Atención a la diversidad

Use it as you would use the normal command line, including any normal switches that you use to launch programs.

But MCL does more than just let you enter commands. It includes a number of other goodies that the XP command prompt doesn't, including these:

It keeps a history of your last 100 commands, so you can easily reenter or edit any commands you've already typed. It includes an AutoComplete function that finishes your commands for you.

It lets you launch URLs directly from the command line. If you type a URL, your default browser will open to that URL. It can be minimized to the System Notification area.

It can be launched with a hot key. The default is Ctrl-Alt-M.

The program has a few eccentricities you'll have to keep in mind when using it. When executing a DOS command, you have to use the % prefix. For example, to copy a file from C:\Favorite Files to C:\Summer, you'd use this command:

%copy C:\Favorite Files\Gabecamp.doc C:\Summer\Gabecamp.doc

To open to a specific directory in Windows Explorer, precede the command with a $. So to open to C:\Program Files, you'd issue the command $C:\Program Files.

Command-line fans will also want to get a copy of 4NT (http://www.jpsoft.com). Run it instead of the normal command prompt and get countless new features, such as a command-line editor for modifying and reexecuting previous commands; the ability to copy, delete, and rename groups of files and directories with a single command; a built-in file viewer; the ability to select or include files by a variety of

criteria, including date, time, and size; the ability to append descriptions (up to 511 characters) to files; and an exceedingly powerful batch language. It's shareware and free to try, but if you continue to use it, you're expected to pay $69.95.

3.13.1 See Also

The free Command Prompt Explorer Bar (http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/CommandBar.asp) lets you open a command-line toolbar from directly within Windows Explorer. It combines the command line with Windows Explorer navigation, so not only can you use the command line, but you can also navigate through your PC using Explorer.

[ Team LiB ]

Chapter 4. The Web

Section 4.1. Hacks #33-41

Hack 33. Stop Pop Ups, Spyware, and Web Bugs

Hack 34. Take a Bite Out of Cookies

Hack 35. Read Web Pages Offline

Hack 36. Better Internet Searching from Your Desktop

Hack 37. Hack Internet Explorer with the Group Policy Editor

Hack 38. Speed Up File Downloads

Hack 39. Surf Anonymously Without a Trace

Hack 40. Secrets of Web Site Hosting with Internet Information Services (IIS)

Hack 41. Run Java Applets Without Crashes or Problems

[ Team LiB ]

4.1 Hacks #33-41

All of us live on the Web these days, and the demarcation between the operating system and the Web has gotten fuzzier with each iteration of Windows. XP has even more web-based tools built into it than its predecessors.

While Internet Explorer 6 betters all previous versions of the browser, it could still use some help. It doesn't give you much help when you want to protect your privacy or fight against annoyances like pop-up ads, for example. And its searching capabilities and offline display of web pages leaves much to be desired.

In this chapter, you'll find hacks to fix all that and more, including a great grab-bag of Registry hacks for Internet Explorer, a way to speed up file downloads, shortcuts for starting and running Internet Explorer, and more.

[ Team LiB ]

Hack 33 Stop Pop Ups, Spyware, and Web Bugs

You don't have to be victimized by obnoxious applications and behavior on the Internet. Fight back with these tips and tools. Surfing the Web used to be such as simple, enjoyable experience. Go to the web site of your choice, enjoy the page, and head somewhere else.

No longer. At times, it now seems like a sleazy carnival midway, complete with flashing lights and loud music, barkers pleading at you to venture into the sideshows, scamsters promising you big payoffs if you try three-card monte, and no-goodniks lurking in the shadows. For that, we have pop ups, spyware, and web bugs to thank. Pop ups are ads that, as the name implies, pop up over your browser, usually in a smaller window, and frequently contain flashing messages and other kinds of obnoxious come-ons. The infamous X.10 surveillance camera pioneered this insufferable form of advertising, and now it's everywhere.

Web bugs are invisible bits of data, frequently a single pixel in size (sometimes called "clear GIFs"), that can track all your activities on a web site and report them back to a server. Spyware is software that piggybacks onto your hard disk on the backs of other pieces of software, reports on your activities to ad servers, and then delivers ads to you based on what sites you visit. There's typically no way to know offhand that spyware has been installed on your system, because it lurks invisibly—hence the name. Even after you uninstall the program upon which it piggybacked, it could remain on your PC, reporting on your activities.

You don't have to be victimized, though. As you'll see in the rest of this hack, there are things you can do to keep your PC from resembling a virtual midway.

4.2.1 IE: Download Software to Stop Pop Ups

Internet Explorer has no built-in way to stop pop ups, but you can still kill them with downloadable software. There are many for-pay pop-up killers, but if you don't want to spend the cash, you can get an excellent one for free: EMS Free Surfer mk II, shown in Figure 4-1. It lets you set several levels of pop-up protection—you can block all pop ups or only those that appear to be unwanted—and you can turn it on and off with a click. It has other helpful tools as well, such as letting you shut every open instance of Internet Explorer with a single click, and it includes an add-in that will clean out your system cache and list of recently visited sites. Get it at

http://www.kolumbus.fi/eero.muhonen/FS/fs.htm. (Don't confuse it with a related product, EMS Free Surfer Companion, which offers more features than the free versions and costs $20.)