Windows Tips and Tricks

Here we go with yet another ActiveX security hole. Adobe has warned that the ActiveX component that is used to help Internet Explorer read PDF documents contains a critical security bug. Firefox and other browsers are not affected because they do not use ActiveX. As of this writing, Adobe was still working on a fix so in the meantime be very careful about reading PDF documents on the Web with IE. If you want to be absolutely safe, Adobe suggests that you delete the file AcroPDF.dll from the folder Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 7.0\ActiveX\. Note that this will disable the ability of IE to read PDF files. To restore the capability, you will need to download the patched DLL when it becomes available.

Ancestry.com has large online databases of immigration and census records. Normally, a subscription is required for access. However, recently the organization has made one of the databases freely available for a limited time. They have extended the time and announced:

On November 9, the company released the most comprehensive collection of all readily available U.S. passenger list records from 1820 to 1960, providing access to more than 100 million names from the height of U.S. immigration. Ancestry.com originally offered free access to its immigration records through November 30 to celebrate the launch of the passenger list collection. Due to overwhelming response, the company is now extending the offer through the end of 2006.

Got a computer problem? Can’t find the answer? Googled it and got no joy? The Web is full of help forums where you can go and post a question and hope the resident “experts” will help. Of course, at many of these sites the “experts” may not actually be so expert. However, there are some sites where a pretty good level of proficiency is maintained. One is Tech Support Guy. This site has been dispensing computer advice for ten years and has been written about in a number of publications. You’ll have to register to post questions but it’s free.

If you are like me, you keep accumulating favorites or bookmarks for your browser. Periodically, all these favorites need some housekeeping. Some will be obsolete and need deletion, others will need to be rearranged. Unfortunately, trying to manage your favorites through the Internet Explorer function, “Organize Favorites”, is a pain. In a previous post, I discussed how to use Windows Explorer instead of the clunky IE function. Getting to the Favorites folder in Windows Explorer can be speeded up with this tip from TechRepublic. Click the Internet Explorer menu item “Organize Favorites” while holding down the Shift key. The Favorites folder will then open in Windows Explorer. Another quick way to the Favorites folder is to enter “favorites” in the Start-Run function.

Microsoft shows no signs of recognizing the problems that they are causing consumers with Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA). They just keep making the anti-piracy measures more and more burdensome. An article at InfoWeek reports:

Microsoft announced Tuesday that it would use Automatic Updates to roll out changes to the component of its anti-piracy scheme that nags users when their copy of Windows is tagged as counterfeit. An analyst criticizes the changes as more work for customers.

The article continues:

Michael Cherry, an analyst for Directions on Microsoft, criticizes the newest changes. “I’m getting more and more bothered by the burden they’re putting on the customer,” he says. “All the benefit goes to Microsoft. There’s nothing to make it a quid pro quo. If they had tackled everything about licensing, given us a way to inventory licenses, and simplified the text so we knew what the licensing meant and enforced licensing, that would be one thing. But that would have been hard.”

Instead, says Cherry, Microsoft shoves more of its anti-counterfeit measures onto customers’ shoulders, without giving them anything meaningful in return. The move by the company to hand users validation troubleshooting resources and tools is only the latest example.

If you are wondering about the possibility of upgrading your present PC to Vista, PC World has an article with some upgrade experiences. The author says:

I installed Release Candidate 2 of Windows Vista Ultimate Edition, the latest prerelease version as we went to press, on several PCs ranging from a brand-new machine powered by a dual-core Athlon 64 X2 processor, down to a three-year-old 1.4-GHz Pentium M notebook. Many of the upgrades went fine. But when they went bad, they went really bad. The final version of Vista will likely provide a smoother transition, but I’d still recommend waiting a few weeks after Vista’s announced January 30th general release before you make the move. Check user forums to see what problems other people have faced, give your device manufacturers time to release new drivers, and generally allow things to settle down a bit.

Waiting to see how things develop sounds like good advice to me.

Laurie’s Law of Constrained Convenience says that the time it takes to do anything on a computer is inversely related to the security measures being applied. Paul Murphy at ZDNet writes that Vista’s new security features are going to upset a lot of people. He thinks that the IT staff at many businesses are just going to turn Vista security measures off.

In the middle term, of course, we can expect both Microsoft and third party methods of balancing sensible security with minimal access pain to become available - and in the long run I expect Microsoft to adopt the basic Unix security model for their next OS. But it’s the short term that’s at issue here, and in the short term I think dangerous accommodations to user anger will just have to be made - simply because there’s little else your average Windows administrator, or Microsoft either, can do.

If you have ever bought a PC from Dell, then you know about the games that have been played with pricing and with rebate offers. First, you have to go through an irritating process to get the best price. Someone in a blog (I forget the link) once remarked that buying from Dell is like negotiating with a used-car dealer. That’s a little strong but it is true that prices for the same PC will vary from one page on the Dell site to another. Then you had to make sure that you included the rebate offer in your final order. The rebate was not applied until you received the machine, filled out some more paperwork and submitted the proper documents. If all went well, you eventually got a rebate check but it was easy to slip up somewhere and lose eligibility for the rebate. I once lost a hundred dollar rebate because I didn’t check the right box on some form.

Apparently, Dell finally heard all the complaints about rebate travails and is eliminating most rebates for the holiday season. It’s about time. Let’s hope it starts an industry trend.

It seems that there may be some commercial cleaners that are ostensibly safe to use on an LCD screen but aren’t. A reader reports a bad experience at PC World

A couple of weeks ago, I purchased the CompUSA LCD/CRT Cleaning Kit and used it to clean the screen of my Dell 18-inch LCD monitor. But a few hours later, when I turned on my monitor, most of the screen was discolored.

I stick with a soft eye-glass cleaning cloth. One person commenting on the posted item above suggests micro-fiber cloths. How do you clean your LCD?

The fact that you should use encryption on your wireless network is well-known but there is another security issue that is becoming serious. It seems that most wireless drivers may suffer from a buffer-overflow problem. Security expert Roger Grimes reports on the situation at InfoWorld. He says:

Take an inventory of all your wireless devices: wireless access points, wireless PCMCIA cards, built-in wireless chipsets, etc. Find out the driver version numbers or dates, and then search the related vendor’s Web site to make sure every device has the most up to date patch available.

It’s a lot of new work, I know. Patching your wireless drivers probably isn’t your number one security priority, but don’t let it slip off the radar. Git ‘er done!