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Weekend Show, 25 June 2006 | |
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Posted 10 August 2006 The August Weekend spot came a few days after the
Australian Tax Office claimed 170 people had their details compromised by
the Haxdoor Trojan. We are seeing many computers
infected with this and other Trojans. Given the extreme risks these things carry,
we have updated our Protection
Kit website and now recommend far higher levels of security.
Every firewall program has a way of overriding errant settings.
Unfortunately many have very obscure ways of doing this. We suggest in the event
of a firewall totally blocking access, check the firewalls help files or call
their support line.
If that fails, then the next step is to uninstall the firewall,
enable the Windows firewall for basic security and find another product. One
thing this illustrates is the importance of using trial software. Almost all
brands offer a free 15 or 30 day trial and we'd strongly recommend trying before
buying.
Trevor called with a freezing problem that sounds like a failing
hard drive. The first thing to check with a grumpy hard drive is if there are
errors on the drive. The way to do that is to run checkdisk.
If you can start the computer, click Start, Run
and then type chkdsk /r, you will then be asked if you want to run it
on restart, type Y for yes and it will run the next time you start. If you can't
start the computer, you'll have to learn the joys of the recovery
console or call your friendly local computer tech. Be warned, it's not unknown
for Checkdisk to take two or three hours.
If you want to burn DVDs, a DVD burner can be had for under
a $100, $200 for an external USB model. If you need to burn DVDs, this is the
way to go.
Security blocking Internet
One of the downsides with security programs is that they can stop
the good stuff as well as bad. Eve and Doug called with such problems. In both
cases, an over-strict firewall had locked them off the Internet.
Testing hard drives
A freezing computer can be many things. Often it's an errant program
using up all the system resources. But equally it can be hardware problems.
Can I create a DVD using my CD burner?
Eve asked if she can burn to DVDs using her CD-R. The short answer
is no. DVDs and CDs might look the same, but they are very different technologies.
Upcoming shows
The next weekend show is scheduled for September 17. We will confirm
this, and the topic, closer to the date. If you’d like to be kept informed
of the constantly ever-changing Weekend schedule, subscribe
to our newsletter.
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ŠTechnology Publishing Australia, 2007