KSFO's Web Wanderer

The Links for October 12, 2002

Unfortunately, between the time Vlad submitted this site, and today, the site owner decided to shut down his site.

Startup Content - Gary in Petaluma

Gary in Petaluma says: "I viewed with interest the recent Task List web site you referred to. While I have bookmarked it for future reference, I think you'll find this one more complete. In addition to listing many more programs, it also gives much more complete descriptions which include not only a commentary on what the program is and/or does, but also lists the specific files that are being used to access the program. Even when the site does not know what the program is, just by doing a search for the file name to see where it is located on my computer enables me to figure out what it's all about."

I checked out this site - I've seen a number of them, and this is by far the best. It has WEEKLY UPDATES. Last updated 10/10/2002! The author constantly adds and updates the site.

It's extremely complete. It has the standard stuff, stuff installed by particular hardware, particular video cards, viruses, etc.

Bookmark this one! It's the only one you'll need.

Thanks, Gary!

An ISP's Flow Statistics - Dyno Don

Dyno Don says: "My ISP, Sonic.net, is one of the best, I think. If you're interested in knowing what happens at an ISP here is a start. This is a page of graphs of their traffic. What kind, where's it going, all kinds of stuff. You can also see when the highest load is occurring."

Dyno Don Continues: "I imagine much of this info is relatively the same regardless of your ISP."

I check net statistics once in a while - just to see how it's being used. I like sites like this.

This site explains why sometimes your bandwidth seems fine, but slow other times. Check it out.

Thanks, Don!

A Collection of Word Oddities and Trivia - Dudley

Dudley says: "If you like to work with words, here is a site that has a collection of word oddities and trivia."

I'm not much of a word guy - I'm a math geek, but DO like trivia. This site is cool from a trivia standpoint as well.

The site contains a few topics, all covered in GREAT detail:

Miscellany
Palindromes
Vowels
Uncommon double letters; triple letters; quadruple letters
typewriter words
consecutive consonants
misspelled words
pangrams

and a lot more.

Well worth a browse. Thanks, Dudley!

Microsoft Exchange and Outlook utilities - Dyno Don

Dyno Don found this site.

From the site: "Welcome to the home for a special group of Microsoft Exchange and Outlook utilities. All these gizmos fulfill important needs expressed by users. All are freeware or inexpensive shareware, and we're very grateful to the developers for making them available. Note that most are provided as-is, and little or no support is available. Please contact the developers if you have questions about these applications.

"Most should work with Microsoft Outlook (Some are for Outlook only.), but will not work with Outlook Express, which is a completely different e-mail client from Microsoft."

Outlook is NOT my email software of choice, but it's mandatory to use it at work, so I suffer with it. This site makes it much more bearable. Thanks, Dyno Don!

Free For All!

"Free For All" picks are hot, FREE items or services. It can be software, online services, you name it - but it's got to be free, with no strings attached.

Chilton Preview - Dyno Don

I've had an ongoing battle with spam email at work. At home, I use Mailwasher which is a big help, but at work I'm stuck with "approved" software. Like Outlook.

I get so many emails, I rely heavily on the preview screen. It's bad enough having some porno spam, filled with pictures, pop up on my screen while I have visitors in my office, but just two weeks ago the support department received a spam email which crashed outlook on everyone's system.

From the site: "Use this tiny add-in to replace the built-in preview pane in Outlook 98 and later versions or to add a preview pane to Outlook 97. Does one thing that Outlook 2000 doesn't -- previews text of items in the Outbox. For HTML messages, it reads the plain text equivalent and, therefore, does not trigger links to outside content. Now works with Outlook 2002. Version 1.05, 27kb, 25 Dec 01, shareware. Click here to download. Be sure to read the Readme.txt file for installation instructions. FAQ available.

Chilton Preview is provided as FREEWARE as of 1.05. If you find this software to be valuable, a postcard from your home town or county, an email, or donation of $5 (US) would be appreciated, but is not required."

It was SIMPLE to install, and works great.

Thanks Dyno Don!

Online Security Scan - Andantino

Andantino found this site with free online security scans; ports trojans use, parasites, and more.

I am a regular Zone Alarm user, but still like to test my system periodically. Audit My PC is a very nice, free service.

Thanks, Andantino!

Parasite Check - Andantino

Andantino says: "I visit this page periodically to see if any unsolicited spyware Ad-Aware may have missed is lurking somewhere on my hard drive. I found some kind of dialer today I didn't realize was there."

I ran a scan as well, and found "BDE" on my system. Like many parasite programs, it is NOT designed to be easy to remove, but the site has clear removal instructions. A bit of a pain, but effective.

I recommend everyone scan their systems for Parasites on a regular basis. This site makes is simple.

Thanks, Andantino!