Windows Tips and Tricks

Google keeps coming out with new tools and things they provide and it is hard to keep up with what is available. Personally, I don’t always find the Google Web site to be the easiest place to find all of what Google offers. The online encyclopedia Wikipedia has a listing that I find easier to use. There is a list of links to the various services and a description of what they all do. Some of the descriptions are quite detailed. Some of Wikipedia’s articles are poor but this is a good one. Considering how ubiquitous Google is, this article is very useful.

Things are in constant flux in the computer world and the criteria to consider when buying a computer keep changing. For a recent guide on how to buy a laptop (AKA notebook) see this Desktop Pipeline article. It points out

This summer is probably one of the best times ever to consider buying a laptop computer. Intel is expected to cut prices on its dual-core processors in April, and AMD will release its dual-core Turion mobile processors in May. A notebook price war is expected to follow. The real winner of that war is going to be the consumer.

The reports keep coming in about problems from the latest Microsoft patch to Windows XP. I previously noted my problems. Now here is a report from the Desktop Pipeline

Some IT administrators and partners said one of Microsoft latest critical security patches, MS06-015, is causing IE lock ups, Windows hangs and crashes after installation. Microsoft said MS06-015’s new Verclsid.exe file conflicts with HP printers, scanner and cameras.

There is a section of the Windows XP Start menu that lists the programs that you have recently opened. Not all programs are listed, just those that Windows decides to put there. How Windows decides what to list and what length of time it leaves them there is not always clear. By default, up to six programs can be listed here but this number can be changed. I don’t know about you but I am not interested in having this list and there is a way to turn it off. Many of the properties of the Start menu can be configured by right-clicking the Start button and choosing “Properties” from the context menu. Next, click the “Customize” button. This will open the dialog box shown in the figure below. Choosing “0” (zero) will prevent any programs from being listed. The current list can be cleared by using the button “Clear list”. Individual entries can be removed by right-clicking them and choosing “Remove from this list” in their context menu. More on configuring the Start menu is at http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/startmenu.htm

The patch to Internet Explorer that was made on Tuesday because of a patent dispute is causing problems as I was afraid it might. The new version of IE won’t run the Web version of PowerPoint presentations that I had on my site vlaurie.com and I had to pull them off. Some I have converted to Macromedia Flash but others are too old to bother with. Even the Flash programs have to be clicked twice. (Firefox is unaffected but it didn’t display PowerPoint properly anyway.) Others are complaining also.

It just keeps happening. An excellent piece of software comes out. It’s fairly lean and does it’s job well. Then it gets “upgraded” or another company buys out the original and “improves” it. The result is a bloated and often more unstable product with added “features” that I don’t want and don’t use and that costs more. Symantec is a prime example of a company that buys somebody and then ruins the product. Norton anti-virus was once a great product but got so intrusive and demanded so many resources that I stopped using it. Symantec also seems determined to ruin Ghost and Drive Image by jerry-rigging them together into one program that is full of bugs. Both were fine programs in their own right when they belonged to other companies. I used Ghost for years but now I have to find a different imaging program. Another program that I have used happily for a long time is the ZoneAlarm firewall. Then they started adding more “features” and the problems started. The parent company ZoneLabs has been taken over by CheckPoint and things are not like they used to be. Here is an evaluation from Neat Net Tricks

The Panel generally agreed that ZoneAlarm, to maintain a competitive posture in the marketplace, has evolved from a very useful (and free) basic firewall to a suite of programs (adding anti-virus, anti-spyware, parental controls, cookie controls, and so on) that likely do not collectively warrant the $50 US price tag.

And it has bugs. See Computer Gripes.

Microsoft is officially pulling the plug on support for Windows 98SE and Me on July 11, 2006. After that, no more updates and no more security patches.

Support for Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, and Windows Millennium Edition (Me) ends on July 11, 2006. Microsoft will end public and technical support by this date. This also includes security updates. Microsoft is providing final notifications to customers to end the extended security update support for these products.

I don’t know about others but I have a lot of different cables connecting to my PC and I always seem to be connecting and disconnecting things. All those cables and different connectors can get confusing and I was glad to see that there is a nice tutorial called PC Interfaces 101 at the site Toms Hardware. Incidentally, this site is a premier place to go for all sorts of hardware information.

Cable reference spotted in a Steve Bass column.

Just a reminder that today was Microsoft’s monthly “Patch Tuesday” when they download the latest security updates for Windows. This month, Internet Explorer has one very important and one possibly annoying patch. Both have been mentioned previously. The dangerous security hole was discussed here and its patch is a must update. The possibly annoying update involves the patent problem I mentioned earlier. It makes a change in the way streaming media are handled. Personally, I do not intend to download this patch. Of course, if you are automatically updated, you will have the patch and may notice that some Web sites behave differently in Internet Explorer (but not Firefox). More discussion on this is at ZDNet.

Whenever I buy any electronic device, the sales clerk always asks if I want an extended warranty. The same is true for cars and household appliances. My personal reaction is always that this offer implies either a lack of confidence in the quality of the product or (more likely) that this is a profitable business with more benefit to the seller than the buyer. These service contracts are not inexpensive so it is my general practice to refuse extended warranties. I do not personally think they are worth it and I have never had occasion to regret not having one. However, some people do like them and PC World has an article on whether extended warranties are worth the cost.