Terry's Computer Tips - Newsletter
April 26, 2009
Terry's Computer Tips Newsletter
http://www.terryscomputertips.com
A computer tips newsletter for users of PC's.
Volume 4, Number 46 — Sunday, April 26, 2009
IN THIS ON-LINE ISSUE:
1. Word 2007 — Minimizing the Ribbon & Gettting It Back!
2. The Lighter Side of Technology
3. Yahoo! Announces Closing of GeoCities Web Sites
4. A Great Replacement for GeoCities Web Hosting
5. Deleting Everything But Windows from a Used Laptop
6. My Computer Security Software Recommendations
6. Recommend my Terry's Computer Tips Newsletter to Your Friends
My emailed newsletter is sent weekly to individuals who have subscribed to it. While mainly an announcement of the latest online nenwsletter, it also has different, additional content — not the articles in the online issue. Click here to subscribe. It's free!
Welcome to the on-line edition of my Terry's Computer Tips newsletter. Its articles are not in the email issue — and the email articles aren't in the online issue — subscribe to my email newsletter so you can read both.
1. Word 2007 — Minimizing the Ribbon & Gettting It Back!
One of the Love It Or Hate It features of Office 2007 is the new Ribbon Bar interface.
(click on the image for a larger version)
If you're like me, you can find new features by accident. in this case, I found that I can accidentally wipe out the ribbon so that it doesn't show all the time.
It's actually an intentional function in Word 2007 to give us more visible document space when we want it. All we need to do to see the ribbon again is to click on one of the tab headings (well, when the ribbon is minimized, it looks just like a menu bar to me).
Minimizing the ribbon intentionally is easy. All you need to do is to click on the option pulldown to the right of Word's quick toolbar, just to the right of the Office button (that's the official name of the ugly new Office logo). The bottom item in the pulldown menu is Minimize the Ribbon. Click on it to hide the Ribbon interface, as shown below.
(click on the image for a larger version)
Restoring the Ribbon to full view is equally as easy. When the Ribbon is minimized, click on the option pulldown by the Word quick toolbar. Now, you'll see that Minimize the Ribbon is checked. Click on it to uncheck the option and return the toolbar to view.
That's not how I accidentally triggered the minimization, though.
The other way to minimize the toolbar is to double-click on the active toolbar tab (if another tab is currently selected, the first click will switch tabs — and then it takes a double-click to minimize the Ribbon).
That's what I did. I accidentally double-clicked on the currently selected tab on the Ribbon.
Poof! The Ribbon was gone.
Fortunately, Word's Help function bailed me out. A quick search in it gave me the answer I needed. Since we no longer have the old standard Windows menu bar, we can't find Help under the About menu bar item any more. That's ok, it's a question-mark icon right below the top bar of the window on the right-hand side.
Not only has Word's Help functions improved dramatically over the years, the Help functions in the other Office programs and in non-Microsoft programs have improved, too. It has become much easier to find answers in the Help functions.
2. The Lighter Side of Technology
This week's technology cartoon at Terry's Computer Tips!
Even web companies need a little income...
3. Yahoo! Announces Closing of GeoCities Web Sites
If you have a web site at GeoCities, it's time to start looking for an alternative...
Yahoo! has announced that it will close GeoCities later this year. GeoCitites was the first, or one of the first, free webhosting systems and gave a lot of free accounts.
GeoCities made its money by putting advertising on its users' web pages. It also allowed users to pay a fee to avoid the advertising on their web pages.
The GeoCities home page www.geocities.yahoo.com says "Sorry, new GeoCities accounts are no longer available. There's a further message for current GeoCities customers that they have decided to close GeoCities later this year, with more details to come during the summer.
Needless to say, the rest of the page is advertising for Yahoo's own web hostinng service, offering a $5.98 per month for the first 3 months and $11.95 per month after that at Yahoo!
4. A Great Replacement for GeoCities Web Hosting
I don't use GeoCities for my web hosting — it didn't give me the flexibility that I needed for my web site, let alone for several sites.
I use HostGator
for my web hosting. It's cheapest account, the Hatchling, which allows only one domain, is priced as low as $4.95 per month, and has almost as much power as the package I bought.
They offer monthly billing, 1 year, 2 year and 3 year packages, with the 3-year packages being the cheapest. They even offer monthly billing. I have the middle account at $7.95/month (3-year pricing).
Even bette, HostGator often has discount coupon codes for the initial order period for any of their packages.
Tech Tip
HostGator's current coupon code is "SPRING" which will give you 20% off of your initial order. This code expires May 1st.
If you order one year, it gives 20% off for the first year. If you order two years, it gives 20% off for the two years ordered. If you order three years (the price), it gives 20% off for the three years ordered.
According to the HostGator web site, it is one of the world's top 10 largest web hosting companies, hosts more than 1.8 million domains, and has over 200 employees. I know I've been happy with my hosting at HostGator and have referred several clients to them.
HostGator has the easy-to-use cPanel control panel system and Fantastico applications installer, for easy set-up of standard sites. Fantastico will let you build your own site using a sitebuilder program like Templates Express, or install pre-built site software like WordPress for blogs; Joomla, Drupal for content management systems; photo galleries like Coppermine; and many more software packages. HostGator also lets you install your own software packages, independent of the Fantastico system.
Give HostGator a try — they offer a 45-day money back guarantee.
5. Deleting Everything But Windows from a Used Laptop
Reader Bev Lammert wrote to ask me:
Hi Terry, Was happy to see how to operate WinPatrol, hadn't any idea you could right click within. Thank you. I have a quick question for you. I have a 2002 Sony Vaio laptop which has only 256 Ram running XP Home. My friend give it to me long time ago so was going to use it for just my Pogo game playing and our Sports Connection program but the Hard Drive pie shows solid green full. I do not want to save anything on it, just wipe it so it is empty as possible without losing Windows XP. Is this possible? Thank you ahead of time and thanks again for all the newsletters. Bye
I wrote back to Bev to give her some suggestions.
She can just start in Control Panel > Add and Remove Programs. There, she'll find programs there that she can select and remove. After that, it's ok to remove the corresponding folders under C:\Program Files.
Some of these folders are not removed automatically because the program either was modified after installation, or because the program wrote some of its configuration or data files into the folder.
Almost everything in My Documents would be "fair game" for deletion.
The big challenge is wiping the drive without deleting or damaging Windows XP. If Bev's friend gave her the Windows XP OS cdrom or restore CD, she can reinstall Windows. Or, the Sony laptop may have a recovery partition on it that is designed to restore the C: partition to its factory-fresh state.
6. 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, I don' think that this type of package is 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..."
From 2003 through mid-2008, my personal choice was 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 — and it continues to get recognition andn awards. 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. Both NOD32 and VIPRE purchases include both program updates/upgrades AND antivirus signature updates.
Vendors routinely improve the capabilities and speed of the programs, too. If you update only the signatures, you miss any program improvements.
However, 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.
Tip: Be sure to read my review of SPF for the settings I recommend.
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 — and there's an even newer version about to be released. Nicely, Sunbelt 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 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:
7. Recommend my Terry's Computer Tips Newsletter to Your Friends
If you like my Terry's Computer Tips email newsletter or the online edition, you can help me increase the number of subscribers to my free emailed newsletter.
Tell a Friend about Terry's Computer Tips!
With my email newsletter, not only do you get notices that the newsletters are available and content that is not in the online newsletter, but subscribing is the only way to get my Special Edition Newsletters which go only to subscribers.
Of course, if you do not get my free email newsletter, I invite you to subscribe now!!
If you are a subscriber to my free Terry's Computer Tips email newsletter, please feel free to forward your copy of the newsletter to a friend that you think would be interested. Be sure to forward the entire newsletter, including my copyright notices and any advertising.
However, you are not authorized to publish, post or otherwise distribute my articles or newsletters on web sites, blogs, forums, email newsletters, paper newsletters, magazines or in any other form.
Volume 4, Number 46 — Sunday, April 26, 2009
Copyright © 2009 Terry A. Stockdale. All rights reserved.
|
|
Thank you for visiting my site — I hope you found the site and articles helpful. If you did, please consider supporting my efforts by making a purchase (if you have one to make) via one of the links in my articles, one of my recommendations, or in my "Ads by Terry" to purchase the item. You can also shop via these links to major Internet retailers
Amazon.com
TerrysComputerTips.com
Contact |
Join Mailing List
Hosted at HostGator
Copyright © 2005-2009 Terry A. Stockdale. All rights reserved.
Terms & Conditions Disclaimer Privacy Sitemap