Letters!!!!!
Letters are piling up and believe it or not, some are not ads for herbal Viagra. I’d like to get to some of them now as there are some recurring themes.Q. I read with interest that you purchased an Apple after many years of using a Windows machine. I am considering the same road and I am interested if there is anything you miss about the Windows world.
A. Well, it’s not like I went cold turkey. I still use Windows machines daily and I still have several Windows machines. That said, when I reach for a laptop to use I nearly always grap the Apple. There is nothing yet that I have discovered that I cannot use with the Apple (except the online version of Quickbooks). I have installed Virtual PC on my Apple so if I am ever in a pinch I can fire up a Windows machine inside my Apple. That software isn’t nearly peppy enough to run a cutting-edge game but running Windows XP Pro on Ibook is plenty peppy. (Remember I added a 1 GB RAM chip from Crucial.com to mine, so I have 1.5 gigs of RAM)
All of that said, I don’t regret the purchase one moment.
Q. You wrote a couple times about repeaters for wireless routers and how you found them not to work. Well, I didn’t listen and bought one. I could not get it to work either, despite 8 hours on the phone on and off with Linksys. Now I still only have one bar or sometimes no connectivity.
A. What I would do in your shows is investigate Powerline networking solutions. I have written about them in the past (the brand I played with was Actiontec but they are available from many companies.) Basically you plug a small box into an electrical outlet and run a wire from it to your router. Then you plug a matching box anywhere else in your house and run a wire from it to your second device. The networking signals are passed through the powerlines in your house to the second device. The speed is just about the same as a native router connection and the ease of connection cannot be beat. You’d be up and running in 5 minutes and never have a dropped connection,
Q. I am preparing to sell my old PC and am wondering what to do with the hard drive to protect my data. I have some personal stuff on here and I heard just erasing it doesn’t do it. I am confused about the various wiping utilities out there.
A. You are correct to be concerned. The only surefire way to protect your data on your hard drive is to remove the hard drive, take it apart and shred the discs on the inside. (Seriously). I would sell the PC either without a hard drive or make sure you or your computer technician does a “three-pass binary DoD wipe” of the hard drive. If what you have on there is incredibly personal keep in mind that given enough determination and the right amount of equipment and knowledge, even that data could be recoverable (probably by the NSA or CIA type of spook.)
I’d consider buying a new hard drive and selling the PC with a fresh drive.
Q. My version of Microsoft Office that came with my new PC has expired. Is there a cheaper alternative to this product that is just as good?
A. The problem here is what you mean by “good.” There are plenty of alternatives out there including a free one, Open Office (www.openoffice.org) and other things such as WordPerfect and Microsoft Works that cost less than full-fledged Office. Keep in mind if you are a student or teacher you can get a discounted version Office, too.
WEEKLY WEB WONDER: Freshmeat is a great site that helps the open source community and also gives you a download of the excellent Mplayer free media player, which has all the codecs most will ever need included. See it at www.freshmeat.net
James Derk is co-owner of Cyberdads, a computer repair firm, and computer columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. His e-mail address is jim@cyberdads.com
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