Category Archives: Technical Tips

Where’s the beef? Here’s the beef.

Adding Memory To Your Computer – Why it Speeds it Up

Technical Tips

RAM, or Random Access Memory, is what the computer uses to store information needed for the applications (programs) being run at the moment, such as Outlook, your web browser, etc. and all system applications needed for the computer to run. Enough applications opened at the same time will use up the RAM and make the computer start using virtual memory.

Virtual memory is a different type of memory the computer uses when it starts to run low on RAM. The more virtual memory the computer uses, the slower it will become. Why? Virtual memory consists of a file stored in your computer’s hard disk, called paging file. In there the computer will store information when the RAM is running out. The problem with it is that the access time to the computer hard disk data is way higher than the access time to the RAM. So every time the computer needs to use memory and uses virtual memory to store/retrieve data, it becomes slower because it takes that much more time to retrieve and store information.

So remember – generally more memory means more speed. Don’t forget it.

Contact me if you need help assessing whether or not you need more memory, how much more, what type, etc.

Signs and Symptoms of an Infected Computer

Computer Security, Technical Tips,

With nowadays’ new trend of stealthiness in computer attacks, it behooves the common user to be aware of the subtle indications that tell his/her computer might be infected. That is the purpose of this article.

These are all signs of a possible infection:

1. Your computer slows down without any apparent reason.

2. When you try to go to a particular website in your web browser, it re-directs you to a different one.

3. Random pop-up windows while surfing the internet.

4. Your installed antivirus solution is not working properly or cannot update.

5. Your web browser’s homepage has changed “by itself”.

6. The default search engine in your web browser has changed “by itself”.

7. Web pages are unexpectedly added to your Favorites folder.

8. Your web browser cannot access any websites, yet the computer is connected to the Internet.

9. The computer cannot access certain websites (especially if they’re computer security companies’ websites or the Windows Update website).

10. Your computer screen displays a skull and two bones flashing with a red background and a window that says “You’re infected!” (joke)

There are some others, but the above covers the main ones.

What to do? of course, if you can, run a scan with your current installed antivirus solution. Sometimes doing a System Restore to an earlier point to the perceived date of the infection might do the trick.

Beyond that, look for specialized help. You can always contact me for help in asserting whether or not your computer is infected, and in removing any existing infections.

How Much Security is Enough Security?

Computer Security, Technical Tips

A contact of mine asked me what did I think about RoboForm, a password manager and web form filler solution. My answer was:

It definitely beats having your browser save your passwords in an unencrypted fashion.

Cyberspace security measures are similar to those of the real world. You can put a 4 ft. fence around your house. But some people can jump that. You can raise it to 8 ft. Still some people can jump it, but this time is less people. You can add barbwire to the top of it. Less likely people will jump it. You can electrify it, put trip mines and crocodiles around it… you get the idea. The security measures will however always be breakable. The question is, how much of a profitable target are you? the higher the value, the higher your defense system needs to be. Again, this mirrors real world situations. In the cyber-security world, there are ways to hack into your computer without even knowing the access passwords. Those are however advanced techniques and the ordinary home user is unlikely to become a target of those who can do that, simply because there is not much profit in it compared to other potential targets.

My point is the answer to your question is, RoboForm is the 8 ft fence, more or less. Better than most people have – 4 ft fences, or no fences at all! You just have to have higher security than the average user, and the probabilities of being the target of an attack will decrease simply because there are all those other people with much lower security standards. It’s like if you and a friend are running away from a bear. You don’t have to be faster than the bear – you just have to be faster than your friend 😉

Problem Accessing Shared Files Over a Network

Technical Tips,

A client of mine contacted me with this problem. His Outlook data file was in another computer as a shared file on a peer-to-peer (no server) network, both computers running under Windows XP Pro. However he was getting an access error when trying to open Outlook. The error was of course not verbose enough to troubleshoot anything.

But when I tried to open the shared folder containing the data file from the remote computer, I got a more detailed error. “Not enough server storage is available to process this command”. Ok I can work with that.

The problem had nothing to do with Outlook as you probably gathered. It didn’t even had anything to do with the computer running Outlook. The target computer, the one hosting the shared file, was acting as a server. However due to a registry problem, it was unable to provide access to the file. So, registry editing time. Added the appropriate entry to it, restarted, problem vanished. Another happy customer.

Contact me if you have a similar problem and need help resolving it.

Outlook 2007 – Something New You Need to Know

Technical Tips, ,

So if you are in the same boat as me, you have Outlook 2007 and just installed Office 2007 Service Pack 2 for it, available through Windows Update. Computer is running on Windows Vista Home Premium.

If you use new mail desktop alerts, that little window that appears for a few seconds when a new mail arrives that tells you who is from and the subject, it might not be working following the installation of the latest update.

I unfortunately don’t have a workaround for it yet. At least not one that is worth it. I do  know that by disabling User Account Control (UAC) in Vista the new mail alerts work again. However disabling UAC is not something I’d recommend. As much as I don’t like it, UAC does make it harder for an malign intrusion to succeed. Same goes for running outlook as an administrator.

So stay tuned as events develop and hopefully Microsoft will come up with a hotfix on this very soon…

To be continued.

——-

So a month after my original article above, out of the blue and while checking on something else I tried a preview of the desktop alert and it worked! sent myself a test email, and it worked! I haven’t changed anything with the specific purpose of handling this. The only major changes I can think of is Vista Service Pack 2 installed, and uninstall and re-install of Trend Micro IS 2008. But I cannot tell what change made the functionality of this return to normal.
——-

I guess it was too soon to claim victory – 2 days later, it is once again not working…

——-

Update 12/14/10: Well it only took 17 months for Microsoft to fix this… I installed an update for Outlook 2007 today (KB2412171), and out of the blue the functionality of the desktop alerts was restored…

Connection Problems with Windows Media Center

Technical Tips

After a few weeks of not using it, I decided to play some music from my Xbox 360 using the Media Extender feature. I keep my music on my laptop and run it from the Media Center of Vista Home Premium to my 360 and out the 6 speaker system. However, after I fired up the Media Center in the 360, connected to the laptop, selected music and clicked on music library, nothing happened. After a while, I got an error message saying that the connection was lost. Despite trying several more times, I got the same result.

So naturally I began to troubleshoot this. I shut down and restarted both devices but only achieved the same result. I deleted the setup connection from the 360, re-set up, again, same result. Even turning off the firewall in my laptop gave me no luck. Okay.  It was time to stop guessing and start looking.

Checking over the computer’s system log, I found a somewhat obscure error. Even with clicking on the link to check for help online, I find no particularly helpful data. By Googling the error, I stumbled upon a developer application that has been used to solve somewhat similar problems.  Aha!  Naturally I downloaded and installed this tool, and started running it to repair my file and registry permissions.

At the end of my adventure I restarted my computer and the 360¦and¦VOILA! I can access the music library in my laptop from the 360 extender again. Playing music as I write this, I’m happy I was once again able to solve yet another computer-related issue.

Even something perplexing as this can be handled when one knows where to look “ or knows who to have look for them.  So if you have ever run into something similar, drop me a line and we’ll tackle it together.

Menu Bar Shortcut Glitch in Outlook 2007

Technical Tips, , ,

For those who like to use keyboard shortcuts in general, you might find an oddity in Outlook 2007. When pressing Alt+e, instead of dropping down the edit menu, it only highlights “Edit”. If you have installed Business Contact Manager as well, keep reading.

One of the shortcuts in the Business Contact Manager toolbar is “E-mail Auto-link”, and it uses the same keyboard shortcut than “Edit” in the Menu bar. So Alt+E can be used for either. That is the reason why the keyboard shortcut doesn’t pull down the menu. If you press Alt-E several times, it will switch between highlighting “Edit” in the menu bar and highlighting “E-mail Auto-link” in the BCM toolbar.

So that’s the reason. What is the handling? Stop using Outlook 🙂 . The next simplest is: uninstall BCM. Right next to it is just disable the add-in through the tools menu. If you do use BCM and getting rid of it is not an option, you can change what letter activates the “Edit” menu. Notice that as of this writing I have not found a way to hide the toolbar or change what letter activates the “E-mail Auto-link” button in the BCM toolbar – that seems to me like the real glitch!

Feel free to get in touch if you need instructions or help on how to change the shortut in the “Edit” menu or anything related to this.

Copying Contacts to Business Contacts in Outlook 2007 with BCM

Technical Tips, ,

While talking to a friend I got his contact information in my smartphone running Windows Mobile 6.1, including a picture I took of him on the spot. When I got to my computer, I proceeded to synchronize to my Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager. Since it was business related, after I got it in my contacts, I proceeded to do the usual copying to “business contacts”. Right click, drag to business contacts… got an error message “cannot copy the items. The folders you are trying to change do not support this operation”.

That’s new. I have done the same operation before without any error message so what was different this time? googled the error, found one match, and the issue was not resolved in that reference. Ok. So I’m on my own. So what was different? I realized that I seldom included a picture in my phone contact before I synced, so I tried that. Deleted the picture in the Outlook contact in my computer, tried to then copy to business contacts… success! then I imported the picture from my phone and added it to the contact.

Then I deleted the business contact I had just copied when it had no picture, tried to copy the contact with the picture now included manually and… success! it is safe to conclude there was a problem with importing a contact with a picture attached to it and try to copy it to business contacts that way. I repeated the process twice to test it. Same result.

Hope this helps anyone with a similar problem. If you have any questions or need help with this issue, contact me.

That was a fun rootkit

Computer Security, Technical Tips,

 A young friend of mine asked me recently for help with his computer as it was behaving strangely, with Google search results coming out weird, unable to access certain websites, antivirus wouldn’t update, and so on. I immediately assumed the system was compromised, and guessed it was a rootkit.

Set out to uncover it, I used one of Mark Russinovich’s (that sellout that works for Microsoft now – just kidding! hope you can set Windows 7 right from the beginning!) wonderful tools, and in a few minutes the evidence of the existence of a rootkit popped up in plain view. Having identified the enemy, now it was just a matter of coosing the right tool to destroy it. Had to use two of them actually – this rootkit was very resilient, trying to get around its removal with various clever techniques.

But in the end I was able to remove it and voila! antivirus was able to update itself, no more denied website access, Google searches coming out the way they should.

Since the current day trend defining characteristic of malware is stealthness, rootkits are becoming more and more popular. More computers are infected than their unsuspecting users think.

is your computer infected? contact me and find out.

Conficker/downadup/kido worm – detection and removal tools

Computer Security, Technical Tips, , , , , , ,

Being as it is that one of this worm’s characteristics is to block access to security websites, this post is to help circumvent this problem. If your computer is infected or you suspect is infected, here’s a number of free detection and removal tools that deal with this infection. Click on the appropriate link to download to your computer. Double click on the file and follow the instructions:

BitDefender Single PC Removal Tool: Removes Downadup from a single PC

McAfee Detection Tool: It can detect if any of your computers is infected in a network

Symantec Removal Tool: Symantec’s W32.Downadup/conficker removal tool

Sophos’ Network Removal Tool: Sophos’ Conficker clean-up tool to remove Conficker from an infected network

Sophos’ Standalone Removal Tool: Sophos’ Conficker clean-up tool to remove Conficker from one or more single computers

Contact me if you need help using any of these utilities.