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Saturday, October 23, 2004

Show #85

Today’s news items

Beware of Opener, a new Mac hack. that, while not common, and difficult to spread, could be very dangerous. It puts a rootkit on your system which is very difficult to detect. It’s not really a virus since a hacker must have access to your system to install it.

Computer trivia question of the day

Which one of these is the holder of the ENIAC patent?¹
a) Tim Berners-Lee
b) John Vincent Atanasoff
c) Jay Miner
d) Ronald Univac

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Noon-1p

Christa in San Diego - XP system is slow to boot

Then don’t shut it down. Unlike earlier versions of Windows, XP really doesn’t need to be restarted regularly.

Frank (Rancho Cucamonga) Be sure your Windows system is running a minimum of 512 mb of ram. Also download and install both of these FREE programs Ad-aware and Spybot Search & Destroy. These programs can and will keep your system tidy.

From Mark in Seattle, Sometimes you will have to run Spybot or Ad-Aware in Safe Mode to get all the little nasties off of your system. One More Thing, LEO IS GOOD!

John in Lake Forest - added second drive, can he boot with it?

He used Western Digital’s disk tools when he installed the big drive - and did a bit-for-bit copy of the old drive onto the new drive. So yes, in that case, you can swap the jumpers and boot from the new drive. I’d use the old drive for backup purposes. (I use the shareware Second Copy to do that myself.)

Jeff in Thousand Oaks - Thinkpad won’t boot

He was listening on the road in PA using his laptop and an AT&T Edge connection. He recommends it. His daughter inherited his old IBM Thinkpad x20, now it won’t boot. He gets the memory test followed by a blinking cursor. Swapping the hard drive doesn’t fix it. He can enter BIOS setup and it seems OK. It sounds like the hard drive controller has failed - and that’s not something you can fix yourself. It may even require a logic board replacement. Time to bring it in.

Martin from Sydney, Australia suggests: Throw the Thinkpad out the window.

Paws from Melbourne, Australia: Hey I second that, watch out below !!!.

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1–2p

Dave in LA - How to extend the range of his Wi-Fi enabled laptop

Best way to do this is to extend the range of the access point. There are two ways to do this: passive and active. You can add a passive antenna to the WAP but the better solution is WDS. With compatible equipment you can add a second WAP and double your range.

A listener writes: Regarding the Issue of WiFi PC cards and external antenna ports. Very few do because of FCC certification of their built-in antenna. I’ve been pursuing this issue for more than two years, because even my hand(s) on the keyboard actually attenuate (reduce) the signal strength the PC Card gets. Yes, the Lucent-Orinoco/(now)Proxim cards have a port as do SMC cards. However, I’ve talked to D-Link, LinkSys and others at trade shows who refuse to address the issue of external antenna connectors.

The problem for vendors is that they get FCC certification without external connectors and antennas and many of them are reluctant to risk trouble with the FCC about interference, even though WiFi operates in “Part 15″ of the unregulated-regulated spectrum. I have found that my new Toshiba notebook with built-in Centrino 802.11b, has no noticeable interference from my hands on the keyboard as is STILL the case with my older Toshiba with an external Lucent-Orinoco card. I have an external, ca. 6″ magnetic antenna for that card for use in my van. That makes a HUGE difference in finding and connecting to public WiFi signals. In a coffee shop this is not much of an issue, but if one tries to use a laptop computer in their vehicle, the antenna integrated into the PCMCIA card is usually below the level of the metal body, which SIGNIFICANTLY reduces or eliminates any WiFi signal. If the laptop/notebook is on the dashboard of the vehicle, you will usually see a significant increase in signal strength. The answer is simply to use PC Cards which support an external antenna that you can magnetically stick to the roof of your vehicle. If you would like a card that has a port for an antenna check this link: http://www.netnimble.net/netnimblestore/ and buy the add on antenna. If you use this card you will need to disable your on board Wi-Fi card.

Arthur in Michigan - Can’t set background color in IE after SP-2

He wants to change the default white background and can’t. Why not? I was able to do so on my system. Go to Yahoo (they don’t insist on any particular backgroun color) then open Tools→Internet Options… Click the Colors button under the General tab, uncheck Use Windows Colors, and select an alternate color. Yahoo should change.

Kristi in Irvine - Service Pack 2 on Windows 2000

Nope. It’s just for XP. The latest service pack for W2K is SP-4, but it’s not the same as XP SP-2 and doesn’t have the same issues.

Andy in Norwalk - AOL’s Spyware Protection put pop-ups on his system

That’s unlikely - but if you’re getting Internet Explorer windows popping up with ads, you do have spyware on your system. Get Spybot or Adaware to back-up the AOL program.

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2–3p

Aaron in Alta Loma - setting up Windows on an old PC

He has a 2GB hard drive but no OS and he’s not sure if he can see the CD. I’d download a Windows boot disk from http://bootdisk.com and see if you can boot up, partition, and format the hard drive. If you can, then buy a copy of Windows 98 SE on Ebay.

Debby in San Antonio Heights - Can’t open Internet Explorer’s Options menu

She gets the following error message

 This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. 
 Please contact your system administrator.

This is something a System Administrator can do with gpedit.msc - but some anti-spyware programs can, too. In this case Debby had installed Spybot Search & Destroy, turned on Immunization and the Browser Helper, then uninstalled it. You could fix this with a registry edit, but the best solution is to reinstall Spybot - it’s a good and useful program. Make sure the Browser Helper blocker is set to notify you and all will be well.

BlueBoi says you can also change this with a RegEdit. Read this article at WinGuides.

David in Recita - Password protecting Windows folders

XP Pro will do this, but if you’re using Home you’ll need to use a third-party encryption program. I recommend Powercrypt or MaxCrypt.

A listener writes: You can do compression and Encryption on XP Home - in Safe Mode. You can also do file permissions in (safe mode only). However remote computers connecting to XP Home will always connect as Guest. XP Home uses a security model called Simple File Sharing.

Zkay also recommend PGP and MaxCrypt.

He also wants to import his Outlook Express email into his new emailer, Eudora.

1. In Eudora, go to the File menu→Import…. Select Advanced Options
2. Select Outlook Express from the list of programs to import from.
3. Click Browse to locate your Outlook Express mail folders. The default location for Outlook Express email folders is C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{65992AA7–8C96–4EC3-AF16-A6E9E1135A99}\Microsoft\Outlook Express. (If you do not see this folder, you will need to display hidden folders: Go to Control Panels > Folder Options > View and select “Show hidden files and folders” [Can we make the “display hidden folders” a Stock Answer?] ). Select Folders.dbx and click Open.

Wayne in Ohio - Increase in spam email with random text

It’s to fool spam filters that use Bayesian statistical text analysis to detect spam. Spammers think that by putting a lot of un-spammy words in a message the filters will pass it through. That’s why it’s best to use a filtering system that uses multiple techniques to detect spam.

Barry in Temeculah - having problems backing up to a USB drive

He’s trying to create an image to an external USB drive, but it doesn’t work. I recommend using your imaging software to create the image on an internal drive, then copying it to the USB drive. I suspect that writing to the USB drive is unreliable, especially on Windows 98SE which had iffy USB support.

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¹ Answer is B: John Vincent Atanasoff. His bio can be found at http://www.scl.ameslab.gov/ABC/Biographies.html (↑)