TODAY'S TOURBUS STOP: More Java / Airport Delays / Another Free PowerPoint

Howdy, y'all, and greetings once again from deep behind the orange curtain in beautiful Irvine, California, the original celebrated curiously strong peppermints.

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On with the show...

I love coffee, I love tea ... Audience: PC users

I apologize!

In my last post [which was actually a couple of weeks ago] I told you how to download and install Sun's official version of Java but forgot to tell you what you should do with your Microsoft Java Virtual Machine AFTER the installation. Whoops!

This may sound kind of strange, but my gut feeling is that you should *NOT* uninstall the MSJVM. Rather, you should abandon it in place.

Here's why. Uninstalling Windows components, even ones that are going to die in September, is a fool's errand if only because you have no idea if the uninstall is going work. The worst case scenario is that you could unintentionally break Windows in the process. And that's a risk I'm just not willing to take.

Instead, to make sure your Microsoft Java Virtual Machine is sent off to its own private Siberia, download and install the Sun version of Java and then

1. In Internet Explorer, go to Tools > Internet Options. 2. Click on the Advanced tab. 3. Scroll down to the Java settings and make sure there is a checkmark next to Use Java 2 v1.42_03 for applet 4. Scroll down Microsoft VM and uncheck everything. 5. Click on OK.

After that,

1. Open your PC's control panel. (Start > Settings > Control Panel; Start > Control Panel in XP) 1a. If you have XP and your Control Panel is a purple page asking you to Pick a Category, click on Switch to Classic View in the upper left corner of the page. 2. Double-click on the Java Control Panel icon. (If you have two Java Control Panel icons, click on purple and red one not the black, white, and red one that looks like a ouija board pointer). 3. It'll take a while for the control panel to open, but when it does click on the browser tab. 4. Make sure there is a checkmark next to all of the browsers that you use. 5. Click on apply and then close the control panel.

Then, restart your computer. That's it. :)

I hope this helps!

US Airport Delays / TSA Audience: Anyone flying into or out of a US airport

For those of you headed to a US airport anytime soon, you might want to bookmark the homepage of the United States' Federal Aviation Administration's Air Traffic Control System Command Center at

http://www.fly.faa.gov/

The FAA's ATCSCC [man, that acronym just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?] manages the flow of air traffic within the continental United States, and their homepage has an airport status map that shows, in real time, the general arrival and departure delays at the US' 40 biggest airports.

The map shows each airport's three letter airport code (like LAX or BOS), but if you hold your mouse over a particular airport code a pop- up window appears telling you what that code means in English. Best of all, the dots for each airport are color-coded:

Green dots signify arrival/departure delays of less than 15

minutes.

Yellow dots indicate 16 to 45 minute delays at that particular

airport.

Red dots are for airports reporting delays of greater than 45

minutes.

Orange dots mean that the airport is closed to inbound traffic.

Red dots mean you'd best stay at home--the airport is closed.

Click on an airport's color-coded dot and a new page appears showing you that airport's

Outbound delays based on destination.

General departure delays.

General arrival delays.

And, as long as we're talking about air travel in the United States, you might also want to pay a visit to

http://www.tsa.gov/public/index.jsp

and click on the "A MUST read for anyone traveling by air" link before you head to the airport. This opens a webpage created by our friends at the US Transportation Security Administration that provides updated information and tips that will hopefully minimize your wait time at your airport's security checkpoint. The "must read" page also has a link to a 5 page, 319 Kb Adobe Acrobat (PDF) file telling you what items are and are not allowed in your checked and carry-on luggage. So, before you throw three lighters, a cricket bat, and a cattle prod into your carry-on, you might want to take a quick glance at TSA's five page handout.

Do you know of any web sites that show airport delays outside of the US? Send me an email and let me know! I'll make sure to include those sites in a future post.

Yet another PowerPoint presentation Audience: Everyone, especially PC users

In addition to watching airplanes and airports, your fearless bus driver has also been busy creating yet another new PowerPoint presentation you are free to steal. The presentation, titled "Behind the Spinning Hourglass: The Deepest, Darkest Secrets of Your PC's Internet Applications," can be found at

http://www.netsquirrel.com/classroom/

The file is kind of big--3.39 Mb-- so it'll take about 16 minutes to download over a 28.8 modem. But, it's worth the wait because it gives you a peek behind the scenes of your favorite Internet applications, showing you some of the best kept tips, tricks, and secrets from bookmarklets to the joy of IE's links bar to stealing text from Acrobat files.

And, this is the first presentation I've done that uses screen capture videos in animated GIF format. Slide 3, which is hidden, tells you exactly how I was able to do that.

To view this presentation, you'll need:

1. Either Microsoft PowerPoint for the PC or the Mac *OR* Microsoft's free PowerPoint reader for the PC or the Mac *OR* the US$79 Star Office Suite *OR* the free OpenOffice suite.

2. A zip utility like WinZip *OR* PKZip *OR* FreeZip *OR* StuffIt *OR* ... [do a search for zip utility at Google for the complete list].

One word of warning: This presentation talks about the most popular *PC-based* Internet clients used in America's classrooms: Microsoft Internet Explorer, AOL Instant Messenger, Real Networks' RealOne Player, Adobe Acrobat, etc. I recognize that the term "most popular" does not necessarily mean "best." Many of the most popular classroom Internet clients have significant flaws, flaws that are fixed in other, alternative Internet clients.

HOWEVER, since most American educators don't have the time or, in many cases, the administrative permissions to download, install, and configure a new web browser, IM client, or streaming audio player, this presentation shows educators how to overcome the limitations inherent in many of the most popular Internet programs they deal with every day.

That doesn't mean that you can't take this workshop and tweak it so that it talks about Mac and *nix Internet applications instead Wintel ones. In fact, please do!

Can you think of anything I've missed or got wrong in this presentation? Drop me a line. I'd love to hear what you think.

The Next Best Thing

Linda from Marlinton, West Virginia recently wrote and said "The next best thing to Tourbus is the Smart Computing magazine that you guys recommend. I've been getting it since last summer and it has solved numerous problems for me and my friends."

Thanks, Linda! We hope other Tourbus riders will discover the Plain English answers to their computing questions that Smart Computing delivers every month. Do you want to speed up your PC? Get rid of spyware and keep hackers out? Try Smart Computing today -- get your FREE TRIAL issue NOW!

http://tourbus.com/smart.htm

That's it for today. Have a safe and happy week and we'll talk again soon!

           .~~~.  ))
 (\__/)  .'     )  ))       Patrick Douglas Crispen
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