Practical Technology

for practical people.

May 18, 2010
by sjvn01
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What To Do About Missing Windows 7 Restore Points

For some reason, we still don’t know why, some Windows 7 installations are deleting Windows 7 Restore Points. Here’s what we know and what you can do about it.

One of the few original contributions to operating systems that Microsoft can claim is its Restore Points feature. First included with Windows XP and the now-forgotten Windows ME, Windows automatically creates copies of system and application files, at stated intervals or before changes are made. If a new program installation or other “learning experience” wrecked the user’s system, these backed-up file collection and system settings, called Restore Points, could be used to restore a PC to a working state. What makes Restore Points different from a mere automatic back-up system is that it doesn’t touch documents and other user work files. To say, “This was much appreciated” is an understatement, especially when it’s your work that was saved.

Restore Points — and System Restore, the program behind them — worked well… until it didn’t. It turns out that many users are having serious trouble with Restore Points in Windows 7 . Whether the Restore Points are made manually, automatically by the system timer, or invoked by installing new software, they may vanish after any system reboot like morning dew on a sunny day.

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May 17, 2010
by sjvn01
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Facebook Privacy remains as bad as ever

I think it’s become pretty darn clear that if you’re going to keep using Facebook, you can forget about Facebook helping you keep your private life private.
That all hands Facebook meeting about privacy? The results appear to have been a big fat zero.

To be exact, Facebook did introduce two new security features. Too bad they don’t work that well and neither of them addresses privacy concerns.

The first of the new Facebook security features lets you set up “Account Security” so that if you select to turn this on, you’ll be asked to name and save each device you use to log into Facebook. So, for example, I used it to sign on with my main Linux desktop, my iPad Touch, and my SUSE Linux-powered ThinkPad.

But, think about it. If someone steals any of those devices, this doesn’t stop the thief from logging into Facebook. Or, if someone manages to snatch my login ID and password, they can add their own device to the list. I don’t see how this really makes any more secure than I ever was.

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May 17, 2010
by sjvn01
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The New WiMAX

While you’re waiting for WiMAX or other 4G data technologies to roll out, you might be interested in knowing that a new, faster still, WiMAX2, is on its way.

WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) is slowly making its way into businesses and homes. With its promise of average speeds of 4 to 6Mbps (Megabits per second) and coverage areas of square miles instead of square yards, WiMAX has long promised to be the next generation of Wireless networking. Now, faced with competition from LTE (Long-Term Evolution), WiMAX supporters are upping the ante with WiMAX2.

According to the WiMAX Forum, the industry trade group that supports WiMAX, the new WiMAX will be more than 50 percent faster than today’s WiMAX while remaining compliant with the existing IEEE 802.16e standard. WiMAX 2 is built on the still evolving IEEE 802.16m standard. If it works the way its designers want it to, WiMAX2 equipment will be backward compatible with existing WiMAX hardware while delivering double the peak data rates while increasing the average and cell edge end user performance by 50 percent.

So, how are they going to pull this trick off? Here’s the techie details.

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May 14, 2010
by sjvn01
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Running Windows games on Linux gets easier

One constant complaint about the Linux desktop is that it doesn’t have enough games. That’s actually not true. Linux has plenty of games. What these people usually mean is that it doesn’t have their favorite Windows games. Now that’s changing.

Granted, Linux has never been a big gaming platform. Some have suggested that it might be a good idea for vendors to work on making Linux a gaming platform for its own high-end games, but little has come of this idea. Of course, it’s always been possible to run many popular Windows games on Linux. I play Guild Wars, a Windows-based MMORPG (Massively multi-player online role-playing game), competitively in player vs. player mode on Linux all the time. If it didn’t work great on Linux, I’d be running it on a Windows 7 PC.

Two recent developments have made it even easier to run Windows games on Linux though. The first, as reported by Phoronix, is that Valve, makers of the Steam gaming system and content delivery platform, will be releasing a Steam client to Linux later this summer. While you could run Steam on Linux before, it was both slow and difficult to set up properly.

Now we can look forward to a full Steam gaming experience on Linux. The Steam Linux client is already available in a closed beta. And 3D graphical card support on Linux has improved, which will help give players a good game experience. Linux users can look forward to playing native versions of such popular games as Quake Wars, Doom 3. Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source, and Team Fortress 2.

The other development is that CodeWeavers has released a new and significantly improved version of Crossover Games. CrossOver Games is based on the open-source project Wine, an implementation of the Windows API that runs on top of the Unix/Linux operating system family.

You can run Windows games on Linux, including Steam-based ones, with Wine alone, but you’ll need to be an expert Linux user and have a good idea of what each game demands from its environment to pull those tricks off. Unless you’re the kind of person that enjoying working on technology more than playing games, you’re better off buying CrossOver Games.

This new edition, version 9.0, features an easier-to-user game installation routine, thousands of minor improvements, and a feature that lets gamers share ‘Compatibility Profiles,’ or ‘c4p’ files. These enable users to create and share custom set-up recipes for officially unsupported games, so that others can install them without having to get their hands dirty with finicky customized set-up. The net result, CodeWeavers promises, is that you can now play a good deal many more Windows games on Linux and the ones you could play before are now more responsive.

I’ve already played with it for a few days, but it looks to me like that CodeWeavers has a winner on its hand. You can see it for yourself by downloading a trial version of Crossover Games that will run for 7 days. The full price is $39.95.

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May 11, 2010
by sjvn01
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Too many Ubuntus?

Listen. I get it. Ubuntu is an excellent Linux distribution. The latest version, Ubuntu 10.04 is great. And, I certainly see why there are several Linux distributions based on Ubuntu such as Kubuntu. But, do we really need two new Ubuntu desktops, Unity and Light? Can Canonical do everything that it’s already doing while adding more work to its load?

Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, certainly seems to think so. On May 10th, Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical’s founder, announced the two new Ubuntu variants.

The first, Unity, is designed to get the most good out of a netbook’s limited screen real-estate. This is not just a matter of dumping and/or shrinking down icons. Shuttleworth and company are thinning down and rebuilding the GNOME interface to fit the most goodness into a netbook’s 1024X600 display.

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May 11, 2010
by sjvn01
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Ignore the nonsense: Anti-virus software is as good as ever

Anti-virus software is not the be-all and end-all of Windows PC security by a long shot. But, to claim, as David Matousec does in his paper, KHOBE-8.0 earthquake for Windows desktop security software is utter nonsense.

The gist of Matousec’s is that Windows’ SSDT (System Service Descriptor Table) can be attacked by a technique, he calls “the argument-switch attack or KHOBE (Kernel Hook Bypassing Engine) attack, which allows malicious code to bypass protection mechanisms of security applications.” The short English version of this is that, in the time between when an anti-virus program checks a file for a malicious payload and when the file actually runs, it can transform into malware and wreak havoc on your PC.

There is some truth here. Rootkits have been successfully attacking Windows via the SSDT for years now. There’s nothing new about that.

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