Terry's Computer Tips - Newsletter
July 27, 2008

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

Volume 4, Number 7 — Sunday, July 27, 2008

IN THIS ON-LINE ISSUE:

   1.   Microsoft SyncToy versus Karen's Replicator
   2.   Help! I Can't Connect to the Internet
   3.   My Computer Security Software Recommendations
   4.   After 4 Months, My Verdict on the iPhone
   5.   Recommend my Terry's Computer Tips Newsletter to Your Friends

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

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1.  Microsoft SyncToy versus Karen's Replicator

Subscriber Dave Emery wrote recently to ask me about a free Microsoft "SyncToy" as an alternative to Karen's Replicator, which is also free...

I noticed in recent article that you recommended Karen's Replicator for small backups (data files, etc.). I've used it too, but have also been using Microsoft's SyncToy, which appears to do the same thing, but the latter seems faster. Do you feel that Karen's Replicator is better or more reliable than SyncToy, and if so, why? Thanks Dave Emery

SyncToy is one of Microsoft's PowerToys, which are free from Microsoft but whichh are also unsupported software — as in "if it doesn't work, don't call us; if it works incorrectly, don't call us; and don't expect any future versions."

Karen's Replicator is one of the free (for personal, non-business use) programs from Karen Kenworthy's Karen's Power Tools ( www.karenware.com ). Karen routinely updates and adds to these programs.

Thanks for the tip, Dave. It's great to learn about other ways to accomplish tasks. I enjoy getting emails and suggestions from readers.

I downloaded it and tried a couple things. I didn't like the feel of it, although others might.

The scheduling is much more clumsy than Replicator's. You have to create the task in SyncToy, define what is to be copied, and then save. At that point, you open up Windows Scheduler (Start >All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > > Schedule Tasks), open up the instructions to SyncToy, and set up the task in Windows Scheduler.

I really don't like stepping out of a program and having to set up a schedule somewhere else, especially when I have to remember how to set up the task(s) to run. When you do this, you're much more likely to forget something critical, such as exactly what you named the backup task.

In terms of functionality, SyncToy (as long as you only run it manually) is much more friendly to a novice computer. On the other hand, Karen's Replicator is much better in terms of its capabilities, flexibilities, logging (if the job fails, the log tells you what happened) and scheduling. If a file is locked and can not be copied, Replicator logs the error and keeps going to finish the assigned tasks.

I did not test to see what SyncToy does if a file is open (and can't be copied) or if the destination is full or other types of errors. I suspect it's more like the error report that you get when you try to do the same thing using Windows Explorer — the program stops immediatly with no indication that it did anything other work successfully.

Since they're both free for personal use, I think you'll be happier with Karen's Replicator. Replicator continues to be my recommendation for easy file backups. I use it every day to copy my files to a backup. WARNING: This type of backup helps protect against loss because of hardware failure or brain freeze, if you recognize the problem immediately. Although Replicator can keep multiple copies of files, I don't have it set to do that.

Subscriber Scott Adler wrote recently with an emergency request for help. Fortunately he had access to a second computer because his other computer couldn't connect to the Internet.

Scott wrote:

I spent all day trying to find out why I cannot connect to the internet. I ran anti-spy,anti-virus, malicious script removal, Counter spy, ad-aware, Node 32 full scan,Spyware Doctor to no avail. In desperation I called my ISP who advised me it was a security update issued by MSFT on 12 July. KB6125443. I then called MSFT tech support and took my place in the queue waiting for help on this problem. I was told I would be connected to the next available support technician but that a 3 hour wait was anticipated. I could not find anything else. I then called Dell paid help and got a techy who just did not understand. He kept telling me I had to delete Several of my anti-virus and anti spyware programs. I Use Counter Spy, NOD32 and have available CC cleaner,Ad-Aware,1 Click Fixer,Spyware Doctor. But these programs I have disabled in Win Patrol and run them about once a month as insurance. I've never had any problems with this set up. Yeas the computer runs a bit slower than I would like but I accept that so I get added "cleaning power" when I so desire. After an hour with him I quit. If you've heard of this problem and have a way to delete the July 12 Security download from MSFT I'd be most grateful. Taught me a lesson. I shall no longer allow automated downloads from MSFT. I'll get their download e-mail notices and then I'll wait a few days before manually downloading and installing. At least this will keep me from such a dilemma as I now find myself. I do find this offending download thru the Windows update site but can't find a way to delete it.

Fortunately, I was on my computer when Scott wrote, so I wrote back to remind him that he didn't mention which firewall he was using. I thought it was likely to be ZoneAlarm, because there was a conflict between ZA and the lastest security update from Microsoft. The problem occurs with Internet Explorer if Windows's Internet Options security is set to High.

I suggested that he change a setting in Windows XP's Internet Options (access either via IE or via Control Panel), lower his security settings from High to Medium. Then, he should be able to connect to the Internet. At that point, the next stop would be www.zonelabs.com to get the latest update.

It turned out that Scott was not using Zone Alarm; he was using Sunbelt Personal Firewall. He turned off SPF and still was not able to access the Internet, so he knew that wasn't the problem.

I suggested some additional things to check, since I had questions that his explanation so far had not addressed:

• Do you have a local network, or just the one computer?
• In other words, can you contact other computers on your network?
• Do you have DSL with Verizon?
• Do you have a router?
• Can you contact the router's log-in screen?
• Try powering off your PC, powering off the router, powering off the DSL modem. Then bring them up in the reverse order — modem, then router, then PC. That might solve it.

Scott wrote back to tell me how he solved the problem ( I also appreciate that — if I help, I like to know what solved the problem! ):

Thanks—everything back to normal. I uninstalled Spyware Doctor and lo and behold!!!!!!! I don't know why this worked because I've had this program for several years. I block it with Win Patrol and run in once a month. Perhaps the MSFT download cause a problem with it. But I'm restored-not me but my computer—Thanks

So, apparently Zone Alarm was not the only program that Microsoft's recent update broke — apparently it hit Spyware Doctor also. I use CounterSpy and Sunbelt Personal Firewall and didn't have any problems.

3.  My Computer Security Software Recommendations

Anti-Virus

I'm often asked about several other popular anti-virus or anti-virus combination packages. Yes, I realize that they are not in my recommendation list. "Enough said..."

My personal choice is the ESET's small, fast NOD32 anti-virus program, which offers a FREE 30-day evaluation license. I consider NOD32 to be the cream of the crop in anti-virus protection. Unlike some of the others, ESET offers multiple-year licenses also, including updates to the program in the multiple-year license.

Many antivirus programs will offer you an anti-virus signature subscription renewal when your subscription renews. I strongly recommend against this option — buy the full program or make sure you get program updates with the subscription renewal (like NOD32 does). Vendors routinely improve the capabilities and speed of the programs, too.

If you update only the signatures, you miss any program improvements. Fortunately, NOD32's subscriptions include both program updates and signature updates.

Read more about anti-virus programs on my web site.

Related articles:

• Anti-Virus Programs and Online Scanners
• Free Online Antivirus Scan
• NOD32 Anti-Virus Review - A Look at NOD32

Firewall Software

While the Windows XP firewall is much better than no firewall at all, don't count on the Windows XP firewall to meet your needs. You need a two-way firewall, which the Windows XP firewall is not!. Microsoft woke up and supplied a two-way firewall with Windows Vista.

The Windows XP firewall does not control outbound communications originating from your computer — and you should want to have control if adware/trojans/spyware or even commercial products want to talk to the Internet. Whether they are calling home or spewing spam, you want to be able to control your computer.

Do you want Windows Media Player to call home every time you play something? It does! Do you use the Search function in Windows Explorer to find things on your hard drive? Did you know that every time you search, Windows Explorer talks to Microsoft?

I didn't know that when I ran ZoneAlarm, but the Sunbelt Personal Firewall flags that to me, and I can stop it or allow it to happen. Many other programs try to call home when you run them, too.

I recommend my choice for a firewall program, which is Sunbelt Personal Firewall.

You can try the full-featured "paid version" of Sunbelt Personal Firewall free for 30 days — after that, you can register it or, if you're using it on a home non-business computer, you can let it revert to the free, lesser-function license.

Sunbelt Personal Firewall is regularly $19.95 (with discounts for multiple computers and/or multiple years!) for a non-expiring license for the program and includes one year of their updates subscription.

Related articles:

• The Internet Versus You
• Do I Need a Firewall Program?
• Sunbelt Personal Firewall Review

Anti-Spyware / Anti-Adware Software

CounterSpy, from Sunbelt Software, has received many kudos from the computer press for its always-running and periodic full system scans. It is also my personal choice for my PC's and my family's PC's.

Sunbelt released their CounterSpy v2 in February 2007 and I promptly updated my computers to it. Version 2 greatly improved CounterSpy's performance and reduced its load on the computer when it was scanning.

In July, 2007, Sunbelt released v2.5 of CounterSpy, which again both improved CounterSpy's performance against malware and reduced its impact on system resources and responsiveness when its scanning.

Sunbelt continues to release updated program versions. Nicely, they do NOT install the updated programs automatically. You have to use the Update process in the program, which means that you'll know that something significant has changed!

Related articles:

• Fighting Against Spyware & Malware
• CounterSpy Review

Anti-spam Software

In today's Internet world, the question is not "if" you will get spam, but "how much will you get?"

I use and now I recommend POPFile as my first choice for handling spam. POPFile sits on your computer, between your email program and your ISP mailbox, and handles emial as it downloads.

POPFile uses a different approach to handle spam than some other programs do — it does nothing to reduce spam. It is designed as an email classification tool — you train it to recognize spam and any other type of email that you want to classify. These classifications can help you sort your emails into appropriate folders in your email program.

Sunbelt Software, who makes the anti-spyware program CounterSpy (which I use and recommend) and the firewall that I use and recommend (Sunbelt Personal Firewall) also has a well-regarded, award-winning anti-spam program called iHateSpam for Outlook and Outlook Express. Since I don't use Outlook or Outlook Express for email, I haven't tried iHateSpam.

Mailwasher Pro is my first choice to handle spam before it ever gets into your computer's Inbox. Mailwasher Pro uses on-line Realtime Black Lists mail servers sending spam recently, "training" by you of what you think is spam, and your own "friends" and "blacklist" lists.

Mailwasher Pro can even bounce spam messages, as if your email address was not valid, although the usefulness and appropriateness of this is questionable. There is a free version called "Mailwasher," but it omits the functions that I consider critical for this purpose -- such as safely previewing the emails safely before they ever get to your email inbox.

Related articles:

• Spam Filtering
• Keeping spam out of your Inbox
• Getting Control of Your Inbox
• How Can I Prevent spam?

Cable/DSL Router

If you have a cable modem or a DSL modem, you need to have another layer of inexpensive protection between you and the Internet. A cable/DSL router isolates your computer from direct connection to the Internet. Your computer can easily request your email, web pages, etc. through the router. The responses come back to the router and are smoothly routed to your computer. But, someone on the Internet side of the router can not initiate a connection to your computer — they can only respond to your request.

Even if you only have one computer to connect to your cable or DSL modem, I recommend that you purchase and use a cable/DSL router because of the protection it can give you against attempts to attack through some flaws in Windows itself.

A router isolates your local network, whether it is only one computer or several, from the Internet by actually making it a separate network. The router gets the "public" IP address and handles all your outbound communications and the responses to them. But, it blocks computers on the Internet side from being able to initiate communications with your computer! This will prevent you from falling prey to many worms that try to attack security holes in Windows itself.

For a wireless router, I recommend the Linksys WRT54G wireless router. I'm using the relatively new version 6 of this router.

If you don't want wireless, I recommend the Linksys BEFSR41 wired router. Either way, based on my experience, I recommend Linksys routers for price, reliability and Linksys' habit of releasing updated firmware for their products..

See these related articles:

• Wireless Security
• Wi-Fi Hotspots and Computer Security
• Wireless Networking Problems & Wireless Networking Security

I know you've read and heard all the hype about the Apple iPhone. Several months ago, before the new 3G iPhone was announced, I finally bought a new cell phone. I picked the iPhone (now known as the first-generation iPhone).

I thought it was "the best thing since sliced bread," as the old saying goes.

It was tremendously fast accessing the Internet for web pages and email. The display was great. The animations were cool. The sound was great. The videos, whether utube or recordings, were great, too.

Then, I started finding the things that I didn't like so much...

First, all that speed depended on me being connected to someone's wireless home network or a coffee shop's network. The phone company's network, called its Edge network, was slow.

But, did I really want to connect to someone else's wireless network and route all my web browsing and email through their system? Further, in some states, that's illegal if you don't have their permission (and not locking down a network is not the same thing as granting permission).

Second, all the cute animations take time. I have the Windows animations turned off in Windows XP. Why did I think they were cute in the iPhone?

In order to delete an email, if the email was displayed, all I had to do was touch the trashcan icon. But, the phone took about a second to animate the throwing of the email into the trash.

Of course, there was another way to delete emails. From the email list, I could touch-and-stroke-to-the-left and the iPhone would display a Delete button that I could then press. Try doing that for 30 emails. It got old fast. Fortunately, that's one thing that got fixed in the iPhone2 firmware upgrade for the original phones!

I liked the touch-sensitive glass screen. That is, until the iPhone would decide that it didn't want to acknowledge that I had touched the glass. Sometimes, that was when I touched the phone icon so I could make a call. Other times, it was when I touched the End Call button to end a phone call. Not good. That's still not adequately fixed.

The iPhone has exactly four buttons: Power (on the top), Wake Up / Home (on the bottom front) and a rocker (2 buttons) for Louder and Softer. Everything else is controlled by the glass capacitance switch.

Effectively, this means that if your hands are too dry (e.g., low humidity) the screen won't register your touch. You can't use a fingernail to touch a button, you have to use skin. (Oh, yeah, it's not a button — it just looks like a button).

Getting email is kind of fun on the iPhone now (now that it's easier to delete as of the version 2 firmware), but there is no way to filter it or otherwise control spam. If your ISP does a poor job of filtering the email, you're going to get it into your iPhone.

Music? Sure, you can load MP3 files into your iPhone and use its built-in iPod function to play them.

Finally, you have to use iTunes. No choice. Yep, the same iTunes that wants to control almost everything with respect to music and video. iTunes is the only way to register your phone and the only way to interface your phone to your computer for updates and loading music and videos.

Ringtones? Sure, you can buy whichever ringtone you want at the Apple iTunes store. If they have it. The iPhone doesn't use MP3 files for ringtones and Apple has changed the iTunes coding several times to control or prevent users from being able to create their own ringtones and get them recognized by their iPhone.

iTunes connects to Outlook and will synchronize contacts with your Outlook installation. Yeah. And I've got a bridge for sale. Perhaps it works in a limited way, but despite numerous uninstalls of Outlook 2003 and iTunes, I never got that function to work properly — so the only backup of my phone's contacts is the one stored by iTunes. Plus, I had to manually enter every last one of my contacts, instead of being able to sync them automatically.

What would I do differently if I had the option to buy an iPhone all over again, and start with the 3G iPhone?

I would stick with my Motorola Razr 3xx. That phone was great for my purposes, which did not include web surfing and email.

If I was looking for a new phone now (and how do I know this?), I would stay with the Motorola Razr line and get the new Motorola RAZR2 V9 Phone (AT&T) (Verizon) (Sprint) (Unlocked).

The new Motorazr2 V9 uses the 3G network, also, as does the Razr V3xx that I retired and gave to my son. More importantly, while the v3xx used the sparsely supported WAP web browser (if a web site didn't provide a WAP version, you could not view it on a phone that used WAP), the Motorazr2 V9 uses the Opera web browser!

Why would I stay with the Motorola Razr line of phones? I've used Motorola phones for over 10 years, since the StarTac model) and been very happy with them. I like and use Motorola Phone Tools, which lets me upload MP3 files for use as ringtones, as well as back up my contacts so I won't lose them.

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