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Sunday, April 17, 2005

Show #136

Today’s news items

US anti-spam laws are a bust. In a telephone survey of 1,421 Internet users by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 28% said they’re getting more spam than a year ago. Only 22% said they were getting less. But we’re getting used to it. 53% of e-mail users now say spam has made them less trusting of e-mail, compared to 62% a year ago.

Intel Russia has created the first Wi-Fi hotspot at the North Pole.

The NY Times has revealed the contents of President Bush’s iPod. The device was given to him by his daughters last July, and he uses it to pep up his bike rides. It contains mostly country music from George Jones, Kenny Chesney, and the like, but also songs by Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison and the Knack. There are only about 250 songs on the 10,000 song device. Someone needs to turn him on to Kazaa.

He may use an iPod, but he doesn’t send email even to his daughters. Bush said he’s afraid his “personal stuff” would be made public. He said “everything is investigated in Washington” and as a result “we’re losing a lot of history, not just with me, but with other presidents as well… I don’t think you’re entitled to be able to read my mail between my daughters and me.”

Aunti Mac from So. Orange County writes:
Re. Leo’s evangelism on the “wonderfulness” of Mac. I use Macs and PC’s all day long, everyday, as a consulting IT Admin for local school districts and I really enjoy both, but I really have to take issue with the rosey blue-sky image you paint of Mac hardware, OS X and Apple Customer Service in general.

I see more hardware failures and problems with Macs than any other major brand equivalently priced PC’s. Yes, that’s quite right and all you have to do is monitor Mac Help Sites like MacFixit.com to see the weekly reports of issues that owners find in new Mac hardare or OS X. In the last month two NEW major issues of RAM Slots dying on the new Aluminum generation PowerBooks and backlights failing on new PowerBooks and iBooks. Before that there were the thousands of PowerBooks with White Cloudy LCDs. Scan back over the months or years, and you see Mac manufactured hardware problems like these are just a tip of the iceberg. G5′s have had issues, G4 and G5 iMac have had issues too.

Just a year ago Apple agreed to extend warranty repair of TWO generaions of iBooks that had faulty manufactured Logic Boards (motherboard in the PC world). One district I work with, returned 1/5 of over 500 iBooks they bought for premature failures; they will no longer buy Macs. I personally have had a 700MHz 14″ iBook go back to Apple 3 times for repairs, all the same issue - logic board. I also had the AGP slot suddenly die one month after the warranty expiration, on a $3,200 G4 Dual 500MHz “Gigabit” PowerMac almost four years ago. Apple’s response- too bad, you should have bought Apple Care ($500).

If we had more time, we could go into OS X’s endless “Spinning Beach Ball” wait of death and OS X updates that frequently kill applications and aftermarket hardware. This is a major reason I run Yellow Dog Linux on my Macs with OS X as a “sub-OS”. I think for the “Mac Premium” you pay, you should get considerably better quality.

Leo responds:

I don’t disagree with what you’re saying. Every computer platform has problems (you want me to start listing the numerous hardware issues Windows systems can experience?), but when you compare the Mac experience with the Windows experience in a home environment there’s no question in my mind which is a better choice. If Linux were easier to use I’d recommend it, as well.

John Comments:

I’ve been using OSX since the beta and if you keep your system updated regularly and do not try and use outdated software from the 1980′s you will rarely have those beachball cursors. I do the updates the minute there available from Apple’s software update. I have yet to have major issues with any of them. There will be times that software vendors will be slightly behind and you have to wait for an update from them. But I don’t blame Apple for it. Since OSX has come out my crashes have been cut by 95%. And the ease of use factor compared to linux, well there is no comparison. Linux is great for hardcore users but not for ordinary folks that just want to download some pictures, make movies, listen to music, and browse the web.

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11a-Noon

Lee in Encino - security settings prevent email

She’s running Norton Internet Security and can’t get her email. Turn off NIS and see if this solves the problem. I don’t recommend NIS because it’s so dang intrusive. In fact, Lee’s computer is bogged down with a bunch of stuff she doesn’t need. I recommend eliminating all the firewall software (in fact, uninstall NIS) and buying an inexpensive broadband router. It will protect you without hobbling your system and it can also do your dialing for you so you can eliminate all the Yahoo/SBC software.

Jeff in Santa Ana adds Re: Mozilla/Firefox does not support ActiveX Not true.

Leo responds: OK I’ll correct my statement to “doesn’t natively support ActiveX.” And that’s a good thing. If you install the plug-in you’re running some of the same risks that IE presents - and that’s not good. Stick with Firefox without adding ActiveX support.

Jeff also says: Re: Hardware vs software firewalls, Hardware firewalls do not do egress filtering. Software firewalls (with the notable exception of Micro$oft’s “firewall”) filter both incoming AND OUTGOING traffic. If your Windoze computer was ever connected to the Internet without a firewall, you could already be infected, requiring an egress filter to stop outgoing packets (caused by the existing infection).

Leo responds: True, but… most hacks disable the software firewall anyway. And given the issues software firewalls present I still say you’re safer with a router.

Dan in Foxboro, MA - remote desktop for the Mac

Try VNC - OSX VNC from Redstone Software is the best server for OS X. Windows users should try TightVNC. I use Chicken of the VNC as the client.

Joyce in West LA - choosing email addresses

Is it safe to use your full name in an email address? Good question. I think it’s probably ok, but since you don’t know what you’re going to use that address for in future you might want to choose something that’s a little more anonymous. Make sure you pick a name with six letters or more that’s a little obscure (i.e. not a common first name) to prevent spammers’ random name generators from coming up with your address.

Jeff in Santa Ana adds Re: Disseminating and using your email address properly

For all-in-one printer reviews visit PC Magazine online.

quantumBlog in Santa Barbara, CA adds: If you have a Gmail account, you can generate aliases using this format: username+anything@gmail.com. More information here.

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Noon-1p

Martin in Manhattan - external drives died

(He’s a deadhead with 80 GB Grateful Dead live recordings!) His boot drive died, he reinstalled Windows, and now can’t get to his backups on two external drives, firewire and USB. Best I can figure is that either the incident that killed his boot drive clobbered the externals as well, or he accidentally formatted the drives when he reinstalled XP. In either case, since he can see the drives he should try data recovery software. Here’s what our listeners recommend:

Martin: I’ve had excellent results with a freeware program called PC Inspector. For a few years, I’ve been using version 3.0 to recover from external Firewire and USB 2.0 drives. Highly advise that you save recovered files to a different partition — better yet, a different drive. Version 4.0 has just been released at http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/welcome.htm
And kick ‘em back a donation. What a long, strange trip it’s…

Peace

Martin,

It sounds like you might have had a power issue. If the computer rebooted on its own, and looked for a CD to boot from, with all you are mentioning, sounds like a definite power issue. Either your main power in the dwelling/office or a power supply issue.

This could be expensive for you, but is a great investment for the future as well.

I would do the following as a tech:

A. go to http://www.ontrack.com/easyrecoverydatarecovery/ and see if the free downloadable version of OnTrack Easy Data Recovery will say whether the data is recoverable. If so purchase, if you can afford it, the $199.00 version of the software.
b. Run the software if you purchase it and recover the files to a safe place.
c. Reformat the external drives, have to make sure the FAT is rebuilt.
d. Return the files to the external drive if they are physically ok.
e. Buy a Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)
f. Have your power supply checked by a professional.

Arsyan from Malaysia adds:
Had similar problem like Martin on 200GB harddrive external usb enclosure. It happend when i was playing a movie from the harddrive using WMP when i accidently turned off the power supply for the external enclosure while the movie is still playing. When i turn it back on, XP says drive is unallocated space.

SOLUTION : http://www.stellarinfo.com/ (One of the best i found so far. It sees almost all the files in the proper folder tree GUI really easy to use, however pricey … try the demo first to see if it sees your files properly Martin)

You need to extract all the data to another harddrive (cannot be on the same drive) so having another 80GB harddrive would be enough for Martin’s data. Once data all extracted reformat the old harddrive and transfer it back again and you’re able to use it again. Tedious .. yes … but worth the effort.

ndowty from Chicago adds:
Leo- I had the same western digital drive crash twice. I used the expensive recovery programs the first time. But then I used Test Disk at www.cgsecurity.org/testdisk_doc/GetTestDisk.html
It seemed to work just as well for FREE. Good luck (BTW I finally threw out the drive).

Hey guys, thanks for all the help. Finally got everything squared away. I told Leo via e-mail I was just going to rescan my documents and salvage some that I had sent via e-mail and was sure copies were on the server. When I realized I would lose all my family photos from Christmas, and New Years and Easter… I decided to break down & buy a data recovery program. I liked PC Inspector a lot, but had mixed results. I settled for R-Studio NTFS & was able to recover all my data.

I believe that my problem was caused by an electrical spike due to a massive construction project in front of my building. I’ve added a UPS to my system & hopefully this will never happen again.

Leo, you and your listeners really rock. Thanks for all the help. Keep up the good work.

Martin

Rita in Camarillo - laptop died

She can’t get her Gateway to start up. It does give her one long beep two short beep, turns on the disc access light, then stops. Those beeps are POST codes and an indication that something is so wrong the computer can only tell you through beeps. She says that the long-short-short means the video card is dead. Sounds about right - but since it’s a laptop there is no way for her to service it herself. Bring it in.

Rita - try booting your laptop with the AC adapter/charger plugged in, but with the battery removed.

Matt in Santa Barbara - Win 98 is dying

Internet Explorer started crashing, he tried to fix it and now Windows won’t boot at all. Unlike XP, you can reinstall Windows 98 on top of itself and often fix problems. I call that an install in place. Just run the installer without erasing the hard drive. Often that will replace missing or corrupt system files. Frankly, if you do get your system up I’d suggest backing up everything and then doing a full format and install just to make sure you have a reliably working system.

Lou in Grenada Hills - XP Service Pack-2 crashed his system

As important as SP-2 is, if you’re doing everything else right, running all the Must Have Security Software, etc., then I guess you can not install it. I would recommend that whenever you do start from scratch you install SP-2 along with XP.

Justin in Pleasanton adds: I was in the same situation on my inital SP 2 download attempt. I keep a clean machine (or at least try to), was running all the anti-virus/spyware etc must haves, had a router/hardware firewall, and after install, the PC wouldn’t reboot at all. I couldn’t even do a Windows restore because it wouldn’t boot from the Restore CD. Turned out it was a hardware issue. I installed a new CD-RW drive some months before then, and there was a switch that was put in the slave position that wouldn’t allow it to boot the restore CD. Still had to restore Windows though.

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1–2p

Bill in Levittown, PA - can’t screen grab DVD video

That’s because the video card displays video as an overlay to the Windows screen. To do screen grabs I recommend WinDVD or PowerDVD.

Arsyan from Malaysia adds:
Use software rendering on your software dvd player. Or low hardware acceleration. That allows the DVD playback to be rendered in software mode instead of overlay and you’ll be able to use PrintScreen to capture it.

Tony from Fullerton adds:
A tiny free soft that can do screen grabs from DVD’s is Media Player Classic. It’s only 2mb’s and is possibly the best player around. To run a DVD go to File>Open DVD and once the desired screen image is in place, go to File>Save Image.

Jenny in Hollywood - looking for digital camera for Ebay

She’s considering a Canon Powershot - very good choice. If you’re looking for a camera printer combo look for PictBridge in both. You’ll be able to print without the help of a computer. Many new printers can also handle the camera memory cards directly.

George in Houston - where’s my XP install disc?

Many manufacturers do not provide a full install disc. You’ll get a system restore disc instead. It’s not as good and I recommend you only buy PCs from companies that provide a true XP install disc.

He also records radio shows on VCR and tells us that you must also connect a video source even if you’re only recording audio.

Matt in Riverside - do I need an anti-virus?

No if you’re very very careful. Don’t open attachments, turn on the Windows firewall, and make sure to keep your system up-to-date by regularly running Windows Update and installing all critical updates.

A listener writes: If Matt doesn’t want to install an anti-virus program on his computer he can always run an online anti-virus scan. We’ve got a list here.

Andy writes:

Running Windows in a Secure Way with Minimal Security Software

1. MOST IMPORTANTLY! DO NOT run as an Administrator Account unless its needed to do maintenance of your system. Instead, create one additional Restricted User Account. Most home PC users run their computers as Administrator…bad habit indeed. Because when a virus gets executed when running under Restricted User it has no where to go in order to destroy system files on your PC, because it would have no rights to do so.
2. Disable the Services that you do not need or pose a threat to your system.
3. If not on a network, disable NETBIOS/File Sharing. When disabling NETBIOS, it closes the 139 and 138 ports which hackers use to gain access to your PC.
4. Run Firefox web-browser or Opera. These browsers will not support Active-X by default, unless an Active-X plugin is installed. And I would disable the Javascript and Java too when you do not need them.
5. And like Leo stated, run a hardware type firewall such as Linksys or Netscreen. The one I recommend, is the Linksys BEFSX41 Broadband Firewall Router.
6. And common sense is the real key to security. Do not open attachments, do not visit suspicious webpages, and close all suspicious looking “error” messages.
7. Emails. Set to read messages in PlainText format. Disable HTML in an email client.
8. Set the following registry to the following: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\LSA= (1) or (2)
9. Create another Extended Partition for backup incase the Primary Windows partition fails.
10. Disable the DCOM service. To disable DCOM, go to the “Default Properties” tab, and UNcheck the box labled “Enable Distributed COM on this computer”.

Reboot, and try running the third-party programs that were listed. Chances are everything will run correctly. If not, you need to go back and enable it :-( If you DO enable it, go back into dcomcnfg.exe, go to the “Default Protocols” tab, and remove all protocols except for “Connection-oriented TCP/IP.” This won’t make your system much safer, but it will cut down the number of connection methods you have to keep yours eyes on.

If you don’t need to go back and enable it, then go into “Default Protocols” tab, and remove ALL protocols. You won’t need them, and it should stop your computer from listening at port 135 in the process (which can be a security risk), unless of course other programs in your computer are forcing it open.
11. Disable the Port:445. You can easily disable port 445 on your computer. To do so follow these instructions:
1.Start Registry Editor (Regedit.exe).
2.Locate the following key in the registry:
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\
Services\NetBT\Parameters
3.In the right-hand side of the window find an option called TransportBindName.
4.Double click that value, and then delete the default value, thus giving it a blank value.
4.Close the registry editor.
5.Reboot your computer.
After rebooting open a command prompt and in it type
netstat -an
See that your computer no longer listens to port 445.

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