InBox highlights

Compiled by PETER SINCLAIR

And still the e-mail pours in for a utility which will let you do up your own kitchen online. At last we have an answer to the whereabouts of that mystery design-site, and I'm afraid the news isn't good. Nzoom's Simon Aimer writes: "nzoom.com in its Home and Garden segment had built a nifty little Kitchen Designer, where you... selected from a database of standard appliance dimensions and space requirements and got to experiment with layouts. It was sponsored by Fisher and Paykel, but could support anyone's appliances. Well, on reading your column, I went to find our Kitchen Designer on the site and couldn't. I found we had been a bit disappointed with the reliability of the 'bot and after patching and propping up here and there for several months we decided to take it down rather than have something [for whose performance] we couldn't vouch. Shame - no reason why a decent one couldn't be built, we just haven't got round to it..."

Watch that space! - meantime, there's bound to be one somewhere on the web, see if you can find it and let us know... or you may feel a bathroom coming on instead and decide to try Englefield's design site.

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Bev Bonnar recently installed Hotbar, a utility which boasts of 35,000 browser-skins. Now she wants to remove it, and I don't blame her: "have tried the Add/Remove and get the message "this programme has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down." Have selected all the files that hotbar *.* comes up with, and hit the Delete button. Then emptied the recycle bin, rebooted the computer and somehow Hotbar reinstalls itself."

I had the same trouble with this pesky utility last year, Bev, for it auto-installs itself if you click on almost anything on its homepage. It can be almost as big a pain as the dreaded GoHip - in the end I had to use GoBack to escape it. What's happening in your case is that a persistent cookie is being recreated each time you reboot, so when you remove all the files that Hotbar keeps spawning, try deleting your cookie folder as well before you shut down. If that doesn't work, there's still something in your Registry - better e-mail them and demand a fix.

Another way of foiling invasive utilities like this is having an uninstaller record everything you load onto your machine - I use Norton's indispensable CleanSweep.

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Speaking of Norton, something like their AntiVirus is even more essential in times like these, but EH Jacks has a slight problem: "Liveupdate keeps coming up with the following message: "Has found updates to the following Symantec products. Update Virus definitions (3)." Then later, it says: "Liveupdate successfully downloaded and installed 1 update for this product." There is a big red cross beside Norton AntiVirus software updates and another big red cross beside Norton Antivirus 2000 Program Update (English). I have no idea if I am protected, or not!"

Symantec's Richard Batchelor replies: "If LiveUpdate has not or is not working - has he checked the date of install? - it might need resubscribing, a yearly process for $US3.95 which covers downloads for a further year. If not renewed, the product is still licensed to the user but unable to receive the latest virus definitions for protection against new viruses. When LiveUpdate asks to check for Virus Definitions and Virus Updates, two different things are involved - Definitions are the files to check for new virus activity, Updates involve the engine that scans for those viruses. So check the version number of your Norton AntiVirus - look under the HELP menu in 'About Norton AntiVirus.' This will show the version-number, build and registration details."

Links:

Englefield bathroom designer

HotBar

GoBack

Norton Clean Sweep

Symantec Technical Support