Dell Inspiron Duo

HP came out with it first; a touch screen laptop with a rotating screen. Suddenly your laptop becomes an iPad. The idea floated around a few of the main manufacturers and then Dell came up with a brilliant idea; what it we made a touch screen netbook but instead of having a hinge that rotates the whole top of the netbook, we add a rotating mechanism to 'flip' the screen only! Umm... really?

Check the link yourself. Does it look like it's going to break within minutes of use? Doesn't it just feel like they've tried to go one better than everyone else. There's being innovative and then there's this.

My personal opinion is that it just doesn't look usable. What happens when the rotating brackets holding the screen get loose and it begins to wobble when you have it upright? How long and how much would it take to snap the brackets? And at the end of the day they've gone and done it with a netbook. Whilst I have nothing against netbooks, they're hardly swamping the home user (or business) market.

Maybe I'm wrong about them. I haven't used one, this is the first I've heard of it. So I'm just going on looks and the little information on Dell's website. Only time will tell I guess.

Problems with using old equipment

I came across an old Via ITX computer and thought it would make an ideal low power, low noise server for my home. It would only be used for file storage and backups of our computers so I didn't need anything fancy. The only change I wanted to make to it was to up the RAM as it had a poor 128MB.

I rooted around in my garage and turned up a couple of sticks of possible memory. The first one I tried didn't cause any BIOS errors but the computer wouldn't boot. So I figured I'd try the other stick just in case the first was bad memory. I put the other stick of RAM in and as soon as I turned on the power I knew I'd done a bad thing.

A small plume of smoke drifted up from the RAM socket. I quickly turned off the PC and hoped that I hadn't caused any permanent damage. Switching back to the original 128MB RAM I turned on the PC and.... a single long beep repeated over and over; memory error.

So now I've got a lovely ITX Via doorstop. Oh the delights of recycling old equipment!

The Dangers of DeepFreeze

DeepFreeze is an excellent program for protecting your computer against malicious damage and accidental damage. However when it goes wrong, it can go wrong quite spectacularly as I discovered today!

I was busy updating Flash and Java on several computers ready to be frozen so that the kids in school couldn't mess them up. All was going well until I started to install DeepFreeze. The first few went smoothly and everything was working well, too well. So Sod's Law decided to step in and mix things up a bit.

I started getting error messages when trying to install the software. Something about an error 2000000 and DeepFreeze can't install. So I attempted again to install it, but this time I was only given the option to uninstall. Figuring that the best thing to do would be to uninstall completely, reboot and then try to install again, I gave it a shot. The uninstall process seemed to work okay and the PC went for a restart. However it wouldn't restart. All I got was a black screen.

So first thing to try in the event of Windows not loading; F8 on boot and use the last settings that worked. Except they didn't. Okay, so trying safe mode. All looked good for a while and then everything froze again. Fearing the worst I found a Windows XP install disc and set the PC about a scndsk to check for any damaged files.

While that was happening I decided to chance it being a one off and try installing DeepFreeze on another machine. Three in a row presented me with the error message installing. I got a colleague to check the first. He tried running the installer again and this time it offered to install, and completed properly. Rebooted and all worked fine. So try the second PC; this time I've only got the option to uninstall. Remembering how the last uninstall ended I decided to cancel and reboot. No such luck, on rebooting I got another black screen.

If things weren't already confusing enough I then tried the same troubleshooting steps as the first time it happened. And this time using the last known working settings worked. Except every time I rebooted I got a black screen and had to use the last known working settings to load Windows. Frustrated I attempted to unfreeze the computer to remove DeepFreeze. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts I finally managed to unfreeze the computer and remove DeepFreeze.

On the next reboot the computer started first time without any problems. Was I then crazy to want to try and install DeepFreeze again? Probably, because when I did it errored again. This time however before clicking any other button I called upon the System Restore feature of Windows. Did a System Restore, rebooted and Windows worked fine once again. I must have been mad because for one more time I was determined to get DeepFreeze working. And someone must have liked me because it worked!

The third computer I tried DeepFreeze on gave the same error and this time I quickly hit System Restore straightaway. After Windows had restored all my settings I once again tried DeepFreeze and was successful.

Why would a program that is designed to help protect Windows cause so much devastation if it screwed up? And why did I have three different problems caused by the same error? Lessons I've learned from this experience:

1. If you're installing DeepFreeze from a network location, only do one PC at a time. For some strange reason this causes the error I have described.

2. Always, ALWAYS, do a System Restore before attempting to install DeepFreeze (or any similar software).

3. Don't go straight down the reformat/reinstall approach because there might just be a slim chance of recovering your system.

I hope my experience can help someone else out down the line!

Remove Client Services for Netware/Novell

It's a bit of an old one this one, but I recently came across a computer that when removed from the domain began popping up a box at logon asking which server I wanted to connect to. On further investigation this was due to Novell client services being installed. After a quick Google on the issue a simple solution was found:

Go into the properties of your network card and select the 'Client for Netware' service. Click on the remove button and let the computer restart. When Windows starts again you'll have the normal Windows login options and no extra messages.

In the event that the Client for Netware doesn't appear in the list of services I found an alternative approach on a techspot.com forum; Click Start, Run and type services.msc into the run box. In the services list locate the Netware Client Service and double click on it. Stop it and disable it. Reboot your PC and then the Client for Netware service should appear in your network cards' properties box.

As far as I know Novell Netware isn't used much anymore. It may still have specific uses for in-house software but it's useful to know about these things in case you ever happen upon a computer that has at one point in time used it.

Never Forget Your Proxy Settings

This is one of those 'Doh!' moments in life.

I was setting up an intranet for a school and was having some difficulties getting Internet Explorer to navigate to intranet.school.lan address. I'd set up the DNS forwarding for the correct IP. I'd got the correct configuration of IIS, the right homepage, the right permissions, everything. If I did a ping on the host address it worked fine in the command line but put the same address into the browser and nothing.

I visited so many forums and tech blogs for advice. Tried so many suggestions on tweaking IIS and doing reverse lookups in DNS. Nothing seemed to help me get any closer to solving the problem.

So eventually I had to admit defeat and asked one of my colleagues for help. They cast an eye over everything I'd done and came back to me with a solution: Put an exception into the proxy list to allow Internet Explorer to open the page!! I'd done all the complicated stuff perfectly but I'd overlooked the obvious! How silly I felt!

Heed this warning: Always check your proxies! :)

W32/Ramnit.N

Wow! What's the chances of coming across two variations of the same virus within a space of two weeks? But there you go, I managed to do it! The Ramnit virus strikes again, this time in the N variety (although AntiVir classed it as Ramnit.c). It's the same self replicating virus as the B variant I failed to remove before and it's caused just as much chaos. There is hope for anyone who encounter this virus; I managed to safely remove it from the laptop that was infected.

A combination of Malwarebytes Antimalware and Microsoft Security Essentials finished this one off. I knew that Malwarebytes would be effective when I tried to visit the official website and was redirected to another site. Thank goodness for software download sites like Cnet and FileHippo!

Firstly Malwarebytes detected and removed a few hidden trojans and a single instance of the Ramnit virus. After a reboot MS Security Essentials then began alerting to the mass infection and so I ran a full system scan. It took ages but found several infected files and successfully repaired them. One final reboot and then full scans with both Malwarebytes and MSE turned up no more infections.

I'm not sure what the difference between Ramnit.b and Ramnit.n is but I'm glad I managed to get rid of it this time without having to do another reformat/reinstall of Windows.

Win32/Ramnit.B

In all my years I have never come across a virus as devastating as Win32/Ramnit.B. The virus targets EXE, HTM(L) and COM files infecting everything on your computer, including your System Restore and antivirus software! The unlucky recipient of this gift was my wife. Where she encountered it I'll never know but as soon as it took hold of her laptop it spread to over 3500 files in an evening! Microsoft Security Essentials did well to detect the virus but as quickly as if disinfected files more were corrupted. Eventually it reached a point where system files and drivers were infected and MSE froze because the infected files were in use by Windows.

I tried various other antivirus and antispyware products with the same outcome. Trawling Google lead me to a few suggestions that were also ineffective at stopping the virus. Most forums just suggested reinstalling Windows. 

I'm saddened to say that I've had to eventually give up the fight. I've scanned all of my wife's documents for signs of infection (which I'm glad to find none) and have backed up all of her documents in preparation for a wipe and fresh install. In a way this might be a good thing as she was complaining recently that Windows was starting and shutting down very slowly. However I'm really disappointed that I've been beating by a really nasty virus. I've one more thing to try that I've been advised is incredibly powerful and also incredibly dangerous for system stability. Now I've backed up my wife's documents I'll give it a go but I don't hold out any hope.