How long will 100 billion Euros last?

Somebody has volunteered to give/loan/print 100 billion Euros for Spanish banks.  Spain's basic problem is the Spanish government is spending a lot more than it takes in via taxes.  They have been borrowing the shortfall.  Except that nobody will lend the Spanish government any more money, 'cause no body believes they can ever pay it back. 
   This 100 billion goes to Spanish banks, but there is little difference between bank and government.  When the government borrows money, it borrows it from banks.  Spanish banks find it difficult to refuse loans to the Spanish government.  Any right thinking bank surely worries about encounters of the unpleasant kind with bank examiners, taxmen, and stock market regulators if they don't do the patriotic thing and loan their government money.
    So Spain has another 100 billion to keep things running.  How long before it runs out?  A year?  Two years?  Anyone see any signs of Spanish economic reforms that might reduce their deficit?

AdvertiseFail #3

TV ads for a Jetski. They show the happy jet skiers zipping around in blue water.  Then we get to the meat of the ad, brakes.  On a boat?  They show their Jet ski slowing to stop in much less water than competitor jet ski.  Cool.  But why do I care? 
   You slow a boat by putting the prop into reverse and using engine power.  To get into reverse you have to throttle back to idle.  Shifting at full power makes that ugly grinding noise.  Throttling back is likely to make the engine stall, leaving you with NO reverse thrust at all.  I learned many summers ago, never to depend upon reverse thrust being there when you need it.  Approach dock slowly, to avoid ugly bumping sound should reverse not be there. 
   Anyhow, I ain't buying a Jet ski just a cause it excels in reverse thrust.

Adventures in E-books

Favorite Daughter has been raving about the Kindle she received for Christmas.  So, I though I'd see what was out there that could be read on my humble hardware, namely Antique Laptop running Windows XP.   Actually quite a bit.  Ultra tech savvy son was able to find the latest George R.R. Martin "Game of Thrones" novel.  Then I found Walter Scott's Ivanhoe.  Yesterday I Googled for an old E.E. Smith space opera.  It was there, long out of copyright and thus free and legal, complete with cover art and illustrations from the 1920's pulp magazine in which it had first been serialized. 
   Only one small hitch, the file had extension was .EPUB and none of the software on Antique Laptop knew what to do with that.  Googling for .EPUB came up with a history of the breed, and a most helpful post comparing  about 10 different EPUB readers.  Of the reviewer's top picks, one from Adobe required the Adobe flash player to work, the other was a straight Windows program.   I'm not a Flash fan, that program gets patched on a weekly basis, and usually patches break programs.  So I downloaded the Sony Reader, all 40 Mb of it. 
   And it works.  Clicking on the ebook file launches the reader.  Comes up with a nice readable font, and a one button page turner. 
   I suppose I need to go all the way,  download a for pay Kindle E-book and a Kindle reader program.  That's still on my to-do list. 
   Actually,  I prefer reading a paperback to reading on Antique Laptop.  Paperback works in bed, outdoors in bright sunlight.  Antique laptop runs hot, and feel hot and heavy in the lap, where as a paperback is next to weightless. 

President should not check off targets on kill list

Van Jones was on ABC's Sunday talk show with George Stephanopolis making this point.  Jones clearly felt that fingering Al Quada leaders for a drone strike was unconstitutional and we ought to be giving them benefit of due process of law. 
    Since when has due process of law been necessary before the military can shoot at the enemy?   I agree the president of the US shouldn't be doing the targeting.  That's Lt. Colonel work.  Far below the presidential pay grade.
    But it is perfectly moral and legal to kill the enemy leaders.  Much more so than slaughtering enemy grunts who are just following orders.  The leadership that gives the orders is a legitimate target. 

Windows Services Fax Services to Protected Storage

BTW.  Sorry about the format.  This data was originally a spreadsheet.  Converting it to something acceptable to blogger was only partly successful.

Fax Service	The name says it all. Fax sending works in Man	Man.
File Replication	Keeps Files updated between multiple file servers	Nohave
File Server For Macintosh	The name says it all.	Nohave
FTP Publishing Service	Sends files to clients	Nohave
Gateway for Netware	Support for obsolete networking protocol	Nohave
Human Interface Dev. Access	USB keyboards/Mice/Etc	Nohave
Help And Support	Used for Help&Support center.  Not system critical and can be disabled.	Nohave
IIS Admin Service	Modify workings of Internet Info Service (IIS)	Nohave
IMAPI CD-burning COM Service	Drag&Drop CD burn	Nohave
Indexing Service	Supports fast file finding at expense of slow boot. Worthless Resource Hog. Use Add/Remove Programs to kill Indexing everywhere.	disabled
Internet Authentication Service	Pass word checker for remote clients	Nohave
Internet Connection Sharing	Small home network sharing of a single internet connection (dialup. DSL, cable modem)	Nohave
Intersite Messaging	Sends mail from server to server	Nohave
Ipsec Services	Special Internet Security not widely used. Not system critical and can be safely disabled.	Nohave
IPSec Policy Agent	Internet Security>	Man.
Kerboros Key Dist. Center	Enables user logon via kerborous	Nohave
License Logging Service	Logs Client access as Licensed or Pirate	Nohave
Logical Disc Manager	Reports new drive installation. Needed for USB storage devices. Otherwise can be disabled.	auto
Logical disc Manager Admin Services	?	Man.
Message queueing	? Needed for Com+ WMI, MSMG
Messenger Service	Spam gateway	disable
Net Logon	Processes net logons	disable
Net Meeting Remote Desktop  Share	Supports MS net meeting. Bad security hole	disable
Network Connections	Supports dialup and tcpip connections	auto
Network DDE	Dynamic Data Exchange	disable
Network DDE DSDM	Supports Network DDE	disable
Network Location Awareness	Provides services the computers that share your internet connection (ICS)  If not using ICS on a home network it may be disabled.	Nohave
Network Nets Transfer Protocol NNTP	Be a usenet news server	disable
NTLM Security Support Provider	Enables user logon via NTLM	disable
Online Presentation Broadcast	Real Time PowerPoint over the networkl	Nohave
Performance logs and alerts	Collects performace data from other computers	disable
Plug & Play	Loads hardware drivers. System critical. Do not disable.	auto
Universal plug7Play Host	Device host detect and Upnp support
Print Server for Macintosh	The name says it all.	Nohave
Print Spooler	background printing	auto
Process Control Service	?
Protected Storage	Secure storage for cryto keys? System critical do not diable.	auto

Tweaking Windows Services.

Services are little programs that Windows runs behind your back.  Some are necessary, many are not.  All of them steal valuable RAM and CPU time.  You can see just what Services are slowing your machine from the Start Menu.  Do Start ->Settings->Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Services.  Services has an icon of meshed gearwheels.
    The services application gives you the name, a brief spiel, "started" and the startup type.  "Started" should be self explanatory.  Startup type "Auto" means load and start this service at boot time, slowing your boot and committing memory to the service even if you never use it.  Beware.  Service Remote Procedure Call (RPC) MUST be set to auto all the time.  Without RPC on auto Windows will fail to boot and the only recovery is to reinstall Windows from CD ROM.  Don't mess with RPC, it bites.
   Startup type "Manual" means Windows will load and start the service only when some program tries to use the service.  Load and start is so fast that putting services to manual doesn't slow anything down.  Setting things to manual makes the machine boot faster.
    Startup type "Disabled" means never load and run the service no matter what.  A number of services are security holes or spam gateways and should be disabled.

    I am posting the service settings that work on my machine (Blackbox), which runs Windows XP Media Center (XP with some add ons to make/fake it into being a digital video recorder).  It's a single machine home machine running by itself (no networking to other machines).   Since the number of services is vast, the service list is long and I'll post it in pieces.
   I was able to get my boot time down to 45 seconds and make Blackbox perceptibly livelier with these service settings.  I thought I'd pass them on.

Tweaking Windows Services Alerter to Fast User Switching

		Dstarr Blackbox
Alerter	Transmits alerts for display by Messenger Services. Spam gateway.	disable
App. Layer Gateway Service	Supports Internet Connection Sharing.  Obsolete.  We use routers now to put multiple computers on one Internet wire.	Man.
Application Management	Install applications off the LAN.  Corp IT might want this, but I don’t.	Man.
Ati Hot Key Poller	Net rumor says that is a hot key grabber from ATI who makes my video hardware. I never use hotkeys	Man.
ARSVC	Media Ctr always ready stuff. Arservice.exe. Keeps hardware alive even after you power it down.	Man.
automatic Updates	Visits MS website looking for Windows Patches	Man.
Background Intel. Xfer Service	Network files xfer in background for Winupdate	Man.
Boot Info. Negotiation Layer BINL	Install Windows over LAN	Nohave
Certificate Services	X.509 Certificates?	Nohave
ClipBook	Allows other computers to see the clipboard. I ought to make it “disabled”.	Man.
Cluster Service	?	Nohave
COM+ Event System	auto Distribution of Com Events	Man.
Com+ System Applications	Same as above	Man.
Computer Browser	Finds other computers to place into Network Neighhood.  Needed for 2 computer LAN?	Man.
Crypto Services	Cypto support to auto update, WinMediaPlay&PNP	Nohave
Dcom Server Process Launch	Required for RPC. Do not disable	Nohave
DHCP Client	Obtains dynamic IP address from ISP or router. Needed for all networking	auto
DHCP Server	Furnishes dynanic IP addresses to clients	Nohave
Distributed File System DFS	Network File shares	Nohave
Distributed Link Tracking Client	Keeps track of location of files shared over the network	Man.
Distributed Link Tracking Server	Provides information to clients to keep track of shared files/	Nohave
Distributed Transaction Coordinator	Supports Com+ Msg Queueing, SQL file sharing over the network	Man.
DNS Client	Needed to convert www.names into IP numbers	Man.
DNS Server	Converts Domain Names into IP addresses for clients	Nohave
Error Reporting Service	Report errors back to Microsoft in Redmond	Nohave
Event Log	Logs Windows errors to disk. System critical cannot be disabled	auto
Fast User Switch Compatability	Allows login as new user w/o reboot.  I wouldn’t use it even if I had it.	Nohave