Next Meeting: October 21st

The next meeting will be on October 21st, at 7:00 pm at the Canfield Prebyterian chrurch.

Some things we will talk about:

-- We will be showing some things you can do with your photos once you get them digitized on your computer. I'll be showing how to use Windows Movie Maker to make movies out of your photos. Windows Movie Maker comes free with Windows XP and Vista, and while it is not the most full-featured program, it is easy to use. And everybody has it!

-- Like making scrapbooks? You can make and share virtual scrapbooks online at http://scrapblog.com.

-- From Microsoft Labs, they have released a very interesting technology to the public called PhotoSynths. It is hard to describe, but it is essentially the next step beyond creating stitched together panoramas. You'll have to see the results to get a better idea, so go to http://photosynth.net to see photosynths that users have shared. (Warning, you will have to download one-time a big plug-in for your browser in order to view and create photosynths.)

-- We missed this the last time, so hopefully we'll take a look a web site/service that is very popular with the kids these days: Twitter! It's not for everybody, but if you want to see what the hottest place is on the web these days, head over to http://www.twitter.com.

As always, we will also try and answer any other computer questions you may have. I hope to see you there!

Youngstown Computer Show Oct 4, 2008 Show Notes

Oct 4, 2005

Show Notes



SEGMENT 1



Start of Show:

The Webcaster Settlement Bill of 2008 has passed both the House and Senate. It extended the deadline to allow further negotiations to set the royalty rates for web radio. The high rates that were supposed to go into effect threaten to close down small-time web radio stations. Web radio wants similar rates to that of radio, which pays less.

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/09/house-of-repres.html



Caller 1:

Q: Caller has copied pictures on a USB flash drive that can't be opened or deleted.

A: The filesystem on the USB flash drive is probably corrupt. If you have a copy of those pictures somewhere else, just fomat that drive over again and copy again. Otherwise, try to run chkdsk on the drive to try and fix errors so that the file system is usable again.



Caller 2:

Q: Caller is getting a HTTP 403 error.

A: The HTTP 403 error means that you are asking for a web page that you have no rights to see. It is telling you that even if the page is there, you need to log in or authenticate yourself somehow before you can see that page. The most likely cause is that the web site you are trying to load has gone through a re-organization.





SEGMENT 2



Caller 3:

Q: Caller had DSL problems with his laptop. After letting them troubleshoot his computer remotely, he can't type anything into the address bar of his browser, all the letters are jumbled up.

A: When they connected remotely to your computer, the keyboard mapping might have changed to their format. This is strange enough that you should bring in the computer into the shop.



Caller 4:

Q: Caller and his son both use the same computer. When the caller logs in, he gets a popup that he is infected, but not on his son's account. What could be wrong?

A: There seems to be some malware, but you need to bring the computer in for a closer look.

Q: another question: he shut off the comptuer the regular way, but the next day it would not turn on. They thought it might be the power strip so they plugged it straight into the wall and it worked. They plugged it back into the strip and it also worked.

A: Something was not right and it needed the power to be totally removed to reset it.



Caller 5:

Q: Caller gets a runtime error popup (from the description it sounds like when he goes to a web page).

A: Joe Danyi thinks that this is usually caused by having old software installed. It could be an actual coding error on the page. He suggests uninstalling Java and reinstalling the latest version.



Caller 6:

Q: Caller has a Mac G4 laptop. He bought a new hard drive for it and OSX Leopard (the latest version). Should he initialize the disk with the startup disk he got with the laptop or should he just start with the Leopard disk?

A: It is probably safer to start up with the one that came with your computer before trying to install Leopard.



Acronyms:

HTTP = Hypertext Transfer Protocol

GIF = Graphics Interchange Format

CD-R = Compact Disc Recordable

LAN = Local Area Network





SEGMENT 3



Tips and Tricks:

There is a video for this week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHKwc37a1cY

A way to manage spam is to create disposable email accounts.



Caller 7:

Q: Caller was typing something in Word, he held down the shift key for a while and something came up and got activated, now he cannot type anything. The mouse still works.

A: There is probably some accessibility option got set. If the caps lock or num lock lights don't work, there might be a problem with the keyboard. You should bring in the keyboard to the shop.



Caller 8:

Q: Caller wants to clean up cookies and other things.

A: Open up My Computer, right-click on the C: drive, choose properties, choose Disk Cleanup.



Availability of XP:

The OEM Downgrade option was extended from January 31, 2009 to July 31, 2009.

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/vista/xp_oem_licensing_extension_is_urban_myth.html?kc=MWRSS02129TX1K0000535



At the Shop:

Nick at the shop will be doing a "Cleanup Clinic" on your computer today for a special price $40.



Caller 9:

Q: Caller has a Dell 8200, it takes 8-10 minutes to boot up, is there anything he can do to it?

A: The memory and CPU should be ok for you, you just have too many startup processess. You just need to have someone clean that up, like today at the shop!



Caller 10:

Q: Caller started a defrag, but got a message that she needed to run Chkdsk to fix some file system errors before doing the defrag.

A: The drive might be going bad, or the file system might be bad. You should bring it into the shop.





SEGMENT 4



Caller 11:

Q: Caller cannot get online. A techincian came over, and his laptop worked with the DSL modem, but the caller's computer won't.

A: There is either the cable to the computer, or the network adapter might be bad. You'll have to have this diagnosed at the shop.



Security Segment:

1. Wardriving = Hackers drive around looking for open wireless hotspots. They publish these locations on the internet. So please put a password on your wireless network.

2. If your computer starts making noises that are not normal, like clicking on your hard drive, you need to get your computer serviced as soon as possible to save all your data.



Caller 12:

Q: Caller is running Firefox 2.0, and it asks to remember passwords that he enters on websites. Should he let it?

A: Yes, it is a handy feature. There doesn't seem to be any security concerns.



Operation Java Installation:

Internet Cafe Coming Soon!





SEGMENT 5



Bonus Half-hour!

More Security:

Microsoft sues several "Scareware" companies.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10053565-83.html



Caller 13:

Q: Caller has re-installed a printer, but when she prints, it always goes to a file.

A: Joe Danyi suggests to check which printer is set as your default.



Caller 14:

Q: Caller has XP, is there a way to save a copy of his current XP and put it on his new computer to replace Vista.

A: If all you have is a recovery disk, you need to get an XP install disk and re-install XP on the new computer, the recovery disk is made only for your current computer. (JOEM: Note that legally, you cannot transfer a version of Windows that came with a computer to another one.) Norton Ghost, or any disk imaging program, will not help you either because your version of windows is already configured with drivers that match your current computer, that same configuration will just crash on another computer.



Scam Email update:

No reponse to our email reply.



Caller 15:

Q: Caller has Vista, "...and I wrote a bunch of stuff into a notepad, and when I went to save it, it turned into a DOS document, and now I can't open it up....it's saying 16-bit MS-DOS subsystem, and it's saying C:usersjoedesktoplatest, and the NTVDM CPU has encountered an illegal instruction."

A: Joe suggests renaming the file with a .TXT extension.

Q: another question, want to email a video, but am running into a size limit. Video is 84 MB.

A: Find a file storage website and upload it there and just send a link to the video.



Special $40 cleanup clinic at the shop today.





SEGMENT 6



Google Search Tips:

--use quotes around exact text that you want to search for:

"saturday night live" searches for that exact phrase, the three words with no quotes will be found in any order and not even together.

-- use + to mark words you need to have, especially useful to included words that Google normally ignores, like A, An, or The

-- use - to mark words that you don't want to have, eg. dolphins -football will not find the football team

-- use ~ to say to look for synonyms for a word, eg. ~crazy

-- use OR to say to find either word (not necessarily both), eg. red or blue

-- use .. for ranges, eg. $10..$80

-- use * for a wildcard, eg. angels *moon

-- you can do math, eg. 5 + 5 =

-- you can do conversions from one unit to another, eg. 1km in miles, 50 dollars in euros

-- it can do a reverse lookup of phone numbers


Caller 16:

Q: Caller has a laptop, he tried to install Norton AV but the computer quit working, now in BIOS in diagnostics it says 1-07 failed. What does that mean?

A: Check with the manufacturer for the meaning of the code.

IE7 Tips

This is my first YouTube video. I hope you like it!

Build a sub-$250 computer

For the do-it-yourselfers, PCmag.com has a nice article on how to build your own sub-$250 desktop PC. To save money, it does run Ubuntu Linux instead of Windows, but you'll find that it provides just about all the functionality you need to surf the web, listen to music, burn CDs, write email, etc. Take a look and see what it takes to build an inexpensive PC.

Youngstown Computer Show Sept 27, 2008 Show Notes

Youngstown Computer Show
September 27, 2008
Show Notes

PART 1

Show Opening:
Sarah Palin got her email account got hacked. All the hackers did was use the password reset feature in Yahoo mail to reset her email password by guessing/looking up the answers to her security questions. To protect yourself, make sure that the answers to your security questions are something that only you will know. Mess up the answers in a way that you only know, like knowingly misspell something.

Caller 1:
Q: Caller has a HP computer, after the last power outage the computer will not turn on. What could have happened?
A: First, disconnect all devices on the computer and try. If that does not do anything, then the power supply needs replaced.

Caller 2:
Q: The caller asks a non-computer question about the government bail-out.

Caller 3:
Q: The caller has a few friends that have Norton Anti-Virus and every time they get on the internet, there are all these updates that slow up his system. Is there a way around it?
A: You really should let those updates happen so that you are protected against the latest threats. You should be able to adjust the update schedule and have it only update once a week maybe, if the updates are slowing you down. You could try starting the computer and just let it do its job for a little bit then come back to it.


PART 2

Caller 4:
Q: Caller has a C: drive that is almost filled up. “…but I’ve got an extra drive installed also. Is there any way I can make the extra drive, the bigger drive, my default drive so that everything doesn’t keep going to the C: drive and filling it up, or can I transfer that stuff off of the C: drive to another larger capacity drive?”
A: Since the files seem to be mostly audio/video files, you should be able to copy those from the C: drive to your new drive. Each program usually has its own default area to put files, so you will have to go into the settings of your software to change the default location to the new drive.
Q: A second question about a router. “…since I bought a router last, it looks like they sped up a little bit, I got a couple of TiVo’s and my router is hooked to both of those. It takes quite a while to load video. Is there a certain type I should look for to speed up that process?”
A: You have a wireless G router now, and wireless N routers can be faster, but you also need wireless N adapters on the TiVo’s too.

As a reminder, there is a demo of wireless networking today at the shop at 4:00pm.

Performance tip:
The tip is a little different this time. From this point on we will have a video on the website for you to watch as the performance tip is demonstrated. This week covers the Firefox browser and how to streamline your browsing: how to set up your start/home pages, how to use the bookmark bar, and how to organize your bookmarks into folders. The video link is: http://youngstowncomputer.com/performance.htm, or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nN1ICesQ-4.

Then, there was some discussion of web browsers, what does Joe Danyi use? He sticks with Firefox 2, he won’t upgrade to Firefox 3, or Google’s Chrome, or Opera.

Caller 5:
Q: The caller’s wife’s computer came with Vista, how does he put XP back on there? Could they use the XP disk that came with his computer?
A: If you don’t want to set up a dual boot situation where you can choose Vista or XP, you will just have to wipe the drive and install XP from scratch. You might not be able to use the XP disk from your computer because it is probably a restore disk that has XP set up just for your computer’s configuration and not your wife’s.

Caller 6:
Q: The caller has a Gateway Pentium 4 circa 2002. How does that stack up to the latest Core 2 chips? Should I buy a new computer or just add more memory?
A: If you check the Task manager and your CPU usage is not 99% all the time, then you might not need to get a new PC.

Maintenance:
Yearly maintenance tasks: make sure anti-virus is up-to-date, defrag hard disk, clean out files, and clean out dust and dirt.


PART 3

Caller 7:
Q: The caller had XP SP3 come in as an update, and one computer updated fine, while another Dell desktop seemed to install ok, but only boots to a blue screen.
A: This will require some expert work to fix. They will have to replace the files that SP3 updated with an earlier version that worked, then check for viruses to make sure that the update installs cleanly.
Q: A second question: he has a laptop where there is a row of keys where only the ones on the end work, nothing in the middle of the row.
A: Sounds like some conductors are broken, the keyboard should be replaced. However, the caller claims it was replaced a year ago and now the same thing is happening again, so it might be software related.

Caller 8:
Q: The caller has a laptop that has a pop-up that says he is infected with a serious virus. He used to have Norton AV, but the subscription ran out, but this used to pop up even then.
A: This is classic malware. Either a smal program got installed (usually when you installed some freeware that you downloaded, or website did a drive-by install by taking advantage of a security hole to install software without your knowledge), or you are just seeing a web page ad that makes it look like an error screen. Bring in the computer for a malware cleaninig.
Q: His son has a laptop and the mouse has quit working.
A: If the mouse is a wireless mouse, then it does have a battery and it probably needs replaced.
Q: Can you use these laptops anywhere?
A: You can use the laptop to work on data that is stored locally on the laptop anywhere as long as you have power. If you want to be on the internet, you need to be in a place where there is a wireless hotspot you can connect to. A lot of coffee shops have hotspots, airports have hotspots, some stores, etc. (JOEM: For internet connections just about anywhere, you can get internet connection through the cell phone network. You usually have a small dongle that plugs in and uses the cell network for internet connections anywhere you can get a cell phone signal. They do cost a bit.)

Security Segment:
Same thing as with the performance segment, we will have a video for this from now on. This week's segment is about firewalls. "A firewall is a device or a peice of software that separates you from the internet. Traffic goes one way where you make requests out, but there are times when something from the internet makes a request back from you. For instance if someone tries to use your IP address, when you connect to the internet you have an IP address, so they connect to your IP address to maybe look at a web site or download a file, and that request comes over a port number. Now, firewalls are set to block communications on some ports and allow communications on other ports. Now if you have a router, a Linksys router, you have essentially something acting as a firewall separating you from the internet. If you have something like Zone Alarm or you have the Windows firewall set up, you have software that is allowing or disallowing traffic on certain ports on your computer. We reccommend that you get something physical, something like a Linksys router or something like a Pix firewall, or something physical to separate your computer from the internet."

They got one of those scam emails wanting you to help them get their money by cashing a foreign check (which is bogus). They will string along the scammer and tell us about all the things they go through to see how the scam develops.


PART 4

Caller 9:
Q: The caller is getting an error in Internet Explorer when she tries to get into her program: "A newer version of the enhanced printing/report generation activeX control could not be installed...the system will default to basic printing and view generation for this session."
A: This error sounds like it is from a custom application that uses a specialized printing/reporting custom component that is not updating itself properly. You probably need to contact the people who made the program or website you are trying to use. If you are a home user, you yourself are the "system administrator". If you are in an office, you can call the computer support guys.
Q: another question: "Up on the top bar, there's a question mark saying 'This website wants to install the following addon: ' and I never know whether to let it. This one is IRCSHARC.CAB from Market Links...how do I know if I trust it?"
A: You'll want to deny just about all of these sorts of install messages. (JOEM: Some Google searching seems to point to this addon coming from a company that used to be called Geac, that made financial and property managment software. So it seems that the caller is trying to run a web version of some custom program that needs specialized add-ons and activeX controls. The solution is to contact the maker of this software for support.)

Talking about Acronis True Image:
Acronis is a type of backup software that makes an "image" of your entire hard disk and stores it. It allows you to completely restore a system to the last time you made an "image" of your hard disk. It also is useful for migrating to a larger hard disk, by allowing you to transfer an "image" onto a new drive.

Project Java Installation:
They want to set up a place where the community can go for technology stuff. Part will be an Internet Cafe, part will be a recording studio, etc.

Acronyms:
People want a glossary for computer acronyms, like what is "WiFi?" It is just a branding that wireless networking devices use to say that they use standards so that different brands will work together with no problems. It is a play off of "High-Fidelity": it means "Wireless-Fidelity". Study up on Acronyms for next week, there might be a contest.