By William LaMartin, Editor, Tampa PC Users Group
lamartin@tampabay.rr.com

It is a new year. What is in store for us in computing? Probably more consolidation in both hardware and software companies. 2004 saw Gateway buy eMachines and then turn themselves over to eMachines president to see if he could make Gateway profitable. IBM sold their PC unit to a Chinese company after 3.5 years of unprofitability, and Corel acquired Jasc Software, the maker of Paint Shop Pro. Only a few months to a year earlier, I don’t recall how long, Corel itself had been bought and taken private by a venture capital firm called Vector Capital. And the TPCUG has a slightly smaller membership than last year, but we are still plugging along.

Pay your dues online. You can now pay your dues at our web site using either a PayPal account or a credit card. Click on the “Join our Group or Pay Dues” link on our main page. Since PayPal is the processor of your credit card if you use one, they take every opportunity to give you a chance to set up a PayPal account. If, like me, you don’t want one, make sure you follow the instructions at our site carefully. I have renewed my membership this way; now it is your turn.

Adware My daughter just returned to college, and I spent a few hours before she left checking out her laptop to make sure it was virus/adware free with all its Windows updates installed and in good working order.

The first thing that needed attention was the freezing of the computer when you inserted a blank CD in the drive. I noticed a shortcut to some sort of DVD player on the desktop. She said that she had installed it because she couldn’t get Windows Media Player to play a DVD. I suspected that DVD player from PC Friendly as the freezing culprit and uninstalled it. Immediately I could now burn CDs--both audio and data. Furthermore, I could find nothing wrong with Windows Media Player.

Next, I ran Norton Antivirus’ full scan. It discovered 34 files that it termed adware. They all had to do with a WebSearch Toolbar or WebSearch Tools. I found the associated programs and uninstalled them. Then I let Norton delete any remaining files on its list. After a reboot and opening of Internet Explorer I received a message from some program to the effect that the computer was in danger. A little sleuthing revealed the program as Solid Peer--itself an adware program. Somehow Norton had missed this one. It was listed in the Add/Remove section of Control Panel. On initiating its removal, I received the message that it would search for adware; however, it actually did remove itself. I suppose it was sort of like the message you get from the Windows Installer that it is installing a program when, if fact, you are uninstalling the program.

My daughter said that she was aware she had such problems but couldn’t figure how to remove them.

After all of that, I rebooted and ran a full scan in Norton one more time, producing no problems. To finish I created a new restore point for the computer. u