Terry's Computer Tips - Newsletter
March 19, 2006

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Terry's Computer Tips Newsletter
http://www.terryscomputertips.com
A computer tips newsletter for users of PC's.

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Volume 1, Number 40 — Sunday, March 19, 2006

Part 1  Part 2  Part 3

IN THIS WEEK'S E-MAIL ISSUE:
   0.   JUST FOR SUBSCRIBERS — EMAIL ONLY
   0.1   Welcome To New Subscribers!
   0.2   For Baton Rouge Subscribers!
   0.3   Comments and Questions from a Subscriber
   0.4   Still More Gmail Accounts Available
   0.5   My Computer Security Software Recommendations
   0.6   Recommend my Terry's Computer Tips Newsletter to Your Friends
   0.7   Reading PDF Files
   0.8   Subscription FAQ
   0.9   Send me some email!
   0.10   Links to products and services mentioned above

IN THIS WEEK'S ON-LINE ISSUE:
   1.   An Easier Way to Back Up Firefox Bookmarks
   2.   Updates Last Week
   3.   More New Web Pages at www.TerrysComputerTips.com
   4.   Reader Comments
   5.   QuickTime without iTunes
   6.   My Computer Security Software Recommendations
   7.   National Webcast Initiative - Archive Update - Identity Theft
   8.   My Software Choices
   9.   Recommend my Terry's Computer Tips Newsletter to Your Friends

Welcome to the on-line version of my Terry's Computer Tips newsletter.

My free, emailed newsletter includes a special "Just for Subscribers" article, an announcement that the new issue of Terry's Computer Tips has been published on-line, and the table of contents for the issue.

The emailed newsletter is sent weekly to individuals who have subscribed to the newsletter, have received an email confirmation notice that required them to confirm their subscription request, and who confirmed their request.

Click here to subscribe. It's free!

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1.  An Easier Way to Back Up Firefox Bookmarks

Subscriber Janusz Lukasiak wrote to remind me that there is an easier way to back up Firefox bookmarks

Your advice given in Newsletter 38SE is of course correct, but it requires, among others, making hidden file visible. In my experience, this is a bit confusing for some folks - I mean not so much the 'unhide' procedure, but the suddent appearance of so many 'new' folders and files, including a temptation to mess with them, usually with disastrous consequences :(

Would it be advisable to give another, IMHO safer, tip in addition to the one in the Newsletter? In FF, click Bookmarks -> Manage Bookmarks and then in the 'Bookmarks Manager' window click File -> Export. This creates a .html/.htm file with the bookmarks in the place, and with the name, of your choice.

Kind regards, and many thanks for the newsletter.
Janusz Lukasiak

Thanks, Janusz. That's a very good point, and it's probablly a much better way for most users.

I've been backing up bookmarks so long the hard way — the way that actually works all the time — that I hadn't really tried Export in a long time. Also, since I back up all my data files every night using Karen's Replicator, _my_ real backup process lets me simply copy & paste a file into a new program installation — and I'm finished.

I stopped using the "Export" functions during the early versions of Netscape, Opera and IE because the function was pretty useless. Of course, I was trying to import the bookmarks into a different web browser -- and then, the other browser often would not import them.

Since Janusz reminded me, I rewrote the page Backing Up Your Firefox Bookmarks to focus on the Export method, with "the hard way" as an alternative method.

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2.  Updates Last Week

Microsoft (operating systems, email, web browser, office suites):
Tuesday was the scheduled monthly Microsoft products update day.

Everybody got the "Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool - March 2006 (KB890830)" update. This is Microsoft's quick hit at some of the more nasty programs — especially those that try to attack the Microsoft web site.

If you have any version of Office, you had the joy of yet another version of the Windows Validation Tool. Hopefully, you remembered to actually do your updates after this time-wasting exercise. Unfortunately, if you aren't paying attention, you might think that this actually was the updates you needed.

If you have Office 2003, you had the following updates:

• Update for Outlook 2003 (KB913807)
  Download size: 8.6 MB
  This update to Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 corrects a problem that may occur when you use the CreateItemFromTemplate method programmatically to create a form. This update includes previously released security updates for Outlook 2003.
• Security Update for Excel 2003 (KB905756)
  Download size: 4.9 MB
  A security vulnerability exists in Microsoft Office Excel 2003 that could allow arbitrary code to run when opening a malicious document. This update addresses that vulnerability.
• Update for Outlook 2003 Junk Email Filter (KB913161)
  Download size: 3.1 MB
  This update provides the Junk E-mail Filter in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 with a more current definition of which e-mail messages should be considered junk e-mail.

If you have Office XP (also known as Office 2002) on your computer, you received these updates in addition to the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool:

• Update for Office XP (KB913471)
  Download size: 596 KB
  Microsoft has released an update to the spelling checker for Microsoft Office XP. This update significantly improves how Office XP programs find and correct errors in Dutch language documents.
• Security Update for Word 2002 (KB905754)
  Download size: 4.9 MB
  A security vulnerability exists in Microsoft Word 2002 that could allow arbitrary code to run when opening a malicious document. This update addresses that vulnerability.
• Security Update for Excel 2002 (KB905755)
  Download size: 13.1 MB
  A security vulnerability exists in Microsoft Excel 2002 that could allow arbitrary code to run when opening a malicious document. This update addresses that vulnerability.
• Security Update for Outlook 2002 (KB905649)
  Download size: 2.6 MB
  A security vulnerability exists in Microsoft Outlook 2002 that could allow arbitrary code to run when opening a malicious document. This update addresses that vulnerability.

One totally unexpected thing happened with Excel 2003 in these updates. After updating, I ran Excel 2003 and got a warning dialog box "Microsoft Excel can't load Speech Recognition files. This feature is not currently installed. Would you like to install it now? Yes / No."

Unfortunately, this dialog box started every time I started Excel. Finally, I clicked Yes and then Cancel. It appears that Cancel didn't really work -- the next thing I saw was the speech recognition toolbar. Fortunately, I could turn this off.

Firefox (web browser, www.mozilla.com, free):
Current version 1.5.0.1. No updates this week (v1.5.0.1 was released on February 3).

Opera (web browser, www.opera.com, free):
No updates. Version 8.53 was released during the week of March 6, 2006.

Netscape (web browser, www.netscape.com, free):
Current version 8.1.

SeaMonkey (web browser, email, HTML editor, newsreader; www.mozilla.org; free):
Current version 1.0, released January 30.

Eudora (email, www.eudora.com, options: paid, sponsored or free/lite):
No updates this week. Current version 7.0.1.0, released 12/21/05.

Mozilla Thunderbird (email, www.mozilla.com, free):
Current version 1.5.

OpenOffice (office suite — spreadsheet, word processor, presentations, graphics, web design; www.openoffice.org; free):
Version 2.02 released for Windows during the week of March 6th.

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3.  More New Web Pages at www.TerrysComputerTips.com

Subscribers to my Terry's Computer Tips email newsletter saw these new web pages earlier in the week. On Wednesday they received a Special Edition which included a new article and the listing of new "unlisted" web pages &mdash new web pages that I had not added to the web site's front page or the computer tips index yet.

I still have a lot more newsletter articles to convert into web pages. As I wrote earlier, Google has indexing issues with newsletters, so I'm converting articles from older issues into individual web pages..

I'm not sure whether they index and then de-index them based on age, or whether they just have trouble because of the varying content on a page. I think it is more likely the age issue, as I can find some issues but later can not find the same issues in a Google search of my site.

My latest new pages are the following:

• Adding a Wireless Router to a Network
• Wireless Router and Wireless Card Recommendations
• svchost.exe - What is it and why are so many copies running?
• Backing Up Your Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird and Netscape Profiles
• How about a Free Internet Service?
• How about a Free Internet Service? Part 2
• Have a Broadband Connection? Need a backup?
• Restoring Your Outlook Express EMail Folders
• Restoring Your Outlook Express Address Book

I haven't updated the home page or the Computer Tips page to include these, yet. I'll do that in the next couple days.

Subscribe to my free email Terry's Computer Tips newsletter to get the latest information, be the first to see new web pages, and get Special Editions, too.

 

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Part 1  Part 2  Part 3

Volume 1, Number 40 — Sunday, March 19, 2006
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Copyright © 2006 Terry A. Stockdale.  All rights reserved.