bitsconsultants.com e-mail newsletter

Can we talk?

As my business has grown I am finding it harder and harder to regularly talk to all of my great friends and clients. Because of this, I have decided to start a monthly e-mail newsletter to discuss some of the issues we are seeing at BITS and in the world of computers in general.

Each newsletter will include Tech News Highlights, an Ask Randy section where I answer a question I have received in e-mail, and a Tip of the Month to help you get better use out of your computer. If you need any assistance with your computer, please don't hesitate to give us a call at (512) 323-2487.

Tech News Highlights

Hacker steals UT identity info

On March 2nd, a hacker stole information that could potentially be used to facilitate identity theft. By exploiting a weakness in administrative software at the University of Texas, the hacker was able to match social security numbers with names, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers. According to the UT datatheft website, a suspect has been apprehended and they believe that the information was not disseminated.

Intel launches Centrino

Intel has launched Centrino, a new chipset with a combination of wireless and mobile features. The chips were designed for a new generation of portable PCs that run longer on battery power and connect more easily to wireless networks. The commitment from Intel to this technology indicates that they are betting on substantial penetration of wireless technology into the business market in the next year.

Man shoots computer

A Colorado man summarily executed his Dell laptop on Sunday 03/02. George Doughty put his Dell laptop on the tavern's floor, told onlookers to cover their ears, and proceeded to shoot the PC four times. While nobody was hurt, Doughty was arrested by the Lafayette Police Department on menacing, reckless endangerment, and prohibited use of weapons charges. Mr. Doughty should have called us first. We at BITS have plenty of experience helping people develop a positive relationship with their computer.

Ask Randy

I have an icon in my system tray for something called "Bonzi Buddy." Where did it come from?

Most likely it was installed along with another program. Often we find this particular program on machines that have Kazaa installed. Bonzi Buddy (along with close kin "GAIN" and "Huntbar") is part of a group of software called spyware by people who study this type of thing. The purpose of the software is to watch your computer usage and report information about websites that you visit and applications you use so that advertisers can get more bang for their Internet buck by tailoring their advertising approach. Many people dislike having this information compiled about them, but some do not mind it. You can remove these applications from your computer by running a spyware killing software program like Ad Aware.

We have been told that our computer is not MIME capable and that we should "make it capable." What does this mean? Is MIME something we load like Adobe Acrobat Reader?

MIME stands for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions. MIME specifies how messages must be formatted so that they can be exchanged between different e-mail systems. MIME messages can contain text, images, audio, video, or other application-specific data. All recent versions of Outlook and Outlook Express support MIME with no changes necessary. However, if you are having trouble opening attachments in a MIME formatted e-mail, read on for tip of the month.  

Tip of the Month

Compress attachments as ZIP files before you send them

Have you ever received a file in e-mail but not been able to open it? You may have gotten the message "Outlook blocked access to the following potentially unsafe attachments..."

You can usually solve this problem by asking the sender to compress the file before they send it to you. A compressed file will make it through your Outlook with no problem. Once you've received the compressed file, extract it to a folder on your computer and open it from there.

A good way to compress files is to use WinZip, a commonly available shareware program. If you have Microsoft Windows XP, the ability to zip and unzip is built into the operating system.

Why does a compressed file get through when an uncompressed file doesn't? Certain types of files are commonly used to distribute viruses and trojans. These include programs (.exe), web pages (.htm) and multimedia files (.mp3). To fight virus flare-ups, Microsoft Outlook 2002 keeps you from being able to receive these types of files. The downside is that it causes problems for many legitimate uses of e-mail. I guess I should thank Microsoft for the job security.

For other possible solutions or to get information that's more technical, see this article: Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 290497. If you would like to make the necessary registry changes on your system and you're not comfortable doing it yourself, our friendly technicians would be happy to do it for you. Just call us at (512) 323-2487.