Leo’s Answers #308 – November 8, 2011

My hard disk got infected with virus. I am planning to format it. So is there a way to backup all of the data without carrying the virus?

I followed your suggestion and purchased a router (Netgear 3400 N600), even though I only have one computer. See? Some people actually take your advice. My question is, not having any wireless equipment to use with this router, should I deactivate the wireless radio options or just leave it running? Also, is there any other feature that I should shut down that one computer doesn't use? The manual for this unit just makes me realize how ignorant I am about computer science. I will take your word that I am now getting the benefit of a remote firewall for my system.

My Toshiba laptop was bought in January with Windows 7 & IE9 installed, but the IE9 has never worked. I've rolled back to IE8 and that's fine (except now Gmail doesn't support IE8). Windows Updates demands that I install IE9. The problem with IE9 is that the tabs load and show properly across the top, but the screens below are blank. Some windows show a couple of pics from the website in the tab, but then these won't go away even if you change the tab... it's just a frozen blank screen. I can't do searches or view anything. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling; I've also tried resetting to default settings - no luck.

I recently purchased a new PC - HP with Windows 7. I would like my shortcuts (ex. Google) to show the Google square as red white green, as opposed to the IE world. I ran Windows XP previously, and they had a place to change icons with several from which to pick. It's the same with files; it shows just an open manila folder on the desktop, which I would like to change. Any info on this would be appreciated. I love your newsletter - I read it from top to bottom and could not find this anywhere.

I have a couple of good cleaning programs to protect my computer (which are usually recommended by you!). But occasionally, I get suckered into running a 'free trial' of a program (like a registry cleaner). I may have just run my cleaner and have been given a clean bill of health, but when I run the 'free trial', I invariably get hundreds of errors. Why?

andy writes:

I personally think that backing up and encrypting one's personal data, then simply putting this on an external drive and storing it off-site (e.g., at a family member's place or locked in the office) is the best and most cost-effective alternative to all the options discussed. I don't trust cloud storage as yet (security, privacy and accountability issues not fully addressed yet, thus unsatisfactory solutions to me). I have company and personal data backed up on 3 laptops AND 4-5 external drives that I keep interchanging. Call me paranoid, but I lost my wife's work folders 3 years ago and haven't heard the end of it since! Lesson learned.

Paul writes:

Excellent explanation Leo. I wish this could be required reading for everyone with an email account. I will do what I can and show it to offending friends & relatives (I also recommend your newsletter to these same people when I get the chance).

robert price writes:

In my perhaps naive opinion, the key here is "frequently used files". I had no defragged this laptop since purchasing two years ago. I booted clean and tested the performance with a reputable diagnostic program, then defragged, rebooted, and tested again.

Zero difference in performance. I think this is because the defragging would have only helped on files that were often used over and over, but I have very few of those.

Charlie day writes:

Love the newspaper explanation. I use messed up file cabinet..putting all the associated files together. Also I use idea of two index sheets of files to explain check disk. I worked in radio where we would add and delete files a lot daily. If you do this type of activity, defragging weekly does speed things up greatly.

Jim H writes:

well, a friend who was overly fond of forwarding everything to everybody didn't heed warnings about doing so. this past September he called in a panic because his mother, sister, and some members of a church he belonged to began receiving invitations to pornographic adult sites with his name as the sender and his personal recommendation on the "hotness" of the sites. i began getting so many emails that were forged to appear to come from him i had to block him. these were everything from auto insurance to male enhancement products, Mexican and canadian pharmacies, life insurance, - everything under the sun. i was thankful i had never given him my ISP connected email and only given him my Yahoo address. if there was a good thing it was i got to tell him "i told you so!"

Is it possible for a person to access my previous correspondence via email and MSN via our router? The 4 of us share one router. I delete my email correspondence but I am a little afraid that my old correspondence can or may be accessed by some means via the router. Some of the correspondence is of a personal and business nature and I would not like the info to fall into the hands of a person not screened to view it. If it is possible to draw old correspondence via the shared router, how do I go about preventing such an eventuality?

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