29 Oct 2021

Text Editors Are Useful Even For Non-Programmers

Software developers use text editors all day, every day. These applications are also useful for examining text in executable files and dynamic link libraries, but writers can use them, too, and there are good reasons for doing so.

Unlike applications such as Wordperfect, Microsoft Word, and LibreOffice Writer, text editors are incapable of creating bold or italic text, bullet lists, tables, footnotes and endnotes, or any of the other seemingly infinite visual effects that those programs can create. It's possible to modify the typeface, size, and color of text seen on the screen, but those effects are not stored with the file.

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When used by web programmers or application developers, text editors include color coding that the developer uses to identify sections of code. When being used to write PHP code, a text editor such as UltraEdit or UEStudio color codes the word "function" orange, the name of the function gray, and variables in light blue. Comments, code that is not processed as part of the script, are shown in brown.

PHP is a server scripting language that's commonly used for dynamic and interactive web pages, and most TechByter subscribers probably won't use a text editor for PHP, C++, Python, Java, C#, Javascript, or any of the dozens of other programming and scripting languages.

The TechByter podcast uses an RSS file to communicate information about each week's program. RSS stands for RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication, there is some disagreement among those who use it. The RSS file contains information that can be read by both humans and machines. The text editor I use, UEStudio, is essential for this task, and it can also be used to edit HTML files. Most TechByter subscribers probably won't use those features, either.

But if you sometimes feel that you're being distracted by a word processor's hundreds of functions for formatting text, try eliminating the clutter with a writing tool that doesn't have those functions.

Just about every TechByter Worldwide article starts in UEStudio — not because it's difficult to write in a visual editor such as Dreamweaver, but because visual editors make it all too easy to get sidetracked with formatting instead of facts.

UEStudio lets me concentrate on just the message for individual articles (left) as well as text that's used for the podcast intro and the section near the end (right) where I list items that will be in Spare Parts. The show_intro.txt document also contains information that will be added to the weekly RSS file and text that I use on Friday morning to promote the program on Facebook.

It's that kind of usage that's helpful for people who are trying to write a report or other document. Our brains have two modes for a task like this: writer mode and editor mode. Maybe there's a third — designer mode. When we are writing a report, it's important to get the information down "on paper" even though "paper" is invariably a screen.

In the past, this work was done on a typewriter and there were no options for editing, revising, or designing. After writing a first draft, we would mark up the pages with corrections and changes, then type another copy. If the report was going to be formatted, somebody else would handle the typesetting and layout. Now, at least in many business settings, the writer is also responsible for editing and design. Those are exactly the tasks that get in the way during the writing phase, and it's why I prefer to start with a text editor.

Depending on how much you use a text editor, $80 or $90 per year might be prohibitively expensive for an UltraEdit or UEStudio subscription from Idera. IDM, the company founded by Ian D. Mead in 1994, was acquired by Idera in August 2021. There are free options, though. Notepad is included with Windows, and it's an adequate text processor.

There's a better free option, though. Notepad++ is an open-source application that is free (as in "free speech" and also as in "free beer") source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several programming languages. If you'd like to try out the process of writing documents in a text editor, I recommend skipping Notepad and starting with Notepad++. Although Notepad++ and a variety of free enhancements offer most of the capabilities of UltraEdit and UEStudio, you may want to try one of those applications later. Either way, Notepad++ is a great starting point and the program has a loyal user base.

Short Circuits

Check A Few Settings After The Windows 11 Update

Microsoft started pushing Windows 11 updates out to computers almost four weeks ago, so it may already be on your computer. Perhaps you've intentionally delayed it, or maybe your computer doesn't support Windows 11.

If your computer is in that latter case, it's likely that you'll soon be able to find workarounds that promise to let you install the update. Some already exist, and these should be treated with caution. As with most Windows updates, some users reported problems with specific installations. Microsoft has already found and corrected some of those issues.

I've installed Windows 11 on the one computer I have that claims to support it and it seems to work as expected. If your computer has already been updated, you might want to check a few settings to confirm that the migration worked properly.

Assuming the installation completed without error, Windows 11 should be fully activated. It doesn't hurt to check, though, to avoid discovering later that something didn't work right. You'll find an Activation tab in the System section of Settings. You should see the word Active.

When the computer starts, the Xbox app may open because Microsoft seems to think that all Windows 11 users want to play Xbox games. If that's not you, click the Apps tab in Settings, then choose Apps & Features, and scroll down to Xbox. Click the vertical dots at the right side of Xbox and scroll down to "Runs at log-in". Turn this off. And, yes, Microsoft could have made this quite a bit easier.

Windows 11 seems to successfully detect and install drivers for all hardware that was connected, but checking to be sure can eliminate annoyances later. Open Settings, choose Bluetooth & Devices and look through the various tabs to confirm that the devices you expect to see are present.

Next, take a look to see what unwanted apps Microsoft has added to the Task Bar. Space is so limited there that you'll want to get rid of any icon you don't want. Right-click a blank area of the Task Bar and choose Settings. You can turn off the icons you don't want.

The opposite problem is that Microsoft has removed useful apps from the Start Screen. Maybe you'd like the Command Prompt or PowerShell (or both) to be available at the top of the Start Screen, or the Windows Media Player, or some of your installed apps. Find the apps you want to see in Start, right-click them, and choose "Pin to Start".

Power settings don't always migrate properly, particularly if you modified the settings under Windows 10. Start with the System section under Settings and click the Power & battery tab. You now have only three choices: Recommended, better performance, and best performance. However, the Control Panel is still present and it's possible to replicate your preferred settings there.

The update process is generally running well, but I recommend watching The Tech Guy's 5-minute video that outlines some gotchas if you haven't made the move yet. Despite the click-bait title of the video, Liron Segev takes you on a quick and level-headed tour.

Will You Leave Facebook?

Last week's main article had some tips for making Facebook more palatable. Maybe that information was insufficient and you really want to leave. Are you ready to leave Facebook in the dust?

Reality check and spoiler: Probably not.

How many times has a friend or relative said "If politician X gets elected, I'm moving to Bolivia (or some other country)"? Maybe you've said something like that yourself. When politician X was elected, did your friend or relative move to Bolivia (or some other country)? Are you still here after saying you'd leave?

People say the same thing about Facebook, and yet a large majority of us still log in to Facebook every day. Maybe we waste too much time there. Maybe we really think we should leave. It's something I consider occasionally, but it's more in line with thoughts about becoming a vegetarian   I really like the idea, but I just can't bring myself to do it.

The trouble is that there's nothing that would fully replace Facebook. I may have previously recounted a couple of family events that wouldn't have been possible without Facebook.

• When my older daughter suffered acute and totally unexpected liver failure several years ago, we kept in touch with friends and family via Facebook. It was the only way we could keep in contact with people while concentrating on information from emergency department physicians, the organ transplant team, and all of the other people involved at the hospital.
• A less dramatic event had occurred several years earlier when my wife found a card that a woman in Poland had sent her mother. She told a relative about the card on Facebook and the relative made a few enquiries in Poland, where she found the woman's granddaughter. The family in Poland had photos of my wife as a child, photos that her mother had sent the woman in a Christmas card in the 1950s. The search took less than a day.

The problem with leaving is that Facebook does a lot of things really well. Unfortunately, one of the things it does really well is annoy users. There are no services that do everything Facebook does if you're looking for a replacement.

Liker was promising, but the operation was taken down in March because of security issues. The developers were working on improving security and reworking the platform and announced in mid-summer "Liker is done beta testing and will launch in the next two weeks. The good news is that you can sign up now and we will email you when we launch." Two weeks became two months, and the beta test seems to still be running.

Before stomping away from Facebook in disgust, think about using other services for some of what you get from Facebook now.

If you're a member of a neighborhood group on Facebook, you may want to try NextDoor or Neighbors by Ring. People who are active on Facebook neighborhood groups may not be willing to go with you to one of the other apps, though.

There are other chat apps such as Viber, Line, and WeChat — but some of those have even more security issues than Facebook does.

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Stop Thinking Of Facebook As A News Source

News and information are not Facebook's strongest features. The platform has far too much misinformation and disinformation. If you're looking for news, choose a news site. Liberals who spend a lot of time on The Young Turks website receive a world view that's just as skewed as conservatives who concentrate on InfoWars. Ad Fontes Media ranks some of the best known news organizations on bias and reliability.

The best choices are those that are close to the center on bias and close to the top on reliability. These include NPR News Now, the Wall Street Journal, PBS, the Associated Press, Reuters, and most of the broadcast news operations. You may be surprised by the fact that Al Jazeera, although showing a slight left bias, ranks high in reliability. This could be because Al Jazeera was developed with assistance from the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Believing what you read on the hyper-left Pod Save America or the Bipartisan Report is as dangerous as believing everything from the hyper-right NewsMax or OAN. So drop Facebook as a news service and follow legitimate news organizations with trained journalists, or use services such as Google News, Apple News, or Apple News Plus at $10 per month. The Apple services run only on MacOS and IOS devices.

Instead of stomping away from Facebook, maybe the better choice is to understand that it has strengths and weaknesses, good points and bad; and to realize that concerted efforts by users may eventually convince the company to do better. That would be a win for everyone.

Spare Parts

Facebook Moves To Halt Leaks Of Internal Discussions

New York Times tech writer Ryan Mac has described changes made by Facebook to limit disclosure of internal documents such as those revealed by former employee Frances Haugen in testimony before a Senate subcommittee.

Facebook operates an internal message board called Workplace and many employees join various groups on that platform. Now Facebook says some of the groups will limit who can view and participate in the message threads. Haugen revealed internal documents that seemed to show that Facebook managers and employees are aware of some of the harms the social platform is responsible for.

From Mac's article: "'As everyone is likely aware, we've seen an increase in the number of Integrity-related leaks in recent months,' an engineering director wrote in the announcement, which was reviewed by The New York Times. 'These leaks aren't representative of the nuances and complexities involved in our work and are often taken out of context, leading to our work being mischaracterized externally.'"

The article says that Facebook managers will remove some employees from discussions that at not related to their work. While that seems reasonable, Mac reports that some employees are pushing back: "'I think every single employee at the company should be thinking about and working on integrity as part of their day-to-day role, and we should work to foster a culture where that's the expectation,' one Facebook employee wrote. 'Siloing off the people who are dedicated to integrity will harm both active efforts to collaborate and reduce the cultural expectation that integrity is everyone's responsibility.'"

You can read the full article on the New York Times website.

Where Does Malware Come From?

An area once generally known as the "Soviet Bloc" is the source of most malware according to the British National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).

The report deals primarily with ransomware, which encrypts critical data so that criminals can demand payment to restore access. UK cyber chief Lindy Cameron says that in addition to encrypting data and demanding payment, some of the criminals threaten to publish stolen data on the dark web.

The situation in the United Kingdom is similar to that in the United States and most other developed nations. One problem specific to Russian criminals is that the Kremlin tends to ignore them unless they attack targets in Russia.

The attacks affect large and small companies, government agencies, hospitals, and even schools. Some of the targets, particularly the smaller ones, often have few defenses and little or no response plan. Some businesses have insurance to cover ransom payments.

Read the full report on The Guardian website.

Twenty Years Ago: Windows XP And Mac OS 10.1 Arrive

Microsoft introduced Windows XP in October 2001. I was still trying to decide whether to upgrade.

Early reports had indicated that XP Home Edition didn't do networking. That seemed like an urban myth, and it was. Home Edition didn't have some features found in Windows 2000, but HE was adequate for home use because it supported home networking. That version of Windows would not work if a user took it to the office and tried to connect to an enterprise network.

Apple released the first free upgrade to OSX 10.0, too. The initial version of OSX was more a proof of concept than a real operating system. I had bought an IBook in New York City at the end of PC Expo. It came with OS 9.1 and 10.0. After looking at 10.0 for a few minutes, I set the default boot OS to 9.1 because many of the features that worked with 9 didn't work with 10 and because there's very little software available for OS X.

I stuck with System 9 on the Mac for a while because OSX lacked some features. I found the upgrade process to be unimpressive. The literature that came with the upgrade CDs said the System 9 upgrade should be done before the OSX upgrade, but the read-me file on the CD said the opposite.