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Bullet Points
Spyware Resuscitators
I bet all of you have had the annoying experience of using
some anti-Spyware tool (SpyBot, Adaware, etc.) to remove
unwanted scumware from your computer only to have the same
scumware reappear. This may be happening because the
scumware is installing two copies of itself using randomly
generated file names, with one copy monitoring the other.
If one gets deleted, the other one goes and reinstalls itself
again. These are called resuscitators.
Sunbelt's CounterSpy product and others handle difficult "self-resuscitating"
spyware. If you are interested in having an "enterprise"
anti-SpyWare solution installed on your server (much like the
anti-virus solutions most of you are using right now), give us
a call.
See All Styles in MS Word
When you click the down-pointing arrow in the Styles list (the little box at
the top of your screen usually just under the Open Document icon), Word
doesn't list everything -- only the built-in styles (Heading 1, for
example), Normal and Default Paragraph Font, and user-defined styles, plus
any styles currently in use (that is, applied anywhere in the document). To
see the entire list, hold down the Shift key when you click the
down-pointing arrow. (Thanks to The Office Letter
for this tip).
Add Pop-Up Descriptions to XP Folder Icons
When you hover your mouse cursor over a folder icon, you see a pop-up that
contains the folder's size and the names of the first few files or folders
it contains. There are cases when this information, along with the folder's
name, is helpful in identifying the folder's contents; however, there are
other times when you have to open the folder to really see what's in it.
You can add a detailed explanation about the folder's contents to the pop-up
by creating a Desktop.ini file, which is a straight text file, and adding a
special entry to it. In order for this technique to work, you have to assign
an icon to the folder. Here's how:
Right-click the folder
Click Properties
Select the Customize tab
Click the Change Icon button
Select an icon from the selections
Click OK
Click OK to close the Properties dialog box
Open the folder
Locate the Desktop.ini file and double-click it
Add InfoTip= to the end of the Desktop.ini file.
Type your detailed description immediately after the = sign.
Click File and then Save and close Notepad
Your detailed pop-up description will appear the next time you mouse over
that folder.
Note: If you don't see a pop-up when you mouse over a folder, you need to
enable a couple of settings. Go to Tools | Folder Options and then select
the View tab. Then, in the Advanced Settings list, select the check boxes
for Display File Size Information In Folder Tips and Show Pop-Up Description
For Folder And Desktop Items. Click OK.
Altering Size/Fonts In DOS Command Windows
Yes, I know. Most of you have never heard of DOS. But I do know that
some of you are still running specialized software that runs under DOS.
If you fall into the latter category, you may find this hint useful.
DOS programs actually run quite well in XP, however you may find that
those old text-based screens don't fill up the screen.
To correct this problem, you must modify the shortcut that starts the
program.
Right click on the shortcut icon
Click Properties
Click the Program tab
You should see an entry on the Cmd line that reads something like:
C:\FB30\FB.EXE
Change this so it reads:
COMMAND /CC:\FB30\FB.EXE
Notice the slashes go in different directions, and the only
space is after COMMAND.
For the Run setting, choose Maximized
Click OK
Double click the icon to start the program. If the display
still looks wrong:
Click the icon in the upper left corner of the DOS window.
(This may look like a little MS-DOS, or a little C:\ prompt icon.)
Click Properties
Click the Layout tab
Change the Screen buffer size and Window size
settings to width of 80 and height of 25.
Click OK.
If asked if you want this to apply to all windows like this, select Yes.
Exit out of the program. Double click the icon to start it again, and the
screen should look normal.
Setting Up and Using Remote Desktop
With the Remote Desktop feature in Windows XP Professional, you
can remotely control your computer from another office, from home,
or while traveling. This allows you to use the data, applications,
and network resources that are on your office computer, without
being in your office.
Contrary to what some people believe, email is neither secure nor private.
Here's why:
Outright Snooping
The odds of an unauthorized person intercepting an email as it moves from
the Sender to the Recipient is quite low. However, keep in mind that
if someone is really motivated to read your email, it's not that hard to do.
The problem isn't so much technological as societal.
Email almost never goes directly from sender to recipient. Instead, it's
usually stored (usually briefly) on at least two mail servers along the
way, and maybe more; and will also pass through a large number (10-30 is
common) of other computers, routers, and similar hardware along the way.
US courts have recently ruled that email stored on a mail server (and
that includes email passing through one mail server on its way to
another, "stored" on the intermediate server for only a fraction of a
second) is not protected by wiretap laws originally designed with
telephone conversations in mind. This is a brand-new ruling so the
ripple effects are still being sorted out, but in essence, it looks as
though an email communication may be legally about the same as a
conversation you have on a busy street corner: You can have no reasonable
expectation of privacy, so anyone who overhears the conversation---
or reads the email--- isn't breaking any law.
The original intent of this legal change was for law enforcement: Along
with the provisions of the Patriot Act, the idea was to make it easier
for police and government bureaucrats to look freely in places that used
to require a warrant.
The unintended consequence of this may be significant. For example, if
your email no longer has any legal privacy protection, what's to prevent
an ISP from, say, selling his mail server's backup tapes to a spammer,
who could then mine the addresses and content for likely spam targets and
topics?
Misdelivery
We all know that email can be delivered to someone
other than the person you intended to send it to. This generally
happens because of human error (typos, picking the wrong person
from your address book, using "reply all" instead of reply, etc.),
or more rarely through a software problem.
Nondelivery
Nondelivery is a even worse problem: With all the spam filters in
being used at the ISP-level and at the desktop, it is very likely ---
some say as much as 30-40% --- that an initial communication may
never be seen by the intended recipient.
Delivery rates improve once both the sender and receiver get each
other whitelisted so their respective spam filters let each other's mail
through. Therefore, relying on email for very important content is
inherently risky.
The bottom line is that email is now less private than ever, and is
NOT a good medium for sensitive material unless you take some
additional precautions. Here are some suggestions on how to improve
email privacy:
Don't trust email for first contact communication.
Make sure you really can get through to your recipient
before you trust email.
Work carefully to avoid mis-addressing, accidental "reply all"
emails, and other common user error. Employee training can
help here.
Don't use plain-text email for anything sensitive, private, or
proprietary. Instead, either encrypt the whole email, or use the
email as a "wrapper" or envelope for the real message, which you
can send as an encrypted file attachment, perhaps using something
like WinZip's Compress/Encrypt option. An encrypted email or
attachment will keep the message contents markedly safer from all
but the most sophisticated snooping.
