January 2004 - Vol 20 - Issue 01
Newsletter - Internet Edition
| Comb your hair...January Meeting | Alternate Newsletter Editor |
| Nov-Dec. Meeting | Newsletter Notice |
| Spy-Ware | |
| Comb your hair...January Meeting | Alternate Newsletter Editor |
| Nov-Dec. Meeting | Newsletter Notice |
| Spy-Ware | |
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November –December Showcase was an “alternate” success!
As has been the tradition for EPCUG for the last 10 years, there was a combined November-December meeting. As always, it was held on the 1st Thursday in December. In the past, this was games night and shareware demo night. This year was different.
The meeting showcased software not written by Microsoft, that runs on Windows platforms. There were four programs that had people waiting to get close to the screen to see.
The alternate office suite program called Open Office was a big hit. With the price of Microsoft Office, some people looked at Open Office as a lower cost alternative. Open Office software works with MS-Office format files for Word, Excel, and Power Point. It has a spelling checker, thesaurus, and a bookkeeping program included.
Another hit was the Bible program called E-Sword that can load 10 or more translations of the Bible text. E-Sword allows you to view several translations of a Bible passage at the same time. It has a full function search for words and phrases. E-sword has a topic index for major topics like Christmas.
In addition, it has dictionaries, commentaries, and extra text which rival any major software.
Young Snodgrass demonstrated some graphics programs that he uses. Young also spent time answering questions on different graphic formats, use, and applications.
Not to be outdone, John Charles brought his computer and showed some videos from the computer flying games that he plays over the Internet. John had his computer tuned up earlier in the month so he could show the videos at high quality and “jerk free”. The videos were very interesting, especially considering that several of the videos were created by high school aged kids!
EPCUG members need to give Sherry and Marcus a big thank you for taking the time to bring almost all of the computers to their home, load the software, and test them to make sure they were working properly. This took both of them many hours of effort to accomplish. Thank you!
Since Sherry and Marcus did not keep assembled systems together, there were a few bugs getting started. Sherry insists that I leave in this “thank you” to me, Jon Slough, for fixing the computers at the start of the meeting that did not like the monitor, keyboard, or mouse attached to them at the meeting for the first time. We will not discuss the loose hard drive cable, will we?
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Over the last few years, many computer and IT persons have been warning users that there are other things to worry about other than computer viruses. Many people are upgrading computers that are “too slow”. There is often nothing wrong with the computer; it is those other “nasty things” slowing it down.
Recently a friend brought over a Compaq laptop computer that has a Pentium IV 1.2GHz mobile processor and 256MB of RAM running Windows XP Professional. The system was “dead slow” on the Internet even with his DSL line. His anti-virus software was up to date and had been run earlier that day.
While he was here, my friend used my computer, an old PII-266 with Windows 2000 Pro running, and he raved about how fast it was. WHAT?
Something was very wrong here, so I plugged his computer into my DSL and connected to the Internet going to his normal homepage. His system took over four minutes to open a web page that took my computer less than 10 seconds to open.
I asked if he had anything to check for Spy-Ware. I was told no. I figured that, as my activity light on my network had not stopped since I connected his computer to the Internet. I checked the CPU load on the system and it was around 98% activity since it connected.
I tried to download a copy of Ad-Aware to check his system, but the download kept timing out.
A network connection between our computers was made and a Spy-Ware scan was started from my computer. It took about 3 seconds for Pest Patrol to find the first of 253 different Spy-Ware pests on his computer. This scan took over 3 hours to complete.
After rebooting the laptop, we downloaded a copy of Ad-Aware on his computer and deleted all his cookies from Internet Explorer and Netscape. I scanned again so the registry file and memory were scanned. This scan found another 28 files and 16 more Spy-Ware links that needed to be removed. This scan took 30 minutes.
After another reboot, the CPU usage dropped to 12% and the system speed on the Internet increased so it was faster than my system.
My friend was ready to upgrade the system, when all it needed was to unload the Spy-Ware and do a cleanup of his cookies. Removing the Spy-Ware saved the system, but lost EPCUG a really nice laptop for the recycling SIG.
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For those of you who do not know, Sherry was placed into Goshen Hospital with an allergic reaction to one of her medications. The allergic reaction caused redness and blisters over most of her body.
As of the writing of this newsletter, Sherry remains in the Goshen Hospital while she recovers. Sherry is upset that she has not had a continued improvement in her condition.
From her hospital bed, Sherry asked Jon to complete the newsletter for the membership.
Please keep Sherry in your thoughts and prayers as she recovers.
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Sherry has asked that the member of EPCUG thank the board members who helped put together this newsletter under unusual circumstances. Be sure to especially thank Marcus, Bill, and Sam for all their extra efforts on January 13 to get this newsletter printed, collated, folded, tabbed, and mailed out to the membership.
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