Hoaxed!
I am one of the tens of thousands of users who believed this virus hoax and wiped SULFNBK.EXE from my PC. When I realised my mistake, I attempted to re-install it from my Windows 98 CD, but couldn't find it. What shall I do? Norma Duncan
normaduncan@madasafish.com
Jack Schofield replies: The SULFNBK.EXE was unusually successful, and will probably make more trips round the net.
Email virus warnings are always hoaxes, or as near "always" as makes no practical difference. They are also useless, since viruses that use people's address books to mail themselves to your contacts travel much faster than the warnings about them.
Before passing on what looks like a genuine message, you should always check it at one of the hoax sites such as Vmyths or an anti-virus software vendor's site such as Data Fellows, Sophos or Symantec. Hoaxes are well documented and Vmyths' coverage of SULFNBK.EXE was excellent.
SULFNBK.EXE was covered on the Symantec site on April 17. Details of how to restore the file - which are somewhat lengthy - are on its site at www.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/sulfnbk.exe.warning.html
However, it wasn't a very important file. If you don't replace it, you probably won't miss it.
Trojan menace
My friends tell me that I should have a firewall. How necessary is it? I have a virus scanner that I keep up to date and realise that a firewall does something different, but it seems to me it is just something else to worry about. Liz Pearce
tickytacky@btinternet.com
JS: Your friends are right. Indeed, it may be more important to run a firewall than an anti-virus program, for two reasons. First, common macro viruses are easier to spot than hackers, who may place and use Trojans or "bots" (software robots) on your computer. Second, a hacker can do more damage than most viruses, assuming you have proper back-ups of the data on your hard drive.
If a hacker finds or manages to plant a Trojan program on your PC, he can do almost anything he wants. For some insight, see the G2 cover story (June 5) and Steve Gibson's account of attacks on his website at http://grc.com/dos/grcdos.htm.
Fortunately, there is at least one good free firewall available - Zone Alarm www.zonelabs.com. It does not hurt to run two. But even if you run a firewall, don't assume you are safe. Keep a lookout for odd or anomalous events, such as unknown programs trying to access the net from your PC.
Small keypads
Has any company developed an alternative usable miniature keypad giving full Qwerty 100+ upper & lower case letters, number and symbols for phones and palmtops that doesn't require a stylus or a magnifying glass to use it? Bernard Canavan
bcanavan@hotmail.com
JS: I use a Targus Stowaway keyboard (see www.targus.com), which is very good and folds up to roughly the same size as a handheld computer. More recently, Matias Corporation has launched the Halfkeyboard in the US for $99. See http://halfkey board. com/research/ for how it works. There is a review at www.the-gadgeteer.com/halfkeyboard-review.html
Make sure your chosen input device will work with your chosen handheld before buying either.
Mailing groups
When I send an email to a group, as described in Online last week, how can I avoid each recipient seeing all the other recipients' names and email addresses? I tried using the BCC: field, leaving the To: field blank, but that puts Undisclosed-Recipient: into the addressee field, which is effective but seems a bit unfriendly! Nic Vine
nic.vine@thewhitelabel.com
JS: You can put the group's addresses in the BCC: field and your own address - or one of your own addresses - in the To: field.
Favorites tip
May I pass on a great tip I was given recently? If you click on the Favorites menu in Internet Explorer, then hold down the shift key as you click on Organize Favorites, you can edit your favourites in Windows Explorer instead of using the IE organiser which is, as you say, "extremely cumbersome". Julian Child
Julian.Child@britishcouncil.org
JS: Thanks for the tip. This is much better than IE's organiser, though I still prefer to move links around manually in C:\Windows\ Favorites
Feedback
Last week I suggested Microsoft's free Word viewers as a way of reading Word documents without buying a copy of Microsoft Word. Several readers suggested non-free alternatives that read a range of file types. Harold Stern, Conrad Cork and others find QuickView Plus invaluable because it reads more than 200 file formats. It costs $49 from Jasc.
