Leo's Answers #256 – November 9, 2010

OK, so CHKDSK ran when my machine rebooted, and displayed some stuff. Problem is I have no idea what it displayed, since it then proceeded to reboot the machine when it was done. How do I get it to stop, pause or otherwise let me see what it did?

I recently changed from Verizon DSL to Charter Cable internet services. About a week later, I started receiving warnings via email from Charter telling me to stop downloading music from limewire (copyright infringement?). After that they sent notices to stop downloading movies from UTorrent. What's funny is that both were files that never finished downloading. What I want to know is how do they know who I am, where I go on the internet and when I choose to save something to my computer? How does someone else know when your on a website downloading anything?

What's the difference between an intranet and the internet? At my work we have a page on our website that everyone at work calls the intranet but it's just a hidden page that only staff who have been given the link and login password know how to find, but I don't consider this an intranet (even though I'm not entirely sure what an intranet is defined as). I thought an intranet would be a server that is not accessible to anything outside the network which is definitely not how we have our 'intranet' set up. anyway I thought maybe you could shed some light for me and others.

Hi Leo, I have two Russian IP addresses constantly trying to hack my computer. My question is, I have their IP address, to whom do I report this? It's driving me crazy and freezes my computer every time they do it. Thankfully, Norton catches it.

My wife has a Lenovo laptop with Cox as provider. As she finishes a long email, not typing too fast, the screen goes blank, with the comment she was disconnected losing the email message she was writing. How can the "writing" time be extended, before the disconnect note?

Frank writes:

I am one of the "dinosaurs" of computer programming (my first college level programming language was FORTRAN in 1965). During the first part of the class I was totally lost, but managed to get it right by the end of the semester. My eyes really opened wide when I took an assembly language programming course - with some machine language instructions sprinkled in - and I really began to understand programming. By learning how the computer works I began to understand the logic on which higher level programming languages were built. I would say if you don't get it after 2-3 college level programming courses then you need to make a course correction and change majors.

Carlos Coquet writes:

What I tell my clients is that there is absolutely, positively NO GUARANTEE you will not get a virus no matter what software is protecting you. The reason is simple. Somewhere, viri are being written 24 hours per day and most antivirus software depends on someone reporting the virus to its developer, which must analyze it to figure out its "finger print" ("signature"), then it must be added to the latest database, and then the user has to download those latest definitions. That means that between the time each and every virus is written and when the AV software can detect it weeks can elapse. If you frequent social networks, music downloading sites, entertainment places in general, you will probably get "tagged". Some AV programs claim to detect viri heuristically, i.e. by their behavior. Problem is, it does generate false positives. You can't always be a good judge of behavior. Example, a father notices a questionable looking character in a playground following his young daughter's every move. Suspecting a pedophile, he calls the police. Problem is, when questioned, the guy pulls out his id and business card and he happens to be a talent scout for Sesame Street. Annoyed, he leaves and the possible TV star loses out.

Jerry writes:

The big problem is still YOU. You're driving the Computer, As far as I know, over the period of time I've operated a personal computer, I've never had a problem. Do I subscribe to file sharing, no. Do I invite anything that might undermine the sanctity of my system? No. Do I allow someone else to use my system? No. The fact of the matter is, that whoever uses that Computer has got to have the knowledge that safe guards the integrity of that system. I saw some information proposed that is " bleeding edge" But the real value is you and knowing what to do, and what not to do.

Oliver Walter writes:

Leo's solution is also what I often do (using a simple text editor such as Notepad). For the FireFox browser you can obtain (free) an add-on called Lazarus that remembers what you type into web pages and enables you to recall it if the web page suddenly disappears (e.g. in an inactivity timeout or if you accidentally close the page).

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