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Previously, I spoke of providing a decent backup solution for new computer users who are making a new PC purchase. Well, after doing a little research, I found a solution that is not only cross platform, it is dead simple to use. It’s calledCrashPlan.

I first set up CrashPlan on my Ubuntu notebook. After extracting the folder, I executed the installer script with a double click, choose the option to run in the terminal and go with the default choices presented, then reboot. It’s pretty easy. From there I went ahead and installed the app again, this time on the Mac. Immediately my notebook showed up on the Mac as a back-up location as well as the remote backup service option provided by CrashPlan.

See, what makes CrashPlan is that it does NOT require you to trust its remote storage services at all - you choose where. Whether it be a friend’s PC remotely, or another PC on your own LAN. I am also loving the fact that the data is secured using encryption, should you wish to. Also another bonus: any realtime backup eliminates any attached viruses. Now that is impressive.

Wait, what about Time Machine for the Mac? Well, read this and decide for yourself. As for Windows users, setting up another local backup server in your home makes a lot of sense. Thanks for making this truly cross platform guys, I am really impressed. I mean, just take a gander at these features!

Today Ed asks:

I have two hard drives on my computer one 300 GB using FAT 32, the other 15 GB using NTFS. Is there away that both could be NTFS with no problem? And is it a good idea to have them both the same? If so which is better and faster?

Honestly, I would convert the FAT32 drive as FAT32 is a painfully obsolete file system for Windows users. This said, I would also backup the data on the drive BEFORE converting the drive, just in case things go badly.

So how do you go about converting the drive? Simply follow this set of instructions and you ought to be on your way.

Do you have an IT-related question? Perhaps you are just burnt out on writing on the walls with crayons? Whatever the comments may be, drop me a line, and you too can “Just Ask Matt!” Please address comments to the comments section above, my email address is for questions - thanks!

For definitive virus detection, you must turn to an anti-virus program with updated definitions. If a reputable anti-virus program will install, run, and complete a check successfully, and if its definitions have been updated within the last 24 hours, you can be fairly confident that the problem is not a virus. Otherwise, virus infection is still a credible suspect.

Updated virus definitions are essential; otherwise, performing a complete system scan for a virus is a waste of time. And these days, new viruses are discovered almost every day, so definitions updated within the last 24 hours are preferable.

Most anti-virus programs can’t detect viruses that they don’t know about. There are exceptions, such as programs that monitor the file sizes and dates of essential system files and warn you if they are about to be changed. However, the vast majority of threats circulating today are not true viruses because they do not actively infect your existing .exe files or boot sector. Instead, they are Trojan horses, back door programs, or worms, whose behaviors won’t normally trigger that kind of proactive detection. Therefore, updated definition files are your only reliable line of defense against new virus threats.

Norton AntiVirus, for example, checks for new definitions on the company’s server and installs them automatically. Be warned, however, that some services (such as Symantec’s Live Update) update their servers only once a week except during peak periods of virus problems, so you might not always get the latest updates by running Live Update. Going manually to the company’s Web site and comparing the date of the most recently posted definitions to the date shown in your software is one way to ensure you have the latest stuff, but that can be a little taxing. Symantec offers an Intelligent Updater service that updates virus definitions every business day, which is a great alternative for administrators with mission-critical PCs to support.

Assuming your virus definitions are up to date, you can be reasonably certain that if an anti-virus program successfully completes a full system scan and tells you there is no virus, there probably is no virus. If you remain skeptical, check one of the major virus security Web sites after 24 hours; it’s possible that a brand-new variant has slipped in. If that’s the case, other people should be reporting it and it should be all over the virus community’s news within 24 hours.

If your anti-virus program won’t run, or won’t do a full system scan, or if you buy a new copy and it won’t install, this is a significant sign there is a virus infection. For example, many varieties of the W32.Klez.mm mass-mailing worm include commands that disable your anti-virus software and make it difficult or impossible to install new anti-virus software.

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Not everything in the news these days about Microsoft is doom and gloom. As a matter of fact, this report on an add-on for Outlook looks to be rather promising. Known as the Email Prioritize, it provides the following basic functionality:

Turn on a do not disturb option for your Outlook email (sorry, does not really work with Exchange)
Prioritize your incoming email based on a rating system. Once trained, you would be able to look at the stars for each email assigned to decide which messages need to be attended to first and which can wait until time allows.

Some might argue that the prioritizing could be done with other standalone apps, but for most people, the add-on funcionality to Outlook is going to appeal to them I suspect.

But this also brings up another question - is this an application that will enable us to be more productive or could it potentially send us into a frenzy of “snoozing” our business email? Hit the comments, share your thoughts on the matter.

In Part I of this series, I outlined some of the sure signs that your computer is infected with a virus. However, sometimes identifying a virus is not so cut and dry as the symptoms can disguise themselves as Windows problems.

You might have a virus if…

A virus infection could also cause some of the following symptoms. Keep in mind that these symptoms are also typical of ordinary Windows system problems, so they cannot be definitively viral symptoms without running a complete virus scan with updated definitions.

Windows will not start at all, even though the user has made no system changes, installed or removed any programs, or made any Registry edits since the last time it started successfully.
Windows will not start because certain critical system files are missing (and you see an error message listing those files), and the user is confident that he or she did not accidentally delete them.
The PC starts up normally sometimes, but at other times will hang before the desktop icons and taskbar appear.
The PC runs very slowly and/or takes a long time to start up.
Out-of-memory error messages appear, even though the PC has plenty of RAM.
Viewing the system processes via Task Manager shows that an unknown process is consuming a high percentage of the CPU time.
From the Task Manager view, you notice programs or processes running that you do not recognize, even after shutting down all running programs and system tray utilities.
New applications will not install properly.
Windows spontaneously reboots for no apparent reason.
Applications that used to run normally are now crashing frequently. Removing and reinstalling them does not solve the problem.
A disk utility such as Scandisk reports multiple serious disk errors.
A partition completely disappears.

The key to distinguishing virus-related system problems from ordinary ones is often situational. What did the user do right before the problem started? It never hurts to ask. If possible, check the user’s e-mail box to see whether an e-mail containing a virus might still be hanging around there. Check his or her Deleted Items and Sent Items folders as well to see if the virus may have been spread to others.

A time-and-money-saving question shared by commuters in their cars and networks sharing ever-changing Internet resources is: "What’s the best way to get from here to there?"

A new algorithm developed by computer scientists at the University of California, San Diego helps answer that question, at least for computer networks, and it promises to significantly boost the efficiency of network routing.

Called XL, for approximate link state, the algorithm increases network routing efficiency by suppressing updates from parts of the system — updates which force connected networks to continuously re-calculate the paths they use in the great matrix of the Internet.

"Routing in a static network is trivial," say the authors in their paper, which will be presented at this week’s ACM SIGCOMM conference. "But most real networks are dynamic — network links go up and down — and thus some nodes need to recalculate their routes in response."

The traditional approach, said Stefan Savage, professor of computer science at UC San Diego, "is to tell everyone; flood the topology change throughout the network and have each node re-compute its table of best routes — but that requirement to universally communicate, and to act on each change, is a big problem."

What the team did with their new routing algorithm, according to Savage’s student Kirill Levchenko, was to reduce the "communication overhead" of route computation — by an order of magnitude.

"Being able to adapt to hardware failures is one of the fundamental characteristics of the Internet," Levchenko said. "Our routing algorithm reduces the overhead of route re-computation after a network change, making it possible to support larger networks. The benefits are especially significant when networks are made up of low-power devices of slow links."

The real technical innovation of their work, said another of the authors, Geoffrey M. Voelker, "is in how information about changes in the network is propagated. The XL routing algorithm propagates only some updates, reducing the number of updates sent through the network."

They meet the "central challenge" of determining which updates are important and which can be suppressed by using three rules for update propagation, said team member Ramamohan Paturi. "The rules ensure that selected routes are nearly as good as if complete information about the network were available," he said, "but at a fraction of the overhead required for maintaining such a state of perfect knowledge."

The computer scientists also believe that there are "significant opportunities" to improve the efficiency of link-state routing even further. They look forward to discovering an algorithm that improves on their Approximate Link work with similar boosts in efficiency.

Grants from the National Science Foundation helped support the team’s research.

[Paul K. Mueller @ University of California — San Diego]

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Despite my best efforts to avoid the social media scene except where work dictated, I am rather taken up with using Twitter from my BlackBerry. Overall the experience is a pleasant enough one, with the exception of needing to use a browser to post and stay up to date with the latest updates.

Yesterday, one of my Twitter friends alerted me to an application called Twitterberry. As the name of the application would indicate, it is designed to allow “Twittering” on your BlackBerry. After using it myself for about an hour, I have found myself falling in love with this software overall…minus a couple of exceptions.

Took me a minute to figure out why I was unable to update my friend’s stream as I was receiving an error telling me that my username and password were incorrect. All I needed to do was “post something” and all worked from there.
I wish the Twitterberry icon would “backlight” the way Gmail’s does when there are new updates since last viewing the stream. Yes, this is petty, but I am just sharing my thoughts on what I would like to see.

Outside of the thoughts above, I could not be happier. The menu for the app is exactly what I want. Honestly, the only thing I would ask for more is to see this blended into an Ping.fm app - this way I could hit everything at once easily from my BlackBerry!

Even though I use BES (MS Exchange) access for some of my email needs, I am also rocking three separate POP mail accounts on my BlackBerry as well. And if you have a public email address, you know that this means spam. Spam on the Exchange server is not really such a problem, but it is a nightmare on my POP accounts. I have a great two fold solution for dealing with this on my desktop PC, unfortunately it is not working so well as 85% of the POP mail I receive on my BlackBerry is simply junk. It has been so bad, that I have to deal with over 1000 messages in one day. Only 12 of them were legit. Clearly, I needed to rethink some things.

After a little searching, I ended up with a trial copy of the Antair BlackBerry Spam filter. Designed to provide both Bayesian and blacklist options, the program seemed like a good fit for what I was looking for. Once the trial was installed, I was disappointed to see it was both limited with its other functionality in addition to limiting me to 20 recently filtered messages.

On a positive note however, I was frustrated enough to throw caution to the wind and I simply purchased it to see if it was going to do what it promised. To my surprise, it not only filter spam as promised, thus far it has missed ONE message out of hundreds. Best of all, no false positives, either!

Here are some of the features that have sold me on this product:

Contact integration - I have the ability to whitelist everyone in it should I want to.
I can blacklist/whitelist by - email address, domain, server tags or even keywords.
Setting the spam filtering engine is easy - just pick a number.
I am able to check out real time statistics.
The spam box provides me with a means of deleting some or all of the spam as I see fit.
I am able to whitelist mislabeled email from my inbox with a click of my keypad.
Live alerts to spam going to the spam box as they come in.

Here is what I would like to see change:

Providing a trial of the product is great and the price is fair, however handicapping the software to the point of forcing me to buy it to really see what I can do is stupid. Seriously, anyone who has this at full capacity who has been using the trial for 30 days unhindered will buy it when the time is up. Most people will not put up with the current limited trial as it is today however.

That is it, the issue above is my only gripe. Outside of this, I am LOVING this program. It runs well, it does not half-work and it does not fail me like other apps might. While others may see things differently, this is the best money I have ever spend on a spam filtering product. It is working better than other products used on the desktop - now how is that for shocking?

Today’s PC viruses, Trojan Horses, worms, and blended threats can cause run-of-the mill Windows or application problems, out-of-memory errors, intermittent failures to fully start up, or installation or operation problems with applications. But these problems could also be caused by your typical hardware or software malfunction.

Here’s how to determine whether the culprit in question is indeed a virus.

You probably have a virus if…

The symptoms in the bulleted list below are rarely caused by anything except a virus, so if you detect any of these issues on an end user’s PC, you should strongly suspect virus infection.

The user received an e-mail with an odd attachment and opened it, with unexpected results- such as the appearance of odd dialog boxes or a sudden degradation in system performance.
There is a double extension on an attachment that the user recently opened, such as .jpg.vbs.
An anti-virus program will not install on the PC (or appears to install, but then will not run), but other programs will.
Odd dialog boxes or messages appear onscreen.
Several files are missing, especially those of a common type. For example, some viruses have a side effect of deleting all graphic files of a particular type.
Someone tells the user they have recently received strange e-mails from them containing random attached files or a virus.
The PC starts performing actions seemingly on its own, like moving the mouse pointer, opening or closing windows, running programs, or opening and closing the CD tray. This is a symptom of someone actually using a back door to operate the PC, rather than a symptom of the existence of the back door.
You notice the presence of new users with full security permissions that you know you did not create, or you notice inappropriate permissions assigned to existing users. Again, this is more often a symptom of back door hacking than virus infection.
The mouse pointer changes to some different graphic.
Odd icons appear on the desktop that the user did not place there, although the user has not installed any new applications lately that could have placed them there.
Strange sounds or music plays from the speakers for no apparent reason.
File sizes or date/time stamps have changed on files that the user knows he or she did not alter.
A program that was used successfully recently has disappeared, and the user knows that he or she did not uninstall it.

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Why is it we can buy a PC, yet while we are being pitched with printers and scanners, we are NEVER pitched with the wild idea of a smart backup scheme? Seriously, is it too much to ask for HP, Dell and others selling to Joe and Jill Consumer to provide a simple to use backup setup? Am I asking too much here? If these companies really want to bomb people with add-ons, this is one area that is sorely being missed.

Now granted, Windows has plenty of backup software options - but the PCs these options can easily being installed with are not coming with external drives unfortunately. Bear in mind that I am not talking about some RAID array or advanced network storage of any kind. No, all I want to see is PCs coming in bundles with a simple USB/FireWire external hard drive with software that is ready to go out of the box, as the PC is being “unboxed.”

I say this as I was looped into recently helping a friend of my wife’s family with a PC issue gone wrong. The dell stopped working, looks like possible drive failure coupled with plenty of malware (let’s hear it for running as an admin!) and you guessed it, no backup of important data in sight.

Clearly this is not all that revolutionary as 99% of the casual users fully understand the importance of backing up. They may hear the term tossed around or even see the drives sold at their local big box stores. Yet leave it to the folks at these same stores to not put together the obvious and provide simple, ready to go bundles that allow their customers still new to computing to safely and easily backup their computers with what they need. Perhaps I am asking too much here, but I just do not think so.

The Windows Firewall is a crucial component of your defense strategy. This is becoming more and more important as people store personal information on their computers such as bank account numbers, credit card data, tax information, and so on. By implementing a firewall, you can close the door to your local computer and private network so intruders cannot get in, but you can still get out.

If you are looking for a fast, easy firewall solution, you can take advantage of the firewall component included with Windows Vista. The Windows Firewall lets you to secure your local computer and network by preventing unsolicited traffic from the Internet.

A firewall solution can be a challenge to implement, especially for a user with limited experience. Windows Firewall provides a simple method of protecting your network and requires little to no configuration. You can use it to secure a single computer with an Internet connection or to secure a small network of computers.

So how does the Windows Firewall protect your computer? The firewall inspects each packet that is destined for the private network. It maintains a table to determine which incoming traffic was initiated on the local network, for example, a user on the private network accessing an FTP server on the Internet. Any incoming traffic resulting from this request would be allowed through the firewall. If an inbound request was not initiated by the local computer or a computer on the private network, it is not allowed through the firewall.

The Windows Firewall is enabled by default in Windows Vista. You can use the Security Center within the Control Panel to verify the settings. More advanced users can choose to work with Windows Firewall with Advanced Security found within the Administrative Tools.

You can test the integrity of your firewall to determine if any weaknesses exist. Doing so is not difficult because many Web sites will put your computer’s defense system to the test. For free too! There are several trusted Web sites you can visit that offer free tools for scanning your computer to detect any existing security weaknesses. For example, grc.com or the Symantec Security Check available from the Symantec Web site. In any case, once you have your firewall enabled, don’t assume you are safe and clear from Internet attacks. You may be surprised to see the results of a security check and all the holes that may still exist.

Event Viewer is not new to Windows Vista. You can find it in earlier versions of Windows. The Event Viewer is, for the most part, a passive tool that tracks system errors and events of interest. Events can be generated by users with the appropriate authority (administrative privileges) and indeed, applications and services can generate custom errors.

In Windows Vista, you can find the Event Viewer within the Administrative Tools (click Start | All Programs | Administrative Tools). When you open the Event Viewer you will notice that the interface is very different from previous version. To locate the log files, click Windows Logs under Event Viewer (local).

The Application, Security, and Systems logs have been around since the days of NT, and serve as logs generated by applications, security events (such as logon/logoff and auditing events) and Systems events (such as driver failures).

New to Windows Vista is the Setup log and Forwarded Events log. The Setup log contains events related to application setup. The Forwarded Events log is used to store events collected from remote computers. Another new feature are Event Subscriptions. Before you can collect events from remote computers in the Forwarded Events log, you must create an Event Subscription.

Double click one of the log files to view the contents. Each event’s properties can be double-clicked for more information. You can even find more help about the event by selecting the link labeled ‘Event Log Online Help’. This is definitely a huge plus on the troubleshooting trail.

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Regardless of the hype and glamor that comes with the purchase of a brand new PC, there is still something to be said for being able to make functional use out of a refurbished one instead. Whether the motivation stem from perceived financial savings or environmental based on another PC that will not be in a landfill, at the end of the day it does seem that refurbished PC sales are going strong.

To be honest, I believe the most complex decision for most people is deciding how much they wish to spend, what the PC is to be used for and whether or not there is an operating preference.

On the Windows front, Microsoft has been kind enough to provide a certification process for OEMs looking to selling “refurb’ed” PCs. Once the OEM has achieved Microsoft’s MAR status, then they can proceed with selling refurbished PCs installed with an appropriate version of Windows. Based on my own refurbishing experiences, I would be shocked if the MAR was using anything beyond Windows XP as Vista has hardware requirements that mean newer hardware.

As for Linux as a refurbisher’s OS of choice, things are a bit simpler from a licensing perspective. Regardless of the selected Linux distribution, there is no need for any sort of status. As a matter of fact, some nonprofits have found Linux to more than meet their needs for refurbishing PCs. FreeGeek of Portland, OR is a stellar example of this.

So which option is best for you? Ah, well if you are looking to refurbish PCs for your own home, then I would simply consider gathering the hardware you need together, selecting either an OEM copy of XP (license rules apply) or a distribution of Linux, then get to building!

Those looking to do this sort of thing as a business with Windows however need to make sure that they check in and get themselves qualified with Microsoft so they can gain MAR status. This said, those looking to do this with Windows can simply go for it as the licensing is much more lax. You do not need to gain any sort of status to pre-bundle Linux. Just follow the rules of the GPL and make sure you understand that while no one is going to jump on you for installing restricted codecs on your home machine, distribution is an entirely different matter here in the US. Get yourself over to CNR.com and buy them! While I do not need them myself as all of my music is converted to OGG Vorbis, it is a good idea if you are planning on distributing PCs with Linux installed.

There is a lot you can do to optimize your computer to make it virus-resistant. In reality, installing anti-virus and spyware software is only have the battle. You still need ensure the definitions are kept up-to-date, the operating system is kept up-to-date, and a firewall is running.

Keeping Anti-virus and Spyware Software Up-to-Date
Two steps, which I have discussed in previous articles, are to install anti-virus and spyware software. However, you need to understand the importance of keeping both of them up-to-date. This is crucial in making any computer more resistant to threats. The type of anti-virus and spyware software you install will determine how they are kept up-to-date but most software of these types can be updated automatically.

Keeping your Computer Up-to-Date
Operating system updates are available on the Windows Update site. Some of the updates simply contain new software while others are critical to the security of your computer. The critical updates are also important in your defense against malicious software.

Microsoft makes it very easy for you to keep your operating system up-to-date. Using the Automatic Updates feature, your computer can automatically check the Windows Update site for new updates and install them at a specific time. The Security Center in Windows Vista will indicate whether or not Automatic Updates is turned on.

Firewall
Ensure a Firewall is Running Before Going Online! Connecting to the Internet has many advantages. However, it also exposes your computer to the possibility of intrusion and virus attacks. One of the major downfalls of the Internet is that there are people who dedicate their time to looking for ways to attack other unsuspecting users.

In the next installment of this article, we’ll take a closer look at the Windows Firewall and how it protects your computer.

Richard and I talk to Brian Randell about what the IT Pro needs to know around virtualization for developers. The topics range from automating (and limiting) the creation of virtual machines for developers, licensing issues, testing, using virtualization to control IP and work the remote developers.

Brian A. Randell is a senior consultant with MCW Technologies, LLC. For over 20 years, Brian has been building software solutions and educating his fellow developers. Brian spends his time teaching Microsoft technologies to developers, working with new and emerging technologies like Visual Studio Team System 2008, and consulting worldwide for Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft, state and local governments, and small businesses. Brian enjoys helping people get the most out of their software. He does this through training for Pluralsight, and speaking at events such as VSLive!, TechEd, and the PDC. In addition, Brian shares through the written word. Brian currently writes the Team System column for MSDN Magazine. He is the author and lead instructor of Pluralsight’s Applied Team System and Applied Windows SharePoint Services courses. You can reach Brian via his blog.

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It doesn't matter if you're running on Windows or Mac OS X - every power user needs either Parallels or VMware (or both). There's never been an easier way to test software without destroying your primary operating system's stability. Think of how many times you wish you could press a 'reverse' button on your computer. Plus, there's no easier way to try new Linux distributions - see what all the fuss is about. Run Windows in OS X, run Linux in Windows, but the best way to do either is with VMware and/or Parallels.

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