Tom's Diary

Dear [Lynn],

Yes, you’re right. Only one backup every six months is by no means enough, especially if the files you’re protecting are mission-critical documents, programs, and such. If the documents are changed daily, then a daily (or at least a semi-weekly) backup should be performed. You might also consider buying several USB external drives, and rotate them on and off-site. Always good to retain several backups. At work, they saved them for a year I think.

Since USB drives have become pretty inexpensive, this wouldn’t be very costly to do. I have six drives for my DJ music. Each drive has a complete copy of all music. I keep one drive under the driver’s seat in Mom’s car, and another at Rich and Christine’s garage. The others I have here.

This involuntary volunteering used to happen to me at work. I’d make a suggestion to improve a process, and then would get charged with making it happen. Overall, it worked out pretty well. But I don’t envy you.

Windows XP has a “Backup” program that you can use to easily back up the entire hard drive (including all software and the operating system) to an external hard drive. Backup is located under
Accessories->System Programs
In the “All Programs” menu.

By the way, as a side note: Both XP and ME have the “System Restore” feature, which allows you to “roll back” the computer to a previous state (say, like it was five days ago). This is a very handy feature, especially if you install a program that goofs things up on the computer. You can easily undo that installation with full confidence that the computer has been completely rolled back to the way it was before you put the faulty program on it. This doesn’t really solve your back-up problem per se. However, it will save you from having to fetch your back-ups, in many cases.

About the external hard drives: I’ve had experience with both the Iomega and Maxtor drives (own several Iomegas). The last time I bought some (in 2001), the Iomegas were rather expensive. In hindsight, I’d recommend getting Western Digital drives in external USB cases. You can read about them at:

• http://pricewatch.com

On this page, go to “Drives – Hard” and the list of available sizes of USB drives appears, along with the cheapest price available for each size drive. You may not want the cheapest however. Read the specifics about the drives (refurbished Vs. new, any warranties, Etc.), before buying. I’ve purchased much equipment through this site and haven’t had any problems with vendors. Plus, they’ll deliver it to your door.

For the second computer, you could buy a USB 2.0 card for it and plug an external drive into it for backup purposes. Or, do what you’re thinking, and put a network card in it. Installing either card is pretty easy these days because Microsoft has really got the Plug-N-Play technology down pat. No more do we call it “Plug And Pray.” Just stick with the name brand cards (I’d recommend Adaptec, Netgear, 3Com, Syslink et al), and you won’t have any problems. In fact, both XP and ME come with drivers for the most popular cards. So you shouldn’t have to install any drivers manually – Windows does it after you install the card and power on the machine. But follow the instructions that come with whatever card you buy however, because sometimes, they come with their own additional software that is handy to have on your computer, and following their instructions will ensure that you get it.

You could also network your first computer (the XP one) with the second, if you bought another NIC and a router for your DSL connection. I’d recommend the Netgear firewall/router/switch units that you can buy for less than $100. Not only would you then have high-speed Internet available on both computers, but you could also share files between the computers (back up one computer to the other and vice versa). Just a few thoughts.

Anyway, all is well here. I’ve been working in the yard the past week or so, to clean up all this flood debris that piled up under the big spruces back there last fall. About half the work is done so far. Everyone is doing fine. Cats included.

Well, gotta run. So, talk to you later,
Tom

I’m continuing to write this software and have just about completed the diagnostic program that I’ll run every time I turn on the laptop computers, to verify the presence of all the music files and check other essential; components of the system. So I’m very excited about that, and that will be just one more program I can add to my software suite for Tommy’s Tunes.

I learned how to get the XP-style controls to display in my application and lots of other tidbits about Microsoft Windows too. The progress bar control and the problem of how to make it scroll like a marquee particularly interested me. I know it can do this, because I’ve seen it in other XP wait-style dialog boxes such as what AutoPlay does while reading the songs on the music drives and so on. Something like this while starting services would be handy. There’s still much more to master. It’s daunting, that’s true. But it keeps me busy, and so I’m never bored. I plan today on continuing its development.

Tom Hesley

[C],

[IE 6] Service pack 1 contains a complete copy of all the code required to run IE6. You can get that, at the following site: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/critical/ie6sp1/default.mspx

It is important that Mike not download Service Pack 2 of IE6, because that will only run correctly on XP.

By the way, if he can’t get the download to work, there are instructions on the site for ordering IE6 on CD ROM. He may have to do that. It will cost him around $5. Unfortunately, I don’t have this in my CD library.

Tom

Dear sister Mary Ann,

I would start by installing the latest version of Internet Explorer. Today’s web sites take advantage of the latest technologies in web browsers. If your browser is too old, it may not be able to process the new style web transactions it receives.

To make sure you have the latest version of IE that is supported under Windows 98, go to

http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp

On that page, follow the “Scan for updates” link. This will look through your computer and then give you a list of Windows software updates that have been released since you installed Windows. This list will probably be rather large since you’ve probably never done this before.

In that list, there should be mention of an IE 5 or IE 6 update. Windows 98 supports IE 5 but I’m not sure about IE 6. Each list item has an Add button. Press this for the IE update and then press the Install Now button at the top of the list.

This may solve your problem. However, you really should upgrade to Windows XP. Windows 98 is getting very old and won’t be supported by Microsoft much longer.

Tom

Jeff,

I’m just using Winamp 2.8 to play the music, and Windows XP Explorer to search them. They’re not categorized yet but I’ve seen some cheap database software that allows you to build an explorer-like hierarchy of songs by genre, BPM, year of release, artist, and any other classification you deem necessary.

On my web page: I have no plans to get it going at present. Right now, I’m focusing on getting several pieces written. Once they’re ready to sell, I’ll work on the site.

Thanks for the [work] update. I worked there such a long time that breaking the habit was difficult at first. It’s nice to hear about the people still there.

Take care,
Tom Hesley

Dear   [Lynn],

Hey there.

Congratulations on your purchase. I think you’ll be pleased with XP performance and reliability. I have it on two of my computers now and it hasn’t crashed once in a year and a half. For certain tasks, like searching through large numbers of files in Windows Explorer, it’s a fair amount slower than 98. But when you run it on a computer that’s almost ten times as fast as the one you were running 98 on, you probably won’t even notice this. Also, the fact that XP is all 32-bit code now makes it run even more reliably and faster when executing programs.

Tom

Dear   [Lynn],

On the computer, there’s at least one “hot key sequence” in Windows 98, where if you press it for several seconds, it activates the accessibility features (larger fonts, high contrast color schemes, different key assignments to make the keyboard easier to use for someone with crippled hands, and so on). The cat might have inadvertently stood on those keys for the right time, turning on the different key mappings. Also, some programs that you may have been running, also have their own hot keys. What those keys do or how they affect the keyboard boggles the imagination since there are so many different things that could happen. So, it’s hard to know for sure what she might have stepped on.

I upgraded this Micron P2/333 Mhz. machine from Windows 98 to Windows XP. Most of the crashing problems disappeared. So if your computer isn’t too slow, you might consider the upgrade ($200). If not, just use it until you can’t bare the sluggishness anymore, and get a new one then.

Dells are nice. I’ve looked at their Inspiron laptops for the DJ business and I think I’m going to go with these.

Later,
Tom

Dear   [Lynn],

Good thing you’re getting rid of 95. I don’t believe Microsoft supports it at all anymore, not even on their web sites.

I can appreciate the cash flow issues, as I have some of those myself right now.

But you might be able to get a few more years of life out of your home machine as long as you don’t put any CPU-hungry software on it. Up until last month, I was using a Pentium Pro 200 MHz. machine for keeping bills, writing small documents and such. I believe yours is faster than that one.

You might be able to get a bit more speed out of your box if you put Windows XP on it, but this is not guaranteed. Certain bench tests show XP to run some of the common tasks such as desktop operations and Internet browsing a bit faster and more reliably since it runs in full 32-bit protected mode (unlike Win 98 which still has lots of 16-bit code in it). It tends to crash less.

However, upgrading an old machine like yours may put you into the bind of finding XP-compatible drivers for your printer, modem, video, and sound cards. Also, some of the software that runs on Windows 98 will not run well on XP. So there is definitely a gamble.

Tom

Dear Dean,

I’m not sure that you can use Windows XP Pro to get this information. Typically, the serial numbers of installed software are not viewable in Windows, to make it harder for someone to obtain illegal copies of the upgrade. You might try going to the “About…” menu item in DriveImage help. They might list that number there. If not, your best bet is to contact the manufacturer of the software and explain what happened. They might be willing to supply you a number you can use for the upgrade.

Tom Hesley

Dear   [Lynn],

Well, I probably agree with much of what your brother-in-law passed along. However, I haven’t had time to seriously study XP. And given my new priorities at work, and at home, will not likely do so anytime soon. So, I can’t offer much here, in the way of critical analysis of XP, relative to the comments in the article you sent along.

Thanks for sending that article. I enjoyed reading it.

Happy New Year.

Tom