Starting off with Vista; those of you with this Operating System would be advised to download the Service Pack from www.microsoft.com or via Windows Update as along with fixing hundreds of little bugs [...]]]> We have two things to discuss today; Vista Service Pack 2 and cheap broadband.

Starting off with Vista; those of you with this Operating System would be advised to download the Service Pack from www.microsoft.com or via Windows Update as along with fixing hundreds of little bugs and glitches it also adds a number of new features. Most notable changes include support for Via Technologies new Nano 64-Bit CPU, support for Bluetooth 2.1, BluRay writing directly from the Operating System and improved performance for WiFi connections.

This update is 348mb in size meaning that you would really need to be on a broadband connection to consider the download; this leads me neatly on to my next point.

I was contacted this week by a reader who was still using a dial up connection. I had assumed that this hardcore group of users had disbanded and joined the 21^st century but it appears that I was mistaken. Try as I might, I cannot rationalise in my own head why someone would still be using dial-up; it’s slow, temperamental, ties up your phone line, and if you use it for more than a handful of minutes a week it can actually work out quite costly.

In order to reach out to these users (and indeed anyone currently on an overpriced broadband package) I thought it prudent to overview the cheapest broadband packages on the market; these represent a perfect stepping stone from dial-up. The following recommendations are suited primarily to light Internet users and as such I would not recommend them for intensive use such as gaming or heavy downloading.

Sky TV – Sky TV customers can get free 2Mbps Broadband with a 2GB usage limit when they also subscribe to Sky Talk (the most basic of which is free) for the phone calls. Of course you still have to pay your line rental to BT, as you would with dial up. While 2GB isn’t a particularly large bandwidth limit it will satisfy most home users and is in excess of what could be feasibly downloaded via dial-up in a month.

Talk Talk – Talk Talk is £6.49 a month in addition to your usual line rental and includes 8GB Broadband, a 40GB usage limit, free local calls and free national weekend and evening calls. The company has had a fair amount of bad press over the last couple of years mainly due to its unprecedented growth since its incorporation in 2003 but things seemed to have improved of late. If the planned merger with Tiscali goes ahead, Talk Talk will have become the largest residential broadband provider in the UK.

Tiscali – For £14.99 a month including your monthly line rental you can get up to 8GB broadband and unlimited free weekend calls. As BT would usually charge you around £12 for your line rental you are essentially getting a capable broadband package for less than £3 a month.

PlusNet – If you don’t fancy the idea of having your telephone calls handled by your broadband provider, the PlusNet Value package at £5.99 a month is an extremely competitive standalone package. With speeds up to 8Mbps, a 10GB daily download limit and an unlimited evening download limit the PlusNet deal is also surprisingly fully featured.

Before committing to a broadband package it might be an idea to first check out www.moneysupermarket.com to compare a number of other deals on the market. Most Internet Service Providers (ISPs) don’t levy a set of charge all of them will provide the equipment you require and many of them will even chuck in a free wireless router; there really is no reason to stick with dial-up.

Instant messenger services are more popular than ever and over the past couple of years I’ve been able to get around to reviewing a handful of them. These applications offer a free and convenient way for Internet users to chat one another, usually through simple text dialogue.

Unfortunately there are many several different products on the market and the likelihood of everyone you know using the same one is quite remote which tends to result in some people juggling their contacts between two or more different systems. It is precisely this reason that I have chosen today to look at a piece of software which aims to bridge the gap between these different applications.

‘Trillian’ has been around for around many years now when the initial release became available to the public back in mid 2000 although at this time it was a simple IRC (Internet Relay Chat) client. It wasn’t until the end of 2000 that the application took a pretty major change in direction by becoming compatible with existing applications such as MSN Messenger, ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger and this is when its popularity started to soar. It is worthwhile noting that throughout the evolution of this program IRC support has been maintained.

Trillian makes life easy because once you’ve downloaded the free software and set-up all your Instant Messaging user names and passwords then you need only ever use one application. From this point whenever you load the Trillian application it will instantly sign you in to all of your IM accounts simultaneously so you can talk to your contacts irrespective of which program they use.

The basic version of the application is around 8.5mb in size and as well as being completely free of charge doesn’t contain any adware or spyware. The company generates income by relying on those users that need some more advanced features upgrading to the professional version at a cost of around £15. The professional version does add many important features such as video calling and the ability to install plug-ins (addition features developed separately from the main application) but I’ll stay focussing on the free version of the software for the purposes of this review.

As well as making life more convenient this application is also popular because it contains some pretty advanced features such as tabbed messaging, changeable skins, emoticons and audio chat. A handy feature is the instant lookup tool which allows you to immediately look up any word present in a conversation window with the online Wikipedia Encyclopaedia or by searching the Internet.

Some users may find that even if they only ever use one instant messaging program that they would rather use Trillian because the user interface is much better than that provided with many of the other IM programs available out there. Whilst all IM programs have features specific to their individual software Trillian has seemed to cover all the important stuff, even in the free version.

If instant messaging is your thing then head to www.ceruleanstudios.com and download the application for free. I would really recommend giving this program a chance as I do see too many people trying to juggle their contacts across several different applications and with quality software like this on the market it really isn’t necessary.

One of the biggest growth areas in the computing industry of late has been the proliferation of Voice over IP packages and the resulting popularity of them amongst Internet users. For those of you unsure exactly what this technology is all about, keep reading as I could be about to save you a fortune.

The Internet is handy as it allows us to carry data into other countries pretty much free of charge; you can instantly e-mail to a friend in America for example rather than writing a letter which would take days. This is fair enough but often e-mail just isn’t suitable for a number of reasons – Perhaps you want a more personal touch or if the call is of a business nature you may need to discuss ideas which would be a lengthy process over e-mail. Using Voice over IP software allows us to carry our voices across the Internet in order to call someone using similar software on their machine or even to call them on their regular home telephone.

Let’s say that you want to call a business colleague in France and you do this using a normal BT phone line. Looking at the BT website I believe that the standard daytime call rate is 17p per minute so a one hour phone call would cost you around £10 although this could obviously be cheaper if you were on one of their International calling plans. Using a free program called Skype (www.skype.com) you would be able to call this person completely free of charge if he were also using the software or alternatively if he doesn’t have access to a computer or the Internet you can call his normal phone number for just 1.1p per minute (66p for the whole hour compared with £10 on BT).

Getting set up is relatively hassle free; the download is a fairly small 6.4mb which will take no time at all to download on a broadband connection and it’s then just a case of signing up with a user name and password. If you only ever call other Skype users you never pay a penny for the service and the software also includes features such as Instant Messaging and file transfers. Only when you want to call regular phones are you required to deposit money into your account to fund the call and the rate is 1.1p for all the most popular destinations.

The software is easy to use and the call quality is generally good although not up to the quality of a regular landline phone call but when you consider the huge saving I’m sure this is something that many people will be able to cope with. You have the option to conference call and there are security protocols in place to ensure all calls you make are kept private.

Skype can be used on pretty much any Internet connection although the quality of your calls will be far superior if you are using broadband. With broadband prices now starting around the £15 a month level there really is no reason not to make the move as I would now only recommend dial up access for those who have the very lightest Internet usage.

Give it a go by heading to www.skype.com; the worst that can happen is that you don’t get along with the idea of Voice over IP but on the flipside you could potentially save yourself a fortune!

Once again I’ll take the take out this week to help out with any problems that my readers have been experiencing.

I usually read your column in the [...]]]>

Once again I’ll take the take out this week to help out with any problems that my readers have been experiencing.

I usually read your column in the Herald Express and have a problem I wondered if you could help me with as I am now receiving what I can only describe as unsolicited dirty emails.

Some time ago we thought of starting a small business selling quit smoking kits and someone suggested putting an advert on the ‘FFA’ sites.  We have since given up the idea of a business but do wonder that if by going onto these sites people are ‘selling’ our email address.

Up to now, I have dealt with the dozen or so daily unwanted emails by ‘blocking’ them, but they are increasing and I really don’t have the time to unblock every one.  Also, sometimes the same ones appear again under a different address,

What I would like to know is: -

1. Is there a way of stopping these emails coming through, perhaps by only ‘accepting’ ones from people in my address book?

2. If someone new wishes to send us an email and we are agreeable, if we add their email address to our address book will this mean that their emails will then be able to come through?

I am currently using Windows ME, and Microsoft Outlook 5. I shall be grateful if you could please help. Rose Griffiths, via e-mail.

This is a common problem amongst the majority of Internet users and I still maintain that the most effective way of not receiving junk e-mail (spam) is to be wary about who you actually give your e-mail address to in the first instance. This obviously isn’t much use to you Rose at this stage but for the benefit of my other readers I will start by telling you all to sign up for a second e-mail address. Then if you’re on a website that you don’t trust to handle your e-mail address is an appropriate way or if you’re submitting a website to the search engines and FFA sites, you can always use this alternative address.

When I was submitting my website to the search engines I began receiving around a hundred junk e-mail messages a day but one of the conditions with these services is that you are obliged to provide a working e-mail address and so I opened a free Hotmail account then gave that to the FFA sites so now I just check my alternative mailbox every couple of weeks in order to delete all the unwanted messages.

For those of you who find yourselves on a list that is regularly being spammed, the process to get yourself removed from these lists is somewhat more complicated than you’d imagine. Most mailings come with a link so that you can ‘remove’ yourself from their list but in the case of the rouge mailers this is quite often just a red herring. If you attempt to remove yourself from the list then they know that your e-mail address is active so it is likely you will actually receive more mailings!

The best bet is to either change your e-mail address and inform only the people you actually want to be able to contact you or get hold of a free program that will sit and actually monitor every incoming e-mail and will remove those it considers to be spam. One product that particularly caught my eye is Mailwasher (www.mailwasher.net) as this program has many unique features such as the ability to accept e-mails from recognised addresses only, it refuses e-mails from known ‘spammers’, it can read the e-mail and attempt to assess whether it is junk or not and you can also view and delete e-mails on the main server before you download them in order to save wasting time downloading junk.
Any mail that is deemed to be junk mail can then be ‘bounced’ back to the sender to make it appear that your e-mail address was invalid which would hopefully mean they’d remove you from their lists.

Last week we started discussing the advantages of booking holidays and flights over the Internet and although this is one of the most helpful features of the Net for home users, one thing that remains popular is the ability to make last minute bookings online – the Internet has made [...]]]>

Last week we started discussing the advantages of booking holidays and flights over the Internet and although this is one of the most helpful features of the Net for home users, one thing that remains popular is the ability to make last minute bookings online – the Internet has made it possible for users to constantly keep updated with the latest special offers and the latest last minute flights or holidays.

As we all know from the traditional high street travel agents, if a flight looks like it is going to leave with excess empty seats then the airlines will often heavily reduce the costs of flying in order to fill the plane. In fact, it is to my understanding that airlines often make a loss on these seats that is then recuperated by those that are flying business class.

A useful site that we’ll look at today, www.lastminute.com allows Internet users to simply log on and specify search criteria to locate these deals and bargains, even those that aren’t considered to be last minute. You don’t have to be too specific, you can leave all the fields blank as if to say that you’ll fly from any airport in the UK, arrive at any foreign airport and fly on any date just to see what deals it comes up with. This method of searching is probably one of the best ideas for those who are searching for a real bargain and have two weeks or so off work so they are ready to leave at the drop of a hat whenever a suitable deal comes up. You can choose from flights, hotels, train tickets, car hire or complete holidays not only those at budget prices but also higher quality and more expensive options are available.

The other major area of this Internet site is the Entertainment section that allows you to search through a whole host of attractions. These include music, cinema and theatre concerts, festival tickets, days out for the family and nights out for couples. Because of the way the site is set up and run it is often possible to gain a great discount of the usual price of the tickets which is added to the fact that the site can sometimes suggest something completely random but fun to do in your area if you’re stuck for entertainment one weekend. This becomes especially true thanks to the ‘Next Weekend’ section of the website which lists 10 special deals to consider for Saturdays and Sundays.

The site has regularly updated special offers not only those related to holidaying and travel but sometimes completely random products such as clothing, DVD’s and food which ties in to the next area of the site which we’ll look at, the gifts section. This offers some interesting products to consider for birthdays or as a treat for yourself, which can range from wine and flowers to leisure and sports accessories. The most interesting offers in this area of the site has to be under the ‘experiences’ heading; these include driving experiences, stag weekends and white water rafting. The website also includes an area where you can bid for a selection of these items in an online auction.

To summarise this site is not possible in this article; the site just appears so random but yet so easy to navigate. Don’t visit if you are prone to impulse buying as whilst reviewing I felt myself reach once or twice for my credit card to book myself up for something that I’d never even considered until a few minutes previously – A quick break in Spain, 3 laps on Silverstone in an Audi TT, and a glider flight to name but a few. For those with a little more control, the site can save you a lot of money on your last minute travel and entertainment needs and is definitely worth a look.

With the number of e-mails I have received off of readers this week, I think that it won’t be too long before I have to have an article dedicated every week just to answer all your questions, please keep them coming in and I’ll do my best to reply to [...]]]>

With the number of e-mails I have received off of readers this week, I think that it won’t be too long before I have to have an article dedicated every week just to answer all your questions, please keep them coming in and I’ll do my best to reply to them all either personally or in Click weekly.

Could you please tell me how to delete all traces of internet sites visited? I have used the usual methods but cookies and index.dat files seem impossible to delete, are these vital files, or is there a method of deleting them. Is there a powerful program you would recommend for the above functions? Thanks in advance.

Adrian Knott, via E-mail

Most new versions of Internet Explorer come with the option to actually delete the cookie files, which can be reached by going to ‘Tools’ and ‘Internet Options’ from within the program and if you’re not using version 6 of Internet Explorer then download it for free by heading to www.microsoft.com.

As for a program which will go through and remove all traces, I’ve been unable to locate one that’s free of charge for you, although I’m sure for what’s fundamentally such a simplistic program, there must be one that exists. Evidence Eliminator (www.evidence-eliminator.com) is one of the most popular, but beware as the program is slightly pricey at around £80. If any readers have details of a program that does a similar job to Evidence Eliminator but is free of charge then please e-mail me at the usual address so I can print these details in a future article of Click.

As an avid reader of your column in the Herald Express, I wondered if you could help me with my problem, I have recently found a site called www.kazaa.com which enables you to download music off of other Internet users free of charge. When you join you have a medium to high participation level and after downloading music your participation level drops to low, at which point people are less likely to share with you and so downloading becomes harder. You can only increase your participation level by uploading your own music.

Can you tell me how to do this as I am finding this difficult as I can play my CD but not copy them on to my computer to put into my shared folder, I am currently running Windows ME.

Hope you can help and Happy New Year, please continue with your interesting column.

Pamela Packer, via E-mail

Although the newer versions of Windows Media Player support CD-Ripping (the copying of music from a CD to another storage device), without additional plug-ins you are quite often forced to record your music into WMA format (Microsofts own standard) which isn’t recognized by Kazaa as a being audio and so you may be best off looking for a program which will suit your needs.

If you head towards the site www.free-mp3-music-player-downloads.com/mp3_rippers_windows.html, you will find a number of free programs that will allow you to put a CD into the drive on your computer and save the entire contents onto your hard disk as MP3 format. If you then copy these files into your Kazaa Shared Folder and ensure that you’re actually choosing to share the files with other Kazaa users by going to ‘Tools’, ‘Options’ and ‘Traffic’ from within the program and ensuring that you haven’t selected to ‘disable sharing of files with other Kazaa Media Desktop users’ then you should find that people soon start downloading from you and your participation level will go up.