Archive for February 2004

On Valentine’s Day 2004, we woke up to a white wonderland. Big flakes came down, kids every where built real snow people (don’t want to be accused of prejudiced against snow women).

I just started noticing that the feeds are showing up in NewsGator with style included. Fetchlinks, a plug-in is what did it. I’m glad I had the chance to experience this so I could see for myself how well having RSS style works.

Every feed looking the same has been one of the complaints about RSS. Now that I’ve experienced it. Here are my thoughts:

It slows scanning.

When an entry appears, so does the whole Web site look. RSS programs are similar to email programs and have three frames or so. The frame where the content appears is now dominated “above the fold” with the header of the Web site. So, I have to scroll down to read the entry.

It takes longer for an entry to load with style than plain ol’ text.

Some entries don’t have a link to the article on the Web site. What if I want to share it with others? I had to work harder to find the link. Yes, I can email with NewsGator, but I didn’t want to do it that way in this case.

Sounds like it is time for aggregators to provide a text only vs. HTML option.

Network World Fusion has a good article on how cascading sheets function. Get insight into CSS Level 1, Level 2, and 2.1.

And while we’re on the topic of doing cool stuff with CSS, W3C has posted a way to do a drop shadow using divs.

I talked with Mike Healan, the editor of SpywareInfo, a resource providing the latest spyware threats, forums, and links to related articles and information so that your system can stay free and clean.

Mike has a dedicated server in Atlanta which hosts spywareinfo.com/net/org, merijn.org, tomcoyote.org, dogreader.com and mikehealan.com. On Feb 6, there were a few sporadic DDoS attacks that were easily filtered out.

On Feb 11th about 8am, several hundred PCs infected with some sort of trojan started hammering the server with bogus traffic to port 80 (HTTP). Mike’s web host started blocking IPs trying to open too many connections and brought the server up. 10 minutes later, 2,000 more PCs hit the server and knocked it down again. The data center started blocking wide ranges of IP addresses and stopped the attack again. They attacked again after that and the data center finally firewalled the IP address of the server.

On Feb 12, we switched IP addresses and brought the server back up. 2,000 – 3,000 PCs brought the server down again about 15 minutes later.

On the 13, Mike moved tomcoyote.org to hostpc.com and merijn.org to xblock.com. He put out a newsletter using tomcoyote.org explaining what was going on and asking for some donations to help cover costs. The next day, several thousand PCs attacked merijn.org and knocked down merijn and xblock. Several thousand more hit tomcoyote.org and knocked it down along with one of hostpc’s servers. Both sites are still down, xblock is back up and the status of hostpc is up in the air.

On Feb 18, the crew put up two proxy servers that pulled data from the server in Atlanta and used a “round robin” DNS failover system to load balance traffic between the two proxies. Spywareinfo was running again and dogreader was partially working the next day. The bad guys hit the servers with about 2,000 PCs and the proxies lasted about 36 hours before they were knocked offline. Both servers have been shut down by their data centers.

On the 19th, the meanies also attacked Net-Integration.net, which hosts the support forums for Spybot S&D. A lot of the moderators and helpers at SWI are also admins or moderators for that support board. N-I is back up.

Update on NI: the attack on Net-Integration was unrelated to the attack on SpywareInfo. It was just a regular script kiddie IRC packet attack that didn’t last very long.

That’s where they currently stand.

Starting tonight or tomorrow (hopefully), spywareinfo will have dozens (maybe hundreds) of redundant proxy servers provided by a new corporate sponsor (that can’t be named yet). They will provide however many servers and IP addresses it takes to keep the site running in exchange for a newsletter plug and an ad on the main site.

At this point, we don’t know who is resonsible or what they’re using. There is a suspect, but we can’t prove it yet.

One guy wrote to say his firewall was logging an enormous number of connections to Mike’s site and he couldn’t figure out why. He contacted Norton’s tech support and they said they were also showing something making connections to his site, so we may be about to get our hands on whatever they are using.

He has been in touch with the FBI about this, but they’re playing phone tag. Unfortunately, he’s used up $2,500 so far, hostpc about $1,400, xblock at least $2,000 plus some losses for their other customers on their server. Lord knows what it’s going to cost overall.

Mike appreciates all the support from his readers and from other antispyware companies. Donations (or plug paypal@spywareinfo.com into paypal) are appreciated as these are free resource sites that have to pay their bills like everyone else.

Thanks to Chance for bringing the situation to my attention.

I believe if everyone had one of those “beat up your computer” dolls for taking out your computer problem aggravation on the doll instead of your computer, then they’d all look like they were hit by a truck. After calming down and finding your center, PC Annoyances is the nice tech support technician that s ready and willing to help resolve those @#*$ problems without giving you backtalk or the runaround.

Before getting this book, I had wondered if it was going to focus on Microsoft products such as Outlook for e-mail, Word, and Windows. It does, but not as much as I originally thought. The e-mail section starts with a chapter of general e-mail annoyances for different e-mail clients followed by Outlook, AOL, Eudora, and Hotmail with their own chapters. Section two is Windows and it refers to Windows XP more than anything else, but there is help for other versions.

The Internet earns its own section with Internet Explorer appearing often along with references to a couple of other browsers, Google, and Instant Messaging. The Microsoft Office section helps squash Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Outlook Express annoyances. No Access or FrontPage annoyances are included, but that’s OK. I find most of my problems are not with the latter two. Get faster and more effective with Bass’ Windows Explorer tips including how to delete a file it refuses to delete and speeding up file search.

I benefit the most from the Music, Videos, and CDs section since it’s an area I barely touch. Not only does it advise on dealing with multimedia, but also it discusses CD and DVD questions and concerns. I’ve thought about the CD nudging issue, which is when you gently push the CD tray to close it, but I never researched it. Bass answers the big question on whether to nudge or not to nudge.

PC Annoyances is not only about the problems you cross, but also things you may have never even considered. Those with a notebook computer who wish it came with a docking station can still make it dockable even if it’s a standalone notebook.

A couple of issues with the otherwise fine book; it has a ton of links (with most pages having more than two links). This is risky because URLs change faster than military personnel mailing addresses. It also provides links to ” for the fun of it” sites, a common source of complaints based on my writing experience. These resources take up a tiny space on the side of the page.

Some references are to paid products, which to some is annoying. However, I’ve never been one to knock recommendations for non-free products because I believe if we like something, it’s good to let others know about it. If it’s in print, it durn well better be a good recommendation.

You’re a geek asking if you can find the answers on your own. Probably. But do you have the time it takes to find it? Probably not. Between the spouse and me (hardware and software geeks), we are learning a few good tricks from the book.

The book’s format lends itself to quick and easy scanning with side notes in the light red shaded area on the sides of the pages, useful screen shots, and boxes with tidbits. The book is just 177 pages, enough for you to find the tips you need without the needle in the haystack problem.

VITAL STATISTICS:
TITLE: PC Annoyances
AUTHOR: Steve Bass
PUBLISHER: O’Reilly & Associates
PUBLICATION DATE: October 2003
ISBN: 0596005938
FORMAT: Paperback
PAGES: 176
PRICE: US$19.95

From Freeware Arena Messageboard: Yahoo is using “Web Beacons” to track Yahoo users around the Internet to see what you’re doing and where you are going, similar to cookies. They also track out outside the Yahoo arena. Check out the updated privacy statement. [ Via William A Ford ]

“Adam@home” is a comic strip that has joined Microsoft’s new campaign to help aging computer users user accessible technology. Its cartoonist, Brian Basset, understands what it’s like as he indicated when he reached 40 he got “drawing glasses” otherwise known as reading glasses.

He has drawn a series of cartoons providing tips on how to use Windows XP to overcome the challenges when turning a certain age. Microsoft is A-OK with people copying, printing, and reproducing these cartoons. Nice move, MS!

The polls are open for the SC Awards, which focus on information security in various topics such as access control, anti-spam, anti-virus (AV), business continuity, and much more. Readers have the opportunity to vote in each product category and the top five receiving the most votes will move on to the next level.

I took a look at the anti-spam list and I’m not impressed. A few of the listed programs especially Mailmarshall and Mailsweeper have TERRIBLE filtering systems. As a person who does newsletters, I see what gets bounced back and these programs are off the mark. I regretted purchasing Spamkiller after a few months of use. Oh sure, I did the trial period and it was fine during then, but it got worse later.

I know who is NOT getting my vote on anti-virus. Hints: 1, 2, 3, 4

These awards are going to be a challenge on which to vote because these aren’t the type of products where you’ll try a bunch of different ones before picking one. I’ll just be voting in a handful of categories.

One of the things I struggled with while using Web sites to see if they were worth a nomination was forms. Some refuse to work with the tabs. Others required data to be entered just so. For instance, phone numbers: you enter 555-555-5555, but no, it wants (555)555-5555 not (555) 555-5555 or (555) 5555555 or anything of that. It MUST be parenthesis around the area code, no space between numbers, and a dash between the NXX and last four digits. Still others required too much work to complete.

Then there are forms that go blank when you “go back” or miss something and it sends you back. You have to keep filling it all over again until you get it right and it’s not your fault because the precise instructions aren’t anywhere to be found or the form is cluttered.

Simple Tricks for More Usable Forms provides how to make the cursor appear in the first box, adding labels to enhance usability, putting focus on the current field, and validating the form. [ Originally posted in InformIT ]

Molly Holzschlag addresses the integration of structure and presentation using CSS in this article, a first in a monthly series that she will write for InformIT. Get an overview of the six types of style sheets for managing a document’s layout. Yes, six. Most of us know there are inline, linked, and embedded style sheets, but do you know the other three?

Separate structure from presentation. That’s the war cry from experts and Web designers. Get the inside story on why it’s a good move to follow this rule. Also, we rarely think about the whole meaning behind the C as in cascading. No matter what you do, the reader can overrule your CSS rules since the reader’s style sheets get top priority.