Terry's Computer Tips - Newsletter
September 16, 2007

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

Volume 3, Number 14 — Sunday, September 16, 2007

Part 1  | Part 2

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IN THIS WEEK'S ON-LINE ISSUE:
   1.   HOWTO: Password-protecting Files
   2.   Updates Last Week
   3.   A Recommendation for PCLinuxOS
   4.   My Computer Security Software Recommendations
   5.   Google Pack Problems with Earlier Versions of Windows
   6.   Passwords, Password Lists and Keeping Them Secure
   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.  HOWTO: Password-protecting Files

Subscriber Jack Carmena wrote this week to ask about password-protecting files:

How do you password protect an existing file? I went to your website but couldn't seem to locate that.
jnc

This is one of those "sometimes you can, sometimes you can't" problems. In part, it depends on what type of file you are trying to protect.

Most programs do not allow you to password-protect a file. Some programs, like Word, Excel and Powerpoint, have built-in features that you can use to encrypt a file that you save.

Similarly, financial programs like Quicken, allow you to password-protect the data files they create.

The problem is that most programs don't allow you to encrypt your data, nor handle decryption of data files, so you often have to work around the problem.

First, let's look at Microsoft Excel and see what we can do there. Once you have created your spreadsheet, click on File > Save As from the menu bar, or click on the Save As button on the icon bar, if you've created one like I do. You'll get the following dialog box.

The important spot is the Tools dropdown menu, at which you'd probably never look. When you click on Tools, pick the "General Options...", and you'll get the chance to supply a password for opening the file.

You can also set a password for modifying the file, if you want to control that also. As usual, when you click the OK button, you'll get another dialog box where you'll retype your chosen password to make sure it's the same.

But, what can you do if your chosen program doesn't let you encrypt your data or otherwise prevent it from being read by someone else?

You can also encrypt any file in a round-about process, by taking advantage of the password-protection capabilities of a .zip compressed file. Windows XP has a built-in zip program — you can compress by right-clicking on a file, selecting Send To and then Compressed (zipped) File. Unfortunately, the zip program in Windows XP won't let you apply a password.

Fortunately, though, the built-in unzip program in Windows XP will recognize when a password is necessary and will request the password when you try to unzip the file. With the unzipping part built into Windows, the question now is "how do we password-protect the file?"

Freeware to the rescue — the free compression program FilZip, which I use to handle a lot of different compression types, will zip and unzip. Even more important in this circumstance, it will allow you to password-protect the contents of the zip file.

When looking at the zip file with the Windows XP built-in unzip program, all looks normal — until you click on "Extract all files.&uquot; At that point, you get a dialog box that requires you to input the password that was used to encrypt the file.

Is there a way to have the encryption/decryption happen automatically in any program? I don't know of any way to do that at this time.

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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.

However, Microsoft distributed one update via the Windows Update / Microsoft Updates process this week:

Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool - September 2007 (KB890830)
After the download, this tool runs once to check your computer for infection by specific, prevalent malicious software (including Blaster, Sasser, and Mydoom) and helps to remove any infection found. If an infection is found, the tool will display a status report the next time you start your computer. A new version of the tool will be offered every month. If you want to manually run the tool on your computer, you can download a copy from the Microsoft Download Center or run an online version from microsoft.com. This tool is not a replacement for an anti-virus product. To help protect your computer, you should use an anti-virus product.

Firefox (web browser, http://www.mozilla.com, free):
No new version this week. Version 2.0.0.6 was released on August 1, 2007. This was a security update.

Opera (web browser, http://www.opera.com, free):
No new version this week. Version 9.23 was released on August 15th. 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):
No new version this week. Version 9.0b3 (beta version) was released during the week ending August 18, 2007.

SeaMonkey (web browser, email, HTML editor, newsreader; http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey; free): No new version this week. 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.

The first beta version of v8 (v8.0.0.b1) was released week, available from http://wiki.mozilla.org/Penelope .

Mozilla Thunderbird (email, http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird, free):
No new version this week. 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.  A Recommendation for PCLinuxOS

Long-time subscriber Harold wrote to tell me about a new version of Linux, a new Linux "distribution" that he was trying.

I have received your great newsletter for two or three years now. I have been a Windows user for 20 something years. I would like to recommend to your subscribers that are looking for something other than the Vista upgrade boondoggle to look at PCLinuxOS. I have no vested interest in this linux distro and this is my third time to try linux, but this looks good and it has a great community, forum, and even a magazine. It is for the ex Windows user but better than Xandos in my opinion. I bought the Xandros cd and installed it but finally gave it up. Keep up the good work!

I was happy to hear this recommendation from Harold. It matched almost exactly with another report that I had received from a local Linux enthusiast who had been running Xandros.

My Windows XP notebook dual-boots with Xandros Linux 4. That is, when I boot the computer, I can choose whether to let it boot into Windows XP or into Xandros Linux.

One of the neat features of PCLinuxOS is that it comes on one CDROM. Actually, you can download the .ISO image for a CDROM and burn the image to a blank CD yourself.

What's so great about it coming on one CDROM? The CDROM is bootable and runs PCLinuxOS directly off the CDROM. If you like it, then you can choose to install it on your computer. If you don't like it, you haven't complicated your life.

From the PCLinuxOS web site:

Almost 2 gigs of software compressed on a single self bootable livecd that can be installed to your hard drive provided it is compatible with your system and you like the distribution. Over 5000+ additional packages available after hard drive install through our Synaptic Software Manager.

I downloaded PCLinuxOS from it's home site www.pclinuxos.com and burned a copy of the image to a CDROM. Now, I was ready to try the bootable, live distribution (working version) of PCLinuxOS.

I rebooted the computer and found my first of two minor problems — and both of them fell into the category of "brain freeze," that is, user error. Previously, I had changed my computer's BIOS settings so that it didn't try to boot from the hard drive. This makes booting faster, but interferes with booting a CDROM (DUH!).

My second user error was simply forgetting that I was running from a CDROM. Everything runs slower than running from a hard drive. That is, any time any program needs to read anything — even the next few program statements — it reads from the CDROM, and that's a lot slower than a hard drive.

So, what did I think of PCLinuxOS?

I could quickly see why I've received a couple of recommendations to try it. I like it.