CyberCoyote — September, 2010

Posted on 2010/09/01 by Philip

Tips and Topics

Whoops!versions

If you’ve never deleted a file or badly messed up a document, only to find you didn’t have a recent backup, you’re either not human or you’re not really using your computer. Now if when you do, Windows 7 (and even Vista) may still be able to — as they say — save your bacon.

The Windows NT file system provides a “service” called volume shadow copy. That allows Windows to back up files in the background, even though they’re in use. If you are lucky you may have copies of previous versions of files or folders waiting for you when you mess up. There’s a nice tutorial at How-To Geek on how to “Restore previous versions” that will show you how to proceed.

It’s quite simple to do once you know how. I recommend that you use the “Copy” option, if you’re not sure of what you’re doing, to avoid inadvertently overwriting something you don’t really want to roll back.

Windows 7 disk management

disk

Today’s big hard drives, coupled with the solid behavior of Windows 7, can lull you into complacency about hard-drive housekeeping. It still pays to clean out the dust bunnies and straighten things up on your hard drive once in a while though. You can see in the image that in the four months since I installed this copy of Windows 7, I accumulated almost a GB of files that I could eliminate.

Windows 7 makes it quick and easy. Just type “disk” in the start menu search box once in a while, and run “Disk Cleaner”. Then do it again to run “Disk Defragmenter”. The links below will take you to nice tutorials for both operations.

The best way to handle defrag is to schedule it to run automatically, which is the usual default setting. You must be logged in as an Administrator for the defrag operations. Or right-click Disk Defragmenter and select “Run as administrator” if you’re logged in as a Standard user.
http://www.7tutorials.com/free-wasted-space-disk-cleanup
http://www.7tutorials.com/how-use-windows-7-disk-defragmenter

Live help

Microsoft maintains a one-page “Help” index for all their “Live” products — Hotmail or Windows Live Office for example.

Password length

Oh bother: New developments in GPUs (graphics processor units, i.e. video cards) make it much easier for ordinary miscreants to break passwords. Passwords for important accounts should now contain at least 12 mixed characters and symbols. Eight or more is still adequate for ordinary use.

All of my sensitive passwords already have a mix of 20 or more characters and symbols. If some of yours need to be longer, you could start at my passwords webpage to learn how to make them robust as well as longer.

Eclectic

Surprise

The story of how Surprise got its name has now reverted to the original — the one I heard when I first arrived.

Quit your job without leaving home

Best. Parting shot. Ever.
[The rest of the story.]

Fly Lufthansa

They know how to deliver passenger amenities.

Uncommon sense

“So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.” —Benjamin Franklin

Posted in 2009-2010 News | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

CyberCoyote — August, 2010

Posted on 2010/07/25 by Philip

Notes and Notices

Late delivery

Probably nobody noticed, but if you were wondering why this issue is late I’ve been busy. The NHRA Regional Championships were in Spokane the last four days, and I was there as part of the pit crew for my son-in-law’s car. We didn’t win first place, but we had a lot of fun.

Windows XP support

As they’ve been saying for some time now, Microsoft ended support for all versions of Windows XP except SP3. That means that if you have not upgraded to SP3 yet, you will receive no more security updates for your version of XP. [what to do] [discussion]

Tips and Topics

SpeedyFox

Firefox gradually slows down if you visit a lot of websites, keep a large collection of bookmarks, have a lot of extensions installed, etc. It takes longer to start and becomes less responsive. Firefox uses several databases to keep track of things like bookmarks, passwords, cookies, form data, downloads, etc., and these databases get fragmented over time — much like a hard drive gets fragmented. That’s why it slows down over time.

SpeedyFox was designed to solve the problem. It’s an all-in-one defragmenter for Firefox’s internal databases. It’s a simple program that is easy to use. Some day Firefox may have this tool built in, but for now, running SpeedyFox is the easiest way to freshen the performance of Firefox. You must close Firefox before running SpeedyFox.

How Google works.

View this “infographic” (click the image to see the original) by PPC Blog to understand how Google’s search works, and how they make billions from it. It’s logical, but not as simple as you might think. In short, when you “Google”, you aren’t searching the web. You’re searching Google’s index of the web

Quick links

Eclectic

dog-tnThe contemporary scene

Dog Park 2.0 When you land there, click the image to enlarge it.

Ear candy


Repeated play may be addictive.
Watch the video on YouTube as well.

Uncommon sense

“The Budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance of foreigh lands should be curtailed lest the Republic become bankrupt…” —Marcus Tullius Cicero, 55 BC

“A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” —Thomas Mann

Posted in 2009-2010 News | Tagged | 1 Comment

CyberCoyote — July, 2010

Posted on 2010/07/01 by Philip

Notes and Notices

New look

wordpress
Yes, you’re at the right blog. ;)

WordPress recently updated the server software that it runs on, and I wanted to take advantage of that and this new theme (design). That, and put my panorama of Mt. Baker to work. I stitched it together using Microsoft Image Composite Editor.

Recent posts

I posted quite a few items since last month’s CyberCoyote. You’ll find links to the most recent ones over in the “Recent Posts” section in the column on the right. “HTCC Blog Archives”, at the bottom of the column, links to even older posts.

New site map

sitemapThe more this blog grows; the harder it is — even for me — to find things. :D So I’ve added a site map to make it easier. You’ll find the “Site Map” link up in the new menu. The map links to all the items that have been posted here. Static pages, like “About” and “Classes”, are not shown in the site map. You’ll find links to them in the menu as well.

Click the small arrow/triangle icon at the left of each category in the site map to show all posts in that category. Click it again to hide them. There’s also an options menu at the top right of the site map, which will give you even more control.

The “Tag Cloud” in the right column is another good way to find what you’re looking for. One or two cleverly chosen search terms in the search box may be even faster. :mrgreen:

New subscription option

Many of you still prefer to get CyberCoyote notices by email instead of by webfeed. I generate email notices by hand. I do not generate email notices for other posts that I write though. Not everyone would want them, and I’m a bit lazy to boot. Only the webfeed includes both CyberCoyote and my other posts.

Now there’s a new option: Feed My Inbox gives you a way to get all the posts in your inbox without using a feed reader. If you sign up, you’ll get one email message on days when CyberCoyote, and/or other items have been posted. Enter your email address in the form below to sign up. It’s easy to unsubscribe too.

Enter your email address:

Powered by Feed My Inbox

Topics and Tips

Better searching through chemistry

caffeine

Google recently retooled the way they index the Web.  They call this new system Caffeine. It indexes the Web as they go, instead of in big batches. Updates for some sites were delayed until their spider had time to crawl the whole Web. Now, new Web content shows up sooner in search results. [more]

Changes to Windows Live Sync and Windows Live Mesh

The original Live Sync let you “sync” files between computers. When you changed a synced file on one computer, Live Sync updated the file on your other computers.

Live Mesh was similar, but syncing was done through intermediate online file storage. One advantage was access to your online files by using any browser from any computer, not just those that had Live Mesh installed. The latest files were always available in the online store, even if the originating computer was turned off. It has worked flawlessly for me for about three years.

Live Mesh was a snowbird’s dream. You could turn off your computer one evening, follow the geese south the next day, and when you got there your files were waiting for you. It was wise to take a fairly recent backup along with you, but you didn’t have to worry about missing last minute changes.

Live Mesh and Live Sync have now merged. The new Live Sync is still in beta phase, but it replaces the old services. It’s part of Wave 4 of Windows live Essentials. I was going to try the new Live Sync, but I had a bit of hard luck with Wave 4 of Windows Live Essentials.

There will still be an online store, but Microsoft says your cloud storage will be reduced from 5 GB to 2 GB. You can sync an unlimited amount of files between computers, but of course the other computer(s) need to be on for you to get at them. Not very handy when one is in Washington and the other is in Arizona. :mrgreen: Microsoft is getting a lot of pressure to restore the 5 GB limit. Who knows, they might even make it larger in the end, but I’m not counting on it. [short video] [more]

You’ll be forced to move from the old versions of Mesh and Sync in a few months.  If you have the original (Beta) Live Mesh or Live Sync installed, you must uninstall them before you install the new Live Sync. I don’t know if you’ll lose the contents of your online store in the process. The new Live Sync will not run on Windows XP.

More Windows Live: Windows Web Apps

live-appsAfter years of puttering, Microsoft is on a roll with their cloud computing campaign: Office Web Apps have just gone live for users in the US, Canada, Great Britain, and Ireland. They are free — all you need is a modern browser and a free Windows Live ID.  [review]

Office Web Apps are online versions of Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft OneNote. Web Apps are similar to Google Docs. You can create and edit Web App documents online from your browser, and/or work directly with them on them your PC if you have Microsoft Office installed. Web App files are stored on Microsoft SkyDrive, your online storage location.

Many of us have little need to buy and install Microsoft Office on our PCs. Once in a while we may need to work with random Word, Excel, or PowerPoint email attachments that come along. Office Web Apps give us a new free option for dealing with Microsoft’s ubiquitous-but-proprietary file formats.

More options for Microsoft Office files: Google Docs will now upload and convert files that are in Office formats (*.doc, *.docx, *.xls, *.xlsx, *.ppt, and *.pps). You can also directly view Gmail attachments that arrive with those formats.

The version of WordPad that comes with Windows 7 lets you view, edit, create, save and print Word 2007 / 2010 documents (*.docx format) on your Windows 7 PC. [tutorial] [more]

Eclectic

Loop 303

ADOT put out an update on the 303 project [details]. It will be a while before much happens.  ;) The Google Earth view of the north end of the project shows the (faint) trace of the work on 303 ($930 million) that’s already underway up there.

Golf-ball dynamics

Golf-ball impact.

Golf balls certainly look and feel a lot harder than ordinary red rubber balls. But feel, as they might say, can be deceiving. What does that little white ball look like when someone like John Daly gives it a smack?  Watch this video to get an idea of what you’d see if your eyes worked at 70,000 frames per second.

How to get your windshield really clean

This is a testimonial. :D

I’ve tried all kinds of ways over the years to remove that nasty, blurry film that gets on your windshield. Even though I know what it is — scum from the road that your wipers have polymerized and bonded to the glass. In other words, a tough plastic coating that defies removal. But nothing worked.

Then my sister-in-law insisted that I try her Scotch-Brite Cook Top Cleaner. I had my doubts, but I tried it anyway. Not only did my windshield come out cleaner-than-new, it was laughably easy to do. Works on cook tops too. Try it. I’ll bet you’ll like it. :) [review]

Uncommon sense

“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” —Winston Churchill

Posted in 2009-2010 News | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off

Whoops — Windows Live Beta problems

Posted on 2010/06/25 by Philip

I just learned that installing Windows Live Essentials Beta (Writer and Mail) disables VIPRE, my antivirus/antispyware program. :( I was able to fix the problem using System Restore, but I’m going to wait until WLE is out of beta before trying it again. :mrgreen:

Posted in 2009-2010 News | 2 Comments

Taking charge of Windows Live Essentials

Posted on 2010/06/24 by Philip

Update: I just learned that installing Windows Live Essentials Beta (Writer and Mail) disables VIPRE, my antivirus/antispyware program. :( I was able to fix the problem using System Restore, but I’m going to wait until WLE is out of beta before trying it again. :mrgreen:

A word to the wise: The new version of Windows Live Essentials —Live Mail, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Live Writer and others — is available. Well, I wanted to try the new version of Live Writer, and had started to install it when I discovered that the installer was going to install all the programs, not just the one I wanted. I quickly decided to hit the eject button.

A while later, I ran across an article in Digital Inspiration that pointed me to wlsetur-webc.exe [lets you pick and choose]. From the article:

But before you hit the download button, here’s something you should know

There are two separate installers for Windows Live Essentials.

The main installer – wlsetup-webd.exe – is the one that will install all the Windows Live programs on your computer in one go. The other installer – wlsetup-webc.exe – will let you choose the programs that you want to install on your machine.

I’ll pause here while I go try it: OK, I’m back. Live Writer (Beta) now sports the by-now-ubiquitous “Ribbon” interface, and there are a few other nice touches. Now I’m going to post this item to the HTCC Blog. If you see it, you’ll know the new WLW worked :mrgreen:

More on the new (Beta) version of WLE

Posted in Internet Tips, Software Tips | Tagged , , , | Comments Off

Teleport your files to Dropbox

Posted on 2010/06/17 by Philip

This is a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too trick. Sort of. In reverse. ;)

Dropbox is a simple-but-useful cloud storage service. It’s primary purpose is to make your files available any time, any place from any computer, and from most smart phones. Dropbox also serves as online backup, with 30 days of undo history (undelete files and folders). Syncplicity is a similar service that offers syncing of multiple folders directly.

The beauty of Dropbox is it’s intuitive simplicity, but that comes at the cost of convenience. Dropbox adds a special folder—My Dropbox — to your file system. You sync/backup files by dragging or copying them to the My Dropbox folder. But what if you need/want to keep those files where they were originally? It is tedious to keep copying them to My Dropbox every time they change.

Symbolic links to the rescue: These special links are like super-shortcuts. In Star Trek terms, they teleport files from one place to another. There’s really only one file, but it appears in two places.

You could create symbolic links yourself, using the Junction utility from Sysinternals, but that gets a bit geeky. There is an easier way. Dropbox now provides Dropbox Folder Sync, which takes all the hard work out of setting up symbolic linking.

The Dropbox Folder Sync add-on moves your original folder to My Dropbox and substitutes a symbolic link for it in the original folder location. Your programs never notice they’re using phantom files, and Dropbox happily syncs the real folder. Magic.

via Guiding Tech

P.S.

You can manually unsync the folder by following steps (unsync will appear shortly in version 2.0 of Folder Sync).
1) Identify the symlink of the folder (It will have a arrow mark over it.)
2) Delete the symlink (It will not affect the original files)
3) Identify the corresponding folder in your Dropbox folder.
4) Move the folder from dropbox to original location.

Posted in Computer Tips | Tagged , , , | Comments Off

Malicious ads, comments, tweets, “short links”, etc.

Posted on 2010/06/15 by Philip

Malicious ads

Search engines — Google, Bing, etc. — sell ads to make billions and billions of dollars. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. What goes wrong is that some malicious operators are willing to spend money to place booby-trapped ads.

Almost all online ads include a link to take you to goods or services. Malicious ads simply deliver you directly to the attacker. It could be merely a scam, but more often the attacker wants to shanghai your computer for his robot army, install spyware, panic you with rogue security software, etc.

Ordinary ads on other webpages can be booby-trapped as well. Most websites contract with third-party advertising networks for ad placement. The website itself often has very little control over the content of ads on it’s webpages. You can see the potential for slipping malicious ads in.

Malicious comments and other “social” features

These days, the majority of websites allow comments on their posts or articles. Some of them allow links. Any one of those links could be malicious. Many sites have also introduced social networking widgets. For example, Facebook lets you “like” things you see at the site. Those “Likes” often lead to something entertaining, but with a hidden snare. They propagate rapidly because they’re coming from “friends,” and people assume they’re harmless.

Malicious short links

Twitter limits “tweets” to 140 characters, and many links would use most of that or more. So there are many services which people use  to make “short links” that only use a few characters. Examples are http://bit.ly/cy3gJJ, http://j.mp/bsLoyO and http://tinyurl.com/256gcep. There’s no clue where short links like these will take you. It’s the Internet version of Russian roulette. Ed Bott has this to say and more:

The goal of the bad guys is to get you to click on their link, and they’re good enough at it  to warrant some respect. Ultimately, there are a lot of links I simply don’t click, especially those that ostensibly lead to shocking or amusing videos and articles. The reward isn’t worth the risk. Links from strangers are always suspicious, but a link that appears to be from a friend might actually be from a hacked Facebook or Twitter account. And you have no idea of where it really goes.

Even ordinary URLs can be be doctored. Try this one (which is perfectly safe). http://www.newyorktimes.com/world

What’s a poor person to do?

These threats all have the same pattern. The context of the link is not suspicious, yet it still takes you to an attacker’s malicious webpage. Since it’s your browser that made the request, many elements of your defense, for example your firewall, drop their guard and invite the attacker to come in.

  1. The first thing to do is what Ed Bott said (quoted above) — be a little paranoid.
  2. Install the Web of Trust add-on for Firefox, which screens for bad links in search results and in web-based email. Google Chrome does much the same thing for you without an add-on.
  3. Hover your mouse pointer over any link — not just short ones — you intend to click and see what address shows up in your browser’s status bar (at the foot of your browser) before you click it. [In Firefox, go to “View” in the Menu, and check “Status Bar” to see the status bar.]
  4. Install an add-on that tracks down where the URL really goes. I like the Long URL Please extension. Here are more.
  5. Run as a standard user (give the page time to load).

I’m not paranoid, I just know they’re out to get me. :mrgreen:

Posted in Security Tips | Tagged , , , | Comments Off