It’s been 15 years, and computer stores haven’t changed much

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , , , , , , , , , ,

In the early 1990s, I learned how to fix computers because I got tired of long waits and shoddy repairs from computer stores.

Last month I took a friend to go buy a computer. I didn’t want her to get stuck with retail junk, so I took her to a computer store that I knew sold quality parts. Plus I know the owner. He wrote an O’Reilly book too. I figured it would be a smooth experience, since I knew exactly what to ask for. The salesperson said he’d get back to me within two days with a quote, then it would take about a week to build the system after we gave the OK. Seems pretty smooth and reasonable.

It turned into a nightmare. Or at least a mess. Read more

Outlook send button is gone? Here’s the fix.

Dave Farquhar Office, Software , , ,

“My Outlook send button is gone,” one of my coworkers told me. Microsoft wasn’t much help. The relevant knowledge base articles said the e-mail account not being configured causes that problem. Except it was. He could receive and read mail just fine, he just couldn’t send anything out.

Ultimately we ended up deleting his mail profile to fix the missing send button. Read more

Bias is good?

Dave Farquhar net.culture , ,

Blekko could be an idea whose time has come. It’s a search engine with bias.

The idea is, you punch in what you’re looking for, and include a slash term to bias the search in a particular direction. That could help filter out spam sites–sites that are loaded with keywords and a few links but no real content, for instance.

But I imagine some significant percentage of its users will use it to try to find content they already agree with. Read more

Getting bombarded with political calls tonight? Don’t hang up–hit #

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized

I read this trick today. So far, hitting # worked on the political calls I’ve been getting tonight. Or, if in doubt, hit #0* as one of those key combinations usually works to kill the call.

And if any candidate calls after 8 PM and wakes up my kids, I automatically write in the name “Fidel Castro” instead of voting for them. Not that any of them are reading this. I’m pretty sure a good percentage of them can’t read…

More later, I hope.

Buying a new TV that won’t kill your electric bill

Dave Farquhar Saving money , , , , , , , , ,

As television technology improves, they become more energy efficient. Generally speaking, at least. The CRT TV ranging in size from 26-32 inches that was common in living rooms for most of my lifetime used around 130 watts. But some of the monster TVs people are buying these days use more power than the fridge. Read more

I got a new side gig

Dave Farquhar Uncategorized

I’ve been talking a lot with WhiteQueen at Rabbit-Hole lately, and learning a lot. It’s one thing to learn security from textbooks and learn enough to pass a test. It’s one thing to patch servers and make sure my servers pass annual security audits. It’s quite another thing to talk to someone who actively seeks out hackers to study their movements and try to keep them out. Or who stands up servers just to see how difficult it is to get in by force instead of through the logon prompt.

Both WhiteQueen and RedQueen have tons of ideas and tons of knowledge in their heads. But neither likes to write. After I banged out a 600-word article this week based on a five-minute conversation with him, WhiteQueen approached me with the idea of posting security-related articles on Rabbit-Hole. We think having quality, useful articles going up over there on a semi-regular basis will help them build a larger audience, and I’d never attract that audience working on my own. I’ll be learning as I go, and sharing what I learn in the process.

I’ll continue to write here about whatever it is I feel like writing about. I must have a half-dozen things not related to security that I’m working on right now anyway. When I post something over there, I’ll link to it from here to make it all easy to find.

Computer won’t boot? Check your USB ports

Dave Farquhar Hardware , , ,

A friend called me in panic. A brand-new computer, freshly reinstalled with Windows 7, suddenly wouldn’t boot.

I couldn’t figure it out. I looked up the manufacturer’s 800 number and suggested she call. Sure, I could fix the problem eventually, but the manufacturer would know the quirks of the motherboard they used better than I would. I’ve given up on trying to give anything but the most basic, superficial support of anything I don’t own myself–especially when it’s not sitting in front of me.

He had her change the boot order. For some reason the system was trying to boot off its RAID array before the SSD. That explained why the system took a couple of minutes to get through POST, then spend a few seconds booting. But that didn’t fix the problem. Read more

Why every sysadmin needs to know how to hack into Windows systems

Dave Farquhar Servers and Networking, War Stories, Windows , , , , ,

Yesterday, Lifehacker posted an article called How to Break Into a Windows PC (And Prevent it from Happening to You). Some people weren’t happy that they posted a tutorial on how to hack into Windows systems.

Let me tell you why every sysadmin needs to know how to hack into Windows systems, given physical access. I can give you three scenarios that I’ve run into. Read more