information

Thu
16
Jun
Dennis Faas's picture

VisualRoute Personal Edition Review

Synopsis: Have you ever wondered why you can't connect to a certain web site or wondered "why is the Internet down" or your connection "too slow"? Have you ever wondered who's behind those attacks on your firewall? Well, now you don't have to! ... VisualRoute Internet tracing software is perfect for tracking hackers, spammers, investigating a website, and testing Internet connectivity. Here's how it works: VisualRoute shows you the exact route data takes as it is sent from your computer and traverses through the Internet. All of this crucial information is then placed neatly on a world map, so ... (view more)

Thu
21
Apr
Dennis Faas's picture

How to Ensure your online Transactions are Secure

Infopackets Reader Jack J. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have a question that has been bothering me for some time. I appreciate the professional advice you give in your newsletters to other Readers, and would be very thankful if you could please set me ... straight on my problem. My dilemma has to do with Secure web sites. Occasionally, I will buy a product online -- meaning that my web browser often redirected to a secure web page, where I can complete my transaction online with my credit card. I have been told by friends that providing my credit card information is 100% secure, and that I ... (view more)

Tue
11
Jan
Dennis Faas's picture

Messaging program for office or LAN/WAN?

Infopackets Reader Robert F. writes: " Dear Dennis, I really find your newsletters to be interesting and of great help -- keep up the good work! I want to set up an office and be able to email my secretary and have her reply to the email without ... having an Internet connection as I don't need the internet in the business. Do you know of a program that would let me do this? I own a Dell PC and talked to a technician, but they didn't have a suggestion for me. Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated! " My response: The simple answer is that email is designed to run on the ... (view more)

Wed
05
Jan
Dennis Faas's picture

Backup using CD or DVD media?

Infopackets Reader Alfredo "Mexican55" writes: " Dear Dennis, I just finished reading yesterday's newsletter regarding DVD-R and DVD+R media. My question is related and pertains to file backup. In your opinion, what approach should I use to backing ... up my files, programs, etc? And do you recommend saving to CD or DVD media? My hard drive is less than 10 gigabytes in size. " My response: Deciding which media type is suitable for backup depends on how much information you want to archive, and the type of backup solution you choose. Having said that, I'd like to provide a ... (view more)

Wed
01
Dec
Dennis Faas's picture

Defrag RAM utility and Memory Leak?

Infopackets Reader Peter D. writes: " Dear Dennis, I'm running Windows 2000 Professional on a machine that uses a Pentium 3 processor. After around 1 hour online, a RAM defrag utility I use reports that most of my RAM has been lost and I need to ... defrag. Can you tell me why I lose most of my RAM, and why it's necessary to defrag constantly? PS: your newsletter is great. " My response: RAM is just that -- Random Access Memory -- which means that it will get fragmented *very* quickly as computing information is randomly written, read, and deleted from memory. It is true: RAM gets ... (view more)

Thu
21
Oct
Dennis Faas's picture

Change MS Word user ID?

Infopackets Reader Mike F. writes: " Dear Dennis, I just installed MS Office and Windows XP Pro on my machine. When I first launched MS Word, I was asked for a user name. At this point, I didn't want to use my own name and instead used the user ID ... 'XYZ'. I share my documents with others and later found that the documents had the user ID 'XYZ' embedded into the file. I now would now like to change my user ID to my name so that the correct information is reflected. Can you tell me how I can do this? " My response: Load MS Word, then go to Tools -> Options, and look for a tab that ... (view more)

Wed
13
Oct
Dennis Faas's picture

Substitute for a computer mouse?, Part 2

Recall -- Last week I posted an article in which Infopackets Reader Ron H. asked for alternative solutions to using a PC mouse. Ron wrote: " I recently had a stroke which has left me paralyzed on the right side of my body. As a result, I am now ... unable to use the computer mouse with any degree of accuracy. I was wondering if you or any of your Readers could recommend a product that I can use to help me navigate my computer in place of the mouse. I am currently typing this email to you with the aid of Dragon NaturallySpeaking , which inputs words on the screen using my voice. Any ... (view more)

Wed
15
Sep
Dennis Faas's picture

GuruNet: The Answer Engine

Imagine this: you're sitting in front of your computer, writing an email -- and all the sudden, you forget how to spell a word -- or worse yet, you need to find another way to express yourself in a thought-provoking or entertaining manner. It ... happens to me all the time. Like most folks, I use Outlook Express to read and compile my emails because it's free and comes bundled with Windows. Unfortunately, the MS Spell Checker isn't part of Windows or Outlook Express by default (you'll need to install MS Office or similar ) -- and to top it all off, Outlook Express doesn't offer a thesaurus. What ... (view more)

Wed
25
Aug
Dennis Faas's picture

Receive newsletter in full?

Infopackets Reader Bob M. writes: " Dear Dennis, I always enjoy reading your newsletter. Every issue seems to have a topic or two of interest. Thanks very much for that. I have a question: I would like to receive the 'online' version of the ... newsletter, so that I don't always have to click on a link to read the rest of the story online the web site. I cannot find how to change my subscription information so that I receive all of the newsletter in my email inbox. How can I change my subscription to receive the online version? " My response: The newsletter used to be delivered via ... (view more)

Wed
26
May
Dennis Faas's picture

FeedDemon Review

Email newsletters, like infopackets.com, are historically the method I use to keep up with technology information. Once my email address is subscribed, the newsletter publishers deliver their information to me on a predefined delivery schedule. In ... addition to email newsletters, I'm finding myself reading more content from news feed channels, called RSS. What is RSS? RSS stands for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication (depending on who you ask), and is a markup language similar to HTML code used to construct a web page. RSS works by organizing text information in a way which makes ... (view more)

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