I had patched one employee's laptop with all nine updates and had given it back to the user. Later that afternoon, I received a phone call saying that the employee was unable to log into the laptop after many failed attempts. I inquired about the usual culprits - Num Lock and Caps Lock. I also made sure the password was being typed in correctly. Unfortunately, none of those things were the culprit. The employee ended up having to bring the laptop back to the office for closer evaluation of the problem.
Upon the laptop's arrival, my next course of action was to try to see if I could get into the laptop using the admin account. Strange thing - doing so was totally effortless and I logged in without a single hitch. Next, I logged back out and for whatever reason that seemed to fix the problem. Afterwards, the employee was able to log into his machine using his own account. So far, I haven't heard of any other employees experiencing any problems.
It turns out that it was a permissions problem related to the default Access Control list, according to Microsoft's advisory. Read the security advisory posted by Microsoft.
Hometown bargains
* The Dollar Tree, located in the Kroger Center in Danville, has a new shipment of various kinds of USB cables and also Cat5 network cables for only $1 each.
* At our local Big Lots, you can sometimes catch a shipment of 64MB-sized flash drives. They also have a great range of computer papers, desktop publishing supplies and media such as 3 1/2-inch floppies.
Net buzzz
* A legendary Norweigian hacker, Jon Lech Johansen, also known as DVD Jon, has moved to the U.S. Johansen was hired by MP3.com and Linspire founder Michael Robertson to work on a new project called Oboe for his MP3Tunes company. Johansen gained his legendary hacking title as a youngster of only 15 years old when he co-wrote a program to enable him to view DVDs on his own computer. Read more.
Free online courses
* CNET's Help.com is offering a "Plan Your Home Network " class beginning Monday through Nov. 18. This free course will teach you how to budget and purchase the hardware you need to create your own home network. You will learn how to decide between wired and wireless solutions, determine how your network will be used and how to address security problems. You will also learn how to create a diagram of your network and create a worksheet of your hardware and other needs of your network. Learn more or sign up.
E-mail me at sheila@amnews.com; fax me at (859) 236-9566; or write me snail-mail at The Advocate-Messenger, P.O. Box 149, Danville, KY 40423-0149.
