Q&A Presents: Maui Online!

This is the final week for our current contest, we’ll be having our next Viewer Mail show and the drawing on next week’s show, Saturday, September 7th.

Once again, thanks to Office Max in the Maui Marketplace, we’re having a contest for all our listeners. This time we’re giving away another doozy, a Sony Cybershot DSC-S730 digital camera!

This pocket camera sports a 7.2 megapixel CCD, a 3x optical zoom lens, a bright 2.4″ LCD easily visible in the sun, and image stabilization features. Plus it runs on standard AA batteries, so no worrying about expensive, proprietary batteries!

Normally retailing for ~$170, you could win this camera simply by sending us an e-mail to mauionline@q-a.net with your name, and a question, show topic suggestion, comment or just a note saying hi. We’ll take all our entries and start reading some of the best during our next Viewer Mail show. One lucky entrant will win the camera!

We’d like to thank all our listeners again for their support, and look forward to your calls and e-mails!

EBay!, Part 1

EBay!, Part 2

We talked to Tracy (and callers!) about recent changes in Ebay, and auctions online in general.  We covered setting up, selling, buying, sniping, and other issues with the world of online auctions.  It was fun!

We got several calls dealing with email, and the programs we recommend.  We really do like Thunderbird better than Outlook Express, but depending on what features you use, your mileage may vary.

For example, Alert internet Surfer Mark asked about calendaring functions, such as in Microsoft Outlook.  Thus far, Mozilla doesn’t have ap rogram that has those features, although that may be changing soon.  Another caller asked about getting AOL email, or Microsoft Hotmail through Thunderbird, which isn’t currently possible.

Another caller had accidentally moved or deleted an important email.  We advised him to use the search functions in Outlook to search for the email, in the possible case that it hasn’t disappeared into the ether.

Alert Internet Surfer John called, warning of a Firefox plugin that updated to something nasty when he updated to Firefox 3.  It’s called Freecordr, and seemed to cause a great number of pop-ups, and not be uninstalled or removed easily.  Thanks for the warning, John!

Viruses, Spyware and Phone Calls, Part 1

Viruses, Spyware and Phone Calls, Part 2

We talked quite a bit about the basics of viruses, spyware, as well as some new, clever vectors the virus-makers are using to convince you to click on and invite their bad stuff in.  A new bunch of Viruses and Spyware — puporting to be anti-spyware and antivirus programs themselves — are making the rounds.  Some make little bubbles in the bottom of your screen, just as if you are getting a notice from Microsoft about updates.  All these are trying to entice you into clicking on them and thus activating the installation of these horrid pieces of software.

So far the different antivirus programs out there are hit or miss at nabbing these suckers.  If you have been hit, your desktop pattern may change yelling at you that you are infected, or a little sign will continually appear in the corener asking you to download this or that.  If your traditional antispyware and antivirus programs aren’t getting it, bring it down to us.  All week we’ve been dealing with these particular strains, which are virulent, and nasty, so we have a lot of experinece getting rid of these nasties.

We know it sucks.  Every once in awhile we have a very virulent strain get in the wild and do this.  But take consolation in the fact you aren’t alone, keep your data backed up, and know that it wasn’t anything you did.   We can help you, so call us if you need us — http://www.q-a.net

We had a few calls about Windows XP SP3.  Alert Internet Surfer Asa had SP3 suddenly foist upon him, and was quite worried because of the number of warnings and screens it went through.  SP3 is a roll up of a lot of other patches, and so most of it was nothing Asa’s computer hadn’t seen before.

However, Alert Internet Surfer Jim called because he was unable to download the SP3 from the usual update spot.  There was some issues with Zone Alarm, and needing to turn that down to receive the updates, but you can also go to Microsoft’s site to manually download the SP3 patcher, bypassing the automatic download that has occasionally suffered issues.

An Alert Internet Surfer called about a problem she had with her computer.  When she updated to Windows XP SP3, her multiple monitors suddenly weren’t working!  She had a professional come in, who rolled her back to SP2 — but she worries she won’t be abel to update ever again.  We advised her to find the updates to her specific video card first.  Once those are in and working,  then try the SP3 update.

Alert Internet Surfer Peter called with a Vista desktop that updated, and proceeded to have its USB fail.  We recommended going to the motherboard manufacturers’ webpage, and downloading firmware/MB driver updates.  Vista changes a lot of things from the ground up, and as such the manufacturers have had to update their drivers as well.  That could be the issue.