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The LangaList
Standard Edition

2001-06-21

A Free Email Newsletter from Fred Langa
That Helps You Get More From Your Hardware, 
Software, and Time Online

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1) Readers Reply Re: Alternative and Backup Power

Last issue's discussion of surge suppressors, Uninterruptable Power Supplies (UPSes), and alternative power sources for extended blackouts brought some excellent email. Thanks to all who wrote! Here's a sampling:

Fred, First, Thanks for your great newsletter! Your latest "list" talks about power conditioning devices and raises some questions:
1. If I have unprotected phone or cable connections aren't they "back door" paths for a spike to enter my computer, even if my power strip is unplugged from the house current?
2. In my case I do have a surge protector that claims protection for the phone and cable, If I unplug the strips power cord from the wall outlet, how does that affect the coverage of my communication lines. (maybe a power and/or ground path is needed for the protection to work on the non power lines?).---Chuck Brotman

Phone/LAN surge protectors help, and my office UPSes do have connectors to protect my LAN and phone cabling as well as the power lines. But, whether stand-alone or built into a power conditioner, phone/LAN surge protectors are subject to exactly the same limits as the plain vanilla power-line protectors. The only way to be as safe as possible is to unplug *everything." I'll do that when there are truly severe storms in the area, but--- to be honest--- for most routine storms and electrical problems, I leave them plugged in. It's a judgment call, but so far-- in 20 years of computer use--- I haven't lost a system yet. 8-)

Fred: A valuable tool for Southern Californians is Guy Campbell's "Blackout Alarm". This won't help generate power, but for those of us in Southern California this will provide some advance warning of rolling blackouts. Go to Guy Campbell's page and download his "Blackout Alarm" program. I'm in Law Enforcement and this information is vital for us in deployment of resources. We get telephone calls from SCE prior to a blackout, but I get earlier notice using Guy's tool. http://cislab.moorpark.cc.ca.us/gcampbell/ ---Kevin Piper

Nice, Kevin. Although the tool doesn't do me much good on the other side or North America, the many readers in the California area will thank you. <g>

Hi Fred: I'm a new Plus subscriber and I resisted the urge to go from "free" to "pay" for awhile, but I'm happy to say I did. The extra info alone is well worth the $10. Anyways, I just read your latest edition about surge protectors.... I'm a technology coordinator for a newly built middle school on the island of Kauai in Hawaii. I ordered APC Surgestations for the entire school last summer when we opened and those $30 surge protectors just saved us about $3,000. We just had a really bad electrical storm the other week... Turns out the storm somehow fried out that surge protector to the point that it was actually burnt! A noticeable odor came from the unit and in fact, you could even see soot marks where each electrical cord was plugged in! The power button was also burnt and black charred pieces of plastic or whatever came out when you turned it over. When I saw that I thought there was no way that the computer and printer could have survived but lo and behold, I replaced the surge protector with another one and they both booted up with no apparent problems! I was truly amazed and thankful that I spent a little more on getting a real surge protector instead of those cheapie outlets. I'm saving that surge protector for next school year to show our teachers how important these things are. Thanks for a great newsletter and keep up the good work! ---Aloha, Kevin Matsunaga

Lightning's power is awesome. And that probably wasn't even a nearby hit: A hit miles away can cause damage like that.

Hi Fred: I mostly work off a laptop, even at home. If I understand things  right, one of laptop's advantage is built-in UPS: the mains only feed the battery charger--- no direct coupling between incoming power and rest of system. --- Alan Campbell

That's correct; a laptop's battery can act as backup power. But note that laptops normally have no surge protection. The built-in battery protects you from power outages, but not other electrical hazards. A sufficient surge would at least fry your power brick, and might also feed excess voltage past the transformer to your laptop's guts. All PCs--- even laptops--- should have surge protectors. In fact, I also have surge protectors on my entertainment center and TV; a good surge protector is good insurance for *any* expensive electrical gear!

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2) More On Windows XP's "Raw Sockets"

In "Bad Site Improves; Good Site Gets Attacked" ( http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2001/2001-06-14.htm#1 ) I mentioned that Steve Gibson had written about "some very disturbing information about the way the forthcoming Microsoft XP implements a kind of "Socket" service. In the page at http://grc.com/dos/winxp.htm, Steve lays out a fairly convincing case that XP will be the 'Denial of Service Exploitation Tool of Choice for Internet Hackers Everywhere.'"

Several readers found contrary evidence: For example, Charles Patterson sent in a pointer to an article harshly critical of Gibson:

Steve's site is apparently not taken seriously by many... The Register, which I get and sometimes find interesting, displays the following regarding XP:

Security geek developing WinXP raw socket exploit:
Has Steve Gibson finally lost his mind?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/19623.html

This attitude seems to mirror Microsoft's own off-handedness.

Thanks, Charles. NTBugTraq featured similar information. But I believe the problem with arguments like The Register's, or NTBugTraq's is that they get caught up in the tech details and suffer a form of mass-market myopia:

Steve's argument can be summed up this way: Windows is the world's dominant consumer OS, used by all kinds of people from pocket-protector geeks down to utter newbies. No hugely popular *CONSUMER* operating system has ever had this Raw Socket capability. Steve asks: What happens when the majority of computer users, including huge numbers of technically unsophisticated users, have Raw Sockets for the very first time, as provided by XP? What happens when the warez sites offer simple point-and-click 'bot scripts that can turn an average XP-equipped pc into a 'zombie agent?'

Yes, the raw socket problems can be cured by outbound packet filtering, but do you think Mr or Ms Average User is going to be able to figure out what's going on when some teen cracker takes over their system? Do you think Mr or Ms Average User will say "Gosh! I better enable outbound packet filtering!" 8-)

Able, alert, and proactive ISPs can pick up some of the slack by looking for and filtering obviously-spoofed IP addresses, and I'm sure some ISPs will do just that. But I'm also equally sure that there are many, many ISPS that do not qualify as "able, alert, and proactive," and they probably won't do much at all. And there are other exploits that Raw Sockets enable that even a good ISP will be hard pressed to identify and stop.

The people who blow off this threat say things likes "Linux already has raw sockets, and we don't see any huge abuse." But remember, Linux is used by the more technically adept members of the computing community, and it's installed base is still tiny, percentage-wise, with something like <5% market share in *consumer* systems.

The issue is: What happens when XP delivers Raw Sockets to the masses?

You can see new info Steve has added to his site about this topic at http://grc.com/dos/winxp.htm#egress .

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3) Search Bar 1.1

Remember "Search Bar," a very cool little utility by reader Patrick Deal?  It's a free custom search bar for your desktop that lets you instantly access any of 6 major search engines without having to first open your browser. Search Bar was first released to Plus! subscribers, and later to readers of the Standard Edition. (See http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2001/2001-04-05.htm#1  )

Well, Patrick has a new version--- still free--- that I've downloaded and installed. A while ago, this new version also was released to Plus! subscribers, but now it's available to everyone.

Here's what Patrick says about it:

I have added lots of new features and changed a few things around to make Search Bar even better.

Here's a list of all the new features and changes I've made

a.. A search history (and of course, a way to clear it)
b.. A much easier way to choose the default search engine
c.. If you don't want to choose a default search engine, you can set SearchBar to remember the last search engine used
d.. Choose if you want to keep Search Bar on top of all windows
e.. A "Website" search engine. Type a url like http://members.home.com/searchbar, select the "Website" search engine and Search Bar will take you to that site.
f.. You can choose which web browser you want to use with Search Bar. If Internet Explorer is set as the default web browser for Windows, you can choose to use Netscape or pretty much any other web browser with Search Bar.
g.. Option to double click on Search Bar to minimize
h.. When you first start Search Bar, or restore it, the Search For box is already active so you can start typing right away. (This was something that really bugged me when I used the old version)
i.. Fixed a problem when the Large Fonts option in Windows was enabled
j.. On some systems, Search Bar wouldn't remember its position between uses. This should be fixed.

Many of the new features were suggested by users. I also created an entirely new (and I think much better looking) website for this update. One new thing on the website is a Donations page. Search Bar is still totally free. A couple people have asked to give me donations and so I set the page up so anyone can give me a donation if they want to. The site can still be found at http://go.to/searchbar and http://members.telocity.com/dealpa/index2.html .

Thanks, Patrick. I like the updated version; it's now a permanent addition to my desktop. 8-)

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4) The Classic On/Off Question Returns

New reader Laurie Dipietro is trying to sort out conflicting advice:

Dear Fred:  I'm told by a programmer friend of mine that it is hard on the hard drive to turn the computer off every night. Due to the power problems the campaign in California is turn off the computers. I'm still waiting for my husband to comment on the power bill having left it on all month. My father says leave the computer on but turn the monitor off because that's what draws all the power. So what to do? Turn it off or leave it on?

*Rapid* on/off cycling is hard on equipment, but PCs today are built to power down (or off) in stages and more gently. Letting your PC work as it's designed to will save energy and avoid needless wear and tear.

With hard drives, the main issue today is mechanical wear. In modern PCs with normal settings, most hard drives spin themselves down after 30-60 minutes of inactivity, even if the rest of the PC is in use. (This explains some delays you may see when you're trying to use a PC that's been idle for a while; it takes a few seconds for the hard drive to spin back up.) But despite this minor annoyance, spinning down is normally a good thing: it saves energy and prevents unnecessary wear and tear on the drive's mechanical bearings.

With other components, "thermal cycling" used to be a major issue. As a PC's components heated and cooled, various parts would expand and contract, and some socketed chips could literally work themselves loose over time through a process called "thermal creep." As a result, old PCs did better if you left them on and at a single stable temperature. But motherboards and components today have few socketed chips (almost everything's soldered in place) so thermal creep is largely a thing of the past.

So, I use these rules of thumb:

I have several levels of power-saving settings, starting with the monitor suspending after 15 minutes of inactivity, the hard drive spinning down 15 minutes later, and the PC going into deep suspend 30 minutes after that.

If a PC needs to be available at short notice; or needs to be on so automatic self-maintenance can occur; I leave the PC in deep suspend mode. This way, it draws little power, but can be awakened by things such as a scheduled maintenance event or someone tapping the keyboard or mouse.

Otherwise, if a PC isn't going to be used for a couple hours, I'll shut it (and the monitor) off completely via both the front panel switch and the switch on the surge protector or UPS. Using the latter switch ensures that all power--- including the residual "parasitic drain" that's common even in PCs and monitors that are nominally off--- is stopped.

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5) Last Week To Enter June's FREE Book Drawing

Next week,  I'll choose another monthly winner of a no-strings $30 Gift Certificate for any item at Amazon.Com--- books, software, hardware, kitchenware, toys... To have a shot at winning, just use the following link to recommend the LangaList to a friend. Your friend just may find a new source of useful information; I just may gain a new subscriber; and you just may win a $30 shopping spree! (Full details also available via this link): http://www.langa.com/recommend.htm

The more times you make a recommendation, the greater your chances are of winning!

Or, if you'd like to try to win $10,000(!), try this link (full details also available here):
http://www.recommend-it.com/l.z.e?s=143182

Either way, thank you, and good luck!

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6) Instant Software Rentals; Instant Networks

"ASPs"--- application service providers--- have been around for a while, and we'll see more and more of them as time goes on. But I'd never seen a site quite like this with both an enterprise/IT slant AND an end-user focus:

Zero Effort Networking is announcing "instant" virtual private networks and software rentals of hundreds of popular titles including Microsoft Office 2000 Suites.

Subscribers go to http://www.zeroen.com , enter a credit card, and begin using the software in minutes - on a Window 2000 Virtual Desktop.

Over 300 popular applications are available including Microsoft  Office 2000 (all versions), Exchange 2000, Outlook, PowerPoint, FrontPage, PhotoDraw, Publisher, Access, ACT!, GoldMine 5.0, Cash Plan Pro, Flow!, VersaPro 50 State US Payroll, and over 100 learning courses.

Exchange 2000 and Microsoft Outlook provide Email solutions and collaboration.

A virtual "home" drive provides secure storage for the user's personal files. Files can also be stored on the user's local machine....

Zero Effort Networking manages the network and provides regular backups of the data. Software upgrades are installed immediately to ensure that users have access to the latest versions of all programs....

The ability to store files locally eliminates one of my major issues with online software rental: I simply don't want to trust blindly that someone else will back up my material. (It's great if they do, but I'd want to do it for myself as well.)

But there also are potential security concerns with sending the data to/from the online site; and storing it where someone else--- unknown to you---potentially has access to it. And then there's always the issue of "what do you do when the network goes down?" If the network, remote site or your ISP has a problem, you're dead in the water: You can't work locally on your own system, as you can with locally installed software.

And there are pricing issues: Although software rental could be a money saver in some cases, it also could end up being significantly more expensive than normal purchase in others. For example, it costs $50 to sign up for the service as a whole, plus $40 per month (per user), plus a charge for each software package you want to use. MS Office 2000 Professional, for example, costs $30/mo to use on top of the other charges. You can currently buy a standalone retail copy of Office 2K Pro for a little over $300, or what you'd pay to rent the software for 5 months or less. Adding in your costs for installation, maintenance and such makes the rental look a bit better, but the costs still add up. You'll have to figure out the cost/benefit ratios for your own unique circumstances.

But in any case, this site in particular is an interesting example of the "consumerization" of the ASP market, and as such is probably a sign of things to come.

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7) They Loaded The Code

Do you have a home page or website? (It doesn't matter what size.) Please click over to http://www.langa.com/code.htm , and maybe you can join the hundreds and hundreds of LangaList readers who have "Loaded the Code!" (If you've already "Loaded The Code" and are wondering if your site will appear here or on the Langa.Com web site, please see http://www.langa.com/link.txt )
Speaking of which: Here's another eclectic sample of reader sites--- some professional, some very personal:

View A Randomly-Chosen Reader Site
http://www.langa.com/randomlink.htm

Manually Browse All Posted-to-Date Sites Starting At
http://www.langa.com/readersites.htm

WildBlueYonder Visual Communications (Australia)
http://members.optushome.com.au/wildblue/

Creative Woodworking
http://www.jmcw.com/products.htm

Central (Dawson's) Creek Awards
http://www.geocities.com/ccawards/

XPeaceX iRC (Chat) Network
http://xpeacex.com/

Tall Toad Music
http://www.talltoad.com/links.htm

"Fun, entertainment, news and info"
http://www.starspath.com/

MidWest PC
http://www.midwestpcsystems.com/

R&R Crafts
http://r-rcrafts.hypermart.net/

MDTHOMAS NETWORKING & PC REPAIR
http://mdthomas.xitami.net

Bowler's Excuses
http://www.geocities.com/stcutillo/bowling.html

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8) New Firewall Contender?

Writing from Switzerland, reader "Bodo" says:

hi fred, I'm a longtime reader of your langalist (and now also langalistplus). I want to lead you to a new and imho very powerful firewall called "Outpost". Its a piece of software designed by "agnitum" at http://www.agnitum.com/products/outpost/  and direct download http://members.nbci.com/bojammer/files/outpost.exe

Its still in Beta-Status and free. One special point: the support of the outpost developers is (for me a big surprise!) very good. They give direct advices and help on their own ( http://www.agnitum.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=31 ) and on some other security-related bulletin-boards and try to help everybody who asks by mail...

Outpost is very user-friendly, either if you are novice or advanced user of security-systems.

The homepage of Outpost is now still in Russian, but I think Outpost is such a feature-rich and well done firewall-system that I have to announce it to you. Give it a try. It's worth. And the best its free!

Thanks, Bodo. It is beta--- unfinished software--- and the home page is indeed a little daunting if you can't read Russian <g>; but the software installation and BBS/support forum is in English. The BBS also is starting to garner praise from (so far mostly) European users. I hope to test drive Outpost soon!

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9) Just For Grins

Reader Paul sends this along:

Work Vs Prison

IN PRISON you spend the majority of your time in an 8x10 cell.
AT WORK you spend most of your time in a 6x8 cubicle.

IN PRISON you get three meals a day.
AT WORK you only get a break for 1 meal and you have to pay for it.

IN PRISON you get time off for good behaviour.
AT WORK you get rewarded for good behaviour with more work.

IN PRISON a guard locks and unlocks all the doors for you.
AT WORK you must carry around a security card and unlock and open all the doors yourself.

IN PRISON you can watch TV and play games.
AT WORK you get fired for watching TV and playing games.

IN PRISON you get your own toilet.
AT WORK you have to share.

IN PRISON they allow your family and friends to visit.
AT WORK you cannot even speak to your family and friends.

IN PRISON all expenses are paid by taxpayers with no work required.
AT WORK you get to pay all the expenses to go to work and then they deduct taxes from your salary to pay for prisoners.

IN PRISON you spend most of your life looking through bars from the inside wanting to get out.
AT WORK you spend most of your time wanting to get out and inside bars.

IN PRISON there are wardens who are often sadistic.
AT WORK they are called managers.

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10) Free Tool To Let You Avoid Downloading Unwanted Emails;
A Different (and free) ">>>>>>" Stripper;
Free DOS Memory Tester;
A Good Use For Old PCs;
Updated Image Preview Repairer...

Today's LangaList Plus! Edition contains all the items above, plus LOTS more content including: a free tool that lets you view just the headers of your email so you can remotely delete any junk or unwanted messages without having to download them first (a real benefit to those on a slow connection!); another tool that provides a different way to strip those pesky ">>>>>" from forwarded emails; a different free DOS memory tester; and an updated script for repairing broken "Image Previews;" and more. Whew!

Plus! Edition info: http://www.langa.com/plus.htm 

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See you next issue!

Best,

Fred
(fred@langa.com)

Please recommend the LangaList to a friend! (And maybe win $10,000!I)

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