Windows Tips and Tricks

The search engines are accumulating massive amounts of data about the habits of those who use their search facilities. The data are supposed to be anonymous for the most part but they can in fact be used to track down information about individuals. Internet Week has an article What Google Search Reveals About Us that says

Google confirms that it can identify people who have submitted specific keyword search terms using their IP addresses or HTTP cookies. It also can identify, in some circumstances, the search terms submitted by a specific user. “The list we could produce is of corresponding IP addresses or cookies, not an actual list of people, unless they have provided us with their names by registration” or in some other way, says Nicole Wong, associate general counsel for Google, in an E-mail.

The article describes the way that individuals can be traced

All this information–IP address, date, time, user agent, HTTP cookie, and referring URL–gets recorded together. That makes it fairly easy to identify a Web user unless the person is sophisticated enough to use software to conceal or falsify the tracks he or she has left behind.

What this all means for the average user of the Internet, I’m not sure. But one thing is clear. Nobody has as much privacy as they used to. As I have said before, try to give out as little private information as possible when using the Internet. I like Google but I assiduously remove their cookies. and I won’t use their services like desktop search.

I have previously written about using the management consoles that come with Windows XP to help carry out system administration and configuration. Microsoft has posted a new version of the tool called Microsoft Management Console or MMC. While the average PC user probably doesn’t make much use of MMC, power users might want to download the new version. Here’s a brief description of MMC from Microsoft

You can use Microsoft Management Console (MMC) to create, save, and open administrative tools (called snap-ins) that manage the hardware, software, and network components of your Windows operating system.

The Internet has profoundly affected our society. The changes it has wrought will provide fodder for Ph. D. theses for years to come. One big area that has developed among young people is using the Internet for socializing. One of the charming features of youth is that cynical mistrust of fellow human beings is not yet ripened. Unfortunately, this may cause young people to be exposed to the sociopaths that are always present in any activity involving very large numbers of people.

Kim Kommando has a column on the dangers. And she says

Talking to your children, even your adult children, about the dangers of posting personal information on the Internet is a must. Social-networking sites, like the extremely popular MySpace.com, can be a fun way to interact with others. But most members don’t realize that they could be exposing themselves to very dangerous and disturbed people.

Hardware seems to get cheaper all the time while software just seems to get more bloated. PC Magazine has a review of a PC that sells for $159, less than what a full copy of Windows XP might cost you. Naturally, its operating system isn’t Windows but the Linux based Linspire. It includes OpenOffice 1.1.3. Such a low price means some features are barebones and it doesn’t include a monitor. However, add some RAM and a monitor for around another $100 and many average PC users that I know would do perfectly well with this system. PC Magazine says

Considering that you can buy 512MB of RAM for less than $40, we’d strongly recommend adding memory. Once that’s done, you’ll have a surprisingly capable little office system. It may not play F.E.A.R., but it should handle light Web browsing and office apps just fine. We’re also very impressed with how easy it was to set up. The Linspire OS was easy to configure and a snap to use. Windows users should find it quite comfortable.

I won’t bother you with old fuddy-duddy talk about how 2 MB was once considered a huge amount of RAM for a PC but I do have to say that the amount of RAM that programs consume these days is really beginning to mount. I have 512 MB on my computers and some times I am close to using all of it. First Windows XP takes quite a bit of RAM. Then firewall, anti-virus, anti-spyware and spam filter take up a good chunk. Open a few browser windows, Microsoft Office, and a big application like Dreamweaver and the RAM consumption is really up there. Still another big chunk would go if I didn’t have separate video RAM.

Now I read that the new Microsoft operating system Vista may require close to 512 MB all by itself to run at its best. That number may come down when Microsoft finishes tuning it up but it is still going to be a pretty resource-intensive system. No doubt it will be able to run on 256 MB by paging to the hard drive but that would certainly slow it up. On top of the regular RAM requirement, the new 3-D interface is going to want a 256 MB video card.

The conclusion is that anybody contemplating a new PC ought to go for 1 GB or more of RAM plus a hefty video card. I notice that new boxes with 1 GB are already much more common and the gamers are going for 2 GB.

Two recent studies have been published of the latest beta of the Microsoft antispyware program now called Windows Defender. Both find the application to be lacking. In her ZDNet blog Suzi Turner reports

Conclusions? Windows Defender detected and removed approximately 65% to 75% of the spyware compared to SpywareDoctor and SpySweeper. Windows Defender left behind quite a few registry keys. It did better with file removal than with registry clean up.

Scot Finnie reports in the Desktop Pipeline

The new Beta 2 version of Microsoft’s free anti-spyware software adds significant new features, but it is not yet glitch-free

I installed the new version and tried it out for several weeks but I found that it used a lot of RAM (40 -60 MB) and sometimes caused system hiccups so I uninstalled it. It’s still a beta so there will doubtless be improvements. When the next version appears I’ll try it again.

The recent legal shenanigans involving the Blackberry are just the latest in a series of cases and claims that show that the Patent Office is completely out of it when it comes to technology. Combine a clueless patent office, greedy lawyers running amok, and jurors who are ignorant of technology and you have a fine mess. The whole idea of what is patentable needs to be examined and the patent system has to be brought out of the cogs and wheels era.

When problems arise with Windows, tech support people at the major vendors seem quick to say, “Reformat and reinstall,” because it saves them the trouble of thinking. Actually, reformatting should be the last resort, something to try only after other things have failed to fix a problem. One way to fix a Windows problem is to do a repair install. This method leaves all your applications and settings intact. Unfortunately, you need a Windows installation disk for this procedure. As discussed elsewhere, the “Restore” or “Recovery” disk that is now standard cannot do a repair install and that is another reason why everybody should try to get an installation disk when they buy a computer.

If you do have a Windows installation disk, a repair install is one of the things to try when problems develop and System Restore doesn’t work and you don’t have a full backup. Microsoft MVP Michael Stevens gives excellent step-by-step instructions .

Steve Bass has a piece about a Microsoft offer of a free thumb drive. Personally, I found his “Bass International Disclaimer” more interesting than the Microsoft offer. In his best Bassian style he writes

1. If supplies are limited, then the supplies are limited. This means that the company making the offer may not have enough supplies for everyone. Consequently, you may not get your supply. If you don’t, Bass doesn’t want to hear about it.

2. Bass doesn’t know the capacity of the Microsoft USB drive (it may be only 132KB for all he knows), whether it’s bootable, contains advertising or spyware (but it definitely comes with “product information” and “additional resources”), or if it comes in different colors. Please don’t ask.

3. When the USB drive arrives and it doesn’t work as intended, your mileage varies, the results aren’t typical, using it has an impact on the national debt, or it turns out the offer is invalid in Vermont, Kansas, and parts of Oklahoma, please do not call Bass or his editor.

4. If the USB drive doesn’t arrive after six or eight weeks, as specified on the Website, think about contacting a customer service department, any customer service department, which (all together now) is not Bass.

Anyway, if you want to try for the free drive, go here. Note that the free offer is not immediately obvious but is in a box in the middle of the right side of the page. Also, you will need a Microsoft Passport password.

A ZDNet blog gives a report on a series of lectures by Alan Kay.

Kay’s first talk was on some of the ways we’re “inventing and preventing the future.” Kay, who received the ACM’s Turing Award in 2003, invented, or participated in the invention, of many of the technologies we take for granted in the digital age including the personal computer, object-oriented programming, overlapping windows, the mouse, and even Ethernet. Frankly Kay sees that as a problem. Much of what is wrong about Computer Science is that many of the ideas that happened before 1975 are still the current paradigm. He has a strong feeling that our field has been mired for some time,

Another interesting comment illustrates part of the reason Microsoft has a vested interest in the past

He pointed out that Windows XP has 70 million lines of code. It’s impossible for Kay to believe that it has 70 million lines of content. Microsoft engineers don’t dare prune it because they don’t know what it all does.

Most or maybe even all of the major companies involved in PCs have a vested interest in the past because their investment in the existing structure and methods of doing things is huge. It takes a company with a lot of visionary leadership to ditch old methods and hunt for new ones. That is why it is usually new companies that give us the new ideas. It was the upstart Netscape that recognized the potential of the Internet. After Microsoft crushed them, browser development was stifled until Firefox came along. Similarly, it was a new company, Google, that refined the Internet in many ways by making searching so painless and efficient.