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The article starts by almost encouraging clicks on things you were not expecting to get. Let’s start by placing a sign on mouse and keyboard saying “If you were not expecting to receive this, delete it without stupid experimentation no matter who it claims to be from ##$&#@$%%^&”.

In many years of liberally following that rule, I’ve often heard people say that I will loose things that I should have received. The chances of that happening are low, in my case it’s been 1 or 2 since the beginning of the Internet. Disobey that rule and the chances are very high that you will find out there’s a reason for that rule. This covers malware in ZIP files, links to malware sites, shortened URL’s, etc!

The second rule is effective anti-virus and firewall.

I have the feeling that you are all talking about the same thing and I’m involved in something else. I looked at the document that BruceR referenced and used REGEDIT to get to the key referenced. I don’t understand why you are all saying that shortcuts on the desktop and Start Menu are all supposed to be .LNK when in the past 14 years they’ve always been .EXE’s for me. In the example at http://tweaklibrary.com/System/File-System/65/Show-the-extension-for-the-Shortcut-(LNK)-files/10421/, all the user created shortcuts are text files where usually shortcuts are to programs??!! I’m missing something in this?! If any of you could straighten me out, I’d sure appreciate it. I’ve been thinking the fix will require a backup and then reload/refresh Windows. But I hat to do that since I’ll have a lot of stuff to re-install.

Medico;

I do have “Display the full path in the title bar” checked and I am using Clasic Theme. I don’t understand the connection to seeing .LNK instead of .EXE however. And it’s changed ALL icons on the desktop to the icon for WordPerfect also and thus every desktp icon brings up WordPerfect!

Zig;

The exclamation point was indeed editorial comment. Because I was surprised to see all shortcuts change to .LNK while on my other 2 computers they are still .EXE. When I click on any of the .LNKs, it brings up WprdPerfect and tries to convert the .LNK to text and then realizes that’s an invalid conversion. Back thru at least Windows98, all shortcuts were .EXE. Right click on any of your desktop icons and click Properties and you should find them all to be .EXE

😡 Spank the bad mouse? No that doesn’t work either

Like the others here, I have a very odd mouse problem. It is intermittent but happens often. I’ve tried 2 different USB optical mice and they both do the same thing. I’ve shifted to a different USB port and nothing changes. I’ve run all the hardware diagnostics that dell provides and there are no reported problems. I try the mouse on a different computer and the problem doesn’t exist.
While typing a document in any MS-Word, Corel-Word Perfect, Open Office, NotePad, WordPad, thunderbird, firefox, IE, Amdocs or anything else, the mouse pointer jumps to some other place and typing continues where it lands within words or within or outside of a line, anyplace in a blank line further down the document where I have not been to yet, or even in another document in a non active window! And while typing in a wrong place it can jump someplace else and continue inserting characters from there. I have to keep watch or it may have skipped around to many places before I see it. It works exactly as if I had moved the mouse pointer to a different place and then clicked at that location. Sometimes it selects a bunch of text where it lands and if I don’t see that happen it replaces the selected text with whatever I type!

My router is in my DSL modem up on top of a bookcase in the next room. I don’t have a D-Link router. No matter what surface I use the mouse on, the problem still happens. Changing to another USB for the mouse doesn’t cause the problem to get any better and hopefully not any worse. It’s not a Logitech mouse or a wireless mouse. Sometimes when I click and drag it hesitates for some number of seconds. When I keep the button clicked in order to drag, I can see the mouse pointer stop, sometimes with the mouse trail stopped also.

I googled “mouse jumps” and nothing there fixes the problem. I found a program free on the Internet called TouchFreeze that supposedly fixes the problem. No problems occurred for at least 30 seconds. In short, it doesn’t fix the problem even though it’s logic sounds very plausible.

I’ve been fighting this for at least the last 3 months. At this point I find myself thinking that Microsoft doesn’t allow their optical mice to work after 6 or so years. Can anyone help with a solution for this????

For those on TBird, I wanted a little more control, such as where the message files reside. I ended up with the Portable version which I now run off a thumb drive, program and message files. When I need my email on another system I just take the thumb drive with me!

Typically, we enter a password and it’s then converted. But then the password it’s self and the converted are in memory. Can’t a clever hacker pick that out of memory?

If we have a password manager open and presumably in memory, what keeps a hacker from picking all your passwords out of memory?

And a password manager is pretty easy for the programmers/analysts/managers who wrote the password manager to break into? Disgruntled ex employes from a password manager would seem to be a threat also?

I guess I worded that wrong. I was looking at an Internet session where we are repetitivly accessing a password keeper and how safe that situation would be. So we log in to one site, the password keeper is read into memory, we access one secure site and then another and … At the first access to a secure site, a password keeper is read into memory. Subsequent access to other sites would find the password keeper is still in memory. This might go on for hours. What prevents a hacker from having his code lurking around trying to see a password keeper in memory?? And then when something that looks like a password keeper is found, just send that files buffer area to the hacker. In other words, the passwordword keeper remains in memory until we close Internet access. And that gives our hacker the ability to possibly find our password keeper in memory waiting for a next access.

If I didn’t make better sense this time, let me try a few more cracks at it. The other responses to my question were all valuable and address the original article in WS. And I appreciate them because they all do address passwords and things to consider.

Thanks to all

YUP! But there will be PC’s around for at least as long as you or I are still alive!

Interesting article, but it failed to see how the tablet will or should evolve.

I was putting off getting a tablet to see where things would go and it didn’t happen fast enough for me. I bought an Acer 10″ screen with Windows7. I choose that one because I have 2 programs that I run all the time that are not made for IOS or Android but do run on Windows (I also have 2 Internet sites open and active along with other Internet access and email, and a non-MS firewall and anti-virus, etc.). And I wanted to find out how a tablet would work for me. I was amazed how well it worked with what I do. The only difference between the Acer and my Dell laptop with a 17″ screen was the screen size and speed.

Makers of tablets apparently did not believe how much ram Windows7 needs or how fast the processor needed to be to run to days programs. The Acer has a 1GHz processor and only 1GB of memory, but it does have a physical keyboard that attaches and makes a nice stand, which unfortunately falls off each time you pick their tablet up!

The advantage to Windows is that instead of buying apps, you just download what you need from the Internet.

With Windows, the tablet IS a replacement for a laptop or desktop and I believe that was the original intent for tablets. But before I get another tablet, there will have to be a tablet with 4 USB’s, Windows and 4GB memory if it’s 32bit (and that’s maximum memory on 32bit), or at least 6GB memory if it’s 64bit. And the processor has to be at least 1.7GHz. And 240GB HDD would not take any more room than the current 32GB or 64GB HDD. From what little I’ve seen and heard about Windows8, it would have a hard time being an acceptable replacement for even a Windows 95. Many users are very tired of MS’s “new” OS that is just Windows98 with menus switched around, some bugs fixed, and other cosmetic changes. And of course a few new bugs.

We also have a Dell Mini 9″ which is really too small a screen. The 10″ tablet which is larger than the iPad, was a great improvement and there are 12″ tablets available which is what I would like to have. It is important for the tablets to weigh about one pound. The Acer tablet at about 2 pounds with it’s physical keyboard is a little bit of a problem because of weight.

I suspect that the other tablet’s are in need of a lot more memory and better processor speed since they are doing the same things that Windows does. Tablets running other OS’s tend to be about half the price of tablets running Windows. That’s an indication that Windows must be doing something right even though you have to buy a “new” Windows every few years. Other OS’s know what to do with a .JPG file or a .HTML file and process all sorts of file types the same way as MS. Why can’t they also process a .EXE file?

Maybe someone needs to think about a screen that folds in half??? Then we could have an 8.5 x 11″!!

Typically, we enter a password and it’s then converted. But then the password it’s self and the converted are in memory. Can’t a clever hacker pick that out of memory?

If we have a password manager open and presumably in memory, what keeps a hacker from picking all your passwords out of memory?

And a password manager is pretty easy for the programmers/analysts/managers who wrote the password manager to break into? Disgruntled ex employes from a password manager would seem to be a threat also?

UEFI sounds goofy What it sounds more like is Microsoft getting control over our computers! They are too deep into us already. They will need to OK us moving Windows from an older system! Oh! But they wouldn’t do that would they. And how long do you think it will take for the hackers to crack this? They are probably ready for this already. We will go from something that is simple and not controlled by Microsoft to something that no longer is in accordance with the ideals of the KISS method! That’s Keep It Simple Stupid! And the UEFI documentation is mostly hidden so that we will have no way to see what’s happening. This is goodbye to our computers.

I have a monster project. There is about 30,000 pages of genealogy notes.Copy of pages originally hand written 1900-1955
Copy done in early 80’s Pages still quite readable
Paper slightly discolored from age

From what I read in this thread, there’s a lot of great knowledge and experience with scanners here. And I do need some advice.

Below is a short write-up of what I believe I need in scanner software. I curently have an HP PSC 950 all-in-one and I have a system with WindowsME, another with WindowsXP, another with Vista and this system with Windows7.

The operation that I envision is scan a page, add descriptions to be indexed and page number for a second index. Edit out black left by copy machine, add some text, save the document and continue thru 30,000 pages.

With your knowledge, can you suggest a package that seems to give me what I list below? And if you know a scanner particularly good with this type of input, I’d like to hear about that.

When a scan session is started, enter the beginning page number and allow user to display that record and then continue displaying next, previous or by page number. If the intended page does not exist, allow the user to specify a page number or go into scan/edit.

Need to scan a page and display it, display page number index, allow entry of one to 5 description lines and each line is a single entry to a description index. Do not index blank description lines. Input page is 8.5″ wide by 11″ top to bottom. Must be able to crop and move selected areas (including descriptions, page number, any thing added and any scanned information) to a different location. Recorded image display format is scanned page followed by about .5 inch blank line followed by 1st line of description leftmost and page number and alpha suffix about .5 inch from right-most margin and then up to 4 lines of description.

Page number is 5 digits which will increment by 1 after each page is saved. A few pages will have in the 6th position (right most) an alpha character suffix entered by person doing the scan. Must be able to change the page number before the scan is saved and the entered page number will be incremented by 1 as the page is saved.

Need the ability to mouse a square or oblong of any size and have it cleared and then I can enter text or leave it blank. Need the background cleaned up a bit and approval for each place. Must be able to select an area and have the program sharpen all characters, shapes, etc within the selected area.

Need the ability to delete a page with it’s changes and re-scan so that editing can be redone.

Color and OCR not used in this project.

I know that this a temporary connection. Do you have a script to repeat the connection? Or can it be saved to re-start later?

At the end Fred says “When you’re through using your new network, simply disconnect both laptops from the ad hoc connection.“. How do we do the disconnect? Is there something on the screen to disconnect? Do we just hit the X in the upper right corner? or?

Thanks
Chris Coddington

For using a computer at home, it’s pretty hard to keep people aware of what causes heat. I bought an external Belkin fan that is in a device for holding the computer and it does keep the system very cool. And many people will spend too much purchasing a system and don’t want to spend a small amount to protect it.

I had a case where there was a server and about 6 to 8 computers. The server was wedged in between a wall and a long desk used for computers. Need I say that the network would not run for even a couple of hours without comming to a halt. The space where the computer was wedged was so tight that it was almost impossible to get out. To make things worse there was a large window right above the server with sun shining on the top of the server most of the day.

A few years ago I purchased a HP 9207us and it ran hot right from day one. After a couple of years it burned up it’s motherboard and of course HP will not even respond to emails on that subject. If you look on the Internet for HP overheats you will see many items on the overheating of HP series 9000 and most other HP systems. The bad part of this is that a person is used to having it run hot so you don’t recognize a gradual worsening of the heat situation.

In Vista and perhaps Windows7, defrag has the nasty habit of shutting off hibernate. So there is at least one bad side of defrag.