Terry's Computer Tips - Newsletter
August 5, 2007
Terry's Computer Tips Newsletter
http://www.terryscomputertips.com
A computer tips newsletter for users of PC's.
Volume 3, Number 8 — Sunday, August 5, 2007
Part 1 | Part 2
IN THIS WEEK'S ON-LINE ISSUE:
1. Wikipedia — the Free Online Encyclopedia Edited by You
2. Updates Last Week
3. Cable and DSL Speeds — What's wrong with this picture?
4. Followup on NOD32 Antivirus
5. My Computer Security Software Recommendations
6. Quick Tips
7. Recommend my Terry's Computer Tips Newsletter to Your Friends
Welcome to the on-line edition of my Terry's Computer Tips newsletter.
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1. Wikipedia — the Free Online Encyclopedia Edited by You
What is Wikipedia? It's the free encyclopedia. More interestingly, it's a free online encyclopedia that is edited by its readers.
You may have already heard the name "wiki", which is the name for a type of web site that is created by its visitors. Many wikis allow anonymous editing, at least to some extent.
More wiki's require users to create accounts before giving them creation or editing permissions. Others restrict editing capabilities to authorized users, but use wiki software because of its ease of content creation and handling.
Wikipedia is available in ten (10) languages, although the numbers of articles in each language differ. Of course, you can also use an electronic translator, such as http://www.google.com/translate, to translate articles into even more languages.
You can spend hours digging through Wikipedia for fun, or find the information you want very quickly with its search functions. Visit Wikipedia.org and learn more about just about everything...
2. Updates Last Week
Microsoft (operating systems, email, web browser, office suites):
Microsoft releases almost all updates once per month, on the second Tuesday. This week did not include Patch Tuesday.
Firefox (web browser, http://www.mozilla.com, free):
New Version — version 2.0.0.6 was released on August 1, 2007. This was a security update.
Firefox is free!
Opera (web browser, http://www.opera.com, free):
Version 9.22 was released on July 19th. This release of a recommended security upgrade, in addition to having several other changes and bug fixes.
Netscape (web browser, http://browser.netscape.com, free):
Version 9.0b2 (beta version) was released during the week ending July 22, 2007.
SeaMonkey (web browser, email, HTML editor, newsreader; http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey; free): New Version! Version 1.1.4 was released on August 3, 2007. This was primarily a security update.
Eudora (email, http://www.eudora.com):
No update last week. Version 7.1.0.9 was released October 11, 2006. Eudora is now free, with no ads and no "paid mode" option.
Sponsored mode in the earlier versions expired on March 31st — and reverted to the less-functional "Lite" mode. Fortunately, Eudora is very nicely designed. Just upgrade to v7.1.0.9 to get back to Sponsored mode.
Mozilla Thunderbird (email, http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird, free):
New Version! Thunderbird version 2.0.0.6 was released on August 1, 2007. This is primarily a security update.
OpenOffice (office suite — spreadsheet, word processor, presentations, graphics, web design; http://www.openoffice.org; free): Version 2.2.1 was released during the week ending June 16th. This is a security fix and bug fix release, with no new features.
3. Cable and DSL Speeds — What's wrong with this picture?
I've read some recent mailing list comments that were complaining about the huge differences in upload and download speeds in residential Internet service pacakges from cable companies and phone (DSL) companies.
The writers always point to the ISP's commercial package offerings as proof that "they could give us highspeed uploads, too, if they chose." Unfortunately, though, the writers aren't considering that there are technological forces at work, not just the marketing plans of the Internet service providers.
Many times, the complainers wish to host their own web servers on their residential ISP service, or they want to be able to upload data (video, audio) to others via some type of server (peer-to-peer or other) or even to upload large quantities of data to online backup services. Of course, they want to do this on their cheap residential service.
The problem is that the pipe is only so big — the line's capacity is only so much. In the case of residential services, download speeds have become amazing. I'm getting up to 7Mbps (7,000,000 bits per second) download speed, more than doubling the speed of service, for barely $2 more than I paid in 1996. My upload speed caps at 512 Kbps (512,000 bps).
This is not just a marketing impact — it is also a function of the system design and line capacity. Typical residential use (excluding peer-to-peer music sharing and game servers — both of which may work but are typically prohibited under the "you can not run a server" limits of the ISP's Acceptable Use Policy) involves TCP/IP communcations and requires limited upload capability for TCP/IP ACK packets.
Occasional uploads for email put little incremental load on the system. But, if you want to use your cable or DSL connection for uploading files to an online backup service, you'll find that you're uploading for long time...
Business services are usually a closer ratio on download to upload, even 1 to 1, but are MUCH higher priced for much slower download speeds than those available to residential customers.
4. Followup on NOD32 Antivirus
In last week's newsletter, I wrote about the NOD32 antivirus program that I use and recommend.
Reader and subscriber Maurice Wagner commented in my Terry's Computer Tips blog after last week's article:
Hi, Terry
I've been reading your newsletter for a while now, and always find something interesting in each one. I installed NOD32 Antivirus on my machine after reading your reviews and tips/hints and because you recommended it as the best.
I am completely satisfied with it. Just finished reading your latest article and am now even more informed about the programe. Please keep the articles flowing.
Subscriber Karen Morton wrote about her recent experience with NOD32's settings, and what happened when someone turned off some of NOD32's pretections:
Hi, Terry.
Thank you for your overview of NOD32. That is the software my company installed on my work laptop. Unfortunately, my experience with it is not as positive as yours has been.
NOD32 interferes with some of the software that we use for designing operator interface graphics. So, our IT guy simply turned off the IMON module. Without Internet monitoring, I got no warning when a Trojan installed itself on my laptop two weeks ago.
There were also some problems with the installation of NOD32 itself. The virus definitions did not update properly for several weeks. I discovered this problem after I used Trendmicro's Housecall site to identify the Trojan on my laptop. The IT guy finally fixed that (the update password was not set up for my network ID).
NOD32's file scanner did not find the Trojan, although oddly enough, it did start attempting to block the Trojan's activity after I turned IMON back on. After reading your article, I now have a (slightly) better understanding of how this software works.
In case you are wondering, I did finally get rid of the Trojan. I went through the removal instructions on Trendmicro's site, and that killed the virus everywhere except in my network account. I took the computer to an expert to finally purge the thing from my system.
In a future article, could you include instructions on how to make a network ID an administrator for the local machine? Having that capability would solve a variety of problems with using my work laptop.
Thanks,
Karen
I wrote back to Karen to suggest she have a discussion with her IT guy and explain that turning off the Internet protection on an anti-virus program is a bad idea.
NOD32's user interface will actually show you which file is being opened and checked by NOD32. Therefore, the more effective way to solve their problem would have been to look at the module to see what file was having problems with.
You can tell NOD32 to ignore specific files. For example, back during Eudora 6 days, Eudora opened the deudora.ini file almost continually when it was downloading emails — and, of course, closed the file as often. NOD32 would seem to get hung looping on it whenever I downloaded email.
I don't know if they changed Eudora (probably not) or NOD32 (probably) but that problem no longer occurs and I haven't had to set NOD32 to ignore the deudora.ini file for several years.
One other good tip about NOD32 — it has some very active user forums which help in solving issues — as do emails to tech support.
Karen wrote back:
I know which file is causing the problem, and when I get a chance, I'll set up NOD32 the right way to ignore it.
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Part 1 | Part 2
Volume 3, Number 8 — Sunday, August 5, 2007
Copyright © 2007 Terry A. Stockdale. All rights reserved.
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