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.
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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.
2-24-05
Email is an essential part of life, both personal and professional, for millions of Americans. That said, a couple of things have cropped up in mail to The Gurus in the last week that need to be addressed.
The first issue was directly related to spam. As we all know, spam is probably the most reviled electronic presence in existence, with the annoying pop-up ad placing a close second.
Over the years we’ve discussed several methods you could use to combat spam on your own, from blocking the sender’s address or even entire domains, checking your mail via web-interface and deleting unwanted messages prior to opening your email client or using a third-party program to assist in cleaning your email while it’s still on the server (www.mailwasher.com, currently being redesigned).
We’ve also mentioned the proactive approach offered by services like www.spamcop.net, which offers both a method to report suspected spam as well as a free “blacklist” utility you can use to block emails from IP addresses known to harbor spammers.
Something new that is starting to see widespread use is a “whitelist” utility being utilized at the server level. Many ISPs offer this service and advertise it as a way to absolutely positively eliminate spam from your Inbox.
This works by holding all incoming email in a temporary folder while sending a query message to the sender of the email. The message explains that the end user is combating spam and allows you to fill out a form, usually your full name, your email address and a short note as to why the end user should allow you the privilege of sending them email.
While this will indeed limit your email to people you know and totally eliminate spam, it will also eliminate most newsletters, security alerts and email responses to email questions you post to message boards or tech support forums.
This is a small circulation newsletter with just a few thousand readers and I certainly don’t have the time to personally respond to those types of requests. You can imagine the magnitude of the problem for really large circulation publications or security alert mailings from antivirus firms.
Response emails for tech support fall into the same category. If I’m trying to answer say 75 tech questions during an eight-hour shift I would simply ignore whitelist requests, meaning the end user would never receive the help he or she requested.
Whitelists sound like a good idea up front but, as you can see, they may be more problematic than they say and may actually be a very bad idea.
The other odd email issue we ran across this week was with Plaxo (www.plaxo.com). It’s one of a number of online services where users can store their contact lists, calendars, to-do lists etc.
This is yet another idea that seems pretty useful going in but can have unintended consequences. In this case one of our readers got an email from Plaxo asking him for his personal contact information because one of his friends had signed up for the service. It was purported to be an attempt to keep the friend’s address book up to date, but by responding our reader inadvertently agreed to use the service and suddenly everyone in his address book received the same request.
A Google search for Plaxo turned up about a 50-50 split between Plaxo being a legitimate service and an email harvester for spam. I can’t say which it is, but needless to say I would never take the chance by responding to one of these unsolicited email requests, even from good and trusted friends.
The moral of this is that spam is indeed a scourge but in the process of combating it don’t alienate friends and put off strangers whom you ask for help.
Can you hear me now?
Kevin Mefford, Editor
Before we get started, I want to thank
fellow team member Troy Overton
(www.troyoverton.com) who gave me the info
for two of the stories
linked below. See? I really DO give credit where
it's due ;-)
In the
pseudo-fact frenzy over Paris Hilton losing some phone numbers,
Daniel Engber
explains one way in which your phone can get "hacked":
http://slate.msn.com/id/2113909/
Do
you own one of those gray market copies of Windows XP that you
bought at the
local computer show? Well, chances are it's from an OEM
package and you
may not be able to activate for much longer:
http://www.aviransplace.com/index.php/archives/2005/02/22/changes-in-windows-xp-product-activation/
Just
when you thought one processor in your computer was enough, AMD
demos a
dual-processor core. Get out your wallet:
http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=60402975
If
you haven't upgraded to Windows XP Service Pack 2 yet and you use
Automatic
Updates, Microsoft is going to upgrade you whether you like
it or
not:
http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/products/os/winxp/sp2/hub.mspx#block
Copy
us on the good stuff ;-)
Matthew Dattilo
thepcgurus@gmail.com
www.opaquelucidity.com
For quite some time, we PCGurus have recommended AVG and Panda antivirus programs. AVG has always been a quality FREE program and Panda has provided some of the industry’s best retail antivirus software.
After my license with Panda expired, I began looking for an alternative. AVG’s update server issues took it out of the running. While reading the Lockergnome newsletter, I stumbled upon another FREE antivirus program called “Avast Home Edition”, http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.htmlavast.com. I read several reviews before deciding to proceed. I installed Avast and have no regrets.
The installation of Avast is simple and flawless. A license registration process is necessary before the auto-update feature is activated, but it is painless and the license is good for 14 months. Upon its expiration, you simply acquire another license.
Avast scans all incoming and outgoing email and will alert you if Trojan tries to send unauthorized emails. It scans on boot if you so desire. This freeware offers many of the features that the vaunted “Kaspersky Antivirus” provides. A big plus for Avast is that it doesn’t hog a lot the system’s resources, a huge drawback to McAfee and Norton.
A review by a user at CNET.com indicated that the interface may not be friendly to novices, but I believe a little careful reading of the Help file and Settings page should suffice. Avast also offers comprehensive email support.
After using Avast for over a month, I recommend it to you, our loyal readers, with confidence.
Subscribers’ Bonus: Be amazed at what Photoshop can do and have a few chuckles here, www.worth1000.com.
Art Maley
Q: How can I clean out my pc?
A: That is a very generic question, but I
will try and answer it as best
as possible. There are lots of things
that can affect performance on
your PC. The following are some of the
things you can do to "clean up"
your computer. These may vary a little
bit depending on the version of
Windows you are running.
1. First and
foremost, make sure you have a good antivirus software
running and that it is
updated. Run a complete scan of your machine
preferably in safe
mode.
To get to SAFE mode, Restart your computer and tap the F8 or F5
key
repeatedly till you see a black and white menu screen. Pick the
Safe
Mode option. Once you have done what you want to do there,
just
restart your computer and it will come back to normal mode.
If
you don't have a good AV program, you can get good free ones at:
http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php
http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html
2.
Download and run a good antispyware program. Two of the good ones
are
Spybot and Adaware.
You can get Spybot here: http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
and
Adaware here: http://www.lavasoft.de/
Please remember to
update those after you install them before running
them. Run a complete
scan of your machine preferably in safe mode.
3. Remove any temporary
files. The easiest way to do this is in
START --> Programs -->
Accessories --> System Tools --> Disk Cleanup
You can run Disk Cleanup
in normal mode.
4. Defragment your hard drive and run Scandisk on older
systems.
You will find this in the same spot. START --> Programs
-->
Accessories --> System Tools --> Disk Defragmenter.
In older
systems such as Windows 98, you can also run ScanDisk from the
System
Tools.
Please run those two items in SAFE Mode. In addition turn off
all your
screen savers and energy settings while running Defrag or it will
keep
restarting and never finish.
5. Remove anything that is present
in your Startup Folder other than
antivirus related stuff. Go to START
--> Programs --> Startup folder
and Right Click and Delete the items
you find in there. Don't worry,
the programs will still be
available. This just keeps it from loading
too many things in Startup
and bogs your computer. Especially get rid
of things like MS Office
Findfast.
6. See if you have a bunch of things loaded up in your System
Tray on
the Bottom Right corner of the screen. Right click on those and
see if
you can get to their options and Disable Automatic
Startup.
7. This next one is a little more "Techy" and it uses the
MSCONFIG
utility.
Go to Start - Run
Type in msconfig and hit
enter. In the window that shows up click on
the Startup Tab. It
should be the very last one.
Uncheck the programs that you don't want
starting up from there. Click
on Apply and OK. If you are unsure
of what to uncheck, go to the
following web site.
http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php
for
a detailed listing of programs, what they do, and whether you can
delete them
from the startup.
You can do some real cleanup while you are in there and
delete a whole
bunch of unnecessary programs from starting up and free up
valuable
resources.
That last one should really free up a bunch of your
resources and make
your computer run a lot better.
There, you just got
yourself a weekend project.
Hash
hash@ucanweb.com
If you have tech support
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on the “Email the Team” icon.
Copyright 2005, The PC
Gurus. All rights reserved.
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information provided is known to work on most systems, it may not work on ALL
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