Free Computer Consultant ………. Daily Insights

There are tons of ways to transfer your VHS tapes to DVD, but what you want is the fastest, easiest, no hassle way of doing it.

With Roxio VHStoDVD you can hook the included USB adapter straight into you PC and plug your VCR or camera into the adapter.

Quickly and easily you can edit out annoying gaps or snow, even include convenient menus as you burn your VHS movies to DVD.

Use coupon code 10VHSDVD and Save $10 instantly on Easy VHS to DVD for a price of $49.99. Expires 4.15.09.

or
Save 10% on any Roxio product, Use Coupon Code – SAVE10ROX at Roxio.com

you can use this coupon to save 10% on any Roxio product until 4/30/2009. Don’t be afraid to try the coupon after that date; you never know.

There are exploits circulating to hack into GMail accounts via an unpatched security hole that Google says they do not intend to fix.

The attack is via session-riding, a CSRF (pronounce “sea surf”) class attack.

One can complain all you want to, but remember, sometimes you get what you pay for: gmail is free.

(You also need to understand that even if no one else reads your email at GMail, Google does.)

The risk of course is that you might have confidential content in your email or other stored documents; not to mention contacts who have trusted you (whether they thought about that or not) not to put their email address into the hands of spammers.

Those that will exploit these security holes in Google GMail accounts will certainly do so for profit, not just for fun.

Here is Google’s explanation of how to read your emails securely:
http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/making-security-easier.html

This attack, and Google’s preference not to fix it, is another underscore to the need to surf safely. One way of helping secure your web surfing, especially if you use open WiFi, is GoTrusted secure surfing service. You can get a free trial here.

Netbooks are the hottest thing in computer hardware right now, and the Asus Eee PC has been one of the most popular. The problem is that it comes in a wide variety of flavors. The only way to decide which one you want is with the comparison list.

Keep in mind that netbooks are made for people:

• With good eyesight
• Preferably small fingers
• Folks with a high tolerance for touchpads, and not the best touchpad you’ve ever used either

That said here is a link to the Asus Eee PC Comparision List.

Once you know which Asus Netbook you want, the two places I would comparison shop are:

Shop for Asus Eee PC at Buy.com

Shop for Asus Eee PC at Amazon.com

I received this information from a subscriber who has actually used BluePhone technical support service.

He offered this advice:

Don’t use email to contact them but call in instead.
Initially it was hard to understand the technician but focus and keep asking to clarify and you adapt.

The consultant never judged my actions, we plodded through whether I had problem; found out I didn’t.

It’s worth $25/month if you have used up your favors with buddies and gives you a feeling like AAA card, if you get locked out you have some move.

So there you have it. BluePhone is a technical support lifeline that you can reach out to if you need the help and can’t get it anywhere else or just need the answer right away.

Here is a brochure from one of my first home PC’s – I had a different monitor, but you get the idea. I don’t remember who bought what was left of Tandon…

Brochure dated 07/1987

Zune member finds out that previously purchased album is no longer available – even though he paid for it.

Read the story here.

Learn about computer backup here.

Check out Rhapsody instead with a Rhapsody Free Trial here.

The free upgrade to Windows 7 begins June 26, 2009 and will reportedly last until January 31, 2010.

The free upgrade will apply even if you get the (recommended) XP downgrade since you are actually buying a Vista license. Microsoft has not yet announced when Windows 7 will be released, but the free upgrade dates do give us some clue.

So if you are considering a purchase including a copy of Vista and optionally the XP downgrade, maybe you can delay until after June 26th and actually acquire a Windows license that might be worth having!

Windows XP users will need to do a clean install to migrate to Windows 7, but that’s best in my mind anyway. Vista users will be able to do an in place upgrade. XP users will, however, be able to use the Windows Easy Transfer from the Windows 7 installation disc. This utility will help users save files and some Windows settings to an external drive or flash drive.

Antivirus software, usually bundled in an internet security suite, is frustrating to me.

First off, you have to pay for this software (yes, there are free alternatives -but…) only because there are bad people out there.

Second, it slows your PC down. In the case of Symantec’s Norton, sometimes, with some versions, it slows down A LOT!

Third, many times it will tell you that it found the virus, but cannot clean or delete it – the rest is up to you. WHAT? This usually has to do with the malware actually running within Windows, and Windows places a “lock” on a file that is running in order to protect it. Good through the normal course of operation, bad when it comes to cleaning trojans, viruses and other malware from your PC.

The above three items are fairly well known. Here is one that isn’t:

One more step to clean malware from your PC

Current malware is using a basic operation of Windows networking to maintain itself even after your PC has been cleaned.

The Windows hosts file.

The Windows hosts file resides in the C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc (or, more precisely, %SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc since some versions may use WINNT or some other directory instead of Windows).

What it does is help Windows resolve the IP address for some domain names. By default, it doesn’t do much at all. But a network administrator in a corporate environment will likely make use of the file to assist with network connectivity.

The hosts file can also be used to BLOCK access to certain known malicious sites. It does that by pointing, say, www.badsite.com right back to the local machine with the entry 127.0.0.1 (known as localhost). That prevents the web browser from opening the known malicious site.

But turn that around.

Plug in your malicious site IP address and connect it to updates.microsoft.com in your victims hosts file and next time automatic (or manual) Windows updates kicks in, voila, they come to your site and get reinfected all over again!

Here is what a default Windows XP host file usually looks like:

# Copyright (c) 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a ‘#’ symbol.
#
# For example:
#
#      102.54.94.97     rhino.acme.com          # source server
#       38.25.63.10     x.acme.com              # x client host

127.0.0.1       localhost

The lines beginning with the pound sign are comments. The only line that does anything in this file is the one assigning the term “localhost” to the address 127.0.0.1, also known as the loopback address. It simply points back to the computer itself.

Thus if you add this line to the file:

127.0.0.1     microsoft.com

then your computer will try to access the web server on YOUR OWN COMPUTER (if installed, usually not) when you type www.microsoft.com in a browser address bar; thus preventing you from getting to Microsoft’s website. But if you replace the 127.0.0.1 with an ip address of your own malicious server, then anything the user, or automatic updates, tries to access Microsoft’s servers, you get reinfected by the malicious server instead.

Here is the takeaway:

If you have been infected, it’s worth a look at the Windows hosts file just to make sure there aren’t any entries that shouldn’t be there. If you are on a company network, ask the IT department – don’t make any changes yourself. If it’s your own PC, back up the file first before making changes just in case.

When reading reviews of the best antivirus and internet security product or product suite, ESET NOD32, will often be at the top of the list. The users of the product tend to be vocal supporters as well.

Is it justified? Well, it’s hard to stay at the top of the heap when it comes to antivirus security products. Companies have a tendency to leap frog one another as the “latest version” gets released.

When you have an infected PC, it is common to scan and clean with one company’s product, then scan with another company’s scanner and find some more.

Recently I had a users laptop with a nasty trojan infection. One of the top internet security suites was unable to stop the infection, but scanning did find most of the infected files.

However, I then scanned the hard drive with ESET NOD32 and found a few more infected files. Does that mean that ESET is better? Well, maybe; but one of the “infected” files was an executable for the OTHER antivirus product. Was that file infected or just a case of old fashioned rivalry?

I don’t know for sure, but I will say that ESET NOD32 is an impressive internet security suite and antivirus.

The downside is that it does cost a bit more than most of its competitors. But sometimes you pay for quality.

I give ESET NOD32 a big thumbs up; you can check it out with a free 30 day trial here.

I always install the Windows XP recovery console on workstations (actually, servers too). It can prevent you from needing to reach for that XP CD to do a repair, and is a heckuva lot quicker than booting from CD.

But it turns out that a bug in Windows XP can give you a BSOD (blue screen of death) 0×0000007B when booting to the installed recovery console due to an inability to access the SATA driver when needed (likely, nvrd32.sys).  It may tell you nvrd32.sys is not present, even though it is.

Unfortunately, your only recourse may be to reach for that XP CD and boot to the recovery console from it.

I had this problem recently with a Dell E5400 laptop.