In the new version of Microsoft Office, I cannot find a “favorites” capability in the Open dialog box. In my older version, when I began to open a document, I had a box on the left called “Favorites” that I could invoke to find common file locations. Did they really kill this very useful feature?

No, but they changed the way you make it visible in Office 2007. You can get back your “Favorites” category by right-clicking the bar at the left-hand side of the Open dialog. From the menu that appears, click on “Add Favorites,” and your Favorites category should appear in the left-hand bar, and stay there.

If I have McAfee security software, do I need an antispyware program as well?

Everyone running a Windows computer, even a virtual Windows computer on a Mac, should have antispyware software. In some ways, spyware is a worse security problem than viruses, and can lead to identity theft.

McAfee has made many types and versions of security software over the years. Some, especially recent versions of the company’s comprehensive products, include antispyware protection. Check your version to make sure it includes this capability. If it doesn’t, you will either need to upgrade to a more comprehensive suite, or obtain a separate anti-spyware product.

When my friend put a Spike Jones CD of mine into his Mac to import it using iTunes, the CD was misidentified with an embarrassing title. What would cause such a thing to happen? Does iTunes go out to the Web looking for album names, instead of going by what’s on a disk?

Yes. Music programs like iTunes, and all its major competitors, can’t identify a disk directly. So they rely on online databases to identify CDs. Each CD contains a hidden code that the database providers quickly match up with their huge catalogs of CDs to provide the album title, artist, date, track list and other information. But, sometimes, especially when the CD is relatively obscure, the databases are wrong and yield erroneous information. When that happens, you have to type in the information by hand.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free of charge at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

A friend of mine suggested that I “defragment” my computer every once in a while. He says it will boost performance, but he also said it will move my data around. I tend to be very organized as to where I put documents on my computer. Will defragmenting my computer jumble my files and put them into random places?

No. Defragmenting a hard disk doesn’t change or scramble the organization of files and folders that you have established. Your file organization should look just the same after defragmenting the disk. What defragmenting does is rearrange the location on the disk of the data segments that make up your files. In some cases, a single file like a word-processor document might actually be made up of multiple data segments, invisible to you, that are located in widely separated physical spots on the disk. Defragmenting tries to optimize the location of these segments so that the computer operates more efficiently.

I saw your review of Norton Internet Security 2009, and wonder what is the difference between this product and Norton 360?

Norton 360 has the same features as Norton Internet Security, but adds some additional ones, like online backup and PC “tune-up.” It also costs more. However, the current version of Norton 360 doesn’t include the improvements I wrote about in the NIS product that make it faster and less of a burden on your computer. Those are planned for a future version of Norton 360.

Can I use one of the new 3G iPhones as a wireless modem for my Apple laptop?

No. That function isn’t built into the iPhone and Apple yanked from distribution a third-party program that enabled using the phone as a modem. I suspect the reason is a business one, not a technical one. Cellphone carriers like AT&T typically take the position that connecting a laptop to their networks, whether via a data card or via a cellphone used as a modem, should command a higher monthly data charge than they typically levy for a cellphone alone.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox and my other columns online free at the All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.