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In today's world of Spyware threats and other Internet nasties, not knowing what is running silently in the background of your computer can be a serious problem. Unfortunately, Task Manager [CTRL + ALT + DEL] isn't helpful in reporting which ... processes are critical to your system, which ones can be terminated safely, and is horrible at troubleshooting problematic and suspect tasks. So how do you know "what's what"? Introducing WinTasks 5 Professional: the Ultimate Task Manager WinTasks 5 Professional is a state-of-the-art Task Manager replacement designed to enhance your computer's ... (view more)

Are you being scammed? Need to know the definitive answer right now? READ THIS ARTICLE and then come back to this page when you're finished (if you like). -- Infopackets Reader Bill P. writes: " Dear Dennis, After reading your 'eBay and SquareTrade ... scam' article alerts [ Part 1 | Part 2 ], it prompted me to write you about a wonderful new anti-scam / anti-phishing toolbar called FraudEliminator Pro. The review over at pcMag.com summed up its features nicely: ' FraudEliminator Pro is a toolbar for Internet Explorer or Firefox that warns you if the web site you're visiting is not what it ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader James S. writes: " Dear Dennis, For the last two email editions of your newsletter, I have noticed a 'special announcement' near the top of the page, concerning 'RSS implementation' to your web site. At the bottom of the ... announcement, you have linked to a review of FeedDemon to better explain the RSS technololgy. I'm a bit stumped, however; the more I read about RSS, the more I don't understand it! There almost seems to be too many explanations. In fact, RSS sounds so complicated that I sincerely feel like throwing away my computer and going back to 'the good old days ... (view more)

Synopsis: Have you ever wondered why you can't connect to a certain web site or wondered "why is the Internet down" or your connection "too slow"? Have you ever wondered who's behind those attacks on your firewall? Well, now you don't have to! ... VisualRoute Internet tracing software is perfect for tracking hackers, spammers, investigating a website, and testing Internet connectivity. Here's how it works: VisualRoute shows you the exact route data takes as it is sent from your computer and traverses through the Internet. All of this crucial information is then placed neatly on a world map, so ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Jack J. writes: " Dear Dennis, I have a question that has been bothering me for some time. I appreciate the professional advice you give in your newsletters to other Readers, and would be very thankful if you could please set me ... straight on my problem. My dilemma has to do with Secure web sites. Occasionally, I will buy a product online -- meaning that my web browser often redirected to a secure web page, where I can complete my transaction online with my credit card. I have been told by friends that providing my credit card information is 100% secure, and that I ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Robert F. writes: " Dear Dennis, I really find your newsletters to be interesting and of great help -- keep up the good work! I want to set up an office and be able to email my secretary and have her reply to the email without ... having an Internet connection as I don't need the internet in the business. Do you know of a program that would let me do this? I own a Dell PC and talked to a technician, but they didn't have a suggestion for me. Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated! " My response: The simple answer is that email is designed to run on the ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Alfredo "Mexican55" writes: " Dear Dennis, I just finished reading yesterday's newsletter regarding DVD-R and DVD+R media. My question is related and pertains to file backup. In your opinion, what approach should I use to backing ... up my files, programs, etc? And do you recommend saving to CD or DVD media? My hard drive is less than 10 gigabytes in size. " My response: Deciding which media type is suitable for backup depends on how much information you want to archive, and the type of backup solution you choose. Having said that, I'd like to provide a ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Peter D. writes: " Dear Dennis, I'm running Windows 2000 Professional on a machine that uses a Pentium 3 processor. After around 1 hour online, a RAM defrag utility I use reports that most of my RAM has been lost and I need to ... defrag. Can you tell me why I lose most of my RAM, and why it's necessary to defrag constantly? PS: your newsletter is great. " My response: RAM is just that -- Random Access Memory -- which means that it will get fragmented *very* quickly as computing information is randomly written, read, and deleted from memory. It is true: RAM gets ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Mike F. writes: " Dear Dennis, I just installed MS Office and Windows XP Pro on my machine. When I first launched MS Word, I was asked for a user name. At this point, I didn't want to use my own name and instead used the user ID ... 'XYZ'. I share my documents with others and later found that the documents had the user ID 'XYZ' embedded into the file. I now would now like to change my user ID to my name so that the correct information is reflected. Can you tell me how I can do this? " My response: Load MS Word, then go to Tools -> Options, and look for a tab that ... (view more)

Recall -- Last week I posted an article in which Infopackets Reader Ron H. asked for alternative solutions to using a PC mouse. Ron wrote: " I recently had a stroke which has left me paralyzed on the right side of my body. As a result, I am now ... unable to use the computer mouse with any degree of accuracy. I was wondering if you or any of your Readers could recommend a product that I can use to help me navigate my computer in place of the mouse. I am currently typing this email to you with the aid of Dragon NaturallySpeaking , which inputs words on the screen using my voice. Any ... (view more)