Most people know about the cookies that internet browsers use to store information.  It's easy to configure browser settings to not allow cookies, only allow trusted cookies, and to delete cookies when exiting the browser.  What slips around the radar are Local Stored Objects (LSO), also known as super-cookies or Flash cookies.

LSO’s use Flash technology to store more information than regular cookies.  In addition, LSO’s can be used to recreate, or respawn, deleted cookies.  More than half of the internet’s top websites use a little known capability of Adobe’s Flash plug-in to track users and store information about them, but only four of them mention the so-called Flash Cookies in their privacy policies according to UC Berkeley researchers.

To control these Flash cookies, you have to use the controls on Adobe’s site.  According to Wikipedia,  “Users can only opt-out of Local Shared Objects globally by using the Global Storage Settings panel of the online Settings Manager at Adobe's website. Users can also opt-out of them on a per-site basis by right-clicking the Flash player and selecting 'Settings'.  Adobe's online-only Website Storage Settings panel was created to let users view and delete LSOs on a per-domain basis. It is also possible to completely disallow LSOs from a specific domain by setting the storage space to "0 KB", however, although no data is stored, empty directories with the name of the domain are nonetheless created. Add-onextensions that allow the user to view and delete LSOs have also been created for the Firefox Web browser, e.g. BetterPrivacy.”

Using Windows Powershell, you can get timestamps for creation, last access, and last write times. 

Examples:

• PS>$(Get-Item ).creationtime=$(Get-Date "mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm am/pm")
• PS>$(Get-Item ).lastaccesstime=$(Get-Date "mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm am/pm")
• PS>$(Get-Item ).lastwritetime=$(Get-Date "mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm am/pm")

Another thing that the Powershell can be used for is setting the timestamps to whatever value you want.  It can be future or past.

Here is an example of setting the last write time of file “test.txt” to 1-1-2020:

• PS>$(get-item test.txt).lastwritetime=$(get-date "01/01/2020")

Windows 7 by default installs the Universal Print Driver for HP device and uses the native Windows scanning options. Which is not as robust as the previous versions that came with the All-In-One systems. The user was complaining that the scanning was not usable and needed the same functionality that was there before Windows 7. This method will allow you to install the same software options previously available on Windows XP and Vista. After installation of the software on a Windows 7 PC in Compatibility Mode the following software components are installed:

• Print Driver
• Send Fax
• Uninstall Utility
• User Guide
• Twain and WIA Scan Drivers

To run the Windows Vista software on a Windows 7 PC in Compatibility Mode follow the steps below:

1. Copy the entire product CD for Windows Vista 32 bit to the hard drive of the Windows 7 PC.

2. The Windows Vista Full Software Solution on hp.com can also be used. Download the Full Software Solution for your product for Windows Vista from hp.com. Unzip/extract to the hard drive of the Windows 7 PC.

   Uncheck the checkbox "When done unzipping open: autorun.exe" before Unzipping the hp.com download bundle. Read More...

I needed to turn on NTFS file system auditing for two specific application EXE files on 30+ servers.  I didn’t want to have to touch each server individually, so I decided to look into applying the audit settings centrally using group policy.  Using the Security Templates snap-in for MMC on one of the systems I wanted to set up auditing for, I was able to configure a custom file system security policy.

 Security Templates Snap-in:

Within the Security Templates MMC: Read More...

Declaring that “the American people will never again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street’s mistakes,” President Obama signed the 2300-page Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act into law today.  The American Bankers Association (ABA) and Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) have released similar statements declaring that core provisions in the new legislation provide the much-needed reform that banks have long supported, but they are leery of the seemingly unrelated regulations added to the bill during its journey from inception to signing.

Some highlights of the Dodd-Frank Act include:

• Creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with the authority to write new rules for mortgages, credit cards, payday loans, and other consumer products
• Increasing FDIC protection to $250,000
• Enhancing the authority of the Fed and other bank regulators to examine and take enforcement action against non-bank subsidiaries, such as mortgage affiliates
• Eliminating the Office of Thrift Supervision, bringing savings and loan holding company and institution supervision to the Fed, OCC, and FDIC
• Imposing strict controls on large bank holding companies and significant nonbank financial companies
• Prohibiting banks and their affiliates from engaging in proprietary trading and providing strict limits on investment in and sponsoring of hedge and private equity funds
• Allowing merchants to discriminate or discount based on payment type and set minimum payment amounts for acceptance of debit and credit cards
• Subjecting holding companies to new “source of strength” rules regarding their depository institution subsidiary

Most provisions will be enacted immediately, but many have delayed effective dates. Read More...

Setting up additional accounts in Outlook is handy to get email from different servers.  You can use additional accounts to send email from those different mailboxes also.  But did you know that you can use this feature to send email from different email addresses that are set up on your Exchange server?  For example, if email messages you send come from example@example.com, but you also want to be able to send email from example@example.org.  Here is a step by step guide on how to do this in Outlook 2007:

• Go to Tools->Account Settings
• E-mail tab
• New...
• Next >
• Manually configure server settings...
• Next >
• Internet E-mail
• Next >
• Enter your name, email address such as example@example.org
• Account type POP3
• Incoming mail server exchserver1.example.org
• Outgoing mail server (SMTP) exchserver1.example.org
• Enter username as <your domain>\<your username> and your domain password
• If you save the password, you will have to update it here when you change it
• You can choose the Test Account Settings...
• It will get an error retrieving email using POP3, but we don't need that
• Next >
• Finish

At the bottom of the Accounts Settings window, be sure it is using your inbox for receiving messages. Read More...

I recently wanted change the offline files cache location in Windows 7.  Instead of the default location of C:\Windows\CSC, I wanted the offline files to be stored on my D: drive.  After checking around the Internet, I found several articles stating that moving offline files worked in XP, but didn’t work in Vista or Windows 7.  In the end, I found this blog post.  It worked.  However, I made one modification – I cleared the cache prior to moving the cache location and did not delete the original cache location after moving it.  My reasoning was 1) I wanted to clear the cache in order get rid of any residual offline files and 2) taking ownership and deleting a folder in the Windows directory seems like asking for trouble (besides I might need to move the cache back at some point). 

In order to clear the cache, add a DWORD registry key named FormatDatabase to HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\CSC\Parameters, set the key to a value of 1, and reboot.  One word of warning, do not set both the FormatDatabase registry key and CacheLocation registry key mentioned in the blog at the same time and reboot.  Windows blue screened on me during the reboot.  I had to boot into safe mode and remove the CacheLocation registry key in order to avoid the blue screen.  The correct sequence is clear the cache, reboot, change the cache location, reboot.

I started receiving unwanted automated calls on my iPhone late one night.  Some automated calling service was calling my number about once an hour and there was only a recorded voice on the other side.  I needed to have my phone on and the ringer loud because I was expecting an important phone call early the next morning.  Muting the phone was not an option.  While searching for a solution, I found this website: [http://www.mylittleportal.com/call-block-cell-phone-number-iphone] “How to block any phone number on your iPhone for free”

The process is very quick, easy, and free:

1. Download this silent ringtone to your computer.
2. Open iTunes and copy the ringtone.
3. Sync your iPhone.
4. Make a new contact with the number you want to block and assign the silent ringtone to the contact.
5. Get a full night’s sleep.

We began to see the autocreation of printers (or redirected printers) starting to fail for users when logging in to a customer's Terminal Servers lately.  On the same server we also start seeing the printers that were autocreated not being deleted (orphaned session printers) when users logged off a Terminal Server.  The cause turned out to be two outdated DLLs installed on the Terminal Servers:

Hpmini.dll - This issue occurs with HP model driver versions 60.x.x.x and 4.x.x.x. containing hpbmini.dll version 1.0.0.18 or older. Version 1.0.0.19 and newer has the fix. The memory leaks and memory corruption possible with the 1.0.0.18 (or older) dll will not cause a spooler crash, but can degrade performance of the server.  Version 4.x.x.x print drivers have an issue unloading hpbmini.dll which will likely cause a spooler crash when the server has a heavy load of connected users.

hpcdmc32.dll - This issue occurs with 60.x.x.x and 4.x.x.x HP print drivers containing hpcdmc32.dll version 1.0.2.30 or older. Version 1.0.2.31 and newer has the fix. The most recent version of hpcdmc32.dll is 1.0.2.35. The memory leaks possible with the 1.0.2.30 (or older) dll will not cause a spooler crash but may cause performance degradation.

Here is what turned out to be the solution for us: Read More...

Recently an information security audit customer of ours lost a backup domain controller and contacted their network vendor to rebuild the machine.  The bank thought everything was in order until three months later when they were audited.  The audit discovered the old backup domain controller had not been rebuilt to be a backup domain controller again as well as no antivirus software was installed.   When the bank contacted their network vendor, the bank was told there were some issues the vendor "meant to get back to".  Regardless of errors assigning roles for the domain controller, the vendor still should have installed antivirus and other applications requested by the bank. 

The reason why steps were missed? Read More...

I was trying to post a job on Yahoo hotjobs (using a new ThinkPad running Windows 7), but after I would choose a location & select "Post Job", it would take me back to select a location.  After trying several times across two days, I finally tried to submit a "help form", but I was unable to determine if the form was actually being submitted and I never heard back from Yahoo.  After about a week (and I tried several different days through the week), I was going to sing into Google Analytics.  When I tried to log in with our account credentials, I received the error message “Your browser’s cookie functionality is turned off. Please turn it on.”  I knew it was not turned off, but followed their help and went to Tools, Internet Options, Privacy, Advanced, and verified "First-party Cookies" were not blocked.  While trying to discover what the problem was, I looked under websites to see if it was listed as a blocked site.  I found more than 100 sites listed as blocked including all the major search engines (I did not add them, so they must have come from the factory).  When I removed Yahoo.com, I began to be able to post jobs.

A customer who has switch completely to PDF format for document storage, has a need to access Tagged Image File Format (TIFF/TIF) documents from prior years. They recently ungraded all their systems to Windows 7 with Office 2007. Previously they used Office 2007 which installed the Microsoft Document Imaging program by default. The default install of Office 2007 sets the Microsoft Document Imaging program to install and run on first use. However, the first use is to access an MDI format file and have installation permission. They do not have installation permission and never access MDI files. Because it is not installed users are unable to reorder, rotate and print individual pages of a TIFF/TIF document. This means in order to print page 20 of a 65 page document you must print all the pages.

To resolve this issue, install the Microsoft Office Document Imaging program. To do this, follow these steps: Read More...