It sounds like something out of a Holywood film or the title of one of those “dodgy” emails doesn’t it – well this time it’s true and I’ll explain why.

There is a virus that has been flying around the Internet for the past four years that has been silently hijacking people’s computers – some 4 million computers to date. The virus is called DNSChanger and it has managed to alter the DNS (Domain Name Server) on the computers it has infected.

Now for the technical bit (it’s not that bad honest!) – DNS is the part of your computer that instructs your web browser where to go when we type a web page address in – for example if you type www.google.co.uk into your web browser or do an Internet search, your computer first asks the DNS service for the IP address (the unique Internet number) of that website, in the case of www.google.co.uk it would be given something like 173.194.34.56 – after your computer has the correct IP address it can show you the website you asked for.

What happens with infected computers is that the DNSChanger virus could provide a false IP address information and then the user has no way of knowing whether the sites they are visiting are legitimate or not.

The good news is that the FBI have taken control of the servers that are controlling the infected computers, the bad news is that they can’t just turn them off – if they did that then all of those computers, remember that’s over 4 million of them, would immediately stop working on the Internet.

The FBI have given notice that they will turn off the DNSChanger servers on the 9th July 2012. So what can you do to check that your computer is not infected? Well we’ve made that easy for you, just go to the www.bluemoonsolutions.es website, if you get a message warning that you are infected then call your computer engineer, if you don’t then you are clean. If you want to double check then you could also use the address www.dns-ok.us – if you get a message saying “DNS Resolution = GREEN” then you’re clean, if you see otherwise then you have a month the get the problem sorted out before the FBI turn off the servers.

By the time this article is printed we should have a new place for you to visit should you have any computer related problems – BlueMoon Solutions and SpanishInk.Com are opening a unit at the new Moncayo market, on the Lemon Tree road just outside of Guardamar. Its open every Tuesday, Friday and Saturday – if you have any problems or just want to get some new ink cartridges then why not pop down and see us.

That’s about it for this month, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to email them over to me, you never know they may appear in The Courier on Friday!

The answer, of course, is yes there are a number of different ways of gaining access to the services like BBC iPlayer when you are here in Spain. Most of the solutions involve using a “proxy” server which fools the service in question into thinking that your computer is in the UK.  Although this is a popular solution, I don’t recommend it as it’s not as secure as it could be.

Another popular solution used here seems to be Expat Shield – www.expatshield.com – this uses the more secure VPN (Virtual Private Network) service that I prefer to recommend to my customers.  A VPN provides an encrypted and secure connection between two points (in this case between your computer and the servers of the service you use in the UK) and, in my opinion, provides a much more secure method of access than using a proxy server which provides no encryption whatsoever.

My favourite solution, however, is provided by www.my-private-network.co.uk and although it’s a service that you have to pay for, its only £5 a month it doesn’t bug you with the adverts that you see when using Expat Shield.

The upshot of all this, is that if you setup a My Private Network connection on your computer, you will be able to access the “on demand” services offered in the UK.  In conjunction with The Jungle Drums, we have negotiated a free trial of My Private Network’s services so that you can try them out and see whether they work with your Internet connection.

This free trial will be available throughout the month of May, after which, if you want to continue to use their service you will need to contact them direct to sign up.

If you decide to sign up to their service, it’s only £5 a month.  In order to take advantage of this service, you will need a computer and a broadband Internet connection and the setup is very straight forward. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 or your Mac (yes Les, even you can use it!)

The instructions for setup are available from the website at www.my-private-network.co.uk – just click on the “getting started” button and then follow the instructions for your particular operating system. At this stage, if you want to use the trial account, you don’t need to click on the “sign up now” button as the trial account has already been set up and you should use the following information when creating your connection:

Username = bmtrial

Password = May2012

Of course, once you have setup your secure connection to the UK, you will need to navigate to the service that you are interested in using (e.g. BBC iPlayer) in your web browser.  I.e. www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer - if you visit this website before you have setup your connection you will notice that it’s not available to anyone outside the UK but after you have your connection setup, you won’t not receive this message and you will be able to use the service just as if you were in the UK.  Other sites that you might be interested in are www.itv.com/itvplayer (ITV’s catch up website) and www.channel4.com/programmes/4od (Channel 4’s website)

Google stores information about you based on the pages that you search the Internet for and from your use of Gmail if you use that as an email account.  Historically it has used this information to provide targeted advertising to you based on your search terms on the Google website.

Since March, Google will be learning more about you by tracking what you watch on YouTube and what information you look at on Google Maps and by using this additional information Google could potentially learn your age, location, sexual orientation, religious beliefs and health status.  In addition if you are using an Android based smart phone, you could be giving away sensitive information because this is also tied into your Google account.

Data protection and civil liberties organizations are up in arms about the change and currently they are investigating whether Google has broken the European data protection laws!

If you don’t want Google to collect this type of information about you then you should opt out by doing the following…

1. Sign into you Google Account
2. Click Account Settings
3. Click Profile and Privacy
4. Under Google Privacy click Sign in to Dashboard
5. Click Find Web History
6. Click Remove all Web History

… by taking these steps you are protecting what information is stored about you and your web browsing.

Whether you are planning to build an extension, move house, re-design your garden or just want to check different layouts in a room before you go moving heavy furniture  around I have a couple of websites for you.

Floor Planner – www.floorplanner.com – allows you to build two dimensional graphic design drawings to minute detail, adding stairs, floors, furniture and even garden plants and cars!

Once you have your design the way you want it, at the click of a button you can turn your masterpiece into a 3d model viewable from any angle you choose.
To get started you need to visit the website and register, you can do this by clicking the “sign up” button in the top right hand corner of the screen.  You will need to enter your email address and create a password and then you will be ready to go.

Once you validate your email address you can use your username and password to get access to the website.  From here you will see your “dashboard” and will have an overview of your projects that you are working on – the free version of the website allows you to create just one design, but if you like it and want to use it more then for just 9€ a year you can have up to 5.  This website will also allow you to print your designs to scale and export high resolution images.

If you would like to see more you can have a look at http://tinyurl.com/floor-planner-demo where you will find a video demonstration of what you could do using the website.

If that doesn’t get your creative spirit going, then back on the floor planner website there is a gallery of featured designs to have a play with.  Each one can be viewed either in 2d or 3d with the facility to zoom in and out of the design – bear in mind that some of these designs are quite large and therefore could take some time to appear on your computer screen depending on the speed of your computer and Internet connection

Once you have created your perfect place, how about designing each individual room?  Well with www.mydeco.com you can.  This website does pretty much exactly the same as the floorplanner.com site but in a different style – as you build the room it’s shown in 3d in the top left hand portion of the screen all the time and you can change the camera angle and height to enable you to design the perfect room.  Where this design tool comes into its own is with the amount of coverings and soft furnishings available to use.  Not only can you build the room and add furniture, you can also carpet, paint and wallpaper it to your heart’s content!

Using these tools and a little effort, you should be able to design most anything that you need – have fun!

A great number of you managed to successfully navigate the maze of menus and questions to book your appointments, thank you for all of you that have emailed in with your appreciation and positive comments.

There were also a few people that had difficulties and this week I hope to help those of you that have had trouble using the website to book your appointments. There are too many emails to answer each of them individually so I shall try to take the more common problems that you have had and answer them here.

Most of the problems are related to the fact that the website uses a security certificate (a way of making your interaction with the site more secure) that is issued to a different website address – you are visiting the website www.san.gva.es and the certificate is issued to the main Spanish Health Service website www.tramita.gva.es. It doesn’t make the site, or your interaction with it, any less secure but it does confuse most web browsers – hence the problems that some of you have been experiencing.

If your Spanish is up to it, there is a help section on the website at www.san.gva.es/val/ciud/estadisticas.html however I can totally understand people having trouble reading it, not least as its in technical Spanish speak!
Here are the answers to the most common problems…

1. Content is blocked after clicking on “Cita Por Internet” with Internet Explorer

A number of you received the above message but were unable to locate the button on your browser for unblocking the content. If you are using Internet Explorer then the message should either appear at the top of the screen (if you are using Internet Explorer 6, 7 or IE 8 ) or at the bottom of the screen if you are using Internet Explorer 9, you should click the message and accept that you want to view the blocked content. The help page on the website, which is VERY out of date and doesn’t even have help for Internet Explorer 8 or 9 suggests reducing your Internet Security level, however I would be nervous about suggesting for anyone to do that as long as the “content is blocked” message can be seen and accepted.

Another reason for this error message appearing could simply be because the date and/or time on your computer is wrong, so check that it is set correctly.

2. Error 501 in Google Chrome after clicking on “Cita Por Internet”

A good deal of people are unable to use the website at all in Google Chrome, after some research it seems that the website is simply not designed to work with this browser so those of you that have Chrome as your main browser will either need to use Internet Explorer, which you should be able to find easy enough in your program files (click on the Windows start button and have a look for it) or you can go to www.mozilla.org and download Firefox which is another alternative website browser – it doesn’t have the same problem as Chrome with this website.

3. This Connection is Untrusted after clicking on “Cita Por Internet” with Mozilla Firefox

Although it looks very different, this is exactly the same error as that described in point 1, but this is the way that Firefox interprets the error. It’s a bit easier to resolve than Internet Explorer and the best bit is that Firefox will remember for the next time you visit the website. You simply have to click on the “I Understand the Risks” link and then click on the “Add Exception” button, you will be presented with a box allowing you to add the security exception, just click on the “Confirm Security Exception” button and you will be able to access the website

I don’t know about you but every time Liesl (‘er indoors) or I have need to go to the doctor the biggest frustration is the fact that we know that we will need to traipse to the medical centre and queue for up to an hour – and that is just to get the appointment to see the doctor!

Like many of the ex-pats here, I am quick to point out to others that the Spanish health system is far superior to that of good old Blighty, but also like most of my country folk, I have just “heard” that and don’t actually know whether it’s true.  So this month I decided, (being far from an expert in this topic) that I would look it up.  The best data that I could find was from that great online encyclopaedia – Wikipedia

Countries’ health services are ranked based on life expectancy, responsiveness (i.e. speed of service) and financial contribution.  I’m guessing that my little area of the Costa Blanca didn’t help in the responsiveness factor!

Anyway, overall Spain was ranked number 7 in the world, with the UK coming 18^th so it seems, in this case at least, the “jungle drums” were right; it still doesn’t change the fact, that, at least for my family, it’s a right royal pain the rear to get a simple appointment!

You can imagine my joy when I visited a customer, Graham in Gran Alacant, last week and he told me about a website he had found – www.san.gva.es  If you have a SIP then you can use this website to book appointments with your local GP.  This is all done over the Internet from the comfort of your own home so there is no need to stand for hours in dark, depressing, illness ridden reception halls in the local health centre!

I thought that I would share my wonderful discovery with you guys.  It’s a pretty big website and does so much more than allow you to book appointments, but today this is the area we are going to focus on.

So first, you will need your computer, an Internet connection and your SIP card.  Fire up your computer and get onto the Internet, once there navigate to www.san.gva.es, you will be shown a page with 3 options (Ciutadania, Professionals, Institucional), you need to click on the Ciutadania after which you will be shown a very busy website the same as (image 1)

As you will see there are only two languages for this site (Valencian or Castilliano), so no English I’m afraid.  Next you need to click on the second menu item down on the left hand side, titled “Sanitat24: Solicitud de Cita Previa en atención primaria” this will display some hidden options, one of which is “Cita por Internet”, this is the option you need, once you click it you may get a message from your web browser saying that the “content is blocked”, just click to accept that you want to view the blocked content and you will see the same as (image 2).

You are almost there now, just enter your SIP card number in the box under “Número SIP / Número SIP” and your date of birth under the box “Data de naixement / Fecha de nacimiento”.  Once done click on the button “Validar” to continue.

The website will then confirm the information that the health service have on record, i.e. your name etc. and it will then list any doctors that you are registered to.  Just choose the doctor that you want to see and click on the Seleccionar button to continue.

The next page (image 3) displays information about your particular health service (your doctor’s name etc) and allows you to type your requested appointment information.  In here just type the date that you would like your appointment on, using the format DD/MM/YYYY.  Then enter the time range that you would like to see the available appointments for, so if you want to see what appointments are available from 10am to 11am enter 10:00 in the first box and 11:00 in the second for example, then click on the “Demanar cita” button to view the available slots.

The final screen (image 4) displays the appointments that are available to you, just select the specific appointment time and click “Confirmar cita” to confirm the appointment.  If none of the appointments suit and you would like to check another time or date just click on the “Modificar criteris” to go back to the previous page and enter different information.

Once confirmed a page will be displayed that you can print to take with you to your appointment.

One thing that Kindle users complain about is that it comes without any companion software. There is, however some third party software that fills this gap. The best appears to be ‘Calibre’ which is marketed as the ‘one stop solution to all your ebook needs’ and it provides the Kindle with a feature-rich and more importantly FREE ebook management application.

Not only does Calibre allow you to search through and create a library of your books (for example it’s easy to see all of the books you have by a specific author), it enables you to automatically fetch news from websites or RSS feeds (these are automatically downloaded information feeds – the BBC has one for example). Calibre also lets you format the news into an ebook and upload it to your Kindle – so for example, it would enable you to download a daily copy of the Guardian onto your Kindle.

If you would like to know more then there are loads of tutorial videos on the Calibre website at http://calibre-ebook.com Another thing that many people are unaware of is that you can take screen shots with your Kindle. A screen shot is simply a photograph of whatever you have on the screen at the time you take it. To do this just press ALT + Shift + G together, the screen will flash momentarily and a copy of the screen will be saved to your Kindle’s memory. To retrieve the screen shots, browse the Kindle’s ‘documents’ folder where you will find all of your books together with the screen shots.

There are some games that you can play on your Kindle! The game that it comes with is called Minesweeper and you activate it by holding down ALT + Shift + M. The controls are shown at the start of the game, but the idea is to guess where all the mines are. Whilst in Minesweeper you can launch another game called GoMoku, which is a version of tick-tak-toe. If you want to launch this game, then just press the letter G whilst in Minesweeper. There are a few other games that you can download for free from Amazon, – ‘Shuffled’ and ‘Every Word’ are both word games but highly addictive according to my customers!

There is a growing community of Kindle users on the Internet so if you want to find out any more information about what you can do with yours, just Google it. I found a lot of useful information at the website http://maketecheasier.com/tips-and-tricksfor- your-shiney-new-Kindle/2010/09/16 and another good site for more information is http://kindlestuff.wordpress.com

This is a great resource for Kindle users! It describes how to do things like, how to play background audio whilst reading a book, and how to lend other people the books you have bought for your own Kindle. Finally for those of you that have not yet bought a Kindle but are thinking about it, – it may be worth holding off for a bit.

The new Kindle Fire was launched in the USA in November and, although we are still waiting for a launch date here in Europe, it is expected to be soon. It is said to be a great piece of kit – the screen is in full colour for a start, vastly improving the experience of reading magazines, and if that isn´t enough, it will also allow you to play films and TV shows, download music and gives you access to Amazon´s massive list of over 18 million films!

I was listening to some UB40 videos in you tube its brill now with sound and the printer, thanks a million.

This month we have had loads of questions relating to the Kindle, so I thought I would spend a little time answering some of the questions I am frequently asked on the subject. The Kindle is the electronic book reader sold by Amazon. It is a great little device and most of the books available for it are substantially cheaper than buying the paperback version. The most common question I am asked is whether the country can be changed on it so that the UK Amazon store can be used to purchase books. The answer is, of course, yes, although it’s not as easy as it could be. The “trick” is to change your Kindle’s settings from within your Amazon account on the amazon.co.uk website; it’s here that your Kindle’s country settings are stored.

Another common question is whether to buy the 3G Kindle or the cheaper WiFi Kindle. The answer depends on whether you will download books on the move or not. If you are happy to download new books just from your home then you should go for the cheaper WiFi Kindle, if however you want to be able to download your books from anywhere then it’s the 3G you need – remember this is only for actually downloading the books – you can always read them anywhere once they have been downloaded to your Kindle.

Also remember that you don’t need a Kindle to be able to buy cheaper books online from Amazon, you can also use your PC, Mac, iPad or Android device.