Leo’s Answers #269 – February 8, 2011

I deleted my email address on Hotmail, because it was used by somebody else in my name. That person used all my contacts and is still sending emails in my name to everybody. How can I stop him from doing it after I canceled my Hotmail account?

My wife and I share a laptop, using Windows XP and connected to a satellite. The ISP limits our bandwidth. Recently, we received a message that we were using too much: about 150 MB during one recent hour. We do not run any videos, such as YouTube. We just browse (eBay) and email (Mozilla Thunderbird). I have checked all the places that I can think. If I turn off the automatic updates, for example, it still recurs. When I am logged in, the problem goes away, so it is some program which my wife is inadvertently running in the background, I suppose. Looking at Processes with Task Manager does not help much. It jumps around too much. I ran a scan with Norton and found nothing. I took it in to the computer geek store here, and they ran a more extensive scan, but found nothing. Is there any program which could monitor Internet activity and let me know what's running?

Windows 7 Starter: How can I print directories of the various USB Drives showing folders and files? My old program of PowerDesk was a beauty but not for Windows 7.

How can I block addresses that come repeatedly to my junk email box? It says I am blocking but it does not work.

Andy writes:

After recently parting ways with my employer, I had to return my laptop which I must admit included a fair bit of extra -unrelated- junk from my weird techie side habits. I went through most of what Leo said, but not the part including turning off sys files etc. There were things I didn't want potential snoopers to find, so I downloaded a program called Eraser which does exactly what SDelete does. It wiped a lot of stuff away in a systematic and straight forward way. All in all, I am comfortable believing I left very little traces behind, but as Leo says, it really depends on how paranoid one is about the data on the machine. Alternatively, if I were selling my machine, there is no question I would have nuked it, as I did with a previous-previous job's laptop as well. I have no qualms about doing that at all to satisfactorily cover all traces.

Bob writes:

There is always one thing that EVERY anti-malware cannot protect against. The User. The malicious few have been getting better and better at disguising their true intentions, while the average User has gotten less and less savvy about what their PC 'should' be doing. If we were all as thorough and as careful as Leo, viruses would become a thing of the past - and these huge companies couldn't charge us for their 'protection'.

The Sorcerer writes:

I usually explain it using the analogy of a kitchen, which also explains why adding extra RAM is one of the most effective upgrades you can do.

The computer stores all its programs and data on the hard drive but can't work with it there; it has to move it out into RAM to be able to work with it.

In the kitchen, the food is stored in the refrigerator or a cupboard but, like the computer's hard drive, you can't work with it while it's in there. You have to take it out and work with it on the counter or worktop - the kitchen equivalent of RAM.

If you only have a small counter you can only work with a small amount of food at any one time. You then have to put that back in the refrigerator while you get something else out to work on. However, if you have a bigger counter you can work on more things at once, becoming more efficient and productive, just as adding more RAM into your computer makes that more efficient.

Willie writes:

I used to have a mobile phone number "confirmed" for my Live account. I no longer have that phone number. I realized that I hadn't updated my account. So, I go and try to add my new one. As Leo points out, the confirmation will go to an existing confirmed number. This just won't work. So I try and remove my old phone number.

The problem is: It wants to confirm the renewal by sending a text to the phone number I am trying to remove! I just don't see how that is ever going to work. As is stated in the original article, "if you no longer have access to your alternate [method] then it's just as bad as, perhaps even worse than, not having set up an alternate [method] at all."

If anyone has a work around, let me know.

Can you tell me if it would be worth my while upgrading the RAM on my machine? I have 512 RAM at the moment, Win XP, Inspiron 510m. I mostly use my system for browsing the net and chatting on-line. Sometimes web pages take a long time to open or video chat freezes. Would extra RAM help this?

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