Welcome to
the first edition, year 3, of Presidio Computer's Newsletter.
Vol 3. No.
1
Disclaimer: The text contained in this newsletter is
provided for informational purposes only. No guarantees nor warranties are
expressly given nor implied.
Before installing
any software program or patch, or any piece of hardware, be sure to backup all
of the important information on your computer.
Beginning
with this issue, I have decided to add an index.
A. General
Audience [of interest to computer users of all levels of expertise].
1. Spoofed
Web sites.
2. Windows
updates.
3. Windows XP
Password Reset Disk
4. Spam
blockers
5. Windows XP
Service Pack 2
6. Cool
products
7. Secondary
email accounts
B.
Intermediate Users [of interest to those computer users who use their computers
most days of the week].
1. Clip Art
2. Computer
Security
C. Advanced
Users [of interest to those computer users who have no life away from their
PCs].
1. Office
2000 Default locations
2. Issues
with Symantec Updates
3. Hard disk
drives
A. General
Audience
1. Spoofed
web sites.
A spoofed web
site is a site that pretends to be something that it is not. The purpose is to deceive the user into
releasing personal information such as [ but not limited to ] one’s social
security number, financial institution account number and passwords. Microsoft has published the following web
site, that provides information to help avoid being a victim of spoofing, and
other devious schemes.
http://www.microsoft.com/security/incident/spoof.mspx
2. Windows
Updates.
“It was the
best of times. It was the worst of
times.” Those words, the opening to
Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities” can describe the predicament that
computer users face today. Or “You’re
between a rock and a hard place.” or “You're damned if you do and damned if you
don't.”
During late
2003, Microsoft announced a change in its release of “patches”. A patch is a software program, designed to
fix a defect in a larger program.
Microsoft and some other software produces have chosen the term
“update”. I think “patch” more
accurately describes the situation.
Semantics aside, instead of producing updates on an occasional basis,
Microsoft announced that it will release updates on a regular basis.
Some computer
uses have filed suit against Microsoft, regarding the problems associated with
software Microsoft sells. http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,113588,00.asp
There are
potential problems with the patches.
Sometimes the patch causes problems more severe than the defect. http://www.updatexp.com/windows-update-keeps-prompting.html
However, if
you encounter problems after installing a patch from Microsoft, you can contact
a Microsoft support technician at 866 727 2338.
There is no charge for this service.
Be sure you know the name / number of the patch involved. My policy is to install a patch, then use my
computer for a reasonable amount of time.
When I am satisfied that my computer is functioning without problems, I
install another patch.
This process
is slow & laborious. I accept the
risk that I am leaving myself and my computer [ most importantly the
information on the computer ] vulnerable to attack.
Before
installing patches, I backup all of the information on my computer. I strongly recommend that you do the
same. There are many ways that one can
backup one’s data. Contact me for
information on this important topic.
Feb 2004,
Microsoft made available to computer users, a CD that has the important updates
for Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows Millennium, Windows 2000 and
Windows XP. The disk contains ONLY the
updates that were available before the disk was created. This disk does not contain updates that were
made available by Microsoft, after the disk was created. ] For more information about the disk, to
include how you can obtain the disk, see:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=833242 .
July 2004,
Microsoft broke with the once a month update release plan and issued a patch
and advice for any Windows user who uses Internet Explorer. http://www.microsoft.com/security/incident/download_ject.mspx . The
patch associated with this problem is KB870669.
If you use
Windows XP and /or Windows 2000, as of July 2004, I recommend the immediate
download & installation of the blaster & welchia patches, and the
Internet Explorer patch. After you have made a complete backup of your
hard drive, then apply a patch a day; use the PC for a few days; if it performs
flawlessly, make a complete backup of your PC; then apply another patch.
Repeat the cycle ad nauseam.
3. Windows XP
Woody’s Watch
is a web site that explains computing in a pleasant manner and at a very
fundamental level. However, there is so
much that I have to learn about computing that I find the site useful.
http://www.woodyswatch.com/winxp/archtemplate.asp?3-n19 You can subscribe to Woody’s newsletter via
email, or read it by clicking on the “archives” button.
4. Spam
Blockers
I grew up 16
miles from a Hormel meat packing plant.
Then, Spam referred to a type of processed meat. Now, “spam” is more likely to refer to
unwanted email.
Here are 2
web sites that provides reviews of some programs [ filters ] that are designed
to reduce the amount of spam in your inbox.
http://www.stop-spam-filter.net/filter-review.htm and http://www.spamreviews.com/. Spam filters using a variety of methods. A white list refers to a list of
correspondents from whom you want to receive email. A black list refers to a list of
correspondents from whom you do not want to receive email. Using an exclusive white list will prevent
you from receiving email from correspondents on your white list. Using an exclusive black list will all
unwanted email from resourceful spammers who change the email address, for example,
from unwanted123@spam.com to unwanted122@spam.com . Your
spam filter will stop email from unwanted123@spam.com but, because
unwanted122@spam.com is not on your black list, email from unwanted122@spam.com
will still arrive.
The most
promising type of spam filter, in my opinion, uses an 18th century mathematical
technique called Bayesian filtering, based on probability principles described
by Thomas Bayes during the 18th century.
You can read more at http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,112478,00.asp .
5. Windows XP
Service Pack 2
Later this
year, Microsoft will release a “service pack” for Windows XP. This service pack will change the way Windows
XP functions. Probable changes
include: 1. the firewall will be
enabled; 2. the Windows update process will be made friendlier to users with
dialup connections to the internet. http://www2.pcworld.com/news/article/0%2Caid%2C113925%2C00.asp
http://msn.pcworld.com/news/article/0%2Caid%2C115278%2C00.asp
My plan is to
wait 6 months before I install Windows XP Service Pack 2 on my computer that
runs Windows XP, Service Pack 1. I do
not want to become guinea pig for Microsoft.
Although Microsoft attempts to extensively test its products before
release, I am not willing to sacrifice the data on my computer. I choose to wait.
6. Cool
products
a. USB flash drives
Within the past year, an
inexpensive, easy to use storage device has made great advances.
About
the size of a finger, the USB flash drive connects to a USB [ Universal Serial
Bus ] port on the outside of your computer.
These drives [ there are no disks spinning ] allow one to place a large
amount of information [ data ] on a very small device. The capacity varies from 32 MB to more than 1
GB. Yes, 1 gigabyte. It would take over 400 floppy disks to store
1 GB of data! At this site, you can find
everything about USB flash drives. http://www.everythingusb.com/hardware/Storage/USB_Flash_Drives.htm For a review of some current USB flash
drives, see http://www.neoseeker.com/Products/best_of.html?sid=61 .
b. DVD blue light burners
Blue light is of a shorter wave
length than red light. The shorter wave
length allows more data to be written to a DVD disk. Current DVDs can hold 4 GB. A blue light DVD can hold more than 20 GB of
data. http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0%2Caid%2C115835%2C00.asp These drives are costly, more than
$2000.00. This may be beyond the budgets
of most of us, but it means that contemporary DVD burners will drop sharply, in
price. Just 2 years ago, a top of the
line DVD burner sold for $350.00, if you could find one [ due to popularity
]. These same drives now sell for
$150.00.
For
more information about DVDs, see http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html .
7. Secondary
email accounts
I have a
number of email accounts, that I use for personal and professional tasks. You may want to create at least one of these secondary [ junk
] accounts, for purposes such as on line purchases and registrations. Be sure to read the conditions of these
accounts. Hotmail, for example, requires
you to check your account every 30 days.
If you fail to check your account during any 30 day period, you will
lose access to your email messages in that account.
The use of a
junk email account will reduce the amount of spam that arrives in your real
email account.
Here’s a web
page with 10 tips to help you reduce the spam in your email account. http://www3.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,113611,00.asp
For years, I
have used hotmail [ http://login.passport.net/uilogin.srf?id=2
] which is now owned by Microsoft. While
teaching computer classes at Oasis [ ,http://www.oasisnet.org/
] I learned about Yahoo’s email. Hotmail
offers a free email account, with an account limit of 2 MB. Yahoo offers a free email account with an
account limit of 4 MB. Hotmail recently
informed me that they are going to increase the account limit to 250 MB. I suspect that this is because Google is
offering free email accounts with a capacity of 1 GB. See this link for more information http://news.com.com/Hotmail+to+offer+250MB+of+free+storage/2100-1032_3-5245523.html?tag=nefd.top .
Yahoo is expanding to 100 MB.
Please note
that one of the conditions with the Google account is that they will read your
email and send you ads associated with products relevant to material contained
in your email messages. On this offer, I
will pass!
B.
Intermediate Users
1. Clip Art
is a term used to describe graphics that one can to a file one creates on a
computer. Typically, these files are
text files, such as a newsletter. The
following website has tips for using clip art with Word 2003, as well as links
to downloads of clip art for Word 2003. http://office.microsoft.com/assistance/preview.aspx?AssetID=HA010832981033&CTT=98
2.
Security
During early
July 2004, Microsoft announced that there are newly discovered flaws in
Internet Explorer. These flaws are so
serious that Microsoft broke with its once a month update release plan and
issued a patch and advice for any Windows user who uses Internet Explorer. You can read more at the following links, recently
published by Zdnet. The following web
sites discuss the vulnerabilities of Internet Explorer recently
discovered. http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5259374.html
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1105_2-5256297.html?tag=nl
Be advised
that if you follow Microsoft’s recommendation of placing Internet Explorer’s
security setting to “high”, some web sites may not display at all.
You may
choose to use a different browser, such as Netscape Communicator
[ http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/default.jsp],
Opera
[ http://www.opera.com/
] or Firefox [ http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
] .
C. Advanced
Users
1. Office
2000 Default locations
You can
change the default location to which programs in the Office 2000 suite save
documents by using the information available at
2. Issues
with Symantec Updates
Users of
Norton AntiVirus [ NAV ] 2004 have recently experienced problems similar to
problems experienced by those of us who update Windows. Microsoft has the courage to admit that an
upgrade is necessary. Symantec was not
so forthcoming when it was discovered that Word and Excel performed slowly,
after NAV 2004 was installed. To read
more, go to: http://www.computergripes.com/nortonantivirus2004.html
. Search [ edit > find ] on 2004010810205113 .
Symantec
has also made it very difficult to locate their free email support. Perhaps that is why Symantec’s stock has had
such an increase in price during the past 12 months.
To
obtain free email support from Symantec, to http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/support_options.html
Left click on
“automated support assistant”. At the
next page, I decline the download, twice.
Then, I left click on “continue to free technical support”. Then I select my product, such as “Norton
Antivirus” “2004 for Windows . . .
“. Cleverly disguised in the “top
support issues and contact” area are buttons such as “error message issue” and
“other software issues”. Left click on
“other software issues”. Then, left
click on the “contact” tab. Next, click
on the “free online support” icon. Now, finally,
you are at the page at which you can enter your contact information and
information about your problem.
3.
Hard disk drives
Recently,
some of my customers have asked me to recover data from their relatively new
hard disk drives. One of the common
features of these drives is that they have very large capacities. I have seen hard disk drives larger than 250
GB! In my opinion, drive dependability
drops dramatically when the hard disk drive is larger than 120 GB. I think, that as of July 2004, large hard
disk drives lack the reliability for me to recommend them.
Reminder:
You can now access previous issues of the newsletter, from my website. When you visit www.presidiocomputers.com, no
cookies are placed on your computer.
As always,
Presidio Computers, is available to assist you with any of the computer issues
described above.
If you want
your name removed from this mailing list, please let me know. Your name is not
kept in an address book. Your name is neither shared with nor sold to anyone.
You will not receive any junk mail from Presidio Computers.
The text
contained in this newsletter is provided for informational purposes only. No
guarantees nor warranties are expressly given nor implied.
Best of
success.
Sincerely,
Ed Sloup
Presidio Computers, LLC
520 731 6446
www.presidiocomputers.com