Me at lunch last week - Thanks for the loan Cory!
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Thursday, May 05, 2005
PingPlotter
PingPlotter: "PingPlotter is a network troubleshooting and diagnostic tool. It uses a combination of traceroute, ping, and whois to collect data quickly, and then allows you to continue to collect data over time to give you the information you really need to identify problems (both short-term and long-term trends).
PingPlotter is unique in its ability to collect data, over a period of hours, days or weeks, allowing you to then focus on particular aspects of that data to determine where the problems are happening. Of course once you've found the problem, you need to communicate that problem to someone that can help, and Ping Plotter graphically shows problems in a way that is compelling and intuitive. This can greatly shorten the time, for instance, it takes to convince your network service provider or ISP that a problem really exists. PingPlotter isn't just a tool to help you troubleshoot Internet connections, however, and has a place in any administrator's arsenal of tools.
Not only does Ping Plotter help you locate existing problems, but it can also be setup to watch for new problems as they happen and then notify you via the powerful built-in alerts capability."
PingPlotter is unique in its ability to collect data, over a period of hours, days or weeks, allowing you to then focus on particular aspects of that data to determine where the problems are happening. Of course once you've found the problem, you need to communicate that problem to someone that can help, and Ping Plotter graphically shows problems in a way that is compelling and intuitive. This can greatly shorten the time, for instance, it takes to convince your network service provider or ISP that a problem really exists. PingPlotter isn't just a tool to help you troubleshoot Internet connections, however, and has a place in any administrator's arsenal of tools.
Not only does Ping Plotter help you locate existing problems, but it can also be setup to watch for new problems as they happen and then notify you via the powerful built-in alerts capability."
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Monday, May 02, 2005
Did Installing An Anti-Spyware Program Kill Your IP Networking?
Newsletter #47 Late April 2005
From Mark Minasi's newsletter:
Did Installing An Anti-Spyware Program Kill Your IP Networking?
Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.
A good friend installed Microsoft's Anti-Spyware beta at my recommendation. (I can't stress how much you need this or some other anti-spyware tool. I've liked ADAware as well.) Anyway, he had a terrible reaction to the anti-spyware tool -- his IP stack no longer worked. I was puzzled until I ran across this feature of XP's SP2 and 2003's SP1. Just type this command:
netsh winsock reset catalog
As it turns out, many things insert themselves between your IP stack and the rest of your system. Most are benign or outright helpful. But because something that sits between the rest of the OS and the IP stack may not be the ONLY thing between the OS and the IP stack, these in-between programs must play well with one another -- these in-between programs all sit in a line and must be aware of who's ahead of them and who's behind them in line. that way, if one in-between program exits, it knows to link the program behind it in line to the one in front of it in line. (This "line" is the "catalog" in the above command.) But some poorly written browser helper objects (one type of these in-between programs often used in spyware) aren't good at cleaning up after themselves and, when those kinds of browser helper objects are removed by anti-spyware tools, then the line of "in-between programs" may get messed up, with the result that you can't do anything on IP.
In any case, the bottom line is that if installing some kind of anti-spyware tool has made it impossible for you to network, open up a command line and try typing "netsh winsock reset catalog."
From Mark Minasi's newsletter:
Did Installing An Anti-Spyware Program Kill Your IP Networking?
Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.
A good friend installed Microsoft's Anti-Spyware beta at my recommendation. (I can't stress how much you need this or some other anti-spyware tool. I've liked ADAware as well.) Anyway, he had a terrible reaction to the anti-spyware tool -- his IP stack no longer worked. I was puzzled until I ran across this feature of XP's SP2 and 2003's SP1. Just type this command:
netsh winsock reset catalog
As it turns out, many things insert themselves between your IP stack and the rest of your system. Most are benign or outright helpful. But because something that sits between the rest of the OS and the IP stack may not be the ONLY thing between the OS and the IP stack, these in-between programs must play well with one another -- these in-between programs all sit in a line and must be aware of who's ahead of them and who's behind them in line. that way, if one in-between program exits, it knows to link the program behind it in line to the one in front of it in line. (This "line" is the "catalog" in the above command.) But some poorly written browser helper objects (one type of these in-between programs often used in spyware) aren't good at cleaning up after themselves and, when those kinds of browser helper objects are removed by anti-spyware tools, then the line of "in-between programs" may get messed up, with the result that you can't do anything on IP.
In any case, the bottom line is that if installing some kind of anti-spyware tool has made it impossible for you to network, open up a command line and try typing "netsh winsock reset catalog."
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Folder View
Folder View - Official Home
From PC World article: http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,119982,00.asp
Sometimes you need a quick look at a folder but you don't want to deal with Windows Explorer. Folder View resides in your system tray, giving you superfast access to the folders you use most often. The tool is easily configurable, so you can remove unneeded folders and add new ones. Plus, if you are using Windows Explorer, you can right-click a file to copy or move it to a favorite folder. Free.
From PC World article: http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,119982,00.asp
Sometimes you need a quick look at a folder but you don't want to deal with Windows Explorer. Folder View resides in your system tray, giving you superfast access to the folders you use most often. The tool is easily configurable, so you can remove unneeded folders and add new ones. Plus, if you are using Windows Explorer, you can right-click a file to copy or move it to a favorite folder. Free.
Friday, April 22, 2005
MZ-Tools - Productivity Tools for Visual Studio .NET, Visual Basic and VBA
MZ-Tools - Productivity Tools for Visual Studio .NET, Visual Basic and VBA
MZ-Tools is a family of add-ins, some of them freeware, which extend the Microsoft programming environments with new menus and toolbars to provide many productivity features.
MZ-Tools will allow you to enjoy the following benefits during the development of your applications:
* To write code faster: There are features that will allow you to insert exception handlers, snippets of code, etc. with a single mouse click, keyboard shortcut or expansion keyword, or to use assistants to create new procedures, message boxes, connection strings, etc.
* To locate code faster: With the enhanced Find feature of this add-on, all the results are shown in a hierarchical tree inside a dockable window that allows you to remove occurrences that are not of your interest and a lot of other enhancements. Other features allow you to locate the calls to a given procedure, to keep a list of favorite procedures that you use often, etc.
* To design forms faster: There are features that will allow you to apply default properties to a control when it is added to a form, to set the TabIndex property of all the controls of a form with one click (or even none), etc.
* To document your code faster: There are features that will allow you to insert headers (to a procedure, class or file) with a single mouse click or keyboard shortcut. These headers are customizable and allow the use of predefined variables (such as the procedure name) or user-defined variables. Furthermore, other features will generate documentation about your source code in XML and HTML formats.
* To ensure the quality of your code and applications: There are features that can add line numbers for error handlers, code reviews that can detect dead code, review the TabIndex or access keys of your controls, review forbidden or mandatory text, etc. Even better, in version 4.0 for Visual Studio .NET you can write your own review operations with very little effort.
And many more features (40+ in each toolset) that let you have a good time coding by eliminating the tedious tasks!
MZ-Tools is a family of add-ins, some of them freeware, which extend the Microsoft programming environments with new menus and toolbars to provide many productivity features.
MZ-Tools will allow you to enjoy the following benefits during the development of your applications:
* To write code faster: There are features that will allow you to insert exception handlers, snippets of code, etc. with a single mouse click, keyboard shortcut or expansion keyword, or to use assistants to create new procedures, message boxes, connection strings, etc.
* To locate code faster: With the enhanced Find feature of this add-on, all the results are shown in a hierarchical tree inside a dockable window that allows you to remove occurrences that are not of your interest and a lot of other enhancements. Other features allow you to locate the calls to a given procedure, to keep a list of favorite procedures that you use often, etc.
* To design forms faster: There are features that will allow you to apply default properties to a control when it is added to a form, to set the TabIndex property of all the controls of a form with one click (or even none), etc.
* To document your code faster: There are features that will allow you to insert headers (to a procedure, class or file) with a single mouse click or keyboard shortcut. These headers are customizable and allow the use of predefined variables (such as the procedure name) or user-defined variables. Furthermore, other features will generate documentation about your source code in XML and HTML formats.
* To ensure the quality of your code and applications: There are features that can add line numbers for error handlers, code reviews that can detect dead code, review the TabIndex or access keys of your controls, review forbidden or mandatory text, etc. Even better, in version 4.0 for Visual Studio .NET you can write your own review operations with very little effort.
And many more features (40+ in each toolset) that let you have a good time coding by eliminating the tedious tasks!
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Javacool SpywareBlaster
SpywareBlaster
Freeware for personal use.
"Javacool Spywareblaster, however, does some things that the others don't. Specifically, it disables malicious ActiveX controls before they're ever installed, effectively permanently banning them from the computer. It also has a restricted site list that it adds to the host file as 127.0.0.1, blocking ads, etc. Finally, it adds a list of tracking cookie sites to the "block cookies" lists in both IE and Mozilla-based browsers. On top of all this, it doesn't have to run 24/7 in the background, so it takes no resources. Just changes a few configuration items, which allows Windows to directly block the crap itself.
The fact that it's recommended by the Spybot S&D crew certainly doesn't hurt, either."
Freeware for personal use.
"Javacool Spywareblaster, however, does some things that the others don't. Specifically, it disables malicious ActiveX controls before they're ever installed, effectively permanently banning them from the computer. It also has a restricted site list that it adds to the host file as 127.0.0.1, blocking ads, etc. Finally, it adds a list of tracking cookie sites to the "block cookies" lists in both IE and Mozilla-based browsers. On top of all this, it doesn't have to run 24/7 in the background, so it takes no resources. Just changes a few configuration items, which allows Windows to directly block the crap itself.
The fact that it's recommended by the Spybot S&D crew certainly doesn't hurt, either."
Spyware Removal Checklist
Spyware Removal Checklist
1. Boot into Safe Mode with Networking (some spyware can only be removed in Safe Mode).
2. Turn off System Restore in Windows XP/ME.
3. Open Add/Remove programs and remove any application that both you and the principal user do not recognize or deem to be spyware.
4. Install a licensed antivirus product; update and run it on the infected system. (i.e. AVG, NOD, etc.)
5. Install Spybot Search & Destroy. Update and run it on the infected system.
6. Install at least two licensed anti-spyware products such as Spy Sweeper, Microsoft Anti-Spyware, Pest Patrol and/or Ad-Aware. Update and run them on the infected system.
7. Launch HijackThis and click the 'Do a system scan and save a logfile' button. Copy and paste your HijackThis log into the textbox at this URL for analysis: http://www.hijackthis.de/index.php?%20langselect=english
8. Use HijackThis to remove anything in the Nasty category.
9. Reboot and run Spybot and commercial anti-spyware products until the system is clean. You may have to run more than one, but Spy Sweeper is my personal favorite.
10. Launch Internet Explorer and browse the Web to verify Winsock was not broken while removing spyware. If you cannot browse the Web, run the LSPfix utility and perform another Web test.
11. Turn on System Restore."
From Tech Republic forum posting at: http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=4&threadID=171181&messageID=1743368
1. Boot into Safe Mode with Networking (some spyware can only be removed in Safe Mode).
2. Turn off System Restore in Windows XP/ME.
3. Open Add/Remove programs and remove any application that both you and the principal user do not recognize or deem to be spyware.
4. Install a licensed antivirus product; update and run it on the infected system. (i.e. AVG, NOD, etc.)
5. Install Spybot Search & Destroy. Update and run it on the infected system.
6. Install at least two licensed anti-spyware products such as Spy Sweeper, Microsoft Anti-Spyware, Pest Patrol and/or Ad-Aware. Update and run them on the infected system.
7. Launch HijackThis and click the 'Do a system scan and save a logfile' button. Copy and paste your HijackThis log into the textbox at this URL for analysis: http://www.hijackthis.de/index.php?%20langselect=english
8. Use HijackThis to remove anything in the Nasty category.
9. Reboot and run Spybot and commercial anti-spyware products until the system is clean. You may have to run more than one, but Spy Sweeper is my personal favorite.
10. Launch Internet Explorer and browse the Web to verify Winsock was not broken while removing spyware. If you cannot browse the Web, run the LSPfix utility and perform another Web test.
11. Turn on System Restore."
From Tech Republic forum posting at: http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=4&threadID=171181&messageID=1743368
BHODemon
SpywareInfo :· BHODemon
From TechRepublic article at: http://techrepublic.com.com/5102-10595-5635123.html
"To get rid of and prevent malicious Internet Explorer BHOs, I use BHODemon. While Windows XP Service Pack 2's Internet Explorer includes a similar offering under its Manage Add-ons feature, I prefer BHODemon. Not everyone uses Windows XP, and, more important, BHODemon prevents BHOs from installing and activating.
BHODemon displays whatever Spybot Search & Destroy doesn't remove, and you can choose which BHOs to enable or disable. After installation, BHODemon starts up automatically, preventing hostile BHOs from installing in real time and closing the door on adware and spyware code that might have piggybacked onto other software installations."
From TechRepublic article at: http://techrepublic.com.com/5102-10595-5635123.html
"To get rid of and prevent malicious Internet Explorer BHOs, I use BHODemon. While Windows XP Service Pack 2's Internet Explorer includes a similar offering under its Manage Add-ons feature, I prefer BHODemon. Not everyone uses Windows XP, and, more important, BHODemon prevents BHOs from installing and activating.
BHODemon displays whatever Spybot Search & Destroy doesn't remove, and you can choose which BHOs to enable or disable. After installation, BHODemon starts up automatically, preventing hostile BHOs from installing in real time and closing the door on adware and spyware code that might have piggybacked onto other software installations."
Tuesday, April 05, 2005
CounterSpy
CounterSpy
BestBuy in PC World's April 2005 "Spyware Stoppers" article: http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,119572,00.asp
"Posted the highest detection rate in our tests. Offers a wide range of real-time protection, including script blocking and preventing infections from the addition of Browser Helper Objects."
BestBuy in PC World's April 2005 "Spyware Stoppers" article: http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,119572,00.asp
"Posted the highest detection rate in our tests. Offers a wide range of real-time protection, including script blocking and preventing infections from the addition of Browser Helper Objects."
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