Thursday, 25. June 2009, 08:46:31
patch, asus, xonar, fix
...
Yesterday i got my new soundcard, the famous ASUS Xonar Essence STX. However first thing that cought my eye was butt ugly tray icon. Blue and black mother of all uglyness. Yuck. So i've made my own in 10 seconds with Paint.NET, IcoFX and ResHacker. It's nothing fancy but still light years better than original one. Anyone who wants to swap it for my new one, here is how you can do it.
First and most important is to exit the Xonar tray icon. Right click it and select "Exit"!
Now download
ResHacker, unpack it somewhere and run ResHacker.exe (Run as Administrator if using Vista/Win7), click "File" in toolbar menu and then "Open..."
Navigate to:
C:\Program Files\ASUS Xonar Essence STX Audio\Customapp
...select
AsusAudioCenter.exe and click "Open".
Download
this icon file and save it somewhere.
Now go to ResHacker again and select "Action" and then "Replace Icon..."
Select "Open file with new icon..." and select the stx.ico (the one you've downloaded few seconds ago).
Now click "Replace" button below.
Final step is to save the changes, so click "File" menu button again and then "Save".
Reshacker will modify the file and automatically create a backup file in the same folder where original is located. Thats why it's very important to run ResHacker with "Run as Administrator", otherwise it will probably fail to patch the file and make a backup.
And now the results (first icon in traybar is from Xonar Essence)...
Old icon:
New icon:
Looks much better doesn't it? Enjoy!
Tuesday, 23. June 2009, 21:10:24
virus, protection, microsoft, malware
...
Microsoft has today opened a beta program for their free antimalware software.
It's very easy to use as it doesn't really have any settings. So, a great thing for novice users.
Detection itself still needs some improvements, but in general even competitor have a positive thoughts about MSE package and its scan engine. Only thing thats bothering me is ultra slow scanning.
avast! and AVIRA scan files way faster. But since it's beta, there is still time for that.
If you want to try it out, click on the link below. It's available for 32bit Windows XP and 32bit/64bit for Windows Vista and Windows 7.
LINK:
http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials
Sunday, 14. June 2009, 19:00:22
ie8, feed america, internet explorer, hunger
Well, you may like Internet Explorer 8 or not, this might be a thing worth checking.
If you are using Internet Explorer browser 6 or 7, it's time to update to faster and more secure version 8 anyway. If you're using Safari, Chrome, Opera or Firefox, well, then you might want to download Internet Explorer 8 anyway. Why? Because Microsoft is donating 8 meals for each complete download of IE8 to help decrease hunger problems in USA. We all hear about food problems in Africa, but ppl down there aren't the only one facing this problem. It's sad that even ppl in already developed and rich countries suffer from this problem. Besides, it's good to have browser component up to date even if you're not using it. I do it just to be sure some malware won't be able to exploit it.
How can i help? Just head to this web page:
http://www.browserforthebetter.com and download IE8 now (downloads from Microsoft web page don't count!). It doesn't matter from where you are, it doesn't cost you anything except few seconds or minutes to download and you can help those who are less fortune to survive another tough day with at least some help.
Microsoft will be donating $1,15 for each successful download to organization Feed America up to a maximum value of $1.000.000 (1 mio dollars).
I've donated my small part by downloading IE8 from the web page above (even though i'm not from USA).
It's time for you to do the same! And don't forget to spread the word to your friends and other online buddies!
LINK:
http://www.browserforthebetter.com
Friday, 12. June 2009, 21:20:13
password, opera, ie8, browser
...
I'm wondering one thing. Firefox and Chrome are both constantly bragging about security.
Yet they both fail at their very core feature. They serve ALL your passwords to any, even the dumbest user that can get physical access to your browser. As much as this doesn't seem to concern anyone at Google or Mozilla, it certainly concerns me. And it should also seriously concern you, if you are the user of either Firefox or Chrome. Why the hell is this feature even there? Sure you can hack passwords out of storage Firefox/Chrome files, but tell me, how many average users can actually do that?
I bet 90% of them don't even know what's a "profile folder". But here, it's just a click away. Served on a silver platter to anyway. There goes all the security out the window...
There is of course the "Master Password" feature which couldn't be any more useless than it is.
Instead locking the "Show password" function alone, it locks the entire browser. How f**kin' gay is that? Sure it may come in handy for something, but they could just as well make two lock down features.
"Master browser lock" and "Master password lock". The first would lock the entire browser from unauthorized access without password and second one would just prevent anyone from accessing ALL of your passwords while giving free access to all other browser features (so you can actually browse the web).
There was a surprise after checking few other browsers however. Opera, Safari and yes, even Internet Explorer 8 don't show any passwords to everyone. You can see what pages have password stored and what is the user name used there, but there is no way you can see the actual passwords.
I'm using Firefox and this really concerns me. All passwords are just a click away. Yeah, you can check it and see it for yourself under Tools\Options\Security -> Saved passwords.
Chrome is no better. But Opera, Safari and IE8 surprised me. They actually have this done right.
I especially don't get it why they left this in there while they are constantly working on security fixes, implementing new security features and so on. But it seems they only care about remote stuff.
Local access is just as problematic as remote people.
So, if you're in any way affiliated with either Mozilla or Google, or if you know the right people there, let them know that this is a serious security issue that needs to be addressed soon.
Friday, 12. June 2009, 15:41:49
ie, internet, europe, microsoft
...
When you think things couldn't have gotten any wrong, think again. European Commission (EC) has decided that Microsoft has to bundle competitors browsers with Windows because of the monopoly position of Internet Explorer browser. Now the one and only question from my side is: "WTF!?"
Because the other way around, when Microsoft just decided not to include IE for European market, the EC was not pleased again. They want users to give "choice". Sorry, I'm from Europe, but this is just load of bollocks. Why on our freakin' Earth would anyone want a crippled OS for the same price as the one that's not crippled? If i want Windows, i want it in full feature, not in full lack of everything.
If i don't want to use IE (which i don't, I'm using Firefox), i can just do that since um forever. IE is there somewhere, i just don't use it. Big deal. Besides, this decision by EC makes no sense at all. It's like expecting Apple to bundle IE, Chrome, Firefox and Opera. They only bundle Safari with their OS and as such, it has a full monopoly position. Why no one complains over that? They are just as guilty as Microsoft if they want it this way.
EC can't be serious and expect Microsoft to actually do that. I mean it's like expecting Hyundai car manufacturer to give you option to chose from a full spectrum of engines. If i want Hyundai Coupe with Volkswagen engine, they'd have to provide it to me. Wait, what!? Well, that's what EC is expecting from Microsoft. I don't see this ever happening. If i buy OS, i want it to contain basic image editor, basic calculator, basic text editor, basic media player and basic browser. That's what Apple is doing, that's what KDE/Gnome (Linux community) are doing and that's what Microsoft has been doing for decades. Why the hell they have to change that now? And for what? There is loads of info on alternate browsers everywhere, people recommend alternate browsers to friends so there is seriously no need to do something this stupid just because EC wants to prove something.
I guess there is a way users can complain over this matter here:
http://ec.europa.eu/contact/index_en.htmIf you're from Europe, let them know that you don't agree with this stupid idea and that you want a full blown operating system. Because expecting some company to bundle competitors products just makes no sense and will never happen. No browser idea also doesn't work. How will you get Firefox or Opera if you can't access internet lol?
EC should be working on more important things, than constantly poking at Microsoft for every dumb thing they come up with.
Saturday, 6. June 2009, 18:55:22
europe, tech, virus, awful
...
Remember my problems from like week ago with Acer laptop and Virut infection? I've contacted Acer East Europe like technicians from ACER US/Canada suggested. First cold shower was when they required like 3 days to even respond (US team responded in like 1 hour). And that's not all, they just directed me to a local ACER service center and copy&pasted how to use eRecovery. Well no shit, i know all that.
Then i again asked them to answer my question, if warranty covers restoration of borked recovery partition (local ACER service wasn't sure if it covers it). And they responded that i should restore my system with D2D recovery system. Well, for f**ks sake, i've explained that the very recovery partition is f**ked and i CAN'T DO THAT. Are they even reading what users send/respond to them!? From the looks of it, they can't even understand freaking English, few grammatical errors or not, every living soul understood me just fine in all these years. Just not at ACER EE, like i was writing in Klingon or something. I mean how the hell they even dare to offer such tech support? It's an insult to all ACER users/customers from East Europe (i consider myself to be from central Europe anyway).
The last message i've sent them was on 5th June (since it's weekend i'm not even expecting them to reply, US team again at least contacted me back several times on Sunday!). If everything goes well i might even get yet another stupid response on Tuesday... gee, how i'm excited about that...
I'm working as freelance tech support, beta tester or just one time feedback to software developers. And so far in around 8 years of such operations, i haven't witnessed a single instance of such idiotic tech support behavior.
If anyone from ACER is reading this, or if anyone has any influence or direct contact with ACER, point them to my blog or just tell them that ACER East Europe tech support is a complete joke.
They should either fire everyone employed there or at least educate them for crying out loud.
And stop treating us (East European customers), honest buyers of your hardware like garbage. And i think even garbage gets a better treatment...
Sunday, 31. May 2009, 19:20:22
virus, acer, virut
Yesterday my netbook got hit by this crap despite having two high end security products installed.
To my luck, it's not repairale/curable...
But that isn't really important as every security software can miss something.
What was the worst in this situation is that for some idiotic reason Virut managed to infect hidden recovery partition. The very thing that usually solves such problems. So each time i restore my system, Virut gets pre-installed with it. Isn't that wonderful?
I've spend 13 hours poking at the netbook in all possible ways with no joy.
I usually have no problem cleaning heavily infestated and infected systems, but this time it was just not meant to be restorable. Problem after problems, catastrophy after catastrophies and failures one after another. It's very hard because there is no optical drive (and i don't have any external USB one), then DrWeb LiveCD crapped out so i couldn't even make a bootable USB key, i can't reinstall Windows XP Home with my key because i need special ULPC version etc etc. In the end i spend like half a day talking to Acer support because they couldn't find my serial number (it was supposedly invalid). Then they found out i'm from Europe and that i contacted their US/Canada tech support.
They then refused to help me because it's not in their stupid policy to help someone even though they initially wasted loads of time with me. Instead they've sent me to European tech support. Or shall i say East European support. To my never ending luck, the East European webpage crapped out and refused to load anything. It was just loading forever and loaded nothing. It's so cool if your in a fuckin center of the Europe and they treat you like a freakin 3rd world country. It's just dissapointing.
Is my money worth any less than the one from Germans or those from France? We all have Euro...
And i probably payed even more for my Aspire One than someone from lets say Germany...
So bottom line, tommorow i'm taking netbook to a local Acer service center. If they just attempt to charge me for repair, i'll throw this damn thing in their face. I'm not gonna pay a cent because their system restoration feature sucks. And they were always like um hum when i was complaining why the hell they don't supply backup CD/DVD's or hell no a recovery USB key (Acer is not the only one doing this).
Today's Sunday was wasted, but at least i now have an idea how to deal with this next time it happens...
Friday, 22. May 2009, 05:37:11
bloated software, kitchensinkware, bloatware
I'm tracking lots of software programs and technologies, lurking around on forums and i've come across term "bloated software" or in short "bloatware", quite often. However almost 3/4 of the time, this term is used completelly wrong.
It seems like people are using it for almost anything and because of that it kinda lost its real meaning. Most of the time users call programs "bloatware" when they use slightly more resources or have a feature or two thats not so commonly used. Thats also what you'll find on Wikipedia under "bloatware".
However thats not really a correct definition of word "bloatware". Software is really defined as bloatware when there are features beyond basic and main functionality of the program.
For example if we take antivirus software as example. If antivirus also includes other software functionality like anti-spyware features, HIPS, firewall, sandboxing technology, different tools to analyze files and system, that really cannot be treated as bloatware. Sure it then falls under category "Internet Security suite" but still, all the features serve the same purpose and generally suplement each other. And they are all security related.
On the other end there there are programs that are indeed bloatware and are also often called "kitchensinkware". Not sure who invented this term but i remember seeing it on some forum for the first time years ago
. Basically it means that you pack bunch of pretty much unrelated tools and features and pack them in a huge software package. If i countinue antivirus analogy, this means that software package with antivirus also includes firewall (usually), disk defragmenter, file and registry cleaner, system tweaker, security tweaker, process manager and bunch of stuff thats mostly not related together and are very distant in it's basic functionality. Sure this may fall under "system maintenance suites" like Norton SystemWorks or iolo System Mechanic. Some ppl like such programs but in general these are bloatware as a whole. Features and functionality doesn't really count. They just follow "the more the better" philosophy. And even in this case, System Mechanic wasn't always bloated. At version 4 or 5 it was a very specific purpose utility for system cleaning that turned into massive bloatware.
Program may be buggy or badly coded, but that doesn't mean it's bloated!
So, next time you're about to call some program bloatware, think if it's really a bloatware.
Because most of programs aren't
Thursday, 14. May 2009, 22:35:47
comodo, internet, 3.9, security
Homepage:http://www.comodointernetsecurity.comWhats new in version 3.9:http://personalfirewall.comodo.com/release_notes.htmlVersion 3.9 features quite some new features like faster and more thorough antivirus scanner, integrated memory scanner (formerly known as BOClean) and many other things. I prefer other programs like avast! or AVIRA, but if you like Comodo, it's a good app. Especially if you want a decent security program for commercial purposes (for free) where avast! and AVIRA free versions are not allowed.
Wednesday, 6. May 2009, 18:14:33
compatibility, nfs, windows, need for speed
...
I need few users who are already using Windows 7 RC to test my Need for Speed 3 and 4 compatibility patches.
DOWNLOADS:Need for Speed 3 Vista PatchNeed for Speed 4 Vista PatchPlease report your findings here if these two patches still work on Windows 7 (32bit and 64bit).
They should since Win7 isn't much different than Vista, but still, i want to be sure (but i don't have Win7 yet). Also don't forget to post some details about system used (hardware and drivers, especially those for graphic card).
Many thanks to everyone willing to test this for me.
« Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next »
Showing posts 21 -
30 of 75.
WIDGETIZE