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

It is widely believed the term spam is derived from the 1970 Monty Python SPAM sketch, set in a cafe where nearly every item on the menu includes SPAM luncheon meat. As the waiter recites the SPAM-filled menu, a chorus of Viking patrons drowns out all conversations with a song repeating “SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM… lovely SPAM, wonderful SPAM”, hence “SPAMming” the dialogue.

The excessive amount of SPAM mentioned in the sketch is a reference to British rationing during World War II. SPAM was one of the few meat products that avoided rationing, and hence was widely available. The British public became sick of eating spam, hence the sketch.

Spamming is also the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages. It is popular with the spammers (the people that send Spam) as the costs of sending millions of emails is negligible, and the spammers are difficult to trace.

We are all now getting more and more SPAM (unsolicited bulk e-mails) in our in-boxes. Not only is this annoying, it can waste a considerable amount of time just to delete this junk. Recently we discovered a new product that claims to stop 100 percent of SPAM from reaching your in-box, but will not filter out any valid emails, quite a claim.

A couple of our customers have tried it out and they say that so far it seems to do exactly what it says on the tin. If you want to get a free no obligation trial of this service visit their website www.clearmymail.com

Chris Moody

ASL Computer Services

Computer Repair & Support for Small Businesses and home PC Users in Rugby and surrounding areas.

Is your computer secure? You may have set a password to stop anyone in your house logging on to it, but is someone sitting outside your house accessing your files?

I was talking to someone the other day who found the hotel they had booked into did not have wireless broadband. So what did they do? They got in their car, drove around, and within a few minutes found an unsecured wireless connection they could access with their laptop to check their emails. This use of someone else’s broadband connection was not malicious; all they stole was a small amount of data transfer which was unlikely to cost the broadband owner anything extra. But what could have happened if their intensions were more sinister.

 Once on someone else’s wireless network what can you do? Well you could:

• Access files in any shared folders on the PC’s in that household or office if they are connected to the broadband router, via wires or wireless, and even put files onto those PC’s.
•  Send anything to their printers, if shared, that will print out when they turn their printer on.
• Use that broadband connection to download files, browse dubious websites, or send SPAM e-mails.
• Infect the PC’s with viruses

 So how do you protect yourself? There are a number of simple steps you can take when setting up your wireless router

1. Make sure your wireless connection is encrypted using WPA encryption
2. Pick an encryption passphrase that is not easily guessed, ideally containing letters and numbers
3. Change your routers logon password to something other than the default
4. Disable access to the router management pages via wireless
5. Do not use a wireless name (SSID) that could identify yourself, your location, or the model of your router

By implementing the above you will protect yourself from the risk of someone sitting outside your house, browsing through your files, and possibly stealing your passwords and bank account details. So don’t delay, check your wireless router is really secure.

 Chris Moody
ASL Computer Services
Specialists in computer support for small businesses

Windows Vista became widely available back in Jan 2007. Now, just over a year later, it is becoming more and more difficult to buy a new PC with XP installed, most are only available with Vista. We are often asked by customers, should I go for Vista or insist on XP?

For business users we think that there are still too many problems getting Vista to work with existing hardware and software packages for them to switch yet. Also Vista is very resource hungry. It needs lots of memory, and fast processors, just to run the operating system. Many businesses are quite rightly not prepared to invest in the more powerful, and therefore expensive, hardware just to run Office, email, and an accounts package. So they are currently sticking with XP.

For the home PC user the decision is more difficult. They are not tied to using specific software packages or hardware. If it does not work with Vista they can replace it without too much hassle. And the new Aero graphical interface with transparent title bars, stacking window chooser, and window preview from the task bar is popular with users.

Hopefully the imminent service pack 1 for Vista will fix many of the bugs and problems, and provide compatibility with more hardware and software.  In our opinion it’s still too early for home PC users to switch unless they really want to be on the cutting edge of technology.  But hopefully by the middle of 2008 Vista will be stable enough for the majority of home PC users to consider this for their new PC operating system.

For business users we think a migration to Vista is still a long way off, probably well into 2009.

At ASL Computer services over 80 percent of the desktop and laptop PC’s we supplied in January were running XP, I think that says it all.

Chris Moody
ASL Computer Services
Specialists in computer support for small
businesses and domestic home PC users
www.aslcomputerservices.co.uk
01788 298034 or 07852 159092

We are now into another year, and Christmas seems a distant memory. January is always a difficult month, with a very long gap between the December and January paydays, and an expensive holiday period in between. So I thought I would look at free computer software this month.

Just because software is free does not mean it is bad software, there are some very good free applications, and we will look at some of them now

Digital Photo Organiser - Picasa 2
From Google we have Picasa 2, in our opinion a must have for anyone with a computer and digital camera. It will help you organise, manage, and keep track of all those photos, and includes basic photo editing as well.
http://picasa.google.com/

Digital Photo Editor – Paint.NET
Has all the usual photo editing tools including a “clone” tool so that you can remove the lamp post that always seem to be growing out of someone’s head on an otherwise perfect photo. Easy to use as well compared to some of the other editing tools.
http://www.getpaint.net/

Anti Virus – AVG Free
If you are a home PC user you can get a superb Anti Virus product totally free. Anti Virus protection is really important to have, but can be expensive. Now with AVG Free there is no reason not to be protected from viruses. In our opinion this product is better than many of the well known “paid for” Anti Virus suites.
http://free.grisoft.com/

Office software suite – Open Office
Word, Excel, and Powerpoint are just too expensive for most home PC users, and the cheaper “Works suite” from Microsoft is not compatible with documents created in Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. The answer is OpenOffice, in our opinion another must have program.
http://www.openoffice.org/

Email program – Thunderbird
The standard supplied email programs Outlook Express, and for Vista users Windows Mail, are very basic in functionality, and prone to crashing when you have lots of emails in your inbox or other folders. But the superior Outlook program is only available if you buy Microsoft Office. Why not try Thunderbird from Mozilla, it’s far less prone to errors, and the functionality is much closer to Outlook than Outlook Express.
http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/

Online Backup – Mozy Free
Mozy will give you 2 Gigabytes of free backup storage, and a program to automate the backing up of your data, in the background, across your broadband connection. Never worry again about losing those all important data files.
https://mozy.com/registration/free

Chris Moody
ASL Computer Services

I thought I would try to give you some ideas on electronic gadgets and computer equipment as Xmas presents for your friends and relatives.

·         If they have a computer and broadband why not consider buying them a Skype compatible phone handset or webcam. It will enable them to talk to friends and relatives who are also on Skype for free, even if they are the other side of the world. And with a webcam the other person can see you as well.

·         Or how about  a digital photo frame. It looks like a standard photo frame but it displays a rolling slideshow of the photographs on the camera memory card inserted into it.

·         Laptops used to be very expensive but in the last 12 months the price has dropped considerably. You can get a good quality entry level laptop for around £300 - £350.

·         Digital cameras always make a good present as they can be used to capture the Christmas festivities, and are a useful item to own all year round.

·         USB Pendrives are useful for transporting files between PC’s, either at home, or between home and work, and they are now so cheap they can be purchased as stocking fillers.

·         iPods and MP3 music players are good for people that spend lots of time commuting on public transport. They can listen to their favourite music or podcasts, and on some models even watch videos.

·         The Apple iPhone is the latest must have gadget, albeit a pricey and currently hard to obtain gift. It will play your music, it’s a web browser, it’s your phone, and it’s made by Apple, for some that’s an irresistible combination.

Chris Moody
ASL Computer Services

ASL Computer Services has just moved into new larger office premises. Below is a photo of the new Office in Rugby. 

Chris Moody
ASL Computer Services

Backing up your data is important. Many things can cause a total or partial loss of your data files; fire, flood, hardware failure, or even theft of your PC. If you are a home PC user and you lose your data it may be annoying (e.g. Loosing irreplaceable photos). If you are a small business loss of your data could cause significant financial problems, or even in some cases failure of your business.

Now with broadband being widespread a number of suppliers have launched on-line backup services. With on-line backups your data files are encrypted and then sent automatically in the background to a remote server across your broadband connection. As you modify your files or add new ones, the changes are also sent to the backup server automatically. If you loose any of your files you just tell the on-line backup software which files or folders to send back to your PC, and they are downloaded across your broadband connection. On-line backups have the advantage that they are automated so do not rely on someone having to remember to do the backup, ideal for busy people.

We have been testing some of these on-line backup services and Mozy seems to be one of the better ones. If you are a home PC user it will backup your data for free. If you have large amounts of data, or are a business, then there is a small monthly charge for the service.

 Mozy Free (Home Use)

Mozy (Business use or for large amounts of data)

Chris Moody
ASL Computer Services
01788 298034

 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

 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