Defensive Computing

In the first posting on this blog I said it would be a game-free zone. Despite this, I recommend reading The truth about last year's Xbox 360 recall by Paul Thurrott. The story is as much about Microsoft and hubris as it is about the Xbox 360.

You may recall that Microsoft had to replace many Xbox 360s that suffered from a "Red Ring of Death" and even went so far as to extend the warranty to three years. Microsoft never offered specifics on the problem and now we know why, it was embarrassing.

Anyone can call … Read more

I love Firefox. Usually it goes hand-in-hand with Defensive Computing, as Firefox is more secure than Internet Explorer. But not today, not with the release of version 3 of Firefox.

Don't install Firefox version 3. Not today. not for a while.

Like all new software, Firefox 3 is best kept at arms length. Version 3 was a long time coming and, no doubt, features lots of new code. At the risk of repeating myself, all new software contains bugs and design flaws. Let the rest of the world debug it for you.

This is not to pick on Firefox … Read more

Just as patients have to trust their doctors, non-techies have to trust the advice they get from techies. My last posting was about an article in a newspaper that offered, what I felt, was questionable advice on setting up a WiFi wireless network. The July issue of PC Magazine recently arrived in my mailbox and it offers some advice on backing up your computer that is also, to me, questionable.

The article is called "Keep Your Data Safe" and doesn't seem to have been posted yet on pcmag.com.

One section of the article discusses external hard … Read more

I have, in the past, been critical of computer articles in the newspapers I regularly read, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Often I've warned that you don't read PC Magazine for mutual fund advice and you shouldn't read the Wall Street Journal for computer advice. Yet, the reporters in these newspapers are significantly more technically qualified than the Orlando Sentinel.

Today, I'm in south Florida, where the Sun Sentinel is the local paper. They reprinted an article by Etan Horowitz (no relation), Set up a home wireless network, that originally appeared last … Read more

I'm writing this posting on a laptop computer that is, literally, in my lap. As I type, the poor machine gets bounced around which is not at all good for the hard disk. I'm tempting fate, perhaps the computer equivalent of driving without a seat belt.

I would be much better off if the computer had a Solid State Hard Disk (SSD) rather than the traditional hard disk with rotating platters. Hard disks are amazing feats of technology, but they are moving mechanical devices and nothing good comes from bouncing them around, be it on your lap or … Read more

My last couple postings were about a bug fix for Windows, that I think is best avoided. Dealing with this particular fix, raised the issue, for me, of how to best deal with installing all patches, from a Defensive Computing standpoint.

I spent 10 years in the mainframe world administering to DB2 databases. The conundrum with installing patches is the same on mainframes as with PCs. Should you install every bug fix as soon as it's released or should you hold back a bit? And, if you do hold back, for how long?

The problem, in both environments, with … Read more

As I wrote a couple days ago, Microsoft released a new bug fix, KB932823, on May 28th which seemed suspicious for a number of reasons.

For one thing, the patch was released at the end of the month instead of Patch Tuesday. It turns out, according to a company spokesperson, that Microsoft releases patches twice a month, not just once a month. "While we release security updates on the 2nd Tuesday of the month, non-security updates are usually released either the 2nd or 4th Tuesday of the month." Who knew?

Since KB932823 is not a security related patch (… Read more

For some reason I felt the need today to run Microsoft Update (big brother to Windows Update) on my Windows XP computer. No particular reason, just felt it in my bones, even though I had run it recently after installing the Word viewer. Sure enough, it found a missing bug fix. It thinks the bug fix is critical, me, I'm not so sure.

Anyone who runs Windows Update manually, as I do, knows not to trust it all that much. It has, for example, found missing patches for software that was not installed. In April, I blogged about how … Read more

Old versions of Adobe Flash Player, perhaps the most widely used software in the world, contain known bugs that are being actively exploited online. If you are using any version of Flash Player, other than the latest, you should update to version 9.0.124.0 as soon as possible.

Early reports from Symantec said the bug being exploited was a new one. Turns out this is not the case. On Thursday, Adobe said

"Despite various reports that have been circulating, the Flash Player Standalone 9.0.124.0 and Linux Player 9.0.124.0 are NOT vulnerable … Read more