Review Chairmans Industry Comments (5/05) The Computer Buffet

Sarasota PC Monitor

Review Chairmans Industry Comments (5/05)

The Computer Buffet

by Herb Goldstein, Review Editor

E-mail comments, suggestions, etc. to Herb Goldstein at: revieweditor@spcug.org

"ANTI-SPYWARE" SPYWARE. There is a plethora of sneaky programs posing as anti-spyware utilities that are themselves the most insidious types of spyware. Rather than protect you, they will invade your computer posing as your ally and seek out all the personal information you need to protect. An excellent treatise on the subject which names all the bad guys as well as those you can trust is available at http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware. htm#

This is a must-visit site for every computer owner! You will get quite an education there. I strongly urge each of you to visit it today! We offered our recommendation in a review last month. The best bet in anti-spyware today is Sunbelt Software's CounterSpy. It offers lots of protection extras as well.

COUNTERSPY VS. MICROSOFT ANTI-SPYWARE BETA. Here are two of the best anti-spyware apps available, CounterSpy being the stronger and more feature rich of the two. Their close relationship is derived from the fact that they are offshoots of what was formerly GiantCompany anti-spyware. They both share considerable amounts of similar code. Consequently, do not run both simultaneously on the same computer. Delete the Microsoft product before installing CounterSpy. DO NOT attempt to do the deletion after CounterSpy has been installed. It's OK to leave them both on the same machine. If my advice is too late, just keep the Microsoft product asleep and run only CounterSpy.

ANSWERS.COM. When looking for information on a particular topic, most of us have become familiar with the routine of loading up our favorite search engine and going to work. It really can be considered as work because being presented with hundreds of thousands of pages on one search query is a really overwhelming thing to deal with. Each page will likely contain a different set of data, and you start to get into that mode of endless browsing. Answers.com allows you to search for definitions and explanations on over a million topics, and it presents all the content to you on one solitary page.

They call this site "The New Standard in Reference." The amount of time that you can save by viewing a bunch of useful information on a topic placed on one page is tremendous. The information is compiled from many other resources, so by using Answers.com, you'll only need to search once instead of an untold amount of times. If you'd like this functionality to extend onto your desktop and general Web browsing experience, then check out 1-Click Answers. By using this software, all you have to do is Alt-Click on any word and Answers.com will give you information on it. When you need quick and informative answers, head on over to this appropriately titled Web site.

SMARTCLOSE is a handy free tool that allows you to close all currently running programs - a task often required during software installations to minimize conflicts (or during defrag operations). This can be a tedious task when performed manually, and usually requires a restart to get all your programs back up and running. With SmartClose however, the entire process is simplified and automatic, as it stores the running program information is a system snapshot and not only closes all applications for you, but also restarts/restores them later. The program can be customized in various aspects, and a quick wizard also allows you to exclude programs from being closed or restored. It will automatically skip applications that are required for the Windows system to run. In addition, it supports services, as well as Explorer and Internet Explorer windows and saves their current location, so they can be restored properly. www.bm-productions.tk/

EASYOFFICE 7 is an excellent free office suite that includes word-processing, spreadsheet, database, e-mail, contact management, and presentation applications.

EasyWord is compatible with Microsoft Word, Adobe PDF, HTML, and ZIP files; it includes English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, Swedish, medical, and legal dictionaries. EasySpreadsheet is compatible with Microsoft Excel, and features one-click e-mailing of your spreadsheets. Both of these applications include a feature that reads your text to help you catch mistakes.

EasyPresentation helps you to create slide presentations, and its EasyContactManager even helps you to produce customized form letters and track appointment dates. Its contact lists can be exported in Excel format.

EasyOffice can do some things MS Office can't, such as creating PDF files. It also has a dictionary that gives you full definitions and-if you're feeling masochistic-a spell checker that can alert you out loud about mistakes. It comes bundled with add-ons such as EasyCalculator financial calculator and the financial program EasyZip. It does not need Microsoft Office to run. http://www.e-press.com/index.html

KEYNOTE V1.6.5. If your desk is cluttered with scraps of paper, you'll appreciate KeyNote. This free program is a personal information manager that creates all kinds of lists. You can enter to-do items or use it as a scratchpad for quick notes and ideas. You can add personal contacts (addresses and telephone numbers), passwords and PIN numbers, and Intenet booklists. You can even store recipes. Most useful, the program has strong encryption, to keep snoopers at bay. http://www.tranglos.com/free/keynote.html

ATNOTES V9.41. Note-taking is healthy habit to develop; even more important is organizing all those tidbits of information, so that you can find them later. ATnotes is a freeware program which creates Post-it like notes on the Windows desktop. You can set single or repeated alarms for each note with visual and audio alarm signal. They can be placed anywhere on your desktop, as well as resized. You can even send notes to other computers in a local network. Choose any font, background color, text color and border color for your notes. If you just had the shocking vision of a desktop just as cluttered as your desk, breathe a sigh of relief; notes can also be hidden until manually activated or until a specified date/time. You can also get an overview of all current notes in the note list and search for notes containing specified text. http://atnotes.fr.st/

CLEANCACHE allows you to clean your Internet tracks, including IE browser cache, cookies history, typed URLs, index.dat files and more. The cookie cleaning allows you to mainatin a list of cookies to keep and (optionally) keep all cookies from sites that are in your IE Favorites or managed via IE. This free program can also delete your computer usage tracks like Recent Documents menu, Temporary Files, Recycle Bins and more, as well as Outlook Express items. The selected cleaning options can be performed as needed, or automatically at system start or browser closing. In addition, CleanCache allows you to specify custom folders, files or registry entries to be included in the cleaning process. Runs in the system tray, offers a good set of features and is easy to use. As the company name may indicate, the interface is rather plain and limited to functionality without much eye candy. www. buttugly software.com/

MULTICLIPBOARD is a utility, which can hold an unlimited number of clipboards helping you copy and paste in any application under Windows. Multi ClipBoard can hold text, formatted text, pictures etc. Their contents will be saved when closing Multi ClipBoard and restored when reopening it. An undo and a clear feature for each clipboard is provided. Every button will show its content as a hint. MultiClipBoard can be sent to the system tray. www. luziusschneider .com/MultiClipBoardHome.htm MY3CENTS.COM is a leading source of real consumer advice. Visitors come to learn, interact and voice opinions regarding companies, products and services in our open community. Learn from other consumer experiences, and help others learn from your own personal consumer experiences.

NEWS ALERTS FROM GOOGLE. Trying to keep up on the latest news regarding a medical condition, sports team or company? Want to know a competitor's latest moves? You could go from news site to news site but there is an easier way to stay in the know. Google has designed a tool to help you monitor the news. You simply specify a key phrase. Then, select if you want notifications daily, weekly, or as they happen. You'll receive e-mail notifications that include links to the stories. It's pretty cool, and it's free. Sign up now at www.google.com/alerts

MICROSOFT'S PHOTO STORY 3 lets you create your own slide shows. It's the coolest thing to happen to photographs in a long time. This free download lets you create custom spectacular slide shows of your photos. The software lets you edit photos and add special effects. You can even add music or narration. Once you're done, you save your slide show as a video file. Best of all, you can optimize the video for a number of different devices. Transfer the slide show to your smart phone or PDA and it's good to go! You do need Windows XP to use the software. http://tinyurl.com/4f869

SHIRUSUPAD is a free small program with a stylish interface that allows you to keep notes of any kind. The notes are organized in tabs, and a unique feature allows you to simply drag a note onto your desktop, to turn it into a desktop sticky note. ShirusuPad supports clickable URLs, password protected notes, import/export of note content and more. The program also comes with a ToDo list and reminder option that can be used with notes or ToDo list items, and alert you at a user specified time. A unique little note keeping tool with a good set of features. http://www. shirusupad .tk/

TEXTBOXES IN MS WORD. Textboxes are a great way of bringing attention to specific text within a document. You may want to insert the textboxes as you compose your document. You can easily do so by clicking the Textbox option from the Insert menu. You can then type in the specific text.

What if you decide you want to insert a textbox after your document is composed? There is no need for you to retype the specific text in a textbox. Instead, highlight the existing text that you want to appear within a textbox.

From the Insert menu, click the Textbox option. Word will automatically place the selected text into a textbox. You can then move it and resize it as necessary using the handles.

MALICIOUS SOFTWARE REMOVAL TOOL The Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool at http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=2484987 checks computers running Windows XP, Windows 2000, and Windows Server 2003 for infections by specific, prevalent malicious software-including Blaster, Sasser, and Mydoom-and helps remove any infection it finds. When detection and removal are complete, the tool displays a report describing the outcome, including which, if any, malicious software was detected and removed ZEROTRACKS 2005 is a free privacy cleaner that allows you to remove PC usage history as well as Internet history and cache files. The Windows cleaning options include all the common location, recent documents, temporary files, MS Office MRU lists, and more, as well as an option to decrypt and remove the UserAssist database. In addition, Internet cleaning supports cookies, history, typed URLs, index.dat files and more. Most of the items can be previewed before deleting them, and temporary files can also be wiped by using multiple overwrites. http://www.kleinsoft.co.za/

CIDIAL will automatically redial a specified Dial-Up Networking connection until your computer is connected to the Internet then monitor the connection and automatically reconnect if the connection is lost. CiDial can be used instead of the standard Windows dialer, but installing and using CiDial does not affect your Windows installation or dialer. CiDial is free and does not display advertising banners. www.aldensoft.com/

LINKSTASH is a Windows bookmarks/favorites manager which works for all later versions of Internet Explorer, Netscape, and Opera. LinkStash will open and close with your browser, and easily store and organize all your favorite links in a familiar Explorer-style tree arrangement. Add new links instantly with a keystroke or handy toolbar buttons in LinkStash or on the IE toolbar. All your bookmarks are contained in one compact file for easy synchronizing to other computers. LinkStash can also be configured with an infinite variety of different highlighting options for various folders, or individual bookmarks. LinkStash includes complete automated password control with fully automated logon to any website requiring username/password. LinkStash also includes a powerful search feature which makes forgotten links a breeze to find. It works so well, that 5 minutes with LinkStash and we are betting you will never want to use IE favorites or Netscape bookmarks again! http://windows. fileoftheday.com/archives/internet_linkstash.html

BROWSING A WORD DOCUMENT. One of the ways that you can browse through a Word document is to use the scroll bar on the side and locate the information you are looking for. This is fine if your document is small. In larger documents, this can be very time consuming and frustrating.

A better way of browsing through a document is to use the Browse button on the bottom of the vertical scroll bar. This button appears as a small circle. When you hold your mouse button over it, the Select Browse Object message appears. Once you have located this button, click it and a small box will appear. Click any of the buttons to browse by a specific object type. Once you do, the arrows above and below the Select Browse Object button will turn blue. Click either of the arrows the browse the document based on the object type you selected. For example, if you want to browse by table, select the Browse by Table button. As you click the blue arrows, you will quickly move from table to table within your document.

TCLOCKEX. The author of this free program wrote it out of frustration at the taskbar clock for not showing the date. His nifty little freeware program, TClockEx, changes that, and adds more features to it, as well. It lets you change the font size and color of your clock; you can display available memory and system resources; you can even use the program to copy the date to your Clipboard. This update, which includes bug fixes, will give you a warning if the Windows Resource Meter applet is not available. http://www.rcis.co.za/dale/

FREERAM XP. FreeRAM XP frees and defragments your computer's random access memory. As you use your computer, open applications, surf the Internet, and navigate Windows, your system's memory usually decreases.

FreeRAM XP Pro frees up this memory, thereby increasing system response time, stability, speed, and efficiency.

This free version introduces RAM-Cuts, shortcuts designed to free RAM. //www.yourwaresolutions.com/

DRAG WITH THE RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON. Try it yourself - go to your desktop and open the folder called My Documents. Resize it so that you can still see the desktop background. Now, choose a file or a folder that you want to experiment with (or create a dummy file or folder just to try this out).

Click and hold the RIGHT mouse button on that file, and drag it out to the desktop. When you let go, a new little menu will pop up, and you will have these options:

Copy here - that means the file will stay in the old location, and be in the new location as well

Move here - that means it will be deleted from the old location, and only be in the new location

Create shortcut here - that means the file will stay in the old location, and you will just create an icon on the desktop that points to the file (you can always know it's a shortcut by the little arrow in the bottom left corner of the icon)

Cancel - leave everything as is

NISTIME is the free tiny, 260KB application that sets your computer's clock to the atomic clocks operated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) atomic clocks, in either Colorado or Maryland. The program requires no installation (just unzip the file to your c:\windows or c:\winnt folder) and very little setup, though you may wish to read the PDF manual before you begin.

Optionally, you can set the program to set the time every time you boot your computer using our registry key below (though you should only do this if you have an always-on Internet connection). If you want to do this, unzip the nistime-32bit.exe application to your Windows directory (c:\windows in Windows XP, 9x, and Me, or c:\winnt in Windows 2000 and NT), download the "auto set" registry file appropriate for your version of Windows, then unzip and double-click the registry file. When you get a dialog box asking whether it's OK to add the information to the registry, click Yes. The next time you start up (and thereafter), 90 seconds after you get to the desktop, the program will set the system's clock. www.boulder.nist.gov/timefreq/service/its.htm

ALL-IN-ONE SECRETMAKER. It takes a lot of energy to fight spam, pop-ups, viruses, and all the other irritations and invasions of online life. Let All-in-One Secretmaker do the fighting for you. Although this neat free suite looks like one program, it's made of eight privacy-defending programs. All-in-One Secretmaker includes Spam Fighter Pro, Worm Hunter, Pop-Up Killer, Banner Blocker, Cookie Eraser, Privacy Protector, History Cleaner, and Garbage Cleaner. Most of these names are obvious, but a few require explanation. Worm Hunter isn't a virus detector, but a program that slows down mass mailings to prevent the spread of e-mail viruses. Privacy Protector sends out dummy data for your PC so hackers can't get a lock on your system. www.secretmaker.com

DJVU BROWSER PLUG-IN. If you peruse literature or view art online, you're often faced with the unsatisfying choice of low-resolution graphics or immense, slow-loading files. DjVu Browser Plug-in for Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator lets you view files compressed with high-resolution DjVu technology. Lizard Tech claims that full-color pages scanned at 300 DPI can be compressed to sizes as small as 30KB. The free DjVu Browser Plug-In lets you view a DjVu document. You can zoom and pan in it as well. www.lizardtech.com

FAST DEFRAG. PC speed at a crawl? It may be because your data is so scattered, your PC doesn't know where to look. Fast Defrag defragments your hard drive to free up RAM. Not only does this speed up your computer, it increases your system's stability.

This defragger uses little of your system's valuable resources. www.amsn.ro/

SIMPLE FILE SHREDDER is a free utility that securely deletes your files so they can't be restored using recovery software. SFS ensures your privacy by scrambling the filename, overwriting the file up to 20 times with random bytes, changing the file date and time to a random date-and-time value, and verifying that the file has been completely shredded before deleting it. A good use for this would be to securely delete electronic financial statements, private e-mail, and porn. www.scar5.com/

FREEZIP is a small, fast and efficient Zip utility for compression and decompression of files and directories.

FreeZip integrates with Windows Explorer and uses file associations and context menus to zip or unzip files and subdirectories. If you know how to use Windows Explorer, then you do not have to learn anything new to use FreeZip. The setup is a single-click process and there are no options or settings involved. The manual is in English, Japanese, Polish, Italian, Swedish, German, Latvian, Spanish, French, Hungarian, Czech, Russian, Lithuanian, Belorussian, Portuguese and Chinese. FreeZip, WinZip, and most other Zip programs use identical compression code, originating from the same source. However, FreeZip is freely available for use and distribution. http://members.ozemail .com.au/~nulifetv/freezip/

FOR INTERNATIONAL TRAVELLERS. Greetings, bienvenido, konnichiwa. This site starts by posing a series of funny questions. Don't expect to find answers to them, though! But you will learn how to greet people from different cultures. It's a must if you're planning to travel overseas, particularly for business. This site will show you how to make a great first impression. Even if you aren't traveling anytime soon, it's still a fun site. The animation is great and the lighthearted approach is delightful. http://www.businessoftouch.com

ONE E-MAIL MESSAGE - MANY PEOPLE. Don't use TO or CC for sending to groups of people who don't know each other. These days that is considered poor email etiquette. That's because everyone who gets the email can see the email addresses of all the other recipients which could be considered a breach of privacy these days.

There's a more serious concern to do with spam and viruses. There are many email worms that search an infected hard drive for email address to send infected emails. Those worms can check not just the contacts list but also the history of received emails for new targets. This doesn't really apply when you're sending messages to a small group of people who know each other, but caution is polite and prudent when the receivers are a disparate group who don't know each other.

If you send a email with a large TO or CC list to an infected computer then all those recipients are in the firing line to a new round of nasties. Better to use BCC - Blind Carbon Copy - but this has its own disadvantages - messages with BCC's are more likely to be considered spam. Emails sent directly to one person are, contra wise, less likely to be marked as spam. BCC is quick and usually quite efficient. The BCC receivers should not see the email addresses of their compatriots (just anyone in the TO or CC fields).

We have heard the urban myth that the list of BCC recipients is actually hidden in each copy of the message and can be found by worms. This is plain wrong and looking at the message header on a BCC received message would show. The BCC recipients are stripped out when the email is relayed to each individual mailbox.

In these spam paranoid days the better option for sending the same message to many people might be a mail merge. The last few versions of Office have been able to use Word to create an email message then send it out individually to each recipients with a single TO address in each one. You can get fancy and add personalization to each message (including the persons name in the message text etc) but for many emails that's not necessary.

FACUG/SPCUG SPECIALS

1. CompUSA

Thanks to all of the attendees at the FACUG Spring Regional Conference for welcoming CompUSA and stopping by at our booth! We hope to keep the momentum going by offering all SPCUG members exceptional savings! Spread the word! All SPCUG members get a special discount by contacting me or logging on! Specially discounted prices apply to any item in the store.

Go to www.compusabusiness.com - our business access website. Enter email login: usergroupmember@compusa.com and password: 636237 to gain entry. Or call Victor K., at 813-350-7034 and identify yourself as a member to receive your discounts AND speak to a live representative!

2. Goldfish Software

CALL 866.294.8899 or email jthornell@goldfishsoftware. com and identify yourself as a member of FACUG.

Members may place an order for product at 20% discount off Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price. Members are encouraged to check www.goldfishsoftware.com frequently for "specials" which may offer savings greater than 20%.

Goldfish Software offers many Best Software products plus checks and forms which may not be listed on the website. Discounts are available for those products as well. Goldfish Software will also offer 20% discount on web based training and support for Best Software products listed on our site.

Goldfish Software offers the following Best Software Small Business Division products:

Peachtree Accounting, Peachtree Complete Accounting, Peachtree Premium Accounting, Peachtree Manufacturing, Peachtree Distribution, ACT! Standard, ACT! Premium, ACT! Corporate Licensing, Timeslips including multi user licenses and add-ons. Specials available through June 2005.

Registry First Aid, New Version 4

If your computer were human you would have to think of the registry as its brain. Essentially, it is a database that masterminds each and every factor controlling your computer. It consists of several sizable files that serve as the puppeteer pulling the strings behind every piece of software and hardware comprising your machine and its functions.

You would be quite correct in assuming that the registry is not an area to be dealt with lightly. Any changes in its content can render various software and hardware components right up to the entirety of your computer itself non-functional. You would also be correct in assuming that the registry, much as any other software in your computer is subject to corruption, malware damage, and a passel of other intentional or accidental acts that can seriously affect the efficiency or functioning of your computer, its contents and its peripherals. Consequently, we are presented with both a problem and a challenge where you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.

In time the registry becomes permeated with dead material, software or hardware references that have been long gone or are inaccurate, dead fonts, inexistent paths, uninstalles apps, and other useless or harmful material. In time, your registry needs an enema. The problems are twofold. Firstly, you need to find the registry entries that need to be either modified or removed. Secondly, you need to perform the operation with great skill and accuracy. The result is the fear or wisdom most computerists share in approaching registry changes with extreme caution.

There is a plethora of utilities that are available to deal with the problem but that share problems in common:

They are inaccurate in finding faulty registry entries.

They are either overly or underly ambitious in making the necessary changes.

Of the many available, finding the utility that avoids both these pitfalls is not easy. After considerable experimentation over the years, some with unhappy consequences, I have discovered the one that so far works best, Registry First Aid (RFA), from RoseCitySoftware (www.rosecitysoftware.com).

RFA is on target right from the get-go. The first thing it does is make a backup of your registry to be on the safe side. It then proceeds to look for errors in your registry and suggest a fix for each. One of its strongest features that makes it unlike any other registry editing utility I have seen is that it creates a categorized list of each error and selected fix along with a checkbox before each so that the final decision to fix or not is up to you.

I spent very considerable time checking out the validity of each and every one of the more than 300 errors and the recommended changes that RFA discovered in my registry. Each and every finding and suggested fix were 100% accurate. After checking the box before each finding I accepted, a single click repaired every selected item in one fell swoop. This is another area where RFA is unmatched. It not only finds errors to eliminate, it also discovers fixes to many errors rather than just bland deletions. RFA has recently released its new Version 4 which offers the following upgraded features:

* A new updated Windows XP style program interface with new buttons and an easier to use interface.

* The program is using new technology making it faster than previous releases.

* There are now three safety levels of found registry errors: Safe to modify, Caution and Extreme Caution which are shown by green, yellow and red Icon. This makes it much easier for the beginners to use now.

* Along with the new levels of safety, we created an easy way to switch between views of found errors: by error category or by safety level.

* The Backup Manager now allows you to restore any single registry entry from the .reg backup files. You can even search backup files for keywords to help in restoring special items.

* For those who have a lot of bad entries but not a lot of time to review them all in a single run, you can now use the new option to limit registry scan by the number of found errors. So instead of 1000 errors to fix in a single run, you can set it to any number you want, 800, 300, 100, whatever.

* For those outside of the US, our language files may now define a font name to use with the particular language making it much more versatile and easy to read for foreign languages.

Although I truly believe That RFA is the best registry correction utility available, it does require enough computer savvy to understand its findings and directions, something most intermediate users should be capable of. Rank novices should approach registry modification with caution.

RFA is available for a free trial period of 30 days. The registration fee is $27.95 thereafter. :

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Copyright 2005. This article is from the May 2005 issue of the Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc., P.O. Box 15889, Sarasota, FL 34277-1889. Permission to reprint is granted only to other non-profit computer user groups, provided proper credit is given to the author and our publication. We would appreciate receiving a copy of the publication the reprint appears in, please send to above address, Attn: Editor. For further information about our group, email: admin@spcug.org/ Web: http://www.spcug.org/

The Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc. has 1,100+ members and was established in 1982. We are members of the Assoc. of PC User Groups (APCUG), the Florida Assoc. of PC Users Groups, Inc., and we are members of the America Online Ambassador Program.

See http://www.spcug.org for all reviews from the Sarasota PC Monitor, go to the Newsletter Section.