Posts Tagged ‘Find’

More Shortcuts for MS Word

   Command Name                  Shortcut Keys
   ------------------------------------------------------------------------

   All Caps                      CTRL+SHIFT+A
   Annotation                    ALT+CTRL+M
   App Maximize                  ALT+F10
   App Restore                   ALT+F5
   Apply Heading1                ALT+CTRL+1
   Apply Heading2                ALT+CTRL+2
   Apply Heading3                ALT+CTRL+3
   Apply List Bullet             CTRL+SHIFT+L
   Auto Format                   ALT+CTRL+K
   Auto Text                     F3 or ALT+CTRL+V
   Bold                          CTRL+B or CTRL+SHIFT+B
   Bookmark                      CTRL+SHIFT+F5
   Browse Next                   CTRL+PAGE DOWN
   Browse Previous               CTRL+PAGE UP
   Browse Sel                    ALT+CTRL+HOME
   Cancel                        ESC
   Center Para                   CTRL+E
   Change Case                   SHIFT+F3
   Char Left                     LEFT
   Char Left Extend              SHIFT+LEFT
   Char Right                    RIGHT
   Char Right Extend             SHIFT+RIGHT
   Clear                         DELETE
   Close or Exit                 ALT+F4
   Close Pane                    ALT+SHIFT+C
   Column Break                  CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER
   Column Select                 CTRL+SHIFT+F8
   Copy                          CTRL+C or CTRL+INSERT
   Copy Format                   CTRL+SHIFT+C
   Copy Text                     SHIFT+F2
   Create Auto Text              ALT+F3
   Customize Add Menu            ALT+CTRL+=
   Customize Keyboard            ALT+CTRL+NUM +
   Customize Remove Menu         ALT+CTRL+-
   Cut                           CTRL+X or SHIFT+DELETE
   Date Field                    ALT+SHIFT+D
   Delete Back Word              CTRL+BACKSPACE
   Delete Word                   CTRL+DELETE
   Dictionary                    ALT+SHIFT+F7
   Do Field Click                ALT+SHIFT+F9
   Doc Close                     CTRL+W or CTRL+F4
   Doc Maximize                  CTRL+F10
   Doc Move                      CTRL+F7
   Doc Restore                   CTRL+F5
   Doc Size                      CTRL+F8
   Doc Split                     ALT+CTRL+S
   Double Underline              CTRL+SHIFT+D
   End of Column                 ALT+PAGE DOWN
   End of Column                 ALT+SHIFT+PAGE DOWN
   End of Doc Extend             CTRL+SHIFT+END
   End of Document               CTRL+END
   End of Line                   END
   End of Line Extend            SHIFT+END
   End of Row                    ALT+END
   End of Row                    ALT+SHIFT+END
   End of Window                 ALT+CTRL+PAGE DOWN
   End of Window Extend          ALT+CTRL+SHIFT+PAGE DOWN
   Endnote Now                   ALT+CTRL+D
   Extend Selection              F8
   Field Chars                   CTRL+F9
   Field Codes                   ALT+F9
   Find                          CTRL+F
   Font                          CTRL+D or CTRL+SHIFT+F
   Font Size Select              CTRL+SHIFT+P
   Footnote Now                  ALT+CTRL+F
   Go Back                       SHIFT+F5 or ALT+CTRL+Z
   Go To                         CTRL+G or F5
   Grow Font                     CTRL+SHIFT+.
   Grow Font One Point           CTRL+]
   Hanging Indent                CTRL+T
   Header Footer Link            ALT+SHIFT+R
   Help                          F1
   Hidden                        CTRL+SHIFT+H
   Hyperlink                     CTRL+K
   Indent                        CTRL+M
   Italic                        CTRL+I or CTRL+SHIFT+I
   Justify Para                  CTRL+J
   Left Para                     CTRL+L
   Line Down                     DOWN
   Line Down Extend              SHIFT+DOWN
   Line Up                       UP
   Line Up Extend                SHIFT+UP
   List Num Field                ALT+CTRL+L
   Lock Fields                   CTRL+3 or CTRL+F11
   Macro                         ALT+F8
   Mail Merge Check              ALT+SHIFT+K
   Mail Merge Edit Data Source   ALT+SHIFT+E
   Mail Merge to Doc             ALT+SHIFT+N
   Mail Merge to Printer         ALT+SHIFT+M
   Mark Citation                 ALT+SHIFT+I
   Mark Index Entry              ALT+SHIFT+X
   Mark Table of Contents Entry  ALT+SHIFT+O
   Menu Mode                     F10
   Merge Field                   ALT+SHIFT+F
   Microsoft Script Editor       ALT+SHIFT+F11
   Microsoft System Info         ALT+CTRL+F1
   Move Text                     F2
   New                           CTRL+N
   Next Cell                     TAB
   Next Field                    F11 or ALT+F1
   Next Misspelling              ALT+F7
   Next Object                   ALT+DOWN
   Next Window                   CTRL+F6 or ALT+F6
   Normal                        ALT+CTRL+N
   Normal Style                  CTRL+SHIFT+N or ALT+SHIFT+CLEAR (NUM 5)
   Open                          CTRL+O or CTRL+F12 or ALT+CTRL+F2
   Open or Close Up Para         CTRL+0
   Other Pane                    F6 or SHIFT+F6
   Outline                       ALT+CTRL+O
   Outline Collapse              ALT+SHIFT+- or ALT+SHIFT+NUM -
   Outline Demote                ALT+SHIFT+RIGHT
   Outline Expand                ALT+SHIFT+=
   Outline Expand                ALT+SHIFT+NUM +
   Outline Move Down             ALT+SHIFT+DOWN
   Outline Move Up               ALT+SHIFT+UP
   Outline Promote               ALT+SHIFT+LEFT
   Outline Show First Line       ALT+SHIFT+L
   Overtype                      INSERT
   Page                          ALT+CTRL+P
   Page Break                    CTRL+ENTER
   Page Down                     PAGE DOWN
   Page Down Extend              SHIFT+PAGE DOWN
   Page Field                    ALT+SHIFT+P
   Page Up                       PAGE UP
   Page Up Extend                SHIFT+PAGE UP
   Para Down                     CTRL+DOWN
   Para Down Extend              CTRL+SHIFT+DOWN
   Para Up                       CTRL+UP
   Para Up Extend                CTRL+SHIFT+UP
   Paste                         CTRL+V or SHIFT+INSERT
   Paste Format                  CTRL+SHIFT+V
   Prev Cell                     SHIFT+TAB
   Prev Field                    SHIFT+F11 or ALT+SHIFT+F1
   Prev Object                   ALT+UP
   Prev Window                   CTRL+SHIFT+F6 or ALT+SHIFT+F6
   Print                         CTRL+P or CTRL+SHIFT+F12
   Print Preview                 CTRL+F2 or ALT+CTRL+I
   Proofing                      F7
   Redo                          ALT+SHIFT+BACKSPACE
   Redo or Repeat                CTRL+Y or F4 or ALT+ENTER
   Repeat Find                   SHIFT+F4 or ALT+CTRL+Y
   Replace                       CTRL+H
   Reset Char                    CTRL+SPACE or CTRL+SHIFT+Z
   Reset Para                    CTRL+Q
   Revision Marks Toggle         CTRL+SHIFT+E
   Right Para                    CTRL+R
   Save                          CTRL+S or SHIFT+F12 or ALT+SHIFT+F2
   Save As                       F12
   Select All                    CTRL+A or CTRL+CLEAR (NUM 5) or CTRL+NUM 5
   Select Table                  ALT+CLEAR (NUM 5)
   Show All                      CTRL+SHIFT+8
   Show All Headings             ALT+SHIFT+A
   Show Heading1                 ALT+SHIFT+1
   Show Heading2                 ALT+SHIFT+2
   Show Heading3                 ALT+SHIFT+3
   Show Heading4                 ALT+SHIFT+4
   Show Heading5                 ALT+SHIFT+5
   Show Heading6                 ALT+SHIFT+6
   Show Heading7                 ALT+SHIFT+7
   Show Heading8                 ALT+SHIFT+8
   Show Heading9                 ALT+SHIFT+9
   Shrink Font                   CTRL+SHIFT+,
   Shrink Font One Point         CTRL+[
   Small Caps                    CTRL+SHIFT+K
   Space Para1                   CTRL+1
   Space Para15                  CTRL+5
   Space Para2                   CTRL+2
   Spike                         CTRL+SHIFT+F3 or CTRL+F3
   Start of Column               ALT+PAGE UP
   Start of Column               ALT+SHIFT+PAGE UP
   Start of Doc Extend           CTRL+SHIFT+HOME
   Start of Document             CTRL+HOME
   Start of Line                 HOME
   Start of Line Extend          SHIFT+HOME
   Start of Row                  ALT+HOME
   Start of Row                  ALT+SHIFT+HOME
   Start of Window               ALT+CTRL+PAGE UP
   Start of Window Extend        ALT+CTRL+SHIFT+PAGE UP
   Style                         CTRL+SHIFT+S
   Subscript                     CTRL+=
   Superscript                   CTRL+SHIFT+=
   Symbol Font                   CTRL+SHIFT+Q
   Thesaurus                     SHIFT+F7
   Time Field                    ALT+SHIFT+T
   Toggle Field Display          SHIFT+F9
   Toggle Master Subdocs         CTRL+\
   Tool                          SHIFT+F1
   Un Hang                       CTRL+SHIFT+T
   Un Indent                     CTRL+SHIFT+M
   Underline                     CTRL+U or CTRL+SHIFT+U
   Undo                          CTRL+Z or ALT+BACKSPACE
   Unlink Fields                 CTRL+6 or CTRL+SHIFT+F9
   Unlock Fields                 CTRL+4 or CTRL+SHIFT+F11
   Update Auto Format            ALT+CTRL+U
   Update Fields                 F9 or ALT+SHIFT+U
   Update Source                 CTRL+SHIFT+F7
   VBCode                        ALT+F11
   Web Go Back                   ALT+LEFT
   Web Go Forward                ALT+RIGHT
   Word Left                     CTRL+LEFT
   Word Left Extend              CTRL+SHIFT+LEFT
   Word Right                    CTRL+RIGHT
   Word Right Extend             CTRL+SHIFT+RIGHT
   Word Underline                CTRL+SHIFT+W

Is a Computer Male or Female

A lan­guage ins­truc­tor was explai­ning to her class that French nouns, unlike their English coun­ter­parts, are gram­ma­ti­cally desig­na­ted as mas­cu­line or femi­nine. Things like ‘chalk’ or ‘pen­cil,’ she desc­ri­bed, would have a gen­der asso­cia­tion although in English these words were neutral.

Puzz­led, one stu­dent rai­sed his hand and asked, “What gen­der is a computer?”

The teacher wasn’t cer­tain which it was, and so divi­ded the class into two groups and asked them to decide if a com­pu­ter should be mas­cu­line or femi­nine. One group was com­pri­sed of the women in the class, and the other, of men.

Both groups were asked to give four rea­sons for their recommendation.

The group of women conc­lu­ded that com­pu­ters should be refe­rred to in the mas­cu­line gen­der because:
1. In order to get their atten­tion, you have to turn them on.
2. They have a lot of data but are still clue­less.
3. They are sup­po­sed to help you solve your pro­blems, but half the time they ARE the pro­blem.
4. As soon as you com­mit to one, you rea­lize that, if you had wai­ted a little lon­ger, you could have had a bet­ter model.

The men, on the other hand, deci­ded that com­pu­ters should defi­ni­tely be refe­rred to in the femi­nine gen­der because:
1. No one but their crea­tor unders­tands their inter­nal logic.
2. The native lan­guage they use to com­mu­ni­cate with other com­pu­ters is incom­prehen­si­ble to ever­yone else.
3. Even your sma­llest mis­ta­kes are sto­red in long-term memory for later retrie­val.
4. As soon as you make a com­mit­ment to one, you find your­self spen­ding half your paycheck on acces­so­ries for it.

Author Unk­nown

Instructions from the I.T. Department

1. When you call us to have your com­pu­ter moved, be sure to leave it buried under half a ton of post­cards, baby pic­tu­res, stuf­fed ani­mals, dried flo­wers, bow­ling trophies and children’s art.
2. Don’t ever write anything down, espe­cially the error mes­sage that was on your screen.
3. If we ask what the last thing you did was, always res­pond with, “I didn’t do anything.”
4. When we say we’ll be right over, imme­dia­tely find a rea­son to leave so you won’t have to ans­wer silly ques­tions from us, like “what’s your screen saver password?”
6. When desc­ri­bing your pro­blem, just tell us what you were ulti­ma­tely trying to do. For exam­ple, just say, “I can’t get my email”. We don’t need to know that the com­pu­ter won’t even turn on.
7. Feel free to ignore any email sent from us, espe­cially those mar­ked with high impor­tance. You don’t really need to know about the latest virus that wiped out your neigh­bors hard drive.
8. Always send impor­tant and urgent emails in all uppercase.
9. When the copier, or anything else remo­tely elec­tro­nic, doesn’t work, call us. Heck, if we can fix com­pu­ters, we must know all about copiers too.
10. If the docu­ment you sent to the prin­ter didn’t print, send it at least 20 more times. One of them is bound to work.
11. Don’t ever learn the pro­per name for anything tech­ni­cal. We know exactly what you mean by “my thingy blew up”.
12. Don’t waste your time using the built in help files. We already had to learn the hard way, why should you?
13. If any of the com­pu­ter cables are in your way or keep moving, be sure to route them across the top of your por­ta­ble hea­ter or set something big and heavy on them to hold them in place.
14. Never bother rea­ding any mes­sage that pops up on your screen. Just click the X to close it or the first but­ton your mouse gets to.
15. Don’t ever try reboo­ting the com­pu­ter your­self. Call us imme­dia­tely. Only expe­rien­ced, highly-trained pro­fes­sio­nals should attempt that.
16. Feel per­fectly free to say things like “I don’t know anything about this com­pu­ter crap”. We love hea­ring our area of pro­fes­sio­nal exper­tise refe­rred to as crap.
17. When you receive a huge movie file that’s really funny, be sure to for­ward it to all your friends. We have plenty of disk space and bandwidth.
18. Don’t bother brin­ging a radio to work, just lis­ten to music over the inter­net. Like I said, we have plenty of bandwidth.
19. Don’t even think of brea­king large print jobs down into sma­ller chunks. Some­body else might squeeze their one-page docu­ment into the queue.
20. When an I.T. per­son is carr­ying heavy equip­ment, worth thou­sands of dollars, that’s the best time to ask why your screen saver quit working.
21. Don’t bother to tell us when you move com­pu­ter equip­ment around on your own. We cer­tainly don’t need to keep track of those things.
22. Your com­pu­ter case makes a great flat sur­face for sit­ting drinks or pot­ted plants on.
23. Do wha­te­ver you can to cover up those ugly open air slots in the com­pu­ter and monitor.

Must Have Application for Thumb Drives

It’s a sign of the time, you can buy a thumb drive almost anywhere.  I have even seen them in Gas Sta­tions in the Omaha area.

There are many rea­sons to use these dri­ves: size, por­ta­bi­lity con­ve­nience, and sto­rage space, all come to mind quickly.  A lot of my exter­nal users do not even take their lap­tops to mee­tings any­more because they can keep all their pre­sen­ta­tions and such on a thumb drive and just plug into any machines.

On the other side of the coin, there are some inhe­rent risks to the trans­por­ta­tion of these devi­ces.  You may for­get them on site, lose them while get­ting something from your poc­ket, so on and so forth.  No mat­ter the rea­son, if you lose your drive, all of that data is now avai­la­ble to the per­son that finds it.

Here are some exam­ples of the type of data that can be lost by anyone:

Firm ‘broke rules’ over data loss

Home Sec­re­tary Jac­qui Smith has bla­med a pri­vate con­trac­tor for losing the details of thou­sands of cri­mi­nals, held on a com­pu­ter memory stick.

Tax web­site shut down as memory stick with sec­ret per­so­nal data of 12million is found in a pub car park

Minis­ters have been for­ced to order an emer­gency shut­down of a key Govern­ment com­pu­ter sys­tem to pro­tect millions of people’s pri­vate details.

The action was taken after a memory stick was found in a pub car park con­tai­ning con­fi­den­tial pass­co­des to the online Govern­ment Gate­way sys­tem, which covers everything from tax returns to par­king tickets.

Two exam­ples may not seem like a large amount, but if you look at the amount of data that was lost in these two exam­ples you will rea­lize how much data is at stake.

With that being said, I have found a free appli­ca­tion that will help with this.  Rohos Mini Drive Encryp­tion.  This app has a very small foot­print and once your drive is setup, you don’t have to ins­tall soft­ware on any other com­pu­ter to access that encryp­ted file.

Accor­ding to the deve­lo­pers web­site they list the fea­tu­res as:

• Crea­tes a vir­tual encryp­ted par­ti­tion volume (disk) within a USB flash drive free space
• Auto­ma­ti­cally detects your USB stick con­fig and crea­tes encryp­ted partition
• Pro­gram does not require ins­ta­lla­tion to work with encryp­ted par­ti­ton on a guest com­pu­ter. You can start it right from USB drive
• Encryp­ted par­ti­tion is pro­tec­ted by password
• Encryp­tion is auto­ma­tic and on-the-fly
• Encryp­tion algo­rithm: AES 256 bit key length. NIST approved.
• Rohos Disk Brow­ser to open encryp­ted par­ti­tion without having Admin rights
• Vir­tual Key­board — to pro­tect your encryp­ted disk pass­word from a key logger
• Auto­run Fol­der. Saved program’s/file’s short­cut will auto­ma­ti­cally start/open up upon disk connection
• The limit of encryp­ted par­ti­tion size is 2 GB

I find the soft­ware very easy to use and intui­tive.  In no time, I had car­ved 500 megs on one of my dri­ves and was moving files over to the encryp­ted por­tion.  To try out the func­tio­na­lity I han­ded the disk to my co-worker and watched as they put it in and sure enough none of the data sho­wed.  Just an exe­cu­ta­ble.  When run, the pass­word cha­llenge screen comes up.  I really do like the idea of a vir­tual key­board, par­ti­cu­larly if you are on a com­pu­ter that you do not know.  Bet­ter safe then sorry in this world.  Once the correct pass­word is ente­red and accep­ted an explo­rer win­dow is ope­ned and all your files are acces­si­ble.  It did take a few moments for me to see how to add new files to the encryp­ted volume.  Just so you know, in the explo­rer win­dow you can right click and import file.

As I said before, in this world, encrypt everything.  I highly recom­mend this pro­gram to anyone with a thumb drive.

The System Administrator from Hell

Some days I get emails that just have to be sha­red.  This is one of them.  All cre­dit to the ori­gi­nal author, though I don’t know who it is.

Recently someone called me from one of the “Out on the Floor Offi­ces”, an ethe­real place rumo­red to exist only in hypers­pace, popu­la­ted by mys­te­rious beings called Users.

She was quite fran­tic. She was having trou­ble run­ning a pro­gram through the com­pu­ter, and her mes­sage was clear enough, although rather ill-conceived: “My files are full!”

I furro­wed my brow, lit a smoke, and explai­ned to her, “Really now, Miss Rus­sell, I don’t have time for this.” I slowly exha­led the menthol vapors as I stop­ped her pro­cess, crushing any hopes she may have had of ever again seeing that docu­ment she had spent three hours sla­ving over.

“I was typing this really impor­tant let­ter, and it has to be ready in an hour… there’s all this stuff on my screen that I didn’t type… it says something about an error, should I read it to you?”

“No point. Just press return.”

“Oh my, it wants my user­name. Can I res­tart that where I left off?”

“Not a chance.”

I drew another puff and tos­sed the phone aside. It occu­rred to me that if I had to hear one more of those whi­ning com­plaint ses­sions, heads were going to roll. Where do you peo­ple get this stuff? I’m going to tell you what’s really going on here. Now lis­ten up. I’m not going over this a second time:

Com­pu­ter

The black box that does your work for you. That’s all you need to know.

Res­ponse Time

Usually mea­su­red in nano­se­conds; some­ti­mes mea­su­red in calen­dar months. The gene­ral rule is: Shut up your com­plai­ning about res­ponse time.

Hard­ware

See “Com­pu­ter.” Again, not your concern.

Soft­ware

If we want you to know, we’ll tell you about it, other­wise, leave us alone.

Net­work

Don’t worry about it, we’ll take care of it. Use it to send mail among your half-wit sel­ves, and don’t think we won’t read it all. What do you think we do all day? By the way , Rus­sell… shame about your mother’s Pancreas.

Data

The gene­ral rule is: Don’t use any data files and if you find any, delete them before I find out about them. In fact, just stay off the com­pu­ter. (See “Res­ponse Time”)

Sys­tem Crash

Don’t ever call the sys­tem mana­ger to tell him you think the com­pu­ter is down. Don’t call him to ask him when it will be up again. The more you bother him, the lon­ger it takes.

Down­time

Like I said, don’t ask.

Uptime

Be thank­ful for it, use it wisely, and get out of my face.

Over­time

Don’t be ridiculous.

Vaca­tion

A time during which I don’t have to put up with your sni­ve­ling. Don’t try calling. There’s no point.

Com­pu­ter Room

Keep out, you’re not invi­ted. Don’t knock on the door — don’t even think about it. I broke the phone last time one of you jerks called me, and I’m not about to replace it. And keep your greasy fin­gers off the windows.

My Office

The name says it all… it’s mine; stay out.

Your Pro­blems

The name says it all…

Dead­li­nes

The gene­ral rule is: Dead­li­nes are not ack­now­led­ged by me; they’re not my res­pon­si­bi­lity. Go tell someone who cares.

Main­te­nance

1. A valid rea­son for shut­ting down the sys­tem at any time.
2. Much more impor­tant than anything any of you bozos do.
3. Anything I choose to call “main­te­nance” is maintenance.

Soft­ware Upgrades

Far too com­plex for you to com­prehend. If I tell you I’m upgra­ding the sys­tem, just be quietly thank­ful. It’s for your own good, even if it does mean exten­sive down­time during peak hours.

Elec­tro­nic Mail

I delete it before it’s read, so don’t bother sen­ding any to me.

Defaults

We like them just like they are; we chose them for a rea­son. Don’t mess with them; con­si­der them mandatory.

Error Mes­sa­ges

I’m not inte­res­ted. I’m going to kill your pro­cess any­way, so keep them to yourself.

Killing your Process

1. Don’t ever ask why
2. Beyond your control
3. No war­nings are given
4. The high­light of my day
5. If you call, it’s going to hap­pen. No exceptions.

Pass­words

I reserve the right to change them without notice at any time. I choose them, and the more you bother me, the more degra­ding yours will be. (Exam­ple: jrus­sell: SNOTFACE)

Users

1. They slow down the computer
2. They waste my time
3. A gene­ral nuisance
4. Worse than that, actually

Soft­ware Modifications

You don’t know what you want — we’ll tell you what you want. It stays like it is. Period.

Pri­vi­le­ges

I’ve got them, you don’t need them. Enough said.

Prio­rity

Mine is higher than yours, accept it. That’s the rea­son my games run fas­ter than your lousy accoun­ting pac­kage. (See “Res­ponse Time”)

Ter­mi­nals

Before calling me with a ter­mi­nal pro­blem, con­si­der this:

1. Are you pre­pa­red to do without one for weeks?
2. Do you REALLY want your pro­cess killed?
3. Did you just trip over the cord again?
4. Of course you did.

Disk Space

I set the quo­tas, you live with them. If you need more space, check “Data Files”.

Ope­ra­tor

I hired him and I trai­ned him. He does what I tell him to. Usually armed; always dangerous.

Bac­kups

A good idea if I gave a shit, which of course I don’t.

Lunch

The only time that calling my office won’t result in the killing of your process.

Data Secu­rity

That’s your pro­blem. I’m cer­tainly not going to lose any sleep over it. My files are loc­ked up tight. I feel secure.

Jiffy

Length of time it takes me to resolve your pro­blem by killing your process.

Eter­nity

Length of time it takes me to give a shit about any pro­blem that can’t be resol­ved by killing your process.

Impos­si­ble

1. It can’t be done (as far as you know)
2. I can’t be bothered
3. You’re star­ting to annoy me

Ine­vi­ta­ble

1. Couldn’t have been avoided
2. Not my fault (as far as you know)
3. The result of anno­ying me

Menus

If it’s not on the menu, don’t ask for it. It’s not avai­la­ble. If it is on the menu, it’s pro­bably of no use or it doesn’t work. We’re wor­king on it (See “Eternity”).

Uti­li­ties

I find them quite use­ful, you’ll find them quite inac­ces­si­ble. Besi­des, they’re not on your menu, are they. What did I tell you about that?

Nui­sance

You.

Of course, I reserve the right to add, change, or remove anything from the above list. I’m not asking you to accept these mat­ters without ques­tion, I’m telling you.

Now that we all know where we stand, I’m sure there’ll be no future pro­blems. If you have any ques­tions or com­ments please feel free to keep them to your­self. If you feel the need for more infor­ma­tion, I highly recom­mend that you ask someone else.

Sin­ce­rely,
The Sys­tem Manager

P.S. The new disk quota of 30 blocks per user became effec­tive yes­ter­day. Anyone caught excee­ding the quota will lose their accounts (this means you, Russell!)

What’s old is new again

Yes­ter­day, Mic­ro­soft put out an advi­sory to a secu­rity vul­ne­ra­bi­lity spe­ci­fic to the Win­dows Vista, Win­dows Ser­ver 2008 SP2, and Win­dows 7 RC ope­ra­ting sys­tems.  No other Win­dows ope­ra­ting sys­tems, inc­lu­ding Win­dows 7 RTM are impacted.

Holy cow, once again the older sys­tems (you go XP) are more secure then the new sys­tems.  Why is that you say?  Well this exploit was first found a decade ago.  Yes, you did read that correct, in 1999 this was dis­co­ve­red and patched for the ope­ra­ting sys­tems at the time.  Yet no one thought to put that into the: Newest, Most Secure, Latest and Grea­test ope­ra­ting systems.

So what is this vulnerability?

Accor­ding to Microsoft:

What might an attac­ker use this vul­ne­ra­bi­lity to do?
An attac­ker who suc­cess­fully exploi­ted this vul­ne­ra­bi­lity could take com­plete con­trol of an affec­ted sys­tem. Most attempts to exploit this vul­ne­ra­bi­lity will cause an affec­ted sys­tem to stop res­pon­ding and restart.

I like the last four words, “stop res­pon­ding and res­tart”.  We had an acronym for that back in the day.  BSOD.  But out of all of this, the thing that bothers me the most is Microsoft’s response:

Mic­ro­soft is con­cer­ned that this new report of a vul­ne­ra­bi­lity was not res­pon­sibly disc­lo­sed, poten­tially put­ting com­pu­ter users at risk. We con­ti­nue to encou­rage res­pon­si­ble disc­lo­sure of vul­ne­ra­bi­li­ties. We believe the com­monly accep­ted prac­tice of repor­ting vul­ne­ra­bi­li­ties directly to a ven­dor ser­ves everyone’s best inte­rests. This prac­tice helps to ensure that cus­to­mers receive com­prehen­sive, high-quality upda­tes for secu­rity vul­ne­ra­bi­li­ties without expo­sure to mali­cious attac­kers while the update is being developed.

Mic­ro­soft is con­cer­ned that this new report of a vul­ne­ra­bi­lity was not res­pon­sibly disc­lo­sed? Excuse me what?  It’s not new, it was disc­lo­sed pro­perly the first time.  Why do others become res­pon­si­ble for your oversight?

With that said Mic­ro­soft has issued two do it your­self reso­lu­tions until they can get a patch pushed.

The first is to Disa­ble SMB2 in the registry:

Impact of wor­ka­round. Host will not be able to com­mu­ni­cate using SMB2.

1. Click Start, click Run, type Rege­dit in the Open box, and then click OK.
2. Locate and then click the follo­wing registry sub­key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services
3. Click Lan­man­Ser­ver.
4. Click Para­me­ters.
5. Right-click to add a new DWORD (32 bit) Value.
6. Enter smb2 in the Name data field, and change the Value data field to 0.
7. Exit.
8. Res­tart the “Ser­ver” ser­vice by per­for­ming one of the following:
   • Open up the com­pu­ter mana­ge­ment MMC, navi­gate to Ser­vi­ces and Appli­ca­tions, click Ser­vi­ces, right-click the Ser­ver ser­vice name and click Res­tart. Ans­wer Yes in the pop-up menu.
   • From a com­mand prompt and with admi­nis­tra­tor pri­vi­le­ges, type net stop ser­ver and then net start ser­ver.

The second is to Block TCP ports 139 and 445 at the firewall:

Impact of Wor­ka­round: Seve­ral Win­dows ser­vi­ces use the affec­ted ports. Bloc­king con­nec­ti­vity to the ports may cause various appli­ca­tions or ser­vi­ces to not func­tion. Some of the appli­ca­tions or ser­vi­ces that could be impac­ted are lis­ted below:

• Appli­ca­tions that use SMB (CIFS)
• Appli­ca­tions that use mails­lots or named pipes (RPC over SMB)
• Ser­ver (File and Print Sharing)
• Group Policy
• Net Logon
• Dis­tri­bu­ted File Sys­tem (DFS)
• Ter­mi­nal Ser­ver Licensing
• Print Spoo­ler
• Com­pu­ter Browser
• Remote Pro­ce­dure Call Locator
• Fax Ser­vice
• Inde­xing Service
• Per­for­mance Logs and Alerts
• Sys­tems Mana­ge­ment Server
• License Log­ging Service

Per­so­nally, I would block those on your inter­net facing fire­wall of you broad­band router.

Things Learned from the Internet

• You want it, you can find it online.
• If you don’t want it, you can also find it online.
• It might take a while.
• Some­ti­mes the hunt is half the fun.
• Ever­yone has a web­site. Grand­fathers, mothers and babies. Everyone.
• At some point, Goo­gle became a verb.
• The dif­fe­rence bet­ween web sur­fing with Fire­fox and IE is the dif­fe­rence bet­ween body armor and a trendy cot­ton vest.
• If it sounds too good to be true, it pro­bably is.
• The Inter­net is the geeks play­ground. Here, we rule.
• Not that you would ever need to know the die­tary habits of the South Ame­ri­can antea­ter, but it’s com­for­ting to know you could find it online if you did.
• When in doubt, Wikipedia.
• Anyone who uses the term ‘Inter­web’ has never been online.
• Explai­ning the Inter­net to someone who’s never been online, is like explai­ning the Magna Carta to your cat.
• Almost everything of subs­tance can be sum­med up with a “DUDE! Check this out!’ and a hyperlink.
• Be safe. Be cynical.
• Some else already said it first. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be said again, and again…
• The Inter­net IS redundancy.
• There is no such thing as ‘suf­fi­cient bandwidth’.
• There’s always something new.
• You can never go back once you’ve tried it.

Free Online Games

Ori­si­nal - Gor­geous Flash ani­ma­tion, per­fect for kids

Web Sudoku- Are you addic­ted to sudoku? Then you’ll love Web Sudoku, the place for a new sudoku puzzle every day.

Games.com – Lots of free Online games Like Puzz­les, Cards, Spots, Arcade and More.

1980 Games- My favo­rite – I love Pac­Man! Take a walk down the 1980’s memory lane with 1980 Games, a site dedi­ca­ted to the great 1980’s clas­sic video games.

Minic­lip Games- This is where you’ll find Runes­cape, Heli Attack, and more free Web game goodies

MSN Games- The nume­rous multi-player games that are avai­la­ble encou­rage a sense of com­mu­nity as pla­yers inte­ract in online game rooms or lob­bies, while pla­ying games using Win­dows Live Mes­sen­ger, and while on their cell pho­nes when pla­ying Win­dows Mobile ver­sions of the games.

Hallo­ween Games Online- Any­time is the right time for a spooky Hallo­ween game.

Fan­tasy Sports- Get your fan­tasy sports game on.

Teagames.com is a great place to find good, free multi-player games, as well as lots of extreme sports free web games.

Pop­Cap Games should carry a war­ning label, because these free web games are highly addictive.

AddictingGames.com should not be visi­ted if you have any work to do. You’ll find games here ran­ging from Mayhem in the Skies to Ulti­mate Field Goal Kicking.

c64s.com -  You can play all sorts of free Com­mo­dore 64 games at c64s.com, inc­lu­ding Com­mando, Bub­ble Bob­ble, and Bruce Lee.

Crazy­Mon­key Games – Flash based games, a lot to choose from

Armor Games – More Flash games.

Thanks to Tech­no­buzz for star­ting the list.  if you know of any, please add to the comments.

Easily Remove Ads from Gmail

I enjoy the mas­sacre of ads. This sen­tence will slaugh­ter ads without a messy bloodbath.

What a quote to start off with I know.  But the power of those lines is ama­zing in gmail.  If you have a gmail account that you check through the web inter­face, those sen­ten­ces in your sig­na­ture or email body will stop ads in their track.  Not only for you, but who­me­ver you send the email to, if they use gmail also.

To setup your sig­na­ture, you will want to go to the set­tings link in the upper right hand corner

Gmail Set­tings

About half­way down your set­tings page you will find a block for your signature:

Sig­na­ture Block

Most peo­ple will pro­bably think you are nuts or in a bad mood if you leave that in your sig­na­ture, so you may want to inc­lude a disclaimer.

Thanks to Lifehac­ker for this trick.

Find drivers for unknown devices

Have you ever been given a com­pu­ter, or bought an old fixer upper PC that didn’t have all the discs or infor­ma­tion for the components?

I know this is frus­tra­ting since I too have had this pro­blem.  Espe­cially when it invol­ves key equip­ment (Net­work card).  There is nothing more irri­ta­ting then loo­king at your device list and seeing the yellow ques­tion mark.  Well tech­ni­cians, as with almost everything com­pu­ter rela­ted, there is a site setup to help with this.  PCIDatabase.com

So how does this work?

You will want to go to the ques­tion mark in the device mana­ger and right click on the entry (there maybe more then one on a rei­mage or a cus­tom built machine).  For those that may not be fami­liar on how to get to the device mana­ger here are some sim­ple steps.  Find the My Com­pu­ter icon on your desk­top (upper left by default).  You will want to Right click on the icon and you will get a menu like this:

After you left click on the pro­per­ties entry a new win­dow will pop up:
If you do not have the tab shown, you will want to click on the Hard­ware tab.  Once here, click on the device mana­ger and you will see a list of ins­ta­lled devi­ces.  You will scroll down for the yellow ques­tion mark.  In my exam­ple there are none, but I am sure you will find them rather quickly.

Read more…