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.
10-21-04
Real Deal
or Real Dud?
The temperatures are dropping, the leaves are turning and yes, the holidays are quickly approaching. This year you’re going to see some interesting deals in stores trying to persuade you to buy your first computer or upgrade to a new one. The question you need to ask yourself is, is this a real deal or a real dud?
Computer makers are constantly trying to find ways to make the purchase of a computer more financially attractive. In what may be the latest attempt at just that, a sales brochure from a well know technology store Sunday October 17, offered a deal for an entire package. On the surface it looked like a great deal. The ad says the price is $299.99 (after rebates) and the package includes a 2GHz Intel Celeron Processor, 256MB RAM, 40GB Hard Drive, 52X32X52 CD-RW Drive, Windows XP Home Edition, Philips 17-inch CRT Monitor and Lexmark Z515 Color Printer.
Not a bad beginners system and with the small print showing a total price of $549.99 and then an instant savings of $250.00 the complete computer system for $299.99 seams like a great deal. But read on, because when you examine the fine print you’ll find there is a catch to this supposed super deal. To get the computer you have to subscribe to America Online for a year. That’s 12 months at $23.90 or an additional $286.80 and that brings the total price up to $586.79. That’s almost double the original price for the system!
This type of deal, where you had to buy a subscription to an Internet Service Provider like America Online to get a price break on the computer price, was popular 4 or 5 years ago then seemed to fade away. With this new ad, it looks like the ads are back. Now don’t get me wrong, for beginning computer users the deal may be a perfect fit. After all you’re going to need an ISP (Internet service provider), and for someone just entering the world of computing, AOL makes surfing the Internet easy and fun.
When looking for a deal on a new computer, the best suggestion is to read the entire deal (you may need a magnifying glass and calculator) and look at the total cost of the deal. You may decide that even at close to $600.00 for the package it may be a good buy for you. At least by examining the deal carefully, you’re an informed consumer and won’t be caught by surprise when it comes time to pay the bill at the checkout counter.
Bob Sokoler
While many software firms want companies to
buy subscriptions to their
software instead of buying outright, a recent
survey indicates that
most companies like to actually buy the stuff they
use:
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/Enterprises-Not-Hot-for-Subscription-Software-37474.html
Afraid
that states might start enforcing local regulations, the FCC
chairman is
advocating federal control of Voice-over-IP services.
Here come the
taxes:
http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2004/1018/web-voip-10-20-04.asp
NVidia,
maker of video cards and motherboard chipsets, is about to
introduce a
hardware firewall built directly into new motherboards:
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,118213,00.asp
If
you use a tabbed browser (such as Firefox), be advised there is a
new
vulnerability that you should be aware of:
http://www.internetnews.com/security/article.php/3424491
Copy
us in on the good stuff ;-)
Matthew Dattilo
thepcgurus@gmail.com
www.opaquelucidity.com
We mention Spybot Search and Destroy nearly every week as one of the best spyware cleaners available and a new beta version is now available.
Version 1.31TX fixes a couple of problems with Xabot removal and spurious DSO Exploit detections. This isn’t a full version so you’ll need to have 1.3 installed already. The beta acts as more of a patch and can be downloaded directly from http://www.safer-networking.org/files/spybotsd131tx.exe. Keep in mind that this IS a beta and, as such, may be a bit buggy but I’ve installed it on several machines with no problems.
Matt mentioned a security issue with tabbed browsers (virtually everything but IE). There is a test from Matt’s linked site to see if you’re affected, but if you’re an IE user you shouldn’t feel lonely.
Two newly discovered vulnerabilities in IE 5 and above could result in a malicious user hijacking an affected system. You can get the gory details at http://secunia.com/advisories/12889/.
Lately the World Wide Web has become the World Wide Weapon :(
Viruses are nasty enough on their own but they can be a real pain in the nether regions if you use XP or ME.
The reason is the built in System Restore feature, which allows Windows to make periodic “snapshots” of your system, infections and all. You clean a virus on the 20th, crash the system on the 25th, use System Restore to roll back to the 15th and guess what? You’re reinfected!
Art passed a tutorial site along that explains how to turn this feature off. http://www.brohm.org/SystemRestore.htm is useful for instructions on how to disable the feature before a virus cleaning attempt and to enable it again after you’re clean.
Q:
I have not emailed you for a long time! However, here I am! I
have
received 5 or 6 of these messages today (A message sent to you
was
returned to its sender because it would not fit in the space
remaining
in your mailbox) and do not know what I should do. I have
deleted all
but 4 or 5 e-mails and then edited the deleted ones to remove
them completely as I normally do every 2 or 3 days. I have checked my
system and it shows 57% free. What
is wrong??
A: Based on your
email, it appears that you have reached the storage limit
of your mailbox,
approximately 10 MB.
If you do not have a bunch of emails in your inbox,
more than likely it
is "Junk Mail" cluttering up your main mail folder.
I don't have
InsightBB, so I don't know how their junk mail filters
work. But if
your spam email box is not set to automatically delete
email, you will
more than likely fill it up very quickly. Most service
providers have
a separate folder for junk mail. You need to
periodically empty it so
you don't lose storage space.
You should be
able to login to your account via webmail and see if you
have junk mail piled
up. In addition, there are many Insight customers
among our team
members and they can probably give you more
explicit
directions.
Hash
hash@ucanweb.com
Mac addict, The PC
Gurus
http://www.thepcgurus.com
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