The View From the Outback© 2000 Richard C. Rhodes
A great deal of what we read in newspapers, magazines, and books, and what we see in the movies and on TV is written and produced in New York City or Los Angeles. Much of the "political wisdom" comes from the PR machines of the White House, the Congress, and from the Washington media corps. In short, one might conclude that all knowledge, wisdom, and wit are confined to those who inhabit New York City, Washington DC, or Hollywood. I am now a senior citizen. My experience was gained in many cities in the U.S. and in about 30 foreign countries. That experience has included the U.S. Marines, law school, the ATF, the CIA, Fortune 500 executive, writer, public speaker, educator, editor, and publisher - for openers. For over 20 years, I have written articles off and on for various magazines and newspapers. I've had an enormous number of letters published in major national publications. The Outback is the rural area in Northeast Texas where I have lived for the past 13 years. Every couple of weeks I will attempt to post a new set of musings from the Outback. Click on a Topic to go directly to that topic.
In England, Tinker the cat inherited a $560,000 house and a $160,000 trust fund. When the cat
dies, the estate passes to former neighbors who are charged with feeding and caring for the cat.
Tinker should hire both a food taster and a bodyguard. For decades, I have been hounding the media about their poor reporting on gun crime, in particular the description of weapons used in crimes. The shooter at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland was variously reported in several major media outlets as carrying "a machine gun," "machine gun and a 9mm pistol," "high-powered rifle," "two pistols," and "two semi-automatic pistols." An AP report for May 10 described the weapon(s) as "a high-powered rifle." The most recent AP report I read describes the weapons as a Cobray pistol and a Ruger pistol. The Cobray is likely a Cobray M11/9, a 9mm "assault pistol," which has been supplied in the past with ammo magazines that can hold up to 32 rounds. It is a semiautomatic weapon, but there were "full auto conversion kits" illegally on the market. For now, I will assume that the gun is a Cobray semiautomatic weapon and that the Ruger pistol is probably a semiautomatic 9mm model that holds a 10-round magazine. My real beef is that the first reports contained the words "machine gun." Apparently, a security guard passed that on. There is a small chance that the Cobray used is actually fully-automatic, in which case it would be a sub-machinegun. The words "machine gun" are inflammatory, and the media loves to use them to scare the hell out of people and get them on the gun-control bandwagon. All fully-automatic weapons have been regulated by the Treasury since the days of Al Capone. A true machine gun is, for example, that big .50 caliber monster sitting atop military armored vehicles. Until they actually get a police report, photos, and detailed descriptions of guns used in crimes, the media might just try using the word "gun" or "guns." Most of the time, their first reports are wrong! In the Outback for April 23, 2003, I mentioned that I thought Tariq Aziz, the deputy foreign minister in Iraq, might have been "our man in Baghdad." After his surrender, a British paper reported that there were negotiations underway to provide Tariq asylum in a royal castle in England, give him a new identity, and a pension - in exchange for "cooperating with coalition interrogators." That "news" vanished and I neglected to download the Web page. Maybe that newspaper Web page was a phony, the result of hackers. Who knows? Still, it is all very interesting. You know that the stock market is in trouble when a mutual fund company (Lord Abbett All
Value Fund) ran a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal in which they touted their return of
8.41% since the fund’s inception in 1996, versus only a 5.90 % return for the S&P 500. Sounds
pretty good. But, in the past year, the Abbett fund was down -24.65% , versus -24.75 % for the
S&P 500. That’s something to brag about? The 5-year return for Abbett was 0.58 %, versus -3.76
% for the S&P 500. A bank CD might only pay around 2 %, but is that not better than losing 24 % or making only
0.58 %? There are some mutual funds that have done well in recent months, but a huge fund like
the Vanguard 500 Index;Inv, which gained +8.25 % in April was down - 13.33 % in the past 12
months. An Iraqi woman, who was educated in the U.S., has been captured in Iraq. Known as “Mrs.
Anthrax,” Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash earned a master’s degree in microbiology from Texas
Woman’s University in Denton, Texas, which is just west of me here in the Outback. She also
got a Ph.D. from a university in Missouri. I hope all the bad things that everyone is saying about
her are not true. I would like to ask her if she would consider going into exile here in the
Outback, as I have a weakness for intelligent, dark-haired, dark-eyed and dark-skinned woman.
The fact is that my ex-wife is half Lebanese and has a master’s degree in biology. So, this is not
much of a stretch for me. Unfortunately, Huda is probably all the evil things people are claiming. During WW II, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was known as the “Desert Fox.” I
nominate Huda Ammash as the new “Desert Fox.” Mark Wednesday evening on your PDA, as that is the day that both Microsoft and Symantec post
updates. Symantec sometimes posts more than once a week if there is a hot new virus out there. Recently, I bought a FAX machine from the famous Japanese company PANASONIC. The FAX
machine was made in CHINA. The shipping carton was made by YUEN FUNG YU PAPERS
Co. Ltd. GUANGZHOU, CHINA. The “starter” film roll is good for only about 30 pages. So,
with the rebate, you can buy a standard-size copy-film roll and maybe a Happy Meal. 7-Eleven is introducing a private-label beer called “Santiago.” It is brewed in El Salvador and is
designed to compete with “Corona” from Mexico. Over the years, I drank some great foreign
beers in my travels, Becks, Lowenbrau and most of the German name brands, Stella Artois from
Belgium, Foster’s from Australia, Kirin and Asahi from Japan, Heineken from Holland, Peroni
from Italy, Guinness from England, Molson from Canada, Corona from Mexico, Tuborg from
Denmark, TsingTao from China, and so on. The name El Salvador never came up in discussing
beer. Good luck to 7-Eleven. Maybe the El Salvador plant is staffed by Belgian brewmasters,
because the truth is that as late as 1998 Belgians drank more beer per-capita than any other
people, including the Germans. I was corrupted by the Belgium intelligence service, sitting at a
sidewalk café at 10 in the morning, drinking a cool Stella Artois. Shameful. Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Charles Schumer, both from New York, are feuding. Oh, goodie.
Mud wrestling. There is no room in the Senate for two such monstrous egos from one state.
Hillary is the Judge Judy of the Senate. Chuck Schumer is the Don Rickles of the body. I hope
Schumer destroys Hillary, so that she has no credibility left for a presidential run. If you are looking for a battery backup (UPS) for your computer, I can suggest a very good one.
Recently, I bought an APC XS-1000 UPS. It is rated at 1000VA, has six battery backup/surge
protections outlets, and two outlets just for surge protection. It also has automatic voltage
regulation to smooth out the voltage variations and a USB connection for software that
automatically shuts down your computer in case of a power failure. I use it for battery backup for
my P4 computer and two LCD displays, the USB hard drive, and the USB satellite modem. The
surge outlets protect and power my LaserJet and Inkjet printers. There is also a modem surge
protector for the standard telephone line. It is in a tower configuration with a stand. After I turn
off my computer, I reach under the desk, punch the UPS off button, and that shuts off my monitors, the USB
hard drive and USB modem. Everything I have always wanted in a UPS for about $150. I use a
Tripp-Lite Isobar surge protector for the scanner and 3-way speakers. Story time: When we lived in the Washington, D.C. area, we attended a piano concert by famed
pianist Arthur Rubinstein (1887-1982). The crowd was so large that they put folding chairs on
the stage, very close to the piano. My wife and I were in the near balcony. At intermission, I
noticed that the folding chair closet to the piano remained empty as the crowd filed back in. I
went downstairs, into the wings, and walked confidently to sit in the vacant chair just off the left
end of the keyboard. Rubinstein appeared shortly, took his seat, glanced to his left and I could see the hint of a smile.
“Hello, nice to see you, whoever you are?” he seemed to be saying. Several times as he would
range to the lower octaves, our eyes met during the remainder of the performance. It was the
most incredible experience I ever had in music. As I was studying classical piano at the time,
Rubinstein became my model and my hero. Another story: Ham radio brings together people from all walks of life and from all over the
world. One day in Dallas, I heard a mobile radio operator with a heavy German accent, asking
directions to Southpark. He wanted to see where “Dallas” was filmed. I contacted him and
suggested that we meet, since I had lived in Germany. We met in a Mobil station. I invited him
and his wife to my apartment for tea and cookies. We talked about ham radio. Then, I asked him
what he did for a living. He said that he was retired, but that during WW II he had been in charge
of oil production and distribution for the Third Reich. He quickly added that he was not a Nazi,
just a businessman with skills that were needed. He asked what I had been doing in Germany. I
was with the CIA, I said. We both laughed and poured another cup of tea. Although he invited me to visit in his home in Bavaria, I never made it. Many years later, I heard a German station using his call sign, transmitting from Germany. I discovered that my friend had died and the current operator had been assigned the old call sign. He had never met the original holder of the call sign and knew nothing about him. I said only that we had met in Dallas one
day. It is amazing how Democrats have heaped scorn on the President for the carrier landing and the
great “photo op.” For the record, the prez did not make the landing, he was just sitting in the co-pilot seat. He did say he flew the jet aircraft en route to the carrier, but that is no big deal, since
any low-time pilot could fly a small jet while at altitude. As a young Federal agent in Philly, at about 3 a.m. I slid out from under the car of a Mafia guy
after planting a tracking device, with the car parked on the street in front of the man’s row-home.
My partner said that I had “nerves of steel.” I tell you what nerves of steel are. It is landing a jet
on the deck of a carrier with the President of the United States sitting in the co-pilot seat. I
replayed the landing in Slo-mo over and over. It was no slam dunk. The aircraft barely cleared
the edge of the carrier before touching down and grabbing the hook. And it took guts by the
president to make such a grand entrance. But then, his dad did a parachute jump on/about his
73rd birthday. What really upset Democrats was that the prez looked so natural and heroic in his flying garb (he
is a qualified jet-fighter pilot). And the obvious admiration of those with whom he mingled on
deck. Bill Clinton, who hated the military, simply could not pull off such an event with any
aplomb. He participated in two photo-ops aboard aircraft carriers and was a speaker at the
christening of the carrier U.S.S. Harry S. Truman. The doddering old senile fool, Sen. Robert
Byrd, made no fuss during Clinton’s appearances. I once wrote Hillary and asked her as a
special favor to an ex-Marine if she could convince Bill not to salute the Marine who stood at the
foot of the ladder of the Marine-One helicopter. It was, I told her, an insult to all Marines. I can see it now. President Joe Lieberman parachuting onto the deck of a U.S. Navy destroyer,
breaking both legs, followed by Vice President Carole-Moseley Braun - who misses the deck
and sinks like a rock - never to be seen again. It is interesting how political partisanship can distort logical thinking. People continue to refer to
President Bush as “dumb” or “stupid,” or whatever phrase turns them on. The fact that Bush is a
trained jet-fighter pilot brings up one more counter argument. I have yet to meet a “dumb” person
who graduated from Yale and Harvard, has an M.B.A., and flew jet fighters. Perhaps it requires
more intelligence to fly a jet fighter than it does to graduate from Yale or Harvard. For example,
if you look at the books and charts and skills it takes to fly any aircraft under Instrument Flight
Rules (IFR), there aren’t many dummies in the IFR group. Our crusade against weapons of mass destruction is laudable. But, more attention should be paid
by the public, the Pentagon, the White House, and the Congress to the use by the U.S. military of
weapons that use depleted uranium (DU). I have come late to a recognition of the scope of the problem, which began to make news during
and after Gulf One (Desert Storm). DU (uranium 238) is a very hard substance and helps munitions penetrate armor. Plus, it has an
incendiary quality that causes a shell tipped with DU to literally burn its way through armor. The
results are that no armored vehicle now in use by our enemies can withstand a hit from a DU
round. And my guess is that the incendiary nature of the round often ignites the fuel supply in an
enemy armored vehicle (or a friendly-fire vehicle) - making it a fiery coffin. Nice. Tanks fire DU
rounds from their cannons. The A-10 Warthog attack aircraft has among its weapons a 30mm
gatling gun, which can fire up to 6,000 rounds a minute. Various reports say that the majority of
the 30mm ammo used is tipped with DU. Other U.S. munitions are either known to use DU or
suspected of doing so. One report from the U.S. Army Environmental Policy Institute indicates that in Desert
Shield/Desert Storm, over 940,000 30mm DU-tipped rounds were fired and more than 14,000
large caliber DU rounds were fired. Imagine the number that were fired in the much longer
conflict just concluded in Iraq. And how many must have been fired in Afghanistan. The impact of a DU-tipped round scatters a cloud of radioactive dust over the area. Many
attribute a large part of the “Gulf War Syndrome” sickness to the lingering effects of the DU
radioactive clouds wafting about. The civilian population, of course, is also exposed to the
radioactive dust from the DU rounds. About a dozen countries now have stores of DU ammunition, with France, Russia, Israel, and
Saudi Arabia among them. It is a “dirty secret” of our military and of the various administrations
who actually gave away DU material to our allies - for use in weapons. It sounds like “nuclear
proliferation” to me. If I had a son or daughter in the military ground forces, I would be very uneasy about the possible
effects on them of the lingering radioactive clouds of dust from fired DU rounds. I would be less
than thrilled if my son was a gunner in a tank and sat for days and weeks with DU rounds very
near his head - assurances from the Army notwithstanding. I was aware that hollow-point, or other expanding bullets, are generally forbidden for use in
warfare. Thus, most military light arms ammo is fully jacketed. This dates back to the Hague
Peace Conference of 1899, when “dum-dum” bullets, or others that flatten or expand, were
outlawed. In recent times, the U.S. has relaxed the rules for some situations, like special operations forces
who are targeting terrorists. They often carry a .45 ACP hollow-point bullet in their
semiautomatic pistols. Of course, there are no restrictions on U.S. police and civilians using
hollow-point or expanding bullets. Actually, I carry the same H&K .45 semiautomatic pistol and
230 grain hollow-point bullets as many special-ops personnel. This general prohibition on expanding bullets got me to thinking about how DU rounds, with
horrendous consequences to armor, personnel, and the environment could be “legal” under the
Geneva and Hague conventions, and the Laws of Land Warfare. My search was by no means
exhaustive, but consider these points: Geneva Conventions - Protocol II additions to the Conventions of 12, Aug, 1949 Part III - Methods and means of Warfare ..... Section 1, Article 35 - Basic Rules 2. It is prohibited to employ weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare of a nature
to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering. 3. It is prohibited to employ methods or means of warfare which are intended, or may be
expected, to cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment. The Hague Conventions of 1907 (Article 23, part e) (notes the following prohibition:) To employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause "unnecessary suffering." It seems to me that a strong case can be made that the DU rounds cause “superfluous injury,”
“unnecessary suffering,” and “long-term and severe damage to the natural environment.” How Atomic Weapons can be exempt from the international conventions is a mystery to me, and
I am not now inclined to further research the matter. Of course, gases, chemical and biological
weapons are outlawed. Do a search on the Internet for “depleted uranium.” You will find more than you probably care to
know about the subject. See also: Department of the Army FM-27-10, The Law of Land Warfare. Update May 17, 2003: In the May 15, 2003 Christian Science Monitor, there were two good articles about Depleted Uranium weapons. They have the resources to do a first-rate job of reporting on the subject. Still, I take some satisfaction in that my article was posted five days earlier. The articles are: "Remains of Toxic Bullets Litter Iraq," and "Less DU in this war?" www.csmonitor.com/2003/0515/p01s02-woiq.html www.csmonitor.com/2003/0515/p01s02a-woiq.htm www.csmonitor.com April 15th is now in the rearview mirror. Did you struggle to figure out if your home office
qualified for deductions? Did you get out the plans for the house to see how many square feet
were in your study and how much of a percentage of the electric bill you could then apportion to
that home office, and so on? While the hapless individual taxpayer is nickeled and dimed to
death over business deductions, corporations get a free ride. Build a corporate HQ that looks like one of Saddam’s palaces. No problem. It is deductible. Do
you want original Monet paintings in the office of the CEO? No problem. A business expense.
Need a jet to hit the Bahamas on weekends? No problem. It is deductible. Want to impress your
clients with original Persian rugs in the reception area? No problem. They are deductible. Do you
want to watch the Cowboy games in the splendor of a luxury box, with a full bar and instant
replay screens? No problem. It is a business expense in order to entertain clients. Two experiences indelibly burned into my memory the god-awful excesses that corporations can
indulge in, all in the name of “a business-related expense.” First, I did a survey of every office in
two prominent skyscrapers in Dallas as a prelude to installing high-security locks with non-duplicable keys, on each office or suite of offices. There was a bank, a diamond dealer, lawyers
galore, to name a few of the residents. It was stunning to see the opulence in furnishings,
artwork, and “amenities.” One law firm had cut a hole in the ceiling (or floor, if you prefer) and installed a spiral staircase
to their expanded suite of offices. They had a large storage closet. I was told to put that door on a
separate key, not on the master-key system, and there would be only two or three keys provided.
It was the liquor stash! Big-dollar clients would be plied with 12-year old Scotch and Cognac
while discussing legal matters. Maybe that eased the pain of the $300-an-hour billing rate. Only
the most senior partners were to have keys to the stash. How could the IRS ever prove how much
of the booze was used to entertain clients and how much went home in the trunk of the Lexus? Another time, I was asked to do a security survey of all the luxury boxes at Texas Stadium. I
could not believe my eyes. No Pier 1 or Crate & Barrel stuff here. Each one was decorated in its
own elegant style. The Cowboy owner’s box had a back room where the ladies could play bridge
and sip Mai Tais and not be bothered with the game, except for the cheering - which seeped
through their sliding-glass door. Each suite had a bar and a serving area, usually with a
microwave. It ruined me forever. I could no longer enjoy going to the game and sitting in a seat
with somebody digging their cowboy boots into my back and spilling their drink on me. Many years later, I did attend one Texas Ranger game in a luxury box at the modern Ballpark in
Arlington, courtesy of the company my son worked for. There was every manner of food, nuts,
and drink. A beautiful young lady in hot-pants was serving. It was a world apart. Almost surreal.
People actually live like this? Another story comes to mind. I was a marketing director in a division of a $9 billion dollar
company. Until then, my top job had been at a company that sold about $3 million dollars worth
of product a year. One night during cocktail hour in the executive dinning room on the top floor
of HQ, one of the very senior executives asked me if I was a good tennis player. Yes. Why? He
was wondering if my boss and I would like to play him and another executive some time. Sure.
On your court or mine? (I lived in an apartment complex that hosted one of the best tennis clubs
in Dallas). Oh no, he said. “We were thinking of flying in the company jet to Bermuda for the
weekend.” Somehow, I never got around to taking him up on the offer. My Midwestern
upbringing, I guess. We could all rebel and insist that corporations not get so many write offs. But, it is a losing
battle. The trickle-down theory is at work here. All of this corporate excess and luxury pumps a
lot of money into the economy. Without corporate welfare, where would they sell all those luxury
cars, and $3000 desks, and biz jets, and yachts, and luxury suites at the football and baseball
games, and sumptuous lunches at Four Seasons, and 10 million computers with large LCD
screens, and hunting lodges, and condos at Vail, and .... ? Remember. Without corporate welfare, that beautiful girl in the hot-pants serving food and drink
in the baseball luxury box might be downgraded to asking, “do you want fries with that?”
Nobody wants to see that. You see signs everywhere of the failure of our education system to teach the basics. In major
print media, in ads produced by big ad agencies, and on TV, you quite often hear and see
common words used improperly. For example: Compliment/Complement You Compliment someone by saying something nice about them. Praise or approval. If you give something away, it is complimentary. Complement - something that completes or perfects something. A full complement of instruments in an orchestra. If you compliment the orchestra, you are
saying something nice about them. A nice poached fish and a white wine Complement each other. That is, they complete the meal. It
is of course, “my compliments to the chef.” Affect/Effect Affect means to influence. You can Affect the outcome of something by your actions. Or
influence something or someone. Your vote will affect the outcome of the election. Your actions can affect someone emotionally. The verb Affect is to pretend to be, or to adopt a use, style, or manner. He affects the persona of
a victim. She affects a grand style in her wardrobe. Thus, affectation. Effect means to bring about. We effected change in the local attitudes. The law goes into effect in January. They effected
their escape by sawing the bars. As a noun, the special effects in a movie. Cavalry/Calvary The Cavalry is composed of soldiers on horseback. Now used to refer to troops using armored
vehicles. And to certain aircraft operations, such as attack helicopters in the "air cavalry." Calvary is a sculpture representing the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, or the place near Jerusalem
where the crucifixion took place. Capitol/Capital The Capitol is the building where legislatures meet, such as state Capitol or U.S. Capitol
(building). Capitol Hill. Capital is the city where the seat of government resides. Austin is the capital of Texas. Capital is also money, as in investment capital. One can also speak of using up political capital. Capital punishment is the death penalty. Principal/Principle Principal is the primary thing or person, as in the principal reason or the school principal. The
principal Cellist in the orchestra. Principle is an underlying assumption or an ethical standard. The principle of gravity is easily
understood. I have my standards, my principles. Separate/Seperate Separate means not connected, not touching, such as separate rooms. The attachment will be sent
under separate cover. We got separated in the crowd. Seperate. Ain’t no such word. Floundering/Foundering At least twice in the past few days, major news outlets have used a phrase like "the TV show is foundering in the ratings." It is "floundering" in the ratings. As in: in serious trouble or close to failing. There is no such word as "foundering." Come/Came Came is the past tense of Come, but you would not know it today. It is “they came up with the
idea,” not “they come up with the idea.” They “came out with a new product,” not “they come
out with a new product.” Jay Leno, please take note. “They are hoping to come up with a better
idea in the future.” ”Can’t you come up with an idea?” he said to his writers. The use of the past tense has nearly disappeared in news coverage. A fire happened four hours
ago. “The fire trucks respond to a fire.” It used to be “responded.” A baseball game took place
several hours ago. “The Rangers win big tonight.” It used to be “won,” since it happened in the
past. Not now. The past tense is too dull. The present tense is more dramatic, more immediate.
Forget the rules. Try to find a use of the past tense in a TV newscast. It is a real challenge. Update May 22, 2003: Here is a fascinating example of the confusion in the media over the use of the past and present tense. On MSNBC.com I also get three local Dallas-area headlines each day. Today, one headline read (or "reads" if it is still there): Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX news from KXAS Officer Sees Van Careen Off Road, Slam Into Wall, Injure Driver • A man is in a hospital after his van careens off a road and slams into a wall. When you click on the story, this is how it reads: DUNCANVILLE, Texas, 7:57 a.m. CDT May 22, 2003 - A man is in a hospital after his van careened off the road and slammed into a wall early Thursday. And you wonder why I am upset over this blurring of the past and present tense? How would you like to be a high-school English teacher? As much as it pained me to buy my second Windows XP Home upgrade disk, I decided to put a
new hard drive in one of my P4 computers, put XP Home on it - and pass it on to my son. Two
questions were in my mind. Did the XP disks currently on store shelves contain the Service Pack
1 (SP1) update, and can you install the XP Upgrade on an unformatted disk? It had been a long
time since XP came out, and I had forgotten all I learned about installing it. At Best Buy, I asked several “software experts” if the XP Home CD has SP1 on it, or would I
have to download the monstrous SP1 file from the Internet after I installed the XP Home
upgrade? We formed an ah-hoc committee to examine all the fine print on the XP box. No clue
as to whether SP1 was on the CD. The consensus was that SP1 would not be on the install disk.
So, I went to the Microsoft site were network administrators can download programs for later
install, rather than have to do a live download and upgrade while online. The SP1a file was
131MB and took quite a while to download, even on my satellite Internet connection. My Windows XP 1027-page book clearly spelled out the installation alternatives. No manual
comes with XP, just a little folder with some basic information. Any modern computer will
allow you to “boot” from a CD-ROM. Go into the Setup (usually F1 or Del) during the boot
process and make CD-ROM one of your boot choices. While you are in there, you might as well
make it your first choice. You can change it back to A:, Hard-drive, CD-ROM, or Hard-drive, A:,
CD-ROM after you are finished with the install. With an un-formatted hard drive connected, put the XP CD-ROM in and close the drawer. If all
goes well, you will get a screen that allows you to Format the hard drive. Early in the install
process, you get a message that says something like “we cannot find a qualifying operating
system on your hard drive.” This is, after all, an Upgrade. The computer asks you to take out the
XP disk and temporarily insert a program setup disk for Windows 98, Windows 98 SE or
Windows ME. Once it finds the “qualifying files” on that disk, you can put the XP disk back in
and resume the XP install. The good news came when the installation was over. I ran Sys Info and there it was: “Microsoft
XP Home Edition, 5.1.2600 Service Pack 1 Build 2600.” My 131MB download had just been for
fun. I did not need it! I have it on CD-ROM, if you need it. That’s legal. It’s a patch. Would it
have killed Microsoft to print some new boxes that said “XP Home Edition, with Service
Pack1"? Or at least put a sticker on the box? They simply don’t care about customer goodwill. The Upgrade is about $100 cheaper than the full XP Home program. But, what if you don’t have
a Win 98, SE, or ME disk on the shelf from another computer installation you once did? When I
inserted my Win ME program disk in the computer, the setup did not ask me to type in the
product key information. Even if it did, I had that handy - typed and taped to the CD jewel case,
as is my habit. The moral of all this? If you don’t have one, borrow a Win 98, Win 98SE, or Win
ME disk from somebody and use it to “qualify” during the XP Home Upgrade and you will save
$100. So sue us, as if $99 is not bad enough just for the Upgrade. Since Microsoft is dominant in the
office software market, you would think they could sell their operating system a little cheaper, as
an inducement to get into the game. It has recently been reported that the profit margin on
Microsoft Office is about 80%. No wonder there are so many MS millionaires. And no wonder
so many people try to use pirated copies of MS products. The Microsoft software often costs
more than people pay for their computer! A “clean” install on a newly-formatted drive is always preferable to doing an XP Home Upgrade
over the top of an existing Windows system. In the early days of XP, the Internet forums were
full of messages telling people with problems, “I bet you installed over the top of your old
operating system. Do a clean install.” After XP is installed, but before you start to install your programs, go to Windows Update on the
Internet. You will be shocked and saddened at the number of “patches and fixes” that have been
made to Windows XP Home, even since SP1. Without a broadband connection, you had better
plan on some late-night downloading for an hour or two. I gave up and installed my satellite USB
modem and software just so I could update Windows XP and Norton. If you plan to install
Norton System Works and/or Norton Internet Security, you can also prepare for some huge
downloads of updates. The satellite jazz will be uninstalled before I pass the machine on to my son, who works on a
56K modem at home. And uninstalled before I finally run the “Windows Activation.” You have
30 days to “Activate,” which really means Register, since everything works fine until the 30th day
if you have not Activated. Although you can make several hardware changes before you have to
go through Activation again, I wanted to start with exactly what would be delivered in the
machine. They are really paranoid at Microsoft about people putting XP on more that one machine. They
want the computer’s DNA on file! Does anybody remember Microsoft teetering on the brink of bankruptcy in
the days when you could install one copy of Windows on all the computers in your house?
Windows XP activation is simply extortion, without benefit of a gun - or a ransom note. It is probably fair to say that the loss of revenue from people using one Windows disk to install on two or more computers is minor compared to the illegal copies avaiable by the truckload and on the Internet. If you have three computers at home and want Windows XP Pro on them, the cost of three XP Pro program disks is simply staggering. The Asians, among others, know this and crank out bogus Microsoft CDs like they are sausages. Of course, you will have backed up your data from e-mail, word processing, spreadsheets, MP3s,
address book, Favorites, Bookmarks, and so on. Again, you are better off reinstalling all your
programs from scratch, after you install a clean XP install. If you were thinking ahead, you also
will have saved to a CD-ROM all the downloaded updates and patches for your main programs (I
have about 20 on file). After about a year or two of adding and deleting programs, you do not
want to see how messed up your Registry, and files, and DLLs are. Like making sausage. You
don’t want to know. There are programs which allow you to migrate programs from an old disk to the new one, but
that is simply asking to move over a bunch of garbage. Start over with new installs of every
program. Then, copy your data into the appropriate folders. XP has a file-migration function to help you
move data, but that is for use if you are moving data from one computer to another. Add enough RAM to get up to at least 512MB (it is cheap right now). With the normal Virus
program and a couple of other programs loading in the background, you may start your machine
and find that you are already using about 120MB of RAM. If you are intrepid, you can go to
www.blackviper.com and download a list of the XP Services. The list will tell you what each
service does and how to disable it if you don’t need it. One hog is Indexing, which indexes all
your files in the background. If you are not on a home network, there are many Services you can
disable, to cut down on the overhead and the amount of RAM used just to keep XP’s heart
beating. You don’t delete any files or services, just set them to Auto, Manual, or Disabled. With the added memory, the fresh install of XP and a re-install of your programs, you will think
you have a new computer. When you are finished installing, DEFRAG, run a Virus Check, and
you will be good to go. With XP Home, Service Pack 1, Microsoft finally got it right after all
those years they tortured us with promises of a facile and stable operating system. Well, except
for all the security holes, but that is what keeps Symantec and others in business. There is a myth that there is no DOS with XP. I run batch files for backup all the time, using the
old DOS commands, such as XCOPY, CD, DEL, and so on. Like in the old days, use a text
editor and name the file xxxxxxxx.BAT, make a shortcut, and off you go. Click on the
Command Prompt and you can run DOS commands. Type XCOPY /?, for example, to see the
command syntax for XCOPY. A final tip. Windows XP looks and feels a great deal like Win 98, 98SE and ME, but after you
dig beneath the cosmetics, it is a whole new ball game. Buy a good XP book and actually read it
from time to time. You will be astounded at what you can do with XP that you never dreamed of.
My main book is “Using Microsoft XP Home Edition,” by Cowart & Knittel from QUE Books
(1027 pages). The package includes a very nice CD-ROM video tutorial, too. By now, there may
be better books, but I can’t remember many questions I had that were not answered in this book.
Easy to read for the non-geek, too. “Windows XP Limtited Edition, Step by Step,” from Microsoft Press is nearly useless, unless
you have never operated any Windows system in the past. My guess it that it covers about what is
covered in the XP Help Screens. It cost $29 for 332 pages. Like everything Microsoft sells, it is
grossly overpriced. It should have come free with the Win XP CD. Do you remember when you
got a fat manual with your software? One you could sit in the recliner and highlight?
WordPerfect has more than one, Norton programs supply manuals, Paint Shop Pro 8 came with a
thick manual. Well, I have made my point. COPYRIGHT 2000 Richard C. Rhodes You are welcome to quote sections from this page - or the whole page, as long as the source URL is included. Of course, I would be flattered if anyone linked to this page. It is very hard to be the writer, editor, fact checker, copy editor, and publisher of anything. So, I beg your forgiveness for the many mistakes that creep in. Suggested Reading From Past Columns Click Here for Suggested Reading List Archive of Back Issues Media List of Addresses and e-mails Postal Service State Abbreviations, etc. Richard C. Rhodes End |