Software

Microsoft have steadily improved the security of Windows over the past few years, making it much harder for Virus and other Malware producers to exploit weaknesses in it. As a result, many of the bad guys have been focussing their attacks on the addon programs that most of us have installed on our computers. For example, if you want to watch Youtube, you need Flash installed. Many online banking services require Java and if you want to read many documents on the web, you’ll need Adobe Reader. As a result these free applications (Java, Flash, Reader and many others) have become very common and have been softer targets in recent years for Malware.
I was over at the Information Security Conference in London a couple of weeks ago and was interested to see a presentation by Qualys who were presenting a new, free service that allows you to check all the addons in your internet browser for security status. I’d encourage all of you to take a look at it. It’s located at http://browsercheck.qualys.com/ and is well worth a look. In a single stroke it will allow you to assess which addons you need to update and provides a link to the update. The results page looks like the picture below. Just click on anything that isn’t showing “Green” status to get the updated version. Very neat.

Last week, Amazon released what is looking like one of the most useful pieces of software to date in the world of cloud computing. Amazon Cloud Drive (and Cloud Player) is a free online file storage service (up to 5GB, then you pay $1 a gigabyte per year) that doubles as a music streaming service, allowing you to listen to the songs you have uploaded to the Cloud Player from anywhere in the countries supported. If you are lucky enough to own an Android smartphone (like myself ), it is possible to download an app to stream music to your phone, to listen to while online, or to download songs from your cloud drive and listen to them later.

As well as uploading from many systems to the Cloud Drive, Amazon automatically uploads any files you purchase from them directly to the Cloud Drive, saving you the hassle of having to upload them and it helps keep track of your purchases. It only supports two file formats so far, .mp3 and .m4u, but these are the types used by most people so it shouldnt be too much of a problem.

The only downside for Amazon seems to be music licensing and the record companies getting the hump (yet again!) over the fact that music might be pirated. Amazon spokesperson Cat Griffin has in return have responded by saying that “Cloud Player is an application that lets customers manage and play their own music. It’s like any number of existing media management applications. We do not need a license to make Cloud Player available.” Link

Unfortunately though, while Cloud Drive is available on the US Amazon website for everyone, the Cloud Player is not available to anyone outside the US. To say i’m dissapointed is an understatement! As for the Cloud Drive itself, its a handy tool. Similar to Dropbox, but once the Cloud Player is enabled in more countries, it will probably be one of the world leaders of cloud storage.

If you are interested in having Cloud Drive on your system or any other problems please don’t hesitate to call one of our qualified engineers and technicians and we will be delighted to perform the required steps to deal with your problem.

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| Business Hours: Monday – Friday 9:45 to 6:30 & Saturday 9:00 to 12:00

As some of you may have heard, Microsoft have finally released Internet Explorer 9. There are many improvements over IE 8, such as:

• Minimal interface, much better looking (shinier!) that previous versions
• Uses the GPU (graphics card processor) a lot more than the CPU, making  the whole browsing experience faster
• Increased privacy and security (which has been a major hole in past IE browser editions)

So far, it seems popular, with 3,649,465 downloads so far according to Softonic.com. This success has been short-lived though, enter Firefox 4. Again, much better than its predecessor which has been a staple on millions of computers for the last 2 years over IE 8, they have adjusted a few things:

• Improved interface, much like IE9, everyone is jumping on the Google Chrome bandwagon
• Rare compatibility probems (nearly all websites work properly)
• Sync function added, great tool for mobile internet users (syncs all browsed content from desktop and mobile devices, passwords and forms included)

Personally, i’ve always been a Firefox fanboy, although here at Home Helptech, our main browser of choice is IE 8. I thought it would be a nice idea to try the new version of Firefox while Simon tries the new IE 9 just to see what they are like and what they are capable of.

Internet Explorer is much cleaner than any other version of IE to date. It has moved a lot of stuff around compared to earlier browser editions, such as moving the Favourites to the right hand side of the screen rather than the left and the address bar to the left of all tabs rather than on top. It is also much quicker, and much more in-tune with Windows 7 with features such as Pinned Sites and JumpList. This is basically where site related tasks are pinned to the taskbar, thus making life easier and more efficient.

As for the other kid on the block, I find so far that Firefox is a lot cleaner in its browsing experience, it moves a lot more smoothly and quickly through different pages compared to IE 8 and Firefox 3.6. Even saving this blogpost is quicker than previous versions. I have yet to test the Sync function (as i want to wait until I get my new Android phone!) but I have played around with some of the HTML5 websites, which with Firefox 4 is a pleasure. If any plugins fail or crash, it won’t do anything to the browser except for the page using the plugin. Users can reload the page to restart the plugin, which is incredibly handy for those with sick machines!

Here at Home Helptech, we highly recommend that you upgrade your browser to one of these, as they will secure your system even more and make your browsing experience more enjoyable.

If you have any problems with these steps or any other problems please don’t hesitate to call one of our qualified engineers and technicians and we will be delighted to perform the required steps to deal with your problem.

| Lo-Call 1890 219 219 (Ireland) | Freefone 0808-CALHELP (UK) |

| Business Hours: Monday – Friday 9:45 to 6:30 & Saturday 9:00 to 12:00

Currently one of the top ways of viruses gaining access to a system is through an out-of-date Java environment. So in this blog post, we’re going to show you how to update your Java to prevent your system to be compromised. I’ll give a little background information about the update first though:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/readme-142177.html

As listed in the link above, the Java 6 Update 24, according to Oracle, “ fixes 21 security vulnerabilities, 19 of which allow attackers to remotely install malicious software on end-user machines”. This alone makes it an important upgrade to say the least. So, onto updating the Java environment:

Firstly, one must go to the http://java.com/en/ website. Here you can find a link that says “Do I Have Java” underneath the big red “Free Java Download” button. Once this is clicked, it will bring you to the page in the screenshot above. Click the “Verify Java version” button and you will be brought to a page like this:

After this page you will get one of the following screens, depending on whether you have the Update (Picture 2) or not (Picture 1) (click pictures to view):

If you end up having the top screen (as in no Update installed on the machine), the following steps are required:

Click “Download Java Now”. This will bring you to the following screen -

Click the “Agree and Start Free Download” button and a Run/Save screen should show up like so:

Choose “Run” as this will install it straight away, giving you peace of mind. A Java welcome screen shows up next and after this a second screen asks to close all browsers and browser windows so that the software can install.

Then:

The software should install now, to be sure that it is you should see something like this:

And thats it, your Java should be updated. Keep an eye out on future updates as they will cure any other vunerabilities in the system or system software.

As most of you reading this know, when we do any kind of work on a system/machine, we try our level best to install any system updates available at the time. The only problem is, a lot of these updates and patches can come in drips and drabs. Enter Windows 7 Service Pack 1.

This new Service Pack will be great for anyone who is using Windows 7  for the first time or using a new machine. All of the previous updates and patches are included in Service Pack 1 (SP1) to save you the hassle of having to install them all one by one, and it also includes a few new updates too. We would recommend everyone running Windows 7 install it when it is released in February (Feb 22nd to be exact) as it will not only fix any bugs or glitches in the system, but it will improve performance, useability and system security.

One thing that always worries some people though (myself included), is the system stability after an update, as on the odd occasion a system update might show some other system errors or faults. So you can imagine I was happy when I saw this on the Release Notes:

“Currently, no critical issues that require you to take corrective action either before or immediately after installation have been reported or discovered in testing. The document is continuously updated, so if any such issues are discovered or reported, they will be available in the Release Notes document.”

Ask any iPhone, Android Phone or Mac user and they’ll tell you – there’s instant gratification from going into their App Store and downloading the latest Facebook, Pacman or Sky News App. What’s more it’s often free or cleverly priced low so you don’t even think about it….

Well, now Intel has taken this idea and brought it to Windows. It’s called AppUp. You can find it at www.appup.com.

Thought your PC was safe from Angry Birds, the entertaining, addictive, number one iPhone game? – Not any more, you can get it for your PC now on AppUp, along with countless others such as “Pacman”, “My Little Artist” – a drawing package for kids, and, especially in January “I Need a Budget”.

Once you’ve installed AppUp itself, App installation is a breeze – just click on the App you want and it will download and install automatically. It makes you wonder if all software will soon go this way. It makes it so easy for everyone.

So give it a try, all you have to loose is your disk space

If you have any problems with these steps or any other problems please don’t hesitate to call one of our qualified engineers and technicians and we will be delighted to perform the required steps to deal with your problem.

| Lo-Call 1890 219 219 (Ireland) | Freefone 0808-CALHELP (UK) |

| Business Hours: Monday – Friday 9:45 to 6:30 & Saturday 9:00 to 12:00

Identifying exactly which background processes are causing your system to start up slowly can require quite a bit of technical expertise. Recently, however, we’ve come across a new piece of software which takes much of the effort out of doing the initial analysis. Soluto (www.soluto.com) is a piece of “Anti-Frustration Software” which times how long each start up process takes and, for some of the simpler processes, allows you to turn them off straight away. It’s a great way to give your start-up time a bit of a boost.

The software is still not in it’s final version and we did have one case of a PC in the office crashing after we installed it back in July, so “downloader beware”. Shortly after that crash, it became unavailable for download for a couple of months so we assume they were sorting out that problem.  Now that it’s back, it does hold out the promise of putting a spring in your PCs step so worth a try for some. We love it.

When I’m working on people’s PCs, one of the most common comments goes along the lines of “you’re so fast working on my machine”. A lot of this comes down to knowing some of the shortcuts that you can use to make things move along a little quicker. One of those “handy to know” things is that if you are using Windows Explorer or Internet Explorer, hitting the F11 key immediately makes it full screen. So if you’re searching for a file in Windows Explorer or that website is too long or wide to display on the small window you have, try touching the F11 key and you get the immediate benefit of the full screen.

In Internet Explorer, you’ll also notice that the title bar disappears to maximise the area viewable on your screen. Don’t worry, it hasn’t gone anywhere, just move your mouse to the top of the screen and it will reappear again.

And to get back to the original size, just touch F11 again and the window will return to normal.

Simple, but very handy.

If you have any problems with these steps or any other problems please don’t hesitate to call one of our qualified engineers and technicians and we will be delighted to perform the required steps to deal with your problem.

| Lo-Call 1890 219 219 (Ireland) | Freefone 0808-CALHELP (UK) |

| Business Hours: Monday – Friday 9:45 to 6:30 & Saturday 9:00 to 12:00

Outlook folders can get fat over time, so it’s good to compact them occasionally. Depending how bad your email database file has become, this can really speed up Outlook and it was certainly save you some file space.

The instructions for compacting vary very slightly depending on whether your outlook is connected to an Exchange server or not. For today’s blog, I’ll show you how to compact if you are connected to Exchange.

In order to compact your email database, right click on the mailbox that you want to compact and click on properties

This will bring up a properties window where you should click on the “Advanced” button.

In the Advanced Tab, click Offline Folder File Settings…

A new Offline Folder Settings windows will open. Click Compact Now.

The compacting window will open. Leave Outlook to do it’s compacting until it’s finished. It’s not unusual to achieve a saving of 25% in your file size. Given that Outlook files can be large, that can save a lot of search time later on.

Happy St Patrick’s Day everyone. It’s a damp, grey start to the morning here in Ireland but at least you can brighten up your Mozilla Firefox browser with a St Patrick’s day theme (click here). 

There are two designs in the theme, I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to discover what they are. You switch between them with the big friendly “switch” button just about the main web  page. There are also buttons that allow you to send ecards and views St Patrick’s day videos.

So if you’re not going to a parade today or joining in the festivities, why not shamrock your screen or leprechaun your laptop.

Happy St Patrick’s Day from the Home Helptech Team

If you have any problems with these steps or any other problems please don’t hesitate to call one of our qualified engineers and technicians and we will be delighted to perform the required steps to deal with your problem.

| Lo-Call 1890 219 219 (Ireland) | Freefone 0808-CALHELP (UK) |

| Business Hours: Monday – Friday 9:45 to 6:30 & Saturday 9:00 to 12:00