To look at the e-book in PDF format, Computer Guide, based on these columns click here
Do I need two firewalls? Q: I recently acquired a Netgear FVS318 Firewall router from my office and thought of setting this up for my home PC. I'm wondering if this item is useful to have set up, and is it similar to, or better than, ZoneAlarm Firewall that is currently being used in my PC? M Mus A: It is both better and not quite as good in the ZoneAlarm, depending on what aspects your look at. That Netgear router provides business-class protection and protects you against multiple threats. It also has two other advantages. One is that all the protection is done by the router. It does not require processing on your computer which means that you have more memory available and more processing power available, improving overall performance. The other advantage is that if you have more than one computer connected, none of the computers need to have a firewall installed on them as you are well protected from any intrusion by hackers. The only drawback of having the firewall in the router is that it does not monitor outgoing programs and will not alert you to the fact that some Trojan may be sending out information. However if you have anti-spyware and new anti-virus software, these products should provide adequate security without needing ZA. ## Having my columns in Vista Q: I would like to add some additional columns in Vista’s Windows Explorer view but cannot find any reference to it in their Help. Surely this can be done. J McDonald A: This can be done by right-click on any of the headings such as Name and this will bring up a few more columns that you can click on. To see all that is possible, click on More … and you will be amazed how many more columns you can have. By highlighting any item you can use the Move Up or Move Down arrows to have the columns in your preferred order. Removing partitions painlessly Q: I have an 8 GB hard drive partitioned 4 GB drive c and 4 GB drive d. Can I remove this partition and not lose info on drive D. I would appreciate any advice. A: Unfortunately there is nothing in Windows XP that can resize partitions without deleting all data on the partitions. If they were created using software such as Partition Magic that already exists on one of the hard disks then using that software you can very easily alter the sizes of the partitions without any loss of data. However, there is a tiny free program called Partition Resizer that can do what you need. It can be downloaded from: www.webtree.ca/newlife/partresizer_info.htm. This program has received very good reports but I have not used it myself. ## Svhost concern Q: I found in my Windows Task Manager, Processes tab, the "image name" svhost.exe appearing several times, under "User name" of Network service, local service and then System twice. I understand it is a virus or worm so did a search for it but could not locate it so that I can delete it. Similarly a virus scan and a spy scan failed to find it. I am a bit concerned. P Wong You can also download a very good but small program called Process Explorer from: www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/ProcessExplorer.mspx that will show what services are running under each Svhost. Word Macro annoyance Q: For some reason I am getting a message on screen whenever I open Microsoft Word documents that the macros have been disabled. How do I go about enabling the macros and is having them disabled going to cause me any grief apart from the nuisance of having to acknowledge the message? A: These setting are changed from Word, Tools, Macros, Security and then adjust the security level to your level of comfort. If you change your level to Low then you must have some anti-virus software running that is being updated daily to be protected. Depending on your version of Word, it may also be due to some template in the startup folder or other corruption. See: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316731 for more details.
Q: I recently acquired a Netgear FVS318 Firewall router from my office and thought of setting this up for my home PC. I'm wondering if this item is useful to have set up, and is it similar to, or better than, ZoneAlarm Firewall that is currently being used in my PC? A: It is both better and not quite as good in the ZoneAlarm, depending on what aspects your look at. That Netgear router provides business-class protection and protects you against multiple threats. It also has two other advantages. One is that all the protection is done by the router. It does not require processing on your computer which means that you have more memory available and more processing power available, improving overall performance. The other advantage is that if you have more than one computer connected, none of the computers need to have a firewall installed on them as you are well protected from any intrusion by hackers. The only drawback of having the firewall in the router is that it does not monitor outgoing programs and will not alert you to the fact that some Trojan may be sending out information. However if you have anti-spyware and new anti-virus software, these products should provide adequate security without needing ZA. Having my columns in Vista Q: I would like to add some additional columns in Vista’s Windows Explorer view but cannot find any reference to it in their Help. Surely this can be done. A: This can be done by right-click on any of the headings such as Name and this will bring up a few more columns that you can click on. To see all that is possible, click on More … and you will be amazed how many more columns you can have. By highlighting any item you can use the Move Up or Move Down arrows to have the columns in your preferred order. Removing partitions painlessly Q: I have an 8 GB hard drive partitioned 4 GB drive c and 4 GB drive d. Can I remove this partition and not lose info on drive D. I would appreciate any advice. A: Unfortunately there is nothing in Windows XP that can resize partitions without deleting all data on the partitions. If they were created using software such as Partition Magic that already exists on one of the hard disks then using that software you can very easily alter the sizes of the partitions without any loss of data. However, there is a tiny free program called Partition Resizer that can do what you need. It can be downloaded from: www.webtree.ca/newlife/partresizer_info.htm. This program has received very good reports but I have not used it myself. Svhost concern Q: I found in my Windows Task Manager, Processes tab, the "image name" svhost.exe appearing several times, under "User name" of Network service, local service and then System twice. I understand it is a virus or worm so did a search for it but could not locate it so that I can delete it. Similarly a virus scan and a spy scan failed to find it. I am a bit concerned.
You can also download a very good but small program called Process Explorer from: www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/ProcessExplorer.mspx that will show what services are running under each Svhost. Word Macro annoyance Q: For some reason I am getting a message on screen whenever I open Microsoft Word documents that the macros have been disabled. How do I go about enabling the macros and is having them disabled going to cause me any grief apart from the nuisance of having to acknowledge the message? A: These setting are changed from Word, Tools, Macros, Security and then adjust the security level to your level of comfort. If you change your level to Low then you must have some anti-virus software running that is being updated daily to be protected. Depending on your version of Word, it may also be due to some template in the startup folder or other corruption. See: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316731 for more details.
|