Posts Tagged ‘program’

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!)

Go Figure, Dirty sites are dirty…

Syman­tec, the makers of a very widely used array of inter­net secu­rity pro­grams, has com­pi­led a list of the 100 “dir­tiest” sites.

These sta­tis­tics are deter­mi­ned by a com­bi­na­tion of Symantec’s own craw­ler and input from their “Nor­ton Com­mu­nity Watch” mem­bers.  Below are some direct quo­tes from Symantec:

• Ave­rage num­ber of threats per site on the Dir­tiest Web­si­tes list is roughly 18,000, com­pa­red to 23 threats per site for all sites rated by Nor­ton Safe Web
• 40 of the Top 100 Dir­tiest Sites have more than 20,000 threats per site
• 48% of the Top 100 Dir­tiest Web sites fea­ture adult content
• 3/4 of the Top 100 Dir­tiest Web sites have dis­tri­bu­ted mal­ware for more than 6 months
• Viru­ses are the most com­mon threat repre­sen­ted on the Dir­tiest list, follo­wed by Secu­rity Risks and Brow­ser Exploits

For many years, inter­net users have always know that “adult” sites tend to be the big­gest con­tri­bu­tors to popup ads.  Now they appear to be a clea­ring house for other irri­tants.  With the amount of traf­fic that does tend to go to those sites, no judg­ment here by the way,  they have the per­fect vehicle.

Here is a par­tial list of the sites that made the top 100.  Please avoid them if pos­si­ble, or use extreme care if you have to go to them:

• 17ebook.com (view report)
• aladel.net (view report)
• bpwhamburgorchardpark.org (view report)
• clicnews.com (view report)
• dfwdiesel.net (view report)
• divineenterprises.net (view report)
• fantasticfilms.ru (view report)
• gardensrestaurantandcatering.com (view report)
• ginedis.com (view report)
• gncr.org (view report)
• hdvideoforums.org (view report)
• hihanin.com (view report)
• kingfamilyphotoalbum.com (view report)
• likaraoke.com (view report)
• mactep.org (view report)

• magic4you.nu (view report)
• marbling.pe.kr (view report)
• nacjalneg.info (view report)
• pronline.ru (view report)
• purplehoodie.com (view report)
• qsng.cn (view report)
• seksburada.net (view report)
• sportsmansclub.net (view report)
• stock888.cn (view report)
• tathli.com (view report)
• teamclouds.com (view report)
• texaswhitetailfever.com (view report)
• wadefamilytree.org (view report)
• xnescat.info (view report)
• yt118.com (view report)

Program Not Responding — What Now?

As Win­dows users we have many little quirks that we learn to tole­rate.  One that seems to irri­tate the heck out of quite a few peo­ple is the “Pro­gram Not Responding”.

One rea­son this seems to be doubly irri­ta­ting is not only is the appli­ca­tion fro­zen up, but your sys­tem itself runs so slow it’s impos­si­ble to kill the application.

The friendly peo­ple at Lifehac­ker poin­ted out a HaxAt­tack entry that walks you through step by step ins­truc­tions to create a short­cut on your desk­top that will kill all non res­pon­ding programs.

With these direc­tions as sim­ple as these you can not go wrong:

1. Right click while on your desk­top and select “create a new shortcut.”
2. Quo­tes inc­lu­ded, enter the follo­wing as the loca­tion: taskkill.exe /f /fi “sta­tus eq not responding”

Please note that this works on Win­dows XP (except Home edi­tion) and Vista.

I Love this utility

One of my favo­rite web­si­tes to look at daily (ok many times a day) is Life Hac­ker.  Today as I was going through some of their archi­ved pos­tings I found this.

A few days ago I tal­ked about a pro­gram called smart ins­ta­ller, but I must say I am over the top impres­sed with life hacker’s ver­sion.  The uti­lity itself is ultra tiny (292k) with an xml file.  The Smart Ins­ta­ller is in excess of 200 megs.  The size dif­fe­rence is due to Smart ins­ta­ller having the ins­ta­llers inc­lu­ded whe­reas life hacker’s ins­ta­ller auto­ma­ti­cally down­loads the latest ver­sion from the net.

Another great fea­ture, to me at least, is that the Life hac­ker Pack has an XML file that you can add or remove appli­ca­tions in.  So if there is an app you like to ins­tall, modify the file in any text edi­tor, get the down­load path, and away you go.  With Smart Ins­ta­ller, you have to hope they add it.

Please don’t get me wrong, Smart ins­ta­ller is very good for a machine that you do not have on the inter­net.  But for size and fle­xi­bi­lity, I will be adding the Life Hac­ker pack to my arse­nal.  You can down­load the pack here. Other users have crea­ted some addi­tio­nal XML files:

PC Res­cue Pack

The PC Res­cue Pack’ll come in real handy in a few weeks at Thanks­gi­ving when Mom and Dad ask you to fix their com­pu­ter. Down­load the Ins­tall­Pad PC Res­cue Pack list, which includes:

• Ad-Aware (mal­ware scan­ner and cleaner)
• CClea­ner (sys­tem optimization)
• Clam­Win (anti-virus)
• Spy­bot Search & Des­troy (spy­ware scan­ner and cleaner)
• Spy­ware Blas­ter (spy­ware prevention)

Media Pack

Oh, you free-loading, Bit­To­rren­ting, DVD-ripping, MP3-sucking, pod­cas­ting, remi­xing, iPod-trading media whiz, you! Down­load the Ins­tall­Pad Media Pack list, which includes:

• Auda­city (sound editor)
• Azu­reus (Bit­To­rrent client)
• Democ­racy (Inter­net TV player)
• iTu­nes (media player)
• Picasa (photo manager)
• Quick­Time (media player)

VLC (media player)

• Do your­self a favor and give it a try

When is an antivirus really a virus?

Today I recei­ved a call from one of my exter­nal users that was una­ble to access any web­si­tes because some new anti­vi­rus was saying he was unpro­tec­ted and every web­site had mali­cious code.

Since I know that we have McA­fee 8.5 deplo­yed to our users, I knew that this was not a McA­fee issue.  As we dis­cus­sed it a little further he was men­tio­ning that the Anti­vi­rus wan­ted him to purchase the software.

This isn’t the first I have heard of this.  There is a soft­ware com­pany Inno­va­gest 2000 that is pro­du­cing this soft­ware.  They adver­tise it as an antispy­ware appli­ca­tion, but it is the spy­ware.  On some less then savory web­si­tes you will get a pop up that says that your com­pu­ter maybe infec­ted and they offer a free scan.

The fear of being infec­ted moti­va­tes a lot of peo­ple to run this free scan.  Unk­nown to them this appli­ca­tion ins­talls under­neath and now you are stuck.  On that note, I do recom­mend only doing the online scans from repu­ta­ble sites.  I per­so­nally recom­mend the follo­wing: Syman­tec, Panda, and McA­fee.

This appli­ca­tion is extre­mely hard to get rid of.  It rere­gis­ters and ins­talls if it is not com­ple­tely unins­ta­lled correctly.

I hate pro­grams like this.  But it is a fact of life out there.  The modern day snake-oil salesman.

While the pro­gram is run­ning you will see the follo­wing unde­si­ra­ble behavior:

• A “Win­dows Secu­rity Cen­ter” sta­ting that you should purchase Per­so­nal Antivirus.
• Nume­rous alerts sta­ting that your com­pu­ter is under attack or that you have mal­ware run­ning on your com­pu­ter. If you click on these alerts, Per­so­nal Anti­vi­rus will be ins­ta­lled, or you will be brought to the purchase page for the program.
• Your Inter­net Explo­rer brow­ser will be hijac­ked to show secu­rity war­nings when brow­sing the web that stop you from reaching your desi­red page.

As I men­tio­ned before this bug­ger is very hard to get rid off.  But not impos­si­ble.  I found these ins­truc­tions at BleepingComputer.com.

Read more…

Smart Installer

Many PC users as well as the tech­no­geeks out there find them­sel­ves from time to time having to refor­mat. I know that since we are all good and cons­cien­tious peo­ple, we always have good and com­plete bac­kups, so I won’t get into that.

There is, howe­ver, the more pres­sing pro­blem of reins­ta­lling some of those soft­ware pac­ka­ges you can’t do without.  These inc­lude: Acro­bat Rea­der, Flash Pla­yer, Fire­fox, Open Office, as well as some others.

Are these the latest ver­sion of the appli­ca­tions, well since the pro­gram has not been upda­ted since May of 2009, pro­bably not, but they are pretty close and will get you back on your feet quic­ker then having to redown­load these applications.

On the web­site, you can ask for new appli­ca­tions, just how quick or willing they are to handle a request I can not speak to.

I have used pro­gram recently with great suc­cess, since the one 200 MB file is much easier to keep track of then mul­ti­ple ver­sion of mul­ti­ple appli­ca­tions sto­red through a few dif­fe­rent pla­ces.  The one thing that truly made me happy was that it was a one click ins­tall, which for me works fine, since I am an all defaults guy when ins­ta­lling software.

I will say you should give it a try, who knows you may find an appli­ca­tion that you didn’t know was out there, that is help­ful to you.

I have pro­vi­ded a direct down­load link here:

  Smart Ins­ta­ller Pack (227.1 MiB, 168 hits)