James Randi would love this stuff

You are the millionth visitor to the blog. Okay I am lying of course, but I got an email from a marketing trick and I had to do this. I could have a blog post that said "Hi Earl" and some day somebody named Earl would come by and might ask themselves, "How did they know I was on their blog?". Before I spent much time on the Internet, I generally accepted what people said as being sincere, but with the Internet you must assume that 99.9999 % of it is bull shit and when you find that honest gem, you can rejoice, because it is rare.

Here is a link to a site that gave me the most proglogitated(sic) blog award and I am so proud. <a href="hotpee colon slash slash raise-our-pagerank dot com slash" > Cute and cuddly spammer</a> The problem is that I am so stupid I can't figure out how to include the HTML to link and raise their page rank. I have no idea what happened to the YouTube link, but it is fixed.

Vista viruses redux

I really shouldn't tell people how to fix Widews problems, but the offending app in this case is wow64.exe and exists in users\....\temp\wow64.exe and it was there and I looked around a bit and it plays with the registry and many other things and phones home to an ip. I am trying the Microsoft recommended fix, but I don't have much hope of it working. The time to install the windows fix software is longer than installing Ubuntu 9.04 and the problem is that there will be another virus in the computer soon enough anyway. I am obligated to remove the offending crap from the W partition just for the sake of my reputation. The app wow64.exe showed up in the running applications list when I did Ctl-Alt-Del. It is hard to say whether it is valid as it could have been "World of Warcraft" for all I knew. The best idea is just to install Ubuntu or another distro. It is a passable social engineering software and uses scare tactics like Microsoft does too. So that is the offending virus in this case , but there are millions more. I understand that the mean time to infection of a Windisease computer in the wild under risk is about 5 minutes, so if you are smart you will switch, if you want to waste your life removing viruses or paying somebody to do it for you, please yourself.

While doing this it found FakeCog and Alureon.BT and I don't know if these are separate viruses or part of this other infection, I guess I will see what happens. It is rebooting now. Strangely enough that removed the problem so I only wasted 3 hours finding a problem with something I don't recommend anybody use for this very reason, it is so easy to infect and it only takes one hole in a dam before it is just a pipe.

If Intel and Microsoft changed places

If Intel and Microsoft engineers changed places, Computers would execute 100 instructions per second and software would be 10 thousand times faster. As a result, things would be just the same.

Updates are installed and I am going to see if everything was imported, then setup the NTFS to be mounted so things can be analyzed in the Windows partition. Now I have all the utilities in the world at my disposal and I should be able to clean the collection of viruses, worms, and phony viruses out of the machine. What a waste, to repair something that is worthless when it runs normally. I have to remember how to allow the NTFS, but I think I just have to mount it. Wow! it is on the menu under places! I selected the name of the drive and entered the password. Now I can access the data. I need to do some locate, grep and registry work, but this is way easier and I don't have to suffer through the incessant popups. ' I am windows, do you want to add two numbers "Confirm or Deny" ' Do you want to read this post "Confirm or Deny".

Infected computer problems

I have searched for references to the program that is on this Vista and what I find is that there are more people who ask you to download and install "another" program that you don't know what it does and install that. What a bright idea. I will look for a program to download, that I don't know what it does, and install it. How silly is that? It would be nice if there were an answer, but what I assume is that it is ALL a scam and that it is a circular scam. Install malware, sell fix, wait a while, reinstall, profit. It depends on how many times the people will go around the maze. If you make the maze complicated enough the mice won't crack wise that they are going around in circles and the one that makes them fear is the one benefiting from curing the fear. What a sweet deal. I wold get in the mal-anti business, but I have some scruples and so I guess I will just keep creating safe open source software, until the mice run across the answer.

It is sad that people are victimized in this way, but what can a person do but say, "Look, you are being used". The only way to stop being used is get Linux, end of story. If people want to be used, what am I to do. It is so odd, because I don't think people are generally this stupid that they could fall for this same scam every year for 30 years, but I must be wrong as they do.

Windows Vista is a piece of shit

I will report on the process of deleting Windows from this laptop and what complications ensue. They don't have a lot of applications that they have bought from Microsoft and so I think they will thank me for years to come. Hey, Windows users, get a clue, get Linux!!

Why in the world would I trust somebody to install software that I don't have the source for? If I have personal account information on my computer, all I have to do is run some software from an untrusted or devious source and it can just send it to somebody to misuse it with a few lines of code. I'm not that stupid that I trust anybody that much. It is all about trust and I think that most people wouldn't give me a program that stole from me, but it only takes one.

I got a laptop today from a friend to fix. It has Windows Vista on it. I am a computer designer and software expert and it is my cultured opinion that Windows is the crappiest software I have ever seen. The immediate impression that I get is this : "We own YOU". I am confronted with popups that have one option to click and sub menus with one option to click and then it starts all over again. It is as if the process is designed to irritate the person using it. Having used Kubuntu for several years now, it is like jumping into a lava pit in a swimming suit. The system is so poorly designed that it makes me wonder how stupid people really are, that they would give some wankers trillions of dollars to do this to them.

I am going to install Kubuntu with Vista and I am guessing this is going to be a nightmare. I decided to show the owner of the computer "Firefox" while they were here and to my surprise, Windows blocked the download and install!! Don't tell me that is an accident. It required that I manually initialize the install. The entire thing is very pretty and it would make a good image viewer, but you can buy those at WalMart for a few dollars and there is no hassle as it just sits there and shows a series of pictures.

I have already done some Googling for applications that help with problems in Windows and you would think that Ms would have the answers and they would be the source of all good bits, Noooo, Microsoft has another circular process that essentially says, "You are Screwed, give us more money, and we will screw you some more." The entire thing is so bizarre that it defies comprehension. I write software and there are some key things that you try to do. It must be stable. It must be user friendly. It must do no harm. I must be removable and installable easily. It must serve its purpose and be intuitive. It must have the source so it can be verified not to contain a virus, worm or malicious intent.

Microsoft software does none of these things and yet sells that concept , while good software is provided for free. That is just totally f5d up. I am going to rant until I feel better. I was using the system and all I wanted to do was search for a file and on Kubuntu, I would shell out and do "locate x". In Windows I am confronted with a series of options , none of which solves the problem, or allows me to find the offending file, so I can delete it. Interestingly enough I did Ctl-Alt-Del and popped up the task manager. I deleted all tasks except essential services. To my surprise, a virus protection window popped up after that. So there are tasks running that I cannot stop or delete. How stupid. "ps -alF". I can display and delete any task I want in Linux. It is, after all, my computer and I can choose what I want to use it for. I can see it is going to take hours and hours to deal with the problems in Windows and this has been my experience in the past. I can spend 8 to 16 hours in horrible loops of reinstalling and configuring. I see there is a SP( Service Pack ) available and the indicator says that the computer may be unusable for hours if I install it. I did an update for my Linux a few minutes ago and it ran in the background while I did this. Windows really sucks bugs through a noodle and I bet that the 99% of people who use Windows have no clue that there is a real OS available and it works so smoothly that they will feel bad that they were so naive to have used Windows so long and at such great expense of frustration, dollars and lack of security. I will report what I learn, but what I intend to do is ultimately delete Windows Vista entirely and serve as support for the system. I have done this a few times now and the people who get Linux thank me over and over again. It is just a better system, that is it. It isn't perfect or even pretty sometimes, but it lets the user own their own information, computer, and have control of their own destiny.

Windows sucks, and there is no better way to express it. Any competent engineer has to come to that conclusion. I would defend this opinion in court and win easily by just letting the jury use Vista and Kubuntu side by side. No sane person would choose this Vista software hell over any Linux distro.

Microsoft monopoly practices

How bad does your software have to be that you attack a free software. Windows 7 must be a total turd if they need to deliver talking points to Best Buy to try and keep people from finding out how much better Linux is than Windows. If this isn't evil, then I think Cargill should attack non-profit foundations that deliver aid to starving people, because they could be paying full price for food. The practice is certainly monopolistic and beyond that, it is completely evil and corrupts freedom itself.

If there was ever any question that Microsoft is a corrupt and horrid monster. these actions answer that question. I think that if there is an opportunity to help Google to slay this monster, I will jump at the chance. I have looked at Chrome and it is not the best yet and I have been coming up to speed to see how I can help with that. Even if Google dominates the browser OS market, at least they have a motto "Do No Evil" and they seem to hold to that principle. Microsoft's motto is "Do every evil", I think.

Swin-e Windohs 7 conficker flu is now free

I am going to put on a full tinfoil suit and get all my X-files posters to block the Windows OS while I make this post. For one thing, why does Windows deliver an OS that contains a crypto key like conficker and the text label on the key is _NSAKEY. Why would a nation that was worried about spying accept an OS that had that in it? It is also possible to simulate the progression of a virus, but it would take more computation power and connectivity than a typical super computer. Now if I just steal time from every Windows user in the world and use a crypto to integrate it all, I can make a genetically targeted genocidal virus.

That is just a game of infinities and don't take it seriously. On a real note, the concept of virtual PBX, sorting network and the internet is correct. This link at wiki is an example and here is a virtual implementation. If my data from Ip1 is lower than my data from Ip2, I switch the data streams and send them to Ip2' and Ip1' respectively. A software MUX ( multiplexer ). This is a continuous ballistic sort that can be recursive. I do believe that if people do not crack wise and realize that they must network themselves into Golem, then they will be networked into Golem for some individual or country and then they will be Golem the Gozer food. Just my opinion. And remember what Egon says, "Sometimes, you cross the streams."

If you are not a computer professional, having a NSA security key in your computer might make you paranoid, as a professional, it makes me sure that something is being hidden from the user and that is an invasion of privacy, the same as selling toasters with a bug in it that transmits everything you say using an encrypt key.

As a Linux user, there is nothing hidden from me in my computer. I am experienced in computer and software design and I take apart every element of Linux and put it back together all the time. Today I did "sudo apt-get source synaptic" and it is as simple as that. I found that it has a history of packages installed and removed and I wanted to add a button to save that data to migrate to another installation of Debian. I really don't understand how anyone would trust a monopoly to be fair. AT&T is probably not something that makes people think of monopoly, but their power was greater than Ms or Intel in their day. And so where did Unix come from? Was it AT&T Bell labs? I think so.

ADDED: Physics, This link at Wired is very interesting about the photo electric effect and Einstein, strangely, there is one more issue with that situation that is fairly obvious ( to somebody who understands Newtonian relativity ) and has never been commented upon that I have ever read.

ADDED: The oddness with Microsoft is just the latest monopoly and Intel is just as dirty, so it isn't that I have some special hate for Ms, it is monopoly and the excess that damages all people. In the time of AT&T monopoly, they were perhaps worse, considering it was just after WWII and domestic spying should have not been necessary. I do remember taking apart a phone in the 60's and found it very odd that they needed to hide a part of their circuit so thoroughly, that they would encase it in a ceramic. It is called "potting". What this meant is that there could be circuit A or circuit B inside that blob and the consumer would never know. As a result they could deliver "special" phones to people that were to be investigated. During that time, illegal tapping was rampant. National security was the excuse then, as now. I find it very odd that Ms can deliver a "safe" version of Windows to the military and consumers are left to swing in the wind, with few alternatives for the non-technical.

For everybody who worries about conflicker worm

http://www.confickerworkinggroup.org/infection_test/cfeyechart.html

This is a link to a site that should diagnose the problem. I do not use Windows so I cannot confirm or deny the fact, however this comes with a fairly good reference.