Windows Tips and Tricks

These days a battle is shaping up between applications installed locally on your own computer and applications that are accessed on the Web. Many are predicting that installed software is doomed to be replaced by subscription software on the Web but I suspect that some combination of the two ways of using applications will prevail. In any event, here is a link that will help you find a variety of Web-based applications. GoogleDocs is just the beginning. (Thanks to Tech Support Alert for the link.)

If you stop to think about it, the pioneering scientists and engineers who contributed to the design of the Internet did a magnificent job. Pause for a minute and consider the technological wonder that allows you to access information in many formats from anywhere and everywhere. The success in handling today’s flood of traffic is even more stunning when you consider the age of many of the concepts. The Internet goes back to the old ARPA Net of the late 1960’s so it isn’t surprising that the system has begun to creak a little. Various new approaches are being considered and PC World has an article that talks about some of the ideas:

The Philadelphia Inquirer ran an article late last month titled “The clean slate way to redo the Internet.” It quoted Rutgers University professor Dipankar Raychaudhuri as saying that the Internet “was designed for completely different assumptions” and that “it’s sort of a miracle that it continues to work well today.”

The Inquirer article raises broader concerns, all rooted in the fact that the Internet’s design reflects the constraints of the early 1970s. Computing in that period was based on monolithic mainframes and dumb terminals. Technology and application requirements have moved beyond that simple beginning. Has time stood still in the network world? If it hasn’t, the Internet’s mission also must have changed, along with the technology on which it is based.

A lot of people have been wanting to know when the first service pack for Windows Vista would be released. As seems to be typical of the company these days, Microsoft has danced around with contradictory hints and posts keeping everybody in the dark as to whether there would even be a service pack. Now, it finally seems that a definite date for a beta SP1 has been set for late this year. But the information comes not from Microsoft but from the US Department of Justice. Computerworld reports:

Tucked into the government’s 27-page joint status settlement report (download PDF) released late Tuesday was evidence that Microsoft will put the beta of Vista SP1 into users’ hands before the end of the year. The report also confirmed Windows XP SP3, but did not specify beta or final release dates, although it said some code would be finalized this summer.

Microsoft has been loath to talk about either service pack, but has been particularly mum about Windows Vista SP1, a widely anticipated bug update that some enterprise users are waiting on before deploying the new operating system.

USB flash drives are a common accessory for PCs. For most purposes, these handy portable devices can be used in the same way as a hard drive. However, the inner workings are quite different and there are some aspects affecting lifetime and speed that may interest and even surprise the more technically minded reader. Go to the article, Five things you never knew about flash drives.

Inkjet printers are supposed to tell you when your ink cartridge is getting low. The problem is that you’ll likely be warned even when plenty of ink remains. I learned long ago to ignore the warnings and have gone on printing with my HP inkjet months after being told I was low on ink. A recent study that shows that warnings routinely occur with plenty of ink still left is reported at Ars Technica:

A new study says that on average, more than half of the ink from inkjet cartridges is wasted when users toss them in the garbage. Why is that interesting? According to the study, users are tossing the cartridges when their printers are telling them they’re out of ink, not when they necessarily are out of ink.

The study by TÃœV Rheinland looked at inkjet efficiency across multiple brands, including Epson (who commissioned the study), Lexmark, Canon, HP, Kodak, and Brother. They studied the efficiency of both single and multi-ink cartridges. Espon’s printers were among the highest rated, at more than 80 percent efficiency using single-ink cartridges. Kodak’s EasyShare 5300 was panned as the worst printer tested, wasting 64 percent of its ink in tests. TÃœV Rheinland measured cartridge weights before and after use, stopping use when printers reported that they were out of ink.

That’s the first problem. Printers routinely report that they are low on ink even when they aren’t, and in some cases there are still hundreds of pages worth of ink left.

The second issue is a familiar one: multi-ink cartridges can be rendered “empty” when only one color runs low. Multi-ink cartridges store three to five colors in a single cartridge. Printing too many photos from the air show will kill your cartridge faster than you can say “blue skies,” as dominant colors (say, “blue”) are used faster than the others. Therein lies the reason Epson backed the study: the company is singing the praises of its single-ink cartridge approach, an approach which is necessarily more efficient in terms of wasted ink because there’s only one color per cartridge, and thus only one cartridge to replace when that color runs out.

Google has added something called “Street View” to Google Maps. In certain selected areas, you can get a panoramic view of the people and buildings taken at street level. The views are pictures taken from vans by Google employees. So far the views are limited to streets in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Las Vegas, Denver and Miami but Google says it will expand the coverage. A lot of people are unhappy about what they see as yet more invasion of their privacy. Unlike surveillance videos in banks and the like, which are erased after a fairly short period of time, these images are kept by Google forever. Furthermore, the images are accessible by the whole world. ZDNet describes one man’s experience:

One lazy afternoon, Maer Israel and a colleague ducked out of work to have a double espresso at a nearby cafe in San Francisco.

Several weeks later, the information technology manager at the French American International School was alerted that a picture of him sitting at the cafe could be found on Google’s online map as part of the search giant’s new street-level photo view.

The article continues:

Google’s recently unveiled Street View stunned many with its photos of the unsuspecting, from a man climbing a front gate to another walking out of a strip club, but it’s hardly the first time the company has compiled a massive database of material that some would want to remain private. Indeed, Google has for years been storing every Web search and analyzing the topics of Gmail so it can serve customers with related advertisements.

But now that Google is serving up images from the sky with Google Earth, creating street-level images with Street View and tracking customer behavior in cyberspace, some are starting to ask: how much is enough?

Some reactions can be read at the blog BoingBoing.

Thousands of legitimate Web sites, mostly in Italy, have been made dangerous by an exploit from Russian sources. The exploit uses vulnerabilities that have patches already available so up-to-date systems should be safe from this IFrame security hole. ZDNet gives some details. Information is also given at ArsTechnica.

The useful free Windows PowerToys have been around since Windows 95 and are well known. (The Microsoft developer Raymond Chen gives some history of these nice tools on his blog.) Less known are some other free tools and add-ins that can be downloaded at this Microsoft link. In addition to PowerToys for three versions of Windows XP, there are some so-called “fun packs” for music and photography fans.

I have previously posted about the fact that so-called OEM or system builder versions of Windows Vista were the lowest priced. I have also posted about the confusing Microsoft licensing practices. The newsletter Windows Secrets has some more on the licensing mess:

In our last issue, we reported that users of OEM software don’t need to obtain a new license if they replace a defective computer component, but must do so if they upgrade their systems with newer parts. Reader Leisha Wharfield finds this disturbing:

* “Who would actually acquire a new Windows license just for a simple upgrade like more memory? We would go broke if we did that. I’m shocked by this requirement, even for system builders.”

As it turns out, this is one of those areas in which Microsoft has given contradictory advice. Microsoft’s PDF document on the subject, called the Channel Discussion Guide, clearly includes “adding to the memory” as a change that requires a new license (see page 2). Yet a number of postings from the Microsoft OEM System Builder Licensing Team (compiled on the Michael Stevens Tech Web site) indicate that the only upgrade that requires a new software license is the replacement of the motherboard. Even a new hard drive does not require a new license, as long as the software is removed from the old hard drive before being installed on the new one, according to this source. So the answer apparently depends on which source you believe.

Either Microsoft itself doesn’t understand what its licensing policies are or there is a deliberate attempt to confuse as many people as possible into buying extra copies of the operating system. Various people have pointed out the contradictory and obscure licensing practices but as far as I know Microsoft remains silent and makes no effort to clarify things.

New Web sites are constantly appearing. Most are destined for deserved obscurity and oblivion but a few become the next “new thing”. PC World has picked out 25 new sites to keep your eye on. These may or may not be the big hits of the future but PC World says take a look:

To keep you ahead of the curve, we’ve rounded up 25 innovative Web sites and services that are well worth watching. Some of them help you design your own personalized Web site mashups; others enable you to create video mixes, build wikis, share personal obsessions, and more. But take note: A number of these sites are works in progress, and user-generated sites depend on developing a critical mass of content, which doesn’t happen right away. With that in mind, check out the following dot-com destinations. One of them may become the next big Web hit.

None of the sites really grabbed me but then what do I know? I don’t even like YouTube.