oct17.com Blog

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The McAfee Security Center software on the store PC was out-of-date.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.

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!

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.

Henry Blodget mea culpa

From the do-you-really-think-anyone-cares dept.: I was a wrong about Henry Blodget. He’s a good blogger and a necessary read in the online media field.

Over year ago, some of my coworkers (includng my boss) were praising Blodget’s blog, Silicon Alley Insider, and suggesting we should get his stuff on the BNET blogs. I fussed and frumped, because of high-minded belief that someone booted from the securities industry for hyping stocks had no place in a serious business site. Not my site, anyway.

So while I was smugly ignoring the advice of people whom I usually trust, Blodget proceeded to blog his heart out on the business of the Internet and increasingly of the media. He did it well, and he’s gotten better. He’s recruited solid writers to back him up, and now the SAI gang is one of the few things I read every day to stay sharp on my industry. (You can see the feed of interesting stories I read the box to the right.)

• My latest SAI favorite: “Web Ads: Lots of Impressions, Little Value” by Michael Learmonth. I agree completely that theres’s a glut of of ad inventory and ad real estate on professional Web pages. (On CIO.com the other day, I counted more than a dozen graphical ads, sponsorship logos, or blocks of paid links.) The inexorable logic of ad networks will make this situation worse, except for sites that can create a stronger environment for fewer ads, and get paid more for that choice than for what Learmonth calls, “bombarding its users with low-value ad units.”

Hilton Head Island discoveries

Brij, Saloni and I spent the week on Hilton Head Island with Mom (and Jackie, and regular visits from Aunt Betsy and Uncle Ken). It was a great time-off week with a whole lot of nothing going on. Plus Dolphin sitings.

In going over family stories I was struck by one comparison that hadn’t come up before. Many years ago, in preparation for my father’s 40th birthday my family had a savings drive. We squirreled away spare dollars in a coffee can for months, saving up to surprise my father with something he’d never dreamed he would own: the complete, multi-volume set of the OED — the mythical, impressive Oxford English Dictionary.

This is a pricey gift today and was even moreso back in the 1970’s. He was surprised (or at least fooled his adolescent son) and we displayed that shelf-busting set of dictionaries in the living room for years and years.

For my 40th birthday present, I asked my family for… an XBOX 360. It’s also in our living room.

Vista is so bad, my teeth hurt

We’ve bought two new computers recently, one is a photo workstation for Nine Rubies and one is a home PC for me. (Aside: I needed a new PC because my hand-built Shuttle SB61G2, which I love, got very flaky after an upgrade to 2GB of RAM. The details would bore everyone, but my attempts to fix got nowhere and I think something’s wonky on the motherboard.)

I bought both PCs from the local Best Buy, which was one of the worst customer service experiences I’ve had in a while. Best Buy is a big advertiser at work, and I loved the San Francisco store, so I wanted to give them my business. My machine ended up an HP Pavilion a6030n, a quite decent home PC with Vista pre-installed.

Vista is the dullest new OS I’ve ever seen. I like new computer stuff.; I’ve excitedly upgraded to every Windows operating system since Windows 3.1 (including Windows ME — I’m not picky). Vista is the worst. Just a giant snooze interrupted by periods of “why did they change that?!” frustration. I may return with details later, but for family and friends: take my advice and don’t bother.

Baby needs a cellphone

Daddy and Brij share a moment before bedtime, and the baby calls it like he sees it.

babycellphone

BMUG: Slightly used and for sale on Amazon

I’ve come to really enjoy Amazon’s network of used-book sellers. (Particularly the ones who sell books for a penny plus shipping and handling — you gotta love that.) But this just made me laugh out loud: There’s a whole bunch of BMUG Newsletters, as well as other BMUG publications, listed and available used from Amazon. Berkeley nostalgists: check it out.