Geek Speak Archive

It’s that time of year again.   Graduations, vacations and lots of weddings mean you’ll want to capture and display those memories for posterity.  This week’s question comes from a reader who wanted to make a slide show or video of her son’s memories to be played at his graduation party.  She wanted software readily available and easy to use, and free would be good. There are many choices available depending on whether you are Mac or PC and what you are already doing with your pictures; but I recommended using Windows Live Move Maker (WLMM) which is free for the download to anyone using Windows 7 or Vista with Service Pack 2.

Choosing the software might be the easiest part of this project since its use is fairly intuitive; but planning and setting up for the project is crucial as it makes for a smooth execution. Here are some tips to make the project easy.

First make yourself a workspace.  I recommend creating a folder like”Graduation”.  Inside that folder make a folder for Pictures, one for Music (if you choose to add some), another for WLMM Project files and one for versions of the final Video.  You’ll be making different versions of the project and keep them in an editable form so that you can add, subtract and rearrange pics, add music, add titles and make timing adjustments to perfect the finished product.  Once you have a product you like, you’ll convert the project files to a video and most likely after you play it a few times, you’ll make another with still more adjustments.

Next select your pictures.  This may be one of the hardest parts.  You have 2000 pics and you must get it down to a number that will make an interesting but not boring presentation.  My rule of thumb is shoot for 100 to 150 pics; you’ll want to display them for maybe 3 seconds each and 150 will run for about 7 and a half minutes which is probably enough for even your closest friends and relatives.  You can make a longer version for yourself.  After you make your selection, resize them smaller.   You don’t need a 12 megapixel pic to make a good video, especially to show on a laptop screen

Now choose your music clips, in some kind of MP3 form and remember you want to play enough of each clip to keep from sounding choppy.  Three or four clips are plenty in a project of this size.  Remember           that if you buy copyrighted music you may only share it from your PC with your friends.  Add your pictures to the project and rearrange them as you like; it’s easy to preview your creation at any time.  Choose transitions, timing and animations if you like.  Add titles where needed; credits if you want.  Get all this stuff set, before you start adding music clips.  The beginning and ending of music tracks is one of the most difficult tasks of the project.  If your work is interrupted at any point, just save the project as a “project” and you can pick it back up later.  Now add your music and adjust the audio and video tracks so that they are synced.  If it doesn’t match exactly, just fade the music out at the ends of scenes so it won’t disrupt your audience.

Once you have everything synced; then save it in the format you want to use.  You can choose, Burn to DVD, Use on My Computer, Email or even Play on a Mobile Device.

Make some memories and make a movie and till next week, send your questions to:

geekspeak@mchsi.com

Written by Jim Hall. Email your questions to geekspeak@mchsi.com . You can find Jim online at HallsTrainingSolutions.com

               “Take two aspirin and call me in the morning” is an old palliative that General Practitioners used to prescribe for minor health maladies.  Perhaps an equally useful one for computer techs might be “Shut it down and call me if a restart doesn’t help”.  It is amazing how many minor operational problems are solved just by rebooting and starting over; not just with PCs, but modems, routers, TV sets, coffee makers and other electronic devices.

By my estimate one third of Internet connection problems are helped by a simple reboot of all the devices involved.  Remember your Internet pathway starts with a service provider (ISP) with some kind of modem usually connected to a phone line, cable or satellite.  From there it can either connect directly to your PC or go to a router which splits the connection so that you can connect multiple devices; either by cable or WiFi.   In some networks the modem/router function is combined into one piece of hardware.  Simply shutting everything down and restarting in this order will often reconnect everything: modem, router, PC and other devices.

On the Microsoft Windows tips for slow computers page, they recommend that you restart your computer about once a week.  “Restarting a PC is a good way to clear out its memory and ensure that any errant processes and services that started running get shut down.

Restarting closes all the software running on your PC—not only the programs you see running on the taskbar, but also dozens of services that might have been started by various programs and never stopped. Restarting can fix mysterious performance problems when the exact cause is hard to pinpoint.  The more things you have open and the longer you keep them running, the greater the chances your PC will bog down and eventually run low on memory.”

So shut down to reconnect  …and to speed up.  It’s kind of like clearing your mind before you renew and retackle a project.  Your computers random access memory (RAM) is like the thinking part of your brain, it can only handle so many things at a time.

While we’re on the subject of RAM, Microsoft claims that Windows Seven will run on 1 gigabyte of Memory, “but it runs better with 2 GB. For optimal performance, boost that to 3 GB or more.”  I’ll stick by my earlier recommendations ;( 2 GB min) get 4 GB for most applications and spring for 6 or 8 if you can.  Adding RAM is one hardware upgrade that many users can do themselves.  Simply go to crucial.com and let them help you select the correct kind of memory modules for your PC as well as the suggested amount.  As an example, 2 GB of memory for the PC that I am writing this column on would only cost $40.  If I wasn’t so cheap I would have already bought that RAM.

Reboot yourself and till next week, send your questions to:

geekspeak@mchsi.com

Written by Jim Hall. Email your questions to geekspeak@mchsi.com . You can find Jim online at HallsTrainingSolutions.com

Last week’s announcement of the disruption of the Zeus botnet system by Microsoft sounds like good news at first glance, but as you read more closely; you realize the complexity and sophistication of  modern cybercrime operations and wonder if we’ll ever be really safe from them.

This excerpt from their press release gives an idea of the complexity of the cyber-enemy:

“In its most complex effort to disrupt botnets to date, Microsoft Corp., in collaboration with the financial services industry — including the Financial Services – Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC) and NACHA – The Electronic Payments Association — as well as Kyrus Tech Inc., announced it has successfully executed a coordinated global action against some of the most notorious cybercrime operations that fuel online fraud and identity theft. With this legal and technical action, a number of the most harmful botnets using the Zeus family of malware worldwide have been disrupted in an unprecedented, proactive cross-industry action against this cybercriminal organization.” The use of the word “disrupted” is telling and relevant to me.

The Zeus Family is used worldwide to steal identities and subsequently monies in a number of ways and by some estimates may have surpassed the hundred million range and be nearing a half billion.  The most recent raids by U. S. Marshalls centered on servers in Scranton, PA and Lombard, Ill.  This is the first time that the RICO act has been used to try to include all the participants in this type of criminal enterprise.  Google “Zeus botnet” to get the whole incredible story about this ongoing investigation and prosecution.  It will open your eyes.

The other interesting point about current botnets that I want to make is that they are becoming more discreet.  In the past we have been conditioned to think that a rogue takeover of our Pc would show some symptoms like slowdowns, pop-ups and the like. The more sophisticated ones don’t want you to know that you’ve been taken over so that they can do their dirty work in the background, un-noticed and unchecked.  That’s all the more reason to keep your systems and softwares updated and to run regular scans with anti-malware programs.

One other caution I’ll mention is that whenever you are suspicious about a message or pop-up, don’t click on it and get off the Internet as quickly as you can.  Close your browser, shut down your PC and reboot to see if the message reappears.  If it does, get help from someone you trust before the infection gets worse.  As I was writing this column, my wife had a pop-up appear on her laptop while she was viewing an email from a relative; luckily she called me as soon as it appeared and she avoided any serious infection.

Till next week, stay safe and send your questions to:

geekspeak@mchsi.com

Written by Jim Hall. Email your questions to geekspeak@mchsi.com . You can find Jim online at HallsTrainingSolutions.com

               Privacy appears to be kind of a “personal thing” and some of my readers are more upset than others about the recent policy changes at Google.  To be fair, it’s not just Google but the whole prying Internet experience that gives some the creeps.  As I said last week, one way to look at the loss of privacy is as a cost/benefit proposition.  You have to decide for yourself if the service offered or the convenience afforded is worth the incremental loss in privacy on a situation by situation basis.

What’s the big deal about tracking my web surfing you may ask?  Such data mining (as it’s called) can   reveal a startling amount of personal information about you, such as your personal shopping preferences, family circumstances, political leanings, medical conditions, and much more.  These are the tamer tidbits; what if you have an interest in an unpopular subject or some other pursuit that you don’t want to share with all?

How can you express your displeasure with Google’s new privacy policies?  One way might be to stop using their flagship enterprise for a while and see if decreased traffic gets their attention.  I’m talking about not using the world’s number one search engine for a period, namely Google.  The venerable and ubiquitous Google search engine is their pride and joy and namesake.  It’s at the heart of their brand.  Mind you, I’m not trying to start a boycott, just answering your question about how to voice your displeasure.

Naturally you’ll want a substitute search engine and I’ll suggest a couple.  One that continues to make a splash on tech news sites is called DuckDuckGo, started by Gabriel Weinberg.  This little, would be giant killer has grown to the point of receiving about a million visits per day.  Startpage by ixquick is another site that is on the leading edge of this privacy issue. They make this claim on their Home Page, “ Startpage, and its sister search engine Ixquick, are the only third-party certified search engines in the world that do not record your IP address or track your searches.”  If that gives you comfort, give them a try.

Privacy is a very important and complicated issue and should not be taken lightly.  The ultimate invasion of privacy as in identity theft can be a life changing experience and take years and lots of money to recover. Remember that you are exposed not just while web surfing, but whenever you are on a social network like Facebook or Twitter.  Whenever data about you is being collected and stored, in whatever venue; there is risk that your data can be leaked by incompetence, by accident or purposely stolen.

If you want more information or have other questions, start with sites like privacy rights.org or worldprivacyforum.org.  Dare I say Google them?  Find their websites with whatever degree of privacy you deem appropriate.  Till next week, be alert and send your questions to:

geekspeak@mchsi.com

                Most of my readers know that I am a big advocate of free software (free as doesn’t cost anything, period).  I have recommended many free downloads from this space, but today I want to direct you to an unsuspected source for some great freeware.  The software giant that we all love to hate also has some great free software to be used on any valid MS Windows System.  Even if you hate paying Microsoft for their Windows OS and their ubiquitous MS office, give them credit for having some very useful freebies and you can be assured that anything downloaded from one of their sites is malware free.  As a matter of fact MS offers so many freebies that I can only include the security ones in this column.

Let me start with what I think is their crown jewel, Microsoft Security Essentials.  They describe MSE as the anti-annoying, anti-expensive, anti-virus program and the program lives up to the hype.  It’s one of the best for detection rates and yet doesn’t slow your system down like some of the paid solutions.  MSE has a very friendly user interface and it handles scheduled scans and updates virtually automatically.  You don’t get a lot of pop-ups asking you to buy something and you will feel more secure in your surfing.

If you suspect a malware attack, MS offers the free Microsoft Safety Scanner that will scan your system and remove viruses, spyware and viruses while working with your existing AV software.   Please be aware that the MS Safety Scanner is not the same as Microsoft’s Malicious Software Removal Tool which is updated every second Tuesday and offered as part of the monthly Windows Update package.  That tool checks your computer for specific, prevalent malware and removes it if found.  Note that the MS Safety Scanner expires 10 days after download so that you are forced to run an up to date version of the scanner.

The Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) is a bit of a geeky tool, but it is still useful to check your computer for missed security updates and security misconfigurations.  I still like the free Secunia OSI scanner for checking updates if you’re not comfortable with the MBSA.

If you use Windows Live Mail or already have a Windows Live ID, you may want to consider Windows Live Safety which can help you monitor kids computer activities and filter the websites, games and programs they can access.  It is not a substitute for parental supervision, but you can use it as one of your tools.

And lastly, there is a customized version of Internet Explorer 9.0 that works directly with The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre in the UK (CEOP Centre).  You can upgrade your IE 9 browser and it makes the CEOP tools available.  CEOP is billed as a one stop shop for Internet safety.  You may want to start at their website and read about what they offer and also check the reference links there.

Till next week, be safe and send your questions to:

geekspeak@mchsi.com

Written by Jim Hall. Email your questions to geekspeak@mchsi.com . You can find Jim online at HallsTrainingSolutions.com