My buddy Dwight Silverman has a very nice list up of PC maintenance tasks that Americans can do over the four-day Thanksgiving holiday.

#3 is the most important one on the list, in my opinion. Back up your data! Given the low cost of DVD writers, USB flash drives, and portable hard disks, there’s really no excuse for not having a recent backup.

If you use Windows Vista, try the built-in backup solutions, which work very well. I particularly like the Complete PC Backup option in Vista Business and Ultimate. One of the first things I do when I get a new PC is to save a Complete PC Backup image of the system with all patches, drivers, and apps updated. If you do that using a DVD writer, it usually only takes two or three disks to save a copy that you can restore in the case of an emergency. You can read all about it in this entry from my 10 Top Vista Tweaks article last summer:

Set up a smart, automated backup system

After you read that introduction, you can follow along with the step-by-step instructions.

Enjoy the holiday, everyone.

Paul T. has a short comment on the Windows 7 beta schedule and how some publications – well, one in particular – just can’t seem to get their facts straight. Worth reading.

This one cracked me up:

For what it’s worth, this error is produced by clicking any button on the Live Writer gadget for the Vista sidebar. (It’s a third-party utility, not one issued by Microsoft.) I suspect the problem is related to the mismatch between running a 64-bit Sidebar.exe with 32-bit gadget code, and other people have reported it as well.

But still … hilarious.

Update: I just got a note from Scott Lovegrove, the author of the gadget in question. He fixed the bug, got it approved by Live Downloads, and has the fixed version ready for download now. Thanks, Scott!

Mac owners are beginning to discover the downside of becoming more popular:

Two pieces of malicious software affecting Apple’s Mac OS X appeared this week: a Trojan horse with the ability to download and install malicious code of an attacker’s choice, and a hacker tool for creating backdoors, according to security vendors.

The Trojan — called ‘OSX.RSPlug.D’ by Intego, the Mac security specialist that discovered the threat — is a variant on an older piece of malicious code but with a new installer, Intego said.

"It is a downloader, and it contacts a remote server to download the files it installs," Intego said in an advisory. "This means that, in the future, the downloader may be able to install payloads [other] than the one it currently installs."

In other respects the Trojan is similar to previous versions of RSPlug, which first surfaced in October 2007, Intego said. It installs a piece of malicious code known as DNSChanger, which routes the user’s internet traffic through a malicious DNS server, leading users to phishing websites or pages displaying advertisements.

Ironically, they’re able to use tricks that the Windows ecosystem had to learn to deal with years ago. Windows users were being assaulted by “poisoned” Windows Media files back in late 2004 and early 2005, and most malware today is installed by users who are tricked by social engineering techniques to run a program that does something unpleasant.

So what are Mac users seeing today?

The Trojan is found on porn websites posing as a codec needed to play video files, a technique used to trick the user into downloading and installing it.

The very first entry in the 10 immutable laws of security is this one: If a bad guy can persuade you to run his program on your computer, it’s not your computer anymore.

That’s true even if there’s an Apple logo on it.

I know a lot of people who are skipping Vista but considering Windows 7, on the theory that it will be a greatly improved product, sort of a Vista R2.

If that’s your strategy, you probably need to be aware that, at least in the current not-a-beta release, upgrades from XP to Win7 are blocked. (I don’t know whether this restriction will be in the final edition as well, but I bet it is.) You can do a clean install only, with all your old Windows files going to a Windows.old directory and none of your files and settings transferred (you can, however, use Windows Easy Transfer to save settings first and restore them later).

So the compatibility issues you’re ignoring right now aren’t going to go away. If you have apps or hardware drivers that only work on XP and aren’t compatible with Vista, you’re going to have those same issues with Windows 7, which isn’t going to magically fix anything.

If you’re using the PDC release of Windows 7 with an ATI display adapter, you might want to check out this preview driver package. I’ve installed it here on a system running a Radeon HD 2600 XT and it appears to be working fine.

I strongly recommend reading the release notes first. In particular, note that the AVIVO converter is disabled (which means you’ll get an error message after setup if you choose that option). Also, there are warnings about instability with “certain display configurations,” with a special note that Desktop Window Manager “will become disabled in high resolution and multi-display extended modes.”

It supports only the following GPUs:

• Radeon™ HD 4000 Series 
• Radeon™ HD 3000 Series  
• Radeon™ HD 2000 Series
• Mobility Radeon™ HD 4000 Series
• Mobility Radeon™ HD 3000 Series
• Mobility Radeon™ HD 2000 Series
• AMD 780G
• AMD 780V
• AMD 790GX

It runs only on Windows 7 (x86 or x64) and should not be installed on Vista.

If you’re still interested after reading the disclaimers, let me know how it works for you.

(via Aaron Tiensivu)

I just got this announcement from a Microsoft spokesperson:

Microsoft today announced plans for a new consumer security solution that will offer core malware protection at no additional charge to consumers. Code named “Morro,” this solution will be available in H2 2009 and will be specifically designed to address the demands created by smaller PC form factors, explosive PC growth in emerging markets, and rapid increases in the incidence of global malware. This new offering will focus on providing a core antimalware solution that helps protect against a range of threats including viruses, spyware, rootkits and Trojans.

As part of Microsoft’s strategy to offer a security solution that helps protect the broadest number of consumers possible, the company also announced it will discontinue retail sales of its Windows Live OneCare subscription service effective June 30, 2009. Microsoft will ensure all current customer remain protected through the life of their subscriptions.  This decision will help Microsoft focus on its goal of providing a trustworthy computing experience while removing cost and hardware barriers to quality PC protection.

Free antimalware protection? That sound you just heard was a shiver going down the collective spine of executives at McAfee, Symantec, and other antivirus companies.

The timing suggests that it could be available with the launch of Windows 7.

More details here.

Last week’s offer from Buy.com lasted only a few hours. But now HP is actually selling its EX470 entry-level Windows Home Server box for $399, which is $150 below what it cost just last week. As Alex Kuretz notes at MediaSmartServer.net:

Deals like this tend to appear to either be holiday sales, or perhaps stock clearance in preparation for Encore?

Encore is the codename for HP’s next-generation Windows Home Server product. I don’t have any additional information I can share about Encore, but I can say this current deal is a good one. Indeed, it looks like normal inventory clearance in preparation for a hardware refresh.

This point in any product’s life cycle is always an interesting one. If you’re the sort who experiences buyer’s remorse when you see a new version of a product you own, then you might want to skip this deal. But if you’re willing to live with the existing feature set and hardware design, this price is excellent.

(Thanks for the tip, Brian!)

The contract is signed, the outline is in place, and the authoring team has had its first weekly conference call for the next member of the Inside Out family. Now all we need is some software to write about.

This is the unsettled part of the book-writing process, as the software coalesces to a point where it’s solid enough to document and we learn enough about its inner workings to write with confidence. Given the design goals of Windows 7 (no major architectural changes from Vista), that should mean we have plenty of low-level stuff we can write about based on the pre-beta release we brought home from PDC. We’ll need to wait for the beta release, though, to begin documenting how the new Superbar and other fun features work.

We’re not exactly sure when Windows 7 will ship, which makes the product planning cycle for Windows 7 Inside Out a little, um, shall we say, interesting? One rumor that still hasn’t been debunked says an “internal calendar” at Microsoft lists June 3, 2009 as the release date. If that’s the case, we’ll have a very busy beginning for 2009!

I guess it’s good news that I can’t find a single Windows 7 book listed as “coming soon” at Amazon yet. Something tells me that our fellow book authors are playing the exact same waiting game we are.

My office is equipped with three uninterruptible power supplies. Each one can run its equipment load for 5-10 minutes in the event of a power failure. These little gizmos really come in handy when very brief power outages (just a few seconds, typically) occur. If the UPS is doing its job, you barely even notice, and you don’t have to restart any hardware or software.

Except when the battery backup itself doesn’t work. See, those UPS units run on batteries, which eventually fail and need to be replaced. It is much better to replace the battery before it goes dead than it is to discover that your UPS can’t perform its intended function.

Long story short, one of these batteries failed recently, and so to honor the occasion I’m going to replace the batteries in all three units. (They’re all roughly the same age, so if one fails, the others are likely to be close behind.)

These are Belkin F6C1000-TW-RK units. Although they list for $159, you can usually pick them up for under $120 (an Amazon.com partner has this model right now for $101.04). They’ve been very reliable through the years, and Belkin’s quality and support are excellent.

So who else has a UPS? Has it ever saved your bacon, or has it failed when you needed it?