Backup: The importance of, a reminder about

Normally we think of hard drive crashes, viruses, and the like as things that will damage or destroy the data on a hard drive. That's not all that can happen, as is shown by a note from a correspondent in southwest Virginia.

I live in the Appalachian mountains of SW Virginia on a 10-acre organic farm--a small professional landscape nursery (ornamental grasses), a serious vegetable garden, and lots of critters (horses, free-range chickens, a couple of fattening lambs, assorted cats, a dog, etc.). Since not all critters (domestic or wild) stay where they're supposed to, yesterday a good-sized field mouse decided that my editing space was just where he or she should cavort. I backed out of my workspace and immediately two cats and the dog were under my desk, scrambling over themselves, knocking over the wastebasket, clawing stuff off the lower bookshelves, further disheveling the cable cluster, nearly tipping the tower, and so forth. The adroit little guy managed to flee to a corner of the kitchen. I waded into the melee, captured the critter in a plastic tub, and threw it back outside, much to the dismay of the four-legged security crew.

As I was restoring order to my office I mused (again) on the value of frequent external backups, keeping hard copy manuscripts WELL out of harm's way, and never having a coffee mug on my desk. Good thing I hadn't been on deadline.

What a wonderful description of why backup is important. Unexpected disasters (is there any other kind?) can happen at any time. It pays to be prepared.

Time to download the latest Spybot Search and Destroy

The latest version of Spybot Search and Destroy is still free. It's also faster and the interface has been improved a bit. This is one program that should be on every Windows computer.

Spybot Search and Destroy begins with a scan that, on my primary computer (4 disk drives -- 120GB, 120GB, 200GB, 160GB), takes about 10 minutes to complete. The program find all sorts of nasties, including some not-so-nasty nasties and then offers descriptions of the threats before it removes them. If you accidentally remove an application that you later decide you want to have running, the Recovery icon will help.

Spybot offers three choices for automatic protection: It will Immunize the system to protect Internet Explorer, Opera, and Firefox from known threats. You can also have Spybot Search and Destroy block "bad downloads". There's also a resident application ("Tea Timer") that monitors processes and terminates toll dialers and other nasties as soon as it notices them.

Spybot Search and Destroy has a standard and an advanced interface. The standard interface is safe. The advanced interface gives you more capabilities, but also makes it possible to turn your computer into an oversize paperweight. Use the advanced interface only if you know what you're doing.

Spybot Search and Destroy lets you see what Browser Helper Objects (BHO) are registered with Internet Explorer as well as see a clear summary of the applications that start with Windows. You can use the program to eliminate applications you don't want to run at startup.

Spybot Search and Destroy shows the most serious threats in red, but there's probably more red on screen than there should be. The developers probably operate on the "better safe than sorry" principle, but that can lead users to eliminate cookies and other components that aren't at all threatening.

For more information, see the SS&D website.

Patchety Patchety Patch -- more fixes from Microsoft

This monthly Microsoft patchfest included 10 advisories that cover 12 problems and 3 are rated "critical", Microsoft's highest severity rating. Bulletin 25 for the year addresses a remote code-execution vulnerability in Internet Explorer. Specifically the problem is one that deals with how IE handles PNG image files. This problem could allow a malicious website to gain complete control of a computer.

In Bulletin 26, Microsoft described another flaw that could allow an attacker to take complete control of the affected system by misusing HTML Help files.

The third critical patch was described in Bulletin 27 and deals with the SMB protocol. This flaw could allow an attacker to hijack a PC and then install programs, create new user accounts, add data, view files, or delete data without the user's knowledge. The SMB protocol shares files, printers, and serial ports, and also is used for communications from one computer to another. The problem was not with SMB per se, but with the way Microsoft implemented it.

The other bulletins aren't as serious, but Windows users should still install all of the updated. The Windows Malicious Software Removal tool, which is automatically included each month, has been updated this month to include the ability to zap the ASN.1 worm and variants of Spybot, Kelvir, Lovgate, and Mytob.

And speaking of Mytob, that's the most active current threat. This week new variants of the worm accounted for more than half of all the reports one of the big antivirus providers received. Mytob-AS appeared in the wild on Friday, June 10. It spreads in e-mail and infected computers are able to scan networks for computers that haven't patched against a variety of Microsoft security loopholes.

If you haven't yet installed this week's patches, DO IT NOW! Visit the Microsoft update site.

How many zombies are out there?

If you're curious about how many zombied computers are out there, you might want to visit CipherTrust's ZombieMeter website. You won't like what you see, though. As of Friday afternoon, in the 5 o'clock hour, more than 30,000 new computers in the United States and more than 34,000 new computers in China (added just in the last hour) were ready to launch distributed denial-of-service attacks, serve spam, or do whatever else their masters toll them to do.

CipherTrust updates its site every hour with information about the global activity of new zombies. It does this by tracking data it receives through its IronMail e-mail security appliances.

Zombies are Internet-connected computers that have been infected by malicious code that allows hackers to control them remotely. They are often used to launch denial-of service (DoS) attacks or send unwanted e-mail.

How many zombied computers are there worldwide? CipherTrust says "Throughout the month of May, CipherTrust researchers found an average of 172,009 new zombies identified each day. Approximately 20% of the new zombies originated in the United States and 15% originated in China, representing a slight shift from research conducted during late March and early April which identified that approximately 20% of the 157,000 new zombies at that time originated in China. The origin of the zombie machines may change on a daily basis as machines can be infected anywhere in the world. CipherTrust has found that during April and May, the largest percent of zombie originations have alternated between China and the United States. In addition, during the first three weeks of May, approximately 26% of daily new zombies originated in the European Union, including 6%, 5% and 3% of new zombies originated in Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, respectively."

If you want to see the bad news for yourself, you'll find the ZombieMeter at CipherTrust website.

Sharing photos

Question: I just returned from a week on vacation and have a bunch of vacation pix I'd like to share with family and friends. I don't want to have to e-mail the pictures to everyone, so I want to find a way to post the pictures online so people only have to type in a URL and be able to see them.

Answer: There are many ways to do this.

Kodak's service is a good one.

Google offers Picasa (and additional capabilities) from Google's Picasa site. The program is free and "Hello" (also available from Google to work with Picasa) lets you share photos.

Also ... Shutterfly and Snapfish.

Each has positive features and each has shortcomings. If you maintain your own website, you can do it yourself with any of several applications, but the advantage of using the commercial systems is that people can order photos.

A CD problem

Question: I don't know what happened to the CD drive on my desktop. It's worked fine for the last 4 years and then suddenly stopped last week. Maybe it's coincidence, but I had a photo CD made by my son's teachers in the drawer when the drive stopped working. I also have a 22-month-old daughter. She's a lovely girl, but I have to question her innocence here as well.

Regardless of the cause though, the little light by the CD slot blinks constantly. The drawer will not open and the D: drive does not show up in the control panel. The CD drive icon in the toolbar has a red glyph over it. Clicking on the icon brings up the message: No supported CD-R/CD-W drive!

I'm clueless about where to even start solving this problem. The computer manual is no help since every fix begins with "open drawer and insert CD." Is this a hardware or a software problem? I'd like to be able to use the drive, but even suggestions on getting the thing to stop blinking would be a service.

Answer: The first thing to do is remove the CD that's in there.

There should be a tiny round hole on the face of the drive. Insert a paper clip and that will manually open the drive. Leave the drawer open and reboot the machine, which will close the drive door.

Open the drive and insert a disc you know is good to see if the machine can read the disc. If not, and you're still seeing a "No supported CD-R/CD-W drive" message, then go to the Device Manager

• Start Menu › Settings › Control Panel › System
• Hardware tab › Device Manager button
• Press the + sign beside CD/DVD Drives to expand the list.
• Find the CD device and delete it. (Windows will ask for confirmation.)
• Reboot the computer and the system may recognize the drive and install the appropriate driver.

If not, I'd shut the system off again and open the case. Disconnect and reconnect the data cable at both ends. Be very careful in removing the cable -- do NOT pull on the ribbon cable itself; grip the plastic connector. And, of course, be certain that you re-attach the connector the right way and that you don't force anything because this could bend pins.

You mentioned that the drive's light blinks, so there's no need to check the power connection.

If, when you restart the machine after reseating the cables, the drive is still not recognized, then the drive has probably failed.

You mentioned an icon in the Tray. It's possible that this, or some other application, is interfering with the CD device driver, particularly if you've installed any new or updated applications.

This may or may not fix the problem, but at least it will get the light to stop blinking.

Resolution: Getting the drawer open and rebooting the machine resolved the problem and the drive again works.

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