1. EDITOR'S CORNER
   • Spammers and Scammers
   • Followup: Staying Connected When You're On the Go
2. HINTS, TIPS, TRICKS & TWEAKS
   • What will Windows Vista look like?
   • Firefox: Honeymoon Over?
   • Media Center Rollup Available Soon
   • Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Windows Product Activation
3. HOW TO'S: ALL THE NEW XP FEATURES
   • How to Keep your bookmarks/favorites in synch
4. WXP SECURITY: UPDATES & PATCHES
   • Another IE Security Vulnerability Discovered
5. WXP QUESTION CORNER
   • How Do I Send Blog Posts via Email?
   • How can I buy an XP license?
6. WXP CONFIGURING & TROUBLESHOOTING
   • Delayed Write Failed
   • How to Locate and Correct Disk Space Problems on NTFS Drives
   • Missing Drive Letters
7. FAVE LINKS
   • This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff
8. PRODUCT OF THE WEEK
   • Atlantis: Unlock the secrets of Atlantis in this bubble-popping adventure!

Spammers and Scammers

It's not just that the amount of spam is increasing lately (over the last few weeks, I've gone from getting 5-10 spam messages in my Inbox each morning to 20-40). Thank goodness for iHateSpam (on a recent typical Monday, over 3000 spams were caught by our server-level filters, addressed to either my husband or me, or to nonexistent addresses in our domain, before they ever reached our mailboxes). The really bad part is that the "quality" of the spam that gets through is deteriorating.

Now maybe "quality" is a contradiction in terms when you're talking about spam, but here's the point: in the past, the majority of spam messages that got through my filters were attempts to sell something, similar to the junk mail that we get in our physical mailboxes. Annoying, but not infuriating. My mail filters caught the blatant porn spam and other offensive messages.

The past month has seen a big increase in spam scams of all kinds. Part of this is undoubtedly the natural tendency of con men rushing in where angels fear to tread after a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina - I've seen a few of the fake charity solicitation spam with links that most likely lead to phishing Web sites. These sites are dangerous. It would be bad enough if the only problem were that the unsuspectingly person who enters credit card information to supposedly donate to the charity has those funds diverted to the scammer's use, but it gets worse. The credit card info itself is often used to steal the person's identity and make other, unauthorized charges. This is, in my opinion, the lowest of the low. Federal and state governments are cracking down on these scammers. Read more here:
http://www.wxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=050920ED-Scammers

Another spam scam I've been seeing regularly is from an organization that calls itself SPAMIS, which is supposed to stand for "Strategic Partnership Against Microsoft Illegal Spam." I started getting these months ago, and found it pretty ironic that these claims that Microsoft sends unsolicited and unwanted e-mail were being sent as ... unsolicited and unwanted e-mail.

The more recent messages from SPAMIS have gone far afield of the "spam" claims against Microsoft, and started making other accusations. The latest one, which I got last Thursday, is titled "Microsoft plans to stop supporting the American economy by outsourcing more than 10,000 jobs over 10 years to China." When you dig deeper into this story, you find that the source of those numbers appears to be Kai-Fu Lee, the Microsoft executive who left to work for Google and is being sued by Microsoft for breaching the non-compete agreement that he had signed. Not exactly an unbiased source.

But whether or not the outsourcing numbers are true, it's highly unlikely that the company has any plans to "stop supporting the American economy." And if they did, what does that have to do with spam (which is supposedly SPAMIS's purpose for existing)? It has become very clear, if it wasn't already, that SPAMIS is not an anti-spam organization like CAUCE (the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email), but is in fact an anti-Microsoft organization that uses spam to further its campaign against the company.

To confirm even further that SPAMIS is a spammer, their most recent messages - like so many other spam messages - disguise who the message is from by placing the recipient's own e-mail address in the "from" field. Thus, when their messages show up in my mailbox, it looks as if they came from me. Gosh, why would a legitimate organization do that? Obviously lots of other folks are onto their scam and blocking mail from their own domain.

According to several sources on the Web, the driving force behind SPAMIS is none other than Robert Soloway, who is a well-known spammer and seller of mailing list addresses. According to Spamhaus, a popular register of known spam operations, rumor has it that Soloway has hired virus writers to create spam zombies. You can read more about Soloway here:
http://www.wxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=050920ED-Spam_Is

It comes as no surprise that Soloway was one of the spammers Microsoft sued for illegal spamming. He has recently mounted a campaign against Microsoft's Sender ID framework, a technology that's designed to stop spam by verifying the IP addresses of email senders and comparing them to the registered addresses for the purported sending domain to authenticate senders' identities - you can read more about Sender ID here:
http://www.wxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=050920ED-Sender_ID

A new spam that has been showing up a lot in my mailbox the past two weeks advertises a weight loss product called Hoodia. Hoodia gordoni is a plant that grows in Africa, and according to medical studies, it really does work as an appetite suppressant. The problem is that many of these spammers are really scammers; they send you something other than real Hoodia (or nothing at all) for your money. Here is a recent report on one of them:
http://www.wxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=050920ED-Hoodia

I'm also getting lots of spam these days in other languages, including those in Cyrillic and Asian alphabets. Don't know what they're trying to sell me, but at least those are easy to tag as spam.

What about you? Have you noticed any new patterns in the spam you're receiving lately? Are any of the new spam messages particularly annoying to you? Are you seeing more scam spams than usual? Are your filters having a hard time keeping up as the spammers change their domains and methods? Let us know what you think at feedback@wxpnews.com.

Followup: Staying Connected When You're On the Go

Last week, we talked about alternative methods of staying connected when you're traveling if 802.11 wireless hotspots aren't available. Many of you wrote to share your own methods for staying connected on the road, or give us your "wish list" for mobile connectivity.

Many of you are using your cell phones with your laptops to dial up to an ISP. We also heard from quite a few who are using wireless broadband cards that plug into your laptops. H.F. says he uses a T-Mobile card that transmits at 40Kbps but is about to switch to a Verizon card that offers 100 Kbps. According to William P., you can get speeds up to 2 Mbps with Verizon Wireless's BroadbandAccess for your laptop. David M. notes that his cellular data plan from Sprint only costs an additional $15 per month for unlimited access to the Web and similar ISPs such as Earthlink.

Joe J. asked, with all the libraries and other sources of free 'Net access, why he should pay a monthly access fee? And the answer is that, if you can conveniently get to a free access point when you need it, there's no reason to pay. Those who need access in rural areas between towns or after hours when libraries and such are closed are willing to spend the money for that access.

Larry E. brought up a related topic: how to best send a fax while on the go. He'd like to be able to do it using his cell phone and laptop, but hasn't figured out a way to make it work. We'll be researching the question, and invite readers who have solved this problem to share your experiences with us.

Finally, Bob J. is hoping that by the time he retires, we'll have available a flexible screen, portable PC that has built in global satellite communications capability that can be "rolled up" and carried in a shoulder pack or clipped to a belt. It would have voice control, with a display that's easy to see outdoors and with a solar battery that continuously recharges itself even in low light. Works for me!

Quote of the Week:
The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. - Isaac Asimov

What will Windows Vista look like?

Lots of folks who aren't part of the beta test for Windows Vista (the operating system formerly known as Longhorn, which will be the successor to Windows XP) are curious about what the new OS will look like. David Berlind over at ZDNet has posted a photo gallery of screenshots showing the installation process for Vista so you can get a taste of the new graphical interface. Check it out here:
http://www.wxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=050920TI-Vista_GUI

Remember that this is an early beta and some things will change (such as the OS name, which still shows up as Longhorn during the first part of the install).

Firefox: Honeymoon Over?

We've said before that the primary security advantage Firefox had over Internet Explorer was the fact that it was used by only a fraction of the computer using population. This made it a less attractive target for hackers - why waste your time and effort writing exploits for a program that would only affect a small percentage of users, when your IE exploits would reach so many more? This is called, in the IT security biz, security through obscurity. And contrary to popular belief, it works - for a while. The problem is that obscurity tends not to last. As more and more people have switched to Firefox for its security advantage, its own growing popularity has made it more of a target. Now, according to security expert George Ou, the tipping point has been reached: Firefox now has more vulnerabilities per month than IE. Read George's blog article on this at
http://www.wxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=050920TI-Firefox
(September 16 entry)

Media Center Rollup Available Soon

Rollup 2 for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 (codenamed "Emerald") is expected to be available within the next week. It adds some features Media Center users have been clamoring for, including support for up to four TV tuners (two standard, two High Definition) and also supports dual-core processors, which are growing in popularity. This is a free update that will be available on the OEM System Builders Web site first, and then will be made available to end users in October. Read more in Ed Bott's blog:
http://www.wxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=050920TI-Media_Rollup
(September 15 entry)

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Windows Product Activation

How to Keep your bookmarks/favorites in synch

If you use the same computer all the time, Windows' and various browsers' methods for saving favorite URLs works fine. If you switch between different computers frequently, you need a way to keep them synchronized. I have my primary workstation in the office, the downstairs workstation that I use if Tom's on the phone or playing his music in the office or if I just want a change of scene, the bedroom computer where I might do a quick Web search or send an email I remembered while on the verge of falling asleep, the laptop I use outside by the pool or when on the road, as well as the kitchen computer and one in each of the spare bedrooms (and that doesn't count any of the systems in the server room). So I'm always on the lookout for a good way to synch my favorites.

Another IE Security Vulnerability Discovered

How Do I Send Blog Posts via Email?

QUESTION:
Where can I find out a little more about the using of Outlook to send a post to my MSN Spaces blog. I'm kinda new at this blog stuff but this approach sounds great. - Ron

ANSWER:
Being able to send blog posts via email makes it much more convenient to blog on a regular basis (now if only they would also help me to find the free time in which to do it). First, you have to create a blog space if you haven't already. To do that, go to http://spaces.msn.com and click the Sign Up link. You'll be asked for an email address and password for your Passport account. If you don't have an account, there's a link to get one.

After you have your blog space, sign into it and click the Settings tab. Then click the E-mail Publishing tab. Check the box that says "Turn on e-mail publishing." On this page, you'll be asked to enter your e-mail address from which you'll be sending the blog posts and choose a secret word. This word will be used to create an e-mail address to which you send your blog posts. It will be combined with the name of your blog. For example, if your blog's name is RonsBlog and you choose the secret word birthday, you'll send your blog posts to RonsBlog.birthday@spaces.msn.com.

You can compose your post in Outlook or any other e-mail client. You can even include photos in your mail message and they will be appended to your blog post. It's really that easy.

How can I buy an XP license?

QUESTION:
How would a person purchase a COA license to legitimize their copy of Windows XP? This person may or may not have known that their copy was piratized, and either way doesn't want to go to jail. - W. S.

ANSWER:
You can buy a license for XP (software not included) from many online and bricks and mortar retail computer and office supply outlets. At Newegg, the XP Home upgrade license costs $97 and the XP Pro license costs $187. Here's the link:
http://www.wxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=050920QC-XP_License

You don't save a huge amount by buying the license only, so you might want to buy the full software package (which includes a license) instead, so you'll have an extra copy of the installation CD. Definitely buy the full package if your computer came with only a "recovery disk" instead of the actual installation CD. At Newegg, the full XP Pro package costs $229. Here's the link:
http://www.wxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=050920QC-Full_Package

If you're building a new computer and buying the components, you may be able to buy the OEM version of the operating system, which is quite a bit less. At Newegg, the OEM version of XP Pro is $146.95 Here's the link:
http://www.wxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=050920QC-XP_OEM

Delayed Write Failed

If you try to save files to a server across the network and get an error message that says "Delayed Write Failed; Windows was unable to save all the data for the file . The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere," you should check your Event Viewer log to see if it contains an event ID 50, with source shown as MrxSMB. If so, Microsoft has a hotfix that you can apply to resolve the problem. There is also a workaround you can use, but it involves editing the registry. For info on both of these solutions, see KB article 321733 at
http://www.wxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=050920CO-KB_321733

How to Locate and Correct Disk Space Problems on NTFS Drives

Sometimes the free disk space on NTFS-formatted volumes in Windows XP are reported incorrectly or even reported as lost. It can happen after a power outage or improper system shutdown, as a result of a malicious intruder or due to other causes. For a discussion of the causes and instructions on how to find and correct the problem, see KB article 315688 at
http://www.wxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=050920CO-KB_315688

Missing Drive Letters

If you've mapped a network drive to shared folders on other computers across the network, you might discover that the drive letters aren't showing up in Windows Explorer when you use the Work Online Without Synchronizing Changes option over a VPN connection in XP Pro. The mapping is still in place but the icon that represents the mapping is missing. You can fix this by applying the latest service pack or a hotfix available from Microsoft. Or you can use this quick runaround:

1. Click Start | Run.
2. Type cmd in the Open box.
3. Click OK.
4. At the command prompt, type the drive letter of the mapped drive, followed by a colon.
5. Press ENTER.

This Week's Links We Like. Tips, Hints And Fun Stuff

• Dissect a virtual frog (click the Demos button):
  http://www.wxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=050920FA-Frog
• What would happen if a nuclear bomb hit your city? (Thanks to Bill O.)
  http://www.wxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=050920FA-Nuclear
• Create a band
  http://www.wxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=050920FA-Band
• Right Angle Sidewalk Chalk Art
  http://www.wxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=050920FA-Chalk_Art
• A Flash version of "Stomp". Very cool!
  http://www.wxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=050920FA-Stomp
• For riddle nuts
  http://www.wxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=050920FA-Riddle
• The Stroop Effect
  http://www.wxpnews.com/rd/rd.cfm?id=050920FA-Stroop

Atlantis: Unlock the secrets of Atlantis in this bubble-popping adventure!

Time out for some fun with this week’s product of the week Atlantis! Unlock the secrets of the mythical long-lost city of Atlantis in this thrilling bubble-popping adventure! With visually stunning graphics, this absolutely addictive game will take you on a journey through the 19th Century in 81 levels of increasingly challenging game play. Collect credits to buy bonuses along the way, but spend wisely! You'll need all the help you can get. Fame, fortune, and world-changing technology await you so delve into the world of Atlantis today!

INFORMATION PROVIDED IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND FREEDOM FROM INFRINGEMENT.