You gotta be careful what you write when you write about computers. It appears that the “tech guy” writing for the Orlando Sentinel mistakenly told his readers that you can “clean up” extra disk space on your PC’s hard drive by removing all the files that end with EXE.

No, I’m not kidding. Here’s his apology link.

Folks, files ending with EXE are program files. These includes the program commonly called “Windows” as well as programs such as “Word” or “Internet Explorer.” Yep, deleting those files will most certainly clean up disk space. But it’s a very bad idea!

In all my books, I admonish my readers never to delete any file that you did not create yourself. If you download an EXE, you did create it. You can delete it! But even then, in my books I recommend that you don’t. Why? So that you can re-install the file later should you need to. I recommend keeping those “install” or “setup” programs just as you keep the CD or DVD that came in a software box.

Bottom line: Don’t believe everything you read, especially stuff from the “tech guy” in the newspaper.

Interesting Link. Courtesy of reader “The Duck” here is an interesting link. The Duck is responsible for this; not me. Still it’s cool.

Windows Vista Update. Windows Vista SP1 is due out soon. You can read here about what to expect. To summarize the boring information found on that page: Windows Vista SP1 will address a crapload of compatibility issues, it will not introduce any new features, and it will make your PC run about 10 percent slower. (I’m not too sure about that last point, but who would be surprised?)

Robotics Dept. This past weekend was the kickoff for the annual FIRST robotics competition. High School nerds from across the galaxy will be competing. O! How I wish I were young again and could build robots to impress all those girls who thought I was a nerd. (They were right, of course.)

Welcome to 2008. My prediction: This year will not suck. If you think it will suck, then you’re spending too much time watching TV news. Turn. Off. The. TV. Thank-you!

Thanks to reader Troy, I now know about Vetusware. I’m thrilled!

Vetus is the Latin word for old, and vetusware.com is a web site that contains abandoned software — so-called abandonware. That’s software that was once copyrighted and sold for real money, but because the software is old or supports an older operating system (think DOS) it’s been dropped by the developer.

Visiting the vetusware site you’ll find all sorts of programs that you may have once owned, or possibly even lusted after. All of them are sitting there waiting download. For example, the old WordPerfect 5 for DOS, or Sim City 2000, or even Norton Ghost 2003. Providing that you have the ancient PC to run such a thing (or an emulator), the world is your oyster at Vetusware. Definitely check it out.

Wambooli Updates Dept. My old blog, Wambooli Lunch, contained some interesting articles. One of them I pulled from the maws of that gravesite is my article about producing a vinculum in Word. It’s a cool trick, and you can read about it here.

New Years 404 Dept. The New Years Eve celebration in Seattle is marked by a festive fireworks display at the Space Needle. It almost didn’t go off this past week; at the last minute technicians noticed that the file which controls the fireworks display was corrupted. One, two reboots failed to fix the situation. Eventually the show was run manually. My question: was the computer running Windows?