Page revised: June 07, 2010
LACS Computer Forum: Sep 9, 2003
Information on selected items discussed:

1. Testing your Anti Virus (AV) program - After installing an AV program you may wish to test it to ensure that it actually detects viruses.  An easy way to do this is to download AV test files from EICAR (European Institute for Computer Anti Virus Research).

To verify that your AV program is checking your incoming mail, send yourself a message attaching an AV test file.  When doing this you may need to temporarily disable your AV program to send the test message and re-enable it before receiving the message.

2. Pop-Up Stoppers - There are many pop-up stoppers, some free, some not.  Several users have reported that the one Google recently released (free) works well.  Note: Only works on Internet Explorer v5.5 or later, (click here).  For several others (Freeware) and (Shareware).

3. Reducing boot time - To reduce the time it takes your computer to boot up, configure your system not to load selected programs.  To see what programs are running, press the <Ctrl-Alt-Del> keys simultaneously.  The only essential programs are Explorer and Systray.  Besides the preceding programs, some users load only those programs they use frequently while others load only the essential programs.  No one way works well for all. 

Probably the biggest problem you'll encounter in reducing the number of programs you load at boot up is to identify what they are.  Following are some web sites (in no particular order) which have identification information for most programs you may find:

Site 1 | Site 2 | Site 3 | Site 4 | Site 5

Windows 98 and later include a utility (msconfig.exe)  to make the necessary startup changes.  For a tutorial, (click here).  

For other startup utilities, (click here); one highly recommended one is (Starter).

Section revised: June 7, 2010

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LACS Computer Forum: Oct 14, 2003
Information on selected items discussed:

1. What's a "good book" for learning Windows XP?- A visitor (don't recall her name) recommended the Simplified series of books from maranGraphics and shared a copy of a book for a Windows application from the series.  The books in this series are characterized by featuring annotated illustrations of the display screen.

2. Backup - Do you currently backup your data from several directories using drag & drop?  If you do there are many free programs to simplify your life.  Following are a few: 
Site 1 | Site 2) | Site 3

3. eCleaner - If you forward e-mail jokes to your friends you will be better appreciated if it doesn't arrive with >'s at the beginning of every line. This free program removes them from e-mail messages, making them look cleaner, and fixes 'picket fence' line wraps.  Recommended by Bill Hughes.  To download, (click here).

Another program of this type is StripMail.

Some Clipboard Extender programs include an option to remove >'s at the beginning of every line.   One such program (shareware) is ClipCache Plus.

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LACS Computer Forum: Nov 11, 2003
Information on selected items discussed:

1. Web3000 - Web3000 is Adware (presents ads to you); it may also be Spyware (spies on you and sends data back 'home').  For additional information, (click here).  Some report that it's difficult to remove all aspects the program and restore any changes it may have made,
(click here).

2. Ad-aware & SpyBot - These are two popular utilities (free; 'pay' versions are also available) which, among other things, will scan your  memory, registry, hard, removable and optical drives for known Datamining, aggressive advertising, Parasites, Scumware, Keyloggers, selected traditional Trojans, Dialers, Malware, Browser hijackers, and tracking components, and have provisions to remove detected items. 

NOTE - Before using these powerful utilities, take heed of the cautions and warnings on their respective web sites, (Ad-aware) , (Spybot).

3. Software Firewalls - Hardware firewalls control the access to your computer but do not control what are permitted to send out information.  In today's world control the latter is increasing in importance.  As an example some worms send out messages to those in your address book.  Following is a selection of software firewalls, (freeware) and (shareware).

To test your firewall setup (from outside attacks only), an on line test is available (here).

4. Clipboard - The Clipboard is a key feature of Windows.  Briefly, it  permits you to copy selected material from a document, an email message, a web page, etc. and paste it where you wish.  Following are two tutorials, (tutorial1) and (tutorial2).  The Windows Clipboard capability is limited since  it can handle only one clip at a time.  Fortunately there are many Clipboard Extender programs, both (freeware) and (shareware). 

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LACS Computer Forum: Dec 9, 2003
Because of the holiday party, there was no Computer Forum this month.  During the festivities, the following question was asked:

1. Dial-Up Networking:
Q: How do you set up an additional connectoid so that you can dial into your ISP on another number?

A: The following is applicable to Win 98SE and may apply to other versions of Windows:  Left click on My Computer | Dial-Up Networking | Make New Connection.  Enter the data requested. 

It may helpful to view the data of an existing connectoid.  To do this go to the Dial-Up Networking (as above) | right click on the particular connectoid icon | left click on Properties.

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