Computer Info – April 7, 2004

 

This Week’s Meeting

            Steve West will be conducting the meeting today – I don’t know what his subject will be – but I am sure that you will all enjoy it and learn something from it.

            The next meeting will be April 21st and John Watkins should be here.

 

Memory Cards

CompactFlash

            The CompactFlash cards come in two different modes – Type I and Type II.  Type I cards are the most widely used and recognized – they come in sizes up to 512 MB.  Type II cards are thicker and more expensive and can hold up to 2 GB.

            CompactFlash cards are the cheapest flash memory format. 

 

MultiMedia Card (MMC)

            Because of their tiny size, they tend to be in mobile phones and pagers, although some MP3 players and digital cameras use them.  They are less than a quarter of the size of CompactFlash.  They come in sizes up to 512 MB.

 

Secure Digital (SD)

            These cards are the same size as the MultiMediaCard (MMC) but feature a write protection tab that allows enforcement of copyright protection.  They come in sizes up to 512 MB.

 

SmartMedia

            Almost as inexpensive as CompactFlash, SmartMedia cards are only .7mm thick.  They come in sizes up to 128 MB.

 

Memory Stick

            These cards are smaller than a stick of gum, hold up to 1 GB of data.

 

XD-Picture Card

            About the size of a penny, this card feature storage up to 512 MB paired with speedy read and write speeds.  Because the card can technically store up to 8 GB, consumers should expect larger card capacities in the near future.

 

Spybot

            If you try to make changes to Internet Explorer 6 and receive the following message “This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer.  Please contact your system administrator” – maybe you are running Spybot.  Spybot is a good free program to help you stop spyware programs from running on your computer – but if you don’t know what settings your program is using or how to change the options in the program – then the program will only allow you to do what it wants.

            Spybot Search & Destroy program by Patrick Kolla features an immunization tool that blocks known threats and stops an outside party from changing your Internet Explorer startup page and/or blocking access to Internet Explorer’s Internet Options dialog box.

 

 

Defeating Scammers

            The spammers and scammers are getting very good at disguising their crooked schemes – making them look like legitimate email from Microsoft, Visa, Pay-pal and lots of others.

            Tony Briggs in his column in the Daytona News Journal  said

 

    “Consider this message I got from “Visa Service” with a subject line of “Visa security update”.  “We were informed that your card is used by another person or stolen ….. fill out the following form and apply for our Zero Liability program”

           

This is just a scam to get your Visa card number --- and it is not sent by your credit card company – after all, how did they get your email address ?????

            Some of the scam emails that we receive are very good at including information and links to a very legitimate company --- like Microsoft.  There was a scam going around where they requested that you “patch” Windows.  Only the “patch” was a worm, not the promised patch for your Windows – again, how did Microsoft get your email address ?????

            Look at your emails – if you don’t recognize the sender or the subject line is empty or contains gibberish, delete it.  If the subject line offers you a joke or a racy photo – delete it.  In fact, you should delete any email that arrives with an attachment unless you have been specifically told in advance that it was coming.

            Ignore any request for personal information, no matter where the email appears to come from.

            Be sure to run the latest anti-virus program.

 

Norton AntiVirus Activation

            Now that I have told you to run the latest anti-virus program – here is a notice that Smart Computing had in their magazine.

            Some people are having difficulty activating their 2004 Norton Anti-Virus software.  The activation is Symantec’s way of ensuring that the software isn’t installed on too many computers.  But there seems to be a bug that is preventing some users from successfully activating it.  If they don’t get it activated, the grace period expires and the product will refuse to work.  Symantec has a fix for this on its web site.  To download it, visit

            http://www.symantec.com/techsupp

click Home & Home Office/Small Business.  Scroll down to the Search area, type 2003093015493306 and click Search.

            Symantec says the renewal problem stems from a growing user base and a network upgrade it needs to make to handle the influx of new users.