Is there a way to transfer a Windows Media music file to iTunes?

If the Windows Media file is copy-protected, typically because you bought it from an online store that copy-protects its music, iTunes cannot import or play it. However, if it is unprotected, which is typical for files you created from your own CDs using Windows Media Player, iTunes can import the file and automatically convert it into a format it can use.

I would like to purchase an iPhone, but run it on the Verizon network. I realize that AT&T has an exclusive at this time, but is there a way to do this on the secondary market?

No. The radio inside the iPhone is incompatible with the network technology used by Verizon and Sprint. That cannot be changed by hacking the software, or replacing the SIM card in the phone.

I need to buy a new laptop computer and am wondering if you think Vista is wise at this point or should I still stick with Windows XP if I can find it? I only do emails, browsing the net and some downloading of music and photos. I am retired and don’t know much about computers.

Vista easily handles the tasks you want to do, but it will require heftier hardware to work at acceptable speeds, and, assuming you are used to working with XP, Vista will require you to learn some new things. If you buy XP, you can get away with a more modestly equipped computer, and you will be working with a more familiar interface. So, in your particular situation, I would suggest an XP machine. But I urge you to make sure it gets upgraded to the latest revision, called SP3, which bolsters the security of XP, so it is closer to that of Vista. Depending on your setup, this upgrade may be delivered automatically by Microsoft, but you may have to agree to accept it.

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.

I am in the market for a new Windows computer, but I prefer the Windows XP operating system, not Vista. I understand Microsoft has now barred the major PC vendors from selling XP systems. Is there a way I can get around this?

If you want a new, brand-name PC that comes pre-loaded with the seven-year-old Windows XP operating system, you can still get one through an odd and circuitous process. Most major PC makers will sell you selected Vista models with an option, which sometimes costs extra, officially called a “downgrade,” but sometimes marketed as an “upgrade” or “bonus.” You may have to hunt through the selections offered by the computer makers to find one that has this XP option.

When you order a PC in this fashion, you are technically buying a Vista machine, and Microsoft counts it as a Vista sale. But the computer company actually loads XP on the new hardware, in place of Vista, before it leaves the factory. In many cases, you also get discs containing Vista, in the event you wish to switch to the newer Vista operating system later.

I was wondering if you could give me some suggestions of a small, light portable radio-type gadget with earbuds that would be good for me while I do athletic activities like riding my bike. I want something that will give me different pre-programmed selections of music, not something that I have to load with music (I don’t remember names of songs). I love my Sirius satellite radio in my car.

My first reaction is to suggest you simply get the portable, small, personal Sirius radio that is meant for carrying on your person. It’s called the Stiletto 2 and costs around $300. Like the one in your car, it does require a subscription, but it is much smaller. I haven’t tested it, but you can get more information at sirius.com.

However, this unit isn’t in the smallest class of portable music players, so another alternative might be to get a very small portable player, which, while it allows you to download music, also has a built-in FM radio. Among these is the smallest Microsoft Zune, called the Zune 4 GB, at about $100, and the Sansa Clip, starting at about $35. Neither requires a subscription fee. Information is at zune.com and sansa.com.

The popular Rhapsody subscription music service is also available on portable players, and offers pre-programmed channels of music. Some of these players also include FM radios. Information on these is at learn.rhapsody.com/devices.

Last week, you said you didn’t know of a dedicated gadget that simply allows people to both send and receive emails. What about the MailBug?

Thanks for reminding me. The MailBug, which I haven’t tested, is a small, text-only terminal for sending and receiving email over a dial-up connection. It costs about $125 and requires a companion email service that is about $100 a year. It’s made by a company called Landel and can be ordered at mailbug.com.

While the device itself can’t send or receive photos or other nontext attachments, account holders with access to a computer can view such attachments via a Web-based version of their email accounts.

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

Do Macs last longer than Windows PCs? I am willing to pay the additional cost for a Mac if it will last significantly longer, but if it has approximately the same lifespan as a PC from a reputable manufacturer, I will stay with PCs.

In my years of using both types of computers daily, I have never noticed a significant difference in when Macs and Windows PCs become unfit to use, and I have never seen claims from Apple (AAPL) that its computers last longer than competing models. Obviously, on the Windows side, there’s a much greater variety of manufacturers and of quality levels, while Apple makes all Macs, and receives generally high marks in well-known surveys of reliability. But so do some Windows PC makers. All computer makers turn out the occasional lemon, and how long a computer “lasts” depends tremendously on how you use it and how you judge its usefulness over time.

My laptop hard drive crashed last year and I lost some digital pictures that were on it. My daughter had accidentally copied those digital pictures onto her iPod but she didn’t select the option to store them at full resolution. I know I can get the pictures back off the iPod, but is there any software that can get them back at full resolution?

Not as far as I know. Unless you tell iTunes to store the photo at full resolution, what is on the iPod is a version of the photo that has been scaled down for the iPod’s screen resolution and storage capacity, and that is the resolution they would retain if you copied them back to a computer.

I have an H-P (HPQ) laptop using Windows XP and Microsoft (MSFT) Office 2003. If I purchase a new H-P laptop with Vista and Office 2007, what must be done to make the two machines compatible? My goal is to be able to take a copy of Office files from one computer and use them on the other.

The difference in the operating systems won’t affect your plan, but the difference in the Office versions might. The newer 2007 version of Office can easily handle your files from the older version. But Office 2003 can’t handle files in the new default Office formats introduced in the 2007 version. These formats use file suffixes that end in the letter x. For instance, the new Word format has an extension of docx, instead of the old, familiar doc.

Luckily, the new Office can still save files automatically in the old formats, if you change a setting. Here’s how.

On the computer with the new version of Office, click on the round “Office Button” at the top left of the 2007 versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Then, in the window that appears, click on “Options.” In the next screen that comes up, click on “Save” in the column at the left. In the panel that appears at the right, you’ll notice an option called “Save Files in this format,” with a drop-down list of choices next to it. Display the list of choices by clicking on the arrow and select the format that corresponds to Office 2003. Then, click OK at the bottom of the window. For instance, in Word 2007, the format you want is called “Word 97-2003 Document (*.doc).”

The other option is to enable Office 2003 to handle the new formats, by downloading a free “Compatibility Pack” from the company’s “Download Center,” at www.microsoft.com/downloads. You’ll find it listed there under “Popular Downloads.”

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

I recently lost my cellphone for a few hours. What was most upsetting was that I have nearly three years of family photos stored on my phone’s memory card. Other than emailing all of these photos to myself and then saving, is there any way you can think of how I can move these en masse (over 100 pictures) to a hard drive or disc?

Well, assuming the card is removable, you can simply remove it from the phone, pop it into your computer, and copy the pictures to the computer’s hard disk. Depending on what slots your computer has, and the type of memory card the phone uses, this might require using a cheap, small adapter for the computer.

This should work with any modern computer, Windows (MSFT) or Mac (AAPL), and no special software should be required. The memory card should show up as an external disk drive, and you would just open the folder or folders containing the images and copy them to a folder on your hard disk, as you would with any other file. You can leave the originals on the card if you wish. Alternatively, you could import the pictures using photo software like the Vista Photo Gallery or Apple’s iPhoto, although you will want to be sure that the photo software is set to save a duplicate of each photo on the hard disk.

I read your column about avoiding identity theft last week, but am still concerned. I look at my T. Rowe Price (TROW) account, my Chase account, and my J.P. Morgan (JPM) account every day. I also pay my bills online. Is it safe to do this? I am afraid someone will try to steal my passwords and get my money.

There is nothing wrong with checking your accounts and paying your bills online. Millions of people do that safely. All I was saying last week is that there are some rules you should follow to avoid falling into traps commonly set by crooks. One important rule is to never, ever trust any email you get purporting to be from a financial institution, even if it looks official. Never click on any link in any such email, or enter any login or account information in such an email.

Beyond that, just log into the sites manually or using bookmarks you created yourself. Keep your login IDs and passwords for these sites safe, either by memorizing them or writing them someplace where they won’t be easily seen or found. Choose passwords that are hard to guess, and change them every so often. I would also advise against checking financial sites or doing online banking when on public networks, especially wireless networks at hotels, coffee shops, or airports, because some crooks monitor what is typed on such networks.

What exactly was Microsoft’s thinking in moving from XP to Vista as its operating system? If it was for improved resistance to viruses and phishing, I can accept the slower operating speeds along with the few other glitches.

As with any new operating-system project, the development of Vista had numerous aims, including easier networking and an improved user interface. However, Microsoft officials at the time repeatedly said that much more robust security was the main design goal for Vista. And, in fact, Vista does have an array of security features Windows XP lacked. However, much of the antiphishing work is contained in version 7 of the Internet Explorer Web browser, which is also available to XP users. And Vista didn’t eliminate the need to operate add-on security software.

It’s also worth noting that Microsoft is continuing to bolster the security and other features of Windows XP, and will soon release a major XP update called Service Pack 3, or SP3. It includes improved security.

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

Has anyone come up with a method that allows people to take pictures with a regular digital camera and then download them wirelessly to a computer, and/or perhaps to the Internet?

There have been a few digital cameras with built-in Wi-Fi wireless capability, but the best and simplest method I know is a $100 product called Eye-Fi. This tiny gadget looks and works like a regular, garden-variety SD memory card, but it packs a Wi-Fi transmitter inside. It fits into a standard SD memory-card slot and is compatible with a wide range of camera models from Canon (CAJ), Kodak (EK), Nikon (NINOF.PK) and others.

Coupled with clever software, and a clever Web site, the Eye-Fi card automatically zips your pictures wirelessly to your PC or Mac, and/or to your choice of over 20 online photo-sharing services.

For more information, see www.eye.fi. For a list of compatible cameras, see support.eye.fi/compatibility/. For a full review of the product, see: solution.allthingsd.com/20071121/.

You mentioned last week that SugarSync might be a good solution for backups, so if one computer dies your files still exist on another system. But what if the doomed computer doesn’t actually die but its files are corrupted by malicious software? Do those newly corrupted files overwrite the good copies on your SugarSync network?

They could do so, depending on which folders you had chosen to replicate on your other computers. Automatic-synchronization services like SugarSync have a tough time telling whether changes to a file are deliberate, accidental or the result of some sort of corruption. Though the last is rare, it could look to SugarSync like you had changed the file on purpose.

One way to guard against that is for a service to offer “versioning” — the practice of maintaining multiple past copies of a file. That way, if a change isn’t intentional, you can go back to the prior, pristine version. Sharpcast, the company that makes SugarSync, says it is planning to add versioning to the service, but offers no specific date. In the meantime, one way to back up a file without fear of its being overwritten by a corrupted version is to upload it to SugarSync’s special “Web Archive” folder, whose contents are never automatically updated.

Have you ever reviewed and suggested a media player for connecting to a home theater to play all songs, videos and photos that exist on your home computers?

Yes, I have reviewed several over the years. The one I find simplest and best designed is Apple TV, which, despite its name, can work fine in a household with no other Apple (AAPL) hardware. It costs $229 and is a small, thin, unobtrusive box that fetches music, photos and videos from your home network using either a wired or a wireless connection. It can connect to your TV set or home theater via a variety of analog and digital ports, including component-video, HDMI, and optical and analog audio. It supports high-definition video and works with any computer, Windows or Mac, that has Apple’s free iTunes software installed and running.

Apple TV handles many standard photo, music and video formats, but it is limited to music and video files that iTunes can handle. That excludes copy-protected files in Microsoft’s formats, and certain open Microsoft formats, but includes common files like MP3s. Apple TV also allows you to access YouTube and to purchase music and TV shows from Apple, and rent movies from Apple, without the use of a computer.

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

I listen to opera and other music in languages other than English. Much of this music comes with lyrics and English translations. I like listening on my MP3 player, but I don’t like having to carry around the CD notes to read while I listen. Is there a portable player that would allow me to read the lyrics while I listen?

Yes. The Apple iPods are capable of displaying lyrics while you listen. This capability has been on the standard iPods and on iPod Nanos for a while, and has just been added to the new iPod Touch and to the iPhone. It requires the lyrics to be entered into the song file, either manually or by cutting and pasting.

You enter lyrics using Apple’s companion iTunes software, on either a Windows or a Macintosh computer. To do so, you select the song, then, from the File menu, click on “Get Info.” You then select the tab called “Lyrics,” which brings up an empty window. You can type in the lyrics or first copy them from a Web site (or other source) and then paste them into this window. You then click OK, and, when you synchronize the song with your iPod, the lyrics come with it.

On the standard iPod itself, to view the lyrics while listening, you press the large center button multiple times until the lyrics appear. On the iPod Touch and iPhone, you tap on the image of the album cover while a song is playing. If the song file contains lyrics, they appear.

Does Kodak’s photo software allow one to add titles to the photo — for instance, names of people in group shots?

Yes, as with most photo software, you can add captions or titles to pictures organized inside the Kodak EasyShare software that runs on your computer. You can also add captions to pictures you upload to Kodak’s online photo organizer, which is called Kodak Gallery.

I want to give our five-year-old Dell with Windows XP to a charitable organization. How do I assure myself that all my personal files are safely removed?

One option is to reformat the hard disk, which would leave the computer unusable unless you or the charity bought and installed a copy of Windows, or obtained and installed a free copy of the Linux operating system.

The other option is to leave the operating system and programs intact but “wipe,” or permanently delete, all the personal files that concern you, using a “file wiper” program that overwrites the contents of the file with nonsense data. There are a variety of such programs, including some that are free. To find these, go to download.com and search for “file wipe” or “file wiper.” If you’re willing to spend $30, you might want to use a program I have tested and can recommend called Window Washer, available at webroot.com. It has a “bleaching” function that wipes files, and also has the ability to erase any tracks left by your Web browser.

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.

I am shopping for a new laptop, and noticed that some of the models in which I am interested come with Windows Vista Business edition instead of Home Premium, which I understand is the main consumer version. What would I be missing if I went with the Business version instead?

The main thing Vista Business lacks that Home Premium includes is a series of multimedia features. These include Media Center, which allows you to play songs and videos, and view photos, from across a room. In addition, Home Premium offers Windows Movie Maker software for creating movies, DVD maker, and several games the Business version lacks.

On the other hand, the Business edition has some things Home Premium doesn’t, including built-in programs for doing a complete PC backup, for faxing and scanning, and for remotely running programs on another computer. For the most part, however, Vista Business looks and works like Home Premium.

I just bought a new laptop, and want to transfer to it the Firefox bookmarks I have on my old desktop. How can I do that?

There are a number of possible methods, but here’s a simple, straightforward approach.

First, you export the bookmarks from Firefox on your old desktop PC, which creates a single file containing the bookmarks. Then, you copy that file, which Firefox names by default “bookmarks.html,” to a CD or portable USB drive or some other medium you can use to transfer files between computers. Then, you copy the file to the new laptop. Finally, you import the file into the fresh copy of Firefox on the new laptop.

To carry out this process, you use Firefox’s import and export function for bookmarks. On the first computer, from the Firefox Bookmarks menu, choose “Organize bookmarks.” Then, once the bookmark window opens, go to the File menu and choose “Export.” That will create the bookmarks file. After the file is on the second computer, launch Firefox and repeat the process, only this time choose “Import,” and then click on “From File,” and select the file you brought over.

I have Word 2003 and have just started to receive Word 2007 documents, which I cannot open. What is the best solution?

Word 2007 has a new default file format, called DOCX, that is incompatible with older versions, which rely on the long-standing DOC format. The new version can be set to always save files in the old format, but not everyone knows that or chooses to do so.

However, folks such as you with the 2003 version of Word can install a free “Compatibility Pack” from Microsoft that will allow your copy of Word to read the new format. It can be obtained from the company’s Download Center, at www.microsoft.com/downloads. You’ll find it listed there under “Popular Downloads.”

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

I currently spend about $50 to $60 per year for Norton Security software. Is this necessary when Windows XP has its own security built into the operating system?

Windows XP doesn’t include antivirus or antispyware programs, so you definitely need some sort of add-on security software. If you don’t want to pay for it, there are free alternatives available.

How do we determine when to purchase a new PC? Our current Dell is about five years old. I’m feeling a little worried because I have my music and photos on the computer and don’t want to lose them.

There’s no universal answer to your question. In general, I don’t believe people should replace computers that are working well for them just because they reach a certain age. On the other hand, five years is pretty old for a PC. At that age, the odds increase that the hard disk may develop problems, and that newer versions of the software you like will require hardware upgrades that may cost more than you want to invest in an older machine.

Assuming your Dell is working fine, that you aren’t a power user, and that your music and photo activities are simple and basic, there’s probably no urgent need to replace the PC. But, to assuage your concern about “losing” your pictures and music, you might back up those precious files to an external hard disk or an online backup service.

Last week, you compared the start-up time of Windows Vista to Apple’s new Leopard operating system, and found Vista to be much slower. But you used different laptops for each. What would the numbers be on the same Macintosh running the two operating systems?

I ran the tests again on a single computer, a fairly new Apple iMac, which can be started up, and restarted, in either Vista or Leopard. I used the Mac’s Boot Camp feature, in which only one operating system is running at a time, has its own dedicated portion of the hard disk and fully controls the hardware. The machine uses an Intel processor and other key components commonly found on Windows machines, and runs Windows just like a Dell or any standard Windows PC, without any involvement from the Mac operating system.

This Vista installation doesn’t include any of the speed-robbing trial software commonly included by PC makers, though it does have security software from Symantec. However, the test results were very similar — Leopard started and restarted much more quickly than Vista did.

In this simple test, I timed both operating systems from a cold start and a restart until the computer was fully ready for operation, with the hard disk quiet and the network connection established. The cold start, beginning with the computer completely off, took Leopard 46 seconds, but took Vista one minute and 42 seconds. A restart, beginning with the computer running an email program, the Firefox Web browser, and Microsoft Word, took one minute and two seconds for Leopard, and three minutes and 17 seconds for Vista.

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

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com

In a recent column, you said Microsoft had imposed a legal prohibition on running the Home versions of Windows Vista on a Macintosh using virtualization programs like Parallels and Fusion. Does the same prohibition apply if you are installing Vista using Apple’s Boot Camp software?

No, because Boot Camp doesn’t create a virtual Windows computer — it actually carves out part of an Intel-based Macintosh’s hard disk and turns it into a full-blown physical Windows computer. To Windows, a Mac configured this way looks just like any Dell or Hewlett-Packard or other standard Windows computer. Boot Camp is free, but, such as Parallels and Fusion, it requires you to purchase a full, boxed copy of Windows to install.

The upside of the Boot Camp approach is that, when you are running Windows on the Mac, all of the computer’s hardware is devoted to Windows, because the Mac’s own operating system, OS X, isn’t running at all and a portion of the hard disk is reserved for the exclusive use of Windows. The downside is that you cannot run the two operating systems simultaneously, as you can with virtual solutions such as Parallels and Fusion. To switch between using Windows programs and Mac programs, you must restart the machine while holding down the Option key and then choose whether you want it to boot into Windows or Mac OS X. Both Parallels and Fusion can, however, use a Boot Camp Windows installation to create a virtual version of Windows that can be used simultaneously with the Mac OS.

If you install Boot Camp on a well-equipped Mac model, it can become a blazing fast Vista computer. A few days ago I bought a top-of-the-line model of Apple’s new iMac line, and installed Boot Camp and Vista. I then tested the machine using Vista’s built-in Windows Experience Index, a rating system that goes from 1 to 5.9, with scores above 3.0 generally required for full, quick performance. My iMac scored a 5.0, the best score of any consumer Vista machine I have tested. Obviously, a tricked-out high end Dell or HP box might do as well or better, and a lesser Mac might do worse. But the score was very impressive for a computer that wasn’t designed with Vista in mind.

We have a Sony PC and a 17-inch LCD monitor. Currently, we have a separate old-fashioned TV in the room, with a cable box connected to it. Is there any way to buy a larger LCD monitor and be able to watch TV via the cable box and also use the same screen when we use the computer?

A good approach would be to buy an LCD television that has both the usual connectors for your cable box and a connector, or input, for a personal computer. There are many such models, in various sizes. If you bought such a TV, you would switch between the PC and the cable box by changing inputs on your remote. Just make sure the PC input is compatible with your computer, or that an adapter is available to make it compatible. Many PCs and PC-friendly TVs use the older, common VGA connector, which is an analog input, but others use various newer digital connectors. You can also connect some computers to LCD TVs using standard connectors that aren’t specifically labeled as being for PCs. This is especially true for some Windows Media Center PCs that are designed to work with TVs.

Have you rated any of the Web businesses that assemble personal photos into a book format?

Yes. My colleague Katherine Boehret and I reviewed three contenders in that category in December, and in our judgment, at that time, MyPublisher (www.mypublisher.com) was the best of that group. You can read the column at http://solution.allthingsd.com/20061206. However, the books from Apple, Shutterfly and Blurb are also favorites of many readers.

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.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com

Here are a few questions about computers I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained questions about external modems for a MacBook, resizing photos for email, and using the forthcoming iPhone in Europe.

In your laptop buying guide, you mentioned that the MacBook from Apple lacks both an internal cellphone modem and an external slot in which to insert one. Is there a way to hook up a cellphone modem via a USB port?

Yes, several cellphone carriers offer external modems that plug into USB ports. I haven’t tested these, but have no reason to doubt that they work. However, if you are buying a MacBook, make sure any such modem you buy is Mac-compatible. Both Verizon and Sprint carry a Novatel model that plugs into a USB port and is listed as being compatible with the Mac.

When I email pictures to my sister, she has to scroll up, down, and across to see the whole thing. What can I do to my computer or to hers?

You can make the picture smaller before emailing it. Both Windows and Macintosh computers offer you the option of shrinking the size of photos you email. For instance, in the My Pictures folder in Windows XP, if you select a photo and then choose “Email this file” from the menu at the left, you will be asked if you want to make the picture smaller. On the Mac, in the built-in iPhoto program, when you select a photo and click on the Email icon at the bottom, you are offered a choice of sizes for the picture.

Will the forthcoming Apple iPhone be usable in Europe with a SIM card, and will it be based on a Palm platform or a Microsoft one?

Nothing about any future product can be certain until it is released, but Apple officials have said that the iPhone will be usable in Europe if you insert into it a SIM card from a European carrier. However, it won’t have one of its touted features, “visual voicemail,” which depends upon AT&T, the iPhone’s U.S. carrier.

* * *

Because of the volume of e-mail I receive, I can’t routinely answer individual questions by e-mail, or consult on individual problems or purchasing decisions. I read all questions I receive and select three each week to answer in the column.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com