DeltaBAK backup utility

I've been working on a backup utility for my laptop...the key feature is that it zips up only recently changed files to a temporary directory until the specified network drive becomes available, then moves the zip files to the network drive. It runs as a service and there is a graphical user interface for defining, scheduling and viewing the status of backups.

I feel pretty good. The service seems to be doing everything I wanted it do. It communicates with the GUI via named pipes, can execute multiple backups simulaneously, and uses the open source SharpZipLib to create the zip files. I spent about two hours chasing a silly bug. I was getting this error message when the service attempted to copy completed backups to the network drive: "The system detected a possible attempt to compromise security. Please ensure that you can contact the server that authenticated you." Furthur research revealed that I had set the service up to run under the local system account. When I set the service up to run under a domain account, the problem went away.

To fully test the service, I'll need the GUI so that I can create backup definition files in various configurations, so I'm starting work on that now.

I encountered some very strange spyware yesterday (or so I think!). One of the executives here had a problem with his laptop: Any time he entered a site that didn't exist, instead of coming up with a search page a-la MSN or Google, he would see a blank page. This was the case with either Firefox or Internet Explorer.

When I looked at the computer, I found that the blank search page wasn't really blank. If I "viewed source" I'd see what appeared to be a random comment in the form or . I found that when I used the PING command to ping a host that didn't exist (ex: xxx or apple) that I was always redirected to the same IP address, 206.207.85.33, which belongs to an organization called WestNet.Net.

I didn't have time to research the problem any furthur...the executive needed his laptop back and unable to determine what might cause host name lookups to be redirected like this, I reinstalled windows but I'm betting I'll see this problem again. Spyware is nasty stuff.