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May - 2007

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Animated Cursors, Cute but Dangerous  --top

You have probably seen these cute animated cursors like cats walking, arrows blinking, etc., but these cute little cursors could introduce your computer to dangerous code! 

Best advice, ignore those cute add-on features, especially if they are coming from an unknown source...  The article.

Microsoft has since released a security patch available at http://update.microsoft.com.  
Here is the article on that patch if you are interested...

Two steps forward, one backward.  This patch broke something else...

Security Patch Causes Errors --top

Most of you already received information from us regarding a new boot time error, but in case you missed it...

A recent Microsoft security patch conflicts with some existing applications, resulting in a boot time error regarding the Hhctrl.ocx file. 

They have since released (another) patch available here that should correct the error, but apply this patch only if you are experiencing the error.  And although a bit technical, you should read through the article...

Drive Failure --top

We cannot emphasize this enough and after seeing yet another older machine lose data, remember...

Drive manufacturers claim five-plus years for an average drive life, but typically their warranty is one year with an extended three year plan available, e.g., Western Digital's policy.

A study by Google found that one in seventeen drives failed within the first year and the "Annualized Failure Rates" jumped significantly in year two (see chart). 
The original article and the Google study (PDF).

Although the Google study was in a "large drive population" environment (their own servers) and they are quick to point out their study is not an "end all" study, the failure rate is no less relevant for purposes of our discussion.  And although the study focused on temperature extremes, it went on to indicate that temperature is only one of many factors affecting the disk lifetime.

We are comfortable in assuming Google takes the best possible care of their servers by controlling the operating environment, voltage supply, etc., and even though temperature extremes, power surges, blackouts and brownouts can cause premature failure, hard drives are mechanical devices that will eventually wear out.

Most drives are now SMART and will warn of impending failure, but SMART is not 100%.  SMART measures drive activities such as bad cluster count, spin-up time, etc., and when a monitored activity falls outside the acceptable tolerance, a warning is issued.  If upon boot you receive a possible drive problem warning, DO NOT ignore it! 

SMART equipped or not, almost half of all failures are sudden, coming without warning and without any indication there may be a problem.  So back up your data often and replace those older machines.

A lot more on SMART technology and drive failures here.

Macs Are Not Exempt --top

Macs are not exempt from viruses.  In combating this ongoing problem, Apple like Microsoft releases security patches and updates.  They have released updates every month so far this year, including 25 patches in April and 45 patches in March.  The article. 

If you are a Mac user, be sure those updates are being installed! 

Writing Web Pages? --top

If you are writing web pages in other than a true HTML editor (e.g., FrontPage and DreamWeaver), be aware that what you create may not present properly on the web.  Word processors are very powerful and can do some amazing things, but pasting a word processed page into a web page may result in unexpected output...

Alignment is one issue.  While you can precisely align sentences and objects in a word processor*, the web is not quite so friendly.  HTML allows for tabs, indentations, left, center and right alignment, but the final result may not appear as desired.  More on this here. 

Fonts are another issue.  While your computer may have hundreds of fonts, the web recognizes only a handful.  Additionally a 12 point font may be just the right size when printed, but 12 point on the Internet is somewhat large.  This newsletter uses a 10 point font.  More about web fonts here.

Word processed pages that are copied to a web page result in a lot of background code and while the code is transparent to the viewer, it can cause problems.  Example of this here.

*More on word processing alignment: Decimal and General

Speed Test --top

There are a lot of interesting Internet connection speed test utilities.  This one is nicely done.  Thanks Cheryl

All connections have an "overhead" cost, typically 15-20%, i.e., if you pay for a 512 connection, your actual download speed will be in the low to mid 400 range.  Upload speeds are typically half of that.  Note: Keep that upload speed in mind if you ever decide to back up your data online.

When testing your Internet speed there are many other factors that enter into the equation:

• General activity of your computer.  (Do not run other applications during the test.)

• Internet activity of other computers on your network.

• Local network conditions, e.g., issues with your network card, router, cables, etc.

• Computer condition, i.e., the presence of adware, spyware, viruses and even "always connected" applications like weather, live updates, etc...

• Time of day you test.

• Activity (busyness) of your ISP's server.

• Activity of the testing server.

• And general Internet conditions at the time of the test.

  You can get that information from Internet Traffic Report http://www.internettrafficreport.com/

Outlook "Locate Link Browser" --top

Computers (or more specifically Microsoft), you gotta love 'em...

Just out of the blue one day, while reading email we clicked an email message link and received a dialog box asking us to "locate the link browser."  Looking up this issue at the Microsoft Knowledgebase we found this article, but attempting to correct the problem based on the article did not work.  The URL:MailTo Protocol entry did not even offer the edit button.  Fortunately the fix was easy...

Based on the issue and the request to "locate the browser," the problem was obvious to us.  Somehow, Outlook had lost the ability to relate an email message link to the Internet Explorer, so what we needed to do was show Windows which program to launch when the email message link is clicked:  In the "locate link" dialog box, navigate to My Computer > the local C: drive > Program Files > Internet Explorer (C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer) and there, select the IExplorer.exe file.

Note: If you use Netscape or another browser you will need to locate that application.

Outlook Security --top

Outlook and to a lesser extent Outlook Express have a lot of built-in security, one of which is a notification of action taken when you open a message.  That notification appears near the top of the message, just above the recipient and sender information.  Example:  Here, Outlook has shut off the message links from this particular individual, but knowing the link was safe, we clicked the notification bar to turn the message links on.

You can permanently change some settings under the Tools > Options > Security menus...

Google Maps --top

Last October we discussed creating personal maps.  At that time creating personal maps was fairly new to the Internet and was somewhat clumsy, but leave it to Google to simplify things... 

Their new map builder makes it very easy to create, edit and share personalized maps.  http://maps.google.com/  and click My Maps.

Google Book Search

Looking for a book that contains certain information or phrases, but do not know the title or author?  Try http://books.google.com/advanced_book_search

It results in the book(s) containing your search parameters and even allows you a limited preview of those books.  Pretty cool...

Sending Spam?  --top

You just may be, at least according the the MSN servers...

Recently we were corresponding with a friends.  They initially sent us a message with the subject of "Federated."  When we replied, the MSN server rejected our message indicating it appeared to be spam.  Sending the same message but removing "RE:" from the subject line allowed the message to be delivered.  So if you have similar problems try removing the RE: or FW: marks from the subject line...  (Update:  Empty subject lines may also cause rejection.)

Lost Messages

But at least we received a bounced notification!  Back in '05 we published some interesting statistics on lost email messages.  Here is an update...

According to EmailLabs (an email marketing company), about 10% of all email ends up "missing"  and not necessarily bounced back to the sender as undeliverable, with AOL leading the group at a whopping 28% [missing].

The primary reason for this is of course spam.  According to Postini (a spam filtering service), 10 out of every 11 messages are spam and 1 out of every 60 contain a virus.

Note: The EmailLabs and Postini sites have a lot of other email statistics such as the origin of spam in the world.

In our May '05 newsletter we discussed various ways to avoid spam such as never respond to spam, never "reply to all" and do not place multiple email addresses in the TO or CC fields, instead use the BCC field...

Forwarding  --top

We all receive something or another that we would like to share with others.  The easiest way to do that is of course forwarding the message.  But there are some considerations before doing so...  Thanks to Tom and Marie for the subject reminder.

From the archives:  Our August '03 newsletter discussed how to do a mass mailing without making everyone else's address public:

If you want to email multiple people but do not want to have all of those names appear in the TO: field, use the BCC: field. The BCC effectively hides all of the names when the message is received, the recipient sees only the TO: and CC: fields, not the BCC:.

It's easy, here's how: Create your new message and in the TO: field, place your own email address**. Then place all of the desired recipients in the BCC: field.

Don't see the BCC: field? In a new Outlook message select BCC from the View menu. In a new Outlook Express message select View All Headers from the View menu.

** Rather than having your name or email address appear in the TO: field, create a new contact with your email address but a name "all of our friends" or perhaps "mailing list."

Other thoughts:

• If a message has a voting option, pretend it is an off year and do not vote.

• If a message indicates you should "send this to everyone you know,"  So not!

• Remove "FW:" from the subject line. 

• And from our Fall '98 (PDF) newsletter, please removed those forwarding marks >>>>.

Email Attachment --top

Most of you received this notice from us:

There is a new email message getting past the spam filters with a Worm Alert! subject. It contains a zipped file that in turn, contains an executable file.

The executable does not appear to contain a virus directly, however exactly what it would do if opened is unknown and we are not brave enough to find out…

Remember, you will not receive security or other updates via email! So unless you specifically requested one from a specific company, never open or run “patches” received via email.

Update to that message, the zip file indeed carried a Trojan.  More information.

And just to clarify "unless you specifically requested one from a specific company," this would include attachments (apparently) from us! 

It is very easy to "spoof" an email address and that occurs all the time.  Messages seemingly from one person could actually be from another.  Be suspicious of all attachments!

We will leave you with these...

How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb? None; it's a hardware problem.

---

After having dug to a depth of 10 meters last year, Scottish scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 100 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 100 years ago.

Not to be outdone by the Scots, in the weeks that followed, British scientists dug to a depth of 20 meters, and shortly after, headlines in the UK newspapers read: "British archaeologists have found traces of 200 year old copper wire and have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network a hundred years earlier than the Scots."

One week later, "The Klub," a Sunburg, Minnesota newspaper reported the following: "After digging as deep as 30 meters in corn fields near Games Lake, Ole Johnson, a self taught archaeologists, reported that he found absolutely nothing. Ole has therefore concluded that 300 years ago Norwegians were already using wireless."