Scott Hanselman

Some how I got myself into using the Symantec Client Firewall instead of the Windows XP SP2 Firewall.

Today, while doing some local (localhost) debugging, I noticed that when I requested a file called http://localhost/dasblog/themes/elegante/banner.jpg, I was getting back NOTHING. No banner.

Ok, that's weird. So I fired up ieHttpHeaders and saw this (emphasis mine):

GET /DasBlog/themes/elegante/banner.jpg HTTP/1.1
Accept: */*
Accept-Language: en-us,tr;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
If-Modified-Since: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 01:00:00 GMT; length=881
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.0.3705; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; Tablet PC 1.7; .NET CLR 2.0.50215)
Host: localhost
Connection: Keep-Alive

HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Server: Netscape-Enterprise/2.0a
Pragma: No-cache
Date: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 23:00:00 GMT
Last-modified: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 01:00:00 GMT
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-length: 881
Content-type: image/gif

Holy crap! Do I have a Trojan? Spyware? I don't have Netscape anything running on my system. Notice the weird date, the weird Content-length for what was supposed to be a 35k file. I was getting all ready to look at who's got what open on what port, I ran Spyware scans with Search&Destroy and Microsoft AntiSpyware...then I thought, maybe it was AdBlock within FireFox. No, that doesn't make sense, I'm in IE. Who else could be messing around...

Damn you Norton! I disabled the Symantec Client Firewall and poof, there was my banner.

GET /DasBlog/themes/elegante/banner.jpg HTTP/1.1
Accept: */*
Accept-Language: en-us,tr;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
If-Modified-Since: Fri, 25 Aug 2000 01:00:00 GMT; length=881
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.0.3705; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; Tablet PC 1.7; .NET CLR 2.0.50215)
Host: localhost
Connection: Keep-Alive

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.1
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 05:43:40 GMT
Content-Type: image/jpeg
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Last-Modified: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 01:31:50 GMT
ETag: "ae93325ef84c51:8ad"
Content-Length: 36634

Turns out that Symantec Client Firewall has their own brand of ad blocking built in. That's not a bad thing except:

• They block any graphic requested with the name "banner" anywhere in it - hence the fake HTTP Response.
• The perform this blocking/sniffing even on requests to your OWN MACHINE (localhost)

Sigh. 7 minutes wasted. Hopefully this tidbit will save you a little time one day.

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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I like to keep my [browser] toolbars simple. I've seen toolbars stacked 8 deep and I think that's wasted space. But, every once in a while a toolbar comes along that I can get behind. Here's the toolbars I've installed this week:

• Google (official) Toolbar BETA for FireFox - This is the official Google one with PageRank, not the GoogleBar from MozDev we've all no doubt be running previously. I've disabled the GoogleBar and installed the new one, and I'm digging it.
• The Google Suggest FireFox Extension - The toolbar is nice, but it's not for everyone. This is a little gem that you may have missed in the cacophony. This extends the standard/existing Google Search box that all FireFox installs have to include Google's AutoSuggest feature. With this you get a greatly enhanced without the emotional baggage of a new toolbar.
• The MSN "Suite of Goo" aka MSN Search Toolbar - The MSN Toolbar has been updated and this time I took the plunge. Not for the Toolbar, no, I don't show it (right click, deselect), but for the Tabbed browsing. It's a hack, sure, and yes, I know there are a dozen browsers that host IE and offer tabs. I only use IE when I need oddpost, or visit the occassional site that hates FireFox, but when I do show up, I'd like to have tabs. Also, it's nice for my mom. Plus, the Desktop Search gets better and better. I've switched over from Google Desktop Search.
• Del.icio.us Bookmarklets - Not exactly a toolbar, but I've dedicated space to Del.icio.us bookmarklets on ALL my PCs. What a brilliant and simple way to keep my bookmarks in one place. I save SO much more than I would with standard Bookmarks (which are a hassle to sync between n=browsers*PCs no matter what folks say. I haven't even dug into the social aspect of Del.icio.us. I'm too busy saving things!
• GenPass Bookmarklet - A great little tool for creating complex passwords that are site specific. Generates passwords that you never see, so you can't give them up under torture. There's a feature I can be in support of. You never know when I could be tortured for my Google Adsense password. If I had a nickel...
• Web Developer - OK, I didn't install it this week per se, but it's still wonderful. If you don't know what it is, and you have FireFox, go get it. If you don't have FireFox, it's the best reason ever to download FireFox. Run. Now.

It's getting to me quite the "me too" game with Microsoft and Google. Seems like when Google comes out with the Whatever.Google.com subdomain that Microsoft immediately offers the Whatever.MSN.com subdomain. Can't we all just get along?

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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FYI, there's now a better URL for the Ultimate Tools List - one you can store in your head. The latest version will always be at:

http://www.hanselman.com/tools/

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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OMG. So, there's a known issue with Outlook 2003 and systems with more than one Gig of RAM. Apparently they are working on a fix. When using the MSN Desktop Search to index your outlook offline folder (OST) on a machine with more than a gig of RAM you may get the error "The .OST file is in accessible."

What's the recommended fix you ask? here's the direct quote from the MSN Toolbar FAQ.

To avoid this problem, you can remove memory so that your computer has 1GB of less of RAM, or you can disable memory above 1GB.

To disable memory:

1. On the Start menu, click Run and then type cmd to open a command prompt window.
2. Type cd c:\ to switch to your C drive.
3. Type bootcfg /addsw /mm 1024 /ID 1.
4. Restart your computer.

I am a little reticent to recommend that my Mom go running bootcfg and neutering her machine by disabling her second GIG of RAM.

Just for the record and to quote Egon, "I think that would be an extraordinarily Bad Idea." I'm surprised this kind of fairly low level and rather brute force suggestion made it into a the product FAQ for the MSN Toolbar/Search.

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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The TCServer.exe "Can't use my TabletPC for more than 4 hours without a massive crash" memory leak has been (hot)fixed! Thanks Larry!

If you're using a TabletPC as your main machine, you have probably suffered from this painful experience. Run, don't walk, and download now.

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

About   Newsletter

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