Windows Tips and Tricks

The bad guys never rest and they are trying to take advantage of the New Year’s holiday. A worm email holiday message with a Trojan is circulating. I’ve received several myself. ZDNet reports:

An e-mail worm disguised as a New Year’s greeting is making the rounds on the Internet.

Worm-laden messages are titled “Happy New Year” and contain an attachment called either postcard.exe or postcard.zip, according to experts at VeriSign’s iDefense Labs, which provides information on security flaws and exploits. If the attachment is opened, malicious software is downloaded from the Internet and can infect computers running Windows operating systems.

Have a Happy New Year but be careful about what you click on.

The Vista security flaws discussed in the NY Times article mentioned in a prior post may be less serious than the article seemed to imply according to some commentary cited in a post from Mary Jo Foley. She says:

While all Windows flaws deserve serious attention, it seems like Vista Flaw No. 1 may not be as horrendous as some headlines and stories may be suggesting.

I have revised and updated a previous article that I wrote on maintaining Windows. It can be found here. I have also added an article on How to use Disk Cleanup. This utility is one of the system tools that comes with Windows XP.

Today’s New York Times has an article about reported new flaws in Vista security. Since Microsoft has been pushing much improved security as a big selling point for its new operating system, any problems in this area would not be good news for Redmond. According to the Times article:

Microsoft is facing an early crisis of confidence in the quality of its Windows Vista operating system as computer security researchers and hackers have begun to find potentially serious flaws in the system that was released to corporate customers late last month.

The article also says:

Vista is critical to Microsoft’s reputation. Despite an almost four-and-half-year campaign on the part of the company, and the best efforts of the computer security industry, the threat from harmful computer software continues to grow. Criminal attacks now range from programs that steal information from home and corporate PCs to growing armies of slave computers that are wreaking havoc on the commercial Internet.

It remains to be seen how serious the reported security holes are but this article can’t have added much joy to Christmas in Seattle.

If you or someone in your family gets a new computer for Christmas (or any other time), there are some precautions to follow before you hook up to the Internet for the first time. CERT at Carnegie-Mellon outlines a procedure to follow to make sure that you are protected when you connect.

Do you still need to get a holiday gift for someone? Here are several software suggestions that don’t even require you to go out and buy them. They can be downloaded and tried out before purchase. Gift-wrapping may be tricky but they are programs that I use all the time and provide very useful services for a computer user.

Most of us probably use a variety of Web sites that require a login and password. Using the same login name and password for everything is easy to remember but not very safe. On the other hand, trying to remember numerous different passwords is a problem. There are a variety of software programs for managing passwords and the one that many PC users like is RoboForm (http://www.roboform.com/) There is a free version but the paid version, RoboForm Pro, at $29.95 is worth buying. I use it constantly. It will remember all your passwords and generate new ones if you wish.

There are many times when I want to copy some part of a Web page or a computer screen and a screen-capture utility is a must. There are free ones and Windows itself has a limited function but the most powerful and versatile program that I have seen is SnagIt (http://www.techsmith.com/snagit.asp) which is now in version 8. SnagIt also has an editor that allows screen-captures to be annotated or given a variety of effects. The program can be downloaded for a free trial and costs $39.95.

There is a plethora of software, all claiming to help keep your Windows system clean and running well. Some programs are better than others but the best all-around program that I have found is JV16 Powertools (http://www.macecraft.com/) It comes with a wide range of tools for system maintenance and file management. It also can be given a free trial and costs $29.95.

Happy shopping!

• Ewing SeniorNet
• Tips from the ElderGeek
• Langa blog
• Tech Support Alert
• Neat Net Tricks Newsletter (subscription required)
• Dave’s Computer Tps
• Windows Insight

Because of travel and the holiday season, I will be posting only sporadically until after the new year begins.

Happy holidays!

The Internet is responsible for a lot of things. That apparently includes its own medical problems. We’ve probably all heard of the cases of people who become so addicted to the Internet that it interferes with their life and health. You may remember the South Korean who died after playing Internet games for 50 hours with almost no breaks. Now we have “mouse rage syndrome”. According to Information Week:

A phenomenon as monumental as the Internet should have an ailment of its own. Indeed, the Web appears to be breeding its very own disease, a medical syndrome recognizable by a quickening of the heart, profuse sweating, and furious clicking and bashing of the mouse. In extreme cases, the ailment can be identified by loud screaming at video screens.

It’s Mouse Rage Syndrome and it infects all Internet users sooner or later, according to a study of 2,500 Web users that was released Tuesday. Conducted by the Social Issues Research Centre in the U.K., the study identified key factors that can negatively effect cardio functions, as well as the immune and nervous systems.

What’s the root cause of Mouse Rage Syndrome? It’s primarily caused by badly designed and hosted Web sites, according to the research center.

I am trying to do my part to combat this problem since I am assiduously attempting to learn more about CSS and JaveScript but I can’t control the times that the hosting service goes down

It’s that time of year when all sorts of articles appear with reviews of the events of the year. Go to this link for PC Magazine’s look back at computer happenings in 2006. The article says:

We rate the best and worst of the year in technology, from ultra-cool PCs, phones, and cameras to a company called Revoltec.