Tech Q and A: Why Can't iPhones Run on Verizon's Network?

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Every other week or so, FOXNews.com tries to solve your most vexing technology-related problems. Send your questions to TechQuestions@foxnews.com and we'll reply to selected ones in our next installment.

Happy St. Patrick's Day to one and all. In this week's installment, we discuss unlocking the iPhone, provide some relief for a chronic footer problem and face another malware infestation.

And, of course, there's more information on the upcoming DTV conversion. You haven't forgotten about that, have you?

It's probably a good thing that the second problem wasn't a header problem, else I would have had to drag out my head doctor puns. Like the one about that new branch of psychiatry, Psychoceramics. It's the study of cracked pots.

Speaking of old cracked pots, your humble Tech Q & A guy is ready to take on another batch of problems!

• Click here for FOXNews.com's Personal Technology Center.

A Lock on the iPhone Market

Q: Can an iPhone be connected to Verizon? I heard this was possible, but I was not sure.

A: No. The iPhone was designed to run on a GSM network. Verizon's is CDMA.

It is possible to unlock an iPhone, but that just means your iPhone will work on other GSM networks, such as T-Mobile's. Good news if you're allergic to AT&T; no help if you're tied to Verizon Wireless.

Why would Apple make a cell phone that is exclusively GSM? I can think of two reasons. For starters, since 80 percent of the world's cell phones are GSM, it means an iPhone can be taken most places in the world and it will work as long as cost is no object.

The second is that by making it GSM, and also locking it to one GSM carrier, Apple makes a commission on every new account generated by an iPhone sale. Cha-ching!

But not to worry. Rumor has it that Apple will soon be introducing a CDMA version of the iPhone so that it can better compete in North America against the likes of Research in Motion's BlackBerry.

Call Your Podiatrist?

Q: I am using Word 2007 to type a manuscript and I am trying to find how to set up my footer to have the chapter name and the page number (i.e. Chapter One on the left and the page number on the right). I cannot figure this out after visiting the Web site for Microsoft and consulting some books.

A: I learned to like Word 2007 a lot — after I got past a couple of annoyances:

The first was trying to figure out where they hid the controls to everything. It seems they replaced all of the menus and toolbars I was used to with a tabbed toolbar known as the "Ribbon."

The second was when I discovered that all of the documents I created during the "free trial" were unreadable after the Word 2007 trial expired, when I had to go back to the version I'd previously been using. I guess it was time to upgrade after all.

Tip to job seekers: Save your résumé in "Word 97-2003 Format" just in case your target company's HR department hasn't yet upgraded to Word 2007. It may be the difference between having your résumé read or round-filed.

Back to the question. Click on the second tab on the ribbon, the one labeled "Insert." The fifth group of controls on the Insert Tab (after Pages, Tables, Illustrations and Links) is "Header & Footer." You'll find three controls there — one each to insert/edit/remove a header, a footer or a page number.

Click on "Footer." You'll be asked to select a style from the "Footer Gallery." Choose the one entitled "Blank (Three Columns)."

This style footer has two tabs set — one is centered, the other is right-justified. The words "[Type text]" appears in all three locations. You will also notice a new tab on the Ribbon, named "Design."

The insertion point is at the left. Replace the first instance of "[Type text]" with "Chapter One." Erase the second instance. Replace the third with "page number " — remembering the trailing space. Then click on the third control of the Design tab, "Page Number." Choose "Current Position" and select the first style offered.

Exit by clicking on the red "X" at the end of the design tab, "Close Header and Footer."

Under the "Page Number" icon, you can select "Format Page Numbers" to control the function. You can specify a starting page number (if each chapter in your manuscript is a separate Word document).

You can specify a new footer (that is, Chapter Name) for each section of your document (if all the chapters are in a single Word document). You can even put a different style on even and odd-numbered pages, or exclude the page number on the first page of each chapter.

In any case, remember to back up your work! There's nothing more tragic than losing all of your wordsmithing to a disk error.

A final thought: If you get an error message about the Style Gallery, there's a Microsoft Knowledge Base article to deal with it. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555843. This is your answer if you've already deciphered the mystery of how to get to the Header/Footer, but it still wasn't allowing you to insert page numbers.

More Malware!

Q: After turning my computer on, a screen appears with the title "Sereniti Active Security Monitor" and then reads "system cannot locate the object specified. Line 0." What does this mean?

Then an error message comes up saying "failed to load score.dll" What does that mean? Is there a solution to either of these problems?

A: Something — probably malware of some sort — is messing with your system.

The first message would be symptomatic of having your antivirus/antimalware program disabled. The program which is supposed to start cannot. It is missing. The second message references "score.dll," part of the AOL Active Security Monitor.

You might have a type of malware known as a "rogue." Programs of this sort advertise and/or install themselves in order to force computer users to pay for removal of nonexistent malware. Some are devilishly hard to get rid of.

You can find a pretty good (although by no means complete) list of rogue sites here.

Did you recently give a credit-card number for some program that had supposedly found a number of bugs in your computer? Is the name of the program you downloaded on this list?

Your best bet is to save all your important files, then perform a procedure called a "wipe and reload" in which you format the system partition and reinstall the operating system. It's the safest and surest way to get rid of the little monster.

If that sounds too drastic, (or you would rather not try it, and the geeks-in-little-cars company charges too much to do it for you) you can try some of the removal instructions from the above site. Personally, I like the scanner from Malwarebytes.com.

State of the DTV Conversion Report

Last Friday (the 13th!) the FCC released broadcaster rules for the remainder of the DTV conversion. Obviously not a superstitious bunch, these FCC people. You can find of copy of the press release here.

Demonstrating a tenacious grasp of the perfectly obvious, acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps said, "Consumers deserve to know the truth. They will forgive a lot, but they won't forgive being lulled into a false sense that the transition will be less disruptive or less expensive than it turns out to be."

The FCC now requires broadcasters to "educate consumers about a range of digital television reception problems that have arisen," including:

(1) Signal loss: Stations must provide on-air and other notifications of potential signal loss if 2 percent or more of their analog viewers are likely to lose service, regardless of whether stations gain viewers in other areas.

(2) Antennas: All stations must include information about the use of antennas as part of their consumer-education campaigns, including additional information if they are changing from the VHF to UHF bands or if viewers may need additional or different equipment to avoid loss of service.

(3) Scanning: Stations must inform and remind viewers about the importance of periodically using the rescan function of their digital televisions and digital converter boxes.

During the time surrounding the conclusion of the transition, many stations will be changing the service areas and the broadcast frequencies of their digital transmissions.

As a result, viewers will need to periodically rescan during this period in order to ensure that they are correctly receiving all the digital broadcast services available to them.

Feedback

Bill writes:

You said, "I am assuming that your PC is not part of a corporate network, where some power-hungry, Type-A, control-freak, network administrator has locked the settings. In that case, all bets are off."

I am a technology director for a public school system in Indiana and am the only person responsible for the operation and maintenance for all of our technology, including 534 desktop computers.

I rely upon DeepFreeze to keep these computers in a stable, unchangeable state because I do not have the time to be constantly fixing problems induced by the actions of students and staff alike.

All of these computers must remain reliable day after day. It has nothing to do with personality or control issues, but with what one guy has to do to keep things from imploding.

You have a thankless job, and are obviously not one of the people I was referring to. An educational LAN is one of the few environments that the old Digital Equipment Corporation, affectionately known as DEC, referred to as "hostile."

Contrast your position with a certain call center (which I will not name).

It takes three to five weeks to get new user logons approved — but they can implement a whitelist policy, where they restrict employees from visiting every site on the Internet except for the few that they approve of, overnight.

Control freaks at work!

Got questions about computers and technology? Send them to TechQuestions@foxnews.com and we'll answer selected ones in our next installment.

Guy Briggs is a member of the Nerds On Site international IT service team and is based in Salt Lake City.

We regret that we can't answer questions individually. Neither FoxNews.com nor its writers and editors assume any liability for the effectiveness of the solutions presented here.