients and finding them lacking in ability, I use and recommend one called GeekTools Whois Client for Windows.

You can download it from Geek Tools, Software. Scroll down the list until you come to GeekTools Whois Client v4.0/Win32 (the version number may change, just be sure to click the name ending in Win32, and don't click the link at the end of that name; that one's something else.) The download will start when you click the name. It's a ZIP file, so make sure you download it into an empty folder. Unzip it into that same folder, click the .exe file to install the Whois Client, then delete the files in the folder. The install will place a shortcut icon, a white box with "gt" (for Geek Tools) in it, on your desktop. If you're as cramped for desktop space as I am, you can right-click and drag the shortcut to the Quick Launch bar, drop it, and choose Move.

Before trying to use Whois, you may need to set some Preferences. Click the GTWhois icon. A small window will open and a gray "gt" icon will appear in the System Tray. Move the window to the top left corner of your desktop, click the GeekTools Whois menu item, choose Preferences, and make these settings:

1. Output Options - Show results in browser window.
2. Server List - Do Not press that button!
3. Startup Options - Uncheck both boxes.
4. Query Retention - Retain last query.
5. Click "Apply"

Exit Whois by either clicking on the GeekTools Whois menu item and choosing Exit, or right-click the "gt" systray icon and choose Exit.

How to Use Whois in Conjunction with ZoneAlarm

Step 1:

Double-click the ZoneAlarm SysTray icon. Move the window to the upper right corner of the screen. Click the Alerts button if that panel is not showing. Pick an "alert" you want to check on - perhaps something like

The firewall has blocked Internet access to your computer (UDP Port 5632) from 24.160.106.174 (UDP Port 1701)
Time: 10/20/2000 17:19:34

Highlight the IP Address (24.160.106.174 in this example), right-click the highlighted area, click "Copy".

Step 2:

Click the GeekTools desktop (or Quick Launch bar) icon to open Whois. Right-click the Look For entry line and choose Paste. Click the Query button. A "Results" window will open. Move that window to the left edge of the screen and size it such that it reaches from the bottom of the Query window to the top of the Task Bar. Adjust the width to suit yourself; keep it from covering up the IP Address in the ZoneAlert "Alert" panel if you can. About 2/3 screen width works well on a 17" monitor.

The Result will either show a complete name and address of the Domain owner, or a "partial result" which may look something like this:

Server used for this query: [ whois.arin.net ]
Query: [ 24.160.106.174 ]

ServiceCo LLC - Road Runner (NET-ROAD-RUNNER-5)	ROAD-RUNNER-5
24.160.0.0 - 24.170.127.255
HoustonTidwellUBR3Cable5-24-160-104-0-24-160-107-255 (NETBLK-RRHOUSTON11C) RRHOUSTON11C
24.160.104.0 - 24.160.107.255

The first entry (ServiceCo LLC ..., which I believe is a subsidiary of the Road Runner cable ISP service) shows the name of an organization or individual which "owns" a block of IP addresses (24.160.0.0 to 24.170.127.255). Everything underlined is a Link to further information. Clicking NET-ROAD-RUNNER-5 or the beginning or ending IP address of the block will return the same information, namely the street address and other info about ServiceCo (it's in Herndon, VA.)

The second entry is the "owner" of a subset of the primary IP address block. In this example, the subset has been assigned by ServiceCo for use by HoustonTidwell..... This is the location of the ISP which "owns" the IP address in question. Click on NETBLK-RRHOUSTON11C to get the location and other info about this ISP. The "Result" will look like this:

Server used for this query: [ whois.arin.net ]
Query: [ netblk-rrhouston11c ]

HoustonTidwellUBR3Cable5-24-160-104-0-24-160-107-255 (NETBLK-RRHOUSTON11C)
8400 W. Tidwell
Houston, TX 77040
US

Netname: RRHOUSTON11C
Netblock: 24.160.104.0 - 24.160.107.255

Coordinator:
Time Warner Cable Road Runner  (TW-ORG-ARIN)  abuse@rr.com
703-345-3416

Record last updated on 12-Jan-2000.
Database last updated on 20-Oct-2000 07:00:12 EDT.

Ah Ha! Now I know someone from Houston, Texas, using Road Runner cable modem service from Time Warner, was trying to access my computer. Was it a "bad guy", or just my ISP (Time Warner Road Runner) checking its circuits for problems? There is no way to tell, but if it was a baddy, ZoneAlarm did its job and kept him out.

Each "Result" will appear on a separate page. Use the red arrow buttons in the Results window to move back and forth among the Result pages.

And now you know how I found out I had strange people from Russia, Korea, China, Germany, etc. knocking at my computer's door.

Another Use for Whois

Use Whois to look up the owner of a Domain Name. In the Look For space, enter a Domain Name ("www" is not part of a domain name.) For instance, if you want to know who owns PCOX.COM (if anyone), type in "pcox.com" (w/o the quotes), click Query, and you'll find pcox.com is indeed a registered domain name, that it belongs to a Peter Cox in England, was registered on June 23, 1999, and unless the registration is renewed, it will expire on June 23, 2001 and be available for someone else to claim.

Do you remember all the hoopla in 1989 about the big "space storm" which blacked out the NorthEast for nine hours? I've always wondered just what kind of damage could be caused by massive numbers of electrically charged particles breaching the magnetosphere and reaching Earth's surface. Now I know what (but I still don't understand how.) Story here.

Astronomers had a lively month in September.

They pin-pointed the center of Our Galaxy at last, confirmed it is a black hole, and were able to measure its size and density. But what, to me, is most amazing is the story of the stars which led to the find, and the fact it was accomplished with an earth-bound telescope. Read this San Francisco Chronicle report and UCLA press release.

They found a new class of black holes. Previously only "supermasive", as the one at the center of our galaxy, and small ones, about the size of our Sun, had been found. Now we know there are medium sized ones, too.

They found astroid Eros is about 4.5 billion years old, about the Earth's age, and a solid hunk of rock with a density about equal to Earth's crust, not a gravel pile as some astroids are. Although it's 21 miles long, track meets are not advised due to its low gravity. The speed achieved jumping a hurdle is more than the escape velocity.

The Christmas partial eclipse has come and gone. To get ready for the next eclipse, read this article for various ways to look at the Sun safely, ranging from two 3x5 cards, to certain telescope and binocular filters, to a particular grade of arc-welder's glass which only costs a few bucks.

Windows Me, that is. In some "dialogs" (have you ever had a two-way conversation with a computer?) with both Apply and OK buttons, the OK button won't work unless you click Apply first; in others, clicking OK without Apply-ing first does work.

The new Roll Back utility called System Restore requires copious amounts of disk. The default is 12% of your disk, but you can adjust that upward or shrink it to a minimum is 200MB. Whether or not there have been any changes to the system, System Restore takes a system snapshot every 10 running hours or once a day, whichever comes first, plus whenever a new program is installed or you manually request a snapshot. Can you change the automatic snapshot schedule? No. Can you turn off System Restore? Yes, but that causes all the snapshots to be erased. Can you rename the program to keep the system from finding it? Sure, but that would kill the desirable PC Health function, as that's part of the System Restore program.

These two and other Windows Me idiosyncrasies can be found here. Also note that snapshots are not substitutes for making your own backups. System snapshots do not include your data files! If something went wrong with your system and you decided to roll it back a week to when it ran okay, you wouldn't want all your e-mail and work for the past week to disappear, would you?

An InfoWorld article states a full Windows Me install on a clean disk can eat up as much as 590MB. Programs such as Movie Maker (how many people need that?) are bundled, posing as part of the operating system. Can you remove Movie Maker? Not using Control Panel + Add/Remove you can't; it's not listed. But there is a shareware program mentioned in the article called "98Lite Me" which will add that and other programs into the Add/Remove list. Check it out at http://www.98lite.net/products.html. The author claims by that by trimming Windows Me to the bare bones he's gotten it down to 70MB, including Internet Explorer 5.5. Interesting, but I don't think I'd like Windows that skinny - I kind of like some of the "extras".

Reminder:  If you think you might move from Win98 to Me, you've only got to Jan 15 to buy it for $60. If you don't install it, you're out $60, but if you do, you've saved $49.

More Food for Thought:  If you've been thinking "Naw, I'll pass and get the totally new Windows when it comes out", tentatively some time in 2001, early Beta testers are saying you will need a fairly recent machine (read: fast CPU, bus, and disk) with lots of available disk space, and sooner or later, all new programs. There is a "compatibly mode" (kludges) built in for whatever Microsoft decides are "popular" Windows 95/98/Me programs, but vendors are expected to stop supporting those programs as they concentrate their manpower in writing for the "new" Windows. Looks like whether we stay where we are or go for "brand new" -- we're going to get royally screwed. I can just hear the hardware and software venders: "If we can just keep from going bust for one more year, we've got it made in the shade!"

Microsoft has released a new version of Tweak UI which works with all versions of Windows from Win95 through WinMe, NT and 2000. I didn't notice any new tweaks, but it's much easier to use than the original version - the tabs are stacked now instead of scrolling sideways. Download Tweak UI 1.33 here, it's a whole 65K.

Download the file into an empty folder. Open the folder, click the file, and four new files will appear in the folder. Right-click Tweakui.inf and click Install. Tweak UI will be installed in Control Panel. It will install successfully over an earlier version and retain the tweaks you've already made. Delete all the files in the once-empty folder, they're not needed any more, and the folder's ready to receive your next download.

What are a few things you might use Tweak UI for?

• Under the My Computer tab, make sure ALL the drive letters are checked - some important Windows system programs won't run of any are unchecked.
• Modify the New menu - turn off display of items you don't use.
• Turn off stupid animations - windows and menus "flying" when opened, closed, or minimized.
• Repair file extension associations - use that when nothing happens when you click on a file.
• Automatic network logon - if you have a DSL or cable modem you may want to activate that function.
• Remove words "Shortcut to" from shortcut names.
• Remove or Add the Documents and Favorites folders in the main Start menu.

Everything you do in Tweak UI is reversible, so feel fairly free to play around.

Here is an article on Using TweakUI, Part 1. Hopefully they'll add a link to Part 2 when it comes out (next month?). It was written for the version available on the Win98 CD (which is not the same as the Win95 version), not for this new version, so some of the things the writer couldn't make work may work with the current version. There were a number of things I couldn't decipher from the descriptions within TweakUI (so I didn't experiment with those.) This article has helped me understand what those mysterious tweaks are and do.