Brought to you each week by the PC Gurus, a loose collection of volunteers from around the Kentuckiana region.
You can interact with the team via chat room or BBS at www.thepcgurus.com. There are usually members present in the chat room after 8:00 PM every evening and you can post computer questions, comments, rants etc. on the bulletin board 24/7.
If you’re new to the Newsletter you can read back issues at Team member JP Durbin’s website at http://www.jpdurbin.net. There are links to all the old 84 Online issues as well as the new GuruNews missives.
The WHAS Crusade for Children provides year round support for needy children throughout the Kentuckiana region. Visit http://www.whascrusade.org to make donations online.
8-19-04
A lot of follow-ups this week. Changes are afoot and we mean to keep our readers apprised of the good, the bad and the ugly ;)
We’ve mentioned that Service
Pack 2 for Windows XP is currently available, or will be shortly via Windows
Update. My best advice is not to
install it just yet. There are
multiple problems with it, mostly involving the XP Firewall, and it can really
hose your PC.
Microsoft lists bunches of
problems at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=884130,
which include major antivirus and firewall programs as well as glitches with
Microsoft programs like Word and Excel.
Problems are also listed
across the software spectrum, from the CD burning Nero to the ubiquitous
AOL. Photoshop, PageMaker, Unreal
Tournament, StarCraft, WordPerfect, KaZaa and Cute FTP just scratch the surface
but are on the list. Basically I
would caution you to wait for a month or so to get this
update.
Did I mention it was 255
megabytes and would take 36 +/- hours to download via dialup? Did I mention that you HAVE to archive
the uninstall files when you install it, unlike SP1. Those files consume between 250 and
300MB, so if you’re short on space you could be in trouble. Did I mention you should put it off for
a month or so to see what patches come out? Oh, wait. I did ;)
I have to hand it to
Microsoft for moving in the right direction when it comes to security but I
think they let this bun out of the oven just a bit
early.
Ad-Aware introduced a new
version this week as well. Ad-Aware
SE replaces 6.0 and adds a better detection engine, as well as a different
interface (think the XP Fischer Price icons). I could live without the cosmetic
changes but the new detection engine looks pretty sleek, not to mention it’s
more sensitive to “phone home” type activity.
Uninstall your old Ad-Aware
and get the newest version from http://www.lavasoft.de/ or http://troyoverton.com/downloads/.
Speaking of spyware, I
stumbled across a page last week that lists rogue spyware cleaners. You know, those that advertise via
pop-up ad (YOU MAY BE INFECTED WITH SPYWARE!!! CLICK HERE) or lurk on deceptive URLs
like www.spybot.com (which ain’t
Spybot). http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm#products
is a great resource for checking up on a spyware cleaner before you download it
or buy it.
By the way, with the free
high quality spyware cleaners available you should NEVER buy one ;)
Another spyware tool we
recommend highly is Spyware Blaster, which is a filter, not a scanner. They have a new version as well, 3.2,
which you’ll want to get but the upgrade process is a little different with this
one.
Before you uninstall the old
version you’ll need to start it up and click on Disable All Protection. Then close the program and uninstall
it. Download the newest version
from http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/ or
http://troyoverton.com/downloads/. Once installed, update it and Enable All
Protection again.
Keep in mind that the older
versions of Spyware Blaster and Ad-Aware will no longer update so you really
need to upgrade as soon as possible.
On a final note, I mentioned
HijackThis a couple of weeks ago and instructed you to paste the log files into
a message to us at the PC Gurus web site.
I take it back, don’t do that.
When pasted in the logs don’t wrap and are all but indecipherable. For the time being just send the log
files to me as an attachment and I’ll forward them to the team. We’ll work on how to do this through the
website and advise further when we figure it out.
Stay safe and I’ll see you
next week J
Kevin Mefford,
Editor
According to a recent study
by Message Labs, not only are you being
inundated with spam but also one in
ten messages are infected with a virus. And to make matters worse, it is
the infected e-mail that spammers may be most interested in:
http://informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=29101653
Have
you ever wanted to give a flirt or a first date the brush-off but
just didn't
have the heart to do so? With the advent of some new
websites and
cellular services, you can now let someone else do the
dirty work for
you:
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,64612,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_4
In
the next few years your passport may be getting a secure,
biometric
facelift:
http://news.com.com/E-passports+to+put+new+face+on+old+documents/2100-7337_3-5313650.html?tag=nefd.lede
In
an effort to steal the online music crown from Apple's iTunes, Real
Networks
(makers of the Real Player) are dropping their music prices
to 49 cents a
song:
http://www.vnunet.com/news/1157417
Copy
us in on the good stuff ;-)
Matthew Dattilo
thepcgurus@gmail.com
Our download editor Troy Overton (troy@thepcgurus.com) brought his infant daughter Trinity home last week after a lengthy hospital stay and her condition requires nearly all of his free time to address.
During his absence Art Maley
(artman@insightbb.com) will be
reprising his role as the king of downloads starting next week.
Have you received it yet? An
e-mail that arrives with the subject line: Photos. Well be very careful with
this e-mail, it's the newly discovered
W32.Mydoom.Q@mm.
Many of us have started
seeing this new e-mail; do no open the file because you will immediately run the
risk of infecting your computer with this newest worm. According to the highly respected
Symantec Anti Virus website "W32.Mydoom.Q@mm is a mass-mailing worm that
downloads an executable file and uses its own SMTP engine to send itself to the
email addresses that it finds on the infected
computer".
Of course that means trouble
for most of us who use e-mail. I've
received more than 50 e-mails today alone that have the word "Photos" in the
subject line. One of those e-mails was from a Road Runner account with the
following message attached:
"This e-mail, in its
original form, contained one or more attached files that were infected with a
virus, worm, or other type of security threat." It went on to say ". If a virus,
worm or other security threat is found, Road Runner cleans or deletes the
infected attachments as necessary but continues to send the original message
content to the recipient".
The problem is that the
owner of the infected computer that originated that e-mail was never contacted
because the message said, "Please be advised that Road Runner does not contact
the original sender of the e-mail as part of the scanning process". That means
that person’s computer will continue to send out infected e-mails and infect the
computers of those who don't know about this new worm and open the attachment.
Symantec says that
W32.Mydoom.Q@mm will affect all computers running Windows 2000, Windows 95,
Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT and Windows XP. Symantec says the downloaded
file is detected as Backdoor.Nemog.
To fix an infected computer
head to http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.mydoom@mm.removal.tool.html.
So get ready for a slowing
down of the Internet and countless numbers of useless e-mails from people we may
or may not know.
Bob
Sokoler
In staying close to home
with our web site tips what could be closer than http://www.kentuckytourism.com/?
You can peruse Kentucky’s
many State Parks, regional events and festivals and even make hotel reservations
for a day trip or a weekend within a short drive. Links to local tourism sites in the
state are readily available as well as links to popular attractions like the
Kentucky Speedway and Kentucky State Fair.
Kentucky, it’s that friendly
;)
Q: I have Norton Firewall and Anti-Virus.
The firewall just expired and I
don't want to pay to renew either program
because I didn't get my
rebates back from buying them the first time. What do
you suggest I
get? Should I delete it and run different firewall and virus
scan
software?
A: We never suggest Norton or McAfee
products. I would suggest
uninstalling Norton everything and
downloading either EZArmor from
Computer Associates (free for the first year
from
http://www.my-etrust.com/microsoft/),
which is a combination
AV/Firewall product, or create a combo on your own
with the free AVG
(www.grisoft.com) and
ZoneAlarm (www.zonelabs.com)
products.
Both solutions offer a good level of protection and are fairly
easy to
install and configure.
Hope that helps and keep us posted
:)
Kevin Mefford
If you have tech support
questions or ideas and/or submissions for our newsletter please submit them by
visiting www.thepcgurus.com and click
on the “Email the Team” icon.
Copyright 2004, The PC
Gurus. All rights reserved.
Publication, rebroadcast or storage is prohibited without prior consent,
however you may freely forward this publication to friends as long as A) it is
forwarded in its entirety and B) no fee is charged.
Information provided in this
publication is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either expressed
or implied. Although the
information provided is known to work on most systems, it may not work on ALL
systems. Make use of any
information supplied at your own risk.
The PC Gurus are a group of
volunteers who provide support for the PC, Mac and Linux users in the
Kentuckiana region.
To unsubscribe from this
newsletter send an email to microdome@seidata.com with the
words “unsubscribe newsletter” (without the quotes) at the top of the body of
the message.