Yahoo Answers a great idea gone wrong

Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Mar 6, 2007 by James Derk Scripps Howard News Service

More letters from readers this week as students get ready to head to spring break.

Question: On your recommendation, I tried the Yahoo Answers site and was disappointed by the quality of the questions. I know Google Answers went out of business. Is there another site with a quality Q and A discourse?

Answer: I still say Yahoo Answers is a great idea gone horribly wrong. If they hired enough moderators and used user moderators, the site would be OK because the spam and junk would be quickly removed. But as it is it is a chat room for teens who quickly create another Yahoo account as soon as theirs is suspended. I have been examining Experts Exchange (www.experts-exchange.com) lately and find it is especially good for technical questions on PCs and the Internet. The users there are technically adept and are awarded points for good answers.

Question: I am trying to use a graphics program to save my digital photographs, but they are very large. How can I make them smaller so I can e-mail them to people?

Answer: Using your graphics program (if you don't have one, get Picasa from the Google site) you can resize the photograph using the toolbar-based RESIZE command and select a smaller size. Save that as a JPG file with a different name. That will leave your original alone and give you a more workable size.

Another option is to store your photos online at a place like Smugmug (smugmug.com) and just send people a link to them.

It's more polite to their inbox.

Question: I think my ex-girlfriend installed a program on my computer that lets her see what I am doing. How can I get rid of it?

Answer: She probably didn't (let's think positively), but run SpyBot Search and Destroy (a free download from www.filehippo.com) and delete what the program finds. Once you click on the program on the Filehippo page, the download is on the right in green. (Some people have been getting confused and clicking on text ads on the site.) Keyloggers and other password-grabbing spyware are becoming easier to use so it is possible you're being spied on. Another option is Windows Defender, a free download from the Microsoft site (and included with Windows Vista.)

Question: I am trying to download Internet Explorer for the Mac and I read it was no longer available. What browser should I use?

Answer: Well, Safari came on your Apple already. On mine I am using Firefox and Opera and am finding I like both equally as well.

Question: I read your column about computers becoming "bots" that send spam out. I think my PC is infected as it is really slow and I get gobs of pop-ups.

Answer: You can scan it with anti-virus software and anti- spyware applications, but if it is heavily infected, as many are at universities, you probably need to see a professional to have it cleaned.

WEEKLY WEB WONDER: Everyone, right now, needs to patch Windows machines. Head to update.Microsoft.com and download all of the critical patches it finds.

James Derk is co-owner of CyberDads, a computer repair company, and a computer columnist for Scripps Howard News Service. His e- mail address is jim@cyberdads.com.