Porn free
My teenage son has been surfing the net for porn sites. I have deleted the files in the Temporary Internet Files folder, but could photos be stored elsewhere? If so, how can I get rid of them? Name withheld

Jack Schofield replies: Windows doesn't store image files in other places, though there are any number of ways that people can hide files. These include changing the name (eg, from sexscene.jpg to expences.xml), and by compressing or encrypting them using a password. Also, bear in mind that images can often be recovered after they have been deleted, depending on how much time and money someone is prepared to spend doing it. Programs such as the Forensic Graphics File Extractor can reconstruct graphics files from "swap files" and from the TIF folder, even if they have been deleted. (Windows uses its swap file, WIN386.SWP, as a temporary scratch pad to store things when there is no room in memory.)

Several companies offer products to "clean up" a personal computer, which includes removing records the average user is rarely aware of. The best known is Webroot's Window Washer. Alternatives include Allera System Cleaner, Privacy Eraser and Evidence Killer. Webroot also sells a Mac Washer. However, this is probably overkill in your case.

Clean out
I shall shortly be upgrading, and it is likely that my current laptop will be sold. Is there any way I can irretrievably erase the various files, which contain personal information, before I sell it? Colin Burgess

JS: You could try one of the "clean up" programs mentioned above, but there is a better solution: delete everything and re-install Windows (or whatever) from scratch on a clean hard drive. This should be even easier if your supplier has included a Windows CD designed to restore the system to its "factory fresh" installation, as many do. However, it is not enough simply to delete the existing files, because computers don't usually delete files: they delete the index references to the files.

To make it more or less impossible to recover personal data, the disk sectors have to be over-written many times with random data. This can be done with a "disk cleaner" such as BC Wipe or DriveScrubber. BC Wipe's BCWipePD utility can wipe a whole hard drive from a command line. Hospitals, the armed forces and public bodies could have saved themselves much embarrassment by using such products before disposing of old PCs.

Convert it
Are there any packages that will automatically produce a text version of a standard website. Marcellina Boyle

JS: If you are looking at a web page, you can select File|Save As, and then in the "Save as type" box (Alt-T), select.txt for text. Otherwise, there are a number of utilities that will convert HTML to other formats. There's a list under Plain text and setext at www.w3.org/Tools/html2things.html. One commercial example is Detagger.

News need
My home page used to be My BBC, a news service that allowed users to select subjects from pre-defined panels. It was discontinued last week. I know Yahoo offers something similar, but I find their default layout, with a large banner ad at the top of the page, irritating. Are there any alternatives? Keith Arrowsmith

JS: The Yahoo news service looks the best alternative, and you can suppress the ad banner with Proxomitron. Rivals include MSN UK, which includes a Guardian Unlimited feed, and Google's automated news service, which is still American.

Otherwise, the most configurable option could be News2you. This lets you choose from a wide range of categories and also use your own saved searches. Let me know if you find anything better.

Stop it
Two weeks ago, you directed us to Control Panel|Administrative tools|Services in Windows XP to stop messenger popups. There are a lot of other programs run ning that may not be needed and are using memory. Is there a guide to what is there and its function? David Carlson

JS: I use Black Viper's site at www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm, but this is dangerous ground. For safety's sake, it is better to change an XP profile rather than the default configuration. See www.blackviper.com/WinXP/xpprofiles.htm.

Unreal
I downloaded Real Player One because I thought it would be an improvement on my old Real Player. Is there any way to get the older version back? Jamie Clarke

JS: You can sometimes download old versions of programs from www.oldversion.com. Also, if you install software manually, by downloading and running the program file separately, you can keep old versions yourself. Always remember to uninstall the new and worse version first.

Backchat

Last week, Philip Rayner and Kate Ashcroft asked about copying music to the hard drive. Simon Bicknell reminds me (sorry, I forgot) that "Windows Media Player 9 does not allow music to be copied to MP3. Other MP3 decoding programs ask for a charge to enable full MP3 copying features - Audiograbber, for example - but I find it frustrating that the old version I had of Media Player did this perfectly well." You can add MP3 ripping ability to WMP9 by using a $9.95 plug-in such as the Intervideo MP3 XPack. There are still free rippers around, such as the CDex 1.5 beta 10. You can also get a free CD Ripper for Winamp3.

· James Jones agrees that MP3 has "critical mass - I would probably recommend it for that reason myself," he says - but thinks my opinion of Ogg Vorbis "is outdated and doesn't reflect where the format currently stands, ie it is better than both WMA and MP3". However, he suggests CD-DA X-Tractor, which "bypasses the whole issue and allows users to choose how to encode their CDs".

· I suggested the Ping and Trace route commands as a quick way to check net speeds and referred to Google's Web directory as a source of utilities. In response to a query from Jonathan Theobald: one option for Mac users, apart from OS X, is WhatRoute, though I don't know if it is the best available.