Robert Glen Fogarty

Randy (Furo) mentioned on Wednesday that he was being buried with viruses thanks to the never ending streams of e-mail to his inbox. I had to smile since I, too, have felt the sudden upsurge of this sort of thing. However, I am not suffering too much since I am a Postini user. Recently I [...]

Welcome to Just Ask Matt! - The IT industry’s answer to the help column, only slightly more medicated. Today, Jim writes:
Here is a strange one for you. All of a sudden I can’t connect to the Web site I use for moving my 401K options. It tells me that the site cannot be found. I [...]

Subnetting is often one of the most difficult concepts to grasp. But it is one that is important to understand for both on the job and exam success. At first the concept may seem mindboggling but once you’ve done it a few times, it really becomes less complex than it first appears to be. But [...]

I believe with total confidence that everyone here knows how to delete their temporary Internet files from Internet Explorer. Pretty basic stuff, right? Well what would you do if you had to contend with a PC that had a corrupt cache for IE? No worries! Today I am going to show you exactly what you [...]

Gnomie Bob Curtis writes: “Hi! I found this site quite by accident. It’s selling a product I really don’t need. But they do offer a couple of nifty little FREE programs (under the free downloads button) that might appeal to other Gnomies. One is a FAT file and folder finder, the other is a [...]

Viruses have been flooding to my inbox in unusual quantities lately. Strangely, it seems to be a fairly even mix of Netsky.D/Q, and Bagle AI/AB/AF/AH, with some MyDoom.N and Funlove tossed in for good measure. Netsky.Q was dominating for quite a while, but Bagle is back, now that the source code has been released. Bagle [...]

Even Internet Explorer configuration changes in Windows XP SP2 don’t protect you from a new phishing technique demonstrated by a British Web developer. That’s enough to make users worry, but worse is that it’s not an IE-only technique. Using Firefox, the coder showed that he could fake a site’s appearance to make visitors believe they [...]

I rely on eWallet very heavily to keep track of Web accounts, software keys, IP address info for various networks I work with, etc. Electronic wallet apps are everywhere, but eWallet is great for those of us who use several different device types. They offer versions for Pocket PC, Palm, Windows Smartphones, and Windows desktops, [...]

Road warriors engage in a constant battle for battery survival when traveling long distances. This will probably always be the case. As battery technology advances, notebook power requirements seem to follow. Low-power models aren’t geared toward the power user that loves to tinker with something more than a spreadsheet and some e-mail during flight. Those [...]

Owners of the Netgear XE102 wall-plug Ethernet Bridge should be aware of a recall issued by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). The plastic housing of the device can come apart, resulting in a shock hazard. Obviously, the wall-plug nature of the unit makes it a bit of a worry around small children. A repair [...]

Windows XP SP2 will bring TCP connection limits that may cause issues with busy software. A blurb on Warp2Search.net reveals that P2P software resulted in an Event Log message about too many connection attempts. When asked, a Microsoft rep of some sort replied with the following:
“Thanks very much for responding. This new feature is one [...]

I feel so… obsolete. The fourth generation iPod was announced, leaving me with an antiquated third generation model that’s utterly useless now. Did I drip any sarcasm on your keyboard?
In all seriousness, the latest iPod models pose a great opportunity to jump in if you’ve been procrastinating an audio player purchase. The 4G models [...]

I have something funny that I would like to share with my fellow Gnomies. I received this in my inbox today from my ex-wife. At first I thought this was based on a true event that had happened to her recently, but as it turns out it was just a story she had passed on [...]

Welcome to Just Ask Matt! - The IT industry’s answer to the help column, only slightly more medicated. Today, Charlie writes:

I have XP Pro w/SP1 + fixes. The other morning, out of the blue, it just rebooted itself. It had been doing this more and more over the past week when playing Real One arcade [...]

Windows includes a packet sniffing tool called Network Monitor. You can install Network Monitor in Windows Server 2003 using the following steps:

Click Start, point to Control Panel, and click Add or Remove Programs.
Click Add/Remove Windows Components.
Within the Windows Component wizard, select Management and Monitoring Tools and click the Details button.
Select the Network Monitor Tools check [...]

Q: I just got my router and I’m having a hard time playing DirectX 7
games (most Microsoft games made in the late ’90s). How do I get rid
of these firewall error messages?
A: I typically wouldn’t recommend opening more ports than absolutely
necessary, but for some games or applications, it’s essential.
If you just got your router, chances [...]

Companies spend a large amount of money and time securing their networks from external attacks. You often read about the latest security attacks that have occurred. External attacks seem to be highly publicized (and we love reading about them). However, what about the threat of internal attacks? An internal attack can be far more serious [...]

So one of your clients has managed to nuke Internet Explorer and they are unsure how they did it. The possibility of viruses and adware have been eliminated, so this just leaves you and a broken IE. Before you begin to even consider running a repair install of the OS, let’s try to do a [...]

I finally managed to locate my shrink-wrapped spindle of DVD+R discs that wandered away a couple of weeks ago. The escapee was found to be napping in a desk drawer entirely out of context. I would never have thought to look in that particular drawer of antiquated account statements and ancient product manuals covering items [...]

I’ve been reading Bruce Schneier’s book on cryptography for the last couple of days, and one of the main concepts in the text struck me as interesting.
One of the points of discussion when looking at the security of a given algorithm is its exposure to scrutiny. Bruce explicitly states that no one should ever trust [...]