E-Musings Mon Immorata

Miracles Do Happen Busted hard drive is restored to full usability without any loss of data, plus new Opera 7.60, NVu web-authoring suite I'd like to thank all the readers who wrote in to sympathize with me for losing my hard drive without criticizing my lack of foresight in backing up. Regularly. Well, I have even better news this week. It's possible to recover data from a blown drive if you are willing to risk blowing the replacement drive as well. However before beginning the restoration attempt you need to ensure that the entire process takes place in the coldest, cleanest room possible. The low temperatures will ensure that any over heating components remains cool long enough for the data extraction process to be completed. The clean atmosphere helps reduce floating dust particles. If you have an air-conditioned room, seal all doors and windows the best you can. Then run the cooling unit for at least 4-5 hours before beginning the recovery process. You will also need a drive imaging software. A second computer and hard disk with enough free space to save the recovered data. And some experience with hard drive mechanics and electronics in general. In order to attempt a data restoration, my PC vendor sourced a second SATA drive. Then swapped the controller cards. It helped that the pre-crash noises indicated a faulty controller. They weren't the screeching, grinding sounds that indicate defective drive bearings. Or a drive motor-related problem. The drive was literally brought back to life and all data captured into a disk image using Symantec Ghost. Once done, the new controller was replaced back to its host drive. Following which the newly captured drive image was restored into this replacement drive. All that we now needed to do was to re-install the drive into the PC. And boot it up. There was no data corruption at all. And the computer restarted as if nothing had happened. Absolutely remarkable! I've been spending a lot of time this month looking at instant messaging applications. There are lots of developments on this front. Although is many instances its just an improved version of the mousetrap. In the absence of usable features. One messenger vendor has begun coping another. And so on. But to be fair there are several open-source or free-to-use messaging clients as well. Most unfortunately seems to have issues with Windows Server products. Of course, an ideal instant messaging solution is one that can not only connect to multiple services. But in today's increased stakes. Also support multiple identities on the same service. Imagine being able to separate your work contacts from your friends and family. So far you either had to manually segregate buddies into groups. Although I recently spotted (and applied) an MSN Messenger patcher to block ads and also allow me to login using separate identities. This remains a somewhat imperfect solution. Yahoo seems to spend lots of time making sure that you can't connect to, or use the Yahoo chat service with a non-Yahoo Messenger client. As a result I have almost completely discarded Trillian despite its excellent user interface. As it absolutely unable to connect to Yahoo. I am now testing out Gaim, an open-source IM client. That connects not only to MSN, Yahoo, AOL, ICQ and IRC. But also to Novell GroupWise, Napster, Zephyr, and Gadu-Gadu as well as my company's Jabber chat server. And I can make multiple simultaneous connections using different identities. And when you install Gaim, make sure to carefully review its preferences. Its ability to minimize to the System Tray is not a default setting. And let the software take its time to connect. A disadvantage with GTK is a lack of parallel processing. Until the first task is not completed. The second won't begin. And so on. While on IM, there's a brand new MSN Messenger 7 Beta under testing. This includes lots of new features including a 'nudge' similar to the Buzz feature available in Yahoo Messenger. However this early beta is very buggy. And officially is still not available for public release. And trashes existing MSN Messenger chat settings, including custom backgrounds and buddy lists. But like any interesting software products, Microsoft's restrictions have caused the illegal copies of the Beta to sprout all over the web. You can get lots more about the new Beta product, along with download links at Messenger News. Trend Micro Internet Security 2005 was released last week. This security suite that combines an antivirus with a firewall, spyware checker, and Trojan detector. Also includes a Windows vulnerabilities scanner. However this feature can be quite annoying. Especially if you've updated Windows prior to installing TIS. Which is then unable to track if a specific vulnerability has been resolved. My home computer is fully updated with all available patches. Yet TIS insists that the LSASS vulnerability exists. However, when I visit the Windows Update site, I can't download the update since it's already installed on the computer! Do remain alert for a lots of recently updated Windows Security issues spanning almost all version of Windows. More details are available here. There's also a new Opera 7.60 Preview 1 (Build 7141). Which you should, based on my experience, install as a fresh version. Not over an existing build. Like its 7.5 predecessor, the new version is can be used as a complete Internet suite with mail, news, RSS, IRC chat and the web browser. Or just the basic web browser. I highly recommend downloading a copy to self-evaluate what makes this browser host. There's also an updated NVu 0.5 Beta. This open-source web authoring system now includes improved rulers, with a colored source view. Preferences includes a Fonts panel. There's an inline spell checker. And the included Site Manager also supports renaming files and folders. NVu is available for both Linux and Windows. And finally all about Microsoft Time Zone. This free software display the current time in up to 5 separate time zones as a Windows System Tray pop-up balloon. Times are displayed as location, time (HH:MM:SS), date and day of the week format. You can also change your system time zone to one of your selections. And also add custom zones. Time Zones requires the .Net framework installed. That's it for this week. Stay Safe and don't forget regular data backups make for a stress-free environment! Click Here to Email Me