Alexander’s Blog

The Seattle Time reports:

“A notorious spammer once sued by Microsoft was arrested in Seattle this morning, a week after a federal grand jury indicted him under seal for allegedly illegal — and prolific — spamming. Robert Alan Soloway, 27, is scheduled to be arraigned this afternoon in U.S. District Court on 35 counts of mail and wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, money laundering and fraud in connection with electronic mail. The indictment was unsealed after Soloway’s arrest just before 8 a.m.” The Seattle Times.

This guy was sued by Microsoft in 2005 because he allegedly sent e-mails that appeared to come from Hotmail and MSN. The e-mails were sent under his company Newport Internet Marketing. Soloway also had a $10 million judgment against him when a businessman from Oklahoma sued him in 2005 under the federal CAN-SPAM act.

Feds are saying that you may find less spam on your computer since his arrest. If there were a top 10 list for America’s Most Wanted spammers, this guy would have been on the list. I am not too sure if his arrest would make such a significant reduction in spam. In July 2005, Christopher Smith of Minnesota, one of the world’s most prolific spammer was arrested on his arrival in United States from Dominican Republic. He moved around his operation to China, Malaysia, and other countries. It doesn’t seem that his arrest put any major dent in the spam business. Unfortunately, there are way too many spammers around. And the fight goes on…

Let’s say you are browsing the Internet and wanted to quickly calculate some numbers. Use the Google’s built-in calculator to crunch the numbers. Although you can use Internet Explorer, I prefer to use Mozilla’s Firefox as my browser. Firefox seems to be much more optimized for Google search engine, compared to Internet Explorer.

Assuming your Firefox is configured to use Google as the default search engine, simply type in the mathematical expression. For example, if you type 175.5*2 in the search box in the upper right hand side, you will see the result 351. You don’t even need to hit the ENTER key.

Of course, you can always hit the ENTER key to see the results. Besides doing simple multiplications and additions, you can also do more complex calculations. You can do square roots by typing sqrt followed by the number, e.g. sqrt25, to get the square root of 25. Here are some additional examples. Type the letters on the left and you will get the results on the right.

1. one gallon in liters —–> = 3.7854118 liters
2. half a cup in teaspoons —–> = 24 US teaspoons
3. 30 miles in kilometers —–> = 48.28032 kilometers

Besides a calculator, you can also use Google for quick access to a lot of other information. Here are some examples:

1. Check your flight status (airline followed by flight number)
2. Dictionary (type in the word)
3. Telephone directory (type in number without hyphens, spaces, or periods)
4. Track Fed-Ex or UPS packages (type in the tracking number)
5. Find patent numbers (type the word patent followed by the number, e.g. patent 123456789)
6. Check out stock quotes (type the symbol, e.g. msft)
7. Lookup maps (type the address)
8. Checkout weather forecasts (type the word weather followed by the name of the U.S. city), e.g. weather seattle



NOTE: I didn’t use Adobe Photoshop to make the Seattle’s weather so sunny. It just happens to be one of those rare sunny weeks in Seattle.

On May 8, 2007 I posted this challenge to select four radio buttons simultaneously on a Windows Server 2003 computer.

Here is the answer to the challenge :).

1. Create a Universal Distribution group, e.g. Test. Make sure it has an e-mail address, if not type one, e.g. billg@example.com.
2. Double-click the group you just created.
3. Delete (or shift-delete because you will need to paste it back again later) the e-mail address and then click Apply. You will see both Global and Universal buttons selected under Group scope.
4. Click on Security under Group type and then click Apply. At this point you will have both Global and Universal selected under Group scope and Security selected under Group type.
5. Type in (or paste) the e-mail address back again and then click Apply.
6. What you get is all four radio buttons selected at the same time.

Once you close the window and go back in again, fortunately you’ll see the last options that you selected, rather than the multiple selections.

I haven’t tested this on every combination or version of the server but I am able to duplicate this process repeatedly with the same results on:

1. Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition with SP1
2. Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise (64-bit) with SP2 and all the latest patches

On May 10, I discussed a problem with opening Internet Explorer. Microsoft has posted a KB article that discusses the possible solution. Microsoft has confirmed that the problem is caused by the May 2007 Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer (MS07-027), as reported by several MVPs.

Problem: The problem is caused if you have the Temporary Internet Files (TIF) moved to a location outside the Users folder hierarchy while you have the Protected Mode and the Phishing filter enabled.

Solution: The solution is either to move the TIF back to its original location or to configure permissions for TIF folder as described below. If you move TIF folder out of Users folder hierarchy, e.g. to the root of drive C, then you would have to give the user full-control permission at the root of drive C, which may not be a good idea. For security reasons, a better option is to move the TIF folder back to it’s original location within the user’s profile while Microsoft investigates other possible solutions for this issue.

The following procedure is for modifying permission on Windows Vista computers. Make sure you understand the consequences of this procedure before you implement it.

1. Click Start Start button, type Internet Options in the Start Search box, and then click Internet Options in the Programs list.
2. On the General tab, click Settings in the Browsing History area.
3. Click View Files. The “Temporary Internet Files” folder opens.
4. In the Windows Explorer address box, click the folder name that comes before Temporary Internet Files.
5. Click Organize, and then click Properties.
6. On the Security tab, click Edit.
7. In the Group or user names box, click the name of the affected user. If the name of the affected user is not listed, follow these steps:

a. Click Add.
b. In the Enter the object names to select box, type the name of the affected user, and then click OK.
c. In the Group or user names box, click the name of the affected user.

8. In the Permissions for User_Name box, click to select the Full Control Allow check box.
9. Click Apply, and then click OK.
10. Close Windows Explorer.
11. Click OK two times.
12. Start Internet Explorer 7.

On a Windows XP-based computer or on a Windows Server 2003-based computer, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type inetcpl.cpl, and then click OK.
2. On the General tab, click Settings in the Browsing History area.
3. Click View Files.
4. In Windows Explorer, move to the folder that contains the “Temporary Internet Files” folder.
5. In the right-pane, right-click an empty area, and then click Properties.
6. On the Security tab, click the name of the affected user in the Group or user names box. If the name of the affected user is not listed, follow these steps:
a. Click Add.
b. In the Enter the object names to select box, type the name of the affected user, and then click OK.
c. In the Group or user names box, click the name of the affected user.
7. In the Permissions for User_Name box, click to select the Full Control Allow check box.
8. Click Apply, and then click OK.
9. Close Windows Explorer.
10. Click OK two times.
11. Start Internet Explorer 7.

For more information, check out the KB article 937409.

Microsoft has announced that the next version of Windows server, currently referred to by its code name “Longhorn” will be named Windows Server 2008. Check out this humorous video on how Microsoft got to this name.