Terry's Computer Tips - Newsletter
March 25, 2007

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

Volume 2, Number 41 — Sunday, March 25, 2007

Part 1  | Part 2  | Part 3 | Part 4

IN THIS WEEK'S ON-LINE ISSUE:
   1.   Windows Anti-Piracy Measures Work
   2.   Updates Last Week
   3.   Out of Hard Drive Space
   4.   Technological Obsolescence
   5.   Customizing "My Yahoo!"
   6.   My Computer Security Software Recommendations
   7.   Solving a Flash Drive Not Recognized Problem
   8.   Recommend my Terry's Computer Tips Newsletter to Your Friends

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

My emailed newsletter is sent weekly to individuals who have subscribed to the newsletter. Click here to subscribe. It's free!

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1.  Windows Anti-Piracy Measures Work

Subscriber Richard Austin wrote me this week about an experience a colleague had.

One of my co-workers was messing around with his son’s computer. He installed one of the “Corporate keys” on a copy of Windows XP Pro. Whe he finished, he went on line to get the updates. The Windows Genuine Advantage got downloaded and installed on his system. It immediately informed him that his system was hot then proceeded to lock his system to a private IP address which effectively locked him off the internet. He went into the system to change the IP address which appeared to work until he tried to go on the internet at which time, the system reverted to the private address. Looks like Micro$oft is getting aggressive. The only way around this was to reinstall Windows
Great Newsletter
Richard Austin

Thanks for the story, Richard. It's nice to see that all the inconveniences that legimate users have to put up with are actually working to block piracy of Windows copies.

I think that's an interesting effect. Since Windows XP looks for the key during the install process, he managed to spend all the time necessary to do the install.

Then, he went online to get his updates -- and that's when his system was disabled.

The good news (for him) would be that he didn't waste any time installing additional programs.

Hopefully this story will help another reader avoid such a problem.

 

2.  Updates Last Week

Microsoft (operating systems, email, web browser, office suites):
Microsoft releases almost all updates once per month, on the second Tuesday. There were was one "High Priority" updae this week.

Windows Genuine Advantage Notification (KB905474) The Windows Genuine Advantage Notification tool notifies you if your copy of Windows is not genuine. If your system is found to be a non-genuine, the tool will help you obtain a licensed copy of Windows.

My choice was to Unselect the update and to tell Windows Update not to show it to me again.

Subscribers to my Terry's Computer Tips email newsletter learned about this on Wednesday and learned how to block this update.

Firefox (web browser, http://www.mozilla.com, free):
Versions 2.0.0.3 and 1.5.0.11 were released on March 20, 2007.

The Mozilla Foundation will continue updating Firefox 1.5.x until April 24, 2007. Now's the time to upgrade to Firefox v2. Firefox is free.

Opera (web browser, http://www.opera.com, free):
Version 9.10 was released December 18th. This release of Opera introduces "Fraud Protection" as well as user-interface and stability changes. Read the details.

Netscape (web browser, http://browser.netscape.com, free):
No update this week. Version 8.1.2 was released during the week ending September 30.

US-CERT issued a press-release on November 8th that recommended that Netscape users turn off JavaScript. (Mozilla Firefox, SeaMonkey and Thunderbird were subject to the same issues, but new versions were released on November 8th to solve the problem.) AOL still has not updated Netscape to the new version of the underlying "Gecko" browser.

SeaMonkey (web browser, email, HTML editor, newsreader; http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey; free): Version 1.1.1 and version 1.0.8 were released on February 28, 2007. These are security update and stability releases.

Eudora (email, http://www.eudora.com, options: paid, sponsored or free/lite):
No update last week. Version 7.1.0.9 was released October 11, 2006. This was announced as to be the last commercial version before Eudora becomes open-source in the first half of 2007.

Warning: If you're running "Sponsored Mode" in a version before 7.1.0.9, you need to update now to the current version NOW. Sponsored mode in the earlier versions will expire on March 31st — and will revert to the less-functional "Lite" mode.

Mozilla Thunderbird (email, http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird, free):
Thunderbird version 1.5.0.10 was released on March 1, 2007. This version includes stability improvements and security fixes.

OpenOffice (office suite — spreadsheet, word processor, presentations, graphics, web design; http://www.openoffice.org; free):
Version 2.1 was released during the week ending December 24th.

Part 1  | Part 2  | Part 3 | Part 4

Volume 2, Number 41 — Sunday, March 25, 2007

Copyright © 2007 Terry A. Stockdale.  All rights reserved.