Recently in Fix-ups & Foul-ups Category

When it comes to browsing the web, I'm a firm believe in "Anything But Microsoft Internet Explorer (wherever possible)."

For the longest while, this meant using Opera.

Somewhat belatedly, I've moved over to Firefox as my browser-of-first-choice, with Opera at the ready -- not because Firefox is necessarily better (and even though my fingers still know more Opera keyboard commands), but because as someone who writes about this stuff, I try to use (some) mainstream tools.

And Firefox does have all sorts of nifty add-ons, extensions, and other features I've barely scratched the surface of.

Plus, Firefox works with ZoneAlarm ForceField, CheckPoint's "browser/email wrap-around" session protector, which works with MSIE, Firefox, even Netscape Navigator, MSN Explorer, and AOL... but not Opera.

To be fair, Opera may be secure enough to not need the ForceField's additional protection... but ForceField also offers a "no session data (cache, cookies, history and passwords) left behind" mode, which feels useful at times.

Anyway, so I'm using Firefox.

I'm one of these people that accumulates lots of open browser tabs as the day and week go on. Yeah, being a better bookmarker would make more sense. I can easily have twenty, thirty or more tabs, reflecting sites I'm currently using, or URLs I want to get around to checking out.

I've got Firefox Start set to "show windows and tabs from last time."

Inexplicably, this is not always working.

Even more inexplicably, sometimes Firefox will restart several times in a row with just my home page... and then, poof! there's my twenty-plus tabs.

This remember-and-forget-and-remember behavior continues across days, incremental Firefox version updates, with ZoneAlarm ForceField working or not... there is no apparent (to me) rhyme or reason.

I've taken to doing a Bookmark-All-Tabs every so often, to save things. Of course, it seems like Firefox sometimes loses track of my bookmarks when it does a version upgrade, or hides them for a few sessions. Bad browser!

Plus, Firefox's "warn me when closing multiple tabs" isn't working lately if I've only got one Firefox window open... although if I've more than one open, closing one Firefox window will. Just not the last window. Go figure.

I'm not about to abandon Firefox and go back to Opera, much less move to MSIE.

But I wish Firefox would go back to doing what it says it would do, and be consistent about it.

At the end of Jacques Futrelle's classic (and not just because it was written in 1905) mystery story, "The Problem of Cell 13," (read it online!) asked how he would have solved the problem if the plan he executed hadn't worked, Professor Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen (a.k.a. "The Thinking Machine" *) replied, "There were two other ways."

(* Which always makes me think of the line from the a classic parody, which I can't identify offhand although I think it was Robert L. Fish, '"Was it Wednesday?" asked the Thinking Machine, thinking he was a washing machine.')

That's often how I feel about tackling computer problems...although, far too often, there turns out to be no (good) way, or, sometimes, the problem resolves itself (mysteriously stops being a problem).

Case in point: The "afternoon of network heck" on Wednesday, July 10, when, abruptly, my Internet connection went wonky.

Suddenly, the browsers (FireFox, with Opera as backup, MSIE only when absolutely necessary) on my near-new XP Pro desktop weren't accessing the web. I had a Putty SSH session open, and it kept working, so it wasn't the connection proper...but foolishly, I closed Putty, and couldn't regain the connection.

And, apparently, it wasn't just me having the problem, as I discovered a little later.

I remembered that a little earlier, Zone Alarm had "detected it was on a new network"... given that my desktop has a wired connection to my router, that's a little odd. I tried checking Zone Alarm for odd signs, but didn't see anything amiss. (I may not have looked at the right stuff, however.)

Events like this are often, of course, the result of some change, but at the time, I couldn't think of anything that might have been.

So I began to try things, starting with the easy and obvious:

• A quick check of the TV confirmed that cable service per se was still on.
• Ditto blinky-lights on the cablemodem, so I hadn't inadvertantly tapped the STANDBY button (which disconnects things).
• Transient glitch? Rebooting the computer, and then the cablemodem and router, didn't help.
• Loose network connection somewhere? I removed and re-inserted everything in the path.
• Bad router jack? The box has fallen a few times. I tried the other router ports.
• Bad Ethernet cable to the computer? I tried another CAT5 Ethernet cable between router and desktop.
• Try another computer. The press-loaner Vista notebook could access the Internet, via my 802.11 WiFI. This was partial clue I didn't pay enough attention to.

Then it was time for some serious Plan B's. Since at this point there seemed to be WiFI Internet access, I went rooting around for a WiFI adapter for the desktop, but:

• And old Travel Access Point's "simple three-step instructions" sheet showed, in Step 3, cranking open a browser window to configure something... but didn't actually give the IP address. (And the manual, which I was able to grab via the notebook, wasn't much more help.)
• I found a USB WiFI Adapter -- but not the CD with the driver. And the vendor web site showed drivers for two models -- neither of which was the model I found. By the time I'd reached tech support and got the URL for the driver, I no longer had enough net access to get to it. (And, as it turned out, this wouldn't have helped.)
• In case the problem was my desktop's NIC card, I started to try a USB Ethernet adapter -- but although I had the driver CD, I remembered this was pre-XP enough that I was nervous. (I had another USB/Ethernet right in front of me, but didn't see it.

Now it was time to call Comcast, my broadband provider, in case they knew something I didn't. However, the wait-time was too long, so I decided to talk Grep (our dog) out for a walk. While out walking, I called one of my colleagues, Ernest Lilley, who said "If you're using Zone Alarm, crank its firewall setting down a notch or two."

Since I couldn't do that until I got back, I tried calling Comcast, my broadband provider again, while still out walking. Aha! A few menu choices down, the recording advised me there was a known problem with a new Microsoft update conflicting with Zone Alarm--uninstall the patch and then check the ZoneAlarm site for further advice." (This assumed that the un-install would resolve the immediate problem, of course.)

And, in fact, it did.

That let me get to the ZoneAlarm web site, where they acknowledge the issue and offered a little more advice. They initially put this on their main page:

Sudden loss of internet access - Microsoft Update KB951748 is known to cause loss of internet access for ZoneAlarm users. We recommend that users uninstall KB951748 using "Add or Remove Programs" until the issue is resolved.

And subsequently issued a Security Advisory, and a press release, which in turn pointed to the Security Advisory.

I conceded to Ernest that he was right enough in his solution -- although Zone Alarm feels that lowering the firewall security levels is somewhere between ungood and plusungood (to cop a phrase from George Orwell's 1984 reduced-vocabulary lexicon). But, as I pointed out, he hadn't actually identified the cause of the problem.

A few hours later, there were news stories confirming the problem, workarounds and solutions. By the next day, Thursday, July 10, Zone Alarm made updated versions available "which solve the loss of internet access problem," which should make it safe to allow Windows to (re) apply the patch. (I haven't yet done the Zone Alarm update, but I will.)

Solving Solutions

Let's gloss over the annoying fact that Microsoft's "Add/Remove Software" doesn't have any (obvious) way to sort updates based on when-applied, much less a separate "Update/patch manager" the way some applications seem to. The Add/Remove approach worked, at least for me.

Had it not, there were, as Professsor SFXvD noted, at least two other ways I can think of. One, use Microsoft's System Restore facility to revert to the most recent Restore Point. (Memo to self: Create a new Restore Point at least once a week. I try to do one before any software install, but even so.) This might sacrifice an install and/or config -- I _think_ that doing a Windows "Save State" would give me some way to re-recover. But it sure should undo that nasty update.

Two, since it was a system problem rather than a network problem: Have a bootable Linux CD, with whatever key utilities I might need. I don't know if this would be able to see my Windows NTFS file system (hard drives), worth finding this out when I'm not in a hurry.

Three, crank up my old IBM ThinkPad, which wouldn't have the dread update, since it's normally off, and therefore should work.

Four, dial-up. I've got a modem card in my desktop. I think I've got dial-up access through an account -- another Memo To Self, find a zero-maintenance-cost dial-up provider for backup.

Or do without connectivity for a while, or trot over to the library where there's Internet computers... if they're not already in use by fellow XP/Zone Alarm sufferers.

Or, of course, copy files to a USB stick and go to the library and use one of their computers.

(If I had a Blackberry or whatever, I could always use that for checking/sending email.)

("Get a Mac" or "Go Linux" don't count as solutions; for bad or worse, I'm working in Windows. I'm used to it, it ain't bad most of the time, and it's what most of my readers use.)

The challenge, of course, is which solutions to invest time making ready, and keeping solutions up to date.

Computers. Networks. Pfui.

Another memo to self: Check garment pockets for electronic devices before laundering.

You're probably not old enough to remember the classic Timex watch commercials where Timex wrist watches -- pre-digital -- were put through a variety of funky tests and "keep on ticking." (I'm not sure I'm old enough -- I have a feeling what I'm really remembering is Mad Magazine spoofs on the ads.)

Some -- but not all -- of today's electronic devices can hold up to this.

• My digital wrist watch has survived being worn in the shower and swimming pool. (I look for "water-resistant" when I buy them.)
• My first NEC MobilePro 780 (that two-pound computer I have in my oversized shirt pocket at trade shows) never fully recovered from my spilling a glass over water on it, several year ago... and a one-third-working keyboard really isn't enough. (Lesson learned: don't hold a drink, even water, and a computer at the same time.)
• Some new notebooks, like Panasonic ToughBooks, and HP's new 2133 Mini-Note PC, claim they can survive about half a cup of liquid being spilled on the keyboard.

After a large dollop of shampoo got spilled on a SanDisk Sansa C1 flash MP3 player, it stopped working. It "wakes up," but the controls don't work beyond that. (I haven't yet given up hope of resurrecting it, though.)

But, I'm happy to report, my little SanDisk Sansa radio/MP3 player has survived a cycle through the washing machine.