1. Ensures our username is unique among all the other millions of users.
2. Username is easily remembered.
3. In case password is forgotten, it can be easily retrieved by sending password to email address.

My recommendation is to NEVER use your email account’s password as your password for websites you register on. It may seem obvious not to do this, but many people like to use one password to keep things simple. If you like to keep only one password, you should consider having two instead – one for email and one for all other websites.

The risks of using the same password for websites as your email account is that someone can easily gain access to your email. A couple of methods by which this takes place are:

1. The website you create an account on has both your email address and its password. How trustworthy is the operator of the website?
2. You can be tricked by clever ads or webpages or emails that look like they’re legitimate which ask you to log in to your account. But instead, they collect your username and password.

With your email address and password, the damage which can be caused is great. Hackers know what websites you do business with and can change your password and email address on your accounts to lock you out and to have free reign with your account. They can use website’s “forgotten password” function to reset your password. You can be locked out of your own email account which today can be an archive of years of important information. Your online identity can be taken from you and assumed by someone else.

It’s best to come up with a way to balance password management with security. A two password approach is manageable and protects your most valuable resource on the Internet – your email account.

Task Manager

If you’re using Microsoft Windows NT, 2000, XP or Vista and are seeing decreasing performance but don’t know what direction to take to improve the situation, take a look at Windows Task Manager. To get there, right-click on your task bar and select Task Manager or click Start > Run and type taskmgr.exe and press enter. The graphic shown here is the Performance tab of Windows Task Manager.

There are two basic areas displayed in this view: CPU and Page File. The CPU graph will show how much of your CPU (e.g. Intel Pentium 4, AMD Duron, etc.) is being used to support your Operating System (OS) and currently running programs and processes. The second area relates to memory utilization, typically RAM (256 Megabytes, 1 Gigabyte, etc.).

Either graph is displaying essentially a zero to n capacity for your CPU and Memory. As you can see from the graph below, the CPU usage line is very close to the top of the graph throughout the plotted time. This suggests that my CPU is working very hard, nearly 100%. If my computer seems really slow and CPU is constantly and regularly near 100% on this graph, then I should either upgrade the CPU or run fewer programs to see if that helps.

CPU Usage

In the following graph for Memory, you can see that the line is continually well below the top half. This suggests that I have adequate memory to perform the tasks currently running.

Memory Usage

If the Page File line is continually near the top in this graph when operating the computer as you normally would, you’d benefit from adding memory to your system. Most computers can support memory upgrades which is fairly cheap these days ($150 and less). However, you must match memory to your specific computer. Not all memory is alike! Also, in some instances, your existing memory must be removed (possibly to only be thrown out) to make room for larger memory modules which need to be installed in the currently occupied location(s).

Both of these upgrades are fairly simple and should improve your everyday experience with your computer. You may also want to compare the upgrade expenses versus buying a new system. Either way you should be on your way to a much more enjoyable user experience.

When you are the one who is often helping others fix their problems, you usually have everything under control in your own computing world. You are insulted when someone asks if you’ve remembered to check the power cable or if you’ve applied patches, etc. when troubleshooting issues. But every once in a while even the most basic, fundamental steps are missed by experienced users. I have just been humbled by this myself.

Executive summary: reboot everything you can before going on to more destructive methods and time consuming tasks. This takes little time, can be done by even the most novice user and can prove effective in many situations.

Here are the details in my scenario:

• Cable modem broadband Internet connection. Cable modem provided by ISP.
• Wireless/wired D-Link WBR-1310 router for home network.
• The computers connected:
  • Dell desktop running Windows XP Home Edition connected via Ethernet cable to router.
  • Dell desktop running Windows XP Professional Edition connected via wireless to router.
  • Gateway notebook running Windows Vista connected via wireless to router.
• Running ZoneAlarm on all systems. No anti-virus or anti-spyware software.
• All email received and scanned for viruses via Yahoo! Mail.

One day, while working on the XP Pro system, I tried to log into Yahoo! Mail, but got a page timed out message in my browser (Firefox 2.x). I switched to use Internet Explorer 7 instead to access mail and it worked. Some time later, I tried to log into Google services (I use documents, iGoogle, GMail, etc. which require a logon) and I received a timeout in my web browser. Logging into Google services also failed in Internet Explorer on this same machine. I believed that I was looking at a virus or spyware of some sort by this time.

Meanwhile, I could access Yahoo! Mail and Google services with both other computers on the network. Furthermore, all three systems were surfing the net regularly besides what is described above. It seemed like only select websites related to security and services were being blocked. All other websites were coming up fine. I started Google searching for anything which may have been written on this. There was little to be hopeful about.

A couple days later, the notebook computer began to exhibit the exact same symptoms as the XP Pro system. However, the XP Home system still was unaffected. I realized that I had installed Skype onto both XP Pro and the notebook, but not on the XP Home system. I was on to something – or so I thought.

After much time-consuming downloading, updating and scanning of XP Pro and notebook with anti-virus and anti-spyware online scanners (see links under Internet Safety), moving hundreds of GBs of personal documents, photos and music to portable drives, recovering systems from recovery partitions and again from CD/DVD media, I was still having the same problem!

It was clear I was missing something. Alas, I looked to the router. It seemed impossible that it could be the problem since one of the three systems was unaffected and was surfing the net unimpeded. But still, I decided to log into the router’s administration web page and look around. All seemed normal. I checked to see if the manufacturer had released new firmware. Nope. I rebooted the router and magic took place. All systems returned to normal.

I couldn’t believe it after all the hours/days that I spent searching for the virus. Turns out there wasn’t a virus at all. It was one of those gremlins that lives in our computing environments which is immune to anything but the almighty reboot. So, the lesson is that logic does not always prevail. Sometimes it’s best just to reboot!

If you have a digital camera and take a bunch of photos, you’ll need a good photo management program that will allow you to download, organize and edit these photos on your computer. Once you have your photo management system in place and you’ve stored years’ worth of photos, you want to protect your important photos against hardware or user problems. Here are some tips for both…

ORGANIZE YOUR PHOTOS
You can purchase photo management software or you can dowload Picasa for FREE. I’ve been using Picasa for about a year now and have really enjoyed it. Plus, it’s a Google product and has earned Editor’s Choice rating from PC Magazine. Some of the key features I think you’ll enjoy are:

• Ease of use photo management
  • Organize photos using keywords, using folder structure, etc.
  • Drag and drop photos from one location to another.
  • Rotate photos and reorder them easily
• Intuitive and useful editing controls
  • Remove redeye
  • Crop photo to improve composition
  • Modify lighting (e.g. contrast, fill light, brightness, etc.)
  • Straighten out a crooked photo
  • Edits are recorded for Picasa to use/display and original photo remains safely untouched.
• Integration to online tools
  • Email selected photos to friends easily
  • Upload to Picasa Web Albums (more on this below)

PROTECT YOUR PHOTOS
Once you have your photos organized and edited just the way you like it, you’ll want to protect your photos from disaster. I recommend backing up your photos, but there are various solutions for accomplishing this task with different pros and cons. You can backup your photos to another location on your hard drive, to a cd or dvd or to an online service. While any backup is better than none, here is what you can expect with each:

• Hard Drive
  • PROS: Very fast backup, convenient, doesn’t require additional resources outside of your computer.
  • CONS: Must have a large enough hard drive for two copies (original plus backup), doesn’t protect against hard drive failure, not shareable with others.
• CD or DVD
  • PROS: Inexpensive, easily add more capacity with more CDs or DVDs as collection grows, portable.
  • CONS: Doesn’t protect against fire in your home unless CDs/DVDs are taken off site, can become scratched, broken or lost.
• Online
  • PROS: Safe from disaster at your home, easily share with friends and family, additional features available with online services.
  • CONS: Slow copying (especially if you do not have broadband Internet access), limited space for photos before you must pay, requires Internet access during copy process, perception of security concerns.

Given these choices, I recommend exploring the online method. My two primary reasons for this are for sharing with others and having an off site copy. There are very reputable online providers offering this service. Two that I’d recommend are Flickr.com by Yahoo! and Picasa Web Albums by Google. Both offer free space, but Picasa Web Albums integrates into Picasa. You can also set permissions to allow only people you know to view certain photos.

There are some easy steps to follow which will help to reduce drastically the occurrences of these common problems.

1. Never click on Internet ads. The rare exception to this would be is if it’s a well known, reputable company. But verify in your web browser’s status bar (typically on the bottom of the screen) that the link is actually going to take you to the correct website. Avoid clicking links that go directly to IP addresses.
2. Never download Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint files without having an antivirus scan done first. May free email providers (Yahoo!, Hotmail, etc.) will do this for you. But if you are using a mail client directly on your computer, ensure you have an anti-virus software installed first. Do not trust your friends’ statement of “I would never send you a virus. It’s fine.” It’s not that they would *intentionally* send you an infected file, it’s that they may have a virus or the file could have been infected before your friend received it.
3. Avoid illegal or questionable websites. Illegal music/video/software/pornographic websites are notorious for spyware and viruses. Plus, who can you complain to about your problem? These folks are not focused on good service. And any legit authority won’t help you fix your problems so that you can continue to steal or pirate illegal media.

Following these steps shouldn’t slow you down or erode your Internet surfing experience. It takes a little discipline and will reward you continually with unobstructed Internet passage.

USB Wireless Network Adapter

If you have multiple computers at home (e.g. Office desktop, kids computer, laptop, visitors) that need to access the Internet and you don’t want to swap cables and lay them all over the floor from room to room, there’s an easy and inexpensive way to solve this problem without tearing up walls or running cables.

Wireless networking. It’s as easy as connecting a wireless access point to your Internet connection (cable or DSL most likely) and installing a wireless network adapter into each of your computers. Many laptops come standard with wireless capabilities nowadays. If your desktop computers are newer and support USB, connecting wireless networks adapters (see image inset)
Now you just configure the access point. Then, using your desktop computer’s or laptop’s wireless networking software, you’ll scan for your access point and connect. That’s it. Now get a nice cool drink, head out to the back patio and read your favorite news travel website wire-free.

Some popular services include:

• Set up your new computer(s).
• Migrate data from old computer to new computer.
• Create a website for you.
• Set up wireless networking.
• Virus, spyware and adware elimination.
• Teaching: Internet, iTunes, Photos, etc.

Contact us by:
Phone: (210) 625-2626
Email: email@computerservices.org
Web: http://computerservices.org/