Windows Vista

Back in February we wrote about Windows Vista and how we thought it was still too early to adopt this new Operating Systems for any serious PC use. The update to Vista, Service Pack 1, which was supposed to fix the many bugs, and speed up the slowness of Vista, seems to have made little difference.

I found this blog entry today that asks if Microsoft are trying to quietly kill off Vista by extending support for XP, and announcing the replacement for Vista (Windows 7) will be launched sometime in 2009. It looks like Vista will be around for less than two years before it is replaced.

http://tektodo.com/2008/04/05/the-end-of-vista/

Our advice at ASL is to still stick with XP as the Operating System for your new PCs. Hopefully “Windows 7″ will be more successful than Vista.

Chris Moody
ASL Computer Services
If you have a PC problem, ASL can fix IT

Firewalls for Windows PC’s

 A few years ago firewall products such as Zone Alarm were very popular, and rightly so, as they protected your computer from external attack. Then when Windows XP Service pack 2 was introduced the operating system included it’s own built in firewall, so everyone tended to forget about firewall products. However, hackers are getting more devious. More and more people are on broadband and leave their PC on all the time (just waiting to be attacked by a hacker who wants to empty your bank account).

 

We have been looking at some of the firewall products available and they have improved a lot in the last couple of years. Both “Comodo Firewall” and “Kerio Personal Firewall” are impressive products, far more sophisticated that the Windows XP built in firewall, and they offer a good level of protection. The best part is Comodo is totally free, and the Kerio product comes in both free and paid for versions (the free version looses some the the more advanced features after the initial 30 day trial).

You can download these programs below

Comodo: http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/

Kerio:  http://www.sunbelt-software.com/Kerio.cfm

Chris Moody
www.aslcomputerservices.co.uk
Specialists in Computer support for Small Businesses and
home PC users in Northamptonshire and Warwickshire

 

File Recovery Program

 PC Inspector File Recovery 4 is a free utility that does an impressive job recovering accidentally deleted files or files lost through corruption of the file system. It has some nice features, like the ability to recover files with lost headers, and to recover partitions even when the boot sector has been lost or damaged. This is no home written utility - it is a serious product from a reputable German company with a long history in commercial data recovery.

You can download this program from:

 http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/welcome.htm

Chris Moody
www.aslcomputerservices.co.uk

Creating PDF files

Ever wanted to create a pdf file from that word document, excel spreadsheet, or even a web page? Well now you can with PDFCreator. To create a PDF document you just “print” from any application to the PDFcreator dummy printer. This means you can create PDFs from Word, Excel or indeed any program that allows you to print.

 You can download this free application from:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=57796&package_id=53473

Chris Moody
www.aslcomputerservices.co.uk

 

How to open Office 2007 documents using Office 2000, 2003, or Office XP

Having problems opening Office 2007 documents because you still have an older version of Office? By installing the Compatibility Pack from Microsoft in addition to Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003, you will be able open, edit, and save files using the file formats new to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007. The Compatibility Pack can also be used in conjunction with the Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003, Excel Viewer 2003, and PowerPoint Viewer 2003 to view files saved in these new formats. For more information about the Compatibility Pack, see Knowledge Base article 924074.

 The MS compatibility pack can be downloaded here.

Chris
http://www.aslcomputerservices.co.uk/

A couple of interesting IT questions and answers on Freshbusinessthinking.com

I receive a couple of newsletter style emails every month from www.freshbusinessthinking.com and one of them recently contained a “computer questions and answers” section.

 You can see the Questions and Answers on their website. The second and third questions were both very good questions and probably are relevant to the majority of small businesses. So it’s worth taking a look at these questions and the authors answers.

This got me thinking.  ASL Computer Services could run a monthly or weekly question and answer article on this blog.

How would it work? Small business owners send in their questions to me by email . I will then publish the first three received with an answer every month, or if it becomes popular every week. So let’s give it a try. Send us your IT questions by email and we will publish the first three received with answers (the questions will be published as Mr W from Daventry or Mrs T from Rugby to protect peoples identity).

Chris Moody
ASL Computer Services

Software piracy becomes much harder to get away with from 6th April 2007

The Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) has welcomed the announcement that trading standards officers will be given new powers to check businesses’ compliance with software licensing laws from 6 April. The new powers will be granted under an amendment to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The move was a key recommendation in the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property. It’ll mean more surprise raids, and more prosecutions of those who flaunt the regulations.

http://www.fast.org.uk/viewnews.asp?article=3720

John Lovelock, Director General of The Federation, commented:
“It’s time for organisations to get their software compliance with the law addressed. Trading Standards can now come knocking on your door, and you may be the subject of a criminal investigation. Very simply the risk to organisations which misuse software will be greatly increased, and therefore compliance is absolutely essential”.

If you are the owner of a business that is using illegal software you are risking a large fine and / or a prison sentence.