Month: January 2008

Have you noticed a sudden slow-down in your PC’s performance? Does your Internet router or modem seem to be working (lots of lights flashing) even when you’re not browsing the Net? Have your browser settings (like homepage and default search engines) changed without your permission? If you answered ‘yes’ to any two of these questions, there’s a good chance that your computer has been hijacked by hackers. Hijacked PCs are often used to harvest personal information like credit card details and are sometimes even employed by hackers to act as web servers which spread more spam, Trojans and viruses as well as other dangerous or illegal software. But fear not: there are three simple steps you can take to rescue your hijacked computer.

Step one: Disconnect

The first thing you should do is disconnect your PC from the internet and your home network. This is important for two reasons: hijacked computers receive instructions automatically via the internet, as well as uploading private information they may have harvested; also, an infected PC might well infect other devices connected to your home network, spreading the infection and putting more of your data at risk.

Step two: Clean up

You can get your PC clean by downloading and installing various free programs, but as your PC is already offline you’ll need to get hold of them at a friend’s house or perhaps at work. Make sure that you use a new USB stick or CD-ROM to store the software as any storage device that has been in contact with the hijacked machine is a potential infection hazard. The programs you’ll need are: Ad-Aware, Avast! Antivirus, GMER and Spybot Search & Destroy. Install these and run each in turn, using the maximum possible security settings. It’s a good idea to run them in Safe Mode too (you can launch Safe Mode by pressing and holding the F8 key as your computer boots).

Step three: Protect yourself

By now you should have eliminated even the most sneaky key-loggers and Trojans from your PC – but you’re still at risk if you’re not a careful Internet user. Downloading certain pirated materials or software cracks over the net will massively increase the chance that your PC will become hijacked again. The best advice I can offer here is that once you’re sure that you’ve erased all sign of the offending malware from your computer, you should use a backup program to create a one-off copy of your system in a stable state. That way, even if your anti-virus software and anti-spyware precautions somehow fail, you’ll have a safe version of your system which you can fall back on.

In this very moment, as you’re reading these lines, you’re probably increasing your possibilities to suffer from RSI. Don’t panic, it’s not a fatal disease: RSI stands for Repetitive Strain Injury and is the kind of physical condition you get from spending too much time working in front of a computer without taking the appropriate measures. And while working is a good habit – it dignifies the human being, at least that’s what they say –, if you go beyond certain limits it’ll begin to seriously affect your health.

There are a few quick tips you can follow to prevent RSI and work with your computer in a healthier way. They can be summed up in the following points:

• First, have all the elements in your working space – monitor, keyboard and mouse – properly arranged. They should easily reachable and comfortable to use. Make sure the monitor is at a proper height (with the screen’s top edge aligned with your eyes) and use a wrist rest to type.
• Second, your desk and chair should be carefully chosen, so as to enable you to sit straight in a natural way. Try to maintain posture alignment, without slouching, and keep arms on your chair armrests as often as possible.
• Third, take frequent, short breaks rather than scarcer, longer ones. The ideal rate is a five-minute break every working hour. Look away from the computer, do some stretching exercises or even better, go get some water in the water cooler downstairs.

As you can see, taking care of your health while working with a PC is not that difficult. What’s more, there are software tools, like Workrave, that can help you get in the habit of work pauses and stretches.Workrave can be scheduled to warn you with message window every time you have to take a break. The program also includes a series of highly detailed exercises to prevent RSI, as well as some funny statistics about your mouse activity, number of keystrokes and other useless data.

A while back, I wrote a short tutorial on how to dual boot your PC in either Linux or Windows. The problem with this however is that if you’re constantly switching back and forth between the two, then you often leave behind files that you need access to. So, if you’re using Windows, and you’ve been working on something in Linux, you have to re-boot in Linux to access the files.

That’s why I was interested to discover DiskInternals Linux Reader which is a free utility that basically allows you to access Linux files and partitions from Windows. The utility works by creating a virtual partition and then allowing you to use it just like a regular disk. The downside however is that the files are read only – you can’t open them and work with them in Windows but it’s certainly better than having to reboot. This has been done to prevent the risk of corrupting the file or making it impossible to open it next time you run Linux.

The file browsing system is very similar to that used by Windows Explorer and it’s particularly adept at handling photos, giving you a preview of each photo before you open the file. So if you’re sick of rebooting your PC because to access files in Linux, then DiskInternals Linux Reader will save you a lot of wasted time. It’s just a shame that it doesn’t work the other way round because once you’ve got used to Linux, you probably won’t want to use Windows much anymore.

It’s not only sheep that get cloned nowadays. Cloning your hard drive is one of the most secure ways of either backing-it-up or ensuring that you’ve always got a virtual version of it to work from if your original drive fails. For system administrators, it can be used it to dramatically reduce the time spent restoring, reconfiguring or copying data onto other hard drives.

Virtual CloneDrive behaves just like a physical drive but it only exists virtually. You can generate image files with Virtual CloneDrive and then drag and drop them into the drive as if it were a real one. DriveClone meanwhile is designed more as a backup tool which compresses everything on the original drive but makes them easily accessible on a partition.

If you’re not comfortable or familiar with the whole cloning process then XXClone is one of the simplest tools out there. The advantage of using this program too is that all clones that are made are self bootable which is essential if you suffer failure of your original hard drive. Another easy to use solution is HDClone Free Edition which is especially designed for recovering data from defective hard disks.

Among the dozens of effects you can apply to your pictures, the comic strip look is probably one of the most attractive ones. Applying a comic effect usually takes a long time and involves using many different tools in Photoshop, but this tutorial will show you that the same effect can be achieved in an easier way. So if you’re ready, look for a nice close-up in your photo collection and follow these simple steps.

Continue reading “How to: apply a comic effect to your photos”

Not a day passes by without seeing one of those sweet error messages in Windows. They can appear for a variety of reasons, which are usually explained in the message box itself – sometimes including strange numbers and error codes. So, what if you need to copy that text somewhere else, like in a Customer Support form or a chat window? Do you really have to type the whole thing by yourself?

The answer is no. In case you didn’t now, you can copy the text inside Windows error message boxes exactly the same way you copy any other text to the clipboard: with the Ctrl+C shortcut. See it for yourself: open the Start menu and click on Run. Then type anything (your name, for example) inside the text field and press Enter. When Windows displays an error message, press Ctrl+C to copy the text and then paste it in a text file. It’ll be something like this:

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elena
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Windows cannot find 'elena'. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again. To search for a file, click the Start button, and then click Search.
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OK
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Be aware that this trick works only with Windows errors, that is, those message boxes displayed by the system. If you need to copy an error message coming from a given application, there’s another way round it. It’s called Kleptomania and it’s a tool that enables you to copy any text inside any message box, regardless of its source. The program uses the OCR technology to read text and saves it as text or as image.