• Best Retail and Restaurant Websites, Part 3

Here are two more sites on my list of the best retail and restaurant websites (for business owners and managers).

You may want to place each of these sites on your browser favorites list and consider visiting each site at least once per week.

hgosman@pcamerica.com

To read Best Retail and Restaurant Websites, Part 1, go to:

http://news.pcamerica.com/pcamericanewsletter345.html

To read Best Retail and Restaurant Websites, Part 2, go to:

http://news.pcamerica.com/pcamericanewsletter346.html

Business Solutions publishes a FREE monthly magazine and an extremely informative website geared towards modern technologies used in business.

Visit the website to learn about the latest innovations related to point of sale, barcode scanners, printers, touch screens, payment processing, and other business related products.

Visit the website at:

http://www.bsminfo.com/

Hospitality Technology Magazine

Hospitality Technology Magazine and website is the place to go for the latest news and trends related to technology and the hospitality industry including restaurants and hotels.

Visit the site at:

http://www.htmagazine.com

• Why Is My Computer Slow?

It's possible that your computer has been infected by a virus or spyware. It's much more probable that your computer is running out of memory.

Every computer owner, expert or novice, should run the simple, non-evasive msinfo32 test described below. MSinfo32 is FREE and comes with every computer. It is part of Windows and it tells you some very important information about your computer.

Just one warning before we talk about memory. There is a software solution widely advertised on TV and Radio offering a product available at www.doublemyspeed.com that is suppose to speed up your computer. I do not recommend it. In my opinion, I would stay away from this product. Read what others say about it by searching Google for Doublemyspeed.com scam.

If you believe that your computer is running slow, the first thing you should look at is your RAM.

RAM is the part of your computer that operates the control center. Think of it as a classroom. If you have a great teacher in a 10 foot by 10 foot classroom with 30 students, it is going to be quite difficult to educate those students. There's just not enough room to successfully teach those kids.

Likewise, you may have a great computer with lots of hard drive space to store your documents and photos. However, if you don't have enough RAM in your computer, it is going to operate very slowly.

Your computer has two important memory components that save information.

You have your hard disk drive. Most computers come with 100 GBs or more of hard disk drive space. Anything above 10 GBs is fine for operating Cash Register Express, Restaurant Pro Express, and many other business applications. Most of you own computers with 20 GBs, 100 GBs, 500 GBs and more. That is plenty of space for most applications.

RAM is temporary storage which passes information from your computer's brain to your hard drive. Unlike your hard drive that stores information after your computer is shut down, RAM loses all storage information when your computer is shutdown.

Many computer slowdowns are due to a lack of RAM. If you purchased a computer one, two, three or more years ago, you may have purchased your computer with 512 MBs of RAM (1/2 of 1 GB of RAM).

When you first purchased your computer, 512 MBs of RAM (1/2 of 1 GB) was plenty. Now, it may not be enough.

Here's what happens. When you turn on your computer, Windows takes up a portion of your RAM. Let's say that when you originally purchased your computer, it took up about 100 MBs of RAM. That left 412 MBs of RAM for you to do lots of things on your computer. Over the past few years, Microsoft has improved Window. However, each time Microsoft made an improvement, it took a larger piece of your RAM leaving less space for doing other things on your computer.

Add your Antivirus software to the mix and you have even less space. You're probably also running lots of other little programs on your computer like ITunes, JavaScript, search tool bars, printing software and so on. Each of those little programs also keep improving and taking up a little more space of your valuable RAM memory.

At a certain point, your computer starts running out of space to operate. All of your housekeeping software programs are hogging your available memory. Your computer is in the middle of a big traffic jam.

Here's a very simple way to determine if your computer has enough memory.

Click on the Windows Start Menu (that's the icon normally found in the lower left hand side of your computer display).

Click on RUN.

Enter msinfo32 and click on OK.

You will see a screen such as the screen above. Look for Total Physical Memory in the right pane. This will tell you how much memory is installed on your computer. You may have 1 GB or 2 GBs. Or you may have 523,828 KBs. This is about 1/2 of 1 GB (a GB is about 1,000,000 KBs).

Now look at the Available Physical Memory. This is the most important thing you need to do. If the number is greater than 300,000 KBs, you are doing just fine and your computer has enough memory. If the number is between 200,000 and 300,000, then you should consider adding more memory into your computer. If the number is below 200,000, you need to add more memory into your computer. The lack of memory is slowing down your computer.

Upgrading a 1/2 GB computer to a 1 GB computer will cost you about $50 to $100. You will notice a big increase in speed once that memory has been added.

If your Total Physical Memory is 1 GB or more and you have less than 300,000 KBs of Available Physical Memory, than it is possible that your computer has a virus, spyware, or you are running too many programs that you don't need to run.

• Amateur Guide to Stealing Passwords

Anyone can purchase the keylogger pictured on the left for $99 from Amazon.com or at hundreds of other internet sites. It makes a wonderful Holiday gift.

To install, just plug the keylogger into any USB port on a computer that you wish to view or capture passwords. Simply plug a keyboard connector into the keylogger and you're all set.

If you use an older round keyboard connector, you can get a similar keyboard connector that will work with your rounded keyboard connection.

Once your keylogger is in place, your keylogger is capturing each and every keystroke entered into your computer.

You don't need to install any software. Your keylogger will capture 2,000,000 keystrokes on to the internal flash memory chip.

Once you have captured an ample number of keystrokes, just disconnect the keylogger and attach it to your own personal computer. Now you can see every single keystroke entered and saved on your keylogger. You can view private passwords that may have been entered, private emails that have been written, and credit card numbers entered for online purchases.

Anyone can figure out how to use a keylogger. You don't need to be a computer expert.

I'm certainly not trying to teach everyone how to be a spy or a thief...but pictures this.

You go to a hotel on vacation. You decide to use the complimentary computer that many hotels make available to their guests. You enter your password and check your emails. You type in a couple of quick confidential emails to send back to your business. You make reservations for another hotel, typing in your credit card to reserve your room.

Without suspecting it, you have just supplied a thief with your credit card number and passwords.

It's as easy as that.

A guest, visitor, or hotel employee could have easily added a keylogger to the complimentary hotel computer. Could it happen to you? It's really pretty easy. Adding or removing a keylogger to or from a computer takes about 3 seconds.

Ever use a library? Any library employee or patron can easily add a key logging device without anyone noticing it.

Own a retail store? Your employees can easily add a keylogger to your computer and steal data and passwords input through a keyboard.

How do you prevent someone from stealing your identity using a keylogger? If you're at a  hotel or using a library or public computer, you can't. Keyloggers come in all varieties. They can be hardware devices plugged into a computer or they can be software programs added to a computer collecting all of your keystrokes.

If you must use a public computer, it is probably prudent to change the passwords you used on that computer as soon as possible. Make sure that your personal and business computers have a good Internet Security program running.

pcAmerica sells a credit card reader that automatically encrypts your data when  a credit card is swiped. Most credit card readers send your swiped credit card numbers from a credit card reader to your computer. The credit card number gets encrypted when it reaches your computer. Some of the newer credit card readers encrypt credit card numbers when the credit card is swiped eliminating any possibility that the number can be commandeered when it is swiped and before the numbers reach your computer where it is automatically encrypted. If you want more information on the latest encrypted credit card readers, call your pcAmerica account manager.

Keylogging devices do not capture credit card data when a card is swiped into your system.

My goal is not to scare you. Just be aware. This $99 device is real easy to use and many hotel travelers have reported identity theft upon using the hotel's public computer.

To learn more about keyloggers, go to:

http://www.keyghost.com/USB-Keylogger.htm

...and if you want to learn even more, you can learn about keylogger software, anti-keylogger software, keystroke interference software, and lots of other interesting stuff.

Read more on Wikipedia at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystroke_logging

• Windows 7 Complaints Begin

Don't believe them. Windows is great. It's at least as good as Windows XP and superior to Windows Vista mainly due to its smaller footprint which uses less resources.

Most of the complaints are related to computer owners who are using Windows XP and are trying to upgrade their present computers to Windows 7.

Here's my advice.

If you are buying a new computer, Windows 7 is great. It has lots of bells and whistles especially if you take advantage of the new built-in touch screen capabilities.

If you are buying a new computer for use in a business, you should make sure that Windows 7 will be compatible with your present software and hardware. Those of you who are using CRE (Cash Register Express) or RPE (Restaurant Pro Express) should speak to your account representative before using Windows 7.

Most newer Windows peripherals such as printers, scanners, and cameras are compatible with Windows 7. However, some drivers used on older peripherals may not be compatible with the 64-bit version of Windows which comes with many new Windows 7 computers.

If you are buying a new computer for students or mainly for using Microsoft Office applicants, browsing the internet, organizing photos, playing games and doing some creative artwork, a new Windows 7 computer is just perfect. If you are buying your computer to use some serious business applications and  older peripherals over a network, check to make sure that all will work with Windows 7.

To read the CNNMoney.com article related to Windows 7 complaints, go to:

http://money.cnn.com/2009/12/09/technology/windows_7_problems/index.htm