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The LangaList
Standard Edition

2006-06-08

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!

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1) Server vs PC Software

Hi Fred, I have been reading about your suggestions on creating home servers with older or new computers. That is fine and dandy but be careful about mentioning that you have a server when you talk to various support techs and services. I mentioned that I had a server to a Norton Antivirus Tech and he told me that I had no right to use standard Norton Antivirus software on a server and I had to stop using it immediately and buy their server version which costs several hundred dollars. I would imagine this holds true with other companies too. I had to explain that it was not a business server and really try hard to convince him it was not. The tech world is so use to equating server with the business world that as a home user, if you refer to you system as a server, you could get yourself into trouble. Sincerely, Dale Ashby

Yes, Dale, servers can be a hot button item for software companies. But whether a wrong has been committed depends on how the software is used.

If you buy a single-license program and put it on a server so that many PCs can share it, that's a pretty clear violation of the single license. In that case, software intended for use on one PC is instead servicing many PCs, and the software vendor has lost sales. I don't think it matters if it's a business or home setting: If the software is licensed for one PC, then setting up the software so that more than one PC can use it violates the license.

On the other hand, if the single-licensed software isn't available to any other PCs on the network--- that is, if it's run only on the server itself, for that one machine's benefit--- then it's irrelevant that the PC is used as a server; it's still one license, one machine. The vendor hasn't lost anything. The fact that the machine happens to be used as a server makes no difference. As long as the software in question isn't being served up or distributed or shared in any way, then no server-related functions come into play. The software installation is the same as it would be on any stand-alone PC, and in fact I'd agree that you can refer to the machine just as a PC when and if you need to talk to a support tech.

In your case, Dale, if you were running a single-license antivirus package on a server to protect *only that machine's files* then I think you were and are probably fine. But the tech most likely understood you to mean that you were setting it up so that the single-license antivirus package was providing some kind of centralized AV service for other PCs on the LAN; or that you were cloning the software to service other PCs. Those actions would most likely be a violation of the license. Again, it doesn't matter if it's a business setting or home setting. Either way, the number of licenses has to match the number of PCs using the software.

My rule of thumb for thinking through all questions of this sort is: Does my action cost the vendor a sale? If the honest answer is "yes," then the action's probably wrong. But if the vendor honestly loses nothing by my action, then it's "no harm, no foul;" and the action's probably OK.

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2) Emergency Recovery Utility

Hi Fred, I have subscribed to the Plus version since its inception and find that its value is worth more than you charge. I recently found the free "Emergency Recovery Utility NT", ERUNT, at http://tinyurl.com/6j8xa ... The "detailed Information" page gives a good description of why one would want to use this program. It appears to be good program to use for incremental backup purposes so I now use the Autoback version with its /days:n option started by the WinXP Scheduled Tasks Manager. ---Eric Bloch

Thanks, Eric. We actually discussed it a couple times before, but it was a while ago (see: #11 in
http://langalist.com/plus/newsletters/2005/2005-03-28plus.asp )  We also mentioned the Registry optimizer available there, too. Both are freeware/donationware; both are worth a look!

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3) Are Admin Shares Dangerous?

Hi Fred! I've tried multiple Google searches on this issue, but haven't been able to find the right combination of keywords to find the answer to my question. Firstly a bit of background: I have a wired/wireless network at home consisting of my PC, my brother's PC and a file server. My computer is attached directly to the network (and the Internet) via Cat5 to a Netgear RP614 router. My brothers PC is connected to the network via a wireless access point attached to my router. I have a share set up on my brother's computer for performing various administrative tasks, but my computer is totally locked down and doesn't have any sharing enabled. My question is: if my brother somehow catches a worm, trojan or other malware and the antivirus doesn't stop it - can this malware come through this administrative share that I have access to, and infect my PC? Or could it only infect me if I had a share on my PC for the malware to 'jump through'?

Thanks for any response and keep up the good work! :-) -Daniel S., England, UK

I think your risks are minimal, Daniel. The main way you could get infected would be if you triggered the malware yourself. For example, if your brother has a malware program called FUBAR.EXE on his PC, and you reach through the share and run that program, then FUBAR.EXE will be executed by *your* CPU in *your* PC. If FUBAR were able to get past your own defenses when it ran, then you could have trouble.

But one presumes you're not running random programs on your brother's PC. <g> And programs you do run remotely can usually be checked by your own antimalware tools; either by manually triggering a scan of your brother's hard drive prior to your doing any other maintenance there; or by scanning a specific EXE that you need to run. (Most AV tools, for example, let you right click on a file and select a manual scan from there.)

If that's not enough reassurance for you, consider using Remote Desktop for whatever maintenance you need to run on his PC. By making his PC the Remote Desktop host and your machine the client, all that will come through the wire to your PC is a copy of what would normally be on his screen: All the actual opening and running of files--- and any malware that may be triggered--- will be contained entirely within his system. Remote Desktop is a *very* safe way to access and work on another PC.

See:

XP Professional's "Remote Control" Option
http://informationweek.com/story/IWK20030221S0012

How To Ensure Remote-Control Security With XP
http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml;?articleID=164300008

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"I have read your free Langalist for years and years and years,
and figured it was about time I subscribed...
 love your content and information; it's helped me a lot."
--- Graham Stokes, Canada

Thanks, Graham!

The LangaList Plus! Edition is ad-free, spam-proof,
and contains even more content--- tips, tricks, advice, downloads....---
than the Standard Edition you're now reading.

It's only about $1 a month!

http://langa.com/plus.htm

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4) Network Kills Audio?

Fred, Love your newsletter. I started with the free edition and have been a Plus subscriber for several years.  I had an experience a couple of months ago that may be of help to some of your readers. One of my friends got a new computer and wanted me to configure it so they could surf the Internet safely. The computer is a Compaq Presario, AMD Sempron 3000+, 256 DDR, 40GB HDD, CD-RW/DVD ROM,  Phoenix/Award BIOS and has Windows XP Home. I installed the free Zone Alarm firewall, AVG anti-virus free edition and Hitman Pro 2. They were on a dialup connection, so since they were not using the Ethernet port I disabled it in the BIOS.  Several days later they told me that the computer did not have any sound since I worked on it. I went back and found that when I went into Control Panel - Sound and Audio Devices, the Device Volume section was grayed out. After a lot of looking for the problem I ended up calling tech support. They talked me through about 15 minutes worth of things I already tried to no avail. Then they told me to reset the BIOS defaults. The sound came back as soon as I did this. Just so I knew for sure what caused the problem I went into the BIOS and disabled the Ethernet port again. The sound quit working. I enabled the Ethernet port and the sound came back. I should have tried resetting the BIOS before calling tech support but I knew the only thing I did in the BIOS was disable the Ethernet port. I could not see how that would effect the sound. Just goes to show that you should never take anything for granted, especially when it comes to computers. ---Dave Mantz

That is indeed a little strange, Dave. But I've seen something similar with built-in sound cards and modems; some systems use the same digital signal processing (DSP) chip for all audio, whether it's music or the voices and tones going over a phone line. Trying to disable one function in the BIOS would sometimes disable the other as well because the DSP chip would be turned off and unavailable. Perhaps that's the kind of thing you ran into, where two (or more) functions depend on one piece of multi-purpose hardware.

I suppose it also could be a problem with IRQs ("interrupt requests:" http://www.google.com/search?q=interrupt+request+irq ) but you said it's a new machine, and IRQ conflicts are quite rare in newer PCs.

In any case, thanks for the tip: Checking for unexpected dependencies in the BIOS is something to tuck away in the back of our minds for future troubleshooting.

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5) Free/Very Low Cost Defraggers

Dear Fred, With regard to the defrag problem mentioned in the last newsletter ("Defrag Just Won't Finish;" http://langa.com/newsletters/2006/2006-06-05.htm#2 ) I'd suggest looking into DIRMS (see http://www.dirms.com/. This is a superb defragging program that runs in a command window under Windows; it does the best defrag job of any program I've seen. ---Jim Allen

Thanks, Jim. It looks interesting, as does their hybrid freeware/commercial marketing:

The full commercial license is only $10, and allows for use of the software on up to 5 PCs. Two bucks per PC is pretty darn inexpensive. <g>

The full-function freeware version requires a (free) license key, which you get by registering on the site. The freeware key works for 30 days, after which you can get another free key, if you wish.

If you don't want to register, then you can use the software a plain freeware--- no registration--- but with out some features and functions.

I'm going to try option two--- licensed freeware for 30 days. If I like it as much as Jim does, I'll certainly kick in the $10. It's so inexpensive, it'd be silly not to support the software publisher's efforts.

And, here's another low-cost defragger we've discussed in the past:

Hi Fred, I've been a subscriber from when you started Langalist...

As to solutions for defragging your hard drives, maybe you already know about Ashampoo's Magic Defrag program?  I've been using it for about a year on two computers and had no problems. Friends have also had good results. It Automatically defrags your drives while they are idle and seems to work great. I used to always end up having to go into Safe Mode to get this job done. Program costs very little--like $12.95 . Their web site:  http://www.ashampoo.com  ---Chuck Harmon

Thanks, Chuck.

Nice to see vendors *not* trying to rip off their users, eh?

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6) Recommend This Newsletter And Win!

If you think the LangaList is a worthwhile read, maybe a friend would find it useful too! Just use the following link to recommend the LangaList---your friend may find a new source of useful information and you just may win one of three FREE ONE YEAR SUBSCRIPTIONS to the LangaList Plus! edition given each month. (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) Free Firewalls

Hi Fred, What [about] free firewalls these days?

I had Zone Alarm but it conflicted so much with Norton AV or other things on my Win98SE box. Sygate was much better, but it is no longer being supported in the free edition. I have abandoned NAV for NOD32 which plays much nicer with my system, Maybe I should give ZA another try?

Thanks, Joe Salerno

ZoneAlarm is probably the path of least resistance--- it's a good, free firewall, and is readily available. But there are many other options--- including the last free version of the Sygate firewall, which is available as "abandonware" on a number of download sites. No, it's no longer supported, but all that really means is that no new features will be added. It still works as-is, of course.

This page lists 10 free or free-to-try firewalls, and includes a link to a Sygate Personal Firewall download site: http://www.thefreecountry.com/security/firewalls.shtml  Note the "Jetico" freeware firewall, which supports all versions of Windows, including Win98.

This page ( http://www.hackfix.org/software/firewall.html ) lists even more Win98-friendly firewalls, including Kerio, Conseal, Outpost, and others.

And in the unlikely event that none of the many options available in the above two links will work for you, this general search will turn up even more:
http://www.google.com/search?q=firewall+win98+98+free

(BTW: See #10 in this issue for a related topic.)

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8) They Just Keep Coming And Coming...

Thousands of your fellow readers have "Loaded the code." Please click over to http://langa.com/code.htm , and maybe you can join them! (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
http://langa.com/randomlink.htm

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

2 PC Geeks (internet security)
http://2pcgeeks.com

Arte do Brasil
http://www.storesonline.com/site/artedobrasil

boomerang gym
http://www.boomeranggym.com/

5 Star Wholesales
http://www.5starwholesales.com/

Indialantic Chamber Singers
http://www.indialanticchambersingers.org/default.html

Computer Troubleshooting by Brand Name
http://www.5starwholesales.com/

Computer Rescue
http://www.computerresq.co.uk/

Best Little Host
http://www.bestlittlehost.net/

create a sign online
http://www.createasignonline.com/

best of the web
http://www.bestoftheweb.ro/

pictoons
http://www.pictoons.net/

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9) Free (Non-Macromedia) Flash Player

Fred - When I had trouble recently getting my browsers (MSIE 6 and Firefox) to recognize and open an SWF file (shockwave) I found this handy little 385kb freeware program from Softpedia.com, SWF-Opener. The first two mirrors seem to be dead links but the softpedia mirror works.
 http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/SWF-Opener-Download-8819.html 
---Jeff F.

Thanks, Jeff. It's also available direct from the publisher here:
http://www.unhsolutions.net/SWF-Opener/index.html  They also offer many other free tools, most of which open with a small, static ad, touting their paid software; nothing offensive or in-your-face at all.

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10, 11, 12, 13,14) Plus! Edition Only:

Today's LangaList Plus! Edition contains about 40% more content including:

• Security Suites vs Standalone Software
     (balancing convenience against effectiveness...)
• Reader Rave Re: RSS Readers
     (two good ones, both free)
• Bad MS Works Upgrade?
     (reports of munged software after upgrade...)
• "Windows Genuine Advantage" Glitch Confirmed
     (looks like it's real; here's the scoop)
• Optional Links
     (just for Plus! edition readers)

Plus! edition subscribers not only get much more content in every issue (like the above), but also have access to a private web site with over 100,000 words of special content and features not found in *any* issue of the newsletter; along with dozens of private downloads and much more--- all for about $1 per month!

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

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15) Just For Grins

Hi Fred, I just thought your readers might enjoy this article... harmless practical jokes that people can play on their friends: http://tinyurl.com/m75xs  Keep up the great work... ---Jason Savitt

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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 usually is published about 72 times a year, or about 6 times a month. See you next issue, 2006-06-15!

Best,

Fred
( Editor@Langa.Com )

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

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