Saturday, 24. October 2009, 14:07:11
Windows 7, virus, VirusTotal.com, humor
...
I recently downloaded the
Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor (from Microsoft) to my Vista x64 laptop running COMODO Internet Security. When I did, I was immediately presented with:

As of 10/24/2009, Comodo is still the only AV product (out of 41 on
VirusTotal.com) to flag this Microsoft tool as "
Heur.Suspicious".
For more info, visit:
http://www.virustotal.com/analisis/1f052ea5f3a65d871092a9dd3d943969ff211ce58768fdb87c6c405f5caeb52d-1256391917Somewhat humorous.
Thursday, 6. August 2009, 23:40:19
eRecovery, restore, laptop, eMachines
...
So, like many others who have discovered that the Gateway Recovery Management (eRecoveryUI.exe) doesn't work (returns error code 205) on new PCs -- especially 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows Vista -- I present the following fix...
OVERVIEWLaunching the [old] Gateway Recovery Management console presented two tabs (Backup / Restore), with two options on the Backup tab: 1) Create factory default disc; and 2) Create driver and applications backup disc. FYI, this program is developed by Acer and OEM'd to others like Gateway and eMachines:
PROBLEMWhen trying to burn a backup to DVD or CD, the eRecoveryUI.exe utility always dies with "error 205 (insert blank disc)". Sadly, there's no mention of this issue on Gateway's website.
REASONIt appears this general 32-bit utililty was not fully-tested with Vista x64, nor was it tested with all DVD RW drives shipped from Gateway. Some have mentioned DVD drive speed discrepencies. Whatever the true reason, upgrading the program fixes the problem (see below).
SOLUTIONLuckily, I discovered Acer makes this utility for Gateway, and they support their products pretty well. This thread describes the problem, and gave a hint as to the solution:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=362793&page=3Unfortunatley, since the Acer website had changed, the download link was no longer valid. So, I used Google's cache to retrieve the contents of the old Acer support page, and found the corresponding Acer products that mimicked my Gateway laptop:
Product
Aspire 5810TZ
Related Products
Aspire 4810T,Aspire 4810Tz,Aspire 5810T
Issue
Error 205 may occur when making eRecovery Factory Disc.
Download
eRyBurnSpeedFix_v1.0.0.1.zip
Solution
An update to the eRecovery application is available.
Please download and unzip the attached file
Run the program eRyBurnSpeedFix.exe. It will auto-update the eRecovery application
Date
06-26-09
Here's a link to the Google cache entry (may expire soon):
http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:BOmak6-jNsgJ:www.acerpanam.com/synapse/forms/portal20.cfm%3Frecordid%3D1351%26formid%3D3390%26website%3DAcerPanAm.com%26siteid%3D7117%26areaid%3D2+eRyBurnSpeedFix&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=opera
Thus, I headed to the
Acer Support website, and did a support search for their 4810T product, and found the fix!
http://support.acer.com/acerpanam/notebook/0000/Acer/Aspire4810T/Aspire4810Tfaq5.shtmlFYI: Here's the direct download link:
http://support.acer.com/acerpanam/manuals/acer/0000/documents/Recovery%20Management_v4.00.3008.zipAfter downloading, you will need to uninstall the old Gateway Recovery Management console via Control Panel > Programs prior to applying this update. Then, unzip the file, and run the executable via right-click, "Run as Administrator". Be sure any AV or security software is disabled to ensure flawless installation. When finished, you'll be pleasantly surprised to see that the Acer program is smart enough to style/skin the OEM'd program for Gateway, and properly names it "Gateway Recovery Management".
Here's what the newly upgraded utility resembles:

I am now able to successfullyl create backups and restore files to/from my Gateway DVD RW drive!
Enjoy.
--
Other references:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=394016
Wednesday, 29. April 2009, 12:47:54
reviewer, mcafee, reputation, siteadvisor
Personal plug:

http://user.siteadvisor.com/forums/member.php?u=25488
Only time will tell if I can achieve "Experienced Reviewer" status.
Sunday, 22. March 2009, 19:47:40
hd, activex, plug-in, flicker
...
The flickering/resizing problem primarly impacts any non-MSIE browser (Opera, Firefox, Safari, etc.) running the Flash 9 or 10 plug-in.
That being said, here are some work-arounds to the problem:
- Try appending either &fmt=6, &fmt=8, or &fmt=16 to the YouTube URL. For example, if your YouTube URL is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0lb50nc_EQ, then change the URL to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0lb50nc_EQ&fmt=8
- Or, downgrade your Flash plug-in to version 8.0 (not recommended): http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=tn_14266&sliceId=2
These YouTube query string hacks purportedly only work with videos that were uploaded at resolutions higher than 320x240. To see these YouTube videos in HD, try appending either
&fmt=18 or
&fmt=22 to the URL, instead.

For more info, visit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fwuo_MqLgsYEnjoy.
Thursday, 5. March 2009, 13:54:38
AT&T, exploit, CingularOne.com, javascript
!!! PLEASE REFRAIN FROM VISITING CINGULARONE.COM !!!
Alright, I have (and many others) given fair warning to AT&T, but the issue has not been addressed. Time to shed some light on the fact that AT&T's CingularOne.com website has been hijacked, and is currently hosting a JavaScript exploit that loads content from remote malicious domains.
Here's some visual proof:

Again, please refrain from visiting AT&T's CingularOne.com website until this issue has been fixed.
However, if you just must sneak a peek, then disabling JavaScript and inline frames should mitigate any infection vectors. But to be safe, ensure your anti-virus on-access scanning is enabled, and your AV definitions are updated.
Friday, 20. February 2009, 12:25:49
blocking, stylesheet, facebook, ads
...
Can you guess what it does?
A#adcolumn_more_ads,
A.ad_title,
A.next_ad,
DIV#adcolumn,
DIV#adcolumn_advertise,
DIV#highlights_ad,
DIV#home_sponsor,
DIV#home_sponsor_nile,
DIV#sidebar_ads,
DIV#ssponsor,
DIV.adcolumn,
DIV.adcolumn_header,
DIV.adcolumn_wrapper,
DIV.ads_feedback,
DIV.clearfix UIHotStory_First UIHotStory UIHotStory_Ad UIHotStory_Medium,
DIV.emu_ad,
DIV.emu_sponsor,
DIV.UIHotStory UIStory emu_sponsor,
DIV.UIHotStory_Ad,
DIV.UIHotStory_Sponsored,
DIV.UIStandardFrame_SidebarAds,
IMG.spritemap_icons sx_ad,
SPAN.sponsored
{ display: none !important; }
Yep, it hides those annoying ads -- typically along the right edge of the screen.
If you're an
Opera user:
- Save this facebook.css file to your local drive.
- Visit Facebook.com with Opera
- Right-click on the page, select "Edit Site Preferences..."
- Goto the Display tab, and click the [Choose...] button.
- Locate the facebook.css file saved-off in step 1.
- Press [OK] to close Site Preferences, then reload the Facebook page.
Enjoy.
NOTE: This blog entry has been updated to reflect the new Facebook redesign of March 14, 2009.
Tuesday, 17. February 2009, 13:29:12
Pandora, Wii, music, FInetune
...
Got a
Wii connected to the Internet? Like
Pandora? Wish Pandora worked on the Wii? Well, here's a streamlined Flash application that really does work nicely on the Wii, and it has some interesting configuration options too:
FineTune.comNote: The FineTune.com music library and station configuration options aren't as feature-complete as Pandora's, but for what it's worth, it looks and operates nicely on the Wii.
Enjoy.
Saturday, 14. February 2009, 03:25:09
page cannot be displayed, regedit, BadProxyExpiresTime, proxy
...
- Using IE7?
- Behind a proxy?
- Ever seen this error?
Then most likely, you (or IE7's anti-phishing feature, or an RSS feed, etc.) have tried to load some content from a server registered in DNS, but has not returned a result within 30 seconds. Afterwhich, all IE7 tabs with Internet-content become unresponsive, and IE7 continually reports the error listed in the subject of this post.
So, what's the answer? Simple: Inform IE7 never to mark your proxy as 'bad', using the
BadProxyExpiresTime registry hack. Here's how:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/320507If this registry hack scares you, then here's a work-around: Toggle IE's "
Work Offline" feature. To do so, pull-down IE's File menu, and select "Work Offline" -- then repeat, to enable online mode. This little trick should reset the internals of wininet.dll to allow browsing once again.
Tuesday, 14. October 2008, 21:08:58
windows, access, accesses, 567
...
Friday, 10. October 2008, 01:52:03
hang, stall, history, Opera 9.5
...
If you consistently encounter hangs, lock-ups, stalls, whatever you want to call them when you navigate Back in history while using Opera 9.5x or 9.6, then try adjusting this setting:
opera:config#UserPrefs|HistoryNavigationMode
- 1 = Automatic mode
- 2 = Compatible mode
-
3 = Fast mode
For more info on this setting (and others),
read here.
Honestly, the automatic default setting of
1 drove me nuts on ESPN.com (go.com sites).
Sunday, 14. September 2008, 00:03:29
hurricane ike, google, slashdot, privacy
...
I visit
Slashdot.org quite often -- probably at least once a day for my tech news fix. While skimming the blogged feedback, you'll notice a few paranoid privacy freaks that will slam any large, corporate tech company that collects web surfing data.
Well, guess what? That Slashdot blog that you love to post to is outsourcing some (most?) of its remote server space to Google and FeedBurner! Yep, here's some visual proof:
Note: If you simply
ping rss.slashdot.org, you'll notice the response is
ghs.l.google.com [66.249.91.121] (your returned IP address may vary)
And Google's promised 99.9% guaranteed uptime is severely being tested over the past few months.
I guess you can never be too sure of anything.
Friday, 18. July 2008, 13:00:17
annoyances, shortcuts, yahoo, blocked content
For those interested, here's how to block Yahoo's annoying "Shortcuts" feature in their news articles...
- Goto Opera Preferences
-
Advanced tab
-
Content section
- Press Blocked Content...
-
Add the following three URLs:
Enjoy.
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