Two Minute Guide to Getting Rid of a Virus on your Computer

If your computer gets a virus, it's best to stop typing in any passwords with it. If you've already typed in passwords into an infected computer, you should change them once the virus has been removed.

Before you try to get rid of the virus, make a backup of your important files. There's a chance you won't be able to remove the virus and will have to restore your computer to its factory state, so make sure you backup all of your files, like documents, photos, music and video, and databases. Make a backup by connecting an external hard drive to your computer and dragging your files onto it.

After backing up your files, download MacAfee AntiVirus Plus and run it on your system to clean it of viruses. You can download a 30-day trial version to see if it works. Other Anti-Virus programs are fine too, but I've found MacAfee to be the best. Plus it's free.

If MacAfee works and the viruses are gone, you should be all set. If MacAfee fails and the virus is still there, find the setup DVDs that came with your computer to restore it to its factory state. Once your computer has been restored, re-install your programs, and then copy your backed-up files back on to it.

To prevent viruses from getting onto your computer, the most important step you can take is to avoid Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. Use Firefox instead. Also, be careful with installing programs from the internet. Do not allow a web page to download or install software on your computer unless you're sure it's safe.

It is important to remove viruses. Once one has infected your system, it can record every key stroke you type, including your passwords.

Good free software to put on a new computer...

Word Processor: OpenOffice Writer
Looks just like Microsoft Word 2003, and has the same features. It saves documents in Word format, and is very fast. As good as Word 2003, and better than Word 2007.

Spreadsheet: OpenOffice Calc
Good functionality and charting and similar to Excel 2003.

Sound Editor: Audacity
A great program, which can save in MP3 format after you download the free LAME MP3 DLL.

Graphics: GIMP
The best free image editor I could find. Good for some photo editing but its selection and editing tools were hard to use. The graphics area was the only area where I couldn't find a free program good enough to mean not having to buy commercial software. Photoshop is much better than GIMP, and GIMP had the most features I could find among the free graphics software programs.

Music Player: Windows Media Player
You can change its settings to record music in MP3 format so that your music can be shared with other programs and devices.

Anti-Spyware: Windows Defender
A good anti-spyware program that notifies you when you have spyware and can sometimes get rid of it. If it can't get rid of it, try this.

Nikko R2D2 Webcam Review

Nikko's R2D2 webcam is 8" tall and comes with a light saber to control it, which can also be used as a Skype handset. The webcam itself works well, and it's hard to go wrong with a web-viewable R2D2 webcam, but the remote control and auto-record features don't work too well.

The R2D2 unit can be remote controlled either with the light saber remote, or with its Windows software. It has a limited range of about 10 feet. The manual says 7 meters, though in my apartment I had reliable control only in the same room. You can move it around, but only in your computer room and it won't work on carpeting. The remote has to be plugged in to your computer's USB port to work, so it's not portable, and if you have to be that close to your computer anyway to use it, it's easier to just use the computer.

The webcam can be set up to take photos or movies when it hears a sound or when scheduled by its timer, but this does not work with its standby mode, which is needed if its batteries are to last longer than a few hours. Without standby mode, it will only auto record for a few hours (8 according to the manual) from when you set it, after which its 6 AA batteries run down. So if you're using it as a nanny cam, you'll need to put new batteries in every time before leaving the house.

The first R2D2 webcam I received (from eToys.com, who were helpful with the replacement) wouldn't transmit video at all, but a replacement unit did. Nikko's customer service number in the manual has been disconnected and both eToys and I couldn't find a number that worked, so I'd suggest buying this from a store that takes returns rather than eBay.


The included software looks a bit rushed and takes a while to figure out, but it works fine. The software allows you to move R2D2, record video and images, and use it as a webcam for Skype conversations. The webcam can display overlays of an X-wing or Millennium Falcon cockpit. When dialing home to view the webcam, you can leave R2D2 in standby mode and the software will wake him up.

Tony's desktop

Google Analytics w/Blogger

This blog is now hooked up to Google Analytics, which shows graphs of how many people visit it, which are the popular posts, etc. It was very easy to do and took about 10 minutes. You just put a javascript snippet at the bottom of your blogger template and a day later your results will start to appear.

It also sounds like this will be done automatically for all Blogger users by the end of the year. Google is currently in private beta with an integration of the MeasureMap tool they purchased (which does analytics) with Blogger.

Google, bork, bork, bork!

Marissa Mayer's speech at Google I/O mentioned how she'd added a Swedish Chef option to Google's home pages. It's great - on the home page, it's under Preferences > Interface Language.

The easiest way to put a short video on a web page

The absolute easiest way is to use YouTube, or a site like it. But if you host the video yourself, the video quality will be better and you can control the look of your movie player.

I've found that the easiest way to add a video hosted on your own web server is with Adobe's free Flash Video player. It makes adding a video to a web page as easy as adding an image. Flash video is the most common video format on the web today, used by sites like YouTube and MySpace, and Adobe's player is only 15K in size and very easy to use and customize.

To get started, save your video in Flash Video format. This usually means saving it with the .flv extension. There are many video programs that can convert movies into Flash Video format, including the Flash Video Encoder program that comes with Adobe Flash.

Once you have your video in FLV format, download the Flash Video player from Adobe Labs. Unzip the files, run any of the example web pages, and you'll see the player playing a sample video. Now replace this sample video with your own video. To do this, view the web page's HTML and change the reference to the sample video's filename with your own movie's filename. The sample page should now be playing your video file.

At this point you should be done and can cut and paste the sample web page's HTML code into your web page. More detailed instructions are in the documentation that comes with the unzipped Adobe Flash Video player.

Stopping Spam

Spam is currently 80% of all email sent over the internet. It's fairly inevitable that spammers will find out your email address, so the only help seems to be to have a spam filter.

I used to use Thunderbird, Mozilla's email program, as it had a built-in spam blocker. It caught 93% of the spam I received. In one week, out of the 482 messages I received, 27 were real, 424 were detected spam and 31 were undetected spam.

I switched to Gmail which catches almost all spam (over 99%) - I only get one or two spam emails a week now. It can include your other email accounts and can push email to an iPhone. Yahoo's pretty good too. Hotmail doesn't filter spam as well, nor can it push to an iPhone yet.

How do spammers get my email address?
One way is that spammers write programs to search web sites for email addresses. Some web sites display your email address under certain conditions, so spammers write programs to collect these addresses.

Spammers also receive lists of email addresses from employees of companies who own such lists. They may buy or even steal them.