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Computer Related Questions - Volume 160 [ReadOnly] - Dynamic Dave

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PLEASE NOTE:

When posting a NEW question, please "Reply to" the first message in this thread, i.e. this one. This keeps each question in it's own separate segment and stops each new question from getting mixed up in amongst existing questions. Also please remember to change the subject header.

Edited by Webmaster on 03/09/2008 at 19:35

Foxit reader - problem with extensions - JH
Having recommended Foxit Reader I'm in the slightly embarrassing position of having a problem with it. A number of sites prompt it to suggest that I download an add-in to process JPEG2000 format. If I accept I get a download which ends up with "Access denied" (or similar, memory y'know) and that's it - large areas of downloaded document with vacant space. I've tried downloading from the web site, unpacking the zip file and double clicking the resultant DLL. This throws what I guess is a DOS box up for a moment (far too fast to read) and the end result is... no change. I've deleted and re-installed. Any idea?

Vista incidentally. All was fine with the old version, maybe going back to 2.2 is the answer.
JH
Copying "favourites" from one computer to another. - blondiebombshell
Is there a quick and easy way of copying all of the 'my favourites' on my computer (onto a memory stick on similar) so that i can put them onto another computer? I haven't quite figured out how to do it bar opening each individual one, copying the web address and opening it on my new one.

Thanks in advance

Edited by Pugugly on 25/08/2008 at 22:26

Copying "favourites" from one computer to another. - Pugugly
What browser (and version) are you using ?
Copying "favourites" from one computer to another. - Hugh Watt
Copy the Favorites [sic - US spelling...] - you should find it at C:Documents & Settings/(your username)/Favorites. Or thereabouts. Then copy it to the same folder on the other computer.
Copying "favourites" from one computer to another. - Pugugly
The reason I was asking was with Firefox you can add a little plug in that synchs the Favourites across computers on the same network.
Copying "favourites" from one computer to another. - Baskerville
The reason I was asking was with Firefox you can add a little plug in
that synchs the Favourites across computers on the same network.


Or indeed the interwebs if you use Foxmarks. If there is a single reason to use Firefox this is it. Bookmarks synced across different computers, be they Linux, Mac, or Windows systems, wherever you happen to be.
Copying "favourites" from one computer to another. - Stuartli
See:

www.pchell.com/support/backupoe.shtml

In Firefox, from File>Import, you can Import such files from Internet Explorer.
Copying "favourites" from one computer to another. - blondiebombshell
thank eddie and pugugly - i very much appreciate it
XP service pack 3 - Dog
I downloaded service pack 3 last week, and since then every time I log orf I keep getting updates .... If I log off 4 times in a day I'll get 4 updates - is this normal ?

Much obliged - Dog.
XP service pack 3 - Victorbox
Simple answer is no. I assume you are using only Windows Update set to update automatically and have not installed Microsoft Update which does updates for Microsoft Office etc at the same time. Sounds like one or more updates are failing. Just noticed this week as soon as you install SP3 on XP it offers you one more small update immediately afterwards. Perhaps this is the problem for you. Have you tried doing a manual update via Windows Update? This will indicate if critical updates are available and confirm if they've installed correctly afterwards.
XP service pack 3 - Dog
Thanks Victorbox - I did think something was wrong, I'll carry out a manual update later and see what comes up

Dog
XP service pack 3 - Dog
Right ... I carried out a manual update, and found it was the powerpoint viewer that was failing to update every time, so I've switched off the automatic update, logged off and all is ok now ... I shall, in due course - try to establish the reason why the pps will not update.

Cheers - Dog.
XP service pack 3 - Stuartli
For future updates, try configuring Windows Security Center to "Notify you of updates but not Install them" - you will still get the yellow Updates icon and, by clicking on it, will bring up a panel.

Select Customise and choose only the updates you require or wish to install (each update will have a description of its purpose). After doing so and selecting Install, ensure that you tick the "Don't Inform Me Of These Updates Again" box, which will stop further reminders about your unwanted updates.
XP service pack 3 - Dog
Yep ... I'll do that Stuartli - thanks for your reply,

Dog.
XP service pack 3 - Victorbox
You could of course just uninstall Powerpoint Viewer in add/remove components and reinstall it from Microsoft as it's a separate free download.
Spoofed Hotmail address - Alanovich
I've just had my Hotmail address spoofed by a hacker - i.e. my hotmail address has sent out a round of spam emails to my entire address book.

I'm running a virus scan (McAfee). Is there anything else I need to do?

Also, will something keep sending emails out from my address or are these things usually a one off?

Thanks for any advice!
Spoofed Hotmail address - jbif
I've just had my Hotmail address spoofed by a hacker - i.e. my hotmail address has sent out a round of spam emails to my entire address book.


How do you know this has happened? Usually there is no trace left on the zombie PC.
What are the subject headings of the emails sent out? What is the content of the emails?

I'm running a virus scan (McAfee). Is there anything else I need to do?


Answers to the first set of questions may help narrow down the spam botnet which appears to have taken over your PC. The latest one in the wild was this one:
blog.internetnews.com/apatrizio/2008/08/first-cnn-...l
You may need to run a variety of anti-spy anti-virus applications to identify and get rid of the infection. Try spybot s&d, MS malware remover, plus a few other reputable free on-demand scanners. Never use a anti-malware product that you have not researched for authenticity.
www.microsoft.com/protect/computer/viruses/zombies...x
www.sync-blog.com/sync/2008/04/dont-get-botnet.html

[list of suspect products here:
www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm ]


Spoofed Hotmail address - Alanovich
How do you know this has happened? Usually there is no trace left on the
zombie PC.
What are the subject headings of the emails sent out? What is the content of
the emails?

Thanks for the reply. I know it's happened becasue people have replied to me after receiving the spam emails. The subject heading of the emails sent out is "Hello!" and the content is some blurb about a chinese website selling cheap products.

I've run a virus scan on McAfee which has come up with nothing, and I have changed my Hotmail password for good measure. Will this alone stop something doing it again, or do I need to go through your recommendations for spyware removal?
Spoofed Hotmail address - Altea Ego
Its not caused by spyware. It happened to me. It was a hotmail hack.
Spoofed Hotmail address - malteser
Another good reason to use G(Google)Mail!
Spoofed Hotmail address - Alanovich
Aye, does look like my address has been "spoofed". I've changed my password, is that enough to stop it happening again?
Spoofed Hotmail address - oldnotbold
There are other routes - your address may have been in the contacts list of another user who has been attacked by a virus/bot. The bot sends messages to all in the address book, using the from details of one in the list. Your Hotmail account may not have been touched.
Spoofed Hotmail address - Altea Ego
Possible - security is only as good as the weakest link in "anyones" chain - not just yours. In my case my internet mail provider got hacked ( a server containing a bunch of userids and passwords)


Spoofed Hotmail address - jbif
Thanks for the reply. I know it's happened becasue people have replied to me after receiving the spam emails.


I am not 100% sure the reply from AlteaEgo applies in your case, although his reply is 100% true in cases of spoofed addresses.

You claim in your original post that the spam mail has been sent "to my entire address book". I.M.O., access to your entire address book has either been obtained by a spybot on your PC, or by someone who knows your password, or someone you know is infected who has the all the people in their address book as you do.

I do not how a spoofer without access to your account would be able to write spam "to my entire address book".

Incidentally, re. my warning about using trusted anti-malware software, here is last week's news on how the bad guys can trick you in to downloading their stuff:
www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/22/anatomy_of_a_hack/

Edited by jbif on 26/08/2008 at 13:21

Spoofed Hotmail address - Alanovich
You claim in your original post that the spam mail has been sent "to my
entire address book". I.M.O. access to your entire address book has either been obtained by
a spybot on your PC or by someone who knows your password or someone you
know is infected who has the all the people in their address book as you
do.


Scenario 2 and 3 here are not possible, no-one has ever had my password and no-one has the same contacts list as me.

I do not how a spoofer without access to your account would be able to
write spam "to my entire address book".

>>
Thanks. I just had a look in my Sent Items and Deleted Items in Hotmail. The Deleted Items folder contains three identical emails from my address (Subject "Hello!", and the body of the email is guff about cheap products from a Chinese website), all sent to different sections of my contacts list, in alphabetical order. That is to say one message has been sent to all contacts A-J, another J-V, and a third W-Z.

I did not compose these emails, and they have not been in my Sent Items and then deleted by me.

This is the text in the emails:

"Hello!
How are u doing these days?Yesterday I found a web of a large trading company from china,which is an agent of all the well-known digital product factories,and facing to both wholesalers,retailsalers,and personal customer all over the world. They export all kinds of digital products and offer most competitive and reasonable price and high quality goods for our clients,so i think we you make a big profit if we do business with them.And they promise they will provide the best after-sales-service.In my opinion we can make a trial order to test that. Look forward to your early reply!
The Web address:www.*****.com/"

HTe stars are in the URL to stop someone from visiting the site, the letters I have replaced are "mmhdy".

What could have done this? Do I have a spybot on my PC?
Spoofed Hotmail address - jbif
What could have done this? Do I have a spybot on my PC?


Most likely. I have picked out some unusual words/spellings/grammar in the spam mail you quoted. So using that -
Search google for: spam wholesalers,retailsalers,and personal customer

You will see you are not alone. As I suggested before, do a scan of your PC using various reputable scanners.

Spoofed Hotmail address - Altea Ego
if the emails were sent from your local address book then your local machine has been spoofed locally, If it comes from your hotmail (on the website) address book then its a central hack.
Spoofed Hotmail address - Alanovich
if the emails were sent from your local address book then your local machine has
been spoofed locally If it comes from your hotmail (on the website) address book then
its a central hack.

It's the latter scenario - they're from my Hotmail address book on the website. A central hack sounds quite scary - what does that mean, and what action should I take?
Spoofed Hotmail address - Altea Ego
ok well

run a spybot prog of some kind just for piece of mind ( it is possible for some clver xml to download your hotmail address book, but not your password, this would require a keystroke logger but your password is not needed just your email address as spoof)

Have you joined a social networking site? they scan address books on hotmail looking for members to join but require you to activate the function (the social netwroking site then gets hacked)

Do you use MSN instant messenger? this could have been hacked by a worm ( it contains your hotmail address book)

Or your account has been hacked by the simple expedience of mass password attack sp change it.

or they have hacked the central server (nothing you can do about this)

MS will deny any such thing happened




Spoofed Hotmail address - Alanovich
Hmm, interesting. I have never joined a social networking thing (depite much pressure from friends), and I've never used MSN Messenger.

However, a few days ago I received an email from a friend abroad with an invitation to join a foreign networking site. I went to the homepage of the site but didn't register or give it any details. I didn't follow any link in the invitation email either, so thought that I was safe. If that's the cause of the problem, Goodness knows how they managed to see or obtain my hotmail address book. COuld be a conincidence, but could be related I suppose.

I have now changed my hotmail password though.

I tried to install AVG anti-spyware, but when I tired to install it I got a recommendation not to continue as I already have another anti-virus installed (McAfee)

Edited by Dynamic Dave on 26/08/2008 at 19:43

Spoofed Hotmail address - jbif
Goodness knows how they managed to see or obtain my hotmail address book


So far all except one of the cases I have found of this email have been from Gmail accounts. It is still a mystery how the hack is executed. If you find the cause and the method to stop it, do post your solution here.

Some people who have reported the attack say:

discuss.50plus.com/ipb/lofiversion/index.php?t1732...l
"My computer sent everybody in my gmail addressbook an email with the following content ...
I have Avast anti-virus, Spybot, adaware, asquared and superantispyware plus SpywareBlaster. I scanned my computer ...
... it is not the Trojan because this morning the same thing happened, unless of course all that checking yesterday did no good ...
I am using Firefox ... "

vanovercentralstation.blogspot.com/2008/07/green-e...l
"... my computer ... send out crazy gibberish spam while i am not home. the most recent was some random nonsense about chinese jewelry while i was actually up north and nowhere near a computer. .... since it went out to more than 200+ people and only 32 have responded thus far .."

tiffehr.tumblr.com/post/23634429/gmail-account-hac...l
"... I woke up this morning to find that a spambot hacked my gmail account and sent one spam message to all my contacts. ...
The crappy electronics discount company who?s URL was the heart of the spam message responded to my righteous-wrath-of-journalism msnbc address clout to deny any patronage of spammers, which I?d expected and disbelieve entirely given the business model evident on their site.
The spam message itself actually went out twice, in a A-K segment and a J-Z segment. In the former, it caught its own e-mail address which had been automatically added to my contacts. I got a ?no mailbox found? response for the e-mail.
I did report the e-mail & URL to the FBI, Google and various laughable goverment anti-spam efforts. ..."

ict4peace.wordpress.com/2008/08/05/the-perils-of-e.../
"... I was in office with a colleague when he said that I had sent the most unusual email that went "Wonderful shopping! How are u doing these days?Yesterday .... "
... Guessing what had occured, my first fear was that I was locked out of my account. Tried to log in, was elated when I could and immediately changed my password and deleted all of my contacts. Unfortunately it was too late to stop this email going to around 600+ contacts. ... "


Edited by Dynamic Dave on 26/08/2008 at 19:43

Hard Drive Back Up - Fullchat
I have recently purchased an Iomega 500 GB external hard drive. Finally I decided to do the right thing and back up my system to the external drive.
Set everything in motion last night and off to bed. Today I have returned to the computer and its telling me that if my external drive is FAT 32 formatted then I cannot create anything bigger than a 4GB file. The back up had aborted.
Any advice to get round this would be appreciated.
Hard Drive Back Up - jbif
>>.. Iomega 500 GB external hard drive ... FAT 32 formatted then I cannot create anything bigger than a 4GB file

You do not specify XP, Vista, ? ? or model number of your Iomega.
Easiest solution is to go to
iomega-na-en.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/iomega_na_en.cfg...p
and follow their instructions to convert to NTFS file system.

[replies to someone else who had asked similar question here:
boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=11181329&sort=wh...e ]

Hard Drive Back Up - Fullchat
Thanks. Sorry, I'm a Windows XP Pro Dinosaur and the Iomega Hard Drive is a MDHD 500-UE

Edited by Fullchat on 28/08/2008 at 17:06

Hard Drive Back Up - jbif

Iomega's instructions are here:
tinyurl.com/5mrt4n

If you have data already on the disk that you want to preserve, use the CONVERT command.
"How to convert a FAT32-formatted drive to NTFS in Windows Vista/XP/2000"

If you do NOT have data already on the disk that you want to preserve, then use the FORMAT command.
How to format a FAT32-formatted drive to NTFS in Windows Vista/XP/2000

p.s. XP Pro was normally sold to businesses. If your PC or XP-Pro came from a trusted source, you can safely ignore the news item announcement from this week here:

tinyurl.com/57uvjz
"Starting this week, we will begin deployment of the latest version of WGA Notifications for Windows XP. .....
... This release will be offered to the most pirated edition of Windows XP and therefore to users with the highest likelihood of having a non-genuine copy, those using Windows XP Pro. "

Hard Drive Back Up - Stuartli
If you wish to retain data but format to NTFS, see:

www.ntfs.com/quest3.htm

Blank drive:

www.ntfs.com/quest16.htm
Hard Drive Back Up - rtj70
FAT32 came about due to larger drives but had limitations. So bigger drives but no file larger than 4Gb. This is why NTFS was developed in the early 90s in Windows NT 3.1 (released in 93 in fact). This is an area Microsoft has been trying to move us forward with.

So to have files larger than this you need NTFS. Examples of larger files would be video or perhaps virtual system hard drive files.

You can convert FAT32 to NTFS via the command line. I bought a new 8Gb USB flash drive yesterday which had FAT32 filesystem and could not be easily reformatted to anything but NTFS. But it could be converted ;-) Delete the "hidden" filesystem for U3 software and I soon had a bootable Linux Ubuntu USB stick.
Hard Drive Back Up - Baskerville
FAT32 came about due to larger drives but had limitations. So bigger drives but no
file larger than 4Gb. This is why NTFS was developed in the early 90s in
Windows NT 3.1 (released in 93 in fact). This is an area Microsoft has been
trying to move us forward with.


Well, they've been the ones holding us back, so what's to stop them moving us forward? Why ain't they done it yet? Wasn't Vista supposed to do that? Personally I'm looking forward to using ZFS. Coming to a Mac near you very soon (it's actually already available in a limited form):

opensolaris.org/os/community/zfs/whatis/
Hard Drive Back Up - rtj70
NTFS came out in 1993! Problem solved. As soon as home users were on XP and using NTFS problem solved.

Trouble is we and some suppliers are formatting external drives as FAT32.

When getting my new work laptop they tried copying my files to an external USB drive (FAT32!) and so it failed on some big vmware files.

Microsoft for once is not to blame. They are responsible and to blame for lots of other stuff though ;-)
Hard Drive Back Up - Baskerville
Are you trying to argue that Microsoft has no leverage over hardware suppliers? Their entire business model depends on strongarming hardware manufacturers when they feel it is necessary. But maybe they made the licensing terms of NTFS too onerous and locked it down too hard. For instance Linux has been able to play nice with FAT16/32 since forever (and could read NTFS volumes at least since Linux 2.2, when I joined in), but full NTFS read/write support had to be reverse engineered and is relatively recent (Linux 2.6.x I think; by then I'd ditched Windows altogether so I didn't care).
Hard Drive Back Up - rtj70
You're missing a point. You're thinking Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008 and maybe Linux 2.6.x or later. Formatting a drive as FAT32 means it works on Windows ME/95 and MacOSX as well. Easier to market as working out of the packing.

So formatting NTFS makes it not work with a big part of the customer base. Hence the FAT32 compromise.

Hands up who has many files larger than 4Gb? Apart from me and Baskerville? I now capture my DV video in smaller chunks anyway so not an issue. Just for VMWARE I keep big files and know how to deal with it.

You could also find someone not realising what they are doing encrypting files on an NTFS flash drive that cannot be used on any other machine.


Last point... are you arguing the world revolves around Microsoft :-)
Hard Drive Back Up - Baskerville
All true enough. Once the monopoly was firmly in place, around 2000, there was no need to worry about interoperability. They could have licensed NTFS and made it work cross-platform just like FAT32 (though not with earlier systems of course), but they chose not to. In hindsight a mis-step, perhaps, but one that held back Mac and Linux users who wanted to share large files with Windows users and couldn't. It explains why so many video editing and media companies are Mac only, but it must have convinced a lot of people to stick with Windows.

>>Last point... are you arguing the world revolves around Microsoft :-)

Once upon a time it looked like it might.
Hard Drive Back Up - rtj70
I first installed Linux (Slackware) in 1996 from at least 30+ floppy diks. Soon after I also had OS/2 Warp too with it running my Windows apps.

Tried moving on but find for work too much needs Windows.


I do think the license issues over NTFS have affected external storage formats. Linux people have reverese engineered. The IBM OS/2 HPFS file system was very similar to NTFS....
Hard Drive Back Up - Baskerville
I first installed Linux (Slackware) in 1996 from at least 30+ floppy diks.


Well, I'm just a two-bit writer with a distinctly non-technical arts background, so I picked up Linux when Windows (ME) began to get in the way of my work. It was well worth the effort. I now work with a combination of a Macbook (a superb all-round package for portability) with Ubuntu in a VM and a self-build PC running Ubuntu with Windows XP in a VM (for testing websites in IE7). Linux has given me a lot more options.
Saving an aerial photo from 192.com - tyro
Is it possible to save an aerial photo from 192.com as a jpeg? And if so, how?
Saving an aerial photo from 192.com - Dynamic Dave
Press the PrtScr (print screen button) and then paste the image into MSPaint or some other photo/picture software, manipulate the photo to remove anything you didn't want to keep and then save as jpg image.

Edited by Dynamic Dave on 30/08/2008 at 14:52

Saving an aerial photo from 192.com - tyro
Thanks, Dave.
Saving an aerial photo from 192.com - Baskerville
Picnik is a very good online image editing tool which allows you to edit images from web pages, or whole web pages as images. There is a Firefox extension that allows you to select "Send page to Picnik" from the Tools menu.
Finding the cause of a crash - from Vol 159 - tyro
As posted earlier, my wife's laptop, running XP, keeps crashing.

It has just crashed again. As suggested by jbif, we went to the events log. The only error spotted just before crashing was "The KService service hung on starting." Even after googling, I have no idea what this is about. Any suggestions?
Finding the cause of a crash - from Vol 159 - Stuartli
See:

www.kerberos.info/

msmvps.com/blogs/thenakedmvp/archive/2006/02/17/84...x

www.techspot.com/vb/all/windows/t-103461-XP-keeps-...l


Finding the cause of a crash - from Vol 159 - rtj70
Well the KService is used by both BBC iPlayer and Sky for programme downloads. The K stands for Kontiki. This might be a clue to the problems. You could try uninstalling BBC iPlayer/Sky which you must have.

When you say it crashed, do you get a blue screen? And if so does it have a stop code at the top?

The other thing is how technical could you be with guidance?
Finding the cause of a crash - from Vol 159 - SpamCan61 {P}
Sorry, can't remember if System Restore has already been tried to fix this?
Finding the cause of a crash - from Vol 159 - jbif
It has just crashed again. As suggested by jbif, we went to the events log.


Right click on the error, select properties, then click on the link to get details from Microsoft.

Finding the cause of a crash - from Vol 159 - tyro
Thanks all.

Stuartli - I had seen the 2nd and 3rd of your links during my googling, but was not much the wiser. I'm not sure what the first of them has to do with the problem.

rtj70 - That is helpful. My wife uses the BBC iPlayer on the laptop quite a lot. Dunno if she would want to uninstall it, but I might be able to persuade her to try it uninstalling and re-installing it.
Yes, she did get a blue screen. I don't know if there was a stop code at the top, since I didn't see it.
How technical could I be with guidance? Well, er, not very.

SpanCan61 - I don't think system restore is going to help somehow.

jbif - Microsoft link provided the following explanation, which meant nothing at all to me: "The specified service is stuck in the start pending state. The service failed to indicate that it is making progress within the time period indicated in its last status message."

Edited by Pugugly on 30/08/2008 at 20:17

Finding the cause of a crash - from Vol 159 - rtj70
Jbif, your comment might be of use but if it's a bluescreen of death (BSoD) then not useful. When something running in kernel memory does something illegal the system has to shutdown immediately. But it does a memory dump (if enabled) and you can check this to see what the problem is/was.

In recent months my works laptop started to crash every few hours... using Microsoft Debug Utilities I found it was the wireless LAN driver. Installed a new one and all fine. But used as a reason to get a newer dual Core2Duo laptop with 3Gb RAM ;-)

This is why I asked if the problem resulted in a blue screen stop error. I'm sure we can help the poor OP's problems.
Finding the cause of a crash - from Vol 159 - rtj70
tyro

Our posts crossed... so it's a blue screen which always results in a stop code. But depending on how the laptop has been setup you might not see long enough it if it reboots straight away. I'm happy for mods to let you know my email address and I can help out.

If it's a blue screen then there may already be a memory dump but unless a mini-dump has been selected this is the size of the entire memory. A mini-dump is only 64Kb and emailable.

The problem with a BSoD* - blue screen of death as it's known ;-) - is that it's a sudden problem and Windows has to shutdown immediately. No time for Windows to write anything to the event log at the time. When it restarts it says the last shutdown was unexpected.

So to diagnose this a memory dump due to the failure needs to be analysed to see what was running just before the crash. Or know/observe the stop code in the top left of the screen which will be a hexadecimal number.

To ensure at least a mini-dump is created and an automatic restart does not happen then do the following for XP:

1. Right click on My Computer and select Properties
2. Click on the Advanced Tab
3. In Startup and System Recovery, click on Settings
4. Under system failure ensure: (a) Ensure automatically restart is not selected and (b) Write debugging information is set to "Mini Dump"

For a full debug a mini dump is not so useful but at 64Kb one of us could get a copy and take a look.

Hope this helps.

Rob

* The colour of a blue background was only selected because NT also ran on DEC Alpha and the console mode only used a blue background. So for consistency all versions of NT used this colour scheme and we have it still today even though Windows versions are no longer available on DEC Alpha... although AMD Athlon was heavily influenced by the Alpha :-)
Finding the cause of a crash - from Vol 159 - tyro
Thanks for that helpful post.

My wife is pretty sure that it didn't reboot straight away, but after the blue screen was on for a couple of minutes, just shut down. She didn't notice any code in the top left of the screen.

The Startup & System Recovery settings on the laptop were that "automatically restart" was selected, and "Debugging information" was sent to "Small Memory Dump 64KB". (I gather these are the default settings on most machines.) Would a minidump have been created? If so, where would we have found it.

Anyway, the "automatically restart" tab has now been deselected.
Finding the cause of a crash - from Vol 159 - rtj70
If "automatically restart" is selected then as soon as the memory dump is complete the blue screen information will vanish when the reboot starts. A mini dump does not take long so it could have dispeared before you could see anything.

The Minidump files are all stored in C:WindowsMinidump, which assumes you have Windows installed in C:Windows. The files have a name which includes the date in American format. Yesterday a file would be similar to Mini083108-01.dmp.

If you send me the file I can take a look. Ask the mods for my email address.

As I said previously when a privileged process running in kernel memory does something naughty (like access memory it should not), to retain system integrity the system has to shutdown - imagine a virus changing something it should not.

Edited by rtj70 on 31/08/2008 at 12:59

Finding the cause of a crash - from Vol 159 - rtj70
Also let me know which machine it's running on and what operating system. I'm wondering if it's the same problem I had on my work laptop back in July which turned out to be an older version of the Intel Wireless LAN driver which had been fine for years and started to crash a lot.
Finding the cause of a crash - from Vol 159 - rtj70
tyro

I hope you realise all the previous crahses probably saved mini/small memory dump that could be looked at.

Rob
Finding the cause of a crash - from Vol 159 - tyro
Thanks.

I'll check that out. My wife has not had her laptop on since Saturday. When she does have it on, I'll see what we can find.
Paypal query - 'restriction appeal' - maz64
Paypal have told me that access to my account might be restricted unless I do the stuff below. This is displayed after logging in to my account; it's not a spam email. Do I really have to do all this?

I just use Paypal for eBay, of which I'm a regular but infrequent buyer/seller; it's certainly not a source of income. Last 2 transactions were fairly typical - purchase of a £30 graphics card and £2.50 DVI cable.

Restriction Appeal
PayPal requires a copy of certain documents for verification purposes to return your account to regular standing.

Please submit each of the following documents:
- A voided check registered to your organization
- Evidence of tax exempt status or registration with any regulatory bodies
- Information about the nature of your organization and the type of payments you intend to process with PayPal

Cheers
F
Paypal query - 'restriction appeal' - Altea Ego
Looks like paypal think you are running a business -

you checked whats been through your account lately?


Paypal query - 'restriction appeal' - maz64
Looks like paypal think you are running a business -
you checked whats been through your account lately?


Yes - nothing unusual. Recently I did have to fill in some information as to what I am, where I selected 'individual' as opposed to business-like options (as instructed by the Paypal help), but then the next question still seemed to imply I was a business eg. answers were charity, non-profit making etc.

Might have to send Paypal an email.

Thanks.
F
Paypal query - 'restriction appeal' - maz64
Email from Paypal below. Nice to know my money's in safe hands then...

Title: Oops, sorry... we sent you an email by mistake

[ Don't worry - you haven't reached your limit! ]

Dear ...

You probably received an email from us recently stating that you have almost reached the receiving limit on your PayPal account. As you probably noticed, this wasn't meant for you. Sorry!

Due to a technical issue, you got this email by mistake. We've now sorted out the problem though and made sure it won't happen again.

Please accept our apologies!

Yours sincerely,

PayPal
Paypal query - 'restriction appeal' - maz64
Now have received a personal email from them, which starts promisingly:

Dear ...

Thank you for taking the time to contact PayPal with your concerns. My name
is Lovely and I am happy to assist you further.
Email text wider than the screen - drbe
Sometimes I receive an email where the text is wider than the screen.

How can I rectify this?
Email text wider than the screen - Stuartli
The most probable reason is that in Outlook Express and/or Internet Explorer (I'm assuming you use these) that the Text size is set at other than Medium in both cases (it's from View>Text size in both OE and IE).

Medium is the best all round compromise - anything larger means that printed out e-mails may run off the page.

Edited by Stuartli on 01/09/2008 at 16:30

Email text wider than the screen - drbe
Thanks Stuartli. I have installed Firefox, which seems to correct the page width automatically.

However - I have a fresh query!
Firefox Favourites - drbe
After some prompting, I have installed Firefox 3.

But I have lost my "Favourites column"! In IE I had a nice vertical column of favourite websites down the left hand side of the screen. In Firefox 3, they have gone.

Can I get them back?
Firefox Favourites - Mookfish
Hold Control and press B, that should bring up the contents of your bookmarks menu, click the + to expand the different sections.
Firefox Favourites - Stuartli
If you have imported your Favourites, you can also bring them up by clicking on the Toolbar's icon displaying a white star on a blue square background (if you haven't yet Customise the Toolbar by right clicking on the bar, by doing so you can add whatever icons are required).

Text size in Firefox can be enlarged or reduced, if necessary, by pressing Ctrl and + or -.
Firefox Favourites - drbe
Thank you both.
Firefox Favourites - jbif
After some prompting, I have installed Firefox 3.


in reply to "drbe":

Commiserations. You should have tried the next beta of IE8 beta 2 released after the beta 1 that "drbe" uninstalled. The IE8 beta 2 was released two days ago to the general public, and it is by all accounts stable and excellent. It includes features which were available only via IE7pro.

I do not use Firefox as, on all my PCs, even the v3.0.1 leads to memory leakage. [just observe how the memory use grows via Task Manager]. After a few minutes with a number of tabs open, Firefox hangs and has to be closed, the process has to be shut down via Task Manager.

So I prefer Opera to Firefox as my alternative browser to IE7. Opera is used solely for sites where my online transactions need to be tracked [eg. Quidco cashback] and I want/need to keep cookies alive for subsequent sessions.

re. ability to resize text - IE7 has a nifty feature in the bottom right hand corner which allows you to zoom in or out of the whole page, including graphics, to a size that suits you.

Firefox Favourites - Baskerville
Commiserations. You should have tried the next beta of IE8 beta 2 released after the
beta 1 that "drbe" uninstalled. The IE8 beta 2 was released two days ago to
the general public and it is by all accounts stable and excellent. It includes features
which were available only via IE7pro.


Apparently so--you have Firefox to thank for this improvement in IE. Without it you'd still be on IE6 trying to convince yourself that nobody wants tabs really, just bearded Scandinavian Opera users.
I do not use Firefox as on all my PCs even the v3.0.1 leads to
memory leakage. [just observe how the memory use grows via Task Manager]. After a few
minutes with a number of tabs open Firefox hangs and has to be closed the
process has to be shut down via Task Manager.


Many users reported this in 2.x.x, though I can't say I was troubled by it other than through a bad extension (Forecastfox I'm looking at you!). I generally run upwards of 15 tabs in Firefox (currently 19 in this particular window) and it is restarted every day or two, when an extension needs an update. Just had a look at Activity Monitor and it tells me that FF is using 145MB; it's been running constantly since yesterday morning, so there's no sign its memory footprint is running out of control. What are you doing to it I wonder?
re. ability to resize text - IE7 has a nifty feature in the bottom right
hand corner which allows you to zoom in or out of the whole page including
graphics to a size that suits you.


And ... so does Firefox.
Firefox Favourites - jbif
>> re. ability to resize text - IE7 has a nifty feature in the bottom right hand corner

And ... so does Firefox.


Not on my v3.0.1?

re. memory hog & freeze - the only extensions I had added were British English Dictionary and No-Script.

Firefox Favourites - Pugugly
Not on my v3.0.1?

Far bottom right hand (as facing it) corner a ickle magnifying glass with a + in it.
Firefox Favourites - Baskerville
And as Stuartli says Ctrl+ zooms in (cmd+ on a Mac). You can toggle between zooming the whole page and 'zoom text only' in the View menu.
Firefox Favourites - jbif
Far bottom right hand (as facing it) corner a ickle magnifying glass with a + in it.


Nope. Mine just has the No-Script button there [a "No Entry" sign with "S" noscript.net/ ]

The IE7 feature shows you the zoom level.

Edited by jbif on 01/09/2008 at 22:34

Firefox Favourites - Baskerville
Of course being Firefox there are free extensions to build on the basic text and page zoom functionality:

Adds zoom buttons to the toolbar:

addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6118

Zoom images only:

addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/139

Remember zoom level on a site by site basis:

addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2592

Zoom tabs as you mouse over them:

addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4845

Zoom with the mouse:

addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2244

Firefox Favourites - drbe
Thank you all for those contributions.

Taking everything into consideration, I think I would go with the product that would allow me to spell 'favourites' correctly.

Edited by drbe on 02/09/2008 at 00:20

Firefox Favourites - Stuartli
I use both Firefox and IE7 - Firefox represents about 98 per cent of that usage.

Firefox has never, ever given me any problems and can be used in conjunction with IE with the simple installation of IEView:

ieview.mozdev.org/
Firefox Favourites - Baskerville
Thank you all for those contributions.
Taking everything into consideration I think I would go with the product that would allow
me to spell 'favourites' correctly.


Yeah, Firefox spells 'Favourites' 'Bookmarks'. Americans. Tsk.
Firefox Favourites - malteser
Just install the "British English" dictionary, available from Mozilla add-ons and the problem is solved!
Firefox Favourites - maz64
Another browser option from Google, out today (for Windows):
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7593106.stm
Firefox Favourites - Stuartli
Knowing Google's mindset, Chrome is almost certainly bound to be tied up with advertising in some form or another...:-)

It seems Applie's WebKit and Firefox have played their roles in the open source Chrome's conception.

Edited by Stuartli on 02/09/2008 at 22:04

Firefox Favourites - smokie
I'm using Chrome and am very impressed so far, especially the in-line search function. Haven't seen any Google-inspired advertising yet!
Firefox Favourites - Stuartli
You can also choose English (UK) from FF's Tools>Options>Content tab>Choose preferred language for web pages.
Wireless router settings for TalkTalk broadband - audiA6tdi
Just gone onto Talktalk broadband and im unsure what settings to put my Draytek 2800 vigour router on. Its a wireless router and the wireless connection is fine. Every so often the broadband connection drops though, and i have to either reboot the router or change the modulation setting to another one in the list.
In the 'Modulation' section of the settings there is listed T1413, MULTIMODE , GLITE,GDMT, ADSL2 AUTO G992.3, ADSL2+ AUTO G992.5, ADSL ANNEX M

ive tried using Glite and GDMT and get varying results. The talktalk page doesnt advise of this and the customer service is poor so hope someone can advise.
thanks

{subject header changed, as per the Please Note request at the top of the thread}

Edited by Dynamic Dave on 03/09/2008 at 11:16

Wireless router settings for TalkTalk broadband - Adam {P}
Hi Audi,

I'm not sure that it's the modulation causing you problems. Ideally it should be set to Auto; failing that, G.DMT.

Do you have the latest firmware? How long does it give you on G.DMT until it needs rebooting? Has the router worked fine in the past? We have Drayteks at work (we have to with our IT providers) but I'm not the biggest fan. They're temperamental at best.

Adam

Edited by Dynamic Dave on 03/09/2008 at 11:17

Wireless router settings for TalkTalk broadband - L'escargot
at work


Adamski, I think it's time you updated your profile. ;-)

Edited by Dynamic Dave on 03/09/2008 at 11:17

Wireless router settings for TalkTalk broadband - Adam {P}
Maybe Snaily. I'm still a big kid at heart though. Aren't we all students really? In the big school that is life? ;)

I need some coffee.

Edited by Dynamic Dave on 03/09/2008 at 11:17

Wireless router settings for TalkTalk broadband - Stuartli
The TalkTalk configuration can be found at:

www.talktalkmembers.com/content/view/56/68/

My router is set at MMODE as on TT's stated preference setting, speeds are slightly down - do particularly note that the MTU figure is 1432; if you use the installation disk this is done automatically.

My broadband speed with TT is around 6.8 to 7.2MB depending on time of day, which is pretty good...:-)

More useful help:

www.talktalkmembers.com/content/category/3/7/68/

Note that these are not the standard TT Help pages (although the latter are excellent), rather a TT members' forum set up about a year ago in beta form by the ISP's staff.

Edited by Dynamic Dave on 03/09/2008 at 11:17

Google Chrome - charlesb
Probably for most of the "Techies" here, including me, but I just installed the new Google Chrome Browser Beta, and so far it is the speediest browser I've ever used.

It uses multi-threading and crash protected tabs, unlike Firefox or IE.

Simple interface, but my word it's fast..

for those who are interested, go to www.google.co.uk and click on the link directly underneath the search box.

Google Chrome - pmh2
I have installed without problem and am impressed with speed.

However the proclaimed Tabs multi threading feature (to prevent crashes) running in separate space, seems over hyped. It cannot support multiple webmail sessions with Yahoo, each Tab is aware of the others !

I have posted on the Google tech forum. Interesting to se what they say.

(I regularly keep multiple sessions open in separate browser windows, and I thought that this was going to be a neat alternativee solution).

pmh2
Google Chrome - Baskerville
See my post on creating separate applications. You can put shortcuts in the start menu, on the desktop etc. Click on the little icon to the right of the address bar.
Google Chrome - Baskerville
It is fast indeed, even in a VM. The ability easily to create separate 'applications' for things like GMail is neat too, though I'm already using Prism and Fluid to do that. I think Gears is the key to this browser. When Google has this running on mobile phones Gears (and by extension all the Google Apps) will be available offline as well as online just about everywhere.
Google Chrome - Altea Ego
I like that a lot. As said it is very quick (it must prefetch some of the inline links to be that fast) Very clean interface. Only small drawback is that it failed to port some of my toolbar links over

Good Effort Google.