Windows 7 Action Center misreports Security status

Lately I have been bothered by W7 Action Center Alerts...Action Center reports three Important Security issues upon login:

"Spyware and unwanted software protection (Important)
Windows Defender and Norton Security Suite both report that they are turned off."
"Virus protection (Important)
 Norton Security Suite reports that it is turned off."
Network firewall (Important)
Windows Firewall and Norton Security Suite both report that they are turned off."

However, when I open Norton Security Suite all components are reported as "Protected" indicating that they are on and functioning properly. I don't know the reason for this problem but I did find the following procedure on a Norton Forum and this fixed my problem:
==========================================

Sometimes, unregistering and re-registering WMIUTILS.DLL file will fix this issue.

1. Click the Start button, and then click All Programs > Accessories > Run.

2. In the Run dialog box, type the following text:

regsvr32 /u WMIUTILS.DLL

3. Click OK.

4. Restart the computer.

5. Click the Start button, and then click All Programs > Accessories > Run.

6. In the Run dialog box, type the following text:

regsvr32 WMIUTILS.DLL

7. Click OK.

8. Restart the computer.

=================================================

Accessing services only available in USA even when you are not in USA

There are some services you can only access when in USA. This can be a good way of circumventing that. I did not try it myself but will keep you all posted when I do. Check it: http://www.hidemyass.com/proxy/

Can Not Uninstall Java 7 Update 7 or Java 7 Update 9

With the latest security updates requiring me to install the latest Java I had to do some maintenance on my PC. I tried to use Windows 7 Uninstall to remove some older Java version from my systems but Java 7 Update 9, or Java 7 Update 7 would not go away....I am glad I found the following Microsoft Tool:
http://support.microsoft.com/mats/Program_Install_and_Uninstall  This did the job.

Netgear N900 N4500 is not same as N900 WNDR4500 but you can transform Netgear R4500 from Costco to WNDR4500 in order to get Firmware Updates - A Deal from Costco - not so fast!

I was doing some shopping at Costco and found a good deal for a Wireless Router that had what I needed (Dual Band, 2 USB Interfaces for Print and Storage Share, right price, etc.). It was a Netgear N900 with a model name of N4500. I went back home and found frustrated users that could not upgrade to the latest firmware and functionality due to the fact that model was a different model than the popular  WNDR4500.

I know that manufacturers create CostCo only models, probably to avoid lowest available price claims from those like Best Buy or Frys. But I thought that the firmware could be upgraded to the latest one available to WNDR4500 model. I was wrong, many users were complaining about that on Netgear Forums.  (see: http://forum1.netgear.com/showthread.php?t=77623 )

I am glad I found the posting below (Thank you Arthur and Melissa!) that helped me find out a solution, turning the Netgear N900 N4500 model into the WNDR4500 model. I did not try it yet, since I did not purchase it yet but need to do it soon since CostCo has a US$20 off until Dec. 2nd.

Clipped from "Arthur's and Melissa's Notes on Everything - Blog": http://arthurandmelissa.com/blog/blog/2012/09/28/netgear-n900-r4500-knockoff-edition/

Netgear N900 R4500 – Knockoff Edition

So you were strolling through your local Costco and picked up a Netgear N900 for a reasonable deal. You hooked it up, and things mostly worked, but a few things advertised on the box and mentioned in reviews aren’t working right. “No problem,” you say, “I’ll go update the firmware to get the latest bug fixes.” So you click the check for updates button and … nothing. Being an Internet savvy person, you already know that there absolutely is newer firmware for the N900 — you can see it right there on the Netgear website. You try updating the router manually — no good, the router says the file is invalid. Then it hits you: you bought the Costco knockoff edition with its own model number — R4500. The real N900 is the WNDR4500, which has firmware updates. The knockoff R4500? Not so much. Apparently, Costco customers must have missed the fine print somewhere that said “This product has bugs which will never be fixed. Shame on you for shopping at a discount retailer.”

Argh!

But wait! Netgear’s routers are Linux-based and are usually supported by open-source firmware, like Tomato. Well, almost. The open firmware guys haven’t worked out the kinks on the N900 or its siblings. What they have done is given you enough information to fix your R4500 by rewiring its brain to believe it is a real WNDR4500. After all, they should be the same hardware, right? There’s a discussion thread where one NetGear phone rep said they were identical, yet another said no, they aren’t at all the same product. (but they have the same marketing model number…)

Here’s what you do. This may void your warranty. This is where Costco’s return policy makes up for selling knockoff routers.

1. Download the latest WNDR4500 firmware from NetGear’s support site.
2. Grab the telnet console enabler here. I did this from a Linux box using the Python version.
3. From here on, use a wired connection to the router.
4. Use the telnet enabler to switch on remote access. Using the Python program, it works like this, substituting your router’s MAC address (and IP if you changed it):
   python telnetenable.py 192.168.1.1 84xxxxxxxxxx Gearguy Geardog
5. Log in to the router:
   telnet 192.168.1.1
6. You’re in! Now we change the router’s “board id” that sets which product it is, and therefore which firmware it will accept.
   burnboardid U12H189T00_NETGEAR
7. Restart the router (you can hit the button in the web interface or power cycle it).
8. After it is running again, upload the WNDR4500 firmware. Wait for the router to update and reboot itself.
9. Presto, the router should now identify itself as a WNDR4500.

If you want to undo this change, repeat this process using the original R4500 firmware and the old board id: U12H189T90_NETGEAR

Enjoy your new WNDR4500!

Tags: Netgear, router, wireless

This entry was posted on Friday, September 28th, 2012 at 10:31 pm by Arthur and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

By the way, I am just experimenting with Google Affiliate Ads. So if you are interested you can purchase a Netgear N900 router from some of the sponsors below:
 or 

Using a MacMini as Media Server

I have been considering this myself, but did not try it yet. Got this info from:  http://fyre.it/tqpE12
more specifically the comment posted by Check out powertobeyourbest's post!
Please let me know if you try that yourself

Here's my setup: MacMini i7 (8GB RAM, 128 GB SSD) quad-core running OSX Server running various sharing protocols (so no need to have high-end graphics there) and its low-profile design works great and a 'must' for my needs. It's also connected to various drives containing all my media (video formats include avi, flv, mov, mp4, 1080p mkv's, etc) not to mention my music and family photo library.
These are 'accessed' from any of our computers (both mac and windows) for personal use. To watch a movie our iPads also serve to 'navigate' our media library (using the AirVideo iPad app, and the free AirVideo 'server' app, yes running on the MacMini). Within AirVideo we chose which TV in our home we want to watch this on (each of our LCD/LED TVs at home is setup with an AppleTV, which also works great as a stand-alone media device for also watching Netflix or any of he other various built-in sources). Did I mention we can watch all of our home media while we're away from home? (via AirVideo).
I would suggest an AppleTV as your first option (low-cost media device), and for the gamers out there as was suggested earlier either an Xbox of PS3 (we have Xboxes however the kids use them strictly for gaming ;-)  
I guess it would depend on your media needs and where your 'media' sources will be coming from (if you don't have a media server like I do then the many online services like Netflix will work fine and all you'll ever need is a $99 AppleTV). Because I have years of personal media stored and collected (music, photos, tv and movies) a 'Server' is a must and the MacMini provides a perfect combination of this. Management of this server can be done using ssh, or my preferred Apple Remote Desktop. As for watching TV? we haven't watched 'live tv' in years (cant's stand to watch mindless commercials and ads and I would prefer to watch television shows on my schedule, not some networks - which is why the shows that I do watch are 'pre-recorded' by the online community and made available commercial-free in HD ;-)
ps. I access (listen) to my music from the iPad/iPhone/iPod app 'iSub' (or free 'Subsonic' app on my Android phone), and as for photos it's viewable from the iPad app 'ImageBank' (which you can AirPlay to any TV). These apps have their associated 'server' components which run on the MacMini.

Turning Off Logitech WebCAM LED

I was playing with the iCAM security software using a Logitech Webcam Orbit AF and I was amazed by how easy it is to set a WebCam connected to a pc as a Security Camera.
I was worried about what to do with the LED light that was always on, something that would easily gather the attention of a burglar breaking into my home. I am glad I found this link with information on how to turn it off:

 Clipped from: http://www.abelcam.com/forum/view_topic?topic_id=491

By: MelvinG
Rank : Magna Cum Laude
Topics : 642
From : Los Angeles, USA

Added: 05/18/2008 - 09:48 AM

Some 20 months later I have discovered at least a partial solution to kill the red LED. It requires a registry edit to accomplish.

This has been tested by me with Orbit MP and Orbit AF on WinXP using Logitech's 11.5 driver. I also tested on Win2K with various 10.x series drivers and it did NOT work. I think it's safe to say that in order to do this trick you need to be running driver 11.5 or higher, which also means you need to be running XP or Vista (in order to even install an 11.x series driver).

1) Shut down any/all software that is using your Orbit (Sphere) camera.

2) Unplug any/all Logitech cameras from your machine.

3) Run regedit, and navigate to this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{6BDD1FC6-810F-11D0-BEC7-08002BE2092F}

4) Beneath this key you will find several (exact number depending on your setup) sub-keys. They will have names like "0000" and "0001" and "0002", and so on. Each one belongs to a different USB device. By examining the values contained in these keys you can figure out which one belongs to your Orbit. The value "FriendlyName" will contain an English description of the device to which the key belongs.

In the event that more than one of the keys has "FriendlyName" set to something like "QuickCam Orbit AF" then you should look at the DriverVersion values in each key to determine which one is the newest.

5) Once you have identified which of the device keys is the right one, look beneath it for a sub-key named "Settings". In Settings you should see a bunch of values, most of which begin with "LVUVC_".

6a) For AF Cameras: In Settings, find the value called "LVUVC_LEDControl". It will probably be set to 4. Change it to 0.

6b) For MP Cameras: In Settings, create a new REG DWORD value called LVUVC_LEDControl and set it to 0.

7) Repeat 4-6 for each of your Orbit/Sphere cameras.

8) Close registry editor, plug cams back in.

That's it. Next time you start your cam(s) with AbelCam (or any other program for that matter) the LED will not come on.

You could experiment with other values besides 0 and 4. 4 is "auto mode", i.e. the LED is on whenever the cam is capturing video. 0 is "totally disabled". Other values do other stuff that didn't seem very useful to me (e.g. 2 causes LED to blink while capturing).

Some hidden Thunderbird Preferences to Controll Threading

clipped from: https://wiki.mozilla.org/MailNews:Message_Threading

I wish Thunderbird Threading behaviours was easier to set but it is not, you need to use below variables to do so...

All core threading logic currently lives in mailnews/db/msgdb/src/nsMsgDatabase.cpp. It is controlled by the following preferences:

• mail.thread_without_re : Thread by subject even when there is no "Re:" in the subject; default False in 3.0, used to be true in 2.0.
• mail.strict_threading : Don't thread by subject; default True for 3.0, used to be False in 2.0.
• mail.correct_threading : Thread things correctly (using References/In-Reply-To) regardless of the order in which messages are added to a folder; default false. Requires extra memory and some extra processing once a folder (nsMsgDatabase) has new messages added to it. If you turn this on, you really should turn on strict_threading too.

mail.thread_without_re

mail.thread_without_re (gThreadWithoutRe/ThreadBySubjectWithoutRe) defaults to False in Thunderbird 3.0, used to default to True in 2.0.

If mail.thread_without_re is True, the subject does not have to start with "Re:" (or variants or localized variants) for threading to occur. If it's false, it does have to start with "Re:"/variants.

mail.strict_threading

mail.strict_threading (gStrictThreading/UseStrictThreading) defaults to True in 3.0, used to be False in 2.0.

If mail.strict_threading is True, subject-threading is disabled entirely. Messages sent by clients that do not generate "References"/"In-Reply-To" headers (or responding to clients that do not generate "Message-ID" headers) will not be threaded.

If mail.strict_threading is False, then we will attempt to thread using the subject. Whether we require the subject to start with "Re:" (or variants) depends on the "mail.thread_without_re" setting.

mail.correct_threading

mail.correct_threading (gCorrectThreading/UseCorrectThreading) defaults to True in 3.0. Implemented by bug 181446, only available in 3.0 releases and later (never on the 2.0.0.x branch).

If mail.correct_threading is True, the references stored on every nsIMsgDBHdr are used to populate a hashtable mapping every Message-ID we have heard about for a thread to that thread's thread id. For example, if message D with Message-ID: D and thread id of 42 "References:" C, B, and A, the hashtable will map C, B, and A to 42.

Having this mapping allows us to do two things we could not otherwise do (as things are implemented...) in order to thread messages correctly regardless of the order in which they are added:

• Thread messages together with common, but missing (not in the folder), ancestors. Otherwise, they would end up in different threads.
• When we process one of those missing ancestors, detect it and properly add the message to the existing thread. (At least as long as there are less than 1000 messages in the thread.)

The hashtable is an in-memory-only structure, and is populated by processing all of the existing messages the first time access to the structure is required. This means that the overhead of traversing the messages and extra memory usage should only happen when adding new messages to an nsMsgDatabase.

nsParseMailbox.cpp sets the references via nsIMsgDBHdr::SetReferences using the "References" header as a first choice, and the "In-Reply-To" header as a second choice. (nsNNTPNewsgroupList.cpp and various compose pieces of functionality also call SetReferences, but they are not processing incoming e-mail.)