7.31.2008

New Moderators: Two more members have been added to the Moderator team. One is a familiar face: CetusMOD has rejoined the group, while WhackAMod -- where do they come up with these names -- is a new face. Both will generally be patrolling the New To EE zone, but will also be visible throughout the site.

New Zones: Experts Exchange has added a number of new zones:

Consolidations:

• /Community_Support/Community_Advisor/ with /
  Community_Support/New_to_EE/
• /Community_Support/Community_Advisor/ExpertCare/, / Community_Support
  /Community_Advisor/ExpertCare/Complaints/ with /Community_Support/Feedback/
• /Software/Office_Productivity/Groupware/Lotus_Notes/ with / Software/Server_Software
  /Email_Servers/Lotus_Domino/ as Lotus_Domino
• /Software/Internet_Email/Email/Email_Clients/Lotus_Notes/ with / Software
  /Office_Productivity/Office_Suites/Lotus_SmartSuite/Lotus_Notes/
• /Software/Server_Software/Content_Management/LaTex/ with
  /Software/Page_Layout/LATeX/ as LaTeX
• /Digital_Living/Hardware/Cameras_Camcorders/35mm/, /Digital_Living/Hardware/
  Cameras_Camcorders/Accessories/, /Digital_Living/Hardware/Cameras_Camcorders
  /Camcorders/, /Digital_Living/Hardware/Cameras_Camcorders/Techniques/ with
  /Digital_Living/Hardware/Cameras_Camcorders/
• /Digital_Living/Hardware/Home_Theater/Satellite/DirecTV/, /Digital_Living/ Hardware
  /Home_Theater/Satellite/Dish_Network/; /Digital_Living/Hardware/Home_Theater/Satellite
  /Voom/ with /Digital_Living/Hardware/Home_Theater/Satellite/
• /Digital_Living/Hardware/Home_Theater/Television/CRT/, /Digital_Living/ Hardware
  /Home_Theater/Television/HDTV/, /Digital_Living/Hardware/Home_Theater/Television
  /LCD/, /Digital_Living/Hardware/Home_Theater/Television/Plasma/. /Digital_Living/ Hardware
  /Home_Theater/Television/Projection/ with /Digital_Living/Hardware/Home_Theater/Television/
• /Digital_Living/Hardware/MP3_Players/Car_Players/, /Digital_Living/Hardware
  /MP3_Players/Home_Players/, /Digital_Living/Hardware/MP3_Players/MP3_CD_Portables/ with
  /Digital_Living/Hardware/MP3_Players/
• /Programming/Editors_IDEs/Java/Macromedia_JRun/, /Programming/Editors_IDEs/ Java
  /WebLogic_Studio/, /Programming/Editors_IDEs/Java/IntelliJ_IDEA/, /Programming/Editors_IDEs
  /Java/JBuilder/, /Programming/Editors_IDEs/Java/JBoss_IDE/ with / Programming/Editors_IDEs/Java/

New Features: Experts Exchange has pushed a new auto-closing system. Now, the simple act of posting a comment does not stop the automated process; it requires that you actually click an "Object" button if you do not agree with the request. For more information, read this issue's Tips From the Moderators, courtesy of PenguinMod.

New Geniuses: It's been a busy month for RobWill. Not only was his status as a Microsoft MVP renewed (see below), but he also managed to pick up two Genius certificates: one in Microsoft Networking and the other in Windows Server 2003. That brings his total to four; there are only four other members with more. Oh, and for good measure, he also went over 6,000,000 points overall.

capricorn1, who also had his MVP renewed, earned his third Genius certificate, in Access Forms, and went over the 10 million point mark overall; peter57r has earned his second Genius certificate, this one in Crystal Reports. First time Geniuses are jpaulino in Visual Basic and girionis in Java. And finally, we have to tip our hat to nobus, whose Genius certificate in Windows XP has removed him from the "highest ranking member without a Genius certficate" list; that honor now sits with SysExpert. Congratulations to all!

Milestones:

• angelIII has earned 23,000,000 points overall.
• zorvek reached the 9,000,000 point level.
• CEHJ has earned 8,000,000 points in the Java zone.
• SheharyaarSaahil went over the 8 million point mark.
• BlueDevilFan has reached the 4,000,000 point level in Outlook.
• hielo has earned 5,000,000 points overall. And somehow, we seem to have missed it, but so has KCTS, some time ago.

Microsoft MVPs: Microsoft has announced its most recent group of people added to its Most Valuable Professionals list. Among the Experts Exchange members who have received the award are:

• In Excel: rorya, zorvek, matthewspatrick, mvidas, byundt, jeverist
• In Visual Basic: Idle_Mind, emoreau, Chaosian
• In Access: LPurvis, capricorn1
• In Outlook: BlueDevilFan
• In PowerPoint: GlennaShaw
• In Word: JOrzech, Dreamboat, dlc110161
• In Windows: Fatal_Exception, sirbounty, garycase, LeeTutor
• In Exchange: Sembee, LeeDerbyshire, kieran_b
• In SQL: aneeshattingal, pinaldave
• In Management Infrastructure: lrmoore
• In Setup/Deployment: PeteLong, leew, RobWill
• In Small Business Server: TechSoEasy
• In Internet Information Services: meverest
• In Forefront: keith_alabaster
• In Directory Services: LauraEHunterMVP, Netman66, SystmProg, mkbean
• In Visual FoxPro: CarlWarner
• In Visual C++: gregoryyoung, dstanley9
• In Expression: coreybryant

Kudos:: Microsoft Dynamics is a relatively new zone, but that didn't stop AlvarezLouie, who spent a couple of weeks trying to solve his problem, from posting a question about emails not being sent. WilyGuy picked up the baton, and by the end of the afternoon had gotten emails flowing. AlvarezLouie's analysis: "After two weeks and finally coming deciding to use Experts Exchange the solution was finally discovered. The EE membership is truly worth it."

Cleanup Volunteers: Below is a table of all of the active CVs who have helped us close questions, with their cumulative total of questions closed along with their production through July 26.

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Netminder is one of the two site administrators at Experts Exchange.

I like coincidences. I like the notion that there is a randomness to the world; that while we can see order, action-reaction, and consequences in events, there is always the hidden flaw that nature sides with.

But a series of events, one that happened a couple of weeks ago, another that happened just last week, and a third due to happen in the next couple of weeks, have caused me to stop and ponder what, to all of us geeky-types, is called "lifecycle management".

The first event was that my father passed away at the age of 87. For the EE members that I know, and including the folks at the office who so generously and graciously (with the help of my co-conspirator Computer101) sent flowers to my mother, all of your kindnesses have been quite overwhelming.

My parents bought a couple of small weekly newspapers back in the early 1960s; I grew up, literally, with ink in my veings. During his time running the papers, we made the transition from hot lead type and sheetfed presses, to offset printing, to phototypesetting, to computers and laser printers, and were in the throes of going through a fifth change in technology -- trying to figure out how to make money in the news business on the Internet while developing the processes that would keep us from having to duplicate effort.

Each of those changes required that my father learn and adapt to a new set of rules and conditions; the life cycle of the sheet fed press and folder, the phototypesetters, and even pica poles came to an end. If there is anything he taught me, it was that the rules and conditions in life will always be changing, and that how one deals with those changes will go a long way towards determining whether you embrace life with the ferocity of a hungry shark, or retreat from it. Because of that, I've never been terribly bothered by what I don't know; learning new things and adapting to new circumstances is something I do pretty well.

My father mostly enjoyed his life (though the last few weeks probably weren't much fun) and didn't particularly like the idea of letting it go; he was a fighter. Thanks for the lessons, JP.

The second event was that, as noted below, Randy Pausch, the Carnegie-Mellon computer science professor whose contribution to the school's Final Lecture series -- given after he had been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer -- died last week at the age of 47.

If you have an hour or so, listen to the lecture, which became a huge hit on YouTube, and was the basis for a best-selling book. I had heard of it, but until last week, I had not bothered to listen to the lecture. The dignity and humor with which Pausch faces his fate is admirable and profoundly moving; we should all be so lucky to have such internal strength.

The third event that is looming is that I'm about to reach that age where people offer you discounts for ordering off the special menu or for eating earlier in the day. I don't think about it that much most of the time; I make sure that haircutters get the gray fringes, and then avoid looking at mirrors for more than a few seconds.

But all of these events have gotten me thinking about technologies, and how the increasing speed with which new technologies impact my life. As we get older, it seems to be more difficult to adapt to new things, or to figure them out to the degree necessary to take full advantage of them. I used to be able to open up the hood of a car and pretty easily do a tune-up; now I wouldn't even think of doing much more than change the oil, and I'm not sure that I'd feel entirely comfortable even doing that.

My cell phone does a lot of things, most of which I don't use (I'm not much of a game player unless it involves a ball). The iTouch I got at Christmas is a heck of a device; I got my email in Mexico and got an incredibly detailed route for getting from my home in central California to Ketchikan, Alaska. So far, I'm not all that worried.

But with double nickels staring me in the face -- that's a doozy. That's one of those things I never did get the chance to ask my father: How the heck did he do it?

This issue's Tip was written by PenguinMod. We take no responsibility for any abuse that might be heaped on him by his colleagues on the Moderator team.

A few months ago, EE implemented an automatic closure system so Askers could request to close or delete their questions without a moderator. Last week, EE made some significant changes to the system -- all for the better.

The highlight: Comments no longer stop an auto-close request. That's right, you can now comment without fearing reprimand {{from Vee_Mod}} or a glaring "New Feature Alert!" from a moderator {{alt: from modus_operandi}}.

In order to object to an auto-close request, you now have to enter a reason and click a separate Object button. This will generate a question in Community Support so us moderators can review it.

There are some smaller changes too, with more on the way. In the spirit of keeping our Community Support zone clean and tidy {{tell that to C101}}, Moderators can now also start auto-close requests of all varieties. And the wait time on all auto-close requests has been reduced from seven days to four, like Community Support requests and Cleanup recommendations.

So, to review how an asker can use the automatic closure system:

• To delete your own question. Click the "Delete Question" link. If there are no experts comments, the question is deleted. If there are experts in your question, you will need to provide a reason for requesting the deletion.
• To close your own question. If you solved your own question, you can choose to have your points refunded, or you can choose to reward experts as well. To refund your points, click "Accept as Solution" next to your own answer. Alternatively, you can "Accept and Award Points" -- which means your comment will be the Accepted Answer, but you can assign some or all of your points to Experts who assisted you in your question and possibly led you to your solution.

In either case, a notice is posted of your intent, and a notification is sent to all participants. If no one objects after four days, the request is automatically processed.

To review how an expert can use the automatic closure system:

• To comment. You can post a comment while an auto-close is underway. "I agree" and "I wish I had thought of that," {{which previously brought the wrath of Vee_Mod down upon you,}} are now perfectly valid. But, if you have a problem with the request, you should object.
• To object to the request. If you disagree with a request, simply enter a reason and click the Object button. This stops the auto-close and posts a question in Community Support to allow for moderator review.

This is one of EE's two core Community Support systems. The other is pretty useful too: if you ever need help from a moderator, or want to report something, you can click "Request Attention" and provide a reason, which will generate a Community Support request.

No, really -- this time we mean it: Microsoft says it's dropping its bid to acquire Yahoo -- which it did a few weeks ago before Carl Icahn decided to throw his curve at Yahoo. Icahn has won an agreement to get a seat on the board of directors -- good for him -- but if Microsoft walks away, Icahn could get stuck holding a ton of Yahoo stock that he can't unload at a profit. Of course, there's nothing that says that this was all part of the Icahn/Microsoft plan in the first place: get a seat on the board, make all kinds of noise that drives Yahoo boss Jerry Yang so nuts that he decides to sell... and Microsoft swoops in like some kind of savior. Whodathunkit?

Microsoft now says it's going to concentrate on Plan B: Beating Google utilizing its own system of returning relevant results called BrowseRank. Uhhh... is there a plan C?

Oh... and if you're checking your portfolio, both Yahoo (Microsoft's CFO called it a "declining asset") and Microsoft are down over the last month or so.

Send them the bug letter, 21st century style: Somehow, we can't see this as being an effective use of resources by candidates dependent on donations from supporters, but a California company has set up a website that allows people to send the communications directors of Presidential candidates a video message. Maybe it's just us, but we can't help but feel sorry for the intern that gets to see all of them. On the other hand, it might make for some new uploads to YouTube.

How to keep bloggers, investment analysts and true believers busy for weeks: First, have a better-than-expected quarter. Then have someone leak -- again -- that your CEO, biggest stockholder and chief visionary might or might not have cancer. Then have your CFO talk about "product transitions".

That's not Google's market cap, but it's close: Google announced last week that it has now indexed one trillion pages, including who knows how many ends of the Internet. In case you're curious, it all started here.

From the Bureau of Unintended Consequences: Trapster is a website that enables US drivers to find out, through a cell phone call or text message, where speed traps are, which will theoretically help you avoid a ticket for driving too fast.

A seven-letter, two-word combination of words meaning "we don't care about your copyright -- we have Microsoft's money behind us": Hasbro, the maker of Scrabble, has sued the company that has released an unauthorized version of the game on Facebook. Not to be snide or anything like that... but we can just see Hasbro's attorneys trying to get through to a decision-maker by telephone as they're routed through a call center.

In memoriam: Randy Pausch, whose final lecture became both a YouTube hit and a best-selling book, died last week. "Never underestimate the importance of having Fun. I'm dying and I'm having Fun. And I'm going to keep having fun every day, because there's no other way to play it."

Just begging for Jay Leno to say something: Microsoft people were wandering the streets of San Francisco last week, showing off their "new operating system: Mojave". The kicker: it's actually Vista, which, as any Californian knows, is what you see lots of when you stop in the middle of the Mojave desert. Unlike Vista, the Mojave is the hottest place in the continental US.

Speaking of which, Terry Childs, who developed San Francisco's networking file system, found himself held on $5 million bail when he locked administrators out of the system using a password-protected back door he built into it. What makes the whole affair so entertaining is that he did it so he could talk to the mayor about what idiots his bosses are. Now, we're not saying that the City has upgraded all its computers to use Vista... but we can just see all of the city's employees being met with repeated "Are you sure?" messages.

And here we thought it was just the turtles that didn't get it: Comcast is facing fines from the FCC for intentionally clogging the pipes of people who used file-sharing software. Comcast has decided to stop trying to defend the practice.

Notes from the shallow end of the gene pool: A few years back, jewelry-maker Tiffany & Co. sued eBay, saying that the auction company had a responsibility to ensure that counterfeit jewelry wasn't being sold through its systems. A couple of weeks ago, a federal judge ruled that eBay couldn't be forced to police listings because the burden of trademark violations is on the manufacturer -- not the seller. So, with the ink not even dry on that precedent, the software manufacturers are going to sue eBay over exactly the same issue. Who was it that said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting the results to be different?

I don't read a lot of blogs; I guess most of the ones I come across aren't really all that interesting. Now I have an even better reason for avoiding some of them. A report from Sophos says that the infection of websites by cybergangs has gone up threefold over last year, and a lot of it happens at blogs and social networking sites like Facebook and Blogspot.com, but even business sites that use Web 2.0 systems are susceptible. Also from Sophos -- although nobody I know is really surprised -- is the news that 96.5 per cent of all business email is spam, and that most of it comes from hijacked home computers.

A few weeks ago, I got an email that purported to be from UPS saying that they were unable to deliver the package I had sent a couple of weeks before, and the email had an attachment that, according to the email, was an invoice that I could use to pick up the package. Yeah, right -- but the problem was that I had sent packages to my son and grandson for their birthdays, so it did catch me a little off-guard. The subject line had a "Packet ID number" that didn't look anything like any UPS tracking number I have ever seen, the email was plain text, and it was signed "Your UPS", so it was obviously either just spam (no link though) or something worse. Then later that same day, my other half got an email that looked a lot more like it was from UPS that said

If you open the attachment, the virus replaces userinit.exe and possibly msconfig.exe. It then contacts servers that download a rootkit and malware (antivirusxp 2008/2009). The major antivirus companies have all issued definition updates for the virus, but just in case, it's not that difficult a fix:

1. Right click on My Computer and select Properties, then click on System Restore and turn it off. If you don't do this, you will be saving the virus.
2. Delete the email from the sent items, the Inbox, the Outbox and the Deleted Items, and anywhere else you can find it.
3. Delete every file (not the folders) from your "C:/Documents and Settings/[your username]/Local Settings/Temp" folder. It won't hurt to use something that does multiple passes when deleting, like Spybot's file shredder.
4. Reboot and run at least two cleanup scans with your antispy/malware/antivirus software, just to make sure.
5. When you're sure you've gotten rid of the virus, turn your System Restore back on.

Variations of the email have been reported, and it's gotten a lot of publicity in the news -- which, of course, will cause people to open the attachment because "nothing can happen to me".