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Archive for February, 2006
Microsoft AntiSpy vs Symantec Norton Anti-Virus…
Posted: Friday 10 February 2006 @ 5:35 pm by joecmI came into work this morning and was greeted by an alert from Microsoft Anti Spyware Beta 1 that I was infected with a Trojan, “PWS.Bancos.A (Password Stealer)”. MSAS had marked this particular item as severe. It had found a number of entries in the Registry, but no files. The entries looked legit, but knowing how trojan writers enjoy trickery, I had MS remove the entries (it was “severe” afterall). I then re-scanned to make sure it was gone. The second scan yielded one result, so I clicked remove again.
At this point, I decided to run Norton (better safe than sorry). Norton would not start the full scan. After first considering that I might have a virus on my machine that was blocking Norton, I wondered if MS had detected Norton as this Trojan. To test this theory, I uninstalled Norton. I ran the MS scan again and it found no trojan. Then I installed Norton and sure enough, MS detected the trojan again.
For the Paranoid: I have to admit, this is a great strategy with One Care on the horizon. Just have AntiSpy disable everyones Anti Virus software and then offer them a discount on One Care.
TV Shows about Presidents
Posted: Wednesday 8 February 2006 @ 12:12 am by joecm
Three Shows about Presidents
1) The West Wing. This is one of my favorite shows. After years as a top ratings winner, the show started a couple of down seasons and was eventually moved to Sunday. Sundays are where shows go to die (just ask the cast of Las Vegas). Ironically, the show has had its best season. Too bad everyone spends Sunday nights on Hotjobs looking for a new job — or is that just me?
2) Commander in Chief. Ok, it was a novelty. A woman as president. I admit the first few episodes were pretty good, but it was the same thing over and over again. President good, Donald Sutherland bad. President good, Donald Sutherland bad. President good, Donald Sutherland a racist. The show is now on a six week hiatus. Hopefully it will improve.
3) George W Bush. Ok, he isn’t a TV show… Actually he seems more like a really bad made for TV movie. Like Magma or Super Volcano where the earth looks like it is on the brink until a miraculous last minute plan saves us all. Let’s hope we can all make it to ‘08. McCain vs Edwards…. Pretty Please.
Free and Nearly Free Stock Photos
Posted: Tuesday 7 February 2006 @ 11:33 pm by joecm
There was a time when web developers and others would have to pay incredible amounts of money for stock photography. I remember having to pay $30+ for low-res images, and a lot more if you wanted to put a high res image in an ad. You could always go to Google images and take what you find, but you could run into some copyright issues. Here are a few site you can use to save a few bucks on images, and reduce your risk of being arrested:
Free Images:
- Nearly Free Images:
Gmail catches a break
Posted: Sunday 5 February 2006 @ 10:40 pm by joecmApproaching its second birthday, Gmail has caught a break. On April 1, 2004, GMail burst onto the scene with some cool new features that redefined free online email services. Its gigabyte storage and Ajax interface gave Gmail an edge on its well established competitors; Yahoo, Hotmail, and AOL. They have all spent the last 2 years furiously working to develop slicker interfaces, matching the storage quotas, and working hard to retain their customer bases. And in my eyes, they have been effective.
Now, after all that hard work, Yahoo and AOL have announced a plan to charge a fee to ensure email delivery. I am a longtime Yahoo Mail user. Actually, I am a Yahoo Mail Plus user, which means that I pay money for my “free” email account. Yahoo and AOL claim that this plan will help stop SPAM, but in reality it will hit mailing list owners and legitimate ISPs the hardest. It will also give major corporations a major advantage in communication and the little guy will be silenced. Oh, and one more consequence, if this plan is successful, I will be heading to GMail. Because even though GMail could not tempt me away from Yahoo, Yahoo certainly has found a way to drive me away. And I’m pretty sure I won’t be the only one.
Read more about the plan here.