Question:
I have recently purchased a mini notebook and I like it a lot. The only problem is that it does not have a CD drive. Rather than purchasing an external drive can I copy the CD to my USB drive on my desktop and then install from there?

Answer:
 For almost all software this will work. There are a couple of relatively rare cases where this method will fail. Many games have some form of copy protection and when they are being installed from a USB drive it will be recognised as being non-genuine and the installation will fail. The other case is if you have to actually boot on the CD in start installation as copying the files to the USB will not make it bootable. However, this is a rare occurrence.

Encrypting mail:

Question: I wish to send some confidential material by e-mail. How can I guarantee that nobody apart from the recipient can read it?

Answer: I am not aware of any method the will prevent the military or ASIO from breaking encrypted mail as this is not my area, but I can suggest a method that will defeat over 99.99% of casual hackers. Create your document in the usual way, typically using Word and encrypt it. If you use Office 2007 then save it as a DOCX file as the encryption is very strong. If you do not have Word then use a program such as the latest version WinZip if you have it, or download the free 7-Zip from www.7-zip.orq and encrypt it using their highest encryption level and use a long password containing numbers and special characters. Then attach the ZIP file to the e-mail.

The important factor is to use a longer password. A short password composed only of lower case letters can be easily cracked by brute force techniques. You should use a longer password, say eight characters or more, and use upper and lower case numbers, symbols and numbers. For example {MyAnamE2}. To illustrate the importance of more characters and using the full character set, assume that if a program can use one million keys per second, then a six lowercase letter password will be cracked in about half a minute while the above 10 character password will take over 2 million centuries! If you want to have protection from government agencies then you must
the program PGP for encryption.The most important aspect is not to send the password in the same or separate e-mail but deliver it by some other means.

Blue file names

Question: The names of some JPG files have suddenly appeared in blue rather than black print. But in the same folder, some are still black. All other details are black, only the Names in blue. What does this mean? Does it matter? Have I inadvertently clicked some colour code?

Answer:
This is not a problem but a feature of Windows XP. What is means is that you have not touched these files for some time and XP will compress old files to save disk space by reducing their size. This is a lossless compression which means that no information is lost. It does not matter if the file is a JPG or a spreadsheet. The blue colour is the notification to show what files have been compressed and can be optionally turned off. To do this, right-click the file/folder, Properties then click Advanced and unclick Compress contents to save disk space.

Transferring mail

Question:
I currently use Outlook Express for emails. How can I transfer everything filed in my current local folders plus my address book to Microsoft Office Outlook as I would benefit from being able to make use of the Junk Mail folder in Outlook?

Answer:
The easiest way is to open Outlook, create your mail account and then from File, Import and Export select Import from another program or File and select Outlook Express from the list. You can then import your existing mail and then your address book.

Copying Eudora addresses

Question:
 Can you tell me how I copy my Eudora address book from my main computer to my laptop?

Answer:
You have to copy two files, NNdbase.txt (the database) and NNdbase.toc (the index) to the laptop, into the same folder as the desktop.

Caps lock light on a wireless keyboard?

Question:
We have a new computer on our reception desk using a wireless keyboard. To save the batteries there is no Caps Lock light on the keyboard. Is there a means in Windows XP to show the Caps Lock status on the bottom of the screen?

Answer:
In XP and Vista you can turn on an audio Caps Lock and Num Lock warning so that if you accidentally press Caps Lock instead of Shift it will make a clicking on Start, Settings, Control Panel, Accessibility Options and on the Keyboard tab click the ToggleKeys check box. Now when you press Caps Lock it will make a sound, and when you press it again to turn it off it will make a different sound. With this enabled the accidental press immediately becomes noticeable.

If the Accessibility Options option is missing then you can add it by opening Control Panel, click on Add/Remove programs, click the Windows Setup tab and ensure that the Accessibility Options box is ticked. Then Windows will make this available for you. Unfortunately this may not work with all computers as the beep is generated by a tiny speaker inside your computer and not by the sound card. There are some models of computers that do not have this internal speaker.

If you need to see the key status on the screen then there are very many free and commercial programs that can do this. For one such program is DKOSD shows an "On
Screen Display" about the status ofthe Caps Lock on the keyboard and can be downloaded from: www.dkpcode.com/html/downloads.html and it also makes a sound when
Caps Lock is pressed and works in Vista as well.

Reprinted from the August 2009 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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