Last week, you mentioned "setting your PC to hibernate" to save power. Sorry, but my very limited knowledge of technology jargon doesn't include hibernation.
Edward Johnson

As with hedgehogs, hibernation implies a long sleep with a reduction in the use of resources. You can set a PC either to go into standby mode (sleep) or to hibernate when you are not using it. Standby uses very little power, but all your programs are still in memory, and a trickle of power is needed to keep them there. If you set the PC to hibernate, then it writes whatever is in its memory to a big file (hiberfil.sys) on your hard drive. That way, you won't lose anything if there is a power cut.

You can tell your PC what to do by going to the Control Panel and running the applet called Power Options. Click the Hibernate tab to enable hibernation (in effect, to reserve the disk space required). The Power Schemes tab offers a number of pre-set options including Portable/Laptop and Always On. If you are using the Home/Office Desk power scheme, you can tell your PC how long to wait before turning off the monitor and hard disks, from one minute to never. You can also set a time before your PC automatically goes into standby mode or hibernates.

An alternative is to click the Start button and select Turn Off Computer. This will usually let you choose between three options: Stand By, Turn Off, and Restart. Pressing the shift key will change Stand By into Hibernate. You can pick the one you want. (In Windows Vista, Stand By has become Sleep.)

Some people wrote in to say that when a PC hibernates, it uses no power at all. This is not necessarily true. Many PCs now have a "wake on LAN" function so that they can be woken up remotely for software updates, and this uses some power during hibernation. Also, sound cards and USB hubs may prevent a PC from powering down completely. To get a true "off" can involve going into the PC's BIOS chip and changing the advanced power settings. It's really not worth the effort. However, if you must save the last trickle, pulling the plug always works.

In the past two months I've often returned to find that my computer screen says "Waiting to Hibernate". My PC is a Dell from 2002, and it is working fine.
Paul Knutson

Manufacturers have put a lot of effort into making laptops hibernate and wake up reasonably well, but haven't bothered much about desktops, where a daily reboot could be considered therapeutic. Some older PCs don't support hibernation at all, and hibernation can be blocked by various hardware and software components, applications, peripherals, old device drivers, and BIOS settings. Microsoft has a step-by-step guide, How to troubleshoot hibernation and standby issues in Windows XP (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/907477), that covers the main approaches.

Often when I switch on my computer, I get a message that the Windows Firewall is not turned on. As I never turn it off, I do not know how this happens.
Bill Ross

The two things most likely to turn off the Windows Firewall are (a) security suites from other companies; and (b) malware. Reboot your PC and run Panda's Anti Rootkit. Next, download and run the Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool. You should also check that you have all Windows Updates installed, and that third-party software is patched. Secunia offers a scanning tool for this, and I recommend running the desktop version, Personal Software Inspector. This type of inspection has become more important now that many web-based malware attacks target programs such as Apple QuickTime and RealPlayer.
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Is it possible for some electronic device in an adjoining building to blot out my Wi-Fi signal? My router is close to an adjoining wall in a terraced house, and at particular times of the day (after 5.30pm), my PC cannot detect the router, which is only 2.5 metres away. At other times of the day, the signal reaches through two floors. If I move the router a metre or so away from the offending wall, the PC connects quite happily. Is there any way to identify the offending gadget and persuade its owner to undertake remedial action?
Leslie Hill

Wi-Fi uses common 2.4 GHz spectrum that overlaps with lots of other gadgets such as radio-controlled cars, cordless phones, baby monitors, garage door openers, microwave ovens etc. There can be plenty of "spectrum pollution," but I don't know what sort of gadget would have such a strong effect through a wall. Another Wi-Fi router?

In general, I'd connect a PC via an Ethernet cable, assuming it's close enough to the router. If forced to use Wi-Fi, I'd try changing the channel. Add or subtract 5 from the channel number previously in use.

(Another option in some cases is to switch to the relatively unpolluted 5GHz band used by the superior 802.11a and optionally by 802.11n, but this is not always legal.)

If that doesn't work, and you don't have a spectrum analyzer handy, then the quickest and simplest answer is to knock on the door and ask your neighbours what they have next to the adjoining wall. That's what I'd do. Does anyone have a better idea?

Please advise us whether to turn the computer off or leave it on standby. I am told that repeated starts are bad for the hard drive.
David Sharratt

It is up to you. To keep systems running for as long as possible, we used to leave them on all the time. This avoided stress (from the electronics heating and cooling) and reduced hard drive crashes. However, modern equipment no longer suffers from the same amount of thermal stress and hard drive heads are designed to "park" safely. So while it might still be true that leaving a PC on will make it last longer, most people replace their PCs long before parts fail.

You save most energy by turning everything off. However, you have to reboot the PC each time. Turning the monitor off and hibernating the PC is a good compromise. It uses almost no energy -- typically 2.5W or less -- and your PC should restart in less than 30 seconds. You can save far more energy on household heating and lighting than you can by foregoing hibernation.

I have received a Windows Security Alert pop-up message, which says the Windows Firewall has blocked some harmful software: Trojan-Keylogger.WIN32.Fung. There are three buttons marked Keep Blocking, Unblock, and Enable Protection. The last one leads to a site offering to sell me Personal Defender 2009 software. A scan with Norton 360, newly updated, detects no such harmful software.
Russell Graham

It's a sales pitch for Personal Defender 2009, which is malware that pretends to be anti-spyware. Don't install it, obviously. However, it's hard to tell if you have a problem because we don't know where the pop-up came from. Use Windows Task Manager and Windows Explorer to search for processes or files called voxexcrg.exe, opazohin.exe, mupd1_2_1165664.exe and mupd1_2_1711951.exe. Also, search the registry to see if there is an entry for Personal Defender 2009. These are all signs of a Fung infection. If you disconnect and reboot in Safe Mode, you should be able to remove these files manually. You should also scan your PC with SuperAntiSpyware, which has recently added Personal Defender 2009 removal, and perhaps Malwarebytes. Having Norton doesn't guarantee you haven't got Fung.

Microsoft's new Windows Live Messenger

I installed Windows Live Messenger Beta and I hate it - mostly because although it displays my personal emoticons on my chat partner's screen, it refuses to show them to me! However, when I tried to remove it using Add/Remove Programs, it runs its installer, which gives me the option of adding other things, but no option to uninstall it.
Ben Evans

Microsoft is now rolling out Windows Live Wave 3, and if you use Hotmail, you've just been upgraded with no way back. I suspect all the other Wave 3 services will go the same way, including Windows Live Messenger, Mail and Calendar, Writer, Movie Maker, Photo Gallery, Outlook Connector, Family Safety parental controls and more. These are designed to look lovely and offer a much better user experience to start with, rather than deliver loads of functionality to start with. They will probably have a common installer, and the whole shooting match is designed to come together with Internet Explorer 8 and Windows 7. However, since this is an early beta, I wouldn't rush to try any of them -- especially not with Windows XP. It is possible to uninstall these programs, but it doesn't look like fun. See the instructions from the Messenger Geek, Jonathan Kay.

Update: For more on Wave 3, see my post on the Technology blog: Microsoft starts to roll out Live Wave 3; reinvents Facebook

I tried your solution for reading a Microsoft Office 2007 docx file. I changed the file name to filename.docx.zip and unzipped it. When I double-clicked document.xml to open it in Internet Explorer, it displayed it in raw XML format, not in text. What do I need to do?
Mandywr

XML is a text format, so you can read the text, though I agree the tags and formatting can make this difficult. Newer and better alternatives are to use Zamzar.com to convert the docx file into something you want, or to use NativeWinds' Docx2Rtf. This free program does a great job of converting docx files into Rich Text Format (rtf), and it also converts .wps (Microsoft Works) and .odt (OpenOffice) files.

Of course, if you have Microsoft Office 2000, XP or 2003, you can download the free Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack. This enables old versions of Office to read and write the new formats.
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I need to stay connected, so I signed up for a USB-based broadband deal with 3. The salesperson told me 3 covered "99% of the UK", so I figured I could get online pretty much everywhere. But when I was in Wales for eight days, there was simply no signal from Hay-on-Wye to the Lleyn Peninsula.
Irfan Husain

3's website says it has "an expanding 3G service area already covering 91% of the UK population, backed up by a voice and text network covering 99.5% of the UK population". This is the sort of description that phone companies use.

Of course, 3's own Coverage Checker shows that its HSDPA (broadband) and 3G service comes nowhere near covering 90% of the UK's land mass. Wales, Cornwall and anywhere north of Yorkshire have very little HSDPA coverage beyond the main towns and cities. Even in places such as Surrey and Sussex, coverage is patchy. This is something you should really have checked in advance.

Dial 333 and ask for your contract to be cancelled on the grounds of mis-selling. If 3 does not resolve the problem, you can take it further by using an ADR (alternate dispute resolution) scheme. In 3's case, this is the Ofcom-approved Otelohttp://www.cisas.org.uk/Members.asp for a list.) Ideally, you should have full details of the deal, such as the name of the salesperson, the date and time of the purchase, what you were told, and the nature of your complaint. You may also get help and advice from your local Trading Standards office.
on 0845 050 1614. (Many ISP's use Cisas, the Communications & internet Services Adjudication Scheme: see

I'm thinking of buying a netbook as a second machine for net access and mobile broadband. Should I get one with XP or can I run Linux and not worry about what's "under the bonnet"?
D Cameron

Linux-based netbooks have friendly front ends that make it simple to run the software provided, and they're fine as long as they do what you want. The only way to find out is to try one -- or try several, because they all come with different versions of Linux that work in different ways. If you find you need to change the base software or add new programs, it can be a considerable challenge, because you'll have to learn Linux from scratch (including the DOS-like command line). Basically, if you can do what you want with the built-in software or by using online applications, then you could certainly try Linux. However, if you want to use familiar Windows applications (including iTunes) and your existing skills, then you should stick with XP.

Since you plan to use mobile broadband, you must obviously check that your ISP's USB dongle actually works with Linux. If you want a netbook that takes an embedded Sim card instead, the options include the Advent 4213 and Dell Inspiron Mini 9, but both of those run Windows XP. I haven't actually noticed a Linux netbook with a built-in Sim, but I'd expect them to appear.
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My four-year-old PowerBook G4 is putting itself into sleep mode and refusing to wake up. It gives a very unfriendly beep and a black screen when it is turned on. Taking out and replacing the memory will eventually bring it to life.
Veronica Piekosz

For a first attempt, try resetting the Mac's PRAM and NVRAM and its power management unit (PMU). If that doesn't work, I'd suspect a hardware fault, though that might be as simple as a flat battery. Some early models of the PowerBook G4 had a reed switch that tended to fail, and another common problem was memory slot failures. Apple extended the warranty for machines with memory slot failures, but in the US, there's a lawsuit over machines with serial numbers outside the extended warranty scheme that failed anyway.

However, the G4 has an old PowerPC chip, and is obsolete because Apple has long since moved to Intel chips. Whether it's worth repairing depends on how much that costs, and whether you are able to splash out on a new one. The cheapest new MacBook with 2GB of memory and a 120GB hard drive is £769* direct from Apple UK, post free; but it only has a 13.3 inch screen, not the G4's 15-inch screen. The cheapest model with a 15.4 inch screen is a MacBook Pro at £1,399.

* £719 with only 1GB of memory. The published version has a small editing mistake.

Backchat 1: Veronica has now taken it to an independent repairer, and she says: ""It looks very much like I've got this memory slot problem, which requires a new -- expensive -- logic board to fix. I bought the machine in 2005, but the extended warranty expired in July this year. Apple have washed their hands of it, despite me arguing that they sold me a machine with a known problem, ie not of merchantable quality."

Backchat 2: In my answer, I mentioned that in the US, Apple had extended the warranty for models with a known memory slot fault. Veronica found out that her machine's serial number was in the range affected, and her Trading Standards office said she seemed to have a good case to take to the small claims court. She says: "I called Apple again, and this time they agreed to pay for the new logic board (£600!) needed to fix the problem."
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Top 10 browser-based vulnerabilities in Vista

Microsoft is about to release its twice-yearly report on security (download here, and according to pre-briefings, the top 10 browser-based exploits for Windows Vista all use non-Microsoft security holes. RealPlayer provides two of the top five entries, and Apple's QuickTime provides one. AOL SuperBuddy also makes the top 10.

Vista contrasts with Windows XP, where half the top 10 security problems are Microsoft vulnerabilities, according to graphics published at ZD Net. The key security fixes to install are MS06-014 (which is by far the most important), MS06-057, MS06-067 and MS06-055. With XP, Apple QuickTime and RealPlayer also feature in the top five vulnerabilities, and WinZip makes the top 10.

Third-party vulnerabilities are targeted by 94% of the browser-based attacks on Vista, and 58% of the attacks on XP.
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I have Virgin's most powerful broadband with a Netgear wireless router. My laptop runs XP and has no problem. My daughter's has Vista and the broadband signal lasts only a short time before the connection fails. Using the Virgin software to fix the connection, the signal is low and unusable, then cuts out again.
Steve Gilbert

Networking problems like this are notoriously hard to solve unless you can get a knowledgeable person on the premises, so try to find a local expert. You may be able to find one via the Usenet support group, virginmedia.support.broadband.cable but it's clearly not me. I "solved" my own problems with a Virgin/Netgear Wi-Fi system -- it would only work if I kept re-installing Virgin's CD -- by discontinuing the service. However, it did work via a Cat5 Ethernet cable, so get your daughter to try that. (I bought a pair of Solwise 85Mbps HomePlugs and used the mains wiring to take the connection to a different room.)
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I have been trying to find an external hard drive for my Mac and have read too many accounts of models that are not compatible, or which break down too easily. Any suggestions?
Peter King

I don't use enough external hard drives to have a view, and by the time a view has been formed, the market has already moved on. The best you can do is search the web using model numbers -- preferably the model number of whatever drive is inside the external enclosure.

Otherwise, all USB 2.0 storage devices should work with either Mac OS X or Windows, but you can increase your chance of success by buying devices that are specific about their support for Macs, or that offer FireWire as well as USB. Most Macs produced this century have a FireWire port, and relatively few PCs, apart from Sony's.

Also, for preference, choose an EHD that has its own power supply, or connect it via a powered hub. Some 2.5in external drives -- especially portable ones -- may have problems drawing enough power from the USB port. Smaller external drives that have 1.8in drives should be fine, but their smaller capacities and lower performance tend to make these less attractive.

I have a Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook B2130 with a 6GB hard drive. It is groaning under the weight of Windows XP Pro. I would like to install Linux but it does not have an optical drive.
Eddie Shinks

The Lifebook B2130 only had 64MB of soldered memory, which could be upgraded only to 192MB, and a 400MHz Celeron, so it's surprising that XP Pro runs at all. A current Linux won't be much better, but there are lots of small versions such as Puppy Linux 4.00: there's a list at bengross.com/smallunix.html. At 94MB, Puppy is small enough to download or to copy across from a USB thumbdrive (puppylinux.org). However, the B2130 is not really worth the effort. If you can afford it, buy an Asus Eee PC, Acer Aspire One or similar netbook instead. If you shop around, you can also find good big-screen notebooks for less than £250.