by Matt | Apr 5, 2005 | Culture
You know, it feels REALLY good to smack the shit out of a virus or some spyware. It really does. People who write that sort of shit are dickless, friendless assholes who will be serving me my coffee for the rest of their pathetic lives.
Yesterday I got an e-card from Blue Mountain, a company I’ve heard of and used before. I thought it was from my mom. The link to get my card when to the blue mountain servers (so I thought). When nothing opened in Firefox I assumed it was a flash/shockwave thing, so I opened it in IE…. God, why I did that I’ll never know. After nothing opened in IE (I got what looked to be a 404) I closed the browser and deleted the email. 30 seconds later AVG Anti-Virus is going ape shit. It’s detected that about 30 different backdoor trojans are trying to install themselves. I delete them all before they do anything… or so I think. Apparently I’ve caught the newest nasty virus on the block. A combination of malware, spyware, trojan and backdoor worm. Parts of it are called different things. The most common is wsup.exe and wtools.exe. WTools is a bullshit toolbar thing that hijacks IE and uses it to install more nasty things everytime IE is opened. Wsup is a system process that doubles, triples and renames itself. The kicker is that after it installs it changes registry information so that the files are undeleteable and the processes are unstopable. Trying to kill one process will literally spawn to more with different names. I had WtoolsA, B, C …. S, etc at one point. A quick trip to Trend Micro and those were gone. Or so I thought. These little fuckers were tough. They renamed themselves again, moved, and restarted even after I edited my mscofig to stop the processes from starting.
I was getting made. I restarted, booted into safe mode with a command prompt and BY HAND, tracked down each and every entry in the registry, changing them all so I’d be able to finally delete them. That worked. I deleted Wtools and Wsup. After that I booted normally and just to be on the safe side I ran AVG again. This time it came up clean. Just because I’m anal I started up TrendMicro’s Housecall as well. I’m glad I did. It seems they left me with a parting gift. A nice, hidden copy of Backdoor.Small.33x hidden in my CSRSS file.
Now, csrss.exe is a very important system file, I can’t just go and delete it… or can I? I tried all the normal steps first. I tried to kill the process only to have Windows say “this is a critical system file and it’s not to be fucked with”. Ok, ok… gotta think about this. So, I read up on csrss. Apparently its a wonderful little command layer file that sits in your system32 directory… not your windows directory. Huzah! I had an imposter. The little bastard cloned the properties of the real file so that it couldn’t be messed with but it was sitting in the wrong folder. A quick reboot with a dos prompt again took care of that.
Mess with my shit will they. Not if they know whats good for’em. It didn’t help that SpyBot was jumping around like a jack rustle terrior every 2 seconds trying to tell me that something was jacking with my registry but it couldn’t tell me what. It just kept saying “Process: -blank- is trying to modify: -blank- entry. Allow or Deny?” Great job there guys. At least it knew something was up, I’ll give it that much.
Anyway, after running AVG, TrendMicro and (after installing it) Norton, it appears I’m in the clear. Nothing mildly infectious to be found.
That’ll teach me to open IE… even for cards from my Mom. Stupid IE, if it weren’t for windows update (once a year or so) it would be completely uninstalled anyway.
But, back to the main topic at hand… those wang-less, pimply faces gas station attendents that have a sack small enough to write this shit…. blah, blah blah, explative, dirty word, vulgarity…. you get the idea.
Out.
by Matt | Apr 4, 2005 | Movies, Music, Personal, Work
What a weekend. It was kinda all over the place. Saturday I worked the 100th Aniversary party for American Nation Insurance or something like that. It was a crazy party with probably well over 1000 people. We were hired to photograph couples as they came in as a gift to them from the company. After that we were to photography the party, dinner and the presentation afterwards. The party was so big that we called in 2 extra photographers. I’m not sure how much they helped but it was nice to have someone to help carry stuff. Things went pretty well for the most part. My camera suffered a massive error and died about halfway through dinner, but hey, that’s what backup cameras are for, and we had 2 of’em. It was actually a pretty sweet rig, Canon 20D with booster pack, 17-35 L-Series (pro) lens, Quantum QFlash and Turbo battery kit all stuffed onto a custom bracket. I think it’ll be my main wedding rig once I figure out whats wrong with the camera. It might just need a firmware flash or maybe a good nights sleep.
Speaking of which, I didn’t get home until 2am from that shindig, which, with the time change became 3am. I slept in until about noon on Sunday. I haven’t been feeling well, I’ve got some sort of sinus/throat thing and it’s been real bugging me. I’ve been doing my usual Nyquil and OJ and it seems to be keeping the full-on cold at bay.
Sunday was pretty cool. While I was asleep, Lauren’s cell phone rang and it was Dan (from SCAD). He had a 4 hour layover in Houston before his fight back to San Diego. We figured since he was in the neighborhood we’d pay him a visit and grab some dinner with him and catch up. It was good to see Dan and he seemed to be doing well aside from stomach trouble from his excessive drinking the night before. He wanted to get something “Texas-ish” to eat so we took him for some mexican at Papasitos. After that we still had some time to kill so we stopped in at Frys before we brought him back.
Frys is quite possibly my favorite store on the planet now. It’s super Walmart sized and its full from floor to ceiling with everything electronic and computer related. It’s the only store I know of where you can go in and browse the “motherboard section” and physically handle the display board before you buy it. Not to mention the fact that isles to follow have every other component you can image. You can quite literaly walk into Frys and walk out with all the pieces to build a new computer at below retail, almost NewEgg prices. Add DVDs, CDs, Software and Home Electronics sections and you’ve got one sweet store.
And speaking of CDs, I went over to their techno section (yes, they actually have a techno/dance section) to look for the new Danny Howels Global Underground (after Chris reminded me which one it was) and ended up coming home with the greatest mix CD set ever made instead.
Renaissance: The Mix Collection by Sasha and John Digweed
3 CDs of pure genious. The quotes on the box sum it out pretty well…
“The re-release of this remastered 10th anniversay edition couldn’t have come at a better time” … “For many it was the first mix album they ever bought and for us it remains the best” … “Perhaps the greatest mix CD of all time”
Yeah. This is actually a re-release of the Uber rare original, which if I’m not mistaken, is going for hundreds on Ebay. It’s old school audio bliss. It makes me remember why I like techno in the first place.
Anyway, after we dropped Dan off we headed south back towards home when we decided to go see SinCity. A few phone calls later and Robin and Laurie are coming with us. We catch the 8pm at Cinemark.
SinCity is one of those movies I’ll have to sit and think about for a while. It wasn’t bad, it was ok, and there’s nothing that I can pick out instantly as something I didn’t like, I just can’t help feeling that it was only mediocre though. Not for any particular reason, it just didn’t thrill me as much as I thought it would. Like I said, it’s not “bad” so don’t think that I didn’t like it, it just needs some time to digest I think. The direction and cinematography were very well done. The visuals were perfect and consistant and the mood was as close to a Frank Miller comic book as you can possibly get. I think there was a thin layer of “cheese” on top of the whole thing and that most of the actors were dry and that every line felt like a one-liner instead of dialog. This could also be because 99% of the lines were taken directly from the books, not to mention about 90% of the shots through out the movie. They did a great job of trying to recreate EVERYTHING from the comics but in the end it just feels a little forced. There’s a quote from a reviewer that reads: “Accuracy isn’t the same thing as quality.” and I think I agree with that. Out of 10, from me it gets something like a 8.5. Apparently, the tomato agrees – RT 78%.
Today is my day off so I’m spending the whole of it enjoying my new CDs, trying to get rid of the spyware I just found (stupid f’ing ecards from my mom) and playing some more Brothers In Arms. I considered briefly getting a new Xbox game, but there’s nothing out right now that I feel like spending $50 on. DOA Ultimate is a thought, but I’d rather wait until it’s in the “Hits” package and $20 cheaper.
Lastly, my “Recent Links” plugin is completely borked. I’m trying to fix it but keep getting parse errors. I’ve sent an email off to the author, we’ll see what he says. That should be back up (or gone) in a day or two.
Matt out.
by Matt | Mar 30, 2005 | Culture
Last night I got to thinking about my Sidekick. As I was using it and trying out the phone features I held it up to my head to make a few phone calls. Afterwards, instinctively I wiped off the screen. It’s what I did with my Nokia, it’s what I do with our cameras here at the office. I don’t want to get dirt, oil or other grab imbeded in the screen or in the cracks and crevices of whatever I’m using. Then it hit me. This thing is practically a PDA right? I wonder if they sell those clear pastic adhesive sheets are screen protectors. This thing has a fairly large screen, I’d like it to be protected. So, after running a few errands, Lauren and I stopped off at Worst Buy to look in their phone section. Well, their not a T-mobile affiliate, so they only carry Version and Sprint accesories, which is such horse shit. Why they couldn’t carry a car charger or headset for anyone else is beyond me. Anyway, I didn’t find anything T-mobile specific, but I did find some for PDAs. They’re by a company called Fellowes (link here) and they call them WriteRight – Micro Thin Screen Protectors. They came in different sizes, but I got the “universal” size so I could trim them as nessisary. I went home, slapped one on my Sidekick and from now on I don’t have to worry about the screen… unless of course I sit on it. I also brought them into work and slapped a few on my boss’ phone as well as the cameras. There were 12 sheets in the box and I’ve got at least 8 left. Not bad for a few bucks.
by Matt | Mar 30, 2005 | Tech
After delving deep into the phone once it was activated (which actually only took 2 hours instead of the 48 it mentions), there’s quite a few features that are both great and confusing at the same time. With a little practice, I was using the phone like a pro by dinner time. The learning curve is really flat lined and once you get the hang of how one app works, the other all work similarly. So, what are the pros and cons of this thing… well, I’ll tell you.
Pros:
– On initial startup and when the phone rings, the multi colored LEDs under the D-Pad go nuts and produce a trippy AND customization light show. I have mine set to glow, HAL9000 like, pulsing in and out of reds and oranges.
– The scroll wheel is your friend. The little wheel on the right is the most important button on the phone, with one hand you can do anything. I like that.
– The keyboard is easy to use. Even my big meat hook thumbs can get in there and hit the right keys 99% of the time.
– Security in the phone of an innovative “combonation lock” as well as a password for more sensative data.
– Multiple sound levels without going to a menu. The volume buttons used for a phone call double as switches to change the sound levels of the device. Also, the phone has like 10 customizable levels from “extreme maximum loud” to “the led flashes and the phone is silent”.
– Email and AIM are easy to set up and use. Plus, a free email account tied directly to the phone doesn’t hurt.
– Email can support multiple formats (pop, imap, exchange, etc) as well as different levels of SSH!
– Once configured, speed dial is accessable without opening the keyboard through the use of the green “phone” button and the scroll wheel.
– Calandar, Notes and ToDo list are syncable to your computer and are actually handy apps.
– The “ring” menu concept is nicely executed and well designed. You can’t exactly get lost in it.
– Sound quality of the phone is excellent and the speaker phone setting is loud and clear.
Those are some of the highlights. There’s other little things that I like, but these are what come to mind. Now, there are a few things I think they can improve on (or change all together)…
Cons:
– To unlock the phone takes two buttons pushed nearly simultaneously, meaning you need two hands. Not that easy for one handed use.
– The power button is really un-sensative. You’ve got to REALLY push on it to turn the phone on/off.
– The ringtones are few and far between and mostly crappy. Anything outside of the phones defaults you have to pay for ($1.99 per tone) and 99% of them are rap, r&b or soul. There’s a few under the “alternative” and “rock” categories I might use, but I don’t want to pay $1.99 to have my phone shout “We’re on the hiiiiiighway to hell!” everytime it rings.
– It comes with 1 (!) game and it’s an astroids clone. Pathetic. There’s no bejeweled clone and all the others, like the most pathetic version of Battleship I’ve ever seen, cost $5.99 each.
– Email is displayed as folders (inbox, saved, drafts, sent and trash), which is nice, but there’s no way to go strait to your inbox for example. There’s also no way to hide the unused folders (drafts?) and/or folders you don’t use (I don’t save “sent” email). Why should I have to scroll through those to get at my inbox?
– There were no instructions on how to import SIM card phone numbers. It was a feature burried about 5 menus deep. And when it did import them, it imported things like “Chip Cell” as “Cell, Chip” in all caps with the number in the wrong field. I had to retype half my imported numbers.
– In the phone book, you can assign photos to your callers… which is nice… except you can’t import photos. So, you have to have a photo of the person on your phone, taken with your phones camera. That wouldn’t be a problem except the phone only holds 36 photos and you can have 2000 contacts in your phone book. Also, if you want to use pictures for your contacts, you can’t delete them. Meaning, if you have 30 people with photo contacts, you only have 6 pictures left on your camera at all times. Very Weak. The alternative are the built in “buddy icon-ish” cartoon characters. They are perhaps the gayist anime icons ever.
– The web browser is slow. Useable, but slow. The phone downloads the page and then transforms it into a readable and properly formatted size for the sidekick. That’s neat, but it takes a minute or two each time. Bookmarks become very important so you can skip directly to what you need.
– The camera is pretty sad. The color sucks, it’s a very low resolution and it can’t take a picture without direct sunlight to save it’s life.
So, there you have it. Good phone, good email and phone features, it’s just a little weak on the “extras” and if you’re buying a phone like this, it’s really the extras that are supposed to make it or break it right? Well, for me it’s perfect. Just the right blend of what I need with a few extras to make it fun to use. I won’t be taking photos like crazy, but email and text messages will fly.
Oh, and if you want to send me an email directly to the phone, you can send it to my usually nickname at tmail dot com. If you can’t figure out what my usually nickname is, I probably shouldn’t be telling you.
Matt out.
by Matt | Mar 30, 2005 | Aggravation
“Conspiracy theorists and civil libertarians, fear not. The U.S. government will not use radio-frequency identification tags in the passports it issues to millions of Americans in the coming years.
Instead, the government will use “contactless chips.”
…
That is why Homeland Security is engaging in doublespeak, to dupe Americans into accepting RFID tags on their passports, said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Program.”
Gotta love that. Read More. Thanks Wired.
Recent Comments