-- Winter 2005 Edition --

Getting Back To Basics By Fred W. Holzsager Most people in our cozy town of Fair Lawn have grown accustomed, in this technological savvy world, to accept and expect the bells & whistles, but how many folks actually make sure that the fundamentals are in place?  Here are some examples of what you can do to establish an enhanced experience when working on your computer.   General Maintenance   Laura on Morlot Avenue has a computer set up to run in a standalone mode—it is not connected to the Internet, since she only uses it for finances, word processing and spreadsheets.  She has found that it is now a little slow.  What can she do to help it run a little faster?  Windows® is equipped with built-in tools to improve its performance.  To access them, launch Explorer (My Computer), then right click on the C: drive.  The Properties window will offer access to the Tools options.  There, one may choose to run the Error Checking utility (a check disk tool), the Defragmentation utility (to compress your drive to some extent) and a Backup program.  Why would a backup program be included with system optimization tools? Any system worth working on, would have data worth backing up, this provides you with a minimal utility.  Anyone who works on a system without performing any type of backup is tempting the fates and running the risk of having to recreate all of their work over again.  Another option is to click on Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools… there, you will also find a Disk Cleanup utility.  This program will empty your temporary files (cache) from the machine to reduce used disk space.  This will help if you have many files in the Recycle Bin that need to be removed. You could also click on the Recycle Bin and Explore to review your deleted files OR right click on it to Empty Recycle Bin.  Of course, you could also purchase additional programs from vendors such as Symantec or McAfee (amongst others) to run more extensive tasks for the health of your computer.   Security   Maybe you aren’t Laura, working on a standalone system, and you do connect to the Internet like Bill on Berdan Avenue .  What else can you do to improve your computing experience?  Seriously consider installing an antivirus program and perhaps a spyware removal program, too.  With the advent of high speed residential Internet access, many people are infecting their computers and are not well prepared for the onslaught of code readied by hackers and other unrestrained programmers.  By installing such programs, you are NOT assured of eliminating these attacks, but it is clearly the right start.  As an aside, many computer vendors distribute their computers with antivirus programs preinstalled.  It is the consumers’ responsibility, however, to ACTIVATE the product once it is received.  An inactive program loaded on a computer will be as effective as none.  It is also critical that the virus definition updates subscription be maintained.  Once the subscription lapses, your system will become relatively vulnerable again.  As a rule of thumb, it is advisable to UPGRADE your program every two years. In addition to installing an antivirus and anti-spyware program, you should also keep your system updated with program and operating system updates through (e.g., Microsoft) the vendor.  If you are running a Microsoft product, you can easily access the updates through Internet Explorer, choosing Tools and clicking on Windows Updates.  From within most Microsoft programs, you can select the Help/Check for Updates… options to maintain any updates and hot fixes developed for the programs.  These options are not limited to Microsoft, most commercial applications come equipped with such features.   Responsiveness of your system   Mary in Radburn notices that her system was performing in a suboptimal manner?  She has checked it for viruses and spyware, it comes up clean, yet it still seems to be slow?  It may be time to look at other properties of the computer.  If you have a PC running Windows XP and it has only 128MB of RAM (memory), then it may be time to consider investing in more memory.  Even if you have an older machine, many times, it may be worthwhile performing an upgrade of this type.  RAM prices are relatively low in comparison to the cost of a new machine and Microsoft’s operating systems will, invariably, run better with more RAM.  If you believe you have a need to increase your system’s memory, consider visiting the site www.belarc.com to download their free tool Belarc Advisor.  This program will perform an inventory on your computer (without sending out information) and report to you about the hardware and software installed in the computer.  The report is easy to read and provides valuable insights to your computer’s setup.  One of the conveniences of this report is that it will report to you how many slots you have for memory and what you have installed in each.  For even greater convenience, should you want to upgrade RAM, there is a link on the report to www.crucial.com , a reputable vendor of computer memory.  Their site has an easy-to-use wizard to help you determine what you may install in your particular machine.   Wireless Networks   One of today’s buzzwords is warchalking.  Warchalking comes from the 1920’s when hobos used to wander.  It was their symbolic code used to mark homes (typically, on fences) of what to expect at the residence.  Some came upon unfriendly dogs, so a warning would be posted; others came upon generous homemakers that would offer proper food for the asking.  By marking a home with a warchalking symbol, those that came later could know what to expect.  In today’s world with the advent of wireless communications, there are some unscrupulous folks that do warchalking and warcruising for free and open bandwidth to residential and commercial wireless networks. Due to the drop in prices of wireless routers, many tech newbies have setup their own networks over Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity, also known as IEEE 802.11B (11Mbps wireless networks)) and 54G (IEEE 802.11G (54Mbps wireless networks)).  Unfortunately, some of the caveats are ignored:  Security is not established for these networks and their Internet access becomes a shared resource for all those within range (often, including neighbors’ homes).  As a minimum, any wireless network should, at least, have WEP (Wired Equivalency Protocol) set on their network.  By engaging WEP, the network is immediately given a level of resistance to those attempting to breach access—a password is generated to assure that the enjoining of the network is not frivolous.  Most routers will allow you to generate a passcode based upon the conversion of a password into a hexadecimal format, whether it is a 64-bit or 128-bit hex value.  Not only is this simple to enable, it is as basic as changing the default password on your router itself (hopefully, that’s a given).  It is also highly advisable to install a firewall on any network that has Internet access, regardless of whether you use a hardware or software implementation or both.   The suggestions provided above are clearly NOT a comprehensive or complete listing of recommendations on addressing the performance of your system or network, but are intended as a starting point for your awareness of how to address some issues.  As a closing pointer to bolster your productivity on a Windows® system, here is a list of keyboard shortcuts that may prove useful. Show Desktop ÿ + D Launch Windows Explorer ÿ + E Launch Find a File ÿ + F Minimize All Applications ÿ + M   If you have a question or would like to have a computer concept explained, please feel free to send an email to support@tech4now.com or see http://www.tech4now.com.     See Fred's Previous Columns The Latest Effort From Microsoft: Windows XP Improvements  (Fall 2004) Bogged down with SpyWare (Summer 2004) Practicing Safe Computing  (Spring 2004) Networking Your Computer  (Winter 2004) Where Were You When the Lights Went Out  (Fall 2003) Controlling Your Computer  (Summer 2003) High Speed Internet  (April 2003) Just when you thought it was safe…(February 2003) From Your Friends -- A Virus (October 2002) Backup, Backup, Backup.  (August 2002)