InfoBulletin February 2011

February 2011

Issue 120

Outlook 2010,Email-to-SMSsolutions,Drownedlaptops,Insurers lookat Facebook

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CONTENTS

*** NewsBytes ***

Outlook 2010 new features review

Microsoft's latest flagship application aims to save us from our

email faux-pas.

InfoBulletin

SubscriptionsIB archivesIB eBooksWhat we readPrivacy policy

Email-to-SMS solutions

Reach out to the text-generation from your email with SMS

gateways.

Have I drowned my laptop?

Laptops, smartphones, tablet PCs and coffee don't mix.

Insurers take a sideways look atFacebook

Profiling is no longer the sole dominion of forensic

psychologists and nosey employers.

De-crapify your PC

IB looks at quick clean up tools for new and old PCs alike.

Q&A: How to write our onlinehandbook?

Clicks of the Trade - Banish browsermixed-content security warnings

Audits & ReviewsBackupCloud SolutionsCollaborationDisaster RecoveryIT InfrastructureIT StrategyRemote WorkingSecuritySupport ServicesVirtualisation

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About usContact Us

Popular editions

April 2010 Staying patched, Card

payment security: PCI DSS, USB flashdrive tricks, Windows support lifetimes,

Eventbrite

February 2011 IT 2010: Cloudcomputing comes down to earth,

Virtualisation made real, Windows 7

upgrade, Are email messages unique?

November 2009 Disposable servers,

Email backup, Improve web site search

ratings, Dell PC energy costs

Twitter Updates

CommunitySafe caller alerts: More scams

are circulating regarding calls fromunsolicited callers trying to ex...

http://clct.me/H7GUw 1 day ago

Disposing of old computers: Dumping PCsin the bin has now been banned for some

time ... http://clct.me/7vFbs 3 days ago

Wireless everywhere: Huawei, the Chinesetelecoms gear supplier, has signed a 4-year

deal to upgrade the netw... http://clct.me

/BCjuW 4 days agoRefurbished PCs and affordable computers:

More outlets have appeared for acquiring

second-hand desktop PCs an...http://clct.me/zhns6 5 days ago

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Become an IB Facebook fan!

*** NewsBytes ***

Android surpasses Apple

Mobile advertising network

Millennial Media announced

mid-January that the

Android™ operating system

(OS) surpassed Apple's iOS™

as the leading smartphone OS

on their mobile ad network. In

September,

Gartner

Research had

predicted

that

open-source

Android

would

become the no.2 smartphone OS in 2010 and

then the main challenger to the Symbian OS

lead by 2014. Android phones, which run on

devices from multiple manufacturers, outsold

Apple-only iPhones for the first time in early

2010.

Tech Aid

"New

technologies

offer enormous

potential to

make giving

time and

money easier,

while at the

same time making it more fun, interesting, and

relevant." So says a new government green

paper that aims to stimulate levels of giving

and mutual support in society as part of a

broad approach to bottom-up culture change.

Technology-based opportunities that exist

already are donations through cashpoints at

the time of withdrawal, donating online via

search engines like Everyclick and mobile apps

such as CharityBox and Givey, as well as social

media tags like Twibbon. To contribute,

download the fact-packed Giving Green Paper.

The consultation ends on 9th March.

Uptime SLA battle

Ensuring that the 'cloud' stays up - where it's

supposed to be - has become a marketing

battleground between Google and Microsoft.

The latter's Business Productivity Online

Standard Suite (BPOS) averaged an uptime of

better than 99.9% in 2010 while Google's

hosted Gmail service clocked 99.98%.

Refinements over how any outages and their

durations are counted in respect of the two

rivals' Service Level Agreements (SLAs) have

made for a beneficial competition to

customers, who depend on the continual

presence of hosted office applications such as

email to run their businesses. (Via Network

World).

Internet from space

The new year

launched

with a

Prescription for 2011:tablets, tablets, tablets

Counter-trending the

straitened economic times,

Christmas and the

Consumer Electronics Show

conspired to shower

consumers with a hail of

go-anywhere computing

announcements: 2011 is set to be the Year of

the Tablet. Microsoft is moving to a position

where its next Windows will also run on mobile

processors such as the UK's Arm

Holdings/Qualcomm chip, as well as Nvidia and

Texas Instruments. The

move represents a radical

shift from a 25-year

tradition based only on

Intel chips, dubbed the

'Wintel alliance'. Industry

analysts claim 2012 is too

late for Intel to produce its tablet-optimised

Atom processors, while Qualcomm is

expanding its chips into Wi-Fi by acquiring

expert companies. Motorola and Toshiba

unveiled tablets running a new version of

Google's Android OS, likely on sale by end

March, as did Acer whose tablets range from

$399 to $499, comparing well with iPad prices

but undercutting Microsoft's Windows 7 tablet

by over 50%. Lenovo and Samsung also

displayed Dell-style tablet/laptop hybrids with

a built-in keyboard. New 4G services, offering

download speeds 10 times faster than today's

3G, will spur the take up of on-the-move

computing.

Don't be evil. Beeverywhere.

Google wants to be your

ever-present and pervasive

companion if its recent slew of

releases from the Mountain

View Googleplex are any

indication. The Nexus S

smartphone powered by the

latest Android 2.3 (aka

Gingerbread) follows on almost

exactly a year from the

previous Nexus One. Featuring

an 18-day standby, a superbly bright AmoLED

4" screen, a fast 1GHz Hummingbird processor,

16GB storage, and HD video recording, it's

based on the Samsung Galaxy Tab. A newChrome

OS-powered

Cr-48

notebook

appeared at

the end of

2010 for

laptops,

though with 60,000 of these jet-black

anonymous devices on offer for testers, Cr-48

is still clearly in development, though it

promises to be upgraded silently to the latest

version on every reboot.

Not wanting to leave you

alone for a second,

second

6-tonne

European

Internet

satellite

arriving to take up a position above the equator

at nine degrees East. Eutelsat's KA-SAT is

intended to target millions of European homes

in so-called 'not-spots', remote from terrestrial

ADSL connections. Channelled via over 80

beams on territory stretching from North Africa

to southern Scandinavia, KA-SAT will serve up

to two million households via its 70Gbps

throughput.

Office 365 (R.I.P. BPOS)

Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) is

being brought together with 2010 releases of

Exchange, SharePoint and the Lync unified

communications platform to be re-branded as

Office 365, a major relaunch of Microsoft's

business cloud services. Going beyond

traditional online solutions, users can also

subscribe to the Office 2010 desktop

productivity suite. Office 365 is currently a beta

programme. The small business version is

aimed at organisations of under 25 people at

just $6 per user per month.

Nokia loses top

smartphone slot

Worldwide shipments of Android-based

smartphones outstripped any other in the last

quarter of 2010. Google's mobile platform

reached 32.9 million, marginally overtaking

previous leader Nokia whose Symbian platform

(still ranked the most popular among all

mobiles) trailed at 31 million, according to

global market data published by Canalys at the

end of January.

Google TV is with you in

the living room too. This

particular project, initially

appearing on Sony and

Logitech TVs, has been scaled back pending

software improvements and talks with more

manufacturers. Bringing Google-style search to

TV programming via a keyboard remote control

or phone or voice commands, the intention is

to combine the whole experience with the

Android Market app store.

I'll phone you after the

break ...

The spiralling number of smartphone owners is

about to be hotly chased by advertisers, eager

to promote products directly on to the screen

that's always with us. In 2010 mobile Internet

usage was 1.8bn hours but is set to soar to

7bn in 2015, or 28% of total online time,

predicts Enders Analysis; mobile-driven ad

spending in the UK will grow at 45% per

annum compound from £46m in 2009 to £420m

by 2015 they say. YouTube already currently

exceeds 200m views a day on mobile, and the

US ad market set to surpass $1bn in 2011.

However, until mobile payment systems are

better developed, ad sales from mobile

searches will fail to deliver their promise.

*** end of NewsBytes ***

^ Back to contents ^

1. Outlook 2010 new features

review

Microsoft's latest flagship application aims to save us from our email

faux-pas and do just about everything but write the actual messages for us.

Helpathand.Backissuesjust a

If you're one of the unlucky ones that jumped early and adopted Outlook 2007 -

clickaway

curiously omitted from the Ribbon interface makeover applied to Word and Excel - you'llfind Outlook has now been welcomed into the fold, along with plenty of smart littletime-savers, and the odd annoyance too.

Talk to the mouse

A saviour for anyone working in email-jammed environments will be the IgnoreConversation feature. Doing pretty much what it says on the tin, it allows you to opt outof distracting threads and topics that no longer apply - for example, a project you'vestopped being part of.

Dextrous moves

Quick Steps (under the Home | Mail tab) are basicallymacros that do all that repetitive everyday stuff for you,like forwarding emails to team colleagues, movingmessages into your "Done" folder, or deleting the originalemail once you've fired off a reply. Aside from supplyingpre-prepared macro Quick Steps, the wizard lets youcustomise your own.

"Doh!" killer

All of us have suffered the chagrin of being overtaken by events - we reply to a messagewhose relevance has been superseded in the email conversation by subsequent replies.To save us future self-embarrassments, Outlook 2010 pops up a warning below theRibbon: "You are not responding to latest message in this conversation. Click here toopen", and makes us fallible humans look smarter than we really are, but only if we heedthe warning.

We don't seem to talk any more

In similar vein, Outlook users attached to Exchange 2010 are warned when trying to sendan email to absent colleagues with out-of-office replies turned on.

In the picture

Emails with added 'biz flash' are the order of the day for Office 2010 and Outlook is noexception. The Insert tab allows you to add some pizzazz to your missives with pictures,

SmartArt graphics, Excel charts and shapes, and troubleshooting-stylescreen-shots, as well as providing in-place editing features.

Let's call the whole thing off

Less flash, and more of a hash, is Conversation View, which groupmessages by subject into a single thread with a drop-down menu arrowrevealing all threaded messages. However because threading is basedon the subject line, clicking the drop-down bundles together all yourcolleagues' "I'm away ...." type messages , and incorrectly corrals allthe messages with no subject line!

Heads up, hands on

The Calendar gets a Schedule View, presenting your calendar alongsidecolleagues' calendars for a quick 'heads-up' of the coming day. Avertical To-Do bar sneaks in on the right of email previews, completingyour round-up of matters to hand.

Suggested Contacts is the main addition to the Contacts section, andOutlook 2010 now logically harvests brand new correspondents andautomatically creates an appropriate address card for each withinContacts.

Lastly, a Xobni-style drop-down menu on every email footer revealsyour email correspondents' recent messages, attachments andappointments for a detailed conversation summary. Status updatesfrom social networks are on the cards via this feature but you'll need tobe connected to a SharePoint Server 2010.

Contacts

More on the Outlook 2010 home pageMore on Collaboration and SharePoint

-IB-


2. Email-to-SMS solutions

Reach out to the text-generation from your email with SMS gateways and

software for every situation.

Helpathand.Backissuesjust aclickaway

Sooner or later everyone gets stumped by a breakdown in everyday communications –whether it's a duff PC or a collapsed broadband provider – and we revert to good ol'SMS, aka, the Short Message System. It's handy, in your pocket, quick and generallypretty reliable.

In emergencies, like harsh winter weather, we turn to texts to keep colleagues and

Snowed in

Oh the weather outside is frightful,And the transport's just a write-off,So because we've no place to go,Text the co: "We're no-go, IMO"

Apologies to Sammy Cahn

friends informed, if not actually dig us out oftrouble. But did you know you can use texts forcommunicating with masses of people at once?

Hauliers use texts to keep in touch with fleets ofdistant drivers, and businesses send them tomobilise their road warriors swiftly. Now charitiesare using mass-texting to mobilise campaigns andaudiences, and it doesn't have to be expensive.Many of the specialised gateways offer discounts forbulk, so purchasing hundreds or thousands of textcredits becomes cheaper per message.

IB looks at a handful of systems to cope with every SMS need.

Skype

Known to the world for freePC-to-PC phone calls, Skypeprovides a friendly interface that isprobably one of the most familiarones and allows you to text fromany PC keyboard. For those whohave purchased Skype creditonline, SMS texts are simplydeducted from the balance showninside Skype.

Rates: 5.6p (ex-VAT) inthe UK and 6.2p to USlandlines.

Recipients see the name of your Skype account as the sender, but can't returnmessages unless you have signed up for a Skype Online number.

RedOxygen

Established for a decade, theAustralian RedOxygen offerssolutions for office, and bulk SMSdelivery and a web interface for allmajor browsers, with thesurprising absence of Chrome.

A set of core features includesextension of standard textmessages up to 765 characters(Long SMS), switch replies to goto email, set an outgoing nameinstead of the phone number, setmessage limits as an administrator,and choose secure connections toprotect privacy.

The browser-based Web SMS solution gives you a web SMS "Inbox" and "Sent Items"that logs messages in and out and recipients can be selected from an address book ordistribution list.

The Office version supports anything from Outlook 2000 upwards and its seamlessintegration places a simple "New SMS Message" button on the Outlook toolbar. You canalso schedule SMS messages to be sent later and have calendar reminders texted to yourphone.

Rates: 8p down to 4p per message in bulk within the UK

Free trials are available for all solutions.

Twitter

A cost-efficient method of textinghundreds or thousands of peopleand all for the cost of one textmessage! The proviso is of coursethat you may have had to spendhours and hours acquiring andkeeping Twitter followers.

Not everyone monitors their Twitterby phone but in the heat of anevent, movers and shakers areglued to the stream of tweetswhether they're on a phone, desktopor laptop so its a natural for masscommunication.

A crucial difference here is thatTwitter conversation ismany-to-many rather than the usualone-to-many scenario or email-to-SMS.

Rates: The cost of one textmessage to all your followers on+44 7624 801423, though somecarriers charge this as aninternational number at 15p to 25p per message.

txtlocal

Offers significantly reducedrates for UK registered charitieswith services ranging fromEmail to SMS, Online Web SMS,and an API gateway forintegrating your web site orprogram to send texts directly,as well as picture messaging(MMS) services.

txtlocal also provides a service to collect donations from texts after you have purchased aCharity Short Code.

Rates: 5p down to 3.8p per message, but 2.8p flat rate for charities

FrontlineSMS

For those who would rather have controlof everything on their desktop or laptopFrontlineSMS may provide a moresuitable and freely downloadable option.Its open source software turns your machine into texting hub, sending messages fromyour PC through your attached mobile phone.

As such, FrontlineSMS doesn't need an Internet connection and simply employs whatevertariff (monthly or PAYG) that you have with your mobile network provider, making it easy

and unlimited to try out. The installed software stores all phone numbers and incomingand outgoing message records, which means independence from the Internet or thepresence of a provider's web servers.

Rates: depends entirely on your mobile provider.

TextMagic

For global access, TextMagic might be your answer,offering worldwide texting to at least 200countries.

A boggling number of communication permutationsinclude email-to-SMS and vice-versa, a bulk SMS gateway for server integration, email-to-mobile forwarding, downloadable SMS software for PCs and Macs, a web interface(any browser), and a 2-way SMS reply service for receiving as well as sending. You caneven test it right from the home page!

Rates: From around 7p down to 4.5p within the UK

SMS2email

Paradoxically available from SMS2email is anemail-to-SMS service that optionally includesnotifications of delivery to the networkand/or mobile handsets in the form of emailnotifications to your account.

Its bulk messaging service permits up to1,000,000 mobile numbers to be contacted.By uploading a CSV file (created with anyspreadsheet), it'seasy to send apersonalisedmail-out with a different message going to each mobile owner.

Its namesake SMS-to-email service provides a free gateway, and multimedia (MMS)services, while a useful textback service makes it possible to track campaigns whererecipients texting back keywords.

Rates: 12p down to 5p per message, or monthly contracts.

Its sister site aql handles bulk SMS messages at similar prices.

mutube gateway list

Site mutube.com presents a complete worldwide list of email-to-SMS gateways for usedirect from your email software:http://www.mutube.com/projects/open-email-to-sms/gateway-list/.

The technique generally involves putting the mobile phone number in front of the @symbol in the email message.

It also provides an SMS web form so you can send texts straight from a web browser.

Some networks require activation to allow this service.

-IB-


Many a slip 'twixt cup and chip

3. Have I drowned my

laptop?

'Café society' has helped us to mix work and relaxation. But laptops,

smartphones, tablet PCs and coffee just don't mix, at least not in any kind of

sustainable relationship. Discover how to recover and protect laptops and

mobiles from water damage.


You sit back, having put the last full stop on thelast paragraph of the last page of a very longresearch paper.

Time to reach over for a well-deserved slurp ofthat coffee as you ease round the side of thescreen ... but, oh no! ... your sleeve catches onthe top edge of the case. Suddenly, your heart issinking faster than the hot, brown liquid that'sslipping between the button tops of the keyboard.You didn't see that coming but you can sure ashell see everything disappearing into a stickysludge ... keyboard, hard drive, research paper,months of work, and maybe several hundred

pounds worth of laptop too?

Does a laptop like this end its days in caffeine-soaked oblivion? Most users give up, goout and buy a new one, but it's worth trying these few tips to bring your device backfrom liquid-related catastrophes.

Liquescent laptops

Most 'laptop deaths' occur following spills or water seepage, despite today's portable PCshaving sealed keyboards to keep fluid at bay from leaking into the circuits.

A&E

Turn off as fast as you can, maybe even a hard shutdown (press and hold powerbutton).

Surgery

Blot up up excess liquid with a soft cloth. Don't wipe, or you risk pushing theliquid further in.Disconnect external cables, drives, network cards, USB sticks. Blot up theseexposed sockets and removable devices.Leave the case intact. Removing water doesn't have to mean killing the internalstooRock the laptop slowly to each side, let any liquid drain out. Don't do shake, rattleand roll.Drain any final drops by turning the laptop upside down.Get a blow dryer on its coolest setting and carefully fan air over all parts.Leave the laptop face-down to air-dry for at least an hour, preferably all day.

Rehab

Plug any removable devices back in and re-start.Obviously if sparks fly and/or burning smells are detected, power down the laptopfast and find a repair specialist.

If it doesn't start at all, the battery may be in 'sulk mode'. See if a charged sparebattery works. Even battery packs contain processors that shut themselves downpermanently for self-protection; if just the battery pack is damaged, a specialistrepair shop may be able to reset it and bring it back to life.

If it starts up cleanly, test-run a few programs and test external devices too. Next, backup your laptop data. Don't bank on the laptop running faultlessly from here on in.

If it's more than just water ingress - such as sticky juice, sugary coffee or salty brine -after drying, clean the surfaces (including the touchpad) with a soft, damp cloth. A 50%solution of isopropyl alcohol, diluted window clearer, or commercial keyboard cleanerwill do wonders.

Soggy smartphones

Even expensive mobiles are on the whole builtaround consumer needs. Unless they arespecifically designed as waterproof, or classed asa tough phone, or ruggedised with an IP54 orbetter rating (the last digit indicates increasingresilience to water ingress), moisture willpenetrate even tight-fitting plastic covers within20 seconds.

A&E

Speed means survival! Extract the mobile from the water asap.Power it off if you can.

Surgery

Remove the phone battery to increase the survival chances of internal circuits.Remove any SIM and memory cards. Dab them with paper towels and leave to airdry.Remove any covers and connectors to expose gaps and breathing holes in thephone case to improve air flow.Shake the phone gently to extract droplets. Towel off any remaining drops byhand.Try to draw out excess moisture with a vacuum cleaner. The idea is to createadditional draft from a distance rather than sucking up water vapour, especially asstatic build-up can kill a phone too.Prop the phone on paper towels and leave to dry for 24 hours, checking every fewhours and changing the paper if absorbed moisture becomes apparent.

Rehab

Does it all look clean and dry?

Replace the battery, SIM, card, etc, power on and test the mobile.If the phone looks dead, try powering it via the charger without its battery, unlessits manual tells you specifically not to do this. If successful, the only damage isthe cost of a new battery.

If it's a smartphone with sync capabilities, try connecting it to your computer andrunning a sync and backup. Owners of Android-based phones will generally be able toretrieve all their data and purchased apps from cloud storage anyway.

If the mobile is still lifeless, try an authorised dealer for your brand of phone. Be honestabout the circumstances; internal sensors (or 'Liquid Submersion Indicators', oftenincluded for insurance purposes) are triggered by the presence of moisture.

Rate this article * ** *** **** *****

-IB-


4. Insurers take a sideways

look at Facebook

Profiling is no longer the sole dominion of forensic psychologists and nosey

employers.


Facebook and Twitter have give everyone themeans to become a human resources detectivein a couple of clicks.

Among the first to take an enthusiastic andcost-benefit-driven approach to pursuingFacebook profiles have been insurers. Thebottom line being that customers who post theirexcessive offline lifestyle and other revelry onsocial networks could help reap rewards forinsurers by allowing them to charge higherinsurance premiums. No question about disclosing 'material facts': the evidence is therefor all to see.

It seems that social networking trends have ushered in a new era of snooping to support'predictive modelling' schemes by data mining customer data from a variety of sources.

Trials conducted by Deloitte Consulting LLP have shown that analysing a customer's datafor potential health risks was as useful as sending them for a blood or urine test. Thisvaluable source of information about customer health and life expectancy is not lost oninsurers.

Richard Verdin, protection director Aviva, has indicated that an awareness of alcoholconsumption and petrol expenditure would benefit both firms, premium payers andclaimants. He recently told the Sunday Times: "As well as online data collection we arelooking at partnerships with banks, supermarkets, gyms and employers to share datawith a view to introducing these methods next year."

Vast databases of our consumer habits are amassed daily from social networking profiles,online sales forms, marketing polls and surveys, subscriptions, registrations and publicrecords.

Purchasing this data and consolidating it with online market research gives insurers newtools to appraise our lifestyle choices. Being 'Googled' or 'Facebooked' is for them anatural future extension of today's standard assessments such as demographics and the'post code lottery'.

Every day as consumers we dispense our private data (perhaps unknowingly) to marketresearchers and insurance firms by shopping online, using credit cards, loyalty cards,membership cards, or just by forgetting untick opt-in boxes at the bottom of applicationforms and online registrations.

Look after your six-pack

"You are what you eat" has probably never been truer than it's about to become in theeyes of your insurance company, after all, a supermarket customer that regularly includesa 6-pack of crisps in their salt- and fat-laden basket is going to be a worse risk thansomeone who veers towards fruit 'n' veg plus a 6-pack of clementines.

Spice up these valuable data nuggets with some inadvisable Facebook postings on

Be careful what you tweet

Chinesewhispers trailsends "OxfordStreetshooting" outof control onTwitter.

drunken rampages and you heading into an insurance inferno and the employer's recyclebin. Putting this together with the realisation that some social networks never delete yourdata demonstrates that you are assembling the the kind of CV that's not for publicviewing, yet that's precisely what it is.

Too close to home?

Likewise, tech fanatics who hook their mobiles up to Facebook and location-basedservices like foursquare create a series of geographical tracking points that make it acinch for potential burglars to tell when nobody's home. And if it's easy for them, theninsurance companies may have spotted these promiscuous gaffes too.

Facebook privacy tips:

Facebook friends? Stick to people you know (it's what Facebook actually tells youto do).Keep privacy settings restricted to just friends for your private stuffCreate a closed user group for your more 'off-piste' activitiesMost social networks are full of ephemeral comments that friends have read withinminutes. Scratch your old stuff to avoid leaving an incriminating trail foremployers-to-be

Twitter privacy tips:

Bear in mind that Twitter never deletes anythingOpen a new account with a closed/blockedstatus for private activities

Subscription privacy tips:

When subscribing online, remember to untick boxesthat would otherwise circulate your data and opt youinto third-party companies and group lists.

-IB-

Rate this article * ** *** **** *****


5. De-crapify your PC

Software that arrives on a new PC can sap its performance and storage quota

from the minute you switch on. IB looks at quick clean up tools for new and

old PCs alike.


A new PC may come bundled with all sort of applications that the Original EquipmentManufacturer (OEM) thought would help you get started or, more realistically, would sellthe machine. A few weeks later, these programs sit there unused, unloved and despisedfor the space and memory they may hog.

Prime programs or crap apps?

So-called 'crapware' manifests itself in the form of:

times-limited antivirus software that demand a paid subscription,branded utilities such as profile managers,trialware like office programs,web browser toolbars that add clutter and reduce the viewing area,ISP-related utilities such as those installed by BT and AOL.

Vendors pay handsomely to get their software pre-loaded and hopefully hook potentialnew users by presenting their wares 'in your face'. A software program is easily removedas we know from within Control Panel | Add/remove programs (or Programs and Featuresin Windows 7), but what if a program function is difficult to discern or it doesn't evenshow up? Do you still remove it, and how?

Removing these will free up relatively small amounts of disc storage, but may liberatecrucial MegaBytes of working memory (RAM), especially where they run as a service orappear in the system tray/notifications area. This selection of tools sleuth out the usefulfrom the useless.

WinPatrol

A utility that starts up with arather disconcerting barkingnoise until you get used to it(presumably because of its'Scotty the Windows Watchdog'),clearly displays the authors foreach program so you can at leastGoogle the company if you're stillstumped about its purpose.

So, for example, you candiscover (before you rip it out!) that "Bonjour" is not a pice of malware communicationsoftware but a service installed by Apple Inc as part of iTunes.

Autoruns

From the venerableSysInternals stable nowacquired by Microsoft, this toolnormally aimed at advancedusers, but is excellent foranalysing and removingunwanted startup programs andhas the advantage ofinstallation-free-running; justdouble-click the autoruns icon.

Like WinPatrol, it allows forhiding Microsoft-signed entriesto make the listings easier to view, but can also verfy program code signatures to helpyou eliminate rogue-ish software and registry keys.

It shows startup items and registry keys, ranking programs in running order, and revealsfile paths giving each program a context in which to judge it.

PC DeCrapifier

A simple, wizard-based remover that lists third-party programs and prompts you for theirremoval.

PC DeCrapifier offers a restore point creation along the way so you can roll back in theevent of inadvertently over-enthusiastic cleaning!

Question

Mark

CCleaner

An eminently sound registry cleaner,CCleaner removes redundant entries(reducing registry file size), browsercaches and temporary files, as wellas files left behind after failedinstalls and removals. A goodpost-cleanup operator.

Since you are only going to use thistool occasionally you could uninstallthat too after you're done.

Don't forget to scour the Progam Files folder later and scrub all traces of programs youdeleted; sometimes preference settings are retained here even after uninstalling.

Contacts

Autoruns www.sysinternals.comCCleaner www.ccleaner.comPC DeCrapifier www.pcdecrapifier.comWinPatrol www.winpatrol.com

Email* Org

-IB-


6. Q&A: How to write our online

handbook?

Hi Mark,

We previously used somesoftware to build a user manualfor our database. Now we arelooking for something better towrite our handbook, preferablyonline rather than the oldprinted format. Do you knowwhat organisations andacademics use for this sort ofthing?

What's a wiki?

Check out a plain English explanation in this video by Common Craft


The classic solution to building a manual these days is to use a Wiki, which allowsmultiple authors to edit pages collaboratively and show a historical audit trail of whoedited what. This means you can either import exiting pages quickly and/or build upyour manual gradually and edit it as required. Wikipedia and its thousands of authorsis the most well-known example of a wiki.

Some online wikis or portals are free,others you must pay for and some doa combination of both, such as Zohowww.zoho.com/wiki.

Many Content Management Systems(CMS) such as Drupal will also allow you to build a Wiki or co-authoring portal insidethem. For instance, if you have a Windows Server in-house, Co-Operative Systemscould build you a SharePoint installation to achieve this, which will have othercollaborative advantages for your organisation too.

A good comparison site of wikis can be found at www.wikimatrix.org. Two of the mostpopular ones, DokuWiki and PmWiki run on most server platforms and appear in largenmbers of languages.

Choose the pull-down labelled "25 most popular" if the choice is too bewildering!

Discover answers in more Q&A topics

-IB-

Found this article helpful? Rate it * ** *** **** *****

Got a "Q" for which you would like an "A" ?Submit your IT question here:


Clicks of the Trade - Banish

browser mixed-content security

warnings--- Quick tips for happier clicks! ---


Web browsers have good intentions when it comes to guarding oursecurity, but sometimes it's plain annoying.

In Internet Explorer, you might see:"Do you want to view only the webpage content that wasdelivered securely?"while in Firefox, this might appear as:"You have requested an encrypted page that contains some

unencrypted information."

These pop-up warnings are looking out for your PC's well-being andthe intention is to protect you against non-secure web scriptsaccessing information you want kept secure, such as credit card infoand online passwords.

Online accountsfor mobilephones oftenserve up pageswith a mix ofsecure andnon-securedata, forexample, adsfor new phonesand tariffs in aside bar whiledisplaying yourbills in thecentre of thepage.

If your surfinghabits steer youclear of dubioussites, or at leastyou haveexcellent linkscanning inplace, you canturn thesewarnings off fora less annoyingbrowsingexperience. Inany case, it'sworth knowingwhere thesesettings arekept.

In Internet Explorer:

pull down Tools menu (or press Alt+T keys) | InternetOptionsSecurity tab | Internet zone | Custom level buttonScroll down about half way to find the "Miscellaneous" sectionand set Display mixed content to Enabled

In Firefox:

pull down Tools menu (or press Alt+T keys) | InternetOptionsSecurity tab | Settings buttonUntick "I am about to view an unencrypted page that contains

some encrypted information"

** try it now **

More Clicks of the Trade

-IB-


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