One of my machines runs Windows XP Home Edition. I have set it to automatically apply updates to the operating system from Microsoft.

I also have various security programs running including McAfee Antivirus and Webroot Spy Sweeper. Normally these co-exist with each other and the automatic Windows updates without too much conflict.

But on July 14th, Microsoft issued, and my machine automatically applied, a bunch of Windows updates. One in particular apparently involved implementing a BHO (Browser Helper Object) in Internet Explorer. BHO’s have legitimate purposes but they are also a known point of vulnerability for malware of various kinds. For this reason, anti-spyware tools such as Spy Sweeper have a shield that monitors for attempts to install BHO’s.

On July 14th, Spy Sweeper apparently blocked the implementation of the BHO that was part of the Windows updates. When the machine rebooted, I found that I could not reliably get a Windows Explorer window and I was totally unable to get Internet Explorer to work. I only found out that Spy Sweeper had blocked the BHO implementation by going back and looking at the Spy Sweeper log.

The lack of the Windows Explorer windows was the main problem. I primarily use Firefox for browsing although I still need IE in order to access some sites (such as windowsupdate.microsoft.com !!!

So the next question was… How do I get this problem resolved?

• Step 1 – Temporarily disable Webroot Spy Sweeper
• Step 2 – Revert to a Windows XP restore point prior to the July 14th Windows Updates
• Step 3 – Re-Apply the July 14th Windows Updates
• Step 4 – Re-enable Webroot Spy Sweeper

That seems to have got everything working properly.

This sort of thing is, unfortunately, one of the problems faced by all MS Windows users. We need all this security software (antispyware and antivirus, etc.) but we also need to have automated updates from Microsoft… And some of those updates may be mistaken by the security software for malicious attacks. One could wish that Microsoft would work with the security software vendors to try and ensure this doesn’t happen.

But, of course, Microsoft is gradually getting into the security business and we all know Microsoft does not “play nice” with competitors.

The short answer is we can help your with your web design and development needs regardless of far you are from our location (Salem, Massachusetts). Most of our customers are relatively local (i.e. within Massachusetts) but that is primarily a function of how we find each other.

The Internet and Web are great means of working at long distances and we have developed websites for customers as far away as Minnesota and we currently have customers in Maine and New York.

And even with local customers we have done web projects where we never met the client in person but communicated solely by email, telephone, and the web.

If you want support for your home or office computing environment then location is more of an issue. We can provide some assistance by phone but any serious troubleshooting or setup of your home or office systems will require an onsite visit.

In general, businesses (in the US at least) should use the .com extension. Non-profit or political organizations usually use the .org extentions. Not surprisingly, the .gov, .mil, and .edu extensions are restricted. If you really want a particular website name (e.g. reallycool.com) and the .com or .org versions are already taken then you might be able to register reallycool.info, reallycool.net, reallycool.us, or reallycool.biz. Or maybe you will have to settle for sortacool.com.

When the Internet was first created by the US Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) the only domain extensions were .gov (for US government sites), .edu (for educational institutions), and .mil (for US military sites). When the Internet was opened up to commercial and other users in the late 1980’s the .com (for commercial sites), .org (for organization sites), and .net (for network related sites) were created. Additional information on these and other “generic” domains can be found here. As the Internet and the World Wide Web has spread around the planet, the “non-generic” two letter country domain extensions were added. (For example, the BBC world news site is news.bbc.co.uk where UK stands for United Kingdom).

Domain registration was opened up to commercial competition several years ago. There are now dozens of commercial domain registrars in the US and other countries around the world. Unfortunately the quality, reliability, and pricing varies considerably among the various domain registrars. We normally use Dotster (www.dotster.com) and have found their cost and level of service to be quite good. A number of our customers use GoDaddy and we have found GoDaddy to be reliable and reasonably priced.

If you ask us to register your new domain, we would check to see if the name was available (i.e. no one else has previously registered it) and then we would arrange registration such that you and your organization are listed as the owner and ourselves as the technical contact. The registrar will typically charge around $15 per year and one can register for multiple years. The price may vary depending on what TLD (top level domain) you are registering. Examples of TLDs are .com, .org, .net, .info, .edu.