Terry's Computer Tips - Newsletter
October 12, 2008
Terry's Computer Tips Newsletter
http://www.terryscomputertips.com
A computer tips newsletter for users of PC's.
Volume 4, Number 18 — Sunday, October 12, 2008
IN THIS ON-LINE ISSUE:
1. Blocking Call-Home Attempts by Microsoft Software
2. Anti-Spam Programs — Reader Comments
3. My Computer Security Software Recommendations
4. HOWTO: Open a Program in a Maximized Window
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. Blocking Call-Home Attempts by Microsoft Software
A reader wrote to ask for more details about how I configure my firewall to block Microsoft.com's call–home attempts:
In your Email Newsletter — Volume 3, Number 12 — September 3, 2007, article "Windows Genuine Advantage SNAFU" you say, "When they want to check in with Microsoft, they run into my copy of Sunbelt Personal Firewall," and "Sunbelt Personal Firewall has shown me that Microsoft's products often want to connect to Microsoft.com, whether it makes sense or not." You do not give enough details on the matter so one could take action...or not. QUESTION: 1. Is there a problem if they are prevented from calling home? 2. If not, how can I set up my Sunbelt PFW to do that, as you infer you have done. P.S. I used your links to purchase said product a while back along with Counter Spy and iHateSpam. Thanks in advance for your help.
The good news was that Ed was asking about Sunbelt Personal Firewall, since it will actually apply its controls to Microsoft's programs. THe process with SPF is easy, too.
I wrote back to tell Ed to heck your settings on the Network Security / Applications display in Sunbelt Personal Firewall. If you are showing "Description" (instead of File Name or Full Path), you should see Windows Genuine Advantage and Windows Genuine Advantage Notification.
Just set them to "Ask."
If you don't see Description (you see File Name or Full Path), just right-click on one of the entries. Then select Displayed Application Name and change it if you like.
If you don't see them listed, click on Description to sort alphabetically. Then, scroll to the bottom of the list for "Any other application." Make sure Internet Out is set to "Ask."
Generally, I haven't found any problem in blocking WGA or WGAN — Windows XP just treats the attempt as if I'm offline and don't have an Internet connection.
However, If I go to Microsoft.com to download something, I'll have to validate or have recently validated.
Of course, this assumes that you have activated your copy of Windows XP or Vista within the required time limit. If you don't make that connection, XP your operating system will suffer a significant lockdown, and you'll have to call Microsoft to activate your operating system.
2. Anti-Spam Programs — Reader Comments
Reader Bev Lammert has written me about an alternative anti-spam program that she's picked:
Hi, I just read my newsletter of which I love but had to comment on your Anti Spam article. You mentioned MailWasherPopFile &IHateSpam. I haven\'t tried any of them but I do use one called Spam Bully and have used it a very long time. Really like it a lot and is easy to use and no slow down. I have it on my HP Desktop Windows Vista Home Premium using Microsoft Outlook 2007 with Linksey router. I found this through Cloudeight a long time ago. Have a good day.
Get more information and a free trial of Spam Bully
Longtime reader Ron Spruell wrote about his experience with Gmail's spam filtering:
I don't know what Google does, but the Spam on this account has been almost zero.
He's right — Google's gmail.com does a great job of deleting spam. However, it's such a good job that I wonder what its false-positive (mistakenly labelling an email as spam, when it really wasn't) rate is.
I prefer spam-filtering systems that identify the email as suspected spam, but then still delive it to a folder so that I can confirm that the message isn't a good one.
My "Murphy's Law of Email" is:
The more imporant an email is, the more likely the anti-spam program will classify it as spam.
Readers Mary Palmer and Larry Jenkins wrote identical emails to suggest an alternative:
I use a good spam filter, and you probably do the same.
I have whitelisted you and that means that I will receive all the emails you send to me.
I would appreciate it if you would whitelist my email address: [email addess removed - Terry] in your spam filter.
If you don't have a spam filter, I can recommend SPAMfighter. It is a highly effective free spam filter for Outlook and Outlook Express.
You can get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/Pro
I hope that you will whitelist me, so we can continue to communicate safely via email in the future.
Best regards
Since these emails were identical, I suspect that they were automated by the SPAMfighter software. Either way, though, it counts as two readers using this software.
What do you use to control of spam? Write me about your solution to spam, or comment here
3. My Computer Security Software Recommendations
I review my security software recommendations and update them, for each weekly newsletter issue, if I think they need to change.
My Philosophy: Many people want to pick their most economical solution and prefer an all-in-one anti-virus, anti-spyware and firewall solution. In concept, that's a great idea. In actual practice, this type of package is not likely to be the best in all the protection categories you need. Other people want to pick the best of each type program. I'm one of the these folks.
My choice of software that I am willing to recommend is driven by my search for software for me to use. I only recommend programs that I like and that I use. I will sometimes suggest alternatives to my recommendations, but I clearly note if I no longer use them.
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.
Tech Tip
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.
Vendors routinely improve the capabilities and speed of the programs, too. If you update only the signatures, you miss any program improvements.
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
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:
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:
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:
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
If you don't want wireless, I recommend the Linksys BEFSR41
Tech Tip
By the way, if you get tempted by the new "802.11n" routers, please pay close attention. So far, the 802.11n specification has not been approved and finalized.
If you buy one, you may be locked into a specific vendor's implementation of a draft of a standard that never got approved. I recommend choosing 802.11g for now.
See these related articles:
4. HOWTO: Open a Program in a Maximized Window
With some programs, we always may want to open them in maximized (full-screen), or even minimized (hidden), mode. Windows allows us to accomplish this via a setting in a program's shortcut.
Tech Tip
If you're like me, you may have a shortcut for a specific program on the Start Menu, on the Desktop, and also on the QuickLaunch bar. Each is a different shortcut and would have to be set individually
<In the image on the left, we see the popup Context Menu that appeared when I right-clicked on the Firefox icon. From this menu, I selected Properties.
That opened the Mozilla Firefox Properties dialog box shown in the image below on the left. Notice that the Run options says "Normal Window". This means that Firefox will open in a window that is not full-screen (not maximized), if I double-click on the shortcut.
Tech Tip
Other ways I could open the shortcut are to left click on it once to select it, then press the Enter key. Or, I could tab to it, or even (assuming SOMETHING on the desktop is selected), press the M key until it cycles over to Mozilla Firefox — and press the Enter key to activate the shortcut.
Or, I could right-click on the shortcut and select Open, which would give the same result as double-clicking the shortcut.
In the right image below, first, I would click on the pulldown option indicator for the Run line. That will allow me to select Maximized instead of the default Normal Window.
Finally, we click Apply and then OK. Now, when we open the shortcut we just edited, the program will open in full-screen mode, that is, Maximized.
 (click on the image for a larger version)
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Does it always work? No.
I did some testing with Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 3.0.2 and Opera 9.52.
First, I closed any web browsers that were open.
Then, I changed the Run "Normal Window" to Run "Maximized Window" option in the Properties of the program's shortcut.
When I opened Internet Explorer 7, it opened as a full-screen, maximized window. Then, I clicked the Maximize/Normal button in the window's title bar, so the IE7 window was not full-screen. Finally, I double-clicked the shortcut again — and the new IE7 window opened in Full-Screen/Maximized mode.
Next, I tried the same tests with Firefox 3.0.2. When I opened FF, it also opened as a full-screen, maximized window. I could shift to a normal window as expected. However, when I double-clicked the shortcut again, this time Firefox opened as a normal window, not a full-screen/maximized window. If I closed the non-maximized window, a double-click would open FF in full-screen. It appears that an open non-maximized window will override the shortcut's Run Maximized setting.
Finally, I tried the same tests with Opera 9.5.2. It acted just like IE7 did.
Sunbelt Personal Firewall for Windows 2000, XP and Vista
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
5. Recommend my Terry's Computer Tips Newsletter to Your Friends
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Volume 4, Number 18 — Sunday, October 12, 2008
Copyright © 2008 Terry A. Stockdale. All rights reserved.
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