I have several PC’s that I need to use in my office and at home but in order to minimise effort moving between them continuously I have been using a piece of software called PC Anywhere to manage these machines remotely if for example I need to retrieve an e-mail [...]]]>

I have several PC’s that I need to use in my office and at home but in order to minimise effort moving between them continuously I have been using a piece of software called PC Anywhere to manage these machines remotely if for example I need to retrieve an e-mail from one of them or access a program or an account which is on one machine but not the other.

PC Anywhere has been around for many years and is presently shipping up to version 11 but and what specifically prompted me to write this article today is that Symantec, the manufacturers of the program are offering free beta test copies of version 11.5 on their website. For those unaware of what beta test software is, I should explain that it is simply an unfinished version of the software that is released to the public (almost always free of charge) so that any errors or problems can be reported back before the final product is released. If we take Microsoft as an example, this company sends out thousands of copies of new Operating Systems so that as many bugs can be ironed out as possible before the final release; obviously thousands slip through this screening process but it does eliminate a number of potential problems before the public release.

Beta test software is limited in terms of the amount of time that you are allowed to use it and the free version I am reviewing today will unfortunately expire in the middle of December and although the software may be slightly buggy it is obviously still long enough to establish whether you wish to make an investment.

To use the program you must have it installed on at least two computers that you want to communicate with one another via the Internet, a direct cable connection, LAN or Modem. Setting up both machines is pretty simple and once completed you will be able to perform a number of tasks to simplify the process of remotely controlling a machine and copying the files stored on it.

To give you examples of how PC Anywhere could be helpful we will assume that your job involves working on a computer in an office. If you were unable to get in to the office for any particular reason such as a business trip but you still needed to get some files from one of their computers then you would simply be able to connect to the machine from any computer with PC Anywhere installed (such as a Laptop) and control it as if you were sat physically in the office or alternatively it could be used to transfer files you needed to the remote machine.

Alternatively, assume you were self employed and didn’t fancy going into the office on a given day then simply connect to one of the machines via the Internet and you could take control of the mouse and keyboard to see what your staff had been doing with their day or even catch up on some work that could not wait until you next went in.

Personally I found this software particularly useful when at University in Cardiff a few years back as I was still very much into computer repair and so installed the program on my clients machines so if there were any problems then rather than driving 120 miles back home I could simply dial in and sort their problems out remotely. It is worth noting that the program can work through a firewall also that appropriate usernames and passwords can be set up to avoid unauthorised control of your machine from remote sources.

The advantages of such a program to the home user are fairly limited but many of you will find that if your job involves computing on a daily basis then this program could end up being invaluable, especially if you find yourself often on the move. To get hold of the beta test head to http://www.symantec.com/pcanywhere/Consumer/ and as the program is quite compact it should only take a few minutes to download. If you do decide that you want to keep the software once the beta has expired then I believe that the price for two machines is around £150 all inclusive or you could also try using the main alternative Laplink Gold by heading to www.laplink.com

I’m starting Click this week with an apology relating to the article that I published last week in which I mentioned an insurance quote I had received through Bartlett Davies Bicks and suggested that it was higher than I would have expected. This caused some upset and so I would [...]]]>

I’m starting Click this week with an apology relating to the article that I published last week in which I mentioned an insurance quote I had received through Bartlett Davies Bicks and suggested that it was higher than I would have expected. This caused some upset and so I would like to point out that Bartlett Davies Bicks is an independent broker and the quotes they offer as with any other insurance company will vary from driver to driver. I didn’t intend to imply that they were uncompetitive in the market place as obviously this is not the case, rather that their quote just wasn’t suited for me personally.

Anyway, now that’s out the way, I’m going to repeat an article that I published some weeks ago as I’m still getting at least an e-mail a day with people asking me the same question and it’s my hope that this will alleviate the problem. The problem I’m talking about is involving a bug in Windows 2000 and XP that shuts down your computer when it’s connected to the Internet – Those afflicted will find that their computer will give them a message saying that it has to shut down and give you a short amount of time to save your work; usually around 30 seconds.

To rectify the problem we need to download a patch from Microsoft and your latest Anti-virus software updates but to do this we have to prevent the PC rebooting as soon as you go online and so the RPC restart function has to be disabled which is done as follows:

Before you go online click on ‘Start’, then run then and type: services.msc. When the Services window opens up, scroll down the list to the first Remote Procedure Call (RPC), right click on this and select ‘properties’ and then click the Recovery tab. You will see the drop-down menus labelled First failure, Second failure and Subsequent failures and these will be set to ‘Restart’ as default. Change each drop-down menu to ‘Take No Action’ then click Apply and OK. Close the Services window and now connect to the Internet.

We have to now download a Windows patch which will prevent infection from affecting your system which can be done by heading to www.microsoft.com and clicking the link for the ‘Blaster Worm’ on the main page; simply follow the instructions to download and install this patch and the vulnerability in the operating system that allows this nasty file in will be removed.

Now simply update your anti-virus software and do a complete system scan, removing any viruses that it finds; it is essential that you download the latest updates otherwise the software will not find it. If you don’t have an anti-virus scanner then download the fantastic AVG from www.grisoft.com

That’s it; your PC is now clean and you sit back and relax, ignoring all the scare stories that you’re bound to hear about on the news over the coming weeks.

Since we’re on the run up to Christmas I thought we’d take a lighthearted break this week from learning about Firewalls, Anti-Virus programs and LCD Monitors and instead I’ve decided to publish the following e-mail which landed in my inbox this week. Finding any computer related jokes that’s slightly funny [...]]]>

Since we’re on the run up to Christmas I thought we’d take a lighthearted break this week from learning about Firewalls, Anti-Virus programs and LCD Monitors and instead I’ve decided to publish the following e-mail which landed in my inbox this week. Finding any computer related jokes that’s slightly funny is an arduous task but this one put a little smile across my face. With the business that seems to come associated with Christmas, publishing this e-mail will also save me the smallest amount of time that can be used to allow me to give one final push in order to get my customers machines finished and PC problems resolved in time for the big day.

A language instructor was explaining to her class that in French, nouns unlike their English counterparts, are grammatically designated as masculine or feminine.

“House,” in French, is feminine-”la mansion.”

“Pencil,” in French, is masculine – “le crayon.”

One puzzled student asked, “…What gender is computer?…”

The teacher did not know, and the word wasn’t in her French dictionary.

So for fun she split the class into two groups appropriately enough, by gender, and asked them to decide whether “computer” should be a masculine or feminine noun. Both groups were required to give four reasons for their recommendation.

The men’s group decided that computers should definitely be of the feminine gender (“la computer”), because:

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic;

2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else;

3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for possible later retrieval; and

4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your pay check on accessories for it.

The women’s group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine (“le computer”), because:

1. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on;

2. They have a lot of data but they are still clueless;

3. They are supposed to help you solve problems but half the time they ARE the problem; and

4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you’d waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model.

The women won.

So all that’s left for me to do now is to wish all of you a very happy Christmas wherever and however you decide to spend it and I’ll see you next week for one final article before the new year is upon us. For those of you who are lucky enough to get new computer equipment at this festive time of the year, don’t forget that help from Click is always just an e-mail away.

Seasons Greetings

This week I’ll again spend a bit of time answering a selection of readers’ questions in the hope that I can resolve some of your most common problems.

I have been following your Click column in the Herald Express [...]]]>

This week I’ll again spend a bit of time answering a selection of readers’ questions in the hope that I can resolve some of your most common problems.

I have been following your Click column in the Herald Express for some time and find it useful, being very new to Windows, etc.  I followed your recent instructions on updating and managed to update most of our programs although, I cannot download DirectX 8.1 upgrade; it takes almost an hour and every time I try (and I have tried many times this last week) I lose the connection somewhere during the download time.  We have Freeserve Anytime.

As you know, when the connection breaks you have to go back to the beginning of the download again.  Can you please advise?

Alick Lavers, via e-mail

This is a common problem for many people who use the Internet which can be caused for a number of reasons:

i. Most common is that your service provider disconnects you automatically after a certain duration online (usually around 2 hours) in an attempt to try and reduce the amount of time that you spend on their lines. This practice, in my opinion is pretty pointless as it is possible to tell Windows to automatically redial if the line is dropped (found in the properties menu of the dial up networking connection you are using) and ultimately just results in many infuriated customers who are forced to retry their downloads a number of times and therefore actually increasing the overall time spent online.

ii. Although this is not applicable in your case, many people find that they are disconnected automatically by Windows after a certain idle time online. This is good if you are using a connection which requires you to pay call charges then if you forget to log off, the computer can do it for you, however many people will find that they have no use for this feature and so may like to turn it off. To do this, go to the properties menu for your dial up connection and make sure ‘Idle time before hanging up’ is set to ‘never’.

iii. Noise on the line, an incorrectly configured modem or erroneous data being received from your service provider can sometimes trigger random disconnections. This is probably the most difficult problem for me to diagnose for you but since you seem to become disconnected at different points through-out the download then I would suggest that this may be the cause.

What speed do you connect at? If it is over 46kbps or so then I’d say that your line is okay, if not then you’re probably best off getting your line diagnosed by BT which they can do for free. Update your modem drivers as well, even if this is not the root of the problem it is something you should do regularly anyway.

I would suggest in the meantime that you download and install a copy of Go!Zilla which is available for free from www.gozilla.com. This program is one of the most popular download managers available and comes with several good features, most notably the ability to resume broken downloads so that if you get disconnected half way through downloading then you can simply reconnect and continue your transfer.

Install the program, point your browser towards www.microsoft.com/directx/, locate correct version of DirectX and then when you click on the link it should automatically start to download in Go!Zilla. If you then get disconnected, just instruct Go!Zilla to resume the file download from where it left off.

I would suggest that all readers who use the Internet a moderate amount should get hold of the latest version of their modem drivers and also a free copy of Go!Zilla even if you are not currently experiencing any problems. The program has many features which you should find useful and combined with updated modem drivers should allow you to squeeze every last drop of performance out of your connection.

]]> http://www.computerarticles.co.uk/readers-questions-2/feed/ 0 http://www.computerarticles.co.uk/keeping-your-computer-up-to-date/ http://www.computerarticles.co.uk/keeping-your-computer-up-to-date/#comments Sat, 19 Jan 2002 14:58:19 +0000 admin http://www.computerarticles.co.uk/?p=215

Once you’ve worked with computers for even a moderate amount of time, there’s one thing that you’ll notice time and time again – Software never works correctly the first around. If you were to buy a car from Audi, you wouldn’t expect to have to take [...]]]>

Once you’ve worked with computers for even a moderate amount of time, there’s one thing that you’ll notice time and time again – Software never works correctly the first around. If you were to buy a car from Audi, you wouldn’t expect to have to take it back to the garage every couple of months to have it updated for numerous glitches, for example to stop a bug that makes the car become unstable when used in conjunction with a certain type of stereo. Computers are a different kettle of fish however.

A typical version of Microsoft Windows when it is released contains tens of thousands of bugs, some of which they know about and some of which they are yet to discover. If they were to wait until every last one had been rectified then we’d be waiting for an eternity for the product to be released which is why dynamic updating has become so popular in todays Internet society.

The manufacturers of most computing products now make a list of any bugs and defects that have been discovered in their software since the launch date and set about correcting them. Once a solution to a particular problem has been discovered, the correction is often put onto their website for members of the public to download for free.

Microsoft is probably the best example of a company that uses such a piece of technology. If you connect to the Internet and then open up Internet Explorer in the usual way then do the following: Go to ‘Tools’ and then ‘Windows Update’, after a short delay a web page will appear, now click on ‘Scan for updates’ and Internet Explorer will now go off looking for specific updates for your computer to fix known issues that have been discovered. After a minute or so, you should now select any updates that you wish to apply (if you have free Internet access then I suggest you download them all) and then click download. They will all now install onto your machine automatically, and who knows, that annoying glitch you’ve been experiencing for a while may be a widely documented problem that Microsoft corrected a long time ago.

Microsoft Office can be updated in the same way by clicking on ‘Office Update’ on the web page that first appears. Probably the best thing about both of these updates is that no information is sent to Microsoft whatsoever and so they are unable to determine anything about your computer or any personal information. Even if you are not experiencing any difficulties then I suggest you still update your machine anyway as there may be a potentially serious problem of which you are currently unaware (an Internet security vulnerability, for example).

Other, non-Microsoft software can benefit from these kinds of updates as well. For example, the Norton range of products use a program called ‘Live Update’ which does pretty much the same thing.

In addition, if you have any form of Anti-Virus software then I suggest you update this every month or so that your computer can detect the newest viruses that are continually being released. Even if the program in question doesn’t have an update program then try going to the manufactures website and having a look around to see if you can spot anything to update your software.

Finally, hardware devices (e.g. scanner, graphics card, modem etc.) are the things that benefit most from having their controlling software (known as a driver) updated. A driver is a program that lets the computer know how to control a piece of hardware that is interfacing with it; imagine it like your dad giving you instructions on how to use your legs to walk or how to use your arms to throw a ball when you were a kid. Without a driver, you could have the printer quite happily connected to your computer although the machine wouldn’t have a clue how to even start using it. The easiest way to go about updating these drivers, which will allow your hardware to run with more stability and often at a greater speed is to find out who makes individual components of your computer and their particular model numbers (the people you bought it off will be able to tell you). Once again, you can now go surfing the websites of these manufacturers looking for the updated software or head to www.driverguide.com.

To summarise, don’t underestimate how much of a change can be gained from updating all the software on your computer. Last year, when I used to live back in Devon I’d often take a customers hardware away for a couple of hours and update all the drivers and software over the Internet and if they’d never done it before, the resultant increase in stability and speed was staggering for something that you could do completely free of charge. Updating isn’t for the light-hearted however, so if in doubt please read a more detailed guide from the Internet or write in and I’ll do a more detailed follow-up in the forthcoming weeks.

]]> http://www.computerarticles.co.uk/keeping-your-computer-up-to-date/feed/ 0