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Windows Secrets Newsletter • Issue 160 • 2008-07-10 • Circulation: over 275,000
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Table of contents INTRODUCTION: Say "hi" to 150,000 new Support Alert readers TOP STORY: TechSpot battles Google for best PC support info KNOWN ISSUES: AVG antivirus program garbles HTML e-mails WACKY WEB WEEK: Even Death Stars can't find good kitchen help BEST SOFTWARE: The best browser for safe and speedy surfing PC TUNE-UP: Weave a more powerful Web experience PATCH WATCH: Latest security patch knocks out ZoneAlarm PERMALINKS: Send these links to your friends and co-workers YOUR SUBSCRIPTION: How to change your address or unsubscribe |
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INTRODUCTION Say 'hi' to 150,000 new Support Alert readers 
By
Brian Livingston
As I announced in a special bulletin on July 9, the Windows Secrets Newsletter will grow tremendously when the Support Alert Newsletter merges with us on July 24. The 150,000-strong readership of Support Alert, when merged with our existing subscriber base, will increase our circulation to more than 400,000 — and you can get a fantastic freebie if you act now. I explained in my July 9 announcement how you can set your filters to make sure you'll receive our bigger, better newsletter. Read that bulletin for more details, and be sure to watch this space next week for surprises yet to come. A totally free e-book about totally free software  The most important thing you can do today is take advantage of a free e-book that's been prepared for us by the editor of Support Alert, Ian "Gizmo" Richards. For a limited time, I've persuaded him to let all subscribers grab this download for no extra charge.His 38-page printable PDF file, entitled 9 Free Programs Every PC Should Have (left), is a fantastic resource. It brings together Gizmo's top recommendations of all time, and you can immediately download any or all of the programs he recommends. To obtain your copy, simply use the following link to go to your preferences page: Go to your preferences page and get your free bonus After you've updated your preferences and clicked the Save and Continue button on the page, you'll see a download link to get the e-book. As if our name wasn't long enough already...  We want to help all Support Alert subscribers immediately understand that our two newsletters are becoming a single, larger publication. So we've added the words "Support Alert" to our logo on most of the pages of WindowsSecrets.com. You'll also see the combined logo at the top of our e-mail newsletters in late July and early August.Of course, the dual-purpose name, Windows Secrets & Support Alert, as shown at left, is awfully wordy. After a six-week transitional period, we'll shorten the name to simply Windows Secrets. The Windows Secrets Newsletter will continue to come out weekly, as it's done since switching from twice monthly to four times a month in 2006. No, we won't publish noticeably longer newsletters — but with the addition of Gizmo's famous writing style, we think you'll find they're much better. This merger of two high-tech periodicals is only possible because of the tips and encouragement we get from you, our readers. We really appreciate it! Brian Livingston is editorial director of WindowsSecrets.com and the co-author of Windows Vista Secrets and 10 other books. |
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TOP STORY TechSpot battles Google for best PC support info
Finding searchable databases of tech answers The only sure things are death, taxes, and technical malfunctions. Last week's column described ways to troubleshoot computer problems yourself. Sometimes, though, finding a solution requires that you consult the collective wisdom of Internet forums. Many of the free tech-support sites want you to register, post a question to one of their forums, or send e-mail. Phooey! When problems arise, you don't want to pussyfoot around with confirmation e-mails and other getting-to-know-you games. I set out to find sites with searchable forums or articles that let you dig for answers right away, without any registration or other sign-up; you just search and go. I found 12 that fit the bill. To my surprise, a free service named TechSpot gives Google a run for its money at finding solutions for PC problems. To evaluate these sites, I chose two problems that have vexed me or other Windows Secrets colleagues in the past. The first was relatively simple: Web sites won't load? Clear the cache. The second was more complex: Vista Explorer crashes when you right-click a folder, requiring you to find and remove the offending context menu handler from the Registry. I graded the support sites based on how easy it is to find and use the proper search control, whether the site found a question close enough or parallel to my own, and whether it returned a solution. Since the correct answer is the most important thing, that category was given approximately double the weight of other factors. Not surprisingly, the success of a particular search depends on the keywords you use and whether the search tool supports such operators as +, –, and quotation marks. Most people don't want to spend a lot of time selecting the perfect arrangement of keywords. So, perfect or not, I used the same two keyword phrases for all the sites I tested: some websites won't connect Explorer crashes on right-click Vista –IE –"Internet Explorer" Not every site I tried accepted these search phrases. The sites that didn't support search operators couldn't parse the second search phrase at all. Even without the operators, however, some sites complained about my use of small words, such as the word on. One site (PC Mechanic) even rejected the first phrase because of the word some. In a handful of cases, I had to rephrase the search term when the first attempt failed. Rephrasing rarely improved the search results. It's not unusual for searches to return dozens — if not hundreds — of results. Consequently, I limited my evaluations to support sites that returned the correct answer among the first 10 items fetched. Test questions bring winners and losers In my tests, the top-scoring support resource isn't even a tech-support site. King Google has the built-in advantage of drawing from other sites, technical or not. When you enter the correct search string, Google excludes results from nontechnical sites. Google didn't earn a perfect score: The answer to the first question, although found in the first Google result, was mocked by the original poster as being inadequate. The fifth result Google returned on the first search had the correct answer but was specific to Firefox. A close second to Google was TechSpot. I almost skipped over this site because the subtitle — "PC Technology News and Analysis" — led me to think it didn't offer support. But the easy-to-find search box at the top of the main TechSpot page helped me find solutions to both problems with minimal digging through results. Google's sister site, Google Groups, recorded a modest score of 76. The site may be helpful for answering complex technical issues but proved to be too technical for my first question. All the answers proposed by Google Groups denizens assumed the problem was far more complicated than it actually was. Apparently, this was also a problem at the MS Expert Zone, which focuses on more complex issues. That site had an embarrassingly low grade of 42 and certainly didn't win any points for its interface. You have to scroll down to find the link for searching the newsgroups. Also, the only way to see all the results in a thread is by double-clicking a result, not single-clicking as is normal for Web links. Ironically, many of the sites that had the best answer to the right-click crashing problem (install the freeware ShellExView utility for removing problem right-click commands) linked to an article on the Help With Windows site. But that site fared poorly in my scoring, because the search results displayed so many entries on Windows 95 and 98 that the solution I needed was buried. It turns out a shorter search string found the answer more quickly. Table 1. Searchable support sites by overall score.
The sites whose search tools are easiest to find and use are Google, Google Groups, and TechSpot. Not only were the proper search boxes visible at the top of each page, the sites accepted the search syntax I used without complaining. One site, Help With Windows, gets brownie points for simply ignoring terms it found too short or common. The site went ahead and gave me results without those keywords but explained what it had done. On the negative side, the sites MS Expert Zone, 5 Star Support, and PC Mechanic had more than one search tool, making it confusing to figure out which one to use for a specific type of search. Explore other options for free support It's only fair to point out that the scores for these sites might have changed significantly if I had posed different problems or chosen different keywords. Since all these sites are free, you don't have to limit yourself to just one. If the answer you need doesn't come up right away, surf on over to another site until you find the elusive solution. Start by searching sites specific to your hardware or software. For example, if Firefox is misbehaving, take your search to the Firefox support page. For more generic issues, consider a site such as Broadband Reports for troubleshooting problems with Internet connectivity (you may need to find another network link to access the site, of course). Likewise, Fix Your Own Printer can help you diagnose printing problems. Finally, think creatively. If a site describes a solution for a different product or another version of Windows, it may get you thinking about a solution for a parallel problem in a similar product or Windows version. Success isn't just about finding perfect answers but also about deduction, my dear Watson. Scott Dunn is associate editor of the Windows Secrets Newsletter. He has been a contributing editor of PC World since 1992 and currently writes for the Here's How section of that magazine. |
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EDITOR'S BOOKSHELF
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KNOWN ISSUES AVG antivirus program garbles HTML e-mails
Dozens of responses point to a single app In my column last week, I asked you to write in if your newsletter didn't show images and other HTML content as intended. Dozens of you took the time to report the problem. (Thank you!) Several people told us how they determined the source of the garbling. Bret Miller put it this way:
To disable e-mail certification in AVG, click Tools, Advanced settings, choose E-mail Scanner on the left side of the window, and disable Certify e-mail for incoming messages. The steps are described in the AVG FAQ (scroll down the page to number 1376). PC repair pros do know their stuff Most Windows Secrets readers know quite a bit more about PCs than the average Jane or Joe off the street. That's what Scott Dunn meant when he said in last week's Top Story that you probably know more than the person you're likely to be hooked up with if you call a tech-support line. He most certainly did not intend to disparage an entire industry, though Richard Chase can't be faulted for thinking otherwise.
The final word on the racy beer-ad parody At last count, the pros were ahead of the cons by about 5-to-1 on the great issue of our time: the appropriateness of the Max Beer video that was featured in our Wacky Web Week column a while back. Rosanna was one of the many readers who wrote in, saying they enjoyed the ad take-off:
Exhibit A is the featured video in today's Wacky Web Week, which is based on a comedy routine by Eddie Izzard. His Star Wars outtake includes a smattering of what would be called foul language if it were spoken by anyone but the inimitable Mr. Izzard.
The Known Issues column brings you readers' comments on our recent articles. Dennis O'Reilly is technical editor of WindowsSecrets.com. |
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WACKY WEB WEEK Even Death Stars can't find good kitchen help
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PERMALINKS The following topics appear in our free content
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YOUR SUBSCRIPTION The Windows Secrets Newsletter is published weekly on the 1st through 4th Thursdays of each month, plus occasional news updates. We skip an issue on the 5th Thursday of any month, the week of Thanksgiving, and the last two weeks of August and December. Publisher: WindowsSecrets.com LLC, Attn: #120 Editor, 1700 7th Ave., Suite 116, Seattle, WA 98101-1323 USA. Vendors, please send no unsolicited packages to this address (readers' letters are fine). Editorial Director: Brian Livingston. Associate Editor: Scott Dunn. Technical Editor: Dennis O'Reilly. Research Director: Vickie Stevens. Program Director: Tony Johnston. Editorial Assistant: Raef Harrison. Copyeditor: Roberta Scholz. Contributing Editors: Susan Bradley, Mark Joseph Edwards, Woody Leonhard, Ryan Russell, Scott Spanbauer. Trademarks: Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. The Windows Secrets series of books is published by Wiley Publishing Inc. The Windows Secrets Newsletter, WindowsSecrets.com, LangaList, LangaList Plus, WinFind, Security Baseline, Patch Watch, Perimeter Scan, Wacky Web Week, the Logo Design (W, S or road, and Star), and the slogan Everything Microsoft Forgot to Mention all are trademarks and service marks of WindowsSecrets.com LLC. All other marks are the trademarks or service marks of their respective owners. HOW TO SUBSCRIBE: Anyone may subscribe to this newsletter by visiting our free signup page. WE GUARANTEE YOUR PRIVACY: 1. We will never sell, rent, or give away your address to any outside party, ever. 2. We will never send you any unrequested e-mail, besides newsletter updates. 3. All unsubscribe requests are honored immediately, period. Privacy policy HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE: To unsubscribe from the Windows Secrets Newsletter,
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