BACKUP is on the XP CD, but it isn't automatically enabled. Activate it by finding the directory NTBACKUP on the CD and executing the file found in the directory.
Also on the XP CD is a file (XPEvaluationAdvisor) that evaluates a machine to determine its suitability for having XP installed. That XP is not yet ready for the marketplace is indicated by the number of software packages flagged that they probably will not run after an XP installation. Of course, if you're running XPEvaluationAdvisor from the XP CD, it's too late to get your money back. The program XPEvaluationAdvisor is also available on the SPAUG CD. In all cases, the machine being evaluated must be online so the latest updates can be applied.
In the final analysis, it is still obvious that XP is not yet supported by non-Microsoft vendors to the extent that an XP install is risk free. The marketplace is not ready for XP.
It is obvious to me that backups still are not being done correctly. Many people arrive at the Saturday Clinic with their text files and some other files on ZIP disks or floppies, but this is marginal at best. They usually do not have their e-mail, their address books, or their bookmarks (or favorites) backed up.
While I am definitely a tape enthusiast because of its ability to make unattended backups, I have to throw into the fray the use of Power Quest's Drive Image or Symantec's Ghost. Either one can write directly to a CD-RW, but Drive Image won't write to a USB CD-RW - which blew my ability to easily back up the machines that come in the Saturday Clinic door. Plan B is to replace, temporarily, the built-in CD with a temporary CD-RW. The replacement can permit the Clinic to save data against something really going wrong.
But the point remains that too many machines are not being backed up appropriately and, as a last resort, I recommend:
Get a copy of Power Quest Drive Image using the deal granted early June.
If you need to create a place to save the backup on a "normal" machine, you can:
At this point, you should be able to save ALL of your data and not have the hours and hours of reinstalling in case of failure or goof-up. Easily 90% of the problems that come in the Clinic door are non-hardware related.
The Files and Settings Transfer Wizard program on the XP CD is designed to help you transfer your old operating system to the new operating system. Reviews have been favorable, but I have no personal knowledge about it.
The June 26 SPAUG General Meeting will feature a talk on viruses, worms, and Trojan horses. I'll describe a structure that you can place onto your computer to assure that your machine is not damaged by the "nasties".
Many viruses are so destructive as they erase files and alter your computer in some way that ignoring them is simply irrational. It's a travesty that the OS manufacturers (both Apple and Microsoft) have not been more active in controlling and eradicating viruses. The legal climate hasn't helped-the legal system's efforts to stop spammers and virus creators are insufficient.
That said, you have to recognize that we're each on our own in this battle. It's a shame that you have to protect yourself not only against the creators of viruses, worms and Trojan horses, but also from millions of other users who are unknowingly harboring the miscreants' work by not having built-in firewalls, anti-virus programs, and secure procedures.
Again, manufacturers should not be shipping machines without appropriate protection tools built into their software. They should also provide free automatic updating of the software to provide a platform that continuously fights viruses and presents a bulwark against spamming. I include in this category the refusal of the manufacturers to detect Denial Of Service (DOS) programs placed by outside parties.
At our June 26 General Meeting, I will demonstrate:
-How to use Spamcop to report spammers.
-How to remove viruses.
-How to set up Zone Alarm.
When all of these programs have been placed onto your computer, it should be safe from the ravages of outside hostile attacks.
Craig Neill-Manning, Senior Researcher at Google, was the presenter. Google was launched September 1998 at Stanford, then moved to a Menlo Park garage (a promising omen). They now employ about 400, and process over 150 million searches per day. Their headquarters is in Mountain View on Bayshore Parkway, but their operation has become international, with servers in several countries and more planned. Craig attributes Google's accuracy to "page rank", which ranks sites based on links from respected sources (CNN, etc.). In addition, about 100 factors are used to compute the actual ranking, many of which are confidential, but include font size, link text, and proximity of searched words.
Despite selling ad space, the system is kept very independent of advertisers, insuring high integrity. Ads are closely monitored for relevance.
Google is run on more than 10,000 LINUX servers (essentially stock PCs running LINUX), to provide sub-second response to queries. They have developed good failure response and a very robust system with redundancy. About 2 billion web pages are searched by "crawlers", which follow links to link to link until the whole available Internet has been searched. Google does not search where "keep out" signs are posted, nor paid or membership sites, so everything found is available. There is very little human involvement in crawling and ranking; there is just too much for people.
Google currently has indexed over 3 billion pages: 2 billion web sites, 330 million images, 35 million non-HTML documents and 700 million USENET messages from 35,000 Newsgroups.
Craig recommends investigating the Advanced Features, which allows exact phrase (same as enclosing text in quotes), NOT (same as using - in from of text), searching specific domains, excluding domains, setting date limits, etc. Images can be searched using the Images tab on the main menu. Next to it, Groups are USENET discussions. You can repeat a web search on Group, if you are unsatisfied with the results. This is especially good for discussions of problems/bugs with specific hardware or software. Finally, Directory is the web organized by topic into categories, similar to Yahoo!.
Craig suggested that it is better to view results as HTML, rather than the native format, to avoid problems with malicious code. You can also translate results from many languages.
There is a Catalog search available, of selected vendors arranged by category, obtained from OCR analysis of images. This is a Beta experiment, also available at catalog.google.com.
The Google News area is a comprehensive grouping of stories "clustered" from many different sources and perspectives. This is very ephemeral, since news gets stale quickly.
Finally, the Research/Future Directions is at lab.google.com, and has topics such as voice search over phone, glossary for definitions, Google sets, and keyboard shortcuts (how to use the keyboard instead of a mouse). Also here is Zeitgeist, a summary of Google searches for the month: popular and losing popularity.
Scandisk and Defrag are best run after you have deleted all the junk on your drive (Trash, Temp directories, Browser cache, history, deleted email, unnecessary files, etc.), and with nothing else running. If any other application makes a disk access, Scandisk and Defrag have to stop and start all over again. There are several ways to close all programs, but I prefer restarting the computer in the "SAFE MODE", so you are sure that nothing is secretly running in the background.
If you are using a screensaver, turn it off: Start--Settings--Control Panel--Display--Screensaver tab--scroll to "none"--click Apply--click OK. Restart your computer while pressing the F8 key (or whatever key is used by the OS to start in Safe Mode). A black page will appear with 5 options. Use the arrow keys to select "Safe Mode" and press Enter. Your desktop will appear messed up with large icons, but this is normal.
Now first run Scandisk using the "Thorough" option and "Automatically fix errors". This can take hours sometimes, so do it when you are taking a break from the computer. After Scandisk finishes, run Defrag, but before starting, click the "Settings" on the dialogue box to reveal another box and check the top 2 boxes. Then click OK and Run. This may take a long time.
When both have finished, restart your computer. It should start in Normal mode, but you may have to arrange your desktop icons.
If you do not want to run Scandisk and Defrag from safe mode, it depends on what OS you have as to where you find things to shut down all programs. [N.B. - the SPAUG CD has the program EndItAll that can be used to shut down everything in one operation] However, I'm familiar with Windows 98 and XP, and here's how I do it:
* First, if you are on a broadband connection (where you are online all the time), you don't want to shut down your internet security. If you are using a dial-up ISP, disconnect before proceeding.
* Second: if you're not using a personal firewall and an anti-virus protection program, get these before you go any further! I use Norton AV and Systemworks, and Systemworks scans and defrags (it is less persnickety than using the Windows application). However, what AV or firewall you use is up to you. There are good freebies to be had.
* Third: if you'll look on your system tray (the toolbar at the bottom of the screen), you'll see a bunch of little icons to the right. These show what you are running in the background, and you don't need all of them to be running when you scan or defrag. Point to each, and a little box will pop up telling you what it is or does. If it isn't crucial to running your computer, right-click the icon and choose "exit" or whatever word indicates closing it down. You'll need to reboot to get them back, but they will come back then.
* If you're using Windows 98, you can also see what is running in the background by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del just once. This will bring up a dialog box showing what is currently running. If you're sure you don't need a given application, highlight it and click "End task." I don't use this option on XP, as, for some reason, it isn't as complete as it was in Windows 98.
Once you have shut down all the programs you don't want running, you have two options:
* In Windows, click "Start" and "Programs," then look for Accessories, poke around until you see Scandisk and open it (it's usually in System Tools or something like that). After Scandisk does its thing, poke around again until you find "Defragment" or "Optimize" or something like that. This will begin your defragmentation. However, it is very cranky; even when you think you've shut down everything you don't need, it may hang up until you use trial and error to close down other programs until the defrag operation will run smoothly.
* The second option is the one I prefer: I use Norton Systemworks. It scans, repairs errors and rescans. It also defragments, and it is less cranky than the Windows application, which means you don't have to keep poking around for programs running in the background that you may have missed the first time around. Therefore, if you use Systemworks, you Scan first, then choose the "Optimize" function, click on whatever button tells you to begin, and you can go away for about an hour in complete confidence that it will do the job.
Another housecleaning application I find useful is Norton's Clean Sweep. You can set it up to ask if you want to use it upon rebooting, and it will then clean up your hard drive (you'll always have junk accumulating there). It doesn't take long, and if you don't have dozens of free gigabytes on your hard drive, it will keep more useful space free than if you didn't use this option. You may or may not want to delete cookies. I choose not to because web pages load faster, and many sites I visit remember who I am, if I leave the cookies alone.