It all started with a Template sale thread on DP which i checked out and accessed the template preview website, everything loaded fine, Kaspersky didn’t pop up blocking the page.

After a while i saw dangys’s post:

Avg 8.0 Picked up multiple virus

I noticed from his screen shot that he’s using IE, so i jumped up in defense of Kaspersky:

strange…i’m using firefox and Kaspersky 7 and nothing popped up, most probably it’s an IE exploit(yet an other reason to switch to firefox)

Than Astroman gave the final stroke:

I’m using Firefox, it has nothing to do with the browser.

This determined me to ask a few of my friends to check the page(i asked 3 friends, they were all using AVG Internet security), and they all told me that their AV goes crazy when they access the page.

There was a similar issue back a month ago when Servage got hacked and almost all clusters got infected with some trojan. Luckaly BETng4U noticed it with AVG and told me about it so i got rid of it as quicky as possible(trust me you don’t want to get on stopbadware.org’s  list because than you can kiss good bye to your visitors.

Today i formatted, reinstalled Windows and installed AVG Internet Security, so far it looks great, i’m looking forward to its prestation.

When your using payment processors like paypal than you can never be too safe. It’s better to be safe than sorry, trust me on this.

I got quite a few friends who have bigger/smaller companies and some of them complain about some of their employees. They say that when they are now in a room with them but in their office some of the employees don’t work, they surf the web, download stuffs, and chat on Instant Messengers.

Now these are the employees who cause loss of profit and  decrease the productivity. The only way to get back on the right track is to get proof that they aren’t working and kick them out from the company.

My friend Julia owns a small company and has 12 employees. She didn’t have any complaints so today i went over and setup a cool application named StaffCop to do a little test.

Take a look at StaffCop’s features:

Staffcop has lots and lots of features that can really benefit the employer and help him make up his decision on kicking out someone from his company or not.

Real Time screen capture

Staffcop can capture screenshots as often as you wish just by pressing the View Information button, this means that if you press the button 30times a minute 30 new screenshots will be captured. While your away from your company you can schedule reports by email.

I setup the program on Mihai’s PC, a kid who works at Julia’s company as a support representative. He’s 18 years old and a really big Counter-Strike player. I went into Julia’s office, waited about 40minutes and BAM! i cought Mihai in the act playing counter strike.

I showed Julia the images, and she said: “It’s 3PM, it is his lunch time now, he can spend it as he wants” For me it felt both good and both bad when she told me this. Bad: i didn’t catch an employee in the act, Good: I now know that her employee is working as he should.

View of open programs

You can take a good look the the applications that are currently running on your employee’s PC. The application display list is well ordered and structured, and by this way your job gets a lot easier.

Monitor Open websites and Instant Messengers

Check the date and time when your employee accessed a certain website and take a closer look at his instant messenger logs.

Staffcop also acts as a keylogger so all keystrokes in instant messengers are logged and available for you to see.

Fully Featured Keylogger

Did i say above that it logs only keystrokes in instant messenger? I meant that it logs ALL KEY STROKES! Key strokes are also organized and their functions are displayed in the list.

File changes and events Logging

Staffcop can record the file changes made by your employee(opening/editing/deleting/modifying files) and create advanced event logs.

Phew, the above features are just a part of the features that are available in StaffCop. For a full Feature List visit the StaffCop Homepage.

This is what i like about it. It’s small, lightweight yet effective and configuring and setting it up is an easy job even for a newbie in computers.

The regular Opera browser doesn’t have any chances to take the throne from Internet Explorer(Firefox will surely dethrone IE) but its version for mobile phones named Opera Mini surely pwnes the competition!

Opera Mini 4.1 was in beta stage for quite a while and it was about time they released the final version! If you want a super fast browser on your Blackberry or new-gen mobile phone Opera Mini is the ideal solution! It will make you put away your laptop on trips and fully use your phone’s web features, meaning that you will be able to blog/IM/browse in great comfort and satisfaction.

The new version of Opera Mini features a more user friendly GUI(general user interface):

The address bar works similar to the T9 editor at phones(when writing and SMS T9 tries to complete the word reducing your writing time), so it will try to present you similar matches using your browse history and bookmarks.

Opera claims that its new version for mobile phones provides 50% faster browsing, because all the data goes trough the Opera servers.(i tried it out on a friend’s Blackberry and i was pretty impressed by the increased speed).

The new Opera Mini will let you search for text on web pages using its built-in search. This can save you a lot of time, trust me on this.

If you connect your phone with your PC using Opera Link you will be able to sync your bookmarks on the PC with the bookmarks on your mobile phone! I Love this feature, all my bookmarks got transfered within seconds to my friend’s blackberry(i deleted them after, it was just for testing).

44 Million people just can’t be wrong, if you wish to know more about this exciting new version of Opera Mini feel free to watch Catherine’s presentation

I could have posted about the release of Internet Explorer 8 BETA 1 right away after it was launched but i decided to wait till now and include with the overview a few user reviews.

First of all the beta release is for web developers and designers only, and of course to those who want to check it out and play with it a little.

You can install it and uninstall it without a problem and you will get your system back to the state before the install

You can visit the official IE8 Beta page by clicking HERE.

As you can see in the image below the download size of the installer is 14.4 MB. Don’t worry the guys from Microsoft didn’t pack IE8 up in a such small installer. The installer will download the required files from the internet

Microsoft download servers are great(yes yes, they are better than rapidshare) i downloaded the installer in less than a minute.

The installer will check your Hard drive for malicious software(adware/spyware/viruses) and only after that will proceed with the installation of ie8.

The whole Download and installation time is about 8-10 minutes(depending on your PC and internet connection. I got 4mb/s internet connection and i pay 9$/mo, lucky me eh?)

If you have an old PC don’t install IE8, respect the system requirements:

Although the system requirements are low(233mhz/64RAM) i wouldn’t suggest installing it unless if you have at least 128 RAM and a 500MHZ Computer(you might experience system crashes - i tried it on my 250MHZ PC, the OS crashed every time i opened up more than 2 tabs).

At the end of the install you will get the well known Restart Your PC message.

After i press restart later a message pops up saying that its highly recommended to restart my pc. This message is just stupid. If i already chose not to reboot my PC then i stick by it(i had photoshop/firefox/and some other applications open)

As promised here are a few reviews:

Dever’s review:

- I really liked that it let me choose my default search provider even though by default it’s Live search.

- Compared with firefox the IE8 Addon manager sucks big time. I don’t think it will look

like this in the final version of IE8. On the other hand i really liked the feed viewer which looks cooler than firefox’s.

- The most interesting features are the tools for web developers: Overview and Debugging.

- Uninstalling it requires the classic system reboot. At least everything went fine and without problems.

BETng4U’s review:

- By showing the main URL with a darker color the user knows if he accessed a pissing page or a valid one. I think this is a great idea and in my opinion better than IE7’s pishing filter.

Other things that i enjoyed

- javascript console
- multi-tabs view (if i’m correct it was first implemented by opera)
- CSS3 (ex img link)
- IE develeper toolbar can display an element’s properties
- there’s an Emulate IE7 button, but i think the button will disappear after Beta testing will end.
- all in all, you can say what you want but this BETA is an important step for Microsoft.

Places where you can find more reviews:

John Resig’s blog  -  JavaScript in Internet Explorer 8

Roger Johansson’s blog -  First impressions of Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1

Yesterday my girlfriend was over and i let her use the PC(this was the first and last time) while i made some popcorn. When i got the popcorn done i came back and we watched a movie and went out for a walk. Yesterday i didn’t start yahoo messenger because i got home late and after a shower i went to bed.

This morning when i started up YM i noticed that emoticons are not showing up, i checked every setting in YM but everything seemed fine, eventually i decided to turn off emoticons because its better to see the mark rather than a square with a red dot in it.

A friend asked me to check a website in IE6 and when i started it up i noticed that it’s not loading any images, i went to Internet explorer settings and noticed that the Show pictures box was unticked, i ticked it, refreshed the page and the images showed up. I checked YM and what do you know, a miracle happened, the emoticons showed up.

I would have never taught that YM is in a such close “relationship” with IE, i knew that the messenger insider uses IE, but i never knew that the instant messaging(the chat) itself is linked with IE also.

Check out my conversation with Tim:

slayer: brb
slayer: i got to reinstall
slayer: YM
slayer: smilies not showing up
slayer: >.<
Tim: ok
slayer: stupid
slayer: emoticons
slayer: still not showin up
slayer: >.<
Tim: lol
Tim: weird
slayer: f**k it
slayer: blah
Tim: lol
slayer: i disabled emoticons
slayer: same shit
slayer: if i see the text
slayer: or emoticon
Tim: lol, ok

Although My PC is more than 3 years old i’l present you the hardware specs of my PC and the installed softwares.

Hardware Specs:

Back in 2004 when i bought my PC AMD SEMPRON processors just appeared and they were a big hit. So what the heck i decided to buy a PC with a AMD sempron CPU. Back then my PC was 1337(leet) and was one of the best PC’s available on the market(here).

- The CPU is an AMD SEMPRON 2600+ Thoroughbread CPU made for mainboard socket 462(socket A). It has an L1 cache of 64kb and an L2 cache of 256KB. Normally it runs on 1833 MHZ but i overclocked it to 2000MHZ and it’s running like a charm even with the stock cooler.

- The mainboard is ASROCK K7VT4A+ made for AMD Sempron and athlon CPU’s and it has lots of cool features like:

* Supports high performance DDR400 memory
* Hybrid Booster - ASRock safe overclocking
* AGP8X, 5.1-Ch Audio, 10/100 Ethernet LAN
* ASRock I/O : 4 ready-to-use USB2.0 ports

- The GPU(Graphic processing unit, Video card in the common name) is a Palit Daytona GeForce FX5500 which is sold in Retail packaging. It features 256 MB video memory with 128 BIT and was made for AGP 8.x slot. It has a VGA and a S-VIDEO output. Also it features multiple shading technologies like pixel shader 2.0. I bought this GPU last year, the stock GPU was a Geforce MX 440 128mb/64bit video card.

- System Memory: As stock memory i had 256 MB PQI DDRAMS(crap rams) which i upgraded to 512MB Corsair DDRam and they are running like a charm!

- My current hard drive is a Elixir 80GB HDD with 8mb cache and IDE connectivity and to be honest this was the cheapest and pretty good 80Gb hard drive i could find. My old Hard drive recently died(it was a MAXTOR 80GB with 2mb cache).

- As optical drives i have an LG 52×32x52 CD writer(it was stock with the PC) and i recently bought an ASUS Lighstscribe DVD writer. Although i never tried out the lightscribe function the writer works like a charm and does its job.

- Keyboard: A compaq keyboard which a friend loaned to me 3 years ago….when my new desk arrives i will buy a new one and will return this one :).

- Mouse: Logitech MX518 Gamer mouse which i recently bought, and i’m waiting for my steelpad 5L(mousepad) to arrive.

- Headphones: Teac HP-5 headphones(great for gaming)

Here Are some Pictures of the System:

*note: All images are enlargeable

I ran a Series of Tests:

3dMark 03 Professional Edition Build 3.6.0:

3DMark is a computer benchmark by Futuremark (formerly MadOnion) to determine the DirectX performance of graphics cards.
The measurement unit 3DMark is intended to give a normalized mean for comparing different visual processing units, which proponents assert is indicative of end-user performance capabilities. Critics counter by stating that it is not a reliable measure of real-world performance.

I can’t say that i’m very pleased of the results, but heck the results are great compared to my PC configuration.

Softwares that i use:

- Browser: Mozilla Firefox latest version, and Opera 9.x as a download manager(i hate DAP thats why i use it)

- Music player: Winamp Latest Version

- Multimedia: ACE MEGA CODECS PACK + ffdshow + Matroska splitter

- Antivirus: Kaspersky Internet Security Latest build

- Instant Messaging: Yahoo Messenger 8

- CD/DVD Burning: Ahead Nero 7

- Image Editing: Adobe Photoshop/Imageready CS2

- File Manager/FTP software: Total Commander Powerpack

- CD/DVD Image Mounting: PowerISO

- Picture Viewer: IrfanView

- P2P/File Sharing: Peerweb DC++ and uTorrent

- Installed Games: Steam(CS:S, CS 1.6, Half Life, Condition Zero), Warcraft 3 TFT, Disciples 2 - The rise of elves

Remember that the main purpose of softwares is to help you not to slow down your PC. This means that you should install software only from sources that you trust and only if you think that it can help you in your activity.

Lots and lots of p2p programs exist nowadays, and you may encounter problems with them and just switch to an other or just give up.

Here’s a list and a some details about a few popular p2p programs:

BitComet/Other Bittorrent clients

The BitComet client is a P2P file-sharing program compatible with the BitTorrent protocol, one of the most popular P2P protocols designed for high-speed distribution of large files. BitComet supports simultaneous downloads selected downloads inside a torrent package along with fast-resume.

Direct Connect

Direct connect is a peer-to-peer file-sharing protocol. Direct connect clients connect to a central hub and can download files directly from one user to another.Hubs feature a list of clients or users connected to them. Users can search for files and download them from other clients, as well as chat with other users.

Emule/Edonkey

eMule is a peer-to-peer file sharing application for Microsoft Windows. Each file that is shared using eMule is hashed using the MD4 algorithm. The top-level MD4 hash, file size, filename, and several secondary search attributes such as bit rate and codec are stored on eD2k servers and the serverless Kad network.

Bearshare

BearShare is a peer-to-peer file sharing application originally created by Free Peers, Inc. for Microsoft Windows and currently sold by MusicLab, LLC. Three variations of BearShare were distributed by Free Peers: Free, Lite and Pro. The Free version had more features than the Lite version, but also contained some malware by WhenU. The Lite version was malware-free, but had fewer features than the Free version. The Pro version had more features than both the Free and Lite versions, but cost 24 dollars.

Problems that may POP-UP

The biggest problem at p2p programs that can appear is the connection problem, meaning that the applications can’t connect to hubs/servers/other users to download. In most of the times the connection problem is caused by firewalls that are blocking the ports that are needed to connect to the hubs/servers/other users.

You can find a great P2P Connection checker at http://connect.majestyc.net/ it works flawlessly, all you need to do is enter the TCP and UDP ports and it will check if they are open or blocked.

I found out about the tool from Peerweb DC++, because i was having some connection problems(this is why its good to read the troubleshooting guide)

You can find a list of TCP and UDP ports and the applications that use them at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_TCP_and_UDP_port_numbers

If a port is blocked as stated above most probably your firewall is blocking the port. You need to set the programs permissions at your firewall/antivirus client.

Here’s how to do it if your using Kaspersky Internet Security(make sure the application is running):

Open up the control panel and navigate to firewall settings -> there go to rules for applications -> select your p2p program and click Edit -> Click Template and select the appropriate setting, or just press Allow all

Yesterday was an other bad day in my calendar.

It almost started as an usual day, the thing that prevented it to start as an usual day was the power supplier in my city. Before i went to sleep i set my alarm clock to ring at 6:30 AM so till 8AM i can study hungarian, and at 9 to go write my midterm from hungarian.

What happened was that the power supplier cut off the power for i don’t know how much time at night for maintanance->the alarm clock got reset and it didn’t ring.

I woke up at 8:10 am wondering what time it is. When i went out to the kitchen and noticed its 8:10AM i said to myself: “oh f*** it” and similar more “beautiful” words. I took out my hungarian book and ran over the lessons real quick and went to write the midterm.

Good thing that i like literature(you can say lots of bla bla’s from yourself to write more). The midterm was a success(phew that was a relief).

Monday i told a good friend of mine(Adam) that my pc could use a windows reinstall(after installing service pack 3(you know what they say: you regret something after you’ve done it) ). He told me that he has the original XP CD which he got at the university(its an original CD, mostly given out for system administrators at universities, he is the system admin at the campus of the university where he studies).

I told him: “Okay so Wednesday come over at 11″

He did come over and he did bring the cd, he brought 2 just in case 1 wasn’t working. Heck, both cds were scratched like hell and since i loaned my CD to someone(i have no idea to who) i didn’t have an other choice but to install it from one of those CDs.

Everything was running smooth till the setup wizard started copying the files, i got the error message: “setup cannot copy the file” so i took out the cd and placed in the other one. When files couldn’t be copied from the other i switched cds and so on till the files got copied. After that everything went as normal.

I restored my bookmarks, setup the network, internet connection, pc configuration, did everything that’s necessary at a reinstall + a little extra.

I decided to install an internet monitoring application, after installing it i rebooted my PC, when i wanted to connect to the internet(i connect using a PPPoE connection) it just wouldn’t connect.

I kept getting several ADSL errors:

#718 error: The system is busy - try to connect later

#678 error: The connection could not be completed because the remote computer did not answer.

I rechecked everything, i deleted the program, used system restore, even reinstalled windows(got CD from neighbour(that one worked like a charm )

I started checking out the TCP/IP settings, i checked everything 3 times, did a few changes(as i usually do on os reinstall) but still nothing. This went on for like 3 hours when i got pissed(almost ended up like the guy in the picture on the left)

Having no other solution i called a friend of mine at my ISP.

Here’s the reconstructed conversation:

Friend at ISP: Hello, if i may ask who am i talking to?

Me: Alexander, cut the crap, it’s me, Tom.

Alexander: Hey, whats up?

Me: i’m in a small, well big trouble here, i can’t figure out what i messed up, i’m 100% sure that all the connection and TCP/IP settings are correct still i can’t connect to the internet, i get #718 and #678 erro, i even reinstalled windows, reconfigured everything, but its still the same. For3 hours im bugging this shit and still can’ figure it out.

Alexander(laughing): Dude…some of my colleagues are working on the network in your area, thats why it isn’t working.

Me: WHAT? DAMN idiots, can’t they call or let people know that the internet will be cut off?

Alexander(still laughing): sorry man, i’m not in charge of the operation.

Me: ah…i really love this country(you know in which way)

Alexander(laughing harder): yeah, me too

Alexander: i’ll give you a call when my colleagues get back to me saying that they finished

Me: alright, next time tell those retards to let people know when they are stopping the internet

Alexander: okay, will do

He called me around 10PM saying that everything is back to normal now.

You know what i’ve learned from all this? If you have internet problems check settings and if you think everything is ok don’t start reconfiguring stuff and reinstalling windows, simply call your ISP and ask them if the problem is on their side.

If its on your side ask for support

Nowadays its quite hard to find a good antivirus that will perfectly fit your PC. There are n (n is a very big value) antiviruses that you can use but you need to consider a few factors before using/buying a antivirus software:

1. The protection it offers
2. The system requirement(you can’t install norton for example on a 300MHZ PC, well you can install it but you need to be really crazy to do that)
3. Additional features the antivirus has(firewall,spyware protection,network monitoring, etc)
4. If its a commercial antivirus you evaluate it using the 30 days trial that most commercial antiviruses offer. This is MANDATORY!
5. If after evaluating the antivirus you are fully satisfied with it don’t get grumpy and start thinking about other antiviruses because you don’t really like this one’s price. If it offers the protection that fits you than price is ALMOST regardless.

Over at digitalpoint there is quite a long thread going about which antivirus members prefer.

The thread started with:

Hello friends,
Currently I am using the Windows XP.
Which Anti Virus is the best one for it?

From that point lots of members expressed their opinions about different antiviruses and they shared experiences with different antiviruses.

Today the thread got almost to the end of page 14,when woke up i checked DP as usual, checked my mail and other standard websites that i check every morning. Since i didn’t have anything better to do i made this chard of what antiviruses DP members prefer:

The number next to the pie slices represents the number of people who preferred the specific antivirus.

You can clearly see from the chart that most DP members prefer NOD, right after it on position 2 stands AVG(its biggest advantage is that its free and it offers quite good protection), on 3rd position stands my favorite: Kaspersky.

Avast is preferred by quite a lot of people also(to be honest i rather use avast than AVG).

Here are a few quotes from what DP members say about the antiviruses they like:

spiritfly:

I’ve used ESET’s NOD32 for more than 7 years now and haven’t seen a real threat, highly recommended.

vlad230:

NOD32 is the best! I never had problems with viruses since I installed it

mirturk:

My decision is NOD 32. Very fast and secure.

webmasterplace:

I use NOD32, never want another one!!

gabibeowulfx:

I use NOD32 .. but it’s not virusproof .. .. I had a virus the other day that Nod just wouldn’t detect .. and I had updated virus definition … but still the best av to install ..

Nigel Lew:

Kaspersky Lab,,, hands down! It’s not free though.

ferde:

kaspersky is the one i use for years and it is very light and always the first one to detect the viruses while others dont.

mrClen:

Kaspersky is really the Best and Top’s among anti-virus programs, very reliable. Always the first one to detect while others not. I had tried avast, bitdefender, nod32 and panda but this ones A++ fo me so far.

Maddison.uk:

Kaspersky owns all other Av programs .
Simple , Fast and Efficient .

nofullstop:

kapersky is always the best choice…

sandalwood:

I would go with the AVG free version. It has saved me several times and its free root kit detector is another great program.

d16man:

AVG all the way!

EagleAmerican:

AVG gets my vote. Free or Internet Security. I use AVG Free and Comodo firewall. Works great.

ARonald:

I’m on avg free right now and am loving it. It is low on system resource usage and has a good detection rate.

usasportstraining:

Definitely AVG free edition.
Far better than Norton anyway!

You can read reviews and opinions about the other Antiviruses in the digitalpoint thread

The most critiqued antivirus was Norton, people either say it sucks, or it eats RAM like crazy and doesn’t do its job as it should:

04lwarner:

Nod32 been using 2 years no virus, Before that used norton and must have a had a 100 viruses a week lol.

warman2442:

LOL norton is one of the worst anti viruses, i would seriously rather use any free anti virus over that, probably AVG.

timsdd:

I’ll 2nd the Norton blowing. I’m sure it protects with the best of them but it is a RENOWNED resource hog. Not to mention nearly impossible to uninstall completely and furthermore it can jack your system up real good.

With the suggestions and the reviews above i’m sure that now you know a bit more about how to choose the AV that fits your PC the best, and mark my words: Security ALWAYS comes first.

Since i installed Service Pack 3 for Windows XP problems popped up at some applications, but the most annoying thing is with Yahoo Messenger 8.1.

About every 30 minutes the messenger just freezes and i need to start it again, this can be really annoying when your playing pool or some yahoo game or when your sending or receiving files.

I sent a feedback to yahoo and check out what reply i got:

The main reason for receiving this crash message on your computer is
because Yahoo! Messenger was not properly installed on your system.

I got the email above with lots of bla bla on how to uninstall YM and reinstall it(probably an autoresponder)

Well i reinstalled it and i got the same problem.

In my opinion as stated above there are conflicts between yahoo messenger and the upgraded windows XP and that what’s causing it, so if you have the same problem don’t panic