The best way to merge your contacts with iPhone

Windows Secrets Newsletter • Issue 172 • 2008-10-23 • Circulation: over 400,000

Table of contents

Bonus: Free PC advice for geeks and goddesses alike
Top Story: The best way to merge your contacts with iPhone
Known Issues: XP beats Vista? Could be the OS or poor drivers
Wacky Web Week: Hush … Google knows what’s best for you
LangaList Plus: How to update Windows without Windows Update
Woody's Windows: Flash cookies are putting your privacy at risk
Perimeter Scan: The best sites for identifying suspicious files
Known Issues: Sandboxie works with 32-bit Vista but not 64-bit

Bonus

Free PC advice for geeks and goddesses alike

Christina Tynan-Wood, who’s contributed columns for PC World and PC Magazine and written for Popular Science, Family PC, and other magazines, is the author of this month’s free book excerpt for our subscribers. How to Be a Geek Goddess: Practical Advice for Using Computers with Smarts and Style is a tongue-in-cheek look at how to get the best deal when buying a laptop or desktop computer.

The printed book won’t ship until mid-November, but for a limited time, Windows Secrets subscribers can get our exclusive excerpt — whether you’re a geek god or a geek goddess. Just visit your preferences page, and then download the PDF for free! —Brian Livingston, editorial director

All subscribers: Set your preferences and download your bonus
Info on the printed book: United States / Canada / Elsewhere

Top Story

The best way to merge your contacts with iPhone

By Scott Dunn

Many people find that synching a new iPhone with their contact and calendar data from applications like Microsoft Outlook just doesn’t work easily.

Fortunately, there are techniques you can use to make sure that your devices are sharing data smoothly.

If you’re having trouble using iTunes to sync your contact data from Outlook or other sources with your iPhone or iPod Touch, follow these steps to get your data where it needs to be.

Step 1. With your phone connected to your computer, make sure iTunes is running. If necessary, select your phone under the Devices category in iTunes’ left pane.

Step 2. With iTunes’ Summary tab in front, make sure the Options at the bottom are set the way you want them. I like to control which files are moved and when, so I uncheck Automatically sync when this iPhone is connected. I also select Manually manage music and videos.

Step 3. Click the Info tab. Select the box at the top of the Contacts section if you want iTunes to sync that information with your phone. Select other settings in that section to control how the data is organized.

Step 4. Repeat the above step for the Calendar and other sections as desired. Click Apply.

That should initiate the synching process. If it doesn’t, wait until the Sync button appears and click it.

No go? Try the official iPhone troubleshooter

If you run into problems while synching your phone via iTunes, Apple offers several strategies that may solve your problem. Here’s a quick rundown of workarounds to try:

• Make sure you have the latest version of iTunes installed. To test for a newer version, pull down iTunes’ Help menu and select Check for Updates.

• Reset the sync history. In iTunes, choose Edit, Preferences. Click the Devices tab and then select Reset Sync History.

• Disable non-Apple add-ins in Outlook by unchecking the boxes for each one in the COM Add-Ins dialog box. The steps to opening this dialog vary between Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007; consult the programs’ help files for instructions.

• Use Vista’s User Account Control applet to create a new user. Then log off your current account, log into the new account, and try the sync again.

• Uninstall iTunes and then reinstall the program.

Detailed steps for each of these approaches can be found in support article HT1692.

If none of the above fixes things, your iPhone synching problems may be caused by corrupt entries. To test for this, browse through your Outlook contacts list looking for garbled names or other indications of faulty data. (Doing so also helps you eliminate duplicate entries, which are discussed in the next paragraph.) Delete any corrupt or superfluous entries and retry the sync.

One final snafu may remain. When merging address books, entries with minor differences are sometimes interpreted as separate entries, resulting in one or more duplicates. Fortunately, a number of products exist to ferret out and deal with such dupes.

A free program I like is Contacts Scrubber for Outlook from TeamScope Software. It searches your contacts and presents dupes to you one at a time, making an educated guess as to which fields to merge. You can specify which entry is the one to preserve and click inside individual fields to select details to merge, overwrite, or discard.

The free version of Contacts Scrubber can process up to 1,000 items, but TeamScope sells for U.S. $30 a version that goes beyond that limit and includes more advanced features. Contacts Scrubber works with Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista and Outlook versions 2000 through 2007. You can get the free version from Downloads.com.

A phone without stored phone numbers is pretty much useless. Fortunately, the procedures outlined here will solve most iPhone sync problems. Still, you may need to use several techniques until you find the combination that works for you.

Scott Dunn is an 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.

Known Issues

XP beats Vista? Could be the OS or poor drivers

By Dennis O’Reilly

For at least one organization, the choice is clear: you’ll get more work done in less time when you use Windows XP instead of Vista.

On the other hand, some problems you encounter while using Vista are not caused by the OS but by a third-party driver.

A reader named Gerry, who asked us not to use his last name or company name, describes the process his firm used to determine whether to stick with Windows XP or upgrade to Vista:

“When we tested Vista, we configured PCs (both 32- and 64-bit) as we normally would for our users, who are mostly engineers. Our first finding was simple: we did not find a single enhancement that made users more productive.

“However, our biggest surprise was performance. Universally, we found that our engineering applications required 65% more time to complete tasks [on Vista] compared to XP on the same hardware. We estimated that the average user would waste at least an extra 60 minutes each day simply waiting for things to happen.

“All of this testing was done on Vista-certified hardware that was no more than six months old. We worked directly with Microsoft and the hardware and software vendors to address these issues. Although they helped, it was a losing battle.

“In our earliest tests, the applications required 500% more time to complete. After patching and updating drivers, we were able to get that down to 65%. For our 200 engineers at a $50/hour burden rate, that equates to a loss of $20,000,000 (or more) per year.

“Now add the cost of hardware upgrades to support Vista. Then deal with the driver and application compatibility issues.

“Therefore, we found no business case for Vista.”

In Vista’s defense, Microsoft’s main pledge was to make Vista more secure than XP, and in that regard the company succeeded. However, safer and faster is the winning combination — something that many people find to be missing from Vista.

That said, it’s not fair to point the finger at Microsoft whenever Windows fails to work as advertised. The problem might not be the Redmond company’s fault, as Bill Hobson found when he diagnosed a glitch with his Vista 64 PC:

“I have a Dell Precision Workstation running Vista x64 Business with a Broadcom integrated NIC. I noticed that Outlook Web Access was taking 15-20 seconds to bring up the login screen. I tested with both IE 7 and Firefox 3 and got the same results.

“So I went to Dell’s site and got the latest NIC drivers from there. Still poor performance. Then I went directly to Broadcom’s site and downloaded version 10.1, upgraded, and still had the same poor performance.

“I disabled that NIC, installed an Intel Pro 100, and now the page loads in less than 1 second.

“I have a Dell tablet with Vista Ultimate and a Broadcom NIC, and it suffered from the same poor performance, but fortunately there is a better [32-bit] driver available that fixes this speed issue.

“I am hoping that Broadcom gets their act together and puts out a decent-performing x64 driver soon. Bottom line: it may not be Vista that is the problem!”

As much as we’d like to think that hardware and software vendors work together like a well-oiled machine, the responsibility for keeping our PC’s components on speaking terms is sometimes difficult to pin down.

Clickjacking scores its first victims

In last week’s Top Story, Windows Secrets associate editor Stuart Johnston described a technique being used by bad guys to infect your PCs and steal your personal information. Now we hear from a reader named Graham, who has first-hand experience that clickjacking attacks are real and likely to become more common.

“Yep, clickjacking is in the wild. I build, fix, and de-badware computers for family, friends, and businesses. I had a friend complain that his eBay page kept popping up with auctions when he hadn’t accessed eBay. So, dutifully, I went to see what was going on and found that he had been trawling through some [game] crack sites.

“When he clicked some links, he would also pop his eBay page up (he had his eBay cookie set). Bingo! The crack-page vendors had scored his login details. I quickly apprised him of the risks of visiting said pages and, of course, quickly reset his eBay password and scanned, cleaned, and disinfected his computer.

“Hopefully, I have left him a much wiser if not a safer surfer. So the hack is out there and, I am sure, soon to spread to more legitimate sites as hackers break into badly protected Web pages. And I am sure more nastiness will soon present itself rather than this more benign attack (and I am not lessening the seriousness of this type of attack, just that this was easily fixed).”

To repeat the precautions that Stuart outlined in his article: (1) use the Firefox browser with Giorgio Maone’s NoScript script-blocking add-on installed (donation requested) and allow only trusted sites to run scripts, (2) update to the latest version of Adobe’s Flash Player, and (3) stay away from questionable sites.

Readers Gerry, Bill, and Graham will each receive a gift certificate for a book, CD, or DVD of their choice for sending tips we printed. Send us your tips via the Windows Secrets contact page.

The Known Issues column brings you readers’ comments on our recent articles. Dennis O’Reilly is technical editor of WindowsSecrets.com.

Wacky Web Week

Hush … Google knows what’s best for you

By Katy Abby

With today’s busy lifestyles, technological assistance seems indispensable. Cell phones and PDAs keep you up-to-date on anything that “just can’t wait” until the next time you’re in front of a computer. From the palm of your hand, you can now check your e-mail, peruse the latest headlines, manage your to-do list … and receive unsolicited dating advice?

Watch as a poor, unsuspecting lad accidentally places his love life in the hands of the all-knowing Google SMS. The beep of an incoming text has never sounded so ominous… Play the video

LangaList Plus

How to update Windows without Windows Update

By Fred Langa

You know that you have to keep your PC up-to-date, but what do you do when Windows Update is unavailable or broken?

Here are some easy alternatives to use when you can’t use Windows Update — or if you simply choose to update your PC on your schedule, not Microsoft’s.

There’s more than one way to update the OS

A reader named Jimmy sent in this question from a friend’s PC. That’s a significant fact, as you’ll see soon enough:

“Presently, I don’t have an Internet connection. What can I do to update my Windows system?”

This is actually a fairly common problem, Jimmy. There are any number of glitches that can stop the normal update process in its tracks, including simply being stuck offline. As long as you have temporary access to a borrowed Internet-connected PC, you have several options.

On the borrowed PC, go to the Microsoft Download Center. Manually select the updates or other files that apply to your own system and save those files to a floppy, flash drive, CD, or other removable medium. Bring the saved files back to your PC and run/install them there by clicking the saved files one by one.

By the way, one of your first downloads should be the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer, a free diagnostic tool that you can download from Microsoft’s TechNet site. The program helps you determine which updates and patches your system needs.

If you can’t use a borrowed PC to download the files you need, you can use it to order service packs on CDs directly from Microsoft. They’re quite inexpensive.

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Woody's Windows

Flash cookies are putting your privacy at risk

By Woody Leonhard

With a market penetration somewhere north of 97%, just about every Windows user — heck, every Mac and Linux user — runs Adobe’s Flash Player.

Few people realize that Flash maintains its own cookies in the form of Local Shared Objects that are completely outside your browser’s control, so managing them involves some significant gymnastics.

Flash objects aren’t your grandma’s cookies

I don’t get too worked up about plain old browser cookies these days, but I’ve become aware of a new threat to Web privacy: the Local Shared Objects (LSOs) stored in Adobe’s Flash Player. LSOs are bigger — and potentially badder — than your average everyday cookie.

But first, let me give you a little cookie refresher course.

I probably don’t need to tell you that a cookie is a text file written to your computer by a Web site (but I just did). The site puts identifying information inside its cookie, such as the date and time of your last visit, how you like your start page to look, and other “remember me” kinds of stuff.

These “first-party” cookies serve a useful purpose: they allow a site to personalize the information you see based on the data it retrieves from the cookie it stores on your computer.

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Perimeter Scan

The best sites for identifying suspicious files

By Ryan Russell

How can you discern whether some mystery program running on your computer is malicious or serving a useful purpose?

Online services help you determine the best course of action after you find a file you suspect may be malware.

Best online malware scanner that identifies risks

When you find malware on your PC, the best thing to do in most cases is to run a program designed to remove such pests. These include antivirus programs, antispyware programs, and rootkit removers. When you become infected by spyware, the program usually attracts other malware, so your system may be overrun in short order.

Anti-malware programs will eliminate the bulk of the infections and make your system usable enough to allow you to troubleshoot further. Of course, the safest and simplest response is to format your hard drive, reinstall your OS, and start over. That’s rarely the most practical solution, however.

The volume of new malware is huge, and even the best anti-malware programs aren’t perfect — even when you keep them updated. Also, your AV vendor may not offer defenses for the latest zero-day threats; someone always has to be the first victim.

Sometimes that first victim might be you. For any number of reasons, you may someday have a virus or other malware on your computer even though your anti-malware program says your PC is clean.

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Known Issues

Sandboxie works with 32-bit Vista but not 64-bit

By Dennis O’Reilly

We received a positive response to Gizmo Richards’ sandboxing-utility review that appeared in last week’s Best Software column.

However, Adam Benson was one of several readers to alert us to the fact that, contrary to what the article stated, Sandboxie does work with 32-bit versions of Vista, just not with Vista 64:

“It talks about Sandboxie, which is a simply amazing product that I’ve been using for a few years — most of which has been on Vista 32-bit. The article says Sandboxie doesn’t support Vista, but that is not correct. It does have issues with 64-bit Vista but runs fine on 32-bit.”

Adam will receive a gift certificate for a book, CD, or DVD of his choice for sending a tip we printed. Send us your tips via the Windows Secrets contact page.

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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