On Thursday this week I assisted a client in moving their three production servers from a downstairs open office to an upstairs semi-closed environment, which had been converted from a storage closet. The room had been properly prepped with a thorough cleaning and its own climate controls and HVAC system [The client is an HVAC company in town]. They were also installing a new security system in the same room. The primary reason for making this move was for disaster purposes. The building, while not necessarily in a flood plain, had seen some disturbingly close water in the spring flood of Bloomington and southern Indiana. So they made a decision to move all of their security, I.T., and other electronic systems upstairs.

The old location of the servers was just inside the office door from the machine shop, where they draft custom duct for HVAC installations. There is a lot of dust and debris that carries over into the office. In addition, the office is frequented by their field technicians, who tend to get dirty on the job as they work in construction sites and outside in the dirt and mud. They frequently carry that dirt into the office on their clothes. Needless to say, the air in the office was anything but clean, despite a good air system in the office area.

During the move on Thursday, we popped open the cases of each server and sprayed dust-off inside the servers for the first time in probably a year. The amount of dust and dirt that came out of those servers was simply shocking. Shortly upon spraying one down, an employee walked in the office and his first comment was, “Why is it cloudy in here?”

We completed the dusting of Pigpen and his two siblings, and then I proceeded to have a 10 minute sneeze attack. I probably lost a couple months of life expectancy based on the amount of dirt I inhaled.

According to ComputerDust.com, integrated circuits (ICs) can suffer from overheating as a result of the insulating affect of dust as well as suffer from electrical shorts caused by dust across their contacts. Tests show that the internal temperature of a CPU can go up as much as 30 degrees due to a buildup of dust. While we cannot predict the lifespan reduction of operating a PC in an environment that has a higher concentration of dust than what would be considered normal conditions, it can be reasonably concluded that reducing dust in the operating environment and in the CPU case will reduce the risk of failure.

There are a few mitigating approaches to reducing dust:

1. Use Dust-off regularly. You should use dust-off around the open areas of your PC, such as the case vents, the power supply fan, and any other venting fans, on a monthly basis. PCs should opened up 3-4 times per year for inside cleaning.

2. Use a dust cover. They are relatively inexpensive and will sufficiently keep dust out of your computer.

3. Invest in a PC Air Filter. Also relatively inexpensive, operates just like your air filter in your home’s heating/cooling system.

utilizing these options will reduce risk of failure and provide some piece of mind. Just to be clear, ForthPhaze Technology will do no other chores beyond dusting – no window cleaning or lawn maintenance! (Unless the rate is good…)

Also, beware of the dangers of Dust-off. Don’t try these tricks at home!

I just received the following email below regarding a problem with a VIPRE update.

Last week there was an isolated incident that may compromise an operating system component. It was corrected with the next definition release, however some agents had the definitions long enough to still be affected. The affected computers will not reboot without a system restore. If you experience this in your environment, DO NOT reboot any additional computers until the following utility has been applied.

We have created steps to remedy this problem. You should follow these steps if you have version 3.1 of any CounterSpy or VIPRE agents installed on computers prior to October 20, 2008.

The instructions below will use the CSE/VIPRE console deployment to push out a utility. This utility was created specifically to remedy this problem. After this utility is run on the agent, it will be safe to reboot the machines. This utility takes 15 seconds to run (per agent) and will not require a reboot or otherwise change the installed agent or disturb the end user.

The goal of this utility is to delete these files:

C:\Windows\System32\sbfc.dat
C:\Program Files\Sunbelt Software\SBEAgent\definitions\sbts.dat

1. Stop the Counterspy/Vipre Enterprise Service.
2. Close the Counterspy/Vipre Console.
3. Navigate to the Counterspy/Vipre install directory.
4. Rename the Packages folder to Packages-Clean.
5. Save http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/support/vipre/stopbootquar/packages.zip to the CSE/VIPRE install directory.
6. Extract the new Packages folder.
7. Start the Counterspy/Vipre Enterprise service.
8. Log onto the Counterspy/Vipre console.
9. Change the Deployment Timeout to 15 seconds. (System->Configuration->Advanced Settings)
10. Add “SBEAgentDeployW.exe” and “STOPBO~1.EXE” to the Admin-defined good for all policies. (Make sure to click the Good tab to prevent accidentally adding these to the Known bad).
11. Wait for the deferred work to be processed for all Installed agents.
WARNING: All agents with a status of “installed” must process their deferred work before proceeding. Failure to do so will result in this patch NOT being applied.
12. Deploy to a test agent using the Push method from the console.
13. Reboot the test agent to verify that the patch was correctly applied.
14. Apply the patch to each policy by selecting all the agents and then Deploying via the automated push method.
15. Test at least one machine from each policy before allowing all the agents to reboot. If the patch did not take, double check the exclusions and push it out again.

Once all machines have the patch applied, you can then replace the install package with the original.
1. Stop the Counterspy/Vipre Enterprise Service.
2. Close the Counterspy/Vipre Console.
3. Navigate to the Counterspy/Vipre install directory.
4. Delete the Packages folder.
5. Rename the Packages-Clean folder to Packages.
6. Start the Counterspy/Vipre Enterprise service.
7. Log onto the Counterspy/Vipre console.
8. Change the Deployment Timeout back to 120 seconds. (System->Configuration->Advanced Settings)

You can contact our support department if you have any questions on this or run into any issues. Support can be reached at support@sunbeltsoftware.com or by calling (877) 673-1153 Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. EST.

We apologize for any inconvenience that this may cause.

Thank you,
Sunbelt Software

In the past month, the number of people I’ve encountered with WinAntiVirus infections has increased. This could be due to an increase overall in malicious activity and spam across the Internet. However, the fact that people still fall victim to the attempts to exploit is telling me that we I.T. consultants have either gotten a little lax, or have not been doing an adequate job of continuing to educate users in these exploits. Unfortunately, on a couple of occasions, I have received reports that users have gone so far as to actually submit their credit card information to these scams.

Here are a few things that individual users can do to help prevent themselves from become victims of this exploitation.

1. Read the Wikipedia page regarding WinAntivirus. There is a wealth of information there regarding the exploit, and how it infects a PC.

2. Know what protective software you have installed on your PC. If you know that you run McAfee and Ad-Aware, and nothing else, then you will be much more suspicious of pop-ups that are not identified or branded with your software. Open the user interfaces of your antivirus software (if you can – in a corporate environment, they may require a password) and familiarize yourself with the interface, so you’ll know what you should be looking at if you get messages regarding security threats.

I mentioned a couple programs above. Here is a list of other Antivirus and Antispyware programs that work well.

• AVG
• TrendMicro
• NOD 32
• MalwareBytes
• Webroot Spy Sweeper
• VIPRE

3. Learn and practice the ALT-F4 keystroke. ALT-F4 closes your active window or program without click on anything. When you are finished reading this article, use ALT-F4 to close your browser. Once you are comfortable with it, you can easily close any pop-up from a web page without clicking anywhere in the window. Remember, the OK and Cancel button, and even the X in the right hand corner of the window can all be links that will open or download malicious code. ALT-F4 bypasses those traps.

Doing these three things can be the difference between threat prevention, and threat removal, which can cost a considerable amount of time and money.

I was fortunate enough to receive an invitation to be a private beta tester for AT&T’s new Pogo Browser they are in the process of developing. This browser really pushes the status quo for both Microsoft and Mozilla when it comes to usability features. The primary advantage the browser brings to the market is its use of thumbnail images of web pages, which are incorporated into every aspect of traditional browser functions.

First of all let me just disclose that I am not a software tester, I’ve done no performance testing or comparisons of the Pogo browser against Internet Explorer or Firefox. My specific interest in Pogo is its usability features.

As stated, Pogo makes use of image thumbnails of web pages as usability aides that make it easier to manage multiple websites, bookmarks, and history. There are five main sections where the use of thumbnails as a feature is showcased: PogoDock, Collections, Bookmarks, Springboard, and History.

PogoDock. The PogoDock is Pogo’s version of tabbed browsing. Instead of tabs at the top of the browser window with the text-based title page for each tab, Pogo places a dock at the bottom of the browser with thumbnail images of each page you currently have open. This gives you a quick visual reference of all your open websites. The PogoDock has a tack button in the lower right to toggle the auto-hide feature, so you can gain the extra browser window space as desired.

Collections & Bookmarks. Collections is basically Pogo’s version of Favorites or Bookmarking. When you want to bookmark a page, you add it to your Collections. Think of Collections as just a subfolder in your Favorites list. When you launch Collections, they display in the web browser as three dimensional containers that you can scroll through using your mouse wheel. When you are at the Collection that contains the site you wish to open, just click on the Collection, then double click on the site thumbnail.

Springboard. Springboard is a set of webpages you want to be able to access from a single view. A Springboard can be set to display upon startup, as opposed to your default web page. This is Pogo’s alternative of multiple home pages . Whereas IE has a limit of 8 home pages that can be upon on startup, you can add many more pages to your Springboard for startup.

Visual History. Have you ever gone back into your history to look for a page that you viewed yesterday, but you cannot remember the name of the site you were on? Say you were doing a Google search looking for an answer on a quirky Outlook problem, and you viewed several search results. Now you want to go back and re-read one of those pages. You’re looking at the history in Explorer Bar, but it’s not helpful at all. There’s about a 100 entries from yesterday, all in alphabetical order.

Pogo answers that usability issue by taking snapshots of the pages you viewed, and incorporates them into the history. When you launch history, it loads in the browser window, as does Collections and Springboard. It’s history displays the snapshot of each site you visited as a thumbnail, and provides the domain name, and a timestamp of the page visit. In addition, it displays history in chronological order, not alphabetically.

As you can see, the Pogo Browser really does a great job of using visual elements to enhance browser usability. While it is still unclear whether or not Pogo will have enough fortitude in the marketplace to dethrone Internet Explorer or Firefox, it will certainly force both players to take a look at what they are doing, and how to follow suit in looking at browsing as much more of a visually rich experience.

Following up on my Wednesday morning post, I bought a Motorola Q9c. Not on the forefront of cutting edge, but it is still a purchase I’m excited about. I chose not to get a Blackberry right now, mainly because the extra $120 per year charge I would incur with my hosted e-mail provider, AppRiver.

The great thing about the Q is that I’m now participating in the beta for Qik.com. I got my approval notice and set myself up on Thursday, while waiting for Showplace East to fix the movie WarGames. Here is my first broadcast from my Q:

I will be having fun playing with Qik’s service in the upcoming weeks. My wife already hates it!

I also downloaded a .wav reader from CoreCodec for the Q so I can listen to my voicemails on e-mail from my phone.