Tip O'Tex Computer Club
January 2004 Newsletter
By now, we've all gotten our electronic presents -- hard drives, cameras, routers, software -- all of the things we really wanted (and maybe even needed) and are busy installing them, trying them out and bragging to others what WE got.
I'll start off with what I got. Santa included in my stocking (he found me in Tucson) a wireless network card for my laptop. So now, when I'm visiting there, I can be online with my daughter's cable connection. Then somehow others in the family found out about that and decided to buy me a wired/wireless router to use at home. How special is that!!!!! I also got a little USB light that can be plugged into the computer and swiveled around to show up the keyboard -- nice for typing in the dark.
Darlene Thoen informs me that she received a binocular camera. It works as a regular set of binoculars and when you see what you want, you click on the camera shutter button and have a great close-up shot. She's planning on using it at UTPA basketball games, and her grandson's football games next fall.
Merle Allen said he received a CD golf game -- now he'll be able to play like Tiger……. That is if he can get beyond the directions, which he said, seem pretty complicated.
Hettie Jane Garvin sent me the following: "I received a Magnavox DVD Video player with Progressive Scan." So she'll be watching DVD movies now.
Brenda Nolan writes: "Santa brought me 128 mb. SanDisk brand Cruzer Mini USB Flash drive. It used to take me close to 30 minutes to back up my Quick Books Pro data onto floppy disks. With this new toy I can do it in under 30 seconds. Wow what a difference!"
Are You Using Spyware?
Recently someone asked me if Weatherbug is still spyware. They also asked about ENDITALL (a little program that closes all unnecessary programs easily.)
In order to check, I downloaded Weatherbug and installed it. Then I ran Ad-Aware and Search & Destroy. Neither of them found Weatherbug to be spyware. However, suddenly a MySearch toolbar appeared on my Internet Explorer, just below the regular toolbars, and Ad-Aware did find that to be spyware, so I deleted it, using Ad-Aware.
Further research found that Weatherbug claims that MySearch is not spyware, and I have written to them for clarification. But for the time being, I would suggest that if you like Weatherbug, go ahead and get it, but then run Ad-Aware and get rid of MySearch.
In surfing the Internet looking for spyware information, I ran across the following link that lists a LOT of spyware programs. http://www.spywareguide.com/product_list_full.php
I was able to locate ENDITALL on the Internet, and you can download it from several locations, BUT it is NOT for Windows XP. It works on most other operating systems, but not on XP, so don't even try it if you have a new computer. Also, it doesn't appear to be spyware.
