Ask The Tech Guys 10

Super Sunday! Let's be the only radio show in the nation not talking football!

As of 7a Pacific the SCO site is down. MyDoom has begun its attack.

Ken in Alta Loma is using a KVM switch to share a single monitor with four computers, each with various Radeon video cards. When he switches from the digital cards he can't switch back. He has to reboot the computers to get the monitor working again. If he uses the analog connections it works fine. I don't have any ideas about what might be wrong. If you do email Ken!

Doug from Dana Point says that his internal fan is only connected to the power tail coming from his power supply, but the CPU monitor program that comes with his MSI motherboard says the processor is cooler when he "turns up" the fan speed. No way, dude! The motherboard can't monitor or change the fan speed unless the fan is connected directly to the mobo itself. Try another motherboard monitor. MBM5 is the best.

Ed, also in Dana Point, is a tax accountant who is worried about Microsoft abandoning Windows 98. Does he have to upgrade? Microsoft has backed down on its plans to stop supporting 98. The company promises to continue to offer technical support and, most importantly, security updates through June 2006.

Anthony in El Segundo is worried that the company can spy on his files on his laptop. It's always a good idea to presume that the company is spying on you. The have a legal right to and in many cases an obligation to do so. I'd recommend encrypting any data you want to keep private (although the company can demand the password if it's on a work PC).

If you're using Windows XP and your disk is formatted with NTFS you can use the system's built-in encryption to keep others from reading your files, even the System Administrator. Right-click the folder to entrypt, select Properties… from the pop-up menu. Click the Advanced… button. Check the "Encrypt contents to secure data" box. If you're not using XP, I recommend the free MaxCrypt.

A caller from Laguna Beach wanted to know about networking with Firewire. You can do it with XP (and other operating systems with addtional software). Speeds are very good - almost as good as gigabit ethernet - but Firewire is limited to 5 meters.

Rudy in North Hollywood wants a good spyware killer. As always I recommend Spybot Search & Destroy and AdAware. Both are free - both work very well. He also wants to put streaming music on his web site but protect it from downloaders. Microsoft Server will do it with protected WMA streams, but it's pricey. Real offers a free version of its Helix producer that can also protect your audio. But remember nothing can prevent people from recording the audio directly from their sound card. There's no perfect way to protect content in the digital age.

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