DRIVE LIGHT a newsletter of the Under the Computer Hood User

February 2008
Volume 29, No 2
the Electronic
DRIVE
LIGHT a newsletter of the
Under the Computer Hood User Group, Inc
Meeting reminder February 6th, 2008
This week we will present several short
topics including “yellow sticky notes”
and “WiFi Parabolic Antennas”, and
YOUR favorite topic (if you bring it!).
Our Meeting place:
San Diego County Education Center,
6401 Linda Vista Road
Room 306 7:00 PM. (click map for google maps)
For More information about us go to our
website: www.uchug.org
Features in this issue:
Prez' Corner
Secretary's Reports
6,
Southwest Computer Conference
Bits and Pieces
Foxit PDF Reader
Vista Corner
Evaluating Your Anti-Spyware
2
7
9
10
11
12
13
Clean your Startup
15
Gadgets, 2008
16
Renewal Reminders
18
Remember: the above links are ”Hot”.
Click on any title and jump to that page.
And you can click on the Drive Light logo at
the bottom of each page to return to this index.
UCHUG DRIVE LIGHT
Page 1 of 18
February 2008
President's Corner
by Greg Skalka
The Saga of One Computer Upgrade - Part CIV
Are there no easy tasks in computing? No hardware or software vendor
would advertise their product with the phrases “May be difficult to
install and configure” or “May not be compatible with hardware or
software you already have." You will never find written on a software
box “Features that work today may inexplicably not work tomorrow."
Only if there were absolute truth in advertising laws would we see such
things, but we experience their unwritten effects all the time.
I’ve spent several hours this morning trying to resolve a problem I’m
having with my Juno email program, only to stumble upon a second,
more serious problem. As a member of a local radio station’s listener
club, I’ve been expecting to receive a certificate for a free Indian casino
buffet meal in my birth month. When I didn’t receive it, I emailed the station, but was told it had been sent
out by email. They advised me to check my spam or junk mail folder, but did resend the email. I still
didn’t receive it the second time, and began to wonder what happened to it.
I use Juno’s email program, installed on my computer, to download my email through my network and my
broadband ISP. I can also access my mail via Juno’s web mail site, but I seldom use it, as their user
interface is so painful to deal with. I also prefer to have my mail stored on my own local PC, rather than on
their servers with the web mail. There is a junk email folder and corresponding settings on the web mail
user interface, but their stand-alone program has no apparent provisions for email filtering of any kind.
Were Juno’s servers filtering my email?
I sent Juno a support inquiry email for this, and was surprised at the quick response. As is often the case
with email or web support, I will need to iterate a number of times to hopefully arrive at a solution.
Meanwhile, in printing their initial tech support remedy email, so that I could better craft my response, I
found I could no longer print from the Juno program.
Now I don’t print a lot of emails, but I must have printed one in the last month, so the failure was recently
induced. I have not been as good as I should be about making backups, so I have nothing recent enough to
restore. My best hope was to reload.
It appeared that there was a slightly newer version of the Juno software available, so I downloaded it and
proceeded to install over the existing program (after copying my mail and address book to another drive).
The install program correctly identified that I was installing over the same version (turns out their version
designations are confusing), but that I should proceed if I suspect my present installation is corrupted (you
bet I did). After the installation, however, it still would not print. Until I figure it out, I can always export
my messages to a text file and print those.
UCHUG DRIVE LIGHT
Page 2 of 18
February 2008
Chapter 173 - The Grand Illusion
There is only one thing worse than spending a lot of time trying to solve a computer problem (like my
email problem), and that is spending a lot of time trying to solve a problem that you don’t really have.
When you think you have a computer disaster, it is always a good idea to step back and think about it from
another point of view. Sometimes a little calm, logical reasoning will save a lot of time in the end. Fools
often rush in and jump to the wrong conclusions. In computers, what appears to be the obvious cause and
course of action can lead you down a path of wasted time and maybe even damaged data.
I bought my first digital camera in early 2001. Though a basic point and shoot 2 megapixel camera, it was
pretty expensive at the time, nearly $500. Through seven years of use, I’ve taken 25,000 photos with it
(that’s only two cents per picture). It still works fine, but now every
member of my family has a much better camera. I felt this was the
year that I should get a new one.
I’d really like to have a real digital SLR (single-lens reflex) camera,
like a Nikon D40. My last film camera before going digital was an
SLR, and I’ve missed the advanced capabilities and features these last
seven years. I have liked the fact that my digital camera is much
smaller than an SLR, allowing me to more easily take it anywhere I
go. When presented with a great photo opportunity, any camera you
have with you is better than no camera. The other problem with a
digital SLR is cost. There are not any that are less than the original
cost of my present digital camera, an expense I can’t afford to repeat
at this time.
There is a class of cameras now that represents a middle ground between the small point and shoot and the
digital SLR. They look like a mini SLR, but do not have a removable lens. They do usually have around a
12x optical zoom, and most of the advanced focus and exposure
features of the true digital SLR. Though not as large as a true
SLR, they are bigger than the typical compact camera. They are
also much less expensive (not much more than a good compact
camera).
With my birthday in December, I could provide my wife with
two gift giving opportunities for the new camera. I found a really
good deal on a Kodak mini SLR at the Best Buy Black Friday
(day after Thanksgiving) sale. Handling the camera in the store,
I
realized my wife would be even less happy for me to be taking
this larger camera everywhere I went (more specifically
everywhere I went with her). That’s when the solution hit me two cameras! I could get the mini SLR and a cheap, small
compact digital camera for a little more than half what I paid for
my present camera. Two cameras, two gift-giving days. This could work!
To make a long story short, I wound up with the Kodak mini SLR and an Olympus compact, both 7
megapixels. That’s when I found out how far Flash memory had come in seven years. My old 2 megapixel
camera held about a hundred photos on its 128 MB memory card (about 1 MB each), requiring me to have
UCHUG DRIVE LIGHT
Page 3 of 18
February 2008
several memory cards. I also purchased a
couple of photo hard drives to use on long
trips. A photo hard drive is a batterypowered USB micro drive with a USB or
memory card reader input. It is a selfcontained way to suck the photos off of your
camera memory cards without a computer.
Taking the small photo hard drive along
allowed me to take about a hundred photos a
day while on vacation, and not worry about
running out of storage space.
My new digital cameras can accommodate 2 GB memory cards. Even at maximum resolution and
minimum compression (2-5 MB file size), I can fit about 400 photos on each card. This almost makes the
photo hard drives obsolete. I still like to use the photo hard drives to read the memory cards, then copy
from them to my computer. This leaves all the photos on the photo hard drive as a backup.
My first real test for the new cameras was a two-day trip to Las Vegas for my wife’s birthday. I used one
on the first day, and the other on the second day, almost filling the memory cards on each. When I returned
home, I copied both the SD card from the Kodak and the xD card from the Olympus to my Wolverine
photo drive, carefully checking that, after copying, the drive contained the same number of photos as the
memory cards. Once I had connected the Wolverine drive to my computer and copied the photos there, so
that the files existed in two locations, I could safely (or so I thought) delete the files from the memory cards
in the cameras.
When I looked at the trip photos on my computer a few days later, I found that about a third of the photos
from the Olympus, mostly from the last third of the shots, could not be opened by any photo viewing
software. The files were there on the hard drive, but it seemed that the JPEG format was corrupted. The
files on the Wolverine drive were the same.
I remembered from our UCHUG meeting presentation a few years ago by Lee Otsubo, “The Digital Photo
Guy”, that there are utilities out there to recover lost and damaged photo files. I went to his site,
www.thedigitalphotoguy.com, and found he listed three such programs on his tech support page (two were
free). I sent Lee an email, explaining my problem and asking for his recommendations, and he replied that
any of these utilities should work.
As I do before I install any new software, I made a backup of my computer, using Acronis True Image 11.
Since these utilities seemed mostly for recovering deleted and corrupted photos from memory cards, I
copied the bad files to a USB Flash drive. I then downloaded and installed one of the free utilities listed on
The Digital Photo Guy site, and let it try to recover the photos. It tried mightily, but was unsuccessful in
recovering any of the bad files.
Thinking that perhaps it is true that you get what you pay for, I decided to next try the non-shareware
utility, PhotoRescue. It was only $30, and allowed a trial with the full program, to see if it could recover
your photos. I restored my backup to remove all traces of the first utility, then installed and ran
PhotoRescue. It too was unsuccessful in recovering the photos from the USB Flash drive.
UCHUG DRIVE LIGHT
Page 4 of 18
February 2008
Thinking that it might work better to recover from the original camera memory card, I found to my surprise
that I had neglected to delete the pictures from the card after all. I was able to see all of the photos on the
camera, even the ones I’d thought were corrupted. Using a USB memory card reader, I was able to transfer
all the photos to my computer successfully. I then tried again to copy the memory card to my Wolverine
drive, but it gave me an error. I was able to successfully copy them to my other photo hard drive, a
SmartDisk FotoChute. This requires further investigation, but at least I didn’t lose any important photos.
If only I’d checked that memory card in the camera sooner.
Chapter 174 - A Hard Drive DELLema
I was so busy over the holidays that I didn’t have a chance to
do much with the new Dell Vostro 1400 laptop I wrote about
getting last month. It came with Windows XP Home, and
that’s about it. Even before I received the laptop shipment,
I’d begun accumulating all the things I’d need, like utilities,
antivirus and anti-spyware programs. I also saw a Memorex
USB floppy drive on sale at Fry’s, and debated the worth of it.
My new laptop didn’t have a floppy drive, but I was not sure
I’d need one. I finally succumbed to the sale, and it turned out
to be more useful than I thought.
Before I can really use my new laptop, I’ll need to set up the
hard drive. Dell provides it with one big 160 GB partition, but I prefer to have many separate, smaller
partitions for OS, data and programs. For an additional fee (about $40), Dell will provide two partitions, or
a custom partitioning. I figured I could partition the drive myself and save the cost. At least I hoped so.
The first step to repartitioning was to back up what I had. It took a few reboot cycles to determine how to
get into the BIOS to set it to boot from the DVD drive. I found F12 provided a handy boot menu. Booting
off the True Image CD to perform a back up to a USB hard drive, I found there were actually three
partitions on the hard drive. There was a 147 GB active, primary NTFS partition, a 78 MB primary FAT16
partition and a 1.7 GB MEDIADIRECT partition. This complicated my plans a bit. I went ahead and
backed up all three partitions.
I next tried to boot from the bootable utility CD I had made, so that I could run Partition Magic 8, but found
that it failed to boot correctly from this CD. This is where I was glad I had bought the USB floppy drive,
for I found I could run the program from the CD after booting from a floppy. Partition Magic provided a
little more on my hard drive’s configuration. The FAT partition was labeled DELLUTILITY, and was the
first partition on the drive. The active 150 GB primary partition was next. The third partition was
contained in an extended partition and was shown as “Type DD”. It looks like further investigation is
required once again before proceeding.
Greg
* SPECIAL MEETING NOTICE
Please note that we will not formally get into room 306 until 7:30, but come at 7 and we'll start
the meeting when we can get into the room, and have Random Access in the lobby until then.
UCHUG DRIVE LIGHT
Page 5 of 18
February 2008
Secretary's Reports
General Meeting, January 2, 2008
by Secretary Ray Ferbrache
The meeting was held in Room 401 (became available after projector
Broke in 301), San Diego County Office of Education Complex, 6401
Linda Vista Rd. The meeting was called to order by President Greg
Skalka at 7:18 p.m.. The President welcomed approximately 20 members
and guests.
REPORTS:
President: The President discussed the Evenings Program - Networking Multiple computers with the
assembled member's and guest.
A discussion was held on Rebate Problems. The worst problem is when more than one member of a family
is using the same address. One reject was for Apt A.
The WebMaster reported by Email that he is inundated with 1st of the year changes at work. Art
Gresham reviewed our WebSite and the programs noted. Special not was made of Explorer 2.
"The Ultimately affordable file management power" xplorer2 [1 M] Win All Free
The lightweight version of xplorer² is not as powerful as the professional version but it
shares the same desktop browsing and file management engine, it sports dual panes and
folder tabs, and gives many rival paid-for file managers a run for their money - literally! It
is a complete little file manager and is better than the Windows file manager.
http://www.zabkat.com/x2lite.htm
You might also want to check out - The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities
There are a lot of great freeware products out there. Many are as good as or better than
their commercial alternatives. This list features a personal pick of the "best of the best.
http://techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm
A discussion was held on Computer CPU/BUSS Speed.
PROGRAM: Greg Skalka led a discussion on the Background and History of WiFi Networking. A
router was set up between 4 laptops in the room with Nameing, Access and Passwords to
demonstrate the techniques. The various settings for security were discussed and shown. The Power
Point Slides for the session will be set up on the WebSite in the near future.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:10 p.m.
UCHUG DRIVE LIGHT
Page 6 of 18
February 2008
Board Meeting
January 16, 2008
by Secretary Ray Ferbrache
The meeting was called to order at the home of Mike Trempe at 7:06 p.m. by President Greg Skalka. In
attendance were Greg Skalka, Al Brengle, Abbott Brownell, Art Gresham, Mike Trempe, Sandy Shapiro,
and Ray Ferbrache.
REPORTS:
President - The President received an offer from Sonic Solutions to review Easy Media Creator® 10 Suite.
●
●
●
●
The new Roxio Easy Media Creator 10 gives you creative inspiration and all the tools you need to
enhance your digital lifestyle. Create, share and enjoy your movies, memories and music as only
you can.
A 3 step wizard lets you auto-edit your movie. Then upload to YouTube in one click or put it on
DVD.
Capture and edit HD video and add surround sound playback.
Record internet radio, batch convert files, backup your iPod and more.
●
●
Enhance photos and video taken on your mobile devices and use them in projects with your other
media.
Certified for Windows Vista and fully supports Windows XP.
Greg intends to review the program and write a review for the company and the membership.
Vice President - The Vice President has submitted a letter to the State of California listing the current
Officers of the UCHUG corporation and stating we are still a functioning group.
Secretary - The Secretary had nothing to report
Treasurer - The Group is solvent and operating below budget. Mike displayed the proposed 2008 budget
on his home TV screen and a discussion was held on the items.
The month of February each year will be the official start of the Fiscal Year for the UCHUG Corporation.
This will have budget start after the books are up to date from our largest change which is the Christmas
Party and Raffle.
Membership - The membership chairman was not present.
Editor - Request inputs over the weekend of the 27th.
WebMasters - Not Present. New updates have been posted during the past few weeks.
UCHUG DRIVE LIGHT
Page 7 of 18
February 2008
PROGRAMS:
February - Short topics from the Board and any items for discussion from the membership. We are
intending this to be a "Show and Tell about your favorite Program or piece of Hardware. Members input
are welcomed.
March - Converting your Audio to Video and DVD recordings using ROXIO Easy Media Creator.
April - TBD
OLD BUSINESS: ACPUG 2008 South West User Conference. Note the name change and time of year.
Plans are underway for the 15th Annual Southwest Computer Conference to be held May 30, 31 and
June 1, 2008 at the Town and Country Resort & Convention Center in San Diego, CA.
Over 300 Windows, Mac and Linux end users will converge on San Diego to learn about the latest
offerings in the technology marketplace. Many attendees are members of computer user groups or
clubs that represent Vendor Expo 25,000 computer users known for being early adopters of
technology.
http://www.theswcc.org/
The times for registration and fees are listed later in the newsletter. All conference attendees are
encouraged to enter the Digital Photo contest. Winners of your our Group's digital photo contest are
also eligible to enter the contest. To participate in the contest, entries must be received by April 25.
For information about the Digital Photo Contest Go to http://www.theswcc.org/Contest/photo/photocontest.htm
For further information see the next article.
We continued discussion on the purchase of a Projector. A motion was Made, Seconded and Passed to give
the President and Treasurer the authority to spend up to $100 to rent a projector for the next meeting if
required.
NEW BUSINESS: We discussed how to meet and treat visitors to the Group Meetings. We will attempt to
recognize and welcome anyone who visits our meeting. Any member who brings a visitor please let the
President know before the meeting is started.
The meeting adjourned at 8.35 pm.
.
UCHUG DRIVE LIGHT
Page 8 of 18
February 2008
We have a new name – Southwest Computer Conference and a new website – www.theswcc.org
Leadership Workshops! Vendor Seminars! Vendor Presentations and Meals! Vendor Expo! Hospitality
Suite! Door Prize Drawings! Networking! T-shirts and Welcome Bags! You will find all of this and more at
the Conference.
You will have an opportunity to network with computer club leaders and members who have similar
interests: share ideas and experiences as well as solutions to problems. Bring your meeting calendar to
schedule meetings; you will also have the chance to meet and talk with vendors.
The conference begins on Friday afternoon, May 30 and continues through Sunday, June 1 at the Town and
Country Resort & Convention Center in San Diego.
The conference registration fee is $60 per person, if postmarked by
May 1. If your registration is postmarked by May 15, the fee is $75;
May 16 through the conference date the fee is $100. Your conference
registration fee includes admittance to all workshops and tech sessions,
the Vendor Expo, meals and vendor presentations, a Welcome Bag and
T-shirt and a chance to win door prizes featuring some of the latest and
greatest technology products. To ensure that attendees receive their
choice of T-shirt size, registration must be received by May 1. Attendees
registering after that date will receive an XL T-shirt. The registration
form is attached and you will find the fillable form at:
http://theswcc.org/registration/registration.htm
The conference will be held at the Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, 500 Hotel Circle North,
San Diego. Town and Country is offering attendees a special group rate. Information about the hotel may
be found at: http://theswcc.org/hotel/hotel.htm Stay at the host hotel and you are automatically entered into
a drawing to receive one of your conference nights FREE!
All conference attendees are invited to enter the Digital Photo contest. A user group with at least one
member in attendance at the Conference may also enter their Digital Photo Contest 1st, 2nd and 3rd place
winners. The contest guidelines may be found at: http://theswcc.org/Contest/photo/photocontest.htm
Attendees do not need to belong to a user group – bring a friend. Maybe attending the conference will
entice them to join your group.
For further information, please contact Judy Taylour at JudyTaylour@theswcc.org.
UCHUG DRIVE LIGHT
Page 9 of 18
February 2008
BITS and pieces
A look at items of interest found on the web
Protect your privacy when surfing with Firefox
When you surf the Internet, your life is an open book. Web sites can gather an astonishing amount of
information about you, including tracking your online travels, knowing what operating system and browser
you're running, finding out your machine name, uncovering the last sites you've visited, and examining
your IP address and using that to learn basic information about you such as your geographic location and
more.
There's a simple way to keep that information away from prying Web sites -- use the FoxTor add-in. It uses
Tor "http://www.torproject.org/" software to, in essence, bounce all of your communications around a giant
network of Tor servers called "onion routers" until it's impossible for sites or people to be able to track your
activities.
First, you need to install the free software Tor. Download it, and install Tor and the included Privoxy, a
proxy program. It's all self-explanatory.
Once you do that, install the FoxTor add-in " https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3606". After
you install it, you'll see your Tor status on the lower-left corner of the screen, either Unmasked (which
means you're not protected), or Masked (which means you are protected). To toggle between modes, click
the corner.
Click here for 15 must-have Firefox tricks
How to bring your holiday photos down to size
If you took lots of pictures over the holidays at high resolution, and now you want to reduce those file sizes
so you can send them to friends or post them on the web, there's a cool little free program called Easy
Thumbnails that lets you do just that with a whole batch of pictures at a time. You can read more about it
on my blog at:
http://www.wxpnews.com/Q1VBLI/080108-Holiday-Photos
Bye, bye, Netscape
If you are one of the few holdouts who's still using the Netscape, which was once the number one web
browser but has sunk into oblivion after being bought by America Online in 1998, here's some bad news:
AOL will terminate its support for the browser on February 1. Read more here:
http://www.wxpnews.com/Q1VBLI/080108-Netscape
UCHUG DRIVE LIGHT
Page 10 of 18
February 2008
Foxit Reader
From PC WORLD: This free utility lets you view PDF files, and edit any of the text they contain.
Are you tired of Adobe Reader hogging almost 23MB of your disk space, always phoning home for
updates, and not providing such swift performance? (Browse to "Before They Spoiled the Software" at
find.pcworld.com/58949 for details.) Make the switch to Foxit Reader, a willowy, 2MB download that's
fast, free, and more versatile than Adobe's bloatware. For instance, with Foxit you can annotate a PDF with
text or graphics, and save the PDF forms you fill out.
--Steve Bass
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,62648/description.html
So what makes this little reader so great? You probably have no
need to annotate a PDF, and the Adobe Reader loads fast enough
for you. The download is under 6 Meg and exe under 3 Meg.
Maybe it is because Foxit can help you read your Drive Lights!
Have you ever had a problem and you remembered vaguely that
you had read a review, or discussion of that subject in a UCHUG
Drive Light PDF sometime in the past couple years. Well with
Adobe you will can search for those files, but be prepared for a
tortuously slow search. With Foxit, the speed comparison is quite
amazing.
For example I did a search on my laptop, of all the PDF files in my
UCHUG directory for “partition”. This includes all the Drive
Light issues since February 2005, plus some other topical ones,
and test files- 51 files in 29 folders and sub folders. The search
Foxit results shown here ran in 54 seconds; when I ran the search
through Adobe, it took 1 minute 24 seconds to find the same 21
documents. And if a
So for those of you who like to be able to search the text material
in the DL for help when you need reference ot one of our fine
sources, now you have an alternative.
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php
Art Gresham Editor, DL
UCHUG DRIVE LIGHT
Page 11 of 18
February 2008
Start Vista without going through the logon
process
QUESTION:
Okay, I know Vista is all about better security. But really, my computer is physically secure. I'm the only
one in the house. With XP, there was a way to bypass the logon process and boot into the operating system
automatically without having to type in your password. Can I do that with Vista, or is it insistent on being
more secure than I want it to be? Thanks! - Len K.
ANSWER:
It's not recommended, of course, but Microsoft does give you a way to set up automatic logon like you had
in XP if you're using a standalone computer or one on a simple peer to peer network like most home
networks. You need to use a hidden tool called Advanced User Accounts Control Panel. Here's how:
1. Log on with an administrative account.
2. In the search box at the bottom of the Start menu, type Control Userpasswords2.
3. The UAC dialog box asks for your permission to continue. Click Continue.
4. In the list labeled "Users for this Computer" on the Users tab, click your user name.
5. Uncheck the box labeled "Users must use a user name and password to use this computer."
6. Click OK.
7. The Automatically Log On dialog box appears. Type your user name and type your password twice, then
click OK.
Note that this does not work if your computer is a member of a domain. In that case, the checkbox
described in step 5 is missing.
No more prohibition on running Vista Home in VM
Microsoft has just announced that they're dropping the previous prohibition on running Vista Home Basic
and Home Premium editions in virtual machines. This is good news for those who may want to run Vista in
a window on their XP desktops, or in a virtual environment on a Mac, as well as those who - like me would like to be able to run the Home edition in a VM on a Vista Ultimate machine, in order to do testing
and write about the differences in the editions. Read more here:
http://www.vistanews.com/BF2EMH/080124-Vista-VM
UCHUG DRIVE LIGHT
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February 2008
Evaluating Your Anti-Spyware Program
by Vinny La Bash
Member of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc.
www.spcug.org
vlabash(at)comcast.net
Obtained from APCUG with the author's permission for publication by APCUG member groups.
For many years the most acute danger to your computer was some kind of destructive virus. Today the
danger has shifted from software that is programmed to destroy files, corrupt programs, and disable
systems to something more insidious, and perhaps even more treacherous. This threat comes in two broad
categories known as Spyware and Trojan Horses.
Spyware started out as a stealth program surreptitiously installed on your system to track your web surfing
habits. The developers of spyware didn’t want to damage your computer. They wanted only to sell you
something. That may be annoying, but there is nothing criminal about it.
A Trojan Horse is a program that pretends to be something other than what it really is. For example, a
screensaver could be designed to install a program that will take over your system to forward spam to other
machines. Trojan Horses have been used to initiate denial of service attacks, where the target such as a
bank, credit card service or other high profile web site becomes so saturated with external requests that it
cannot respond to legitimate traffic.
When selecting an anti-spyware program, start out by selecting one with a comprehensive signatures
database. The best anti-spyware programs have databases that can recognize more than 750,000 different
kinds of spyware and Trojan Horse programs. Read the documentation or call the company. This is
important.
The best signatures database won’t do you any good if it isn’t updated frequently. The bad guys never seem
to rest. They release new poison daily. Don’t buy any solutions that require manual updates. You have
better things to do. Insist on automatic updates.
Another important capability is active monitoring of your system. Wouldn’t you rather prevent a malicious
program from installing rather than removing it after the damage has been done? Avoid any program that
removes infections found only after conducting a manual scan. This probably means avoiding some
otherwise adequate free programs. There’s an old saying about getting what you pay for. The best antispyware programs prevent spyware and Trojan Horses from ever being installed on your system.
Go for a program that allows you to customize your scans. We don’t all use our computers in the same
way. Some people require more comprehensive scans than others. If you are constantly browsing the
internet, you are likely to benefit from a daily scan that checks active memory, system folders, the registry,
and all hard drives. If you rarely use the internet or find yourself visiting the same six sites over and over, a
weekly scan may be all you need.
You should be able to schedule unattended updates and scans. Your machine should be yours to use as you
wish. Any decent anti-spyware program should be able to run in the background unattended, and not
require interrupting your activities. The program should work according to your preferences, not the other
way around. Choose a program that permits unattended maintenance and administration.
UCHUG DRIVE LIGHT
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February 2008
It’s also important that an unattended scan can quarantine infections without requiring intervention from
you. Why do some anti-spyware programs ask if you want to remove infections? Of course you do! Of all
the features in anti-spyware programs, that is the dumbest.
There are innumerable derivations and iterations of spyware being created. This makes it difficult for even
the best anti-spyware programs to catch and destroy them. If you open the Processes tab in Windows Task
Manager, you will observe the Process Manager in action. You will see a list of objects running on your
system. Some of them are applications like word processors. Others are mysterious entities that don’t
provide a clue as so what they do, but you can’t run Windows effectively without them. Among them
would be Windows Explorer, Internet Explorer, Media Center, Windows Mobile Control Center, and many
others.
Beyond shutting down a process or resetting its priority, there isn’t much a non-specialist can do with this
feature. Clever programmers can create spyware that won’t show up in the Process Manager. Any decent
anti-spyware program has to have its own built-in process manager that will recognize, track down, and
eliminate malevolent software that may not even be in the signatures database.
Anti-spyware programs should be able to monitor programs that load when Windows starts up. There are
many very sophisticated spyware programs that to not show up in the Process Monitor or in Control Panel’s
Add/Remove section. If your anti-spyware program lacks this capability, find another one.
Assuming your anti-spyware program has the capabilities mentioned above, it is an excellent choice for
individuals. However, businesses or organizations with multiple computers will require even more.
Whoever is in charge of PCs will not have time to manually monitor or administrate individual machines. It
is simply impractical in a large organization for support staff to visit every workstation, apply updates,
schedule scans, and ensure that infestations are removed. If this applies to you, look for a program with a
centralized administration console. This capability has the unfortunate drawback of being quite expensive,
but the time saved generally justifies the cost.
This article has been provided to APCUG by the author solely for publication by APCUG member groups. All other uses require the permission of
the author (see e-mail address above).
UCHUG DRIVE LIGHT
Page 14 of 18
February 2008
Let’s Clean “Start-Up”
By Bob Elgines
Editor, Colorado River Computer Club, AZRCC Editor
www.crccaz.com/
elginesz(at)rraz.net
Obtained from APCUG with the author's permission for publication by APCUG member groups.
Does your computer boot-up or run slow? Maybe there are too many programs running in the back ground.
Let us do the following check first.
Hold your CTRL & ALT buttons and press the DELETE button.
Click on the PERFORMANCE tab, is your CPU Usage running more than 10% or is your Physical
Memory being in total use?
Go to START then RUN, type in “msconfig” which stands for Microsoft System Configuration. In
Windows VISTA you can find RUN in the ACCESSORY folder under PROGRAMS. The System
Configuration Utility windows will come up.
First go to the upper right tab labeled STARTUP, here you will see the list of items that load during
startup. Of course some you want, some you don’t. In the first column labeled STARTUP ITEM gives a
very rough idea to what it is referenced too, but the second column labeled COMMAND, is much more
useful. Too read it better, widen the column out by holding your mouse symbol over the vertical line
located before the next column label. A double arrow will appear, then hold down left mouse button and
move it to the right. This information tells you where it is located and in some cases which program is
using it. Uncheck those in question, you can put them back in later if you need too. Do not uncheck you
Antivirus or Spyware programs.
Next go to the tab on top labeled SERVICES, this show all of the programs running now. You do not what
to uncheck those labeled Microsoft under the MANUFACTURER column, so to start off, lets put a check
mark in the box below labeled “Hide all Microsoft Services”.
Now while you are reviewing the other programs running in the background note the forth column labeled
STATUS. If it says STOPPED, then don’t worry about it. We just want to stop the strange ones that are
RUNNING. You can uncheck those that you are not familiar with, here again you may bring them back in
later.
After un-checking all those items under tabs STARTUP & SERVICES, then click on APPLY and CLOSE.
The System Configuration Utility will now ask you to RESTART (or Boot) your computer.
After restarting a window will come up stating System Configuration Utility has been changed, be sure to
put a check mark in the bottom left (labeled “Don’t show this message or launch …..”) before clicking OK.
If you improved your operation of your computer, you can put back in the items one at a time until you find
the program that was slowing you down.
This article has been provided to APCUG by the author solely for publication by APCUG member groups. All other uses require the permission of
the author (see e-mail address above).
UCHUG DRIVE LIGHT
Page 15 of 18
February 2008
New Gadgets for 2008
By Sandy Berger, CompuKISS.com
www.compukiss.com
sberger(at)compukiss.com
Obtained from APCUG with the author's permission for publication by APCUG member groups.
Every year my husband and I attend the Consumer Electronic (CES) in Las Vegas to see the latest and
greatest high tech gadgets. This year didn't disappoint. We found everything from a Leggett & Platt's
$20,000 Starry Night bed with an HDTV projector, pop-up speakers, snoring sensors, iPod dock, automatic
lighting system, and breathing pattern monitor to a General Motors Chevy Tahoe prototype car that drove
itself. While I don't expect this GM prototype to make it to market anytime soon, some of the technology
that it is built in will evolve and is sure to find its way into our future automobiles.
We also found a few more down-to-earth gadgets and gizmos. In fact, there were
several devices that you may want to check out for your own gaggle of high tech
products. For instance, if you hate cleaning the gutters, the iRobot Looj has you
covered. This robotic gutter cleaner cleans a 60-foot section of gutter in just 10
minutes. Yes, you must use a ladder to place it in position, but you don't have to
move the ladder multiple times as you do in regular gutter cleaning. The demos
looked marvelous. iRobot also have robotic vacuum cleaners and floor scrubbers.
Although we have been hearing about wireless technologies for what seems to be ions, this year some of
that wireless technology became mainstream. Wireless speakers, which up to
now were feeble and erratic, have finally found their voice. The Griffin
Evolve is a great example. It is a compact speaker system for an iPod. It has
two wireless speaker cubes that can be placed in any room in the house. It
sounds great and is also easy to use. At about $300, this is a great solution to
distribute music from your iPod throughout the house.
While prices of technology gadgets continue to drop, it seems that ink for that inexpensive ink jet printer
often costs more than the printer itself. Well, thanks to Kodak, this trend may be coming to an end. The
new Kodak printers are said to use 50% less ink and ink cartridges are reasonably priced at $15 for color
and $10 for black.
Polaroid, another well-known name in photography has also released a breakthrough product. Their new
inkless printer is made for printing pictures from a cell phone or digital camera. Not only does the printer
use Bluetooth wireless technology, but it uses special paper that is embedded with 100 billion colored dye
crystals. The colors appear when the printer applies heat pulses to the paper. This ink-less technology is
called Zink, for zero ink. The 2-inch-by-3-inch prints cost about 30 cents each and the printer sells for
$150, which is not bad for cutting-edge technology.
UCHUG DRIVE LIGHT
Page 16 of 18
February 2008
Although computers are not the focus of the CES show, there were many
computer manufacturers showing their wares. Lenovo, the Chinese company
who bought IBM's PC division three years ago has previously focused on their
ThinkPad business laptops, but this year they introduced a line of consumer
laptops called IdeaPads. These include facial recognition technology. Lenovo,
Sony, and others will follow Dell's lead with the introduction of laptops in a
variety of bright colors.
Bright colors were the norm at the show. There were MP3 players, cell phone, and gadget covers
in every color imaginable. There were red and blue ladybug-shaped iPod speakers and speakers
that pulsated to the beat in vibrating, changing colors. There was even pink CAT-5 networking
cable, whose purchase supports the National Breast Cancer Foundation.
Oh, and you can expect to be even more confused by television display
technologies in the future. Sony's $2500, 11-inch Organic light Emitting
Diode (OLED) was small but clearly better than anything else on the market
today..... and it was only as thick as 3 credit cards. Mitsubishi's laser
television was also a dramatic improvement. Samsung and Sharp announced
backlit LCD televisions. While
these technologies may take
awhile to go mainstream, other
manufacturer's announced
Internet-enabled televisions that
are sure to appear quite quickly.
For instance, the Sharp Aquos
Net television displays small
icons called widgets that showed
news, weather, and traffic data Soyy's super-thin OLED
from the Internet right on the
television screen. Also next year, when digital television goes
Sony's 11-inch OLED display
mainstream you will see digital TV broadcasting in a variety
of devices including cell phones, cars, buses, and anything else they can possible think of. One car at the
show already had TV's in every door and drop-down television screens for every passenger.
While we may not all be interested in watching television all the time, we will find some of these new
technologies making our lives just a little more pleasurable in the future.
This article has been provided to APCUG by the author solely for publication by APCUG member groups. All other uses require the permission of
the author (see e-mail address above).
UCHUG DRIVE LIGHT
Page 17 of 18
February 2008
A
2007 - UCHUG - 2008
R
EXECUTIVE BOARD
President . . . . Greg Skalka
E
VP . . . . . . . . . Al Brengle
M
Secretary . . . . Ray Ferbrache
I
Treasurer. . . . Mike Trempe
N
WebMasters . Bob and Jackie Woods
D E R
Editor . . . . . . . Art Gresham
The following memberships are due for renewal:
Membership. . Bill Palmer
O-a-L. . . . . . . Abbott Brownell
Past Due
October – George Coade
November – Ann Martin
December – James Berger, Virginia Faber,
Wallace Kantor, James “Pat” McHenry,
Jeff Meyer, Cris Von Olnhausen
January – Greg Wauson, Vernon Wright
February – Dan Eberhardt, Sandy Shapiro,
Robert Wills
O-a-L. . . . . . . David Marston
O-a-L. . . . . . . Greg Wauson
O-a-L. . . . .
Renewal
Sandy Shapiro
THE DRIVE LIGHT is published by the Under The
Computer Hood User Group INC. primarily for UCHUG
members.
Copyrighted material may be reproduced with the
written permission of the copyright holder. Other
contents of DRIVE LIGHT may be reproduced for noncommercial purposes only if appropriate credit is given
to DRIVE LIGHT and the author and a copy of the
publication is supplied to the UCHUG care of the Editor.
Submissions of interest to computer buffs are welcome.
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material can be accepted for reprint only if permission of
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The Drive Light preferred method for article transfer is
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The Drive Light is produced with OpenOffice.org Writer,
and printed to PDF using its native pdf printer.
Membership in the UCHUG is open to any person
interested in computers. The Membership
Chairperson is Bill Palmer and he will happily accept
your application or renewal at any meeting. Dues are
$15 per year. Please make checks payable to
UCHUG.
Checks may be brought to the meeting, or mailed to:
Mike Trempe, UCHUG Treasurer
4027 S. Hempstead Circle
San Diego, CA 92116
If you have questions concerning your membership,
renewal date, address info or other questions, please
contact Bill Palmer uchug.membership@cox.net
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UCHUG DRIVE LIGHT
Page 18 of 18
February 2008