Autorun locations

Alan Sugano writes an article on checking a server for the Backdoor.Beasty Virus and details checking various autorun locations in the registry – the last one I wouldn’t have checked (and neither did he first time round).
HKLM\SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Run
HKCU\Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Run
If the machine is running Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, Win2K, or Windows NT, you should also check
HKLM\SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Policies\ Explorer\ Run

Sus Updater

A useful utility that can be used in conjunction with Microsoft Systems Update Server. If you have a pc that needs installing (or patching) but isn’t normally on the lan, then this utility forces the client to update against a named sus server, apply the patches and then on reboot sets it back to use Microsoft’s servers. Excellent for patching friends pc’s or remote worker pc’s who are not normally on the lan and are WAY out of date.

Comment Spammers plugin.

I’ve installed James Seng’s Bayesian filter for MT on this blog and laboriously went through all my comments and marked them as not spam. (A button to mark ALL comments as spam or not spam would be nice for first installations. Most people have probably already cleaned out their comments from spammers when they install something like this). Now it reckons that all my comments are 50% likely to be spammers and 50% unlikely to be spam. Will be interesting to see if this changes over time!

Pumpkins!

Well it’s taken me a year (as I wanted to carve one last year) but for the first time ever, I’ve carved a pumpkin! Kristen was on hand to give out advice and laughs about how slow I was going – she’d practically finished her cat before I had finished. Pictures, in order are online at the Coppermine Pumpkin Gallery. Thanks to Byroads magazine for the skull pattern. I was going to do the cat but this looked far too complicated.