Hewie's Views and Reviews
By Hewie Poplock

Welcome to this issue of Hewie's Views & Reviews. Be sure to visit Hewie's Favorites at http://www.hewie.net/ .

In this issue:

++++ Compute Safely
++++ New additions to Hewie's Favorites

++++ Compute Safely

During the month I receive many phone calls and e-mails asking for help with computer problems. Many times the problems are software related that have resulted from many of the malicious programs, e-mails and web sites that are created for such a purpose. Many of the users that call say that they "have an anti-virus program installed. Isn't that all I need?" It's a starting point, but there are several programs that you need to install and update regularly. Updating is necessary as new malicious software is created almost daily.

There are 5 categories of software that are needed to combat the computer evil-doers. These 5 include a firewall, anti-virus software, a spam filter, a pop-up stopper and a cookie/ad stopper. The following are based on my experiences and I want you to realize that there are many other programs that may be as good or better for you.

Firewall: Many of you may ask why you might need a firewall as a single user. Much of the malicious software is launched from unprotected computers just like yours and the owner is unaware that e-mails or denial of service attacks are coming from that unprotected computer. I use a firewall in my router and have Zone Alarm http://www.zonelabs.com/ installed on my laptop. There are other firewall products from such companies as Symantec/Norton and McAfee, but there is a free version of Zone Alarm available. If you watch the ads, you can frequently get the others for free or nearly free after sale pricing and rebates. By the time that you read this, Microsoft may have released their SP2 for WindowsXP that is expected to have a better firewall than the almost useless one included in the first release. I will let you know more about it in a future issue.

E-mail filtering: I have written about this in several past issues. I use MailWasher from http://www.firetrust.com/ and use their inexpensive service ($7 for a year) to report spam messages to a central database, FirstAlert!™. I check 23 accounts every time that I check mail with MailWasher. First Alert and MailWasher automatically filter out many of the useless messages. Then I review in text format, all of the remaining messages. I delete, and or report all of the unwanted e-mail. Then I download the remaining messages with Outlook2003 which also filters my e-mail and places any junk mail in an appropriate folder. I can preview all messages as text with this latest version of Outlook.

Anti-Virus Software: You must have a current version of anti-virus software installed on your computer. There are several good packages, including Norton and McAfee, as well as AVG and Panda Software. I have McAfee, Norton, and AVG loaded on various computers. It doesn't matter which one that you use, but be sure to check for updates almost daily. The programs will only protect you from known variations and certain patterns. It is extremely important that your definition files be updated regularly.

Pop-up stoppers: Not only are pop-ups annoying, but many times contain malicious code, a virus, or just smutty material. I have used Pop-Up Stopper from Panicware http://www.panicware.com successfully, but now use Popup Ad SmasheR from http://www.popupstop.com/ which not only stops pop-ups, but controls cookies, Flash ads, Timer ads, but also web bugs.

Advertisement/Cookie/Tracking stopper: I have been using Ad-aware from http://www.lavasoftusa.com/ and have been happy with the results. It scans your memory, registry, hard, removable and optical drives for known data mining, aggressive advertising, and tracking components and will delete the offending program or cookie. I have added a second program to this category on my laptop and it has found some additional items that needed removal. So I will also use Spybot - Search & Destroy 1.3 from http://www.safer-networking.org/en/spybotsd/index.html . The makers of Popup Ad SmasheR have SpyWare SmasheR, which I haven't tried yet.

All of the above products have and require frequent updates. To be effective in combating the problems, you must be sure to get the latest versions and data definitions on a regular basis, and often. The use of automated checking is encouraged, but if you have to connect to the internet manually, the automatic updates may try to connect you so often that you will turn that feature off and forget to check manually.

Pass this information to other computer users that you help and I hope that we can compute safely.

++++ New additions to Hewie's Favorites

Leoville
http://www.leoville.com/
Leo Laporte's website with lots of interesting computer info.

Godchecker
http://www.godchecker.com/
Guide To The Gods. Mythology with a twist! Light-hearted but educational look at the literally thousands of Gods that have been worshipped by Earth's people

Internet Movie Database
http://www.imdb.com/
IMDb is a HUGE collection of movie information

Official Rich Little Website
http://www.richlittle.com/
Listen to audio recordings of Rich's famous impersonations

Preferred Consumer
http://www.preferredconsumer.com/
Information, Articles, Products and Services for your Business, Life and Leisure Needs

Egg Recipes
http://www.aeb.org/recipes/index.html
Recipes from the American Egg Board

GFX-TM - Photoshop Tutorials
http://user.fundy.net/morris/
Tutorials, Actions, Tips and Tricks, and HotKeys for Photoshop

Old Car Manual Project
http://www.tocmp.com/
Huge library of car manuals dating back as far as the 1920's with service and owners manuals, brochures and engine information

City-Data
http://www.city-data.com/
Stats about all US cities - maps, race, income, photos, education, crime, weather, houses, etc