[/os/windows/office/outlook] permanent link

[/network/web/browser/safari] permanent link

The company also provides other free SNMP and network tools at Free network tools for system administrators

[ More Info ]

[/os/windows/software/network/snmp] permanent link

[/network/snmp] permanent link

The clock speed will be displayed in MegaHertz (MHz); if you want the value in GigaHertz (GHz), just divide by 1,000.

C:\>wmic cpu get currentclockspeed
CurrentClockSpeed
1300

In the above case, the speed is 1300 Mhz, which is 1.30 GHz. The 1.30 GHz value could also be obtained through the Windows Graphical User Interface (GUI) by clicking on Start, selecting Control Panel, and then System on a SBS 2003 system.

You may also be able to get the processor speed along with the name using wmic cpu get name, but the speed won't necessarily be displayed on all systems. The name will tell you whether it is an Intel or AMD processor.

C:\>wmic cpu get name
Name
Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 1.80GHz

The following information was returned for a system with an AMD processor.

C:\>wmic cpu get name
Name
AMD Duron(tm)

References:

1. Hertz
2. Using WMIC For Gathering System Info
   Deepak Gulati's niche on the web

[/os/windows/commands] permanent link

C:\>dir /s jqs.exe
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is 4CA9-07E6

 Directory of C:\Program Files\Java\jre6\bin

07/17/2010  05:00 AM           153,376 jqs.exe
               1 File(s)        153,376 bytes

     Total Files Listed:
               1 File(s)        153,376 bytes
               0 Dir(s)  14,939,205,632 bytes free

At JQS.EXE, I also found that the process is associated with Java.

Experienced computer users might guess that the process is related to Java and that is the case indeed. Jqs.exe is the Java Quick Starter which was designed to improve the startup time of Java applets and applications by prefetching Java Runtime Environment (JRE) files frequently into memory. That's mainly interesting for users who work with Java on a day to day basis. Everyone else might be better of disabling the Java Quick Starter. Think of a user who encounters one Java applet per month (or week), would it make sense to run the process all the time because of those few instances where it might start the application or applet faster? (see also Java Portable on how to use a portable version of Java on the computer)

Jqs.exe is definitely querying the Windows Registry for instance. The performance increase might not be huge but you will free up some computer memory and some I/O processes on the computer system.

When I checked, I found jqs.exe was using about 2 KB of memory on the system.

C:\>tasklist /fi "imagename eq jqs.exe"

Image Name                   PID Session Name     Session#    Mem Usage
========================= ====== ================ ======== ============
jqs.exe                     1740 Console                 0      1,824 K

The ghacks.net webpage also provides instructions for disabling the Java Quick Starter (JQS), if you wish.

Now, if you want to disable the Java Quick Starter process you can do that in the Windows Control Panel. You find a Java entry there which will open the Java Control Panel.

A click on Advanced and the selection of Miscellaneous will display the activated Java Quick Starter entry. Uncheck the box to disable the process. This will be visible in the Windows Task Manager immediately.

You might also be interested in finding out how to run Java Portable which is another option to make sure that no background processes are running.

The image below shows the "Java Quick Starter" option under the Miscellaneous section of the Java Control Panel. Unchecking that option will keep jqs.exe from continually running, if you don't feel you need the Java Quick Starter to be running.

[/os/windows/processes] permanent link

[/hardware/pc/bios] permanent link

I ran a scan of a Windows XP Service Pack 2 system with an up-to-date version of Verizon Internet Security Suite on 2010-10-03. The software, which states it is "Powered by McAfee" reported the following:

During the full scan, McAfee detected one item that requires your attention. View the scan details to fix this issue now.

Results
Items Scanned: 324912
Items Detected: 88
Items Fixed: 87
Items Remaining: 1

Potentially Unwanted Programs Adware-Url.gen

Files Affected
C:\Program Files\Free Offers from Freeze.com\afactory.url
C:\Program Files\Free Offers from Freeze.com\bingocafe.url
C:\Program Files\Free Offers from Freeze.com\gamepipe.url
C:\Program Files\Free Offers from Freeze.com\gifart.url
C:\Program Files\Free Offers from Freeze.com\graflatscreen.url
C:\Program Files\Free Offers from Freeze.com\pcpowerscan.url
C:\Program Files\Free Offers from Freeze.com\spcasino_sep.url

I chose to have Verizon Internet Security Suite quarantine the files. When I checked on what else it had found, I found it reporting it had quarantined an instance of Spy-Agent.bw!zip, which it found in a file, bill.zip, that it found at C:\Documents and Settings\Jeanne\My Documents\Email\Embedded\bill.zip, i.e., it appeared to have quarantined an attachment to an email message. There was no indication that the file had actually led to any infection of the system, just that a zip file containing the malware had been detected. The webpage for that malware contained a link to a McAfee webpage Spy-Agent.bw, which indicated McAfee first discovered that malware on August 20, 2007.

The scan also found a lot of cookies wich the antivirus program deleted, but I consider those fairly innocuous.

[/security/scans] permanent link

[ More Info ]

[/os/windows/software/remote-control] permanent link

$ system_profiler SPSoftwareDataType
Software:

    System Software Overview:

      System Version: Mac OS X 10.3.9 (7W98)
      Kernel Version: Darwin 7.9.0
      Boot Volume: Macintosh HD
      Computer Name: john  smith's Computer
      User Name: JOHN SMITH (jsmith)

The above command provides both the version of OS X, which is 10.3.9 in the example shown and the kernel version, which is 7.9.0. To view just the version of OS X, you can use the command sw_vers -productVersion.

$ sw_vers -productVersion
10.3.9
$

If you needed the version of the kernel, you can also use the traditional uname -a command used on Unix and Linux systems or uname -r to get just the kernel version.

$ uname -a
Darwin joe-smiths-Computer.local 7.9.0 Darwin Kernel Version 7.9.0: Wed Mar 30 2
0:11:17 PST 2005; root:xnu/xnu-517.12.7.obj~1/RELEASE_PPC  Power Macintosh powerpc
$ uname -r
7.9.0

To match a version number to a codename, e.g. OS X 10.3 has a codename of "Panther", see the table below.

References:

1. OS X Version From Command Line
   Date: September 12, 2006
   The macosxhints Forums

[/os/os-x] permanent link