Detailed Analysis 1. According to this rather breathless little message, which circulates via email and online, it is not possible to create a folder named "CON" on a Microsoft Windows based computer. The message claims that not even Bill Gates or the whole Microsoft "Team" can explain why this might be so.
It is in fact perfectly true that you cannot create a folder named "CON", nor can you rename an existing folder to "CON". However, there is no mystery surrounding this restriction whatsoever. The "team" at Microsoft, and a great many others besides, know perfectly well why you cannot name a folder "CON". "CON" and a number of other character strings are in fact reserved names that go back to the days of DOS and cannot be used to name folders or files. Other reserved names are: a.. PRN b.. AUX c.. NUL d.. LPT1 e.. COM1 f.. Potential drive letter - A: to Z: g.. A number of others If you try to name a folder using one of these reserved names, the name will automatically revert to the default, generally "New Folder". Moreover, if you try to use a reserved name to name a file such as a Notepad or Microsoft Word document you will generally receive an error message similar to the following: Depending on exactly how you save the file, you may instead receive a warning message advising that a file with that name already exists. However, even if you choose "Yes" to overwrite the existing file, you will still not be allowed to save the file. It should be noted that, by entering the right sequence of commands via the command prompt, it is usually possible to circumvent the restriction in Winodows and create a folder using a reserved name. However, this may cause other problems and is not advisable, especially for more inexperienced users. While there is no mystery about this issue, it might have saved user confusion if Windows displayed an explanatory error message when attempting to create a folder with a reserved name as well. For more detailed information see: MS-DOS Device Driver Names Cannot be Used as File Names 2. What you see isn’t what you typed. This is an easter egg. Or maybe even Microsoft’s programmers hate Bush. That’s what we knew. But the truth is that all 4-3-3-5 strings work. So if you type “this app can break”. The same results. It appears to be bug from Microsoft which has been fixed in Vista. Here is someone from JCXP.net forum explanation: Whenever we open a text file in notepad, it determines whether the text is ASCII or Unicode.. But actually there is no way in the world to exactly determine whether the text is ASCII or Unicode.. There is a function called IsTextUnicode in windows API.. The function does some tests on the text based on statistical data.. This is what MSDN says about the function.. “The function uses various statistical and deterministic methods to make its determination.. These tests are not foolproof. The statistical tests assume certain amounts of variation between low and high bytes in a string, and some ASCII strings can slip through. For example, if lpBuffer points to the ASCII string 0×41, 0x0A, 0x0D, 0x1D (A\n\r^Z), the string passes the IS_TEXT_UNICODE_STATISTICS test, though failure would be preferable.” The bug appeared for the first time in Windows NT 3.5 but was not discovered until early 2004. Older versions of Notepad such as those that came with Windows 95, 98, ME, and NT 3.1 do not include Unicode support so the bug does not occur. The bug existed in all successive versions of Windows through Windows XP. This bug does not occur in Windows Vista and Windows 7 because their version of IsTextUnicode has been altered to make it much more likely to guess a byte-based encoding rather than UTF-16LE. 3. One of Word's quirky, tucked-away features is the rand() function. It lets you quickly insert a block of text in a document. To use the function in pre-2007 versions of Word, at the beginning of a line type =rand() and press Enter. Word inserts three paragraphs, each containing five sentences like this: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. To vary the number of sentences and paragraphs produced, add parameters to the function. For example, =rand(5,7) produces five paragraphs each containing seven sentences, while =rand(15,2) produces 15 paragraphs containing two sentences each. Why would you want to do this? Well, it's useful if you want to try out formatting or quickly whip up a document to demonstrate some of Word's features. The sentence contains all the letters of the alphabet, so it's particularly handy when you want to compare fonts. In Word 2007, rand() gets a makeover. It no longer displays a sentence containing all the letters in the alphabet; instead, it produces three paragraphs of text explaining how to perform basic formatting actions. It's a shame Microsoft didn't take this a bit further and include a sizeable number of Word 2007 tips rather than the meagre three paragraphs offered; that would have made rand() a really useful training aid. As it is, although you can no longer use rand() to display all the characters in a particular font, the more varied text - nine different sentences instead of the dizzingly repeated "quick brown fox" - makes rand() much more useful as a formatting aid. Use the text to test how page flow works in a document template or for positioning pictures or tables in a page and then flowing the text around them. For the curious, the maximum value for rand is rand(200,99) or rand(99,200). If you try that in Word 2007 you'll end up with almost half a million words inserted into your document and, if your PC isn't speedy, a long wait. Use with caution! 4. It's hogwash. There are no single letter 'Q' flights. The American Airlines aircraft flight would start AA or AAL, the United Airlines Flight would start UA or UAL. The flight numbers were 11 and 175 and 77 (pentagon) respectively. A few people have been said to predict it such as Nostradamus and Valerie Clarke, a British psychic who predicted it on a chatshow. Funny how neither Nostradamus or Clarke got noticed. A lot of this sort of thing is retro-predictions. Psychics have been known to fake footage of themselves giving predictions, and N. did his work centuries ago and all kinds of people make up new, phony N. predictions. Its just a coincedence or not 33 works just as well just shows to boxes with lines in them. However if you put Q33N in windings 3 size 72 you get arrows pointing to an upside pyramid. Does mean somethings gonna hit the pyramids and turn them upside down????????? __Taken from Various sources__ Vikas Kapoor, MSN Id:[email protected], Yahoo&Skype Id: dl_vikas, Mobile: (+91) 9891098137. ----- Original Message ----- From: "vibhu sharma" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, October 01, 2010 8:22 PM Subject: [AI] Amazing! Please Pay Attention Dear All I am posting in here, after a very long time. Please pay heed to it, it is amazing. May be, our expertise can solve the mystery. This is enough to surprise us all. Go ahead and try this. It makes a good discussion. MAGIC #1 An Indian found that nobody can create a FOLDER anywhere on the Computer which can be named as "CON". This is something funny and inexplicable? At Microsoft the whole Team, couldn't answer why this happened! TRY IT NOW, IT WILL NOT CREATE A FOLDER WITH THE NAME "CON" MAGIC #2 For those of you using Windows, do the following: 1.) Open an empty notepad file 2.) Type "Bush hid the facts" (without the quotes) 3.) Save it as whatever you want. 4.) Close it, and re-open it. Noticed the weird bug? No one can explain! MAGIC #3 Again this is something funny and can't be explained? At Microsoft the whole Team, including Bill Gates, couldn't answer why this happened! It was discovered by a Brazilian. Try it out yourself? Open Microsoft Word and type =rand (200, 99) And then press ENTER And see the magic?..! Magic #4 Did you know that a flight number from one of the planes that hit one of the two WTC towers on 9/11 was Q33N. In Notepad / WordPad or MS Word, type that flight number i.e. Q33N. Increase the font size to 72. Change the font to Wingdings. ….. u will be amazed by the findings!!!………………….. With regards Vibhu Sharma Voice your thoughts in the blog to discuss the Rights of persons with disability bill at: http://www.accessindia.org.in/harish/blog.htm To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. 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