Easton (The Quince Man Quincy) Royce

Last Night, Windows Live OneCare informed me that I was now rounding the last corner towards the home stretch.

With the exception that mine said “30 Days” where the screen shot says 21 Days. I neglected to take a screen shot of my pop up (it was 11:30pm, and I was trying to watch the end of a DVD, while an automated system scan by Windows Live One Care not scheduled by myself in any way, was taking up 100% of the CPU time). I wonder if Windows Live One Care might actually start to do a better job, in an attempt to encourage me to purchase a subscription at the end? Some how I don’t think so.

Issues

The amount of software still not compatible with Windows Vista is becoming a problem. So far I have been able to install some software using the Windows Vista Compatibility Settings. Windows Vista Compatibility does work well, but it’s not the solution for every program. Some software applications just will not work.

I guess my biggest complainy is a result of the amount of times Firefox has crashed in the last 40 days. It crashes now at least once every 2-3 days. I applaud its ability to restore my session after the crash, but why did Firefox crash in the first place?

Windows Live One Care still continues to can my system every damn night! When 90 days are over, I will be removing Windows Live One Care, and installing a real firewall and anti virus software combination. It seems that the free 90 day trial, can’t actually remove anything from the system, it merely finds viruses and spy-ware and “quarantines” them. Want to remove the malware? Sorry, have to pay for a subscription to be able to do that! As for the monthly Tune Up. What Tune Up? I haven’t seen it once yet!

The installation of Windows Live One Care has probably been the worst caveat so far. The integrated firewall is particularly annoying. Especially when the pop messages for programs that require access to the internet, always manage to appear behind absolutely everything else. To make matters worse, they don’t flash on the task bar, like a new active window does. This then causes programs to function strangely, because they need access to the internet, which they don’t have, because Windows Vista failed to notify me correctly.

For some reason, Windows Live One Care also continues to disable Windows Defender. I have no idea why this occurs. Every time I go to run Windows Defender, or it is scheduled to run, I get a pop up message telling me that Windows Defender has been disabled, and that I need to re-enable it. The disabling seems to happen all the time, and is completely invisible to me. Sometimes Windows Defender must be disabled for days at a time, as it often needs to download updates, and than perform several scans. On My PC with Windows Vista, this never happens. My PC however, does not have Windows Live One Care installed either. In fact, My PC is running perfectly fine, with the exception of the degradation in graphics performance.

Pretty soon, getting a replacement AGP graphics card won’t be too easy. Better start shopping around on eBay now I think!

Power consumption is something that I feel Windows Vista does not take care of too well. When I was running Windows XP, I was able to use my laptop, on batter power for a couple of hours. With Windows Vista, set to “Power Saving Mode”. I am lucky if I am able to get 30 minutes out of my laptop, before the performance is so low that my system is unusable. I guess if I turned off Windows Aero, I might get a few more minutes, but wouldn’t it be useful if Windows Vista just reverted to the Basic Theme when the systems is running on battery? It’s not as if it is a big task to change to the basic theme. Just stop the Windows Display Manager server (WDM).

With all of that our of the way, Windows Vista has still been quite good otherwise. I have my complaints, but I haven’t been forced to go back to Linux. Oh how I do miss my Fedora! I wonder will I get to use Fedora 7 much, before Fedora 8 is released? According to the Fedora Release Schedule, I will get a month or so of use before Fedora 8 is released. I know I could just continue to use Fedora 7, but I like to live on the edge!

written by Easton Royce \\ tags: 90 Days, Beginners

A Few Annoying Bugs

Why must FTP support always be crappy? No matter what version of Windows I use, whenever I put an FTP address into Explorer, in the username:password@hostname.tld/public_html/site/this/that/etc it always crashes the first time. That’s right. Even in Vista, it crashes the first time, and then when I try it the second time around. I am denied access. To get to where I want to go. I have manually login again with Explorer, and then start at the home directory and navigate my way to the directory I want to upload some files too. Arrgh! Such a pain! Why does Explorer remember the locations I have been to via FTP in it’s history, if it is going to deny me from using such short cuts!! And No, it’s not just one FTP sites, It’s all FTP sites. And No, it’s not my internet connection, because I have been to many different locations with my Laptop, and the result is the same!

What is with Presentation Mode? (I am using Vista on a Laptop). It doesn’t do anything? Every time I connect my laptop to a projector (to teach a class with a PowerPoint presentation for example), I have to use “Extend Desktop”. Even with the Official ATI drivers installed, I can not get the Projector to function as a second monitor per say. Presentation Mode On, Presentation Mode Off. Wtf? I used to be able to do this fine with Windows XP.

The automated running of Windows Live One care is a pain. Especially at 10:30pm at night, when I am working on a Power Point presentation, and I want to save it! If I am able to save it (i.e, my system responds long enough to accept the command) I have to be sure not to click anything else, otherwise Power Point goes all white eyes on me and then it never recovers. Why did Microsoft steal the “darkening of the non responding windows” from Linux? Especially since the windows nearly always recover in Linux. Why don’t they just go down the Mac road. If the current window has stopped responding for more then 30 seconds, just make it go away! To quote Hunter Chrestle “Poof! It goes away! You didn’t click anything, you didn’t even save! It’s just gone!”

I think Windows Live One Care wants my money. I feel slightly like I am being scammed. Every night, Windows Live One Care does a scan. Every night, it tells me how it found 7 (or 10) viruses. It also tells me how it tried to quarantine them, and failed! The same message box says that I should pay for a subscription with better protection. After that, the status of Windows Live One Care stays all green, and apparently there are no problems! So, do I have viruses on my PC, or is this just a copy cat situation, like plenty of that scam software out there available on the internet? What do they call that? Spyware was it?

Interesting Smarts

Vista and Office Ultimate do have some interesting new features. For Example, Outlook 2007 will now attempt to find out your incoming and outgoing mail servers for you. You just put in your email address, and it does the rest. Success rate so far? 0% and I have 8 (yeah I know) different email addresses. Perhaps it only works with Paying Hotmail and Microsoft Subscribers?

Internet Explorer 7 doesn’t crash. Every time I used IE7 in Windows XP, it crashed. Yes, I did have a legitimate version that I paid for. Every time I use IE7 in Vista, it never crashes! I like that, but not enough to give up Firefox, which unfortunately has crashed several times this week alone.

Going back to my pains of the Projector, when I extend the desktop, I no longer need to match the resolution on both screens. I can keep my 1440 x 900 resolution, and have the projector, or other monitor attached, set to any resolution I like. I was never able to do this with Windows XP. Being able to do this with Vista, has made using my desktop in “Extended Desktop Mode” bearable to say the least.

The automatic network connection sensing is good! I no longer need to disable an interface, when I am using the other, to prevent my computer from having problems accessing the network. I can leave them both enabled and Vista fails over to the device with the best availability. Which means I can switch between work and home, and never have to alter my network settings. Fantastic!

Having Said That …

So far it has been good. I am enjoying using Vista, although I do find myself pining every once in a while for the familiar linux console. Sometimes I run up a command prompt, but it just isn’t the same, like really.

written by Easton Royce \\ tags: 90 Days, Beginners, Ultimate

Natural Selection

Which flavour of Windows Vista do you choose? With a Microsoft Technet Subscription at my fingertips, I could install any version I like, but not everyone has this advantage. Most will end up with Windows Vista Home Basic. Pirates will probably have Enterprise, before they realise what they actually wanted was Ultimate, those with money to burn will have Ultimate, and businesses will supposedly have Windows Vista Business. The full list of versions (according to Microsoft Technet) goes like this:

• Windows Vista Home Basic
• Windows Vista Home Premium
• Windows Vista Business Basic
• Windows Vista Business Premium
• Windows Vista Ultimate
• Windows Vista Enterprise

You can check out a comparison here. Obviously there are academic variations of each of the above versions (excluding Enterprise), and I am sure there are many other types of versions as well (evaluation, pirate, trial etc). For the purpose of my “90 Days of Vista”, I will be using Windows Vista Ultimate.

Continue reading »

written by Easton Royce \\ tags: 90 Days, Beginners, Ultimate

Just something I thought I would share. Lets say you have a computer, and it’s got viruses on, but no anti virus software. You install some anti virus software, and begin to remove viruses. However, no matter how hard you try, so long as an internet connection exists (even if you only reconnect after you believe the viruses are gone), there are more viruses. So, how do you describe this to a complete beginner, that figured installing 5 or 6 anti virus and adware/spyware programs would keep them safe? I came up with the following analogy:

Lets say a criminal broke into your house, while the front door guards were all fighting over who’s shift it is. No matter what you do, you can not get the criminal out of your house, but you have managed to corner the criminal into a room, where you have locked all the doors. However, the window is open.

Some viruses got on your computer, while you had no anti virus protection (because all the programs were fighting for system domination), you sorted this out and got a single anti virus program working. It found out about the viruses, and now all day long, 24/7 you keep getting messages about viruses that have been caught.

So you keep the criminal locked in the room. However, so long as there is oxygen in the room the criminal will stay alive.

So long as you keep connecting to the internet again, the viruses will just keep coming.

Continue reading »

written by Easton Royce \\ tags: Analogies, Antivirus, Beginners, Random

Click Here Nerds

written by Easton Royce \\ tags: Advanced, Beginners, Networking, Support

Enabling 48-bit LBA for ATAPI in Windows 2000/XP.Windows 2000

Start the registry editor. Click Start, Run, and type “regedit32.exe” (omitting the quotes).

Drill down to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Atapi\Parameters\

On the Edit menu, click Add Value, and then add the following registry value:

Value name: EnableBigLba
Data type: REG_DWORD
Value data: 0×1

Quit the registry editor and reboot.

Windows XP/SP1/SP2

Start the registry editor. Click Start, Run, and type “regedit” (omitting the quotes)

Drill down to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Atapi\Parameters\

Under the last value, right click and from the New drop out menu, select “DWORD value”.

Rename the new DWORD value to “EnableBigLba” (omitting the quotes).

Double click the new DWORD value, and type a “1″ (omitting the quotes”) in place of the 0.

Make sure that Hexadecimal is selected on the right.

Quit the registry editor and reboot.

Where is the space? My drive didn’t get any bigger!

Right click My Computer, on your Windows Desktop, and select Manage. Alternatively, you can go to the Administrative tools and select Computer Management.

On the left hand side, click “Disk Management”. In the Disk Management window you should see a block of space called “Un-allocated Space” from here you can format that space into a drive, and mount it under a folder (NTFS only) or you can merge it into another existing partition.

Further Information

If you would like further information, and other details about this problem, you can visit the Microsoft Knowledge Base pages where I got the information for this guide from.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305098/EN-US/

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013

written by Easton Royce \\ tags: Advanced, Beginners, Support

Why Warez is Wrong! – Spyware, Adware and More…Why is Warez Wrong?

Warez is wrong for many reasons. Firstly, it is depriving many software developers and companies of rightfully earned money for their own hard work. Software developers spend many hours and many cups of coffee creating software applications and games for you. How would you feel it you put your heart and soul for 3 years straight into a computer application or project, and then found out after it had been released, that there were more illegal copies of it available on the internet and being downloaded, then being sold in a store?

Why is Warez Bad For Your Computer?

Warez sites are driven by the evil’s of the internet. SPAM, SPYWARE, AD-WARE, CRIPPLEWARE, CRAPWARE, JUNKEMAIL, ILLEGAL and ILLICIT MATERIAL. It’s because of all these evils, that these Warez sites are able to survive.

Usually when you access a Warez site, you have to click many buttons, vote for many sites, and….. install many “plug-ins”. The sites them selves download all sorts of tracking bugs and want not on your computer the second you access them, so when you install the plugins as well (otherwise you can’t get the software), your just asking for trouble.

SPAM and JUNKEMAIL

SPAM and JUNKEMAIL are very much an annoyance. They are responsible for more then 65% of the worlds internet traffic and that statistic is continually rising. A valid email address is usually required during the process of obtaining the software, and just because they say they wont sell your email address, means nothing. It just means they’ll pass it on to other companies for free, that will then sell your email address.

If you need to use an email address for something on the internet, but aren’t sure about giving out your real email address, consider a service like Mailinator .

SPYWARE

SPYWARE is software installed on your computer that has no particular use to you, but allows a website to track you and much more.

Want someone to spy on your every move and activity on your computer? Go to a Warez site then, and install any or all of the plug-ins offered. Better still, at the same time, your processing power and hard drive storage will probably be used to better a Warez site somewhere. Whether it be for traffic bandwidth, or the storage of Warez material on your computer! Better still, SPYWARE will provide you with ADS, as soon as you logon to your computer, eliminating the need to start your web browser yourself and find your own ADS.

ADWARE

ADWARE, is not as bad as SPWARE, but is generally just as annoying. ADWARE, is usually bundled along with free software, in order to keep the software free. In some cases this is ok, provided the ADWARE is not invasive, and does not make your computer available for use on the internet.

As with SPYWARE, you should also avoid ADWARE at all costs for best protection.

CRIPPLEWARE

CRIPPLEWARE is software that you download and use for a while, but once it runs out (as its more then likely a trial or demo) it begins to destroy your computer untill you register it or un-install it. CRIPPLEWARE is often in the form of SPYWARE and ADWARE, and could basically be considered as dangerous and offensive as a virus. CRIPPLEWARE in the form or SPYWARE or ADWARE, is usually a peace of software that a Warez site will say that you need to download to your computer in order to be able to access their files. This may very well be the case, however, the integrity of your computer begins to fail straight away. Never install any plug-ins or software from a website that you do not know. Unless it’s from a reputable company like Microsoft (r) or Macromedia (r) then you should veer away from it instantly.

CRAPWARE

CRAPWARE is everything else that could other potentially cause damage and malicious harm to your computer. Stay away from CRAPWARE and all other forms of SPYWARE, CRIPPLEWARE and ADWARE as if they were contaminated with Nuclear Radiation. After too much exposure, and then loss of 4 or 5 university theases’. You’ll wish you never went there.

Why do Warez Sites Have So Much Porn and SPYWARE/AD-WARE/CRIPPLEWARE?

They have all of these in order to pay for their website hosting, bandwidth usage, domain name allocation and various other services. They pay their hosts by having all these terrible software programs forced onto viewers. When the software is accessed, a service fee is payed along the way somewhere, and the hosting service and other services is payed for. The SPYWARE and AD-WARE always gets first time viewers, and since most first time viewers are out for a free lunch, the software always gets used, and the hosts always get paid. See where this is getting? Stop viewing the sites, stop using the software, and the warez sites will have to shutdown. Suddenly the internet becomes a better place to be? Maybe…

ILLEGAL and ILLICIT MATERIAL

This is the gold at the end of the rainbow. The software that you have finally obtained after installing all that nasty software and providing your email address to hundreds of nasty mailing lists, and infecting your computer to the point where you will need to format your PC after you restart when the program has finished downloading.

Having any form of software on your computer that you didn’t pay for (operating systems, applications, games, whatever) is stealing. It doesn’t matter how you got it, or where you got it. If you didn’t pay for it, then you stole it. Maybe not directly, but you stole it.

NOTE: This doesn’t apply to software that is otherwise free

In other words, if you have it, then you are in posession of stolen goods. This is ILLEGAL. If you want the latest and greatest software, then it is in your best interest to purchase it. If you can not afford it, then you can not have it.

PORN IS BAD, WEAPONS ARE BAD, DRUGS ARE BAD. These are the electronic form of ILLICIT materials. If you have them, you are in trouble. If you have them and you are under – aged, then you are even far worse trouble then you think.

The storage of ILLICIT materials on your computer is against the law! We strongly discourage any the storage of any form of ILLEGAL or ILLICIT materials on your computer.

How Can I Make Sure None of This Is On or Happening To My Computer?

Easy.

Install a Good Firewall. Zone Alarm is very popular. You can download the 30 day trial, or the free personal edition. This will ensure you are in control of what access the internet, what is comming in and what is going out. Zone Labs usually has updates for this software on a monthly basis.

Install a good virus scanner. There are many good virus scanners. NOD32-2 is a popular free virus scanner that is updated multiple times a week.

Install a good AD-WARE and SPYWARE Remover. The internets best choice is AD-AWARE . The free version is more the adequate for your everyday needs, and also has multiple updates every week.

Keep a record of the software that gets installed on your computer. If you have children, be careful of the software they may borrow from friends. If you have software on your computer, but you don’t have disk or CD for it, chances are, it’s probably not yours.

By following these steps, and updating your software virus/firewall/AD-AWARE programs regularly, you can ensure that your computer will be well protected while accessing the internet.
In Summary

-:- Warez is wrong and deprives hard workers of their own money.
-:- Warez is bad for your computer due to the amount of SPYWARE, and other bad content that gets onto your computer.
-:- When asked for your email from a site you are unsure about, consider a service like Mailinator.
-:- Beware of Spyware
-:- Beware of AD-WARE
-:- Beware of CRIPPLEWARE
-:- Beware of CRAPWARE
-:- Warez sites use all of these in order to pay for their hosting, bandwidth charges and other services.
-:- Don’t use stolen software on your computer.
-:- Don’t store ILLEGAL and/or ILLICIT materials on your computer.
-:- Use a good virus scanner
-:- Use a good Firewall
-:- Use a good AD-WARE and SPYWARE remover.

written by Easton Royce \\ tags: Beginners, Networking, Random, Support