SPCUG Friday Seniors' SIG
2011-08-12
It seems nobody wants the job full-time. We may be able to sort out some schedule from the coalition of the willing, or continue on an ad-hoc basis, adding hocs as they become available.
WARNING WARNING WARNING
I am have
running out of material to present. Please come
forward with a topic that you wish to present. Or a topic that you
would like me to present. Otherwise you are in for some interesting
hours learning to solve linked non-linear differential equations
using a spreadsheet.
WARNING WARNING WARNING
Suggestions
SEPTEMBER Roger &
Son will present Advanced Technological Presentations or
DRiVe or something interesting.
WiFi and how to use it ?
Build your own machine - Christopher M (he says no soldering needed but byo screwdriver)
Christopher also wants to know about the non-linear DEs.
Josephine's MAC address fixed! See her solution at the end.
Cloning a drive - Acronis works, but on W7 Paragon (from PC User mag) OK to a blank drive but won't overwrite an existing clone. It seems that you will have to wipe the disk first, stick to Acronis.
Difference between 'Clone' & 'Image', and why would you clone? A clone is a 1-to-1 copy of the whole drive used AND and unused space to another disk. An image is a copy of (usually only) the used parts of the drive to a file (eg .TIB for Acronis, which may also be compressed) which can then be restored or mounted as a virtual drive. If you restore to a new drive you have made a clone. Cloning is generally used when your drive is failing, or too small, to make a new drive so you don't have to re-install everything. Images are generally used for backup.
1TB external drive H:(I) became H:(I)(J) Why & How? XP - Check disk properties to look at the name and change it if you like (right click in Explorer and click Properties), then used disk management to assign a permanent drive letter (Programs | Administrative Tools | Computer Management, then select Disk Manager) Assign as eg. X: so it won't conflict with anything else you may plug in.
Google Toolbar vanished with IE9, try re-installing it. Maybe some other installation killed it - sometimes toolbars bundled with freeware do silly things.
Firefox in W7 - no View Source Code in menu! Use Ctrl/U or right click on page.
Vista - document files shortcuts in quick lauch bar beep on first click and open on 2nd (not double) click. Try looking at the icon proprties, we are confused.
Anyone have trouble with July Patches? Excel was crippled by one of them. Anyone know a fix?
Any problems W7SP1 - no you can go ahead now.
First you need to know what they do before you can answer those questions. You may have seen Robert Israel demonstrating 'Advanced System Care' at a Main Meeting. He clicked 'Scan' then 'Clean' just after installing the program. I cringed, waiting for everything to go black. NEVER do this !!!
Disk cleaners aim to clear out the dust and lint that builds up over time. Temporary files that programs forget to clean up, empty the recycle bin (but this is a sort of backup!), browser cache files and program (eg anti-virus) log files are the safest to remove. Cookies are usually safe, unless they contain website subscription information. Other things YOU SHOULD CHECK CAREFULLY.
Look at CCleaner as an example. Before cleaning you should go to Options Cookies and move those cookies you might like to keep to the keep list. Then in Advanced tick the detailed view box. Now click on the Cleaner broom. Note that there are two tabs here. Go through these and make sure only those items that you think you want to clean are ticked. If you don't know what it means then DON'T SELECT IT. Now click on Analyze and scrutinize the resulting list. If anything puzzles you you should un-tick the option that created it. Then you can click Clean. Do this the first few times you run the program, as some items may not be present the first time. Then you can un-tick the details view or (if you are brave) skip the Analyze and go straight to Clean.
Other cleaners (like ASC, Glary Utilities, Disk Cleaner, BleachBit) either work this way or present you with a list of proposed cleanings, allowing you to de-select those you don't want. I don't like that way as it is laborious and too easy to miss something. Some of these include some anti-malware functions too (same cautions apply).
The other half of these cleaners is the Registry Cleaner. This removes dust and lint from the registry. The same rules apply. Here things like unused extensions, missing MUI and Installer items are safe to remove, others may not be. [Although a well regarded program like CCleaner is unlikely to do serious damage]. It is safest to do a backup of the registry cleaning, which should be offered, or make a restore point while you are learning.
Tweaking is making changes to the registry to improve performance or appearance. Many of these changes can be made in various preferences or control panel settings (if you remember where) but some are undocumented. It is safest to make a restore point, make ONE change and test thoroughly. Then make further changes this way. Some of the cleaners bundle tweaks, and there are stand-alone tweakers like TweakMe!.
So - are they safe? Generally yes. They have been designed to delete only safe stuff. They may delete more than you want, but probably won't cripple your system. CCleaner deleted my language settings in OpenOffice until I put that file in the exception list, and deleted FreeDownloadManager history until I de-selected that option. These were merely nuisances, not catastrophes. Used as I describe above you should not have a catastrophe.
But - are they useful? Marginally at best. With today's large disks you don't really need to clean up files (but when I had a 4GB drive with 3.8 GB files I used them often!). Some options compact the operating files (eg Firefox), and this does speed up these programs. Registry cleaning does not speed up the system or reduce the size (for that you need a registry defragmenter for a marginal improvement). There are said to be security issues with empty registry keys, but your anti-malware should take care of that. Some say that cleaning the cache speeds up browsing, some say the opposite! The anti-malware bundled with some is useful, but Spybot S&D works for me. So it would depend on how much lint you collect - I do CCleaner & Spybot weekly but your needs may vary.
Peter
ps You could also look at Tweak Now.
Communications SIG
A lively and sometimes frightening discussion of on-line security, and the evil activities of Anushka and her team.
Links - (wear a wig to disguise yourself)
Some more on keyloggers, Anushka's favourites.
PSMAntiKeyLogger
- if you like the colour blue, repeatedly = BSOD loop.
You could search for
keyloggers to test these, but SpyBot vanished some of them when I
tried to install ! Others merely caused a hang requiring power-off.
So only for the reckless.
Roger can't use his MoPho. It tells him he has alerts enabled. Nockyer and Voderphoan both needed to disenable it. Then he stuffed it up again by trying to enter a parswerd, which disabled his MoPho, another trip to Nockyer. So ... Don't fiddle with passwords on your MoPho !!!
Josephine's solution
The solution was along the lines originally suggested by Roger:-
Connect computer to the Netgear router with an Ethernet cable.
Log in to the router at
User admin
Pwd as originally set
Click on Wireless Settings under Advanced
Computer and printer are listed there with MAC addresses
Click ADD
Enter name for each device, enter MAC address
MAC address obtained for -
TV via Network Setup, Wireless, choose Network, Network Test
Phone under Settings, About Phone, Hardware Information, Wi-Fi MAC address
Click APPLY
On phone Settings, Network Wi-Fi, click on Network name, enter 2nd pwd Connected!!!
On TV Network, Wireless, Network name, enter 2nd pwd, Connected!!!
NB: I have 2 levels of pwd protection on my network, not sure which is which so try one then the other.