The good and bad releases of Windows

Across the history of the development of Windows, each major iteration of this operating system family has that bad/good cycle.

Windows 95 was a massive step-up in usability, but required a lot more from hardware than Windows 3.1x did. But: better memory protection, which gave it a huge advantage over the classic MacOS, which didn't have it yet.

Windows 98 and 98SE added a bit more reliability. Introduction of Windows Update: anyone who regularly cared to install updates, was reasonably safe.

W98 ended up being the most versatile of the 9x line in terms of hardware support, as it supported both VxD and WDM driver types, and had built-in USB support (not perfect, but still).

Windows Me had multimedia additions, but lacked VxD driver support (ostensibly to make it more stable), and wasn't particularly popular.

Windows 2000 was actually really great, but was often overlooked by regular PC users, and maybe appeared more technical.

Windows XP consolidated the back-end of Windows 2000 and the ease-of-use of the 9x line, such as very visibly separating regular users from administrators.

Better security with a built-in firewall, though many back-end security improvements came with XP Service Pack 2.

Windows Vista was the bad one, and was pre-installed on a lot of computers that were too underpowered for it; think 5400 RPM hard drive, 1 GB RAM, out of which 3/4th was taken by the OS alone after launch. In real life, it required at least 4 GB RAM and maybe even an SSD. Even 2 GB of RAM would have been okay.

Vista only had better security with User Account Control and a built-in anti-virus app. It introduced desktop widgets in lieu of Active Desktop.

Windows 7: When it was good, then it was really good. I believe it would run well on 4 GB RAM.

Windows 8.x? The back-end was certainly improved, but the UI was terrible: the removed Start menu in favour of the start screen, and outsized UWP apps. Probably the last Windows OS to work ok with 4 GB RAM.

Windows 10...
❌ The worst was the forced non-consensual upgrade. Shrink-wrap licence agreements do not count for this. It would have been much easier to permit voluntary-only downloads for those that wanted it through the support life of Windows 7 and 8.

☑️ Okay, at least the operating system offered like ten years of support in addition to the time spent with Windows 7 or 8. Hopefully, there would be more years of support to come, since a large number of computers have been shut out by Windows 11.

Windows 10 requires at least 8 GB RAM and an SSD drive to run well. It can run on 4 GB RAM, but barely. Also, the last to support a traditional BIOS.

The UI is decent.
✔️ The biggest upside is, allows people to find apps with just a few keystrokes instead of having to search through the menus: press Win key, type the first letters of a program you need. This requires indexing, and an SSD drive. An SSD drive is worth the speed improvements.

✔️ Live Tiles are nice. I also get to play Angry Birds (obtained via Windows Store). Easy notification area quick access buttons for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc.
⨉ Downside: deprecation of useful Control Panel items in favour of Settings. Control Panel items are no longer sorted up-to-down in columns, which is awful. (This has continued in Windows 11, too.)

For some things, the Settings window is actually great, including the part, that many textual items can be easily copied and then later pasted elsewhere.

For very specialized sites tested only for WebKit/Blink, I've chosen to use the built-in Microsoft Edge instead of Chrome.

Windows 11 is the odd one out, again. Yes, it's got better security, and I get to have the full ten years of updates support in addition to the time I used Windows 10 on a new machine.

⨉ But: the taskbar UI has been borked (no expandable app windows), Live Tiles were removed in favour of Widgets, and those do not work at all.
✔️ Upside: Volume and brightness controls in the same notification pop-out; more Dark Mode support (esp. in File Manager).

⨉ Angry Birds 2 still continues crashing, apparently on trying to download in-game ads. I've upgraded to Windows 11 only because of Angry Birds 2 often crashing in Windows 10, but to no avail.

---

The terrible part about Microsoft specifying low minimum requirements for its operating systems, is, that many computer makers have sold and continue to sell cheap kit with just these minimum requirements, such as 4 GB RAM for both Windows 10 and 11.

I still see new notebooks on sale with just 4 GB of RAM memory. I've seen others with only 4 GB RAM, and no other way to upgrade, than to use a USB drive that meets the requirements for ReadyBoost functionality.

And this is not new: Windows 95 had very low minimum system requirements: a 386 DX CPU and 4 MB RAM, depending on features selected.

On a computer with a 486 DX CPU and 8 MB RAM, this was just enough to run the operating system, the Microsoft Exchange e-mail client, and Netscape 3.0. (Netscape 4.x would require a PC with a least 16 MB RAM.)

Windows 98 somehow ran on a PC with 16 MB RAM.

Windows XP required a 233 MHz CPU and 64 MB RAM. Yes, it worked, but very slowly. I've seen this happen in a local library.

The minimum amount of RAM that Microsoft specifies for Windows 11 is four gigabytes, which is too little: since the commit size of Windows 11 Pro is 4.8 GB after launch, 8 GB should be counted as the absolute minimum in order to leave some breathing space for other apps that people will install and use.

Users desperate for new must-have functionality would certainly live with the slow performance, aware, that certain new functionality is perhaps a must-have. But Microsoft specifying far too low amounts of RAM as minimum for its operating systems that clearly require more in real life, is something that is bound to leave many current and future Windows users very disappointed, if they upgrade (or are forced to upgrade), or if they buy underpowered computers.

Finding the classic Netscape/Mozilla hand cursor

License info

If there is anyone who remembers using Netscape (oh, the good times), they will also remeber the business-like hand cursor that appeared on hovering over links. This cursor is a classic.

Now, originally, the cursor was available at this address:
http://lxr.mozilla.org/mozilla/source/widget/src/build/res/select.cur?raw=1

Alas, that resource is not available anymore.

And whilst
https://dxr.mozilla.org/mozilla1.8/source/widget/src/build/res/select.cur
also exists, I'd found no way to download it.

So, as I was googling (yes, I still..sometimes do that) this classic hand cursor with the
/mozilla/source/widget/src/build/res/select.cur
search string —

I found this awesome resource on GitHub:
https://github.com/krad-radio/mozilla-krad/blob/master/widget/src/build/res/select.cur

Apparently and for reasons unknown, a software developer took the classic Mozilla source and wanted to improve it.

The download link was there all right, so I got my favourite cursor.

License information

As the original Mozilla Application Suite was licensed under the Mozilla MPL/NPL/LGPL tri-license, then this should apply to the subject image shown at the top of this post.

Windows: Creating a shortcut to select a file in a folder

I often need to find out which version of Skype installer was automatically downloaded into the local temp folder.

While the Windows UI makes it possible to create simple shortcuts, then there is no UI for more complex stuff.

After some searching, the correct Target line in the shortcut properties must be this:

C:\WINDOWS\explorer.exe ,/select="C:\Documents and Settings\A User's Account Name\Local Settings\temp\SkypeSetup.exe"

It is important to separate the executive and its options from each other with a space, after which the comma starts in that line.

This also works from the command prompt.

Applies to Windows XP, but should also work in other Windows versions. YMMV.

Independence Day: Resurgence website and Firefox

A quick post: www.warof1996.com might not display in Firefox and other Gecko-based browsers.

The reason is that the site is based on WebGL, and Firefox blocks WebGL, if the GPU (video card) driver is out of date or does not support WebGL.

The solution in Windows is to update GPU drivers either through the computer manufacturer's website or through the site of the GPU supplier — one of Intel, nVidia, or AMD/ATI, but not limited to only these.

Thorough care should be taken to match the driver to the correct display adapter model.

If that doesn't work, the GPU is too old, or EOL'd.

I strongly recommend not to force Firefox to use WebGL, because this move can damage hardware.

The alternative is to use Google Chrome or Chromium, which probably uses a CPU-based workaround; but if either the graphics adapter or the CPU or both are too old, then rendering is unlikely to work, or is too slow.

> Explanation — contains minimum driver versions that support WebGL.

In addition, visit about:support in Firefox and the Graphics section therein, which also recommends the minimum driver version for WebGL (Direct2D, etc). The posting contains the same warnings about possible damage to hardware if Firefox were forced to use WebGL.

System requirements

This table is incomplete. I've only gotten to test the website on three computers (with some reservations), and gotten an external report about another.

PC	Hardware/software specifications
	CPU	GPU	RAM	OS	Fx	Chrome	Notes
ASUS K53SC notebook	Intel Core i3 2310M @ 2.1 GHz, dual-core	i:Intel HD Graphics 3000 d:nVidia GeForce GT 520MX	4 Gb DDR3, 665.1 MHz	Windows 7 SP1	Yes	Yes	Required driver updates: I had to upgrade both Intel and nVidia drivers through downloading them from their respective websites.
ASUS U46SV	Intel Core i5 2410M @ 2.3 GHz, dual-core	i: Intel HD Graphics 3000	8 Gb	Windows 10 (build unknown)	Slow	Not tested	Website opens, but performance is slow and jerky, and the fan began working intensely.
	d:	nVidia GeForce GT 540M
ThinkPad R60e (0657-3WG)	Intel Core Duo T2400 (Centrino)	Mobile Intel 945GM Express	2 Gb DDR2 (an upgrade from just 512 Mb)	Windows XP SP3	No	Slow / ok	Rendering was slow, but the site was usable. Chrome: 48.0.2564.109 32-bit; Blink 537.36 JavaScript: V8 4.8.271.19, (This version already announced that it's to be retired on Windows xp.) Instead of OpenGL, Chrome's default renderer in Windows is ANGLE, which translates OpenGL ES to Direct3D, as it has better driver support. Thus, results for Chrome can differ.
hp dv5204ea notebook	Intel Celeron M 410 @ 1.46 GHz	Mobile Intel 945GM Express	1 Gb DDR2, 266 MHz	Windows XP SP3	No	Too slow	While I did upgrade the driver, its version is still less than required: The latest Windows XP driver for this GPU is 6.14.10.4926 (15.02.2008), but Firefox wants at least version "6.1400.1000.5218".
PC	CPU	GPU	RAM	OS	Fx	Chrome

All this does not yet indicate much as to what the titular website's actual system requirements are. In notebook computers, the default video card used by any program in Windows is the integrated adapter, while nVidia software provides an option to launch programs using its own GPU.

The Asus notebook with greater specifications falls below the threshold, whereas the Asus notebook with slightly lesser specs, an older operating system and updated video drivers shows the website nicely.

Installing the GIMP FFT plugin (in Windows)

The short of it: to install the Fourier FFT transform plugin into GIMP, download the latest version from here (registry.gimp.org). (I chose the Windows distribution, 32 bits).

From this gimpchat.com forum post I learned that both fourier.exe and libfftw3-3.dll must be placed into the GIMP plugins folder (specifically
C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0\lib\gimp\2.0\plug-ins).

Unfortunately, when starting GIMP again, I got the error that the file libgcc_s_sjlj-1.dll was not found, so this meant that the filter wouldn't work.

To get the libgcc_s_sjlj-1.dll file, this instruction on another GIMP plugin suggested how to get that file: download the x32-4.8.0-release-win32-sjlj-rev2.7z package from Sourceforge (36.1 Mb); then you need to open the compressed file with 7-Zip (if you don't have it, download and install it separately beforehand), move to directory x32-4.8.0-release-win32-sjlj-rev2.7z\mingw32\bin\, and there's the file.

Extract only libgcc_s_sjlj-1.dll to C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0\lib\gimp\2.0\plug-ins .

I became interested in the FFT plugin from a Wikimedia Commons Help section offering instructions about image manipulation, introducing the plugin here and in the next section.

Windows Update not working, error 0x8DDD0018

This can happen with Windows XP (Service Pack 3), but may not be ruled out for Vista and 7.

Windows Update error 0x8DDD0018, by which the Microsoft Update website now very helpfully explains that one or more of these services are not running:
* Automatic Updates
* Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS);
* Event Log

Even if all these services are running, and Windows Update refuses to run, then the culprit is the Windows Installer service not being active.

Run services.msc and then start Windows Installer. Refresh the Windows Update website. #worksforme

ID-kaardi tarkvara seadistamine modernses SeaMonkey lehitsejas

Modernse SeaMonkey lehitseja (näiteks versioon 2.6 ja uuemad) ning ID-kaardi tarkvara töölesaamine on omaette teema, mille kohta ma leidsin, et see vajaks eraldi käsitlust, sest kõik kohe tööle ei hakka. (Nimelt ID-kaardi tarkvara installer end SeaMonkey jaoks õieti ei seadistagi, seega osa asju tuleb käsitsi teha.)

Üldised tingimused, millega kogu krempel tööle õnnestus saada:
* Windows XP (SP2 või uuem; näiteks). Opsüsteemide suhtes tuleks olla siiski suhteliselt agnostiline;
* SeaMonkey 2.6 (ingliskeelne) — on tõepoolest vanem versioon, aga mitte nii vana kui 1.1.xx), seega SeaMonkey 2.xx;
* Oletame, et NoScript ei ole Firefoxis või SeaMonkey-s peal. (ID-kaardi ja NoScriptiga on veel täiendavalt igast jama.)

Nüüd.. eeltingimused peaksid olema sellised:

* ID-kaardi lugeja draiver peab olema installitud; soovitatavalt kõige uuem, mis vastavale opsüsteemile valmis tehtud;
* ID-kaardi tarkvara peab olema kõige uuem, juba peale installitud ning peaks näiteks Firefoxil töötama. Firefoxist veidi allpool, isegi kui tegemist ei ole kasutaja vaikimisi lehitsejaga.

Kuigi ametlikult on toetatud Mozilla Firefox, siis oletatavasti installib ID-kaardi tarkvara kaasaegne versioon EstEID Firefoxi plugina sellegipoolest Windowsi opsüsteemis pluginate üldisesse kataloogi. Sealtsamast kataloogist leiavad Gecko-põhised lehitsejad kõik pluginad automaatselt üles.

Tulemuseks peaks SeaMonkey' pluginate nimekirjas olema

EstEID Firefox Plug-in 3.7.1.1009

Kui see on olemas, siis on pool tööd juba tehtud.

Kui EstEID pluginat SeaMonkey pluginate nimekirjas pole, aga Firefoxis on, siis SeaMonkey-s peaks minema aadressiribal asukohale about:plugins — See peaks panema SeaMonkey ning teised Gecko-põhised lehitsejad otsima üles kõik olemasolevad ja võimalikud pluginad, mis opsüsteem pakub.

Siit edasi tulevad toimingud, mida Firefoxile tehakse automaatselt, aga mis SeaMonkey-s tuleb "käsitsi" teha:

• Laadida PIN-koodi küsimise moodul turvaseadete hulka:
  Edit > Preferences > Privacy & Security > Certificates > Manage Security Devices nupp:
  Device Manager akna vasakpoolses Security Modules and Devices nimekirjas peaks olema

  Estonian ID Card
 Virtual hotplug slot
 OMNIKEY CardMan 1021
  antud kaardilugeja mudel ^ on Eestis üks levinumaid, aga võib olla ka mõni teine.

  Kui seda pole (milles võib SeaMonkey puhul suhtkoht kindel olla), siis
  * vajutada vasakult nupule Load ja
  * uues aknakeses pealkirjaga Load PKCS#11 Device sisestada
  * Module Name: väljale
  Estonian ID Card
  * Module filename puhul ma annan praegu ette mooduli asukoha, mille leidsin Firefoxist:
  C:\WINDOWS\system32\onepin-opensc-pkcs11.dll
  Selle rea võib sinna nii asetada või kasutada Browse nuppu ja leida moodul failikorjajaga niimoodi üles ja sisestada. Vajutada OK. Device Manager aknas peaks uus moodul nähtav olema ning vajutada OK. Preferences aknas vajutada OK. Teha SeaMonkey-le restart.
• Edasi tuleb panna SeaMonkey-le kõik Sertifitseerimiskeskuse sertifikaadid. Need on saadavad siit:
  https://www.sk.ee/Repositoorium/SK-sertifikaadid/juursertifikaadid
  Põhimõtteliselt tuleks näiteks tirida sertifikaatide PEM-lingid uuele vahekaardile ja lubada igaühele autentimine vähemalt veebisaitidele [teine ja kolmas linnuke on vastavalt e-postile (e-mail) ja arendajatele (developers)]. Iga sertifikaadi puhul vajutada OK. Mõnedel juhtudel on osad sertifikaadid juba installitud ja SeaMonkey annab sellest lühikese teatega väikeses aknakeses teada. Teha lehitsejale restart.

Põhimõtteliselt peaks asi nüüd töötama.
Et järele vaadata, kas seadistus töötab, minna aadressile
https://digidoc.sk.ee
ja siseneda ID-kaardiga.

Täiendavad seaded:
Preferences > Privacy & Security > Validation —
Aktiivsed peaksid olema järgmised seaded:
[\/] Use the Online Certificate Status Protocol (OCSP) to confirm the current validity of certificates;
(*) Validate a certificate if it specifies an OCSP server.
Need seaded ^ peaksid olema vaikimisi sees, aga igaks juhuks tuleks üle kontrollida.

Mobiilinternet Samsungi telefoniga

Niisiis midagi ka eesti keeles, kuna tegemist on Eesti-põhise teenuse kasutamisega.

Eesmärk on ühendada arvuti mobiil-Internetti läbi vanema Samsungi telefoni, mis ei ole Android.

Mobiiliks on Samsung SGH-D830.
Töötavaid juhendeid sellise telefoniga ühendumiseks ei leidnud, seega tuli kirjutada ise midagi.

Antud telefon on umbes seitse aastat vana. Selle kõige kiirem ühenduvus ulatub vaid EDGE/GPRS standardini, mis on siis 2.75G — võrdluseks: 2013. aastal on levinuim "kiire" ühendusstandard 3.5G, ning juurutamisel on 4G.

Aparaat toetab lisaks Bluetoothi, mis on kasulik siis, kui Samsungi enda USB-juhet ei ole käepärast (teised USB juhtmed ei kõlba, sest telefonipoolne ots on omanduslik).

Niisama Windowsis sissehelistamisabimehega (Wizard) ühendust luues saatis mind ebaedu ning tuli välja, et seda tuleb teha Samsung PC Studio abil.

Esialgu juhendid USB-juhtmega ühenduvuse kohta, kunagi hiljem Bluetoothi kohta (suurt vahet ei tohiks siiski olla).

Eeltingimused: Windowsi opsüsteem, Samsung PC Studio 3 programmikomplekti olemasolu (mul oli versioon 3.2.3 IE2 (2009), ning see tahab Windows 2000 või uuemat, kuid väidetavalt toetab see ka Windows 98-t) ja vastava telefoni draiverid. Need on saadaval Samsungi kodulehe tõmbamiskeskusest. Proov oli tehtud Windows XP SP2 ja SP3-ga.

Windowsis peavad olema sisse lülitatud näiteks Telephony ja Remote Access Connection Manager teenused. Remote Access Auto Connection Manager vist ei pea sees olema (Started), aga see ei tohi olla välja lülitatud (Disabled).

Bluetooth ühenduse jaoks peab arvutis olema sisemine adapter või olema ühendatud Bluetooh USB-adapter (pulk vmt), telefon ja arvuti peavad olema omavahel paaris (i.k. paired).

Tarvis oleks eelnevalt oma numbrile tellida vajalik mobiil-Interneti pakett või piisavalt kõneaega. Minu puhul oli teenusepakkuja EMT. Simpeli omanikud saavad laadida korraga 10 või 15€ ja saada piisaval määral andmemahtu (kunagi olla Simpelil olnud ka mobiil-Interneti päevapiletid).

Juhend ühenduse loomiseks

	USB-juhtmega	Bluetoothiga
1.	Ühenda oma telefon arvutiga	Bluetooth peab telefonis ja arvutis olema sisse lülitatud. Telefonis käib see eestikeelse kasutajaliidesega nii: Menüü > (9) Seaded > (7) Bluetooth > (1) Aktiveerimine > (•) Sees Bluetooth on võimalik lisada ka telefoni kiirmenüüsse, kuid aktiveerimine võib võtta peaaegu sama nupuvajutuste arvu kui tavamenüü kaudu aktiveerimine.
2.	Ava Samsung PC Studio. Eeldatud on programmi ingliskeelse versiooni kasutamine. PC Studio olekuriba peaks enam-vähem automaatselt näitama, kas telefon on ühendatud (ilmub mobiili mudelinumber).
		Kui ei ole, siis PC Studio 3 menüüs vali File > Connection... • Uues aknas kliki Bluetooth ikoonile, mis peab olema sinist värvi, mis näitab, et Bluetooth on aktiivne. • vajuta Connect. • Kui akna olekuribale tekib kiri <mudelinumber> connected — vajuta OK
3.	Ava "Networking Wizard"
4.	PC Studio Networking Wizard abimehe tervitusaken, vajuta "Next"
5.	Ühenduse loomine: uue jaoks vali "Create" raadionupp, vajuta "Next"
6.	Ühenduse nimi (Connection Name): Sisesta tekstiväljale oma ühenduse nimi, esialgu (teiste puudumisel) näiteks EMT Internet vajuta "Next"
7.	Modemi valik:
	SAMSUNG Mobile USB Modem	Bluetooth Modem
	Vajuta "Next"
8.	Riik (Country) ja teenusepakkuja (Network Provider): Antud versioonis Eestit pole, aga riik tuleb ikka valida; seega "[Other]" ja teenusepakkuja on seejärel automaatselt samuti "[Other]". APN name: internet.emt.ee Phone number: *99# See on siis väli sissehelistamisnumbri lisamiseks. Kasutajanimi ja parool jäävad tühjaks (EMT seaded) "Advanced" nupp on DNS serverite seadistamiseks. Sinna minema ei pea, kui teenusepakkuja DNS serverite nimesid oma dokumentatsioonis ei täpsustanud. Sellisel juhul on DNS-seaded on automaatsed (AFAIK). Vajuta "Next"
8.1	Tuleb sisestatud info kohta ülevaade (Summary). Vajuta "Next"
9.	Järgmises aknas on linnuke "Connect to the Internet directly" järel. Et siis kohe ühendumiseks. Vajuta "Finish". Linnukese võib ära võtta ja ühenduda hiljem, sest peale "Finish"-nupu vajutamist on Samsungi-põhine "EMT Internet" otsetee loodud Windowsi töölauale ning samuti otsetee Windowsi Network Connections kaustas. Viimasele saab ligi ka Start > Connect To > "EMT Internet" ja edaspidi otsustasin seda kasutada.
10.	Ette tuleb võrguabimehe teatis, kus on kirjas, et kui telefoniga ühenduda, siis PC Studio enda ühendus telefoniga katkeb ja selle kaudu andmete ülekanne tuleb vajadusel samuti katkestada. Sama dialoogiaken küsib veel kord, kas kasutaja soovib ühenduda Internetiga (valitud ühendusega).
11.	Vastates jah (OK või Yes), tuleb Windowsi enda sissehelistamisaken pealkirjaga Connect to <sinu mobiilinterneti nimi> — kus kasutajanime ja parooli väljad jäävad tühjaks. Kui väljad ei ole tühjad, tuleb nad tühjaks teha, sest EMT tavajuhistes ei ole sätestatud, et seal peavad andmed kirjas olema Erandina peavad kasutajanimi ja parool olema kirjas siis, kui teenusespakkuja juhistes on need kindlalt sätestatud. • Lisaks on võimalik (tühjad) kasutajanimi ja parool salvestada, kas siis ainult endale ("Me only") või kõigile, kes seda arvutit kasutavad ("Anyone who uses this computer"). • Vajutada tuleb vaid "Dial".

Nii ja põhimõtteliselt peaks ühendus valmis olema ja tegumiriba teavitusalal (kellast vasakule poole jäävad ikoonid) tekib loodus ühenduse kohta oma ikoonike ja teavitus. Tähtis: Kui mobiil-Interneti ühendust rohkem ei kasutata, tuleb sellele ikoonile parema nupuga klikkida ja valida "Disconnect" (see on oluline, et ei tekiks arveid).

Peaks mainima, et telefonis oli sarnane ühendususprofiil juba valmis, seega ma ei tea, kas telefonisisesest seadistusest sõltub ka midagi või mitte.

Tuleb tähele panna, et niisuguse telefoniga ühendus kiire olema ei saa; küll on võimalik oma e-posti kontrollida ja veebis surfata. Lisaks piiratud mahuga ühenduste puhul (väike pakett vms) ei tasu näiteks teha videokõnesid, tõmmata filme ja muusikat (YouTube, Spotify jne), säärased programmid tuleb enne ühendumist kõik välja lülitada.

Eelistatuim on kasutada näiteks Firefox lehitsejat koos NoScript, Flashblock ja võib-olla isegi ka Adblock Plus lisadega. Need kõik peavad olema muul kasutamise ajal "välja treenitud", et vajalikud saidid töötaksid ja mittevajalike reklaamid, skriptid ja Flash-pluginad oleksid vaikimisi blokeeritud.

Lynx: Associating filetypes with a program in Windows

After a few hours of trying and failing in lynx.cfg and searching the Internet, I found a reasonably good collection of ideas (kudos to Kenneth Kwok), which served me with inspiration for a working solution.

• The version of Lynx is 2.8.7rel1, unfortunately it doesn't support SSL (gonna work on getting Lynx with that some day...).

N., 15.09.2011. update: A fully functional and SSL-enabled, albeit an older, 2.8.5rel1, version of the browser is available at Claudio Santambrogio's (csant) website (beware that export and other restrictions may still apply to the downloader's country).

As I needed an SSL-based browser, then out of curiosity I started comparing both Lynx browsers' config files and to my great delight found that csant's external app configuration was more elegant than my previous discovery. Jump to a description of how to implement the better solution.

And yes, the options inspired by Kenneth Kwok are still valid, but there are now less scenarios to use them.

• The operating system is Windows xp SP3, other Windows operating systems may also apply, but exact instructions on how to change environment variables were gleaned from this version of Windows.

Unlike in the linked article, it turned out that I didn't need to use a .mailcap file to associate a helper app.

The interesting part is that Windows Lynx (still) requires batch files to send requests for an external application and a path to them must be set as a global or user environment variable.

• Create a folder that will hold batch files. I created one in
  

  C:\Program Files\Lynx\Batches

• Create an environment variable pointing to that path:
  
  In My Computer/System Properties > go to Advanced tab > click "Environment Variables" button > in the relevant window's "System variables" section > scroll down to Path, select it, click the Edit button;
  
  In the path editing window, the Path string is long, but you can add a semicolon to the end of the string (if it's missing), then right after the semicolon add
  
  C:\Program Files\Lynx\Batches
  
  and that's it. (No additional semicolon required.)
  
  Click OK to close the window, click OK in Environment Variables window — This will save and update the path in Windows xp (maybe 2000, too) or newer; click OK for System Properties window.
  
  You won't need to restart unless it's a Windows 9x OS, for which you'd need to edit autoexec.bat, enter a short-form path à la C:\PROGRA~1\Lynx\Batches and restart the system for changes to take effect.
  
• Now, in the C:\Program Files\Lynx\Batches folder itself, assuming you only want an image viewer program to be associated, create paint.bat, edit it as follows:

  @ECHO OFF
  C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\Mspaint.exe %1

  ^ In addition, you may wish to add %2 %3 %n — if you know that there may be more arguments passed from Lynx, but there's usually one.

  Save the batch file.
• In lynx.cfg (opened either via WordPad or Notepad2 or something that supports both CR & LF newlines), go to a certain place in the file by searching for the image/png pattern. There, you will see which MIME types you must activate for each filetype suffix.
  
  I uncommented (deleted a hash # from the start of the line) all that were web images, such as those concerning .png, .gif, .jpg and .jpeg.
• Then in lynx.cfg, go to part of the file using the VIEWER: search pattern. There, you will see a list of program commands associated with a particular MIME-type (they are short by default, because they're typically UNIX-specific).
  

  N., 15.09.2011.:
  Uncomment, or rather, copy, paste, and uncomment those for image formats, and modify the commands to look like this:
  

  VIEWER:image/gif:start mspaint %s
  VIEWER:image/png:start mspaint %s
  VIEWER:image/jpeg:start mspaint %s
  VIEWER:image/tiff:start gimp-2.6.exe %s #special case

  • The superb catch ^ is where one must use the start command to invoke a program that's located in the Windows Path environment variable.
  • mspaint is the command-line name of the Windows Paint program, which is located in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 and that address is typically set as one of the locations in the Path environment variable.
  • gimp-2.6.exe is a different case, where I separately had to include C:\Program Files\GIMP-2.0\bin in the Path environment variable to make it launch, as for some reason it was impossible to use the full program path in the Lynx config file.

  Uncomment, or rather, copy, paste, and uncomment those for image formats, and modify the commands to look like this:
  

  VIEWER:image/gif:paint.bat %s&:NON_XWINDOWS
  VIEWER:image/png:paint.bat %s&:NON_XWINDOWS
  VIEWER:image/tiff:gimp.bat %s&:NON_XWINDOWS
  VIEWER:image/jpeg:paint.bat %s&:NON_XWINDOWS

  • Up here ^, add paint.bat right after a colon that follows the mimetype;
  • %s is the wildcard for the filename to be entered;
  • The ampersand & is there to leave the program in the background. It can be there in Windows, but it's useful in Unix-like systems.
  • :NON_XWINDOWS [sic] basically specifies that the targetted application is not an X Window System program and this option can be there, too. In Windows it may mean that the batch program is not exactly a graphical program either.

• Save the configuration file and I think you should be done.
  Launch Lynx, go to a page with an image file, then on it, press Enter/Return or the left key to activate.

Similar steps can be made for other filetypes and MIME-types (which can be added, btw, since the list in lynx.cfg is non-exhaustive) and you can add programs different than Paint for other filetypes. Above, I have setup a batch file to run The GIMP for the TIFF filetype.

Somehow installing, configuring, and using NoScript in K-Meleon 1.5 via Wine

I am assuming that you probably already know how to use Wine and know your way around the computer.

The conditions: Knoppix 4.0.2, because it runs passably with 128 Mb of RAM, in a situation where no swap space is available. This version of Knoppix has a really outdated version of Wine, which makes it difficult to use Windows programs there. There may be people stuck with either that version of Knoppix or that old version of Wine. At least this post provides a case study, which I hope could be of some interest.

The only reasonable place I could find NoScript for K-Meleon 1.5.4 is from extensions.geckozone.org/KMES-NoScriptEn. The version is 1.7.8.0 and it's from 17.06.2008 (that's 2 and 3/4 years old as of April 2011).

First off, change installer's .exe file rights for it to be an executable. Like this from the command line:

chmod u+x "K-Ext(1.1-1.5-1.6)_NoScript(1.7.8.0).exe"
^ u = for current user; + = add/enable; x = executing;
The filename is wrapped in double quotes, because it contains parentheses "()".

In my case, the first round of installation didn't work. Later I specified this target install directory:

z:\mnt\hda1\Program Files\K-Meleon
^ can't remember if I specified an upper- or lowercase letter z

and installation worked after that.

K-Meleon should not be running during installation, so run it after installation.

27.04.2011.–: After a relatively quick-and-dirty article which turned out to be far more specific than originally anticipated and still quick-and-dirty, I've updated the following with information which will make K-Meleon slightly easier to use as it is, with what the setup is and all...

When running K-Meleon through Wine in Knoppix 4.0.2 (remember that it's from 2005 and very outdated) and when you're stuck with such a set-up:

• The NoScript button menu can be used with a mouse by right-clicking on the NoScript button and holding the pointer device button down and dragging the cursor to the necessary command (shortcut menus will otherwise turn off after right-clicking on an item and hovering a mouse cursor over its menu; I've seen this in TWM, don't know how it works in other window managers).
  Other ways:
  • Click on the NoScript button, then use menu hotkeys (underlined) to perform a function;
  • or consider dragging the pointer through the NoScript menu via the main Tools menu.
• Saving configuration changes in the NoScript Options window does not work, because it's impossible to save settings by clicking the OK button, but you can otherwise close the window (saving options may work with newer versions of Wine; haven't tried this myself).
  Workarounds:
  
  • Configuring NoScript is possible only at about:config for settings (use the noscript text pattern in the about:config search bar to get NoScript-specific settings);
  • ^ Consider removing some default domains there from the noscript.default string;
• Worse, the NoScript menu in K-Meleon (at least in the given configuration and set-up) won't show domain names in its menu (Shock! Horror!).
  • Now, the whitelist, which is not shown in about:blank, is only configurable in prefs.js at the local K-Meleon profile folder on the hard drive (from where K-Meleon is run). If you don't know what the prefs.js location of the current profile is, open Preferences, go to "Privacy & Security" preference category, click on the Cache tab and see the "Cache Folder:" entry, which shows the location of the current profile folder.
    An example location is here:
    

    "/mnt/hda1/Program Files/K-Meleon/Profiles/g1bb3r1sh.default"

    So, edit the prefs.js file with a text editor at this line:
     
    user_pref("capability.policy.maonoscript.sites","place.doma.in nam.es here.com in.alphabetic.al ord.er.com ea.ch doma.in na.me separated.wi.th a.space.com and.do not.break.the.li.ne");
     
    Make sure just in case that K-Meleon is not running when editing the file, because if you've saved the file and then exit K-Meleon, then K-Meleon is highly likely to overwrite your changes.
    13.09.2011.

    Given that I had been using K-Meleon like that for a longer while, I created a menu item in the TWM window manager, where I could directly open the prefs.js file from the menu.
  • Alternately, adding sites to whitelists works from the menu (see above), but since the above configuration does not make it possible for the K-Meleon URL bar to function and display addresses, then a user is limited to knowing the site domain and web page address in the following ways:
  • In K-Meleon, the tab bar is typically shown by default, so it should be enough to hover the mouse cursor over a page's tab button: This displays the tool tip, which then shows the site/page title and its partial address.
  • A user might know the site's domain name, if they've entered it themselves (because of limitations, entering a URL goes through editing bookmarks and accessing a bookmark set up for just that).
    A user can specify that only top-level domain names are added, by setting this in NoScript preferences through about:config, only that the whole point of NoScript to me is the fine-grained way in which some subdomains can be whitelisted, so that disruptive ones are duly excluded. Unfortunately, not directly seeing a site's domain name in the URL bar has security implications, including the fact that the non-functioning URL bar doesn't change color when visiting a secure site, though a bottom-right status bar indicator should work. Preferably, only safe sites should be visited. (Avoid clicking e-mail links, if you know they're dubious, but this requires at least some user education and this is where NoScript is useful. There is nevertheless a greater amount of security in running K-Meleon equipped with NoScript, no matter how limited it is, through Wine in Linux than in Windows 9x);
  • Some necessary domain names pulled by a page from (a) differently-named domain/s to fetch scripts and/or stylesheets across sites and subdomains are not displayed anyway (not even in the NoScript menu), so there is no direct way of learning which other domains must be allowed for scripting.
  • Consider disabling NoScript for the duration of the session, if you're using a service which requires logging in and if it's been impossible to learn what are the exact outside domains with necessary scripts.
  • The third option is to import domain names from other NoScript settings in other prefs.js files. This actually works. But what if using a new service that users a non-primary domain name for scripting? Or what if an existing service sometimes changes its subdomains?

Free Software alternatives to Trajan Pro

With the image and font table well below I have tried to find out free small caps and fallback font alternatives to Trajan Pro, a very popular Roman-style font known for its style and legibility. With free, I have in mind the context of free software, so free as in freedom.

The reason for this was that I was fixing the design of a simple website and its original designer had specified Trajan Pro as the font for the site's menu text, only that Trajan Pro is proprietary and non-free, which means that not everyone has it and I had to find out the necessary fallback fonts.

A fallback font means that I specify multiple fonts in the font-family CSS property: If a web browser can't find the first font, it shows text in the next specified font or uses the browser default.

I recently discovered that a similar trick can be used in OpenOffice.org documents, where I'd specify two or more fonts and separate them with a comma. OO.o also has the means to set fallback and replacement fonts in its options.

Requirements for matching fonts:

• Roman typeface.
• Must have small caps, just as Trajan Pro does /capital letters should then be bigger;
• Must look good and legible in bold weight (this was the site requirement) at default size (12pt/16px) and I only chose ones that looked good enough;
• Must contain the ü character /implies that other Latin-extended characters are also contained.

N., 06.09.2012 update:

A large number of primary fonts are already 'Roman' or like by their looks, and nowadays' CSS conventions should allow transforming text into uppercase with a favoured font. Alas, there are sites that are likely to use Trajan Pro, and so there need to be fallback fonts that are similar.

Process:

I found most of the interesting fonts from fonts.debian.net (one large page contains several hundred images of font examples, so beware), an otherwise fabulous resource for all who want to seek free software fonts.

As I was seeking only small caps fonts, I only downloaded these.

In the process it occurred that that some of those fonts wouldn't show properly, because space marks were visible. Since fonts.debian.net shows fonts with all their subsets, I made a half-educated guess that some of the small caps fonts I downloaded were also subsets, which therefore didn't require to have spacemarks in them, because any rendering software would fall back to the main/primary font for symbols that were not used in the subset. Another reason for visible spacemarks might be that the fonts that I got from the above site were not compiled for Windows, but Linux and Unix in a wider sense, so this could also be the reason.

As it turned out some of those fonts displayed on fonts.debian.net were indeed subsets of TeX fonts, which are listed here (if not with the same extensions, like ttf, then still with the same filenames), so skimming over that list should help in distinguishing the fonts that should not be downloaded in the first place, unless you know exactly what you want. The fallback system in TeX is called Metafont, so spaces are probably there, too.

Furthermore, when creating the table, it turned out that the text had to look good both in high contrast (black on white) and in lighter incarnations. I haven't put that yet as a requirement.

Result:

The following is a quick-and-dirty preliminary report, as I have yet to do more research on small caps fonts on the subject.

The fonts I included in the table are only those that passed the requirements, well, somehow:
• Whether any example resembles the cut-into-stone effect of Trajan, is debatable, at least they're Roman;
• They must be reasonably light even when in boldface;
• The winners' most common denominator is that their small caps really are what they say they are, unlike with Trajan, where actual capitals are only slightly larger, which makes the alternatives metric-wise imperfect.

Fonts in the results image and table are in medium size, which defers to the browser and operating system default (typically 12pt). Since even small caps are small, then any smaller-sized text with some of these fonts is very likely to be less legible.

In the image, I've avoided using the actual Trajan Pro font, which is non-free, and resorted to using contours of the text that use it. In a table below the image, the Trajan Pro row text is formatted in that font, but the font is displayed only when a client computer actually has it (otherwise the browser will defer to the blog's default body text font). To fully comply, I've formatted the heading row with the Liberation Sans font (with fallbacks to Helvetica, Helv, sans-serif).

Results table Font name	Test word	Notes	Overall mark
Trajan Pro	Külalisteraamat	Reference
Romande ADF Style Std	Külalisteraamat		++++
LMRoman10-Caps	Külalisteraamat	Slightly fatter	+++
Berenis ADF No2 Style	Külalisteraamat	Legible, but small caps are small...	++
The below fonts are fallback fonts with small caps. Conga might be a non-free font, although it's been included in a version of Knoppix.
Conga	Külalisteraamat	Knoppix 4.0.2, fallback
Copperplate Gothic Light	Külalisteraamat	Windows, fallback
Castellar	Külaliste­raamat	Windows, 2nd choice fallback /note that "lower-case" capitals are level with "upper-case" capitals
Felix Titling	Külalisteraamat
Perpetua Titling MT	Külalisteraamat
The below fonts, while having "small" caps, were found in Windows, but they don't qualify because of various visual aberrations.
Copperplate Gothic Bold	Külalisteraamat	Windows, fallback /Ugly when bold, but small caps are smaller
Engravers MT	Külaliste­raamat	Windows /Too large
Algerian	Külalisteraamat	Windows /Too ugly

I intend this post to be a work in progress of sorts, so I hope to make further updates.

N., 06.09.2012. update:

Fonts with small caps that didn't make the cut:

• Aegean /incomplete
• Akkadian /incomplete
• Analecta

Computer Modern Roman Regular Small Caps / CM Roman /ugly
TeX Palladio L Small Caps & Old Style Figures / TeX Palladio L

• Irianis ADF Style Standard Regular / Irianis ADF Style Std
• Linux Libertine O Capitals / Linux Libertine O C

---

Text about Free software alternatives to Segoe UI was moved to a separate post.

Fun about Windows

The Guardian's Charlie Brooker:

“Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it.”

Source: Microsoft's grinning robots or the Brotherhood of the Mac. Which is worse?

Ctrl+V, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X disabled, but Shift+Del/Ins & Ctrl+F not?

As the title suggests, it was one day impossible to cut, copy and paste in Windows XP across apps using Ctrl+X, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V and to use left-Ctrl+PgUp/PgDn to move around tabs in SeaMonkey. Shift+Del, Ctrl+Ins and Shift+Ins worked, so did Ctrl+F, Ctrl+Q and a few other keyboard shortcuts.

The keyboard was Logitech Internet Pro Keyboard (iTouch Pro or somesuch).

I did do my standard run through tech forums (even a keyboard driver change) and scans with software (Spybot Search & Destroy didn't find anything). MBAM found a few things, I deleted them (the scan log of this well below).

LATER it turned out that the non-standard www button on the keyboard was STUCK. I had it moved to normal position and then using the Ctrl+... keys worked like a charm, even after a restart. Trouble was that I failed to test if the Ctrl+ keys also worked after the MBAM scan and correction.

* Some text is in Estonian.

---

Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware 1.46
www.malwarebytes.org

Andmebaasi versioon: 4387

Windows 5.1.2600 Service Pack 3
Internet Explorer 8.0.6001.18702

4.08.2010 10:19:46
mbam-log-2010-08-04 (10-19-46).txt

Kontrolli tüüp: Kiirkontroll
Kontrollitud objekte: 180205
Kulunud aeg: 9 minut(id), 31 sekund(id)

Nakatunud mälu objekte: 0
Nakatunud mälu mooduleid: 0
Nakatunud registrivõtmeid: 1
Nakatunud registri väärtusi: 1
Nakatunud registriandmeid: 0
Nakatunud kaustu: 2
Nakatunud faile: 0

Nakatunud mälu objekte:
(Pahavara ei tuvastatud)

Nakatunud mälu mooduleid:
(Pahavara ei tuvastatud)

Nakatunud registrivõtmeid:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Ext\Stats\{faad2038-c371-473d-86f1-5b11d39c3775} (Rogue.Multiple) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.

Nakatunud registri väärtusi:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Network\uid (Malware.Trace) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.

Nakatunud registriandmeid:
(Pahavara ei tuvastatud)

Nakatunud kaustu:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\SalesMonitor (Rogue.Multiple) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\SalesMonitor\Data (Rogue.Multiple) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.

Nakatunud faile:
(Pahavara ei tuvastatud)

RegCure

Avastasin ühe sugulase arvutist programmi nimega RegCure, justkui oleks tarvis arvutis Windowsi registrit puhastada.

Ehkki Windowsi register on andmebaas, mille heaolust sõltub ka antud opsüsteemi töö, ei ole Windowsi aeglus alati tingitud sellest, et selle registri justkui mingid vead oleksid aegluses süüdi. Tihti põhjustab pikaldust mõni halvasti seatud või kirjutatud riistvara-draiver.

Et adekvaatset infot RegCure kohta on väga raske otsimootoritega leida, tuli mul seda tikutulega otsida.

Siin on siis vähe tasakaalukamat infot programmi kohta:
Complaints Board sait (inglise keeles, vt. kommentaarid)

Kuidas RegCure nimi liigagi tihti otsimootorites esineb (inglise keeles):
How to "Fix" Advertising Keywords

Peale selle soovib RegCure registreerimist, kus lehitsejas tuleb lahti programmi veebisait, mis küsib ees- ja perekonnanime ja e-posti aadressi.

Etem on tõmmata tasuta programm hea reputatsiooniga arendajalt. Kodusel tavakasutajal on hea renomeega arendaja äratundmisel tavaliselt raskusi, seega parim ressurss on Wikipedia (enamasti ingliskeelne, sest seal on kõige parem info).

Kiiruga leidsin CCleaner programmi, millega kohta on ka Wikipedia artikkel inglise keeles.

Kes Windowsi registri puhastamise tagamaadest inglise keeles rohkem lugeda soovib, saab seda siit.

Microsofti toodetest on olemas

• Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool (Windowsi pahatahtliku tarkvara eemaldamise tööriist),
• Windows Defender, mis on edestatud
• Microsoft Security Essentials poolt. Viimast lubab litsents kasutada kodus ning ärilistel eesmärkidel vaid kodukontoris — seega välistatud on organisatsioonid ja nende kontorid.

Kõigele lisaks veel hea antiviirus/-nuhkvara ja tulemüür.

Quick: Windows Vista, XP and 4 Gb of RAM and performance

Best explanations:
http://makfu.wordpress.com/2007/08/09/okay-one-more-time/

More here:
4sysops.com: Why Windows Vista only sees 3Gb [of] memory in a PC with 4Gb [of] RAM and how [Windows] Vista SP1 fools its users

What to tweak and what not to tweak on Windows XP/Vista:
Lifehacker: Debunking common Windows performance tweaking myths

Uus värdsõna

Uus sõnavärd: "Windowsi õelvara eemaldamise tööriist - September 2008" (KB890830)"

Termini kasutus Microsofti abi ühel eestikeelsel leheküljel.

Täiendus: Sami blogis on veel sõnu.

Showing exe files' extensions in Windows

Regedit HKCR\exefile, add new string AlwaysShowExt.

The same applies to other filetype descriptions, like exefile, some of which might be more elaborate than that.

Restart.