GuruNews, Volume 9 Number 7, 2-19-09

Thu Feb 19 21:16:53 EST 2009

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Vol. 9, No. 7                   

2-19-09

1 Potpourri  

2 Winsock

3 Facebook face-off, another game gadget, Microsoft Mobile goodies, sunny cells 

4 Photoshop replacement          

5 AVG expands

6 Registry scams 

I haven't settled on the next project yet so this week I'll just pass along a few handy tips.  These are all easy and every user should be aware of them if the need arises.

Most of you are on a high-speed connection and they will occasionally drop for no apparent reason.  You open a browser and get the dreaded "Page can't be displayed" message, even though everything was working fine the last time you used it.

Often this is extremely easy fix.  First you need to become familiar with your equipment.  Your broadband will be either DSL, cable, satellite or wireless (not to be confused with wireless networks or telephony).  The former three all use a modem, which is the first box connected to your incoming line.  The wireless "modem" is usually a radio mounted outside the house.

All of these devices use power.  For the first three you can look at the back of the box for something that isn't coax, telephone or Ethernet.  Usually it's a small round connector.  Make a note of that.  For the wireless you'll just have power, which generally connects to a little adapter inline to the ethernet pigtail.  Call your wireless provider for help if you can't find it. 

Now look for the second box in the line.  This is the router.  Some of you may not have this but if you have more than one PC or any devices hooked into a wireless home network you likely do.  Follow the same procedure for this, look at the back and look for something other than Ethernet connections (no coax or telephone on this one).  Again it's probably a little round connector.

Now, when everything is working properly make a note of any lights on the boxes.  They may be any mix of Power, DSL, Sync, Cable, LAN, WLAN, WAN, Internet, 1-4 etc.

Put your notes away and if you suddenly find yourself offline you have some quick troubleshooting moves to try before calling for help.

If that happens you'll want to reset the external boxes.  First, unplug power from both the modem and router if you have one.  You can do this from the wall (you have to in the case of wireless) or from the back of the boxes.  Leave them alone for 30 seconds or so, then plug the modem back in.  Wait for all the normal lights to come back on, then plug the router back in.  Once all those lights are back to normal, reboot the PC(s).

If you still can't get online, especially if it's just on one machine of several, you can run a couple of utilities from the command prompt.  On the stubborn machine click on Start and Run and type in "cmd" (without the quotes) and click OK.  Once the black box comes up type in the following two lines, hitting the Enter key after each one:

Ipconfig /flushdns

Netsh winsock reset

Ignore the caps, the commands can be all lower case.  Once both of those are done just close the DOS box and reboot.   

90% of the time, once you get back to the Desktop you'll be back online.  If you're not, now call tech support.  If you have to suffer through long hold times at least you got the first steps finished first, and you may avoid the call all together.

That ran a lot longer than it should, so I'll continue with simple tips next week.  I promise they won't be nearly that long and in depth.

Really ;)

Kevin Mefford, Editor

pcguru at microdome.net

Terry Wise

www.ratland.com 

Tech News of the Week

Amid user revolt Facebook backed away from a newly implemented terms
of service that many considered a privacy violation. Put down your
pitchfork:

http://tinyurl.com/akckkq

Nintendo today confirmed that the DSi gaming handheld will retail for
$170 when it hits U.S. shores on April 4:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10166611-1.html

Microsoft trotted out a cornucopia of nifty new products and services
at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Monday, not least of
which is a long-awaited Windows Mobile 6.5 update:

http://tinyurl.com/b3h7v7

On Wednesday, Chinese manufacturer ZTE launched a solar-powered phone.
Green?  You bet:

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13970_7-10166113-78.html

Copy us on the good stuff

Matthew Dattilo
thepcgurus at gmail.com 
www.mattstodayinhistory.com 

Download of the Week

We only use simple photo editor software to remove red-eye or crop a picture, but we know that you folks like to manipulate the pics a lot.

There is a new free photo editor called SumoPaint that rivals Photoshop in its capabilities.  Get it here:

 www.sumopaint.com

Carlita Lupino

Cards57 at gmail.com

Threat of the Week

Identity theft is probably the biggest threat on the Internet.  Numerous phishing scams, website hacks and malware that logs keystrokes crawls around and finds more targets on a daily basis.

Grisoft, the maker of AVG, has taken a step to combat identity theft by purchasing security software vendor Sana Security.

This purchase will allow AVG to bundle behavior-based protection and more advanced heuristic scanning capabilities to its line of antivirus products.  This should increase protection against polymorphic viruses like Vundo and Koobface, which can alter the actual virus code as often as every five minutes to avoid detection.

Kevin Mefford

pcguru at microdome.net

Email Question of the Week

Q:  My granddaughter keeps getting a message when she brings up her pc
that says check with your Windows XP installation disk - you are
referencing a bad dll. The name of the dll is bireyeza.dll. I googled
it and can find no reference to such a dll. However, I looked up dll
problems and was directed to download a free copy of "regcure" to scan
the system and fix the registry. Is this a valid program, should I
download it, and is it likely to fix the problem?

A:  That's the sort of random file name that viruses and other malware
use to protect themselves against scanners.  Odds are one of your
security programs nailed the malware but this registry entry was left
over.

You can fix this yourself without some worthless utility like a
"registry cleaner".  Most of those do nothing other than possibly
cause damage.

First click on Start and Run and type in "regedit" (without the
quotes).  Click OK.  When the Registry Editor pops up the first thing
to do is click on the My Computer icon at the top and click File and
Export.  Call the file Complete and save it to My Documents.  This is
a backup in case something goes wrong.

Now click Edit and Find and type "bireyeza" (again without the
quotes) into the Find what field and click Find Next.  The search will
stop and highlight the first entry for that name it finds.  Delete
that entry (right click and delete) and click Yes when prompted, then
click F3 to continue searching.  Once you've deleted all the hits
close Registry Editor and reboot.

The problem should be cured.

Be VERY cautious while doing this.  Don't delete anything that the
search doesn't select and be certain to do the backup before you
start.

Hope that helps and keep us posted.

Kevin Mefford

pcguru at microdome.net

Contact info and legal stuff

If you have tech support questions or ideas and/or submissions for our newsletter please submit them by visiting www.thepcgurus.com and click on the "Email the Team" icon. 

Copyright 2001-2009 The PC Gurus, all rights reserved.  Publication, rebroadcast or storage is prohibited without prior consent, however you may freely forward this publication to friends as long as A) it is forwarded in its entirety and B) no fee is charged.

Information provided in this publication is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied.  Although the information provided is known to work on most systems, it may not work on ALL systems.  Make use of any information supplied at your own risk.

The PC Gurus are a group of volunteers who provide support for the PC, Mac and Linux users in the Kentuckiana region.

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