JimWorld Gazette Issue #97 08/12/2000

JimWorld Gazette - Issue #97 - August 12, 2000

CONTENTS

• From Our Sponsor - BizLand.com
  
• Reduce Window's Crashes By 95%
  
• From Our Sponsor - RocketLinks.com
  
• Too Cool Not To Mention
  
• JimWorld Update Report
  
• From Our Sponsor - WebSiteFactory
  
• Snippets

Link to this issue of the Gazette as http://gazetteworld.com/go/to.cgi?l=g97

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REDUCE WINDOW'S CRASHES BY 95%

Software Review

Since the beginning of recorded history, the human race has always sought the unobtainable. The Holy Grail, the fountain of youth, the silver bullet, the miracle pill - a day without the dreaded Window's Blue Screen of Death, or worse yet, the distinct impression you are now looking at nothing more than a screen shot of what used to be a responsive and functional operating system.

Having been a faithful Windows user (like I really had much of a choice until recently) since it was first released, and having tried almost every software program that claims to monitor and prevent Window's crashes, I do believe I have found a $15 solution that works far better than First Aid, Norton Crash Guard and all the rest - and it doesn't even claim to be for this purpose.

Release RAM is a small program that constantly monitors the amount of available RAM on your system. Sure, we all know Windows is notorious for using too much RAM and memory leaks. Add to that all the third party applications that load huge DLLs into RAM and then leave them there even after the application is terminated - but I had no idea how bad the situation was until I could see it happening in real time - constantly updated right in my task bar.

I must admit I push my Windows 98 machines pretty hard. Most only have 128 MB of RAM which you would think would be more than enough as long as I not messing with full length pirated DVD movies or something. Anyway, after installing the trial version of Release Ram, I was amazed to see how much of my available RAM was used - and never returned - during the course of opening, using and then closing the various programs I use throughout the day. Its not uncommon to see a newly launched program take 10 - 30 MB of RAM. But to see it only return 1 -5 MB when its closed gets a little discouraging. Do this a few times with various programs and you soon find Windows acting very strangely (or not at all) because it simply does not have any available RAM to use to do whatever it is that Windows does.

Before installing Release RAM, I would experience a total Windows crash at least once per day. On many days such crashes were a constant companion. After installing Release RAM and setting up some of its many automated functions, I sat back in amazement about a week later to realize that I had not experienced a single Windows crash since firing up this little gem of a program. I have my copy set to launch with Windows, wait 60 seconds after all those nasty little Terminate and Stay Resident programs load - then to automatically free up at least 88 MB of RAM. I also have it set to check every 30 minutes and make sure I have at least 64 MB free, and if not, to make it so. If my system every drops below 5MB of available RAM, the program automatically jumps in and frees up all the available RAM that is not being currently used by the programs I have open.

Well, being very busy and all that, I let my trial version go past its 30 day evaluation period. I was automatically notified of this by the program which also informed me that many of the automated monitoring features were now disabled. However, the one feature still intact was the ability to right-click on the little Release RAM icon in the System Tray to automatically release my designated 88 MB of RAM. I used this feature often as I watch the amount of available RAM drop like a thermometer in the Arctic the more I used my machine.

Then, after 60 days of the trial version all features were disabled except the little Task Bar area that displays the amount of available RAM in real time. I watched in horror several times as I noticed my RAM had gone down to less than 1 MB (although I had closed all open programs) and I mistakenly launched yet another program. Kaazam! Man, I could swear my keyboard and mouse used to do something here - after waiting about 5 minutes for some kind of life from Windows, I resorted to the old reset switch.

Jeez, I never thought I would want or need another company's software product so bad that I would send a personal Email to the developer begging him to get out of bed and sell me an unlock code - like now!

The Release RAM website makes no claims about greatly reducing the number of Windows crashes, but if I had the time, I would love to do a benchmark test because I know I personally have had about 95% fewer crashes, slow downs and weird goings on since installing this program. I would highly recommend this product for anybody using Windows 95, 98 or NT 4.0. A Windows 2000 version will be available very soon. You can grab a free trial version (but don't wait until you have to go begging to register it) at < http://www.releaseram.com/index.htm?AAF >

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T.J. Walker
President, SSNet, Inc.
< mailto:president@softwaresolutions.net >
< http://softwaresolutions.net >

Jim Note: After TJ sent me the above article, I downloaded Release RAM. I had low expectation, since system hang-ups are such a long-running, frequent part of my life.

I especially like watching my system lose available memory each hour when NOTHING except Windows is running on it.

What a suprise! I now only have to restart my system about one-tenth as often as before. This is a blessing for me. Hope it works as well for you.

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TOO COOL NOT TO MENTION

Sometimes I get really conflicted.

On one hand, I don't really like to write about software that can be abused. Especially if it is only usable in a way that would always be abuse.

On the other hand, when I come across something as cool and well-developed as Links Suite, I just have to tell you about it and trust you not to abuse it.

Links Suite is a tasty little program that helps you gather, verify and categorize sites to be included in just about any directory of sites. Just visit any page containing links (including directories and search engines) and tell the program to extract and categorize all of the listings on the page.

Links Suite combines the elements of a Browser, a Parser, and a Database engine. The result is a program that will not only collect URLs but also categorize, query, check for validity, parse keywords, titles, and descriptions, and then output the results to raw HTML code, a Microsoft Access database or a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet. Literally a start to finish process.

When done, just load the results into your copy of Hyperseek (or 'other' directory system) or upload the results as HTML pages of links.

When I first stumbled across this program a few weeks ago, I was impressed with how well thought out and stable it was.

But being Jim, I felt compelled to drop the developer a note and suggest a "few" little improvements that I thought would make it much more effective. He almost immediately wrote back and attached a new release with all of my suggestions included. What a suprise.

I tried it out and it was much better.

So why did it take a month for me to write about it? Because it took the developer a while to understand that you can tell when I'm lying by paying attention to "That's great, but I have just ONE more little thing for you."

I "one more'd" him unmercifully until it is now an incredible system. You'll have fun playing with the demo, and I'm guessing that most of you will wind up paying the license fee of US$24.95.

It is absolutely worth the small fee.

< http://www.linkssuite.com/ >

JIMWORLD UPDATE REPORT

JimTools < http://jimtools.com/ >

Position Checker UK

For all of our UK based friends, JimTools now has a position checker to help you monitor how well your sites are performing in the UK search engines.

Free Site Templates < http://www.freesitetemplates.com/ >

About a dozen new free templates have been added in the past couple of weeks. These new ones are exceptional in both look and features. Still free, of course.

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SNIPPETS

Hover In Netscape
http://www.teaink.com/netscapehover.htm

Dmitry Kirillov, a Gazeteer, sent me a note about a script he had developed that allows you to add "hovering" to the links on your site when viewed with a Netscape browser. Now your Internet Explorer and Netscape visitors will all see those appearing/disappearing link underlines when they move their cursor over a link.

Very cool stuff and Dmitry built a demo page that shows you how it works (you'll need a Netscape browser to see that it works) and he's included the code for you to cut and paste.

You'll like this one.

Thanks, Dmitry.

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405
< http://www.405themovie.com/ >

If you haven't seen this 3 minute, special effect movie made by a couple of Hollywood special effects guys in their spare time, you are in for a treat.

Go see the movie and read about the fame these two fellows have achieved by giving Net users what they want - media that works on-line.

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How to Halt Nazi Sales in France?

It seems that a judge in France has decided how the world should deal with unwanted Internet content. Ban it.

But not just in France. This technical giant wants to have content that is objectionable to him be blocked from French surfers no matter where it is in the world.

At issue is the fact that it is illegal to sell Nazi memorabilia in France. Yahoo has Nazi stuff available on their U.S. site and the French judge wants that content made unavailable to everyone in France.

Wow. Why didn't someone think of that before? Let's let every country set up walls based on content and force the rest of the world to honor those walls. Makes about as much sense as every U.S. elected hack passing rediculous spam laws based on total ignorance. Total ignorance is difficult to acheive, but not beyond the capabilities of U.S. elected officials. And French judges.

Mark my words. This type of ignorance of technology has been loosed upon the world and the merely ridiculous is headed towards bizarre.

Please, don't write me about the evils of the Nazi empire. I understand them well. This Snippet has NOTHING to do with the content, but rather with the ignorance of powerful government employees throughout the world.

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Online Ad Revenue Nears $2 Billion Mark in Q1
< http://www.iab.net/ >

Internet advertising revenues for the first quarter of 2000 approached $2 billion, according to a report by the IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

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Business 2.0

Thanks to Business 2.0 for the nice comments they had about the Search Engine Forums in their latest issue of their magazine.

In an article about Yahoo's listing fees, they wrote:

"Users at http://www.searchengineforums.com an excellent place to get tips and exchange advice on Web posting, seem to agree that being able to use follow-up email to address problems with the site is almost worth the fee in itself."

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Women Surpass Men as US Web Users

The first quarter of 2000 marked the first time the number of women online in the US surpassed that of men, according to a report by Media Metrix and Jupiter Communications. MMXI Europe found that female Internet use is also growing abroad.

To all you guys that thought that the computer was the last safe zone because women would never get the hang of it, I have one question.

How do you like your crow cooked?