Compression is a process by which a piece of data is encoded in such a way that it will take up less space when stored. Once compressed, it must be uncompressed before that piece of data can be used.

Let me give you a very simplified example. You already know that a computer stores information in binary format. That is ones and zeros. So let’s say you had the following information:

11100000101000100000000111110111111100100000100000

The data above consists of 50 bits or digits. Is there a shorthand way to write this that takes up less space? Yes there is. Anytime a particular digit is repeated more than two times in a row, you could write it in a different way. For example, since the only valid digits are ones and zeros, any other digit could specify the number of times to repeat the next digit. So if you had six zeros (000000), you could write it 60 meaning six zeros. Writing it that way takes 2 bits instead of 6. If you used this convention to write the above number, you would get:

11150101301805107100150150

That only takes up 26 bits. That’s a savings up 24 bits. And that’s compression.

That is a very simple example of compression. The compression used on computers is more complex than that, but you get the idea.

Compression is pretty common place in the computer world. It’s used to reduce the size of something so that it can be transferred over the internet (or, God forbid, over a phone line) faster and also so that it takes up less space when stored. It’s also a form of encryption, although its goal is not security.

Years ago when hard drives weren’t all that big and they were expensive, you could compress your whole hard drive to save space. But there was a price to pay. Every time read from the hard drive, that data has to be decompressed and every time you write to the hard drive, that data has to be compressed. That slows things down. But with today’s large, inexpensive hard drives, there’s no reason to even consider compressing a hard drive.

Some files cannot be compressed because they are, in effect, already compressed or the format of the file is just not condusive to compression. One example is the jpg format, often pronounced jpeg. This is a method for storing images. Most digital cameras product pictures in the jpeg format. One of the great things about jpeg files is that their native storage format is already compressed. You can try to compress it further, but you want get much, if any savings in size. In fact, due to the overhead of compression, you’ll probably make it bigger.

Zip files are compressed, but they have the additional advantage that you can group more than one file into the compressed file. Windows can handle zip files, but it calls them compressed folders. If you have multiple files you want to store together, you can put them in a zip file (compressed folder). You can then store them somewhere and since they are compressed, they will take up less space. You can transfer or transport them as well. When you are ready to use them, you must decompress them.

If you want to create a zip file in Windows, just select the file, or files, you want to put in the zip file, then right-click on them and choose “Send To” and then choose “Compressed (zipped) folder”. It will create the file and then let you choose a name. To open a zip file, just double click it.

By the way, Zip files (compressed folders) are not the only way to compress data on a computer. But Zip files are the only ones supported by Windows. If you want to use one of the other ones, then you will need additional software.

Some of the more popular formats used today include RAR and 7z. If you want to create RAR files, check out WinRAR (http://www.rarlab.com/). WinRAR also works on zip files, but it’s not free.

For the 7z format, check out 7-Zip (http://www.7-zip.org/). 7-Zip not only works on 7z files, but also works on Zip and RAR files. This is the utility I use most. It works great and the best part is, it’s free!

Most residential computer uses, however, don’t need anything more than what’s built-in to Windows.

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Hands down, the most common type of computer infection we see here at Computer Troubleshooters are these fake security packages. Once they get on your system, they look and act like security software. They pretend to scan your system and tell you that your system is infected. Your system is infected, but not in the way they tell you. The fake security program IS the infection.

One of the ways these types of infections spread is by using Black Hat SEO. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It’s a procedure most website administrators use to make their website come up first, or near the top of your search results when you search for certain things. By doing that, it makes it more likely that you will find and visit a webpage that employs SEO techniques.

However, just like The Force in Star Wars, there is a dark side to SEO. The dark side is referred to as Black Hat SEO. It’s basically cheating or using deceptive practices to make a website show up higher on your search results.

Here’s what these criminals do. First, they target a particular company. It’s always a big company with lots of web traffic. One such company that has been targeted in the past is Ford Motor Company. Once they have a target, they create a fake website that looks like Ford’s website. Then they use BlackHat SEO to make their website come up on search engine results above the real company’s website. This makes it likely that people will click on and visit their fake website instead of the real one.

Once the unsuspecting web surfer is on the fake website there will be a prompt to install something. It may just prompt you to install something without saying what it is, but more likely, it will  give you a reason. It may say you need to update to the latest version of flash in order to view the website or it may give some other reason. No matter what reason they give, if you agree and install, that’s when your computer is infected.

To help prevent your computer from being infected in this way, here’s what you can do.

First, you should be running one of our 4 recommended security packages: Vipre, AVG (not the free version), Malwarebytes (not the free version), or SuperAntiSpyware (not the free version).

We also recommend the installation of Web of Trust (WOT) and adblocking software like “Simple Adblock” or “Adblock Plus”. These utilities add extra protection when you are surfing the web. And all of these utilities are free.

We recommend only updating plugins like Flash, Adobe Reader, Java, Shockwave, and SilverLight directly from their makers, not from some website that tells you that you need to update them. So if a website says you need to update one of these, exit the website and go to the appropriate website to update.  Once updated, then return to the website. If it still says you need to update, something is wrong.

Here’s a list of where to go to update each of the plugins we mentioned:

For Flash, Adobe Reader, Shockwave go to adobe.com.
For Java, go to Java.com
For Silverlight, go to www.microsoft.com/silverlight

If you are prompted by a website to install something, don’t just allow it. Stop and be very careful and make sure it’s OK. You may think you are on a trustworthy website, like Ford.com, but you may be on a fake website made up to look like the real one.

Here’s how you can identify if you are on a fake website. Look at the address of the website. It’s at the top of your web browser and usually starts with http or www. We will use Ford for some examples. If it says ford.com, that’s valid. But if it has something between ford and com, like ford.ru.com, that’s not the same. Something like support.ford.com is OK. What matters is the right two words. If it ends in ford.com, it should be OK. Something else you might see is a bunch of numbers known as an IP address. So if you see something like: 10.19.32.4 in the websites address, it may be fake.

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Although it’s getting harder and harder to find new systems with XP on them, they are still available. Microsoft has a program that many manufacturers offer on certain systems where you can order a system with Windows 7 on it and have it downgraded to XP. When you receive the computer, it has XP on it, but you also have a license for Windows 7 and it comes with the DVD to install Windows 7.

That program has been around a while, but it won’t be here forever. Microsoft has not set an exact date for the end of that program but has said it will end on or before April 2011. On or before means it could end before April of next year.

The only reason to purchase XP systems at this time is if you have software or devices that just don’t work on Windows 7. Businesses with a lot of XP systems may prefer to keep all of their systems on one operating system and may want XP systems as well.

Can you have XP, Vista, and Windows 7 systems all on the same network? Certainly. Can there be issues with that? Of course. It’s not always possible to have all of your computers on the same operating system, but when possible, it’s a good idea because it keeps it simple and consistent.

If you are considering purchasing a new computer and you want XP, we recommend that you purchase it before September 2010, just to be safe. We aren’t sure how much warning Microsoft will give us before they give it the Axe.

Once that program has been discontinued, that doesn’t mean you can’t get XP anymore. It just means new computers won’t come with XP installed on them. You can still buy Windows XP and install it on a computer. But this is something we would recommend you let us handle for you. Before purchasing a computer that you plan to install XP on, let us make sure that XP drivers are available for that computer. Installing XP might be tricky as well when it comes to loading those drivers, so we would also recommend you let us do that as well.

But for now, you can still purchase a new computer with XP already loaded on it. It costs an extra $100 to get a Dell computer with XP on it as opposed to Windows 7 and XP is not available on all models. If you want to purchase an XP computer, let us know and we will get you some quotes on Dell computers with XP on them.

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Bare with me on this. Don’t skip this article because you think it’s too technical. The end of the article has some fun stuff.

Encryption is taking information and transforming it using a key into something else to make it unreadable to anyone except those who know the key. The key is usually a password of some sort. There are different algorithms that can be used to encrypt data. Some are easier to break than others.

Here’s an example of a very simply form of encryption. This is called Shift Encryption. Basically, each letter is changed into the next letter in the alphabet. An ‘a’ becomes a ‘b’.  A ‘b’ becomes a ‘c’ and so forth. ‘z’ becomes ‘a’. Spaces are replaced with ‘!’.

Let’s say you have the following sentence:

The password is rosebud

If you encrypted it using a shift algorithm as described above, you would get the following:

Uif!qbttxpse!jt!sptfcve

If you saw the above written on a piece of paper, you wouldn’t be able to read it. If you knew it was a secret message, you could study it and eventually figure out what it says.

This is a very simple example of encryption. Notice there was no key involved; Just a simple algorithm. Another simple form of encryption you are probably already familiar with is Pig Latin. The encryption that is used on a computer is much more sophisticated and too difficult to try and explain here.

Like any kind of security, encryption is a deterrent. No security is totally impenetrable, but the harder you make it for the criminal, the more likely they are to give up.

You may not realize it, but you use encryption any time you access a secure website. You are using a secure website any time you use a website where you have to login, like a banking website. When you make a purchase online, the checkout process is on a secure website in order to protect your personal information and your credit card number.

If you use remote backup, you use encryption as well. Your data is encrypted before it leaves your computer. The remote backup service you use doesn’t know your key and can’t access your data because your data is stored encrypted on their servers. This is good for security, but if your computer gets destroyed, you better know what the key is or you won’t be able to decrypt your data either.

Something else that uses encryption is your security software. When your security software quarantines an infection, it encrypts it and stores it in a special place. As long as it’s encrypted, it can’t run.

If your computer contains highly sensitive information, you might want to encrypt your whole hard drive. You can purchase software that will do this, however, you should only do this if it’s absolutely necessary because there are drawbacks to doing this. One drawback is that if your hard drive crashes, it can’t be recovered by traditional means because it’s encrypted. It also slows down your computer because every time  you read or write information on the hard drive, your computer has to encrypt or decrypt the information.

It is also possible to encrypt email, but like encrypting your hard drive, it should only be done if security conditions warrant.  For most people, this is not needed.

There is a fun aspect to all of this. Many people enjoyed Pig Latin as a kid. Something that is fun to do on a computer is use a dialectizer. A dialectizer takes text and changes in a humorous way. For example, there is a website you can go to where you can type in or copy text into a box, hit a button, and it will change it to sound like it would if the Swedish Chef (one of the Muppets) said it.

For example, if you took the sentence:

I like to use my computer.

And translated it using the Swedish Chef Dialectizer, you would get:

I leeke-a tu use-a my cumpooter. Bork Bork Bork!

There are quite a few dialectizers out there. Some of them may be offensive to some people. Some use foul language and some border on racist. Some examples of dialectizers that are available include Valley Girl, Jive, Redneck, Cockney, Elmer Fudd, Moron, Hacker, 12 year old AOLer, and many, many more.

Here are a couple of links to websites that will let you play with some of the dialectizers.

http://userweb.cs.utexas.edu/users/jbc/home/chef.html

http://www.rinkworks.com/dialect/

Have fun!

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There are a lot of fun applications on Facebook. Popular games like Mafia Wars, Farmville, and many more. Many of these applications are fun to play and use. But many of us don’t use these applications. Some of have friends who use them so much it clutters up our Facebook page making it hard to see the information we want to see. But never fear, there is something you can do about it.

When you see a message on your facebook page from an application, if it’s an application you don’t use and you don’t want to see messages from it, here’s what you can do to block messages from that application from appearing on your facebook page.

Take a look at this example.

The above message appeared on my facebook page. The application is called “Friendly Hearts”. If I want to block messages from Friendly Hearts from showing up on my facebook pages, I would first click on the picture in the Friendly Hearts message. When I do that, I get a screen that looks like this.

Don’t click on Allow. What you want to do is click on the name of the application which appears in blue. In this case, I click on “Friendly Hearts” which is show in blue text.

After you click on the name of the application, it will take you to that application’s home page. Here is a portion of the Friendly Hearts home page.

In the left column under the “Go to Application” button, you will see several options in blue. The last option is “Block Application”. Click on “Block Application”. It will ask you if you are sure and you should confirm.

And your done. You’ll need to do this for each application you want to block messages from.

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Windows has a group of features called Accessibility Options. These are Windows options that can be set to help people who physical impairments that make it hard to use a computer. People who are def or hard of hearing, are blind or have limited eyesight, or people who have difficulty using the keyboard or mouse. If you or someone you know falls into any of these categories, windows has special features that can help you better use a computer.

There are actually quite a few accessibility options. Too many to go over in detail in this article. But here is a description of some of the more popular accessibility options.

Magnifier
It’s like a big rectangular magnifying glass that you move around the screen with your mouse. It magnifies anything in the box to the power you set. 200% by default.

High Contrast
For people with impaired vision, you can use a high contrast color scheme to make things easier to see. High contrast color schemes increase the legibility by heightening screen contrast with alternative color combinations. Some of these schemes also make things on the screen bigger.

Visual Notifications
By default, Windows uses a lot of sounds to notify you of what’s going on. But if your hearing isn’t very good, Visual Notifications allows you to have visual notifications in addition to audible notifications. You can choose what you what notifications you want it to give you visually.

Narrator
This is a text-to-speech program that basically reads what on the screen to you.

Speech Recognition
If you have trouble using a mouse or keyboard, Speech Recognition allows you to speak commands to your computer. You’ll need to have a microphone connected to your computer for this to work.

Filter Keys
if you tend to hold keys on the keyboard down too long or press it several times when you intended to only press it once, then you probably often get more than one character of the key you pressed. If so, then you might want to enable Filter Keys which will ignore keystrokes that occur in rapid succession.

Sticky Keys
Windows has quite a few keyboard combinations where you have to press multiple keys at the same time. For example, Control-Alt-Delete. When Sticky Keys is enabled, you don’t have to press them all at the same time. You can press them one at a time. So, if Sticky Keys was turned on, you could press and release control, then press and release Alt, then press and release Delete.

Mouse Keys
If you do OK using the keyboard, but have trouble with the mouse you can enable mouse keys which lets you use the arrow keys to move the pointer.

Note that XP doesn’t have all of the options described above, but Vista and Windows 7 do.

This list above is a very small portion of the many accessibility options in Windows.

For detailed information on all of the accessibility options in Windows XP, go to: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/accessibility/default.mspx

For Vista, go to:
http://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/windowsvista/

For Windows 7, go to:
http://www.microsoft.com/enable/products/windows7/

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What Good is an Idle Computer?

With the recent green push, some people feel you should shut your computer down when you aren’t using it. Or you can put it in hibernation or sleep (For more information about hibernation and sleep, see our recent newsletter article on our website). Although it’s a good thing to try and save electricity, you also have to be smart about it.

When  you are using your computer, you want it to be at its best so you can do what you need to do efficiently. You don’t want your computer doing maintenance tasks while you are trying to use it because it slows you down. You want your computer to do it’s maintenance tasks when you aren’t using it. That’s why you should not shut your computer down, put it into hibernation, or put it to sleep when you aren’t using it.

You can have windows turn off your monitor after a certain amount of time to try and save electricity. If you have Vista or Windows 7,  you can have them shut down other components of the computer to save electricity. Setting these settings will allow your computer to do the maintenance it needs to do when you aren’t using it, but will still save some electricity.

Typical maintenance tasks that your computer might do when  you aren’t using it include, but are not limited to, update security software, scan computer for infections, backup, defrag, and more. There are, however, other additional tasks you can have your computer perform. How would you like to have your computer fight cancer and other diseases like AIDS, MD, and more? Or perhaps you would like your computer to look for E.T.? You can have your computer do all of these things and more through the use of distributed computing.

The idea behind distributed computing is instead of using one big expensive computer to process data, why not break the data up into little pieces and have a lot of less expensive computers each process a small piece of the data. Your computer can be one of these computers and it’s free and easy to do.

It all started with the SETI@Home project at Berkeley. Back in 1999, they created a screen saver that would kick in when you weren’t using your computer. This screen saver would process data for the SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) Institute. Since then, the software used for this has evolved way past a simple screen saver. The software is now called BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing).

Now there are lots of projects, in addition to SETI@Home, that you can have your computer work on. And you don’t have to limit it to one project. You can work on lots of them. I started with SETI@Home back in 1999. I still have my computers do some work for that project, but most of my computers concentrate on projects from World Community Grid. Why? Because their projects save lives. They are the ones with the projects that help fight Cancer, AIDS and other diseases.  Their projects help people.

Yes, using  your computer for distributed computing does use a little more electricity. But isn’t it worth it to help save lives? And if you have a friend or family member who has died from Cancer, or is fighting cancer right now, why wouldn’t you want to join in the fight?

If you want to use your computer to help with these projects, here’s how.

First, go http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/ to download and install BOINC. Now run BOINC. It will give you the option to attach to projects like World Community Grid or SETI@Home. You’ll create logins for each project as well. You can configure BOINC to run all the time, or only when your computer is idle.

If you need help with BOINC, we will be glad to help you with it remotely at no charge. Here are some websites with more information to references in this article:

SETI@Home                   http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/
World Community Grid  http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/

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You may have seen refurbished computers for sale, especially online. But what does refurbished really mean and should you purchase a refurbished computer?

The problem with the term refurbished is that it can mean a couple of different things when it comes to computers. And there seem to be no laws that specify how it may be used. In the world of computers, a refurbished computer is usually one of two things. A new computer that was fixed, or a used computer that was either fixed, or fixed up.

Refurbished new computers are computers that were built, but didn’t pass the manufacturer’s tests. They are then sent to a department of the company where they are fixed and then sold as refurbished. These computers have all new parts and most of the time come with the same warranty as a new computer.

Used computers are often advertised as refurbished, but there is a big difference between refurbished new computers and refurbished used computers. Refurbished used computers are not new and could be any age. The parts used to fix them could be new or they could be used as well. Used computers usually carry anywhere from a 30 day to a 90 day warranty.

Should you purchase a refurbished computer? That depends.  If you are in the market for a used computer, then a refurbished used computer is not really much different than buying a used computer. Just a different word for pretty much the same thing. The only difference there is that the refurbished computer might have some brand new parts in it, so it might last longer. Then again, it might have used parts in it.

As for refurbished new computers, they are just as good as new computers. They are slightly cheaper, but generally not a lot cheaper. There are just two things to keep in mind. First, make sure the refurbished new computer has the same warranty as a comparable new computer. The other thing to keep in mind is that a refurbished new computer is generally sold with whatever configuration it was built in. So you can’t go online and configure it exactly the way you would want it. So if you want a very specific configuration, it might be a little harder to find the computer you are looking for.

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Your home page is the first web page that your web browser (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, Netscape, etc) goes to when  you first open it. It can be any web page. If you have more than one web browser on  your computer, each one can have a different home page.

So how to do you set what your home page is? That’s what we are going to cover in this article. Each web browser works a little differently when it comes to changing your home page, so for the purposes of this article, we are only going to cover Internet Explorer 8 (IE8), Firefox 3.6, and Chrome 4.

With all of these web browsers, the first thing you should do is go to the webpage that you want to be your home page. Some web browsers allow you to have more than one web page and will open all of them up in different tabs. If you want that, then get  your web browser all set with exactly how you want it to look when you open the web browser. What you do next depends on which web browser  you are using.

Let’s start with IE8. To set your home page to the currently displayed web page, find the command bar. The command bar is a toolbar on IE8 that has a picture of a house, a printer, the word “Page”, the word “Tools”, and other stuff. On the command bar, find the house and click on the little down arrow to the right of the house. Now select “Add or Change Home Page”.  If you just want one home page, click on the circle next to “Use this webpage as your only home page” and then click the Yes button. If you have more than one home page in tabs, then click on the circle next to “Use Current tab set as your home page” and click the Yes button. There are more options here you can play with.

Now for Firefox. If you want just one home page, find the icon just to the left of the website address. This should be in the uppermost white address bar. The website address starts with http. Just to the left of that is an icon. Click and drag that to the left and drop it on top of the house icon. Firefox will then ask you if you want this document to be  your home page. Click the yes button.  If you want more than one web page, then get all your tabs set. In the Firefox menu, click on Tools and then click on Options. In the General options, you should see a button labled “Use Current Pages”. Click on that to make your current tab set your set of home pages.

Before I tell you how to set your home page in Chrome, there’s something special I want to tell you about it. I don’t like to have a home page set in Chrome. I prefer to use the new tab page. The new tab page in Chome shows you thumbnails of web pages you have been to recently. If you want to go to one of them, just click on the thumbnail. Something else that is special about Chrome. In the place where you would normally type the website address you want to go to, you can enter search terms like you would if you were searching on Google. So when you start up Chrome, you can type a website address, search terms, or click on one of the recent websites you have been to.

Click on the wrench and then click on Options. In the home page section, click on the circle next to “Open this page” and then type the address for the website in the box to the right. You can copy and paste as well. Then click the close button.

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