My Linux Laptop Evolves

Back in December I gave a brief description of my diskless laptop that was, at that time, running Xubuntu linux. And it ran pretty well… for a while.

Unfortunately, it started suffering from intermittent but frequent siezures that lasted for 30 – 60 seconds, especially when online.

Reading the Ubuntu forums, I tried a variety of things, including cleaning out the CPU ventilation system (which I should have done at the outset!). While this reduced the duration of the freezes, it didn’t eliminate them.

So, I figured I had two possible issues: 1) a hardware problem; or, 2) Xubuntu doesn’t “like” my laptop. Being unable to isolate a hardware issue (but not for lack of trying), I decided to try yet another linux distro. Enter Linux Mint. (http://www.linuxmint.com/ )

Mint is an Ubuntu/Debian-based system, which includes Firefox, OpenOffice (2.4), and GIMP, just to name a few. It also seems to contain sufficient codexes to handle most of the multimedia stuff on the ‘Net.

Installing to the USB drive was not difficult at all. I followed the advice of PenDriveLinux ( http://www.pendrivelinux.com/linux-mint-6-flash-drive-install-via-cd/ ) and everything seems to be running smooth again.

Let’s see if I can stick with this one! (Or do I have a hardware problem??)

stay amused.

Windows 7 Hits the Wires

Our heroes in Redmond have released a beta version of Windows 7 for our testing pleasure.

Freely available for download (after you register), burn onto DVD, install and enjoy [?].

Caveat: System “expires” in August, 2009, requiring you to reinstall a [prior] version of Windows.

Caveat II: BEWARE: this install will wipe your prior hard drive content, so BACK EVERYTHING UP!! Also, make sure you’ve got reinstallation disk(s) to put your system back together after August.

Not advised to install on your primary system. Better to be doing this with a spare that has (at least!):

• Processor: 1 GHz 32-bit or 64-bit processor
  Memory: 1 GB of system memory
  Hard drive: 16 GB of available disk space
  Video card: Support for DirectX 9 graphics with 128MB memory (in order to enable Aero theme)
  Drive: DVD-R/W drive
  Internet connection (to download the Beta and get updates)

  Note: Some product features of Windows 7, such as the ability to watch and record live TV or navigation through the use of “touch”, may require advanced or additional hardware.
  “

• (above from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/dd353205.aspx)

Reports indicate W7 is faster and less of a resource hog than Vista. A few brave souls are trying it. Some report it’s far superior to Vista, while others claim it’s just a re-dressed Vista. I guess there’s only one way to find out.

After some glitches this past weekend, MS decided to allow an unlimited number of downloads until mid January (24th), instead of the 2 1/2 million limit they originally imposed.

So, if you want to experiment, and you’ve got the tech know-how, go for it!

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-download.aspx

or, scope out the FAQ:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-faq.aspx

Let us know what you think!

Computer Overnight – leave it on? shut it down?

Do you leave your system running all night, or do you shut it down? Which is better?

Shutting down has the following advantages:

• Saves electricity = greener = cheaper. Shutting down every night means that, at least for 8 – 10 hours (almost half a day), the system is drawing minimal power. Unplug it to get 100% savings.
• System is protected during that time from software threats. If it ain’t running, it can’t get infected with spyware/malware/viruses.
• Might extend the life of the electronic components. Since it’s only running half the time, it should put only half the mileage on the various parts that make up the system – and, after all, accumulated mileage is what tends to cause systems to fail. However, more stress can be incurred during power-up sequences of the system, and now you’ve doubled the number of reboots (per year, let’s say) that you’re subjecting your system to.

In cleaning out some trojans from systems lately, I’ve noticed that there are traces of activity at specific 12-hour intervals (like at 5:30 AM and 5:30 PM), the times of which appear to coincide with times when the owner is least attentive to his/her system (like sleeping or leaving work). This argues for shutting down, to help cripple any crapware on your system, thereby slowing down the corruption process. If the system’s down, the crapware can’t download more stuff in the background.

On the other hand, I can’t use remote access (VNC or remote desktop) to a system that’s powered off, so if I’m on the road, I need to leave the system on or carry a lot of data with me. This is the only exception I can think of to shutting down, and it need only affect the system when I plan for it.

So, at this point, I’m pretty convinced that leaving the system off overnight is the best choice. Unless, of course, access requirements dictate otherwise.

[ http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/1071288.html ] coincidentally ran a poll in October 2008, and the various comments at this site represent a fair assessment of the pros and cons of leaving systems on vs. shutting them down, if you want more information.

[edit]

http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/itanswers/will-we-really-save-money-having-users-shut-down-computers-at-end-of-day/ dating back to 2005 generated a significant volume of discussion, including a bit of history of the debate.

[/edit]

Reluctantly moving into Vista

Yeah, I’ve put it off as long as I could… too long, perhaps. Now I’m getting calls to support this thing, so I’d better get my act together.

So far, so good, with a gew glitches.

Importing email records from Outlook Express (OE, under Win XP) into Vista’s Windows Mail program is a bit problematical. It appears that Vista is VERY particular about how you follow the procedure. Also, mysteriously, MS seems to have decided that each user account under Vista only deserves a single email account in Windows Mail. If you want to have three separate accounts (with three separate inboxes), like you could in  OE, you have to set up three separate logins for Vista, and set up the Mail program for each mail account. So, as many have complained, now you have to logout/login between SYSTEM accounts to access your different email accounts in an organized fashion. Of course, aside from linux people snickering, there are constructure suggestions such as using Mozilla Thunderbird or Incredimail. But these solutions may not fit all users well.

Security… appears to be better with Vista. Since all users operate in “user land” instead of “administrator land”, it makes it that much harder to get stuff inadvertently installed onto your system. On the other hand, it does make it painful to install stuff you do want. And more painful still to keep using things (having to click yet another dialog to insure that, yes, I really want to do this). Seems like MS might have made this a little smoother using some technologies we’re already familiary with. More on this as I fine-tune my Vista-bule.

Since more and more are getting Vista-ized, anybody finding good resources for newbies and/or more advanced users?

Certainly, everyone should be aware of:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc748998.aspx , with its more technical writeups of various Vista features; and, of course,

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/default.mspx

with general help information.

What else have you seen out there?

Mimicry – crapware’s new (old) gig

A new trend in crapware (malware – spyware, adware, trojans, whatever you want to call them) is the use of mimicry: programs that appear to be one thing and turn out to be something different. The key difference in this new generation is that the appearances are now quite deceiving.

Recent reports include:

1) A facebook trick in which the user is sent a message suggesting that (s)he should go look at a video (of him/herself, or something else). When the user attempts to view the video, a pop-up appears that looks exactly like the RealPlayer update notice, indicating that RP needs to be updated. Clicking on the update button results in download of undesirable software, and does NOT update RP at all. ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/technology/newsid_7773000/7773340.stm )

2) Notices (in infected systems) indicating that your system is running slowly as a result of infection, and suggesting clicking on the notice or downloading a product to resolve the issue. ( http://www.enigmasoftware.com/support/antivirus-2008-antivirus-2009-xp-antivirus-2008-infect-winlogon/ )

While 1) occurs to a user online, and can be the trigger for an initial infection, 2) usually results from an existing infection.

So, what’s different in these scenarios from past experience? It’s in the appearance. The various notices appear identical to legitimate, expected system notices. The bad guys are copying icons, artwork, and presentation to make their crap look like something normal. This is rather insidious, as it becomes more difficult to ascertain whether your  system is truly infected with something, or whether your system is attempting to inform you of a real problem.

So, what’s the bottom line, here? How can we defend ourselves?

Standard recommendations include:

- caution when browsing or checking email

- routine scanning with both antivirus and antispyware software

- keeping everything (virus definitions, spyware definitions, Windows) updated

(For more commonsense internet safety, see, for example, http://www.onguardonline.gov/ , or http://security.rit.edu/dsd.html ; there’s lots of information about internet safety out there. Google is your friend! )

These things help. But they’re not enough. Systems will still get mysteriously infected, whether by inadvertent clicking on a pop-up, drive-by download, or some other means. One of those means is when you are trying to clean your system up. There are no small number of crap products that claim to fix your system but actually do nothing, or, worse, actually put more crap onto your machine. Before you download and/or purchase protective measures, definitely check here:

http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm

One defensive measure I’ve experimented with in Windows is a freeware called Sandboxie ( http://www.sandboxie.com/ ). This program runs your browser (and/or whatever other programs you identify) in a protected environment. It creates a private registry, private file system, etc., all of which can be trashed completely at the end of a session. It fools software into “thinking” that it is installing in the real system, while, in reality, it’s installing only in Sandboxie’s protected area. Sandboxie’s license appears to grant free use of the product indefinitely for individual users. It explicitly forbids use in a commercial environment, except for evaluation purposes. If you decide to purchase a registration key, apparently more sophisticated features of the product are unlocked for you. Read the information on the website, including the license, so that you know what you’re getting yourself into – I’m no lawyer!

This is just one suggestion – one approach. I’m not endorsing the product; I’m using it as an example. It starts you down the road toward Virtual Machines (VM), for which I’ll provide more info in a future post. When you start thinking about protection of your system in this way, you’re thinking about a different kind of body armor from antivirus and antispyware – something that can provide more comprehensive protection, perhaps. On the other hand, maybe this one does the trick for you.

[Note - I intentionally avoided going into alternative systems such as linux, freeBSD, Mac, etc. This particular post is targeted toward Windows]

This article has just scratched the surface of these issues. The problem remains a serious one, and it’s not going to go away anytime soon. We have to stay on the defensive with our systems; either that, or disconnect them from the Internet, making them expensive paperweights. More and better products are in development, as the arms race between the good guys and the bad guys continues.

Any other suggestions? How do you protect your system?

Yeah, I was slacking…

Hey, it happens.

Hopefully I’ll be more attentive both to this blog and to my website (http://www.necodeworks.com), which also needs significant revamping.

So, I’m back!

Xubuntu on a diskless laptop

After trying several different USB-installable linux distros, I am currently using Xubuntu on my Gateway MX6920. It seems to be working quite well.

Criteria for my linux distro selection were:

1. preferably Debian-based; I use lots of different applications, and didn’t want to deal with doing builds (e.g., as I would routinely need to do for a Slackware-based system) or finding out that there were issues with some of the apps I wanted.

2. USB-bootable; the distro must install to a USB drive – preferably 2 Gb or smaller. This would allow me room to expand on a 4 Gb drive, which are cheap!

3. small desktop environment; XFCE or similar. KDE eats too much memory for my tastes in the restricted environment I’m using. Gnome is a bit smaller, but is growing.

4. preferably preinstalled or easily installed OpenOffice suite. Although most of the linux distros easily accommodate OO, I was hoping somebody had optimized an install to one of these small systems.

I previously tried Linux Mint (http://www.linuxmint.com/), which I found to be a reasonable system. Unfortunately, Linux Mint didn’t work very well on my laptop. In particular, I had problems with the WiFi – sometimes it would work, and other times it wouldn’t. I never did sort out why. I just moved on…

…to DreamLinux (http://www.dreamlinux.com.br/). I liked DreamLinux. It had a decent array of applications, and seemed to work pretty well with my laptop… until the darned WiFi started acting up again – in the same way the Linux Mint had. Sounds like a driver problem, eh?

Since I had some prior exposure to Ubuntu, I decided to give Xubuntu a try (http://www.xubuntu.org/). So far, this is my preferred system.

So, why all this USB stuff? I acquired the laptop with a blown hard drive. Being too cheap to purchase another drive, I decided to experiment with the system a bit. I removed the drive completely, and started messing with live CDs instead.  Unfortunately, CDROM drives are slow, noisy, and they eat battery.

So, I went to the next step – boot from a USB stick. I found my battery life increased from 1 1/4 hours out to about 3 hours compared to the liveCD approach. And, the system boot fast (45 seconds) and runs fast.

So far, I’m happy with this new toy. Time will tell whether I stick with Xubuntu, or see what else there is out there. And, of course, I can always just load up a different USB stick and give my laptop multiple personalities.

Feel free to comment on my system or yours!

The Seed of an Epiphany

That was really irritating. Why did (s)he have to go and do that? I can go on and on. What that person just did(n’t) do has “made me mad.” It’s completely natural to feel that way. Everybody does it.

And I actually feel irritated; angry, even. And, why?

* * * * *

It seems to be a matter of expectations. I don’t remember when I learned to expect people to o what I wanted. They don’t teach a class in it in school. Unless you’re in sales, marketing, politics, law… I know, there’re a lot of them. But I haven’t gone through those courses. And I certainly cannot expect people to do what I want when I cannot or do not communicate it to them!

Yet, here I am, stopped behind this minivan (I drive a big, old pickup truck, of course) and I just figure they should know that I want them out of my way. Isn’t that obvious? So now I’m irritated, and my heart is pumping faster (I can feel it!) and my muscles take on that funny tension they get sometimes (the first one I notice is flexing my jaw)… we all know what it feels like…

And now I’m driving away from the scene of the crime, the nexus of circumstances, the primary cause for changing my entire outlook on the day… and I’m still irritated!

And now, an extraordinary thing happens. The seed of an epiphany. A miracle, albeit a small one.

I ask myself, “What are you angry about?”

“That just made me mad.” I answer.

“What just made you mad?”

“She just stopped. For no real reason. And then I had to stop. What did she have to stop for?”

“But the whole thing only took about three seconds; and you’re already out of there.”

“Yeah, but…”

And it dawns on me.

Office Files and Hidden Personal Info

You do know that MS Office files contain more than just your document or spreadsheet, don’t you? They contain “metadata”, which is information like your Office-registered name and company, and possibly records of your edits and copies of previous drafts of the document.

This means you might be sending more information than you want to when you send somebody a Word document. This came to my attention due to many potential employers asking explicitly for Word format resumes.

A bit of background:
I’ve routinely collaborated on documents, and we’ve sent copies of one or more Word documents back and forth by email with Change Tracking enabled (menu: “Tools->Track Changes…”). Even when you accept the changes, Word will reportedly keep the old versions lying around in the file. This old version information (actually editing information) is part of a category of stuff called metadata. In such a situation, you are apt to end up with information in the file that you really don’t want released with the final document. In addition, the file will invariably contain the user and company information entered during the installation process for Office.

This has been recognized as an issue for a while now; both the BBC in 2004 and USA Today in 2006 published articles about it, so it’s not exactly breaking news…

Microsoft even offers a scrubber for Office 2003/XP files, that also appears to have been around since 2004. And for those of us with Office97 (yeah, I know, stone age), MS offers helpful advice for scrubbing the information, albeit a bit more labor intensive.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to find out what’s in an Office file, and to be able to clean it out if you want to, regardless of what version of Office you’re running?

Javacool Software (www.javacoolsoftware.com) has put out a very nice, simple, Office file scrubber called Doc Scubber^TM (http://www.docscrubber.com/), that truly simplifies the entire process. They have also been nice enough to offer it as freeware for personal and educational use (Doc Scrubber 1.1).

I first ran into Javacool when I was battling spyware and adware; I found their SpywareBlaster and SpywareGuard products to really reduce the infestations, and I recommended them to my clients. They have a variety of other tools to help you maintain your privacy on your computer. Check out their download page.

I have no business relationship whatsoever with these guys; I just think they’ve got some good products that you should know about. If you agree, send them a couple of bucks by PayPal, or purchase the auto-update service for one of their products. Freeware guys put a lot of time into their products, and a little reward goes a long way.

Thanks, Javacool!

Various trademarks in the preceding are, of course, the property of their respective owners. Their use in this writeup are intended for information/educational purposes only.

Most self-inconsistent job posting?

In the course of looking for contract work, I’ve come across some pretty strange requirements for the candidates. The most inconsistent one I’ve found to date carries the (partial) title:

Entry Level Web Content Coordinator…

and calls for:

*Strong knowledge of HTML coding, PHP, DHTML, CSS, JavaScript and web development tools – Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Flash and Illustrator.
*Solid working knowledge of graphic design.
*Experience with graphical layout, typography and presentation. Copy writing skills a plus.
*Understanding of new technologies including browser limitations, coding and optimizing web site content required.
*Excellent organizational and time keeping skills, detail oriented and able to work on multiple projects at one time. 

THAT’s entry level requirements? I suspect these guys will get two kinds of applicants: true entry-level people with one or two requirements (in part), or experienced people that fulfill the requirements but that will find the entry level pay unacceptable. Unless the definition of “entry level” now mean “five years’ experience”…??

What have you seen for inconsistencies in job postings?