ProFox February 2016

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80 discussions

Re: [NF] FTDI disables devices with counterfeit chips
by Ken Dibble 05 Feb '16

05 Feb '16

>People who just want to get email or browse > > the web should use a phone or a tablet that can't do anything > else, or screw > > up anything else. Etc... > >The industry's solution to that is to create locked down devices where >they control the firmware and you can't tamper with it (settop boxes, >"intelligent" thermostats, cell phones). Exactly. > Of course, this assumes that >*THOSE* people are any better at shipping and maintaining bug-free >software than the rest of us. How much do they really care when people throw those devices away within a year and get new ones? >If, as a business owner > > or administrator, you put a general purpose computer into the hands of an > > employee, then you have a basic responsibility to know how to > protect it and > > maintain it, or to hire, or contract with, someone who does. > >I'd distinguish between small, medium and large-scale businesses. >Smallest of businesses usually have "computer guy" on speed-dial and >leave the machines to fend for themselves. Medium (where "computer >guy" or "girl" is in-house) can think about role-based security and >implementing login policies and locking down desktops and managing >vendor updates. Large-scale businesses (with an IT department) ought >to do the things you suggest. The problem I see is that the vast >majority of computers are in the SMB world. Different people have different definitions. My not-for-profit agency has about 140 desktop and laptop computers, 10 servers, and a small number of iPads. The payroll is over 500 people, and the agency annual budget is about $12 million. In the not-for-profit world that makes us a "medium-sized" business. In the corporate world that's a small business, and in MS's eyes we aren't even out of the "Mom and Pop" category. Still, we have an "IT department": though it consists of 3 people, none of whom work full-time on IT. It's about a 1.67 FTE. It's not impossible. People need to be educated to do it. People need to stop buying into, or promoting, the notion of "do it yourself" general purpose computing. It was never appropriate for anyone but computer geeks. It's a failed concept in the larger realm. >An awful lot of the dBASE programmers I knew back in the day, started >out as the guy who was willing to try to change the printer ribbon, >then it was a batch file, hex codes for the printer to print 132 >column, spreadsheet macros and before you know it, client-server over >the WAN in four languages :) Yeah. But I'm old now. So get off my *%@^@ lawn. Ken

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[NF] FTDI disables devices with counterfeit chips
by Ted Roche 04 Feb '16

04 Feb '16

http://www.techrepublic.com/article/ftdi-uses-windows-update-to-disable-dev… So you buy a USB-to-Serial device at the local big box, or your favorite mail-order firm, get it running some essential device, and a Windows Update zaps the device to uselessness. How would you feel about the vendor? How do you feel about the vendor that (perhaps inadvertently) used a counterfeit chip in their device? How about the OS vendor who shipped a "driver update" that broke the device? -- Ted Roche Ted Roche & Associates, LLC http://www.tedroche.com

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Re: [NF] FTDI disables devices with counterfeit chips
by Ken Dibble 04 Feb '16

04 Feb '16

>http://www.techrepublic.com/article/ftdi-uses-windows-update-to-disable-dev… > >So you buy a USB-to-Serial device at the local big box, or your >favorite mail-order firm, get it running some essential device, and a >Windows Update zaps the device to uselessness. How would you feel >about the vendor? How do you feel about the vendor that (perhaps >inadvertently) used a counterfeit chip in their device? How about the >OS vendor who shipped a "driver update" that broke the device? I'll tell you how I feel about it: NEVER NEVER NEVER get a driver update from MS. Get it from the company that made the device. And don't "update" drivers that are working. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And, finally: Windows Automatic Updates: Just Say No. (tm) (Even if you have to hack the registry, or unplug the damn network cable before you boot up.) Ken Dibble www.stic-cil.org

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Why won't the font selection hold in this form I'm editing?
by mbsoftwaresolutions＠mbsoftwaresolutions.com 03 Feb '16

03 Feb '16

VFP9SP2+ I've got a form that insists on the Fox default font (Courier 10pt?), regardless of the fact that I've right-clicked in a method, chose Source Code Pro 14pt (btw, thanks Ted Roche for turning me onto that font years ago), and saved it. This usually works (whereby it sticks/saves and opens up in the Source Code Pro 14pt thereafter), but not this form. Very odd. Ideas? (I find as I get older, I prefer the larger fonts...lol) Thanks, --Mike

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Table excluded from EXE (in same folder) versus table INCLUDING in EXE
by mbsoftwaresolutions＠mbsoftwaresolutions.com 03 Feb '16

03 Feb '16

I know somebody's got the quick answer based on their experience: if I have a table named Test.dbf which is INCLUDED in the EXE, ship that to the client, and they have a table in the same folder also called Test.dbf.....which one gets read and which is ignored? I'm thinking the INCLUDED table gets read. That's what I'm hoping anyway. If I don't hear from folks by tonight, I'll create a test at home to find out for sure. tia, --Mike

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Re: [NF] security tips from a hacking pro
by Gene Wirchenko 02 Feb '16

02 Feb '16

At 09:14 2016-01-31, Ted Roche <tedroche(a)gmail.com> wrote: [snip] >can get a lot of the way there. There was a remarkable post last week >on stealing a person's identity via Amazon... >https://medium.com/@espringe/amazon-s-customer-service-backdoor-be375b3428c… Thank you for posting this, Ted. I have submitted it to the RISKS List. [snip] Sincerely, Gene Wirchenko

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VFP Colours in Development mode..
by Dave Crozier 02 Feb '16

02 Feb '16

Gentlemen, Just had an observation by one of our users about the "wish wash" colous used in grids to highlight the current row. In development mode these are fine as I specify row highlichting with visual persistence and rcb(0,0,255) as the highlightbackcolor for the grid and a white forecolour so it stands out really well as dark blue background with white writing. No problem there... However, when the program is compiled up into an exe the row highlighting appears a s really light blus back colour with white writing which is almost indistinguishable due to lack of contrast. Has anyone else come across this phaenomena? In al my years I have never noticed it but it has obviously happened. Luckily all the grids we use are subclassed so I can change the look accordingly but the same thing happens when I specify green as the highlight back colour. I appreciate that certain monitors give different "colour hues" but I am running the dev program and the compiled program on the same monitor and still get the different colours... weird! Any ideas? A somewhat confused Dave

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Jeff Johnson
by Fred Taylor 01 Feb '16

01 Feb '16

It's with deep sorrow I report that Jeff Johnson passed away this past Tuesday. He will be truly missed. Fred <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campai…> This email has been sent from a virus-free computer protected by Avast. www.avast.com <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campai…> <#DDB4FAA8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2> --- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts --- multipart/alternative text/plain (text body -- kept) text/html ---

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[NF] M$ annoys people?
by Stephen Russell 01 Feb '16

01 Feb '16

For your entertainment. http://www.winbeta.org/news/microsoft-is-annoying-its-most-loyal-customers-… -- Stephen Russell Sr. Analyst Ring Container Technology Oakland TN 901.246-0159 cell --- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts --- multipart/alternative text/plain (text body -- kept) text/html ---

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ProFox List Statistics for January 2016
by List Administrator Account 01 Feb '16

01 Feb '16

================================================== ProFox List Statistics January 2016 ================================================== Subscriber Count at End of Month: ProFox: 283 ProFoxTech: 187 ================================================== Total Posts: 345 (Up 14.24% from December 2015) Total [OT] Posts: 0 (Down 100.0% from December 2015) Total [NF] Posts: 134 (Up 152.83% from December 2015) Daily Message Counts for January 2016 ------------------------------------------------ DOW Date Count --- ---- ----- F 1 - 6 S 2 - 2 S 3 - 1 M 4 - 12 T 5 - 13 W 6 - 10 T 7 - 28 F 8 - 12 S 9 - 4 S 10 - 3 M 11 - 9 T 12 - 11 W 13 - 3 M 18 - 23 T 19 - 19 W 20 - 13 T 21 - 28 F 22 - 14 S 23 - 1 M 25 - 6 T 26 - 3 W 27 - 29 T 28 - 32 F 29 - 45 S 30 - 13 S 31 - 5 Message Counts By Day of Week for January 2016 ------------------------------------------------ DOW Count --- ----- Sun - 9 Mon - 50 Tue - 46 Wed - 55 Thu - 88 Fri - 77 Sat - 20 Distinct Posters to the List (changes relative to December 2015) ------------------------------------------------ Non-OT messages: 47 (Down 16.07%) OT messages: 0 (Down 100.0%) NF messages: 26 (Up 23.81%) Total number: 47 (Down 17.54%) Top 20 Contributors by Number of Non-OT Posts ------------------------------------------------ | Posts Contributor | ------------------------------------------------ 1. 33 Ted Roche 2. 33 Stephen Russell 3. 31 mbsoftwaresolutions(a)mbsoftwaresolutions.com 4. 27 Tracy Pearson 5. 25 Dave Crozier 6. 18 Alan Bourke 7. 16 Kurt Wendt 8. 12 Fernando D. Bozzo 9. 11 Paul Newton 10. 11 Allen Pollard 11. 10 AndyHC 12. 9 Paul Hill 13. 8 Ken Dibble 14. 8 Ed Leafe 15. 7 Edward Leafe 16. 6 Man-wai Chang 17. 6 Gene Wirchenko 18. 5 Thierry Nivelet 19. 5 Richard Kaye 20. 5 Koen Piller Top 0 Contributors by Number of OT Posts ------------------------------------------------ | Posts OT% Contributor | ------------------------------------------------ Top 20 Contributors by Number of NF Posts ------------------------------------------------ | Posts Contributor | ------------------------------------------------ 1. 27 Stephen Russell 2. 13 Ted Roche 3. 12 mbsoftwaresolutions(a)mbsoftwaresolutions.com 4. 10 Alan Bourke 5. 9 AndyHC 6. 8 Allen Pollard 7. 7 Dave Crozier 8. 5 Thierry Nivelet 9. 5 Paul Newton 10. 5 Paul Hill 11. 4 Fernando D. Bozzo 12. 3 Gene Wirchenko 13. 3 Ken Dibble 14. 3 Mike Copeland 15. 3 Ajit Abraham 16. 3 Kurt Wendt 17. 2 Edward Leafe 18. 2 Michael Glassman 19. 2 Ed Leafe 20. 2 Man-wai Chang Top 20 Contributors by Total Number of Posts ------------------------------------------------ | Posts Contributor | ------------------------------------------------ 1. 33 Ted Roche 2. 33 Stephen Russell 3. 31 mbsoftwaresolutions(a)mbsoftwaresolutions.com 4. 27 Tracy Pearson 5. 25 Dave Crozier 6. 18 Alan Bourke 7. 16 Kurt Wendt 8. 12 Fernando D. Bozzo 9. 11 Paul Newton 10. 11 Allen Pollard 11. 10 AndyHC 12. 9 Paul Hill 13. 8 Ken Dibble 14. 8 Ed Leafe 15. 7 Edward Leafe 16. 6 Man-wai Chang 17. 6 Gene Wirchenko 18. 5 Thierry Nivelet 19. 5 Richard Kaye 20. 5 Koen Piller Top 20 Contributors by Number of New Threads Started ------------------------------------------------ | Posts Contributor | ------------------------------------------------ 1. 8 Stephen Russell 2. 4 Ed Leafe 3. 3 Wes Wilson 4. 3 Ted Roche 5. 3 Dave Crozier 6. 2 List Administrator Account 7. 2 Paul Newton 8. 2 Tracy Pearson 9. 2 Allen Pollard 10. 1 Ted Roche 11. 1 Fred Taylor 12. 1 G Gambill 13. 1 Richard Caruso 14. 1 Mike Copeland 15. 1 Rafael Copquin 16. 1 Sytze de Boer 17. 1 Ken Dibble 18. 1 Chris Davis 19. 1 AndyHC 20. 1 Alan Bourke Top 20 Non-OT Threads by Total Number of Posts ------------------------------------------------------------------ | Posts Subject | ------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. 39 Norton will not let me send EXE - Need help fast 2. 20 [NF] VS2015 3. 19 [NF] sad story about an app builder and his M$ experience 4. 19 [NF] Do you monitor Demand requests for your services? 5. 17 Alias() 6. 14 email from vfp 7. 14 [NF] Ed Yourdon 8. 13 VFP Colours in Development mode.. 9. 12 [NF] Why OpenSource .NET? 10. 12 [NF] SQL SELECT to LINQ 11. 12 Odd/inconsistent behaviour of DBF() 12. 10 Jeff Johnson 13. 10 Norton blocking exe's 14. 10 VFP 9.00.0000.5815 and a bad PATH environment variable 15. 10 [NF] Console fonts 16. 9 Scroll 17. 9 [ADMIN] Moving leafe.com and dabodev.com servers 18. 9 ProFox List Statistics for 2015 19. 7 VFP EXE being blocked by Norton 20. 6 [NF] Win 7 Update messing with network settings? Top 0 OT Threads by Total Number of Posts ------------------------------------------------------------------ | Posts Subject | ------------------------------------------------------------------ Top 20 Threads by Total Number of Posts ------------------------------------------------------------------ | Posts Subject | ------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. 39 Norton will not let me send EXE - Need help fast 2. 20 [NF] VS2015 3. 19 [NF] sad story about an app builder and his M$ experience 4. 19 [NF] Do you monitor Demand requests for your services? 5. 17 Alias() 6. 14 email from vfp 7. 14 [NF] Ed Yourdon 8. 13 VFP Colours in Development mode.. 9. 12 [NF] Why OpenSource .NET? 10. 12 [NF] SQL SELECT to LINQ 11. 12 Odd/inconsistent behaviour of DBF() 12. 10 Jeff Johnson 13. 10 Norton blocking exe's 14. 10 VFP 9.00.0000.5815 and a bad PATH environment variable 15. 10 [NF] Console fonts 16. 9 Scroll 17. 9 [ADMIN] Moving leafe.com and dabodev.com servers 18. 9 ProFox List Statistics for 2015 19. 7 VFP EXE being blocked by Norton 20. 6 [NF] Win 7 Update messing with network settings?

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