Stopping VirusRemover2008

Once again some major fool has created more work for me…this time, a client intemperately clicking a link in Huffingtonpost.com’s comment section has installed an app called ViruRemover2008, supposedly an antiviral program, but in reality an annoying piece of malware.  Pop-ups continually distract you indicating that there are viruses on your computer.  To ‘fix’ this problem, you are advised to purchase the full version of VirusRemover2008.  VR2008 will never stop asking you, and will not allow itself to be uninstalled.  This is a business model?

So I spent some time trying to remove the program fragments in the manner suggested at Symantec.com, but I never did find them.  SAV might have found and deleted them by the time I arrived on the scene, or the VR2008 author may have read the same page and changed his code.  The virus was only active in a single user’s profile, so the actual fix was:

• let Symantec AV do its thing
• copy the user’s profile
• delete the user’s profile
• after making sure the problem is gone, restore the user’s desktop items and internet favorites.

So far, that has worked.  Try not to get too angry.

Installing Infotrieve Ariel under Windows Vista

I wrote a little instruction set for this task, since it was a bit of a pain.  You can download the MS Word Doc from the URL:

http://www.indiana.edu/~libcasd/ariel-vista.doc.

/updated 7/24/2008

Copying a MS SQL server database – w/o BS

Sheesh, all I wanted to do was copy a SQL database from one MS Windows machine to another (we are migrating our Infotrieve Ariel servers to new workstations).  Searching the web for a solution to this simple task was like asking someone how to plug in a lamp and getting the entire history of physics first.

Here’s how we do it, copying from an MSDE 2000 server to MS SQL 2005 Server Express:

1. On the machine with the database, stop the SQL server
2. find the database files (suffixes are mdf and ldf) and copy them to your new workstation
3. Run Application SQL Server Management Studio Express (free download) on your new workstation
4. Connect to your SQL server using the aforementioned Server studio
5. in the Object Explorer, right-click the Databases object and choose Attach
6. Use the Attach Databases dialog window to locate your database files and attach them.

That’s all.  Now, see how simple that was?

Dell Computers Fail to Boot Due To ‘Bad’ USB Connections

Yeah, this was a new one on me…we use Dell Optiplex GX280 workstations here at the library. We’ve had the usual PS and HD failures this year, but last week I had a station that stopped booting right after the Windows “progress bar” screen. It just sat there, a black screen with a blinking cursor, no POST, no nothing.

It turned out that a USB printer cable was not plugged in “all the way,” something I had never even considered. Since the backs of our workstations are very crowded with cabling, one of the USB cables was 1/2-way out of its jack. The USB controller had failed to start, stopping the boot in its tracks. Plugging in the cable again and restarting solved the problem.

Wiki me!

After years of doing work and then forgetting that I had done it, last year I decided to take a drastic step and start a record of previous fixes and information.  After discovering that writing things down on tiny scraps of paper was ineffective (the scraps tend to bunch together in the washing machine), I installed a personal Wiki on my workstation.

Minimal web research led me to choose MoinMoinWiki.  Now I have an easy-to-update, searchable, browser-hosted record of my day-to-day work activities.  This is far superior to just unrelated Word documents in a LAN folder.

Wiki: not just for sharing!

Google, Library Scanning, and Copyright

There’s a nice (and brief) roundup of issues concerning Google’s massive library book scanning project at Ars Technica this morning. I’d like to comment on it more fully, but I don’t have the time or patience to read through all the relevant copyright law. My illustrious employer is also a member of this project, so I expect to be hearing a lot about this topic in the coming years.

The gist of the problem appears to be that copyright pertaining to electronic media has not been fully hashed out in the courts, so several opinions can be regarded as having validity. The idea of Google, a powerful media corporation, having control over copies of many millions of pages of copyrighted content is mind-boggling. What do they say they intend to do with them? Their use could be either lawful, unlawful, or exist in a legal limbo.

Several amusing remarks are made in the back-and-forth comments between Paul Courant and Siva Vaidhyanathan about the general laziness of modern students, to the effect that they won’t bother to physically seek out actual books, but prefer electronic versions…a generalization, but one with some truth to it. It’s just the way they was raised, I guess.

How To: Cancel an Outlook Meeting w/o Notifying the Attendees

One of the things I like about my job (besides the free Methadone) is that every day my clients ask me for instructions on how to perform the oddest tasks…ways to use software that said software’s authors perhaps never imagined. So today’s question was:

How do I cancel an Outlook calendar meeting without notifying the attendees?

Honestly, I never thought anyone would want to do this! Unless you want people to show up for a canceled meeting. Anyway, it’s easy:

1. Open your Outlook calendar and select the meeting item.
2. Delete or cancel the meeting anyway you like.
3. The meeting dialog will open and ask you if you want to send the notification. The attendees’ names are conveniently already entered in the To: field.
4. Delete all the attendees’ email addresses and enter your own (or any other) email address.
5. Mouse-click the Send Cancellation button.

And that’s it. I mean, if you really want to do this. For real.

Launchy streamlines programs

I usually don’t bother with ‘productivity applications’ because I think they’re just another way to waste time playing with freeware.  But Launchy has proved itself to me as a way to skip the annoying hunt for shortcuts and Start menu items.  Launchy provides a quick way to start applications by typing instead of mouse-clicking.  It’s free, so try it out.  For Windows only.

How to be a computer expert, or at least smell like one.

So now you’ve graduated from college (or maybe dropped out), and you’re working in computer support. Not phone support, which is less a job than occupational water-boarding, but having to interact with people in person. I’ve noticed a few failings in my young male colleagues that I wish to address in a series of Support Tips:

1. Wash. I was once described as “one of the more pleasant support people, as I ‘bathed regularly’.” I bathe every day, as a matter of fact. I use deodorant and everything. People don’t want to gossip about your scent…they prefer not to smell you at all.
2. Wash your clothes. See #1
3. Wash your hands. You’re walking around all day long typing on other people’s keyboards. You’re a walking, talking disease vector. Wash your hands after you use someone else’s keyboard and mouse. That way you might also skip getting their 2-year-old’s pink-eye. I’ve used keyboards so thick with finger goo I could barely keep down my lunch.
4. Answer your e-mails in a timely fashion. Please. Pretty please. And remember to set your ‘Out-Of-Office’ message when you go on vacation. You know what sending an email to some IT support people is like? Screaming into the abyss. All you hear is the wind.

…more to come.