A PC within your PC

I have been reading a lot of complaints recently from people who have installed Vista on their system and can (apparently) get nothing working. So much so that in some cases they have resorted to wiping their systems and re-installing XP.

For my part I can not understand this. I am a pretty much self confessed download and try everything sort of guy and with the Exception of a demo of 3D studio max that I tried recently I have had no problems at all. Even this was no problem really. Just fired up a VMware session and installed it in my XP system and it works fine in their.

I agree with some that you should not jump i and install Vista on a mission critical PC upon which you rely to run particular software.. so whats the alternative. Well before I installed Vista fully I installed it in a VMware session and installed any "dubious" software in the session to see if there were any issues... non appeared so I did the full install to Ultimate. Perhaps you could try this.

Vista - Where did the Send to Go?

Having spent a few minutes trying to add an item to the send to option in Vista I thought it might be an interesting point to pass on. Easy to do in XP but not so easy to find in Vista.

Here is what you need to do

1. Click win-key+R to Bring up your Run box if it not at the bottom of your start menu
2. then simply paste in following and and hit return or click ENTER:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo

3. You can then add your shortcut into the dialogue box that opens or drag a shortcut to it.

There is another way to it but lets keep things simple. If the above does not work for you drop me a not and I will send you the alternatives

The final Demise of Backdoor.Graybird

News breaking recently for those will enable huge numbers to breath a sigh of relief One of the most prolific malware targeting the Windows platform has been decommissioned. Windows users can breathe more relaxed with the knowledge that the makers of Backdoor.Graybird have announced they abandoned the development of the Trojan horse as of March 2007. According to the data provided by Symantec, Backdoor.Graybird, Backdoor.GrayBird [KAV], BackDoor-ARR [McAfee] is a Trojan horse impacting Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

Graybird can be run without the user's knowledge and enables an attacker to capture screenshots, control the Webcam, log keystrokes, steal passwords and have access to files stored locally. Symantec also explained that the backdoor can be injected into running processed and even passed for other applications. Graybird also features rootkit capabilities, making it less of a tool for remote administration and more of a backdoor.

Of course where one falls often another arises somewhat like a Phoenix so lets not all celebrate too soon.

Information received from www.softpedia.com

Microsoft Windows Genuine Advantage

If you were wondering what it is and should you install it here is a brief explanation. Many people out there may have come across this less than subtle crackdown on illegal piracy of Windows XP and Microsoft Office products. Once installed you find you PC pretty much at the mercy of Microsoft in respect of you receiving any further updates Microsoft started with an ActiveX component to force owners of Windows XP to validate their version before downloading security updates. This was pretty much rendered useless by various workarounds. If you are a legit user there is nothing to fear about having this tool but if you are not you may find your windows being rendered useless.

Password Protection

You would think in this day and age that security would be a topic on every bodies minds when it comes to protecting their valuable data and credentials online. Most of tend to protect ourselves against the well publicized threats of Virus and spy ware and install software to ensure we are safe. Hands up those of you who have a password that uses a name of a pet or a loved one... come on you know who you are fess up!

Well OK I am assuming by the silence its a large number. Some sites will now not accept passwords unless they are of a certain strength.. this means it has to meat certain standards and you would do well to look at this as a guideline even if these are not enforced by the site.

The guidelines can vary a little but will normally be something like:
- at least 8 characters in length
- contain at least 1 number
- contain upper and lower case letters
- contain 1 special character, such as: ! & * % $ @ # +
- be changed at least once a year
- be different for each site you use

this may seem a bit of a hassle but if you want to be protected then you must follow these guidelines. Of course the downside of this is it is more difficult to remember the growing list of passwords.

A Question of Phishing

When you first run IE7 you may be faced with the question of enabling the Phishing filter. This is just a short explanation of what you are doing when you say yes.

The Phishing Filter helps protect you by verifying every site you visit against a database of phishing websites. While this is great for helping you feel more secure online, but the downside is that it is terrible for performance. Every page request has to wait for a response from the phishing database before it appears in your browser so of course this carries a penalty on loading times and if your connection speed is not too fast this can be a critical point. By disabling this setting you can drastically increase the speed of IE7, but be aware that you of course compromise your security. Most savvy users will know a rogue site when they see one so do not need this filter but for the Novices out there it can prevent problem sites loading to your PC. If you want to disable it at a later point you can do so from your Toolbar using TOOLS - PHISHING FILTER - TURN ON/OFF AUTOMATIC PHISHING FILTER.

What Browser Should I Use ?

Like most things computing there is not really a very simple answer to this as there is quite a choice out there and depending on your browsing habits one might be more suitable than another.

Some time ago Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7. There has been a fairly major update to its predecessor and it has some fairly nice features including a revised interface, tabbed browsing, improved printing features, and a phishing filter. Not to be left on the shelf the other browser companies have been very busy too and have produced revisions to their own products with similar or better features. Quite a few people migrated away from IE6 in the search of a better experience and found it in browsers like Opera and FireFox.

Unfortunately instead of just offering Internet Explorer 7 as an optional download, they are pushing it to customers via the Automatic Windows Update. Which means you may wake up one day soon, after leaving your computer on, and have a brand new browser replacing Internet Explorer 6.0. For many this may not be a problem but for those of us who like to make our own decisions this is very annoying.

For my own choice I use IE7 and FireFox 2.03 but these days mostly FireFox. My partner uses Opera for most browsing but occasionally has to resort to IE7 as there are occasionally rendering problems with some IE optimised sites.

Other options you might want to look at are Maxthon and Avant although the latter has a slightly annoying habit of releasing an update every second or third day which I find a worry.

There are many more out there and at some point I have tried most of them but to be honest they rarely last more than a few days as inevitably I come up against problems with crashes, sites not loading etc.

At the moment in order of preference I would use FireFox then IE7 followed by Opera all solid platforms that will give you a good surfing experience.