Ricky Says

Question: I noticed recently that my computer runs in the middle of the night. I turn it off before I go to bed, but it starts up at around 3 in the morning. What is it doing and how do I turn it off? Do I have a virus?

Answer: Viruses don't typically work that way - they tend to inflict damage right away, or in response to certain actions (such as clicking a link in an email message).

The most likely reason your computer is turning on in the middle of the night is to check for Windows updates, especially since the default time for doing this is - wait for it... 3:00 a.m.

By default, Windows Update runs at 3 in the morning every day to check for new updates, and will turn on your computer even if you've turned it off. You can check your Windows Update settings by opening the "Windows Update" application in your Control Panel.

To get to your control panel, click your Windows Start button and you should see it on the popup menu. You can also type "Windows Update" in the search bar after clicking the Windows Start button.

You'll see the default setting which is "Install updates automatically" and the default frequency of "every day" at "3:00 AM". Click the dropdown and choose any of the other options, such as "Download updates but let me choose when to install them".

That will keep Windows Updates from turning on your computer in the middle of the night, which should also extend the life of your computer and save on your electrical bill over time.

Netflix lets you watch movies on your TV using your Wii and also on your computer using InstantWatch, which relies on Silverlight technology from Microsoft.

It works great through the Wii but it's pathetically slow on a computer with Silverlight (which I am convinced is the problem). You can expect to wait 5 - 10 minutes to load up the movie when using Netflix on your Mac or PC computer, and you can expect to wait another 5 - 10 minutes for the movie to "buffer" itself at least twice during the movie.

I've tried it on both Windows and Mac computers using both Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer browsers. Same results. It's definitely a problem with the Silverlight viewer and not the Netflix streaming service because it works great when viewing movies on your TV using a Wii.

Netflix movies fortunately still load very fast on an iPad using the Netflix app from iTunes. It took only a few seconds to load up a movie on my iPad, and I didn't experience any of the slow buffering problems that plague the PC/Mac viewer.

Once the movie was loaded on my iPad, it played almost instantly with no additional buffering. I was able to fast forward and it was able to play from the new position almost immediately - a task that leaves you waiting 5 - 10 minutes for buffering when using Netlix on your computer.

But the iPad solution is not without it's flaws. Netflix movies run faster on iPads but the quality has gone way down. Here's a clip from Surrogates starring Bruce Willis where 5 surrogate policemen are killed by a weapon that zaps their optical sockets.

You can see how bitmapped the clip looks. It's about like viewing a Youtube video which is just one step above completely unacceptable for action shots.

So you're a proud owner of a new iPhone 4 - maybe you were even in the same line I just stood in to get mine this morning.

But now you realize you have a considerable investment in apps and music sitting on your old iPhone 3G or 3GS, and don't know how to transfer them over to your new iPhone.

The trick is to first backup your old phone to iTunes, and then you can restore this backup to your new iPhone, which will transfer everything over.

Here's how to transfer purchased apps and songs from your iPhone 3G/3GS to your new iPhone 4 in 5 easy steps:

1. Connect your old iPhone to your computer and open iTunes.

2. Transfer your purchases by right-clicking your iPhone in iTunes and selecting "Transfer Purchases" from the shortcut menu.

You'll see iTunes transferring your apps and songs from your old iPhone to your computer:

3. Backup your old iPhone.

Right-click on your iPhone again in iTunes and select "Back Up" from the shortcut menu.

4. Connect your new iPhone 4 (after disconnecting the old one of course).

5. Restore your iPhone 4 using the old iPhone's backup.

Right-click again on your iPhone 4 in iTunes and select "Restore from Backup".

Choose the backup you created in the 3rd step above:

Click "Restore" and wait for iTunes to restore from the backup (which also transfers over your purchased apps and music):

I recently posted instructions for connecting your iPad to your home network by turning off Wi-Fi security and disabling SSID broadcasting. That will do the trick for your home network, but if you're traveling with your iPad you're still going to run into LOTS of problems.

I'm sitting right now in the Washington Dulles airport lounge, trying to connect my iPad to my Sprint Overdrive Wi-Fi router/access point. My Macbook Pro connects just fine using both WEP and WPA security profiles. My iPhone 3GS connects just fine.

My iPad however will NOT connect to my Sprint Overdrive using any of the wireless security types. Not WEP, not WPA2, none of them. It won't even connect with security turned off!

Apple recently published a 4.0 update for the iPhone, but it's definitely time for an iPad update.

They know this technology too - they've proven that with Macbooks and iPhones. They just need to port that knowledge over to the ipads. And soon.

According to Apple only a "very small number of iPad users have experienced issues with Wi-Fi connectivity", and that a patch is on the way, yet I see articles all over the web that indicate the problem is much wider spread.

Sure enough, the iPad I brought home just yesterday was also having problems connecting to the same Wi-Fi network that my other devices and computers have connected to for months without problems.

The only reliable, guaranteed fix for connecting my ipad to my Linksys home wireless network was to disable security.

At first I was able to get my ipad to connect to my Linksys WRT120N Wi-Fi router without problems, but not when I tried it again after the iPad had been on stand-by. It recognized the wireless network and would appear to connect, but then would lose the IP address within a few seconds (instead giving me a bogus address of 169.254.108.158).

You can check your ipad's network settings by tapping Settings -- Wi-Fi and then tapping the blue arrow next to the Network you're connecting to. You will typically see an IP address that starts with 192.168 instead of 169.254, and most of the other network fields should have values (Subnet Mask, Router, DNS, etc).

I tried several things that I've listed below, but the only thing that really worked was to turn off wireless security for my Linksys router. It's not as big of a risk as you might think, because my wireless router signal hardly even makes it out to the edge of my small backyard.

To turn off wireless security, you'll need to log into the administration web page for your wireless access point (http://192.168.1.1 for my Linksys from a computer that's connected to the router). Once logged into your Linksys, click "Wireless" and then "Wireless Security" and choose "Disabled" as the security mode. Be sure to save that screen before moving on.