Dennis Faas

I recently purchased a Samsung LCD (model: SyncMaster 760V TFT) for my Desktop behemoth computer. If you didn't already know, LCD stands for Liquid Crystal Display. The most noticeable features of an LCD monitor is the fact that the screen is ... perfectly flat, has an incredibly clear display, and its "backside" is very thin. Commonly referred to as a "flat screen monitors", LCD displays are most recognizably used in conjunction with a Laptop computer. Having two identical hard drives in RAID format allows me to transfer information to / from the computer 2x as fast (compared ... (view more)

Almost a month ago we were knee-deep in discussion with respect to tracking down a hacker. In short, our ongoing discussion probed possibilities and known methods which might be used to track down a hacker, if one ever attempted to hack into *your* ... computer system. RE: Can I track down a Hacker?, Part 1 , and Can I track down a Hacker?, Part 2 . Shortly after Part 2 was released, I received an email from Dan Daily (editor / webmaster) of Danny's Daily . Dan's comments focused on a proposed supposition, which was sent in from John B. in Part 2 of our Discussion . To recap: John suggested to ... (view more)

Last week's Visitor Feedback question asked, "How how can I tell what programs are taking all my space in my hard drive?" My first thought to this question was to use a minimalist approach, because I believe in "doing things myself" -- providing ... that the proposed solution is relatively simple. If you recall, my answer to the above question was straightforward: right-click on a folder and display its folder Properties, and have Windows display its disk usage. This gives a very general idea as to how much space was being used by an installed program. Fact: Programs that are ... (view more)

My last attempt to show how to remove MSN Messenger from Windows XP appeared to worked fine for me, but I received emails from folks who have MSN Messenger popping up in their face *still* whenever AOL is loaded or whenever there is an update. Death ... to MSN Messenger -- for good. Jeff R. sent me his thoughts and a final solution to remove MSN Messenger from the Windows Registry: " It appears that your previous article is confusing Windows Messenger with MSN Messenger*. These are both separate programs. Windows Messenger is the one that installs with Windows XP. * The "Windows ... (view more)

I was fortunate enough to receive a message from the Product Manager of Alexa, Geoff Mack. His concerns were about our ongoing discussion of whether or not Internet Explorer contains Alexa Spyware . I'd like to take this time now to share his ... concerns. Geoff writes: " Hello, My name is Geoffrey Mack, Product Manager at Alexa, an Amazon.com company. I am writing to disagree with your assertion that the Alexa Toolbar is spyware. First, it is helpful to define Spyware. The definition is here . In short, Spyware is: software that gets on your machine without your permission, and tracks your ... (view more)

Yesterday's Visitor Feedback of the Gazette addressed why two program files ( internat.exe and ptsnoop.exe ) might be present in the Windows msconfig startup. To be honest with you, I have never encountered these programs before. The name ... "internat.exe" seemed to me that it was a purposely misspelled version of the word "Internet" -- most likely misspelled to dupe users into thinking that it was a friendly Internet-related program. In all likelihood, I thought, the program name "internat.exe" could have been a trojan. I was right. Sort of. As always, I use Google ... (view more)

There's a few things that need to be addressed in this issue of the Gazette. Just last month, I had the server upgraded to match the demand for the ever-growing infopackets web site. For the Month of September, 2002, infopackets had 114,241 unique ... visitors that viewed 275,331 pages. In the last 7 days, infopackets has been averaging between 3,500 and 5,000 unique visitors a day. The server is humming along for now, but I fear that it will reach another limit in the very near future. The next "step up" for a server upgrade is going to cost $650.00 USD a month (or, $8,000,000 CDN ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader 'ZZ' write s: " Dear Dennis, I would like to know what the files "internat.exe" and "ptsnoop.exe" mean. I found them on msconfig/startup tab . Should I clear their checkboxes? " My Response: After searching for those file names ... using the Google search engine, it appears that there are legitimate Windows files (internat.exe and ptsnoop.exe) -- however, there are also files with the same names that carry malicious intent. In short, the trojan file Internat.exe steals passwords and sends them to the trojan creator; the trojan file Ptsnoop attempts ... (view more)

Similar to ICQ and Yahoo Messenger , MSN Messenger is a chat program that allows you to interact with other people around the world. If my memory serves correct, ICQ is the "Grand Daddy" of all Windows-based chat programs with a graphical user ... interface (GUI), but MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger are gaining in popularity. Conveniently, MSN Messenger comes bundled with the Windows XP operating system. Wait a sec -- did I say that was 'convenient'? No it's not. Since I installed Windows XP, MSN Messenger has been in my face multiple times asking me if I want to sign up for an ... (view more)