August 2008 Archives

Protect your computer

By Tom Fitzgerald on August 31, 2008 9:37 PM | No Comments
If you own a computer there is a very good chance that your computer is infected with Virus or Spyware programs. They come in many shapes and forms and come at you from many different directions. There are also many tools to help you remove Virus infections once they happen, but the best bet is to avoid these problems all together. How you can prevent infections is what this article is all about.

Be careful of the web sites you visit

Many Virus / Spyware infections actually use exploits in the operating system itself to have their code automatically install when you visit an infected web site. This often happens when people visit certain web sites. For example certain adult web sites have been known to try and infect your unprotected computer with code that will take over your computer's modem and try to dial 1-900 numbers on your phone line. Some web sites will offer 'Free Screensavers', or other forms of something free, once installed the 'free' software will install Spyware that is very difficult to remove once installed. Unless you know it's from a trusted source, do not install any software from a web site. If you are browsing a web site and something pops up and asks to you install a plugin it is very important that you close that window, unless you trust that web site. Clicking 'Yes' on one of those windows may let in a stream of spyware programs.

Keep your Windows updated

Now that you are careful of what web sites you visit you must also make sure that your operating system is up to date. This is something that should be done regularly, basically when Microsoft discovers problems or security vulnerabilities with their software they fix it. If you never visit this site you will never get that update and your system will be vulnerable. Windows update doesn't only fix problems, but offers free upgrades to Windows components, such as Windows MovieMaker and Windows Media Player. These are great additions that are totally free! Windows users can visit http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com to update your system at anytime.

Protect yourself

Now that your computer is updated you still need additional software to be safe; Anti Virus software. There are many different versions to choose from, Microsoft OneCare, Norton Internet Security, McAfee, etc. I've had good success with OneCare, it costs $49.95 includes one year of updates and you can install it on three computers. Once installed it will automatically keep itself updated and continuously scan your system for any Virus or Spyware programs. If it finds anything that shouldn't be there it will automatically remove it for you. If you are running Windows XP you should also turn on your firewall. This can easily be done by clicking on Start then Control Panel, Network Connections, then right clicking on 'Local Area Connections' (If you are connected via a wireless network then you want to right click on 'Wireless Network Connection') then click on the 'Advanced' tab, Then switching the button to 'On'.

That is just three simple steps you can take to better prevent your computer from being infected with Virus programs.

Windows automatic updates

By Tom Fitzgerald on August 30, 2008 9:38 PM | No Comments

I've had this warning pop up on my laptop for about 4 days now. I hate it. I'm telling the world now I hate Window's automatic updates. The whole thing sounds so nice, your computer will be kept up to date automatically. Unfortunately its a major pain in the ass. Microsoft will update your computer automatically but then this stupid message will pop up over and over again. Worst than that the Window takes focus over everything you are doing. So you could be typing then lookup and see everything you just typed didn't make it to the screen. You could have even accidentally clicked yes on this message and begun a reboot you didn't want.

I just hate stuff like this, its annoying. I'm still running Vista so you may wonder if the problem still exist on Vista. Yep. It does and its even more annoying. Note to Microsoft - please make it so if you have automatic updates on it doesn't beg you to restart your pc. Just have it install the next time the PC is restarted.

'Updating your computer is almost complete. You must restart your computer for the updates to take effect. Do you want to restart your computer now?'

Internet Explorer 8 released

By Tom Fitzgerald on August 28, 2008 9:40 PM | No Comments

Finally Internet Explorer 8 has been released to the public. You can give a download here. I have a few mixed feelings about the browser, (I'm a long time FireFox user). However I am happy that IE8 has been released. Whenever a new version is released it raises awareness and hopefully people will upgrade. As a computer techician / web site developer it helps when people have the latest version for several reasons. 

  • Security
    This can go both ways because newer software doesn't does not guarantee its more secure. However in comparing Internet Explorer 6 to 7, I'd say IE7 is more secure. Its also easier to remove virus infections via the 'Enable/Disable Add-Ons' feature - which I love
  • CSS capability
    This can also go two ways. IE6 and IE7 handle CSS differently. Now how different is IE7 from IE8? Well I don't have too much experience with IE8 to properly answer that.

The two above features is what concerns me. If IE8 proves to have better security and normalizes the CSS differences between IE and FireFox I'll be more than happy. That being said lets look at some of the other features of Internet Explorer 8.

  • InPrivate Browsing
    Basically you can browse web sites and not have certain ones go in your history file. My favorite part of this feature is how Microsoft spins it, they say 'Ever want to shop for a gift and don't want others to know'. Like yea I'm sure that'll be the biggest use of this feature certainly it won't be used to hide peoples porn habits from their loved ones.
  • SmartScreen Filter
    Google kinda already has this, basically if the site has been reported as a 'bad' site, it'll warn you blah blah blah.
  • Compatibility View
    This is an awesome feature ... for developers. Weird Microsoft would push this as their third biggest feature. Essentially this will emulate an older web browser if you are having display issues. For example if the page was written for IE6 and it looks weird in IE8 you can emulate IE6's environment and have it display properly. This is a great feature but for the average computer user I think its asking a little too much. People just want it to work right. We don't have that problem now, its not like too many people are trying to view a web site made for Lynx and it looks weird in IE. I don't know I guess its an OK feature.
  • Accelerators
    Seems like a neat idea, fast easy buttons to do what you want to do when you want to do it!! Looking at the IE8 site it says 'Search Windows Live', 'View Windows Mail','Define with Encarta'. Seems like a way for Microsoft to try and push their services. I'm sure we can change to whatever providers we want but still we know when something is the default, it'll stay that way for 95% of the users.

Anyway so if you are up for it, check it out. Its not horrible but I'll be staying with FireFox.

Secure your wireless network

By Tom Fitzgerald on August 23, 2008 9:41 PM | No Comments

In my last post I went over how to add a Linksys router to an existing Internet connection. Now we'll go over how to secure the wireless networks so other people can't use it.

Log into the router

  1. Open Internet Explorer and type in the following address http://192.168.1.1
  2. You will then be prompted for a user name and password, the user name field you can just leave blank and the password is 'admin'.

You are now logged into the router. You can take a look around see the different options in there. We are mainly concerned with the wireless network so click 'Wireless' at the top and then below that click 'Wireless Security'. We are now editing the wireless security settings for your Linksys  router. There are a few choices you can use here, for the sake of keeping this simple I'm just going to use WEP 128bit encryption.

  1. Select WEP encryption
  2. Then select 128 bit encryption
  3. Now you can either type something in key 1 or use a pass phrase to generate it. Easiest way is just to type in numbers in key 1 until you have 26 characters. So for example you could type in 12121212121212121212121212 or whatever
  4. Then hit  'Save Settings'

Now your wireless will need the code 12121212121212121212121212 in order to connect. So lets go to your laptop and do the following:

  1. Hit 'View Available Wireless Networks' by right clicking on the Wireless connection icon in the lower right hand corner of your screen, or its in the Control Panel in Network Connections.
  2. If you were connected before you may have to hit disconnect from the network. If you were not just click on the network name and then hit connect.
  3. You'll have to enter the WEP key twice
  4. Hit OK and you are good to go!

I tried to keep that pretty simple. If you have any questions just leave a comment and I'll help.

Connecting a wireless router

By Tom Fitzgerald on August 20, 2008 9:42 PM | No Comments

This question was recently asked in our Ask A Question section, the exact question is here. The situation is that this person already has an existing Internet connection. For the purpose of this guide I'm going to assume they have a cable Internet provided. Lets take a look at what we'll need to get. We'll start with the basis, a Linksys Wireless Router. There are a lot of wireless routers out there and everyone certainly has their own opinions. For me personally I like Linksys (Cisco) and its really easy to setup so this tutorial will go over how to set one up with a cable Internet provider.

Materials Needed

  • Linksys Wireless Router (Model Number: WRT54G)

Steps to take

  1. Currently right now your cable Internet comes out of the wall and into the cable modem. From there a network cable comes out of the cable modem and into the back of your computer.
  2. What we are going to do is take the network cable out of the back of the computer and plug it into the WAN (or Internet) port on the Linksys Router. This outputs the Internet into the Linksys Router.
  3. Now take the included network cable out of the Linksys box and placed it in any of the 4 other ports on the back of the router.
  4. Put the other end into the computer.
  5. Unplug the power to your cable modem. Wait a few seconds and plug it back in.

So what this did was take the Internet and place the router in between the modem and the computer. By default the Linksys router will be broardcasting the wireless (insecurely!). Next time I'll go over how to secure your wireless connection so your nosey neighbors don't use it.

How to fix the XPRT5.DLL error with AOL

By Tom Fitzgerald on August 5, 2008 9:58 PM | No Comments

One of the most frequently asked questions lately is how to fix the XPRT5.DLL error with America Online. This problem seems to stem from users running America Online 9.0 and its component the AOL Dialer.

You may be getting an error message such as

    Aoldial.exe-entry_point_not_found (or Aol.exe) "?SetModeTBlockCipher@xprt@@QAEXW4ECipherMode@12@@Z could not be located in the dynamic library xprt5.dll"

      This problem is especially annoying because it stops the user from getting online and even using the AOL security scan software. Fortunately the error is pretty easily fixed by downloading AOL Beta ACS 4.6 Connectivity software. You can download this software by following this how to guide.

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