The document reviews several email-to-SMS solutions including Skype, RedOxygen, and Twitter, which allow users to send text messages from their email or computers to reach people when other communication methods fail. Skype and RedOxygen provide interfaces to send texts from PCs and integrate with email programs like Outlook, while Twitter allows mass texting to followers for the cost of one message. These solutions help keep people connected in emergencies or when mobile is the only viable option.

1. February 2011
Issue 120
Outlook 2010,
Email-to-SMS
solutions,
Drowned
laptops,
Insurers look
at Facebook
coopsys.net
View this edition in your web browser
CONTENTS
*** NewsBytes *** InfoBulletin
Subscriptions
IB archives
IB eBooks
Outlook 2010 new features review What we read
Privacy policy
Microsoft's latest flagship application aims to save us from our
email faux-pas.

2. Email-to-SMS solutions
Reach out to the text-generation from your email with SMS
gateways.
Audits & Reviews
Backup
Have I drowned my laptop? Cloud Solutions
Collaboration
Disaster Recovery
Laptops, smartphones, tablet PCs and coffee don't mix. IT Infrastructure
IT Strategy
Remote Working
Insurers take a sideways look at Security
Support Services
Facebook Virtualisation
Profiling is no longer the sole dominion of forensic coopsys.net
psychologists and nosey employers.
About us
Contact Us
De-crapify your PC
IB looks at quick clean up tools for new and old PCs alike.
Q&A: How to write our online
handbook?
Clicks of the Trade - Banish browser
mixed-content security warnings
Popular editions Twitter Updates
April 2010 Staying patched, Card CommunitySafe caller alerts: More scams
payment security: PCI DSS, USB flash are circulating regarding calls from
drive tricks, Windows support lifetimes, unsolicited callers trying to ex...
Eventbrite http://clct.me/H7GUw 1 day ago
Disposing of old computers: Dumping PCs
February 2011 IT 2010: Cloud in the bin has now been banned for some
computing comes down to earth, time ... http://clct.me/7vFbs 3 days ago
Virtualisation made real, Windows 7 Wireless everywhere: Huawei, the Chinese
upgrade, Are email messages unique? telecoms gear supplier, has signed a 4-year
deal to upgrade the netw... http://clct.me
November 2009 Disposable servers, /BCjuW 4 days ago
Email backup, Improve web site search Refurbished PCs and affordable computers:
ratings, Dell PC energy costs More outlets have appeared for acquiring
second-hand desktop PCs an...
http://clct.me/zhns6 5 days ago
Follow IB on Twitter!
Become an IB Facebook fan!

3. *** NewsBytes ***
Android surpasses Apple Prescription for 2011:
Mobile advertising network
tablets, tablets, tablets
Millennial Media announced
Counter-trending the
mid-January that the
straitened economic times,
Android™ operating system
Christmas and the
(OS) surpassed Apple's iOS™
Consumer Electronics Show
as the leading smartphone OS
conspired to shower
on their mobile ad network. In
consumers with a hail of
September,
go-anywhere computing
Gartner
announcements: 2011 is set to be the Year of
Research had
the Tablet. Microsoft is moving to a position
predicted
where its next Windows will also run on mobile
that
processors such as the UK's Arm
open-source
Holdings/Qualcomm chip, as well as Nvidia and
Android
Texas Instruments. The
would
move represents a radical
become the no.2 smartphone OS in 2010 and
shift from a 25-year
then the main challenger to the Symbian OS
tradition based only on
lead by 2014. Android phones, which run on
Intel chips, dubbed the
devices from multiple manufacturers, outsold
'Wintel alliance'. Industry
Apple-only iPhones for the first time in early
analysts claim 2012 is too
2010.
late for Intel to produce its tablet-optimised
Atom processors, while Qualcomm is
Tech Aid expanding its chips into Wi-Fi by acquiring
expert companies. Motorola and Toshiba
"New unveiled tablets running a new version of
technologies Google's Android OS, likely on sale by end
offer enormous March, as did Acer whose tablets range from
potential to $399 to $499, comparing well with iPad prices
make giving but undercutting Microsoft's Windows 7 tablet
time and by over 50%. Lenovo and Samsung also
money easier, displayed Dell-style tablet/laptop hybrids with
while at the a built-in keyboard. New 4G services, offering
same time making it more fun, interesting, and download speeds 10 times faster than today's
relevant." So says a new government green 3G, will spur the take up of on-the-move
paper that aims to stimulate levels of giving computing.
and mutual support in society as part of a
broad approach to bottom-up culture change.
Technology-based opportunities that exist
Don't be evil. Be
already are donations through cashpoints at everywhere.
the time of withdrawal, donating online via
search engines like Everyclick and mobile apps Google wants to be your
such as CharityBox and Givey, as well as social ever-present and pervasive
media tags like Twibbon. To contribute, companion if its recent slew of
download the fact-packed Giving Green Paper. releases from the Mountain
The consultation ends on 9th March. View Googleplex are any
indication. The Nexus S
Uptime SLA battle smartphone powered by the
latest Android 2.3 (aka
Ensuring that the 'cloud' stays up - where it's Gingerbread) follows on almost
supposed to be - has become a marketing exactly a year from the
battleground between Google and Microsoft. previous Nexus One. Featuring
The latter's Business Productivity Online an 18-day standby, a superbly bright AmoLED
Standard Suite (BPOS) averaged an uptime of 4" screen, a fast 1GHz Hummingbird processor,
better than 99.9% in 2010 while Google's 16GB storage, and HD video recording, it's
hosted Gmail service clocked 99.98%. based on the Samsung Galaxy Tab. A new
Refinements over how any outages and their Chrome
durations are counted in respect of the two OS-powered
rivals' Service Level Agreements (SLAs) have Cr-48
made for a beneficial competition to notebook
customers, who depend on the continual appeared at
presence of hosted office applications such as the end of
email to run their businesses. (Via Network 2010 for
World). laptops,
though with 60,000 of these jet-black
anonymous devices on offer for testers, Cr-48
Internet from space is still clearly in development, though it
promises to be upgraded silently to the latest
The new year version on every reboot.
launched Not wanting to leave you
with a alone for a second,

4. second Google TV is with you in
6-tonne the living room too. This
European particular project, initially
Internet appearing on Sony and
satellite Logitech TVs, has been scaled back pending
arriving to take up a position above the equator software improvements and talks with more
at nine degrees East. Eutelsat's KA-SAT is manufacturers. Bringing Google-style search to
intended to target millions of European homes TV programming via a keyboard remote control
in so-called 'not-spots', remote from terrestrial or phone or voice commands, the intention is
ADSL connections. Channelled via over 80 to combine the whole experience with the
beams on territory stretching from North Africa Android Market app store.
to southern Scandinavia, KA-SAT will serve up
to two million households via its 70Gbps
throughput.
I'll phone you after the
break ...
Office 365 (R.I.P. BPOS)
Business Productivity Online Services (BPOS) is
being brought together with 2010 releases of
Exchange, SharePoint and the Lync unified
communications platform to be re-branded as
Office 365, a major relaunch of Microsoft's
business cloud services. Going beyond
The spiralling number of smartphone owners is
traditional online solutions, users can also
about to be hotly chased by advertisers, eager
subscribe to the Office 2010 desktop
to promote products directly on to the screen
productivity suite. Office 365 is currently a beta
that's always with us. In 2010 mobile Internet
programme. The small business version is
usage was 1.8bn hours but is set to soar to
aimed at organisations of under 25 people at
7bn in 2015, or 28% of total online time,
just $6 per user per month.
predicts Enders Analysis; mobile-driven ad
spending in the UK will grow at 45% per
Nokia loses top annum compound from £46m in 2009 to £420m
by 2015 they say. YouTube already currently
smartphone slot exceeds 200m views a day on mobile, and the
US ad market set to surpass $1bn in 2011.
Worldwide shipments of Android-based
However, until mobile payment systems are
smartphones outstripped any other in the last
better developed, ad sales from mobile
quarter of 2010. Google's mobile platform
searches will fail to deliver their promise.
reached 32.9 million, marginally overtaking
previous leader Nokia whose Symbian platform
(still ranked the most popular among all
mobiles) trailed at 31 million, according to
global market data published by Canalys at the
end of January.
*** end of NewsBytes ***
^ Back to contents ^
1. Outlook 2010 new features
review
Microsoft's latest flagship application aims to save us from our email
faux-pas and do just about everything but write the actual messages for us.
Help
at
hand.
Back If you're one of the unlucky ones that jumped early and adopted Outlook 2007 -
issues
just a

5. curiously omitted from the Ribbon interface makeover applied to Word and Excel - you'll
find Outlook has now been welcomed into the fold, along with plenty of smart little
time-savers, and the odd annoyance too.
Talk to the mouse
A saviour for anyone working in email-jammed environments will be the Ignore
Conversation feature. Doing pretty much what it says on the tin, it allows you to opt out
of distracting threads and topics that no longer apply - for example, a project you've
stopped being part of.
Dextrous moves
click
away Quick Steps (under the Home | Mail tab) are basically
macros that do all that repetitive everyday stuff for you,
like forwarding emails to team colleagues, moving
messages into your "Done" folder, or deleting the original
email once you've fired off a reply. Aside from supplying
pre-prepared macro Quick Steps, the wizard lets you
customise your own.
"Doh!" killer
All of us have suffered the chagrin of being overtaken by events - we reply to a message
whose relevance has been superseded in the email conversation by subsequent replies.
To save us future self-embarrassments, Outlook 2010 pops up a warning below the
Ribbon: "You are not responding to latest message in this conversation. Click here to
open", and makes us fallible humans look smarter than we really are, but only if we heed
the warning.
We don't seem to talk any more
In similar vein, Outlook users attached to Exchange 2010 are warned when trying to send
an email to absent colleagues with out-of-office replies turned on.
In the picture
Emails with added 'biz flash' are the order of the day for Office 2010 and Outlook is no
exception. The Insert tab allows you to add some pizzazz to your missives with pictures,

6. SmartArt graphics, Excel charts and shapes, and troubleshooting-style
screen-shots, as well as providing in-place editing features.
Let's call the whole thing off
Less flash, and more of a hash, is Conversation View, which group
messages by subject into a single thread with a drop-down menu arrow
revealing all threaded messages. However because threading is based
on the subject line, clicking the drop-down bundles together all your
colleagues' "I'm away ...." type messages , and incorrectly corrals all
the messages with no subject line!
Heads up, hands on
The Calendar gets a Schedule View, presenting your calendar alongside
colleagues' calendars for a quick 'heads-up' of the coming day. A
vertical To-Do bar sneaks in on the right of email previews, completing
your round-up of matters to hand.
Suggested Contacts is the main addition to the Contacts section, and
Outlook 2010 now logically harvests brand new correspondents and
automatically creates an appropriate address card for each within
Contacts.
Lastly, a Xobni-style drop-down menu on every email footer reveals
your email correspondents' recent messages, attachments and
appointments for a detailed conversation summary. Status updates
from social networks are on the cards via this feature but you'll need to
be connected to a SharePoint Server 2010.
Contacts
More on the Outlook 2010 home page
More on Collaboration and SharePoint
-IB-
^ Back to contents ^
2. Email-to-SMS solutions
Reach out to the text-generation from your email with SMS gateways and
software for every situation.
Help
at
hand. Sooner or later everyone gets stumped by a breakdown in everyday communications –
Back whether it's a duff PC or a collapsed broadband provider – and we revert to good ol'
issues SMS, aka, the Short Message System. It's handy, in your pocket, quick and generally
just a pretty reliable.
click
away In emergencies, like harsh winter weather, we turn to texts to keep colleagues and

7. friends informed, if not actually dig us out of
trouble. But did you know you can use texts for
communicating with masses of people at once?
Snowed in
Hauliers use texts to keep in touch with fleets of Oh the weather outside is frightful,
And the transport's just a write-off,
distant drivers, and businesses send them to So because we've no place to go,
mobilise their road warriors swiftly. Now charities Text the co: "We're no-go, IMO"
are using mass-texting to mobilise campaigns and
audiences, and it doesn't have to be expensive. Apologies to Sammy Cahn
Many of the specialised gateways offer discounts for
bulk, so purchasing hundreds or thousands of text
credits becomes cheaper per message.
IB looks at a handful of systems to cope with every SMS need.
Skype
Known to the world for free
PC-to-PC phone calls, Skype
provides a friendly interface that is
probably one of the most familiar
ones and allows you to text from
any PC keyboard. For those who
have purchased Skype credit
online, SMS texts are simply
deducted from the balance shown
inside Skype.
Rates: 5.6p (ex-VAT) in
the UK and 6.2p to US
landlines.
Recipients see the name of your Skype account as the sender, but can't return
messages unless you have signed up for a Skype Online number.
RedOxygen
Established for a decade, the
Australian RedOxygen offers
solutions for office, and bulk SMS
delivery and a web interface for all
major browsers, with the
surprising absence of Chrome.
A set of core features includes
extension of standard text
messages up to 765 characters
(Long SMS), switch replies to go
to email, set an outgoing name
instead of the phone number, set
message limits as an administrator,
and choose secure connections to
protect privacy.
The browser-based Web SMS solution gives you a web SMS "Inbox" and "Sent Items"
that logs messages in and out and recipients can be selected from an address book or
distribution list.
The Office version supports anything from Outlook 2000 upwards and its seamless
integration places a simple "New SMS Message" button on the Outlook toolbar. You can
also schedule SMS messages to be sent later and have calendar reminders texted to your
phone.
Rates: 8p down to 4p per message in bulk within the UK
Free trials are available for all solutions.

8. Twitter
A cost-efficient method of texting
hundreds or thousands of people
and all for the cost of one text
message! The proviso is of course
that you may have had to spend
hours and hours acquiring and
keeping Twitter followers.
Not everyone monitors their Twitter
by phone but in the heat of an
event, movers and shakers are
glued to the stream of tweets
whether they're on a phone, desktop
or laptop so its a natural for mass
communication.
A crucial difference here is that
Twitter conversation is
many-to-many rather than the usual
one-to-many scenario or email-
to-SMS.
Rates: The cost of one text
message to all your followers on
+44 7624 801423, though some
carriers charge this as an
international number at 15p to 25p per message.
txtlocal
Offers significantly reduced
rates for UK registered charities
with services ranging from
Email to SMS, Online Web SMS,
and an API gateway for
integrating your web site or
program to send texts directly,
as well as picture messaging
(MMS) services.
txtlocal also provides a service to collect donations from texts after you have purchased a
Charity Short Code.
Rates: 5p down to 3.8p per message, but 2.8p flat rate for charities
FrontlineSMS
For those who would rather have control
of everything on their desktop or laptop
FrontlineSMS may provide a more
suitable and freely downloadable option.
Its open source software turns your machine into texting hub, sending messages from
your PC through your attached mobile phone.
As such, FrontlineSMS doesn't need an Internet connection and simply employs whatever
tariff (monthly or PAYG) that you have with your mobile network provider, making it easy

9. and unlimited to try out. The installed software stores all phone numbers and incoming
and outgoing message records, which means independence from the Internet or the
presence of a provider's web servers.
Rates: depends entirely on your mobile provider.
TextMagic
For global access, TextMagic might be your answer,
offering worldwide texting to at least 200
countries.
A boggling number of communication permutations
include email-to-SMS and vice-versa, a bulk SMS gateway for server integration, email-
to-mobile forwarding, downloadable SMS software for PCs and Macs, a web interface
(any browser), and a 2-way SMS reply service for receiving as well as sending. You can
even test it right from the home page!
Rates: From around 7p down to 4.5p within the UK
SMS2email
Paradoxically available from SMS2email is an
email-to-SMS service that optionally includes
notifications of delivery to the network
and/or mobile handsets in the form of email
notifications to your account.
Its bulk messaging service permits up to
1,000,000 mobile numbers to be contacted.
By uploading a CSV file (created with any
spreadsheet), it's
easy to send a
personalised
mail-out with a different message going to each mobile owner.
Its namesake SMS-to-email service provides a free gateway, and multimedia (MMS)
services, while a useful textback service makes it possible to track campaigns where
recipients texting back keywords.
Rates: 12p down to 5p per message, or monthly contracts.
Its sister site aql handles bulk SMS messages at similar prices.
mutube gateway list
Site mutube.com presents a complete worldwide list of email-to-SMS gateways for use
direct from your email software:
http://www.mutube.com/projects/open-email-to-sms/gateway-list/.
The technique generally involves putting the mobile phone number in front of the @
symbol in the email message.
It also provides an SMS web form so you can send texts straight from a web browser.
Some networks require activation to allow this service.
-IB-
^ Back to contents ^

10. 3. Have I drowned my
laptop?
'Café society' has helped us to mix work and relaxation. But laptops,
smartphones, tablet PCs and coffee just don't mix, at least not in any kind of
sustainable relationship. Discover how to recover and protect laptops and
mobiles from water damage.
You sit back, having put the last full stop on the
last paragraph of the last page of a very long
research paper.
Time to reach over for a well-deserved slurp of
that coffee as you ease round the side of the
screen ... but, oh no! ... your sleeve catches on
the top edge of the case. Suddenly, your heart is
sinking faster than the hot, brown liquid that's
slipping between the button tops of the keyboard.
You didn't see that coming but you can sure as
Many a slip 'twixt cup and chip hell see everything disappearing into a sticky
sludge ... keyboard, hard drive, research paper,
months of work, and maybe several hundred
pounds worth of laptop too?
Does a laptop like this end its days in caffeine-soaked oblivion? Most users give up, go
out and buy a new one, but it's worth trying these few tips to bring your device back
from liquid-related catastrophes.
Help Liquescent laptops
at
hand. Most 'laptop deaths' occur following spills or water seepage, despite today's portable PCs
Back having sealed keyboards to keep fluid at bay from leaking into the circuits.
issues
just a A&E
click
away Turn off as fast as you can, maybe even a hard shutdown (press and hold power
button).
Surgery
Blot up up excess liquid with a soft cloth. Don't wipe, or you risk pushing the
liquid further in.
Disconnect external cables, drives, network cards, USB sticks. Blot up these
exposed sockets and removable devices.
Leave the case intact. Removing water doesn't have to mean killing the internals
too
Rock the laptop slowly to each side, let any liquid drain out. Don't do shake, rattle
and roll.
Drain any final drops by turning the laptop upside down.
Get a blow dryer on its coolest setting and carefully fan air over all parts.
Leave the laptop face-down to air-dry for at least an hour, preferably all day.
Rehab
Plug any removable devices back in and re-start.
Obviously if sparks fly and/or burning smells are detected, power down the laptop
fast and find a repair specialist.

11. If it doesn't start at all, the battery may be in 'sulk mode'. See if a charged spare
battery works. Even battery packs contain processors that shut themselves down
permanently for self-protection; if just the battery pack is damaged, a specialist
repair shop may be able to reset it and bring it back to life.
If it starts up cleanly, test-run a few programs and test external devices too. Next, back
up your laptop data. Don't bank on the laptop running faultlessly from here on in.
If it's more than just water ingress - such as sticky juice, sugary coffee or salty brine -
after drying, clean the surfaces (including the touchpad) with a soft, damp cloth. A 50%
solution of isopropyl alcohol, diluted window clearer, or commercial keyboard cleaner
will do wonders.
Soggy smartphones
Even expensive mobiles are on the whole built
around consumer needs. Unless they are
specifically designed as waterproof, or classed as
a tough phone, or ruggedised with an IP54 or
better rating (the last digit indicates increasing
resilience to water ingress), moisture will
penetrate even tight-fitting plastic covers within
20 seconds.
A&E
Speed means survival! Extract the mobile from the water asap.
Power it off if you can.
Surgery
Remove the phone battery to increase the survival chances of internal circuits.
Remove any SIM and memory cards. Dab them with paper towels and leave to air
dry.
Remove any covers and connectors to expose gaps and breathing holes in the
phone case to improve air flow.
Shake the phone gently to extract droplets. Towel off any remaining drops by
hand.
Try to draw out excess moisture with a vacuum cleaner. The idea is to create
additional draft from a distance rather than sucking up water vapour, especially as
static build-up can kill a phone too.
Prop the phone on paper towels and leave to dry for 24 hours, checking every few
hours and changing the paper if absorbed moisture becomes apparent.
Rehab
Does it all look clean and dry?
Replace the battery, SIM, card, etc, power on and test the mobile.
If the phone looks dead, try powering it via the charger without its battery, unless
its manual tells you specifically not to do this. If successful, the only damage is
the cost of a new battery.
If it's a smartphone with sync capabilities, try connecting it to your computer and
running a sync and backup. Owners of Android-based phones will generally be able to
retrieve all their data and purchased apps from cloud storage anyway.
If the mobile is still lifeless, try an authorised dealer for your brand of phone. Be honest
about the circumstances; internal sensors (or 'Liquid Submersion Indicators', often
included for insurance purposes) are triggered by the presence of moisture.
Rate this article * ** *** **** *****
-IB-

12. ^ Back to contents ^
4. Insurers take a sideways
look at Facebook
Profiling is no longer the sole dominion of forensic psychologists and nosey
employers.
Facebook and Twitter have give everyone the
means to become a human resources detective
in a couple of clicks.
Among the first to take an enthusiastic and
cost-benefit-driven approach to pursuing
Facebook profiles have been insurers. The
bottom line being that customers who post their
excessive offline lifestyle and other revelry on
social networks could help reap rewards for
insurers by allowing them to charge higher
insurance premiums. No question about disclosing 'material facts': the evidence is there
for all to see.
It seems that social networking trends have ushered in a new era of snooping to support
'predictive modelling' schemes by data mining customer data from a variety of sources.
Trials conducted by Deloitte Consulting LLP have shown that analysing a customer's data
for potential health risks was as useful as sending them for a blood or urine test. This
valuable source of information about customer health and life expectancy is not lost on
insurers.
Help
at Richard Verdin, protection director Aviva, has indicated that an awareness of alcohol
hand. consumption and petrol expenditure would benefit both firms, premium payers and
Back claimants. He recently told the Sunday Times: "As well as online data collection we are
issues looking at partnerships with banks, supermarkets, gyms and employers to share data
just a with a view to introducing these methods next year."
click
away Vast databases of our consumer habits are amassed daily from social networking profiles,
online sales forms, marketing polls and surveys, subscriptions, registrations and public
records.
Purchasing this data and consolidating it with online market research gives insurers new
tools to appraise our lifestyle choices. Being 'Googled' or 'Facebooked' is for them a
natural future extension of today's standard assessments such as demographics and the
'post code lottery'.
Every day as consumers we dispense our private data (perhaps unknowingly) to market
researchers and insurance firms by shopping online, using credit cards, loyalty cards,
membership cards, or just by forgetting untick opt-in boxes at the bottom of application
forms and online registrations.
Look after your six-pack
"You are what you eat" has probably never been truer than it's about to become in the
eyes of your insurance company, after all, a supermarket customer that regularly includes
a 6-pack of crisps in their salt- and fat-laden basket is going to be a worse risk than
someone who veers towards fruit 'n' veg plus a 6-pack of clementines.
Spice up these valuable data nuggets with some inadvisable Facebook postings on

13. drunken rampages and you heading into an insurance inferno and the employer's recycle
bin. Putting this together with the realisation that some social networks never delete your
data demonstrates that you are assembling the the kind of CV that's not for public
viewing, yet that's precisely what it is.
Too close to home?
Likewise, tech fanatics who hook their mobiles up to Facebook and location-based
services like foursquare create a series of geographical tracking points that make it a
cinch for potential burglars to tell when nobody's home. And if it's easy for them, then
insurance companies may have spotted these promiscuous gaffes too.
Facebook privacy tips:
Facebook friends? Stick to people you know (it's what Facebook actually tells you
to do).
Keep privacy settings restricted to just friends for your private stuff
Create a closed user group for your more 'off-piste' activities
Most social networks are full of ephemeral comments that friends have read within
minutes. Scratch your old stuff to avoid leaving an incriminating trail for
employers-to-be
Twitter privacy tips:
Bear in mind that Twitter never deletes anything Be careful what you tweet
Open a new account with a closed/blocked
status for private activities Chinese
whispers trail
sends "Oxford
Street
Subscription privacy tips: shooting" out
of control on
Twitter.
When subscribing online, remember to untick boxes
that would otherwise circulate your data and opt you
into third-party companies and group lists.
-IB-
Rate this article * ** *** **** *****
^ Back to contents ^
5. De-crapify your PC
Software that arrives on a new PC can sap its performance and storage quota
from the minute you switch on. IB looks at quick clean up tools for new and
old PCs alike.
Help
at
hand.
Back A new PC may come bundled with all sort of applications that the Original Equipment
issues Manufacturer (OEM) thought would help you get started or, more realistically, would sell
just a the machine. A few weeks later, these programs sit there unused, unloved and despised
click for the space and memory they may hog.
away

14. Prime programs or crap apps?
So-called 'crapware' manifests itself in the form of:
times-limited antivirus software that demand a paid subscription,
branded utilities such as profile managers,
trialware like office programs,
web browser toolbars that add clutter and reduce the viewing area,
ISP-related utilities such as those installed by BT and AOL.
Vendors pay handsomely to get their software pre-loaded and hopefully hook potential
new users by presenting their wares 'in your face'. A software program is easily removed
as we know from within Control Panel | Add/remove programs (or Programs and Features
in Windows 7), but what if a program function is difficult to discern or it doesn't even
show up? Do you still remove it, and how?
Removing these will free up relatively small amounts of disc storage, but may liberate
crucial MegaBytes of working memory (RAM), especially where they run as a service or
appear in the system tray/notifications area. This selection of tools sleuth out the useful
from the useless.
WinPatrol
A utility that starts up with a
rather disconcerting barking
noise until you get used to it
(presumably because of its
'Scotty the Windows Watchdog'),
clearly displays the authors for
each program so you can at least
Google the company if you're still
stumped about its purpose.
So, for example, you can
discover (before you rip it out!) that "Bonjour" is not a pice of malware communication
software but a service installed by Apple Inc as part of iTunes.
Autoruns
From the venerable
SysInternals stable now
acquired by Microsoft, this tool
normally aimed at advanced
users, but is excellent for
analysing and removing
unwanted startup programs and
has the advantage of
installation-free-running; just
double-click the autoruns icon.
Like WinPatrol, it allows for
hiding Microsoft-signed entries
to make the listings easier to view, but can also verfy program code signatures to help
you eliminate rogue-ish software and registry keys.
It shows startup items and registry keys, ranking programs in running order, and reveals
file paths giving each program a context in which to judge it.
PC DeCrapifier
A simple, wizard-based remover that lists third-party programs and prompts you for their
removal.
PC DeCrapifier offers a restore point creation along the way so you can roll back in the
event of inadvertently over-enthusiastic cleaning!

15. CCleaner
An eminently sound registry cleaner,
CCleaner removes redundant entries
(reducing registry file size), browser
caches and temporary files, as well
as files left behind after failed
installs and removals. A good
post-cleanup operator.
Since you are only going to use this
tool occasionally you could uninstall
that too after you're done.
Don't forget to scour the Progam Files folder later and scrub all traces of programs you
deleted; sometimes preference settings are retained here even after uninstalling.
Contacts
Autoruns www.sysinternals.com
CCleaner www.ccleaner.com
PC DeCrapifier www.pcdecrapifier.com
WinPatrol www.winpatrol.com
Email* Org
-IB-
^ Back to contents ^
6. Q&A: How to write our online
handbook?
Hi Mark,
Question
We previously used some
software to build a user manual
Mark
for our database. Now we are
looking for something better to
write our handbook, preferably
online rather than the old
printed format. Do you know
what organisations and
academics use for this sort of
thing?

16. The classic solution to building a manual these days is to use a Wiki, which allows
multiple authors to edit pages collaboratively and show a historical audit trail of who
edited what. This means you can either import exiting pages quickly and/or build up
your manual gradually and edit it as required. Wikipedia and its thousands of authors
is the most well-known example of a wiki.
Some online wikis or portals are free,
others you must pay for and some do What's a wiki?
a combination of both, such as Zoho
www.zoho.com/wiki.
Check out a plain English explanation in this video by Common Craft
Help Many Content Management Systems
at (CMS) such as Drupal will also allow you to build a Wiki or co-authoring portal inside
hand. them. For instance, if you have a Windows Server in-house, Co-Operative Systems
Back could build you a SharePoint installation to achieve this, which will have other
issues collaborative advantages for your organisation too.
just a
click A good comparison site of wikis can be found at www.wikimatrix.org. Two of the most
away popular ones, DokuWiki and PmWiki run on most server platforms and appear in large
nmbers of languages.
Choose the pull-down labelled "25 most popular" if the choice is too bewildering!
Discover answers in more Q&A topics
-IB-
Found this article helpful? Rate it * ** *** **** *****
Got a "Q" for which you would like an "A" ?
Submit your IT question here:
^ Back to contents ^
Clicks of the Trade - Banish
browser mixed-content security
warnings
--- Quick tips for happier clicks! ---
Help
at Web browsers have good intentions when it comes to guarding our
hand.
Back security, but sometimes it's plain annoying.
issues
just a In Internet Explorer, you might see:
click "Do you want to view only the webpage content that was
away
delivered securely?"
while in Firefox, this might appear as:
"You have requested an encrypted page that contains some

17. unencrypted information."
These pop-up warnings are looking out for your PC's well-being and
the intention is to protect you against non-secure web scripts
accessing information you want kept secure, such as credit card info
and online passwords.
Online accounts
for mobile
phones often
serve up pages
with a mix of
secure and
non-secure
data, for
example, ads
for new phones
and tariffs in a
side bar while
displaying your
bills in the
centre of the
page.
If your surfing
habits steer you
clear of dubious
sites, or at least
you have
excellent link
scanning in
place, you can
turn these
warnings off for
a less annoying
browsing
experience. In
any case, it's
worth knowing
where these
settings are
kept.
In Internet Explorer:
pull down Tools menu (or press Alt+T keys) | Internet
Options
Security tab | Internet zone | Custom level button
Scroll down about half way to find the "Miscellaneous" section
and set Display mixed content to Enabled
In Firefox:
pull down Tools menu (or press Alt+T keys) | Internet
Options
Security tab | Settings button
Untick "I am about to view an unencrypted page that contains

18. some encrypted information"
** try it now **
More Clicks of the Trade
-IB-
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19. CO-OPERATIVE SYSTEMS
Interpreting Information Technology