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What's The Difference Between A Bug And A Virus?

These are terminology or, computer speak, that are often mixed up by the computer layman and normal users of computers compared with technicians, programmers and consultants etc. To understand the difference you must first not confuse a human virus with a computer virus. Often if we have the flu' or a stomach upset we say we have caught a bug. We've all heard the term 'Tummy Bug.' This is not the case with a computer virus; it will spread throughout your computer system or may just attack one portion such as the email or word program. Their entire idea is to spread themselves to as many computers as possible often via you email address book. This is why it's so necessary to have anti virus software running.

A bug on the other hand is confined to a specific program and will not spread itself around because it is a fault in the program flow. Let's give you the legend of how the bug got its name, you should then not confuse one with the other.

Years ago when the computer was first used as a commercial tool they were much bigger in physical size and very much smaller in memory capacity. The first one I worked on would have needed twice the space of our current classroom. It wasn't anywhere near as powerful as one of our desktop computers. The program cards were exactly that - cards about the size of a clock card. They had holes punched in them by punch machines operated mainly by young girls and older women. These cards were stacked into a card feeder and were read by the machine at about 1000 per minute, which we thought was fantastic. Each card was a line of computer program code - light was shone through the holes in the card, which was then passed electronically to the machine's central processing unit (mostly banks of diode valves like radio valves). Now for the legend.

One night a moth got squashed between two of these cards and when one of these was fed through the machine the moth prevented light from passing through it at the correct point. Next morning when the operator was asked to explain - being American - he said it was a bug. Had he been English he might have said it was a moth. Then after any fault in program code was called a bug - who knows given different circumstances it may have been called a moth?
So a computer virus can or maybe will attack a machine or a specific program doing damage to its working routine - while a program bug is an error in the program's code and although it wasn't meant to happen will not harm the computer or the specific program.

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What Is Linux?

I was asked this not long ago. "I have been reading a computer magazine and the word Linux as a program is used in several places, what is it?

A few years ago a young Finnish student named Linus Torvalds, as a project, played around with a program called Unix, which is a program for mainframe computers. His aim was to invent a program to control PCs in the same way that Windows does - in other words it is a system program. Since its early days it has had several various releases all of which are Open Source software and are free to the user. In the early days Linux had the difficulty of no application programs being available that could run using its system. This is no longer a problem with very enthusiastic programmers writing software to suit it. Most commercial programs released now have a Linux version and there are many excellent applications available for free. Fortunately most of these also come with windows versions. Programs such as OpenOffice.org, Picasea, Mozilla Firefox web browser, Mozilla Thunderbird email and many others all free of charge can be downloaded from the Internet.

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I Can't Afford Microsoft Word What Else Is Cheaper?

This is a question that is asked over and over. Some new computers come with a copy of MS Word but no other Office program and MS Word is part of a suite of programs the main ones being Word, Excel and Power Point. That's a very cut down version of the complete program which is the Professional version and it comes at a considerably higher price. It includes the Access database and Outlook email (this is not Outlook Express email) it a swept up version with an appointment diary and other things. A home User and Student version of MS Office is also available but it doesn't include anything other than Word, Power Point and Excel.
So what is available that is cheaper?

OpenOffice.org is probably next best and it is free of charge it's up to version 3.1.0 but it is a very large program to download over the Internet even on Broadband. Don't try downloading this on dial up unless you wish to tie your phone up for quite a few hours. It is often available on front cover CDs of computer magazines, keep your eyes open at the bookstall.

Ashampoo Office has three suites in the set they are Textmaker, Planmaker and Presentations; again these are occasionally available on the front cover CDs of magazines. One advantage of this program is that it can be run from a flash drive without affecting the host computer's setup.
By using any Ashampoo product and registering it you will on occasion be given a cheaper offer than the normal price, often these offers are only for one or two days so if you don't take advantage of them you miss out. The latest offer was Office 2008 for $4.99US and $9.99US for the CD this comes to just over $32NZ total, which for an office suite is pretty good value. Of course it's not going to give you all the bells and whistles of MS Office but the average user never uses many of these anyway.

Abi Word is another word processing program that is far cheaper than MS Word it looks acts and feels like MS Word to a certain extent but it is not MS Word. MS Word is after all the de facto standard. It is also often supplied on the front cover disk of magazines.
All of the above programs can read the MS Formats of the program types and all can save in the MS format so they are interchangeable between the classroom and your home computer.

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Why Do I Lose The Picture When I Change The File Name?

When I load pictures into My Pictures folder from my camera they load in as PIC00001, PIC00002 etc. I change these name to more useful ones that I can recognise easily however, when I do this I can no longer open the pictures, which is very annoying. I have even tried renaming them back to their old names to no avail. What am I doing wrong?

I see this question asked over and over again and the answer is quite a simple one but it does take a little understanding. Back in the dark days before even Windows 95 we used an operating system called DOS, which meant Disc Operating System. (This incidentally was the foundation stone of the Microsoft Corporation) Two things about the old systems - First, the machines were only 8 bit CPUs, which means they could only work on 1 byte at a time. Second, file names could only be 8 letters in length and they were given a three letter extension. The extension name was always preceded by a dot, and the extensions were named things like .exe, .doc, .bat.
There were quite a few extension names and DOS could work out what the file was about when you asked it to open one. Later when Windows 95 came onto the market it was only really an extension of DOS wrapped up in a gift pack. Windows was the result of people not bothering to learn all the complicated necessary typed instructions to operate in DOS and the fact that Apple Mac came with a point and click operating system. It did however have a 65000 CPU, which was 32 bits. But windows for a start remained with the 8 letter file names and the 3 letter extensions. Then windows started to get its act into gear and the 255 length file name became possible even separated with spaces between words. But the computer operating system still had to know what the extension was in order to work out what kind of file it was dealing with.

With the release of Windows XP someone at Microsoft had the bright idea not to remove the extension, but by default to hide it. So now a file with the name PIC0001 is really named PIC0001.jpg. The .jpg part of the name tells windows XP that it is a picture file. Now you decide to change the file name and all you can see is the PIC0001 so you highlight it and rename it 'Joey' or 'Family Group' or something similar. When you do this a message appears on screen telling you that if you remove the file name extension then you may not be able to read the file afterwards. Users are notorious for not reading screen messages - they think the programmer put them there for practice. So, they see a message click OK and then their photo is not available to them any more.

Question: What's the point of telling someone that the file will not work without the extension but not showing them what the extension is? This is like telling someone to switch on their car lights when it gets dark but hiding the light switch in the boot! But then why on earth would Microsoft make something simple for a user when it can be made so much more difficult with a little check box? This check box is called - Hide extension for known file types.
And so, by default, having it checked, which means yes hide known extensions and unknown ones come to that so they can no longer be seen?

Correcting this is simple in Windows Explorer
Click the Tools, Folder options...
Click the View Tab in the dialog box.
Move down and find Hide extension for known file types
Click the check box and remove the tick.
Now instead of seeing only PIC0001 as a file name you will see PIC0001.jpg or something similar. When you rename never rename the letters after the dot and always leave the dot in place. I believe that in Windows Vista although the extension is hidden when a file name is changed the extension isn't touched. That Mr. Gates does make much more sense!

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Do Compatible Inks Ruin my Printer?

Printer manufacturers will tell you that compatible inks ruin printers but then, cigarette manufacturers will tell you there is no sound evidence that smoking can give you cancer. A report on using compatible ink cartridges was written and researched by computer magazine using well-known brands of printers and compatible inks. They found that in some cases the compatible cartridges lasted longer while others did less printing than the manufacturer's inks and, some gave better results using spectrometers than others. The differences were so small as to be insignificant in the output of pages produced, or what cartridge to purchase. There was no real discernable difference in the quality between the inks and no printer was either damaged or broke down because of the compatible inks used.
Manufacturers are out to sell their own inks and therefore can lay down that if compatible inks are used during the period of warranty then the warranty becomes null and void. That's fair enough and I would recommend that only the correct ink cartridges be used during this warranty period. However, once this period is over why pay more for a refill than is necessary? If the day comes when the printer is no longer serviceable then a replacement printer is a cheaper option than a repair, whether caused by compatible ink or not. My first mono desk-jet printer cost somewhere in the region of $600 many years ago and one didn't dare stray away from the manufacturer's recommendations then because replacing the printer was an expensive exercise.
My recommendation is to do a search of the Internet using the New Zealand only sites to see what cartridges are available for your printer in this country - that allows you to make price comparisons without trying to do currency conversions at the same time. Inks are only a mixture of oils and chemicals, industrial chemist are quite proficient at analysing what is in them and making their own ink from the results to their own formula.

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Is A Bug Different To A Virus?	What's a bug and a virus?
What Is Linux	I keep reading about Linux what is it?
Other Word Programs	I can't afford MS Word what's cheaper?
No Pictures On Name Change	When I change a name I cannot see picture
Compatible Inks	Do compatible inks ruin my printer?