Dennis Faas

Today I'd like to wish Douglas Godbey a Happy Birthday. Today, Doug turns the ripe age of 60! Since this past November, Doug joined our Editing Team and has proven to be invaluable in helping to answer the many email questions sent in daily from our ... Readers. Doug has been in the IT industry for the last 38 years and is a Certified Software Quality Assurance Engineer, UNIX System Administrator, and a self-proclaimed software-a-holic. Doug is also a recent Stroke Survivor which left him partially paralyzed on his left side, hence the name of his Blog web site, "The Handicapped Computerist." In ... (view more)

SpywareQuake is the latest rogue anti-spyware program that dupes unsuspecting users into registering (paying) for a full version of the program in order to remove a supposed Spyware infection. SpywareQuake operates in the same manner as SpyAxe and ... SpywareStrike by issuing fake warning messages similar to Windows Update Notification balloons. Click here for an example. Like SpyAxe and SpywareStrike, SpywareQuake infects the host computer due to an exploit ("bug") in MS Windows. This exploit *must* be resolved by visiting Windows Update after SpywareQuake is removed; otherwise, you ... (view more)

One of my all-time favorite multi-purpose optimization utility programs just got a major update. Of course, I'm talking about the release of WinOptimizer Platinum version 3: and there's plenty to talk about. To recap: What is WinOptimizer Platinum? ... For years, millions of users have depended on Ashampoo's award-winning WinOptimizer series to keep their PCs clean and running smoothly and efficiently. As one user put it, "[WinOptimizer Platinum 3] gives you all the maintenance tools that should have been included with Windows in the first place. And it's all so easy to use, you don't need a ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader 'Sandy' writes: " Dear Dennis, I love your newsletters! Thanks so much for doing it. I've done searches for .JPG picture files using Windows Search (Start -& Search). The results appear, and then I usually click View -& ... Thumbnails to see the little pictures of each image file. I have a floppy disk that has hundreds of website templates, but in order to see what each of them look like, I have to double-click each one individually and they open up in Internet Explorer. Question: Do you know of a program that will allow me to preview all my HTML files (similar to the ... (view more)

Since November 2005, infopackets has opened its doors to volunteer authors to share their thoughts and ideas with our audience. The transition to a multi-authored web site has been both enlightening and challenging. On one side: infopackets now ... offers a variety of fresh and interesting discussions almost daily to its audience; on the other hand, acquiring and maintaining material on a regular basis has proven to be particularly difficult. Let me explain. Since our volunteer bloggers are not paid to submit articles, submissions have been (for the most part) sporadic. Further to that, my work ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader 'Jennifer' writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently received an email from an unknown person via Yahoo. I think I understand how the email got to me but I'm not sure. Would the email headers help to tell me this? I'd really like to know ... how this person sent me the email. Can you help? " My response: To sum it up the answer briefly: email headers are often forged by spammers, so it's plausible that the email you received came from somewhere else (other than what is stated in the email header). Having said that, most big-name ISP (Internet Service Providers) have an onslaught of ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader 'Sue' writes: " Dear Dennis, Sometimes I receive an email attachment from a friend, and I can't open it. For example: I recently tried to open a PowerPoint file and received an error message stating, 'This file does not have a ... program associated with it. Create an association in the Folder Options in Control Panel.' How do I go about doing that? I installed PowerPoint, hoping I would be able to view it that way, but was unsuccessful. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. " My response: If the attachment was indeed a PowerPoint file and you're absolutely ... (view more)

Recall -- Yesterday, Infopackets Reader 'Suzanne' asked if I knew of a freeware program that could record / export chat logs for AIM (AOL Instant Messenger): " Do you know of any way to save AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) chat history without copying ... text into another program like word? I personally don't like AIM all that much, but a lot of my friends use it. Every other chat program that I currently use (ICQ, MSN, etc.) have the 'save history' feature, but AIM apparently does not. " Since I don't use AIM, I asked Infopackets Readers for help. By far, the best response was sent in by Kathy S., ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader 'Suzanne' writes: " Dear Dennis, Your newsletter is still the best one out there! I'm on your website so much that my boss mentioned it to me the other day. ;-) She told me that I'm not not allowed to visit your site anymore ... during business hours unless I'm on lunch. With that aside, I have a question. Do you know of any way to save AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) chat history without copying text into another program like word? I personally don't like AIM all that much, but a lot of my friends use it. Every other chat program that I currently use (ICQ, MSN, etc.) have a 'save ... (view more)