Terry's Computer Tips - Newsletter
September 28, 2008

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

Volume 4, Number 16 — Sunday, September 28, 2008

IN THIS ON-LINE ISSUE:

   1.   Strange Computer Symptoms
   2.   TrueCrypt Ecrypted Hard Drive Problems
   3.   My Computer Security Software Recommendations
   4.   Software Review: 7-Zip Compression Utility
   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.  Strange Computer Symptoms

Longtime subscriber Greg wrote to ask:

Terry, My desktop has started to have a couple really aggravating problems and I wanted to run them by you. 1) Every morning when I go to check my email before work, I find that all my desktop icons have disappeared and I am looking at the wallpaper only. My PC is password protected and even the login box does not appear. I have to restart every time. I tried a MS fix but it didn\'t do anything. What may be causing this problem. 2) My machine has started to run incredibly slow when it boot us, when I launch a browser (IE or Firefox) or when I right-click a desktop icon. Re-starting takes absolutely forever every step of the way. When I dbl-click the Firefox icon, the hourglass shows for an instant than disappears. If I am willing to wait 2-3 minutes, the browser may launch. Even after I have FIrefox open, and I select a new website via a new tab, nothing is instant anymore. It just seems to take forever for anything to happen. However, if I am working in Word or Excel, those operations seem to run at normal speed. I run an anti-virus and have done scans with no results. This is driving me nuts and I\'m ready to get a new PC just so it will run right! What do you suppose is behind these two problems?

Except for the disappearing desktop icons, Greg has done a good job of describing the symptoms that I had when I had several drives go bad.

It's time for Phil to make sure that he has a backup of all of his data.

I a situation like this, if your computer still has some life based on CPU, quantity of memory, and OS, you should get a new hard drive to replace the drive that's going bad — and do it as quicly as possible.

Even if you could reinstall from an image backup (my usual way, using Acronis True Image), I would not trust one that was when this problem is happening — it's likely to have corruption problems or be missing some recent data.

Related articles:

• Hard Drive Replacement Time
• Second Hard Drive failure with Windows XP Pro SP2
• Acronis True Image Home 11 Review
• More about Acronis True Image

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Reader Phil Chenevet wrote to ask:

Question for your newsletter perhaps although it is sort of an esoteric. It has to do with RAW file and other file types.

I encrypted a 40GB external drive with TrueCrypt 6.0, an open source encryption program that has been around for years and was thought of as very well tested and widely used. The encrypted drive or volume is simply 'mounted' and all data becomes visible and usable and when you are finished, you 'unmoun' it and all data is encrypted again. Amazing but true.

I moved data in and out of this drive for several months with no problem until the headers apparently became corrupted and there was no way to mount the volume. Luckily they built in a backup header just for this situation and I was able to 'mount' the volume again but sadly, the data inside stayed encrypted.

OK, here is my real question: Special recovery software could see the RAW files and made a backup of them, putting them into four directories or folders, DIRO.GZI (FILO.GZI; FIL1.GZI; FIL2.GZI)
DIR1.JPG (FILO.JPG; FIL1.JPG; FIL2.JPH; FIL3.JPG)
DIR2.ARJ (FILO.ARJ THRU FIL7.ARJ )
DIR3.TOC ( FIL0.TOC; FIL1.TOC)

My question has to do with those GZI, ARJ and TOC files. What are they? THey are obviously compressed, can they be opened? Just trying to expand my knowledge of computer stuff here because I have little hope of getting my data back.

Thanks, A Retired Louisana Guy

Philip has experienced one of the reasons why I never use disk compression utilities to "make my drive hold more stuff" and why I don't like encryption systems for drives.

Similarly, I don't like programs like GoBack (which was installed as part of Windows Me) which mess around with the partition ID on a hard drive so that utilities only work if the drive booted loaded that particular utility program.

Since I've never used TrueCrypt, so I'm going to have to do some guessing...

ARJ is a type of file compression. I'm not sure what's in the compressed files, but it may even be folders with more files and subfolders in them.

GZip is another type of file compression, although it's usually abbreviated as .GZ instead of .GZI . Similarly, it can contain files or folders, files, subfolders, more files, etc.

TOC usually means Table Of Contents — perhaps an index to all the actual files embedded into the other files

Phillip should be able to open .arj and .gz files using FilZip (www.filzip.com) or 7Zip (www.7-zip.org).

Related articles:

• Software Review: FilZip Compression Utility
• Software Review: 7-Zip Compression Utility

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..."

For the last five years, until very recently, my personal choice has been ESET's small, fast NOD32 anti-virus program, which offers a FREE 30-day evaluation license. I consider NOD32 one of the best in anti-virus protection. Unlike some of its competitors, ESET offers multiple-year licenses also, and includes program updates in the multiple-year license.

Now, I've changed from my long-time programs NOD32 (antivirus) and CounterSpy (antispyware) to Sunbelt's new VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware.

I've found that VIPRE puts even less load on my computer than the speedy combination of NOD32 and CounterSpy. I've also been impressed with the way its "deep scan" has found and eliminated risks that were stored in zip files, which is one of the latest malware email tricks.

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
• VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware Review

Click here for more information about VIPRE.

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 has been my personal choice for my PC's and my family's PC's.

Sunbelt's CounterSpy v2.5, 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 — the current version is v3.1. 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.

Now, I've changed from my long-time programs NOD32 (antivirus) and CounterSpy (antispyware) to Sunbelt's new VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware.

I've found that VIPRE puts even less load on my computer than the speedy combination of NOD32 and CounterSpy. My computer seems to have much more pep and power than it had previously. I've also been impressed with the way its "deep scan" has found and eliminated risks that were stored in zip files, which is one of the latest malware email tricks.

Related articles:

• Fighting Against Spyware & Malware
• CounterSpy Review
• VIPRE Antivirus + Antispyware 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 would be 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. Note: I found that PopFile generally meets my needs and stopped using Mailwasher Pro, even though PopFile works AFTER the emails have been downloaded. If I used a dialup connection, I would be more interested in Mailwasher Pro.

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, which I also use. 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

Program:   7-Zip, version 4.57
Publisher:  Igor Pavlov www.7-zip.org
Category:  Compression/Decompression Archiving Utility

7-zip is open-source software and is licensed under a user-friendly license. You can download it for free and use it for free, including redistribute it (as long as you include the license with it).

I've been trying 7-Zip recently as an alternative to Filzip — ot because I've become dissatisfied with Filzip, but because some readers recommended it to me.

Let's look at an example — using 7-Zip to look at, and extract, 7-Zip. One of the ways you can download 7-Zip is as an .EXE executable file, so it can be installed by running the file. Interestingly, it can extract itself out of its .EXE file. However, this ability doesn't mean that it can unpack other .EXE files that are actually install programs.

In this first image, we see the directory into which I have downloaded the .exe installation program for 7-Zip.

First, I select the 7z457.exe file (7z457 = 7-zip, version 4.57 — I like their file naming system). Then, I clicked the Extract menu bar icon and let it create the unpacked directory right there.

(click on the image for a larger version)

Now, I can see the original 7z457.exe program and the folder that I created in the Extract step.

(click on the image for a larger version)

I double-clicked on the 7z457 folder icon, so the program now shows the contents of the directory. At this point, I would have to create my own shortcuts on the desktop and Start Menu for 7-Zip.

(click on the image for a larger version)

Unzipping zipped files, or other compressed files, works just like the example with the .EXE above.

7-Zip can also be used to create compressed archives, not just .zip files, but also 7-Zip (.7z), GZip (.gz), BZip2 (.bz2), and TAR (.tar) files.

7-Zip can unpack the following types and can be set as the default file handler for them, too: 7z, arj, bz2, bzip2, cab, cpio, deb, gz, gzip, iso, lha, lzh, rar, rpm, split, swm, tar, taz, tbz, tbz2, tgz, tpz, wim, z and zip.

(click on the image for a larger version)

I found that 7-Zip is easy to use, although not quite as obvious as Filzip. I found Filzip to be more intuitive because of it's dual-window-panel structure, similar to that of Windows Explorer. Although 7-Zip has a view option to select 2-panel, they are independent panels.

 

  

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Two-way firewall to control inbound and outbound communications.
30-day full-function Free Trial.

$19.95 for One Computer
Discounts for multiple computers & multiple years!

Unlimited Home Site License — only $39.95 for all your home PC's

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