Woody Leonhard

Step by Step / Updated 05-03-2023

Setting up a firewall is an effective way to protect your computer from outside cyber attackers and malicious software. But keep in mind that by setting up a firewall, you are changing the way your computer communicates with other computers on the Internet. The firewall blocks all incoming communications unless you set up a specific inbound exception in the Windows firewall to let a program in. Some of your programs won’t respond until they receive a signal via the Internet. If you have a program that doesn’t poke its own hole through the Windows Firewall, you can tell the firewall to allow packets destined for that specific program — and only that program — in through the firewall.

Step by Step / Updated 08-02-2022

When you use a firewall — and you should — you change the way your computer communicates with other computers on the Internet. The firewall blocks all incoming communications unless you open a port in the Windows firewall to let a specific IP communicate with your computer. For example, if you want to play many online games. Most first-time firewallers are overwhelmed by the idea of opening a port. Although open ports are a security threat, sometimes you truly need to open one. Still, you may need to open a port to enable a specific application. For example, when you select the check box to allow Remote Desktop, you’re opening port 3389. That’s the security price you pay for enabling programs to talk to each other.In general, if you need to open a specific port, the documentation for the program (game, torrent downloader, file sharer) will tell you . . . assuming you read the program’s manual.

Article / Updated 07-15-2022

You might think that simply moving a file or folder to the \Public folder in Windows 10 would make it, well, public. At least to a first approximation, that’s exactly how things work. But, there’s a little more to making files “public” in Windows 10. Any file or folder you put in the Windows 10 \Public folder, or any folder inside the \Public folder, can be viewed, changed, or deleted by all the people who are using your computer, regardless of which kind of account they may have and whether they’re required to log in to your computer. In addition, anybody who can get into your Windows 10 computer through the network will have unlimited access. The \Public folder is (if you’ll pardon a rather stretched analogy) a big cookie jar, open to everybody who is in the kitchen. (For more details, and important information about Public networks and big-company domains, check out Networking All-in-One For Dummies, 7th Edition, by Doug Lowe [Wiley].) Follow these easy steps to move a file or folder from one of the built-in personal folders (Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, or Videos) into its corresponding location in one of the \Public folders: Tap or click the File Explorer icon in the taskbar. Navigate to the file or folder that you want to move into the \Public folder. Here, the Quick Access Pictures folder was double-clicked to get to Pictures. Right-click the folder or file you want to move in Windows 10, and choose Cut. In this case, the user wanted to move the Thailand folder, so the user cut it. Navigate to the \Public folder where you want to move the folder or file.This is more difficult than you might think. In general, on the left of File Explorer, double-click This PC (scroll down on your Windows 10 computer if necessary to see it), then scroll way down and double-click or tap Local Disk (C:). Then double-click Users, then Public. You see the list of Public folders. Double-click the \Public folder you want to use. Then right-click inside the folder, and choose Paste.In this case, the user double-clicked Public Pictures and pasted the Thailand folder into the Public Pictures folder. From that point on, the photos are available to anybody who uses the Windows 10 computer and to people who connect to that computer. (It may also be available to other computers connected to your network, workgroup, or domain, depending on various network settings.)

Article / Updated 11-04-2021

Every Windows 10 user needs to know about Event Viewer. Windows has had an Event Viewer for almost a decade. Few people know about it. At its heart, the Event Viewer looks at a small handful of logs that Windows maintains on your PC. The logs are simple text files, written in XML format. Although you may think of Windows as having one Event Log file, in fact, there are many — Administrative, Operational, Analytic, and Debug, plus application log files. The Event Viewer logs Every program that starts on your PC posts a notification in an Event Log, and every well-behaved program posts a notification before it stops. Every system access, security change, operating system twitch, hardware failure, and driver hiccup all end up in one or another Event Log. The Event Viewer scans those text log files, aggregates them, and puts a pretty interface on a deathly dull, voluminous set of machine-generated data. Think of Event Viewer as a database reporting program, where the underlying database is just a handful of simple flat text files. In theory, the Event Logs track "significant events" on your PC. In practice, the term "significant" is in the eyes of the beholder. Or programmer. In the normal course of, uh, events, few people ever need to look at any of the Event Logs. But if your PC starts to turn sour, the Event Viewer may give you important insight to the source of the problem. How to find the Event Viewer Follow these steps: Click in the Search field in the bottom left corner of your screen. Search for Event Viewer. Click on Event Viewer in the search results. The Event Viewer appears. On the left, choose Custom Views and, underneath that, Administrative Events. It may take a while, but eventually you see a list of notable events like the one shown. Don't freak out. Even the best-kept system boasts reams of scary-looking error messages — hundreds, if not thousands of them. That's normal. See the table for a breakdown. Events are logged by various parts of Windows. Events and what they mean Event What Caused the Event Error Significant problem, possibly including loss of data Warning Not necessarily significant, but might indicate that there's a problem brewing Information Just a program calling home to say it's okay Other logs to check out The Administrative Events log isn't the only one you can see; it's a distillation of the other event logs, with an emphasis on the kinds of things a mere human might want to see. Other logs include the following: Application events: Programs report on their problems. Security events: They're called "audits" and show the results of a security action. Results can be either successful or failed depending on the event, such as when a user tries to log on. Setup events: This primarily refers to domain controllers, which is something you don't need to worry about. System events: Most of the errors and warnings you see in the Administrative Events log come from system events. They're reports from Windows system files about problems they've encountered. Almost all of them are self-healing. Forwarded events: These are sent to this computer from other computers.

Article / Updated 09-15-2021

You probably know how easy it is to install an external hard drive on a Windows 10 PC. Basically, you turn off the Windows 10 computer, plug the USB or eSATA cable into your computer, turn it on … and you’re finished. But, what if you need to install a second internal hard drive on your Windows 10 device? Installing a second internal hard drive into a Windows 10 PC that’s made to take two or more hard drives is only a little bit more complex than plugging an external drive into your USB port. Almost all desktop PCs can handle more than one internal hard drive. Some Windows 10 laptops can, too. Yes, external hard drive manufacturers have fancy software. No, you don’t want it. Windows already knows all the tricks. If you install one additional hard drive, internal or external, you can set up File History. Install two additional drives, internal or external, and you can turn on Storage Spaces. None of the Windows 10 programs need or want whatever programs the hard drive manufacturer offers. If you need help, the manufacturer’s website has instructions. Adding the physical drive inside the computer case is really very simple — even if you’ve never seen the inside of your computer — as long as you’re careful to get a drive that will hook up with the connectors inside your machine. For example, you can attach an IDE drive to only an IDE connector; ditto for SATA. Here’s how to install a second internal hard drive on a Windows 10 computer: Turn off your PC. Crack open the case, put in the new hard drive, attach the cables, and secure the drive, probably with screws. Close the case. Turn on the power, and log in to Windows. Right-click in the lower-left corner of the screen, and choose Disk Management. The Disk Management dialog box appears. Scroll down the list, and find your new drive, probably marked Unallocated. The new drive is identified as Disk 0. On the right, in the Unallocated area, tap and hold down or right-click, and choose New Simple Volume. The New Simple Volume Wizard appears. Tap or click Next. You’re asked to specify a volume size. Leave the numbers just as they are — you want to use the whole drive — and tap or click Next. The wizard asks you to specify a drive letter. D: is most common, unless you already have a D: drive. If you really, really want to give the drive a different letter, go ahead and do so (most people should leave it at D:). Tap or click Next. The wizard wants to know whether you want to use something other than the NTFS file system or to set a different allocation unit. You don't. Tap or click Next; then tap or click Finish. Windows whirs and clunks, and when it’s finished, you have a spanking new drive, ready to be used. If you have three or more drives in or attached to your PC, consider setting up Storage Spaces. It’s a remarkable piece of technology that’ll keep redundant copies of all your data and protect you from catastrophic failure of any of your data drives. Changing Your Windows 10 C: DRIVE Whoa, nelly! If you’ve never seen a Windows 10 PC running an SSD (solid-state drive) as the system drive, you better nail down the door and shore up the, uh, windows. Changing your C: drive from a run-of-the-mill rotating platter to a fast, shiny new solid-state drive can make everything work so much faster. Really. Unfortunately, getting from an HDD (hard disk drive) C: to an SSD C: ain’t exactly 1-2-3. Part of the problem is the mechanics of transferring your Windows 10 system from an HDD to an SSD: You need to create a copy (not exactly a clone) that’ll boot Windows. Part of the problem is moving all the extra junk off the C: drive, so the SSD isn’t swamped with all the flotsam and jetsam you’ve come to know and love in Windows. Most of the drive cloning/backup/restore techniques developed over the past decade work when you want to move from a smaller drive to a bigger one. However, replacing your HDD C: drive with an SSD C: drive almost always involves going from a larger drive to a smaller one. LifeHacker has an excellent rundown of the steps you need to take to get your old hard drive removed and have everything copied over to your new SSD, using a backup program called EaseUS Todo Backup Free. A friendly warning, it’s not a simple process.

Article / Updated 09-14-2021

OneDrive is an internet-based storage platform with a significant chunk of space offered for free by Microsoft to anyone with a Microsoft account. Think of it as a hard drive in the cloud, which you can share, with a few extra benefits thrown in. One of the primary benefits: OneDrive hooks into Windows 10, at least in fits and starts. Microsoft, of course, wants you to buy more storage, but you're under no obligation to do so. How much storage can you get? As of this writing, OneDrive gives everyone with a Microsoft account 5GB of free storage, with 50GB for $2/month. Many Office 365 subscription levels provide 1TB (1,024GB) of OneDrive storage, free, for as long as you're an Office 365 subscriber. Microsoft's offers change from time to time, but the general trend is down — prices are going down, fast, and it won't be too long before most online storage approaches free. The free storage is there, regardless of whether you use your Microsoft account to log in to Windows, and even if you never use OneDrive. In fact, if you have a Microsoft account, you're all signed up for OneDrive. OneDrive can be confusing Many people find OneDrive — at least the Windows 7, 8, and 10 versions of OneDrive — very confusing because, in essence, OneDrive keeps two sets of books. (Windows 8.1 OneDrive, by contrast is quite upfront about the whole process.) In Windows 10's OneDrive, there's the whole OneDrive enchilada stored on the web. But there's a second, shadow, subset of OneDrive folders that are stored on your computer. Some OneDrive users have all their web-based files and folders stored on their computers, and OneDrive syncs the folders quite quickly — what you see in File Explorer is what's stored in the cloud, and vice versa. But other OneDrive users have only some of their OneDrive folders on their computers. File Explorer shows them only this subset of folders and hides all the others that are sitting in the cloud. If you aren't confused, you obviously don't understand. What OneDrive does for you OneDrive does what all the other cloud storage services do — it gives you a place to put your files on the internet. You need to log in to OneDrive with your Microsoft account (or, equivalently, log in to Windows with your Microsoft account) to access your data. If you log in to a different Windows 10 computer using the same Microsoft account, you have access to all your OneDrive data through the web but, surprisingly, not necessarily through File Explorer. In fact, if you look only at Windows File Explorer, you might not even know what data is sitting in your OneDrive storage. This is one of the most confusing and dangerous parts of Windows 10. Realize that Windows File Explorer, when looking at OneDrive, is lying to you. File Explorer offers a very simple process for copying files from your computer into OneDrive, as long as you want to put the file in a folder that's visible to File Explorer. File Explorer lets you move files in the other direction, from OneDrive storage on to your local hard drive, but again you must be able to see the file or folder in File Explorer before you can move it. You can share files or folders that are stored in OneDrive by sending or posting a link to the file or folder to whomever you want. So, for example, if you want Aunt Martha to be able to see the folder full of pictures of Little Billy, OneDrive creates a link for you that you can email to Aunt Martha. You can also specify that a file or folder is Public, so anyone can see it. To work with the OneDrive platform on a mobile device, you can download and install one of the OneDrive programs — OneDrive for Mac, OneDrive for iPhone, iPad, or Android. The mobile apps have many of the same problems that you find in File Explorer in Windows 10. In Windows 10, you don't need to download or install a special program for OneDrive — it's already baked into Windows. If you have the program installed, OneDrive syncs data among computers, phones, and/or tablets that are set up using the same Microsoft account, as soon as you connect to a network. If you change a OneDrive file on your iPad, for example, when you save it, the modified file is put in your OneDrive storage area on the Internet. From there, the new version of the file is available to all other computers with access to the file. Ditto for Android devices.

Article / Updated 08-26-2021

Microsoft has famously announced that Windows 10 is “the last version of Windows.” Which is to say, uh, Windows 10 is anything but the last version of Windows. However, the release of various versions of Windows 10 has many users shaking their heads wondering why there have been different versions of Windows 10. Instead of continuing Windows version numbers in the obvious way — say, Windows 10, Windows 10.1, Windows 10.2 Service Pack 17 Update 6, Windows 11, Windows 2019, whatever — Microsoft has developed a new way of naming versions of Windows 10, all to make it look like Windows 10 is an immutable object. Far from it. The first version of Windows 10, which didn’t have an official name, arrived in July 2015. People are now calling it Win10 version 1507 — where 15 stands for 2015 and 07 stands for July. Some people call it Win10 RTM, but that’s a blasphemous approach, because Windows as a Service never reaches Release to Manufacturing status. It’s constantly changing. Constantly improving, to hear the marketeers talk about it. In late 2017, Microsoft vowed to turn out a new version (of “the last version” of Windows 10!) every six months. Many people — present company included — think that’s crazy because it forces customers to install a new version of Windows every six months, more or less, and because the six-month horizon gives very little time to create anything new that’s worthwhile. But that’s where we stand. Here are the versions of Windows 10, to date: Version 1507 –RTM released July 29, 2015 — contains the basic elements of Windows 10, few of which worked properly. Version 1511 — Originally Fall Update and later November Update released November 10, 2015 — became the first stable and generally usable version of Windows 10. Version 1607 — Anniversary Update, released August 2, 2016 — spruced up the Start menu and Edge, added the Notification (er, Action) Center, started adding features to the Cortana personal assistant, fleshed out a few of the Universal apps, improved Windows Hello to recognize your finger and your face, and added digital ink so you can draw on things. Version 1703 — Creators Update, released April 11, 2017 — had small improvements for Cortana and the Edge browser, a new privacy settings overview, an easier way to control updates (for Win10 Pro only), and lots of stuff for folks who draw in 3D and use virtual/augmented reality. Version 1709 — Fall Creators Update, released October 17, 2017 — makes OneDrive usable again with Files on Demand, and touches up My People, Cortana, and Edge. Version 1803 — Spring Creators Update, released April 10, 2018 — gets the Timeline, another tweak to My People, more Cortana and Edge, and not a whole lot more. Of course, each new version of Windows 10 is “the most secure version ever.” That’s been a constant claim since Windows 3.0. You may have a version later than 1803 (type About in the Cortana search box and press Enter), but chances are good the new features aren’t going to make your life much more interesting.

Article / Updated 08-05-2020

Ransomware — software that scrambles files and demands a payment before unscrambling — has become quite the rage. Windows 10 takes measures to block ransomware on your device. While, it’s an easy way for Script Kiddies to monetize their malware, it’s definitely a situation no Windows 10 user wants to find herself in. Microsoft has come up with a way to preemptively block many kinds of ransomware by simply restricting access to folders that contain files the ransomware may want to zap. There’s just one problem. Restricting, or controlling, folder access is a pain in the neck — it blocks every program unless you specifically give a specific program access. So, for example, you can turn off access to your Documents folder but allow access to Word and Excel. That may work well until you want to run Notepad on a file in the Documents folder. Oh-oh. That’s the reason why Microsoft doesn’t turn on Controlled Folder Access (CFA) by default. If you really, really want CFA, you have to dig deep and find it. If you do make the effort, the monkey’s on your back to (1) stick CFA on all the right folders and (2) allowlist any program that may need to use files in the CFAs folders. To enable CFA, you need to jump through the following hoops: In the Cortana search bar, to the right of the Start button, type sec. At the top, tap or click Windows Defender Security Center. Tap or click the Virus & Threat Protection icon, scroll way down, and slide the Control Folder Access button to On. Click Yes when asked if you want to allow the app to make changes to your device. The CFA settings screen appears. Click the Protected Folders link.You see a list of all folders protected by CFA — Documents, Pictures, Videos, Music, Desktop. Realize that ransomware frequently attacks files in other locations. If you want to add another folder to the blocked list, click the Add a Protected Folder icon and navigate to and select the folder. Repeat as necessary.Note that Windows 10 has an automatically created (but not fully disclosed!) set of programs that it deems to be friendly. Click the back arrow in the upper-left corner to return to the window you saw previously. If you have any programs that need access to those folders, and the apps aren’t automatically identified as friendly, click the Allow an App through Controlled Folder Access link. Navigate in Explorer to the app that you want to allow, and then click Open. The Windows 10 folder is added to the allowlist.

Article / Updated 10-16-2019

If you sign in to Windows 10 with a Microsoft account, File Explorer gets primed automatically to tie into your OneDrive account, using the same Microsoft account ID and password you use to sign in. But if you're using a local account, life isn't so simple. You must either create a Microsoft account or sign in to an existing Microsoft account (and thus an existing OneDrive account) when you try to get into OneDrive. Here's the way to sign up for an account. You need to do it only once. Click Start, File Explorer. You see File Explorer, as shown. A clean File Explorer on a local account. On the left, click OneDrive. You get a Welcome to OneDrive splash screen. Click Get Started. OneDrive has you sign in with a Microsoft account. Note that you must have a Microsoft account in order to use OneDrive. It makes sense. Either sign in with an existing Microsoft account or click the link to Sign up now. Get a Microsoft account set up. OneDrive gurgles and burps and makes changes to your File Explorer, adding some "glue" programs to both sides. When the installer comes up for air, you're presented with the wholly uninspiring picture you see here. A new OneDrive account, as seen from File Explorer. The four folders — Documents, Music, Pictures, and Public — in your online OneDrive folder appear by default. Those are the four folders that Microsoft sets up for you in the cloud. From the screen shown, you can add a file to any of the folders, and after you've added files, you can delete files or download any of them to your computer by simply dragging and dropping, the way you usually move files. If you put a file in the Documents, Music, or Pictures folders, only you have access (unless you change permissions). However, anyone can see files you add to your Public folder. Close File Explorer to leave OneDrive. Here's how to work with files in OneDrive when you access OneDrive via File Explorer: If you stay forever mindful that File Explorer may not show you all the folders or files in OneDrive, you can use File Explorer to work with OneDrive in exactly the same way you would use any folders on your computer: copy, move, delete, rename, or work with folders or files or groups of folders or files — they all work the same way that they would if the files were living on your computer. Anything you can do to files anywhere, you can do inside the OneDrive folder — as long as you use File Explorer or one of the (many) apps, such as the Microsoft Office apps (see the following figure) that behave themselves with OneDrive. Saving files to OneDrive in Word is easy — in fact, it's the default in recent versions of Word. For example: You can edit files, rename them, copy, or move vast numbers of them. The OneDrive folder in File Explorer is by far the easiest way to put data into OneDrive and take it out. You can add subfolders inside the OneDrive folder, rename them, delete them, move files around, and drag and drop files and folders in and out of the OneDrive folder to your heart's content. You can change file properties (with a long tap or right-click). You can print files from OneDrive just as you would any other file in File Explorer. What makes the OneDrive folder in File Explorer unique is that when you drag files into the OneDrive folder, those files are copied into the cloud. If you have other computers connected to OneDrive with the same Microsoft account, those other computers may or may not get copies of the files, but they can all access the files and folders through a web browser. It may take a minute or two to upload the files. But plus or minus a bit-slinging delay, the files appear everywhere, magically. So if you have other computers (or tablets or phones) that you want to sync with your computer, now would be a good time to go to those other computers and install whichever version of the OneDrive program is compatible with your devices. Remember that a OneDrive program is available for Windows (Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 only), Windows Phone 10 or later, Mac OS X, and iOS (for iPad and iPhone). There's also a OneDrive app for Android phones and tablets. The OneDrive app on an Android phone.

Article / Updated 08-31-2018

How can you stay informed about cyber attacks? When you rely on the evening news to keep yourself informed about the latest cyber attacks, you quickly discover that the mainstream press frequently doesn’t get the details right. Hey, if you were a newswriter with a deadline ten minutes away and you had to figure out how the new Bandersnatch 0day exploit shreds through a Windows TCP/IP stack buffer — and you had to explain your discoveries to a TV audience, at a presumed sixth-grade intelligence level — what would you do? Check out reliable sources to get information about cyber attacks. Relying on reliable sources to find information about cyber attacks Fortunately, some reliable sources of information exist on the Internet. It would behoove you to check them out from time to time, particularly when you hear about a new computer security hole, real or imagined: The Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) blog presents thoroughly researched analyses of outstanding threats, from a Microsoft perspective. The information you see on the MSRC blog is 100-percent Microsoft Party Line — so there’s a tendency to add more than a little “spin control” to the announcements. Nevertheless, Microsoft has the most extensive and best resources to analyze and solve Windows problems, and the MSRC blog frequently has inside information that you can’t find anywhere else. SANS Internet Storm Center (ISC) pools observations and analyses from thousands of active security researchers. You can generally get the news first — and accurately — from the ISC. Take a moment right now to look up those sites and add them to your Firefox or Chrome Bookmarks or Edge Favorites. Unlike the antimalware software manufacturers’ websites, these sites have no particular ax to grind or product to sell. (Well, okay, Microsoft wants to sell you something, but you already bought it, yes?) From time to time, Microsoft also releases security advisories, which generally warn about newly discovered 0day threats in Microsoft products. You can find those, too, at the MSRC blog. It’s hard to keep all the patches straight without a scorecard. An exhaustive list of patches is maintained along with their known problems and also the Microsoft patches of the patches (of the patches) on www.AskWoody.com. They are written about frequently in Computerworld, and tweeted about all the time @woodyleonhard. Ditching the hoaxes to avoid cyber attacks You’ve probably heard of one of these hoaxes: “Amazing Speech by Obama!” “CNN News Alert!” “UPS Delivery Failure,” “Hundreds killed in [insert a disaster of your choice],” “Budweiser Frogs Screensaver!” “Microsoft Security Patch Attached.” A virus hits your computer if you read any message that includes the phrase “Good Times” in the subject line. (That one was a biggie in late 1994.) Ditto for any of the following messages: “It Takes Guts to Say ‘Jesus’,” “Win a Holiday,” “Help a poor dog win a holiday,” “Join the Crew,” “pool party,” “A Moment of Silence,” “an Internet flower for you,” “a virtual card for you,” or “Valentine’s Greetings.” A deadly virus is on the Microsoft [or insert your favorite company name here] home page. Don’t go there or else your system will die. If you have a file named [insert filename here] on your PC, it contains a virus. Delete it immediately! They’re all hoaxes — not a breath of truth in any of them. Fake news that’s really and truly fake. Some hoaxes serve as fronts for real viruses: The message itself is a hoax, a red herring, designed to convince you to do something stupid and infect your system. The message asks (or commands!) you to download a file or run a video that acts suspiciously like an .exe file. This doesn’t mean YouTube videos, or Vimeo, or links to any of the other established video sites. Steer clear of attachments that appear to be videos, but in fact turn out to be something else. If you tell Windows to show you filename extensions, you have most of the bases covered. Other hoaxes are just rumors that circulate among well-intentioned people who haven’t a clue. Those hoaxes hurt, too. Sometimes, when real worms hit, so much email traffic is generated from warning people to avoid the worm that the well-intentioned watchdogs do more damage than the worm itself! Strange but true. Do yourself (and me) a favor: If somebody sends you a message that sounds like the following examples, just delete it, eh? A horrible virus is on the loose that’s going to bring down the Internet. Send a copy of this message to ten of your best friends, and for every copy that’s forwarded, Bill Gates will give [pick your favorite charity] $10. Forward a copy of this message to ten of your friends and put your name at the bottom of the list. In [pick a random amount of time], you will receive $10,000 in the mail, or your luck will change for the better. Your eyelids will fall off if you don’t forward this message. Microsoft (Intel, McAfee, Norton, Compaq — whatever) says that you need to double-click the attached file, download something, don’t download something, go to a specific place, avoid a specific place, and on and on. If you think you’ve stumbled on the world’s most important virus alert, by way of your uncle’s sister-in-law’s roommate’s hairdresser’s soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend (remember that he’s the one who’s a really smart computer guy, but kind of smelly?), count to ten twice and keep these four important points in mind: No reputable software company (including Microsoft) distributes patches by email. You should never, ever, open or run an attachment to an email message until you contact the person who sent it to you and confirm that she intended to send it to you. Chances are very good (oh, 99.9999 percent or more) that you’re looking at a half-baked hoax that’s documented on the web, most likely on the Snopes urban myths site. If the virus or worm is real, Brian Krebs has already written about it. If the Internet world is about to collapse, clogged with gazillions of email worms, the worst possible way to notify friends and family is by email. D’oh! Pick up the phone, walk over to the water cooler, or send a carrier pigeon, and give your intended recipients a reliable web address to check for updates. Betcha they’ve already heard about it anyway. Try hard to be part of the solution, not part of the problem, okay? And if a friend forwards you a virus warning in an email, do everyone a big favor: Shoot him a copy of the preceding bullet points, ask him to tape it to the side of his computer, and beg him to refer to it the next time he gets the forwarding urge.