Tech Talk at ShieldsGroup

Beyond keeping a good antivirus program current on your PC, there are other simple steps you can take to decrease the likelihood your computer will be damaged as you surf the internet.

Here are four:

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Last night while watching TV we all laughed at the MAC ad where the nerdy Windows guy is playing the blues.

After it aired, I said to Tim, “Do you have trouble with Vista?” Now, before you read his answer, understand he uses his PC hard. He’s just completed his sophomore year at Taylor University with a major in Computer Engineering. He pushes the machine hard.

His answer, “No.” That says it well. The ads are hype. The truth is short and sweet. Sure, Vista messes up sometimes. All computers do. Even DOS would crash if WordPerfect 4.2 tried to autosave at the same time you selected spell-checking. Even Linux has glitches (though it’s a very solid system). But would you call these “problems”? I didn’t when Win98 was causing my PC to perform illegal operations. Why would I be troubled now? Had problems with Vista? No.

Neither do I. In fact, Vista handles some things better than did XP Professional.

• Vista handles the two-dozen windows I open when I open Quickverse better than XP does.
• Vista handles document recovery better than XP did after a crash.
• Vista handles networking better in a public environment. I never worry about whether someone is looking at my shared folder when I am in a hotel or other place on wifi.
• The Vista presentation is superior as well. I love clicking the Windows Button (old start button) and typing what I am looking for.
• And I’ve never seen a core-dump in Vista.
• I’ve never seen the blue-screen of death in Vista.
• I’ve never seen the gray-screen of…. whatever that is when the MAC in my house won’t boot.

Still, people are believing the ads. They are sticking with XP like some dolts stuck with DOS in the early 90’s. And the MACS that these ads are selling…. Wow.

Truth in advertising. Don’t you believe it.

I can’t think of a better way to describe it than a “Ghost SSID.”

I am sitting in a conference center in Pittsburgh, and when I open my laptop, I see what appear to be several wireless networks available for connection. Free Public WIFI, hpsetup, and SUNY Geneseo. The guy sitting next to me tried to connect to each of these, but received limited — local access only. It’s not a real wireless access point — it’s an ad-hoc connection with a laptop, masquerading as Free Public WIFI. What’s up with that? Is that a virus?

Well, a little searching on Yahoo! brought the answer. It seems that under some conditions when Windows XP connects to a network, it remembers the SSID of that network and broadcasts it as an ad-hoc network. So someone in this conference center has recently connected to the State University of New York (SUNY) Geneseo wireless network. That laptop is broadcasting the SSID, SUNY Geneseo, as an ad-hoc network. It’s not a real network — it’s a ghost of a network past.

Is there a problem connecting to this? Maybe. I guess it might give the other PC user access to your shared files, depending on your system settings. More likely, it will simply reproduce itself on your system and you’ll begin broadcasting the SSID.

So I guess while it’s not a virus, it is indeed viral.