9 July 2021

When Windows Search Is Insufficient, Send In Agent Ransack

If you've ever tried to find a file that you're certain is on the computer but not in a location you remember, you may have used a built-in search function. There's a better choice. It's free for personal or commercial use. And it's been around for more than 20 years.

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No matter how carefully you name or organize files you'll doubtless have trouble finding one that you need at least occasionally. The Windows Search function is available on the Task bar unless you've hidden the icon (as I have) or by just pressing the Windows key and typing. It's capable of finding apps on the computer or suggesting web searches. The File Explorer has a search function, but it looks only a file names by default. This can be modified by changing the indexing options in Settings, but that launches the system indexer and can slow the system.

Agent Ransack Lite can find the file you're looking for even if your computer has several disk drives on which the file may be located and even if you can't remember any part of the file's name, what kind of file it is, or which application you used to create it. Remembering just a few words that you're sure are in the file is enough.

Having said that, a search that has to search through every file on your computer tofind a phrase will be slow. The more information you have, the faster the search will be. Let's say I remember writing something about Toronto to a friend in Russia, but I don't remember when or what application I used. The most basic kind of Agent Ransack search simply tells the application to search though all files on drive D and give me a list of every file that contains the word "Toronto". Drive D contains more than 320,000 files that consume more than 950,000 megabytes of disk space. Agent Ransack will have to examine every single occupied bit of every file, so it won't be fast.

This is, in fact, about the worst possible case I can imagine unless I couldn't remember which disk drive the file would be on so that Agent Ransack would have to search 7 disk drives containing 4,067,213 items in 5,834,400 megabytes. As it was, the application had to search tens of thousands of digital image files, Excel files, and a variety of other files. But I did want to make this a difficult search that would take a long time, and I succeeded. The search took 7 hours 56 minutes. I don't even want to think about how long searching every file on every drive would take.

I remember being amazed in the late 1980s to find that my computer contained some 25,000 files on either a 40MB or an 80MB hard drive that would now be unable to hold even a dozen high-quality raw photographs.

Giving Agent Ransack just a bit more information improves the response a lot. If I remember that I used a word processor (Word, Wordperfect, WordSmith), that will reduce the search to just 3603 files occupying 1100 megabytes in 406 folders on drive D. That's still a lot, but it's a lot better than having to search the entire drive.

And if I recall that I lost touch with Vladimir Bublik after about 2009, I can limit the search to only file in the WORDS directory that were created prior to 2009. That search took just 36 seconds to find D:\WORDS\MS Word Docs\Bill's Files\BUBLIK\BUBLIK04.DOC, which is an old-style Microsoft Word file. The search returned 47 items that contained the word "Toronto", and the one I was looking for described a business trip I had made to Toronto in 1995.

I've found that it's generally better to search for the modified or last access dates because some files pick up incorrect creation dates when moved from one computer to another. The file I was seeking had a modified date of January 1994 but a creation date of September 2016. So according to Windows, the file was created 22 years after it was last accessed.

Agent Ransack Lite is the free version of Mythicsoft's FileLocator. The names FileLocator and Agent Ransack are interchangeable. The paid version has some features that are omitted from the lite version and is intended for those with more serious file locating needs. The paid version can create a full system index that speeds searches and has improved tools for searching Microsoft Office files.

The search can include a single directory, a directory and its subdirectories, multiple directories with or without specific subdirectories, and multiple directories on multiple drives. Include and exclude filters allow users to create precise search criteria.

File names and contained text can also include and exclude specific words, including the use of wild-card characters. For example, "work*.doc?" would find all doc and docx files that begin with "work". The user can specify "*.xlsx; *.docx" to search all Word and Excel files. It's also possible to specify minimum and maximum file sizes and creation, modification, and access dates before or after specific dates or within an range of dates.

Even before a search ends, Agent Ransack will begin displaying files that meet the search criteria in the left panel. Selecting any file in the left panel will display text from the file in the right panel.

Agent Ransack is fast and often finds files that the Windows search tool misses. Although it may seem that this is a complex program to use, Mythicsoft has provided an excellent help file so that anyone who's willing to read a bit can start using it like a pro. Even the basic, simplified user interface offers far more flexibility that the built-in Windows search function.

The paid version has three options: "Standard" is for one user on up to three computers (work, home, and laptop, for example): $60. "Technician" is for one user who can install the application on any number of computers if they have more than three: $108. "Floating" is a per-seat arrangement that allows a specific number of users to run the application concurrently. The prices range from $156 per seat for up to 9 users to $117 per seat for more than 100 users. Large organization can also request a quote for site licenses.

 Looking for needle.doc in D:\haystack just got easier

Agent Ransack is the ideal solution when the file you're looking for won't come out and play. If you sometimes have to spend a lot of time to locate missing files, Agent Ransack will delight you. Fast and easy to use, the only search tool better than Agent Ransack is its $50 big brother. You won't go wrong with either of them.
Additional details are available on the Mythicsoft website and you can download the free application from there.
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Short Circuits

Same Old Scams In New Boxes

Scammers are inventive, but there are only so many basic types of scams. Cons involving untold riches from Nigerian princes, dishonest bank managers, long-lost relatives, and dying widows of rich businessmen have pretty much run their course.

Most of those scams involved finding people who are stupid enough to send money to the scammer to pay "expenses" involved with transferring money, bribing authorities, or paying for legal services. The trouble with people who are sufficiently ignorant to respond to such an obvious ploy usually aren't smart enough to have any money to send the scammers. It's a labor-intensive scam with only minimal income opportunities.

So the scammers have moved on to sending email messages that can be used to trick the mark into clicking a link that will take them to a rogue website or opening an attachment that will install malware on their computer. But the technique used needs to change. Lately I've been seeing aviation-related messages. I don't own an airplane and I haven't flown anywhere in more than 10 years.

When I receive a "flight confirmation", I know immediately that it's not for me, but a message that claims to be from Hyperion Aviation, a charter airline based in Malta, displays many red flags.

The message has been sent to (1) "undisclosed recipients" and the "attached" (2) document labeled "Flight Routing Details" is actually a document that's stored in a Google Drive account. Can you imagine any airline that would use Google Documents to distribute information to customers?

Add those warning signs to the message's faulty grammar and punctuation and it's clear that clicking the link would be unwise.

Another aviation-related scam claims to be from Airbus. The message formatting, language use, and punctuation are horrid, but the primary giveaway is the date of the event.

The message arrived on 22 June with details of a conference for what appears to be owners and operators of Airbus planes. The "conference" is scheduled for Wednesday June 24, but a quick look at the calendar reveals that Wednesday would be June 23 and that the 24th would be Thursday.

Airbus is a large company and large companies have communications specialists who understand the need for distributing information that's correct. In other words, such a flawed message would never make it to the outside world.

And once again the "attached" document is actually a link to a file that's on Google Drive.

One Reason For Moving The Task Bar To The Top Of The Screen

The Task bar on most Windows computers is at the bottom of the screen, where Microsoft's software developers thought it should be. That was the only location allowed for a long time, but now it can be placed at the top, on the left, or on the right in addition to its default location at the bottom. Some people prefer to have the Task bar at the top. Although I'm not one of those people, I use the top location on a tablet computer for what is a highly practical reason.

The image on the left is the main screen on my primary Windows computer. It sits on a desk. There are two large monitors for me to look at. The built-in screen may offer touch, but I don't remember, and I would never need the touch function because the notebook's case is closed all the time.

The image on the right is the desktop on a tablet computer. It has a touch screen and I use the touch function.

It's not uncommon for me to use the tablet when I'm lying in bed to read a book, watch YouTube or Netflix, or view a DVD with the VLC Media Player. The trouble with having the Task bar at the bottom of the screen is that it's far too easy to open an application accidentally by touching an icon on the Task bar with the side of my hand.

Placing the Task bar at the top of the screen eliminates this problem.

Making the change is easy. Just right-click a blank area on the Task bar and click Settings. Then scroll down to Taskbar location on screen. Choose left, right, top, or bottom. Placement on the left or right is a clumsy arrangement if the Task bar contains more than a few items. The better choices are top and bottom. I also prefer small icons because I put a lot of applications on the Task bar. There are also settings here that control the appearance of the Task bar on computers with multiple monitors, which icons appear in the Notification area, and whether you want to use the Peek function when the mouse hovers over the right end of the Task bar.

Spare Parts

Western Digital My Book Live Devices Are In Danger

Western Digital hasn't sold a My Book Live disk drive since 2015, but a lot of them are still in use. These are external disk drives that include an Ethernet port so they can be used as a network attached storage (NAS) device.

Western Digital says: "Western Digital has determined that some My Book Live devices are being compromised by malicious software. In some cases, this compromise has led to a factory reset that appears to erase all data on the device. The My Book Live device received its final firmware update in 2015. We understand that our customers’ data is very important. At this time, we recommend you disconnect your My Book Live from the Internet to protect your data on the device. We are actively investigating and we will provide updates to this thread when they are available."

ArsTechnica's report on this issue says that malware delivered to the drive performs a system reset that deletes all the data.

Western Digital has set up a community resource page that reports current information. In the meantime, anyone who has a My Book Live device should back up all data stored on it and then disconnect the drive. This does not apply to Western Digital USB drives that do not have Ethernet ports.

Windows 11 Upgrade May Be Painful

Do you know how to access your computer's BIOS settings? Even if the computer is running Windows 10 without a problem, you may have to modify some BIOS settings just to install Windows 11.

The new operating system will require that a Trusted Platform Module 2.0 (TPM) chip be installed. Your computer may have a TPM chip, but it may not be enabled. If the computer has a TPM chip, but it's not enabled, users will have to visit the computer's BIOS settings and enable it. If your computer doesn't have a TPM chip, Windows 11 cannot be installed.

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Computers purchased within the past five to seven years probably have a TPM chip. To find out if the chip is present in your computer, click the Windows icon to open the Start menu and type “tpm.msc”. If the chip is present, you'll see an option that's labeled “tpm.msc Microsoft Common Console Document”. If you have that option, open it and the security console will display information about the chip. If you don't see the option and you want to be able to use Windows 11, it's time to think about buying a new computer.

Twenty Years Ago: I Bought A Mac

At the end of the 2001 PC Expo in New York City, I bought a little white Mac IBook (or as Apple likes to style it, "iBook") computer to bring home. It was the last of the Macs that still ran System 9 and had the first edition of OSX (10.0) that was replaced a few months later by version 10.1. Since then, I've always had a Mac even though I rarely use it.

I had two reasons for buying a Mac, one of which is still valid: " First, I know that Macs don't see websites the same way Windows PCs see websites. Since I'm responsible for so many sites these days, it seemed prudent for me to have a Mac around the office so that I can see what Mac owners see. [In 2021, and for a long time, that has not been the case.] Second is my PC-centric view of the world. For somebody who talks about technology on the radio, owning a Mac so that I have some concept of how these computers work seemed reasonable."

Back then, Mac users liked to say their their computers didn't crash. Nonsense then. Nonsense now. "I've already encountered a crash. Some Mac evangelicals proclaim that the Mac doesn't crash, but that's nonsense. The crash I encountered occurred with only the AppleWorks word processor running and took with it several paragraphs of text. I now save the document at the end of each paragraph, just as I do with a PC running Windows."

A computer is a computer is a computer. Regardless of the operating system, every computer will encounter problems at least occasionally.