MacBook Pro Video Chip

I recently dove into a thorny Mac issue. My client's MacBook Pro wasn't waking from sleep. It seemed to be stuck in hibernation mode. This would happen when the lid was closed, and could be easily observed by adjusting the sleep settings to their shortest value. At the same time a slower-than-molasses startup seemed to hang at the blue screen (indicating the loading of the user profile). Diagnostics revealed nothing: The hard drive checked out OK and memory tests came back with no errors.

Of course I tried the usual Mac routine: Restart in Safe Boot, Zap the PRAM, Reset the system configuration by holding down the power button with the battery and power cord removed, and Verbose Boot. Verbose boot gave me a clue: The delay occurred when the video chip drivers initialized. This MacBook contained an Intel video chip, which activates a software kernel extension on startup to operate correctly. The boot would hang for two minutes while initializing the video. Could the kernel extension (kext) be corrupted?

After booting, the computer appeared to operate correctly, with no observable problem other than not waking from sleep. Because the blue screen indicates the loading of the user profile, I first removed the login items, then renamed the user profile, triggering the creation of a new, generic user. No luck! At this point I had to consider reinstalling the OS to replace corrupt system files.

I repartitioned the drive, and reinstalled the OS. The startup issue was gone, but the sleep issue remained. And as soon as I updated the OS the startup issue returned! Could the update for the Intel video kext be the problem? But Apple thoroughly tests their updates, and reinstalling the OS should have resolved any software issues. After all, there is no non-Mac hardware involved, the machine worked fine until recently, and there was no update concurrent with the start of the problems. I was also experiencing intermittent problems with the DVD drive.

In the end, I brought the MacBook to the Apple Store where they plugged in a diagnostic tool. The tool could not read the diagnostic information from the MacBook, indicating a failure on the main board. My client decided to send the MacBook in for refurbishing, and it was returned with a new screen, new main board, new DVD drive, and with the scratches buffed off of the case (possibly a new case?). She says it runs better than when she got it!

This is one example where it took a lot of work to pin down the issue. There were no clear diagnostic indicators, other than the delay in the Verbose output on boot. The machine ran fine after the slow boot, and the sleep mode could be turned off or delayed. But a Mac user expects their machine to function with high quality performance, and logic board issues could worsen over time, causing data loss. I'm glad we were able to pin down and repair the problem!

RS232 and your web browser

I priced, purchased and installed the hardware for a retail grocery point-of-sale system, with only one hitch. Instead of the USB scanner I ordered, they sent me an RS-232 scanner. After the vendor failed to respond to my complaints, I realized that I needed an immediate solution to get the shop up an running on the new POS. I tested the RS232 connection on COM1 and COM1 received input from the scanner, but that data did not show up in the POS.

The problem: Although a serial connected scanner can easily send data to the OS through the COM1 port, our POS uses an internet browser for its touch screen GUI. COM1 data must be translated into keystroke text strings to register in the (browser-POS) UPC display fields.

The solution: After some research I found an excellent tool that runs extremely light on the system, called PC Wedge. PC Wedge translates the COM1 messages for the browser and bang, we are off an running! I have PC Wedge and the internet browser activate with the OS startup, so when the staff turns on the machine, all they have to do is to log in on the POS and they are ready to ring up customers.

Recording Sound with Vista

Windows Vista oftens ships with limited sound processing functionality. For example, Sony VAIO and Toshiba laptops ship with fully functional sound cards, but if you try to record you will find only a microphone input available. That may be fine for video chat, but what if you want to process sound in a production environment? There is a solution:

Click the Start button, and select Control Panels. Choose the Hardware and Sound control panel. From the Sound section, select "Manage Audio Devices." The Sound manager window will appear, with three tabs: Playback, Recording and Sound. Click on the Recording tab. On many systems, only a microphone input will be listed. To see the full range of your sound card options, right-click in the blank area of the window. Check the line for "Show disabled devices."

You should now have a choice to activate "Stereo Mix" or other sound card functions. Stereo Mix will give you an extra slider in your volume controls (at the lower right of the taskbar), allowing you to control the volume of your mix. Now you can record from software inputs.

Wireless Interference

As wireless networks proliferate, wireless interference is becoming a bigger issue, especially for small business in a metropolitan area. The number one symptom is an intermittent connection. If your signal strength is already low, you may be receiving an interfering signal from a neighboring router. Two solutions are possible.

Some routers allow you to boost the power of the signal, for example the new 2-WIRE boxes from AT&T, which offers power settings from one to ten. Your other option is to scan the surrounding signals to determine if there is a free channel. Channels 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, and 10 simply overlap the main U.S. channels of 1, 6, and 11. Therefore it's really only beneficial to use the non-overlapping channels. Switch to 1, 6 or 11 and retest. Higher frequency channels may provide better resistance to interference.

AHCI prevents startup on XPS system

A client brought me a beautiful XPS system. The hardware is neatly packed into a small case and is easy to remove. Unfortunately the system failed to start up. I checked the BIOS and it was detecting the hard drive. Other settings seemed normal, however the Advanced Host Controller Interface was active.

AHCI enables hot-plugging of SATA devices, and is normally enabled in a RAID array. As there was only one hard drive present, SATA cabled, I wondered if AHCI was necessary. The alternative was plain-vanilla SATA. After disabling AHCI the computer started up properly. Obviously the AHCI/RAID drivers were not installed or had been corrupted, so the computer halted when booting the drive at startup.

Instead of replacing the AHCI drivers (available from Intel), I turned off AHCI. Activating AHCI really isn't worth the effort on a system with a single drive. You already have lightning-fast access with SATA!

Horizontal Drop Down Menus in CSS

I recently added horizontal drop menus to the Portage Park District website (www.portageparkdistrict.org). CSS drop-downs take advantage of unordered lists, which they supplant by applying styles and using opacity to create visual effects. During the process two key CSS rules were reinforced:

CSS does not act across frames.
Get rid of your frames or they will cut off your css display! The previous web administrator had an unnatural fondness for frames. I eliminated frames across more than fifty pages on the site, and eliminated the button javascript, freeing up more horizontal space on the pages as well!

Internet Explorer will interpret your CSS differently from Firefox.
Where Firefox uses the CSS standard and displays CSS beautifully, IE will require some tweaks and adjustments. There goes Microsoft again, trying to be different. Are they steering us toward their proprietary solution? Looks fine in Firefox? You are going to have to test in IE over and over again!

Sluggish Keyboard Misses Strokes

I just finished cleaning up a Presario 2100, an older model notebook suffering from a keyboard problem. While typing, certain letters drop out, leaving words without h's i's and j's (among others). It has been suggested that this is related to the keyboard connection. However, I suspected that this was not the case (and I did not want to open the case ;^). Digging deeper I began to realize that it was actually the battery that was causing the problem. The battery had been dead for years, but somehow it was still interfering with the bus. When the battery was removed, the keyboard functioned perfectly, but when the battery was back in it started stuttering again.

The solution: I removed the terminal plug on the battery, popped it back in without its connector, and the machine is working great!

Reinstalling Windows XP (Service Pack 3)

Extreme spyware infestations require extreme measures. Repartioning /wiping the hard drive and reinstalling Windows is the safest solution. If you reinstall Windows XP from the original system CD, it will usually install either Service Pack One, which has only limited firewalling capabilities, or Service Pack Two, if you are lucky. However, Microsoft is making the Service Pack 3 update available for download at:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=5B33B5A8-5E76-401F-BE08-1E1555D4F3D4&displaylang=en

Burn the installer to a CD, and you are good to go. You do not need to boot from the CD to run the Service Pack 3 installer.

In lieu of the SP3 update, you will need to install a third-party firewall (I would suggest the light-weight Filseclab personal firewall) BEFORE connecting to the Internet. After restarting with the firewall active, you can proceed to the Windows Update site to activate automatic updates, and download Service Pack Two and Three. It is a time-consuming process, and when you have a clean system you might wish to ghost it to CD or DVD for future reinstalls.

P.S. The answer to my Windows USB device problems was simple: My old computer was not supporting USB 2.0. So I can't really blame Winrot, can I?

Winrot, Ubuntu and Peripherals

Chalk it up to proprietary software, or call it a case of Winrot: I've been running my XP system for two years now, and with the constant updates it is rapidly filling up my hard drive. I was able to attach a Canon LIDE-certified scanner, by downloading the driver, however installing my other peripherals has been more difficult.

XP registers my Epson 870 printer, and I have been able to download and install the driver. The paper cycles through, the print heads move, but nothing is printed on the paper. I also used the installer CD with worse luck. The driver on the CD fails with a "communication error." I would love to spend hours troubleshooting this printer, but I do not have the time.

The solution: I plugged it into by Ubuntu Linux machine which instantly recognized the printer, and installed the Gutenprint adapter for the 870. I immediately began printing in vivid color!

XP registers my digital camera, and I installed the accompanying software from the CD. Does it transfer photos? No. It fails every time, with no explanation. USB again, however my USB thumb drive and Zip drive work just fine!

The solution: I plugged the camera into Ubuntu, which pulled up a download interface and began copying my photos on command. No need to download or install software.

So why I am I still using XP? It's got support for Adobe Shockwave, but that may be about all it's got going for it. The user interface is good in XP, but I'm tired of the Genuine Advantage program updates. After hearing the horror stories, I shudder every time it installs and runs the Genuine Advantage tester. I know my product key is legit, and I have the original CD, but I feel like I am at the mercy of Microsoft. Of course Genuine Advantage needs to talk to Microsoft Corporation, open a port in the firewall immediately!

XP Update breaks ZoneLabs

A recent Windows XP update (KB951748) caused an internet lockout for Zone Alarm users. I often install ZoneAlarm for my clients with ongoing security issues because it allows them to see incoming and outgoing traffic messages. This can be very informative for users, helping them to understand how many times their computer is connecting to the internet, and where it is reporting. Although the Windows XP firewall is equally robust, it tends to remain invisible to the user, and they may not even be aware if it is on or off.

Of course, the simplest solution to this problem was to activate the XP firewall, and deactivate ZoneAlarm. Thanks Microsoft! ZoneLabs counseled users to turn their Zone security settings from high to medium. ZoneLabs has released an update for Zone Alarm which will fix the problem.

Diagnosing Spyware

Are you wondering whether your computer is infected with spyware? I am a spyware detective, and I deal with many infected machines. I have seen everything from malware to rootkits. I have grave concerns about future developments in software for criminal use.

Over the last two weeks I have serviced two computers that were riddled with viruses and spyware. Guess what? Both were running up-to-date antivirus software, one ran Norton 360, and one ran McAfee. The clients claimed not to have run e-mail attachments, or any unknown executables, although I have my doubts.

Neither McAfee nor Norton could detect the problems on their own systems, however the users reported problems connecting to the internet and browsing websites, and one could not access his control panels (they disappeared from the XP start menu!).

I run a triad of detection tools that I have found to be most effective: Lavasoft's AdAware, Spybot Search and Destroy, and AVG antivirus. AVG antivirus is very effective at rooting out problem viruses and even spyware that Norton and McAfee do not seem to detect. I had to run the tools repeatedly, because on both machines the active spyware was able to hide itself during initial scans, until I had disabled components of it, and restarted - of course it's best to go through the startup items, and disable any obvious spyware first!). After three cycles of all three detection tools, I had uncovered dozens of problems on the machines and corrected them.

The XP system running Norton was badly damaged. Norton's program structure had been disabled, and could not be uninstalled. Symantec does provide a Norton removal tool, but even that did not remove Norton completely. I chose not to reinstall it, because of its ongoing issues, and selected AVG antivirus (free for home users) instead. Although the Control Panels reappeared, there were damaged functions that required a full system restore. The user opted to purchase a new computer instead! Thanks a lot malware...

The McAfee machine is functioning normally, after the removal of one virus and several malware and spyware components.

The Norton machine had another symptom: The LMHOSTS file had been altered to prevent Norton from updating, and to prevent access to various spyware removal websites. That's a sure sign that a system is compromised.

I typically notice high CPU usage on seriously compromised machines, and high transmit rates when I am not browsing the internet. These would be other giveaways. If you are familiar with the XP system registry, check what is starting up. Some startup items only manifest in the registry! A malware process often has a unique registry entry.

Good luck with the malware investigation! If folks have to buy a new computer because of malware, that's a benefit for computer and OS manufacturers, but a huge burden on society. Of course, I always hint that users could switch to Linux!

Try installing Zone Alarm's free firewall as well, and deactivate the Windows firewall to test with Zone Alarm. You may see the names of program components as they try to register to communicate over the internet.

Good luck...spyware begone!

OSX and the Sirius Player

Sirius Radio's web-based player is helpful when there is interference with Sirius' satellite signal, as in the case of a recent client who listens to the Metropolitan opera through Sirius' web-based player. However, a recent OSX update appeared to break Sirius' web-player.

The truth is that Sirius' player uses Windows Media Player as its base, and OSX tends to favor Apple's native Quicktime player. Apple corrected the problems in a Quicktime update, and once we were completely up-to-date with all of 10.3.9's updates, including Quicktime and Safari, we were able to load Sirius' web-based player in Safari.

Apple is on the move, refining OSX with regular updates. Running an OSX prior to 10.3.9 may mean a loss of functionality. If you have OSX 10.3.9 I recommend running all of your updates.

Slow Internet / DNS response in Ubuntu Dapper

I recently upgraded to Linux Dapper Drake with a CD, and everything was working very well until I allowed Dapper to perform its automatic updates.

The updates created a problem in Firefox: URL's did not even begin to load for twenty seconds. I guessed this was related to my Linksys router, however I also knew that Windows was working fine, and Dapper worked before the updates. I researched the issue and patched together a solution, which I posted to the Ubuntu community forums. If my DNS servers change, there could be an issue, however at that point I could switch to open DNS.

Here's the problem: Ubuntu is having difficulty with DNS because of miscommunication with the router (related to wrong ports).

Here is my advice:
Establish a direct DNS connection. No need to disable IPv6!

1. Find your DNS servers. You may need to check your router settings (usually 192,168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1). Look for a status tab, or similar with the current DNS information. Write down your DNS servers (x.x.x.x & x.x.x.x).

You may wish to back up your dhclient.conf file at this point. In the Terminal, type:
cp /etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf /etc/dhcp3/dhclient.bak

2. Enter these DNS servers directly in your dhclient.conf file:

sudo gedit /etc/dhcp3/dhclient.conf

You should see your dhclient.conf file displayed (with text in it). Add two lines to the end:

supersede domain-name-servers x.x.x.x,x.x.x.x;
prepend domain-name-servers x.x.x.x,x.x.x.x;

The x's represent your DNS server IP addresses that you found in Step 1.

Save your dhclient.conf file, close gedit and return to the Terminal.

Now restart your DNS lookup with (assuming eth0 is your connection to the router):

sudo ifdown eth0 && sudo ifup eth0

You should immediately experience an improvement in your Internet speed.

I built this solution with help from https://forum.bytemark.co.uk/viewtopic.php?pid=1790 as well as several Ubuntu forum entries.

Can we Protect Privacy and Reputation?

I was recently published in CIO magazine in a response to Rob't Atkinson. Here is "Privacy and Progress: We Can Have Both" from the December 1, 2006 issue:

"I disagree with Robert Atkinson’s article “The Luddites are Coming” [Oct. 1]. I have yet to meet someone who is actively against the Internet. There is no “war against IT.” At least not yet!
I find that IT’s strongest critics come from within our own ranks, and appear on the pages of your magazine and similar publications. Perhaps this is because we understand the threats and possibilities of IT.

"The public does have legitimate concerns, especially if they are informed that their personal data has been stolen from an unsecured laptop, or through an online hack. Everyone has a right to be concerned if rootkits and “back doors” allow hackers to scan your hard drive or record your keystrokes. We should be angry if thieves divert legitimate network traffic to illegal Web servers that spoof legitimate sites. This is the new reality of an IT world. Unless we get security under control, we are going to lose public support.

"IT professionals know that biometrics do not provide foolproof security, and that Microsoft’s fingerprint reader can be fooled. We are very concerned about a society where everyone’s financial data, phone records and Social Security numbers are available for $75 online.
National databases are currently gathering thorough profiles of us as individuals and consumers, and the federal government is very interested in this information. As IT professionals, we need to advocate for the individual in terms of privacy, reputation protection and online security.

"I believe we currently have the support of the public, and that almost everyone realizes that network technology has benefits for the general population. However, as identity chips are implanted in livestock and people, we will face renewed questions about surveillance issues and privacy rights. We can respond by targeting imaginary “Luddites,” or we can develop more standards and protections for consumers before we release smart systems and biometrics into popular use."

Net Neutrality and Market Pricing

I was recently published in Network World (12/11/06):

"I usually agree with Johna Till Johnson, but her article 'Nuances Matter in Net Neutrality' left me perplexed.

[She asks] Why would Google support net neutrality regulations? They developed Google video, purchased YouTube for 1.65 billion dollars, and signed content agreements with Universal, Warner Music Group, Vivendi, the NHL, and others. But with AT&T offering Internet television on demand in their Homezone package, can Google compete? Only if their content is not further degraded.

Johna is right that net neutrality is still a vague concept. There's almost no way to tell if content is being intentionally degraded and it may be difficult to enforce legislation specific enough to address real world problems. However, it is important that we have a fair and level playing field. Whether content is charged per bit or per packet, the price should be the same for any player. A typical market incentive is volume discounts, not volume overcharges.

Net neutrality may end up being decided in myriad individual court cases relating to anti-competitive practices, or in government antitrust action. But the idea that carriers such as AT&T are investing billions in a "money-losing endeavor" is ridiculous. Video is the next phase of the internet, and it requires infrastructure expansion and investment. Net neutrality means that all players in the video over internet market receive a fair price as well as reasonable and enforceable quality of service agreements."