Nerd’s Words (sm)

If you aren’t interested in saving money, skip this and we’ll see you next time.

Still here? OK. Here are some ways to avoid big money going out to keep your computer going. This may seem a bit like asking a pilot for ways to save money on air travel, but who knows better where the money goes than the guy it’s going to?

1. If the box isn’t too old, it is always cheaper to repair than to replace. When you really look at the numbers, replacing your computer is more than just buying a new one, isn’t it? After you get the new one home, you have to transfer all your stuff from the old one to the new one. When you take that into consideration, it becomes a real hassle which you should probably leave to a nerd (like me).

I recently replaced a motherboard in a computer. Total parts: $315. Total labor: two hours. Result: a new computer with no file transfer needed.

If you’re really strapped for cash and you need a new computer, consider keeping the old box and replacing the innards.

2. Repair it right away. Get the box to me as soon as it starts to slow down. One piece of malware opens the door for others to get in. It only takes a day or two.

Lots of people wait until the computer is totally useless before getting it to me.

I understand. You need your computer, even if it’s just limping along. But a dead computer can take twice as long to fix, compared to a computer that’s just dying. The time to call me is when you think there’s a problem, not when you can’t boot it anymore.

3. Do a backup. The really BIG money in computer repair goes to recovering files. When a disk drive crashes, it’s thousands of dollars to get the pictures, the music, and the documents back.

Your hard drive will last 3 years without a problem, guaranteed.
After that, all bets are off.

Only you know how old your computer is, but I’ll bet it’s older than you remember it is. Maybe even older than three years?

Get a backup. The cheapest backup I can do for you is come to your house, steal your hard drive, back it up to a series of DVD disks, and return it and the backup to you. Even cheaper if you bring the box to me and pick it up again.

Already got a backup? Test it. Try to recover a recent photograph. See if you can find that letter you wrote to Aunt Agatha back in 2002. Don’t wait until it’s too late to find out your backup was no good. That’s a very expensive lesson to learn.

4. Ask your ISP for a better deal. If you’ve been with Verizon or Comcast or RCN for a while, like over a year, their prices have come down since you first signed up. Call ‘em up and tell them you want a better deal.

If you’re still paying for AOL, switch to the free version. The free version has no tech support though, so take that into consideration.

5. When it’s time to get a new printer, get a laser printer. It initially costs more to buy a laser printer, but over the lifetime of the printer, it costs 10 times less to print with a laser than it does with an inkjet. And even color laser printers are affordable. Look for the occasional deal on HP or Brother laser printers.

-LLiioonneell
Lionel Goulet
Te Deum

I have too many passwords. On-line banking, on-line shopping, the library, iTunes, dozens more.

Recently a friend asked me for advice on how to keep track of all the passwords she had to remember. I told her, “Write them all down in a single place you can get to easily.” She replied, “But what about security on my computer? How do I keep them safe?” My answer to her, and what I’m telling you is, assume anybody can see the document and act accordingly.

I’ve just taken a hacking class, a full week’s course in how to hack into computers. Your computer is only totally safe from hacking when it’s turned off. The rest of the time you’re open to somebody possibly looking at it. Assume your computer is not safe, but record your passwords where you can get to them easily anyway. Just, don’t record enough on that document for someone to figure anything out.

Let me explain. Write up a Word document. If you have a rich aunt named Agatha, name it “Directions to Agatha’s.” If you have a rich uncle named Norbert, name your document “Directions to Norbert’s.”

Now, record your Social Security numbers. Let’s say your SSN is 123-45-6789. NEVER write it like that. Write it in your document as 12345-967890. The extra “9” in the middle and the extra “0” on the end make it no longer look like a Social Security Number, and only you will know which digits are the bogus ones. And don’t write the phrase “Social Security Number” or “SSN” or “SS#” or anything else like that. Call these things “Orphan#” or “Widow#” or something equally obscure.

Got an online bank account? Don’t say “Bank of America,” call it “Local Bank” and put your username and password down next to that in no particular order. Someone looking at your document will see:

Local Bank
LucyAndRicky
FredAndEthel

NOWHERE does it say “username” or “password.” You know what bank is the local bank. You know which one is the password and which one is the username.

Got an investment account with Fidelity? Call it “Boston Firm.” Got an account with Merrill Lynch? Call it “New York Firm.” Call them anything you like that makes sense to you and doesn’t make sense to anybody else.

This kind of security is known as “security by obscurity” and if you think about it, you can become quite creative in ways of hiding information. For example, write down passwords sdrawkcab (backwards).

If you have a favorite password you use on everything you have, obscure that too. Let’s say your favorite password is DancerIn1972 because you used to dance with Alvin Ailey back in 1972. Don’t write “DancerIn1972” in your document, write:

<What I Was In>1972

instead. Only you will know what you were in 1972. Someone seeing this will have no idea.

Now let’s talk about what your passwords should be.

A hacker will try to guess your password using a password guessing program. Password guessing programs can generate a half-million guesses per second using today’s computers. Your only defense against this kind of firepower is to make your passwords LONG. Eight characters, nine characters, ten characters, at least. A 10-character password will take months to guess, even at today’s speeds. Make your passwords long.

You should know, and if you’ve lived long enough you probably already do, that there is no real security in things. A determined-enough thief will break the glass in your car to steal your radio. A determined-enough thief will kick your door down or use a crowbar to pry open a window.

Ask me how I know this.

If they get your computer (or get into your computer), you’re going to have to get on the phone and call your bank(s), call your investment advisor(s), call the credit reporting bureaus. Have these numbers around where you can get to them in a hurry. Cancelling credit cards and putting a “hold” on banking accounts is a well-worn path these days. There’s no shame in being careful.

-LLiioonneell
Lionel Goulet
Te Deum

If you’re not thinking about getting a new PC, don’t read any further.

If you are, here are some recommendations.

Get it with Windows XP, not Vista. Vista has always felt a little sluggish to me, now there’s proof. Test results are proving now that XP has twice the performance of Vista. The machines for sale in the stores all have Vista, but if you come to me (or Dell) you can get a machine with XP on it. It will be another year before Microsoft gets this “little problem” worked out. Get it with XP.

Get it with a second disk drive. People have so much stuff on their computers, the only workable backup solution is to copy it to a second disk drive. The cost of a second disk drive is so small, this one’s a no-brainer.

Skip the floppy disk. The floppy has gone the way of rotary phones and disco.

Get 6 USB ports on the back. And two on the front.

Get a good graphics card. With all the video content now available on the Web, your computer is becoming your television. This much video content requires a decent amount of video processing power. And remember what I said about widescreen monitors in an earlier Nerd’s Words.

You may need a new printer with that new computer. New machines don’t have the 25-pin parallel port anymore where your old printer plugged in. Check your printer’s cable. If it’s the big 25-pin kind, you can either get a printer port added on when the machine is built, or buy a new printer. If your printer is still working, the first option is both cheaper and greener.

Recycle the old electronics. Unless your town has a method you can use yourself, call me. I have been recycling electronics properly for years.

Budget money and time to transfer the files. This is a non-trivial problem. Vista has a “files and settings transfer wizard” that does not work well. XP has one that works sort-of better, sort-of. Getting the old data backed up, copied, and off the old machine is still in the nerds’ domain. Happy to help, ma’am.

-LLiioonneell
Lionel Goulet

Te Deum

A Nerd’s Words I wrote last summer warned about connecting to unfamiliar wireless net-works. Just yesterday, Channel 7’s investigative news reporter came up with the very same story. Want to stay ahead of the crowd? Here’s an article that will probably be hot next spring. It has to do with security using e-mail.

The United States Postal Service handles trillions of letters a year. Computer users send trillions of e-mails a month. Each message is passed from computer to computer across the Internet from the moment it leaves you until it gets to its destination. A message will pass through three, five, ten or more computers before it gets to where it’s going.

Suppose there’s a hacker on one of those computers. Do you ever send messages with information you don’t want anyone else to know? If I were a hacker, here’s what I would do:

I would write a program to automatically scan e-mail, sending me copies of only the ones that might be interesting. I would scan each e-mail for the words Username and Password. I would look for the words credit card and expiration date. I would look for words like Company Confidential or Sensitive Information.

There are probably lots more I’m not thinking of, but that’s because I’m not a hacker.
But I want you to know there are hackers out there and they are very smart.

Treat every e-mail you send as if it were printed on a post card, or better still, printed on a piece of paper and posted on the bulletin board at the grocery store. Your e-mail is simply not safe from prying eyes, except for the fact that there is so much e-mail, so your one or two messages are totally overlooked.

If you must send sensitive information through the e-mail, take a look at www.pgp.com to see what can be done.

-LLiioonneell
Lionel Goulet

Te Deum

Flat-panel monitors are cool. Literally. They use 1/10th the power of CRT monitors. They’re brighter. They’re smaller. Set up right, they make the computer easier to see. I’ve even got one myself. So what’s the problem? In one word: Widescreen.

Before you buy a widescreen monitor, make sure your computer can handle it. Wide-screen monitors are, duh, wider than regular monitors. This is good for watching movies on your computer, but your computer has to be able to generate the necessary number of pixels to fill that big wide screen.

Older computers (like yours) cannot fill the bigger screen and everything winds up looking stretched, chunky, and fuzzy.

Here’s what you do to avoid that.

Before you buy that monitor, find out something about it. Widescreen monitors have what’s called an optimum resolution. That means the number of dots on the screen that looks the best. A typical optimum resolution might be “1680×1050.” That means 1680 dots across by 1050 lines down.

If your computer can generate that optimum resolution, go ahead and buy the monitor. If your computer can’t pump out the necessary dots, a new video card in your PC will fix that. Or skip the widescreen monitor and just get a monitor that’s not widescreen. A flat panel, even one that’s not widescreen, will still look tons better than the CRT monitor you had.

Be sure to dispose of that old CRT properly.

-LLiioonneell
Lionel Goulet

Te Deum

I’m getting two questions a lot lately:
1. Do I need high speed Internet? and
2. Who do you recommend?

First of all, Yes.
Second of all, it should be “Whom…?”

If your Internet usage has gotten to the point where you even have to ask the question, you need high speed. When I got cable, it changed my life. For the better, by the way. It will do the same for you.

The second question is a little more complicated.

High speed Internet is faster than you need. Even the “slowest” service is faster than 99.9% of all people need.

And do not be swayed by the hype. Promises of “Blazing” fast or “Blistering” speed or “You’ll get your work done so much faster” do not matter. What matters is this: How Much Does it Cost?

Interestingly, providers are most secretive on the subject of cost, in terms of actual dollars per month. Actual prices are hidden inside “coverage agreements” and “introductory offer pricing.” It takes quite a bit of digging to actually see what you’re going to have to pay. This is because what I’m telling you is true. Speed doesn’t matter; it’s the cost that counts. And that’s exactly what the providers don’t want you to see.

So do your homework and call around. Call your town hall and see who’s authorized to provide high speed Internet in your city. Then call everybody on that list. Pin them down and get an actual cost in dollars per month. And not just for the first year or 90 days or whatever. How much will you be paying each month, month-after-month, year-after-year?

And pick the cheapest one. Simple.

Here’s another trick. If you’ve been a subscriber for more than a year, call them up and get their best deal now. Prices are dropping all the time. I reduced the price of my telephone and Internet by over $80 a month with just one phone call.

-LLiioonneell
Lionel Goulet

Te Deum

On February 19th, 2009 your TV is going to stop working. Well, that’s a little strong. On February 19th, 2009, your TV might stop working. Here’s the story.

The FCC has mandated that all broadcast television must switch to a digital standard by 2/19/2009. Broadcast television has been using an analog standard since your grandfather was a boy. The up-side: a better picture. The down-side: you’ll need a TV that can receive it.

If you have digital TV already, you’re good to go. If the TV signal comes in to your place via Comcast or Verizon or DirectTV or Dish Network or any one of a number of other providers you have to pay for, you’re already done. Their service is already digital.

If you bought your TV in the last year or two, you’re probably good as well. The digital standard has been no secret and television manufacturers have been preparing for a while.

If you have a new or new-ish video recording device on your old TV, you’re also probably OK as these devices are also ready for the digital change and you can watch through the recorder.

TV stations (in the Boston area at least) are already broadcasting digital signals. Channels 2, 4, 5, 7, 25, 38, 44, and 56 all have added digital signals. If you can receive these broadcasts, read no further, you’re done.

The people who need to know about this change are the people with old TV’s that are still using antennas. There are a lot of them. For you, there will be a “converter box” for sale, if it isn’t already, to convert your analog TV to one that can receive digital broadcasts. It’s not going to cost a lot of money, maybe $30, but you will have to get one. Or no more TV after February 19th, 2009.

There is one other down-side here nobody’s talking about. If your TV reception is poor or only so-so, the digital standard is going to make watching those channels a nightmare. Digital requires a good strong signal to work. It may be time to make a deal with the cable company. Do it early and avoid the rush.

-LLiioonneell
Lionel Goulet

Te Deum

I’ve helped a couple of my clients convert from PC’s to Macintosh. Maybe the thought has crossed your mind. The Macintosh is very well received in the marketplace and their TV ads are very clever. Mac’s are immune to malware (so far). Mac’s are easier to use. And finally, Mac’s just work. A client of mine told me yesterday, “That Macintosh has changed my life.”

If you’re thinking of getting a Mac, the big question is: What do you do with your computer? If your answer is, “E-mail and the Web,” you’re going to love the Mac. However, nobody does just e-mail and the Web. Do you have documents? Do you write up a spreadsheet or two? Do people send you e-mail with documents or spreadsheets in them?

If so, you’re still good. Microsoft Office has been on the Mac forever. This means Word and Excel and all your documents and spreadsheets will work on the Mac. You’ll need to buy Office: Mac.

If you’re a Quicken or QuickBooks user, you’re in trouble. These programs are available on the Mac but they are not the same as on the PC and converting from PC to Mac is a royal pain. The data format is different and the programs are different to use. To get around this problem, one client kept their PC just to do financial and checkbook stuff and does everything else on the Mac. They do not connect their PC to the Internet so they don’t have to worry about cyber attacks on that machine.

Are you an Outlook user? Outlook does e-mail, keeps your contact information together, and keeps your daily calendar. Many people have to use Outlook because their company requires them to. If you are an Outlook user, the Mac is not for you. There is no equivalent to Outlook on the Mac and this one shortcoming has stopped many people from converting.

Your PC may have other applications that work only on the PC. Find out if your applications have equivalents on the Mac before sinking money into a new computer. One client did not fully assess their PC use and had to convert back to PC when their company’s custom warehouse inventory application did not work on the Mac. That was expensive.

Photoshop? You’re good. You’ll have to buy the Mac version. Photoshop is not cheap.

Your printer may or may not work on a Mac. Check that out too. Unless it says “Mac compatible,” it isn’t.

Finally, a Mac is more expensive than a PC. The cool-looking Mac’s cost two or three times what a PC costs. Cool costs money.

A Mac Mini, on the other hand, is only about 10% more expensive than an equivalent PC, but it’s not cool looking. Can you stand to not look cool?

If you’re considering going Mac, take a good look at the Mac Mini.

-LLiioonneell
Te Deum
All the many trademarks in this article are the products of their respective owners.

You walk into Starbucks with your laptop under your arm. You’ve seen all the cool people there working on their laptops while drinking their Venti Blueberries and Cream Frappuccinos and now it’s time for you to be cool too.

You open your screen and it tells you “Wireless Networks Detected” just like it should. You click to connect, and Oh NO! They want an access code! They want money to use the darn WiFi at Starbucks! To heck with them! You see another wireless network in your laptop and it’s open and you connect to it and you’re on the Internet without having to pay! You think “Eff you Starbucks!” Now you are cool too.

Ooops.

Didn’t your mother ever tell you never to talk to strangers?
21st century moms need to tell their kids: Never internet through strangers.

That free wireless network you’re connected to (and this is no reflection on Starbucks by the way) was put there by the bad guys. While you send your e-mail and browse the Web, the bad guys are recording everything that goes in and out. Want to know how your competitors got your client list? Now you know. Some hacker sold it to them from your e-mail.

To test this out, I took my little laptop to a nearby Starbucks, plopped myself down at a table, and looked for a wireless network to connect to. Sure enough, there were two. One was the store’s. The free one was not.

This can happen anywhere you wirelessly connect.

Since WiFi is available everywhere nowadays, you need to be aware that just because you can connect doesn’t mean you should. Ask for the name of the network where you’re WiFi-ing and connect to that one and not any other one you might be able to see. There are dragons out there.

-LLiioonneell

I tried to buy a pair of tickets at “Ticketmaster” yesterday. Yuck!

In the process of clicking and filling in the many ugly forms, one of them said “By agreeing to this purchase, you allow us to sell your e-mail address to marketing firms who will bombard you with spam until you choke to death.”

Well, it was worded a little differently, but you get the idea.

If you HAVE to give someone an e-mail address and you DON’T want to be spammed, you need a “spam sink.”

You can even use mine.

A Spam Sink is a mailbox just for the purpose of collecting e-mail you don’t want. Every once in a while, like when I buy tickets on-line, I use it.

Here it is: spam--sink@hotmail.com

Notice the two dashes ("--").

The password on this mailbox is [sinkspam]

Notice the square brackets. They are part of the password.

You can use this e-mail address, or one of your own creation. The idea is to create a Hotmail (or Gmail or Yahoo) e-mail address (they’re free) that you can give to people when you don’t want them knowing your REAL e-mail address.

You can log into the spam--sink account and check it out for yourself.

www.hotmail.com
Username: spam--sink@hotmail.com
Password: [sinkspam]