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Sunday, November 7, 2004

Show #90

I’m setting sail today on Mac Mania III - a Geek Cruise with Steve Wozniak, David Pogue, and other luminaries. This and next weekend’s shows were taped ahead of time, so don’t call in. But do listen next week for interviews from the cruise.

Today’s news items

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Noon-1p

Terry in Seal Beach Norton or McAfee

Terry is using Norton and a friend gave him McAfee Anti-spyware, if he uses the latter, will there be conflicts
Leo doesn’t feel that either of the above programs are the best solution. The Norton utilities slow your machine down significantly, so if you use these turn off everything but the antivirus. Norton Internet Security causes a majority of the problems Leo hears about. If you’ve been using Norton and it’s working you should stick with it. Pest Patrol is the only security software Leo advises purchasing. You can find links to the other products Leo recommends in the Tips section.

Tony in Brentwood wants to hide files in XP

Tony is using XP Pro and is trying to configure his guest account so that key files are not accessible to others using this account
Anything in My Documents is private and other applications may not be, it depends on how they were set-up. In XP Pro you can encrypt files to further protect them.
Tony also is starting to design web sites and he has both FrontPage 2003 and Dream Weaver, which should he use
Dream Weaver will be your most hassle free choice and creates the best looking and most seamless web sites.

Joanne in Carlsbad needs to enable Norton

Joanne has upgraded to SP 2 and it is telling her that she has no firewall even though she has Norton Antivirus and has updated it
If you have Norton, you should have it running in the background and if it’s not you need to enable it so you can be protected. If you’re not using any antivirus you should use the free application from AVG, keep the email attachment checker enabled.

Greg in Santa Barbara— is router same as firewall?

Greg installed a router for a friend, is it going to act as a firewall?
The router acts as a barrier to crackers trying to access your computer using Network Address Translation (NAT). Software firewalls blocks outgoing packets and some even perform ‘stateful inspection’ protection.

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1–2p

Terry from Tustin has Internet freeze up

Terry is using Internet Explorer and he has a freeze up after accessing several different pages on the Internet
Your copy of Internet Explorer may be damaged and you should first try another browser like Mozilla. If the other browser works, the problem could be a corrupted file in IE. If the other browser has the same problem, your connectivity could be causing the problem and this is often caused by third-party security systems. You should also make sure that your PC is updated to SP 2.

Sherry in Palm Desert can’t start Norton

Sherry is having problems starting her Norton Antivirus program after installing SP 2
Often times when you cannot start an antivirus program, it’s indicative of an infected PC. Go online to Housecall to find if you have a virus. You can also start up in safe mode by tapping F8 during boot up, and then try to start Norton. If you don’t have a virus, just re-install Norton.

Patrick from Michigan wants to upgrade PC

Patrick wants to upgrade his PC and needs advice
Pricewatch.com has is a great site to determine what you can get to fit your budget. This site sorts through the prices from hundreds of online vendors. Try to get at least 512 Mb of RAM and the brand of motherboard is important. Athlon processors are also a good bet.

Ivas in Long Beach— can he protect his web site?

Ivas wants to protect his web site’s design and contents
You really can’t do this and still allow someone to view the page if you use HTML. You could hide it by using Flash or JAVA. J.K. Rowlings has a site that is completely designed with Flash.

Rick says: There is a way to obfuscate your html and other code on your page by using javascript.
Here is a sample of the code:

 <html><body><script language=“javascript”>
 document.write(unescape(‘%3C%68%74%6D%6C%3E%3C%68%65%61%64%3E
 %3C%73%63%72%69%70%74%20%6C%61%6E%67%75%61%67%65%3D%6A%61%76
 %61%73%63%72%69%70%74%3E%76%61%72%20%6E%6F%77%3D%6E%65%77%20
 %44%61%74%65%2C%74%31%3D%30%2C%74%32%3D%30%2C%74%33%3D%30%2C
 %74%34%3D%30%2C%74%35%3D%30%2C%74%36%3D%30%2C%69%65%35%3D%30
 %3B%65%74%54%69%6D%65%28%29%3B%3C%2F%73%63%72%69%70%74%3E%3C
 %2F%62%6F%64%79%3E%3C%2F%68%74%6D%6C%3E’));
 </script></body></html>

This isn’t 100% secure, but it will help keep most people from copying your code.

Irving from Bell Gardens forgot password

Irving needs to access a computer that is password protected during the BIOS processes
Usually if you remove the battery overnight, this will reset the CMOS computers BIOS. You can also try a Google search for BIOS backdoor passwords.

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2–3p

James in Arizona has issues with WinAmp Pro

James uses WinAmp for his MP3 player and after upgrading to 5.0 when he uses the program, it changes the screen resolution, should he abandon it?
Check the settings by using Control P to check your preferences for anything that might be changed from the default settings.

NC Michael says: Leo mentions using Winamp 3 instead of Winamp 5, I assume he means Winamp 2.95, as Winamp 3 was bloated and most people chose to ignore it and stuck with 2.9x. Even though Winamp 5 is much improved, many still stick with 2.95. You can find it at Oldversion.com. A great alternative to Winamp altogether is QCD, and my personal favorite audio player is Foobar2000. FB2k is very customizable, yet low-frills at the same time, but does have a bit of a learning curve to it.

Lisa in Oceanside has PC problems

Lisa has a PC that freezes after her administrative account starts up
A great way to diagnose a problem is to have another account besides your administrative account to determine if a problem is system wide or localized. Try starting up using the Safe Mode and then you can start up programs one-by-one to determine if a program is causing a conflict. You could also try to check for spyware and viruses using the information found in the Tips section.

Mike from Banning wants to change the default application

Mike wants to change the default application for his photos
Right click on a picture and on the popup menu that appears go to ‘Open With’ then select Choose Program and choose the application that you want to use and then check the box “Always use this selected program to open this kind of file”.

Charlie in Stanton can’t check for viruses after SP 2

Charlie is having problems checking for viruses after installing Service Pack 2, he is using Trend Micro, Norton, and AVG
Having more than one antivirus program can be a problem so you might start to solve your problem by removing all three of the programs. Then you can start over with AVG. If that fails roll back your system by un-installing SP 2.

Ed in Detroit should he backup before SP 2 install?

Ed downloaded SP 2, should he backup before he installs and will Norton Ghost be a good choice?
Yes Norton Ghost is an excellent choice and you should backup your system first. You should also scan your system for spyware and viruses; a clean install of XP and SP 2 works every time.

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06 November 2005