Information Avenue - Issue #203 - December 17, 2005
Hi everyone,
Welcome to Issue #203 of Cloudeight Information Avenue. We hope you are enjoying the many
Windows tips & tricks and answers to questions that we have been sharing with you! In
today's Issue we bring you some great tips and tricks you can really use, answer your
Windows questions, and introduce you to another great freeware program and a whole lot
more!
If you've not been getting InfoAve every Saturday morning, don't assume that we did not send it! Check your spam filters and check with your ISP: chances are your mail is being censored and refused, or worse yet, simply deleted so that you cannot even track what happened! If you're one of those who has had problems receiving our newsletters in the past, or is still experiencing difficulty receiving InfoAve, be sure to read "Uncle Joe and the Kartoffelpuffer" .
You can find answers to your computer questions or get help from our Information Avenue Forum! Submit your favorite computer tip or trick and win prizes! If we choose your tip or trick from those submitted during the week you win! You can send us your comments or submit questions for possible inclusion in future issues of Information Avenue by clicking here. Keep in mind we can't answer each of you personally, but all questions submitted are read and considered for inclusion in Information Avenue.
Our
New Cloudeight Desktop Delights II - Special Holiday Edition CD
All orders placed today will be
shipped no later than 12/19/2005!
You've been asking for our stationery on CD-ROM - and we heard you! Now for the first time in over two years we're offering a CD-ROM that includes dozens of holiday stationery, hundreds of Wallpaper, dozens of screen savers, a special bonus - Our Christmas Acpressions E-book and more- all included on our Desktop Delights II - Holiday Edition CD-ROM.
Our new Cloudeight Desktop Delights II - Holiday Edition CD-ROM makes a great gift to yourself or a great stocking stuffer for anyone who enjoys using a computer. Now get tons of Cloudeight stuff on one great CD-ROM. This is a CD you'll use it all year long! Supplies are limited so get yours now!
The Smileycons
Holiday Gift CD-ROM
All orders placed today will be
shipped no later than 12/19/2005!
This great CD-ROM is not just for the
holidays! It contains our award-winning Smileycons program and twenty-five of
our best Expansion Packs. This CD-ROM contains over $80 worth of premium expansion packs
iGive yourself the Gift of Smileycons or give this CD as a
gift. This CD will be used all year around!
The
Smileycons Holiday Gift CD-ROM includes:
A Full, Registered version of our award-winning Smileycons program
All 25 of our current Expansion Packs
Free Shipping Anywhere In The World
Special Holiday Packaging
Makes a Great Gift and Stocking Stuffer
Contains over $80.00 worth of premium expansion packs plus the Smileycons Program!
This Week's Rant
- This Christmas make the first gift you give the greatest gift of all.This Week's Top Questions and Answers
Sue Has Problems With The "HOSTS" file
Hiya I love receiving your weekly newsletter an learning about my computer
with all your tips and information.
Keep up the good work. My question is really a cry for help!! I have the Hosts
file notice popping up every time I turn on this machine. I have followed your
instructions and deleted the correct Hosts file........only to find that the
next time I turn the computer on, the notice pops up again, and on checking my
files, the Host file is back in the drivers/etc., file in Windows System32. I
have even tried deleting it with the super shredder, but the next day its back
again. Can you please help me, cos this is driving me nuts......without you my
computer would be a complete nightmare lol so please don't ever give up. Hugs
Sue
Sandy Asks About "Starware"
Recently, a toolbar appeared in my browser called "Starware". I have
never seen mention of this on your website. Fortunately, I was able to delete
the software. I have an up to date antivirus software, a personal firewall and
now SpySweeper installed on my computer. Since this happened, I have not been
able to use the "search from address bar" feature in Internet Explorer. One
other thing that is happening is that every time I go into "tools" "internet
options" "advanced" and make any changes to the options, when I click "apply"
Internet Explorer does not respond, it freezes and won't take my changes. I have
to "end the program" and exit Explorer. Any suggestions as to why this is
happening??? Everything worked fine previous to having that Starware toolbar
installing itself.
|
Spyware and its kissing cousin Adware can threaten your privacy and damage your computer - Almost 90% of personal computers are infected with spyware. Not only is spyware and adware a threat to your privacy, it slows down your computer and can cause your computer to stop working all together. It doesn't cost a penny to try SpySweeper. We not only advertise and endorse SpySweeper, but we use it on all of our computers. Find out right now if your computer infected with Spyware. |
Reader's Tip of The Week Submitted by Keith
Every web surfer and e-mailer should have a few
sites in their Favorites Folder that they can check to verify hoaxes and false
e-mails. Some of these can be
www.snopes.com
www.vmyths.com
www.museumofhoaxes.com
http://urbanlegends.about.com/
www.trendmicro.com
Having these in your folders will stop the spread of crazy e-mails that some
people fall for; like Bill Gates paying you money just to forward a few e-mail
messages to your friends, or the World Trade centre virus e-mail that is going
around, etc. People still fall for these e-mails and when I get one I try to
write the person back and explain to them by giving them links of where they can
check these things out before we go off filling all of our friends and family's
inboxes with unnecessary warnings. Maybe we can all help to stop these from
circulating or at least slow them down.
Thanks, Keith. It's very true. Keeping up with things and increasing your
knowledge, decreases the chances you'll fall into one of the many traps floating
around out there. Do you have a tip or trick you would like to share with our
readers? Send it to us by
clicking
here. If we use your tip, you'll win a great prize!
|
Zappit System Cleaner By Cloudeight - Zappit is the fun and easy way to keep your system clean, organize your menus and sub-menus, startup programs, and favorites. As most of you know a cleaner system runs faster and lasts longer. Zappit is a great way to keep your computer clean and support Cloudeight too. Click here to learn all about Zappit System Cleaner by Cloudeight and download your free, seven-day, fully-functional trial version! Thanks for supporting Cloudeight! |
This Week's Tips and Tricks
Add A Handy Shortcut to Add/Remove Programs
To Your Desktop
Windows XP Home and Professional
Read this tip plus a bonus tip
A Comment From Us
Important News About Comodo Firewall - We
Are No Longer Recommending It!
As most of you know, the free firewalls are suddenly not free any longer.
While it appears that Kerio will once again be offering a free version someday
(they were recently purchased by Sunbelt software) they do not offer one as of
this writing. Recently, in our quest to find a good free firewall, we came
across "Comodo" firewall. We tested it and found it to work well and began to
recommend it to our readers. We did our research on the program but not on the
company that makes it. We have since learned that the same company that makes
the Comodo Firewall, also makes an Internet Explorer Toolbar called,
paradoxically, "Trust Toolbar". It appears that the Trust Toolbar is anything
but trustworthy. In fact it's recognized by SpySweeper and other good
anti-spyware as questionable software product and a browser/start page hijacker.
While we never recommended the "Trust Toolbar" we did recommend the Comodo
Firewall, not realizing that the company that makes both products was the same.
Effective immediately we are not recommending the Comodo Firewall. Even though
there is no evidence that there is anything questionable about Comodo Firewall
we cannot support any company who makes spyware/adware/malware or any kind of
questionable software at all. TC & EB.
|
Join our Start Page
Twelve Days of Christmas Celebration! |
Retrieve any
Windows or Office 2000/XP CD Key
Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP and MS Office 97, 2000 and Office XP
|
Our Freeware Pick Of The Week
LookInMyPC will give you more information about your computer and it's lightning fast. This is a great tool for finding out everything you might want to know about the computer you use everyday. While you probably won't use this program a lot, when you do need it, it can provide superb details about your computer that can assist you or a computer tech with troubleshooting any problem you might have. Click here to learn more or to download our our Freeware Program of The Week.
Back To Basics
What Is A File Extension?
A file extension indicates what type of file it is. For example .exe is a
Windows executable, .zip is a zip file; JPG, GIF, BMP, PNG, and TIF are image
files; .htm, and .html are hypertext markup files (better known as Web pages).
The extension tells Windows how it should handle that type of file. Every
extension needs a program to be associated with it to open it. This is what is
meant by "file associations". If there is no program associated with a certain
type of file on your computer, you won't be able to open it correctly.
Help Cloudeight Help You! - A dollar or two goes a long way to help keep us going. If you'd like to donate a small amount to Cloudeight we would very much appreciate it. Click here to make a donation. OR - Make our Start Page - Your Start Page.
We have tons of stationery, screen savers, greetings, Funletters and more for Christmas. You're all invited to our Cloudeight site to take a look at all the great things we have for you for you for Christmas. Visit Our Cloudeight Christmas Home Page
We would like to thank all of you who have subscribed to Cloudeight Information Avenue. We're glad to have you with us! If you have a question you would like to see answered in this newsletter please submit it to us by clicking here. Keep in mind we cannot answer every question, but we do read every one.
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Best wishes,
Eightball & Thundercloud