Spyware Sucks
“There is no magic fairy dust protecting Macs" – Dai Zovi, author of “The Mac Hacker’s Handbook"

Installation tips for IE7 Beta 2 Preview

January 31st 2006

Update: This content is being duplicated at http://www.ie-vista.com/known_issues.html so that it can be easily updated… please refer to that page for the latest content.. Some may not agree with the following, but years of experience have shown this to be best practice… [;)] Set a restore point (just in case) Disable antivirus Shut down all running programmes […]

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IE7 fix: Search toolbar not working

January 31st 2006

Symptom:  When using the IE7 Search Toolbar the text  %s  is populated into the search field of a Search Provider instead of the search text entered by the User. Fix: Reinstall your search providers. Click on the drop down arrow to the right of the Search Pane, then select “Get Search Providers”. Click on the […]

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IE7 Beta 2 Preview has gone live

January 31st 2006

Yay! Its out (released in the middle of the night my time)http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7/ Please remember that this build has been released to allow Developers and IT Professionals to start evaluating IE7 against their Web sites and applications.  The preview is not intended for, and should not be installed in a production environment.  Casual users should not […]

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Heads up for SBS Sites using self-signed certificates

January 31st 2006

SBS (Small Business Server) uses self-signed certificates by default.  This may cause an issue for your users if they are running Internet Explorer 7.  As you can see from the screenshot, direct navigation to the Outlook Web Access log-on URL is blocked by IE7 when self signed certificates are used.  To help avoid confusion I’d recommend you […]

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Today’s "You’re an IDIOT" award goes to…

January 31st 2006

Anybody who embedded Robin Schuil’s graphic into their blogs. Info about the graphic:http://news.com.com/2061-10789_3-6031795.html <Cue Rick Springfield singing “Don’t talk to strangers….”> No!!  No Springstein!!  Springfield!! Seriously people… think about this… how hard would it be to replace an innocuous animated GIF with… say, a WMF exploit??? Have a look at the spread of this allegedly […]

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The End Game… again….

January 30th 2006

Yes, I know I’ve said it before…. Back in April 2005 I attended a very private session in Singapore about Rootkits and their potential for harm.  Way back then the guy giving the presentation mentioned the possibility of infecting a computer’s BIOS. I remember those of us in that session left with a global sense […]

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Y’all know that I hate spyware….

January 28th 2006

The Title of my Blog says it all. A big area of concern for me recently has been Google Ads.  Far too many people are being directed to sponsored advertisements, and far too often these sponsored advertisements are for malware. Let’s look at the recent complaint laid by the State of Washington against “Secure Computer […]

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How easily things can go wrong….

January 28th 2006

…here it is… Saturday morning…and the transformer for my HP nx6120’s power cable dies without warning.  Not a good thing when there is a *lot* of work to be done and my battery is flat :o( HP (of course) are closed.  All HP Resellers are closed.  All the open repair shops do not have a replacement transformer […]

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Wow.. is it 20 years already?

January 20th 2006

20 years ago what many call the first *PC* virus was discovered in the wild, named “Brain”http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4630910.stm How ironic that the first *computer* virus is noted in the article as affecting the Apple II ;o)   That little gem is almost as much fun to reveal as the fact that Internet Explorer and Netscape have a common grand-parentage… […]

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Do we depend too much on antivirus and antispyware software when attacking malware?

January 16th 2006

I spent a fair few hours this weekend helping out a fellow MVP by using VNC to remotely clean up his client’s laptop which was showing signs of being infected with malware/adware – our primary concern was trying to assess what was on the PC, and whether the system may have been infected with a […]

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