Dennis Faas

Last week's Visitor Feedback question asked, "How how can I tell what programs are taking all my space in my hard drive?" My first thought to this question was to use a minimalist approach, because I believe in "doing things myself" -- providing ... that the proposed solution is relatively simple. If you recall, my answer to the above question was straightforward: right-click on a folder and display its folder Properties, and have Windows display its disk usage. This gives a very general idea as to how much space was being used by an installed program. Fact: Programs that are ... (view more)

My last attempt to show how to remove MSN Messenger from Windows XP appeared to worked fine for me, but I received emails from folks who have MSN Messenger popping up in their face *still* whenever AOL is loaded or whenever there is an update. Death ... to MSN Messenger -- for good. Jeff R. sent me his thoughts and a final solution to remove MSN Messenger from the Windows Registry: " It appears that your previous article is confusing Windows Messenger with MSN Messenger*. These are both separate programs. Windows Messenger is the one that installs with Windows XP. * The "Windows ... (view more)

I was fortunate enough to receive a message from the Product Manager of Alexa, Geoff Mack. His concerns were about our ongoing discussion of whether or not Internet Explorer contains Alexa Spyware . I'd like to take this time now to share his ... concerns. Geoff writes: " Hello, My name is Geoffrey Mack, Product Manager at Alexa, an Amazon.com company. I am writing to disagree with your assertion that the Alexa Toolbar is spyware. First, it is helpful to define Spyware. The definition is here . In short, Spyware is: software that gets on your machine without your permission, and tracks your ... (view more)

Yesterday's Visitor Feedback of the Gazette addressed why two program files ( internat.exe and ptsnoop.exe ) might be present in the Windows msconfig startup. To be honest with you, I have never encountered these programs before. The name ... "internat.exe" seemed to me that it was a purposely misspelled version of the word "Internet" -- most likely misspelled to dupe users into thinking that it was a friendly Internet-related program. In all likelihood, I thought, the program name "internat.exe" could have been a trojan. I was right. Sort of. As always, I use Google ... (view more)

There's a few things that need to be addressed in this issue of the Gazette. Just last month, I had the server upgraded to match the demand for the ever-growing infopackets web site. For the Month of September, 2002, infopackets had 114,241 unique ... visitors that viewed 275,331 pages. In the last 7 days, infopackets has been averaging between 3,500 and 5,000 unique visitors a day. The server is humming along for now, but I fear that it will reach another limit in the very near future. The next "step up" for a server upgrade is going to cost $650.00 USD a month (or, $8,000,000 CDN ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader 'ZZ' write s: " Dear Dennis, I would like to know what the files "internat.exe" and "ptsnoop.exe" mean. I found them on msconfig/startup tab . Should I clear their checkboxes? " My Response: After searching for those file names ... using the Google search engine, it appears that there are legitimate Windows files (internat.exe and ptsnoop.exe) -- however, there are also files with the same names that carry malicious intent. In short, the trojan file Internat.exe steals passwords and sends them to the trojan creator; the trojan file Ptsnoop attempts ... (view more)

Similar to ICQ and Yahoo Messenger , MSN Messenger is a chat program that allows you to interact with other people around the world. If my memory serves correct, ICQ is the "Grand Daddy" of all Windows-based chat programs with a graphical user ... interface (GUI), but MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger are gaining in popularity. Conveniently, MSN Messenger comes bundled with the Windows XP operating system. Wait a sec -- did I say that was 'convenient'? No it's not. Since I installed Windows XP, MSN Messenger has been in my face multiple times asking me if I want to sign up for an ... (view more)

I had a few people email me with regards to the Alexa Registry Key (Spyware) that Chris B. submitted yesterday. OK, So is the Alexa registry key Spyware or not? There is much debate . Let me try to outline some of the issues. 1. It has been said ... that the "Spyware" part of the tool will only activate if you choose to use the Alexa tool provided in Internet Explorer. Long story short: you can't activate the Spyware component used in Alexa if you don't use the Alexa tool. You have the ability to change this (see below). 2. Spyware software is considered "Spyware" because ... (view more)

This issue of the Gazette is a continuation of yesterday's article, regarding Parental Control Software which is used to block "bad" web sites (pornography, gambling, bad language, nudity, sex, and violence). You know -- all that kind of bad stuff ... we normally see on day-time TV talk shows. Anyway, I decided to test out a highly recommended web-filtering program, called "We-Blocker". The results of that test were mixed . We-Blocker was able to block only a *very small* selection of "bad" web sites. I was able to break through We-Blocker's filtering control and ... (view more)

Yesterday's Visitor Feedback posed the question, "where can I get free parental control software that will filter out pornography , gambling, bad language, nudity, sex, and violence?" Since I was unfamiliar with the subject, I decided to ask the ... readers of the Gazette to send me their thoughts. Jeanne A. writes: " Thank you for your great newsletter. In response to your request about parental control software, I use We-Blocker on my kids' computer and it does an excellent job. You can set the level of control and allow or disallow additional sites. Best of all, it's free and ... (view more)