Tag: CompUSA

Viruses – Never Say Never

Viruses are the scourge of the Internet.

Earlier this week, I told my friend Farrell (always searching for better, more vigorous virus protection) how I use none and had never been hit by a virus!

Oops. Somehow I got two at once!

I turned on my old laptop&#185 when I came home last night and there they were. I’d probably picked them up the night before, but they needed a reboot to activate. They didn’t come via email, because I don’t get mail on that machine. They must have come through Firefox or (more likely) Windows Media Player.

They were both sitting in the system toolbar at the lower right of my screen and one was popping up dialog boxes ever few seconds. The sentence structure hinted of slightly broken English. That was my cue it wasn’t what it claimed to be – a warning from Microsoft that I’d been infected and needed to download protection.

The first of the virii cleaned up with no trouble. In fact, it had an entry in the add/remove programs dialog, as if it were legit. The second wasn’t quite as easy.

I can’t tell you its name except to say its toolbar signature is a red circle with an “X” in the middle.

A little sleuthing turned up some older entries, but none seemed to exactly match my poison. What I caught was probably an adaptation of an earlier virus.

We’re talking about crooks and thieves here. They’re not buying their software at CompUSA.

On the inside, my virus was programmed to hide in plain site, creating a new, randomly named, program each time it ran. Find the virus, stop the program – it creates another.

I found what I think is the ‘seed,’ a program called winstall.exe, as a new entry in my registry. It was scheduled to run each time the computer rebooted.

I did some manual pruning, removing a line from the registry, then allowed AOL’s new virus scanner&#178 (actually the very highly rated Kaspersky anti-virus) do its thing. As is my custom in these cases, I ran it in ‘safe mode,’ then ran it again.

I’ll keep an eye on the little laptop to make sure it hasn’t been permanently compromised. I’ve heard of cases where the virus goes dormant for a while only to return when your defenses are down.

I’d hate to have my computer responsible for sending out thousands of spam emails (as compromised computers often do) or interrupting my surfing with pop-up messages.

I’m upset I allowed this to happen to me! I’m supposed to be the guy who fixes other people’s computers and then, disapprovingly, shakes my head.

It wasn’t a virus as much as it was an injection of humility.

&#185 – This is a really old machine – a Dell PII 300 laptop with 256 mb RAM. It is ploddingly slow for many things, but easily handles web surfing and poker while I’m in the family room.

&#178 – AOL’s virus scanner is free, and you don’t have to join AOL to get it. I suppose its in their best interest to clean up the Internet as best they can.

Thing Are Hopping At The Mall

I went to the mall on Sunday. Let me repeat that for my daughter who probably went slack jawed, dropping whatever she was eating, when she saw those words.

Alone – I went to the mall alone!

This would be like Steffie or Helaine spending quality time at Fry’s or CompUSA.

Slowly, but surely, my wristwatches have been running out of battery power. As of early Sunday there were four depleted watches with one not far behind.

It didn’t take long to find a place to change the batteries. At the Brass Mill Center in Waterbury, I walked to the second floor and found a small store with the offer of battery changes written on the window.

My battery was changed by Ines. Well, I think it was Ines. She wore her name, in gold around her neck. I did get a great look because of cleavage concerns.

I’ve buried the lead again. This isn’t about my watches or who changed them. It’s about what I saw when I walked into the mall – people on bungees.

It was the strangest thing. Right there, at the main entrance to the mall, a contraption is set up with harnesses and bungee chords. Kids get harnessed in (maybe it can handle adults, but I didn’t see any) and then jump as if there’s no gravity.

There was chatter and encouragement galore as one girl attempted a somersault while suspended high above the mall’s floor. She made it!

Over the years, the center of a mall’s corridors has become selling space. It wasn’t always that way kiosk fans. Now, this mall which already has a merry-go-round, has something else to attract your attention.

Computer Problems – Business As Usual

As a special welcome home, Helaine’s computer decided to suffer a near death experience today. It was one of those things that can happen to anyone.

She turned on the computer, but forgot to plug it in the wall. Having been away for nearly two weeks, and with an elderly battery, there wasn’t more than a minute or two of juice. It was just enough to allow it to die while booting!

When she plugged the laptop in and tried to boot again, it got to the first Windows ‘splash screen’, churned its disk drive for a while, briefly flashed a ‘Blue Screen of Death,’ and began the boot cycle all over again. Uh oh!

I was called in for my technical expertise. You like to think in a situation like this you can just boot to the ‘Safe Mode,’ restore the computer to an earlier time, and merrily resume computing.

If only it were that easy.

Attempting to get to the ‘Safe Mode’ produced exactly the same result. I told Helaine it was possible her emails and bookmarks, the things she really wanted, might be gone. she wasn’t thrilled.

I called for tech support – my friends Peter and Kevin. They had some suggestions and I plowed on.

With Windows XP you should be able to put the original Windows installation CD in the disk drive and watch it repair itself. Good idea, but it didn’t work.

Since the ‘splash screen’ came up, I assumed the drive wasn’t a total failure. Maybe there was a way to read this laptop drive in my desktop?

They are normally incompatible, but sure enough, there was a cable for sale at CompUSA to allow them to talk. I’m trying to think if there are any good circumstances when you’d want this little device? No.

This was too easy. It’s a 25 minute drive to CompUSA and the cable was around $8… and they had it in stock&#185!

In order to use it, I had to remove the drive from Helaine’s laptop, physically open my desktop’s case, free up an IDE port (I unplugged the CD and DVD drives), hook everything up and fire up the PC.

I crossed my fingers and pressed the button.

My desktop booted very slowly, as if it knew it was entering uncharted waters. Finally it flashed a screen saying the “H” drive (that was where the laptop drive ended) needed to be checked.

I gave my permission and watched the errors fly. Four clusters were unreadable, an index file was wrong, some corrections were made and a small section of the disk was being marked as bad. It was bad, but it could have been much worse.

When Windows finally finished its booting, I tried to move all of Helaine’s files to my PC for safekeeping, but got an error message. What had looked promising a few seconds ago now looked bleak.

Kevin suggested I just take the semi-repaired drive out of my PC and put it back in the laptop. I did, booted, and watched the disk warning again – this time with a few different files.

Then a strange thing happened… the laptop finished its disk check, ran through its boot sequence and worked! Helaine was overjoyed.

You know, in the movies the geek never gets the girl. Maybe we should?

&#185 – Interestingly enough, there were two of the needed cables on a hook at CompUSA. The one in front had obviously been used and poorly repackaged. I passed on it for the other. The next purchaser gets to be their guinea pig.

Something For Nothing – Sometimes

Everyone likes to get something for nothing. I certainly do. That’s probably why I’m so enamored with rebates. I seek them out like crazy. I scour techbargains.com and fatwallet.com searching for some elusive toy I’ve just got to have – as long as it’s free, or close to it!

Sunday’s are always fun. Before I read the newspaper, I check the ads. The biggest deals come from CompUSA, Staples, Circuit City and Office Max. Best Buy has the slickest ads – not the best prices.

I mention this, because I’ve just finished doing the paperwork for six separate rebates. That doesn’t mean six separate items, because often a single item will have two rebates.

Who’s kidding whom? Multiple rebates are there because it’s just one more way to discourage you from getting the rebate. That’s the sad truth. Rebates look a lot friendlier, easier and lucrative before you buy than after.

Each rebate form is a scavenger hunt with slightly different rules. Send a copy – no wait – send the original – no wait – circle the price – no wait … you understand. The idea is to make it as difficult as possible, as time consuming as possible, to regain your cash.

It is possible to make rebates easier to obtain, but that would fly in the face of what’s really happening. Rebates allow stores to advertise a lower price than the item will actually sell for.

I have a sneaky suspicion that some of the rebates I send in never produce a check. I keep receipts, but the whole process becomes so difficult and tedious that checking is nearly impossible.

Tonight’s paperwork should produce over $200 in cash and reduce my cost for these items to around $100. Not bad, if it works.

The Guys Go To Fry’s

Sunday morning – only one day to go. Very sad.

As always, Las Vegas woke up to sunshine. People here sometimes complain about the consistent, predictable sunshine. Give me a break.

After a quick breakfast at the coffee stand I took Michael and Max to Fry’s. I have heard about Fry’s over the years. The are stories about Fry’s in Silicon Valley during the early days of the dot-com boom… geeks picking up motherboards and nachos in the middle of the night.

It is a more technically oriented version of CompUSA, but the size of BJ’s or Costco. I saw displays of CPU’s, motherboards, cases, everything tech! Good God, I was in heaven.

I ended up buying a 120 GB Western Digital hard drive for $60 after rebate and two $22 books, both free after rebate. Not bad. Michael bought a DVD for Max and a few more very esoteric art film type DVDs for himself.

Before I leave the subject of Fry’s, there is one very tacky thing. The entrance of the store, which faces away from Las Vegas Boulevard, is styled like a slot machine. It’s very cheesy. The vertical stands, used to prevent cars from driving in, are fashioned to look like stacks of quarters.

We came back and I took a nap. Then it was back to the poker room. Though there was only one table playing $6/$12 and four on the waiting list, the woman with the clipboard told me it would move quickly. Right – I don’t think so.

I sat down at $3/$6 and bought a $100 rack of blue chips. It didn’t take long to notice a heavyset man with a large, though old, tattoo on his right arm. His long brown blond hair was askew as if he had slept on it, but hadn’t showered, or had just been up for a long, difficult time. He was loud. He had two drinks in front of him. He was drunk.

I really don’t care if there’s a drunk player, because they usually play stupidly, giving me a shortcut to their money. He was loud enough and off center enough to take my concentration off the cards and onto him. And, his irrational large bets totally changed the strategy necessary to stay afloat.

I lost a close hand – what should have been a cheap hand, but wasn’t because of his constant raising. I didn’t lose to him, but I lost. Before long I had shed $70. I tried hard not to go on tilt, to keep my play steady.

Little by little I played back and after a few hours left up $15.

During my play he was visited by at least two floor people. One came on my insistence. The other was called in by the dealer. He should have been cut off from liquor. He should have been removed from the table. I suppose if I would have pressed a little more he would have. On the other hand, I don’t want some huge drunk upset with me.

Dinner tonight was just Steffie, Helaine and me at the California Pizza Kitchen. Helaine and I are positive we’ve been served by this waiter at least 5-6 times before.

And now, my last chance at poker.

Blogger’s note: I continue to add photos to the gallery for this trip. You can see them by clicking here. The whole Vegas trip has its own category, which means you can link to these stories specifically by clicking here or read about the 2003 Vegas trip here.

Sony Laptop to the Hospital

We have two laptops at home. One is an older Dell which has become mine… and a Sony Vaio PCG-FXA59 which Helaine adopted and used to be mine. When I woke up this morning Helaine gave me the bad news, the Vaio had gone bye-o (I’m sorry – unavoidable).

Actually, what she saw was the screen blink a few times and then nothing but black. For the past few months the laptop had exhibited a reddish tint on its screen when starting up – that now seems to have been a symptom of the impending doom.

I brought the machine upstairs and plugged a monitor into its external VGA port. It worked. So, the laptop is alive, the screen just won’t fire.

I could have sent the laptop to Sony, which meant shipping it to San Diego. Their repairs are flatrate, with LCD repairs costing $600. That seemed too pricey. Instead I went to a place I’d seen advertised on TV, PCW Computers in Orange. They charge $30 to do a diagnosis and then separately for the repair.

The funny thing is, in their ad they reference their location by saying, “across the street from CompUSA.”

I walked in and it was unlike anything I had ever seen. People were carrying in towers mostly. And there were plenty of them. Behind the counter were a number of workstations, with monitors. There is no shortage of computers to be fixed, I suppose.

My hope is the problem will be the inverter (which creates the voltage to light the bulbs that illuminate the LCD) or the Cold Cathode lights themselves. Neither are incredibly expensive (though I’ll assume the total cost of repair will be at least $200). If the actual LCD went, this laptop is toast – and not worth fixing.

In the meantime, Helaine has adopted the Dell.

Building a New PC – Almost

Why would anyone want three PCs at home? I’m not talking about the machines shared with my family. These are my computers. Granted, two of them are discards; computers deemed too slow by others.

I have done most of what I could to optimize these older machines. They’re loaded with memory and unnecessary processes are shut down. You still can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear, but you can get a lot closer than most people expect.

The laptop, a Pentium II 300 MHz model, is my road machine. It’s got a wireless card and is often downstairs in the family room (especially if I’m watching TV and playing poker). It is sometimes sluggish, but never enough to be a bother.

The second desktop is also a P-II 300. Well, it was until a few days ago.

I wondered if it would be possible to bring this machine into the 21st century without spending much cash. TigerDirect was having a sale where the net cost (after rebates) of a motherboard, fast processor chip with fan, and memory was only $99.99. I decided to give it a try.

It took about three days for UPS to deliver my package. Looking in the box, everything was there, in its original packaging. So far, so good.

Fearing the 256MB RAM stick that came with the kit wasn’t enough, I went to Staples and bought another 256MB. It was $30, after rebate, bringing me to $130.

What is missing in a deal like this is a great deal of documentation. There were no instructions with either the CPU chip (an AMD XP 2400) or the fan. There was a sticky label on the chip’s packaging saying, in essence, “you break it, too bad.”

Instructions don’t seem like a big deal, but mounting the fan isn’t totally intuitive and a thermal compound paste (included) has to be applied between the fan and chip.

My first step was unplugging the old motherboard, unscrewing and removing it from the case. No problem. It came out really easily.

Since the computer industry standardized motherboard sizes, my new ATX board should fit exactly where the old board sat. It did. A new plate fit between the case and motherboard, allowing the external plugs for video, audio, mouse and keyboard to be accessible. So far, so good.

Each individual peripheral, like a disk drive, has to be wired for both data and power. It sounds tougher than it is. There are distinctly sized plugs for each operation. It’s tough to go wrong, though it is possible if you’re not looking, to put some plugs in backwards.

The manual for the Soyo motherboard was well illustrated and easily led me to the right sockets on the board for all these cables. I did have to call AMD to try and figure out how to set an on-board jumper. I was on and off the phone in two minutes.

AMD, if you’re listening, I’m impressed.

It took a bit over an hour on the kitchen table before I was ready to plug it in. I lugged the case upstairs and plugged it into my KVM switch. KVM stands for keyboard, video, mouse. All it means is I can run two computers from one set of devices. Hitting the scroll lock key twice toggles my keyboard, mouse and monitor from one machine to the other. It’s pretty simple, saves space and lots of money.

The system started to power up, but the normal beep as it’s getting ready to go was replaced by a continuous tone for a few seconds and then… silence. The machine shut itself down.

Uh oh. I took a look at everything under the hood. Something had to be wrong. I didn’t see anything out of place. So, I went to Soyo’s website and searched out my problem.

Someone had described a similar outcome for another motherboard. It hinged on the safety circuitry not sensing the cooling fan on the computer chip. Sure enough, my fan was plugged into the wrong socket.

Though the fan was spinning, keeping things cool, the motherboard’s circuitry though it was just an extra fan, not the one necessary to keep the chip operating. I moved the plug and bingo, it booted.

I spent the next few hours going through a bunch of different operating systems, trying to decide what I wanted. I loaded Windows XP and two different flavors of Linux.

Since I was aiming to keep the cost down, I went with Linux. Specifically, it’s “Mandrake Linux 10 Community,” a close-to-production release. It’s free! I actually downloaded the installation disks the night before and burned them onto Cd’s. Unless you play games or run some very specific applications, Linux is fine. There are browsers, email programs, graphic design software, etc. Most of it them are free.

I find it a little more difficult to get answers to Linux questions, because I know fewer people who run it than Windows. But, I am constantly ‘mitchering’ with my machine, and that brings up situations most users wouldn’t get into.

I went to bed a happy man. My machine was humming along. This ugly duckling was now the fastest machine in the house. Life was good. And then, I woke up.

Hitting the power button brought nothing. No noise, no lights, nothing.

I had built this system in an old case with an older, weaker power supply. I can’t be sure, but my best estimation is the power supply was stressed with this new configuration. As it cooled, it broke down. A digital multimeter across the power pins showed no voltage anywhere.

My goal here was to keep costs down. Now, with the extra RAM, I was already $30 over my original cost. I could have spent $60 at CompUSA or Circuit City to get a new supply, but decided to log onto eBay and see what was available.

For $20, including shipping, I bought a 420 watt supply to replace the 230 watt model I’ve surely fried. It’s coming from California, so I’ll be without this machine for most of – maybe all – of the next week. My $100 machine is now $150.

Still, if the power supply is the problem, and if it boots up right away, this will be a great investment. For $150, a computer someone wanted to throw away, will be a screamer. And, I did it myself. It’s no big deal.