RJ Dudley

A few weeks ago, the WiFi stopped working on my brother’s other laptop, an HP Pavillion dv6200-series.  Turns out there have been a lot of problems with a lot of HP laptops, and HP has issued a recall.  HP extended the warranty on these machines, and is sending a box to his house for a free repair.

My brother lugged two kids and two laptops from Phoenix.  At various times through the day today, I’ve been surrounded by all four of them.

This particular episode involves a Dell Inspiron 600m.  I’ve never seen a display look like this.  Either the LCD is totally shot, or the video card is shot.  After some diagnostics with Dell tech support, it’s the video card.  Which means a new motherboard.

During the diagnosis, the laptop ceases to boot past the Windows screen, repeatedly bringing up a BSOD about the master partition.  Pulling out my trusty new Slax bootable USB key, I can access the data on the HDD, so the drive controller and drive are OK.  As long as the drive is OK, the controller doesn’t matter—we’ll have a new one soon anyway, with the rest of the motherboard.

So, it’s off to eBay to locate a new motherboard, and then a Windows restore once he ships me the CDs.  Looks like he’s going home with 2 kids and 1 laptop.

One of the great joys a family has when a member works in IT is onsite technical support when we all get together.

The Victim

Part 1 is pop’s laptop, which picked up a nasty malware bug somewhere.  Probably one of the hundreds of funny videos he gets sent by all his buddies.  Despite AVG and Windows Defender, something got in there and screwed up the userinit.exe.  We could get to the welcome screen, but as soon as you clicked the username, you’d be immediately logged out.

The Scan

I found a great list of free bootable rescue CDs, and downloaded and ran the offering from f-secure.  The f-secure disk boots into a network enabled Knoppix environment, and you can grab the latest definitions file via network or onto a USB key, which I did and the software located automatically.

The scan found and and quarantined one infected file, and a couple previous infected versions in the system restore archives.  It was the userinit.exe, so now the task becomes replacing it.

The (failed) System Recovery

HP/Compaq doesn’t ship recovery disks anymore.  Instead, the recovery is located on a secure partition you boot into.  This is important to know, because if I had known this at first, pop’s laptop would have been fixed a week ago when he UPS’d it to me.  After running the online recovery, I was still unable to log in to Windows.  This meant we had to use the destructive restore.

The Data Recovery – Linux to the Rescue 

To prevent losing data, I had to boot the system and copy it off.  I first tried a Windows LiveCD made with BartPE, but my laptop has an IDE drive, and pop’s has SATA, so there were no drivers for his HDD.  Plan B was to boot into Linux.

The first Linux attempt was an Ubuntu 8.10 LiveCD.  Ubuntu must not support SATA on its LiveCD, because it couldn’t mount the drive.

Next attempt was PC Linux OS, which is my favorite distro running under Parallels.  I made a bootable thumb drive following the instructions at PenDriveLinux.  We booted and mounted the SATA drive, but by default the thumb drive is not writeable, and I couldn’t enable writing to the drive.

My last attempt was to use Slax.  I made a bootable USB key with Slax.  Slax is very lightweight, and has an attractive KDE shell, easy networking (using WEP), and a good set of standard  utilities for burning CDs and DVDs.  Some of the critical data I copied to the thumb drive, and the rest (iTunes, grandbaby photos) had to go on a DVD.

The Destructive Restore

After recovering the data, I had one last-ditch idea, to replace the userinit.exe on pop’s machine with the one from my machine.  No dice.  Don’t know why, but didn’t work.

So, I booted into the recovery mode, and did the destructive restore.  Success!  After a small amount of configuration, and reinstalling his software (thankfully he’s un-savvy enough to only have a couple programs), he was up and running.  And now it’s time to finish changing all the passwords.

Moral of the story

HP/Compaq’s onboard restore partition is handy and well designed, but the simple non-destructive recovery may not be enough after a malware infection.  When you need to recover data, Slax is a lifesaver.

On Friday at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, Wikia, the Web 2.0 community builder behind Wikipedia, gave the world an update on its progress toward building a new search platform based on open-source software and human collaboration.
...
Wikia executives said that by combining Grub with the power of a wiki to form social consensus, the Wikia search project has taken the next major step toward a future in which search is open and transparent.  

Full article at http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=13200C4Q51SO&nl=2; additional story at http://www.linuxinsider.com/edpick/58567.html

At first blush, this sounds like a great idea!  But, where human input is allowed--especially when from anonymous sources--one must watch for agenda-driven results, rather than relevance-driven results.  We see this already with Google-bombing, Digg-ing, and even on Wikipedia itself.   Part of the death knell of DMOZ was ego-driven editors keeping rivals from the listings.  The directory was wildly incomplete, and its utility was limited and eventually surpassed by Google's* search abilities and completeness.

For politicians, their entries in Wikipedia are a constant tug-of-war between their supporters (or their staff) and those who oppose the politician.  Usually, the truth is somewhere in the middle, but depending on the moment you read Wikipedia, are you getting the full story?

User reviews have also become targets of "black-hat" techniques.  Recently here in Pittsburgh, someone rated six flower shops with almost identical comments (now removed) and 1-2 stars.  There was obvious malicious intent, possibly from a competitor.  The reviewer could not show she had ever been a customer from any of the shops she reviewed, which is why the reviews were promptly removed when pointed out to the review service.

Anonymous human collaboration has opened up an entire new industry known as "reputation management".  The mere existance of such an industry puts the lie to the idea that harnessing human collaboration is superior to cold mathematics.  I'd much rather have the scatter from mathematics than a single train of thought provided by the most active linkers/diggers/editors.

*Yes, I'm aware Google has human editors tweak search results, but I'm not sure to what extent, and from what Matt Cutts has implied, it's mainly to cull spammy and malicious results or confirm algorithms.

My company recently purchased a new Kodak EasyShare camera for one of our warehouses.  There's a lifespan of approx. 2 years for anything electronic on a loading dock, and the previous camera was called to its heavenly reward.  Or run over by a forklift--there's some uncertainty there.

EasyShare cameras can be mounted via USB connection, and operate pretty much as a USB drive, or you can install the EasyShare software for some added functionality.  I was disappointed in Kodak when the installation committed three cardinal sins of software installs:

1) Slow.  It took nearly 10 minutes to install, and required a reboot.

2) Unwanted icons on the desktop without asking.  I'm not so picky about the program icon on my desktop without being asked, but I'd prefer being asked.  One of the two icons was QuickTime, which is notorious for this (as well as one in the Quick Launch bar, but these are a beef with Apple, not Kodak).  The third was an icon to download and install FireFox.  WTF?  Unrelated software and shortcut clutter.  Stop that!  Leave my desktop alone--I have it just how I want it.

3) The last one is unpardonable.  An un-cancellable wizard, not for configuration, but for information gathering.  Kodak wants to know where you bought your camera, but "gift" isn't an option ("other" is).  But the worst is a setup for Kodak's EasyShare Gallery, which sounds like a photo-sharing site.  The three options are presented below.  To paraphrase, "I have an account", "I want an account", or "I want an account later".  There's no "Thanks but no thanks" option.  And that is unconsionable.

I finished the wizard, and promptly uninstalled the software.

My advice--avoid EasyShare software until Kodak repents.  The cameras are good, but don't install the software.

So the first computer virus was released 25 years ago: http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2007/07/12/virus_birthday/index.html

And, just like the movie theater, commercial radio, and the Big Mac, it all started in Pittsburgh: http://pittsblog.blogspot.com/2007/07/pittsburgh-first-computer-virus.html

So I catch this article the other day.  I a little terrified at the idea of the government deciding on appropriate content.  Not that this doesn't sound good in theory, but in practice, they'll screw it up royally.

Senators propose labels for adult Web sites

The requirements appear in legislation announced Thursday by two Senate Democrats, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Max Baucus of Montana, that they say will "clean up the Internet for children."

The proposal, which the senators describe as a discussion draft, relies on the idea of embedding a new tag--such as <L18>--in all Web pages that the government deems unsuitable for minors. Then future Web browsers used by minors could be configured to reject L18-labeled Web pages.

...

Another section of the Cyber Safety for Kids Act of 2007 would require the owner of any Web site with adult content on it to say so when registering the domain with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. The owner must also give ICANN the Web site's Internet Protocol address and other information.

(http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6175549.html)

Oh, if only there was a way to easily indicate an x-rated site.  Something really easy to filter on, like maybe a top level domain.  A TLD could be very easily filtered out, and you'd pretty much know what kind of site you were headed to when you looked at the URL.  Something that industry would fully support...

ICANN rejects .xxx domain registry

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers has rejected a controversial proposal to create a new .xxx domain suffix for adult Web sites.

(http://news.com.com/ICANN+rejects+.xxx+domain+registry/2100-1030_3-6172046.html)

Well, never mind.

Banned Book Week is the last week of September (coincidentally, so is my birthday), and Google Book Search is highlighting a number of challenged or banned books.  I was surprised to how many of the books on the list were required reading in my rural Kentucky school district (not so rural anymore, but was 20 years ago).  Plus, I'd read many on my own.  I do remember some attempts to have books banned, and even one book burning (I think it was Tom Sawyer), but that met with no success.

I'm curious as to the reasons for why some of these books are being challenged.  OK, I get why some folks may not want Lolita rolling around a middle school reading list.  But apparently I missed something in James and the Giant Peach, which I read as a kid.  If anything, many of the books should be required reading just for the sake of not repeating some of the horros of the past.  I can't really imagine a world without Salinger, Vonnegut, Faulkner or Steinbeck, and I'd hate for any kids I might have one day to live in such a world.

Hat Tip: Download Squad

One feature I'd love to see removed from all versions of VS is the ability to name a setup package "setup.exe" or "setup.msi".  For the most part, the developer community is really good at naming installers intelligently.  The problem really stems from Microsoft.  It does not take too many powertoys, fonts, add-ins, etc. before one accumulates a large number of "setup.exe" files.  Or worse yet, a new one overwrites an old one you may still need.

Maybe it's not an entirely VS thing.  It was the Consolas font pack that started this rant today, and that may have been another installer.  Regardless, this is a general plea--when you create an installer, please use a name that identifies what is going to be installed.  Thanks in advance.

(I apologize in advance for anyone I'm citing below.  Your intentions were good, but IMHO, your technique leaves soemthing to be desired.)

Almost as annoying as bad-question-askers-in-forums are the click-here people.  That was bad enough on web pages, but it's gotten worse with the explosion of blogging.

First example comes to us from John Cilli's Commerce Connect.  John found an article that he'd like to share:

Before I "click here", I'd like to know what the article is about.  Maybe it's something I already read this morning.  Maybe it's something he thinks is useful, but not necessarily something Id find so.  No indication.  John's blog is reputable, but whatif this is a random blog--could "here" be a trojan waiting to infect my system?  And since my Internet usage at work is monitored, I can't just click willy-nilly.  Chances are I'll forget when I get home, and any benefit from the article is lost.  The article title and maybe a snippet or short abstract would be really great (see me pat myself on the back below for an example).

John Papa brings us our next example, but it's more of a "Where's Waldo: Hyperlink Edition" style of linking.  Can you see the download link below?  It's that little tiny one labelled "Attachment(s)", below the Google ads and Published information.  This isn't so much John's fault as it is the skin designer's.  Unless John designed the skin.

So who does links well?  Mike Gunderloy does a good job, with a title and short description.  Scott Hanselman as well.  I think I do article links prett well; see http://www.rjdudley.com/blog/First+Ultra+Mobile+PC+Comes+To+US.aspx for an example.

I'm sure both everyone of you reading this article has seen more than enough examples.  Share some below.  But don't be a bad linker; not in the comments, nor in your posts.

<update 2006-05-19>

Jesse Ezell adds one to the list.  Hey Jesse, what is 'this'?

Spammers are annoying, but the incompetent ones make me laugh:

Now playing: Georgia Satellites - Battleship Chains

Last night my McAfee was updated, as it does automatically every day or so.  One of the updates was to teh Security Center itself, which required a reboot.  After the reboot, a toast popped up, looking for all the world just like the ones when McAfee catches a virus in my e-mail.  But this one was an offer for the full security suite for 20% off, one week only.  I don't think so.  I patch and install updates specifically to keep crap like that from showing up on my machine, and I'm less than happy that McAfee thinks they can use their presence on my machine to interrupt my work with their own ads.  Looks like it's about time to investigate Panda, Trend Micro or AVG.

First, the Trojan:

A computer security firm said on Thursday it had discovered the first virus that uses music publisher Sony BMG's controversial CD copy-protection software to hide on PCs and wreak havoc.

Full story at http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051110/tc_nm/sony_hack_dc.

And now, California consumers have filed a class-action suit against Sony-BMG:

Record company Sony BMG Music Entertainment has been targeted in a class-action lawsuit in California by consumers claiming their computers have been harmed by anti-piracy software on some Sony BMG CDs.

The claim states that Sony BMG's failed to disclose the true nature of the digital rights management system it uses on its CDs and thousands of computer users have unknowingly infected their computers, according to court documents.

More on that at http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051110/tc_nm/media_sonybmg_dc.

In the midst of a PR debacle, a Sony spokesman had this response:

Sony spokesman John McKay said the technology has been deployed on just 20 titles so far, but that the company may include it on additional titles in the months ahead. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/02/AR2005110202362.html)

On second thought, maybe Sony shouldn't blog--they don't seem to know what not to say.  Maybe the company that developed the DRM solution will do better:

In response to criticisms that intruders could take such advantage, First4Internet Ltd. -- the British company that developed the software -- will make available on its Web site a software patch that should remove its ability to hide files, chief executive Mathew Gilliat-Smith said.

A patch that will merely unhide the DRM?  Then again, maybe not.  How about a patch to get rid of the thing? Oh wait, here we go:

...users who want to remove the program may not do so directly, but must fill out a form on Sony's Web site, download additional software, wait for a phone call from a technical support specialist, and then download and install yet another program that removes the files.

Umm..yeah, sign me up.  So, is the DRM really so bad?  As long as we're not music pirates, we should get along OK, right?

Hypponen agreed that Sony's software could help hackers circumvent most antivirus products on the market today. He added that installing the Sony program on a machine running Windows Vista -- the beta version of the next iteration of Microsoft Windows -- "breaks the operating system spectacularly."

Once again, maybe not.  I haven't bought a CD in nearly 2 years, and I'm quite glad for that.