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Saturday, October 2, 2004

Show #79

 toc | toc 

Today’s news items

More problems with the Windows GDI+ graphics library flaw. An AIM message is spreading pointing people to a web site that displays JPEG images with embedded viruses. When viewed with an unpatched version of Windows, the JPEG embeds a program on the user’s system that spreads the virus and puts a backdoor on the system. Anti-viruses will not detect the infection.

Meanwhile security expert Tom Liston says Microsoft’s scanner is worse than useless. He offers his own here.

Mozilla Firefox 1.0PR has an Security Update - it’s a minor flaw but worth fixing.

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Noon-1p

David in Hesperia - playing MP3s on the stereo

I recommend Slimdevices Squeezebox. It uses Wi-Fi to send music from your PC to your stereo. It comes with an LED display and a remote control so you don’t have to return to the PC to change the song.

Westminster Dave says: A thrifty way to do this is to simply run a cable from your sound card to your stereo receiver. A friend of mine did this and it sounds great. The drawback is you have no remote control from another room. You have to be near the computer to change songs, or setup a playlist that your really committed to. Disclaimer, All my Mp3′s are from cd’s I own too.

Kalic, Singapore: Alternatively, you may also want to try TuneCast II Mobile FM Transmitter by Belkin. This would be a much easier and cheaper solution as you only need to connect it to the earphone jack of your computer and voila! You are ready to listen to your favorite musics through any FM stereo receiver. Unfortunately, due to overwhelming popularity of this product, it is temporarily out of stock. There’s a smaller version TuneCast Mobile FM Transmitter. The drawback is, unlike the earlier one, it doesn’t has a DC power input. They should works fine with PC although, they are designed as iPod accessories.

Gordon in Redlands - Treo 600 recommendations

Everybody who I know has one loves it. I wish it had bluetooth and wi-fi. The new 610 and 650 are due out soon. They’ll add a higher rez screen and better camera.

Karen in Cypress - Fonts control panel crashes

First try opening the fonts folder directly: c:\windows\fonts - if it crashes you might try running the Windows system file checker. Click Start→Run and enter sfc /scannow.

Wendy in San Diego - wants to change the reply address in email

She has her own domain name forwarding the email to her AOL account, but when she replies the recipient sees her AOL address. That’s probably something you can’t change when you use the AOL email client. But you don’t have to use the AOL email client. AOL now allows you to use any other email program as long as it supports the IMAP protocol Check the AOL keyword: Open Mail Access or read all about it on the unofficial AOL Email FAQ.

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1–2p

Sharon in Moreno Valley - Service Pack 2 thrashed her system

She can’t even boot it to uninstall SP-2. If you can get to the Windows Recovery console (using the XP Install disc) and try to get the command line System Restore working with this command: c:\windows\system\restore\rstrui.exe.

If that doesn’t work, try a Linux-based Windows recovery disc. You can boot to it and access your files, copy them to CD, etc.

Trevor Evans says: The Linux based Windows recovery disc that Leo is refering to are called Live CDs - they boot and run from the CD so the computer will be left unchanged when the CD is removed. To get a Linux it is best to try http://www.linuxiso.org/ , and get Knoppix, it is great and made for such a problem.

G Demi says:
I have recently had major problems using SP2 to upgrade a computer. When the automatic reboot during the installation happened the computer would continue to reboot. The Computer would not come up in safe mode.

Since the hard drive was NTFS we could not access it except through recovery console. According to http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;304449&Product=winxp RC will not run the restore (rsrtui.exe) program (indeed it will not run any EXE program).

Microsoft advised me to install the original registry (which is in \systemroot\repair) by copying the 5 hive files , see Knowledge Base Article 307545. Using this would mean that all my programs installed on the computer would have to be re-installed.

In addition according to RC documentation http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307654&Product=winxp#3 you must login as administrator (with password) and you can not write to any directories outside SystemRoot (normally Windows). This means you cannot copy files to any other device including the floppy.

If you had defined an administrator password of non blank during your initial installation and forgot it (as this customer had) you can not get into RC. There is no way around this except to clear the password with Unix/Linux software.

There are methods to get around both the above problems from Microsoft but they involve changing the registry while XP is running. By the time you need RC you can’t do this. See http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;312149&Product=winxp and http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310497&Product=winxp .

Other annoyances with recovery console are it takes a long time to load from CD. You can install it to the hard drive as a boot option, but you must have a working OS. Also once you upgrade to SP2, you cannot install RC from your original CD, nor does Microsoft have an alternative, they say they are working on this. But you can slipstream/build an SP2 Cd and use that to install RC.

In summary I find RC extremely limited. I far prefer booting a Win98 install disk to fix or backup files on the hard drive. Of course you must be using FAT instead of NTFS file system.

Michael in LA - Header text is too light

A little help here! Michael uses Word 2004 on the Mac. When he’s in the main document body the header is too gray to read, and vice versa. Is there any way to darken the header text so he can read it?

Visit display calibration and make sure your display is set properly.

Kalic: There is another free online CRT or LCD display calibrator call MonitorsDirect Calibrator (may requires Internet Explorer 5.0+, but it works on my Firefox!).

Jeryl in Murietta - says bold it and make it bigger

Jeff S. in Covina says:
In Word for Windows there is a “Style” selection under the formatting Menu. Check that out…You should be able to adjust the setting for each style you have listed. In the Syle Wizard, click on Modify, then Click on Format, then select the type of adjustment you would like to make. (Font, Paragraph, etc). Hopefully it is the same in Mac! !Good Luck!

Marie in Maine - Java not working in Opera

Java installs with Opera. If you’ve got Java properly installed, try refreshing the plug-in in Opera: press Alt-P for the Plug-ins menu then press the refresh button.

Kalic says:
I’m using Opera (v7.6, Preview 1) with Sun’s J2SE 5.0 JRE (Java VM), WinXP Pro SP2 and had the same problem as Marie. However, it was solved by just either reinstall the Java VM or Opera or both. It should work no matter which you install first. Since Marie had done most, after doing some research at My Opera Forums here are some recommendations:

Clarification: Opera doesn’t uses Java plug-ins, instead it accesses the Java VM directly. Therefore, by refreshing (sorry Leo but pressing Alt-P only brings up the Preferences menu) the plug-ins does not help. Whether the Java plug-ins show up in the plug-ins list or not isn’t important. Mine doesn’t.

3 Possibilities :

1. Java VM not installed/working properly - Try running Java using Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla or Firefox to verify this. Here is a cool Java applet site.
2. Opera is not installed/working properly - Always install the latest version due to compatibilities issues of earlier version with Java. Make sure the installed Java VM version is displayed at Help|About Opera. Screenshot.
3. Both OK, they just don’t work together! - This shouldn’t be happening if 1 and 2 is negative. Make sure to tick 'Enable Java' by going File|Quick Preferences (simple yet crucial step). A very helpful thread about Java error message.

Michael in Santa Barbara - trying to copy files from the old computer

My old standby, Aloha Bob’s PC Relocator won’t work, so I recommend either using the XP backup program and backing up Documents and Settings onto a CD-R or pulling the drive out of the old system and installing it into the new system as a secondary drive.

He’s also having a problem with a “rundll” error on startup. It’s Wild Tangent. Wild Tangent is an activex control used to play games on the Wild Tangent web site. WT has lately been accused of planting spyware on people’s systems. If you try to remove WT with an anti-spyware program you may have a similar problem. It’s easiest to fix this by re-installing Wild Tangent then using the uninstaller to remove it properly.

For information on the Wild Tangent programs visit this site. For Wild Tangent’s own removal instructions visit this page.

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2–3p

Ryan in Hollywood - his bro is going to Thailand and he wants to maintain his system remotely

If your brother is using Windows XP Professional you can use Windows Remote Desktop. Otherwise RealVNC is the best free choice. You’ll have to install it before he goes. For dial-up I recommend PCAnywhere from Symantec.

To control how other users use the computer create a limited user account for them then use the Policy Editor to further restrict what they can do. Click Start→Run and enter gpedit.msc.

Oops, update. the Policy Editor does not work in XP Home. Sorry!

BlueBoi: RealVNC can also work over HTTP, you just need Java.

Michelle in Santa Monica - buying a desktop

Michelle has a friend looking for a new computer to use for internet and word processing and she is on a budget
You can look at Dell.com for the budget buys and you should have no trouble getting a good PC for $600. You should also get a router to provide you with an extra level of protection when surfing the web.

Tony in Torrance - can’t edit text in his browser

Assuming your keyboard is plugged in (you can type in other applications, right?) it sounds like a serious problem. First make sure spyware is eradicated using and . You may need to reinstall.

From Shaun - Don’t reinstall just yet. This happened to me before when I was messing around with settings on my computer. Did you change, or have changed, any of your services or did the custom security level get changed? here is microsofts answer: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q235236 - I also suggest that you look in your services settings. Its easy to screw up your setting if you start disabbling stuff there, so make sure you write down on a notepad exactly what you changed or what was changed. Its not going to crash your system, but it might just make it annoying to deal with. I can’t find out right now, but I’ll try to figure it out by next show.

Vicky in Rialto - digital cameras buying advice

Vickie wants to buy a digital camera to take pictures of her grandson and pictures in low-light situations where no flash is allowed
A fast shutter response is important, the lag time between when the shutter is pressed and when the picture is actually recorded. Try the camera in person to determine if the shutter response is satisfactory. Your optical components are nearly as important than the megapixels of a digital camera. Nikon, Olympus, Fuji, and Canon all have great lens.

For reviews of digital cameras www.dpreview.com

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