Keeping recovery media around for use when your Windows computer won't start is a good way to turn a disaster into an inconvenience. Recovery CDs and DVDs were popular for a while, but some computers -- particularly notebook computers and tablets -- no longer come with optical drives. It's USB to the rescue.
Around the end of August, I noticed that Woot was selling 16GB USB drives for $3, limit 5. By today's standards, 16GB is small and you'll find them selling for $5 to $10 -- but it's just about right for a recovery drive. Windows needs around 8GB and, once you've created the recovery drive, you can copy other useful utilities to the USB device.
Copy additional support files after you create the recovery drive, though, because any files on the drive will be erased.
Start with a USB drive that has no files you want to keep. There's no need to format the thumb drive to remove any existing files because Windows will take care of that. Insert the drive, open the Start menu, and type "recovery". Select "Create a recovery drive" from the menu.
You'll be asked if you want to back up system files to the recovery drive. Select this because you need the system files to use either Reset or Recover from the thumb drive. You'll generally be able to copy the system files, but not always.
On one of my computers, this message appeared. It's a meaningless message that's made even worse by Microsoft's total lack of clues about how a user might want to proceed.
My first thought was that the McAfee Total Protection system might be causing a conflict even though it's installed on 2 computers where the process succeeded. I turned it off, but once again I saw "We can't create the recovery drive."
Then I deselected the system files option box and tried again.
On systems with more than one USB drive, you'll see a list of devices you can use. Choose very carefully because if you select a data drive, all data will be vaporized. I selected the thumb drive, K (ESD-USB).
The process ran to a successful conclusion.
If Windows has serious problems, but is still able to boot, you'll want to use the Reset or Recover from the Recovery Options menu. The USB drive is for use only when Windows will not start. This is a rare situation, so you may never need the USB drive. It's good insurance nonetheless.
You you do need to use it, you may need to change the computer's BIOS settings so that it will boot from a USB device. Computer manufacturers have assigned different key strokes to get to the BIOS menu. Some computers display information about the keys to press during startup, others don't. Common choices are F2, F8, and Enter. This is the kind of information you should gather before you need it; otherwise, you might need to use another computer and visit the manufacturer's website to determine what the magic keys are.
When you boot to the USB device, you'll see a menu with several options. Select Troubleshoot.
Generally you'll want to select a restore point by using Advanced Options > System Restore. This removes recently installed applications, updates, and drivers but won't touch any of your data files. If that doesn't work and the USB drive doesn't have the system files, you'll want a professional to look at the computer. There are other options on the main menu, but using one of them without knowing exactly what you're doing can turn a problem into a disaster.
If you were able to place the system files on the USB drive, you still have 2 options:
In addition to being a system recovery device, the USB thumb drive can hold dozens of portable applications that are useful when you're using somebody else's computer, when you want to help somebody else solve a problem with their computer, or when a problem crops up on your computer.
Start at PortableApps.com, download the free application (contributions recommended), and then fill the application with any portable apps you'd like to have with you at all times. The term "portable app" means that it runs entirely from the USB drive, does not have to be installed, and leaves no trace on the PC. For example, carrying around the portable version of Thunderbird will be helpful if you need to use a friend's computer to collect your e-mail.
After downloading the portable apps installer, run it and select new install.
Select either Portable or Custom for the location. Either will ask you to define a location. I had already created a directory called "UTILITIES" on the thumb drive.
Select the location where you want PortableApps to be installed. In my case, K:\UTILITIES\.
When the installation is complete, run the application.
Select the applications you want to have installed on the thumb drive and click Next.
Depending on how many apps you selected, this process can take a long time. I selected 37 and installing them on the thumb drive took about half an hour. Some of the apps will display a message during the installation, so watch for those.
When you run PortableApps, it will appear in the Notification Area (Tray). To run any of the apps, select it from the menu.
Some of the ads we encounter in email and on the internet are clearly fraudulent. Some that might appear to be fraudulent actually aren't, but paying attention to the "offer" is important
Can You Buy a Canon Rebel for $5.17?I frequently see ads such as this one, apparently promising a $400 Kitchen Aid mixer for about $2, a $500 Apple Ipad for $12, a $400 Canon Rebel for $5, and a $200 ring for $1. One of the worst offenders is DealDash and yet the company has an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau. How can this be?
First, DealDash seems to act quickly on customer complaints and generally seems to resolve them. So in fact it's not a fraudulent operation. The self-styled "auction" site offers products at absurdly low prices, but those prices don't reflect what you'll pay. They're starting points for the auction.
It's not a typical auction, either. Participants have to purchase bids. Those are in addition to the final price of whatever is being auctioned, so the final price is the price of the item you "win" plus the cost of your bids.
DealDash also offers "buy it now" prices that are generally equivalent to Ebay's -- well above the initial bid but possibly offering a discount from normal retail prices.
Those who play the bidding game not only pay for their bids and then buy the product if they "win", but they also need to spend time keeping track of bids. Seems like a lot of work to me just to obtain what will probably be a slightly discounted price that you may well be able to match on other sites or even in-store prices.
So it's not fraud if you clearly explain the rules, but it certainly has the appearance of a deceptive come-on.
The email fraudsters just never give up, but now they're trying something new. Here's an example that I received this week. The message actually contains no text at all. It's just a giant image that looks like text.
Why do this? It's mainly an attempt to fool protective software that looks for large dollar amounts and marks them as spam. An image doesn't reveal any of these tell-tale signs. And the fraudsters have now selected a country other than Nigeria. This one claims to be from the Investment and Commerce Bank in Togo. Togo is also a west African country. It's located between Ghana and Benin.
The message is full of typographical and spelling errors -- enough of those alone to tip off anyone who's paying even a bit of attention.
It's an inheritance scam. Without mentioning my name or that of my supposed relative, I'm offered $15.5 million dollars. But the from address is (1) "littlejoe_deal" at Yahoo, while the reply-to address is (2) "robert_benham" at AOL, and the address presented later in the letter is (3) "robertbenham" at "representative.com", a domain that seems to be reasonably well known for harboring scammers.
The guy claims to be a banker at one point and a judge at another. He also claims, not to be in Togo, but in Atlanta. And not just anywhere in Atlanta. The address he provides is 244 Washington Street. I wondered where that is and thinking that you might wonder the same thing, I included a map: It's a building in the center of Atlanta, adjacent to city hall and the Georgia Capitol.
If you're going to claim an address, it's probably good to claim one in a good neighborhood. And the scammer even has (thanks to the miracle of voice over IP) an Atlanta phone number, but oddly enough his fax number is in Massachusetts.
So what we have here is a laughable example of a poorly executed fraud, but you know that somebody will believe it.
Even if you use your computer only from home, a virtual private network (VPN) is a good thing to have because it provides secure connections to keep your private information private. Free VPNs are generally slow and some of them log your usage. There are paid options, but if you need a VPN and if you want it to be free and easy to use, there's Opera.
A VPN client is available directly in the Opera desktop browser, which makes the Norwegian browser the first "major" browser to include a built-in VPN service. The secure proxy is provided by SurfEasy, an Opera company based in Canada. Opera's agreement notes in its terms of service that the VPN connects to websites via various servers around the world, "so your connection speed might be affected."
When turned on, Opera's VPN creates a secure connection to one of Opera's five server locations. Users can choose where to appear on the internet. In addition to providing privacy and security, the fact that the VPN can make it possible for you to appear to be in another country can make content that is restricted to a given country or region easier to access. If the location doesn't matter to you, just let the Opera browser select the optimal server location based network speed, latency, location, and server capacity. When in automatic location mode, browsing through the VPN will be at maximum available speed. In most cases, the speed will be slower than if you connected directly.
The browser VPN feature uses a 256-bit AES encrypted connection to the VPN virtual locations and Opera vice president Krystian Kolondra says that it's a "no-log service", meaning that neither Opera nor SurfEasy stores any information about a user's browsing history.
Kolondra says that people are concerned about their privacy on-line and that the interest in VPN is increasing, but two major obstacles are blocking people from using it: "VPNs are too complicated to use and they require a monthly subscription." Opera, he says, resolves both issues by introducing its free and easy-to-use service in the browser.
It's easy to enable. After downloading Opera for computers (or updating to the most recent version), go to Settings (Preferences on the Mac) and choose Privacy & Security. Toggle VPN service on and an icon labeled "VPN" will appear in the browser to the left of the address field. Clicking the icon allows users to activate the VPN and choose a preferred location.
