This is silly but fun at the same time:

It’s scary. My computer became infected with malware. A program masquerading as a system utility suddenly took over everything. I almost fell for it. Almost.

The malware was named S.M.A.R.T. HDD.  The program masqueraded as a disk maintenance program. My computer is a fairly new laptop and still has lots of the vendor specific programs loaded and running. My initial thought was the program was one of those. That is how I was almost fooled.

The first message the program tossed out said the my Hard Drive Boot Sector Reading Error then lots of messages started popping up about not being able to access the drive.

Here are some notes about what I did. I’ll clean these up shortly.

IMPORTANT: The various instructions below are only if you already have the S.M.A.R.T. HDD malware. If you don’t have it don’t change things. But do make a mental note that these instructions are here should you ever need them.

The first thing I did was reboot the machine. Of course it came right up. So much for my boot record being bad. After going into Safe Mode I searched for the program name and found some instructions on how to get rid of the problem. Those instructions only partially worked. After a little bit of manual tweaking I was back to normal. You can see the instructions I followed here:

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/remove-smart-hdd

There is a screenshot of what the program looks like there as well. If you aren’t very technical you may be a little intimidated.

On more recent versions of Windows you can run Windows Defender and it will do a decent job of cleaning up the system. If you do this then you can skip to Step 6 of the instructions at the link above. You need to run the unhide utility mentioned at that site so you can see all of your files again.

In my case I still needed to edit a registry entry to find the actual program, delete the files, and remove it from trying to start. To do this open the registry editior (Start / regedit) then locate the following key:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]

Look through the entries for something with gibberish. In my case it was this:

“dhWpWLrHmsphLmp.exe”=”C:\\ProgramData\\dhWpWLrHmsphLmp.exe”

Your entry may be different but it will be gibberish. Look at the bolded part of my entry. That is where the program is installed on your hard drive. If the program still exists after you run Windows Defender you can go delete the gibberish files. After the files are gone you can safely delete this registry key.

Note – I’m intentionally leaving some details out here. If you aren’t comfortable editing your registry find someone you know and trust to do it for you. And always make sure and back up the registry before making changes.

One other thing. After booting back in to a normal login I had to reset up my Desktop settings – wallpaper, colors, etc. The other thing that happened was my anti-virus program flagged at least one of the programs I used in the Bleeping Computer instructions as being suspicious. I expected that because those programs are looking for programs that are suspicious.

That is what I needed to do to clean up my system. Haven’t had any problems since.

Hope you found something useful here. If you have had problems with this particular malware or other malware share your experience below.

CardCow.com is a cool site to look at old postcards. They sell the postcards, but keep the pictures online. We were able to find some  old photos of Fort Worth and other places of interest to us. After you spend a little time figuring out the search engine it is a lot of fun.

I found CardCow while searching for pictures of the old Kon Tiki motel in California. Why the Kon Tiki? We lived there for a few months when I was in 2nd grade.

Find CardCow here:

http://www.CardCow.com/

Let me know what you think.

It’s frustrating. Something you have used for years stops working. It is not just that the process has changed. Sometimes it becomes more complicated. What am I talking about?

Today someone asked me how to fill in a form inside Microsoft Word 2007. This was not a document formatted as a form. The person who sent it had just put rows of __________ where the answers should go. As you expect typing on the lines caused the formatting to go all wacky. The solution is to press the “Insert” key on the keyboard and “Overtype” the underlines. Except my Insert key was not working.

A bit of quick research revealed that Microsoft decided to override the entire Insert/Overtype process. Why? Nobody knows. We just have to file that under unsolved mysteries.

Here is the way to replace the functionality of your “Insert/Overtype” in your copy of Microsoft Office 2007.

There are actually two changes you will want to make. First right-click on the status bar inside Word 2007. A menu will appear. Locate and click on the word Overtype. It looks like this:

Your status bar will show the word Insert or Overtype depending on which mode you are in. To change between the two all you need to do is click on the word Insert or Overtype. Word will toggle between the two modes each time you click.

Now you have an easy way to toggle Overtype mode but your Insert key still does not work. To enable your Insert key click the Office Button in the top left corner of Word. A menu will appear. Click the Word Options button at the bottom of this menu:

On the left side of the Word Options box chose Advanced. On the right side you should now find a check box labeled Use the Insert key to control overtype mode. Check that box then click OK.

Now the Insert key on your keyboard will toggle between Insert and Overtype.

A lot of work to replace some very basic functionality that has existed since the very earliest use of computers. Thank you very little Microsoft.

Are the labels fading or vanishing on your keyboard? Here is a tip I found on how to protect them before it happens.

Coat the top of each key on the keyboard with clear nail polish…I use Hard As Nails.

You can read the original post and thread at the Seeds of Wisdom Forum.

I personally don’t care when my keys wear off. I already know where the keys are to start with. But this may help you. I would also *not* try this with a laptop. Too easy to slip.

A few days ago I sent you a strategy for leveraging your signature file. Do that and you will save time with every email you reply to. If you missed that email I’ve put it on the blog here:

http://www.tnpcnewsletter.com/blog/2009/05/24/how-is-your-signature/

A few people wrote and asked if this only worked with Outlook. Every email program I’m familiar with will let you edit your signature file. I have edited the signature inside Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Outlook, Thunderbird, Pine, Gmail, Kmail, Eudora and several others I’m sure. Those are just the ones I have experience with.

Some email programs let you use multiple signatures with is very nice. Set one for replies and one for new mails. Then make a nice one to use with your friends. If your program does not let you use multiple signatures there is still a solution. I’ll tell you about that in the near future.

Finally here’s a tip that helps me reply to emails quickly. As soon as I see an email that I plan to reply to I hit reply. I mean before even reading it. Then I’ll read and reply at the same time. Before I started doing this I would see a longer email and think “I want to reply to this” but because it was long it would get put off. Now I just hit reply  and answer that email as I go.

If you have tips or comments please leave them below.