Archive for 2006-07

After years of good protection from Avast, I was beginning to think I would never need a better antivirus solution for my PC. But one day last week, my computer began acting quite strange and, after a few hours of troubleshooting, I could only attribute the problems to some minor spyware or virus infection. There was just one setback: neither Avast nor Microsoft Defender (antispyware) showed any signs of foul play. Hmm.

So I set out to find a more extensive antivirus product and prepared to bid adieu to my beloved Avast. And I decided I could spend a little, if necessary. After a few hours research and some consultation with one of my security heroes, Zack Rippy, I decided to uninstall Avast and deploy the 30-day trial of BitDefender 9 Standard. After a short install, I was greeted with the option to update the software and virus definitions and embark on a full system scan. Yes, please. The scan launched and I moved on to other things while BitDefender rocked my file system. All good IT professionals multi-task. So I read some blogs. After the scan, to my surprise, there were a couple of “goodies” that BitDefender had located in, of all places, my archive directory—meaning that, all this time there was a virus-laden executable in some of my 3-year-old backups. And not just one, but TWO independent viruses. Wow. That’s bogus. I quickly let BitDefender finish them off and as far as I could tell, neither had actually spawned—nor were they guilty of my machine’s odd behavior as it persisted even after the scan. Well, whatever the deal was, I just didn’t feel very “clean” after finding those nasties. So, I did want I always do in a situation like this. Backup my documents, save some application data, reformat the disk and reinstall Windows. Weee. Much fun. Though I say that a bit sarcastically, I really do enjoy the clean-ness of a new XP install. It just feels good. (During the process, I also took inventory of the software I use. I’ll post that list here soon.) After the reinstall, I promptly purchased BitDefender and installed it first. Then I grabbed new versions of all of my software and went to town. After a couple of hours, my PC was back to normal and I was a happy camper again.

Later in the week, I got an email from one of our office assistants who was having severe problems with the machine at her desk. Norton (installed on most of our office machines) was showing nothing, but it was using tons of system resources. Ad-Aware did turn up a few little problems, but nothing to write home about. So, I uninstalled Norton (her PC loved me immediately for that) and installed BitDefender 9 Professional, which includes antispyware and firewall along with the standard AV. After a reboot and system scan, BitDefender rooted out 29 distinct viruses and 33 cases of spyware. Wow and double wow! Why in the world didn’t Norton do a better job? No need to answer, because it doesn’t matter anymore. Still, Ad-Aware could’ve done a little better as well. Mad props to BitDefender for a job well done. Plus, the machine isn’t bogged down with Norton anymore. That alone helped curb the sluggishness.

Long story short (or short story long at this point), we are re-evaluating our security needs at the office and we’re looking to BitDefender and their corporate solutions for the answer. I love software that makes me feel good about my data. And BitDefender secures every bit of mine. And I don’t care if that sounds like a sales pitch. You should take a swing at it if you are in the market.

On a final note, I don’t want to leave my dear Avast out in the rain. I still believe that if you are in the market for a free antivirus application for your home, Avast can’t be beat. It kept me high and dry for almost three years. It is certainly a fine product as well.

BitDefender | PC World Benchmark Chart | Article | Microsoft Defender | Avast

Technorati Tags: bitdefender, antivirus, antispyware, security

Check out backpackit.com/calendar. Review on the way.

Last Wednesday, Mozilla released beta 1 of Firefox 2.0. I’ve yet to download and experiment with it (I’ve taken to waiting for the release candidates—RC1 due in August) but I have enjoyed studying up on the new feature set in Fx2. Here’s a rundown:

Integrated Spellcheck

Firefox will now keep an eye on your work and help you avoid spelling errors while filling out input fields on the web. Of course, I don’t need the feature since I always spell corectly. Also, as Dolan mentioned, the words Mozilla and Firefox are not in the Fx “dictionary.” Interesting…

Session Restore

This feature has been active in my Fx installation since the 1.0.x days through the use of the SessionSaver extension. I’m glad to see that it will now be native to the browser. The basic function is this: when you exit Firefox, a record of your open windows and tabs is made; when you reopen the browser to begin work again, your session is restored exactly the way you left it, even after a browser or system crash. Read on…

Improved RSS Support (Reader and Discovery)

It looks like Mozilla is ramping up the interaction between browser and feed with the goal of making feeds human readable (if browsed directly to) as well as improving Firefox’s feed discovery approach and subscription method. More on feed handling…

Tab Management

Another feature that is being refreshed is tab management. In Fx2, all tabs will contain a close (x) button making it a little easier to close tabs (one less step than the current three alternatives.) Tabs are, of course, still draggable. But they can also be re-opened if closed in error. This undo close tab feature has also been previously supported via an extension. I can tell you from experience, you will use this feature.

Security Enhancements (Anti-phishing)

To me, Firefox’s strongest component is security. For those that want to argue that, go right ahead. I know it’s not 100% secure. Nothing is. But personally, I’ve battled far less spyware, viruses, trojans, and hijack attempts by simply using Firefox rather than IE. The difference is astounding. In my role as a musician/worship leader, I’m often pulling lyrics and chord charts off the web. If any of you have dealt with lyrics sites, you know how dangerous they can be for malware, adware and the like. It’s terrible. But Firefox has always had my back and I’ve only dealt with one or two minor attacks (easily fixed) in the past couple of years. In Fx2, Mozilla is taking security even further by increasing the browser’s awareness of anti-phishing attempts and checking sites against a local blacklist (or Google at the option of the user.)

Improved Search

The built-in search feature of Firefox will gain some attention as well. Improvements will be made to the search bar including the addition of autofill for search queries and easier search engine management. More…

Helpful Links

• ArsTechnica Article
• CNET Slideshow (of alpha build)
• eWeek (Negative viewpoint)
• Mozilla Developer Center
• Release Schedule

Technorati Tags: firefox, beta, features

It has been an interesting few weeks. And I haven’t been in my little space here much. But that doesn’t mean the wheels aren’t turning:

• I’m excited about the beginning of our theaterchurch.com redesign process. I’m doing a bit of prototyping and wireframing and we’re “evaluating” the brand.
• I wonder what the Canary Reader (RSS) will be like. I am extremely excited about it. And yet the details are so vague… All I know is, I like everything else Steve Smith does.
• I upgraded the firmware in my Linksys WRT54G wireless router to Sveasoft’s Alchemy. Simple install process and lots of added functionality to the router.
• Just grabbed the new Desperation album today. Most songs I love. One song I do not. I’ll keep you posted.
• The mention at CBSnews.com is still tripping me out.
• I’ve been testing the new free project management web app, activeCollab. Looks promising.
• Enjoyed revisiting Dave Shea’s image replacement overview.
• Books are so cool.
• I can’t keep up with digg. Not enough time in the world. I keep finding stories through Google searches that are 150 days old but so cool and totally diggworthy. And yet I missed them. I enjoy contributing to digg, but the elbow room is gone in there.
• I love punBB, but Lussumo just released version 1 of Vanilla. And it looks sweet. The filebrowser seems like a neat app as well.
• Hamachi is incredible! I’ve never seen a better VPN solution in my life. It’s fast. It’s super secure. It’s lovely. And it gets out of the way of my bandwidth. I’ve successfully streamed 1100kbps videos from my machine at the office to home. Sure, that says a lot about the connection speeds on both ends, but it also says the VPN is doing it’s job well. Handshaking and then rolling.
• Sharing iTunes tunes over a network is sweet. Listening through a Hamachi-linked VPN from home is even sweeter.

Sometimes I just have some things floating about in my head (and on my Firefox tabs) that need a new home.

This should be fun—

Technorati Tags: design, brand, canary, rss, reader, linksys, firmware, hacks, wireless, wrt54g, alchemy, sveasoft, desperation, new life church, cbsnews.com, project management, activeCollab, Dave Shea, image replacement, digg, punbb, forum, vanilla, lussumo, hamachi, vpn, itunes, what a geek

It’s one of the most anticipated Linux distribution releases of the year. In early June, Ubuntu 6.06 LTS (Dapper Drake) was complete and the world was graced with yet another excellent release from the Ubuntu community. The distro includes the usual Desktop/Live CD version as well as a new server version. I’ve spent some time with both versions and there is one thing I can say above all else: I love Ubuntu!

Now I must say up front, I’m not a real Linux expert. In fact, by most accounts I’m a total n00b. But I get around in the UI pretty well and I’m even “getting” the CLI more and more each day. I also don’t use Linux in any of my main rigs. I’m just so productive in Windows that I couldn’t imagine making a switch to any other OS as a permanent solution, including Mac—let the flame war begin… But I do love the alternatives to Windows and I certainly enjoy certain aspects of each of them.

With Ubuntu, I love the stability and performance. And I really enjoy the “hacking” side of things. I’m not afraid of a conf file or terminal interface. Plus, every single web project/app/site I create/develop/maintain is hosted on a Linux machine. Exclusively. Other than building and testing sites using XAMPP locally on my Win machine, Linux is my web server of choice. Working with Linux servers everyday has been a real crash course in Linux administration. Using the desktop versions has helped me bridge even more (mental) gaps.

Recently, I’ve accomplished some neat things in Ubuntu:

• Set up an Unreal Tournament 2004 dedicated server
• Installed an Apache web server (running PHP, Perl and MySQL)
• Networked with my main Windows machine (and mapped to shares)
• Installed media codecs and played video/audio files
• Connected to and controlled Ubuntu from Windows PC using VNC
• Connected to and controlled Windows from Ubuntu PC using RDP

None of the above are overtly difficult to accomplish, but several of these items have been difficult at some point in my dealings with Linux for one reason or another. Ubuntu, in particular, has helped streamline and simplify those processes.

For me, tinkering with Ubuntu (and other Linux distributions) is a nice departure from my normal routine and it’s a challenge. (I love challenges.) If you are a geek, check out Ubuntu. The latest release is astounding!

Ubuntu 6.06 LTS

Technorati Tags: ubuntu, linux, distribution, server, desktop

Had a neat surprise today. Pastor Mark greeted me at church this morning by saying, “We made The Post today.” About a week ago, a Post intern came by to shoot some photographs of us for a story they were brewing up about blogging pastors. Since I was hired at NCC out of the blogosphere, they were interested in bringing me into the mix. I didn’t get quoted (totally fine by me) but a photo of Pastor Mark and I appeared on the front of section C, Metro.

It’s not everyday that you make the Washington Post. I’m so pumped about the way God is using blogging to be another vehicle for His Word and that the media is taking note. Very cool.

Read the Article

Technorati Tags: washington post, d.c., blogging, newspaper, article, ministry

A few weeks ago, I was on the hunt for a corporate instant messaging server. I was sure I wanted to find something in the open source realm and hoped to find a Windows-based solution.

After stumbling upon Wildfire, an open source Jabber server, I knew I had found my winner. The out-of-the-box feature list is extensive, but not too cluttered. The server is lightning fast, secure, lightweight and extensible. And it has excellent administration in a very tidy web interface.

Now on to the implementation: There was a short and very simple installation procedure and the server was online and ready for client connections. Oh, right–the client. I liked the idea of going Jabber (XMPP) because I knew I could hook my Trillian Pro right to it and rock. But I’m not about to spend $25/client for an office-wide deployment of Trillian Pro. Luckily, the Wildfire developers already had my number. Spark is a Jabber client built by Jive Software, the makers of Wildfire. Spark is a zero-cost solution for the client side and works flawlessly with Wildfire (as it should.)

There were a couple of Mac users in-house who didn’t want to give up their Adium habit and I complied. But more importantly, the Wildfire server complied and works pretty well with Adium. Not perfect, but well enough to be usable. Trillian Pro also works very well with the system, but I liked Spark so much, I kept it installed on my own box and use it to connect to the local IM while Trillian continues to manage my outside IM connections.

Having a nicely-featured corporate IM system has been very helpful for our office productivity–at least, the reports I’ve received have noted such. As far as our LAN goes, we aren’t doing much in the area of file storage/backup/retrieval/exchange right now (moving that direction though), so it’s nice to be able to zip files back and forth easily. In fact, the IM system has become a rudimentary project management portal.

So if you are a network administrator, or a web developer who gets sucked into network administration by default (like me), I would encourage taking a look at Jive Software, the Wildfire server and Spark client. Every second of my time with them has been well spent.

Jive Software | Wildfire Server | Spark Client | Jive Community | Downloads

Technorati Tags: jive software, jabber, IM, server, widlfire, spark, networking

Just a quick post to wish everyone a Happy Fourth of July! I love being an American and I love celebrating the birth of our nation. It’s especially exciting this year as Missy and I celebrate in our own neighborhood and our nation’s capital–at the same time. We’re going to try to grab a spot on the National Mall to settle in for the fireworks spectacular. Hopefully, we will be close enough to hear the National Symphony Orchestra playing the soundtrack to the event.

Enjoy your celebration, wherever it may be!

Technorati Tags: fourth of july, independence day, America, washington d.c.