Defensive Computing

James Kendrick, one of the bloggers at jkontherun.com, recently wrote: "Mobile computer users will tell you that the number one need they have is for sufficient battery power." There are a few ways laptop computer users can get more battery power for their computers:

1. Buy a larger battery designed specifically for your computer. When buying many, if not most, laptop computers, you should have a choice of batteries. Higher-capacity batteries are physically bigger, cost more, and may very well protrude either vertically or horizontally.
2. If you find you need more power for a laptop computer you already own, you can buy a second battery. One downside to this approach is that the computer has to be powered off to switch batteries. Then too, there are safety concerns when carrying around an internal battery.
3. Yet another option involves an external battery pack that plugs into the same port on the laptop that the AC power cord does.

If you are interested in buying an internal battery, either to have as a spare when traveling or simply to replace a dying one, then check out "Cheap laptop batteries: Good deal or risky business?" by Brian Nadel of Computerworld. As Nadel explains it:

"There are two basic types of notebook batteries: the brand-name batteries that the manufacturer sells and the aftermarket batteries that are available from third-party resellers -- often for a significantly lower price ... We all want to save money, but not if it puts our notebooks at risk. Buying an aftermarket battery often goes against the advice of laptop manufacturers, and in some cases can even void the warranty. Is it worth it to save a few bucks?"

He tested three replacement batteries for a MacBook Pro and another three for a ThinkPad R50. His conclusion? "The aftermarket replacements proved to be just as good and reliable as the originals." That said, there is a big difference in aftermarket batteries; the article offers buying tips.

One issue with having two batteries is that only one can be charging at a time. But, every problem is a marketing opportunity, and a recent posting at Liliputing describes chargers you can buy for an Asus Eee PC that let you externally charge an internal battery.

In "External battery packs can power that notebook for hours", Kendrick discusses his experiences. In brief, external batteries offer a lot of power but at a price. As for power, he says they "can power most laptops for 8-10 hours." As for price, the two companies he mentions offer models priced at $200 and $300. Not cheap, but as Kendrick says, when you need them you really need them.

See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.

The MSI Wind has been around a long time by Netbook computer standards and generally gets good reviews. Laptop magazine, for example, loved it. Back in July, CNET gave it 3.5 stars out of 5.

The model CNET reviewed was, at the time, $479. It ran Windows XP, came with an 80GB hard disk and included Bluetooth networking. If you can live without Bluetooth, you can now buy a very similar model, the Wind U100-420US, with a 120GB hard disk for only $349. For that price you get a gigabyte of RAM, an Intel Atom processor, a 10-inch matte finish screen, Windows XP Home Edition, and a reasonable keyboard (all Netbook keyboards involve trade-offs).

This is a great price for a well-received 10-inch Netbook. Less than a month ago, it was $399. Laptop magazine referred to the price as "amazing" but warned, as did CNET, about the 3-cell battery. As Netbooks go, a 3-cell battery is bottom-of-the-line and generally doesn't offer much more than 2 hours of run time. That said, the Wind is able to toggle between a high performance mode and a slower mode designed to extend the run time.

(Credit: MSI)

In comparing the cheaper U100-420US with the more expensive U100-016US model, Liliputing.com also points out that the cheaper model doesn't offer gigabyte Ethernet. I think it's a great trade-off.

Both Liliputing and Laptop magazine blogged about the machine being available at Best Buy. However, my local Best Buy didn't have it on display on Sunday, and the Best Buy Web site currently shows the machine as being back-ordered.

The Wind U100-420US is also available, for the same price, at Newegg. It must be new there too as there aren't yet any customer reviews. However, the very similar U100-016US model has 23 reviews.

The Wind U100 is very similar to the Asus Eee PC 1000H. Last month Liliputing ran a detailed comparison of the two machines. If you're in the market for a Netbook, it's a worthwhile read.

Compared to the Acer Aspire One

On a personal note, this kills me. I very recently purchased an Acer Aspire One (AA1) for the exact same price. The Wind U100-420US is a much better value.

For one thing, it has a 10-inch screen versus only 9 inches for the Acer Aspire One. Also, the Wind screen has a matte finish (which I prefer, but opinions vary), the Acer screen is glossy. My recent posting Choosing a Netbook--a picture can be worth a thousand words illustrates the difference between a 9-inch glossy screen and a 10-inch one with a matte finish.

If the AA1 has a battery-saving low power mode, I haven't run across it.

The Wind keyboard is larger, I find the keyboard on the AA1 to be just a bit small for my adult-size fingers. According to Matthew Miller at ZDNet, the MSI Wind Netbook doesn't compromise on the keyboard.

The mouse buttons on the Wind are also better positioned. They are under the touchpad, where most people prefer them. I am not alone in disliking the button placement on the AA1 (instead of being under the touchpad, the buttons are on either side). Also, I use the Page up and Page down keys a lot and they are better positioned on the Wind keyboard.

You get the idea.

There is, however, one thing to be on the lookout for. Dave Winer had a hard time getting his Wind to connect to a couple of different Wi-Fi routers. In the end, he returned the computer.

Just for the record, I have no relationship at all with MSI, Best Buy, Newegg, or Acer.

See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.

Netbook computers are small and underpowered, making them a turn-off for many. But consider the Honda Fit, which was raved about in The Wall Street Journal on Saturday.

The Fit is a small, cheap, underpowered 5 door hatchback. Yet, Jeff Sabatini in the Journal said, "The Fit truly offers everything you need in a car, and nothing you don't." This is exactly the niche that Netbooks seek to occupy in the laptop computer world.

Compared with other cars in its class (the Chevrolet Aveo 5, the Nissan Versa and the Scion xD), Sabatini argues that a lot of good design choices went into the Fit. Below are some quotes from the article:

• ... a lot of car for the money--even as it's not a lot of car
• ...a car fairly well equipped with the stuff we take for granted
• It may not sound like a lot, but 117 horsepower is plenty
• [it aims] ...to be not just a good small car, but an exceptional car, period
• load up 4 adults and, despite its diminutive size, the car still doesn't feel small
• For not a lot of money the Fit is a whole lot of fun to drive

In other words, small and cheap don't have to imply a miserable user experience.

Rather than blindly ruling out Netbooks, look for one that made the right trade-offs. To my mind, this excludes models with a 9-inch screen and puts a great emphasis on the keyboard. The number of available models is huge and constantly in-flux, as are prices.

I think Netbooks are the next big thing. They will make great second computers for normal people, third computers for techies, and first computers for children. They will become mandatory take-to-class computers for students. For anyone interested in defensive computing, they will be mandatory when traveling (think both good enough and sacrificial lamb).

That said, I couldn't drive a Honda Fit as I never learned to drive a stick shift.

See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.

I'm seeing a new pattern of malicious emails in my inbox. The body of the email message is nothing but a link to a blog at blogspot.com. The subject is a single word such as: Hey, Ave or Hallo.

One message linked to   uyxmwrmxaxquiuxti.blogspot.com.

My browser stayed there for only a second before getting re-directed to xykribwams.com which claims to be My Canadian Pharmacy.

This is a great example of the value you can get from the Flagfox extension for Firefox (which I wrote about back in July). Flagfox shows that xykribwams.com is actually in Taiwan.

Another message linked to svhtuxcngrwg.blogspot.com. Blogger, however, caught this one as you can see below.

Should you run into a spam blog at Blogger, report it here.

A third message linked to rxqesyeagquzabjagdlokqafmnd.blogspot.com. Blogger also warned that this one was a possible violator of their terms of service.

Despite the warning from Blogger, I clicked through to see both of the last two sites. Each was redirected to the same place as the first one, xykribwams.com.

Abusing Google Docs

On a somewhat related note, another spam message employed another new (to me at least) tactic. The link in the email message went to

docs.google.com/View?docID=dw2rvb4_0d3cv77d6

Everybody likes Google Docs, so this page is unlikely to set of any alarms. Clicking on a link in the page takes the spam victim to the actual website pharmsdirectfull.com, which also claims to be a Canadian Pharmacy.

Flagfox shows that this site is in South Korea.

I purposely didn't mention the "From" address for any of these email messages because you should never consider it when judging a message. It's very easy to forge the From address.

See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.

On November 6th, an article appeared in the New York Times that all Word users should review.

The question in the Q and A column was Is it possible to extract the content from a corrupted Microsoft Word 2003 file that won't open? Turns out there are a number of options.

When opening a file with File -> Open, the "Files of Type" drop-down menu has an option to "Recover Text from Any File."

A more ambitious approach is to repair the document. In Word 2002, 2003 and 2007, use File -> Open, navigate to the file and select "Open and Repair" from the drop-down menu on the Open button.

In addition, the article links to Microsoft Knowledge Base articles with additional tips, and, a commercial product.

Let me add, that recovering and repairing may help or hurt. Thus, I suggest attempting each on a copy of the broken document, one created exclusively for this purpose.

See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.

The latest shout about how printers prematurely warn they're out of ink came this week from PC World magazine.

The basic premise isn't news, but the article is nonetheless a useful read.

For one thing, the author calculated the cost of a gallon of black ink at $4,731. No wonder printer manufacturers are motivated to make their customers buy more and more. In some of the tests, PC World found that printers "left more than 40 percent of their ink unused."

The tests were done on multifunction printers from Canon, Epson, Hewlett-Packard, and Kodak. To keep things simple, only black ink consumption was measured.

When ink levels get low, a printer may do nothing, may warn you, and/or it may shut down to force you to change the ink cartridge. I'd avoid printers that shut themselves down. Unfortunately, this isn't an attribute of the printer that's likely to be mentioned on the box.

The tested printers from Canon, Epson, and Kodak shut down. Only the HP Photosmart C5280 did not. Thus, if you're in the market for a multifunction printer, the C5280 can save you lots of money in the long run.

Back in August, I blogged about a similar article on Slate, but for laser printers. That article had some tricks for faking out laser printers, so that you can actually use all the toner. As for faking out inkjet printers, it says:

These tricks generally apply to laser printers. It's more difficult to find ways to override ink-level sensors in an inkjet printer, and, at least according to printer manufactures, doing so is more dangerous...There are two reasons manufacturers make it more difficult for you to keep printing after your inkjet thinks it's out of ink. First, using an inkjet cartridge that's actually empty could overheat your printer's permanent print head, leaving you with a useless hunk of plastic. Second, the economics of the inkjet business are even more punishing than those of the laser business, with manufacturers making much more on ink supplies than they do on printers.

See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.

There is a common defensive computing thread in two recent stories.

In the first story, Newsweek reports that both presidential candidates had their campaign computers hacked from afar. As they put it:

The computer systems of both the Obama and McCain campaigns were victims of a sophisticated cyberattack by an unknown "foreign entity," prompting a federal investigation, both the FBI and the Secret Service came to the campaign with an ominous warning: "You have a problem way bigger than what you understand," an agent told Obama's team. "You have been compromised, and a serious amount of files have been loaded off your system." ... Officials at the FBI and the White House told the Obama campaign that they believed a foreign entity or organization sought to gather information... "

The second story involves a former Intel employee who allegedly stole trade secrets. As CNET's Stephanie Condon writes, the employee resigned, yet continued on the Intel payroll for a few weeks (perhaps working off vacation time). During this transition period, he started working for Intel rival AMD, yet he remained in possession of his Intel laptop and still had access to Intel's computer network. The FBI later found him in possession of "top secret" Intel files worth more than $1 billion in research and development costs.

The lesson is clear. If you have really valuable or sensitive files, don't make them remotely accessible. Cut the wire. Some files should never be available off-site.

If this means buying a new computer just to hold really sensitive files, it's money well spent.

A couple years ago, I heard someone from the hacker group 2600 give out this same advice on their radio show, Off The Hook. It made sense back then and makes even more sense now.

Windows passwords are easily hacked. Instead of relying on a Windows password for local physical security, set both a power-on password and, if the computer supports it, a hard disk password. Whole disk encryption is another option, but one that involves much more work to implement.

If you put sensitive files on a laptop computer, then consider storing it in a safe when not in use. If you have a small safe, get a small laptop or a Netbook.

Laptops need more than just cutting the Ethernet wire. To begin with, turn off the Wi-Fi radio (there is probably a switch or a function key for this). If the laptop has Bluetooth, physically turn that off too.

Then, turn off the networking features in the operating system.

On Windows, turn off file sharing for every network adapter and turn off every network protocol. Then, disable all the network adapters.

Finally, disable the underlying Windows services that handle networking. On Windows XP this would be: Wireless Zero Configuration, Server, Computer Browser, Workstation and SSDP Discovery. Then since, the machine will be off-line forever, there are quite a few other Windows XP services that won't be needed and can be disabled: Automatic Updates, Distributed Link Tracking Client, Distributed Transaction Coordinator, Net Logon, NetMeeting Remote Desktop Sharing, Network DDE, Network DDE DSDM, Network Location Awareness (NLA), Network Provisioning Service, Remote Desktop Help Session Manager, Remote Registry and WebClient. The laptop I'm writing this on also has an Infrared Monitor service. I don't know what it's for, but I keep it disabled.

All told, this isn't much work and doesn't involve much expense. Yet, it's great insurance and can leave your sensitive files better defended than those at Intel and each presidential campaign.

See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.

I've stated before on this blog that I think Netbooks will be very popular. The 25 best selling laptop computers at Amazon.com bears out this prediction. But, perhaps the most shocking thing about the list is how few computers have Windows Vista installed.

The top 10 consist of seven Netbooks running Windows XP, one Netbook running Linux and two MacBooks. No Vista.

As of 11 a.m. PT Thursday, here's the list of operating systems on the most popular laptop computers sold at Amazon.com.

1. Windows XP Home Edition
2. Windows XP Home Edition
3. Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
4. Windows XP Home Edition
5. Windows XP Home Edition
6. Windows XP Home Edition
7. Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
8. Windows XP Home Edition
9. Windows XP Home Edition
10. SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10
11. Windows Vista Home Premium
12. Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
13. Windows Vista Home Basic
14. Linux
15. Windows XP Home Edition
16. Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
17. Windows XP Home Edition
18. Linux
19. Windows XP Home Edition
20. Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
21. Windows XP Home Edition
22. Linux
23. Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
24. Windows XP Home Edition
25. Windows XP Home Edition

Operating System Totals
Windows XP: 13
Mac OS X: 6
Linux: 4
Windows Vista: 2

Form Factor Totals
Netbook: 18
Full size Laptop: 7 (includes 6 Macs)

See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.

If you are in the market for a Netbook computer there are many decisions to be made. The pictures here may help with a couple of them. Shown below are an Acer Aspire One and an Asus Eee PC 1000.

The Acer Aspire One (left) and the Asus Eee PC (right)

The machines are as different as any two Netbooks can be. The Acer runs Windows XP, the Asus runs Linux. The Asus has an SSD, the Acer a traditional hard disk. The Asus supports Wi-Fi N, the Acer doesn't. The smaller Acer machine has a weaker battery and was significantly cheaper.

But the picture above points out other differences (see a larger version of the picture).

The smaller Acer has a 9-inch screen, the larger Asus is 10 inches (approximately). Measuring the other sides of the triangle, the Acer screen is (approximately) 7.5 by 4.5 inches, whereas the Asus screen is 8.5 by 5 inches. Both screens have the all-but standard Netbook resolution of 1024 x 600, which means that everything is just a bit bigger and easier to see on the Asus machine.