This Month:

What's New

Warnings

Internet

FYI

Survey Says...

Laugh a Little

We are PC correct but not necessarily when it comes to humor.. :-)
 

Any suggestions, recommendations or ideas found on this site are applied at your own risk.

Have problems or ideas you would like to have us address?  Let us know!
Like most sites, this one is designed for an 800x600 screen resolution.
Printed copies are available at the store. (Web Printing Hints)
For previous newsletters click here.

A Few Reminders...

If you have a new computer:

• Be sure to activate the antivirus application immediately!
   
• If your new computer is more than *90 days old, or
  if you have not paid for a subscription within the last year,
  your antivirus application is out-of-date and you are not protected. More details on this issue in the 0302 newsletter.

* Many new computers come with a 90-day free trial version, but after that period you must pay to renew the subscription.  Wonder if your antivirus is up-to-date?  Click here

Looking to buy a new computer: 

Click here for some ideas that may help your decision.

First off 

H A P P Y    N E W    Y E A R !

Microsoft Acquired an Antivirus Company

Will they build protection into Windows or sell this product?  Only time will tell but apparently Microsoft will offer some tools to help users clean out spyware and malware.  Initially Microsoft will offer these tools as a beta download.  More information when these become available.

No!  I Do Not Need New Windows

Although it is easy enough to "just say no," it is certainly easier to avoid it in the first place. 

A little over one year old now, the "Do Not Call Registry" is available to stop telemarketers from bothering you.  Once registered, your phone number will be on the list for five years.

Perhaps a good idea to add your cell phone number as well?
Click here to register a number

Another Great Year for Symantec & McAfee

By the end of 2003 there were about 64,700 know viruses and by Mid December '04 there were 68,549.  During the year our ISP's virus filter stopped an estimated 200 viruses that would have otherwise ended up in our email inbox.  However that same filter allowed a few a month to get through.

If you do not have an antivirus application and never became infected, you must lead a charmed life!  Then again, are you sure you do not currently have an infected file on your computer?  To test click here.

While most viruses adversely affect the computer's operation, some do not, but those may be recording user information, passwords or worse, credit card numbers.

This month's survey

We are asking if the computer has actually been infected, meaning the performance/operation was hindered. 

If you have received a virus but the antivirus application handled it successfully, please answer no.

Thank you

Move Over Viruses

Security software manufacturers are (finally) reporting some Internet downloads at the top of their security risk, even over the risk of an actual virus!  While these do not spread and are not "destructive" like a virus, they are still undesirable!  As reported by Webroot, the top ten are:

• PurityScan: frequently displays pop-up advertisements onto your computer whenever you are online. It induces you to install it by claiming to find and delete pornographic images.
• n-CASE: (msbb.exe) is an adware program that delivers targeted pop-up advertisements to your computer. This program is usually bundled with freeware applications.
• Gator: (GAIN) is an adware program that has the ability to display banner advertisements based on your Web surfing habits. Gator is usually bundled with numerous free software programs, including the popular file-sharing program Kazaa.
• CoolWebSearch: (CWS) has the ability to hijack your Web searches, home page, and Internet Explorer settings. Recent variants of CoolWebSearch install using malicious HTML applications or security flaws, such as exploits in the HTML Help format and Microsoft Java Virtual machines.
• Transponder: (vx2) is an IE Browser Helper Object that monitors requested Web pages and data entered into online forms, then delivers targeted advertisements.
• ISTbar/AUpdate: is a toolbar used for searching pornographic web sites that has been reported to display pornographic pop-ups and to hijack your homepage and Internet searches.
• KeenValue: is an adware program that collects personal information and delivers advertisements to your computer.
• Internet Optimizer: Bargain Buddy delivers targeted pop-up advertisements to your computer based on key words you might enter while surfing the Web.  Internet Optimizer – Internet Optimizer hijacks error pages and redirects them to its own controlling server at http://www.internet-optimizer.com.
• Perfect Keylogger: is a monitoring tool that records all visited Web sites, keystrokes and mouse clicks. For example, it can log passwords, account numbers and other sensitive information. It is usually installed manually.
• TIBS Dialer: is a dialer program that hijacks your modem and dials toll numbers, usually to access pornographic "pay" Web sites.

We need to add to this list.  Other downloads we have found very problematic:

• TV Media delivers ads apparently "only when you are using it" but the bigger issue: it may cause major problems under Windows XP Service Pack 2.
• Precision Date/Time adversely affects the computer speed and especially during boot up.
• Bonzi Buddy/Save Now loads various applications that run in the background consuming your processor time (system's speed) doing little more than delivering advertisement.
• iSearch Toolbar hijacks your "home page"  This one is especially nasty and in fact http://www.scumware.com reports the iSearch attitude as:
  • "...Our recommendation to surfers who do not wish to have items such as the iSearch toolbar installed... 
    Read the prompts you are provided with. If a user is provided with a "Would you like to install the iSearch Toolbar" prompt and they click "Yes" without reading the details of the product or learning about the publisher as listed in the digital signature, the user is making an unwise choice and has little room to complain about the product they have chosen to install..." 
    Arlo C. Gilbert, Principal iDownload.com

So know what you are getting into before accepting!

But now what?

Many of these are labeled as "at risk" applications by the newest antivirus applications, but in most cases the antivirus application will be unable or unwilling to remove them. 

One reason may very well be a legal one;  an antivirus application that disables or deletes adware could find themselves in court so most are currently taking a reporting only stance.

Removal: 

First try Add/Remove Programs from the control panel and look for these addons.  Some are plainly listed in Add/Remove but others may be very cryptic or even misleading!  We know there are a couple that are listed as a legitimate Windows "hotfix" so be careful not to uninstall actual Microsoft updates. 

Be aware that during uninstallation, many will want to connect to the Internet and will either plead with you not to uninstall or ask you why you want to remove their precious little program.

Those that will not remove must be handled manually.  Generally starting in the safe mode, running msconfig and disabling them from the Startup tab and then deleting the application's folder will do the job.  Removing some this way may cause errors or other problems.

Note: msconfig is not available to Windows 2000 users.

Outlook/Express Send and Receive Errors

Lately we've seen more and more erratic problems where Outlook Express will error out while checking for email.  Specifically the error is "terminated by server error code 0x800CCC0F."

This error leads to many different possible fixes, none of which is guaranteed to resolve the problem:

• **Update the antivirus/Firewall application repeatedly until no more updates are available and all have successfully installed.
• Configure the firewall to allow Internet access for Outlook Express  Msimn.exe or Outlook Outlook.exe
• Turn off the preview pane.  Click here for more info
• Repair/Reinstall Outlook Express. Click here for more info.
• Compact all Outlook Express folders (File menu).
• Recreate user profiles (Outlook).  Note: We have on occasion had luck simply copying a user profile to a new profile.

Step-by-step fix from Symantec and more information from Microsoft

**Apparently in early December, Symantec released an update that adversely affected Outlook Express and forcing a LiveUpdate shortly thereafter fixed the problem.  Interesting though, we found this problem only on a few machines and when connected at our shop, these computers worked just fine...

Where are those Attachments?

If you receive an Email attachment and (contrary to our recommendations), open it directly, it actually exists in some deep, hard to locate temporary Internet folder.  So if you want to save the attachment and have already opened it directly, use the application's File menu Save As option then change the current temporary "save in" location to your My Documents (or other) folder.

Older Applications

Last year we had a computer that after formatting the drive, reinstalling Windows XP and all service packs; would error when attempting to load an older game.  The error was "16 bit Windows Subsystem..." 

Windows XP changed the way it handled older applications as compared with Windows 98.  Ideally people with older applications should obtain updates from the manufacturer, but short of that we discovered that there is a file named autoexec.nt needed to run older applications and in this case we found the file was missing from the Windows\System32 folder.  Fortunately it was found in the Windows\Repair folder so we simply needed to copy it to the System32 folder.

Bloatware

More and more Hewlett Packard (HP) is releasing software that causes errors, takes forever to install (even on a fast machine) and is all-around, bloatware.  This is very unfortunate since they make excellent printer hardware. 

A more recent problem was with a wireless printer that caused DEP errors in Windows XP.  Unfortunately it does not appear possible to simply turn off DEP, hence you must put up with the error messages until HP releases a fix.  More on Windows DEP click here (although you may want some coffee and an interpreter).

If you are having problems with HP printer software, we are more than happy to check it out but be forewarned there may be little we can do if the problem is software.

This is not just an HP issue!  We see all kinds of applications being designed for the larger, faster machines leaving people with older computer in the cold.  Symantec/Norton antivirus is another example.  If you load version '04 or '05 on a machine with 64 Mb of memory, well...  it runs so slow you want to get out and push! 

Games are especially notorious for this.  In fact you almost have to buy a computer to fit the game.   No kidding; some of these games requires hardware many people are unwilling to purchase.  In this case it's not so much the memory or processor speed but the graphics (video) card. We are talking hundreds of dollars just for the graphics card.

Plan on Burning CDs?

If you have not yet burned CDs on your computer, have a couple of different namebrands available before you start!  For whatever reason, some drives will burn only certain brands of CD.  One factor here may be the rated "burn speed" of the CD but there must be other factors.  We have seen where one manufacturer's CD will burn without error but an identically rated CD from another manufacturer will not.  Why?  Who knows...

Be aware CDs have a shelf life and not all CDs are created equally.  For more on media life, why some are better than others (and for some good background information) click here.

Word Tricks

When you type information like company names or people names, you may want to prevent Word from wrapping a line in the middle of the name.

To insert a nonbreaking space, press Ctrl Shift Spacebar. The text on either side of the nonbreaking space will always stay together on the same line.

To insert a nonbreaking hyphen, press Ctrl Shift - (from the top of the keyboard.)

Windows Control Panel

Want quick access to certain Control Panel items?  Search the computer for *.cpl and when the search is complete, right click, drag and create a shortcut to the desktop or desired folder. 

On the other hand, it's just as easy to reconfigure the Start menu to show the Control Panel "as a menu:" 

Right click Start > Properties > Customize > Advanced and set the Control Panel to "list as a menu."  While in there you may want to turn on the option to show printers...

Outlook Users

Did you know you can save Microsoft Word and other MS documents in the Outlook folders?   For example, we have a "saved" folder where on occasion, we will drag and drop a Word document just to have it quickly available. 

If you drag and drop on the Inbox, you will be prompted to add that (document) as an attachment which then opens a new message.  If however you drop it on the Outbox it will simply copy it.  Kind of backwards if you ask us...

Just for Fun and an Education, visit: http://www.hammernet.com/anatomy.htm

The home computer in 2004 as predicted by the RAND Corporation
(1954 Popular Mechanics)

We wonder what they expected for fuel mileage :-)