In January 2006, we changed our company’s legal name from Acanthus Technology to Acorn IT Group and established the Allogro™ Business Networking Specialists division to serve our clients’ IT needs. We have maintained our old web site, but have not updated it in a long time.

We are in the process of shutting down the old site, and we are forwarding requests for old content to the current information at our Allogro or Acorn IT Group sites.

If you were redirected to this announcement instead of the content you were expecting, it is because that content no longer exists on any of our sites.

Please contact us if there is something with which you need assistance, and we will do our best to help you.

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In this article: Introduction, Prerequisites, How my file system is structured, Creating the repositories, Linking to the repositories, Recap, Common problems and fixes, Maintaining your repositories, Using this technique with ZenPhoto and other CMS systems, Additional resources, Comments and feedback

Introduction

WordPress is a wonderful blogging platform and, in certain situations, a good choice for a general content management system (CMS). It is easy to end up with several parallel installations of WordPress—one for each major topic you want to discuss. Everything works great at first, but after a while, the constant barrage of updates to the main application, various plug-ins, and the themes becomes something of a management nightmare. The more blogs you operate, the more time is spent maintaining the blogging environment and the less that is available to actually blog.

If you host your WordPress blog on a Linux-based server (BSD or most any other Unix-like operating system should be able to do this equally well) and you have “shell access”, I might have a way to ease your pain. In a nutshell, you will create a central repository containing every WordPress plug-in that you use in all of your blogs. You create a separate repository containing each of your themes. Next, you create symbolic links (think of them as shortcuts; more about them in just a moment) from each installation of WordPress to your central repositories. From that point on, you only have to update your plug-ins and themes once, and the change will take effect instantly across all your sites. It’s a very slick trick!

This trick works probably works well on many other CMS systems that use plug-ins and themes; I have started using it with my ZenPhoto installations, too. In addition to helping keep things updated, it also saves disk space since you are only maintaining a single copy of the files on your server.

I will provide step-by-step instructions and some quirks for which you need to be aware. One quick word of caution: mistakes, bugs, and goofs can also instantly affect all your sites, so be very careful as you work, take your time, and always backup your files and databases before you start.

Prerequisites

Before we get started, make sure that your system meets the following requirements:

• All of your WordPress installations should be hosted at the same Internet Service Provider, and they probably have to be on the same physical server (though not necessarily with some ISPs depending on how they configure things). If the server is something other than Linux or Unix-like system, they may even have to be on the same physical hard disk for this to work. Ideally, they should all be hosted under the same user account, but if not, they different accounts need to be in the same Unix security group and permissions have to be granted for the whole group, not just the owner (that’s beyond the scope of this article).
• You must have shell access to your server. This means that you can access a command prompt (a screen that looks like a DOS window) after you login, and you can type commands that directly affect your server. These instructions assume that your server is a Linux system, though FreeBSD and other Unix-like systems should all work similarly. While Mac OS has similar features, I think the commands are somewhat different, so you will need to adapt these instructions if your server is a Mac. Windows is finally getting to the point that this type of linking may soon be available, but as of Server 2003, this method will not work on a Windows server.
• It is also very helpful if you have some basic familiarity with your server’s shell and the structure of the file system on the server. These instructions are based on the way things are setup on my Internet Service Provider’s servers, and your ISP might do things a little differently. If you get lost or confused midway through the process, you will want to be experienced enough to figure out how to undo the things you did so far.
• If you need a program to connect to your shell account, I recommend PuTTY. It’s a little overwhelming with all the options it has, but you can pretty much ignore them, enter the address to your server, and hit connect. Voilà! You should see a prompt to enter your username and password. If your ISP supports it, I recommend connecting using SSH, which provides an encrypted connection for better security (though it’s beyond the scope of this article to explain exactly how you do that).
• I find that some things are easier to do using a good FTP program (I love Filezilla for this purpose), and other things have to be done using the shell. In particular, I like to create the central repositories by clicking and dragging files around in Filezilla rather than typing lots of commands in the shell.
• Your server has to support symbolic links (also known as “symlinks” or “soft links”). Under most Linux/Unix-like operating systems, you use the command ln -s to create the symlinks. To test if you have this command, type ln --help from the shell; you should see the help screen for the ln command. If you get an error and did not make a typo, your system may not support symlinks.

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How my file system is structured

Before I go in-depth with instructions, I’ll briefly explain how files are arranged on my ISP’s server. Your ISP hopefully arranges things for you in a similar manner.

When I login to my command shell and use the ls command (ls is short for “list”, which brings up a list of all the files in the current directory), I see a number of directories—one for each domain that we host (allogro.com, willmurray.name, etc.). The actual content of each website is contained within its directory (i.e., the directory “allogro.com” contains all the files for the allogro.com web site and the directory “willmurray.name” contains everyting for the willmurray.name site.

If I print the working directory (pwd), I see the full path from the root of the server (the top of the file system) all the way to my account’s home. In my case, the path is: /home/acanthus. Our sites are hosted with DreamHost, a very large ISP based in Los Angeles, California (some people hate them, but we have been extremely happy with them for over 3.5 years). In this case, the first slash is the root of the file system. home/ is the place that all the hosting customers’ accounts are stored. acanthus is the “home directory” of our account. The allogro.com and willmurray.name directories reside underneath the acanthus directory.

The home directory is a special place, because it is outside of any website and not directly accessible from the web. It’s a good place to store things that should not be peeked into by curious visitors or overzealous search spiders. In fact, unless DreamHost really screwed up or I created a link into the home directory, it would be a safe place to store passwords and other fairly sensitive information. It is also an ideal place to store our shared repositories for WordPress.

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Creating the repositories

Repository directories

You will want to start by creating your repositories someplace inaccessible to casual web visitors. If you have a home directory like I described above, that’s perfect and recommended. If not, you could create a new directory and try to protect it using .htaccess and robots.txt files along with other techniques to keep people out of it (though this is not a very secure method, and it could leave your repositories subject to attack).

Using Filezilla, I created a directory named shared (the full path is /home/acanthus/shared) to hold all the files that are shared between different web sites. Under that directory, I created two more directories: wp_plugins and wp_themes (that’s /home/acanthus/shared/wp_plugins and /home/acanthus/shared/wp_themes). In each case, I set the file attributes of these directories to give the owner full permissions (rwx) and the group and public permissions to read and execute (r-x, don’t want visitors to be able to make changes). (If you prefer numerical permissions, that’s 755.)

wp_plugins will become the home to all of your WordPress plug-ins. If you use certain plug-ins in one blog, but not in others, go ahead and add the plug-in to this repository. Within WordPress you will enable only the plug-ins you want to use; any that you don’t want to use should just remain disabled. wp_themes is the same deal, except that you store your themes there (that should be self-evident, I hope).

Best practices

Be sure to disable write access to plug-in and theme files and directories unless they specifically require it. For directories, only the owner should have write access (755). For files, you also want to disable the execute permission (644). Check the documentation for each plug-in to see if it needs write access. If your plug-in breaks or has errors about being denied access, you probably need to loosen the restrictions a bit on a directory or some files for the plug-in to function. Very few themes seem to need write access (only one that I’ve ever encountered).

I highly recommend that you grab fresh copies of each plug-in and theme that you plan to use. This way you won’t copy bugs over from existing installations and you are certain to have the latest (and hopefully bug-free) version of the software available. Alternately, you can use the shell to copy (cp) or move (mv) existing directories into your new repositories (though I don’t recommend doing so, and it can leave your site broken until you complete the whole change). You could also use Filezilla to download your plug-ins and themes directories from your current WordPress installation(s) and upload them (thus creating a copy) to your new repositories. If you have heavily customized a plug-in or theme, this may be your best option.

When I upload plug-ins, I usually change the directory name to include the version number. So, if you are uploading version 1.2 of the myplugin plug-in, I’d rename the directory to myplugin.1.2. Some plug-in authors do this for you automatically, while others try to make it easy for people to upgrade by keeping the directory names the same. In a shared repository, though, this can actually cause you problems. One caveat is that some plug-in authors hard-code their directory names in their plug-ins (shame on them!), and renaming the directory breaks the plug-in. In that case, you will either have to hack the plug-in to use the updated directory name, leave the directory name unchanged, or pester, er, petition the author to not hard code the directory name in future releases.

Why worry about version numbers that way? Well, I like to test new versions of plug-ins on a low-traffic blog before introducing them to one of the more active blogs. Remember that when you make a change in the repository, it immediately affects ALL of your blogs. So by overwriting a plug-in with a newer version, you are essentially upgrading all your blogs simultaneously. If there’s a glitch in the new plug-in, then all your blogs will be affected instead of just one. By uploading the plug-ins to different directories, you can disable and enable plug-ins on a per-blog basis. Then, once all your blogs are using the new version, you can safely delete the old version from your server to save space.

Most plug-ins also require you to disable them before you install the newer files, and then re-enable them after everything is in place. With a shared repository, that means you have to go to each blog and disable the old plug-in, then upload, and then go back to each blog to re-enable it. I prefer the flexibility of making changes one blog at a time if I want.

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Linking to the repositories

So now that you have your central repositories all setup with shiny new copies of all your plug-ins and themes, how do you use them? It’s pretty easy, even if the command you type is a little cryptic.

Note: I recommend starting and fully testing this on your lowest-activity blog first to get the hang of it and minimize downtime on your busiest blogs.

Preparing WordPress

Start by logging into WordPress and disabling all of your plug-ins (there is a link at the bottom of the page to disable all the plug-ins at once). This is important since the path to the plug-ins and even the versions might be different when we are finished than what is in use now.

Locate your repositories

After that is finished, login to your ISP’s shell prompt using PuTTY or your favorite program.

Print the working directory (pwd is the command to do this). If your ISP includes that information in the command prompt, so much the better! Otherwise, jot down the path to your home directory (the place you are when you first login). In my example, that will be /home/acanthus.

List the directory (ls is the basic command, though I find ls -lp to be a more useful view). Hopefully you will see your “shared/” directory (or whatever you named the directory that holds your repositories). Next, list your shared directory (ls -lp shared is the command I would use), and be sure that you can see your repositories within it.

Now I need to go to the wp-content directory of my WordPress installation. I would type cd allogro.com to change directories to the allogro.com site. I keep the blog under a directory named main, so next I would cd main. The wp-content is inside this directory, so I would cd wp-content. Note: I could have strung that all together into a single command (cd allogro.com/main/wp-content), but I usually prefer to go one level at a time so I don’t make mistakes.

Listing the directory (ls -lp) shows that I am, in fact, in the correct place, and there are folders named “plugins” and “themes” already here. That’s good! We need to rename those directories to get them out of the way of our new links. We do that by moving the directories to the same location with a different name (a fairly round-about way of doing it, but it works). Enter the commands mv plugins plugins.disabled and then mv themes themes.disabled. At some point in the future after everything is working, remember to come back and delete these disabled directories.

Create the symlinks

Now it is time to create the symlinks to your shared repositories. This is where you need to enter the full pathname to your folders, so start by verifying that you can see all your shared plug-ins: ls /home/acanthus/shared/wp_plugins (substitute your own path, of course). The command to create the symlink is almost identical: ln -s /home/acanthus/shared/wp_plugins plugins (again, substituting your own path).

Let me explain that carefully. ln -s is the command to create a symbolic link. Be sure to use lowercase letters, because uppercase will not work correctly. Also, be sure to include the “-s”, or the system will attempt to create a hard link instead of a symbolic link (which is not what you want), and will likely generate an error on most systems (unless you are logged in as “root” on your own server, and then you might cause yourself problems). Next, you give the full pathname to the target (the shared plug-ins repository). You technically could use relative paths (if you know how those work), but full paths seem to be more stable for plug-ins. The final part is the name of your new link. Since WordPress expects your plug-ins folder to be named plugins, that’s what we used.

If you did not get an error message, when you list the directory (ls -lp), you should see that the entry for plugins looks something like this: plugins -> /home/acanthus/shared/wp_plugins/ (with the file attributes set to give everyone full access as indicated by “lrwxrwxrwx”, but that’s not a problem since the permissions on the repository are what matter, not the ones on the symlink). This means you have successfully created a symlink to your repository folder. List the contents of that folder (ls plugins) and it should exactly match the contents of the repository, since they are actually the same folder just with a new link.

Now it’s time to link to your themes: ln -s /home/acanthus/shared/wp_themes themes (once again, substituting your own path for mine).

Configure and test WordPress

Go back to the administration area of your WordPress blog. Under presentation, you should see a list of all the themes you uploaded to the shared themes repository. If you do not see any difference, you might need to clear your browser’s cache and refresh the page. Simply select your desired theme to activate it. Even if your desired theme came up automatically, it might be a good idea to select a different theme momentarily, and the reselect your desired theme. This sometimes fixes weird problems I’ve encountered, so doing it right now rather than later makes sense. View the blog and make sure things look right.

You might have to reconfigure your widgets since you changed themes. Some widgets might not work or be available until you activate a related plug-in.

After you are sure your theme is working, go back to the plug-in administration for your blog and enable one or two plug-ins that you can use to easily verify your plug-in repository is working. If those two look good, you can enable one or two more plug-ins and then test them. Repeat until all the desired plug-ins are verified.

If after enabling a plugin you see warnings that a path could not be found, and if you renamed the plug-ins’ directories to include their version number, you might have to rename the plug-in directory back to its original name to get the plug-in to work again.

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Recap

These are the steps anytime you want to have WordPress use your shared repositories instead of a stand-alone installation. If you have followed my instructions all the way so far, then you will repeat the following steps for each of your remaining blogs. Again, I recommend working in order from the blog with the least traffic to the one with the most to minimize downtime for your visitors as you become familiar with the process.

This recap assumes that you have already created your shared repositories and just need to link to them now.

1. Disable all plug-ins in WordPress.
2. In the shell, navigate to the wp-content directory of your blog (e.g., cd willmurray.name/blog/wp-content; use your own pathname).
3. Rename the current plugins and themes directories (e.g., mv plugins plugins.disabled and mv themes themes.disabled).
4. Create the symlinks (e.g., ln -s /home/acanthus/shared/wp_plugins plugins ln -s /home/acanthus/shared/wp_themes themes; use your own pathnames)
5. In WordPress, activate your theme (if it’s already active, change to another one, then change back to your desired theme).
6. Reconfigure Widgets if necessary.
7. Activate one or two plug-ins at a time and test as you go

Note: After you have a plug-in working in one copy of your blog, it should work in all copies.

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Common problems and fixes

Redirect URLs generated by plug-ins to the correct subdirectory using .htaccess

Some of my blogs are at the root of the site (www.example.com/), while others are in subdirectories (www.example.com/blog or www.example.com/main). Some plug-ins assume that your site is at the root, and they do not work correctly otherwise. I have been able to fix this in most cases by adding a redirect in the root-level .htaccess file of sites where WordPress is not at the root, and redirect requests for /wp-content to the appropriate subdirectory (/blog/wp-content or /main/wp-content).

Relative paths leading outside the plugins directory cause problems

Some plug-ins use relative paths to files outside of the wp-content/plugins folder (i.e., they try to access a file in the main WordPress installation directory). Without editing the plug-in, there’s really no way to fix this problem. If you are up to hacking the plug-in, you could add a new variable at the top of your theme’s index.php file that gives the full pathname to your local plugins directory (well, it’s actually the symlink to your shared repository, but WordPress doesn’t know that or care). For example, you could add the following to your index.php

< ?php $SHARED_PLUGINS="/home/acanthus/allogro.com/main/wp-content/plugins/"; ?>

Then go though the plug-in files and add the $SHARED_PLUGINS variable in front of each reference to a relative path. Example:

/* Old code:
require_once('../../wp-example.php);
New code: */
require_once($SHARED_PLUGINS . '../../wp-example.php);


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Maintaining your repositories

The whole point of this exercise was to make it much easier to keep your plug-ins and themes updated across multiple sites. (Oh yeah! That’s why I just went through all of this.) Here’s how easy it is to update everything nearly instantly…

When you are in the plug-ins administration area and notice that a plug-in has an available update, go fetch it, extract it, and rename the directory to include the version number of the release. Upload the plug-in to your repository using FTP. Refresh the plug-ins administration page. You should see both the old version of the plug-in (still active) and the new version (not yet active). Disable the old version. Enable the new version. Test.

If something broke, it’s probably because the plug-in has its directory name hard-coded within it (not a good thing for several reasons). You will have to disable the plug-in in ALL your blogs, then replace the old version with the newer version as instructed by the author. Then you can enable the plugin in each blog. Not as elegant, but still only one upload to worry about.

When you are happy that everything worked, go to your other blogs whenever you want, and disable the old version and enable the new version. There’s no extra uploading to do. If you need to tweak a plug-in for any reason, you only have to do it once, and the tweak takes effect instantly on all of your blogs.

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Using this technique with ZenPhoto and other CMS systems

The basic principles are the same no matter what system you use. The only challenges are (1) how self-contained plug-ins are (if they frequently look for files outside of the plugins folder, then there is a high chance it won’t work), and (2) how spread-out the files are (the more spread out, the more symlinks you have to create and maintain).

With ZenPhoto, I wanted to add my own CSS file to the default theme. I had to symlink directly to my new CSS file (same process, except you enter the full path and filename, not just the pathname) from within the styles directory of the theme. Again, it’s the same philosophy, but a little more work. But, when I make a change in that one style sheet, the three sites that share that sheet are all updated instantly. Very cool.

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Additional resources

Articles:

• “Symbolic link.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 6 Mar 2008, 18:31 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 10 Mar 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Symbolic_link&oldid=196335114>.

Content management systems:

• WordPress is a state-of-the-art semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability
• ZenPhoto, a simpler web photo gallery

Software tools:

• FileZilla, the free FTP client
• PuTTY: a free telnet/ssh client

Service providers:

• DreamHost Internet service provider
• Sacramento Online Services for sensible domain name and e-mail prices

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Comments and feedback

I would appreciate any feedback that you might have. If I left any steps out, or if I could have explained something more clearly, please let me know.

If you use the technique, please leave me a comment. You are also welcome to link to one of your sites that use it.

If you are a plug-in author who has updated your plug-in to work more gracefully with this technique, please let us know!

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Background

After every restart, the icons in my Quick Launch toolbar in Windows Vista were rearranged into alphabetical order. The toolbar itself was resized, taking up most of the Taskbar. It didn’t matter how many times I carefully moved the icons around, nor did it matter if I logged off and back on, restarted, or shut down and powered back up—I couldn’t get the icons to stay the way I want them. I don’t remember when it started, so I can’t pinpoint what changed on my system that might have caused it.

After much searching, I found various solutions to a similar problem in Windows XP. Several solutions suggested installing third-party utilities that reset your Desktop back to the way you like after each restart. I’m generally not a big fan of adding on utilities to fix problems with the operating system; I prefer to fix the OS. I finally found one solution that worked for me with Vista that fixed a problem deep inside the Windows Registry.

Read on for the details on how I fixed this annoying quirk.

In this article

Warning: If you are not familiar with the Windows Registry, it’s where the majority of your computer’s configuration and settings are stored. Always backup your system before tweaking your Registry to help avoid data loss. The solution below worked for me, but your situation could be different. You assume all risk and agree to hold my company and me harmless from any damages, direct or indirect, including lost data, time, and profits.

You may find it useful to print this article and work from the printout since you will need to logoff or restart your computer to complete this process. At the very least, you should bookmark this page (or “add it to your Favorites” depending on which browser you use) so you can find it again if you need it later.

Manually updating the Registry

Here is the way to update your Registry manually (which I prefer since I can verify that everything matches what is expected):

1. Go to the Start menu, select “Run…”, and type “regedit” where it asks for the program you wish to open. Note: You must have administrative rights to run RegEdit.
2. After RegEdit has opened, navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER → Software → Microsoft → Windows → CurrentVersion → Policies → Explorer
3. Look for an entry named “NoSaveSettings” of type “REG_DWORD” with a value of “0×00000000 (0)” or “0×00000001 (1)”.
   1. If the value is “0×00000000 (0)”, then the setting is correct, and you are facing a different challenge. Close RegEdit and look for a different solution. Sorry.
   2. If the value is “0×00000001 (1)”, then double-click the icon for “NoSaveSettings” and change the value data from “1″ to “0″ (whether it’s hex or decimal doesn’t matter) and click OK. Close RegEdit. Skip to step #5.
   3. If the value is any other number, you can try changing the value to “0″, but I’m not sure what will happen. The value should only be a 0 or a 1. You should either write down the value for future reference (if things go wrong), or right-click the “Explorer” key, and “Export” the key to a file that you can use to put things back the way they were before you made changes.
4. It’s very likely that you do not have an entry named “NoSaveSettings” (I didn’t.) In that case, you will need to add one.
   1. After clicking on “Explorer” in the left pane of RegEdit, go to the “Edit” menu (or right-click in an open space in the right pane) and select “New” and then “DWORD (32-bit) Value”.
   2. A new entry named “New Value #1″ should appear in the right pane. Rename it to “NoSaveSettings” (note that there are no spaces in that name!).
   3. Double-click the icon for “NoSaveSettings” and change the value data from “1″ to “0″ (whether it’s hex or decimal doesn’t matter) and click OK.
   4. Close RegEdit. You’re almost done.
5. Go ahead and reorganize and resize your Quick Launch toolbar the way you want it. This will hopefully be the last time you have to do this.
6. Now either restart (that’s what I did) or logoff and logon. Your Quick Launch toolbar should be the way you left it.
7. If it’s not right, repeat step #5 and #6. If it still isn’t right, you are facing a different challenge. Look for a different solution. Sorry. If you find another solution that does work, feel free to leave the information or a link to the information in a comment below to help other people find it. Thanks!

Semi-automatically updating the Registry

If you do not like using RegEdit, you can create a registry patch file that accomplishes the same thing. This is, in fact, and export from my own Registry. All you need to do is open Notepad, copy the following text from this web page, paste it into a new Notepad document, and save the file on your Desktop as "NoSaveSettings.reg". The quote marks ARE important (otherwise Notepad tries to save the file as a text document), but the file name and location are not (these are just convenient examples). Double-click the file. It should warn you of the dangers of adding information to your Registry from unsavory sources. Click Yes (if you think this will work for you). Then proceed from Step #5 above.

—- Start copying below this line —-
[code lang="ini"]
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer]
“NoSaveSettings”=dword:00000000

[/code]
—- End copying above this line —-

Other resources

For a few other ideas, you can read the article at Annoyances.org that led me to this solution.

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The new Microsoft motto seems to be “make everything useful at least one extra step more difficult”. This certainly has been true for all but the most commonly used features with Office 2007’s Ribbon interface. It’s also true with many of the control panels in Windows Vista.

One control panel I use regularly is “Network Connections”.

Using Vista’s GUI interface in non-Classic mode, you have to go to Start > Control Panel > View network status and tasks > Manage network connections.

In Classic View, go to Start > Control Panel > Network and Sharing Center > Manage network connections.

You can also use the Search box (or the Run option if you have unhidden it) and enter ncpa.cpl.

I’m not sure which is the less appealing route—all that clicking or trying to remember a cryptic filename.

What I did to make life a little bit easier was use the search method, and when the control panel appeared at the top of the search results pane, I right-clicked it, chose “Send To”, then “Desktop (create a shortcut)”. A shortcut appeared on my Desktop, which I cut so I could paste it somewhere easier to find (like at the top of my Start menu). Depending on where you save it, Vista might require administrative rights to paste the shortcut.

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Special thanks to Andre De Costa’s Teching It Easy blog for this useful information.

I do not know why the developers at Microsoft felt the need to move already somewhat obscure and hidden features to even more obscure locations in Windows Vista. Maybe they figure that it’s helpful to techs to slow them down to stretch out their billable hours or build-in even more job security for system admins by making things more and more difficult for average users.

Under the Windows 9x family, to add programs or folders to the “Send To” context menu, you just plunked a shortcut into “C:\WINDOWS\Send To“.

This was far too easy, and the average user had no problem customizing Windows the way they wanted. When Windows 2000 (followed by XP and 2003) came along and moved user preferences to the “C:\Documents and Settings” folder, I thought that was a good idea. After all, the Windows folder gets very full, and the average user could cause him or herself problems by deleting the wrong thing. Thus, the Send To folder was moved to “C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Send To“. This was still pretty easy and intuitive for anyone who actually wanted to use this handy feature.

Along comes Windows Vista. The familiar “Documents and Settings” folder structure has been replaced by a shortcut (with more shortcuts from there). Security has been tightened to the point that a user with standard user permissions probably can’t even make changes to his or her own settings without a lots of frustration (I haven’t tried, because standard user permissions are SO limited as to make Vista barely usable for anyone who has even moderate experience with Windows.).

So how does one edit the Send To menu? It should be obvious (but only if you work for Microsoft). You go to the new Search box in the Start menu, type in “shell:sendto” (without quotes) and press your ENTER key. In a moment, the Send To folder will appear, and you can edit pretty much as normal (though depending on what you try to put in there, Windows may throw up some annoying permission questions).

That is just so golly-darned intuitive, I smacked my forehead wondering how I could have been so stupid as to not come with “shell:sendto” on my own. Yeah right.

Maybe it is me, or maybe other people don’t use the Send To feature very much, because there were hardly any search engine hits for this beloved feature (of course, I did use Windows Live search, and it rarely compares to Google for finding useful information), and absolutely no results on Microsoft’s Website or knowledge base.

Thank goodness for Andre’s blog (which includes pictures) for cluing me in on this great feature.

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Summary

Threat Level: Critical Zero-Day Vulnerability

This threat is currently active and spreading in the wild. Most Windows-based computers, even if fully up-to-date with all the official Microsoft patches, are vulnerable right now unless certain actions are taken to protect yourself (see below).

What it does: Various websites, including advertising sites that generate advertisements appearing on trusted websites, become infected. These sites use a specific type of attack to slip through your computer’s security, leaving a big hole for your computer to be further attacked. Since some versions of Outlook and Outlook Express use Internet Explorer to display some types of e-mail, you can become infected just by displaying infected e-mails you receive.

What stops it: You can configure certain settings on your computer that will make it so the malicious software cannot run on your computer. Most of Microsoft’s workarounds may cause a few legitimate websites to incorrectly display within Internet Explorer. An unofficial workaround does not cause that problem, but it only works for people using Windows XP with Service Pack 2. An official patch is scheduled to eliminate the problem in a few weeks; an unofficial patch is available now. A good, up-to-date antivirus software package should also detect the malicious software; however, it is a good idea to check that no viruses have disabled your antivirus software before relying upon it to protect you.

Affected Software (as reported by Microsoft):

• Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4
• Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 1 and Service Pack 2
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 with SP1 for Itanium-based Systems Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition

Additional affected software (as reported by Sunbelt):

• Outlook 2007 - 12.0.417.1006: Can view VML but apparently not vulnerable.
• Outlook 2003 11.8010.8036 SP2: vulnerable
• Outlook 2003 11.6568.6568 SP2: unknown (not tested)
• Outlook 2003 11.5608.5606: not vulnerable
• Outlook 2003 11.5608.8028: not vulnerable
• Outlook 2002: not vulnerable
• Outlook 2000: not vulnerable

Official patch/security update: None at this time. According to Microsoft:

A security update to address this vulnerability is now being finalized through testing to ensure quality and application compatibility Microsoft’s goal is to release the update on Tuesday, October 10, 2006, or sooner depending on customer needs.

How to Protect Yourself

Until Microsoft releases an official patch (scheduled for Tuesday, October 10, 2006), you really can’t “fix” this flaw in your computer. You can apply an unofficial patch (which should work until Microsoft releases theirs, but Microsoft won’t help you if the patch messes up your system), you can enact some workarounds that stop the problem before it can harm your system, or perhaps do both.

Unofficial Workaround

In addition to the workarounds from Microsoft mentioned below, SecuriTeam has discovered that Windows XP users with Service Pack 2 installed have another option (and it’s good for blocking many other types of attacks, so it seems like a good idea!). Simply enable system-wide enforcement of software-enforced Data Execution Prevention (DEP) and make sure Internet Explorer is not exempted. It’s easier to do than to pronounce.

Difficulty: Not Very Difficult

Impact: Microsoft does not list any adverse problems with enabling this feature. In fact, they state “Software-enforced DEP can help prevent malicious code from taking advantage of exception-handling mechanisms in Windows.”

The following instructions are based on one of several different ways Microsoft allows you to configure DEP. You must be logged on as an administrator to manually configure DEP on the computer. A restart is required after completing these steps.

1. Click Start, click Run, type sysdm.cpl, and then click OK.
2. On the Advanced tab, under Performance, click Settings.
3. On the Data Execution Prevention tab, click Turn on DEP for all programs and services except those I select
4. If Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, or Outlook are listed in the box below that option, you should either remove the program(s) from the list (select the program and click the Remove button) or at least make sure the checkbox in front of each program is unchecked.
5. Click OK two times.
6. Restart your computer for the changes to take effect.

Once you have protected your system, visit ZERT’s vulnerability test page. NOTE: If your system is vulnerable, your browser will crash. If your browser crashes after following these instructions, carefully re-read the instructions and try again or try a different patch or workaround.

Unofficial Patches

Until Microsoft releases an official patch, an unofficial patch that is not supported by Microsoft is available from the Zeroday Emergency Response Team (”ZERT”). ZERT is a group of highly skilled software and hardware engineers with industry liasons who develop emergency patches for vulnerable systems. They release patches only when they feel the risk of waiting for the vendor (in this case Microsoft) to release an “official” patch is greater than the risk of releasing a patch that may not be quite as polished and fully tested, but blocks the problem. Additionally, there are several links to additional good information about the threat. ZERT’s site is located at: http://isotf.org/zert/

Download the ZERT patch and view the instructions.

Once you have protected your system, visit ZERT’s vulnerability test page. NOTE: If your system is vulnerable, your browser will crash. If your browser crashes after following these instructions, carefully re-read the instructions and try again or try a different patch or workaround.

Official Microsoft Workarounds

See Microsoft’s page under the Suggested Actions headings for updates to the following information.

Un-register Vgx.dll

Difficulty: Not Very Difficult

Impact: Applications that render VML will no longer do so once Vgx.dll has been unregistered. Generally, that should not impact your day-to-day web browsing very much unless a particular favorite site of yours uses VML; most sites do not use it much if at all.

To un-register Vgx.dll, follow these steps:

1. You must be logged in as the administrator or another account with administrative rights.
2. Click Start, click Run, type regsvr32 -u "%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\VGX\vgx.dll", and then click OK.
3. A dialog box appears to confirm that the un-registration process has succeeded. Click OK to close the dialog box.
4. Restart the system

To re-register Vgx.dll (this will make you vulnerable again), follow these steps:

1. You must be logged in as the administrator or another account with administrative rights.
2. Click Start, click Run, type regsvr32 "%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\VGX\vgx.dll", and then click OK.
3. A dialog box appears to confirm that the un-registration process has succeeded. Click OK to close the dialog box.
4. Restart the system

Once you have protected your system, visit ZERT’s vulnerability test page. NOTE: If your system is vulnerable, your browser will crash. If your browser crashes after following these instructions, carefully re-read the instructions and try again or try a different patch or workaround.

Modify the Access Control List on Vgx.dll to be more restrictive

Difficulty: Fairly Advanced (if you do not know what ACL’s are, skip this one)

Impact: Applications and Web sites that render VML may no longer display or function correctly. Generally, that should not impact your day-to-day web browsing very much unless a particular favorite site of yours uses VML; most sites do not use it much if at all.

To modify the Access Control List (ACL) Vgx.dll to be more restrictive, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type “cmd” (without the quotation marks), and then click OK.
2. Type the following command at a command prompt. Make a note of the current ACL’s that are on the file (including inheritance settings) for future reference in case you have to undo this modification:
   cacls "%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\VGX\vgx.dll"
3. Type the following command at a command prompt to deny the ‘everyone’ group access to this file: echo y| cacls "%ProgramFiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\VGX\vgx.dll" /d everyone
4. Close Internet Explorer, and reopen it for the changes to take effect.

To undo this change, you will need to modify the ACL back to its original settings as noted in step #2 above.

Once you have protected your system, visit ZERT’s vulnerability test page. NOTE: If your system is vulnerable, your browser will crash. If your browser crashes after following these instructions, carefully re-read the instructions and try again or try a different patch or workaround.

Configure Internet Explorer 6 for Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 to disable Binary and Script Behaviors in the Internet and Local Intranet security zone.

Difficulty: Not Very Difficult

Impact: Disabling binary and script behaviors in the Internet and Local intranet security zones may cause some Web sites that rely on VML to not function correctly. This workaround may impact more websites than the previous two, because more than VML scripts may be disabled, which may cause more sites to not display correctly.

You can help protect against this vulnerability by changing your settings to disable binary and script behaviors in the Internet and Local intranet security zone. To do this, follow these steps:

1. In Internet Explorer, click Internet Options on the Tools menu.
2. Click the Security tab.
3. Click Internet, and then click Custom Level.
4. Under Settings, in the ActiveX controls and plug-ins section, under Binary and Script Behaviors, click Disable, and then click OK.
5. Click Local intranet, and then click Custom Level.
6. Under Settings, in the ActiveX controls and plug-ins section, under Binary and Script Behaviors, click Disable, and then click OK.
7. Click OK two times to return to Internet Explorer.

Once you have protected your system, visit ZERT’s vulnerability test page. NOTE: If your system is vulnerable, your browser will crash. If your browser crashes after following these instructions, carefully re-read the instructions and try again or try a different patch or workaround.

Read e-mail messages in plain text format to help protect yourself from the HTML e-mail attack vector

Difficulty: A Little Difficult (Requires use of RegEdit, an advanced and potentially dangerous admin tool)
Impact: E-mail messages that are viewed in plain text format will not contain pictures, specialized fonts, animations, or other rich content. Additionally, (1) the changes are applied to the preview pane and to open messages, (2) pictures become attachments so that they are not lost, and (3) because the message is still stored in Rich Text or HTML format certain aspects of the message may behave unexpectedly.

Microsoft Outlook 2002 with Office XP SP 1 or later and Microsoft Outlook Express 6 with Internet Explorer 6 SP 1 or later can enable a setting to view most messages in plain text only. Digitally signed e-mail messages and encrypted e-mail messages are not affected by the setting. For information on enabling this setting in Outlook 2002, see Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 307594.

Block VML Vulnerability Traffic with ISA Server

If your organization uses Microsoft ISA Server 2004 or 2006 firewall software, see Microsoft’s article “Learn How Your ISA Server Helps Block VML Vulnerability Traffic“.

Once you have protected your system, visit ZERT’s vulnerability test page. NOTE: If your system is vulnerable, your browser will crash. If your browser crashes after following these instructions, carefully re-read the instructions and try again or try a different patch or workaround.<

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It seems people swap cell phones, smart phones, and PDAs about as frequently as they change their smoke detector batteries. These miniaturized devices hold a large amount of personal data inside their tiny silicon brains. So what happens to all that data when you trade in your cellular phone for a new one? Or what if you sell it on eBay to help offset the cost of your replacement device?

If you’re like a lot of technologically challenged people, you don’t even think about purging the memory before you hand it over, and if you do think about it, you might not know how to erase the data.

If you are a bit more tech savvy, you might delve into the manual (you didn’t throw it away or lose it, did you?) or search the Web for instructions. It’s not like most devices have a big red “ERASE ME” button on them. It’s kinda tough to delete all your data. And for good reason (I’m referring to the technologically challenged button pushers that can’t resist big red buttons).

The scary thing is that after finding out how to delete the data and pushing the right menu options, the data still might not be completely gone! According to an AP story reported in the Dallas Morning News, secrets often stay on cell phones even after the data is supposedly deleted. That might be good news if you accidentally erased everything, but it would be bad news if you are a government official, a cheating spouse, or just someone who doesn’t like people snooping through their personal information.

Read the article. It’s a bit shocking, has a touch of humor, and it just might help people to “decide whether to auction their used equipment for a few hundred dollars - and risk revealing their secrets - or effectively toss their old phones under a large truck to dispose of them.”

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RAID is a method of storing data on multiple hard disks. Through the “magic” of the disk array, all of the individual disks appear as a single disk to the operating system. Large arrays can be split into smaller logical disks, that can be any size up to the total amount of disk space. Depending on exactly how the data is spread across the multiple disks determines the relative speed and security of the data on the disks.

Back in the old days when large (750MB) hard disks were relatively expensive (say $1200 US) and smaller disks (100MB) were relatively inexpensive (maybe $130), somebody figured out that it could be possible to link several of the inexpensive disks together to roughly equal the capacity of a single larger disk. The complete package was called a disk array, and the method of storing the data on the disks was called RAID, for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks.

Today, the relative price difference between an 80GB and a 160GB or even a 400GB hard drive is not so great; however, RAID is still very much a part of life with computers—especially with servers. Obviously there is more to RAID than just a cost savings. (RAID now stands for Redundant Array of Independent Devices, which indicates the drift away from price being the motivating factor in choosing a RAID solution.) In fact, by the time you factor in the additional hardware to create and manage the array, RAID usually costs more than non-RAID solutions. So why do we use it? The answers are speed and reliability.

Imagine for a moment that you were an engineer creating the first RAID system (I’d say “RAID Array”, which is the common term, but that’s redundant like saying PIN Number). You design the system so that when someone saves data to the array, it starts filling up the first disk in the array first. Then, when the person saves more data than will fit on the first disk, the system automatically stores the next data on the next disk. This process continues, until eventually you fill up the third and fourth disks. That’s the concept anyway, though the actual implementation (below) is a little different. This fast and expandable solution is known as RAID-0 (also known as disk striping with no parity; more about striping and parity in a moment) and is still used commonly today. It is the RAID solution with what is generally considered the best performance.Array controllers make use of the fact that each disk can write data to the disk at the same time another disk is busy. So the controller breaks the data up into smaller chunks (called stripes), and sends one stripe to disk 1. While disk 1 is busy storing the first stripe, the controller sends the next stripe of data to disk #2. While disks 1 and 2 are writing their data, the controller sends another stripe to disk #3 (if there is one), and so on. Eventually it runs out of disks in the array, so it starts back over with disk 1 again. Using this method, all of the disk space is available for use.

What happens if disk #2 unexpectedly fails? Since data is spread across all the disks, if even one of them becomes damaged (or the controller), the entire array becomes unusable. That’s the down side of RAID-0.

Back to the drawing board you go. What if we spend more money—twice as much to be exact— and build two arrays that contain exactly the same information? That way if one of the arrays dies, the other array will continue to run until we can replace the failed disk. This solution became known as RAID-1 (disk mirroring). Because it is basically two identical RAID-0 arrays, it offers exactly the same performance with the best fault-tolerance (i.e., it is both fast and able to protect against failures). Unfortunately, it’s also usually the most expensive RAID solution. While each half of the mirror can utilize all its disk space, half of the total storage capacity is lost due to the mirroring (an array with 360GB of total storage would only hold 180GB of usable data; the other 180GB would be a duplicate copy of the first 180GB). Note: If a single controller manages both mirrors, it is possible that both arrays could end up with identically bad data if the controller goes bad. Some people use two separate but compatible controllers to reduce this slight risk.

Okay. That sounds like a workable solution, but it’s too expensive for large arrays. You figure that the data really wouldn’t need to be duplicated if there was just some way to (a) detect errors and (b) recover from errors when they are found. Your solution is to calculate and store a checksum of all the data that’s saved. A checksum is just a fancy word for a process that detects errors that can be used to recover from them when they are found. Naturally it doesn’t do a lot of good to store the checksum alongside the actual data. If the data and the checksum were on the same disk, and if the disk went bad, then you would be no better off than with RAID-0.

RAID-2 (hamming code error correction), RAID-3 (virtual disk blocks), RAID-4 (dedicated parity disk), and RAID-5 (striped parity) are all variations on this theme of storing the data along with a checksum on multiple disks (writing with parity is the term). RAID-2 is no longer used, and RAID-3 and RAID-4 are not used except in certain uncommon situations. RAID-5 has emerged the clear winner in this parity slugfest.

RAID-5 combines the striping from RAID-0 with error checking. When the controller sends a stripe of data to disk 1, it will send a stripe of parity data to a different disk in the array. It is very smart about where it sends the data, so that if any one disk in the array fails, the entire array can keep right on running. Many arrays allow for hot swapping the failed disk while the server is running. Then, once a replacement disk is inserted, the array restores the lost data onto the new drive automatically by combing the remaining good data with the parity information. Naturally, the array becomes unrecoverable if more than one disk goes bad (which is why you want to swap out bad disks as quickly as possible) or if the controller goes bad.

RAID-5 (striping with parity) does have a bit more overhead than RAID-0 (striping without parity). All that parity takes a little time to write to disk (making RAID-5 a bit slower than RAID-0 or RAID-1) and a little extra space (generally 1 extra disk than would be required for RAID-0).

So how many disks do you need?

For RAID-0, the answer is two (any less than two, and you wouldn’t have an array—just a regular hard disk with an expensive controller that probably would complain about needing another disk). The two disks also need to be the same size. Many controllers will accept differently sized disks, but the smallest disk in the array will determine the capacity of the entire array. So, if you have an array with one 80GB disk and one 400GB disk, the maximum usable space in the array would be only 160GB (what a waste!).

For RAID-1 you need twice as many disks as you want to use for storage. For example, if you want 400 GB of usable data, you need to purchase TWO 400GB disks. Or, you might be able to purchase FOUR 200GB disks and have the array configure two disks in RAID-0 (striping without parity) and then use RAID-1 (mirroring) to duplicate the striped sets. This is actually referred to as RAID-10. RAID-10 is actually just a combination of RAID-1 and RAID-0. Depending on the controller, you should be able to create striped disks that are mirrored (RAID-0+1) or mirrors that are striped across multiple disks (RAID-1+0).

For RAID-5 you need at least 3 disks. The first two disks stripe the data, and the third disk stripes the parity. (Actually with RAID-5 the parity stripe rotates between all the disks, but it’s easier to think of it as one disk holding the parity information. Incidentally, RAID-4 uses one dedicated disk for parity just as I described.) RAID-5 is nice because after the initial investment in three disks, you can add additional disks to the array and utilize them fully (well, up to the size of the smallest disk in the array) without losing any more overhead for parity.

Just like with RAID-10, there are a few RAID-5 permutations available. RAID-50 (or RAID-5+0) consists of a series of RAID-5 groups striped in RAID-0 fashion to improve the RAID-5 performance without reducing data protection. There is also RAID-53 (or RAID-5+3) which combines striping (in RAID-0 style) with RAID-3’s virtual disk blocks (something I won’t delve into). This offers higher performance than RAID-3 but at much higher cost.

You may see the term RAID-1+5 when ordering a server. This usually indicates the first two drives in the server are configured for mirroring (RAID-1), and the remaining drives in the system (at least 3) are configured for striping with parity (RAID-5). This is common for Microsoft Windows-based servers. The operating system and other applications are stored in the mirror. Data, which usually benefits from the multiple simultaneous-writing features of striping, are stored in the RAID-5 portion of the array.

There are other RAID configurations available, but they are not widely supported at this time. Some worth noting are:

• RAID-6: This type is similar to RAID-5 but includes a second parity scheme that is distributed across different drives and thus offers extremely high fault- and drive-failure tolerance.
• RAID-7: This type includes a real-time embedded operating system as a controller, caching via a high-speed bus, and other characteristics of a stand-alone computer.
• RAID-S: This is an alternate, proprietary method for parity RAID from EMC Symmetrix. It appears to be similar to RAID-5 with some performance enhancements as well as the enhancements that come from having a high-speed disk cache on the disk array.

Finally, another term that you frequently hear along with RAID is JBOD. Remember back to the example of the first array you designed? You created an array of disks that filled up sequentially—when disk 1 was full, things spilled over onto disk 2, and so on. That type of an array (no striping, no parity) is considered Just a Bunch Of Disks, or JBOD. They don’t make a whole lot of sense in most cases, but people still use them. They do not have the speed of striping, and naturally there’s no fault-tolerance. They are just a bunch of disks available for sequential storage of data, much like magnetic tape or an optical disk. In fact, using them as an interface between another sequential storage medium is one of the few things they do pretty well.

Throughout this article, I’ve used the term controller. The controller can either be a piece of hardware or some software running on the server. Software controllers are generally a poor option for most situations because the operating system and CPU of the computer have to process and manage all the data flowing to and from the disks. Mirroring is usually faster in this situation than striping, and adding parity to the mix bogs things down even more. Hardware controllers are much lower in price than they used to be, and should always be considered an important component in a server. Many server-class motherboards now offer RAID (at least RAID-0, RAID-1, and JBOD) support built-in. Even many higher-end desktop motherboards offer RAID support for SATA (Serial ATA) drives.

Summary
The three types of RAID you are most likely to encounter or care about are RAID-0, RAID-1, and RAID-5.

RAID-0 is fastest performer and the least expensive option, but it offers no protection against faults. It’s great for situations where you need a lot of speed and fault-tolerance is not very important. You might find it used for storing cached or temporary information that needs to be retrieved quickly, but is harmless if lost.

RAID-1 is just as fast as RAID-0, but because it requires twice the disks as RAID-0, it’s usually the most expensive option. If one half of the mirror has a problem, the good half takes over (temporarily becoming a RAID-0 array) until the bad half can be replaced. Regeneration of the mirror after a failure is usually pretty fast, and it may even be automatic.

RAID-5 is slower than RAID-1 because it has to write extra parity data to a disk in the array, but it only requires one extra disk total, no matter how large the array grows. Many controllers allow for hot swapping of bad disks, and like RAID-1, regeneration of the array is usually fast and automatic.

Innovative engineers have figured out ways to combine various RAID methods to improve performance or tweak other measurements, but most are based on some combination of these three methods (e.g., RAID-10 actually being RAID-0+1 or RAID-1+0).

RAID-1+5 is a little different. It uses RAID-1 (mirroring) for the first two drives in a server, and the operating system and applications are generally stored there. The remaining three or more disks use RAID-5 for storing data, since striping generally works well for storing frequently changing data.

RAID controllers are a built-in option on many server and higher-end desktop PC motherboards. If you have that option and your budget is tight, use it! Otherwise, spend the money for a better hardware RAID controller for more options and better performance. Software-based RAID is an option is most server operating systems, but performance is generally much worse than with hardware RAID, but may still be a better option than doing without RAID completely.

Some information was taken from WhatIs.com’s definition of RAID.

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A client asked: Do I need a surge protector? If the power goes out sometime, what happens w/ the computer?

A surge protector is very important for protecting computers and other electronic equipment from damaging electrical spikes and surges. Fortunately this client already had one. Read the rest of the comments I wrote to her explaining the difference and dispelling the confusion surrounding surge protection and uninterruptible power supplies:

Perhaps you were thinking of an uninterruptible power supply (”UPS”, not to be confused with the brown trucks, of course). There are essentially two types of UPSes. One keeps a battery charged, and if it detects that the power goes out, then it switches over to the battery. It usually takes a few milliseconds to switch over. That may sound very fast to a human, but when computers operate in the millisecond (or faster) range, it can seem like quite a while. The second type of UPS has an Automatic Voltage Regulator (AVR) that charges a battery to continually run the computer. When the power goes out, the battery stops charging, but the equipment never feels a disruption. Your computer receives a continuous supply of pristine electricity. Naturally the second type costs a bit more.

UPSes are rated in VA’s (volt-amps) and Joules. Basically with VA’s, the bigger the number the longer your equipment will run during a power outage. Joules are more commonly touted with surge protectors, but they apply to UPSes, too. Again, the bigger the number, the better the protection against spikes and surges—even nearby lightning strikes in high-end ones.

One thing you generally don’t want to do is plug a surge protector into a UPS—at least into a low-end UPS. A normal electrical current cycles smoothly like an ocean wave from high to low and back again. Output from low-end UPSes (even ones with AVRs) usually produce electrical currents shaped more like square speed bumps. Square waves do not hurt your electronics, but they can cause problems if you plug a surge protector into a square-wave output UPS.

To summarize:

1. [The client has] a pretty darn good surge protector, so [the client is] protected from spikes and surges.
2. [The client is] not protected from sags and brown-outs (minor and major dips in the power), and certainly [the client is] not protected from power failures.
3. Bad power (especially spikes and full-power failures) cause the majority of computer data corruption. Data being written to a disk as the power spikes can be garbled. Drives writing to a disk during an outage, though rare, can write gibberish across the surface of the disk as they spin down (it happened to a computer I used to work on).
4. A UPS of any type will help protect you from complete power outages. UPSes with AVR will also effectively filter out sags and brownouts because the computer is always running on the battery. Non-AVR UPSes kick in when power drops below a certain point (some brown-outs are enough; some aren’t), and there’s always a slight delay, so you ever so slightly risk some data loss (it really depends on how sensitive your particular computer is to low-voltage situations—some are touchy; some don’t seem to notice).
5. It is okay to plug a UPS into a surge protector, but you should never plug a surge protector into a UPS unless the UPS produces pure sine-wave output (which consumer-grade UPSes will not).
6. Only critical devices (computer and monitor in [the client’s] case; possibly the printer) should be plugged into the battery powered part of the UPS. Other peripherals (notably speakers, laser printers, and anything non-critical) should be plugged into the non-battery protected part of the UPS or a regular surge protector. That way, you might lose your audio (speakers powered off), but you have maximum run-time for safely shutting down your computer and monitor.
7. Paying a little more for a UPS which can communicate to your PC and tell it to shut down if the power goes out can be very helpful if you aren’t home when the power goes out.

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It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, it’s really annoying. Your Windows Desktop refreshes (often after a program crashes), and all the icons on your Desktop and in the Start Menu have been reset to generic icons that all look alike. Sometimes it’s a temporary thing, and restarting the computer will fix it. Other times it takes a different tool.There are a number of nifty tools available from Microsoft’s web site called “Power Toys”. These are a bunch of little applets that tweak or enhance the way Windows works. There are things like fancier calculators, image re-sizers, and ones that are a little difficult to explain (but do really neat things). These Power Toys are version-specific (i.e., you can’t use the Windows XP Power Toys under Windows 98 for example). The WinXP version is available here.

Out of all the Power Toys that are available, TweakUI is probably the most useful tool of all. This TweakUI gives you access to system settings that are not exposed in the Windows XP default user interface, including mouse settings, Explorer settings, taskbar settings, and more. It comes in two versions, one for standard 32-bit processor machines (e.g., Celerons, Pentiums, etc.) and also for 64-bit Itanium processor machines. It runs under Windows XP Service Pack 1 or later, as well as Windows Server 2003.

To restore your Desktop and Start Menu icons, download the appropriate version of TweakUI, install it, and then run it. In the left-hand column at the bottom is an option to “Repair”. Click it, and you will see that “Rebuild Icons” is the selected option in the pull-down menu. Click the “Repair Now” button, and all your icons should magically reappear. It will also reset the order of your icons (which could be slightly annoying if you have carefully lined up your icons up in a particular pattern).

This handy tool can also fix problems related to a messed up Fonts folder, your Unread Mail Count, and many other things. Feel free to poke around and see what else you can tweak. Just remember that all Power Toys are unsupported by Microsoft. I’ve never had a problem with them, but if you do, Microsoft cannot bail you out (and neither can we).

So tweak at your own risk.

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Running Windows Disk Cleanup on a regular basis is really a great idea to keep your computer running lean and efficient. The only problem is, if you are like me, I’d almost rather visit my dentist than wait for the utility to complete its scan. It turns out that about 90% of the wait is the result of just one type of scan, and that scan is essentially pointless. Here are the steps for disabling this annoying “feature” and making your Disk Cleanups as fast and efficient as they should be!

The instructions are slightly modified from a Microsoft Knowledgebase article. The article discusses what to do if Disk Cleanup stops responding completely. It turns out the “fix” works perfectly well as a preventive measure.

The instructions below only tell how to remove the scan for “compress old files”, but you could probably remove any scan which you aren’t interested in, and that should speed Disk Cleanup even more. Just make sure to backup the original registry keys so that if anything does “blow up” you should be able to restore your system to its original configuration.

Warning: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

To work around this problem, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. Type regedit in the Open box, and then press ENTER.
3. Locate, and then click the following registry key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
   Explorer\VolumeCaches
4. On the File menu, click Export, and then click Desktop, type VolumeCaches in the File name box, and then click Save.
   Note: This step creates a backup of the VolumeCaches registry key. If you experience any problems after you complete the steps that are listed in this procedure, you can use this backup to restore the VolumeCaches key to its original state. To restore the key, double-click the VolumeCaches.reg file on your desktop, and then click Yes.
5. Expand the following registry key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
   Explorer\VolumeCaches
6. Delete the Compress old files registry key.
7. Quit Registry Editor.

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FWIW there are a lot of acronyms out there, especially on AIM, YIM, MSN, and IRC. I am FAQ about what these things mean. It would be nice to tell people to RTM, but AFAIK there aren’t very many comprehensive lists available (BICBW). So, here is a list of many common acronyms I’ve seen used from time to time. HTH. IAE, if I left some favorite ones out, BMG to add them in the comments. Just keep them kid-friendly. Thx!

A/S/L … Age/Sex/Location
AFAIK … As far as I know
AFK … Away from keyboard (especially mobile users not at a computer)
AIM … AOL Instant Messenger; also verb for transferring files via AIM
ASAP … As soon as possible
ATM … At the moment
B … Back
BAK … Back at keyboard (typically used after AFK or BRB)
BBL … Be back later
BBS … Be back soon
BC … Because
BCNU … Be Seein’ You
BFF … Best Friends Forever
BFN … Bye for now
BG … Big grin
BIAB … Back in a bit
BICBW … But I could be wrong
BMG … Be my guest
BRB … Be right back
BTA … But then again
BTW … By the way

Continued on page 1: A-B / 2: C-I / 3: J-R / 4: S-Z

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Symptoms: Every time you open Outlook Express or Outlook you are asked to re-enter your password even though the Save Password box is checked (or grayed out).

Problem: Generally this is caused by a problem in the Registry with the Protected Storage System Provider key.

Resolution: Follow the steps below to fix this problem or visit Microsoft’s Knowledge Base article 29684 for an even more detailed information.

WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. There is no guarantee that problems that you cause by using Registry Editor incorrectly can be resolved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

1. Back Up The Registry Just to be safe you should back up this registry key before making modifications.
   1. Click Start, Run, and type regedit in the box, and then click OK.
   2. In the left panel, click the pluses next to:
      • HKEY_CURRENT_USER