Dennis Faas

Dustin S. from Texas asks: " I purchased Windows XP home edition some time back, and have always had a question about some of the programs that it executes. The program that I am speaking of is scvhost.exe. I have tried to stop it from running but ... this just has the nice reaction of crashing my system. Any help would be appreciated! " My Response: The Pac's Portal web site says that there is a legit version of svchost.exe, which runs on Windows 2000 and XP; however, there is also a malicious program called svchost.exe floating around the 'net. The nasty version of the program is also ... (view more)

Last week's mind-numbing question was sent in from Jon W. He asked: " I have a few programs listed in my MSCONFIG startup . One of the programs was LoadQM.Exe, and Google's search pointed me to your web site. Good info on the LoadQM.exe program! ... I've now deleted it from the start-up file. The other two programs I'm trying to find more information on are Carpserv.exe and Nwiz.exe/install, but didn't get any clear-cut information on these two when querying Google. Do you have any input on these two items? " My Response:I asked the Infopackets Readers to send me their thoughts on the ... (view more)

Have you heard of Shell Extension City? If you haven't visited this site, you're really missing out! Shell Extension City (Shell X) is a web site which features short-but-sweet reviews of very cool and totally free software on the Net today. What is ... a shell extension, anyway? The phrase "Shell Extension" is actually a computer term used to describe the integration of an installed program and the operating system. One example of a shell extension might be the program Winzip. Winzip is a popular compression agent for Windows that is used widely on the Internet. Once Winzip has been ... (view more)

Do you have Spyware unknowingly installed on your system? What are the latest Spyware threats? In general, Spyware is defined as: Software that is installed onto your machine without your permission, and tracks your activity for no user benefit. ... There are a lot of sites on the 'Net today which distribute software that promises to make life easy -- the only thing you need to do is download and install it on your machine. But what is the software really doing? RE: Spyware Info There is a web site that is dedicated to keeping the Internet community up-to-date with Spyware news. The name of the ... (view more)

Last week, Phil M. asked the question: " I can't access the Outlook 2000 contacts because they no longer belong to my user account. Is there any way I can access the previous Outlook 2000 contacts list? I don't know where to look. " I didn't know ... the answer to this question, so I asked Infopackets Readers to send me their suggestions. Bill S. confidently writes: " FIRST - a BIG first - go to Control Panel, Folder Options, View and de-select Display Hidden Files. Then go to C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook. There were ... (view more)

Yeah, the wallet is on a major diet this year. So, I thought I'd spread some Holiday cheer and start this week off with some cool computer gift ideas for under $50 bucks. At the end of my Top 10 list, I invite you to email your $budgeted$ gift ideas ... and I'll include them in tomorrow's issue of the Gazette. #1. Optical mouse with a Scroll Wheel: Less than $25 If I had to go back to a ball mouse, I think I'd go insane. Optical mice are very precise and don't suffer from jerky movements or get gummed up like ball mice do... plus you can use an optical mouse on just about any surface. An optical ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Phil M. writes: " Dear Dennis, The in-house guru for my office recently gave me my own user account and password on a Windows NT 4.0 machine. Previous to this, the computer required no login and used a central Outlook 2000 ... database for contacts. Now that I have my own login account, I can't access the Outlook 2000 contacts because they no longer belong to my user account. Is there any way I can access the previous Outlook 2000 contacts list? I don't know where to look. " My response:I don't use Outlook 2000. If anyone knows the answer to this, email me and I'll ... (view more)

I've been toying with some different ways to help get the word out about the infopackets web site. I'm on a tight budget, especially after getting $burned$ from a sucky web hosting company . In fact, I sent the Sucky Web Hosting company an email ... yesterday asking when my account was going to be refunded because my bank statement reported no activity. Here's two emails I received regarding my refund: November 29: " Your account will be refunded all but the $99 Setup Fee. Refunds are usually processed within 24 hours of cancellation ... sometimes it can take a while to show up in your bank ... (view more)

Update 20181211 : Notice to readers: this article is quite old (originally posted 2002), but still provides an excellent overview of computer processor history from the early 1990s to 2002. If you want to read a much more recent and up-to-date ... article about processors, we suggest reading " Which Processor is Better: Intel or AMD? - Explained ". Otherwise, please continue reading! -- Almost exactly a year ago this day I wrote an article which compared differences between AMD and Intel Processors. Oddly enough, today I received a question from Ali N. which asked, "What is the ... (view more)

I guess I don't get out very much because a handful of Infopackets Readers informed me today that there are indeed DVD Records which also burn CD-R and CD-R/W discs. Chris J. wrote in and told me about his Sony DVD-Burner, model DRU500A. This drive ... was a popular pick among many other Gazette Readers: " I have a Sony DRU500A DVD – CD Burner. It writes in DVD+RW (2.4x), DVD-RW (2.0x) & CD-RW (10x) and reads in DVD+R (2.4x), DVD-R (4x), CD-R (24x) and CD-Rom (32x) formats. It retails for $350, but I’ve seen it as low as $315 on the Internet. So far it’s working great. " Rob R. also ...href="/news/9182/dvd-cdr-cdrw-all-one-combo-burner-part-2" class="more-link">view more)