A couple people have asked me about whether the children’s games that were on the original Gates computers were still available somewhere…cheap. The answer is YES. They are available on your very own Gates computer. You can install the programs from your old Gates computers to your new replacement computer by following the instructors in this PDF file entitled How to Copy Children’s Games from a Windows NT Gates Library Computer to a new Windows XP Computer .

This useful guide is available on the PAComputing section of WebJunction along with some other very handy stuff. For example how about these ready to roll QuickGuides for many popular applications (Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Microsoft Streets and Trips) plus How to Use Word, Copying and Moving Text as well as Spanish versions of everything too.

Another useful resource on this site is a Top Issues Archive that will help tech support folk find solutions to problems associated with the Gates computers or people using the Shared Computer Toolkit.

Mr. Gates did something kind of strange (and undesireable) with fonts when he delivered us Windows XP. As a result, some web designers report that “XP is the bane of my existence!”

Turns out the fonts of many web pages look much worse for those of us on XP versus say….well…Macs for one. But now more!

Follow these steps to amazingly clearer fonts everywhere including websites and even on Word documents:

1. Go to Control Panel
2. Select Display
3. Choose the Appearance tab
4. Click on Effects
5. Where it says “Choose following method to smooth edges of screen fonts”, change Standard to Clear Type.

Immediate and very satisfying results…no?

TechSoup has been a great resource for nonprofits for years. It makes software available to nonprofits at very low prices and provides links to useful resources like places that will take your old computers for recycling and links to free downloadable software.

They also write succinct and targeted articles like this one on how to prevent spam.

And here comes the really great news…

The TechSoup constituency has been expanded to include libraries!.

This means that libraries can get in on the pricing and hopefully even more of TechSoup’s excellent resource listings will take libraries into account too.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Nice work, Gates Foundation! They finally made their handy “pac installer” available to everyone. The PAC Installer used to be buried on their pacomputing website but they’ve hauled it out of the back closet and are featuring it on its own prominent web page!

Here’s where it’s at: http://pacomputing.webjunction.org/do/DisplayContent?id=7593 . [Updated link 12/6/04]

In addition to documentation and source code, it also has a new name….the Public Access Computer Security Tool. What it does is allow you to do a vanilla install of Windows 2000 or XP on a PC and then use this tool to lock down the settings without having to crawl around in the registry by hand.

I’ve found that there are some settings you’ll still want to adjust manually and you might even want to supplement the configuration with WINSelect but this tool provides a nice start.

They’ve even set up a discussion forum as a way to support people using the tool. Available here.

With the proliferation of all the worms these days…the Sasser worm being the most recent one, I decided to take another step to ensure I was properly patched. Seems like all the junk floating around has to be the result of people who think they’ve done the right thing but haven’t. It can’t JUST be a bunch of irresponsible blokes causing all this trouble…can it?

I decided to try out
Microsoft’s Baseline Security Analyzer V1.2 (MBSA). Using this handy tool, I found that I had not installed the updates necessary for my Office XP programs and the MBSA helped me locate the place to get that update. To my chagrin…I was potentially one of the irresponbile blokes. Sigh.

If you don’t know about the MBSA, here’s a nice FAQ about it.

To summarize, MBSA is the next generation of the MPSA, Microsoft Personal Security Advisor. It does everything MPSA did plus “performs additional application checks (e.g., IIS, SQL) and can be used to scan both servers and workstations, locally and remotely over the network.”

It can be run on the following operating systems:
Windows? 2000 Server
Windows 2000 Professional
Windows XP Home Edition
Windows XP Professional
Windows Server 2003

Network Admins…it can be run over the network against Microsoft Windows NT? 4.0 Server and Windows NT 4.0 Workstation, Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Workstation, Windows XP Professional and Home Edition systems, and Windows Server 2003!

What it does (from the FAQ ):
MBSA V1.2 scans for security misconfigurations in Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 4.0, 5.0, and 6.0, Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) 5.01+, Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 and 2000, and Microsoft Office 2000, XP, and 2003.

It’s very easy to understand. Basically, if you see a red flag, you should fix it. It’s that simple.

And in case you thought you were all patched up because you use the Windows Update feature, think again. Even if you don’t download, install and run the MBSE, you should take a trip to the Office Updates page at the URL below:

Office Updates – http://office.microsoft.com/OfficeUpdate/

How often do you actually performs backups of data on your PC? I know I’ve been pretty bad about doing it because I haven’t had a drive large enough to accommodate all the data easily. Every once in a while I’d copy everything from my desktop to my laptop or retire folders to a CD but I wasn’t being systematic nor frequent about doing it.

For one thing, trying to copy only the changed files was a big pain because you had to go folder by folder and sort by date. And copying everything again took too long.

So when friends of the family got their online backup service off the ground, I signed up. And boy was I happy I did. More on that in a minute.

I’m guessing you don’t know what I mean by online backup service. Here’s the idea. You load a piece of software that runs automatically on a schedule you set-up to backup all the files you want backed up. You pick the folders and each night (or however many times a day or week you want to do it) the folders are backed up. You don’t gotta do nothin.

The first backup takes a long time but after that, only the changed files are backed up. Files that are unchanged since the last aren’t blindly copied to the online service so each day’s backup happens quickly and behind the scenes. You don’t have to get involved at all. The service uses a fabulous encryption program (LZW) and is secure (Blowfish encryption). All in all, it totally rocks!

My Sad Tale – with a happy ending
Now to the part about why I was so happy I had signed up. Well, shortly after I got started with the service, I decided to demo some filtering software (no, Im not going to tell you which one). In my defense, the documentation did not say “Don’t try this at home” or I would have gotten technical assistance with the install. I just followed the prompts and was trying it out. Well, I didn’t get very far when I determined it wasn’t working at all how I thought it should be. Ultimately, my attempts to fix the filter installation thoroughly hosed my system. Though the filter company valiantly tried to help, there was nothing to do but reinstall XP. My installation of XP has never been the same — sadly. But that’s another story.

The good news is that the restoration of all my data was a snap. I’m still using that backup service and can heartily recommend it to anyone else who is being as recalcitrant as I was.

What to look for in a backup service
Online backup services are a great idea for secure offsite storage but you need to be sure your service does indeed HAVE a secure facility. The software that gets loaded onto your PC needs to be stable and play well with others AND provide the kind of flexibility you need in terms of scheduling and file selection. It needs to have good compression and encryption so the data gets moved quickly and safely. And it needs to be responsible about resource utilization so the rest of the system doesn’t grind to a halt.

I’ve found all these above needs are met with the service I signed up with, Data Salvation Is there a Data heaven? A Data hell? Are you praying for your beloved Data to return? — but there are others to consider including US Data Trust and LiveVault.

The important thing is to start backing up your data. As Jerry Newman says during KQED pledge breaks, get off your good intentions.

P.S. Email me if you end up signing up with Data Salvation because I can get you the family discount. Afterall, aren’t all library workers family?

Have you noticed that you’re getting pop-up ads that are somehow more targeted to your interests than they used to be? Is your computer running more and more slowly?

Could be you are experiencing an invasion of spyware! Huh?

For an easy-to-read backgrounder, check out The Christian Science Monitor’s Is your computer spying on you?”. The article defines the different forms of spyware including browser hijackers, keyloggers, malware and spybots. It explains that spyware is different from cookies and explains why spyware can be dangerous.

The article recommends some useful tools for keeping a handle on these sneaky, annoying programs. Here are the free ones they mention:

• Ad-ware 6.0
• Spybot – Search & Destroy 1.2

I’m planning to give Spybot a run because in addition to rooting out the “uninvited Web-borne flotsam” it also has some other utilities I’m interested in including a file shredder, the ability to block adware servers and a tool for controlling what apps load when I start my computer. I’ll let you know how it goes……

Microsoft is retiring some of its products including Windows 98 per an article on news.com.com. They say they’ll continue to support Win98 for free for another month. Hmmm, time to give Linux and Open Office a try?

The PAC Installer is what the Gates Foundation uses to lock down their computers. Here’s what they say about it:

The Public Access Computer Configuration Tool is a software security system designed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for public access computers. You can install it to help keep a computer stable by restricting access to the computer and creating customizable profile environments designed to meet the needs of public computer users without compromising your ability to keep the computer up and running.

One of the nicest features about it is that you can add and remove it from your computer using Add/Remove Programs. This is more manageable than undoing hundreds of registry settings if you’ve “rolled your own” public access security system.

The PAC Installer was created by the Gates Foundation fairly late in the game and any states that didn’t opt for the Staying Connected grants didn’t receive information about this utility nor did they receive certain updates. It is available on the pacomputing.org website but you have to pretend you are from New York (or another state that participated in the Staying Connected program) to find anything about it.

To find information about the Gates Configuration Tool (aka PAC Installer), go to pacomputing.org and search for “configuration tool? and select New York from the State/Location dropdown box. There are lots of other useful papers here about adding printers, copying the children’s programs from one Gates Computer to another, replacing defective hard disks, and lots more.

Another useful document I’m making available here because I can’t seem to find it anymore on the pacomputing.org site is called Installing the Public Access Computer Configuration Tool on a Non-Granted Public Access Computer. The PAC Installer can be installed on non-granted public access computers running either: the Windows 2000 Professional operating system with Service Pack 2 or later installed; or the Windows XP Professional operating system. It’s a great way to add another Gates computer to your inventory.

Download the PAC Installer (2MB) here: pac_installer.exe

For anyone still supporting their Gates computers without the benefit of Gates Foundation tech support, you might be interested to know that there are some very useful files available to you either here (for you to download) or on your Gates computer. Here’s a description of a few:

Lock and Unlock Profiles

• Purpose: unlocking profiles to make changes, then relocking them
• Where to find on your Gates computer
• D:\Utilities\Profile Batch Files, or
• E:\Utilities\Profile Batch Files, or
• C:\BMGF Utilities
• Documentation available on pacomputing.org entitled “Unlocking Public Profiles So You Can Alter Them, and Locking Them When You’re Done” and “Adding and Using the Profile Lock and Unlock Utilities”

Improve Registry Settings

• Purpose locks down the registry to make it more resistant to the new ?pest? programs”
• Download the file here: registry_tools.exe
• Documentation available on pacomputing.org entitled ?Enhancing Security on the Windows Registry?

Clean Temporary Files

• Purpose: clean out the temp directory and restore it with proper defaults
• View file here: cleantemp.bat
• Documentation available on pacomputing.org entitled: “Add the Temp Folder Cleaning Utility to a Gates Library Computer”

More to come on this topic inluding PAC_Installer and some useful tips for fixing annoying Gates problems….stand by.