Neat Net Tricks Issue #73
Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000
http://www.NeatNetTricks.com
Reply-To: NNT@silver.lyris.net

IN THIS ISSUE:

01.  Who's that pinging at my door?
02.  Flyswat
03.  Alot Nanny
04.  Space Ace
05.  WordPad defaults
06.  Free Internet
07.  Information overload
08.  Web resources
09.  Time Lord
10.  Spotlight on a spam fighter
11.  Password Revealer
12.  HearMe
13.  Neat Net Nifty

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01.  WHO'S THAT PINGING AT MY DOOR?  Some months ago, I wrote about a 
wakeup service at http://www.iping.com/ and now I see the services have
expanded.  Mr. Wakeup will still start your day with text or 
prerecorded message and tosses in news, your horoscope, and personal 
reminders as you wish.  But, accompanying this entourage are Dr. Dose, 
who tells you when you need to take your medicine, Mr. Dollar, who calls
you on your cell phone with business and financial news, Ms. Followup 
who notifies you when a package arrives at its destination, Mr. Notify, 
who sends out invitations or important announcements to large groups, 
and Ms. Reminder, who keeps you apprised of important dates.  There's 
even a demo to try out at the phone of your choice before you decide to
hire the whole entourage.  

02.  FLYSWAT.  The idea of this program is to place what it calls
flycons on a Web site, so that the visitor can click on the
underlined flycon for another menu of topics (in other words,
another search engine).  Download it at http://www.flyswat.com to
place a toolbar at the bottom of your browser.  Downsides?  Its
evidence of continued rivalry in the browser war, and it requires
Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher. Also, there are limited
flycons, depending on the Web site visited.

03.  ALOT NANNY.  For those who suspect someone else may be
accessing their computer documents or sites, theres Alot Nanny at
http://www.alotenterprises.com .  This software returns a report
of the date, time, and duration a site or program was accessed.
It works only on standalone systems, is free for 30 days, or buy
for $19.95.

04.  SPACE ACE.  Your riddle for today?  What has 4,665 files wasting 
139 mb of space?  Answer:  My hard drive before I ran Space Ace.  
Sounding like something from the Saturday matinee at the local movie
house many years ago, I was reluctant to click the "Clean HD" on Rich 
Levin's invention. So I took the "test run" first, and it told me I 
was due for a spring housecleaning for sure.  Still hesitant, I read 
the description and was assured that Space Ace III never touches data,
programs, active Windows system files, doesn't do a lot of potential 
damage by mucking around your registry or ini files, and so on.  Space
Ace, declared "as safe as milk," is a free trial at 
http://www.RBLevin.net.  But, if you spring for the $49.95 registered
version you get not only the typical updates and tekkie help, there's 
also an "Elbow Grease" function. It lets you tweak for even more house- 
cleaning, if you're aggressive and like to live on the edge.

05.  WORDPAD DEFAULTS.  WordPad is a handy text editor but has 
limitations.  For example, there's no way to set up a default font, 
margins, indentation, color, font size, and so on.  A good workaround 
is to set up the desired specifications and save these as a document 
with a file name of, say, "default."  Then open that document each 
time you want the new defaults and, when saving your work, save under
a different file name so you won't overwrite your default settings.

06.  FREE INTERNET.  There are now a number of providers of free 
Internet service.  Any time I see the word "free" it sends a red flag
waving.  I'm a firm believer in the adage that there is "no such 
thing as a free lunch."  Nonetheless, you might want to look into 
some of these services as backup, particularly if your ISP is a tad 
short on delivering as evidenced by frequent disconnects or inability
to connect; or if you get the idea you are just another number when 
you'd like a little customer service.  Two good sites to steer you in
the direction of some of those "free" services are 
http://www.members.tripod.com/freeispz/index.html and 
http://www.nzlist.org/user/freeisp .  But beware, "free" may mean 
lots of ad banners, surveys, and similar annoyances that pay for your
"free" use.  

07.  INFORMATION OVERLOAD.  Billed as "the single best source for facts
on the Net," the site at http://www.refdesk.com provides a reference 
site of the day, reference tools, encyclopedias, newspapers, facts 
pages with 2,000 sites, almanacs, search desk, thesaurus, dictionaries,
city guides, and on and on.  It's enough to boggle your brain cells.

08.  WEB RESOURCES.  Web designers may find the site at 
http://www.webplaces.com/search a useful jumping-off place to several
good points to search for clip art, icons, background images, animated
graphics, .jpg, .gif, photo shots, and other designs via FTP or the Web.

09.  TIME LORD.  Add one more utility to check and update your PC clock
while you're on-line.  Time Lord V2.50 monitors dial-up connections but
works equally well on connections via RAS, ISDN router, and direct
connections.  Read about its other features and download it at 
http://www.ossystems.co.uk/os_syst/time_lord.html .

10.  SPOTLIGHT ON A SPAM FIGHTER. I was shocked to get email from Matt 
Robbins, an assistant systems administrator at IndyNet (a OneMain.Com
company), responding to my complaint about a spammer who was using 
that Internet Service Provider (ISP). Matt's response was a pleasant 
departure from the typical autoresponder that leads one to believe 
most complaints fall on deaf ears.  Not so with Indy.Net, a company 
serving 18,000 dial-up users in Indiana. I came away from an enjoyable
phone visit wishing we could all be as persistent as Matt in our fight
against spam.  Typically, 15 hours of his week is devoted to dealing 
with that stuff.

Matt thinks spammers fit into two categories: the professional "hit 
and run type" and the clueless "newbies" who are unaware of 
consequences of their actions.  The best anti-spam measure, he feels,
is strong legislation via the anti-junk FAX law.  Even though spam is
worldwide, he believes U.S. laws can handle the bulk of spam, since 
what he sees is domestic or passes through domestic servers.  The 
problem, Matt says, is that we have until now been largely reactive, 
and we need to change that and become proactive. His ISP is taking 
some positive steps, such as restricting the amount of mail that a 
user can send out without a mail server such as Majordomo, Lyris, or 
the like; Port 25 blocking so that a user can't hijack another mail 
server; involvement with mail-abuse organizations; and strong filters
to block mail originating from known spammers.

What can the average user do other than continue to report spam?  Matt
likes SpamCop and thinks that's the best tool, with a fairly short
learning curve, good complaint resolution, and prompt ISP feedback.  
He also recommends that everyone learn how to interpret headers in 
spam messages to identify the correct ISP to whom to complain; and, 
he suggests that the best discussion of this is at 
http://www.stopspam.org/email/headers/headers.html .  

11.  PASSWORD REVEALER.  Picture this.  A window opens to your favorite
site or software, showing a password obscured by those blankety-blank 
asterisks.  Quick, what's the password?  Just click on "Track" in 
Password Revealer and it copies the password in clear text - no 
guessing. This utility at http://www.rekenwonder.com/revealer.htm is a
short download, is free, and works on Windows 95/98/NT but cannot 
access passwords in Win NT User Manager or IE 5.0 because of special
edit boxes.  

12.  HEARME.  Reminiscent of the CB-era days (and, unfortunately, with 
some of the same raunchy traffic as CB Channel 19 of yesteryear) is 
HearMe at http://www.HearMe.com .  This is a combination of both your 
typical text chat room and voice in an environment quite similar to IRC
where the moderator may (and should) eject those who don't play by the 
rules.  The audio quality was some of the best I've heard and had 
virtually no lag when I tuned in.  Fortunately, I found a computer 
chat room with interesting dialog and clean language, but it may take
a bit of selective tuning.  The learning curve for all the options is 
a bit steep, and there were some download and configuration problems.
I found that HearMe placed a heavy drain on my resources and I was 
unable to multitask.  But if you have a fairly fast processor, lots of
RAM, and can work around these possible problems, you'll find that 
HearMe has some promise and may add a new dimension to your 
computing experience.

13.  NEAT NET NIFTY.  The Font Pool at http://www.fontpool.com  offers
every conceivable type of font you'd  ever need, with over 1000 
categorized true-type fonts. It also previews each font style and 
character map.  The site includes commercial, PC, and Macintosh fonts.
Looking for a very specific font? The on-site Font Search and category
listings make your search for just the right font an easy task and 
installation is a breeze with the tutorial. The Font Pool server can 
create zipped files on the fly, allowing download of every font on a 
page in one file.

Neat Net Tricks often pauses to recognize a Web site and recommend your
visit.  Set aside some time to explore the site and enjoy it.  Sites
that are predominantly non-commercial in focus are identified as "nifty"
when their all-around content, originality, interest, variety, and
graphical presentation have earned this award.  If you would like to
nominate a Nifty site, send the URL to mailto:jteems@NeatNetTricks.com
with a brief note telling why you think the site deserves the award.

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