We’ve got more geo-mapping stuff in the works but first have a few items to clear off our desk.
First up: When you shut down Windows do you ever get a message that CiceroUIWndFrame isn’t responding? Does this program ever appear to be the cause of Windows crashing? Ever wonder what CiceroUIWndFrame actually does?
The answer is that CiceroUIWndFrame is the speech- and handwriting-recognition subsystem of Microsoft Office XP. Removing it, assuming its services don’t matter to you, will fix your problems.
In the Control Panel, select Add/Remove Programs and click on the Microsoft Office entry (the actual name depends on which version you have installed). Click on Change, which launches the Office maintenance utility.
Under Office Shared Features, look for Alternative User Input. Set the entry for Speech and Handwriting Recognition (both) to Not Available, and – voilà! – without a reboot, the problem is solved.
Next up, an interesting issue: Reader Dennis Devine writes, “I downloaded [XNS, an Xterm terminal emulator for Windows] and was about to start using it when I realized it was a Russian program.”
Trust Russian software?
This concerned Devine, as this software gets very low-level access to your PC. “Now, I know we’re over the Cold War,” he wrote, “but the world of corruption, warez, Trojans and other nasty things seem to have a breeding ground in Russia, Romania and [those areas] of the world. Is there any . . . group or organization that checks out these kind of programs to see if they are trustworthy?”
Unfortunately, we know of no such resource other than those that report on general security issues, such as CERT. Another option is a Google search using the software title and/or the publisher’s name to check any relevant discussion.
Our search turned up nothing about XNS. But according to its agent, SharewareOrder.com, the publisher of XNS, Creditural, is supposed to have a Web site. As Creditural’s site doesn’t seem to exist, we’d have to conclude the company isn’t a safe software source.
If you need to use such software, you can run such diagnostics as sniffers, as well as configure personal firewall-access rules to limit potential risks and (we hope) detect anomalous behavior. If the software has a virus or Trojan, your antivirus and antiadware systems should detect this unless the threat is rare.
As a general rule, we recommend not using software with which you have any reason to not be 100% comfortable. The problem with this rule is that you probably shouldn’t be buying from Microsoft, Symantec or any other company.
Unclog your taskbar
Finally, we offer an interesting utility for Windows, 4t Tray Minimizer by 4t Niagara Software.
4t Tray Minimizer lets you move running tasks from the taskbar to become icons in the Windows system tray. This is great when you have several applications running and you want to unclog your taskbar. 4t TM also can automatically hide and restore applications using keyboard shortcuts.
4tTM puts two new controls in each application window’s title bar: Minimize To Tray, which creates an icon in the system tray (click on the new icon to restore) and Hide, which moves the icon to 4tTM’s internal list (not to the system tray). The program also lets you launch Windows desktop programs from the system tray.
A considerable amount of thought has gone into this program to let you configure how specific application windows are handled. This is definitely a tool for power users. 4t Tray Minimizer Free (which won’t save configuration settings) is free, while 4t Tray Minimizer Pro 4.27 (which saves configuration settings and includes lifetime e-mail technical support and lifetime upgrades) costs $19.95.
We’d guess 4t Niagara Software is a safe company to deal with, but what do we know? We use Microsoft products.
