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if you prefer, you can read
this issue online at http://techsupportalert.com/issues/al_current.htm
IN
THIS FREE EDITION:
0. EDITORIAL: A New Approach to Protecting
Your PC
1. TOP TECH SITES AND RESOURCES
1.1 The 46
Best-ever Freeware Utilities List
Updated
1.2 Valuable Virtual Machine
Tools
1.3 Converting Movie Clips to Send Via
Email
1.4 How to
Find a File on the Web
1.5 Vista
Driver Site
1.6 More
Free Support Sites
1.7 How to
Do Your Image Editing Online
1.8 How to
Get Commercial Utilities for Free (Premium
Edition)
1.9 How to
Reset the Windows Administrator Password (Premium
Edition)
1.10 How
to Change Drive Letter Assignments in Windows XP
(Premium Edition)
2. TOP FREEWARE AND SHAREWARE
UTILITIES
2.1 A
Simple and Cheap Way to Get a Multi-Monitor
Setup
2.2 Free
Utility Preserves Desktop Icon Layout
2.3 Firefox Extension Makes
Opening Text Links Easier
2.4 The
Best Way to Validate Your HTML
2.5 Linux
as an Alternative to Vista
2.6 Microsoft Releases Virtual PC
2007
2.7 Free
Digital Effects Plug-in Impresses (Premium
Edition)
2.8 Free
Network Software for Schools and Classrooms
(Premium Edition)
2.9 More
Vista Features for XP Users (Premium
Edition)
How to Block
Threats that Sneak Through Your Firewall
(sponsored link)
3. SECURITY PATCHES, SERVICE RELEASES AND
UPDATES
3.1 Microsoft Security
News
3.2 Firefox Updated to
V2.0.0.2
3.3 Cloud
Descends Over Top BitTorrent Clients
3.4 New
Version of Top Anonymous Surfing
Program
3.5 Vista
Gets Poor Reception
4. OTHER USEFUL STUFF
4.1 Good
Prices on Computer Software
4.2 New
Utility from SysInternals
4.3 Weapon
of Mass Destruction for Geeks
4.4 Seven
Steps to Remarkable Customer Service
4.5 Useless Waste of Time
Department
4.6 Free
Games from Microsoft (Premium
Edition)
4.7 Tax
Filing for Nix (Premium Edition)
4.8 How to
Tell Whether Your Anti-Spyware Program is Itself
Spyware (Premium Edition)
5. TIP OF THE MONTH
5.1 How to
Ensure You Don't Have Vulnerable Software on Your
PC
6. FREEBIE OF THE MONTH
6.1 The
Best Free Windows Clipboard
Replacement
6.2 The
Best Free Uninstaller (Premium
Edition)
7. MANAGING YOUR SUBSCRIPTION
0.0 EDITORIAL
In the last year I've totally changed
my mind about the best way to protect your PC from
malware.
I've changed my mind because the
nature of malware threats has changed. So too has
security software.
Once, security threats could be
classified into tidy categories such as viruses,
spyware and trojans. To protect yourself against
these threats you needed a security product that
targeted each type of threat.
On my PC a year ago I had an
anti-virus scanner, an anti-spyware scanner, an
anti-trojan scanner, a rootkit detector and a process
protector as well. It all made perfect sense.
Not
any more.
Modern malware threats are commonly
blended; that is, they combine in one product several
different types of threat.
A typical modern spyware product may
contain a trojan downloader, a spyware product such as
a keylogger and a rootkit to stealth them all. It may
also employ a virus-like means of
propagation.
The same could be said for modern
viruses; they too contain multiple products in their
payload that cross the classical malware classification
boundaries.
As malware threats have changed so
have security products. They have had to.
A couple of years back, anti-virus
products were pretty poor when it came to detecting
trojans and spyware. Today they have greatly improved.
Indeed, the best AV products now detect trojans as well
as any specialist anti-trojan scanner and they are no
slouches at detecting spyware and rootkits
either.
Nor have anti-spyware products been
standing still. They have become pretty good at
detecting trojans and some products like SpySweeper and
Spyware Terminator now check for viruses as well.
Similarly firewall vendors have extended their products
to offer both anti-virus and anti-spyware
capabilities.
This expansion of function has come
at a cost. Almost all security products now consume
more computer resources than earlier
versions.
And there's another cost: overlap in
function. Your AV product is probably scanning for the
same spyware products as your anti-spyware product. At
the same time your anti-spyware scanner is looking for
the same viruses as your anti-virus scanner. If you are
running an anti-trojan scanner as well you may have
three scanners looking for the same trojans!
Overlap is not necessarily a bad
thing but if it grinds your computer performance into
the ground it is too high a price to pay. And if you
purchased these products it's definitely too high a
price to pay. :>)
No folks, the days of running three
or more active security scanners is over.
So
what should you do?
I now recommend a two stage approach
to computer security:
First, take a much more pro-active
approach to reduce the chance of malware getting onto
your PC. I covered this in depth in my editorial in the
January 2007 issue of this newsletter.
http://techsupportalert.com/issues/issue141.htm#Section_0
Second, once you have put into effect
the practices covered above, you can safely limit the
active protection on your PC to one or two well-chosen
security products.
The trick to the second step lies in
selecting the right products. I'll cover this in more
depth next month but I'll give you a little prelude to
my thinking:
At the moment the freeware solution
that appeals to me most would be to combine the broad
spectrum capabilities of the Kaspersky-based AOL
Anti-Virus Shield with Spyware Terminator (with the
ClamWin scanner disabled). This could be augmented with
weekly offline scans using Ewido Antispyware and
BlackLight rootkit detector.
For paid software, I'm thinking that
NOD32 AV or the full commercial version of Kaspersky AV
would alone offer sufficient protection for most users.
These too could be augmented with periodic offline
scans using Ewido and BlackLight. Higher risk users may
need to consider adding WebRoot SpySweeper (without
virus protection) or Spyware Doctor into the
mix.
Please note this advice only holds if
you have put into effect the security practices I
mentioned in the January issue. If not, you'll need a
lot more protection than this.
But this is only a prelude. Next
month I'll look at other security product combinations
and talk about how firewalls fit into this as
well.
The times are a'changing folks. Our
approach to computer security needs to be modified to
reflect these changes.
See you next month.
Gizmo
editor@techsupportalert.com
PS This month I'm giving away
six free copies of the the top rated Anti virus NOD32.
For details, see below.
Support Alert is not produced by a
giant publishing empire, it's the work of one man,
working alone, namely me.
Support Alert relies on paid
subscriptions to the Premium Edition to survive. If you
feel that you've benefited from reading the free
edition perhaps you would like to consider subscribing
to the Premium.
The Premium Edition contains almost
twice the number of great tech sites, free utilities,
tips and other content as the free edition. It's also
ad-free.
When you subscribe you'll also get
immediate access to the archive of all past issues of
the Premium Edition where you can catch up on the
hundreds of great utilities you missed in the free
edition. If you like the free edition you'll
love the premium. At $10 per year it's just the cost a
few coffees.
This month I'm giving away to new
Premium subscribers, six free copies of the the top
rated Anti virus NOD32.
NOD32 is a brilliant program for
protecting your PC yet it only consumes a modest amount
of your computing resources. That's why I use it on my
key work computers. At $39 it's good value but it's
even better value when you can get it for
free.
The six copies I'm giving away will
be allocated at random but your chances of scoring one
are actually quite good. So if you have been thinking
of subscribing, now's the time.
Even if you don't win anything you'll
still get my special report "Gizmo's Desert Island
Utilities" which outlines the software I use myself,
including many free products.
How to subscribe to the
Premium Edition: 12 months subscription to the Premium
Edition costs $10 which can be made by credit card,
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now:
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1.0 TOP
TECH SITES AND RESOURCES
1.1 The 46 Best-ever Freeware
Utilities List Updated
I've just finished a major update of
my top freeware list. If you haven't checked the list
for a while now is the time as there are some great new
additions. If you belong to a forum or newsgroup I'd be
mighty grateful if you posted a link to the web page.
If you do, please let me know.
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm
1.2 Valuable Virtual Machine
Tools
The
folks at VMToolkit [1] have released a free a utility
that converts from VMWare virtual images (VMDK) to
Microsoft Virtual Machine images (VHD). Note that it
needs the .NET Framework 2.0
to be installed. Equally useful is VMWare's free P2V
utility [2] that allows you make a virtual image from a
real Windows system that can then be run as a virtual
machine using VMWare's free VMWare Player [3]. EasyVMX
[4] has for some time been offering a free online
service that does much the same thing, though, in a
more basic way.
[1] http://vmtoolkit.com/files/folders/converters/entry8.aspx
[2] http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/faqs.html
[3] http://www.vmware.com/products/player/
[4] http://www.easyvmx.com/supersimple.shtml
1.3 Converting Movie Clips to Send
Via Email
Subscriber Joe Morice recently wrote
asking how he could convert a 40 MB .avi video file to
one less than 5MB for emailing. I replied that I didn't
think it be done without serious loss in quality. Joe
proved me wrong. He converted his 40 MB .avi to a
3.2 MB .mp4 using the free
online conversion service at Zamzar [1] with little
loss in quality when viewed on a PC. He even sent me
links to the original and compressed files to prove it.
Nice find, Joe. The Zamzar site is going from strength
and is now a mandatory first stop when converting any
file format to another.
[1] http://www.zamzar.com
1.4 How to Find a File on the
Web
Sometimes you need to find a specific
file on the web such as abcdef.zip. Google is always a
good starting point but I usually have more luck with
these FTP search engines.
http://www.filewatcher.com
http://www.metaftp.com/
1.5 Vista Driver
Site
Here's a nice find: a site that list
all Vista drivers as they become available, with direct
download links to the drivers. It's free and updated
daily.
http://www.radarsync.com/vista
1.6 More Free Support
Sites
Subscriber Richard Yores writes,
"Gizmo, just about the friendliest tech support forum
I've seen on the net is CyberTechHelp [1]. Most user
problems are answered quickly including analysis of
HijackThis logs." I agree, Richard. It's both friendly
and active. So too is D-A-L Computer Help [2], another
forum-based support site. I suggest you try both the
next time you have a PC problem.
[1] http://www.cybertechhelp.com/forums/
[2] http://www.d-a-l.com/index.php
1.7 How to Do Your Image Editing
Online
Free online services offer a useful
alternative to doing your image editing on your own PC.
This site offers an excellent comparison of ten
different services. Their top pick was Cellsea [2]
because it "... has a clean, responsive interface with
an impressive set of features and can handle a wide
range of file formats." Check it out; it's more capable
than you might think, though the 5MB maximum file size
will be limitation for some users. Thanks to Luc
Archambault for the suggestion.
[1] http://www.smileycat.com/miaow/archives/000267.html
[2] http://www.cellsea.com/java-cellsea/media/index.htm
**
These items appear only in the Premium Edition
**
1.8 How
to Get Commercial Utilities for Free
1.9 How
to Reset the Windows Administrator
Password
1.10 How
to Change Drive Letter Assignments in Windows
XP
Got
some great tech sites to suggest? Send them to:
editor@techsupportalert.com
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2.0 TOP
FREEWARE AND SHAREWARE UTILITIES
2.1 A Simple and Cheap Way to Get a
Multi-Monitor Setup
Imagine working on a spreadsheet and
you want more width to see the whole spreadsheet.
Wouldn't it be nice if you could drag the right hand
side of the spreadsheet window all the way to the right
onto a second monitor alongside your main monitor? Well
that's exactly what you can do with a neat shareware
program called MaxiVista [1]. Regular contributor Lex
Davidson has prepared an excellent review and this now
available online [2]. He's really impressed and so am
I. I use a multi-monitor / multi-PC setup all the time
and can attest that it really improves my productivity.
If you have an old PC lying around this could be the
perfect use for it. Commercial software, from $29.95,
free 14 day limited feature trial, Windows 2000, XP,
1.81MB
[1] http://www.maxivista.com/
[2] http://www.techsupportalert.com/review-maxvista.htm
2.2 Free Utility Preserves Desktop
Icon Layout
Ever installed a new program or
changed your screen resolution only to discover your
precious desktop icon layout has been scrambled?
Restore Desktop 2.0 is a tiny
little utility that allows you to easily reset you
desktop back to your preferred layout. Just select the
restore option from the right click context menu and
all your icons will be instantly returned to where they
belong. It will even restore your icons to their
correct position relative to the screen edges when you
change screen resolution. Freeware, Windows 98 and
later, 78KB. NOTE: After I published this newsletter it looks like the
developers have switched the link below [1] to a sales page for one of their
shareware products. However I managed to find an alternative link [2] Click on
the file size to download.
[1]
http://www.softwarium.com/rdwin.html
[2]
http://web.archive.org/web/20060127002359/www.softwarium.com/windownloads.html
2.3 Firefox Extension Makes Opening
Text Links Easier
In
issue #142 I mentioned Linkification [1], a Firefox
extension that allows you to highlight a text-only link
in a web page and then use the right click context menu
to open the link in a new tab or window. This prompted
subscriber Steve Wolfson to write, "Gizmo, for this
purpose I use an extension called Text Link [2]. The
advantage of Text Link over Linkification is you don't
have to highlight the link and then right click and
make a selection from the context menu. You simply
double click on the text link and the link opens in a
new tab. The only issue with this extension is that it
comes from a Japanese site. Although the page is in
English, it's a little trickier to install an extension
from this site than from ones listed on the Mozilla
site. However, it works great for me." And it works
great for me as well, Steve, and I agree; it's better
than Linkification. The good news is that you can now
get it directly from the Mozilla extensions site
[3].
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/190/
[2] http://piro.sakura.ne.jp/xul/_textlink.html.en
[3] https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1939/
2.4 The Best Way to Validate Your
HTML
If
you want to get the highest surfer satisfaction and
best Google ranking for your web pages you should
validate the HTML to ensure it complies with HTML
standards. The same applies to HTML newsletters. Many
email clients have minimal HTML handling capabilities
and are intolerant of poor HTML. Worse still, some spam
filters heavily penalize html errors in email messages.
That's why I recently decided to more thoroughly
validate the HTML in all future issues of Support
Alert. But what was the best validation tool to use?
Initially I used the free web based service from W3C
[1]. They are, after all, the standards body so it
seemed like a good starting point. Technically their
markup validator works fine but it's hard to use. The
view is fragmented, there are few visual cues to
distinguish between minor problems and major errors and
it was a lot of work moving between the browser window
and my HTML editor. It also requires the use of a
separate tool for CSS validation. One thing you can say
for the W3C validator is that it is comprehensive. It
alerted me to many errors that were not flagged at all
by DreamWeaver MX, my HTML editor. I then tried a
Firefox extension called (oddly enough) "HTML
Validator" [2]. It's based on the Open Source Tidy
program and works from the Display Source option in
Firefox. It's a nice little product and is visually far
more effective than the W3C validator. But, alas, it
doesn't find all the errors. The next product I tried
was a commercial offering [3] from CSE called (you
guessed it) "HTML Validator." This is a stand-alone
utility you run on your own PC that not only validates
your HTML but allows you to correct the problems using
an inbuilt HTML editor. With this I hit the jackpot. It
flags errors very clearly and has excellent plain
English explanations of the errors along with practical
suggestions for how they can be fixed. It also allows
you to clearly differentiate between minor problems and
serious concerns. Fixing problems is easy: just make
the changes using the inbuilt editor and re-validate.
It's a quick and efficient process. It's thorough, too;
it found all the errors detected by the W3C validator
with a few extra helpful tips thrown in as well.
Overall this product gave me the two qualities I was
looking for: thoroughness combined with ease of use.
It's a bit expensive but most serious HTML coders will
quickly recover the cost in time saved. Those whose
needs are less demanding may want to check out the free
Lite version. It lacks the CSS validation, spell
checking, advice tips and a number of other features
but it's still a very usable product. Commercial
software, Free Lite version plus other versions
$69-129, Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 3.74MB (Lite)
[1] http://validator.w3.org/
[2] https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/249/
[3] http://www.htmlvalidator.com
2.5 Linux as an Alternative to
Vista
Regular contributor "Briard" has
written a fascinating account of how he tried a dozen
different Linux distros in his search for a Vista
replacement. Briard is no Linux dude, just a typical
experienced Windows user, so his findings are of great
relevance to any Window user who has been tempted to
try the Linux path. He's written a great review; it's
amusing, informative and very timely. For a different
take on the same subject check out this article [2]
suggested to me by subscriber Robin Martin and this one
[3] suggested by Mikel Peterson.
[1] http://www.techsupportalert.com/review-linux-for-windows-users.htm
[2] http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=102&threadID=213495&start=0&tag=nl.e101
[3] http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2102876,00.asp?kc=EWLINEMNL031307EOAD
2.6 Microsoft Releases Virtual PC
2007
Virtualization software allows a user
to create multiple virtual machines (guests) on the
user's real PC (the host). The guests are isolated from
the host and cannot have any affect on it.
Virtualization is the ideal environment for testing out
new software (and operating systems) without exposing
your real PC to security threats or other risks. Last
year Microsoft made available Virtual PC 2004 for free
and now they have done the same with the just-released
final version of Virtual PC 2007. It's an impressive
freebie with hardware acceleration for CPU's that
supports virtualization, 64 bit support, quick changing
between virtual PCs using tabs and support for Vista as
both as a host or guest. Virtual PC will run on Windows
XP Pro or Tablet editions and Vista Business,
Enterprise and Ultimate. Users of XP Home or Vista home
editions are out of luck. Microsoft clearly sees
Virtual PC as part of their Vista migration program.
For example, it allows organizations to continue to use
applications that are incompatible with Vista by
running them within an older Windows version guest
running on a Vista host. I tried Virtual PC on a test
rig and it ran Windows 98 perfectly as a guest under
Windows XP Pro. An Ubuntu Linux install was less
successful with a corrupted graphics display.
Apparently there is a fix for this but I didn't try it.
Frankly, I prefer VMWare Workstation over Virtual PC;
it's got much better management of saved images and it
properly supports Linux. However, VMWare workstation is
a $169 product while Virtual PC 2007 is free so there
is no contest in the value department.
[1] http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/virtualpc/sysreq.mspx
**
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2.7 Free
Digital Effects Plug-in Impresses
2.8 Free
Network Software for Schools and
Classrooms
2.9 More
Vista Features for XP Users
Got
some top utilities to suggest? Send them to
editor@techsupportalert.com
3.0
SECURITY PATCHES, SERVICE RELEASES AND
UPDATES
3.1 Microsoft Security
News
I'm
beginning to wonder whether Microsoft is ever again
going to have a "good month" in the computer security
arena. In March someone managed to defeat the Vista
activation scheme [1], Windows OneCare finished last in
a new comparative test of 17 anti-virus products [2],
flaws were detected in Windows Vista [3] while Vista
security was criticized by Symantec [4]. Then to top it
off, an update to the AV Engine in Windows Live OneCare
locked Outlook users out of their email because it
decided to quarantine the entire email catalog .PST
file if it found a single infected message [5]. Maybe
April will be better for Microsoft; April 1 sounds like
good start ;>)
No
Microsoft security updates were released in March so
expect April to be a biggy.
[1]
http://apcmag.com/5512/pirate_crack_vista_oem_activation
[2] http://www.av-comparatives.org
[3] http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,129536-c,vistalonghorn/article.html
[4] http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/02/28/HNsymcvistaresearch_1.html
[5] http://news.com.com/2061-10794_3-6165691.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-5&subj=news
3.2
Firefox Updated to V2.0.0.2
On
the 23rd of February Mozilla issued another update for
V2 of Firefox that offers better Vista compatibility,
several bug fixes and patches for nine potential
problems. Also released were new versions of Firefox
V1.5.0.10 and SeaMonkey V1.1.1 with corresponding
patches. The nine security problems patched include
some potentially serious flaws. To my knowledge there
are no current exploits in circulation that utilize any
of these flaws. However, it is essential that you
update as the malware developers routinely reverse
engineer security updates to identify flaws to exploit
in unpatched machines. Users with automatic updates
enabled should have had the new version automatically
delivered and installed. You can check by selecting
Help / About from within Firefox. If your version
number is less than V2.0.0.2 then update manually from
here [1]. Note: although not documented in the Firefox
release notes, the latest version also appears to have
fixed a problem I was having where copies of Firefox
that had been minimized for long periods would take up
vast chunks of memory and chew up my processor
cycles.
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/
3.3 Cloud Descends Over Top
BitTorrent Clients
The
small, fast BitTorrent client uTorrent came out of
nowhere to quickly establish itself as the darling of
the BitTorrent set. However, its recent sale to
BitTorrent.com has stunned the community as
BitTorrent.com is seen as rather too close to the
digital rights folks for comfort. As a reflection of
this concern, uTorrent.com has recently been blocked by
the popular PeerGuardian program [3] employed by
BitTorrent users to avoid the peering eyes of the RIAA
and other copyright police. Concerned uTorrent users
are now turning to other clients such as the open
source Azureus [4], though it too recently raised some
eyebrows when it was found that recent versions do some
user behavior tracking. Frankly I think this latter
concern is overstated as the source code of Azureus is
available for all to inspect.
[1] http://www.utorrent.com/
[2] http://www.bittorrent.com/
[3] http://phoenixlabs.org/2006/03/07/the-%C2%B5torrent-fiasco
[4] http://azureus.sourceforge.net/
3.4 New Version of Top Anonymous
Surfing Program
TorPark is a special portable version
of Firefox that incorporates the free Tor anonymizing
service that allows you to surf anonymously by relaying
your connection through a chain of special Tor servers.
It created quite a sensation when it was released last
year as it provided users with an easy way to surf
anonymously without going through the hassle of
configuring complex network settings. It could also be
run from a USB flash drive which made it ideal for use
on public terminals. A new version has just been
released based on Firefox V2.0.0.2 rather than V1.5
used in the original. Additionally, a new optional pay
service has been introduced that allows much faster
surfing, one of the known drawbacks of the Tor service.
Freeware, Windows 98 and later, 11.0MB
http://www.torrify.com/software_torpark.html
3.5 Vista Gets Poor
Reception
Sales of Vista have been slow; well
down on expectations [1]. Additionally it has received
bad press from some important industry pundits about
its device and software compatibility problems. Indeed
LockerGnome's Chris Pirillo has very publicly announced
[2] he was "upgrading" his personal PC by removing
Vista and going back to Windows XP. Pirillo may well be
concerned about upgrading as another flaw in Vista has
been discovered [3] where Vista may downgrade your
installation to the status of an illegal copy if you
install certain third party software it doesn't like, a
fault now confirmed by Microsoft. And the unkindest cut
of them all: Gizmo dared to suggest in his February
editorial [4] that you shouldn't upgrade to Vista but
rather wait until you buy a new PC, Now I bet that one
had Bill really shaking in his boots :>)
[1] http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/8726.cfm
[2] http://chris.pirillo.com/2007/02/27/windows-vista-im-breaking-up-with-you/
[3] http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=221
[4] http://techsupportalert.com/issues/issue142.htm#Section_0
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reviewing this product he's changed his mind; "at long
last a remote access solution that actually works!
Quite frankly we agree with him, it's an impressive
product. Read the full review here:
http://www.pcsupportadvisor.com/best_remote_access_software.htm
The Best Free Kids Craft
Projects
Keep your young children engaged and amused with
healthy, creative arts and craft activities that won't
cost you a cent. Free newsletter packed with easy kids
craft projects.
http://kidscraftweekly.com/
------------- end of sponsored links
--------------------------
4.0
OTHER USEFUL STUFF
4.1 Good Prices on Computer
Software
Subscriber Mikel Peterson writes,
"Gizmo, this site has some of the best prices on
software I've seen. It's especially useful for those of
us with older PCs. It's reliable, too - I've made
several purchases without a problem." Looks good Mikel.
I cross checked some of their prices against Froogle
[2] and found they hold up pretty well.
[1] http://www.nothingbutsoftware.com/productlist_page/show/greatbuys/SearchPage/1
[2] http://froogle.google.com/
4.2 New Utility from
SysInternals
I'm
a great admirer of the utilities from SysInternals but
subscriber Martin Cowen spotted this new one from Mark
Russinovich that I missed. "ZoomIt is a screen zoom and
annotation tool for technical presentations that
includes application demonstrations. ZoomIt runs
unobtrusively in the tray and activates with
customizable hotkeys to zoom in on an area of the
screen, move around while zoomed, and draw on the
zoomed image. I wrote ZoomIt to fit my specific needs
and use it in all my presentations. ZoomIt works on all
versions of Windows." Nice find, Mark.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/zoomit.mspx
4.3 Weapon of Mass Destruction for
Geeks
Take revenge on the guy down the
aisle with the USB powered coffee warmer [1] by
targeting his coffee mug with this USB powered missile
launcher [2].
[1] http://www.cyberguys.com/templates/searchdetail.asp?ProductID=9959
[2] http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/cubegoodies/86b8/
4.4 Seven Steps to Remarkable
Customer Service
This excellent article suggested by
regular contributor JW should be mandatory reading for
all tech support staff. In fact, mandatory reading for
anyone in a service industry.
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/customerservice.html
4.5 Useless Waste of Time
Department
This Flash diversion lets you become
the King of Gravity. I got hooked - like, seriously
hooked. And I thought I was inured to the attractions
of Flash games. Then again, I thought I was inured to
Puccini's emotional tricks and that proved to be a
fantasy as well.
http://www.thecleverest.com/content/attractors.html
**
These items appear only in the Premium SE Edition
**
4.6 Free
Games from Microsoft
4.7 Tax
Filing for Nix
4.8 How
To Tell Whether Your Anti-Spyware Program is Itself
Spyware
5.0 TIP
OF THE MONTH
5.1 How to Ensure You Don't Have
Vulnerable Software on Your PC
If you want to keep your PC secure
it's essential that all your software is kept up to
date with the latest security patches.
When I say all your software, I mean
all, not just Windows and Office. For example, is your
version of Adobe Reader up-to-date? How recent is your
Java and your Flash plug-in? Well, I hope they are
up-to-date as earlier versions of all these products
have critical security flaws that could allow an
intruder to take over your PC.
As a typical PC may have dozens of
products installed it's a big task to ensure each and
every product has been updated. However, security
company Secunia has just made it a lot
easier.
Secunia is offering a free online
scan of your software that checks the product versions
you are running against their extensive database of
known flaws. You get a full report showing what
products to update and where to get the updates. It's
Java based so will run on any modern browser and the
whole thing only takes a minute or so.
Every one of my PCs needed at least
one product update. This came as a shock to me as I
consider myself quite diligent in keeping my software
up-to-date.
This is one of the best free security
services I've seen so make a visit to this site part of
your regular PC maintenance. Thanks to David Hahn for
letting me know about this.
http://secunia.com/software_inspector/
6.0
FREEBIE OF THE MONTH
6.1 The Best Free Windows Clipboard
Replacement
This review was written by subscriber
Daniel Livingston.
There are many clipboard managers out
there but only a few that do what I want, the way I
want.
Clipx [1] and Clipomatic [2] are
excellent. They are both fast, lightweight, easy to use
and use few system resources. When you press a
programmable hotkey they launch a pop-up menu of clips
to select. The clip selection can be made via mouse or
keyboard shortcut thus enabling completion of the
entire copy/select/paste process to be made by keyboard
alone. They have options to record and display a
variable number of clips, as well as to store permanent
clips such as text snippets. Both use less than 1MB
memory so any system can afford to have them running
continuously.
Clipomatic is a bit slicker to use
and has more robust permanent item functionality but
its real limitation is that it is text only. ClipX will
do everything Clipomatic will (although you need to add
a plug-in to enable the permanent clip function,
available from the same site as ClipX) plus copy
images.
The only reason I've stopped using
those two is because they only keep a limited number of
clips. They can hold 30+ but everything they hold is
displayed on the hotkey popup and if you set them high
the popup gets pretty big and cluttered. If you keep
the popup slim and small, you only get to keep a
limited clip history.
There are other clip utilities that
record full histories but most of them fail in
simplicity of use. ClipMagic [3] and Yankee Clipper III
[4] are two decent ones that record, sort, and archive
huge histories and both do it well. But they are
overkill; more like clipboard Personal Information
Managers than utilities. And the cost of this overkill
is the loss of simplicity of operation.
ArsClip [5] is a product that offers
a perfect balance between functionality and ease of
use. It has the fast and light features of Clipomatic
and ClipX but also records a long history of clips.
Intelligently, the popup only displays a limited number
of clips but the rest of the history is just one click
further away. The history is also searchable. ArsClip
has permanent items, but expands the basic ability and
lets you create several different groups of permanent
clips (like forum responses, email addresses, sigs,
etc.), each displayed as separate cascading menus on
the popup. ArsClip also allows easy one-click editing
of clips. To top it all off, ArsClip requires no
installation and can be run from a portable drive so
you can easily tote all your clips with you.
For those with undemanding clip
management needs, ClipX and Clipomatic are both fine
choices. They are efficient tiny utilities that, while
simple, still enormously increase the functionality of
the Windows clipboard. ClipMagic and YCIII are more
like full-blown clip management applications rather
than utilities, but do offer excellent sorting and
archiving if you're a digital packrat. ArsClip is my
favorite, offering speed and effortless functionality
while hanging on to a wealth of data.
All of these tools offer great
advantages over the standard Windows Clipboard. So pick
what's right for your needs knowing that whatever you
chose you'll wonder how you ever lived without
it.
[1] http://bluemars.org/clipx/ Freeware, All
Windows versions, 108KB
[2] http://www.mlin.net/Clipomatic.shtml
Freeware, All Windows versions, 95KB
[3] http://www.clipmagic.com/ Freeware, Win98
and later, 1.88MB
[4] http://www.intelexual.com/products/YC3/
Freeware, All Windows, 1MB
[5] http://www.joejoesoft.com/vcms/97/
Freeware. All Windows 600KB.
** Bonus Freebie in the Premium SE
Edition **
6.2 The Best Free
Uninstaller
Most freeware uninstallers are just
replacements for the Windows Add/Remove Programs
applet. They don't really uninstall programs but rather
provide a user interface to run the uninstallers that
are supplied with most programs.
These so-called uninstallers are
useful but don't address the problem of what to do when
the supplied uninstall program fails. This is both
common and serious. At the very least, your PC may be
cluttered by a lot of garbage files and registry
entries. At the worst, your PC may not work at
all.
To
prevent this from happening you need a different kind
of uninstaller: one that monitors and records exactly
what changes a program makes when it installs on your
PC. This kind of uninstaller can, if necessary,
genuinely remove all traces of the program by simply
reversing the changes it logged during
installation.
There are a number of such programs
available as commercial software. These include
Ashampoo Uninstaller Platinum 2 ($49.99), Your
Uninstaller! 2006 Pro ($39.99) and Advanced Uninstaller
Pro ($39) but there is only one decent freeware
program. Fortunately, it happens to be a very effective
product.
... full details in the Premium Edition
How to get the Premium Edition
now
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You'll also get immediate access to
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hundreds of great utilities you missed in the free
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If
you like the free edition you'll love the premium. At
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Use
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This month I'm giving away to new
Premium subscribers, six free copies of the the top
rated anti virus NOD32.
NOD32 is a brilliant program for
protecting your PC yet it only consumes a modest amount
of your computing resources. That's why I use it on my
key work computers. At $39 it's good value but it's
even better value when you can get it for
free.
The
six copies I'm giving away will be allocated at random
but your chances of scoring one are actually quite
good. So if you have been thinking of subscribing,
now's the time.
Even if you don't win anything you'll
still get my special report "Gizmo's Desert Island
Utilities" which outlines the software I use myself,
including many free products.
Use
the link below to subscribe now:
http://www.techsupportalert.com/se-edition.htm
7.0 MANAGE YOUR
SUBSCRIPTION
Support Alert is a free
newsletter. If you liked
this issue why not email it to a friend. Anyone can
subscribe by signing up online at
http://www.techsupportalert.com/al_subscribe.htm
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If you no longer wish to receive this
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Enter your email address. No password is needed. You
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To change your delivery email address
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You can then change your subscription email address
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The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm
The Extended List of the Latest
Freebies
http://www.techsupportalert.com/more/extended.htm
For lots more free IT newsletters
see
http://www.TechNewsletters.com/infobase.asp?TPubId=79
Thanks to subscriber A. Belile for
proofreading this issue.
You can contact this newsletter by
snail mail at:
Support Alert
PO Box 243
Comstock Park, MI 49321-0243 USA
Support Alert is a registered online
serial publication ISSN 1448-7020. Content of this
newsletter is (c) Copyright TechSupportAlert.com,
2007
See you next issue, out on the 12th
of April, 2007.
Gizmo
Ian Richards
editor@techsupportalert.com
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