Computer Info – August 28, 2002

 

This Week’s Meeting

 

            John Watkins will be hosting the meeting again this week.  He will be demonstrating how to scan your pictures into Word and then edit them.  This is for beginners.

 

All-In-One Printers

            There are many all-in-one printers on the market today.  An all-in-one is a PRINTER – SCANNER – COPIER – FAX machine. 

            John brought in his HP 950 at the last meeting to let everyone have a chance to see it demonstrated and talk about the pro’s and con’s of an all-in-one.  This particular machine also had the ability to read Smart Media – Compact Flash – Memory Stick cards and print directly from them without using the computer.  The fax machine and copier also work without the computer.  The software interface (program) which allows you to easily access any of the functions was very good.  It even has an OCR (optical character recognition) that seemed to be quite accurate.  It is selling at Office Max for $349. 

            I guess it was decided that the pro’s were that it was easy to use – seemed to have fairly good printing ability – scanning ability – OCR ability.  The only negative that was discussed – was –  if one function needed to be repaired, then you were without everything while it was in the repair shop.

 

Security Holes in Office and Internet Explorer

            Microsoft has stated that there are "critical" security lapses in its Office software and Internet Explorer which put tens of millions of users at risk of having their files read and altered by online attackers.

            An attacker, using e-mail or a Web page, could use Internet related parts of Office to run programs, alter data and wipe out the hard drive as well as view file and clipboard contents on a user's system.  The systems affected are Office 2000, Office XP, Money 2002, Money 2003 and Project 2002.

            Microsoft is providing a patch that eliminates three vulnerabilities in Office Web Components.  In addition, Microsoft has reported vulnerabilities in the three latest versions of its Internet Explorer that allows infiltrators to read files.

            You can download a software patch from Microsoft's TechNet Web site                                                                                         http://www.microsoft.com/technet

 

Internet Explorer 5.5 and Hotmail

            If you are running Internet Explorer 5.5 and you are using Hotmail – you might get the following error message when you try to reply to a message ---

            “Lexplore has caused an error in MSHTMLED.DLL.  Lexplore will now close.”

            There seems to be an incompatibility in Internet Explorer 5.5 – it is best to upgrade to Internet Explorer 6.0 to solve this problem.  You can read about it at

                       

                                    http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q275154&

 

Windows XP Startup

            This is a good web site to help you learn about determining which programs or applications are running when you startup your computer and do you need them.

                        http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_index.htm