Web Site Traffic Monitors

Have you ever wondered about those counters that appear at the bottom of some web sites that display the number of visitors to the site? The subject has lingered in the back of my mind for several years, but I never pursued the matter until recently.

In the course of doing so, I found at least two separate and distinct ways to monitor traffic volume on web sites:

• Visible odometer display
• Invisible behind-the scenes statistics:
  Google Analytics

Let's take a look at each of these in turn:

Visible odometer display

I was initially discouraged: almost all sites offering free counters required users to register with a userid and password and/or provide an e-mail address, which I view as an invitation for their spam to rain down upon me. I finally stumbled upon a reasonable site that met my requirements called HitWebCounter.

This site offers fifty odometer designs from which to choose, but none of them were very appealing visually. However, the service is free, requires no registration or e-mail address, and is very easy to use. Simply choose one of the odometers and fill in fields with the following information:

• web page name (i.e., your site's URL)
• starting count (typically zero)
• number of digits for the odometer to display (select a number from 1 to 9 from a pull-down menu complete with leading zeros)
• counter type: select "Page Views" or "Unique Visitors"

[Note: there is also a pull-down menu labeled "Select Category" that does not seem to contribute much because the only selection available is "Any Category."]

After you make all of your selections, click on the button labeled "GET YOUR COUNTER CODE." A window will then appear with the applicable HTML code snippet. Simply copy the code and paste it into your web site code in the appropriate place where you wish the odometer to appear.

Keep in mind that with this method, all counts are maintained on the vendor's servers. If those servers malfunction, at best your web site might display an ugly rectangle where the counter should be and at worst might slow down and/or lock up altogether.

On the plus side, this method works whether your site is hosted by Google sites or a more conventional vendor like Comcast or Verizon. On my family web page hosted by Comcast, I placed a counter not only on the parent home page but also on all of the sub-pages: my favorite free software, my children's favorite game sites, my resume, and a page featuring my high school teachers. That way, I can determine which specific page(s) out of the entire web site is/are attracting the most visitors—if any!

Furthermore, the counting process will begin immediately after you post the new code to your site. The visible counter will change as soon as you or any other person visit the site or simply click the refresh button. This instant feedback is in stark contrast to Google Analytics discussed in the following section.

Invisible behind-the scenes statistics:
Google Analytics

Google Analytics also accumulates web site usage data albeit in a somewhat different manner. I does keep its statistics on its own set of servers much like HitWebCounter discussed above and many similar sites. However, it does not place an odometer or any other visible device onto your web page. It does offer a more comprehensive set of statistics, including not only the raw number of visitors but also the percentage of new visitors, number of page views, and average time spent on site per visitor.

In the absence of a visible counter, you must instead access web site usage data by logging on to Google Analytics at http://www.google.com/analytics/. If you do not have a Google account, you must first create one. However, if you already use Gmail, individualized Google search (iGoogle), Google's web site hosting, or any of the other Google services, then you already have an account that will provide you with access to Google Analytics.

Assuming that you have already established a Google account, go to the site http://www.google.com/analytics/
and click on the link "Access Analytics." In the next window, enter your Google e-mail address and password in the usual way.

To create a profile for your own specific web site,

• Click the link labeled "+ Add new profile"
• In the resulting window,
  
  1. insert your web site's URL (without the "http://") in the first field
  2. select your country in the second field ("United States" will already be the default entry
  3. select your time zone from the pull-down menu in the third field
• Click the "Finish" button to save your work

Next, a "Tracking Code" page will appear. If your web page is hosted by Google's own sites.google.com, then the Web Property ID number appearing in the upper half of the page is relevant to you. The number will be of the format "UA-XXXXXXXX-S" where the X's are digits from 0 to 9 and "S" is a sequence number. Copy the entire assigned ID number into your computer's clipboard memory (Windows terminology) and then perform the following steps:

• Log on to your Google web site
• Click "More actions | Manage site"
• In the menu to the left, click "Site settings - General"
• In the window to the right, locate "Statistics"
• Check the box "Enable Google Analytics for this site"
• Now paste the account id into the field "Paste your Analytics Web Property ID here:"
• Click the "Save Changes" button at the bottom of the page

On the other hand, if your web page contains your own more traditional HTML code and is hosted by an ISP like Comcast or Verizon, then the bottom half of the "Tracking Code" page contains the information relevant to you. There are two fields, the second of which provides the code that users must copy-and-paste onto every HTML page they wish to track. The code should appear in the header section immediately before the closing </head> tag. Either edit the files on site or, if you edit them off-line, upload the edited files to your host ISP site.

When you return to the "Overview" page, your URL(s) will appear by default under the "Name" column. This is redundant because the URL also appears in the profile heading.

Fortunately, there is a way to assign a more descriptive profile name. In the far right column of each profile data row, you will see a link labeled "Edit." When you click this link, another window will appear that displays four sections, each of which has its own "Edit" button in the upper right corner.

The first section will be labeled "Main Website Profile Information." Click that section's "Edit" link to access the page entitled "Edit Profile Information." The first field is labeled "Profile Name." Type any meaningful name (e.g., "Family Web Page," Children's Favorite Game Sites," "Gateway to Heaven," etc.) Click the "Save Changes" button at the very bottom of the page.

Presto chango! Now when you return to the "Overview" section, your meaningful new description will appear in the "Name" column instead of the URL.

Be advised that Google's on-line instructions warns users that it might take as long as 24 hours before any data begins to appear in the Data Analytics reports. Well, it all depends. I created my profiles on a Monday and visited my sites at least once every day. I was dismayed that by Friday, all of my counts still showed a big, fat zero.

But then I am an idiot. By default, my children and I have JavaScript disabled as a security measure. We selectively activate JavaScript only on sites that we trust and only when we need it for the site to behave properly. Because my web pages heretofor have not needed JavaScript to function, JavaScript remained disabled in our browser when visiting our family web site. Well, guess what? The code that Google Analytics requires users to copy-and-paste into their web site's HTML code happens to be, of all things, JavaScript code.

With this in mind, it stands to reason that the statistics will not register with JavaScript disabled! When I finally came to this forehead-slapping realization, I again accessed my sites, only this time with JavaScript enabled. Sure enough, within just moments, the status in Google Analytics changed from "Waiting for Data" to "Receiving Data." And most importantly, meaningful non-zero statistics began to appear within the stipulated 24 hours. Life is good!

Comparison: Odometer Display vs. Google Analytics

Here is a quick summary of the differences between odometer measuring devices like HitWebCounter and behind-the-scenes statistical gathering devices like Google Analytics:

• HitWebCounter provides a visible device in the form of an odometer/counter. Google Analytics has no device that is visible on the user's web page; users must instead log on to Google Analytics to view statistics
• HitWebCounter provides instant gratification by displaying counts almost immediately after installation. By contrast, Google Analytics involves a waiting period of up to 24 hours to view initial data.
• HitWebCounter records all visitors to a site, even those with JavaScript disabled. As I learned from bitter first-hand experience, Google Analytics does not record visitors unless their JavaScript is fully enabled.
• And now for the big trade-off: HitWebCounter odometers record only aggregate counts of one statistic, usually a simple visitor count. Google Analytics, on the other hand, provides a far more comprehensive set of statistics including but not limited to the total number of visitors, the number of unique visitors, the number of page views, and average time viewers spend on each site. Furthermore, Google Analytics data can be displayed in graphical format by day, month, or year.

It falls upon each individual webmaster to select the method that best suits his or her needs.

Finally, the steps I have described above are really not as difficult to implement as my ramblings might lead you to believe. Most of the processes involved will become abundantly clear when you actually visit the respective sites. Rest assured: if a simpleton like me can get these techniques to work, then none of you savvy readers out there will have any problems.

Taxing My Patience

Republicans habitually moan and groan, then weep and wail about getting big (federal) government off our backs because small state and local governments can do things better. Apparently not in Virginia.

This year, Virginia has abandoned the previous single on-line tax filing system called iFile that worked splendidly. In its stead, Virginia has now adopted a hodgepodge of not one, not two, but six different systems, and all six have totally different eligibility requirements.

For example, users who have already filed their federal tax returns are prohibited from using three of the six options. And for the three that they are allowed to use, they have to enter their federal data all over again. Even worse, people between the ages of 58 and 65 with incomes over $58,000 do not qualify for any of the six options!

The Virginia Department of Taxation's web site has the audacity to exhort users: "Find out more about this exciting new program...." What hogwash! I called the Virginia Department of Taxation to find out the rationale behind this change. The representative could only spout the standard line that the legislature passed the bill and the governor signed it, adding only that it was an attempt to emulate the federal on-line filing system.

Unfortunately, Virginia seems to have overlooked one major element: the federal system includes a program called Free File Fillable Forms which allows everyone to file electronically with no restrictions on age, income, or anything else. Where is Virginia's equivalent? Missing in action. Oops!

I have been filing electronically for several years now, but no more. This year, I am no longer eligible for any of the free programs, and I refuse to pay a fee just for the "privilege" of filing electronically. Instead, I am now driven to revert to paper where the only "fee" is a 44-cent postage stamp. I guess that this is supposed to be someone's distorted idea of progress, but in reality it represents a huge step backwards.

Virginia's legislature has created a patchwork crazy-quilt "system" that lacks the redeeming feature of an all-inclusive option akin to the federal Free File Fillable Forms. It also excludes a substantial portion of the population and thus has the perverse effect of discouraging electronic filing for those people.

In short, Virginia has managed to incorporate the worst elements of the federal program while excluding the single best feature. So tell me again, Republicans, exactly how state governments are so much better?

[Postscript: I e-mailed the essential contents of this article to both my state senator and my representative to the House of Delegates asking them to please address the flaws in the system. Both legislators and their respective staffs declined even to reply. Apparently in the eyes of Republicans, if you are not a fat-cat businessman laden with cash contributions, you do not merit a response.

At the very least, this scenario provides just another example that belies the Republican shibboleth that small government is responsive government.]

[Post Postscript: Will wonders never cease! I just checked the Virginia Department of Taxation web site to download tax forms for 2011. In the instruction manual, on the first page after the title page, the third paragraph reads as follows:

Free File Fillable Virginia Forms (New e-File option) - Online versions of the Virginia resident return and schedules that allow you to enter tax information just as you would if you were completing a paper form and then submit the return electronically through e-File.

Eureka! This year, it appears that Virginia will provide free file fillable forms just like the federal government has offered for years. It took Virginia at least a year longer than it should have, but better late than never, I guess.] [Added 8 January 2012]

Google's Mental Block

Google just added a welcome new feature to its search engine that allows users to block unwanted sites from appearing on the search engine results page (SERP).

Allow me to cite one example. My pet peeve is a site called Experts Exchange. Whenever I do a Google search for a technical problem of any kind involving Microsoft Windows, that site is invariably among the listed choices offering a solution.

Unfortunately, in order to see the answer to that particular problem, you must first sign up for a free 30-day trial. To do so, you must provide not only an e-mail address but a credit card number that is required to "validate" your free trial. Riiight. Not to worry, though: they are quick to add that "You will never be charged during your free trial and you can cancel at any time." Whew; I am so relieved.

Sorry, folks; that is never going to happen. I do not want to encounter that nonsense ever again; with Google's new feature, now I don't have to.

Google's own web site describes how to block specific sites from search results. The steps to actually block a site seem to work just fine as long as you have a Google profile and are logged on to it.

My heartburn comes from Google's instruction that says "Whenever your search results would have included pages from that [blocked] domain, you'll see a message at the top or bottom of the page reminding you that the domain was blocked." I have yet to see any such message or notification.

Even more problematical is Google's statement that users can "[a]dd or remove blocked sites using the Blocked Sites page which is accessible via your Search Settings page when you're signed in." Hard as I looked, I could not find any reference to the Blocked Sites page anywhere in my Search Settings.

The only way I could find to navigate my way to the Blocked Pages site was to conduct a dummy search, visit any site shown in the results, and click on the link to block that site. That link then transformed into a link entitled Managed Blocked Sites. Clicking that link in turn finally threw me into the Manage Blocked Sites page. There I could freely add new sites to block and mark previously blocked sites to unblock, including the most recent blocked site that served only as a vehicle to access the settings.

However, that process struck me as a truly awkward and artificial contrivance. Why should users have to arbitrarily block any random site just to access the settings? As I am writing this masterpiece, today marks only the first or second day after Google's release of this new feature. Hopefully over the next few days, Google will smoothe out these rough edges.

Until then, I have discovered a very simple workaround: while in the Manage Blocked Sites page for the first time, simply bookmark that page as you would bookmark any other web site. For most people, the applicable url should be http://www.google.com/reviews/t or, if you are like me and use only encrypted Google searches, https://encrypted.google.com/reviews/t.

Bingo! Now we're cooking with gas. With that one bookmark, I now have total flexibility. Any time I want, I can simply click my new bookmark and then easily block any site or sites that might offend my delicate sensibilities.

As the old Alka-Seltzer commercial once said, "Try it; you'll like it."

Microsoft Windows: Unfriendly Letters

As many years as I have been wrestling with Microsoft Windows, I have unwillingly accepted the operating system's default assignment of drive letters to USB devices. That's because I was totally unaware that users can themselves seize control over the drive letters assigned to USB external hard drives. I have only recently discovered this fact.

Why does this even matter? Well, our family has four computers: one laptop for each of my two children plus a desktop and a backup laptop for my own use. By default, two of the four machines assigned drive letter G to its associated external hard drive while the other two assigned drive letter E. And one of those changed to F when I affixed a USB thumb drive in addition.

This kind of inconsistency drives me nuts. When I want to manually copy files from the computer to its external hard drive, I am constantly challenged to remember which machine(s) uses E: or F: or G: as the drive letters. And when I write a batch program to automate that backup process, I have to employ multiple conditional "if" statements based on the respective machine names to account for the differences.

Enough is enough. In Windows 7, follow these steps to set the drive letter for external USB hard drives:

• Click the "Start" orb in the lower left corner of the main window
• Right-click on "Computer"
• Select "Manage" from the resulting menu
• Select "Disk Management" from the left pane
• Right-click on the device of interest
• Select "Change Drive Letters and Paths..."
• Click on the "Change..." button
• Select the desired letter from the pull-down menu
• Click the "OK" button to save your work

The process for Windows XP is very similar:

• Click the "Start" orb in the lower left corner of the main window
• Click the "Settings | Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Computer Management" menu selections; alternatively, open Windows Explorer, right-click on "My Computer," then click on the "Manage" menu option
• Select "Disk Management" from the left pane
• Right-click on the device of interest
• Select "Change Drive Letters and Paths..."
• Click on the "Change..." button
• Select the desired letter from the pull-down menu
• Click the "OK" button to save your work

Voilà! Using this method, I have set all four external hard drives to the same letter device designator. My unreliable memory is no longer taxed when I manually copy individual files for backup, and I am able to remove all of the condition statements from my batch programs for bulk backups.

And it only took me 5+ years to stumble onto this technique!

Windows 7 Nuggets

In the past, I have been highly critical of Windows 7, but I have recently stumbled upon some handy features that are worth mentioning. For all I know, these features might also be present in Vista, but they are certainly new to all of us who are migrating from XP directly to Windows 7, thus bypassing Vista altogether.

• Calculator.
  

  Windows 7's calculator goes beyond simple arithmetic calculations. It has a scientific mode with such features as trigonometric values, roots and exponents, logarithms and natural logarithms, and factorials. It also has a statistics mode that calculates such values as simple summations and sums of squares; simple means and means of squares; and standard deviations of both population and samples. The calculator also includes features for date calculation and perhaps best of all, an impressive ability to convert a wide range of units of measure.

• WordPad.
  

  On the down side, WordPad now contains the same overblown, confusing "ribbon" menu system first encountered in Microsoft Office 2007. On the positive side, it does open Word's Open XML document (.docx) files as well as OpenOffice's OpenDocument text (.odt) files.

  Be advised, however, that the format of complex files might not be preserved. For example, I wrote a newsletter in a 3-column newsprint format which was totally obliterated when I opened the document in WordPad. However, even with the format destroyed, I could still deciper the basic sentence content.

  Aside from this shortcoming, WordPad now enables users to read Microsoft Word documents and OpenOffice text documents without having either Microsoft Office or OpenOffice installed. How unexpectedly considerate of Microsoft to add such a useful function, flawed though it might be.

• Windows Explorer.
  

  In one sense, I consider the new Windows Explorer to be a step backwards because I miss the customizable icon bar at the top. Furthermore, the default settings fail to display all folders in the navigation pane to the left. Even worse, it also fails to display the full path of folders above the current folder, making navigation much more difficult.

  I know of no way to fix the icon bar deficiency, but the other two problems are eminently correctable. Simply open Windows Explorer and click on the menu sequence "Tools | Folder Options." In the resulting window, click on the "General" tab if it is not already highlighted. About half-way down the page, in the "Navigation pane" section, place a check mark in both fields marked "Show all folders" and "Automatically expand to current folder." Click the OK button to save your settings; that will restore the missing functionality. You will now be able to see the system folders that previously were hidden, and you will be able to see the full path of folders above the current folder.

  While you are still in the Folder Options window, you might also want to select the "View" tab. Then, in the "Advanced settings" field, scroll all the way to the bottom. Click the option "Use check boxes to select items" and click the OK button to finish. Now, whenever you hover your mouse over a file, a check box will appear to the left. You can simply select the check box to mark that and other files for subsequent action like copying, moving, deleting, etc.

  Before Vista, users had to first hold the control key with one hand and then click the desired files with the other. In Vista and Windows 7, with this "Use check boxes" feature activated, you can select multiple files using mouse clicks only. Simultaneous keyboard actions (i.e., holding the control key) are no longer necessary. This provides a more convenient way to select multiple files.

  Finally, there is one more Windows Explorer tweak you might find worthwhile. It irks me that Windows Explorer by default opens to the Libraries folder. If you do not use this Microsoft Libraries organization scheme, then being confronted with Libraries every time you open Windows Explorer quickly becomes a source of aggravation.

  Instead, open Windows Explorer by clicking on the Start orb and selecting menus All Programs | Accessories. Right click on the Windows Explorer entry and select Properties. In the Properties window, select the Shortcut tab if it is not already highlighted. You will probably see the default entry
  

     %windir%\explorer.exe
  

  in the Target field. Simply append the full path and name of the folder you wish to open instead. For example, if you have all of your meaningful data in folder C:\MyData, then change the entry in the Target field to read
  

     %windir%\explorer.exe C:\MyData
  

  Now when you click on the Windows Explorer menu entry, it will open to the folder you have specified.

  You can even take this one step farther. Click on your newly modified Windows Explorer menu entry. After Windows Explorer opens, minimize it to the task bar. Right click on the task bar icon and select "Pin this program to taskbar." The icon will remain permanently in the task bar, or at least until you overtly close it. Not only will you not have to drill down through the menu system any more, but the newly "pinned" Windows Explorer icon will itself also open to the folder you previously specified.

• Clocks.
  

  Users can add two additional clocks to the system tray. Simply click on the clock icon at the lower right corner of the screen and then click the "Change date and time settings..." link. Finally, click the the middle tab labeled "Additional Clocks." In the resulting window, check the appropriate "Show this clock" box, select a corresponding time zone from the pull-down menu, and enter a display name in the designated field. Click the OK button to save your choice(s).

  To display the additional clock(s), simply hover the mouse over the clock icon or else click on that same icon. In the latter case, a window will appear where the additional clock(s) you created will be displayed as smaller clock(s) beside the larger main clock for your own time zone.

  This method provides a fairly simple yet effective way to monitor the local time of friends or relatives located in distant parts of the world.

• Gadgets.
  

  Windows 7 offers a variety of desktop gadgets to enhance your computing experience. I found no life-changing applications here. Instead, all of the gadgets I saw fell into the nice-to-have, just-for-fun category.

  To access gadgets, click on the Start orb and select the menus Control Panel | Appearance and Personalization | Desktop Gadgets. You will probably see icons for a calendar, a clock, a picture puzzle game, and the weather, among others. You can download additional gadgets by clicking, of all things, the "Get more gadgets online" link at the bottom of the gadgets window.

  I was mildly amused by the Slideshow gadget which cycles through images stored in a designated folder and displays them in a small desktop window at a specified interval. Unfortunately for me, the gadget's 4:3 display ratio is not especially suitable for my 16:9 wallpaper, but the idea remains moderately interesting nevertheless.

  As Tom Zart famously wrote in the opening line of his "Garage Sale" poem, "One man's trash is another man's treasure." Maybe you can find one or two treasures amongst all of my trash.

---

I hope that at least some readers will find at least some of these tips at least somewhat useful. In my case, these discoveries help to partially ease my continuing disappointment with Microsoft operating sytems, of which Windows 7 is merely the most recent example.

O Come, All Ye Faithful

As a militant agnostic (it must be true: it says so on my Facebook profile), I have always been wary of anyone who wears their religion on their sleeves. Allow me to quote one of my favorite writers (namely, myself) from a previous blog article that I wrote in April 2010:

Ardent religionists have perpetrated as much evil as any other class of miscreant. From the Crusades to the Inquisition to the Protestant-Catholic strife in Northern Ireland to Al-Qaeda, religious extremism has wreaked havoc throughout history. We in the United States are certainly not exempt: the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation, and misguided individuals like Timothy McVeigh all claimed to be "doing God’s work."

Upon further reflection, however, I have come to a painful realization: I, too, am a religionist. The Green Bay Packers are in fact my religion. Consider the following:

• We have a patron saint: St. Vincent, as in Vincent Thomas Lombardi.
  
• We have a sacred shrine: our Mecca, if you will, located at 1265 Lombardi Avenue in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Its Anglicized name is Lambeau Field. Just as with Muslims, all true fans must make a pilgrimage to that shrine least once in their lives.
  
• We have a doctrinal theology: namely, "Run to Daylight."
  
• We have 11 disciples of that doctrine, not Christianity's 12, but that's only because football rules allow only 11 offensive players on the field at any one time. Just think how the course of religious history might have changed if Judas Iscariot had been excluded from supper by a similar 11-man rule.
  
• We had a wayward prodigal son who was forgiven his sins and ultimately welcomed home: Paul Hornung, who was suspended for the 1963 season for gambling but resumed playing in 1964.
  
• We had our own traitorous Judas Iscariot aka Brett Favre, who betrayed Packer nation by cavorting with arch-rival satans, the Minnesota Vikings. Favre then descended into purgatory when his refusal to cooperate prolonged the league's investigation into his lustful misdeeds just long enough so that his eventual (supposed) retirement rendered a suspension moot.
  
• Like almost every religion, we dress in special garments on Sundays before visiting our places of worship. Unfortunately, blasphemous worshipers in several other major cities like Detroit, Minneapolis, and especially Chicago, are misguided heathens who worship false gods and idols in the form of Lions, Viking Norsemen, and Bears. And, of course, everyone would do well to heed Willie Nelson's fateful warning: "Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be Cowboys."
  

As you can see, we do have all of the trappings of a formal religion. On the other hand, our religion has never executed anyone; never physically tortured anyone (I exclude the agony inflicted on Packer fans themselves by a starvation diet of just five winning seasons while roaming the desert wastelands during the 25-year-period from 1968 to 1992—and one of those winning seasons ocurred during the strike-shortened winter of 1982); and never started a major war. The only neighborhood invasions we have committed were to fill stadiums (stadia?) on road games to the point of having almost as many fans present as the home team's own fans. And the only territorial claim we have ever made is the following:

Q: What separates the best team in the NFL from all of the other teams?

A: The Wisconsin border.

So, there you have it: it turns out that I am a religionist after all. And though I and my fellow believers are as ardent as those of any other religion, my religion remains far more innocuous than most.

In that spirit of religious tolerance, one final note to the apostates who worship any team with the audacity to defeat the Packers in the upcoming playoffs: you may take comfort in the fact that there will be no fatwa issued—at least, not until after the Super Bowl.

Quick Take - Windows 7 (Revisited)

In my blog of 23 October 2010 entitled Quick Take - Windows 7, I ranted and railed against Microsoft's newest operating system for, among other things, not providing a mechanism for users to export their customized themes, especially cursors, sounds, and images.

Well, I was dead wrong. There is a way to export those settings to an external file and then subsequently import them into any another user account on any computer with Windows 7. Here's how:

1. Open "Control Panel | Appearance and Personalization | Personalization"
   
2. Pick an aero theme as a base
   
3. Make any changes you want to the desktop background, window color, sounds, and/or screensaver by clicking the appropriate icon(s) at the bottom of the screen
   
4. Make any changes you want to the desktop icons, mouse pointers, and/or screensaver by clicking the appropriate hyperlink(s) from the menu to the left of the screen
   
5. Click the "Save theme" link in the middle of the screen and assign a meaningful name for the theme
   

Your settings will be saved to a file in the following location:

     C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\
     Microsoft\Windows\Themes\
     [themename].theme

To make subsequent changes to your theme, open this .theme file with any text editor. At that point, you can change any or all of the settings within that text editor as an alternative to the control panel process listed above.

You can also copy your new file to the appropriate folder on another computer. By this simple process, you can implement your customized theme on any other computer operating with Windows 7—assuming, of course, that all sounds, cursors, and images referenced all happen to reside in the same folders on the new pc. To complete the transaction, simply open the "Control Panel | Appearance and Personalization | Personalization" window on the second computer and actively select the theme you just added.

Piece of cake, right? I'm sure you are wondering how I ever could have missed it. Me, too.

Changing the Subject

Have you ever received an e-mail with a blank subject line? Of course you have; everyone has. If you are like me, you want a way to provide a meaningful subject line both to identify the contents of the message and to help search for that message in the future whenever the need arises. Unfortunately, users of Mozilla's Thunderbird e-mail client cannot directly edit the subject line with the base program alone.

There is a Thunderbird add-on called TB Header Tools Extension that apparently used to work well in older versions of Thunderbird. Regrettably, it is no longer maintained, having been last updated in July 2005. As a result, it no longer works with any recent version of Thunderbird. Other developers have revised the original extension, but those unofficial versions are not supported by Mozilla, and they reportedly work in some cases but not others. I therefore generally steer clear of those unreliable, unofficial add-ons.

In the course of Googling this topic, I stumbled upon one interesting suggestion that did seem to hold promise at first blush. The writer's suggestion was encouragingly simple: copy the message to the Draft folder, then edit the message to change the subject line, save the change, and move the message back to its original folder.

That method appeared to work: it did succeed in changing the subject line. However, it also changed the sender's name to that of the mailbox owner (namely, me) instead of the original/actual sender, and it also overwrote the original time and date with the time and date of the edited change. If I were to later search for messages from the original sender, the e-mail in question would no longer even appear. Thus, this method does more harm than good.

Even though that approach ultimately failed, it did set me to thinking. I already have a marvelous add-on called ImportExportTools that is fully supported by Mozilla and is actively maintained. As its name implies, it allows users to export and import individual messages to and from the .eml file format. The beauty of this solution is that users can edit .eml files with any basic text editor. With this add-on, it becomes a simple matter to export the message, open the saved message in a text editor, type the desired new subject line, save the newly edited file to the same .eml format, and import back into Thunderbird.

Eureka! The subject line of the imported message now reads as I intended, and the message still reflects the original sender and date/time stamp.

So now whenever anybody tells you "Don't change the subject!" you can blithely ignore them and change the subject to your heart's content.

Microsoft Wireless Woes

I recently encountered a problem with Microsoft's wireless network connection. After buying a Toshiba laptop with Windows 7 for my own use, I gave my older Dell laptop with Windows XP to my son. The problem: the Windows wireless network connection on the XP machine worked only with my administrative account. It totally failed to connect when my children logged on under their limited accounts.

Whenever they clicked on the Windows network icon in the system tray, the expected listing of the available wireless networks that I saw in my admin account failed to materialize. Instead, the following message would appear: "Windows cannot configure this wireless connection."

I navigated to the control panel's wireless networks connection properties, selected the Advanced tab, and checked the box marked "Allow other network users to connect through this computer's Internet connection." Still no luck.

I scoured Google for hours searching for solutions from other folks who had encountered the same problem. Some people suggested converting the limited accounts to admin accounts, but I refuse to do that for my two pre-teenage children: there's no telling what kind of mischief that would create. Others recommended uninstalling and re-installing the operating system, but that was way too radical for my taste. Other respondents recommended scrapping the current modem and purchasing a modem from a different manufacturer, another impractical solution. In short, I found no useful suggestions that I was willing to apply.

In sheer frustration, I continued to poke around my son's machine. Eventually, I stumbled on the fact that Dell had installed an Intel wireless network connection. It had not been readily apparent to me because the system tray icon was marked as "Always hide" and therefore was invisible to me. I suspect that I myself hid it when I first bought the machine in an effort to reduce the clutter in the system tray from all of the crapware that Dell installs on its machines.

While logged on under my own limited account, I unhid the Intel wireless icon and clicked on it out of sheer desperation more than anything else. Eureka! Much to my surprise and delight, the list of available wireless networks appeared as if by magic, including our own home network. I repeated the process on my son's limited account and successfully connected to the internet in the same way: by using Intel's connection rather than Microsoft's. My son has been a happy camper ever since.

As it turns out, I much prefer the Intel user interface anyway. In the main window, it lists only those networks that are currently within range. It also permits users to save wireless networks that they have previously accessed as separate profiles with meaningful names (for example, "motel@NewarkDE") for later use.

The Windows interface, on the other hand, lists all computers accessed in the past in the main window as if they were still within range even when those networks are hundreds of miles away and no longer accessible! For example, every Thanksgiving we travel to my sister's house in Pennsylvania, and Windows continues to list the wireless network connection to our public library 250 miles away in Richmond, Virginia. How silly is that?

Furthermore, the reported signal strength with Intel is much more believable than Windows. My son's wireless notebook is less than 30 feet from our modem, yet the Windows icon reports signal strength as "Low" whereas Intel reports it as a far more credible "Excellent."

Lessons Learned

There are at least two lessons illustrated by this experience. The first is to be wary of well-meaning but sometimes misguided on-line technical support "gurus." Be skeptical of extreme remedies like re-installing your operating system from scratch or buying replacement hardware. More often than not, there will be a simpler, more straight-forward solution to your problem. In my case, the answer turned out to be very close at hand. You might have to keep digging and consult with a variety different knowledgeable sources before you eventually stumble on a satisfactory method to fix the immediate problem.

The second observation from this episode involves Microsoft and the quality of its products. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we now have yet another case in a steadily growing list of examples where Microsoft produces an application for its own operating system that is markedly inferior to products of other vendors. You would think that as the originator of the operating system, Microsoft would have a distinct advantage in creating useful applications for that O/S. In reality, quite the opposite is true: for reasons I cannot begin to fathom, Microsoft continually squanders its advantage and instead wallows in mediocrity.

As my favorite philosopher Yogi Berra once stated, "If you come to a fork in the road, take it." In this case, if you come to a fork in the road with at least one branch leading away from Microsoft, by all means take it. Chances are favorable that you be happier with the non-Microsoft option.

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One final note on the history and origins of wireless technology:

After digging to a depth of 100 meters last year, Japanese scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 1000 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network one thousand years ago.

Not to be outdone in the weeks that followed, Chinese scientists dug 200 meters and headlines in the Chinese papers read: "Chinese scientists have found traces of 2000 year old optical fibers and have concluded that their ancestors already had advanced high-tech digital telephone 1000 years earlier than the Japanese."

One week later, the Greek newspapers reported the following: "After digging as deep as 800 meters, Greek scientists have found absolutely nothing." They have concluded that 3000 years ago, their ancestors were already using wireless technology.

Windows 7 - An Exercise in Futility (Or: More Questions Than Answers)

Wrestling with Windows 7 is sometimes as futile as bungee jumping without a cord. Nowhere is this more apparent than dealing with the logon default screen. The two primary elements involved are the default logon wallpaper (well, excuuse me: background) and the default logon screensaver. Let's consider each one in turn:

1. Default Logon Background/Wallpaper

A quick Google search will reveal any number of sources that describe the following method to change the default logon background manually:

• Open the registry editor (regedit.exe)
• Go to key HKEY-LOCAL-MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background
• Select the value OEMBackground and change the value data to 1
• Close the registry editor and open Windows Explorer
• If it does not already exist, create a new folder C:\WINDOWS\system32\oobe\info\backgrounds
• Copy the desired JPG image file to the folder, then rename it to "backgroundDefault.jpg"

You can also provide additional resolution-specific background images for all screen resolutions honored by your computer. Name those files following the pattern "background[width]x[height]" in pixels: for example, "background800x600.jpg" or "background1280x720.jpg". In addition, all such image files must apparently be less than 245/250/256Kb in size. In the absence of the appropriate resolution-specific image file, the image "backgroundDefault.jpg" will be used and resized to the default screen resolution.

My new Toshiba laptop allows the following screen resolutions:

Toshiba Laptop Screen Resolutions

Resolution (in pixels)	Ratio (width to height)
1680 x 945	1.777
1600 x 900	1.777
1360 x 768	1.7708333
1280 x 800	1.600
1280 x 768	1.666
1280 x 720	1.777
1152 x 864	1.333
1024 x 768	1.333
800 x 600	1.333

It is a well-established fact that Windows 7 does not allow different users to retain different screen resolutions. If I log on and set my resolution to 1280x720, the next user who logs on after me will initially inherit that same resolution. If that second miscreant changes the resolution to 1680x945 for his or her session, then I in turn will encounter that new resolution when I log on afterward (much to the dismay of my 20-400 vision). The primary users of my new Toshiba—my two children and myself—all use the 1280x720 resolution. However, after any one of us logs off, Windows 7 unexpectedly reverts instead to the image I designated for 1360x768 (i.e., file "background1360x768.jpg") as the default background for the logon screen.

Clearly, a different default resolution is at work. That raises the obvious question: how does an administrator change the default resolution of the logon screen? I spent the better part of two hours per day for three straight days Googling this question with absolutely no meaningful results. Surely someone knows the definitive answer, but I have yet to encounter that person. If anyone reading this entry can shed any light on the subject, by all means add a comment to this blog. I will be forever grateful—with all the rights and privileges that entails.

2. Default Logon Screensaver

In Windows XP, adding the following three string values under registry key [HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop] causes the indicated screensaver to activate when no users are actively logged on:

[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop]

• "ScreenSaveActive"="1"
• "ScreenSaveTimeOut"="600"
• "SCRNSAVE.EXE"="C:\zBob\scrnsavr\JPEGsaver\JPEGsaver.scr"
  ...or...
  "SCRNSAVE.EXE"="C:\zBob\scrnsavr\picSaver\picSaver.scr"
  

I have two favorite screensaver programs: JpegSaver and PicSaver. Both work properly as the default screensaver in Windows XP, but the same registry entries fail miserably as the default screensaver in Windows 7. This despite the fact that both screensavers work correctly for individual users after they log on even as a standard user with no special administrative privileges.

The error message with PicSaver (to the effect that it could not find any image files) led me to suspect that for some reason the configuration file was not being read properly. PicSaver stores user configuration information in an external file "C:\Windows\PicSaver.ini" while JpegSaver stores its configuration data in file "C:\Users\[user name]\AppData\Local\jpegsaver.cfg" where the user's name appears in place of [user name].

Because I created the files when logged on as administrator, I suspected a possible permissions problem. My hypothesis postulated that the default screensaver might operate with the limited privileges of the standard user and would therefore conflict with the admin only privileges inherited by the configuration files I created as administrator. Consequently, I attempted to revise the permissions of the configuration files with the intention of allowing all users full read and execute (but not write) privileges.

I first tried to edit the PicSaver.ini file using my trusty 32-bit file manager, 2xExplorer. I was able to edit the file contents just fine, but I could not change the user privileges. When I switched to the 64-bit Windows Explorer, much to my astonishment, I could not even see the PicSaver.ini file that I just edited in my 32-bit file manager!

I then turned my attention to the JpegSaver configuration files. I could see and edit those files with 64-bit Windows Explorer as well as 16-bit 2xExplorer, and I could even change the permissions using Windows Explorer. Unfortunately, adding users and then giving users read and execute privileges still did not succeed in displaying JpegSaver wallpaper images. In fact, I saw only a black screen without so much as an error message.

In light of these failures, I tried a different approach. An absolutely fantastic image viewer/editor called IrfanView allows users to create image slideshows and save them as a self-contained executable (file type .exe) or screensaver (file type .scr) file. By self-contained, I mean no dependencies on any external image files whatsoever: the images are embedded within IrfanView's output file. Employing this feature, I created my slide show and saved it as both file formats (.exe and .scr) as test cases. When I entered the names of my slide show files into the registry key SCRNSAVE.EXE discussed above, lo and behold: both files worked perfectly!

I was happy to have at least circumvented the problem even if I did not truly solve it. However, there are at least two mild drawbacks to this technique:

• To stop the slide show, users must click the escape key instead of wiggling the mouse as with a true screen saver
• More importantly, every time I find a new image that I want to add, I must recreate the entire slide show all over again. This process is a stark contrast to the standard screensaver, where the simple act of adding new files to any folder earmarked in the screensaver configuration automatically displays the new images as a matter of course.

Summary

At least three questions remain unanswered:

1. Why do the two screensaver programs with external configuration files not work as default screensavers in Windows 7, especially when the very same registry entries work so well in Windows XP? Does the problem lie with those external configuration files, or is the real problem something else altogether?
2. Why does the all-powerful and all-knowing 64-bit Windows Explorer not even display the one configuration file "C:\Windows\PicSaver.ini" when 32-bit file managers can? Both of my 32-bit file managers, 2xExplorer and FreeCommander, not only display the file in question but also allow me to edit the file contents even if I cannot edit the file permissions.
3. How does an administrator control the screen resolution of the default logon screen?

This situation is again reminiscent of the standing joke about economists: if you were to gather ten economists in a room to study a problem, you are sure to obtain at least eleven opinions. In this case, I began with just two problems yet wound up with three unanswered questions.

Just further evidence that computers are like air conditioners: they both stop working properly whenever you open windows.