Solve your Computer Problems: A Blog of Useful Information

Difference between system standby and hibernation

2009-06-26T14:28:00.003-05:00

What is the difference between system standby and hibernation?

In standby/sleep, the power is kept on to the memory, the processor is bought to a stop and devices are put into low power mode. However there is still some activity as the memory still needs to be refreshed (otherwise it looses its contents) and the low power mode of devices may not be all that low. Unplugging the computer from the mains (or removing/flattening the battery) will result cause a cold reboot with possible data loss. Startup from standby is very quick as the devices need to be woken and the CPU restarted.

In hibernate, the memory is written to the hard disk (in the hiberfil.sys file), along with the state of devices and the CPU and then the power is turned 'off'. The computer is still burning a little power as things like keyboard/mouse/LAN power on features are supported. However, unlike standby, unplugging the computer from the mains doesn't result in a col boot or data loss as everything needed is stored on the hard disk. Startup is still pretty quick as the memory needs to be read from the disk, the devices reactivated and the CPU restored to the same state is was when the hibernate started.

Vista goes one step further with its 'hybrid sleep' mode which writes all the same stuff to the disk as a hibernate does, but then keeps the system in standby mode. If the power hasn't been interrupted then the restart is the same as a standby restart, or if the power has been interrupted then a warm boot from the hibernate info on the hard disk is used.

However, almost all computers are never completely turned off unless the power/battery is removed. PC power supplies have a special power lead to provide 'standby' power that is always there even if the computer is 'off'. It doesn't matter if the computer is in standby, hibernate or a full shutdown, that standby power is still there. This means the power supply is still alive and chewing power.

Most ATX power supplies have a kind of efficient 'baby' power supply built in to supply this standby power when the main power supply is off. However I had one very inefficient power supply that drew nearly 60 watts even when the computer was fully shutdown! I'd say it didn't have this baby component and used the main power supply circuit all the time. I've since 'retired' that power supply!

So to answer the original questions "is this what some people mean when they say they never really turn their computers off?"

Basically yes.

Does hibernation consume any power whatsoever?

Yes, although often (but not always) it is a relatively small amount of power (20 watts or so).

Put your hand on the case above the power supply of a computer that has been off for a while and you will often still feel warmth as the PS supplies the standby power.

Turn a hard drive into a fridge magnet

2009-06-07T19:46:00.000-05:00

affordable new local search website

2008-10-06T13:29:00.001-05:00

OddBodd.com is an affordable new local search website that offers the advantage of a video introduction when someone clicks on your listing. They are offering incentives for people who sign up prior to their official launch. You can see examples (including my listing) and get more information by visiting their website: http://oddbodd.com/

ZBot trojan attached to flight ticket confirmation

2008-09-04T22:29:00.003-05:00

I just received the following email message in my inbox:

Subject:Your Online Flight Ticket N 49444

Greetings, Thank you for using our new service "Buy airplane ticket Online" on our website. Your account has been created:
Your login: israel@leichtman.net Your password: passR5AW
Your credit card has been charged for $601.66. We would like to remind you that whenever you order tickets on our website you get a discount of 10%!
Attached to this message is the purchase Invoice and the airplane ticket. To use your ticket, simply print it on a color printed, and you are set to take off for the journey!
Kind regards, Southwest Airlines
If you get such an email DO NOT OPEN THE ATTACHMENT

Attachments are .zip files with filename E-ticket_N7399294.zip (random number) with inside a E-ticket_N7399294_and_Invoice_for_N73992943442.exe.

On an infected computer the trojan will create a new files like %System%\ntos.exe, %System%\wsnpoem\audio.dll, %System%\wsnpoem\video.dll and creates a new directory %System%\wsnpoem.

It also adds and modifies entries in the Windows registry and make connection with a server for http://*********.ru/alaska/alaska.bin. It opens random TCP ports in order to provide backdoor capabilities.

Hacking autorun for USB flash drives

2008-08-21T14:01:00.000-05:00

How to: Quick intro to hacking autorun for USB flash drives

Disclaimer: This tutorial is designed to show existing vulnerabilities and should only be used on systems you own, or have permission to execute this on. Removable media devices don’t deploy malicious code and steal data, people do.

Autorun will not work with “regular” USB flash drives the way that they do with CD-ROMs, but there are some tricks that you can do that will come very close. I say “regular” in that as many may know there are ways of modifying U3 drives so that they appear as CD-ROMs on Windows systems and can thus use autorun to silently run your “tools” without any indication anything is happening. The U3 hack however is a bit more complicated, I will do another “How to” on that later. For now let’s just discuss how we can create an autorun.inf file on a regular ‘ol USB flash drive that will do some interesting things.

Also it is important to mention that some of these techniques will even work if autoplay is disabled!

First, although we cannot have an application run automatically with a traditional USB drive, we can make it so that when a USB drive is plugged we have Windows make a suggestion to the user and all they need to do is click “OK” to a specific application or script you have deployed to the flash drive.

First in Notepad create a file called autorun.inf and save it to the root of your USB flash drive of choice. In the autorun file put this:

[autorun] icon=lilguy.ico open=howdy.bat action=Click “OK” to play this fun game!

The first parameter is “icon” this tells Windows what icon to use as the icon image for the drive etc. This is important for the social engineering portion of the trick, you must consider your target. The image you choose should help instill trust in the application they are about to run.

The “open” parameter indicates the program you wish to run, this can be an executable, or as in this case a .bat file. You could even call a .bat file which calls a series of executables. Go crazy.

The next parameter is “action” this is what will trigger the autorun dialog to appear. This text will appear in the dialog box along with your icon, so you probably want make this friendly, something like “Fun Game,” you probably don’t want to put something like “Click ‘OK’ to install backdoors and trojans!”.

Now unplug your flash drive and then replug it in, a dialog box like this should now appear:

So this is not as good as automatically running the application, but is useful nonetheless and there have actually been successful simulations where this has been used. A security consultancy used this technique as a proof of concept to test a credit union client of theirs. Several drives used this simple technique to run exectue a trojan that sent some simple data to an external email account. They scattered the drives in the parking lot, several employees picked the drives up on their way into work and within a short amount of time the email account they had set up was receiving emails.

Now we have our basic autorun.inf setup. But notice that if you click cancel and then click on the drive you just see the contents of the drive. However we can take this one step further, if the user is smart and their spidey senses are tingling from the dialog menu that appears and they click cancel, with the addition of one more line of code to the autorun.inf file that will automatically execute the code we specify when they click the drive either from “My Computer” or Explorer. This is different than a true autorun as it still requires a user to take an action to exectue the application, but still a significant security risk.

Add these lines to your autorun.inf file

[autorun] icon=lilguy.ico open=howdy.bat action=Click “OK” to play this fun game! shell\open\command=howdy.bat

OK save it and then unplug and plug the drive back in again. This time when the prompt appears hit “cancel”. Now go to double click the drive under “My Computer”. The application will automatically execute. By the way, this second portion will still work even if autoplay is disabled on a system and is actually more dangerous than the dialog in my opinion.

So what if we don’t want to execute a command on the drive and just open a webpage? You could execute Explorer in your .bat file to do this, or in the exectuble you run, but there is a quick and easy way to do this in the autorun.inf file. Replace the last line with this instead:

[autorun] icon=lilguy.ico open=howdy.bat action=Click “OK” to play this fun game! shellexecute=http://www.usbhacks.com

Retrieving an Entire website

2008-08-21T13:30:00.001-05:00

wget: Download entire websites easy v1.0.4 (en) Fooling sites to let wget crawl around wget is a nice tool for downloading resources from the internet. The basic usage is wget url: wget http://linuxreviews.org/ Therefore, wget (manual page) + less (manual page) is all you need to surf the internet. The power of wget is that you may download sites recursive, meaning you also get all pages (and images and other data) linked on the front page: wget -r http://linuxreviews.org/ But many sites do not want you to download their entire site. To prevent this, they check how browsers identify. Many sites refuses you to connect or sends a blank page if they detect you are not using a web-browser. You might get a message like: Sorry, but the download manager you are using to view this site is not supported. We do not support use of such download managers as flashget, go!zilla, or getright Wget has a very handy -U option for sites like this. Use -U My-browser to tell the site you are using some commonly accepted browser: wget -r -p -U Mozilla http://www.stupidsite.com/restricedplace.html The most important command line options are --limit-rate= and --wait=. You should add --wait=20 to pause 20 seconds between retrievals, this makes sure you are not manually added to a blacklist. --limit-rate defaults to bytes, add K to set KB/s. Example: wget --wait=20 --limit-rate=20K -r -p -U Mozilla http://www.stupidsite.com/restricedplace.html A web-site owner will probably get upset if you attempt to download his entire site using a simple wget http://foo.bar command. However, the web-site owner will not even notice you if you limit the download transfer rate and pause between fetching files. Use --no-parent --no-parent is a very handy option that guarantees wget will not download anything from the folders beneath the folder you want to acquire. Use this to make sure wget does not fetch more than it needs to if just just want to download the files in a folder. Copyright (c) 2000-2004 Øyvind Sæther. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".

brother mfc won't recognize cartridge

2008-08-14T13:06:00.003-05:00

Problem Brother MFC-230C won't recognize new black ink cartridge. Seems the remanufactured cartridges appear to be empty. It seems there are light sensors in the printer that sense the cartridge is empty even when it is full. The solution is to put tape on the back of the ink jet cartridge. The danger of such a procedure is that the cartridge could be totally empty and it will burn out the printhead before you realize it.

Recover lost wireless network key

2008-05-26T19:28:00.000-05:00

Description WirelessKeyView recovers all wireless network keys (WEP/WPA) stored in your computer by the 'Wireless Zero Configuration' service of Windows XP and by the 'WLAN AutoConfig' service of Windows Vista. It allows you to easily save all keys to text/html/xml file, or copy a single key to the clipboard.

Recover lost password behind asterisks (***)

2008-05-26T19:24:00.001-05:00

Description Many applications, like CuteFTP, CoffeeCup Free FTP, VNC, IncrediMail, Outlook Express, and others, allows you to type a password for using it in the application. The typed password is not displayed on the screen, and instead of the real password, you see a sequence of asterisk ('****') characters. This utility can reveal the passwords stored behind the asterisks in standard password text-boxes. Asterisk Logger is a successor of AsterWin utility. It reveals the asterisk passwords in the same way as AsterWin utility, but it has some advantages over the previous utility: * You don't have to press a button in order to reveal the asterisk passwords. Whenever a new window containing a password box is opened, Asterisk Logger automatically reveals the password inside the password-box, and add a record to passwords list in the main window of Asterisk Logger. * Asterisk Logger displays additional information about the revealed password: The date/time that the password was revealed, the name of the application that contains the revealed password box, and the executable file of the application. * Asterisk Logger allows you the save the passwords to HTML file and to 3 types of text files.

A new way to make money from your computer

2008-05-21T16:13:00.001-05:00

I am looking in to a new business called sendout cards. It seems like an easy way to keep in touch with people in a personal way. Here is a video about it:

jChicago a new resource for Chicago Jews

2008-02-07T10:19:00.000-06:00

Since the beginning of December, jChicago.net has grown 20x. They claim to have hundreds of registered users and listserv subscribers, thousands of monthly visitors, and tens of thousands of monthly page views. jChicago.net is becoming a top hit for literally hundreds of Google searches related to Jewish Chicago, and has received a good amount of attention from leaders across the Chicago Jewish community. By joining the listserv, you will help them to connect Jewish Chicago.

Microsoft is offering a free software

2007-12-11T09:40:00.000-06:00

Free Microsoft Software for Giving Feedback If you are a Windows Vista or Windows XP user and decide to join and participate, Microsoft will send you a free Microsoft product when you participate in the program. Limit one gift per person. This offer is non-transferable. This offer expires on 12/31/07, while supplies last, and is not redeemable for cash. - Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate (32-bit and 64-bit DVD) - Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 - Microsoft Money Plus Premium - Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium 2008 - Microsoft Streets and Trips 2008

Does the software impact the performance of my computer? We have gone to great lengths to design the Windows Feedback Program software to limit the amount of computer resources it uses to collect data. You may see a minor change in performance when you first log in to Windows; however, this typically only occurs during the first few minutes after login while we are collecting basic configuration information.

What types of information will you collect and why? We are looking for information that will help us understand problems you encounter with Windows, how you have configured your computer and Windows, what hardware you are using, and general information about how you are using Windows and Microsoft Office products on your computer. You can see a list of examples of the data we collect in our FAQ.

How often will Microsoft collect data? How often you will share data depends on how actively you use your computer and how often your computer is connected to the internet. In general, the data is shared once per day.

When you choose to participate in the automated feedback program, most of the work is done behind the scenes, with no additional effort, time requirement, or inconvenience to you. Occasionally, we might send you an invitation to participate in a survey or another feedback program to get additional information about your use of computers.

Go to http://wfp.microsoft.com/Registration.aspx

doPDF version 5.3 free PDF converter for Windows

2007-11-29T09:20:00.000-06:00

An easy way to do PDFs Adobe Acrobat is the industry standard for creating PDF files. But it comes with a hefty price tag. And most people don't need its features. There are easier and less expensive ways to create PDF files. doPDF is a free program that will create PDF files for you. It adds a PDF creator to your list of printers. This means it works in virtually any Windows program.

Great Tutorials for Fixing your Windows

2007-11-13T12:40:00.000-06:00

Bleepingcomputer.com is a great free resource on the web to learn how to maintain and repair your Windows computer. From "How the Web Works" to how to remove malware, it's quite comprehensive. One example: Tracing a hacker > Written by: Paperghost 24/02/2005 Sometimes, it's just not enough to simply know that there's a Trojan or Virus onboard. Sometimes you need to know exactly why that file is onboard, how it got there - but most importantly, who put it there. By enumerating the attacker in the same way that they have enumerated the victim, you will be able to see the bigger picture and establish what you're up against. But how can you do this? Read on... The explanations are clear and knowledgeable.

File Recovery - Copy files from damaged media

2007-11-04T22:48:00.000-06:00

File Recovery - Copy files from damaged media What a wonderful tool! I just copied an AVI file from a CD using this piec of software. It was fast and quick and did the job! CDs, DVDs and hard disks are increasingly being used for storage of music and videos. For such multimedia a perfect copy is not always important. Who cares about a few kilobytes of corrupt data that may only equate to one bad video frame or a fraction of a second of audio loss? Most users won't even notice the difference. The CRC checks, however, usually make it impossible to transfer or use the corrupted file and sometimes even cause the computer to stop responding. JFileRecovery will recover music and videos from damaged hard drives, CDs, DVDs and Flash media and usually the corrupted area will not be noticeable.

Learn how to add streaming media to your website

2007-10-24T15:22:00.000-05:00

This seems like a really good deal more than 150 individual videos. A Staggering 22+ Hours Of Quality Training at a very resonable cost. Find out more here.
MSI Jukebox is a simple piece of software that allows you to add two or more mp3 audio files to the Jukebox player. This is so easy that anyone can do it. The software will link the files for you to upload and will then stream those files either automatically or on request. You choose the quality and type of MP3 files you want to stream.
I needed this once for a client who was selling his own music from his site.

You will find many uses for it too.

Thanks for taking a look!

New Free Tool - Jing!

2007-10-23T22:48:00.001-05:00

Jing is a great new tool that allows you to capture screens and videos of your computers and immediately upload them and share them with a friend, just go to http://www.jingproject.com/

Mobile Zmanim!

2007-10-21T21:00:00.000-05:00

Mobile Zmanim!SM

Call 516-7-ZMANIM (516-796-2646)*.
Enter your ZIP code.
Receive an SMS Zmanim Text-Message.

*Currently available to US Cell phones only. MyZmanim.com is devoted to providing Yiddin around the world with the zmanim times needed to properly serve Hashem. MyZmanim.com is now providing zmanim via mobile phone as SMS text messages. Lookup zmanim on the go, for anywhere in the world, using nothing more than a cell phone. Just call 516-7-ZMANIM using your cell phone and enter your ZIP code or Worldwide MyZmanim Location ID. (Your Location ID appears in the orange Location Bar on the daily zmanim page.) Our Mobile ZmanimSM system knows the current time in your location, so all the zmanim you receive will be relevant to the future.

Dadnab transit at your fingertips

2007-10-21T20:54:00.000-05:00

This is a great service that you can actuall use from your cell phone. To use Dadnab™, send your query as a text message from your mobile phone to region@dadnab.com. Here is an example.

How to defend your Computer From Hacker

2007-10-21T11:49:00.000-05:00

How to defend your Computer From Hacker

Stop using Internet Explorer and make the switch to Firefox, it's more secure, plain and simple.
Get Spybot Search and Destroy and immediately update it.
Get Adaware SE and immediately update it.
Update your antivirus
Boot into safe mode and run all three scans
While the scans are going check your registry (Click start --> Run and type regedit to get intot he registry) and look in HKEY_CurrentUser/software/microsoft/windows/currentversion/run & HKEY_Local_Machine/software/microsoft/windows/currentversion/run. Verify that all programs listed are legitimate and wanted.
If or when your antivirus scan comes across anything, search for that file name in your registry and delete it.
Use explorer to go to the windows/system32 folder and sort by date. If you haven't already done so, make sure you can see the entire file names. click Tools --> Folder Options and unclick the box labeled "Hide extensions for known file types" and under Hidden files and folders click "Show hidden files and folders." However, make sure you choose "Hide protected operating system files" so you don't accidentally remove anything that would cripple your computer.. You are looking for recent files with names ending with .exe and .dll that look suspicious. Major culprits will have gibberish names such as alkjdlkjfa.exe.
Once you can get clean scans in safe mode, reboot in normal mode and scan all over again. If you can't get a clean scan in regular mode then you have something more persistant that could take more research.
Make sure your firewall doesn't have strange exceptions.
If you suspect anything that is going wrong with your computer is the action of a stalker, on a more secure system change all your passwords.
If your system has been specifically targeted and hacked you can never be 100% sure that your system is no longer compromised so start with, make backups of personal files on the infected system and format and re-install Windows. Good luck!

Posted by SABI at 10:32 AM

Resources for making money from home

2007-10-20T23:11:00.000-05:00

Start Making $300 - $2500+ a Day! Working At Home only 30 to 45 minutes a Day! There is NO experience required! All you are required to have is a computer and internet access. This program is available for everyone worldwide! You will be typing and submitting forms on the internet. This is not like anything you tried on the internet before! Most ideas out there on the internet today are MLM programs that promise and don't deliver or a scam. This works. This program is a legitimate one, and they personally guarantee that by giving you 30 days Risk Free trial. If you are not 110% satisfied they will give you a refund! Programs like this do NOT come by very often...So don't pass up this great offer!

How to open your Microsoft office box

2007-10-17T17:19:00.000-05:00

A client gave me a copy of Office 2007 to install. I needed to google to find out how to open the box! Here is the information from

http://www.hive.net/Member/blogs/the_wow/archive/2007/02/28/How-to-open-your-Windows-Vista-Box.aspx

Windows vista has the same packaging.

Believe it or not, quite a few people have asked how do you open the nifty Windows Vista Box or packaging after purchasing Windows Vista at the store. So I figured I'd do a step-by-step process on how to open your nice new copy of Windows Vista without smashing or destroying its cool packaging.

Step 1: Understand how the Box is sealed.

Windows Vista's box is sealed when you get it so nothing falls out, like the DVD's and Quick Start Guide.

Step 2: Remove the seal.

You've got to remove the seal first on the side of the box to proceed to actually getting the box open.

Step 3: Pull the pulley.

There is a red pulley on the top of the Windows Vista box. After the seal has been removed, pull the pulley out away from the box. Don't squeeze the box when doing this. You don't need to squeeze. The box should just open up.

Step 4: Enjoy Windows Vista!

I've done this on quite a few Windows Vista boxes and never ran into any problems with the packaging being unable to open. However, that is not to say some packaging may be a bit harder to open than others. But you should be able to use the steps above to open the packaging none-the-less without damaging the packaging itself.

Published Wednesday, February 28, 2007 6:02 PM by Sidebar Geek

Please backup your hard drive now… twice! at goodCRIMETHINK

2007-10-17T11:50:00.000-05:00

Please backup your hard drive now… twice! at goodCRIMETHINK here is the beginning of an article of someone who did not backup their data: There is a tightness in my chest, and I am crying right now. I have just suffered a catastrophic data loss for the second time in my life. Fool me once, shame on, shame on, fool me can’t get fooled again, or something like that. In college, a freak transformer explosion and subsequent power surge killed my hard drive. From that point on, I swore to always back up my data, and mostly I did just that. As of mid this summer, I had a ridiculous mirrored RAID drive setup with external SATA drives and all sorts of doohickies. I had about 1 terabyte of data backed up locally and had started to upload it offsite to a service called Mozy. But then I started selling off my desktop in preparation for my move from Boston to NYC. I purchased a LaCie 1TB Big Disk and put all my media files and documents from my “Atlas” drive on it. That drive literally held my world on its shoulders. I reasoned that after the move, I would re-establish my redundant data setup. I was not given the time. Two days after moving in, the drive started clicking. I knew that sound from my college crash, and raced to B&H Photo Video in Midtown. I purchased a Drobo storage device (a redundant storage array), hoping to save my Atlas drive. I was too late. I took the drive to Tekserve on 23rd St. It would cost $2,000, but can you put a price tag on your memories and thousands of hours of media production? They couldn’t recover it. They sent it on to DriveSavers who said it may cost up to $6,000.

Speed Up Firefox

2007-10-09T23:59:00.000-05:00

I never realized how fast firefox could be. I came across http://www.ubuntugeek.com/speed-up-firefox-web-browser.html and followed the tips there and my browser is so much faster. Try it and let me know what your experience is

SystemRescueCd a free bootable CD-ROM for repairing your system

2007-10-06T23:09:00.000-05:00

SystemRescueCd is a Linux system on a bootable CD-ROM for repairing your system and recovering your data after a crash. It aims to provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the partitions of the hard disk. It contains a lot of system utilities (parted, partimage, fstools, ...) and basic tools (editors, midnight commander, network tools). It is very easy to use: just boot the CDROM. The kernel supports most of the important file systems (ext2/ext3, reiserfs, reiser4, xfs, jfs, vfat, ntfs, iso9660), as well as network filesystems (samba and nfs).