MERO GUFF - Blog on Information Technology,Fun,reviews,Mobiles,Computer related to NEPAL

Is it time to consider AVG Antivirus a bogus tool and switch over to different one??

2008-11-17T22:02:00.007+05:45

If you've been using AVG Antivirus, it's time to think now. AVG antivirus is very popular product. Like any other Antivirus company, it first gave it's product FREE for all during it's time. When people got used to it, they started bundling different PAID version, cutting off features from FREE version. Despite the fact, Free version offered full elimination of malwares though some unique features were left out for paid one.

Recent experiences with AVG antivirus is not good enough to believe it as a dependable antivirus software. It's not that old when AVG started to detect ZoneAlarm Firewall as a Trojan by the name of Agent_r.CX. What on earth guys behind AVG were thinking. Their definition files were tagging legit softwares as malicious.

On similar story, AVG antivirus detected user32.dll as a Trojan horse file and prompted to delete it. When deleted, it rendered their system unbootable. How the heck did they(AVG) not know that user32.dll is crucial file to have GUI in our system.

Now, this has happened to me a day ago, when, I tried to install flash player plugin for newly installed system(since firefox doesn't come loaded up already with that), it gave me a red warning on it. I double checked the adobe's site from where I downloaded and checked the file's properties. My Conscience told me nothing is wrong. I didn't care and installed the flash player plugin despite AVG's warning. Though I could see, AVG has renamed it to different file name. I don't know whats' cooking up on their side. Flash player is a must plugin for browsing.

The same issue that I(may be other thousands too) had few days ago hit this morning as news headlines;AVG identified install_flash_player.exe as PSW.Generic6.AQPD trojan and urged to delete it. That's one of the lamest antivirus warning.

All these issues were once discussed on their forum and, mysteriously all those posts and queries have been deleted by their moderators.

In regards to these responses, AVG says "AVG Technologies has immediately acted on a situation in which a limited number of consumers using AVG’s free software experienced a false-positive warning when downloading the latest Flash player update"
and adds "a replacement update within three hours of the original update and users are reporting no further problems. The company continues to institute new and increasingly rigorous quality-assurance standards to ensure that any potential vulnerabilities in future product updates are identified and eliminated before they can impact users." src

So, lets keep their clarification aside and think Is It time to switch to new one??

Thank you for reading my post.

How to remove zlob.dnschanger.rtk and recycled boot.com

2008-11-17T10:05:00.005+05:45

It is said that a computer with no firewall and antivirus softwares is 99.99 percent vulnerable to online threats and attacks as soon as it's connected to the Internet. Once it's connected to the Internet, it takes less than 20 minutes to get that computer victimized. This is what I read on one of the pages of a very thick book on Computer Security and Hacking.

Yesterday, I was working on a client's computer, it was new machine with no operating system. He had his legit copy of microsoft windows and I had to make more things work than just installing Microsoft Windows. It was the search for drivers and stuff like that plus couple of things to be tweaked according to his wish. I got the box and started working on it. Installation finished, all drivers loaded from various sources online and I was about to check some stuffs on Google. But as soon as I clicked some search links, it took me to some strange websites, most of them were so fake and seemed advertisement. Within that less than 15 minutes period of being online, the operating system was compromised. It was infected. It was my bad, that I forgot to load security softwares first.

Now it was pretty hard for me to bust that virus. I checked hidden startups on 'msconfig', checked running processes on task manager, but couldn't get any clue. I tried installing free AVG antivirus off the grisoft.com, but at the last moment of installation, AVG simply refused to get installed. I quickly installed Spybot Search and destroy, ran it quickly to check problems. Meantime, I downloaded Ad-Aware and installed and ran that too. Both of them, detected and tried fixing it. Looked like they fixed it. But the very next moment, virus got activated.

The computer I worked on was infected with some "zlob.dnschanger.rtk" and "resycled boot.com". That's what I saw on Spybot's result. I saw Zlob.dnschanger.rtk at first and later I found "resycled" wrongly spelled folder on every drive's root followed by a link to Autorun.inf and the program associated with it called boot.com

Believe me, this was the hardest malware that I've found till this date. I ran Hijack This, checked the process and actually found the suspicious one, but It wouldn't also delete that. It looked like it deleted but very next moment, running 'scan and save log', I could see the same thing popping up. Actually, "Hijack This" is considered a last resort to kill malwares. In my case, it failed too. I dived into registry, manually tried to remove the entries. It pretended it deleted but very next moment, it came back again. So, to me I compared the situation with Hindu mythology like where 'RAWANA's Head' popping up every time the LORD RAMA's arrow beheaded it's neck. Ummmm... All these things took more than an hour and I thought it's not wise to spend this much time to freshly installed system. My second thought was to nuke the Operating system and re-installed Windows again.

I've a strange itch to play with malwares, actually, I've a separate pen drive for that same purpose. I inserted my pen drive, loaded couple of things and the next moment, I could see 'resycled' folder on my pen drive. I successfully transferred the culprit to my pen drive. I formatted the computer and re-installed everything once again. This time, I loaded all the needed security softwares like AntiVirus,Firewall, Anti spywares etc. I loaded drivers and finished the system quickly.

This morning, I turned on my computer, where I've a sandbox system setup which is actually Operating System inside Operating System. If you know anything about VMware Virtualisation, then you know what I'm talking about. We call it sandbox. Anything you do inside that Virtualized Operating system, it's not gonna hamper the real operating system outside. The inside Sandbox system was Windows XP too. It was unprotected to be true. I quickly inserted my pen drive and ran something off there. After few seconds, I could see 'resycled' folder on my virtualized operating system. It was time for me to see how it's working. This is one hellava crazy virus which is doing more than one thing.

Some of the properties of this virus zlob.dnschanger.rtk(there are many many variants of this culprit) on my system:
- It changed my secondary DNS. That means, every time some dead link is found, it took me to somewhere else(some strange website with no page found message) instead of same old regular 'Address not found' page. That means, every time we send or request pages, it'll be parsed from that Odd DNS server. In other way, they'll read whatever we send out information from our computer.

- All the search result links of Google Search when clicked were re-directed to somewhere else than the destined links. Most of those links were purely looked advertisement and malicious. You'll go mad in situation like that. It looks like they want to make some money off us. The only solution I found for that time being is to copy the link and paste it manually on the address bar and hit the Go button or Enter key to prevent oneself going to malicious sites.

- It's deep rooted in the system and the process that it runs is also hidden. I tried to find the suspicious process using Microsoft's Process monitor but I gave up when I saw more than 64,000 processes running. Windows' default task manager is defunct in this case.

- It massively uses CPU's resource. As you go on surfing net, your computer slowly gives up till it becomes unresponsive meaning HANG..

There might be some other properties of this virus, but these are what I experienced. Other than that, while eradicating this thing, I found it's leaving it's traces all over the drive's root. Double-clicking any of your drive would technically hang your system. I had to right-click and select explore to see stuffs in my drive's root. That's how I saw strange folder 'resycled' and figure that it's actually the remnants of this zlob virus.

There is an effective way of removing zlob.dnschanger.rtk, resycled folder and boot.com
This virus deleted Spybot search and destroy on next restart. It didn't let AVG antivirus to be installed. Upon researching from my other computer, I found some tools to deal with this virus. Like ComboFix and Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware.
I first tried ComboFix. ComboFix didn't solve the problem. Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware was only hope, I ran it and to my wonder, It solved the problem.

Here is the step by step instructions how to remove this particular virus.

1. Since this is generating Autorun.inf Virus on every root drives, first disabled the autorun feature of your operating system.
a. Click Start-->Run
b. type 'gpedit.msc' for group policy editor(it's only in Windows XP PRO)
c. Under both Computer and User configuration, click->Administrative Templates->System
d. enable 'Turn off Autoplay' and select all drives. (you'll know when you reach
that screen, for now don't worry)
This will help prevent the virus to self trigger every time we clicked the root drive. I want you to set this option for your all computers, as most of the virus these days are triggered from the AUTORUN feature of windows.

2. Turn off the System Restore for now. Right Click 'My Computer' -> select properties -> 'System Restore'-> and select option for 'Turn off System Restore'. Click Ok-Ok when needed.

3. Click Start->Run-> type 'msconfig' and hit Enter key. Click 'Startup' Tab. Remove all suspicious startup stuffs from the list. Uncheck where needed

4. Download Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware. Install it and run it.

5. Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware detected virus and I saw something like this below in my case:
This cleverish virus is unusual and hard to kill manually. Looking at this, it was very hard to bust it in traditional way. Look where it has been keeping itself and on what names. It has used some of the file names and locations to keep itself which I was thinking is legitimate and harmless. These all remnants were responsible for DNS hijacking and frequent popups

6. As soon as you see this screen above, select all those Check boxes next to red lines and click 'Remove Selected'.

7. During the removal process, you might see the screen like this below:

It's asking you to restart. Restart the system, as it needs to update the DNS settings and refresh the memory. That's it.

Next restart will be your virus free computer. Now, install all that security softwares in your safebox. Happy virus-free computing.

Thank you for reading my post.

The Top 7 Worst and Notorious Websites in Nepal

2008-11-14T09:10:00.010+05:45

Some of my readers suggested me to make a story on the Worst yet notorious Websites originated from within Nepal. Didn't matter even if it's hosted on US servers. In fact there is no single server in Nepal hosted that way except some low-end, poorly maintained intranet and locally limited network infrastructure. It took me approximately 3 weeks to study some notoriously popular websites in Nepal and finally I'm able to come up with this article.

This article is purely based upon my research and hereby want to clarify there is no egoism and vengeance involved. I read other hundreds of links to confirm and support my verdict on the 'Top 7 Worst Websites in Nepal'.

Anyone affiliated with the following websites should take it as a measure of improvement and constructive criticism rather than fuming on what's written here.

Lets start with something as an example to make you understand what the theme of this post is. Check this out: www.ikissyou.org

Once you checked the site, you must be thinking "what's so special out there?". Lemme tell you, the Turkish guy Mahir Cagri on that site is 'Cyber Celebrity' and the credit goes to his awkwardly designed site ikissyou.org. Once his site broke record of millions of hits a day, I don't know how. Despite his degraded English written on his site, it was so popular during 1999. I don't know how. Ever since, he has been interviewed numerous times in medias. Even on their national/international TV channels, I don't know how. His eccentric website gave him name and fame. This is my theme for today. I'm talking about some of the worst yet notoriously popular sites originated from Nepal. I call them luck-favored, fluke winner.

I, hereby, starting my article's main nugget.

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1. mysansar.com
2. nepalnews.com
3. muncha.com
4. yomari.com
5. sajha.com
6. nepalvista.com
7. thamel.com

1. mysansar.com : You must've heard an urban saying, 'Many people read craps, many people do craps,many people eat craps'. Well this site is one of the blogs if you've read, then is crap. The author has self-proclaimed testimony awarded to him by himself as the first blogger of the First Nepali blog in Nepal. To your amusement, he is in a strong jest to prove all his readers not a reader but bunch of fools and douche bags. Look at his blog Title, 'This is not a news site, it's blog'. He thinks readers can't differentiate between news and blog articles. He delivers news all the time through his blog, yet his blog headers sound different and hilarious. I've chuckled many times on this stupidity, but not any more, I'm used to it.

According to some sources, his blog's popularity picked up during people's revolution which threw away King's throne in vain. He then posted pictures of clashes and fed news hungry Nepalese living abroad with prompt news and latest pictures. But it's cynical on his self-claiming that his blog is Nepal's first blog in Nepalese language. To my knowledge, I was reading other Nepalese blog and sites before his blog. Obviously he is truly a big time liar.

The guy who expects to be the author of the first Nepali blog, has actually started his blog's title in English alphabet. Isn't that way hypocritical? On top of his posts based upon politically biased news and informations, he also backed baseless facts like 'Peepal-leaf powered Cellphone', he dishonored the benefits of VOIP, a latest and vibrant technology in use today. There are so many other posts where he falsified many facts and forced people to believe his saying. Truly, this blogger is out of mind stupid who curses his employers, advertisers and yet notoriously popular. I wouldn't say Mysansar.com sucks directly but the reality is his site gets thousands of hits a day.

2. nepalnews.com : More than 7 years ago, Mercantile started a simple sister site called nepalnews.com for publishing news online. Mercantile is one of Nepal's old Internet Service Providers. The CEO of Mercantile thinks himself as Bill Gates of Nepal. When people of Nepal were getting a word or two about Internet, they started their news site. Nobody had dared to start a site because it was way expensive then. It was only to someone's reach like big organizations or richy rich person. Starting website was of great respect and almost unimaginable for ordinary people. Mercantile instead of removing that disbelief, increased the gap. They charged people with high rates for their services. They didn't do anything to ease rather proved the technology as the most expensive thing after GOLD. While reading news about then India's progress on IT always envied me.

What started as a simple news publishing site is now more uglier and cluttered than ever. They bear a reputation of being Nation's only site which started delivering news but look at their sites security. This site has been hacked several times. Ever since crackers hacked into their boxes and wiped out entire video collections relevant to their news, they are now hosted on YouTube. They don't hire skilled manpower to safeguard their online services.
You can find several grammatical errors, poorly written articles and unstructured content and dead archives. This is not a personal site, it's read nationally and internationally. They should've considered on that.
On other note, this site is visited tremendously everyday and I wouldn't say nepalnews.com sucks.

3. muncha.com : This is Country's old online shopping store. Actually, munchahouse.com was later on superseded by muncha.com, short and sweet name.
It became more vague, cluttered and mismanaged. They targeted rich and content buyers by charging more on their products. Online purchasing is usually cheaper than real-life business. On the contrary, muncha.com sells more expensive stuffs and it seems they rarely update their price listing. When they deliver/ship the product, there is delivery charge which is hidden and unknown to buyers. This site is a total disgrace to be the nation's one of the online shopping stores. The pricing is astronomical and unbelievable. Yet, it's one of the most talked and visited sites.

4. yomari.com : Yomari is one of the oldest web solution providers meaning, they build websites, help creating MIS services, data mining etc. They've big names under their clients according to them.
Yomari in 1998
If you've eagle-eyed on their latest Site where they've stated, they founded their company in 2004 which is actually a big lie. In fact, this company has been into existence since 1998. During this period, they've managed to grab many opportunities to create websites of private companies and government. If you've seen Nepal's government sites being hacked by Iranian crackers and ever wondered who might have finished those sites, well it's YOMARI. Their websites are the most hacked, unsecured and unreliable.

As one report stated, their management is also filled with self-centered and abusing officials. If it were in USA, one might have already pressed charge against them but that is Nepal. They are very notorious for employee abuse.

If you are planning to buy their services, I want you to read this thread below:
Yomari abuses it's employee unimaginably
You don't wanna get services from a company which is dictatorial to it's employees and unaccountable to it's clients. Yet, this is the most sought after web company. It's employees think yomari.com sucks bigtime.

5. sajha.com : This is one of the ugliest Nepalese websites I've ever seen. It is atrociously cluttered and hard to navigate, improper design and very grotesque.

The navigation is so cluttered that it looks like somebody might have spit with disgrace. Whoever has designed this site, I compare it with his mind's structure.

Other than that, this site is extremely inclusive and it has everything of interest to read on. It has live forum,chat,photo albums, everything to spend good time upon.

This is another massively visited site. But I never pay first visit on this site except some search engine result pages pointing to this site.

6. nepalvista.com : This is one of the oldest sites which specifically reviews Nepalese websites and awards them with it's own Badge. Way back, when bloggers asked this site to review their blogs, they denied simply because they didn't know about blogs. Irony, they've their own blogs now a days. They started reviewing blogs too. Hilarious but the truth.

The problem with this site is it doesn't do good reviews. They are focused on biased and emotional reviews. Many of their 'Site of the Month' or 'Site of the year' are dead and they don't really care to weed it out. So, this proves how immature their reviews are and how unprofessional their awards are which they keep doing on mushrooming sites without much research. I've already mentioned they do this biased and emotional.

Other than that, I wouldn't say Nepalvista.com sucks. Yet it's one of the most visited sites during it's time. You can still find collection of Nepalese site listed, don't go for their reviews though.

7. thamel.com : This site used to look good. It does,according to it's domain name, sound like it's only about Thamel, but that's not. I would tag it as a chameleon. I've been seeing this site changing it's color and service all the times. Few years ago, It looked like an online stores, sometimes it looks like Gift store, now a days you can see they are offering loan to NRN(Non-Resident Nepalese), dead link to their so called online banking.. Yeap, so much hiccups to get their services. What would you do, if you sent money and the next day, their link was dead from where you sent money?

One of my readers told me, that he tried to send money through thamel.com but later had to end up arguing to get his money back. He almost lost hope for his money because neither receiver received money and nor he's properly informed. Their customer support, I guess, is horrible.

Other than that, it's one of the most visited sites in Nepal. May be because it's the only place in Nepal where Tourists flock at first as soon as they come to this country. Back to their homes, their memories from Thamel must excite them to type thamel.com instinctively.

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This ends my reviews on the worst and notoriously popular Nepalese websites. If you guys have anything to share more on this, I'll compile and constantly update this article giving due credit to your words.

Thank you for reading my post.

Reservation Rewards !!! Hidden Charges and fees

2008-11-14T03:52:00.005+05:45

I didn't know that my credit card was being charged for something that I didn't even know. It's recently, I activated the alert system and that's how I came to know somebody have been taking amount from my account on monthly basis. The alert system notified me of what's going on my account and that's how the email came to my inbox. I didn't care on the statements that showed my savings and expenditures that I made, because for this particular issue, it was too low to really put my attention onto. I thought some sort of bank charges. But as I tried to find it out, I had no idea what it was. So, calls went to my bank, they told me to ask the company who charged me and some how I figured out that their phone number was listed on the details of the transaction. Company name was Reservation Rewards. I fired my first phone call, and very tired voice responded. I complained and she was awkwardly ready to refund me. Though she told me that she'll cancel my membership(I don't remember when I signed up with them that I'll pay regular fee), I needed proof. When asked, she told me she'll send me the confirmation email, which never arrived.

It had really become so much of concern for someone like me who went unaware of this fraud. I called ReservationRewards.com this morning, and I got reply from energetic young voice. She told me about the merchant company where I did business in past. Ummmm.. Geeks.com, I used my credit card there but how the heck did they got my info. She told me that they have tied up with that company like in a partnership. Then I remember of the fabulous offer they showed me as soon as I finished online purchase at Geeks.com
They needed me to sign up, I did with my email address and so. I never knew that they would charge my card because they never told me about that. It was total rip-off,I got tempered, and yelled at her. She got silenced, I thought she dropped the call, it's moment later she responded when I said 'hellllooooo'.

Bottom line: This company was listed under the name:Reservation Rewards. Though I had hard time trying to get answer why they charged my credit card without my consent, they seemed filled with guilt, and the answer wasn't that satisfactory and certainly refunding me stopped further discussion between us. I asked my bank to stop any payment request payment from this company in coming days. They did. Problems looked solved. Later I searched on this company and somehow I figured out that being member with them, one is going to get some sort of discount on doing business with their referred businesses. Had they not hidden me the fact that they are going to charge me, I wouldn't have signed up at first place and secondly written this article. I strongly advise Reservationrewards.com to be upfront, not to conceal what their motivation is and not to steal people's money silently.

My urge to my readers is do not ever sign up for any offers with your emails on internet as soon as you make some purchase using your credit card. These shameless online merchants are selling our infos to third parties. Geeks.com really didn't respect my confidential data that I've shared with them. And, in coming days, I'm not gonna refer this company to anyone. But I think it's just the awareness that comes after stumbling. I'm sharing my story. Beware!!!

How to avoid Chain Mails

2008-11-12T07:48:00.005+05:45

Have you ever received an email forwarded so many times and asking you to forward the same? Have you not been able to deny and sheepishly forward it? Have you ever received a mail telling you about the outbreak of deadly computer virus, which has actually a solution DIY and want you to forward it to others? Have you ever been enticed of an email which says that You've won certain amount of bucks and wants you to follow exactly the email says, forward it, win it??

Welcome to the world of the Chain Mails. ummm emails. Whoever sends you such email, their only intention is to clutter the bandwidth, back the Urban Legend, or to kill their worthless time to have some fun fooling around with innocent people out there, just like you and me. Well, I'm not that innocent in terms of computing stuffs otherwise, I wouldn't be writing this article who is telling you one or two things about chain mails.

Every time, you get chain mail, the subject of the email is usually followed by.. "FW: FW: Something something blah blah.. "
The only thing to do is to select it and hit that delete link in your inbox. But, if email is so tempting, there is no harm reading it and trashing. I often found that once some people read such emails, and they do forward without a second thought. When I asked them why would they do it, the answer leads me to some sort of social engineering being used. If you are scared of the consequences which these emails threaten you about and quickly forwards them to all in your contact, then I remember a story about a crackpot, you don't need to find him , just go in front of the mirror, THAT'S YOU. Don't be a crackpot, don't care about such chain mails at all. They are not gonna do any harm to you. This is a proven experience. I often get such emails from my contact list, if interesting, I read them but as soon as I see somewhere in the end, there is some sort of message which might be scary at first, like, "if you don't send email to at least 10 people, you'll have bad things happening within 24 hours, " or " if you don't forward, the curse will be upon you " or " if you don't.... someone near/dear will die"...

These people are taking advantage of your goodwill, your innocent instinct, and unnecessarily misusing the bandwidth, wasting your time and once again proving, that you are a big LOSER, FOOL of the Fools. These people make fun of themselves.

Lemme tell you my story, these emails have reached me in different flavors. Some were religious, some were very funny and some were scary stories, some were as lucrative as it could let you feel a millionaire for one second,and if you are Fool enough, you might have that feeling for some days or week before it's shattered to pieces. My point is don't follow them what they say. Just read and trash it. That's it. No harm is going to happen to you or you are not going to loose anything.

If you ever receive any of such so convincing hoaxes/chain emails, try to search it online first. Try the search with the exact email's subject key phrases. Believe me, you won't regret. You'll be astonished to see the results out there.

Furthermore, you can have a look at www.snopes.com which is deliberately dissecting all those lies,hoaxes,rumors and urban legends. Take your time sometime, and read this site.

Make this habit, you'll be happy. Don't be fool, don't get scared of such intimidation that you read, don't worry about the consequences, believe in yourself, be logical and one day, there will be no chain mail.

I've found a video on YouTube, this guy looks utterly annoyed by chain mails, and I could see his frustrations and cussing on this video below about chain mails. Check out what he's to say about chain mails(mind his cussing):

So, this post is all about not getting paranoia, frustrated or scared after you read/get them. 'Chillax' and enjoy your precious time.

Thank you for reading my post.

Circuit City Going Bankrupt

2008-11-10T22:29:00.003+05:45

Circuit City,one of the biggest electronic stores in America, filed for bankruptcy this week. The reasons being the cut-throat competition,zero influx of customers and pressure from it's vendors.

Circuit City will open till Sale this upcoming holiday season but before that it has announced that it'll cut off more than 700 jobs and laying off thousands of employees.

Once I stopped by Circuit City here in Santa Cruz, and checked some of their gadgets. It was way higher than on Internet. Though, Santa Cruz is notorious for expensive stuff and living, at least I had thought it wouldn't be the case with electronic stuffs. I just did window shopping and ordered things from online at lot cheaper price. I was wondering how these companies are sustaining, then I made second thought, may be consumer are so naive.

I obviously blame this for the bad economy. People are almost unwilling to spend a penny on fancy stuffs than necessity in this worst economy condition.

Thank you for reading my news.

Tipsy Saturday

2008-11-09T10:56:00.009+05:45

Tomorrow, I'm going to Berkeley along with my family for some meditation sessions. I don't really have anything special to talk about on this very weekend except some peppy stuffs that I've collected so far.

This is a very funny animated AD based on notoriously popular character Gabbar Singh of 'SHOLAY', the biggest hit in indian film history. If you don't relate to hindi movies, skip the video and observe some of these pictures(click 'em for full size)

Thank you for reading my post.

No more prostitution Ads on Craigslist

2008-11-08T09:51:00.004+05:45

Craigslist has decided to filter it's Ads posting on erotic section. Recently, a sex predator brutally abused a woman, the case then is dragged to court. Sex predator used Craigslist's posting to seek it's victim.

Craigslist where you can find everything you want to be done, is one of the most popular site visited worldwide. Based on it's Ads, millions of trading happen on daily basis. Their erotic section which has become a link for prostitute finding, unnatural sexual encounter and other illegal sex activities, is what many believe to be removed. But that'll be against the term of what Craigslist was built upon. Finally, to circumvent such negative issues,it is to use Credit card to post any posting on that section and Craiglist is charging fee to post on that. This is needed to keep track of every poster if needed to take legal action for any undesired results.

Video src:msnbc.com
Whatever, this news is weird and it seems like a sort of restriction on the internet freedom but finally the agreement has been made to take some measures.

Thank you for reading my post.

Firefox outroars Chrome's Incognito

2008-11-06T10:46:00.008+05:45

Despite huge record breaking promotion and download day campaign, Firefox is able to grab only the 20% market share. Whereas Internet Explorer looses it's share and now limited to only 71% from 95% according to one study. Internet Explorer is still the massively used internet browser in the world. This is the seen and experienced fact. I've been to many clients, most of them mid-aged and older and they don't know what on earth 'Firefox' is. They are just happy with the way 'Internet Explorer' is. It's already there in the system.

Few month's ago, I was fascinated to learn about Google's Chrome browser. One of the coolest feature that it has incorporated is 'Incognito Mode'. I exaggerated 'Incognito Mode' then. Obviously, I was excited. Now, following the trend, the next update(Firefox v.3.1) of Firefox is coming up with a feature something similar to 'Incognito Mode' in Chrome.

Formally, they've named it as 'Private Browsing'. But articulately, they are naming it 'PORN MODE'. They are implying that Internet is mostly used for porn. People don't want to leave any traces for whatever they do online. That's what 'PORN MODE' is all about.

Why do they needed the 'porn mode' in the browser? It's because, nobody wants to leave any traces behind. It's all about privacy. There is a big drawback with the already existing feature called "clear Private Data". When one does 'Clear Private Data', they usually end up clearing up all the needed/unneeded internet cache and records. This was such a big discomfort. 'Porn Mode' clears only the Unneeded internet cache and records. Just fire up the 'Porn Mode'(Private Browsing), it will switch off cookies, browsing and search history, won't save form data,passwords and so. When done, it'll clear the cache at the end of the browsing session. Isn't that cool?

This will save lots of time and the moments of reluctance to use other's computer to check your vital information online.

Ever since, Google's Chrome has come up with that feature, there is a hurdle among browsers developer to incorporate this feature. Following the trend, IE8 has something similar already in it's bag. They've named it as 'InPrivate Browsing' tool. When IE8 will be released, 'InPrivate Browsing' would become one of the interesting features.

But for now, I'm waiting for that Firefox update.

Thank you for reading my post.

Who won the US Election 2008?

2008-11-05T02:49:00.015+05:45

UPDATE: Barack Obama won the 44th Presidential Election. He won by 349 electoral votes ~~and still counting from other states at the time of writing these words.~~

One very notable aspect of this election is he's the first African-American President in the American history. I could hear lots of fireworks right now. People are cheering and getting out for winning parade. California is favored by more than 90% Democrat voters.

meroguff congratulates Mr. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA for being next President of the United States of America.

"US Presidential Legacy" is what this Video below shows:

Obama is one the most influential president that America has ever seen. He touched my feelings(and millions of others) when I saw him talking on TV. I really never cared before because other politicians talked which I never understood and it was way sophisticated/lie. I always ignored them. But Obama always talked about problems of general people and ways to solve them. He advocated for everyone. His plans are so inclusive that he even won all of the immigrants heart. These immigrants are the people who will make tomorrow's America. I still remember US consular giving us orientation speech that America is the country of Immigrants.

Obama is the first ever president to take Internet under his advantage. He utilized internet as well for all of his campaign and it's goodness of Internet that I could donate for his campaign couple of times. I'm feeling so good just as his mail stated few days ago. I'm feeling good because he wrote that I would be the part of this victory. YEAHHHHHHHHHH I'M PART OF IT.

whewwwwwwwwwwwwww...

Majority of people weren't wrong, Majority of them weren't fool, so OBAMA wins.

Update:


Navin --

I'm about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first.

We just made history.

And I don't want you to forget how we did it.

You made history every single day during this campaign -- every day you knocked on doors, made a donation, or talked to your family, friends, and neighbors about why you believe it's time for change.

I want to thank all of you who gave your time, talent, and passion to this campaign.

We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I'll be in touch soon about what comes next.

But I want to be very clear about one thing...

All of this happened because of you.

Thank you,

Barack

--------------
According to my blog's poll stat, Barack Obama is the winner and he's the next US president. That's what my blog poll has predicted.

Democrats won by 61%, according to my blog
One of the weirdest thing for someone like me who've grown seeing third worlds politics,is American politics and it's way of choosing the President. When I closely observe it's actually not the popular votes but the electoral votes that selects the president of the United States. I was totally shocked when my teacher Peggy told me once about this. In my country, it is the mass votes which select it's nation's leader. Things are different in here.

There are altogether 50 states in America and each state is assigned a definite number of electoral votes. The number of electoral votes on given 'state' depends upon senators and representatives elected from that particular 'state' and later on who represent themselves in the House of Representative/Congress. I live in California and I came to know that it's the largest in electoral vote counts. It has 55 electoral votes. That means 55 senators/represantives from California represent in the House.

Lets make an assumption, if there were a huge votings in Oregon than in California and majority of voters(almost 99% of the population) in Oregon voted for republican candidate than in California(say 40% of the the population voted Democrats). Oregen has only 7 electoral votes. Counting numbers of voter in Oregon would be almost double than of California but what happens is California actually takes the badge of the victory because of it's electoral vote counts. This is just a mere assumption but this is how American Politics work. Popular votes don't necessarily help candidates win the election, it's actually the Electoral votes.

Check the image above, you don't need any other words from me to figure out which states are playing main role. California,Texas,Newyork,Florida,Ohio are the states with huge electoral vote counts as compared to others. So, it is significant for any candidate in winning these states.

Altogether, there are 538 electoral votes. Half of it would be 269 and So it must be at least 270 electoral votes to win the election.

Lets see what's there for tomorrow. Blue on Electoral maps represents Democrats whereas Red, represents Republicans just in case you're overflooded with those specs on your TV News channel and wondering what it is all about.

Thank you for reading my post.

Halloween 2008 in Downtown Santa Cruz , California

2008-11-03T00:01:00.015+05:45

Last Friday, it was Halloween day of the year 2008. I worked whole day but I could see people roaming on Downtown Santa Cruz with weird costumes on. It was quite fascinating to see this weird culture. I punched out early than usual because my boss wanted me to see how this festival goes. I got back to home, took my Panasonic FZ28 camera and rushed back to Downtown. People were coming, marching together with very absurd looking costumes. It got dark sooner than I expected. I was worried if the pictures would come good enough on that night's low light condition.

As night grew, it started to drizzle and then abruptly started raining. One thing to notice, this Halloween, I didn't feel that cold than last year's even if it was raining.

Later on, I took shelter under the hood of nearby-shop and started taking people's picture and video footages. I enjoyed watching them and shooting at the same time.

I compiled the following movie of that day which is roughly 35 minutes of video. You'll see how Halloween is on Santa Cruz, California. This video is High-def but after I converted it to streaming format, quality is slightly nominal than the one in my harddrive.

There was no fun if photos wouldn't have been taken(I was actually worried because it was raining and not really in a mood to take camera out but..). So I took bunch of pics without caring much. Those people,standing there in front of my camera, were kind enough to let me take their pictures.

The followings are the pictures of that day. All of these pictures depict something and the personality within the costumes. Photo tells you a lots of things. Hope you'll enjoy these pictures.(Click on image for enlarged version)

Thank you for reading my post.

Tips to stay safe in a Computer Virus World

2008-11-02T22:53:00.003+05:45

To stay safe in a computer virus world, there are several steps to take. First, be careful with all emails. If you use Outlook or Outlook Express, turn off the scripting feature. Make sure that anti virus software checks all of you incoming and outgoing emails, and don’t open an email with attachments unless you know for sure who sent it to you and why. It is always better to be safe than sorry, so if in doubt, don’t open the attachment. Viruses and worms will attach themselves to your address book and replicate themselves by sending copies of themselves to everyone you know and commonly email, and they won’t know not to open it because it will look as though it comes from you.

Next, keep the anti virus software up-to-date. There are many good programs out there to stop viruses. NOD32,AVG and others work well. But, you need to keep them up-to-date. Most anti virus programs allow you to go to their web site and download updates on a regular basis. Some of them in fact can even be set to do the downloading and updating for you automatically on a regular basis. Updates will keep you away from evolving new viruses. So be sure to update.

Use a router for safety’s sake. A router will block your IP address and prevent many viruses from reaching you or any other computers on your network. This will work very well if you are on a cable modem or DSL, but is also useful for those who are on dial up. Routers are feasible price-wise and some latest routers come built-in with firewalls.

Switch to software that is not as commonly used. Microsoft makes great products and is in common use, but Microsoft is also the biggest target out there for hackers. Also, if you switch to another browser, Netscape Navigator or Firefox for example, you will avoid some virus problems. Switching from Outlook to something like Thunderbird or Calypso for your email or using web based email like Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail from Microsoft, which keeps the email storage away from your computer and also includes virus checking software is worth considering. There are many good email programs out there and many good browsers. Try several and see which you are most comfortable with.

Next use a firewall. There are many good firewalls out there. Windows XP comes with a built in firewall. Comodo Firewall has a free version. Other good firewalls are available at reasonable costs and many have thirty day free trials so you can check one out and see if it works well for you. A firewall can be your first line of defense against computer viruses. Install one, especially if you have broadband, like T1, cable or DSL access to the Internet. Going on the Internet without a firewall is like walking into combat without a Kevlar helmet and a flak vest to protect your self.

Next, backup everything you do. Get yourself a CD or DVD burner if you don’t have one already, or a portable external hard drive(mine is Seagate's Freeagent 500 Gig). Get in the habit of backing your system up on a regular basis so that, if you are hit by a virus, your data is not permanently lost. You’ll have a good backup copy of it handy and ready to reinstall. You can keep your files on online storage services if you need them so frequent from different places and download them without fearing any sort of deletion.

Finally, here’s the bonus tip of the day. Use common sense. Think when you surf. If you don’t know someone, be leery of accepting the files they might want to transfer to you. If you want to download software from a site make sure that the site has proper security protocol. Read the instructions. Don’t just automatically click from reflex. The brain you have is much smarter than your computer, but you have to use it properly. Use your brain, use your common sense and think.

Stay safe and happy net surfing.

Thank you for reading my post.