Although a little late in arriving, VanRamblings offers insight into 7 essential pieces of free software that will enhance your computing life.

Irfanview: Who says that altruism is dead? Certainly not Irfan Skiljan, that’s for sure, the creator of one of the web’s most popular free downloads. A compact, fast and friendly image viewer that supports all major graphic formats (including bmp, dib, jpeg, gif, animated gifs, png, pcx, multipage tiff, and tga), Irfanview offers a free, scaled down Photoshop-like tool featuring drag-and-drop support, directory viewing, TWAIN support, slide shows, batch conversion, and modifications — such as colour depth, crop, blur, and sharpen — as well as plug-in support for most video and sound formats, including mp3, avi, audio CD, and wma. IrfanView wraps just about every feature you could desire in an image viewer in a free download. Heck, it’s the best image viewer around.
Adobe Reader: This nifty little piece of software allows you to read the common pdf (portable document format) files that are created by Adobe’s Acrobat software. In addition to the standard features found in the standalone Acrobat Reader client, Acrobat Reader offers PDF viewing from within your Mozilla Firefox (plug-in technology at work once again) or Internet Explorer (via ActiveX technology) browsers.
Tweak XP Pro: Tweak-XP Professional adds more than 56 time-saving productivity improvements to Windows XP. In addition to tuning Windows XP to run faster, Tweak-XP has easy-to-use functions that allow you to tailor Windows XP to meet your personal needs. This useful utility provides you with the opportunity to remove My Network Places, or other icons, from your desktop, prevent Shortcut to from being appended to new shortcuts, offers a memory optimization function and supports as many system enhancements as you’ll require to ensure a safe and satisfying computing experience. Click here to download.
PowerDesk: Absolutely the best file management utility available, and a must have alternative (or replacement) for the cumbersome and annoying built-in Windows Explorer, PowerDesk offers a simple, fast and easy way to organize and manage files, digital photos, MP3 music files and web images on your PC. In just one, two or three clicks, you can customize your PC: rename, move, copy, zip, label, colour code, search, view, prioritize, convert, and use your files the way you want to use them. Try the fully functional free version of PowerDesk 5 —&#32you won’t be sorry you did.
Windows XP IP Config Tool: Windows XP offers several methods for finding out your IP address and performing other tasks that help you troubleshoot network settings, but some are easier than others. This free tool identifies your IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway, and allows you to easily verify the IP-address assigned to your system, as well as release and renew your IP address when your network broadband connections goes on the blink. Think you don’t need it; just see how much easier life is the next time you phone your Internet Service Provider for assistance and s/he asks you for your IP address. Here’s an essential tool that’ll give you the answer with one click of your mouse. To download this free utility, click here.
WinZip: The reigning essential utility tool of the PC world, WinZip’s Classic interface accommodates both first-time and experienced users. With WinZip you can quickly and easily compress and decompress files, folders, and entire folder trees to save storage space and reduce e-mail transmission time, as well as encrypt and decrypt your sensitive documents. WinZip 9.0 features tight integration with Windows Explorer, support for most Internet file formats, and one-click zipping and e-mail.
And, last but not least, the …
DivX Player (with DivX Codec) 5.2.1: Although the latest version seems to be a bit glitchy, and as the folks at Download.com suggest, you may wish to wait for a version later than 5.2.1, the DivX player remains, nonetheless, an essential PC download. If you read through the reader reviews you’ll run across a pretty happy bunch of campers who praise the DivX player for possessing just about every codec necessary to properly play audio or video you download off the ’Net.

The first order of business when purchasing a new computer — or in keeping your existing computer safe — revolves around ensuring that your computer is saved harmless from external malicious intrusions: malware of all sorts, including viruses, Trojan horses, worms, spyware, adware and any other sort of infection which might impact on your computer’s ability to perform the tasks you set for it.
Herewith, then, six pieces of essential free software to download and install.
Anti-Virus Software: Now, you could go out and purchase Norton Anti-Virus and pay anywhere from $35 to $99. Or, you could download and install a very effective Anti-Virus alternative, AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 7.289, which includes automatic update functionality, the AVG Resident Shield (which provides real-time protection as files are opened and programmes are run), free Virus Database Updates for the lifetime of the product, and AVG Virus Vault for safe handling of infected files.
A firewall: Perhaps the most effective free firewall is ZoneAlarm 5.5.062.004, which includes four interlocking security services: a firewall, an application control, an Internet lock, and Zones that control the ‘door’ to your computer, allowing only traffic you understand and initiate. Just be sure that during setup that you don’t opt for the paid version.
Anti-Spyware programmes: The two best free anti-spyware programmes are Spybot - Search and Destroy and Ad-Aware 1.05, which together will eliminate spyware from more than 22,000 different companies spying on you through your computer. Another must-have security tool, and recent addition to the anti-spyware arsenal, is Bazooka Adware and Spyware Scanner v1.13.02, which detects a multitude of spyware, adware, Trojan, keylogger, foistware and trackware components — in only seconds.
In addition to the programmes above, smart computer users run the latest version of the McAfee Stinger, a stand-alone utility used to detect and remove specific viruses. McAfee Stinger is not a substitute for full anti-virus protection, but will root out viruses, Trojans and worms missed by the programmes above. Stinger utilizes next generation scan engine technology, including process scanning, digitally signed DAT files, and scan performance optimizations. If your computer is acting up, and you’ve run a scan employing the programmes mentioned in the first part of this article, McAfee Stinger will likely find the malicious miscreant that has infected your system, even when the other programmes haven’t.
On Tuesday January 11, 2005, return for more essential programmes to install in order to take full advantage of your computer’s capabilities.

Problems mount with Windows XP Service Pack 2

Since first alerting you to the release of Windows XP Service Pack 2 in the August 17 edition of Tech Tuesday, a number of glitches with the upgrade have surfaced. This isn’t surprising. As VanRamblings has noted previously, people are going to have some problems with SP2, one of Microsoft’s most intrusive and potentially disruptive updates ever.
In today’s Tech Tuesday, we’ll examine some of these concerns.
An Information Week story written by Techweb’s Gregg Keizer, quotes an interesting statistic: According to asset-monitoring firm AssetMetrix, about 10 percent of the PCs upgraded from Windows XP to SP2 in their test universe experienced some problems. That figure comes from a study of over 44,000 upgrades at over 340 companies.
Statistically, 10% might not sound like a particularly high number. But that will be of little comfort if you’re among those who will experience these difficulties. For complete details, read this press release about its test.
Microsoft acknowledged on August 31 that the browser’s pop-up blocker in SP2 can cause the Windows Update site to halt with an HTTP error 500. (Other pop-up blockers can cause this, too.) The solution is to add the Windows Update site to the browser’s list of sites that are allowed to use pop-up windows, explained in Knowledge Base article 883820.
Last week, Microsoft revealed that between 15 and 17 million people have updated to SP2. This is far short of the more than 300 million Windows XP users in the world and the 100 million people Microsoft hopes will upgrade by the end of October. eWeek reports that many IT managers are delaying the installation of SP2 for months because it may break applications.
Meanwhile, a survey of 32 IT managers published in Computerworld reveals that none have installed SP2, except for two who were part of Microsoft’s early-adopter programme. The reason for the delay is the requirement for application-compatibility testing. If you’re interested in testing your own applications against SP2 you should check out the Application Compatibility Testing and Mitigation Guide for Windows XP Service Pack 2.
As of this writing, there are still dozens of common software programmes which are incompatible with Windows XP SP2, from Norton AntiVirus 2003 to WordPerfect Office 11 and ZoneAlarm 5.0.590
If you haven’t installed Windows XP Service Pack 2 yet, you may want to delay installation until the vast majority of compatibility problems have been ironed out. As VanRamblings has written previously, Microsoft has made available a downloadable tool that will temporarily block delivery of Windows XP SP2 to a PC through its automatic Windows Update feature. Simply download the SP2 blocker, extract the file to a temporary folder, and click on the supplied XPSP2Blocker.exe file. Good luck, and safe computing.

The Need For Speed: Alienware Releases a P4 4GHz

Want the hottest computer on the block? Have a ramped up Pentium IV 3.6 GHz, but it just ain’t good enough? Well, games system specialist Alienware has hot-rodded one of its desktop PCs with a homegrown version of Intel’s Pentium 4 processor that runs at 4GHz. Because overclocking a processor can cause it to overheat, the desktop also includes a special liquid-cooling system devised by Alienware.
The launch lets fans get a jump on getting a machine with a 4GHz chip. Intel recently pushed back introduction of a 4GHz Pentium 4 to the first quarter of 2005, having earlier announced plans to introduce it this year. The fastest current Pentium 4 runs at 3.6GHz.
In addition to the 4GHz Pentium 4 and a liquid-cooling system, the most basic Area-51 ALX desktop comes with 1GB of RAM, a CD-burner, ATI Technology’s Radeon X800 graphics card, a 74GB Western Digital Raptor 10,000 rpm hard drive and a Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS High Definition sound card.
Pumping up the machine with 4GB of RAM, nvidia’s GeForce 6800 Ultra graphics card, twin 74GB Raptor hard drives and a DVD-burner increases the price to about $5,700 U.S.
Microsoft Faces The Music

In one fell swoop last week, Microsoft announced a new service, new software, and new hardware — a trio that aims to change the way you buy, manage, and transport music. MSN Music is a direct competitor to online music services such as Apple’s iTunes Music Store. Windows Media Player 10, a major update, is the jukebox for MSN Music and other audio and video services. It also syncs with more than 75 portable devices, including the new Zen Portable Music Player (pictured).
Question of the Week

How can I totally remove Norton SystemWorks? I have tried most of the recommended methods, but when I try to reinstall it, the PC says that it is already installed and takes the process a bit further, but none of the tools work. It is worse than a virus!? — Submitted by: Mike Ricci, Burnaby, B.C.

Unfortunately, Symantec Norton products have various hooks in the Windows system registry and elsewhere that are not removed even if the Windows Add / Remove feature is used. Instead, you’ll need to download special removal tools from Symantec in order to completely remove Norton SystemWorks from your PC.