Defensive Computing

The May 15th issue of the Support Alert newsletter has an interesting article on converting PDF files into Word documents. Initially, the newsletter author, Ian Richards, tested a couple free online conversion services, then he got readers with seven different commercial products to convert his sample document.

He called the results "fascinating" and found that "the products varied markedly". The most expensive product produced one the worst conversions. Overall, he likes Zamzar, a free web-based conversion service, saying "Most users who have only a casual need to convert PDFs to DOC should save their pennies and use Zamzar rather than buy a commercial product." The list of file types that Zamar converts from and to is huge.

The original PDF used for the tests was posted at techsupportalert.com, but it's no longer there. So, I searched news.com and ran across a PDF formatted profile of someone named Kathy White (I haven't read the document) from 2002 that seemed like it might be hard to convert. You can see the results of the Zamzar conversion here michaelhorowitz.com/zamzar.test.white.doc.

Looks pretty good to me.

See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.

I recently found myself in an airport terminal with a laptop and time to kill. Not knowing what the Wi-Fi options were, I let Windows XP search for available wireless networks. As you can see below, one of the networks was called "Free Public WiFi". If this happens to you, don't connect to a network like this.

The first two networks are each labeled "Unsecured wireless network". Fine. But the Free Public WiFi network is described by Windows as an "Unsecured computer-to-computer network". As the name implies, this network connects to a computer run by a total stranger somewhere nearby in the terminal.

Normally, wireless networks are created, run, and governed by a router. But, two Wi-Fi-enabled computers can talk directly to each other without the need for a router-based network. Another term for this type of network is "ad-hoc". Personally, I've never needed or used an ad-hoc computer-to-computer network.

How unusual are computer-to-computer networks? I live in Manhattan, surrounded by large apartment buildings. At home, my laptop picks up 28 wireless networks. Not one of them is a computer-to-computer network.

Why would someone set up a computer-to-computer network in an airport terminal? Most likely, it is good for them and bad for you. For one thing, the network name seems a bit too obvious. Who, in an airport terminal, doesn't want free public Wi-Fi? It's like asking a child if they want candy.

I always configure laptops to only connect to router-based networks and suggest ... Read more

If the list of installed programs on your Windows XP computer is annoying long, a little organization goes a long way. Try moving items that you never expect to use to a folder called "NeverUsed" and move items you very rarely use to a folder called "Infrequent". I've done this for years, on many computers, and never regretted it.

To begin, right click on the Start button, "Open All Users" and double-click on the Programs folder. In the Windows Explorer window, right click over nothing and select "New" and then "Folder". Name the new folder "NeverUsed" and then repeat the process to make another new folder called "Infrequent".

Then, right click on the Start button again, select "Open" and double-click on this copy of the Programs folder. If you can, re-arrange these two Windows Explorer windows so they are both visible side-by-side.

We need two windows because some programs are installed for all users of Windows, while others are installed for use by just the user logged on when the program was installed. The entries for each program are shortcuts. Moving a shortcut is harmless, it does not impact the actual program in any way.

The process of moving the shortcut for a program into one of these new folders consists of two steps. First, right click on the shortcut to be moved and select "Cut". Then, right click on the destination folder (Infrequent or NeverUsed) and select "Paste".

I find that I never invoke the Adobe Acrobat Reader ... Read more

I was gladdened yesterday when techbargains.com reported a sale on a new Lenovo ThinkPad R61 running SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop ($552, see below). It's not everyday that you run into a major PC vendor selling machines pre-loaded with Linux (excluding servers).

Perhaps pre-installing Linux will become more popular, in part, due to a Vista backlash. Or, the popularity of Linux of ultra-cheap laptops (where Vista doesn't belong) such as the Asus EEE PC, will lay a foundation for its expansion. Once people see and touch and smell recent editions of Linux, they'll realize it is no more different from Windows XP than is the Mac OSX. And, as Lenovo says, Linux "Eliminates virus and spyware downtime".

I found it interesting though, that on the very page where you order this Linux laptop, Lenovo is in your face about recommending Vista Business and Vista Home Premium.

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Theoretically, Linux computers should be cheaper than those running Windows since the manufacturer gets the operating system for free. Indeed, $552 was cheaper than all the other R series ThinkPads at Lenovo.com yesterday, except one. Lenovo was selling an R61e with Windows Vista Home Basic for $536. Both machines have 1GB of RAM, an 80GB hard disk, a CD burner/DVD reader, a one-year warranty and wide screens. The Linux ThinkPad has a 14.1 inch screen, the Vista machine comes with a 15.4 inch screen.

The big issue, to me, with pre-installed copies of Linux ... Read more

PC World reported yesterday about the latest malicious attack on innocent websites (see Web Attack Worm Infecting Hapless Sites by Erik Larken). While this particular story is news, the concept is old - there is no safe neighborhood on the Internet.

The websites that have been infected with this particular brand of malicious software are, very likely, innocent bystanders. Their crime is simply being hosted in an environment with buggy or mis-configured software.

If you have your own website, EriK Larkin has an excellent suggestion, run a Google search on the entire site to look for this malware infection. Specifically, do a search like

    site:mywebsite.com winzipices.cn

Needless to say, replace "mywebsite.com" with the name of your website. It is important that there not be a space after the colon. Hopefully, as shown below, the search finds nothing.

To see infected websites, search for "winzipices.cn". However, do not visit any of these infected websites.

Alex Eckelberry, of Sunbelt Software (the company behind CounterSpy), has been writing recently about hacked websites at iPowerWeb. See Problems at iPowerWeb? and The iPowerWeb Chronicles: Problems persist. Yet, in early April, StopBadware said that iPowerWeb is much improved in terms of protecting the sites they host.

Not to pick on any particular hosting company, the important issue is that websites with no ill intentions, can still end up installing malicious software on your computer. And yes, Macs and Linux are safer from malware infestation, but not from the porn ... Read more

The big claim to fame for the Foxit PDF Reader has always been speed - it opens PDF files much faster than Adobe's own Acrobat Reader. Then too, it's free and much smaller than the Adobe Reader. Plus, people just like it. At download.com, the CNET review gave it 5 stars out of 5.

But there is another big advantage, the Foxit Reader is portable.

Portable applications are those that can be run without being installed. I'm a huge fan of portable applications and use them whenever possible, running them both off the C disk and USB flash drives. By distancing themselves from the host copy of Windows, portable applications offer two advantages. First, they insulate you from problems with Windows or the registry. On the other end, they are less likely to cause problems for the host copy of Windows.

For whatever reason, the fact that there is a portable copy of the Foxit Reader seems to be a secret. It is not mentioned on either the Foxit download page, the Foxit overview page or at download.com.

To get the portable version, simply download the 2.9MB "ZIP Package" from Foxit Software. This downloads a Zip file consisting of a single file, FoxitReader.exe. When unzipped, the reader is 6.5MB.

The portable version of Foxit saved me on one computer where the old version 7 of the Adobe Acrobat Reader could not be un-installed, and the new version 8 could not be installed. ... Read more

Last week I wrote that skepticism may be the most important thing you bring with you when dealing with the Internet. A few days later in the Wall Street Journal, Walter Mossberg said basically the same thing - "...the most insidious Internet security problems today rely on human gullibility, not tricky software."

His article, How to Avoid Cons That Can Lead to Identity Theft, included this advice "Don't click on links to offers for free software or goods that you receive in an email, especially from a sender or company you've never heard of."

The problem with this advice is twofold. First, the From address of an email message is very easily forged. You may get a scam message that seems like it came from a company you know, but really didn't. Also, identifying a company you know has its own issues.

Suppose, for example, you got an email message about a really cheap price for a subscription to the Wall Street Journal. The phony From address could well be subscriptions@wsj.com. Suppose too, that the scam sent you to the www.wsj.biz web site.

Many people know that the online version of the Wall Street Journal is wsj.com. But, wsj.biz has nothing at all to do with the newspaper or with Dow Jones. It belongs to Marc Gaines and the web page that currently displays is a temporary one that GoDaddy provides for their customers. The point being, Mr. Gaines, can do ... Read more

If there is anything a computer should be able to do, it's compute. Apparently however, Excel 2002 and Excel 2007 have trouble with this, most basic, task.

Office-watch.com details a bug involving the addition of numbers with two decimal places. Simply put, Excel generates the wrong total. It comes close to the right answer, but at this point, it really should get the exact, completely correct answer - and it doesn't. See Excel SUM anomaly from April 29, 2008.

You may also want to verify that your copy of Excel has the necessary fix for another calculation bug described at office-watch.com in Excel's problem with 65,535 & 65,536 from September 2007.

Update: May 3, 2008. For those of you who don't read the comments Woody Leonhard left the following comment to this story. Basically what he wrote is a copy of a posting he did on his askwoody.com site called The Excel bug that isn't. Quoting Woody:

"...the problem has nothing to do with Excel. It's a congenital problem in the way computers represent decimal numbers with bits and bytes. Here's how I explained it last October, in Windows Secrets Newsletter: Excel works internally with binary numbers. It's therefore subject to all the myriad problems programmers encounter when they translate base-10 numbers into base-2 and back ... The number 0.1 can't be represented precisely in binary ... If you need precise decimal accuracy, you have to use a ... Read more

An article from earlier today at Download.com about defragging the Windows paging file (Quick Fix: Put your paging file to work) needs some tweaking.

The article suggests that setting the page file Initial Size and Maximum Size to the same number will "avoid serious defragmentation". While this does avoid the paging file growing in size, the file can still be fragmented when it's initially allocated. So, if you're going to do this, you should defrag the hard disk first.

But, not allowing the page file to grow, is a questionable decision. If you make the page file too small, Windows may just stop - think of it like car without gas. If you make the page file too large, you are wasting part of the hard disk.

So, how big should your paging file be? The article says "The paging file should be set to at least 1.5 times the amount of RAM onboard." This is an old wives tale. It is a rule of thumb, not gospel.

The fact is, there is no way to know how large to make the page file. It is a function of the amount of ram available to Windows and the software being used. No single rule can ever be right for everyone. Thus, the page file is designed to grow, should the need arise.

Don't be misled by Task Manager in Windows XP. The Performance tab claims to show the page file usage, but it does not. ... Read more

Last year, I wrote that, as a computer nerd, I hold this truth to be self-evident: All new software contains bugs and design flaws. As a programmer, I can understand the inevitability of bugs. Design flaws are another matter.

The May 1st issue of Sunbelt Software's Vista News newsletter highlighted some mistakes in the design of Windows Vista.

An item called "Don't accidentally delete that Recycle Bin!" describes how a number of Vista users deleted their Recycle Bin by accident, most likely while trying to empty it. If you right click on the Recycle Bin icon on a Windows XP desktop, there is no "Delete" option. Perhaps there is a good reason to delete the Vista Recycle Bin, but even so, the option to delete it should not be somewhere that people can do so accidentally. And, deleting the Recycle Bin, since it's such an oddball thing to do, should require an extra confirmation.

If you're a Vista user without a Recycle Bin, the newsletter offers this advice: "A few weeks ago, we included a link to a KB article telling you several ways to restore a missing Recycle Bin, depending on how it came to be missing." So, you have to know how you deleted it, in order to restore it? There must have been a sale on design mistakes.

User Account Control (UAC) is perhaps the poster boy for flawed design. While it may serve a useful purpose, it annoys an awful lot of ... Read more