“Ask Rick: Microsoft Office Starter Edition, calendar reminders, pointer themes, Betamax videos and mobile phone viruses” |
| Posted: 25 Sep 2010 12:25 AM PDT Savings advice There are numerous calendar and reminder programs but I definitely wouldn't entrust such an important and distant task to a computer. What happens if it crashes or you replace it? Assuming that in two years you will still have a PC or a device capable of receiving emails, I suggest that you use an online reminder service that sends you an email at the appointed time and date and to be on the safe side, I would use at least two different ones. Google Calendar is free and a good place to start but if you search for "online calendar and reminders" you'll find plenty of other free and paid-for services. Useful pointers You can copy the theme from your old computer to your new one: all you need is a USB flash drive and a Vista or XP computer. Just use the flash drive to copy the contents of the Cursors folder in C:\Windows on the Vista or XP PC to the folder of the same name and same location on your Windows 7 PC. You be warned that files with the same name already exist so select the Don't Copy option, and check the box "Do this for the next XXX conflicts box" and click Skip. Afterwards all you have to do is go to Start > Control Panel > Mouse > Pointers, select the first item on the Customise list, click the Browse button and choose your preferred Conductor pointer design. Repeat for each entry on the Customise list and when you have finished click Save As, give the scheme a name and click OK. Beta blockers Yes – but you will need a Betamax player to replay your tapes. The audio and video (AV) signals that come out of a Betamax video recorder are identical in all respects to those from a VHS machine, so all you need is a capture device to digitise the AV signals, and software to record the video, edit it if necessary and then burn it to DVD. Roxio's Easy VHS to DVD works with Betamax, ticks all those boxes, and sells online for around £30. Phoney viruses It is becoming a real problem and several hundred mobile phone viruses, malware, spyware and Trojan infections have been identified. They are mostly targeted at smartphones, which are basically pocket computers and therefore vulnerable as they process malware prone multimedia files, but nasties can also lurk inside emails and web pages. The only good news is that the diversity of mobile phone operating systems has tended to slow things down and makes it harder for them to spread. Never the less all of the popular smartphone platforms are under attack, including Symbian, Palm, RIM and Windows Mobile. Android and iPhone are not immune either. Linux-based Android is a tough nut to crack but it's rapidly growing popularity puts it firmly on the virus writer's radar. Although iPhone apps run in a protected or "sandboxed" environment, security loopholes have been discovered, at least one self-replicating virus is now in the wild, and jailbroken iPhones can catch malware infections and are prone to hack attacks. Anti-virus software and apps have begun to appear but it's still very early days and some operating systems are better served than others. Companies like AVG, Kaspersky and Symantec are now getting in on the act, so check if there's any antivirus software available for your model, especially if it contains personal or sensitive data. You should also employ the same precautions that you use with your computer, namely do not open unexpected email attachments, avoid visiting or downloading dodgy websites, and stay away from pirated software and iffy apps. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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