GuruNews, Volume 9 Number 20, 5-21-09

Thu May 21 18:35:30 PDT 2009

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Vol. 9, No. 20                           

5-21-09

1 Security programs and IE8      

2 It doesn’t take THAT long

3 More people risking thumb sprains, DWT, MS ad blitz, G-Mail transilleteration

4 Space management

6 XP reload

With a tip last week from Daniel I got started on the twisted path to the cause of my IE8 performance lag.  Daniel pointed out a link from a Spybot forum that outlines the issue:

http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=47104

It would seem the slowness was due to huge numbers of entries in the Restricted Sites Zone in IE and in the Hosts file, which directs web site domains to a preset IP address, usually the local loopback of 127.0.0.1.

If this is true, it stands to reason that both Immunization from Spybot and enabling all protection in Spyware Blaster would cause issues.  Not good.

More research shows that the problem isn’t immunization per se; it’s the number of entries in the Restricted Sites Zone of IE.  This is the list of bad sites that are automatically blocked, mostly known popup ad sites and known hideouts of malware.  The Hosts file has no affect on performance.

Spybot’s Immunize feature and Spyware Blaster’s Restricted Sites protections both add thousand of entries to that list.  Microsoft says you don’t need it, the enhanced security of IE8 will protect you.  ‘bot and Blaster say there’s nothing wrong with their products, MS broke the browser.  Neither plan to make any changes so we, the poor end users, get caught in the middle again.

On this one, and against my usual leanings, I’m going with Microsoft for now.  I feel the rest of my security is up to snuff so I’ll disable the Restricted Sites protections in Spyware Blaster.  This is easy to do.  Simply open the program and click Disable All Protection.  Now look at the categories at the top of the screen (IE, Restricted Sites and Firefox).  Enable IE, check both boxes that come up (cookies and ActiveX), right click on any of the boxes in the lower section and choose Select All and click Protect Against Checked Items.  Do the same for Firefox if needed.

Spybot is even easier.  Simply open the program, click Immunize and click Undo.  You’re done.

But remember, the size of the Hosts file doesn’t affect the speed of IE8 so you can still use part of Spybot’s protection, just not through the program itself.  

It’s not too complicated but it does take a little work.  First go ahead and update and immunize like usual, then just close the program.  Now open My Computer and the C: drive and go to C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\Etc and look for a file called Hosts.  It has no file extension (like hosts.txt or whatever) and that’s normal.  Right click that file and choose Properties.  At the bottom of that window find the box next to Read Only and uncheck it, Apply and OK.  Close the Properties window and right click the file again.  Choose copy and close the window.

Right click somewhere on the Desktop and choose Paste and make sure you see a Hosts file.  When it’s there, open Spybot and Undo the immunization and close, then right click the file on the Desktop and choose Copy and reopen C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\Etc and click Edit and Paste.  When prompted to overwrite click Yes.  Now right click the file in that folder and click Properties and recheck the Read Only box.  Apply and OK, close the window and you still have part of the Spybot protection.

It’s a geeky workaround but it gets the job done and it’s pretty easy.

So go ahead and try IE8 if you’re an Internet Explorer user.  I think you’ll like it.

Kevin Mefford, Editor

pcguru at microdome.net

Terry Wise

www.ratland.com

Tech News of the Week

Mobile phone sales globally dropped 9.4 % in the first quarter compared to the same quarter of 2008, while smartphone sales jumped 12.7% during the same period, Gartner Inc. reported on Wednesday:

http://tinyurl.com/pum6mf

A survey just released by mobile application vendor Vlingo says 26 percent of mobile phone users questioned admit to DWT, or driving while texting:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10245391-94.html

Ad trackers at BrandIndex are suggesting that Microsoft’s latest “Laptop Hunters” ad campaign allowed Microsoft to overtake Apple in value perception scores with the 18-to-35 age group. Could Microsoft, with the help of Windows 7, claw back lost market share from Apple?

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=4375

Google is hoping to bridge the e-mail language barrier with its latest addition to Gmail: automatic message translation:

http://tinyurl.com/p5yv8z

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

Download of the Week

SpaceSniffer is a good free disk usage visualization tool. While it does nothing to reclaim space, it does provide you with a very good overview of what's occupying your hard disk. SpaceSniffer shows you your data in a series of nested boxes, each box being a folder or file. It can be helpful for system admins to get a quick overview of the contents of network drives and pinpoint unusual file or space allocations.  Get it here: 

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/File-Management/SpaceSniffer.shtml 

Carlita Lupino

Cards57 at gmail.com

Email Question of the Week

Q:  Could you please furnish information for re-formatting a hard drive, I am using Microsoft XP as my OS.

A:  Reboot the PC with the XP disk in the optical drive.  Hit the space bar or Enter when prompted to hit a key to boot from CD.

You'll get a blue boot screen and you'll see a lot of drivers loading across the bottom.  After a couple of minutes you'll get a menu asking you want you want to do.  Hit Enter to install XP.  Next is the EULA, hit F8 to accept.

Now if a screen comes up asking if you want to repair a Windows load hit Esc.  On the next screen you'll get a list of partitions asking where you want to install Windows.  If there's just one select it and hit D, then Enter, then L.  If there's more than one and you're sure you don't use them, select and hit D and Enter for each one.  If you aren't sure just remove the largest one, which is likely the primary.

Now select Unallocated space and hit Enter.  Select Format using NTFS (you can use Quick format if you have had no indications that the hard drive may be iffy) and hit Enter.  From that point on it will format, copy files and reboot into a mousable GUI.  Just read the prompts and follow the instructions and this will put the fresh load of Windows on the PC.

Keep in mind you'll probably need to reload drivers for you network card(s), sound, video, modem and motherboard plus any peripherals so you might want to have all of that handy beforehand.

One other tip.  Disconnect any USB devices prior to the reload and don't plug them back in until you install the drivers for each.  Some of the driver loads will prompt you to connect the device during installation.

If you have a card reader in the PC this is also a USB device but it plugs into the motherboard internally.  You'll have to get into the case, trace the cable and unhook that as well.  After the reload you can plug that back in anytime the PC is off.  It won't require drivers.

Hope that helps and keep us posted...

Kevin Mefford

pcguru at microdome.net

Contact info and legal stuff

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