computer

IBM's artificial intelligence system Watson is to lend its hand to security. It will help scour millions of reports to try to learn more about current online threats. The Watson system was originally designed to see if a computer could compete on ... Jeopardy!, the show where contestants are given an answer and have to try to figure out the question. It was considered a challenge for computers because, although they can store a lot of information and process it quickly, they don't always have the human ability to decipher meaning and context. In the event, Watson prevailed against two human ... (view more)

An artificial intelligence program has beaten professional poker players for the first time. It may sound trivial but marks a major advance in technology that could have practical benefits. Computers beat human experts at chess many years ago, and ... last year a computer beat the world champion at the far more complex board game "Go" for the first time. That was significant because the sheer number of possible moves available in Go means ever the most powerful computer can't assess every possible move. Instead the program had to learn to use human tactics such as heuristics (in ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Ron C. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have several drives on my network that I'd like to defrag, but none of the defrag software programs I've tried allow me to defrag a network drive. Any suggestions on how to defrag a network drive, ... or a program that can provide this functionality? " My response: The reason you can't find a program to defrag a network drive is because this is not possible - the easiest way to explain "why" is that the remote drives are owned by another operating system. Simply put: your system does not have permission to move these files around. With ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Karin S. writes: " Dear Dennis, I recently received a letter in the mail from the government requesting additional information on my account. The letter states that I can mail or fax in my information back to them (they won't ... accept email attachments for some reason). As such, I would prefer to fax the information as that is the fastest method. I would like to know if you can recommend a good, free fax service over the Internet that I can use to send this information? Thanks! " My response: I did a bit of research, and there are two popular websites offering free faxes ... (view more)

Duplicate files are the curse of every computer user - even professional computer technicians have them. While duplicate files are not really something that harms your PC, they do take up disk drive space, slow the PC down (especially when thumbnail ... previews are generated in Windows), and make things very disorganized. So, if you have a large drive - or a couple of them - and store lots of files on your PC, one thing I recommend my clients do is to take some time to manage duplicate files in order to free up space. This not only saves backup space, but also the users' sanity, should they ever ... (view more)

Security researchers say hackers could turn people's headphones into a microphone for surreptitious remote listening. However, the method has enough limitations that it shouldn't be a major concern for most users. The method, shown off by ... researchers at Ben Guiron University in Israel, takes advantage of a very simple element of engineering. That is that the process by which a microphone turns speech into an electronic signal is effectively the same as that by which earphones turn a speaker into sound, just with the process reversed. According to the researchers, that's a security ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader John D. writes: " Dear Dennis, I just upgraded to Windows 10 recently. When I click on File Explorer by the Start menu (which brings up This PC or "My Computer" in previous editions of Windows), I now see C and D drive and now a ... drive E which appears to be empty - it is only about 1 gigabyte large. I don't know where this drive came from but I have no use for it and would prefer not to see it. Is there any way to remove this drive letter in file explorer? " My response: Some manufactures will assign partitions on the hard drive for Windows or BIOS recovery or some other ... (view more)

I've been repairing computers now for over 23 years and for the last few years, I began offering my computer repair service online . One of the most popular repairs I do today is to fix Windows Update; sometimes, however, Windows Update is too far ... corrupt that it requires a complete reinstall of Windows in order to fix the issue. The same can be said in other situations where Windows is too far corrupt that it cannot be repaired even by someone with as much experience as I have . Based on this, users ask me "Why is my Windows corrupt?" and "How can this have happened?" I thought I'd write an ... (view more)

Microsoft has warned that scammers are trying to trick users with a fake "Blue Screen of Death" error message. The idea is to fool users into calling a bogus 1-800 tech support hotline. The Blue Screen of Death is an unofficial name given to a ... particular type of error message which appears when a Windows computer suffers a serious malfunction. In most cases, once the screen appears the only option is to reboot the computer, usually by switching it off with a physical power button or by resetting the machine with a reset button (if it is available). The idea of the screen is to give ... (view more)

Infopackets Bill P. writes: " Dear Dennis, I am using Windows 10 and Firefox. Recently I went to sign onto my banking website and entered in the wrong user name during the sign on. A few days later I went to sign onto the bank again and it seems ... that Firefox saved the incorrect user name to that field (note - I am not using the Firefox password manager to fill my fields, I am doing it manually). Normally when I visit my bank website, I enter in a few characters for my user name and then Firefox usually presents me with the correct user name as part of the field - sort of the same autocomplete ... (view more)