Recent Posts

6851

Finished Programs / Re: IDEA: Quick Serial Number Copy

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 03, 2005, 05:04 AM »

Yes it does actually - it would be nice to be able to add/name the field sthough (minor point - just nit picking now). I suppose I could alter that in the source code anyway.

6852

Living Room / Re: The Great Firewall Hunt ... frustrating ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 03, 2005, 04:25 AM »

I don't really feel like shelling out 2 year subscriptions any more - who knows when Symantec is going to snap up Agnitum?

I have been burnt by the demise of Sygate during a long subscription. I have emailed Symantec to ask them what they are doing about existing customers with active subuscriptions - but since I haven't even received an email from either party to tell me that Sygate Firewall is dead and gone I am not holding my breath.

There can't be many firewalls left for Symantec to hoover up, but I'd guess some of the free ones are likely to be vulnerable to the Symantec machine ... however committed a developer is to free software it would take a lot of willpower to turn down a hefty offer to remove the product from the internet!

Trouble is I am quite happy using Sygate for a while ... it works as well as any others out there, but without updates how long is it going to be safe-ish?

6853

Living Room / Way OT but I'm EXCITED ... new John Tams album thread ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 02, 2005, 08:20 PM »

I am a big fan of John Tams and I've just got his new album "The Reckoning" and really love it so I thought I'd share a bit of enthusiasm.

If you don't know who John Tams is I suppose you could describe his style as a cross between fairly gentle acoustic rock ballads and traditional English folk music. If you ever saw the TV series called "Sharpe" he starred as the musical soldier "Hagman".

I had the great pleasure of meeting him (he isn't as grumpy as he looks in his CD photos) when he was giving a concert to raise money for the local air ambulance service. Unfortunately the concert was very poorly promoted and at the wrong time of year and so there was a lamentably small turn out. As a result he invited the entire audience to join him in the local pub for the interval and was a total riot!

I really love his new album ... it is so understated and some of the lyrics are really thought provoking.

If you'd like a quick taster there are three clips here to whet your appetite:

Safe House : http://www.topicreco...alaudio/tscd551a.ram
Bitter Withy : http://www.topicreco...alaudio/tscd551b.ram
A Man of Constant Sorrow : http://www.topicreco...alaudio/tscd551c.ram

The album is for sale through the usual outlets or direct from the publishers here (the proper URL with all the extra frames - unnecessary - is here but you will need to click "Go to shop" and then search for John Tams in the search box as you can't link directly).

6854

Living Room / Re: Want to wet my beak with Linux,need suggestions on distro.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 02, 2005, 05:49 PM »

Reading around the Linux forums I have yet to find a native Linux driver that will support Linksys Speedbooster 54g cards - which are not exactly uncommon hardware.

Without native support for networking you can't connect to the outside world: ergo Linux is pretty well dead fro me until this sorted out.

The only solution I have found is wrappers for Windows drivers - and these give a less than ideal solution as far as I am concerned.

The other thing is I have used 4 different distros so far and have yet to find one that will properly support any of the 4 different common printers I have used (Lexmark and Canon). They have all been supported to some extent but none of the finer features are ever available.

USB device support is also pretty hit and miss ... I have yet to find a driver for any of the three scanners I have used.

Not that its an issue for me but dial-up modem drivers are pretty hit and miss too. If you happen to have a bog standard external, self-powered modem you are probably going to get it to work. If you have a USB, PCI or Reiser modem forget it (unless you are extremely luck).

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General Software Discussion / Re: New Mozilla Firefox user

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 02, 2005, 05:42 PM »

Don't seem to have that problem?? I am running Ghost Security Suite and have no problems editing the HOSTS file.

To be honest I wasn't aware that GSS did anything with the HOSTS file ?

Are you sure your HOSTS file isn't just read-only ?

6856

Living Room / Re: The Great Firewall Hunt ... frustrating ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 02, 2005, 02:11 PM »

Someone said:

AS OF NOVEMBER 2005 WE ARE RECOMMENDING THAT NO ONE PURCHASE AGNITUM OUTPOST FIREWALL.
AGNITUM OUTPOST IS NOW AT VERSION 3, AND WE HAVE FOUND IT TO BE BUGGY, AND NOT READY FOR PUBLIC USE.

Second thoughts?

6857

Site/Forum Features / Re: About the Prize Optimizer Used in the November Drawing

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 02, 2005, 02:08 PM »

LOL - 's OK I'm not begging - I just thought if you had a mathematical formula for happiness there may be a similar one for depression

6858

General Software Discussion / Re: top 10 freeware apps from "snakeoillabs"

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 02, 2005, 12:30 PM »

Actually I think kfitting was the first to mention FastStone on here - so thanks should really be pointed in that direction.

By the way the best download site for it is www.faststonesoft.com.

The other stuff on there is also worth checking out ...

6859

Living Room / The Great Firewall Hunt ... frustrating ...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 02, 2005, 12:14 PM »

OK - since Outpost 3 is out of favour what are people using ... (and is still available) ?

I refuse to use Norton, McAfee or Trend Suites on principle.

ZoneAlarm seems not to work brilliantly on my system (it keeps jumping to 100% CPU and staying there) - it may just be I need to install my system from scratch and clear out some of the rubbish.

I want something that

• Works well
• Isn't a resource hog
• Is regularly updated
• Is configurable
• Compatible with NOD32 AV

I'm completely stumped. Anyone got any realistic suggestions for a simple firewall that works ??

I was contemplating dumping NOD32 (reluctantly) and trying F-Secure Internet Security 2006 which gets good reviews everywhere I look - has the advantage that it is updated daily and F-Secure have a great reputation that includes free phone support. I was a bit put off by one review that said the built in anti-spyware component insists on uninstalling all other anti-spyware software during installation (including Spybot and AdAware) which is just plain daft.

Anyone tried the F-Secure product - is it worth giving up all other products to give it a try?

6860

Living Room / Re: Van Zant CD taking a beating for containing this Sony Rootkit thing.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 02, 2005, 11:35 AM »

Two further things to read ---

Mark Russinovich's latest Blog ... here

and a fun cartoon if you don't want to read more Sony vilification

6861

General Software Discussion / Re: top 10 freeware apps from "snakeoillabs"

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 02, 2005, 11:09 AM »

As for IrfenView and XnView, which one is "better" in y'all's opinion? I'd hate to have some images default to open with one and the rest open with the other.

I have tried both and have decided I quite like XnView, but I really like FastStone Image Viewer. IrfanView is something I used for a long time and it is great - even so it pretty quirky even when you use it regularly.

6862

Site/Forum Features / Re: About the Prize Optimizer Used in the November Drawing

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 02, 2005, 10:58 AM »

What is the depression level for those who didn't win 

6863

General Software Discussion / Re: New Mozilla Firefox user

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 02, 2005, 10:46 AM »

Definitely don't run CounterSpy with Microsoft AntiSpyware - they are known to conflict.

For what it's worth I use resident scanning with SpySweeper and MS AntiSpyware at the same time without any issues.

I also have DiamondCS ProcessGuard running. This stops any programs running without explicit permission. You can set it to allow a program to run automatically, but one of the great things is it stops drivers etc. being installed without you noticing. The other great thing is that once you have said yes to a particular app or service everytime it starts in the future PG checks the file before allowing it to run to make sure it hasn't changed. If it has changed (eg. after an update/upgrade) it warns you and you have to allow it again.

The other program I have chuntering along silently is Ghost Security Suite's RegDefend. This is rule based (and comes with a good set of default rules) and allows you to monitor potentially dangerous registry changes and again give specific apps access to various registry operations.

6864

General Software Discussion / Re: New Mozilla Firefox user

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 02, 2005, 06:27 AM »

Re Popups ...

Have you got the popup blocker enabled? Tools / Options / Content

If that isn't aggressive enough you could download the Yahoo Toolbar for Firefox. That has a popup block that is so agressive I can't open new windows by clicking on a link (even my online banking is blocked!!!).

6865

Finished Programs / Re: Program closer

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 02, 2005, 06:18 AM »

Works for me now - has this been posted in two threads - I'm sure I just read this?

6866

Living Room / Re: Want to wet my beak with Linux,need suggestions on distro.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 02, 2005, 06:11 AM »

Dual booting works fine with most distros I have tried, hell I have even had it dual-dual booting ... (Linux Grub loads at start up and offers Linux and Windows, and if you choose Windows it goes to my multi boot windows).

The only real issue is getting rid of Grub (or other loaders) if you want to drop Linux. If you use Windows 2000 or XP this is done by running the recovery environment from the install CD and using the command FIXBOOT, for Windows 9x/ME you use the Windows rescue floppy and run FDISK /MBR

There are two other approaches you can use to dual boot:

1) Let Windows Boot.ini handle the dual boot (ie. just add the Linux boot to your windows startup). This is a bit fiddly to do but not impossible.

2) Use a boot manager to install Linux (something like BootIT) and then use that Boot manager to handle your multiboot system.

The only reason I have dumped Linux at the moment is it has totally crap support for wireless networks. In particular an awful lot of common hardware simply doesn't have native drivers. OK there are various wrappers you can play and tinker with so that you use Windows drivers in Linux, but given that Windows wireless drivers are notoriously temperamental in Windows I dread to think what the troubleshooting would be like in Linux.

Once decent wireless support is forthcoming (without the need for a Masters Degree in Wireless Technology to configure it) I will install Linux again - until then it is sitting in its box.

6867

Finished Programs / Re: DONE - IDEA: Program Closer

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 02, 2005, 06:03 AM »

Ooooo ... yummy, it works !!!

Thanks that's a great bit of software - I like it 

One last suggestion - it might be worth excluding closeMany itself from the list otherwise it could be a bit unpredictable if it is selected.

6868

General Software Discussion / Re: Firewalls, What you need to know...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 02, 2005, 05:11 AM »

As you said, "this" attack... If the source was closed, and this was in compacted c++, there would be no way to know the key... We (computer users) need a solution, and, in my eyes, it's the firewall makers whom are lagging behind

They may be lagging behind - but the real issue is really at Microsoft's door - if WindowsXP had some semblance of security built in most of the third party security providers would be unnecessary. I guess MS are being philanthropic!

One solution to this problem is to run something like DiamondCS Process Guard all the time, and don't allow programmes (and I suppose especially browsers) to run automatically (just click OK each time it is an intentional launch). It wouldn't stop the problem if browser windows are already open but it would stop any browser being launched by another program without permission.

The biggest problem I can see is that we have to trust so many programs - many usefully check for updates, use webpages to provide help and support from within the application, use the Internet Explorer engine to display their pages (eg. how many people are running Weather Watcher? that is basically Internet Explorer running all the time it is loaded).

6869

General Software Discussion / Re: Firewalls, What you need to know...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 02, 2005, 04:06 AM »

Correction - it doesn't work ... sorry, I had Firefox blocked before running WaterBomb.

I do think you should consider telling Microsoft - especially as you have openly published the code on this website - anyone could use your code to breach security and I strongly sugggest you remove it.

If you don't want the hassle of contacting MS there are plenty of security watchers out there with direct MS contacts that would probably do it for you.

6870

General Software Discussion / Re: Firewalls, What you need to know...

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 02, 2005, 03:58 AM »

Worrying ...

Rubbish follows - see below for correction ...

Sygate Firewall Pro (yes the dead one which I have reinstalled after more bad experiences with ZoneAlarm) managed to pass this test provided there wasn't an Internet Explorer based browser window open at the time.

With Firefox as default browser caused no problem provided I didn't have Explorer of Maxthon (based on Explorer) windows open.

The other problem is that in order to get this to work it requires that you deny access to the internet when you run this app. Often when you run a new program you have to allow access to the internet to allow the program to function in the expected way - then the firewall is completely useless ...

Have you reported this security problem to MS ??? Strikes me the problem lies in a large measure at their door !!

6871

Living Room / Re: Useful tools for blocking known malware sites via your HOSTS file

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 02, 2005, 03:30 AM »

HOSTS Secure (dowloaded here) will update your HOSTS file on Windows startup, or you could schedule the update.

The options commands allow you to run the program on startup, and auto update the HOSTS file.

From my perspective that isn't ideal as I have a number of customised entries in my HOSTS file and the update process overwrites the whole file. I run Firetrust's Benign software to filter email content but since SP2  for WinXP was released I have needed to have a number of personal settings in the HOSTS file to get Benign to work properly. I suppose I could get around this by writing a little script to append my personalised settings to the HOSTS file after update.

If you haven't got personalised HOSTS file then the autoupdate is ideal.

6872

Living Room / Re: Useful tools for blocking known malware sites via your HOSTS file

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 01, 2005, 04:10 PM »

Your're welcome.

The four little programs linked on the main page are all useful (in different ways).
HOSTS secure has the advantage that it will download and install the latest version of HOSTS from the MVPS website. The disadvantage is that it loses any custom edits.

A better way of doing this is to save your custom edits in a text file, then use HOSTS Secure to update the HOSTS file every now and again, and then use "Hoster" to merge in your custom edits.

6873

General Software Discussion / Re: Scheduled Shutdown after backup?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 01, 2005, 04:04 PM »

You could use shutdown.exe

If you have Windows XP you will find it in C:\Windows\System32

To shutdown your system you could set up a scheduled task but you will need to edit the command's properties and add the -s switch to the command line so that it says:

C:\Windows\System32\shutdown.exe -s

note the space before the -s.

If you want to look at more options you can open a DOS window and simply type shutdown

all the command options will be displayed.

If you want it to execute immediately after the backup command finishes you may need to put bothe the backup and shutdown commands in a batch file and schedule that instead.

6874

Living Room / Useful tools for blocking known malware sites via your HOSTS file

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 01, 2005, 12:00 PM »

Don't know if this has been mentioned before but there are a couple of interesting articles here on how to stop your computer communicating with common ad based servers and known malware sites.

The first is on the MVPS website (see http://www.mvps.org/...inhelp2002/hosts.htm) whcih provides a lot of information, a regularly updated HOSTS file and a secure email subscription to be notified of updates.

On that page a little free utility is also mentions called HostsManager (Hostsman) which can be found here: http://hostsman.abelhadigital.com/ which allows you to manage the content of your hosts file and also mange the DNS Server client on your computer.

Well worth a read ... and very effective if kept up to date.

6875

Mouser's Zone / Re: Is it just me or has the forum spellcheck ceased to function?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on December 01, 2005, 10:07 AM »

It didn't do anything at all when I click [Spell Check]

Seems to work again now - strange