The updates bug I described in Windows XP back in October is now also locking up server computers.
I’ve had it with this. Microsoft has clearly lost control of its security patches.
As of today, I am disabling Automatic Updates across the board; all devices and all versions. Up-time is more important to me than monthly patches.
As reported at Neowin, your Windows XP computer may be locked up due to bad updates being sent by Microsoft. Two of mine were 🙁
The solution, which I found in the comments section of that article, tested, and confirmed on my own computers:
This is a truly shameful problem for Microsoft’s reputation.
The subsequent updates released by Microsoft have caused the same problem to occur again. I’ve updated the link above with the newer patches.
To find newer patches, you have to do a complicated search at the Microsoft Download Center.
Per my latest article about Windows servers, I am now recommending everyone disable the Automatic Updates service on all Windows-based computers.
Since August 12 (about two weeks now), I was getting this error from the MySQL program mysqldump:
Warning: Using unique option prefix pass instead of password is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. Please use the full name instead.
I’m not sure what changed or what got upgraded, but I was able to track down the problem. It has nothing to do with command syntax.
In the account directory, which is the one with the account name, one level above public_html, or just “~” on the command line, I found a file named “.my.cnf” with the “pass=” option in it.
To fix the problem, find that file and change “pass=” to “password=”.
I have also forwarded this information to the BlueHost help desk.
Client certificates are a cool technology that, once setup, eliminate the need to use your password on your own website from your own devices.
This article wont run through the entire procedure for setting up a web server, Windows domain, file permissions, server certificates, or a certificate authority. I just want to convey some of the configuration pitfalls that exist in IIS 6.
This is a quick explanation of some more referencing quirks in PHP.
Let’s say you need to store an array in a specific variable so that another variable can be freed up and overwritten with different information. [To clarify, this array may be very large and copying it would be detrimental to performance in this particular application. For small arrays, copying and not referencing may be preferable.]
The operation for referencing the array with a new variable is quite simple:
$array_goes_here =& $need_to_free_up_this_var;The code above will reference the array to prevent PHP from making an unnecessary copy of the whole thing.
Now here’s what you have to avoid:
$need_to_free_up_this_var = array(); /* wrong! */
Back in August, I mentioned the importance of disabling most versions of PPTP for security reasons, and included my own tutorial for How to Secure a Windows VPN with PEAP. That solution works great for Windows, but is not compatible with iPads.
Now I will offer a solution that works great for iPad, but may not work on Windows computers. In addition, I will explain how to get the two solutions to work together securely so that both Windows and iPad computers will be able to connect to a Windows VPN simultaneously without using the insecure versions of PPTP.
The Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) is an obvious choice for the iPad because it is the only supported protocol other than the insecure PPTP option. On the server side, however, there are some implementation nuances that could easily discourage the use of L2TP. I took the time to research L2TP in more depth before writing this article, because I felt that a generic recommendation could leave readers totally confused about the security issues involved. So before delving into a new tutorial, I want to explain two new concepts: L2TP Pre-Shared Key, and L2TP NAT Traversal.
NAT Traversal could be a major concern for any L2TP implementation, because Microsoft wrote a very technical and rather intimidating knowledge base article called IPSec NAT-T is not recommended for Windows Server 2003 computers that are behind network address translators. If you’ve seen that article, I want to assure you that the Microsoft recommendation is not relevant here.
A careful reading of the Microsoft recommendation against NAT-T will reveal that the underlying security problem with NAT-T is not a server problem but a client problem. In other words, Microsoft recommends that Windows XP computers not attempt to use NAT-T to connect to privately-addressed servers. The Windows 2003 server itself fully supports NAT-T out of the box and doesn’t even need to be configured to use it. This is perfect for iPad users, because iPad also supports NAT-T out of the box, and this almost eliminates the address translation challenges of using L2TP.
After replacing a UPS device, Windows may automatically delete the APCUPSD USB driver. When the computer boots up, the tray icon status will say “Network Error” and three errors will be logged in the Windows Event Viewer.
To restore APCUPSD to online status, simply re-install the USB driver by following the manual installation instructions. That information can be found in the program directory. For example, C:\Program Files\apcupsd\driver\install.txt In a nutshell, you need to look in the system’s Device Manager. If there is an item in the Human Interface Devices group named “American Power Conversion USB UPS” then the desired driver is missing. Right click that item, click “Update driver” and then pick the correct driver.
After restoring the driver, restart the APCUPSD service by using the “Start Apcupsd” shortcut in the Start menu, or by using the Services administrative tool.
In celebration of winter break, I decided to change my website’s blue marble theme to a deck-the-halls / red glow motif.
May the warm colors bring you a festive mood!
Credit for the background image goes to AreteStock at DeviantArt. She has generously licensed her work for free use.
Also new here is the upgraded WordPress 3.5, to which I made some small but very important contributions. Any WordPress author should be happy to know that I found and patched a bug that prior to version 3.5 caused WordPress to say your draft work had been saved automatically, when in fact WordPress was automatically discarding your work all along. I first noticed the bug in September when my website ate a fairly long article to which I had devoted some hours. I resolved the bug in the new version by removing the code that was causing the problem.
While tinkering with themes and WordPress, I also adjusted the printer styles so that it will be easier to print articles from this website.
Happy Holidays!
Galileo is my favorite GPS moving map for driving unfamiliar roads. It’s installed on my iPad, which is much easier to carry and charge in the car than a laptop GPS system.
Here are a few pros and cons to this application, as well as a comparison to ForeFlight and Apple Maps. Why these three choices? Among the many mapping applications I’ve looked at and tried out, these are the only three I still have on my iPad.
Pros:
Two years ago, I devised a Windows XP split tunneling solution that involved static routing. That solution had the advantage of being cheap, but also had the disadvantage of scaling poorly with any number of client computers.
Now I have a second solution that eliminates the static routing problems.
While researching new VPN security issues recently, I came across an obscure piece of information about the Windows VPN client. It is nestled cryptically in this one sentence from a Microsoft whitepaper:
When the Use default gateway on remote network check box is cleared, a default route is not created, however, a route corresponding to the Internet address class of the assigned IP address is created.
Absent any other explanation, that sentence requires some mental gymnastics to understand. Allow me to help with this.