They put on a winter storm warning for midnight last night. Things sounded so scary that they cancelled a session of the state legislature in Concord. They predicted three to six inches. So far we got 3/4 of an inch and the snow has let up. The town snow plow went by once.
What they will do for a real snow storm?
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Zapped another one
The January version of Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool, (MWMSRT) helpfully downloaded by Windows Update, ran and detected a virus. MWMSRT called this fellow "Trojan:Dos/Alureon.E" which is probably Microsoft speak for "It's a Trojan Horse, it doesn't run under any flavor of Windows so we will call it a DOS virus and Alureon.E is it's name.
MWMSRT claimed to have winged it but not killed it dead. MWMSRT recommended I run a regulation anti-virus to get rid of it.
So I did. I have two anti virus programs and I ran them both. Then I reran MWMSRT to make sure Alureon.E was good and dead. No such luck. The slippery little rascal was still in my system.
Arrgh.
So I googled for him and turned up a lot of chit and chat. You have to be careful googling on viruses, cause all sorts of Internet slime will offer to fix it for you, just download their program. Avoid those.
There was no clear cut "how-to-kill" posting. There was a hint that Alureon.E hides out in a special 2 megabyte "disk partition".
So for Windows XP, open "Administrative Tools". On my machine "Start->Settings->ControlPanel" gets me there. On your machine it might be different.
Once inside Administrative Tools, click on "Computer Management". Inside Computer Management find "Storage" and under "Storage" click on "Disk Management".
Look at the "Volumes". There ought to be a big one with a name containing "C:" and perhaps second one with a name that corresponds to a disk drive that you recognize from Explorer.
Those are good guys.
The bad guy is a partition with no name and 2 megabyte size. That's where Alureon.E lurks.
Right click on him and delete him.
Presto, Alureon.E is toast and MWMSRT will run clean.
MWMSRT claimed to have winged it but not killed it dead. MWMSRT recommended I run a regulation anti-virus to get rid of it.
So I did. I have two anti virus programs and I ran them both. Then I reran MWMSRT to make sure Alureon.E was good and dead. No such luck. The slippery little rascal was still in my system.
Arrgh.
So I googled for him and turned up a lot of chit and chat. You have to be careful googling on viruses, cause all sorts of Internet slime will offer to fix it for you, just download their program. Avoid those.
There was no clear cut "how-to-kill" posting. There was a hint that Alureon.E hides out in a special 2 megabyte "disk partition".
So for Windows XP, open "Administrative Tools". On my machine "Start->Settings->ControlPanel" gets me there. On your machine it might be different.
Once inside Administrative Tools, click on "Computer Management". Inside Computer Management find "Storage" and under "Storage" click on "Disk Management".
Look at the "Volumes". There ought to be a big one with a name containing "C:" and perhaps second one with a name that corresponds to a disk drive that you recognize from Explorer.
Those are good guys.
The bad guy is a partition with no name and 2 megabyte size. That's where Alureon.E lurks.
Right click on him and delete him.
Presto, Alureon.E is toast and MWMSRT will run clean.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Continental Airlines scores again
The Wall St journal had a front page story about transatlantic airliners making emergency fuel stops at strange locations like Goose Bay Labrador and Iceland. Turns out a certain cheap ass airline has been flying 4100 mile range 757's on transatlantic runs of 3900 miles. Leaving just a few hundred miles of reserve range in the tanks. When the winds are against them, they run out of jet fuel and have to make unscheduled stops in the boondocks. Making the flight VERY late and causing passengers to miss what ever connections they had booked.
In USAF mission planning we were supposed to have enough fuel on board to divert to another airport should the weather get bad at the airport you planned on. Sounds like the airlines are no longer bothering.
And guess which airline is inflicting this inconvenience upon long suffering passengers. My old favorite, Continental. Good thing I have avoided flying Continental for the last 40 years.
Incidentally, you also want to avoid Air-Trans. They are prone to canceling flights for the convenience of the airline. Leaving passengers stuck in the middle of nowhere.
In USAF mission planning we were supposed to have enough fuel on board to divert to another airport should the weather get bad at the airport you planned on. Sounds like the airlines are no longer bothering.
And guess which airline is inflicting this inconvenience upon long suffering passengers. My old favorite, Continental. Good thing I have avoided flying Continental for the last 40 years.
Incidentally, you also want to avoid Air-Trans. They are prone to canceling flights for the convenience of the airline. Leaving passengers stuck in the middle of nowhere.
The need for numbers
There's been a bit of talk about the defense budget. Obama and Panetta have been on TV talking about how great our armed forces are. But they gave no numbers.
We ought to know how many regular combat troops we will have. There was a time (WWII) when we had ten million men under arms. That's probably more than we need in the 21st century. But it does seem prudent to have enough regular troops to do down a third world pest hole like Iran or North Korea. Say 140,000, which is what we had in Iraq at one point. When doing the counting, we ought to count regulars separately from reserves. And we only want to count real combat arms, infantry, tankers, gunners, and combat engineers. Public affairs officers, contract administrators, motor pool, logistics, POL, finance, base housing, and MP's are not combat soldiers.
In the case of the Navy and Air Force, the numbers that matter are the number of operational warships and aircraft. Don't count rustbuckets in mothballs or antique aircraft parked at the Davis Monthan boneyard.
There is probably some fat to be trimmed out of the defense department. Parkinson (of Parkinson's law fame) once observed that the Royal Navy back in WWI had a large number of ships and a small number of clerks. By 1960 the navy had half the number of ships and ten times the number of clerks compared to 1914. That's an example of cuttable fat.
Then there is military procurement, so beloved of Congressmen. We could start by burning the 100,000 pages of procurement regulations that just add cost and slow deliveries. Insist that the services go out for competitive bids on EVERYTHING. Don't accept excuses that there isn't time for bidding. Accept bids from close allies like Canada and Britain.
Knock off the gold plate. Buy Jeeps for $22k instead of Hummers for $60K. Buy off-the-shelf equipment rather than design special stuff at extra cost.
We ought to know how many regular combat troops we will have. There was a time (WWII) when we had ten million men under arms. That's probably more than we need in the 21st century. But it does seem prudent to have enough regular troops to do down a third world pest hole like Iran or North Korea. Say 140,000, which is what we had in Iraq at one point. When doing the counting, we ought to count regulars separately from reserves. And we only want to count real combat arms, infantry, tankers, gunners, and combat engineers. Public affairs officers, contract administrators, motor pool, logistics, POL, finance, base housing, and MP's are not combat soldiers.
In the case of the Navy and Air Force, the numbers that matter are the number of operational warships and aircraft. Don't count rustbuckets in mothballs or antique aircraft parked at the Davis Monthan boneyard.
There is probably some fat to be trimmed out of the defense department. Parkinson (of Parkinson's law fame) once observed that the Royal Navy back in WWI had a large number of ships and a small number of clerks. By 1960 the navy had half the number of ships and ten times the number of clerks compared to 1914. That's an example of cuttable fat.
Then there is military procurement, so beloved of Congressmen. We could start by burning the 100,000 pages of procurement regulations that just add cost and slow deliveries. Insist that the services go out for competitive bids on EVERYTHING. Don't accept excuses that there isn't time for bidding. Accept bids from close allies like Canada and Britain.
Knock off the gold plate. Buy Jeeps for $22k instead of Hummers for $60K. Buy off-the-shelf equipment rather than design special stuff at extra cost.
So what does it all mean? NH Primary that is
Well, it certainly puts more air into Romney's balloon. And that's a good thing. So says Captain Obvious.
Just as good, it takes a lot of air out of Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich. Both of whom would IMHO be disastrous GOP candidates, easily beaten by Obama.
Too bad Ron Paul is still flying fairly high. The TV pundits all dismiss Paul saying "he could never get the nomination." I hope they are right, but I don't see what makes the pundits so sure. This is a democracy, votes are votes, and Paul has a goodly number of them. He sure has a lot of yard signs out up here.
The opposition started whacking Romney about his days at Bain Capital. Bain is venture capital/private equity and their business was investing in shaky companies hoping to turn a flake into a winner. Sometimes Bain won it's bets and sometimes it lost them. Romney should be saying something like, "At Bain we financed this winner and that winner and this other winner and today they are all in business, employing this many people, people who would be out looking for work if we hadn't financed the company that employs them today. Sure we had some losers that didn't work out, but our winners employ far more people than the losers laid off. "
Just as good, it takes a lot of air out of Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich. Both of whom would IMHO be disastrous GOP candidates, easily beaten by Obama.
Too bad Ron Paul is still flying fairly high. The TV pundits all dismiss Paul saying "he could never get the nomination." I hope they are right, but I don't see what makes the pundits so sure. This is a democracy, votes are votes, and Paul has a goodly number of them. He sure has a lot of yard signs out up here.
The opposition started whacking Romney about his days at Bain Capital. Bain is venture capital/private equity and their business was investing in shaky companies hoping to turn a flake into a winner. Sometimes Bain won it's bets and sometimes it lost them. Romney should be saying something like, "At Bain we financed this winner and that winner and this other winner and today they are all in business, employing this many people, people who would be out looking for work if we hadn't financed the company that employs them today. Sure we had some losers that didn't work out, but our winners employ far more people than the losers laid off. "
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
The NH primary day finally arrives
So I got up and rolled down three mile hill to vote. Town Hall was open for business, polls open. I faced 30 choices for Republican president, most of whom I had never heard of. Chatted with a number of friends and acquaintances about the surprising lack of poll watchers. There was nobody out in front waving signs for any candidate. Possibly the so-so weather (30 degrees and threatening snow) drove them off, or perhaps the great excitement with this primary exists mostly in the minds of the newsies. Or perhaps we voters aren't really very fond of any candidate, certainly not fond enough to stand out in the cold all day.
Monday, January 9, 2012
Fix for Microsoft and/or Windows update.
If Windows or Microsoft update stops working, it may be that wuaueng.dll has been "deactivated".
You can "re activate" same by typing this command into the Run window on the Start menu:
You can "re activate" same by typing this command into the Run window on the Start menu:
%SYSTEMROOT%\SYSTEM32\REGSVR32.EXE %SYSTEMROOT%\SYSTEM32\WUAUENG.DLL
It works for me. I found this gem on the Microsoft Web site here:
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_other-windows_update/windows-update-error-number0x80070424/95998d7e-9e38-4599-a6cd-fd201447fa92
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)