October 17

The curse continues: virus attack and McAfee’s betrayal

The store’s main computer was crippled, just as the store was opening for the day.

Friday night one of the employees at Saloni’s store called to say there was a virus warning appearing on the main computer. We go in, and discover that the machine is infected with the “AntiVirus 2009” malware. This is a nasty one — Saloni’s home computer got it a week ago, and it took a remote Symantec technician 5 hours to remove it fully!

Part One: 4 hours & $130

The McAfee Security Center software on the store PC was out-of-date. That’s probably why it didn’t catch it. I was able to remove the malware using another program, then update the McAfee software (that’s the $130) and run a quick scan. Uh oh: A half-dozen more trojan and malware programs were found and cleaned up.

It was getting close to midnight, so before leaving I kicked of a more-thorough scan of the PC, just to be sure. Came back in the morning to discover that McAfee had found 40 more trojans and malware programs on this machine. OMG. All were now quarantined, except for 4 of them that were living in copies of Windows’ “svchost.exe” file. Those, McAfeee indicated, needed to be scanned after a restart. So I restarted.

And then my real troubles began.

Part Two: Nine hours & $90

svchost.exe. is a part of the Windows XP operating system, and apparently whatever step McAfeee Security Center had taken to protect me caused this file to crash continuously. The PC had the same error message popping ut every 2-3 seconds. It lost its network connectivity. I could no longer copy files, nor could I launch McAfee any more. The store’s main computer was crippled, just as the store was opening for the day.

I fiddled, I tried System Restore (doesn’t work with svchost.exe disabled). I tried booting from an XP installer disc (installing over a newer version, it says, will delete all the files — not an option!). I finally give in and call McAfee.

The salesperson informs me that “Gold” technical support will be phone support where I have to perform all the actions myself, while with “Platinum” technical support the techie will remotely control my machine and do the work for me. I carefully, even abrasively ask: Will the Platinum support techie work with me to restore my network connectivity first? Yes, I’m told, he will; Platinum is better than Gold. So I pay my $90 and am transferred to a Platinum technician.

You know where this is headed. The Platinum tech tries several things, can’t get anything working, and tells me to call Microsoft. I call Dell support instead, since we bought the PC from them. Dell’s paid-support techie informs me that his systems are down and he can’t do anything. Please call back tomorrow. Let me repeat that: Dell’s paid support is down.

I come home to my workng machines, hoping that with fresh installed discs, working Internet access, a CD burner, a spare USB hard drive, that somehow I’ll be able to make a bootable drive to take to the store and fix that damn PC. Nothing works; the curse is complete.

Part Three: 5-7 business days & $130 or more

Saloni’s calls Best Buy’s Geek Squad. Their first available appointment for on-site PC troubleshooting is more than a month away. But we can drop off the computer at the store and they can fix it in 5-7 days. We dropped it off at the store tonight (they’re open till 10pm, which is pretty nice). Technician quickly assessed that the problem was data rather than physical, and put our desktop PC on a rack behind 10 other ones awaiting diagnostics and repair. Sigh. Time for bed.

Hey, Yahoo: I *pay* you for this service!

I am experiencing some sort of technical curse. My troubles with the home network are well-documented at this point, and tonight at dinner Gopal informs me that his e-mail is no longer working properly. It won’t send.

I fiddle with the settings. For some reason, the Comcast SMTP mail server is not responding. “That’s OK,” I figure, “Oct17.com and the associated e-mail accounts (including Gopal’s) are part of a paid Web Hosting Service from Yahoo.” They have a dedicated SMTP server that I can use, because I pay for it. (Routing outgoing mail through Comcast’s servers seems a bit like cheating, anyway.) So I switch the settings to use Yahoo’s servers and authentication, and everything’s dandy.

Until I decide to check and see if Sudha’s e-mail is working, too.

I should have left well enough alone! Instead, I decide to update her SMTP settings as well. But then the Yahoo SMTP server wants a password. Uh-oh: what’s Sudha’s e-mail password? She’s on the phone, but after trying all the ones I know without luck, I interrupt and ask her. She tells me. It doesn’t work.

“That’s OK,” I figure. “I control the Oct17.com mail accounts. I’ll just reset it in my Yahoo Web Hosting control panel.”

Except you can’t. The e-mail control panel will permit me to delete Sudha’s Oct17.com e-mail account, but I can’t change the password. That’s really annoying. I pay for the service, which includes the e-mail accounts; I am the administrator, and I don’t have permission to administer.

There’s no process for me to automatically reset her password online, and after spending 20 minutes on the phone with Yahoo tech support (also something I pay for), it turns out they can’t reset a password either!

Why my home network stinks

Every time I start on a tech home-improvement project, I get “the look” in my eyes. My whole family knows my short-tempered frustration will persist until I have things working the way I think they should. Right now, they are not.

I’ve had a wireless network at home for several years, using a very decent Belkin Pre-N router (Model F5D8230-4). “Pre-N” means it came out before the official ratification of the 802.11n wireless standard, but it’s backward-compatible with older, more established standads like “g” and “b.” But recently new devices have entered our family’s networked world: Saloni’s first-generation iPhone, a Sony Vaio laptop cast off by Claire, and my new BlackBerry 8320 phone from work. All have Wi-Fi of some sort, and all have had trouble connecting reliably to the home network.

So I set out to fix it.

First I bought an “N” adapter for Claire’s old Vaio. I put the laptop in the kitchen, on our little work table there, in hopes of having a handy terminal for looking up directions or paying bills. I bought an Airlink Wireless 300N USB adapter for $60-$70 from Fry’s. Expensive for a USB device, sure, but it supported “N” — I had dreams of a really fast connection in the kitchen, which sits just 10 feet directly below my office with the “Pre-N” router! Lots of luck. The Airlink USB adapter stinks. Barely registered the existence of a wireless network, and failed to connect half the time when it did. Management software was unresponsive, not verified by Microsoft, and didn’t offer any features over the built-in functions of the OS. I quietly started making plans to return it to Fry’s (not a welcoming prospect, I assure you).

Then I was issued the BlackBerry by CBS. A cool, new phone with Wi-Fi support! Except that it failed to connect to my wireless network most of the time. (It also had no T-Mobile cell service in my home half the time. So my company issued me a phone that would not receive calls or data when I was at home. I’m thinking, “This probably isn’t what they had in mind.”)

I start to suspect that my old router isn’t very compatible with newer devices. So I buy a new router.

At Staples, the Netgear RangeMax Wireless-N Router is a few dollars cheaper than the non-RangeMax version. This confused me and the sales associate, but what the heck. I buy the shiny white router, swap it in for the old Belkin by following a set of terrific on-screen step-by-step instructions. The result? The kitchen computer still won’t connect. The BlackBerry did for an afternoon, but refused to authenticate or connect the next morning. And now Gopal’s computer in his bedroom — the rock-steady PC with a Belkin Pre-N PCI card in it — won’t connect either.

So I’m heading back to Staples to return the router. At least I know they’ll handle it better than Fry’s.

UPDATE: Back from Staples with a shiny black Belkin router and new laptop card in-hand. The router is the updated version of what I started with: a Pre-N MIMO. (”MIMO” means, in essence, multiple antennae and better coverage.) The new router has better management software but only two antennae. Hmmm… And I guess the 802.11n standard still isn’t ratified, since the latest router is still Pre-N. What, exactly, did I just buy that’s new?

Set up the Belkin N Wireless Router (ver.4000) and try the BlackBerry. No dice. Holding the phone three feet from the router, the phone can’t “see” the network. On a whim, I downgrade my security option (from WPA-PSK to 64-bit WEP), and that does the trick! The BlackBerry connects. Next step: Gopal’s computer, which is down a floor and probably 30 feet away. No dice — even though his computer has the old Belkin Pre-N PCI card. His PC sees the computer three-quarters of the time, but whenever I try to connect it fails with an error that it lost touch. Unbelievable. The whole point of this MIMO stuff is to give greater range and signal strength.

So I lose it. I march back upstairs, pull out the wires for the new router, restart the cable modem and everything. Going back to Square One. And it works.

With my old router (which has three antennae), Gopal’s computer reconnects just fine. The damnable BlackBerry decides that now it can see the Wi-Fi network, for now anyway. And the kitchen computer, equipped with a brand-new Belkin N Wireless Notebook Card is on the network lickety-split. Except that it’s only 54Mbps, instead of the N-standard 108Mbps.

I can live with that.

So-called “books” are entertaining, portable

I’m not sure how it happened, but I’ve suddenly awoken from my long winter of reading magazines, Web sites, train schedules, pretty much anything but a book. Credit is probably due to Michelle Gagnon, an old friend who writes mystery crime novels. Her new book was coming out, so I went to Amazon… before you know it, I’m reading books again!

The hit list so afar:

• Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs
• Desperate Networks
• The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google

And I just started Michelle’s Boneyard. Saloni and Gopal wanted to read it first.

JANA throws in the towel

CNET Networks Inc shareholder Jana Partners LLC on Thursday said it dropped its effort to win control of CNET’s board in light of CBS Corp’s plan to buy the Internet media company.

And good riddance. Paul Gardi can take his profits on his 129,199 CNET shares, two installments of his $25,000 per quarter consulting fee, and go find a real job.

New passport: $75. New citizenship: $675

The nuclear family got new passports this week — a remarkably quick two weeks after we applied at the local library. (Extremely cool that they have a passport office in there after hours. Love this library.) The new passports are cyborgs; they are stiff with embedded electronics, colorful with holographic etchings, and full of … no stamps. Luckily they return the pages of your old passport so you can reminisce about your globetrotting. Brij’s passport is good for 5 years. Saloni’s and mine are good for the usual 10. Each one costs about $75 to process.

Also this week, the Sarins are filling out their applications for U.S. citizenship. (We spend enough dinner-table time arguing about politics that it’s really overdue, I think.) Lots of information to supply, and most shocking was that the fee to move from Green Card holder to Citizen costs you $675 per person. And I seriously doubt these will get processed in two weeks.

• Saloni says: We’re sending out economic-stimulus package right back to the government.

Vivu and CBS

Time to update the Ole Blog here with two major pieces of employment news.

• Saloni works at Vivu. It happened by slow degrees; first a get-to-know-you meeting with the CEO, then some follow-up discussions on the direction of the startup, and before you know it she’s printing business cards for the whole company including one for herself that says, “Director of Marketing.” Vivu is definitely in startup mode: barely a dozen people, still fervently pitching investors for capital, staff meetings on Sunday mornings. She’s thrilled, I’m thrilled, and a video-streaming startup makes a nice complement to my new employer…
• CNET’s being acquired by CBS. Starting in (roughly) July, I’ll work for the giant media company that’s the home of “Wheel of Fortune” and “CSI” (and CBS Sports, too, David). This is a huge relief and a presumed release from the sneaky barbarians at the gate of JANA. For CNET, I think this opens up huge advertiser opportunities in categories where CBS is a major player and CNET is not. For me personally, this means some fantastic opportunities to expand BNET onto radio and possibly TV, while learning something about those media. Hey, I made the jump from print to online more than 10 years ago; time to learn some new tricks.

Hopefully no more job updates for a while. It’s been a busy month!

Millennials? Oh, my.

We’ve been working on a editorial package at work about the new management issues around those born after 1980 — the so-called “millennials.” I take all groupthink descriptions of a generation with a grain of salt, since I remember the silly stuff propounded about Generation X. Still and all, I do wonder about those crazy kids and their rock-and-roll music. It’s hard not to look for differences.

UPDATE: Did an interview with MarketWatch Radio on May 16 about this topic. The big takeaway (subject to Steve Potisk’s editing) is that the millennials respect leadership not position. And this tends to piss people off. BNET blogger Sean Silverthorne has a post about the resulting unhappy Generation X workers that has really struck a chord.

Mary Jo Foley is coming to town

Mary Jo, a longtime colleague of mine and the world’s Number One blogger on Microsoft, is coming to San Francisco next month to promote her book, Microsoft 2.0. We’re trying to set up a live interview(videotaped, natch) between her and amateur tree photographer Dan Farber.

We all cooperate. We all compete.

I spent last week in New York, meeting with a cable network, glossy magazine, and blog network – a real buffet of business media. All these meetings were about working together with BNET, even though all the parties have substantial Web operations.

• Amusing aside: Transportation reveals hierarchy. We drove out of NY for an audience with the cable network. We cabbed it across Manhattan to visit the magazine. The blog network came to us.

Everyone we met with makes their money from advertising. In fact, there’s probably a core of advertisers from whom we all wrestle budgets. We all compete for users’ time and affection, and in some cases I bet the very same humans consume what we cook up. In every way that matters, we’re competitors. Some are incumbents, others startups; some are multiple media, others pure-play. We’re all trying to skin the cat a different way, sure, but one could argue that there’s only one cat.

Why in the world are we sitting in conference rooms trying to figure out ways to work together?

We don’t normally act like this. Normally media companies fight battles petty or grand over users, editors, and advertisers. Professionally, I think such competition is terrific. An editor who doesn’t want to beat somebody is not nearly as interesting as one who does.

Case in point: We had a brief flap over one of our contributors that very same week. Carmine Gallo, an executive coach and speaker, wrote a book — on his own time and presumably with his own ideas. (Learn more about it in the video below.) I like Carmine’s stuff. He’s the regular host of BNET’s Useful Commute podcast and frequent star in our videos. Carmine adapted from his book an article for BusinessWeek, a similar article for BNET, and collaborated with us on a fun video. Later this month he’s doing a Webcast for Ziff Davis Enterprise on the same topic.

The Webcast got us all into a tizzy. Ziff Davis Enterprise is an fierce competitor of ZDNet, which is the site I’ve spent most of my professional life midwifing. When Ziff sells a Webcast, it means my team lost money. And to think we lost money because the Other Guys used one of our contributors?! Outrage! But of course BusinessWeek.com is a direct competitor of BNET (another, ahem, major focus for my team), and nobody’s blood pressure rose over Carmine’s article there. Why not?

I think the difference is the relative youth of business media online, versus the relative age of technology media. In tech, we’ve spent the last 10 years moving the center of gravity to the Web. We’re all there, and now it’s time to fight for turf. In business media, however, the same transition has just begun. The game is to survive through the inevitable shake-up and still be around 10 years from now. Then we’ll fight.