Nasty PopUp only on PALM GEAR

[HellzBunny]

I run such a small amount of stuff - dozen programs plus the Palm stuff -- that I could restore without too much trouble; there are no "loose database files" or doc files on my PC - they're all burned to sequential aggregate CDs and catalogued in MobileDB on the T3. Same with photos and other "stuff."

I believe that reinstalling everything fresh every now and again is actually a GREAT way of REALLY cleaning house; you have to remember to get the updates especially for Microsoft stuff (Service Packs, etc) - but it's pretty methodical process and I've had one "OH OH" reinstall and another 2 where I "voluntarily" did it. Load everything, defrag the pagefile, defrag the directories, and then the hard drive with what YOU REALLY NEED, and it sure eliminates a lot of garbage. You only think you're "keeping the hard drive and registry clean" with maintenance, but you never get all of it. Every now and again it's good to just "start over," and only load programs you're using RIGHT NOW - you end up with a hell of a lot more free space than you had before - and can never explain quite where it all "came from."

I'll check into Ghost and doing a compressed image on an external drive; I've also thought of putting a new, larger hard drive in this, my current PC, and using the current one as the "backup" since it's only 20GB! (And I have 16.3GB free on it!) I have a Pentium III Compaq with 400MB of RAMBUSS, and it's REALLY fast -- faster than several friends' Athlons.

Depending on what happens with PalmOne, I wouldn't mind a Mac G5 so I can "learn and investigate" what makes them tick, too. Seems to me my Mac Buddies don't need 14 jillion softwares for spyware and defragging directories, etc -- Mac's are very seldom targeted for virus or spyware since they're a small piece of the pie.

[Marina Svadkovskaya]

I've also used Ghost and it is great. Some other options to think about include:

1. Installing an auto reverting program such as Go Back. Autoreverting programs will automatically restore your computer to a predetermined clean state. If any viruses, spyware, etc, have been downloaded to your PC, they will automatically be deleted when the computer reboots. Many schools use these programs to prevent students from changing the settings.

2. Dump Norton Antivirus and instead use Avast. My computer used to get infected all the time when I used Norton. Avast has been able to keep my computer clean and it will even scan email messages as they are delivered into Outlook. Avast is freeware for home use.

http://www.avast.com

3. Install and configure a hardware firewall, usually integrated with internet sharing devices. Set the device to block UDP port 53. This port is needed by remote users to log onto your computer. It is interesting to note that I have not had any of those Windows Messenger spam popups since I started blocking this port.

4. Start using Mozilla FireFox for browsing. Many of the menu options are similar to Internet Explorer. In fact, FireFox has many features IE doesn't have and it is not a memory hog. FireFox can be personalized. The toolbar icons can be changed, you can add tabbed pages, ect. Most importantly, this browser is more secure than IE.

5. Delete the cookies and all offline internet content from your computer once you have it secured by the firewall and antivirus software.

I hope this info is useful. Good luck!

[ric m]

dwinget,

Go Back had some serious issues and Roxio, the new owner, did away with it.

My Windows Me, yeah I know, has restore points which work pretty
good in some cases. I've had minor things go wrong and was able to go
back a day or two and restore to a point before the problem.
They partion a section of the hard drive off to be a "D" drive and put the restore there.
No big deal on space since this PC came with a 60GB disk, which was good for 3 years ago.

I have my doubts about Norton too. After all, my Xmas boot virus got by it.

Blocking ports might not be the answer on adware.
My wife remembers that she had a install yes/no box pop up.
She swears that she answered NO, yet WIN32BI installed itself anyway.
Once you're at the point in your browser, it doesn't
need a port to load.

Of couse a higher level of browser security could help, but then again we are constantly
downloading Palm software.

Running some kind of adware killer would be the best for this kind of attack.

It's the World we live in.

Herb

[haohui_xie]

I did not know about Go Back being discontinued. I used it a while back when working in a school and it did a pretty good job of preventing the computers from needing to be reformatted. Go Back was used to conquer software problems while Ghost was used when the physical drive had to be replaced. I used some parameters which allowed the disk image files to be broken down into smaller sizes, which allowed them to be burned onto cds. Whenever the computers needed the image to be restored, I just inserted the cds into the drive and booted the computer from floppy.

Go Back used about 10% of the drive space to create a hidden partition. It had to be manually configured to have the reverting take place on every boot. The reverting did not add too much time on the bootup. My guess is that it was around 10 seconds. There are other products on the market which will auto revert. I don't recall their names, but I know they exist.

The port blocking has not interfered with downloading files onto my computer. I download Palm programs all the time and it works without any problems.

One suggestion I forgot to mention in my previous post was to disable file and printer sharing if you don't need it.

[Houston TX]

What great input!

1. I can't see in McAfee Firewall how to configure blocking port 53, I'll keep looking.

2. I installed Foxfire (again), and I like its interface. I stupidly deleted all the Explorer Favorites shortcuts (inadvertently - had them as tabbed and didn't like the tab, and didn't know I was "x-ing" them out permanently. There's no confirmation window in Foxfire; now I know so that's ok). I am manually restoring them having both foxfire and explorer windows open, which gives me a chance to sort out the chaff anyway. WHERE are the "favorites" located in foxfire? I like to burn those to a CD for safekeeping; I opened every folder and did searches, and can't find them.

3. I assume that MeayaPopup Filter and Arrow Search only work with Explorer, so if I stick with Foxfire can they be deleted?

4. I also am assuming that I cannot easily delete Internet Explorer 6 and all the "hot" updates I've installed, as that can remove needed dll's? Or is it ok? Anyone else done this -- there's a lot of real estate tied up in Explorer if it's not needed, though I can't see the harm in having 2 browsers.

5. WHERE does Foxfire keep the cookies? You can delete them, but I'd like to configure a plug in to WIPE the folder on demand, not just "click them away." Again, they're nowhere to be found in any of the folders of the program, or anywhere in documents/administrator either.

[dmb a???]

dwinget,

Roxio's "Easy CD Creater 5" included "Go Back".
But if you do a software upgrade patch off their site, it will rip
Go Back right off your PC.

They warn you first, of course.
Too many problems and they don't want to support it. So they just make it go away.

Herb

[La Tica]

Now Outlook Express is getting hotmail error messages. I've a mind to uninstall foxfire and see if that has an effect; I tried changing to "IE is default browser," but that's having no effect.

I've never had Outlook Express problems before, so I'm assuming Foxfire is interfering with that ability; I'd rather have Outlook than a cool browser -- any hints from anyone?

[Selena Nhuanh]

Paul wrote:

PalmOne will support the Mac platform in spite of PalmSource saying they won't.

As for spyware, adware and viruses, I haven't had a virus since the late 1980's and spyware and adware are nonexistent. Safari has handled the pop-up situation without a hitch and is a web-standards compliant browser. I am completely addicted to tabbed browsing!

I have never had to reinstall OSX for the sake of cleaning house. OSX has an extremely elegant application for updating the OS, iLife and Quicktime which makes it easy to keep our two iBooks and eMac updated. Usually two clicks of the mouse does it! iSync keeps all of our Safari bookmarks, address books and calendars in sync so no matter which computer you sit down with, it feels the same.

I could ramble on about the ways I'm impresses with the modern Mac; like the stability of the system, the beauty of the hardware and the fun of using one but I don't want to sound like even more of a crazed fanatic.

They are not perfect but IMHO, it is the most pleasurable to use platform today.

External peripherals we use:
-160gb firewire hard drive
-8X DVD burner
-Two Palm's (three if you count a friend's I sometimes sync because she can't get it to work with WinME)
-Sony Clie
-Three external flash card readers
-Two iPods
-Three printers
-Scanner
-iSight web cam
-USB floppy drive and zip drive (haven't been used in over a year)
-iRiver MP3 player
-laptop wireless mouse (rarely used)
-MiniDV Camcorder
-Two digital cameras
-WiFi (for all three computers)

All that and still not one system crash. I'm a happy camper.

ed

edit: I forgot to mention that Panther has a system-wide spell checker that works in all applications including Safari (web browser). Great when posting to forums!