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Let's go. It's 2010:
January 6 - Happy New Year to all of the reader of the Essex Voice. With release of Windows 7, I remembered that it has been quite a while since we last talked about how to create a system repair disc that can help you out when/if your computer crashes. A system repair disc is used to help replace system files that may be corrupted by a power surge, incorrect uninstall of a piece of software or just because it is Windows. To create the system repair disc, click on Start>>Control Panel>>System Security>>Backup and Restore. At this point, you will have reached the Back up or restore your files screen. In the menu on the left of this screen, click on the Create System Repair Disc. You many need to have your Windows 7 installation DVD handy because the program may need to copy some files from it. After clicking, the program will ask you to choose your DVD/CD writer and ask you to insert a blank DVD or CD (either will work in most cases). Choose your writer from the list a click Create Disc. The computer will tell you it is preparing the files for copying, preparing the disk and creating the disk. When completed, the program will instruct you on how to label the disc. Keep it in a safe place in the event you ever need to repair your system. Using this disc may save you from having to reinstall your entire operating system. Click on Close and OK to close the program. The system repair disk will also assist you in restoring your computer completely from a previously made image of your system in the event of total hard drive failure. To use the disc, shut down your computer and insert the DVD/CD into your drive. When the computer asks you to boot from the CD/DVD do so and follow the instructions to repair your Windows 7 installation. Just as a reminder, this is not a substitute for backing up your files. I ALWAYS recommend a separate back up of all important files. This procedure only attempts to repair your operating system. It does not address any of your personal files.
January 13 - This week, our question comes from an office where employees have to type an email every day to their manager and in contains the same type of information every day. Information such as machine number, production quotas, were the quotas met and downtime. The question asked is whether or not they would be able create a standard email they would be able to start with as a template every day instead of having to spend fifteen minutes typing in all of the same base information every single day. The answer is “YES” I can help. In Microsoft Outlook 2007, a user can create a template that can be used as a starting point every time it is opened to save you from repeating the same information every email. To create this Template, click to create a new email. In the To: area, enter all of the addressees you will want to send the email to every time. Fill in the Bcc: and CC: if needed. Fill in the subject line if appropriate. In the body of the email, enter all of the base information you want to include with every email. For example, you might make a table with headings and identifiers where the user would just enter information in the correct spots in the table and the end of the day. When you have finished this template, click on the office button (the small round Windows logo in the top left corner of the email message screen) and click Save As…Locate the Save As Type drop down list and select Outlook Template from the list. In the File Name box, type the name that you want to assign to the template and click Save to complete. To make life really easy, click on Save As again and the same dialog box will appear. You will see the template you just created. Right click on it and select Send To from the menu that appears and select Shortcut to Desktop. Click on the small X at the top of the Save screen to exit. Navigate to your Windows desktop and locate the shortcut to the template. By double-clicking on the template shortcut, your Outlook will automatically open and you can quickly enter the information you need. Further, if you have a signature that is set to append every email, it will automatically be added to the bottom. In summary, when you double-click on the template shortcut, Outlook will open a new email for you. All of the recipients names will be filled in as you had earlier when you created the template. The subject will be filled in as before as will the entire body of the email created for the template. Fill in the information and click send.
January 20 - Our reader cannot download a music file on a site and would like to know what is going wrong. When he clicks on the link for the file, his Windows Media Player keeps opening and playing the song and that is not what he wants. Our reader is missing just one step in his quest to download the music file. Instead of left-clicking on the file link, right click. When the menu appears, select Save Target As… The menu is the same whether you are using Windows 98, 2000, XP, Vista or 7. Once selected the Save File Dialog box will open allowing you to choose the location the file will be saved. Once you have chosen the location, click Save and the file will save to your computer. All you have to do after it has downloaded is locate it on your computer and double-click it to play. When it is saved to your computer, you can play it as many times as you want. Occasionally after downloading a song, your media player may give you a message that you do not have a license for your particular song. In most cases, follow the link provided and it will go get the license on the web for you and you will be able to play the song. The license is a small file that is downloaded to your computer enabling it to play on your computer. It is to help protect piracy.
January 27 - Our question today is about the ever popular iPhone. One of our readers has become desperate because her iPhone no longer works and she needs to know what to do to reset it and get it back to working order. Let’s see how she may have gotten into this mess in the first place. The iPhone has a very stable operating system included on the phone from the factory. Rarely is it the “fault” of the iPhone that would make it for the user to have to reset the phone. Generally, the phone will have to be reset to factory for one of the following reasons: A fatal error from installing an application; A faulty update form the web; a failed reset that is in progress or; and interrupted install. Any of the possibilities above accomplish the same thing. They corrupt the operating system and the only way to get the phone back to usable is to reset the phone to factory settings. When a user is forced to reset the phone, the end result is the same as when resetting a PC; you lose everything. You lose all saved information, videos, music, emails and contacts and the phone is just like it came out of the box from the factory. In order to reset the phone, use the steps that follow. First, in the event of a fatal error, try to get it plugged into your power source ASAP. Next, make sure it is turned off by holding the sleep key and the home key at the same time until the screen flashes and turns off. Hold the home key for 10 seconds and you should see the iTunes sign to connect to a computer. If you do not see that, do not let go of the home key and plug it into your computer. After the computer installs everything, iTunes will see it as an iPhone or iPod touch in recovery mode. Hit ok. Push Restore in iTunes. This process will take upwards of an hour. If you need additional help, look up how to put iPhone into recovery mode into YouTube and there is videos to show you how. Thank you to my son Christopher for his help with this resolution. If you have any more questions, regarding this article, please email us.
February 3 - Our question this week is about Microsoft Excel. Our reader heard about a function known as the Format Painter and he wants to know what it is all about. Most people when they make basic spreadsheets format the font colour and cell colour one cell at a time. The format painter is more for people who create complex and very large spreadsheets. These may be financial statements, presentations or complex mathematical spreadsheets. When preparing these sheets, it makes a lot of sense to format some cells one colour and some a different colour. If you have multiple tabs some formatting may be the same for certain areas of the sheet. The format painter allows you to take the formats from one area and replicate them in another without having to do it one cell or a small group of cells at a time. To do this, select the text/cell whose formatting you want to replicate. Next, click the Format Painter toolbar button (it is labeled in the top left corner of the toolbars). Finally, select the text or cell you want to copy the new format to. Double-clicking the Format Painter button allows you to replicate the formatting to multiple areas of the document.
February 10 - Our reader this week has obtained a virus through a non traditional method. He had a warning appear on his screen that he did not recognize. Like he was instructed by a friend to do, he clicked on the 'X' in the upper right corner of the box and the screen disappeared. Suddenly another screen appeared and said that it was installing a program. He question is: "Why did the virus still install when I clicked the cancel on the screen?" The answer is that the people who are writing viruses are always thinking of new ways to dupe the Internet user. It used to be sufficient to click on the little "X" in the top corner and all would be good. The virus writers have written into their code that by clicking the 'X' is the same as clicking OK to install. The only way around this new issue is to use the Task Manager and End the Task rather than clicking on the pop up screen at all. By ending the task, you are completely ending the Internet Explorer session or Firefox session and not allowing any kind of program to execute. To accomplish this, hold down Control + Alt + Delete. Select Task Manager from the list that appears of from the dialog box that appears. Once you have selected Task Manager, a screen will appear with a list of all of the programs currently running on your computer. If you are using Internet Explorer, find the entry that says Internet Explorer and highlight it. Click on End Task. A screen may appear asking if you are sure you want to do this. Answer YES. After answering yes, the Internet explorer will close and disappear form your screen. Now you can open a new session of the Internet without fear of having installed a virus. The procedure is the same for Firefox. Look for Firefox in the list. This works for every operating from Windows 2000 to Windows 7.
February 17 - This week we will discuss how to remove nasty viruses or spyware when the anti-virus companies cannot, or do not, have a virus removal tool. Sometimes when viruses are detected, we think we have removed them using our anti-virus software or Spyware program only to discover all the time you invested in scanning, cleaning and repairing was wasted. It doesn’t make sense does it. However, just as we keep getting more innovative, so do the virus writers. Virus writers know how to make the viruses run like system files, they know where to put them to get them protected and they know how to make them keep changing locations on the hard drive. The writers know how to highjack your browser so it won’t let it go. Now that you are scared and saying, “Am I at their mercy as a novice or intermediate user?”. The answer is an emphatic NO. If you are not too familiar with computers, you may have to take it to an expert to be cleansed. The most dramatic way to get rid of a computer infested with viruses is to format the drive and reinstall the whole operating system. Most of us have way too much personal information on the computer to do that. Most of us haven’t got a reliable back up of our important information, pictures, etc. making the reinstallation not feasible. In order to win this battle, we have to take a few steps. The first step is to turn off the System Restore. By doing so, the system restore hidden directory is eliminated and so will the potential virus if it is hiding in there. It is time to reboot your computer and start in safe mode. By starting in safe mode, only the basic features and system files are being used to run your operating system. Be sure to select Safe Mode only from the Safe Mode menu. DO NOT select with Networking or Command Prompt. Most viruses need the internet to work properly. By selecting the Safe Mode with Networking, you will still be connected to the Internet when in safe mode. You do not want this situation. While in Safe Mode, run your full Anti-virus scan and Spyware scan. Because only the basic system files are being used, the virus can easily be identified and removed because it is not be used or allowed to operate. Once you have completed the scans and eliminated the viruses and Spyware, it is time to reboot your computer into Windows and turn System Restore back on. This process should eliminate 99% of nasty virus problems. As always, there are exceptions to the rule so please make sure you have a good virus free back up of your most important information.
February 24 -
Our reader this week is having a problem watching movies on her computer. Her friend was over from overseas and brought some movies on her computer. She was excited because they had subtitles so that her English speaking friend would be able to read along with the movie. They transferred the movie to the computer native to our area. Presto…there were no subtitles. Hmmm. They played it on the computer from Europe and the subtitles appeared. They knew something was up and after trying many times gave up and emailed me. The difference is that on almost all North American computers, video encoding uses the NTSC encoding. Most European computers use the PAL video encoding. I’ll try to give a brief and, I hope, not too technical explanation of the difference between PAL and NTSC. The NTSC standard was introduced in the US in 1941 as the first set of standard protocols for television. It is used predominantly throughout the USA, Canada, & Japan but has also been adopted elsewhere. NTSC has 525 lines displayed at 30 frames per second in a 2:1 interleave. It has a lower resolution than PAL but a faster frame rate, which reduces flicker. Though color stability is acceptable in a closed system (ie: direct video to video), broadcast of the composite signal often results in reflections and multi-path signals being received by the antenna. The result: phase distortion resulting in varying color. Engineers lovingly defined NTSC as actually meaning "Never The Same Color".
PAL is used in much of western Europe, Asia, throughout the Pacific and southern Africa. PAL has a higher resolution than NTSC with 625 lines, but refreshes at only 25 frames per second. Thus, folks in the States may notice the slight flicker of a PAL video, having become used to the higher frame rate of NTSC. However PAL offers noticeably improved resolution and color stability. After several minutes of viewing a PAL video, our brains compensate, and the flicker becomes un-noticeable. A big thank you to my colleagues at www.videointerchange.com to help me sort this out (used with permission Copyright ©). Because the videos are encoded differently, some movies lose some of the features. Even though most of the differences are visual, the converters used in Europe to convert the PAL DVD to an .avi movie file have different properties than those that convert an NTSC DVD to an .avi movie file. This week’s answer is enjoy it on the original computer it came on. Without downloading a converter of PAL to NTSC (with no guarantee of success) and the time to do the conversion, it is easier just to watch it on the computer that came from Europe.
March 3 - Our reader has a home network with HP LaserJet printers. Two of his computers has Windows 7 and one has Windows XP. When he installed the network printer in Windows XP, he had to download a large executable file from the HP web-site or use the installation CD that came with the printer. Now that he has upgraded two of his computers to Windows 7, he cannot find a driver to install his printer over the network. HP has a small executable to install if the printer is attached directly to the computer, but not on a network. Windows 7 has a great deal more flexibility built into it than earlier versions of Windows. It has a lot more networking capabilities than before. In order to install a printer that is attached to the network, click on the Start button and click on Devices and Printers. Click on Add Printer. Click on Network printer. Windows 7 will search for any printer currently turned on and that is on the network. It will appear in the list on the screen. Highlight your choice of printer to install and click next. When it is finished installing, it will ask if you want to print a test page. If your printer is reasonably new, this method should work. If it is quite an older printer, you may have to search the web for suitable drivers.
March 10 - Our contact this week had a home networking issue. He has three computers, a router and a network printer. He assigned specific IP address to all of his computers and to his printer. He decided to rearrange his home office. He unplugged all of the equipment and carefully moved all of the pieces to their new locations. He plugged everything back in just as it was before. He booted all of the computers and checked their Internet connectivity. All of the computers were able to get onto the Internet. Later, he had to print a document and it would not print. If he held the power button down on his HP LaserJet printer, the self test page would print. However, he was not able to print a test page through the Printers section of the Control Panel. It did not matter which computer he tried. None of the computers would print a document. He was really confused. At this point,he contacted me. All network printers by default acquire their IP address through DHCP (Dynamic Host Control Protocol). In other words, they wait to see what address the router will give them. In this case, when the printer was powered down, disconnected from the network and moved, the printer was reset to the default settings and not to the ones previously set by the user. On Hp LaserJets, hold the power button down for five seconds and a configuration page will print. In the upper right corner, it will tell you what IP address the router has given it. If you wish to change it back to what it was before, type the IP address found on the configuration page into your Internet address bar and use the HP software to change the IP address back to the old value. To do this would be practical because all of the computers are set up to look for the old IP address set by the user when printing to the printer. Leaving the default setting would mean that all of the computers would have to be constantly updated to point to the new IP address (the router would give it a new address from time-to-time). For other network printers, the methodology would be similar to get you back on line and printing again.
March 17 - This week, our article is going to help one of our reader get out of a jam created by a disreputable company. Our reader bought a copy of Windows XP and he received a CD key on a piece of paper instead of one of Microsoft’s unique ID peel off tags that are found on your computer. He reinstalled Windows XP and tried to do updates. He was told by the update site that his copy was not valid and illegal because the serial key had been used so many times before. Our reader was a victim of software piracy (I gathered the company name and information from our reader and have forwarded the information to the Microsoft Piracy group). How does he fix this without having to reinstall his operating system again. Unfortunately he had to go buy another legitimate product key from a legitimate vendor. To replace your product key entered with a new one, follow the steps I outline below. This procedure will only work if you are changing a key on identical installations. For example, if you have used a corporate installation CD, you cannot use a retail installation CD. If you used a service pack one installation, you cannot use a CD key associated with a service pack two installation. In this case an OEM version of Windows XP was installed with service pack two. I instructed him to purchase and OEM license from the vendor for Windows XP Service Pack Two. As with all of my tips that require work in the registry, be certain you have backups of your important information. If you are not sure how to do this, ask someone who is. It will make your life easier in the end. Click on Start >> Run. In the Run window, type regedit and click OK. This will open the Registry Editor. Locate the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE folder under My Computer and click on the (+) sign next the folder name to expand the folder. Continue to expand folders until you reach the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Current Version\WPAEvents registry key. Click on the WPAEvents folder. In the results that appear in the window on the right, locate OOBETimer. Right-click on the OOBETimer entry and choose Modify from the resulting menu. Change at least one digit in the Value data text box and click OK. This will deactivate Windows XP. Close the Registry Editor. We are not finished yet. Now we have to input the new CD key. Click Start >> Run. In the Run windows, type “%systemroot%\system32\oobe\msoobe.exe /a” exactly as is without the quotes and click OK. This is the command line that tells windows to activate the copy of windows. When the Let's activate Windows window appears, choose Yes, I want to telephone a customer service representative to activate Windows and then click Next. Click the Change Product Key button at the bottom of the window. Do not worry about any of the blanks or other information on the screen. Type in your new product key in the New Key boxes and click Update when finished. You should immediately reactivate Windows XP by following the instructions on the Activate Windows by phone window which you should appear or via the Internet by clicking the Back button and following the instructions shown on that screen. Once you have activated you windows, all Windows Updates and Microsoft Updates should work properly. Remember the versions of Windows must match or an error will appear telling you that an invalid CD key was entered. Most people will not go to this trouble. They will just reformat and reinstall the operating system.
March 24 - I think I may have a bug in my email system. I can't seem to delete emails once I have read them. Does that sound like something you've encountered before? I am using Outlook Express for my emails. In order to correct this, we must first make sure that all hidden files can be seen on the hard drive. The email data files used by Outlook express are hidden (the file name is Deleted Items.dbx). Double-click on My Computer (or launch Windows Explorer). Select Tools >> Folder Options >> View and Select “Show hidden files and folders”. Click Apply and OK. Next, we find the location of the folder that stores all of your email data on your computer. In the Outlook Express menu bar located at the top, click on Tools >> Options. Once the window is open, select the Maintenance tab and locate the button that is labeled Store Folder. When you click the Store Folder, it will open the location of your Outlook Express email data. Look for the one labeled Deleted Items.dbx. Select it and then delete it. Exit out of Outlook Express and reopen Outlook Express. When you reopen Outlook Express, the program will automatically create a new uncorrupted Deleted Items file. Now you can delete files without issue because whatever was corrupting the other Deleted Items folder is no longer present.
March 31 - Our question of the week actually comes in the form of a warning from a previous Cogeco customer – a buyer beware of sorts. When switching to or from your local cable service as an internet service provider, it turns out that there is a potentially costly detail that they do not tell you about when they install their service at your address. Our reader recently switched internet service providers, moving from a cable type provider to a DSL provider. When the cable representative installed the service at their address originally, they did not tell our reader that their original phone connection coming into the house would be disconnected at the place where their phone line comes into the house. They have to do this in order for the cable connection to work properly so it is a necessary thing to do, however, they don’t tell you that this will happen. It also does not say anything about it in the cable company’s terms of agreement. When our reader chose to switch to another service provider, they got the bad news. In order to switch from a cable style internet provider to a DSL style provider, their original phone connection had to be restored. Due to the lack of information from the cable company, they did not know that the line had been disconnected and they had to hire someone at their own expense to determine why their new service was not working and then to reconnect the phone line. Depending on who you get to do this for you, it can cost you over $100! NOWHERE in their General Terms and Conditions does it state that it is your responsibility to reconnect the phone line that they failed to tell you that they disabled! When I contacted the cable company on behalf of our reader about this hidden cost, the response was (and I quote – seriously, this is what they said, word for word,) “There is nothing we can do for you. You invited us in to your house, it is not our problem.” In my opinion, if the cable internet service provider is the one who disconnects the phone line (and make no mistake, they charge you for these changes when they set up your service), they should be the one that reconnects it when the service is completed, without charges to the customer. At the very least, they should be informing their customers about the changes they are making to the wiring in the home, and the possibility of extra fees that could be charged if the customer decides to switch to an alternate provider. One positive result from this experience is that at least you, the reader, are better prepared with appropriate questions to ask when dealing with Internet Service Providers.
April 7 - This week's situation comes from a reader who has been experiencing the blue screen of death quite frequently lately. It happens only when the computer has been on a while and only when they start watching videos full screen. Their computer is a laptop running Windows 7. The blue screen of death error that pops up just before the computer shuts down is the "Hardware Parity Error". Based on all of the signs and symptoms, all indications point to the graphics controller (display adapter). After discussion with our reader, a new video controller for the laptop is not in the budget. For this particular laptop, it would cost approximately four hundred dollars. Not many people have four hundred dollars to use to repair a laptop so our solution will be to keep your laptop cooler. There are many inexpensive laptop coolers on the market today that use your USB port on the laptop as the power supply. When video controllers start to fail, the main reason is usually heat. Since all fans are working correctly in the laptop, we must cool it differently, hence the laptop cooler. Second, there is a small useful program you can download for free from the Internet at http://www.piriform.com/speccy. This little program, when opened, will tell you the temperature of all of the most important hardware pieces in your computer. When the temperature indicators reach orange or red, you should turn your computer off to help prevent further damage. This program is not a solution for the problem, but merely a way to monitor what is going on inside your computer. The laptop cooler and this program are only delaying the inevitable of needing a new video controller. I have witnessed results where people have extended their laptop life by up to two years using a laptop cooler. The choice is yours on how you would deal with a similar situation. If you have any further questions about laptops and cooling them, see Brian at Essex PC Connection or Bruce in Kingsville at http://www.ctcn.ca.
April 14 - A few weeks ago, I described how to change your product key in Windows XP. A reader has asked me how to do the same in Windows 7. He found out the copy he has is illegal and needs to input a legal product key. First, Click on Start >> Control Panel. Click on the System and Security link. Click on the System link. In the Windows activation area of the System window, you'll see the status of your Windows 7 activation and your Product ID number. Next to the Product ID, you should see a Change product key link. Click on this link to start the process of changing your Windows 7 product key. When the Windows Activation window appears, enter your new product key in the Product Key text box. The new Product Key is the 25 digit alpha numeric number on the sticker with your copy of genuine Windows 7. Click Next to continue. Wait on the Activating Windows message until the progress bar is complete. Windows 7 will use your internet connection to communicate with Microsoft to make sure that your product key is valid and to reactivate Windows 7. The Activation was successful message will appear after your product key has been validated and Windows 7 has been activated. Your Windows 7 product key has been changed. Click Close to close the activation window.
April 21 - Our article this week involves a little computer humour submitted by one of our readers. Here we go. I was having trouble with my computer. So I called Eric, the 11 year old next door, whose bedroom looks like Mission Control, and asked him to come over. Eric clicked a couple of buttons and solved the problem. As he was walking away, I called after him, 'So, what was wrong? He replied, 'It was an ID ten T error.' I didn't want to appear stupid, but nonetheless inquired, 'An, ID ten T error? What's that? In case I need to fix it again.' Eric grinned.... 'Haven't you ever heard of an ID ten T error before? 'No,' I replied. 'Write it down,' he said, 'and I think you'll figure it out.' So I wrote down: I D 1 0 T...I used to like Eric.
April 28 - You do not have access to the windows installer. Set up will now exit. A reader from Windsor got this error after he bought a program and was trying to install it on his Windows 7 machine. Even though your own account in Windows 7 may be set up as an Administrator, there are still some functions that you must give Windows 7 explicit permission to perform. This is a built in safety to prevent malicious exe programs from running automatically and ruining your Windows 7 installation. The Windows Installer is the software used by Windows to initiate all software installations on your computer. Without it, nothing will install. In order to get the program to install, locate and right click on the setup.exe file (sometimes it will be install.exe). From the menu, Select "Run as Administrator". The program should install now because you have given explicit permission to your computer that this is a safe program to install. Installation should proceed normally.
May 5 - This week's article asks, "Why do People Create Computer Viruses?" I thought my friends at Technibble.com answered it best so they gave me permission to publish it here. As a computer technician, my clients frequently ask me “Why do people create computer viruses?”, especially after I have been called out to remove a virus from their computer. This is what I tell them.There are hundreds of thousands of viruses out there (if not millions) and they often designed for different objectives. Most of them fall under the following categories: To take control of a computer and use it for specific tasks; To generate money; To steal sensitive information (credit card numbers, passwords, personal details, data etc.); To prove a point, to prove it can be done, to prove ones skill or for revenge purposes; To cripple a computer or network; To Take Control of a Computer and Use It for Specific Tasks. This is the most common type of virus, which is better classified as a trojan. These types of viruses are usually downloaded unknowingly by the computer user thinking that the file is something else, such as a file sent from a instant messenger friend or email attachment. Once the host computer has been infected (known as a zombie computer), the trojan joins a private chat channel and awaits orders from its “Zombie Master”. This Zombie Master who is often the virus creator, will gather thousands of infected machines called a botnet and use them to mount attacks on web servers. The Zombie Master can command each of these infected computers will send a tiny bit of information to a web server – because there are potentially thousands of computers doing this at once, it often overloads the server.The Zombie Master may want to do this to another website because it is a rival website, a figurehead website (such as whitehouse.gov) or it may be part of an extortion plan. “Send me $5000 or your Toy selling website will be offline over the Christmas holidays”. The Zombie Master can also use these infected computers to send spam while the zombie master remains anonymous and the blame goes to the infected computers. To Generate Money - These types of infections often masquerade as free spyware or virus removal tools (known as rogueware). Once ran, these fake applications will “scan” your computer and say it found has someviruses (even if there arent any) and in order to remove them, you must pay for the full version of the application. A good example of such a infection is called Myzor.fk which we have written about in the past. Steal sensitive information - These types of viruses can sniff the traffic going in or out of a computer for interesting information such as passwords or credit card numbers and send it back to the virus creator. These types of viruses often use keylogging as a method of stealing information where it maintains a record of everything that is typed into the computer such as emails, passwords, home banking data, instant messenger chats etc.The above mentioned methods also allows an attacker to gather an incredible amount of data about a person which can be used for identity theft purposes.To Prove a Point, To Prove it Can Be Done, To Prove Ones Skill or For Revenge Purposes - A perfect example of this type of virus was the famous MS.Blaster virus (aka Lovesan) which infected hundreds of thousands of computers back in August 2003.This virus would cause the system to restart after 60 seconds and had two hidden messages written in its code: One was “I just want to say LOVE YOU SAN!!” which is why the virus is sometimes called Lovesan, and the other message was “billy gates why do you make this possible ? Stop making money and fix your software!!” It is believed that purpose of this virus was to prove how easily exploitable a Windows system is.To Cripple a Computer or Network - Few viruses now days are intended to disable a computer because it stops viruses ability to spread to other computers. Computer crippling viruses still exist, but nowhere near as common as the viruses mentioned above. The worst type of computer crippling viruses were back in the days of the 486 computers where the virus would overwrite the Master Boot Record (MBR) of the computer which would often prevent the computer from starting up at all. Unlike computer crippling viruses, network crippling viruses are all too common now days. Most viruses that are designed to launch a Denial of Service attack will cause a significant load on a computer network, often bringing it down completely. Thank you to Technibble.com for their insight.
May 19 - Our issue this week is that of a temperamental external hard drive. For our reader, sometimes it will appear in their My computer summary and sometimes it on't. Occasionally when she boots her computer, it will tell her that a scandisk is necessary to check system files. Often when it does show up in her computer, it will tell her it needs to be formatted before using or it will appear empty and with nothing on it. The most likely underlying issue for this type of behaviour is that the boot system or volume bitmap is corrupted for the external hard drive. Hmmm...sounds like an opportunity to remind people to always have backups so that if the data is lost, life may still be OK. Common help desk personnel will suggest running the chkdsk function from the command prompt. However, this is not effective. Because you are in Windows, certain files are read-only and cannot be modified or changed by Windows when it is time to repair the file(s). I have used this method or repair numerous times with only one instance where the drive was no longer usable. Before starting, take note of what drive letter is assigned to your external hard drive. we will need this later. Click on the Start button. In Windows 7 type cmd in the Run line that appears. In Windows XP, Click Start>>Run and in the Run box type cmd and hit Enter. When the command prompt appears, type in the drive letter assigned to your external hard drive followed by a colon and hit enter. The command prompt should read that drive letter with a flashing cursor beside it. On my system, I would type F: and hit Enter and the command prompt would show a flashing cursor after the F:. At this prompt type chkdsk /f. There must be a space between the word chkdsk and the /f. You will get an error message if you do not. Once typed and Enter is used, the computer will go through three steps of analyzing the computer and repairing system files and system settings that are making your drive unusable. Once it completes, a summary will be displayed. You can make note of the results or just type exit and hit Enter and the screen will disappear. it is important to take note as to whether is found bad sectors or just corrupted system files. Bad sectors indicate very little time left for your hard drives life. Corrupted files are more easily repaired and are less likely to make your disk useless.
June 2 - A reader of ours uses Windows Live Hotmail and wants to know if you can filter incoming email messages. In order to do this, open your Windows Live Hotmail and complete the following. Select Options >> More options... (or just Options in Windows Live Hotmail classic) from the toolbar. Click on Customize your mail. Next, click on the Automatically sort e-mail into folders link. Click New filter. Select the desired filtering criterion under Which messages are you looking for?. Choose the folder to receive all mail matching your criterion under Where do you want to put these messages?. Click Save. That's it. Now your filter will work and move the incoming mail to the folder you have specified. You can set up as many filters as you like.
June 16 - Our reader this week is an intermediate computer user that is having a problem fixing his computer issue. He is running Windows XP and has an HP1022 printer attached to his computer. He installed the drivers for another printer on the network a DP-1520 Panasonic office photocopier and printer. After installing the drivers for the photocopier, he started getting error messages telling him the Printer pool service was turned off and that he would have to install a printer to continue. Knowing that he had properly installed the drivers, he tried something else. he clicked on Start>>Control Panel>>Administrative Tools>>Services. He located the service labeled Print Spooler. Double clicking on the Print Spooler opens a dialog box. In this box, there are two buttons: Start and Stop. This service must be running in order to print. The Start button was highlighted indicating the service was stopped. He clicked on Start and the service restarted. he went to print another print job and. as soon as he had printed another job, the same error message appeared when he tried to print something else. Confused, he wrote me for some possible insight. First, there is a known issue with the Panasonic photocopier drivers and compatibility beyond Windows 2000. A work around for this problem is to navigate back to the Print Spooler service. When the first dialog box opens, insure the Startup Type is set to Automatic. Next, click on the Recovery tab and select Restart Service from the three drop down lists. This tells Windows that every time the service fails, restart it automatically. This is a workaround at best. Sometimes uninstalling both drivers and reinstalling the Panasonic first and the HP after solves the issue. Sometimes, using System Restore and installing the drivers again soles the problem. Either way, this workaround should solve the problem and allow you to keep on printing to both printers.
June 23 - I met a young person this week that was doing a computer project for his end of year at school. He wants to do it on old Microsoft Windows systems. He wanted to know specifically what the difference between Windows 3.1 and Windows 3.11/Windows for Workgroups 3.11. I am writing the article as if I were back in the early 1990’s reviewing the products. Windows 3.11 fixed kernel errors and memory management issues that were inherent with Windows 3.1. The only thing lost in Windows 3.11 was OS/2 1.2 compatibility. Windows 3.10 was able to run (some) OS/2 programs. Since Windows 3.11 adds bug fixes, increased stability, and has built in networking and fax capabilities, it became the preferred system to run over OS/2. As far as setup, they are both the same. You install DOS first and Windows as the add on. The communication driver comm.drv file in Windows 3.11 is the significant difference between the two operating systems. The Windows 3.11 file allows two way communication on fax/modems (in some cases up to 14400 bps!). There is one major difference between the two which was a significant move forward in the use of memory management in Windows. Windows 3.1 uses the services of DOS, the DOS device drivers, and the BIOS to access disk files and some hardware devices. Because DOS runs a buffer of 640K and Windows 3.1 runs a buffer under 1 MB, the memory must consistently be traded to allow applications to execute. Windows 3.11 does not use the DOS services. Windows 3.11 does not use DOS services for the display, mouse, or keyboard. Its use of these devices is much more sophisticated than DOS drivers can support. Windows for Workgroups 3.11 takes the next major step, by moving IDE disk I/O and most networking support away from the DOS environment and under the control of Windows. Just for information, it was the move to Windows 95 that really signalled the end to DOS because it ended the dependency of the operating system on the DOS services. Windows for Workgroups enabled 32-bit support which was completely new to the Microsoft Operating System world and made it possible for quicker access to hard drives, network and I/O devices internally. Windows 3.11 and Windows for workgroups support asynchronous disk I/O needed for multithreading but this won’t be used by applications until Windows 95 is released as a true 32-bit operating system. Windows 3.11 introduces VCACHE that will replace the SMARTDRV storage allocation utility. Windows for Workgroups will also have built in 32-bit support for new LAN internal adapters for networking. All network activity will now bypass DOS and simplify and speed up network communication between computers especially those using NetBIOS and Novell TCP/IP connections. In Windows 3.11 and Windows for workgroups, all 32-bit video requests are converted to 16-bit request before execution. This will change with the onset of Windows 95. How many of you remember how good you thought you had it when Windows 3.11 came out? How many of you remember cursing Microsoft because they were making something good too complicated? Some of us are still curing Microsoft but that is why it is good we have Linux to compare with instead if IBM’s OS/2. I still have my install disks for DOS 5.0 and 6.22 and I have a sealed copy of Windows 3.11 (in case I ever need it).
July 28 - Someone wrote me to ask me about a network hub that was available for them to purchase. The hub was incredibly cheap and the seller told the buyer that it was a 10BaseT hub. Our reader wants to know what 10BaseT means and is it really a deal. From my friends at linfo.org 100Base-T is an Ethernet wiring standard for LANs (local area networks) that supports data transfer rates up to 100Mbps (100 megabits per second) over unshielded twisted pair copper wire cable or optical fiber cable. Ethernet is by far the most commonly used LAN architecture as a result of its high speeds, robustness (i.e., high reliability), low cost and adaptability to new technologies. 100Base-T is based on the older 10Base-T Ethernet standard, which supports transfer rates of 10Mbps. Because it is ten times faster than its predecessor, it is often referred to as fast Ethernet. Its official name is IEEE 802.3u. The network segment length for a 100BASE-T cable is limited to 100 meters, as with 10Base-T and gigabit Ethernet (which supports a speed of one billion bits per second). Likewise, it also uses the CSMA/CD (carrier sense multiple access/collision detection) LAN access method. There are versions of 100Base-T for three different cabling schemes: 100Base-TX for two pairs of high-quality twisted pair wires, 100Base-T4 for four pairs of normal-quality twisted pair wires and 100Base-FX for multimode optical fiber cables. 100Base-T is the most widely used Ethernet standard, and the vast majority of common implementations or installations of 100Base-T are 100Base-TX. As we see 100BaseT is certainly faster and more popular than the old standard of 10BaseT. The old standard transfers information at approximately 1.1 Megabytes per second which is still quite fast. If you are sharing a printer or a few computers for the sake of a simple network, 10BaseT will work. If you want this network to have internet access always at the same time on all of the computers with print sharing and file sharing, the 100BaseT network would start to make more sense. I would make your choice depending on the needs of your network.
August 3 -This week I was asked if it was safe to install Windows XP Service pack three on a computer running Norton Security. Our reader indicated that there is a fix on the Norton web-site to fix any compatibility problems between SP3 and Norton. My first thought right out is that if the number one anti-virus program in the world has to advertise a "fix" for compatibility with the number one operating system in the world, a red flag appears. No matter the fix, Norton has not changed a few things that would be necessary to even look at having it installed on a computer. First, and foremost, the Norton Internet Security Package is bloated using too many computer resources to operate. For example, it needs 256 MB ram to operate. You need 512 MB of ram to run the recovery tool. If you have one gigabyte of ram, 25% of your ram is to run the anti-virus. Therefore, regardless of the fix, I would not have the bloated software installed on my PC. AVG or Kapersky are much better alternatives and are rock solid for security for your home PC’s. To answer the question as to whether it is safe or not to install with SP3, the answer is "yes". Would I install it? The answer is no.
August 11 - I recently upgraded my office to Windows 2003 server. I have Windows 2000 clients and Windows XP pro clients. The problem is that the Windows XP professional stations load the network shares very slowly on log in. If I log in to my Windows 2000 server from an XP station, there is no problem. It is only when I log in to my XP clients to the Windows 2003 domain server. I don't get it. Can you help me? The server is set up for a File Server Role (file sharing off it) and the Domain Controller Role. Two things off the top. This is for advanced readers only and only happens if the server is a Domain Controller and you are sharing folders off it. The server is experiencing an issue with delayed acknowledgments (or delack) to a domain controller. I know, where does Microsoft come up with some of these names and acronyms? In an XP/Server 2003 environment, this is expected behaviour. Before we mess with the registry, be sure to have a recent back up in case anything goes wrong and your machine becomes not usable. We have to create a new registry entry to override the default of the operating system. The reason it is so slow is that the operating system is sending continual request to the file share or server and waits for acknowledgment of the same. This continual communication is what slows down the computer's login and file sharing. Use regedit and locate the following registry location on the Windows Server 2003 Domain Controller:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Services\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\Interfaces\ValueType. Locate: REG_DWORDValue Name: TcpAckFrequency Valid Range: 1, 2 Default: 2 Description: This key sets the number of ACKs that will be outstanding before the delay ACK (acknowledgement) timer is ignored. So, if the value of this key is set to "1" then every packet should be ACKed immediately as there should only be one outstanding TCP ACK as a segment is just received. The value of "0" is invalid and will be treated as the default "2" as the only time ACK count is zero is when a segment is not received and the host is not going to ACK the data. Set this value to 1, reboot the server and you should be fixed! Remember this is for XP to Server 2003. Windows 7 does not have this issue.
August 18 - From the time Windows 3.1 came out until present, people are always looking for ways for their Windows computers to boot faster. One way to make a computer boot faster has been to eliminate the splash screen on boot up. The Windows splash screen is a picture of the Microsoft Windows logo. In XP, it is labelled Windows XP with a picture of the logo. In Windows 7, it is a little animated graphic of four colours coming together to form the Microsoft logo. Until Windows 7, eliminating the splash screen speeds up the boot process. Instead of the pretty logo showing, a blank screen appears instead. I have found that on my Windows 7 machine, my computer only boots two seconds faster. If you want to try this on your Windows 7 machine, do the steps that follow. The process is almost identical for Windows XP and Vista. Click on Start>>Control Panel>>System and Security>>Administrative Tools>>System Configuration. You can also type msconfig in the run dialog box after clicking on Start. When the configuration screen appears, click on the Boot tab. Click the check box beside No GUI Boot to enable it. Click on Apply and OK. The computer will tell you that you need to reboot for the changes to take effect. When you reboot, a blank screen will be in place of the splash screen that used to be there. Your computer may or may not be faster at boot. Results vary by computer...Good luck.
August 25 - Mrs. Patches writes: Here is my problem, when I am typing , as I am now, the cursor will jump all over the place. Once I type something, the cursor will either jump back into the middle of what I've typed, so I am typing over what I've already written, or the box I am typing in, such as yahoo or msn or facebook, will just minimize on it's own. I need your help. I know exactly what is happening. It has nothing to do with operating systems or software. What is happening is that your thumb, or another digit, is brushing the touchpad as you are typing. If your digit brushes the touchpad, it thinks you want your mouse in that position and moves the cursor there. How do you fix it? The only way to fix it is to turn off your touchpad. That is quite inconvenience if you use the touchpad as a mouse. If you do not use the touch pad as a mouse, you can turn it off by doing the following: Go to the "Start" Menu and select "Control Panel." Double-click on "Mouse" in the "Control Panel" window. If you don't see the mouse option, verify that you are in the "Advanced" user view of the control panel. Click on the "Device Settings" tab in the "Mouse Properties" window. Highlight your touchpad and click "Disable. Save the changes by clicking "OK." On some laptops, you have to go into the BIOS on boot up and disable the touch pad. I had to do that with my laptop.