What are your dislikes about the Internet

Hi People

The Internet is growning at a phenomenal rate.  It is growing so many branches.  Social Media aside, you have the shopping facet, the information facet, the email facet and access to downloads of all sorts of goodies (paid and free).

Of course this opening up of the vast social media playground,  has left everyone exposed to the nasty side of the internet, but I am not going to go down that route.

Look at this link

http://www.pcworld.com/article/207601-2/8_things_we_still_hate_about_the_web.html

The article voices concerns over a number of

Many have concerns about the internet, based around identity theft.

Placing so much personal information on the internet, in the care of impersonal servers, run by people (who I am sure are totally trustworthy and very pleasant human beings) that are watching the stats, and angling for more subscribers.

There has to be a limit on what they can oversee and protect.

Consider the same scenario as a creche or nursery, there has to be a ratio of carers/teachers to youngsters.

If this situation were applied to the server farm that you have graciously allowed to harbour your intimate details, then there would likely be a air of major concern.

Whilst many reading this are probably thinking 'scare mongering', but time will show if the incidence of identity theft rises exponentially on not, as the social networking storm reaches out to all corners of planet earth.

With sincere hopes that this is not the case, because it will start to turn, (what is truely a wonderful way to communicate with all peoples of race, culture and creed), the medium into a worldwide black market.





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 Prometheus1618

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Hi People

Take a look at the link below, it appears that Microsoft products are full of 'holes' that can be (if not already) severely compromised
http://vista.blorge.com/2010/10/13/patch-tuesday-brings-another-record/

The situation is becoming more and more of an issue, and the programs being exploited, are any that have possible access to the internet or that is involved with the security of a computer using a Microsoft OS.

My advice (for what you may consider its worth) is that you consider alternatives to the Microsoft products on your computer.

My suggestions for alternatives are :

• Google Chrome instead of Internet Explorer - Google Chrome is a clean, few frills browser with a 'sandbox' between you and the internet.  This adds another level of security to your browser.
• VLC media player instead of Windows Media Player - It is open source so it is free, with many users adding to it all the time.  It also contains a DVD player, which doesn't require a third party codec to play the films.
• OpenOffice.org instead of Microsoft Office - Again it is open source and free. It reads and writes Word, Excel and Powerpoint files. It also allows you to create a PDF file, so that when you have completely finished a document (no further editing required), then you can create it as a PDF so no one can change it.
• Superantispyware instead of  Defender/Microsoft Essentials - A third party antispyware product is going to be less of a target than anything from Microsoft.
• Yahoo Messenger instead of  MS Messenger
• Thunderbird instead of Outlook Express or Outlook

So there are alternatives to many vulnerable Microsoft programs and most are totally free.  Consider them carefully as you may well need to be less of a target for hackers and other internet nasties.

See you next time

ThankYou for your attention

Prometheus1618

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The 'Arrange Icons By' Options

Hi People

Did you try the tip on the last post?

If you did you would have seen much more than what we dealt with.

I mean look at the picture below,  the Arrange Icons By
(Note here that you left click to set an option - a tick will appear when an option is set - see below)

The Right Click Options  From The Desktop - The 'Arrange Icons By ' section

As you can see there are a lot more options, so let's go through them.

The Sort By Section
The top four items are the sort order, which allow you to sort your desktop items by Name, Size, Type, or Modified.




The first three are probably quite self explanatory (type is the type of file it is for example a program file, a shortcut for a picture, or drive).

The 'modified' option is the one which may cause some scratching of heads.
It refers to how recently the files have been used.  This might need a bit of explanation. OK, so when a file (or folder) is created, the date and time is kept as TWO values (the 'creation' date/time and the 'modified' date/time - exactly the same at the start).  Now every time the file is used the 'modified' values for date/time are changed to the exact date/time it was opened..

Next up the Arrangement Section


The 'Show in Groups' is greyed out and not available on the diagram.
The 'Auto Arrange' option will move all the icons ( in the order set in the Sort By Section), as far left and then down the desktop.  Any icon moved will pop back to the group on being dropped.

The 'Align to Grid' will place each icon at a set distance from its neighbours.  The 'Grid' is invisible and inactive unless this option is ticked.

The Other Options Section


You may be surprised to learn that you can actually have all your icons removed (visibly) from the desktop.  To do this just left click on the 'Show Desktop Icons' (this will remove the tick next to 'Show Desktop Icons')

The 'Lock Web Items on Desktop' option is only if you have used the 'Web' tab on the 'Customise' button from the 'Properties' menu (more on this on a later post).

Finally you can 'Run Desktop Cleanup Wizard' which will remove the little used icons from the desktop for you.

So there you have it so far

Any comments please leave them below

And Thank You for your kind attention

Prometheus1618

















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Want More At Your Finger Tips?

Hi People

Frequently, I find that people are amazed at the simplest things, that I do on their computers.

How did you do that? Or can you show me how to do that? Or can you wait until I get a pen and paper.

It happens frequently, so over the next few entries we will go over some useful BASIC bits and bobs

Let's start with

How to create a folder


Folders are exactly the same a physical folders, in that they contain files or other folders and files.

To create a folder on the Desktop:

• Simply RIGHT click on an area of the desktop (not on an icon or the taskbar)
• LEFT click on 'New'
• LEFT click on 'Folder'
• Now type the name you want for the folder (by default it is called 'New Folder'
• Once you  have finished press the 'Enter'  key or simply click anywhere outside the newly created folder.
• To open it quickly, you need to DOUBLE LEFT click.  If it does not open you have not been quick enough with the double clicking.

Next time we willl go through the other Right Click Options for the Desktop.


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A Now For Something Completely Different

Hi People


The title is a little mysterious, isn't it?

This post is slightly outside the normal range of topics for this particular blog, but useful all the same.

Have you ever locked yourself out of your car? Frustrating isn't it?

And to make matters worse you have a spare set of keys, but maybe they are at home, or your partner, spouse, friend has them

Well you could be saved, if the spare set are with or within reach of the person who has them (or at home) and the keys are the remote lock type (you know the button on the key fob and beep beep the car is open).

They also need a phone as will you. Why you may ask? Some of you may be ahead of me here but if you ring them and get them to put the key fob next to the telephone speaker and you place your mobile or cordless next to the drivers door.

Now get your friend, partner or spouse to press the open button on the key fob and Presto your car door should open and away you go!

The other person may have your keys the other side of the world and this would work, all things being ok.

Marvellous tip I think.

Leave a comment to let me know what you think

Hope this helps

Thank You for your attention

Prometheus1618


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Photo editing for FREE ( no Adobe Software required )

Do you have photos you need to edit?  And you don't want to pay out for Adobe Photoshop or its smaller cousin Photoshop Elements.

Well take a look at the video below and see what you think




The FotoFlexer program has some useful toys, particularly the smart resizer and the morphing facility can be fun for the children/teens.

Having said that it is an online program (which means it has low overheads) and it is possible that your photos could end up with third parties, if the site/code gets hacked.

For simple photo-editing that is free, have a look at Picasa as it can be used to organise edit and display your photos all in one relatively neat package. Oh and I forgot to mention it is FREE as well.

The GIMP is very powerful and quite complex, do not use this if you are a beginner and/or not willing to spend some time (lots of it), getting to know the package. Photoshop users will like this one as it has a lot of features and benefits.

That's all for now

Thank You

Prometheus1618

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Laptops - the pros and cons - part 1

Hi People

Recently, I was asked about a laptop situation which, I had not thought about before (more about this later).

This prompted me to think about why people choose laptops/notebooks (and I mean laptops not netbooks) over a good old tower / desktop (though desktops are rare these days).  What are the benefits and features of a laptop when considering a computer purchase?

Positive points for laptops (some of which may not be considered when getting one).

• They are portable.  This is probably the number one reason why most people get one.  Being able to work in situations where 
• power is not available
• a place to put the laptop is not available near power
• show people quickly, some data, pictures, presentation, movie without having to find a power point
• send emails / surf the internet from public places
• They run most programs that towers can run
• Everything is contained within one case (within reason)
• If the power should suddenly go off (brownouts or blackouts), work is not lost and user may continue to work for sometime (usually a couple of hours after power off - if the battery is good and fully charged)
• The charging unit may prevent power surges from damaging the laptop, by taking the surge and all the damage (not passing it on to the laptop)
• Quick setup of a visual display for demonstration purposes or entertainment
• Usually even the cheaper laptops have more features than a cheaper tower, for instance
• card reader
• webcam
• microphone
• 1394 port (firewire)
• card bus slot
• additional VGA port for a second monitor
• bluetooth
• wireless card (attached to the motherboard internally)
• internal modem  (dialup - for places which dont have the internet available wirelessly or even to make telephone or chat communications - though not a good idea for video communications as it is too slow)
• video camera connection (s-video)
• Quick data, music, picture recording (most laptops these days contain a DVD/CD writer, if not all).

So the above seems to cover the majority of the plus points for getting a laptop over a desktop and whilst the list is fairly comprehensive, laptops do have their weak points.

We will look at these in the next part of this article

Thank You for your attention

Prometheus1618

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Laptops - the pros and cons - part 2

Hi People

We looked at the positive side of buying a laptop, and again I must stress laptop/notebook as opposed to netbook.  In this item, we are going to look at the reasons not to get a laptop

Here are some of the reasons NOT to get a laptop.

• They are portable and as such can be lost or stolen easily and they have been lost in some high level and highly visible incidents
• Laptops are not particularly upgradeable (and this was what the laptop situation was about that started me thinking about this in the first place).  They have limited upgrade (within the case and outside) possibilities.
• Memory can be upgraded, though generally only two memory slots are available, and especially in low end systems, 4GB memory is what they can use (2 * 2GB memory modules).  Also they tend to lag behind in terms of the faster memory (this being produced for tower systems - more notably file servers etc.).
• Hard drives can be upgraded, though again limitations are met, in that as a larger hard drive is installed, more heat needs to be drawn away from the system.  This can be achieved with a docking station or cooling platform (which runs from the USB - hold that thought).  Also 2.5 in hard drives may reach the 3-400GB size but the heat output will be very great at these sizes.  Also in general, 1 hard drive can be mounted internally (there are some which can take two drives - twice the heat output).
• USB ports are present and usually 3-4.  Now going back to the  cooling platfform (these are like a tray with fans in the structure to help get rid of excess heat), it uses USB power which if the laptop is using battery power will drain the battery more quickly.  This applies to all other USB devices attached.  A further point here is that you cannot add extra USB ports other than by using USB expansion docks (Towers usually have the facility to add more by using dedicated sockets on the motherboard and if necessary a PCI riser card for more)
• Video cards ARE NOT upgradeable.  Yes it is true you can attach a video extender to the USB port, but these enable you to attach more monitors to the laptop, not increase your video memory or indeed the Graphic Processor Unit (GPU).  This is what the original call was about.  
• Generally the Central Processor Unit, CAN NOT be upgraded as the motherboards are designed to take a certain processor (some upgrades can be done within a processor family - though again these are not always available and possible).  A further issue here is a larger processor, means more heat to be lost and the heat sink from the original processor may not cope.
• Dust and fibres clog up the heatsink more easily, so make sure you can get to the heatsink and fan quickly to remove the heatsink 'bed covers' that seem to accumulate.
• Laptops are not designed to be 'gaming' systems, or indeed for heavy duty video or CAD work. This is where Towers really excel, in that high end processors can be matched with plenty of top end memory,  high end graphics cards,  and super fast hard drives.
• Whilst it is possible to use a laptop as a server, again the tower or server blade are kings in this area, because of processor / memory / hard drive speeds / and sizes, not to mention additional cooling.
• If you want to have additional drives / cooling / external webcams etc., you will need to have your laptop hooked up to the power or your battery will rapidly drain.  This in turn reduces its portability.
• A number of users I have seen with laptops also seem to be unhappy with using the touchpads for moving the mouse and instead rely on an external USB mouse ( more for the battery to supply).
• All the additional ports available on a laptop can be installed on a tower system (although it will cost more).
• If you damage a screen, it is a costly repair as is a motherboard fault, best course of action is to look at a new laptop (repairs can be anything up to 50% the cost of the original laptop, which could be invested in a new laptop).  The reason for this is that they are proprietry (only available from the laptop maker).  They do this to make their product a little different and use different components and make it look more appealing.

So there you have it, weigh up the options when you look for your new computer and make sure you know what you want it to do for you before venturing into the local PC store or purchasing online.  Ask if your not certain what you want and DONT be SOLD the latest 'SPECIAL' as it may be old stock or low end equipment and not capable of doing what you want it to do.

Further more, NO supplier will cover your data (or loss of business however caused), it is your responsibility to get your data backed up frequently and regularly.  The supplier will cover the hardware only for usually a 12 month period from the date of purchase on new systems only.  Second user systems, vary wildly.

That's all for now

Thank you for your attention

Prometheus1618

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Booting up slowly

Hi People

When you get a new computer (or do a fresh re-install of your operating system), you may be amazed at how quick it is at boot up.  After some time (months or a couple of years) you could be looking at being able to make a cup of your favourite hot drink whilst it finishes booting up.  Something can be done about this.

First of all, make sure that you have no corruption of files on your system  (I will not go into details as this needs an experienced hand).

If you have no corrupted files or have corrected the situation, then next thing is to clear out some the startup items (in windows XP) you would use the  msconfig utility, to remove all but the basic startup programs (ALWAYS ALWAYS include your ANTIVIRUS/ANTISPYWARE/FIREWALL software in the startup as these are essential to keep your PC free of nasties from the bootup stage onwards).

Note: When you reboot your system, you will have a splash screen displayed, telling you that the 'System Configuration Utility' has been used, just click in the little box (bottom left of splash screen) to not have this displayed again, before clicking 'OK'

Next on your list would be a hard drive surface check (again an experienced hand would be needed here) and this may need a reboot to get it started (you would be notified of this).

Finally (for now), after the above, run a defragment program (either the internal one or a third party)

That's it for now
Thank You for your attention

Prometheus1618


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Warning Telephone Scam

Hi People

The title says it all really.

About a month ago, a lady rang me saying that she had had a telephone call from 'Microsoft' saying that they ('Microsoft') had noticed that her computer was suffering from corrupt files and spyware.  She put them off and called me.  I told her that it was a scam and she breathed a sigh of relief.

  I thought nothing more of it,until a couple of days ago, another lady rang me saying the exact same thing, only this time she followed their instructions

First of all, she asked them why she should believe them, so they asked her to go to a website to 'prove' they were genuine and mentioned again that they were 'Microsoft Partners' (I believe they may have ripped off someone's site and presented it with a new domain name (the www address ).
Being convinced that they were who they said they were, she allowed them to access her computer remotely.

Needless to say, they must have put something on the computer as directly they had finished, they told her that her PC was indeed infected and that for XX sum of money, per 3 months she could have her computer kept clean. 

She twigged at this point (but the damage had already been done), and told them that she had not agreed to pay any money.  

To which they said well if you dont have it done your computer will close down in six hours.

*  NOTE Microsoft DO NOT ring you unless you have contacted them first to arrange a support call *

Do not take phone calls from Microsoft Partners.

This was the point at which I was called in to remedy the situation



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Why would someone want my computer?

Hi People

Whilst seeing a number of clients recently, a very similar question was asked, by several of them. The question was a one of why.  

Why would someone want my computer, I don't store anything on it? Or why do they do it (electronically vandalise computers)?

Whilst, if you think that derranged electronic nerds may be after your bank account, or credit card details, there are other reason why they would want to access your computer.  Consider the following:

1. Your system is a fully functioning PC with a link to the internet.
2. You have details which are personal, and these a probably stored on your PC, and I am not talking about bank, credit card or passwords.  Here the point is your email address book and other contacts, photos and letters etc.
3. Business quotes, and supplier details

Right let's have a look at these one by one (and I sure I have missed some other reasons).

1) Having a fully functioning PC connected to the internet, means it can be controlled remotely by a third party (with the right software present - legitimate or illegitimate).   It could then become part of a large network of computers all controlled by this one piece of software (read one person or perhaps a group of people). 

Now these people may want to extort money from a company or individual (read target), by getting all the remotely controlled computers, to send a request of some sort (or even an email) to the target and with such a lot of requests the servers may not cope and they go offline.  Which means the target cannot do business online. 

Your PC could well be part of this and you wouldn't know it.  These are called botnets

2) Email addresses, a possible source of infection for your friends, colleagues, associates, and business suppliers.

If there are letters of a personal nature, and or pictures then the third party can start a personal identity theft file on you.

3) Businesses losing out to competitors, time and time again, (industrial espionage) could possibly be a trojan or other piece of malware  sending back information on your business activities, or indeed on the whole business structure.

Think about it, your PC is worth a bundle to 'them' out there on the internet.

Get some internet security, but wait don't just rely on that, get at least two good antispyware packages (free ones, for personal use), update often them and use them regularly and OFTEN (not just once a month or two weeks).  Go to www.gds888.com and find a link to two good antispyware products in the free software section.

Go on Do IT Now before you forget.

See you next time

Prometheus1618

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USB drives, RAM disks and memory cards

Don't Rely on USB drives (pen drives, memory sticks, USB sticks or whatever you want to call them), RAM disks (DVD RAM), OR memory cards (SD, MMC, xD etc.) for data.

Yes I mean it, do not rely on them for 'permanent storage' i.e backing up, or worse still the only copy of your data.  Use them for temporary storage only, and what I mean by that is, if you are using any of the above for data storage make sure you have other copies stored on DVDs (not DVD RAM), or an external hard drive.

Let me tell you of my experiences with these storage products.

DVD RAM:

I used to use this for my website amongst, so I could update on any of my systems, this turned out to be a mistake that cost me.  The disk was new and after a few dozen read/write cycles, I noticed something really weird, certain folders were losing the data and one of the folders was the site content!  The disk appeared to have lost the contents of the level two / three folders but not the folders themselves.  The level one folders (those in the root of the disk) were OK, very strange.  So, now I will not entrust permanent storage tasks to DVD-RAM (unless I have several other copies elsewhere- and yes I know I should be backing up regularly and that I had, so I got the latest backup and used what I wanted from that - it was a hard drive backup by the way).

USB pen drive

This was a near total disaster for my other half, she has been using a pen drive to store a growing amount of knowledge on a favourite subject of hers.  It was being accumulated on a daily basis, at her place of work and at home, hence the use of something small (not too small to go unnoticed) and portable, that could be used on virtually any current system (by the way when Microsoft Office was not available, then OpenOffice.org was - set to read and write MS Office documents and spreadsheets).  One evening, after work (she had used the pen drive at the office), she plugged the pen drive into her laptop, with no response at all from the drive.  The follow days were fill with methodical attempts to recover the data, to no avail (a situation I found was a common situation, on internet forums).  So whilst it was an unfortunate situation, the sources of all the work were still available and she went to work rebuilding her notes - on a hard drive in one place only).

SD card

Now I am making assumptions here, that memory card storage in general has the same characteristics, whilst the method of accessing will vary hence the various types of card, e.g. xD, SD, MMC,  Duo, etc.  Also the type of storage gate may differ (currently I am not sure whether SD memory uses a NAND gate for storage or not)

This situation was very similar to the one with the DVD-RAM, in that data was stored and frequently used on an SD card.  On accessing the card recently the card showed very similar characteristics to the DVD-RAM situation above, in that some of the deeper folders (level 2 and 3) had lost their data, but not the folders i.e. the folders were empty!.  Fortunately the data in level one folders was available and ok.   Again a backup provided what I needed.  Phew! I am thankful for backups.

A further point to note here was the weather at the time of the failures was hot and humid. Now this may be a coincidence, but it makes me wonder.

Any way, that's it for this post

See you people
Prometheus1618


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A Lesson to be learned

Hi People

How are you doing?

Possibly better than several recent clients of mine.

They received large bills for repairs. What sort of repairs, you might ask. You must realise that this is a computer oriented blog, so it has to be for computers.

It wasn't for hardware, but for the software/operating system side of things.

You see, they had the misfortune to pick up some bits of malware and in some cases they hadn't updated their operating system with the latest patches. Although an anti-virus (in some cases internet security packages were present, they were out of license or insufficiently prepared for the nasties) and anti-spyware packages were present, it appears (because they were free) that the software wasn't updated and used to scan the system regularly.

What happened? The first pieces of malware arrive unnoticed and these installed and brought down other pieces of malware. Eventually some nasty rogue anti-malware program were installed and that's when we were called in. Now the seriousness of this situation, is compounded by the fact that several people had conducted financial transactions on these systems, leaving them open to account and card abuse.

On receiving the systems, firstly (on client instructions) we recovered their data (essential as malware can cripple the system) Then, we attempted to remove the nasties using several techniques, which were partially successful (we got the system up and running), but the malware had corrupted the registry, causing the operating system to boot and then put a notice that the services.exe had encountered an error and the system would close after 1 minute.

Solution, repair the operating system, not a word of it. The system disk bypassed the repair option and proceeded to the installation option. Secondary option was to put another copy of the operating system on the hard drive alongside the damaged one, then add all the drivers, programs and re-link the documents, emails etc., this was the approach we made in the end.  Advantages are that the operating system is fresh (no infection and please make sure you have an internet security package installed in the new install, together with at least two antispyware packages - free if necessary- fully updated), data can be copied across to the new installation, and (if possible) the original installation, may be available if something has been overlooked - this is not advisable as system reinfection can occur.  All in all, a process which can take 4-5 hours work, with the engineer present most of the time (hence the large bills).

Some people considered a replacement machine, but whilst this reduced the amount owed, it was still a substantial sum. Now there are several ways to prepare for something like this.

Firstly, backup your data REGULARLY.  Secondly once your system is up and running satisfactorily and you are sure there are no viruses, malware or other faults present, then create an image of your hard drive to another hard drive, dvds, or blue-ray discs (if you are fortunate enough to have a blue-ray recorder).
Thirdly make sure you have the installation files/cds/dvds for all the programs you wish to use with your system (some may be acquired freely on line, but others are not available without paying for them).

Well, I hope you do not suffer the situations that these unfortunate people went through, but you have been warned.

See you next time, people

Regards
Prometheus1618

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Hi

Here's a handy hint today

Have you got a game, or other software that requires the CD to be left in the drive.

Well with the aid of a couple of free pieces of software, you could be running the software from your hard drive.

To do this you will need to first of a create an ISO file of your CD. A good program for this is Imgburn.

Download the file and install it. Pop the CD into the drive and select 'Create image file from disc' option. Follow the on screen info and place the .iso file where you can get at it easily (I suggest in a folder in off your c: drive root).

Once you have completed the task, then you are ready for stage two, installing the software.

Download a copy of Magic Disk

Download the file and install it. Note here it will manage more than one image so you could have multiple 'CD's available and in general at no more than a click of an icon.

Once it has installed, you will be asked to reboot your computer.

In the system tray (bottom right hand side of your screen), you will see a small cd icon (if it is not visible you can see by left clicking on the '<' just to the left of the system tray). Now right click on the icon, this will bring up a menu.



Select 'Virtual CD/DVD ROM' then select the drive letter: No media (e.g. F:No Media). From the menu pick the 'Mount' option. This allows you to search for the ISO file you created with ImgBurn earlier. Click 'Open' then follow the installation procedure for the game.


When the installation is complete, find the program launch on the 'All Programs' menu and run
Have fun

Further notes here:

This could apply to DVD games/software as well

Have all your favourite programs available from desktop icons

The CDs / DVDs can be put safely aside as 'backups'

See you next time

Prometheus1618

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How to avoid Fry Ups (PC types)

Hi People

Have any of you experience PC damage by lightning or power surge?

It can be quite a shock (no pun intended here).

I have witnessed, first and second hand excess power damage to computers.

In one situation, lightning struck the local power supply to the houses and one unfortunate person had their motherboard, memory, powersupply and dvd recorder fried. How did we know, well the cooked and cracked chips on the various boards gave it away, visually, but the smell was also a dead (pun intended) giveaway.

Another situation arose when a CRT monitor (tv tube type) blew up for no reason, due possibly to an internal fault or faulty component (this had been left on over a lunch break unattended, fortunately no fire ensued)

So how can we prevent most of these situations arising?

If you are going away for a time, then unplug your computer, monitor, printer and ROUTER (telephone and cable modems are subject to lightning strikes also)

While at home, or in the office, use either an anti-surge power bar/strip or even better get hold of an UPS (uninterrutible power supply), this has an added advantage, of preventing the computer locking itself up or cutting the power to the computer during 'brownouts' (low power outages) or short term 'blackouts' of less than a couple of minutes. If you happen to be using your computer (desktop / tower) at the time of a blackout that has a lengthy duration, then it allows you sufficient time to save your work and close down the system normally.

One word of advice, do not connect non essential peripherals to the UPS as they have a finite power supply in the event of a blackout, so have a printer or scanner draw power from the unit will only serve to shorten the length of time you have to close down the computer normally.

Use only the system unit (case containing the processor/motherboard/memory and internal harddrive), monitor and possibly an external hard drive if absolutely necessary for external backup - watch the power requirements here, on a UPS unit and put the remaining power using perpherals on an antisurge bar for safe keeping.


That's it until next time people










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Gmail accounts - are they safe?

Hi People

This is a bit concerning, when many people have a Gmail or Googlemail email account (me included). So watch carefully on how to avoid the same fate.




I guess the person concerned was a little unlucky, but make sure you either do not use the secondary email option or as the presenter suggests, make sure it is current.

What most people don't realise is, that if they do not use an email account (webmail - e.g. free hotmail, yahoo mail etc) then after a set period of time, the account is 'tombstoned' or marked for deletion and a while after that it is deleted. Once it is 'tombstoned' it is as good as lost anyway (non recoverable), so check your webmail once a month at least, just to be on the safe side. There is also a set period of time before the email address becomes available again.
So people, either use it or lose it.

Secret questions, yes the presenter has a point here, so rather than put in some random letters and numbers, choose something, personal to you and replace a couple of the characters with numbers.
i.e. Foxtrot could become F0xtr0t or Neddy could become N3ddy.

Now those are only suggestions, but you get the point.

Another thing to point out, is that many passwords now require a minimum of 8 characters, so fill out the remaining characters with your favourite number or even (if the password program allows a special character such as '*' or '!' or even '€') To get the '€' symbol use the 'AltGr' button - held down and the number 4 on the top row of the keyboard on a UK keyboard, set to UK use.

That's all for now
See you next time




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Seven essential programs for your new (or re-installed OS) PC

Hi People

Have a look at the video below and see what you think




This is a reasonable set of applications

AVG Free is good and contains an added element of good antispyware detection as well.

For a good basic web browser alternative to Internet Explorer 8 - go for Google Chrome it is clean slick and very quick. It is getting better as it matures. If it is not for you then as the man said consider Firefox and Thunderbird for email (Outlook express, Windows Live Mail, or Windows mail are the Microsoft alternatives for XP, Vista and 7 respectively - though you can get Windows mail for all three - XP and Vista are downloads). But whatever you do, you will need to keep Internet explorer installed on your PC if you use the Automatice Updates for windonws.

The IM and IRC clients are Internent Messenger and Intern Relay Chat clients - may or may not be your thing so at your discretion.

Pidgin and Paint.net again I have not used (will get back to you on These)

OpenOffice is an excellent alternative to Microsoft office and can read and write Word and Excel files. Powerpoint compatible presentations can also be viewed and created (though I have not tried this)

VLC player from Videolan is an excellent player, though creating playlists can be awkward.

Hijack This, the final program mentioned is a tool for dealing with spyware and should NOT be used by general user unless instructed to, by someone who knows what they are doing. a suitable alternative is Superantispyware, which does a superb job of dealing with spyware. You will need to update and scan regularly (minimum twice a week) if using the free version.

That's All People
See you next time

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Got some sensitive files you would like to remove from your system

Erase Those Files Permanently

Hi there

Many of us create files which at some point we want to delete and if deletion is good enough then the good old Windows delete option will suffice, but occasionally we would like to remove 'sensitive' files, such as electronic bank statements that have been downloaded, or lists of passwords which have been superceded, or other files which could be embarassing or a problem if they get into the wrong hands.

Well, this where a little free program called Eraser would be very handy. Once installed, you can use it on single files or drives if you wish ( two cautionary notes here: 1/ The time taken to 'Erase' a file is much longer than simply deleting it. 2/ Once 'Erased' the file CANNOT be recovered - so take care!). It works by writing and overwriting the storage area on the hard drive where the file was stored, this effectively 'scrubs' the area and makes it impossible to recover the data.



To access the 'Eraser' utility, simply highlight the file you want to 'erase', with a right click to bring up the context menu and select the 'Erase' option. You will also note that you can make use of a 'Eraser secure move' option. Now why would you want this, yes when you 'move' a file it is copied first then the original file in the original folder is simply deleted, leaving it vunerable to recovery.

There are other little setting to the program, such as which type of overwriting is done and how many times, but in a nutshell that is all there is to it.

Now where are my old CV's and receipts

Thank You and see you next time


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Organise Your Desktop

Hi Again

Another quickie blog item for you

Has your desktop got crowded with icons, try this

Fences

This is a nifty little program and helps control the bulging desktop icons.

Or you could create a number of folders on the desktop such as video / documents / spreadsheet / etc links in appropriately named folders. Sorted.

Have fun

Thank You




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Pre-empting software screwups

If you have had your PC get screwed up by a virus / driver / operating system / hardware fault, then you will no doubt be well aware of the situation of "What about all my data, the pictures from our holiday and the kids growing up" scenario.

No I am not going to say anything about backups, my point here is that it is usually the operating system / driver that screws up. Now for many of you, a single large (250GB or bigger) hard drive is usually what you have had the good fortune to have had put into your system when you purchased / made you PC. Right, now if you have to re-install windows or replace the hard drive for any reason, and then re-install windows, for heavens sake, reduce the size of the Windows partition to approx 80-120GB (80000MB - 120000MB) i.e less than 50% of the suggested value of MB that the installation process offers. This will leave you an unformatted partition which you can use to put your data (and emails) on (if you dont know how to do this or need help, again mail me at service@gds888.com).

Once you have finished putting the Windows on, your programs again can be put on the Windows partition. Now using computer management, create the second partition for DATA only (no program installations here, again if you don't know how to do this email me at service@gds888.com). When you have done this, the 'My computer' will reveal two hard drives present. One is used for Windows and program installations, the other will be used for 'My documents' and emails. WARNING DO NOT PUT ANYTHING IN THIS PARTITION / DRIVE UNTIL YOU HAVE MOVED YOUR MY DOCUMENTS FOLDER.

To move the 'My documents' folder to the new partition ('hard drive' in My computer)in XP, simply click on 'start', locate 'My documents', right click on this and select 'properties' from the menu. Click on the 'Move' button under the 'Target folder location' section.
This opens a 'Select a destination' window, locate the second drive (without windows on it) and click 'Apply' then wait. Click 'OK' when finished and now your 'My documents' folder is on the second drive/partition. I go into much more detail in my forthcoming book on Windows installs.

So that being done, now for the emails (Outlook Express/Outlook). If you are putting your email back after backing up /recovering it from a previous install. Make sure that you are not connected to the internet/accessing emails (the idea is here you want to avoid setting up your email account, then finding that some recent emails have come down before you have had a chance to put the backed up / recovered email data in place and set up the storage folder).

Outlook versions allow you to import files of various types, and if you have used this option the usual format is as a .pst file. Simply use the import option to put the emails/folders back.

Outlook Express versions do not have an Outlook Express to Outlook Express transfer only an 'upgrade' option to Outlook. To get the folders for the previous Outlook Express installaton, you require access to copy the 'Local Settings'/ 'Application Data' / 'Identities' folder. When you have this it can be placed back in the same place on the new installation OR you could be super smart and put it on the DATA partition and point Outlook Express to that partition (Please remember not to connect to your email before doing this as you will possibly overwrite the folder containing the newer emails or have two folders and have to switch between the two)

That's all for now people
Back soon


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Tabnabbing the New 'Phishing' Angle

Hi People

This item is a new move in the world of security threats. Tabnabbing is a devious way of obtaining information about accounts, be they social media accounts, bank accounts or possibly credit card accounts (as most these days have online access to balances, making payments etc). Tabs appear to morph in this one, what a sneaky trick.

Click here for a more complete explanation of how this works.


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MP3 players and Phones

Hi People

A quick post about phones and mp3 players (yes includes iPods)

Basically if you can hook them up to a PC they are generally seen as a 'mass storage' device in 'My computer'. Click 'start', 'My computer' (with the device connected and you will probably see it as a drive or mass storage device.

It is possible then to navigate it and read and write (if there are no proprietry files), to the various places (be careful not to overwrite anything crucial to the operation of the phone apps).

Look for pictures (generally .jpg files), (audio, usually mp3 files as if you didn't know), video may be a bit more tricky as very often these are proprietry files.

But there you are, you can now get access to those little pictures, without getting more programs installed on your programs menu and more importantly, reserving resources at bootup for some programs which you may use rarely, if at all.

Thank You

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What are installed files and why can't I use them to put my programs back

Hi Again,

How are you doing?

OK Installation and Installed files

Frequently during the course of my work, I get told, "I have got all my data and programs backed up".

What users tend to not realise is that when they (or anyone else) install programs, the programs are sometimes, unzipped, then unpacked and then the installation begins.
An installation, places files in windows directories and in program directories (sorry people, but there isn't much difference between a directory or folder, so having used DOS based systems - Hmmm what is he talking about I hear you say - ancient Microsoft operating systems - Before Windows).
Anyway, back to the point and that is once you install a program, it is extremely unlikely that anyone would be able to extract the necessary INSTALLED files and get the program to operate again.

So you see, you need to keep the installation files, to re-install your programs.
Retain all disks / downloaded installation files until you know you will not need them ever again (for example program superceded, pc upgraded and program not compatible etc)

As operating systems get more and more sophisticated, the programs that run on them also become more complex with hundreds if not thousands of files spread all over the operating system. So keep those installation files huh.

Right we have got that one sorted, yes (email me at service@gds888.com if there is a problem)

O
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