Dennis Faas

Today, Anne from Canada told me of a very strange situation with her computer. She writes: " Hi Dennis! I have a question. Sometimes there is an image under the email page, or Internet page, and it has a small eye with a white box and a red X in it. ... It annoys me, and I try to get rid of it, but nothing works. Could this be some sort of Spy, because that's what it reminds me of. It's not always there for long, and then disappears. Any ideas? " My Response: All I can say is: "that's weird!", and maybe you've got some type of Spyware installed on your system? I've never heard ... (view more)

Scorpian548 writes: " I read your review on Window Washer (Gazette, 20030715). Can it also clean Real One Player & Quick Time Player? " My response: Some of you may have missed the review on Window Washer in the Gazette on July 15th. To recap: " ... With web browsers and other applications constantly recording personal tidbits of information -- such as documents and pictures you've viewed, plus web sites recently visited -- maintaining privacy while using your PC can be a daunting task. Webroot's award-winning Window Washer is a comprehensive, simple-to-use utility which ... (view more)

With respect to yesterday's feature article, "SiS KHooker, DownloadWare, and Video Display Trouble?" (Gazette, 20030917), Sarah M. writes: " Dennis, I did some research on my own and found that SiS KHooker.exe is not a homepage hijacker (as far as I ... know). Here is the info on that from the answersthatwork.com task list [URL not given]: ' Khooker (KHooker.exe by Silicon Integrated Systems – SiS): Description: SiS Keyboard Daemon. System Tray utility which gets installed by the drivers of the latter day SiS VGA cards. The utility itself is not of much use in our opinion and may ...<a href="/news/9209/sis-khooker-downloadware-and-video-display-trouble-part-2" class="more-link">view more

Recall -- Last week, Chris L. asked if it was possible to print out the filenames of all his music files which were stored in a single folder on his computer. I suggested using a DOS command to do the trick, and also asked Infopackets Readers for an ... alternate freeware solution. Print Music Filenames? Many users recommended KarenWare's "Directory Printer". From the web site: " No more fumbling with My Computer or Windows Explorer, wishing you could print information about all your files. Karen's Directory Printer can print the name of every file on a drive, along with the file's ... (view more)

I received some alarming email from my Internet Service Provider (ISP) today and thought I would pass along the word. There has been a major security threat issued for all users of Microsoft Windows NT, 2000, XP and Server 2003 (RE: Knowledge Base ... Article #824146). All of those who are affected need to download a patch immediately in order to resolve this breach. In short, "A security issue has been identified that could allow an attacker to remotely compromise a computer running Microsoft Windows and gain complete control over it. You can help protect your computer by installing an ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Dorothy L. writes: " Hi Dennis, I am very interested in the PopUp Stopper Professional program, but would first like to ask you a question regarding some despicable emails I've recently been receiving. I am a senior citizen and a ... grandmother, and would like to eliminate male-oriented offers before I turn 81. Is this possible to do? I have been a long-time subscriber to Smart Computing and the earlier PC Novice... I wish I had known about you earlier! I just happened upon it. Terrific stuff!!" Dorothy emailed me again today: " In checking my e-mail this a.m., ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Brandon L. writes: " Dear Dennis, My computer has this really serious problem. I don't know what is causing the problem, but it only started happening recently. The whole day yesterday, my computer was frozen with a black screen ... at startup. You know: the first screen that says 'Press DEL to enter Setup'? I tried restarting my machine and left it there thinking that the problem would go away, but after a few hours, nothing changed. I decided to go into the computer BIOS and selected 'Load optimized defaults', and like magic, my system appeared OK. I don't understand why ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Chris L. writes: " Dear Dennis, I need your help please! I have all of my music files on in 1 folder, and I want to print all the file names for future reference. Do you know how I can do this? Thank you very much for your time ... and help. " My response: A simple DOS command (Disk Operating System) can capture the file names in a directory... which can be saved into a text file, and printed on paper. This may not be the easiest method available, but it's certainly quick and dirty and won't take long to do. Ensure that your Path is displayed in the Address bar in an ... (view more)

I recently upgraded to MSN Messenger version 6, only to find it still lacking in features that I find useful in other chat clients (like ICQ). "Surely there must be an alternative," I thought to myself. I decided to search Google for "MSN messenger ... replacement" and found a piece of software called dMSN, which was created by a fellow named Danny in the Netherlands. In short, "dMSN is a JAVA-based Instant Messaging program for the MSN protocol. It's just like MSN Messenger, only with more functions." ( http://www.dmsn.nl/ ) From the jvdam.nl web site, I found 11 ... (view more)