|
We guarantee your privacy: 1. We will never sell, rent, or give away your address to any outside party, ever. 2. We will never send you any unrequested e-mail, besides newsletter updates. 3. All unsubscribe requests are honored immediately, period. Privacy policy 
|
|
INTRODUCTION — news about your newsletter Our new 'Index of Reviews' helps you find what's best The paid version of today's Windows Secrets Newsletter features an information-rich section that we've wanted to offer for a long, long time. This new content is called the Index of Reviews. Our new section will give you quick links to the latest competitive ratings of new Windows-compatible hardware. Allow us to illustrate why a feature like this is needed: Go to Google.com and enter the query LCD screen reviews. Look at the first 10 links you see. How many of them are comparative reviews of LCD screens? Hardly any! When we recently tested this, only one link could be considered a true review — and that page didn't even declare a winner among several products that were described. (The same lack of relevance exists if you substitute the search term monitor for screen.) Generalized search engines simply don't put the most valuable reviews at the top of the search results, even when you include reviews in the query. Computers aren't good at recognizing juried shootouts by experienced testers from among the millions of Web pages out there that merely list a random selection of products. Our Index of Reviews will be a human-edited directory of all the independent, head-to-head, comparative reviews that are released by some of the most trusted names on the Web. The directory will link to pages that describe each of the reviewed products. We won't be plagiarizing anyone — the section includes only a brief summary. Each item then hyperlinks to the full review, which sends traffic to the responsible site. Tracking, summarizing, and creating the links to these reviews and each of the products is surprisingly labor-intensive. For this reason, we're focusing for the time being only on hardware reviews, not software comparisons. As a trial balloon, this week's section includes only three reviews: inkjet printers, digital music players, and DVD players. We'll evaluate our readers' feedback on this section and, if interest warrants, we'll greatly expand it in future issues (or discontinue it if no one cares). This new section appears only in the paid version of the Windows Secrets Newsletter. In a month or two, after several such sections have been published, we'll put them all together in an archive of reviews that can be accessed at WindowsSecrets.com by readers who've made a contribution. If you upgrade to the paid version of the newsletter by Aug. 18, you'll immediate receive the current paid edition, which contains the first, embryonic Index of Reviews. Of course, you'll also receive the next 12 months of paid content, as well! As always, you may contribute any amount of your choosing to access the paid version of the newsletter's content: How to upgrade Thanks for your support. — Brian Livingston, Editor ^ |
WINDOWS SECRETS NEWSLETTER (formerly Woody's Windows Watch and Brian's Buzz on Windows)  WOODY'S WINDOWS WATCH merged with the Windows Secrets Newsletter on July 22, 2004  ISSUE 35 — 2004.08.05 • Our new "Index of Reviews" helps you find what's best • Top Story: Microsoft's little-known note-taker • Recommended Reading • Microsoft moves documents on Web site compatibility with SP2 • Windows Gizmos • Urgent patch for IE protects against Download.Ject • Which of 15 inkjets is rated the best? • Reviewers find one music player surpasses Apple's iPod • Inexpensive DVD players offer performance like the high-priced ones • The dynamic duo in new JibJab video • Useful Links NEWSLETTER CONTROL PANEL • Windows Secrets home page • How to subscribe • Change your delivery address • Change your preferences • Access past free issues • Access past paid issues • Upgrade to paid version • Submit a Windows tip • Get subscription help • How to unsubscribe CIRCULATION: over 145,000 |
|
TOP STORY — info you need to make Windows work Microsoft's little-known note-taker By Paul Thurrott Last year, Microsoft released an Office family product called OneNote. You may not have heard of OneNote, because Microsoft curiously chose not to include it with any of its Office 2003 product bundles (Standard, Professional, and so on). Or you may have dismissed this application as one you can do without. Frankly, ignoring OneNote might be a mistake. In my mind, OneNote is one of the best applications Microsoft has released in years. And this month, it just got better. Building a note-taker's tool As a journalist, I spend much of my time taking notes as I interview people, either in person or via the phone. For this reason, I was ecstatic about a year and a half ago when I discovered that Microsoft was developing a note-taking application. I was so interested, in fact, that I booked a second round of interviews with the Microsoft representative who showed it to me the first time. 
In development, OneNote looked like an amazing application, one that
would support normal text-based note-taking as well as digital-ink
note-taking for Tablet PC owners. It uses a simple notepad-like user
interface, with tabs representing topics. You could record
interviews with your PC's microphone and synchronize your notes with
the audio. (A reduced view of the new OneNote, which links to an annotated,
164 KB full-size version, is shown at left.)In practice, OneNote delivered on what I had seen demonstrated. I started using OneNote, rather than Word, to take all of my work-related notes beginning in August 2003, during the Office 2003 beta. Then, the final version of OneNote shipped in parallel with the other Office 2003 products in October 2003. OneNote isn't just for journalists. You may be interested if you're a student, a person who takes notes in meetings, or anyone who simply wants a way to easily organize data. Your material in OneNote can be a first step before the creation of a full-fledged document — perhaps in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, or any other productivity application. OneNote fills an interesting void in the software market. For more information about the original version of OneNote, please visit my OneNote 2003 preview. Not all that glitters is gold Good as it was, OneNote 2003 was very much a 1.0 product. The initial version suffered from a number of deficiencies that became obvious once you'd used it for a while. The user interface was fairly intractable, with fixed-sized elements that make it hard to view the titles of sections, notes, and subnotes. There was no way to link notes to other notes, as we commonly do in Web documents. And it was impossible to reorder sections or folders, making note management a bit more difficult than it should have been. Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that it would address as many of these and other annoyances as it could. The company said it would release a major update to the product, dubbed OneNote 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) as part of the wider Office 2003 SP1 release. These service packs shipped last week as free downloads for all Office and OneNote users. (There's also a separate Visio 2003 SP1 release.) OneNote 2003 SP1 is a must-have update. New features in SP1 It's unclear as yet whether the product updates in OneNote 2003 SP1 will cause any negative side-effects. We haven't heard of any. Meanwhile, the functional improvements are numerous, making this application far more usable than its predecessor. Virtually all of my complaints have been addressed, which makes this a rarity among Microsoft upgrades. All of OneNote's user-interface elements are completely malleable now. This means page tabs can be resized so you can actually read long title names. Each sub-page, which previously received no title, now automatically uses the first line of notes on that page as its title. And pages and sections can be more easily arranged. For over-achieving note-takers, there's a new archive feature. This lets you backup infrequently-used or older notes and save them away in a location that won't clutter up the OneNote interface. SP1 also features a cool, notebook-like way of "flipping" through the pages in your OneNote notebook. Simply select a page tab, hold down the mouse button, and slide the mouse pointer up or down over the other pages. As you move the mouse, the pages visually "flip" as you move over each tab. In addition to OneNote's original audio recording feature, which I use a great deal, the SP1 release also features video recording. This makes it possible for you to record a video that you can synchronize with your notes. In other words, if you record video or audio during a note-taking session, you can click anywhere in your notes to hear the audio or see the video that was recorded when you wrote that note. For Pocket PC users, OneNote 2003 SP1 now supports one-way sync between OneNote and your PDA. You can't push OneNote-based notes to your Pocket PC (at least not yet). But you can take notes and audio recordings you've made on your Pocket PC and sync them into a new Pocket PC Notes section in OneNote. That way, if you're away from your PC, you can still create notes or audio you'd like to save and not have to worry about manually copying the content. It's noteworthy It's hard to properly describe the quirky and useful OneNote 2003 SP1 release in a text-based article. This is one application you'll appreciate more, once you've used it for a while. Fortunately, Microsoft makes this process relatively easy with a trial version that you can order on CD (free plus $7.95 shipping) or download for free from the company's Web site. (Office 2003 is required to run OneNote 2003 and its free trial.) Also, OneNote is available for free with many Tablet PCs. Meanwhile, there's good news on the price of the full version. Due to a recent reduction by Microsoft, OneNote now lists for just U.S. $99.95, or $100 less than its original asking price. Street prices for OneNote, of course, are lower. But many vendors haven't yet adjusted their pricing. Check the following link for the latest from various sellers: More info If you're a student or teacher, there's an even cheaper entry point. For you, OneNote lists for just $49 (about $45 from academic outlets). At that price, OneNote is a relatively cheap way to get yourself organized. Compare academic prices To send us more information about OneNote, or to send us a tip on any other subject, visit WindowsSecrets.com/contact. You'll receive a gift certificate for a book, CD, or DVD of your choice if you send us a comment that we print. ^ RECOMMENDED READING — our book reviews of tech topics 
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 UnleashedThe second edition of this book, which came out in late June, builds upon the original in a significant way. Microsoft has issued more than a dozen "feature packs" since Server 2003 went on sale, ranging from the Group Policy Management Console to the Security Configuration Wizard. Rather than simply adding a chapter about this to the end of the book, lead author Rand Morimoto and his cohorts re-wrote entire sections in light of the new tools. The result is a better book. More info: United States / Canada / Elsewhere 
Computer Security AssuranceTechnology organizations in the U.S., Canada, and Europe worked together to develop and publish a security procedure in 1996 called the Common Criteria. Revised in 1998, the criteria became an ISO international standard the following year. Unfortunately, many software companies — including some large and, ahem, well-known ones — don't understand these principles. It's the aim of Computer Security Assurance to correct that gap. You can benefit from the concepts herein, even if you work for a small, unknown company. More info: United States / Canada / Elsewhere 
Computer Networking: A Top-Down ApproachWhen co-authors James Kurose of the University of Massachusetts and Keith Ross of the Eurecom Institute say "top down," they don't mean having your CEO come over and micro-manage your networking staff. Instead, they use the metaphor to teach Internet principles from the most visible part — the application layer — down to the "physical layer," the cable that all those apps run over. The writers deride the old sacred cow, the OSI 7-layer model, in favor of their own construct of five layers. You might disagree, but you'll still learn plenty about getting your signals from point A to point B. More info: United States / Canada / Elsewhere ^ XP SP2 UPDATE — bits and bytes of new information Microsoft juggles documents on Web site compatibility with SP2 The June 17 edition of this newsletter (which was known then as Brian's Buzz on Windows) carried a main story about the coming Service Pack 2 for Windows XP. It said, "SP2 will include a new version of Internet Explorer" that will "block ActiveX controls, downloadable add-ins, pop-up windows, and other features commonly used in many Web sites. If you or your company maintain a site, you owe it to yourself to check Microsoft's list of changes and adjust your technology accordingly." We recommended a Microsoft document entitled How to Make Your Web Site Work with Windows XP Service Pack 2. Since that newsletter appeared, Microsoft has revised that document and moved it, unfortunately without re-directing the page to the new location. We managed to locate it, and we also found two other articles that should be read by anyone who runs a Web site. Here they are: • Fine-Tune Your Web Site Work with Windows XP Service Pack 2 • Windows XP Service Pack 2: Resources for IT Professionals • Windows XP Service Pack 2 — Security Information for Developers Our thanks to reader Simon Zwölfer for his help with this topic. ^ FORWARDING INSTRUCTIONS — news gains value when it's shared Please share this information with your friends You're encouraged to refer your friends and colleagues to this free newsletter. Because most e-mail programs don't correctly display a formatted message that's been forwarded, simply call people's attention to the permanent Web address of this issue: WindowsSecrets.com/040805. WINDOWS GIZMOS — our product reviews of new stuff 
Cram 20 GB of USB 2.0 storage into only 3.3 oz.If you carry around a USB Flash drive that you like, fine. But if the 512 MB or 1024 MB that thumb drives typically hold isn't what you consider ample, then you should look at the SmartDisk FireFly (photo, left). This tiny hard drive, about U.S. $190, offers almost 20 times the storage of 1 GB Flash drives, which now sell for approximately the same price. There are external USB hard drives with larger capacities, but the FireFly weighs only 3.3 ounces (94g) and is just 4 inches long (10cm) and half an inch high. The device requires no drivers under Windows XP/2000, can get electricity from any power-capable USB port, and has a transfer rate of 13 MB per second using USB 2.0. It's not a music player, but being $100 less than a 20 GB gen4 iPod, a lot of us who just need storage won't care. The FireFly is a handy convenience for anyone who has a lot of files to move from place to place. More info ^ HERE'S A TIP — you'll get a better newsletter if you choose the paid version You're reading the free version of the Windows Secrets Newsletter Subscribers to the paid version receive additional information in each issue. Some of the extras this week are:
Make a contribution to support our research into Windows and you'll immediately be able to read and search through scores of valuable articles. In addition, paid subscribers are entitled to download valuable content that we license for them at least once every calendar quarter. To upgrade, simply make a contribution of any amount that you choose If you do this by Aug. 18, 2004, you'll instantly be sent the full, paid version of today's newsletter. To upgrade to the paid version of Windows Secrets, please visit WindowsSecrets.com/upgrade. Thanks in advance. ^ WACKY WEB WEEK — playing for you the Internet's greatest bits 
The dynamic duoIt's convention time in America, and that means people will be seeing a lot of President George W. Bush and his Democratic opponent, John Kerry. But you probably haven't seen them as you'll see them in the now-famous JibJab video, "This Land," by Gregg and Evan Spiridellis. The two politicos merrily insult each other and then make nice in a hilarious song-and-dance. The video is available at the JibJab.com home page, but we won't send you there, because the unexpected attention has forced the site to remove all of its previous animations to avoid crushing its bandwidth. We think it's better for you to play the video at the AtomFilms site, which is set up to handle this sort of thing. Play the video ^ USEFUL LINKS — more stuff that's good to know Who will build the first 'application proxy'? I've seen the future, and I want it installed on my network today. The only problem is this: I'll have to find someone to mass-produce tomorrow's new, new thing first. By Brian Livingston, Datamation) More info A look at Internet Explorer alternatives Tired of Internet Explorer's security problems and functional lapses? Here's a 3-part review of some alternatives: Mozilla and its new sibling, Firefox; Opera; and the IE-based variants Maxthon and Deepnet Explorer. (By Paul Thurrott, SuperSite for Windows) More info: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 The boom is back — let's party The Internet boom is back. Let's party! Tech stocks may still be in the doldrums. But other indicators show that your company may have opportunities now that you haven't had since the Internet bubble burst in 2000. (By Brian Livingston, Datamation) More info ^ ABOUT YOUR SUBSCRIPTION — we're here to serve you The Windows Secrets Newsletter (formerly Brian's Buzz on Windows and Woody's Windows Watch) is published twice a month, except for breaks in August and December. The newsletter is published on the Thursday one week before and one week after Microsoft releases its new security patches on the 2nd Tuesday of each month. Publisher: The newsletter publisher is WindowsSecrets.com LLC, 300 Queen Anne Ave. N. #456, Seattle, WA 98109 USA. Vendors, please send no unsolicited packages to this address (readers' letters are fine). Editor: Brian Livingston is the co-author of Windows 2000 Secrets, Windows Me Secrets, and eight other books. Associate Editor: Paul Thurrott is the author of Windows XP Home Networking and Great Digital Media with Windows XP and the author or co-author of several other books. Research Director: Vickie Stevens. Program Consultant: Ben Livingston (no relation to Brian). Trademarks: "Windows" is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. The "Windows Secrets" series of books is published by Wiley Publishing Inc. "The Windows Secrets Newsletter," "WindowsSecrets.com," "WinFind," "Windows Gizmos," "Index of Reviews," and "Wacky Web Week" are trademarks and service marks of WindowsSecrets.com LLC. All other marks are the trademarks or service marks of their respective owners. How to subscribe: Anyone may subscribe to this newsletter by visiting WindowsSecrets.com/signup. How to change your delivery address: To change your delivery address, log in at WindowsSecrets.com/prefs/?a=cP. How to change your other preferences: To change from HTML format to a plain-text notification and to set other preferences, log in at WindowsSecrets.com/prefs. How to get subscription help by e-mail (fastest method): Visit WindowsSecrets.com/contact. Subscription help by facsimile: 206-282-6312 (fax). Emergency subscription help by phone: 206-282-2536 (24 hours). How to unsubscribe: To unsubscribe from the Windows Secrets Newsletter, • Use this Unsubscribe link; or • Visit WindowsSecrets.com/unsubscribe. All subscribers are covered by our Ironclad Privacy Guarantee: (1) We will never sell, rent, or give away your address to any outside party, ever; (2) We will never send you any unrequested e-mail, besides newsletter updates; and (3) All unsubscribe requests are always honored immediately, period. Privacy policy Copyright © 2004 by WindowsSecrets.com LLC. All rights reserved. ^ |