Several shareware products can save your slide shows

Q. I have several .exe files from long ago that are slide shows I made with Slides & Sounds software. It is very similar to a PowerPoint slideshow. They run a full-screen slide show with all the slide transitions to attached music that is timed beautifully.

I have been looking for software that will record the screen images and stereo audio exactly as it is playing on my computer and save (or convert) them to an MPEG or AVI file. I have downloaded several products that advertise that they do this, but they do not work as advertised. Any suggestions?

— Jim Hettinger

A: You don't mention what programs you've tried for capturing screens and sounds, so I may be offering what you've already tried. But I've used two programs that seem to do a good job.

Specifically, Screen 2 Webflash will record any screen activity along with any sounds being played and save them as a Macromedia Flash movie. Capturelib Screen Recorder does the same thing, only it saves the results as an AVI file. Both programs replayed without a hiccup for me.

I'd suggest that you search the Internet for record on-screen slideshow and you'll see quite a few results, including many shareware products that you can try free.

Q: I had to take my computer to the company that built it because I kept receiving the message ".dll resource is missing." I couldn't even access my address book, despite repeated attempts. It required a virus scan, I was told.

When I got it back, nearly six months of e-mail (read and unread) I had received from June 19 to Dec. 5, the day the shop began work on the computer, had been lost on the bench. I was told the shop could not find it and could not explain how it was lost. Do you know of any way to retrieve that mail?

— Al Hattal

A: I'm afraid there's not enough information for me to say what happened to your e-mail and, therefore, whether it is recoverable. It's certainly possible that even if the drive has been reformatted much of the data can be recovered. But you'd have to take the drive to a data recovery service to do the job. And be prepared to pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 if they're able to find anything.

I know the horses have already left the barn, but e-mail and address books are probably the best argument for making regular backups. I've been in the same position before. I bought an inexpensive USB external hard drive and set the Windows backup program to make daily backups. That way I don't have to think about it.

Q: I need to purchase an MP3 player (iPod or otherwise) that can support the very low encoding rate of 16 KBps. I will be using it to listen to some lessons that were recorded at that slow rate. Can you advise me which player might be useful for this?

— Ron Pletter

A: A number of MP3 players can support 16Kbps files. At the same time, many do not. For example, current Apple iPods support 16Kbps files while the smallest format the Microsoft Zune supports is 128Kbps. So you'll just have to check the specifications of devices you're considering.

Q: I updated my Norton Antivirus software to the 2007 version. I'm now seeing dramatically more Internet virus blockages that pop up as notices — every few minutes. I do not remember this frequency with the last (2006) version. Could it be simply more effective? Is this common with antivirus software? Am I being attacked more or perhaps I had notification switched off before? It's getting scary. Should I be alarmed at an impending catastrophe?

— J.R., Edmonds

A: Sounds like you've covered all the appropriate ground. The increase in virus notifications could be the result of any of the things you cite — or some combination of them. If you're receiving a notice every few minutes, however, that's more likely a result of spyware rather than a virus.

Norton Antivirus 2007, like the 2006 version, has a built-in anti-spyware utility. Do you get notices every few minutes when you're not connected to the Internet?

Either way, the notice should be telling you what kind of critter it has detected and whether it was able to eliminate or quarantine it. There's no question that there are quite a few things out there, especially of the spyware variety.

As for worrying about a catastrophe, I wouldn't. Just make sure to keep your security software up to date.

Questions for Patrick Marshall may be sent by e-mail to pmarshall@seattletimes.com or pgmarshall@pgmarshall.net, or by mail at Q&A/Technology, The Seattle Times, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists.