Replies

Not sure why you did all that so HARD!

In transferring to a smaller SSD you should, first, take off everything that doesnt NEED to be there on the SSD from your existing normal HD. Store pictures on an external drive NOW and delete them from your HD. Uninstall unneeded programs. Clear up rubbish that has accumulated and get the space taken up as low as possible. Now image what is left. In my case I use Acronis True Image. Now restore that image to the SSD and put it in the laptop and turn it on. Go to BIOS first, set the new SSD up as the boot device if it needs to be told that then allow the computer to boot and see what happens. It *SHOULD* just be normal and fine but faster.

Things to note – if you have an old laptop like I have (made in 2007), things will be faster but basically moving to the SSD really wont be worth the cost as the speed increase isnt that great. Also, with a spinning HD that appears to have gone bad, you can normally do something at home to fix it but even if you cant, there are labs here and there that will pull them apart and have a reasonable chance of getting your data back. If your SSD dies, there is no-one in the entire world who can get it back. SSDs, when they die, take everything with it. So get used to REGULARLY imaging the drive or, when you put a new drive in, you have to remember each key for the software you paid for, each password on every site you go to and even remember those sites, set up every single thing. I work in the field and I hate to think of doing that so I do regularly image the drive even on a spinning HD anyway. Do NOT trust the SSD to definitely hold your data. ALWAYS have at least 2 backups and on separate backup media (eg, 2 x normal HDs).

Having said all that, my elderly father in law who I was telling HAD to move off his 2002 built Win XP machine finally decided to do so and bought an ASUS Taichi (sight with mother in law is a real problem and the pad side helps there) with a 128gig SSD in it. He presses the button to turn it on and we wait mere seconds and his Win 8 with no password to get into it is just THERE, ready to use. In his case, a fast SSD that is in use with an I5 using machine and 8 gigs of ram mean he has a really fast machine. He DOES have a 1Tb spinning HD to keep all pictures on though. Do yourselves a favour and get yourself imaging software if you choose the SSD option!

Greg.

I have to say that I am astounded at this column. I encountered the same virus/whatever called Cryptolocker about 3 weeks ago. I know it has been out a fair long time. I got rid of it easily in under an hour. Admittedly I work “in the trenches” meaning that I do PC build/repair/delouse as most of my daily job so I do come into contact with viruses on other people’s machines OFTEN. Cryptolocker was relatively easy to remove to be honest, using the usual tools and didnt require a real lot of time or effort on my part. As a result, the files that were supposedly to be locked soon, were not locked.

I suggest to anyone reading my reply who wants to try this out for themselves, infect your own test machine with Cryptolocker, kill the task then use your favourite kill technique first then just run MBAM for a second backup and follow up with a DECENT antivirus such as a trial Sophos or free AVG and it is gone and no need to worry. My personal first line of attack is one that may well kill off your Windows if you dont know what you are doing well enough so I hesitate to mention it here but there are plenty of such programs available on the net without having to mention it so try looking up. Sophos removal tool is good enough to get rid of it. It *IS* important to kill the Cryptolocker task BEFORE doing anything else though. I suppose it depends on variants that may come up in the future but you could either start in Safe mode (may not help if a variant takes that into account) or even use HijackThis to delete the entry for it to begin with after first killing the task then reboot if you feel the need or just proceed on with getting rid of it.

Also, I realise some of you may tell me I am telling BS. I can only say to you that I am not. If you want to try it yourself, go for it. Like I said, important to kill the task before doing anything else. After that, all is simple with the right removal tools and a follow up MBAM scan then a fillow up DECENT antivirus scan after that.

Here is something I did for my wife.

I have my own domain and she had a free email address elsewhere and was getting endless spam. I set her up an email account on my domain and as I host my own domain and ensure that SpamAssassin comes with it and is turned on, she falls under that. I redirected all email from her account to her new account. The spam, naturally, followed but SpamAssassin is the greatest anti spam program there is and unfortunately doesnt run on Windows (or for Macs either). She doesnt get them anymore. My own email address gets approximately 3000 spams a day. I rarely see the spam but when it is brand new it does get through around 4 to 6 times and then I never see it again and it doesnt matter if they change subject or FROM email address or both or whatever combination they choose. The gist of their email is able to be worked out and auto deleted by SpamAssassin once it has gone through those 4 to 6 spams.

In your case with Hotmail, many years ago you could do a redirect but I am unsure if you can, now. Probably not. However, it is worth asking the Hotmail help people if it can be done for the account. That way you still receive the email at your new address and if the new address includes the email going through SpamAssassin, every single day your spam will drop off to the point where you will rarely see any, within a few weeks.

I dont know if that helps you – I hope so – because the only other REAL option is kill the account and start another with another email address. Sadly, very annoying.

You should look at Viber which allows you to use your mobile phone through wi-fi to anyone else’s mobile phone. It is on Android and I am sure it should be on the smaller Apple App store, too. Do yourself a favour – the do not disturb is OK but people forget timezone differences. Turn AIRPLANE MODE on when sleeping and let them leave a message or ring back.

As to your plan, it is just so much safer to buy a prepaid SIM card in the country you are visiting. Many people go overseas and think they are safe from HUGE bills when they get home because of changes in their plan before they go and find they still have those huge bills when they get back.

If you get a SIM in the country you are visiting, you can then use your iphone as a wi-fi hotspot (assuming your normal carrier hasnt disallowed that in the IOS within your phone as has happened in Australia before) and have a better level of security when using wi-fi, to pick up your private email etc.

Greg.

Hello,
I have a large video of a trip that I want to share to a limited number of people who were on the tour, preferably with individual user IDs and passwords – Privacy considerations and all that which is an issue here in Canada.
It’s quite large so I would like to have it stream through a web browser rather than having to download the whole movie.
Unfortunately, I don’t think YouTube provides this service. From my understanding, I think that I can only have the YouTube video as private (invited list but no individual user ID password, or limited which means, I think, that the person has to have the actual web address.

Thanks in advance

Larry

Larry,

When I need to do that and having my own domain, I simply ftp the file to my domain then copy the link – eg, http://www.domain-name.com/filename and send that to the people I want to know it is there. It doesnt appear on my web site as it isnt a part of the web site HTML coding so unless you know or guess the exact name, you cant get it without that link. While that is good for me with my own domain, you can achieve the same thing (depending on video size) by using the allocated space your ISP gives you with your account or by going to places such as Yahoo, opening a free account and uploading it to there and sending the link from that uploaded spot. You ought to see if a good video compression program can reduce the file size without badly affecting the video quality first, though.

Greg.

It may cost a bit more, but never ever, have your domain name and hosting with the same place.* I leearned that the hard way when I couldn’t move my domain to a new host for weeks as it was held hostage by the host.

Martha

Sorry to say this but that is just rubbish! If your domain was being held hostage you can complain to Icann. It is illegal to do that. I cant even deny a domain being taken away from my control when I have control over the same domain name when they owe me money! If I say it cannot be done then I can lose the right to register domains immediately and lose every domain I control including my own to someone else to control.

Threaten with a formal complain (in writing via email address at your ISP or free email address) first and give them a period “Eg, if this isnt done in 48 hours” and if it isnt done, then you can go to another registrar and give them your business registration details and show them you own the domain and ask them to FORCIBLY take control. I have done that before when the original person who controlled the domain actually went out of business and couldnt be found on one occasion, when the person I was helping had an accounting dispute with the person they were leaving on another and when a registrar flatly refused to let anything go on yet another. If all else fails you can complain to Icann and have their heavy hand help you out, too.

can you expand on exactly how you have configured SpamAssassin to make it that accurate? with my current host, the configuration options i have are rather limited. i can alter the “required score”, but in my experience that creates more problems than it solves (i use the default value of 5). now i can also modify the scoring system by assigning specific values to specific tests, and i’ve looked at that some — but from the analysis i’ve done, that might be able to catch an additional 10-15% of the spam, which is not near enough to make SA worthwhile. and of course any solution that requires continual monitoring to adjust the rules is pretty much a non-solution as far as i’m concerned. i’m looking for a system that is a one-time setup with no ongoing monitoring (be it rules or white lists or black lists) that is 95%+ effective. i just don’t see how SA meets those criteria.

I’d be filling up a lot of space here if I put everything in. I lowered the number on my SpamAssassin to 3 and then I went about with the obvious things and put them in there for SPAM notation. I also put the customers that matter the most in my whitelist so they dont get caught up. Next, I only used the option to tag the incoming spam identified message with the word SPAM in the header until I was sure I was right AND I redirected anything with that tag in the subject name to another account so I could check things out there. Eventually I had it right by tweaking so I changed it to auto delete spam and I havent had a problem since. Oh sure I get a few spams through in any one day but SpamAssassin eventually recognises them.

You need to want to get rid of it badly enough to do all that for yourself. If you dont feel that need then there is only a half hearted way of doing it. My way, I went in boots and all. Obviously things you need to do are put words that keep reappearing in for filtering out such as viagra and variants of that word but it all works in the end that way.

Small tip – dont bother bouncing emails back to anyone. It is amusing to think they get the spam back but they never do. Quite simply, a well versed spammer keeps sending to variants of email addresses in what is similar to a dictionary attack to your server. Eg, 1@yourdomainname.com and then 1a then 1b and on and on it goes. For every single attempt to connect and deliver, your server sends out a NACK for “negative response” if the email address doesnt exist or an ACK for “email address exists”. All the spammer, who just tries to connect and not deliver when probing then does is have the NACK dropped and only the ACK in a list and there is his list of email addresses available for him at your domain. A very old trick from last century that still holds true today unfortunately, for POP addresses not controlled by something like small business servers or better (where email addresses are hosted at the premises on the server and not hosted outside the premises). Reminds me of the old days when you could just do a WHOIS on any ISP address. Before they started to wake up to it, that provided the person querying with a list of users online at that ISP. Not sure what use that was to most people but I used to like immediately emailing my brother and saying “I see you are just online NOW! Good! Been waiting for you!” to annoy the heck out of him. He never realised how easy it was to do before the ISPs started to tighten things. ;-}

Oh yeah……been online for about 23 years now roughly. Not long as far as some people are concerned but I remember reading each character individually as it came across the screen in the slow old dial up days! ;-}

I also searched here for networking discussions, but none seemed to address the problems I have experienced.
Any suggestions?

My dirt cheap and dirty answer to networking problems if you arent able to do it yourself and arent willing to pay me to fix it ;-}) is to set up the same user name on both computers with the same password assuming this is not in a company but at home or in a small company willing to do that. Then, you go through the network icon from both computers (eg, do it one way then do it back the other to be sure) and try to access a setup share you have already allowed (dirty but not so good idea is to share C drive if you are trying to diagnose a problem but remember to remove that afterwards and share only what you want shared). Dont use Win7/8 homegroups, just do it advanced. Make sure the Workgroup name is the same (hold down the windows key and tap the pause key) on both computers.

Now, with the same user with the same password on both machines you should be able to set it up dirty and easy. There are some problems a lot of people will point out with security right about now and it is a valid point but this is the dirty way to prove it either works or there is a problem with the NIC or possibly something silly like you are connected via a cable to the modem and wirelessly with the other computer to a wireless router separate from the modem and both are on different network addresses…. that sort of old bean. If it works as I have explained then you can do all the tidying up afterwards. If it doesnt then:

1) Check your workgroup name is the same on both computers down to the upper or lowercase needed. They wont make amorous googly eyes at each other without the same workgroup name.
2) Check your IP addressing is in the same range. Eg, open a CMD window and type IPCONFIG and hit enter on each machine. If one is on 10.0.0.x and the other is on 192.168.0.x then you have a problem right there. In fact one machine may have manually configured IP addressing and you forgot?
3) When checking the IP addressing, even if you are using DHCP for all and it is only the one unit giving out IP addresses, check if there is, somehow an IP address set for either machine, or both, for the gateway. This may be stuffing things up if present. If it is present, go to manual and get rid of it and back to auto and save it to clear it. If you are manually assigning and the gateway is missing or different on either or both machines you can have a problem again.
4) Lastly, you could well have a problem in registry for your networking. You can start with doing a netsh winsock reset catalog and also an ipconfig flushdns but 7 times out of 10 that wont fix the problem. I do them first anyway as sometimes it IS one of the 3 in 10 chances. If they dont work, as expected, then you need to find and download the registry network reset commands for your Windows or, if the machine was working right recently and now doesnt, try a system restore back to when it worked, first. 8 times out of 10 that saves you a lot of pf’ing about.

All in all, you need to use advanced networking setup and steer clear of the wizards on this one with Win 7 and 8. I found the wizards werent as helpful as the XP one used to be and doing it manually takes about a 10th of the time.

One thing to remember is that Microsoft has changed the licensing terms for the non-subscription Office 2013 SKUs. Each Office 2013 SKU is for ONE PC only and is tied to the ONE PC for the life of the PC. No more using Office on two PCs legally. If you get a new PC or another PC you must purchase another Office license the one you have is not transferable. This is changing the retail Office license to be more like the OEM license.

Joe

You really cant seriously believe that Microsoft has the disk space to record and keep forever, non-subscription info?

There has to be a point in time where they just kick off old data meaning that the original can then be installed on another machine, surely?

While I realise that there are people without any real interest in I.T. in the world and thus the scams, spams and spoofs that arise all the time, what gets me is that if we go back to the 1970s, for example and someone turned up at your door and said they were from your local bank and you needed to sign this withdrawal form now and gave a valid reason that sounded real, most people would call the cops immediately!!

So why is it that the same sort of scam is just believed because it appears on your device/computer? What makes people more inclined to believe what they read online versus what they read in a traditional newspaper?

Did most of the planet suddenly lose the ability to be skeptics or did the age old catch phrase everyone laughs at “It was on TV therefore it MUST be REAL!” just make people more gullible and thus accept anything on their monitor?

I am constantly assailed by scam emails. You won $45,000 in the UK lotteries! Reply to this email to collect! This is a picture of an entry on your interpol record. Did you REALLY do that disgusting thing? I am a Prince from Uganda and if you send me $25,000, I can bribe my inheritance out of the bank and I can refund you four times your investment in 3 weeks!

Whatever happened to reading with disbelief?

You know, if someone sends a scam out saying “Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane!…..etc” I am going to go around wearing my undies on the outside and scaring criminals into submission as a result because EVERYONE will believe I am SUPERMAN (or Batman, depending on the colour of my undies on any given day! ;-})

Wake up World! People lie a lot. They also send lies to you hoping you are gullible! Start by NOT believing things then trying to prove they are real! If you cant prove they are real then assume they arent!

Sheesh!

i’m looking for an inexpensive hosting company that has a good spam filtering option. i don’t need anything fancy as far as the web pages go, just a robust POP email solution. the company i currently use offers SpamAssassin, which is totally useless (at least as configured by the hosting company, but i get the impression that SpamAssassin is pretty much outdated period). i know it’s possible to do very effective spam filtering, as Google and Yahoo have it mastered pretty well. i just need to find a hosting company that does it as well.

FWIW, i am looking at using Google apps for email, and that solution does look pretty good — but there are a few quirks and limitations that i don’t like. ideally there’s a shared hosting company that has a product that does exactly what i want. i have to believe there’s a huge market for this.

lee

A few things:

1) I do web site hosting myself but please dont take this as me trying to get your business. I just wanted to point that out so you dont think I dont have a clue.
2) SpamAssassin is the best there is but it isnt “correct out of the box” for every single person. You have to take the time to get used to it. SpamAssassin is very intuitive. I get over 3,000 spams sent to me a day on average and out of that a week I might get up to 10 come through and I will see them again a few times then they stop coming through because SpamAssassin can learn what you dont want by your settings and by what is obviously spam according to whatever lists it accesses of spam emails.

SpamAssassin has been around a long time but it doesnt mean it is no good. I suggest you take the time to learn it and configure it to your own needs. You wont be disappointed, then. Having said that, if you use GoDaddy or one of their affiliates or resellers, it is more than possible that good email will be filtered out by them before it even gets to your anti spam software so if you use SpamAssassin through them, it may all be pointless at that point.

http://domain-name-registrars.findthebest.com/
or just go to fatcow:
http://www.fatcow.com/

Dont know why you would bother. Just set yourself up as a reseller with your domain registrar you like the best then go set up your own domain names and even those of friends and add a few bucks to the top of it for yourself for the convenience you provide. That is what a lot of web designers do. I register domains, host domains and do the site as well as all the I.T. work and it all ends up making you a few bucks here and there. That is why you would register yourself as a reseller.

I use GoDaddy for that sort of thing. They are cheap and provide free email and hosting with the registration, but the purchase process is long and convoluted, designed to make you spend more money. Just scroll to the bottom of the page and select the “no thanks” or whatever it’s called today button to skip the additional items.

cheers, Paul

Dont use GoDaddy. If you subscribe to anything important, you may not get it. I was getting jobs from the local government owned lottery agency and one day I stopped getting anything at all. After a few days I rang them and they were annoyed I hadnt responded and HAD sent jobs to me. So I got them to send another while I waited on the phone. Nothing. I checked all my own filter settings on my domain and nothing was wrong. I had even whitelisted them.

I rang GoDaddy and guess what? They RESERVE THE RIGHT to filter SPAM out before it gets to YOUR filters YOU had set up. I asked them to stop doing that and allow it all to come through but they wouldnt and said that spam filtering is THEIR right. I pointed out that they are costing me money and their response was to get all the mail server names I think I need to get email from that company and any other company I may deal with in the future and tell them so they can whitelist it. HUH!?!? My response was to change to Hostgator and the mail started flowing through again and I never had that problem reoccur.

GoDaddy cost me income from lost jobs with their idea that they will do what they want regardless of what you want or what is happening to you.

Hi,This is my first post, please forgive me if I don’t know proper ettiquette. I have a problem in Windows does not recognise USB device, namely a Logitech Wireless Mouse. I have previously been using it successfully and it works on another computer. I get a message saying One of the USB devices has malfunctioned and Windows does not recognise it. Also when I plug in my Microsoft (wired) mouse it does not work. It also works on another computer. I have changed the battery in the wireless mouse. I have tried to get help and have done some troubleshooting. I am not so cluey on computers, I have just purchased the Windows 7 for dummies. I have unistalled and reinstalled the driver. Any ssistance would be greatly appreciated.
brencoz

I read in the newsletter this was solved but I thought I would add my bit:

In 2002, I bought my first Laptop a Pearl (AKA Clevo) 2200T. It was 5Kg and it ran HOT. In fact, turn it on and have it running 10 minutes (even though brand new just out of the box) and the machine would – and did – burn your legs if you used it as a laptop. This occasioned using a wooden bread loaf cutting board (because it wasnt greasy and crumbs were not on it when I used it) to put on my legs and the laptop on that. THAT was a big mistake I wasnt aware of. I burned the CPU out not long after getting it and again about 6 weeks later, each time being replaced under warranty. Finally (and belatedly) realised it was a heat problem EVEN THOUGH the vents were not blocked and the heat exchanger was working, I snatched a cake stand from the cupboard and put the laptop on it and it never burned out again. A cake stand is like a wire frame thing that hot cakes out of the oven stand on.

Why did that make a difference? Apart from the obvious release of heat from the computer with some flowthrough for air, the fact is that ANY wooden surface soaks heat in from anything, including a laptop. At some point it will reach maximum saturation point given the amount of heat coming out of the computer and stay there. All the while it is trying to get rid of heat, not very well as it is WOOD and the only place that the heat can go is straight back UP to the laptop. This, in turn, makes the laptop hotter and as we all know, the hotter the computer, the slower it is. So the computer fan tries to force more out but it only has SO MUCH capacity and thus the surface touching the wood gets hotter. The wood soaks the new heat in and keeps throwing it back and the cycle continues.

These days it is unlikely you would burn a CPU out but you DO lessen the life of your computer and it runs badly or possibly just not as fast. You can buy yourself a $70 or more conttraption that your laptop sits on that is a combination of fans and coolers of some sort that keep the laptop cooler and feel happy about it. Most work just fine. Just one thing – my idea cost me less than $2. Today, this laptop I am typing on was one I bought in 2007 with Vista Ultimate on it, since updated to Win 7 Ultimate (always 64 bit naturally) and updated from the original 2gig to 4gig when I realised Vista wouldnt play nice with only 2gig ram and the hard drive dying necessitating a new one earlier this year. Naturally all that is easy to do and no data loss with True Image but watch out with the modern day drives. I couldnt upate Windows at all until I updated the drivers for the SATA drive.

Anyway, my laptop is scratched and somewhat dirty because I work “In the trenches” doing all the grunt I.T. work and the thing is still working just fine. Will I update it? Sure, eventually but for the moment, I cant see why I should spend money on something new when the old thing still moves well.

Do yourselves a favour – use a cake stand!

You also ought to consider the fact that the newer SATA drives can break Windows Update when you move your Win 7 from an older drive to a newer one. I had all sorts of trouble, couldnt do a darned thing for Win 7 update (apparently also applies to Vista) and eventually I did find out that you need to update the drivers for these drives from either the drive manufacturer or as in my case, the computer manufacturer, mine being a HP laptop. After that is done, updates flow again. This SHOULD be something that is a patch from Microsoft for all users IMHO.