Archive News Page - 2

Waiting for Vista!

Will Vista cost you more to run than XP? One of the features of Vista is its fast start up time. This seems to be achieved by not truly switching off the PC at shutdown, but by going into a form of standby/ hibernation - see Vista Specification for more information.

As more & more comments focus on the human 'footprint' on the environment and natural resources, surely the point of progress is to have less effect on the environment and natural resources. For more information on power usage of PC's look at this 2005 article from PC Magazine.

Know your rights

We all know that when things go wrong with a purchase that we have a number of consumer rights? What are they and how can we use them? Personal Computer World magazine regularly publishes information on this.

We have found that in general if you do have a problem with a PC related purchase and providing that you have kept all the necessary paper work, most PC (and related product) suppliers will solve your problem. However when discussing the problem, it pays to be firm; always remain calm (difficult in some situations I grant) and be clear about what the problem is. At the end of the day legislation is available to help you with these types of problem, but in most cases you won't need it.

For some extra information, here is another article from PC Review.

For additional information on what to do if a PC purchase does go wrong, Euro Consumer offers an array of information, including how to start court action if that is really needed.

Have you had a bad experience with a PC related purchase, we and other SeniorNet UK readers would be interested to hear about it. What about a post in the Forum?

Broadband users in the UK

There are now more than 10 Million Broadband connections in the UK, see the OFCOM article for more info.

Keylogging - Another thing to think about!

The network security firm Sophos estimates that an unprotected computer has a 40 percent chance of being infected by a malicious worm within 10 minutes of being connected to the Internet. After an hour, the odds rise to 94 percent.

That's reason enough to keep up to date with operating system patches, invest in a solid antivirus program and use a basic firewall. But even with those measures in place, malicious code - including a keylogger - can sometimes find its way onto your computer.

"There are plenty of ways to get around all of those things," said Ken Dunham, director of the rapid response team at iDefense, a unit of VeriSign that focuses on computer security information.

Most major commercial antivirus software will seek out keylogging Trojan horses, as will most of the leading antispyware packages - although they may not catch them all. Some products, like Spyware Doctor from PC Tools and SpySweeper from WebRoot Software, pay particular attention to keylogging Trojans and cost about £25.00.

StrikeForce Technologies, based in Edison, N.J. USA, is developing an anti-keylogging toolbar for the Internet Explorer Web browser, called WebSecure, that promises to encrypt text from the moment it leaves the computer keyboard and send it directly to the browser. It is scheduled for release in June 2006.

"With keyloggers, you've literally got someone sitting over your shoulder watching everything that you do," said George Waller, the executive vice president of StrikeForce. "It's no wonder why they're so popular."

The CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh also recently posted some simple - and free - ways to tweak various Web browsers to help prevent hidden code on Web pages from invading a computer - a common tactic used by purveyors of keyloggers.

And for those who feel safe because they use a non- Microsoft browser? Be on guard.

"Internet Explorer used to be targeted most frequently, and a lot of people have been switching away from it," said Rob Murawski, an Internet security analyst with CERT. "But the attackers follow these trends, of course."

Reprinted from and Copyright of Tom Zeller Jr. New York Times. "7th February 2006

Keylogging - UK comment

Recent Manchester Evening News article on keylogging.

Charges for emails

A number of recent articles have indicated that AOL and Yahoo are starting to charge companies to send "premium" (for this read, Spam!) email to their account holders. Is this the start of general charging for what up to now has been one of the backbones of Internet usage? Computer Active magazine ran in interesting article on the subject recently.

Could this be the start of charging (taxing) for all email that is sent?

SeniorNet UK has written to both AOL and Yahoo for further info. We will keep track of this story and let you all know if we hear anything else about the subject.

Submit your news here

If you come across interesting news articles and would like to share them with other SeniorNet UK readers, then send us a short email containing the relevant information and links and we consider adding it to our news page.

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