A few of you still have PCs with Windows 2000 on them and some of you also have servers with Windows 2000 on them. If that’s you, it’s very important that you know that Microsoft will be ending support for Windows 2000 on July 13, 2010.

What that means is that they will no longer be releasing security updates for Windows 2000. These security updates are very important to keep your computer from getting infected. In addition, many software vendors will no longer support Windows 2000 either. That means it will get harder and harder to find security software that will work on Windows 2000.

If you are running a business with a server that has Windows 2000 on it, that is a huge risk to your business. Not only because of Windows 2000 support ending, but because any computer running Windows 2000 is at least 7 years old, probably older. The older hardware gets, the more likely it is to fail, and the harder it is to get replacement parts.

Our recommendation is to get yourself a new computer or server BEFORE July 13th. We can get you a quote on a new Dell. We can also transfer your data over from your old computer to your new one.

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You probably know that we have service contracts that we offer our customers. But what you may not realize is how much money these plans can save you. We have plans to cover anywhere from the residential customer, to the home or small business, to the medium sized business. But in this article, I want to focus on our most popular plan, the HOST plan.

In case you were wondering, HOST stands for Home Office Support Technology. It’s a great plan for residential, home businesses, and small businesses and all at a great price! Just look at all of the features of the plan.

• Monitoring and Alerting
  Out software will monitor the health of your computer and alert us to any potential problems, often before they cause downtime.

• Monitored security software included
  That’s right. It includes monitored security software. We install our top of the line security software which includes anti-virus, anti-spyware, and anti-rootkit. It also includes security software that will help prevent you from going to infected websites. And this software is remotely managed by Computer Troubleshooters. That means you don’t have to worry about it. You will never have to worry that your security software will expire and you will never have to renew it because it never expires as long as you are on the HOST plan. You’ll never have to worry about your security software again.

• Free infection removal
  We are so confident that the security solution provided with the HOST plan will protect your computer from infections that if a computer on the HOST plan becomes infected, we will remove the infection at no additional charge. In the 3 years we have been offering the HOST plan, only 2 computers have gotten infected. Considering the large number of infected computers we see each week, that’s really good!

• Priority service scheduling
  As a customer on a service contract, you will be given priority over non-contract customers.

• 25% discount on remote service
  If you need us to work on your computer remotely, you will receive a 25% discount.

• Remote access to  your computers on the HOST plan
  You can remotely control your computer just like we do when we work on your computer remotely. That means that you can access and control your computer from any Internet connected computer. Visiting someone and want to show them something on your computer? Or maybe you need a file or want to read your email. Just connect to and control your computer and you can do all of that and more.

That is a long list of great features. And the best part is that it only costs $20/month per computer, $30/month for each server. If you added up the cost of security software, remote control software, and assume 1 infection cleanup in a year, that would normally be an expense of $440 in a year. With the HOST plan, it would only cost $240. That’s a savings of $200! And that doesn’t even include the savings on remote support!

If you have questions about the HOST plan or want to sign up, please contact us.

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In the last few months, we have frequently been alerting you to these fake security programs that pose as legitimate security software, when they aren’t. Just to refresh your memory, these programs tell you that your computer is infected, when the only infection is the security program telling you that your computer is infected. They then tell you they will clean off these supposed infections if you buy their (fake) product.

In an effort to trick consumers, these programs are very good looking programs that look like real security software. They are set up to not only look like real security software, but act like them too.

The most recent feature some of these programs are adding is on-line support. There is a button you can press for on-line support and you actually can chat with a live person. But all they really try to do is encourage you to purchase the fake product.

Those fake security programs that have added fake on-line support are doing this, once again, to appear more legitimate. As usual, make sure your computer is fully protected and be careful when  you are reading  your email and surfing the web.

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We here at Computer Troubleshooters are always evaluating security software so that we can recommend the best protection to help prevent your computer from becoming infected. To that end, we are changing one of our recommendations.

Infections usually get onto your computer either from websites or from email. When you are using a search engine like Google or Yahoo, you are very likely to visit websites you have never been to before. How do you know if these websites are safe?

A fairly new type of security software integrates into your web browser and shows ratings of website as to whether or not they are safe to visit. And it can prevent you from going to an infected website. Surprisingly few security suites provide this type of functionality. The only ones we have found that include this are AVG and McAfee.

AVG’s version is called LinkScanner. It’s good, but not great. McAfee’s version is called SiteAdvisor. In our experience, SiteAdvisor does a better job than LinkScanner. However, we don’t recommend any other McAfee products, so don’t go out and get McAfee Internet Security. The good news is that there is a free version of SiteAdvisor that anyone can download and install.

In the past we have recommended SiteAdvisor as a free addition to make your computer more secure. But now we have found a product that we like even more. It’s called Web of Trust (WOT). There are two main reasons we like WOT better than SiteAdvisor. The most important reason is that it’s ratings seem to be better. Because of that, it seems to do a better job of keeping you from accidentally going to a website that might infect your computer. The second reason we like it better is that it’s less intrusive on your web browser. SiteAdvisor is a tool bar that takes up space in your browser. It also nags you sometimes. WOT doesn’t take up much space on your web browser and I’ve never seen it nag.

If you are using AVG, you can disable LinkScanner, and install WOT. If you are using Vipre, we recommend downloading and installing WOT.

If you use Internet Explorer, you can download WOT at http://www.mywot.com/en/download/ie

If you use FireFox, you can download WOT at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3456

If you use Google Chrome, you can download WOT at https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/bhmmomiinigofkjcapegjjndpbikblnp

For more information, check out http://www.mywot.com

Like any security software, it’s not a 100% guarantee that your computer won’t become infected. But WOT provides very good protection.

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While most of you have XP or Vista, a few of you have Windows 7. If you do have Windows 7, please check the CD’s that came with your computer and make sure you have a repair or a recovery CD. If you don’t have one, then we recommend you create one as soon as possible.

To create one:

1. Put blank CD or DVD into the appropriate drive.

2. Click start, type repair and then look at the top of the start menu and click on “Create a System Repair Disc”

3. Follow instructions.

4. Be sure to label disc and store in safe place where  you can find it.

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Drivers are little software programs that tell windows how to talk to hardware. For example, if you purchase a new printer, you have to install the driver for the printer so that Windows will know how to talk to your new printer so you can actually print to it.

In the example of the printer, that is a piece of hardware on the outside of your computer, but there are several pieces of hardware on the inside of your computer that each need their own drivers as well.  This can vary from computer to computer depending on what expansion cards are plugged into your computer, but every computer has at least these devices that need drivers:

Motherboard chipset
Ethernet Port (AKA LAN or NIC)
Video (AKA Display)
Sound (AKA Audio)

As I said, your computer may have additional driver requirements, but these are the basics that all computers have. When you purchase a computer, the drivers are already loaded so that your computer is operational. When you add new hardware like a printer or a wireless card, you will need to install the CD that came with the device. That will install the drivers and often will install additional software that the device uses.

Over the years of ownership of your computer, Windows is updated, a lot of your software is updated, but your drivers generally are not updated. Some printers come with software that automatically updates your printer driver, but the 4 basic drivers listed above are generally not updated.

So the question is, should you update them.  The answer is not to bother updating your drivers unless you are running into some sort of problem. If you play games that have intensive graphics, then you may need to keep your video driver up to date in order for newer games to work.

Several of our customers have installed these programs that are supposed to automatically detect what hardware you have and download and install the latest drivers for them. Some of the better known driver update programs include Driver Detective, Driver Genius, Driver Agent, and Driver Guide. These types of programs sound like a really good idea. And they are a good idea. The problem is that it’s pretty common for one of these programs to download the wrong driver for your hardware. Then things stop working and it can cause a big mess. Because of this, we don’t recommend using these programs.

If you really want to update your drivers, the best way to do it is to have a list of EXACTLY what hardware you have. This means you need to know the make and model number. Then go to the manufacturer’s website and download the latest drivers.

If you have a Dell computer, you can go to Dell’s website and type in your service tag and it will give you a list of all of the drivers for your system. You can then download and install them. This would only include drivers for the hardware that came with your system. Any additional hardware you added later, like printers, would not be there. You would have to go to the hardware manufacturer’s website for your printer to get those drivers.

But again, we don’t recommend that you update your drivers. Drivers should generally only be updated if you are experiencing some sort of problem. If you really want  your drivers updated, it would be better to have us do it to avoid problems.

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PDF doesn’t stand for Pretty Darn Fun. It stands for Portable Document Format. A document in this format will have .pdf on the end of it. This format was created by Adobe in 1993. When  you download a book, manual, or other document from the internet, it is often in PDF format. Some forms are also in PDF format.

If you want to view a PDF document, you need the free Adobe Reader which can be downloaded and installed from adobe.com. Most computers already have this installed.

What we wanted to address in this article was how to create a PDF file. If you want to create a fancy PDF file that contains a form other special functionality, you would have to purchase Adobe Acrobat which is very expensive. The standard version of Acrobat currently lists for $299, but if you have a previous version, you can upgrade for $99.

However, if you just want to take a document you have created in Word, Publisher, or some other program and create a PDF version of it, you don’t need Acrobat. And the best part is you can create it for free.

You may be wondering why you would want to create a PDF of your document. Why not just send your document? Good question. There are several reasons why. To answer this, let’s use the example of a Word document. Let’s say you have Word 2007. If you send a Word 2007 file to someone, it may turn out that they don’t have Word, or they may have an older version of Word. So that person would not be able to view the document. But everyone has Adobe Reader. So if you converted it to PDF format, they would be able to open and view your document.

Another reason is that if you sent someone your Word document, if they have Word they can open it and change it. If you want to make sure the document can’t be modified, then you might want to convert it to PDF before you send it.

So, here’s how to convert your document to PDF.

If you have Office 2007, you can download a free add-in from Microsoft that lets you save  your documents as PDF files. You can download and install that by using the link below:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4d951911-3e7e-4ae6-b059-a2e79ed87041&displaylang=en

If you have an older version of Office, or if you want to create a PDF file from a different program, you can still do it pretty easily and for free.

Go to cutepdf.com and download the free CutePDF Writer and install it on your computer. Once it has been installed, it creates a virtual printer. Then, all you have to do is open up your document in the program you created it in. Then print the document, but instead of printing to your default printer, change the printer you are printing to so it prints to the CutePDF virtual printer. When you print to the CutePDF printer, it will prompt you for a file name and location for your PDF file. It will then create the PDF file for you so that you can then send it out via email.

CutePDF is not the only utility like this that is free. Another popular one is pdf995 which you can get at pdf995.com.

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If you use a computer, you have used scroll bars. Scroll bars are used when all of the information displayed is too big to fit in the current window. Scroll bars allow you to move the information inside a window around so that you can see the information that isn’t currently visible in the current window.

Take a look at this picture:

The part of the window above encompassed by a red rectangle is the vertical scroll bar and the part encompassed by a blue rectangle is the horizontal scroll bar.

Vertical scrollbars let you scroll information up and down while horizontal scrollbars let you scroll information side to side or left and right.

You probably already knew all of that. I know this seems rudimentary, but there are some tricks to using scrollbars you may not be aware of.

The scroll bar consists of a bar with an arrow on each end. In the middle is a solid bar. There is also the space between the bar and each of the arrows.

For the purposes of this article, we will use the vertical scroll bar as an example, but the same applies to horizontal scroll bars as well.

If you click on the top arrow or the bottom arrow, the information in the window will move up or down by one line. You knew that.

Did you know that if you click in the white space between the arrow and the block in the middle of the scroll bar, the information will page up or down. So instead of just moving one line, it moves a whole screen’s worth of information at a time.

Did you know the size of the middle bar gives you an indication of how big the list is? In the example above, the bar is big and almost takes up the whole scroll bar. That means there isn’t a lot of information to scroll through. But if that bar were much smaller, that would tell us that there was a lot of information to scroll through.

Another useful thing to know is that you can click your mouse on that bar and drag it up and down to quickly scroll to another section of the information. So, for example, if you were looking at an alphabetized list and you wanted to go down to the T’s, you could drag the bar about 3/4ths of the way down.

If you click your mouse in the area where the information is being displayed, you can then use your arrow keys and page keys to scroll the information. Be aware that if  your current cursor is at the top of the information and you press the down arrow, it will just move one line down and it won’t scroll. If you keep moving down, however, when the cursor gets to the bottom of the window, it will start scrolling.

The touch pads on some laptops have an area on the right side of them that acts like a scroll bar. If you are in a window with scroll bars, you can slide your finger up and down on the right side of the touchpad to scroll up and down.

Desktops have a special key on the keyboard that is usually labeled “Scroll Lock”. This key is rarely used by anybody. When you turn scroll lock on, the arrow keys will scroll the contents of the current window. You may wonder how this is different than just clicking in the window and moving the cursor. The only difference is that with scroll lock on, you don’t have to wait for the cursor to move to the edge of the window before it starts scrolling. It just scrolls.

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USB stands for Universal Serial Bus. These are the rectangular ports on your computer. Most computers have several USB ports in the back and a few in the front. You can use USB to plug in a printer, scanner, Ipod, flash drives, external hard drives, phone, and all sorts of things.

When USB first hit the scene, it was nice, but slow. The second version of USB was USB 2.0. It was also called high speed USB. It started showing up on computers in 2001. USB 2.0 was much faster than the first version of USB. The first version of USB could transfer about 183 thousand bytes per second whereas USB 2.0 can transfer about 57 million bytes per second.

If these numbers don’t mean anything to you, don’t worry. USB 2.0 is good for a lot of things. But even though it’s a lot faster than the original USB, it’s still kind of slow for some things.

Now USB 3.0 has just come out. It is also called super speed USB. It can handle 3.8 billion bytes per second. That’s pretty darn fast.

So what does this mean for the average computer and user? To answer that, let’s look at how the faster USB 2.0 changed things. USB 2.0 became popular because it was a standard port that was pretty fast. Soon, devices that plugged into the computer through special ports started plugging into USB. Printers, for example, used to plug into parallel ports. With USB 2.0, printers began changing and plugging in through USB instead. Now when you buy a new computer, it doesn’t even have a parallel port on it. Dell stopped putting PS2 ports on their computers years ago. PS2 ports are where the mouse and keyboard normally plug into. The mouse and keyboards on Dell computers plug into USB.

So what devices might USB 3.0 take over? It could replace the network (Ethernet) plug on your computer. It could replace the plug where you display plugs in. It could replace eSATA, firewire (1394), and even sound plugs. It could potentally replace most every plug on your computer except for the power cord.

USB 3.0 is special hardware. To get it, you either need to purchase a new computer with USB 3.0 on it, or purchase an expansion card which will add USB 3.0 ports to your computer. Most people won’t need to do this. If you purchase a computer that has USB 3.0 ports on it, you’ll be happy to know that you can still plug USB 2.0 devices into USB 3.0 ports. But the opposite isn’t true.

Watch out for USB 3.0. It’s going to change the way we compute.

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When a new version of Windows comes out, many people, especially businesses, hold off on upgrading to the new version of Windows until after the first service pack comes out. The logic behind this is that the first service pack will fix all of the major problems. This logic is sound, however, Microsoft knows this is the case. So their plan is to get a service pack out for Windows 7 as soon as possible so that those waiting for service pack 1 will go ahead and make the move to Windows 7.

There isn’t a lot of solid information about service pack 1 just yet. Service pack 1 is likely to be just a collection of previously released updates all rolled up into one nice and neat package. That’s generally what Microsoft has been doing lately. There will probably be a few enhancements, but not a lot. One feature that is likely to be included is USB 3.0 (a newer faster version of the USB ports on your computer).

We expect that it will probably become available in September or October 2010.

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