Selecting the right antivirus software for your computer can be a difficult situation.  There are many antivirus software developers that have a wide variety of programs on the market today.  Most of these programs boast the capability to protect your computer in a wide variety of circumstances.

How is the end-user supposed to differentiate between the programs available? Selecting a solution that is efficient and effective for their particular situation can become a nightmare.

Key Points When Selecting an Antivirus Program

When selecting an antivirus program for your computer, there are a number of key points that you should consider.

1. What is the antivirus program going to accomplish for you specifically.
2. Do you need other options such as a firewall and email filter?
3. How much resources do you have to run your antivirus application?
4. Is your computer performing slowly even without an antivirus application /program?
5. Do you have a high-speed internet connection to support the necessary updates for the program?
6. What options in the antivirus program are customizable (such as scheduling scans, scanning individual devices, pausing an active scan, etc.).
7. What type of pricing points does the antivirus company offer for the products?
8. Does the antivirus company provide you with support?

These are only a few of the options  you should consider when purchasing an antivirus program.  There are other factors including operating platform, disk space, processing power, user-friendliness… and the list goes on.

What your antivirus program should do

Of the factors I have listed here, I would like to highlight a few that create a key feature-set for my choice in an antivirus program.  The number one factor is effectiveness. This refers to the capability of the antivirus program to detect and remove viruses reliably.  Many of the virus applications on the market are good at one or the other of these factors.  Few of them are good at both.

Another key feature in an antivirus program should be the user-friendliness of the program. It does minimal good to have a program that detects viruses very well, but is extremely difficult to maneuver and utilize. Antivirus programs should have a simple to-the-point interface. This will allow you to perform straightforward tasks in a organized and resolute fashion.

The Practical Application

With these features and capabilities in mind, are there programs on the market that meet these requirements? Yes, there are a few programs out there that do perform as intended and provide the end-user with a reliable and simple solution.  One of those options is Vipre Antivirus. This program is developed by Sunbelt Software and has received excellent reviews from professionals and end-consumers alike.

Your TrueStar Technology Expert

Moving Thunderbird (email, accounts, settings, calendar, message filters, and address book) to a New Computer:

This Method of Transfering your Thunder Bird email accounts preserves ALL your Thunderbird email accounts, settings, message filters, and address book.

1. Install Thunderbird on the new computer / account:

You can install Thunderbird by downloading it from the Mozilla.com website here. Once you have downloaded the program to your computer, double-click on it to start the installation.

2. Copy your  Thunderbird profile to the new computer /account.

After thunderbird is installed, copy the “Profiles” folder/directory from your old computer/account to where the profiles folder is on the new computer (often in C:\Users\Owner\Application Data\Thunderbird). This will replace the profiles folder created when Thunderbird was installed. This folder should be fairly large in size depending on how much email you have.

3. Copy the Profiles.ini file to the new computer / account.

Once you have copied the Profiles folder to your new computer / account , you need to tell Thunderbird where that profile is, and what it is called.  This is accomplished by copying the profile.ini file into the same directory/folder you copied the “Profiles” folder into  (often in C:\Users\Owner\Application Data\Thunderbird).  Alternately, you can edit the existing “Profiles.ini” file to tell it which profile to load (see below).

Editing the “Profiles.ini” File:

1. Go to the profiles.ini file (often in C:\Users\Owner\Application Data\Thunderbird) and double-click on it to open it.  The contents should look something like this: (between the horizontal lines)

_________________________________________________

[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=default
IsRelative=1
Path=Profiles/m1gu4r32.default

_______________________________________________

The portion that you need to edit is the last line that says: Path=Profiles/m1gu4r32.default.

2. Change the part after the forward slash (/) to the name of the profile that you copied over from the old computer/account.

The name of the profile can be found by simply double-clicking on the “Profiles” folder and observing the name of the folder located inside.

You can simply type the name in the “profiles.ini” files in place of the name that was there.  A quick way to accomplish this is to simply click on the folder once, press the F2 key on your keyboard, press and hold the “Ctrl” key (Windows) “Command” key (Mac) press the letter “c” on the keyboard and release both keys.  Go into the “profiles.ini” file and select the portion of text after the slash in the last line and press the “Ctrl” key (Windows) “Command” key (Mac) and press the letter “v” on your keyboard and release them both.  This will effectively copy the name of that folder/profile and paste it after the forward slash (/) where it needs to be.

3. Save the changes to the file and close it.

4. Open Thunderbird (all your emails, accounts, message filters, calendar, and contacts should appear).

Your TrueStar Technology Expert

What is DDWRT?

What is DD-WRT?  DD-WRT is a free Linux based Operating System for a fairly broad range of routers.  Basically what you’re looking at is: DD-WRT upgrades the performance / capabilities of your router.  Most standard, retail-class routers come with basic options that are suitable for end-consumer/home-user class applications.  Many more technically-minded individuals would like increased functionality from their hardware (with preferably, minimal expense).

Router Operating Systems

Your router is controlled by the OS (Operating System) / Software that tells that router what to do.  To increase the functionality of that router therefore, one may consider replacing or editing the existing Operating System with another operating system featuring more capabilities.  DD-WRT is one such operating system and may be an option for you if you have or purchase a router that is compatible with it.

Selecting Your Router’s Operating System

How do I upgrade or replace my router’s OS (Operating System)?  In most cases, you may not have the time or knowledge necessary to create an operating system for your router.  You may therefore wish to obtain such a resource from someone that specializes in that field of development.   One of the more popular operating systems that meet such requirements is the DD-WRT OS which is developed by the DD-WRTCommunity. To determine whether DD-WRT will work on your router, visit their website and browse their list of supported routers.

Installing DD-WRT on Your Router:

1. Download the version of the firmware/OS for your model of router.

2. Follow the specific instructions (based on your router and version of the firmware you are installing) to install your new OS.

Installing DD-WRT V24 SP1 on a Linksys WRTGL:

1. Download the DD-WRT V24-SP1 from the DD-WRT website here.

2. Plug in/power-on  your Linksys WRT54GL Router and connect to it via a LAN port with an ethernet cable.

3. Open a browser such as Firefox and access the web interface (typically by typing 192.168.1.1 into the address bar or whatever IP range your router is set to).

4. Click on the “Administration” tab:

5. Click on the “Firmware Upgrade” sub-tab:

6.Be sure you are connected to your router via ethernet and NOT via Wireless. Click on the “Browse” button and select the file that you downloaded and click on the “upgrade” button.

7.  You will be presented with the new interface once your router has rebooted (if you had any settings in your router, all your settings should remain in place):

Your TrueStar Technology Expert

How to unzip a tar.gz file from the linux command line:

So you’ve downloaded a tar.gz file from some place or the other on the web, but you have an issue. You do not know how to uzip this file. Here is the procedure you need to follow to unzip it:

Unzipping the file:

To unzip a tar.gz file from the command line in linux, complete the following steps in the order presented:

1. Open a “Terminal Window” or “Command Console” or the command line. (in CentOS 4.5 click on “Applications” in the menu bar, point to “System Tools” and click on “Terminal”).

2. Login as the root user (type su press enter and type in your password)

3. Go to the directory that the tar.gz file is located in. Use the command “cd” (the letter “c” followed by the letter “d” without quotation marks) followed by the directory you wish to go to. For instance if you are in the “home” directory and you wish to go to a directory/folder that is in the home directory called “testdirectory”, you would type the command “cd testdirectory” (without quotes) that will put you in the “testdirectory” directory. The point being that whatever commands you execute at the command line at this point will affect the files in that (“testdirectory” in this case) directory specifically unless you specify otherwise.

4. Type the command “tar -zxvf [filename]” (that is tar -zxvf followed by the name of the file you want to unzip). This will unzip the file and put it in a new directory (within the same directory) in the unzipped format.

Your TrueStar Technology Expert

Favicon?

I’m sure by now most of you have noticed the “favicons” located in the address bar of your browser or in  your favorites/bookmarks links:

*Adding a “Favicon” to your website is actually a pretty simple process.  Follow the instructions below to add a favicon to your site.

Adding the Favicon:

1. Create your favicon.

To create your favicon (a 16×16 pixel .ico image), you may create one, or select an image of your choice and edit it with a graphics design/editing program like Adobe Photoshop/CS3, the GIMP, or some free services (here for instance) offered by numerous websites on the net.

2. Upload the favicon to the directory/folder in which your website’s index page (website’s home page) is located.

3. Add the following line of text between the <head> tags (<head> and </head> respectively) of your index page:

<link rel=“icon” href=“favicon.ico” type=“image/x-icon” />

Note:

[make sure that your favicon/icon is called "favicon.ico" (wihout the qoutes) or whatever the name of your favicon/image is.  The browser will try to load (as the favicon) whatever image name you put after "href=" ].  Please note that this image does NOT have to be a “.ico” image.  You may also use such images as a non-compressed/compressed PNG or a GIF.  All browsers may not support PNGs or GIFs however.

Also:

If you are having issues with this showing up in your browser, such as Firefox, Opera, K-Meleon, or any other browser, you may wish to put a “?” (question mark without quotes) after the URL as shown below:

<link rel=“icon” href=“favicon.ico?” type=“image/x-icon” />  (question mark located after “favicon.ico)

4. Publish/Post your edited index page.

5. Refresh your browser by pressing f5 on your keyboard or by pressing and holding the “Ctrl” key and momentarily pressing “R” on your keyboard.

This completes the implementation of the favicon.

Note:  You may wish to check whether your favicon is showing up on a different computer/different browser to avoid issues with it not showing up. Also note that on a Linux/Unix server, you must make sure that all your text matches exactly ( Characters/letters are case-sensitive on Linux/Unix servers.)

* This refers to adding a favicon to your unix-based server and may be different given your situation and Server Operating System.

Your TrueStar Technology Expert

Looking for a Fully Functional Office Program?

Have you considered purchasing a copy of Microsoft Word, Excel, or maybe the entire suite (Office)? You may have been turned off by the high pricing associated with this type of software. Are you aware that there are several versions of office software available to the public at no charge?

Open Office

One of the leading open-source software suites is provided by Open Office. Open Office features a full suite of software, ranging anywhere from word-processing to spread-sheets and presentations. This office program is free to download and use. For a free program it provides excellent functionality. To download it, visit OpenOffice.Org. and click on the download link provided.

Open Office Functionality

Open Office is very comprehensive and provides a full range of services you would expect from a professional stand-point when purchasing an office suite. Lets take a look at some of the abilities the software has.

1. Word Processing (Writer)

2. Database Creation and Management (Base)

3. Presentations (Impress)

4. Drawing and Charts (Draw)

5. Create and Manage Scientific Equations (Math)

6. Spread Sheets, Manage Finances and Equations (Calc)

With this amazing level of functionality, it is difficult to purchase a typical version of Microsoft Office that provides the same funtionalities but with a insensitive price tag.

Downloading Open Office

1. To download Open Office, click here and click on the download link provided on their site:

2. You will be presented with the download box associated with your Operating System ( you may be prompted to confirm the download).

3. Once the download is complete, you may launch the executable file to start the installation of the office suite:

4. The installation will prompt you with the license agreement etc. and will continue with the installation after these options are selected.

5. Once the installation is complete, you can launch the program to see the features provided:

6. Select any of these Items on the list, they provide you with the functionality of any of services indicated. Thats hard to beat at no charge.

Another Free Office Program

There are other free office programs available to you from different organizations that develop and manage these programs. AbiWord is another example of an office program that is fully functional and completely free. There are others out there but these are two of the bigger names in the field of free office programs.

Just Might be what You’re Looking for

Go ahead and download them and give them a try, you never know, they just might be what you’re looking for.

TrueStarTE

Your TrueStar Technology Expert

Thunderbird Calendar (Lightning)

Thunderbird has many functionalities, one of them is a calendar. Thunderbird calendar (known as Lightning) is a practical, easy-to-install, calendar that features a audible reminders and a number of other nice features. I will run through downloading and installing the calendar into Thunderbird.

Downloading The Calendar (Lightning)

To download Lightning, click here. Lightning is provided by Mozilla and can be added as an “Add-on” to your Thunderbird Email program.

1. After clicking on the link to download lightning, you will be presented with the Mozilla web-page where you can click on whichever version of the software you need to download (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Other Systems such as OS2 and Solaris).

2. After clicking on the link that represents your Operating System, you will be presented with a download (represented here in Firefox) :

3. Once you have selected your Operating System type, you will be presented with a download button for that OS type:

4. Click on the “Download Now” button to start your download. You may be presented with a dialog box indicating the download name, type, etc. :

5. Make sure you click on “Save to Disk” or such related option to save the file to your hard drive. Note where you tell this file to download to, you will need it shortly.

Installing the Calendar into Thunderbird

6. Once the download is complete, you may go ahead and launch Thunderbird. When Thunderbird is up and running, follow the instructions below to install the Calendar Add-on:

1. Click on “Tools” in the file menu.

2. Click on “Add-ons”

3. Click on “Install” (located at the bottom-left hand side of the “add-ons” dialog box:

4. Go to the location on you downloaded the file to and click on it to select it and click on “open” (depends on your OS). The name of the calendar add-on is: lightning-0.8-tb-win.xpi :

7. You will be presented with the “Install Add-on” Dialog box: You may click on “Install Now” to begin the installation.

8. Once the installation is complete, you will be presented with the Add-on dialog box, you may click on “Restart Thunderbird” at this point to complete the installation process and make the calendar available:

The calendar will be available in Thunderbird on the right-hand side. You may switch between full calendar view, tasks view, and email view by clicking on the respective buttons (“mail”, “calendar”, or “tasks”)  at the bottom of your inbox folders at the bottom left portion of Thunderbird:

Here is a quick peek at a calendar with an example event:

Adding an Event:

To add an event to the calendar, double-click the location on the calendar (such as the date/time) that you would like to schedule an event for, you will be presented with the following event dialog: (You can add the title for your event, the time you would like to schedule it for, and whether or not you should receive an audible reminder).

Once an event is added, it will appear in your calendar with the time of the event, followed by name of the event:

Enjoy!

Your TrueStar Technology Expert

Mac OS Leopard’s Mail

Setting up your email in Mac OS Leopard is a snap. As usual, the interface is clean and friendly which make configuring things a simplified experience. Ill run through setting up a POP (Post Office Protocol) account in Mail, I will include plenty of graphics to help along the way.

Setting it Up

1. Go ahead an open up Mail if don’t already have it open.

2. Click on Mail on your Menu and then click on preferences:

3. Make sure “Accounts” is selected:

4. Click on the “Plus” sign to add your account:

5. Enter the relevant information (such as name/nick-name, password, and email address) in the fields provided and click on “continue”.

6. Enter your incoming mail server (this is the server you will use to download your email) settings:

7. Enter your “outgoing server” or SMTP (this is the server you will use to send your email) settings and click on “continue”:

8. Choose whether or not to use SSL on your outgoing server (an option that is ISP dependent) and click “continue”:

9. You will be presented with your email setup summary, be sure the “take account online” check box is selected to immediately activate your account and click on “create”:

Editting your information:

To edit your information at a later date, simply open mail, select preferences, click on accounts, and make sure “account information” is selected. You may edit your information in the fields provided.

TrueStarTE,

Your TrueStar Technology Expert

Virtual Machines

What is a “virtual machine”? Virtual Machines are the new wave of future processing. Basically, what happens in the case of a virtual machine is, a super machine is created and divided into a number of machines managed via a core operating system. After the construction of the host system (system hosting the virtual machines) a master Operating System is installed which provides virtualization capabilities on which multiple standard Operating Systems can run.

Benefits of Virtualization

Virtualization is a technology that provides many benefits. Among them are speed, centralization, and economy. When considering the benefit of speed for instance, there is a tremendous benefit as communication between machines is now available at bus speed instead of ethernet or other means of “external” communication. Centralization puts management of multiple machines at a central interface. This allows you to minimize management time windows and concentrate on other issues that are more important than maintenance routine. Bordering on economy is the minimization of physical construction. This includes hardware that is necessary to power and construct multiple, independent machines, communication medium, UPSs and any other hardware necessary to support your specific requirements.

Redundancy

Another excellent benefit of virtualization is the minimal points of physical failure. Even though you are located on a single, central machine, redundancy is provided by the “redundancy structure configuration” of that hardware. In other words, to provide an adequate level of physical redundancy, the configuration of your host machine must match that of multiple external machines to an extent. This of course is provided by multiple instances of the hardware from which your host is constructed. Multiple instances of the hardware structure includes but is not limited to, RAID arrays, power supplies, CPUs, and external mediums of communication. At any rate, redundancy is critical and should be a well maintained priority of your System Structure.

Sources of Virtualization

Who provides resources for virtualization? There are quite a few sources for virtualization Operating Systems available and you may wish to consider different developers depending on the specific purpose or environment in which you plan to implementing your virtual system. Some of the major providers like Vmware and VirtualBox have multiple levels of virtualization available, ranking from a starting point such as desktop environments all the way up to an enterprise solution.

Virtualization Environments

Virtualization at this point is quite popular and is often implemented in ISP-like environments where the demand multiple servers to perform a specific task is high. Although not extremely popular on a more local or personal basis, even small businesses and home users may begin to see implementations of this technology. Virtualization for small businesses and home users will most likely be a prescription for Multimedia and other hardware intensive applications.

Your TrueStar Technology Expert

Firefox is Very Versatile

Firefox, the browser by Mozilla, is indeed a very versatile creature. If you consider the multiple levels on which you can use Firefox it is quite amazing. Today I would like to cover a couple of the more popular features available. One of the features that I like and find extremely handy, is the “Forecast Fox” Add-on. This feature basically allows you to view the weather for a given location in a few moments by integrating a little weather station if you will, into any of a number of locations in Firefox.

Simple, Easy to Understand Layout

You are presented with a simple layout that features a radar button for an geographically expansive outlook at the weather, followed by the current state of the weather and the current temperature. This is followed by two other panels dictating tomorrow’s and the “day-after’s” forecasts (noted below).

How Do I Install ForecastFox

Adding Forecast Fox to your Mozilla Firefox browser is a simple matter. Follow the instructions below:

1. Visit the Mozilla Add-ons page here (you’ll download the Add-on here).

2. Do a search for “Forecast fox” by typing forecast fox into the search box noted below (I personally like the enhanced version of the software).

3. Click on the version that you like, it will take you to the page dedicated to that version specifically.

4. Click on the “install now” or thus related button.

5. You will be presented with the software installation dialog:

6. Clicking on “Install Now” will let you install the software into your browser:

7. Once the installation is complete, you will have to restart Firefox:

8. After the restart is complete, you will need to tell Firefox to make use of the addon. You may accomplish this by:

1. Clicking on “Tools” in the menu.

2. Next click on Add-ons.

3. Click on “Extensions”.

4. Click on “Enable” under the Forecast fox Add-on:

Installation and Initialization Complete

This should put the dock into your browser. It may be necessary to restart your browser once more. Once the doc is in place, you simply need to tell it where you would like to track the weather. You may accomplish this by right-clicking anywhere on the weather interface and selecting “options”. This will present you with the Options dialog box and allow you to type in your zip code (this allows Forecast fox to track the weather for your location) If you’re putting this on a laptop and you travel frequently to multiple locations, you can add another profile and switch to that profile when you are at that location to have Forecast Fox show the weather for that location specifically:

After you type in your zip code, click on “OK” to close the dialog box. Forecast fox should begin showing the current weather as well as the two-day forecast.

Easy Weather Access

From now on, whenever you want a quick peek at what the clouds overhead are doing, simply point your mouse over the little, green, radar symbol and it will pop-up a little weather map showing cloud conditions in your area.

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Skin? What’s this About Firefox Skin?

Firefox has a skin, believe it or not, Firefox is quite the dermatological agglomeration. When I say Firefox has a skin, I mean that the look and feel of Firefox can be changed to a look and feel with a completely different atmosphere. This can easily be accomplished as is made available to you by the community of Firefox interface developers.

A Plethora of Skins

The amount of skins and styles that are available for your Firefox browser is varied from the simple, cool, and professional, to skins that will make you go hmmm. Take a look here at the types of skins available, you can go simple, bright, large, cool, smooth, modern, old, have a Mac OS look… etc. etc.

How do I Get These Wonderful Skins?

Obtaining skins for Firefox is simple and free… just like the browser they are made for. If you do not have Firefox, you can download it here. If you would like skins for Firefox, you can download them here. Installation is a snap, they take the same path as do the installations that were performed above (the Forecast fox Add-on). Just follow the same instructions choosing instead, whichever skin you would like.