Maggie's Farm

First, a little background.  All files you see and hear via your browser are downloaded to your computer first.  You may think you're reading a web page on some server in New Englandtown, but you're actually reading a file on your computer, and any pics, videos and music you see or hear are also being read from your computer.

Using Internet Explorer, these files are placed in a folder called 'Temporary Internet Files'.  They're 'temporary' because only so much disk space is allotted for them and they roll off the back end as new files arrive.  Firefox keeps them in a 'Cache' folder buried deep in the 'Users' folder.

The problem is that a web page can be coded so that certain items, like their precious videos, won't be put into cache for later retrieval, all in a determined effort to prevent us from stealing saving them.

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Ah, there you are.  Couldn't find you in the crowd.  Thank goodness for that GPS tracking device in your iPhone, huh?  I hopped on the Web, punched in your telephone number and there you were.  This modern technology is just amazing.

Me, I'm not partial to any OS.  Hell, given my druthers, I'd be on my Amiga 1200 right now.  See, I hold to this wild, unconventional notion that once a program is up, it doesn't matter what the hell the OS is.  Not once, in umpteen billion computer articles written over 20 years, have I ever said one OS was "better" than another.

So, now that you don't hate me too much for being one of those prissy, starched-shirt PC users, can I ask a question?  I'd normally just do a Google search, but since I wouldn't have a Mac to test it on, it wouldn't do much good.

As I understand it, there's some way Macs can play online WMV video files.  They can't normally because WMV is a proprietary streaming format and the prissy, starched-shirt PC users at Microsoft want a bazillion dollars from Apple for the licensing rights to play them.  In turn, Apple wants a bazillion dollars from Microsoft so PCs can play streaming Quicktime videos, so it all evens out, neither can play the other, and thankfully the only people hurt are us users.

The solution was mentioned once in the comments here, years ago.  I had (innocently, to be sure) posted a link to a clip in Doc's Bag O' Clips, which are WMV files, and one Mac user promptly bitched moaned cursed me out politely noted that WMVs don't play on Macs.  Another Mac user piped up with the answer, but I failed to jot it down.

I'd like to put the info in the 'tech' section of the 'Clips' area so Mac users can enjoy the videos as well.  All of the rest of the videos on the site are in standard FLV format, but for full-screen, knock-your-socks-off, almost-DVD quality online videos, WMV is the only way to go in the streaming world.

Since I won't be able to run it myself, please leave some brief instructions on where to get it and how to install and run it.  I'll not only put the info in my 'Clips' area but also make a post of it here for future linkable goodness.  I'll even mention you by name in the article so later you can impress the babes by shyly admitting, "Well, yes, I am published."

Thanks!

Update: I think we got it, thanks to MikeNC and 'muleheadedfarmer'.

For you daredevils out there who want to give this a go, try this site.  Then click on the above link and test out one of the clips.  In theory, Quicktime should open and everything should play just fine.  Please let me know in the comments what blows up melts down how it goes.

Tech note: streaming WMV files are 'activated' by a small WMA text file.  I point it out so you won't be confused if you see both extensions mentioned.  The actual video is a WMV file, initiated by a WMA file, which is what the link goes to.

Bad news, I'm afraid.

I recently discovered a nifty trick that makes it so you have even less of a cheap, paltry excuse to use when you're trying to feebly explain why you hadn't backed up your files recently after the meltdown.

Pic: Exhibit A

As long-time readers know, I'm BIG on backing things up.  As I noted in a former article, one of the best aspects of the cheap new mega-sized hard drives is that we don't have to fuss with backing up to disc anymore, and with zillions of free backup programs around — and what I discovered the other night — there's pretty much zero reason these days not to back up your personal stuff on some kind of schedule, just in case.

There are three tricks to doing it right:

1.  The backup drive is disconnected from the system when not in use.  This way, should some power surge or lightning strike or ultra-nasty virus hit the computer, the info on the drive is unaffected.

2.  As such, the backup drive needs to be easy to turn on and off and, ideally, not even require a reboot to do so.

3.  The backup program should be a simple 1-click operation.

Below the fold I'll lay out how I do it, complete with gruesome mechanical details.  At one point you may actually have to use one of those exotic 'pliers' things, so I'm not saying this will be easy.

All red-blooded American males will have the same question after studying the above cool pic in depth.  "If it unhooks in the back, then why is there a bow on the front??"

Well, many moons millennia multitudes minutes have passed since the last Firefox update, and here we go again.  Stand by for most of your add-ons to be disabled.  Like usual, some add-ons will be updated by the author and some won't.

After you've updated Firefox, the standard routine is to go to the Tools menu, 'Add-ons', click on the 'More' link and then go to the home site.  If it's been updated, it'll say so. One of the add-ons many of us use, 'Create Shortcut', has been updated.

If it hasn't been updated, you can 'version-bump' it yourself.  Add-ons usually have the current Firefox version number in them, so manually raising it to the latest Firefox version will let the add-on work again.  Occasionally, there might be an actual code change in Firefox that disabled it, in which case it would have to be rewritten by the author.  Instructions for this gruesome task (which might take actual minutes to accomplish) is below the fold.

According to Mozilla, they're going to start viewing add-ons as 'components' in version 10, so this disabling business should end then.

Timeline:

1987: Ah, I remember it well.  I was on my Amiga computer, and while I'd been flying high with two, count them, two floppy disk drives, I couldn't wait to try out one of them new-fangled "hard drives" I'd been hearing about.  The question was whether to spend $650 on the medium-sized 20-meg Supra, or blow the wad and spend $925 on the gigantic 30-meg Synergy.

I decided that I'd had enough of running out of disk space, so I opted for the big guy, figuring that'd take care of my disk space problems, once and for all.

1988: Repeat above paragraph.

1990, 1993, 1996, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2008: Repeat above paragraph.

2010: This was when I finally, thankfully, gratefully bought one of those incredibly huge terabyte drives, figuring that'd take care of my disk space problems, once and for all.

Yesterday:

"AAAA-A-A-A-A-A-A-ACK!"

It was my C Drive, which normally has about 6 gigs free, so the trick was to find out where the log jam was, since Windows doesn't have a "Show the size of every file & folder in the system" tool.  So I dug through the archives and came up with little TreeSize.

I ran the program and there, buried 327 folders deep in the 'Users' folder, was a gigantic 6-gig image file from a partition I'd backed up a few days earlier.  I'd just overlooked the 'Target' setting and by default it wrote it to the 'Users' folder.

So thank you, little TreeSize.  You might want to grab it while it's up for the grabbing and stick it to the side for come that day.

Some other freebies I like:

AutoSizer — Pops open a program, like a browser, in full-screen mode, or in a certain location on the screen.  Apart from the browsers, I use it for ill-behaved programs like Calculator which open up wherever they damn well please, forcing them to open in the middle of the screen like a good, proper program should.

Cool Timer — A Desktop countdown timer/stopwatch.  The default garish cerise color is so loud and awful (not to mention incredibly uncool) that you'll want to leave it that way, just to say "I was there."  Lets you select from a variety of nasty, cruel, ear-splitting sounds to remind you it's time to take the laundry out of the washer.  I like 'fog horn' because it makes my teeth rattle.

Super Finder — A superb file-finder.  Lets you filter out file types to save time, searches for both file names and does in-depth searches, and the found files are actually the files, not just a generated list, so you can use the right mouse options on them like normal.

CCleaner — I'd call this a 'feel-good' program.  It probably doesn't make the slightest damb difference if a little trash is swept out of the system and the size of the Registry is reduced 0.8%, but it certainly feels good doing it.

The Rename — A batch file renamer, like for organizing the names of the hundreds of thousands of pics in your world class smut collection of nature's wonders.

And a few Windows 7 tools:

FileMenu Tools — Gets rid of entries in the right-mouse-button Context Menu.

ShellMenuNew — Gets rid of entries in the 'New' menu.

My Win7 tweak page is here.

"BANG!  BANG!  BANG!  BANG!"

"What doest thou, Throk-Anon?"

"Hail, Harib-Thon.  I chisel 'The Great God Ascends' here in Pharaoh's tomb."

"Pray, continue."

"BANG!  BANG!  BANG!  BANG!  There's the 'T'.  BANG!  BANG!  BANG!  BANG!  There's the 'h'.  BANG!  BANG!  BANG!  BANG!  There's the 'e'."

Welcome to the wonderful world of text messaging.

As every American child learns at his father's knee, newer is always better.  Text messaging is newer than the telephone, right?  Therefore, it's better.  And simply everybody does it.

A few months ago my under-warranty computer had a slight problem so they had a service guy call me.  Excuse me, I meant "call" me.  I suddenly get this text message from him asking for the model and serial number of the machine.  I spent five friggin' minutes tapping in what could have been accomplished by voice in twenty seconds.  It was ridiculous.  BANG!  BANG!  BANG!  BANG!

Come a long way, haven't we?

If the following has that based on a true story feel about it, you're right.

Suddenly, your CD-ROM is obsolete.  Why?  Because suddenly it's become fashionable for the tower manufacturers to put little cover doors over the ROM drive, and the spot they picked for the 'Eject' button doesn't line up with the one on your unit.

Suddenly, you find the keyboard that came with your new computer is harder to use.  Why?  Because suddenly it's become fashionable to replace the large Enter key with a sleek, modern thin one, thereby making the ever-valuable backslash key even wider for quick and easy access.  Morons.  The answer is to hunt down a keyboard like the Keytronic.  I use the 'Classic', top of the list.

Suddenly, you're frantically scrambling through the Best Buy, Office Depot, etc, sites as you desperately try to find a black tower to match your present system.  Why?  Because suddenly silver towers have become faddish.  I finally found one in the last place I looked, Circuit City.  Hmph.

Suddenly, it's two weeks ago and my monitor goes on the blink.  No problem, right?  Got an Office Depot just a few miles from here.

Then I looked through their online site.  And what did I see?

Aka, 'wide-screen' monitors.  Among the 100-plus monitors streaming down the page, I believe two of them were the standard size.

Uh-oh, I thought to myself.

And, you guessed it, they didn't have a single 'normal' monitor in the store.  They checked with the Marathon store (about 40 miles south) and they didn't have one, either.

Uh-oh, I thought to myself.

Well, many, many months have passed since the last version of Windows was released, so it was only fitting that they came out with a fresh version to fit today's ever-changing needs.

If you have a tablet computer, I hastily add.

In a nutshell, Win8 is Win7 that opens with a screen designed for a touch-screen tablet, like the above.  You tap on the 'Weather' or 'Stocks' or 'Latest Filthy Hollywood Gossip' button and away you go.

The above picture is a standard install.  Here's a nicely-tweaked system:

That looks like a Facebook email feed on the upper-left, then some kind of photo blog or even a real-time vidcam in the middle, then a calendar box with the day's activities.  She's got her stock portfolio listed, a pic of the kids, a news feed rolling — and it looks like it's going to a sparkling day.

The one (apparent) downside to the 'quickie' areas is that they're too simplistic.  The weather just gives a few stats, but no radar map where you can gauge any oncoming rain clouds, which might be the most common reason to suddenly want to check the weather on the road.  So, you end up using a regular browser to access your usual weather site.  Ditto the 'Stocks' area, and the 'News' feeds are restricted to just what's listed, and the little synopsis in the small tablet box usually doesn't say enough to explain what the article is about.

I say 'apparent' because it's important to bear in mind that this is a 'developers version', so a number of things could be improved when the real deal comes along.

And for you history buffs, there's also this strange, archaic 'Desktop' button which reels you back in time to a day and age when they used a "mouse" to operate "icons".  Your grandparents can tell you about it.  But, should by off chance you want to use this doddering, anachronistic 'Desktop' area, it's Win7 right down to the exit sound.  Didn't see any dif except in one program and one major negative design issue, which, again, might be ironed out in the finalized version.

It's free to download and test out.  Links and a guide are below the fold.

Well, it's been an entire month since the last Firefox update, so it's obviously time for another.  Sure, it made two hundred add-ons obsolete in the process — big deal!

If you've suffered such a fate with some of your add-ons, there are a few steps you can take.  The first is to go to the Tools menu, 'Add-ons', click on the disabled add-on and select the 'More' link.  That'll take you to the add-on's home site.  If there's an update, it'll be noted.  One of the add-ons many of us use, 'Create Shortcut', has been updated.

If the add-on hasn't been updated, you can always try doing a Google search for an alternative, although odds have it (since the new FF just came out) that it won't have been updated, either.

As a last resort, you can try 'version-bumping' it yourself.  Add-ons usually have the current Firefox version number in them, so raising that to the latest Firefox version will let the add-on work again.  Occasionally, there might be an actual code change in Firefox that disabled it, in which case it would have to be rewritten by the author.

You'll need a compression/archive program such as WinZip or WinRar installed.  The XPI add-on files are actually mini-archives composed of a few separate files.  You need to edit one of them.

You'll also need to download the actual add-on file to your computer to work on, so go to the add-on site using Internet Explorer and it should give you a download option, rather than the 'Install' option you get with Firefox.  Download it to a safe place.

Open the XPI file in the compression program.  You should see an 'install.rdf' file listed.  Double-clicking on it should open it in WordPad.  Look around for a "MaxVersion" line, change the '6.0' to '7.0'.  Close WordPad, save the file on the way out, then tell the compression program to update the XPI archive.

Go to the Tools menu in FF, 'Add-ons', 'Remove' the disabled add-on.  Click the little gear gadget at the top and 'Install Add-on From File'.  Browse to the updated XPI file and install it.  Restart the browser, test it out.

If it still doesn't work, re-open the XPI file in the compression program and double-check that the '6.0' got updated to '7.0'.  If it did, then either ask on the home site if the author is planning on an update or hunt around for a similar one.

Version-bumping also works with Thunderbird add-ons, assuming it's only the older version number in the code that's keeping it from working.

Firefox recently upgraded to version 6 and, as often happens, some of the add-ons went kaflooey.  As I note here, I use two Firefox add-ons, 'Create Shortcut' to put a page icon on the Desktop, and 'Status-4-evar' which gets rid of that annoying box that pops up down at the lower-left every time you hover over a link.  'Create Shortcut' is the one that blew up with the recent update.

To update 'Create Shortcut', first go to the Tools menu, 'Add-ons', click on 'Extensions' and 'Remove' the 'Create Shortcut' add-on.

Go to the 'Create Shortcut' home page, click the button on the right, 'allow', then install it.

If this is the first time you've installed 'Create Shortcut', click on its 'Options' button.  Select 'Use default' at the top, uncheck the 'Overwrite' box, delete 'Shortcut to'.  Set the 'Show links in' menu to 'Toolbar', then go to Firefox's 'View' menu and activate the 'Add-on Bar'.  This way you can still see the hovered-over link, but it'll be nested inside the status bar where it belongs.

You save a page with the right mouse button, 'Create shortcut'.

For other add-ons that have turned belly-up, you should first go to the 'Add-ons' area and click the 'more' link by the disabled add-on, which should bring you to the author's home site.  There's usually a quick note on the home page noting the update.  The version number of the add-on, itself, may not have changed since this isn't an actual update to the add-on, just an adaptation to the new version of Firefox.

If it hasn't been updated, you can try 'version-bumping' it yourself.  Add-ons usually have the current Firefox version number in them, so raising that to the latest Firefox version will let the add-on work again.  Occasionally, there might be an actual code change in Firefox that disabled it, in which case it would have to be rewritten by the author.

You'll need a compression/archive program like WinZip or WinRar installed.  The XPI add-on files are actually mini-archives composed of a few separate files.  You need to edit one of them.

You'll also need to download the actual add-on file to your computer to work on, so go to the add-on site using Internet Explorer and it should give you a download option, rather than the 'Install' option you get with Firefox.

After the XPI file is downloaded, open it in the compression program.  You should see an 'install.rdf' file listed.  Double-clicking on it should open it in WordPad.  Look around for a "maxVersion" line, change the '5.0' to '6.0'.  Close WordPad, save the file on the way out, then tell the compression program to update the XPI archive.

Go to Tools menu, 'Add-ons', click the little gear gadget at the top and 'Install Add-on From File'.  Browse to the updated XPI file and install it.  Restart the browser, test it out.

If it still doesn't work, re-open the XPI file in the compression program and double-check that the '5.0' got updated to '6.0'.  If it did, then either ask on the home site if the author is planning on an update, or hunt around for a similar add-on.

Version-bumping also works with Thunderbird add-ons, assuming it's only the older version number in the code that's keeping it from working.

Now this is kind of scary.

I was thinking of opening up a political site of some type and was pondering domain names that had a 'centrist' or 'moderate' or 'independent' feel to them.  At one point, just to get started, and fully expecting it to be taken, I typed in:

http://www.thecentrist.com

Go ahead and give it a spin.  It's obviously been grabbed by some domain harvester and is just being used as a generic starting point for search items from which they unquestionably make money.

But, notice anything odd about the above page?

There's no 'Buy Me' link.

And that's scary.  It's one thing if the harvesters extort some bucks out of you to buy that treasured domain name that you simply must have for your new business empire — quite another if it's not for sale in the first place.

As I've noted before, once 'yourname.com' is gone, it's gone forever.  If it ever became available again, it'd be snapped up within electronical micro-seconds by the harvesters.  They figure, correctly, that if John Q. Flubberdumper owned johnqflubberdumper.com once, that another John Q. Flubberdumper will want it again in the future.  Or, perhaps more likely, the original Mr. Flubberdumper will suddenly have a reason for a site and want to buy it back.

One point of confusion is that we're not talking about actually having a 'site', as in web site or blog site; we're just talking about holding the domain name until you put a site on it.  Which, I note, is getting easier and easier.  I've got a great 'starter kit' on Doc's WordPress Guide that sets you up with my improved customized WordPress software, all of the necessary plugins, a sample streaming video, and a whole shitload of cool themes to choose from.

For hosting services, I've been a big fan of Blue Host for almost a decade.  Unlimited server space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited email boxes, unlimited everything, and all for a whopping $5.95/mo.  The above link takes you to their site.  If you'd like to read some tips on digging up an available domain name, check this out.

If you ever — ever — think you might want a personal domain name, now's the time to grab it.

I mentioned this over the 4th of July weekend, but it deserves an official debut.

I probably couldn't sum it up any better than what's on the home page:

This is actually kind of an amazing program.  It's a perfect example of how great it is to be living in the digital age.  I would say it's almost as revolutionary as VCRs were in their day, in the sense that both ideas would have been completely inconceivable just a few years before.  What, little ol' you, actually tape a live TV show?  Impossible!  What, little ol' you, actually fly around the globe in your own private spy plane and then zoom in on your neighbor's back yard while she's secretly nude sunbathing??

Amazing, is the only word.

Not to mislead you, though.  These are zoomed-in images you're looking at.  The live streaming video version is still a few years away.

And here's why the site is different:

While there are a number of Google Earth tours on YouTube and the like, I found every single one of them to have five major flaws:

1. The quality of the video is always atrocious.  This is primarily because people are impatient, lazy and/or dumb and they're using the default recording levels rather than the time-consuming better levels.

2. The tours usually stop at each spot for an whopping 1.7 seconds — just long enough for us to barely get an idea of what we're looking at — before dashing off to the next spot.  Why?  Because 1.7 seconds is the default setting and they simply couldn't be bothered to, you know, actually look at any of the options.

3. No thought is given to the display order, so you end up bouncing all over the globe, again and again and again.  Granted, it's a great effect, but it wears a little thin after the 45th time.

4. It appears to be federal law that every Google Earth tour on YouTube must be accompanied by some of the worst music in the universe.

5. Alien crop circles.  Ancient astronaut geoglyphs.  UFO landing sites. That pretty much says it all.

This project is going to correct all five of these pesky little problems.

The download link for Google Earth and some important setup tips are on the site.  It's a quick install.

While most articles about Google Earth focus on the intriguing spots around the globe, another big feature is how much it can do in real-time.  You can track airline flights, including their exact location, speed, altitude; the whole schmear.  Ditto big boat cruise lines.  It also has real-time satellite weather, moon phases, tides, all kinds of things.

And, perhaps most importantly, there's a global warming catastrophic climate change program where you can track how a certain area of ocean just off Fiji has risen .217 degrees in the last 10 years, while a spot in the Bering sea has dropped .131 degrees, thereby proving the U.N. climate scientists were correct when they spoke of wild fluctuations in our global weather patterns thanks to your SUV.  Nice go, buddy.  Way to destroy the planet and everything.

As for the video tours on the site, I'd suggest you watch a couple of normal ones first, just to get the idea, then watch the 'Goofs' tour at some point.  It's hysterical.  Also, check out some of the Specialty Tours to get an idea of what can be done with the add-ons.  The '34 Moons' is kinda neat, as is 'Earth Lights' (when they speak of "darkest Africa", here's what they meant), and the 'Space Stuff' (all of the space debris and satellites circling the earth) is pretty sobering.  The 'High Resolution' spots are semi-amazing for their clarity, and the '3-D Terrain' tour is pretty cool.  Want to fly down the Grand Canyon or Yosemite Valley?  Google Earth is your ticket.

Introducing: The Google Earth Project

The one particularly annoying, puzzling, baffling thing about Firefox is its inability to save an icon to the Desktop.  It's a far more sensible way of temporarily saving pages than opening them in a new 'tab'.  Once you do that, you're forced to keep the browser open until you finally get around to reading the article, whereas if you save it as a Desktop icon, it sits there awaiting your reading pleasure.

Pic: Doc renames the browser FireFoxy

Normally, I don't miss the Desktop feature because I usually use IE to browse with, but I was just now using FF to edit a page, then wanted to check something out quickly in Google, then saw a page I wanted to read later, wanted to save it to the Desktop and... and I'm using this stoopid Firefox!

Well, now I'm angry, and as anyone here at the sanitarium can tell you, Angry Doc Syndrome (or ADS as it's known in the field) isn't a pretty sight.  And that big butterfly net really chafes when they pull the drawstring tight.

So I cruised over to the Firefox add-ons page, tried two 'Save to Desktop' add-ons, and neither worked.  I hunted around and came up with this little gem.  Works a peach.

After it's installed, go to Tools menu, Add-ons, click on the 'Create Shortcut' entry's Options.  Select 'Use default' at the top, uncheck the 'Overwrite' box, delete the 'Shortcut to'.

You save a page with the right mouse button, 'Create Shortcut'.

The other add-on I use gets rid of that annoying box that pops up down at the lower-left whenever you hover over a link.  The add-on's name is Status-4-Evar, download page is here.

After it's installed, open its Options.  Both drop-down menus should be set to 'Toolbar'.  Click on the 'Progress' button at the top and uncheck both boxes.  It's some goofy download progress bar you don't need.

And if you're using Firefox, there's a half-decent chance you're using Thunderbird, so I thought I'd mention I recently did an update on it.

Digital Symbiosis

This is actually a little embarrassing.  It's like I'm giving away all of my secrets.

Because I am.

I got to wondering just how many 'official' secrets I knew, ranging from the secret of Subway sandwiches (tastiest thing in the house and it's not even on the menu), all the way to an iridium deposit out in the wilds of Nevada that I, alone, know exists.

So I wrote them all down.

Subway Sandwiches — Best thing in the joint and it's not even on the menu

Amazon.com — A penny for your someone's thoughts?

Amazon.com II — Know anyone with a printer?

The Perfect Drink Coaster — And they said it couldn't be done

For Men In Their Mid-30's Only — This is only of concern if you enjoy sex

The Terriblest Truth For Men — The saddest truth you'll ever learn about females

My Best Medical Tips — I'm living proof that none of these will actually kill you

— Preventing Summer/Winter Colds
— Preventing Sore Throats
— Preventing Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
— Preventing Allergies
— Healthy Gums & Teeth
— Stopping A Sneeze
— Stopping Hiccups

Growing Pot — Two little tips and you just increased your yield about 1,000%

How To Contact Every Member of Congress — This can only be done once, maybe

How To Get On TV At The Olympics — Well, possibly

How To Get Into Guinness — Okay, this might take a few bucks, but what price, fame?

The Hippies — One of the biggest lies you've ever been told 

Usenet — A wonderful source for pirated software, high-quality TV shows, etc

Miracle Cure — A marketing idea that could be worth zillions

The Magic Elixir — I accidentally invented the first 'elixir' in a thousand years

The Iridium Strike — A real treasure hunt from 40 long, dry, dusty years ago

Welcome to Doc's Secrets

I'm putting the finishing touches on the most interesting site I've ever created.  In a way, I guess you could call it my legacy.  I'll premiere it tomorrow at noon, but I wanted to give you a heads-up in case you get busy and don't get by.  Because of its content, I probably won't link to it much in the future, so it's kinda tomorrow or nuthin'.

Are you aware the best meal at Subway Sandwiches isn't even on the menu?

Are you aware you can buy used books on Amazon.com for a penny?

Are you aware you might be able to buy four printer ink cartridges on Amazon for ten bucks?

If you live in a warm clime and drink iced beverages, is your drink coaster properly sopping up the drips?

Are you (1) male, (2) in your mid-30's, (3) enjoy sex and (4) want to keep enjoying it?

Would you like to discover the terriblest truth about woman and be set free in the process?

Would you like to prevent summer & winter colds?

Would you like to prevent getting sore throats?

Would you like to prevent getting Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?

Would you like to quit sneezing from allergies?

Are you planning on using your teeth past the age of 50?

Do you know how to stop a sneeze in its tracks?

How about hiccups?

If you grow pot, would you like to increase your yield by 1,000%?

Would you like to contact every single member of Congress at once?

Would you like to be on TV at the Olympics?

Would you like to be in the Guinness Book of World Records?

Would you like to hear the real story of the hippies?

Would you like to find out about a wonderful source for pirated software, TV shows, etc?

Would you like to make a zillion dollars with an easily-produced product?

Would you like to try reinventing the first whiskey liqueur in history?

Would you like to know where there's an official iridium strike to make your fortune?

Stay tuned tomorrow for... Doc's Secrets.

The great Thunderbird email program just went through a major revision and a number of its add-ons stopped working.  According to the sleuths over at their forum, many of them actually still work, but have a built-in limit as to their validity (which versions of T-Bird they'll work with), so when Thunderbird hit the big 5-point-oh, they declared themselves to be 'possibly incompatible' and T-Bird took that to mean they were toast.

What makes this program so great is that it handles multiple identities, yet treats them completely separately when it comes to ISP configurations, passwords and the 'From' identity when replying to people.  Plus, it nicely lists the identities along the left sidebar, each one followed by its own 'Inbox', 'Sent', etc, folder.  Not bad for a free program.  My page on it is here.

As far as the wayward add-ons go, I use one to organize the sidebar and another to minimize the program to the SysTray, both of which turned belly-up with the latest update and both of which I found working replacements for.  They're on the page above.  For the rest, you'll either have to do a Google search, looking for "thunderbird add-on" and a concise description of what you want it to do, or tweak the version number of your current add-on as described on the above forum page.

From an old buddy of mine in Oregon:

Hi, Doc -

Well, piss.  I'm extremely upset about two things:

-- I was wrong

-- You were right

And that's enough to piss off ANYBODY!

I'll say.  I cringe at the mere thought.

Like a lot of people, my friend always assumed that because his last name is somewhat unusual, he'd always be able to pick up his "name.com" domain whenever he wanted.

He also thought he'd never actually have a use for it, in the sense that he doesn't have any kids, so it's doubtful he'll be posting pics of his cute grandkids a few years down the road, plus he doesn't have any interest in blogging.

Then he went to some kind of 'crafts school' for a month and is now gearing up to sell online some of the nifty things he's turning out, like lamps and chandeliers.  But he doesn't want to commit himself to any one genre in a business sense, like using "JimsCustomLighting.com" for the domain, so what he really wants to do is — you guessed it — use his real name.

And — you guessed it — the domain is gone, gobbled up by the domain harvesters.  It just goes to some "This domain is for sale" page.  And, in many cases, you don't actually get to buy it from them for a mere $4,999.99, you lease it from them on a yearly basis extending from now until the end of eternity.

And then there's this (names have been changed to protect the innocent):

I just don't get it.  Did they pre-register it because of all the James Bellywhumpers out there, knowing one of us would be along any minute?  I typed a few variations into the browser about a year ago and they were all available (it went to Bing).  Did I tip my hand?

Ya got me.  You wouldn't think that Bing (Microsoft) would actually sell its list of searches with the word ".com" in them to some domain harvester, but, on the other hand, it's not illegal to harvest domains, so it probably wouldn't be surprising to find out the domain harvester in this case is owned by Microsoft.

As it is, my friend isn't sure what the hell he's going to do.  Probably end up using "JimsCustomDoodads.com".

So if you ever think you might want your own domain name, now's the time.  Nor do you have to actually do anything with it, like build a temporary web site to 'hold' it.  And most web hosting companies will automatically re-bill you each year so you don't lose it.

I've been designing web pages since the web was one month old, have used a lot of web hosting companies over the years, and my pick of the litter these days is BlueHost.  Unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage space, unlimited email boxes, a whole shitload of helper programs, and all for a lousy $6.95 a month.

The direct link is here.  If you want to read a bit more about BlueHost and get some ideas on conjuring up an available domain name (like using hyphens), read this, then use the link on the page to get to BlueHost.  If the domain's available, GET IT.  You're not signing up for a 1-year contract or anything.  If you later decide you don't want it, they'll pro-rate it back and refund you the difference with no 'disconnect fee'.

If you're interested in firing up a blog site (elections are coming up!) or web site, please...

Now that I'm actually using Windows 7, I'll have to take back all of those cruel, nasty, horrid things I said about it in my initial review.

I hereby take them all back.

So, to sum up:

— If you're an average user who just grabs the ol' email and surfs the 'ol web, then Win7 is a great step up from XP or Vista.  It's quicker than older versions in almost every way you can name.

— On the other hand, if you're a geek like me who wants a tough, robust operating system that you can tweak and reconfigure and generally thrash about, then you want Windows 7.  You don't get any of the tweaking and reconfiguring and thrashing stuff — but the increased speed makes up for everything.

Specific notes and fixes are below the fold.

Well, that was disappointing.

Traditionally, when Microsoft releases a new version of Internet Exploder, a chill runs through the geek community as we cower and tremble, wondering what have they done to the poor thing this time?  Some favorite button is now gone?  That one tricky thing it did is now history?  That one feature that you found quite useful, but nobody else did, has been removed because nobody else did?

There's always something we can count on to gripe, moan, carp, whine and bitch about.

But, showing that Microsoft can be even crueler than cruel, this time they played the dirtiest trick on all on us:

They didn't change anything.

And if that isn't spitting in the face on tradition, I don't know what is.

Pic: The lovely Melanie proudly displays two of Doc's favorite logos.

Oh, I might also mention that it's now faster than goose shit when accessing blog sites.  Review & setup tips are below the fold.

One of the best things about writing program reviews is that sometimes someone springs out of the woodwork with a better suggestion.  A while back I wrote a review on 'Start Menu 7', a replacement Start Menu for Windows 7.  But while it works perfectly, it still costs twenty clams.

Enter 'Classic Start Menu' (where do they dream up these wild and crazy names?), a free replacement that mimics the old style menu perfectly.  It's also quite configurable so you can get rid on any unwanted Start Menu entries, like "Help & Support", the ultra-worthless 'Search' box, and arrange the columns and icons to just the right size.

But the main thing is that the menus auto-expand — like in the old days — so there's no unnecessary clicking.  If I want to access 'Process Explorer' inside of my 'Tools' Start Menu folder, that's 5 mouse clicks with the stock Start Menu, 2 with Classic.

Additional info (and some other program suggestions for Win7) is below the fold.

Update: When we last left the riveting tale about minimizing full-screen programs that won't minimize while they're working, we were still using the stale, antiquated manual method, where you actually had to physically move the mouse and everything.

Well, I'm currently using one of those pesky programs a bunch, and I obviously tired of the painstaking, laborious process of opening Task Manager and minimizing the window every dang time, so I solved the problem using a DOS batch file.

It's now just a click away.

Details at the bottom of the post.

Pic: Artist's conception of our Editor when we ask for a raise.

Every now and then you might run into some stubborn program that won't minimize while doing its thing.  For programs like video editors that might take an hour or two to render a file, it can be a tad aggravating when you want to get to the Desktop for something.

There are actually two ways to force a program to minimize, each with a plus and a minus.

To minimize everything that's open, hit Windows-D.  The Windows key is usually on both sides of the space bar, the one with the little logo on it.  You can also hit the tiny blue icon on the far right of the Task Bar.

This will allow you access to the Desktop.  The hitch is that you then have to open back up the programs you were using.  In that regard, it's quicker to do the following.

The second way takes an extra step, but it's permanent.  Either hit Ctrl-Alt-Del or click on the Task Bar with the right mouse button and open the Task Manager.

Click on the 'Applications' tab, highlight the program's name with the right mouse button and select "Minimize" from the drop-down menu.  That'll keep it minimized until it's finished.

The Windows key actually has a number of functions, but I've never found any of them to be of much use.  If you have kids in the room and want to dash to the kitchen for a few minutes, hitting Win-L will lock the keyboard and keep things safe while you're away.  For a complete list of keyboard shortcuts, try this site.

Info on the 'one-click' closing method is below the fold.

An old friend of mine is seriously PO'd.

Worse, he has no one to blame but himself.  Double-worse, he knows he deserves extry blame because he's friends with the wise and fabled Dr. Mercury who's been harping about this friggin' subject for years.

As his friend, and knowing he deserves extry blame, I've naturally been doing my part by sending him little cheer-up notes, like "Are you still blaming yourself?  I would," and "Have you forgiven yourself yet?  Why should you?"  I'm particularly fond of "Don't worry, everyone makes incredibly stupid mistakes in their lives.  I'm sure there's plenty more where this one came from."

His name is something akin to "Stephen Gerald McKinley".  Not uncommon names, but not particularly common, either.  But uncommon enough that, put together, you'd figure there couldn't be all that many of them in the world, and what are the odds that they'd all want personal sites of one type or another?

Pretty good, as it turns out.

When he finally — finally! — got around to checking, there wasn't one single variation on his name available.  That includes abbreviated spelling and using hyphens, and at one point he actually tried "stephengeraldmckinley2.com" — and even that was taken.

That's when he knew he had really screwed the pooch big time.  Because domain names never return to the public trough.  The domain harvesters figure — correctly — that if one person wanted it, then someone else will want it, so they're snatched up electronically the micro-instant they become available.

And, just as a small side note, with many of the domain harvesters, you don't buy the domain from them for the tidy sum of $4,999, you lease it from them for time eternal.  It's not pretty.

So if you EVER think you might want a site, even years and years down the road so you can post pictures of yourself looking mournful and bedraggled so your children will take pity on you and treat you to a dinner consisting of something other than dog food, now's the time to grab it.

Conversely, it's a great way to help the grandparents do their Christmas shopping. First, post pictures of 2-year-old Timmy on your personal site.  If possible, catch him when he's off-guard and not trying to set the cat on fire.  Send the link to Grandma.

When the swooning Grandma asks on the phone what little Timmy wants for Christmas, tell her "Timmy said a large gift card from Best Buy would 'best' suit his tastes -- ha-ha.  Quite the precocious child, isn't he?  I think he gets it from you."

Of course, you could make tons of money from your domain, but who wants to discuss such a crass subject?  Besides, those thousands of dollars a day don't just roll in by themselves.  Sometimes the site owner has to spend a good ten or fifteen minutes doing site chores, which can really cut into one's golf and bowling time.

Personally, I suggest you start with actually getting the domain name — then we'll make you a millionaire.

It should be noted that you don't actually have to put up some kind of web or blog site to hold the domain.  All we're talking about is reserving it.  Cost is a whopping $6.95/mo.

The jump-off point is here.  That'll give you some background on the hosting company I use, some tips on picking a domain name and a link to get started.

And best of luck!

I'm afraid you're going to need it.

So, guess where I spent Election Eve?

In the Tea Party Ballroom in Washington, D.C.

That's ol' Doc, the party hound.

A few days before I was giving 5-minute lectures at an energy expo on the perils of Cap & Trade and scaring the holy bajeepers out of everybody.

A few days before that I attended Jon Stewart's inspiring "Let's Save America From The Racist Homophobic Teabaggers" rally.  Luckily, I still had my love beads from the 60's so I fit right in.

More on all that later.

Bird Dog raised the question of transferring vinyl record albums to CD a while back, and an excellent question it is.  While most old albums have been put on disc, certainly not all have.  And the impracticality of keeping a record player hanging around is obvious — and that's assuming that slick new 'home entertainment center' you just bought even has a 'Phono In' jack to begin with.

Why would it?

And there are 'custom' albums that were never commercially pressed, like the old 'pirated' releases of the Dead, Dylan, et al, as well as albums cut in private studios.

And yes, those old vinyl albums of yours are disintegrating as we speak.  From a modern, digital perspective, they simply couldn't have picked a worse, more fragile medium for long-term data storage.  In all fairness, though, I suppose it beats using tin foil cylinders.

Below the fold I'll elaborate on the two common methods to transfer albums to CD, as well as the pitfalls of each, including one interesting problem using the 'automatic' method that people usually don't think about until it's too late.

My thanks to JLW III in the comments for suggesting I take another look at the Thunderbird multiple identities email program.  They'd tweaked something since I'd looked at it a year before and it's now my email program of choice.  If you're looking for an email program that handles individual identities, this little honey is the way to go.

It's a freebie, put out by Mozilla, the same folks who brought us Netscape and Firefox.  I'm using Firefox right now to edit this page, and ten minutes ago I was using Netscape Composer, their web editor, so just call me 'Exhibit A'.  I'd looked at T-Bird a few times before, of course, but it was just never in the big leagues like it is now.  Thanks again, JLW.

Additional info and setup tips are below the fold.

One pesky little computer problem is when you run a program most of the time the computer is up, like an email program, but it minimizes to the Task Bar and clutters up the place with its icon.  For 'permanent' programs that run all of the time, the better routine is to stick the icon in the SysTray (the area just to the right of the Task Bar) and leave the Task Bar area for current projects.

Some programs have a setting in their Options that tells them to minimize to the SysTray, so check that first.

To solve this little poser, we have a program with the cheek-pinchingly cute name of Trayconizer.  It's not promised to work on every program, but it's worked on the three I've thrown at it.

Home page is here.  Get the 'Unicode build'.

Unzip the file to its own 'Trayconizer' folder in a place you'll later be able to locate.  This is, if you put the Trayconizer folder in a 'Tools' folder, remember it for the next step.

To set up a program for trayconizing, go to the Start Menu, find its icon, right-click on it and open the Properties.

In the 'Target' box, put the full path to Trayconizer before the path to the program.

(capital letters are only used for clarity in the following)

For example, if you placed the Trayconizer folder in a 'Tools' folder, the path would be:

     C:\Tools\Trayconizer\Trayconizer.exe <existing path to program>

If you stuck it in a folder with a blank space in the name, like 'Program Files', you need to put the whole path in quotes:

     "C:\Program Files\Trayconizer\Trayconizer.exe" <path to program>

If there's an error in the path, Windows will let you know when you click 'OK' to close the box.  If you get stuck, open the Properties of the Trayconizer icon, highlight the 'Location', copy it to memory with Ctrl-C, paste it into the 'Target' box with Ctrl-V.

Now when you minimize the program the icon should go to the SysTray.  Single-click on it to get a few options, double-click to pop the program back open.

Today would have to be regarded as one of the perfect 'project days' of the year.  The banks and such are closed, the festivities are over, and a hopefully undisturbed day stretches out before you.

Here are some suggestions on how to put this special little day to good use:

Establish Yourself Online — Quit screwing around and go get yourself a domain name before they all run out.  This is the voice of experience speaking.  Five years ago, my first-name-last-name.com (without the hyphens) was available, but I didn't grab it.  Then, my first-name-middle-initial-last-name.com was available, but I didn't grab it.  Today, even my first-name-middle-name-last-name.com is gone.  And, just between you and me, I really don't want a ".biz" or ".xxx" address.

Home Repair — Maybe you've been thinking of tackling a repair around the house but you're not sure if you're getting in over your head?  Here's an 'overview guide' that should get you headed in the right direction. También en Español, Deutsch, et Français.

Computer Overhaul — Is this it?  Is this the dreaded day when you finally grip the bull by the horns and terrifyingly slog your way through the mean, cruel guide in order to get your computer acting all perky and spunky again?  At very least, do the 'Simple' setup guide.  At very cruelest, do the 'Serious' guide.

Vista Users — This goes double for you guys.  All of that Vista "bloatware" that your friends mock and deride you for behind your back can be safely and easily eliminated.  I ran Vista for a while and it was as quick and snappy as an operating system can be.

VideoStudio — If you ever wanted to dangle a toe in the moiling, boiling, roiling waters of video, this is the way to do it.  It takes a brand new approach.  Rather than teach one a whole bunch of little things in anticipation of running the big program, I have you learn the big program first and only learn the nitty-gritty stuff as the need arises, which depends upon the odd video formats drifting in over time.  The big dif is, I arm you with a plethora of specialized tools so you can handle whatever the 'Net throws at you.  There's no "figuring it out" at the time.

Don't let this day slip away!

Well, it appears the blogosphere is here to stay.

As such, it's probably high time you get your little buns in gear and grab a domain name before they're all taken, and think about slapping something — anything! — up there just to prove you're a citizen of the 21st century.

The bottom line is, you're probably going to get online sometime, so you might as well have at least a meager selection of domain names to choose from.  Every minute you wait could mean that yourname.com will be taken.  And the domain name is free if you go through the link below, and so's the software, and the site, itself, only costs $6.95/mo to host, so it isn't like it's some big wallet-killer.  You got any other bills that low?

The software we'll be using is called WordPress, and whether you want a blog site or a standard web site, the stuff can't be beat.

There are two places where it really shines:

— It does a great job of automatically organizing everything.  Readers can hunt up older posts a number of ways and it has an outstanding search feature.

— But it's the 'themes' that can change the entire look of your site with a single mouse click, from cool-and-hip to snappy-business-professional, that set this software apart.  There are literally thousands of them out there to choose from.

If you're away from home, you can write your posts on the laptop and then email them to the site when you get online, each one scheduled to display at a certain time.

And here's the thing:

Frank, my neighbor, knows almost nothing about computers and never dreamed in a million years that he'd one day set up a personal blog site, much less put photos of his boat on it, much less videos.  But, over the course of a few hours, with a little help from moi, he did just that.

Frank is 84 years old.

And you know where this is going, right?

If ancient, creaky old Frank can manage this difficult, ponderous task, I'm betting that you can, too.

The jump-off point is Cool-Blogsite.  That'll walk you through the entire process from this moment on.  If you just want to dip a toe in the pond, it's real easy to get up and running.  If you want to jump on in, it's "challenging, but not difficult" to tweak the site to your exact liking.

This would also make a wonderful gift for some not-so-computer-savvy member of the family.  They might not have the know-how to set up a site, but anybody can hit the 'Save' button.  Install a bunch of themes and watch their eyes light up when they see the big thumbnail preview pics and how easy it is to choose between them.

But back to the domain names, I was in some webmasters' forum the other day and they were bitching about how hard it is to find an unused name these days, even using a person's first, middle and last name.  And it certainly makes sense, given the massive number of people getting online and wanting their own domains.

As I said, it's real easy using WordPress just to get online and establish a 'beachhead'.  The main idea is to nail down your domain name while it's still available.  Click on the above link and just take care of steps #1 and #2.  That's your 'beachhead', then you can relax and continue at your leisure.

Any questions, please ask in the comments.

Here's an index of my Maggie's Computin' Tips.  I can't guarantee all of these will work on every Windows operating system, but most should.

Programs

AutoSizer — This has two great uses.  It'll pop open the browser (or any program) in full-screen mode every time it opens, and for small programs that tend to open wherever they want (like Calculator), it will make them open right in the center of the screen.

GIMP Graphics Studio — A great (free) graphics studio.

Scheduled Tasks — How to use Scheduled Tasks to pop open Notepad to remind you of some upcoming event or task.

Snipping Tool — A very slick tool that allows you to use the mouse to snip out part of the screen and either save it as a pic or email it directly to someone.

Thunderbird — A great 'multiple identities' email program

The Amazing AVS Video Converter — This is one of the finest, most versatile video conversion program I've ever come across.

System Tips

Alternate Characters — How to insert 'alternate characters' (á,é,ñ,ö,¼,½,¿,¡,²,³,°,â„¢, etc) into an editor using the keyboard or a program.

Backup Time — Backing up files has become a lot easier of late.

Capturing Screen Images — This is the traditional way to capture what's on the screen.  Snipping Tool just captures it as an image to be saved or sent, whereas this method pops it into a graphics studio for further processing.

Cleaning an LCD Monitor — Don't use a liquid, don't use anything with ammonia in it.

Minimizing Stubborn Programs — Every now and then you'll run into a program that won't minimize while it's running.  Here are two ways to take care of the rascal.

Customized 'New' Projects — This is how to set up 'templates' so a program will always open with certain settings already in place, like a certain font in a word processing program, or starting up your graphics studio with a blank picture, ready to have a screen capture pasted into it.

Dust, the common enemy — You'll hear about viruses, lightning strikes and nuclear-bomb-induced electromagnetic impulses, but this is the real bad boy of the bunch.

Security Software — A general rundown on computer security and some program recommendations.

Security Update — A few new tidbits, mainly a reminder.

The 'Send To' Feature — This is how to easily load files into programs they aren't normally associated with.  Got a Notepad file you want to spell-check?  'Send' it to a word processing program, run the spell-checker and save.

Virtual Drives — If you have a program or game that requires a disc to be in the ROM drive, this is how to get around it.

Online

Browser Tips — How to tweak Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Another Online Tweak — A small adjustment for XP systems.

Double Your Browsing Speed? — Windows XP only.  All XP users should install this thing.  It won't do any harm if you're already getting your max rates, but it could make a big difference if you're not.  It flat-out doubled my Verizon Wireless browsing rate.

Multiple Email Identities — One of the real tragedies with Windows Vista and Windows 7 is the way Microsoft shuffled the excellent Outlook Express off to the great pixel graveyard in the sky.  It's best feature was the ability to use (true) multiple identities.  This is the result of my search for a replacement.  It's not perfect, but blows the doors off anything else I could find.

Saving & Playing Web Videos — This will show you how to both save web videos and convert them to a proper computer format for your own use.

Windows

For Windows XP tweaks, see Lesson #4, below.

Removing Context Menu Entries — How to clean up the right mouse button menu.

Tweaking Vista — Perhaps the biggest fallacy in the computer world over the past few years is that Windows Vista is "bloated" and "slow".  This is just silly.  Yes, it has some big programs running in the background, but turning them off is just a mouse click away.  Do everything on this page and your Vista system will be quick, stable and solid.

Hardware

Disc Carousels — For that ever-burgeoning disc collection

Disc Labeling — Some info on disc label printers

Enhancements — Things to make your computer life more enjoyable.

Recent CPU Advances — A brief overview of the new "dual-core" and "quad-core" CPU chips

The IDE/SATA/RAID Story — Want to really jack up your system?

The Lessons

Introduction

  1: Search Engine Tips
  2: File Structure
  3: System Backup
  4: Windows XP Tweaks
  5: Ergonomics
  6: Building A Home Page
  7: Cool Tools
  8: Hardware
  9: Keyboard Skills
10: Should You Upgrade?
11: Troubleshooting
12: Images
13: Audio
14: Video
15: Streaming Video
16: DOS
17: Facts & Fallacies

Doc's Videos
Best of Doc
Doc's Home Site

We're at kind of a juncture right now as different CPU configurations make market inroads.  Traditionally, we've just had one big CPU chip and every effort by the manufacturers was thrown into making it faster and faster.

However, because an increase in speed means an accompanying increase in heat, the industry has hit something of a wall lately and now you're hearing about "dual-core" and "quad-core" CPU chips as the manufacturers take a fresh approach.

In brief, a dual-core CPU is basically two CPU chips in one, and certain applications will correspondingly run twice as fast.  Quad-core CPUs are another doubling up of CPU power, although in general they only increase certain functions 25% over a dual-core system and are considered something of a 'marketing gimmick' by us geeks.

To note is that it's up to the programs, themselves, as to whether or not they can utilize the multiple CPUs.

Here are two video compression programs that do the exact same thing:

And, as expected, the first one does the chore in half the time, ten minutes compared to twenty.  Run it six times and that's an hour saved.

As to identifying your own system, simply right-click on the Task Bar, open Task Manager, click on the 'Performance' tab and look.  If you have two windows, like the above, it's a dual-core system.

As such, if you do any kind of routine CPU-intensive process, you might want to take a peek at ye olde Task Manager and make sure the program's up to speed — literally.  In the case up above, I had used DVD2One for years, but as soon as I bought the new dual-core rig and saw how DVD2One performed in Task Manager, it went straight to the scrap heap.  If it had just been one of those 'percentage stories', where one program outperforms another by a blistering 2.38%, I wouldn't have bothered.

But twice just can't be argued with.

I suppose if you asked the question "What are the most destructive things to a computer?" and flipped through a computer mag, you'd come away with viruses, spyware, power surges, even lightening strikes.

But by the time the dust settles, the dust has settled.  And dust covering the electronic parts is, over the long run, one of the most destructive forces of all, simply because it makes everything run hotter, from the electronic components to the drives.  Enough dusty coating, enough external heat from a blistering hot summer's day, maybe clog up the tower's intake vents with some dustballs, and one of the components could exceed its factory specs and blow.  And that means a new motherboard, and that usually means a brand new computer.

This is especially true coupled with the fact that electronic devices such as motherboards generate a field of static electricity around them, attracting small particles in the air.  Throw in an intake fan for the power supply, maybe one for the motherboard, and, truth be told, that computer of yours is doubling as an excellent little room-sized dust filter.

The actual cleaning process is straightforward enough:

1. Unhook everything, figure out how to open the case.

2. Find a neighbor with a compressed air rig (they're always looking for an excuse to use it), some friend who owns a scuba tank and air nozzle, or head to the local gas station.  You can also use those small cans of compressed air but they won't be near as effective.

Stand upwind on the closed side of the tower, reach the hose over and blast the hell out of the thing.  The first gust should really kick up a ruckus.  After that dissipates, face the insides and get real close to everything.  Blast the individual components on the motherboard, the heat sink on the big CPU chip and the fans.  Also blast the inside of the (enclosed) power supply through both vents.

3. Reassemble.

These days, there's not much worry about hooking things back up incorrectly.  Everything's color-coded, a unique size, polarized, if not all three.

Once a year sounds about right.  If you do a 'spring cleaning' routine, put it on the list.  If the tower sits right on the floor, do it twice a year.  If at all possible, the tower really should sit at least 8" off the floor, especially carpet.  Please refer to accompanying photograph for demonstration.

Like you, I always stay up with the latest trends in file backup technology.  Heck, who doesn't?

Pictured: Who doesn't.

To be completely honest, you never did have much of an excuse when you lost those super-important files during that computer melt-down a while back and had lazily neglected to back them up.  Oh, you made a big bid for sympathy, all right, but we just laughed and sneered.  There have always been zillions of backup programs around, and they've always been real easy to use.  No, you really had no excuse at all.

And now, sadly, with cheap terabyte drives available, you'll have even less.

To take it through the timeline, first we backed up our precious files to floppy disk.  Then came hard drives, so we used a variety of backup programs that would 'sync' two folders together, copying the new files in the first folder over to the backup folder.

Then came CD blanks, then DVD blanks, so that became the medium of choice for a decade.  Their permanency and ease of storage made the media very attractive.

But even it had its flaws, like having to divide things up so they'd fit on a disc, and the time and hassle of the burning process, itself.

But the biggest problem was simply the size limitation.  I have about 200 gigs total, spread across two drives and nine partitions, so that's about 45 to 50 discs if I wanted to back up the works.  Yikes.

But now, with the recent advent of inexpensive monster-sized (terabyte) hard drives, the rules change once again.  Given how much easier it is to click on a single button in SyncToy and back up the whole enchilada, this is clearly the way to go.

If you're wondering about price, I picked up one of the Seagate drives used in this test at BestBuy the other day for $75 on sale.  Hook it in as a spare drive, download the free SyncToy and you're good to go.

And the next time a computer glitch eats those super-important files, you'll be the one who's laughing last.

If there was ever a computer "good news, bad news" story, this is it.

Pictured: Average reader upon hearing the bad news.

Well, there's no sense in beating around the bush.  Let's get right to the good news.

For a mere $49.95, it's possible that you could more than double your hard drive speed.  That means everything would be quicker.  Boot-up time, saving, converting, copying, formatting, rendering, transcoding, frameserving, demuxing, remuxing, bitmapping, raytracing, defragging, scanning, disk-checking...

Everything.

For a crummy 49 bucks.

Think that's impressive?  With the mere flip of a setting, you might be able to almost double it again.

More info and official techie-type graphs & numbers are below the fol-

"But Doc, wait!  What about the bad news?"

Oh, let's just keep that between ourselves.  There are children present.

Well, it finally happened.

I was impressed with a video program.

And, let me assure you, for me to be impressed with a video program takes a lot.  I have in my tool bag all of the latest, hottest goodies, and I know all the video tricks.  Hell, I invented half the tricks.  I've been a leader in the field of digital video for a decade.

Nevertheless, I'm impressed with AVS Video Converter.  And the $59 they're asking is fairly cheap for a quality conversion program.  To keep it in perspective, Adobe Premiere lists for $799.  The whys and wherefores will only be of interest to us videophiles (budding and otherwise), so I'll lay it all out below the fold.  This is truly a remarkable program in at least three ways.

Things are not always what they seem.

You think you're looking at a web page on Maggie's server, right?  Nope, not even close.  Every single item you see or hear on a web site has been downloaded to your computer first, and those are the files you're reading, watching and listening to.  Everything, including all of those wild & wacky videos you watch, are sitting right there on your computer waiting to be saved for later enjoyment.

But no.

No, as cruel as it sounds, this is not an ideal world, and thus there are bound to be a few hitches and bumps along the way, such as your media player rudely spitting out "Unknown format" when you innocently try to play your latest YouTube treasure.  But with stalwart heart and steely resolve, we'll solve the whole mess in one fell swoop.  I'm not exactly sure what a fell swoop is — but I'm pretty sure there's one below the fold.

Pic: Average student at Dr. Mercury's Computer School For Unwed Mothers upon discovering that a program she's just installed has added YET ANOTHER entry to the damb context menu!

P.S.  I sure wish I had a lip ring. :(

On a Windows system, the 'context menu' is what pops out when you click on an icon with the right mouse button.  Unfortunately, programs like installing their own entries on the context menu and things can get a bit cluttered after a while.

The solution is to use a simple program called ShellExView to remove the unwanted entries.

A download site is here.  No need to install, just unzip and copy the folder to a permanent home.  Then open the ShellExView folder, grab hold of the program's icon and d-r-a-g it over to the Start Menu and drop it in for future access.

Fire up the program and look for the company or program name on the left.  Right-click on it and select 'Disable'.  Go find an icon, right-click on it and see if the entry has been removed.  If not, look for another entry by the same company or program.  It should be there somewhere.

I thought I'd list out some tips & tweaks that might make your browsing experience more enjoyable.  I'll cover Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.

Below the fold, I'll offer some suggestions on how to clean things up and get more web viewing space (IE in particular needs help in this department), how to make the tool bar buttons more efficient, how to get rid of those ugly purple fonts that some pages display in IE, some clarification on browser speed, and some bug fixes.

Do you know anyone who uses a computer?

My guess is that you know a very special someone who uses a computer.  Someone who's using it right now, in fact, and you'd like to give that special someone a really nice computer gift for Christmas.  And, honestly, who knows that special someone's needs and tastes better than you, right?  That's why you're the perfect person to make this decision.

Following are twelve gift ideas that I think would spruce up anyone's rig.

1. The Disc Carousel

Find the disc you want in the computer database program, click 'Eject', the carousel spins around and out it slides.  Holds 150 discs.  Price usually lists for $129, sometimes they go on sale.  Home site is here, much more info here.

"Hey, Doc, this 'shopping for someone special' stuff is great!  My own special someone is going to be so appreciative!"

That's what giving is all about.

Gringo made an important point in the comments the other day that deserves to be both repeated and elaborated upon.

Here's the quote:

"Check the net for your stolen ID"

While this purports to be a site that will inform you if your ID has been stolen, it could also be a site constructed with the goal of stealing your ID.

Exactly.  I'd even go so far as to change his "also" to "often or "usually".  This is becoming a huge problem on the 'Net and is one of the driving forces behind both personal identity theft and 'botnet' attacks.

Most malevolent programs running around these days aren't "viruses" — meaning some program that does something nasty like suddenly delete your C Drive — because viruses don't ultimately do the instigator any good.  Outside of the satisfaction of being mean, of course.  The worst programs are the 'keyloggers', which send a record of your keystrokes to the bad guy.  All he has to do is look for 19 numbers in a row (your credit card number plus the 3-digit number off the back that you just entered in some online order form) and bingo.  Now all he has to do is try a few expiration dates and your bank account is toast.

Second-worst is the 'botnet' program that lies dormant in your computer until the bad guys launch an attack on some corporation, usually in the form of blackmail.  They'll tell the company to either cough up the dough or the 20,000 computers on their botnet (of which you're one) will 'ping' their web site 10 times a second from now until Doomsday, thereby overloading the server and keeping legitimate customers from getting to the site.  Obviously, for an online company, this is serious business.

And you, yourself, will never even know you were part of the attack.

That's why everyone from God on down recommends installing a quality anti-virus/spyware program, and don't forget a good firewall program.  You cannot rely on the stock Windows programs, such as Windows Firewall and Windows Defender.  I have a post on the subject here.

Back to Gringo's warning, it isn't just web sites and email where the damage is being done.  There's an area of the Internet called 'Usenet' which has a large section of programs, pirated and otherwise.  I got curious and did a study on this a few months ago and I'd estimate that three-fourths of the anti-virus/spyware programs available for downloading have some spyware buried deep in the install files.  That is, it'll actually install the anti-virus program, but it'll have been tweaked so it overlooks the keylogger.  While you're thinking your computer is finally safe, your bank account is being drained.

The same is true with P2P (peer-to-peer) file-sharing sites (eDonkey, BitTorrent, etc), and sophisticated chat lines, like the IRC, that allow for file transfers.  Some chat buddy says, "Hey, I just downloaded the latest Norton Anti-Virus from Usenet!  I installed it and it's working perfectly!  Want a copy?"  You reply "Sure!", and now both of you are unknowing partners in a gang of Internet blackmailers.  Or simultaneously having your bank accounts drained.

So be safe, be cautious, use common sense, don't trust renegade downloads, and please spend the money on quality protection.  Some program suggestions are in the above link.

General security rules-of-thumb:

1.  Never open a file-attachment in an email unless you're 101% sure of the sender.  Remember, one of the ploys of the clever virus or spyware is using the names in a person's address book to send itself on.

2.  Never click on a link in (what appears to be) a commercial email, like from a bank or loan agency, much less input anything personal like a password.  The reason phishing emails look so real is because they are real.  Everything you see is probably coming directly from the bank's actual site.  It's when you click on something that the trouble begins.

3.  Never click 'OK' in any box that pops up while you're on a web site unless it's something you've initiated, like installing a program.  Plus, you know the little click-box in the upper-right corner that closes the intrusive box?  Well, if you wanted the person to click the 'OK' button to install your keylogger or netbot file, wouldn't you make the little 'close box' do the same thing?  And, for that matter, the 'Cancel' button?  When I see one of those things pop up, I open Task Manager and shut it down that way.

4.  Always right-click on a download from a possibly suspicious source and have your anti-virus/spyware program scan the file directly.  It'll give the file a quick scan when it's downloaded, but often only a deep scan will detect the really nasty stuff.

This doesn't apply to songs, pics and videos, but it definitely applies to compressed files such as Zip and Rar, and you should never, ever, download an EXE file unless you're positive of the source.

The real danger today is spyware, and it's on your shoulders to use a quality program to fend it off.  Not only could an easy argument be made that it's the most important money you can spend on your computer, but it could even be argued that it's the only money that you actually need to spend on your computer.  One can get by with a lot of great freebie programs in the computer world, but not in this area.

Any specific questions, as always, just ask in the comments.

One of the best new features in Vista (it's also in Windows 7) is the Snipping Tool.  I only started using Vista a month ago, so it took me a while to blunder my way across it.  What a great find.

If you just want a grab a picture from the Web for your own use, you right-click on it and save it.  The problem arises when you just want part of a picture, or part of a web page (or program) that's not a picture.  The traditional method is to hit the 'Print Scrn' key on the keyboard, which puts a snapshot of the entire screen into memory, then paste it into a paint program and do your cropping.  The Snipping Tool eliminates the entire process.

In Vista's Start Menu, the entry is in Programs/Accessories.  In Win7, it'll either be on the main Start Menu list or buried somewhere.  If you don't see the entry, open Control Panel, 'Programs and Features', click on 'Turn Windows features on and off' over to the left, then checkmark the "Tablet PC" entry and let it load.  If it's already checked and you swear you can't find the entry on the Start Menu, uncheck 'Tablet', reboot, then put it back in.  (Why it's tied in with the tablet's features is anybody's guess.)

Update: A commenter noted that the 'Tablet' feature isn't offered in his 'Home' edition, so if you don't see a 'Tablet PC' entry in the 'Features' box, check out the couple of free snipping tools available here.

To use Snipping Tool, just fire it up.  It automatically goes straight into 'capture mode'.  Grab the mouse, hold down the left button and d-r-a-g it over the area you want to snip.  When you let go, a box pops open with the sniplet.  Do a 'Save As' and there ya go.

There are a couple of other features in the sniplet box you might find useful, such as a 'pen' tool where you can manually write words or circle something, and a yellow 'highlight' tool.  If you don't like what you circled or highlighted, click on the 'Eraser' tool and then the area you want erased.  You can also send the snip directly to someone via email without even bothering to save it, another time-saver.

There are a couple of Options you might want to change:

— You can add it to the Quick Launch tool bar if you use it.

— The 'ink' color is the color of the border it puts around the snip, so you might prefer black or some dark color over the default red.

Kudos to Microsoft for an excellent time-saving tool that works perfectly.

One of the biggest disappointments with Windows Vista is that they dropped the 'Identities' feature from Outlook Express, now renamed "Windows Mail".  The 'Identities' allow you to have completely separate email accounts, each with their own Inbox, Outbox, settings, etc.  This way you can have one account using your real name for friends and family, one with an anonymous handle for Internet stuff, maybe one for business and a fourth acting as a 'throwaway' address that you use for online transactions, just in case some unscrupulous dealer sells it to the spam merchants.

It was, in short, an invaluable feature, and there's no reason on God's Green Earth why they should have removed it.  The only way it can be done with Windows Mail is to actually log off the entire system and then log back on as a different 'identity'.  That's friggin' ridiculous.

So, the hunt was on to find an email program that supported multiple identities.  Two days and about a dozen programs later, I found the answer.  It costs $35, but if you want true multiple identities, it's the only program I found that does the trick.

More info + setup tips below the fold.

Picture: artist's rendition of what you'll look like when you finish this guide.

But first, the bad news.

If you've heard the horror stories about Windows Vista and are hanging on to your Windows XP for dear life, hoping that Windows 7 will be the answer...

Or you're currently using Windows Vista and are disappointed with its sluggish performance and those crazy 'permission' boxes that pop up every time you change the tiniest setting, and you're also hoping Windows 7 will be the answer...

Sorry.

I suggest you not plan on upgrading to Windows 7 in the near future, and for two very good reasons:

• If you think Vista took a lot of customization away from the user compared to Windows XP, wait'll you see Windows 7.  The amount of user customization looks like it's been cut in half.  Microsoft has clearly decided, at long last, that you're a blithering idiot and the fewer options you're given, the less likely it is you'll screw something up.
  
  Also, just for the record, if you think Windows 7 is a "new" operating system, you've been listening to the hype.  It's Vista without the goodies, which unfortunately includes both the cool things Vista has to offer, like the transparent window borders, as well as some of the better stock Windows programs like Movie Maker and DVD Maker.
  


• And the driver problem is going to be much worse than usual.  In a normal Windows update, the manufacturers of printers, scanners, and all the rest traditionally lag behind a few months, but eventually the drivers for most of their models are updated to the latest version of Windows.
  
  In the case of Windows 7, however, because most of the shipped models will be running the new 64-bit file system, the drivers are going to have to be written from scratch.  Not only is that costly unto itself (those programmers don't come cheap), but it means that the manufacturers will have to write two drivers ($$) for every peripheral device ($$), and there's no doubt a number of older devices are going to get left by the wayside.
  
  If you have a fairly recent Hewlett-Packard or Epson printer, you'll be fine, but if you've got an older printer or scanner or whatever, or some off-beat brand, your ass might be grass.  Before you even think of upgrading to Windows 7, make sure your drivers are available first.

The good news is, there's a simple answer to your dashed hopes and dreams:

Simply turn off the 'bloatware' in Vista.

Do everything in this guide and you'll have a Windows Vista system that's quick, snappy and reliable, and should provide you with years of carefree use.

I guess I should have expected it, but some activist wannabe cheated the survey and skewed the results.  All he or she had to do was delete a cookie and vote again, and over the course of a few hours both the Mac and Firefox stats skyrocketed way past the norm.  When the Mac OS, which officially holds 15% of the computer market, starts rivaling Windows in a survey, you know something's up.

Instead, here are the official stats from our Google Analytics page:

You Safari users should be using the Mac version of Firefox, available here.  Safari has a few bugs and the colors you're seeing aren't necessarily what everyone else is seeing.  And Firefox is better in a number of other ways.

To you 'smart-phone' users, don't hold your breath waiting for a mobile-friendly version of Maggie's to appear.  The guy who developed the software has long dropped support of it and there's no reason to assume anyone else will pick up the reins.  Such is life in the sleepy back hollow wherein Maggie's resides.

 
This (former) weekly Saturday morning feature will slowly, over time, turn you into a full-fledged computer expert. More info here.
 

Lesson 17: Facts & Fallacies

This is the wind-up to the series.
 

I was reading some comments on RedState the other day and one of the commenters — an obviously very knowledgeable fellow — was clearly and concisely explaining to everyone what the word "bandwidth" meant.  By the confidence with which he wrote, there was little doubt he knew precisely what he was talking about.

And he couldn't have been more wrong.

Nor am I criticizing him.  There's a lot of confusion out there, often because a term has two different meanings depending upon context, and such was the case here.  With other terms, it might be a matter of people believing the ad hype, or a word's meaning has simply evolved over time.

With all this in mind, here's a Points of Confusion list I've come up with:

Definitions
'Bandwidth'
'Image'
'Resolution'
'Web' & 'Internet'
'Disc' & 'Disk'

The Internet
Connection & Download Rates
Download Accelerators
Web Site Hits
What You're Seeing Isn't The Web
Cookies

Software
Mac vs the PC
Firefox
Macs, Firefox and Malware
Newer Isn't Necessarily Better
Screensavers
Backing Things Up

Hardware
Memory & Hard Drives
Faster CPUs
Computers Wearing Out
Defragmenting Hard Drives
Printer Ink Costs

The goods are below the fold.  You might bookmark the page so you can throw it in some blowhard's face the next time you see someone spouting nonsense.  For example, it's amazing how many people think that computers "wear out" over time, like a car.  In truth, your computer (the hardware part) is just as fast as the day it was made.  It's the software that "wears out", but that's easily remedied.  If you've found your machine slowing down over time, the solution might be below.

Newer ones get added to the bottom.

The Deafening Silence — My favorite 'airline disaster' episode

Men & Women of Film — A Hollywood collage

Train Story with a Twist(er) — Kids!

RC Madness — Three R/C airplane vids

Happy Guy Fawkes Day — How this day has been spun around

The Astounding World of the Future — Simply amazing what these guys foresaw

Uncle Jay Explains The News — One of the great unheralded geniuses of our time

A Couple o' Sagan Clips — My two favorite clips from 'Cosmos'

Obama's Two Cents' Worth — This one's gonna hurt

And The Chapter Closes — A tribute for us Trekkers

'House MD' - A Couple o' Treats — Two clips for us 'House' fans

Doc Gets a Nature Lesson — Learn something new every day

And To You, Rube — And entire Honda turned into a Rube Goldberg device

Triple Vid Splash — Three cool vids

Angels From an Angle — Great camera work of the Blue Angels

Cute Animal Vids — The usual horsing around and pigging out

Sunday Air Crash Fare — A pleasant way to start off a Sunday

Useful Idiot: a role to play — My take on Keith Olbermann

"Do these genes make me look fat?" — As these things go, this is probably the most official 'exposé' on the site.  It's amazing how we're being lied to.

Beautiful Camp Elmwood — I just love getting the readers involved.  Dare ya to solve it.

Life On Other Worlds: By The Numbers — My counterargument to Carl Sagan and his ilk

Who Killed JFK, Jr.? — Many have said this is one of my finer pieces

Colorado Travelogue — A fun, rollicking you-are-there story

The Michael Crichton Challenge — Think you're fairly smart, don't you?  So did I — until this bozo came along

Computer Enhancements — Physical things to make your computer experience more enjoyable

Unscrabbleink and Grandma's Dominos — Played by these rules, these two games are an absolute blast

The Mission — Can one regular ol' person actually make a difference?  You bet.

Treasure Hunting With A Metal Detector — Even if you're not into metal detectors, this makes for a fun you-are-there read

The Challenge — So, think your cat or dog's pretty smart, eh?  Heh.  How little you know.

Our culture in graphspeak — The discovery of a remarkably clever site

The Liveaboard Life — Life aboard a 40-foot motoryacht

Collections:

Videos — A handful of fun clips

Bag O' Links — A fun 'reader participation' post

Other Sites:

Start a Blog — The coolest way to start a blog or web site

System Backup — Those regular 'backup' programs are ridiculous.  This is how the pros do it.

VideoStudio Lab — A great way to get into the world of video

Windows Tips & Tricks — Covers all three versions

Home Repair Guide — Not a "how-to" guide as much as a "Can you fix it?" guide

There's an immense difference between a Christmas gift that you'd like very much but hesitate to ask for because it's expensive or hard to obtain — and a gift you can't ask for at all because of the time and effort involved.
 

Between hanging out at the tiki hut with the locals and going to the Sunday BBQ at the nearby park, I tend to intermingle with 'regular' people a fair amount; meaning, people who aren't computer whizzes and/or savvy blog participants.

And it's not surprising that a huge number of people out there would love to get a little blog site going where they could post their daily thoughts ("You wouldn't believe what happened to me just now at the supermarket!") and pics and videos for family and friends to enjoy, yet most of them never even attempt it.

In pursuing the issue, the answer, unsurprisingly, is that people simply don't think they have the ability to put one together.  And, admittedly, it probably sounds a little daunting to hear you have to "construct" a blog site when you're not even sure what an "icon" or "menu" is.

So, do something really special this year and give them a ready-to-go site.  It'll cost about a hundred clams for the web hosting service for a year, and if you use the company I recommend they'll throw in the cost of the domain name, which can go for upward of $35 at other places.

Setting up the site is a snap.  You download a free FTP program and use that to upload the files for the blogging program.  There's a 'Settings' page where you'll make a few tweaks and you're ready to roll.

The easy-to-follow instructions that will walk you through the whole process are on my Easy-Blogsite.  If you run into a snag, just ask here in one of my posts and I'll email you back and we'll get the rascal ironed out.
 

As far as the actual present goes, it might be fun to simply give them a nice Xmas card with three mysterious lines of information on it:

• a recognizable web site address like "ThePattersonFamily.com" or "BobsBlogSite.com"
   
• name: (their account name)
   
• pass: (their account password)

Then be with them the first time they go to the site.  You'd have a few 'Welcome!' posts on the home page, interesting links in the sidebar, and maybe some family pics or even videos on display.  It should be a great moment when they suddenly 'get it' and ask, "You mean this is all mine??"

Then go to the main editor and show them how easy it is to make a post.  Just type merrily away and hit the 'Publish' button.  Show them how easy it is to import a picture from their computer, and how they can change the entire look of their new site with one click of the mouse using the fabulous 'themes' you've pre-installed.  Their feelings will range from "stunned" to "beyond thrilled."

On my end, I'm giving one to a 68-year-old lady whom I've never met, but have been conversing with via email for over a decade.  Her three best friends have blog sites but, no matter how often I tell her how easy it is to set up, she just won't do it.  Yet I know she's dying to join in the fun.  The sweet old gal will probably break down in tears on Christmas morning when she sees it.  She loves bunny rabbits and I found an Easter theme that's just loaded with cute bunnies.  I replaced all the 'Easter' stuff with her own name and it looks terrific.

I hope she likes pink and blue.

So, would you rather give Grandma her 25th set of bathroom towels and Grandpa his 17th pipe rack, or something that'll put some zest back in their lives?  Once they get nested into a blogring of similar interests (golfing, macramé, my pet's latest funny antics, etc), they'll have a ball.

Or how about that old person next door who spends all day long watching TV?  I don't have to tell you, of all people, the meaning the blogosphere can have on one's life.  A spouse, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, your best friend, your kids — can you think of a more appreciated gift than a gift one cannot ask for?

This Christmas, give that someone special a gift like no other.

Give them a door to the world.
 

 
According to feedback here and elsewhere, the article I posted last week on increasing one's browsing speed made a real difference with certain systems.  Here's another trick that might improve your online performance.  This is for WinXP. 

 
Certain programs that require online access use what's called the "QoS Policy" in Windows, which allots them a slice of your bandwidth.  In its wild and fanciful way, Windows somehow figures that receiving a business fax or accessing an online database is more important than downloading more Web porn — those crazy fools.

Traditionally, if someone's tweaking their system, the QoS is turned off.  But I was reading a guide the other day and it said that some programs will sense it's off and turn it back on, so the 'trick' is to leave it on — but set it to 0%.

Relatively easy procedure is below the fold.

 
I remember back in '87, buying my first modem.  The expensive new 2400 bauds were out, but I settled for a normal 1200 baud.  "There's no need to go so fast," I said at the time.  "So what if it takes an extra thirty minutes to download a file?  Big deal!  This new 'faster and faster' modem thing is just a fad!"

And, for the most part, it could be argued I was right.  Okay, so it would take six minutes to display this page with my new modem — but what's a mere six minutes for a quality product like a Maggie's Farm home page?  Of course, waiting half a day to see one of the videos might irk some of its more impetuous readers, so there might be something to this 'faster and faster' thing, after all.

And, yes, I eventually bought the lightning-fast 2400 baud modem.  I was smokin'!  "With this kind of speed, I'll never have to upgrade again!," I proclaimed loudly for all to hear.

Sticking tightly to my resolve, I immediately bought a 9600 modem when they came out.  Then a 14.4.  Then a 19.2.  Then a 28.8.  Then a 33.6.  Then a 56K.  Then I combined two 56K's using MultiLink.  Then I got one of them fancy new 'experimental' ADSL modems at .768 meg.  Then cable at 1 meg.  Then 1.5.  Then 2.  Then 3.  Then 5.

Then I ended up going wireless.

I always was a sucker for fads.

 
And, during that entire time, I tried program after program and tweak file after tweak file that claimed it would increase my Internet speed, and not one of them ever did.

Until this rascal drifted along.

This is a patch to update Windows XP (and earlier) to meet current broadband standards.  Vista already has the updates.  To possibly double your browsing speed, please...
 

So there I was, innocently minding my own business, when suddenly I came across a video on some blog site named Maggie's Barn or sumpin' and I wanted to watch it.  Little knowing that my fate was already sealed, I clicked on the box.

It started playing, but it seemed a little small so I clicked on the side of the window to go to the YouTube version so I could watch it full-screen.  The original was still playing in the background when the YouTube page opened and its video started playing as well.
 

Blink!

 
That was the last online video I heard for the rest of the evening.  Somehow, two videos playing at once messed up something in the system and that was that.  I ran Registry cleaners, Norton WinDoctor, warm-booted, cold-booted, prayed to the various computer gods, promised I'd never look at porno again, but nothin' worked.  (I think my computer knows when I'm lying to it, dammit)

The next step would have been to reinstall Flash, but I wouldn't have been hopeful.  Program files don't "break", and internal system settings (like what got messed up here) usually aren't touched by program installations.  Regardless, in this case I had a much better option.

It's to note that during this entire time, when most people would be pulling their hair out, my blood pressure never rose an iota.  After trying the fix-it programs last night and getting nowhere, I watched a movie and hit the hay.  This morning while I was eating breakfast I reinstalled the image file I made of the C Drive last Saturday and the system works perfectly.

And if this had happened to someone not using an image file backup system?

Nightmare.

Regular backup programs only back up files, and, even if you tell it to back up the system files, it can't get them all because the ones that are "in use" can't be copied.  The answer is an image file program.  It makes a 'snapshot' of your entire C Drive and turns this 'image' into one great big file.  Come meltdown time, you merely tell the program to write the big file back to the hard drive, overwriting your damaged system.  Ten minutes later and you're good to go.  Nor do you lose any email or bookmarks or personal files if you follow my routine.

And that's all.  Just a little reminder as to how quickly a system can go into the toilet, and how easy it is to fix if you have the right tool.  The full Maggie's post is here.
 

By the way, a couple of readers named "Meta" and "Luther McLeod" left a whole bunch of nasty comments in my posts over the weekend (since deleted) so I'm forced to moderate the comments until the situation improves.  An example from Meta is down below in the comments (the quote).  If you think you're actually real, Meta begs to disagree.
 

 
Yesterday, I posted a short article on opening Desktop icons in full-screen mode.  This morning, commenter Ron House steered me toward a very cool program named AutoSizer that does a couple of nifty tricks:

• For pesky programs like Internet Explorer that open Desktop icons and email links in half-screen mode, it forces them to always open in full-screen mode.
  


• For pesky programs like the Calculator which tend to pop open anywhere on the Desktop, it'll 'center' them so they always open in the same place.

The program is free, home site is here.  It's a quick install, and if you're running a sensitive program like ZoneAlarm, 'allow' it access to system files.  If you don't like it putting an icon in the SysTray, remove it via Options.

In regards to Internet Explorer, it does have one little problem.  It'll open every IE window full-screen size, whereas in some cases, like an online editor popping open a small window so you can select an option, it might be a bit annoying.  But, compared to the general annoyance of it opening in half-size mode, it's still a big win.

Usage:  First, open the program in question, then open AutoSizer, highlight the program's entry and click on the 'AutoSize' button.  Make your selection from the drop-down menu and that should do it.  For centering a small program, select 'Resize' then 'Center'.

Take a bow, Ron, and thanks!

Pic: In a blatant act of political partisanship, Doc plugs his own personal choice for president.  (Or was that the wrong verb to use?)