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The LangaList
Standard Edition

2005-09-05

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

Please visit our sponsors and help keep the LangaList S.E. free!

1) Free Diagnostic Tool

Fred, As a relatively new subscriber to your Plus edition I find your articles extremely helpful and am looking forward for each new issue. There is some problem which has been bugging me for some time and I was hoping you could advise: Is there any utility to monitor the Windows OS and automatically record the reason for any crashes or freezes of the software currently running on that PC? (recovering the "stuck" application would also be nice...). I guess this issue might be important to many PC users which wonder why this or that software has crashed and if they can do anything about it. best regards, edi

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;308538
http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-q=dr+watson&sp-a=0008002a-sp00000000
http://www.computerhope.com/software/drwatson.htm
http://www.google.com/search?q=dr+watson+microsoft

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2) What's Causing Mystery Downloads?

Fred: I have appreciated the many helpful tips and solutions I have gotten through your newsletter. I have a recurring problem that I just cant seem to unravel. Perhaps you or your readers can offer some advice.

I am running a P4 2.4 XP Pro SP2 machine w/512mb ram. Unfortunately I am on dialup internet since there are no broadband options available where I live. I use FireFox 1.06 and Thunderbird 1.0 for my browser / email clients.

My problem is that periodically I experience extreme slowdowns in internet response times. This is evidenced by more and more frequent "time out errors" when I try to open a new url. In fact, I first tried to contact you through Langa.com but could not load it.

I know that the primary cause of this problem has something to do with bandwidth hogging. Usually when I experience this problem my cpu utilization is near zero but there is something downloading onto my computer. I can see this by watching the input statistics on my dial up connection. I see a steady inflow of data. I have no idea what program or process is causing this.

Occasionally I can see that windows update is running. Most of the time, however, it is not. Anyway, I thought processes like Windows Update were supposed to be well behaved and get the heck out of the way when other programs needed bandwidth.
I have looked for a utility that could track and report on my internet connection traffic in real time. One that could tell me, if possible, what program or process was pulling the data downline, where it was coming from ( IP address - maybe some whois type info ), and where it was going on my hard drive ( file info ). Any or all of that information would at least give me a start in figuring out who or what the culprit was so I could figure out how to control it or at least what questions to ask and who to ask them of. I have tried some packet sniffers and file monitors but they just flood you with data that I'm not able to decipher. I haven't found any utility that would do what I need in an understandable format.

I would really appreciate any suggestions on how to pursue a solution to this problem. It has become increasingly frustrating and I've been fighting with it for months - basically ever since I switched to FireFox. I  haven't found any discussion of similar user experiences on the FireFox help forums. I'm just stuck. Thanks, Jim Hawley

There are a several relatively quick ways to try to track this down, Jim. First, you might try something like ZoneAlarm: In the "Program Control" tab, it places a green dot next to any software it knows is actively online. When a mystery download is happening, you could use ZA to see what's active, and then to disallow internet access to the online programs, one by one. When you disallow whatever software is actively pulling data, the download will suddenly stop.

You can do something similar, but with less precision, with Task Manager (ctrl-alt-del, in XP): When the mystery download is taking place, open task manager and see what applications and processes are running. If you're feeling adventurous, you can try killing specific apps or processes to see which one is handling the download. Or, make a note of what's running, and compare that list to what's shown at a time when you're not online and/or there's no mystery download running. In this way, you can try to identify what's behind the mystery download.

Or: When you see a mystery download taking place, stop what you're doing, and wait for the download to complete. Then use the normal Windows "Search" function. Search "all files and folders," and use the Advanced menus to search everywhere, including system, hidden and subfolders; and use the "Specify date" function to enter today's date as both the start and end dates for the search (IOW, to confine the search to just today's files). When the search stops, sort the results by time and date. With luck, the mystery download will show up as the very newest file, or at least one of the newest files. Once you can see what it was and where it is, you may be able to figure out what triggered the download in the first place.

What might it be? It's possible that you have some kind of phone-home malware activity going on; but any of the better anti-malware tools we've discussed in the past can help you there.

But odds are, it'll turn out to be some kind of routinely scheduled update check--- something like an antivirus, anti-malware, or something similar that's set to check from time to time for updates and new versions. (You already saw Windows Update doing this.) Most such tools can be adjusted so as not to interfere with your surfing; perhaps simply by turning off auto-updates altogether. Then, of course, you have to remember to do manual update checks, but that might be preferable to having your surfing trashed by heavy background activity.

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--- ( Your Clicks On Ad Links Help Keep The LangaList S.E. Free! ) ---

"Who ever said that you get what you pay for? This is *more.*
Thank you for the best tech letter on the net."
---Joseph Goldman, Plus! subscriber

Thanks, Joseph!

I recently expanded the Plus! edition, too. It now contains about 40% more content than the Standard Edition, and--- as always--- it's ad-free, spam-proof, available in multiple formats; and it arrives earlier than the Standard Edition, so Plus! readers get first crack at downloads.

And it's still only about $1 a month.

Get all the details:
http://langa.com/plus.htm

--------------( the above is an advertisement )--------------

3) Context Menu Helper

A "Context Menu" is a menu that applies in a specific situation, or "context." Unlike standardized Windows menus (file, edit, view, etc.), context menus are usually right-click things, and they can change a lot, depending on what you're clicking on. (More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Context_menu )

When content menus work properly, they're great time-savers. When they break, they're a PITA. <g> But here's help:

Fred, You have covered before the excellent utilities developed by Nir Sofer ( http://www.nirsoft.net/  -note new URL). However, I don't think that you have mentioned ShellExView. If you find that your Windows Explorer is misbehaving (crashing, freezing, reluctant to let you do right-click and display properties), it's probably caused by context menu handlers misbehaving ( http://windowsxp.mvps.org/slowrightclick.htm ). Using Nir's ShellExView ( http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html ) you can find which context menu handlers you have, isolate them one by one and then find the culprit. It certainly worked for me. ---John Alvey

Thanks, John! Yes, we've covered some of the other Nirsoft offerings in the past ( http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-q=nirsoft&sp-a=0008002a-sp00000000 ); lots of good stuff there!

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4) Reader Finds Good Spam Solution

Fred, You... mentioned the problem of spam filters blocking some of your emails. I consider these false positives a serious problem - they have effected my own personal email as well as my business email. I thought I would tell you about my experience with two different web and email hosting services. If you publish this letter, I am not sure what your policy is about publishing the names of services providers - I hope you do so your other readers can benefit from my experience. I have decided to disguise the name of the service provider I am unhappy with.

I had been using one service (let's call them Gomommy.com) for web and email hosting for several years. They had good prices, good features, good support - what more could you ask for? But over the last year or so, I started getting more and more reports of bounced emails. I would get notes from newsletters I had subscribed to saying that I was being dropped because emails to my address were bouncing. When I was lucky, these termination emails, coming from a different source, would get through, so I could re-subscribe from a different address. When I talked to Gomommy tech support, they always blamed the sender, and referred me to Spamhaus as the source of much of their blocking lists. I also had individual emails from some of my small business's customers rejected - and this is pretty much the kiss of death for customer relations. In these cases, Gomommy said "the servers sending the email must have a virus."

I finally determined I had to find a better solution. Unfortunately, most service providers include the "service" of blocking spam, and many use Spamhaus as well. I finally found one that let's ME decide what spam blocking features I want to use, and let's me disable all of them if I want. The service I am now using is Powweb. It is a little more expensive than Gomommy, but I am now receiving some newsletters I have not seen in months! I have disabled their use of Spamhaus's lists for my accounts. I do use a spam-blocking feature they offer called grey-listing - this rejects email from a new source with a "try again later" message - and most spam senders don't bother. I can see lots of spam blocked using this feature, on the Powweb control panel.

The Powweb setup is a little more complicated than Gomommy - you need to be a little more technical - but it is very flexible.

Powweb also actually TELLS me about occasional outages - something Gomommy never did. (Gomommy would not even ADMIT problems when I called.) And Powweb has an active customer community that provides help and support. I should say that some customers have published complaints about support, billing, and availability in these forums - but I have had good experience in the few months I have been on Powweb. Most of the complaints seem to be 6 to 12 months old, or more, so they may have had some service problems that have gotten fixed.

I do use a free spam blocker on my own PC, called K9 from Keir.net - you may have talked about it in the past. I find it does an excellent job of blocking spam - altho I am not getting any more via Powweb than I was via Gomommy. I think grey-listing is doing most of the work.

Anyway, I hope you can publish some of this, and I hope your readers find this information useful as they choose web and email service providers. ---Dan Kronstadt

Thanks, Dan. Although no one solution will work for everyone, the more options people know about, the better.

In my own case, I need the control that local filtering gives me--- server- or ISP-level filtering just isn't up to the task of handling the variety of mail I get. The times I've tried it, there were way too many false positives--- good mail getting tossed in the trash--- than was acceptable.

But when you find something that works *for you*, hang on to it! <g> 

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5) Dead Drive Safe To Send To Vendor?

Hi Fred, I have a problem - not unique - that I don't recall seeing a solution for in your wonderful newsletter, namely wiping personal data from a non-functional hard drive that must be returned in reasonable condition. (In other words, I can't simply destroy it physically.)

The story: I bought a Dell computer in December; the hard drive failed this week and was promptly replaced. According to Dell, the service contract specifies that I must return the failed drive; if I don't do so within three weeks, I'll be charged for the defective drive. This is insult on top of injury: Apart from the inconvenience, I've had to pay a technician to reinstall Windows XP, since Dell's service plan simply installs the new drive and then abandons the customer.

My question: How can I wipe personal information from the defective drive before I return it? The technician I hired for the Windows installation tried to slave the drive but couldn't recover data from it; my back-ups are good enough so that I'm not willing to pay for more advanced recovery efforts, but I assume that information could be retrieved.

Many thanks for your help - and for the Plus newsletter. ---Sarah Wernick

You're right--- data on dead and discarded drives can be recovered, and can be a real security problem.

But addressing the problem depends on what's wrong with the drive. If it's still basically usable, but just not reliable, then you can use any of many different software tools to overwrite the data on the drive repeatedly. (See link at the end of this item) Note that a reformat or even an FDISK doesn't actually erase the old data; those are NOT safe ways to make old data unrecoverable. To make the old data difficult to get at, you need to overwrite it multiple times with nonsense data. This is usually called a "security overwrite" or "security wipe." 

A security wipe is sufficient for most purposes, and is probably all you need to do. But even the multiple-overwrite technique won't be enough to secure *really* sensitive stuff. If someone wants to spend the time and money to access even heavily overwritten data, it can sometimes be done.

So: If you want total data security, you actually have to destroy the dead drive. (No, I'm not kidding.) More on this in a moment.

If the dead drive won't spin and/or can't read/write new data, there's no good way to secure it via software. You may be able to reduce readability of the data by a prolonged application of a very strong demagnetizer; but this will be spotty at best and may qualify as damaging the drive and thus void your return privileges. So, if the data on the dead drive is extremely sensitive, your only safe option is to eat the replacement cost: Keep the old drive, and physically destroy it.

For info on both approaches--- secure erasure via software, and hardware-destruction methods--- see http://www.informationweek.com/837/langa.htm

Additional software-based erasure methods and tools:
http://www.google.com/search?q=secure+erase+delete+hard+drive

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6) New Month, New Chances

It's a new month, and right now your chances are the best they'll ever be!

To have a shot at winning one of three FREE ONE YEAR SUBSCRIPTIONS to the LangaList Plus! edition that I give away each month, just use the following link to recommend the LangaList. (If your name is drawn and you're already a Plus! subscriber, your current subscription will be extended by a full year.)

Check out the details at http://langa.com/recommend.htm . Thanks for recommending the LangaList--- and good luck!

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7) Buggy Modem?

Dear Fred: Recently renewed my Plus! sub; best tech dollars I've been spending; never fail to pick up something new in just about every issue.

This one problem has been bugging me for quite some time. I've contacted the modem manufacturer twice via web tech support email and have not gotten any response (not even an acknowledgment of receipt). I have a ShuttleX machine, XP Home (SP1) with all current updates, 512 ram, 80 gig hd with loads of free space, P4 2.4 gig processor. It came with a 56K Diamond Modem, Mod. SM56LE-PCT; my system is less than a year old.

It's been working just fine until about 5 months ago. Since then the modem intermittently flashes a pop up window with the message:  "Excess line current. If problem persists, unplug phone line to avoid damage to your modem!"  The message doesn't appear every time I log on or off, only sporadically at either log on or off. Clicking on the ok button gets rid of message; the modem operates ok before or after message deletion.

I've got updated freeware Spybot and Zone Alarm, premium Counterspy, Norton AV programs; perform weekly scans; I've also done scans with System Restore disabled; system is clean ; have also done online scans with Panda and Housecall - no bugs in any event.

I've talked to local ma and pa phone company. They thought I had too many "things" sharing the same phone line and suggested plugging modem direct into wall. No effect. Modem is set at max port speed of 115,200; downloaded and using current driver from Diamond. Question: 

Can a modem measure line current, and if it can, is the modem in jeopardy? Perplexed in Yachats, Oregon, Victor D.

Well, yes, and yes. But that doesn't really solve your problem. <g>

Yes, some modems can measure line current; this is usually built in as a safety feature to prevent damage from nonstandard private office phone systems, which use different specs than standard phone lines. And yes, modems can be damaged by such systems.

But this doesn't seem to be the case with your modem; it sounds like you're using a conventional phone connection; and you get the same results even going direct to the wall rather than through an intermediate device.

This part might be too geeky--- if so, skip to the next paragraph--- but if you have an inexpensive multimeter, you actually can measure the voltage and current at the phone jack; that might be the basis of a conversation with your local phone company. For instructions and specs, see this: http://yarchive.net/phone/line_current.html  This also may help: http://www.google.com/search?q=excess+line+current+modem

If that's too geeky for you, there may be a very simple two-step alternative: First, get an uninterruptible power supply (for your PC) that also has connectors to protect the phone line. Use the UPS to power the PC, and run a phone line from the wall socket to the UPS, and from the UPS to the modem. Don't plug anything else into the modem or into the phone line between the UPS and the modem. If you need to share the phone line with other devices, use a "splitter" (costs a dollar or two at an electronics store) at the wall socket and run a separate phone line to those other devices. That, by itself, might solve the problem. But if not:

Buy a generic replacement modem that's less finicky. No, this isn't extravagant: You can get a basic 56K modem for under $20, and sometimes for under $10. (See http://langa.com/u/q.htm )

Odds are, either protecting the modem, or replacing the modem and protecting the new one, will get you online without risk to your hardware and without annoying error messages.

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8) More Reader Sites!

Do you have a home page or website? (It doesn't matter what size.) Please click over to http://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://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 From Among All Listed
http://langa.com/randomlink.htm

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

pc parts resource
http://pcpartsresource.com/index.htm

Information on learning to drive (UK)
http://www.jamesillsley.com/

Photos By Lynn
http://www.photosbylynn.com/

Lynn M. Burlbaw
http://www.coe.tamu.edu/~lburlbaw/

Parakeets
http://www.wavian.com/keet/

online encryption
http://www.main-ridge.com/

Fine Art Reproduction
http://www.reproductionfineart.com

The Temperature Sensor Newsblog / Community
http://www.tempsensor.net/

Digital DJ
http://djcrx.0catch.com/

Sanur Beach (Rentals) Bali
www.sanurbeach.net

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9) Drowning In DVDs/CDs?

After reading about how you backup your software partition every so often to new DVDs ( http://langa.com/backups/backups.htm ), I began to wonder what you do with the old ones. How do you safely get rid of the disks with all your serial number information? Thanks for a great newsletter. ---Gina Massoni

I don't get rid of the old ones; I keep 'em. One of the reasons for having backups is so that you can reach back in time for something you deleted, but later found out you needed. Since you can't really predict what you might need in the future, it can be smart to keep it all. And in some cases, it's not just smart, but necessary: Things like tax and banking records should be kept for three to seven years, for example. You may want other stuff kept long-term, too.

I have several bins full of old CDs. They're locked in a storage facility several miles from my house. The storage facility as a whole is locked; the building my stuff is in is locked and has closed-circuit TV and automatic alarms; and the specific storage room I rent (for less than $1 a day) has a metal door that's separately locked with a hefty padlock I bought myself. It's also unmarked, except for a sequential number, just like all the other storage rooms, so no one can tell what's locked inside.

So, I don't lose a lot of sleep over the stored CDs. <g> If someone breaks into the storage facility, then breaks into the building my stuff is in, and then finds and breaks into the locker containing my CDs, and then gets away before the police arrive and without being seen on camera or leaving any other evidence; and if they then figure out what to do with the boxes and boxes of CDs, most marked with nothing but a handwritten date; and if they then realize they have backups; and if they get the backups installed somehow; and if they then break the encryption I've used on the most sensitive files... well, good luck to 'em! <g>

The odds of all that happening are so low as to be negligible. It's way too much trouble for a thief to go through to try to get a free copy of XP or Word or something!

So, my advice is: Hang onto the old CDs or DVDs. Put 'em in a safe place. And don't worry about 'em.

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10) Just For Grins

In Sweden, you can rent a live human being from the library. Really!
http://larvatusprodeo.redrag.net/2005/08/26/great-swedish-ideas-56789-2/

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11) Plus! Edition Highlights:

For around just $1 per month---- pennies per issue--- you get access to over 100,000 additional words in special features, extra content and private links, all on a private web site-- - plus 40% more content in every issue! And there's a MONEY- BACK GUARANTEE from Fred. How can you go wrong?

Today's LangaList Plus! Edition contains all ten items above, plus about 40% more content including:

• Zone Alarm Advice
     (an interim fix, sort of...)
• The "KnowledgeWeb"
     (an amazing new project)
• A Fix For Stubborn DMA Problems
     (a once-and-for-all fix?)
• "Bacon-Saving Disk Tools"
     (reader-recommended solutions)

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

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(Give a gift subscription to the LangaList Plus edition!
Click <a href= " http://langa.com/plus_gift.htm ">here</a>)

The LangaList is published about 72 times a year, or about 6 times a month. See you next issue, 2005-09-12!

Best,

Fred
( Editor@Langa.Com )

Please recommend the LangaList to a friend! (And maybe win a prize!)

An easier-to read formatted HTML version is available in the "Current Issue" section of http://langa.com. (The HTML version of each issue normally is available by 9AM EST [UT-5] of the issue date.) All past LangaList issues are also available at the Langa.Com site.

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This newsletter is a service of Langa Consulting LLC and is Copyright © 2005 Fred Langa / Langa Consulting LLC. All worldwide rights reserved. LangaList: ISSN 1533-1156

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