Inbox

Welcome to InBox, where we attempt to answer your internet questions.

"The security certificate is either expired or not yet valid," complains Terry's machine when using his online banking facility. Many calls to his internet provider and bank haven't managed to solve the issue.

Time to check your machine's date, Terry. If the date is set incorrectly, the certificate will be invalid. Just double-click on your clock in the taskbar and check the month and year.

Another Terry is trying to install a program called PCSync that backs up information from his Rolodex diary. Every install freezes, both when sourced from CD or internet download and he's "literally tearing his hair out".

Something is running in the background on your machine Terry. Bring up "Task Manager" by pressing the Ctrl Alt Del keys together and then "End Task" each item, but not "Explorer" or "Systray" as they are needed to run Windows. Once all other tasks are stopped, do the install and re-boot the machine.

Ngaire's "darling" teen sons have corrupted her search button to bring up a warez site followed by a porn site and she's not happy about it.


In Internet Explorer Ngaire, go to Tools/Internet Options/Programs then click "Reset Web Settings" and it will return your start and search pages to the defaults.

Ted's Dialup is very persistent. It won't stop requesting to dial, even when he's already online.

Check for an old dialup that is set as your default connection, Ted. In Control Panel/Internet Options/Connections you should have the default set to the connection you use all the time. I suspect you'll find it's set to one you don't normally use. Just set it to the one you want to use by highlighting it and clicking "Set Default" then Apply and OK. If the other connection is not going to be used in the future, it may pay to remove it.

Denis is concerned that web addresses pop up that are not in his Favourites yet seem to be stored in Internet Explorer and only seem to be accessed via a little arrow on the right of the address bar.

That's your Internet History Denis - a list of sites you've recently visited. It can easily be cleared. In Internet Explorer go to Tools/Internet Options/General, then click the "Clear History" button.

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