Uncategorized — No comments
29
Jul 10
Occasionally I have to access the Application Data folder in XP. What is it? Simple answer: It is a place where programs cache information about user settings. Unfortunately, it seems rather easy to accumulate a lot of junk files in there as well. On my machine I have found a lot of files associated with programs I have uninstalled.
To see this folder open My Computer and click through the following sequence: “Tools”, “Folder Options…”, “View”, and finally “Show hidden files and folders”. You will need to be logged in as an Admin to do this.
Computers — No comments
16
Jun 10
I often process my Windows updates at the end of the day. Sometimes these updates take a long time to process and I don’t want to wait around for them to finish. It’s easy to schedule your PC to shutdown every night at the same time, and as you will see, the built-in task scheduler takes care of many of the exceptions you are probably thinking about.
- Open Control Panel in Classic View and double-click on Scheduled Tasks.
- Double-click on Add Scheduled Task followed by Next in the Scheduled Task Wizard
- Click the Browse button, navigate to C:\Windows\system32\ and choose shutdown.exe.
- Give the task a name – something like shutdown would be appropriate.
- Choose Daily and then click Next.
- Choose a Start time that fits your schedule – for me 9 PM.
- Choose Every Day under Perform this task, today’s date under Start date and then click Next.
- Enter your user name and password and then click Next.
- Make sure that the Open advanced properties… box has a checkmark in it and click Finish.
- Check the box at the bottom of the Settings tab to enable this job.
- Refer to the image below for guidance on completing the Settings tab. After completing this tab click OK and your PC will now shutdown all by itself.
In summary this task will run the shudown.exe file at 9 PM every night if the PC has been idle for 10 or more minutes. If the PC is idle for 10 minutes at any time within the next 4 hours this task will run; if not then the job will expire.
Amateur Radio — No comments
23
May 10
I recently purchased the MFJ-269 HF/VHF/UHF SWR Analyzer and I have owned a Buddistick™ from Buddipole Antennas for a while. My station does not have a 6M antenna so I wanted to use my new MFJ-269 to configure the Buddistick™ to be resonant (or at least have low SWR) in that band. Specifically I wanted a SWR low enough that I would not have to use an antenna tuner.
Through trial and error I was able to configure the Buddistick™ for SWR of 1.2 on 50.12 MHz. The base of the antenna was mounted at 6 feet from ground level, and antenna length was 68 inches. It was composed of two equal-sized solid pieces (11.25 inches each) and one telescoping piece extended to complete the 68 inches. Counterpoise wire was attached to the antenna base and extended approximately 12 feet and was about 5 feet from the ground at its lowest point. All of these components are part of the Buddistick™ Deluxe package.
Computers / Unix/Linux Shell — No comments
10
May 10
Using the directions from http://www.freeos.com/guides/lsst/ch02sec01.html you can easily put together a quick ‘Hello World’ shell script. What’s shell? It is software that allows interaction between users and the OS (read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_(computing)). In general the commands you run at the command line are available to use in a shell script.
#
#Filename: hello.sh
#Programmer: PFP
#Birthdate: 2010-05-10
#Notes: Hello world script.
#
clear
echo "Hello World"
You can enter these few lines by using vi or any other editor on your Linux machine. Be sure to set the file as executable by running chmod 755 hello.sh from the command line. To execute the script you simply type ./hello.sh at the command line.
Computers / Perl — No comments
09
May 10
This is a simple Perl script to download a Web page and display the downloaded text on the screen.
use LWP::Simple;
$URL=http://www.google.com;
$contents = get($URL);
print $contents;
Security — No comments
24
Mar 10
These are screen captures from a recent malware infection that I was asked to remove. The malware advertises that it is XP AntiMalware 2010 but don’t be fooled by it. This is a crafty piece of malware.
The first screen capture shows a pop-up and a balloon indicating a possible intrusion from 59.132.100.175 but this was impossible since the ethernet cable to the PC was disconnected.
Another dialog box trying to lure you in. Notice the larger version of the shield does not look like the real Security Center icon (also shown below).
Follow the steps outlined below to use Process Explorer to stop this malware. Note that this does not delete the malware but does stop it until you can get it removed. If I find out how to remove it I will make another post on how to do that. Process Explorer may be downloaded from Microsoft at the link below.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx
- DO NOT click on the dialog boxes or balloons that are associated with this malware.
- Unplug or otherwise disconnect the infected PC from the Internet.
- Start Process Explorer by double clicking it.
- Find the process named “ave.exe”. If you can’t find that process then read the caveat at the end of this post.
- Right-click on the process and choose Suspend from the menu.
Your system may perform slowly but that’s better than the malware working its way deeper into your PC. Preventing malware is much easier than dealing with it post-infection so be sure to keep your operating system and anti-virus software updated.
Caveat: You may have noticed that I referred to “this malware” instead of the name shown in the dialog boxes. That’s because the malware may have a list of names that it rotates through. In fact, it may even alter the name of the executable (ave.exe) to something else.
Computers — 1 comment
11
Mar 10
This is a link to an article from pcmag.com about 15 good utility programs http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2361000,00.asp.
Computers / Windows Fixes — No comments
10
Mar 10
Today I reinstalled XP on a machine and had to activate the Windows license prior to installing updates. At this URL (http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/john-savills-windows-faqs/how-do-i-activate-windows-xp-from-the-command-line-.aspx) I found a quick one-liner to start up the product activation GUI. Click Start, click Run and type “oobe/msoobe /a”. Be prepared to type in the 25-character activation string.
Computers / Windows Fixes — No comments
10
Mar 10
This morning a co-worker’s “My Documents” folder was missing from their “My Computer” folder. It was still on the computer but this link had disappeared. She runs XP and could not recall having modified anything that would cause this. The fix was found at this URL: http://www.tweakxp.com/article36827.aspx and amounts to a simple registry hack. Remember to be careful when editing the registry.
The following new key was entered into the registry using regedit:
- HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\
- SOFTWARE\
- Microsoft\
- Windows\
- CurrentVersion\
- Explorer\
- DocFolderPaths\
- User Name\
with the value “C:\Documents and Settings\User Name\My Documents”.
Now the link to the folder “User Name’s Documents” is back in “My Computer”.
Web — No comments
01
Mar 10
I have written a Perl script to decode the Cuecat output so I could capture ISBNs and catalog my book collection. Several sites host Web services that return book information given the ISBN. Below is a GET request that requests the title of The 2007 ARRL Repeater Directory.
http://xisbn.worldcat.org/webservices/xid/isbn/9780872599901?method=getMetadata&format=txt&fl=title
By modifying the last variable in the URL, specifically the value after “fl=”, the publication date or author can be retrieved. See examples below:
http://xisbn.worldcat.org/webservices/xid/isbn/9780872599901?method=getMetadata&format=txt&fl=year
http://xisbn.worldcat.org/webservices/xid/isbn/9780872599901?method=getMetadata&format=txt&fl=author