Archive for the ‘Current PC Issues’ Category
New ‘black screen of death’ prompts investigation by Microsoft
Did you download the recent patch Tuesday patches only to face a Black Screen of Death? Not to be confused with the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) that Microsoft has been so notoriously known for!
Fierce CIO Tech Watch reported this apparent “oops” in their December 1 online article: New ‘black screen of death’ prompts investigation by Microsoft.
The article goes on to say:
The problem appears to stem from some changes made to the Access Control List that not all applications are aware of. The result is applications that stop working, especially Security-related software–resulting in the above symptom.
I’ve said it repeatedly and I’ll say it again, AND YOU WANT TO TRUST MICROSOFT WITH YOUR SECURITY?
That being said, the article also gives a link to a fix for this problem by a security company Prevx (sounds like one of those pills you take for acid reflux, doesn’t it?) that supposedly fixes the registry problem.
Go to the article link below if you need the fix and want to try it out.
Personally, that file makes me nervous but I also don’t have the problem!
If you do have to apply the patch, and you find the file valid and safe, please come back and comment here to let us all know!
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Beware of the Windows 7 Upgrade Reboot Loop!
Users on a Microsoft Forum are complaining! (So what else is new?)
No, it’s not the fact that the installation of Windows 7 reboots a lot like all of the past operating system installations. This one is a new, unique Windows 7 problem. The endless reboot loop! (Sounds like a breakfast cereal – Reboot Loops)
Although there have been many complaints about the Digital River downloads, many of the users on the forum are saying they are having the same problem with retail copies of the upgrade.
Nothing ever changes with Microsoft! Which is why I’ve provided my favorite new PC & Mac commercial at the end of this post!
Read for yourself and just look at how many posts there are on this page!
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Firefox Upgrades & Looking at Apps Differently
Interesting thing happened to me when I opened Firefox this morning (October 28, 2009) to start writing the Weekly Security Digest newsletter. My Firefox updated. Now that alone isn’t interesting because Firefox does this with great regularity. What’s interesting is what I found in reviewing the change logs for what’s been updated and/or fixed!
Firefox has been a bit buggy as of late, but I figured it was the Internet, or Windows updates, or something like that. And of course, I’ve had the usual quirky and buggy issues with Facebook, HootSuite, Twitter, and the like. But, I never put the two of them together! I mean think about it, when you have a buggy app like Facebook or Twitter, do you connect the issue might just be with your browser and not the app itself?
Well, it’s time to starting thinking differently after what I read today! And I’ll share it with you.
One of the bugs fixed in the new Firefox 3.5.4 is a problem with the way Firefox handles a Twitter image! Yes, you read that correctly!
The actual bug referenced in the change log on bugzilla is located here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=519589 and it’s titled: Bug 519589 – Twitter Reply Transparent.
Comment #26 explains the issue in more layman’s terms:
For posterity: GIFs store their colormaps as 3 bytes per pixel, but we operate on 4 bytes per pixel. We copy the data directly into the relevant arrays, then ConvertColormap in nsGIFDecoder2 expands these packed pixels (in-place) into unpacked 4-byte ARGB pixels as required by Cairo.
And there are images for you to look at to understand what’s being said and what the problem is. But in essence, Firefox was not handling the transparency of the reply gif in twitter. How many times did I complain that twitter was acting up because my reply button wasn’t there?
If you look at comment #22 you can see – with Firefox – that the image is not there!
So, not only do you need to make sure your update to Firefox installs, but we also need to rethink blaming web apps for issues that might just be the browsers fault.
That being said, the new Facebook News Feed stinks and that is not a browser issue! 
This information I thought you didn’t know, you needed to know!
Debbie
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