Fix Your Computer

How To Find Your MAC Address

Dave — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 05:01:20 +0000

The Media Access Control address or MAC address, which may also be known as the Ethernet Hardware Address, functions similarly to an IP address in terms of identification; however it is an address that is attached to network adapters. Knowing your MAC address is important for communication between two different computers or network components.

To find your MAC address in Windows, open the Command Prompt. This can be found under the Accessories selection or you can run it from the RUN option of the Start Menu. In the Run option, type command and press Enter. When you are in the command prompt environment, type ipconfig /all. If you are using Windows XP, you can use the command getmac. The MAC address is a series of six groups of two digits, letters, and numbers that are separated by dashes and is shown under Physical Address. An easier way to find your MAC address is to open Network Connections, and right clicking on Status of your Local Area Connection. In the Support tab, clicking on Details will give you a lot of information and your MAC address is listed in the Network Connection Details as the Physical Address.

If you are operating on Linux, you can use the ifconfig command and you may need to refer to your /bin or /sbin directories. If you are a Mac user, finding your MAC address can be done through Network from the System Preferences in the Apple Menu. Your MAC address is your Airport ID or Ethernet ID.

Nowadays, it is possible to change your MAC address if your hardware does allow it. This is called MAC address spoofing and is not really advisable to do unless it is really necessary since it tends to confuse the router.

How To Fix An Invalid Page Fault

Dave — Tue, 27 May 2008 05:55:05 +0000

An “invalid page fault” error message occurs when the Windows operating system or a third party application tries to call a portion or “chunk” of your computer’s memory that does not exist. Since the memory block does not exist, the call is invalid and the program will therefore generate this error. When the error occurs, it is not uncommon for the operating system to terminate or “kill” the offending process to prevent further errors.

To fix an IPF error, there a few things you can try on your own…

1) Delete all “temporary internet files” on your computer (mostly in Internet Explorer)

2) Delete any unnwanted “startup” programs referenced in the registry or Startup program group.

3) Defrag your hard drive (run “scandisk /defrag”) so swap memory isn’t accessed as frequently.

4) Ensure you are running the latest operating system security patches

If the above doesn’t work, you may very well need to run a software tool to fix these errors. Try RegCure - this one can fix “invalid page fault” errors and a whole host of others. Good luck!

What Is A DLL File?

Dave — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 20:34:56 +0000

Okay, so you’ve probably heard a lot about “dll files” and perhaps you’re wondering what these are? Without getting overly technical, a DLL file is a supporting library file to an application in Windows. DLL actually stands for “dynamic link library” and it functions as a “helper” of sorts to another application. Think of a DLL file has as a supporting actor or actress — they’re not the star of the show, but without their function and presence they often render the lead actor useless!

Oftentimes a DLL file is not even in the main program directory where the executable resides. DLL’s will often be in the “system” directory, which on many Windows operating systems is “C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32″. You may not even realize it, but I’ll bet your PC has a few hundred (or maybe more) DLL’s right now. In my system directory alone, I have over 1400! Here’s the tail end of a “dir *.dll” in my system directory:

09/28/2006 06:56 PM 316,416 WUDFx.dll
04/16/2007 10:47 PM 33,624 wups.dll
04/16/2007 10:45 PM 43,352 wups2.dll
04/16/2007 10:43 PM 203,096 wuweb.dll
08/18/2006 08:37 AM 383,488 wzcdlg.dll
08/18/2006 08:37 AM 52,736 wzcsapi.dll
08/18/2006 08:37 AM 476,160 wzcsvc.dll
08/04/2004 08:00 AM 91,648 xactsrv.dll
08/04/2004 08:00 AM 174,200 xenroll.dll
08/04/2004 08:00 AM 129,536 xmlprov.dll
08/04/2004 08:00 AM 50,176 xmlprovi.dll
03/01/2006 03:42 PM 11,776 xolehlp.dll
08/04/2004 08:00 AM 438,784 xpob2res.dll
08/04/2004 08:00 AM 187,392 xpsp1res.dll
08/04/2004 08:00 AM 2,897,920 xpsp2res.dll
10/29/2007 06:04 AM 350,720 xpsp3res.dll
03/23/2007 06:07 AM 583,504 XPSSHHDR.dll
03/23/2007 06:07 AM 1,683,280 XpsSvcs.dll
11/01/2006 02:52 AM 765,952 xvidcore.dll
11/01/2006 02:54 AM 180,224 xvidvfw.dll
08/04/2004 08:00 AM 337,920 zipfldr.dll
1437 File(s) 348,196,327 bytes
0 Dir(s) 43,477,467,136 bytes free

1437 files! Yikes.

Now as you can imagine, that’s a whole lot files for your operating system to manage. Luckily, Windows XP and other modern day OS’s do a good job of figuring out which DLL’s are associated with applications. But, every once in a while, your system might bark at you with some sort of error - either not being able to load the DLL, not being able to allocate sufficient memory to it, etc. Perhaps you’re getting a DLL error now and that’s why you’ve landed on my site?

Well, there are two main ways you can fix DLL errors -

1) The first way is by trying to replace/redownload the missing or broken DLL in question. I don’t have them here on my site, but there are a few sites which archive various versions of these files. Try browsing over to http://www.dlldll.com to see if they have what you need. If not, try this one: http://www.softwaretipsandtricks.com/dll/.

2) If you try the above and it doesn’t work, you need to run a software tool that tries to fix the error for you. To that end may I suggest RegCure? Among other things, RegCure does a goob job of removing DLL’s that are no longer needed on your system, reassociating unlinked DLL’s with their primary installed application(s), and a lot of other technical stuff that’s a bit over my head! RegCure isn’t free, but it usually does the job…

I hope that information helps — any questions please let me know in the comments…

Cheers!

How To Find Your IP Address

Dave — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 04:15:31 +0000

Internet Protocol address, or commonly known as IP address, is an address that is uniquely given to a component of a network such as routers, switches, computers, servers, printers, and even some telephones. This is assigned to each component so they can be identified and will have no problems in remotely communicating with each other. IP addresses can be static or dynamic. Static IP addresses are addresses that do not change, while dynamic IP address change every time you connect to the network.

Knowing your IP address is important especially if you want to communicate and interact with another component of the network. To find your IP address in Windows XP, the first thing you have to do is to open the Command Prompt. You can find “Command Prompt” in Accessories. You are taken to a black screen and here you must type ipconfig. After a few moments, you will be given your IP address and other information.

IP addresses are commonly expressed in this way xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx and can contain numbers from 0 to 254. If you are in a local network, doing the above steps will give you your local IP address and not the one you use when you connect to the Internet. Usually, local IP address starts with “192.168”.

You can also find your IP address by visiting websites that will do just this. You have to be careful in giving out IP addresses though since these are the more common ways that a hacker can get into your computer. And never download softwares that will claim to show you your IP address.

Stop Using Internet Explorer

Dave — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 06:40:18 +0000

Did you know that some of the most popular forms of spyware specifically target vulnerabilities associated with Microsoft’s flagship web browser, Internet Explorer? Did you know that Internet Explorer has a disproportionate number of security vulnerabilities and associated patches compared with other software? Did you further know that in June of 2004 the US Government’s CERT (Computer Emegency Response Team) recommended that people stop using Internet Explorer because of issues associated with spyware and other forms of malware? Believe it or not, it’s all true. Incidentally, you can find the US CERT’s report which contains that recommendation here: http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/713878

There are a number of alternatives now that measure up or surpass Internet Explorer in terms of ease of use, speed, features, and security. Personally, I use a web browser called Mozilla Firefox and can’t recommend it enough. Firefox is an open-source web browser, which means that its source code is open for anyone to see and make changes to. Why is open source a good thing from a security standpoint? Well, because the software code is open to public scrutiny, developers can and do frequently analyze the code and look for ways to make it faster, more efficient, and more secure.

Some key facts about Firefox:

It is noticeably faster than Internet Explorer.

It has a richer feature set than Internet Explorer (including something called Tabbed Browsing which cleans up the “browser clutter” associated with multiple windows).

It offers a number of neat add-ons called “Firefox Extensions” that make your life a whole lot easier.

It does not have the same number of vulnerabilities as Internet Explorer.

It is not prone to the spread of spyware.

“But if I am keeping up with my security patches, what difference does it make which browser I use”? Well, that’s a fair point, but I would say two things in rebuttal:

1. Microsoft has been known to be tardy when it comes to the release of a security patch, often well after the details of the vulnerability have been released. This means that when using Internet Explorer, there is often a “window of exposure” associated with security vulnerability present for which there is no fix or remediation.

2. Do you really want to worry about all those patches? Sure, Firefox has had its share of vulnerabilities (remember, no software can be trusted, therefore no software is immune to security holes!), however the volume has been nothing like that for Internet Explorer.

But perhaps the biggest reason of all is that many forms of spyware specifically target vulnerabilities found in Internet Explorer. With facts like this, why not make the switch? Visit http://www.firefox.com to download Firefox today. Look for more posts coming soon showing you all the cool things you can do with Firefox!

How To Get Rid Of Spyware And Other Nasties

Dave — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 03:52:42 +0000

So tonight I spent some time at a family member’s house, checking their PC for spyware and other nasties… You know I’ve been out of the day-to-day PC repair thing for a few years now… so I’m definitely not up on the popular spyware threat of the day. I couldn’t tell you what the name of the virus that infected the most systems last month. And while I know in some cases malware has gotten more sophisticated (i.e., blended threats), in a number of cases it’s just more of the same. For the most part, there really is nothing new under the sun!

It turned out my brother in law’s PC was fairly clean… SpyBot Search & Destroy did report a few instances of the Zlob trojan, and I also found a remnant of Virus Heat. What a devilish piece of malware that tool is… pretending to be a legitimate antispyware tool, Virus Heat is actually spyware in disguise, nagging you to fork over your credit card number to unlock the “critical features” of the bogus tool. What a sham.

At any rate, here’s what I did in looking at his PC…perhaps it will be helpful to some of you… Basically, I scanned his hard drives using multiple tools. I updated AdAware (free version) to the most recent signatures and ran that… came back clean. I also did the same with SpyBot…SpyBot takes a good 45 minutes or so to run on a modern Windows XP computer (I think they are up to something like 114,000 spyware checks), but it was well worth it as SpyBot was the one that found Zlob. Next, I ran the infamous HijackThis. Great tool, though you kind of need to know what you’re doing a little bit or you can do serious damage to your Windows installation…. HJT basically allows you to see each Windows service, registry “run” key, CLSID, and browser helper object that is installed on your PC… HJT also shows you the full path if applicable, and you have the option right within the program to remove or keep….This is actually how I found the remnant of Virus Heat (somehow one of its registered DLLs was hooked into Internet Explorer)…

Finally, for good measure, I downloaded the latest copy of Javacool’s Spyware Blaster. Classic tool…wish he updated and supported it more, but hey I’m not complaining….the stupid thing is free. Spyware Blaster is nice too because it has an immunizaiton feature (yeah yeah, I know Spybot does as well) that should keep some of the more common spyware threats away…

At any rate, that’s basically all I did and he’s now good as gold. Note this is not intended to be the “be all/end all” guide to removing malware from a Windows computer…so please don’t take it as such. But hopefully for some of you it provides some direction and at least a starting point…

Crap Cleaner Review - Clean Up Your PC!

Dave — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 05:26:03 +0000

So you see that link on the right hand sidebar to Crap Cleaner? There’s a reason that link is there, right on my home page. You know why? Because the software is good. Real good. And today I want to tell you a little more about it and why you need to be using it…

In a nutshell, Crap Cleaner (sometimes called CCleaner) is a quick and dirty program used to speed up your computer. It does in three primary ways:

By removing the garbage (crap) left behind by a number of applications on your computer
By cleaning up your registry
By optimizing your browser (supports Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera)

I’m not sure if you know, but every single time an application is installed on your PC a lot of “waste” and “residue” gets left behind (yeah, those are technical terms)…so much so that this waste and residue eats up valuable disk space. Well, CCleaner reclaims that wasted space by getting rid of these excess files. It also optimizes your browser by removing needless history files, temporary files, and cookies where appropriate. And of course it will also compact and clean up your registry — often the biggest mess on your PC.

CCleaner is safe to download (no spyware or anything else to worry about) and 100% free. And it’s dead simple to use. Honestly it’s one of the better PC optimization applications out there. And as of this writing, it’s been downloaded 120 million times! So what are you waiting for? Go get it now…

Analyzing Suspicious Files For Viruses And Other Malware

Dave — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 06:24:55 +0000

Today I want to tell you about one of the coolest web sites you’ll ever come across! Okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration but you get my point. Did you ever receive an attachment from a friend or family member and just *hoped* it wasn’t infected with a virus or carrying a trojan with it? Yeah. Me too. I have one particular family member who for some unknown reason likes to e-mail me videos as WMV attachments! And with all the vulnerabilities present within Windows Media Player, sometimes I’m a little scared to open these videos! Sure, they are run through my antivirus program before executing, but how do I know my antivirus vendor can detect whatever malware may be present within the file? In situations like these, wouldn’t it be nice to run my little WMV through a *number* of vendor’s antivirus scanning engines?

Yeah, it would…

Enter VirusTotal. VirusTotal basically allows you to scan any file on your hard drive using *many* different antivirus vendor’s scanning engines. It’s an on-demand service that couldn’t be simpler to use. You goto the website, upload your file using the form there, and then your file is entered into the que to be scanned. Typically the que is quite short, most of the time 5 minutes or less. Once your file is up to be scanned, the website will scan it with no less than 32 different scanning engines! These engines include all the major ones you’ve heard of (McAfee, Symantec, Sophos), plus a number you probably haven’t (Prevx, Softwin, Norman).

One final word…while VirusTotal truly is a great tool (and free to use), it doesn’t obliterate the need for an antivirus program installed locally on your workstation…hopefully that goes without saying, but in case not….well there you go!

Incidentally, if anyone knows of any other web sites that allow on-demand malware analysis, please let me know in the Comments below…

Why Spam Can Be Hard To Catch

Dave — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 03:52:56 +0000

So we all get spam every day, right? And while it definitely can be annoying, spam is so common and so prevalent now that most of us just ignore it. Hopefully you have a solution that deals with 95% of it (and if you don’t, let me know and I’ll help you out), but even for the 5% that makes it through to our Inbox, receiving the latest “get rich quick” or “lose weight fast” e-mail can be a major nuisance!

But at the same time, it’s actually kind of interesting to watch the spammers and see their latest techniques… Getting past spam filters is like a cat and mouse game between the spammers and the antispam companies who make the filters…it’s actually pretty entertaining! Today I received a piece of spam to one of my Yahoo! accounts that was selling (shocker here) Viagra… Except there was no misspelled words and no graphics…in fact there were no words at all. Rather, this spammer evaded detection by writing his e-mail with ASCII art. Sort of a combination between text and graphics….

I’ve pasted the contents of the spam message below for you to check out. By the way, in all seriousness, I do NOT recommend you visit the site advertised in the message, as some of these phony pharmaceutical web sites have been known to install drive-by spyware and other malware upon visiting. But an e-mail with this type of content underscores how difficult it is for antispam filters to catch every piece of spam. After all, there’s really nothing in this e-mail that would trip a filter…no suspect embedded images, no misspelled words…no words like “cheap”, “meds”, or “viagra”.

+1 to the spammers…


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Useful Keyboard Shortcuts In Windows

Dave — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 03:45:47 +0000

Okay, so I want to share with you some very useful keyboard shortcuts that various Microsoft Windows operating systems let you take advantage of, only you may not know it! Note before we start let me add the usual disclaimer, that this is list is not at all meant to be exhaustive, but rather a collection of the shortcuts that I personally take advantage of…that’s not to say there aren’t other useful shortcuts either…in fact, if you have some you think are useful, go ahead and comment here letting us know!

Okay, without further ado, here we go…

Window Switching - Though this may not be news to many of you, I know still others will be pleased to know you don’t need the mouse to switch between various open folders/windows at the bottom of your taskbar…that’s right, simply press ALT+TAB and your operating system will let you scroll through all your open windows.

Start Button - Tired of moving your mouse or pointer all the way to the lower left of the screen only to click the infamous “Start” button? Me too! Instead, try hitting CTRL+ESC. Isn’t that nice?

Browser Tabs - What did we do before tabbed browsing? I don’t know either! But you know, I still hate using my mouse to select the other tab I have open… So instead, try hitting CTRL+TAB while in your favorite browser.

Closing Open Windows - Sure, you can click the “X” like everyone else, but you’re better than that! Try ALT+F4 instead…too easy!

DOS Prompt - Need to get to DOS quick? Try going to the Start Menu / clicking Run and typing cmd.

Run Menu - Oh, speaking of the Run menu…instead of clicking “Run”, once in the Start Menu, just hit R.

Services - For you geeks who need to modify the services…sure, you can go through Control panel…but that’s no fun. How about typing services.msc from the Run menu?

Edit The Registry - Any geek worth his salt has spent time in the infamous Windows registry…so if you’re gonna get there you might as well get there quick! Try typing regedit from the run menu!

Start Your Favorite Programs Quickly - Do you use MS Word every day? How about Excel? No? I bet you use Firefox or Internet Explorer every day though, eh? Any of these can be started in an instant by typing the main executable filename of the program in question from the Run menu. For example, if you want to start Word, simply navigate to the Run menu (CTRL+ESC / R) and type winword. Excel is the same process but instead type (ready for this?) excel. Also, I bet you can guess the filenames for Outlook and Firefox too, can’t ya smart guy?? Oh, and Internet Explorer is iexplore.

So there you go, some of the Windows shortcuts I use every single day…have some more to add? Let’s hear ‘em!