I had a machine that I picked up to test internet connectivity. They were able to do email, but not visit web pages. My first thought was that internet explorer may have been a bit sideways, but when I got it to the workbench I figured I had solved the problem. No ethernet port. They’ve been using USB then to connect to their DSL modem. So, I plugged in a network card and tested and everything worked fine and scheduled the redelivery. But, when I got it onsite things didn’t quite work out as smoothly. Here’s the setup. A DSL modem with built in switch had a laptop hooked up via ethernet (with absolutely NO connectivity problems) and this desktop which was hooked up first via USB and now via ethernet.
Category: Computers
-
SSH, Proxies (Proxy’s?), Tor and Web Browsing
For quite some time I’ve been making use of a dd-wrt modified linksys box on my home network as an openvpn endpoint so that when I’m out and about in the world, I connect the vpn, switch firefox to route through a squid proxy server on the home network and I’ve got a nice fairly secure web browsing setup. But, as they say there’s more than one way to skin a cat. And, that’s what I’ve played around with the last couple days. First off, I guess I should describe the concept. 1) Let’s say that you’re browsing the web at an open wireless access point and you don’t trust the network or 2) let’s say you need to be able to access an intranet web server that is not accessible from the internet side of a network or scenario 3) let’s say a web site is blocking access based on ip address (for instance say you’re behind the great firewall of xyz business/company)…. how can you still manage to access the web pages you want to 3,2) at all or 1) securely with as little snooping as possible.
-
What’s the oldest working computer hardware you still have?
This is a good time of year to think about cleaning out your old electronic (junk) equipment and make room for the new. Now, I’ve had a tendency to hang onto legacy hardware longer than I should. (I’m sure I could dig up a working 5 1/4″ drive somewhere and probably a motherboard that would support it.) So, I thought I’d open this up and ask – what’s the oldest (working) computer hardware you still have?
-
Dell Mini Notebooks – Very Nice
I’ve seen these new mini notebooks and they look VERY nice. They’re about the size of a small book which makes for nice portability. It’s nice to see the small laptop form factor making a comeback. I really hope that this size laptop is around to stay for a while. I have an old Sony Vaio which is not a bad size, but most laptops are just too big to be REALLY portable.
I think this size notebook is an improvement on the concept of the PDA because it gives you more options.
-
Firefox Plugins that are sure to Make Webmasters Hate You
I’ve run across this a few places, where a webmaster actually BEGS users NOT to use a firefox plugin or addon when visiting their site. So, I thought it might be interesting to compile a list of those plugins that will have webmasters really disliking you, hating you, banning your ip because of abuse and otherwise marking you off their Christmas Card list.
-
Clever Smitfraud….
Sometimes you see a malware implementation that you have to have respect for the cleverness/ingenuity of the design. These pests can be dastardly to get rid of, but essentially this pest was occasionally popping up a “windows integrity scanner” installer. It wasn’t frequent, but it was persistent and the user was afraid that it was the gateway to other bad stuff. (That’s correct…) Anyway on inspecting the msconfig list of programs running at startup I found gsudxz.exe or some such nonsense (psuedo-random string of letters). I opted to reboot into safe mode and run the smitfraud removal tool because this looked like a typical smitfraud infection… turns out it wasn’t though.
-
Exception OE Has Occured at 0028:C004EA3A in VxD VCACHE(01)
Ugh…. you hate to see those exception OE messages. This particular one happened on an old Windows 98 machine. (Yes, I know, but they want to keep it in service if possible.) The full details are as follows
An Exception OE has Occured at 0028:C004EA3A in VxD VCACHE(01) + 0000019A. … Was Called From 0028:C004BD2E in VxD VFAT(01) + 00009CB6
For starters I loved the detail that got recorded by my client – you feel like you can sink your teeth into that much better than “my computer crashed – it gave some strange error message – could you fix it?” Of course, when I looked at it I couldn’t reproduce the error and was told that it was maybe once per day.
-
Leaky Capacitors and Computer Instability
Some time back I did an article here about leaky capacitors and linked to some really great photos of a “healthy” mainboard capacitor and “bulging” capacitors. The long-story short version is this… Once upon a time there was some corporate espionage among capacitor manufacturers. Someone had a really good electrolyte formula (the goo inside a capacitor) and the other companies wanted it. Well, what they wound up getting was not the real formula, but a fake. So… any capacitors made with the false formula will be more likely to fail. In fact, it’s as though over time the electrolyte expands causing the capacitors to bulge and in some cases leak. Why is this computer related? Because if you crack the cover of a pc and look there are dozens of electrolytic capacitors on the mainboard.
-
Malwarebytes Anti-malware
I’m usually a bit leery of new antispyware products. I do a first look at the rogue antispyware lists and just try to be as cautious as possible when moving away from the tools that I’ve tried and tested. I downloaded malwarebytes anti-malware very reluctantly to clean up a machine with “virus isolator” that nothing else seemed to be able to completely remove. It just seemed like the 10 headed hydra or something that kept coming back, so I found malwarebytes anti-malware recommended and must say it did the task quite well.
-
Strange Google Calendar Glitch with Multiple Calendars
I use Google Calendar for most everything I do. Since I have a number of different jobs I have a tendency to break things down into individual calendars. So I have my personal calendar events, my computer work, my piano schedule, Church. Each of these are in separate calendars within my Google Calendar account. So, usually when I go to add an item I get a drop down box in the dialog box that let’s me choose which calendar to put the task in.
Today that vanished.