Most of the time, when you “buy” software, you are in fact buying a license to use that software, according to the end user license agreement that pops up when you install it (and that no-one reads). That agreement usually states that you cannot install the software on more than one computer.

Software piracy is the illegal installation or use of software on computer. There are various forms of piracy, from “lending” someone a copy of your installation CD & Key, Retail piracy, where a computer is sold with pirated software installed, through to large scale operations that reproduce and sell counterfeit copies of software in the same way they do movies & CDs.

In some cases, the end user is a victim of the piracy as much as the original software company is, in that the purchaser may have thought they were getting a genuine license, but they did not, and are left without CDs, License Keys, Support or Updates. It pays to check that you are getting genuine software.

From the Adobe Website: “Whether software piracy is deliberate or not, it is still illegal and punishable by law.”

Recently the Tech Doctor completed the upgrade of a company from running outdated and illegal copies of Microsoft Office software to fully legal and free Open Office for general office applications, Thunderbird for email, and Google Calender for Shared Calendars

The upgrade cost approx $900 in labour costs (over 7 machines) but saved the company directors the sleepless nights worrying over thousands of dollars worth of fines and $2-3000 off the purchase of genuine Microsoft Office.

Can you tell which of the following pictures are real photos and which ones are created by a computer graphics artist?

http://www.autodesk.com/eng/etc/fakeorfoto/quiz.html

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=12601003

Mark’s score: 8/10

We have all of this wonderful technology all around us, and sometimes we just need to think a little outside of the box to use it. A few weeks before Christmas I needed a spare part for our Washing Machine. I knew there was a company in Ringwood that would sell the part, but I didn’t want to drive out there unless I knew they were open and had the part in stock.

I knew exactly where they were located, but I had no idea of the name of the company, or even the street name and could not find the invoice from the last thing I’d purchased there. What to do? I guess I could have tried the yellow pages to see if I could work out what heading they were under and search each item for Ringwood, but instead I turned to technology. In this case: Google Maps with Streetview.

I went to maps.google.com and found the street by looking up a street I knew was in the area and moving around until I found the street I wanted. I had to slide up the street a bit to find the shop I wanted, and then a bit further to get past a tree on the nature strip, but I was presented with a fairly clear view of the shop I wanted. Unfortunately for them, the company name was not exactly legible from the photo, but fortunately the phone number was visible, so I was able to call them up and check if the part was in stock. 3-4 minutes work was all it took and I had the answer I wanted, including opening hours so that I could plan it into my next trip to Ringwood.

Technology saves the day. And by the way, if you need Washing Machine/Dishwasher spares, I highly recommend Save on Spares ph 131 350, though their website needs a bit of work.

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Machine: iMac G5
Reason: Uncorrectable bad sectors on the Hard Disk

Materials: New 3.5″ SATA Hard Disk
Carbon Copy Cloner: http://www.bombich.com/software/ccc.html
Usb/Sata Cable or External Case
OSX Boot CD
USB Thumb drive

Method: Connect new hard drive to USB Sata Cable and connect to iMac.
Download Carbon Copy Cloner, mount the image and copy the application to the Thumb drive.
Boot the mac from the OSX CD, select your language and then quit the installer, but dont reboot.
From the utilities menu select disk utility and partition the New disk.
Quit Disk Utility.
From the utility Menu, start Terminal.
type cd /Volumes/[Return]
cd “The name of your USB Drive”[Return] if you are not sure, type cd and press tab and it will give you a list. if you type the first couple of letters and press [Tab] it should fill in the rest for you, very handy if you have spaces in the name

cd Carbon\ Copy\ Cloner.app/[Return]

cd Contents/[Return]

cd MacOS/[Return]

./Carbon\ Copy\ Cloner[Return]

This will start the application. At this point you have the perfect scenario of being boot from an operating system and running the program you want without touching either either Hard Disk, so the copy can happen without any files being open.
Select the Source Dive and the Destination Drive.
Double check you got the source and destination correct, or you will blank your data!! You have been warned! If you partitioned the new drive, your destination should be called “Untitled 1″.

Select “Copy Everything”
Dont worry about the message that the destination drive wont be startable because you cant boot from a USB drive. We will be putting the drive internal as soon as we are finished…

[Clone]

Wait for an hour or two..

When it is all done, quit everything and restart, but when the machine chimes that it is rebooting, push the power button in for 10 seconds till the machine turns off.
Pull the machine apart and put the new hard disk in.
Startup the machine and hold the mouse button in to eject the CD.
The system should boot exactly as it did before but this time from it’s new Hard Disk.

We’re frequently asked the question “Is our computer still up to the job, or should we get a new one?”, and it’s a good question.

The problem is that the answer is different for everyone. Someone doing a heap of video editing needs a (much) more powerful machine than someone who is checking their email and surfing a few web pages.

The second problem is most people have very little idea of how fast or powerful their current machine is, and what it might need to perform better.

Lets answer that second question first. In What version of Windows am I running? we learnt how to bring up the “System Properties” page (hint [Windows] [Pause Break]) and have a look at the appropiate section (Computer in XP, System in Vista)

How much is enough? For “Normal” home or basic office use, Any Pentium IV or Celeron above 1.7GHz with at least 1Gb of RAM will run Windows XP happily enough. If you have Vista then you will be wanting at least a Core Duo 2.0GHz with at least 2Gb of RAM. If your needs are greater, you will need a faster processor, and possibly more RAM.

Can I upgrade my computer? The short answer is yes. Most of the problems people have with slow computers is caused by not enough RAM. 512Mb is not enough to make any reasonable use of XP and even 1Gb is not enough for Vista. Extra RAM is cheap, and only takes a few minutes to install. Upgrading the processor is more difficult, and usually not worth the effort. Check back soon for another article on finding out which type of RAM you have in your machine.

Wikipedia defines Phishing as:

the process of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.

Today I received the email below. I was immediately suspicious, as we are not actually Optus customers, but I thought it might have someone else’s account that they had asked us monitor, so I looked further.

The sender address seemed a little odd, we’d expect something like this to come from notices@ or sales@

Then looked closely at the destination of the links in the message (by hovering the mouse over them) and found they linked to a page at a website called: w w w.ondainternet.c o m, (note I’ve broken up the www and .com to protect any unwary clickers. To be honest, I don’t know what is at that site, but I’m guessing it’s not likely to be good for my computer and is more than likely related to the current unpatched vulnerability in all versions of Internet Explorer see http://www.auscert.org.au/render.html?it=10198 or it may be just a Phishing Scam.

In fact, there is probable nothing wrong with that site in general, but it is likely that part of the site has been hijacked by someone for their own nefarious purposes.

Please be aware of what you are clicking on!!

please note that I’ve altered the links in the email to protect the compulsive clickers.

Subject:     Please read this important information about your account.
Date:     Wed, 17 Dec 2008 01:42:43 -0000
From:     Optus<vieri@optusnet.com.au>
Reply-To:     <donotreply@optusnet.com.au>

======================================================
You’ve used 100% of your data allowance
======================================================

Hello,

Unfortunately, you’ve reached your maximum data allowance for this month.

So, what happens now? Because you’ve reached your data allowance, your account will be slowed to 64kbps until the start of your next billing month. We do this so you won’t have to pay any excess download fees.

Don’t be slowed down

We know hitting your data allowance can be frustrating. To help you avoid this in future, we’ve made it easy to upgrade your plan without having to wait for the end of your billing month.

Upgrading increases your speed and data allowance, which gives you more freedom to do the things you want, with less worry about being speed limited.

If you would like to upgrade to another Optus Broadband DSL plan, you can change your monthly plan by logging into the Plan Change page of Member Services. You can choose an option to make your plan upgrade effective within 24 hours from the time you submit the request or to be effective from the start of your next billing period.

Remember, you can check your online usage at any time using your Internet Usage Meter. http://www.optuszoo.com.au/enforce_myusage?eml100_myacc_dmon|brand=dsl

If you have any questions or want to learn more, you can visit us online in the Help section http://www.optuszoo.com.au/help/dsl of the Optus Homepage or call Optus Customer Care on 1300 739 407.

Regards,
Optus Consumer Solutions Team

Note: This is an automated email please do not reply.

How do I tell which version of Microsoft Office am I running?

Open one of the Office Applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook)

From the Help Menu*, select About

This will display a page of information including the version number.

Office Versions: 97, 2000, XP (2002), 2003, 2007

* If you don’t really have any menus, just a ribbon of Icons across the top of the screen, you have Office 2007. For more infoemation, click on the Office Button (top left corner) and then click the [Word/Excel etc Options] button (bottom right of the menu) and Click Resources, and then click About.

How do I tell which version of Windows XP I have?

The easiest way is to press the [Windows] key and the [Pause Break] keys together (roughly the bottom left and top right keys on the keyboard).

Or, if you don’t have a Windows Key, you can go into Control Panel and open the System Control Panel.

Alternatively, you can right click on the My Computer icon, either on the Desktop or in the start menu and click properties.

Doing one of these things will open the “System Properties” page which will tell you a lot of things about your computer including what Version of Windows you are running. Windows XP comes in two main Editions, Home and Professional, though Media Centre is another one that crops up occasionally. The service pack level is also listed, and will hopefully read “Service Pack 3″ as at October 2008. If it reads something else, you probably should run Windows Update

How do I tell which version of Windows Vista I have?

Again, the easiest way is to press the [Windows] key and the [Pause Break] keys together, or, you can go to the Start Menu, click on Control Panel and open the “System” Control Panel, or right click on the Computer icon, either on the Desktop or in the Start menu and click properties.

Again you will see the “System” page which will allow you to view basic information about your computer.

Vista comes in a range of editions from Home Basic, Home Premium, Business to Ultimate Edition. I’ll review the differences in a follow up post.

Again, the service pack level is listed, and will hopefully read “Service Pack 1″ as at October 2008. (with Service Pack 2 due towards the end of 2008 or early 2009) If it reads something else, you probably should run Windows Update