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LangaList 2006-05-15 Please visit our sponsors and help keep the LangaList S.E. free!
--- ( Your Clicks On Ad Links Help Keep The LangaList S.E. Free! ) --- Recommended Free Computer Performance Scan! --------------( the above is an advertisement )--------------
1) Adjusting The Boot Menu Delay
It's an easy tweak, Stan. But before we get there, let me suggest that you probably don't really want it to boot straight to Windows--- for the Recovery Console to be useful, it has to be offered at startup so you can divert to it as needed. Rather, I suspect what's bugging you is the default delay built into the menu--- 30 seconds--- which I agree is way, way too long. Fortunately, it's very easy to adjust. For example, I have my delay set to two seconds, so the option to divert to the Recovery Console is there, briefly, if or when I need it, but all the other times, my PC boots to Windows after just that two second delay. And "two seconds" is arbitrary--- you can set the delay to any interval you desire. There are several ways to do it. Here's one: Right click on My Computer and select Properties/Advanced. In the "startup and recovery" portion of the dialog box, click the "settings" button. In the "system startup" listbox, make sure that Windows is the default option (in other words, make sure that Recovery Console is NOT the default option). Next, set the "time to display" options to a short interval--- two seconds is a good first value. Click OK, and then reboot to see the effects of your changes. If your initial "time to display" value was too long or too short for your tastes, no problem: Just go back in and make a further adjustment. When you're done, Windows will be the default selection on the boot menu; and the boot menu delay will be short enough not to be in the way, but long enough so that you can divert to the Recovery Console when you need to. Piece o' Cake! (For more nice Recovery Console related tweaks, see #10, below) Click to email this item to a
friend --- ( Your Clicks On Ad Links Help Keep The LangaList Free! ) --- --------------( the above is an advertisement )------------- 2) Excellent Flash-Drive Software
Nice, Bill, thanks. We covered a couple of those before; in case you missed them, see "More OS-On-A-Stick Options" ( http://langa.com/newsletters/2006/2006-02-09.htm#3 ) and a step-by-step article on " XP On Your USB Thumb/Flash Drive " ( http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=177102101 ) Click to email this item to a
friend 3) Web Site "Script Errors"
In this context, a script is a kind of simple program embedded in a web page. Script errors show up in a browser, but are actually in the coding of the web page itself. If you're visiting a web page that contains script errors, only the person who created and maintains the page can fix the errors. It's not something site visitors can do anything about. It's annoying for site visitors to encounter a problem they can do nothing about, but it's one of the things that drives site owners nuts, too: Trying to make pages work with all versions of all browsers is virtually impossible, except for the simplest, plainest pages. Making the pages standards-compliant is the answer, but even that's not as simple as it might seem. There are formal standards--- those officially approved by bodies such as the W3C ( http://www.w3.org/ )--- and "market standards." For example, when Netscape was the browser market leader, page designers had to design for Netscape's special ways of doing things, even when that diverged from the "official" standards, simply so that the majority of site visitors (who where then using Netscape) would have an acceptable experience. Now, Internet Explorer is by far the top dog in the browser world, so site designers have to design for IE's way of doing things, even when that diverges from the "official" standards, simply so that the majority of site visitors (who are using IE) will have an acceptable experience. Both kinds of "standards" are valid in their own way. The official standards matter more in the long run, but current market standards matter more *right now.* (Purists may disagree. But IMO, it's just not practical to say "I'll design a site that I know won't work for 85% of the world's current browsers; but it won't matter, because I'll be on the side of Goodness, Light, and Official Standards...." <g>) With the coming of IE7, IE will come into much closer compliance with official standards. More and more sites will be reworked to be OK with *all* the major browsers. But it won't happen overnight: It's a *lot* of work to overhaul scripts and such for each new round of standards and generation of browsers...! Click to email this item to a
friend --- ( Your Clicks On Ad Links Help Keep The LangaList S.E. Free! ) --- "Hi, Fred: Just a line to say a great news letter, the best
investment The LangaList Plus! Edition contains even *more* content--- Get all the details: --------------( the above is an advertisement )-------------- 4) Stymied In Making A Boot CD
Actually, we ran a complete step by step for making a custom bootable CD using both Nero (Burning ROM) or Roxio (Easy CD Creator) software back in "The Perfect Rescue Tool" part one ( http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=10700681 ) and part two ( http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=10818064 ) That will probably get you there; but if not, try http://tinyurl.com/rroeu . Click to email this item to a
friend 5) Faster Downloads Via "RWIN" Tweak
Normally, the "receive buffer" is called "RWIN" when you're dealing with internet connections--- it's the TCP "Receive WINdow," which is the amount of data your PC will accept without stopping to send an acknowledgement (ACK) back to the sender. When you have a clean transmission line, having a large RWIN speeds your connection because your PC doesn't waste time acknowledging the receipt of perfectly good data packets. But if the RWIN is too high for line conditions, you can incur large delays when data gets munged. When that happens, your system then sends a negative acknowledgement (NACK) that says to the sender, in effect, "Stop! Hold everything! I missed something in that last batch of data. Back way, way up and resend that whole RWIN batch again...." Windows normally comes with fairly conservative RWIN settings, out of the box. And indeed, if you normally have a good connection to your ISP, you may get much better overall throughput from your system by increasing the RWIN. The trick is to have an RWIN that's large enough not to waste time on needless ACKs, but not so large that you waste too much time when and if data does have to be resent. Because it's line-dependent, there's no single RWIN setting that works for everyone, all the time: It truly does depend on where you are, what equipment you have, and how good your connection to your ISP usually is. But you can test and tweak with free tools: If you're OK with a manual approach, I like the site at http://www.broadbandreports.com/ for this kind of thing. They offer free tools that will sniff out your connection and suggest settings that are right for you. They also have a free tool, Dr TCP, that lets you easily change the RWIN and several other important internet settings as well. But it is a manual process, with some trial-and-error testing needed to get everything just right. There also are commercial tools that can make the fixes for you. Although this nudges into a gray area, I'll mention a LangaList advertiser--- PC Pitstop (see ad this issue) which offers such a commercial internet-connection tweaking service. While you can use their free scans as a guide for manual tuning, if you wish and if you have the necessary skills; their "Optimize" scans are ideal for those who want, in effect, an easy, reliable one-button tuneup. Manual or automated, free or commercial, it's up to you! Click to email this item to a
friend 6) Three More Winners!"Tag03," " larry.arney," and "rkramer43" each won a FREE full one-year subscription to the LangaList Plus! edition by using the "Recommend To A Friend" form at http://langa.com/recommend.htm . You see, each month I choose three winners of a new FREE ONE YEAR SUBSCRIPTION to the LangaList Plus! edition. (Existing Plus! subscribers get their current subscription extended by a full year.) To have a shot at winning, just use the following link to recommend the LangaList to a friend. Your friend just may find a new source of useful information; I just may gain a new subscriber; and you just may win! (Full details also available via this link): http://langa.com/recommend.htm Click to email this item to a
friend 7) Another Reader-Recommended Program Launcher
Thanks, David! Click to email this item to a
friend 8) Code Load Success StoryAfter his site was listed in a "Load The Code" section, code-loader this reader wrote:
Do you have a home page or website? (It doesn't matter what size.) Please Manually Browse All Posted-to-Date Sites Starting At showcase home decor signmart usa david blackwell, photographer acechart stock tracking
Schaefer Family Goren's bike rides self-help for men total logistics consulting music with lena Jim Bray Route 66 Click to email this item to a
friend --- ( Your Clicks On Ad Links Help Keep The LangaList Free! ) --- --------------( the above is an advertisement )------------- 9) Reinstall Win98 W/O Reformat
You're in luck: One of the nice attributes of Win9x is that you easily can do "in situ" (in place) reinstalls without having to reinstall everything else. Naturally, you'll want a full backup first. In your case, with an unbootable
OS, a self-contained backup option like BootIt (which can run from a floppy; and
access most CDRs on its own; Once your files are safe, just run the Windows Setup CD again, and have it reinstall in exactly the same place and manner as the original setup. If prompted about formatting the drive, say no. If the simplest method doesn't work, a variant is to bail out to DOS and delete the \Windows directory/folder. You can then reinstall to a newly-created \Windows directory, and the setup should go smoothly without affecting any of your user files. This more drastic approach does require that you reinstall your other software, though, as the new Windows setup will know nothing of what's already on the drive. But the good news is that you probably *don't* have to reformat and start over, from scratch! Click to email this item to a
friend 10, 11, 12, 13, 14) Plus! Edition Only:Today's LangaList Plus! Edition contains about 40% more content including:
Plus! edition subscribers not only get much more
content in every issue
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friend --- ( Your Clicks On Ad Links Help Keep The LangaList Free! ) --- --------------( the above is an advertisement )------------- 15) Just For Grins
Nice--- free pc-based planetarium software! For weather+astronomy geeks, http://www.wunderground.com/ also has a nice little astronomy section on its front page that brings you to a basic hemispheric, planetarium-like view of the sky from any place on earth, for any time you enter. And you also can edge into more hardcore astronomy
with info from these previous discussions of other skywatching tools, plus
venusian transits, space station eclipses, and more. <g> Night and day, nature's always putting on some kind of show! Click to email this item to a
friend (Give a gift subscription to
the LangaList Plus edition! The LangaList is published about 72 times a year, or about 6 times a month. See you next issue, 2006-05-18! Best, Please recommend the LangaList to a friend! (And maybe win a prize!) An easier-to read formatted HTML version is available in the "Current Issue" section of http://langa.com. (The HTML version of each issue normally is available by 9AM EST [UT-5] of the issue date.) All past LangaList issues are also available at the Langa.Com site. UNSUBSCRIBE (instant removal!):
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